Tag Archives: political economy

Maybe It’s Time

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Banks fear a growing number of employees are unwittingly exposing valuable information to hackers or in some cases leaving digital clues that make a breach possible.

And

Several banks are also increasingly testing whether their employees unintentionally leave them susceptible to hackers by falling prey to “spear-phishing” attempts, in which criminals lure recipients to click on links.

And

Weeks after JP Morgan Chase & Co was hit with a massive data breach that exposed information from 76 million households, the country’s biggest bank by assets sent a fake phishing email as a test to its more than 250,000 employees. Roughly 20% of them clicked on it, according to people familiar with the email.

There’s no excuse for employees, in this day and age, being so gullible or so careless.

If employees are going to continue to be willfully irresponsible, maybe it’s time for employers to get hard-nosed in the workplace: company equipment is for company business exclusively, including during lunch or other breaks. With firing being the default sanction for misuse.

Full stop.

A Difference in Philosophy

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British Prime Minister David Cameron is…discussing…the British requirements for continued membership in the European Union with the rest of the leadership of the EU. One of the points of contention is the degree of welfare participation migrants from mainland EU should receive while in Great Britain. Cameron wants to

curb[] welfare benefits for other EU citizens working in the UK for four years.

EU leaders have voiced strong opposition to his plan, saying it would breach the fundamental principle of free movement of people within the bloc.

The EU leaders’ objection, of course, is nonsense. A benefits freeze would leave migrants free to come and go as they please; the British position is a benefits freeze, not a movement restriction. The only thing being frozen would be the migrants’ ability to freeload off the British taxpayer.

Cameron also points out that a benefits freeze would help reduce migration to the UK. Well, duh. Reducing the incentives to come where the freeloading is easy certainly reduce the amount of movement in that direction.

The difference between Cameron and the European leaders is the difference between a measure of self-determination and individual responsibility on the one hand, and Government Knows Better on the other.

Who Doesn’t Trust the PRC Government?

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Recall late last summer when the People’s Republic of China’s stock market melted down over the PRC government’s interference in currency exchange rates and its subsequent failures to handle the stock market result of that. In a Wall Street Journal article centered on a different matter was this little tidbit [emphasis added].

While China’s main stock index is up 20% since August, it is still down 33% from its June peak. About 15% of Chinese stocks remain suspended from trading, and trading volumes are at one-third of their June levels.

Hmm….

The Coercive Power of the State

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This is the Progressive Democratic Party of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as articulated by California Governor Jerry Brown (D). At the just concluded Paris “Climate” Summit.

Tom, you used the phrase “policy.” Good policy. But I want to unpack that term a little bit. Inside the policy, you need a law. You need a rule. You need the coercive power of government to say, “Do this.” Now, you have to be wise and don’t say something stupid or order something stupid but the fact is, the regulations supported by the laws drive innovation.

And

You do have to have, at the end of the day, a regulation, a law. Progress comes from well-designed regulatory objectives that business then follows.

You can be sure California is going to keep innovating, keep regulating. And, shall I say, keep taxing.

All for the very best of causes. This complements the Left’s drive to take our weapons.  All for the very best of causes.  All for political power.  And, we mustn’t neglect Mao Tse-tung’s position:

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Wealth, and Wealth

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The Federal Reserve recently estimated total household net worth in the US to be about $80 trillion, including real estate and financial assets. And data from the Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances imply that the top 10% of households by net worth hold about 75%—or $60 trillion—of this total. The bottom 90% of households therefore have a net worth of about $20 trillion.

A very large fraction of that net worth is phycisal assets, too: the house folks live in, the car(s) they drive, the physical plant a business owner—Mom and Pop, anyone?—owns. These are not liquid assets; they cannot be turned into tonight’s—or even next week’s dinner, or mortgage payment, or….

[T]he true picture is hardly as stark as critics of inequality claim, because it leaves out the large amount of wealth held in the form of future retirement benefits from Social Security and Medicare.

Liquid assets: those checks are cash that can be spent immediately on anything of need or wish—the Social Security check—or that goes immediately toward health care costs—the Medicare check. Disproportionately, that money goes to the bottom 90% rather than the top 10%.

Separately from the actual misconception about wealth inequality, but an important factor in perpetuating the inequality in opportunity that does exist, is this:

[T]he public’s traditional financial wealth is depressed because the current entitlement programs lower people’s real incomes and deny them the higher returns available through investment-based retirement savings like IRAs or 401(k)s.

That’s the welfare cliff about which so much has been written—and ignored by the Left.

Hmm….