If You Don’t Believe Me – Believe Your Nobel Winner

Posted on September 30, 2011 | 5 comments

Ask your Google who said this:

Social Security is structured from the point of view of the recipients as if it were an ordinary retirement plan: what you get out depends on what you put in. So it does not look like a redistributionist scheme. In practice it has turned out to be strongly redistributionist, but only because of its Ponzi game aspect, in which each generation takes more out than it put in. Well, the Ponzi game will soon be over, thanks to changing demographics, so that the typical recipient henceforth will get only about as much as he or she put in (and today’s young may well get less than they put in).

I’ll give you a clue.  His name starts with Paul and ends with Krugman.

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Posted in Government

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Cause and Effect

Posted on September 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

Economics 101 people, econ 101:

Bank of America, the nation’s biggest bank, said on Thursday that it planned to start charging customers a $5 monthly fee when they used their debit cards for purchases. It was just one of several new charges expected to hit consumers as new regulations crimp banks’ profits.

Wells Fargo and Chase are testing $3 monthly debit card fees. Regions Financial, based in Birmingham, Ala., plans to start charging a $4 fee next month, while SunTrust, another regional powerhouse, is charging a $5 fee.

And why are banks now looking to charge their customers who use their cards to access their money?

The round of new charges stems from a rule, which takes effect on Saturday, that limits the fees that banks can levy on merchants every time a consumer uses a debit card to make a purchase. The rule, known as the Durbin amendment, after its sponsor Senator Richard J. Durbin, is a crucial part of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone except Liberals:

The More Liberal You Are – The Less You Know About Economics

If Obama simply announced he wasn’t running for President in 2012, the market would go up by 1000 points.  I guarantee it.

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Posted in Economics, Idiots on Parade

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Middle Class Stagnation

Posted on September 30, 2011 | 2 comments

With the continuing debate surrounding our debt and our deficit, much ado has been made about taxes.  Who should pay ’em and who shouldn’t.  Embedded in that debate is the question of class warfare.

For a long time, a very VERY long time, the idea of class warfare has been one of the rich taking advantage of the non-rich for the rich’s personal gain.  These days, you have the opposite phenomenon.  You have people in America that feel there is a class war being waged, but not by the rich on the poor, but by the Left on the rich.

Fascinating.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Economy, Government, Politics: National

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You Can’t Wash Democrat Off

Posted on September 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

I’m not sure how many people know that Rick Perry used to be a Democrat.  While other politicians have certainly made up for this deficit, I’m not sure Perry will:

Whether or not the good Govna’ from Texas can make up for his past sins isn’t important right now.  What IS important is how I can tell he used to be a Democrat:

“If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for on other reason that they have been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart,” Perry said.

Did’ja see that?  Governor Perry wants us to govern based on “heart”.  As in, if you don’t love puppies, you don’t have a heart.  As in, if you don’t think that the government is entitled to steal your property because poor people don’t have health insurance, you don’t have a heart.  As in, if you don’t think that the rich need to pay more in taxes while some people do without food iPhones, you don’t have a heart.

The capital “O” Oughts of government have nothing to do with “heart”.  They have to do with a concept called Liberty.

The sooner we bring this lesson home the sooner our country gets back on the right track.

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Posted in Elections 2012, Liberty, Politics: National

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Republican Nominee

Posted on September 28, 2011 | Leave a comment

My continued non-scientific guess as to who is who in the primary:

  • Perry sliding down.
  • Romney staying front runner
  • Bachmann failing
  • Cain up then down
  • Gingrich will be one of the final two

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Posted in Elections 2012, Politics: National

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Class Warfare

Posted on September 28, 2011 | 4 comments

Okay, if we wander back to the tax levels just before Dubya lowered ’em, what would it look like?

Well, we can go look…

2001
Tax Rate Over But Not Over
15.0% $0 $27,050
27.5% $27,050 $65,550
30.5% $65,550 $136,750
35.5% $136,750 $297,350
39.1% $297,350 –

Not a bad rate, right?  Taxes seem reasonable and we all enjoy our money.

But look what Dubya did:

2011
Tax Rate Over But Not Over
10.0% $0 $8,500
15.0% $8,500 $34,500
25.0% $34,500 $83,600
28.0% $83,600 $174,400
33.0% $174,400 $379,150
35.0% $379,150 –

He lowered the rate.  By how much?

For the very poor among us, he lowered the rate by 33%.

For the very very rich among us, he lowered it by 33%.  Wait.  No?

Oh, he lowered it by 10%

And for just the very rich?  Yeah, 7%.

So, now, some of us wanna go back to the good ‘ol days when tax rates were at the levels before Dubya came around.  But……we ONLY wanna raise those rates for the very very rich.  We don’t wanna raise rates for the very very poor.

I would suggest this.  If you wanna raise the rates on the rich from 35% to 39.1%, which is a 12% increase, you should be willing to raise the lowest tax rates from 10% to 11.2%, also a 12% raise.

If you can’t do that, then you are asking one group of people to bear the burden while allowing another group of people to reap the benefits.  THAT is class warfare.

If you wanna raise taxes, then fine, raise taxes, but raise ’em.

Be a man!

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Posted in Economics, Politics: National

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Public School Teachers: Merit Pay

Posted on September 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

Speaking of merit pay.  Is this what we are REALLY saying?

A group of highly experienced and highly educated individuals who make a living building methods that measure proficiency of highly subjective topics in populations made up of disparate individuals are unable to to build methods that measure the proficiency of highly subjective topics of a group of which THEY are a member of.

In other words, teachers are absolutely comfortable with the concept merit pay in the form of grades of their students but somehow object to that same line of thinking to their own performance?

Ridiculous.

 

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Posted in Education

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Class Warfare

Posted on September 27, 2011 | 11 comments

If Obama and the Democratic party are NOT engaging in class warfare, what WOULD class warfare look like?

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Posted in Politics: National

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Public School Teachers: Compensation

Posted on September 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

Can you imagine working in an environment that doesn’t reward merit?

In that vein, here are some complains I have regarding public education:

  1. Compensation takes many forms.  Days off, training, health care and what not.  One form of compensation is that of being safe from firing for poor performance.  This pushes down the salaries of teachers.
    1. Competent highly motivated people willingly trade such safety nets for higher salaries.  They have no fear of being perceived as incompetent.  Find a teacher unwilling to fire poor performs, rest assured that you are speaking to a poor performer.
  2. Highly motivated proficient teachers have no hope of earning more than older incompetent teachers.  This applies downward pressure on innovation and motivation.
  3. Teachers complain that salaries can not be merit based because there is no good method to measure merit.  Teachers fight tests and test scores in the same way a vampire fights garlic and mirrors.

Much of the reason teachers feel underpaid is due directly to how the system is set up.

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Posted in Economics, Education

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Life Expectancy

Posted on September 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

It may be true that America has already outlived her expected lifespan.  Most societies don’t make it much past 200 odd years.

It saddens me that we are showing symptoms of aging:

Redistribution of wealth rather than emphasis on its creation is surely a symptom of aging societies. Whether at Byzantium during the Nika Riots or in bread and circuses Rome, when the public expects government to provide security rather than the individual to become autonomous through a growing economy, then there grows a collective lethargy. I think that is the message of Juvenal’s savage satires about both mobs and the idle rich. Fourth-century Athenian literature is characterized by forensic law suits, as citizens sought to sue each other, or to sue the state for sustenance, or to fight over inheritances.

Queue Sean’s very sad Hobbit singing clip.

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Posted in Government, Politics: National

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