There is a lot going on in the world: Obama and Russiagate findings, Middle East powder keg, the Russian/Ukrainian war, Federal government shutdown, etc. But through all this, the American political class continues to constantly deliver its own special brand of insanity, stupidity, wasteful taxpayer spending, and ineffective government programs.
1)We have often discussed the reality that when a state radically raises its minimum wage law there are fewer workers getting fewer benefits who are working fewer hours as companies try to cope with significant increases in their salary budget. The latest research proves that this economic reality still exists and that it continues to negatively affect California workers:
A new analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that the latest round of minimum age increases in California had severe negative effects on the state’s fast food workers.
The new $20 minimum wage level reduced employment opportunities and reduced hours for those workers who still had jobs in the fast food industry.
Despite California politicians loving their legislation, the NBER found that the law directly reduced jobs in the fast food industry by 3.2%.
This 3.2% reduction is the equivalent of a whopping 18,000 jobs.
The Employee Policies Institute found in their analysis that on average fast food workers that continued to have a job lost 250 working hours a year.
These 250 lost hours average out to about $4,000 lost in salary a year or seven weeks of full time pay,
To cope with the increase in salary budget, businesses have had to raise prices of their fast food products with the Burger King Whopper meal, for instance, now being 12% more expensive than it was prior to the new higher minimum wage law.
So, as always, the good news is that your fast food position pays you $20 an hour. The bad news is either 1) you no longer have a job or 2) your higher hourly wage will be offset by fewer working hours. Political class economic insanity strikes again and as always, everyone loses: workers, businesses, and consumers.
2)Another undercover effort by James O’Keefe has uncovered yet another scandal regarding the misuse and corruption of government spending:
The Small Business Administration operates a program designated as 8(a).
The program is supposed to provide taxpayer funds to so-called “disadvantaged” businesses, i.e. minority owned businesses.
However, the fraud and corruption occurred when criminals set up bogus "disadvantaged businesses,” collected no bid taxpayer funds, and used the bogus businesses to channel that money to non-minority sub contractors.
The amount of money in the program that may have been criminally channeled to fake interests could be as high as $183 million.
A hidden camera video recording by O’Keefe of Melayne Cromwell, a contract manager for ATI Government Solutions, laid out how the scam often worked.
She operates a disadvantaged company that is Native American owned which allows her to get no-bid government contracts: “Because we’re Native American-owned, we’re heavily favored for government contracts, There’s no bidding war.”
The process apparently works as follows: a company such as ATI gets a no-bid contract from the Federal government and taxpayers and then simply passes that money through to another non-minority company that does all of the work.
That pass through company does not have to be a disadvantaged company and in reality, may not be the best choice to do the work, assuming any work is done at all.
Specifically, according to Cromwell: “So, a lot of our subcontractors bid on contracts that were perfect in their industry, but because they weren’t Native American, they wouldn’t win it. So we bid on it for them, they become our sub, and it’s an automatic win because you’re Native American status. I tell you, pass-throughs are a great thing!”
In fact, during the secret video interview, Cromwell admitted that the ATI minority owned business was actually created by two Caucasian gentlemen, Firmadge Crutchfield and Scott Deutschman.
Yet another interesting approach to defrauding the American taxpayer. The hidden video can be seen at the following link:
3)We have often discussed two races:
Which state government will collapse financially and be the first state to go into bankruptcy?
Which major city will be the next major city to collapse financially and be the next major city to go into bankruptcy?
Our main candidates to be the first state to go bankrupt include Illinois, New York, California, and New Jersey. Our main candidates to be the next major city to go bankrupt include Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
The financial death spiral mechanics for these states and cities are pretty simple:
State and city politicians continue to raise taxes and increase business regulations without materially improving the quality of life of their citizens.
This causes residents and businesses to leave for other cities and states that have lower taxation and lower business regulation burdens.
This creates a tax revenue shortfall in the states and cities they left.
Rather than get more efficient and cut government spending, the politicians raise taxes to cover the tax revenue shortfall.
This causes more residents and businesses to leave and the death spiral is in place and the trip to bankruptcy court is in play.
But some politicians understand this basic economic principle and are reaping the benefits of lower taxation and less business regulations. Jacksonville, Florida is the perfect example of less is good:
By reducing taxes, Jacksonville is now the leader in corporate and business relocations, gaining businesses and residents who are fleeing high taxation and regulatory environments.
The city has seen a 67% growth in corporate relocations from 2022 to 2023.
More than 150 corporate, regional, and divisional headquarters are now operating in the Jacksonville area.
For example, Intercontinental Exchange announced a $173 million headquarters expansion in Jacksonville for its Mortgage Technology division, Paysafe moved its North American headquarters to the city, Dun & Bradstreet relocated from New Jersey as did American Roll-On-Roll Of Carrier, and Shoe Manufacturing.
Unlike the bankrupt bound politicians, Jacksonville politicians restructured and reduced its pension debt by $1 billion and negotiated a $400 million reduction in its long term debt, all of which allowed the city politicians to actually cut the tax burden for local residents and businesses.
This in turn led to more than a dozen major construction projects either recently completed or currently underway, creating good paying construction jobs.
The city unemployment rate is 3.5%, significantly less than the national average of 4.3% and much less than the cities and states heading for bankruptcy.
Jacksonville was the tenth best city for population growth in 2024.
Lower taxes, lower business regulation, leads to population growth, high paying jobs, and a better quality of life. Is not that hard to understand. But it is a concept lost on politicians in Chicago, New York City and other cities and states.
4)One more quick hit for today:
Smartmatic is an international election technology company.
Its technology helps manage elections around the world including in the U.S.
A Miami Federal grand jury recently indicted the company and some of its senior executives and accused them of being involved in bribery and money laundering operations across different countries and foreign election contracts.
The indictment claims that the company and its executives bribed Philippines' top election officials to secure contracts after that country’s 2016 national elections.
According to U.S. attorney Jason A. Reding Quinones: “These defendants allegedly engaged in a sophisticated global bribery and laundering scheme designed to manipulate the public contracting process and enrich themselves at the expense of public integrity.”
Given that Smartatic has been involved in U.S.elections, it makes you wonder about the 2020 election integrity doesn’t it?
Enough political class insanity for today: an election management company is accused of criminal activity, Jacksonville shows how it is done from a productive government perspective, criminal fraud at the Small Business Administration, and the economic stupidity continues in California.
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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:
https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom
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