Free Republic

Republican presidential hopefuls will line up on August 23 for the first round of primary debates. For conservatives who lived through the late 1970s and the 1980s, Ronald Reagan set a standard for how to behave as a candidate and then how to lead as a president. What were the traits and accomplishments that made Reagan the model for many subsequent GOP candidates? For me, six come to mind. First, he could win elections. It may sound trite, but the first important test for any political candidate is the ability to win. It is even more important to win reelection,...

The public pension situation could get really messy in the near future. There are currently about 300 state-administered and nearly 6,000 locally-administered public retirement plans, according to PublicPlansData, a project of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College and the MissionSquare Research Institute. Those public pension systems have 14.7 million workers (e.g., state and local government employees, teachers, police and fire departments) and 11.2 million retirees. Collectively, those systems had some $4.5 trillion in assets at the end of 2021. After six months of stock and bond market declines, those assets have likely dropped significantly, putting public pension plans...

General Motors (GM) has committed to spending $35 billion to bring 30 new fully electric vehicles (EVs) to its market worldwide by the end of 2025 — just four years from now. And the company says that two-thirds of those models will be available in the United States. About 40 percent of GM’s U.S. production will consist of battery-powered vehicles, including crossovers, SUVs and trucks. Set aside for a moment whether or not that’s a good goal; it may well be. The real issue is whether it’s an achievable goal. Just look at the manufacturing and sales challenge.