Category Archives: political economy

The Business of Business and the Wuhan Virus

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Another precinct is passing in its results.

After scrambling to hoard cash in the spring, some large US companies that halted their dividend payments are reversing their decision, a sign that their leaders believe the worst of the crisis is behind them.

Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics:

The resumption of corporate dividend payments is an encouraging sign that executives believe that the pandemic will soon be behind us.

And

[Kohl’s r]evenue fell 14%, compared with a 23% drop in the previous quarter. Kohl’s said it would resume its dividend in the first half of 2021.

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Tyranny and the First Amendment

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On the matter of Target’s initial attempt to ban a book (Irreversible Damage: the Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters for those following along) because some folks objected to it, followed by Target’s reversal and decision to sell the book after all, a letter-writer published in The Wall Street Journal‘s Thursday Letters had this remark:

Lobbying the government to make a book illegal is pro-book banning. Lobbying Target to take a book off the shelves is pro-capitalism.

This is not even close to correct. Lobbying Target to take a book off the shelves is suppression of speech, even when done by private citizens.

This is a preview of Tyranny and the First Amendment. Read the full post (205 words, estimated 49 secs reading time)

Tax Breaks

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In particular, child tax credits and their proposed expansion, but the principle below applies across the board.

…pair the expansion of the child tax credit with extensions of expiring business-tax provisions, some of which have Democratic support.

Pairing in order to get the credit passed, one being a bell for the other’s whistle.  Refundable credits, too, so those who don’t pay much, if any, income tax can get their own taste. Here’s Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s offer on the credit:

This is a preview of Tax Breaks. Read the full post (360 words, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

Another Reason

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…why neither the People’s Republic of China nor the World Health Organization can be trusted.

Opposition from the Chinese government is preventing participants in a World Health Organization meeting on the Covid-19 pandemic from learning directly about one of the world’s biggest coronavirus success stories.
Taiwan hasn’t recorded a locally transmitted coronavirus infection in about seven months but has been blocked from participating in a virtual gathering this week [last week as this is posted] of the WHO’s 194-member World Health Assembly because of objections from Beijing, which considers the self-ruled island part of its territory.

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Irony Meter

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Mine just pegged.

Rashida Tlaib
@RashidaTlaib
US House candidate, MI-13
My residents walked by blighted homes, closed schools and breathed in polluted air, to vote for President-elect @JoeBiden & VP-elect @KamalaHarris.

How oblivious can one grown, adult woman be?

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Mutual Trust

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…requires mutuality. Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden is preaching unity, bipartisanship, and trust. However, The Wall Street Journal, in its Tuesday edition, noted that

Biden will be under intense scrutiny from his left flank, which is already calling on him to shun incremental change in favor of an ambitious agenda and to populate his administration with progressives.

However.

Biden has shown himself since to be utterly untrustworthy.

His positions are unreliable; he’s flip-flopped on far too many principles, from the Hyde Amendment, to fracking bans, to the Green New Deal, and more.

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Foreign Takeovers of Domestic Companies

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Great Britain is concerned with

strik[ing] a middle ground between welcoming foreign investment and protecting strategic industries from takeover, particularly amid concerns around acquisitions by Chinese state-backed companies.

Thus,

Under…proposed rules, investors would have to notify the government about transactions involving 17 sectors including nuclear, artificial intelligence, transport, energy, and defense.

That would seem to make a foreign investment law unnecessarily byzantine, and require revisiting at some aperiodic intervals.  After all, what’s not strategic today might turn out strategic tomorrow. This is illustrated by the timing of this proposal.

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Joe Biden’s Agenda

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Assuming the unofficial results of the election become official. Here’s the nutshell:

Tax hikes for the rich, broadened health care coverage, and student loan forgiveness were some of the projects on candidate Biden’s to-do list.

This is a preview of Joe Biden’s Agenda. Read the full post (616 words, estimated 2:28 mins reading time)

City Pensions

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They’re in trouble. You knew that, though, as city budgets have long favored spending more than revenue, especially spending on public union pensions and other retirement benefits, and so debts piled up—and continue to amass.

One particular arena where that’s having potentially deleterious effect is in pensions with benefits like paid (or mostly paid) health plans.

Cities and states can’t afford to keep the same medical benefits they promised government retirees.
For all 50 states combined, revenue declines for 2020 and 2021 could reach 13% cumulatively, according to Moody’s Analytics projections, while the average cost of an employer health-care plan for an individual increased 4% in 2020 to $7,470, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation nonprofit.

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A Couple of Economic Charts

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Via Carpe Diem.

Here is one that illustrates one aspect of the alleged earnings disparity, which in turn is a component of wealth inequality:

Notice when this subset of the gender gap began to close and to be eliminated—the Trump administration.

Here’s one on the subject of atmospheric CO2 emissions, especially pertinent in light of our official withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord Wednesday.

This was accomplished through ordinary free market economics and the application of technology within that market. Restrictions on our economy in order to meet artificial outcomes are unnecessary—and that’s the case regardless of the legitimacy of CO2 emissions concerns. Keep in mind, too, that the People’s Republic of China has voluntary limits that don’t even begin for another decade.

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