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Ferguson-Police

Aug. 9, 2015: Police take cover behind a vehicle during a protest in Ferguson, Mo. The one-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson began with a march in his honor and ended with a protest that was interrupted by gunfire. (Photo: AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Since the protests first began in Ferguson, Missouri over the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, Americans’ support for police has grown. In December 2014, Americans overwhelmingly (67 percent) said that their local police are their protectors and gave them high ratings in appreciation of the job they do on a daily basis. Most also said that they believe deaths that involve policemen are usually the fault of the suspect, not the cop.

Now, likely due to the tactics employed by the Black Lives Matter movement–to be discussed further shortly–as well as recent attacks on police, Americans have an even more positive view of their local police and don’t consider their tactics out of line. While neither Rasmussen Reports, the firm that conducted the most recent survey, nor other pollsters specifically asked about the Black Lives Matter movement, the noticeable difference between the current and previous surveys is the increase in support for police among gentry, white liberals in suburban an urban areas.

In previous confidence in major U.S. institutions surveys conducted by Gallup, the data revealed that region–and surprisingly, to a lesser extent race–had an enormous impact on the respondent’s answer. For instance, Gallup typically found that blacks living in urban areas are significantly less likely than blacks in non-urban areas to say they are confident in the police. And the same is true for higher-income urban whites, which are associated with voters in the gentry liberal class who consequently make up the base of Vermont socialist senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Worth noting, considering the data, it probably would not be a wise idea for the BLM movement to continue to interrupt Sen. Sanders during campaign events, particularly with outrageous or even unhinged behavior, outbursts and tirades. Also worth noting, it would appear that Democratic fears about the tactics and political risk associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, are indeed warranted. While we typically hear about the importance of the minority vote in the Democratic coalition, the white gentry liberal bloc is often understated. As we saw in the 2014 elections, the Democratic Party cannot continue to lose their shrinking share of white voters much more.

A modest Republican improvement among affluent and middle class minority voters–taken together with a further erosion of Democratic support among whites–would smash right through the so-called Blue Wall in the Electoral College.

To be sure, events in Baltimore, New York and around the nation have no doubt contributed to the rally-to-police phenomena we are observing. For instance, In the wake of the Baltimore riots, polls found Americans not only continued to support police over activists, who were claiming rampant police brutality is a reality in the country, but support increased modestly. A Rasmussen Reports survey taken in late April 2015, just 25 percent of American adults said the Baltimore riots were sparked by legitimate grievances, while 63 percent said it was predominantly the result of criminal actions of opportunists taking advantage of a tragic situation.

Americans in their wisdom said that the destructive actions carried out shortly after the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old man who died while in police custody, would only serve to worsen the criminal justice situation in Baltimore City, Maryland. Consequently, the city of Baltimore is now experiencing the highest crimes rate in decades. Nevertheless, in March 2015, 70 percent of likely voters said the level of crime in low-income inner city communities was a bigger problem in America today than police discrimination against minorities. Further, 61 percent of all voters think the media overhypes incidents in which blacks are shot by white police officers, and a slightly higher 63 percent say this coverage is putting police officers in harms way.

The latest “Support Local Police” survey of 1,000 American Adults was conducted on August 11-12, 2015 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

New polling suggest the Black Lives Matter

Economy, Markets

NYSE-Markets-Reuters

Traders on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with Barclays, etc. (Photo: Reuters)

Wall Street closed slightly higher Friday as markets modestly bounced back from a tumultuous start this week amid investors’ worries about China.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) closed out the day 69 points up, or 0.4 percent at 17477. The S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) inched up 8 points, or 0.39 percent to 2091, while the Nasdaq Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) gained 14 points, or 0.29 percent to 5048.

While China’s economic slowdown continues to top the list of Wall Street’s streets concerns, domestic investors had their own mixed economic data sets to digest.

The Labor Department said Friday the Producer Price Index (PPI) showed wholesale inflation increased by 0.2 percent in July, beating median forecasts for a 0.1 percent gain. Excluding the volatile food and energy components, prices increased 0.3 percent, also slightly exceeding economists’ expectations for a 0.1 percent gain. The report comes as investors in the U.S. and around the world await the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting next month.

“With today’s PPI…and crude oil falling near $5 since the start of the month, lack of inflation may be the Fed’s best argument to postpone hiking interest rates,” Larry Shover, chief investment officer at Solutions Funds Group said. “Over the past six months, market expectations for future Fed rate increase have been lowered by approximately 25 basis points across the Fed funds curve.”

Most expect the Federal Reserve to begin hiking short-term interest rates. But without continuously positive economic data, some on Wall Street question whether the Fed will move ahead in mid-September, as is expected. The University of Michigan said Friday their consumer sentiment gauge fell to 92.9 in August from a final reading of 93.1 in July, missing Wall Street expectations of 93.5.

“Consumer confidence was virtually unchanged in early August from the July reading, marking its highest nine month average since 2004. Renewed strength in personal finances largely offset slight declines in prospects for the national economy and buying conditions,” said Surveys of Consumers’ chief economist Richard Curtin. “The declines in prospects for the economy probably reflect the expected increases in interest rates, while the eventual but small impacts from falling commodity prices, the devaluation of the renminbi, and a weaker global economy have yet to occur (other than from declines in oil prices).”

Meanwhile, U.S. crude oil prices hovered near a six-and-a-half year low on Friday also fueled by worries about weakening global growth and China’s currency devaluation. U.S. prices experienced the longest losing streak since the beginning of the year, losing previous gains for seven weeks. U.S. crude closed 0.6 percent higher at $42.50 a barrel, while Brent, which serves as the international benchmark, shed 1.6 percent to $48.82.

Gold closed down 0.26 percent to $1,112 a troy ounce, while copper declined 0.17 percent to $2.35 a pound.

Wall Street closed slightly higher Friday as

Policy

Pope-Francis-Argentina

Pope Francis drinks mate, an Argentinian drink, during his weekly general audience at St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, June 18, 2014. (Photo: AP)

What’s the greatest economic tragedy in modern history? The obvious answer is communism, which produced tens of millions of needless deaths and untold misery for ordinary people. Just compare living standards in North Korea and South Korea, or Chile and Cuba.

But if there was a second-place prize for the world’s biggest economic failure, Argentina would be a strong contender. Here’s one fact that tells you everything you need to know. In 1946, when Juan Perón came to power, Argentina was one of the 10-richest nations in the world. Economic policy certainly wasn’t perfect, but government wasn’t overly large are markets generally were allowed to function. Combined with an abundance of natural resources, that enabled considerable prosperity.

Argentina-GDP-Chart-Maddison-Project

But Perón decided to conduct an experiment in statism. Here’s how Wikipedia describes his economic policy.

Campaigning among workers with promises of land, higher wages, and social security, he won a decisive victory in the 1946 presidential elections. Under Perón, the number of unionized workers expanded as he helped to establish the powerful General Confederation of Labor.Perón turned Argentina into a corporatist country in which powerful organized interest groups negotiated for positions and resources. …The state’s role in the economy increased, reflected in the increase in state-owned property, interventionism (including control of rents and prices) and higher levels of public inversion, mainly financed by the inflationary tax. The expansive macroeconomic policy, which aimed at the redistribution of wealth and the increase of spending to finance populist policies, led to inflation. …Perón erected a system of almost complete protection against imports, largely cutting off Argentina from the international market. In 1947, he announced his first Five-Year Plan based on growth of nationalized industries.

So were these policies successful? Not exactly. In an article published last year, The Economist wrote about Argentina’s sad decline.

…its standing as one of the world’s most vibrant economies is a distant memory… Its income per head is now 43% of those same 16 rich economies… After the second world war, when the rich world began its slow return to free trade with the negotiation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1947, Argentina had become a more closed economy—and it kept moving in that direction under Perón. An institution to control foreign trade was created in 1946; an existing policy of import substitution deepened; the share of trade as a percentage of GDP continued to fall. …As the urban, working-class population swelled, so did the constituency susceptible to Perón’s promise to support industry and strengthen workers’ rights. There have been periods of liberalisation since, but interventionism retains its allure.

The bottom line is that Perón was a disaster for his nation. Not only did he sabotage Argentina’s economy, he also apparently undermined the social capital of the country by somehow convincing a big chunk of the population that “Peronism” is an alluring economic philosophy.

Sadly, Pope Francis appears to be one of those people.

Here are some excerpts from a column in the New York Times.

The Economist recently called Francis “the Peronist Pope,” referring to his known sympathies for Argentina’s three-time president, Juan Perón. In the 1940s and ’50s, the populist general upended Argentina’s class structure by championing the country’s downtrodden. …“Neither Marxists nor Capitalists. Peronists!” was the chant of Perón’s supporters. And it was borrowing from the church’s political thinking that enabled Perón to found his “Third Way.” …It comes naturally, then, to Francis, who became a priest in Argentina’s politically engaged church hierarchy, to adopt a populist political tone… He speaks directly to the region’s poor with a fire found in the “liberation theology” that inspired South America’s leftist revolutionaries of the 1970s. …“If you were to read one of the sermons of the first fathers of the church, from the second or third centuries, about how you should treat the poor, you’d say it was Maoist or Trotskyist,” he said in 2010, when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Pope Francis’ infatuation with statism is very unfortunate for a couple of reasons.

The obvious reason is that he is in a position of influence and he’s using that power to promote policies that will reduce prosperity. And poor people will be the biggest victims, as I explained in this BBC interview.

But there’s another problem with the Pope’s approach. Being charitable to the poor is supposed to be an act of free will, not the result of government coercion. Yet by making statements that – at the very least – are interpreted as supportive of a bigger welfare state, he’s taking free will out of the equation.

“Libertarian Jesus” would not approve.

[mybooktable book=”global-tax-revolution-the-rise-of-tax-competition-and-the-battle-to-defend-it” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]

The Economist recently called Pope Francis “the

Economy

consumer sentiment men shopping

Shoppers at Third Street Promenade outdoor shopping mall on August 17, 2012 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo: Reuters)

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey fell to 92.9 in August from a final reading of 93.1 in July, missing Wall Street expectations of 93.5.

“Consumer confidence was virtually unchanged in early August from the July reading, marking its highest nine month average since 2004. Renewed strength in personal finances largely offset slight declines in prospects for the national economy and buying conditions,” said Surveys of Consumers’ chief economist Richard Curtin. “The declines in prospects for the economy probably reflect the expected increases in interest rates, while the eventual but small impacts from falling commodity prices, the devaluation of the renminbi, and a weaker global economy have yet to occur (other than from declines in oil prices).”

The survey is the preliminary — or first reading — for the month of August. In July, the gauge shed several points from its preliminary reading when the final reading was released. However, Curtin said the anticipation is modest growth regardless of the final reading.

“The most important offset to these concerns is that consumption expenditures can be expected to expand at an annual rate of 3.0 percent in 2015 and 2016, prompting continuing net gains in jobs and incomes,” Curtin added.

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey

Uncategorized

2016 Florida Republican Primary

99 Delegates: Winner-Take-All (March 15, 2016)

(Total delegates include 10 base at-large, 81 delegates for 27 congressional districts, 3 party and 5 bonus delegates.)

[election_2016_polls]

Polling Data

[wpdatatable id=22]

Latest 2016 Florida Republican primary polls and the PPD aggregate polling average for the Sunshine State. The Florida Republican primary on Tuesday March 15, 2016 is a winner-take-all contest, which awards all 99 delegates to the plurality or majority winner. All 99 of Florida’s delegates to the Republican National Convention are allocated in today’s Florida Presidential Primary. [Republican Party of Florida Rule 10 B. and D]

Though 3 party leaders–the National Committeeman, the National Committeewoman, and the chairman of the Florida’s Republican Party–will attend the convention, by virtue of their position, they are bound to the presidential contender receiving the greatest number of votes in the Florida Republican primary statewide. However, National Convention Delegates are bound through the 3rd ballot unless the candidate withdraws or releases his/her delegates.

[ssbp]

2016 Florida Republican Primary 99 Delegates: Winner-Take-All (March 15, 2016) (Total

Economy

Producer-Prices

Producer Price Index (PPI): A worker in a wholesale foods production and distribution warehouse.

The Labor Department said Friday the Producer Price Index (PPI) showed wholesale inflation ticked up 0.2 percent in July, beating forecasts for 0.1 percent. Excluding the volatile food and energy components, prices increased 0.3 percent, also slightly exceeding economists’ expectations for a 0.1 percent gain.

“In July, the increase in the final demand index can be traced to prices for final demand services, which climbed 0.4 percent. In contrast, the index for final demand goods edged down 0.1 percent,” the Labor Department report said. “Within intermediate demand, prices for processed goods moved down 0.2 percent, the index for unprocessed goods fell 2.9 percent, and prices for services advanced 0.2 percent.”

All eyes on Wall Street have been glued to inflation and wage growth data, as investors in the U.S. and around the world await the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting next month. Most expect the Federal Reserve to begin hiking short-term interest rates. But without continuously positive economic data, some on Wall Street question whether the Fed will move ahead in mid-September, as is expected.

“With today’s PPI…and crude oil falling near $5 since the start of the month, lack of inflation may be the Fed’s best argument to postpone hiking interest rates,” Larry Shover, chief investment officer at Solutions Funds Group said. “Over the past six months, market expectations for future Fed rate increase have been lowered by approximately 25 basis points across the Fed funds curve.”

The Labor Department said Friday the Producer

Video

Funny-or-Die-Little-Republicans

Little Republicans: Presidential Debate Highlights (Photo: Funny or Die)

Funny or Die mocked the first 2015 GOP debate in their skit “Little Republicans: Presidential Debate Highlights,” featuring child actors with real lines. The skit is with Magic Beans and Eric Wysocki.

[caption id="attachment_29035" align="aligncenter" width="740"] Little Republicans: Presidential

Politics

Marco-Rubio-debate

Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., during the first Republican presidential debate at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio on Thursday August 6, 2015. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times

Sen. Marco Rubio will pledge to invite political dissidents as would-be guests of honor at his inauguration in January 2017 if he is elected president. The Cuban-American from Florida plans to make the pledge during a speech Friday morning in New York City.

“I will make this pledge here and now: As president, as a symbol of solidarity between my administration and those who strive for freedom around the world, I will invite Cuban dissidents, Iranian dissidents, Chinese dissidents, and freedom fighters from around the world to be honored guests at my inauguration,” Rubio will say, according to excerpts provided to PPD.

The New York event sponsored by the Foreign Policy Initiative will kick off as Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to visit Havana for the raising of the American flag over the embassy. Rubio, who has threatened to defund the president’s normalization of relations with Cuba, has said the embassy would be temporary if he becomes president. The freshman senator with deep passions regarding the Castro regime, has been a staunch critic of the president’s policy, which he argues will do nothing but make Raul Castro richer while doing nothing to promote the human rights of Cubans.

“First, on day one, I will give the Castros a choice: either continue repressing your people and lose the diplomatic relations and benefits provided by President Obama, or carry out meaningful political and human rights reforms and receive increased U.S. trade, investment, and support,” Rubio is expected to say. “Second, I will restore Cuba to the state sponsor of terror list until it stops supporting designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, helping North Korea evade international sanctions, or harboring fugitives from American justice.”

“Third, I will do everything in my power to provide support to Cuba’s pro-democracy movement, promote greater access to uncensored information for the Cuban people, and deprive the Castro regime of the funding for its repressive security state.”

Cuba won’t be the only nation on the top of his list to address during the foreign policy speech Friday. Rubio plans to offer a three-point proposal regarding Iran.

“These deals demonstrate with jarring clarity how this administration has failed to anticipate impending crises, ignored the realities of the globalized economy, and sought to make America liked rather than respected; the way it has placed politics before policy, adversaries before allies, and legacy before leadership; the way it has confused weakness for restraint, concession for compromise, and – most simply of all – wrong for right,” he intends to day, drawing together the recent agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear development and the thawing of relations between the U.S. and Cuba.

Sen. Marco Rubio will pledge to invite

Economy

retail-sales-reuters

Shopper at a mall impacting consumer data and retail sales reporting. (Photo: Reuters)

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that retail sales rose 0.6 percent in July, slightly beating Wall Street’s expectations for a gain of 0.5 percent. Excluding the volatile auto component, sales rose 0.4 percent, matching the media forecast.

Wall Street investors digesting the data in the report are now expecting the Federal Reserve’s policy-making committee to hold to their initial views for a mid-September rate hike.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that retail

Policy

Jeb-Bush-Miami

Jeb Bush formally enters the 2016 Republican presidential race with a kickoff rally in Miami, Monday, June 15, 2015. (Photo: Reuters/Joe Skipper)

If you took a poll of Washington’s richest and most powerful people, you would probably find more than 90 percent of them support tax increases. At first glance, this doesn’t make sense. Why would a group of upper-income people want tax hikes? Are they self-loathing and guilt-ridden?

Perhaps, but there’s a better explanation. These are people whose lavish lifestyles are because of big government. And when government gets even bigger, they have more chances to obtain unearned wealth. So it makes perfect sense for them to support tax increases. They may send an additional 5 percent of their income to the IRS, but their income will be 20 percent higher because of all the money sloshing around Washington.

Once you understand their motivations, it’s easy to understand why Washington insiders are so supportive of “bipartisan budget deals” and why they salivate so much for a value-added tax. And you can also see why they’re so anxious to get a President who hasn’t signed the no-tax-hike pledge.

Which may explain why Jeremy Scott, the editor of Tax Notes, is upset that Governor Jeb Bush is now expressing opposition to tax hikes. Here’s some of what he wrote for Forbes, starting with a description of Bush’s original open-to-tax-hikes position.

Before announcing his candidacy, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said he wouldn’t agree to Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes, and he hinted that he would, in fact, trade $10 of spending cuts for $1 of tax increases. …he went out of his way earlier this year to talk about his flexibility on fiscal policy.

That part of Mr. Scott’s column is accurate. I also noticed Gov. Bush’s stance at the time, albeit it caused me to worry because politicians will never impose meaningful spending restraint and reform entitlements if they think tax increases are feasible. Anyhow, Scott then points out that Gov. Bush seems to have moved to an anti-tax hike position.

At an August 2 conference…, Bush flatly said no when asked if he would accept tax hikes as part of a budget deal. “We’ve raised taxes. What we need to be doing is entitlement reform, curbing the growth of spending, creating a high-growth scenario,” the former governor elaborated.

I’m not sure if what Bush said puts him firmly in the no-tax-hike camp, but it’s certainly true that his rhetoric has moved in the right direction.

Which doesn’t make Scott happy. And here’s where he veers from accurate reporting to sloppy and bizarre assertions.

If Jeb Bush needs to shore up his right flank on taxes, it reveals that the GOP has veered far from its positional flexibility that made the 1980s so successful for tax reform efforts. President Reagan was willing to accept tax increases as part of grand bargains on taxes and fiscal policy. …the GOP…won’t control 60 seats in the upper chamber. That means they will need at least some Democratic support. And no party will want to undertake tax reform without at least some bipartisanship. A Jeb Bush victory in 2016 seemed like the best-case scenario for people who want some kind of broad tax reform. His retreat on a willingness to compromise is a major blow to those hopes.

Wow, that’s a lot of misleading statements in a short excerpt.

Let’s correct some of Mr. Scott’s mistakes.

  1. The 1986 Tax Reform Act was revenue neutral. In other words, it was designed so that the government didn’t get any additional money. Scott is completely wrong to assert that a willingness to raise taxes is a prerequisite for tax reform.
  2. Scott is correct that Reagan acquiesced to some tax increases, but he conveniently fails to share the data showing that “grand bargains” with tax hikes invariably failed to produce good results. The only deal that led to a balanced budgetwas the 1997 agreement that lowered taxes.
  3. It is incorrect to assert that 60 votes are needed in the Senate to enact major fiscal legislation. Yes, the filibuster still exists, but budget rules explicitly allow “reconciliation” bills that don’t require supermajority support.
  4. A pro-tax hike candidate is only the “best-case scenario” if one thinks that voters should be tricked by using tax reform as a Trojan Horse for tax increases.

The final point is the one that really matters. To reiterate what I stated earlier, the Washington establishment is unified in its support of higher taxes for the obvious reason that more money flowing to Washington is good news for politicians, bureaucrats, consultants, lobbyists, cronyists, special interests, contractors, and other insiders. Simply stated, a bigger government means they get richer (and they’ve been quite successful, as you can see from this depressing map).

Here’s the bottom line.

Using the term “grand bargain” also doesn’t change the fact that higher taxes will lead to weaker growth, more spending, and larger deficits. And (mis)using the term “tax reform” doesn’t change the fact that higher taxes will lead to weaker growth, more spending, and larger deficits. Nor does a reference to “flexibility” change the fact that higher taxes will lead to weaker growth, more spending, and larger deficits.

I could continue, but you get the point.

P.S. Let’s close by shifting to another topic. Many people express disbelief when I argue that politicians such as Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders are not socialists.

In my defense, I’m making a technical point about the economic definition of socialism, which means government ownership of the means of production. And the vast majority of American leftists don’t seem overly interested in having government steel companies, government banks, or government farms. They prefer instead to allow private ownership combined with high levels of taxation and regulation.

If you want to see a real socialist, look on the other side of the Atlantic, where the Labour Party appears poised to elect a complete loon as its leader. The U.K.-based Independent reports that Jeremy Corbyn favors “common ownership” of industry.

…the man who has set alight the leadership race says the party needs to reinstate a clear commitment to public ownership of industry in a move which would reverse one of the defining moments in Labour’s history. …Corbyn reveals that he wants to reinstate Clause Four, the hugely symbolic commitment to socialism scrapped under Tony Blair 20 years ago, in its original wording or a similar phrase that weds the Labour Party to public ownership of industry. …The old Clause Four stated that the party was committed to “common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange”

I can’t think of any Democrats who admit to favoring similar language for their party platform. Though I should acknowledge that we have a government-run rail company in America, a government-run postal service, a government-run retirement system, and a government-run air traffic control system, all of which would be better in the private sector. And I’m sure Obama, Sanders, and many other politicians would be opposed to privatization.

So, maybe the most accurate way of describing leftist politicians in America is to say that they’re redistributionists with a side order of socialism.

Examining whether former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush

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