Free Republic

Remember the Keystone XL Pipeline project? Remember what a cause célèbre it was for both the left and right? What the heck ever happened to it? Have you wondered that?Well, in short it was killed pretty much for good, or at least the foreseeable future – both here in the USSA and now in Canada. As you are no doubt aware, it was Obama who, with the left in the federal and various state legislatures – and with some help from Choo-choo Warren Buffet who owns most of the rail cars now hauling crude down south, vetoed the pipeline. And...

We're gonna need a bigger buyback... As if "old tech" IBM was not in enough trouble, the worrying admission from Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway's earnings of around $2 billion (though careful to note he is not about to sell) has seemingly prompted further weakness. IBM is down almost 2% to fresh May 2010 lows... As Berkshire Hathaway detailked... As of September 30, 2015 and December 31, 2014, we concluded that there were no unrealized losses that were other than temporary. Our conclusions were based on: (a) our ability and intent to hold the securities to recovery; (b) our assessment that the...

From one who specializes in it. It’s bad enough that President Obama dragged his feet for seven years before doing what everyone knew he was going to do. TransCanada, the Canadian government an awful lot of Americans who could have used the economic boost (including the folks in North Dakota and an awful lot of Obama’s union supporters) were left to twist in the wind while Obama pretended he was “reviewing” the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Of course, he was doing no such thing. He knew on Day 1 he was going to reject it because that’s what his extreme...

Abundant, reliable, affordable oil and natural gas empower people. They support job creation, mobility, modern agriculture, homes and hospitals, computers and communications, lights and refrigerators, life and study after sundown, indoor plumbing, safe drinking water, less disease and longer lives. Hydrocarbons make plastics, pharmaceuticals and synthetic clothing. They create fertilizers and pesticides, to improve crop yields, reduce food prices and improve nutrition. But Sierra Club, 350.org and other radicals want to keep America’s oil and natural gas bounties in the ground. They block leasing, drilling and fracking. They block pipelines that transport oil and gas to refineries, power plants, factories...

Buried in that 8,000 (!) word NYT magazine article about Obama’s economic plan that I mentioned yesterday, is this bit flagged by Geraghty at Campaign Spot: “If you talk to Warren [Buffet], he’ll tell you his preference is not to meddle in the economy at all — let the market work, however way it’s going to work, and then just tax the heck out of people at the end and just redistribute it,” Obama said. “That way you’re not impeding efficiency, and you’re achieving equity on the back end.” He continued by saying that he thought there was some merit...

Another day, another mega-M&A deal taking advantage of abnormally low bond rates, this time however not involving biotechs or a specialty pharma seeking to purchase a debt-free balance sheet, but one involving the Oracle of Omaha himself, and his Heinz investment, which will merge with Kraft Foods whose market cap was over $40 billion this morning on the news of the merger, and create the third largest food and beverage company in the US, and 5th largest in  the world. And while the resulting company will certainly be an unprecedented food giant, one which leaves the US food industry even...

Harry Reid is taking unprecedented steps to block Senate Republicans, even though his actions will result in nothing but procedural delay. In another example of Democrats playing the role of obstructionists, Harry Reid will force the Senate to go through procedural hurdles to delay Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from bringing up the president’s Keystone XL veto for an override vote. Last week, President Obama vetoed the popular bipartisan Keystone XL Pipeline bill passed by the Senate. This week, the Senate is planning a vote to override the president’s veto. Democrats, led by Minority Leader Harry Reid, are set to revoke...

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett hasn’t gotten where he is today by making rash investments, and the prolific investor claims that he is ready to put his money where his mouth is with regards to his support for Hillary Clinton’s likely presidential bid. Buffett, who allowed his name to be used by President Barack Obama as part of a cynical ploy to gin up interclass resentment during the 2012 reelection campaign, claims that all the smart money is on Clinton.

Some people are still under the impression that the A Century Ago: Rockefellers Funded Eugenics Initiative to Sterilize 15 Million Americans " tit>Rockefeller Foundation is all about philanthropy: helping people and saving lives. Those people are Bill Gates and Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. In reality, the Rockefellers have been one of the largest financial backers and drivers of the eugenics and the depopulation agenda for over a century now. Check out these 1915 newspaper clippings we came across in research. The first is from The Salem Daily Capital Journal printed Thursday, November 4th, 1915.

Trying to invest like Warren Buffett has such a long history that numerous columns have been written about how to construct portfolios of companies that the writer posits Warren Buffett would like. Other investors or money managers simply build portfolios of companies in which his Berkshire Hathaway has substantial holdings. Multiple books have been written on how to invest like Buffett. Still, it is always worth reminding, particularly as the subject of tax reform bubbles up in Washington, D.C. once again, that while imitating Warren Buffett can come with large rewards, listening to him is a much less rewarding strategy....

An American worth less than $1.55 billion could not land on this year's "The Forbes 400," the annual ranking for the richest people in America. The cut-off increase from last year's $1.3 billion disqualified 113 poor billionaires for this year's list. Bill Gates once again lorded over his fellow wealthy Americans for the 21st consecutive year with a healthy $81 billion, up $9 billion from 2013. He outpaced Warren Buffet ($67 billion), Larry Ellison ($50 billion) and the Koch brothers' Charles and David (each worth $42 billion) to round out the top five. Michael Bloomberg ($35 billion) managed to slide...

President Obama would have proudly proclaimed Warren Buffett a true patriot in his bailing out of the banking system with expensive loans and his 'realization' that those earning more than $1 million should be tax-tax-taxed. However, the "Buffett Rule" appears to have one caveat... if you are making over a $1 billion, you're good to go with tax-avoidance strategies. In one of his career's most hypocritical moves Warren "tax-me-more" Buffett has decided that putting his money where his mouth is no longer makes sense.. and is funding $3billion of Burger King's "tax-inversion" takeover of Canada-based Tim Hortons. Somewhere on...

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is urging consumers to boycott Burger King over reports that the fast food chain is eyeing a tax-cutting move to Canada. Brown, an outspoken corporate critic, said people hankering for a burger should head to Wendy’s or White Castle, two Ohio-based chains that aren’t looking to shrink their tax bill via a so-called “corporate inversion.” “Burger King’s decision to abandon the United States means consumers should turn to Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers or White Castle sliders,” he said in a statement. “Burger King has always said ‘Have it Your Way’; well my way is to support...

How many times do I have to write about the problems discovered in Common Core teaching? This time it deals with Pearson Education, one of the leading companies that helps develop and train Common Core teaching. According to their website: “As the leading education services company, Pearson is serious about evolving how the world learns. We apply our deep education experience and research, invest in innovative technologies, and promote collaboration throughout the education ecosystem. Real change is our commitment and its results are delivered through connecting capabilities to create actionable, scalable solutions that improve access, affordability, and achievement.” [Emphasis mine]...

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) responded today to a New York Times Op-Ed promoting amnesty by billionaires Sheldon Adelson, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Sessions said the billionaires' opinion piece shows they're clueless about the obligations of Congress to the American people: "It is clear that three of the richest billionaires in the world have no clue what Congress 'owe[s] to the 318 million who employ them'. "We owe them our loyalty, our compassion, our devotion. It is precisely because of our duty to the working people of this country that we must stop legislation that would import tens of millions...

REDMOND, Wash. (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said Wednesday he wished he were not the world's richest man. "I wish I wasn't. There is nothing good that comes out of that," said Gates, whose personal fortune sank by billions since last week when the software giant disappointed investors by saying new investments would crimp earnings. The corporate leader who made Microsoft into the world's largest software maker - and who is also one of the biggest philanthropists - is seen as a man who does not like publicity. He explained that he did not like the attention of...

While liberalism’s terminus is failure, its first stop is hypocrisy. Higher-tax advocate Warren Buffett recently illustrated this with his reported use of a tax strategy to avoid — you guessed it — higher taxes. There is nothing new in the tax strategy or in Mr. Buffett’s use of it; it’s just an ample example of liberal hypocrisy. As reported in Bloomberg BNA’s Daily Tax Report on March 20, Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. “plans to limit taxes on more than $1 billion of gains in Graham Holdings Co. stock by swapping the shares for assets owned by the former Washington...

Senate majority leader Harry Reid has a whole page on his official Senate.gov website devoted to revealing "THE FACTS ABOUT THE KOCH BROTHERS." One of the alleged facts promoted on Reid's website is that the Kochs do not pay any corporate taxes: “They are known for bankrolling conservative, Libertarian and Tea Party causes and became poster boys for corporate tax reform last year when an Obama Administration official suggested Koch is organized as an S Corp. and so pays no corporate level taxes.” The claim that the Koch brothers don't pay corporate income taxes was first made by former White...

A major development occurred today in the scandal surrounding the Washington Post’s attempt to advance Democratic Party talking points by falsely linking Koch Industries to the Keystone Pipeline. In the unlikely event that you are not already familiar with the story, you should begin by reading this post and this one, as well as the one from last October where I dismantled the International Forum on Globalization report that was the basis for the Washington Post’s story of March 20. The facts, very briefly, are these: Koch Industries has no interest in the Keystone Pipeline; it has not lobbied in...

Warren Buffett epitomizes everything that is wrong with the global economy, and the U.S. economy specifically. He is the consummate crony capitalist, a brilliant yet conniving oligarch who intentionally plays on the gullibility of the masses to portray himself as one thing, when in reality he is something else entirely.He publicly talks about how rich people need to pay more in taxes, then turns around and pioneers new ways for his company Berkshire Hathaway to avoid hundreds of millions in taxes. He thinks that by going on television stuffing ice cream cones and hamburgers in his mouth and acting all grandfatherly...