Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Government
Hershey’s – the Candy Man – is a BIG business. Its May 2014 market cap was $23.26 billion.
And Hershey’s is very generous with government. Through the second quarter of last year, it had spent $8,332,000 on lobbying and $845,534 on candidates and elected officials. Tallies no Mom & Pop Candy Shoppe can come close to matching.
Economics · Featured · Government
The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), the unelected oversight group created by the Dodd-Frank Act to monitor and regulate firms deemed to pose systemic risk to the economy (ie. “too big too fail”), has decided begun to expand its remit beyond what even the law’s authors had imagined.
Facing trouble abroad, Siemens ads seek to tap into US taxpayers and wind welfare system
The myriad executive branch Departments, Agencies, Commissions and Boards have been in omni-directional fashion vastly exceeding their authority – doing things that are clearly the Constitutional purview of (amongst other others) the legislative and judicial branches.
John Feehery’s piece here on the dangers of rising Republican skepticism for big business is an amusing read, not just because I’m pretty sure nearly every sentence of it can be debunked in whole or in part. The tone is one of desperate confusion: when did the Republican Party stop being knee-jerk pro-business in the subsidies and carveouts and bailouts sense? Why do they want to kill the jobs of hardworking K Street influence peddlers?
In the minds of many people around the world, including in the United States, the term “capitalism” carries the idea of unfairness, exploitation, undeserved privilege and power, and immoral profit[…]
The Media Marxist Left pushing the terrible Internet policy known as Network Neutrality oft are absurdly called “consumer groups.”
The Spain-based company, Abengoa Solar, claims to be “a global leader in solar thermal energy.” Its website boasts: “Abengoa Solar is the largest solar plant operator worldwide.” Abengoa went public in October 2013, and since, its stock price has doubled. With the support the White House gives to solar energy and the mandates for renewable energy present in the majority of states, Abengoa sounds like a solid investment. And, that’s the image Abengoa has burnished with full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal to encourage investment. However, rather than a “buy,” Abengoa should be a “sell”—sell quickly—as its American run could be coming to a close.
Featured · Government · Internet/Telecom
Network Neutrality is socialism for the Internet – it guarantees everyone equal amounts of nothing.
Government · Internet/Telecom · Liberty · Regulation
Crony Socialism is, in part, the government cutting special deals for certain companies – at the expense of other companies, and the free market. It is particularly pathetic when companies publicly troll for this treatment. It’s almost as if they’ve given up on actually, you know, trying.
Featured · Government · Liberty · Podcast
This weekly podcast features the second half of a conversation between Jim Lakely, Heartland’s communications director, and Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute. In this half of the interview, Jim and Dr. Brook discuss President Obama’s treatment of capitalism, corporate cronyism, and the morality of libertarianism.
The Broadcasters are actually the beneficiaries of decades of government good grace – well beyond the uber-tilted Retransmission laws.
Environment/Energy · Featured · Science
The president is lying when he talks of “climate change” by which he means a warming cycle. He is lying when he blames it on carbon dioxide which plays no role whatever in climate change.
Environment/Energy · Featured · Liberty · Regulation
As people are literally being forced to live in the dark, there will be public outcry.
Budgets/Taxes · Environment/Energy · Featured · Taxes
Legislators in Harrisburg are considering a proposal from state Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Wayne, that would make Pennsylvania the first state to impose a statewide tax on the use of plastic bags.
We are weeks away from being fully immersed in the 2014 election cycle. Predictions abound, likening the 2014 cycle to 2010—when the House flipped from Democratic to Republican. Only this time, it is the Senate that has the potential to change. Twenty of the 33seats up in 2014 are currently held by Democrats—more than half of whom are in trouble.
Ten days ago the EPA issued its proposed rule for the implementation of regulations of carbon dioxide on utilities’ coal-fired power plants. There is no reason for costly government-imposed limits on such emissions, as the global warming they were supposed to cause has been absent for 15 years.
In a world of one-click ordering from Amazon and iTunes, why can’t I just purchase the exact car I want on my terms? The answer is simple: Most state governments have made it illegal
Featured · Internet/Telecom · Liberty
“It ain’t just the metadata.”
NEWS: The Heartlander
Readable Links
