Middle Class Dismissed

Is College A Scam?

"The system is broken, the middle class is disappearing, being carved through the middle by a trillion dollars in student loan debt, and everyone is still raising tuition faster than inflation. And 50% of kids with college degrees now are underemployed. And that one statistic that 'if you go to college you make a million dollars more' is totally flawed and I explained why using basic Statistics 101 knowledge. I talked about the girl who was practically naked while hula hooping so she could make debt payments from a tip jar. I spoke about the two kids who were now clerks in an eyeglass store getting paid by the hour, and they felt they were 'lucky' because their other friends did not have jobs." Continue reading →

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Student Loan Consequences: Real, Costly, and Personal

"Under the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) signed into law as part of ObamaCare in March of 2010, students may borrow money directly from the federal government regardless of their credit score or any other financial 'issues' they may be facing. They are not priced according to any 'individualized measure of risk' nor are there loan limits. They are instead politically determined by Congress with undergraduates receiving lower interest rates than graduate students, but graduate students allowed to borrow more than undergrads. This forced entry by the government into what was once a private market transaction has numerous consequences." Continue reading →

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The Three Types of Austerity

"Reading the financial press, one gets the impression there are only two sides to the austerity debate: pro-austerity and anti-austerity. In reality, we have three forms of austerity. There is the Keynesian-Krugman-Robert Reich form which promotes more government spending and higher taxes. There is the Angela Merkel form of less government spending and higher taxes, and there is the Austrian form of less spending and lower taxes. Of the three forms of austerity, only the third increases the size of the private sector relative to the public sector, frees up resources for private investment, and has actual evidence of success in boosting growth." Continue reading →

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Germany’s Green-Energy Disaster

"Even though green-energy programs are a disgusting boondoggle, American taxpayers and consumers should be thankful they’re not in Germany. Our programs may be wasteful and corrupt, but we’re amateurs compared to what’s happening on the other side of the Atlantic. As is so often the case with government intervention, the promises from politicians about low costs were a mirage. Perhaps the most shocking part of the story is that Germans are being forced to pay $26 billion in subsidies to get less than $4 billion of green energy." Continue reading →

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Obama Calls Income Gap ‘Wrong’ — After Widening It

"The Census Bureau's official measure of income inequality — called the Gini index — shows similar results. During the Bush years, the index was flat overall — finishing in 2008 exactly where it started in 2001. It's gone up each year since Obama has been president and now stands at all-time highs. It's worth underscoring that the growing income gap under Obama isn't the result of the rich getting fabulously richer. Nor is it any sort of indictment of 'trickle down' economics. Instead, it is the direct result of Obama's historically weak economic recovery, which has left the rest of the country falling behind while the wealthy have managed to make gains." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama Calls Income Gap ‘Wrong’ — After Widening It

With Three Weeks to Go, Nobody Knows What ObamaCare Will Cost.

"So far, 17 states have issued estimates. The exchanges are supposed to be ready for business on October 1. Coverage begins on January 1. Where are the missing 33 exchanges? The federal government must run them. The federal government is staying mute. With three weeks to go, there is no real understanding of what the costs will be for most premium payers. This is going to be an administrative disaster. It is a programming disaster. It is going to prove to millions of voters that the federal government does not know what it is doing. This will become evident on October 1, the day the new fiscal year begins." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWith Three Weeks to Go, Nobody Knows What ObamaCare Will Cost.

More Bad Consequences from Obamacare

"I am an insurance agent for the nation's largest multiple line insurance company. There are over 17,000 of us, all independent contractors with our own employees, who, like us, are not employed by the insurance company. On September 3rd, the company announced that it would terminate all Group Medical health insurance that our employees (who work for us, not the company) participate in, effective January 1st, 2014, citing the Affordable Care Act and its restrictive underwriting requirements." Continue reading →

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IRS Rule Leads Restaurants to Rethink Automatic Tips

"An updated tax rule is causing restaurants to rethink the practice of adding automatic tips to the tabs of large parties. Starting in January, the Internal Revenue Service will begin classifying those automatic gratuities as service charges—which it treats as regular wages, subject to payroll tax withholding—instead of tips, which restaurants leave up to the employees to report as income. The change would mean more paperwork and added costs for the restaurants—and a potential financial hit for waiters and waitresses who live on their tips but don't always report them fully." Continue reading →

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Jeffrey Tucker: How to Fake a Fast Food Strike

"There’s every indication that people outside the restaurants protesting didn’t actually work for the place they were protesting. It was a classic 'rent-a-mob' situation, and the rent was being paid by political activists whose agenda has nothing to do with helping the average burger flipper. These were mostly media stunts cooked up by the Service Employees International Union, which bused in these so-called workers as a fulfillment of a little charade and subsequent media blitz. The SEIU coordinates these protests with various professional worker groups and in conjunction with the press to make the biggest possible splash." Continue reading →

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McDonald’s Dollar Menu Is About To Become “The Dollar Menu & More”

"McDonald's Corp. says it has been testing higher priced versions of its famous value menu. The Dollar Menu & More that was tested has three price points -$1, $2 and $5 or 'shareable' items such as 20-piece McNuggets. Another version that was tested has prices of $1, $1.79 and $4.99. Earlier this year, Wendy’s revamped its 99-cent menu to a 'Right Price Right Size' menu, with prices ranging up to around $2. Sure looks like signs of price inflation, not deflation, to me." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMcDonald’s Dollar Menu Is About To Become “The Dollar Menu & More”