Inflation is coming

I hope you're paying off debt and stocking up on commodities.  The next four years are going to suck, and suck hard.

The USA has the least poverty in the world

Despite what lies the DNC tells, we're doing pretty damn good.

A few weeks ago Matt Yglesias published a tweet (since deleted, which I don't totally understand as I thought it was pretty innocuous from a Progressive viewpoint) saying that he wanted to spend more time focusing on "relative child poverty."  What the heck is "relative" child poverty?  I want to spend a bit of time discussing why this is a useless metric, helpful only if one want to try to sell socialism in the US.

Capitalism in the USA has lifted more people out of poverty than any other force.  Period.  Go check out the data he presents.

2.3% my ass

Supposedly, inflation has hit a six-year high of 2.3%.

I'm reminded of Peter Grant's "burrito index".

Long-time readers may recall the Burrito Index, my real-world measure of inflation. The Burrito Index: Consumer Prices Have Soared 160% Since 2001 (August 1, 2016). The Burrito Index tracks the cost of a regular burrito since 2001. Since we keep detailed records of expenses (a necessity if you’re a self-employed free-lance writer), I can track the cost of a regular burrito at our favorite taco truck with great accuracy: the cost of a regular burrito has gone up from $2.50 in 2001 to $5 in 2010 to $6.50 in 2016. 

It's time for an update: the cost of a regular burrito has now reached $7.50, triple the 2001 cost. That's a 200% increase in 17 years. According to the federal government, inflation since 2001 has risen about 40%: what $1 bought in 2001 now costs $1.43, according to theBLS Inflation calculator.

The Burrito Index is five times the official inflation rate ... Lest you reckon only burritos have tripled in cost since 2001--have you checked out college tuition or rents lately?

In case you haven't guessed it yet, the Mrs. and I are on holiday with some friends.  We stopped in at Ye Oldde Bulke Shoppe in order to purchase some provisions so that we could provide meals for the entire gang that is currently in the house.  We did not get steaks.  We didn't buy crab or lobster.  We got the cheapest cuts of meat we could find, because included in this mess is two teenage boys and possibly some of their friends, and I understand very well what kind of empty stomach a teenage boy can have.  So the rack of lamb is out.  The pork roast that we can cut apart and put in a crock pot to make carnitas is in.

We got protein for six people to eat six meals.  It was over $100.  And that didn't include the veggies (green beans, because again, cheap and nutritious) or starches.

One of the people in my office is married to a German woman.  Her family came to visit.  They were stunned at how much food costs in the USA.

The official inflation rate might only be 2.3%, but that relates to your cost of living the way the price of tea in china relates to my coffee from Ethiopia.  In short, it doesn't.

Harping on a theme I've harped on before

Why a trade war is not a bad thing.

Why is this chart important? 

It is a death sentence for America. 

Although it is a single series of data, the chart is essentially in two parts, split in the year 2000.  There is no manipulation to achieve this effect.  This is how the data lay out, which is why this chart is so significant.

All the people howling about how Trump is killing free trade completely skip over the fact that we have not had free trade with other countries for some time.  Damn near all the countries we have major trade agreements with levy tariffs on us that take the entire concept of free trade and toss it into the dumpster.  That's if they're not undercutting our prices and taking manufacturing jobs from us, which not only removes jobs from us but forces us to spend money that goes to countries that just took our jobs.

Trump gets this.  His critics either do not understand this, or they're so in lockstep with the Globalists that they don't really care.

ZOMG TRADE WAR PANIC AAAAAAAAHHHH!

Or not.  I have said it before, and some people at work actually rocked back and thought about it when I challenged them with this:  I will accept the prognostications of a "trade war" when they can explain to me why our tariffs are bad, but all the existing tariffs of our trading partners are good.  80% tariff on our steel in Germany, but we don't have that against theirs?  270% tariffs on our dairy products in Canada?  That's "free trade"?  No, that's free-loading trade.

Anyways, those days are on hold for at least a little bit.

They are seeking to ensure their own gravy train doesn't get derailed. This is why they tell you, in between informing you how stupid you are, that there are only a few tariffs out there and they don't matter. Well, they sure as heck don't matter to these think tank jockeys and media scribblers. They are not the guys getting up at 4 a.m. to milk the cows or to harvest the soybeans the tariffs target. They've never worked on a vehicle assembly line in their lives, so what’s it matter to them if Germany’s tariff on US cars is four times ours to theirs? Of course, the tariffs on US products don't matter to the elite. They aren’t the guys who lose their jobs when their company picks up and moves to Vietnam.

Read it all, of course.

Remember, they never report the real unemployment rate

But when Idaho has a 2.9% recorded unemployment rate, that means the real unemployment rate has got to be under 10%, for the first time in a long time.

Fourteen states have set new records for low unemployment rates in the last year, nearly a decade after the recession put millions of Americans out of work.

The states hitting new unemployment lows run the ideological gamut, from conservative Texas to liberal California, suggesting a recovery stronger than any particular political persuasion.

In March, eight states saw new record lows, including Hawaii (2.1 percent), Idaho (2.9 percent), Kentucky (4 percent ), Maine (2.7 percent), Mississippi (4.5 percent), Oregon (4.1 percent) and Wisconsin (2.9 percent).

It's amazing what the economy can do if you get the government out of the way.  Even Fruitcake Kalifornia is getting in on the action, although that state's economy is so convoluted that I don't really trust the numbers coming out.  Oh, I have no doubt their unemployment is low, but Kalifornia is essentially a feudal state where millions of peasants service their lords and ladies in the gated coastal enclaves.

Ho. Lee. Crap.

If you're of a age as me...  (cough*cough*theanswertolifetheuniverseandeverything*cough*) then you might not have ever lived in America with a GDP growth rate this large.

The economy is on track to put up blockbuster growth numbers in the first quarter, according to the latest forecast from the Atlanta Fed. 

GDP is expected to surge 5.4 percent to start 2018, the central bank branch estimated in its latest rolling look at how the economy is progressing. 

If the forecast holds, it would be the best quarter since the Great Recession ended in 2009. The previous highest was third quarter of 2014, which hit 5.2 percent.

The kids who have been born since I graduated hah skool have never really seen this kind of economic growth.  They might have been alive, but they weren't actually aware of what this kind of economic growth means.

Helloooooooooooo, Trump economy!

Raising the minimum wage makes people poorer

Yep.  And there's no way the Leftists can hide it now that they've enforced it in multiple cities.

Seattle's minimum-wage hike seems to have reduced low-wage workers' earnings by $1500 a year: https://t.co/zB3elfXWdJ

— Annie Lowrey (@AnnieLowrey) June 26, 2017

If you make it more expensive to hire and employ people, less people will be hired and employed.  The moment it's cheaper for a restaurant to buy a robot to do a person's job, they'll buy the robot.  Because in the end, if it's too expensive to have employees, you'll either completely automate or go out of business.

But most Leftists are so removed from economic reality that they cannot grasp this basic, fundamental fact.  But their Marxist professors in college said that raising the minimum wage is magic!  It makes jobs!  Out of thin air and unicorn farts!

The people who actually understand business, especially small businesses, knew that jacking up the minimum wage would be an economic disaster, especially for low-skilled labor.  But hey, now that people are losing their jobs and making less, the Left and once again turn and point and shriek about how evil those OTHER people are.

Supply and Demand

Joel Kotkin writes about the difficulties Millennials are having buying a home.

Since 2004, homeownership rates for people under 35 have dropped by 21 percent, easily outpacing the 15 percent fall among those 35 to 44; the boomers’ rate remained largely unchanged. 

In some markets, high rents and weak millennial incomes make it all but impossible to raise a down payment (PDF). According to Zillow, for workers between 22 and 34, rent costs now claim upward of 45 percent of income in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Miami, compared to less than 30 percent of income in metropolitan areas like Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. The costs of purchasing a house are even more lopsided: In Los Angeles and the Bay Area, a monthly mortgage takes, on average, close to 40 percent of income, compared to 15 percent nationally.

Let me ask you this:  Since 1965 we've been allowing millions of immigrants to come to this country.  You think that might skew the housing market just a bit?

In many areas of the country, we have millions and millions of illegal aliens often living three or four families to a house.  You think that might skew the housing market just a bit?

Controlling immigration to this country isn't just the legal thing to do, it's the MORAL thing to do.

This cannot be stated enougb

Socialism fails.  Every time.

The data never lies.

For example, Mississippi has a higher median income ($23,017) than 18 countries measured here. The Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and the United Kingdom all have median income levels below $23,000 and are thus below every single US state. Not surprisingly, the poorest OECD members (Chile, Mexico, and Turkey) have median incomes far below Mississippi.

Things get even worse once you factor in purchasing power and other factors.

Once purchasing power among the US states is taken into account, we find that Sweden's median income ($27,167) is higher than only six states: Arkansas ($26,804), Louisiana ($25,643), Mississippi ($26,517), New Mexico ($26,762), New York ($26,152) and North Carolina ($26,819).

We find something similar when we look at Germany, but in Germany's case, every single US state shows a higher median income than Germany. Germany's median income is $25,528. Things look even worse for the United Kingdom which has a median income of $21,033, compared to $26,517 in Mississippi. 

Sweden is held up as the perfect example of socialism that works.  Bernie Sanders supporters everywhere practically have the name "Sweden" tattooed on their foreheads.  "B-b-b-but SWEDEN!" they shriek, as if the mere name of the country will ward off reality.

But reality will always win, even if that means it wins over our dead bodies.  Or impoverished bodies.

Anyways, the next time you encounter a Leftist spouting off about how great European Socialism is, nail 'em with the truth.  And let's face it:  The reason so many of these ProgTards want socialism is so that they don't have to work, and they can let someone else take care of them.  The removal of everybody's freedoms is incidental to their comfort and security.

Puerto Rico is going broke

Of course they are.  What nobody seems to be pointing out is the massive amounts of corruption that have sucked out billions upon billions of dollars that were poured into the island.

The island of Puerto Rico is broken because the society there is broken.  When I left there in 2008, the fourth consecutive governor was being indicted on multiple federal charges.  At this point, unless you wipe the slate clean and start over, you're not going to fix a darn thing.

So France Dissolved their Government

How many times is this now for France?  Five?  Six?  Not counting all the times that their government was dissolved for them by the Germans.

And amazingly, every left-wing shibboleth was tried in France.  They got more socialist.  They spent more of other people's money.  And yet....  failure.

But that won't stop the Left in America from hurling us down the same path.

How Leftists think Minimum Wage Laws work

A lesson in four easy panels.

No, I ain't stealing it.  Go look at it over there.

D.C. cabbies strike to protest Uber

Business for Uber soars.  Go figure.

Look, I sort of understand the cabbie's frustrations here.  They pay big bucks to buy a medallion, and then they have to suck up to the big labor people, and jump feet first into cronyism, corruption and shady politics to stay in business.  And here comes Uber, with a new business plan that doesn't have to play with all of that.

If it were me?  If I were a cabbie watching Uber come on to the scene?

I'd be buying the most fuel efficient vehicle I could, and joining up with Uber.  Every single day of the week, and twice on Sundays.  The solution to dealing with crap is to get rid of the crap, not complain about other people who don't have to deal with crap.

Ah, well.  The cabbie strike is probably some of the best advertising for Uber that's out there.  The wife and I used Uber to get to the airport for our last vacation.  Loved it.  Car was clean, driver was nice, and it was about half the cost.  Why wouldn't we take Uber?

Anyone actually paying attention knew this already

Reagan Recovery vs. Obama "Recovery".

One of America's greatest presidents versus the current Stuttering Clusterfuck of a Miserable Failure.

Rand Paul lays out the obvious

Let the National Socialist Democrat Worker's Party own the tax hikes.  Let them own ALL OF THEIR FAILURE.  

Stop working with the enemy!  Stop allowing the enemy to set the stage!  Stop allowing the enemy to blame conservatives for the enemy's failures!

Stop shooting ourselves in the foot, and let the commies own it all!

Fiscal Policy Report Card

For the various States.

For what it's worth, no Donk got an "A", and no Republican got an "F".  But anyone who's been paying attention knows that Democrat policies are not fiscally responsible.

My home state, Idaho, got a B.  So did Wisconsin.  Governor Moonbeam of California only got a "D", and considering how FUCKED UP California is you really have to question how bad all the "F" cards are, which include the Selected-not-Elected Governor of Washington, Christine Gregoire.

And just like other advice from Erskine Bowles..

....Obama is going to ignore this as well:  Bowles says Ryan Budget is "sensible, honest and serious".

Hell, Obama ignored the Simpson-Bowles budget panel, I see no reason why he's going to pay any attention to Bowles this time around.

One million workers less

This is what Socialism brings.  This is why Obama must be defeated.

Retirement?

Is retirement as we know it dead, as Insty links to? 

Personally I think that "retirement as we know it" never existed in the first place.  The idea that one day you could stop working, and then carry on your life as if you still had that same income stream hitting your bank account, has always struck me as foolish and not workable.  I mean, if you stop working, where's all that money come from?  Most pensions only paid out 50% of your previous income.  Social Security might give you 25% of what you were making, and I won't have Social Security when I retire, it'll be gone.  So tell me exactly where and how all these boomers were going to live out their dream of not working but spending money as if they had two incomes?  It couldn't happen, and it wasn't going to happen.  My father, who is one of the smartest investors I know of, could probably actually RETIRE-retire right now if he wanted to, but he's been investing on his own since the early Sixties and he doesn't rely on Social Security to pay his bills.  How many retirees can say the same?

My retirement is going to involve working somewhere, somehow, even if it's my own business.  I don't see myself able to quit working.  Ain't gonna happen. 

I think that "retirement as we know it" has always been a pipe dream.