Land Of The Flea

New Rochelle sued by veterans group over Gadsden flag removal

"A veterans group is alleging in a federal lawsuit that the city violated its free-speech rights and the state’s Open Meetings Law. The lawsuit, filed July 26 in federal court in White Plains, seeks a court order permitting the association to fly the Gadsden flag and 'nominal and compensatory damages.' The yellow flag, featuring a coiled rattlesnake, was hoisted below the Stars and Stripes at the former city armory March 21. But the Democratic council majority decided to take it down about a week later, suggesting it was a Tea Party symbol." Continue reading →

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Employment Ratios: Total, Men, and Women

"Tyler Cowen and Scott Sumner are debating over the significance of the sharp decline in the employment ratio (which looks at what percentage of the working-age population is employed, and is a different indicator from the labor force which considers the percentage of those actively seeking employment). Although someone brought it up in his comments, Scott didn’t deal with what is clearly one of the huge drivers of the total ratio over the last 50 years: women entering the work force. When you decompose it by sex (red=women, green=men, blue=total), it sure does look like the economy is broken." Continue reading →

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Government Proposes in Effect to Put Itself in Charge of Apple Pricing

"This was actually an attempt by publishers to regain control over their e-book pricing from retailers, and ended when publishers signed consent decrees with the government. This should be the end of the story but instead the government now wants to appoint a monitor who will review all Apple pricing for the next ten years. No economy can thrive without an honest and unmanipulated price system, as the Soviet Union demonstrated so vividly by collapsing. Yet we are at a moment in which our government wants to control more and more prices throughout the economy, now even wanting to control a leading technology company’s prices for a decade." Continue reading →

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The Sad Unemployment Picture Now Compared to the 1982 Recession Recovery

"The chart below via John Taylor shows the change in the employment-to-population ratio—the percentage of working age population that is actually working--now compared with the end of the 1982 recession. The current increase in jobs is not enough to employ a greater fraction of the working population. Blame it on growing regulations businesses are forced to deal with, minimum wage laws and the confusion and unknown costs associated with Obamacare." Continue reading →

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Did Goldman Sachs Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

"A month after ace programmer Sergey Aleynikov left Goldman Sachs, he was arrested. Exactly what he’d done neither the F.B.I., which interrogated him, nor the jury, which convicted him a year later, seemed to understand. But Goldman had accused him of stealing computer code, and the 41-year-old father of three was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. Investigating Aleynikov’s case, Michael Lewis holds a second trial." Continue reading →

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JPMorgan’s Latest Guilt-Free Payoff

"There was that awful phrase again, in JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s settlement with U.S. energy regulators: The company 'neither admits nor denies the violations.' The $410 million pact between JPMorgan and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission doesn't do much good for the rest of us. For years the Securities and Exchange Commission has been the agency that gets the most criticism for these sorts of 'no-admit' settlements. The SEC has long defended their use by pointing, in part, to the many federal agencies that routinely do the same thing. The energy regulators just gave the SEC a new high-profile example." Continue reading →

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JPMorgan: $7 Billion In “Fines” In Just The Past Two Years

"While JPM's precarious balance sheet was no surprise to anyone (holding over $50 trillion in gross notional derivatives will make fragile fools of the best of us), what has become a bigger problem for Dimon is that slowly but surely JPM has not only become a bigger litigation magnet than Bank of America, but questions are now emerging if all of the firm's recent success wasn't merely due to crime. Crime of the kind that 'nobody accept or denies guilt' of course - i.e., completely victimless. Except for all the fines and settlements. Here is a summary of JPM's recent exorbitant and seemingly endless fines." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJPMorgan: $7 Billion In “Fines” In Just The Past Two Years

Oakland’s creepy new surveillance program

"The so-called Domain Awareness Center (DAC) would consolidate a vast network of surveillance data. The project was initially supposed to be about port security. But in a classic illustration of mission creep, the project as proposed would have pulled in over 1,000 cameras and sensors pointed at Oakland residents, including 700 cameras in Oakland schools. The DAC would enable the city to track individuals when they visit the abortion clinic, the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, or the union hall, or engage in other private activities. Disappointingly, and in the face of enormous opposition, the City Council voted on Tuesday to approve the DAC." Continue reading →

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Obamacare Full Frontal: Of 953,000 Jobs Created In 2013, 77%, Or 731,000 Are Part-Time

"When the payroll report was released last month, the world finally noticed what we had been saying for nearly three years: that the US was slowly being converted to a part-time worker society. This slow conversion accelerated drastically in the last few months, and especially in June, when part time jobs exploded higher by 360K while full time jobs dropped by 240K. In July we are sad to report that America's conversation to a part-time worker society is not 'tapering': according to the Household Survey, of the 266K jobs created, only 35% of jobs, or 92K, were full time. The rest were... not." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObamacare Full Frontal: Of 953,000 Jobs Created In 2013, 77%, Or 731,000 Are Part-Time

A Change in the Current

"More and more willingness to challenge the official story lines of enemies, wars, and terror is developing, even in Congress. The warmongers increasingly look like rabid and senseless extremists. The government has made a martyr of Manning, whose courage and endurance are extraordinary. The government has made a fool of itself internationally over Snowden. The critics of Snowden, increasingly shrill and extreme, cannot fend off the truth of vast government overreach. A switch is in the process of being thrown in which the Empire is going on the defensive. It remains to be seen whether this change in the current will become a turn in the tide." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingA Change in the Current