Free Republic

In 1847, a Dr Hyde Clark wrote a paper entitled Physical Economy - a Preliminary Inquiry into the Physical Laws Governing the Periods of Famines and Panics. His paper was published in the Railway Register. It opens with the comment: “We have just gone through a time of busy industry and are come upon sorrow and ill-fortune; but the same things have befallen us often within the knowledge of those now living...a period of bustle, or of gambling, cut short in a trice and turned into a period of suffering and loss, is a phenomenon so often recorded, that what...

Cedric Benson's time with the Chicago Bears is up.The troubled running back, whose relationship with the team soured further because of his second arrest in little more than a month Saturday, was waived by the team on Monday, sources told ESPN.com's John Clayton. Before his release, Benson made one last ditch effort to repair the situation, issuing an apology on Monday afternoon."I apologize for making the poor decision to drink and drive during the early morning of Saturday, June 7th," he said in a statement. "Given the incident last month, it was a particularly bad decision. I have no excuse...

PARIS - Divers trained in archaeology discovered a marble bust of an aging Caesar in the Rhone River that France's Culture Ministry said Tuesday could be the oldest known. The life-sized bust showing the Roman ruler with wrinkles and hollows in his face is tentatively dated to 46 B.C. Divers uncovered the Caesar bust and a collection of other finds in the Rhone near the town of Arles — founded by Caesar. Among other items in the treasure trove of ancient objects is a 5.9 foot marble statue of Neptune, dated to the first decade of the third century after...

Almost everyone's breasts look good in Hollywood. From Anne Hathaway and Victoria Beckham to Catherine Zeta-Jones, it doesn't matter if you're 20 or 50; when you get on that red carpet in your designer dress, you've got to get it right. C02 TREATMENTSSaid to be the biggest breakthrough since Botox, carboxy therapy can eradicate wrinkles and stretch marks on your de colletage and take years off your skin. It has recently been made available in Britain by Parisian doctor Jules-Jacques Nabet, who says: "Nothing else works like it for loose skin and stretch marks. It means there is no need...

This week opponents of the war were given a treat. They were told-in a single article-based on a single anonymous source-that a report which hadn’t been released said there was never any ties between Saddam Hussein’s regime and the al-Qaida network of terrorist groups. Millions of the war’s opponents were instantly elated with glee at the idea that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with the war against the al-Qaida terrorist network; that the invasion was completely disconnected from any threat to the United States. Disregarding the misplaced glee for a moment, let’s face some facts. The report...

Buffett's Insurance Bust Ruthie Ackerman, 02.29.08, 9:30 PM ET All good things must come to an end -- even billionaire investor Warren Buffett's success in the insurance business. On Friday in Buffett's eagerly awaited annual letter to shareholders, he acknowledged 2007 was a good year, thanks to Berkshire Hathaway's stable insurance operations in a disaster-free 12 months, but he's not expecting a repeat. "That party is over,” he wrote. “It is a certainty that insurance-industry profit margins, including ours, will fall significantly in 2008. Prices are down, and exposures inexorably rise.” He predicted that even with another catastrophe-free year, the...

Japain Feb 21st 2008 From The Economist print edition The world's second-biggest economy is still in a funk—and politics is the problem THE ghost of Japan's “lost decade” haunts the United States. As the consequences of America's burst housing bubble are felt through financial markets, it has become popular to ask whether Japan's awful experience of boom-and-bust has lessons for other rich countries facing, at best, sharp slowdowns. Japan's property-and-stockmarket bubble burst in 1990, creating bad loans equivalent in the end to about one-fifth of GDP. The economy began growing properly again only 12 years later, and only in 2005...

Banking Bust: More To Come Liz Moyer, 01.16.08, 4:30 PM ET Banks have written down more than $100 billion since the summer. Yikes. Now the bad news: There are still billions worth of potentially toxic securities sitting on the books. The additional $1.3 billion write-down disclosed by JPMorgan on Wednesday was just the latest loss big banks have reported in the fourth quarter. Merrill Lynch is expected to report a sizeable write-down when it reveals fourth-quarter numbers on Thursday, by some estimates in the neighborhood of $15 billion. Bank of America, Wachovia and other big lenders report next week and...

The price of ethanol has fallen by 30% over the past few months as a glut of the corn-based fuel looms, while the price of ethanol's primary component, corn, had risen. That is squeezing ethanol companies' profits and pushing some ethanol plants to the brink of bankruptcy. Some ethanol companies are "under deathwatch" now, says Chris Groobey, a partner in the project-finance practice of law firm Baker & McKenzie, which has worked with lenders and private-equity funds involved with ethanol. That could be fine for big efficient players like Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., one of the nation's biggest ethanol producers by output....

t was a slow Friday at Red Herring magazine. The receptionist at the Silicon Valley tech title had stepped away from her desk. So a messenger strolls in from the summer sunshine, finds a 20-something reporter on her first real job and hits her with an eviction notice. Red Herring has three days to pay the rent or get out. Word got around, fast. Then someone looked outside. There, driving up in a rented silver Mazda minivan is a correspondent with gossip blog Valleywag. Aaaaaaand she's got a camera. Silicon Valley is booming again. But if you work in tech...

During the height of the real estate bubble, I wrote a column saying that the crash was coming and suggested selling any piece of real estate that was overpriced, questionable, or non-performing. As expected, I received angry replies. Today, I'm predicting the next crash, what I believe will cause it, and why it'll be a severe blow to the global economy. The signs are already here. Busts Beat Booms First of all, it's no big deal to predict booms and busts. All markets boom and bust. It's just easier to predict a bust because the signs are so obvious --...

The man responsible for protecting Egypt's antiquities has said he will "fight" for the return of an ancient bust of Nefertiti, an ancient Egyptian queen, now housed in a Berlin museum. Zahi Hawass also requested the temporary return of other ancient Egyptian artifacts, including the Rosetta Stone which is housed in London's British museum. "Some people say, 'If we give this bust to Egypt for three months they will not return it'." Hawass said, regarding the bust of Nefertiti, in an interview on Wednesday.Zahi Hawass is seeking "unique artifacts" from at least 10 museums around the world [AP]Germany says the...

“Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as subprime loans and niche credit programs for immigrants… With these advances in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers… Where once more marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending,… fostering constructive innovation that is both responsive to market demand and beneficial to...

SAN DIEGO – Federal authorities Wednesday arrested dozens of individuals across the country suspected of bringing 18 tons of illegal drugs into the United States, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said in an afternoon news conference here. Members of the Victor Emilio Cazares-Gastellum drug trafficking ring were awakened in the early morning hours by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies who served simultaneous arrest warrants as part of a 20-month-long investigation into the ring's operations, Gonzales and other federal officials said. Gonzales said the Mexico-based organization acquired drugs from Colombia and Venezuela to Central America, then smuggled them into...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures tumbled as much as 3% Tuesday after Saudi Arabia's oil minister said major oil producers need not cut production further, disappointing hopes that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would intervene to prop up prices. Crude for February delivery was last down $1.39, or 2.6%, at $51.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract struck a 20-month intraday low of $51.25. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters at an oil conference in India that the market is "significantly healthier" now than it was in October, when OPEC agreed to...

LONDON (Reuters) -- Oil prices plunged more than 3 percent back near $51 a barrel Tuesday after Saudi Arabia said OPEC production cuts were working well and that there was no need for an emergency meeting of the producer group. U.S. light crude for February delivery tumbled $1.78 to $51.21 a barrel after touching $50.93, the lowest since May 2005, in earlier New York Mercantile Exchange trading. In London, Brent futures shed 82 cents to $52.30. The price of crude has plunged more than 16 percent this year in part due to warm weather in the Northeast, the world's top...

Can't post but good news as Saudi Arabia's oil minister rejected calls for more production cuts... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=ap9i3C_FTkR4&refer=energy

The Mortgage Bust Goes On Matthew Swibel, 12.19.06 WASHINGTON, D.C. - A record-high 19% of high-cost mortgages originated during the past two years will end in foreclosure, a consequence of the growth in risky mortgage products, according to new data compiled by an industry group. The nonpartisan Center for Responsible Lending predicts 2.2 million households in this mortgage segment, known as subprime borrowers, either have lost their homes or hold mortgages doomed for foreclosure in the next few years. This estimate comes a week after a grim survey from Fitch Ratings, which studies residential mortgage securities, showing a 16-fold increase...

GREELEY, Colo. - Federal agents on Tuesday raided six meatpacking plants across the country, targeting illegal immigrants who obtained jobs by stealing the identities of U.S. citizens. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had surrounded the Swift plant in Greeley as well as five other Swift plants. It was not immediately known how many people were rounded up in the raids. Authorities say the investigation began in February and that they have identified hundreds of potential victims.

What Housing Bust? The bear forecast vs. the bull facts. By John Tamny Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist for Goldman Sachs, puts the odds of a consumer-led recession at one in three. His reasoning for this bearish assessment goes as follows: The current housing slump could negatively impact consumer spending which would bring down the economy. But there’s one glaring problem with this sequence of events: There simply is not a lot of evidence that real estate has hit a rough patch. Last month the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) released its House Price Index. The index shows...

As I noted last week, Airbus is considering moving some manufacturing operations out of Europe, to countries where the dollar (not the euro) is is the currency, or linked to the currency. The Wall Street Journal reports that today’s meeting of the board of directors of parent company EADS will consider just such a move. Not exactly a triumph for Europe, the euro, or European workers. But potentially even worse news for the A 380 whale jet comes from a technical committee which includes both European and American regukators. They have handed down a decision which threatens the principal advantage...

Housing not facing bust, Just normalcy : experts By Patrick Rucker WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While the U.S. housing market is drifting down from stratospheric levels, the sector is just returning to normal and is not poised to crash, several economists and industry leaders told lawmakers on Wednesday. "True housing busts are a relatively rare event," Federal Deposit Insurance Corp chief economist Richard Brown said at a congressional hearing on the housing market. In a recent study of past housing trends, the bank regulator concluded sharp drops in housing markets are most often linked to "episodes of severe local economic distress."...

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's attorney general said the arrest a group of corrupt cops along the border with California is imminent. Daniel Cabeza de Vaca told a Mexico City news conference today the cops protected a Tijuana cartel, the Arellano Felix gang, which smuggled tons of pot, cocaine and meth into the United States. Two were already arrested Saturday and charged with taking bribes to protect the gang. The attorney general said they worked at the Rosarito police department just over the border from San Diego border. The two are accused of decapitating three of their fellow officers. The news...

Cocaine seized, 4 arrested in bustBy Sonja Elmquist Staff Writer Sheriff Sam Page (left) displays weapons and cocaine that were seized. WENTWORTH -- Four illegal immigrants were arrested Tuesday in western Rockingham County and charged with trafficking nearly 18 pounds of powder cocaine valued at $800,000. Deputies seized the drugs, automatic weapons and two vehicles. Sheriff Sam Page said Thursday that he didn't know if the drugs were destined for Rockingham County or if the alleged traffickers were just passing through. Either way, Page said, it was a danger. "When you have 171/2 or 18 pounds of cocaine going through...

War On Drugs: While not the end of the tale, the crushing of the Javier Arellano Felix drug cartel is a victory that should be played up. By itself, the arrest is satisfying. Better still, it shows the U.S. can work with Mexico. That wasn't the case when Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, an agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, was murdered by drug traffickers in Guadalajara in 1985. Back then, Mexican authorities threw roadblocks at apprehending drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, who was a leading member of the group that kidnapped, tortured and killed the agent. Mexican police told...

pair of illegal immigrants carrying drugs, weapons, and a suspicious liquid was busted on the border. Authorities say that suspicious liquid could be used to make liquid methamphetamine. It happened Thursday morning, in Santa Cruz County just outside Rio Rico and only a few miles from the Mexican border. "You can't be a hundred percent sure that's what's on the label is in the bottle," said Battalion Chief William Rowe with the Tubac Fire Department. Labels on bottles found read "ethanol." Officials say the lids had been tampered with, so no one could be sure exactly what was inside. The...

Britons go bust at rate of one per minute By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor (Filed: 05/08/2006) One person is falling victim to insolvency every minute of the working day and home repossession applications show the biggest rise since the early 1990s housing crash. Many are finding it impossible to pay record gas and electricity bills The Government figures issued yesterday, 24 hours after the Bank of England raised interest rates for the first time in two years, show that more and more families are being caught up in the ballooning debt crisis. Experts said that many families were finding it...

Now I'm thinking. When will we have our first famous "plastinized" celebrity? Will it be Michael Jackson albeit his missing nose? At least he wouldn't be frozen like a giant popsicle in a cryogenic chamber. What about Bill Clinton? Well, I believe he could become an instant hit given his history at the White House behind closed doors. I'm sure people will want to take a closer look at Bill Clinton's "plastinized" body and see what the big deal was about just like

Wichita Falls,TX(7News) A Wichita Falls convenience store owner is going to prison for life for selling ingredients to make meth. The bust happened at the Krystal Mart store in April of 2004. The drug task force says owner Reza Vafaiyan was selling more than 80,000 tablets of pseudoephedrine, which prosecutors say could have produced more than $4 million worth of meth. A Wichita County jury sentenced Vafaiyan to life in prison for the crime.

Tens of thousands of people in Europe and the Americas protested the war in Iraq on the eve of its third anniversary, with demonstrations in Europe drawing far greater crowds than those in the United States.Events in Washington, New York and Los Angeles drew approximately 1,000 people each, ÀFÐ reporters and police said. At a rally near New York's Times Square, speaker after speaker denounced the Bush administration and US troops in Iraq. The group Troops Out Now called for immediate, complete, unconditional US military withdrawal. "Public opinion is now overwhelmingly on our side as it becomes clearer every day...

The Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have until March 10 to agree on any bond proposals for voters to consider on the June ballot. There is no shortage of bond proposals, from prison construction to coastal preservation. There is a shortage of time, however. And there is a shortage of political ability - among both the Democrats who lead the Legislature and the Republican governor - ... The only chance of success lies in narrowing the playing field. In the time remaining, the governor and lawmakers must focus on the one or two issues that seem doable. One is flood...

The Baby Bust In the 1970s, sociologists warned that overpopulation was the greatest threat facing humanity. Today, birth rates are dropping around the globe, and experts speak darkly of “depopulation.” What’s wrong with fewer people? 11/11/2005 How quickly is the birth rate declining? The global fertility rate now stands at 2.9 children for every woman of child-bearing age—a decrease of nearly 50 percent since 1972. According to the latest U.N. projections, the world’s fertility rate will fall below “replacement” levels by 2045, meaning that the human population will start shrinking. For a population to remain stable, the fertility rate must...

Ten Women Busted In Undercover Sting On Escort Services POSTED: 5:35 pm EST November 4, 2005 UPDATED: 7:12 am EST November 10, 2005 WEIRD PHOTOS: News Of The Strange Slideshow SIGN UP: Daily News Of The Strange Email FERN PARK, Fla. -- Nearly one dozen women were busted in an undercover sting on local escort services. Investigators say this year's hurricanes brought many of the women to the Central Florida area. Seminole County undercover agents busted ten female escorts on prostitution charges late Thursday night. They said a few of the women had come to Central Florida to work after...

Bernanke: There's No Housing Bubble to Go Bust Fed Nominee Has Said 'Cooling' Won't Hurt Ben S. Bernanke does not think the national housing boom is a bubble that is about to burst, he indicated to Congress last week, just a few days before President Bush nominated him to become the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. U.S. house prices have risen by nearly 25 percent over the past two years, noted Bernanke, currently chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, in testimony to Congress's Joint Economic Committee. But these increases, he said, "largely reflect strong economic fundamentals," such...

If a liberal tree falls in the forest, is anybody listening (other than the environmental activist who's chained to it)? First off, I have to admit to being wrong. When the idea for Air America was announced, I was skeptical that it would make it a year and a half, as it has. But, then again, a decade ago, who would have guessed that Bill and Hillary would ever stay together long enough to celebrate their 30th anniversary, as they did earlier this month? One of the goals of Air America, since its inception, was to be an entertaining liberal...

SANTA CRUZ — A well-known local medical marijuana advocate is considering a lawsuit after getting caught with the drug at a Southern California airport in late July. Valerie Corral said she was at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank when security officials found about "5 or so grams" of pot in her bag. She had a Santa Cruz County medical identification card and a doctor’s recommendation, she said. That didn’t keep her from being detained for about 45 minutes, having her pot taken and getting a citation. Corral, co-founder of Santa Cruz’s Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, said she is fighting...

LaPorte County, IN - About 3,000 to 5,000 marijuana plants, some the size of Christmas trees, have been found about a half mile north of State Road 4 between 600 and 700 East in LaPorte County, just west of Fish Lake. Officials are calling it the largest outdoor marijuana bust in Indiana since the 1980s. The plants are growing in three to five clusters, hidden on the ground in a two-acre plot full of trees. Police discovered the hidden plants over a week ago but it wasn’t until yesterday that they decided to bust up the drug ring. Police say...

A TEXAS man was arrested overnight after calling police to complain about the theft of his marijuana, authorities said. Stephen Knight, 17, said three men had broken into his apartment, hogtied him with Christmas lights and stole some marijuana, along with a plasma screen television, police said. Police are looking for the suspects. In the meantime, they arrested Knight after finding several marijuana plants growing under heat lamps in the apartment, four grams of harvested marijuana and a tablet of ecstasy, Officer Chad Ripley said. Knight said the men barged into his home early this morning demanding, "Where's the weed?",...

July 6, 2005 Peter Schiff is C.E.O. and Chief Global Strategist at Euro Pacific Capital, Inc. As the “debate” over the existence of a housing bubble intensifies, both sides are likely to be proven wrong when it comes to predictions for housing declines should the bubble burst. Most bubble advocates believe that rather than collapsing, housing prices will either rise more slowly, fall slightly, or simply stop going up, thereby allowing stagnant incomes to catch up with surging prices. However, a closer look at the facts reveals it is far more likely to burst with as big a bang as...

A former Osceola County fire chief is facing charges of running a million-dollar marijuana-production operation from a house near Holopaw in rural southeast Osceola. A tip led deputies to a house owned by former Fire Chief Jeffrey Ray Hall, 42, who now lives in Melbourne. Hall's partner in the operation told investigators the two were taking in $15,000 a month by growing and selling an especially potent variety of pot known as "crippy," which fetches a higher street value, the Osceola Sheriff's Office said. The sheriff's community-response team found 460 marijuana plants, 18 pounds of pot and several grow rooms...

Oil 'will hit $100 by winter' Worst-ever crisis looms, says analyst · Surging demand to keep prices high Heather Stewart, economics correspondent Sunday July 3, 2005 The Observer Oil prices could rocket to $100 within six months, plunging the world into an unprecedented fuel crisis, controversial Texan oil analyst Matt Simmons has warned. After crude surged through $60 a barrel last week, nervous investors were pinning their hopes on a build-up in US oil-stocks to depress prices in the coming months. But Simmons believes surging demand will keep prices bubbling well above $50. 'We could be at $100 by this...

There's a bubble in bonds, thanks to hedge funds. Just be sure you move into stocks before it bursts. The following is an "Ahead of the Curve" column published May 27, 2005 on SmartMoney.com, where Luskin is a Contributing Editor. Hedge funds are the new "dumb money." At least that's what so many of my institutional clients are telling me. And they should know, considering they're hedge funds themselves. Don't get me wrong. My clients are the larger hedge funds that have been around for years, battle-tested in bull markets and bear markets. The ones they're referring to are the...

On a winter evening last year a veteran sheriff's deputy pulled over silver Chevy Malibu for speeding on I-40, hit a jackpot. ...found 33 pounds of cocaine worth more than $ 1 million dollars on the street... Criminal Court Judge Paula Skaham ruled that the deputy questioned and detained Berrios too long for a routine traffic stop and the driver did not appear to be nervous enough on the officer's dashboard video to suspect criminal activity...

Airborne wings, the Green Beret and the numbered combat knife now given to every Special Forces soldier who wins his tabs all came from one man — retired Lt. Gen. William P. “Bill” Yarborough of Southern Pines. A volunteer committee of friends and admirers is raising funds to do something seldom done: honor a hero while he lives to hear the praise. They have commissioned a bust of the famed Army leader to be placed in the Airborne and Special Operations Museum in downtown Fayetteville. “We are very appreciative of the support of Sandhills Kiwanis Club for allowing us to...

THE DOW REPORTCommodity Boom or BustIt's been a while since I talked about commodities, and given the price action seen this week, I thought that we would revisit this subject today. In early December 2004 it looked as if the commodity boom was over. At that time many of the technical pieces had fallen in place indicating a major top had occurred. But, there happened to have been one last gasp into the parabolic advance that ended in March.But what about now? Is the commodity boom really over? Has the recent decline really been another buying opportunity? Why have gold...

TORONTO detectives didn't have to travel far to arrest a man who allegedly drove away after running over a man who had jumped off a bridge onto the DVP. Officers arrested and charged a civilian member of the Toronto Police Service with failing to stop after the Jan. 29 accident, traffic services Det. Wally Watts said yesterday. The suspect is a 10-year veteran of the Toronto police service who works as a computer programmer in information technology services/computer operations at police headquarters. EMPLOYEE SUSPENDED The employee has also been suspended pending further investigation, Watts said. Watts said the 22-year-old man...

CHICAGO (AP) -- Nine men, including four veteran Chicago police officers, were arrested Thursday and charged with stealing cocaine, money and guns from drug dealers. All nine were charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine. Authorities said the five non-officers arrested were drug dealers themselves who worked with the policemen from the Englewood District on Chicago's South Side.

US Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who had hoped to replace George W. Bush as president yesterday, instead sat in the cold and clapped as the Republican began a second four-year term. Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin patted Senator Kerry on the back shortly before the inauguration Senator Kerry had hoped would be his. As Mr Bush delivered his inaugural address, Senator Kerry, about 10m away on the steps of the US Capitol, joined other lawmakers and the crowd in repeated applause. Senator Kerry looked relaxed, at times wistful. He frequently smiled, able to hide any disappointment over what...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 - President Bush's nominee for secretary of health and human services, Michael O. Leavitt, said Tuesday that states could provide health insurance to more people, at no additional cost, if they had "greater flexibility" to reshape the Medicaid program and trim benefits. "We have a substantial obligation to care for the poor," Mr. Leavitt told a Senate committee reviewing his nomination. "We can expand the number of people served with quality basic care by giving states additional flexibility." Mr. Leavitt repeated that view several times, suggesting that it would be a theme as the administration worked with...

No boom lasts forever, and in countries like Britain and Australia, the housing market has suddenly turned lower, leading to discussions of how a plunge can be avoided and what will happen if it is not. The American housing market received a scare yesterday, with a report that the pace of new-home sales slipped in November as the median price of a new home fell to the lowest level in a year. But mortgage applications indicate that a rebound has begun, and in any case, prices of new homes can fail to capture price trends for existing homes in areas...