PorcFest 2008

The Free State Project's 2008 Porcupine Festival will be held from June 9 to June 15, at Gunstock Mountain Resort in Gilford.

Fines for hiring immigrants increased

The federal administration has increased the fines on employers who hire illegal immigrants. This action is described as "the administration's latest attempt to clamp down on the flow of unauthorized workers into jobs." The maximum penalty for hiring an unauthorized worker will be $3200. There have been numerous protests from businesses.

The anti-immigrant movement claims that illegal immigrants are lazy bums who don't want to get jobs, just to collect government benefits. But when they applaud actions like this, they show that they don't believe it, and that the burden of supporting the unemployed isn't their concern. Their real concern is that these immigrants want to work and are often willing to accept lower pay than native Americans (I'm using the phrase correctly here, not in the PC sense). They want to kick out those Spanish-speaking foreigners from hotels, restaurants, and farms. The result, to the extent that they're successful, is more unemployed immigrants collecting government benefits, and higher prices or less service where they used to work.

Globe: Inflation occurs in spite of inflation

This headline appeared in yesterday's Boston Globe and on Boston.com:

Soaring prices threaten economy
Inflation can undo antirecession effort

The "antirecession effort" consists of lowering interest rates and giving out more federal money while running a growing deficit. That is to say, pouring more currency into the economy without any more value. That is to say, inflation supposedly "undoes" inflation.

Rising prices aren't inflation; they are its consequence. The headline is like saying that overeating can "undo" a person's "anti-hunger effort." The article's author isn't ignorant of history; he writes:

The Fed faced such a dilemma in the 1970s, when policy makers kept interest rates low in the face of soaring energy prices and a struggling economy. The United States settled into a period of stagnant economic growth and double-digit inflation, which gave rise to the term "stagflation."

The implication is that pouring cheap money into the economy is supposed to result in greater wealth, but by some mysterious process in the 1970's it failed to do so; it was "stagflation," instead of the wealth-causing inflation we're supposed to have. Richard Nixon imposed a draconian and unconstitutional wage-price freeze, apparently in the belief that if people were forbidden to acknowledge inflation, it would cease to exist.

The United States has gone through years of spending more money than it has. We're now living with the consequences. China is sitting on a pile of dollars which it could unleash at any time. The dollar has plunged relative to other currencies. Prices are going up. There's nothing mysterious about this, except to people who think that it isn't getting hotter as long as you don't look at the thermometer.