Monthly Archives: December 2011

Minimum Wage

Posted on December 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

Got a bunch of baseball cards in the attic?  Beanie Babies maybe?  How about some old CD’s?

Now, say ya wanna sell ’em.  Everyone knows that if you start the bidding to high you won’t get any takers.  Bring the price down and you can sell almost anything.

Simple:  More expensive, fewer people buy.  Less expensive, more people buy.

Which makes this so mind boggling:

Eight states will ring in the New Year with a higher minimum wage, under state laws that require wage floors to keep apace with inflation. San Francisco, one of the few cities that sets its own minimum wage above the federal level, is also raising wages for the lowest-paid workers in the new year. It will become the first big city in the country to require companies to pay their workers more than $10 an hour.

The minimum wage increases in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington will be 28 cents to 37 cents an hour, according to the National Employment Law Project. That is an extra $582 to $770 a year for a full-time minimum wage worker, and resets these states’ minimum wages to $7.64 to $9.04 an hour.

At that higher end is Washington State, which will become the first state in the nation to set its minimum wage above $9 an hour. For reference, the federal wage floor for most workers is $7.25 an hour.

I get it, I do.  No one’s time should be worth so little.  However, by forcing businesses to pay more for labor than they otherwise should, they will buy less labor.  And lastly, should an individual be free to bargain for the value of his time?

 

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Posted in Economics, Economy, Liberty, Politics: National, States Behaving Badly

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Government And Markets

Posted on December 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

A free and open market will settle on the demand for goods or services.  As the government adds requirements to that market, the price will change and adjust to accommodate the new cost of that good or service.  For example, if you wanna house, one can be built for you at such and such a cost.  However, when the requirement, however reasonable, that the house have plumbing is added, the cost of that house is going to go up.

I’m not claiming that we allow houses to be built without plumbing.  I’m simply stating that when we DO make that requirement, we price homes above what some segment of the population can afford.

This is true of all things.  And school lunch is no exception:

It’s lunchtime at Van Nuys High School and students stream into the cafeteria to check out the day’s fare: black bean burgers, tostada salad, fresh pears and other items on a new healthful menu introduced this year by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

But Iraides Renteria and Mayra Gutierrez don’t even bother to line up. Iraides said the school food previously made her throw up, and Mayra calls it “nasty, rotty stuff.”

And why is the school cafeteria serving lunch that students don’t wanna eat?

Earlier this year, the district got rid of chocolate and strawberry milk, chicken nuggets, corn dogs, nachos and other food high in fat, sugar and sodium. Instead, district chefs concocted such healthful alternatives as vegetarian curries and tamales, quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles.

The district, government, tried to regulate the market.  No longer could schools sell food that kids wanted to eat, rather, the school was forced to sell food that the regulators decided was fit for the kids.  Now, do I think that fresh pears and pad Thai is better for you than corn dogs and nachos?  Hell yeah!  In fact, I’ve eaten many many more portions of pears and pad Thai than corn dogs and nachos in the last, what, 20 years.  I fact, I can’t remember the last time I had a corn dog.

Point is, independent of the fact that mandating healthy food is good or not, when the regulation is applied, the market shifts.  It adjusts.

Many of the meals are being rejected en masse. Participation in the school lunch program has dropped by thousands of students. Principals report massive waste, with unopened milk cartons and uneaten entrees being thrown away. Students are ditching lunch, and some say they’re suffering from headaches, stomach pains and even anemia.

Waste.  And unhealthy behavior.

But do you know what ELSE happened?

At many campuses, an underground market for chips, candy, fast-food burgers and other taboo fare is thriving.

The market adjusted and is now providing the very thing the regulations were meant to diminish.

The lesson?

The market will win.

 

 

 

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Posted in Economics, Government, States Behaving Badly

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The 12 Days Of Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

Christmas is more expensive this year.  3.5% more expensive:

Giving the holiday presents of a French hen, a milking maid, a leaping lord or even a partridge in a pear tree is rather unlikely in this day and age. But the gifts from the favorite holiday carol “The 12 Days of Christmas” are lighthearted clues to how the economy is faring.

Over all, prices are fairly stable and not rising precipitously for even the quirkier gifts, according to the Christmas Price Index released for the 28th year by PNC Wealth Management, part of the PNC Financial Services Group. On the down side, the price tag for the eye-popping 364 items and services in each of the song’s verses breaks $100,000 for the first time this year.

…

Gold, for example — as in the five golden rings — has fallen in price. Those rings (fairly lightweight ones, one would think) come to $645, down from $649.95 last year. Even though gold commodities, an investor haven, have been hovering at record highs recently, the demand for gold at retail has been weakening.

…

Unsurprisingly, labor costs remained fairly flat. The nine ladies dancing, for example, remained static, at $6,294, the same as last year, according to figures from Philadanco, a dance company in Philadelphia. The 11 pipers piping, at a price of $2,427.60, and 12 drummers drumming, for $2,629.90, were up modestly, about 3 percent. The only unskilled laborers in the verses are the eight maids-a-milking, who are calculated as earning the $7.25 minimum hourly wage. That wage did not rise in 2011 for the second straight year, so their cost stayed the same.

The price tag for one round of gifts is $24,263.18 this year, up $823.80 from last year. Repeating the gifts totaled slightly more than $101,000, a gain of 4.4 percent, also close to the federal price index.

It would be fun to “gift” the 12 days of Christmas one year.

 

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Posted in Economy, Fun

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Nanny Statism

Posted on December 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

The desire to protect the citizens drives crazy results.  People, intending to “do the right thing” and “protect” the people, get so caught up in that role they never stop and consider the absurdity of what it is they are doing.  The never ending desire to prevent harm is a constricting burden when placed within the hands of those who fail to understand that man is largely able to craft positive outcomes for himself.

And so it is that government has created a condition such that we are unable to hand our free hot dogs to free people:

Tin Cup’s bar and restaurant in St. Paul’s North End will pay a $500 fine to the city for grilling hot dogs outside on Oct. 2 without an event permit.

Co-owner Gidget Bailey appeared before the city council Wednesday to explain that she inquired with a state agency before cooking the hot dogs, which were given away inside the bar at 1220 Rice St. and not sold or consumed outside.

“I did call the Minnesota Department of Health asking if there was anything I needed to do,” Bailey said. “They told me no.”

The city’s Department of Safety and Inspections cited them for not obtaining a “temporary extension of service area” license for the outdoor event, which led to several calls to the District 6 Planning Council. The planning council then informed DSI of the event.

Council Member Lee Helgen reminded the bar owners that they should have known to check with the city.

The council vote to impose the fine was unanimous.

Note one member of the government body felt that the regulations describing the proper offering of hot dogs was so onerous as to prevent the levying of the fine.

 

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Posted in Government, Idiots on Parade, Politics: National, States Behaving Badly

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Capitalism And The Free Market

Posted on December 21, 2011 | 4 comments

As I sit here “flying my desk” I continue to receive confirmation notes from Amazon that:

  1. My order has been confirmed
  2. My order has been shipped

These notes come complete with tracking numbers that allow me to view the status of each order and, then, to see where FedEx is in shipping each order.  It’s my hope that in the coming year I will have outdoor cameras/locked delivery boxes that will allow me to view the delivery of each package.

In any event, I am struck by the absolute and sheer awesomeness of a marketplace that is open 7x24x365.  I’m able to shop for goods around the globe at any time of the day.  Most specifically, a time of day that is convenient for me.

In addition to the fact  that the market makes available global goods of all kinds at any time of day, I don’t have to leave my desk, or sofa, or tub or wherever I am accessing that market place from.  I am able to order, pay for and then have delivered to me my goods and never even leave the house.  Depending on my specific state of organization, this may be literally true.  I could order a book and have it delivered to me before I even ever need to leave the house.

And this whole trade I make with the market place makes me richer.

I value having a book delivered to me more than I value the $10.50 it cost me.  By definition, I become more “wealthy” as a result of this transaction.  As each transaction adds up, I become even MORE wealthy.  Bird food delivered to my door?  More wealthy.  Bakugans for the boy?  More wealthy.

And the genius is that Amazon becomes more wealthy too!  They value the $10.50 more than they value the capital it took to establish the infrastructure to facilitate the sale.  Same with FedEx and the imbedded shipping charges.  And the publisher who printed the book.  And the author who penned it.  None of them would have entered into the arrangement had they not felt so.

We ALL become more wealthy as a result.

And it struck me.  If we reject capitalism, that each man is out to obtain the best value for himself, then what we are saying is that we would only desire to read books written by ourselves.  To wear clothes woven and stitched by ourselves.  Eat food grown or raised by ourselves.  And live i houses built by ourselves.

That, or enjoyed at the coercion of others.

Are there losers in capitalism, even as it functions “properly”?  Yes, without a doubt.  But it is the unmistakable sting of failure that drives us to succeed.  It is the joyous sense of success that drives us to avoid failure.

And so it must be.  It is how we evolved from that first strike of lighting in the primordial mud.  A series of experiments where some failed and withered while others succeeded and thrived.  Evolution is, in a sense, capitalism.

To reject the free market is to reject truth.  And instead rely on “faith”.  Faith that all men, or enough of them, will act in such a manner that is contradictory to his nature.

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Posted in Liberty, Rocket Surgery, Stuff

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Kidney Transplant

Posted on December 21, 2011 | 10 comments

So, I’m reading a story about an illegal immigrant who is struggling to obtain a kidney transplant.  He has a donor; his brother.  But the system doesn’t allow illegal residents transplant care.  Lifetime dialysis?  Sure.  Transplant?  No.

Anyway, I’m sure I read this somewhere, but it occurred to me that of all the people in the kidney transplant process, the doctors, the hospitals, the nurses everybody, the only person who isn’t compensated for his time and effort is the guy that loses the kidney.

Isn’t that weird?  Maybe if we allowed people to sell their spare kidney we wouldn’t have so many people waiting for a kidney.

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Posted in Health Care, Life

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Why Democrats Favor A Tax Cut

Posted on December 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

In the last few days and weeks we’ve been hearing a lot about the payroll tax hike/cut.  Lately the pitch has ramped up for two reasons.  One, the Senate was ale to negotiate a bipartisan agreement to extend the tax cuts.

For 2 months.

Now, most recently, the House Republicans have declined to accept that compromise.  They voted Tuesday to reject the Senate deal and are asking for the two bodies to meet in committee.  We’ll see who blinks.

However, for me, what has been lost in all of this is why the Democrats are fighting for a tax cut to begin with?  I certainly understand the whole “We-They” thing, after all, the whole payroll tax cut idea was the Democrats brain child.  But why, at all, do the tax more, big state liberals want ANY tax cut?  Especially one that funds their most precious social program, Social Security?

Why?  Because Social Security is SO broken, so in debt and so “no chance of survival” that the Democrats feel they have little to lose.  In fact, they KNOW the government will “bail out” Social Security.  So, in some perverse way, the payroll tax cut can be seen to be a stimulus program.  Albeit not a perfect one.  For starters the more you make the more it benefits you.  And, you have to actually be working to benefit.  But other than that, any money not sent to Social Security is just added to the bill that Congress will eventually pay.

Rascally Rabbits!

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Posted in Government, Middle Class, Politics: National

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Payroll Tax Cut Details

Posted on December 20, 2011 | 6 comments

So, I get the hinge.  The Democrats in the Senate won a vote to extend the payroll tax cut for 2 months.  The House GOP doesn’t like that bill and wants to vote on one of their own.  They want the tax cut to be longer than 2 months, more like a year:

The fourth-ranking House Republican argued Tuesday that a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut “would do more harm than good.”

Now, in so far as we can reduce the tax burden for a s long as we can, I resonate with the good Mr. Hensarling, Rep from Texas.  What I don’t understand however, is why even such a relatively short extension of a year is thought to be THAT much better.  If you’re gonna end the tax, end the tax.  A temporary reduction is just as random and unpredictable if it’s 2 months or 12.

I’m a little disappointed in both parties over this one.

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Posted in Economy, Politics: National

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Do Democrats Lie?

Posted on December 20, 2011 | 4 comments

Most certainly, however, I am sure they are not alone.  But I can’t blame ’em.  Really.  They’re just a victim of the tribalism going on in Washington.

So, specifically, Democrats labelled Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan as one that would “end Medicare as we know it.”  And they defend this statement thusly:

“The very definition of the Medicare program is a national health insurance program for seniors which House Republicans would abolish under their budget,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in an earlier rebuttal of Politifact’s analysis of the Ryan plan.

And additionally:

“It seems foolish to have to parse the meaning of the word ‘end,’ but if there’s a program, and it’s replaced with a different program, proponents brought an end to the original program,” liberal blogger Steve Benen wrote at the Washington Monthly. “That’s what the verb means.”

Okay, but the silliness is obvious.  Using this logic any time any program is changed, even by the slightest bit, the old existing plan would “end” and the new plan, complete with all it’s new language, would be the new plan.

Wanna change the test scoring system in public education?  Well, go ahead, but be aware that you are “ending public education as we know it”.

Wanna increase the speed limit on I-40 from 60 to 65?  Okay, but be prepared to defend how you are “ending the federal interstate program as we know it.”

Absurd, truly.

And I am not alone.  Politifact has named the Democrats charge the “Lie of the Year”.

Republicans muscled a budget through the House of Representatives in April that they said would take an important step toward reducing the federal deficit. Introduced by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the plan kept Medicare intact for people 55 or older, but dramatically changed the program for everyone else by privatizing it and providing government subsidies.

Democrats pounced. Just four days after the party-line vote, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a Web ad that said seniors will have to pay $12,500 more for health care “because Republicans voted to end Medicare.”

Rep. Steve Israel of New York, head of the DCCC, appeared on cable news shows and declared that Republicans voted to “terminate Medicare.” A Web video from the Agenda Project, a liberal group, said the plan would leave the country “without Medicare” and showed a Ryan look-alike pushing an old woman in a wheelchair off a cliff. And just last month, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a fundraising appeal that said: “House Republicans’ vote to end Medicare is a shameful act of betrayal.”

After two years of being pounded by Republicans with often false charges about the 2010 health care law, the Democrats were turning the tables.

PolitiFact debunked the Medicare charge in nine separate fact-checks rated False or Pants on Fire, most often in attacks leveled against Republican House members.

Now, PolitiFact has chosen the Democrats’ claim as the 2011 Lie of the Year.

Go read the whole thing.  There are worse things to do on December 20th.

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Posted in Government, Health Care, Politics: National

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Hello world!

Posted on December 20, 2011 | 1 comment

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

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Posted in Uncategorized