Category Archives: Political Economy

Death-Spiral States

Debt, Economy, Government, Political Economy, Private Property, Socialism, Taxation, The State

A death spiral state is one in which the parasites outnumber the hosts. In these states, the taker-(public sector workers)-to-maker (private sector workers) ratio is unsustainable.

William Baldwin of Forbes magazine defines a death-spiral state as one that has “more takers than makers,” where “a taker is someone who draws money from the government, as an employee, pensioner or welfare recipient. A maker is someone gainfully employed in the private sector.”

Charitably, Forbes counts only “11 death spiral states, rang[ing] from New Mexico, with 1.53 takers for every maker, down to Ohio, with a 1-to-1 ratio.”

Consider (or don’t):

Let’s say you are a software entrepreneur with 100 on your payroll. If you stay in San Francisco, your crew will support 139 takers. In Texas, they would support only 82. Austin looks very attractive.

Republican Attack Dogs Go For Mitt Romney, Again

Elections, Ethics, Etiquette, Gender, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Political Economy, Politics, Race, Republicans

A good gauge of Republican treachery is the manner in which these drag queens of politics (no offense to drag queens) have beaten up on Mitt Romney whenever he spoke the truth.

They still do.

Romeny’s latest manifestly true words were these, via the New York Times:

In explaining his overwhelming electoral college defeat last week, Romney said Obama followed what he called the “old playbook” of seeking votes from specific interest groups, “especially the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people,” the New York Times said. “In each case they were very generous in what they gave to those groups,” he added, according to the paper.
The question of how to appeal to the nation’s changing demographics is sensitive for Republicans, especially because Romney lost the non-white vote so badly to Obama, the nation’s first African American president.

Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Fat Man Newt Gingrich, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (deemed another GOP rising star), MSNBC token conservative, and “Morning Joe” co-host, Joe Scarborough: All these deeply stupid Republicans can’t quite say why Mitt Romney’s analysis of the role of the give-me constituency in his electoral loss is incorrect. All they can do is malign the man because their jobs as electable parasites hinge on maligning Mitt Romney.

Establishment Republicans make me sick: lead me to the vomitorium, please.

Joining the cobra head that rose to spit at Romney was Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. But leading the pack in puke factor was Obama’s New BFF (Best Friend Forever), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R). No one beats that bit of human waste when it comes to political back stabbing.

As the Republican doctrine has it, it is impermissible to observe that America is riven by race and gender.

Circumscribing Gouging = Circumscribing Private Property

Business, Capitalism, Economy, Ethics, Individual Rights, Objectivism, Political Economy, Private Property, Reason

Rights-based arguments are seldom made by members of the media and their guests. In explaining what a (semantic) aberration the term gouging is John Stossel opted to privilege the utilitarian angle. So did his guests.

Like any voluntary exchange of goods, “gouging” amounts to free people exchanging property to which they hold title. Each relinquishes something he values less (money/goods/labor) for something he values more (money/goods/labor).

John Stossel and guests prefer to stick to purely utilitarian economics. That’s the mindset that prevails.

I’d like to hear our side argue for freedom by saying that, whether free markets work or not is secondary to the unalienable, immutable, rights of men. It so happens that—surprise!—upholding the absolute rights of the individual to life, liberty and property works very well. Wealth redounds to all.

Bless Stossel for his efforts to promote economic literacy, over decades. However, I listened to Steve Horowitz last night, and then “muted” when Stossel made the perennial decision that guides the dueling perspectives political panel.

Rather than let Steve enlighten, Stossel allowed the reality denier to hog the stage with a perversion, not a version, of the truth.

“By presenting the public with two competing perspectives—you mislead viewers into believing that indeed there are two realities, and that it is up to them to decide which one is more compelling.”

This positively postmodernist format would be fine were Rome not burning. However, “a Homeric contest is underway in the USA. Rome is burning. Now is not the time to fiddle or to unwittingly defraud the public.”

As I wrote in “More Chris Christie Cretinism*: Outlawing Price ‘Gouging,’” in addition to acting as “the street signs of the economy,” “prices are the prerogative of private property”:

In a free market, the institute of private property ensures that we have prices. “Prices are like a compass: pegged to supply and demand they ensure the correct allocation of resources. Without market prices, supply and demand cannot be brought into balance and, by extension, consumer needs cannot be satisfied. Conversely, in socialized systems there are no prices because there is no private property. Absent such knowledge, misuse, misallocation and mismanagement of capital are inevitable.”

Storms Create Jobs (And Stupidity Springs Eternal)

Debt, Government, Inflation, Labor, Political Economy

You won’t hear Shepard Smith of Fox News suggest that, in order to create jobs in their own communities, people should set fire to their homes, and so help spur economic activity among local builders, landscapers, plumbers, and electricians.

But there the anchor was today, in Studio B, touting the economic benefits that would accrue from natural destruction.

The scale of Sandy the Storm guaranteed that it was a matter of time before John Maynard Keynes’ central stupidity would surface in the media. The stupidity Mr. Smith was giving voice to today is that out of Hurricane Sandy’s destruction will come jobs to revive the stricken region.

Residence along the battered eastern seaboard should hang tough, said Shep. Federal aid was on the way. Think about all the jobs that will be created in rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy.

As this thinking goes, war too is good for the economy, even though war always destroys individually owned real assets and capital.

The same goes for a storm such as Sandy.

For every dollar the government will spend, a dollar will be siphoned from you and me.

Like any committed statist, Shep sees big government—huge public works—and big deficits (especially during depressions), not as a bane but as a blessing, to be embraced as the key to economic boom.

In the short term, destruction will benefit some at the expense of others. The government will confiscate private property in the form of taxes (or steal wealth by stealth through its inflationary monetary policy) so as to create Shep’s imagined industries. These jobs will by short lived and unsustainable. For every government job generated, a real job will be lost in the private economy.