Via @USGovtInterest Twitter page:
Month of December Interest on Debt payment $86,460,237,565.98
Fiscal YTD payments $118,589,429,039.05
Category / United States Government
Goldfish Surgery Now $500
Via CBCNEWS –
According to BBC News, a man from Norfolk, England recently paid £300 (about $540 Cdn) to have his sick goldfish treated a local veterinarian’s office.
Vet Faye Bethell of Toll Barn Veterinary Centre in North Walsham, England, examined the fish when it was brought it in and determined that constipation was the problem.
After consulting with the pet’s owner to be sure he wanted to shell out for the procedure, Bethell performed an hour-long surgery on the fish to remove “a lump blocking its bottom” with the help of two veterinary nurses.
How Much Does Crime Cost Retailers?
Crime against retailers is a high cost that gets absorbed either through higher prices for the consumer or loss of profit for the retailer. Not much is talked about this cost and some recent numbers shed some light on the issue. The National Retail Federation did a study in the spring of 2014 and here is what they found:
A decade has passed since NRF first surveyed its community of loss prevention and security executives about the impact organized retail crime has on their company, and with the release of the 2014 survey, it’s evident that the $30 billion a year problem still threatens retailers of all sizes throughout the country. According to the National Retail Federation’s 10th annual Organized Retail Crime Survey, which polled 76 senior retail loss prevention executives, eight in 10 (88.2%) retailers report that they have been a victim of ORC in the past year, down slightly from 93.5 percent last year.
New data also rolled in on states that helped retailers prosecute criminals:
According to the survey, three in 10 (30.6%) of those polled said they have noticed a reduction in ORC activity in states where laws are present. Additionally, of those retailers who have a presence in states with existing ORC laws, more than half (52.1%) noticed a positive impact on their ability to prosecute ORC offenders more effectively; nine in 10 (88.5%) said they have noticed an increase in support from law enforcement agencies when actively investigating organized retail crime cases. Specifically, 51.9 percent said they’ve noticed an increase in support from local/county law enforcement, 26.9 percent said state law enforcement and 9.6 percent said federal law enforcement. In states without ORC laws and where retailers have a presence, six in 10 (63.5%) say they haven’t noticed any changes in support from law enforcement.
You can read the rest of the report here.
President Obama’s Coming Budget Showdown
With President Obama having a disastrous 4 years of losing Democrats in the House and Senate, he will now have to face his opponents in the federal budget ring. The media and his supporters have given him a pass on not getting a budget implemented in the last six years. This year will be different with the House/Senate being revamped with budget conscious members.
Rebecca Shabad at TheHill.com has an excellent timeline of what the President faces in the next coming months regarding the 2016 budget. I suggest taking a look at the article for the detailed write up after each date listed.
February 2: Obama’s budget deadline
February 27: DHS funding runs out
March 15: Debt limit suspension expires
April 1: GOP budget resolution?
September 30: Shutdown deadline
October 1: Fiscal 2016 begins
New Ponzi Scheme: Invest in Government
Government wants you to invest in them. President Obama talked of a new investment fund in the past and now, without consent of Congress, has started it up through the Treasury Department. Here is more from the Wall Street Journal:
A form of Roth Individual Retirement Account that allows people to save after-tax dollars and watch them grow tax-free until retirement, the new myRA offers a single investment option. It’s a private version of the G Fund that is available to federal workers and has lately been delivering annual returns of about 2% on its portfolio of Treasury securities.
Government is guaranteeing no fees to the investor. That is political code for the taxpayer will subsidize it.
Treasury is funding the program out of the budget for its Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The assertion here is that existing law allows this part of the Treasury to hire financial agents as part of its mission to efficiently finance the federal government.
Taxpayers are covering the costs, though their elected representatives in Congress never voted to create the program. So far Treasury also hasn’t told us the fees it is paying Comerica.
Competition Has Driven Technology Prices Down for Consumers
Economist Mark J. Perry at the American Enterprise Institute provided a piece showing the technology marketplace and how competition helps not only bring more products to the marketplace but also cheaper pricing.
Pictured above are some color TVs from the 627-page 1964 Sears Christmas Catalog, available here at the WishbookWeb website along with many other Christmas catalogs from 1933 to 1988. The original prices are listed ($750 for the Sears Silvertone entertainment center and $800 for the more expensive one), and those prices are also shown converted to today’s 2014 dollars using the BLS Inflation Calculator: $5,700 for the basic 21-inch color TV model and $6,100 for the more expensive model.
Click on this link to see what he found you can buy with the amount of money in todays dollars from the televisions listed above.
He also leaves on this final note and one reason why the U.S. is still one of the greatest economic innovators the world has ever seen.
As much as we might complain about a slow economic recovery, the decline of the middle class, stagnant median household income, rising income inequality and a dysfunctional Congress, we have a lot to be thankful for, and we’ve made a lot of economic progress in the last 50 years as the example above illustrates, thanks to the “magic and miracle of the marketplace.”
Middle East Controls American Oil Refinery Business
While many media pundits are on tv celebrating the U.S. leap in oil production there is another side not talked about, Middle East countries Saudi Arabia and Qatar own most of the oil refinery business in the United States. Here is more from a 2013 Washington Times article:
Today, the largest oil refinery in the United States, Motiva in Texas, is owned by Saudi Aramco (a state-owned company) and Royal Dutch Shell (a British and Dutch company). The refinery recently completed a major expansion project, originally driven by growing American demand for Saudi oil in 2007.
Since the expansion began, however, U.S. demand for oil has fallen and production of North American oil has risen. Saudi Aramco has, therefore, repositioned Motiva to accept this change in the market. In addition to importing Saudi oil, the Motiva expansion allows Saudi Aramco to refine and export petroleum products to Latin American markets. Most important, though, the expansion enables Saudi Aramco to refine the heavy crude oils now being extracted from Canadian and American oil sands and shale fields.
Saudi Arabia is also being joined by Qatar in not only the U.S. but also in Canada:
Qatar is also positioned to extract significant profits from the American energy industry. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Qatar holds the third-largest natural-gas reserve in the world and has been the world leader in liquefied natural-gas technology and exportation since 1997. Yet Qatar Petroleum International (also a state-owned company) owns a 70 percent stake in the Golden Pass re-gasification terminal in Texas. The terminal was previously intended to import Qatar’s natural gas into the United States, but with the boom in North American natural gas, Qatar is now seeking to repurpose the facility to export liquefied natural gas and profit from North American resources. Qatar Petroleum International’s CEO, Nasser al-Jaidah, recently stated that the company is seeking to invest in North American shale, a highly touted source of America’s potential energy independence, and on April 15, the company acquired a stake in Suncor Energy’s natural-gas holdings in Canada.
Why Gas Prices Will Go Back Up
As crude oil prices have collapsed over the last few months oil producers have taken notice here in the US. Once oil prices reach a certain point, oil rig operators start shutting down rigs because it cost more to run them then what it’s worth in pumping oil.
Oil tycoon Boone Pickens is a guy you want to follow on predictions in the oil market and he just came out with one reason why oil prices will likely go back up in 2015. Robert Wenzel from Economic Policy Journal pointed to this interview for reference:
Boone Pickens was on CNBC this morning and he noted that some 75 rigs have been laid down, out of a total of around 1,500 rigs operating in the US. He expects that another 500 rigs will be taken out of operation over the next few months.
This is a big swing in oil production and something that needs to be monitored along with the strength of the dollar.
How Much Does it Cost to Operate Guantanamo Bay
Guantanamo Bay houses terrorists captured around the world by the United States military and other intelligence agencies. In 2014 it cost American taxpayers $397 Million.
Inflation Graph: Massive Price Increases Last 14 Years
As the Federal Reserve started printing money here is a listing showing how prices took off.
Hoosier Econ 