Will Bernanke be raising rates anytime soon? Sure doesn’t look like it.

After taking several small steps recently to take the financial system off life support, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear Wednesday that he wasn’t close to the more momentous act of raising interest rates, thus tightening credit.

In his semi-annual testimony to Congress on the economy and monetary policy, Mr. Bernanke said that short-term interest rates, now near zero, were likely to remain there for at least several more months.

He highlighted worries about what he called the “nascent recovery”—marked by high unemployment, wobbly real-estate markets, weak lending and large budget deficits. Mr. Bernanke said slack in the economy meant the benchmark federal-funds rate would remain near zero for an “extended period.”

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke will update Congress on monetary policy this morning. The question-and-answer session might prove illuminating, Kelly Evans reports on the News Hub.

via Bernanke: Low Rates Still Needed – WSJ.com.

OK, so if Americans tossed aside the assumptions that are programmed into them by the media and schools, they would ask, “How does Bernanke know when the rates need raised?” Well, the truth is he doesn’t.

Just think about this whole concept of central planning when it comes to interest rates. Interest rates are just the cost of money. It should be set by supply and demand just like the cost of any other product or service. So, what would have happened if Bernanke didn’t crank interest rates down to zero to fix the bubble the Fed just created and popped? Well, rates were high because the Fed raised them before the bubble burst, which ultimately popped the bubble. Now, let’s say the Fed disappeared off the face of the earth at that moment and the free market took over. Interest rates would have been high at the moment just like it was. When the interest rates are high people save instead of spend. If for instance you are looking to invest in a building and your return is 7% but interest rates are 6%, are you going to spend that money or save it? You are better off saving it than taking the risk for an additional 1% return.

Now, with an increase in savings and a decrease in borrowing, what would happen? What happens anytime supply (money in this case) increases and demand (borrowing in this case) decreases? The price (interest rates in this case) declines. As it declines, all the sudden that investment in a new building makes more sense, and at that point you will have real investment based on real economic conditions. The interest rate will actually mean something, and you will know that currently based on the interest rate there is ample supply of money in savings to be lent out to fund this project. The funding will not dry up at the whim of the Fed half way through the project.

Now the opposite is true as well. If too many people start borrowing instead of saving, the interest rate will increase. With less savings, supply (money) decreases. When supply decreases and demand increases or remains the same, what happens? Prices (interest rates) go up.

The market can handle money and interest rates based on real conditions. Instead, much like the Soviet economy, we have a central planner who has no clue what the real conditions are. Think about it. When the economy tanked, people should have stopped borrowing/spending and began saving. That would have lowered interest rates and got investments back on track after savings was back up to a sustainable level. Instead, the Fed dropped interest rates to the floor (actually negative real interest rates), which discourages savings. Is it any wonder our economy seems to have booms and busts? Businesses decide to invest assuming that there is ample supply of money. The problem is there was no real savings, because the Fed’s zero percent interest rates discouraged savings. Then some point in their project, the Fed decides they want to raise interest rates, and funding for that project dries up. This is not based on real market conditions, but because the Fed said so. Now this business lost it’s investment, which can ultimately lead to bankruptcy, laying off employees, etc.

Hopefully this makes sense. I’m not an economist, but sometimes I play one on this blog and not a very good one.

When will we learn that government cannot create jobs? All that needs to happen is for the government to go home and leave us alone. We’ll create jobs. Now, the Senate passes another jobs bill that we have to borrow money to pay for. How idiotic is this? When has borrowing money ever made a nation or a person richer?

The Senate voted to advance a $15 billion job-creation package Monday, showing a rare hint of bipartisanship as five Republicans voted to end debate on the Democratic bill, including newly elected Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts.

via Senate Advances Jobs Bill – WSJ.com.

Thanks Scott Brown! Some conservative, although who didn’t see that coming. Are Republicans still going to talk about this idiot as a Presidential candidate?

When Democrats want welfare programs and Republicans want wars, ultimately the bill comes due. When asked how they are going to pay for them, they always default to their standard line, “We’re going to tax the rich.” Well, the rich are not that stupid to pay for other people’s free lunch. How do they avoid paying? Well, let’s look at how we are going to pay off the debt we have accumulated with all the government spending.

As the White House tried one more time Thursday to galvanize support from a recalcitrant Congress for a deficit commission to tackle the nation’s dangerously bloated debt, fears are growing that the United States will once again resort to printing money and ginning up inflation to resolve its debt problem.

While accelerating the printing presses could do irreversible damage to the dollar’s international reputation and the U.S. economy, history suggests that this is the way Washington will go to avoid the political pain of having to raise taxes and cut spending on popular programs such as Social Security, defense and Medicare.

Some notable economists argue that such a move would avert a debt crisis like the one confronting Greece and other European countries that have been unable to reduce spending because of strong public resistance.

Political leaders and the Federal Reserve, which is charged with printing and circulating U.S. dollars, strenuously deny that they have any intent to “inflate” out of the debt.

Nevertheless, a sign emerged this week that the prospect is increasingly becoming an issue in internal Fed deliberations.

The Fed’s most strident inflation fighter, Thomas Hoenig, president of the Fed’s Kansas City reserve bank, warned on Tuesday that “short-term political pressures” are prompting Congress to take a risky gamble by continuing to borrow at unsustainable rates rather than address the deficit problem and he expects political leaders to be “knocking at the Fed’s door” to demand that it print money to pay for the debt.

This path “inevitably leads to financial crisis,” Mr. Hoenig said, while the inflation it would spawn would threaten American living standards and destroy the independence and credibility of the Fed, whose most important job is to prevent inflation.

That’s right. How do you rob the middle class without most of them knowing you are taxing them to pay for government? You devalue the money they have. Think this isn’t a tax on the middle class? Well, prices will effect he poor as well, but they get inflation adjusted government benefits anyway. How about the rich? Well, the rich own assets, which go up with inflation. Rich people aren’t sitting around swimming through their devaluing dollars like Scrooge McDuck. They own real estate, businesses, etc. Real estate prices go up with inflation. Businesses will charge more for their products and services, so their value will go up with inflation. Now, how about the middle class? The middle class will be the ones paying this tax. Their pay will not adjust before prices increase, so their pay will be eroded and they will afford less goods and services.

Keynesians, the ruling economists of our government, believes that in a recession wages will not decrease enough to help with improving the economy. They believe this to be the case, because workers are unwilling to take less pay. I can tell you from real world experience this is not the case. Many workers have taken one or more pay cuts in our current recession to help their companies and to remain employed. The Keynesians though argue that because workers won’t take pay cuts, you must lower their pay without them knowing it. How do they do it? They devalue their pay with inflation. Just more of the government trying to manipulate the economy at our expense.

But despite some resistance and wariness at the Fed, a growing number of Wall Street gurus expect the U.S. to adopt at least an unofficial policy of growing or “inflating” out of the debt in light of Congress’ unwillingness to tackle budget deficits running at more than $1 trillion for the foreseeable future.

“Inflation was the largest factor behind debt reduction” after World War II, he said. “Growth was the second-largest factor,” with Congress making only a small contribution through modest budget restraint. The behind-the-scenes role of the Federal Reserve in accommodating faster growth and inflation through faster money creation was critical, he added

I guess this is supposed to be an example of us doing this in the past, so you should just say, “Oh, OK. If it worked then, then I guess we can do it now.” This is a horrible example though. One, we went into debt to fight the largest war the world has ever known. Currently our debt is largely frivolous spending, with more spending in the pipeline. Second, we had tremendous growth after the horrible policies of FDR were removed from the economy after the war. Imagine how fast you would be able to run, after throwing another person off your back. That is what happened to the economy. The rationing and price controls implemented during the new deal and the war, shackled the economy. When they were removed, the economy boomed. Do you see that happening now? Of course not, it will take much more inflation than it did after the war.

“The independence of the Fed is extraordinarily important. If the Congress or the administration were to begin to interfere with our monetary policy decisions, then the markets would say, wait a minute, there’s going to be more inflation because of political reasons, more inflation because the government wants the Fed to spend money in order to pay for the deficit.”

Independent my ass. The Fed was created by the congress, which means ultimately the congress can pressure them to do what they like. Watch Bernanke testify before congress, and see how often he mentions what congress tasked the Fed to do. The congress could easily change what they task them to do. There is no such thing as independence when one party has a gun.

But some analysts say the Fed undermined its own case last year by instituting programs that had the effect of helping to underwrite the Treasury’s debts.

The Fed printed money to purchase $200 billion of Treasury bonds last year in an effort to keep interest rates low and nurture an economic recovery. The rationale was that interest rates paid by consumers and businesses are linked to Treasury rates. But Fed officials ended the program in the fall, partly out of concern that it gave the appearance that the central bank was printing money to help underwrite the national debt.

Some respected economists have openly advocated an inflation strategy for reducing the debt. Kenneth Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, has suggested a 4 percent to 6 percent inflation target for the Fed to help deal with the debt.

via Induced inflation feared as way to cut debt – Washington Times.

How many people have are getting 4 to 6 percent raises every year just to keep their same purchasing power. Of course, what this number really is is disputable. The Fed uses the Core CPI with energy, food, and housing excluded. It just so happens those are the areas where most of your money goes.

“What? No, No, there’s no inflation here. Look! The CPI says so. Nothing here to see. Get back to work. You’ll need to get some extra hours in.”

I don’t think I’ve shaken my head as much reading an article as I have reading this Wall Street Journal article. I literally almost had to stop reading, thinking of all the busybodies who think their big ideas should be imposed through “incentives” and ultimately at gun point.

This spring, city contractors will fan out across this well-to-do college town to unscrew light bulbs in thousands of homes and replace them with more energy-efficient models, at taxpayer expense.

City officials never dreamed they’d have to play nanny when they set out in 2006 to make Boulder a role model in the fight against global warming. The cause seemed like a natural fit in a place where residents tend to be politically liberal and passionate about the great outdoors.

Instead, as Congress considers how to encourage Americans to conserve more energy, Boulder stands as a cautionary tale about the limits of good intentions.

Lol, “City officials never dreamed they’d have to play nanny….”. Isn’t setting out to be a role model being a nanny in the first place? You are trying to force all your citizens to abide by some vision that they would not have otherwise chosen for themselves.

Also, I’d love to know what the carbon footprint of all these city contractors fanning out to unscrew light bulbs is compared to the light bulbs they are unscrewing. If it’s like any other liberal idea, it’s probably worse.

“What we’ve found is that for the vast majority of people, it’s exceedingly difficult to get them to do much of anything,” says Kevin Doran, a senior research fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder. ….

But Boulder has found that financial incentives and an intense publicity campaign aren’t enough to spur most homeowners to action, even in a city so environmentally conscious that the college football stadium won’t sell potato chips because the packaging isn’t recyclable.

Can someone tell Mr. Doran that free people will do what is in their best interest based on what they believe is in their best interest. The government doesn’t need to “get them to do” anything.

You have to love the logic here. I can just see the bureaucrats now, “How can we not get our vision implemented? I mean I told the vendors we can’t sell potato chips because of the packaging. You would think with people accepting that, they would open their wallets and doors up to contractors so we can be a role model. Now how are we going to get ourselves on the news and get Obama to talk about us?”

Since 2006, Boulder has subsidized about 750 home energy audits. Even after the subsidy, the audits cost each homeowner up to $200, so only the most committed signed up. Still, follow-up surveys found half didn’t implement even the simplest recommendations, despite incentives such as discounts on energy-efficient bulbs and rebates for attic insulation.

About 75 businesses got free audits; they made so few changes that they collectively saved just one-fifth of the energy auditors estimated they were wasting.

Hey, you didn’t waste enough money yet. Let’s waste some more. How about we give free light bulbs and labor to change them at tax payer expense. Then when we followup and we find that people bought cheaper, less efficient bulbs to replace our free bulbs, we’ll sit around and postulate how we can force them to buy only our green bulbs. Maybe you can have a green inspector stop buy once a month to check!

“We still have a long way to go,” says Paul Sheldon, a consultant who advises the city on conservation. Residents “should be driving high-efficiency vehicles, and they’re not. They should be carpooling, and they’re not.” And yes, he adds, they should be changing their own light bulbs—and they’re not.

Eh boy. Paul Sheldon must have been endowed by our creator to decide what we all should be doing. Darn idiots in Boulder should listen to Paul Sheldon. I’m sure he has a degree in government planning or at least saw “An Inconvenient Truth”.

In 2006, Boulder voters approved the nation’s first “carbon tax,” now $21 a year per household, to fund energy-conservation programs. The city took out print ads, bought radio time, sent email alerts and promoted the campaign in city newsletters.

But Boulder’s carbon emissions edged down less than 1% from 2006 through 2008, the most recent data available.

By the end of 2008, emissions here were 27% higher than 1990 levels. That’s a worse showing than the U.S. as a whole, where emissions rose 15% during that period, according to the Department of Energy.

More proof of Quinn’s first law, that liberalism always generates the exact opposite of it’s stated intent. While Quinn says liberalism, I think you can pretty much apply it to all government action. After wasting all that money, they did worse than the rest of the US.

In Freakonomics, the author talks about how parents were routinely a little late picking their kids up from a day care. In order to discourage this, the day care implemented a small fine (forget the exact amount). After the fine was implemented, tardiness by parents increased substantially. The moral of the story was that parents assumed by paying the fine, they were paying for the service, so they did not see a problem with being late. This is probably the same thing in Boulder. In pursuit of being a role model and being the first to tax their citizens for living (carbon tax), their citizens probably assumed that because they were paying their tax, they were already doing their part. Why change your behavior. By the looks of it, they even increased their carbon output assuming they were offsetting it with their carbon tax.

OK, here it comes. Here comes the gun!

City officials are frustrated—and contemplating more forceful steps. (Here it is!)

The City Council will soon consider mandating (Here it is again!) energy-efficiency upgrades to many apartments and businesses. The proposals under review would be among the most aggressive in the nation, requiring up to $4,000 a rental unit in new appliances, windows and other improvements. Owners of commercial property could face far larger tabs.

The goal: to spur $650 million in private investment in efficiencies over the next three years. (Sounds so nice doesn’t it?)

“Everyone needs to do something,” says Councilman Matthew Appelbaum.

I’m not sure if I can make it through this post. Reading this article the second time is torture. Ok, I’ll keep going. So what is there solution?

In the program, dubbed “Two Techs in a Truck,” as many as 15 energy-efficiency teams will go door-to-door. They’ll ask home and business owners for permission to caulk windows, change bulbs and install low-flow showerheads and programmable thermostats—all at taxpayer expense. The techs will set up clothes racks in laundry rooms as a reminder to use the dryer less often. They’ll even pop into the garage and inflate tires to the optimum pressure for fuel efficiency.

If they spot the need for bigger projects, such as insulation or a new furnace, the techs will help homeowners make appointments and apply for rebates.

Really? They are going to have idiots going door to door intimidating people into doing what they want.  Ok, that’s enough. I can’t continue. Click over to the Wall Street Journal and read the rest if you can stomach it. There is nothing worse than a government idiot with an idea!

via Boulder Struggles With Energy Conservation – WSJ.com.

Back in December I posted an article from Tony Blankley, where he talks about how Eisenhower sunk the British Empire by trashing the pound. You can view it here. In it I said Obama going to China talking tough about their government reminded me of the old Eazy-E lyric, “you come talkin that trash, we’ll pull ya card”. Well, last night, I saw this post on the EconomicPolicyJournal. Sounds like that card may get pulled.

Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country boost defense spending, adjust People’s Liberation Army deployments, and possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of arms sales to Taiwan, reports Reuters.

Interviews with Major Generals Zhu Chenghu and Luo Yuan and Senior Colonel Ke Chunqiao appeared in Outlook Weekly, a Chinese-language magazine, published on Monday.

“Our retaliation should not be restricted to merely military matters, and we should adopt a strategic package of counter-punches covering politics, military affairs, diplomacy and economics to treat both the symptoms and root cause of this disease,” said Luo Yuan, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences.

“Just like two people rowing a boat, if the United States first throws the strokes into chaos, then so must we.”

Luo said Beijing could “attack by oblique means and stealthy feints” to make its point in Washington.

“For example, we could sanction them using economic means, such as dumping some U.S. government bonds,” Luo said

via EconomicPolicyJournal.com: Chinese Military Waving the Dump U.S. Bonds Threat..

Then, as I was creating this post, I stumbled across this Business Insider post.

It appears that this time China’s posturing is for real.

Following up on our earlier post that Chinese military officials want to “punish” America by selling Treasuries, Asia Times Online is reporting that an explicit directive by the Chinese government has notified reserve managers to sell all risky US assets, including asset backed and corporates, and just hold on to explicitly guaranteed Treasuries and Agency debt.

via The Dumping Begins: Chinese Reserve Managers Notified That Any Non-USG Guaranteed Securities Must Be Divested.

Still counting on that Obama recovery? No matter which party you are in, you can thank your leaders for sinking this ship. If this is just posturing, it should be a blaring warning. China could sink us any time. It’s time people wake up and quit letting the two parties distract us by pointing fingers at each other.

The other day I posted a blog about the free market providing roads, police and fire services. You can read it here. While on my way to work this morning, I got to thinking about the roads again. Where I live, we just got a couple feet of snow, and we have more coming today. It has been 4 days since the snow came, but I still had a heck of a time getting to work. Half the roads are still covered, and now the snow is packed down and turning to ice. I’m not talking about side roads here. I’m talking about the main roads.

So, this got me thinking. How would this be treated differently if the roads were private? Well, as far as technology, let’s just say everything is the same, which if roads were private all these years, there would be much more advanced technology. I am assuming the same technology, but there would be different incentives. If you own a road, and you earn income from tolls or some other mechanism that is pay for use, you would make sure those roads were quickly cleared. If they weren’t, you’d lose money. How would you charge a toll if no one can drive on your road? Your entire business model depends on people driving on your road. You would have to get the roads cleared quickly, or suffer huge losses.

Government on the other hand doesn’t really have any great incentive to get the roads cleared. Yeah, they get around to it, but what’s the rush. They may have angry constituents, but by the time election day rolls around, that’s water under the bridge. They need a reason to justify their expanding budgets, so they can’t ignore the issue completely. On the other hand, if they take longer to clean the roads, they can say they needed more help. Then they have more reason for bigger budgets and more employees.

Again, just some thoughts I had on my way into work. This is by no means meant to be a great argument for private roads. Most people can’t comprehend how the private sector could provide roads and then bill for them, so we just stick with the crappy government system where they use road bills to rob us blind and give handouts to their buddies and union supporters.

The Wall Street Journal has an article talking about how Ben Bernanke is going to layout his master plan on how to prevent inflation after printing trillions of dollars while at the same time not collapsing the economy. Sounds like a tight rope walk on an icy rope to me.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will begin this week to lay out a blueprint for a credit tightening, to be followed once the Fed decides the economy has recovered sufficiently.

The centerpiece will be a new tool Congress gave the central bank in October 2008: an interest rate the Fed pays banks on money they leave on reserve at the central bank. Known as “interest on excess reserves,” this rate is now 0.25%.

The Fed is still at least several months away from raising interest rates or beginning to drain the flood of money it poured into the financial system in 2008 and 2009. But looking ahead to when the economy is strong enough to warrant tightening credit, officials have been discussing for months which financial levers to pull, when to start and how best to communicate their intent.

When the Fed is ready to tap the brakes, it plans to raise the rate paid on excess reserves, according to Fed officials in interviews and recent speeches. The higher rate would entice banks to tie up money they otherwise might lend to customers or other banks. The Fed expects such a maneuver to pull up other key short-term rates, including the federal-funds rate at which banks lend to each other overnight—long the main tool for steering the economy.

In response to the worst financial crisis in decades, the Fed took extraordinary action to prevent an even deeper recession— pushing short-term interest rates to zero and printing trillions of dollars to lower long-term rates. Extricating itself from these actions will require both skill and luck: If the Fed moves too fast, it could provoke a new economic downturn; if it waits too long, it could unleash inflation, and if it moves clumsily it could unsettle markets in ways that disrupt the nascent economic recovery. Mr. Bernanke and his colleagues are attempting to explain—both to markets and the public—that the Fed has an exit strategy in the works in order to bolster confidence in its ability to steer the economy.

Couple questions, because I am not an economist. First, where does the money come from to pay this “interest on excess reserves”? I guess they just print it. So the answer to preventing inflation is to print money and pay banks with newly printed money to hold their reserves with the Fed. If what I understand of inflation is correct, it’s the printing of new money that is inflation, and higher prices is just a symptom of inflation. It sounds to me like all this does is create more inflation. Again, I’m not an economist, so I could be completely wrong on this. It sounds to me like someone taking ibuprofen when they have strep throat. You may have minimized the symptoms, but you still have strep throat that needs to be dealt with. (I had strep a month ago, so this was the best example I could think of.)

Second question is is it me or are the conspiracy of bankers controlling the world sounding more and more realistic. They screw up the whole country, and what is their punishment? They get bailouts dollar for dollar with no losses on their bad bets. Then they get paids to keep their share of newly printed money at the Fed. They get paid when they lend it out at 10 to 1, and if they screw up, guess who’s back to bailing them out.

Third question is more rhetorical. Based on the last paragraph, does anyone have “confidence in it’s ability to steer the economy”? This is the same Fed that steered the economy into its current crisis. They created a huge bubble because of their low interest rates, which they are now trying to cure with even lower interest rates. Now they tell us they have a master plan to get us out of printing trillions of dollars without massive inflation.

The nature of its exit from today’s unusually low interest rates will affect everything from mortgage rates and what companies pay on short-term borrowings to the rates savers earn. The timing and sequence of the steps are the subject of intense speculation in financial markets.

You have to just love the government. They blame the speculators when things aren’t going the way they claim they are supposed to go, and then they create all these areas of speculation. If the government would just let the free market work, speculators wouldn’t be sitting around trying to figure out what the government is going to do. I’m sure there are some out there who would pay good money to know before hand what they are going to do. Nah, that would never happen with our “trusted” officials.

Officials are warning investors and banks to prepare for surprises.

In January, Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said: “Interest rates are difficult to forecast in the most settled or normal times, and their path is especially uncertain in the current circumstances.”

The Fed is contemplating other innovative steps to manage some of the money it has pumped in, steps that officials say could come either slightly before or alongside a boost in the rate on reserves.

One is to encourage banks to tie up money at the Fed for a set period—preventing them from lending it—in what are called “term deposits.” Another is to lock up funds, and thus constrain the supply of credit in short-term lending markets, by borrowing against the Fed’s large portfolio of securities holdings, in trades known as “reverse repos.” When the Fed borrows from the markets, it effectively takes money out of circulation and replaces it with securities from its holdings.

via Fed to Outline Future Tightening Steps – WSJ.com.

Oh boy. The Fed is coming up with new tools. What’s the old saying, “when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. Sounds to me like they just got different hammers, and they are going to pound the same nail. The problem is we are the ones holding the nails, and I have a feeling we’re going to get our fingers smashed.

Our government, the same idiots liberals look to for health care and the same idiots neocons look to for protection from overseas boogeymen, has looted and spent our way into what is going to be the beginning of the end.

Last month, we noted that Social Security had delivered its worst performance in decades. Now, Allen Sloan warns investors at Yahoo Finance that the entire program has gone into the red — and will stay there. Get ready, Sloan says, for the mother of all bailouts:

Don’t look now. But even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for the Social Security system.

A report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that for the first time in 25 years, Social Security is taking in less in taxes than it is spending on benefits.

Instead of helping to finance the rest of the government, as it has done for decades, our nation’s biggest social program needs help from the Treasury to keep benefit checks from bouncing — in other words, a taxpayer bailout.

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » Social Security tipping over into the red.

So, how are these morons going to attemp to get us back to solvency? Will they have the guts to cut back social security or abolish it all together? (that was rhetorical) My guess is this will be the beginning of what Peter Schiff calls the coming currency crisis. They will attempt to print their way out of it, which will send the dollar falling, hurting those on social security and everyone as a whole.

Better stock up on food, cigarettes, and bullets. They’ll be great for bartering.

I found this article by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. by way of the EconomicPolicyJournal. It explains that our unemployment issues are not just a matter of animal spirits. It comes from government intervention in the free decisions of employers and those looking for jobs.

All this talk of unemployment is preposterous. Think of it. We live in a world with lots of imperfections, things that need to be done. It has always been so and always will be so. That means that there is work to be done, and therefore, always jobs. The problem of unemployment is a problem of disconnect between those who would work and those who would hire.

What is the disconnect? It comes down to affordability. Businesses right now can’t afford to hire new workers. They keep letting them go. Therefore, unemployment is high, in the double-digits, approaching 17% or more. Among black men, it is 25%. Among youth, it is 30% or higher. And the problem is spreading and will continue to spread so long as there are barriers to deal-making between hirers and workers.

Again, it is not a lack of work to be done. It is too expensive to pay for the work to be done. So ask yourself, what are those things that prevent deals from being made?

Let me list a few barriers:

• The high minimum wage that knocks out the first several rungs from the bottom of the ladder;
• The high payroll tax that robs employees and employers of resources;
• The laws that threaten firms with lawsuits should the employee be fired;
• The laws that established myriad conditions for hiring beyond the market-based condition that matters: can he or she get the job done?;
• The unemployment subsidy in the form of phony insurance that pays people not to work;
• The high cost of business start-ups in the form of taxes and mandates;
• The mandated benefits that employers are forced to cough up for every new employee under certain conditions;
  
• The withholding tax that prevents employers and employees from making their own deals;
• The age restrictions that treat everyone under the age of 16 as useless;
• The social security and income taxes that together devour nearly half of contract income;
• The labor union laws that permit thugs to loot a firm and keep out workers who would love a chance to offer their wares for less.
  

Now, that’s just a few of the interventions. But if they were eliminated today, and it would only take one act of Congress to do so, the unemployment rate would collapse very quickly. Everyone who wanted a job would get one.

Read the Full Article at http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/fix-jobs-problem140.html

Definitely click on the full article above. The rest of the article is as good as what’s above.

Think about it just on a very small scale. You don’t even have to take it to the extent of long term employment. Imagine if you are cutting your lawn. You look over, and you see your neighbor is replacing his roof. You yell over “Hey Jim. What are you doing home today?” He replies, “I got laid off last week.” You, “I didn’t know you knew how to replace a roof. Where does a computer engineer learn how to work on roofs?’ Jim replies, “I used to work on roofs during summers while in school. Speaking of, it looks like your roof is about due.” You, “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to get it done, but since they cut back my hours I haven’t been able to afford it. I can’t believe how much they charge for roofing.” Jim, “Yeah, there is a lot of money in roofing. I’d probably be better off it I stuck with roofing instead of computers. It’s been a bumpy ride.” You, “Jim, maybe we can help each other. Since I can’t afford to hire a roofing company, and you just got laid off, maybe I could hire you to do my roof. What do you say?” Jim, “Sorry bud. Have you seen all the laws and regulations in the construction trade now. You need a contractor’s license. You have to buy all kinds of special equipment for OSHA. Trying to meet all those requirements for one job would make me more expensive than the guys you already can’t afford. It’s almost like they errected these barriers to prevent competition from guys like me.” You, “Well maybe no one needs to know. It’s not like we’re selling crack here. Maybe we just say you are helping me with my roof, and no one needs to know I’m paying you.” Jim, “Six months ago, I would have done that, but I personally know a guy who almost went to jail because he paid people cash to work on his house. The IRS, damn gustapo, and the problem is you’d have to pay me cash if no one was going to know about it. It’s not worth the risk. I’ll just keep collecting my unemployment check, and hopefully I’ll find another job.”

So here you are. You need work done, which  you can’t afford because your hours have been cut back. Your neighbor needs work, but the two of you can’t come to an agreement because the tyrannical government we have puts a road block between every avenue of negotiation you attempt. Still think this is a Free Market?

This is from a lecture Tom Woods gave about his book, Meltdown. Tom is an awesome presenter and makes boring topics entertaining. By the end of the lecture, you will understand exactly who caused the mortgage meltdown, the financial crisis and our current recession.

This is a Youtube playlist, so the next part will automatically start. It’s a little over an hour for the full lecture.