Free Republic

Sometimes, funny-money promoters like to dangle the idea that the "gold standard," in U.S. or world history, was a short-lived episode dating from about 1870 to 1914, a period of only forty-four years. I take a rather different viewpoint, that gold (and its adjunct, silver) was the primary basis of monetary affairs around the world for millennia, stretching up to 1971. When we look at the history of monetary arrangements, we find that gold and silver were usually used together, in what I sometimes call the "gold/silver complex." The reality was that silver and gold traded in a tight band...

There are a lot of different ways to define science, but perhaps one that everyone can agree on is that it’s a process by which: 1.knowledge about the natural world or a particular phenomenon is gathered, 2.a testable hypothesis is put forth concerning a natural, physical explanation for that phenomenon, 3.that hypothesis is then tested and either validated or falsified, 4.and an overarching framework — or scientific theory — is constructed to explain the hypothesis and that makes predictions about other phenomena, 5.which is then tested further, and either validated, in which case new phenomena to test are sought (back...

On Wednesday, while discussing Forbes magazine releasing its 2015 Most Powerful list, the hosts of CBS This Morning were perplexed by Russian president Vladimir Putin beating out President Obama for the top spot, with Obama only being number three on the list. Charlie Rose pressed Forbes assistant managing editor Luisa Kroll: "Make the case as to why Vladimir Putin is more powerful than President Obama." Kroll explained: "I think a lot has to do with how he exercises his power and his influence. Whether it's in Crimea or in the Ukraine, he's not afraid to go out and exercise his...

For those of us that live in California, there’s a palpable deja vu in Carly Fiorina’s declaration to run for president on the Republican ticket. Smatterings of those late night TV advertisements are still sloshing around our brains. Her campaign positions her as the outsider, the embodiment of the American dream. As her website informs us, “Only in the United States of America can a young woman start as a secretary and work to become Chief Executive of one of the largest technology companies in the world.” Implicit in that leap is the kind of power that is a companion...

This was Neal Cavuto last night.

It’s true, as Paul Krugman says, that Greece and Puerto Rico are not in exactly the same position. PR is bust to some extent, yes, but it’s not in the middle of a catastrophe, as Greece is. However, there is also a similarity in their situations, one that’s extremely instructive. They’re both suffering from being in a monetary policy zone, a currency zone, that isn’t really suitable for their circumstances. One of the two is in a fiscal policy union as well as that monetary union, the other is not. And it’s long been agreed that if you’re to have...

“Wall Street is back,” says the New York Times, and the economic cost is high. The excessive financialization of the US economy reduces the GDP by 2% every year, according to a new study by International Monetary Fund. That’s a massive drag on the economy–some $320 billion per year. Wall Street has thus become, not just a moral problem with rampant illegality and outlandish compensation of executives and traders: Wall Street is a macro-economic problem of the first order.

Definition of Forbes family This article is about the Forbes family related to US Senator John Kerry. For information about the Forbes family associated with Forbes magazine, see Forbes family (publishers). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Forbes family of China and Boston, of which US Senator John Forbes Kerry and John Murray Forbes are members, amassed a huge fortune in the China trade, initially trading North American furs and manufactured goods for tea and other goods from China. Forbes also made a considerable fortune smuggling opium during the Opium Wars. The British wanted to keep a monopoly on supplying the Chinese with opium...

What amazed me about the latest “Billionaire” issue of Forbes magazine was not the stories about the billionaires, but about Forbes itself. See the amazing graph below. For years we’ve been told the print media is dead, that digital media (like Forbes.com, wsj.com, etc.) was the wave of the future. As the graph shows, Forbes magazine is not only surviving, but thriving, and now has 7 million readers. Yet Forbes is an outlier. The rest of the print media is going down, slowly but surely. In the past two years, circulation for Fortune, the Economist and even the mighty Wall...

... Last March I discussed the trip to the woodshed the agency endured in the Kaplan case when the Sixth Circuit slammed its “expert,” whose purported proof of statistical discrimination was seen to be laughable. The agency has just received similar treatment from the Fourth Circuit in EEOC v. Freeman – exactly the same sort of disparate impact case where a company used background checks to help screen out workers who might not be trustworthy, particularly in jobs involving the handling of money. The EEOC’s view is that employers are not allowed to have a preference for workers who haven’t...

Michael Jordan and some other NBA owners have reached new heights, landing on Forbes world list of billionaires. Forbes released its list on Monday and noted that Jordan's net worth is estimated at $1 billion, thanks to his well-timed investment in the Charlotte Hornets.

Yes, believe it or not, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker actually spoke at some length at the dinner this past week where Rudy Giuliani charged that President Obama doesn’t love America. All the hullabaloo went to Giuliani, but in terms of the Republican presidential race, a number of Scott Walker’s pointed comments about policy and politicians are not to be missed. First a word about the dinner itself, which was generously backed by John Catsimatidis. It was the second event sponsored by the Committee to Unleash American Prosperity, a new group founded by Arthur Laffer, Steve Moore, Steve Forbes, and myself....

Primetime TV Shows That Flopped Find International Success On Viki As a global TV site, Viki doesn’t just offer subtitles to make popular TV shows understandable, it’s now helping shows that don’t do well in their home countries capture loyal fans from unsuspecting places in the world. Filipino shows, for example, are finding success in Japan. When the Japanese film, “Tragedy of W” first aired in 1984, it flopped in its home country, but was a hit once it appeared on Viki—particularly in Europe. Similarly, the Korean TV show, “Playful Kiss,” didn’t take off in Korea initially, but is now...

Twenty years ago, emboldened by Newt Gingrich's triumphant "Republican revolution" in the midterm elections, a raft of Republicans--some famous, some not so famous--readied their campaigns to take on a Democrat named Clinton in a race that may well echo in 2016, albeit with a different Clinton. The 1994 "Republican Revolution," had just taken hold, and Republican party scrambled for the GOP presidential nomination and the chance to take on President Bill Clinton in 1996. It turned out to be more difficult than some of those candidates anticipated. "My name-face recognition was pretty low," said former Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, one...

An American worth less than $1.55 billion could not land on this year's "The Forbes 400," the annual ranking for the richest people in America. The cut-off increase from last year's $1.3 billion disqualified 113 poor billionaires for this year's list. Bill Gates once again lorded over his fellow wealthy Americans for the 21st consecutive year with a healthy $81 billion, up $9 billion from 2013. He outpaced Warren Buffet ($67 billion), Larry Ellison ($50 billion) and the Koch brothers' Charles and David (each worth $42 billion) to round out the top five. Michael Bloomberg ($35 billion) managed to slide...

”President Reagan has long been considered the best modern economic President. So we compared his performance dealing with the oil-induced recession of the 1980s with that of President Obama and his performance during this ‘Great Recession.’

For years, we’ve heard Republicans claim that they want to “repeal and replace” Obamacare with a better set of reforms. (What those reforms would exactly be, nobody can say for sure.) But there was always one critical problem with the “repeal and replace” plan: it stands no chance of passage until at least 2017. By then, as many as 35 million people could be on Obamacare-sponsored coverage. A few Republican leaders have had the temerity to acknowledge this fact—and that’s a good thing. By committing to repeal, Republicans damage their chances in 2016 Most pundits are focused on the likelihood...

Like all mergers, the proposed $45.2 billion Comcast CMCSA +1.67% merger with Time Warner Cable TWC +1.3%—the largest and second largest cable providers in the nation—has its advocates and critics. There are certainly important questions about what impact the merger would have on consumers—but there are equally significant issues associated with the highly politicized approval process. The Obama Department of Justice, led by Eric Holder, must review the merger and decide whether to approve or block it. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration and Justice Department have a long track record of pushing the rule of law aside and making decisions based...

Should there be a western-leaning Ukraine going forward, it will not include Crimea. The U.S. and Western allies should concede this from the start, and perhaps other of Ukraine’s 24 oblasts too. Crimea and its environs have little strategic value to the West, beyond the opportunity of denying them to Russia. But Russia holds all the leverage because they have the most at stake, and are the only ones willing to commit troops on the ground. Let Moscow annex these lands. Ukraine is better off without Crimea. Critics will no doubt deride this yielding as weak surrender, but it is...

Seiji Sasa hits the train station in this northern Japanese city before dawn most mornings to prowl for homeless men. He isn't a social worker. He's a recruiter. The men in Sendai Station are potential laborers that Sasa can dispatch to contractors in Japan's nuclear disaster zone for a bounty of $100 a head. "This is how labor recruiters like me come in every day," Sasa says, as he strides past men sleeping on cardboard and clutching at their coats against the early winter cold. It's also how Japan finds people willing to accept minimum wage for one of the...