Free Republic

This requires looking past China’s rhetoric about achieving broad technological dominance and recent provocations to focus on China’s economic concerns and desire to play a more assertive role in global diplomacy — for example, its success in helping normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran and a proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. China won’t indefinitely accept a subordinate status to the West across leading-edge technologies. China already is out in front in battery technology, for example, but it will always need the West. Neither China, the U.S., the EU nor Japan have large enough domestic markets to support...

A top economist sounded the alarm on the damage President Joe Biden’s Marxist plans will inflict on the economy. Economist and University of Maryland Professor Emeritus Peter Morici penned a fiery op-ed headlined, “Biden's woke economics will lead to disaster.” In the piece, Morici argued that “Mr. Biden doesn’t just want guardrails on markets — limits on bank risk taking, regulations to police discrimination and subsidies to reshape health care.” Morici decried how Biden is trying to arbitrarily “reprogram American capitalism and culture to address alleged sexism, structural racism and climate change.” Morici didn’t hold back: “Economic policy has become...

The bill is coming due for ObamaCare and it’s a whopper. According to Medicare Care’s own actuaries U.S. health care spending is about to rocket. Federal meddling in what was once the finest and cost-effective health care system on the planet is nothing new. Back in the 1960s, many Americans paid for doctor and hospital services out of pocket or through modestly priced private insurance. Health care spending was about 6 percent of GDP. Enter President Johnson and Medicare. He bought millions of votes by giving seniors free health care that they never paid for through payroll taxes during their...

Just in case the SNL skit wasn’t sufficient to send Tim Geithner the message, today’s Early Show has provided another harsh dose of reality for the Secretary of the Treasury. Grading his performance, an economics prof has said that if Geithner were his grad student, he’d tell him to quit and register in pastry chef school . . . Harry Smith had assembled a panel of economic experts to grade the Obama administration on its performance to date on the economy. Of course in these situations, a network can control the outcome through its choice of guests. Interestingly, there were...

Man, am I glad to be wrong. When economist Peter Morici, appearing on the Early Show in December, placed much of the blame for the automakers’ woes on the UAW, I imagined that we might have seen the last of him on CBS. I’m happy to report that my fears were unfounded. Morici was back with a vengeance this morning, absolutely shredding Pres. Obama’s plans for the economy. Highlights: * There’s no end in sight to bailout billions, given the wrong-headed policies the Obama admin is pursuing. * Until a “bad bank” of bad assets is created, the “one-off” bailouts...

Let's hope we haven't seen the last of Peter Morici on CBS. The University of Maryland professor of business and economics, appearing on the Early Show this morning, put the blame for the failure of Big Three bailout squarely on the shoulders of the UAW for its refusal to accept pay cuts putting its members on par with non-union workers at US plants owned by foreign car manufacturers. The Early Show did manage to balance things with some Dem demagoguery from the mayor of a Michigan city. Morici singled out UAW president Ron Gettelfinger, calling him "unrealistic" and "selfish." Comic...