Category: Economy

The New York Times has become a shill for the unions by publishing an opinion piece masquerading as a report on U.S. un-exceptionalism. It bashes the U.S. for a number of statistics when compared to other countries, but twists the data to support their position while placing the blame on entities and causes that the progressives can rally against. It’s an appalling tale of misinformation and bias. Read it for yourself here:

The U.S. Is Lagging Behind Many Rich Countries. These Charts Show Why.

Below are some particular issues that I have with this opinion piece:

1) The article claims that people in other high-income countries have become richer over the last three decades when compared to the U.S. They even provide a graph showing the increase in per capita GDP on a country-by-country basis. But what they fail to note is that the per capita GDP of the U.S. already far exceeds that of any other country listed. Have you ever heard the expression that if you’re at the bottom things can only get better? Well, think about what happens when you’re at the top.

2) The piece also notes that lifespan has not grown as it has in other countries. Now, to be clear, I don’t know why that is. But the authors of this piece do; they claim:

“There are multiple causes. But one big one is a lack of political power among the bulk of the population.”

But this makes no sense; the political power in our country is ONLY vested in the population. How is their political power lacking? They try to explain next:

“Government policy and economic forces have combined to make corporations and the wealthy more powerful, and most workers and their families less powerful.“

Given that corporations cannot vote, and that people have only one vote no matter how much wealth they possess, how then have these entities gained more political power? They haven’t. But a common argument is that given more money they can use it to sway the opinion of ignorant voters, or to pay corrupt politicians to obtain their support. But none of this dilutes the political power held by the voters. Voters can educate themselves to ignore the biased media, and they can vote out of office any politician that does not act in a manner deemed acceptable with respect to moneyed forces. The fact is that the true political power in the United States will always remain with the people; to say otherwise only insults the intelligence of the voters. However, if the people are too stupid to wield this power objectively then that’s a different issue.

3) The article blames the rise of corporate and wealth-based power on – you guessed it: the loss of union membership (Duh! How could we not predict this?). An interesting claim from the article regarding the decline of union membership:

“The decline has happened largely because employers have become more aggressive about keeping out unions and government policy has made it easier for them to do so.”

Of course, the article provides no support for this claim. Others argue that the loss of union membership instead has something to do with union failure to preserve U.S. jobs in a global marketplace. When the union demands unsustainable or non-real-world wages, companies close or go bankrupt and jobs move elsewhere (and union members are lost). Think not? Ask Detroit. But even if their claims about employers and government policy were true, once again the power remains with the people (in this case the employees) who are free to vote on union membership. Maybe unions just don’t provide a useful service when they bankrupt employers, and that’s why employees aren’t voting for union representation.

There are numerous other issue that I have with this opinion piece. You should read it for yourself and make your own decision as to its purpose and value. But keep in mind that the interpretations of the facts it offers are only opinions, and as opinions should be given an an appropriately low weight in your deliberations.

If states insist on following their own rules with respect to the coronavirus pandemic, then why should the federal government be responsible for bailing out their economies? And how would pushing a states coronavirus debt onto the federal government (i.e. – onto everyone equally) be fair to those states who managed the crisis well?

California’s Newsom says fed help to states ‘not charity,’ but ‘moral and ethical obligation’ to Americans

The fair way to distribute costs associated with the coronavirus pandemic is for each state to absorb its own. This will spur innovation and sensible budget management during the crisis. States spending what they believe to be someone is else’s money, on the the hand, will only result in wasteful spending on pet projects and causes that could not otherwise be funded.

Franky, I don’t want to pay for California’s progressive wish list or New York City’s failure to implement reasonable social distancing guidelines early in the pandemic.

…to set prices for private services! If prices are too high, a free market will correct through the development of new competition.

Cities Crack Down On Food Delivery App Fees As Restaurants Struggle To Survive

Would you be so quick to condone this behavior by government bureaucrats if it was your price (wages) that the government was limiting?

An interesting report on China hoarding PPE (personal protective equipment), such as N95 masks:

Trump admin weighs legal action over alleged Chinese hoarding of PPE

The article argues that China has done this to corner the PPE market for economic and political advantage, but I think China’s motives might be far more sinister. What better way to acquire the needed PPE early in the pandemic for the protection of ones own people than by withholding information from the rest of the world as to the virulence and lethality of the Wuhan coronavirus? An what better way to strong-arm countries into silence than threatening to withhold needed medications that are now manufactured primarily in China?

When will we stop ignoring that China is a communist country whose interests do not align with our own? When will we stop being seduced by their low-cost (and some would argue low-quality) products?

…and politicians particularly so.

Tlaib wants to hand out debit cards during coronavirus, mint trillion-dollar coins to cover cost

OK, so when I was a child I was with my mother at a local store where she was buying supplies for a project. I asked her to buy me a toy. I saw that she was writing a check, and I assumed she could just write another check; that checks were the equivalent of money. She took a moment to explain to me that checks weren’t money, and that she had to have money to use checks. Now, I won’t pretend that at 9 years old I understood the economics of money, but I did understand at that point that it could not simply be printed. Apparently, this concept escapes Representative Tlaib.

Will wonders never cease…?

…buying votes with the voter’s own money. And voter’s are too stupid to know it.

Here’s a quote form Gavin’s Twitter account regarding his latest brainstorm:

“CA just passed the strongest rent control package in America,” Newsom stated in a tweet on Wednesday. “The rent is too damn high — so we’re damn sure doing something about it.”

The problem with rent control is that it is a false panacea; it simply does not work. Rent control has been shown to reduce the overall number of rental properties and cause rents to increase. Even far left advocates like NPR admit that rent control just doesn’t work:

“Even though much of the research shows rent control doesn’t help most tenants in the long run, advocates say at least current tenants are protected.”

It’s bad enough when the government subsidizes rents; this leads to the same people vying for the same properties but with more money in hand. It’s a simple equation: same demand + more money = higher rents. However, it’s an order of magnitude worse when land owners are expected to subsidize rents on the government’s behalf.

Gavin’s gamble will pay off, though – he’s betting most renters don’t have a functioning knowledge of economics and won’t bother investigating the facts. And he’d be right…