The continuing outrage

Union vs. union: The Longshoremen quit the AFL-CIO with a big snarky bang. The resignation letter is schadenfreude bait.

The editors of the New York Times applaud the state's crackdown on payday lenders. On the one hand, even we are reluctant to defend abusive usury. On the other hand, if chronic payday borrowers are willing to pay a legitimate business huge fees, they will probably be desperate or unwise enough to pay the mob. Government regulation or intervention being the fountainhead of organized crime in this country. Oh, and on the third hand:

A prominent online lender that has increasingly run into state challenges — Western Sky Financial, owned by a tribal member of the Cheyenne River Sioux — has just announced that it will stop financing loans next month.

Yeah, the NYT is complaining about Native Americans exploiting their conquerors. Write that down.

Perhaps related note: Pawn shops are growing fast because regulation has turned off the consumer credit spigot for a certain class of borrower. We report, you decide.

Wow. If this isn't enterprising, we don't know what is.

Forget the headline unemployment rate. Here is a graph of the number of people who are not working. We are destroying the productivity of our people.

More later.