no third solution » Archive
Junk Bonds & Junkets
+++ I fixed the links +++ The two have a common thread here in Michigan… If it’s not bad enough that the Michigan state pension fund is dominated by junk bonds, (Ford, General Motors), now the State intends to spend (by my estimate) close to $3000 per person, to send a delegation of 80 people to fucking Hawaii for a week – while simultaneously pressing for a new business tax to replace the repealed SBT, cutting services and laying off police officers, cutting school funding – the list goes on… And now they’re spending a quarter of a million dollars on a week-long junket to Hawaii. Many attendees are rarely, if ever present at pension meetings – this is troubling, but not as Oakland County Commissioner Mike Rogers, who opted … Read entire article »
Filed under: Democracy is Great!, Michigan
On Social Insurance Programs
Any form of “social insurance,” whether it be flood insurance, universal health care, etc., represents what can only be properly described as a forced transference of risk from those unwilling and/or unable to retain or share that risk, to those who otherwise are willing to either retain or avoid that risk. The simplest case to make, perhaps is catastrophe insurance, which type of insurance is said to be privately uninsurable in general, because the potential losses accruing cannot be forecast accurately. That is to say, that in any given year, we may have a long-run average loss from floods, or hurricanes. Or we may have mega-catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina. Or we may have relatively few hurricanes, like 2006 saw. The expected losses cannot be calculated … Read entire article »
Filed under: Economic Fallacies, ponderings
Pessimistic Predictions on the Fate of the E.U.
The increasingly pessimistic – dare I say apocalyptic – Brussels Journal, (which frequently panders to European right-wing hyper-nationalism by exaggerating the Islamic threat, social identity, and other “end-is-nigh” hyperbole) still carries the occasional article worth reading. Today I came across a column written by a Briton who goes by “Archonix,” who is clearly unhappy with the European Union – a multi-national government that is essentially accountable to nobody: …I never voted for the creation of a supranational, unaccountable government that does not submit to the will of the people via an election. In fact, I did not vote at all. I have never had a say on whether I want my country — which no longer exists — to be a part of this. The EU has no mandate … Read entire article »
Filed under: Government is Slavery, World Politics