Cincinnati’s Xavier University has broken new ground with the nation’s first pizza vending machine.  Excerpt:

Xavier’s dining service makes hundreds of artisan pizzas every day and 70 of them will go into this machine at a time.

Customers simply walk up to the machine and select which type of pizza they want. They’ll have a few options to choose from including pepperoni, cheese and veggie, but those will vary based on what’s popular.

The machine takes the pizza they select from a refrigerated compartment and lifts it into a convection oven.

After about three minutes, the pizza is done cooking and the machine drops it into a box that is then delivered through a slot and into the hands of the hungry student.

A medium pizza has a 12-inch diameter, similar to what a customer could get at places like Domino’s, and costs $9.

When the machine is getting low, employees are notified through their phones and can refill the machine before it is empty.

“It’s an idea that’s time has come,” Kiah said.

Yes, it is an idea whose time has come.  Why?

The ever-increasing calls for a $15/hr minimum wage, that’s why.

We already have burger machine manufacturers making their presence known.  Anyone who thinks this is anything but a response to the increased agitation for government mandated minimum wages for burger-flippers is kidding themselves.  Why not the same for pizza makers?

Granted the process still requires cafeteria workers to assemble the pizzas, to load them in the pizza machine; add to that a maintenance guy to fix the pizza vending machine when it (inevitably) breaks.  But the cost in man-hours will still be lower than staffing a pizza deli 24/7, and the machine will deliver hot pies to cash-poor college students at any hour of day or night, at a lower price than the deli would mandate – especially if the deli workers are paid an Imperially-mandated $15/hr.

Isn’t technology great?  Look for calls from the political Left to regulate these pizza machines in the name of “fairness.”

Here’s an interesting take on how the ever-expanding welfare state is affecting our society.  Excerpt:

Here is the Ludwig Von Mises Institute’s take on what a prospective President Trump should do to get the economy rolling.  The list:

First, the Affordable Care Act should be repealed in its entirety and, as you have already pointed out, any prohibition on interstate competition in health insurance also should be repealed. Health care and health care insurance should be left to the market.

Second, all recent thousand-page international trade agreements should be replaced with a single, clearly worded paragraph that allows any U.S. business (or consumer) to trade with any other business (or consumer) anywhere else in the world on terms that are mutually satisfactory. Period.

Third, you or the Congress should immediately remove cannabis (marijuana) from its current Schedule One prohibition status under Federal law; cannabis and drug policy generally should be left entirely to the states. (Ideally the entire Drug War should be scrapped and the production and consumption by adults of any “drug” should be legalized.)

Fourth, the federal minimum wage should either be permanently fixed at its current rate or reduced; legally minimum wages should be left entirely to the states. (Ideally, all minimum wage laws should be repealed since they cause job destruction.)

Fifth, the U.S. corporate tax rate should be reduced so that it is the lowest (not the highest) in the industrial world; ideally, it should be repealed entirely because it constitutes double taxation on shareholders of corporations who also pay income tax on their dividends.

Sixth, the Federal Reserve should be required by law to end all forms of quantitative easing and interest rate regulation now accomplished primarily through open market operations; interest rates for savers and investors should be market determined. In addition, the Federal Reserve’s budget should be determined by Congressional appropriations like that of any other federal department or agency.

And finally, as a long-run solution for our recurring financial problems and economic recessions, replacing the current inflationary paper dollar with alternative monetary arrangements that provide for a sound, market-based commodity money, such as the gold standard, should be seriously considered.

Some of those – the first, second, and fifth – tie in with what The Donald is already saying he’d do if/when elected.  Granted, he is running for President, not king; he would have to have Congress pass legislation to put forth his agenda.

But Trump is running on his experience as a deal-maker.  Too often in the last few years “compromise” in Congress has meant that the Right has to go along with what the Left wants.

The Von Mises list is a good list.  It’s a pretty libertarian list, as evidenced by items three, four and six.  Enacting all seven items would go a long ways towards setting the tepid economy to rights and, oh, by the way, restoring some semblance of Federalism to our struggling republic.

As the saying goes:  It’s a good start.

Thanks again to The Other McCain for the Rule Five links!

For the record, I’m not commenting on the horrible Orlando Pulse shootings until things have calmed down and more information is available.

Meanwhile, Reason.com has this gem:  Feds Know What’s Best For Your Personal Finances.  The headline alone almost made me burst out laughing.  Excerpt:

The federal government is $19 trillion in debt, yet last week the nation’s newest major regulatory agency tossed out 1,300 pages of new rules for the payday lending industry and it did so, we are told, because it is worried about Americans getting into too much debt and being unable to repay.

That’s rich.

 The new rules issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will send shock waves through the payday lending industry, likely forcing about 85 percent of storefront payday lenders to shut their doors. But who would shed a tear at the possible demise of that neon-tinged, usurious industry, where people who don’t have any money or credit to begin with can get a small amount of cash if they agree to outlandish interest terms.

Certainly not CFPB Director Richard Cordray.

“Too many borrowers seeking a short-term cash fix are saddled with loans they cannot afford and sink into long-term debt,” Cordray said in a statement announcing the new rules. “It’s much like getting into a taxi just to ride across town and finding yourself stuck in a ruinously expensive cross-country journey.”

The obvious result of this stupid, thoughtless Imperial policy will be the return of the neighborhood loan shark.  We used to have a friend who was chronically short of money, mostly due to poor financial planning and living above her means; she regularly resorted to the payday loan places to keep herself afloat from week to week, and her debt ever so slowly crept up from month to month.

That’s bad.  But is it the role of our Imperial government to get involved to protect her from herself?  As stated in the Manifesto, it is not the proper role of government to protect people from the consequences of their own bad decisions.  When you remove those consequences, you make bad decisions less onerous on the decision makers.

And if you shut down the thousands of payday loan outlets, believe you me, someone will step up to fill that role; someone operating outside the law.

And the irony of someone from the Imperial government, currently approaching $20 trillion in debt, lecturing consumers on irresponsible borrowing – well, that’s pretty much the textbook definition of irony.

Thanks as always to The Other McCain for the Rule Five links! Be sure to check out their extensive compendium of toothsome totty.

Why are folks folks on government food assistance suffering from obesity?  Excerpt:

Americans are getting fatter. The share of adults who are “overweight” or “obese” rose from 56 percent in the late 1980s to 70 percent today. The Centers for Disease Control says that obesity is linked to a wide range of serious health problems. The agency calls obesity an “epidemic,” and the federal government has launched many initiatives to tackle it.

Indeed, the government takes obesity so seriously that it funds a $78 billion program for people to buy any type of food they want at 250,000 retail stores nationwide. The program subsidizes 46 million people to buy items such as “soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream.”

Wait a minute. I’m confused—how will that help reduce obesity?

The program used to be called “food stamps,” but the government changed the name to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This “nutrition” program aims for people to “make healthy choices within a limited budget.” So it is bizarre that it subsidizes items like soft drinks and candy.

So, the question becomes “why does it subsidize items like soft drinks and candy?”  If one suggests restricting the SNAP program to prohibit this, the frequently encountered retort is that “we can’t tell people what they can and can’t eat.”  Well, my reply is this:  “When they are spending my money, I damn well can.”

Being on public assistance should not be overly comfortable; it should be a trifle embarrassing.  Why?  Because incentives matter.  The incentives should be to drive people off of these programs, not to enable them as a lifestyle.  We must incentivize productivity, not sloth.  I would be in favor of a food-assistance program limited to certain products – bulk rice, bulk beans, powdered milk, ground turkey and beef.  No candy, no soft drinks, no prepared foods.  I occasionally pick up a “take and bake” pizza from our local Papa Murphy’s, and they have a large, prominent sign:  “EBT cards accepted here.”  This is ridiculous.  It needs to stop.

The linked article concludes:  Some policymakers and health experts favor prohibiting food stamps to buy junk food. One advantage would be to reduce demand for the program, and thus reduce taxpayer costs. If policymakers decided that food stamps could only be used for items such as fresh fruits and vegetables, fewer people would use the program, which would be a good thing.

However, a better way to reform the food stamp program would be to end federal involvement altogether, and to transfer the program to state governments. Each state could then decide what level of benefits to provide, as well as decide if taxpayers should be subsidizing “soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream.”

Perhaps that second paragraph is even better.  Get the Imperial government out of the system entirely.  Let each state determine its own programs, and let each state be a laboratory for how to best administer these kinds of programs.

You know – Federalism.  A founding principle of our Republic.  Imagine that.