Posted tagged ‘Illinois Pensions Under Funded’

Must Reads For The Week 7/15/17

July 15, 2017

 

Love Your Heart? Eat Chocolate, by Joseph Mercola, at lewrockwell.com. Lets start with something that not only makes me happy, it also satisfies my confirmation bias. Chocolate is good for me! Excerpt from the article: “According to a recent study in Denmark, people who consume cocoa one to three times a month were about 10 percent less likely to be diagnosed with AFib, compared to people who ate chocolate less than once a month.”  By my calculation if I consume cocoa 30 times a month I will be 100 percent less likely to be diagnosed with AFib.

How Dumb Is The Fed? at zerohedge.com. Excerpt from the article: “….the boom of 09-17 was wrought by the Fed and paid for with fake money. It is a classic credit bubble, in other words – not genuine prosperity…..All the bubbly action… is in the financial markets, not the real main street economy. And as the Austrian School economists tell us, every boom not financed on real savings must end in a bust…..Nothing comes from nothing. Fake money produces fake prosperity. Take away the fake money… and the fake prosperity goes “poof,” too. Which is why the Fed will never, voluntarily, stop manipulating prices. It can’t let the markets return to “normal” price discovery…..All of this debt now hangs on the feeble reed of more ultra-low interest rate policies. The Fed says it is going to return its interest rate policy back to normal……No chance. It’s not that dumb.

Doctors Are Fighting To Treat Charlie Gard. Will The UK Let Them? by Arina Grossu, at thefederalist.com. This is what government-run healthcare looks like. The UK supreme court won’t allow the parents of this child to seek  treatment in the US, even though the UK won’t be on the hook for the cost of any treatments. The problem with government-run healthcare is, who makes decisions about your care? You or the government? Trust me it’s not going to be you. In totally government-run healthcare system, you are owned by the State.

Rand Paul: The Senate GOP Is Going To Keep Obamacare, at economicpolicyjournal.com. Is anyone surprised by this? No! Because the leadership of the GOP is biased toward the status quo of big government. The only way to get rid of Obamacare is to get rid of the leadership of the Republican party. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan should be replaced by Rand Paul and Thomas Massie.

Illinois “Budget Deal” Is Likely The Death Knell For The State’s $130 Billion Underfunded Pensions, at zerohedge.com. Bernie Madoff went to jail for his Ponzi scheme. These bureaucrats and politicians won’t spend a day in jail for doing the same thing Bernie Madoff did. Excerpt from the article: “…One of the ways Illinois managed to “fix” its budget crisis was to kick the can down the road on their future pension funding requirements….pensions which are only funded 35% as it is. How did they do it? …they simply decided to continue modeling future returns at a much higher rate than they’ll ever be able to reasonably achieve……In short they tweaked one simple number and, like magic, your whole funding crisis “disappears”.” Manipulating data? That’s what the global warming pretenders have been doing for decades.

Real Climate Science Shows Trump Was Right To Exit Paris, at whatsupwiththat.com. Excerpt from the article: “In actual intent and practice, the Paris Agreement is a political tool for suppressing growth, instituting global governance over energy use and economic growth, and redistributing wealth.”

Maureen Dowd: Economic Illiterate, at economicpolicyjournal.com. The reason I posted this is to get you to understand that you don’t have to take a back seat to the likes of Maureen Dowd, or any other supposed intelligent progressives in positions of “authority”, when it comes to understanding economics. Reading my site allows you to understand basic economics at a higher level than people with credentialed ignorance, like Maureen Dowd.

Mizzou Says 35% Decline In Enrollment Due To 2015 Protests, at tammybruce.com. This shows people are paying attention to the actions of the crazy leftists, and these actions have consequences. Regular people couldn’t relate to the craziness of these protesters, and many are deciding Mizzou isn’t the place for them.

Majoring In Unemployment: Ohio Wesleyan To Launch “Social Justice Major” at tammybruce.com. Why would anyone go into debt to get a Social Justice degree? If you can get a job with this degree, will the job you get allow you to pay back the debt and have a high standard of living? At some point economic reality will destroy these kinds of degrees.

Delta Doesn’t Like Competition From Subsidized Gulf Carriers But US Consumers Should Be Thankful for The Foreign Aid, by Mark J. Perry, at carpediemblog.com. Delta is a crony capitalist business. It doesn’t like competition. It wants the government to protect it from competition.

The Other Side Of “Safety“, at ericpetersautos.com. Is the technology produced by imperfect human beings perfect? Excerpt from the article: “Technology never makes mistakes – unlike the humans who design it. Who never fail to anticipate the unanticipated. Sarcasm, in case you didn’t pick up on it. This 190 prof moonshine – distilled by arrogant technocrats like Elon Musk – is going to get people hurt as automated-driving technology comes online.” Is new safety aid technology in newer cars really safe?

NYT Laments Sharp Decline In Illegal Immigration Under Trump, at tammybruce.com. Who would have thought that stating you are going to enforce the laws, and then actually enforcing the laws, would be a deterrent? I heard someone say it isn’t Trump who is the deterrent, it is the media’s constant portrayal of him as an evil SOB, that is making illegals afraid to come here.

The Real First Responders, at lewrockwell.com. Always remember that in every situation, you are the first responder. Observing what’s going on around you (situational awareness) is the key to being a good first responder.

CARTOONS

Political Cartoons by Bob Gorrell

Political Cartoons by Glenn McCoy

Political Cartoons by Lisa Benson

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Must Reads For The Week 6/24/17

June 24, 2017

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

therightreasons.net

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Must Reads For The Week 5/23/15

May 23, 2015
The pen is mightier than the sword...

 The pen is mightier than the sword… (Photo credit: mbshane)

LETS START WITH TECH

Electroloom Is a 3D Fabric Printer In The Making, by Natasha Lomas, at techcrunch.com. This is mind-blowing. Even when I watched the video of the 3D printer in action, I thought, what am I watching? The one question I had when I watched the video was; Why did they go to China to make Electroloom into a more usable product? Why couldn’t they do what they wanted to do here? Was Government regulations a reason they couldn’t finish there work here? I’m just asking, I don’t know why.

BioBots Is A 3D Printer For Living Cells, by Natasha Lomas, at techcrunch.com. BioBots can “build 3D living tissues and miniature human organs for research and pre-clinical screening, such as drug testing as a replacement for animal testing“. You can test on more complex human cells instead of less complex animal cells. A step forward to the possibility of 3D printing usable human organs.

Bocusini Will 3D Print Your Food Like A Fine Robotic Pastry Chef, by John Biggs, at techcrunch.com. The 3D printer uses small cartridges of chocolate, fudge, sugar, and marzipan, to create tasty small objects. I the day coming when you can fill the cartridges with some type of eatable food product that can be transformed to taste like your favorite meal.

GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION

Warning: Put Away All Sharp Objects!

Illinois, Chicago Run Out Of Options, Christine Williamson, pionline.com. Years of kicking the pension can down the road has finally caught up with politicians and bureaucrats.

Where Greeks Are Stashing Their Cash—German Cars, Not Mattresses, at davidstockmanscontracorner.com. When a currency is perceived to be loosing its value, people will not hold it. They will exchange it for goods. The Greeks are getting German cars, and the Germans are getting printed depreciating currency. It’s a something for nothing exchange.

School Cafeteria Food Fight: FLOTUS vs. Students, at tammybruce.com. Students are posting photos of their paltry lunches on social media. The US Department of Agriculture has decided to post photos to counter act the students photos. All I know is, you are not going to win a social media food fight with young people if you make it an, us against them scenario.

The Governments Message For Heavily Indebted Students: Don’t Pay Us Back, at zerohedge.com. The Federal Government takes over student loans. Than it hooks students into huge debt. Now it is taking the first steps to forgive the loan balances. Is this the start of Universal College Education, like Universal Health Care. Watch out tax payers.

Regulations Holding Back U.S. Energy Infrastructure Investment, by Mark J. Perry, at investors.com. In New England, a pipeline shortage caused by unpredictable Government regulations, has led to significantly higher costs of electricity and natural gas. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot with over regulation.

Net Neutrality: Obama’s FCC Puts Internet, American Innovation At Risk, by George Gilder, at discovery.org. George Gilder knows about the economics of technology. This is ‘the’ must read of todays must reads.

DEA Strikes Again: Seize Mans Life Savings Under Civil Asset Forfeiture Without Charges, at zerohedge.com. This is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment. How can this go on in America. This is the kind of thing that happened behind the iron curtain back in the day.

Why Minimum Wage Laws Are ‘Phased In’, (Hint: It’s An Attempt To Hide The Terrible Consequences). by Bryan Caplan, at economicpolicyjournal.com. Obamacare was and is being phased in like this. When consequences happen gradually, people don’t notice as much. Even though the end result is still the same: fewer jobs at the higher price.

JUST LAUGH OR YOU’LL LOOSE YOUR MIND

Al Sharpton’s Daughter Suing NYC For $5 Million Over Ankle She Sprained On Soho Sidewalk, at dailymail.co.uk. She said the sprain left her in “permanent pain and mental anguish”. Who says kids don’t learn from their parents?