Analytics

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Miscellany: 9/20/16

Quote of the Day
The toughest thing about success is 
that you've got to keep on being a success. 
Talent is only a starting point in this business. 
You've got to keep on working that talent. 
Someday I'll reach for it and it won't be there.
Irving Berlin

Tweet of the Day
Why Not Economic Liberty?



Former Cabbie Economist Walter Williams On the Taxi Monopoly



Facebook Corner

(National Review). Never #NeverTrump.
Always #NeverTrump. Voting for a former liberal Democrat who supported HRC in 2008 and then Obama is a fundamental violation of the GOP market-friendly agenda for decades. Trump's embrace of protectionism and anti-immigration is even more radical than Clinton's. I don't believe for a second anything this con man trying to buy the Presidency on the cheap says, and VDH is nothing more than a Vichy Republican.

Don Boudreaux, "More Silly Arguments About Walmart": Thumbs UP!

I don't know if there is a more preposterous, illogical, ideological argument ever than this contrived "progressive" argument that argues that Walmart is using the existence of a social welfare net to essentially subsidize allegedly underpaid employees. Don Boudreaux eviscerates this fiction quite nicely; I just want to make some complementary observations.

First, an employer really doesn't care from a business standpoint what you do or your family circumstances outside the conditions of your employment agreement. (Yes, as a human being, a manager may value work-related relationships and empathize personally with employee hardships, but this is about business: he expects productivity and results commensurate with his compensation to you, but he's not operating a charity. By the way, for the sake of ideological feminists, I use 'he' in a generic sense; there are female owners and managers.) If I need someone to mop my fast food stores, whether it's a 16-year-old or a 50-year-old, the skill is easily learned, and if their pace and quality of work is comparable, the pay may be comparable. But that 16 yo is likely a dependent, not head of household; it may well be that his compensation is tied to entertainment and incidental expenses. The 50 yo may be the spouse of a highly paid professional worker who makes more than enough for a family to live on. So this subsidize argument doesn't really work; yes, some people with a limited skill set may have dependents, but they are competing with a larger pool of workers, including optional workers, for low-skilled opportunities. But your having 4 kids (other than experience cleaning up after spills, etc.) doesn't tell me anything about how well you mop a floor. Just because you have high expenses doesn't mean I "owe" you more than the amount  the business values mopping floors: for example, the business didn't make the decision for you to marry and have a family. Why should I pay you more than my 16 yo employee, who is an excellent janitor? I care about the fact the floors are mopped, not how you spend the money you earned working for me. (The solution for breadwinners is to upgrade skills, e.g., through education or training.)

Second, Walmart competes with OTHER employers for low-skilled workers. These include smaller businesses. If Walmart did not pay comparably, it would not be able to operate its stores. (The point is that the demagogue progressives don't attack the small businesses hiring low-skilled on a comparable basis.) In fact, many jobs at Walmart pay well over the minimum wage. In fact, large businesses hire only a limited number of low-skilled workers and unlike smaller competitors are better able to cope with anti-worker minimum wage laws:
Contrary to the rhetoric of organized labor and its allies, the vast majority of people earning the minimum wage aren’t working at large corporations with 1,000 or more employees. Roughly half the minimum-wage workforce is employed at businesses with fewer than 100 employees, and 40% are at very small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
Profit margins are determined more by the business model than the size. According to Deloitte’s Restaurant Industry Operations Report, the median profit margin at an independently owned fast-food restaurant is 2.6%—and only about a percentage point more at a corporately-owned location. 
Political Cartoon
Courtesy of Jerry Holbert via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Rita Coolidge, "Fool That I Am"

Posted by at
Labels: , , , ,