What Was He Thinking? [Fred Barnes questions Romney's conservatism]

...Romney’s embrace of insuring the minimum wage increases, currently at $7.25, was surprising for a candidate who insists he is a reliable conservative. It was major mistake on his part for three reasons. First, from an ideological standpoint, what was he thinking? Has he missed the decades long discussion among conservatives about the disastrous impact of the minimum wage? It has eliminated jobs – hundreds of thousands of them – for young persons on the low rungs of employment. The ill effects have been felt especially by African American youth. Not only that, but the minimum wage represents a government...

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Santorum's economic plan

Fresh from his triple win in Republican presidential contests on Tuesday, and following his Iowa victory last month, this is Santorum's opportunity to lay out his message to thousands of conservative attendees. Presidential candidates don't need dozens of different economic policies that Congress is unlikely to adopt. Voters don't read their white papers. They mostly want to hear, in general terms, what candidates will do to fix the economy, alleviate the debt burden on future generations, and put old-age entitlement programs back on a sustainable trajectory. One of the most carefully crafted proposals for entitlement reform is by House Budget...

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The Great, Obama Unemployment Rate Scam

The Great, Obama Unemployment Rate Scam *February 9, 2012 | By BoomerJeff * Political communication in America is largely an effort to influence the perceptions of those who pay little attention to politics by stripping complex concepts and issues down to easily understood statistics and simplistic soundbites. In each of his first 33 months in office President Obama suffered because the easily understood Unemployment Rate remained very high. But over the past four months it fell from 9% to 8.3% and Obama and his media supporters are making the most of it. They tell us the economy has improved so...

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The Collapse Of America In Raw Numbers (With Video)

The Collapse Of America In Raw Numbers *Video* Mac Slavo February 9th, 2012 Looking at the numbers behind our federal budgets reveals that the majority of our government’s spending goes not to running the day to day operations of government, but rather, to social safety net programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, welfare, food assistance, rental stipends and a host of other entitlement programs. In many cases, the programs themselves are used as a marketing tool during election campaigns, with the winner of an election often being the candidate who promises the most benefits to their constituents. While this strategy...

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It's 2008 Again

Worth watching.... and thinking about. But do so soon, because if we don't the system will collapse, and then there will be no benefits at all. Bill puts into graphs in a couple of minutes what I've been writing about for the last five years. Your choice is to either act on it or go to the store, right now, and buy all the vasoline you can find -- because if you don't act you're going to need it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u24nH03NccI&feature=player_embedded#!

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A Quick Look At How Much The Stock Market Has Died

A Quick Look At How Much The Stock Market Has Died Simone Foxman Febuarary 9, 2012Despite a spectacular rally year to date, it's been observed that there's basically no market volume. So we took a look at historical volumes, as well as trends that have been going on in the last few years. Turns out volume of trade hasn't been this light on average in over 10 years, and that—in general—it has been trending down pretty clearly since the onset fo the financial crisis. Another thing that's interesting is the daily trading range. The difference between daily market highs and...

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Oil and Gas Boom Lifts U.S. Economy

NAMPA, Idaho—The staccato of nail guns echoes across a cavernous building here as workers piece together manufactured houses with easy-to-clean linoleum floors and rugged interiors for muddy oil-field workers. There is no oil and gas production in Idaho, but that doesn't mean the U.S. energy boom has bypassed this bedroom community west of Boise. Fleetwood Homes of Idaho, a subsidiary of Cavco Industries Inc., has increased production by 25% since last fall at its Nampa factory, hiring 40 workers and adding hours for employees. It is building the extra-insulated "Dakota" model for shipment 1,000 miles east to the Bakken oil...

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