Tag Archives: political economy

There are Jobs…

Posted on by
Reply

There are Jobs…

…and there are jobs.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler had this to say about President Joe Biden’s (D) “jobs” plan:

[He’s] doing a “masterful job aligning his cabinet secretaries in this messaging” about creating union jobs with taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects.

Notice that. Our tax payments are going to provide union jobs under the Biden plan, and this is a good thing, the union mucky-muck says.

No non-union jobs. No jobs funded by private enterprise in a free market economy. No hand-up type support for private enterprise to expand and create non-union (or union, come to that) jobs. Only government-funded union jobs for government-favored entities.

Keep this in mind in the fall of 2022 and again in 2024.

California Medicaid

Posted on by
Reply

It’s not only for US and California citizens. American taxpayers’ monies are not to be spent solely for American and California citizen benefit. Keep in mind, first, that a State’s Medicaid payments are not funded solely by the State’s taxpayers. The largest part of each payment comes from transfers by the Federal government of taxes paid by the taxpayers of all of the other States in our nation.

Here’s California’s latest move with your taxes:

California taxpayers will soon pay more in taxes to enroll more illegal immigrants in Medicaid, a plan that was part of a recently approved state budget. Younger illegal immigrants are already enrolled in Medicaid, SNAP, and other federally funded programs.
The plan proposed by California Democrats guarantees that low-income illegal immigrants older than age 50 will receive health insurance. Coverage would take effect in 2022 and cost taxpayers $1.3 billion per year.
It follows a $213 billion taxpayer-funded plan proposed in 2019 to allow low-income illegal immigrants between the ages of 19 and 25 to enroll in Medicaid. Democrats then estimated that adding 90,000 people to Medicaid would cost taxpayers $98 million per year.

Never mind that

nearly 3.2 million Californians remain uninsured, accounting for 9.5% of the state’s population, according to data from the University of California–Berkeley Labor Center.

They’re not that important.

A Terrific Opening

Posted on by
Reply

Congressman Kevin Brady (R, TX), Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, wants the Biden administration to (re)open international trade.

I continue to urge Ambassador Tai…and President Biden, to pursue new agreements, opening markets in the UK and Europe, an expanded comprehensive agreement with Japan.

Then-President Donald Trump (R) offered the European Union and the G-7 a completely no-tariff trade regime. There would be no greater opening of trade than for the EU and the other members of the G-7, which includes Japan in particular, along with USMCA member Canada (whose agreement would either necessitate modifications to the USMCA or terms outside that treaty); EU constituents France, Germany, and Italy; and the UK, to agree such a tariff-free regime.

If there’s to be a serious opening, that’s as much on those nations as it is on President Joe Biden (D). Both sides need to stop dragging their feet.

The Wealth Gap Is…

Posted on by
Reply

…narrowing? How can that be? All those tax cuts and all those economic moves of the prior administration—which ended just 6 months ago—were playing to the favored rich. Weren’t they?

No.

A fading pandemic and heating US economy appear to be paying off for lower-wage workers.
New jobs at restaurants, hotels, stores, salons, and similar in-person roles accounted for about half of all payroll gains in June, according to the Labor Department. And workers in those industries are seeing larger raises than other employees.

They’re also seeing actual jobs, with those raises being from zero to paychecks.

Most of that, too, is in those roughly half the States who’ve lifted most or all Wuhan Virus-related restrictions and mostly or fully reopened their economies.

Go figure.

One Price of Central Control

Posted on by
Reply

The People’s Republic of China’s Cyberspace Administration of China is investigating the alleged wrong-doing of Didi Global’s ride-hailing arm, Didi Chuxing Technology Co; both entities are domiciled in the PRC.

By itself, that’s no big deal; governments are allowed to investigate businesses that regulators suspect of wrong-doing.

Here’s the problem:

No new user registration is allowed during the review….

That’s ostensibly to keep risks from any alleged misbehaviors from growing further.

However. Never mind that Didi Chuxing hasn’t been shown to have misbehaved in any way; it must be restricted.

Suppose that in the end, the regulator indeed finds no actual wrongs done. How would a Didi Chuxing be made whole after the investigation’s closure? How would such a company (re)gain all those missed new customers (for instance)?

Worse,

[t]he regulator didn’t say how long the review would last….

That damage is made worse the longer the investigation is allowed to go on.

Now, there’s this: how many governments would consider using a regulatory agency or a regulator’s enduring investigation to punish a disfavored business or person solely on political grounds?

I can think of at least three….

And now, just two days after that move, the PRC has ordered app-store operators to remove the app altogether–even though the “investigation” is only just begun.

Hmm….