Free Republic

Mickey Kaus alerts us to the latest Greenberg-Carville's Democracy Corps poll suggesting that 6% of likely voters might vote for Lou Dobbs in a Romney-Obama race in 2012. Even tossing a hypothetical Green party candidacy by Ralph Nader into the mix, their numbers raise the possibility that a Dobbs candidacy might well take a serious bite out of the Republican vote. As a third-party candidate, Dobbs does bear some resemblance to Ross Perot in 1992: he's focused on nationalism issues (trade, immigration) rather than moral issues; his style is secular rather than religious; he speaks in specifics that create the...

After soaring in 2007 and again in 2008, farm income has plunged in 2009 with little improvement expected in the next few years. A 30% drop in 2009 farm income is projected by the US Agriculture Department. Except for recession in 2002, this will drop the constant dollar value of farm income back to the level of the early 1980s when the farm crisis was headline news. The relatively strong economies and construction markets in the plains states in the last few years were due largely to soaring farm income. But these states are at a high risk of lagging...

A dollar plunge could ravage the U.S. economy as soon as 2012, when foreign investors are likely to exit en masse from U.S. assets, according to a new book by two analysts who forecast the recent credit crisis. Even after credit, stock and housing bubbles popped in the past two years, dollar denominated assets are still overvalued, and a bigger crisis is yet to come, write the authors of "Aftershock: Protect yourself and profit in the next global financial meltdown". Huge U.S. government debt issuance will drag the dollar into a much deeper dive, say analysts David Wiedemer and Robert...

The unemployment rate is advertised at a concerning 10.2%, but more honest assessments are pegging the number at closer to 17.5%. What the media isn't telling you is that the unemployment rate for young black Americans is closer to a shocking 35%. It seems that destroying the black middle class is one war Obama is totally OK with.

When all is said and done after the holidays, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection may be the only option for many chains, Cohen added. Then again, maybe retailers can rely on Cramer's optimism that everyone is massively underestimating the unemployed consumer who has bet the house and the dog on those one hundred shares of Amazon stock. In the past, for example, retailers like Nordstrom would bring in holiday merchandise early and reorder the best-selling items. This strategic tool likely will not be available to them this year. “Reorders will be down significantly this year, simply because the merchandise...

Brain waves will replace keyboard and mouse, dial phones and change TV channel By the year 2020, you won't need a keyboard and mouse to control your computer, say Intel Corp. researchers. Instead, users will open documents and surf the Web using nothing more than their brain waves. Scientists at Intel's research lab in Pittsburgh are working to find ways to read and harness human brain waves so they can be used to operate computers, television sets and cell phones. The brain waves would be harnessed with Intel-developed sensors implanted in people's brains.

Banks Grapple With Debt Avalanche BY CARRICK MOLLENKAMP AND SERENA NG Banks have spent the past year dealing with a mountain of bad assets. Now attention is turning to trillions of dollars of debt they have maturing over the next few years. Banks unable to maneuver around the challenge could be forced to refinance their debt at sharply higher costs. The situation was caused by banks engaging in cheap borrowing during the credit-market boom that began in the middle of the decade and lasted through 2007. As financial markets hit crisis mode, banks were propped up by government guarantees that...

"White House Defends Stimulus Act Despite Government Audit Questioning the Job Numbers" SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) - The White House defended the effectiveness of the economic stimulus act on Monday after a government audit last week called many of the reported job numbers into question. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that $173 billion of the $787 billion stimulus package had been paid out by the federal government as of Sept. 30. That’s about 22 percent of the total, and it indicates that 78 percent of the stimulus funds have not been paid out – at a time when unemployment was rising."

Republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut Peter Schiff destroys Obama's ideas for "bailing out" the American economy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XipUWfxZ0lk&feature=subtivity

There is very little difference between democrats and republicans and the people get frustrated with that. On the surface they pretend they are different and quibble about things; but at the end of the day they both want the same stuff, bigger government. They might argue on how we grow it but they all want it to be bigger and the argument is :should the taxes be 38% or 32%?’ No one is talking about having them zero or ten percent. They argue about the trivial stuff, there is no substantial difference. The Republicans are making a big deal about...

As the economy's downturn continues to loom over America and employment remains to be a daily issue, the problem is almost magnified for the young males in the Black community. 34.5% of young Black men are unemployed. Reported in October, unemployment for African-American men between the ages of 16 and 24 has skyrocketed. The percent is more than three times the unemployment rate for the entire U.S. population. This month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment for Blacks in D.C had risen from 11.4% to 11.9%, although employment was stable for other races located in Maryland and Virginia....

One woman has not forgotten September 11th, 2001. Debra Burlingame, sister of Chic Burlingame, pilot of AA Flight 77 that was crashed into the Pentagon, wants the world to know she is not happy with President Obama’s and AG Eric Holder’s decision to try the 9-11 terrorists, including KSM, in Federal Court in New York. She’s has formed the 9-11 “Never Forget” coalition, and making arrangements for a nationwide protest on December 5th. The Coalition formed to fight the decision of President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to try the 9/11 co-conspirators in New York City’s federal court,...

Is the asshat in chief using the war in Afghanistan to redistribute the wealth? STAND UP AMERICA, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread!

The American economy, the world's largest, grew by only 2.8 per cent between July and September, far below the original 3.5 per cent estimate. Although today's figures mean that the US has cemented its emergence from recession in the third quarter — leaving Britain as the only major economy in a full-blown slowdown — the rise in gross domestic product (GDP) is less than expected, with analysts forecasting a 2.9 per cent rise in services and output. GDP, a key gauge of a country's economic health, measures all goods and services produced by a nation. Figures were sharply revised down...

Any good ideas what to invest in to protect against further currency devaluations and economic drops? What are you doing or thinking of doing?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Economic growth was weaker in the third quarter than originally reported, according to government data released Tuesday. The gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economic activity, rose at an annual rate of 2.8% in the three months ending in September, according to the Commerce Department's first revision of the reading. The initial reading of the report a month ago came in with a 3.5% growth rate. The decline in the growth rate was expected, in large part because of a recent report showing a growing gap between the nation's imports and exports. Importing...

It's beginning to look a lot like a "W." After logging the fastest rate of growth in two years last quarter, the economy appears to be losing steam during the current period. This is no big surprise; the consensus of forecasters surveyed weekly by MarketWatch has long been expecting slower growth during the fourth quarter. Their latest projections call for a growth rate of 2.5% -- a percentage point slower than the government's preliminary take on the previous quarter. (See Economic Calendar.) There's plenty of evidence that our panel may be right -- if not a tad optimistic. For one...

Despite some signs that the economy is on the mend, a lack of confidence from consumers and companies alike may hamper job growth during the next few months, economists say. Unlike this point last year, there are some indicators for optimism about the U.S. economy. The market seems to be on a rebound, with stock prices growing steadily since March. Meanwhile, the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, a broad indicator of the economy's strength, grew during the third quarter. It was the largest such growth since the summer of 2007. However, the unemployment rate is staggering. The national rate hit 10.2...

Police arrested 18 members of the Service Employees International Union on Monday night after they blocked rush hour traffic on Market Street about a block from Civic Center Plaza to protest job cuts in the face of San Francisco's budget deficit.

Timeline of job losses at link. It's interesting to watch it county by county. http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

These days, 24-year-old Delonta Spriggs spends much of his time cooped up in his mother's one-bedroom apartment in Southwest Washington, the TV blaring soap operas hour after hour, trying to stay out of the streets and out of trouble, held captive by the economy. As a young black man, Spriggs belongs to a group that has been hit much harder than any other by unemployment. Joblessness for 16-to-24-year-old black men has reached Great Depression proportions -- 34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population. And last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported...

WASHINGTON – Faced with limited job options, many young adults are turning to an old standby to weather the recession: moving back in with mom and dad. Nearly 1 in 7 parents with grown children say they had a "boomerang kid" move back home in the past year, according to a study being released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. In a turnabout in the rite of passage in which a college graduate finds a job and an apartment, many are returning to their parents' empty nests because of tight finances or as they pursue an advanced degree. "The journey...

1 in 4 Borrowers Under Water By RUTH SIMON and JAMES R. HAGERTY The proportion of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth has swelled to about 23%, threatening prospects for a sustained housing recovery. Nearly 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes in the third quarter, according to First American CoreLogic, a real-estate information company based in Santa Ana, Calif. These so-called underwater mortgages pose a roadblock to a housing recovery because the properties are more likely to fall into bank foreclosure and get dumped into an already saturated market. Economists...

Not that it matters politically because obviously she's a female Republican dunce and he's obviously a male Democratic genius. But Sarah Palin's poll numbers are strengthening. And President Obama's are sliding. Guess what? They're about to meet in the 40s. Depending, of course, on which recent set of numbers you peruse and how the questions are phrased, 307 days into his allotted 1,461 the 44th president's approval rating among Americans has slid to 49% or 48%, showing no popularity bounce from his many happy trips, foreign and domestic. Riding the wave of immense publicity and symbiotic media interest over her...

As many families gather for this splendid holiday feast, there are too many others who in the year suffer the American equivalent of hunger. This is more like deprivation and thankfully not the clinical malnutrition and starvation it is in the Third World. At the same time, this super-rich nation is also battling what is described as an epidemic of overweight and obesity. Obesity, according to the experts, is mushrooming faster than any other health problem. If not slowed down, it will exact $344 billion in health care costs in 2018. By that time 43 percent of Americans, or 103...

Forget buying a ton of gifts. A week before Thanksgiving, the holidays are shaping up as a season of no frills. And for some, the joy of family time and gift-giving has been replaced this year by a quest for basic necessities as more jobs are lost and unemployment benefits start to expire. Michigan, with one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation at 14.8 percent in September, has a food crisis going into the holiday season. "We have people coming to the food bank who said they were donating to us last year, but who are now out...

Miami's poorer residents have long complained that the city's meager public-transit system makes it harder for them to get to work. So when the Obama Administration announced the $787 billion stimulus plan earlier this year, many hoped some of that money would help fund plans like an expansion of Miami's undersized Metrorail system - especially a 10-mile northern extension that would reach into predominantly African-American and other minority communities largely cut off from downtown and other employment centers. But the project, in part because it's not considered as shovel-ready as jobs like existing highway maintenance, isn't getting any of...

Say goodbye to the 90 percent guarantee and reduced fees that sparked a rebound in Small Business Administration lending. In a few days, the SBA will run out of the $375 million in economic stimulus funds that enabled the agency to make these enhancements. As a result, beginning today, borrowers and lenders will have to make a choice: They can be put on a waiting list to receive these breaks as stimulus funds become available, or they can apply for a regular SBA loan with higher fees and a lower government guarantee for the lender. The SBA expects additional funds...

Corruption in congress.....has it reached it tipping point? COME ON AMERICA...STAND UP, GET OUT OF THE FETAL POSITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD. Be part of the 100 year plan! Welcome to the GLENN BECK television thread...Shake the cobwebs out of your brain...We are another day closer to the REVOLUTION that will change the 2010 elections. All comrades, infidels, sick twisted freaks and lurkers are welcome and are encouraged to participate in the thread. Join us won't you!

Rob Port at Say Anything noticed this story yesterday, which may explain to Barack Obama why his Porkulus bill hasn’t generated new jobs … well, one of the reasons, at least. The Associated Press reports that the increases in unemployment benefits have placed new burdens on businesses in the form of higher unemployment taxes — in Florida, a twelve-fold increase for next year. The result? Capital that may have gone towards hiring new employees will get sucked up by government instead:

It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact. In September of last year, American Thinker published my article, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. Part of a series, it connected then presidential candidate Barack Obama to individuals and organizations practicing a malevolent strategy for destroying our economy and our system of government. Since then the story of that strategy has found its way across the blogosphere, onto the airwaves of radio stations across the country, the Glenn Beck...

It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact. In September of last year, American Thinker published my article, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. Part of a series, it connected then presidential candidate Barack Obama to individuals and organizations practicing a malevolent strategy for destroying our economy and our system of government. Since then the story of that strategy has found its way across the blogosphere, onto the airwaves of radio stations across the country, the Glenn Beck...

. 9/11 SCOTT "Let's Roll" BEAMER's Dad called for "Regime Change USA-2010/2012" on FoX this morning.

It should be obvious by now that Barack Obama’s disastrous Cloward-Piven economic policies were not meant to lift the economy. After all, ask yourself, what would Obama be doing differently today if he intentionally set out to destroy the American economy? He’s tripled the national deficit in less than one year. He’s increased the national debt to $12 Trillion. And he’s nearly doubled the unemployment rate since the Bush years. Even Saturday Night Live and Chris Matthews can’t ignore it any longer. Jim Simpson at The American Thinker reported today on Obama’s Cloward-Piven economic plan: It is time to cast...

It's called "pink sheeting," a practice employed by union bosses to bully their membership to vote the "right" way. The practice consists of forcing employees to reveal deeply personal information about themselves -- such as abusive relationships, addictions, or legal trouble -- so that these items can be used against the employees at a later date to elicit cooperative behavior. Union members are denouncing the practice of pink sheeting while union chiefs, particularly those of the hotel employees union UNITE HERE, are either denying that they use the method or saying that the practice has been stopped. Read the rest...

WASHINGTON: In an extraordinary endorsement of the United States’ economic resilience, India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said questions about the American economic model and the setbacks it is suffering are temporary, and the country has the capacity to bounce back. Singh also gave a thumbs up to the beleaguered US dollar, saying ''as far as I can see right now, there is no substitute for the dollar.'' His own feeling, he said, ''is that we have not entered an era of irreversible shift in economic strength of the United States.'' The Indian prime minister’s comments came in an interview...

Heard on Fox News this morning that the great recession of 2008-2009 is over, and that job growth will greatly accelerate in 2010. Fox News source... NABE (National Association of Business Economics) NABE Outlook: Recovery Soon to Lose "Jobless" Label Reaffirming last month’s call that the Great Recession is over, NABE panelists have marked up their predictions for economic growth in 2010 and expect performance to exceed its long-term trend. NABE members can read the full survey online. There is a summary for the public. Are these poeple clueless? One just has to look at the leadership summary from its...

The economic programs and policies currently in place are truly astounding. I don't think I have ever seen a more harmful economic environment for the country. While some of these programs started with Bush, the Obama Administration has advanced them to insane levels. Logic, economics, common sense and history must be defied to believe a recovery is possible in this environment. The nation's standard of living will be substantially lowered unless changes in policies are forthcoming. To understand why this economy cannot recover under these policies, it is necessary to differentiate between the macroeconomic and microeconomic approach. Arguably, macroeconomics is...

If Americans would stop and think of the implication of having an insurance fund with no money backing up $9 trillion in their deposits, they would probably pause for a few minutes. And just because your money is sitting in a bank account doesn’t mean that it is safe. The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve is on a war path to devalue the dollar so even though your money is nominally the same, in real terms you have gotten a lot poorer. The dollar has fallen by over 15 percent since March. This is an enormous amount but given the...

Jobs that not only help save the planet but usher individuals and neighborhoods out of poverty - talk about a silver bullet. If the promise of green jobs sounds too good to be true, the simplicity of the logic is difficult to resist: Train and hire people who are economically marginalized in work that is critical but has been neglected. Instead of poor people getting stuck at the back of the line, they step to the front of the new technology. The Bay Area's Van Jones was a visionary, early recognizing the social justice potential in the green economy. Jones,...

The president’s visit to China was seen as failure, but what if that was just the new standard? Martin Jacques on why the U.S. must get used to decline—and learn humility. Obama’s visit to China last week was starkly different from previous such occasions. The United States has stumbled into a new era. Just a decade ago it all looked so different. President Bush—in one of history’s great miscalculations—believed that the world stood on the verge of a new American century. In fact, the opposite was the case. The defeat of the Soviet Union flattered only to deceive and mislead....

"Green energy" is proving to be no miracle solution to the nation's monumental unemployment problems, and it is doing little to help the economy emerge from its deepest recession in decades, economists say. A large part of the $786 billion stimulus bill was devoted to green or renewable energy projects, with President Obama, Democratic legislators and their environmental allies repeatedly promising that the money would be used to create an army of home weatherizers, wind-turbine factory jobs and other employment opportunities that would help put to work the nearly 8 million people who have lost jobs during the recession. The...

There seemed to be enough lawmakers on the Sunday news shows the day after a major health care reform vote to make up a quorum, but the one clear message that emerged was the long and difficult road the legislation has to go in the Senate . While New York Sen. Charles Schumer said on CBS Face the Nation that "now, the wind is at our back," Democrats wrestled with questions about how to keep aboard some in the party who were willing to vote to get debate started on the Senate floor, but still harbored serious reservations about provisions...

Not only timely and topical, but genuinely funny. And unlike the last time they hit him hard, this attack comes from the right. Who knew they had it in ‘em? Actually, spending is only a secondary concern here. The chief target is The One’s disintegrating credibility in selling his statist agenda. Never would I have guessed that the great orator’s inability to explain cost savings in ObamaCare would be the subject of late-night mockery this late in the game. No wonder his numbers are at new lows nationally and in the swing state that propelled him to the presidency.

The independence of the Federal Reserve is essential for credible monetary policy and doubts about the U.S. central bank's ability to do its job without political interference could hurt the nascent economic recovery, a senior Federal Reserve official said on Sunday. "Talk of eroding the Fed's independence can be counterproductive for economic recovery," St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said in slides to accompany a presentation prepared for a panel discussion in New York. Bullard said that non-independent central banks have historically been forced to finance large government budget deficits. "This can be very inflationary," he added. Last...

Visitors to America might have noticed the television ads urging us to buy gold. One such “spokesman”, formerly in charge of managing the government’s hoard of the yellow stuff, including the ingots buried at Fort Knox, points out that the value of gold has never fallen to zero. Why investors are expected to find such a modest claim reassuring I can’t imagine. But something is persuading people to buy gold, driving the price to and past $1,100 per ounce, from about $270 at the beginning of this decade, and around $700 when the financial crisis first hit.

Looks like it's up $$ 11.60 right now. I was thinking there were some contracts expiring today or something like that.

Saturday Night Live, the comedy show that famously mocked Sarah Palin last year (ala Tina Fey) turned the tables last night on President Obama. Focusing on U.S. relations with China, as well as the absurdity of government spending, they performed a new skit that was both timely and humorous. Humor is of course in the funny-bone of the beholder so I've included the video for you to make that decision for yourself.

The San Francisco Chronicle's Kenneth Harney is speculating on what the Federal Housing Authority may have to do to shore up its balance sheet. A few things should be kept in mind about such a move: 1. The FHA has been a main spigot through which the government has been propping up the real estate market (See: Real Time Madness: Watching the FHA Prop Up the Housing Market) 2. The FHA is in real bad shape. John Carney points out: The FHA has expanded from guaranteeing just 2% of mortgages to over 20% in just a couple of years, dramatically...