Quote of the Day
Once you have mastered time,
you will understand how true it is that
most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and
underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!
Anthony Robbins
Linda Chavez, Minimum-Wage Righties Gone Mad, Thumbs UP!
(HT Don Boudreaux, Cafe Hayek). If you've been reading my FB Corner segment, you've possibly noticed my puzzlement over certain comments appearing in minimum-wage threads; a lot of commenters have been griping about minimum wage workers drawing off the social welfare net and employers basically being "subsidized" by the federal government. It's economically illiterate; wages reflect on relevant productivity and labor supply conditions. Take, for instance, Williston, ND, hub of Bakken shale activity, with limited local restaurants, apartments, etc. Five to 6-figure salaries and limited competition allows restaurants to hike prices and attract/pay local workers more than the statutory minimum-wage. In this case, hiking the state minimum wage is little more than pushing on a string; workers are making more than the new minimum anyway, especially in the Williston area. What it hurts are smaller businesses, many eking out limited profits. Artificial wage hikes may undermine a viable business model; they may not be able to pass along increased costs to customers in a competitive market.
A subsidy would be like the government directly offsetting payroll costs. To a certain extent, this topic arose for the second year of the payroll tax holiday; recall employees and employers split the just over 12% cost. (Recall the employer portion is simply a hidden form of employee compensation.) During the holiday, roughly a third of the employee share cost was "forgiven" (which, of course, didn't help SSA's growing unfunded liability problem, with SSA on a pay-go Ponzi scheme model). There was a push at the time for businesses to get a similar "forgiveness" of their share, as an incentive for employers to hire. I think this incentive got tossed out during budget deliberations.
The last thing I would expect is for the "progressives" to gripe about social welfare net costs--so where was this nonsense coming from? Chavez points the finger at Ron Unz, a former GOP gubernatorial candidate, and a couple of conservative talking heads (Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham) whom basically want to manipulate labor demand/supply through immigration policy. Either approach, of course, is unacceptable from a more free market perspective. I will simply point out here, that the immigration research I've seen shows a temporary decline of up to 5% in low-level wages, but more than offset by longer-term economic growth with growing low-level job demand, pushing up wages. Think, for instance, if one of my sisters or nieces in a high-demand profession like nursing was able to hire a nanny, with costs more than offset by the relative's contribution to household income. One might complain about how the market values nursing and nanny compensation, but the arrangement is win-win for the total economy.
Chavez does a good job of pointing out how farmworkers and meat packers already can command more premium wages because it's harder to attract workers for more physically demanding and/or dangerous work assignments. But in the end, the government's attempt to manipulate the labor market is little more than hubris. Employers employ for intrinsic business reasons, not government policy goals; an employer will not hire if the costs exceed the benefits of that labor. All you achieve is the loss-loss of an otherwise feasible contract.
Facebook Corner
Occasionally I'll dedicate one of these segments to a single thread. In this case, IPI posted about the Dem-dominated state legislature looking to attach itself to the leftist cause of reversing Citizens United under the fascist pretext that relaxing an unconstitutional ban on corporate free speech amounts to the equivalent of putting the US government up for sale. It's utterly absurd, of course. Despite the avalanche of Democrat political ads while I lived in Maryland, I never cast a single vote for a fascist. The "progressives" have a problem with anyone daring to have an opinion contrary to their own. I've been watching little local station news over the past few years so listening to Dems put lipstick on a pig didn't bother me too much. I really didn't have much of a reaction to the initial decision; but when Obama outrageously attacked the decision in the faces of SCOTUS at the State of the Union, he did more than display unacceptable, unprofessional, unpresidential behavior on the world stage. It was probably the biggest violation of the balance of power since FDR wanted to pack SCOTUS after SCOTUS struck down economically illiterate New Deal legislation. It was part of my evolution to a more libertarian perspective. It's fairly easy to be a Democrat--you vote for spending and regulation, increasing the nature and extent of the State, pretending it's all free with no unintended side effects; you paint the opposition as "obstructionists". Conservatives/GOP have a much harder task--while the competition promises more "free stuff" to voters, they have to educate the voters there's no such thing as a "free lunch", that unsustainable Democratic programs have repeatedly failed, and activist government exacerbates economic issues. The issues don't have as much to do with systematic personal corruption as with differing philosophies of government and incompetent governance. When you're fighting for more limited government, you are not fighting for special interest parasites feeding off an oversized government; you know if you are lowering the cost of government to the economy, you are providing an incentive to job-yielding capital formation. By making government more sustainable for younger generations, you are hardly anti-government, any more than telling an obese man going on a diet makes for his more sustainable longevity; you are not encouraging him to starve himself. The Democrats, by playing Chicken Little over a limited 2% sequester cut after increasing the federal budget by over a third in less than a decade in control of the House, Senate and/or White House, have lost all credibility.
(Illinois Policy Institute).
Incumbent politicians hate to be criticized, and in Illinois some of them have decided to do something about it – not by correcting the behavior for which people criticize them, but by trying to repeal the First Amendment. That may sound outrageous, but it’s true.
The hypocrisy of "progressives" is appalling. How many billionaires have been elected to public office? I can only think of Bloomberg, off the top of my head. Romney failed to win the GOP nod in 2008 or the election in 2012 despite millions of his own money in the efforts; Meg Whitman did not win the last California gubernatorial election. The two richest men in America are Democrat, as well as some of the richest families (e.g., the Kennedys). Wall Street did not support the GOP in 2008.
My personal belief is that businesses as a whole are politically agnostic; even those who do, like the special-interest groups supporting the election of Dems, want special favors don't want to alienate the other side for future reasons (payback is a bitch), they probably employ people whom are members of opposing parties. I also think their stakeholders want to see returns on investments, not throwing money away on elections. Open Secrets has documented, for instance, the poster boy Koch brothers aren't even in the top 50 of contributors, but several unions top the charts. This deluge of corporate money has not in fact happened in the aftermath of Citizens United. So this is one-sided hypocritical pushing-on-a-string nonsense; these self-righteous demagogues want freedom of speech personally or collectively--except for groups they don't like or may prefer the opposition; it's not just an unalienable right they are trying to supress, but an equal protection issue.
If the hypocrites were truly interested in reforming government, they would be seeking to limit, with us pro-liberty voices, the corrupting influence of incumbency and the power of government intervention, spending and regulation which attracts the special interests.
Corporations are not people and do not have inalienable rights.
They are associations of people whose own unalienable rights are otherwise infringed, they certainly are counterproductively taxed--and there's that whole "taxation without representation" thing. But, as usual, this is hypocritical "progressive" nonsense as usual; these idiots try to scapegoat the Koch brothers, but, by far, the biggest contributors of electing crony career politicians are the corrupt unions.
Citizens United stated for the first time that a corporation is the same as a person. Prior to that corporations were held to different standards. So the Senate is asking to undo the decision to make a corporation a person. It will not limit your free speech as a person. Nor will it overturn the first amendment.
Now this is spectacularly uninformed. Legal personhood for corporations has been recognized in common law and throughout American history. Corporations are formed by free association, a fundamental aspect of liberty, and people do not lose their rights by joining groups of people. From Wikipedia:
[T]wo years later, in Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania - 125 U.S. 181 (1888), the Court clearly affirmed the doctrine, holding, "Under the designation of 'person' there is no doubt that a private corporation is included [in the Fourteenth Amendment]. Such corporations are merely associations of individuals united for a special purpose and permitted to do business under a particular name and have a succession of members without dissolution."
Time to eliminate the PACs and the corporations should not be treated like individuals. Why in the world aren't our IL legislators working on the real issues in our state!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, I don't believe that people lose their rights when they become part of a voluntary group. Restricting someone's speech, whether it's done individually or jointly, is fundamentally un-American at its core.
Your fundamental error is confounding symptoms and disease. The issue has to do with Big Government ineptly trying to centrally plan everything and billing the shrinking private sector with its costs. Until you shrink regulation to something consistent with the rule of law, until you shrink government to its original mandates of common defense and enforcement of individual rights, you are going to have corrupt politicians and vested interests looking out for their "fair share".
1) Any Constitutional convention should take up all of Mark Levin's amendments, and not one that limits free speech.
2) Every donkey holding office in IL should be voted out of office and NO new donkeys should be voted in. Donkeys running the state have run to the verge of bankruptcy. Then there are tax laws and regulations that are running businesses and people out of IL.
The problem I have with this is be really careful of what you wish for; a constitutional convention could be hijacked by the "progressive" parasites, say, replacing our First Amendment by a code for political correctness, and add FDR's second bill of [positive vs. negative] rights. As long as the GOP maintains sufficient strength in either chamber under the traditional amendment process, we can block the fascists from imposing their criminal mischief stripping our individual rights.
Republicans Durkin and Radogno support it along with Madigan and Cullerton. The radical conservatives on the Roberts Supreme Court are wrong. We should not let the richest people in our country buy our politicians. That's how they do it in Russia. IPI disagrees because they are owned by the richest people in the country.
Why should we be surprised that the local "progressive" troll believes in the censorship of corporate speech and didn't even bother reading your article [I did not include the group's interim response to the troll]
? At least as early as 1886, SCOTUS said, "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." When the fascist legislators banned the rights of any voluntary group to express themselves, it's a blatant violation of equal protection.
But beyond the troll's fundamental ignorance of the Constitution, the idea that rich men buy politicians or elections is all hat and no cattle. The parasitic redistributive discriminatory tax laws were not the results of rich people buying elections. Take, for instance, any politician of means, say Romney in 2008 and 2012; he failed twice to win the Presidency. Remember that cronies are politically agnostic; for instance, Wall Street backed The (Profligate) One in 2008. The only way we can address corruption of government is to lower the incentive, e.g., by shrinking government.
This not about limiting the free speech of individuals, but about equating corporations as people. The Citizens United decision of SCOTUS is viewed by many as giving corporations too much influence in elections.
Yes, it is about limiting free speech and an unconstitutional violation of equal protection. Disingenuously trying to define away people's free speech rights just because they join a group of others is intellectually dishonest. Citizens United is totally consistent with repeated SCOTUS affirmation of legal personhood of corporations throughout American history; recall that the issue in Citizens United was a PROHIBITION of corporate speech--while legislators picked and chose which groups were entitled to express their points of view. This process, in and of itself, is an unconstitional violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, without even discussing the fundamental liberty issue. But the bottom line is, the parasites promoting this point of view of restricting corporate speech are fundamentally anti-American at their core.
These guys aren't gonna make it with such a sinister bill. They'd need to get 3/5 of both Houses of the legislature to agree with the bill to make it even get out there for other states to vote upon. 2/3 of the states would need to propose it for it to go to Congress to be seriously considered. Then, 3/4 of the states would have to ratify it to amend the U.S. Constitution. At least 13 conservative states will no doubt say no and the thing will NOT become part of the U.S. Constitution.
There are two ways to change the Constitution--by amendment or a constitutional convention, which has never happened. The fascists are trying to do the latter. Let's hope nobody opens up Pandora's box of a constitutional convention.
There is a need to clean out the SCOTUS of baught and payed for Justice 's.
Parasitic "progressive" trolls are pathetic. Corporations are voluntary groups of people whom don't lose their rights when they join groups. SCOTUS has recognized these rights since, at minimum, the early nineteenth century--and I could see any SCOTUS coming to the same decision. Recall Citizens United was based on statutory discrimination against corporate rights.
It isn't just the Democrats. The Chicago political machine has gears and cogs from both parties. Springfield is just the pretend Capitol of Illinois. All the power is in corrupt Chicago. We need to either have Chicago declare itself its own district, or the new State of Chicago succeed from the state. As long as we vote for corrupt politicians from Chicago, the rest of the state will pay. There is too much big business interference and greed.
This is ludicrous. The Chicago GOP can't even get a dogcatcher elected. Trying to co-opt the GOP for decades of city mismanagement under the Chicago political machine is laughable. I have little doubt about corrupt Dem pols--but since when is the source of Chicago's problems "big business interference and greed"? Did Big Businesses cut unholy corrupt deals with the unions? Did Big Businesses fritter away city revenues? Give me a break!
Citizens United gives the Oligarchs and Big corporations unlimited ability to buy the government. This has nothing to do with free speech.
Nonsense--it basically restored the free speech rights of people whom form corporations against fascist double-standard censorship and was totally consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments and prior SCOTUS affirmation of corporate personhood rights. It is fundamentally un-American to restrict anyone's free speech rights. Most data I've seen show that unions are the biggest spenders on political speech post Citizens United. But the parasitic hypocritical "progressive" trolls aren't singling out the corrupt union cutting unsustainable deals on the taxpayers' backs..
Political Cartoon
[Well, the female donkey is in drag; they are "married". However, the cost of the ark has more than doubled since the original design, the jackasses demanded only union labor, and the GOP wants to upgrade it into an aircraft carrier...]
Musical Interlude: My iPod Shuffle Series
Agnetha Faltskog, "If I ever thought you'd change your mind". The blond former lead singer of ABBA probably wins my most replayed song award with this song the last time I checked my iTunes statistics. Because I stopped listening to radio probably around a decade ago (too much rap and other garbage clogging the top of the charts), I stumbled across this single a few years after its release. I sometimes prefer the more mature performances in a later career phase--I'm thinking of acts like Sinatra, Presley, Sedaka, Anka, Donny Osmond, and Elton John (I bet nobody has put these acts together in a list). I'm a natural tenor but I'll mix my singing approach depending on the material (e.g., I'll sometimes tap into my blue-eyed soul persona). I like to tap into my lower register during the transitional verses ("
But what use of flowers in the morning, when the garden they should grow in is not mine...")
