Economic Statistics for 9 May 12
The following statistics were released today on the state of the US economy:
In wholesale trade, inventories rose 0.3% in March, and sales rose 0.5%, resulting in an unchanged stock-to-sales ratio of 1.17.
MBA reports mortgage applications rose 1.7%, with the purchase index up 3.4%, and refinancing index up 1.3%.
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Dale Franks
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Because the state has decided your frying pan grease is its business
It is almost impossible to come up with the implausible scenarios that somehow regularly find their way to light when government is involved:
State Rep. Kathy Webb is seeking to have Arkansas declare a state of emergency due to people failing to scrape grease from their dishes or trap the grease in special grease collectors before washing the dishes in dishwashers or the kitchen sink.
Webb has submitted Interim Study Proposal 2011-201, an act “to declare an emergency” over the alleged crisis. Frying hamburgers is now The People’s Business of the Highest Order.
Webb’s bill claims food grease presents an emergency risk of sewer overflows that threatens the environment. “It is in the public interest to establish a Fat, Oil, and Grease Advisory Committee to study the recommended measures to better ensure that the collection, transportation, disposal, and recycling of fat, oil, and grease are done in a manner that is protective of the environment,” reads the bill.
Anyone want to guess what party Ms. Webb calls her own?
An emergency because of a grease “crisis”. Damn people, who have been doing this for hundreds of years, have finally driven the state of Arkansas to the brink of Greaseageddon. The environment is threatened because the sewers might, uh, probably will, uh, definitely will overflow if the state doesn’t step in and regulate it.
No. Really. She means it. Gotta have state mandated “special grease collectors” so all that nasty grease can be collected before it hits those sewers. No telling how Arkansas has avoided Greaseageddon before now. Thank goodness for Rep. Webb’s foresight (because you know, towns and municipalities would never be able to handle such an emergency)!
So how will government do what has to be done, Ms. Webb?
According to the bill, the state will appoint a 14 (!) member committee “with adequate staff and facilities” to study the frying-pan-grease emergency and recommend legislation, enforcement, and other emergency government action to fight food grease. Even after such action, the committee and its “adequate staff and facilities” will perpetually exist, convene, and soak up taxpayer resources.
Because that’s what government does. It appoints “Grease Czars”, enthrones them in perpetuity “with adequate staff and facilities” and then wastes taxpayer money trying to enforce unenforceable laws passed by morons.
Forward.
~McQ
Twitter: @McQandO
Why should you need government’s permission to do a job?
I’m talking about licensing. The arguments are usually centered around licensing (i.e. government okaying you to do a job because you’ve met certain arbitrary requirements and paid some arbitrary fees) being required to ensure the safety of the consumer. But as you’ll see in this video, that’s simply not the case in the vast majority of the occupations now licensed in various states.
In fact, licensing seems to be more about fees for government and barriers to competition imposed by government (good old crony capitalism).
You have to ask yourself, as pointed out in the video, if forty something other states are seeing people safely shampooed in their states, why is such a license and cost necessary in the states licensing that?
Of course, that’s common sense, and we’ll have none of that when we discuss government.
Understand?
Forward.
~McQ
Twitter: @McQandO