Lives in a Shoe

Classical Liberalism

Civil liberties and political freedom with representative democracy under the rule of law -- emphasis on economic freedom.

 

Keep An Eye On It

Circle April 24 on your calendar. 
Six years ago, Tax Freedom Day fell on April 12, five days before tax day. In 2016, Tax Freedom Day isn’t unti April 24; an astonishing 12 days later than in 2011, thanks to tax hikes including Obamacare.

 

 Some young people I know have no idea what Tax Freedom Day is.  For them, this quick explanation:  That is the day when you have earned enough, if all you earned until then is given to the government, for the remaining earnings of the year to be considered yours.  Keep an eye on government bloat and overreach because it matters.

$15 Minimum Wage, Considered by NY

How the $15 wage is already killing Seattle jobs. Editorial in NY Post.

Seattle is learning that it can’t unilaterally ignore basic economics. Businesses adapt to government dictates. To survive mandated pay hikes, they lay off employees, or avoid new new hires to control costs.

The AEI study, worked up from Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly surveys, shows that, between April and December last year, Seattle saw the biggest employment drop in any nine-month period since 2009 — a full year into the Great Recession.

The city unemployment rate rose a full percentage point.

Before the minimum-wage hikes begin, Seattle employment tracked the rest of the nation — slowly rising from the 2008-09 bottom. But it started to plunge last spring, as the new law began to kick in...

 

The Big Short, Another Look

Worth six and a half minutes.

The arrival of The Big Short in theaters a few weeks ago, and its subsequent nominations at the 88th Academy Awards, has reignited interest in the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. The film would have you think that private greed on Wall Street and a lack of regulation caused the economic crash. While stories like this might make for a fun movie, The Big Short fails to align with the facts.

I was communicating with a commenter about the film, which I have not yet seen.  She told me it was really clear that "corporate greed" caused the crisis and that we need tougher regulation lest it continue to happen.  I wanted to discuss my thinking that maybe it had something to do with excessive regulation by both political administrations and interference with the market.  I couldn't explain it a well as this quick video does.

  

 

Where Is the Outrage?

 

Women, if you’re selling something new on eBay, you’ll make more money if you get a male friend to sell it, according to a new study.

The findings, published Friday in the Journal Science Advances, revealed that on average, women make about 80 cents for every dollar a man does when selling the identical new product. The gender gap is much less acute on used goods, with women making 97 cents for every dollar on the same product sold by a man.

Good News From the World Bank

The number of people living in extreme poverty around the world is likely to fall to under 10 percent of the global population in 2015, according to World Bank projections released today, giving fresh evidence that a quarter-century-long sustained reduction in poverty is moving the world closer to the historic goal of ending poverty by 2030.