Month: January 2017

 
From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara at Principled Perspectives:

In an article for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Preston Cooper argues for The “Sub-Minimum” Wage: An Escape Hatch for Young Workers, which is already a small feature of Federal minimum wage laws. Cooper argues correctly that minimum wage laws disproportionately harm the low-skilled, especially the young:

Teenagers and individuals in their early twenties often lack the skills that make them valuable to employers. Therefore, they must learn these skills on the job, while not producing much for the businesses who hire them. When states (or the federal government) set high minimum wages, hiring unskilled young people will not make financial sense for most employers.

True. But I respectfully disagree that sub-minimum wage laws are the way to go—not if the goal is progress toward free (or freer) markets. While a legal sub-minimum wage may make practical sense in the short term, it still represents the outlawing of jobs.

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From Green Eagle:

As I have made it clear before, I have lived in Israel for a time, and am a strong supporter of its right to survive. Consequently, I think it is necessary at this point to make it clear that supporting Israel and supporting its current government are two different things- as different as wanting the United States to continue to exist and supporting the treasonous Trump regime that is about to take over.

It is vital to realize that Benjamin Netanyahu got his start in politics, not in Israel, but right here in the United States, as a Republican party apparatchik.

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• Interesting transition. Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post reviews a disastrous year, goes on to anticipate dismal times, then winds up with a call for a courageous fight.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein provides names and links to 8 political scientists who will make sense of 2017.
   
• Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass argues that it is criminal to criminalize immigration.
   
• Green Eagle gets a little hot, and wants us to as well, at a photograph showing gleeful Republicans celebrating their effort to take medical care away from twenty million people. Okay, so the image is kind of ghoulish.
   
• So “alt-right” white supremacists are online peddling maggled genetics mashed up with hundred year old eugenic racism. PZ Myers explains a new phenomenom. Actual geneticists are stepping up, going head to head against the fakes on internet sites.
   
• Iron Knee at Political Irony referees as our soon-to-be President goes split personality and argues with himself about his rocky transition into office.
   
• James Wigderson celebrates the life and career, touches on tragic captivity by drugs, and mourns the loss of Carrie Fisher.
   
• Could this guy be more creative? Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes manages to damage his computer so epically that it requires professional care. While waiting for repairs, Vincent ponders loss, anger, redemption, love, hate, and writing. Then he gets his computer back.