Productivity Matters More Than The Minimum Wage

As you may have heard, a bunch of fast food employees in various major cities have initiated a one day strike.  The strikers are calling for a raise of their wage up to $ 15 an hour, based on a 'study' that was released not too long ago showing the cost impacts to be minimal for major fast food franchises.  Naturally the fast food employees seized on this report and ran with it.

The Return of the Guild

The Captain has another insightful video on the continually growing credentialism that is bogging down our economy. What is happening in America is no less than the return of the guild. Guilds sought to maintain control of the materials, skills and markets for their tradesmen. A skilled individual would be forced, by threat of exclusion if he didn't comply, to a series of apprenticeships and promise to not act against his fellow guild members. This meant that the guild effectively controlled the price of goods and labor; a monopoly sometimes enforced by kingly decree.

Guilds were great for individuals that were members, especially if they were high in the order, since they were sheltered from competition and could command whatever rates the guild deemed acceptable. Individuals, regardless of their skill, had to undergo the tradesman journey; starting out as apprentices and moving up the ranks until they were masters or even grand masters.  This journey would take a long time, regardless of the skill of the individual in question. An individual would have to be a part of the guild if they wished to open a shop as capital was difficult to acquire, and often control by other guilds like the bankers guild that had a gentleman's agreement with the other guilds in the city.

The guilds policy of rent seeking, redistribution, anti-competitive practices, artificial price controls and other economic ills were pervasive throughout the medieval period; it should be no surprise to anyone, familiar with Austrian economics, that the decline of the guild system corresponded with an increase in economic productivity. The great liberal economists of the 18th and 19th century were highly critical of the guilds and by the middle of the 19th century they were a shadow of what they once were. Guilds should have been relegated to the dustbin of history but we are seeing a resurgence of the guild

But it isn't the watch maker, smithy, carpenter or many other skilled trades where we see reappearing. It is in the various organizations that advocate tests, certificates, and degrees. Once, in the not too distant past, an individual could learn an intellectual trade on the job, but now no longer. At first the requirements were simply bachelor’s degrees, but now masters have become more common, and PhD's may be the norm in the future. If degrees weren't enough, a legion of certifications, some of which didn't exist 15 years ago, are now required as well. Even jobs that shouldn't require anything, other than a person’s ability to hustle, now require certification, to sell a piece of property you need a license. It's absurd, and it is killing this economy.

The medieval period was a time when the guilds ruled the economic roost. It was a time of stagnant economies and inefficiencies and it shouldn't surprise anyone that as more and more jobs require certifications and degrees economic opportunity will continue to decrease.

China Owes America Money?!

A strange statement to make I know. Currently China holds over a trillion dollars in US debt securities and there has been a lot of hand wringing over that fact; personally I consider the trillions of dollars held by the FED and Social Security Trust to be a bigger issue. So when someone makes the claim that China owes the US a lot of money, it draws me interest. According to the daily caller, China may owe US investors billions of dollars and it may total over a trillion. 

First things first, I wasn't convinced that this was entirely true, but it looks like Fox news did pick up on the story and the American Bond Holders Foundation looks legit at first glance. Now the crux of this entire issue is that this debt was accrued from 1900 to 1938 by the Republic of China, a technically defunct organization if we considered the People's Republic of Taiwan as separate entity. However, there is precedent of new political entities assuming the debt obligations accrued prior to its existence, the Russian Federation assumed many of the debts of the defunct U.S.S.R. The issue is does the PRC owe the debt that was accrued prior to it coming into power?  China has been mum on the matter, not outright refuting it according to the articles I have read, but ignoring it as well.

I don't really have an opinion on the matter since I just stumbled onto it, but it is interesting nonetheless. Assuming this is entirely legitimate, jury is still out, and considering that there is extensive debt owed to the US, how would this play in the geopolitical and economic game going on between the two nations?

More Americans Are On Disability

MSN money reports that disability claims have surged since 2007.  The article does briefly mention the increased likely hood of fraudulent claims but says that the overriding factor is demographic changes as the reason, or in sort, more old people more claims. I call bullshit.  There are fewer people working jobs that require the kind of physical labor were you could through your back out.  Sure I could see a girl hurting herself after years of lifting boxes full of paper reams; but my point is that our jobs have become less demanding, not more. 

The fact is that when you have areas where Americans are on disability is indicative of a problem. That problem could be fraudulent claims or very lax oversight by our administrators.  This is costing us tens of billions of dollars and is only set to keep growing.  I can't help but think there might be something to one commentators quip:

How to shrink the UE rate by 3 percentage points without creating any jobs:

1. Take a few million older workers off the UE rolls, put them on SS and call them retired.
2. Take a few million more workers off the UE rolls, put them on SSI and call them disabled.
3. Take a few million more workers off the UE rolls, give them loans and grants and call them students. 

Given our generally crappy economic performance and outlook the government has a strong incentive to not be as zealous when it comes to sussing out less than honest claims about disability.  I'm sure you have all know, or heard of, a person that claims disability because they suffer a condition that prevents them from working but have no problem going out on a Friday night and living it up.  And I'm not talking about a person going out to get a drink, see a movie, or relax by a pool. I am talking about a person going out, getting shit faced, and dancing the night away.

It's quiet simple, if you can exert yourself strenuously in activities like hiking, dancing, heavy weightlifting, surfing, sky diving, skiing or  then you aren't disabled even if you have a nagging injury that gives you pain. And I am not talking out of my ass, I have experience with this. Some number of years ago I was in a car accident that messed my back up pretty good. It was during the State swim meet and I wasn't able to been over without taking a lot of muscle relaxants and pain medication; needless to say I wasn't going best times even though I managed to compete.

For most of my college athletic experience I suffered from some pretty bad back pain. I would be 'fine' but then I would move a certain way or push myself a little too hard and I would spend the next week barely being able to move. Funny thing though, all those years I spent avoiding exercises that would 'set' my back off like dead lift, squats, Romanian dead lifts, didn't do me any good. I have a friend, very knowledgeable in lifting, that forced me to do the exercises with light weight and perfect form. I gradually worked my way up to heavy weights and I noticed that by the end of it I no longer had any back pain, spasms, weakness anymore. I wouldn't say I am 100%, but I am at least 85% or better.  But I digress,the point was simply to state that I was probably injured enough that if I had really tried I could have sought out disability of some sort if I was lazy and unscrupulous.

The point is that there are a lot of people out there claiming fraudulent disability and there are probably even more receiving disability for ailments that could be fixed if they only put in the time and effort. Considering that they are drawing public funds you would think that the government would have an incentive to make sure fraudulent claims were filed or that people would get off their roles as soon as possible, in the case that they physically could fix themselves, but there is an overriding force at the moment.

We know what this force is, progressivism, and how it incentivize people from making decisions that do not benefit society at large because the this force disincentives individualism and personal responsibility. And we also know that our government won't address this issue with 100% resolve because every person off of disability is another person that counts towards unemployment.

Biggest Stimulus Yet

Japan has announced a stimulus bill that amounts to a whopping 10% of their current GDP.  To put this in context, the President's stimulus was a between 5-6% of the US GDP back in 2009 depending on which numbers you use, which many Keynesian's argue wasn't large enough to adequately stimulate the private sector.

Any takers on how successful Japans latest round of stimulus will be? Considering that Japan has a history of pumping debt into their economy resulting in nothing more but burgeoning their liabilities section of their balance sheet; I will bet against the addition of any more debt helping. But this does signal something important.

What is signals is that Japan isn't going to even attempt to pay back their debts since they have already passed the event horizon it's time to abandon all pretext of fiscal responsibility. Japanese politicans', and perhaps much of the Japanese population by virtue that they elected their leaders, have signaled that they don't give two craps about weighing down their unborn children with debt that can never ever be repaid.  Japan has a debt to GDP level in excess of 200%, or a debt level almost as large as our own considering they have a $ 5 trillion dollar economy. Considering that Japan has struggled even to maintain growth rates above 2% I'm not optimistic about their ability to grow outside their debt levels, or even attract foreign debt buyers once their domestic sources have dried up.

Add in the fact that Japan's population has peaked and they will soon enter demographic decline, baring major technological advancements, it's game over for Japan.

Most Old People Haven't Saved Enough For Retirement

Anyone been the grocery store recently? Notice how the individuals manning the tellers and bagging your groceries have become silver haired? This my friends is due to the fact that too many of our elderly failed to save for retirement. Now many individuals will point out that the financial crisis destroyed the savings of these Americans and they are now forced to work.  But I would argue that this is more due to older Americans mistakenly believing that their home values were tantamount to savings.  But that point aside, the fact is that, objectively speaking, the cause is that they didn't save enough. MSN money reports that only a quarter of Americans older than 55 have savings of $ 250,000 or more.  Right off the bat three quarter of all Americans older than 55 have booked a boiler room ticket on the Titantic. But what of the seniors who actually saved some money during their careers? Time for some numbers.

Financial analysts estimate that at the bare minimum you need $ 400,000, which means a quarter of our seniors would need to save an additional $ 150,000 to make that cut off point. This means, assuming a 4% return rate for investments, that the individual in question would have to save $ 2,493.64 per year for the next ten years to reach that mark.  That grand nest egg that they will have acquired will have to last them twenty years assuming they live to 85.  In order for that nest egg to not run empty early, that individual cannot take out more than $ 29,433 a year. Assuming the typical payout from Social Security, this would give that elderly American $ 45,432 to live off of. Now to me this seems more than doable, but then I don't have a mortgage payment, children, medical conditions, or imagines of cruising around the world with my schmoopsy. I have a feeling that most elderly Americans were expecting for a bit more.

What about a $ 1,000,000, an oft touted metric of financial consultants. Assuming retirement at 65, and a twenty year period after retirement, a person could take out $ 73,581. This will allow those cruises that schmoopsy and golfing that hubby want to do so much, assuming that a major medical condition doesn't come along of course. Well, unless the 55 year or older American is already close to that goal then it a mathematical impossibility. A boomer with $ 250,000 in savings would have to save in excess of $ 52,000.  If this hypothetical 55 year old American is able to devote $52,000 a year then they are probably already wealthy and don't have to worry about retirement.

Ultimately my point being is that the vast majority of Americans 55 years old or older are no where near where they need to be if you don't factor in the hypothetical selling value of your house; which you shouldn't as there is nothing backing that number, other than pixie dust and wishes, if there isn't cash flow behind it. Most likely your home, unless your renting a room out, own and live in an apartment complex, or live on a farm, is not producing cash flow.

But if you are reading this you are most likely not a silver heard boomer, you are probably like me, under the age of 30. What do the numbers look like for you. Assuming the same criteria, but assuming you start saving at 21 with absolutely no savings, then you would have to save $ 3,465 a year until you were 65. Of course, unlike your boomer parents, you won't get an additional $ 16,000 to supplement your yearly chedda.  If you want to save up to a $ 1,000,000 you would have to set aside $ 8,664 a year until you are 65.  Now before you rush off to save your money, if you even are able to do so, you should mosey on over to Captain Capitalism and watch this video.  I for one do try to limit my expenses and save my money, but I am also under no illusion that I will be retiring come 65.

Sovereign Analysis Metric: TAPG

After a video posted by the Captain a while back about what options were available if you wanted to bug out of the good ol' U S of A in the event of a catastrophic collapse.  The Captain mentioned sovereign analysis as one measure of determining whether or not a country would be a wise place to go to.  I have my own opinions on the viability of 'bugging out' but they general feelings based off of observation rather than firm opinions based on evidence.  That being the case it gave me an idea for another project.  Yes I know I still haven't finished my posts about the Fall of the Roman Republic and it's relations to the United States today, I have a lot of these projects that are halfway through. But that is the nature of the beast, you have to have a lot of pots on the fire lest you run the risk of running out of ideas or things to do. I plan on doing my own Sovereign analysis on a few of the worlds nations. I plan on looking at the United States, the BRIC nations, a few other major developed and developing economies, and examine the resources, their economy and how connected they are to the global system. I don't anticipate this project finishing anytime soon, so you might ask why I am posting on a project not yet even begun, it's because I came up with something that I think might be useful.

While this metric may not be unique, and I don't assume to be the first person to have come up with this idea, I do think this metric will be useful.  The metric I speak of is something I call TAPG, which stands for Trade Activity as a Percent of Gross Domestic Product.  Trade activity is nothing more than the sum of imports and exports of a nation's economy and by dividing it by a nation's GDP I believe it will give us an idea on how dependent, or intertwined we could say, that a country is on the global economy and world trade.

For example, the US has imports and export activity totaling 3.79 trillion dollars with a GDP of 15 trillion. This would make TAPG at 25%.  For China, which has total export and import activity of 3.7 trillion, and a GDP of 7.3 trillion. This would give them a TAPG of 50%, which means that China is more dependent on the global economy and world trade than the United States.  Now this metric isn't intended to be all end all when it comes to analyzing a nation, just one aspect of it.  Just because the US has a TAPG lower than China doesn't necessarily mean that China is in worse shape than America, but it does indicate that one country is more reliant on the globe than another.  And in this makes sense, the US is less reliant on the globe than China. Now before some one takes off my head and tells me that how could I ignore the massive amounts of debt that the US has and it's reliance on the sucker ofs the world purchasing said debt; I am not. This metric isn't meant for that, it simply is a metric in regards to trade. And the fact is, that the US is less dependent on trade than China, it has a more developed economy, more resources and a larger consumer base.

But that being said, I wanted to test my metric out and see if it had validity, or if it was widely off.  Here are some back of the page calculations I did for various nations and their TAPG to test my idea. It is shown from low to high:

• Brazil 23%
• USA 25%
• Japan 27%
• Australia 37%
• Russia 46%
• India 47%
• Mexico 48%
• China 50%
• Canada 50%
• South Korea 85%
• Switzerland 103%
• Singapore 220%

All and all I can say that the ratio is looking like it does a pretty good job.  Now you might say, wait a second, some things look wrong here. For example Singapore has a TAPG of 220% and how can a country have a TAPG higher than it's economy? Or your may even wonder how a developing nation like Brazil could have such a low TAPG? Or you might look at Canada and wonder how it can have a TAPG the same as China?   All of these items are easily explainable.

Signapore generates more in exports than it's entire GDP, it's very impressive actually, however, they also import almost as much as their GDP. Immediately it should become very apparent that a nation that has export and import levels above or very close to it's GDP is very, very dependent on world trade' hence, it has a extremely high TAPG.

Brazil's economy has long focused on self-reliance and it is very inwardly focused. There are a lot of reasons for this, even geopolitical ones, but this inward focused has resulted in an economy that is not very dependent on the globe. Does this mean that they won't be hit hard by the next wave of crisis? Not necessarily, but a low TAPG does lead me to believe that they might fare better than others. But a deeper analysis would be required.

Lastly, there is Canada, which is a developed nation with an abundance of natural resources. Why would they have a TAPG as high as China's?  It has a lot to do with who they are neighbors with. Canada is a very small economy and a lot of trading goes on between Americans and Canadians. 73% of all of  Canada's exports go to America, they are our largest oil exporter, and 49% of all their imports come from America.  Needless to say Canada is very intertwined with America, which means if America goes it is bringing Canda with it.

The last example I gave shows a deeper level analysis that is required when using TAPG. While the ratio may explain which nation is dependent on world trade, it will take a closer examination to see where exactly a country is the most vulnerable in this interconnected economy that we live in. As we can see with Canada, the state of Russia has less of an impact on their economy than the state of America. 

This is just one of the many metrics I plan on using when analyzing my selected nations. And I may come up with new ones in the future. If you have any that you think might be useful, for example the Captain says that the GDP/GNP are important, then please let me know.


ADDENDUM

This isn't based on any statistical or regression analysis, but based off of my readings of world economies here is how I would rate TAPG ratios using my gut.

Anything less than 30% would be considered Green. A nation with 30% or less of economic activity related to imports and exports has a large enough domestic economy to help it through any major interruptions to the global economy. Now this might seem odd, considering that Japan is extremely dependent on the rest of the world for oil and liquid natural gas, but Japan does have the economic base to develop alternative energy sources. Doesn't mean it wouldn't be expensive, or disruptive, it would. But it has the industrial ability to do so.

Anything less than 50% would be yellow. These are economies that do have risk, however, this risk may be regaled to only a few nations. For example Canada's economy and America's. Or their economy may not be fully developed enough to develop alternative markets or energy sources as quickly as a more developed nation, such as China. 

Anything over 51% but less than 100% is Orange.  These nations are exposed to the ebbs and flows of the global economy. They may have an economy that is very export oriented, a lack of natural resources and underdeveloped domestic forms of alternative energy, or their country may be very poor.

Anything over 100% is Red. These are countries that are extremely exposed to the ups and downs of the global economy. Most likely these nations are very small or are city states and have no choice but to rely on the global market for economic production and energy acquisition. If they are not, then they have an economy that is severely lacking in either certain industrial or energy producing sectors


Additional Countries I looked at

Turkey: 30%
Argentina: 31%
Costa Rica: 40%
Philippines: 42%
Indonesia: 42%
New Zealand: 45%
Panama: 52%
Chile: 61%
Germany: 68%
Malaysia: 130%

DOW Posts All Time High

The Dow posts an all time high which further proves that either the stock market has nothing to do with real economic production, considering that unemployment and private sector GDP still haven't reached pre-recession levels, or all the dollars the FED is pumping out is simply inflating the dollars, or both.

The bull market is perplexing, outside of FED pumping of dollars, given that everyone, other than die hard Keynesians and Obama supporters, will admit that the economy is not perform well.  Even wall street admits that the economy is doing poorly, in a round about sort of way, because they justify governments increasing spending as necessary to keep the economy afloat.

The irrationality of wall street, and the economic and fiscal illiteracy of our government, is well known. So the question is, have we entered the count down? Is this the high water mark, or perhaps more accurately the low water mark, before the next tsunami of dollar induced malinvestment hits our shores?

Velocity of Money

Here is the velocity of money explained as simply as I can explain it:

 It is how often a single dollar is traded for new goods and services in a given year. This means that if $ 50 were traded between individuals for goods and services, in a closed economy, over the course of the year, and the sum of all those transaction resulted in $ 200 in the course of a year, the velocity of money was 4.

 Reasoning alone would lead us to determine that the higher the velocity of money the higher the inflation rate, this view is supported by economists who favor the quantity theory of money, however, both Keynesian and Austrian economists have criticised the quantity theory of money.

One criticism is that the quantity theory, while true in the long run, in the short run it is not necessarily true because vendors don't want to raise prices for their customers. My dispute with this argument is just because a vendor doesn't raise his price initially doesn't mean there isn't inflation, it just means that the vendor has elected to absorb the real value loss for the time being.

As for the Austrian economists, there are two criticisms, one from Hazlitt and one from Mises. Hazlitt argued that the equation failed to account for the psychological affects that determine the value of the currency.  He argues that prices initially increase at a smaller rate than the initial increase to the money supply but after a period of time the price increase will increase by a greater amount than the increase of the money supply. Mises criticism of the quantity theory of money is that, ultimately, it is does not stem from the actions of the individual, essentially a top to down approach versus a bottom up.

Ultimately I don't think either Hazlitt or Mises disagree with the principal that increasing the money supply would result in inflation over time; however, I believe their disagreement is stems from the fact that 

a. It doesn't account for the psychological affects of inflation or deflation on individuals
b. That it is a top down approach versus a bottom up approach.

There is also the point I made earlier that inflation doesn't increase uniformly across the board. Once again the real estate bubble.  The Fed's easy money policies lead to an abudence of money, via cheap credit, which, when coupled with short sighted government policies and programs, such as the FHA, Fannie May, equal opportunity lending and the like, lead to an inflationary bubble within the residential real estate sector. The affects on prices were not that large, at least according to official CPI estimates:

 

          Years    Avg Inflation

1995-2000    2.47

2000-2005    2.55

2005-2010    2.23

 

However, during the two peak years of the bubble and with it's initital collapse, the periods of 2005 to 2008, average inflation was 3.3 percent. Now is this alone indicative of a massive bubble? No, inflation of around 3% is within the target rate set by the Federal Reserve, but it is higher than the preceding period, however, I think there are two reasons why this is the case: 

 

1) The easy money effects also created an above average inflationary effect in the stock market and profits from real estate sales made there way into those markets.

 

2) By virtue of having our nation's reserve currency status, and being the largest consumer of imports in the word, this allowed us to export our inflation. Exporting, not wanting the prices of their goods to rise in America, would devalue their currency accordingly in order to maintain a good currency exchange rate.  This helped their exports, however, it meant that their currency would also inflate and result in more expensive goods for their own people.



In the end, whether or not we exported our inflation or not, and whether or not velocity of money is a good indicator of inflation or not. The fact is, that fundementaly, the amount of money in our economy that is in excesses of our production will eventually result in inflation. We may not be able to always accurately measure this phenomena, however, historical analysis has shown this to be an emprical truth. Mo' money means Mo' problems.

Sky Scrapers As A Economic Bubble Measure

I read an article on Mises, as well as listened to the podcast, concerning the viability using sky scraper commercial real estate construction, specifically skyscrapers, as a measurement for the business cycle.  Since the advent of those gleaming towers of brick, glass and steel, the christening of the next 'worlds tallest' has often coincided with the peak of whatever economic bubble existed the time.

Table 1: World's Tallest Buildings

Completed	Building	Location	Height	Stories	Economic Crisis
1908	Singer	New York	612 ft.	48	Panic of 1907
1909	Metropolitan Life	New York	700 ft.	50	Panic of 1907
1912	Woolworth	New York	792 ft.	57	——
1929	40 Wall Street	New York	927 ft.	71	Great Depression
1930	Chrysler	New York	1,046 ft.	77	Great Depression
1931	Empire State	New York	1,250 ft.	102	Great Depression
1972/73	World Trade Center	New York	1,368 ft.	110	1970s stagflation
1974	Sears Tower	Chicago	1,450 ft.	110	1970s stagflation
1997	Petronas Tower	Kuala Lumpur	1,483 ft.	88	East Asian
2012	Shanghai	Shanghai	1,509 ft.	94	China?

 Above is the chart I pulled from the article, and it looks like there is something to this idea. Now the announcement of a worlds largest building didn't always mean that an economic occurred, sometimes it didn't, but that is because I don't think the announcement of a super tall necessarily indicates an economic bubble. I'm not disagree with the ultimate conclusion from Mises, in fact I agree with it, rather, given what I have seen from commercial real estate, I think I can explain it.

The reason why so many super talls coincide with economic crashes is that many of those super talls were announced during a period of very vigorous real estate development.  The author, in the podcast, likened commercial real estate development like the development of the railways in the 19th century, I couldn't agree more with this assessment.  One thing we need to understand about inflation, which is simply more money entering the money supply than can be supported by economic production, is that it doesn't happen all at once. The funds are often allocated to bubble areas first, as investments, and then gradually spill over, like water flowing from on overfull pond into another pond, into other aspects of society.

We saw this with the tech and residential bubble, which was heavily pushed by easy money policies of the Fed, as the stock markets and housing markets saw massive sustained gains well outside of their historic 100 year norms.  This is one of the reasons why inflation was so low, though the CPI understates inflation in my opinion, from the mid 1990s to now. While some of the money being inserted into the market did end up affecting consumer products, most of it had made it's way into the real estate and stock market; in the Captain has argued, rightly in my opinion, that continued gains in the stock market is nothing more than money being pumped in the system, i.e inflation.

This means that the development of real estate projects, and perhaps skyscrapers development in general, are a good indicator of an economic bubble or at least peak economic cycle. Skyscrapers are rather costly developments, with substantial risk as they are rarely constructed with a 100% pre-lease agreement, and are usually only undertaken during periods of high economic activity or irrationality.
 
In my own city, while there had been development of some downtown apartments, no commercial skyscrapers had been developed until now, there wasn't a market for there.  A few months ago there have been a few announcements for speculative office construction. Now I love skyscrapers so I think this is cool, but I cannot deny, that this might be indicative that our economic "boom" since 2009 has run it's course.

Argentina and Price Controls: History Never Learned.

Well it turns out that Argentina is instituting price freezes on some of their items, found via savecapitalism, and there is nothing that can go wrong with that idea, is there?  This is why I named my blog the way I did, History Predicts the Future, because so many individuals fail to actually learn and apply historical lessons to what is going around us.  These efforts are doomed to failure, Nixon's wage and price freeze failed, FDR's New Deal policies prolonged the depression, and if you have even bothered to read my posts on Tiberius Gracchus, you will realized that the Roman republic instituted similar measures. All of them failed, and simply prolonged what it tried to stop, or brought about something worse.

You would think that our politicians would know these lessons, after all, it isn't like there is a secret society of librarians that are colluding to keep such knowledge hidden from the public. It makes me wonder how congress can be so full of idiots, but then I realize, that while some occupying our hallowed hauls deserve that mark, others simply don't care. They know full well that these policies eventually fail, but they are also banking on the fact that their will either, be out of office by that time, or that enough time has passed that the public will forget that they put the bill forward. 

The latter has to be the case for Argentinian president Cristina Kirchner, since her husband instituted such policies and only accomplished widespread meat and milk shortages. And what the fuck is wrong with Argentina? You have a president who proves that he knows nothing about economics and you go and elect his wife right after him? I am sure that her presidency will be a model of clean and sound government, oh wait, no it won't. Argentina seems to be the 20th century example of a national going from the top of the first world to utter self inflicted implosion; and it looks like Argentina will go through another round of wealth destruction thanks to her incompetent leaders. If only our own politicians would take note.

Sometimes I toy with the idea of  championing a law that stipulates that upon the end of congressional tenure that the person automatically is sent to prison for a time equal to the number of years they served in office.

Mises: Answering Old Arguments About Sound Money

Let the knowledge floweth!