September 9, 2017

Defend Our Online Communities: Stop SESTA

from EFF: Don’t endanger our online communities. SESTA would swap responsibility for online posts from the individual to the web platform, providing the platform with incentives to censor. Stop SESTA.
Indoctrination and Censorship

🎬  Walter E Williams - Tyranny of the Elites

from LibertyPen YouTube Channel: Professor Williams explains how those that pretend to represent you really strive to control you. In fact, they will kill you if necessary to make that point.
The Government is Not Us

Public sector unions are beginning to panic

from Hot Air: When mandatory dues (extortion's first cousin) are gone, unions will be in a heap of trouble.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

Teen marijuana use falls to 20-year low, defying legalization opponents’ predictions

from The Washington Post: Adolescence seems to be about rebellion. Legality ruins the fun Go figure.
The War on Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Victor Davis Hanson: Media bias, bureaucracy drive liberal narrative

from Reason: Raising the bar to enter the job market always results in unemployment for the lowest skilled workers.
Media Bias on Parade

VIDEO: Minimum Wage: Bad for Humans, Good for Robots

from Reason: Raising the bar to enter the job market always results in unemployment for the lowest skilled workers.
Economic Policy: Statism vs The Free Market

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

Hyprocrisy On Steroids: California Labor Union That Fought To Impose $15 Minimum Wage Now Wants An Exemption

The point is to drive up the costs of their competition.  The labor union that led the charge for a $15 minimum wage hike in cities across California is now moving to secure an exemption for employers under union contracts. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor buried the exemption on the eighth page of its 12-page proposal for 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

Scott Shackford: Jerry Brown Admits $15 Minimum Wage Does Not Make Economic Sense, Approves It Anyway

Smart economics is not a consideration. California Gov. Jerry Brown simply does not care about what will happen to citizens in non-urban parts of the state under a $15 minimum wage. He didn’t literally say that, but what he did say when today was that he understood that there may be some bad outcomes for such a massive, unprecedented mandate. And then he signed it into law anyway. ... MORE

California Raises Cost Of Hiring To $15 An Hour

More unemployment guaranteed.   California legislators and labor unions have reached a tentative agreement that will take the state's minimum wage from $10 to $15 an hour, a state senator said, a move that would make for the largest statewide minimum in the nation by far. "This is not a done deal," Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, told The    ... 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

Oregon Legislature Repeals Laws Of Supply & Demand

It is not likely to work out well.    Like the apocryphal story of the state legislature that passed a law dictating that pi equals 3, the Oregon state legislature has passed two laws that pretend the laws of supply & demand don’t exist. The difference is that, in reality, no state legislature ever did pass a law saying that pi equals 3, but Oregon’s      ... MORE

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: John Stossel - Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly

Oakland’s Minimum Wage Is Up, Wal-Mart Is Out

by Leah Jessen.     How that workin' out for ya? A minimum wage of $12.55 an hour in Oakland, Calif., may be the culprit for a Wal-Mart store’s closure. Last Friday, Wal-Mart announced it will close 269 stores globally—including 154 locations in the United States—impacting about 10,000 associates here at home. “The minimum wage in the city of    ... MORE

Adam B. Summers: Killing The Golden Goose Of Capitalism

Be careful what you wish for.   The financial world, and quite a few employees, were taken aback recently when Wal-Mart announced that it will be closing 269 of its 11,600 stores, including 154 in the U.S., although it still plans to open 300 stores worldwide in the coming year. Oakland officials “expressed shock” at Wal-Mart’s decision, according    ... MORE

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

Steven Greenhut: Price Controls Will Slow Drug Innovation

More bad ideas from the left coast. The California state legislature has a habit of legislating by anecdote. Assembly members or senators may have a bad experience at a state agency or with private industry and they write a bill to address it. Often, legislators offer proposals based on the latest news cycle. Ultimately there are hearings, a long vetting   ... MORE

Minimum Wage Hike Measures Ignore A Dismal Reality

by Steven Greenhut.  Polls show a majority of Americans favor raising the minimum wage. It's easy to understand the sentiment, given how tough it is to get by working in a low-wage job. Indeed, support for such efforts is so high in California that two unions are proposing dueling minimum-wage-hike initiatives for the November 2016 ballot, with the   ... 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