It's pretty hard to be efficient without
being obnoxious.
Kin Hubbard
Pro-Liberty Quote of the Day
Superintendent in the People's Republic of California Living Large
HT Carpe Diem
Images of the Day
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| Via LFC |
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| Via Bastiat Institute |
For once I'm going to bash ABC This Week, working through a podcast backlog. (I now have a new 2-episode backlog on MTP so don't fret--I'm sure I'll have something to say about them.)
I'm not claiming the comments I'm about to discuss are necessarily exclusive. Stephanopoulos, although a social liberal like Gregory, is modestly more balanced and more likely to challenge "progressive" orthodoxy. But the basic themes go basically unchallenged. Just to pick a starting point, the intellectually vacuous talking point that a very few people have made out very well over the last couple of decades while the middle class has been pummeled. There is no doubt that some companies, like Apple, Google, and Facebook, have done very well, but let's point out employment gains since 2000 have been mediocre at best: the issue is not a zero-sum game where corporate heads are maxing out compensation at the expense of other company employees. Whereas I think it's hard to justify multi-million contracts, particularly for companies showing mediocre growth and middling industry performance, let us remember there is a limited pool of executive talent, managerial skills and expertise and industry background. Companies like Whole Foods, Ben and Jerry's and others, which sought to cap executive salaries to some "progressive"-acceptable multiples to other employees, found that their top executive talent were being poached by rival companies or uncompetitive compensation levels left them unable to compete for top talent. Make no mistake: the wrong executive leadership can lead a company down the road to bankruptcy and potentially the loss of everyone's job. On the other hand, occupations requiring limited training and skill are more competitive and reflect their own markets. It's not a matter of "fairness", but paying at a market-clearing rate. If you pay below market, you will find it hard to retain or attract qualified talent.
The minimum wage in the US has only been around since 1938; we have found a clear relationship between wages and productivity, before and after federal policy changes. It wasn't "progressive" politicians that led Ford in 1913 to double wages to $5/day (after profits had doubled). How do we explain higher wages, say, for largely manual skills like haircutting? In essence, labor competition, which reflects a more robust economy and capital investment. Mark Perry in the Carpe Diem blog has pointed out shale oil hub Williston, ND not only has oilfield workers pulling in 6 figures, but fast food jobs go for maybe twice the minimum wage, not because of public policy--but despite it, because of Obama's anti-fossil fuel policies.
The "progressive" sophists put the cart before the horse. This economy should have been generating over 1M jobs a year since 2000; instead, Bush ended up with just over a million after his share of the Great Recession, and those were primarily in the public sector. Obama's tenure has barely treaded water--and he has responded by adding thousands of regulations, employer mandates, not to mention morally hazardous policies on unemployment insurance, food stamp nation, etc. Even his immigration policies are oriented more towards legalizing past unauthorized visitors than fixing a broken temporary worker program, mostly an accommodation to his crony union interests which have a vested interest in reducing the number of workers (something also resulting from raising the minimum wage).
Other talking points include misleading statistics on Obama's vs predecessor executive orders (Obama has explicitly threatened using executive orders to get his way if the Congress doesn't rubber-stamp his agenda, which is unconstitutional on its face--it's not the quantity but the lawless nature of what he's doing--including enforcing only laws he personally agrees with), the number of filibusters (once again, this is an artifact of Reid's gamesmanship in forcing votes and limiting opposition amendments), GOP "obstructionists" (as if Reid's not allowing floor votes on passed House bills is constructive...), the GOP doesn't have a plan, strategy. (Apparently cutting the excess spending crowding out investments in the real economy doesn't count, streamlining government, reducing the tax burden on the economy, auditing the Fed, alleviating regulatory drag on the economy, etc. doesn't count.) Hearing the "progressives" cackle over the fact the House and Senate GOP leadership allowed a "clean" budget/debt bill (and put the "Tea Party" in its place) is so nauseating; absolutely no discussion of Obama raising the national debt by 60%--and he still has 3 years in office, no credible budget reduction plan. No discussion of entitlement reform despite the fact it accounts for an increasing 60% of the budget, nearly $80T or more in unfunded liabilities.
There's also talk about Lizzie Warren's pathetic populist attacks on Wall Street, as if banking and other financial sector members haven't been the most regulated industry over the past century. The GSE's and the FHA have basically squeezed out the private sector from the home mortgage market. Yet many of the government guarantee programs--name it: flood, pension, etc.); where is Cherokee Lizzie when it comes to government Ponzi scheme entitlement, government guaratees, etc.? Who saves us from the government fraudsters? Heaven knows if the private sector did the same, Lizzie would be all over it.
Then there was the suggestion that the GOP should consider a Wall Street-bashing campaign. I'll have to admit the thought crossed my mind with the GS CEO talking about redistribution as an "income inequality" strategy. Goldman Sachs--which was made whole on its derivative trades with bankrupt AIG--works in a sector which has grown at the expense of other economic sectors; GS doesn't make widgets. The only reason I don't go after Wall Street more is because I think a lot of it reflects bad public sector policy.
Facebook Corner
(Illinois Policy Institute). College of DuPage Trustee Dianne McGuire referred to her $79,400 pension as "limited income" when responding to a Daily Herald investigation that discovered taxpayers paid $970 in mileage reimbursements over two years to get McGuire from her home to campus meetings and back again some 69 times.
Maybe she was comparing her pension to the California $100K pension club...
(Illinois Policy Institute). When it comes to local taxing bodies and local property taxes, Illinois is an extreme outlier in comparison to the rest of the nation. We rank first in number of local taxing bodies, with nearly 7,000, and have the 2nd-highest property tax rate in the nation.
Give Quinn and the local taxing bodies time, and they'll take the leadership in the property tax rate, too.
(Reason). Should the government coercively sanction business owners who, out of apparent religious conviction, refuse to serve particular customers?
I think Richmond is on stronger ground when he argues (as I restate it) that religious freedom is only one aspect of economic liberty. But this conceptual inconsistency dates back, at minimum, to the unconscionable Footnote 4.
Unlike Richmond, I don't feel the need to appease the god of political correctness and speak of boycotts against bakers or photographers; in fact, Richmond barely addresses the New Mexico judgment against economic liberty, regardless of reason (or no reason). Let us not forget, for instance, that Jim Crow laws to a certain extent were a reaction to bad government policy, heavy-handed Reconstruction/occupation and an unnecessary, divisive war. I prefer to think of vendors leaving money on the table as an entrepreneurial opportunity.
Brewer's hairdresser (a lesbian) has decided to refuse service, and dropped her as a customer, because she says Brewer is homophobic. Ohhh, the irony.
I'm sure that pitching a little temper tantrum by turning away a celebrity client and an opportunity to discuss her own views with a captive lawmaker was totally worth it...
As long as you support me when I refuse to serve stupid Christians. How do you like that for an answer?
[Troll] is entitled to his own opinion on Christianity. When John the Baptist was beheaded over his opinions on the institution of marriage, he was not bowing to the god of political correctness. When [troll] talks about refusing to service "stupid Christians", he demonstrates his own hypocritical vision of Christianity...
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| Courtesy of Illinois Policy Institute |
Nonsense. What attracts workers of any type--including unauthorized workers--is economic growth; and that certainly isn't happening with anti-business public policy in Illinois. Scapegoating hard-working people contributing to the economy is counterproductive.
Stay the course! The current policies are working nicely! Reelect Quinn, Cullerton, Madigan and all the downstate Democrats that support them and their policies. :-)
I think they hope their favorite son Glorious Leader in DC will bail their asses out...
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| Via LFC |
(Catholics For a Free Market). Seems the lack of empathy of the OP is the problem. How often is evangelization harmed because we do not attempt to meet people where they are instead of where we are? [The context is a thread started by a libertarian whom decided to poke a "progressive" bear with a stick.]
Regarding the "doctor exception": certainly one's unalienable right to life has priority (except, apparently, in the cases of the preborn). But a few years back, a doctor dropped me as a patient because I showed up a few minutes late to discuss my latest bloodwork--his appointment, not mine (traffic jam). Keep in mind I did not have an exclusive appointment--I usually had to wait 15-20 minutes until he got around to me in the round robin of examination rooms. This eventually led to a 3-month deferral of an outpatient procedure to deal with an intensely painful problem because the surgeon scrubbed the originally-scheduled operation in the absence of a personal physician (I found out the doctor had dropped me only when I discovered the operation had been scrubbed--the surgeon hadn't contacted me on her own, but I followed up when I didn't get a promised pre-operation mailing by early operation week). In the long run, it was for the best because my new doctor was physically closer, more competent, and patient-friendly.
I do think that doctors have economic freedom, the right to refuse patients under ordinary circumstances, if for no other reason than an excessive work burden puts the health of other patients at risk. Certainly a doctor has a right to cut off deadbeat or hostile patients. At the same time he has professional commitments and his reputation, his oath of service: I don't think we need to micromanage the activities of doctors using the State. A doctor with bad business practices is going to have a hard time keeping or attracting new patients.
To Danielle's question: how do we show laws do not make people moral? We imprison proportionately more people than any other advanced economy, 40 years after a War on Drugs was declared. Nearly 40% of births are illegitimate. According to most polls, the majority of American Catholics don't accept the Church's teachings on artificial birth control, divorce, abortion, and "gay marriage".
(LFC). References an essay I discussed in yesterday's post. I'm responding to a rambling "progressive" rant that starts weaving a tale of a vast right-wing anti-gay conspiracy in Arizona and the need for the government to step in.
What a load of pretentious crap! Most businesses only care about the green in your wallet; they don't give a crap about what you do behind closed doors. I have't heard a single incident of all these exaggerated fears of gays dying in the Arizona desert because businesses wanted to leave their money on the table.
Maybe the issue isn't being gay, but a smug, morally self-superior, condescending, judgmental, insulting prick that nobody wants to be around. This is all about some troublemaking jerks whom couldn't stand that a mere baker or photographer didn't want to do business with them. It didn't matter they found other businesses willing to do business with them: they wanted to impose political correctness on the original vendor. GET A FREAKING LIFE!
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Bob Gorrell and Townhall |
Jackson Browne, "Somebody's Baby".
