Economics

There was this article in one of my local papers (Laconia Citizen) from a local shopkeeper imploring the local residents to buy from local businesses:

If Lakes Region residents devoted only 10 percent of their shopping to local businesses, it would benefit not only the region, but themselves in the long run, an noted author and expert on local economies told an audience Wednesday….

Hamel explained that a big problem in the economy is people not spending locally, but rather at "big box chain stores," and buying on the Internet…

Hammel said that with large corporations building chain businesses, they are essentially "stealing from local economy" by making consumers think that their money is being spent locally when it isn’t. He said if people shopped just a little more at the local level, it can make a big difference…

…Local business owners Randy and Sue Bullerwell, who also started BIBA, own All My Life Jewelers and they said they were forced to close their second shop, String ‘Em Up Bead Shop, because they were losing business to the Internet and larger chain jewelry stores.

"We got sick and tired of people saying what they bought online," said Randy. "It wasn’t helping our businesses and it wasn’t helping the area."

"We had two businesses downtown and because people don’t shop locally, we have one now," said Sue.

The phrase "stealing from the local economy" really struck me – do local businesses have a right to claim a profit first from the local population before the "big box stores"?  If I spend at a Lowe’s or a Shaws, am I now participating in a "capitalist crime"? 

Last time I looked, commerce in our capitalistic society is a voluntary decision –  a price determines whether or not I shall buy an item or service  and a vendor will sell. It shows…

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The latest numbers are out, and so is the use of the word "Unexpected" with an official unemployment rate of 9.6%.  After how much of Stimulus?

Lots of people will blame President Obama and certainly, he deserves all of the blame and shame that comes with seeking, winning, and using the Office of the Presidency in implementing his set of economic policies. Remember, however, that Democrats have controlled both the US House and the US Senate since 2006 – 4 years.  It is the US House that actually comes up with the tax and spend bills (although the Senate also votes on it and the President gets his say with either his signature or veto).

Thus, here in NH, we get to blame our US House Representatives (that would be Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes) and our US Senator (Jeanne Shaheen) that voted for these economic policies.  Thus, they share in this result NO, THEY OWN THIS RESULT:

(H/T: ClusterStock)

What does it mean?  The worst unemployment picture EVAH.  Sure, President Bush started the ball rolling along with the Republicans that voted for his policies at the end of his term.  In effect, it has shown that Government control of the economy with Progressive fundamentals (like Pelosi’s insistence that unemployment checks and food stamps are the biggest boost one can give to an economy).

Under Progressive leadership, with their class hatred…

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To the Editor:

Now that President Obama’s “Summer of recovery” is over, we hear that the recession ended in June of 2009.  Well, bless me, I guess that makes everything just fine.

But, what about the nearly ten percent unemployed?  The additional ten percent underemployed or discouraged workforce drop-outs?  The record levels of Americans in poverty?  The miniscule economic growth rate?  The media described President Bush‘s five percent unemployment rate as a disaster.  The media describes President Obama’s numbers as the “new normal”.

Unfortunately, if President Obama’s policies are continued, these numbers, and the personal disasters they represent, may be the “new normal”.  Few businesses will invest and hire people when they cannot estimate their expenses because of the many unknown costs of President Obama’s agenda, e.g., Obamacare, cap and trade, card check, executive compensation limits, personnel policies, taxation, etc.  What business executives will take risks when the government can declare a business “too risky and too important” and just take over the business, dismiss the executives, and wipe out investors as it did with car company investors?   

As long as President Obama and the other liberals (or “progressives” as some prefer) smear business executives and investors, create a treacherous economic environment, and…

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China has now overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economic power.  The news came with the inevitability we have come to expect, given their record of 10% annual growth. This rise from poverty has never been equaled in world history. Two hundred years from now, historians will remember this as the most important event of our times.

At almost the same moment came the news that Germany’s economy is charging ahead, growing faster than any other European economy. It is being powered forth by the reforms they have undertaken in the last five years. Those reforms ditched the old European social welfare system in favor of smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation and more market freedom. Germany is no longer the sick man of Europe.

(Indeed, in recent days the Cuban government has announced that they will be laying off more than one million government workers while loosening restrictions on the private sector, and the Swedes have voted in a center right government with the same goals. The private sector has been asked to shoulder a greater role in the provision of education, health care and welfare services. The move to the right is also evident in Britain, Norway, Denmark and Finland.)  

And yet here in the United States, we are looking at the prospect of continued economic stagnation, fearful that we will continue to lose our manufacturing base while or infrastructure deteriorates, and less confident than we have ever been for our children’s future.

What’s wrong with this picture? Simply put,…

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