Tag Archives: political economy

Lockdowns and Employment/Jobs Recovery

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Wall Street Journal editors had a couple of graphs that illustrated these things in their Tuesday editorial.

Those are primarily Republican/Conservative-run States at the top, and primarily Progressive-Democrat-run States at the bottom.

And this one:

Again, the worst performing States are primarily Progressive-Democrat-run; the best performing—notably at/near their pre-Wuhan Virus situation levels—are primarily Republican/Conservative-run.

The primary distinction is between States with hard and broad restrictions on movement and gathering together, up to and including sharp and extended lockdowns, and those States with markedly looser restrictions, up to and including no or very brief lockdowns of limited breadth.

It’s instructive, though, to see the former are primarily run by Progressive-Democrats, who trust no one but their personal selves, and the latter are primarily run by Republicans and Conservatives, who trust their constituents to make in-the-main sound decisions regarding their own and their neighbors’ individual welfare.

Whose Money Is It?

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That’s the central question we should be asking ourselves—and we should be electing our government representatives on the basis of the answer.

For example: the Progressive-Democrats in the Maine State legislature are looking to add a 3% income tax “surcharge” on any Maine citizen who makes $200,000 or more per year. The rationalization for this is provided by Progressive-Democrat State Senator Ben Chipman:

If someone is making $1 million a year, they can afford to pay a higher tax rate than somebody who is making $20,000 a year[.]

If they can afford it, they’re somehow obligated to pay it. That imagined obligation can only flow from the Progressive-Democrats’ view that the money we earn isn’t our money, it’s Government’s money, and Government—the men and women in Government—will let us keep what they deem sufficient to our needs.

After all, as a prominent Progressive-Democrat almost said, a short while ago,

If you’ve got [an income], you didn’t [earn] that. Somebody else made that happen.

As that man also said,

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me, because they want to give something back.

What the Progressive-Democrat chose to misconstrue, though—what Progressive-Democrats as a group choose to misconstrue—is that “give back” means “Government take back.”

Because Government, according to Progressive-Democrats, isn’t really taking back; Government is keeping and giving back a portion of what it doesn’t believe is ours to begin with.

Someone who is wealthier than me is somehow obligated to pay more than me for the same good, service, benefit I’m getting? I pay $X for a car or a meal out but my neighbor, who has a higher income than me, should have to pay $X++ for that same car or meal out? Just because he can afford to pay $X++?

How does that work, exactly? Where is the morality in that? Where is the equality in that? Where is the Progressive-Democrats’ precious equity in that?

From Luke 12:48 (King James Version):

For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

Absolutely. Hence the desire of those who want to give something back.

But that’s the thing. The obligation is levied by God on us as individuals, not by Government on us as a collection of citizens, and it’s an obligation for each of us to give according to our chosen methods and beneficiaries (and by extension, to choose wisely), not an authorization for Government to take according to Government men’s choices (and by extension, to be subject to their arbitrariness).

“Merely as Districts”

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Recall the spendiferous $1.9 trillion bill enacted in March that President Joe Biden (D) and his fellow Progressive-Democrats have been pleased to call their “American Rescue Plan.” This enactment included funding explicitly for the States. Recall further that this…plan…seeks to bar recipient States from reducing their own tax rates as a condition of receiving the money.

…can’t use their share of the funds to “directly or indirectly offset a reduction” in “net tax revenue.”

Ohio demurred from that Federal intrusion into State prerogatives, as those prerogatives are made explicit in our Constitution’s 10th Amendment.

It’s possible that the Biden administration will lose on Constitutional grounds, as the Editors noted at the end of their piece, which centered on a Federal trial judge’s ruling allowing Ohio’s suit to go forward:

[I]n a preliminary opinion last week, federal Judge Douglas Cole found the state has a “substantial likelihood of success on that [Spending Clause] argument.”

But this is just an early skirmish in the Progressive-Democrats’ war on our federal republican system of governance. After all, this is the position of Biden and his brethren:

It is my first wish to see the United States assume and merit the character of one great nation, whose territory is divided into different States merely for more convenient government and the more easy and prompt administration of justice, just as our several States are divided into counties and townships for the like purpose.

And

…one of the first wishes of my heart, viz., to see the people of America become one nation in every respect; for, as to the separate [state] legislatures, I would have them considered, with relation to the Confederacy, in the same light in which counties stand to the State of which they are parts, viz., merely as districts to facilitate the purposes of domestic order and good government….

No, wait—that was John Jay, both times, regarding the power he wanted in our then nascent central government prior to the Constitutional Convention.

Biden is just bent on reviving that. Americans successfully defeated Jay in those early days. We Americans need to defeat the Progressive-Democrats’ assault today.

Inflation Expectations

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We consumers have them, and The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board ran one of their own in their Sunday piece. They also published the graph below, depicting consumer inflation expectations for the nearby future, originated by the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers.

Notice that. Between 2015, when the Obama “recovery” from the Panic of 2008 finally began to take hold, and 2021, when the Biden administration took office and renewed Jerome Powell’s and the rest of the Fed’s management team DOC, consumer inflation expectations remained remarkably steady in the range 2%-3%, just a skosh above the Fed’s currently claimed 2% target inflation rate.

Of course, those six years were in the face of the Fed’s artificial suppression of interest rates. Interest rates are a major driver of inflation.

However, with the Fed insisting on continuing to artificially suppress interest rates, now coupled with the Biden/Pelosi/Schumer-led Progressive-Democrat spending spree—a “checks in the checkbook, money still in the account” binge that makes Obama, and Trump, look like misers—and the resulting Federal deficit and national debt explosion, us consumers are recognizing that the money flood will override the interest rate suppression.

Because, in the end, inflation is always and everywhere a money phenomenon, not an interest rate one.

It’s possible that American consumers aren’t as dumb as our Central Bankers, enclosed in their own Beltway Bubble, make us out to be.

How Does This Work, Exactly?

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In a Thursday article concerning Colonial Pipeline apparently paying ransom to get their systems back online the Wall Street Journal‘s writers let this tidbit slip.

Bloomberg reported earlier Thursday that Colonial had paid the hackers a sum of nearly $5 million, and that the decryption tool ultimately wasn’t effective in restoring operations. Instead, Colonial was able to recover by relying on system backups, Bloomberg reported.

Which raises two questions. If Bloomberg‘s reporting is accurate,

  • Where were Colonial’s CEO, COO, and CIO that they allowed the hack to occur in the first place?
  • Where were Colonial’s CEO, COO, and CIO that they didn’t go to those backups right away instead of rewarding their attackers for the privilege of being their victim?

Colonial management’s apparent cowardice not only serves to expose their company to further extortion, it exposes their peers in the industry and businesses everywhere to this sort of extortion.

Just as bad is the Biden administration’s timid response. The longstanding (not just under this administration) vulnerability of all of our nation’s financial, power, water, fuel infrastructure, coupled with Biden’s ducking away from the current attack (it’s a private matter), exposes our nation to state-level attack and crushing defeat.