The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives."--Perry
Dinner with Mom and Chris at the Oaklander. Interesting place but food not great.
I thought the Islanders had a defensive style that would hold them in good stead in these playoffs but, after the Pens, they are on the ropes.
Infrastructure costs will be met by increasing gas taxes, already over $4 a gallon in cap and trade California. But some fret this will fall disproportionately on the poor and middle class. My solution, tax caviar.
Let me see if I have this right, Mueller is complaining about bad press in his investigation of Trump?
If you've been around long enough.....Bernie Sanders has attacked Joe Biden for his vote to approve the Iraq War, taking his 2020 challenger to task for his part in the “worst foreign policy disaster in the modern history of America.”
The Pirates have cut down on base-running gaffs by not getting on base. And, of course, Polanco and Marte have been hurt.
NBC News reports that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand unveiled a plan on Wednesday to give every voter up to $600 in what she's calling "Democracy Dollars" which they can donate to candidates for federal office. Subsidizing politicians. These people are beyond satire.
Wearables are now almost 10% of Apple revenues.
Joe Biden and the Dems are apparently going to run against tax cuts. This is revolutionary. It turns the idea of American government on its head, giving a supervisory power more right to one's wages than the man who earned it. And assuming that power will do a better job with it. They can not possibly do it without the help of the media.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) spent a lot of time slandering Barr yesterday. Really quite something. These people will say and do anything.
Thanks to our environmentalist friends, we do not have the pipeline capacity to take U.S-produced natural gas from the places where it is processed to the places where the people are. This has some pretty serious consequences: Con Ed has just announced that it cannot get enough gas to serve new customers in the New York City suburbs, which has meant in effect a moratorium on much new residential construction, which obviously can’t happen without utility connections. --Williamson in an article criticizing the Jones Act.
On this day in 2011, bin Laden was killed. This time it did not toll for thee.
Measuring the French Economy
Really interesting article on the French economy by a Frenchman contained these couple of points:
Dinner with Mom and Chris at the Oaklander. Interesting place but food not great.
I thought the Islanders had a defensive style that would hold them in good stead in these playoffs but, after the Pens, they are on the ropes.
Infrastructure costs will be met by increasing gas taxes, already over $4 a gallon in cap and trade California. But some fret this will fall disproportionately on the poor and middle class. My solution, tax caviar.
Let me see if I have this right, Mueller is complaining about bad press in his investigation of Trump?
If you've been around long enough.....Bernie Sanders has attacked Joe Biden for his vote to approve the Iraq War, taking his 2020 challenger to task for his part in the “worst foreign policy disaster in the modern history of America.”
The Pirates have cut down on base-running gaffs by not getting on base. And, of course, Polanco and Marte have been hurt.
NBC News reports that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand unveiled a plan on Wednesday to give every voter up to $600 in what she's calling "Democracy Dollars" which they can donate to candidates for federal office. Subsidizing politicians. These people are beyond satire.
Wearables are now almost 10% of Apple revenues.
Joe Biden and the Dems are apparently going to run against tax cuts. This is revolutionary. It turns the idea of American government on its head, giving a supervisory power more right to one's wages than the man who earned it. And assuming that power will do a better job with it. They can not possibly do it without the help of the media.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) spent a lot of time slandering Barr yesterday. Really quite something. These people will say and do anything.
New from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
1. Labor force status of 2018 high school graduates- For every 100 women enrolled in college, there are 95 men.
- For every 100 women not enrolled in college, there are 117 men.
2. Labor force status of persons 16 to 24 years old
- For every 100 women enrolled in college, there are 85 men.
- For every 100 women not enrolled in school, there are 109 men.
3. Labor force status of 2018 associate degree recipients and college graduates 20 to 29 years old
- For every 100 women 20 to 29 years old who recently earned an associate’s degree, there are 69 men.
- For every 100 women 20 to 29 years old who recently earned a bachelor’s degree, there are 67 men.
- For every 100 women 20 to 29 years old who have a bachelor’s degree, there are 69 men.
- For every 100 women 20 to 29 years old who have an advanced degree (master’s, professional or doctoral), there are 61 men.
Thanks to our environmentalist friends, we do not have the pipeline capacity to take U.S-produced natural gas from the places where it is processed to the places where the people are. This has some pretty serious consequences: Con Ed has just announced that it cannot get enough gas to serve new customers in the New York City suburbs, which has meant in effect a moratorium on much new residential construction, which obviously can’t happen without utility connections. --Williamson in an article criticizing the Jones Act.
On this day in 2011, bin Laden was killed. This time it did not toll for thee.
Measuring the French Economy
Really interesting article on the French economy by a Frenchman contained these couple of points:
For 2017, the French GDP/capita was $43,600, while the German was $50,200. (The American was $59,500.) Keep in mind the $6,600 difference between the French and the German GDP/capita.
If French workers are almost as productive as the Germans when they work, what can account for the low French GDP/capita? The answer is that the French don’t work much. Begin with the 35/hr. legal work week. (A study published recently in the daily Le Figaro asserts that 1/3 of the 1.1 million public servants work even less than 35 hours per week.) Consider also the universal maximum retirement age of 62 (vs 67 in Germany), a spring quarter pleasantly spiked with three-day weekends for all, a legal annual vacation of at least thirty days applied universally, a common additional (short) winter (snow) vacation. I have read (I can’t confirm the source) that the fully employed members of the French labor force work an average of 600 hours per year, one of the lowest counts in the world. Also log legal paid maternity leave. Finish with an official unemployment rate hovering around 9 to 10% for more than thirty years. All this, might account for the $6,600 per year that the Germans have and the French don’t.
There is more that is seldom mentioned. The fastest way for a country to raise the official, numerical productivity of its workers is to put out of work many of its low-productive workers. (That’s because the official figure is an arithmetic mean, an average.) This can be achieved entirely through regulations forbidding, for example, food trucks, informal seamstress services, and old-fashioned hair salons in private living rooms, and, in general, by making life less than easy for small businesses based on traditional techniques. This can be achieved entirely – and even inadvertently – from a well-meaning wish to regulate for the collective good. The more of this you do, the higher your productivity per capita appears to be and also, the higher your unemployment, and the less income is available to go around. I think the official high French productivity oddly distorts the image of real French income. I suspect it fools many French people, including public officials: They think they are wealthier than they are.
The French value added tax (VAT) is 20% on nearly all transactions.
The excise taxes are especially high, including the tax on gasoline. In 2018, the mean price of gasoline in France was about 60% higher than the mean price in California, where gas is the most taxed in the Union. All in all, the French central government takes in about 55% of the GDP. This may be the highest percentage in the world; it’s very high by any standard. It dries up much money that would otherwise be available to free enterprise. Less obviously but perhaps more significantly, it curtails severely what people individually, especially, low income citizens, may spend freely, of their own initiative.
The French value added tax (VAT) is 20% on nearly all transactions.
The excise taxes are especially high, including the tax on gasoline. In 2018, the mean price of gasoline in France was about 60% higher than the mean price in California, where gas is the most taxed in the Union. All in all, the French central government takes in about 55% of the GDP. This may be the highest percentage in the world; it’s very high by any standard. It dries up much money that would otherwise be available to free enterprise. Less obviously but perhaps more significantly, it curtails severely what people individually, especially, low income citizens, may spend freely, of their own initiative.
Democratic socialism ....... leaves ... no elbow room, space for recreation, in the original meaning of the word: “re-creation.”
[...The French...] have expected to be taken care of all their adult lives. If anything is not satisfactory in their lives, they wait for the government to deal with it, even it takes some street protests. Seldom are other solutions, solutions based on private initiative, even considered. But the fault for their helplessness lies with more than their own passive attitudes. An overwhelming sense of fairness and an exaggerated demand for safety combine with the government’s unceasing quest for revenue to make starting a small business, for example, difficult and expensive.
[...The French...] have expected to be taken care of all their adult lives. If anything is not satisfactory in their lives, they wait for the government to deal with it, even it takes some street protests. Seldom are other solutions, solutions based on private initiative, even considered. But the fault for their helplessness lies with more than their own passive attitudes. An overwhelming sense of fairness and an exaggerated demand for safety combine with the government’s unceasing quest for revenue to make starting a small business, for example, difficult and expensive.
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