Land of Taxes

Posted on 27 May 2020 by eehines

New York City is suffering from loss of reduction in tax revenue as a result of the city’s and the State’s economic shutdown by government fiat during the Wuhan Virus situation.

One 49-year-old tech entrepreneur told The Wall Street Journal he and his family have moved permanently to their second home in the Hudson Valley from Manhattan. …
For tax purposes, he says, he and his peers are aware that if their children still attend school in the city, it is hard to argue the family has left. The man is considering pulling his children from the city’s elite private schools and is looking at public and private schools in the suburbs. He estimates that if he can persuade the city he is no longer a resident he will save more than $100,000 a year in city taxes alone.

This is a preview of Land of Taxes. Read the full post (231 words, estimated 55 secs reading time)

“The US Doesn’t Need a New Cold War”

Posted on 22 May 2020 by eehines

So says Robert Zoellick in his Monday Wall Street Journal op-ed.

We truly do not need another Cold War. But this one is being forced on us, anyway, by the People’s Republic of China and the economic war it’s prosecuting against us. The environment for this one also was facilitated by the multi-polar world so enthusiastically built by ex-President Barack Obama (D).

Baker also is operating from a defeatist proposition.

The New Cold Warriors can’t contain China given its ties throughout the world; other countries won’t join us. Nor can the US break the regime, though the Communist Party’s flaws could open cracks within its own society. The US can impose costs on China, but to what end, and at what price to Americans?

This is a preview of “The US Doesn’t Need a New Cold War”. Read the full post (644 words, estimated 2:35 mins reading time)

A Tale of Two States

Posted on 21 May 2020 by eehines

A Wall Street Journal editorial provided the comparison.

Since 2010

New York’s population has grown from a skosh under 19.4 million to a skosh over 19.4 million
Florida’s population has grown from 18.8 million to 21.5 million
New York’s spending has increased by $43 billion—about $570,000 for each additional person
Florida’s spending has increased by $28 billion—a $10,400 increase per new resident
New York’s spending on worker retirement benefits has nearly doubled
Florida’s spending on worker retirement benefits has grown by one-sixth of that
New York’s Medicaid consumes 40% of the state budget—twice as much as education

This is a preview of A Tale of Two States. Read the full post (347 words, estimated 1:23 mins reading time)

Backwards

Posted on 20 May 2020 by eehines

The transportation departments of a number of States are backing away from transportation projects, infrastructure projects that they have been claiming are desperately needed. Their excuse? They “need” more Federal aid. The already allocated $15 billion isn’t enough, they’re bleating.

The States have this backward. They don’t need Federal aid—the dollars of taxpayers in other States—they need to let their own citizens get back to work, including, perhaps beginning with, infrastructure projects like these road projects.

This is a preview of Backwards. Read the full post (160 words, estimated 38 secs reading time)

Active Dependency

Posted on 19 May 2020 by eehines

The Transportation Security Administration is looking into the prospects and processes for taking passenger temperatures among all of TSA’s actual security duties.

Airlines have been pushing for the Transportation Security Administration to start taking passengers’ temperatures as part of a multifaceted effort to keep potentially sick people from boarding planes and to make passengers feel more comfortable taking trips again.

Such a thing is supposedly to cost under $20 million, and it won’t cost passengers anything. Instead, all of us taxpayers will be paying for the passengers’…concerns. To the extent those exist; it is, after all, the airlines pushing, not pax.

This is a preview of Active Dependency. Read the full post (216 words, estimated 52 secs reading time)

House Relief Bill

Posted on 19 May 2020 by eehines

Here’s what’s in the House “relief” bill, written in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D, CA) kitchen where she could have ready access to her special ice cream. The bill was written with zero Republican input, zero Republican amendments, carefully limited debate on the House floor, and passed almost entirely along party lines; although the bill did make 14 Progressive-Democrats choke to the point of voting against it, and one Republican was too timid to oppose it.

$1 trillion in funding for state and local governments

This is a preview of House Relief Bill. Read the full post (461 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Time for a New Plan

Posted on 18 May 2020 by eehines

That’s what Dr Marty Makary, Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins Medicine, says. Broad lockdowns might have been justified at the outset of the present Wuhan Virus situation, but new information has arisen.

Since that time, we have data that has taught us that this infection is associated with public transit, with density, with mass gatherings, with city-to-city travel and it is associated with climate[.]

And

What we do know, [is that] there are safe ways to conduct activities in society if we use certain precautions and we probably need a targeted approach where we find areas where there is either an outbreak or an ongoing increase in cases, and use some of the more aggressive strategies in that particular location.

This is a preview of Time for a New Plan. Read the full post (187 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

Trade Needs

Posted on 17 May 2020 by eehines

In an article about, among other things, the People’s Republic of China’s attempt to extort Australia into sitting down and shutting up about the PRC’s role in the Wuhan Virus’ spread across Earth, David Thomas, a consultant who for several decades has advised Australian businesses on investing in the PRC, said this:

The world is going to need China’s capital, manufacturing, and consumption power when this is all over.

That’s so wrong it’s foolish. We’re discovering that now, and after the Wuhan Virus situation has been dealt with from medical and economic perspectives, that we can’t afford to be very economically involved in the PRC.

This is a preview of Trade Needs. Read the full post (496 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Expanding Its Economic War

Posted on 15 May 2020 by eehines

The People’s Republic of China is expanding the economic war it’s been waging against the US to include an important American ally and friend in the Pacific: Australia.

China has blacklisted four red-meat-processing plants in Australia, suspending beef imports from them.
…
According to one analyst interviewed by national broadcaster ABC, the three plants [in Queensland] combined produce some 35% of beef exports to China, Australia’s largest trading partner.

People’s Republic of China Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye, in April:

Maybe the ordinary people will say “Why should we drink Australian wine? Eat Australian beef?”

This is a preview of Expanding Its Economic War. Read the full post (256 words, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

Economic Recovery Post-Wuhan Virus

Posted on 15 May 2020 by eehines

Paul Hannon and Saabira Chaudhuri wonder, in their Wall Street Journal piece, whether we’ll have the V-shaped recovery that President Donald Trump confidently predicts, or whether we’ll have a swoosh-shaped recovery a la the Panic of 2008 recovery. They don’t, though, seem to recognize key differences between the two situations, beginning with the underlying causes of the two dislocations.

The Panic was driven by economics: a credit crunch. The present situation is created by a Government-mandated closure of our economy in response to the rapid spread of the Wuhan Virus and its perceived danger; economics has nothing to do with it.

This is a preview of Economic Recovery Post-Wuhan Virus. Read the full post (253 words, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

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Tag Archives: political economy