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It's not the rich you should be afraid of, it's the politicians .

There has been a lot of negative talk recently about immigrants and how they effect the United States. Stephen Green, writing for the Tech Central Station, has an article rebutting some of those negative comments and brings up other points often ignored in the discussions. He concludes, The New (Nuevo?) America won't be the one we're used to -- but neither was the old one, or even the America we knew just twenty years ago. Latin America will also continue to change, as we all become increasingly intertwined politically, economically, and culturally. In return for losing some control of a culture we never really controlled in the first place, we get to live with neighbors who, for the most part, are increasingly free and prosperous. For that, we can all be thankful, and maybe even a little less afraid.

Many liberals claim that Bush's tax cut went primarily to the wealthy. Tavares Forby, a good friend of mine who runs blackpundit.com , created an easy to read graph detailing the before and after tax brackets to show how this tax cut was implemented. He writes, Many liberals claim that the Bush tax cut only benefits the wealthy. Anyone with basic math skills can prove this is not true. Actually, “President Bush tax cut” cuts the most on the lowest income bracket. The graph clearly shows how in terms of percentage the poor benefited much more than the rich. A worth while read.

The Economist comments on the current poverty line report just released, it writes, Whatever crude logic it possessed at the time, the Orshansky poverty line is by now quite arbitrary. Its originator calculated the cost of meeting a family’s nutritional needs and then multiplied this figure by three, because families in the early 1960s spent about a third of their income on food. The Census Bureau does not repeat this exercise to determine today’s poverty line; it does not recalculate the cost of an adequate diet or remeasure the share of income spent on food. It simply adjusts Ms Orshansky’s figures for inflation. Thus today’s dollar thresholds do not tell us how much a family or individual needs to get by in today’s America; they simply restate the cost of feeding a family in the 1960s in today’s prices, and multiply it by three. The Census Bureau has already experimented with such measures, and is probably itching to finally retire the Orshansky line. But its political masters in t...

Economist Don Boudreaux has two very informative blogs. The first one deals with prices and how they are the true equalizer. In direct contradiction to those who use the poor as an excuse for price controls. He writes, Any practical, realistic method apart from rationing by price hikes will involve arbitrariness at least as great (I think greater) than whatever arbitrariness there is in income distribution. One great advantage of rationing by market prices is that they reduce to a minimum the role of arbitrariness. Price are, in other words, a great equalizer. Anyone who is willing to pay the market price for a good or service is just as likely to get that good or service as is the seller’s mother, neighbor, or bowling buddy. The second one addresses the often misunderstood 'trade deficit'. He writes, But the trade deficit is no cause for concern. It reflects foreigners’ preference to invest in American assets rather than to cash out all of their dollar holdings immediately f...

Colorodo is currently deciding on whether to split its electoral votes to be distributed as a proportion of the voters vote, instead of winner takes all, like is currently the case. Personally, I think it's a bad idea. Especially , for the small states. Here is a good article explaining why . Update: Other arguments to be against it.

I am the first member of my family born in the United States. Most of my family comes from a small town in Guerrero, Mexico. This area of Mexico is extremely poor. The farm that my father grew up on doesn't even have hot water or very much electricity. Needless to say, this has always puzzled me. How could a country with so many natural resources be so poor? Don't get me wrong, I've heard the general answers, answers like "there needs to be more Capitalism", or "there is too much corruption" etc. But I want more specifics. I want actual legislation problems or specific things that can be done. That is why I was thrilled to find out that Tyler Cowen , Professor of Economics at George Mason University, is in Mexico and occasionally finds time to blog about Mexico specific things. You can find his blogs on his observations in Mexico at Marginal Revolution . A couple that I found interesting is the most recent one of his visit to a small town in my Fathe...