Tag Archives: Money/Economy/Taxes

If you can’t understand the minimum wage, you should be denied political power

If you can’t understand the minimum wage, you should be denied political power and treated like a cute but dangerous child when it comes to economic matters.

Whether a person can understanding the minimum wage should be a fundamental test. Can they distinguish between short term and long term? Can they distinguish between how the world is and how they want it to be?

The explanations by Hazlitt, Friedman and many others are so crystal clear.

Surprise: Bay Area Restaurants Disappear After Minimum Wage Hike

www.breitbart.com/california/2017/01/25/surprise-bay-area-restaurants-disappear-minimum-wage-hike/

“less than 10 percent of the world’s population will be living in extreme poverty by the end of 2015.”

How does the left countenance their hypocrisy???

Originally, the point of the left was fighting poverty. The argument went that Communism produced more wealth because it removed the inefficiency (greed) of those who owned the means of production. Communism was superior because it produced MORE WEALTH. Nobel prize winning economist Paul Samuelson told everyone this was inevitable.

All those scores of millions of people were murdered in the name of helping the poor. (Paul Samuelson, that degenerate monster, posited the question of whether communist wealth did not make its oppression worth it.)

Then, in the parts of the world where people had defended themselves against the communists and kept the snarling horde at bay, CAPITALISM created never-before-seen wealth. Capitalism ended poverty.

Capitalism delivered the promise of early communism’s most starry-eyed proselytizers.

As I like to say: The Messiah of the left has arrived, but the left has no need for a messiah that actually shows up.

The left abandoned their fight against poverty and forgot that it ever existed. They’ve anointed a new messiah, one that is guaranteed to never arrive and ruin their bloodlust for destroying social orders: equality.

fee.org/articles/the-end-of-extreme-poverty-and-the-great-fact/

2013, Mark Weisbrot ridiculed criticism of Venezuela

or more than a decade people opposed to the government of Venezuela have argued that its economy would implode. Like communists in the 1930s rooting for the final crisis of capitalism, they saw economic collapse just around the corner. How frustrating it has been for them to witness only two recessions: one directly caused by the opposition’s oil strike (December 2002-May 2003) and one brought on by the world recession (2009 and the first half of 2010). However, the government got control of the national oil company in 2003, and the whole decade’s economic performance turned out quite well, with average annual growth of real income per person of 2.7% and poverty reduced by over half, and large gains for the majority in employment, access to health care, pensions and education.

Now Venezuela is facing economic problems that are warming the cockles of the haters’ hearts. We see the bad news every day: consumer prices up 49% over the last year; a black market where the dollar fetches seven times the official rate; shortages of consumer goods from milk to toilet paper; the economy slowing; central bank reserves falling. Will those who cried wolf for so long finally see their dreams come true?

Not likely. In the opposition’s analysis Venezuela is caught in an inflation-devaluation spiral, where rising prices domestically undermine confidence in the economy and currency, causing capital flight and driving up the black market price of the dollar. This adds to inflation, as does – in their theory – money creation by the government. And its price controls, nationalisations and other interventions have caused more structural problems. Hyperinflation, rising foreign debt and a balance-of-payments crisis will mark the end of this economic experiment.

But how can a government with more than $90bn in oil revenue end up with a balance-of-payments crisis? Well, the answer is: it can’t, and won’t.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/07/venezuela-not-greece-latin-america-oil-poverty

Chinese millionaire sues himself through an offshore shell company to beat currency export controls

China’s millionaires, having looted their country, are anxious to get their money out of reach of the Politburo, to guard against confiscation should the political tides turn. Only one problem: the government will only let Chinese nationals move $50K/year out of the country.

The majority of China’s new super-rich are prepped to leave the country, but getting their cash out is a serious problem. Much of the volatility in Bitcoin can be ascribed to Chinese elites using the cryptocurrency to smuggle cash out of the PRC. With the Chinese Yuan tanking, the race is on to convert Chinese wealth to other currencies and get out while the getting is good.

But there’s a better way: for a small sum, you can just set up an offshore shell company, direct it to sue a Chinese company you own, throw the lawsuit, and then, oh well, I guess there’s nothing for it but to send a bunch of cash to your shell company, exempted from export controls, in the form of court-ordered damages.

boingboing.net/2016/02/18/chinese-millionaire-sues-himse.html