Category: property rights

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folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights responsibility too much government

Minimally Mugged By Reality

minimum wage, business, pay, workers, fallacy, profit, Bernie Sanders

It should shock no one: forcing businesses to pay steep minimum wages ends up pushing some businesses out … of business. Yesterday I looked at what minimum wage laws can do to low-​skilled workers. Today, consider the employers. When we make it harder to turn a profit, it becomes harder to profit. Businesses that can’t at least break even close their doors.

Many business owners are inclined to promote, politically, politicians who in turn support minimum wage hikes. Do they change their minds when mugged by reality? Alas, the trauma alone won’t convert a person to principled allegiance to free markets. 

I was reminded of this fact by a story about business owners in Minneapolis who stress their Sandernista credentials. 

“I’m a bleeding-​heart liberal and I’m a big Bernie Sanders supporter,” says businesswoman Jane Elias, an art store owner. “But this whole flat-​out, $15, one-​size-​fits all is just wrong.” Another victim, restaurant owner Heather Bray, says she’s a “proud, proud progressive.” But: “The arithmetic doesn’t work. People will not continue to go to budget-​conscious restaurants when they’re no longer budget-conscious.”

So … arbitrary minimum-​wage demands don’t add up in light of the demands of running their businesses under their particular circumstances. Well, no disagreement here. But take it further, please. Keep doing the math. The bottom line is that everybody, not just you — and always, not just sometimes — has the right to make his own decisions about his own life and property.

And profit by it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets general freedom local leaders national politics & policies political challengers property rights responsibility too much government

The Real ObamaCare Opposition

Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, ObamaCare, healthcare bill, opposition

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R‑Ky) has introduced a bill to compromise between the House’s recent Affordable Health Care Act and the current “ObamaCare” Affordable Care Act. Though there seems to be some “what the heck, go with it” enthusiasm for it on Capitol Hill, it’s not coming from Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah.

‘‘Currently, for a variety of reasons, we are not ready to vote for this bill,” their joint statement from yesterday reads. 

Their objections? Well, they agree that there are “provisions in this draft that represent an improvement to our current healthcare system but…”

— and this is a big but —

“it does not appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to Americans: to repeal Obamacare and lower their healthcare costs.’’ Their opposition, the Boston Globe tells us, puts the TrumpCare wannabe in jeopardy.

Dr. Rand Paul is the key figure in the opposition. One of Capitol Hill’s ongoing amusements has been to watch the junior Kentucky senator repeatedly pit himself against his state’s senior member — who, the Globe tells us, now threatens “to bring the bill to a vote next week even if he doesn’t have the necessary votes.”

Pressure tactics.

Which you need to put an obviously bad bill through Congress.

Too many mainstream Republican congressmen lack the courage of their constituents’ convictions. They apparently do not really believe that a freed-​up health care system and insurance market can work to the general good.

At least, not in time for the next election.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly free trade & free markets local leaders moral hazard nannyism property rights responsibility too much government

Housing Horror

Oregon, housing, rent control, urban, planning, low income, land, property rights

Housing in Oregon’s north-​central urban region is becoming more and more like San Francisco’s — out of the budgetary reach of huge swaths of average workers. 

“The median rental household can’t comfortably afford a two-​bedroom apartment in 28 of Oregon’s 36 counties,” Elliot Njus writes for The Oregonian. But it is worst in Portland and the three counties in the region: Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas. 

The findings come from a group called the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Njus quotes Alison McIntosh, of another group, the Neighborhood Partnerships, who not unreasonably concludes that “folks are really struggling to make ends meet.”

Well, yeah. This was predicted, long ago.

The state of Oregon began a comprehensive land-​use planning system, decades ago, to prevent urban sprawl. At about the same time the Portland-region’s three major counties began a concentrated effort to … concentrate populations within the area. Confine them. Regulate them. Economists and other critics* from the very beginning predicted rising housing costs. And other problems.

Now, of course, the usual groups react in precisely the wrong ways: rent control. The State House in Salem recently passed legislation to uncork rent control. Thankfully for renters, the Senate nixed the idea. 

But we can be sure this proven housing killer (a disaster where tried) will resurface. Common sense (as well as reams of economic research) tells folks how bad an idea this would be, exacerbating the problem it aims to solve.

Alas, some folks look at government more as magic than as just another flawed, human institution.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* One set of critics can be found at the Cascade Policy Institute, which describes Oregon’s land-​use regulatory system as “the nation’s most restrictive” — adding that “every square inch of Oregon has been zoned by government planners, with the result that development of any type is prohibited on most private land.”

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Accountability folly free trade & free markets general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall nannyism national politics & policies property rights responsibility too much government

Minimum Shock

minimum wage, closure, restaurant, business, prohibition, wages, pay, Berkeley, San Francisco

“Three restaurants vacated the Bay this week, with Berkeley’s Bistro Liaison getting the most attention,” the San Francisco edition of Eater informs us. “It’s a bittersweet exit for the owners, who plan to start new careers.”

The week in question was in February. But this was not an isolated event. Sixty-​four Bay-​area restaurants and fast food joints closed their doors this last winter.

That is a lot of closures.

Why?

Every eatery has a different story, but the entry December 17* provides a big clue: minimum wage hikes.

Citizens should hardly be surprised. They got what they asked for. The minimum wage went up to $13.00 per hour last July, and will go up another two bucks next year. And this was the result of a citizen initiative. “On November 4, 2014, San Francisco voters passed Proposition J, raising the minimum wage to $15.00 by 2018,” the City Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement tells us. 

And the thing about minimum wage laws is that they do not — either by magic or by law — directly raise any wages. They, by law and quite directly, prohibit wage contracts below the minimum established. 

Businesses then react, struggling to accommodate the newly imposed costs. Sometimes they keep all their employees and economize on other inputs, but often they must re-​arrange hours and workers and whole production schemes.

If hemmed in elsewhere, they just go out of business.

Just as one should expect, according to the law of supply and demand.**

Citizens might wish to reconsider. That is, initiate a measure to repeal a previously successful initiative … that gave us this unsuccessful policy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The entry reads thusly: “OAKLAND — alaMar Kitchen and Bar as you know it is shuttering on December 17, but will reopen in the new year with a fast casual format. The owner points to minimum wage raises and the cost of doing business in the Bay Area as the reasons cited for the closure/​change.”

** It is often said that businesses just “raise prices” and “pass along the costs” to consumers in general, but, for reasons of supply and demand, they cannot do this without decreasing sales and thus revenue.

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Accountability free trade & free markets general freedom national politics & policies property rights responsibility

Juicer Choosers

juicer, juice, silicon valley, innovation, risk, luxury, free markets, government waste, freedom

We all have our complaints about this company or that, this product or that.* And it is popular to rag on “consumerism” and the emptiness of “capitalism.” But put it into perspective: me “wasting money” on, say, an expensive juicer is nowhere near as offensive — that is, worth a rant, an excoriation, a philippic — than the government wasting money on … anything else. 

Or, for that matter, on juicers.

At this point, you may be wondering, “what’s with this juicer business?” 

Well, it is all about the hullabaloo regarding, er, a juicer business!

Juicero, to be precise.

The well-​funded-​at-​startup Silicon Valley biz makes the expensive Juicero Press. And news. Newsweek and Washington Post were just two major media outlets to lay into the company. They characterized Juicero and its product as a symbol of all that’s wrong with Silicon Valley.

Wow. What weight for one niche-​market company to bear.

While journalists in print and online fret over how Silicon Valley offers up empty gewgaws and gadgets for the “temporarily rich” — a few decades ago members of this class were excoriated as Yuppies — over at Star Slate Codex Scott Alexander reminds us that Silicon Valley does all sorts of things. 

One juicer cannot stand for everything else.

Besides, when “Capitol Hill screws up, tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis get killed,” Alexander writes. When “Silicon Valley screws up, people who want a pointless Wi-​Fi enabled juicer get a pointless Wi-​Fi enabled juicer.”**

Forcing many people to pay for dubious-​at-​best products, or enticing a few people to pay for harmless luxuries? You see why I prefer the latter. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* You should listen to me curse my computers! Or, on second thought, no. You shouldn’t.

** “Which by all accounts,” Alexander concludes, “makes pretty good juice.” Even if squeezing the company’s frozen packets yourself works just as well.

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Accountability folly general freedom moral hazard porkbarrel politics property rights responsibility tax policy too much government

No Rich No More

Connecticut, taxes, revenue, budget, tax and spend, wealth, common sense

Connecticut has a budget problem. There’s not enough money to spend.

WTNH-​TV in New Haven paraphrased the situation along with the response of Connecticut’s very progressive governor: “Income tax revenue collapses; Malloy says taxing the rich doesn’t work.”

The news story explains, “Connecticut’s state budget woes are compounding with collections from the state income tax collapsing, despite two high-​end tax hikes in the past six years.”

Hmmm. Despite the tax increases? Or … “because the state of Connecticut depends too much on its wealthy residents,” as the report continued, “and wealthy residents are leaving …”

A Yankee Institute report notes that “the exodus of wealth from the state as top earners and businesses relocate to more tax-​friendly states” is a major problem. Institute President Carol Platt Liebau calls it a “terrible cycle of tax increases followed by deficits followed by even more tax increases.” 

Yet, state legislative Democrats are back pushing more tax hikes on “the rich.” Senate legislation would jack up the tax rate — retroactively — on those with income of $500,000 or more. House legislation would slap a 19 percent surcharge on some hedge fund earnings. In response, the head of the Connecticut Hedge Fund Association testified that his “industry is populated by exactly that type of person that will move based on tax policy.”*

A song by Ten Years After comes to mind: 

Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more

Doesn’t sound like a good idea even in song.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* It’s worth noting that Gov. Malloy is now “against raising taxes again to fill the deficits and is instead focusing on spending cuts …”

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