The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. – F.A. Hayek
Posted in Government Thuggery, Personal Finance, Politics, Taxation, Welfare State, ethical foundations on Mar 9th, 2010
Per capita GDP in the United States is roughly $47,000.
Per capita personal income is about $39,880.
Let’s think about the kind of tax system we have in the U.S.
What kind of effective marginal tax rates do you think a family faces that has per capita income below half of per capita GDP in the country or [...]
Posted in Welfare State on Feb 17th, 2010
From Mark Perry. I will show you these figures for NY State in a few days. For now, the comparisons between California and Texas are appropriate.
“California, a laboratory of liberalism, is spiraling downward, driven by a huge budget deficit. It took years for compassionate liberalism to make California’s welfare menu contribute to the state becoming [...]
Posted in Welfare State on Jan 14th, 2010
The following is an unpublished review I wrote of Charles Murray’s In Our Hands back in 2006. I’ve been fielding student questions on this topic, so thought it might make sense to put this out there for them to refer to.
Social Engineering by Any Other Name …
August (2006) marked the ten year anniversary of the [...]
Posted in Taxation, Welfare State on Nov 9th, 2009
Remember this when the President “sells” his health care bill to the rest of you:
Children’s advocates say it’s not the idea of co-pays that’s the problem. Instead, they say, it’s the state policy that lets counties set the rates and allows too high of a ceiling for the rates, that is the root of the [...]
Posted in Unintended Consequences, Welfare State on Oct 23rd, 2009
… is that they sometimes kill their prey.
Gov. David Paterson warned Thursday that New York could lose $1 billion under the Obama administration’s decision to cut executive pay at seven companies that received federal bailout money.
“I’m not going to defend the people who run these companies,” Paterson said. “They frittered a lot of money away [...]
Posted in Welfare State on Oct 16th, 2009
I teach my pants off so that folks will become a little more economically literate. But then I run across these sorts of articles and it reminds me why I can’t sleep at night.The gist is that Social Security checks are not increasing this year. Here are some of the responses of the “disrespected” seniors:
If [...]
Posted in Government Gone Wild, Unintended Consequences, Welfare State on Aug 18th, 2009
New York State Governor David Paterson defended a program experiencing fraud on a massive scale by saying
tales of increased sales of video game equipment and televisions are just anecdotes. The program allows families who couldn’t otherwise afford back-to-school supplies to equip their children for a new year.
However,
What’s clear is that the actual amount of fraud [...]
Posted in Welfare State on Apr 10th, 2009
This article talks about how the looters in 10 states are going to increase income taxes.
I thought state spending stimulated economic growth. Isn’t that what we are being sold on? So why do you need to even collect any taxes at all? Shouldn’t you be able to borrow from just about anyone at very low [...]
Posted in Welfare State on Jan 28th, 2009
Two people that I know very well are in the following situation (I am guessing on the details, but know I am close):
Person one was working at a big time Wall Street firm that got tangled up in the subprime mess. He was making over $300k per year. He was laid off last fall at [...]
Posted in Paternalism, Welfare State on Dec 17th, 2008
I told you so. Welcome to George Orwell’s world. When will it be enough?
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/silver/t24_ag_en_usoz_2.gif)