When deciding where to start a business, expand operations, or relocate, entrepreneurs prefer states with balanced tort systems that discourage abusive lawsuits. In 2006, job growth was 57% greater in the 10 states with the best tort climates than in the 10 worst states. Business leaders are leery of Michigan because of its sky-high tort costs and skewed courtrooms.
Fear of lawsuits also causes companies to withdraw or withhold beneficial products. Volkswagen planned to sell a 46 m.p.g. three-wheel vehicle. This “green machine” would have cost only $17,000, but VW decided not to market it in the United States because of lawsuit fears.
Total direct tort costs were $255 billion in 2008. Abusive lawsuits cost every American a hidden “tort tax” of about $2,000 a year in higher prices and insurance premiums, fewer jobs and new products, lower wages and benefits for working people, reduced access to health care, and higher taxes to pay for court costs. And the current system is very inefficient at its intended purpose – less than 15 cents of every tort-cost dollar goes to compensate plaintiffs.
Here’s a video about the Tort Liability Index, which tracks which states have the best environment for business based on tort costs.
This is one reason why states like North Dakota have low unemployment while anti-business states like New York have high unemployment. And North Dakota has massive budget surpluses whereas New York is running massive deficits.
Complacency and “general hopelessness” have been blamed for the failure of young British men as research reveals that underperformance in school and university is now creeping into their working lives. A report published today by the Higher Education Policy Institute thinktank says male graduates are far more likely to be unemployed than their female counterparts.
Figures show that the economic downturn caused an increase in graduate unemployment from 11.1% at the end of 2008 to 14% by the end of last year. But when the figures are broken down by sex a stark picture emerges of 17.2% of young male graduates failing to find jobs compared to 11.2% of women.
[…]Bahram Bekhradnia, the HEPI’s director, spoke of the “general hopelessness of young men”. “The increase in unemployment that occurred between 2008 and 2009 is striking. For those graduates who have not found work it is a personal tragedy – a really bad start to their working lives,” he said.
He pointed to forecasts that suggest women will dominate the professions within 15 years. “That has all sorts of implications for things such as family creation, child-rearing and so on. The situation in some countries is even more extreme. An American woman told a conference I attended of the fury of black American women who found it impossible to form relationships with men of the same race with similar educational attainment because black American males weren’t going to university.
[…]Around half of the difference can be put down to subject choice, but the rest is unaccounted for and could indicate discriminatory forces.
[…]…the underachievement of men in school, university and adulthood is now an international phenomenon and it is one that is being increasingly studied in psychology.
Why are men struggling to find jobs? Well they are not doing very well in school.
In 2006, the high school dropout rate, which was 1.5 points higher for girls in 1970, was 2 points, or almost 20% higher, for boys (10.3% vs. 8.3%).
A 2007 study led by James Heckman of the University of Chicago asserted that “the pattern of the decline of high school graduation rates by gender helps to explain the recent increase in male-female college attendance gaps.”
The gender gap in college attendance for at least the past several years has returned. In late April, Uncle Sam’s Department of Labor told us that after three years of almost equal gender enrollment by high school graduates (2006, 2007, 2008), 202,000 more women than men from the class of 2009 went on to college. Women make up almost 55% of the current year’s freshman class.
The problem is that there are almost no male teachers and also that boys don’t learn well in co-ed classrooms – they get distracted by girls. The curriculum is not suitable for boys, who learn better with different materials that focus more on things that boys like, like wars, guns and adventures. Boys learn better with male teachers and all-male classrooms because they need male role models in order to succeed.
The organization MenTeach, a Minnesota organization dedicated to increasing the number of males working with young children, posted a survey on its Web site showing that males constitute less than 20 percent of America’s 2.9 million elementary and middle school teachers. The 2008 survey, based on source data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed even more drastic differences among different grade levels:
44 percent of America’s 1.2 million secondary school teachers.
18.8 percent of America’s 2.9 million elementary and middle school teachers.
2.4 percent of America’s 685,000 pre-kindergarten and kindergarten teachers.
Most women want men to be strong husbands and fathers, so they’ll need to make sure that men have jobs. In order for men to have jobs, they’ll want to oppose feminists who discriminate against men in the education system.
…the president said all the right things Wednesday about boosting exports, opening markets and getting Congress to approve free-trade deals with Colombia, South Korea and Panama.
[…]But as good as the speech sounded, it was no more than a reiteration of statements Obama has already made, always promising to get on it, soon. If he wants these treaties passed, he should submit the deals already negotiated and let Congress vote, up or down.
[…]Thirty-nine House Democrats and virtually all the Republicans have indicated their support, and a host of others intend to vote “yes,” though they won’t say so.
That’s why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to permit any vote on the Colombian pact, which was submitted to Congress two years ago. She doesn’t fear it’ll fail; she fears it’ll pass.
[…]Overall joblessness of 9.4% is bad enough. But among blacks, male unemployment is averaging 19.5%, and the 13.2% rate for Latinos is double what it had been most of the decade. Then there’s the 52% of young people who can’t find work.The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warns that if Congress fails to act on the three pending trade pacts, 585,000 U.S. jobs will be snatched away by rivals such as Canada. That would be a big chunk of the 3.5 million jobs Obama promised to create by year-end.
American businesses do better when they can pay less to buy the things they need to make their products from trading partners who have signed free trade deals signed with us. More efficiency means they can sell the products and services for less. That means that people buy more of those products. And then they hire more people.The number of jobs gained by improving the efficiency of businesses is higher than the union jobs saved by not signing the free trade deals. And who cares about unions anyway – unions make consumers and businesses pay too much! And they’re Democrats! So they’re crap on social issues and foreign policy anyway.
Among economists, being opposed to free trade is the equivalent of being opposed to a round Earth. But Democrats have to believe in protectionist nonsense – they are beholden to the unions that elected them who oppose choice and competition. Unions don’t want consumers to have a choice, and they don’t want to have to compete with anyone. They want to screw consumers into paying higher prices – and Obama has to cater to their delusions.
WINTERY KNIGHT 