Free Republic

Nike is set to be removed from the S&P 100, a subset of the S&P 500 that tracks 100 major blue-chip companies across multiple industry groups, later this month. This comes after the company lost nearly 80% of its value since 2021. As The Gateway Pundit reported last month, the woke brand’s stock price plunged to a 12-year low after spending the last decade championing left-wing social justice causes. As of Saturday, the company has a market cap of roughly $57 billion, losing more than $200 billion in value since its all-time high in November 2021. The stock is down...

Manhattan’s wealthiest residents just found a new way to dodge Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax: Don’t buy at all. The city’s luxury rental market is shattering records as wealthy New Yorkers who could easily afford $20 million or $50 million trophy homes are choosing to rent instead, brokers say, a trend accelerating since the new tax on high-value second homes took effect. Manhattan median rents hit $5,295 a month in July, a record high, up 6% compared with last July and unchanged from June’s plateau, according to a Corcoran Group report obtained by The Post, with the average rent citywide...

The buyback is a supply/​liquidity fix aimed at a problem that isn’t primarily about supply or liquidity. In other words, the Treasury is trying to reduce long-term rates by restricting the supply of those bonds. But their rates have been rising (prices falling) in response to the budget deficit, heavy overall government debt issuance, a rising term premium, and persistently above-target inflation. Moreover, the bond sell-off is global: Long-end yields hit multiyear highs in Germany, France, and Japan. This sell-off suggests that the United States alone cannot fix its rate problem because that problem is not unique to the US.

Today, just four companies — JBS, Cargill, Tyson Foods, and National Beef — control roughly 85% of the cattle processing market. That level of concentration has surged from just 25% in 1977 to 71% by 1992, and now to an astonishing 85%. Together, these companies operate through dozens of subsidiary businesses, creating a landscape that leaves many of our cattle producers with limited marketing options. For some ranchers this means less marketing opportunities, complicating an already challenging marketplace. We must work to address this to protect our ranchers and consumers. @POTUS and this administration are focused on promoting fairness and...

As we navigate the opening quarter of 2026, the United States ammunition market has transitioned from a period of volatile demand to a state of forced prioritization. We are no longer witnessing a temporary market fluctuation driven by domestic panic; rather, we are navigating a structural realignment of the entire industrial base. This 2026 crisis is fundamentally a supply-side phenomenon where the civilian market is being “crowded out” by a monopolistic procurement force: the global defense apparatus. Unlike previous demand-driven shocks, this scarcity is rooted in the physical redirection of raw materials and manufacturing lines to sustain high-intensity kinetic conflicts...

The O’Keefe Media Group went undercover at CattleCon in Nashville, Tennessee, and exposed how Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef secretly control America’s beef market. In November, President Trump said cattle prices were falling while beef prices kept rising and launched an investigation into price manipulation. Trump directed the DOJ to investigate the meat packing companies who are driving up the prices through illicit collusion, price fixing and price manipulation. pic.twitter.com/qybOyWN2bl — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) November 7, 2025 The O’Keefe Media Group went undercover at CattleCon and ranchers spilled the beans on how the “Big Four” control the beef...

After years of explosive growth fueled by hype, exclusivity, and social media buzz, the U.S. sneaker market is facing a sharp downturn. Analysts and resellers alike are calling it a “crash,” as resale prices plummet and demand cools amid changing economic conditions and shifting consumer priorities. This crash is hitting New Jersey retailers and resellers hard as high priced shoes are now competing with high energy bills, high medical insurance rates and increases in costs of living in New Jersey. It’s only expected that the least necessary luxury items are taking a hit. What’s Behind the Collapse Oversaturation: Major brands...

Where I work in Austin, I deal with a LOT of Hispanic customers, primarily Mexicans. They have been telling me for some time that there is almost no construction work available. Today, two in a very short space of time said they have no work. Furthermore lemons, avocados, poblano peppers or other produce into the U.S. due to tariffs and are unloading tons of it on the side of rural highways for the locals to pick up for free. We are about to see major economic problems as the Trump Administration attempts to fix YEARS of problems caused by Godless...

Imagine a world without McDonald’s, Nike, or Kraft Foods. A world where the budget-conscious and time-strapped have nowhere to grab a quick bite, where almost no one drives a car, where television is extinct. Sound pretty bleak? This is the utopian vision of the Adbusters Media Foundation. “We will wreck this world,” Kalle Lasn declares in his book Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge -- and Why We Must. That, quite simply, is the goal of the Vancouver-based organization he founded and runs. A self-described group of “anarchists” and “neo-Luddites,” Adbusters are not merely environmentalists, animal-rights activists,...

US stocks tumbled Friday after President Donald Trump threatened a massive increase in tariffs on Chinese imports. The threat is retaliation for China's new restrictions on rare earth exports — materials vital for AI, semiconductors, defense, and high-tech industries. The S&P 500 fell 1.7 percent, the Nasdaq dropped 2.5 percent, and the Dow Jones lost more than 500 points, as investors reacted to escalating trade tensions and uncertainty over US-China relations. 'Some very strange things are happening in China,' Trump wrote on Truth Social. 'They are becoming very hostile, and sending letters to countries throughout the world, that they want...

Homebuyers are backing out of property purchases last-minute at a higher rate than ever recorded due to fears that a financial crash is imminent. Just four years ago, homebuyers were bidding up house prices and waiving inspections in order to quickly secure fast-selling properties. Today's buyers are moving slowly through the process — negotiating lower prices and obsessing over property details. And they are increasingly getting cold feet and backing out, even after signing contracts. In fact, 58,000 home-purchase agreements were canceled in July alone, according to data collected by Redfin. That's 15.3 percent of all homes that went under...

Home prices are falling in half of the nation's largest markets, a new report reveals —sparking fears that a housing crash is looming. Sellers are slashing prices at record rates to to lure hesitant buyers put off by soaring mortgage rates and economic uncertainty. In July alone, 27.4 percent of listings had a price cut — the highest rate ever recorded in Zillow's monthly data going back to 2018. It helped push prices down year-over-year in 25 of the 50 largest US cities. Most were in the South and West. Florida and Texas, in particular, are home to former boomtowns...

Homebuyers are gaining power in much of the country. Just not in the wealthy, pricey East Coast.Consensus is growing among economists that home prices will flatline or even fall on a national level in 2025 as the housing market spends a third year stuck in a deep slump. But those national trends mask a housing market that looks increasingly fractured, with prices rising in many cities in the Northeast and Midwest, and falling in parts of the Southeast and Mountain West.In the stretch of cities between Richmond, Va., and Portland, Maine, homes are still selling at almost as frenetic a...

Delistings jumped 47% nationally in May from a year earlier, in a sign that sellers would increasingly rather wait than negotiate, according to the Realtor.com® economic research team's latest monthly housing trends report. Year to date, delistings are up 35% from the same period in 2024. The increase is partly due to the overall expansion in active inventory, which was up 28% in June from a year earlier. Newly listed homes increased 8.8% from a year ago, but remained flat over the past two months.

After years of sellers calling the shots, some of the hottest pandemic-era housing markets are now grappling with a surplus of listings — and not enough willing buyers. According to real estate brokerage Redfin, April saw nearly half a million more homes listed than buyers in the market, the largest gap since at least 2013. But this supply surge hasn’t translated into a wave of closings. Instead, home sales have stalled in many areas, particularly across the Southeast and Southwest, where inventory has ballooned past pre-pandemic norms. In Miami, for example, there were almost three times as many sellers as...

Brief represents the first time the Trump administration has weighed in on green investing issues.. The Federal Trade Commission is throwing its weight behind a high-profile federal lawsuit led by 12 Republican-led states accusing three of the world's largest asset managers—BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard—of artificially constricting the coal market in violation of U.S. antitrust laws, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. The filing in the case is a remarkable move that represents the first time the Trump administration has waded directly into an issue or case related to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies. Led by powerful asset managers...

The stock market rallied Friday after a stronger-than-expected jobs report eased concerns that President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs could tank the U.S. economy, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average extending their winning streaks to nine days.The S&P 500 closed at 5,686.67 — up about 1.5 percent for the day — and has now recovered all the ground it had lost since April 2, when Trump announced plans for sweeping tariffs. The Dow jumped more than 500 points to close 1.4 percent higher. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index gained 1.5 percent.Friday’s strong jobs report boosted Wall Street’s confidence...

Stocks rose on Friday as Wall Street digested a better-than-expected nonfarm payrolls report for April, which eased recession fears and lifted the S&P 500 for its longest winning streak in just over two decades.

New Yorkers would be forced to pay 2.5 times the market rate for electricity generated by the Empire Wind One offshore wind farm if the deal goes through, according to an independent financial analysis. The Trump Administration paused construction of the controversial project — 54 turbines in the Atlantic Ocean some 14 miles south of Long Island — last week, saying it needs further review. The project has seen strong backing from Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams. Trump’s move was welcomed by those who claim the project is going to overcharge taxpayers. “New Yorkers are entitled to clean,...

Xi Jinping has said his nation is “not afraid,” in his first public comments on the escalating trade war with the United States, as Beijing raised tariffs on US goods to 125%. tariff hike is the latest in a tit-for-tat battle between the world’s two largest economies, after Trump raised tariffs on China to 145%. However, China has indicated it does not intend to go higher than 125%, saying it would be meaningless to engage in further escalation. “The successive imposition of excessively high tariffs on China by the US has become nothing more than a numbers game, with no...