Free Republic

Anyone who wants to study the tricks of propaganda has a rich source of examples in the statements of President Barack Obama. On Monday, July 9, for example, he said that Republicans “believe that prosperity comes from the top down, so that if we spend trillions more on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, that that will somehow unleash jobs and economic growth.” Let us begin with the word “spend.” Is the government “spending” money on people whenever it does not tax them as much as it can? Such convoluted reasoning would never pass muster if the mainstream media were...

Listen up, Americans. Listen up, citizens of the world’s advanced economies.Stop. Just stop it.You're rich enough. Well, at least a good chunk of you are. Time to take it easy. Forget your life's work,even if it brings you deep satisfaction. Forget about innovating and producing more with less.You're really just wage slaves, laboring automatons persuaded by slick advertising that you want that new iPad or iPhone. A job is just a way to afford more consumption of stuff you don't really want and sure don't really need. Nothing more.But enough of my exhortations, British historian and John Maynard Keynes biographer...

Senate Democrats balk at ending Bush-era tax rates for wealthyBy Alexander Bolton - 06/19/12 05:00 AM ET A growing number of Senate Democrats are signaling they are not prepared to raise taxes on anyone in the weak economy unless Congress approves a grand bargain to reduce the deficit. At least seven Democratic senators have declined to rule out supporting a temporary extension of the Bush-era income tax rates, breaking with party leaders who have called for letting the rates expire for people earning more than $1 million per year. That gives Senate Republicans a chance to push a temporary extension...

I cannot think of a better community organizer than our founding President George Washington. His charge to organize thousands of non professional soldiers to fight a war against the well trained and well equipped Brit Redcoats had to be at least as difficult as President Obama's tireless efforts to round up fellow travelers on the south side of Chicago to harass banks for not lending to people who could not repay loans. Although, we know nothing about Obama's early financing, except that it probably was gifted to him by a sheik, or two, George Washington married into money through his...

All but certain now that his Republican opponent will be Mitt Romney, President Obama has made his proposed “Buffett Rule” minimum tax for the wealthiest Americans like Mr. Romney a centerpiece of his re-election campaign, defying the political risk of being seen as a tax-and-spender by wary voters. With a rousing speech on Tuesday to a receptive university audience of about 5,000 in this battleground state, Mr. Obama defined the coming contest as a clash of philosophies: His argument that tax fairness and the common good demand the richest Americans pay at least as much as middle-income taxpayers do, contrasted...

The rich really are different from the rest of us, scientists have found — they are more apt to commit unethical acts because they are more motivated by greed. People driving expensive cars were more likely than other motorists to cut off drivers and pedestrians at a four-way-stop intersection in the San Francisco Bay Area, UC Berkeley researchers observed. Those findings led to a series of experiments that revealed that people of higher socioeconomic status were also more likely to cheat to win a prize, take candy from children and say they would pocket extra change handed to them in...

Mitt Romney never has bad hair days, but yesterday was truly a bad political one. How bad? Consider this: • Romney did not win a single county in either Missouri or Minnesota. • He won the Minnesota caucus by 19 points in 2008, but finished third last night—28 points behind Santorum. • He won nearly 30 percent of the Missouri vote in 2008 in a tight three-man race, but won only 25 percent last night in a race with only one opponent whom the national media had given up for dead. • He won the Colorado caucus by over 40...

The latest Gallup Poll confirms what most of us had suspected all along: the rich -- that top one percent, the folks whom radical leftists like OWS rail against -- are not as conservative as the rest of us. The greater conservatism of the 99% rest of us is slight -- one percentage point -- but it does bring home the fact that many of those with wealth are rather happy with the struggling middle class keeping to its place ...

Many Rich Chinese Consider Leaving By JEREMY PAGE BEIJING—More than half of China's millionaires are either considering emigrating or have already taken steps to do so, according to a survey that builds on similar findings earlier this year, highlighting worries among the business elite about their quality of life and financial prospects, despite the country's fast-paced growth. The U.S. is the most popular emigration destination, according to the survey of 980 Chinese people with assets of more than 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) published on Saturday by Bank of China and wealth researcher Hurun Report. While growth has slowed, China's...

WASHINGTON - The richest 1 percent of Americans have been getting far richer over the last three decades while the middle class and poor have seen their after-tax household income only crawl up in comparison, according to a government study. After-tax income for the top 1 percent of U.S. households almost tripled, up 275 percent, from 1979 to 2007, the Congressional Budget Office found. For people in the middle of the economic scale, after-tax income grew by just 40 percent. Those at the bottom experienced an 18 percent increase. "The distribution of after-tax income in the United States was substantially...

"Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer  of money from poor people in rich countries  to rich people in poor countries." - Douglas Casey  Namibia's new (presidential) 'State House' I wonder if that hyperactive savior-of-the-downtrodden Bono's ever visited any these cribs -you know, just to see where all the cash he guilt-trips from people (inc. GWB) actually goes...? Just another Nigerian mansion under construction... Living The Good Life in Gabon Ghana's garish Presidential Palace (2005) McMansion in Trasacco Valley , Accra , Ghana Mansion (68 rooms!) belonging to Mugabe's nephew... Zimbabwe Sudanese Presidential Palace Jubilee Palace - Addis Ababa, Ethiopa Palais Presidentiel, Djibouti Palais...

BET founder Robert Johnson on the "FOX News Sunday" program: "Well, I think the president has to recalibrate his message. You don't get people to like you by attacking them or demeaning their success. You know, I grew up in a family of 10 kids, first one to go to college, and I've earned my success. I've earned my right to fly private if I choose to do so. "And by attacking me it is not going to convince me that I should take a bigger hit because I happen to be wealthy. You know, it is the old --...

Did you see Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic address, or read the full text? You should. It’s instructive. Unfortunately, you won’t find Ahmadinejad’s full speech reprinted in the major newspapers. It was pitifully covered by the mainstream media. It should have been carefully analyzed. Ahmadinejad isn’t hiding what he believes. He denied the Holocaust. He blasted the U.S. for bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. He blamed the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on the U.S. government. He insisted that his so-called messiah known as “Imam al-Mahdi” or the Twelfth Imam is coming soon. He insisted that Jesus Christ will come with the Mahdi...

NEW YORK - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday called on NATO naval forces to withdraw from the Gulf, calling them a threat to security.

President Obama and the Democrats are finally happy. Liberated from thoughts of compromise with Republicans, they can fully indulge their most lascivious pleasure — trashing rich people. “We simply cannot afford these special lower rates for the wealthy,” President Obama declared in his Rose Garden message Monday. “Give ’Em Hell, Barry” cheered Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker. Hertzberg was chipper. Not so Paul Krugman of the New York Times, the Democratic party’s choleric scold: “The rage of the rich has been building ever since Mr. Obama took office,” he glowered. “And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of...

Ninety years ago — in 1921 — federal income-tax policies reached an absurdity that many people today seem to want to repeat. Those who believe in high taxes on “the rich” got their way. The tax rate on people in the top income bracket was 73 percent in 1921. On the other hand, the rich also got their way: They didn’t actually pay those taxes. The number of people with taxable incomes of $300,000 a year or more — equivalent to far more than $1 million in today’s money — declined from over 1,000 people in 1916 to fewer than...

Top of Chinese wealthy's wish list? To leave China By LOUISE WATT - Associated Press | AP – 1 hour 21 minutes ago BEIJING (AP) — Chinese millionaire Su builds skyscrapers in Beijing and is one of the people powering China's economy on its path to becoming the world's biggest. He sits at the top of a country — economy booming, influence spreading, military swelling — widely expected to dominate the 21st century. Yet the property developer shares something surprising with many newly rich in China: he's looking forward to the day he can leave. Su's reasons: He wants to...

Wealthy people across Europe are following in billionaire Warren Buffett's footsteps by calling for higher taxes on the rich. In Germany, a group of 50 people, called "The Wealthy for a Capital Levy," have urged Chancellor Angela Merkel to make people like them pay more in taxes and "stop the gap between rich and poor getting even bigger," The Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday. In France, 16 of the country's wealthiest people, including billionaire L'Oreal heiress Lilliane Bettencourt and oil company Total's chief executive Christophe de Margerie signed a petition calling for wealthy people to make a "special contribution" to the...

IT HAS BEEN a little over a week since billionaire Warren Buffett called for higher taxes on the richest Americans, and now comes the reaction. Harvey Golub, a former chairman and chief executive of American Express, writes in the Wall Street Journal that he “resents” Mr. Buffett’s suggestion. I already pay plenty of taxes, Mr. Golub asserts, adding: “Before you ‘ask’ for more tax money from me and others, raise the $2.2 trillion you already collect each year more fairly and spend it more wisely.” Who’s right? Mr. Golub points out that almost half of the population pays no income...

“How can the government help me?” This seems to be a growing sentiment among the American middle class. “The land of opportunity” is quickly becoming the “nation of the needy.” Here’s a question I received from a reader just last week: “I am not happy with how things are going since the Bush Administration allowed tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy. These cuts were supposed to end for those who just keep earning more off the middle class. My question is: I am told that investors can invest as little as $1000.00 in real estate, and make a living...