March, 2019, Part 3,Political Class Insanity: Economic Nonsense In NYC, Political Idiocy in Virginia, And Americans Say Government Is The Biggest Problem

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) Probably not a surprise, given the incompetence of those politicians and government bureaucrats that operate the government in this country, a recent Gallup tracking poll found that the top problem facing the country was not gun control, climate change, poverty or education. The biggest, by far, problem in Americans’ minds is “the government/poor leadership.” 

More than a third of those polled, 35%, said that the government and those leading the government were the top problem facing the country today. The second biggest problem as cited by those polled was immigration, a distant second at 19%, almost half of what was perceived as the top problem. A distant third place problem was healthcare at a mere 6%.

The 35% was the highest level ever attained by the government/poor leadership in all of the tracking done by Gallup. In other words, our politicians have been getting worse and more of a problem over time. 

I think that this survey shows that Americans are pretty smart in that they recognize that if our politicians and leaders were better, the other problems might just take care of themselves if good, smart leadership could somehow miraculously arise out of the current of politicians. Get a better, smarter set of politicians into government and the failing public education processes in this country get fixed. Elect some smart people who care more about the country than their own greed, and maybe the poverty/hunger/homelessness problem gets fixed.

A few years ago a famous Brazilian clown ran for public office and actually got elected. His campaign slogan was “how much worse could it get” if a clown got elected. Which reinforces our desire for term limits for our politicians, “one and done.” How much worse could it be, given how badly the current members of the political class have screwed everything up?

2) Sometimes when it comes to American politicians you just have to smack your head and say: “What in the world were they thinking?” Which leads us to our next piece of insanity:

• The media and this blog have extensively covered the major racism scandal surrounding the governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam.
• Someone came across the medical school yearbook page of the governor where two very racist items were printed.
• One item was a photo of two young men at a party, one dressed as a KKK member and one dressed in black face makeup, both of which are extremely racist and insensitive.
• The governor first admitted that he was one of the men in the photo and 24 hours later said he was not in the photo which made the scandal even worse by adding a layer of lying to it.
• The second tem was the mention that the governor’s nickname in school was “Coonman,” another racially insensitive situation.

So, two major racially insensitive items to have in your background. There was a groundswell of disgust and calls for him to resign, which so far he has refused to do. But given the scandal and furor, one would have expected him and his wife to be extremely sensitive and careful relative to their actions and words and just go low profile until the current scandal calms down.

But according to the Gateway Pundit website, while low profile may have been the smart thing to do, politicians rarely do the smart thing:

• Jim Holt, writing for the website on February 27, 2019, reported that his wife made a major and again, racially insensitive move, when a bunch of kids were coming through the governor’s mansion on a tour.
• It has been alleged that the wife handed out cotton balls to some African American kids on the tour, obviously invoking the specter of black slavery in the South.
• A state government employee was rightfully upset as a result of her eighth grade daughter being upset after being handed a ball of cotton by the governor’s wife who then asked the kids to imagine being a slave and having to pick cotton.
• The state employee, Leah Dozier Walker, wrote to the governor’s office and state politicians with the following message: “The Governor and Mrs. Northam have asked the residents of the Commonwealth to forgive them for their racially insensitive past actions.But the actions of Mrs. Northam, just last week, do not lead me to believe that this Governor’s office has taken seriously the harm and hurt they have caused African Americans in Virginia or that they are deserving of our forgiveness.” 

My gosh, the stupidity of the political class really knows no limits. After all of the racist blowups over the yearbook stuff, the subsequent calls across the country for the governor to resign, the embarrassment of such racially insensitive behavior, the wife thought handing out cotton balls and invoking the image of slavery to some African American kids was a good idea?! Insane.

3) We have often discussed the reality that one area of life where politicians almost always screw up is in the field of economics. Their economic policies are usually overly expensive, ineffective, and often make the situation worse. Their economic policies have given us a $22 trillion national debt, have put Social Security and Medicare on a road to insolvency, gave us an economic stimulus program after the last recession that wasted over $800 billion without stimulating anything, and have raised the minimum wage level which has resulted in higher unemployment and depressed economic growth.

This latest economic failure of upping the minimum wage was recently discussed on the Godfather Politics website about the situation in New York City:

• According to Warner Todd Huston, with the arrival of the city’s new $15 an hour minimum wage, the city has now lost more jobs now after the minimum wage level went up than the number of jobs lost after the 9-11 attacks, attacks which dealt the city a substantial economic blow.
• A recent research report form the Foundation for Economic Freedom found that since the new $15 wage level took effect, the city has suffered through the steepest decline in restaurant jobs in almost 20 years.
• The report concluded that since the restaurant industry operates on very low profit margins, usually between 2 and 6 percent, a major, 40%, increase in the wage line of this type of business results in a severe profit challenge.
• In order to stay in business, restaurant owners are forced to cut expenses elsewhere which means fewer jobs, reduced hours, and higher prices which in part wipes out the wage gains of some industry workers.
• A NYC Hospitality Alliance survey found the three out of four city restaurants plan on reducing the hours that retained workers will work and nearly half said they will reduce some restaurant jobs in 2019.
• Mark Perry, discussing the report found that: “December 2018 restaurant jobs were down by almost 3,000 (and by 1.64%) from the previous December and the 2.5% annual decline in March 2018 was the worst annual decline since the sharp collapse in restaurant jobs following 9/11 in 2001.”

So whether it is in Seattle, as we have previously discussed, or now in NYC, the following discussion almost always follows when politicians raise the minimum wage arbitrarily: “The good news is that you have a higher hourly wage rate. The bad news is that you no longer have a job...or you will not have as many hours to work since the business needs to cut other expenses to meet your higher wage rate.” 

In either case, a lost job or a fewer hour job, the net change in economic well being is usually worse after the politicians get done tinkering with their economic levers. Let the market decide what the right wage level is, it is much smarter than any American politician.

That will do it for today: economic tomfoolery in NYC, political insensitivity and idiocy in Virginia, and politicians continue to being the biggest problem facing America today. More insanity to follow.

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