Tag Archives: political economy

It’d Be All Right

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The USPS is planning on raising their first class mail rates to 58¢ from the current 55¢ and raising the rates on their other mail classes by 6.8%-8.8%.

This is another example of price-fixing by the Federal government. Maybe the increases are legitimate, maybe they’re not. But we can’t tell because market forces aren’t at work here, only government bureaucrats’ impressions are at work.

It’d be all right if we privatized all of mail delivery. Let a free, competitive market determine prices. Recognize the ubiquitousness of email, texting, Skype, Zoom, etc, etc, etc as competing communications techniques, and let a privatized snail mail system compete in that same free market.

It’s doable; our Constitution only says that

The Congress shall have Power…To establish Post Offices and Post Roads

It doesn’t require Congress actually establish Post Offices, much less have the Federal government run them. The establishment (and operation) are easily done by letting free enterprise do them.

All it takes is the political will to do so.

The Federal Debt Ceiling

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) has thrown down the gauntlet.

In an interview on Tuesday, McConnell stated “I can’t imagine a single Republican in this environment voting to raise the debt limit.”
He told Democrats to include the hike in the second infrastructure bill they plan to pass through reconciliation.

I hope McConnell isn’t being overly optimistic about his Senate caucus.

It’s doubtful that there is a single Progressive-Democrat in the Senate who would vote against raising the debt ceiling, but if there were, and if the Federal government were shut down as a result, that wouldn’t be all bad. There are many parts of the Federal government that wouldn’t be missed and those critical to national security—DoD and State—would continue to function.

A Bond Signal

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Sam Goldfarb, in The Wall Street Journal, has part of it.

The monthslong decline in bond yields exemplifies investors’ belief that inflation likely isn’t the biggest problem facing the US and global economy.
Monday’s sharp selloff in major US stock indexes highlighted investors’ mounting concern that the biggest risk to markets right now is underwhelming growth….

Indeed.

There are other things that folks are more concerned about than inflation, the current round of which I say is transitory. One is the Biden administration’s steady drumbeat of Wuhan Virus panic-mongering, currently over the Delta variant, which, albeit is more contagious, is in fact no more lethal than the Wuhan Virus original and against which existing vaccinations are highly effective.

Another thing is the Biden administration’s conflicting statements regarding the Wuhan Virus—its origin, palliatives like hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir, mask usefulness, and on and on.

Another thing is the Biden administration’s active attempts to censor, and to order private enterprises to censor, other conflicting information regarding the virus, vaccinations, and vaccinating in general, all because Progressive-Democrats think us average Americans are just too grindingly stupid to figure out for ourselves.

Another thing is the Biden administration’s runaway reregulation of our economy because Government Knows Best.

Another thing is Government’s Progressive-Democrats insisting on paying Americans to not work, slowing our economic recovery by hindering private enterprises’ ability to get the labor force with which to produce enough to meet growing demand.

Another thing is the Progressive-Democrats’ demand to tax our private enterprises to the point of non-competitiveness while at the same time spending our tax money with enormous abandon, crowding our private enterprises out of our economy in favor of a Government economy.

That’s plenty for investors to worry about.

Unfair to Whom?

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The subheadline to Mick Mulvaney’s op-ed in The Wall Street Journal drives the salient question:

The “global minimum tax” battle may set an example for those who consider low US state levies “unfair.”

This comes against the backdrop of President Joe Biden’s (D) and his Congressional Progressive-Democrat cronies’ drive to give our domestic economic sovereignty over to an international “agreement” concerning the proper levels of business taxes. That international gang, centered on the OECD, insists that more is better, more is fairer.

Fair to whom, though? Nor Biden, nor his cronies, nor his OECD BFFs are willing to say, beyond insisting that Government needs more and that tax competition is somehow unfair.

Into that void, I have to ask: what’s unfair about leaving more money in the hands of those who earned it? What’s unfair about leaving more money in the hands the private enterprises whose production produced the business incomes that are being taxed?

In the absence of those Betters’ answers, I’ll supply my own.

It’s eminently fair to leave those monies in the hands and coffers of those who generated the income.

What’s fair is the Progressive-Democrat Yellen-disparaged race to the taxing bottom. That’s the most money left in the hands of the economic generators.

Rich Man’s Toys

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A couple of stinking rich guys hopped into space and came back down, opening up space tourism—which itself remains the province of the rich. Another stinking rich guy already is bringing down the cost of business venturing into space.

The Precious and the bodice-ripping virtue signalers are all aghast—loudly so—over this immoral (these holier-than-thou bleat) use of a wealthy man’s money. They should have spent their money on Better Things here on Earth in order to make Lives Better.

Never mind that all of the long-lasting life improvers have begun as rich men’s toys.

Here are some other things that began as rich men’s toys but whose market creation playing pushed production up and prices down to the point they became mainstream commodities:

  • printing presses
  • light bulbs
  • central heating for homes
  • oil- and coal-fired home heating furnaces
  • gas-fired home heating furnaces
  • electrically heated homes
  • window air conditioners
  • which expanded to central air conditioning in our homes and commercial buildings
  • ice boxes
  • which became ever-fancied-up refrigerators with freezers and separate freezers
  • telephones
  • radios
  • televisions
  • automobiles
  • automobiles with power steering
  • automobiles with power brakes
  • automobiles with air conditioning
  • air travel

That’s just a short list, but they’re yet more reasons I, too, want to get stinking rich. Which requires a burgeoning, free market, capitalist economy to achieve honestly.

I’ll happily not burden myself along the way with the Know Better Naysayers.