Free Republic

Imagine a short person spending his days cursing the “strong” inch for it “robbing” him of impressive height? Better yet, please contemplate a compulsive eater who blames his substantial weight on a pound that is too “weak.” Wise minds would mock the unhinged individuals who would rage at the foot ruler, inch, pound, and scale for revealing reality. Such people would logically be the object of our ridicule and scorn, or maybe just pity. Scales, rulers, inches and pounds are measures. Nothing else. They don’t weaken or strengthen us. They just are. What’s important about them is that if the...

Health Reform: Over the weekend, Donald Trump said he's nearly finished with an ObamaCare replacement plan. Based on the sketchy outline he provided, Trump's vision of health care reform is troubling. In a phone interview with the Washington Post on Saturday, Trump said the replacement plan is "very much formulated down to the final strokes." No problem there. Trump has the right political instincts about how to get rid of ObamaCare. Rather than repeal a portion of it through the reconciliation process — as Republican congressional leaders propose — then delay even that until a replacement plan gets hammered out,...

The Copyright Industry, especially the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), and MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) have suppressed every form of innovation, and technology to protect their questionable rights. In the 80s, they sued to stop video recorders, but were thankfully held back by the Supreme Court in the famous Betamax case. The Media Industry forced manufacturers of blank cassettes, tapes, and CDs to pay a royalty... ...1998, the RIAA sued to stop the first portable Mp3 player, Diamond Rio, from being sold. In 1999, they took down Napster... ...In 2014, the RIAA considered suing Google for even...

The mainstream press loves to tell readers that it can be trusted because it employs professional journalists backed by layers of editors. Oh, and they're all unbiased. So how to explain a recent Washington Post headline, which manages both to misrepresent its own poll and expose the ridiculous extent to which its reporters and editors will go to bash President-elect Donald Trump? The story is about a Washington Post/ABC News poll that asks, among other things, whether Trump should sell his business to avoid any possible conflicts of interest while president. Trump has taken steps to avoid these conflicts, although...

Donald Trump won the Rust Belt and White House with help from his threats to slap tariffs on Chinese imports and goods shipped across the border from Mexico. Whether he’d make good on those threats became almost an after thought as his promised tax cuts, infrastructure spending and deregulation drove stocks higher after the election. But with the president-elect taking to the bully pulpit—like his Twitter posts threatening a “border tax” onToyota andGeneral Motors—the questions are bubbling to the surface, especially as his Jan. 20inauguration nears. What kind of protectionist measures can he get away with, for good or bad?......

It is far too early to render final judgment on the Obama presidency. All the chatter about his "legacy" overlooks two obvious realities. The significance of Obama will depend heavily on events that have not yet happened (for starters, the fate of the Iranian nuclear deal) and comparisons, for better or worse, with his successor. Still, it's possible to make some tentative observations. As I've written before, the administration's greatest achievement was, in its first year, stabilizing a collapsing economy and arguably avoiding a second Great Depression. Even now, only eight years after the event, many people forget the crash's...

With their Party having won control of all three branches of the federal government in the recent election, Republican tax experts are seemingly desperate to help the GOP give back its gains. Evidence supporting this claim is the growing support among Republican tax scholars (and apparently legislators too) in favor of what they describe as a “border adjustable tax system.” They don’t call the Republican Party the “stupid party” for nothing. The new revenue stream popular among certain members of the Republican commentariat calls for reducing the corporate tax in favor of a value-added tax (VAT) placed on goods made...

Which state gets the biggest share of its budget from the federal government? Is it California, the left’s bizarre alternative universe?Is it Illinois, the poster child for big-government excess? Nope, not even close. As a matter of fact, those two jurisdictions are among the 10-least dependent states.And if you’re guessing that the answer is New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, or some other “blue state,” that would be wrong as well.Instead, if you check out this map from the Tax Foundation, the answer is Mississippi, followed by Louisiana, Tennessee, Montana, and Kentucky. All of which are red states! So does...

There’s a chorus calling for stocks to sell off on or around Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20. What does history show? Ryan Detrick, LPL Financial’s senior market strategist and historical number wrangler, found that there is a tendency for equities to weaken once the oath of office has been administered—but it’s often delayed a few weeks. The logic behind the calls for stocks to weaken after the swearing-in ceremony centers on the old market adage: “buy the rumor, sell the news.” The argument is that the market rally that has followed Trump’s Nov. 8 election victory has factored...

Bank stocks have surged nearly 30% since Election Day as investors position for a mix of higher interest rates, stronger growth, and a rollback of some crisis-era regulations under President-elect Donald Trump. These expectations are now being priced into the shares of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, which sit at record highs, as well as recovering firms such as Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. Goldman Sachs is up 35% since Election Day, as is BofA. Morgan Stanley has surged 28% and JPMorgan has gained 25%. All of these stocks have been fueled by a move in the 10-year U.S. Treasury...

...What do you call it when a major organization's financial statements are so deceptive and badly kept that even its auditor refuses to render an opinion? Answer: The federal government. That's right, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the federal government's accountant, refused to hand down an opinion of the federal government's financial statements for 2016 "due to deficiencies that have plagued prior financial statements — persistent financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD), the government's inability to account for and reconcile certain transactions, an ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements, and significant uncertainties." No question...

Small businesses and entrepreneurs have had a rough time of it for these past eight years. New startups and entrepreneurial activity have pretty much been stagnant, weighed down by heavy regulation, high taxes and an economy that's just been stumbling along. But in recent weeks, there are signs of renewal that could mark a turnaround in the fortunes of small business. Most impressively, the National Federation of Independent Business' small-business optimism index surged in December by the most since 1980, a year when another maverick conservative-leaning candidate surprised everyone and won the presidency. His name was Reagan. "The December results...

Health Reform: Democrats are predicting doom and gloom if Republicans make good on their ObamaCare repeal plans. Aren't these the same Democrats who promised that ObamaCare would be a huge success? Early Thursday morning, the Senate voted 51-48 for a budget resolution that marks the first step toward the repeal of ObamaCare. Democrats say repealing ObamaCare will strip millions of Americans of insurance, leave people with pre-existing medical conditions unable to find coverage, increase the budget deficit, and be a political nightmare for Republicans... ...Republicans plan a transition away from ObamaCare to reforms that will make insurance more competitive and...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday accused Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV of illegally using hidden software to allow excess diesel emissions to go undetected, the result of a probe that stemmed from regulators' investigation of rival Volkswagen AG. FCA shares plummeted as the maximum fine is about $4.6 billion. The EPA action affects 104,000 U.S. trucks and SUVs sold since 2014, about one-sixth the vehicles in the Volkswagen case. The EPA and California Air Resources Board told Fiat Chrysler it believes its undeclared auxiliary emissions control software allowed vehicles to generate excess pollution in violation of the law and...

Part of Donald Trump’s fiscal policy targets mainstream America, not asset classes such as the stock market, bond market and real estate as monetary stimulus does. The stock market has rallied since the presidential election on expectations fiscal-stimulus policies proposed by Donald Trump will benefit the economy. That might be justified, but that doesn’t mean the stock market can continue to rally in the short run. Longer-term positive influences from fiscal-policy improvements, instead of monetary-policy stimulus, are clear. Still, those positives won’t be immediate. Part of Trump’s fiscal policy targets mainstream America, not asset classes such as the stock market,...

Even as the American economy grows, many average investors are losing opportunities to own a piece of it. The number of public companies plunged by 37% to 5,734 as of June 2016 from a peak of 9,113 in 1997, according to the Center for Securities Research at the University of Chicago, as reported in the Wall Street Journal. In fact, today the U.S. has roughly as many public companies as in 1982, yet real gross domestic product (GDP) is about 2.6 times greater, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Partly due to mergers, the size of the...

Many assert that President-elect Donald Trump is against free trade. But standing against the theft of intellectual property and old-fashioned mercantilism, as Trump has promised to do, is an appropriate role for the chief executive. Allowing other countries to cheat us is not free trade. America consistently outperforms the rest of the world in the sphere of intellectual property. People throughout the world identify with American art, music, software, and clothing designs, and benefit from American pharmaceuticals and patents. Yet American intellectual property is routinely stolen. Each year, the United States Trade Representative publishes a report entitled “Special 301 Report”...

On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump’s first news conference since July didn’t deliver fresh insights into the billionaire’s policies, but it did manage to whipsaw Wall Street stocks. U.S. equities tumbled after the presser started, with comments from Trump that drug companies were “getting away with murder” with respect to pricing. However, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.50% the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.28% and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.21% all closed higher in the wake of the hourlong conference. Equities had traded higher on the promise clarity on Trump’s promise of delivering a shot in the arm to...

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in Trump Tower, New York, January 11, 2017. Trump's plans for rebooting the economy 15 Hours Ago | 03:22 Donald Trump wasn't asked much about the economy during his press conference on Wednesday, but when he was, the president-elect managed a rather colossal error. Trump said that there "are 96 million wanting a job and they can't get (one). You know that story. The real number. That's the real number." It is unfortunately very far from the real number. There are in fact 96 million Americans age 16 and older who are...

As state lawmakers propose all kinds of ways to boost economic opportunity, there's one policy that's rightly gaining momentum: right-to-work laws. Right-to-work laws do more than protect individuals from being required to join a union as a condition of employment. They are a proven catalyst for expanding jobs and opportunities throughout the states. This past weekend, Kentucky became the 27th state to pass right-to-work legislation — and it's not hard to see why. Many of Kentucky's neighboring states had already passed right-to-work and Kentuckians have seen firsthand the benefits it brought to their neighbors. Indiana, for example, saw its workforce-participation...