Category Archives: political economy

Speculation and So What

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The Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger that California’s Progressive-Democrat AG Rob Bonta, along with some dozen of other Progressive-Democrat-led States and a union, have gone into court to block may be entering “settlement” talks. The situation as it stands, from Paramount:

Paramount has warned it is prepared to move the company out of California if it can’t reach a deal with the states, with a potential move starting as soon as October 1. Tennessee is seen as a likely potential landing spot for Paramount.

October because that’s when Paramount starts owing fees to Warner Bros. Discovery related to delayed signing of the deal. Tennessee is the most likely gaining State, although there are a number of States with much more congenial business environments than those Progressive-Democrat-run States.

From Bonta:

As it stands today, the proposed Warner Bros./Paramount merger will mean higher costs, less competition, lower wages, job cuts, and fewer movies and TV shows[.]

That’s pure speculation based on nothing other than ephemeral economic studies that try to predict the future, here in an environment very much changed from the environment in which those studies were conducted. Speculation should form no basis, even in the Ninth Circuit’s region (the first stop for the inevitable appeals), for blocking a business deal.

From the union:

The Writers Guild of America also sued over the merger, saying that the deal would eliminate jobs and career opportunities for Hollywood screenwriters.

That may or may not be true, and it’ll be influenced largely by the willingness of those Hollywood screenwriters to relocate and become Tennessee screenwriters. At bottom, though, while any job loss would be too bad for those terminated, the WGA‘s plaint is a big so what. Nobody, not even Hollywood screenwriters, have an intrinsic right to any job, not even screenwriting.

Paramount, in the absence of a deal with the States that’s entirely satisfactory to Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery by COB 30 September, should make its move out of California on 1 October and conclude the merger. There’s no need for Paramount or Warner Bros. Discovery to delay past that date.

The Tennessees of our nation will greatly benefit from the revenue gains that making movies, ancillary businesses associated with movie-making, businesses supporting ancillary businesses, and further business rippling will bring to the gaining State (and in the case of Tennessee, the rippling will flow into Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South and North Carolina). Los Angeles and California can take up that loss of revenue with Bonta, et al.

An Alternative Solution

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The lede lays out the foolishness and government union disingenuousness simultaneously. A twofer.

Do government unions have a vested interest in saddling students with more debt? So they argue in a new and revealing lawsuit against new graduate loan limits.

The situation:

One of the biggest achievements in the 2025 tax bill was limiting the amount of federal loans that students could borrow to a total of $100,000 ($20,500 a year) for most graduate degrees and $200,000 ($50,000 a year) for professional ones. ….
Graduate programs have become cash cows for universities, and the caps could impel them to reduce prices and spending. … The caps are forcing some universities to reduce their bloated workforces. Hence, the union lawsuit….

Never mind how generous those limits remain, even for university incomes. Of course the government unions are objecting; those loans—uncapped—are cash cows for the unions, also, washed as they are through those bloat employees’ union dues.

Still, there is a solution, and it even serves the useful purpose of getting government out of the business of making loans. A tangential beneficial side effect is that what government gives away, here in the form of those loans, it must first take, here in the form of government borrowing.

One way to cap Federal student loans, a way which would render the question of caps irrelevant (and which would eliminate that small tangential vicious circle), would be to stop doing Federal student loans altogether. No loans, no caps.

Easy peasy.

SNAP Reforms

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The Senate’s Progressive-Democrats object to States having even minimal fiscal responsibility for managing Federal outlays to them for welfare programs. Their latest objections concern reforms to SNAP payments. Currently, the Federal government forks over 100% of the funding for a State’s SNAP program, and the State is solely responsible for disbursing those funds to eligible recipients. The current reforms, enacted last year, require those States with error rates—paying out to fraudulent recipients, for instance—above a low level (10%) to begin picking up a small part of the SNAP tab, with effect in 2028.

Progressive-Democrat Senators, en masse, object, and they’re blocking a farm bill unless they get that deadline extended. Their real goal is to functionally eliminate the deadline.

There is an alternative that would render this sort of Progressive-Democrat…foolishness…moot, and it’s one I’ve proposed before. Maybe its time has come, in response to Party’s studied intransigence to any reform that would reduce dependency on Party government.

Designate a nearby year as Year0, and add up all the Federal funds transfers for any purpose to each State in that year. Lump that sum into a single payment for the year. In each subsequent year, reduce that lump sum payment by 10% of the Year0 transfer, until the transfer is reduced, in about 10 years, to $0.00.

Federal transfers—taxpayer dollars—in general should not be getting made to any State except in exigent circumstances. The good citizens of Texas should not see their tax remittances pushed on over to New York or California. The good citizens of New York and California should not see their remittances relayed to Illinois or Iowa. Each State and territory in our union should keep its citizens’ tax remittances solely for the benefit of that State’s/territory’s citizens.

Exigent circumstances: when a State-wide or region-wide emergency arises that’s beyond the resources of that State or region, then Federal transfers (a going in allocation, to start the discussion, would be 50% grant and 50% loan at market interest rates) would be an appropriate means of assisting the State or region in dealing with the emergency.

Dodging NYC’s Pied-à-Terre Tax

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Folks subject to New York City Democratic Socialist of America Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax, and folks who aren’t subject but got the threatening letter from Mamdani anyway, are looking for ways to duck the tax.

offshore corporation in the Cayman Islands to hold their New York City pied-à-terre

Nope. Still a pied-à-terre subject to the tax. The owner’s corporation would still have to pay the tax.

pay a stranger to pretend to live in their second home as a full-time resident

Nope. That has other tax implications—income tax, for instance, as well as making the owner now subject to NYC’s landlord laws. And that’s apart from whether the owner can dodge the outright tax fraud aspect of the move.

There’s another way, guaranteed legal and guaranteed to get the owner out from under the socialist’s thumb. This consists of those owners selling those pied-à-terres to folks who want to live in the city, and for the now ex-owner stopping living there altogether. The city, anymore, as very little left to recommend it—even the finance industry is on the move out of the city, some out of the State—so there’s little loss here.

This Needs to be Rejected

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There is an “agreement” regarding the Strait of Hormuz that’s nearing completion. The trouble is, though, is that it’s between Iran and Oman, and it grants “oversight” of the Strait to…Oman and Iran. The arrangement would set up an inbound lane near Iran and an outbound lane near Oman.

While the deal would exclude charging ships tolls or fees, Iran might not be prevented from collecting voluntary payments to cover costs like security and search and rescue….

Oh, yeah….

This arrangement must be scotched from the start.

Neither Oman nor Iran can be allowed any sort of oversight, no matter how seemingly benign, of an international water like the Strait of Hormuz. The international water needs no oversight, only protection from nations trying to seize control of it.