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Simplistic Economics on the Minimum Wage

President Obama has called for an increase in the Minimum Wage,making the claim that it would be good for business because those receiving the higher wage would have more to spend. Higher demand would lead to increased consumption. That boon is easy to see, but serious policy makers must also consider the less visible consequences.

Where does the money for the raise come from?

No business has a money tree from which to pluck dollars, the raise must be accounted for either by reducing the wages of other employees or the number of employees, reducing their consumption, or raising the prices of the company’s products or services, leaving the customers with less to spend somewhere else, or from the business owner(s) pockets, reducing their consumption, or investment in their own business, or those of others through stock purchases, reducing the consumption of those businesses or their employees.

In every case, the increased consumption by minimum wage earners comes at the expense of reduced consumption by someone else. There is no net benefit to the economy.

Increased wages can bring true increases in consumption and economic growth only if they are the result of increased wealth creation by the employee.

Either the President is being guided by extremely simplistic economic theory or he is simply pandering and hoping no one will notice the fallacy. Neither option is encouraging.

The President’s advisers should point out to him that ‘pulling oneself up by his bootstraps’ is only a figure of speech.

No Wasted Votes

This year we have an excellent Libertarian Party Presidential candidate, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, but realistically, he is not going to carry Virginia. Worse, Virginia is a battleground state this year, and a significant vote for Johnson could well swing the state, and the Presidency, to Barack Obama.

Still, it is very important that Gary Johnson gets a good share of the vote nationwide if we are to make progress toward the day when we will be competitive. So, what is a Libertarian to do?

The President’s True Heart

Journalists and Democrat apologists have rushed forward to defend President Obama’s Roanoke speech, claiming his words have been taken out of context. Well, I have read the whole speech, but you really have the hear it to gauge the President’s true contempt for entrepreneurs.

Do as we say, not as we do

This is the parking space for the Obama for President Campaign next door to my office. These are the folks who want CAFE Standards raised so that we common folk will not be able to buy the kind of vehicles they drive.  The smallest vehicle is the 18MPG Jeep Grand Cherokee.
But isn’t it always like that with liberals?

Eric Cantor’s House Passes CISPA! – updated w/ C4L link to roll call of votes

CISPA. It’s the latest acronym being used to control you and your internet experience. This time the pretense is cyber security. It is perfectly understandable to want to prevent cyber attacks, but they can’t take small efforts to protect our civil liberties? Huh?
Civil Libertarians have probably seen this http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75670.html on Facebook.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) – It sounds like a good thing. All that sharing and protecting. The problem is, they did precious little to protect individual liberties. One could even argue that they went out of their way not to.

Hey! Remember SOPA? Just a reminder of the last attempt to control your internet.

http://video.godlikeproductions.com/modules/vPlayer/vPlayer.swf?f=http://video.godlikeproductions.com/modules/vPlayer/vPlayercfg.php?fid=27d7e3ea50ab080f398

Remember SOPA? Stop Online Piracy Act? It was defeated, but check out the video above and just scour the internet if you need to. Some informational background can even be found on wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

“Stand Your Ground” and Self Defense

With the controversy over the shooting death of Trayvon Martin and the later arrest of George Zimmerman, there has been a great deal of confusion in the media over what self defense is and how the Stand Your Ground law in Florida and many other States applies. A great deal of totally irrelevant issues are being brought into the matter which confuse something that is really pretty simple.

I am not a lawyer, but I studied Virginia’s Case Law on self defense extensively during the Ryan Frederick trial, so perhaps I can make this a bit more understandable.

Self defense is a natural right, and a legal defense of necessity.