now that it has been almost a month and the dust has settled since my beloved mavericks blew a 2 3/4 games-to-none lead in the nba finals, i get can get back to some important stuff. man, those playoffs took me out of it, and it out of me. damn!
actually, i can finally get to publicly expressing my opinion on the goings-on in the u.s. and the world. (see my profile for more)
i will start with a gem co-written for the chicago sun-times by our former senate majority leader tom daschle entitled "Immigration reform won't give average American job security" (http://www.chicagosuntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst-edt-ref10.html).
the crux of it is how congress is basically wasting time trying to come up with immigration reform when it should first find "ways to strengthen and protect America's middle-class jobs". interesting. congress should cease efforts aimed at least partially at securing the border, one of the main functions, one would think, of the federal government, until it interferes in the private sector, past actions of which have already put a drag on economic activity (taxes, regulations, etc.). i'm not sure i agree with that. i think i agree with mr. chapman of the rival tribune when he said the best job security is job insecurity. shouldn't at least a little job insecurity, knowing that you are not entitled to your job, make you that much better of a worker? wouldn't that tend to give you a leg up when job cuts come around, or worse, when looking for another job? too much "job security" and the u.s. will start to look like europe. it seems that over there "job security" has an inverse relationship to job creation.
if you want the complete picture on what contributes to unemployment amongst "school drop-outs, unskilled laborers, and young African-American males", you must include the minimum wage in the conversation. fortunately, there are enough senators and congressmen who know that the minimum wage hurts the ones, the aforementioned, that it is meant to help by pricing them out of the market, and therefore have defeated efforts to raise it. on the bright side, however, the minimum wage surely has helped to bring about the innovations in self-service in places such as gas stations and grocery stores.
it seems that mr. daschle speaks for those who are unaware of a concept known as creative destruction. most, though not all, jobs sent overseas are low-paying, more lowly skilled jobs. when companies do that, one thing they are freed up to do is expand and create more high-paying jobs. while india, china and the like are labor abundant, the u.s. is capital and land abundant. highly skilled workers are needed to work that capital. that's why, if nothing else, mom and dad always said "get a college education".
ah, "an honest accounting of the nation's true unemployment rate" would also include the household survey, which takes into account the self-employed, the entrepreneur's who make america go. while the business survey recently said a "lower-than-expected" 120K jobs were recently created, the household survey said more than 350K were created! this is, unfortunately, one of the best kept secrets from the american people.
this piece, particularly the part about all the tax cuts and credits, reminds me of that ridiculous piece on the the daily kos the other day with regard to "libertarian dems". the solution to the vast majority of problems/issues these days is not more and more government, or in the case of this article, a more and more convoluted income tax code. we ought to just strip away 99% of business regulations (i suppose there are a couple good ones out there) and streamline the tax code, be it via a flat tax or a national sales tax. that right there is the purest way to encourage people to save and invest more.
leave them alone and see what happens.
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