Tag Archives: Barack Obama

The Continued Assault On Undereducated And The Underskilled

Posted on February 14, 2013 | 3 comments

On Tuesday night, Barack Obama announced a continued assault on the prosperity of America’s most vulnerable; the undereducated and the underskilled.  He did this in his annual State of the Union Address when he announced a desire to raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour.

While the president may very well feel that he can slow the rise of the oceans:

Yes, while he may slow the rise of the oceans, he is not able to defy the laws of economics.

Now don’t get me wrong, the intentions are noble and honorable, if you are to believe politicians are capable of such things.  We all would like to see the folks who make the least be able to earn more and enjoy a better life.  We want to see a steady rise n the incomes of the poorest among us so that they too may avoid the constant worry of bills past due and the need to feed hungry children.

But that isn’t what Obama is doing.  In fact, what Obama is doing is sacrificing the very people that he claims to be helping in order to make a catchy and effective sound bit during his speech.  See, raising the minimum wage doesn’t help the people who are the ones making the least amount of money; it hurts them.

The minimum wage prevents business from hiring them in the first place.  It raises the barrier to entry past the meager skills that they posses.  At a time in their life when they should be willing to take a job, any job, to learn new skills, become proficient in new trades and crafts, during a time when they need to begin to understand the expectations of employers as it relates to employees, they are being priced out of the market.

The market is very effective at setting the value of scare resources.  And labor is nothing more than a scare resource; we all want more of it as cheaply as we can get it.  And so, in the course of voluntary trade, we set the rate at which we are willing to pay for it.  And most labor, believe it or not, is set at rates already ABOVE the minimum wage.

But for those entering the job market, such as high school kids, they are finding that they lack the skills required to demand such a wage.  And as a result, they are being left behind and find themselves unemployed.  This at a time when we need these young people working.  The years lost at the beginning of the working career are very difficult to make up.  And the longer they are out of the work force, the further and further they fall behind those in it.

If you wanted to target the poor an the undereducated, many of which are minorities, you would be hard pressed to contrive a more malicious program that would guarantee to make life worse for those folks than the impacts of minimum wage laws that Obama supports.

But who benefits?

Unions.

Barack Obama has made a decision.  He has placed a bet that he can secure the Union vote by selling out the poor, the undereducated and the underskilled all the while using words and rhetoric that would cause that group of people to support him.

It is depravity at its worst.

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Posted in Economics, Economy, Politics: National

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Team vs. Policy

Posted on February 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a relative new comer to following politics.  And certainly, this is the first time that I’ve followed and paid attention to politics real time.  So I’ve never been in the circumstance of having to critique a republican president.

To be sure, at the end of Dubya’s term, I was aware and didn’t appreciate the lack of end-game concerning the two wars, I didn’t like the fact that we were detaining suspects with no real intention of trying them and I didn’t like the stimulus.

However, now we’re into Obama’s 2nd term and I’ve noticed a definite lack of prosecution regarding the subject of drones, drone strikes and the use of such as it concerns targets; foreign and domestic.

I would have guessed at such silence.  After all, politics is, in many ways, a zero-sum game; the other guy wins when you lose.  So  liberal to take Obama to task for such abuse of power is counter-productive to their “cause”.  I get that.

But this?

“We trust the president,” former Gov. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan said on Current TV. “And if this was Bush, I think that we would all be more up in arms because we wouldn’t trust that he would strike in a very targeted way and try to minimize damage rather than contain collateral damage.”

This isn’t a critique of policy where one side “attacks” the other guy and silently disagrees with our guy.  This is a case where the policy is okay in the hands of our guy but wrong in the hands of the other.

In other words, the act of killing Americans, foreign suspects and innocent civilians isn’t wrong a priori, it’s only wrong in the hands of President Bush.

The only thing more surprising than thinking this?

Saying this.

 

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Posted in Idiots on Parade, Liberty, Politics: National

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United States Wire Tapping

Posted on January 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

I have a strong distrust of government over reach.  I think that we often times allow out government to go far too far in what we think are noble intentions.  But I have to admit that I am at a loss in this area.

Consider, an American citizen talking to another American citizen.  Clearly the government would be required to obtain a warrant.  However, what legal requirements would be needed in order for the government to listen to the communications of a foreign operative and ANOTHER foreign operative outside the US borders?

Probably none.

But now consider this.  A foreign terror suspect, on foreign soil.  Can we listen to his communications?  And what if those communications are between him and an American citizen?

This is what we’re talking about:

The FISA Amendments Act, (.pdf) which was expiring Friday at midnight, allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a probable-cause warrant so long as one of the parties to the communication is believed outside the United States. The communications may be intercepted “to acquire foreign intelligence information.”

I happen to agree with Obama’s administration on this one.  If we’re targeting a foreign suspect and happen to listen to American citizens, I don’t think that we have a legal requirement to obtain a warrant.  However, if we just listen to American citizens in the hopes of catching them talking to terrorists…..different story.

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Posted in Crime, Government, Liberty

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Obama and the Fiscal Cliff

Posted on December 30, 2012 | 5 comments

Obama is confused.

Today he’s remarking that the republicans aren’t negotiating seriously:

In an interview broadcast Sunday, Obama told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Republicans are responsible for the stalemate that brought lawmakers back to Capitol Hill on a Sunday afternoon.

“They say that the biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way. But the way they’re behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected,” Obama said. “That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme,”

To be clear, there is only one party in these negotiations that have, as their entire offer, a single overriding theme.  And that is the President himself.  The President’s entire offer, the whole of it, consists of raising taxes on the wealthy.

And that’s it.

No spending cuts.  No entitlement reforms.  No talk about any effort to reduce the deficit or attack the debt.

Just tax the rich.  And he knows that this isn’t going to address any of the problems we face, on the contrary – it will only make it worse.

But if that was the only aspect of Obama’s confusion, he could be forgiven.  We know that he’s nothing more than a class warrior who hasn’t an inkling of a clue on anything economic.  But he should know how bills make their way through Capital Hill:

Obama said the Senate should vote on legislation to make sure middle-class taxes are not raised and that 2 million people don’t lose unemployment benefits .

The Senate doesn’t initiate financial bills; the House does.  And they have.  Two of them.  Both waiting for Reid and the democrats to take them up, amend them and vote on them.  The pressure is squarely on the Senate right now.  Not the republicans.

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Posted in Debt - Deficit, Economy, Government, Politics: National

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Small Businesses Pessimistic

Posted on December 22, 2012 | 2 comments

ho ever you might wanna blame for the shenanigans in Washington, the result is not good for small business CEOs, their expectations and, presumably, their staffs:

SAN FRANCISCO, November 30, 2012 – Small business owners as a group are now the most pessimistic they have been since the third quarter of 2010, according to the latest Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index. The Index fell 28 points to negative 11 (-11) in the post-election survey conducted Nov. 12-16, 2012.

Most interesting to Americans in general is the expectations surrounding jobs:

Likely related to owners’ pessimism, one in five small business owners (21 percent) expects to decrease the number of jobs at their company over the next 12 months – the largest percentage of small businesses expecting to reduce jobs since the inception of the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index in 2003. One in four owners (26 percent) reported a reduction in the number of jobs at their company over the past 12 months, representing the largest percentage since the fourth quarter of 2010.

There is little hope that the situation in Washington is going to work out for the small businessman.  Some of the blame can certainly be attributed to the expectation that republicans would refuse to work with Obama.  However, a significant amount of that pessimism most certainly is attributed to the anti-business attitude that the Obama administration brings to Washington.

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Posted in Economy, Government

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Of Taxes: Federal, State, Local And All

Posted on December 2, 2012 | 22 comments

I suspect that even pedestrian news watchers have heard of the fiscal cliff by now.  I hold out very little hope, however, that even a basic understanding of what that means is had.  Which, I suppose, is par for the course.

However, here on the hallowed pages of TarHeel Red, it means that the federal government has some decisions to make.  We could, for example, go off the cliff.  Some think that not such a bad idea.  Me, for example.  I think that taking the hard steps required to cut spending, even defense spending, are long past due.  Sadly, I’m joined in this analysis by Hoard Dean.  I’m suspicious of the twist of fate that cause him to agree with me; I’m afraid to discover which of us has made the mistake in calculus.

However, there are other courses to take.  We could make permanent the Bush era tax cuts.  For everybody.  For some.  We could take this opportunity to cut spending even more, maybe even in a REAL way that real Americans understand.  For example, the local specialty beer shop around the corner sells individual bottles of goodness for $2 American.  I like to stop in and buy a six-pack every  other week.  My spend is $24 a month.

But let’s say that I budget an increase, I want to not only buy those 2 six-packs a month, but I wanna add the full liter of specialty beer.  I up my spend from 24 bucks to $31.  But then….then, well, Obama wins the election and my financial adviser says that I should cut back, so I say, “Okay.”  And instead of buying 12 beers a month I buy 14; an extra $4.

My man goes crazy, he’s out of his head crazy.  He demands to know how I agreed to cut the amount of money I spend on beer and THEN expanded it.  I tell him simple, “I had budgeted a $31 expenditure.  I reduced it to $28.  I cut out nearly 10%!”

Serious.  Politicians, all of ’em, dem and repub, look us in the eye and say this with a straight face.

Anyway.  The cliff.

Obama wants to raise the rate of taxation on the rich.  And when he says that, he means the rate of federal income tax.  He frames the question in terms of the federal income tax rate.  So, I usually speak about the federal income tax rate.  And this is what I say:

According to the CBO, in aggregate, the poorest 60% of us don’t pay a federal income tax.  Worse, the top quintile, the wealthiest 20%, pay more than 94% of federal incomes taxes according to the most recent numbers in 2009.

When Obama claims that the rich don’t pay their fair share, he’s not making sense.  The rich are paying dramatically more than their fair share.  However, I have folks that disagree with me.  And those that do point to this graph:

This graph, built by Citizens for Tax Justice, shows that as a % of income, we all typically pay about the same share of taxes.  For a time I couldn’t square the data.  The report from the CBO didn’t seem to jive with the data coming from CTJ.

Then I realized my mistake.  We’re talking about two different units.  The CBO data that I was using was reporting share of tax revenue.  The CTJ is using share of income.  When I used the “back of an envelope” – I had too, the CTJ data is in 2011 numbers and the CBO data is in 2009.  Further, I used the average of the quintiles and not the total population so my numbers may be off.  However, if the details can be run, I’d be interested in seeing that.  This is what I came up with:

Now we’re talking apples and apples.  I broke out the quintiles in that weird way that folks do; listing the first 4 and then breaking down the last by the “nest 10”, “the next 5”, “the next 4” and “the top 1.”  What this means is that if you gather than top quintile in one group you would see that they pay 93.93% of all taxes.  And this is on an earning of 50.0% of all income.

Holy moly.

The top 20% of Americans earn 50% of the income and yet pay 94% of the taxes.

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Posted in Debt - Deficit, Politics: National

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Elections Have Consequences

Posted on November 26, 2012 | 7 comments

It’s simple, really.  When there is an incentive to save money, there should be no surprise that incentives will drive behavior.  Consider Community College of Allegheny County:

To Community College of Allegheny County’s president, Alex Johnson, cutting hours for some 400 temporary part-time workers to avoid providing health insurance coverage for them under the impending Affordable Health Care Act is purely a cost-saving measure at a time the college faces a funding reduction.

But to some of the employees affected, including 200 adjunct faculty members, the decision smacks of an attempt to circumvent the national health care legislation that goes into effect in January 2014.

“It’s kind of a double whammy for us because we are facing a legal requirement [under the new law] to get health care and if the college is reducing our hours, we don’t have the money to pay for it,” said Adam Davis, an adjunct professor who has taught biology at CCAC since 2005.

Temporary part-time employees received an email notice from Mr. Johnson on Tuesday informing them that the new health care act defines full-time employees as those working 30 hours or more per week.

As a result, the college as of Dec. 31 will reduce temporary part-time employee hours to 25 per week. For adjuncts, the workload limit will be reduced from 12 to 10 credits per semester.

The decision affects only temporary part-time employees and not permanent part-time employees who already are eligible to participate in the college’s health care plan.

My hope is that the folks impacted voted for Obama; you should reap the rewards of the decisions you make.

But that’s not all:

Darden Restaurants Inc. — parent of the Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Capital Grille eateries in Colorado and elsewhere — is cutting back hours of workers at some of its locations in an apparent effort to reduce insurance costs related to the new health-care reform law.

The Orlando, Fla., Sentinel newspaper reports that the Orlando-based company (NYSE: DRI) “has stopped offering full-time schedules to many hourly workers in at least a few” of its locations.

The Sentinel quotes the company as saying it plans to limit employees at some restaurants in four unidentified markets to 28 hours a week. Darden said the move is intended “to help us address the cost implications health care reform will have on our business.”

Under the federal Affordable Care Act, the health-reform law that some call Obamacare, companies with at least 50 employees must provide health insurance, starting in 2014, to all those who work at least 30 hours a week. Those that don’t will pay a penalty.

I suspect that this will play out across America more and more.  As the ramifications of electing Obama continue to see the light of day, more and more we are going to see this reaction by business.  Fewer people hired, higher ratios hired as part time employees, more efforts to drive productivity by more and more automation.

It really is important to understand that there really aren’t solutions; only tradeoffs.

Want healthcare?  Lose jobs.  Sacrifice growth, accept higher unemployment.

If you voted for Obama, this is on you.  This is what you wanted, this is what you explicitly put into motion.

We warned you.

 

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Posted in Economics, Health Care, Liberty, Politics: National

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President Obama’s Mandate

Posted on November 20, 2012 | 1 comment

Here’s what Coyote thinks of Obama’s mandate:

Barack Obama argues that the last election gave him a mandate to raise taxes on the rich.  Put another way, he is arguing that 52% of the people voted to raise taxes on 2%.

Nice.

I particularly like his illustration:

Let’s take a look at two propositions [in California]:

  • Prop 30, which propose to raise taxes on on the rich to help close the deficit (there was a token 0.25% sales tax increase for cover, but everyone knew it to be a tax on the rich).
  • Prop 39, which was a broad-based income tax increase which raised taxes on most everyone (or at least on the 50% or so who pay income taxes).

So, let’s look at the results:

  • Raise taxes on only the very rich:  PASS
  • Raise taxes on everyone (including me):  FAIL

Wolves and lunch and lambs people.  Wolves, lunch and lambs.

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Posted in Economics, Politics: National, States Behaving Badly

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Walmart Wants To Pay People More

Posted on November 17, 2012 | 11 comments

So, I’ve already commented on the fact that a union decided that a 100% pay cut was better than an 8% pay cut.

I don’t get it, but hey, maybe the principle behind the whole thing mattered.

Then I hear of the story of Walmart workers who are mad at the prospect of making more money:

Along with Target and Sears, Wal-Mart has plans to open retail stores at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving night. Employees said they weren’t given a choice as to whether they would work on Thanksgiving and were told to do so with little warning. “They don’t care about family,” said Charlene Fletcher, a Wal-Mart associate in Duarte, Calif. She said she is expected to report for work at 3 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. The workers said that when they complain about scheduling and other problems, management cuts their hours or fires people.

I make a decent living.  In fact, I suspect I’m in the top 10% of Americans in terms of salary.  I enjoy the benefits of this condition.  However, there are sacrifices I have to make:

  1. When I got married, my wife and I stayed at a beach house.  I brought my laptop and was working everyday during my honeymoon.
  2. No matter where I go or what time it is,  I have my cell phone and am available night and day.  I often get called.
  3. Never, EVER, in my career have I let my management ever get the slightest inclination that I was a guy who would turn down work or responsibility.
  4. I remember a time when I worked 47 days straight, right through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.  Every. Single. Day.
  5. If all goes well, I’m on a plane right now to Puerto Rico for a weeks vacation with family over the Thanksgiving holiday.  My laptop is in my luggage; I’ll work every day.

I don’t get it.  I don’t get the concept that says that hard work doesn’t pay off.  That sacrifice doesn’t lead to rewards.  I don’t understand how people who want money are resistant to working to earn more money.

Or at least I didn’t understand.

I saw a Facebook post recently regarding the strike at Hostess and the totally shocking result of the closing of the business.  One of the comments went something like this:

If they strike and  get released, at least they’ll get 100 weeks of unemployment.

I added that they would also now get free healthcare.

And that reminded me of this:

More and more these people don’t need jobs.  If they lose their job they’ll get unemployment for nearly 2 years.  Plenty of time to work something out.  Further, with the election of Obama, they are sure to get free healthcare as well.

Literally, what is it that would incent these people to work?  If they lose their jobs, what really is the downside?  How much would they net lose?

What kind of perverse incentives are we building into our society?

 

 

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Posted in Economics, Economy, Life

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Benghazi – Can We All Agree Now

Posted on November 17, 2012 | 19 comments

Obama has been lying the whole time.  He knew.  They ALL knew.

The attacks in Benghazi were terrorist attacks and Obama refused to admit that fact.  He specifically mentioned Benghazi 7 times in the Rose Garden speech and not once did he refer to them as terrorist attacks.  Only when speaking about the general 9-11 attacks in the large view did he use the words terrorist attacks.

The White House marched Patraeus out and had him repeat their lie:

Former CIA Director David Petraeus told lawmakers at a closed-door briefing Friday the agency believed the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Libya was a terrorist attack from the beginning.

Now, let’s admit that:

  1. Obama mishandled the whole crisis.
  2. Covered up the fact that they knew.
  3. Leveraged Patraeus’ affair in order to get him to repeat the video story.
  4. The perceived weakness of the White House may be behind the attacks in Israel.

Oh yeah, and that this had EVERYTHING to do with the elections.

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Posted in Politics: International

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