Free Republic

MSNBC's Ed Schultz: A Rare Liberal Success In Broadcasting Ed Schultz, who anchors MSNBC's prime 8 p.m. time slot, has been raising his ratings while talking about the issues of the poor and middle class working people. Ed Schultz is presenting himself as the one true advocate for the working man. On the air and in promotional spots, he reminds viewers that he’s standing up for the unemployed and the middle class. By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times February 16, 2012 Flip through the radio dial any given afternoon and you might hear an angry-sounding white man railing against the...

If you lack something and can, get it now. The Greek people have taken to the streets stating irrevocably that they don’t think they should be impoverished for a generation or more to make good on bad loans made by international bankers.... If the Greek deal falls through, or Greece defaults and walks away from the debt…..it burns $340 billion out of European bank equity. It also causes nerves to fray on the debts of Spain, Italy, Portugal, and even France…..all countries with far larger debts and therefore larger threats to the equity of the European banks...... Now....we find World...

The 5.3-inch Galaxy Note and the Galaxy Tab 7.7 come in shapes that make them hard to classify. Is the Note a phone? Or a notepad? Or a tablet? Genius, right? Or, uh, foolish?The Galaxy Note is the more unusual choice of the two. With a 5.3-inch screen, it's kind of in a weird no-man's land, size wise. But hey, it's a phone, too! Who has pockets big enough for a 5.3 inch screen? MC Hammer, sure, but who else? As Dell can tell you, after their failed Streak 5 experiment, pretty much nobody.

New York Knick point guard Jeremy Lin is a one-man economic recovery that even Ben Bernanke couldn’t dream up in his Federal Reserve meetings. Lin-sanity has taken the country by storm and as a result created a spending frenzy that’s benefiting a broad range of companies, tax rolls and even the stock market. Lin’s salary this season is a modest (by NBA standards) $800,000, but by some calculations, he’s turned into the $170 million man. The most tangible impact has been on the market cap of Madison Square Garden (MSG), whose stock has jumped 7% to close Thursday at $31.87...

ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2012) — For years, biologists have been amazed by the power of gecko feet, which let these 5-ounce lizards produce an adhesive force roughly equivalent to carrying nine pounds up a wall without slipping. Now, a team of polymer scientists and a biologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered exactly how the gecko does it, leading them to invent "Geckskin," a device that can hold 700 pounds on a smooth wall. Doctoral candidate Michael Bartlett in Alfred Crosby's polymer science and engineering lab at UMass Amherst is the lead author of their article describing the...

Rush, please do your math!

The Congressional Budget Office released a report Thursday that showed real unemployment in America at 15 percent for the month of January, a figure considerably higher than the White House’s oft-cited 8.3 percent figure that does not include part-time workers seeking full-time work or those who have given up hope of finding a job altogether. From the CBO: Many people would like to work but have not searched for a job in the past four weeks, or are working part-time but would prefer full-time work. If those people were counted among the unemployed, the unemployment rate in January 2012 would...

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Fitch Ratings lifted its rating on Iceland to investment grade, citing the nation's progress in stabilizing its economy and pushing ahead with structural reforms. The upgrade puts Iceland's long-term foreign currency issuer default rating at triple-B-minus, placing it on the first rung of investment-grade territory. The outlook is stable. As one of the first countries to take a hit from the global financial crisis, the country is now showing a "promising" economic recovery, said Paul Rawkins, a senior director at the ratings firm. He added that Iceland has successfully completed a program with the International Monetary Fund...

worth a listen :)

In the 1970s and 1980s, the proponents of wind power claimed that renewables would be cost-competitive in a few years if they just received some subsidies for a few years. But thirty years later, renewables proponents are still clamoring for subsidies from U.S. taxpayers. Despite a trillion dollar deficit, President Obama is once again responding to the renewable promoters and asking Congress to approve his budget with billions of dollars in energy subsidies. The President’s proposed budget would renew and extend a number of renewable subsidies including the 1603 program which pays for as much as much as 30 percent...

“We bought Proview’s worldwide rights to the iPad trademark in 10 different countries several years ago. Proview refuses to honor their agreement with Apple, and a Hong Kong court has sided with Apple in this matter.” That was Apple’s statement to AllThingsD Wednesday on its increasingly contentious battle with Hong Kong-based Proview Technology, which insists it still owns the rights to the iPad trademark in China. And here’s the court decision to back it up. In it, Judge Hon Poon writes that Proview’s conduct smells of conspiracy driven by financial desperation, and that there’s reason to believe that it acted...

Apple Releases First Developer Preview of OS X Mountain Lion, Public Launch in Late Summer Thursday February 16, 2012 5:54 am PST by Eric Slivka Apple today announced that it has released the first developer preview of the company's next-generation operating system, named OS X Mountain Lion. The release will bring over 100 new features, including a number of those familiar to iOS users such as Messages, Notes, Reminders, Game Center, Notification Center, Twitter integration, and AirPlay Mirroring. The first developer preview is available to registered developers today, with a public launch through the Mac App Store scheduled for...

In the perfect world of economic liberals, every commodity has its price. Limited supply makes goods more expensive and vice versa. That's how markets work—at least in theory. In practice, things often look different, and this is especially true when it comes to emissions trading, a business subject to a very different mechanism: laws dictated by the European Union. Economists have generally praised the trading scheme as a nearly ideal instrument for reducing harmful carbon dioxide emissions. … But for the last half year, prices for CO2 certificates have dropped almost continuously, decreasing by about half, to around €8 ($10.60)...

POOR AMERICA With one and a half million (1.5 million) American children now homeless, reporter Hilary Andersson meets the school pupils who go hungry in the richest country on Earth. From those living in the storm drains under Las Vegas to the tent cities now springing up around the United States, P a n o r a m a finds out how the poor are surviving in America and asks whatever happened to the supposed 'government' and the Real People in charge - those who you 'don't see' pulling on the strings; and their vision and welfare for the country....

The U.S. Mint is facing a problem -- especially during these penny-pinching times. It turns out it costs more to make pennies and nickels than the coins are worth. And because of that, the Obama administration this week asked Congress for permission to change the mix of metal that goes to make pennies and nickels, an expensive recipe that has remained unchanged for more than 30 years. .... Just the administrative cost of minting 4.3 billion pennies costs almost a half-cent per coin by itself, leaving precious little room to make a penny for less than a cent, no matter...

The U.S. new sanctions initiative, strongly supported by Israel, to impose new sanctions against Iran, is designed to punish it for its purported covert nuclear weapons program by imposing new restrictions on Tehran. As a result, many of Iran’s oil customers are scrambling to avoid collateral damage to their economies. The sanctions’ potential fallout is now hitting South Africa, Africa's biggest economy, which receives nearly 25 percent of its needs from Iran, roughly 98,000 barrels per day (bpd), or about 4 percent of Iran’s total exports. South Africa's economy, which has been hit by fuel shortages in the past because...

Question for FReepers. Where does a retired Sailor go for help when he is unemployed and completely broke? I have a friend in his mid-50's that served 8 years in the Navy back in the 70's. He didn't do his full 20 for retirement. He is a responsible, useful member of society, not a deadbeat. He has just been unable to find work, and I assume he has exhausted his benefits. He has recently been accepted into a veterans job re-entry program, but they won't have a bed for him for at least month. Where can a person like this...

Gallup, which unlike the BLS, does not fudge, Birth/Die, or seasonally adjust its data, has just released its most recent (un)employment data. And it’s not pretty: for all those hoping that the Labor Participation Rate fudge that managed to stun the world a few weeks ago with a major drop in the November jobless rate, don’t hold your breath. Gallup which constantly pools 30,000 people on a weekly basis, has found that for the past 4 weeks, both underemployment and unemployment have risen for 4 weeks in a row. And while the number of US workers “working part time and...

Moody's announced that it may soon downgrade the long-term credit ratings of 17 of the largest banks in the world. "Capital markets firms are confronting evolving challenges, such as more fragile funding conditions, wider credit spreads, increased regulatory burdens and more difficult operating conditions," wrote the credit ratings agency in a statement. "These difficulties, together with inherent vulnerabilities such as confidence-sensitivity, interconnectedness, and opacity of risk, have diminished the longer term profitability and growth prospects of these firms." Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and UBS could be downgraded by up to three notches. Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Credit Agricole, Deutsche Bank,...

At one time, there was no more famous nor more sought-after basketball player than Allen Iverson. Dubbed "The Answer" to a Michael Jordan-less NBA, Iverson scored numerous record-setting deals and endorsements. In NBA salary alone, he earned about $154 million, according to basketball-reference.com. Now, a judge in Georgia has ordered Iverson to pay the $860,000 he apparently owes a jeweler, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The problem is, he didn't have the cash to pay the jeweler, so the judge has ordered his bank accounts commandeered and his earnings garnished. Rumors about Iverson's insolvency began as far back as 2010, when...

Rich Arzaga owns a luxury home in San Ramon, California, but he's not betting on it as an investment. The founder and CEO of Cornerstone Wealth Management, who bought the 5,000 sq. ft. property in 2005 for $1.8 million and has spent $500,000 improving it, considers the abode a wonderful place for his family. But ask him to rate his home -- or any home, for that matter -- as a financial investment, and Arzaga balks. "It's the American Dream to own a home, but whoever said that didn't do the analysis on it," says Arzaga, knowing he's taking a...

[Excerp is Note 3 on page 59, commenting on the line Investments (which total over $916 billion dollars), under Assets on the balance sheet shown on page 45 of the report]... All of OPM investments are in securities issued by other Federal entities and are therefore classified as intragovernmental. See Note 1J for further explanation, including the amortization method. All of OPM’s investments are in U.S. Treasury and Federal Financing Bank securities held by earmarked funds—the Retirement, Health Insurance, and Life Insurance Programs. The Federal Government does not set aside assets to pay future benefits or other expenditures associated with...

Holly Chen is a former first-grade teacher, just over 5 feet tall, with a taste for sequins... "The most powerful weapon is to move somebody emotionally," she says... Today, Ms. Chen directs one in every 10 Amway reps—getting a cut along the way. Her total haul is estimated by one direct-sales magazine at $8 million a year. "I don't even know how much I make," she says to the group gathered in Las Vegas, part of the U.S. branch of chao fan. Turns out these are flush days for Michigan-based Amway, which sells its own brands of cosmetics and personal...

BOSTON (CBS) – The national health care reform law requires insurance companies to cover 100% of the cost of screening tests for dozens of potentially deadly diseases. But thousands of patients are finding out the hard way that free doesn’t always mean free. When Jim Dungee had his first colonoscopy, doctors found several polyps, which are a precursor to colon cancer. “Therefore, I had to come back in three years,” he said. The three year mark was back in December. Knowing the test could save his life, Jim did not hesitate to make an appointment. He even called his insurance...

President Obama is touring a Master Lock factory in Milwaukee on Wednesday to urge manufacturers to return jobs to the United States-- part of a wider plan by his administration to increase the number of domestic manufacturing jobs. "Right now we have an excellent opportunity to bring manufacturing back-- but we have to seize it," Obama intends to say, according to prepared remarks released by the White House.

"Well we're not there because this recession turned out to be a lot deeper than any of us realized," Obama said about his inability to cut the deficit in half. (SNIP) a lot of us didn't understand at that point how bad it was going to get. That increases the deficit because less tax revenues come in, and it means that more people are getting unemployment insurance, we're helping states more so they don't teachers, etc. The key though is we're setting ourselves on a path where we can get our debt under control.

Gallup released new information on Monday showing that the unemployment rate has managed to creep back up to 9.0 percent. Gallup gathers daily unemployment information of U.S. adults in the workforce, ages 18 and older, who are underemployed, unemployed, and employed full-time for an employer. However, unlike the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report that the administration cites, Gallup's data are raw numbers numbers and not packaged with seasonal adjustments. With seasonal adjustments, BLS shows the unemployment rate at 8.3 percent. Gallup also shows the underemployment rate is at 19.2%.

"If they don't get the Drachma back, you will be responsible for something truly truly horrible!".

n an interview with Atlanta's local Fox affiliate WAGA-TV Preisdent Obama explains why he was unable to cut the deficit in half in his first term, a promise he made as a candidate. Obama was lobbed the question by a sympathetic reporter who said he is getting "pelted in the media" for making a campaign promise he did not keep.

He’s best known for his serpentine tongue and devilish makeup, but Gene Simmons is a dead serious businessman... [snip]

Latest Levin show transcription. Hour 3. 2/13/12. We need to transcribe his radio program more often. Mark, enjoy Hillsdale. I pray for you, buddy, every single day by name. God Bless Mark Levin, keep him healthy, and give him strength and endurance and grace to lead and spread his word of liberty and peace. We need you. Stay well. God Bless and keep kicking ass.

General Electric Antares Group living BIG at Beaver Creek Resort with private ski instructors at $745 USD a day for EACH PRIVATE INSTRUCTOR! (Not what the teachers make, that's what the ski school gets to rent a private instructor for ONE DAY.) They are getting private race coaching and rented the NASTAR Race Course for most of today. Private racing for GE HONCHOS! After he passed on this information I went to NASTAR.com and found the race, complete with names. I wasn't sure everyone on the list was connected with GE Antares because there are a bunch of Colorado addresses....

In a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Soros lowered his holdings in Apple by more than 222,000 shares to 95,000 for the quarter ended on Dec. 31, from the quarter ended Sept. 30.

Parents at Warren High School in Downey were shocked by what we discovered about a two-story concrete classroom building that does not meet today’s earthquake-related building codes. But it was just one of thousands of school buildings that state experts said could be putting children at risk in the next big earthquake, including schools from Laguna Beach to Ventura; San Bernardino to Glendora; and many communities in between. The wakeup call came on the evening of March 10, 1933, in Long Beach when 230 school buildings were either destroyed or severely damaged in a 6.3-magnitude quake. Just one month later...

Twinkie lovers may want to stock up on their golden Hostess treats. This time it is not the food police who are threatening the yummy cakes. ABC News says teamsters are making strike threats to Hostess, which is in an operational bankruptcy at the moment. If there is a union strike, production of Twinkies will cease

...and I'm not the only one that got it. I generally ignore these kinds of things from these kinds of people. But I thought this one would be fun for fellow freepers to pick apart. Its not violently communists or anti-capitalist. It's fairly mild compared to other things he sends. In fact, I suspect he doesn't even realize it is commie oriented. As usual though, he mixes environmentalism with communism in all his ideas and propaganda. I responded to him with a very short explanation that we can't live without a modern economy anymore since we don't have the naturally...

The American left. They championed Occupy Wall Street, they champion Socialism, and they champion class warfare. Just the other day, I heard Bob Beckel call the Republicans the party of the rich. Now it doesn't take a genius to use Google and it doesn't take much digging to find out that seven of the top ten richest members of congress are Democrats. These members of congress sport last names such as Kerry, Rockefeller, and Feinstein. It also doesn't take much digging to find some of President Obama's biggest donors were evil corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Google, JP Morgan...

Rick Santorum address crowd in Idaho.

Tablet sales will hit nearly 500 million units a year by 2015, according to a new report by BI Intelligence. Tablet sales in 2015 will exceed the number of PCs currently sold per year (~360 million) and make tablets a $100+ billion market. The forecast, which includes e-readers, predicts that tablet sales will grow at better than a 50% compound annual growth rate over the next few years. The growth will be driven by falling prices combined with tablet penetration in the enterprise and education markets, as well as emerging markets. Here are some highlights from the report, whose lead...

In this morning's Cashin's Comments, Art Cashin points to some disturbing research regarding the recent bump in disability benefit applications:I’m Sick Of Being Unemployed - A couple of strange and rather disquieting reports circulated among the Friends of Fermentation yesterday.  The topic was unemployment or, more specifically, where do those people go who have stopped looking for work.  Their absence is credited with distorting the unemployment rate and making it lower than most expect or believe.The reports I allude to, contended that many went on disability.  In fact, they projected that nearly 25% of those not actively seeking a job...

In the United States today, unemployment among those age 18 to age 34 is at epidemic levels and the number of young adults that are now living at home with Mom and Dad is at an all-time high. So why are so many of our young adults jobless? Why are record numbers of them unable or unwilling to move out on their own? Well, there are quite a few factors at work. Number one, our education system has completely and totally failed them. As I have written about previously, our education system is a joke and most high school...

In the United States today, unemployment among those age 18 to age 34 is at epidemic levels and the number of young adults that are now living at home with Mom and Dad is at an all-time high. So why are so many of our young adults jobless? Why are record numbers of them unable or unwilling to move out on their own? Well, there are quite a few factors at work. Number one, our education system has completely and totally failed them. As I have written about previously, our education system is a joke and most high school...

Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in the midst of an official visit to China. His mission? To convince Beijing’s mandarins to buy Canada’s Alberta oil sands hydrocarbon production, now that Republican Congressional overreach has effectively sidelined the Keystone XL pipeline, designed to transit the oil to U.S. Gulf of Mexico refineries, for the foreseeable future. Harper faces an uphill struggle, as China is questioning the delays in implementing the Northern Gateway pipeline, to transit Alberta’s oil to Canada’s western coast for transshipment to China. Complicating the picture, Harper has a weak hand of cards, and both he and...

You know there is a reason why Europe just came crawling with an advance handout looking for US assistance: Moody's jsut went apeshit on Europe. In other news, we wouldn't want to be the company that insured Moody's Milan offices.Full release:Moody's adjusts ratings of 9 European sovereigns to capture downside risksAs anticipated in November 2011, Moody's Investors Service has today adjusted the sovereign debt ratings of selected EU countries in order to reflect their susceptibility to the growing financial and macroeconomic risks emanating from the euro area crisis and how these risks exacerbate the affected countries' own specific challenges.Moody's...

Earlier today, Obama formally proposed his 2013 budget (link) which sees a $1.33 trn budget deficit in the 2013 fiscal year - more than the $1.296 trillion 2011 budget deficit, which unfortunately indicates that even with rather rosy assumptions, the deficit hole continues to grow, which also means that the debt plug will be higher in the next year compared to the prior, which in turn lends even more credibility to the US debt clock analysis which assumes a nearly 140% debt/GDP ratio by the end of a potential second Obama term. While that will likely end up being an...

Hungary has taken a bold stand against biotech giant Monsanto and genetic modification by destroying 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar. Unlike many European Union countries, Hungary is a nation where genetically modified (GM) seeds are banned. In a similar stance against GM ingredients, Peru has also passed a 10 year ban on GM foods.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U73xKgbXh68&feature=channel_video_title

As corporations slash costs by downsizing staff, discontinuing 401K match programs and dropping lavish bonuses, some Boulder-area companies continue to deploy unconventional perks to lure and retain workers. These benefits go beyond the usual health and dental insurance to include beer on tap, on-site yoga instructors and unlimited burritos -- all designed to make it easier to attract potential talent and increase productivity. Because Boulder is a hub for science, technology and health industries that compete globally for the best talent and ideas, some of the city's companies have stepped up their incentive game.

Whitney Houston might have passed away Saturday, but it’s clear her fans will always love the legendary singer. Not surprisingly, news of her death catapulted some of her greatest hits to the top of the music charts today. On iTunes, Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” is currently the No. 1 download, while “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” is finding a place in the top 10.

The announcements flowed out of Rick Santorum’s Senate office: a $3.5 million federal grant to Piasecki Aircraft to help it test a new helicopter propeller technology; another $3.5 million to JLG Industries to bolster its bid to build all-terrain forklifts for the military; $1.4 million to Medico Industries to upgrade equipment for its munitions work. [snip]