Chrysler cost taxpayers much more than the reported 1.3 billion loss
CNN Money headlines an article “US loses 1.3 billion exiting Chrysler” and then says: U.S. taxpayers likely lost $1.3 billion in the government bailout of Chrysler, the Treasury Department announced...
View ArticleThe economy–between a rock and a hard place
The latest reports on the economy is due out this week and it doesn’t appear they will contain much good news: Economists have been insisting for months that the economy is poised to lift off into a...
View ArticleIs Atlas shrugging?
Of course what I’m about to cite is an anecdote. It is hard to claim there’s a trend. And we don’t even know if the threat was carried out. On the other hand, we also don’t know how many times the...
View ArticleGlobal markets off after US credit downgrade
As expected global market reaction to the US credit downgrade has been anything but positive. Global stock markets sank again Monday as worries over the downgrade of U.S. debt outweighed relief at a...
View ArticleGreen jobs? There’s just no market
If you don’t believe me, look at the California experience to this point. If there’s any state in the union more amenable to and focused on providing green jobs, it has to be the Golden State....
View ArticleThe growth of the regulatory state
While President Obama vacations on Martha’s Vineyard, he is supposedly committing to paper a plan to boost employment. During the recession unemployment has remained high, near 10%, and with the...
View ArticleObama touted solar technology company files for bankruptcy
But not before sucking down over half a billion dollars in federal loan guarantees that will now be exercised. Solyndra was touted by the Obama administration as a prime example of how green technology...
View ArticleSolyndra – Administration warned it would fail in September, 2011. And, it did
In the old “what did they know and when did they know it” game concerning Solyndra, the failed solar company backed by half a billion dollars of federally guaranteed loans, it appears the...
View ArticleVoters not impressed with OWS … Obama on wrong side again?
The Hill just published a poll of likely voters. The findings pretty much reflect what I’ve believed about the so-called “99%” protest. Voters are unimpressed and the attempt to deflect attention from...
View ArticleObama finally creates jobs. In Finland. With your money.
This is just the theater of the absurd masquerading as government: With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee...
View ArticleWho killed the US Postal Service?
Jordan Weissman, writing in the Atlantic, addresses that question. Why is the USPS in such dire straits? What is it that has caused that entity to be tottering on the brink of insolvency? Ok, not on...
View ArticleIs being a slacker now a disability?
The regulatory state again finds a new way to try to handicap businesses. This time it is the EEOC: Employers are facing more uncertainty in the wake of a letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity...
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Why protectionism equals crony capitalism
The invaluable Warren Meyer at Coyote blog (one of my all time favs) has a great article up on protectionism and why its something we should be avoiding. President Obama used a lot of his state of the...
View ArticleTolerance is not a one-way street
Apparently T-shirts are a “human right” now (via The American Conservative): The owner of “Hands On Originals,” a well-known t-shirt company in the region, declined to print the shirts for the city’s...
View ArticleObamaCare begins to have its predicted effect
A law the country didn’t want and upheld by a ridiculous Supreme Court ruling is now beginning to have it’s predicted effect: Some low-wage employers are moving toward hiring part-time workers instead...
View ArticleSo, economically, how’s the election working out for us?
If you’re at all concerned about the economy, the answer is likely “not very well”: U.S. companies are scaling back investment plans at the fastest pace since the recession, signaling more trouble for...
View ArticleWould you hire these people?
Amazing, but not atypical of a lot of thinking in this country these days: The union that brought the 85-year-old baker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread to its knees is holding out hope that a buyer will...
View ArticleHey consumers, it’s your fault if Wal-Mart strikes
Jordan Weissmann has a piece in The Atlantic entitled “Who’s Really to Blame for the Wal-Mart Strikes? The American Consumer.” Balderdash. While I will admit that the demands of the American consumer...
View ArticleWal-Mart protest a flop
So how did the great Wal-Mart protest go? According to the Bentonville-based company, roughly 50 people who are actually on Walmart’s payroll joined today’s “walkout” nationwide. The protest organizers...
View ArticleBut remember, government knows best …
And if you need an example of why you should always rely on government to get it right, well, just consider the latest concerning the mandated use of food ethanol for fuel: The AAA says the...
View ArticleUS average marginal effective tax rate about 40%?
So tell me again why the government can’t seem to get along with what it already gets? Taking into account all taxes on earnings and consumer spending—including federal, state and local income taxes,...
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Don’t drink “the employment picture is much better” Kool-aid
Why? Because it isn’t really better. Oh, it may be marginally better than it was a year ago but that’s not saying much at all. In terms of real progress? Yeah, not so much. The National Journal...
View ArticleArrogance and ignorance on display on D.C. City Council
What they’ve done is pretty typical of liberal governments everywhere. They are arrogant with their power and totally ignorant of the economic impact their decision will have on the city. But boy did...
View ArticleHere we go again …
The cult of the vicitim is alive and well in the US. It’s been fostered by politicians and lawyers who are open to the idea that one’s problems, whatever they are, are the fault of someone else. And,...
View ArticleMore business busting regulatory abuse by the imperial President
Market? What market? We haven’t had a free market for much of anything in at least the last 75 years: Business groups and congressional Republicans are blasting regulations President Obama will...
View ArticleWhat is the worth of a job?
Well that’s determined by all sorts of variables – how much the person seeking the job is willing to take, how much the person wanting the job done is willing to pay, the scarcity or abundance of...
View ArticleWondering why there are few women in tech? Here’s the perspective of someone...
Via Instapundit and Bill Quick, I’ve noticed discussion about this Forbes article on why females are under-represented in technology companies. As someone who has spent an adult lifetime in the tech...
View ArticleAgain, what’s $15 times zero?
A “told you so” follow up on that $15 minimum wage hike in Seattle (and coming to San Francisco soon): Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law goes into effect on April 1, 2015. As that date approaches,...
View ArticleThe age of job automation
It’s closer than you think. Last Friday I put a bit up in Stray Voltage about Dominos testing a robot delivery service in New Zealand. And I intimated that that sort of automation would be something...
View ArticleFormer McDonald’s CEO goes one for two
Ed Rensi is the former CEO of McDonalds and he commented on the reality of a $15 minimum wage and how most businesses will handle it: “I was at the National Restaurant Show yesterday and if you look at...
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