Free Republic

MONA CHAREN DECEMBER 23, 2011 Merry Manly Christmas and Hanukkah The code of the gentleman is not obsolete. This is the time of year to turn our thoughts to noble sentiments and inspiring stories. William Bennett, who has established something of a cottage industry in uplift, has a new book out that celebrates and explicates all that is bracing, wholesome, affecting, and necessary about men and manliness That such a book is required, it must be acknowledged, is not good news about our cultural health, and Bennett introduces The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood with tidings...

United Future World Currency Program THE WORLD IN A COIN Our Aim The world in a coin. This is our vision, our hope. It is a necessity and a challenge. What seems an impossible dream becomes an inevitable historic, economic and social process. It is an event which is intertwined with the fate of human evolution. A single currency becomes the premise for an increasingly global planet. A virtual currency capable of speaking a single, comprehensible language to foster humankind's innate desire to go farther, to surpass boundaries, and move towards true principles of peace, freedom, brotherhood and understanding beyond...

I'm returning to Waco this week. Next Monday marks the beginning of the fall quarter at Baylor Law School, and needless to say, I won't be blogging nearly as much after then. Right now, I'm visiting my folks in Arlington, and later this week, I'll head back to my apartment. On Sunday, I was watching 60 Minutes with my parents. Leslie Stahl was doing this segment on American corporations moving their headquarters overseas to avoid paying high U.S. taxes. While we were preparing supper, my Mom asked, rather disdainfully, "Why would anybody want to run a business in the United...

In fact, in Britain, the US and many other developed countries over the past 20 or 30 years, the opposite has been happening. Job security doesn't exist, the trades and professions of the past have largely gone and life-long careers are barely memories. If people have any wealth it's in their houses, but house prices don't always increase. When credit is tight as it is now, they can be stagnant for years. A dwindling minority can count on a pension on which they could comfortably live, and not many have significant savings. More and more people live from day to...

In the city of Gothenburg, Sweden (where I happen to live), a combined EU-summit (which proved to be of major importance as it, among other things, resulted in the union expanding eastwards into former Soviet territory) and US presidential visit to Europe back in 2001 lead to street riots and massive vandalism. This outburst of mindless Socialist violence was organized by people claiming to "counteract globalization". Since then, no one has heard much from this silly movement, even though so called resistence to global trade, exchange, development and investments for some reason lives on. However, lately, the pro-Capitalist Swedish think...

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, naturally, isn't attending this year, and his likely successor Christine Lagarde is in China, but the Bilderberg Conference which kicks off in the Swiss resort of St. Moritz on Thursday retains its conspiratorial chic and pulling power. The attendee list of Bilderberg is still pretty much the only thing that is not a closely guarded secret, as 120 of the world's richest and most powerful people meet behind closed doors, this time at the Suvretta House hotel in Switzerland, a venue which not only boasts a "fairytale castle" design, but also its own "Teddy World." U.K. Prime Minister...

(CNSNews.com) – Although the Obama administration officially lifted the six-month ban on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in October 2010, a new report finds that the “de facto” moratorium still in place is harming American consumers and the budgets of local and state governments. Since October, the Department of the Interior has approved only a handful of deepwater drilling permits in the wake of last year’s BP well explosion and subsequent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The report, issued by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), said increasing offshore drilling production could add nearly $5...

Work Forces Shrink at Home, Sharpening Debate on Economic Impact of Globalization U.S. multinational corporations, the big brand-name companies that employ a fifth of all American workers, have been hiring abroad while cutting back at home, sharpening the debate over globalization's effect on the U.S. economy. The companies cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million, new data from the U.S. Commerce Department show. That's a big switch from the 1990s, when they added jobs everywhere: 4.4 million in the U.S. and 2.7 million abroad. In all, U.S....

To put it simply, America is nearing a checkmate scenario. Like the final torrid maneuvers of a rigged chess match, we have been pressed, manipulated, and attacked into the last remaining corner of the “grand global chessboard” left to us; centralized control of all social and economic power into the hands of an unworthy elite. If we continue playing the game by their rules, we will lose. There is no doubt. There have been many solutions presented to us in the past to combat this development, but nearly all of them function within the constraints of Federal politics. Working within...

It’s official. The New York Stock Exchange has been sold to, in one CNBC anchor’s words, ‘a bunch of foreigners’. The iconic trading floor of the NYSE was tense this morning as CNBC’s Mark Haines’ grilled CEO Duncan Niederauer on the just announced merger of Deutsche Börse and the NYSE, a deal resulting in the creation of the world’s largest share- and derivatives-trading platform.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Jobs (In The U.S.) Global Corporate America has decoupled from the American middle class; its interests are now international rather than domestic. Global Corporate America has been decoupling from its country of origin for a long time, and the last weak bonds appear to be snapping. Longtime correspondent Cheryl A. recently submitted this snippet from a recent The Atlantic article The Rise of the New Global Elite and this summary: "This is disturbing on so many levels." The U.S.-based CEO of one of the world’s largest hedge funds told me that his firm’s investment committee...

The 41st World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting started in the Swiss ski resort of Davos on Wednesday with the theme of "Shared Norms for the New Reality." Over 2,500 leaders and elite from more than 100 countries are gathering here, representing business, government, civil society, academia and culture to address new global economic order and economic governance. Four main topics for discussion this year are Responding to the New Reality, The Economic Outlook and Defining Policies for Inclusive Growth, Supporting the G20 Agenda, and Building a Risk Response Network sustainable. Living in a world that is increasingly complex and...

What is globalization? Well, if you ask 100 different Americans you will probably get 100 different answers. Many people view globalization as harmless or even as a good thing. Other Americans believe that the United States will never be integrated into a global economic and political system. Still others view it as a future threat that has not arrived yet. Those that consider it to be a future threat are concerned that at some point American sovereignty will end and at that point economic and political power will be handed over to a "world government". Well, the truth is that...

The truth that China's dictatorship and America's multinational corporations don't want you to know We’ve heard it a thousand times, from American CEOs, pundits and politicians. And we’ll probably hear it again from President Obama, in his State of the Union address. The U.S., we are told, is losing its manufacturing industries to competitors like China because America is falling behind in innovation and education. It’s not true. U.S.-based multinationals are not transferring production to China and other countries because those nations surpass the U.S. in innovation. The U.S. remains the leader in global innovation, with a sophisticated system of...

<p>Of course, this disaster is not quite so obvious if you only follow the MSM’s version of events, or the pithy, watered down observations of mainstream economists, central bank officials, and puppet politicians. In fact, it’s difficult for the average person only mildly versed in economics to understand just what is going on! The closer we get to the edge of the ravine, the deeper the deception becomes. Most Americans feel the danger intuitively, and see the warning signs in their local communities, but clear, concise information in the midst of this ‘Gordian Knot’ of lies is difficult to come by.</p>

A recent article in The Times described the fears in France of a brain drain to the United States, as top French scholars move to American universities to teach and do research. A study by the Institut Montaigne found that academics constitute a much larger percentage of French émigrés to the United States today than 30 years ago..Why would France's leading scholars and researchers want to leave a place that reveres intellectuals? More money, more freedom, more competitive energy -- what really drives the global academic marketplace? Brain drains to U.S. universities are nothing new. The globalization of universities means...

Hoaxes: A high-ranking member of the U.N.'s Panel on Climate Change admits the group's primary goal is the redistribution of wealth and not environmental protection or saving the Earth. Money, they say, is the root of all evil. It's also the motivating force behind what is left of the climate change movement after the devastating Climate-gate and IPCC scandals that saw the deliberate manipulation of scientific data to spur the world into taking draconian regulatory action. Left for dead, global warm-mongers are busy planning their next move, which should occur at a climate conference in relatively balmy Cancun at month's...

    "I don't think you hear me. I don't think you understand. Glenn Beck is hurting Mr. Soros and his business,"  was the message delivered to Beck via a front man for George Soros.Though certainly a silkier  warning compared to crudeness of Mexican drug cartels with their  fondness for  special delivery of a human head delivered in a suitcase, in George Soros' world, the inference is equally chilling.If Glenn Beck was frightened, troubled or disturbed by the ominous message, it didn't show.  Beck used the warning, told as a personal story,as a mere post script to his first segment...

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm recently went on National Public Radio to discuss her legacy in a state with high unemployment. Granholm blamed much of the state's woes on corporations who "decided to move to lower-wage countries." "Could the governor of Michigan, no matter who they were, have prevented globalization from shifting manufacturing jobs to low wage countries? No," Granholm said. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy responds to some of Granholm's comments...

Globalization Creates Unemployment, American Job Losses Are Permanent Politics / Employment Oct 28, 2010 - 04:59 AM By: Paul Craig Roberts Now that a few Democrats and the remnants of the AFL-CIO are waking up to the destructive impact of jobs offshoring on the US economy and millions of American lives, globalism’s advocates have resurrected Dartmouth economist Matthew Slaughter’s discredited finding of several years ago that jobs offshoring by US corporations increases employment and wages in the US. At the time I exposed Slaughter’s mistakes, but economists dependent on corporate largess understood that it was more profitable to drink Slaughter’s...

Globalization is giving a harder edge to the softer strain of Islam in East Asia. Meanwhile, China's rising economic activity in the region is importing a glitzy capitalism and fueling consumerism. Islam has been an American obsession for at least a decade. The 9/11 attacks and the intractable violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan — however much we have been the cause of it — have left us bewildered and terrified by this seemingly austere and martial faith. Islam was spread quickly by the sword from Arabia westward across North Africa, the history books tell us, and is supposedly prone...

The choices we make about energy, the environment and climate will be limited by The Three Chinas.The Real China1. One of the Chinas is very real and familiar. It has a population of 1.4 billion.2. China is developing quickly, trying to do in 50 years what America did in 100. As a result, they have doubled their energy use since 2000, becoming the largest energy user in the world. 3. China’s energy use may well double again by 2020. (The figures in the report did not match reality, but their estimate of 7.5% annual growth looks fairly okay).4. Coal currently...

One of Sen. Barbara Boxer’s sharpest charges against challenger Carly Fiorina is that, as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, she allowed thousands of jobs to be outsourced overseas — depriving U.S. workers of income while piling up profits for executive grandees like herself. Outsourcing of both manufacturing and service jobs has become a wedge issue. It stings especially when times are tough. By Election Day, outsourcing will be portrayed as equivalent to child-molesting in its depravity. But the charge of greed and lack of economic patriotism is disingenuous for a variety of reasons. Remember that outsourcing can be insidious — it knows...

I feel like I keep stating the obvious.  A carbon tax is bad because it’s unnecessary and nobody wastes money better than big government, but a carbon trading scheme is worse. The latter is a fake market that feeds corruption and creates it’s own vested industry of financial brokers who profit no matter what the price and no matter who buys or sells (they just need a government mandated scheme that forces businesses to buy and sell), and no matter whether anything useful happens to the environment. Once the financial houses are set (and they are already well advanced) how...

Rising wage and production costs in China are eating into the profits of Western companies and may soonset off an exodus of multinational companies to cheaper locations. A report by Credit Suisse said the vast majority of US and European companies in China are expecting a "margin hit" over the next 12 months and fear they will not be able to pass on the costs to consumers, with the biggest worrries in electronics, clothing, and retail. The bank said Footlocker, Liz Claiborne, and Office Depot would tip into outright loss in a worst-case scenario, defined as a 20pc rise in...

BONN, Germany – British economist Nicholas Stern says a U.N. economic panel is discussing carbon taxes, add-ons to international air fares and a levy on cross-border money transfers as ways to raise $100 billion a year to fight climate change. Stern has told international climate negotiators that governments will need to create incentives for private investments in industries emitting few greenhouse gases. The Copenhagen climate summit in December determined that $100 billion is needed every year starting in 2020 to help poor countries adapt to climate change and reduce carbon emissions.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Governments must smash markets supplied by the global "superpower" of organized criminals trafficking drugs, people, arms and counterfeit goods, the U.N. crime chief said on Thursday. Criminals are reaping profits in the tens of billions of dollars, Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told Reuters about a report released by his agency. But countries are not cooperating enough with each other and the United Nations, and are too focused on traffickers. "We have to start addressing the markets, which are gigantic in size," Costa said, adding that criminals who supply...

SEX workers have rallied in Sydney to demand an end to "whore-phobic" attitudes and greater protection under anti-discrimination laws. Chanting "sex worker rights are human rights" and "no bad whores, just bad laws", dozens of protesters marched from the Opera House today in a bid to have their rights recognised. Many carried red umbrellas, a symbol of the global movement, while others made statements with T-shirts reading "whore power" and "sluts unite". "We are human beings, we are people, we do a job and we are continually vilified for that job," sex worker Julie Bates said, noting that little had...

On May 10, 2010, President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy from the impending retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens at the end of the Supreme Court's 2009–2010 term. A significant entry in the catalog of Ms. Kagan’s remarkable achievements is her deanship of the über-prestigious Harvard Law School. In 2003, she was named, as the school’s first female dean, to succeed Robert C. Clark, who had held that post for over a decade. While manning the helm at Harvard Law, she attracted attention of alumni and observers for steering the ship away from...

The M3 money supply in the United States is contracting at an accelerating rate that now matches the average decline seen from 1929 to 1933, despite near zero interest rates and the biggest fiscal blitz in history. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Published: 9:40PM BST 26 May 2010 Reverse side of a US twenty dollar bill matched up with the north side of the White House in Washington, DC The stock of money in the US fell from $14.2 trillion to $13.9 trillion in the three months to April, amounting to an annual rate of contraction of 9.6pc Photo: AFP The M3...

Haiti’s humanitarian disaster has rightfully elicited an outpouring of support from around the world. But the tragedy should also elicit outrage because the massive destruction, suffering and loss of life were largely avoidable. Natural disasters, such as hurricanes and floods that have regularly afflicted Haiti, have plagued mankind throughout history. As the world has become wealthier, the ability to cope with such calamities has grown; annual deaths due to such disasters have declined by 96 percent since the 1920s. Economic growth has made it possible for countries around the world, increasingly including developing nations, to mitigate damage done by “acts...

Before you write off the American economy, consider this remark from Nathan Myhrvold, the ex-Microsoft genius who now runs an idea factory called Intellectual Ventures: “For the last few decades I’ve bought Japanese or German cars but no Japanese or German software. Only the United States can handle the thinking speed of the software field.” We live in a country where makers of high-value-added software are hounded as antitrust outlaws, while the smoke-belching industry of making money-losing cars is lavished with government bailouts, but never mind that. US business ingenuity is so robust that not even the government can kill...

Decades ago, people had to work hard for making products for living and for fun. Outsourcing and globalization have changed it at all. If 100 million guys in China, India or Vietnam can make goods for the world, what should other guys do? One way is to limit the globolization process so that more guys are in work because the productivity is reduced; otherwise people may accept this and just do exactly nothing. Before we achieve another techonological breakthrough like nuclear power or the Internet, we must find a way to deal with the high productivity that is making troubles....

The holy water fonts at the front of Catholic churches remain empty, standing out like empty tooth sockets. The water from the fonts was removed months ago during the peak of the H1N1 pandemic scare, as hyped and promoted by the World Health Organization, an arm of the United Nations. Now that the UN got its ugly bunioned foot in the door of local churches, it didn’t take long until it giddily paraded up the aisles, bearing out the old adage of the proverbial inch ready to gain its inevitable mile. Up to now it’s been the empty fonts and...

"The Europe as you know it from visiting, from your parents or friends is on the verge of collapsing," Geert Wilders said in a speech in the United States last year. The leader of the Netherlands' populist Party for Freedom added: "We are now witnessing profound changes that will forever alter Europe's destiny and might send the Continent in what Ronald Reagan called 'a thousand years of darkness.' " And not just Europe, but America as well. Been to Europe lately? Thought it was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet. The passage of the Lisbon Treaty, hailed by President Obama,...

Mysterious Group Buys Building Next to Ground Zero For Mosque Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Jim Hoft A mysterous Muslim group with unknown sponsors has purchased a building steps away from Ground Zero. Hudson New York reported: An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building steps away from where the WorldTrade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques. At the moment the building, the old Burlington Coat Factory, already serves as a mini-mosque: an iron grill lifts every Friday afternoon for a little known Imam leading prayers a few yards...

SHANGHAI — China has overtaken the U.S. as the world's biggest market for automobiles, the first time any other country has bought more vehicles than the nation that produced Henry Ford, the Cadillac and the minivan. Now that the Chinese buy more cars and trucks than Americans, the shift could produce ripples for the environment, gas prices and even the kinds of cars automakers design. More than 12.7 million cars and trucks will be sold in China this year, up 44 percent from the previous year and surpassing the 10.3 million forecast in the U.S., according to J.D. Power and...

The visit to the U.S. of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will focus on important geo-political and economic issues. But this visit also should focus attention on the role India might play in an emerging global culture of freedom, helping both America and India. Friends of liberty should take note. Unenlightened legacy India seems an unlikely candidate to enhance the planet’s freedom. Its culture has been steeped in irrational religious beliefs, mostly unleavened by modern intellectual enlightenment. Religious violence between Hindus (80 percent of the population), Muslims (13 percent), and Sikhs (2 percent) goes back centuries. While tamped down, it...

An official announcement by the Obama administration disclosing the reality of extraterrestrial life is imminent. For several months, senior administration officials have been quietly deliberating behind closed doors how much to disclose to the world about extraterrestrial life. Dissatisfaction among powerful institutions such as the U.S. Navy over the decades-long secrecy policy has given a boost to efforts to disclose the reality of extraterrestrial life and technology. The impending disclosure announcement follows upon the secret implementation of a year long openness policy on UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Over the period February 12-14, 2008, the United Nations held closed doors discussions...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Senate committee on Tuesday launches three long days of hearings on a Democratic climate bill in a bid to further convince an international summit in December that Washington is serious about tackling global warming. The Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee will kick off Tuesday's hearing at 9:30 a.m. EDT with a panel of heavy-hitters from President Barack Obama's Cabinet: the secretaries of energy, transportation and interior and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Joining them will be the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. According to an EPA statement, the officials will focus...

American Life League 27 October 2009 CONTACT: Katie Walker540.659.4942| kwalker@all.org  Washington, DC (27 October 2009) – The Senate version of America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 may transform the nation’s largest abortion chain into a quasi-government entity for sex education. Section 1803, page 503, creates a National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Resource Center and states: The Secretary shall award a grant to a nationally recognized, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that meets the requirements described in clause (ii) to establish and operate a national teen pregnancy prevention resource center (in this subparagraph referred to as the ‘Resource Center’) to carry out the purpose...

Halloween just got scarier – much scarier. I'm not talking about a new Hollywood slasher film or a new line of grotesque costumes, but a possible political nightmare scenario in which the White House could be positioned to sell out U.S. sovereignty, shred the Constitution and leave you and yours to the whims of foreign powers. Flying deep under Washington's radar is an upcoming (December) global climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, under the guise of the "United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change." Virtually nothing has been said about it from the White House. But then again, I'm sure...

US President Barack Obama on Friday hit out at naysayers he blamed for peddling "cynical" claims that global warming is a myth to derail a landmark climate change bill in Congress. Obama warned that the closer the Senate came to passing legislation which has already cleared the House of Representatives, the more opponents would resort to underhand tactics. "The naysayers, the folks who would pretend that this is not an issue, they are being marginalized," Obama warned in a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "But I think it's important to understand that the closer we get, the harder...

Note: The following text is a quote: Remarks by Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at the 78th Interpol General Assembly SINGAPORE ~ Monday, October 12, 2009 In Bucharest, a little over a year ago, my predecessor U.S. Deputy Attorney General, Mark Filip, joined by the Romanian Prosecutor General, announced criminal charges in a case that was emblematic of the evolution of transnational organized crime. That case charged that a racketeering enterprise in Romania joined forces with other criminals around the world -- including street gangs in Los Angeles -- to use the Internet to defraud thousands of people and...

By Robert Spencer October 9, 2009 FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE thelastcrusade.org Does the United States Constitution protect the freedom of speech of American citizens, or does it not? In this era of globalization, the answer is becoming increasingly muddled. Thursday, an American citizen, Paul Williams, went on trial in Canada. He is charged with violating Canadian libel laws in charges he made in his book The Dunces of Doomsday about a jihad terror cell at McMaster University in Ontario. Likewise in Brazil, an American business writer, Joseph Sharkey, is on trial for what he wrote about Brazilian air-traffic controllers after he...

ISTANBUL — The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the "privilege" of building a huge trade deficit. "Important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the reserve currency country?s 'privilege' to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity," UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang, said.

The ninth chairman and CEO of General Electric, Jeffrey Immelt , has upended the traditional innovation model. Among his radical ideas to fire up the $183-billion conglomerate are putting India and China at the centre of a management model that talks of developing products in emerging markets and distributing them globally. In an e-mail interview with ET , Immelt discusses the idea and GE’s India plans. Excerpts: You are expected to make some announcements regarding investments and joint ventures in India. Can you give us some details? India represents one of the significant growth markets for GE globally and we...

<p>President will announce Friday morning a significant expansion of the consortium of countries that tackles global economic and climate change issues.</p> <p>In a surprising late-night twist on the eve of the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, FOX News has learned President Obama will announce Friday morning a significant expansion of the consortium of countries that tackles global economic and climate change issues.</p>

The embattled US dollar is expected to come under scrutiny at a summit of developing and industrialized nations following China-led calls to review its role as a reserve currency. The dollar issue is bound to surface at the two-day meeting in Pittsburgh as US President Barack Obama and other leaders of the Group of 20 economies debate a new framework for tackling the so called global "economic imbalances" blamed for fuelling the latest financial crisis. "Though not clear how the plan would be enforced, it would involve measures such as the US cutting its deficits and saving more, China reducing...

U.S. to push for new economic world order at G20 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will urge world leaders this week to launch a new push in November to rebalance the world economy, but there are doubts national governments will bow to external advice. A document outlining the U.S. position ahead of the September 24-25 Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh said exporters, which include China, Germany and Japan, should consume more, while debtors like the United States ought to boost savings. "The world will face anemic growth if adjustments in one part of the global economy are not...