Free Republic

May 28, 2014 - 06:02 PMInvestment_U Back in January, I wrote a column explaining the supply-demand squeeze in nickel. One way I suggested to play the nickel squeeze, the iPath Dow Jones-AIG Nickel Total Return Sub-Index ETN (NYSE: JJN), is up 38% from my recommendation. Did you buy that fund? Well, if you didn't, there's no need to kick yourself. The nickel run isn't over. In fact, if anything, the supply/demand squeeze powering nickel's surge is likely to get stronger. The biggest user of nickel is China. Nickel is used to make stainless steel, and China makes a lot of...

“JFK had a legendary love life.  Did one of his affairs connect him with the mob?” (CNN, promoting its Kennedy family hagiography, March 31, 2018.)“Legendary” –whether morally-neutral or complimentary or both-- is not exactly the terminology CNN is employing with regard to President Trump’s “love life.”  Consensual and discreet adulterous affairs distant (both time-wise and geographically) from the White House do not qualify a “love life” as “legendary” with CNN. But apparently, feeding amyl-nitrate poppers to a starstruck 19 year-old, taking her virginity in the very White House bed and directing her to fellate a 50-year old friend while watching does. Or...

SAN FRANCISCO — Pete Roberts of Nottingham, England, was one of the many risk-takers who threw their savings into cryptocurrencies when prices were going through the roof last winter. Now, eight months later, the $23,000 he invested in several digital tokens is worth about $4,000, and he is clearheaded about what happened. "I got too caught up in the fear of missing out and trying to make a quick buck," he said this week. "The losses have pretty much left me financially ruined." Mr. Roberts, 28, has a lot of company. After the latest round of big price drops, many...

As the Trump administration tightens sanctions against Iran and Russia, and as the imposition of tariffs against China as a means of negotiating a more favorable trade arrangement continue, all three nations are moving away from the U.S. dollar primarily when it comes to oil sales, as a way of circumventing the punitive measures. “There is a common understanding that we need to move towards the use of national currencies in our settlements. There is a need for this, as well as the wish of the parties,” Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak said earlier this month when discussing the move....

Venezuela came to a standstill on Tuesday as the country tried to deal with its newly introduced currency. Thousands of businesses closed in order to adapt to the "sovereign bolivar", and many workers stayed at home. President Nicolás Maduro launched the new banknotes on Monday, revaluing and renaming the old bolivar currency. The government says this will tackle runaway inflation, but critics say it could make the crisis worse. The notes went into circulation on Tuesday.

Choe Ryong-hae, known as North Korea's second most powerful man, is visiting Cuba to discuss ways to improve the countries' bilateral relationship, a wire report said Friday. According to Cuba's official news agency Prensa Latina, Choe, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the North's Workers' Party, arrived in Havana, the capital of Cuba, on Thursday, leading a North Korean delegation. Choe also met with Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez, and they discussed international issues as well as bilateral matters. The news agency quoted the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying, "The meeting took place in a fraternal context,...

CARACAS, July 18 (Reuters) - Venezuela’s central bank this year began refining gold in Turkey following a wave of international sanctions that have left it unwilling to carry out such operations in Switzerland, the country’s mining minister said on Wednesday. The central bank for several years has been buying gold from small miners in the south of the country and refining it to be used as monetary gold to shore up its international reserves that have tumbled as the country’s socialist economy implodes. “This is an agreement established with Turkey and the Venezuelan central bank,” said Victor Cano in a...

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos asked his American counterpart Donald Trump to urge Russian leader Vladimir Putin to stop supporting Venezuela’s government. Santos took to Twitter on Saturday to ask Trump to address Russia’s support for the authoritarian government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The governments of both Colombia and the United States fiercely oppose Maduro. Russia, however, has been accused of helping Venezuela evade sanctions imposed by Washington DC. Furthermore, Venezuela’s military appears to have received thousands of Russian surface-to-air missiles, according to news agency Reuters. “To contribute to the crisis in Venezuela I am asking President Trump to...

Venezuela is doing something completely unprecedented. Some even say illegal. As part of an attempt to stop skyrocketing inflation, the country is issuing a new fiat currency called the "sovereign bolivar," which will be backed by a cryptocurrency. But that cryptocurrency, called the "petro," does not trade, and Venezuela's own parliament says it's being illegally used to mortgage the nation's cash-strapped oil reserves. "This is a smoke-and-mirrors operation typical of Venezuela — I'll believe it when I see it," said Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University and one of the world's leading experts on hyperinflation. "The...

The great engine of American capitalism is once again firing on all cylinders, as shown by the 4.1 percent annualized growth of America’s gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter of this year. Most Americans (with the exception of Democrats in Congress) are celebrating the good economic news. There is quiet rejoicing in many European and Asian capitals as well, since their mostly sluggish economies will now be drawn along in America’s powerful wake. But there is one capital where the American economic renaissance is definitely not welcome news. Consternation reigns in China, where President Xi Jinping is nervously...

Russia will spend hundreds of millions of rubles on restoring the golden dome of the National Capitol Building in Havana, Cuba, in what Russian critics have said is an example of misplaced spending. Russian users reacted sarcastically to the plan, with opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s aide Leonid Volkov calling it “brilliant news, simply the best.” Popular blogger Ilya Varlamov wrote a post on Telegram ridiculing Russia’s decision to spend the money abroad. “Russia will spend 642 million rubles to restore roads and repair hospitals across the country!” he wrote. “Whoops, I made a typo, sorry!" Though opened after eight years...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (JTA) — Brazil’s front-running presidential candidate has announced he will close the Palestinian embassy in Brasilia in addition to moving his country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “Is Palestine a country? Palestine is not a country, so there should be no embassy here,” Jair Bolsonaro, a lawmaker from the Social Liberal Party, declared on Tuesday when the National Congress reopened after a three-week recess. “You do not negotiate with terrorists,” he added.

At one of Caracas’ biggest public hospitals, most bathrooms are closed. Patients fill jugs from a tiny tap on the ground floor that sometimes has a trickle of water. Operations are postponed or canceled. The Central Venezuelan University hospital, once a Latin American leader, is reeling as taps run dry.

On July 26, the News and Documentary Emmy Award nominations were announced, and PBS topped the list with 45 nominations. CBS led the broadcast networks with 31 nods, followed by CNN and HBO with 22 each, and ABC with 20. MSNBC got 5. Vice News got nine. Al-Jazeera International USA got five. And The New York Times got seven -- for videos! Even the liberal website Vox got three. The Fox News channel, which leads in cable-news viewership year after year after year, got none. Raise your hand if you're surprised. Given the liberal tilt of the news industry, did...

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro dodged an apparent assassination attempt when drones armed with explosives detonated while he was delivering a speech, officials said. Mr Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, looked up at the sky and winced on Saturday after hearing the sound of an explosion pierce the air. He was giving a speech to hundreds of soldiers in Caracas which was being broadcast live on television when the incident occurred. “This was an attempt to kill me,” the 55-year-old said later in an impassioned retelling of the events. "Today they attempted to assassinate me." A uniformed official bleeds from...

Trump Confronts Russia With the Fleet Obama ‘Sank’ What real power and national greatness look like. August 2, 2018 Daniel Greenfield Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism. On October 1962, destroyers from the Second Fleet streamed out to intercept Russian vessels suspected of delivering missiles to Cuba. Under the shadow of DEFCON 2, Vice Admiral Alfred Ward, commander of the Second Fleet, watched over a blockade of Cuba. The Navy men putting Russian ships under their guns knew that they were the...

Raul Risco was once loyal to Cuba’s socialist cause... Then 18 years ago, disillusioned with socialism...Risco became a vocal dissident... This ...landed him in a Cuban prison 300 times, for a total of five years... Risco sought asylum and moved with his family to Tampa 11 months ago... Risco... has filed a lawsuit in Havana demanding changes... His ultimate goal is to bring the case before the United Nations and its International Court of Justice. "It is important for people to hear what is going on," said Risco... The Cuban government sends about 65,000 of its citizens to work in...

Nobody had a greater loathing for Mexicans than the left's much-vaunted Argentine Castroite 'revolutionary,' Ernesto 'Che' Guevara. “Mexicans are mostly a rabble of illiterate Indians,” the great Che summed that nation's people up. Guevara makes President Trump with his controversial remarks about individual Mexicans who commit crimes look like a piker. Guevara hated all of them.

Tomorrow marks the 18th anniversary of the return of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba, the original ripping away of a child from his family. It was an event that the Left CHEERED. A mother (with her husband's blessing . . . if he didn't grant it they would never have made it out and everyone knows that) makes the ultimate sacrifice for her child's future by giving her life up so that her child could be raised in Florida by her family. We all remember that photo, the one that the Left can never accept was true fascism in action, of...

"Pope Francis has criticized the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant families at the Mexican border…Speaking to Reuters, the Pope said he supported recent statements by U.S. Catholic bishops who called the separation of children from their parents 'contrary to our Catholic values' and 'immoral.'" (Reuters, June 20, 2018)“During their meeting the Pope thanked comrade Fidel Castro for his contributions to world peace in a world saturated with hate and aggression." (Cuba’s Communist party paper, Sept 21st 2015.)“What?!” Nikita Khrushchev gasped on Oct. 28th 1962, as recalled by his son Sergei. “Is he (Fidel Castro) proposing that we start a nuclear war?! That...