News

Which political party raises unemployment more? Democrats or African communists?

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First, let’s look at the fiscal policies of ANC party in South Africa. (H/T Eleanor via Mary)

Excerpt:

If the government has its way, private companies will no longer be able to hire employees without first considering people listed on a government database of unemployed South Africans.

Failure to do so could result in heavy fines for companies.

This is according to the Employment Services Bill gazetted in December last year.

According to the proposed bill, the government intends to establish a public employment service, whose task will be to create a database of all unemployed people in the country. The employment service will then link job seekers to companies that have vacancies.

The bill, one of four tabled last year, also stipulates that employers will have to register all their vacancies with the service in 14 days.

The government will then provide the companies with the names of possible candidates to fill those posts.

According to the proposed bill, if companies fail to appoint candidates from the database who meet the requirements, they will need to provide written reasons for their actions.

The bill also proposes conditional employment of foreigners. If a company employs a foreigner, it will have to prove to the employment service that it was unable to find a suitable local candidate, including those provided by the government.

The government has also vowed to deal with recruitment agencies that charge job seekers fees. It has proposed that all agencies be registered or face punitive measures.

The bill proposes that the agencies must charge employers the fees instead.

In addition, the bill provides for temporary workers to be paid at the same rate as permanent workers.

This may be the most anti-jobs policy I have EVER heard of. If Satan himself wanted to design a policy to destroy jobs and stop businesses from hiring, then he could not do more to raise the unemployment rate than this evil, evil job-killing policy.

Let’s take a closer look:

  • first, government has no money of its own – it must steal money from productive businesses. Businesses who create products and services that consumers actually want. That means that the money that is used for this database and the government employees will take money away from businesses. When businesses have less money, they hire fewer workers. Therefore, this policy will raise the unemployment rate.
  • second, government will fine companies who do not waste time and money complying with this new regulation. Complying with the regulation not only requires time to query the database, but also to interview candidates who match the job requirements, and then to provide written reasons why they did not hire those candidates. The time spent complying with these regulations will cost the company money, reducing the amount of money that is available to hire workers. Therefore, this policy will raise the unemployment rate.
  • Third, the fee for hiring foreign workers will cause companies to settle for a local employee, who may not be as skilled as the foreign worker. The extra paperwork to hire a better-qualified foreign worker will cost the company money, reducing the amount of money that is available to hire workers. Therefore, this policy will raise the unemployment rate.
  • Fourth, in the case where the employer has to pay an extra fee to hire a worker who has been found by a headhunter, it just raises the cost of hiring this person and may cause the company NOT to hire this worker. Whereas before, a company would have to pay X to hire a worker P, now they will have to pay X + some fee in order to hire worker P. This extra fee will cost the company money, reducing the amount of money that is available to hire workers. Therefore, this policy will raise the unemployment rate.

Since the stated “good intention” of this bill is to reduce unemployment, I can only conclude that the ANC is a party of diabolical liars, or that they are not competent enough to run a lemonade stand. When you raise the cost of employees, either through fees or through fines or through paperwork, then you get fewer employees hired. What will happen is that more South African businesses will ship their jobs overseas. This is where outsourcing comes from – from stupid anti-business policies.

But wait! What about Obama? Isn’t he economically illiterate, too?

Consider this story from the Wall Street Journal. (H/T Michelle Malkin)

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama’s budget proposal is expected to give states a way to collect more payroll taxes from businesses, in an effort to replenish the unemployment-insurance program. The plan could cause controversy at a time when the administration is seeking to mend fences with corporate America.

The proposal would aim to restock strained state unemployment-insurance trust funds by raising the amount of wages on which companies must pay unemployment taxes to $15,000, more than double the $7,000 in place since 1983.

The plan, which would take effect in 2014, could increase payroll taxes by as much as $100 billion over a decade, according to a person involved in its construction.

By proposing to enlarge the pool of wages subject to unemployment taxes, the White House appears to be offering states a more politically palatable way to raise revenues than to boost tax rates. States could keep the tax rates they have, or even lower them somewhat, and still raise considerably more revenue than they are raising now.

…To avoid hitting businesses with a tax increase during the economic recovery, the proposal would delay the new rules until 2014. The plan is expected to be included in Mr. Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal 2012, to be released Monday.

Any proposal would need congressional approval.

Michelle Malkin explains:

Just remember: There is no such thing as a “free” government benefit. Who pays? Dentists, tavern owners, maid services, mom-and-pop shops — small businesses that are the backbone of the American economy. And the businesses that have the lowest claims histories are getting punished the most to make up the jobless benefits fund deficit.

So much for Do No Harm.

This policy will basically raise the cost of hiring an employee. It is nothing but a new tax on businesses who hire employees. Businesses will have to pay the government more money for every employee they hire. Their only way out is to not hire anyone (here), but to move their businesses abroad, away from Obama and his anti-business regulations and taxes.

Remember what happened to the unemployment rate since the Democrats took over Congress in 2007:

Labor Force Participation Rate
Labor Force Participation Rate

Click the graph for a larger image. When you tax something, you get less of it.

News

New study links morning-after pill to increase in sexually-transmitted diseases

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From Physorg. (H/T Family Research Council)

Excerpt:

Offering the morning after pill free over the counter has not reduced the number of teenage pregnancies and may be associated with a rise in sexually-transmitted diseases (STIs), according to a report by experts at The University of Nottingham.

Professors David Paton and Sourafel Girma used local health authority data to study the impact that the introduction of Government-backed schemes to offer emergency birth control at pharmacies and without prescription have had on conception rates and the diagnosis of STIs among under-18s.

Their findings show that, on average, areas operating a pharmacy emergency birth control (EBC) scheme saw an overall increase of five percent in the rate of STIs among teenagers — 12 per cent in the under-16s age group. The study also found that EBC schemes may actually be associated with a small increase in the number of teens falling pregnant.

[…]Historically, a number of studies have been conducted looking at the impact of easier access to contraception and legalising abortion and a review of 23 of these reports in 2007 revealed that none found any significant decreases in unwanted pregnancies or abortion rates.

[…]The researchers warned that as the figures only show the number of diagnoses at GUM clinics, rather than the total number of infections of illnesses which can in some cases be asymptomatic.

Professor Paton commented, “Our study illustrates how government interventions can sometimes lead to unfortunate unintended consequences. The fact that STI diagnoses increased in areas with EBC schemes will raise questions over whether these schemes represent the best use of public money”.

Make having sex easier, and you get more people having sex more often. More sex means more STDs. Pretty simple.

News

Fewer people are paying taxes because fewer people are married

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Here is an interesting essay from The Family in America.

Here’s the problem:

Just two days before Tax Day this year, the Heritage Foundation was quick on the draw with a Backgrounder by Curtis S. Dubay citing IRS data showing that the bottom 50 percent of tax filers pay less than 3 percent of all income taxes. According to Dubay, “the rapid increase in the number of nonpaying tax filers caused by tax credits is leading the country to a dangerous tipping point.” Like other conservatives and libertarians, he fears that once the bottom half of tax filers pay no taxes whatsoever, they “could vote themselves an increasing share of government benefits at no cost to themselves.”

And here’s what’s causing the problem:

More important, this relatively new concern about the growth in the number of Americans paying no income taxes overlooks the social roots of the problem, particularly the decline of the most economically productive segment of the population: the married-two parent family.5 Consequently, few economic conservatives seem willing to connect the dots between the changing demographics of the American taxpayer, which Hodge at least acknowledges,6 and the growth of Americans paying no taxes. They seem more eager to blame the latter on the addition and expansion of refundable credits, especially the child tax credit, not changing demographics. Yet Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, estimates that married couples are far less likely to be non-taxpayers in 2009 than single filers or head-of-household filers. In this last category, his model shows 72 percent paying no income taxes, the highest percentage of all tax filing categories. Only 38 percent of married-joint filers, and 26 percent of married-separate filers, pay no taxes.7

Indeed, the Tax Foundation’s own analysis of IRS data documents the decline in the proportion of married filers from 65 percent of returns in 1960 to 41 percent in the years 2000–02, and the dramatic growth of head-of-household filers, representing largely unwed mothers, from 2 percent to 15 percent during the same period. Moreover, looking at data from 2002 returns, the foundation finds that married couples, while they file less than half of all tax returns, pay nearly three-quarters of all income taxes paid by the American people.8 Even though the analysis does not include changes that might arise from the doubling of the child tax credit to $1,000 in 2003, the numbers nonetheless suggest that the growth in the number of Americans who pay no income taxes is driven more by the retreat from marriage than by the proliferation of credits in the tax code, as problematic as that might be. The numbers further suggest that if conservatives are serious about tax reform, they can no longer ignore the elephant in the room—the retreat from marriage and family life—that undermines the very economic growth they seek. Nor can they presume that a flatter tax system with lower rates and a wider base, favored by the  libertarian wing of the GOP, will lead to smaller government, as analysis by economist Gary Becker shows that countries with flatter tax systems tend to have larger governments.9 They must therefore be open to tax reform proposals that recognize the natural family as the social and economic ideal as well as reinforce the recovery of marriage and the child-rich family—not economic growth for its own sake—as centerpieces of American life.

This is yet another reason for fiscal conservatives to take notice that you cannot have economic growth if the traditional family is replaced with single-mother families. Single motherhood is not a situation where men are responsible and work hard as providers. It infantilizes men and rewards them for acting like nomads and barbarians. And the children who are raised without fathers are not going to be as mentally healthy or productive as the ones raised with fathers. The traditional family, with children raised by biological parents who are attached to them, is an important part of future economic growth. It’s all linked together – social conservatism and fiscal conservatism.