Business Insider: Donald Trump is floating an insane idea that would tank the American economy
[Donald Trump] said on CNBC on Thursday that as president he would find ways to renegotiate the public debt and pay less than 100 cents on the dollar if the economy went bad.
"I've borrowed knowing that you can pay back with discounts," he said. "I would borrow knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal."When Trump says crap like this, he sounds like a drunk redneck in a bar, right before closing time, talking about how he will fix the world. God help us all.
Christian Science Monitor: Portland gave its minimum wage workers a raise. Here's what happened next.
1. "Researchers have found that paying a minimum wage below 60 percent of the median wage has little or no effect on employment – but it’s impossible to be certain at a local level."I covered this in my post, "Minimum Wage's Flashing Red Light".
2. "Economists point out that low-paid workers typically spend whatever extra they earn on local goods and services; a bump in the minimum wage means higher demand."The problem with this is it creates a false impression of prosperity. Even if you set a minimum wage at the alleged "right level", the economics afterwards negate any good you have done.
You raise the salary for the lowest paid workers. Yay! This has two effects. First, businesses are more inclined to raise their prices, as their costs have just risen (this is their supply cost). Even if they don't, they could also cut staff hours (the article mentions this happened with some businesses in Portland, Maine), thereby cutting service quality. Second, the greater demand created by more money being spent creates a raising cost incentive for businesses. In summary, you create inflationary incentive by raising the minimum wage, thereby negating the positive effect of the minimum wage increase. The inflation puts the minimum wage earners effectively back where they were before they got the pay bump.
3. "Experts agree that young workers are vulnerable under higher minimum wages. One study estimated that a 10 percent rise in the wage floor led to a 1 percent or more drop in teen employment.
"However, most workers at restaurants and retail chains are adults, a change from the 1970s. By 2011, teen employment had dropped from 1 in 4 workers to less than 1 in 8, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington."This is a "chicken or the egg" problem. The article fails to realize that maybe the results in the second paragraph were caused by increases in the minimum wage? The article even gives an example of this:
Colleen Kelley, who owns a family restaurant called Silly’s a block from Squeaky Clean laundromat, is less sanguine. Last August she cut the days the restaurant is open from six a week to five so she could keep her head count at 26. Normally she would hire extra staff for the summer, but she says Portland’s ordinance makes it hard to justify when it comes to unskilled extra pairs of hands.
“I’m not going to pay teenagers $10 an hour to make milkshakes,” she says.Who cares if teens get screwed out of a job, right?
Even when a minimum wage increase doesn't create unemployment, that doesn't mean it's all good.
Politico: The 12 Signs That Trump Will Win the White House
This is an entertaining article, but I wouldn't take it as gospel. You can easily write a similar article about Hillary Clinton...or Austin Petersen.
Washington Post: Few stand in Trump’s way as he piles up the Four-Pinocchio whoppers
Trump has not gotten where he is today by being honest. Trump is like the old joke about politicians: You can tell he's lying if his lips are moving.
But if you needed confirmation of this, check out the article above.
RedState: Sarah Palin is the Democrats’ Best Friend
Sarah Palin is like a paraphrase of an old saying: The enemy of my enemy is my enemy. This article goes a long way towards showing how her ideological purity keeps handing victories to the Democrats.
However, to be honest, a lot of those Democrat victories are due to the voters and party loyalists insisting there be only two parties, or else you are "wasting your vote". When voters stay home due to frustration with the guy they wanted to vote for, instead of voting for a third party, that just hands the victory to the other side. When enough voters vote for a third party, the two majors sit up and take notice, because they hate leaving votes on the table. If you need historical reference, see Ross Perot in 1992, and the resulting "Contract with America" in 1994. Third party votes do have impact.
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