Daily Archives: March 31, 2015

The Homophobic Law and the Indiana Governor Who Dares Not Speak Its Purpose

By William K. Black
Bloomington: March 29, 2015

Sodomy, of course, was once referred to as the crime that dare not speak its name because the combination of fear and hate of straight males for gays was so intense that it was barbaric and even murderous.  It is a measure of how much things have changed that the haters now know that they dare not speak their hate.  They also know that they are losing.  The vast majority of gay Americans live in States with marriage equality and conservatives expect to that the Supreme Court will soon strike down as unconstitutional bans on marriage equality in the Supreme Court.  Some equality advocates are warning that the desperate measures like Indiana’s new law designed to authorize merchants to discriminate against gays are similar to the relatively successful strategy to attack abortion rights.  They are right to warn about the need keep working, but the LBGT rights are not analogous to reproductive rights.  I will discuss only one reason – business.  The paradox is that a law purportedly vital to protect the right of merchants to discriminate against gays is the last thing that merchants want.  Gays make very good customers.  They have income and they buy goods and services.  Merchants want to sell goods.

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When Will the White House and OMB Ever Learn About Sector Financial Balances?

In my last post I asked this same question about the House Budget Committee. As my readers saw in that one, the attempts at deficit reduction leading to budget balance were so severe that they implied that if the House budget were followed, and if the economy did not collapse before the decade projection period ended due to a collapse of aggregate demand, then private sector deficits would be produced in every year from 2017 – 2025. In addition, since the budget provided for severe cuts to federal spending designed to benefit poor people and the middle class, it was likely that the private losses from this budget would be concentrated on the people who can least well absorb them.

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