Business Owners Hit Hard by Minimum Wage Increases

   

     So the news is that some small companies have found they're 'going to have to make significant changes ' because of the recent raises in the minimum wage.  Well good.  It's about time.   This is in no way a bad thing.  The whole business employee model is very outdated for the 21st century.

      Businesses are saying they’re going to have to raise prices, reduce hours or reduce staff, and some businesses are speculating they might have to close, as the price of labor is making it difficult.  Well, now look at that statement.  Out of the dozens of things a business can do to save money the only ones they mention are raising prices, reducing hours or staffs and closing.  Wounder why they don't even mention the other things they can do?  Wonder why they don't mention the 800 pound gorilla of simply reducing their obscene personal profits?  The greedy business owners sit back in their mansions with piles of money and live the high life.  Well, how about take some of the bloated income they make and cut it in half?  

       I'm not even sure why reducing hours is a big deal: just do it.  A business does not need to be open all the time.  A couple years ago many businesses were open from nine in the morning until nine in the evening.  Then many places started to stay open until midnight or even two in the morning.  Then many businesses went to being open twenty four hours a day.  For the next couple years nothing changed, and then things started to go backwards.  Most business stopped staying open twenty four hours and many when back even farther.  Today, it's common for a business to not even open until close to noon and close by six at night.  

       Minimum-wage raises are examples of states and cities leading in the absence of leadership by Congress, which has kept the federal minimum at $7.25 an hour since 2009. These state and local increases, though important, are no substitute for a robust federal minimum because they don’t affect places that will never act on their own to lift minimum wages. Currently, 21 states do not impose minimums higher than the federal rate, and that includes the poorest states, like Alabama and Mississippi, where it takes nearly $20 an hour to meet living expenses for one adult and one child. Even in states that have raised their minimum wages, the levels are still not high enough to meet living expenses for typical workers and families.

      

     But this era’s minimum-wage workforce, while still disproportionately young, is not the teenage burger-flippers of the 1970s.  While there is a perception that minimum wage jobs go to teenagers working at fast food restaurants, that's only a piece of the picture, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Only 45% of the 2.6 million hourly workers who made federal minimum wage (or less) in 2016 were between 16 and 24 years old. Another 23.3% were aged 25-34, meaning that 31.7% of all hourly workers making minimum wage or less were over 34.  A single minimum-wage worker  can’t afford a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country.  Anywhere.  A one-bedroom unit can be had in only 22 counties in five states, including in Washington. But here the relative affordability applies to only a few rural counties. Even in many places with an $15 an hour minimum wage, a person couldn’t afford an apartment working 40 hours a week.  Nearly half of all American's that rent were “cost burdened” in 2016. This is defined as spending more than 30 percent of pre-tax income on rent.  In many places rent can be 50 percent of income or higher.

At least 33% of persons age 18-34 live with parents.  Millennials earn about 80% of what baby boomer did at the same age.  Government taxes, fees, and utility rates have risen as a percentage of income for millennials.  This is not a mystery in any way, shape or form.  The simple truth is that the economy of the United States is not as productive as it once was.  Real money standards of living related to basic needs peaked in around 1972. It is no coincidence that the cost of essential items listed above are becoming out of reach for many if not most people:  Again, these are health care, education, housing, transportation, and retirement.  These are the arease of the econonomy heavily controlled by government.  Americans do not save.  They really can't.

Woman's March Falling Down

     

     A Women’s March group is canceling its January rally in Humboldt County, Calif., over concerns that its participants would be “overwhelmingly white.”

The decision comes amid division and tension in the broader Women’s March movement.  In a Monday news release, the organizers of the Eureka Women’s March acknowledged that their leadership team is currently majority-white, and said the decision was made to “ensure that the people most impacted by systems of oppression have an opportunity to participate in planning.”  In recent months, the Women’s March has tried to quell controversy surrounding its leadership. Some regional chapters have distanced themselves from the national group and its leaders, who have been called to step down over ties with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and accusations of anti-Semitism. 

     In a November Facebook post, Women’s March founder Teresa Shook called for the resignations of national co-chairs Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour, adding that they have “steered the Movement away from its true course.”  Mallory, in particular, was criticized after she attended the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviours' Day event in Chicago this year, at which Farrakhan made statements about “powerful Jews” who he considered his enemies.

     
     The risible rantings of Ashley Judd, Madonna and other female celebrities against Mr. Trump made much more sense once the Harvey Weinstein debacle was exposed. They couldn’t, or wouldn’t, stop Mr. Weinstein so Mr. Trump became their stand-in.  Starting a movement with a subconscious fraud doesn’t bode well for its future and leaves it ripe for the picking of bad actors.

     
     Like clockwork, leftist activists appropriated the effort, twisting it into a battle-ax for social justice. Gone was any semblance of a genuine commitment to advocating for women, as leftists consumed the movement with race-baiting, homophobia, Jew-hatred and misandry. Women who happened to be Jewish, or pro-life, or in some other fashion deemed unacceptable, were rejected or banned.  The Women’s March, like the liberal establishment itself, has completed its transition to a medieval religion; those who are unacceptable due to race, religion or wrong-thought, are heretics.  In other words, the organizing tactics used by the left in every community and country they’ve destroyed from within. Some might think that’s an unintended consequence of stupid, divisive ideas. Or it could be exactly the point.

     

     The so-called "Women's Movement" is grossly misnamed. It should be called "The Women of Color and Varied Gender Labeling Movement" as they reject white women, conservative women, Christian women, women who own businesses, Jewish women, ProLife women and in general any woman who doesn't fall in lockstep with their slate of political goals. To label this as a movement representing all women is rather like saying California represents the views of all border states.  This has always been my problem with traditional feminism. Its lack of intersectionality is exclusionary. When feminists proclaim “women’s rights are human rights” it feels more like they mean “white women’s rights are human rights.”  Indeed, either most of the issues raised in Women’s March “Unity Principles” have already been codified into law; the issues themselves don’t actually exist; or they demand something which is illegal for a pretty good reason. It’s also a shame that the Democrats who founded the movement so often engage in hypocrisy that it renders their call for equality hollow.  Therein lie the fundamental flaws of the Women’s March, and the problem with Democrats in general.It’s all about emotional outrage and projection.   America is not perfect, but if you read the Principles and watched the Marches, you’d think American women are practically slaves.

 

      In fact, it sends a really awful message to women and teenage girls.  The March tells women they are second-class citizens when they are not, something eerily reminiscent of what race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson engage in.  Where are signs showing history’s greatest women?  Where are the speakers talking about all the great things women have accomplished?  Why so relentlessly focused not only on the negative, but on things that aren’t even real?  As a result, there were great opportunities missed, including something that should define the Women’s March: the treatment of women outside the United States, particularly in Arab countries.  Imagine what real changes would look like in many Arab countries where women weren’t forced to wear hijabs; were allowed to use makeup; were allowed to drive, travel, marry, or work without consent of a “guardian”; go for a swim; compete freely in sports; didn’t have to mutilate their genitals; couldn’t be legally beaten or raped by their husbands; weren’t lawfully permitted to be forced into marriage as a pre-pubescent; weren’t legally permitted to be murdered under the pretense of “honor killing”; weren’t stoned for adultery; or weren’t subjected to countless other truly inhumane and legal discrimination.  

     Another missed opportunity: how about presenting a comprehensive plan on how to reduce sexual harassment, both in the workplace and everyday life?  Women also face an unintentional blowback by men who may now fear hiring or interacting with women in the workplace.  How can this issue be addressed in a manner where everyone can live and work together and push America forward?
Alas, it is exactly because Democrats are unhappy people that great opportunities like this will be repeatedly squandered. Instead of women looking around and feeling empowered by what they have accomplished, and how many men actually support them, they will be repeatedly browbeaten with how they mean nothing. 

 

 

     Americans naturally come together on the issues to help make a difference. For women, the issues that impact and make us all sisters transcend race, ethnicity, age, social status and sexual identity. It is about economic freedom, personal freedom, education, health care, child care, ending sexual violence, etc. There are a multitude of issues that all women face and on which action must be taken.
Instead, the Women’s March, serving as a hallmark of today’s liberal establishment, works to divide women against each other, and even against the men in their lives.


     In the end, this is a huge lesson about the nature of the left and the deliberately destructive nature of identity politics. The left thrives on chaos, and that’s what they’ve got.

Spurned advances spark Texas shooting

     If only Shana Fisher had said yes. This is the implication of countless headlines following Dimitrios Pagourtzis’ decision to slaughter her along with nine of her teachers and classmates.  According to a Facebook post by Fisher’s mother, Fisher “had four months of problems from this boy” where “he kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no. He continued to get more aggressive”. So a girl endures several months of harassment, until her harasser kills her. How are we supposed to see this?

     The headlines say it all: “Spurned advances spark Texas shooting.” “Texas school shooter ‘killed girl who turned down his advances’.” “Spurned advances provoked incident at Santa Fe high school.”  The message, in case you’ve missed it, is that Fisher’s rejection – her “spurning” – of Pagourtzis is what caused his murderous rampage.  There’s something truly depressing about finding the world view of a killer reflected in the reporting of his crimes. Then again, belief that women and girls exist to tend to the sexual and emotional needs of men and boys is everywhere.

It’s there in every romantic comedy and pop song that recasts male stalking and harassment as the plucky determination of the underdog. It’s there in every parenting manual which tells mothers that boys require more attention than girls. It’s there every time we lecture girls on how much harder boys find it to express their feelings without using their fists.  It’s there in our very concepts of manhood, masculinity and male pride. Men and boys, we are told, have something precious to lose whenever a woman says no. There’s no comparable concept of female pride. Girls who feel ugly, who are mocked for their appearance, who don’t get the boy they desire – the vast majority of us, that is – are simply expected to suck it up.   There has to be a fundamental change in how our sons conceptualise their place in the world.   The implication is that if only the parents of the eventual shooter had taught that all important life lesson that you will be rejected by a girl one day and that's the way the cookie crumbles.  There isn't a guy alive that hasn't been rejected by a girl, or a guy who was once alive. 

     A week before the shooting, Fisher embarrassed him in front of others in a class by standing up and telling Pagourtzis that she wouldn't go out with him.  This seems to be the final straw that caused him to snap.  Even if Pagourtzis decided to carry out this tragic act of violence because Shana Fisher turned him down and embarrassed him, the shooting didn't happen because of Shana Fisher. The shooting happened because of the shooter. Sure she may have had a 'right' to embarrass him in class. Still, had she not, she would still be alive.  And this is a very key point, that gets over looked and swept away.  What does it say about our society that kids think the response to frustration over being rebuffed by a female student or embarrassed in front of others is sufficient cause to shoot a bunch of kids to death?  I think one of the main problems here is the kids who are not taught how to deal with rejection or failure; therefore, when it happens, the only possible reaction, in their minds, is revenge... "getting even" with whoever rejected you or caused you to fail... In extreme cases, this could even extend to "eliminating" anyone who witnessed an event that resulted in the kid feeling shamed, humiliated or rejected.  Everyone will jump on to ''she had the right to do anything'' and ''he should just suck it up''; but how toxic is that line of thought?  It's normal and desirable, I think, for parents to want their kids to grow up happy and successful, but the kids ALSO need to learn and understand that not everything in life will be "fair"; that they won't always succeed at everything they try...and that they will not necessarily be loved, or even liked, by every other person in the world.




     If it is true that for months the alleged shooter was harassing a fellow student, and that his harassment was escalating in severity, we need to ask WHY the school did not take action under Title IX's requirement to maintain schools free of gender discrimination and keeping schools safe from gender violence.  I can only hope that schools look closely at this case and start understanding why sexual harassment can create climates that are unsafe for our children -- and why they need to take these incidents seriously. We need to do more to devote resources and training on sexual harassment and assault at Pk-12. It is part of addressing this multifaceted tragedy of violence in our schools.  The sad truth is that schools, the community and people just don't want to do anything that will take time, effort and most of all money.


    Some 4,400 adolescents commit suicide each year from being bullied. The underlying issue for then is mental health and guidance about norms during the adolescent maturation process. While some of these massacres are clearly by psychopaths (e.g. Las Vegas), most of them are by men left to their own devices to understand the landscape of the norms of interpersonal boundaries. A great deal of the adolescent period of life is about learning boundaries, understanding them with respect to awakening human sexuality, androgens and estrogen, and limits on interpersonal dominance (that bullying), how to deal with rejection, pride, menace, esteem and self-respect, when to stand your ground and when to ask for help, dealing with failure and success: basic socialization and mental health. We are social animals and children are not born with some innate understanding of this as they encounter it, or better said this monster reacted to it in a way a child would by acting out but with lethal weapons. Behold the apparent narcissism of a neglected generation. It is as much a part of the adolescent learning process as anything else taught in school, we just address our lame management of it later with revenge fantasy movies like Mean Girls and Revenge of the Nerds, something that actually encourages this.

    The idea of parochial schools is an attempt to address these two learning experiences, academics and normative values, or religion or scouting, many families simply do not supply them (or even have them). I would say that we need a non-secular course like this in public schools but this both crosses the line into parental rights (to inculcate their own values into their children, separation of church and state), and I am also quite confident the teaching of them would be poached by politicos to also teach their own subjective values with the official stamp of academic objectivity.

    We have to supply this education to children somehow though or this carnage will continue. Surely we can all agree on some basic set of norms about mental health and interpersonal boundaries, perhaps a selection of courses selected the parents, even provided by non-school organizations such as churches or more non-religious philosophical groups of their preference, the only requirement being that one of them be selected and completed. Hey people: we are primates, a sexual species with dominance hierarchies and like it or not no amount of political ideals will change that, get it? As we grow it takes guidance as children become adults or it is Lord of the Flies. Adolescents need this education to become socialized and self-actualizing as surely as they need to learn to read and write.