AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT

GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN = POLITICAL THEATER

Do Taxpayers Want To Pay For Those Shut Down Government Services?, by Ryan McMaken, at mises.org. A Government “shut down” is important to bureaucrats, politicians and of course the media. Why? Because Government is the end all and be all for these people. No one else cares. Because of their bias toward big government, the news media creates stories to make a government shut down look worse than it is. This is all political theater. Excerpt from the article: “….. If the taxpayers were uniformly appalled and outraged at the thought of a government shutdown, it seems unlikely that the federal government would need to go out of its way to make a big show of what government services were being shut down. This is a time-honored strategy, of course, and even has a name: the Washington Monument Syndrome. For decades, the bureaucrats in the National Park Service have gleefully closed the parks whenever government shutdowns have occurred, …..The Park Service knows that the closure of parks plays a helpful role in angering American tourists and taxpayers who find themselves traveling a thousand miles to only end up at a closed National Park…..The National Parks are an extreme case, though, and the federal government knows it. The question remains as to whether or not taxpayers care much about all the other government “services” that may be closed or scaled back. Just how badly do the taxpayers want to make sure that their tax dollars keep going to fund NSA spying on Americans, or the study of wildlife mating habits, or the planting of trees in the front yards of millionaires?”

What The ‘Dreamer’ Fight Is Really About, by Victor Davis Hanson, at victorhanson.com. In this government shut down game of chicken between the R’s and D’s, the Democrats are betting all their chips on the DACA program. This article does a great job of explaining both sides of this issue.

THE GOVERNMENT DOESN’T REALLY SHUTDOWN.

What Closes During A Government Shutdown? Military, Social Security, National Parks, TSA? at cbsnews.com. Essential operations of government and essential personal don’t get shut down. The rest is non-essential. These two articles list what is and is not shutting down. What Won’t Get Done During A Government Shutdown, at nbcwashington.com.

OTHER STUFF

Glenn Greenwald Reminds Jeff Flake Who’s More Like Stalin Than Trump, at thelibertarianrepublic.com. Here is an excerpt from the article: “Comparing the president to a former dictator after not shooting down a bill (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act aka FISA)that grants him broad surveillance powers doesn’t make a great deal of sense. If the president is a dictator, there is no reason to trust him with oversight into civilians’ private lives.”

Inconvenient Energy Fact” It Takes 79 solar Workers To Produce same Amount Of electric Power As One Coal Worker, by Mark J. Perry, at carpediemblog. The economically ignorant would think subsidizing the solar industry creates more jobs in the solar industry. And they would be correct on the surface. But what a free market does in a world of scarcity is produce the most output with the least imput. And jobs are a part of this imput. Non productive jobs don’t last in the free market. Non productive jobs only last in government or in a market that is hampered by tax payer subsidies, taxes and regulations. Since solar is propped up by tax payer subsidies, non productive jobs are allowed to continue. Subsidizing the solar industry makes the recipients of the tax dollars wealthier but it makes the over all economy less wealthy.

The American Sedan Is Dying, Long Live The SUV, at bloomberg.com. Evil consumers have made their decision. And auto makers will bow to the consumer. Lower gas prices, thanks to the American fracking industry, has made the trade-off for fuel economy not as important as it was when gas was four dollars a gallon. This is an example of how markets work to coordinate the decisions of millions of consumers and producers.

Are Crude Oil Prices Becoming Immune To Geopolitics? by Omar Lopez-Arce, at mises.org. Production cuts by OPEC countries have had no effect on world oil prices. Other factors are setting the price of oil. 1)World demand for oil is increasing at a slower rate. 2)The American fracking boom has increased supply and OPEC can’t control American fracking. 3)The US has pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement. This means American gas and oil companies only have to worry about EPA regulations. And the EPA under Scott Pruitt has cut many of these Obama era regulations.

CALIFORNIA PROGRESSIVE POLICIES CREATED THE HOMELESS PROBLEM AND WILL MAKE IT WORSE.

California’s Homeless Problem Revealed In One “Incredible” Video, at zerohedge.com. A cyclist takes a video as he rides a bike trail along the Santa Ana river in Anaheim California. It shows a tent city for homeless people that stretches for miles. He says it reeks of trash and feces, and is also unsafe. This is a jaw dropping video. Why doesn’t fake news organizations report on this? Is it because the biased media doesn’t want to see that decades of illegal immigration is finally raising its ugly head?

San Francisco’s Human Poop Map Shows City Is In Deep Doo-Doo, by Kira Davis, at redstate.com. Is San Francisco turning into a toilet? Once again the homeless are defecating and urinating everywhere. This is not a healthy situation. Will declaring yourself a “Sanctuary State” make this problem better or worse?

On a side note: The flush toilet has to be one of the greatest inventions of all time.

Oakland Supermarket Clerk Fired For Trying To Stop Shoplifter, at theburingplatform.com. Crime in this area is going up. It is the stores policy for workers to not physically engage customers.  Excerpt from the article” “The store clerk said….. he was just tired of seeing the shoplifting happening over and over again. Other employees said they’ve seen an increase in shoplifting, eve since customers have been asked to bring in their own bags. They fill up their bags and leave without paying at the register.” This is an example of laws having unintended consequences. California banned free plastic grocery bags in 2016. Stores must charge ten cents for a paper or plastic bag. So stores started to allow people to bring in their own bags. More shoplifting was the result. There are no solutions in life, only trade offs.

“New California” Conservative Movement Declares Independence As First Step Towards 51st State, at zerohedge.com. Here is another example of the unintended consequence of decades of California’s progressive policies. A group called New California, wants to split California into two states. One state would be the coastal counties from Northern San Francisco to Los Angeles. The 51st state would we the rest of the rural counties. I think this is a great idea.

This entry was posted on January 22, 2018 at 1:48 am and is filed under Must Reads For The Week. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: 51st State, American Fracking Changing GEO Politics, Califormia is a Toilet, California Banned Plastic Bags, California Homeless Video, Clerk Stops For Stoping Shoplifter, DACA Program, Dreamers, Flake Votes For FISA Powers, Government Shut Down, Jeff Flake, New California Movement, Oakland Super Market Clerk Fired, Oil Prices and Geopolitics, San Francisco Poop Map, Solar Workers vs One Coal Worker, SUV Sales Up, The Sedan is Dying, Trump Stalinist Tactics Against Media, Unintended Consequences, What Closes During Shutdown