Feb 20
Brian McNicoll, a columnist who follows the economic plight of the U.S. Postal Service, says the Service has lost money every year since 2007.
The U.S.P.S. has lost more than $51 billion since the [2008] downturn began.
The Service has not made a payment since 2011, and is more than $50 billion in arrears now.
McNicoll added that the U.S.P.S. does not expect to make its $5.8 billion payment for 2016 either. See here.
Feb 19
Rutgers University recently allowed a speaker on campus who disagreed with a handful of the big-government principles trumpeted by America’s government colleges.
Immediately, afterward, students were so traumatized that they openly cried and attended a group therapy session. Students described “feeling scared, hurt, and discriminated against.”
One student reported that he felt “scared to walk around campus the next day.”
Feb 14
Gail Marksjarvis of the Chicago Tribune reports that only 46 percent of banks are still offering free checking accounts to customers.
“That’s a major change from 2009, when more than 78 percent of banks offered the freebie.”
The reason: banks are facing higher costs due to the Dodd-Frank Act, passed in 2009. (Ironically, the Act was passed with the intention of “protecting consumers.”)
Before [Dodd-Frank], a $1 billion institution might have had one person working half-time to make sure government regulations were obeyed; now it’s four to five people.
Feb 13
Sea ice in the southern hemisphere is at THE HIGHEST LEVEL EVER MEASURED.
In the Northern Hemisphere, sea ice is currently at a 10-year high. According to Danish measurements, the Arctic sea ice pack has been increasing for five years and is now greater than it has been since 2005.
Feb 13
Socialism is a curse that should be wished only on one’s worst enemies. Any society that embraces it will eventually become sick and weak.
Venezuela was developing and prospering rapidly during the 1980s and ’90s. Then the country went hard-line socialist.
Venezuelans are accustomed to severe shortages of cooking oil, diapers and other staple products. But those hoping to buy what they could find got a new unpleasant surprise this week.
Now the Venezuelan government is rationing electricity. See here.
Feb 12
Libertarians have long identified NASA as among the most unnecessary of federal government programs and agencies.
It is axiomatic that the private sector could achieve NASA’s space-exploration goals far more cheaply and effectively than the agency does.
Now, NASA is wasting increasing segments of its budget on proving the government’s manmade-global-warming-by-CO2 theory.
See here for details.
Feb 12
Governments everywhere benefit from central (government) banking. Central banking allows governments to extend their alleged “benefits” without directly and immediately taxing their oppressed subjects. Essentially, governments are able to game a society’s cost/benefit analysis and appear more attractive.
But it is all a lie. Government deficit spending means that government currencies are constantly being debased.
Now, increasingly, government banks are setting “negative” interest rates: you pay the bank to keep your money, rather than the other way around. See here.
Feb 11
A pair of hapless bartenders are being criminally prosecuted for felonies. Their alleged crime? Transporting some Wisconsin craft beer into nearby Minnesota and offering it for sale at a Minnesota bar.
Feb 11
Scientists for BP (formerly British Petroleum) carefully analyzed carbon dioxide demands, needs, and outputs in the developing world. See above.
(The red line indicates the CO2 level desired by the dreamers at the 2015 Paris Climate conference; the designation OECD stands for “Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development,” or the industrialized, mostly-western countries. “Non-OECD” countries are generally developing countries.)
The BP scientists concluded that it is inevitable that developing societies will need fossil fuels in greater amounts in the future.
This demand will cause CO2 levels to increase steadily over the next generation. And no legal agreements or treaties are likely to alter this inevitable trajectory.
Feb 09
At least 375,000 retired Americans are now receiving their Social Security checks overseas. See here.
Many countries are now freer than the U.S., and their costs of living are much lower. While U.S. programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare have driven health care prices higher and higher, medical treatments of the highest quality can be found at low costs in foreign countries.
