Free Republic

Suppose it is dinnertime, and the phone rings. It is a polite survey taker with a simple question for you: How is the economy doing? You might answer the question based upon the news stories you've seen recently about the latest unemployment rate, or perhaps based on anecdotal observations, such as whether your long-jobless cousin has had any luck finding work. But a wide range of academic work suggests a different factor that is likely to shape your answer: whether the current occupant of the White House is of your preferred political party. Did unemployment get better or worse during...

Despite steady recovery, too many Americans feel like they're on the outside looking in. The American economy suffers from a split personality, and Donald Trump appears to be the chief beneficiary of this illness. A study just released by Pew shows that for the first time in decades, the middle class is no longer in the majority in the United States. Instead, the upper and lower classes are. Now the middle class-defined as people earning between two-thirds and twice the median income (from $42,000 to $126,000 a year)-constitute just under 50 percent of the earning populace. Twenty-nine percent are in...

On November 5, the White House released the text of the 5,544 page Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) that President Obama had just finished negotiating under the FastTrack authority that Congress gave him. That trade pact can no longer be amended. The up-or-down votes in the House and Senate will take place as early as January 2016. So what’s in the TPP? Here’s a quick summary: A legislative body superior to CongressA vehicle to pass Obama’s climate change treatyIncreased legal immigrationReduced patent protection for U.S. pharmaceuticalsQuotas on U.S. agricultural exportsIncreased currency manipulationReduced U.S. power That’s the summary. Here are the details....

...look at the consequences of the war on drugs and the war on money laundering and tax evasion. The global war on money laundering and tax evasion has failed in the three decades since it began in earnest, and it is now on its way to undermining the rule of law around the world, the legitimate role of financial institutions, and the right of sovereign governments to determine their own tax policies. The new anti-money-laundering laws and regulations have resulted in millions of Americans who live abroad and others living outside their home countries being unable to get bank accounts...

If Western countries want to disprove the dire forecasts of Karl Marx, we must think creatively about how to make the middle class more prosperous and secure Go back, for a moment, nearly 30 years. In March 1987, Margaret Thatcher visited Mikhail Gorbachev, the reforming leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in Moscow. Sitting in the Kremlin, the two argued for hours. At one point, Mr. Gorbachev accused Mrs. Thatcher of leading the party of the “haves” and of fooling the people about who really controlled the levers of power. The Iron Lady had an answer: “I...

The middle class that President Obama identified in his State of the Union speech last week as the foundation of the American economy has been shrinking for almost half a century.In the late 1960s, more than half of the households in the United States were squarely in the middle, earning, in today’s dollars, $35,000 to $100,000 a year. Few people noticed or cared as the size of that group began to fall, because the shift was primarily caused by more Americans climbing the economic ladder into upper-income brackets.But since 2000, the middle-class share of households has continued to narrow, the...

Economic debate since the financial crisis and Great Recession has often focused on issues like monetary policy, fiscal stimulus, unemployment and financial regulation. Yes, these are all important, but in the future we will need to pay much more attention to a relatively neglected field: population economics. Developed countries that can absorb new immigrants at a modest cost should have relatively bright futures. They will help enable a rebalancing of population that will help the entire planet. In contrast, developed countries with relatively inflexible notions of national identity, and thus with strict immigration policies, may shrink in population and lose...

… The downfall of manufacturing in the U.S. has done more than displace workers and leave communities searching for ways to rebuild devastated economies. In Reading and other American factory towns, manufacturing’s decline is a key factor in the widening income gap between the rich and everyone else […] “A loss of manufacturing has contributed to the decline of the middle class,” said Howard Wial, an economist with the Brookings Institution and the University of Illinois at Chicago. “People who are displaced from high-paying manufacturing jobs spend a long time unemployed, and when they take other jobs, those jobs generally...

The European Commission wants to end US control over the governance of the internet, according to a report published Wednesday (12 February). The EU paper on “Europe’s role in shaping the future of Internet governance” calls for an international group to replace the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages the assignation of domains such as .com, .co.uk and .org to new websites. At present, the United States is the center of power behind the structure of the internet. ICANN currently has an exclusive contract with the US government, with whom a number of jurisdictions complain...

A former Oracle sales manager is suing the vendor, alleging he was fired shortly after complaining of discriminatory actions by his superior and other company officials. Ian Spandow was a high-performing sales manager at Oracle in Europe and later California, according to his lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. After coming aboard in 2005, he trained more than 1,000 new hires and gave skills coaching to hundreds of others, the suit states. Spandow was subsequently promoted in January 2008 to the position of coaching manager, and after continued success was promoted to...

Verene Shepherd, chief of the UN Working Group of Experts of People of African Descent, expressed alarm at “the irresponsible proliferation of weapons fostered by misguided, so-called state governments” and demanded that “President Obama use his powers as Commander-in-Chief to nullify these affronts to civilized rule.” “It is unconscionable that the US President should sit idle while these subordinate governmental units commit such atrocities,” Shepherd complained. “In some states, any adult can qualify to carry a weapon. In others, people are allowed to ‘stand their ground’ and provoke a confrontation rather than comply with a simple request to hand over...

On Nov. 3, 1969, Richard Nixon, his presidency about to be broken by massive antiwar demonstrations, called on "the great silent majority" to stand by him for peace with honor in Vietnam. They did. Within days Nixon's approval surged to 68 percent. The ferocious Republican partisan of the 1950s had won over millions of Democrats. Why? Because sons and brothers of those Democrats were doing much of the fighting in Vietnam. If Nixon was standing by them, they would stand by him. In 1972 Nixon would win 49 states. Ronald Reagan, backed by his "Reagan Democrats," would win 44- and...

While many have long seen America as the global bad boy, everybody likes Canada. If Uncle Sam tucks his pack of Marlboros under his T-shirt sleeve and plays by his own rules, the Canadian moose -- or whatever their Uncle Sam equivalent is -- always wears his blue blazer and school tie and does his chores without being asked. Canada is a global citizen, a good neighbor, a northern Puerto Rico with an EU sensibility that earns its gold stars from the United Nations every day. This fact should have relevance below the 49th parallel. Right now, we're all...

....................After the end of the Cold War, the Brussels élites started picking fights with what they called the world's hyperpuissance. They channelled funds to Hamas, declined to get tough with the ayatollahs in Teheran, declared their willingness in principle to sell weapons to China, refused to deal with the anti-Castro dissidents in Cuba, started building a satellite system with the Chinese to challenge American 'technological imperialism' (J Chirac), hectored the US about its failure to join various global technocracies and complained about domestic American policies, from cheap energy to the use of the death penalty. Most Americans, even some in...

<p>The leading power of the age is in relative decline, beset by political crisis at home and by steadily eroding economic prowess. Rising powers are jostling for position in the four corners of the world, some seeking a new place for themselves within the current global order, others questioning its very legitimacy. Democracy and despotism are locked in uneasy competition. A world economy is interconnected as never before by flows of money, trade, and people, and by the unprecedented spread of new, distance-destroying technologies. A global society, perhaps even a global moral consciousness, is emerging as a result. Small-town America rails at the excessive power of Wall Street. Asia is rising once again. And, yes, there's trouble in the Middle East.</p>

In 1958, Senate Minority Leader William Knowland, his eye on the 1960 GOP nomination coveted by fellow Californian Richard Nixon, went home and declared for governor. Knowland's plan: Ride to victory on the back of Proposition 18, the initiative to make right-to-work the law in the Golden Land. Prop. 18 was rejected 2 to 1. Knowland's career was over, and the Republicans were decimated nationally for backing right-to-work. Badly burned, the party for years ran away from the issue. This history makes what happened in Michigan, cradle of the United Auto Workers, astonishing. A GOP legislature passed and Gov....

The shutdown of the Genk plant announced by the American manufacturer has sent shock waves through Belgium. But in Valencia, Spain, where the production is moving to, Ford is looking forward to the competitive advantage the region offers. Ford employees blocking the entrance to the US car manufacturer’s Genk plant, October 24, 2012 The October 24 announcement that Ford’s plant in Genk will down tools in 2014 has provoked a wave of anger in the Flemish press. More than 10,000 jobs in the plant itself and in its sub-contractors will disappear. In Gazet van Antwerpen, columnist Paul Geudens rails against...

In a video address to the Social Good Summit in New York City on Sept. 22, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said technology makes it possible for “anyone” to be a diplomat. “We are living in a moment when anyone can be a diplomat,” Clinton said. “All you have to do is hit send.” The three-day summit was held during U.N. Week and was sponsored in part by the United Nations Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “The Social Good Summit unites a dynamic community of global leaders to discuss a big idea: the power of innovative thinking...

....Perhaps the signature accomplishment of the Obama Administration has been its opposition to large energy and industrial projects. The President has blocked the Keystone Pipeline,which would have brought a million barrels of oil to Texas refineries. His administration has shrunk the leasing of federal oil lands and slowed offshore drilling to a crawl. Its Environmental Protection Agency has closed down coal plants and constantly making noise about cracking down on fracking for natural gas.....even as President Obama has pursued the most aggressive environmental agenda in history,attempting to regulate carbon emissions and cracking down on fossil fuels,the nation's environmental enthusiasts have...

What is globalization? /snip In the article I extended one of the arguments I made in my book, The Volatility Machine, that the globalization process is driven primarily by monetary expansion and the consequent increase in risk appetite. What was new in this piece, because I hadn’t realized it when I wrote my book, is that every period of globalization coincided with a stage of the industrial revolution in which accompanying the expansion in international trade and capital flows is a major technological boom, driven also by monetary expansion. After re-reading the article I thought it might be useful to...