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Sunday, November 16, 2014

Miscellany: 11/16/14

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Via Libertarian Republic
Ann Coulter would flunk an Econ 101 class and is not a libertarian. It is true that assuming an authoritarian regime could manipulate the labor force artificial shortages could force some wages higher, although the employer may respond by cutting staff or hours and/or require greater productivity of existing staff. In no case will an employer hire an overpriced worker if the employee doesn't contribute enough value to cover his or her costs; if I can't make a go of the business given prices and costs, I go out of business, which lowers the demand for labor.

The statistics I've seen put undocumented worker median household income at roughly $36,000 (roughly $18/hour assuming 2000 man-hours/year). Ms. Coulter ignores the fact of reverse-migration during the great recession, that roughly only about 2% of jobs are minimum wage, that immigrants are more likely to move to where jobs are available, and most studies show only a temporary 4% or so effect on lower wage prices (the deeper labor pool can facilitate local economic growth).

Coulter is simply adopting the same positions of Big Labor and occupational cartels, creatures sustained by the corrupt State. Minimum wages simply deny people from gainful employment at a lower market-clearing rate. Immigration policies are fundamentally constraints on businesses from getting the resources they need to compete on the global scale. Coulter might as well argue that American oil would sell for a lot more if we closed the door to foreign imports of oil (with about a third of our daily usage from foreign sources).
Ann is right. Go to North Dakota, worker shortage forcing wal-mart's and McDonald's to pay $17+ per hour. Secure borders, send illegals home, reopen Ellis Island and do immigration the right way
What you aren't telling people about is the high 5/6-figure income of Williston oilfield workers, truck drivers, etc., the lack of infrastructure locally (apartments, etc.), and higher prices. Go to Silicon Valley where I lived about 18 months at the turn of the century; real estate, rent and everything (groceries, movie tickets, etc.) was much higher. The question is where do the workers come from if they can't afford to live in the area? Don't use anomalies to illustrate your point. You also don't point out that you are hypocritically telling workers they can migrate to ND, while depriving the same right to others.


Ann is WRONG. Using the government to manipulate the labor force is no better than the unions and leftists. You grow the economy through economically liberal policies. Stop reciting retarded talking points about securing borders, etc. What we need is to get government out of the way of voluntary contracts between employers and workers, wherever they are. If you don't own a business, shut up about imposing conditions on who employers can hire--it's none of your damn business.


The title of the program is the Affordable Care Act. I say BS. The only ones who can afford it are the ones who created it. I pay $1700 a month for family coverage with double the deductibles since the act became law. My husband and I have worked our entire lives and are forced to pay for those who do not for whatever reason. [Responding to troll] My coverage has not changed. I have PPO United Health Care through my employer. I was paying $800 a month prior and I can expect a 9 percent increase moving forward. The burden has been placed on the middle class once again. Ironically, I work in healthcare. Lol.
Don't pay any attention to the "progressive" economically illiterate troll. It's all bullshit. This is what all the current kerfuffle over the Gruber ("stupidity of the American voter") revelations are all about. Community rating and no preexisting conditions are all about subsidizing coverage for politically protected groups (at the expense of others). The "progressives" would have the gullible believe that the government is able to run the healthcare system more "efficiently" which will make the difference, but when you force insurers to write insurance for money-losing policyholders from day 1, either the government has to directly subsidize them or the insurer has to make up the difference from other policyholders. When an insurer charges you more than your health risk group warrants, you might balk and look at other health care providers and/or self-insure/pay out of pocket. But the government knows that and blocks it through mandate, i.e., you have to buy overpriced insurance from someone and the government behind the scenes redistributes money if any one vendor attracts too many money-losing policyholders. 

Now the troll will disingenuously argue that the special interest benefit mandates (like "free" birth control) leave you with "better" healthcare coverage, but the bottomline is that "free" birth control or preventive care is paid for policyholders, whether or not they need it--e.g., instead of choosing your birth control from multiple local suppliers, you have to get it through your insurance carrier and they have to handle administrative costs.

This is why Gruber points out the American voters were "stupid"--if the federal government, instead of insurance policyholders, were forced to pay the costs of the cross-subsidized policyholders, they would have had to raise taxes, and voters would have balked. So, instead, they force you to buy overpriced insurance at the point of a gun, which basically means you are being implicitly taxed through insurance companies but it doesn't hit the government's books.
Seems like people are mad about the ACA and don't realize that the government has been making us do this for decades, called Social security and Medicare.. also why are people complaining about health care and are not complaining about the fact that we are already required to pay hundreds of dollars a month for car insurance and homeowners insurance that the majority of us do not actually use.. I could save over $4000 a year if I wasn't required by law to carry car and homeowners insurance
Social security and Medicare are GOVERNMENT-RUN Ponzi schemes, over $80T in unfunded liabilities. Only certain auto insurance coverages are mandatory by states--i.e., liability for things like bodily injury and property damage while driving. I'm not a homeowner, but I don't believe homeowners insurance is required unless your mortgage lender requires it. 

Only a know-nothing troll could confuse the concept of insurance, which involves the concept of low, shared risk, and the fascist concepts of social security and ObamaCare. These are not insurance per se, because most people will live to retirement or use health services. True health insurance covers things like low-risk, catastrophic conditions, like cancer. Most healthy people can handle health expenses out of pocket and only need coverage for low-risk conditions. ObamaCare doesn't let you just pay for what you want or need. If you are healthy, you are forced to subsidize other people's current health care; it's not health insurance: it's a redistribution scheme.

Via Libertarian Republic
The American voters were more voting against Bush and for economic security, not that fetid concoction of Congressional sausage making.


Actually net neutrality is probably the first thing Obama has gotten right. I don't want some company controlling my access just because I don't agree with their opinion.
The libertarians-in-name-only spamming this thread with corporation-bashing are unprincipled. Corporations made the investments to bring broadband to the masses--and wireless, not through some elitist State intervention. What we need to do is to encourage innovation and competition, not micromanage how business manage their bandwidth constraints. We don't micromanage how supermarkets manage their checkout queues; they know they have competition and will lose customers if they don't provide the right merchandise, prices, and service. Pushing on a string oversight ignores the reality of regulatory capture and government inertia. If you thought the Internet sucked up to now with Netflix users hogging bandwidth, wait until the government regulates it to a crawl.

(Ron Paul). Will Obama’s executive order benefit the economy or create a constitutional crisis? ––> http://bit.ly/1yFqTIQ ‪#‎immigration‬ ‪#‎tlot‬
I can't believe this discussion is off a thread to "Voices of Liberty". True pro-liberty advocates would not be endorsing an obsolete quota on immigrants, the lack of a legitimate temporary worker program, arbitrary restrictions on migration and employers, splitting families... I am very aware of the fact that Obama is unilaterally changing policy which is beyond his Constitutional powers; I know it's totally political and unprincipled. But let me point out that the House has yet to pass relevant legislation. That's not a justification for Obama's lawlessness; he has failed to negotiate with the House in good faith.

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