November, 2019,Part 8, Political Class Insanity: Failed Soda Tax In Philly, Failed Understanding of Gun Basics, and Failed City Government in Denver

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) More times than I care to mention we have made the case that most American politicians are completely ignorant when it comes to even basic economic principles. They raise the minimum wage to help the working poor and jobs for the working poor disappear. Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasi-Cortez, a business/economic major in college, has no idea what the definition of the unemployment rate is. An economic professor is hired by Washington politicians to design Obama Care and it is a total failure.

We have previously discussed the economic failure in Philadelphia relative to its idiotic soda tax. For those that missed that discussion of another failed economics test for politicians, consider the updated status of this failure as laid out in a recent article on the Freedom Headlines website. “Soda Tax Backfires, Now Philadelphia Is Hurting For It:”

• In theory the soda tax that the city politicians enacted was supposed to force city residents to make healthier beverage choices and get healthier.
• But since these politicians have no concept of basic economics, the economics of this decision has been a disaster for the city.
• The tax was so high that consumers did not stop drinking soda, they just left the city limits to buy soda where it was not taxed, namely out in the suburbs.
• Simple economics: when the price of a product gets too high, consumers will shop around for cheaper alternatives, duh.
• A recent study found that there was not higher demand for healthier beverage alternatives in the city, i.e. consumers did not switch to bottled water or other healthier liquid options, they simply went elsewhere to buy less expensive soda.
• By not understanding the simple concept of price elasticity, the city politicians raised the city tax on soda 17% which resulted in a sales drop of 51%, wiping out the tax increase and more.
• The article does some simple economic math by assuming that one million ounces of soda was sold annually before the tax increase went into effect.
• It the amount of soda consumed had stayed the same, the city would have seen annual soda tax revenue go from $54.300 to $62,400.
• But with volume decreased under the concept of price elasticity the city only received about $31,200 in annual revenue despite raising the tax rate by 17%.
• Almost immediately after the soda tax increase took effect, Pepsi said it would have to lay off 80 to 100 workers at their Philadelphia distribution locations because of decreased demand. [Source: www.philly.com]
• Acme supermarkets had to reduce hours in its 16 city stores because of the increased tax: “The beverage tax fell on about 4,000 items. In Acme city stores, soda sales dropped as much as 80 percent. Sales of other items covered by the tax, such as juices, creamers and energy drinks, were down 30 percent, and the number of customers declined by 5 percent. Philly stores cut an average of 150 to 200 employee hours per week, resulting in lighter paychecks for employees.”
• As for the original purpose of the law, reduce the consumption of sugary drinks to improve citizens’ health, it was a bust, people just went elsewhere to get their soda fix at more reasonable prices.

So, because of a severe lack of understanding regarding economics, Philadelphia officials introduced an economic law that:

1. Did not improve the health of citizens.
2. Reduced the employment level of workers in the city.
3. Reduced the number of hours other workers had available to them.
4. Gutted an existing city tax revenue stream.

Nice job, four for four in getting things more screwed up! These politicians did not only not understand economics they did not understand the right approach to the problem of obesity: this is a public health issue and should be resolved with public health programs. It is not a tax or economic issue and treating it as a tax and economic issue is never going to resolve the underlying root causes.

2) Sometimes politicians say the darndest things. In fact, we have dedicated whole posts to some of the idiocy that they have said over the years.You can access those gems of nonsense by putting”darndest things” in the search box above. Unfortunately, much of the stupid things they say call into question if they really know what they are talking about.

Joe Biden recently fell into this category. At a campaign stop in New Hampshire, he voiced his opposition to gun magazines that hold “100 clips.” But it is physically impossible for a magazine to hold “100 clips,” that is just idiocy. A clip holds bullets together and a single clip holding multiple bullets is then loaded into a single magazine. 

So, Biden is talking about abridging Second Amendment rights and cannot even get the basics of the industry straight. How are we supposed to take him and other Second Amendment opponents seriously when they do not know the difference between a magazine, a clip and a bullet?

Now, apparently, Biden realized his mistake and corrected himself. But please understand what you are talking about before you start messing with the Bill of Rights.

3) We have previously talked about how cities like San Francisco have decided to not make it a crime to defecate, urinate, or shoot up illegal drugs in public. As a result, cities have had to create hazmat sanitation units to clean the streets of defecation and urination on a daily basis, the chances of disease and infections have risen dramatically previously dormant diseases such as typhus have made a comeback and there has been a significant negative impact on the environment as raw sewage is flushed down storm drains and into rivers and the ocean.

Nasty stuff, crises that city politicians have no clue on how to manage or fix. Fortunately, at least for the rest of the country, this disaster has been confined to liberal run west coast cities such as Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Unfortunately, these problems have migrated out of the west coast and are affecting other cities such as Denver. Consider the poor plight of a small business owner in Denver and how liberal/Democratic politicians have made his life and business a similar living hell:

• According to an article by Ryan Saavedra, writing for the Daily Wire website, a Denver business owner has been fined by the city for not picking human feces that constantly appears in front of his business on a public sidewalk.
• The business owner claims that homeless people defecate in front of his business every day but the city refuses to clean up after them and are now fining him for not cleaning up also.
• Thus, he is taking the city to court to force them to do their job and keep the streets clean, something a taxpaying business owner should expect.
• The business owner, Jawaid Bazyer, who operates an internet service provider company in Denver, describes the situation: “The wall [of his building] is a bathroom stall. They [homeless folks] lean up against it and let it rip. In downtown Denver, that’s nonstop now, just piles of poop.”
• He goes on: “There’s food, trash, drug deals. In the alley, we get the defecation, drug needles.”
• He says that he has employees chased and attacked by criminals operating in the area.
• He sometimes calls local police to get vagrants off of his property several times a day to no avail.
• Given that the city sanitation and police have been ineffective in helping him, he started to refuse to clean up the feces and used drug needles from the front of his business, which resulted in the city fining him for not doing so.
• He rightfully claims that the situation is a bio hazard and he should not require his employees to expose themselves to such a danger: “Because it’s a bio-hazard. It could be infectious. I didn’t hire these people to clean poop off the ground. I can’t, as an employer, just say, ‘Go and clean up the feces. I’m not the one doing this, and they won’t do anything about the people committing the crimes, but I’m the one who’s easy to find and easy to punish.”

Gotta feel sorry for the guy, trying to build a business, provide good jobs for his employees, and the city bureaucracy and the politicians that operate it are punishing him for their failures. The primary reason for government to exist is to protect citizens. In Denver, it apparently means letting public health go out the window and then blame innocent citizens for the mess that ensues.

Another day of political class insanity: a failed tax in Philly, a failed understanding of gun basics, and a failed city government in Denver that endangers the health and financial welfare of everyone in the city.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

How American Politicians Have Allowed LA To Become a Third World Cesspool

We have often discussed the reality that Democrats/ liberals/socialists in west coast cities have turned once wonderful cities into crime infested, feces infested, drug infested cesspools with ever growing numbers of homeless folks and drug addicts. Two of those previous posts focused on San Francisco:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/07/july-2018-part-3-political-class.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/07/july-2018-part-3-political-class.html 

A third post expanded this discussion to include not only San Francisco but also Seattle and Los Angeles:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2019/04/americans-beware-see-how-socialism-and.html 

In all cases and all cities, Democrats and Socialists have been in charge of local government for so long that they alone are responsible for the mess they have turned these cities into. And none of them seem to have clue or desire to fix what they have so severely broken, a typical trait of most American politicians.

Let’s continue that theme today, basing our discussion on a recent article in the LA Times by Steven Lopez on June 2, 2019, “Rats at the police station, filth on L.A. streets — scenes from the collapse of a city that’s lost control”:

• The homeless, drug addiction, and public defecation and urination problems have gotten so bad in the city of Los Angeles that the rat population has exploded which has led to such unsanitary conditions that a recently city employee was found to have a strain of bacteria that causes typhoid fever, a truly Medieval disease.
• There are over 50,000 homeless Americans in just the city of Los Angeles.
• This has caused entire blocks of city streets to be overrun with trash and makeshift shelters usually reserved for third world countries.
• These unsanitary conditions have led to reports of typhoid and typhus outbreaks.
• According to Mr. Lopez’s first hand reporting: “On Thursday I saw a county health inspector on rat patrol between 7th and 8th streets on skid row. He was carrying a clipboard and said he had found droppings and other evidence of rodents, and I asked where: “Everywhere,” he said.”
• He claims that once a sanitation department cleans up one mess another mess pops up nearby with sometimes the mess consisting of bags of human excrement.
• His first hand reporting: “OK, the shovels were still out on Crocker Street, which was looking pretty good, so I went over to East 10th Street and Naomi Avenue, several blocks away, near the Coca-Cola distribution center. The north side of 10th Street looked like a landfill. Trash was scattered in the street and on the sidewalk, and there was a little bit of everything. Splintered lumber, metal poles, soiled blankets and clothing, a sofa, buckets, boxes.”
• He interviewed a homeless person on the street who had recently returning to his makeshift shelter on the street but said he was going to go somewhere else, his current street shelter had too many rats.
• In the middle of one  urban homeless encampment, the writer saw a standing puddle of murky green water, having no clue how people could live near it or what it consisted of.
• The article included some words from a local businessman, James Campbell: “I call the city [when a pile of trash appears] and they usually come within a week, but then it’s always piled right back up again. I don’t even like stepping out here because of the [drug] needles.”
• Mr. Lopez then rightfully goes off on current Mayor Eric Garcetti and the 15 members of the city council who apparently have no clue, no desire, or no ability to fix what a mess they have allowed a great city to become.

You can tell that the writer is very distraught at what has happened to his city and hometown as he should be. These problems did not crop up overnight and yet very little progress has been made to stem the tide of disgusting living conditions. 

But his is what happens when you have a professional political class whose only loyalty is to themselves to make sure they are well compensated for as long as possible which means staying in office as long as possible. Getting and staying in office is their only priority.

Which is why two things have to happen in this country:

• First, we need term limits so that anyone elected to office has only a defined window to make a difference and knows that spending time to get reelected is not an option any more. Maybe then they will actually do some good for others and not just for themselves.
• We need to start holding people accountable for their actions, whether it is politicians, government bureaucrats, and yes, the drug addicted and homeless folks that need our help but also have to realize that they have to also contribute to their well being.

It is so unbelievable that in the midst of the longest running economic recovery ever, when tax revenues are at an all time high and unemployment are staying at or near historically low levels, that such filth and degradation can be allowed to exist in this country. And as we have said above, the politicians have not the will, ability or desire to fix anything. 

Note: To see the original article that contains a series of pictures that really drive home what a cesspool some parts of LA have become, go to:

https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-skid-row-rats-trash-20190601-story.html

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

August, 2018, Part 2, By The Numbers - Murders and Financial Suicide In Chicago and Massive Street Cleaning In San Francisco

On a semi-regular basis we do a post under the theme, “By The Numbers.” Under this theme we analysis the crazy ways that politicians use numbers, from making them up outright, to using them inappropriately, to using them to lie to us. The problem for them when they do that is it is so easy to show how either stupid they are or how conniving they are. 

As an FYI, as you read my analysis of the misuse of numbers, keep in mind that I have a masters degree in statistics and for most of my life have been involved in analyzing numbers and stats. Politicians misuse of numbers and statistics is taken as a personal and professional affront to me and my profession.

1) Walter Williams, writing for the Heritage Foundation earlier this month, listed out some very distressing numbers coming out of Chicago, a gang and violence infested city. Mr.Williams, by the way, is an economics professor so he probably has a pretty good handle on numbers:

• During the weekend of August 4 -5, 12 residents of Chicago were shot to death and over five dozen were wounded.
• In the first seven months of 2018, 1,718 Chicago residents had been shot and 306 had died from their gunshot wounds.
• The law enforcement authorities in the city have cleared only about 15% of all of the shootings which means that if you are a violent criminal you have pretty goods odds (85%) of getting away with your crimes in Chicago.
• As of early July this year, 626 people had been shot by police officers this year of which 114 (18%) were black and all of last year, 987 people were shot by the police of which 223 were black, 23%.
• While these percentages were higher than the percentage of blacks in the U.S. (12%), in Chicago in 2017 there were 674 homicides of which a whopping 80% were black residents.

So while people are getting bent out of shape because Tiger Woods recently refused to denounce Trump and protesting NFL football players show such “bravery” on the football field every Sunday but contribute nothing to bringing down these Chicago shooting numbers, the killing and maiming numbers continue to march on in Chicago.

2) Let’s stay in Chicago because the financial numbers are just as disastrous as the murder and wounded numbers. We have previously discussed the reality that the financial situation in Chicago, and the state of Illinois also, is horrible. There are unfunded future liabilities, the schools are in terrible shape, and the most productive citizens continue to move out of the city as taxes go higher and higher without a commiserate drop in city expenses. Things are so bad that the city bonds have basically been dropped in value to junk bond status.

The local CBS outlet recently dropped two distressing numbers on the politicians in Chicago. The city apparently has unfunded future liabilities of about $28 BILLION. A single city that is short an amazing $28 billion. 

And rather than do the right thing, reduce city spending to cover this future shortfall, the city plans on issuing additional debt of $10 billion. Yes, great strategy, dig yourself an overwhelming debt hole and the proposed solution is to take on more debt! According to the report: “[Mayor] Rahm Emanuel suggested the city issue billions in obligation bonds. The plan aims to inject more cash into the pension system now in order to leverage a higher rate of return to exceed the interest that will accrue on the bonds, the Illinois Policy Institute says.”

Think about these numbers. Why would anyone want to own any of these new city bonds worth $10 billion when it still leaves the city short $18 billion? Does anyone really think that the $10 billion would ever be completely repaid when more city debt continues to pile up? And if Chicago is serious about issuing more debt, how high will the interest rates have to be to attract anyone to by basically junk bonds? 

Thus, it is obvious from these numbers that Chicago is in a financial death spiral: to pay off current debt they need to create more and more debt which drives up the interest rate they have to issue for the latest bonds which increases debt even more, etc., and the death spiral is underway.

3) We have previously discussed the reality that San Francisco has been turned into a third world hellhole. The streets are overrun with human defecation, urination, and illegal drug usage and needle use. So much so that the city actually has both a hotline for citizens to report human feces on the streets of the city and a five person full time pooper squad that goes around the city scooping up human feces from the street.

The numbers are unbelievable:

• The city has received a whopping 20,000 reports of human feces on the street.
• The five person city pooper squad costs almost $1 million a year just in salaries for the squad since each person on that assignment makes an obscene $185,000 a year.
• According to the San Francisco Chronicle: “San Francisco Public Works has a $72.5 million-a-year street cleaning budget — including spending $12 million a year on what essentially have become housekeeping services for homeless encampments. The costs include $2.8 million for a Hot Spots crew to wash down the camps and remove any biohazards, $2.3 million for street steam cleaners, $3.1 million for the Pit Stop portable toilets, plus the new $830,977-a-year Poop Patrol to actively hunt down and clean up human waste.”
• But beyond the popper squad, the city has budgeted $700,000 for a 10 person needle cleanup squad to cleanup the drug needles strewn about city streets.

Would one ever expect to see numbers like this in a modern American city? Pretty disgusting numbers with no relief insight. What is the great idea that the incoming mayor, Landon Breed, wants to implement to combat this problem? She wants to ask non-profit organizations serving the 7,500 homeless souls in the city to ask their constituents to stop pooping in the streets. Yeah, that will work.

As always, the numbers show just how ineffective and useless our politicians. Numbers do not lie but politicians do. More numbers to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w