The sincere friends of this world are as ship lights in the stormiest of nights.
Giotto di Bondone
Rant of the Day
Sam Bowman of the Adam Smith Institute:
UKIP’s line on immigration [pledge to bring UK net migration down to 50,000 people per year for employment] is intellectually and morally bankrupt. Despite what UKIP claims, immigration is good for virtually everyone in society, rich and poor alike. The evidence is clear that even low-skilled immigration only hurts low-skilled native wages temporarily, and does not affect the number of jobs available to natives at all. The reason for this is that immigrants demand services as well as supplying them: every job taken by an immigrant also means a new job will be created to supply him or her with their needs.
Opposing immigration is economically no different to 19th Century-style trade protectionism – the only difference is where the people we’re trading with are. Economists, left and right, agree that trade makes everyone richer, and immigration just allows us to trade with more people more often at home. One of the best things about the EU has been the guarantee of free movement between member states; to throw that away would be an economic catastrophe. If UKIP’s priority is to leave the EU, it is vital that they maintain open borders with the EU.
Immigrants are a huge boon to the welfare state. Because they are usually young and motivated to find work, they pay more in taxes overall than they cost the state in services. As Britain gets older, with more and more retirees to provide for with pensions and healthcare, we will need more immigrants to avoid a massive debt crisis by 2050. Far from being a cost to the state, immigrants may be the only way to fulfill our obligations to the older generation.Image of the Day
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| Via National Review |
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| Via Dollar Vigilante |
Civil Asset Forfeiture: An Experimental Economic Look
Perverse Laws Corrupt Otherwise Good Cops
Green Energy Scams By Corrupt Politicians and Crony Capitalists
Choose Life: British Soldier Met Disfigured Bosnian Boy
HT: LifeNews
USPS Wants To Become Your Government Peapod? Thumbs DOWN!
Before going to seminary. my maternal uncle used to handle grocery delivery for his dad's mom-and-pop grocery. But grocery delivery is a low margin business which, among other things, might require heavy investment in (say) refrigerated trucks:
“No one has cracked the nut of grocery home delivery in the U.S.,” wrote Paula Rosenblum, managing partner, RSR Research in a recent RetailWire online discussion. “The low margin nature of the business, coupled with the need for fuel-guzzling refrigerated vans and trucks, make it very hard to do — and that’s in ‘easy’ cities, which means relatively new homes, no five floor walk-ups or winding stairways.” Industry watchers have been skeptical about online grocery models. Other than the modest success of FreshDirect and Peapod, the segment has seen a string of generally failed ventures.Not to mention the USPS would be jumping into a field that already includes existing businesses, including Amazon which wants to be a one-stop shop for online shopping. Succeeding is this business would require considerable investment and logistics expertise, which the USPS does not possess: if it's running multi-billion dollar losses under protection of government monopoly, how does it succeed as a Johnny-come-lately where under the best of circumstances it might barely be profitable? ,It's not a panacea for the USPS' dying core business and sky-high personnel costs.
Political Potpourri
Barone suggests that the House could do better this year than in the last two elections, putting the GOP in its strong position since 1946 (246 seats). He thinks that Obama's sinking approval numbers, even in Big Blue states like California and New York, may reverse recent GOP losses in the states. There has been some political punditry suggesting that the Dems have shored up their position in the Senate due to heavy ad buys and stand an even chance of holding the Senate, but RCP shows a current +7 pickup. I think that results could be stronger than expected; for example, one recent poll suggesting that Durbin's lead in Illinois was in single-digits. New Hampshire, Michigan and North Carolina are within 5 points. Most think three are in the bag--Montana, West Virginia, and South Dakota. Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, Iowa, Colorado, and Alaska show the GOP in a strong, but not decisive position. It looks like the Dems' hopes of taking over Kentucky and Georgia are beginning to fade. The big surprise is Kansas, one of the reddest states in the nation where incumbent Roberts is fighting an uphill battle of his career against an independent and the Democrat has withdrawn. There are some GOP governors facing a stiff challenge, including Kansas and Pennsylvania. I thought Florida's Scott was gone a few months back, but he seems to have a shot at staving off Crist's comeback as a Democrat. It looks like Baker has a good shot at taking the Massachusetts governor's seat for the first time since Romney, and Rauner has a shot of uprooting IL Governor Quinn. I've published several comments to free market think tank Illinois Policy Institute's FB stream; I think Democratic Party mismanagement of the state and Chicago over the past decade is going to see blowback in this election, and Obama's coattails are, at best, diminishing.
Proposals
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Chip Bok via Reason |
Barry Manilow, "I Don't Want to Walk Without You"
