Category Archives: Economics

The Stupid Party Expands Government Again | RedState

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Posted by Erick Erickson
Diary Thursday, June 28th at 4:46AM EDT 7

Comments House and Senate Republican leaders, collectively the Stupid Party, are yet again set to expand government, government spending, and engage in Keynesian economic policies they’ve criticized Barack Obama for.

Somewhat wisely, they are releasing all this as the Supreme Court releases its Obamacare decision so no one will pay attention. Ironically, as we wait to see if the Supreme Court gives Congress plenary power through the Commerce Clause, Congressional Republicans are feeding the Leviathan on their own.

Republicans and Democrats have agreed to a massive increase in federal gluttony with a highway bill. The Republicans decided to drop demands for approving the Keystone XL pipeline and demands that the EPA stop its ridiculous regulations on coal plants that will harm our energy future. In exchange, Democrats will not fund bike paths and highway landscaping.

In other words, Democrats should not be at all worried about Republican plans for Obamacare should any portion of it be declared unconstitutional later today. The GOP will just get scared and cave.

via The Stupid Party Expands Government Again | RedState.

Disaffected libertarians want to opt out; could this be good news for Obama?

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By The InkDemon

Libertarian Ron Paul voters are angry that their man did not win the in the Republican Primary.  In fact Paul did not make the runoff.  Now, like this blogger, they advocate dropping out.   This could spell good news for Obama and the Democrats.

The Lesser of two Evils?

By Dave Mundy
manager@gonzalescannon.com
Posted June 7, 2012 – 8:01am

There are a lot of folks who like to say that if you don’t vote, you’ve got no right to complain about the results. I beg to differ.

Why bother to vote when everything has already been decided, and your vote wouldn’t have mattered?I didn’t vote in last week’s party primaries — primarily because I’m not a member of either of the two major parties, although I certainly have a lot of allies among the Republicans and certainly tend to lean that direction on a lot of issues.

I have in the past voted in the GOP primary — which put me on a lot of mailing lists this election cycle — but I can’t say I’m a card-carrying Republican. In light of Tuesday’s results, I feel that’s probably wise.

via The ‘lesser of two evils’ is no longer a valid choice | The Gonzales Cannon.

Initiative, Referendum, and Recall … Do we need it?

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My friends and relatives on the West Coast used to send me e-mailed petitions.  None is  valid here in Texas.  In fact, Texas is only one of nine states that does not have recall as part of the Constitution.  Texas does not have initiative either.

Texas is one of a few states that does not have recall

Why?  Texans have a long distrust of their elected officials.  That feeling came out of the Reconstruction era.  When Texans finally re-gained control of their state in 1870, they wrote the present Constitution.  It is one of the wordiest documents in all the 50 states.  practically noting can be done by the Legislature without a state-wide referendum.

Recall was not considered; but if it was known, this blogger is sure it would have been included.  Of course, elected officials can be kicked out of office for misconduct.  That is left up to impeachment.   State officials have been impeached, too.  This blogger recalls a Supreme Court Justice Donald Burt Yarbrough, who was indicted for malfeasance and run out of office in the 70′s before he was impeached.   The Legislature impeached Gov. James E. Ferguson  in 1916.  No other governor has been impeached.

Initiative is what generates that annoying e-mails from the West Coast.  Out there, they can get up a petition and make almost anything into a law.  In fact, California’s state constitution has so many initiative-inspired changes that only about 40 percent of their budget can be changed with out a Constitutional amendment.   That avenue was attempted a few years ago, but California voters turned it down.

Texas Republican Gov. William P. Clements proposed Initiative and recall when he was governor.  The Democrat legislature rejected it.

 Recall can get bad officials out of office.  However, as we see in Wisconsin it was used to stop officials from making needed reforms.   The United States and the 50 states run as republics.   That means we the people choose our officials, and the elected officials conduct government.  If they are honest, then they should get an opportunity to do for their terms.

Initiative and recall moves the state towards a democracy and the whims of the populace.  That was what the founding fathers feared the most.

The price of crony capitalism

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Is crony capitalism good for America.  You decide.  These corporations donated to political parties.

  • Shopping Price Club/Costco donated $225K, 99% went to Democrats
  • Rite Aid donated $517K, 60% went to Democrats
  • Magla Products ( Stanley tools, Mr. Clean) donated $22K, 100% went to Democrats
  • Warnaco (undergarments) donated $55K, 73% went to Democrats Martha Stewart
  • iving Omnimedia donated $153K, 99% went to Democrats
  • Estee Lauder donated $448K, 95% went to Democrats
  • Guess, Inc. donated $145K, 98% went to Democrats
  • Calvin Klein donated $78K, 100% went to Democrats
  • Liz Claiborne, Inc. donated $34K, 97% went to Democrats
  • Levi Straus donated $26K, 97% went to Democrats
  • Olan Mills donated $175K, 99% went to Democrats
  • WalMart donated $467K, 97% went to Republicans
  • K-Mart donated $524K, 86% went to Republicans
  • Home Depot donated $298K, 89% went to Republicans
  • Target donated $226K, 70% went to Republicans
  • Circuit City Stores donated $261K, 95% went to Republicans
  • 3M Co. donated $281K, 87% went to Republicans
  • Hallmark Cards donated $319K, 92% went to Republicans
  • Amway donated $391K, 100% Republicans
  • Kohler Co. (plumbing fixtures) donated $283K, 100% Republicans
  • B.F. Goodrich (tires) donated $215K, 97% went to Republicans
  • Proctor & Gamble donated $243K, 79% went to Republicans
  • Spirits Southern Wine & Spirits donated $213K, 73% went to Democrats
  • Joseph E. Seagrams & Sons (incl. beverage Business and considerable media interests) donated $2M+, 67% went to Democrats
  • Gallo Winery donated $337K, 95% went to Democrats
  • Coors & Budweiser donated $174K, 92% went to Republicans
  • Brown-Forman Corp. (Southern Comfort, Jack Daniels, Bushmills, Korbel Wines, Lenox China , Dansk and Gorham Silver)donated $644 K – - 80% went to Republicans
  • Hungry? Sonic Corporation donated $83K, 98% went to Democrats
  • Triarc Companies (Arby’s, T.J. Cinnamon’s, Pasta Connections) donated $112K, 96% went to Democrats
  • Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. (chicken) donated $366K, 100% went to Republicans
  • Outback Steakhouse donated $641K, 95% went to Republicans
  • Tricon Global Restaurants (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell) donated $133K, 87% went to Republicans
  • Brinker International (Maggiano’s, Brinker Cafe, Chili’s, On the Border, Macaroni Grill, Crazymel’s, Corner Baker, EatZis) donated $242K, 83% went to Republicans
  • Waffle House donated $279K, 100% went to Republicans
  • McDonald’s Corp. donated $197K, 86% went to Republicans
  • Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Smokey Bones, Bahama Breeze) donated $121K, 89% went to Republicans
  • Heinz Republicans $64,000 Democrats $21,300!!!!! John Kerry’s wife’s company!!!
  • Traveling and/or dining Hyatt Corporation donated $187K of which 80% went to Democrats
  • Marriott International $323K, 81% went to Republicans
  • Holiday Inns donated $38K, 71% went to Republicans

Number of the Week: Half of U.S. Lives in Household Getting Benefits – Real Time Economics – WSJ

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By Phil Izzo

49.1%: Percent of the population that lives in a household where at least one member received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2011.

Half of U.S. households on federal benefits

Gimme the Bennies

Cutting government spending is no easy task, and it’s made more complicated by recent Census Bureau data showing that nearly half of the people in the U.S. live in a household that receives at least one government benefit, and many likely received more than one.

The 49.1% of the population in a household that gets benefits is up from 30% in the early 1980s and 44.4% as recently as the third quarter of 2008.

The increase in recent years is likely due in large part to the lingering effects of the recession. As of early 2011, 15% of people lived in a household that received food stamps, 26% had someone enrolled in Medicaid and 2% had a member receiving unemployment benefits. Families doubling up to save money or pool expenses also is likely leading to more multigenerational households. But even without the effects of the recession, there would be a larger reliance on government.

via Number of the Week: Half of U.S. Lives in Household Getting Benefits – Real Time Economics – WSJ.

The American Spectator : The Coming Cultural Disintegration

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By William Tucker
from the April 2012 issue

With his new book, Coming Apart, Charles Murray has once again changed the terms of debate in America. On Sunday, February 19, the New York Times ran a

page-one lead story headlined “For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage,” telling of the social cataclysm that is taking place right under our noses today:

Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends, a Washington research group that analyzed government data.

Written by Jason DeParle and Sylvia Tavernise, the story noted that the change appears to be occurring from the bottom up, with the white working class now adopting the cultural norms—or lack thereof—long associated with the African-American population.

Despite all the brouhaha about Murphy Brown, the fictional TV newscaster who elected for single motherhood, in reality upper-income, college-educated women remain largely immune to the contagion:

Read more here:  The American Spectator : The Coming Cultural Disintegration.

The Intellectuals and Socialism — Hayak

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The Intellectuals and Socialism

By F.A. Hayek

In all democratic countries, in the United States even more than elsewhere, a strong belief prevails that the influence of the intellectuals on politics is negligible. This is no doubt true of the power of intellectuals to make their peculiar opinions of the moment influence decisions, of the extent to which they can sway the popular vote on questions on which they differ from the current views of the masses. Yet over somewhat longer periods they have probably never exercised so great an influence as they do today in those countries. This power they wield by shaping public opinion.

In the light of recent history it is somewhat curious that this decisive power of the professional secondhand dealers in ideas should not yet be more generally recognized. The political development of the Western World during the last hundred years furnishes the clearest demonstration. Socialism has never and nowhere been at first a working-class movement. It is by no means an obvious remedy for the obvious evil which the interests of that class will necessarily demand. It is a construction of theorists, deriving from certain tendencies of abstract thought with which for a long time only the intellectuals were familiar; and it required long efforts by the intellectuals before the working classes could be persuaded to adopt it as their program.

In every country that has moved toward socialism, the phase of the development in which socialism becomes a determining influence on politics has been preceded for many years by a period during which socialist ideals governed the thinking of the more active intellectuals. In Germany this stage had been reached toward the end of the last century; in England and France, about the time of the first World War. To the casual observer it would seem as if the United States had reached this phase after World War II and that the attraction of a planned and directed economic system is now as strong among the American intellectuals as it ever was among their German or English fellows. Experience suggests that, once this phase has been reached, it is merely a question of time until the views now held by the intellectuals become the governing force of politics.

Via Chicago Law Review

How The A&P Changed The Way We Shop : NPR

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Editor’s Note:  Conservapedia.com published excerpts from this interview of economics historian Marc Levinson.  I followed the link to its surprsing source.  It tells how economies of scale brought prosperity and how narrow-minded socialists and socialism brought it down. — Jay Goode

August 23, 2011
From NPR.org

Walk into any big-box grocery store today and you’ll likely push your shopping cart past 30 varieties of condiments, 50 different cereals and a plethora of produce options. All of the items are clearly priced — and anything you might need for dinner, dessert or a snack is likely located in one of the aisles.

But this wasn’t always the case. In the early 20th century, a typical corner grocery store fit into the size of a large living room. Canned goods lined the walls, while a small number of root vegetables may have been available behind the counter. Instead of putting groceries into your own cart, you’d ask the shopkeeper to retrieve them for you — and those items didn’t include bread or meat, which would have required a separate trip to the baker and the butcher. Most kitchen staples — things like flour and sugar and wheat — were kept in large barrels and then measured out by the grocer himself.

“You’d ask for a certain weight of cheese, you’d ask for vinegar,” says economic historian Marc Levinson. “The vinegar was not bottled; it was in a barrel and the shopkeeper would pump it out into a small jar for you. If you wanted some pickles, they’d be in a barrel, too. A lot of things would be in bulk, and the shopkeeper was responsible for giving you the quantity you wanted — or the quantity he’d feel like giving you. Because every store had a scale and the scale might or might not be accurate.”

via How The A&P Changed The Way We Shop : NPR.