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Donald Trump got within striking distance of the White House — or, more precisely, Comey-and-Putin range — thanks to overwhelming support from white working-class voters. These voters trusted his promise to bring back good manufacturing jobs while disbelieving his much more credible promise to take away their health care. They have a rude shock coming.

Few areas of historical research have provoked such intensive study as the origins of America’s Great Depression. From 1929 to 1933 America suffered the worst economic decline in its history. Real national income fell by 36 percent; unemployment increased from 3 percent to over 25 percent; more than 40 percent of all banks were permanently closed; and international investment and trade declined dramatically. The dimensions of the economic catastrophe in America and the rest of the world from 1929 to 1933 cannot be captured fully by quantitative data alone. Tens of millions of humans suffered intense misery and despair. Because...

Tyranny's misleading phrases In an 1822 tract titled “Tyranny Unmasked,” Virginian John Taylor (1753-1824) observed that “Tyranny is wonderfully ingenious in the art of inventing specious phrases to spread over its nefarious designs.” Indeed. Here are two especially misleading phrases that today's opponents of free markets regularly use to mask the ugly reality of their policies. • “Minimum wage.” By legislating... ...the real minimum wage is $0 — the amount earned by workers who, because of the minimum wage, can't find jobs. • “Elect me and I'll stop foreigners from stealing our jobs.” This boast — issued by politicians from...

WELCOME TO THE MARK LEVIN SHOW!

Why doesn't Trump emphasize how Clinton is supporting ISIS in Syria? Why doesn't he discuss how Russian/American relations will sour under Clinton and thrive under Trump? Clinton and the US has the wrong policy in Syria. I support the Russian bombing of rebels. I oppose the American support of the rebels. Trump agrees with me. Why doesn't he get the American people on board?

First Trump had a great speech on immigration with his 10 point plan. It does look like he is going soft on deporting everyone though. Hopefully not as immigration softening is not good. But now the bad news...Trump still hasn't embraced the wisdom of free trade. Make no mistake about it - just as prochoice = baby killing, fair trade = economy crushing protectionism. Has anybody seen any sign that Trump is coming over to the free trade globalist camp? My only hope is that he will "soften" his position on trade deals just as he seems to be softening...

The Mark Levin Show is on-the-air: "Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles." -- Mark Levin in "Liberty and Tyranny". Welcome to "The Levin Lounge"... Step in and have a virtual FRink. Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time - and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark's show: 1-877-381-3811. The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark...

In response to a question about his hiring foreign workers over Americans to staff his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, billionaire businessman Donald Trump claimed it is “impossible” to find Americans willing to take the jobs. The jobs are seasonal, “from October till March,” according to Trump. “It’s almost impossible to get help,” Trump told CNN in a post-debate interview Thursday night. The New York Times reported nearly 300 American citizens applied for those seasonal jobs since 2010, only 17 being hired. The remaining positions. “In all but a handful of cases, Mar-a-Lago sought to fill the jobs with...

Friends who own resort hotels dependent on high season occupancy on the West Coast tell me the same story over and over...Locals 'pretend' to apply for a job, so that they can check the 'Job Search' box on their unemployment requirement. They call by phone, hang up and are no shows for interviews. Or, they show up stoned. Or, they only want to work enough hours so that they don't 'ruin' their benefits....they actually say this. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the issue at hand. They 'pretend' to look for work, while the Employment Office 'pretends'...

To the legions of Trumpbots, nothing he says or does will change their mind about him, so running an article that shows once again what a bald-faced hypocrite he is won't matter a whit.Still, it's amusing when Trump is caught with his pants down -- especially on the issue of immigration. According to the New York Times, Trump chose to staff his private club in Florida with foreign workers he arranged to come to the U.S. using the "H" visa program despite 300 Americans applying for those jobs. Donald J. Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach describes itself as "one...

China's home prices continued to rise in December 2015, adding to signs of improving in the housing market, although the recovery remains uneven across the country. Average new home prices in 70 major cities rose 7.7 percent in December from a year earlier, quickening from November's 6.5 percent rise, the National Bureau of Statistics(NBS) said on Monday. Even a mild recovery in the housing market would ease concerns of an acute slowdown in China's economy, which is expected to show its weakest growth in 25 years in 2015. The NBS data showed on-month price rises were seen in 39 of...

Here's a historical fact that Donald Trump, and many voters attracted to him, may not know: The last American president who was a trade protectionist was Republican Herbert Hoover. Obviously that economic strategy didn't turn out so well — either for the nation or the GOP. Does Trump aspire to be a 21st century Hoover with a modernized platform of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff that helped send the U.S. and world economy into a decade-long depression and a collapse of the banking system? We can't help wondering whether the panic in world financial markets is in part a result of...

For the first time since 1949, the United States is poised to become a net exporter of petroleum, according to the Petroleum Supply Monthly report for November, put out by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Jeremy Friesen, a commodity strategist at Societe Generale SA in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg News that part of the reason for the shift is that America's consumption of oil has remained stagnant compared to the rest of the world. "The U.S. has been flat or down for overall oil consumption versus the world, which continues to rise mainly due to emerging markets," he said. "Latin...

BEIJING — In another sign of the impact on China’s economy of Europe’s debt crisis and the U.S. economic slowdown, factories in southern Guangdong province, the country’s manufacturing heartland, have been the target of a recent wave of labor strikes. Thousands of workers clashed with police Thursday at a footwear factory in the city of Dongguan after 18 workers were reportedly laid off and overtime was cut. A thousand workers went on strike Tuesday at the Shenzhen factory of a Taiwanese electronics company. A day earlier, hundreds reportedly struck at a Shenzhen company that makes underwear and lingerie. On Oct....

The days when the debt-ridden Uncle Sam could leisurely squander unlimited overseas borrowing appeared to be numbered as its triple A-credit rating was slashed by Standard & Poor's (S&P) for the first time on Friday. Though the U.S. Treasury promptly challenged the unprecedented downgrade, many outside the United States believe the credit rating cut is an overdue bill that America has to pay for its own debt addition and the short-sighted political wrangling in Washington. Dagong Global, a fledgling Chinese rating agency, degraded the U.S. treasury bonds late last year, yet its move was met then with a sense of...

At issue is a longstanding feature of American tax policy that allows multinationals to avoid U.S. taxes on much of their overseas earnings, as long as the money remains invested offshore. Many companies use the rule to park overseas earnings in tax-haven countries for years. Corporate defenders of the policy say it is a sensible way for the U.S. to level the global playing field for American firms, because many foreign governments don't tax their companies' overseas earnings. But critics of the U.S. provision, known as deferral, say the policy encourages American multinationals to add facilities and jobs overseas rather...

It is now clearly apparent to any one willing to make an objective assessment of those chosen by Obama to comprise his cabinet that never before has there been a more immoral group of criminals nominated to such lofty posts in our history. Contrary to all of the claims heralding the dawn of an age of responsibility those whom the liberal messiah has chosen to surround himself with represents the typical elitist who dominate the so called progressive movement. This sort double standard is typical operating procedure for this group of scandalous do-nothings whose only pursuit in life would appear...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. SAN FRANCISCO - Colin Powell's next tour of duty will be in venture capital. The old soldier, who was formerly Secretary of State and chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has enlisted with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of Silicon Valley's best-known venture capital firms. As a strategic limited partner, Powell will have an undisclosed stake in some of the investments made by a Menlo Park-based Kleiner Perkins, which has previously struck it rich with a list of renowned startups that include online search engine leader Google Inc. and Web browser...

Manorialism, commonly, is recognized to have been founded by robbery and usurpation; a ruling class established itself by force, and then compelled the peasantry to work for the profit of their lords. But no system of exploitation,including capitalism, has ever been created by the action of a free market. Capitalism was founded on an act of robbery as massive as feudalism. It has been sustained to the present by continual state intervention to protect its system of privilege, without which its survival is unimaginable. The current structure of capital ownership and organization of production in our so-called "market" economy, reflects...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- America's trade deficit soared to an all-time high of $60.3 billion in November, reflecting record levels for imports of everything from oil and consumer goods to farm products, the government reported Wednesday. The Commerce Department said the November deficit was up 7.7 percent from an imbalance of $56 billion in October, which had been the previous monthly record. The new record caught private economists by surprise. They had been forecasting a slight narrowing in the November trade gap.