Free Republic

By completely overhauling the old rules of the business. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported on an energy bonanza. A company discovered a new field with “the equivalent of at least two billion barrels of oil” that “has the promise to become one of the biggest energy finds of the past decade.” But the discovery wasn’t made by a foreign company in the Amazon, or deep in the waters off the coast off Africa, or in Kazakhstan—or any of the other politically treacherous, high-risk, low-infrastructure places where Big Oil has been prospecting for gigantic new gushers. Instead, the lucky...

NEW YORK – The refugee crisis in Europe was already pushing the European Union toward disintegration when, on June 23, it helped drive the British to vote to Brexit the EU. The refugee crisis and the Brexit calamity that it spawned have reinforced xenophobic, nationalist movements that will seek to win a series of upcoming votes– including national elections in France, the Netherlands, and Germany in 2017, a referendum in Hungary on the EU refugee policy on October 2, and a rerun of the Austrian presidential election on the same day. Rather than uniting to resist this threat, EU member...

Back in May I was invited to Singapore to tour schools, IT hubs, hospitals and startups. The size of the country, as well as their government structure, allows them move towards their objectives more quickly than other countries. What I witnessed during my visit was a nation determined to be seen as a leader in the technology sector and to be recognized as a nucleus for some of the top innovators in the world. One aspect of the trip that really resonated with me was the country's use of vertical farming and other cutting edge agricultural techniques. Population Pressures The...

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's daughter went on ABC's The View talk show to express her dismay at polls showing that a huge majority of Americans consider her mother untrustworthy. "I realize that some of the things coming out from the emails she tried to conceal are raising questions, but I know my mother and I'm certain that if anything thing she did was wrong in some technical sense that she did it for a good reason," Chelsea explained. "What a lot of people don't understand is that her job as the nation's top diplomat often required her to deliberately...

Aging infrastructure could render the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) increasingly ineffective, according to a new report from the Department of Energy. The U.S. has stored roughly 700 million barrels of crude oil in salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana for decades. The SPR was established in the aftermath of the Arab oil embargo in 1973, which painfully revealed U.S. oil dependence as high prices drove up inflation, created fuel shortages and lines at gas stations, and rocked the American economy. The SPR was setup to stash 90 days’ worth of supply into storage for safekeeping, meant to be used...

It is difficult to imagine such levels of poverty existing in the most powerful nation on earth - but it does in McDowell County, West Virginia. Abandoned shops, closed schools and neglected homes are visible on almost every corner in every distressed community. Whole families are plagued by the consequences of unemployment and widespread drug abuse. The average life expectancy for men is 64 - the same as Namibia.But it was not always like this. McDowell was once a hustling and bustling town, thriving off the riches of the coal industry. The reliance on one industry proved fatal and...

In the last couple of weeks, we've seen Trump roll out his plan for reviving America's inner cities and other economically depressed areas. As someone who has in various capacities worked on this issue, I must say that Trump has brilliantly boiled down the question down to the three elements that would form the essential foundation of an effective federal urban policy: law and order, school choice and trade reform. In my 20 or so years of working on this issue, I've met with thousands of people who live in these communities, and I can guarantee you that the vast...

Ted Cruz and other Republicans are barreling toward a September showdown with the White House over its plan to give up oversight of the internet, as the Obama administration tries to rally support from the tech and telecom industries. GOP lawmakers have long warned that the administration's plan to relinquish its authority over ICANN, the global nonprofit that manages the internet's domain name system, could give authoritarian countries like China and Russia an opening to make an online power grab. Now, as the actual date of the transition approaches — Oct. 1 — Republicans are looking at throwing up new...

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories declined by 14.5 million barrels during the week ending on September 2nd, according to the Energy Information Administration’s latest report. The American Petroleum Institute (API) report on domestic inventories anticipated a 12 million barrel draw in crude supplies, against expert predictions that inventories would increase by 905,000 barrels.

Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid reduced employment in those states that participated in it by a statistically significant extent, according to a recent study by Georgetown University’s Tomas Wind:“I find a significant negative relationship between Medicaid expansion and labor force participation, in which expanding Medicaid is associated with 1.5 to 3 percentage point drop in labor force participation.”As Wind notes, Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion provided an unusually good test case for the effects of a government program, since it went into effect in some states but not others during the covered period. […] Ironically, despite its enormous cost of billions of dollars...

Goldman thrives on complexity and backroom dealing Goldman Sachs, the international investment bank that is under more or less continuous government investigation, has forbidden senior employees from giving money to the Trump-Pence campaign. But these wizards of Wall Street drew the new rule up in such a way that they can claim they are not trying to elect Hillary Clinton president.

Is the electric car the inevitable wave of the future? Is the internal combustion engine finished, through, a relic of the 20th century—as many are now saying? I have argued before that electric cars are overhyped. I calculated that the Tesla, for example, is still a really bad deal when you compare its substantial extra costs against the cost of operating a similar gasoline-powered car over five or ten years. But what if I'm wrong? For example, how much of that calculation is due to the inflated cost of a Tesla, which uses all of the positive publicity lavished on...

In mid-January, everyone's favorite market indicator Dennis Gartman, made an infamous prediction when oil was trading in the mid-$30s, when he said that oil won't hit $44 again "in my lifetime" Sure enough, three months later, oil "killed" Gartman, or at least his credibility, when it jumped above $44. We thought that Gartman had learned his lesson, and would avoid such bombastic forecasts in the future. Turns out we were wrong, and earlier today Gartman again appeared on CNBC, where he said that "investors shouldn't expect the commodity to break through $55 for a few years."

Thousands of Americans were shot to death while Congress was on its summer break, according to gun control activists. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence reported Tuesday that 4,500 people have been shot and killed since lawmakers left Washington in mid-July. Lawmakers will be greeted by protests from gun control advocates Tuesday when they return to Capitol Hill. "Congress is in for a rude awakening today if they thought seven weeks of vacation would wipe the slate clean,” said Brady President Dan Gross. "While Congress enjoyed nearly two months of sun and fun, the American people paid the ultimate...

Mines are closing and the coal industry is facing a run of bankruptcies and other bad news, but a company backed by a $90 million investment is defying conventional wisdom by preparing to open two new mines in Appalachia, the hardest-hit coal region. The mines in West Virginia and Virginia will create some 400 jobs in counties where unemployment ranges close to three times the national average, Ramaco Development CEO Randall Atkins told The Associated Press. "It's a fairly big deal, frankly, for southern West Virginia," Atkins said....

For the past year as some of you know, Sweden has called for a ban on lobster imports from the United States. Without a shred of proof, they claim that American raised lobster threaten their native lobster in its own habitat. Only two forces seem to be fighting this unjustified and uncalled for ban, Nova Scotia and New England Fisherman, particularly those from my home state of Maine. The ban proposal has already cleared its first hurdles despite new data by European scientists that show that American imports have nothing to do with the increase of North American lobsters in...

ELKHART — Goshen Coach, a commercial bus manufacturer, announced it will close its Elkhart facility on Oct. 31 and expects to lay off 159 employees. The company filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification on Wednesday with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development to announce the plan to close the facility at 25161 Leer Drive. It plans to offer "severance benefits and transition programs to affected employees," according to the notice, which does not explain why the plant will be shut down. Company officials could not be reached Wednesday for comment. Goshen Coach, which has manufactured specialty vehicles since 1985,...

Goldman Sachs has enacted a set of rules that bans the firm’s top employees from contributing to certain campaigns, including the Trump-Pence ticket. The rules kicked in Sept. 1 and will apply only to partners of the firm. The memo detailing the rule change was first reported by Politico. The firm says the rules were meant to remove any implication of so-called “pay to play.” Four years ago, the bank paid $12 million to settle charges that a former Boston-based banker had picked up bond underwriting business in the state while working for and contributing funds to the campaign of...

The for-profit college chain ITT Technical Institute is shutting down all 130 of its U.S. campuses, saying Tuesday it can't survive recent sanctions by the U.S. Department of Education. In a letter to more than 35,000 students, the Indiana-based parent company ITT Educational Services announced that campuses won't open for the fall term that was scheduled to begin Sept. 12 — leaving students scrambling for last-minute options since many U.S. colleges already have started fall classes. ITT also cut more than 8,000 jobs immediately....

E-waste recycling is a source of much needed income in many low to middle income countries Electronic product innovations satisfy many needs, including the desire of people to stay connected around the globe. As new products are continually introduced into the marketplace, consumers replace existing electronic products that are damaged or simply outdated. The resulting mass of electronic products discarded is becoming the fastest growing waste stream in the world leading to polluted environments. (1) Electronic waste (e-waste) which includes all types of electrical or electronic equipment is produced in staggering quantities, estimated globally to be 41.8 million tons in...