Economics

Franchisors Warn Obamacare Will Halve Profits

Franchisors warn Obamacare will halve profitsby Paul Bedard
The International Franchise Association held a convention in Washington this week where most of the Radio Shack, Dunkin Donuts, Curves and other franchisers were grumbling about new federal regulations, especially the impact of Obamacare.

Most, said Atlanta Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken franchiser David Barr, presumed that the reports about how hard Obamacare will hit them were overblown. “They had their head in the sand,” he told Secrets.

That is until he pulled out his powerpoint showing how funding Obamacare will cut his –and likely their– profits in half overnight. [Read more…]

Economy Is Tanking; Why Are Markets Up?

Markets Up Mitt Romney Responsible by Chris Banescu –
The latest economic data released Thursday confirms what all Americans, especially business owners, already knew.  Economic growth has slowed down to a measly 1.5% (from 2% the previous quarter), job growth continues to languish with nationwide unemployment at a dismal 8.2%, consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level this year, and consumer spending is also tanking.  Household purchases, which represent approximately 70% of GDP, grew at the slowest pace in a year.  Recent surveys show that Americans have lost approximately 40% of their net worth in the last few years, and poverty rates are reaching levels not seen in this country since the 1960s.

So, why are the markets up?  [Read more…]

Government Spending Does Not Create Economic Growth

Government Spending Does Not Create Economic Growth If you knew a dollar invested in something would wind up losing more than a dollar, would you consider that a good investment?

The government does just that when it starts spending taxpayer dollars or borrowed money which future generations must pay back with interest. In the video below Professor Antony Davies of Duquesne University explains the unseen costs of government spending and the best way to stimulate the economy: the private sector.

Professor Antony Davies explains:

“There’s a misconception that when the government spends money it creates jobs. … What we’re forgetting is that the money doesn’t fall from space. The government obtains the money by taxing or borrowing. And when it does those things jobs are destroyed.

So at the end of the day the government isn’t creating jobs, it’s moving jobs. Jobs leave where the government taxes and borrows and appear where the government spends.” [Read more…]

How China Transformed Its Economy

China Embraces Capitalism China Capitalist by James E. Miller –
In a recent National Public Radio report, the real story behind the monumental land reforms which transformed the communist dystopia of China into a productive powerhouse was revealed.

In 1978, the farmers in a small Chinese village called Xiaogang gathered in a mud hut to sign a secret contract. They thought it might get them executed. Instead, it wound up transforming China’s economy in ways that are still reverberating today.

The contract was so risky – and such a big deal – because it was created at the height of communism in China. Everyone worked on the village’s collective farm; there was no personal property.

In Xiaogang there was never enough food, and the farmers often had to go to other villages to beg. Their children were going hungry. They were desperate. So, in the winter of 1978, after another terrible harvest, they came up with an idea: Rather than farm as a collective, each family would get to farm its own plot of land. If a family grew a lot of food, that family could keep some of the harvest.

[Read more…]

Job Creation Is No Mystery

Job Creation Business Economy Not Government by Tom McClintock –
The government’s continuing failure to address our nation’s gut-wrenching unemployment stems from a fundamental disagreement over how jobs are created in the first place.

We are now in the third year of policies predicated on the assumption that government spending creates jobs.

We have squandered three years and trillions of dollars of the nation’s wealth on such policies, and they have not worked because they cannot work.

Government cannot inject a single dollar into the economy until it has first taken that same dollar out of the economy. [Read more…]

Why 20% Should Be New 25% In Reforming Corporate Rate

Investors Business Daily by Ryan Ellis –

If there’s a common denominator in tax reform and economic growth packages, it’s this: the corporate rate is too high, and needs to come down for the sake of keeping our employers competitive internationally. Even most on the Left have accepted this.

The most common tax-rate target is 25%. Because of how the world has been moving in the direction of low corporate tax rates, however, this is no longer good enough — and might even result in a worse outcome than the status quo.

First, a little background. A generation or two ago, the entire developed world had high corporate income-tax rates. In 1981, the developed nation average was 47%. Canada had a 51% rate. The United Kingdom levied a rate of 52%. [Read more…]

Coddling Misinformation About Taxation

High Taxes Misinformation about Taxation Buffet by Chris Banescu –
Warren Buffett and President Obama claim that the rich do not pay enough taxes. They both blame the American tax code of being unfair and coddling the rich. Both have been pushing the same class-warfare narrative for many years, using current US capital gains and dividends taxation rates as evidence for their big government progressive agenda. Both are spreading misinformation about all the taxes corporations and individuals actually pay.

As far back in 2007, Mr. Buffet, the third-richest man in the world, began criticizing the US tax code for its low tax rates on dividends and capital gains from long-term investments. One of his most infamous statements, one often repeated by the Left to support its punish-the-rich schemes, was made in a speech at a $4,600-a-seat fundraiser for Senator Hillary Clinton in New York:

“The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”

[Read more…]