statism

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Sends SWAT Team To Gun Down a Fawn

"The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources sent an armed SWAT team to kill a fawn in an animal shelter. People at the DNR know their jobs. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it. Nine DNR personnel. Four deputy sheriffs. When you need force, use it! These people earn their keep. They leave no stone unturned. They even used aerial reconnaisance to spot the fawn. This was a major case. At $200 a day, times 13 men, that’s $2,600. Plus it took days of planning. Maybe another $2,000. That was an expensive fawn." Continue reading →

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Population trends cloud Europe’s post-recession outlook

"Slowly but unsurely, Europe is facing up to population trends that will sap long-run economic growth. Some countries are getting an early taste of difficulties that await Europe as the continent's baby boomers retire and, because of flagging fertility rates, the average age of those left in the labour force rises. Spain, Portugal and Ireland all lost about 2 percent of their working-age adults between 2010 and the first quarter of 2013, raising the question of who pays for pensions and age-related health care costs in countries that are educating their youngsters only to see many of them emigrate and pay taxes elsewhere." Continue reading →

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Doubt Grows in Reforms of Rajoy Government in Spain

"The reorganization of Spain's financial sector is seen as the most important part of the reforms introduced by conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to overcome his country's economic and debt crises. But whether the plan will succeed remains uncertain, as real estate prices continue to slide amid continued concerns over the country's financial institutions. A corruption scandal surrounding Luis Bárcenas, the former treasurer of the governing People's Party party, is a reminder to Spaniards of how a group of political and economic elites has taken the country to the brink of ruin." Continue reading →

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Spain Weighs Home Demolitions as Wrecking Crews on Alert

"Demolition man Daniel Anka had a staff of 450 in Spain preparing for new developments before the property crash. With about a 10th of that workforce left, he’s now waiting for a call from the country’s bad bank so his trimmed-down crew can start knocking down half-built homes that aren’t worth completing. Anka may not have long to wait as Sareb, the unit holding soured real estate assets from Spain’s nationalized banks, orders work to stop on about 160 of the 650 partially-completed building projects on its books and decides which ones are worth completing." Continue reading →

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How Venezuelan Used ‘Scrape’ to Make Six Times Her Salary

"Venezuela’s currency controls are turning trips abroad into profitable junkets. A 27-year-old trade analyst from Caracas said she earned six times her monthly salary by traveling in April to Lima, where a business swiped her credit card and gave her $1,600 cash, charged at the official exchange rate of 6.3 bolivars per dollar. When the analyst, who requested anonymity because what she did is illegal, returned to Venezuela, she sold the dollars at the street rate of 29-to-1, enough to pocket 25,000 bolivars after paying off her credit card and travel expenses. The scheme, known as 'raspao' or 'big scrape,' is booming in Venezuela." Continue reading →

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Britain set to ban Google Glass for drivers

"Google Glass is the highest profile product in a wave of new wearable technologies, promising to display everything from restaurant reviews to directions and allow automated video and photos wherever we go. But a spokesman for the department told Stuff, a gadget magazine, that the device could distract drivers while they are behind the wheel, defining Glass as a similar distraction to a mobile phone. Since a ban on using mobile phones while driving was introduced in 2003, more than one million drivers have been convicted – typically issued with a £60 fixed penalty notice and three points on their driver’s licence." Continue reading →

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Surgical delays cost Canadians nearly $1 billion in lost time in 2012

"Long waits for surgery and medical treatment in 2012 cost Canadians more than $982 million in lost time and productivity, concludes a new report from the Fraser Institute. The study calculates that the average value of time lost during the work week was $1,129 for each of the estimated 870,462 patients waiting for surgery last year. Using data from the Fraser Institute’s annual survey of health care wait times (which found that Canadians waited 9.3 weeks, on average, from an appointment with a specialist to receiving treatment in 2012), the report estimates that patients across Canada waited a combined 10.6 million weeks for treatment last year." Continue reading →

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“Hurry Up and Die”: The Inescapable Outcome of Socialized Medicine

"Since the old generally require more — and more expensive — medical treatment than the young, the increasingly aged population is putting a severe strain on Tokyo’s health care budget. One Japanese politician, however, has come up with a solution: Just let the elderly die, instead of treating them. That is, in fact, what is already happening in Great Britain, a country that has suffered under socialized medicine for 65 years. There, under a program of sedation and dehydration called the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), National Health Service (NHS) hospitals euthanize about 130,000 people a year." Continue reading →

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10 Ways to Commit Nutritional Anarchy

"The most important thing we can do for our health right now is to learn about nature’s vitamins in preparation for the day that choosing our own supplements is against the law. For example, did you know that a cup of rose hip tea contains staggeringly high amounts of Vitamin C? Or that a cup of dandelion greens contains three times the RDA for Vitamin A? If nutrition becomes regulated by a bunch of bureaucrats who, at best, don’t really care about people, and at worst, hope to depopulate the globe, you must have the plans and weapons in place to live a life of nutritional anarchy." Continue reading →

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