The Biden Riots Have Started

 

 There is a palpable fear on the left that each new spasm of rioting and violence in the streets will drive more people away from their side. While Joe Biden himself is not tossing bricks and setting fire to police cars, his Democratic Party is the home of those who would excuse the rioters while Republicans are more likely to condemn street violence. It is natural that people who oppose anarchy in their cities and towns might consider voting for the candidate who does the same.

Progressives have fostered these protest organizations.  Now that they are in power will they be able to control them? They may find that they have created a Frankenstein's monster.  Does it seem like Democrats are deaf-mutes when it comes to speaking clearly against the rioting going on right now?  Ultimately this connects to the contempt most liberal Democrats have for the country, and have had for a long time.

There are many reasons why the demonstrations will not be easy to stop.  Social injustice and police brutality are only a small part of the reason for demonstrating.  Many people riot to escape boredom which has been intense with the Corona lockdown. Many view riots as a fun pastime.  Riots can also be an opportunity to pick up some new tennis shoes or a wide screen TV. There are few penalties for rioting and some municipalities actually encourage protests.

 

 Oregon and Washington state and local politicians are unable to control violence in Portland and Seattle. Or do they encourage criminal behavior or do they ignore it?  Both cities have been rocked with criminal violence in the guise of civil protest.  The Oregon and Washington newspapers and Democratic state and city officials pretend there is no relevant criminal conduct nor riots nor accompanying damages and injuries occurring daily in Portland and Seattle and environs.  President Joe Biden was and is a favorite of the news media, so these events were not reported.

American citizens ask, "Aren't the rioting and looting in Oregon and Washington causing personal injury and property damage, and still violent criminal conduct is not prosecuted?"

The political denizens of Portland and Seattle appear to believe that rioting and property destruction are accepted forms of protest. They further believe these protests will awaken the nation to the need for, and the acceptance of, a radical socialist government.

The rioters in Portland, Seattle and a few other cities appear to be a mixed bag — antifa, anarchists, communists, socialists, and other far-left groups. The leading faction seems to be the socialists, and they are encouraged by U.S. congressional types and Biden administration personal espousing socialist-leaning views and dogma.

 

 

 

A question to be answered is: Will the Biden administration take appropriate action when federal employees and/or property are harmed? Or will the Biden administration cower and excuse the rioting, looting and assaults with the accompanying property damage and personal injury, as the Oregon and Washington state and local officials do?

The most important questions are: Will federal, state and local officials prosecute those who committed criminal offenses? Or ignore them?  It would also help if Democrats, including some of Kamala Harris’s staff apparently, hadn’t contributed to fund drives to bail out protesters and rioters in the few places where bail is being set.

 No matter how hard Biden pulls to the left, he will never pull far enough for the anarchists whom the Democrat party coddled throughout 2020.  He'll quickly discover that the hard leftists he insisted were just "an idea" are in fact real and a problem for him.

More on the $15 an hour wage

 

The average US CEO makes 319 times what the average worker at his company makes whereas the average Japanese CEO makes about 20 times what his average worker earns. There is no "productivity" explanation for that difference Second, Henry Ford years ago taught that for the economy to work, he needed to pay his workers enough money so that they could buy his cars. The economy fails when workers are underpaid.

 A couple more responses from web articles follow:

Article: " Employers do not hire people who cannot produce more in work product than they cost. Teenagers, and other young people, often have not developed the job skills to be worth more than a very low wage."

Response: I guess this sounds good if your sitting in a fancy office somewhere and your detached from reality.  In reality though, you need to ask the question: who will do the work at your business?  Most businesses need employees, it is really a basic need.  So sure a business owner might sit back and say that young people are not worth hiring as employees.  That business owner can then try and only hire older people.  That might work, or maybe not.  In most cases the business owner won't have much choice other then to hire anyone that applies for the job.  The basic truth is that most businesses need employees.  

 The whole talk of "skills" is just a smokescreen, at best.  You can say many jobs don't take "a lot of any skill", but that is not really the point.  The job NEEDS to be done.  It does not take much of any skill to make a basic hamburger or toss out a bag of trash: but you do need to have someone do it.  So this puts the "value" of an employee at the simple fact that your business would not even exist if that employee was not there working.  

Article: "Assume the deck on your house needs to be painted, and the teenage girl next door is willing to do it for $8/hr., so you hire her. But if the government says you must pay her $15 an hour, you might decide to paint it yourself or let it go for another year. The teenager is left without a job to help pay for her schooling, and you have a less attractive deck."

 

Response:  This is a good enough example.   Though note it's an elective job task, something that does not have an immediate need to be done, but we will get back to that.  So sure if you want to be greedy and rant and rave you can scream that you will never pay an unskilled teenage girl $15 an hour to paint your deck.  So sure you can just leave the deck unpainted another year.  Though you do want the deck painted.  Sure you could do it yourself, but that is a big investment of time and work.  You could do it if you really wanted to get it done.  Painting a deck is a lot of work and can take hours, maybe even days, and many people won't want to put in all that effort.  Suddenly paying someone else to do it might sound a bit better when your tired and half covered in paint.

Also, note this example is an elective job task.  It's something you don't have an immediate need to get done.  It's something you can put off, or even not do for a whole year.  If the task is not elective, it very much changes things.  Take babysitting.  You want to go to work, but obviously need someone to care for your two year old child while you are at work.  If this person wants to rant and rave and say that they will never pay a teenage girl $15 an hour to babysit, and can't find a highly skilled professional babysitter, what will they do?  Quit their job?  

Article: "In order to comply with a higher minimum wage, a business has two choices: cut hours or increase sales."

Response: Again, the old tired binary that a business only has two choices.  In reality, they have many.  The big one never mentioned, is the business can make less profit.  Maybe the owner(s) might need to sell a mansion or yacht or two. The business can also scale back or become more efficient.  

Article-"A $15 federal minimum wage translates into over $36,000 per year in wages and mandated taxes and benefits paid by employers. That means that any jobs that don’t produce at least $36,000 per year in goods and services will eventually be eliminated — either because businesses close their doors, outsource their labor or automate low-skilled jobs."

Response-Again, when faced with going out of business forever, I'll bet businesses will get some new math.  Suddenly that job, no matter how simple and unskilled, will be worth keeping the business open.

 

Article: " That’s why even liberal economists and the nonpartisan CBO caution that a $15 federal minimum wage would lead to a survival-of-the-fittest labor market, reduce future incomes and disproportionately harm African Americans and women."

Response: Well, this might shock some people but the current world is a survival-of-the-fittest labor market, with reduced future incomes and does disproportionately harm African Americans and women.  So what would change?

Less than 1% of the spend of businesses, on average, goes to paying minimum wage workers. They have already had a $15 minimum wage in lots of places, for years now in some cases, including lots of rural areas, and no issues.

This isn't about some actual concern about the cost to businesses it, it is about Republicans getting satisfaction from keeping people poor. Some Republican who makes $20/hour now feels better about themselves if they know that they make 250% as much as somebody flipping burgers, and they think they would feel less good about themselves if they made 133% as much as somebody flipping burgers... That isn't a real reason to base policy on.

Why has wealth concentrated over the last forty years?
Why has the middle class shrunk and the gap between the elite and the middle class gotten wider and wider, even accelerating under Trump?
Why has economic mobility all but ended for this generation and certainly for the one coming up?
Lots of reasons, but freezing the minimum wage and reducing support for education are two very significant reasons.

 

 

Money is an instrument of exchange. It belongs to nobody but the government who produces it, maintains the markets for "money", the flow of dollars has a cost ... that cost is deferred by good fiscal policy that means money, cash ... is circulated. Each circulation is a positive for the economy.

Allowing large corporations to hoard cash while their employees come to the government for basic services is an obscene result of our politicians who've drunk the trickle-down economic theories that have failed miserably.

So yes ... back to the employers is a very important aspect. If their employees are paid poorly .. their profits should pay for all those services given until the markets decide they aren't doing their part to make cash flow. For every corporation that falls on their face ... there are entrepreneurs who'd gladly step in.

Ohio restaurant owner rips Biden's embrace of $15 minimum wage as bad for business

      This is a response to the article here:  Article

 

 

      From the Article: Adrian Adornetto, who owns three pizza restaurants in Ohio  that the costs of a higher minimum wage would put "extra pressure" on struggling small businesses.  He called consideration of such a move during the coronavirus pandemic "bad timing."

     Response:  Well, it has always been "bad timing", right?  There has NEVER been a good time for a small business to pay their workers even close to a living wage, right?  I'm sure  Adrian Adornetto would have 100% opposed a $15 a hour minimum wage even back in 2019 before the pandemic.  And I wonder when would be a good time? 

      From the Article: "It will do several things to my business and my employees. I’ll most likely be cutting hours back. I'm in the pizza business, so that $12 pizza may grow to a $19 pizza, and in my part of Ohio that’s very expensive," Adornetto said. 

 

     Response:  Of course we have the same old threats of cutting employees hours and as always raising prices.   The cutting hours is always silly.  He owns three pizza shops, and he will need employees there from opening to close.  Most pizza shops are open from lunch time to late night, maybe ten to twelve hours at a minimum.  He can't "cut" too many workers, as then how will his pizza shops make any money?  If he does "cut" down to having say just one employee, he simply will make no money, as one person can't do all the work.  

     And, as always, raising prices.  Of course, for most of us a pizza already costs over $20.  I guess the $12 pizza he is giving as an example is a small cheese only pizza.  Really though, just let him raise his pizzas up to $30 or $40.  I'll bet no one will buy them and he will quickly be out of business

 

     From the Article:  He said his business went through tough "obstacles" amid the pandemic, and a minimum wage increase right now is "unthinkable."

Response: Paying your workers less then a living wage is "unthinkable".

 

     A comment:  Salary should be commensurate with the skills required to do a job. It is crazy to associate pay with a livable wage for unskilled/educated individuals. If you want to make a higher wage, develop a skill, or education required for that higher paying position. That is something that the individuals need to do for themselves.

     A Response:  I can agree that a salary should be commensurate with the skills required to do a job.  Though I'd put it a bit more simple: how much is it worth to have a fresh made pizza in less then thirty minutes?  Are you willing to make your own pizza?  If not, then you should be willing to pay for it, right?  And you notice the idea here that some work is unskilled, and is considered a waste.  Yet that same person sure whats that pizza, right?  They'd never do the job themselves, as they feel it is so far beneath them: but others should do it for low pay. 

 

     Will a minimum wage of $15 a hour change America?  Why yes it will: for the better.

 

 

My response to Rob Smith's $15 minimum wage video

      This is my response to Rob Smith's $15 minimum wage video.  The video can be found on YouTube, or you can watch it here:

 

 

 

Point one:  So the first point he makes is that jobs that only pay minimum wage, or any wage less then $15 a hour, are not jobs intended to be full time jobs that one could make a living doing.  This is so far beyond wrong that you wonder what country he even lives in and how he got that idea.  Once you count the doctors, lawyers and highly skilled workers, everyone else nationwide falls into this category.  The idea that every low paying job is just temporary is just silly.  Thousands of jobs pay less then $15 a hour and are not what anyone would call temporary.  The idea that you work a low paying job for a couple years and then somehow get a magic reward of a high paying job is just silly: it does not work that way.  

     Any job that pays less then $15 a hour does not allow for a person to have much of a living.  So how are they to work that job for years and live off that tiny amount of pay?  The answer is that they can't.  And how are they to even afford going to school, not to mention things like transportation and healthcare and even just basic food?  Yes some people have done it, but few do it without some sort of help from the government, groups, friends or family.  Not everyone, for example, has a place to live rent free for years.  And even if you do get a good education, there is nothing saying you will be able to even find a good job.  And it's not like there are enough jobs in any one area for everyone: if 50,000 people when to school to become electricians, there simply are not that many electrician jobs nationwide. 

 

Point Two: Automation.  For his second point he rolls out the really over said threat that companies will replace workers with automation.  Of course, this is a silly threat as companies have been doing this from the start of the industrial revolution.   Any big company that can will replace workers with automation, more so if they think it will line their own pockets with more money.  In that past fifty years we have seen lots of workplace automation, and it won't stop any time soon.  Even if the minimum wage never goes up again, companies will still get rid of workers in favor of automation.

     Though there is a 800 pound gorilla here that does not get mentioned often:automation can only do so much.  A kiosk computer robot can take your order and payment, but can't prepare your order.  Worker robots, that have even basic human skills, do not exist.    So that leaves thousands of jobs that automation can not do.  Sure, someday, maybe: but not now or with in the next couple years.  A lot of stores have self checkouts, and they work something like half the time.  The other half of the time the computer has a problem and a human worker has to come over and fix it. Miss scanned items at self checkouts is a huge problem, and that is just by accident.  When you add in outright theft the loss to a store is huge.  The final big problem is automated self checkouts can't handle things like alcoholic beverages.  No store would be foolish enough to trust the self check out to make sure minors were not buying alcohol .  

 

Point Three: The 'poor' small business owners  will automatically give all their employees less working hours and hire less people.  I mean, I guess some small businesses might try this out of spite?  Though it really has no chance of working.  If a business is open, it will need employees to do the work: that is very basic.   A business that is open from 9AM to 9PM needs employees there for all of those 12 hours.  So how can a can a business really cut back?  A business can cut back it's open hours, but not too much: they have to be open to make any money.  The local pizza shop that 'cuts' the hours for delivery drivers won't make any money on Friday  if they have no delivery drivers.  

     Also, just about every company has already reduced their employees down to even less then the bare minimum right now.   When was the last time you saw a business with more then enough employees to meet their needs?   It's not to common and has not been common for decades.  Go to any large store and you will be lucky to find even just two checkout lanes open.  The store has twelve checkout, and at best, maybe two will be open at any given time.  Even when you think the store would hire some more people, like a typical busy Saturday, you will likely see only two checkout lanes open.  

 

Point Four: Giving employees a minimum wage of $15 a hour is a "slippery slope".   That will lead to what exactly?  The only thing he mentions is maybe a law to mandate that employees get a 40 hour work week.  That does not sound like such a bad law, it fact it might already exist in one form or another.  Working full time is 40 hours a week.  So what might come after that?  More laws to aid workers?  Maybe a federal law mandating time off for ALL employees?  Maybe a federal law giving workers and everyone else total control over their credit score?  Any other of dozens of laws to stop employers from exploiting and abusing their employees?   

 

 

 

Point Five: A $15 a hour minimum wage would hurt small business more then big corporations.  I'm not so sure.  I think this will be the other way around.  The greedy, old big corporation types that are sitting way up in their ivory towers  are far less likely to have a positive reaction.  Full of hate and bile they will refuse to pay workers the $15 a hour minimum wage the only way they can: by closing locations or even going out of business.  The greedy big corporation types will pop open their golden parachute and take all their toys and go home.  This gives small, local run business a real opening to shine.  they can alter and change their whole business to make things happen in the right way.  Now, sure, the greedy small business owners might have to sell a yacht or take a pay cut.  As these greedy small business owners used, exploited and abused workers for years, few will cry any tears for them.  Many, however, will be able to tap into that great American spirit and figure out a way to have a small business that both pays a near living wage and also makes a profit.   

Georgia voters upset after Democrats promise of '$2,000 checks' becomes $1,400 checks

 

 

 

Georgia Democrats have reportedly already begun fuming over their two new senators, the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, who were sworn in Wednesday by Vice President Kamala Harris, according to a new report.

Both men narrowly won hard-fought races against Republican incumbents in the Peach State, winning control of the Senate for the Democrats in the process.

But a major issue raised by critics is that President Biden espoused a coronavirus relief plan that would send $1,400 checks to many Americans – while Warnock and Ossoff campaigned on a $2,000 promise.


Leading into the Jan. 5 runoff elections were a series of campaign events espousing the $2,000 stimulus check proposal in the days after former President Trump signed a $600-check plan in late December.

Senate Republicans blocked a $2,000 plan at the time even though it had Trump's support.

"If you send Jon and the reverend to Washington, those $2,000 checks will go out the door, restoring hope and decency for so many people who are struggling right now," Biden said at a rally for both candidates on Jan. 4.  But now Biden is supporting a $1,400 plan. On top of December’s $600 checks, the total adds up to $2,000 – but critics say the campaign messaging was clear. It called for $2,000 checks.

Get used to it Democrats, remember when Obama made these things common when he would just dismiss any promises as "Just A Campaign Promise" so it doesn't count. Biden and his cronies will do alot of these things and then blame someone else for their failures to follow through on the "Promises".  The prevailing opinion amongst the Dems is that the $600 was a down payment, and the remaining $1,400 will pass. We will likely need 10 republican votes to break a filibuster in the senate, so it needs some level of bipartisanship to pass. The republicans will never go for an additional $2,000.

Millionaires and Billionaires will get something. This will be "2009 Stimulus Package, Version 2.0". To stimulate the economy Biden admin will make available to millionaires and billionaires "seed money"  in the form of "grants" to create jobs people will not be allowed to work at due to lockdowns. These "startups" will be allowed to file protected bankruptcy and will not be required to pay back the "grants" awarded in the "economic stimulus package".  That is my prediction based on past 20 years of DC behavior.  People are beginning to see this for what it really is. A dog and pony show controlled by the banking system. The politicians are just puppets, and never had the intention of going to $2000. They were just stalling by blaming the other party.

I’m not surprised.  The entire concept of stimulus checks was merely a campaign ploy to con the voters.  Now that the election is over, I expect lockdowns to be more stringent, snd the stimulus checks to disappear entirely.  You have to laugh at how stupid these $2000 GA voters were. Do they realize that the tax cut reversals alone negate (and in many cases makes negative) the amount the Covid checks. It becomes even more negative when you add the monthly costs of higher fuel taxes. coupled with higher taxes to pay for new illegals and their children. If you looked at the migrants grouping to come to the US, you will see a lot of pregnant women and children. Each child costs the US taxpayer over $15000 a year to education, add to that food stamps, medical,, and welfare that they've been promised. Higher income taxes and higher property taxes. Griping about the $600 difference in Covid payments is petty.

People are not that smart if they were, NO ONE would have voted for democrats. When the government gives you money, That money was yours. Taxpayers pay taxes so the goverment can have a means to do things for the benefit of the people like building bridges, and roads make laws so that protect us. If the government prints more money. the value of money goes down. So the next car you buy will be much higher because of printing money. The reason politician's give so much money to other countries is, its easier for them to get kick backs and line their pockets. They only want power. Once they were concerned about the people but no more. All those people that come from other countries that will get aid. every dollar in their pocket is a dollar that has to be paid by taxpayer to the government. also every dollar that is given to non citizens is a dollar that a citizens wont get. 

Thanks Georgia......we tried to warn you but you voted out a President and two Senators that put people before party. Now you can live with politicians that put their party before their constituents. BTW it was your money to begin with; the government doesn’t have money but they just gave your tax dollars to illegal aliens whose votes they are trying to buy so that they can remain in power. That is unity!

 Just one more step down the road to socialism: Two centuries ago, a somewhat obscure Scotsman named Tytler made this profound observation: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury." -1951 by Elmer T. Peterson in the Daily Oklahoman

What is a Living Wage?

 

 

A living wage is the MINIMUM amount that a worker must earn to afford his or her basic necessities, without public or private assistance. In short, a living wage is a more just, minimum wage.  Anyone working 40 hours in a week should be able to afford the bare necessities of civilized life: food, clothing, shelter, including utilities, and transportation to and from work. That is not a lot to ask, and the employers who benefit from the workers’ labor ought to pay them enough to live on without resorting to public assistance.

Why isn’t Minimum Wage Enough?  The federal minimum wage was enacted through the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which purpose was to eliminate “labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general well-being of workers.” Despite these intentions, the federal minimum wage has failed to keep up with the rising cost of living, and has instead become a wage that keeps working people in poverty.  Although the dollar amount (nominal value) of minimum wage has increased over time, it now takes more dollars to purchase the same goods and services, so the real value of minimum wage has actually decreased since 1960.

 Today, millions of working people struggle to cover the cost of housing, food, health care, childcare and other basic necessities for themselves and their families. A worker who is paid the minimum wage of $7.25/hour, or any wage below a living wage, cannot possibly afford basic necessities without assistance. This creates problems not only for workers, but for businesses and the local economy. The living wage movement is an important initiative that can bring improve conditions for working people, businesses and our local economy.

 

 

Without a living wage workers may be compelled to

• work excessive overtime hours or multiple jobs
• become bonded labourers
• put their children into work instead of school
• be denied their basic human rights to food, shelter, nutrition, health, housing and education and suffer social deprivations such as being unable to take part in cultural events
• be unable to withstand crises such as ill health.

 The median necessary living wage across the entire US is $67,690. The state with the lowest annual living wage is Mississippi, with $58,321. The state with the highest living wage is Hawaii, with $136,437. Other expensive states (unsurprisingly) included New York and California, which have notoriously high costs of living and expensive housing markets.

 There are two common misconceptions about low-wage work. One is that they’re mostly young people who are going to, as they get more experience or graduate from college or high school, move on as a matter of course.  The truth is most low-wage workers are not young.  The other common misconception is that low-wage work is temporary — that you can easily move up. And any low-wage worker can tell you this is not true.  This is particularly true if you don’t have a college degree. If you’re a person with relatively low levels of education, your chances of upward mobility are really, really limited. 

While wealthy Americans have weathered the lockdown just fine for these last few months, millions of workers across the country face a current and pending economic crisis thanks to structural barriers to wealth and livable wages. It’s a crisis that predates Covid-19, but has been compounded because of the pandemic.

It’s a crisis of income. The reality of joblessness or a drastic reduction in paid working hours for tens of millions of American workers has set in. At least 45 million people are now unemployed.  The crisis in front of us today is to keep millions of Americans from falling off the cliff. But the pandemic will end. And when it does, we need to make sure leaders in Washington recognize that we’d be better off keeping people away from the edge of the cliff in the first place.

 

The "personal responsibility" and "accountable for your choices" crowd always sniffs down their upturned noses at the poor, holding them responsible for their own poverty.

Yet somehow those ideas never seem to carry over into their own behavior.

The wealthy make the choice to pay themselves more because Chaz over at Corporation Z just got a 20% bump this year, and hey, they need that new vacation home and the yacht is getting old. They get that raise by shorting the people who make it possible, pushing their employees' actual life-supporting needs off on to the taxpayers...which is a hidden form of business welfare.

They get the money for their exorbitant salaries and bonuses by offshoring jobs, offshoring profits to avoid taxes, holding cities hostage for tax breaks, buying special treatment from politicians, and colluding to hold wages down.

When they are caught breaking laws, like Wells Fargo's massive identity thefts or PG&E's recent guilty pleas to 84 counts of manslaughter or BP's environmental destruction due to cutting corners on safety to sweeten profits not one has been held accountable for the choices the very well paid and bonused executives made. None stepped up and took personal responsibility.

Those choices create poverty, homelessness, environmental destruction, suicides, crime, and overburden local governments.

People may misconstrue this as asking for a life of luxury. All that’s being asked for is a life, especially when it’s being risked to COVID-19 exposure for the sake of an economy that grants only limited privileged access. Americans deserve better than the pittance they receive for their essential work.

More again about the Minimum Wage

 

 

So, by the  Congressional Budget Office's median estimate,1.3 million workers who would otherwise be employed would be rendered jobless is the minimum wage went to $15 a hour.  

I guess this number of 1.3 million workers is little more then pure scare tactics.  After all, I'd guess at least 2 million workers will loose their jobs just to pure business greed.  Sure the business will throw up a smokescreen and say that it is for some other reason.  Also, for a wide variety of reasons, a sizeable share of low-wage workers routinely cycle in and out of employment.  If you have ever worked at a business that payed it's employees less then $15 an hour you know how often faces in a workplace change.  

The CBO goes on to say more: Families whose income is below the poverty threshold would receive an additional $8 billion in real family income in 2025 with a $15 per hour minimum wage. The extra income would move, on net, roughly 1.3 million people out of poverty. For families above the poverty line, real income would fall by about $16 billion, a 0.1 percent reduction in total income.

As the country's current low minimum wage costs taxpayers more than $100 billion a year because nearly half of working families rely on government programs such as Medicaid or SNAP, this will be a good thing.  Workers are also customers. The current minimum wage keeps workers in poverty, and that hurts businesses as well as workers.  Raising the minimum wage is a powerful way to boost businesses and the economy because it puts money in the hands of people who most need to spend it.  Affected workers who work year round would earn an extra $3,000 a year—enough to make a tremendous difference in the life of a preschool teacher, bank teller, or fast-food worker who today struggles to get by on around $20,000 a year.  A $15 minimum wage would begin to reverse decades of growing pay inequality between the lowest-paid workers and the middle class.  A $15 minimum wage by 2024 would generate $120 billion in higher wages for workers and would also benefit their communities. Because lower-paid workers spend much of their extra earnings, this injection of wages will help stimulate the economy and spur greater business activity and job growth.

 

 The typical worker who would benefit from a $15 minimum wage is a 35-year-old woman with some college-level coursework who works full time.  Not just on the coasts, but all across the country, workers will soon need at least $15 an hour  By 2024, in areas all across the United States, a single adult without children will need at least $31,200—what a full-time worker making $15 an hour earns annually—to achieve a modest but adequate standard of living. Workers in costlier areas and those with children will need even more.  

Workers in many skilled jobs—widely considered to be middle-class jobs—struggle to get by on less than $15 an hour today and would benefit from a $15 minimum wage.  Raising the national minimum wage is well overdue. Workers today who are paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour are, after adjusting for inflation, paid 29 percent less than their counterparts 50 years ago. This is despite the fact that the economy’s capacity to deliver higher wages has doubled in the last 50 years, as measured by labor productivity, or the amount of output produced by workers.

 

I can easily point to the  pointed to the grocery workers, small factory workers, service workers and low-wage earners of many other types who have kept the food supply and other necessities available during the pandemic as people who are deserving of pay hike.   If folks are essential workers, we ought to pay them an essential wage. It’s the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do.

 

  Raising the minimum wage is immensely popular; it’s supported by around 70% of voters, including a substantial majority of self-identified Republicans. Or if you don’t believe polls, look at what happened in Florida back in November: even as Donald Trump carried the state, a referendum on raising the minimum wage to $15 won in a landslide.  A rise to $15 an hour would reverse decades of growing pay inequality between the lowest-paid workers and the middle class, and indexing future increases would prevent any future growth in that gap.  

We should all support a policy that would improve living standards for workers across the U.S.

My answers to $15 an hour minimum wage questions

      

 

 

      So I found a couple questions about raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and here are my answers.

1. Will this happen all at once, or be a stepped increase over years to allow businesses to better adjust and prepare?

      Lets hope it is all at once.  Every businesses has had for as long as they have been in business to prepare to treat their employees right and pay them a living wage.  All the workers have waited long enough: they don't need to wait a couple more years.  Any business that can't do it, or more likely does not want to do it out of pure evil greed, deserves to go out of business.  

 

 

       2.  What will stop businesses from laying off workers and otherwise reducing headcount to minimize the impact on their overall payroll?

 

      Nothing.  A business needs workers so they can't get rid of them all.  In fact, for the last several decades most businesses have been very lean on their workforce.  Many workers do something like at least two jobs, for low pay remember, because the business refuses to hire a single worker.  Just take your typical large retail store.  You will be lucky if they have even three cashiers  on shift any any given time.  So sure the company could get rid of two of them, and then basically sell very little of anything.  Most gas service stations only have one employee, and you can't get rid of them. 

 

     Also, most businesses don't do much else but get rid of workers.  I'm sure as you read this their is likely a group of business folks sitting in a room somewhere talking how they can get rid of workers so they can make more money.  

     Mostly this is just an empty threat.  The greedy businesses will whine and cut that they have to get rid of workers.  The simple truth is someone must do all the jobs though.  So, they will have to keep workers to do those jobs.

 

 

 3, Will it force the closure of low-margin and other businesses that simply cannot remain profitable with a $15 minimum wage?

 

     Yes it will, and good riddance.   Any business that can't do it, or more likely does not want to do it out of pure evil greed, deserves to go out of business.  While many business are run by evil greedy people, not all of them are like that: some are good people.  And the good business owners will find ways to make a profit and still pay all their workers a living wage.

 

    4. Won't businesses just pass the cost of these higher wages to consumers, thus increasing the cost of goods and services for all and minimizing the impact on low-wage workers also by increasing their spend?

      I'm sure the evil greedy business owners will try this stunt.  But it's not like business owners are some massive united front where they will all agree to raise their prices nationwide by the same amount.  And even if they did, we have a whole discount value economy for this very reason.  So sure a super greedy business owner might raise the price of his hamburgers to $20 and say smugly "how do you like that price, ha!"  Though it only take one other clever business owner to sell a hamburger at $15 and another at $11.  Or maybe people just stop eating so much fast non food junk?  Perfect capitalism.  

 

     Though having more money is always the better choice as it allows for more options.  A person can always choose to save money, invest money and spend money wisely no matter what the prices are fro goods and services.  They just need the money to do it. 

 

5. What happens to employees already earning $15, and those earning between the current minimum wage and $15? If they all become "minimum wage workers," employers very well might end up with an employee-relations nightmare. If they receive wage increases above $15, it will further impact companies' payroll expenses and the costs passed on to consumers. 

     Well, if the minimum wage becomes law, then that is the minimum wage set for the whole country.  So yes, someone making the low unlivable wage of $10 would now be making $15 an hour.  It is what minimum means.  

      Will it be an employee-relations nightmare?  Yes, yes it will.  But every company that has taken advantage of it's workers and outright abused them deserves this and more.  How many years did that employee waste at the company?  Well, now it's time for some worker payback...literately.

The Myth of the American Dream

     

 

     The themes of self-reliance and personal responsibility as a means to amassing unlimited success has been an appealing story for more than a century. The self-made man myth, we regularly read or hear about success stories like Bill Gates, Jeff Besos, Michael Dell, Richard Branson, Mark Cuban and a host of others.  Not only is there little truth in the belief, but this oversimplified story has created an indelible view that there is neither responsibility nor the need to take care of one another, including those most vulnerable among us. It’s every person for himself or herself. And many self-help books and gurus have supplemented the fictional stories by emphasizing the values of independence and taking personal responsibility.

     A “self-made man” (later expanded to include “self-made women”) is a classic phrase first coined on February 2, 1832 by United States senator Henry Clay who referred to the self-made man in the United States senate, to describe individuals in the manufacturing sector whose success lay within the individuals themselves, not with outside conditions.  The term American Dream was first used in James Truslow Adam’s 1931 best selling book, The Epic of America. Adams define the concept as “the dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with an opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.”

Commonly four tenets of the American Dream are:

    Everyone regardless of origin or status can attain the American Dream.
    The American Dream is a hopefulness for success.
    The American Dream is possible through actions that are under the individual’s direct control.
    Because of the associations of success and virtue, the American Dream comes true.

     The U.S. is viewed by most of its citizens as a “land of opportunity.” According to this belief, anyone who comes to America have the opportunity to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” and succeed as long as they work hard and persevere. Those who are most worthy of America’s bounty are the meritorious. This social ideal promulgates the belief that, “those who are the most talented, the hardest working and the most virtuous get and should get the most rewards.

     Hard work is seen as a powerful factor and a necessary element for acquiring the American Dream. National surveys have found that hard work consistently scores among the top three factors necessary for success, and ranks with education and knowing the right people as its closet competitors. According to one survey,about 77% Americans believe that hard work is often or very often the reason why people are rich in America. More than a third of all Americans — and more than half of all Republicans — believe that the rich are rich because they worked harder than everyone else. When pressed for proof, they usually point to surveys showing that the rich spend more hours working and fewer hours in “leisure activities” than everyone else. A 46% plurality believes that most rich people “are wealthy mainly because they know the right people or were born into wealthy families.” But nearly as many have a more favorable view of the rich: 43% say wealthy people became rich “mainly because of their own hard work, ambition or education.

Most of the super rich were born with advantages, and have benefited from a level of privilege unknown to the vast majority of Americans.” Most of those on the list all grew up in substantial privilege with inheritances up to $1 million, and some of those have inheritances well over $1 million, and a couple even had inherited wealth over $50 million.  There is little evidence that being honest results in economic success.  White collar crime in the form of insider trading, embezzlement, tax and insurance fraud is hardly a reflection of integrity and honesty. Playing by the rules probably works to suppress prospects for economic success, compared to those who ignore the rules.

Financial regulations allow predatory lending and abusive credit-card practices that transfer money from the bottom to the top. So do bankruptcy laws that provide priority for derivatives.  Full-time minimum wage workers cannot afford a two-bedroom rental anywhere in the U.S. and cannot afford a one-bedroom rental in 95% of U.S. counties, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual “Out of Reach” report.  In fact, the average minimum wage worker in the U.S. would need to work almost 97 hours per week to afford a fair market rate two-bedroom and 79 hours per week to afford a one-bedroom, NLIHC calculates. That’s well over two full-time jobs just to be able to afford a two-bedroom rental.

 

 Let’s stop perpetuating this myth of the self-made individual. And let’s start rebuilding the American dream by creating opportunities for all, not just those who are already wealthy, privileged, and well-connected.

Top 10 Things Liberals Will Try To Ban in 2021

 

 

10. Pets
That’s insane! Why, liberals would never ban the cats who provide the sole companionship for the lonely, bitter middle-aged divorcees who make up a key Democrat demographic. But wait – California has already banned sales of non-rescue pets in pet stores, so their paw is in the door. Can’t you see SJWs whining about “pet privilege?” How about PETA people insisting that these furry clumps of cells have rights, unlike the clumps of human cells in a uterus?

9. All-Male Sports
Frankly, this one is so obvious that it’s a wonder it hasn’t happened yet. Football, baseball, basketball, hockey – the top sports leagues are 100% male. Now, let’s leave aside the obvious truth that a woman able to compete with these male behemoths would be a sensation, and that if she could make tackles or home runs or whatever like a man, the fans would be delighted. But no, it’s clearly a conspiracy on the part of the patriarchy, as is biology itself, apparently.

8. Accurate Pronouns
California already requires certain healthcare workers to lie about the sex of their patients if the patient demands it. In some places, people like teachers are getting fired for refusing to falsely state that a girl is a boy because she wants to be. Pretty soon, this nonsense will spread. Now, it won’t just be by law (though it will be in government situations). Businesses, which are usually gutless in the face of howling SJW mobs, will increasingly demand that their employees praise the emperor’s new clothes.

7. Fossil Fuel Cars
California is already toying with this, and Stephen Hawking’s protégé Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes seems to want to make it part of the “Green New Deal.” Now, it’s a pretty good deal for the urban hipster crowd that can walk or bike or take the subway to their crappy jobs, but for Normals who live in the suburbs or the country, it’s a disaster. So much the better. Remember, like all liberal prohibitions, a huge part of the appeal of this measure is how it puts us uppity rubes in our place.

6. Hunting
Well, of course. Once again, the lure of jamming their power down the throats of the flyover Americans the coastal liberals hate is irresistible. We’re already seeing this as ridiculous municipalities refuse to take commonsense measures against deer overpopulation and marauding coyotes. The commonsense response is to shoot them, but instead the libs dither as deer starve, citizens get hurt in collisions, and as puppies and kittens get snatched away and devoured by predators who just don’t belong around people.

5. Private Doctors
This is absolutely essential to the idea behind single payer – they can’t leave you with anywhere else to go. Nor can they tolerate the “inequality” that would occur should you decide to spend your own money on the medical care you want. Plus, if doctors have somewhere else to practice outside the government system, which will be like the VA without the patient care and efficiency, then they will do that. Remember, single payer is about control, and the government needs indentured servants to toil for it.

4. Guns
“Nobody wants to ban your guns!” they lie. Liberals are such awful gaslighters – one of the lefty fishwraps will run an op-ed by some prominent Democrat demanding gun confiscation and the moment we take notice the rest of the libs will look at us with straight faces and insist that “Nobody wants to ban your guns!” You would think they would lie better considering all their experience. In any case, this has been a key goal for decades for two reasons. First, of course, is the sheer joy of showing us bitter clingers who’s boss. But the second is more practical – disarmed, we’d be transformed from citizens into serfs, and we would have no means of resisting their most hideous prohibitions…or worse.

3. Religion
It’s already started – witness the shameful interrogation of believing Christians who have been nominated to the courts and other offices. Oh, the l;ibs won’t say they want to ban religion (by which they mean traditional Christianity and Judaism). They’ll just make it impossible for you to both practice your faith and participate in society. You can believe what you want, for a while, as long as you never act on it or tell anyone. Liberals cannot tolerate heretics who refuse to bow down to the false god of leftist ideology. Just watch what happens when President Trump nominates committed Catholic Amy Coney Barret…


2. Free Speech
In England, you can get arrested for saying things – but only things the elite dislikes. The left would love to do that here too. Who thinks that if they had the power that they would not ban “hate speech” – that is, speech they disapprove of – and that a liberal Supreme Court majority would not eagerly find a hitherto unknown footnote in the First Amendment allowing it? Just look at college campuses, and what they did with their power there, then imagine our whole country exactly like that.

 

1. Conservatives
Prohibit an entire ideology? The left would never do that, except they are totally trying to do it. Political tests already exist in academia, Hollywood and the mainstream media – and conservatives fail. Their goal is to eventually drive conservatives out of all non-political positions of power, with driving them out of political power to follow. But in the meantime, their pals in Silicon Valley are already hard at work slowly eliminating conservative voices from the web. Whether its Google suppressing searched, Facebook helping the Dems, or Twitter banishing dissenters, their goal is clear. It’s to totally eliminate conservative opposition to the liberal elite.

Go ahead and laugh, but remember that I told you so here and in my latest novel, Wildfire – and I’ll tell you so again once these bans happen, assuming they haven’t yet imprisoned or killed me...or you.

Social Media Platforms or Publishers?

 

 

 

Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the internet are not media. They are something new.  The essential value of the internet is conversation, not content. The internet connects more than 3 billion people and enables a grand diversity among them to speak, if not yet to be heard. 

 

Before we kick off let’s clarify terms a bit:

*Platform: a company or technology that enables communication and distribution of information.A good example is a phone company. When talking to a friend certain words or ideas you communicate don’t get censored or buzzed out. A platform is not responsible (legally) for the content that is posted.

*Publisher: a company or person that qurates and distributes content.  You can think of all the news and media outlets out there as prime examples. A publisher is legally responsible for the posted content and the source.

If the provider edits, or monitors, or supervises content in any way, or posts its own, then it IS liable for defamation, criminal activity, infringement, etc. that occurs on its site, just as the publisher of a printed-on-paper publication would be.

If the provider has NO control over content which OTHER people post on his site, and is basically acting as the Internet equivalent of an old-fashioned telephone company, merely providing the lines and connecting the terminals but not listening in on or otherwise monitoring any users’ private conversations, then generally the provider is NOT liable for what said users do in private using those lines and terminals.

 

 Not surprisingly, the first websites to be sued for defamation based on the statements of others argued that they were merely distributors, and not publishers, of the content on their sites. One of the first such cases was Cubby v. CompuServe, Inc., 776 F.Supp. 135 (S.D.N.Y. 1991). CompuServe provided subscribers with access to over 150 specialty electronic "forums" that were run by third parties. When CompuServe was sued over allegedly defamatory statements that appeared in the "Rumorville" forum, it argued that it should be treated like a distributor because it did not review the contents of the bulletin board before it appeared on CompuServe’s site. The court agreed and dismissed the case against CompuServe.

Four years later, a New York state court came to the opposite conclusion when faced with a website that held itself out as a "family friendly" computer network. In Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy, 23 Media L. Rep. 1794 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1995), the court held that because Prodigy was exercising editorial control over the messages that appeared on its bulletin boards through its content guidelines and software screening program, Prodigy was more like a "publisher" than a "distributor" and therefore fully liable for all of the content on its site.

The perverse upshot of the CompuServe and Stratton decisions was that any effort by an online information provider to restrict or edit user-submitted content on its site faced a much higher risk of liability if it failed to eliminate all defamatory material than if it simply didn’t try to control or edit the content of third parties at all.

The Communications Decency Act

This prompted Congress to pass the Communications Decency Act in 1996. The Act contains deceptively simple language under the heading "Protection for Good Samaritan blocking and screening of offensive material":

    No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Section 230 further provides that "[n]o cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section."
Websites Covered by Section 230

Is an "interactive computer service" some special type of website? No. For purposes of Section 230, an "interactive computer service" means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server.

Most courts have held that through these provisions, Congress granted interactive services of all types, including blogs, forums, and listservs, immunity from tort liability so long as the information is provided by a third party.  As a result of Section 230, Internet publishers are treated differently from publishers in print, television, and radio. Let's look at these difference in more detail.

 

 Section 230 encourages Internet platforms to moderate “offensive” speech, but the law was not intended to facilitate political censorship. Online platforms should receive immunity only if they maintain viewpoint neutrality, consistent with traditional legal norms for distributors of information.This provision does not allow platforms to remove whatever they wish, however. Courts have held that “otherwise objectionable” does not mean whatever a social media company objects to, but “must, at a minimum, involve or be similar” to obscenity, violence, or harassment. Political viewpoints, no matter how extreme or unpopular, do not fall under this category.

The dominant social media companies must choose: if they are neutral platforms, they should have immunity from litigation. If they are publishers making editorial choices, then they should relinquish this valuable exemption. They can’t claim that Section 230 immunity is necessary to protect free speech, while they shape, control, and censor the speech on their platforms. Either the courts or Congress should clarify the matter.