Granted, I’m only 26 years old. But a few years ago I was a know-nothing know-it-all.

Since then I have learned a few things:

1. The world is just far too complex for one person to have all the answers to life’s questions.

2. College is bullshit. It is really just a waste of time. Did I learn a lot? Yes. But much of what I learned in this period of time came from outside school. This includes my field of study, economics, as well. About half of what I learned of economics came from outside of the classroom.

3. Politicians are full of shit. When I was a child, I was a very gullible one. I often watched television shows featuring psychics, alien abductions, ghosts, etc. I eventually came to the conclusion that this was nothing more than entertaining television. The same goes for politicians. I was raised in a liberal household, and I held liberal views for much of my life. But when high school came around, something happened. I don’t know if it was a form of rebellion or what. But I became a neoconservative, Republican shill. I remained so for about three or four years after high school. Like many people I became disillusioned with the neoconservative policies of the Bush administration. And so I left for a few years and became a liberal. But soon I realised something wasn’t right their either, and after studying some basic economics, I left that too. Soon I became just simply anti-government. I hate government, I loathe politicians, and I’ve gotten much better at sniffing out bullshit.

From what I have heard, the mainstream media is basically saying that Ron Paul has dropped out of the race.

This is blatantly false. What the campaign has decided is to focus on winning delegates at state conventions, rather than focusing (and spending millions of dollars) on primaries. After all, it is delegates that decide the nominee for the GOP, not primary results.

Using my economic acumen, I can say that spending millions of dollars on primaries (that don’t usually matter, since delegates are often selected at state conventions) that get little return on investment makes no sense. Ron Paul’s strategy for winning delegates at caucuses and conventions, on the other hand, has worked. And it’s still working!

Granted, the media machine has basically counted Paul out of contention from day one. Since he can’t really win primaries, Paul has decided not to play the media’s game any longer.

From The Hill:

In a presidential proclamation released Thursday, President Obama called upon Americans to boost their understanding of their personal finances in April.

As America digs out from underneath the financial crisis of 2008, he stressed in the announcement that the need for a strong understanding of finance is more important than ever, as the nation works to get back on a sound fiscal foundation.

How big is the national debt?

It’s too bad they don’t give Nobel Prizes for comedy.

Some Maine Republicans have come under attack from progressive and union groups for a proposal (pdf) to curtail some child labour laws or as progressives put it, to wage “war on child labor laws”.

Ignoring politics, lets make a simple economic analysis. Minimum wage laws cause unemployment, especially for younger people. By setting a minimum wage above the equilibrium price in a labour market, the result is a surplus of labour, i.e. quantity supplied exceeds quantity demanded. This means that employers will not hire as many employees at the government mandated wage. (See image above)

Think Progress goes on to claim:

Burns’ bill is particularly insidious, because it directly encourages employers to hire children or teenagers instead of adult workers. Because workers under 20 could be paid less than adults under this GOP proposal, minimum wage workers throughout Maine would likely receive a pink slip as their twentieth birthday present so that their boss could replace them with someone younger and cheaper.

This claim is very blunt, and lacks economic backing. Adult workers typically have more work experience and more education than teenagers, which is why adults earn higher wages than teens. So really this nothing more than hyperbole, not a form of economic reasoning.

There is nothing wrong with letting young people, willing to work, bid down wages so they can gain valuable work experience.

NYC is installing 3,000 new cameras to spy on its residents.

Perhaps Orwell’s 1984 should be renamed 2015.

Mr. Messamore has a hilarious and very true article about the real freaks in politics (i.e. the ones people vote for).

The Federal Reserve’s motion to have a case involving the disclosure of certain records relating to the financial crisis reheard has been denied by the second court of appeals.

The case relates to a request filed by Bloomberg and Fox News to have such records released by the Fed based on the Freedom of Information Act.

Does everyone remember Ryan Sorba, the douche that condemned CPAC 2010 for allowing the sponsorship of a gay organization?

Apparently GOProud has just signed on as a sponsor of CPAC 2011.

The picture is of Ryan Sorba getting some Bushy love.

I find it funny that this is coming from a guy who thinks the federal government isn’t spending enough.

Ibid:

No, this has nothing to do with sound economic policy. Instead, as I said, it’s about a dysfunctional and corrupt political culture, in which Congress won’t take action to revive the economy, pleads poverty when it comes to protecting the jobs of schoolteachers and firefighters, but declares cost no object when it comes to sparing the already wealthy even the slightest financial inconvenience.

Krugman is a Keynesian, so by “revive the economy” he means spend more money, since monetary policy is ineffective due to the current liquidity trap.

Naturally if one wants to spend billions of dollars to “revive the economy” one needs a tax source. After spending billions of dollars, the unemployment rate has stayed at about 9% or so and all this so-called stimulus spending hasn’t made a dent in GDP*.

It doesn’t take a Nobel laureate to realize that raising taxes isn’t a way to “revive the economy.” It may be true that the tax hikes directly impact the rich, but it will affect everyone. It makes no sense to take money from people that create jobs and give it to the government.

Krugman correctly states that the political culture in congress is “corrupt,” but saying that the government should raise taxes to give more money to corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, now that’s rich.

*It should be noted that GDP includes government spending, since everything spent by the government is done to provide some type of “product” (service).

Under 28 USC § 3002 (15)(A), the United States is defined as a “Federal corporation”:

(15) “United States” means—
(A) a Federal corporation;
(B) an agency, department, commission, board, or other entity of the United States; or
(C) an instrumentality of the United States.