Monday, January 19, 2015

Most Markets Closed for MLK Holiday

– Posted in: Free Rick's Picks

Martin Luther King Day is a rather quiet holiday here in Colorado, noticeable mainly in the increase in traffic to and from the ski slopes.  Most markets are closed, with trading mainly in a few futures contracts that are not moving much.  Join me Tuesday morning for an impromptu trading session to begin the day. Details will be provided in the chat room.

How Nanny State Suffocated the American Dream

– Posted in: Commentary for the Week of March 8 Free

After America: Get Ready for Armageddon is almost as depressing as its title. Mark Steyn’s 2011 book, which I’m reading now for the first time, gives statistical heft to the doomsday thread that animates this forum form time to time. There’s no point in trying to save the Republic, Steyn warns, because it’s too late; it is too far gone. The Nanny State has become all-pervasive, meddling in every detail of our lives in ways that even King George III would have rejected as too intrusive. Still worse is that the unelected bureaucrats who toil ceaselessly at crushing the energy, initiative and vitality from the economy are not only everywhere, they are paid far more than their counterparts in the private sector.  Steyn notes that in 2009, the average civilian employee of the U.S. Government earned $81,258 in salary plus $41,791 in benefits, for a total of $123,049. The private-sector worker, meanwhile, received a mere $50,462 in salary and $10,589 in benefits, for a total of $61,051. That’s why the latter will be working until they are 80 to pay for government workers who retire with absolute security as early as 55. As for electing Republicans to obstruct a Marxist president who is hell-bent on destroying America, Steyn reminds us that the loyal opposition is as much a part of the problem as the Democrats they would seek to rein in. This is even more obvious now than it was when Steyn published the book. Back then, we might have hoped that Obamacare, the most destructive piece of legislation ever enacted by Congress, as well as the largest new tax ever levied on America’s middle class, would have been repudiated and rescinded by now.  Instead, the GOP has been taking potshots at the ACA’s gratuitous tax on medical devices while