MInimum Wage Nightmare

I just heard on the news this morning (accidentally while looking for today's weather), that California's politicians approved a $15 per hour minimum wage. They call it "economic justice". I call it "economic illiteracy". California politicians say they want to "be an example to the rest of the nation". OMG help us!

This is a sad example of "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen", which the great economist Frédéric Bastiat wrote about over a hundred years ago. The benefit to those who get those $15 per hour jobs is highly visible and highly touted in the Political Theater. What remains invisible and are all the jobs that are lost when companies have to cut the bottom-end and entry-level jobs in order to pay the raised wages. What is not seen are the entry level jobs and new small business that simply never get started because labor costs are too high. 


What is hidden from view is the fact that higher labor costs force companies to automate much of their entry-level jobs that formerly were a step up for many of the most needy in our society. The automation we encounter at gas pumps and grocery store check-outs is a direct result of minimum wage laws. When government uses force to impose higher wage prices on business, owners and managers look for ways to cut costs. Automation is one way to cut labor costs. Minimum wage means jobs will be cut. The other invisible cost is the necessary increase in end prices to consumers - that mostly hurts those who can least afford it - the elderly, the disabled, and the poor.


And we sill haven't learned. Liberals haven't learned. Conservatives haven't learned. 
The Left claims to care about the poor and downtrodden and "economic justice". Yet they mostly care about what LOOKS like a good idea. Never mind that minimum wage laws hurt the most poor and the most helpless in society. Leftists wring their hands over the growing gap between the 1% and the 99%, yet minimum wage laws create and feed that unnatural divide between the haves and have-nots, a divide which the free market could NEVER create on its own.


The Right claims to be in favor of limited government and free markets. But, they contradict that principle by their belief in the need for a "mixed" or "controlled" economy. The minimum wage laws expand the power of Big Brother, and enable more and more regulations to be piled on top of the small businesses that the Right Wing claims to support.


Sorry folks, you can't make the world better with force.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/01/walter-e-williams/bunch-liars-minimum-wage/

Fixing Government

Why is the wish to “fix government” so universal, and the wish to find an alternate system so rare? In my view, the alternative system is right under our noses. (hint: it starts with "Free" and ends with "Market")

This reluctance to search for what is right under our noses is what perpetuates the idiocy of big central government: it goes and goes, grows and grows... We keep searching for a way to make government work "the way it should work".

The hope that energizes this "political way of doing things" is that we can eventually find a way for "Representative Government" to work as a truly fair and just "representative" system. We've only been working on it since Greece 750BC. Just a few more years, and we'll get it right. How stupid are we??

I'm convinced it's not "stupidity", it's emotional blockage from being immersed in this idea through popular media, bad parenting, religion, education, and culture in general.

We have been taught from childhood that Representative Constitutional Democratic Central Government is the cat's meow. After we grow up, we see that things don't really work as well as we were led to believe. We see that all of our biggest problems can be traced back to government meddling.

Both Left and Right see this "broken system" clearly. But the solution is muddled by emotional thinking, which is not “thinking” at all. Each side is scared of the other side gaining power. But what both sides fear most is questioning the idea of “representative government”. They're happy to chop away at the branches of the problem, but they don't dare Strike the Root. That would require too much introspection and empathy.

Even after our political system lets us down so completely, we still can't bring ourselves to dare think about dumping the system. We feel like government is the framework of society.

Without government we would have no roads, no mail, no charity, no environmental protection, no protection from alien invaders, no communication, no protection from criminals, no recreational parks, no protection from greedy businessmen, no way to enforce private contracts. And on and on.

So, we spin our wheels trying to fix the system. We set up opposing parties, one that cares more about social justice and equality and another that cares more about protection and productivity (notice that liberal concerns are motherly and conservative concerns are fatherly).

One side blames the other side for every thing that is wrong in the world. This is just a foil to repress the consciousness of the answer under our noses. No conspiracy necessary. Our psychological block is so strong that we are blind to the big picture. We all grow up immersed in a culture of dominance - of "Might Makes Right".

"I have seen the enemy, and he is us".

The "let's try to fix it" foil has developed over the years to the point where both right and left actually admit that the answer lies under our noses. The Right asserts love for the free market and family values, the Left asserts love for community and charity. But it's a half-hearted assertion.

If they really had this great faith in community, charity, free markets, and family values, they would stop supporting the iron fist of the government, and let these things blossom on their own. Society would thrive without government programs "assisting" these natural and voluntary arrangements of mutual assistance.

The Pledge Of Allegiance

Republican politicians love the Pledge of Allegiance. There are at least three things wrong the Pledge of Allegiance, even from the Conservative point-of-view.

1. The pledge was written by the socialist, Francis Bellamy. The original intent was to include the word "equality" along with "liberty and justice for all". The Pledge has been change a couple times already; if they put in the word "equality" will you still think the Pledge is somehow a good idea? I would think we want to inculcate into our kids a spirit of self reliance and tolerance. The pledge teaches Orwellian (even Hitlerian) "group-think" and "God is on our side". In later years, this attitude blossoms into the ugly attitude of "America, Love It or Leave It". If "love it or leave it" was a principle of the founders, there would be no provision for amending the U.S. Constitution.

2. Oaths of Allegiance are a hallmark of tyrannies throughout history. There is no place for "oaths of allegiance" in a country that calls itself free and just (and Christian). Many Christian churches originally (and correctly) opposed the Pledge of Allegiance. The Catholic Knights of Columbus led the movement to add the words "under God", in the spirit of "if we can't beat them, we'll join them".

3. Most importantly, the brouhaha over the Pledge and "under God" is nothing but a distraction from more important issues. Socialist propaganda always hammers on the petty fears and populist trivia in order to distract from the real political issues (state, federal, and local) that are destroying families and businesses, i.e., Regulation, Welfare, Wars, Taxes, Laws, Corporate Welfare, Taxes, Wars, Taxes, ...

I'm sure most voters would know very little about any of these historical or economic realities. They live in a world of "let's pretend that if we get our kids to memorize a few words (especially with the word "God" in there someplace), they will grow up to be better citizens and better Christians". Never mind that the long-term effect of such oaths is a general devotion to collectivist thinking. Ironically for conservative pledge-promoters, collectivism is antithetical to "liberty and justice for all".

Conservatives jump on the Pledge Of Allegiance bandwagon to get the attention of patriotic voters who were taught to have reverence “for God and Country”. But voting Republican instead of Democrat simply means heading for Socialism at 80mph instead of 100mph.

Democrats are "tax and spend", forcing us to live with a crippled economy. / Republicans are "borrow, print more money, and spend", forcing our children to live with a crippled economy.