Free Republic

Simply put, the new myRA program put forward by Obama is at best a sucker's deal… or worse, it's a first step toward the nationalization of private retirement savings. (Note: If you haven't yet heard of myRA, I'd strongly suggest you read this excellent overview by my colleague Dan Steinhart.)Even before the new myRA program was announced, there had been whispers about the need for the US government to assume some risk for US retirement accounts. That's code for forced conversion of private retirement assets into government bonds.With foreigners not buying as many Treasuries and the Fed tapering, the US...

That's the title of a new book by Fred Jerome, a compilation of essays from these and other noteworthies: This anthology features essays by revolutionary thinkers, activists, and artists-including Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore, civil rights activist Angela Davis, incarcerated journalist Mumia Abu Jamal, and economist Rick Wolff- addressing various aspects of a new society and, crucially, how to get from where we are now to where we want to be, living in a society that is truly fair and just. I suppose that's one way to describe their vision. I might ask the question, "fair and just for whom"?...

Vladimir Putin is more than a year into his third term as president of Russia, and he is likely to dominate the country's next decade as he dominated the last—just as Joseph Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev dominated their own times in the Kremlin. Like Putin or loathe him, he embodies an era. But centuries from now, the history books will barely remember the human rights abuses or oil pipelines in today's coverage of Russia. Mr. Putin will be remembered for one thing only: missing the chance to save his nation from a lingering decline. The United Nations predicts that, by...

The object of the game is to destroy American capitalism by having the government take over everything!  Like it or not, you're already playing... and not winning.

The home mortgage sector in the world’s largest economy has been “effectively nationalized,” says George Melloan, former deputy editor of the editorial page for The Wall Street Journal. Government agencies — primarily Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but also the Federal Housing Administration — insured or purchased more than 90 percent of home mortgages originated in 2012, a $1.3 trillion business, compared with 30 percent in 2006, according to ProPublica data. Melloan, author of “The Great Money Binge: Spending Our Way to Socialism,” traced the situation back to the end of the last century, citing government and “powerful” lobbies. Editor's...

The Miami Herald is reporting Hugo Chávez early demise was recognized long before the rest of the world was privvy to the details of a late diagnosed and lethal cancer. With the help of Cuban brothers Fidel and Raúl, and Chávez' hand-picked successor Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan presidential election was moved from December 2012 to October 2012, two months that the report says were crucial. In October Chávez could still stand before his supporters to applaud his re-election, but there was no certainty that he could do so in December. He returned to Cuba for a fourth round of cancer treatments in early...

One of the earliest fears about tax-favored savings accounts like IRAs and 401(k) plans was that when this pool of savings grew large enough Congress would not be able to resist tapping it to help solve the nation’s debt problems. We’re about to find out if those fears—persistent for decades—have been justified. Everything including the sacred mortgage deduction is on the table as lawmakers wrestle with the fiscal cliff, a year-end avalanche of scheduled spending cuts and tax increases. With a combined $10 trillion sitting in IRAs and 401(k) plans, retirement accounts make a juicy target. Some of this money...

None of this will come as a surprise to anybody who's been paying attention. The employer fine is light and ObamaCare exchange subsidies heavy... how else would it play-out, then... The companies can even raise salaries with some of the savings and everybody wins.... except the taxpayers of course, who will be covering the whole debacle with money we never had in the first-place: Trying to build their case that President Obama’s health care law will destroy traditional employer-sponsored insurance, House Republicans released a study Tuesday showing that the largest companies could save billions by kicking workers off their current health...

Does U.S. President Obama have a foreign policy or should we call it a "dangerous farcical policy." Is he even control of the White House? By now, most people have heard the story of how, "11 Secret Service agents" and "as many as 10 U.S. military personnel," hired prostitutes, drank alcohol, and possibly used illicit drugs -- all in "security preparation" for the president to attend the Summit of the Americas in Columbia. Besides the security debacle, Obama's diplomatic effort, "wasn't exactly smooth sailing." But there's a subtle clincher to Obama's ridiculous Columbia trip which belies his true incompetency, a...

Under pressure to take action on rising gasoline prices, President Obama wants Congress to strengthen federal supervision of oil markets, increase penalties for market manipulation and empower regulators to increase the amount of money energy traders are required to put behind their transactions. The White House plan, which Obama was to unveil Tuesday, is more likely to draw sharp election-year distinctions with Republicans than have an immediate effect on prices at the pump. The measures seek to boost spending for Wall Street enforcement at a time when congressional Republicans are seeking to limit the reach of federal financial regulations.

A scary word, nationalization. It conjures up images of banana republics, czarist Russia and European socialism. Now the “progressives” are trotting out this nationalization/collectivist concept as a solution to their scare-mongering alarms over “too-big-to-fail” banks. First, one warning bears mentioning: Statements that U.S. banks are too big to fail are uninformed. Banks aren’t too big to fail; they are “too interwoven to fail.” Scale is needed to compete globally. If U.S. banks are forced to downsize because they are too big, we destroy our leadership in world financial markets. It’s the inter-relatedness of the banks that gives the U.S. economy...

slip of the tongue reveals the true intentions of Maxine Waters (D) during a house hearing while arrogantly grilling oil executives including John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil Company. This liberal, Maxine Waters starts to be honest by revealing herself as a Socialist, but stops, stumbles and then comes up with a more accepted answer. Oops! The guy next to her sighs with relief when she finally gets the words out America would want to hear her actually say, the lady next to him seems to be holding back her laughter. A pathetic real time revelation of the true identity...

Paris prepares a plan to help its banks The Agency for State Holdings (EPA), meanwhile, has been working for several days in a scheme that would allow the French to enter the capital of financial institutions. In the heart of summer, the little phrase from the Executive Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde , the need for recapitalization of banks in Europe had created an uproar on this side of the Atlantic, both in government than among bankers. In France, especially, we stick tooth and nail for several weeks this summer's strategy, namely the implementation of the plan to rescue...

Representative Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn) of New York's 9th congressional district, said banks that received funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) are already "effectively nationalized."When asked at a question-and-answer session last night at NYU Law School about whether the Obama administration's contemplation of converting preferred shares of banks obtained as part of the bailout process into common stock would amount to nationalization, Weiner said it would.Further, he reasoned, since the federal government currently exercises leverage over bank actions by dint of holding the option to convert preferred shares in banks to common stock (thereby technically gaining board representation,)...

Some have argued that the concept of net neutrality goes back to the 1800's. In one way, they're correct, but it's not the way they think they mean. The father of Net Neutrality, Tim Wu has this to say: In the class at MIT, Wu floats some hypothetical ways you could fight abuse. One would be creating mechanisms that are "something like term limits for monopolists. In theory, the government could say, 'Well, this company has clearly shown it's corrupt. ... So let's just nationalize their source code.'" That's straight forward enough. That does not sound like freedom to me....

LA PAZ, Bolivia Bucking a global trend, leftist-led Bolivia is lowering its retirement age and nationalizing its pension funds. Bolivia's Congress approved legislation early Friday to make Bolivians eligible for full pensions at age 58. The country's 70,000 miners will get to retire two years earlier. The previous retirement age was 65 for men and 60 for women. Bolivia's decision to lower its retirement age runs counter to a global trend to raise retirement ages as life expectancies rise, birth rates drop and national treasuries come under strain from pension obligations. France raised its minimum retirement age to 62 last...

Bolivian President Evo Morales announced a workers' day takeover of four power companies on Saturday, expanding the state's dominion over key industries. Morales signed the nationalization decree at offices of one of the companies in the central city of Cochabamba hours after police and soldiers moved in to secure them. The companies include Bolivia's largest power producer, Empresa Electrica Guaracachi SA, which is controlled by Rurelec PLC of Britain, as well as Empresa Corani SA, a hydroelectric company operated by GDF Suez, which itself is partly owned by the French government. Also nationalized were the Valle Hermoso company, operated by...

Chavez Government Seizes 120 Tons of Food from Venezuela's Largest Company CARACAS – Venezuela’s National Guard seized roughly 120 tons of merchandise Thursday from the country’s largest food company, the guard’s commander said. The “preventive confiscation” came after authorities say they detected inconsistencies in reports from the Empresas Polar conglomerate about the content of several warehouses in the western city of Barquisimeto, Gen. Luis Bohorquez Soto told state television. He said the guard seized more than 91 tons of wheat flower, 12 tons of butter, five tons of rice and more than 5,000 liters (1,320 gallons) of cooking oil, among...

Retirement: Argentina nationalized private pension funds in 2008 under the guise of shielding them from the economic meltdown. But the funds have been used by lawmakers. That couldn't happen here, could it? Socialist President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said the state was protecting private retirement from "policies of plunder." By moving tens of billions from the private sector and placing it in the public fisc, she claimed to be providing "an example" for others to follow as the global financial crisis heated up. The Argentine Congress, making a promise it didn't intend to keep, said it would make sure the...

Real leadership means never having to say youÂ’re the boss. There is no surer sign of weakness and insecurity than the repeated assertion of your own power and authority. This truth has somehow eluded Barack Obama. Hence the unending (and off-putting) self-puffery in his recent presidential press conference. Again and again, the president felt obliged to remind us of the centrality of his own position in responding to the Gulf oil spill, as if this would counteract the horrible pictures of thousands of gallons of oil gushing out of the ocean floor. Quoth the president: The American people should know...