I Scream, You Scream: San Francisco Red Tape Nearly Strangles Small Businesses
San Francisco, as even casual observers of the political scene know, is one of the most liberal cities in the country. Many of its citizens fear big business — but not...
Sectors
Freddie Mac Bets Against Homeowners and Refinancing
Freddie Mac has again entered the spotlight as a new report claims the government-sponsored enterprise betrayed American homeowners after placing multibillion-dollar bets that will pay off if homeowners remain shackled by...
Fed Didn’t Recognize Housing Crisis in 2006, Transcripts Show
Central banks are often justified on the basis that a complex, modern economy requires top-down management by experts. These people, it is said, can study the markets and then “fine-tune” the...
Raw Milk Mandates
On the morning of August 3, 2011, armed agents of the U.S. government and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office conducted a raid on a small private club in southern California,...
Senate Raises Bipartisan Objections to New Farm Labor Regulations
Obama’s Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis, has created new regulations for farming safety that would bar children under 16 from much of the work of agriculture. The rules would keep them from...
Each Chevy Volt Costs Taxpayers $250,000
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy just released a study showing that by the time all federal and state loans, grants, subsidies, and tax credits are figured in, each Chevy Volt...
San Francisco, First U.S. City to Exceed $10 Minimum Wage
As January ushers in a new year, San Francisco will become the first U.S. city to instate a minimum wage rate of more than $10 an hour. Climbing from $9.92 to...
Americans $2.4 Trillion Poorer After Q3 — It May Get Worse
Americans are quickly getting poorer as the much-touted economic “recovery” remains elusive. Household wealth plummeted by more than four percent from July to September according to a report released last week...
Two-tier Wage Pacts Bringing Jobs Back to Detroit
Last week’s announcement that the auto industry could add as many as 167,000 jobs by 2015 merely confirmed what some economists were saying: that lower wages allow car manufacturers to hire...
Coercing Cash for Commercials from Commodity Cultivators
If you’ve seen “Little Blue Dynamos” ads urging you to consume blueberries, you probably assumed they were simply the result of blueberry producers getting together to promote their product. In fact,...
McDonald’s Finds McEasy Way to Evade San Francisco Happy Meal Ban
Here’s a story that’ll tickle your McRibs. On December 1 a law seemingly banning McDonald’s Happy Meals went into effect in San Francisco. The “Healthy Meal Incentives Ordinance” prohibits restaurants from...
Black Friday Sales: $52.4B; Shoppers Reject Occupiers’ Demand
Despite the best efforts of the Occupy Wall Street protesters to sabotage Black Friday Christmas shopping, the National Retail Federation reported that shoppers spent a whopping $52 billion over the weekend...
No Hiring Until Obama Leaves Office, Says Georgia Businessman
“New Company Policy: We Are Not Hiring Until Obama Is Gone.” Those words are plastered across every truck owned by U.S. Cranes LLC of Waco, Georgia — not as a threat...
Another Secret Federal Reserve Bailout, $7.7 Trillion This Time
The Federal Reserve Bank committed some $7.77 trillion in funds to major Wall Street banks during the height of the 2008 financial crisis, according to a report published by Bloomberg News...
Ohio Valley Residents Band Together to Overcome Economic Woes
With the nation still deeply in debt and Americans struggling to make ends meet, residents in an Ohio valley are proving to the nation that perseverance and optimism are key ingredients...