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POPSObama's Tax Redistribution ...Obama's plan would greatly accelerate the decades-long trend toward a federal government that depends for tax revenue almost exclusively on a few high-income people. I guess you can call greatly accelerating in the same direction, "change". Hodge acknowledges that some Americans may cheer this dramatic dependence on the highest earners, but he says the shift should be part of a larger national discussion asking questions such as: * What is the long-term effect on the economy if so few households shoulder such a large share of the tax burden? * When a majority of Americans are paying so little for government, will that majority then demand even more services than they would have otherwise? * Can a tax system so focused on redistribution be compatible with economic growth? The new study, "Hard Numbers on Obama's Redistribution Plan," is available online at www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23319.html.
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POPSBaltimore's Capital Punishment Policies Back in the good old days, Baltimore had a smaller percentage of residents living in poverty (22.7%) than the nation as a whole (27.8%), and a greater percentage of families (23.1%) earning a middle-class income of at least $44,600 in today's dollars than the rest of the country (19.1%). Today, the city has a population that is almost 50% smaller, and about 40% of families with children live at or near the federal poverty line. Among the country's 100 most populous cities, Baltimore ranks a shameful 87th on median household income. There are now at least 30,000 housing units in Baltimore that are abandoned and waiting to be demolished, while even old, upper-crust neighborhoods now have a seedy look. Property taxes are so high – as well as the strong likelihood they will soar even higher in the future – that even maintenance, no less capital improvements, are a losing proposition.
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POPSReason to Panic? The supply of oil is also related to the amount it sells for. It's not getting easier to find new reserves, but at $130 a barrel, a lot of companies are going to be looking really, really hard. They will also be reevaluating fields that couldn't be profitably tapped at $60 a barrel. The federal Energy Information Administration projects that U.S. production will rise 24 percent in the next decade. I actually have to somewhat disagree with that second statement that it's not getting easier to find new reserves. I'd offer that it actually is getting easier...satellite imaging, resonance mapping, new theories for oil location, and a whole host of technologies being applied, not to mention the cumulative experience of generations of drillers, all increase the likelihood of finding new reserves. Of course getting through bureaucracies isn't getting easier. So essentially it's a valid statement anyways
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POPSCapitalism - The Only Possible Choice There is scarcely anything so absurd as the fundamental principle of Marx's materialist interpretation of history: "The hand mill made feudal society; the steam mill, capitalist society." It was precisely capitalist society that was needed to create the necessary conditions for the original conception of the steam mill to be developed and put into effect. It was capitalism that created the technology, and not the other way round. Liberalism - In the Classical Tradition Ludwig von Mises, 1927
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POPSWhat Happened to the American Spirit? More importantly, the economic evolution of places such as China and the Gulf states of the Middle East is intimately tied to something so simple and so essential that it is easily overlooked: the belief that they can achieve anything. That used to be the defining feature of this country, one that peoples throughout the world marveled at and envied.
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POPSThe Price of Gas Again, while just over nine percent of the price of a gallon of gas goes to oil company profits, approximately twenty percent of the price of a gallon of gas is composed of federal, state, and local taxes. Those who want the government to step in and do something about the high price of gas are either forgetful of recent history or too young to remember the oil crisis of 1979. During that time, restrictions on the price of gasoline led to the inability of some to find gas at all. Price ceilings always lead to shortages. The only thing worse than having to pay "too much" for gas is not being able to find gas at any price. Let us not be swayed by politicians out for power or by reporters out to create news where none exists. Facts and economic logic should prevail rather than rhetoric.
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POPSLuxury Consumption When, in the Middle Ages, an aristocratic Byzantine lady who had married a Venetian doge made use of a golden implement, which could be called the forerunner of the fork as we know it today, instead of her fingers, in eating her meals, the Venetians looked on this as a godless luxury, and they thought it only just when the lady was stricken with a dreadful disease; this must be, they supposed, the well-merited punishment of God for such unnatural extravagance. Two or three generations ago even in England an indoor bathroom was considered a luxury; today the home of every English worker of the better type contains one. Liberalism - In the Classical Tradition Ludwig von Mises Imagine thinking a bathroom is a luxury! It's safely in the domain of necessity today. More current is the transition of cell phones from the realm of luxury to widely attainable by those of every class; often even every family member has their own.
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POPSThe True Liberalism "The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production... All the other demands of liberalism result from this fundamental demand." First published in German, 1927 Liberalism - In the Classical Tradition Ludwig von Mises
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POPSResenting the Rich - An Experiment of Envy Apparently, it matters a great deal whether people believe that others deserve their good fortune. If they don't believe they do, then less well-off people will further impoverish themselves to bring the rich bastards down a peg or two. Socialists often claim that capitalism is based on humanity's worst impulses, greed and selfishness, despite the fact that people who live in societies that participate in markets tend to be more generous and cooperative than those who don't. Oswald and Zizzo's research suggests that socialists who believe that their ideology appeals to humanity's better instincts have it backwards. Envy is behind the leveling spirit of socialism. A truly generous and rational soul would wish others well, especially if they have done no one any harm. This is further evidenced by wide support of "soak the rich" platforms of populist politicians.
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POPSLone Star Statement I'm not the biggest fan of Gov. Perry, but I give credit where it's due. Governor Perry is saving Texan businesses $260 million all told in unnecessary unemployment taxes. In recent months he has also directed the state to rebate $170 million that employers paid into the trust fund in 2007.
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POPSTexas v Ohio There's no doubt times are tough in Ohio. The state has lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000, home foreclosures are soaring, and real family income is lower now than in 2000. Meanwhile, the Texas economy has boomed since 2004, with nearly twice the rate of new job creation as the rest of the nation. Ohio now ranks 47th out of 50 in economic competitiveness...Ohio politicians deplore plant closings even as they impose the third highest corporate income tax in the country (10.5%) and the sixth highest personal income tax (8.87%)...By contrast, Texas has no income tax, a huge competitive advantage.
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POPSCarbon Copies - Emissions Taxes Based upon a widely accepted formula originated at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, if the entire United States adopted the original Kansas legislation, it would prevent a total of 0.11 degrees F of global warming per century. Read that again, because it's not a typo: Eleven one-hundredths of a degree in 100 years. Instead, let's apply the original Kansas legislation to every nation on the planet that agreed to limit its emissions under the infamous 1997 Kyoto Protocol...The new law would prevent 0.27 degrees F of warming per century. That's an amount too small to measure, because global temperatures vary by more than that from year-to-year -- global warming or not.
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POPSSocialist Oil Venezuela, despite having perhaps the sixth-largest oil reserves in the world, has falling production because of the mismanagement by the Chavez government. Mexico also is suffering from falling oil production because the government refuses to allow private oil exploration and production companies, and the state-owned oil company, Pemex, is corrupt and incompetent. By contrast, the U.S. only has about 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, but produces little more than 8 percent of global production, largely because they are privately owned and managed. If there were a truly free market in oil, with both the reserves and production owned and controlled by many competitive companies, the price of oil would be a fraction of today's price.
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POPSObama's Worn Out Economic Ideas There is much current political interest in so-called "predatory lending" -- the charging of high interest rates for loans to poor people or to people with low credit ratings. Nothing will be easier politically than passing laws to limit interest rates or make it harder for lenders to recover their money -- and nothing will cause credit to dry up faster to low-income people, forcing some of them to have to turn to illegal loan sharks, who have their own methods of collecting. The underlying reality that politicians do not want to face is that here, too, prices convey a reality that is not subject to political control. That reality is that it is far riskier to lend to some people than to others. That is why the price of a loan -- the interest rate -- is far higher to some people than to others. Far from making extra profits on riskier loans, many lenders have lost millions of dollars on such loans and some have gone bankrupt.
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POPSPopulist Politics "The way to achieve Edwards' and Huckabee's populist goal of reducing the role of "special interests," meaning money, in government is to reduce the role of government in distributing money. But populists want to sharply increase that role by expanding the regulatory state's reach and enlarging its agenda of determining the distribution of wealth."
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POPSGreed, Need, and Money "When Jack Welch became General Electric's CEO in 1981, the company was worth about $14 billion. Through hiring and firing, buying and selling decisions, Welch turned the company around and when he retired 20 years later, GE was worth nearly $500 billion. What's a CEO worth for such an achievement? If Welch was paid a measly one-half of a percent of GE's increase in value, his total compensation would have come to nearly $2.5 billion, instead of the few hundred million that he actually received."
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POPSIncome Mobility "Unfortunately, because so many Americans buy into the politics of envy, politicians have a leg up in enacting measures that cripple economic growth."
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POPSRich Get Richer, Poor Get...Richer? "Economist Jeffrey Sachs bemoans the fate of the poor who are left behind...So what is the remedy? Sachs wants more studies of poverty... Do we really need more studies of poverty? We're not trying to create poverty; we're trying to create wealth. We should be studying entrepreneurial success because that is the formula we want to replicate. India and China implement high-growth policies by sending scholars to study capitalist models that work. They don't send scholars to Haiti and Rwanda to study poverty."
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POPSStupid, Ignorant or Biased: US Economy It seems common today to vilify corporations for greed. Yet realize this "greed" can be influenced to great effect and ultimately for the common good. Like how many high profile companies now adopt measures to become more "green". It's likely some of these companies feel it's unnecessary, has little effect, or disagree altogether, but they do it anyway because public opinion influences their profits.
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