April 4, 2016

The deep rooted crisis of police violence in the USA

fromReason: Executive Producer Eddie Conway and David Correia, author of Police: A Field Guide, examine police propaganda that criminalizes victims of police violence and works to halt any radical responses to it. See video
Police State America

Students stage walkout in support of Second Amendment

fromPJMedia: Unlike the first student walkout, this one was self-motivated and not under penalty of suspension from school officials. 
2nd Amendment Assaults

'Being cash-free puts us at risk of attack': Swedes turn against cashlessness

fromReason: Sweden’s central bank governor has called for public control over its payment system. Others say a fully digital system is vulnerable to fraud and attack. 
Economic Policy: Statism Versus The Free Market

Walter E Williams: Discrimination and disparities

fromWalterEWilliams: I don’t mind saying that this column represents a grossly understated review of “Discrimination and Disparities,” just published by my longtime friend and colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell. 
Political Correctness and Other Nitwittery

The unintended consequences of the minimum wage

fromCapitalismMagazine: The federal government began dictating the minimum lawful amount an employer must pay someone working for them in 1933, as part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation. 
Regulation Nation

Don't look to the state to keep social media companies from imposing ideological conformity

fromReason: Facebook, Google, and Twitter may be smug and presumptuous, but we can go elsewhere. 
Indoctrination and Censorship      Media Bias on Parade

Licensing Laws Shut Young People Out Of The Job Market

by Ben Casselman.  Young people entering the job market have always faced challenges: a lack of skills and experience, limited professional networks, unfamiliarity with workplace culture and expectations. But increasingly, they are also facing another obstacle: legal requirements that can shut off avenues to jobs before they even get the chance  ... MORE

The Cruelty Of The $15 Minimum Wage

by Nick Gillespie & Jim Epstein.   The $15 minimum wage just went from "laughable" to "viable"—as a New York Times headline put it—to the law of the land for millions of New York and California residents. In April 2016, the Empire and Golden states almost simultaneously passed laws that will boost the state-mandated wage floor to $15 over the     ... MORE

$15 Minimum Wage Follies In California And New York

by Ronald Bailey.   Good intentions, but a near total failure as an anti-poverty policy. Both California and New York have just adopted measures to raise their minimum wages to $15 an hour over the next few years. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti hailed the increase, declaring, "Today California leads the nation once again, passing a historic    ... MORE

Higher Minimum Wage Equals Higher Prices, More Taxes

by John Seiler.     I have dinner once a week with some friends here in Orange County. I set a limit of $20 for beer and food, or $80 a month. When the state minimum wage jumped to $10 an hour from $8 a couple years back, the restaurants increased their prices. So I cut back from a full meal to appetizers. It’s less enjoyment, but, as President John F. ... MORE

The $15 Minimum Wage Will Kill Jobs. Should You Care?

by Peter Coy.   Mandated unemployment for low-skill workers. This is a story about ethics and economics, winners and losers, and the philosophical muddle on both ends of the political spectrum, as told through two of the hot-button issues of the 2016 U.S. presidential race: the minimum wage and free trade. Start with an unpopular but  ... MORE

Bob Russell: Free Market Should Determine Wages

Give low-skill workers a chance.     I think the Minimum Wage Law is one of the worst things that government has ever done. It’s often said that people can’t live on $7.25 per hour as a reason for increasing the minimum wage. Of course, we all wish that everyone could make more, but it is not up to us or even the government to say what people  ... MORE

Thanks To Minimum Wage Mandates, Carl’s Jr CEO Now Wants To Replace All Human Workers With Robots

Government forces low-skill workers to sidelines.  Looks like the little guy can teach a global fast food conglomerate a thing or two about running a restaurant. Eatsa, the mostly automated healthy, fast food bowl shop based in San Francisco, has inspired the CEO of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s to rethink the traditional workforce—by replacing all   ... MORE

VIDEO: What's The Right Minimum Wage?

Hey Seattle, How's That $15 Min Wage Working Out For Ya?

by Rick Moran.    The American Enterprise Institute blog reveals the not very surprising news that 10 months into Seattle's radical experiment of boosting the minimum wage to $15 an hour over a period of years, the city has suffered the worst job losses since the Great Recession. Now that the first Seattle minimum wage increase has been in effect for more  ... MORE

VIDEO: Is Raising Minimum Wage A Bad Idea?

VIDEO: John Stossel - Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly

VIDEO: Regulation: Understanding Milton Friedman

VIDEO: The Economics Of Minimum Wage

6 Big Cities See Hiring Fade After Minimum Wage Hikes

by Jed Graham.     Higher costs mean lower demand. U.S. cities that implemented big minimum-wage hikes to $10 an hour or more in 2015 have seen a strikingly similar aftermath: Job gains have fallen to multiyear lows at restaurants, hotels and other leisure and hospitality venues. The data aren't, for the most part, stark and reliable enough to amount  ... MORE

Walter E Williams: Minimum Wage Dishonesty

Higher prices mean less demand.  Michael Hiltzik, a columnist and Los Angeles Times reporter, wrote an article titled "Does a minimum wage raise hurt workers? Economists say: We don't know." Uncertain was his conclusion from a poll conducted by the Initiative on Global Markets, at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, of 42   ... MORE

Unintended Consequences Of Seattle's Minimum Wage Hike

by Alex Vargo.     A cure much worse than the disease. Like any well-intentioned law, government-imposed minimum wage increase seem to help workers, at least on the surface. But is it really as easy as mandating that employers pay their employees more? In the restaurant industry, there are three possible consequences for young workers that    ... MORE

New York Democrats Begin To Realize Minimum Wage Means Maximum Unemployment For Low-Skill Workers

by Novell Rose.   It is not about politics, it is about math. It happened in Seattle — pay goes up, business goes down. As Western Journalism reported about the city’s $15-per-hour minimum wage law, an article in Seattle Magazine raised the red flag about the red ink a number of local restaurants would be facing because of the increasing labor     ... MORE

Brian Doherty: L.A.'s Minimum Wage Hike: A Teaching Moment For Those Trying To Help The Underprivileged

Harder to do good for someone if it costs a lot more.  A lightly annotated story from today's L.A. Times from the frontline of the politically connected trying to claim special exemptions from L.A's forthcoming minimum wage hike, which highlights not the corruption of the politically connected seeking special favors but the logic    ... MORE

VIDEO: Freakonomics Looks At When To Rob A Bank