Category Archives: Economics

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Are you tired of winning yet?

The White House had threatened mass layoffs of federal government employees if Senate Democrats didn’t end their filibuster of the continuing resolution to fund the government, and many of us were wondering when, or if, it was going to happen. From The Wall Street Journal:

White House Starts Mass Layoffs of Government Workers

Many department receive notices, and an official says cuts will affect ‘thousands of federal workers’

By Natalie Andrews and Ken Thomas | Friday, October 10, 2025 | 2:24 PM EDT

WASHINGTON—The White House said Friday that it is conducting mass layoffs of federal employees in response to the government shutdown, an unprecedented step that follows through on weeks of threats meant to increase pressure on Democrats.

“The RIFs have begun,” White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought posted on X, using an abbreviation for reductions in force. An OMB official characterized the retrenchment as “substantial,” and a White House official said it would affect “thousands of federal workers.”

Vought briefed President Trump on the layoffs by phone Friday morning, according to a White House aide.

Department of Health and Human Services employees across several divisions received reduction-in-force notices on Friday, said Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for HHS. Some of the people who lost their jobs were deemed “at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda,” he said.

An Education Department spokeswoman said some agency employees would be among those receiving the layoff notices Friday, and a government official said there were layoffs at the Commerce Department.

Other Departments, including Commerce, Fatherland Homeland Security, and the Environmental Protection Agency, saw layoff notices.

Democrats were obviously aghast:

Reductions in force “are not a new power these bozos get in a shutdown,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, on social media. “We can’t be intimidated by these crooks.”

Having lived and worked in once-reliably Republican Virginia, I have been appalled that Virginia is now a “blue” state where presidential elections are concerned, and that’s entirely due to the huge number of federal government workers living in the Washington outskirts of the Old Dominion. Reducing the federal workforce eventually leads to better government, as it strengthens Republicans and weakens Democrats.

Republican leaders have been lukewarm on firing federal workers. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) and other senior GOP lawmakers had quietly advised the White House not to move forward with mass layoffs and sharp cuts to government assistance programs, citing people familiar with the matter.

But leaders have also expressed exasperation with the lack of progress as the shutdown heads into its second weekend.

Republican ‘leaders’ may have been lukewarm on firing federal workers, but do you know who aren’t lukewarm about it? Republican voters are not lukewarm about reducing the overpaid federal workforce, Republican voters want to see fewer people being supported by their tax dollars and more people working in real jobs in the private sector. We want tax payers, not tax consumers!

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The poor economics of Starbucks

While I would expend the effort to drive for a Wawa coffee, it’s pretty foolish to spend $4.50 or more for a Starbucks coffee that I can make at home for 50¢!

Sadly, the days of the wife sending her husband off to work in the morning with a lunchbox in his hand and breakfast already in his stomach are gone. Many, many businesses have grown up around that societal and economic change, with all sorts of chain and local stores selling coffee and a bagel — sesame bagel, dark toasted, with butter for me, thank you very much! — but I have to ask: has the market become oversaturated with some of these businesses?

Starbucks kind of broke the mold, with its waitresses now becoming ‘baristas,’ and its fancy shops and eight million different flavors and brews. The average prices that can be found on the internet vary wildly, but $4.50 seems to be about a midpoint.

Now, the company is having problems:

Why Starbucks is closing these six Philly locations

Starbucks has seen sales decline over six consecutive quarters.

by Erica Palan | Monday, September 29, 2025 | 12:44 PM EDT

Starbucks, the Seattle-based coffee powerhouse, announced last week that it would immediately shut down hundreds of underperforming stores and eliminate 900 corporate positions.

The cuts come as Starbucks has seen sales decline at stores open for at least a year for six consecutive quarters. The company’s shares have fallen about 12% in the past year.

The chain is grappling with rising labor costs, in addition to rising coffee prices.

We have twice previously reported on Starbucks and other coffeehouse workers efforts at unionization, and how OCF coffeehouse owner Ori Feibush simply closed his three Philadelphia coffee shops when the workers decided to unionize. The coffee shops were not profitable anyway, and were only a small part of the owner’s businesses, so he could afford to do it.

Checking Amazon, the Keurig which looks closest to ours, as pictured above, lists for $109. If a person is spending $4.50 every working morning, for coffee that costs me roughly 50¢ at home, he will have paid for that Keurig, and the coffee pods it uses, over the course of 27 workdays. That ignores having to physically stop at the local Starbucks, and whatever fuel he spent if it was out of the way on his way to work.

We also have a toaster, so I could toast a bagel at the same time! 🙂

Starbucks workers have been whining that the closures are the result of management fighting unionization:

Employees impacted by the store closures were notified Friday.

On Sunday, about 35 Starbucks union members gathered in front of the location at 16th and Walnut Streets in protest. They say they’re prepared to strike if the company doesn’t return to the bargaining table to negotiate higher wages, staffing levels, and healthcare benefits.

Over the last few years, Starbucks baristas in Philadelphia and beyond have taken efforts to improve worker protections. Some have been successful in establishing unions, while others have not. According to Starbucks Workers United, there are more than 12,000 unionized Starbucks baristas at more than 650 stores.

So, out of 18,734 Starbucks stores, only about 3.47% have been unionized. Management doubtlessly considers that a serious problem, but does it account for sales dropping for six consecutive quarters? Probably not, but it does point out the rather obvious problem of workers trying to unionize a shrinking company. It’s less expensive to shutter an economically underperforming store.

Three of the closed stores in Philadelphia — 1801 Spruce St., 1709 Chestnut St., and 1500 Market St. — are not unionized. Three others — 1900 Market St., 1128 Walnut St., and 490 N. Broad St — are unionized.

This is a matter of economic competition. If people are spending $4.50 every workday morning just for a cup of coffee they could Keurig themselves, that’s $1,080 in a 240-workday year. After four years of Bidenflation, there just might be a few families that decide that Starbucks every morning just isn’t that good an idea.

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When judges assume executive authority What could possibly go wrong?

Conservatives have been gleeful that some out-of-control federal judges like James Boasberg have been frequently bitch slapped by higher courts in their attempts to stymie President Trump’s agenda, and those are the things about which we hear, but those are not the only instances of judges deciding that they know how to run executive agencies better than the people who are supposed to have the authority.

SEPTA fare increases and Regional Rail cuts can’t start next week, judge rules

Judge Sierra Thomas-Street issued her order from the bench, telling the attorney for the transit agency that “everything must stop.”

by Abraham Gutman and Andrew Seidman | Friday, August 29, 2025 | 5:39 PM EDT

A Philadelphia judge on Friday ordered SEPTA to halt planned service cuts to Regional Rail and fare increases due to begin next week, following a daylong hearing in a City Hall courtroom.

Judge Sierra Thomas-Street issued her order from the bench, telling the attorney for the transit agency that “everything must stop.”

“Status quo must be maintained,” Thomas-Street said.

The parties will meet again in court on Thursday, when Thomas-Street will consider whether to make the order permanent and expand it to include reversing cuts already in place.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportion Authority (SEPTA) has been taking steps to remain solvent since the hoped-for $213 million assistance from the state government has not yet been approved by the General Assembly. Democrats control the state House of Representatives by one vote, 102-101, and want to give SEPTA the money, but the state Senate, controlled by Republicans 27-23, hasn’t been willing to go along. The state budget was due July 1st, the beginning of the Commonwealth’s fiscal year but still hasn’t been passed by the legislature, and that $213 million remains in limbo.

So, SEPTA’s leadership had to deal with the fact that the anticipated aid hasn’t come yet. General Manager Scott Sauer didn’t want to make the cuts, didn’t want to cut service at all, but he still has to make SEPTA operate within its means.

The ruling came after attorney George Bochetto filed a lawsuit this week in Common Pleas Court on behalf of a consumer advocate and two riders who argued the transit agency’s actions were unlawful. They contended that the cuts — which started Sunday amid a state budget stalemate — would have a disproportionate impact on marginalized groups, violating their rights protected by the Pennsylvania Constitution.

“The judge is saying: No more further cuts,” Bochetto said after the ruling. “Enough double talk, enough triple talk. Do it.”

What? Does Her Honor believe that she can order the state Senate to pass the budget she wants?

We previously reported on Mr Bochetto’s lawsuit and his attempt to compel SEPTA to act as a welfare agency.

SEPTA maintains a Service Stabilization Fund of roughly $300 million, which the system uses “to pay bills and unexpected expenses, as well as a reserve for potential catastrophes.” Some $100 million from that fund had already been spent to fill the budget deficit. The plaintiffs want SEPTA to use that fund to avoid the fare increases and service cuts, which could be done, and here’s where Judge Thomas-Street’s order comes into play: SEPTA’s leadership took executive decisions, the decisions which are their responsibility and for which they are paid to take, but the judge is saying that no, their decisions were wrong, and those decisions must be taken a different way. Judge Thomas-Street has, in effect, arrogated SEPTA’s leadership to herself, dictating a decision to SEPTA’s managers.

It is legitimate to argue with a decision taken by someone in authority to take those decisions; who hasn’t at times thought of his bosses as ‘those idiots up there’? But that does not and should not mean that a judge should have the authority to change those decisions and specify a new one. SEPTA’s decisions were not illegal; they just didn’t go the way that some people wanted them.

There is some wry humor in all of this. With Judge Thomas-Street’s decision, the pressure on Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman to cough up that asked-for $213 million is reduced. With slightly over $300 million in the Service Stabilization Fund, SEPTA could more than cover that $213 million deficit, the taxpayers of the Commonwealth don’t have to fund SEPTA at all! And next year is next year, so who cares, right?

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Now this I can support! Let the counties served by SEPTA pay for SEPTA

While there are all sorts of reports on movement in the Pennsylvania General Assembly on additional funding for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), at least as of this Friday morning writing, no funding agreement has been reached. Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins has paid forward some of the city’s $135 million subsidy, to keep city bus service for schools, but that’s only a stopgap for the system’s projected $213 deficit.

But this story from The Philadelphia Inquirer is at least a little bit better than the notion that the taxpayers throughout the Commonwealth should pay for SEPTA:

Philly’s collar counties are only authorized to tax property. Could SEPTA’s budget crisis change that?

County officials have long sought broader taxing authority. Some say the debate over transit funding could force the issue.

by Katie Bernard | Friday, August 29, 2025 | 5:00 AM EDT

Officials in Philadelphia’s collar counties are hopeful that the monthslong impasse over funding for SEPTA may push lawmakers to consider a change to state tax law they have sought for years.

With many of their residents dependent on SEPTA for daily work commutes and other trips into Philadelphia, officials across the suburban counties — Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks, and Chester — say they are committed to its success, and they contributed more than $30 million to it last year. But the state’s laws, which allow counties to tax only property, prevent them from doing more to support the agency without raising property taxes.

Officials have long asked state lawmakers to grant them the authority to tax wages, sales, or property transfers. Some wonder if the current debate over the beleaguered transit authority may finally push the issue.

“They’re holding up public transit funding for the entire commonwealth,” said Monica Taylor, a Democrat who chairs the Delaware County Council. “All of these things are piling up and coming together, and they haven’t passed a budget. … This is hopefully pushing for the opportunity for people to come back to the table and start talking.”

There’s much more at the original, but you get the drift: the counties want to be able to wring more and more money out of their people.

My position is simple: the people who use SEPTA should be the ones who pay for SEPTA, through a reasonable fare increase of 75¢.[1]Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the … Continue reading

But, if the government leaders want to keep treating SEPTA not as a public transit system but a welfare agency, frequently welfare for the well-to-do, at least if Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks, and Chester counties start taxing their own residents for a system that is available to them, then the people of Carbon, Cameron, and McKean counties, which do not have access to SEPTA, will not.

Chester, Bucks, Montgomery, and Delaware counties are, respectively, the four wealthiest counties in the Commonwealth.

If those heavily Democrat counties — Philadelphia, Chester, Montgomery, and Delaware counties all voted heavily for then Vice President Kamala Harris Emhoff, while President Trump carried Bucks County by the slimmest of margins, 291 votes out of 402,349 total votes cast — want to tax their people more heavily to pay for SEPTA, let them!

The fairest system is for SEPTA riders to pay for SEPTA, but what I have suggested is at least the second most fair system.

References

References
↑1 Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the largest portion of daily ridership, with 354,820 unlinked trips, or 50% of the total. With 768,291 unlinked passenger trips every day, and a projected operating deficit of $213 million, how much would fares have to increase to cover the deficit? 768,291 x 365 = 280,426,215 trips per year. A $213,000,000 deficit ÷ 280,426,215 daily trips = 75.96¢ per trip which would need to be collected to completely eliminate the projected deficit. Call it a 75¢ per trip added to the fares, just to male collections simpler, and the budget can be brought under control.
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From where will all of this money come?

The biggest issue in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia at the moment is more state funding for the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, the mass transit agency which run buses, trains, trollies, and subways in the metropolitan area. SEPTA has a projected $213 million deficit, and has instituted significant service cuts to try to keep the operating expenses in line with projected revenues without the aid from Harrisburg for which they’ve been begging. My good friend Daniel Pearson and the Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer have been adamant that the Commonwealth must come through with money, or utter disaster will strike. Note how the elevated train comes to destroyed tracks in a tweet from the newspaper!

We noted here that the solution is actually simple: a 75¢ fare hike completely closes SEPTA’s projected deficit.[1]Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the … Continue reading The newspaper in general, and Mr Pearson specifically, are opposed to further fare increases, pointing out that the base fare has jumped from $2.00 to just under $3.00 since 2018.

But, as the city is desperately looking for money from SEPTA, what else is the Inquirer presenting to readers?

Everywhere you look in the newspaper you’ll find stories of more and more money being spent, and more and more money being demanded, and no one seems willing to ask: from where will all of this money come?

The Transportation Workers Union Local 234 approved a new contract in November of 2024, which included “a 5% pay raise and safety improvements including bulletproof enclosures on buses to protect Bus Operators, upgrades to radios, and fixes to allow uninterrupted communication in tunnels.” That contract expires on November 7th of this year, which means the union will be going back to ask for more money again. From where will this money come?

I get it: the inflation of the Biden economy hit everyone hard, and though inflation started coming down during Mr Biden’s final year in office, the inflated prices never went away. As much as President Trump tries, inflation could come under control, but prices almost never go back down. Everyone is still trying to catch up, but when it’s government spending that is trying to catch up, the taxpayers are the ones who have to shell out. Pennsylvania’s state income tax rate is fairly low, just 3.07%, but the Commonwealth and the localities make up for that by trying to nickel-and-dime people to death on everything else.

Would you believe that the Borough of Jim Thorpe actually requires people to buy a permit, for the price of $5.00, to move into or out of any place in the borough, and that no public or private moving company shall enable such without verifying the moving permit? Violation of such can bring a fine of $600 and possible jail time. $5.00 might not seem like much, but this is an example of the petty ways in which the governments keep trying to stick their grubby hands into people’s pockets.

Philadelphia doesn’t require a move in permit, but charges $25.00 — $50.00 in Center City and University City — for a permit to occupy two street parking spaces for your moving truck.

Someone who looks a lot like me snowblowing in my old neighborhood, December 29, 2012. Does my neighborhood look wealthy to you? Click to enlarge.

Is it any wonder that the Republicans who control the state Senate are reticent to just give and give and give the taxpayers’ dollars to SEPTA and to Philly? Every dollar they give just means the more dollars that will be demanded in the next budget, and while Republicans are reasonably strong throughout the Commonwealth, Philly is as close to a “No Republican” zone as it can get. Do my former neighbors in relatively low-cost, conservative Jim Thorpe[2]Voters in Carbon County gave 66.90% of their votes to Donald Trump, while the voters in Philadelphia and Delaware counties gave 78.57% and 61.15% of their votes, respectively, to Kamala Harris … Continue reading really want to send more of their hard-earned tax dollars to subsidize wealthy inhabitants of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Lower Merion to take the train to Center City?

When Mr Pearson wrote “Harrisburg can’t let regional factionalism keep them from finding common ground on SEPTA: The stalemate over the state budget has entered a new, fractious phase, pitting lawmakers who represent predominantly rural areas against their counterparts from the commonwealth’s larger cities,” he was noting just how different Philly is from the “predominantly rural areas,” as though that’s a surprise, but his goal was a victory for SEPTA and the “commonwealth’s larger cities” over the rural areas. The people of those predominantly rural areas have expressed their differences at the voting booth, and they expect their elected representatives to vote their interests, not Philadelphia’s, yet the stories listed above show us, show the people of those predominantly rural areas how the commonwealth’s larger cities want to spend and spend and spend. Is it really any surprise that the Republican-controlled state Senate is reluctant to throw more and more and more money to Philly?

References

References
↑1 Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the largest portion of daily ridership, with 354,820 unlinked trips, or 50% of the total. With 768,291 unlinked passenger trips every day, and a projected operating deficit of $213 million, how much would fares have to increase to cover the deficit? 768,291 x 365 = 280,426,215 trips per year. A $213,000,000 deficit ÷ 280,426,215 daily trips = 75.96¢ per trip which would need to be collected to completely eliminate the projected deficit. Call it a 75¢ per trip added to the fares, just to male collections simpler, and the budget can be brought under control.
↑2 Voters in Carbon County gave 66.90% of their votes to Donald Trump, while the voters in Philadelphia and Delaware counties gave 78.57% and 61.15% of their votes, respectively, to Kamala Harris Emhoff. Both the state Representative, Doyle Heffley, and state Senator, David Argall, for Jim Thorpe, are Republicans.
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The solution to SEPTA’s woes is simple I did something ridiculously simple: I did the math!

I lived in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, for fifteen years, from 2002 into 2017, a long enough time to get pretty familiar with the place. So, when Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA) decided to tweet that “Mass transit is a lifeline for the people across all 67 counties who rely on it every day to attend school, get to work, and power our economy,” I had to think about it: had I ever seen a bus, other than a school bus, in Carbon County?

The answer, of course, was no, I never had, never in fifteen years noticed a public transportation bus.

Jim Thorpe is a small, very ‘walkable’ town, and I spent many of my days off doing just that, walking through town. Here’s one of the photo albums I took, on October 12, 2013, and you can see just why I walked through the picturesque town.

Mass transit in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Photo by D R Pico. Free for use with appropriate credit. Click to enlarge.

The latest outrage in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia isn’t crime, isn’t murder, but the fact that the Republican-controlled state Senate has been unwilling to pass a huge, additional appropriation for the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, and my good friends at The Philadelphia Inquirer have waxed apoplectic about the whole thing.

Philly lawyer George Bochetto hired to sue SEPTA to stop service cuts

Bochetto said that a suit would challenge the service cuts on the grounds of a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged communities.

by Thomas Fitzgerald | Monday, August 25, 2025 | 8:39 AM EDT

Philadelphia lawyer George Bochetto demanded SEPTA halt service cuts and said he has been hired by a group of riders to sue the transit agency, in an email sent Sunday night.

“SEPTA’s planned service reductions are draconian in nature and will have a severe impact on racial and ethnic minorities and low-income citizens in Southeastern Pennsylvania without any legitimate basis,” Bochetto wrote in the notice, which was first reported by Big Trial on Substack.

Consumer advocate Lance Haver is among those involved in the action to block SEPTA’s service cuts, according to the Substack post. The action comes as Harrisburg has failed to approve new state funding for mass transit. The first round of service cuts began on Sunday.

“SEPTA’s legal counsel is reviewing the letter and intends to contact George Bochetto today,” said Andrew Busch, a spokesperson for the transit agency.

SEPTA had been living on post-COVID funds from the Federal government, but those ended. In 2024, Governor Shapiro redirected $153 million in federal highway funds to SEPTA, because, horror of horrors, the Governor didn’t want SEPTA’s customers to have to pay more to use their services:

Earlier this month, SEPTA moved to enact a 29% across-the-board fare increase followed by deep service cuts next summer, as the agency grapples with what officials call an “unprecedented” post-pandemic financial crisis. It faces a recurring deficit of $240 million annually.

While Shapiro’s efforts have paused the 21.5% fare increase expected for Jan. 1, riders will still face an increase of 7.5% beginning Dec. 1. Shapiro said the federal cash infusion would limit service cuts, but did not provide further detail.

So, it wasn’t just Pennsylvanians in the small towns and counties throughout the central part of the Commonwealth who were being taxed to provide cheaper bus and subway rides for Philadelphians, but taxpayers in Montana and Wyoming and Missouri who were having to dig deeper into their pockets as well.

Back to the first cited article:

Bochetto said in an interview Monday that a suit would challenge the service cuts on the grounds of a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged communities. SEPTA completed an equity analysis before adopting the cuts.

Oh, so now SEPTA isn’t a public transit service, but a welfare program? Got it! But that’s not an argument which will play well with Republicans.

“They’re committing a fraud on the public,” Bochetto said, noting SEPTA has $390 million in a reserve fund. “There is no reason why these cuts are necessary.”

Haver will be a plaintiff in the action, Bochetto confirmed. He declined to discuss other groups or individuals who may join.

The group plans to seek a judge’s injunction to stop the cuts, Bochetto said in the email, addressed to SEPTA General Counsel Gino Bendetti. That likely would require SEPTA to draw from its service stabilization fund instead of cutting bus routes and reducing trips across all modes of transit.

Pretty typical these days: the lawsuit seeks to have a judge usurp the executive decision on how SEPTA’s funds are to be spent. This is the kind of bovine feces which needs to be slapped down, hard. I don’t care what you believe SEPTA should be doing; that’s for the agency’s leadership to decide, not judges.

SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the largest portion of daily ridership, with 354,820 unlinked trips, or 50% of the total.

So, let’s do the math! With 768,291 unlinked passenger trips every day, and a projected operating deficit of $213 million, how much would fares have to increase to cover the deficit? 768,291 x 365 = 280,426,215 trips per year. A $213,000,000 deficit ÷ 280,426,215 daily trips = 75.96¢ per trip which would need to be collected to completely eliminate the projected deficit. Call it a 75¢ per trip added to the fares, just to male collections simpler, and the budget can be brought under control.

As we previously noted, the Inquirer reported that SEPTA was losing roughly $50 million a year from fare jumpers, much of it by people who could easily pay:

Transit Police Chief Charles Lawson said the agency has learned so far that the majority of fare evaders are everyday working residents — nurses, lawyers, even city employees with free passes, who, in a rush to catch the train, or out of habit after not paying in recent years, step over the turnstiles.

In a city like Philadelphia, nurses can make up to $100,000 a year. Attorneys? Normally they make pretty good money as well. City employees with free passes? When they use their passes, the city pays their fares. SEPTA has been trying to make turnstile jumping more difficult, but needs to install more barriers to do so. More, the system needs point out to those who skip fares they could easily pay just how much they are damaging the entire system.

The entire SEPTA crisis is caused by the cockamamie concept that the people who use SEPTA should not have to pay for the benefit they receive. Just raise the fares to what they need to be to operate the system!

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The “Affordable Housing” Problem To no one's surprise, housing costs skyrocketed under President Biden

Heather Long, formerly of CNN and late of The Washington Post, now the Chief Economist for Navy Federal Credit Union, tweeted out an interesting economic graph, showing the rate of increase in home prices during the last five years. She wrote:

The Case-Shiller US Home Price Index is up 52% since January 2020.

That’s great news for anyone who owns a home. But it’s onerous for anyone who wants to buy.

The typical mortgage cost is basically double now versus 2020. And that $330,000 home price in 2020 is now ~$500k.

Home prices have cooled a bit this spring. Many sellers are reducing prices a bit and offering incentives. But it’s barely moving the needle on the big picture of the past 5 years.

The problem with inflation is that it can be reduced or even halted — though the Federal Reserve Board’s target is for 2% inflation, not no inflation at all — but inflation normally creates its own baseline: while the rate of increase may slow, absent a serious recession, prices almost never drop to where they were prior to inflation, though they did due to the housing market crash, between 2007 to 2012. Continue reading →

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Why should it be illegal to do something for money that is perfectly legal to do for free?

The title of this article is something I have asked about the repugnant profession of prostitution, but a guest column in The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t like the notion that a person could choose to make a live organ donation for filthy lucre:

The legalization of human organ sales would only undermine human dignity

A measure in New York state offers tax credits to living organ donors. That’s reignited one of medicine’s most contentious ethical debates: Should we legalize the sale of human organs?

Continue reading →

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Throwing good money after bad

It was thanks to Robert Stacy McCain that I saw this tweet from the Defender of the Republic.

Britney Spears has a guesstimated net worth of $60 million, according to Forbes, or perhaps a paltry $40 million, estimated by Celebrity Net Worth. The Defender wondered why no one could help a clearly wealthy and attractive woman. I know virtually nothing about Miss Spears, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer is that no one has helped her because she doesn’t want to be helped.

Which brings me to the more serious:

Only two people have successfully completed the Kensington ‘wellness court’ so far. The Parker administration wants to expand it.

Nearly two-thirds of the more than 40 people brought before the court since late January have dropped out of treatment within days, and then failed to appear at follow-up hearings.

Continue reading →