Author: Eric Englund

In February of 2015, I wrote an article titled “Stock Buybacks and Sears’ Death Spiral.” In this article, I was critical of Sears Holdings Corporation’s stock buybacks, totaling $6.011 billion, from 2005 through 2011. In the final paragraph of my article, I stated: When a company has little cash, negative working capital, and a negative net worth, it is painfully insolvent. I also predict that when Sears declares bankruptcy, the talking heads on CNBC and Bloomberg TV will not call Eddie Lampert onto the carpet and question Sears’ reckless stock buyback program running from 2005 to 2011. How did flushing … Continue reading →

The post Sears’ Death Spiral Nears Its End appeared first on LewRockwell.

On September 19, 2016, California’s governor, Jerry Brown, signed into law America’s toughest restrictions on “super pollutants” including black carbon, fluorinated gases and methane. Per the press release from Governor Brown’s office, if such legislation is followed worldwide “…these acts would help cut the projected rate of global warming in half by 2050.” In reading through this legislation (SB 1383) I found this head-slapper: Enteric emissions reductions shall be achieved only through incentive-based mechanisms until the state board, in consultation with the department, determines that a cost-effective, considering the impact on animal productivity, and scientifically proven method of reducing enteric … Continue reading →

The post Punishing Cow Emissions, Loving Alcohol’s appeared first on LewRockwell.

Water and carbon dioxide are life-giving chemical compounds. Life, on Earth, could not exist without these compounds. What else do they have in common? Well, both are also byproducts of mankind’s fossil-fuel energy production. For example, a gasoline internal combustion engine produces exhaust comprised of 71% nitrogen, 14% carbon dioxide, 12% water vapor; with the remaining 3% consisting of trace gases. Coal, natural gas, and petroleum-burning power plants also emit both carbon dioxide and water vapor. So, if bureaucrats, environmentalists, politicians and scientists want to deem—and properly so—the aforementioned carbon dioxide emissions as “manmade” then water-vapor emissions must be deemed … Continue reading →

The post Is Water a Pollutant? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Poof! Let’s make all privately-owned guns disappear; and then murder, suicide, and crime in general will magically dissipate into the ether. To progressives, like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, more guns mean more violence and, therefore, fewer guns mean less violence. For progressives, this politically-correct assertion is all that is needed to justify their push for gun control. Fortunately, this simple-minded view of guns is unsupportable as it implies every human being is deranged enough to commit murder by merely having access to a gun. Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser, fortuitously, have produced a study dispelling the anti-gun drivel … Continue reading →

The post Benefits of Privately Owned Firearms appeared first on LewRockwell.

For the first quarter of 2015, The New York Times Company reported a net loss of $14.4 million. The Times would have been profitable, last quarter, had it not incurred a $40.3 million pension settlement charge. This sizable settlement charge made me curious; so I went to The New York Times Company’s 2014 Annual Report and discovered, on page 10, the following statement: “Our qualified defined benefit pension plans were underfunded by approximately $264 million as of December 28, 2014.” On the same page, it was also mentioned that: “The underfunded status of our pension plans may adversely affect our … Continue reading →

On November 17, 2004, big news hit the retail world. Attention Kmart shareholders, your company announced that it was going to purchase Sears, Roebuck for $11 billion. In a November 18, 2004 New York Times article, it was stated: “The takeover is a triumph for Kmart’s largest shareholder, Edward S. Lampert, a billionaire investor who pushed the company to emerge from bankruptcy barely 18 months ago, shut many stores and sold dozens of others to Sears as he presided over a run-up in Kmart’s value on Wall Street.” It was further reported, in this article, that:  “’This is going to … Continue reading →