Democrat Extortion, State Level

Louisiana Democratic Gov John Bel Edwards is suggesting the legendary Louisiana State University football team’s 2016 season might be canceled—and other doomsday consequences—unless the GOP-legislature swiftly passes a package of tax increases to help close a looming $940 million budget shortfall.

The budget deficit is projected to reach $2 billion by the start of the next fiscal year. The Republicans should call him out on his naked extortion threats. And then pass a budget with $2.5 billion in spending cuts and $500 million in tax cuts. Does Edwards want to balance the budget, or is his precious spending and taxing all he cares about?

After all, the state’s economy runs over $250 billion as of 2015. Surely, they can find $2.5 billion just by shaking the state government’s couch cushions.

More Government Interference

The Obama administration plans to require large employers to peel back the curtain on how much they pay men and women in a push to narrow long-standing earning gaps between the genders.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will roll out details of the plan Friday to begin gathering a summary of pay data from employers with 100 or more workers.

Leave aside the lack of validity of the data so confiscated by the government.

Statisticians and economists note…that analyzing wage disparities is a complex undertaking, and that aggregating data about many occupations is especially tricky.

“You can’t compare apples and oranges in the same group and draw meaningful conclusions,” said David Cohen, president of DCI Consulting Group, a Washington, DC, firm that conducts pay-equity analyses for companies. “You’re going to get too many false positives and too many false negatives.”

Beyond that, far beyond that, the data are none of the government’s business absent a specific allegation of wrong-doing. If there is a specific complaint—not a blanket fishing expedition borne of this administration’s FDR-esque paranoia about business in general—then get a warrant upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized, just like the 4th Amendment requires.

EU Stimulus

Mario Draghi, of the European Central Bank, wants to keep stimulus efforts going, even with low oil and gas prices (even in Europe) having a dragging effect on inflation. Here’s the kicker, though:

Central bankers sometimes ignore falls in oil and food prices, arguing they are highly volatile and often beyond their influence because they are formed by global market forces. But Mr Draghi said the governing council is worried that a long period of low oil prices may lead to declines in the prices of other goods and services, and perhaps wages, through what central bankers term “second-round effects.”

I’ll disregard the premise that a long period of low oil prices is inherently deflationary, rather than just leading to a period of adjustment to a new, lower-cost equilibrium. My question for Draghi is what’s the down side of wages falling in a deflationary environment, even one that is merely a move to a lower-cost equilibrium?

Sure, no one likes to see a smaller paycheck, but this is a political question, not an economic one. However, if prices of goods and services are falling, no buying power is lost with that smaller paycheck. On the other hand, if wages don’t fall more or less along with those other prices, the outcome is a higher wage cost for the employer than the market value of what he and his employees produce. And that leads to job loss. Now we have a (new, relatively) high paycheck that has no value at all because the out of work ex-employee isn’t getting it.

Further, if I’m wrong, and a long period of low oil prices is, in fact, inherently deflationary, the producers can’t sell at all, as the buyers simply wait for prices to fall further before buying. If wages don’t fall commensurately in this environment, not only will jobs be lost, but many producers, unable to sell, will go out of business. And all of that company’s jobs will be lost.

In either case, employment is the second-round effect with which bankers like Draghi should concern themselves.

Why Aren’t They

…fired for cause?

The Department of Veterans Affairs said Friday two high-ranking officials were finally demoted in response to a federal probe that found they manipulated the agency’s personnel system for their own gain, but a key lawmaker is asking why they weren’t prosecuted.

The two high-ranking officials are Diana Rubens, director of VBA’s Philadelphia regional office, and Kimberly Graves, director of VBA’s St Paul regional office. The behavior of these two women (I won’t call them “ladies;” their behavior has established what they are, and they’ve already named their price) warrants termination for cause.

Congressman Jeff Miller’s (R, FL) question—he’s the “key lawmaker”—is an entirely valid one, too. Their behavior seems criminal enough to warrant that type of investigation, too.

And my own question: what has taken the VA so long to do even this trivial hand-slap? Even the original October move (allegedly having to be redone due to “administrative error”) was far too slow in coming. What’s the VA’s excuse [sic] here?

Veteranos administratio delende est

This is…Foolish

More on the question of rebuilding Ramadi.

The US government and some of its allies said last week they had contributed $50 million toward a United Nations “stabilization fund” meant to rebuild the country—months after a similar $8.3 million pledge from the United States Agency for International Development.

Even if the UN (and the USAID) were honest thieves, this is just too much middle-man-ery, with too many intervening steps in which to siphon off the money. The funds—and future funds—are better given as loans directly to the Iraqi government, hard-coded for the Ramadi rebuild. Of course, that also assumes the Iraqi government under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi can be trusted not to siphon, also.

Even better, there are a number of NGOs who would do better at handling directly the task of rebuilding Ramadi, and other Daesh-shattered cities (the current list includes Sinjar, Beiji, and Tikrit; there are some 15 smaller ones, too) when those times come. The shorter the chain, even with honest and well-meaning entities, the more the originally donated or loaned funds make it to the originally intended end users.