Category Archives: Economics

Miscellaneous economy stuff

Wuhan Virus Vaccines and Intellectual Property

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President Joe Biden (D) is looking at “waiving” the patents held by American pharmaceutical companies—Pfizer and Moderna—that  developed the vaccines that have been so effective against the Peoples Republic of China-released Wuhan Virus.

Leave aside the uselessness of waiving these patent rights because the vaccines require to much, too varied, too complex equipment to be manufacturable just on the basis of the vaccines’ technologies being made freeware in the public arena.

Leave aside, too, that these companies—and others beyond American jurisdiction that have developed other Wuhan Virus vaccines—already are delivering doses virtually at cost to the poorer nations.

Biden’s proposal [is] to temporarily waive their patents, but that’s completely disingenuous. An intellectual property once lost is lost forever—there is nothing temporary about such a waiver except in the narrowest, most legalist, sense.

The larger problem is the: with that government-mandated loss will go any incentive a company might have to spend the billions of dollars it takes to develop future such things, especially vaccines, since a company can have no confidence Government might decide it “needs” to give the new patents away also.

There will be very little vaccine development in the United States after Biden goes through with this.

This will not be over quickly. We will not enjoy this.

Nord Stream 2 and Joe Biden

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President Joe Biden (D) likes to present himself as talking big. Unfortunately for the rest of us, and for our nation, he acts small. In the latest example, he said that he

lifted sanctions on the Russia-to-Germany pipeline Nord Stream 2 “because it’s almost completely finished.”

He also said, after having agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin to lift sanctions on and stop blocking Russia’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline,

I’ve been opposed to Nord Stream from the beginning…they know how I feel[.]

And “they” don’t care. “They” showed how little they care when Putin allowed Russian hackers to shut down a critical part of our own fuel distribution infrastructure.

Here’s Biden again, on the same pipeline:

It’s not like I can allow Germany to do something or not….

It’s not like Biden would have been allowing Germany to do anything or not. Our government was denying Russia’s ability to increase Germany’s—a European economic powerhouse and key NATO member—dependency on Russia. Until Biden gave up.

“Almost completely finished” means not done and no natural gas flowing and no benefit—or money—flowing to Russia. “Almost finished” were the easy parts of the pipeline; the most difficult 90 miles were what was left.

No, Biden “opposed” the pipeline until it became inconvenient to him to do so.

Now, with his meek…acquiescence…Russia gains firmer hold on the economies (and so the nations) of central Europe, most especially the erstwhile strongest economy, Germany’s. And it comes promptly after Putin ran his demonstration of what would happen to our own energy infrastructure if we continued our interference with Russian extraterritorial activities.

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.