Stimulus funds fed minority businesses that served as middlemen. WB Construction & Sons Inc. is a 10-employee, minority-owned firm that received $7.5 million in five stimulus contracts from the federal government, but it did not do close to that much work. Every one of the stimulus contracts it received followed a pattern: Win a contract […]
Were California’s state government a business, it would be a candidate for insolvency with a negative net worth of $127.2 billion, according to an annual financial report issued by State AuditorElaine Howle and the Bureau of State Audits. The report, which covers the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, says that the state’s negative status — all of its assets […]
In the ongoing debate over deficit reduction, President Obama and his colleagues in the House and Senate incessantly call for tax increases as if our budget problems persisted because of taxes being too low. If only the federal government could usurp more of taxpayers’ hard earned money, the line of thought goes, Washington could get […]
Newscom It’s no secret that the White House, regardless of Administration, releases unpopular news on Friday afternoons. On the popular television drama West Wing, the fictional Bartlett Administration calls it “Take out the trash day.” We shouldn’t be too surprised that the Obama Administration released Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that will increase the price […]
What would you do if you woke up one day and discovered that the banksters had “legally” stolen about 80 percent of your life savings? Most people seem to assume that most of the depositors that are getting ripped off in Cyprus are “Russian oligarchs” or “wealthy European tycoons”, but the truth is that they […]
Newscom The law of supply and demand cannot be revoked. But it is being amended slightly, and we’re all paying the price. In this case, for sugar. Last year produced a bumper crop of sugar beets, which are refined (as their name would suggest) into sugar. Meanwhile, Americans have been using less sugar over the […]
Marios Lolos/Xinhua/Photoshot/Newscom Today, Cyprus’s banks opened for the first time in more than 10 days, after Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades—without seeking approval from his parliament—agreed to bailout terms that will raid citizens’ bank accounts. Those banking in Cyprus should not get too excited about the banks reopening. Strict capital controls are in place, allowing account […]
If you meet Baxter, the latest humanoid robot from Rethink Robotics – you should get comfortable with him, because you’ll likely be seeing more of him soon. Rethink Robotics released Baxter last fall and received an overwhelming response from the manufacturing industry, selling out of their production capacity through April. He’s cheap to buy ($22,000), […]
Patrick Pleul/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom A last-minute accord struck early Monday morning between Cypriot authorities and International Monetary Fund and European Union officials is being hailed in Brussels as a breakthrough. In reality, the agreement simply papers over serious structural fractures within the eurozone and is likely nothing more than a temporary solution to long-term problems. The deal […]
Zick,Jochen/ZUMA Press/Newscom As opposition to the euro continues to build within the eurozone, Germany, the motor of the eurozone—frankly, the only thing holding it all together—is not immune. Recently, a new political organization has formed in Germany called Alternative for Germany. So far the group is only a collection of like-minded euro-skeptic German intellectuals with […]
