GDP purports to measure economic activity while largely divorcing itself from the quality, profitability, depth, breadth, improvement, advancement, and rationalization of goods and services provided.

The state of Connecticut may be embarking on new territory as they seem to be pushing a rather creative way to extract revenue from for-profit businesses. The state legislature of Connecticut has proposed what’s commonly referred to as SB1044. Muddled in the labyrinth known as legal terminology, we find this gem of a sentence in the bill itself:

Lyndon McClellan is a small entrepreneur who owns and operates L & M Convenience Mart in Fairmont, North Carolina.  L & M comprises a gas station, convenience store, and a small restaurant serving hot dogs, hamburgers, and catfish sandwiches.  One day last July, more than a dozen federal, state and local law enforcement agents swarmed Mr.

The 2014 book Homer Economicus was the subject of a question on the TV show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” The editor of the book Josh Hall put together a very accessible book of essays that explains economic concepts through association with the hit TV show The Simpsons.

Mises Daily Wednesday by Michael N. Giuliano:

The rise of government prosecutors in the US and Britain since the nineteenth century has led to many new forms of prosecutorial abuse and expansive government power. The older tradition of privately-initiated prosecution and restitution may offer a way out.

Mises Daily Tuesday by Frank Shostak: 

The Keynesian multiplier would have us believe that economic growth can come from an increase in demand and spending. But if we look more closely, we find there is never a shortage of demand, and what an economy really needs to expand is more saving.

The state prosecutor is the quintessential bureaucrat — powerful and unaccountable. Whither this unaccountable and bureaucratic prosecutorial rule? The words of Maryland State Attorney Marilyn Mosby from May 1, 2015 are telling:

Mises Daily Monday by Gary Galles: 

Many poverty relief laws and policies are premised on the assumption that only “the rich” will bear the costs. In fact, the incomes and well-being of many low-income individuals are taxed and diminished to benefit a nebulous group known as “the poor.”