Paradocracy

Bill Maher has recently taken a stab at supporting his favorable view of the Obama administration. He attempted this with an array of select data which might, on the surface, arouse optimism and garner applause, but upon further scrutiny would simply fail to hold. Watch the video here . I'll take this point by point. First, unemployment is a non-viable metric by which to measure the creation of wealth. Second, those figures which are today in vogue fail to capture the greater collage of employment strife facing today's laborers, including underemployment, discouraged workers, and part-time laborers. Third, the US dollar-denominated price of gas per gallon has declined by 28% while its gold-denominated price declined by a whopping 52%, indicating that the administration of Obama, Bernanke, and Yellen has corroborated a resistance to even further price declines, approximately a 24% margin. Fourth, the percentage of the insured fails to capture those costs incurred by pers...

Statists in Detroit yet again rest their case on the balances of government revenues instead of recognizing that these privately-managed funds have constituted substantial growth, innovation, and renovation in the city of Detroit. This article comically and unwittingly refers to the issuance of tax credits in 2011 which enabled corporate earnings to remain with the persons who first designed the mechanisms which voluntarily, symbiotically spurred investment and development in the city. Since this very date, Dan Gilbert's Quicken Loans has doubled its volume in loans while increasing its staff by over 117%, all while the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn metropolis has experienced a per-capita GDP increase of 7%, one of the highest rates of increase across the entire nation. Admittedly, doses of quantitative easing, government-backed loans and purchases of mortgage-backed securities, and a zero-interest rate policy have combined to artificially buttress these volumes and revenues for Gilber...

I am currently weighing the calculated values of an investment: the excess cost, approximately a premium of 88% over an Amazon alternative, of course excluding the relative unknown opportunity cost inherent within the expense of at least one hour of time spent otherwise, perhaps invaluably or frivolously, depending upon the lens of observation. The 88% immediate premium may indeed be justified by an enhanced experience, whether by that immediate satisfaction of time preference, a joyful commute or in-store adventure; however, those expectations would spawn from one's familiarity with the route, the type of store, the expectation of product availability and consistent quality, and the risk tolerance or appetite of the operators to retain and endure the remaining unseen or unforeseen probability of aberration: this is admittedly an ever-trivialized cost over the course of replicated exposure, yet the risks thereof remain relevant, practical signals to those market participants. I...

Website Mic.com  recently released an article entitled Here's What's Happening 2 Years After This Restaurant Started Paying Workers $15 an Hour . The author of the article takes deliberate steps to create a hit piece which will generate controversy and attract views. He has effectively reduced to the absurd an example of individual, voluntary human action to suit his agenda for political reform. The author even unwittingly acknowledges the voluntary nature of this transaction, yet he will surely and conveniently ignore this facet of the narrative: "On the outskirts of Detroit, where the minimum wage is $8.15, one fast-food restaurant has been voluntarily  [emphasis added] paying its workers $15 an hour for two years, and business is thriving." In his article, the author recognizes that "The Detroit metropolitan area is still reeling from deindustrialization, with one of the worst unemployment rates in the country." He acknowledges that "slack in t...

A common fallacy in the debate on education spending is that confusion between paying teachers and funding education. The payment of individuals who identify as teachers is not a direct correlate to, much less a cause of, educational advancement.  Perhaps the greatest discontinuity across modern intellectualism is that among professional educators who advocate simultaneously for more affordable, accessible education and higher salaries for those who deliver it. Of course, the law of supply and demand demonstrates the effects of higher prices in relation to quantity demanded, and this is surely consistent with the market behaviors of these educators in their own respective commercial endeavors. Yet this will clearly never stifle the frothy, emotional ambitions of those whose imaginations possess the capacity to envision something greater, more civil, or even more utopian. After all, each of the world's calamities is merely one college graduate away from impending nirvana...