Maryland Governor Larry Hogan recently signed an executive order forbidding Maryland public schools from beginning classes before Labor Day. Governor Hogan’s executive order benefits businesses in Maryland’s coastal areas that lose school-aged summer employees and business from Maryland families when schools start in August. However, as Governor Hogan’s critics have pointed out, some Maryland school districts, as well as Maryland schoolchildren, benefit from an earlier start to the school year.

The holiday season is officially upon us, which means Americans will soon be feeling extra charitable. However, while random acts of kindness and helping those in need are as intertwined with the holiday season as colorful lights and gift giving, the government has chimed in to remind us that charitable efforts must be first be approved by the state.

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. 

For those of us who spend quite a bit of time of using Denver’s system of green belts and parks, it’s not at all unusual to catch a whiff of marijuana smoke on on evening stroll. 

Advocates for marijuana prohibition like to point to this phenomenon as evidence of how partial marijuana legalization in Colorado has caused the state to descend into a pit of vice not dissimilar to that described in Reefer Madness. 

In this interview with the Ron Paul Liberty Report, Jeff Deist takes a look at the mainstream media, the 2016 election, and why an economic bust cannot be avoided with just more government manipulation of the economy:

We’ve come to the end of this idea that we can resuscitate the patient with more of the same: more credit more debt, more money. What we need is more productivity. More actual production, more goods and services in the economy. I think it is the end of Keynesianism.

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Under the capitalistic system the ultimate bosses are the consumers. The sovereign is not the state, it is the people. And the proof that they are the sovereign is borne out by the fact that they have the right to be foolish. This is the privilege of the sovereign. He has the right to make mistakes, no one can prevent him from making them, but of course he has to pay for his mistakes.

Trump’s plan is what Keynes would have prescribed!

Most economic commentators such as a Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman should be delighted with the US president-elect Donald Trump’s economic plan for it is going to be along the lines of Keynesian economics.

One of Trump’s promises is a massive infrastructure spending program. According to Trump,

Coverage of central banks and monetary policy in popular financial media outlets like Bloomberg, Financial Times, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, and The Economist is almost uniformly bad. The reporting and analysis are superficial, and the writers tend to assume facts not in evidence.

Last week, a majority of voters in four states approved new mandated increases to the statewide minimum wage. 

For those workers whose productivity remains above the newly mandated wages, they will likely keep their jobs and see no change. However, for teenagers, the poorly educated, and others with few skills, the new higher wage will price them out of a job.