Tag Archives: political parties

A Government Personnel Shakeup

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This one in the Republic of Korea.  RoK President Moon Jae-in has removed many of his economic cabinet members because the RoK’s economy has continued to stagnate.

So far, the government’s prescribed medicine—big increases in public-sector hiring and the minimum wage—hasn’t proved an elixir.

What a surprise—government crowding out the private sector, competing with the private sector for labor, demanding that workers be paid more than their work is worth isn’t economically stimulative.

Unfortunately, Moon is only changing personnel; he’s not correcting policy. Here’s Lee Sang-jae, Eugene Investment & Securities macroeconomy analyst:

Mr Moon’s policy will stay on course and hardly change, just with a second line of its original architects at the helm[.]

Brexit Talks

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In a Wall Street Journal article about the general government paralysis in Great Britain as the Brexit question is allowed to consume all of Parliament’s energy, one statement jumped out at me.

Instead, her [Theresa May’s] premiership is being defined by the Brexit negotiation itself.

What negotiations? Brussels is dictating punitive terms, and May and her team are meekly rolling over and accepting them. They’re even agreeing to discuss an effective partition of Great Britain rather than rejecting the question out of hand and walking out of all of the “negotiations” over the calculated insult and attempt to dismantle Great Britain.

Censorship

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The ramp-up in political spending across Facebook’s social networks, which also include Instagram, is breathtaking: In 2014, digital ad spending was 1% of all political ad spending. Now it’s 22%, or about $1.9 billion, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Facebook says that politicians have spent nearly $300 million in the US on Facebook ads since May.

And

Politicians who want to reach the same voters their competitors are reaching on Facebook have little choice but to go there, too.

Which helps explain why Facebook was so willing to censor conservative political ads.

Federal Reserve Bank Regulations

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The current iteration of the Federal Reserve Bank Board of Governors, with several President Donald Trump appointees, is proposing a rule that would significantly ease the amount of cash big banks must keep on hand to cover bills due within 30 days.  The savings from this are expected to aggregate to $77 billion per year—not a lot compared to the total of liquid assets held by those banks already.

There is a rumbling, though.  An Obama appointee to the BoG, Lael Brainard, is objecting to the regulatory easing.

She added that banks are “providing ample credit and earning ample profits” under current liquidity requirements.

Yep. There it is again.  “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money. …you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service.”

Because the Progressive-Democrat Fed Governor knows better what constitutes sufficient profit and what “good” service is; market participants’ views are unimportant, and she does not hear them.