Category Archives: Economics

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, April 17, 2019: 

The International Red Cross (IRC) delivered 24 tons of medical supplies and 14 generators to Caracas’ airport bound for Venezuela’s hospitals on Tuesday. This was a de facto admission by Maduro’s socialist regime that it couldn’t provide even basic life-sustaining necessities for its people, the initial crack in Maduro’s facade of denial that his government is failing and a very public admission that, once again, socialism has failed to keep its promises of lifting people out of poverty.

Indeed, socialism has reduced what was once one of South America’s most prosperous countries to one filled with

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, March 29, 2019: 

When President Trump announced that he was inviting his presidential campaign’s economic advisor, Stephen Moore, to accept his nomination to fill a vacancy on the Fed’s Board of Governors last week, The New American suggested that it was likely that his sharp criticism of the Fed would become muted if and when he was confirmed.

Within days of that announcement, however, the powers that be decided that even his muted voice would not be welcome, and the knives came out. Those knives could very well signify the battle Moore is going to face during his confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate. Senator Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said that “Steve is a sunny optimist and a thoughtful economist [but his] nomination has thrown the card-carrying members of the Beltway establishment into a tizzy.… That says little about Steve … but a lot about central planners’ devotion to groupthink.”

Moore has repeatedly challenged that groupthink as the central bank continued to raise interest rates to head off what it perceived to be incipient inflation (i.e., price increases). Those price increases never materialized, but the Fed’s actions nevertheless slowed the economy and knocked 4,500 points off the Dow Jones Industrial Average late last year.

Moore was livid:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, March 18, 2019: 

The results of the survey on American CEO (chief executive officer) compensation released on Sunday by the Wall Street Journal aren’t likely to please progressives and socialists such as Bernie [Sanders] and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC).

The Journal looked at total compensation being paid to the CEOs of 132 of the 500 companies making up the S&P 500 Index and reported that it reached $12.4 million in 2018, up from $11.7 million a year earlier.

Much of the compensation was driven by improved corporate profits and strong stock market performance that enhanced the value of their stock options. The Journal also reported that not every CEO got a raise: “Pay fell for 47 [of them], or about a third … and more than 10% for 22 of them.”

This isn’t likely to impress socialists and social-justice warriors who will likely use the Journal’s results to focus on some kind of “parity” calculation: comparing CEO compensation to the average guy driving a truck or working a line in a factory. Expect outrage over the disparity, and legislation to “fix” the “inequity.”

How does one justify anyone making a million dollars a month?

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, March 18, 2019:

Every year the Wall Street Journal conducts a survey of top CEOs’ compensation packages. And every year progressives and socialists use the occasion to complain about injustice, inequality, and lack of parity with their workers.

This year the news is even worse for the likes of Bernie and AOC: now the median income of the 132 CEOs the Journal analyzed is a million dollars a month, an increase of 6.4 percent over last year. Expect to hear the whining from these two, among others, that the average worker driving a truck or working a line only saw his or her wages rise by three percent, and that therefore it’s unfair, unjust, etc., etc.

Let’s remember just how successful AOC and Bernie have been in running their own businesses. For example, take AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), the House freshman (woman) from the Bronx. Upon graduation from college in 2011 she took jobs as a bartender and waitress to help her mother (who was working as a house cleaner and a bus driver) pay the bills.

She started a business – Brook Avenue Express (BAP) – which published children’s books, but the business failed. New York State closed it down when it failed to file a tax return or pay its corporate taxes. As of March 2019, BAP still owes the state $1,870.36.

AOC now receives $174,000 a year as a member of the House of Representatives, plus benefits. Who’s to say that she’s worth that?

Or take Bernie Sanders. Politico took the time and trouble to explore his business background and then reported on what they found in 2015: He lived hand-to-mouth, stealing electricity from his landlord when he couldn’t pay his electric bill. From Politico:

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, March 13, 2019: 

The slapstick comedy the Punch and Judy show is loved by British audiences, many of whom pay the puppeteer to bring the show into their homes for parties and celebrations. Mr. Punch is abused by his wife Judy during brief sketches, with the audience cheering her on or warning Mr. Punch of what is coming.

On Monday, Mr. Trump was the master puppeteer, bringing his Punch and Judy show to millions in the guise of a serious discussion over government spending. He called it “A Budget for a Better America – Promises Kept. Taxpayers First.”

If his preliminary budget proposal was designed to bait Democrats, it worked.

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, March 12, 2019: 

In his preliminary budget proposal for Congress released on Monday, President Trump touted his accomplishments during his first two years in office — five million new jobs, five million off food stamps, lowest unemployment in 50 years, etc. — and then expressed, with breathtaking hubris, his plan: “[It] provides a clear roadmap for the Congress to bring Federal spending and debt under control. We must protect future generations from Washington’s habitual deficit spending.”

This was addressed to precisely those habitual spenders who are increasingly ignoring not only budgetary constraints but practical real-world concerns about massive deficits and a growing national debt.

Russell Vought, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), touted the plan as