Free Republic

On Wednesday’s broadcast of ABC’s “The View,” First Lady Jill Biden argued that companies like Target and Walmart are lowering prices because President Joe Biden told them to and he’ll continue to tell CEOs to lower their prices, but also stated that other companies like McDonald’s brought down their prices because “they’re responding to you” the customer, but “We can’t have this corporate greed.” Biden said, “[I]t’s what Joe is doing. So, you’re right, inflation is down. But recently, he’s been meeting with CEOs of the major companies like Target and Walmart and grocery stores to say, you have to...

California could be a much nicer place to live if some of the progressives who run the place would stop trying their best to make everything more expensive. California has had blackouts and despite this came close to shutting down its last nuclear reactor. In 2022, Gov. Newsom finally had second thoughts on that after the Biden administration offered a boatload of money to reverse course and keep the last reactor running. But despite moments of lucidity, the state and the governor seem determined to set the state's next energy crisis in motion. Last year the state passed a bill...

Congressional Democrats on Thursday accused oil companies of inflating the cost of gasoline and vowed to investigate them, pushing back on who's to blame for rising prices hurting President Joe Biden's reelection chances. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top Democrats were flanked by supporters in matching blue shirts holding signs that read, "Stop gouging us at the pump." Schumer criticized recent billion-dollar oil company mergers, such as one between ExxonMobil and Pioneer Natural Resources, as potentially "disastrous for consumers." He said previous mergers in the industry decreased competition and led to higher prices. Schumer said he had already...

“Corporate price gouging” is the Biden administration’s latest narrative to displace the responsibility of soaring costs. President Joe Biden, who falsely claimed twice in two weeks that inflation was at nine percent when he assumed office, is transitioning to another tack, albeit a strategy he has used before. “President Biden’s top economic priorities are fighting inflation and lowering costs for the American people,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates claimed. “Standing up to corporate price gouging is at the core of that fight.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Velshi” that former President Donald Trump made an “obvious quid pro quo” when he allegedly asked for a $1 billion donation from oil executives during a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort last month. Whitehouse said, “The problem we have is a little bit like the House. If we issue subpoenas, as the Judiciary Committee did to pursue the payments made to Justice Thomas, the Republicans said they would not enforce the subpoenas and they said they don’t comply and we won’t let them enforce it. I would expect something like that to...

During an interview aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront,” President Joe Biden stated that while “corporate greed” has caused an increase in the amount of money people have to spend on groceries and people feel real pain from the cost of groceries and food and he’s angry people have to spend more, “if you take a look at what people have, they have the money to spend.” Host Erin Burnett said, “[T]here’s real pain. Grocery prices are up 30% — more than 30% since the beginning of the pandemic, and people are spending more on food and groceries than...

resident Biden's latest proposal to hike the top capital gains tax rate to its highest level in more than a century is facing heavy criticism from experts who warn such an action could significantly harm the U.S. economy. According to a report issued by the Treasury Department, led by Secretary Janet Yellen, the president's proposed fiscal year 2025 budget would increase the top marginal rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends to a staggering 44.6%. A capital gains tax hike of that magnitude would take the rate to its highest level since it was first introduced in the early...

During an interview with Nexstar Media that took place on Tuesday and was released on Wednesday, President Joe Biden stated that inflation “is being stubborn and not going down to the 2% we need. But, it’s significantly different,” than where it was and “the thing that really affects people’s lives are all the small things that add up to big numbers for people, all these junk fees.” Nexstar Washington Correspondent Reshad Hudson asked, “[R]ight now, for many Americans, life is too expensive. Are you concerned that stubborn inflation will hurt your re-election bid?” Biden responded, “Well, look, we’ve brought down...

As President Joe Biden visited Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, he called for an increase in taxes on the rich. “When I look at the economy, I don’t look at it through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago,” Biden said during his speech. “I look at it through the eyes of Scranton.” Biden explained that he wanted to make the tax code fair, in order to allow regular American citizens to keep more money in their pockets. In an attempt to make the tax code fairer, Biden suggested a 25% minimum tax rate for billionaires, while slamming former President Donald Trump for being...

A new report from the Federal Trade Commission suggests grocery giants used inflation and supply chain disruptions during the pandemic to drive their profits and keep raising prices. Now, the agency is urging Congress to take a closer look into grocery profits. The data shows food prices in the United States spiked 11% between 2021 and 2022, the largest annual increase in over 40 years. News4JAX asked local consumers about their current spending Friday. “Everything. Everything. Everything that I can think of that I need, you know, it’s expensive,” a consumer said. The prices at the grocery store are high....

Seems like a plethora of historical examples would be ample evidence, but the average leftist isn’t really the thinking type. The dirty little secret about the wealth distribution of the leftist ruling class is that they only redistribute the wealth—to themselves. Have you ever considered why leftist ruling-class leaders are extraordinarily rich while they also preach wealth redistribution? And why is it that leftists never bring this up? Look at the evidence down through history and around the world, and you will see the same pattern repeated with every leftist regime. Let’s begin with the now-defunct USSR, which was supposed...

President Joe Biden plans to launch a raid on the super rich, hiking taxes for corporations and billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. White House officials said the steps were part of a proposed 2025 budget to be released next week, and aimed at reducing the federal deficit by $3 trillion over 10 years. The tax plans are expected to form a core part of Biden's re-election campaign, contrasting markedly with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, whose 2017 'Tax Cuts and Jobs Act' slashed taxes on companies and the wealthy.

“We’re excited to be co-chairing the president’s new Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing, which builds on the FTC’s far-reaching work to promote competition and tackle unlawful business practices that are inflating costs for Americans,” FTC Chair Lina Khan told reporters on a call Monday.

According to mythology, Hades made King Sisyphus roll a huge boulder endlessly up a steep hill in Tartarus. Unfortunately, the modern day version of Sisyphus is the middle class pushing a boulder endlessly up a steep hill while the top 1% (the elite class) horde more and more wealth. An example of the Sisyphus economy? The top 1% of earners (blue line) have seen an incredible increase in net worth, particularly after Fed Chair Alan Greenspan’s big rate cuts (green line) from 2000 to 2004. Each subsequent rate cuts under Bernanke (2007-2008) and Yellen (who just kept rates too low...

There’s apparently no end to how far the mainstream operatives will go in their quest to destroy the virtues of the West, and a USA Today article published last week is a prime example.The man behind the piece, Daniel de Visé, essentially implies that anyone not born into tremendous wealth doesn’t have a chance at success, and those who are rich only got that way by mere circumstance and birthright, overtly implying that capitalism has caused this problem and that, we must work harder for equality.There are huge problems with de Visé’s article, but I will do my best to...

President Joe Biden’s approval rating is tanking, and he’s now trailing former President Donald Trump in national polls, as well as in some key swing states. Vox blames the economy for Biden’s plunging popularity — or at least voters’ perception of the economy. A new Gallup poll shows that just 32% of people approve of Biden’s handling of the economy. To combat the narrative that Biden’s policies are to blame, the White House has gone on the offensive, attacking billionaires and blaming corporations for the economic pain the public is experiencing.

As we have reported the IT whistle blowers (aka white hat hackers) tasked with stress-testing the Financial Reset CSRQ-SM Software immediately too issue with the disturbing, exclusionary class system being implemented. They did not agree with it, and they have blown the whistle. Over the course of many months, they searched different individuals to learn about their classification and took screenshots of these results.

Robert Kapito, the president of asset management behemoth BlackRock, earns about $20m a year and is worth around $400m. You can buy a lot of fancy trinkets with that kind of money but alas it doesn’t seem to purchase much self-awareness. We are in the middle of a cost of living crisis, with low-income households disproportionately affected by the highest inflation in 40 years. People are struggling to heat their homes and worrying about feeding their families thanks to rocketing food prices. Kapito’s reaction to all this? To complain to a bunch of energy executives about how entitled young people...

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration and congressional Democrats are moving toward dropping their push to raise corporate and individual income tax rates to pay for their sprawling domestic policy bill, instead drafting a plan that includes new ways to tax the wealthy and multinational corporations, according to people familiar with the discussions..... Mr. Biden had proposed paying for those programs by raising the top individual income tax rate to 39.6 percent from 37 percent and the corporate rate to 28 percent from 21 percent. Administration officials have said privately in recent weeks that they believed Ms. Sinema would eventually support...

In recent years, long-term trends in economic inequality have attracted growing attention from social scientists, which also reflects civil society’s increasing awareness of the deepening economic disparities. In this context, particular attention has been paid to the share of the total income or wealth earned/owned by the top of the distribution – usually the top 1%, 5% or 10% among individuals or households. The share of the top richest is both interesting per se (as it is informative of “how rich” the better-off are), and as an indicator of the overall trends in economic inequality. New time series of wealth...