Category Archives: Economics

Miscellaneous economy stuff

Random Paranoid Thought on Future Tech

Posted on by
Reply

In just 15 years, [Ray, inventor, futurist, and a director of engineering at Google] Kurzweil believes, the human brain will become a hybrid of biology and technology, and we will “put gateways to the cloud in our brains.” And as the cloud becomes more and more advanced and is able to store increasing amounts of information, so too will our brains. By the late 2030’s or early 2040’s, Kurzweil said, the majority of brain function, at least in terms of information processing and thought processes, will be non-biological.

Our brains in the cloud. Hmm…. With the cloud’s notoriously poor security. Our brains get snooped on or hacked by anyone with a kiddy script or by any government with a wild bug up its….

Or peer pressure not just up close, but inside, as the denizens of that cloud decide they don’t like what you’re doing or thinking. So they think otherwise, en masse, from within your own brain.

Like I said, paranoid. Or not.

Health Care Subsidies

Posted on by
Reply

President Barack Obama sent his HHS Secretary, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, to Congress to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee about, among other things, his plans should the Supreme Court rule against Federal subsidies for those who bought health plans through ObamaMart and not through state exchanges as Obama’s ACA requires. He said, through her,

If the court says that we do not have the authority to give subsidies, the critical decisions will sit with the Congress and states and governors to determine if those subsidies are available[.]

This is openly cynical. “If the court says…” the subsidies are not available, they’re not available. Full stop.

The Governors and states made their own critical decisions clear five years ago when, in full view of the ACA’s statement that Federal subsidies are available only through state exchanges, they carefully and with forethought declined to create state exchanges.

The Congress made its own critical decision all those years ago when it wrote the law that said Federal subsidies would not be available except through state exchanges.

Of course the better policy wonk than his policy wonks knows this, and he knew it when he sent Burwell up there to spout that nonsense. The only way the Court can upend those critical decisions will be through a twisted interpretation of the text of the law that leads them to uphold the Federal subsidies.

Hmm….

The SEC and its In-House Judges

Posted on by
1

I wrote about this a bit ago; here’s a follow-up via a related case.

A federal judge ruled Monday that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s use of an in-house judge to preside over an insider-trading case was “likely unconstitutional,” a potential blow to the agency’s controversial use of its internal tribunal.

This is another case concerning the SEC’s practice of stacking cases it brings against alleged miscreants by using its own judges to decide the matter.

Another Reason

Posted on by
Reply

…for Greece to leave the European Union. This time it’s the arrogance of the eurozone honchos.

Greece offered a proposal intended to break the current impasse over its debts and the payments due this month. Whether it was a good proposal or a bad one is beside the point as far as those eurozone honchoes are concerned. Greece’s proposal has these alleged problems:

Greece’s proposal includes targets for its primary surplus—the excess of revenues over expenditures before interest payments are made—that are lower than the targets presented to Greece in a deal struck between the commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, the three institutions representing Greece’s creditors [the so-called troika].

Here’s a carefully anonymous EU “official” on the situation:

That’s non-negotiable. The institutions have reached an agreement on fiscal targets.
What’s been submitted is not a basis for further political discussion[.]

We’ve decided the matter internally. You, Greece, have nothing to say on it.

Since Greece is to be treated as an unwanted stepchild whose own views are beneath notice, Greece should accept the unwanted part and depart from the EU and from the eurozone.

Great Britain and its EU Referendum

Posted on by
Reply

Chris Deerin, writing for CapX, has an article titled England will be torn apart by the EU referendum. The setup is this: Prime Minister David Cameron promised a few years ago that were he reelected Prime Minister (i.e., were his party reelected to sufficient strength that it could at least form a coalition government and he selected Prime Minister), he’d hold a Great Britain-wide referendum by the end of 2017 on whether Great Britain should leave the European Union. In the event, Cameron’s party was reelected to an outright majority, he was selected to be Prime Minister, and he’s moving to keep his promise: Great Britain will hold the promised referendum by the promised deadline.

Deerin is concerned, as you might discern from his article’s title. Actually holding the referendum, he fears, will mean the end of Great Britain regardless of the outcome.

Below is a letter I wrote to CapX demurring from Deerin’s position.

I don’t share your concern for a couple of reasons. In no particular order: what the pols in London think isn’t particularly relevant (Cameron has no plan, by the way? Not so much: he made a promise, and he intends to keep it; that his party has changed, or is changing, its collective mind isn’t important to honoring a commitment.) The question is for individual Brits: how do they see themselves? Your existential question, indeed: who are they?

Second, say the referendum does rend Great Britain. That works out to Scottish independence, no small matter to a significant per centage of Scots.

Third, consider the alternative: no referendum, and Great Britain stays in the EU. Our own John Jay expressed concern during the ratification debates that were our Constitution accepted as it was written, the States would bear the same relationship to the central government that counties have to a State: just political subdivisions that exist solely to ease the carrying out of the State’s decisions. That’ll be the fate of Great Britain if there’s no referendum or if the referendum supports staying in the EU.

Finally, dissolution: the recently completed referendum on Scottish departure from the Union was most enthusiastically argued. There is considerable angst among those whose position was voted down. They’re recovering, and the Union remains sound.

So it will be with Great Britain following the larger referendum, regardless of its outcome. Except that voting to leave will be a stout blow for British liberty.

Eric Hines