Tag Archives: private

The Economy is Booming. Why Should Anyone be Surprised?

Tuesday, 17 April 2018 05:31

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, April 13, 2018:

For a small fee, anyone can download the Harvard Business School’s case study on Apple, Inc. In a nutshell, Apple began in April, 1976 with three employees, no customers, and no revenues. Today it has 123,000 employees, millions of customers, and revenues approaching a quarter of a trillion dollars.

This confounds Keynesians who believe, steadfastly and in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that it is consumers who drive the economy. On just about every business news show on evening television, one can hear something like “consumers, which are responsible for 70 percent of the economy,…” etc., etc. How do they explain the growth of Apple?

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New Weekly Unemployment Claims Remain Below 300,000, Longest Streak Since 1967

Friday, 13 April 2018 05:29

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, April 12, 2018:

Unemployment claims fell last week to just 233,000, far below the historical average, cementing into place the longest streak below 300,000 jobless claims since 1967. A proxy for layoffs, those claims reflect not only an increasing reluctance on the part of employers to let their workers go, but an increasing need for them to bring more workers on in the face of an economic tsunami that’s just now starting to roll into the American economy.

This is just one of many indicators reflecting a growing economy, including an unemployment rate at 4.1 percent, the lowest level since 2000 (and expected to move much lower in the coming months) and employers adding to their payrolls for 90 straight months — the longest economic expansion in history.

Keynesian economists consider that consumers drive the economy, using their pay raises to drive spending on consumer goods and services. Common sense economics — aka Austrian School economics — claims that is putting the cart before the horse: It is capital investment that drives the economy, providing goods and services that consumers discover that they need and want and are willing to pay for.

The classic example is Apple’s iPhone, which

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Jobs Report for March Beats Forecasters, Again

Thursday, 05 April 2018 04:53

Private-sector employment jumped by 241,000 jobs in March, beating February’s numbers and forecasters once again. This is the fifth straight month that the U.S. economy has added 200,000 jobs or more, and is far ahead of the paltry jobs growth recorded last September — just 80,000 new jobs that month. Forecasters were expecting just 200,000 new jobs as they anticipated that demand by employers would exceed available supply.

According to ADP/Moody’s Analytics,

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Nearly 3,000 Venezuelans Leaving Their Country Every Day

Tuesday, 20 March 2018 04:51

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, March 19, 2018:

The increasing flood of Venezuelan refugees is putting so much pressure on neighboring countries that the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is calling for help. More than four million people have left Marxist Nicolas Maduro’s socialist “paradise” in just the last four years, and the numbers are increasing. They are finding temporary refuge in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Aruba, and Spain; however, those countries are being pushed to their limits.

The NRC stated that the “international community … must step up efforts immediately to provide much-needed protection and humanitarian assistance … a comprehensive and rapid response to food, education, documentation and health needs [is] vital throughout the region … [we are] requesting an immediate $2.5 million … particularly on the border areas between Colombia and Venezuela.”

But, as the NRC itself admits,

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When Firearms are Present, Shooters are Absent

Thursday, 08 March 2018 05:40

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, March 7, 2018:

John Lott being presented SAF's Journalist of ...

John Lott

John Lott, in his book, The War on Guns, gave his readers an astonishing statistic:

Since 2011, there have been only three mass public shootings in areas where concealed carry was allowed … these cases are very rare. From 1950-2010, not a single mass shooting occurred in an area where general civilians are allowed to carry guns.

Over the entire period from 1950 through February 2016, just over 1 percent of mass public shootings occurred in such places.

Put another way, according to Lott more than 98 percent of the time shooters choose places where their intended victims aren’t allowed to defend themselves with firearms!

Those shooters may be certifiably insane, but they aren’t stupid. Take, for example, Khalil Abu-Rayyan, an ISIS supporter who was planning an attack on one of the biggest churches in Detroit. According to Lott, Rayyan explained his choice of target this way:

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Pilots Are Armed, Why Not Teachers?

Tuesday, 27 February 2018 05:48

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, February 26, 2018:

Chad Robichaux, a former special agent with the U.S. Federal Air Marshall Service, has been here before. Objections to arming pilots following the Islamic terror attacks on September 11, 2001 were the same as those being raised against arming teachers. Said Robichaux on Breitbart News Tonight last Thursday: “Well, you trust them [pilots] flying your airplane. So now people are saying, ‘We can’t trust teachers with firearms.’ We trust them with our children!”

Robichaux worked with the Federal Air Marshall Service in developing and implementing the pilot training program launched following the 9/11 attacks and said that the present hostility toward arming teachers is the same that was voiced against the arming of pilots.

Prior to 9/11, airplanes were in essence “gun free” zones, an inviting target for terrorists:

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Trump Gives Clear Signal that He is a Christian

Saturday, 10 February 2018 06:44

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, February 9, 2018:

There is scarcely a newborn Christian who doesn’t know and rejoice in the Apostle Paul’s confirmation of his salvation in his letter to baby Christians living in Ephesus in the first century. It’s Ephesians Chapter 2, verses 8 through 10. First, the New International Version (NIV):

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Some consider the New Living Translation (NLT) to be a little more “user-friendly”:

God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this: it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.

When President Trump deliberately and intentionally inserted part of this into his speech on Thursday at the Prayer Breakfast attended by an estimated 3,000 evangelicals, he was sending a message: I am saved by the grace of God through faith.

Trump started off his speech by giving God the credit for His many blessings He has bestowed upon the American republic:

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Apple’s Repatriation of Its Profits: Talk About Stimulating the Economy!

Tuesday, 23 January 2018 06:28

English: Apple's headquarters at Infinite Loop...

Apple’s headquarters at Infinite Loop in Cupertino, California

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, January 22, 2018:

Embed from Getty Images

After paying the world’s largest tax bill – $38 billion – Apple, Inc., the world’s largest company by market capitalization and now the government’s largest taxpayer, will have $214 billion left over.

It is making plans for that $214 billion. In its announcement on Wednesday, the company said it would be making “a new set of investments to build on its commitment to support the American economy and its workforce, concentrated in three areas where Apple has had the greatest impact on job creation: direct employment by Apple, spending and investment with Apple’s domestic suppliers and manufacturers, and fueling the fast-growing app economy that Apple created with iPhone® and the App Store®.”

It added:

Apple is already responsible for creating and supporting over 2 million jobs across the United States, and expects to generate even more jobs as a result of the initiatives being announced today.

The numbers are almost incomprehensibly large. Apple generates worldwide revenues of $230 billion, making profits of nearly $50 billion. It employs 124,000 people worldwide, 84,000 of them in the U.S. It has independent contractual arrangements with another 1.6 app designers, to whom it paid $5 billion last year. It operates 500 retail stores worldwide.

Apple’s biggest problem is that

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Why do Anti-gun Politicians Continue to Push for Buyback Programs?

Thursday, 18 January 2018 06:58

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, January 17, 2018:

English: Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie

Former Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie

After all, they don’t work. They are fraudulent from the very beginning, implying that a government is merely buying back firearms from private citizens that it initially sold to them. But still the failed “experiments” in reducing gun violence continue.

They lack logic. Criminals seeking to rid themselves of an offending weapon aren’t likely to show up at a police station or other public place, relying on the promise that there will be “no questions asked.” Not when a much easier alternative exists: toss it into the river.

Studies showing their failure to reduce crime don’t impress anti-gun politicians. The first gun buy-back program in the United States happened in Baltimore, Maryland in 1974. It was considered a failure when, during the program’s two-month existence, gun violence and assaults actually increased.

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Walmart Voluntarily Raises Its Minimum Wage

Monday, 15 January 2018 07:07

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, January 12, 2018:

The world’s largest retailer, Walmart, announced on Thursday that it was voluntarily raising its minimum wage for new workers to $11 an hour starting next month. Included in the announcement were staged bonuses that will be paid to present workers based on their time with the company. Also included was a vast improvement in maternity benefits, with full-time hourly workers receiving 10 weeks of paid maternity leave and six weeks of paternal leave. Parents who adopt will get the same benefits plus a check from Walmart for $5,000 to help cover their adoption costs.

This is on top of the wage increases announced by the retailer in 2015 to be staged in over the next three years.

What’s notable is that this is taking place ahead of

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Aramco CEO Not Worried About American Frackers

Friday, 27 October 2017 07:31

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, October 26, 2017:

English: Headquarters of Aramco Services Company

Headquarters of Aramco Services Company

Saudi Aramco CEO Armin Nasser told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Sunday that he wasn’t at all worried about American frackers, since they are concentrating on “sweet spots” — the richest fields with the highest returns — which can’t last forever: “The concentration that we are seeing today [by American frackers] is on the sweet spot of shale, and this will not last forever. You can concentrate for some time on the sweet spots and produce more oil. But ultimately you need to venture downward, and that’s where you have less quality and you require more cost to produce these barrels. Shale oil will contribute additional barrels [to world crude oil supplies], but it will all depend on the price of crude.”

Nasser no doubt was referring to data released last week that showed

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China Forcing Private Businesses to Support Failing State-owned Enterprises

Thursday, 12 October 2017 05:28

China Unicom

China Unicom

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, October 11, 2017:

Embed from Getty Images

The latest report from Caixin/Markit should surprise no one watching China’s continuing economic decline. On Monday Caixin/Markit announced that its purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for China’s services sector fell in September to the lowest level since December 2015, and close to the lowest recorded since the survey began in 2005.

Its PMI for China’s manufacturing sector also fell in September, causing Zhengsheng Zhong, a director at CEBM Group, to add that these numbers “suggesting downward pressure on [China’s] economic growth may re-emerge in the fourth quarter.”

Indeed they might. As The New American and others have noted,

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Morris Dees is Using SPLC to Achieve His Goal: To Become “Independently Rich”

Wednesday, 06 September 2017 15:24

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, September 6, 2017:

the new center being build by the splc

The new center being build by the SPLC

From the very beginning, Dees wanted to get rich and it didn’t matter to him how. As his business partner Millard Fuller recalled: “Morris and I … shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money. We were not particular about how we did it, we just wanted to be independently rich.”

They started by direct marketing the sale of cookbooks and related items. But everything changed when they were able to purchase George McGovern’s mailing list of 700,000 names of liberals following his failed campaign for the presidency in 1972. They found that McGovern liberals were outraged over “southern poverty,” and with that outrage, coupled with Dees’ writing skills, they could rake in millions.

The breakthrough for them came in 1984 when Dees

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Anti-gun Researcher Frightened by How Many Guns Americans Own

Wednesday, 06 September 2017 05:51

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, September 5, 2017:

The virulently anti-gun group The Trace sent an e-mail blast to its members last week, alerting them to what it said was the danger of an overly and unnecessarily armed American citizenry:

Jennifer Mascia [a member of “TeamTrace”] pulled some numbers from the Small Arms Survey, which gauges gun stockpiles in the hands of civilians, law enforcement, and militaries around the world. She found that with an estimated 270 million firearms owned by everyday Americans, civilians own 70 times more weapons that all police and military services combined.

Mascia is an editorial assistant at the New York Times and was a regular contributor to its anti-gun column “The Gun Report” until it was shut down in 2014. Her source, the Small Arms Survey, is an international anti-gun group purporting to provide accurate statistics on all aspects of private gun ownership worldwide. Unfortunately, its reputation for accuracy has been tainted, with much of its reporting being challenged as “misleading or just plain wrong.”

In this instance, however, the numbers Mascia dug up from the outfit actually understated the “concerns” she expressed about how many firearms are owned by those “everyday Americans.” The real number isn’t 270 million — not even close — but is at least

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Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down Third Attempt by D.C. to Restrict Gun Ownership

Wednesday, 26 July 2017 05:05

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, July 25, 2017:

English: The flag of Washington, D.C. Česky: V...

The flag of Washington. D.C.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Tuesday 2-1 that the district’s third attempt to keep guns out of the hands of its citizens is unconstitutional. The matter has been festering since the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 in District of Columbia v. Heller that individuals have a right to possess a firearm. But that ruling left open the issue of whether that right extends beyond the individual’s home.

The District of Columbia has for 40 years fought to keep guns out of the hands of private citizens, claiming that the city was

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Moody’s Credit Downgrade of China First in Almost 30 Years

Friday, 26 May 2017 05:43

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, May 25, 2017:

China GDP

China GDP

Moody’s Investors Service, one of the big three credit-rating services in the country, downgraded China’s creditworthiness one full notch on Wednesday. It moved the world’s second-largest economy from Aa3 (“high quality [with] very low risk”) to A1 (Upper-medium grade [with] low credit risk”). It explained why:

The downgrade reflects Moody’s expectations that China’s financial strength will erode somewhat over the coming years, with economy-wide debt continuing to grow as potential growth slows.

That “potential growth” has been slowing since at least 2010. In that year Chinese government agencies reported growth in excess of 10 percent. By 2014, it had slowed to 7.3 percent, to 6.9 percent in 2015, and is now at a reported 6.7 percent.

Moody’s is late to the game.

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John Lott Proves His Premise is Correct Once Again

Saturday, 06 May 2017 05:33

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, May 5, 2017:

Embed from Getty Images

The premise of John Lott’s book, More Guns, Less Crime, now in its 3^rd edition, is this: when a criminal doesn’t know if his potential target is armed, he reconsiders. When he is assured that his target is defenseless, he has much less reason to do so.

Lott puts it this way:

Criminals as a group tend to behave rationally – when crime becomes more [risky], less crime is committed.

That means that

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John Lott: Half of All U.S. Murders Happen in Just Two Percent of Counties

Friday, 05 May 2017 05:17

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, May 4, 2017:

In 2014, the latest year for which sufficient data is available, half of all murders in the United States took place in just 63 U.S. counties — two percent of the 3,144 counties in the country. Two-thirds of all murders that year happened in 157 counties — five percent. On the other hand, according to John Lott, the author of the study by his Crime Prevention Research Center, more than half had no murders at all.

This disproportionality has skewed the statistics. Anti-gun politicians often use the United States’ overall violent crime rate as an excuse to impose more gun laws on the populace. But when the worst five percent of U.S. counties are removed from the equation, the nation’s overall murder rate of 4.4 per 100,000 people drops to 2.56.

Lott noted further in his study that

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Social Security Disability Fraud Hides the Biggest Fraud of All

Thursday, 13 April 2017 05:26

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, April 12, 2017:

English: Mug shot of Charles Ponzi (March 3, 1...

Mug shot of Charles Ponzi (March 3, 1882 – January 18, 1949).

The Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General reported in 2015 that nearly half of the nine million people receiving SSI (Supplemental Security Insurance) benefits were being overpaid, running up $17 billion in excess disbursements over the previous 10 years.

Such overpayments were just the beginning of the story. On Monday, a former Kentucky attorney pleaded guilty to filing more than 1,700 false SSI disability claims in a scheme that netted him millions in fees that he lavishly dished out to his co-conspirators: a Social Security administrative law judge and a psychologist, among others. In his plea bargain, former attorney Eric Conn fingered Judge David Daugherty (whom he said birthed the scheme originally) and Dr. Alfred Adkins.

The fees that Conn collected ran into the millions, while Social Security dished out some $550 million in benefits to beneficiaries who willingly participated, some of them saying later that they didn’t really know what was happening but were happy to pay Conn $200 in cash under the table for his “advice” and assurance that their claims would be approved.

The setup was simple:

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Walmart vs. Amazon: Battle of the Behemoths

Tuesday, 04 April 2017 05:35

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, April 3, 2017:

English: Walmart Home Office, the headquarters...

Walmart Home Office, the headquarters of Wal-Mart – Bentonville, Arkansas

In one corner is Amazon, the book-seller that Jeff Bezos founded in 1994 that is now the most valuable retailer in the United States as measured by market cap: $425 billion as of March 31. In the other corner is Walmart, the world’s largest retailer when measured by revenue – $485 billion in 2016.

Amazon’s path to the finals is littered with the bodies of its former competitors, some still twitching but whose death is certain: Sears, J.C. Penney, Abercrombie & Fitch, Macy’s, and Target. Walmart is determined not to be carrion in this epic battle.

Accordingly, Walmart has made some serious moves by

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