Labor

On October 11, we reported that the now defunct Sears Canada announced plans to liquidate its remaining 150 stores instead of restructuring, the latest admission of brick and mortar defeat in the war with Amazon, with the result some 12,000 job losses in the coming weeks. The Canadian version of Sears is the latest victim of department-store decline that’s swept North America as shoppers gravitate online. While the retailer has dabbled in pop-up stores and e-commerce, its distribution centers aren’t as automated as Amazon.com Inc.

Alexander Hamilton, George Washington’s Treasury Secretary, in his first “Report on the Public Credit” in 1790,

put forth the concepts of “assumption” and “redemption.”

He argued that the federal government should assume the Revolutionary War debt

and pay those debts at “face value” in full to the bearers of such debt on demand.

In order to redeem the $75 million of bonds, Hamilton promoted the creation of a “sinking fund”

that would pay off five percent of the bonds annually.

Authored by Marcia Christoff-Kurapovna via The Mises Institute,

[Part of a series on the Swiss economy and society.]

Yesterday we noted the surge in cable following the stronger-than-expected Q3 GDP print of 0.4% Q/Q, above the 0.3% estimate. Afterwards, the market was calculating an 87% chance that the BoE would hike next week. Brown Brothers commented that:

The case against a hike is that inflation appears poised to peak shortly, the economy is softening, and real wages are falling. This may already be squeezing households, where an increase in the base rate is quickly passed through to households.

Last week we noted that, after months of planning and cogitating over how to address the failing public pension systems in their state which are somewhere between $40 and $80 billion under water, Kentucky's Governor Matt Bevin and the leaders of the General Assembly’s Republican majorities released their highly-anticipated 'plan' which turned out to be nothing more than the same old "kick the can down the road" approach to "pension reform" that has perpetuated the pension ponzi in this country for decades while doing absolutely nothing to address the actual crisis.