Economics

Ron Paul On The Bubbles the Federal Reserve Is Creating

"Although many were up in arms when the Fed said it would buy $600 billion in government debt outright for the previous round, QE2, all seems quiet about the magnitude of QE3 because it doesn’t come with huge up-front total price tag. But by year’s end the Fed’s balance sheet could hit $4 trillion. With no recovery in sight, where’s all this money going? It is creating bubbles. Bubbles in the housing sector, the stock market, and government debt. The stock market has been hitting record highs for the past two months as investors seek to capitalize on the Fed’s easy money. As long as the Fed keeps the spigot open, nominal profits are there for the taking." Continue reading →

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Colleges In U.S. Offer Highest-Ever Discount to Entice Students

"Private nonprofit colleges are offering students tuition discounts of 45 percent, on average, in response to a changing financial environment that stems from the weak economic recovery. Price reductions, designed to boost attendance, were at an all-time high in 2012 and outpaced the rate during the recession, according to a study of 383 private-nonprofit four- year schools. The reduction in tuition revenue comes at a bad time for colleges, as the number of U.S. high-school graduates is expected to decline through the rest of the decade, according to a report released in January by the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education." Continue reading →

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The Obamacare Nightmare Will Officially Start October 1

"What's really going on here is a program that attempts to suck in the youth to pay for the healthcare of the elderly. It's insane. On top of that, the first year penalty for not buying insurance is small ($95), so most young will opt out, meaning the revenue to support the structure will have to come from massive premium hikes paid by those older who opt to stay in the system. There is no other way out if Obamacare goes into effect. Well, there is one way out. According to Emanuel: 'The president connects with young people, too, so he needs to use that bond and get out there to convince them to sign up for health insurance to help this central part of his legacy.'" Continue reading →

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Obamacare Putting Millions Of Part-Time Workers At Risk Of Seeing Cut Hours

"Ken Jacobs, chair of the labor center at UC Berkeley, told the Huffington Post that employers are not likely to force all full-time employees into part-time work due to factors that include additional administrative costs and productivity decreases. Instead, those at highest risk are workers in predominately low-wage industries that are right on the cusp of what is considered full-time work under the law. The industries with the highest concentration of Jacobs’ at-risk workers are restaurants, accommodation and building services. The 3.6 million workers who report that their 'work hours vary' could have their hours jeopardized as well, according to the study." Continue reading →

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Policy battle rages in China as slowdown feeds ‘sense of crisis’

"China's Caixin Magazine reports that there is a growing 'sense of crisis' not felt since the depths of the global banking crash in 2008-2009. The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) has assembled a team to 'protect economic growth' and pressure state companies to boost jobs at all costs. SASAC is the bastion of vested interests and controller of 115 state behemoths with assets above $6 trillion and lock on much of the economy. The move comes amid further signs that growth is faltering across all fronts. HSBC's gauge of Chinese services fell three points to 51.1 in April, the lowest in almost two years." Continue reading →

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Famous ‘Fantasy Island’ plane used to smuggle drugs into Oklahoma

"It was the centerpiece of the classic ’70s and early ’80s TV classic 'Fantasy Island.' But when the show was canceled, the plane went from 'famous' to 'notorious.' The production company unloaded the sea plane. It would later be used to smuggle drugs from Columbia into the United States. Years ago, OBN agents intercepted the aerial icon during a cocaine drop in S.E. Oklahoma. After years of secrecy, OBN revealed the unique drug bust on their Facebook page Monday morning." Continue reading →

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Cheating to Learn: How a UCLA professor gamed a game theory midterm

"Morally, of course, games can be tricky. Theory predicts that outcomes are often not to the betterment of the group or society. Nevertheless, this case had an interesting result. When the students got carte blanche to set the rules, altruism and cooperation won the day. How unlike a 'normal' test where all students are solitary competitors and teachers guard against any cheating! What my class showed was a very 'human' trait: the ability to align what is 'good for me' with what is 'good for all' within the evolutionary games of our choosing." Continue reading →

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Starting Salaries for New College Graduates

"According to a recent report on average starting salaries for the College Class of 2013 from the National Assocation of Colleges and Employers, the highest-paid major for this year’s college graduates are petroleum engineering majors, who are averaging starting salaries of $93,500. The overall average starting salary for all engineering graduates this year was $62,535, reports Mark Perry. Here's more data from the report." Continue reading →

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How To Make A Quick $1,944,000

"Buy a truckload of cigarettes in Virginia and sell them in New York. Yeah, it's illegal. But that's how much can be made from selling a tractor trailer's worth (that's 800 cases, each holding 600 packs of cigarettes) of low-tax Virginia cigarettes in high-tax New York, based on estimates from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. And that's exactly what criminals are doing. In 2011, more than 60% of all cigarettes sold in New York were smuggled in from another state, according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank. That's up from about 36% in 2006." Continue reading →

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Publishing Atrocity: The 1963 Edition of Human Action

"This is the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most scurrilous incidents in academic publishing. The victim was Ludwig von Mises. The perpetrator was Yale University Press. This travesty was quite self-conscious. The editor knew exactly what he was doing. He was in control. Mises was not. This was how establishment liberalism worked in 1963. Today, ebooks, PDFs, and other technologies have broken the hold of traditional paper-based publishers. You can download the 1949 edition for free. But there was a time when they called the shots. Mises found out just how completely they called the shots at Yale University Press in 1963." Continue reading →

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