Obama’s War

Posted on 16 April 2014 by eehines

…on women and on minorities in general continues apace.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would kill off 500,000 jobs…57% of those jobs are held by women.

Women would be disproportionately harmed: those 57% work out to a loss of 285,000 jobs for women. I suppose, though, that given this administration’s current buzz, President Barack Obama and his coterie view this as a general good.

Obama’s war is just as devastating on other groups of Americans whom his mouth holds in high favor, but his actions plainly disdain. The Employment Policies Institute has some of the sordid details.

This is a preview of Obama’s War. Read the full post (149 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

On Denying Market Forces vis-à-vis Supply and Demand

Posted on 15 April 2014 by eehines

Here’s an interesting graph from AEIDeas:

What this illustrates is the outcome of the lack of a market for organs to be transplanted, in this graph, specifically kidneys.

As Mark Perry put it in his article [emphasis his],

While the annual number of kidney transplant operations has remained relatively flat since 2005 in a range between about 16,500 and 17,000, the number of registered patients on the waiting list continues to increase. From about 65,000 registered patients in 2005, the waiting list for a kidney transplant has increased by more than 50% over the last eight years, and by 35,000 patients, to the 100,019 patients who are currently on the kidney waiting list.

This is a preview of On Denying Market Forces vis-à-vis Supply and Demand. Read the full post (353 words, 1 image, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Hotel Maryland

Posted on 10 April 2014 by eehines

You can check in, but you can’t check out.

Netflix’ show, House of Cards, is about cut-throat politics at its worst, it’s hugely successful, and it’s filmed in Maryland. And therein lies the rub.

The show’s producers, Media Rights Capital, now want a larger set of tax credits, given that success. If they can’t get an increase, MRC says it’ll move its filming location to another state where it can get a better deal for its proven product. Fair enough. The filming produces income for the state’s economy and for the state, even with the current credit structure, and that success is expected to continue.

This is a preview of Hotel Maryland. Read the full post (328 words, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

Helping the Low Wage Worker

Posted on 8 April 2014 by eehines

There are lots of sources for this help; I’m only going to talk about how government can help (yes, we can and should help the least among us, and yes, Conservatives, government does have a role, if limited: there are things government can do, even here, better than the private sector). The trick here is to prevent government mission creep and an ever-increasing government role—a difficulty that in itself makes a powerful, and not entirely illegitimate, argument against any government role at all.

This is a preview of Helping the Low Wage Worker. Read the full post (902 words, estimated 3:36 mins reading time)

Spending on Education

Posted on 8 April 2014 by eehines

…and education results turn out to be wholly independent of each other—that is, spending more and more hasn’t produced better and better outcomes for our students—it hasn’t had any effect at all. It’s been a waste of our tax dollars. This is clearly indicated by Cato Institute‘s Andrew Coulson’s report State Education Trends: Academic Performance and Spending over the Past 40 Years. What Coulson found is illustrated by this statement early in the report:

The state-by-state results of this investigation are reported in the subsections that follow, but the overall picture can be summarized in a single value: 0.075. That is the correlation between the spending and academic performance changes of the past 40 years, for all 50 states.

This is a preview of Spending on Education. Read the full post (637 words, 3 images, estimated 2:33 mins reading time)

Jobs Mandates

Posted on 5 April 2014 by eehines

Nearby is a post concerning the jobs impact of Obamacare costs being imposed on employers. Two other labor costs being considered for imposition by our Know Better, Progressive administration are minimum wage increases, and now an increase in the “minimum” wage of salaried managers.

Never mind what such a thing would do to productive company cultures:

…making more people eligible for overtime pay could remove the inherent incentive for lower-level managers to hustle to earn a promotion.

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

Obamacare Jobs Impact

Posted on 4 April 2014 by eehines

The American Health Policy Institute has some data [emphasis in the original]. Although their study concerned itself primarily with the cost impact of Obamacare to large employers—those with 10,000 or more employees—the study’s outcome has implications for our economy’s jobs picture.

The cost of the ACA…is estimated to be between $4,800 to $5,900 per employee.
These large employers will see overall ACA-related cost hikes of…4.3 percent in 2016 and 8.4 percent in 2023 over and above what they would otherwise be spending.
The total cost of the ACA to all large US employers over the next ten years is estimated to be from $151 billion to $186 billion.

This is a preview of Obamacare Jobs Impact. Read the full post (404 words, 1 image, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

The Ryan Budget Proposal

Posted on 3 April 2014 by eehines

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R, WI) has laid out the Republican budget proposal for the decade beginning FY2015.

It begins by balancing the Federal budget over those 10 years, a measure of fiscal responsibility to which the present crop of Democrats don’t even pretend—vis., the Democrat-controlled Senate’s refusal even to produce a budget their first four years of the Obama administration, and which refusal they’ve renewed in the current year, insisting that they don’t need to bring up a budget anymore.

It repeals Obamacare, with that act’s enormous deficit-increasing costs.

This is a preview of The Ryan Budget Proposal. Read the full post (342 words, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

A Political Party’s Fiscal Philosophy in Microcosm

Posted on 3 April 2014 by eehines

The Wall Street Journal has the tale.

Today, a year and a half after the 2012 elections, the Democratic National Committee owes its creditors $15 million. It closed out the 2012 election season owing $22 million, and after all this time, it’s only paid down a third of that debt.

Today, a year and a half after the 2012 elections, the Republican National Committee owes its creditors…zip. Nada. The RNC has no debt. It also closed out the 2012 election season with…wait for it…no debt. The RNC, in fact, had $3 million cash on hand.

This is a preview of A Political Party’s Fiscal Philosophy in Microcosm. Read the full post (190 words, estimated 46 secs reading time)

Value of Your Tax Bill

Posted on 31 March 2014 by eehines

…if the money were left in your hands to put toward your own retirement. WalletHub has looked at the differing state and local tax bites that they charge you for the privilege of living in their fair states. Not surprisingly (to some of us) Red states take a sharply lower bite out of your money than do Blue states, as the figure below illustrates.

This is a preview of Value of Your Tax Bill. Read the full post (459 words, 1 image, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

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Category Archives: political economy