Rice County Republicans

ECONOMICS / BUSINESS

In this article entitled, “How Government Distorts Labor Markets,” the author discusses how government intervention into labor markets (just like interventions into the Capital markets) create malinvestment and waste.

Here’s a good but brief editorial discussing the problem of the short-term financing of government debt.

What happens when government distorts market signals? Here’s a lovely parable.

Caroline Baum, a columnist over at Bloomberg explains the economic fundamentals of oil-and-gas extraction that are responsible for much of the current job growth in the economy.

GENERAL INTEREST
In this article the brilliant European patrician intellectual, Anthony de Jasay, discusses the “Government Lifestyle” options available: spend-and-borrow; spend-and-tax; curb spending and raise taxes; curb spending and reduce taxes. He is writing this in relation to the Eurozone, but it is equally applicable to the U.S.

I happen to find this very disturbing. There are a number of issues listed here which are not a matter of settled law and could be considered conjecture, not fact -which is how it looks to be presented.

Dave Thompson is working for all of MN, even as a if he’s representing the district immediately to our north.

And now there are three! Rep. Bill’s joins Pete Hegseth and Dan Severson in seeking the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate.

This article cites an important University of Minnesota study of healthcare reform in Massachusetts.

Enjoy,
Stephen Kallestad
Northfield

The Rice Scott County Republicans will be meeting on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 at 7PM at the Whistle Stop Cafe in Lonsdale, MN.

The Whistle Stop is in downtown Lonsdale on the north side of Hwy 19 by rr tracks.  6:00PM to eat, 7:00PM mtg,

Agenda items include:

• Candidate Announcements and Introductions
• Redistricting
• Upcoming Conventions

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Janalee Cooper
Volunteer and Media Coordinator

ECONOMICS / BUSINESS
Here’s a spectacularly good, yet brief article, covering the major misconceptions about trade. Importantly it discusses the economic error (currently being advocated by President Obama and Rick Santorum) of believing that manufactures deserve special treatment.

Picking “winners and losers” inevitably leads to more losers than winners.

“Manufacturing is becoming a specialized, high skill, and a fairly higher-wage sector, much like computer programming. That is all for the best for manufacturing and for American output overall, but it only reinforces the larger reality that this is an economic system in which the gap between those who have gained skills and education and those who have not is wide and yawning wider.” In this article in the hyper-Liberal Daily Beast, Mr. Karabell does a really good job of describing the underlying problems with the economy and avoids the temptation of offering policy prescriptions.

Ignoring the obvious bias towards Market Monetarism, this author does a pretty good job of comparing Monetarist and Austrian Economics. He is a little squishy and blurs the line (maybe intentionally) between the pure Monetarism of say a Milton Friedman and the more interventionist Market Monetarism of a Scott Sumner, but it is still worth the read.

GENERAL INTEREST
The ACLU issued a challenge on proving voter fraud in MN that would have been prevented by the proposed voter ID bill, AND LOSES.

GOP legislative candidate announces for 20B.

“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” –Milton Friedman.   That could be a big part of the problem.

Here’s a good article on why it’s important to cut, not raise, taxes.

Enjoy,

Stephen Kallestad
Northfield