Category Archives: political economy

Food Stamps and Junk Food

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Maine wants to stop the use of food stamps to buy sodas and candy, limiting SNAP beneficiaries to a moderately healthier set of food purchases. The USDA says it’ll “review” the move.

Sure. However, the USDA routinely blocks moves like this, aimed at moving the program at least a little toward healthier diets—a move whose importance is emphasized by the number of children impacted by SNAP handouts. I’m not holding my breath, and neither are the good folks of Maine.

An American Beverage Association spokeswoman said, not at all self-servingly,

We think families should be free to choose what they put in their grocery carts.

Of course. When they’re the ones paying for what they put in their grocery carts. However, when what’s going into those carts is paid for in large part with OPM, those OP get a significant say, also, or should get one.

Another Democrat Blockage

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Pennsylvania has a budget impasse. Democratic Governor Tom Wolf wants more taxes and more spending. The Republican legislature (both houses) want smaller government. One aspect of the dispute is this:

The sides are focused now on the Democratic priority of increasing education spending and the Republican goals of reining in public employee pension costs and privatizing a state-run liquor agency.

How typical is that? Big Government Democrats are holding up a budget deal because they can’t stand private enterprise, but they demand to have the folks in private enterprise–the private economy—continue to pay for fat public union pensions.

These Big Government Democrats need to get out of the way of economic progress. But they are loathe to give up the political power of which their “welfare” programs are so redolent.

Hopefully, It’s a Start

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The Libre Initiative is a conservative organization funded by a donor network organized by the Koch brothers, that pair of Left-wing bêtes noire.

This organization is

[a]ctive in nine states, including Colorado, Nevada and Virginia, Libre, which means free in Spanish, is an effort to organize Latinos around free-market political ideas.

It’s also helping Hispanic immigrants learn English and

offering recent immigrants practical services such as English-language courses, tax-preparation seminars and driver’s license classes….

It’s helping these folks fit into their new nation.

They’ve been doing this sort of thing since 2011, and they represent an excellent start. But. This sort of thing needs to be greatly expanded, with lots of other Conservative organizations taking part, and it needs to be an ongoing effort, not just an election year ploy. The Libre Initiative clearly is more than a ploy. Where are the others?

Economics and Secession

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Spain’s economy may be beginning to recover, even to boom, from the global Panic of 2008.

In its second estimate of gross domestic product for the quarter, statistics bureau INE said the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy grew 3.4% in the July-to-September period compared with the year earlier period, up from a rate of 3.2% in the second quarter.

To be sure, these are only two quarters’ worth of data. It’s also unclear how much of this growth is spread throughout Spain, and how much is concentrated in the secessionist province of Catalonia.

This will be interesting to watch, both for the improvement’s impact on the secession movement and for any later impact from a continued movement toward secession.

Economic Contest

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It’s not yet an economic war. Russia is beginning the contest with Turkey after that nation was so impertinent as to shoot down a Russian fighter-bomber that was the latest Russian aircraft to violate Turkish airspace, this time refusing to leave despite multiple requests and warnings.

…Moscow took aim at Turkey’s economy, ordering tougher checks on its food imports.

This isn’t a contest that Russia can win, though. The Turkish economy is in sounder shape than Russia’s, and Turkey isn’t particularly dependent on exports to Russia. Russia, though, already has banned food imports from the rest of Europe over the latter’s sanctions that responded to Russia’s invasion and occupation of significant parts of Ukraine. This latest move, delicate though it is, simply makes Russia more dependent on domestic food production.

To be sure, this isn’t all the posturing Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing. He’s also shipped a number of near state-of-the-art S-400s, long-range anti-aircraft missiles, to his base in Syria, and he’s moved his guided missile cruiser, Moskva, which also is equipped with SAMs, closer to Syria. Both deployments put Turkish aircraft operating over a significant portion of Turkey in Putin’s gunsights.

This is a contest that Russia needn’t be allowed to win, either. If Putin continues to violate other nations’ airspace in his efforts to prop up his client Bashar al-Assad, those two isolated deployments can become targets themselves.