Free Republic

When it comes to politics, there may be as many opinions as cars cruising down U.S. 65. So, naturally, there are different reactions to a billboard south of Ozark that says "Voted Obama? Embarrassed yet?" (snip) "My partner and I felt lots of frustration here lately, and we liked that sign and we thought that was a reasonable question to ask," Steve Critchfield said in a telephone interview on Monday. (snip) Critchfield says he's received death threats due to the sign; people accuse him of hate speech and racism.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Drilling of a relief well seen as the most promising way to plug the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a week ahead of schedule, the U.S. official overseeing the spill response said on Tuesday. But crews were still aiming to reach BP's blown-out well only in mid-August, Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said on Tuesday, 78 days after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig killed 11 people and burst an oil well, now spewing up to 60,000 barrels of crude into the Gulf each day. BP's shares rose nearly 9...

The chief executive of BP sold £1.4 million of his shares in the fuel giant weeks before the Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused its value to collapse. BP chief executive Tony Hayward has been under intense pressure since the oil well erupted on April 20Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental disaster. Mr Hayward, whose pay package is £4 million a year, then paid off the mortgage on his family’s mansion in Kent, which is estimated to be valued at...

Global Markets Surging On U.S. Economic Hope Vincent Fernando, CFA Jun. 3, 2010, 4:32 AM Asia and Europe have surged on positive economic news from the U.S. yesterday, with major European indices up 1.5% to over 2%. Japan's Nikkei has lead Asian gains, with the Nikkei 225 up over 3%. The MSCI Asia APEX 50 is up 2.4%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng established nearly 1.5% gains, though mainland China's CSI 300 is down under 1%. The euro has had a bit of a rally, breaking back above $1.23. The yen is surging, continuing the post-Hatoyama resignation run. The U.S. dollar...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. plunged 9 percent Friday after word that the Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation of the Wall Street powerhouse over mortgage securities deals it arranged. The criminal inquiry follows civil fraud charges filed by the government against Goldman two weeks ago and as Congress pushes toward enacting sweeping legislation aimed at preventing another near-meltdown of the financial system. The investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan stems from a criminal referral by the Securities and Exchange Commission, a knowledgeable person said Thursday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity...

GLOBAL MARKETS-Gold At New High On Weak Dollar, Shares Slip Thu Nov 12, 2009 2:39am EST By Susan Fenton HONG KONG, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Gold rose above $1,120 an ounce to a fresh record high on Thursday as the U.S. dollar wavered near 15-month lows, while Asian shares lost ground as investors took profits after four days of gains. Financial spreadbetters expected British and French shares to follow Asian markets lower but saw a higher opening for Germany's DAX share index U.S. equity futures slipped 0.4 percent. The dollar fell to a 15-month low in early trade before recouping...

Insurer AIG's shares slide on analyst downgrade1 hour, 35 minutes ago (AP:NEW YORK) The near-term sale of American International Group Inc.'s assets will leave little value for common equity holders, a Credit Suisse analyst said Tuesday, downgrading the troubled insurance giant and slashing his price target for the stock in half. Shares slid $3.58, or 8.9 percent, to $36.47 in late trading. Analyst Thomas Gallagher downgraded his AIG rating to "underperform" from "neutral" and wrote in a research note that the government's plan to be a bridge rather than a permanent stakeholder suggests meaningful asset sales or initial pubic offers...

Travel and hotel groups are braced for a turbulent ride today as stock markets react to fears over the strain of swine flu that was reported to have killed up to 71 people and closed much of public life in Mexico at the weekend. Analysts said that the news would revive memories of the 2002-03 severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak. Although the disease, first noticed in southern China in November 2002, was short-lived, it caused the deaths of 774 people worldwide and had a devastating impact on the Asian economy — particularly in Hong Kong — and on the...

Warren Buffett, the US investor dubbed the Sage of Omaha, continues to be a cheerleader for equities despite recent spectacular misjudgments on the timing of his buy and hold philosophy. In a wide ranging interview with the CNBC television todayhe insisted that over 10 years, "you will do considerably better owning a group of equities" than US treasury bonds. This echoed his comments to the New York Times in Oct­ober that he was buying US equities. Since then the Dow Jones industrial average has fallen by over 26% and more than 2,300 points as it tests lows which have not...

ZURICH (AFP) – The world's biggest reinsurer Swiss Re turned to Wall Street sage Warren Buffett for fresh funds Thursday after massive losses while Zurich Financial earnings plunged due to the global financial crisis . Swiss Re shares tumbled on the news, with the stock down 28.1 percent at 21.7 francs by close of trading while the overall Swiss Market Index fell by 2.3 percent. The insurance sector woes dealt another blow to Switzerland's prized status as a major world financial centre, already under pressure after colossal losses and writedowns incurred by the country's biggest banks, UBS and Credit Suisse....

Investors warned of slide in shares By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor Last Updated: 1:42am BST 25/10/2007 The credit crisis is far from over and British shareholders are at serious risk of becoming its next victims, the Bank of England warns. Full coverage of the credit crisis | Interest rates In an unexpectedly downbeat report on the state of the British financial system, the bank warns that the UK stock market is "particularly vulnerable" to a downturn. Almost all British workers have money invested in shares – either directly or indirectly through their pensions and life assurance plans – and could...

Fear in the City as shares plunge again By Harry Wallop, Consumers Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 1:34am BST 17/08/2007 Shares on the London stock market plunged yesterday in their biggest one-day fall for more than four years amid fears that the British economy could be badly damaged. Turmoil engulfed the world markets as financial traders, already nursing heavy losses from last week, started to panic again over the American mortgage crisis. London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares ended the day down 4.1 per cent or 250 points at 5,859, the largest loss since March 2003. With £60 billion wiped...

HONG KONG - Mass movements are part of Chinese tradition. Chinese people tend to act as a group and, whenever conditions are ripe, they rush to join with someone or some group taking the lead. Hence a "mass movement" can be easily formed. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were the "all people becoming citizen-soldiers" movement and the Cultural Revolution launched by Mao Zedong. In the era of economic reform and opening up, "mass movements" appear to have become more spontaneous. In the 1980s, there was a time when "all people rushed to do commercial businesses". And now we are...

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Joshua Thomsen & U.S. Army Sgt. Karla Thomsen Couple Shares Re-enlistment 'Vows' at Taji By Sgt. Jon Cupp 1st Brigade Combat Team 1st Cavalry Division Public Affairs CAMP TAJI, Iraq, Feb. 6, 2007 — Justin and Karla Thomsen do just about everything together - even go to war. So, it was no surprise that the two 1st Cavalry Division noncommissioned officers re-enlisted together here Jan. 25. Staff Sgt. Joshua Thomsen is a chemical operations specialist with Company D, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment from Oxnard, Calif. His wife, Sgt. Karla Thomsen, is a joint network node...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Steve Case, co-founder of the one-time biggest online service AOL, apologized for the company's merger with media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. in an interview with U.S. journalist Charlie Rose. In an interview broadcast on Friday, Case, who was shoved aside as chairman in 2003 and who left the board entirely in 2005, said, "Yes, I'm sorry I did it," referring to the 2001 merger of Time Warner and AOL. The deal, known as one of the worst corporate mergers in history, destroyed some $200 billion in shareholder value. Last October, Case argued in a Washington Post...

WASHINGTON, July 4, 2006 – Eileen Schwartz did not lose a loved one in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but she did lose a deep sense of security. A sample of artwork submitted to the Flags Across the Nation annual art contest. This piece is featured on note cards that are sold on the Web site to raise money for troop-support causes. Courtesy photo   Schwartz wanted to release her fears and bring the patriotic spirit back to her hometown of San Diego. As a result, she founded Flags Across the Nation, hoping to make a difference and...

Apollo Group is the biggest of the ForPro education groups. It owns the University of Phoenix. Yesterday its stock fell 2 percent after reporting lower third-quarter profits because of higher costs. Corinthian Colleges is another of the big players. It, too, reported a loss of 3 cents/share. DeVry lost 15 cents, and Educational Services lost 3 cents/share as well. Everybody's trading down, albeit down very little. Does this mean that the quality of education provided by these groups has also dipped? Are students losing out 2% on their classes? or 3 cents/dollar they spend on their tuition? Hardly. One of...

Investors got a friendly package from FedEx (FDX) Wednesday: big quarterly results and higher forecasts. Fiscal fourth-quarter earnings rose 25% to $1.82 a share, beating views by 5 cents. Revenue gained 10% to $8.49 billion. Even better were operating margins, which jumped 160 basis points to 10%. FedEx expects to earn $1.45-$1.60 in the first quarter, above Wall Street targets of $1.43. FedEx shares rose 5% to 49.22, 5% off their April peak. Other transports that held up during the market slump also jumped. Results from FedEx and Morgan Stanley (MS) spurred a market rally. The Dow rose 1%, the...

WASHINGTON, May 12, 2006 – With two months of duty in Iraq under his belt, the British deputy commander of Multinational Force Iraq said today he's struck by the scope of the mission, the importance of the non-military as well as military contributions to success and the caliber of the U.S. forces deployed there. Lt. Gen. Robert Fry of the British Royal Marines told Pentagon reporters by satellite today he's been amazed by the scale of the enterprise under way in Iraq on the political, security and economic fronts. "We are actually trying to transform a whole society," said Fry,...

Boeing Co. shares reach a record $79.25 on Wednesday after announcing that General Electric's aircraft leasing unit ordered 30 more 737s and may order 30 more. Boeing shares topped their previous all-time high of $79.20 set on March 21.