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.
Writing against Barack Obama in Pravda, Xavier Lerma offered his assessment of Obama and the people that reelected him. To capture the gist of Mr. Lerma’s (somewhat unartful but truthful) article, here’s a riff on an old joke: These days, if you send your son to Moscow he will return an anti-Communist; send him to Washington and he will return a Communist. (Your daughter will probably lean left wherever she goes. “Sisters love Uncle Sam.”)
Doff of the hat to Lou Dobbs and The Examiner for the Lerma link:.
….Recently, Obama has been re-elected for a 2nd term by an illiterate society and he is ready to continue his lies of less taxes while he raises them. He gives speeches of peace and love in the world while he promotes wars as he did in Egypt, Libya and Syria. He plans his next war is with Iran as he fires or demotes his generals who get in the way. …
…O’bomber even keeps the war going along the Mexican border with projects like “fast and furious” and there is still no sign of ending it. He is a Communist without question promoting the Communist Manifesto without calling it so. How shrewd he is in America. His cult of personality mesmerizes those who cannot go beyond their ignorance. They will continue to follow him like those fools who still praise Lenin and Stalin in Russia. Obama’s fools and Stalin’s fools share the same drink of illusion.
The Examiner provides an example (one among tens of millions) of the Idiocracy that elected Obama. He is Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx, who said this “on a previously recorded broadcast of the Soul Train Awards on Black Entertainment Television (BET) Sunday:
‘Give an honor to God and our lord and savior Barack Obama. Barack Obama.’”
Not that I doubted it, but Mitt Romney was not “lying” when he told stupid voters that their health care would go up, under ObamaCare, by about $2000-$3000 annually. Before Creep Care this household enjoyed 100 percent coverage. Shortly after Creep Care became law, we were notified, like millions around the country, in an upbeat letter, that healthcare experts were hard at work hammering out the details of how they would continue to care for us under current conditions (and still stay in business).
Our plan has now altered what was once 100% coverage to a high-deductible plan with a health savings account. This could cost us up to 2000, even 3000, additional dollars a year.
The great John Stossel entertained a healthcare expert who reminded viewers for the umpteenth time that the employer mandate decrees that every employer employing more than 50 people must provide a one-size fits all government designed plan to his workers. This indeed will cost twice as much as the plans that employers currently offer.
The costs of this employer mandate are such that it’s cheaper for the owner to pay a penalty for denying coverage—all the more so when compliance may see a business go under.
Employer-mandated healthcare will add $1.75 per-hour (“every hour”) to the cost of a worker. Who does this onerous mandate hurt? Entry level hires, as $1.75 per hour doesn’t much matter when you are hiring a neurosurgeon. However, 2000 additional dollars a year for a relatively unskilled worker whose productivity—output per unit of labor—is not that high: That’s not worth it.
Thatass with ears (Barack) doesn’t understand that a businessman cannot pay a worker (or fork out for him) in excess of his productivity and hope to stay in business.
Thanks to our Creep-in-chief, people who had full-time employment and insurance may now find themselves downgraded to part-time employees with no insurance, or to the ranks of the unemployed with no job and no insurance.
In the previous post, we mentioned an economic fallacy that gets floated during major disasters. It is that “Storms Create Jobs.” The idea of price gouging is another example of erroneous economic thinking that creeps into the discussion, especially during natural- and government-generated disasters.
… there are some things politicians of both parties can agree. Price gouging, for example, is wrong. New York Attorney General Eric Scheiderman, a Democrat, wants you to know it. But this isn’t just for soft-hearted liberals. New Jersey’s notoriously tough conservative governor, Chris Christie, also put out a weekend press release warning that “price gouging during a state of emergency is illegal” and that complaints would be investigated by the attorney general. Specifically, Garden State merchants are barred from raising prices more than 10 percent over their normal level during emergency conditions (New York’s anti-gouging law sets a less precise definition, barring “unconscionably extreme” increases).
Even a progressive like Yglesias is able to grasp some of the natural laws of economics. A sharp rise in prices to coincidence with reduced supply and an increased demand for a good signals the need to conserve scare resources:
The basic imperative to allocate goods efficiently doesn’t vanish in a storm or other crisis. If anything, it becomes more important. And price controls in an emergency have the same results as they do any other time: They lead to shortages and overconsumption. Letting merchants raise prices if they think customers will be willing to pay more isn’t a concession to greed. Rather, it creates much-needed incentives for people to think harder about what they really need and appropriately rewards vendors who manage their inventories well.
Still, some truths escape liberals (and most conservatives). 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. Prices are the street signs of the economy.”
Every day that Christie is rhetorically hugging Obama is a day when he’s not making the case for Romney. Christie went even further in an interview on Fox and Friends Tuesday morning, professing little interest when told Romney might visit to tour some of the damage in his state. “I have no idea” [if Romney is coming], “nor am I the least bit concerned or interested,” Christie said. “I have a job to do in New Jersey that is much bigger than presidential politics.”
