Free Republic

Should Detroit have seen this disaster coming? Yes. Gasoline prices have been climbing steadily for more than three years now. The Bush-Bernanke debasement of the dollar didn't do Detroit any favors, because the dollar's collapse has contributed mightily to the soaring price of crude oil. But the Detroit Three stuck with a business model based on leasing SUVs for way too long. The two things wrong with that model were, well, leasing and SUVs. The residual values on which SUV lease payments are based turned out to be enormously inflated. With gas around $4 a gallon, the auto makers can't...

For years, hyperactive environmentalists have burned votive candles to the spirit in the sky, hoping she'd levitate energy prices high enough to make alternatives to oil economically feasible. That day has come. Result: The oil has hit the fan. With gasoline over $4 and with life as they love it in the suburbs being shut down, did people call for the windmills? Nope. A heavy majority want to drill the bejeezus out of anywhere in America we can find familiar black slop. No one has been hit harder by this unexpected truth than Nancy Pelosi and her green brigades. Fearful...

The Democratic presidential nomination all but officially his, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, today asked the Democratic National Convention's credentials committee to urge the full seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations, which had been penalized for holding their contests early against party rules. "Party unity calls for the delegates from Florida and Michigan to be able to participate fully alongside the delegates from the other states and territories,' Obama wrote in a letter to credentials committee chairs Alexis Herman, James Roosevelt, Jr., and Eliseo Roques-Arroyo. "Accordingly, I ask that the Credentials Committee, when it meets on August 24 to approve...

When measured in ounces of Gold, the DOW has been in a secular bear market since peaking in late 1999. Back in 1999, it took 45 ounces of gold to buy the DJIA. Today it only takes 12.33 ounces of gold to buy the DOW! Cutting the Fed Funds target rate from 6.50% in January 2001 to 1.0% in June 2003 may have inflated the US stock market out of its bear market when priced in dollars but it had consequences that we are feeling today.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- Dennis Pflueger and his wife won a rent-free year in a nice new house in an expensive subdivision not far from the headquarters of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. As part of the prize, they then have the option to buy the four-bedroom home for $452,000. Mr. Pflueger, a telephone-cable installer who describes himself as an "old redneck," is in the middle of his free year. But the Pfluegers are a bit lonely. Just one other family lives in any of the 28 new or unfinished houses on Foxboro Court. ...Since real-estate tanked, many new planned communities across the...

SOME VERY IMPORTANT POINTS ABOUT INFLATIONWe expect that we will soon be seeing inflation data show that inflation in China and other parts of Asia is moderating. All that this means is that the rate of inflation, which was for example 11% for the last 12 months, may be falling to 6 % for the next 12 months. Inflation is a rate of change calculation. When you have a high rate of change in year One and it goes to a lower rate of change in year Two, then the data says inflation is lower. However, prices are not lower....

Our housing finance system has been broken for quite some time, creating perverse incentives for borrowers and lenders....a major financial bailout of the system is probably inevitable. Conservatives can rightly argue that had Congressional Democrats not blocked the various initiatives of the Bush administration to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the past five years, we would not be sitting at the precipice like we are today. First, Congress rejected a proposal that Fannie and Freddie be barred from paying dividends if they are receiving injections of capital from the federal government. Freddie Mac paid $1.6 billion in dividends...

During slumber, our brain engages in data analysis, from strengthening memories to solving problems ...Until the mid-1950s, scientists generally assumed that the brain was shut down while we snoozed. Although German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus had evidence in 1885 that sleep protects simple memories from decay, for decades researchers attributed the effect to a passive protection against interference. We forget things, they argued, because all the new information coming in pushes out the existing memories. But because there is nothing coming in while we get shut-eye, we simply do not forget as much. Then, in 1953, the late physiologists Eugene Aserinsky...

...Obama says that as president he will “set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year.” What he doesn’t say is that he’ll make such voluntarism compulsory by attaching strings to federal education dollars. The schools will make the kids volunteer. It’s called plausible deniability. In a commencement speech at Wesleyan University, Obama advised graduates not to pursue the American dream of success, but to serve others. “You can take your diploma, walk off this stage and...

Politics: “I’m trying to save the planet,” declares House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which is a lot for one person. When challenged in an interview with Politico.com about her bullheaded refusal to let Republicans submit energy policies for approval, Pelosi resorted to risible hyperbole to justify her iron-fisted rule of the House parliamentary process. “I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet,” she responded. “I will not have this debate trivialized by their excuse for their failed policy.” If the San Francisco Democrat’s magisterial narcissism isn’t offputting enough, her intent should be. She’s saying that her importance...

Just as he courageously opposed subsidies for energy-inefficient ethanol before the Iowa caucus, whose mandated use has driven up food prices, the presumptive GOP nominee ventured to electoral-vote-rich California on Monday to repeat his support for offshore drilling. His call comes despite lingering California angst over the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill that prompted current restrictions off the California coast. Critics of offshore drilling, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, use the spill of 80,000 barrels of crude some six miles off Santa Barbara nearly four decades ago to block efforts to recover the 1.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil off...

...Mr. McCain's first Iraq problem is that he favored removing Saddam Hussein when it was popular -- 76% of Americans thought it was worth going to war in April 2003 -- and has maintained his support of the war even as it grew to be unpopular. In January, only 32% of Americans said the war was worth it. Mr. McCain's second Iraq problem is that the success of the surge he advocated has made it easier for voters to believe we can accelerate the drawdown of U.S. troops. This belief makes Mr. Obama's proposal to withdraw in 16 months seem...

The demise of the Doha trade round is another blow to the struggling world economy, and there's plenty of blame to go around. But the crucial question going forward is whether this is merely a temporary setback, or if it marks the end of the post-World War II free-trade era that has done so much to spread prosperity. We tend by nature and history toward optimism, but no one should sugar-coat Doha's collapse. For the first time since the multilateral trading rounds began after World War II, a trade expansion effort has ended in failure. In 1990, trade represented about...

One of the most appealing features of the Barack Obama candidacy is the idea that Obama is "postracial"--that he is a candidate who is black and does not practice the adversarial politics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton... But a story in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin raises serious questions about Obama's postracialism. The paper describes an Obama appearance at Unity '08, "a convention of four minority journalism In this view, the following deeds are insufficient to balance the ledger between America and the descendants of slaves: the Civil War, the ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, Brown v. Board...

Raising the tens of millions needed for today's high-priced political campaigns requires creativity, and Sen. Frank Lautenberg's latest idea ranks right up there with the best of them: Scalp Bruce Springsteen tickets. Maybe the New Jersey Democrat thinks the Garden State is "the land of hope and dreams" - and took that Springsteen song, whose opening words are, "Grab your ticket," literally. The senator's re-election campaign grabbed 40 prime house seats, $108 each, to today's concert at Giants Stadium from the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority - tickets not available to the general public. Lautenberg planned to distribute the...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that Barack Obama now attracts 45% of the vote while John McCain earns 43%. When "leaners" are included, it’s Obama 48% and McCain 46% (see recent daily results). Tracking Polls are released at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time each day. In the race for the White House, there are nearly twice as many uncommitted voters as there were four years ago in late July (see other recent demographic highlights). While much has been made of John McCain’s struggles with his party’s conservative base, 33% of the uncommitted voters are Democrats while...

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted to extend the temporary rules it put in place to restrict short-selling of a handful of financial stocks. The SEC commissioners didn't take additional steps opposed by Wall Street to expand the number of stocks affected by the rules or make them permanent. The temporary rules were set to expire Tuesday, and the SEC extended the order on the 19 stocks until Aug. 12. It won't be extended beyond then. In a short sale, a trader sells borrowed stock in a bet the price will decline and the stock can be profitably repurchased at...

...In recent weeks, Mr. McCain has been waving the flag of fear (Senator Barack Obama wants to “lose” in Iraq), and issuing attacks that are sophomoric (suggesting that Mr. Obama is a socialist) and false (the presumptive Democratic nominee turned his back on wounded soldiers). Mr. McCain used to pride himself on being above this ugly brand of politics, which killed his own 2000 presidential bid. But he clearly tossed his inhibitions aside earlier this month when he put day-to-day management of his campaign in the hands of one acolyte of Mr. Rove and gave top positions to two others....

FOSSTON, Minn. — The first reports of something amiss in the wheat fields east of here came early Sunday from barking dogs and bawling cows, but no livestock is missing — no people, either — so locals seem inclined to doubt that alien spaceships made a stop at Dean Sorgaard’s place. Still, after a UPS driver passing through the area relayed sightings of mysterious “crop circles” to Fosston Mayor Jim Offerdahl, the mayor drove out to check for himself. “I’m no expert,” Offerdahl said, trying to sound both skeptical and open-minded, “but either somebody was out having some fun or...

The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index, a closely watched gauge of U.S. home prices, show price declines continued to worsen in May, with every region measured showing year-over-year drops for the second straight month. David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at Standard and Poor's, discusses the latest S&P/Case Shiller home-price index, which showed price declines continued to worsen in May. (July 29) Separately, consumers' take on the economy stagnated in July, although there was some sign moods may be improving over the economy's longer run prospects, a report Tuesday said. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller indices, home prices in...