Free Republic

Most of the time, the vast majority of Americans simply do not care about economics. And it pains me to say that, because I have been running a website about economics for more than a decade. But it is true. Under normal circumstances, most hard working Americans don’t have the time or the energy to debate the finer points of economic policy. But now things have changed. Here in 2022, our leaders have messed things up so badly that suddenly just about everyone is feeling the pain. Most people just want economic conditions to “return to normal”, but that isn’t...

The change will lead to approximately 48,000 troops missing out on the stipend The Department of Defense (DoD) announced last week that troops in 15 metropolitan areas and 21 non-metropolitan counties in the continental United States will be cut off from a cost-of-living allowance starting Jan. 1. The change will lead to approximately 48,000 troops missing out on the Continental United States Cost-of-Living Allowance (CONUS COLA), according to Stars and Stripes. Approximately 6,000 service members will remain recipients of the $8.5 million that the Pentagon allocated for the stipend, which is given to troops who are stationed at excessively expensive...

The city of Tel Aviv was named after the title in Hebrew of “Old New Land” (“Altneuland” in German), a visionary novel written in 1902 by Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. Israel’s commercial capital still blends modernity and history. This summer, as time-poor professionals were ordering coffee pods delivered by drone, archaeologists nearby were uncovering a Byzantine wine press and a 7th-century gold coin. Both discoveries might come in handy in the city that is now the world’s most expensive. According to the latest findings of the Worldwide Cost of Living Survey from The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU),...

Social Security payments could rise 6.1 percent next year due to soaring inflation, which would be the largest increase since 1983, according to a new estimate. The Senior Citizens League, a non-partisan advocacy group, released the new estimate on Wednesday, responding to the latest inflation data showing prices are up 5.4 percent in the 12 months through June. For the 69 million people currently receiving benefits, however, the next cost-of-living increase will not come until January's payment, leaving many struggling on a fixed income as the price of goods surges. The most recent bump in benefits, calculated based on last...

People To Have More Babies Republicans must become not just the party of workers but also the party of families. They should do it by upping Joe Biden’s proposed child tax credit into something bigger.As the Republican Party charts its path during a Joe Biden presidency, there will undoubtedly be calls from the corporate wing to return to the neoliberal orthodoxy that defined it under the Bushes, Mitt Romney, and Paul Ryan. This would be a profound mistake.President Donald Trump has repositioned Republicans as the party of workers with his focus on trade, industrial, and immigration issues. By crafting an...

With Microsoft becoming the latest major tech company to signal to employees that they can apply to make "WFH" a permanent element of their schedule, millions of Americans are contemplating moving away from densely packed cities - indeed, many have already made the move. According to data released Friday, the apartment vacancy rate in Manhattan has hit 6%, more than double the average at this time of year. According to Pew Research, 22% of American adults have relocated during the pandemic, or know somebody who did. It's a sudden reversal to a yearslong trend of Americans largely staying put....

Sometimes the pressure of Li Ping’s job is so great that he can’t sleep at night. Li was transferred to a remote, mountainous corner of southwestern China in 2016 with a mission to help raise the community out of poverty. Today, Xide county in Sichuan province – the area under Li’s jurisdiction – is on the verge of officially reaching the goal. Xide is one of seven counties in the western part of Sichuan that is still under the poverty line and the community is waiting to hear back from higher levels of government to know if it met the...

Born and raised in the SF Bay Area of California. I’ve fought the good fight for over 50 years but I’m over it and it’s time to go. We’re OUTTA here tomorrow morning!!! Tampa, Florida here we come!

People leaving the Golden State are changing the political makeup of the states they move to. President Trump clearly hates the most populous state in the country he governs. While trashing California with his gutter mouth, the president has used his office to physically trash the home to nearly one in eight Americans — seeking to make its air more polluted, its water less clean, its forests more vulnerable to catastrophic fires.But now the Golden State is poised to strike back. By moving its presidential primary from June to March 3, California will finally exert a political influence commensurate to...

The last remaining fortune cookie factory in San Francisco is on the verge of closure, thanks to sky-high rents and new technology, but its owner says he will never give up the family business, writes Lucy Sherriff. Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, in the city's Chinatown, is the last factory of its kind in the area, after competitors were forced to close when overheads became too expensive. The family-run factory opened its doors on Ross Alley in 1962, and uses the same recipe to this day, as well as retaining the traditional machinery used to make Chinese fortune cookies. "Even...

On June 20, 2018 (83 FR 28710), the U.S. Trade Representative (Trade Representative) provided notice of an initial action in the Section 301 investigation of the acts, policies, and practices of the Government of China related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation. The initial action was the imposition of an additional 25 percent ad valorem duty on products of China with an annual trade value of approximately $34 billion, effective July 6, 2018. The proposed modification is to maintain the original $34 billion action and the proposed $16 billion action, and to take further action in the form of...

The cost of living in the U.S. is rising at its fastest rate in 10 years, according to new data from the Labor Department. The data, released Friday, revealed that consumer prices increased 2.9 percent in July from the year before, meaning Americans may be earning less than they did at this time last year.The consumer price index, meanwhile, rose 0.2 percent last month, which analysts largely attributed to rising housing costs, CNBC reported. Annual inflation remained unchanged from June's pace at 2.9 percent. Energy, medical care and apparel costs dropped in July, while food prices ticked up. "Rising rents...

This Is How Much it Costs to Rent a One-Bedroom Apartment in 50 Major U.S. Cities It won't come as a shock that the cost of rent can be steep in cities such as New York and San Francisco. After all, a monthly bill in the $2,000–$4,000 range isn't unusual in those locations. But have you ever considered how much it would cost to live in a one-bedroom apartment in Anchorage, Alaska? Earlier this week, personal finance site GOBankingRates.com released a study on the median costs of rent for one-bedroom apartments in 50 major U.S. cities. It also includes data...

As BART’s ridership surged three years ago, along with the number of homeless people lingering inside its downtown San Francisco stations, the transit system doubled down on custodial work — and some of its janitors started cleaning up paywise. One system service worker, BART’s title for janitors, made a little more than $271,000 in 2015, with $162,050 of that in overtime. A year later, two other BART janitors joined him in collecting more than $100,000 in overtime pay in a year. Three years later — after the tale of the high-earning BART janitor became legend and the transit system, and...

San Francisco is experiencing a “mass exodus” as tens of thousands of residents leave the Bay Area while an influx of immigrants flood the sanctuary city, according to KPIX-TV. What’s going on? For the first time in decades, more people are leaving San Francisco than there are new people moving to the city. The mass exodus has propelled the Bay Area to the nation’s leading city for “out-migration.” One of the reasons for the exodus is the cost of living in San Francisco. According to the Mercury News, the median price for homes in Silicon Valley fall anywhere between $800,000...

Let’s be honest, the Middle-East has been a complete disaster for longer than most of us can imagine. Once the US firmly planted itself in the Middle-East in 2001, the destabilization of an already volatile region really started to pick up steam. With five out of the top 10 oil producing countries located in the Middle-East, sometimes these conflicts can have extremely negative consequences for oil consumers (pretty much everyone). The price of almost every product on the market increases as the price of oil goes up. When the price of oil goes up, it costs more for companies to...

When we see our grandchildren crying because they think someone might have looked at them crossways we wonder about the fate of the Republic. I think one of the hardest things about growing old is that you can remember what a pound of hamburger cost fifty years ago ($.45), so when the government assures us over and over there is no inflation we sort of get a disconnect going that seeps into many different areas of our lives. Wise men say that History repeats itself. Those who have studied the facts and lived long enough to get a seasoned perspective...

Millennials, who first arrived in 1980, are the largest generational group in American history. As such, they tend to have a deep-seated, some would say exaggerated, sense of their own importance. Now that the last of the millennials, those born in the late 1990s, have reached voting age, the millennial generation is exerting ever greater influence on presidential politics. The campaign of Bernie Sanders, one of the most radical leftists ever to run for the presidency, is almost their exclusive preserve. Sanders's platform is well targeted to the idealism of most millennials. It offers free universal health care ("Medicare for...

Unless you're tracking expenses carefully, it can be hard to tell whether your city's cost of living or your own spending habits are the cause of your financial troubles. Using the 50-30-20 budgeting rule, for example — in which 50 percent of income covers necessities, 30 percent is for discretionary items and 20 percent is saved — you can quickly determine whether your income is sufficient to cover expenses for living in your city. If it isn't, you might have to cut costs or maybe even move. GoBankingRates conducted a cost-of-living comparison of the 75 most populous U.S. cities, surveying...

In urban centers around the country, rental prices are soaring. Cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City routinely report double-digit increases that make it nearly impossible for residents to make ends meet. But it’s not just dwellers of those metropolitan areas who are having a hard time paying the rent. According to a report out this week from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, more than half of renters in America are considered to be financially burdened by their rent, meaning that they spend more than 30 percent of their income just on where they live. High...