Tag Archives: economics

Food Processing Plant!?

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Progressives just can’t stand to see freedom of choice, just can’t stand to have any sort of enterprise not under their regulatory thumb. Case in point: Londonderry, NH, school district. The superintendent of schools pulled the high school out of the Federal government’s National School Lunch Program and to have the school’s cafeteria serve the school’s meals. You know—sort of like school cafeterias used to do before all this government intervention.

Having escaped regulation from the NSLP, though, which sent significant fractions of food served directly from the serving line to the garbage cans, the Department of Agriculture stepped in. Seeing an unregulated enterprise, the DoA has decided the school is a food processing plant—because the cafeteria does what school cafeterias did just find before regulation, it cooks the students’ lunch meals—and it must be regulated like one.

Remember this Progressive Democratic Party regulatory overreach in a year and a month.

There’s Sovereignty

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…and there’s sovereignty.

The European Union said it will require Starbucks Corp and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to pay tens of millions of euros in back taxes after ruling that tax deals they negotiated with two European governments were illegal….

Notice that. Supposedly sovereign governments negotiated contracts with businesses, and the European Union has said that those governments don’t have the authority—the national capacity—to make their own arrangements. In the particular case, tax contracts solemnly negotiated by Luxembourg and those two corporations are illegal because they don’t comport with the supra-national EU’s desire.

This is the Europe that the Progressive Democratic Party, the party of President Barack Obama; of Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; of Democratic Party, and self-identified Democrat Socialist, Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders want us to be like.

The Department of Education

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…stepped in it again.

The Department of Education issued a resource guide on Tuesday that guides teachers on how they should treat undocumented students, and encourages them to boost educational and career opportunities for those students.

“Teachers…who serve immigrant students should understand the cultural and educational backgrounds of their students,” the [Resource Guide: Supporting Undocumented Youth] recommended.

Couple things about this: undocumented students—illegal aliens—are not immigrants. Immigrants are folks who entered our nation legally and who are still here legally. Certainly, these children who are illegal aliens are in that status through no fault of their own; however, that’s a problem for those who brought them here and who are harboring them now. The kids’ upkeep is on those others.

That last—who is responsible now that the kids are here—is a moral question that can be debated. The larger problem is this: Teachers…who serve immigrant students should understand the cultural…backgrounds…. The only reason to understand the cultural backgrounds—and it’s a real need—is so the teachers can better help the students to assimilate into their new culture, our American culture, the very thing for which they came or were brought.

That assimilation aspect is sorely lacking today in our politically correct public schools. DoE knows that lack full well.

DoE’s Resource Guide can be seen here.

Mixed View

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European oil companies are engaged in a fierce competition for the best oil and gas fields in Iran when Western sanctions are lifted, while American energy firms watch from the sidelines.

Much of what’s holding American energy firms back are the still in place American sanctions that block US companies from such business. Nevertheless, American firms of any industry shouldn’t be doing business with Iran, even if it might become strictly legal. We shouldn’t be helping a terrorist nation-state that has as its sworn goal the extermination of Israel. Neither should anybody in the West, including those European oil companies.

On the other hand, such business by the Europeans can go a long way, if done right, toward reducing or eliminating European dependency on Russian oil and gas—and so to eliminating Russia’s ability to extort Europe.

That’s not all bad.

Unintended Consequence?

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Or was it intended? Big banks, banks the Warren/Obama regulations deem systemic risks—too big to fail—are driving away cash deposits. Never mind that those deposits are loanable funds (oh—regulations, again, discouraging lending while Progressives contradictorily jawbone and pressure financial institutions to make risky loans to poor credit rating borrowers, because—regulations again—those credit ratings are somehow racist).

For instance,

State Street Corp, the Boston bank that manages assets for institutional investors, for the first time has begun charging some customers for large dollar deposits, people familiar with the matter said. JP Morgan Chase & Co, the nation’s largest bank by assets, has cut unwanted deposits by more than $150 billion this year, in part by charging fees.

Because:

The banks’ actions are driven by profit-crunching low interest rates and regulations adopted since the financial crisis to gird banks against funding disruptions.

The latest fees center on large sums deemed risky by regulators, sometimes dubbed hot-money* deposits thought likely to flee during times of crises.

Because honest Americans wanting to earn money off their cash mustn’t be allowed to do that. And banks can’t be trusted to know what they’re doing with hot deposits; Progressive Know Betters are the only ones equipped to dispose of OPM.

Or: this is a tacit recognition that Progressive policies over the last seven years have been utter failures, and all that stored cash has to be flushed back into the economy, and the latest regulations have nothing to do with risk, systemic or otherwise, regardless of the surrounding Obamatalk.

It harkens back to FDR’s assault on business by demanding they disgorge themselves of cash—retained earnings—because they were “hoarding” or on a “capital strike.” Hoarding, “striking” because business had no viable place to invest its cash, due to FDR’s economic policies.

 

*Note: Banks usually attract “hot money” by offering relatively short-term certificates of deposit that have above-average interest rates. As soon as the institution reduces interest rates or another institution offers higher rates, investors with “hot money” withdraw their funds and move them to another institution with higher rates.