Taxes don't just destroy wealth...

According to this ESPN article they also destroy some sports. Apparently some golfers are refusing to play in the UK tournament because to do so would expose them to enormous tax liabilities. The tax liability is not only on UK income but includes international income. With such a strong disincentive to compete, golfers are doing the only rational thing, refusing to compete.

This is not dissimilar from Usain Bolt who refused to race because of the same tax burdens.

The practical reality is that government interference has, once again, led to a disservice to every citizen. The tax burden, at best, was intended to punish the wealthy for the benefit of the middle and lower class. Now the upper class are refusing to work, meaning the state will not get any of their revenue from those events. So, the state cannot redistribute that wealth to the lower and middle class as intended.

To make matters worse for the lower and middle class, they do not get to see their favorite athletes compete. I remember when I was a kid looking forward to my heroes, Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman, play basketball. I would be crushed if I couldn't watch them compete because the state's policies made it unprofitable to do so.

Basically we see what we all knew would occur. The state had good intentions (possibly) and in the end every person got hurt. Now there is less revenue and less enjoyment for all.

Stimulus keeps prices artificially high at cost of consumers

The New York Times, yes that New York Times, recently has a piece about how the retailers are doing the governments job of bailing out the citizens. Huffington Post's headline was private sector goes public, with a link to this article. (You need a free subscription to see the whole thing.) The Huffpo subtitle is: Government stimulus not enough, so retailers create their own. I say this is great and shows how the government interference in the market right after the stock/housing crash was terrible for consumers. Once the government has stopped (albeit temporarily) artificially increasing people's paychecks the stores started to decrease their costs.

A lot of the government programs have come to an end,” said David Bassuk, a managing director in the global retail practice at AlixPartners, a financial consultancy. “So retailers are taking it upon themselves to do everything they can to get the consumer to spend, even opening up their own wallets to give money back to the consumer.”

If a retailer does not believe there is enough demand for his product, either because the product is inferior, the consumer lost his job or any myriad of other reasons, they have the option to lower their prices to increase demand. The government has been so busy trying to redistribute wealth so we all somehow magically get richer they have made it unnecessary for companies to correct their prices during times of economic downturn. Now that they have stopped a small fraction of the programs, the stores are altering their prices downward where the demand is due to unemployment rate and general uneasiness about the economy.

The government's boosting of peoples income, largely through borrowing from China that our grandkids will have to repay, have kept prices artificially high. This means that citizens have spent a larger percentage of their money in buying goods that were overpriced because of the government policy. This means that the government has redistributed money from the consumers (the citizens like me and you) to the producers (stores like Walmart, Target, etc.). This has happened even in a government that claims to be looking our for the "little guy". Give me a break. The government has been and always will be looking out for the big guy, which is why we need less government.

Happy Fourth.

Government Overreaching... Names

Can you say government overreaching? The naming laws in some parts of the world allow the government to approve or not approve of the name you want to give your little bundle of joy. No one should be surprised by this. The governments in some foreign countries, and ours is getting closer to this, believe that it is their job to make sure no one is ever offended. This is how they justify not letting curse words air at certain parts of the day, it has been one of the justifications for the "war on drugs" and many believe that the hate crimes law was partially intended to scare people with ideas society does not approve of.

When you give people and inch, they take a mile. The government is no different.

Anyway, the article was just meant to be fun. Happy Fourth of July. Go Out. Have a BBQ. Thank the Vets and Troops and remember that the founders wanted America to be free. Try to make their dream a reality.

Thank Goodness we have government to tell us how much everyone should be paid

A chicago alderman is calling out a walmart executive for getting paid too much. He certainly should. This terrible CEO is making more than an hour than his employees do in a year, that is if you argue he makes nearly double what he actually makes. The alderman's math was wrong by more than 50%, but that is not even the point. The CEO and the worker are getting paid the same wage. What can I possibly mean by that. One is paid in the millions, and one will make between 8-10 dollars per hour. I simply mean they are paid exactly what the market would bear. The CEO of Walmart would not be the CEO of Walmart if someone else offered him a better package. The same is true of the Walmart bagger, cashier, manager, etc. They are paid exactly what the market thinks they are worth, no more no less.

In the more hilarious/upsetting news of the article, the alderman who is upset that Walmart pays their workers so little is paid in the six figures for his work. The CEO gets his salary from the sales and profits of the company he helps run. He is not taking a single penny out of his worker's pockets to line his own. The alderman who is disparaging that CEO is the exact opposite. His salary exclusively is lined with the money of others. He never has to prove that he has acted efficiently, or that he has increased profits. All he has to do is sit back and collect his paycheck paid from people like you, me and the workers he feels oh so bad for.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Gun Ban

We now have the right to bear arms, according to the Supreme Court. I can already hear some of the sticklers out there proclaiming that we have had that right for quite a while, it is, after all in the Constitution. You forget one thing. Both sides only read the constitution when it helps their case.

Liberals have been trying to do away with guns and their owners for decades. It started with the absurd Brady Bill and continues today to the outright gun bans in some of America's largest cities. Today, however, the court finally did the right thing.

The second amendment is the amendment that guarantees all the other amendments. It was put into the constitution to guarantee a limit on government. The whole point was that I would be able to defend my family on my own, and not have to exclusively rely on the government for that protection. Today is a major win for freedom, breathe it in.

Daley suports gun ban....

because of all the shootings in his city. The problem is, of course, that Chicago has one of the toughest gun laws in the country. This shows how absurd the current thinking is on guns. The gun ban is certainly not saving anyone's life. The "bad guys" are still able to get guns. In fact, the only people who are not willing to get guns (because they certainly are able to drive 20 miles outside the city to get one) are the law-abiding citizens who want to protect themselves and their families.

The real reason for gun control is the same as every other law passed by the elite majority; they want to control how people act, how they think and who they rely on. The government seeks to command that we own certain things and that we do not own other things. The government should not be able to tell us which bundle of goods to consume, and which bundle of goods to not consume. This is especially true when the Constitution and the Supreme Court all have stated that the government cannot have bans like this.

The arrogance of power is daunting. People like Mayor Daley, the former Mayor of DC, President Obama and the Justices who came out for the gun ban all believe that they are more understand, more powerful and more compassionate than the constitution. This is how democracy begins to fall; our elected leaders do not listen to the documents that supposedly rule them, they do not listen to the people, they only listen to their own whims.

On this happy note, I wish you all a happy Wednesday.

Grads Moving Back Home

According to this article graduates are moving back home at a pretty large rate. This is not bad news, despite the articles dreary tone. This means that recent grads (myself included) are finding it tough out there. They are largely unemployed, thanks to this terrible unemployment rate and are finding it tough to make ends meet.

The real reason they are moving home, however, is that the banks are no longer giving out essentially free loans to anyone with a pulse any more. This is a positive development. After a false boom created by the government shoveling money into the people's hands by printing it and falsely lowering the interest rates, there comes a necessary bust. People spend too much in the boom and save during the bust. This does not have to happen. This goes into the business cycle which will get its own post in the not too-distant future.

The best news from grads moving home is that this will lower housing prices. How is this a good thing? We all want loan policies to be corrected but not prices. Unfortunately, this is impossible. Loans were bad because the prices were bad. The prices of homes need to return to market rates, not artificially inflated rates caused by a government keeping interest rates artificially low by printing cash. People moving home is a positive step in this harsh recession that will hopefully get the market back on track. The government created this mess and now we will have to suffer for it. The prices of housing will hopefully, eventually return to the market rate, as will the interest rates at some point (hopefully, even though I am not nearly as hopeful about the interest rate returning to the market rate).