Tag Archives: Wal-Mart

News

What the reaction to the Indiana religious liberty law tells us about the secular left

5 Comments
Hillary Clinton and the Human Rights Campaign
Hillary Clinton and the Human Rights Campaign

I surveyed three articles for this post, and we’ll see a little from each.

Jewish conservative Ben Shapiro has more in Townhall. (H/T Pastor Matt)

Shapiro writes:

Same-sex marriage, it turns out, was never designed to grant legal benefits to same-sex couples. That could have been done under a regime of civil unions. Same-sex marriage was always designed to allow the government to have the power to cram down punishment on anyone who disobeys the government’s vision of the public good. One need not be an advocate of discrimination against gays to believe that government does not have the ability to enforce the prevailing social standards of the time in violation of individual rights. There are many situations in which advocates of freedom dislike particular exercises of that freedom but understand that government attacks on individual rights are far more threatening to the public good.

You do not have a right to my services; I have a right to provide my services to whomever I choose. If you believe that your interpretation of public good enables you to bring a gun to the party, you are a bully and a tyrant. So it is with the modern American left, to whom freedom now means only the freedom to do what it is the left wants you to do at point of gun.

And Ben Shapiro again for Breitbart on what’s next for the secular left:

[…][T]he obvious next step is for the left to target churches for revocation of their non-profit status.

[…]Once non-profit status is revoked for churches on the basis of supposed discrimination against homosexuals, those churches become private institutions engaged in commerce. Which means that they are regulated as common businesses under anti-discrimination law. Which means they can be shut down or fined for failure to perform same-sex weddings. The left says this will never happen. Which means we are a few years away from it happening.

Religious universities will certainly be targeted, both as to their non-profit status and then for fines if they refuse to provide benefits for same-sex spouses, for example. Under the Bob Jones University case, which has already been touted by the left as the model for a federal case against same-sex marriage, universities will be considered discriminatory if they stand against same-sex marriage the same way Bob Jones University was with regard to its interracial dating standard. The difference, of course, is that dating between races is not the same as dating within the same sex. But the left has always equated race with homosexual behavior and will extend that equation to the law as it applies to institutions of higher education.

Just because religious schools are run by religious institutions does not exempt them from the wrath of the left. Leftists have already declared in states in which same-sex marriage has been approved that children must be taught about same-sex marriage in public schools; in California, for example, the law also requires that parents allow children to attend such classes.

This logic will be extended to private schools. Why should private schools be allowed to “discriminate” against same-sex couples by exempting children from learning about them? Why should homeschooled children be given state-credentialed status without being indoctrinated in the decency of homosexual behavior, all in the name of non-discrimination?

Here is an article from The Stream:

History teaches that mass vilification rarely stops short of spilling blood. The French Jacobins who spent the 1780s slandering the clergy in pornographic pamphlets went on in the 1790s to slaughter Christians by the hundreds of thousands. The Turks paved the way for killing a million Armenian Christians with a wave of propaganda. The Bolsheviks followed their “anti-God” crusade of the 1920s with starvation camps and firing squads. The Communist governments of Eastern Europe obeyed the same script, as scholar Anne Applebaum documents in her sobering study The Iron Curtain. The Hutu government of Rwanda prepared for its assault on the once-powerful Tutsis by incessantly describing them as “cockroaches” on radio broadcasts, which triggered a genocide.

The point here is that before the mob resorts to violence, they first have to dehumanize their opponents. That’s what we saw from the secular left in response to laws defending individual religious liberty against the secular state.

I think that it’s important for us to engage the source of secular leftist radicalism – the university. This is where the next generation of radical leftists are indoctrinated. I think that Christians need to be studying apologetics, as well as economics and politics. We need to have Christians study harder things in better schools and take more influential jobs. This is a major failure of the Christian church – we have been too focused on spirituality and piety at the expense of effectiveness and influence. Churches are simply not set up to connect the prosperity, liberty and security that Christians need to act as authentic Christians in the public square, to specific battles over laws and policies. We are not persuasive or effective in those battles.

We really need to be more engaged and well-rounded, but all I see the church doing is the gospel, the gospel, the gospel – every week. I don’t even know whether my pastor is pro-life or pro-marriage, and he certainly has never shared any reasons for his flock to be. And as far as apologetics, politics and economics? Forget it. I wonder how many young evangelicals in his church voted to set in motion the forces that would see him presiding over gay weddings , or having his children taken away from him lest they learn that there is anything wrong with abortion. But I’m sure he is very good at reading devotions, singing praise hymns, and doing Bible study. We need to be training influential young Christians and raising effective children.

News

Wal-Mart cancels plans to build three stores after D.C. leftists raise minimum wage 50%

Leave a comment

From Fox Business, a story that shows how completely clueless left-wing politicians are about economics.

Excerpt:

Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) no longer plans to build three stores in the nation’s capitol, after the city’s council voted to force large retailers to pay starting wages that are 50% higher than the minimum wage there.

The world’s largest retailer also said it will consider its options related to three other Washington, D.C., stores that are still under construction.

The bill, called the Large Retailer Accountability Act of 2013, was approved by an 8-to-5 vote, even though Walmart had warned that the company would leave the district.

“Nothing has changed from our perspective: we will not pursue Skyland, Capitol Gateway, and New York Avenue and will start to review the financial and legal implications on the three stores already under construction,” Walmart spokesman Steven Restivo said, referring to the locations of the planned stores.

“This was a difficult decision for us—and unfortunate news for most D.C. residents—but the Council has forced our hand.”

The district’s new law requires retailers with sales of more than $1 billion and with stores of at least 75,000 square feet to pay their workers starting salaries of at least $12.50 an hour, compared to the minimum wage of $8.25.

Unionized businesses are exempt from the measure. Large stores that already have a presence in D.C., including Target (TGT) and Macy’s (M), have four years to comply.

Now for most of my readers who understand economics, what happened here is going to be pretty obvious. But sometimes people get specialized in other areas and neglect the study of economics. The danger then is that they will be moved to support policies that appeal to their hearts. But it’s very important to understand that policies that sound good, like raising wages, often have unexpected negative results.

Here is George Mason University economics professor Walter Williams to explain the problem with increasing the minimum wage, starting with the basics of economics.

Excerpt:

Are people responsive to changes in price? For example, if the price of cars rose by 25 percent, would people purchase as many cars? Supposing housing prices rose by 25 percent, what would happen to sales? Those are big-ticket items, but what about smaller-priced items? If a supermarket raised its prices by 25 percent, would people purchase as much? It’s not rocket science to conclude that when prices rise, people adjust their behavior by purchasing less.

It’s almost childish to do so, but I’m going to ask questions about 25 percent price changes in the other way. What responses would people have if the price of cars or housing fell by 25 percent? What would happen to supermarket sales if prices fell by 25 percent? Again, it doesn’t require deep thinking to guess that people would purchase more.

This behavior in economics is known as the first fundamental law of demand. It holds that the higher the price of something the less people will take and that the lower the price the more people will take. There are no known exceptions to the law of demand. Any economist who could prove a real-world exception would probably be a candidate for the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and other honors.

[…]University of California, Irvine economist David Neumark has examined more than 100 major academic studies on the minimum wage. […]About 85 percent of the studies “find a negative employment effect on low-skilled workers.” A 1976 American Economic Association survey found that 90 percent of its members agreed that increasing the minimum wage raises unemployment among young and unskilled workers. A 1990 survey found that 80 percent of economists agreed with the statement that increases in the minimum wage cause unemployment among the youth and low-skilled. If you’re looking for a consensus in most fields of study, examine the introductory and intermediate college textbooks in the field. Economics textbooks that mention the minimum wage say that it increases unemployment for the least skilled worker.

When considering what economic policies to adopt, it is not enough to do what feels good. Liberals and conservatives agree that it is good to help the poor. Liberals think that higher minimum wage rates help the poor, and conservatives think that lower minimum wage rates help the poor. This is not a topic that is up for debate, though, because economists across the idological spectrum agree on this one – and for the reasons outlined above and illustrated in the Wal-Mart case.

Take a look at this post from moderate Harvard University economist Greg Mankiw.

He writes:

I believe it is better to introduce students to economics with topics about which there is more of a professional consensus. In chapter two of the book, I include a table of propositions to which most economists subscribe, based on various polls of the profession. Here is the list, together with the percentage of economists who agree:

    1. A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available. (93%)
    2. Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce general economic welfare. (93%)
    3. Flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement. (90%)
    4. Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)
    5. The United States should not restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. (90%)
    6. The United States should eliminate agricultural subsidies. (85%)
    7. Local and state governments should eliminate subsidies to professional sports franchises. (85%)
    8. If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the business cycle rather than yearly. (85%)
    9. The gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged. (85%)
    10. Cash payments increase the welfare of recipients to a greater degree than do transfers-in-kind of equal cash value. (84%)
    11. A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. (83%)
    12. A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers. (79%)
    13. The government should restructure the welfare system along the lines of a “negative income tax.” (79%)
    14. Effluent taxes and marketable pollution permits represent a better approach to pollution control than imposition of pollution ceilings. (78%)

When you raise the price of anything – including labor – fewer people will buy it. Wal-Mart will still spend the money on new stores and new employees, just not in Washington, D.C. – not with those laws. Notice that number one on his list is the case of rent control, where government good-intentioners try to hold the price of rent down. What happens next? Well, it the price goes down then everyone wants to buy more of whatever just went on sale. But the people providing what just went on sale stop making it because they can’t make a profit. The unexpected consequence is that there is a housing shortage. The quantity of housing decreases, and the quality of housing decreases. The quality decreases because demand is so high that property owners no longer have to maintain the properties, since demand has skyrocketed. Economics is something that everyone should study, so that we don’t just have good intentions, but also have good results.

 

Commentary

What working at Wal-Mart taught a young conservative woman about the poor

16 Comments

My friend Jose sent me this wonderful article from The College Conservative.

Excerpt:

During the 2010 and 2011 summers, I was a cashier at Wal-Mart #1788 in Scarborough, Maine. I spent hours upon hours toiling away at a register, scanning, bagging, and dealing with questionable clientele. These were all expected parts of the job, and I was okay with it. What I didn’t expect to be part of my job at Wal-Mart was to witness massive amounts of welfare fraud and abuse.

I understand that sometimes, people are destitute. They need help, and they accept help from the state in order to feed their families. This is fine. It happens. I’m not against temporary aid helping those who truly need it. What I saw at Wal-Mart, however, was not temporary aid. I witnessed generations of families all relying on the state to buy food and other items.  I literally witnessed mothers of small children asking their mothers if they could borrow their EBT cards. I once had a man show me his welfare card for an ID to buy alcohol. The man was from Massachusetts. Governor Michael Dukakis’ signature was on his welfare card. Dukakis’ last gubernatorial term ended in January of 1991. I was born in June of 1991. The man had been on welfare my entire life. That’s not how welfare was intended, but sadly, it is what it has become.

Here are just two short anecdotes:

a) People ignoring me on their iPhones while the state paid for their food. (For those of you keeping score at home, an iPhone is at least $200, and requires a data package of at least $25 a month. If a person can spend $25+ a month so they can watch YouTube 24/7, I don’t see why they can’t spend that money on food.)

d) A man who ran a hotdog stand on the pier in Portland, Maine used to come through my line. He would always discuss his hotdog stand and encourage me to “come visit him for lunch some day.” What would he buy? Hotdogs, buns, mustard, ketchup, etc. How would he pay for it? Food stamps. Either that man really likes hotdogs, or the state is paying for his business. Not okay.

I urge you with every fiber of my body to click through and read the true story of Welfare Queen #1 and Welfare Queen #2. Read them, and weep. Just because someone is poor, it doesn’t mean that they are automatically a good person. Maybe they are poor because they are irresponsible and selfish. Had you ever considered that? In any case, it’s not the government’s job to hand out money without knowing anything about the person who is getting the money. Government should leave the money in the hands of people who earn it, and let us decide who deserves to receive charity. (At the most, they should give us a tax deduction for charity up to 10% of our gross income to encourage more private charity)

But wait! There’s more!

From Human Events, toll workers being paid over $100,000 a year by the government.

Excerpt:

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Princesella Smith, who raked in $89,599 for operating the toll lanes at the George Washington Bridge in 2011.

Smith isn’t alone.  An investigation by the New York Post revealed that another toll booth operator pulled in a whopping $102,670 in 2011, $40K of that money coming in overtime.  In total, as the Post notes, there are at least 24 New York and New Jersey workers who have raked in more than $80,000 as “public” workers at a job that requires us to hand them even more of our money.

[…]Besides excessive wages to people whose only skill requirement is to sit on a stool and count and collect dollar bills, tax dollars reserved for transportation uses have gone to a panoply of nonessential programs.  As Ronald Utt of The Heritage Foundation points out, the “highway trust fund” has been raided to pay for Indian reservations, historic preservation sites, Appalachian and Mississippi Delta development, roadside beautification, bicycles, hiking paths, university research, and—the granddaddy of all expenses—feeding the $425 million beast that is the Department of Transportation.

The Port Authority (PA), for instance, employees a gardener for $94,000 and a blacksmith for $146,000 a year.  Heck, there are even retired PA employees who are making around that amount by cashing in on unused vacation and comp time.  (Here’s an idea:  As we’re facing budget deficits well into our future, how about requiring public employees to use their vaca time … or lose it.  No cashing in allowed.)

The larger problem highlighted with transportation spending, as Ronald Utt underscores, is the concept of public ownership.  A paltry 65% of highway taxes collected actually go to making driving a more pleasant experience for commuters.  The rest is squandered on whatever fancies a politician’s spending appetite at a given moment.  As the number of people driving has increased on the nation’s roads and highways (up 71% since 1970), lawmakers in Washington, D.C., and around the country have funneled money to stupid bike lines and high-speed rail debacles.

If I were President, I would immediately cancel all pensions for retired public sector workers and outlaw public sector unions.  What a colossal waste of money.

UPDATE: John Hawkins just posted a column entitled “The Five Things You Can Learn From Wal-Mart“.