President Obama unveiled his NCAA March Madness tournament bracket. Surprise surprise; he picked The University of North Carolina to win it all.
I was curious, so I took a look at the top 8 seeds.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, North Carolina is experimenting with toll roads. As I’ve stated, I’m in favor of this type of taxation. It more correctly taxes usage than does a generic gasoline tax. Monies generated from a particular road have a better shot at being spent on the upkeep of that road. And, the money generated can help build a maintain future infrastructure.
Additionally the tolling can be used to create a market and maximize traffic flow. By raising rates during peak hours, lowering them during off peak hours, we’ll better be able to move more cars and trucks through than we other wise would. Sort of a “Tragedy of the Commons” modern style.
But is it working?
Posted in Politics: North Carolina, Transportation
Tagged North Carolina, Tax, Toll Roads
One of the benefits to the Tea Party election of 2010 has been the effort to reduce labor’s influence in America. You’ve seen it in Wisconsin, you saw it in Indiana and now the results coming in from Tennessee.
States are turning to “Right to Work” legislation that allows employees to opt in or opt out of a union. To be clear, some state allow you to opt out of a union, however, you still “get” to pay the union dues – wonderful option opting out is, yes?
So, how is Tennessee benefiting from their labor stance?
Michigan may be Motor City’s home in most people’s minds, but Tennessee has emerged as another major hub of auto manufacturing and related industries. Big domestic and foreign automakers have several facilities here and are expanding rapidly.
Tennessee, one of many Super Tuesday GOP primary states, has mostly been spared the trauma of mass layoffs, closures and bailouts that plagued the Rust Belt. Business and free-market groups cite a key advantage: It is a right-to-work state, effectively preventing Big Labor from being a major player there.
It’s growing. And growing rapidly.
And the advantage of Right to Work laws are such that even shops that ARE union are forced to innovate, to invent to become more productive. If they don’t, they fail. This same incentive is not in place in full union states. When all shops are controlled by the unions, the productivity of one slow plant isn’t different than the productivity of the other slow plant.
And why might businesses wanna come to these Right to Work states?
Tennessee’s law has held down labor costs. VW pays $27 an hour for new employees in wages and benefits, about half of the $52 an hour labor cost in Detroit. When the unionized GM agreed to reopen the Spring Hill plant last year, it forced the UAW to accept a starting wage of $15.78
It keep the cost of labor down. Now, you may ask how that’s a good thing; how paying someone $27 an hour is better for that someone than paying them $52 an hour.
Critics cite the lower wages as proof that the laws hurt workers. But locals say that’s offset by lower living expenses. Nashville’s cost of living is 11% below the U.S. average, the Census Bureau reports. Detroit’s is only 1% below.
Tennessee isn’t immune to the auto industry’s ups and downs, but seems to weather them well.
“We got through the recession without major layoffs,” Woolley said. “There were a lot of curtailments and furloughs (for workers), a lot of short workweeks, but now we are back at full speed.”
When labor is less expensive, the things made with that labor are less expensive as well. And, as always, while unions may increase wages for their members, they increase wages to the point that fewer and fewer workers are hired in the first place.
Big Labor’s place in America has gone by the roadside; and THAT is great news.
It’s not easy bein’ an American worker these days. There’s a lot of pressure coming from around the world; folks wantin’ our jobs, willing to work for less money than we’re workin’ for.
It’s hard being an America sometimes.
But there’s an upside. For the folks who care about such things, the world’s poorest people, people living a life exactly like their parents, grandparents and ancestors have lived for generations, are finally emerging from poverty. Perhaps for the first time ever, families are leaving the shackles of poverty and rising towards the hope of a middle class, perhaps dare I say, even more.
I’m reading more and more on the topic of equality. What it means and how to measure it.
But I have to maintain that we are the richest humans who have ever lived. Today, in the USA have life better than the richest capitalists, pontiffs or kings who lived just in the last 100 years.
I recently discovered Spotify whereby I can listen to virtually any song I can think of. That is, I have access to digital stereo playlists of every single Mozart piece he wrote. Ever. For free. On demand.
Next up? Haviah Nagilah by Neil Diamond. After that? The Lucky One by Alison Krause And Union Station.
We are wealthy beyond measure.
The constant screech from the left is that the conservative doesn’t care about the woman. The day doesn’t go by that you don’t hear the familiar refrain:
Republicans don’t care about women’s reproductive health.
It’s a veritable war on women.
But is it? Or is it really just the left’s unholy preoccupation with abortion that’s at the root of all of this?
For the first time since the site moved from WordPress to my new self hosted home, tarheelred.com comes up first when I Google my own name!
Baby steps, ya’ll…baby steps!