Why Are the Chinese Buying Gold?

Crowds of investors are often wrong, but one has to pause when you see them. Why are Chinese investors suddenly running to buy gold? What do they see that is causing them to shift from domestic investments to precious metals?

Washington Minimum Wage Failure

In 1998, Washington voters approved Initiative 688, dramatically boosting the state minimum wage from $5.15 to $5.70 on Jan. 1, 1999, and to $6.50 on Jan. 1, 2000, and, for the first time in the U.S., indexing the minimum wage to inflation. Since that time, Washington's population and total job growth has outpaced the national average, while employment in the hospitality and food service industries has lagged the average. There is really only one possible explanation for this. The imposition of a minimum wage "tax" on employers forced them to hire fewer people. While this is not a surprising outcome to anyone remotely familiar with economics, it will probably be a surprise to those in government, who are not members of that group. In fact, the Seattle City Council has doubled down on that job-killing policy by imposing a $15 minimum wage.

Trade Surpluses In Services

Mark Perry posts this chart on his website. I guess Donald Trump's take on this must be that the US is using Unfair Practices to run a trade surplus in services with China and Mexico. right?

High Earners Don't Pay Their Fair Share (Continued)

Envy and resentment are emotions not readily diminished by facts. Nonetheless  . . . . .

If You Can't Tax It, Steal It

If Congress somehow manages to constrain the tax revenue to the federal government, the federal government will simply steal it. Forfeiture is the process by which officers can take cash and property away from people without convicting or even charging them with a crime. This sort of thing is supposed to be prohibited by the 4th amendment to the constitution, but, then, who other than Antonin Scalia pays attention to that old thing anymore. [This is only federal forfeitures. If state totals were added it would probably be at least a half-billion dollars higher.]

High Income Earners Don't Pay a Fair Share

Newest data from the CBO shows, that, yes, the highest income earners don't pay a fair share.

The Gender Pay Gap (continued)

In a study, Preference for the Workplace, Investment in Human Capital, and Gender economists Matthew Wiswall of Arizona State University and Basit Zafar of the New York Federal Reserve show how men and women have different preferences when it comes to workplace attributes.



Why should it be any surprise that women choose jobs that are less remunerative than men (except to Hillary Clinton, of course)?

Denying Thousands of Years of History

If you look at the data below and conclude that any observed climate warming over the last 50 years is a "man-made crisis", then you are to be applauded, subsidized and welcomed into the community of right-thinkers. If on the other hand, you look at the data and think that maybe we ought not jump to conclusions or that natural climate forces are a lot more important than any human activity, you are a "denier"and may be prosecuted by your state's attorney general for saying so. And now you understand what happened during the Inquisition.

DC Metro Transit in Trouble

The Washington (DC) Metro Area Transit Authority is in trouble. Its equipment is in disrepair and it is broke. Why? Well, consider this.

The most common WMATA job, a bus operator, requires a driver’s license and a high school diploma or equivalent. The job pays an average of $63,000, with extensive benefits and overtime pay. This salary is 57 percent higher than the national average for transit system bus drivers ($40,160) and 66 percent higher than the average salary of a non-transit bus driver in the area ($38,000). With overtime, WMATA bus drivers can earn more than $100,000 a year. Wages and benefits consume nearly 78 percent of its operating budget, and the share would be larger still if Metro properly funded its employee pension liabilities. Metro spends $3.10 in labor costs for each passenger trip, compared with $1.92 in New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and $1.88 in Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

Anyone have an idea about how they might save some money? Anyone? Buehler? Anyone?

Gee, Why Not Expand Social Security?

Democrats from Sanders to Clinton to Obama are clamoring to expand Social Security benefits. Sure. We're already $19 trillion in debt. What's another $10 or $20 or $30 trillion. Or maybe we can increase taxes on a workforce that the declining portion of the population that is still working.

if you like your national debt, you can keep you national debt.

While President Obama claims he is reducing our national debt, the latest report from the Congressional Budget Office says otherwise. It's increasing and will shortly top 80% of GDP.

Capitalism's Effects in One Chart

Maybe we could send Bernie Sanders and his supporters to China to explain how much better off they were before they emulated the capitalistic, free trade policies of the West.

Regulations Cost Workers $13,000 Per Year in Lost Income

A new study out of George Mason University shows that Federal regulations create a substantial drag on economi growth estimated at 0.8% of GDP per year. This might not sound like a lot, but:

• If regulation had been held constant at levels observed in 1980, the US economy would have been about 25 percent larger than it actually was as of 2012.
• This means that in 2012, the economy was $4 trillion smaller than it would have been in the absence of regulatory growth since 1980.
• This amounts to a loss of approximately $13,000 per capita, a significant amount of money for most American workers.

I wonder if the workers currently complaining about stagnant wages would like to have gotten a $13,000 raise? They could have.

Do Billionaires Inherit Their Wealth?

If you listen to Bernie Sanders you'd think the billionaires he despises all inherited or stole their wealth from you. As usual, Bernie Sanders is wrong.

Climate Skeptics Have Good Reason To Be

The chart below shows data from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) reconstructing average  world temperature over the last 500 thousand years. I think we can say with fair certainty that the previous warming cycles were not due to human activity. I think we can also say that it's a little much to accuse "climate skeptics" of having no basis at all for their skepticism.




Speaking of inconvenient facts, how many times have you heard climate hysterics cite tornado and hurricane activity as "evidence" of global warming

No Income Tax=Faster Growth

In their 2015 book, “The Wealth of States,” Arthur Laffer, Rex Sinquefield and Travis Brown examined the 11 states that have adopted income taxes since 1960. All 11 grew more slowly than the national average and all of them had slower job growth.  Meanwhile, since 1990 the nine no-income-tax states have had twice the population growth and job creation as measured by payrolls, and about one-third faster total income growth than the high-tax states like New York, California and New Jersey. A no-income-tax policy is a flashing billboard telling employers: We’re open for business.

Environmentalism and Electric Cars

3 Questions for the Settled Science Crowd

According to Progressives, Global Warming is "settled science".  Beyond the obvious point that it is settled only among those who wish it so, I do have three serious questions:

1.  Most of the climate models advanced a couple of decades ago predicted warming that has not since come to pass. How certain are you that the other predictions of these models are now accurate?

2. Why is it you think that we have the technology resources to counteract the enormous forces that have driven the climate to constantly change over millions of years?

3. What evidence can you offer that the cost of fighting a changing climate is less than the cost of adapting to a changing climate? Maybe instead of trying to protect existing vineyards in the Napa Valley it might be cheaper to plant vines in Greenland (like they did during the last warming period)?

Obamacare's Effect on Worker Hours

Thanks to Obamacare, the number of people working more than 30 hours has fallen as employers are incented to reduce worker hours below 30.

Yes, The Middle Class is Shrinking . . .

 . . .  but not because they've gotten poorer.

If a couple of people in your middle class neighborhood earn more money, the percentage of households represented by the remaining middle class shrinks. But isn't this a good thing?