Free Republic

By: Larry Walker, Jr.Mr. Obama visited the padlock maker Master Lock in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Wednesday, but wasn't joined by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who greeted the president upon arrival, but canceled his escort duties. Hey, so he was already sick to his stomach, and hanging out with Obama would have surely made matters worse.During the event, after taking full credit for the whopping 100 jobs that Master Lock has brought back to Wisconsin from China, one of Obama’s many fabrications for the day, he added, “For the first time since 1990, American manufacturers are creating new jobs.”However, according...

Rick Santorum is touting his promise to eliminate corporate taxes on manufacturers...[that's] coming under scrutiny from conservatives who are decrying it as thoroughly unconservative. ...[Santorum] added: “We need to have a manufacturing base in this economy. Why? Because of our national security.” ...advocates for other sectors of the economy quietly gripe that they’d be effectively underwriting manufacturing...by paying a higher tax rate... “Giving a preferential rate is picking winners and losers through the tax code,” said Curtis Dubay, a tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation... “This is not free-market economics, this is trying to tilt the market toward manufacturing,...

President Obama is touring a Master Lock factory in Milwaukee on Wednesday to urge manufacturers to return jobs to the United States-- part of a wider plan by his administration to increase the number of domestic manufacturing jobs. "Right now we have an excellent opportunity to bring manufacturing back-- but we have to seize it," Obama intends to say, according to prepared remarks released by the White House.

For months, former senator Rick Santorum has been talking about working-class woes and promoting a working-class-friendly economic agenda, and in late January President Obama’s State of the Union speech placed working-class concerns at the center of the election debate. Nevertheless, Santorum remains in third place in the GOP race. Does this suggest that Republican efforts to address working-class angst are politically ineffective? No, it doesn’t. The problem is twofold: Santorum has not emphasized this aspect of his campaign enough, and the agenda he has presented seems designed to resurrect an idealized past rather than to lead worried workers into a...

< snip > ..... If Republicans have an opening this year, it is with the white working class, a crowd the Democratic Party has been hemorrhaging for decades. Barack Obama did better than John Kerry or Al Gore with these voters, though even he earned just 43% of their vote. ..... < snip > ..... The white working class will make up as much as 55% of the vote in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. ..... < snip > ..... And so at the heart of the Santorum agenda are policies designed to give special handouts to the working class,...

The U.S. is still the leading manufacturing nation on earth and the percent of GDP that manufacturing occupies has remained about the same for the past 30 years. By Michael Newkirk, director, SAS

When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president. But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States? Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

WASHINGTON — As the housing bubble entered its waning hours in 2006, top Federal Reserve officials marveled at the desperate antics of home builders seeking to lure buyers. The officials laughed about the cars that builders were offering as signing bonuses, and about efforts to make empty homes look occupied. They joked about one builder who said that inventory was “rising through the roof.” But the officials, meeting every six weeks to discuss the health of the nation’s economy, gave little credence to the possibility that the faltering housing market would weigh on the broader economy, according to transcripts that...

Politico has a story about Newt agreeing not to go after Romney any more about Bain, and Newt was just on Hannity’s radio show on the issue. (I’ll post the audio if I can get it.) Newt said there are three or four instances where the record is really bad and Romney needs to defend it. Newt said the challenge is not to the model but how Romney acted in specific instances, and how odd it is that Romney runs on his business record but doesn’t want to discuss the record. Newt made the point that it is impossible to...

Any attempt to analyze the economic programs of the Republican presidential candidates is fraught with danger. While some have some interesting ideas, none measure up in total. Certainly Ron Paul's desire to truly cut spending recommends him economically, Newt Gingrich presents an interesting plan for taxation (Mitt Romney's taxation scheme is certainly the weakest), and then many of the candidates at least pay lip service to the notion of ridding the Fed of our economic ball-and-chain of a Chairman, Ben Bernanke. And then there's Rick Santorum. While it's very likely that the Iowa caucuses will easily represent the high water...

Counting blocks, counting heads: The Democratic Party has long made it clear that their commitment to their voting blocks is based on two things: giving them goodies and increasing their numbers. Now, there’s nothing new about the former. The modern Democrat is a believer in wealth redistribution – in a zero-sum game in which the government allocates the portions. The Democrat campaigns on his promise to distribute whatever the government has to give – be it tax dollars, borrowed dollars, or printed dollars – in whatever form is desired – entitlement checks, college grants, mortgage forgiveness. He then promises to...

If you're a Brit (and not a US political junkie), you probably won’t have heard of Rick Santorum until this week. The former senator for Pennsylvania came within eight votes of a dramatic win in Tuesday night’s election in Iowa. It was the first skirmish in what may prove a long battle among Republicans to be the one to fight Barack Obama in November’s presidential election. Santorum’s social conservatism will have won him votes in Iowa, but expect to hear much more from him about the economy – and manufacturing in particular – as the electoral wagons roll into New...

Great data from the BLS comparing hourly compensation for manufacturing. The second chart looks at the benefits component of the hourly cost. The data are from 2010 and sensitive to exchange rate movements. We will post a follow-up chart in the next few days looking at the 2009-10 change in hourly compensation, breaking out the changes in wage and benefits versus the FX component. Stay tuned!

... Never before have so many of the unemployed owed their job loss, not indirectly at all, but quite obviously directly, to the intentional, conscious directives of their president and his direct appointees, the czars and cabinet secretaries who have launched a direct frontal assault on industry after industry ever since their appointments. Consider: Car Dealers: In 2009, though everyone knew that the problems dooming Chrysler and General Motors were their enormous property and property tax obligations caused by too big, too old, factories, and their utterly unsupportable labor and pension costs, Barack Obama ordered the closure of over 3000...

China imposes tariff on US car imports Additional duties will be charged on larger-engined American cars with General Motors, Chrysler and BMW all affected. GMC trucks at a General Motors dealership in Los Angeles China is to charge import tariffs on US cars such as these General Motors SUVs. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters The tension between America and China over international trade escalated on Wednesday when Beijing imposed additional duties on cars imported from the United States. China's commerce ministry accused America's car industry of "dumping and subsidising", thereby causing substantial damage to China's domestic car industry. From Thursday, levies will...

Pentagon planners have plenty to deal with these days – Iran in search of nuclear-weapons technology, suicide bombings in Afghanistan, and the final pullout of US troops in Iraq potentially leaving behind a security vacuum in the Middle East. But in war games in Washington this week, US Army officials and their advisers debated three nightmare scenarios in particular. Here are the doomsday visions that Pentagon planners have been poring over....

Last week's European Summit shows how difficult it is for the European Union to confront its fundamental economic problems. Since 2007, many European Union countries have suffered loss of their rates of growth and high unemployment. Yet the European Summit offers no plan for growth. More trouble lies ahead for Europe. America's economic condition is not yet as dire as Europe's, but it soon will be if we do not correct the root cause of the problems that we face in our own country. Since 2006 America's growth rate has also declined. America now has 15.5% less GDP than it...

At a time when economists say U.S. manufacturing policy is in "disarray," the Obama administration on Monday said it has created a new Office of Manufacturing Policy to be co-chaired by the Commerce Department Secretary and the director of the White House National Economic Council. "At this make or break time for the middle class and our economy, we need a strong manufacturing sector that will put Americans back to work making products stamped with three proud words: Made in America," President Barack Obama said in a statement. Wisconsin leads the nation with the highest share of its workforce employed...

At a time when economists say U.S. manufacturing policy is in "disarray," the Obama administration on Monday said it has created a new Office of Manufacturing Policy to be co-chaired by the Commerce Department Secretary and the director of the White House National Economic Council. "At this make or break time for the middle class and our economy, we need a strong manufacturing sector that will put Americans back to work making products stamped with three proud words: Made in America," President Barack Obama said in a statement. Wisconsin leads the nation with the highest share of its workforce employed...

T o many, America’s industrial heartland may look like a place mired in the economic past—a place that, outcompeted by manufacturing countries around the world, has too little work to offer its residents. But things look very different to Karen Wright, the CEO of Ariel Corporation in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Wright’s biggest problem isn’t a lack of work; it’s a lack of skilled workers. “We have a very skilled workforce, but they are getting older,” says Wright, who employs 1,200 people at three Ohio factories. “I don’t know where we are going to find replacements.” That may sound odd, given...

Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are moving to block the International Monetary Fund from using U.S. money for European bailouts, as talks intensify across the pond over how to stanch the debt crisis. Some U.S. lawmakers want their concerns addressed as part of the feverish end-of-year budget talks. On the House and Senate side, lawmakers have introduced legislation to wall off U.S. taxpayer money from playing any role in averting a European meltdown. "It's time to stop the bailouts and start restoring fiscal discipline to our own economy," Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said in a statement, as he and 25...

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - A woman in the border city of Laredo, Texas who was angry because she had been denied food stamps killed herself and shot and critically wounded her two children late on Monday, authorities said on Tuesday.

Very quickly, Standard & Poor’s is of course right. The immediate eurozone crisis cannot be solved by punishment measures alone. There needs to be some form of joint debt issuance and a lender of last resort to halt "systemic stress". It was well-timed to drop this bombshell on Monday night after the Merkozy fudge (though S&P made the decision earlier), since the duumvirate yet again failed to offer any meaningful way out of the impasse. "Policymakers appear to have acted only in response to mounting market pressures, rather than pro-actively leading market expectations in a way that might have...

What we instead need are more free markets and more liberty – for history has shown that this is the way for our country’s restored greatness – both as a nation but also for the general populace. To that end, we will be rallying on December 3rd at 11:30 a.m. on the West Steps of the Colorado State Capitol to show support for free market capitalism. Additionally, we will be having a charity drive for a charity to be determined to help show that voluntary contributions – not forced altruism at the hand of the government – is the most...

In this interview Rickards discusses his extraordinary new book Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis. He also lets King World News listeners know what to expect regarding gold manipulation, the ongoing currency wars and much more. The KWN audio interview with Jim Rickards is available now...

DAVID ROSENBERG: We Are In Year 4 Of A 7-10 Year Depression Cullen Roche, Pragmatic Capitalism Nov. 13, 2011, 6:56 AM David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff joined Consuelo Mack on Wealth Track this weekend to discuss his outlook for the economy. Rosenberg isn’t just bearish. He say the US economy is in a modern day depression similar to what Japan has suffered from for the last 20 years. He bases this view on the idea that de-leveraging tends to coincide during a prolonged period of economic weakness that is not merely consistent with recession. Rosenberg says we’re just 4 years...

Global Crisis: The news these days is filled with stories about the euro zone economies and their ongoing crisis. But another, potentially bigger and even more important crisis is brewing — this one in China. Amid seemingly endless stories about the Chinese Miracle and how China's soaring economy is about to overtake the U.S. comes news that suggests the death of America as No. 1 may be exaggerated — and, in fact, may be dead wrong. Indeed, China's economy may be on the cusp of a major growth reversal. The cause: China's imploding real estate market. Since late summer, Chinese...

Headline only as original source is Bloomberg News.

The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing gauge dropped to 50.8% last month – just slightly above a 2011 low - from 51.6% in September. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected the closely followed index to rise to 52.1%. Reading over 50% indicate more manufacturers are expanding instead of shrinking.

Tune in as Republican presidential candidates discuss manufacturing at the National Association of
Manufacturers' (NAM) first ever presidential forum. Click here to watch live online at 10:00 a.m. CST (11:00 AM EST) on November 1, or check your local PBS listings for broadcast information by Iowa Public Television. WORLD public television channel will rebroadcast the event at 5:30 p.m. CST. Don't miss this opportunity to hear how the Republican candidates for president plan to help the U.S. maintain its global leadership in manufacturing. Presidential speeches / presentations include: Rick Perry: 11:15 AM (EST) / 10:15 AM (CST) Rick Santorum: 11:30 AM...

...The bank's index jumped to 2.3% in October from -14.4% in September...

...the Chicago PMI, edged back to a 58.4% reading in October from 60.4% in September. The reading was exactly in line with a MarketWatch-compiled economist poll...

Here's How America Could Have A Manufacturing Renaissance By 2015 EconMatters Oct. 30, 2011, 12:01 The job market is terrible, and the situation isn’t getting any better. The U.S. national unemployment rate is stagnant at 9.1% in September, and the jobs picture across America at state level didn't change much either, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bloomberg lamented "Unemployment has exceeded 8 percent since February 2009, the longest stretch of such elevated joblessness since monthly records began in 1948." NPR quoted the Economic Policy Institute that the country needs to add at least 100,000 jobs a month just...

. Citing soft demand in the weakening global economy, Whirlpool Corp. on Oct. 28 announced it would slash more than 5,000 jobs in North America and Europe and reduce capacity. The company said the action would reduce its workforce in the regions by 1%, and included the elimination of 1,200 salaried jobs. Whirlpool, among the biggest appliance makers with a global portfolio of brands including Maytag, KitchenAid, Brastemp and Consul, did not break down the number of job cuts by location. As part of the belt-tightening, Whirlpool said it would close a refrigeration manufacturing plant in Fort Smith, Arkansas, by...

Commerce: The U.S. has slipped again in world rankings that assess the ease of starting a new business. If we're to bring down our stubbornly high unemployment rate, this trend has to be reversed. According to the World Bank's "Doing Business 2012" report, America is 13th among 183 countries ranked in the "Starting a Business" category. In the 2011 report, the U.S. ranked 11th. The year before, it was No. 8. In 2009, the U.S. was ranked No. 6. It was fourth in 2008 and third in 2007. In the 2012 ranking, the U.S trailed such job creators as Macedonia,...

Manufacturing in the Philadelphia region showed signs of recovery in October, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reported Thursday. The Philly Fed diffusion index rose to 8.7 in October from negative 17.5 in September. This is the first positive reading in three months. Readings above zero indicate expansion. The jump was much stronger than expected. Economists polled by MarketWatch had anticipated a negative 10.0 reading for October.

...The Empire state index inched higher to a negative 8.5 in October from negative 8.8 in September. Readings below zero indicate deterioration, with higher numbers of firms reporting that conditions had worsened...

NAME, NAMES and if possible put thier offenses.

Call it the Cain canon. Starting in 2005, Herman Cain has penned a weekly syndicated column. Week after week, he shares his opinions on the political issues and policies driving the news. The portrait that emerges from reading them over the years is consistent with the charismatic figure who has captured the momentum in the GOP presidential race. With the column’s common-sense attitude, blunt phrases, and occasional jokes, you can practically hear Cain saying the words. Sometimes he has said the words: “sneak-a-taxes” and the Chilean model both have column cameos. And while Cain doesn’t shy from hammering away at...

<p>SEATTLE (AP) - Police are arresting Occupy Seattle demonstrators who refuse to remove their tents from the city's downtown Westlake Park.</p>

Dear Friend, In this video commentary, I discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement. The demonstrations will turn against Obama and will further undermine his chances of re-election. I explain why. Tune in!

Developers in China are struggling and it's about to get much worse because China Construction Bank Raises Mortgage Rates for first time borrowers according to the Wall Street Journal. Channel News Agency Asia reports Credit crunch in China hurts property developers The co-founder of SOHO China, one of the nation's leading developers, is worried Beijing's efforts to cool the sector are hurting sales and threatening to send some debt-laden property developers to the wall. "In my sixteen years as a developer this is by far the most challenging year I've ever had, in terms of what we could sell," Zhang,...

(Just Yesterday) Barack Obama asserted that Martin Luther King, Jr would have supported the Occupy Movement. If so, he would have found himself in the midst of some strange bedfellows:In a move that may redefine the term “strange bedfellows,” the American Nazi Party issued an official (endorsement) of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement on Sunday afternoon. The announcement put the organization, a self-described “National Socialist” political party, in company with the Socialist Party USA, which explained its own support for the left-wing protesters in a nationwide (Communist Party Occupy Wall Street Conference Call 10/11/11) last Tuesday night, crediting organized...

Hat tip to Chris Moody for this clip. This comes from a film called Early Warnings. It shows a 1979 protest in New York on the 50th anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash. See if the vibe isn’t familiar:

(The New Republic) For liberals, who have watched the Tea Party's rise with a mixture of dread, incomprehension, and envy, the Occupy Wall Street protests seem Heaven-sent. Here at last are our ideological shock troops, come to put the undeserving rich in the dock and reclaim populism from government-bashing conservatives. An elated Paul Krugman cheers on the anti-Wall Street demonstrators for scaring the bejesus out of the plutocracy that supposedly runs America. Nevermind if the protesters are "inept, incoherent and hopelessly quixotic," Eugene Robinson tells us, what matters is that the people finally are rearing up to demand economic justice....

Okay, you can lift your lower jaw off the floor. I haven’t joined the dark side: My problem isn’t economic but lexical. I do hate capitalism — the term. As you know, in the eyes of many, “capitalism” has become both a four-letter word and the target of such. For example, New York Magazine questioned a group of Wall Street protesters on October 2 and found that 37 percent believed capitalism was “inherently immoral.” If you find this unremarkable for Woodstock-meets-Wall Street rabble, consider a 2009 Rasmussen poll showing that “only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than...

France Plans On Closing Italian Border During G20 Due To Concerns Over Public Order Nick Jardine Oct. 17, 2011, 12:26 PM Image: AP Following this weekend's violent protests in Rome, French authorities have announced that they plan to close the Franco-Italian border during the G20 summit at the beginning of next month. The plan is to keep large protest groups away from the event. Il Messaggero reports that the potential dangers to public order raised by the holding of the summit in Cannes has forced the authorities to shut the border while the G20 is going on. AGI reports that...

Yep, the Occupy Wall Street movement is not just in the business of marching for an obscure anti-wealth, anti-capitalist agenda, but is also in the business of raising money, as they are now harboring nearly $300,000 in their bank account. According to the Associated Press: Nearly $300,000 in cash has been donated through the movement’s website and by visitors to the park, said Bill Dobbs, a press liaison for Occupy Wall Street. The movement has an account at Amalgamated Bank, which bills itself as “the only 100 percent union-owned bank in the United States.” Donated goods ranging from blankets and...

Students in a Texas public high school were made to stand up and recite the Mexican national anthem and Mexican pledge of allegiance as part of a Spanish class assignment, but the school district maintains there was nothing wrong with the lesson. Wearing red, white and green, students had to memorize the Mexican anthem and pledge and stand up and recite them in individually in front of the class. That didn’t go over well with sophomore Brenda Brinsdon. The 15-year-old sat down and refused to participate. She also caught it all on video. I just thought it was out of...

In a stunning turn of events Thursday night where tempers appeared to boil over on the floor, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and many Senate Democrats, through a complicated bit of legislative jiu-jitsu, managed to change the rules of the body, in a manner similar to the so-called “nuclear option.” The vote centered around a procedural maneuver known as “a motion to suspend Senate rules.” The tactic was an attempt by the minority to force what would have been a symbolic vote on President Obama’s jobs plan. It would have required 67 votes to pass, a target Senate Republicans were...