by | BLOG, BUSINESS, ECONOMY
Gamestop stock may be fundamentally worth $10, or maybe even $20 if there is some hidden value in intangibles or some future prospects. But not $400. The only question is whether those buying at $400 truly had reason to believe that it was worth that amount (which is probably unlikely). Or were they just buying in the hope that the price would go up more irrationally, allowing them to make a profit before the stock tanked?
Those that were just blindly following the crowd simply deserve what will happen to them. If they are being induced to go along with a wrongheaded purchase by some forces merely trying to manipulate the market and/or squeeze out the short sale, there may be (I’m not an attorney) illegality going on.
Anyone with any trading acumen should have been able to see through the hype that billionaire venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya was peddling. He surely knows that when hedge funds do momentum trading and shorting, and when other hedge funds follow those funds, they are keenly aware of the prices of their trades related to the fundamentals of the underlying security. I can only think that his intimating that anybody could have been doing research that could validate such a price level is less than honest.
The outrage expressed by some that the broker of choice in this mania, Robinhood, was acting to support the short-selling hedge funds also has no basis. That Robinhood restricted trading in Gamestop is purely to be expected in a situation when the volume of transactions shoots the moon. The fact that they needed an immediate capital infusion of over $3 billion proves this.
At last look, the stock is selling in the $52 area. Many of the people induced to buy the stock at much higher levels have suffered severe losses, and my guess is that some pretty sophisticated investors are shorting the stock at present levels.
The lessons to be learned from this:
1) understand the real underlying value of a company before you follow the mania and buy, and
2) before you become a big short seller, remember that old adage – “the market can remain irrational for longer than you can remain solvent”
by | BLOG, COVID, ECONOMY, GOVERNMENT
Proposed legislation in Congress has at its core the addition of $1400 per person (on top of the $600 already passed in other legislation) creating a $2,000 per person payment. Its purpose is stated to be to “stimulate the economy” even though what we actually need to focus on is getting more people back to work.
The prospect of giving out an additional $1400 payment is absolute insanity. We don’t need it, as we have the highest rate of savings right now that we’ve had in a long time. The vast majority of “stimulus” funds go to working people who are in as good or maybe even better financial shape than before COVID, so the money is going into savings or to reduce debt. This is NOT stimulus. (Note that having to repay the money borrowed to make the stimulus payments 1) slows the economy by having to service this debt, and 2) adds extraordinary burdens to our children and grandchildren who must pay it back.)
However, the most egregious element of this stimulus fiasco are amounts going to non-working – but being paid – public service employees.
In the private sector, employees who could not or would not do their jobs would have been furloughed or fired, as a private business would do out of necessity. But the public sector can just abuse taxpayers by keeping them on – and even giving them raises! So many of them are home because there has been no productive work to do. In a horrific economy like ours, businesses simply can’t afford to carry people who are not performing work. Just like a hurricane hitting a factory, we have to furlough even public service employees because there is nothing to do.
But public service employees, in an absolutely unethical and immoral way, have, with help of unions, have put themselves in an undeserved place in society: they neither have to work, nor get furloughed. On top of it, we give them “stimulus” funds even after being already unjustly rewarded? To the detriment and abuse of everyone else who is paying them to do nothing? It’s an affront to all taxpayers.
by | BLOG, BUSINESS, ECONOMY, POLITICS
Stakeholder capitalism is all the rage these days, with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders at the forefront of the movement. Their participation is just another example of their economic ignorance.
The concept of stakeholder capitalism is itself a contradiction in terms; it would be more correct to call it “stakeholderism.” Just like crony capitalism (it is really just “cronyism”) isn’t real, as the terms are opposites of one another, the same with stakeholder capitalism. You cannot have both. It’s like saying libertarian statists. You can put the words together but they lose their meaning.
Stakeholder capitalism is a concept that suggests corporations should balance the needs of all the “stakeholders” who comprise the business, from shareholders to executives to employees to customers to suppliers and even to more nebulous stakeholders such as the environment or community. This is in contrast to traditional capitalism, which earns profit for the company owners and investors, the ones who put forth the risk capital to get and keep the company going. It earns this profit by providing products and/or services that their customers voluntarily pay for.
Stakeholder capitalism sounds good and looks altruistic but in fact are composed of different competing interests and goals. These various factors ultimately take away from the most singular purpose of a business: create a product or service for which another person or company sees value in that product or service and exchanges money (or goods or services) for it. If the finished product is good and has value, it will be consumed by another person or business for amounts in excess of the cost of resources to create the goods (profit). If the finished product is not good, then the cost of resources exceeds the perceived value and there will be a loss. It is only by focusing on this single-minded purpose that one can tell if the product/service has merit and should be continued. A company must be able to return a profit to its investors to induce them to invest more money for the company to increase its production of other valuable products and services.
Stakeholder capitalism seeks to undermine the traditional measure of profit and loss by insisting that various interests all mutually derive benefit. But this is not why a company exists nor should it. It misallocates resources and value and creates competing outside interests (that will not agree on how important each one is), all in the name of being socially beneficial. No company can sustain itself with that end result in mind, which ultimately hurts the very society stakeholder that capitalism would otherwise help.
by | BLOG, BUSINESS, CONSTITUTION, COVID, ECONOMY, GOVERNMENT, POLITICS
It is undeniable that people are hurting from COVID. It is also untenable that one of the continued solutions is an ongoing moratorium on evictions. Such a policy would seem to be blatantly unconstitutional.
A national moratorium on evictions picks winners and losers by government fiat by preferring one population (renters) over another population (landlords). The moratorium continues to allow people to live in their spaces without paying what they are contractually obligated to pay, putting the landlord at a loss. Would the same people championing this policy support the government letting people take food from a grocery store without paying for the food? How about taking clothing from a store without paying for it? It is the same thing. Those who argue that there is a moral right to housing would be hard pressed not to agree that this is also a moral right to food and clothing as well. Put it another way, the moratorium allows renters to consume their rental space for free that they would otherwise be purchasing through the payment of rent. What gives the government the right, therefore, to tell people they are allowed to consume their product — be it food, clothes, or rental property — without just compensation?
Originally, the moratorium was declared as a hedge against a perceived health hazard, namely that if people are evicted, they could contribute to the spread of COVID, and from this line of thinking was the flimsiest constitutional justification for the policy. If therefore, the government wants to assume the responsibility for avoiding an even bigger health emergency, it is only just that the government should cover the cost of the loss or rent to the landlord or guarantee that the rent is paid. You can’t have it both ways. The current policy is utterly ludicrous and puts many landlords at financial risk and ruin.
by | BLOG, BUSINESS, ECONOMY
A company will try to use its available funds to best improve its business, such as by expanding its operations, hiring additional workers, opening new factories and offices, research & development including creating new products, paying down debt, or acquiring new companies. But when it decides that it has more money than it could put to good use in its business, it can use the money in various ways. It could pay dividends. But another option is to buy back some of its shares on the open market. But progressives somehow believe that they know better about a company than the company itself and want to dictate what a company can choose to do with its own cash, especially with regard to buybacks.
What seems like a rather mundane topic for the average person is actually very important, particularly because several progressive Democrats such as Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders are threatening to prevent buybacks and will soon be in a strong position to influence policy. Unfortunately, because they are so economically ignorant, their policies could have a negative impact on the broader economy.
In a widely-publicized NYTimes Op-Ed last year, Schumer and Sanders penned a missive against buybacks, calling them “corporate self-indulgence.” Their solution is a bill to forbid buybacks unless and until companies first do things such as “paying all workers at least $15 an hour, providing seven days of paid sick leave, and offering decent pensions and more reliable health benefits.” In other words, Schumer and Sanders openly demand these preconditions to be met before a company can even engage in a buyback program. They have decided that they know better about a company’s needs more than the companies themselves. The hubris here is astounding.
A company has a duty to use its money in the most responsible and productive way possible. Getting the most out of available resources creates the best possible outcome for the economy, the company, and its workers. For instance, if the best use of money is to expand and increase R&D in its industry or build more shops or hire more workers, they will do it. But if this option is not worthwhile, that is, will not produce an adequate return on investment – for reasons such as a lack of growth in the industry or excessive government regulation – then the best option may be to buyback shares or pay dividends. In doing so, they are taking cash out of the company to give to the shareholders who will look for better opportunities. Sometimes this option is absolutely necessary in order to make the company stay both relevant and solvent for the sake of the company and its workers.
Freedom is at stake here, both philosophically and economically. Not only should a company have the freedom to do what it wants with its own money, but it won’t have the freedom to grow if the government is interfering, rather than allowing the free market figure out where to go. This is the worst of both worlds. Buybacks are an important tool despite those who wish to restrict buybacks under some progessive bloviations not rooted in economic reality.
by | BLOG, COVID, ECONOMY, GOVERNMENT, POLITICS
The current national moratorium on evictions (which is likely to be extended yet again) is problematic for several reasons. The CDC (of all agencies) issued its rule without any particular act of Congress granting it the power to do so under the auspices of a generic “public health and safety” threat. What’s more, the federal eviction ban essentially overtakes any and all existing laws between tenants and landlords at the state level.
Because of the moratorium, landlords are now unable to follow any due process it has with regard to removing a tenant who has not kept up his or her end of their housing contract. Furthermore, landlords have no recourse to replace or remove a tenant by legal means until the end of the moratorium, a date which keeps changing. If a landlord violates the moratorium, he faces fines and/or possible jail time.
But perhaps the most egregious aspect of the eviction moratorium is that landlords are still responsible for maintaining payments to their banks and mortgage lenders on their rental properties. In fact, in some parts of the country, lenders have the ability to foreclose on them because they are not owner-occupied residences. What if the government told grocery store owners they had to provide their food for free as a means to alleviate hunger? Or tell a doctor he has to treat people for free as a means to provide universal access to medical services. How is it that the government is allowed to tell one set of citizens that you cannot enforce your own contracts and must provide services for free, while simultaneously not providing any sort of restitution for the hardship?
This moratorium has created intense and immediate deprivation for property owners who now bear the burden of property ownership without means to carry out or modify existing rental contracts. Essentially, the government is engaging in a massive, unconstitutional wealth transfer from one constituent to another. The eviction moratorium is a blatantly unconstitutional abuse of power.
by | BLOG, ELECTIONS, HYPOCRISY, POLITICS
I was disappointed that a black socialist anti-Semite became a Senator of the United States. While it is well known that he is a progressive and socialist, it’s even more troubling that he is openly anti-Semitic.
In 2019, he signed a letter with other clergy members describing “the heavy militarization of the West Bank, reminiscent of the military occupation of Namibia by apartheid South Africa.” Likewise, during a sermon in 2018, he proclaimed, “We saw the government of Israel shoot down unarmed Palestinian sisters and brothers like birds of prey.” And yet, the very same time, Warnock has been virtually silent on Hamas.
To the extent that racial bias exists in our system today, one thing is clear: 92% of Georgia black voters supported this anti-Semitic socialist. This result would seem to be clear evidence of true racism – that voters can ignore the openly outrageous policies and positions of a candidate and support him solely based on his skin color. Otherwise, how could anyone actually support Warnock?
by | BLOG, CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT
There is a renewed push for ending qualified immunity especially since the unrest earlier this summer. Qualified immunity affords police officers protection from litigation for their actions in pursuit of the law, while immunity is lost if an officer violates a citizen’s constitutional rights. At least, that is what qualified immunity was before it metastasized into a near entitlement shield for officers and other public officials. Qualified immunity does not need to be abolished but it should definitely be qualified. It needs to be turned around to what it originally meant, not what decades of SCOTUS rulings has made it to be.
by | BLOG, ECONOMY, ELECTIONS, FREEDOM
When we have a generation of voters who take their policy lessons from a person who believes that billionaires shouldn’t exist, we are in trouble. What’s more, she boasts of having an economics degree but her ideas are not rooted in reality. Let’s take a look at some of her more unorthodox economic positions:
- Green New Deal: AOC created a sweeping bill that puts the environment impact as the basis for economic policy. Not only is this inherently anti-free-market, her objectives of addressing climate and economic inequalities are completely undermined by the staggering cost of her proposal. Estimates fluctuate wildly between a minimum $10 trillion and $93 trillion, which would obviously exacerbate economic inequality by massively increasing American’s debt load on the backs of the taxpayer.
- Socialism: While on the subject of the Green New Deal, did anyone notice 8B in her bill? “It is the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal (8B) to create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States.” It is out-and-out socialism to insist that the government is the chief means of generating wealth and try to do so through policy.
- 70% Tax Rate: Shortly after taking office, AOC proposed a 70% tax rate on incomes over $10 million aimed at going after wealthy Americans for whom she has utter contempt. After all, during an interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates, AOC explained, “I’m not saying that Bill Gates or Warren Buffett are immoral, but a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don’t have access to public health is wrong,” But she fails in understanding that Bill Gates or Warren Buffett has earned their wealth through the creation of millions of jobs and products that have improved the lives of Americans and lifted the economy. Yet a 70% tax rate will quite likely limit future entrepreneurs knowing that being successful results in confiscatory taxation.
- Rent Control: In an attempt to combat poverty through affordable housing, AOC has proposed a sweeping national rent control bill that would institute a cap of 3% or the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI), whichever is greater, for housing markets nationwide. But this is a classical example of price control; what’s more, it would exacerbate the problem of housing affordability that AOC purports to want to fix. Creating new housing (such as apartments) is the best way to help with affordability, but rent control would create scarcity; housing developers will certainly not build if there is a cap on the amount that could be charged to the consumer-renter.
- Investment tax breaks: AOC was viciously against tax incentives for Amazon when they attempted to set up a new, major headquarters in NYC. When New York offered a $3 billion temporary tax break that would result in the creation of 25,000 new jobs for New Yorkers, she proclaimed “If we’re willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest those $3 billion in our district ourselves if we wanted to.” What AOC fails to grasp is that nothing was being given away as if there was $3 billion locked up somewhere. It’s merely taxes Amazon won’t have to pay on in the future, money that has yet to exist and now won’t at all. Even worse are the other benefits that won’t exist now that Amazon decided against New York: besides the 25,000 jobs (many likely going to people within her own district), there’s additional sales, income, and property tax revenue that would have been generated for New York. Of course, AOC later gloated about a “victory” when Amazon decided to simply expand some existing NY office space, adding about 1,500 new workers, as if that will grow the economy better than 25,000 would have.
AOC is indeed economically illiterate. The fact that so many people have such little understanding about economics themselves that they are not laughing her out of office for her ideas is even more troubling.
by | BLOG, CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM, HEALTHCARE, LAW
Certificate of Need laws, otherwise known as CON laws, are laws required in many states and some federal jurisdictions before proposed acquisitions, expansions, or creations of healthcare facilities are allowed. They are also absolutely ridiculous and entirely based entirely on cronyism. CON laws are irresponsible, damaging to the economy, and a prime example of an assault on economic liberty.
A recent report by Mercatus noted that “Nearly six decades ago, New York became the first state to enact a CON law for healthcare services. A decade later, the federal government mandated state implementation of CON laws in an effort to control healthcare costs, increase access to care, and improve quality. When early research suggested that CON laws were failing to meet these goals, the federal government repealed the mandate, but many states kept their CON laws on the books.”
The creation of CON laws themselves were supposedly based on some economic theory that restricting competition was going to be better for consumers, but in fact, it’s the opposite. This means that it’s cronyism, not economics that put these laws into place, and that it is cronyism, not economics, that is keeping these laws intact all these years.It’s worth noting that even the federal government realizes that CON laws are terrible. They ignore basic economic principles, that when you restrict competition you get higher, not lower prices. Even though the feds undid their CON laws, the states did not, which means that the states were bent on cronyism, which was the real reason for the laws in the first place.
Ultimately, CON laws are unconstitutional because of their inherent economic favoritism. There’s no reason why some liberties should be treated differently than economic liberty and the right to earn a living should not be considered as fundamental as other rights. CON laws and their cronyism should be eliminated.
