In one of those typical San Francisco decisions that makes San Francisco a poster child for the liberal left, the city’s Board of Supervisors is moving to block a paint store from renting a vacant building once used by a video rental shop.
The subsidy-stuffed farm bill just passed by Congress is a monster that will leave us with less food at higher prices. The president should veto it right away and force this foolish Congress to override him.
When it comes to prescription drug policies, governments in the United States tend to be more oriented towards competitive markets while the governments in Canada tend to be more interventionist. There is a common misperception Canadian prescription drug policies tend to produce lower overall costs for consumers than American prescription drug policies. However, a recently published Fraser Institute report shows that the average personal cost burden of prescription drug spending is roughly equivalent in both countries.
For example:
The fact that the personal cost burden of prescription drug spending is roughly the same for Canadians and Americans is partially explained by differences in the prices of patented and generic drugs:
Although Canadians and Americans share approximately the same cost burden for prescription drug spending, Americans are better off because research suggests that U.S. consumers have better access to new innovative drugs than Canadians do. Canadians who rely on public drug programs suffer longer delays to access many new medicines than Americans, and are in many cases not able to access the same number of life-saving and life-improving drugs that are more commonly available to Americans, according to Fraser.
Read it all (pages 16-18).
Why President Bush should veto the Farm Bill.
Consider the below chart (data comes from the 2004 IRS data, the 2007 Exxon Mobil annual report and Mark Perry):
So Exxon Mobil paid more in income taxes in 2007 than the bottom 65,000,000 tax filers paid in income taxes in 2004. Total taxes and duties paid by Exxon in 2007 was over $100 billion.
Why is gasoline so expensive? Ask the Democrats! They required Exxon Mobil to pay over $100,000,000,000 in taxes last year. That came out of your pocket every time you purchased fuel. AND THEY WANT MORE OF YOUR MONEY. OBAMA IS PROMOSING A WINDFALL PROFITS TAX–WHICH WILL ULTIMATELY BE PAID BY YOU.
The above is politically charged, and I understand things are more complex than this. However, placing a higher tax burden on Big Oil is not a solution, it’s a gimmick used to place blame and punish–precisely what many voters want to see.
Notable from this article by Thomas Sowell:
If corporate “greed” is the explanation for high gasoline prices, why are the government’s taxes not an even bigger sign of “greed” on the part of politicians– since taxes add more to the price of gasoline than oil company profits do?
A pessimistic outlook from Merrill Lynch.
Intrade report by John Stossel on ABC. If you’ve never visited intrade, check it out here.
The high school graduation rate is a barometer of the health of American society and the skill level of its future workforce. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, each new cohort of Americans was more likely to graduate from high school than the preceding one. This upward trend in secondary education increased worker productivity and fueled American economic growth .
In the past 25 years, growing wage differentials between high school graduates and dropouts increased the economic incentives for high school graduation. The real wages of high school dropouts have declined since the early 1970s while those of more skilled workers have risen sharply. Heckman, Lochner, and Todd show that in recent decades, the internal rate of return to graduating from high school versus dropping out has increased dramatically and is now above 50 percent. Therefore, it is surprising and disturbing that, at a time when the premium for skills has increased and the return to high school graduation has risen, the high school dropout rate in America is increasing. America is becoming a polarized society. Proportionately more American youth are going to college and graduating than ever before. At the same time, proportionately more are failing to complete high school.
Keep reading. (HT: Mark Thoma).
We have long been told that when the dollar “corrects,” making our goods cheaper abroad, the trade deficit will begin to fall sharply. Well, it’s finally happening. Now that it is, do you feel any better?
Gary Becker says:
The run-up in the world price of oil during the past several years, and especially the rapid climb during the last few weeks to over $120 per barrel, has fueled predictions that the price will reach $200 a barrel in the rather near future. Such predictions are not based on much analysis, and mainly just extrapolate this sharp upward trend in oil prices into the future. The price of oil in “real” terms (i.e., relative to general prices) will not reach $200 in this time frame without either terrorist or other attacks that destroy major oil-producing facilities, or huge taxes on oil consumption.
From today’s WSJ:
You may not know it, dear reader, but Congress is playing you for a sap. During the housing mania, you didn’t lend money at teaser rates to borrowers who couldn’t pay, or buy a bigger house than you could afford. You paid your bills on time. As a reward for that good judgment and restraint, Barney Frank is now going to let you bail out the least responsible bankers and borrowers.
Is it voluntary, you wonder? Consider this:
“I want to put the servicers on notice,” the celebrated liberal declared at a recent hearing. “If we see a widespread refusal on the part of servicers to cooperate voluntarily in what we see as an important economic problem . . . they can expect much tougher regulation in the future.”
Dynamic maps of nonprime mortgage conditions in the U.S. from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
More than seven in 10 voters insist that they would not be willing to pay higher taxes in order to fund projects to combat climate change, according to a new poll.
The survey also reveals that most Britons believe “green” taxes on 4×4s, plastic bags and other consumer goods have been imposed to raise cash rather than change our behaviour, while two-thirds of Britons think the entire green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes.
Thanks Mark Perry for the following:
Over the last 89 years, the average retail price of gasoline has increased almost 14X, from 25.5 cents per gallon in 1919 to $3.517 per gallon in 2008, according to annual price data from the EIA. Over the same period, the price of a first-class stamp in the U.S. has increased 21X, from 2 cents in 1919 to 42 cents in 2008 (starting Monday, May 12), according to historical stamp price data available here. The chart above compares the two prices using an index that is equal to 100 in 1919 for both series.
If stamp prices had increased over time at “only” the rate of gas prices, a first-class stamp would only cost only 27.6 cents today instead of 42 cents.
When gas prices rose last year, Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-MI) introduced “The Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act,” which would make it a crime to “sell crude oil or gasoline at a price that is unconscionably excessive.” Shouldn’t we now investigate “unconscionably excessive stamp prices”?
One of my all-time favorite Wall Street personalities. More here.
In their ongoing war against U.S. oil producers, Senate Democrats say they’ll slap Big Oil with a windfall profits tax and take away $17 billion in tax breaks, among other punishments. This is an energy plan?
Mankiw responds to the below stupid idea written about today in the WSJ:
Massachusetts legislators, demonstrating a growing resentment against the wealth of elite universities in tight economic times, are studying a plan to levy a 2.5% annual tax on the portion of college endowments that exceed $1 billion.
Very good article, which concludes:
To me, this book comes as a relief. I have never felt that diatribes about discrimination chimed with my personal experience, although it does with some of my friends. I have never bought the idea that women aren’t competitive: we are. But I see so many able women who are fed up with the idea that the only real progress has to be perpetual upward motion. There’s a time for that, but it should be in our own time.
Mark Perry on why gasoline costs are historically low relative to income.
Next week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its monthly report on inflation, and it sure is going to sound strange. Wall Street is expecting the bureau to announce that the Consumer Price Index rose just three-tenths of a percentage point in April. Over the last year, the index has risen only about 4 percent.
I’m guessing that doesn’t square with your sense of reality.
On Chrysler’s idea to cap gas prices at $2.99 for three years for anyone buying one of its cars:
Lets say you believe the weighted average of gas prices over the next 36,000 miles of 3 years to remain at $3.61 and you get that $355 in savings for each of the next 3 years. At a 5% discount rate, that is $967 in net present value. We can safely assume then that demand will push the price of a Chrysler buy or lease up around $1,000. However, applying the Winner’s Curse from game theory, those who most overestimate the price of future gas prices will be the ones making the actual purchases by out-bidding all others, meaning they will likely pay more up-front than those who would just pay the market gas prices over the next 3 years.
HT: Division of Labour
Last month, New York law enforcement authorities announced the arrest of Queens resident Rafea al-Nablisi for smuggling 12,000 cartons of cigarettes a week. It was not the first such arrest, and thanks to New York’s latest cigarette tax hike, it will not be the last.
The I-Team has discovered that some state lawmakers may not be abiding by a law meant to affect all Tennessee residents.
Everyone, including the thousands of state workers in Nashville, have to walk outside to specified areas if they should want to smoke.
State law prohibits smoking inside state buildings, but for those who want to skirt the law and know the right people, there’s a room upstairs for them.
“It’s hypocritical. It’s a double standard, and there’s no way to justify it,” said Drew Johnson of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. According to an I-Team report, those who want to get around the smoking ban inside Legislative Plaza need to know state Rep. Joe McCord, R-Maryville, and if they’re really connected, they will be invited back to a room set up for smoking.
The WSJ today:
The press tells us that Barack Obama has “charisma,” the special power of a person to inspire fascination and loyalty. But does charisma originate in the individual, in the followers, or in the situation? Academic studies say all three.
One of my favorite presidential quotes:
“Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business.” Calvin Coolidge