The Morning Roar: Inflation Hitting The Poor Hardest, Holder To Explore Gun Tracking Bracelets, And Chicago Reports State’s First Defensive Gun Use By Concealed Carry Permit Holder
Welcome to the Tuesday edition of The Morning Roar!Inflation Hits The Poor The HardestIf you are at all like me you read the above title and said, "Of course it does idiot!" After calming down and taking a sip of coffee, hopefully you understood that the author was speaking to the vast majority of folks that have no idea inflation impacts different parts of the economy to vary degrees.The headline above was taken from an article by Ben Casselman at the Five Thirty Eight, which has become a daily stop of mine while trolling for liberty. Nathan Silver the founder and editor-in-chief of Five Thirty Eight and his team of "data journalists" strive to analyze the data and then report based on assumptions supported by the data. The following is an excerpt from Mr. Casselman's article, which analyzes how the effects of inflation differ on the poor compared to the wealthy.
To figure out how inflation varies by income, I divided the population into five groups by earnings, then calculated how much different income groups spend on each of more than 150 goods and services. Then I applied those spending shares to the price changes for each item to construct a re-weighted Consumer Price Index — the rate of inflation experienced by each income group.4According to that analysis, the rich and poor have experienced faster inflation than those in the middle, but for different reasons. For low-income families, the biggest cause was rising rents, which are up 5.6 percent over the past two years, more than double the overall rate of inflation. The poor spend significantly more on housing than other groups, so rising costs hit them harder.5 Similarly, low income families devote a disproportionate share of their spending to car insurance, where prices are up 8.8 percent over the past two years, and electricity, where prices are up 4.7 percent. And the poor spend relatively little on televisions, computers and other technology items, which have seen prices fall in recent years.6Wealthier households, on the other hand, were much more affected by the 8.6 percent increase in college tuition because they spend two and a half times as much of their income on higher education than the average family. They also spend more on new cars, restaurant meals and various services that have seen faster than average rates of inflation.
The writer is defining the increase in prices as inflation. This is the common definition of inflation today and is the one taught by most schools. The traditional definition, which is also taught by the Austrian Economists, refers to inflation as expansion of the money supply. This expansion today is caused by the Federal Reserve's loose money policies. (Are you wondering what the heck Austrian Economics is all about? Check out this essay at the Ludwig Von Mises Institute)Mr. Casselman neglects to mention a very important aspect of inflation. He omits the benefits reaped by the rich and politically connected as a result of inflation. This is why the establishment fervently defends the Federal Reserve System and the paper money fueled fractional reserve banking system. The wealthy, politically connected bankers, and subsidized industry executives acquire access to the newly created money first. They are able to invest and lend the money out before it loses value. The middle class and poor are forced to deal with the effects of inflation as the cost of living rising more quickly than wages. This reality leads to the current plight in America that is crushing the poor and quickly widening the gap between the middle and upper class.Holder: We Want To Explore Gun Tracking BraceletsAttorney General Eric Holder told a House appropriation subcommittee that the Department of Justice is looking into technological innovation so "guns can be made more safe." Holder would favor finger print identification or a bracelet that might be worn. The Justice Department has asked for increased spending this year in order to pursue "gun safety."
The Justice Department has requested $382.1 million in increased spending for its fiscal year 2014 budget for “gun safety.”Included in the proposal is $2 million for “Gun Safety Technology” grants, which would award prizes for technologies that are “proven to be reliable and effective.”President Barack Obama’s budget proposal also calls for $1.1 billion to “protect Americans from gun violence—including $182 million to support the president’s ‘Now is the Time’ gun safety initiative.”
The President and his Attorney General are willing to strip law abiding citizens of their Second Amendment right in order to falsely claim that they have made society safer. In reality, adding features to guns that make it more difficult for law abiding citizens to defend themselves makes everyone less safe, except criminals. The President and AG are either morons or insane. They are knowingly promoting a policy that would provide criminals with an edge over law abiding citizens in a self defense situation.Hopefully, the talk about further infringing upon the Second Amendment is just rhetoric to appease fanatics on the far left. The audience the President is courting dreams of magically removing all danger from the streets and fantasizes about the Utopian society their authoritarian government would provide. If the President actually tried to enact policies similar to finger print identification or a tracking bracelets for guns, then the Democrats would be destroyed in the midterm elections.Chicago Reports State’s First Defensive Gun Use By Concealed Carry Permit HolderThe Chicago Tribune reports on the first instance of self defense by a concealed carry permit holder in the state of Illinois.
A 53-year-old South Austin man with a valid concealed carry permit was able to shoot at two men who tried to accost him outside of his home early this morning.The incident happened about 2:40 a.m. on the 5400 block of West Van Buren Street, said Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Michael Sullivan.The man was walking from his garage to the front of his home when two males in hoodies appeared in a gangway between his home and the neighbor's home, Sullivan said.One of the two men pulled a handgun from his waistband and pointed at the man who took out his own gun and managed to fire several times at the males, Sullivan said.The males fled the area without being struck and the shooting did not result in any property damage, police said.
Illinois became the last state to allow concealed carry when the law passed last July. Unfortunately, no concealed carry permits were available until the beginning of 2014. For the individual in the story above, he can thank his lucky stars that the law passed and he was able to acquire his concealed carry permit in time to save his own life.Imagine if the fifty-three-year-old man in the story above had to first struggle to gain fingerprint access to his gun or hope that his tracking bracelet was working properly before being able to defend his life. It might have given the criminals, who don't have to bother with fingerprints or bracelets because they don't bother with obeying laws, just enough time to kill the unlucky man.We'll look for more positive self defense stories in the weeks and months ahead coming from Illinois.Read The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
