Pizza, Heat, and the Economy

Image via WikipediaAbout a month ago, I was lamenting how poorly things had been going at my part time job delivering pizzas on the weekend.  At the time, I was wondering whether the decline in income from working my 5pm-midnight shift on Saturday nights was due to the poor economy or the excessively hot summer we had been having. 

Starting about three months ago, the DC area was broiling under one of the hottest summers in some time.  We had a string of 90 degree or better days that looks to be the second highest number of 90 plus degree days in the area on record.  It was during this period that my Saturday delivery income dropped from $70-$80 per night, to about $45-$55 per night.

The last few weeks, we have seen a significant break in the summer heat.  While there have been a few 90 degree days, for most of August the temps were running in the 80's.  With the break in temperatures, I have see a return to the $70-$80 range on Saturday nights, which is a tremendous relief for me.  Making $70-$80 or more on a Saturday night pretty much pays for the groceries for the week.

So the question is, what has changed over the last month.  Surely the economy hasn't been improving over the last month.  In fact, unemployment ticked up a bit.  The only real change around my neck of the woods is the lower temperatures in August compared to June and July.  Which begs the question, when the weather is hot, are you more or less inclined to eat a hot meal?

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Obama, FDR, and the Great Depression

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There are a number of reasons why I am against the unprecedented expansion of the federal government and the massive debt we are accumulating.  First and foremost, there is so much that the government has no business being involved in.  As if I needed another reason, here it is.

The Institute of Economic Affairs has released a pamphlet stating that Barack Obama is repeating the same mistakes that FDR made in handling the Great Depression.  The study has been endorsed by economist James Buchanan who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1986.  The paper was written by economists Charles Rowley of George Mason University and Nathanael Smith of the Locke Institute.

The authors argue that FDR's interventionist policies and tax increases delayed the recovery by several years.  They see "troubling similarities" between FDR's policies and Obama's.  They believe that the large deficit spending and government involvement will hamper long term economic growth and may delay full economic recovery by several years. Furthermore, they fear that the US could face the same fate as Argentina which slid from First to a Third World status.

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How Do They Sleep At Night?

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Seriously, how do politicians sleep at night or how can they look at themselves in the mirror? I know that it has been a few days since the White House released their updated projection on the federal budget deficit for the next decade will be closer to $9 trillion as opposed to their original projection of $7 trillion.

The only reason I decided to post about it tonight was the headline that I saw when I received my CNSNews.com email news brief this morning. The headline read "Obama’s ‘Path Toward Fiscal Discipline’ is Paved with Average Annual Deficits of $900 Billion, Says White House Report."

This year's budget deficit is expected to be $1.58 trillion. Prior to taking office, the deficit in the last year of the Bush administration was $458 billion. The average deficit for the next 10 years is expected to be double the highest deficit prior to Obama taking office.

This is a "path toward fiscal discipline?" That they can say something like this with a straight face is simply mind boggling to me. What planet are these people living on? Do they really expect us to believe anything they say when they make asinine statements like these? I think I will go out this weekend and max out my credit cards. After all, if our out of control government spending is "fiscal discipline," then the same must hold true for me.

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Economics 101 & Democrats

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I think I figured out why the Democrats do not like the free market. They do not understand it, and they do not have an understanding of basic economics.

Earlier this year, the House and Senate, passed a bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program. To fund the program, they significantly increased the federal excise tax on all tobacco products.

In a truly free market, the laws of supply and demand show that as the price of a product rises, the demand for that product will decrease. The problem with increasing the excise tax on tobacco products to fund a program like SCHIP is that demand for those products will decrease, leading to a shortfall in funding.

The National Center for Policy Analysis released a report this week on the effectiveness of the tobacco tax increase. In what was not a big surprise to me, the NCPA reported that the increased taxes have led to a smaller pool of smokers, leading to a decrease in expected revenue. In order to fund the program, Congress will now have to find other revenues (taxes) to do so. Duh!!

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