Free Republic

For each active worker, four pensioners. For 169 governmental bodies, the numbers are lopsided. In some cases hundreds — and in Chicago’s case, thousands — more retirees are drawing from a fund than active workers are paying into it. Even in a small suburban district such as the Arlington Heights Park District, 432 retirees are pulling from that district’s pension fund with only 103 active employees paying into it. In the city of Chicago, according to the treasurer’s numbers, the gap is smaller in percentage terms, but in terms of the gap, more dramatic. Including Chicago Board of Education administrative...

Protesters threw Molotov cocktails at riot police and Greek's central bank building after a demonstration against austerity cuts turned violent today...Almost 25,000 people marched through the streets, as part of a 24 hour strike that has brought the capital to a standstill, to protest a new round of tax hikes and spending cuts. Flights were grounded, ships were docked, offices were empty and hospitals left with skeleton staff in the first major walkout in a year...Tsipras' left wing Syriza party, which leads the coalition government, has backed the strike but one protesting teacher said they have 'deprived every Greek of...

People have become herds of cattle and statistics to tax-rich governments and bureaucracies Any country whose financial problems leave thousands of elderly pensioners having to queue up in front of banks is an abysmal failure. Any system that doesn’t put vulnerable pensioners first is heartless. Governments worldwide and their bureaucracies continue to treat people like cattle. For all of their hype as saviours, the European Union is über government. Ditto for the out-of-control United Nations, whose bumper sticker approach of “saving humanity” is a decades-old farce. People have become herds of cattle and statistics to tax-rich governments and bureaucracies.

Here comes Wal-Bank. After years of thwarted efforts to break into banking, Walmart is making its biggest foray yet into everyday financial services. Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, is teaming up with Green Dot, known for its prepaid payment cards, to supply checking accounts to almost anyone over 18 who passes an identification check. Daniel Eckert, senior vice president at Walmart, said on Tuesday that the accounts would be available nationwide by the end of October. The accounts are intended to be low-cost alternatives to traditional bank checking accounts, with no fees for overdrafts or bounced checks and no minimum...

Michigan's Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, said on Saturday he would defend retirees who risk losing public pensions because of Detroit's bankruptcy, putting him at odds with the city's emergency manager appointed by fellow Republican Governor Rick Snyder. Schuette, an elected official, said the Michigan state constitution is "crystal clear" in stating that pension plans are a contractual obligation that may not be diminished or impaired. "Retirees may face a potential financial crisis not of their own making, possibly a result of pension fund mismanagement," Schuette said in a statement. The attorney general said he would file in federal...

SNIP SNIP Local government planning should, first of all, protect the private property rights of its citizens. The legitimate function of local planning is to facilitate the safe and coordinated exercise of the free market in real estate and commerce. Social engineering, on the other hand, is the result of professional planners creating a vision of what they think a community should be in the future. What the landowners may want is not a factor in the design. What the planners think the broader community will want, such as open space and protected wildlife areas, outweighs private property rights or...

Nearly all negative spending by super PACs in the presidential campaign over the past week has gone toward opposing Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who trailed badly in polls leading up to today’s New Hampshire primary, according to a WSJ analysis of expenditures reported to the Federal Election Commission. In total, anti-Gingrich super PAC Restore Our Future disclosed $89,962 in expenditures opposing Mr. Gingrich’s candidacy since the Jan. 3 caucuses in Iowa, where he came in fourth. That’s 96% of all negative spending in the past week by super PACs, the newest and most controversial form of political action...

The last two presidential election cycles have revealed a stinking hypocrisy in conservatives: They profess their love of capitalism and entrepreneurship, but when offered a real capitalist and entrepreneur, they go, “Eek, a mouse!” And they tear him down in proud social-democrat fashion. In the off season, they sound like Friedrich Hayek. When the game is on, they sound like Huey Long, Bella Abzug, or Bob Shrum. Last time around, Mike Huckabee said Romney “looks like the guy who laid you off.” Conservatives reacted like this was the greatest mot since Voltaire or something. To me, Romney looked like someone...

An Idaho businessman and his wife are pleading with the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the federal government’s “bullying” over the family’s simple plan to build a three-bedroom home on a plot of ground they purchased in an existing subdivision in Idaho, plans for which they already have obtained all the legally necessary building permits. The issue is that the Environmental Protection Agency claims that the land – which is surrounded by existing homes on three adjacent lots, has no standing water, and has no streams or creeks on it – is “wetlands.” This is how Mike and Chantell Sackett...

For Republicans, it's Gingrich vs. Romney

Despite the steady stream of negative economic numbers, conservative Washington Post columnist George Will thinks that President Barack Obama‘s election prospects aren’t so dire. “All of the numbers say that the president won’t be,” Will said of the President Obama’s election prospects on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “But if the president carries the John Kerry states, he has 245 electoral votes. He needs 25 more. Don’t count the president out.” ABC political analyst Cokie Roberts went further, saying that she thinks the odds are in favor of the president’s reelection. ...more (w/video)...

Hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") is the process used by the energy industry to extract immense deposits of oil and natural gas from deep geologic formations that only a few years ago were unreachable. It involves injecting a solution of water and chemicals far underground, typically thousands of feet below groundwater supplies. Fracking was first used in Oklahoma in the 1940s and in the years since has been employed in more than a million oil and gas wells across the nation. There is not a single independently documented instance of groundwater contamination by fracking anywhere in the country, a fact that was...

To All My Valued Employees: There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your j What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests. First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against...

Mrs. MindBender and I keep a secure home; passive IR lights, alarm, long weapons in closet, hand guns close, planning, drills, etc. Due to worldwide "problems," we have gone to more lights on, long weapons next to bed, and taking the Glock 23s with extra mags with us whenever out of home 20. Anyone else?

US Day of Rage | Resources for Non Violent Civil Disobedience #usdor #occupywallstreet #sept17 Share Many of these sections were taken from the Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns available from the War Resister's League in New York City and the Civil Disobedience Training fron ACTUP New York. Download the full Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns (PDF). Handbook for Digital and Online Civil Disobedience. (Coming Soon) US Day of Rage Guidelines for Non Violent Civil Disobedience Individual or group actions that endanger the physical well-being of other demonstrators should not be done. Generally actions that might endanger the safety of others at the...

They said the Union Jack-coloured lettering on a white background could be considered 'racist'. ‘The police told me that due to the fact that the words were written in red and blue and the background was white, my sign had racist connotations. ‘What a load or rubbish - it certainly wasn't my intention to come across as racist. I'm not racist.’   A spokeswoman for South Yorkshire Police said : ‘Officers responded to a call from a complainant who had seen the sign and interpreted it as being racist.

Volunteers have reported that ‘a large number’ of elderly customers are snapping up hardbacks as cheap fuel for their fires and stoves. Temperatures this week are forecast to plummet as low as -13ºC in the Scottish Highlands, with the mercury falling to -6ºC in London, -5ºC in Birmingham and -7ºC in Manchester as one of the coldest winters in years continues to bite. Workers at one charity shop in Swansea, in south Wales, described how the most vulnerable shoppers were seeking out thick books such as encyclopaedias for a few pence because they were cheaper than coal. One assistant said:...

List of priority groups are drawn up Health and social care workers will be vaccinated first, followed by pregnant women and all children under the age of five, under initial plans. The first batches of H1N1 vaccine are due to arrive next month with enough for half the population expected to be delivered by December. It will be the biggest vaccination programme undertaken by the NHS since smallpox in the 1950s. The groups most at risk from the disease will be vaccinated in order of priority as the batches arrive. Experts have said healthy pensioners are not a priority group...

Researchers found that Americans had better memories, were quicker witted and were generally smarter than their English counterparts. And the older the pensioner, the greater the difference, claimed researchers. The gap was so wide that a 75-year-old American had a similar brain to a 65-year-old Englishman, the tests proved.

A RETIRED social worker was jailed yesterday for seven days for refusing to pay a £53.71 increase in her council tax. Sylvia Hardy, a 73-year-old spinster, had refused all offers of help from well-wishers. She was making a stand in the hope of forcing the Government to reconsider an unjust tax, she said. Bag in hand, she marched to the court from her Exeter home accompanied by a small crowd of banner-waving supporters. Hundreds more were waiting to wave her off. Hardy, only the second council tax protester to be jailed, was compared by supporters to Emily Pankhurst, the...