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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization
No amount of good intentions can invalidate basic economics.
The two-thirds of Americans who support a minimum wage hike to $15 per hour now have an ally in the White House. And, President Joe Biden is already acting on his support by trying to include a $15 per hour minimum wage in his COVID-19 relief plan. This action would mark the first federal minimum wage increase since 2009. While this is bound to be celebrated without a second guess by many, it is now more important than ever to carefully examine the minimum wage as policy, not merely as rhetoric.
It is hard to see how Americans’ well-being would be advanced by a 'reality czar."
New York Times writer Kevin Roose admits a call for a “truth commission” sounds “dystopian”—before proceeding to ignore many ways it would be exactly that. But as the great English poet John Milton once observed, "Truth needs no policies or stratagems…to make her victorious."
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from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED
Germany's Inflation Tax and the Rising Cost of Living
Gold Could Offer a Way out of Switzerland's Failing Inflationist Experiment
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED
Germany's Inflation Tax and the Rising Cost of Living
Since the introduction of the euro, officially measured consumer price inflation in Germany has not made any great leaps. It has averaged 1.5 percent per year. It reached its highest value in 2008 at 2.8 percent and its lowest value just one year later at only 0.2 percent. In 2020, it has been negative for certain months but was 0.4 percent for the entire year. Do these figures provide a representative picture of the general price trends? It is not surprising that the answer to this question remains controversial, because price inflation measurements are used to make subjective variables of economic life appear objective. How does the standard of living of citizens change? How much higher is real income today compared to twenty years ago? How much more expensive is a basket of goods of the same quality in one year compared to another? But just what equal quality even means in the course of technological progress and innovation cannot be determined objectively. Therefore, this question will never be answered conclusively.
Gold Could Offer a Way out of Switzerland's Failing Inflationist Experiment
The Swiss state should end antigold regulations, end negative interest rates, and return to zero rates on bank reserves. These are small steps on their own, perhaps, but would be progress away from the brewing mess that is the eurozone.
Never mind that the US Treasury’s indictment late last year of Switzerland as a currency manipulator rested on some flawed evidence and does not identify the crime. The clash between Washington and Berne marks another episode in this alpine nation’s dark history of trucking with foreign repression rather than developing its potential as a global haven and beacon of freedom. Occasionally there have been bright interludes but none so far with respect to the last quarter century of growing monetary repression as led by the US and now prevalent throughout the world.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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from USA Today
Another U.S. city is reporting early success with a program that replaces traditional law enforcement responders with health care workers for some emergency calls. Previously, Denver 911 operators only directed calls to police or fire department first responders. But the Support Team Assistance Response (STAR) pilot program created a third track for directing emergency calls to a two-person team: a medic and a clinician, staffed in a van from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays. The STAR program, which launched in June, reported promising results in its six-month progress report. The program aims to provide a "person-centric mobile crisis response" to community members who are experiencing problems related to mental health, depression, poverty, homelessness, or substance abuse issues.
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from The Washington Examiner
RIGHT BIAS, MIXED, News & Media Website in Washington, DC
If liberals were right that a federal $15 minimum wage would empower workers at the expense of Big Business’s profit margins, giant corporations such as Amazon probably wouldn’t be on their side, but they are. A top Amazon executive, Jay Carney, recently wrote a letter on the company’s behalf endorsing the Democratic push to more than double the minimum wage nationwide. And Amazon is actively lobbying for the change by running digital ads. "We believe $15 an hour is the minimum anyone in the U.S. should be paid for an hour of labor," Carney wrote. “We also believe it's good for business.” This should be a giant red flag. Amazon has already paid its hourly workers $15 or more since 2018. What it’s really doing is lobbying the federal government to hike its competitors’ costs and help it replace more small businesses.
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