The Long War Of The Trump Presidency Has Only Just Begun

Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

After a week managing the transition, vice president-elect Mike Pence took his family out to the Broadway musical “Hamilton.”

As Pence entered the theater, a wave of boos swept over the audience. And at the play’s end, the Aaron Burr character, speaking for the cast and the producers, read a statement directed at Pence:

“(W)e are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values.”

In March, the casting call that went out for actors for roles in this musical celebration of “American values” read:

“Seeking NON-WHITE men and women.”

The arrogance, the assumed posture of moral superiority, the conceit of our cultural elite, on exhibit on that stage Friday night, is what Americans regurgitated when they voted for Donald Trump.

Yet the conduct of the “Hamilton” cast puts us on notice. The left neither accepts its defeat nor the legitimacy of Trump’s triumph.

His presidency promises to be embattled from Day One.

Already, two anti-Trump demonstrations are being ginned up in D.C., the first on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, by ANSWER, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. A second, scheduled for Jan. 21, is a pro-Hillary “Million Woman March.”

While the pope this weekend deplored a “virus of polarization,” even inside the church, on issues of nationality, race and religious beliefs, that, unfortunately, is America’s reality. In a new Gallup poll, 77 percent of Americans perceived their country as “Greatly Divided on the Most Important Values,” with 7 in 8 Democrats concurring.

On the campuses, anti-Trump protests have not ceased and the “crying rooms” remain open. Since Nov. 8, mobs have blocked streets and highways across America in a way that, had the Tea Party people done it, would have brought calls for the 82nd Airborne.

In liberal Portland, rioters trashed downtown and battled cops.

Mayors Rahm Emanuel of Chicago and Bill de Blasio of New York have declared their cities to be “sanctuary cities,” pledging noncooperation with U.S. authorities seeking to deport those who broke into our country and remain here illegally.

Says D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, “I have asserted firmly that we are a sanctuary city.” According to The Washington Post, after the meeting where this declaration had been extracted from Bowser, an activist blurted, “We’re facing a fascist maniac.”

Such declarations of defiance of law have a venerable history in America. In 1956, 19 Democratic Senators from the 11 states of the Old Confederacy, in a “Southern Manifesto,” rejected the Supreme Court’s Brown decision ordering desegregation of the public schools.

Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett and Alabama Gov. George Wallace all resisted court orders to integrate. U.S. marshals and troops, ordered in by Ike and JFK, insured the court orders were carried out.

To see Rahm and de Blasio in effect invoking John C. Calhoun’s doctrine of interposition and nullification is a beautiful thing to behold.

Among the reasons the hysteria over the Trump election has not abated is that the media continue to stoke it, to seek out and quote the reactions they produce, and then to demand the president-elect give assurances to pacify what the Post says are “the millions of … blacks and Latinos, gays and Lesbians, Muslims and Jews — fearful of what might become of their country.”

Sunday, The New York Times ran a long op-ed by Daniel Duane who said of his fellow Californians, “(N)early everyone I know would vote yes tomorrow if we could secede” from the United States.

The major op-ed in Monday’s Post, by editorial editor Fred Hiatt, was titled, “The Fight to Defend Democracy,” implying American democracy is imperiled by a Trump presidency.

The Post’s lead editorial, “An un-American Registry,” compares a suggestion of Trump aides to build a registry of Muslim immigrants to “Nazi Germany’s … singling out Jews” and FDR’s wartime internment of 110,000 Japanese, most of them U.S. citizens.

The Post did not mention that the Japanese internment was a project of the beatified FDR, pushed by that California fascist, Gov. Earl Warren, and upheld in the Supreme Court’s Korematsu decision, written by Roosevelt appointee and loyal Klansman, Justice Hugo Black.

A time for truth. Despite the post-election, bring-us-together talk of unity, this country is hopelessly divided on cultural, moral and political issues, and increasingly along racial and ethnic lines.

Many Trump voters believe Hillary Clinton belongs in a minimum-security facility, while Hillary Clinton told her LGBT supporters half of Trump’s voters were racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes and bigots.

Donald Trump’s presidency will be a besieged presidency, and he would do well to enlist, politically speaking, a war cabinet and White House staff that relishes a fight and does not run.

The battle of 2016 is over.

The long war of the Trump presidency has only just begun.

via http://ift.tt/2gitqYc Tyler Durden

Obama Pressured To Free Central American “Asylum Seekers” Before Trump Takes Over

Just two days ago we shared our complete shock that Obama’s justice department agreed to stay a federal court case, that would have granted amnesty to 4 million illegal immigrants, citing a “change in Administration” (see “Trump Wins Again – Obama DOJ Halts Amnesty Lawsuit In Uncharacteristic Display Of Humility“). But some immigration advocates are refusing to give up the fight and, as Bloomberg notes, are urging Obama to use his last couple of months in office to release nearly 4,000 “asylum seekers” from Central America currently being held in “jail-like” facilities in Texas and Pennsylvania.

Immigration advocates are asking the Obama administration to release thousands of detained Central American women and children who want asylum in the U.S., citing concerns that Donald Trump will deport them after his inauguration in January.

Representatives of groups including the Women’s Refugee Commission and the American Immigration Lawyers Association met with White House officials last week to discuss a host of immigration issues, including the fate of about 4,000 Central American detainees, some as young as two years old, who have fled violence in their home countries. They’re housed in jail-like facilities in Texas and Pennsylvania, some for more than a year, as they wait for the government to process their asylum pleas.

“The family detention infrastructure is something that President Obama built, and unless he tears it down in the next two months this will be part of his presidential legacy,” said Carl Takei, staff attorney at the the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project.

Asylum Seeker

Meanwhile, proving once again that the rules mean absolutely nothing to the left, democrats have called on President Obama to go one step further and “pardon” 750,000 illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as small children. That said, even the Obama administration admits that its power only extends so far and can’t be used to grant legal status to illegal aliens.

Separately, advocates for about 750,000 young undocumented immigrants granted protection from deportation under Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, have pressed the White House to ensure Trump can’t use data compiled by the program to instead target and remove the people from the country. House Democrats called on Obama last week to issue a presidential pardon for the immigrants, who were brought into the country as children and have grown up as “Americans,” Obama said in Nov. 14 news conference.

The White House said last week that the president’s clemency power can’t be used to confer legal status on undocumented residents. Pete Boogaard, a White House spokesman, declined to comment on whether the administration has the authority to release the asylum seekers.

Amnesty

Of course the urgency comes as Trump is set to take office in less than two months and has promised to deport millions of illegal immigrants from the U.S., starting with those that have criminal records. Meanwhile, panic is setting in along the border as migrants staying in cramped shelters or
church basements are trying to leave the border region for cities
farther north such as Baltimore or New York…“there’s literally not enough commercial bus space to get the people out….they’re all terrified.”

Trump has promised to crack down on undocumented border crossers while also restricting refugees from terror-prone countries, but he has yet to articulate a policy for the thousands of asylum seekers who enter the U.S. each year. Trump’s top immigration advisers, including Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican who Trump plans to nominate as attorney general, have argued that Obama has been too easy on migrants.

“Instead of removing illegal immigrants, the President has expended enormous time, energy, and resources into settling newly arrived illegal immigrants throughout the United States,” Sessions wrote in a January 2015 “immigration handbook” for Republicans.

Under Trump, the advocates fear, the government could broaden the use of expedited removal -– fast-track deportation proceedings that take place without a judge — a practice that is already being used more frequently with asylum seekers.

“There is an added urgency to make sure that the families that are here get an opportunity to be heard in front of a judge,” said Ben Johnson, executive director at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “There is some concern that those families under the new administration will never have that chance.”

Stay tuned, though Obama has refused to take any unilateral actions on immigration since election day, we wouldn’t be shocked if he dropped a couple of surprises on the American people before departing the White House in two months.

via http://ift.tt/2gjFp7B Tyler Durden

Privatize to Get Rid of Passports and Resolve Immigration

Via The Daily Bell

Privatize to Get Rid of Passports and Resolve Immigration

To silence dissidents, Gulf states are revoking their citizenship Many are left stateless as a result. – The Economist

The Economist “newspaper” is worried that nations are beginning to use passports as a way to punish people that leaders don’t like.

This article focuses mainly on the Middle East, especially Bahrain, which the article calls an “energetic stripper.”

More here:

Bahrain’s … Sunni royals have dangled the threat of statelessness over its Shia majority to suppress an uprising launched in 2011, during the Arab spring.

In 2014 it stripped 21 people of their nationality. A year later the number was up tenfold. “Gulf rulers have turned people from citizens into subservient subjects,” says Abdulhadi Khalaf, a former Bahraini parliamentarian whose citizenship was revoked in 2012 and now lives safely in Sweden.

“Our passports are not a birthright. They are part of the ruler’s prerogative.” Neighbouring states are following suit. Kuwait’s ruling Al-Sabah family have deprived 120 of their people of their nationality in the past two years, says Nawaf al-Hendal, who runs Kuwait Watch, a local monitor.

Qatar is another big stripper. It suspended citizenship of an entire clan — the Ghafrans— some 5,000 Ghafrans since 2004. But it’s not just travel that is affected when a passport is revoked, but also in many cases jobs, house ownership, even the ability to own a phone or maintain a bank account.

If you are abroad, you cannot return, nor can the birth of a child be recorded, nor even a marriage. The laws allowing passport revocation are broader now, according to The Economist, and include the “terrorism,” which can be defined loosely.

Loyalty is beginning to be used as a reason for passport removal, and the West is not exempt. Britain will remove passports based on the contravention of the “public good.” And many EU nations cite terrorism for some passport confiscations

In the US, passports may be suspended by the IRS if overseas citizens owe more than $50,000 and the IRS has filed a notice of lien. However, the largest issue regarding passports remains unexamined by this article. And that issue has to do with the necessity for passports in the first place.

It can be argued of course, that passports are an absolute necessity for nation-states, but passports are basically an invention of the 20th century. The Guardian tells us, “Passports were not generally required for international travel until the first world war.” Before then, passports were issued in a haphazard manner. Here, from the Guardian:

Following an agreement among the League of Nations to standardise passports, the famous “old blue” was issued in 1920. Apart from a few adjustments to its duration and security features, the old blue remained a steady symbol of the touring Briton until it gradually began to be replaced by the burgundy-coloured European version in 1988.

INTERPOL is another form of global control that is less than 100 years old. Post-World War II, the United Nations has played a more active role in resuscitating and formalizing INTERPOL, see here.

Thus, international control of people’s movements and actions has drastically increased in the 20th and 21st century. Passports are now starting to represent regions rather than countries. A pan-African passport was announced earlier this year at the African Union (AU) summit in the Rwandan capital Kigali. From the report:

With the launch of the new pan-African document, the continent moved up a notch towards the free cross-border movement of goods and people—in direct opposite to Brexit, the decision by British voters to exit the European Union.

Of course, one could argue that expanding a passport’s operational function is not the same as reducing the power of a passport. In fact, even as passports expanded in power and scope in the 20th century, there were many high-level discussions about getting rid of them.

From an article posted at Business Insider:

In 1947, the first problem considered at an expert meeting preparing for the UN World Conference on Passports and Frontier Formalities, was “the possibility of a return to the regime which existed before 1914 involving as a general rule the abolition of any requirement that travelers should carry passports”.

But delegates ultimately decided that a return to a passport-free world could only happen alongside a return to the global conditions that prevailed before the start of the first world war.

By 1947, that was a distant dream. The experts advised instead a series of bilateral and multilateral agreements to attain this goal.

World leaders were still talking about banning passports as late as 1963, when the UN Conference on International Travel and Tourism recognised “the desirability, from both an economic and social point, of progressively freer international travel”. Once again, it was estimated that “it is not feasible to recommend the abolition of passports on a world-wide basis.”

Now, neither the public nor governments consider passports as a serious obstacle to freedom of movement, though any would-be traveller from Yemen, Afghanistan or Somalia would no doubt argue differently.

The world survived without passports for thousands – tens of thousands – of years. Likewise, the necessity of an expanding, global police force has not historically been a matter of discussion, much less implementation. Yet today the passport system is globally ubiquitous and growing. INTERPOL is merging some operations with the UN and becoming evermore aggressive and empowered.

The Economist article promotes the idea that passports ought to be seen as travel documents, not weapons of punishment. This is logical as far as it goes. But it never occurs to The Economist editors to argue that passports ought not to exist to begin with.

The Economist like most of the mainstream media is always apt to criticize the powers that government has but never to suggest that the real solution is to do away with those powers.

Even a passing familiarity with free-market economics would yield up options other than merely re-calibrating government power.

Private property is the key to a better and more rational world. If people – rather than their governments – owned a substantial portion of the world’s real estate, immigration might soon cease to be a problem. People themselves would decide who would come and go. The poisonous immigration battles now taking place would be at least mitigated.

Likewise, government abuse of passports would be considerably reduced if it were generally accepted that people had a right to invite people onto their own property without government permission.

The argument then comes up that “terrorism” necessitates passports and government control over immigration. But even a cursory examination of the history of al Qaeda and ISIS will show that the West and especially the US fostered these terrorist groups to begin with.

Here, from GlobalResearch.com:

The so-called “War on Terror” should be seen for what it really is: a pretext for maintaining a dangerously oversized U.S. military. The two most powerful groups in the U.S. foreign policy establishment are the Israel lobby, which directs U.S. Middle East policy, and the Military-Industrial-Complex, which profits from the former group’s actions.

Since George W. Bush declared the “War on Terror” in October 2001, it has cost the American taxpayer approximately 6.6 trillion dollars and thousands of fallen sons and daughters; but, the wars have also raked in billions of dollars for Washington’s military elite.

Those controlling government are ever jealous of their prerogatives and the wealth they have access to. They will create an endless amount of crises to justify and expand their control. Government itself, based on monopoly power and resultant force, is purveyor of the problem, always.

Conclusion: Reshaping public solutions does no good. Jettisoning them to greatest degree possible is the only viable solution.

Editor’s Note: The Daily Bell is giving away a silver coin and a silver “white paper” to subscribers. If you enjoy DB’s articles and want to stay up-to-date for free, please subscribe here.

More from The Daily Bell:

Rand Corp. Blasts ‘Truth Decay’ – Wants Facts Determined by Appropriate Leaders

How Deep Will Trump’s Truths Go?

India Bans Cash, Now Gold?

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A Highly Respected Medical Journal Just Declared ‘The War On Drugs’ An Epic Failure

Submitted by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,

“The war on drugs has failed,” the editors of the peer-reviewed British Medical Journal declared this week, arguing that doctors should lead the global effort to reform drug policy.

Fiona Godlee, the journal’s editor-in-chief, and Richard Hurley, its features and debates editor, penned an analysis citing academic and scientific reports to argue global policies on drug use — including the United Nations’ — have fallen drastically short.

Godlee and Hurley note the annual cost of prohibition, which entails criminalizing “producers, traffickers, dealers, and users,” totals at least $100 billion annually.

“But the effectiveness of prohibition laws, colloquially known as the ‘war on drugs,’ must be judged on outcomes,” they write. “And too often the war on drugs plays out as a war on the millions of people who use drugs, and disproportionately on people who are poor or from ethnic minorities and on women.”

The authors cite a variety of reasons why the global war on drugs has been a failure.

Citing an academic study on international drug policy from the Lancet medical journal, the authors argue that “prohibition and stigma encourage less safe drug consumption and push people away from health services.”

These policies have other negative consequences. Godlee and Hurley highlight the current situation between Russia and Crimea, “where patients in Crimea died after the Russian invasion because they were forced to stop taking methadone, which is viewed as opioid misuse and illegal in Russia.”

Further, though opioid addiction is a growing epidemic, “drug control policies effectively deny two-thirds of the world’s population—more than five billion people—legitimate access to opioids for pain control.”

Another problem [pdf] with prohibition policies, they argue, is that “they impede research into medical use of cannabis and other prohibited drugs despite evidence of potential benefit.”

This is the case in the United States, where the federal government’s designation of cannabis as a Schedule I drug has hampered the ability of scientists to research the medical effects of the plant. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently ruled to maintain this classification. This decision was largely deemed hypocritical, especially considering the United States government holds a patent on cannabis for its antioxidant properties. The federal government’s National Cancer Institute also admits cannabis can help treat the symptoms of cancer and that “[c]annabis has been shown to kill cancer cells in the laboratory.” In spite of the promise of the plant, it remains prohibited under federal law.

Still, Godlee and Hurley argue, the effects of the drug war aren’t limited to health. They extend to the realm of human rights:

“All wars cause human rights violations, and the war on drugs is no different. Criminally controlled drug supply markets lead to appalling violence—causing an estimated 65 000-80 000 deaths in Mexico in the past decade, for example [pdf]. Mandatory sentencing for even minor drug offences has helped the United States attain the highest rate of incarceration in the world [pdf]. The Philippines has seen 5000 extrajudicial killings [pdf] since July, after President Rodrigo Duterte’s call for vigilantism against drug dealers.”

The paper also cites countries around the world that have moved to lessen the invasiveness of the drug war. They cite Portugal, which famously removed criminal penalties for drugs 15 years ago.

Further, they note:

“Jurisdictions such as Canada, Uruguay, and several US states, now including California, and have gone further, to allow regulated non-medical cannabis markets, retaking control of supply from organised crime. The Netherlands has tolerated regulated cannabis sales for decades.”

The editors of the BMJ acknowledge drugs can cause harm. But they argue “governments should decriminalise minor drug offences” and “strengthen health and social sector approaches,” as well as move toward regulated drug markets.

Most importantly, they assert doctors should play a key role in developing drug policy.

“Health should be at the centre of this debate and so, therefore, should healthcare professionals. Doctors are trusted and influential and can bring a rational and humane dimension to ideology and populist rhetoric about being tough on crime.”

The BMJ editors are not the first to condemn the war on drugs. Earlier this year, over 1,000 world leaders, scientists, and medical experts condemned the U.N.’s half-hearted effort to reform its drug policies. In a separate criticism of the U.N.’s proposed solutions, 194 advocacy groups also expressed disappointment.

Similarly, a group of doctors in the United States called Doctors for Cannabis Regulation has advocated an end to marijuana prohibition in favor of regulation of the market.

BMJ acknowledges efforts like these but asserts “such calls are far from universal—and far from loud enough.”

“Doctors and their leaders have ethical responsibilities to champion individual and public health, human rights, and dignity and to speak out where health and humanity are being systemically degraded.”

“Change is coming,” they conclude, “and doctors should use their authority to lead calls for pragmatic reform informed by science and ethics.”

via http://ift.tt/2gIuHLO Tyler Durden

Scientists Find “Persuasive Evidence” Of Vote Hacking, Demand Clinton Recount In 3 States

Between the so-called 'Hursti Hack', questions over Soros-linked voting machines, some peculiarities in Texas, and the media furore over Trump's democracy-threatening questioning of the election outcome; it is perhaps ironic that, after being soundly beaten across the vast majority of counties in America, NY Mag reports, a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers are urging the Clinton campaign to call for a recount in three swing states won by Donald Trump after alledgedly finding "persuasive evidence" of vote hacking.

The group, which includes voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, believes they’ve found persuasive evidence that results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania may have been manipulated or hacked.

New York Magazine reports that sources confirmed that the activists held a conference call last Thursday with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign general counsel Marc Elias to make their case…

The academics presented findings showing that in Wisconsin, Clinton received 7 percent fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic-voting machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots.

Based on this statistical analysis, Clinton may have been denied as many as 30,000 votes; she lost Wisconsin by 27,000.

Notably, however, it’s important to note the group has not found proof of hacking or manipulation, they are arguing to the campaign that the suspicious pattern merits an independent review – especially, as New York Magazine so gleefully points out, in light of the fact that the Obama White House has accused the Russian government of hacking the Democratic National Committee.

As a reminder, via MishTalk.com, Geographically speaking, Trump won at least 80% of the Nation.

The only states Hillary carried are Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

Trump won every county in Oklahoma and West Virginia. Trump won all but one county in Wyoming, and Kansas. Trump won all but two counties in North Dakota, Kentucky, Tennessee, Utah, and Nebraska.

Nearly the entire state of Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Oregon, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Michigan, etc., went for Trump.

Geographically speaking, except for big cities and a few isolated areas, the country cannot stand Hillary.

So the big question is – could she win? Well the answer is complicated…

According to current tallies, Trump has won 290 Electoral College votes to Clinton’s 232, with Michigan’s 16 votes not apportioned because the race there is still too close to call.

It would take overturning the results in both Wisconsin (10 Electoral College votes) and Pennsylvania (20 votes), in addition to winning Michigan’s 16, for Clinton to win the Electoral College.

There is also the complicating factor of “faithless electors,” or members of the Electoral College who do not vote according to the popular vote in their states. At least six electoral voters have said they would not vote for Trump, despite the fact that he won their states.

The Clinton camp is running out of time to challenge the election. NYMag notes that according to one of the activists, the deadline in Wisconsin to file for a recount is Friday; in Pennsylvania, it’s Monday; and Michigan is next Wednesday.

Of course, should this happen, we can only imagine what carnage it would cause to global financial markets as the Trump Bump hope fades into the Clinton crash.

Finally we leave you with the most infamous election quote of all:

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." – Joe Stalin

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Obama Legacy Already Crumbling As Federal Judge Blocks Overtime Rule

Ever a big fan of unilateral “rule changes,” back in May of this year Obama and the Department of Labor implemented a new overtime regulation that was set to take effect on December 1st. The rule change called for increasing the minimum salary threshold at which employers would have been required to pay overtime to workers from $23,660 to $47,476, or a mere 101%. The rule would have required employers to pay time-and-a-half to salaried workers making less than $47,476 per year for any time worked in excess of 40 hours per week. According to the Wall Street Journal, the new regulation would have cost employers about $2BN per year.

But, all that changed today when a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas signed a preliminary injunction (attached at the end of this post) temporarily blocking the rule from taking effect next week to allow more time for litigation. Of course, the delay will be viewed by the Plaintiffs, and many employers around the country, as an outright victory as it likely postpones any final decisions until Trump takes over over the White House in January. And with Trump already signaling his intentions to roll back many of Obama’s “job-killing” regulations we suspect this one will get moved to the top of his list.

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) praised the court’s decision as a huge victory for small business owners, 44% of which they claim would be directly impacted by the rule change.

“This is a victory for small business owners and should give them some breathing room until the case can be properly adjudicated,” NFIB President and CEO Juanita Duggan said in a statement.

The NFIB claimed that 44 percent of small businesses employ at least one person who would have been subject to the higher overtime pay.

Duggan said the NFIB would continue to fight against the rule, which she said would raise small business expenses by forcing them to pay their employees overtime.

Of course, the “political hacks” (as Trump refers to them) in the Department of Labor have asserted that the impact of this simple “rule change” would all accrue to the benefit of employees as American corporations and shareholders would simply allow the increased costs to flow straight through to their bottom lines. Per the DOL:

Put more money into the pockets of many middle class workers—or give them more free time.

Prevent a future erosion of overtime protections and ensure greater predictability.

Strengthen overtime protections for salaried workers already entitled to overtime and provide greater clarity for workers and employers.

Improve work-life balance.

Increase employment by spreading work.

Improve workers’ health.

Increase productivity.

But, as our readers certainly understand, in the real world these increased regulations inevitably just lead to higher unemployment over the long-term as the higher costs simply make returns on automation and mechanization capital projects that much more attractive.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, employers have spent the last 6 months frantically trying to figure out how to comply with the new rule amid uncertainty as to whether or not it would survive multiple open lawsuits and/or a Trump reversal once he takes over the White House in January. While some companies had already taken actions to comply with the new law, it is now looking increasingly like those actions were premature.

U.S. employers have spent months adjusting employee schedules, job duties and pay ahead of a new overtime rule that takes effect Dec. 1.

The regulation, which makes millions more workers eligible for overtime pay, was intended as one of President Barack Obama’s signature achievements, and a way to meaningfully raise incomes for people in front-line roles in retail, food service and beyond.

The fate of the rule, however, is far from assured as it faces both a strong challenge in the courts and, in Donald Trump, the president-elect, who has vowed to roll back business regulations.

Employers who have made or are considering big changes in their workforce—either by raising managers’ salaries to the newly set threshold for overtime pay or eliminating job categories like assistant manager—say the uncertainty is adding to the challenge of preparing for the rule.

The Labor Department rule will require employers to start paying overtime to workers earning salaries of less than $47,476 a year—a threshold the business community says is too big a jump from the current $23,660, which was last updated in 2004. Some workers whose salaries exceed the threshold can qualify for overtime pay depending on job duties.

Per the Department of Labor, the overtime rule change would impact 4.2mm workers across the country with California, Texas, Florida and New York bearing the brunt of the impact.

The Department of Labor even created this lovely propaganda video to sale everyone on the merits of Obama’s latest regulation…which we’re sure cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, the CEO of Fazoli’s beautifully illustrates our point above that the practical implementation of “rule changes” imposed by “political hacks” is often very different than what’s expected.

Fazoli’s Chief Executive Carl Howard said his restaurant chain couldn’t afford to raise salaries for its 125 assistant general managers to the new threshold. (They generally earn in the low $30,000s, he said.) Yet, he wanted them to continue working 45 hours a week, as they do now, without cutting pay.

So Mr. Howard will make them hourly employees at rates low enough to fund a 45-hour week, including five hours of overtime at time-and-a-half.

How many times will the uninformed left try to impose new regulations that actually hurt the people they’re trying to help before finally learning the error of their ways?

via http://ift.tt/2gImIyo Tyler Durden

India’s Currency Debacle: “Consider It A Warning”

Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum via Acting-Man.com,

A Major Crisis

Last week Jayant Bhandari related the story of the overnight ban of certain banknotes in India under cover of “stamping out corruption” (see Gold Price Skyrockets In India after Currency Ban Part 1 and Part 2 for the details).

banned-notes

Banned 500 rupee banknotes

The problem is inter alia that the sudden ban of these banknotes has hit the Indian economy quite hard, given that 97% of all transactions in the country are cash-based. Not only that, it has certainly created fresh avenues for corruption – which should have been expected (whether it will succeed in its aim of stamping out other types of corruption remains to be seen – we doubt it).

Moreover, the poorest of the poor are suffering the most on account of the ban, not least because the promised replacement of the banned banknotes is apparently hitting major logistical snags and may take much longer than thought.

Readers interested in this story may want to listen to an interview Jayant has recently given to Maurice Jackson of “Proven and Probable”, which we have embedded below. A quick note on errata: at 1:45 and 1:57, Jayant says “2,000 dollars” – he obviously meant to say “2,000 rupees”.

Maurice Jackson interviews Jayant Bhandari

Further updates on the still developing situation can be expected soon.

Consider it a Warning

We would note on this occasion that although what India’s citizens are facing these days may seem a remote danger to most Westerners, it does demonstrate an important point: state-issued paper currency exists only at the sufferance of the State. It can be made worthless by decree.

As we pointed out in “Why Does Fiat Money Seemingly Work?”, the main reason why irredeemable paper money is accepted at all are not only legal tender laws which enforce its use as a means of payment, but primarily the fact that the State insists that its fiat currency be used for the payment of taxes. This is what creates a secondary market demand for fiat money, without which it could probably not exist.

Surprisingly, the concept is not really a modern one – it was tested in Great Britain for a considerable stretch of time with the tally sticks system. Although that particular system ultimately failed (just as every currently extant paper currency eventually will), it did show the way to governments. It was indeed possible to do more than merely usurp the production of gold and silver coins.

So obviously, governments do have considerable influence on what is used as the means of final payment in the economy. What governments have been unable to do though is to effectively “demonetize” the money previously chosen by the market – namely gold. Governments may well be able to make the possession of gold illegal, but they cannot possibly destroy the metal’s monetary qualities by decree.

golalot

Gold – the market-chosen money. No agreements, convocations or force were needed – people adopted gold voluntarily as a money commodity all over the world, after a long period of trial and error with a variety of monies.

When Nixon was persuaded to abandon the gold exchange standard in favor of a pure fiat dollar, many monetarists (one of whom was advising him on the move) and other mainstream economists were convinced that gold prices would decline from the $35 fixed exchange rate to something like $6 per ounce, reflecting its value as an industrial commodity.

In other words, they reckoned that the act of officially “demonetizing” gold would erase all monetary demand for it. As is often the case with predictions agreed on by a majority of economists, this turned out to be rather wildly mistaken.

Another prediction by mainstream economists gone rather spectacularly wrong. Monetary demand for gold not only failed to disappear, it actually grew rather significantly – click to enlarge.

What has just happened in India clearly demonstrates that the nature of state-issued fiat money must be taken into account when considering what to do about the rapaciousness of increasingly desperate and technically insolvent governments.

If one wants to safeguard one’s cash holdings against the potential failure of the fractionally reserved banking system or against arbitrary wealth confiscation – such as has inter alia been advocated by the IMF (see “Is a Large wealth Grab in its Way” for the sordid details on this) – one has to keep this important detail in mind.

Withdrawing deposit money in the form of cash currency is only an effective strategy as long as governments don’t do what India’s government has just done. And one should definitely never make the mistake of underestimating the lengths to which governments are prepared to go under the cover of “emergency”.

Conclusion

In the course of the 20^th century alone, we have seen such a wide range of government depredations with respect to money, that one has to be extraordinarily naïve to believe repeat performances are no longer possible.

What has happened in India should be seen as a clear warning. State-issued cash currency may not be affected by bank insolvencies and “bail-ins”, but it is by no means safe. By contrast, gold simply cannot be devalued by government decree.

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The First Thanksgiving?

Is it racist?

Source: Townhall.com

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In Which States Has Food-Stamp Use Increased The Most

Submitted by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

In an earlier post we looked at nationwide growth in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as "food stamps."

We found that, thanks to many years of accelerated growth in the program under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, 1 in 7 Americans now participate in the food stamp program.

There are, however, very large differences from state to state in how much the food stamp program has expanded. If we look at growth in the program from the year 2000 to 2015, we find growth varying from 641 percent growth in Nevada, to 54 percent growth in Wyoming:

Regionally, the areas of the country with the most growth are the South and West:

We can't draw an easy conclusions from this map, however, since food stamp usage can often increase with population growth. That is, it is probably not a coincidence that many of the states with the the most growth in food state usage also happens to be states with some of the highest rates of population growth:

There are some states, however, where there was very weak population growth during this time period, but food stamp usage increased considerable. In these areas, we are led to conclude that the economy worsened. For example, in Nevada during the 2000-2015 period, the population increased 44 percent, but food stamp usage increased 641 percent. In other words, food stamp usage increased 14 times more than population. By contrast, in North Dakota, food-stamp usage increased by less than five times as much as population.

As explored in this article, median income growth has varied considerably from state to state. In many cases, the states most heavily impacted by declining median incomes were states in the Great Lakes region, including Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

If we look at food stamp growth compared to population growth, we get the following scatter graph:

From 2000-2015, all states experienced at least some population growth, except Michigan. Not surprisingly, Nevada, which experienced the highest rate of population growth, also experienced the highest rate of food stamp growth.

However, Nevada's growth in food stamps was much higher than we'd expect, given the food-stamp growth rates in other states.

We can get a sense of whether or not food-stamp growth was typical or atypical if we insert a trend line. Given the population growth for each state, those states that fall above the trend line experienced a larger-than-expected growth in food stamps, while those states below the trend line experienced less growth in food stamps that would be expected.

The reasons for a state having an especially large growth rate in food stamps can include any number of things. However, many of the states that were found to have dropping median incomes over this period also show up as having higher-than-expected growth in food stamps. This is especially noticeable with Wisconsin and Nevada. Also included in this group are Florida and Michigan, while Pennsylvania and Ohio are both slightly above the trend line.

And, it may also not be a coincidence that Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio were all states that flipped in the electoral college from Obama to Trump in the 2016 election. Indeed, as Yahoo News reported today, black voters in Milwaukee, many of whom are suffering economically, may have been an important factor in Hillary Clinton's defeat in Wisconsin.

By itself, food stamp usage predicts nothing in terms of elections, of course, since ideology, demographics, and other factors matter as well. Nevertheless, we do see here additional information that lends itself to the idea that the so-called "flyover states" continue to be overlooked in terms of national economic analysis.

While the national economic news may continue to show growth and relatively low unemployment numbers, there continues to be many areas of the United States where economic growth and income growth are behaving contrary to the trends found in the nation at large.

via http://ift.tt/2gzt2Y4 Tyler Durden

In Which States Has Food-Stamp Use Increased The Most

Submitted by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

In an earlier post we looked at nationwide growth in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as "food stamps."

We found that, thanks to many years of accelerated growth in the program under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, 1 in 7 Americans now participate in the food stamp program.