Free Republic

BIG BEAVER, Pa. – Voters throughout river towns like this one, from the Mid-Atlantic through the Mid-West and into the Deep South, are frustrated with Washington. Most are working-class Democrats and independents who placed their trust in Democrats in the past two election cycles. Interesting, then, that with all of the poll numbers and focus groups available to it, Washington’s ruling class still does not understand Main Street. In fact, it wants to know what is wrong with Americans. President Barack Obama, his advisors, congressional leaders and even many of the D.C. Beltway’s elite pundits collectively believe that voter anger...

Politics: Another bank failure is nothing new these days — except if the bank is run by the family of a U.S. Senate candidate who profited handsomely and lent millions to a convicted felon. But then, that's the Chicago way. 'I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street," President Obama said in a recent interview with "60 Minutes." Speaking to those bankers, he said: "You guys are drawing down 10, 20 million dollar bonuses after America went through the worst economic year that it's gone through in — in decades,...

Scandal: Sometimes banks are too small to fail, such as when they are in the president's hometown, deal with the president's friends and serve the president's agenda. Or should we perhaps say too connected to fail? ShoreBank's Web site boasts: "Van Jones saves at ShoreBank so his money fights for green jobs just like he does." It proudly notes, "According to former Vice President Al Gore, 'Van Jones demonstrates conclusively that the best solutions for the survivability of our planet are also the best solutions for everyday Americans.' " That may tell us all we need to know about ShoreBank...

Ohio businessman Jim Renacci, whom national Republican officials prefer as their nominee against Democrat John Boccieri in the Canton-area 16th district, was the source for most of the money his campaign raised in the final three months of 2009. In a filing to the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, Renacci said that he had loaned his campaign $120,000, or nearly 60 percent of the $211,000 he raised overall. Renacci made the loan on Dec. 31, the last day of the reporting period. Renacci raised about $79,000 from individual donors and another $11,500 from political committees, including $5,000 from the centrist...

This article is about how the nation's biggest banks are ripping off American cities with the same predatory deals that brought down Greece. The article is long but well worth reading. If you want to know what life in the Third World is like, just ask Lisa Pack, an administrative assistant who works in the roads and transportation department in Jefferson County, Alabama. Pack got rudely introduced to life in post-crisis America last August, when word came down that she and 1,000 of her fellow public employees would have to take a little unpaid vacation for a while. The county,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will announce details of an estimated $6 billion program on Tuesday to generate jobs by providing incentives for Americans to make their homes more energy efficient, the latest step in his bid to convince Americans he can ease their economic woes. The plan, which must be passed by Congress, is intended to prompt Americans to invest in everything from insulation or new windows to overarching energy upgrades of their homes, creating construction and manufacturing jobs, and boosting energy efficiency. "The current thinking is that the program would be in the range of $6 billion,...

With unemployment at its highest rate in a generation, Washington's policymakers are zooming in this week on a thorny part of the problem: Starved for credit and sales, small companies aren't hiring. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees cut another 68,000 workers in November, according to a report released Wednesday by payroll processor ADP (ADP, Fortune 500). Small companies have collectively shed 2 million workers over the last 12 months. That's a sizeable chunk of the 5.3 million jobs lost this year, according to ADP's estimates. The rate of job cuts has slowed, but economists don't anticipate a pickup in...

INDIANA, Pa. – Turn the corner onto Philadelphia Street in this small Western Pennsylvania town, and you might be on the main street of Bedford Falls, the mythical town in Frank Capra’s Christmas classic film, It’s a Wonderful Life. “This is a town where you hear people tell each other ‘Merry Christmas’ without ever considering if it is politically correct,” said Chris Carter of Dayton, Ohio, here for the day on business. Earlier Carter, 30, posed for a picture with the statue of Jimmy Stewart, Indiana’s hometown everyman. Carter thinks places like Indiana or his hometown of Dayton are overlooked...

The Obama administration has taken great pains to blame Wall Street for the woes of the financial system. Representative Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd have held numerous hearings, pointing fingers at greedy capitalists and unchecked, unregulated risk-taking. What they should be doing is pointing their fingers at the American financial regulatory system that the committees oversee. The rules of the game need to be changed so that the playing field is actually competitive. Structures need to be altered, and regulations written, so actual risk is being assumed or transferred when money is invested. Goldman now makes millions of dollars...

Since its birth, the United States has grappled with the problem of an over-mighty financial sector. With the exception of Alexander Hamilton, the Founders' vision was of a republic of self-reliant farmers and small-town tradesmen. The last thing they wanted was for New York to become the London of the New World—a mammon-worshiping metropolis in which financial capital and political capital were rolled into one. That was why there was such resistance to creating a central bank, and why—despite two attempts—we have no Bank of the United States to match the Bank of England. That was why populists railed against...

Wall Street has been cheating main street for years. We know it is happening because of several pieces of evidence. One that sticks out is that the markets frequently seem to go the opposite of what common sense, economics, fundamentals, etc. would dictate. While working on my car today (ironic), it came to me. All the pieces of the car have to work together to cause the common function of a given process of the car. And, in intelligence, it is the aggregate data that give you the final one answer as to what the plan is or what is...

Former Rep. Tom Davis (Va.) will lead the Republican Party's centrist Main Street Partnership, the organization announced Wednesday. Davis, who represented a Northern Virginia district for seven terms, takes over a group self-billed as "the nation’s largest organization of elected centrists." As a member, he led the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and chaired the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “The 2006 and 2008 election results make it clear that the Republican Party must — once again — reach out to independent and centrist voters if we are to restore our congressional majorities and return a Republican to the...

Small Business Owners Choose McCain, Even Though 53% Say the Current Administration Has Not Represented Local Business Owners Well LOS ALTOS, Calif., Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- MerchantCircle, the largest social network of local business owners in the nation, today releases results from an Ohio survey of members. Of 338 small business owners surveyed, 54% planned to vote for Senator John McCain to 32% that planned to vote for Senator Barack Obama. Over 51% of Ohio business owners reported a decline in sales and revenue during the past year. The survey was conducted nationally from September 25 to October 6 and...

Is Main Street longer or busier in some locales and nonexistent in others? And if so why? And is it time the American people learn the difference between wants and needs?

The oil crisis and the credit crunch mark the end of one epoch and the painful but promising beginnings of another that won't come from Wall Street or Washington.

Auto salesman Ryan Thomas is watching the credit crisis hit Main Street America. On Monday, as Congress rejected a bailout plan and stock markets plummeted, Thomas had to turn away a customer with $3,000 in his hand who wanted to buy a new vehicle. "He wanted to get into a bigger truck for his job, he was a union worker," Thomas said. But the man still owed money on the vehicle he was trading in, so his loan request was denied. "He didn't have enough money down. He would have needed about $5,500 down and he had $3,000. A year...

Not everyone gets the Wall Street-Main Street connection. But they should, because both streets intersect on every block in America. “In the sense that if the credit market dries up on Wall Street, capital will be unavailable on Main Street,” said University of Arizona political science professor Robert Maranto. “So no car loans, house loans, business loans and the like.” In the short run, Maranto explains, there is no reason to panic, but over two years it would lead to higher unemployment. Maranto also reminds that most of Middle America's savings are plowed into the stock markets, “so if the...

Last week, Main Street received an opportunity to sit in the front seat of the election, thanks to John McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign to go to Washington to help Congress fix the financial meltdown. Whether that was an admirable decision by a man who once said he “would rather lose an election than a war” or a political stunt to boost his economic muscle, it did accomplish one thing: The rhetoric of both candidates pivoted to Middle America and working families. Let’s hope it stays there. Until now, chin-wagging by the political elite and endless e-mails from the...

As negotiations on a Wall Street bailout bill got back on track, the House passed a $61 billion economic stimulus bill Friday, that Democrats said was needed to help a struggling Main Street. Democrats won the support of 41 Republicans in passing the measure on a 264 – 158 vote. A number of Republicans, including GOP leaders, objected to the bill on the grounds that it was rushed through the House. Democrats sent the bill to the Rules Committee Thursday night and brought it to the floor Friday. But Democrats had been talking about the broad outlines of their stimulus...

Watching CNBC and they all have sad faces. I guess Aunt Nancy, and Uncles George and Harry, can't come through to save Wall Street. Also watching CNBC and they had Wall Street god former GE CEO, Jack Welch on, and his driver of 10 years said that he was against the bailout. Mr. Welch was dumbfounded.