The Grumpy Economist: Who will pay unfunded state pensions?

The Grumpy Economist: Who will pay unfunded state pensions?: 
"Homeowners. 
So says a nice WSJ op-ed...points out its inevitability. 
If indeed courts will insist that benefits may not be cut, then state governments must raise taxes, and this is the only one that can do the trick.
States can try to raise income taxes. 
And people will move. 
States can try to raise business taxes. 
And businesses will move. 
What can states tax that can't move? 
Only real estate.
If the state drastically raises the property tax, there is no choice but to pay it. 
You can sell, but the new buyer will be willing to pay much less. 
Pay the tax slowly over time, or lose the value of the property right away in a lower price. 
Either way, the owner of the property on the day the tax is announced bears the burden of paying off the pensions.
There is a an economic principle here, the "capital levy."...
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You ought to know!

The ACLJ’s Agenda for Reform is Advancing Because Economic Promises Have Been Made and Kept | American Center for Law and Justice

The ACLJ’s Agenda for Reform is Advancing Because Economic Promises Have Been Made and Kept | American Center for Law and Justice:

While critics of this Administration have said that those promises on jobs, the economy, and achieving fair trade would be nearly impossible to achieve, it is clear that those promises are now coming true.
Real gross domestic product in the last quarter increased at an annual rate of 4.1%, as consumer spending championed the economy, according to the advance estimate released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. It is manifest, that this jump represents the fastest increase in GDP growth since the third quarter of 2014. This means that the U.S. economy is on track to hit the highest annual average growth rate in over 13 years.. This progress makes the promise of 4% economic growth a reality.

This'll bring in the fans!-----NFL to Unveil Male Dancers for the First Time | pluralist

NFL to Unveil Male Dancers for the First Time | pluralist
"Still can't believe I'm one of the first males in history to be a pro NFL cheerleader!"
​The Los Angeles Rams and the New Orleans Saints will have male cheerleaders dancing on their squads for the first time this season.

Dancers Quinton Peron and Napoleon Jinnies have been preparing for the NFL season since they made the Rams cheerleading squad.. 

...He told CNN affiliate KATC that his mom sent him a link with their story.
"She told me it was my time to shine," he said in a video posted before his final audition."

The process has been great, everyone has been really nice to me and I can't wait to see where this goes."

AM Fruitcake

History for August 8

History for August 8 - On-This-Day.com
Matthew Henson 1866 - Explorer, along with Robert Peary and their Eskimo guide, were the first people to reach the North Pole, Russel Markert 1899, Esther Williams 1923


Dustin Hoffman 1937, Connie Stevens 1938, Donny Most 1953


1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for St. Helena, in the South Atlantic. The remainder of his life was spent there in exile.


1844 - After the killing of Joseph Smith on June 27, Bringham Young was chosen to lead the Mormons.


1876 - Thomas Edison received a patent for the mimeograph. The mimeograph was a "method of preparing autographic stencils for printing."


1911 - The number of representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives was established at 435. There was one member of Congress for every 211,877 residents.


1940 - The German Luftwaffe began a series of daylight air raids on Great Britain.


1966 - Michael DeBakey became the first surgeon to install an artificial heart pump in a patient.


1978 - The U.S. launched Pioneer Venus II, which carried scientific probes to study the atmosphere of Venus.


1992 - The "Dream Team" clinched the gold medal at the Barcelona Summer Olympics. The U.S. basketball team beat Croatia 117-85.

The Unsung Hero Who Financed the American Revolution, and His Lesson for Today | The Heritage Foundation

The Unsung Hero Who Financed the American Revolution, and His Lesson for Today | The Heritage Foundation:

Our nation is once again at a crossroads between liberty and tyranny, with the ideals of the Founders challenged by the liberal left.
As Morris asserted in a letter to Col. Joseph Reed, “[I]t is the duty of every individual to act his part in whatever station his country may call him to in times of difficulty, danger, and distress.”
More than ever, we need generous conservatives to take up the mantle of Robert Morris and employ whatever skills and passions they have toward reclaiming America.

The way we were-----It's All In The Game - Tommy Edwards

Boob-tube-----Cannonball TV Series 1958 Full Episode Part 1

Must read!!-----Anarchy Breaks Out in Portland, With the Mayor’s Blessing - WSJ

Anarchy Breaks Out in Portland, With the Mayor’s Blessing - WSJ
"A vicious mob targeted the ICE office and even a food cart. 
The police followed orders to do nothing.
Along the trolley tracks behind the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, a biohazard cleanup crew works under police protection. 
It finds used needles and buckets of human waste simmering in nearly 100-degree heat. 
The smell of urine and feces fills the block. 
For more than five weeks, as many as 200 people had occupied the site to demand ICE’s immediate abolition. 
They’re gone now, but a community is left reeling. 
Thirty-eight days of government-sanctioned anarchy will do that.
A mob surrounded ICE’s office in Southwest Portland June 19. 
They barricaded the exits and blocked the driveway. 
They sent “guards” to patrol the doors, trapping workers inside. 
At night they laid on the street, stopping traffic at a critical junction near a hospital. 
Police stayed away. 
“At this time I am denying your request for additional resources,” the Portland Police Bureau’s deputy chief, Robert Day, wrote to federal officers pleading for help. 
Hours later, the remaining ICE workers were finally evacuated by a small federal police team. 
The facility shut down for more than a week.
Signs called ICE employees “Nazis” and “white supremacists.” 
Others accused them of running a “concentration camp,” and demanded open borders and prosecution of ICE agents. 
Along a wall, vandals wrote the names of ICE staff, encouraging others to publish their private information online..."
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RENEWABLE NOTHING: New York Spent $5 Million On Wind Turbines That Don’t Even Work. The project…

Instapundit  Blog Archive  RENEWABLE NOTHING: 
RENEWABLE NOTHING: New York Spent $5 Million On Wind Turbines That Don’t Even Work.

The project was expensive, with the five windmills costing $4.8 million and another $500,000 for design expenditures. The authority believed that the turbines would pay for themselves, saving as much as $420,000 annually on energy bills.
However, the project did not go as planned. Of the five turbines that are dotted across the thruway from Eden, New York to the Pennsylvania state line, four aren’t even spinning.

“They are currently offline waiting for replacement parts and/or maintenance,” thruway authority spokeswoman Jennifer Givner said, according to Buffalo News. “We’re working with the manufacturer to get replacement parts.”

Between October 2017 and January 2018, all the turbines except for one were taken offline. The issue appears to stem from inoperable parts made from Vergnet, a French renewable energy company that declared itself insolvent a year ago.

The lifespan of a windmill typically spans 20 to 25 years, but these turbines began to break down in less than three.

"Yes, but did all the right contractors and union officials get paid?"---Posted by Stephen Green

WATCH: Dana Loesch To Jim Acosta: Remember Your Network's 'Public Lynching' Of Me And Marco Rubio? | Daily Wire

WATCH: Dana Loesch To Jim Acosta: Remember Your Network's 'Public Lynching' Of Me And Marco Rubio? | Daily Wire:

"I wonder if Acosta can imagine what it feels like when his network allows guest after guest, day after day, to refer to you as a 'murderer,'" Loesch continues. "To refer to six million law-abiding Americans as people who hate children and are terrible parents simply because we believe in the right of self-defense."

Federal Taxpayer Bailout Likely For Big Union Pension Funds – Michigan Capitol Confidential

Federal Taxpayer Bailout Likely For Big Union Pension Funds – Michigan Capitol Confidential
"...A pension fund administered by the Teamsters union, with more than 43,000 participants in Michigan, expects to run out of the money it needs to pay its beneficiaries by 2025.
Due to the size of this fund and the benefits it has promised to pay out, some experts project that its insolvency will single-handedly bankrupt the federal body created to insure private pension funds, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation.
The Teamsters fund is among the largest union-sponsored multiemployer retirement plans that are underfunded and in danger of not being able to meet their obligations in the next decade.
This fund, called the Central States Pension Fund, is estimated to have assets sufficient to cover only 33 percent of its promises. 
It has $36 billion in unfunded liabilities, according to a recent filing with the federal government.
When this and similar multiemployer pension plans fail to meet their pension obligations, the PBGC is supposed to pay a portion of the benefits promised to retired workers.
But the PBGC itself projects that it will no longer have enough money to pay retirees by 2025.
To avoid reduced benefit payments to their members — or seeing no benefit payments at all — labor groups are lobbying Congress for a bailout..."
Read on!