0% Inflation

Posted on 16 August 2022 by eehines

That’s what President Joe Biden (D) said, just a few days ago, when overall inflation came out unchanged in July vs June. (I’ll elide, here, the year-on-year inflation rate of 8.5% in July, which is a little different from 0%.)

Today we received news that our economy had zero percent inflation in the month of July. Here is what that means: while the price of some things went up last month, the price of other things went down by the same amount.

Among those things whose price went up is food, which all of us need for survival, even as we don’t need gasoline or airline tickets just to survive.

This is a preview of 0% Inflation. Read the full post (281 words, estimated 1:07 mins reading time)

Public Pension Fund Bail-out

Posted on 14 August 2022 by eehines

The Editors’ subheadline illustrates the mistake.

As stock prices fall, public pensions may need taxpayer help.

Quite a large number of public pension funds are in serious financial trouble as a result of their excessively optimistic expected rates of investment returns and the last several weeks of stock market drop.

No, they don’t need taxpayer “help.” What the public pension funds need is to be allowed to fail as a result of their politically-driven, rather than fiscally- or financially-driven, management.

This is a preview of Public Pension Fund Bail-out. Read the full post (138 words, estimated 33 secs reading time)

Term Limits

Posted on 12 August 2022 by eehines

There are a number of term limits proposals on offer regarding politicians.

Then, as James Sherk pointed out in his Monday Wall Street Journal op-ed,

Career employees fill almost all federal jobs. Only 4,000 of the 2.2 million federal employees are political appointees. Career federal employees consequently do almost all the work of government.

Here’s my term limits offer, this one regarding civil servants/career federal employees—and I’d apply it to Federal contract employees, also.

This is a preview of Term Limits. Read the full post (270 words, estimated 1:05 mins reading time)

Chamber of Commerce and the Progressive-Democratic Party

Posted on 11 August 2022 by eehines

The US Chamber of Commerce decided in 2020 to endorse a number of first-term Progressive-Democratic Party Congressmen on the theory that Party would control Congress after the elections and in the expectation, tacitly agreed to if only by their silence, by those Party endorsees. Fifteen of those twenty-three first-termer endorsees were reelected.

So, how’d they do regarding Chamber of Commerce wishes and expectations?

Every one of the 15 voted for the $1.9 trillion spending bill in March 2020, despite Chamber opposition to sweeping jobless benefits that stoked labor shortages and stimulus checks that fed inflation. They also voted for the PRO Act, a radical pro-union rewrite of labor law.

This is a preview of Chamber of Commerce and the Progressive-Democratic Party. Read the full post (355 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Climate and Party

Posted on 11 August 2022 by eehines

Here is the Progressive-Democratic Party’s goal with the Build Reduced Back Act just passed unilaterally by Party in the Senate and about to be passed unilaterally by Party in the House, in a nutshell as summarized by the Wall Street Journal:

[It] won’t reduce inflation, won’t reduce the budget deficit, and it won’t reduce the world’s temperature. What it will do is transfer some $369 billion from taxpayers and drug companies to the pockets of green energy businesses and investors.

This is a preview of Climate and Party. Read the full post (223 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)

And to Reduce Development of New Drugs

Posted on 10 August 2022 by eehines

The Wall Street Journal headline reads Democrats Vote to Raise Drug Prices. That’s in response to the Senate Progressive-Democratic Party’s unilateral vote to pass President Joe Biden’s (D) Build Reduced Back Act last Sunday. Included in that bill is a capability for Medicare to “negotiate” the prices on a select list of drugs. Negotiate: accept Medicare’s offer or pay a 95% tax on revenues. Nice drug you got there….

This is one inevitable result:

If drug makers must give Medicare steep discounts on certain drugs, they will compensate by increasing prices in the commercial market.

This is a preview of And to Reduce Development of New Drugs. Read the full post (299 words, estimated 1:12 mins reading time)

Food or Fuel?

Posted on 9 August 2022 by eehines

That’s the choice being forced on Americans by the push for “clean” fuel for our cars, even as the Left and the Progressive-Democratic Party push for elimination of gasoline-burning cars. Dave Loos, Illinois Corn Growers Association’s Director of Biofuels and Research, actually is proud of that diversion of food to fuel.

Illinois has 13 ethanol plants that can produce 1.6 to 1.7 billion gallons of ethanol annually.

A bushel of corn produces 2.8 gallons of ethanol. That’s roughly 590 million bushels of corn diverted from food in Illinois alone. Illinois corn farmers produced 2.13 billion bushels of corn in 2019. The equivalent (because it’s not only Illinois corn in those plants) of more than 27% of Illinois’ corn production is diverted away from food production in Illinois’ plants.

This is a preview of Food or Fuel?. Read the full post (373 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Lies of the Progressive-Democratic Party Politicians

Posted on 9 August 2022 by eehines

Senator Joe Manchin (D, WV) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) and President Joe Biden (D) tout the just passed (I ass-u-me; I’m writing this on Sunday morning) Build Reduced Back Act as not raising taxes on Americans with incomes less than $400k per year. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D, AZ) agrees with that by her relative silence on the matter.

However, their very own Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation demonstrates the lie of that claim.

Just the News aggregated those data:

This is a preview of Lies of the Progressive-Democratic Party Politicians. Read the full post (254 words, 1 image, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

Jobs

Posted on 8 August 2022 by eehines

Some statistics indicate a strong and growing jobs situation in our economy. Other statistics…not so much.

A couple of the latter, for instance.

The labor force participation rate has dropped for the second month in a row in the face of burgeoning inflation and wage growth that isn’t keeping up, so that real wages—what your money actually can buy in the grocery store and gas station and for your home in the form of electricity—are shrinking drastically.

This is a preview of Jobs. Read the full post (415 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

On Governor Newsom’s Plan to Produce Insulin

Posted on 7 August 2022 by eehines

Regarding that idea, a letter writer in The Wall Street Journal‘s Tuesday Letters section offered this after suggesting that Newsom’s effort would have the salutary outcome of demonstrating the foolishness of such a move:

Targeted subsidies for at-risk populations cost a fraction of the investment needed to bring “affordable” medications to the people….

This is a preview of On Governor Newsom’s Plan to Produce Insulin. Read the full post (214 words, estimated 51 secs reading time)

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Category Archives: Economics

0% Inflation

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Public Pension Fund Bail-out

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Term Limits

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Chamber of Commerce and the Progressive-Democratic Party

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Climate and Party

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And to Reduce Development of New Drugs

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Food or Fuel?

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Lies of the Progressive-Democratic Party Politicians

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Jobs

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On Governor Newsom’s Plan to Produce Insulin

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