Daily Clips: March 3, 2017
Retailers had a dismal Christmas: Interestingly, in an article which bemoans lack of consumer expenditure, these authors somehow find a way demean the very policy…that would put more money in people’s pockets.
Retailers are getting hammered on multiple fronts. States have been passing minimum-wage increases that are putting pressure on labor costs.
Huh. Maybe increasing a minimum wage isn’t always a net loss to retailers. Just a thought.
Sessions steps back from campaign probes:
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Thursday he would stay out of any probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election but maintained he did nothing wrong by failing to disclose he met last year with Russia’s ambassador.
David Brooks reckons secularism made America worse:
There used to be social conservatives, who believed that the moral fabric of the country had been weakened by secularism and the breakdown of the family.
Rethinking mass incarceration in America:
The fact is that whether crime is high or low, prison is not the most efficient way to respond to it, and I think we need to start telling a story that there are better ways—even if violent crime is rising, say, “Look, even if this is a real upward trend, prison is not what is going to rein it in. We can do this much better, much more smartly, in a much less costly way by focusing on well-established interventions that are good at disrupting violence.”
Tweet of the day:
At 4.8% unemp, what feels like a "jobs" crisis is actually a low wage share and wildly skewed income distribution. https://t.co/BrwtAUZBjf
— John P. Hussman (@hussmanjp) March 1, 2017
