Free Republic

In the denouement of the film There Will Be Blood, the antihero Daniel Planview dramatically reveals to his nemesis that he has secretly siphoned away all of the latter's underground oil. "Drainage!" he bellows, as only Daniel Day-Lewis can, "Drained dry. I'm so sorry. Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that's a straw, you see? You watching? And my straw reaches across the room, and starts to drink your milkshake. I... drink... your... milkshake! [sucking sound]" Through inflation (expanding the money supply), as I will show, the...

"Today is a win for transparency in government and the taxpayers of Wisconsin. The Court of Appeals has agreed with the MacIver Institute that Sen. Erpenbach cannot carve out a special exemption to the open records law for whomever he chooses or try to hide public information when he works for Wisconsin taxpayers," Brett Healy, President of the MacIver Institute said. "Government employees and their unions should not be given a cloak of anonymity to hide their attempts to influence the legislative process. Today's decision requires them to play by the same rules as everyone else." The Court of Appeals...

When the season dawned, Michigan State was the consensus pick to win the Big Ten. And for good reason, with talents like Gary Harris, Adreian Payne, Keith Appling and Branden Dawson, among others. Wisconsin? The Badgers were supposed to be good—they always are under Bo Ryan, never finishing lower than fourth place. But Ryan’s club has taken things to another level this season during an unexpected march to the Final Four as a No. 2 seed after going 12-6 in the Big Ten. At one point this season, Wisconsin was 4-5 in Big Ten play. Look at the Badgers now....

For the survivalist, outdoor enthusiast, hiker or end of world planner, this is the perfect long life vacuum packed one day supply of food. Set up like the military MRE Meal-Ready-To-Eat, this is a vacuum packed daily ration of food. And it all weighs under a pound. The total cost of this DIY full day supply of food is just a fraction of the cost of commercial freeze dried food packs. Anyone who has gone on an extended hike knows that every ounce of weight you carry adds up fast. It is important to get all of your gear down...

The rise of the modern "prepper" is no accident, with shows like National Geographic Channel's, 'Doomsday Preppers' heralding a larger shift in social awareness. In the wake of storms like Katrina, Irene, and Sandy, even stubborn New Yorkers are realizing that Mother Nature packs a punch, and that most people aren't ready to roll with it. This, combined with rising concerns about economic troubles ans a bumbling government, has caused a flood of newbie preppers to take to the stores, eagerly looking for the security of stored food, water, and medicines. The prospect can be daunting, especially if you're trying...

DRESSER, WI - Wisconsinites embrace winter almost as much as they love their cheese. It was only a matter of time until someone combined the two. "Only in Wisconsin," laughs Polk County plow driver Kevin Jensen. A flip of a switch and his truck starts dispensing a mix of salt and cheese brine, straight from a local dairy plant. "I've gotten ribbing from other counties," admits Moe Norby, the Polk County Highway Department technical support manager who came up with the idea. Norby contacted F & A Dairy Products in Dresser which bathes its mozzarella and provolone cheeses in tanks...

Ten bombs fell on Rwandan territory on Thursday and the "provocation can no longer be tolerated", said Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo. A Congolese army spokesman denied the allegations. UN and Congolese forces have been pounding M23 rebel positions on its side of the border since last week. DR Congo and the UN accuse Rwanda of backing the M23, a charge it denies. BBC Great Lakes service editor Ally Yusuf Mugenzi says that even when Rwanda twice invaded Congolese territory during the 1990s, it never made such strong accusations against the Congolese army.

Tyler Rodgers lost his little boy Brayden to a terrible accident. "I ran back to the bedroom as quick as I could and the TV was laying on top of him. From there I started screaming call 911." The TV was on a dresser and both had toppled onto the three-year-old, causing a fatal head injury. And a new study in the journal Pediatrics finds accidents like Brayden's are becoming more common. "Each year in this country, more than 17,000 children are rushed to hospital emergency departments for TV-related injuries," says Gary Smith.

WASHINGTON — A record number of American women are now the sole or primary breadwinners in their families, a sign of the rising influence of working mothers, a new study finds. Mothers now keep finances afloat in 40 percent of households with children, up from just 11 percent in 1960. While most of these families are headed by single mothers, a growing number are married mothers who bring in more income than their husbands, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center. As the numbers have shifted, however, public attitudes have remained mixed about the impact of...

Employer spending on benefits rose at the slowest pace on record in the first quarter, as companies began bracing for higher health costs with next year's launch of ObamaCare. Total benefits, such as insurance and pension contributions, rose just 0.1% vs. the end of last year, the smallest gain in Labor Department data going back to 2001. By comparison, payroll employment grew by a half-million, or 0.4%, in Q1. So benefits-per-worker declined. Total employee benefits provided outside of government jobs declined outright. *SNIP* Given that service-sector benefit costs rose throughout the past decade, even in much-weaker economic conditions than now,...

Does inflation matter? If you ask this question to the Fed, it appears like it doesn’t. The Fed is doing everything it can to stoke the fires of inflation. Instead, what it is doing is causing further asset bubbles and misallocation of capital in markets. For most people the cost of living is becoming more expensive. Tuition costs are soaring, healthcare is extremely expensive, energy costs have reached a new level, and incomes are stalled. It is hard to see how inflation is a good thing when incomes get stuck but it is also part of the plan. The psychology...

I had the opportunity this afternoon to connect with Peter Schiff, CEO and Chief Global Strategist of Euro Pacific Capital. It was a fascinating conversation, which took place while gold was absolutely collapsing. During the interview, Peter explained that today’s sell-off, triggered by a Goldman Sachs sell recommendation was based on the “false idea” of European Central Bank gold sales hitting the market. Instead he explained, gold is preparing its move “from weak hands to strong hands”, before heading to new all-time highs. When asked his thoughts on the complete panic in the market this afternoon, Peter commented that, ”Gold...

*SNIP* The following is the global financial pyramid scheme by the numbers... -$9,283,000,000,000 - The total amount of all bank deposits in the United States. The FDIC has just 25 billion dollars in the deposit insurance fund that is supposed to "guarantee" those deposits. In other words, the ratio of total bank deposits to insurance fund money is more than 371 to 1. -$10,012,800,000,000 - The total amount of mortgage debt in the United States. As you can see, you could take every penny out of every bank account in America and it still would not cover it. -$10,409,500,000,000 -...

Isn’t retirement supposed to be a time of reduced stress? A new survey from Franklin Templeton finds that nearly three-quarters (73%) of Americans report thinking about retirement saving and investing to be a source of stress and anxiety. The survey, “2013 Franklin Templeton Retirement Income Strategies and Expectations,” also finds more than a third (37%) of respondents indicated they were more concerned about outliving their assets or having to make major sacrifices to their retirement plans today than 12 months ago. In response to this, two-thirds (67%) of pre-retirees indicated they were willing to make financial sacrifices now in order...

The U.S. health care system is a giant money making scam that is designed to drain as much money as possible out of all of us before we die. In the United States today, the health care industry is completely dominated by government bureaucrats, health insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations. The pharmaceutical corporations spend billions of dollars to convince all of us to become dependent on their legal drugs, the health insurance companies make billions of dollars by providing as little health care as possible, and they both spend millions of dollars to make sure that our politicians in Washington...

In the Great Sequestration Debate, here’s what we know: (a) The president has paternity of an idea he now characterizes as a brutal and senseless assault on America. (b) The president and his then-chief of staff, Jack Lew, misled the public about their role in giving birth to the sequester idea. (c) House Republicans have twice passed legislation to avoid the sequester cuts with carefully targeted ones, but Senate Democrats refused to act. (d) Mr. 0bama has brushed off a Republican plan to give him flexibility to allocate the $85 billion in spending cuts, which makes no sense if the...

It was a year of many records for the gold market. No, gold prices didn’t reach an absolute record high in 2012 as some had forecasted, but it was still a year of many records for the gold market, according to the World Gold Council’s latest Demand Trends report. In fact, gold prices averaged $1722 during the last three months of the year, the WGC said. That’s a record quarterly price. Unfortunately for bulls, gold demand on a volume basis didn’t reach a record. Indeed, it fell by 4 percent to 4,406 metric tons. However, on a value basis, annual...

We got a big reminder of the importance of government spending in the Q4 GDP report. The damn military delayed some expenditures for a few months, and it knocked 1.3% of the quarter’s growth rate. If it weren’t for the pikers at the Pentagon, we would have been in the black. GDP = Jobs, and everyone wants jobs, so it would be “patriotic” if the Generals and Admirals got off of their asses and and got back to spending. Right? As it turns out, the Top Brass can’t move the economy’s needle, at least not compared to other parts of...

#1 The mainstream media was absolutely shocked when it was announced that U.S. GDP actually contracted at an annual rate of 0.1 percent during the fourth quarter of 2012. This was the first contraction that the official numbers have shown in more than three years. But of course the truth is that the official numbers always make things appear better than they really are. According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, U.S. GDP growth has actually been continuously negative all the way back to 2005 once you account "for distortions in government inflation usage and methodological changes that have resulted in...

In this week’s talk with National Numismatics’ Tom Cloud, he explains why Germany’s gold repatriation is just the beginning, the US Mint’s silver shortage will continue, and the big money is right about precious metals. DollarCollapse: Hi Tom. It’s been an eventful few weeks in precious metals, though you wouldn’t know from the price action alone. Hit the high points for us. Tom Cloud: Germany’s gold repatriation is obviously a game changer. They got all their gold back from France right away. But the US government put them off for 7 years, probably by offering them some kind of premium...