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President Obama's arrival in China has predictably generated all manner of commentary about the economic relationship between it and the United States. Not surprisingly, the majority of the commentary has been economically untrue, misguided, or both. First up is the notion that China artificially keeps the value of the yuan lower than it would naturally be. What this commentary misses is that currencies aren't commodities, rather they are concepts. Nothing else. In that sense, China is one of many countries that pegs its currency to the dollar in order achieve for it a measure of credibility due to the dollar...

U.S. stocks erased most of a 156- point rally in the Dow Jones Industrial Average after a House bill to curb credit-card rates spurred concern about bank earnings, outweighing the Federal Reserve's plan to keep interest rates at a record low. Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. led financial shares to the steepest loss among 10 industries as the vote moved up the start date of many rule changes that will make it more difficult for lenders to raise rates on existing credit cards. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index wiped out most of a...

Minnesota Power is seeking an almost 20 percent increase in rates for its residential customers to cover investments made in cleaner, greener energy. For the average residential customer, that amounts to $13 per month. “We know this is unwelcome news at an unwelcome time,” said Pat Mullen, the company’s vice president of marketing and public affairs. “These are improvements that need to be made. It is creating an environment that we all value.”

The unemployment rate rose to 6.1%, the highest level since September 2003. That's up from 5.7% in July and 4.7% a year ago. In addition, the economy suffered a net loss of 84,000 jobs in August, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, compared to a revised reading of a 60,000 job loss in July. The U.S. economy has lost 605,000 jobs so far this year. The jobs report immediately drew comment from the presidential candidates as well as the Bush administration. The White House pointed to other economic readings, including last week's gross domestic product report. It showed second...

CHICAGO (AP) -- On a scale of zero to 100, it can't get worse than the big goose egg. That's the embarrassing rating Illinois received in a report released on Wednesday that concludes the state is worst in the nation when it comes to information available online about how federal stimulus money is being spent. The 50-state study by the Washington, D.C.-based watchdog Good Jobs First sought to assess how well states are living up to President Barack Obama's pledge that the $787 billion federal stimulus bill would seek "an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability."

"RATE" Leaders Abandon Geologic Fantasies and Admit that Extensive Radioactive Decay has Occurred Kevin R. Henke, Ph.D. The following material may be freely copied and distributed as long as the author is properly acknowledged and the material is not altered, edited or sold. For decades, young-Earth creationists (YECs) have vainly searched the geology and geochemistry literature to find ways of discrediting radiometric dating and protecting their antiquated biblical interpretations. YEC John Woodmorappe (a pseudonym), for example, has been at the forefront in misquoting and misrepresenting radiometric dating results from the geology and geochemistry literature (e.g., Woodmorappe, 1979, 1999).  Woodmorappe's shotgun attacks...

President Obama has vowed to create 3.5 million jobs by 2010. To reach his 3.5 million-jobs goal, Obama needs at least 138.6 million people employed by next year, leaving him with a job deficit of nearly 6.2 million jobs, according to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. "Policies like higher tax rates on small businesses, sustained massive budget deficits, doubling the national debt (and the consequent upward pressure on interest rates) and the building threats of government meddling in companies are eroding the foundations of the economy today and for the future," he said. The White House did not...

In January 2009, ICR received a copy of a recent ministry letter published by television personality Dr. John Ankerberg. For many years, Dr. Ankerberg has skillfully tackled tough issues related to the church, society, the Middle East, and other topics of interest to believers. Christians everywhere need to be informed, challenged, and also taught sound doctrine—there is no substitute for the Bible. However, the January letter from Dr. Ankerberg’s television ministry reveals a dangerous trend toward subjugating the accuracy, understandability, and authority of the Bible to the foolish musings of men—namely, scientists who deny that God’s revelation in the book...

Helicopter Ben Pulls Out Bazooka /snip Bazooka Is Loaded The bazooka is loaded and the helicopter drop has begun. Why anyone would be shorting the long bond when Bernanke is just doing what he said he would do in his famous helicopter drop speech Deflation: Making Sure "It" Doesn't Happen Here is beyond me. Here is the paragraph to consider from his November 21, 2002 speech: So what then might the Fed do if its target interest rate, the overnight federal funds rate, fell to zero? One relatively straightforward extension of current procedures would be to try to stimulate spending...

Disappearing jobs, burrowing consumers and skittish companies are reasons for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and brace the tottering economy. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues open a two-day meeting Tuesday afternoon — their last before the November elections — to make a fresh assessment of economic and financial conditions and decide their next move on rates. Their decision will be announced Wednesday. It is all but certain the Fed will cut rates — for the second time in this month alone. The big question: Just how low will the Fed go? Investors on Wall Street and...

Moderator- Following is a suggestion to add a feature to this board. Feel free to move this as it is clearly not news. I post it here because I hope that it will generate the greatest amount of feedback. I have no programming experience whatsoever so I don't know if it is possible or if it were possible if it can be done cost effectively, but the suggestion would be to rate the stories posted on a scale from 1 to 10 and then show the top rated stories in a sidebar similar to the "Breaking News" sidebars on the...

The Bank of Canada has cut its key overnight rate by half a percentage point. The rate falls to 3.5 per cent from four per cent. The last announcement on the rate came on Jan. 22. The central bank cut the rate by a quarter-point, or 25 basis points, at that time. The bank feels domestic demand remains strong but there are risks to the economy, mainly from the slowdown in the United States, BNN's Michael Kane told Newsnet on Tuesday. In a news release, the bank noted that net exports fell in the fourth quarter, a development driven by...

To anyone who looks over their shoulder walking home late at night in a big city, the idea that America has won its war on violent crime might seem absurd. But the continuing drop in violent crime in big cities across the country makes it seem possible. The FBI recently reported that homicides fell by 6.5% in the country's biggest cities — those with populations of one million and up — through the first six months of 2007, and by about 1% across the U.S. Violent crime, overall, was off by about 2%. Even more astoundingly, New York City ended...

Daily Exercise Dramatically Lowers Men's Death Rates ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2008) — Increased exercise capacity reduces the risk of death in African-American and Caucasian men, researchers reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. The government-supported Veterans Affairs study included 15,660 participants and is the largest known to assess the link between fitness and mortality. "It is important to emphasize that it takes relatively moderate levels of physical activity -- like brisk walking -- to attain the associated health benefits. Certainly, one does not need to be a marathon runner. This is the message that we need to convey...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Acting forcefully against economic risk and financial market meltdown, the Federal Reserve cut its overnight lending rate by 75 basis points to 3.50%, the Fed announced Tuesday. It was the first time the Fed had cut interest rates between meetings since the 9/11 attacks in 2001. "The committee took this action in view of a weakening economic outlook and increasing downside risks to growth," the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement. Downside risks to growth remain. The committee met on Monday evening.

NEW YORK - Chicago and New York are about to close out 2007 with the lowest number of homicides in more than 40 years, while cities such as Baltimore, Atlanta and Miami have seen killings go up because of what police say is a surge in guns and gang violence.

The unemployment rate in Cedar county declined by .1% in October, falling from 3.3% to 3.2%. The Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) office said the number of residents without jobs fell from 360 to 350, while the size of the labor force grew from 10,890 to 10,960, an increase of 70. The highest unemployment rate for the county this year was in January and February, at 3.9%, while the low was reached in May, when it fell to just 2.7%. The Iowa unemployment rate held steady in October at 3.9%, unchanged from the previous month. One year ago it was 3.5%....

The title is an obvious and intentional exaggeration used by Ken Fisher in his book titled Three Questions That Count. Rather than try to summarize and comment on his excellent book I choose to examine those parts that have a public policy connotation. The first of these is the so called “savings rate.” The author points out this is a residual calculation not an actual measure of savings. What the government does take personal income and subtract from it personal consumption. Personal income is after tax income. Again, no one actually measures savings. There are problems with doing this and...

Britain's highest birth rates among migrants By Ben Leapman, Home Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 1:11am GMT 09/12/2007 A baby boom among immigrant families is driving the population to a record high, government figures will show this week. The figures, from the Office for National Statistics, will reveal that Britain's highest birth rates are in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, both predominantly Muslim. The birth rate among women born in Pakistan but living in the UK is three times higher than that among British-born women, the figures will show. Separate figures due this month will reveal whether Mohammed has overtaken Jack...

Komal Sri-Kumar, chief global strategist at the TCW Group, a Los Angeles fund management firm, expects a quarter-point cut when Fed policy makers meet Tuesday. That would be best for the economy and stock prices, he says...“If there is no change, then the stock market tumbles,” he said. A half-point cut may prompt a relief rally in stocks, he said, although it may also ensure that “the dollar will take one more tumble.” That could force the Fed to start raising rates later to defend the long-enfeebled currency...“The Fed will have to walk a narrow walk and cut rates by...

Estimate of AIDS cases in U.S. rises New test places the rate of infection 50 percent higher The Washington Post Estimate of AIDS Cases In U.S. Rises By David Brown updated 4:00 a.m. ET, Sat., Dec. 1, 2007 New government estimates of the number of Americans who become infected with the AIDS virus each year are 50 percent higher than previous calculations suggested, sources said yesterday. For more than a decade, epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have pegged the number of new HIV infections each year at 40,000. They now believe it is between 55,000 and...

The number of people migrating to the UK each year will be 45,000 more than previously predicted, according to official estimates. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) had estimated the net increase in population due to migration would be 145,000 a year. But it has revised that upwards by about a third to 190,000 migrants annually over the next 20 years. The ONS also predicts life expectancy will rise further than anticipated. Sir Andrew Green, chair of Migrationwatch UK, said: "The result is that 86% of our population increase will now be due to immigration, which will add 7.2 million...

THE great myth about divorce is that marital breakup is an increasing threat to American families, with each generation finding their marriages less stable than those of their parents. ...The story of ever-increasing divorce is a powerful narrative. It is also wrong. In fact, the divorce rate has been falling continuously over the past quarter-century, and is now at its lowest level since 1970. While marriage rates are also declining, those marriages that do occur are increasingly more stable. For instance, marriages that began in the 1990s were more likely to celebrate a 10th anniversary than those that started in...

Economy: What the Fed does Tuesday will set the tone not just for the rest of the year, but for the rest of the decade. With so much at stake, the central bank has to get it right. That means a bigger rate cut than expected. In this case, the right thing would be to drop the fed funds rate at least a half-point to 4.75%. This would help keep the credit crunch from morphing into an ugly recession — something the Fed can avoid if it acts quickly and boldly to re-liquefy the economy. A little over two weeks...

IF FAITH IS A STAUNCH BELIEF THAT requires neither proof nor evidence, then the stock market has it in spades. All of that faith lately is placed in the government's monetary policy. Come Tuesday, investors believe, quite fervently, that the Federal Reserve not only will cut interest rates, but will lower borrowing costs enough to breathe new life into the ailing U.S. economy. So resolute is that trust that it remains unshaken in the face of yet more worrying signs. U.S. industrial production ticked up just 0.2% in August...,market continues to slip. But economic weakness can only appeal to the...

Zimbabwe abandons fixed official exchange rate By Byron Dziva In Harare Last Updated: 1:52am BST 07/09/2007 Zimbabwe injected a partial element of reality into its chaotic economy yesterday, abandoning its fixed official exchange rate of 250 Zimbabwean dollars to the US currency. It fixed the new rate at Z$30,000 to the US dollar, an official devaluation of more than 99 per cent, but still well above its true value — on the black market US$1 fetches around Z$260,000. The official rate is used for government transactions, but is also a hugely lucrative opportunity for senior officials in Robert Mugabe's regime,...

(IsraelNN.com) Hamas's leadership abroad has instructed the terror group's Gaza activists to carry out suicide attacks against Israel, the Deputy Chief of SHABAK (the General Security Service) told the government Sunday. The deputy, identified only as by the initial Y., told ministers that since the Disengagement, 40 tons of explosives had been transferred into Gaza. Lately, 150 RPG rockets were smuggled in from Egypt. He also noted that there has been a rise in terror incidents lately: Last week there were 56 incidents of shooting and rocket fire, but the week before that only had 43 such events.

Zimbabwe inflation rate hits 7,600 pc By Sebastien Berger, Southern Africa Correspondent Last Updated: 1:04am BST 23/08/2007 Zimbabwe issued its first official inflation statistics for three months yesterday, revealing a new record high and confirming the ineffectiveness of Robert Mugabe's price control campaign. Figures from Zimbabwe's Central Statistical Office showed inflation reached 7,634.8 per cent in July, the highest in the world. It was 7,251.1 per cent in June and 4,530 per cent in May, it added. The precision of the inflation numbers is remarkable given the chaos of the Zimbabwean economy and some analysts believe the real figure is...

“Within recent years the dollar’s prestige has dipped below its exchange rate”, affirm sociologists from the Public Opinion Fund. 1500 people living in 100 settlements of 44 regions of the country participated in the poll; the survey showed that the native ruble is 12.5 times more preferable than the American currency. As long ago as 2002 every third respondent believed in the strong position the greenback occupied, but the number of dollar-worshippers reduced 7 times by December 2006. The ruble, at the same time, took the opposite path and doubled its admirers’ number: from 37 to 63%. This tendency is...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — About the best that could be said of New Orleans' murder rate in 2006 is that it has held relatively steady over the past six months. The worst is that, if it continues steady for six months more, the city would have a 12-month murder rate about eight to 12 times the national average for cities its size, rather than this year's multiple of seven to 10. Three New Year's Eve killings brought the city's murder total to 161 for 2006. Depending on which population estimate is used, that works out to a rate of 60...

One essential component of evolution is an extremely long timescale for earth history. Multibillions of years likewise are required by the big bang theory. However, this assumption of unlimited time is strongly challenged by recent creation research. From 1997 to 2005 a team of creation scientists explored the centerpiece of geologic time—radioisotope dating. This technique, developed over the last century, is used to date thousands of rocks, fossils and artifacts. The creation research project was given the acronym RATE, which stands for Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth. Rock and mineral samples were collected from around the world and...

WASHINGTON — Sales of existing homes fell for a sixth straight month in September and the median sales price dropped on an annual basis by the largest amount on record, further documenting a lukewarm housing market. The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously owned homes fell by 1.9 percent in September to a seasonally adjusted sales pace of 6.18 million units, the slowest sales rate since January 2004. The median price of a single-family home fell to $219,800 last month, a drop of 2.5 percent from the price in September 2005. That was the biggest year-over-year price...

Britons go bust at rate of one per minute By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor (Filed: 05/08/2006) One person is falling victim to insolvency every minute of the working day and home repossession applications show the biggest rise since the early 1990s housing crash. Many are finding it impossible to pay record gas and electricity bills The Government figures issued yesterday, 24 hours after the Bank of England raised interest rates for the first time in two years, show that more and more families are being caught up in the ballooning debt crisis. Experts said that many families were finding it...

LANSING, Mich. - Michigan's unemployment rate rose slightly to 6.3 percent in June, state officials said Wednesday. That's up from the 6.0 percent seasonally adjusted rate in May. Michigan's unemployment rate remains above the national average, which was 4.6 percent in June. The change in the state's jobless rate was "relatively minor," according to Rick Waclawek, director of the Department of Labor and Economic Growth's Bureau of Labor Market Information and Strategic Initiatives. The size of the state's labor force increased by 23,000 in June. About 10,000 more people were counted as employed and 13,000 more were counted as unemployed...

As the US Federal Reserve prepares for its latest decision on interest rates, most analysts predict it will announce a further rise on Thursday. With its rate-setting Open Market Committee sitting down for two days of talks, the Fed is expected to increase rates by another 0.25% to 5.25%. This would be the 17th rise in a row, putting rates at a new five-year high. Commentators point to the fact that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has already warned that inflation is a concern. He said at the start of this month that recent increases in inflation - triggered by rising...

Iraq Has a Lower Violent Death Rate Than Washington, Baltimore or Atlanta May 16, 2006 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Interesting story today in the New York Sun: "It's that time of year when New Yorkers start making their summer vacation plans. Renting a place in the Hamptons? Nah, been there, done that. How about a Parisian jaunt? Noooo. Too many riots. Well, how about visiting a country that's ancient, historic, beautiful and exotic - Iraq? Sure, there's a little war going on there, but when you look at the violent death statistics in the world, [Iraq is] safer than a number...

You know the old saying about having a hammer and everything looking like nails? I was reading an article in the Journal of Law and Economics about why housing prices in Manhattan are so high, and I thought, "Omigosh! The answer to the demographic implosion." Since my hammer happens to be sex and marriage, even an economics article reminds me of sex. So bear with me. I’ll explain what the article had to say about housing prices. Then I’ll tell you what it has to do with sex...

(2006-02-03) — The Democrat National Committee (DNC) responded to today’s news of another drop in joblessness by warning that overworked Americans might be “too tired to shop,” thus sending the economy into a tailspin. (...) “George Bush’s tax cuts and other failed economic policies continue to sap the energy of potential shoppers,” said DNC Chairman Howard Dean. “Wages are up, but people are working so hard that they have no time to spend that money. It’s a recipe for disaster.” (...)

P O L I C Y B R I E F1920 L STREET, N.W. - SUITE 200 - WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036 - 202-785-0266 - HTTP://WWW.ATR.ORGA Different Kind of Postal Fraud Why US Postal Service rate increases are effectively tax increases, how those taxes are being misspent, and what should be done to stop it once and for all. By Robert Fike, Federal Affairs Manager With Alex Singleton, Visiting Scholar1Introduction: It Works Like a Tax and Costs Like a Tax, So Let’s Call it a Tax The US Postal Service’s Board of Governors, when defending its recent decision to pursue rate...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 25, 2005 – Servicemembers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are re-enlisting in high numbers, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today said he thinks he knows why. Marine Gen. Peter Pace spoke with Chris Wallace on the Fox News Channel's "Fox News Sunday," making his first appearance on a Sunday talk show as Joint Chiefs chairman. "(The high re-enlistment rate) shows their pride in what they're doing and their understanding of how important it is," the general said. "It is absolutely true that for those units that have served overseas in Iraq and...

This past weekend I had the privilege of attending the “Thousands ... not Billions” conference where the results of the RATE (Radioisotopes and the age of the earth) project were presented. The RATE project (a joint research initiative between the Institute for Creation Research, and the Creation Research Society) has carefully investigated the method of radioisotope dating: a method that allegedly shows rocks to be millions or billions of years old. Of course, the biblical text indicates a much more recent creation—a fact confirmed by RATE researcher and Hebrew scholar Dr. Steven Boyd. So it is exciting (but not surprising)...

China launches currency shake-up China has revalued its currency, the yuan, for the first time in a decade - a move welcomed by the US, a long-time critic of its exchange-rate policy. The reform is being seen as the first step towards the liberalisation of China's tightly controlled currency. The yuan will no longer be pegged to the dollar, but will float against a basket of currencies. It will also appreciate against the dollar, mollifying critics who say a cheap yuan has helped Chinese exports. "I welcome China's announcement today that it is adopting a more flexible exchange rate regime,"...

(updating with more details, background) BEIJING (AFX) - The People's Bank of China, the central bank, said it will raise interest on one-year US dollar fixed deposits by 25 basis points to 1.125 pct, effective tomorrow. In a statement on its website, the central bank also said it will hike the one-year Hong Kong dollar deposit rate by 18.75 basis points to one pct. The central bank did not give any reason for the interest rate rise. But the move will raise the attractiveness of US and Hong Kong dollar-denominated deposits as Beijing struggles to discourage speculation over a yuan...

(AP) - WASHINGTON-Fighting inflation is job No. 1 these days for the Federal Reserve. With energy and other prices rising, policy-makers are expected to keep nudging up short-term interest rates - for now. At its meeting Tuesday, the Fed is poised to raise the federal funds rate by one-quarter of one percentage point, to 3 percent. That would be the eighth such increase since June 2004, when the central bank began its campaign to tighten credit. Inflation is creeping higher, but the economy has shown signs recently of hitting a rough patch. So Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and his colleagues...

Hard-pressed employers could get a big break on workers' compensation premiums later this year if insurers follow a rate recommendation issued by a key agency Wednesday. The Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau in San Francisco, an industry-backed private organization that provides statistical analysis, recommended that insurance companies drop their premiums by about 10% beginning in July. The bureau is expected to make the recommendation official Friday. If, as is likely, such a cut is reflected in rates submitted by insurance companies to regulators, employers would see the first double-digit decline resulting from a two-year campaign to overhaul the state's system...

Satellite TV customers are facing price rises, as operators Dish Network and DirecTV hatch plans to increase rates, despite an ongoing rivalry with cable providers. Dish Network, owned by EchoStar Communications, plans to raise subscriptions by $2 to $4 a month, the company said Thursday. That translates to an average of 4.3 percent on average charges of $56.11. The new rates will take effect Feb. 1 and affect certain packages, such as the basic service. DirecTV is also planning to announce a rate hike this quarter, but details are not yet available, said Robert Mercer, a company spokesman. Currently, DirecTV...

2004 gave us songs about the Iraqi war, milkshakes, and, uh, apologizing to a girlfriend about having a baby with another woman. Before it all fades from memory, we want to know how you'd rate the words you heard buzzing through your head as you were driving through traffic, walking with your iPod, or zoning out in front of MTV. We've gathered a sampling of notable lyrics from 20 songs that were released or on the charts during the past year, covering a range from pop to country and hip-hop, from superstars like Usher and Kanye West to critical faves...

I am not an optimist but this seems way too pessimistic even for me: "Muslims, China to Carve Russia? It is calculated that Russia, already in a terminal population crisis, will, by 2050, be driven out of Central Asia by Islamic invaders and lose huge slices of its Far East to China, 15 times as populous. That would push Russia back over the Urals to its European borders and fulfill Putin’s warning of "a threat to the survival of the nation.” Demographers have calculated that by the end of this century, the British people will be a minority in their...

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve, optimistic about the U.S. economic outlook, on Tuesday raised its key interest rate for the fifth time in six months and signaled it isn't inclined to take a break anytime soon. The central bank's monetary-policy committee voted unanimously to raise the federal-funds rate a quarter percentage point to 2.25%, a three-year high. It was the first time since the late 1980s that the Fed has raised the rate in December -- a time when financial-market trading tends to be light and easily swayed by unexpected news. The decision reflected the Fed's growing comfort with the...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!