Free Republic

Like most people with even a passing interest in matters relating to business, I have been reading articles in financial periodicals and have heard the prognostications of many economists concerning a looming “Real Estate Bubble” for at least the past three years. Regardless of the logical and empirical approach to much of the research that has been shared on this subject, my own analysis has been quite contrary to these bearish assertions. However, some recent events have begun to weaken my resolve, and lead me to believe that the residential real estate market is indeed beginning to behave in an...

LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar tumbled to a record low against the euro on Tuesday after a warning by euro zone officials on the euro's rise fell on deaf ears, with investors determined to dump the U.S. currency.In a joint statement late on Monday, the European Central Bank and euro zone finance ministers gave their starkest warning to date that they were unhappy with the euro's strength. In an echo of developments that preceded the ECB's maiden intervention in the currency markets of 2000, the statement said policymakers were monitoring the situation closely. But the dollar, under pressure from...

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!

Proponents of Drexlerian nanotechnology (MNT) often cite the disruption to the economy that they say will happen when MNT makes the cost of manufacturing everyday products negligibly small. But we’re not far off this situation already; only a fraction of the value in the goods we buy in the shops is added by the manufacturing process (as opposed to design, marketing, retailing and so on). Relentless incremental improvements in manufacturing technology, together with the economic pressures of globalisation, are already causing an unprecedented and sustained drop in the price of consumer goods. There’s rather poignant commentary on this process in...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Announcing a slight drop in an advisory rate, Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi urged California insurers Wednesday to make more cuts in the rates they charge businesses for workers' compensation coverage. He announced a 2.2 percent drop in his pure premium advisory rate for policies that are issued or renewed starting Jan. 1, saying cost-cutting steps adopted by lawmakers over the last two years had overcome pressures for price increases. The Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau, an industry association, had recommended a 3.5 percent hike in the advisory rate. "While there clearly were upward pressures on the cost...

Mr. Mayor and City Council As you are probably now aware, The Concerned Citizens Committee and I filed suit this morning against the City of Cottonwood, The Cottonwood City Council and the Cottonwood Municipal Property Corporation seeking a Temporary Restraining Order against the “emergency language” in Resolution 2072. We were not granted a Temporary Restraining Order because, as the Judge said, and I paraphrase, “you are probably a day early in your attempt to restrain the Council. The Council may not vote to pass the emergency language with Resolution 2072.” The Cottonwood City Attorney guaranteed the court that no bonds...

There’s no question that the U.S. economy is booming. Why isn’t this reflected in President’s Bush poll ratings? Why would Americans think that John Kerry would do anything but ruin the economy? Kerry: the King of All Waflers; the most liberal member of the Senate. He proposes increasing taxes by $700 billion over the next 10 years. Kerry plans to stifle the American economic engine. Faced with good economic times, just what are Americans thinking?Boom Times Yesterday, the Conference Board reported that U.S. consumer confidence reached its best level in two years. 248,000 new American jobs were created in May....

For the first time in years, workers' compensation insurance rates are heading south - declining an average 13.8 percent in the past six months. But the reductions, fueled by two major overhauls of the beleaguered state-run program, fall short of earlier forecasts, including a 25 percent to 30 percent decrease predicted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in April. The quasi-public State Compensation Insurance Fund, the state's largest carrier with more than 50 percent of the market, has cut premiums an average 9.7 percent in 2004. It's a decision that has disappointed Democratic lawmakers and Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi. Everest National Insurance...

'Crystal Meth' Use Boosts STD Rates Among Gay Men Thu Mar 11, 11:47 PM ET By Randy Dotinga HealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, March 11 (HealthDayNews) -- Crystal methamphetamine -- or "speed" -- seems to be a driving factor behind higher rates of sexually transmitted disease among gay and bisexual men. In one study from San Francisco, gay men who visited a health clinic were twice as likely to be infected with the AIDS virus if they had recently used the illegal drug. And they were nearly five times as likely to be diagnosed with syphilis. Armed with the new statistics, federal...

55 minutes ago Add Business - AP to My Yahoo! By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve (news - web sites) left a key short-term interest rate at a 45-year low on Wednesday but dropped a promise it had been making since August to keep rates low "for a considerable period." The wording change was enough to jolt financial markets, sending stock prices plunging, even though private economists said they believed the Fed still planned on keeping rates unchanged for most of this year. The Dow Jones industrial average, which had been in positive territory before...

Many of my readers can't understand why, as an investment strategist, I write so much about politics and government policy since neither has anything to do with investing. Well, unless you slept through 2003, now you know that politics and your portfolio are hopelessly intertwined. Last year was a textbook case of how you can use analysis of monetary policy, tax policy and military policy to make great market calls. I began 2003 by forecasting great things for high-yield bonds, or "junk bonds" as they are commonly known. I was right. The Merrill Lynch High Yield Index was up 27.2%...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Interest rates on U.S. 30-year fixed rate mortgages plunged in the latest week after key Federal Reserve officials said inflation would not be a major factor for the economy in the near term, Freddie Mac said on Thursday. Freddie Mac, the No. 2 U.S. home mortgage financier, said interest rates on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, the most popular U.S. home loan, dropped to an average of 5.83 percent in the week ending Nov. 21 from 6.03 percent the previous week. Fifteen-year mortgage rates also fell to an average of 5.17 percent from 5.39 percent last week, while...

October 20, 2003 US interest rates 'to rise soon' By Anatole Kaletsky AMERICAN interest rates are set to rise over the next few months, one of President Bush’s most senior officials told The Times this weekend. However, far from being a dampener on the economy, John Snow, the US Treasury Secretary, said that Washington would welcome such a move because it would underline the strength of the country’s growth prospects. Given the American economy’s new-found strength, Mr Snow said he would be “frustrated and concerned” if there were not some upward movement in rates. Expectations of tighter US monetary...

US consumers were warned on Sunday they would bear the brunt of the cost of updating the nation's power grid - put by some observers at up to $50bn - following the biggest power failure ever to hit North America. As investigators struggled to establish the chain of events that led to the power cut that affected 50m people in the US and Canada, there were calls for the US to increase investment. Spencer Abraham, US energy secretary, said utility companies would pay some of the cost of improving the system, but much of it would have to be passed...

<p>Rarely in the course of market events have so many been so wrong about so much. Two months ago, the pundits warned us that Japanese-style deflation was upon us in the form of collapsing bond yields. When the 10-year Treasury yield jumped to an intraday peak of 4.6% on Aug. 1 from close to 3%, we heard that soaring interest rates endangered the financial markets. Now the 10-year yield has settled down at the benign level of around 4.25%.</p>

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Federal Reserve (news - web sites) policymakers open a two-day meeting to ponder cutting interest rates to a 45-year low to boost a jobless recovery and ward off deflation. Policymakers, due to begin meeting Tuesday at 2:00 pm (1800 GMT), were widely expected to trim the federal funds target rate, which already lies at a 42-year low of 1.25 percent after 12 cuts since January 2001. Whether they lower by a quarter or a half percentage point, it would take the federal funds rate, which commercial banks charge each other for overnight loans, to the lowest...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve is prepared this week to drop a key interest rate to its lowest level since President Eisenhower's second term. The central bank would be aiming to stave off an economic threat absent since the Great Depression - deflation, a prolonged and widespread decline in prices. Policy-makers have mounted a virtuoso performance over the past six weeks to influence financial markets without even cutting rates. That should allay any worries that the Fed is in danger of running out of ammunition to stimulate the economy with interest rates already so low. Analysts refer to the...

WHY TAX CUTS WON'T WORK---Not so fast, folks! by Tom Adkins .......CommonConservative.com 6/1/03 Debates are raging over the 330 billion dollar tax cut passed last week. Democrats squealing about the "cost" of the tax cuts. Republicans crow about the doubtless "boom" that will result. It's time someone threw a bucket of water on the rhetoric. They're both wrong. Here's why… First, let's take on the Democrats claim that tax cuts "cost" revenue, with a little history. In 40 years, no tax cut (Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton 95, Bush II) has resulted in less treasury income. Never. With the exception of the...

CUTTING RATES TO THE BONE Why Interest Rate Cuts Don't Always Work by Tom Adkins CommonConservative.com 05/16/03 Once again, Alan Greenspan raised interest rates to combat a nonexistent inflation boogieman. And once again, he's cutting those rates to fix the economy he devastated. And once again, it's not working. But why? Aren't rate cuts supposed to spur the economy into the stratosphere? Isn't Alan Greenspan and his Federal Reserve capable of breathing life into any dead economy? No. There are two words that prove this theory wrong: wealth creation. Let's regress a bit. During the first Bush administration, Greenspan jacked...

War has enough to answer for without being blamed for problems not of its own making. Last week the Federal Reserve excused itself from venturing any forecast about the United States economy pending the abatement of "geopolitical uncertainties." But it isn't the fog of war that has shortened the vision of our monetary policymakers. It's rather the fog of finance, particularly the long legacy of America's greatest stock-market bubble. The truth about the three-year decline in stock prices and the hot-and-cold-running economy is that they have their roots in prosperity, not in war. The paradox is easily explained. High stock...