Who'd A-Thunk It ???

My unofficial economics mentor #1, Don Boudreaux at Café Hayek, is starting a new series called "Who'd a-Thunk it?" 

I assume he's going to post things about the inevitable consequences of government policy, and the shocked, shocked reactions from supporters of those policies when things don't work out as planned.  (You know, the law of unintended consequences, things seen and unseen, markets responding rationally to punishment, etc.) 

In other words, "Who'd a-Thunk that punishing businesses by making them pay for healthcare would cause businesses to hire fewer employees?"

Boudreaux is accepting your submissions.  The first to be published was supplied by my unofficial economics mentor #13 (yeah, I have them numbered), Greg Mankiw.  It's from an email he received Saturday morning:

I have been teaching multiple sections of economics for four years now at several Colleges and Universities in the State of Indiana. I have also been a frequent user of your texts in the classes that I teach.

With the implementation of the ACA (Affordable Care Act) these institutions are giving notification to their part-time faulty that their individual teaching schedules will now be limited to three sections. At the college this will likely result in the cancellation of 20-25% of the class sections in economics, and I would assume other areas will have a similar result. The students are not fully aware of the situation and many will be surprised that their desire to get a college education is now being impacted by the need to avoid the full implementation of the ACA.

Regardless if you are a Republican or a Democrat I would hope full-time faculty would voice their concern regarding the impact the implementation of the ACA could have on the attainment of higher education for the current student population and upon the lives of the dedicated part-time faculty that have been devoted to serving this student population.
My hope is that if faculty across the nation brought this to the public attention that we as a nation could have a more open and complete dialogue regarding the course we wish to set as a nation.

Good stuff, isn't it? 

Elections have consequences.  Who'd a-Thunk it? 


 

The only employment number that matters

Barack Obama has spent a trillion dollars trying to improve this number.   This chart shows the percentage of Americans who are working. 

Do you think that spending other people's money on your friends and supporters to "stimulate" the economy just might be a mistake?  Does it do more harm than good? 
Is this how FDR turned a recession into a long, long depression? 
In short, does having a pack of thieves at the top of the pyramid scare the crap out of people, and cause them to stop investing in employment?

Chart compliments of Greg Mankiw's blog, from the U.S. Department Of Labor. 

Projected Unemployment - with Porkulus, without Porkulus, and Reality Based

This is from Greg Mankiw's blog. Mankiw is an Economics professor at Harvard, where he teaches Econ 101 to our future elites, so they can forget everything he's taught them when they go to be our Lords And Masters in government (ahem) "service".

The light blue line shows what the Teleprompter Jesus predicted would happen if he wasn't allowed to throw $750,000,000.00 to Wall Street, the Unions, Detroit, ACORN, and various manufacturing friends. This 3/4 of a Trillion was to be spent on bridges, roads, and Turtle-Tunnels. This line blue line was generated by Team Obama prior to the bailout. At the time, this line represented the scariest unemployment number imaginable.

The dark blue unemployment line shows what the Teleprompter Jesus predicted would happen if we would just allow his buddies to get into your wallet. Or purse. Or, more accurately, your childrens' savings. This line looks a lot better than that light blue scary line, doesn't it? Once again, these were Team Obama's estimates. What a nice, soothing dark blue line.... Too bad it's as fake as....well....as fake as a thing that somebody made up to get their hands on some money.

The line composed of the red dots represents what has actually happened with unemployment in the real world, as opposed to the scenarios fabricated by The Chicago Gang. What direction do the red dots seem to be going?

Let me state this one more time, and I'll try to be brief. If you take money from taxpayers to "create" a job, it doesn't count. You're just moving money from the shallow end to the deep end of the pool. The people you're taking the money from don't get to choose which job the money is spent on. Nancy Pelosi gets to decide.

If you print money to "create" a job, that doesn't count either. It produces inflation, now or in the future. We've got a certain amount of money, and a certain amount of stuff. We use one to swap for the other.

Want to create some jobs, some great jobs? Lower the tax burden on business and individuals. Give entrepreneurs a reason to open a factory here, as opposed to, say, North Korea. Encourage the entrepreneurs to get filthy rich, Social Justice be damned. Otherwise, they're going to keep going John Galt on you, and sit on their hands until someone takes over in Washington who is slightly less full of Llama manure.

Want to create some more great jobs? Drop all this business about tax cuts for small and medium-sized businesses. Regardless of the Newspeak coming from D.C., corporations don't pay taxes. Individuals in those companies pay the taxes. Owners, investors, and employees. You don't think that the janitors at a mega-company receive less pay because of corporate taxes? Guess again. At least some of the money flushed to Washington comes out of their potential pay.

Next time some Student Council Refugee starts blathering about tax cuts for small and medium-sized business, he's talking about a tax cut for the #1,#2, and #3 people at those small companies. The #53,487th employee at the mega-corporation isn't eligible for this compassionate tax relief.

Want to create some more great jobs? De-regulate. De-regulate. De-regulate. Remember that the subprime mortgage/real estate crisis was caused by people following regulations to the letter.

Remember that employers aren't looking to hire indentured servants, dependents, or vassals who are going to be with the family for decades. Do you want to set up a business and be required to provide for the health insurance of other people? Do you want a piece of that? Well, most people don't. They also don't want to be lectured on the subject by a 3rd rate Community Organizer who couldn't organize a Chinese Fire Drill in a dead K-mart parking lot.

Let insurance companies operate anywhere in the U.S., so that changing jobs isn't such a risky endeavor. Is there anything that locks someone into a job more than insurance?

Want to do even more, especially for teenagers? End the fake "minimum wage". (The real minimum wage is Zero, and 26% of teenagers are now earning it, the most since World War II.) Let employers pay whatever they want to pay. Let workers agree to work for whatever wage they're willing to take. The teenagers would get some experience. The employers would get some help in a tough time. New businesses would take off. Next thing you know, the employers would have to pay the good workers more and more as they established themselves. It really would be "stimulative" for the economy. Millions of people would find work and make money, but we'll never do it. We're too compassionate.

Oh well. Those are the numbers. This is what we get when government must intervene. For government to do nothing would be irresponsible.

Note to the turtles: I hope you like the tunnels.

Yes Virginia, There Is A......Lot of Miscellaneous Stuff Out There

Here's a heartwarming webpage based on the famous 1897 editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus".

The Clintons did not win Texas. Or, they haven't yet. Due to our bizarre "Two-Step" combination of primaries and caucuses, Obama now has 4 more delegates than The Clintons. We're still working on the exact number. But where are the headlines? Why am I still hearing about Hillary's comeback? Wait...It was in the Star-Telegram the day after I started this.

Harvard's Greg Mankiw explains Free Trade for us Muggles....He also provides me with a GREAT compliment for Al Gore, should David G. ever again request that I do so. I didn't know this story that Mankiw references, and it's a good one.

Soobdujour has a 1950's cigarette ad.

Fort Worth Blogorrhea suggests that our current President's romanticizing of military service in Afghanistan is a matter of convenient timing. It was hard to get misty-eyed during the Tet Offensive.

Wolf Howling gets worked up over The Clintons' 3:00 a.m. ad, as attacked by Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson.

And I was delighted to learn from "The American Review" that Jesus was the first Libertarian. The Lord Jesus Christ First, True Libertarian; His Coming Most Important “Political” Event In History

And, wonder of wonders, The Daily Kos has had it with The Clintons.