economics

Licensed Vs. Certified

We began a conversation the other day about licensure being a grift. There is a difference between licensure and certification.

A license is a permit, issued by the government, that allows a person to carry out a certain activity. In order for licensure to exist, the government must first make it illegal to perform the activity, then issue licenses that permit those possessing those licenses to perform the activity.

Certification is where an entity certifies that a person meets certain standards. The entity issuing the certification can be a private business or a government. The value of the certification lies with the reputation of the entity that issues it. A certification can be issued without license- for example, UL laboratories. The government even issues licenseless certification- high school diplomas.

The issuance of a license can involve certification by the same agency that issues it- an example of this is a driver’s license. The DMV both ensures that the applicant for the license meets certain criteria and issues the license.

Alternatively, a government may require that another, outside entity certify that the applicant meets licensing criteria prior to issuing the license. Examples of this include lawyers and nurses. Passing the Bar exam or the NCLEX is a precursor to receiving a license to practice those professions.

A license can be issued without certification at all. Fishing licenses, for example. No one cares if you know how to fish- FWC just wants your license fees.

The only real reason for licensure is so that the state can control who can and cannot perform certain activities. The state always uses safety and quality control as the reason for requiring licenses, but this is the government we are talking about here. This means that politics eventually carry more weight than competence or safety.

This becomes a problem when the certification required to obtain a license is different for one group than it is for another. Say an American doctor or nurse has to pass certain hurdles while foreign doctors and nurses have different, lower standards. The oft quoted problem of a barber requiring more hours of training than a paramedic in Florida. (it’s true- Florida requires 1,200 hours of training in order to take the exam to be a licensed barber, but 1,112 hours of training and clinical time to be a licensed Paramedic)

Nursing is a great example of colleges grifting the system. In order to sit for the registered nursing exam, you must have at least a 2 year degree. That means 72 credit hours, but 30 of those 72 hours (42%) are courses like US History, English Composition, and Humanities that have absolutely nothing to do with nursing.

The reason that this happens is the people who are already practicing in that field want to make sure that there is a restricted supply of their skillset, so that pay remains high, or in some cases it is because colleges want to make lots of money. This is why Physician assistant programs also lobby so hard to have the degree requirements increased. There are a few colleges that teach PA as a 2 year associates degree, a couple that make it a 4 years Bachelor’s degree, while most schools make it a Master’s degree. In each of the preceeding cases, the PA applicant is still eligible to sit for the licensing exam. Making it a more rigorous educational requirements doesn’t make for better PA’s, but it does make for fewer PA’s, meaning that PA’s make more money.

So yes, licensing is nearly always a grift. In fact, I can’t think of a single time when it isn’t.

By Divemedic, ago

Oil

Crude oil inventories as well as inventory in the SPR continues to fall, gasoline inventories rise, but prices rose slightly for the week to $3.14 per gallon. Look beyond the spin and see what it means. The SPR is at the lowest inventory level since 1983 at only 375 million barrels. Gasoline stocks are sitting at 220 million barrels, a 24 day supply at current consumption rates.

So what’s going on? The economy is still being sluggish. A year ago, Americans were using 9.2 million barrels a day of gasoline. Now we are using 8.6 million barrels.

By Divemedic, ago

A Couple from the NY Post

This woman is “raising free range kids,” meaning that she allows them to do anything they want: Shave their heads, eat nothing but ice cream, or simply refuse to go to school. Literally no rules. That isn’t raising kids, that isn’t being a parent. This woman is a “stay at home” mom- meaning that she has no job. The father of her children is her “domestic partner” and earns a living “reselling” (Meaning on Ebay). On other words, they are collecting welfare, which is why they aren’t married. (Single moms get more money).

What this is, is breeding children so that you can collect more welfare money. Hey, I am OK with raising kids like this, as long as you AND your kids are not eligible to vote or to collect any public money in the form of handouts. Why? Because being a part of a society means having to contribute to that society, not be a free range leech.

The second article is the New York law that is coming. It prohibits landlords from performing a criminal background check on prospective tenants. This increases potential liability and risk for landlords, which increases costs. Those increased costs will be passed on to everyone. Congratulations, you get a criminal for a next door neighbor, AND your rent is going up. Again.

By Divemedic, ago

An Open Letter to Credit Card Companies

I have a way that I save money. My wife and I have four different cashback credit cards that we use on a daily basis. Each one gives us great terms. One gives us 5% cashback on fuel and groceries. Another, 5% cashback on Amazon. A third is 5% on dining out, and the fourth is 5% on travel and hotel stays. There are other deals. All in all, we probably spend $50k a year on those cards. We pay the cards off every month. It’s like giving yourself a raise. I get money, the issuing bank for the credit card makes money, the processor makes money.

Why is this important? Because Giffords is pressuring banks to flag and prevent credit cards from being used to buy guns and ammunition. That kind of shit has been tried before. When Citibank did a similar thing back in 2018, I immediately canceled by credit card with them. The company that the card was for was Best Buy. I haven’t bought anything from them since, nor have I done any business with Citibank.

So here is my announcement: You aren’t going to stop me from buying guns and ammo. You are just going to stop yourself from making money on the deal. I won’t hesitate to cancel every credit card that I have with your company. Someone will make money on the deal, it just won’t be you, and I will still have my guns and ammo. So die on that hill, and see what happens.

I know that $50k a year doesn’t seem like a lot, but there are millions of people who buy guns every year. Now imagine that you not only lose the processing fees from those sales, but losing the fees from every purchase those people would have made. Now it’s billions of dollars in lost business. Every. Single. Year.

Go ahead, FAFO.

By Divemedic, ago

Warning Signs

A couple of alarming news pieces came to my attention. The first is that American homeowners lost more than $1.5 trillion in home equity in the past six months. The reason for this is that most people can no longer afford mortgage payments, so the buying of homes has cooled. The monthly payment on the average home, with a 20% down payment on a mortgage, is up nearly $1,000 since the start of the year.

The second major warning sign is coupled to that- borrowing. Mortgage debt rose by $1 trillion from a year ago, to $11.7 trillion. Mortgage and home-equity debt combined are up by $2 trillion since the pandemic began. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reports that Home-equity lines of credit were up 40% in the second quarter from a year earlier. Overall, Americans are carrying a record amount of debt. It isn’t just mortgages, either: Credit-card debt also increased by the most in 20 years, with balances rising by 15% from a year earlier. The surge comes as the average interest-rates on card borrowing has climbed above 19%, the highest in data going back to the mid-1980s. Auto loan balances rose by $22 billion in the third quarter and are now above $1.5 trillion, roughly double the figure a decade ago.

With all of this debt, along with declining equity, the American economy is still rolling solely because Americans are borrowing from their future retirement. People are continuing to spend and maintain a standard of living that their income no longer can support. They are doing it by borrowing more than they can repay and doing it at sky high interest rates. Sooner or later, these debts will need to be paid. Remember- all debts are always paid by someone, if not the borrower or the lender, someone will have to pay the bills.

By Divemedic, ago

Social Credit, Digital Money

Imagine if you will, some faceless government bureaucrat sees that you made a comment that was unflattering to his daughter. With the click of a button, you are made penniless.

Or perhaps they are just keeping an eye on you. So they log into the central dollar database to see where you are spending your money, and what you are buying.

A system like a social credit score could allow the government to control everything you do and say, upon penalty of being made a financial pariah.

It’s easy when the US has an all digital currency, which the US Federal reserve and some major banks just began testing.

By Divemedic, ago

Orlando Area Voters Approve Rent Control

Voters in Orange County, Florida, the county where Orlando is located, approved a rent control ordinance during the November 8 election. The full text of the ordinance can be found here, but the relevant part of it reads:

(a) No landlord shall demand, charge, or accept from a tenant a rent increase for a residential rental unit more than once in a 12month period.

(b) No landlord shall demand, charge, or accept from a tenant a rent increase that is in excess of the existing rent multiplied by the Consumer Price Index for any residential rental unit except as otherwise allowed under section 25-388 of this ordinance.

This ordinance’s limitations on rent increases shall apply regardless of change of occupancy in a residential rental unit except as otherwise allowed under section 25-388 of this ordinance.

For now, the law can’t go into effect because there is pending litigation. If the court allows this law to go forward, there are some real issues here.

By Divemedic, ago

Are We Stupid?

The government is telling us that year over year inflation was 7.7% for October 2022. That is something that Biden is celebrating. Meanwhile, a dozen eggs in my neck of the woods costs $4.49, stew meat is $6.99 a pound, and ground chuck is selling at $7.99. The same week last year, eggs were $2.99, stew meat was $3.99, and ground chuck was $4.99. That is an increase of 50%, 75.1%, and 60.1%, respectively. Perhaps that is why they don’t include food when they are calculating the rate of inflation.

You will note that I didn’t include the cost of gasoline. The reason is that the oil market is being deliberately manipulated by the sale of oil from the SPR.

People are being fooled into thinking that increased prices=inflation. That isn’t the case. Inflation is caused by a currency losing value. This is reflected in higher prices, but the higher prices themselves are not inflation, they are merely a symptom of it. I expect that, now that the election is over, fuel prices will return to their true price. Still, many Americans are stupid enough not to know the difference and to continue voting for the same old people.

By Divemedic, ago