February, 2020, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: The Insanity of a Minimum Wage Laws, Omar Maybe Married Her Brother and More

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) This first piece of insanity falls unto the “karma” category. Ilhan Omar is a first term Congresswoman from Minnesota. She has been a very vocal and hateful individual during her first term, showing herself to be very anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, and implying that anyone that has a different opinion of her is a racist. Obviously she is entitled to her opinion but it is my theory that if you spew hate about the world, fate/karma will eventually come get you:

• She is currently under investigation by the FBI for possibly marrying her brother to circumvent immigration laws of this country.
• A rumor to this effect has been circulating for a while but Omar always denied she had married her brother and attributed the rumor to, of course, a right wing conspiracy theory.
• Reports say that the FBI has documents that show she married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a British national, who was in reality her brother in order to get him a green card for entry into this country.
• Shortly after he got into the country they got a divorce.

She is obviously innocent until proven guilty but if she indeed married her brother it is a clear violation of existing law. Should be interesting to see if Pelosi, Nadler, Schiff, etc. look to impeach her and remove her from office since she is one of their kind, all Democrats.

2) The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Michael Bloomberg has already spent $300 million of his own money to run for President. For his $300 million he is still in fourth place and polls less than 10% in opinion polls.

Now, he may eventually win the Democratic nomination and he may actually become President. But the amount of money he is spending so far is obscene. Rather than spending this money for this vanity, ego boosting run for President this funding could have: 

• According to the Feeding America charity organization, on average it costs $2.94 to provide a homeless American a decent meal which means that Bloomberg’s $300 million could have provided two meals a day for an entire year to the entire homeless population in California.
• According to the government’s Drug Abuse website, on average, it costs $6,522 a year to help a drug addicted American to be treated for their addiction which means that Bloomberg’s $300 million could have been used to relieve the drug addiction suffering of almost 46,000 Americans for a year.
• The $300 million could have paid for about 57,000 Americans to have an Obama Care annual bronze health insurance policy.

Look, it’s his money he can do whatever he wants with it. But it is so sad that our political processes have gotten so screwed up that billions of dollars are spent every year on mostly failed political campaigns while millions of Americans are hungry, homeless, and drug addicted. 

3) Many of our more recent political class insanity posts have dealt with the myriad problems that are going down in California. From an obscene financial hole that state spending has resulted in to defecating, urinating, and shooting up drugs on city streets without any criminal penalties to raging homelessness to other problems too numerous to list, the very fabric of a civilized society seems to be bursting apart throughout the state.

Add to that chaos idiocy and stupidity that the San Francisco District Attorney dropped on the city’s police department:

• Radical leftist district attorney Chesa Boudin recently decided not to prosecute a person who slammed a bottle into a city police officer’s face while attacking two police officers.
• The attacker was shot and seriously wounded as a result of his attack on the officers.
• Needless to say that this withdrawal of charges did not sit well with the police officers throughout the city: “The District Attorney has informed me that at this time he will withdraw charges against the suspect,” Police Chief Bill Scott wrote to his officers Friday. “The DA indicated that this withdrawal is not a dismissal of the case. This unprovoked attack was a violent, criminal act. I want you to know that we remain committed to working with the DA to see that justice is done in this case for our officers.”
• In addition, Tony Montoya of the San Francisco Police Officers Association said, “Chesa Boudin just gave a green light to every criminal in San Francisco that it’s now OK to attack a police officer. He must be held accountable for his reckless decision that will further endanger every officer in San Francisco.”

If you do not prosecute people for defecating in the streets, you get more defecating in the streets. If you do not prosecute people for shooting up illegal drugs in the street, you get more people shooting up illegal drugs in the street. And if you do not prosecute those that violently attack police officers, you get more violent attacks on police officers. It is a pretty straightforward equation. But somehow that reality is lost on California politicians.

Thus it is no surprise that citizens and businesses are fleeing the state and why out-of-state organizations have begun pulling their conventions and business meetings from the state, it is just too crazy and dangerous.

4) Politicians do a lot of ignorant and stupid things but they seem to excel at totally not understanding simple economic theory and principles. One area where they constantly screw up is trying to force higher and higher wages on the market and the businesses that operate within that market. What usually happens is that many businesses cannot afford the higher wages politicians force on these businesses so these businesses do what they have to do to survive and be profitable:

1. They raise prices which wipes out some of the benefits of higher wages since local workers now have to pay higher prices in local restaurants, stores, movie theaters, etc.
2. They reduce the hours they afford to workers to make up for the higher wages they have to pay.
3. They find ways to operate more efficiently which usually involves mechanizing business functions that no longer require a human body to do.
4. They go out of business since they cannot absorb or adapt to the new, forced higher wage requirements.

In all of these cases, the workers who got the higher wages are very often worse off than before politicians interfered in the marketplace. In the worst case scenario it goes as follows: the good news is you got a pay raise, the bad news is that we had to eliminate your job because we cannot afford to pay you the pay raise.

These scenarios are now playing out at Target department stores:

• A few years ago the company announced it would get store workers to at least a minimum wage of $15 an hour by the end of 2020.
• But as the wages at Target have inched up over the years since then with the aim of getting to $15 an hour, people started seeing their work hours getting slashed.
• It is so bad that some employees are making less money than they did a few years ago even though they have a higher hourly wage now.
• Take the case of employee, Heather, who told CNN: “I got that dollar raise but I’m getting $200 less in my paycheck. I have no idea how I’m going to pay rent or buy food.”
• Other Target employees, Caren and Michael, also told CNN their hours were cut significantly.
• As a result of getting a higher and higher hourly wage but less hours she lost her health insurance, forcing her to quit her job, while Michael had to pick up a second job just to make ends meet because of his reduced hours.
• One of the drivers behind the fewer hours is that Target has begun deploying self checkout lines which require fewer employees and less expense, see point 3 above.
• A former store manager told CNN: “They really cut those hours back from them with the introduction of self-checkout.” 
• Also, by cutting back the hours to under 30 per week as the self checkout lines take over, the company saves even more money since they do not have to pay health benefits anymore.

So, everything was going along pretty good. People had good jobs in a clean and pleasant work environment, they were making enough money and getting enough work hours to pay their bills, they were getting health insurance from the company, and everyone, employees, management and stockholders, were happy. But along comes the class of politicians who are fixated on the $15 an hour mantra and as a result, employees are making less overall money despite a higher hourly wage, some had to quit, some had to take on another job, and many lost their health benefits. 

All because some politicians do not understand the basic economic principle that nothing is free in this world and all actions, good and bad, have a price and consequences. Nevertheless, they continue to force an artificially high wage on the market and the market, as always, reacts strongly and quickly.

That will do it for today: an alleged crooked Congresswoman, Bloomberg’s expensive folly and bad priorities, disrespecting police officers in California, and the pitfalls of the $15 livable wage myth continues to disrupt and have negative consequences for Americans.

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http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w