Downside of Extending Unemployment Insurance

                  

Unemployment insurance benefits have become a political football. The Left has got it all wrong again, saying once more it’s an excellent economic stimulus.

                                                   

When you look back at statistics done by folks such as Laffer Associates, who have looked at actual data going back to 1972, you find that unemployment benefits do seem to keep most recipients from actively looking for work until benefits are ready to run out. Other studies appear to corroborate this as well.

                       

A safety net is necessary to tide the unemployed over their bad patch. A paid vacation, until they get seriously looking, is another story. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

Dubious Earnings Gains From Going-to-College

                                 

Those who have employable skills will earn top dollar at jobs that employers want, even in deep recessions. Others, with their fancy- school diplomas sit around depressed for the lack of opportunity, despite all their effort toward impressive but often impractical and useless degrees.

                   

This is also evident when you compare earnings of graduates of conventional colleges, private trade schools, and two year community colleges.

                   

Going to private trade schools or two year community colleges, where trades are taught, will provide skills that more likely will result in better-earning jobs, compared to most college diploma varieties.

                   

A college education that offers general knowledge that can just as easily be acquired in the public library or internet provides nothing practical that will assure a gainful living. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

Avoid Government Competing for Private Capital

                           

When the government spends a dollar which it must borrow or tax, there is one capital dollar less in the private sector with which to invest for public benefit in the form of jobs and earnings for consumer spending.

           

That government competition produces innate damage that government do-gooders overlook in their zeal to “help.”

           

It’s an Economics 101 lesson you will not learn  from the conventional media. Nor in basic economics from most college attendance these days. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)   

Leftist Billionaires

                  

There always have been the extraordinarily wealthy in socialist societies. The namenclatura of Soviet Russia lived like multi- millionaires, and probably had even more stashed safely abroad.

                                               

In the U.S. the publicly-expounded policies of leftist multi- millionaires and billionaires don’t create wealth for the public. These folks may simply believe in high taxes on public citizens; they may want to redistribute wealth of others. Whatever it is they seek, they manage to make lots of money for themselves along the way. Perhaps they do consulting and advising, or have profitable connections. But they prosper enormously in the political process.

                   

Look about and see how this is true among those who carry on battles for the “little guy,” while flying about in their private jets, and living in their many grandiose mansions, both here and abroad.

                   

Their stand for the poor never means they have taken vows for personal poverty. They have even managed to become billionaires while in pursuit of their left-leaning careers.

                   

Yes, while they’re for higher income taxes, most of them pay little the way their income and assets are structured.(See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

Government’s Political Slush funds

                 

Some states and especially the Federal government make political efforts by subsidizing some company payrolls. It’s a stupid populist attempt to show concern for workers at those jobs.

                   

Taxpayers must pay for businesses who are not able to make a go of it. Perhaps inefficiencies but also including barriers placed before them by government being restrictive. Such as business taxes and fees.

                   

Such assistance will inevitably be politically dominated. The funds will go to companies preferred by the politicians in office. Graft and corruption is always a consequence.

                   

The whole process amounts to nothing significant. Where will it all end, short of Fed or state government winding up in a failing business?

                   

Leave companies alone, without abusive taxation and other restrictions and they will tend to do far better on their own. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

FDR's Disastrous 1930s Actions

                    

Did Franklin D. Roosevelt really get us out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Actually, he never succeeded at creating jobs. Though the public thinks he did.

We ought to learn from his then Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau. The latter admitted in his memoirs at the end of his years of effort, and just before World War II, how we were still mired in unemployment. How 1937 and 1938 were particularly bad, after all the economic pump-priming after 1932.

                   

Roosevelt believed in high taxes and Keynesian spending by government that did not work. Yet, it’s the very philosophy being  used by the administration today.

(See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

Business Appraisals

You hear of the best management techniques that are successful and implemented. Every year or so, another business management expert is recognized for ideas, on sales, or productivity.

                   

A few years later, a fresh crop of experts and authors arise in a repetitive cycle. The concepts become regenerative fads. The same ideas regurgitate every so often. What becomes stale in a decade becomes fresh in the next. or the following. (See the Earl J. Weinreb

NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

Deep Recessions can be Avoided

                   

America has always had self-corrective economic cycles, but now we have more financial regulators than ever before; they are doing their man-made damage, as never before. By avoiding massive bailouts by regulators offering the illusion of doing something.

All that was needed in the recent past was a federal agency guarantee of all bank assets, with a fee charged to the banks.

                   

And by avoiding “mark-to-market” accounting of mortgage assets, which had no market appraisal, which wiped out assets of major banks almost overnight, aided by short selling this enticed.

                   

And by having a government agency in 2008 buying up, at bankruptcy, and destroying, empty tract homes in over- speculative states such as Nevada, Florida and California.

                                   

The government repeated the same errors made by Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression. We thus accomplished little for the economy but have revamped the form of government with state capitalism, a nasty type of socialism.

The Dodd-Frank Act further attempts to get us out of this financial mess: a disaster beyond anything America has had. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

Identify Good Business Managers

                 

There is some truth to the adage: Good management makes money and bad management loses money. It’s always applied on Wall Street where analysts usually have no genuine idea of how to evaluate corporations.

                   

An executive must operate with the hand being dealt. If the business environment or the economy is poor, an excellent manager may do extremely well by just minimizing losses;there are no real standards to go by.

                   

Look at the techniques used and they are all the same. The same acronyms to describe managerial approaches. Those that worked in the past may not be working now. The ones that did not work in the past may be working today.

                   

A lot of luck is involved. One formula: Keep an eye on protective management. Keep away from lawsuits, especially employee harassment and EEOC suits. Stick to the employee manuals you set up. (See the Earl J.

Weinreb NewsHole® comments and b@BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

More Financing by Others than Banks

                  

It will take decades for Dodd-Frank’s financial regulation tentacles to be clearly defined.

                   

One of its unintended consequences: Large retailers and other companies can now do more openly the type of financing that banks will not wish to undertake because of severe regulations in place under the new regulations.

                   

Large industrial companies have been giving small business loans where banks have not ventured.

                                           

Should this favorable trend continue, no doubt Uncle Sam will then become under pressure from the anti- business Left. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

Tricky, Verbose Legislation

                  

Dodd-Frank financial regulation has an immense, adverse transformational impact on American society, as well as its economy. It has over 2300 pages. I doubt if any of our House or Senate reps had read it entirely or ever will.

                   

The Federal Reserve Act which set up our basic banking

system had 31 pages. Most other basic financial legislation of the past had been composed with about a hundred or so pages.

                   

ObamaCare runs rover a couple of thousand pages and literally hides information the public or its proponents never realized exists. Which are only now coming to light.

                   

Limit the size of any bill. If it is too big to be read in a couple of hours, it is simply too big. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

Corporate Leaders’ “Honest-Services” Duties

                  

I commented in the past on a U. S. Supreme Court ruling on “honest-services” obligations and its effect on business executives who have a responsibility for operating a public company.

                   

A CEO has to be an optimist to prevent the corporate roof from falling in; employees and customers fleeing, and a loss of jobs. An executive must retain legal leeway on comments and be given slack. A top executive who is not a cheerleader is doing a poor job.

                   

Unfortunately, too many jurors and judges are not aware of this business fact.

                   

The public cannot scream “fraud” at the drop of a hat every time disaster strikes a company. That is a ploy used by plaintiff lawyers doing what they do best. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

Insurance Companies Can't Earn Outrageous Profits

                  

Politicians and most of the news media know little of the insurance business.

                   

Add to this the fact that insurance companies must be large, to be in business. This makes such companies ideal scapegoats for politicos seeking votes from uninformed voters.

                   

Important to remember: Insurance companies are highly regulated by their state insurance departments. They’re not permitted to lose money for very long, while controls dampen “enormous” earnings.(See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)

Better Business Management Techniques?

                 

You hear of the best management techniques that are being successful and implemented. Every year or so, another business management expert is recognized for ideas on how to increase sales, or reduce costs, or enhance productivity.

                   

A few years later, these are usually forgotten, as a fresh crop of experts arise. In fact, It’s a repetitive cycle. If you want, you can write a book on that subject alone. or teach a course for a college.

                   

If you save the data you find the concepts become regenerative fads. The same ideas regurgitate every so often. What becomes stale in one decade becomes fresh in the next. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)