Short, Easy Economics Lesson

Economics for the Citizen
A Ten Part Series on Basic Economics Concepts

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/misc/econcitizen/index.html

Political Quotes from LDS Prophets

Mormons prepared for hard times

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28392743/

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Mormons may be among the country's best prepared to weather the current economic hard times. Since the Great Depression, church leaders have preached a doctrine of self-reliance and selflessness, calling on members to plan for their own future while tending to the needs of others.
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Uncle Jay's Year End Review

2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/3982101/2008-was-the-year-man-made-global-warming-was-disproved.html

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.
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More...

Schumer on Fairness Doctrine

Comparing political speech to porn. Hmmmm...

When you look at it that way

http://www.scsuscholars.com/2008/12/when-you-look-at-it-that-way.html

So we have a real schizophrenia today. People are going to the mall for holiday shopping, parking hundreds of yards away and waiting in long lines to check out. But then, these same people go to parties and argue about whether the Obama economic stimulus plan should be $500 billion or $1 trillion. It feels so bad that President Bush is justifying his economic intervention by saying that “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.”

What’s important to recognize is that even at the bottom of the current recession, sometime in mid-2009, the living standards of the typical American will still be amazingly high. In fact, even an aggressive contraction in real GDP will leave per-capita real GDP above 2005 levels.

Now, we did not have 8% unemployment back in 2005, but that kind of jobless rate is not unusual for recessions. The unemployment rate peaked at only 6.3% in the recession early this decade but peaked at 7.8%, 10.8%, 7.8%, and 9.0% in each of the previous four recessions, respectively, dating all the way back to the 1973-75 recession.

Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein, First Trust, yesterday. I have found it funny that when I say unemployment might go to 8-9% I hear gasps from reporters. Most of them are in their 20s and 30s, though.

Where did the bailout money go? John Stossel

Congress gets a raise

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/with-economy-in-shambles-congress-gets-a-raise-2008-12-17.html

A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.

Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.

Bravo Ford!!

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081219150605.tto9ush5&show_article=1

Ford says it does not need short-term loans from bailout

Ford Motor Co. said Friday it would not need a short-term loan from the government, but lauded the Bush administration's decision to extend aid to its cash-strapped competitors and renewed a request for a nine billion dollar line of credit.

"We do not face a near-term liquidity issue, and we are not seeking short-term financial assistance from the government," Ford president and chief executive officer Alan Mulally said in a statement.

Ford said it hoped to restructure its business without government assistance but requested the nine billion dollar line of credit as a "critical backstop or safeguard against worsening conditions."

The US government announced earlier Friday it would provide ailing automakers with 13.4 billion dollars in short-term financing in support of their restructuring, setting strict conditions to prove their viability.

"All of us at Ford appreciate the prudent step the administration has taken to address the near-term liquidity issues of GM and Chrysler," Mulally said.

"The US auto industry is highly interdependent, and a failure of one of our competitors would have a ripple effect that could jeopardize millions of jobs and further damage the already weakened US economy."

Ford said that while it is working to aggressively reduce costs it will continue to invest heavily in product development, including approximately 14 billion dollars over the next seven years to improve the fuel economy of its vehicles.

Ford said the comprehensive restructuring plan it presented to Congress will allow it to return to profitability by 2011

"While we clearly still have much more work to do, I am more convinced than ever that we have the right plan that will create a viable Ford going forward and position us for profitable growth," Mulally said.

Bush and the Auto Bail out

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12/19/transcript-president-bush-auto-industry-bailout/

This is a difficult situation that involves fundamental questions about the proper role of government. On the one hand, government has a responsibility not to undermine the private enterprise system. On the other hand, government has a responsibility to safeguard the broader health and stability of our economy.

Where in the constitution does it say the role of government is to stabilize the economy?

Congress was unable to get a bill to my desk before adjourning this year.This means the only way to avoid a collapse of the U.S. auto industry is for the executive branch to step in.

The legislative branch doesn't pass a bill, so the executive branch does it? Where are they getting the authority to do that??

Federal spending soars 25% before bailout

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/16/spending-soars-25-before-bailout/

The government's spending commitments exploded by 25 percent in 2008, putting taxpayers more than $1 trillion in the hole even before the astronomical costs of the economic bailout were taken into account, according to an annual report released Monday by the White House.
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NY Raising Taxes on a bunch of stuff

18% tax on soda, iPod tax, movie theater tax, sporting event tax, taxi tax, bus tax, limo tax, cable TV tax, radio tax, clothing tax...

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/12/16/2008-12-16_gov_david_paterson_unveils_dire_new_york.html

Bush says sacrificed free-market principles to save economy

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081216215816.8g97981o&show_article=1

Ug...

US President George W. Bush said in an interview Tuesday he was forced to sacrifice free market principles to save the economy from "collapse."

"I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system," Bush told CNN television, saying he had made the decision "to make sure the economy doesn't collapse."

Bush's comments reflect an extraordinary departure from his longtime advocacy for an unfettered free market, as his administration has orchestrated unprecedented government intervention in the face of a dire financial crisis.

"I am sorry we're having to do it," Bush said.

Prop 8 Official Margin

The official Statement of the Vote has been released by the Secretary of State. Proposition 8 passed by a margin of 52.3% to 47.7%. We won by a margin of 600,000 votes: 7,001,084 to 6,401,483. To provide some context for this vote:

• Prop. 8 received 2,150,000 MORE votes than did Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was reelected in 2006
• Prop. 8 received nearly 2 million MORE votes than Dianne Feinstein did when she was reelected to the US Senate in 2006
• Prop. 8 received 250,000 MORE votes than did John Kerry when he carried California in 2004
• Prop. 8 received 45,000 MORE votes than did Barbara Boxer in her landslide reelection to the U.S. Senate in 2004
• Prop. 8 passed with approximately the same percentage of the vote that Barack Obama received nationally

The Parowan Prophet has forseen our doom!

This was "interesting". I wonder if some in LA are moving because of this article.

Thought of the Day: What about the needy??

From Ezra Benson's Speech on the Proper Role of Government

"The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations; though the effect of these obstructions is always more or less either to encroach upon its freedom, or to diminish its security." (Vol. 2, Book 4, Chapt. 5, p. 126)
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE NEEDY?
On the surface this may sound heartless and insensitive to the needs of those less fortunate individuals who are found in any society, no matter how affluent. "What about the lame, the sick and the destitute? Is an often-voice question. Most other countries in the world have attempted to use the power of government to meet this need. Yet, in every case, the improvement has been marginal at best and has resulted in the long run creating more misery, more poverty, and certainly less freedom than when government first stepped in. As Henry Grady Weaver wrote, in his excellent book, THE MAINSPRING OF HUMAN PROGRESS:

"Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own….THE HARM DONE BY ORDINARY CRIMINALS, MURDERES, GANGSTERS, AND THIEVES IS NEGLIGIBLE IN COMPARISON WITH THE AGONY INFLICTED UPON HUMAN BEINGS BY THE PROFESSIONAL ‘DO-GOODERS’, who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others – with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means." (p. 40-1; P.P.N.S., p. 313)
THE BETTER WAY
By comparison, America traditionally has followed Jefferson’s advice of relying on individual action and charity. The result is that the United States has fewer cases of genuine hardship per capita than any other country in the entire world or throughout all history. Even during the depression of the 1930’s, Americans ate and lived better than most people in other countries do today.

UCLA Economists: Government Intervention Prolonged Great Depression

Something to keep in mind with the recent bailouts and talk about additional government involvement to help us out of recession.

http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/fipfedmwp/597.htm

There are two striking aspects of the recovery from the Great Depression in the United States: the recovery was very weak and real wages in several sectors rose significantly above trend. These data contrast sharply with neoclassical theory, which predicts a strong recovery with low real wages. We evaluate the contribution of New Deal cartelization policies designed to limit competition and increase labor bargaining power to the persistence of the Depression. We develop a model of the bargaining process between labor and firms that occurred with these policies, and embed that model within a multi-sector dynamic general equilibrium model. We find that New Deal cartelization policies are an important factor in accounting for the post-1933 Depression. We also find that the key depressing element of New Deal policies was not collusion per se, but rather the link between paying high wages and collusion.

Behavior of permit holders in Tennessee

http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=8069038&nav=menu374_6_8

More than 190,000 Tennesseans have permits, issued by the state, to carry handguns. . . .

"Their behavior records is better than our uniformed police," Niceley tells NewsChannel 5's chief investigative reporter Phil Williams. "We've had no problems. We've not had shoot-outs at the OK Corral, like some of these people predicted."

It's a sentiment echoed by state Rep. Eddie Bass, D-Prospect.

"From a law enforcement perspective and with 20 years, I've never, never had a problem with a gun permit holder," the former sheriff says. . . .

Thought of the Day: Role of Gov #1

I'm rereading the Proper Role of Government by Ezra Benson. This was a good section on local government and some things government should NOT provide.

“The way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to. Let the national government be entrusted with the defense of the nation, and its foreign and federal relations; the State governments with the civil rights, law, police, and administration of what concerns the State generally; the counties with the local concerns of the counties, and each ward direct the interests within itself. It is by dividing and subdividing these republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations, until it ends in the administration of every man’s farm by himself; by placing under every one what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best. What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body.” (Thomas Jefferson, Works 6:543; P.P.N.S., p. 125)
It is well to remember that the states of this republic created the Federal Government. The Federal Government did not create the states.

THINGS THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT DO
A category of government activity which, today, not only requires the closest scrutiny, but which also poses a grave danger to our continued freedom, is the activity NOT within the proper sphere of government. No one has the authority to grant such powers, as welfare programs, schemes for re-distributing the wealth, and activities which coerce people into acting in accordance with a prescribed code of social planning. There is one simple test. Do I as an individual have a right to use force upon my neighbor to accomplish this goal? If I do have such a right, then I may delegate that power to my government to exercise on my behalf. If I do not have that right as an individual, then I cannot delegate it to government, and I cannot ask my government to perform the act for me.

To be sure, there are times when this principle of the proper role of government is most annoying and inconvenient. If I could only FORCE the ignorant to provided for themselves, or the selfish to be generous with their wealth! But if we permit government to manufacture its own authority out of thin air, and to create self-proclaimed powers not delegated to it by the people, then the creature exceeds the creator and becomes master. Beyond that point, where shall the line be drawn? Who is to say "this far, but no farther?" What clear PRINCIPLE will stay the hand of government from reaching farther and yet farther into our daily lives? We shouldn’t forget the wise words of President Grover Cleveland that "… though the people support the Government the Government should not support the people." (P.P.N.S., p.345) We should also remember, as Frederic Bastiat reminded us, that "Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in." (THE LAW, p. 30; P.P.N.S., p. 350)

New York Times ad blasts ire aimed at LDS Church

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705268362,00.html?pg=1

'...Declaring "no mob veto," a full-page ad in the New York Times on Friday denounced the "violence and intimidation" directed at members of the LDS Church who supported California's ban on gay marriage...

The Human Rights Campaign, however, decried the ad, calling it "corporate hypocrisy."'

Does that seem ironic to anyone else?

DOI announces that concealed handgun permits allowed in national parks

http://www.doi.gov/news/08_News_Releases/120508.html

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Lyle Laverty today announced that the Department of the Interior has finalized updated regulations governing the possession of firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges. The final rule, which updates existing regulations, would allow an individual to carry a concealed weapon in national parks and wildlife refuges if, and only if, the individual is authorized to carry a concealed weapon under state law in the state in which the national park or refuge is located. The update has been submitted to the Federal Register for publication and is available to the public on www.doi.gov.

Hillary to head State: Is it constitutional?

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=82374

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The second clause of Article 1, Section 6, of the Constitution reads, "No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office."

DurClinton's current term in the Senate, the salary for Cabinet officers was increased from $186,600 to $191,300. Since the salary is scheduled to again be raised in January 2009, not only Clinton but all sitting Senate members could be considered constitutionally ineligible to serve in Obama's Cabinet.
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Andrew Malcolm, whose blog is featured by the Los Angeles Times, however, believes the Constitution needs to be strictly followed.

"We're not lawyers. But we do speak English," Malcolm writes. "And to our eyes that constitutional clause doesn't say anything about getting around the provision by reducing or not benefiting from the increase of said 'Emoluments.'"

Malcolm continues, "It flat-out prohibits taking the civil office if the pay has been increased during the would-be appointee's elected term. Period. Which it has."

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Unlce Jay Explains Congressional Recess