RESULTS OF GOVERNMENT CENTRAL PLANNING
McDonalds Is Replacing 2,500 Human Cashiers With Digital Kiosks: Here Is The Math, at zerohedge.com. Economic forces are always finding more productive ways of providing goods and services to consumers. Without intervention from Government regulations and Federal Reserve printed money this transformation happens at the proper time. It is an incremental process that slowly relocates less productive labor, capital, and resources to more productive uses. The problem with central planners, and in this case minimum wage zealots, is their ‘good intentions’ are bringing the future into the present before it supposed to be here. Eventually and gradually automation replaces labor, just look at economic history. As wages gradually increase it leads to an incremental move toward automation at a certain price. But when central planners force sudden and large increased in minimum wages, the transformations it causes are more costly and disruptive to the economy (people) than if the market was allowed to let changes happen at the pace set by the market (the market: what results when millions of individuals are allowed to make decisions on what they will produce, consume, exchange and save).
New Mexico Health Insurer Proposes 80% Premium Hike, usnews.com. Another example of intervention by central planners creating disruptions in the healthcare market (or what is left of the healthcare market).
Good Luck Getting Out Of The Subprime Auto Loan When Used Car Prices Crash, at zerohedge.com. Look at the problem created by central planners in the auto loan market. Transporting future demand into the present results in over production. This over production wouldn’t have happened under normal market conditions. Now that future demand has already been used up, there is not enough ‘present’ demand to match the over production. The free market allocates scarce resources to their most productive uses with as little waste as possible. Government intervention is chaotic.
Government As The Source Of Monopoly: US Airlines Edition, by Peter Klein, at mises.org. Monopoly cannot exist in a free market as long as entry into the market is not restricted by Government. The airline industry is heavily regulated which means customer service isn’t a top priority. Does anyone who has flown recently disagree?
Canary In The Coal Mine: Unfunded Liabilities Have Turned Illinois Into A “Banana Republic“, at zerohedge.com. Government caving into Unions for years has led to this unfunded liability nightmare. There is no incentive for Gov. officials to fight the unions when expiring contracts are up for renegotiation because it is the tax payer dollars they are negotiating with. Politicians have no skin in the game. Government employees retire in their 50’s and then collect 30 plus years of benefits. If you add this to the fact that these pension plans have been underfunded, you see the math problem they have created for themselves. Incentives matter. The private and public sectors operate under different incentives.
Moody’s: Modest Downside Could Spark $3 Trillion Surge In Pension Liabilities, at zerohedge.com. It’s not just Illinois that has the pension crisis. Public pensions all over the US are in trouble. Why? We covered it above.
Privatize The New York City Subway System, by Robert Fullner, at mises.org. Another example of a Government run system failing. There is no incentive for New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority to use scarce resources efficiently because tax payer money is always available to bail them out.
Philly’s Soda Tax Is Shaping Up To Be An Epic Flop, at phillymag.com. No shock here. A black market for soda is springing up just as the black market for cigarettes was created in NYC when they hiked the cigarette tax. The tax also has led to job losses at Coca-Cola since sales declined 32% (read here).
MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS
Hero Homeowner Holds Escaped Georgia Inmates At Gunpoint Until Arrests, at tammybruce.com. Good guy with a gun stops bad guys.
Judicial Watch: Obama NSC Advisor Susan Rice’s Unmasking Material Is At Obama Library, at judicialwatch.org. Insiders using the law to hide information! Documents from the Obama administration are now at the Obama Presidential library. The Presidential Act closes access to these records for 5 years after the President leaves office. With the millions of pages of federal law, do you think there are other places where insiders can hide records?
Major Free Speech Victory, SCOTUS Rules For ‘The Slants’ And Strikes Down Federal Trademark Restriction, at reason.com. The Obama Patent and Trademark Department lost this case 8-0. How many Supreme Court cases end up with no dissenting opinions? This was an attempt by the Obama administration impose their idea of political correctness on all of us. They hoped the defendant wouldn’t be willing to pay the monetary and psychic cost of fighting the unlimited resources of the Federal Government. What a waste of time and money. But thank God they fought this.
Soros, Teneo And Donors To McCain Institute, dailycaller.com. Senator McCain may be trying to create a smaller version of the Clinton’s money laundering scheme, known as the Clinton Global Initiative.
Complete Idiotic Commentary From The Commerce Secretary, at economicpolicyjournal.com. Excerpt from the article: “The entire concept of the balance of payments, weighing trade deficits and surpluses, is absurd and at epicenter of economic confusion.” Trade policy is an area where Trump needs to get educated.
East Lansing Bans Apple Farmer From Market From Being Faithful Catholic, at thefederalist.com. An example of tolerance by politically correct bureaucrats.
CARTOONS
AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT 