Category Archives: Politics: National

The “Attack” Of The Middle Class

Posted on January 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

In November I asked a simple question:

Would you be more or less likely to look for a new job if your current job no longer offered vacations and holidays?

I got a couple of answers and they confirmed the very obvious:  We would be more likely to look for a new job and certainly not LESS likely.

More recently I made an observation concerning teacher salaries:

…to receive the bonuses and raises, teachers must sign away some job security provisions outlined in their union contract. About 20 percent of the teachers eligible for the raises this year and 30 percent of those eligible for bonuses turned them down rather than give up those protections.

Teachers in Washington DC valued the clause in their contract that prevents them from being fired MORE than they valued $30,000 in bonus AND a $37,000 salary increase.

In both cases, the point is made, one theoretical and the other practical, that compensation comes in forms OTHER than strictly wages and salaries.  Vacation is one form of compensation.  Protection from having to actually DO your job is another.  It’s something that I’ve always suspected.  However, Dan Mitchell on his blog points out a couple of studies by CATO that demonstrates the lower earning deciles is growing more rapidly than the growth shown in the highest earning deciles:

While it is true that the cash explicitly paid to employees has become more unequal over the last generation, the…more benign explanation for the change in cash compensation over a generation is the dramatic increase in health insurance costs. …inequality in total compensation has not increased because the fixed costs of health insurance are a much larger percentage of the total compensation of lower-earnings workers. Burkhauser and Simon explore this explanation. They add the value of employer-provided health insurance as well as Medicaid and Medicare to the pre-tax, post-cash-transfer household income data and find that the bottom three income deciles actually exhibit higher growth than the top seven deciles from 1995 to 2008.

Compensation, in it’s many forms, grows more rapidly for the lower earning deciles.

Further:

Using unpublished BLS total compensation data, including employer health insurance expenditures, from 1999 to 2006, he finds that the growth in compensation by earnings decile (from the 30th to the 99th) averages 35 percent, with 41 percent growth at the 30th percentile (workers earning $10–$14 an hour) and only 35.8 percent growth at the 99th percentile (workers earning $59–$80 an hour).

We’re certainly going to h ear from Obama and the Democrats this election cycle that the Middle Class is under attack, perhaps true, but that attack takes the form of government dominated health care, not some form of class warfare engaged by the elite.  Obama is going to cast himself as the Middle Class warrior.  The media will produce study after study that shows the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer.

Don’t buy it.  Do the work.  Get the data.

 

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Posted in Economics, Health Care, Middle Class, Politics: National

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S. 1867: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

Posted on January 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

I’ve spent some time considering the implications of the National Defense Authorization Act.  We know we have to fund the military, we know we’re gonna fund the military and because no one wants to look like they don’t support the military we get all kinds of nonsense added into these bills.

This time though, that nonsense isn’t really nonsense.  It’s really bad news.

The bill also contains several detainee provisions that civil liberties groups and human rights advocates have strongly opposed, arguing that they would allow the military greater authority to detain and interrogate U.S. citizens and non-citizens and deny them legal rights protected by the Constitution.

In short, the bill now law allows the military to detain American citizens indefinitely in the simple suspicion they may be terrorists.

I don’t care WHAT they are suspected of, the unlimited detention by our government for any reason is beyond the pale.  And is, quite simply, the most radical change to our foundation that we may have ever seen.

I haven’t taken the opportunity to wrote about this.  I’m torn.  On the one hand I am massively biased against the Democrats in the Senate and the President in the White House.  I want to make sure, NEED to make sure, that I was disagreeing for the right reasons on this one.

And I couldn’t be sure.

Until I remember one of my most earliest blog writings on a blog now defunct in 2008:

I think that too much has been made of the facts that the folks down in Guantanamo are being granted rights that are guaranteed under The Constitution.  That somehow giving these guys the rights to question their detention is something that is unique to America.  With very little work, it can be seen that these rights began to be articulated long long ago, in fact, according to Wiki, we begin to see them form in 1305.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus

As such, the fact that our Supreme Court has extended the rights as such should not be so controversial.  In fact, the idea that they should NOT be afforded the rights would be much more newsworthy.  The problem many of us have, however, is the official designation of the detainees.

I have always felt that participants in the War OF Terror (read: The Terrorists) are NOT soldiers.  They are not members of a regular and lawful Military Organization.  They do not meet the wherefores and the how to bes of the Geneva Convention.  That is, they are NOT Prisoners of War.  Rather, they are simply foreign nationals found to be conducting illegal activities.  Activities against the USA or, perhaps, against civilization.  Because they are not soldiers, that is protected under the Geneva Convention, they can not be held until the end of the conflict, or in this case, the war.  Similarly, we are under no obligation to treat them in accordance or in the spirit of the Convention either.

But, because they are not Prisoners of War, they are criminals.  Or, more specifically, potential criminals.  That is, detainees who will at some point be read their charges and tried in come form of court of law.  That seems straight forward.  If they are bad guys, and we know this to be true, then charge, try and if applicable, jail them.  If we have no evidence, then we should release them.  Period.

In all of this, however, I find no compulsion to afford them the rights of American criminals in our American judicial system.  It would, in my mind, be just fine to charge, try and if guilty, punish these guys in a military tribunal.  Or something.  Or, like, anything.

But, in the end, we can not just hold these guys forever.

I disagreed with this concept back when Republicans were in office.  I disagree with it now and am finally able, guilt free, to say

“Shame on ALL persons who voted for or signed this bill to make it law.”

At least now I can say that even Democrats are tribal too.

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Posted in Government, Politics: National, Republicans Can Be Leftists Too

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Michelle Bachmann Drops Out Of The Race

Posted on January 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

As expected, Michelle Bachmann announced that she is leaving the race for the Republican nomination.  This comes on the heels of a poor showing in Iowa, a state that Bachmann had to have in order to demonstrate viability.

She did poorly last night and this morning she is  out:

Mrs. Bachmann said on Wednesday morning that she would not continue her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

“Last night, the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, and so I have decided to stand aside,” Mrs. Bachmann said at a news conference in West Des Moines.

I never thought that Bachmann was a serious candidate.  Typically it’s an insider with long term ties to the party that gets the nod.  Further, we have a history of nominating political “Do’ers” and not “Voters”.  This is why we see more governors running than Senators,  And Bachmann wasn’t even a Senator.

She added value to the race by providing a serious conservative slant.  And hopefully, she was able to pull candidates further right than they otherwise would have.  Further, her national attention will now allow her to mount a run for the US Senate where she would face Democrat Amy Kloboucher.  After having the seat stolen from the Republicans in 2008, it would be nice to get one back in 2012.

Good luck Michelle.

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Posted in Elections 2012, Government, Politics: National

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Government Regulations: Preventing Job Growth

Posted on January 3, 2012 | 1 comment

Most likely since regulations “began”, there have been folks that feel we need more of ’em; we can’t sell rotten meat you know.  And there have folks that would have fewer of them; no one would buy rotten meat you know.  My position certainly falls nearer the “fewer are better” side of the ledger.

However, I will admit that there is a line.  Independent of what side of the “regulation debate” you come from, an earnest party to such a debate must realize that a couple of things:

  1. There is an extreme position.  On BOTH sides.  That is, there is an extreme amount OF regulation and an extreme LACK of regulation.
  2. There comes a point when one must admit he is approaching that line.

So, I get the point that taken to far, my position could become an extreme one, and unsustainable.  I happen to think that’s the “feature” of the way in which we build our laws; no one person gets to decide.  However, be that as it may, the point this morning isn’t to try and debate whether certain regulation is too much or too little, rather, it’s to point out the impact of regulations once applied.

Consider, for example, a recent letter from the EEOC, The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, regarding the requirement of a high school diploma for employment:

The “informal discussion letter” from the EEOC said an employer’s requirement of a high school diploma, long a standard criterion for screening potential employees, must be “job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.” The letter was posted on the commission’s website on Dec. 2.

Employers could run afoul of the ADA if their requirement of a high school diploma “‘screens out’ an individual who is unable to graduate because of a learning disability that meets the ADA’s definition of ‘disability,’” the EEOC explained.

Independent of whether or not one agrees with this direction from the EEOC, that is, not being within the rights to require a high school diploma for employment, the fact remains unequivocal:

The “regulation” will result in fewer jobs.  Employers hiring for low skilled or entry level positions will be that much more leery of facing a discrimination lawsuit than they may otherwise have prior.  And THAT will result in some of them delaying or outright canceling of a job opening.

The result of very well intention and noble altruism is that the new law, rule or regulation will cause more harm to and discriminate against the very target population that it was meant to assist.  This is true in exactly the same way and measure as minimum wage laws harming the very people it attempts to help.

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Posted in Government, Politics: National

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How Regulations Cause Uncertainty and Slow Job Growth

Posted on December 28, 2011 | 2 comments

There’s been a lot of back and forth between pro-nanny state folks and pro-market folks concerning the impacts of either policy on job growth.  On one hand there is the argument that the uncertainty of regulations causes a pause in investment.  The case being that businesses are unable to predict the return of their investment due to unknown costs in the environment.

I have suggested in the past that this is akin to playing blackjack.  Consider the game as we know it.  A dealt 21 is a winner at 150% of the wager.  Dealer has to hit up to 16 and wins on a tie.

Further consider a table of players.  Upon being told that the rules might change mid “shoe”, that the changes to the rules are not yet finalized and that once you commit to playing, you can’t back out, do you think the players would play more, play less or play the same?

I suggest that the players would “hold onto their capital” until they knew the rules, and then, based on the new value proposition, would play at a level that reflects the advantage to the house; less play if the rules benefit the house, more play if those rules benefit the player.

Why we would expect business to react differently isn’t rational.  And, as it turns out, is exactly what we are seeing:  Hat Tip Carpe Diem

Because we don’t know what our health-care expenses will be in two or three years, we are unable to determine with any certainty how much our investments will have to return for us to be profitable. All of that counsels in favor of holding off on new investments and saving our funds. We want to grow. But we are unable to do so knowing that large and undetermined liabilities will absorb funds we otherwise would invest for expansion.

It is simply not reasonable to suspect that people or organizations will invest at the same level when the risks are unknown.

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Posted in Government, Health Care, Politics: National

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Homeless: Contributing Factors

Posted on December 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

Disclaimer:

This is a topic that earns conservatives a bad name.  Or rather, this is a topic that liberals are easily able to use in order to give conservatives a bad name.  This is an unfortunate reality, for IN reality, it is the conservative that gives more to charity than the liberal:

The fact is that self-described “conservatives” in America are more likely to give—and give more money—than self-described “liberals.” In the year 2000, households headed by a conservative gave, on average, 30 percent more dollars to charity than households headed by a liberal. And this discrepancy in monetary donations is not simply an artifact of income differences. On the contrary, liberal families in these data earned an average of 6 percent more per year than conservative families.

So, with that said, let me make it clear that what I describe as policy in no way or manner represents my individual and specific view of the actual person, their plight, human spirit and personal tragedy.

Okay, now, onward.

I caught a Reuters article recently.  Specifically detailing the impact of the recession on our children; our homeless children:

In a report issued earlier this month, the National Center on Family Homelessness, based in Needham, Massachusetts, said 1.6 million children were living on the streets of the United States last year or in shelters, motels and doubled-up with other families.

That marked a 38 percent jump in child homelessness since 2007 and Ellen Bassuk, the center’s president, attributes the increase to fallout from the U.S. recession and a surge in the number of extremely poor households headed by women.

To be sure, we have work to do.  The problems surrounding kids who don’t have hoes is bad.  And getting worse.  I don’t think there’s a soul alive who who disagree that something, anything, has to be done.  But it’s important to acknowledge that the thing, the “anything, is going to come in two forms:

  1. Direct assistance to the displaced families right now.
  2. Actions that will prevent the homeless condition from occurring in the first place.

While noble, I am less interested in the first, as a matter of policy, than I am in the second.  Consider this:

As her mother sat in a homeless shelter in downtown Miami, talking about her economic struggles and loss of faith in the U.S. political system, 3-year-old Aeisha Touray blurted out what sounded like a new slogan for the Occupy Wall Street protest movement.

“How dare you!” the girl said abruptly as she nudged a toy car across a conference room table at the Chapman Partnership shelter in Miami’s tough and predominantly black Overtown neighborhood.

There was no telling what Aeisha was thinking as her 32-year-old mother, Nairkahe Touray, spoke of how she burned through her savings and wound up living in a car with five of her eight children earlier this year.

Think of that.  This woman is trying to care for a family of 9 on her own.  Ms. Touray is 32 years old and has 8 children.  In comparison, I had yet to be married at 32.  And now, as a professional married to another professional I have two children.  Without making any judgements as to decisions or life circumstances, as a 32 year old professional, I’m certain that I would have struggled caring for 8 kids.  Even making it to work would be difficult if not impossible.

Again, my interest in the conditions of the poor and homeless in America are more focused on preventing single 32 year-old women from having 8 children.  To put this in perspective, if you were to take ALL families in 2011, the percent of them that have 7 or more members is 2.6%.  When you look at only female householder, the percentage of families with 6 members is 2.8%.  In a perverse fact of life, the problem gets worse as women find themselves raising the family alone.

Certainly I can’t know the journey that Ms. Touray has taken to get to where she is.  Her life could be one of immeasurable bad luck and unbelievable twists of fate that have led her to where she is.  However, I suggest that another theme exists.  One that we can change.

That is, there is a significant portion of our population that makes misinformed and bad decisions that ted to put them in cohort groupings that lead to poor outcomes.  Is it perfectly allowable that a single woman would want to make it on her own and raise a family of 8 children?  Sure, without a doubt.  However, if a trusted friend or sister were to seek your advice on her decision to embark on this path, what might your counsel look like?  Would you caution her?  Might you recommend that she obtain an education?  Perhaps secure income?

Something.

What would you counsel your own daughter to do?

And if THAT answer is different than, “I’d do nothing.  However, I would continue to lavish untold amounts of mine and my neighbor’s money in order to support her.”, then I ask you:

Why aren’t we making YOUR answer policy?  Why aren’t we telling our Ms. Tourays of the world that it’s generally not accepted wisdom to create a condition where you are single with 8 kids?  In fact, why is it so “insulting and disparaging” even to merely suggest such advice?

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Posted in Economy, Government, Politics: National

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Markets: Controlling Them And How They React

Posted on December 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

Some time ago airlines would price their tickets in whatever manner they priced their tickets.  We would buy them through travel agents or, if we were daring, but them from the airline directly.  Over time, and with emerging technology, we became good at finding deals.  I still remember my dad calling from Minnesota on a Tuesday, telling me he was coming to Seattle that Thursday.  See, Northwest would blowout sale their empty planes to certain destinations.

Downside?  No lead time.  Upside?  Retired teachers with nothing to do get to see family often and cheap.

Then we discovered “aggregaters”.  These were the engines on line that would allow you to shop all the airlines at once.  You know, trevlocity, orbitz, expedia, whatever.  And the airlines, and is, LOVED it.  It not only made it easier to shop, but by posting price, airlines were forced to compete ’cause whenever people have a choice to fly from Dallas to Fargo with all things being equal, they choose, wait for it, the lowest price.

So, right after WE figured that out so did the airlines.  In response to the demand for cheaper and cheaper seats, they had to find ways to bring the TICKET price down but still make the profit margin they were used to.  See, it turns out that orphans and grandmothers don’t invest their trust funds in mutual funds that buy companies that don’t turn a profit.  I know I know, the greed surrounding orphans and grandmothers is gross, immense and very ugly, but alas, that is the nature of orphans and grandmothers.  Anyway, so the airline decoupled the price of a person and the price of a piece of luggage.  Now the ticket prices for their seats would be lower and we would buy those cheaper tickets.

Nothing else changed.

The total cost, over time, of flying remained the same, only now it was two line items, not one.  Wanna fly from St. Louis to Bangor?  $375.00 please.  Or, if you want, I can split that up and charge you $340.00 for the ticket and $35.00 for the two bags.  No change, just accounting.

Annoying?  Perhaps, if you’re less enlightened.  Or, if you’re like me you try not to pack things that you can buy at your destination.  Diapers, formula, flip flops…whatever.  Or, you learn to pack better.  Or, you ship your luggage, it might actually be cheaper.  Or, just maybe, you accept the fact that the price of luggage is really the price of admission and just deal with it.  Where I really hate this is when I’m behind the guy that wastes 40 minutes trying to shuffle items from one bag to another to get under the 50 lb limit.  Anyway, enough.

The point?

The point is that lawmakers actually think they can make things better.  Baggage fees a pain in the neck?  Make ’em illegal:

WASHINGTON One of the most loathed aspects of holiday air travel – paying to check bags – is at the center of a growing debate that does not look to be resolved soon. Travelers who could otherwise be spending $50 on an extra gift must instead use it to buy their Samsonite a round-trip ticket in the bowels of an airplane. The anger over increasing fees has gained the attention of Washington, pitting some members of Congress against the airline industry.
…
U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell joined other federal lawmakers last week to press airlines to scale back their baggage fees. Kissell, a Democrat who represents Charlotte and Concord, proposed legislation that would allow travelers to check one free bag on each flight. U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., introduced a similar bill in the Senate. To date, no Republicans support either bill.
All fine and dandy, I guess.  But I wonder if these lawmakers are aware that flying people from Kissimmii to Detroit [why ANYone would fly from Florida to De’troilet is beyond me] costs real money and that by making it illegal to charge real money for one thing means that it raise the price of the other legal thing.

If congress wants to choose higher airline tickets over free baggage, that’s fine.  I guess.  I just wonder why congress feels that decision is up to them?

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Posted in Economics, Politics: National

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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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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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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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