Why white people should love the minimum wage laws

Please excuse me while I bet the crap out of this dead horse....one....more....time....with some help from the Wall Street Journal.  This is from an unsigned editorial that ran a few days ago:

Perhaps you've already noticed around the neighborhood, but this is a rotten summer for young Americans to find a job. The Department of Labor reported last week that a smaller share of 16-19 year-olds are working than at anytime since records began to be kept in 1948.

We've had stimulus packages, bold new initiatives, bailouts, TARP's, and an increase in government spending that would be the envy of every corporatist/fascist since Mussolini.  How in the heck can we have the lowest level of teen employment since 1948? 

Only 24% of teens, one in four, have jobs, compared to 42% as recently as the summer of 2001. The nearby chart chronicles the teen employment percentage over time, including the notable plunge in the last decade.

So instead of learning valuable job skills—getting out of bed before noon, showing up on time, being courteous to customers, operating a cash register or fork lift—millions of kids will spend the summer playing computer games or hanging out.

The lousy economic recovery explains much of this decline in teens working, and some is due to increases in teen summer school enrollment. Some is also cultural: Many parents don't put the same demands on teens as they once did to get out and work.

I respectfully disagree with The Wall Street Guys on this one.  I've been getting in about 65 hours a week since the first week of June.  Mrs. Sepulchre easily logs in the same number.  The Aggie, our offspring, has been putting in 70.  Yes, 70. 
Every summer, I get a cycle of calls from parents that I know, and they're always wondering if I've got a spot for their Jason, Jeremy, Justin, or Josh. 
If things go as planned, Dr. Ralph's youngest kid might be coming to work with us this summer. 
While there might be some parents who don't want their delicate little snowflakes to be stunted by premature labor, I've not met many.  There's something else going on in these unemployment numbers.  Back to the Wall Street Journal:

...But Congress has also contributed by passing one of the most ill-timed minimum wage increases in history. One of the first acts of the gone-but-not-forgotten Nancy Pelosi ascendancy was to raise the minimum wage in stages to $7.25 an hour in 2009 from $5.15 in 2007. Even liberals ought to understand that raising the cost of hiring the young and unskilled while employers are slashing payrolls is loopy economics.

Yeah.  Well.  Their battle-cry is "It's not fair !" or "Corporate greed !!" or "Would you want to work for $5.15 an hour?"
But it is indeed loopy economics. 

Or maybe not. The Center for American Progress, often called the think tank for the Obama White House, recently recommended another increase to $8.25 an hour. Though the U.S. unemployment rate is 9.1%, the thinkers assert that a rising wage would "stimulate economic growth to the tune of 50,000 new jobs." So if the government orders employers to pay more to hire workers when they're already not hiring, they'll somehow hire more workers. By this logic, if we raised the minimum wage to $25 an hour we'd have full employment.

Think about that for a moment.  Enjoy it.  Roll that sentence around in your mouth like a fine wine. The ironically named "Center For American Progress" is going to increase the sales of something by raising the price. 

Back on planet Earth, the minimum wage increase has coincided with the plunge in the percentage of working teens. Before the most recent wage hikes, roughly seven million teens were working. Now there are closer to five million with a job and paycheck.

So why in the hell would anyone in his right mind continue to defend these arbitrary minimum wages?  Could it be that The Sepulchre Family has benefitted at the expense of some of the unemployed?  Is The Aggie racking up overtime because she's gotten some advantages over those who are less skilled because they didn't get onto the employment ladder at an earlier age? 
Yes. 

Black teens have had the worst of it, with their unemployment rate rising to 41.6% in April from 29% in 2007, faster than almost any other group. A 2010 study by economists William Even of Miami University of Ohio and David Macpherson of Trinity University found that as a result of the $2.10 increase in minimum wage, "teen employment dropped by 6.9 percent. . . . For the teen population with less than 12 years of education completed, teen employment dropped by 12.4 percent." For teens priced out of the labor market, their wage fell to zero.

Whew.  Thank God my family is white, and can avoid the burden of government regulatory help of this kind. Perhaps if the Center For American Progress can get the minimum wage raised to $10.00 an hour, black teen unemployment will hit 75%, guaranteeing better employment opportunities for white folks like us. 
(Seriously, for more info on the racist origins of the minimum wage laws, go here.) 

The great tragedy is that even discussing the role of the minimum wage in teen unemployment seems to be a political taboo. The other day we saw ABC's George Stephanopoulos baiting Michele Bachmann on the minimum wage, as if refusing to raise it would be some epic political gaffe. Ms. Bachmann didn't back down from saying that the minimum wage has contributed to unemployment, though she didn't explain why.

The great tragedy is that even discussing the role of the minimum wage in teen unemployment seems to be a political taboo.

Yeah, thanks to our public school system, which does a great job of teaching victimology but a lousy job of teaching cause and effect, if you discuss anything about repealing minimum wage laws in public, you're painted as an evil, uncaring, slave-driver. 
And the people who arbitrarily increase these wages above the market level are painted as heroic champions of the people.  Go figure. 

What she or another candidate should do is stop playing defense and ask why Mr. Stephanopoulos doesn't seem to mind a black teen jobless rate of 41.6%. Someone truly brave would come out for a teenage sub-minimum wage of, say, $4 an hour. In certain circumstances employers can now pay teens a minimum of $4.25, but only for 90 days. This makes employers reluctant to hire at all. Make the case on moral grounds that a mandated wage that is too high blocks the young and unskilled from grabbing a place on the economic ladder.

Teenagers who work part-time while attending school generally make more money and have more successful careers as adults than kids who never work. As a 2006 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago put it: "The drop in teen labor force participation may also have implications for future productivity growth. In general, labor market experience tends to raise subsequent earnings."

The U.S. has long had a labor market flexible enough that when the economy grows, the jobless rate falls smartly. This time has been different, and the great danger is that Obamanomics has moved the U.S. to a permanently higher jobless rate as in so much of Europe. For America's teenagers this summer, that reality is already here.

But not at my house.  My kid is doing great, pulling in overtime pay with both hands and a shovel.

Her employer could take a risk and spread the wealth by hiring some of those black kids in the neighborhood where she works, but why bother?  Why take the risk on a new hire at a high rate when you can hire an experienced white girl who has been doing the job for two years already?

It's because of the minimum wage, one of the few Federal programs that has worked exactly as intended.  It guarantees full employment for whites at the expense of others.  I keep expecting it to show up on on the "Stuff White People Like" website. So thank you, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat Party.  Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

98,000 more teenagers are now earning the true minimum wage

One of the most frustrating things about economic experiments is the difficulty in establishing control groups within a large population.  You might think that economic policy "A" is helpful, while I think it's a disaster.  But we can't try out economic policy "A" on one group of citizens while giving an identical group a free pass.  (Think death taxes, Obamacare, stimulus spending, etc.  We're all influenced by these actions.)

If only we could do that with, say, the new minimum wage laws.  

Well, some economists got lucky this time, but in an upside down sort of way.  Before the new federal minimum wage laws went into effect, there were already some states with minimums set at the higher level.  So here was a great opportunity to compare the unemployment rates between the two groups of states.  Both groups would be living in the same economy, with the same fears of an economic downturn, fears of Obamacare, interest rates, etc etc etc.  

But one large group of states would suddenly go through a minimum wage hike, all at the same time.  Another group would already be dealing with the higher minimum.
    
This is from The Wall Street Journal, via Newsalert:

Today marks the first anniversary of Congress's decision to raise the federal minimum wage by 41% to $7.25 an hour. But hold the confetti. According to a new study, more than 100,000 fewer teens are employed today due to the wage hikes.

Economic slowdowns are tough on many job-seekers, but they're especially hard on the young and inexperienced, whose job prospects have suffered tremendously from Washington's ill-advised attempts to put a floor under wages. In a new paper published by the Employment Policies Institute, labor economists William Even of Miami University in Ohio and David Macpherson of Trinity University in Texas find a significant drop in teen employment as a direct result of the minimum wage hikes.

The wage hikes were implemented in three stages between 2007 and 2009, and not all states were affected because some already mandated a minimum wage above the federal requirement. But for the 19 states affected by all three stages of the federal wage increase, "there was a 6.9% decline in employment for teens aged 16 to 19," write the authors. And for those who had not completed high school, "we estimated that the hikes reduced employment by 12.4%," which translates to about 98,000 fewer teens in the work force.

The true minimum wage is zero.  You can't raise it.  
When politicians raise the "minimum wage", all they're doing is raising the "productivity threshold", making it illegal to hire people whose productivity doesn't reach the new minimum level.  
The higher they set their new minimums, the more people they condemn to earning the true minimum, which is zero.  Nothing.  Zilch.  Nada.  

I am a Mercedes-Benz

Let me begin by saying that I am a Mercedes-Benz.  Not a Ferrari, not a Rolls, not a Corvette, but a little better than a Cadillac. 

I'm 53 years old, work in a family business, and I've always been pretty damn good at what I do.  I've been "Employee Of The Year" or "Manager Of The Year" for three different companies, one of which you've probably heard of. 

If Washington decides to raise the minimum wage to $20.00 an hour I won't be one of the ones going unemployed because the political idiots set the bar too high for me to find employment.  Except for one brief stretch of starting over in a new field, I've made more than $20 per hour for the last 30 years or so.  (Thirty years ago, $20 was more like today's $40.)   

Now that the throat-clearing is out of the way, here's what you'll find this morning in the New York Holy Times:

The White House has thrown its weight behind a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to at least $10 an hour.  

“The president has long supported raising the minimum wage so hard-working Americans can have a decent wage for a day’s work to support their families and make ends meet,” a White House official said. President Obama, the official continued, supports the Harkin-Miller bill, also known as the Fair Minimum Wage Act, which would raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, from its current $7.25.  

The legislation is sponsored in the Senate by Tom Harkin of Iowa and in the House by George Miller of California, both Democrats. It would raise the minimum wage — in three steps of 95 cents each, taking place over two years — to $10.10, and then index it to inflation. The legislation will probably be coupled with some tax sweeteners for small businesses, traditionally the loudest opponents of increases to the minimum wage.

The overwhelming majority of economists know that there is a trade-off with this type of legislation. 

1)  They know that the true minimum wage is zero dollars per hour, and that the higher Washington sets the minimum (actually, a price floor), the more low-skilled workers they condemn to earning the true minimum wage, which is....zero. 

2)  They also know that higher and higher minimum wages have a disproportionate effect on teen employment, minority employment, and most of all, teen minority employment.  A couple of years ago, when the unemployment rate was at 9%, teen unemployment was at 24%, and black teen unemployment was at a whopping 42%.  (It's now dancing around 50%, BTW.) 

Why does this happen?  As a very general rule, minority teens have no skills.  No track record.  No one knows if they can get to work on time, work hard through an entire shift, or get along with others. 

The same thing can be said about white teens.  But white parents can (generally) get to work on time, work hard through an entire shift, and (sometimes) get along with others.  And the apples usually don't fall too far from the tree. 

So if you're thinking about hiring a kid, who are you going to go with?  The little white snowflake from the 'burbs, or the black kid from the 'hood?

Here's what you're going to do.  I've sat back and watched you do it.  This is the minority teen unemployment rate, cross-referenced to the rising minimum wage.  One of the most beautiful correlations you'll ever see:

I'm almost 100% safe from unemployment.  So is my daughter.  We got us some skills.  We can type, manage, hire, fire, ship, transport, purchase, cashier, file, pile and get 'er done. 

I'm a Mercedes-Benz. 
Minority teens are 30-year-old Yugos. 

If the government declares that the least you can pay for a car is $50,000.00, which one are you going to buy? 

You're going to go with the Mercedes every time. 

Good work, Barack!!




 

The Real Minimum Wage And Its Beneficiaries

The phrase "minimum wage law" contains an inherent contradiction. You can't raise the minimum wage. The minimum wage has always been zero, and it always will be zero. Wrap your head around the implications of that, and, as Jesus said, you're getting very close to the kingdom of God.

I was looking for a chart to show what I meant. The simplest one I could find, thanks to Robert Love, contained a cat.

Here's an excerpt from Voters Mandate That More Teenagers Remain Unemployed, posted at The Libertarian Party of Colorado blog.

The Denver-area inflation rate for the first half of the year was 3.7 percent, propelled by rising energy costs.
It’s not just another economic statistic: Thanks to a 2006 ballot issue, Colorado uses the measure to set the state’s minimum wage.
Now $7.02, the minimum wage will increase Jan. 1 to $7.28, the Rocky Mountain News calculates, based on the Colorado Department of Labor’s rules.

Combine that with fun fact #2. Many long term union contracts are tied to a specific multiple of the minimum wage. That's why they lobby so hard for increased minimums.

Fun fact #3. Many government contracts specify that all workers must be paid the "prevailing wage" for each profession in that area. This wage is often expressed as a multiple of the minimum. (This is another way of stating that no government project manager will ever have to spend any significant time looking for a good deal.)

Fun fact #4. Cost Of Government Day (how long the nation has to work each year to pay for all government spending) was on July 16th in 2008.

So what does all this mean?

It means that the comedy team of Reid and Pelosi are doing as much as they can to devalue the dollar. Yes, everyone gets more dollars, but they're only worth fifty cents.

Milton Friedman liked to talk about the four types of spending.

1) When you spend your money on yourself. What you do with the after-tax remains of your money.

2) When you spend your money on other people. What you do when you purchase a birthday present.

3) When you spend other people's money on yourself. What you do with a yearly budget in a "use it or lose it" situation (sorta). What you do when you find a $50 gift certificate on the street. What you do with a government subsidy.

4) When you spend other people's money on other people. Also known as government spending.

These are ranked in order of efficiency, BTW. People make their best money decisions with category #1 decisions. They make their worst decisions in category #4.

The Colorado voters who passed this minimum wage legislation thought they were creating a new category:

5) Forcing other people to spend more money on other people.

They were mistaken. Once inflation is taken into account, they've merely given more power to the people in category #4. And guess which people wind up with most of this money?

Hint: it's not minimum wage earners.

Back to The Libertarian Party of Colorado blog (and I think they might have been inspired by the closing line of this rant at another source....)

Next year the headlines will read "unemployment rises", and the people will never put 2 and 2 together.

Does Barack Obama hate black people??

Here's the late senator Jacob Javitz on why he supported minimum wage legislation:

"I point out to Senators from industrial states like my own that a minimum wage increase would also give industry in our states some measure of protection, as we have too long suffered from the unfair competition based on substandard wages and other labor conditions in effect in certain areas of the country – primarily in the South.
....Although probably no northern senator today would dare admit it, many who vote for increases in the minimum wage understand that one consequence will be to destroy  jobs for the least skilled workers, a disproportionate number of whom are black.”

And now, thanks to the good intentions of our government, we now have a black teen unemployment rate of  40%.

Here's a summary of the situation....  I can teach you how to play a piano, but if you pay me more than $7.00 an hour, you're getting ripped off.  I'm not much of a piano player, or teacher.  But if I had to, I could make some money teaching piano for $7.00 an hour.

My neighbor down the street is a really good piano teacher.  She gets $10.00 an hour.  One street over is another guy who gets $15.00 per hour.

If you raise the minimum wage for piano teachers to $12.00 an hour, who does it help?  Me or my neighbors?

It helps my neighbors.   I ain't worth $12.00 an hour as a piano teacher.  Nobody will ever pay me that, because I'm not worth it.  All it will do is guarantee full employment for my neighbors.

That's what happens to inexperienced and low-skilled labor when a Washington Messiah raises the minimum wage.  They get priced out of the market.  Just hide and watch what happens to the black teen minority unemployment rate if The Teleprompter Jesus gets his way with this proposal from his Union Of The Statists speech last night :

"Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong," Obama said. "Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour. This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families.

Never mind the question of WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH TWO KIDS IF YOUR SKILLS AREN'T WORTH MORE THAN MINIMUM WAGE????
The real question is this....

Why does Barack Obama hate black people?

Don't get me wrong...I love the minimum wage, because I'm white.  My daughter is white, and also has established plenty of work experience.  She was offered jobs at more than 40K per year at the age of 20.  Minimum wage legislation will ensure that we're the last to be laid off.  We got skills!!!  

But does Barack Obama really hate black people?  Or is he just not very smart?

Why I Love ACORN

One of the few remaining warm spots in my cold, cold heart is for ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).
ACORN is currently in the news for voter fraud, registering the Dallas Cowboys Football Team as voters in Nevada, and other trivia.
Pay no attention to that stuff. That's mere generic skullduggery for those guys.

Here's the funny one.

I've long believed that our Minimum Wage laws are some of the only truly effective "Social Engineering" legislation ever passed.
If your goal was to guarantee full employment for whites and the expense of blacks, this was a home run.

Here's a bit of history on our first minimum wage law, the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931.

The story of Davis-Bacon begins, one might say, in 1927 when a contractor from Alabama won a bid to build a Veterans' Bureau hospital in Long Island, New York. He brought a crew of black construction workers from Alabama to work on the project. Appalled that blacks from the South were working on a federal project in his district, Representative Robert Bacon of Long Island submitted H.R. 17069, "A Bill to Require Contractors and Subcontractors Engaged on Public Works of the United States to Comply with State Laws Relating to Hours of Labor and Wages of Employees on State Public Works," the antecedent of the Davis- Bacon Act.

The discriminatory implications of Bacon's bill were recognized immediately. On the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressman Upshaw said: "You will not think that a southern man is more than human if he smiles over the fact of your reaction to that real problem you are confronted with in any community with a superabundance or large aggregation of negro labor."

Over the next four years Bacon introduced thirteen more bills to establish regulation of labor on federal public works projects. Finally, a bill submitted by Bacon and Senator James J. Davis, with the support of the American Federation of Labor, passed in 1931. The law provided that all federal construction contractors with contracts in excess of $5,000 or more must pay their workers the "prevailing wage," which in practice meant the wages of unionized labor.
The measure passed because Congressmen saw the bill as protection for local, unionized white workers' salaries in the fierce labor market of the Depression. In particular, white union workers were angry that black workers who were barred from unions were migrating to the North in search of jobs in the building trades and undercutting "white" wages.

Current debates on Minimum Wage legislation tend to overlook this fascinating bit of history. The racially discriminatory nature of the bill was openly debated in the House and the Senate. It was simply assumed that one could hire more low skilled blacks than high wage whites.

Ok, which is more "humane", "fair", and "just"? Hiring four people for $25.00 an hour to complete a job? Or hiring five people for $20.00 an hour? Hiring 10 people for $10.00 an hour? Or if you really want to help the little guy, why not hire 20 people at $5.00 an hour?

The rational response to that question is.... All of the above. It depends on the situation. But if you mandate that the starting wage must be $25.00 an hour???? Who is going to get hired first? The homeless guy, who would ordinarily be willing to work for $5.00 ? Or the already privileged white guy with the college degree?

If you need a lot of low-skilled work done, and you're in a high wage area? Tough luck. Send it to China.

Enter ACORN. This is from sometime in 2006:

According to a Dec. 25 report in the Boston Globe, the Democratic Party is joining forces with the activist group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to place initiatives on state ballots this fall to raise the minimum wage. The idea is to energize the poor to vote for Democratic candidates as well as the initiative.
ACORN's involvement in this campaign is amusing because a few years ago the group sued the state of California in order to be exempted from its minimum wage requirement, which was higher than the federal government's. In its appellate brief, ACORN acknowledged that the more it had to pay each worker, the fewer such workers it would be able to hire. Of course, the same thing is true for businesses as well, something minimum wage advocates refuse to admit.

You've gotta love it.
I really can't tell you how much I love it.

I wish this election could go on forever.

"Zeal For Truth" on the minimum wage

Colin at Zeal For Truth on the minimum wage:

I wasn’t surprised to see that Oregon’s unemployment numbers have steadily risen over the past five years. I’m even less surprised that it has reached a whopping 12.4% and is second in the country.

A lot of people will point to the recession as the chief culprit for high unemployment - not merely in Oregon, but around the world. And while it is true that businesses closing puts immediate pressure on unemployment figures, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

The state of Oregon, for example, decided to tie the minimum wage to rising prices in 2004. This was put to the voters as a way to “lift all boats” in a rising tide of wage-increase and general prosperity. It was argued that the poorest would benefit as employers were forced to pay them more and that the increased wages would stimulate the economy.

Oregon now has the second highest minimum wage and the second highest unemployment rate (behind Michigan). These two statistics are directly correlated. The minimum wage is not a rising tide that lifts all boats - rather it is a barrier over which one has to jump to get a job. Raising the minimum wage does not force employers to pay their employees more - rather, it forces them to fire anyone who is not productive enough to earn for them at least their worth in the new minimum wage....

Go here to read the rest of the piece. I like these folks.
Go here to read about the ridiculously high levels of teenage unemployment and why government is to blame.
Go here to read a series of predictions that this would happen. Not that I like it or anything.

Minimum Wages and Unemployment

Well, that didn't take long.
The minimum wage was increased, and unemployment jumped.

Here's cnn.com:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The unemployment rate soared to a nearly five-year high in August as employers trimmed jobs for the eighth straight month, the government reported Friday.
The unemployment rate rose to 6.1%, the highest level since September 2003. That's up from 5.7% in July and 4.7% a year ago.

Here's Thewhitedsepulchre.com, from about a month ago:

The phrase "minimum wage law" contains an inherent contradiction. You can't raise the minimum wage. The minimum wage has always been zero, and it always will be zero. Wrap your head around the implications of that, and, as Jesus said, you're getting very close to the kingdom of God.

Here's some more CNN, quoting the current leaders of The Mommy Party (D) and The Daddy Party (R):

But the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said the report points out the failure of Republican policies.
"John McCain showed last night that he is intent on continuing the economic policies that just this year have caused the American economy to lose 605,000 jobs," Obama said in a statement. "John McCain's answer is more of the same: $200 billion in tax cuts to big corporations and oil companies, and not one dime of tax relief to more than 100 million middle-class families."
The McCain campaign argued that Obama's economic policies would cause more job losses in the future.

Here's some more whitedsepulchre.com, predicting that the mainstream media just won't get it:

A few months from now, start looking for bewildered print and online editorials about increased unemployment among teenagers and low-skilled minorities. The funniest ones will have no sense of irony, and will end with calls for our government to do something about the problem.

I hope you broke out in giggles while reading the CNN piece. Here's a group that sorta gets it, Loanspeed.com:

Some argue that a higher minimum wage leads to more unemployment. But with wages failing to keep up with inflation, some think more increases are needed.
Congress passed legislation last year that would raise the minimum wage in stages from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 in July 2009. (Several states already have minimum wages higher than that.)
“If labor becomes more expensive, employers will hire fewer workers,” notes a study from the National Center for Policy Analysis, a research firm based in Dallas.
And this appears to be playing out with teenage workers. The unemployment rate for teens this August was 18.9%, up from 16.2% a year ago. Admittedly, teens make up a small percentage of the overall work force - a little more than 4%. But some think higher wages limit any job rebound, especially in a struggling economy.

They're confusing the issue a bit by throwing in the inflation factor. Inflation is an increase in the money supply. If the Fed chose to let us in on how much new money they're throwing into the system? We could predict inflation with near Godlike accuracy. Then we would make them stop throwing new money into the system.

Here's a link to some folks that get it. Mean Ol' Meany says that:

Just this morning, I heard the talking heads screeching about the "unexpected" increase in unemployment at the end of July.
That increase was only unexpected to morons.
Lemme 'splain.
History or past performance is a good indicator of future results or future performance.
What does that mean?
Well, if you undertook an action fifty times in the past, and every single time you did that the same result occurred afterwards, that would tell you that those two indicators were probably tied together.
"You know, every single time that I go bobbing for french fries, I burn my face. What gives?"
"Uh, Homer, you keep dunking your head in a fry vat full of 350 degree grease. Understand?"

I think these people, like me, have spent some time doing price quotes in a manufacturing environment.

Lord have mercy, what a mess. Look at it this way. If someone says that Coca Cola is going to cost $50.00 per bottle, you're going to purchase less Coca Cola. Lower the price to ten cents per bottle, and you'll probably purchase more.

But we can't improve the unemployment rate by eliminating the wage laws.

We're too compassionate.

8 Steps For Revitalizing The U.S. Economy

Industry Week  has a piece in their online edition by Dr. Ken Mayland, an economist who covers manufacturing and business trends. 
Here are Dr. Mayland's "Eight Steps For Revitalizing The U.S. Economy".  I've been ranting about seven of these for years, and I don't even have a Doctorate in Economics.  Or a Masters.  Or a Bachelors.  I do, however, work in the shipping and logistics industry, and that qualifies me to comment on these things. 

1.  Kill the 2010 health care reform bill.

Well, duh, of course.  Nobody knows who exactly wrote it.  Nobody knows what it is supposed to accomplish.  It's too long for anyone to know what is in it.  A lot of people who lobbied for it have now been exempted from it.  But everyone fears it. 

2.  Do a "reverse course" on developing domestic energy and ease access and permitting for all forms of energy production.

Yeah.  Drill, Baby, Drill.  The Green Energy Scam is slowly being exposed.  Within a year and a half, it'll be dead as a doornail.  Drill, Baby, Drill.  Now.   

3.  Eliminate the minimum wage. Mayland said: "Economists have long know that politicians cannot legislate the productivity of a worker. If you raise the minimum wage above the basic productivity of the worker, the worker will be fired or not hired." Mayland said since the minimum wage was last raised, the biggest increase in unemployment has been among teenagers -- "exactly where you would expect a minimum-wage increase to hurt."

The minimum wage is zero.  The higher you set an artificial price floor for unskilled workers, the more of them you condemn to earning the true minimum wage - zero. 

4.  Repeal the Frank-Dodd financial reform law and Sarbanes-Oxley, which he said put U.S. businesses at a disadvantage compared to businesses in other countries.

I know absolutely nothing about this.  Some might say that this shortcoming has never prevented any of my other rants, but there you have it.  I know nothing about SarbOx.  But this guy does. 

5.  Rein in EPA and the National Labor Relations Board.

Or we could continue to allow the NLRB to tell businesses where they can and can't operate.  Pick one. 

6.  Pass free-trade agreements with Panama, Columbia and South Korea.

This is great as long as it is Free Trade and not Managed Trade.  Any Free Trade Agreement that's 900 pages long is automatically suspect. 

7.  Pare back overly generous unemployment benefits from the current 99 weeks. Mayland cited a scholarly study that if unemployment benefits were 26 weeks, the unemployment rate would be 2% to 2.5% lower.

Yep, and it wouldn't be pretty.  But combine #3 and #7, and you would rapidly approach full employment.  Companies would accomplish more with less.  But it wouldn't be fair !  So we're going to continue to borrow from our fetuses ! 

8.  Trash the tax code and install a flat tax. Mayland said once the appropriate tax rate was determined, taxpayers could fill out their tax return "on a postcard."

Go here for a picture of the Hong Kong tax postcard. 

There you have it.  If Obama and Congress knew that they were going to be propped against a wall and shot if the economy didn't improve within one year, they would implement all of Ken Mayland's Libertarian-ish suggestions tomorrow morning.  Hit the labels below if you want to read earlier rants on any of these topics.

Let's Have A National Dialogue About Race

For the last week, we’ve been plagued by Talking Heads and politicians wanting to have “a national dialogue about race”.

That’s a great idea. We’ve got good people of all races in the U.S. I just finished putting in a long weekend’s work with a crew of mostly black guys who went at it so hard that I almost wept out of gratitude. So let’s start with this. Black folks are only 14% of our population in the U.S., but make up almost 40% of the prison population. The overwhelming majority of these incarcerations are because of the NixonObama Drug War. We could end this war tomorrow if we had the political will. But there are more than one million government employees and contractor employees who would lose their jobs if we were to do so.

Many of these people are behind bars because they consumed or sold marijuana. Have you ever seen the black street gangs who support themselves by selling Budweiser, Jim Beam or Coors Light? No? Well, neither has anyone else for the last 90 years. We ended Prohibition, and we ended the violence.

I know a lot of black guys who like to smoke weed. Unless they’re driving one of my forklifts, or semi-tractors, their habits are none of my business. Or your business. Or Barack’s or Boehner’s or Rick Perry’s. I do know that “stoned” drivers are safer than drunk drivers, but that’s beside the point. If someone isn’t hurting you, he should be left alone to live life as he pleases, and not hectored to death by a gaggle of Washington puritans and their prison contractors.

Let’s have a national dialogue about race.

Let’s talk about black education. Young black males, depending on who you talk to, are dropping out of school at a rate somewhere around 50%. This is not an act of despair on their part. In many cases, it’s a calm rational response to what they (and many others) perceive as a total waste of time. I often meet and hire high school graduates who can’t read a tape measure, can’t do long division, and can’t spell well enough to fill out their own job applications.

But why should someone put in “seat time” in an institution that is failing in its mission? (And “seat time” is how our government schools are ranked for funding.) If black families were given a choice in where their education dollars go, like we are currently given a choice in where our grocery dollars go, we would see a revolution in minority education and minority achievement. This is a solved problem. But can you imagine the wailing from the Department Of Education if, say, Texas were to institute a 100% school choice/school voucher system? Can you imagine how far that would go toward ending white flight from our cities and into the suburbs?

Let’s have a national dialogue about race.

Black teenage unemployment is at 50%, the highest it has been since World War II. Why? Because our government has priced black teenagers out of the market.

Arthur Laffer has written that “The minimum wage is the black teenage unemployment act. The guaranteed way of holding the poor, the minorities and the disenfranchised out of the mainstream is to price their services too high.” Our first minimum wage law, the Davis-Bacon Act, was written for the sole purpose of guaranteeing full white employment at the expense of blacks. It was openly debated in those terms in Congress. Here’s Walter Williams (a brilliant economist who just happens to be blacker than both Barack Obama and George Zimmerman combined) explaining why this law, unlike so many other social engineering schemes, has been uncommonly successful:

“Put yourself in the place of an employer and ask: If I must pay to whomever I hire $7.25 an hour, plus mandated fringes such as Social Security, vacation, health insurance, unemployment insurance, does it pay me to hire a worker who is so unfortunate so as to have a skill level that allows him to contribute only $5 worth of value an hour? Most employers would view hiring such a person a losing economic proposition.

Therefore, the primary effect of a minimum wage law is that of discrimination against the employment of low-skilled workers.

Teenagers tend to be low skilled. They lack the experience, knowledge and maturity of adults. That means they will be the primary victims of a minimum wage law. But why are black teens more heavily impacted than white teens? Black teens are far more likely to come from broken homes and attend some of the worst schools in the nation. Therefore, a law that discriminates against the employment of low-skilled workers will have a greater impact on black workers. Moreover, the minimum wage subsidizes racial discrimination. After all, if you must pay $7.25 an hour to whomever you hire, you might as well hire people you like the most, even if they are of identical skill.

The little bit of money a kid could earn after school and on the weekends is not nearly as important as the other benefits from early work experiences. Any kind of job, paying any wage, teaches a youngster that he must be on time, respect supervisors, develop good work habits, plus there's the self-esteem and pride that comes from being at least financially semi-independent. Early work experiences benefit any kid but are far more important for kids from broken homes, who reside in crime-ridden neighborhoods and attend rotten schools. If they are to learn anything that will make them a more valuable employee in the future, it will have to come from work; they won't learn it at home or in the schools. For Congress to enact higher and higher minimum wages, to benefit their union supporters, is shameful and cruel.”

Well said, sir. (BTW, Williams put that bit about the union supporters in there because many government labor contracts are expressed in multiples of the current minimum wage.)

So let’s have that national dialogue about race. Let’s talk about the incredibly destructive (but profitable for government employees) War On Drugs. Let’s talk about the dismal failures (with incredible pensions and job tenure) in our public schools. Let’s talk about the economic apartheid enforced by our government.

Yeah. Let’s have that national dialogue about race. But instead of watching politicians digest the news and shit platitudes, let’s really start talking about how to improve things.

So where should we start?

The Minimum Wage Increases Are Working ! ! !

Bloomberg.com has announced that the new minimum wage increases are working !

As the arbitrary amounts that must be charged for teen-age labor are dramatically increased by congressional mandate, demand for teen-age later decreases ! Businesses are responding rationally by hiring fewer low-skilled workers.

I'm sure that the ultra-compassionate individuals who lobbied for this are pleased. I know I am. You know why? I'll tell you later....

We've got two more increases to go ! There is no telling what kind of unemployment we can achieve among low skill workers and teenagers if we just keep trying. So let's get out those hacksaws, and slice a few more of the bottom rungs off the career ladder, shall we? You know why I want Congress to slice a few more of the bottom rungs off the career ladder? I'll tell you later....

Let's do what we can to destroy the ladder for racial minorities. The Davis-Bacon act, one of our first minimum wage laws, was highly succesful in its stated goal of ensuring full white employment at the expense of African-Americans.

Let me quote the great Dr. Thomas Sowell: "Most economists have long recognized that minimum wage laws increase unemployment among the least skilled, least experienced, and minority workers. With a little experience, these workers are likely to be worth more. But they cannot move up the ladder if they can't get on the ladder."

But I don't want them on my ladder. I think it's mine by birthright.

So lobby your congressperson and your senators for more increases in the minimum wage. Hell, let's double it. It's highly effective when the government jacks around with the economy. Especially if you're an old white guy.

Heh heh heh heh....

A Socratic Dialogue on The Minimum Wage

Lawrence W. Reed of the Foundation For Economic Education (God, wouldn't the world be better if Obama had taken some online courses there) has reared back and thrown out a gem of a post about the minimum wage. 

It's in the form of a Socratic Dialogue. 

I try to do this on Facebook all the time, with varying degrees of success, mostly because my FB friends get pissed and declare that I don't care about poor people and then the dialogue ends when I point out that they don't pay people a freakin' dime more than they have to because I've watched how they tip their bartenders and then we all unfriend each other. 

I'm scraping the whole thing here, just in case the FEE website goes bankrupt or something.  This thing mirrors so many conversations and blog entries I've written on this dismal subject, but does it so much better. 

Socrates: So you want to raise the minimum wage. Why?

Congressman: Because as President Obama says, minimum wage workers haven’t had a raise in five years.

Socrates: Can you name one single worker who was making $7.25 five years ago who is still making $7.25 today? And if you can’t, then please tell me what caused their wage to rise if Congress didn’t do it. Come on, can you name just one?

Congressman: I don’t happen to have a name on me, but they must be out there somewhere.

Socrates: Well, we’ve just been through a deep recession because successive administrations from both parties, plus you lawmakers and your friends at the Fed, created a massive bubble and jawboned banks to extend easy credit. The bust forced many businesses to cut back or close. Now we have the weakest recovery in decades as ever-higher taxes, regulations, and Obamacare stifle growth. No wonder people are hurting! Do you take any responsibility for that, or do you just issue decrees that salve your guilty conscience?

Congressman: That’s water over the dam. I’m looking to the future.

Socrates: But how can you see even six months into a murky future when you refuse to look into the much clearer and more recent past? You guys think the world starts when a problem arises, as if you’re incapable of analyzing the problem’s origin. Maybe that’s why you rarely solve a problem; you just set everybody up to repeat it. If you really look to the future, then why didn’t you see this situation coming?

Congressman: Look, in any event, $7.25 just isn’t enough for anybody to live on. Workers must have more to meet their basic needs.

Socrates: An employer doesn’t have anything to pay an employee except what he first gets from paying customers. I wonder, whose "needs" do you consider when you decide to buy or not to buy: the workers’ or your own? Have you ever offered to pay more than the asking price just to help out the guy who made the product? And if customers like you won’t do that, where do you expect the employer to get the money?

Congressman: That’s not a fair question. My intent here is purely to help.

Socrates: Sounds to me like the answer is "no," but let’s move on. Why do you assume your intentions mean more to a worker than those of his employer? It’s the employer who’s taking the risk to offer him a job, not you. You’re only making speeches about it. Don’t you see a little hypocrisy here—you, who are personally offering no one a job, self-righteously criticizing others who are actually creating jobs and paying wages even if they’re not all at a wage you like?

Congressman: Employers are interested only in profits.

Socrates: Are you saying employees are not? Are they more interested in working for companies that lose money, and if so, then why don’t they all line up for government jobs?

Congressman: Well, we lose money here in government every year and there are plenty of people who are happy to work for us.

Socrates: You have a printing press. You also have a legal monopoly on force. When you borrow in the capital markets, you shove yourself to the head of the line at everybody else’s expense. Are you saying these are good things and that we’d be better off if the private sector could do these things too? Try to keep up with me here.

Congressman: I repeat, employers are interested only in profits. People before profits, I say! I even have a bumper sticker on my car that says that.

Socrates: So are you saying that employers would be better people if, instead of seeking profits, they tried to break even or run at a loss? How does that add value to the economy or encourage risk-takers to start a business in the first place?

Congressman: You’re trying to belittle me but I went to a state university. All of my sociology, political science and gender studies professors told us that raising the minimum wage is good.

Socrates: Were any of those tenured, insulated, and government-funded pontificators actual job-creating, payroll tax-paying entrepreneurs themselves, ever?

Congressman: That’s beside the point.

Socrates: (Sigh.) Figures.

Congressman: Look, $10.10 isn’t much. I think you must be mean-spirited and greedy if you don’t want people to be paid at least $10.10.

Socrates: Yeah, like you guys in government check your personal ambitions at the door when you take office. I’d like to know how you arrived at that number. Was it some sophisticated equation, divine revelation or toss of the dice? Why didn’t you choose $20.00, which is not only a nice round number but also a lot more generous?

Congressman: Well, $20.00 would be too high, for sure. Too much of a jump at once.

Socrates: It sounds like you think the cost of labor might indeed affect the demand for it. Good! That’s progress. You’re not as oblivious about market forces as I thought. What I want to know is why you apparently don’t think higher labor costs matter when you raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10. Do you think everyone, regardless of skill level or experience, is automatically worth what Congress decrees? Do you believe in magic, too? How about tooth fairies?

Congressman: Now hold on a minute. I’m for the worker here.

Socrates: Then why on earth would you favor a law that says if a worker can’t find a job that pays at least $10.10 per hour, he’s not allowed to work?

Congressman: I’m not saying he can’t work! I’m saying he can’t be paid less than $10.10!

Socrates: I thought we were making progress, but perhaps not. Can you tell me, if your scheme becomes law, what happens to a worker whose labor is worth only, say, $8.10 because of his low skills, lack of education, scant experience, or a low demand for the work itself? Will employers happily employ him anyway and take a $2.00 loss for every hour he’s on the job?

Congressman: Businesses need workers and $2.00 isn’t much, so common sense and decency would suggest that of course they would.

Socrates: So employers who employ people are too greedy to pay $10.10 unless they’re ordered to, but then when Congress acts, they suddenly become generous enough to hire people at a loss. Who was your logic instructor?

Congressman: Can we hurry this up? I’ve got other plans for other people I have to think about.

Socrates: I give up. You congressmen are incorrigible. You’re the only people on whom my teaching method has no discernible impact.

Congressman: You ask too many questions.

At this point, in utter frustration, Socrates drinks the hemlock. The congressman votes to price many of the nation’s most vulnerable employees out of work and gets reelected.
Whoever warned us to beware of Greeks bearing gifts apparently never met a congressman.



 

The New York Times Should Raise Its Price By 50% Between Now And 2016

How do you get people to purchase more of something?  According to the New York Holy Times, you raise the price. 

How do you make yourself more attractive to employers?  Keep raising your requested wage until someone says "I'll hire you". 

How do you increase employment?  According to the New York Holy Times, you put an added burden on people who purchase labor. 

Good God in heaven.....

Go here.  They've come out with another editorial demanding that the minimum wage be increased by some random amount yet to be determined. 

HOW HIGH SHOULD IT BE? There’s no perfect way to set the minimum wage, but the most important benchmarks — purchasing power, wage growth and productivity growth — demonstrate that the current $7.25 an hour is far too low. They also show that the proposed increase to $10.10 by 2016 is too modest.

You're damn right, there's no perfect way.  There is no way. 

I want to be paid as much as possible for my labor.  Employers want to pay as little as possible.  That varies from person to person, industry to industry, and enterprise to enterprise.  And the last humans on earth that I would want to determine that rate?  The New York Holy Times Editorial Board, Barack Obama, and the U.S. Congress.  The "perfect" rate will be determined by political considerations, not economic ones. 

I'm not going to rant about the racist origins of minimum wage legislation.  (Google the Davis-Bacon Acts.) 

I'm not going to rant about the obvious fact that if your skills aren't worth $10.10 per hour, it'll be illegal for you to work. 

I'm just going to ask the New York Times to raise it's price by 50% between now and 2016.  It will help sales.  600 economists have said so. 

One last thing.....

One of the favorite talking points that these guys like to trot out goes like this....   "If wages had kept pace with productivity, workers would be earning 43.07% more per hour."

Here's their chart.

That's probably an accurate chart. 

The other chart, the one they don't show, reveals that the iPhone in the typical minimum wageworker's pocket, would have cost 3.1 MILLION dollars in 1991. 

Is there anyone who thinks that the world would be better if cell phone prices were in line with worker productivity? 

200 years ago, something like 98% of us had to work on farms.  Food was a massive percentage of everyone's budget.  Do you with that your food costs reflect the increase in worker productivity, just out of fairness? 

God, they make me crazy. 

 

MINIMUM WAGE INCREASED ! (men, minorities, hardest hit)

The minimum wage will increase one more time on July 24th.

men, minorities, continue to be hardest hit.

From a blog post of about a year ago:

This (unemployment rate) is exactly what is happening at the lower end of the wage pool with today's minimum wage increase. There will be another mandated increase a year from now. A few months from now, start looking for bewildered print and online editorials about increased unemployment among teenagers and low-skilled minorities. The funniest ones will have no sense of irony, and will end with calls for our government to do something about the problem.

The Public Religion Research Institute survey of libertarians in America

Ok, this is going to take a while.  The Public Religion Research Institute has surveyed people claiming to be small-l and large-L libertarians.  (Small-l libertarians generally believe in liberty instead of political demigods.  Large-L Libertarians share the same beliefs, but go so far as to join the Libertarian Party.) 
This is interesting stuff.  Hope you'll devote a lunch break to reading the whole thing here. 
Or just check it out on my site, with additional Whited commentary. 

According to a newly developed Libertarian Orientation Scale, less than 1-in-10 (7%) Americans are consistent libertarians, and an additional 15% lean libertarian. At the other end of the spectrum, an equal number of Americans are consistent communalists (7%), and an additional 17% lean communalist. A majority (54%) of Americans have a mixed ideological profile, falling in between libertarian and communalist orientations.

I don't believe that the communalists "lean" toward communalism.  I think they're leaning on me and you.  But that's quibbling over details. 

Compared to the general population, libertarians are significantly more likely to be non-Hispanic white, male, and young. Nearly all libertarians are non-Hispanic whites (94%), more than two-thirds (68%) are men, and more than 6-in-10 (62%) are under the age of 50.

I'm surprised these percentages aren't higher.  On the age issue, for instance, the closer you get to being in God's Waiting Room, the more concern you have about free goodies. 

The party affiliation of libertarians skews significantly more Republican than Democratic. Close to half (45%) of libertarians identify as Republican, compared to only 5% who identify as Democrat. However, half of libertarians identify as politically independent (35%) or identify with a third political party (15%), including roughly 1-in-10 (8%) who identify with the Libertarian Party. Roughly 4-in-10 (39%) libertarians identify as part of the Tea Party movement, while 61% do not.
Libertarians make up a smaller proportion of the Republican Party than other key conservative groups.  Only 12% of self-identified Republicans are libertarians, compared to 20% of Republicans who identify with the Tea Party, 33% who identify with the religious right or conservative Christian movement, and 37% who identify as white evangelical Protestant.

I had to read that last sentence several times.  Are they saying that Libertarians, Tea Partiers, the Religious Right, and White Evangelical Protestants are all religions?  Bizarre. 

Libertarians also constitute a smaller proportion of the Tea Party movement than other core conservative groups. About one-quarter (26%) of Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement are libertarians, compared to a majority (52%) who say they are a part of the religious right or conservative Christian movement, and 35% who identify as white evangelical Protestant.
Libertarians are composed of a disproportionately high number of white mainline Protestants (27%) and religiously unaffiliated Americans (27%). Only about 1-in-10 (11%) libertarians identify as Catholic, and no libertarians identify as black Protestant.

I would've bet on the "religiously unaffiliated" percentage as higher.  I know a lot of atheists.  All but a few are Libertarians.  (The others aren't really atheists, but are actually Secular Theists.) 



Generally speaking, libertarians are more opposed than white evangelical Protestants, those affiliated with the Tea Party, and Republicans overall to government involvement across a range of economic policies, such as raising the minimum wage, Obamacare, and increasing environmental protections.

• Nearly two-thirds (65%) of libertarians oppose increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.00 an hour, as do 57% of Americans who identify with the Tea Party. By contrast, 57% of Republicans overall and 61% of white evangelical Protestants support raising the minimum wage.
• Nearly all (96%) libertarians have an unfavorable view of the 2010 health care law, compared to 83% of white evangelical Protestants, 78% of Tea Party members, and 89% of Republicans.
• On the issue of passing tougher environmental laws, libertarians and Tea Party members are generally aligned in their strong opposition (73% and 74% oppose), while white evangelical Protestants and Republicans overall are also opposed but with less intensity (62% each opposed).

Ok, now I've got to go into the dangerous area of litmus tests.  According to the survey, 35% of libertarians don't oppose minimum wage hikes.  That's almost like saying 35% of Christians don't believe Jesus existed.  Are these people libertarians, or have they just heard a cool word and now claim to identify with it?  Or am I going into the "No True Scotsman" fallacy? 

Christ almighty, this is a depressing chart. 

Unlike economic questions, on which libertarians are generally aligned with other conservative constituencies, libertarians have a more distinct profile on social issues.

• Nearly 6-in-10 (57%) libertarians oppose making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion, a proportion identical to the general population. By contrast, strong majorities of Republicans overall (58%), Americans affiliated with the Tea Party (58%), and white evangelical Protestants (68%) favor making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion.
• Seven-in-ten (70%) libertarians favor allowing doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to help terminally ill patients end their lives. Americans who identify with the Tea Party are closely divided on this question (49% favor, 51% oppose). By contrast, strong majorities of Republicans (58%) and white evangelical Protestants (70%) oppose this policy.
• More than 7-in-10 (71%) libertarians favor legalizing marijuana. By contrast, approximately 6-in-10 Republicans (61%) and Tea Party members (59%), and nearly 7-in-10 (69%) white evangelical Protestants, oppose legalizing marijuana.
• Unlike most other social issues, libertarians remain socially conservative on same-sex marriage. While a majority (59%) of libertarians oppose same-sex marriage, they are significantly less opposed than Republicans overall (67%) and than other conservative-leaning groups such as Tea Party members (73%) and white evangelical Protestants (80%).

I can't believe I just read that.  I don't know of a single Libertarian Party member who opposes same-sex marriage.  Ditto for weed legalization.  I think they surveyed some of the people that The New York Times interviews for libertarian viewpoints.  (But yes, differences in our viewpoints do exist.  We have some serious differences of opinion on abortion and immigration into a welfare state.) 

 

A majority (53%) of libertarian voters say they always vote in primary elections, a rate comparable to white evangelical Protestant voters (48%) and Republican voters overall (50%) but significantly lower than the participation rate among Tea Party voters (62%).




A majority (57%) of libertarians have a favorable view of the Republican Party, but a substantial minority (40%) have an unfavorable view of the GOP. Americans who identify with the Tea Party and white evangelical Protestants have a more positive view of the GOP than libertarians. Approximately two-thirds of Tea Party members (68%) and white evangelical Protestants (66%) have a favorable view of the Republican Party. Notably, libertarians hold more negative views of Democrats than they hold positive views of Republicans. Nearly 9-in-10 (89%) libertarians have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party including nearly two-thirds (64%) who have a very unfavorable opinion of the party.

Schizophrenia update:  I think that the Democrat Party is generally sillier than the Republican Party.  But I'm sick of Republicans promising small government and delivering a massive government.  That's why I vote for the Democrat when no Libertarian is on the ballot.  There really are some Dem politicians who consistently support Marriage Equality, ending the Drug War, and Weed Legalization. 

Among voters who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, support is spread fairly evenly across the potential 2016 presidential field in a head-to-head question. Eighteen percent prefer Governor Chris Christie, 18% prefer Congressman Paul Ryan, 15% prefer former Governor Jeb Bush, 14% prefer Senator Marco Rubio, 11% prefer Senator Rand Paul, and 11% prefer Senator Ted Cruz.

• Among libertarian voters who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, Paul (26%) was the most popular potential candidate, while 18% prefer Cruz, 16% prefer Rubio, and 13% prefer Ryan. Fewer libertarian voters prefer Christie (10%) or Bush (6%).
• Among Tea Party voters who identify or lean Republican, Cruz is the most preferred candidate (22%), followed by Rubio (18%), Ryan (14%), and Paul (13%). Roughly 1-in-10 Tea Party voters prefer Bush (11%) or Christie (12%).
• White evangelical Protestant voters have less clear candidate preferences than libertarian and Tea Party voters. Among white evangelical Protestant voters who identify or lean Republican, top preferences include Ryan (19%), Christie (16%), and Bush (15%), while roughly 1-in-10 prefer Rubio (13%), Paul (11%), or Cruz (10%).

As usual, the previous Libertarian candidate for president, Gary Johnson, wasn't included in the survey of Libertarian preferences for president.. That's ok.  We're used to it. 

 

Some of these findings confirm what I've long suspected.  Others surprise me. 

 

The relevant question is whether we'll allow ourselves to have a bigger and bigger tent. But Jesus Christ Almighty, are you really a libertarian if you support the minimum wage?   

Mission Accomplished - a 15 Year High In Unemployment

The Unemployment Rate has hit a 15 year high, along with the new high in the minimum wage.

Thanks Be Unto God for yet another increase in the minimum wage, coming to us next year. That should help employers hire more people, right? Especially the young, inexperienced minorities that this legislation is designed to help.

Hit the minimum wage tab below for additional rants on this subject.

Drunkblogging the State Of The Union Address

As is my custom, I will be drunkblogging the State Of The Union speech tonight. 

Obama has already signaled that he's going to raise the minimum wage for all Federal projects to $10.50 per hour, thereby guaranteeing that government will never, ever, ever do anything more efficiently than the private sector. 

He's also going to talk about getting training programs going for the long-term unemployed.  I will bet you the shriveled remains of my liver that he's going to propose more money for America's Community Colleges.  (The first president that I can remember making that proposal was Bush the Elder.  I think every president since then has followed suit in at least one SOTU speech.  I don't think anyone in the Oval Office has ever successfully implemented anything successful in our JuCo system.  But as a series of throwaway lines in a speech, it sounds great, right??) 

I'm writing this intro at work.  Gonna stop at the liquor store on the way home and get a pint of Kentucky Deluxe bourbon, just to brace myself for the horrors that this evening will bring.  The drunkblogging will all be on this same post, beginning beneath the picture, and I will update every few minutes. 

God help us all, we're in the hands of a man with delusions of adequacy.  What I wouldn't give to hear a president say "The State Of The Nation Is Good, and it's because I've decided to be the least activist president since Calvin Coolidge". 

Ok, John Boehner has entered the building....   (I'm watching this on CNN, by the way.) 

While we're waiting for Obama to show up and read what's on his Teleprompter, let me throw in a few vital charts about some of tonight's subject matter. 

Here's what the minimum wage has done to black kids, and Obama is going to try to get a few more confirmed kills of black teenagers by asking that Congress raise the minimum wage to a level higher than anyone would dream of paying to a black teenager.....

Yeah, that chart shows all teen unemployment, not just minority.  So shoot me. I couldn't find the other chart.  I'm drunkblogging this, remember? 

The Supreme Court justices just entered the building. 

CNN was talking about Willie Robertson, the star of "Duck Dynasty" being in the room.  Jake Tapper had to interrupt to say that Joe "The Gaffer" Biden showing up.  CNN got back to Willie Robertson ASAP.  LOL.  Lots and lots of Congressmen are going out of their way to have pictures made shaking hands with Willie Robertson.  I don't know if anyone is falling over himself to get a pic made breathing the same air as Biden. 

I really hope that The Teleprompter Jesus has the nerve to talk about Global Warming.  The entire Gulf Coast, from Texas through New Orleans and Mississippi is iced in.  NEW ORLEANS is having traffic problems because of the ice and snow.  NEW ORLEANS.  The icy weather goes all the way into Virginia. 

They just showed former Saturday Night Live comedian and current Senator Al Franken.  And I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. 

They just showed a zoom shot of  Kentucky Senator and Pork King Mitch McConnell.  I just threw up in my mouth a little more. 

Now they're showing closeups of Willie Robertson, star of "Duck Dynasty".  For the benefit of readers in Europe and Asia, this is Willie Robertson....

He's the star of a reality TV show about a family that has made millions by manufacturing duck calls. 
For the benefit of readers in Europe and Asia, this is a duck call.  Hunters use them to lure ducks within shotgun range. 

Willie Robertson has done far more for the country than Barack Obama.  He's created things that people want, and he didn't steal any of the money used to do it. 

John Boehner is calling the session of Congress to order. 

Dr. Jill Biden (she's made a career out of studying what the hell is wrong with Joe) has now entered the room.  Michelle should be next....

I was wrong. The Supreme Court Justices are next.   Ruth Bader-Ginsburg looks like she might not make it to the beginning of the Rodham administration....

Ok, now Michelle has entered the room, to riotous applause.  I wish Sasha and Malia were there.  By all accounts, the Obamas are raising a fine pair of young ladies. 

Here comes the cabinet.  John Kerry is there with his long face.  Chuck Hagel.  Susan Rice.  Soon-to-be-indicted Eric Holder (we can only hope). 

They're talking about who didn't show up from the Supreme Court.... Alito, Scalia and Thomas.  Alito has apparently chosen NOT to be caught on TV mumbling that the Leader Of The Free World is full of bovine excrement...

I haven't mentioned yet that Obama is probably going to spend some time tonight defending Obamacare.  What's goofy is that there now are more people without insurance than there were before the implementation of Obamacare.   And what, exactly, was the point of Obamacare???

They're zooming in on Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, the department that totally screwed up the U.S. medical system. 

John Boehner and Joe Biden are standing at the podium, acting like they are anything other than political whores. 

A brief side note.....  My mother-in-law moved in with me several months ago.  She has some Evan Williams bourbon in one of the kitchen cabinets.  She would never drink it, but uses is for cooking. 
I don't think I bought enough Kentucky Deluxe to get me through the task at hand.  Should I get into it? 

The really long answer is.... YES.  Obama just entered the building, and your elected representatives are falling all over each other to shake hands with him.  God help us all. 

I'll replace the Evan Williams tomorrow.  Desperate times demand desperate measures. 

Ok, I just checked my Statcounter.  This blog post is going out on a couple of Twitter feeds.  Gotta bring my "A Game". 

Obama is bringing up a teacher.  An entrepreneur.  And an autoworker.  He's going to say that because of them, the STATE OF THE NATION IS GOOD. 

No, that didn't happen.  Don't presidents usually begin their speech by stating that "The State Of The Nation Is Good"??

He said that the Autoworker helped "wean us off foreign oil".  Who gives a shit if we're using foreign oil, U.S oil, or oil that's imported from Hogwarts???  Oil is fungible.  (Look it up).  Presidents have been using that foreign oil line since freakin' Nixon.  Fools always applaud it.   

They just cut to a shot of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.  I just threw up in my mouth a little more, and some escaped to the front of my shirt. 

He just slammed Ted Cruz's puny little government shutdown of some national parks, and got some huge applause. 

He said that we've had some severe cuts to education.  Horseshit, Horseshit, Horseshit.  We've got the most overfunded education system we coulda dreamed of.  Teachers are retiring with full benefits before they hit 55 years old.  That ain't sustainable. 

Godalmighty, I'm sick of this man's voice. 

He's blaming his problems on Globalization and technological advances.  Corporations are making money.   Inequality has deepened.  Too many Americans are working too hard just to get by. 

He doesn't mention that it's because we're having to spend 1/3 of our money on his government- mandated bullshit. 

Michelle is getting a Standing -O just because he said her name.  She's brought down childhood obesity rates. 

So why in the hell does this dumb bastard subsidize the leading causes of obesity - sugar, wheat, corn, rice, and other carbohydrates? 

He just stood up for "marriage equality" - a position he didn't hold until last year. 

He just mentioned that John Boehner's father was a bartender. 

And that he, his own glorious self, was the son of a single mother. 

He wants to restore that promise of the American Dream.  He's lying.  He's still going to keep screwing things up.  He's going to keep glorifiying bartenders and single moms while vilifying entrepreneurs. 

Now he's yapping about creating tax incentives for companies that keep jobs in the USA.  We have the 2nd highest corporate tax rates in the free world.  He's lying about those tax incentives.  He'll do without that money right about the time he stops smoking. 

He's talking about creating manufacturing jobs.  He's not mentioning that his Labor Relations Board stopped Boeing from opening a new plant in the Carolinas. 

Ok, this is the part of the State Of The Union address that I always hate the most....  he knows that free trade is the way to go, but he wants to subsidize everyone who can't compete with free traders.  Pick a side, Barack, pick a side.  Be a Luddite or a Free Trader.  Pick a side.   

Now, on to the next worst thing....   The glorification of small businesses.  I like me some small businesses.  Presidents always point out that most of our job growth is from small businesses.  They say this as if it were some glorious piece of wisdeom, because it is true.  It's true for the same reason that most of the growth in forests is from trees that aren't grown yet.  Doh !!!

Now he's talking about some paper-thin material...  much like the content of this speech....

Ok, on to the "energy independence" clichés.  Can you imagine the president of, say, Spain, talking about "energy independence"?  Ever heard The Vatican spokesperson deliver a rant about "energy independence"? 
Since when does this fake self-reliance show strength?  We need energy independence like we need microchip independence, or like the people in your household need to manufacture their own soap or shirts or deodorant or dog food.  We are strongest when we can get the best possible deals at the lowest price.  It's called "comparative advantage" and "competitive advantage" and everyone who passed Economics 101 knows this.  (Obama failed this class at Occidental College.  Look it up.)

I knew he would do it!  I KNEW HE WOULD DO IT !!  Everything from Texas to New Orleans to Washington D.C. is snowed in and iced in, and THE STUPID SON OF A BITCH BROUGHT UP GLOBAL WARMING !!!!  HE'S TALKING ABOUT GOING SOLAR.   HE'S TALKING ABOUT WHAT HE'S GOING TO DO TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING !!!  We're in a situation where the warmest part of the USA is snowed in and he's talking about Al Gore's con game.  God loves me so much.  I know it because she let me be alive to hear this crap. 

GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY I LOVE BEING ALIVE SO I CAN HEAR THIS DAMN FOOL STAND AT THE PODIUM AND SPEAK !!!! 

Barack Obama, much like his supporters, has no sense of irony.  The entire Southeast is snowed in, and he just said "Climate Change is a fact".  Does he not own a thermometer?

He's talking about the rescue of our automakers.  That's like rescuing Blockbuster Video.

Ok, on to immigration. I do love me some immigrants.  Maybe something good can happen here....?

Never mind.  They just showed a closeup of Chuck Schumer.  I just threw up in my mouth a bit, and it went projectile.  Threw up all over the den. 

He's going to bring up America's Community Colleges.  He's going to bring up America's Community Colleges....

He just asked Joe Biden to train workers to fit the jobs that need to be filled.  This is the same clown that he asked to ensure that no stimulus money would be mis-spent....

Here it comes.... America's Community Colleges.... Say it, Barack, say it....

Dammit, he's not going to do it.  He's moved on to Unemployment Insurance. 

Unemployment Insurance is much needed because of Obama's policies that punish success. 

(A quick proposal....  Lower the corporate tax rate to zero.  Cut the number of government employees by 1/3rd.  Watch the USA grow like a weed.) 

O God.  He's into education.  Here's my favorite chart.  Spending has tripled, and test results have flatlined.....

Dammit, I think I deserve some credit for getting this dismal crap posted so quickly.  Hit the ads on my website, ok???

He's babbling about high-quality Pre-K funding, despite the fact that government studies have shown that any advantages provided by Operation Headstart disappear by the 2nd freakin' grade.

OMG....  here go the rants about how to guarantee that "no American middle-class kid is priced out of a college education".  Government subsidies of college educations are the #1 reason that college educations are expensive.  Subsidize something, and it's more expensive.  You learn that in Econ 101.  Barack flunked that class at Occidental.   

On to gender equality.  This man is a lying son of a bitch.  Women with the same education as men, and who work as many hours as men, make as much money as men. 

Here's the most damning contradiction in this fool's speech....  He just finished talking about gender inequality in wages, and followed it up by saying that women ought to be able to have a kid, or take care of her kid, without sacrificing her job.  So....who you gonna hire? Who are you gonna pay the most? 

BTW, there's  more gender inequality in Barack's White House than there is in our society in general.  Will throw some links in here later on.  He pays his men a lot more than his women.  Will find it later.

Some pizza guy just gave his employees a raise to $10.00 per hour. 

You know why?  Because they were worth it. 

I'm trying to raise two of my employees to $13 and $14 per hour. 

You know why?  Because they are worth it. 

Now Barack is going to raise ALL Federal employee contractor rates to $10.10 per hour. 

You know why?  Because it will get him votes and applause. 

He's encouraging every employer to give out raises.  You know what?  Next time you're at the grocery store, pay more than you have to.  Pay $20.00 for your newspaper.  Pay $10.00 for a gallon of gasoline.  Do silly shit, just to feel good about yourself. 

New subject....

Tomorrow, Barack is going to create a new way to save for retirement???   A new program called My IRA  ???

Hell, I thought Social Security was supposed to do that.  WTF WTF WTF ????

Christ almighty riding sidesaddle on a Shetland pony.  What is he talking about??  I can't wait to read the spin on that tomorrow. 

 Here's the good part... He's going to defend Obamacare, which just might have created a situation where we have fewer Americans insured than we did before it's implementation. 

Thanks to Obamacare, no American can be turned away by an insurance company for a pre-existing condition.  That's like saying nobody whose house has been burned down can be turned away by a homeowners insurance company.  I know that sounds harsh, but that's the dude's logic. 

Gonna take a break.  Gotta get some Evan Williams. 

Obama just issued a throwdown to Republicans to come up with an alternative to Obamacare. 
If the Republicans need help, they can go here.  I wrote it myself....

Voting Rights Act. 

Citizenship. 

Cliches. 

Gun Violence.  I wonder if Barack is aware that Eric Holder masterminded a program called "Fast And Furious" where we sent a buttload of high caliber weapons into Mexico to see what would happen?  And Federal Agents got killed with them?

Military.  Automatic standing ovation.  We have 6% of the world's population and 45% of the military spending.  Yeah, they're good people, but hell, how much military do you want to pay for? 

He says our longest war (Afghanistan) will soon finally be over.  He's lying.  Our longest war is Richard Nixon's War On Drugs, which he still chooses to fight.  BTW, has anyone noticed any increased in criminality in Colorado or Washington state?  The two states that recently legalized weed? 

Holy crap... the man is acting as if he finally understands that our presence overseas just might create more terrorists.  He's capable of learning!!  He's capable of learning!!!  Helen Keller's teacher probably felt this way when she got Keller to understand the concept of "water". 

"American Diplomacy has rallied more than 50 countries to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the wrong hands."  Bullshit.  Barack Obama, John Kerry, Hillary and others have access to nuclear materials.  Anyone thinking that those are good hands, well, they probably need to read a lot more. 

They just showed a closeup of Robert Menendez, the congressman of underage Caribbean prostitute fame.  I just threw up all over my laptop.  You people owe me. 

Something about keeping Iran from getting nukes.  The bourbon is weighing heavy on me, and Barack's voice is weighing heavier.  The cadence he uses, his sentence structure, all of it is so freakin' tiresome....

OMG.... his favorite clutchphrase..... "Let me be clear". 

He's still talking about Iran and nukes.  Do I detect some saber-rattling here?  Are we gonna have boots on the ground sometime soon?  

CNN just zoomed in on Jason Collins, the NBA's first openly gay player.  I'm all for marriage equality, gay rights, and getting government out of marriage.  But why in the hell is Jason Collins in the halls of Congress for this speech?  Obama only finished "evolving" on the gay marriage issue last year.  WTF?  WTF? WTF? 

Something about veterans getting the healthcare that they need, and getting jobs.  How about leaving them in the USA, you bastard?  Let's not cripple and maim so many of them.  Let's stop creating terrorists.  The military-industrial complex is killing more people than the muslims.  End it, end it, end it all. 

The soldier sitting by Michelle is getting a shout-out.  He was injured, but is learning to speak and walk again.  This pitiful little political hack is going to make a political point, comparing himself, and his programs, and his agenda to this wounded soldier.  I can't believe what the f**k I just heard. 

Standing ovation from Congress.  What a cheap, smarmy little bastard we have filling the shoes of Washington, Jefferson, Taft and Coolidge. 

I'm going to spend the rest of the night praying for the damnation of The Republic.  "

Now he's into the "Teachable Moments" of his speech.  He's still comparing his agenda to the recovery of the wounded soldier. 

I'm going to go into my bathroom and finish throwing up. 

"God bless you, and God bless the United States Of America". 

I'm done.  Hope I never have to watch anything that manipulative again.