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Al Gore, the prophet of doom on global warming, was recently interviewed by Chris Wallace, and asked about some of his past predictions of future catastrophes due to global warming. How have his predictions held up?

In his movie, An Inconvenient Truth (2006), he stated that unless the world “took drastic measures the world would reach a point of no return in ten years.” Perhaps he should have used a Ouija Board on that one.

In 2007 he predicted that summer Arctic ice in the North Pole would completely disappear by 2013 due to global warming caused by carbon dioxide. Perhaps he should have used a fortune-teller’s crystal ball on that one.

He also said that Mount Kilimanjaro would lose its snowpack by 2016. The last time I checked, it was still there. Perhaps he should have used tarot cards for that one.

Did I miss Al Gore saying,” I guess that I was wrong on my disastrous predictions about the ravages of global warming.”?

 

Seth Wynes (University of British Columbia) and Kimberly Nichols (Sweden’s Lund University) recently published an article in Popular Science about ways to combat climate change. (For those of you interested in measurements, there is a table in the article in Popular Science, 7/12/17.) They refer to and measure tons of CO2 equivalents(CO2E) saved per year. For instance with swapping out old light bulbs, one saves <0.2 tons of CO2E per year. Hanging clothes out to dry and recycling each saves about 0.2 tons per year, while washing clothes in cold water will save about 3 tons per year. Driving a hybrid will save 0.4 tons of CO2E per year, while not driving at all will save about 2.4 tons per year. Not driving at all is in the top four ways to save CO2E. The others in the top four include eating a plant based diet (0.6 CO2E/yr.), avoiding transatlantic flights (one less transatlantic flight per year saves 15 CO2E), and  . . . drum roll, please . . . by far  the biggest way to save CO2E is to have one less child, as this will save 120 CO2E per year!

Let’s talk for a minute about flying and CO2E used. Certainly the size of the plane, and the number of passengers on the plane will contribute to the amount of fuel used, and hence CO2E used or saved.

A transatlantic flight covers about 4000 miles. A transpacific flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai covers 6479 miles, while the air distance between Los Angeles and Beijing is 6254 miles. So when California’s Governor Jerry Brown recently traveled to China, his plane traveled over 12,000 miles on his round trip. This is the equivalent of approximately three transatlantic trips, or the equivalent of 45 CO2E!

Yes, yes, I realize the Governor Brown was not the only passenger on his plane when he went to China, but did I miss him saying, “Maybe the next time I will use “Face Time” instead of flying to China.”?

Likewise when Governor Brown flew down to Orange County to give a speech on behalf of senator Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) and against his recall, did he fly commercially . . . I doubt it!  I realize that he probably did not fly down on a 747, but I am sure it was not a piper cub. The distance between Sacramento and John Wayne airport in Orange County is 405 miles each way, or the equivalent of about 1/5 of a transatlantic flight for his round trip. This would be the equivalent of Jerry convincing a few of his Democratic cronies to become vegetarians. I wonder if he did that?

Did I miss him saying, “The next time I go down to Orange County, I am going to drive in my Tesla!”?

In addition, what about all of the transcontinental trips that Nancy Pelosi took when she was the Speaker of the House? If she did not fly back to San Francisco, the plane would not have flown at all. The distance between D.C. and San Francisco is 2441 miles, with one round trip then being the equivalent of one transatlantic flight or 15 CO2E. Did I miss Ms. Pelosi saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.”?

Now for the finale! If you were paying attention earlier, you probably were awed by the fact that each additional child born will use about 120 CO2E per year. In practical terms, each baby that is born to an illegal immigrant in California and subsequently stays in California will cost the state the equivalent of eight transatlantic flights per year for umpteen years!

Did I miss it when Governor Brown said, “We have to stop illegal immigration and the subsequent anchor babies so that we can save the planet from the ravages of climate change!”?

 

 

Well it appears that the Democrats have done it again as their policies again are hurting those they were supposed to help. This time it is the expansion of Medicaid in Obamacare, a totally Democratic dying behemoth.

In an interestingly ironic and presumably not intended fashion a recent The Wall Street Journal aligned an editorial op-ed and a letter to the editor that both talked about Medicaid and some of the problems related to unforeseen consequences. “Unforeseen consequences” is that bugaboo that is always brought up when things do not go as smoothly as the designers trumpeted, and of course the designers in essence say that their design is not at fault because what is now happening is totally unexpected and could not have been predicted.

It’s the old, “We are innocent! You cannot blame us just because things did not turn out as we had planned. It is not our fault that these ‘unforeseen consequences’ popped up out of nowhere to ruin our perfectly designed plan.”

Rubbish! These ‘unforeseen consequences’ are not unforeseen.

The letter to the editor was from a parent with a truly disabled adult child who in essence said that Obamacare had expanded “the pool of people eligible to dip their spoon in the pot”, and thus as a consequence the truly needy were no longer getting the quality of care that they had gotten in the pre-ACA era. The writer closed out by saying that repealing Obamacare would put the money back into the pot that could now be used to help his daughter and other truly needy and truly disabled individuals.

Of course the liberal response to this statement of fact, would be that what is happening is merely an unforeseen consequence of them trying to help others by expanding Medicaid eligibility. But in fact this type of outcome is actually truly predictable, and not “unforeseen.”

“If you open up the trough, many more will come to drink the free water, and not all will have been thirsty.”

The adjacent op-ed piece details many facts concerning the now deadly opioid abuse crisis and it’s possible relationship to the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare. It details many of the statistics in states that opted into the Medicaid expansion versus those adjacent states that did not opt in. (These statistics are so amazing that I had to read and reread them multiple times.) Opioid related deaths increased 108% in New Hampshire (opt in state) compared to 55% in adjacent Maine (did not opt in state). In Maryland (opt in state) the drug-related deaths in creased by 44% compared to 22% in adjacent Virginia (did not opt in state). Likewise drug fatalities increased 41% in Ohio (opt in state) whereas they increased by only 3% in nearby Wisconsin (did not opt in state).

Even more amazing a recent study by Express Scripts Holding discovered that approximately 25% of Medicaid patients were prescribed an opiate in 2015. The fact that one in four Medicaid patients was prescribed an opiate (often with a very low co-pay) shouts out, “There is something very wrong with this system!”

Unforeseen? . . . Not to those who actually use their brain, as this is just another example of:

“If you open the trough, many more will come to drink the free water, and not all will have been thirsty!”?

In my neighborhood there is a store called The Dollar Store, but soon it may need to be called “The Dollar Nine & One-Half Cent Store”. “Why?”, you ask.

Basic economics – related to the recent rise of 9.5% in the minimum wage, which went from $10.50 to $11.50 per hour in San Diego on January first of this year. The profit margin at this Dollar Store is small, and as almost all of their employees are minimum wage employees, the only way to maintain this small profit margin is (Door #1) to layoff some employees, or (Door #2) to raise prices . . . and thus the potential name change. Which do you think will happen?

In a similar vein this week two ladies told me that they had stopped going to a particular movie theater because it had raised the senior rate from $8.50 to $11.50. This increase in the senior rate was 35%! They could no longer afford to go to that theater any longer.  “Our Social Security COLA this year was only 0.3% and so we can no longer afford to go to that theater.”

Coincidentally, another movie theater that my wife and I usually go to raised its rate a similar 35%. When I asked, “Why the substantial increase?”, the answer revolved around the increased minimum wage. At this theater there are always four to five very young employees doing menial tasks, such as asking to which movie you are going and issuing a ticket, serving popcorn, drinks, and candy, and collecting the tickets. None of them are old enough to be a bread-winner for a family. None of them are minorities. All are teenagers; some out of high school, some not. We will not be going back to this movie theater. At this point both of these movie theaters have apparently opted to substantially raise their prices (Door #2) rather than lay anybody off (Door #1).

Why this minimum wage frenzy? Well the party line is that this increase will allow individuals to better raise a family . . . except that the minimum wage employees that I have run into are not raising families. I am sure that there are some, but these menial jobs were never meant to support a family. For the politicians it certainly is a “look at how wonderful I am; look what I am doing to help the less fortunate; and of course by raising our local minimum wage more than is mandated by the state of California, I am even more saintly.” Whether it will actually do more harm or more good is irrelevant for them because rather than thinking about the consequences of their actions, they are all about emotion, and besides ” I will be out of office when the sh** hits the fan.”

Whether the business establishments choose Door #1 or Door #2, only bad things will happen – either for the employees (some will get laid off), the consumers (who will be forced to pay higher prices), or the businesses (decreased profits as some customers will go elsewhere). Unfortunately at this point, there is no Door #3.

Daniel Henninger in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed article used the term “cultural appropriation” . . . “meaning that the representative of one culture isn’t allowed to use images or traditions of another culture unless the second culture gives its permission”.

This ‘do not offend anyone’ (do not offend Native Americans) concept claimed its first casualty in 1969 when Dartmouth changed its sports team’s nickname from Indians to Big Green – this in a school that was originally founded to educate the American Indian! How inane! Since 1969 there has been an avalanche of politically correct name changes throughout the country, and a lot of the alumni are not happy about it. In 1994 Marquette University changed its nickname from the Warriors to the Golden Eagles. A friend of mine who had graduated from Marquette, had been a regular alumni contributor to Marquette. Now when they call soliciting a contribution from him, he says, “I am offended that you changed the mascot and the nickname. When you change the name back to the Warriors, then call me back and I will give again”.

Not to be outdone, the concept of “cultural appropriation” found its way to California, which considers itself to be a chalice of political correctness. In 1930 Stanford University adopted the nickname “Indians” with an Indian as its official symbol. However in 1972 the nickname and the symbol were dropped after 55 Stanford Native American students considered the name to be offensive and “an insult to their culture and heritage”. Later in that same year a Stanford student referendum voted to restore the Indian symbol, but this vote was essentially ignored as in 1975 there was another vote which went against restoring the symbol and nickname, and since then the school athletic to teams go by the ‘Cardinal’ and their symbol is a tree!? This is both inane and insane! Shouldn’t the purpose of a mascot and a nickname be to inspire the school’s athletic teams? A tree!! A color!!

In 2001 this concept of ‘do not offend anyone’ overtook rationality at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, Ca., when their team name was changed from Apache to Jaguar. Not to be outdone, a similar issue involving “cultural appropriation” occurred at San Diego State University where the Aztec mascot was Monty Montezuma, an Aztec warrior who had been the mascot at SDSU since approximately 1930. He looked fierce and carried a spear which he used “threaten” and intimidate the opponent’s athletic teams. Of course predictably Monty became an unwanted symbol to The Native American Student Alliance at SDSU who found him offensive. At that time school president Stephen Weber decided to change the persona of the mascot in accordance with U.S. Civil Rights Commission which in 2001 had recommended that “non-Indian schools should stop using Native American names for teams and mascots”! This saga then turned laughable when some “professors” designed a spearless and pacified Ambassador Montezuma who would “greet visitors at sporting events and educate the public about Mexican Aztec culture”. When I saw this new “improved, politically correct mascot” at a SDSU basketball game, I actually laughed out loud, as this “fierce warrior” looked like twinkle-toes in a dress. I figured that the poor guy underneath the costume probably had drawn the short straw! By 2003 the embarrassed student body voted overwhelmingly to support a new mascot – so back to the full Monty!

However the battle is never over, as every few years someone is offended and this controversy starts anew. How inane! How does a Tweedle-Dee in a dress inspire a team to fight to win? How insane!!

Why is it that only Native Americans can be offended by team mascots and nicknames? I am offended that no one thinks that I can be similarly offended! Take for example the “Fighting Irish” of Notre Dame. As an Irish American I find this nickname offensive. It is pejorative, as it certainly suggests that the Irish are a drunken brawling sort. The mascot of Notre Dame, a leprechaun with his fists ready for a fight, only reinforces this suggestion. Why can’t I demand that Notre Dame change this offensive (to me) nickname and mascot?

Well to my chagrin and to the chagrin of many other potentially offended sub-groups of Americans, the Supreme Court has just ruled in a case involving an Asian-American rock band who wanted to call themselves “The Slants”. The U.S.Patent and Trademark Office determined that this name had violated its “disparagement clause”, and in essence told The Slants, “no way”. The Slants sued and the case eventually found its way to the Supreme Court. In a unanimous ruling the Court ruled that “speech may not banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend”, and so The Slants are now legal, while still probably offensive to some. Wow, finally some sanity as even the four liberal Supreme Court Justices joined in this unanimous opinion! This of course will not stop the left from being offended, but perhaps now public opinion will be slanted in the opposite direction.

 

What if the story of the Russian hacking of the DNC’s emails was “fake news?”

Here I am not referring to the spin being put on this story, but to the story itself.

The starting point for this Russian inference quagmire is the hack of the DNC’s email server, and we have been told that the Russians did it.

We have been informed that this non-arguable starting point is a fact that we all must believe. Certainly they cannot provide any of the details as to “how” they know this, because of course . . . National Security concerns! For over six months now most of the  mainstream media’s focus has been on The Russian Interference in our Election, and the involvement of Donald Trump in this interference. It doesn’t matter to CNN or MSNBC that there is no evidence of such involvement. It doesn’t matter to the Washington Post or to the New York Times because “the public deserves to know the truth.” Good point, WaPo/NYT. We certainly do deserve to know the truth, but I have not seen either of these Dueling Banjos reporting what Patrick Lawrence of “The Nation” is now reporting.

 

Mr. Lawrence is saying that this Russian hacking of the DNC is “fake news!” He has interviewed four NSA experts with decades of experience in matters concerning Russian intelligence and related technology, and these experts are saying not only, “No, the Russians did not do it” but “It is not possible that the Russians are responsible!” They are basing much of their skepticism on some good hard data, namely that the amount of material passed to Guccifer 2.0 could not have been downloaded from the DNC server and passed over the Internet. On 7/5/2016, 1,976 megabytes were downloaded from a DNC server in 87 seconds or at a rate of 22.7 megabytes per second. The problem is that in July, 2016 no internet service provider was capable of downloading data at this speed, especially over long transoceanic distances! This speed (22.7 megabytes per second) was only achievable through a USB drive, and very coincidentally this is the typical transfer rate when using a USB-2 Flash Drive (thumb drive)!

A thumb drive! Hmm!

One of the four experts  is going as far as saying that he thinks that the hacking of those DNC emails was an inside job, as the time stamp of the download revealed that the hacker was on the East coast at about 6:45 pm EDT.

Does this mean that all of the time and the money being spent with Senate committees, House committees, and Special Prosecutors is all because of “fake news?”

Is President Trump right yet again!?

Are there Californians that are secretly admiring  Donald Trump but did not vote for him? “Impossible,” say all of the liberals here in California. “President Trump and California will never mix. It’s akin to oil and water. More Californians now admiring Trump is an oxymoron.  Converts to the Trump Train . . . Nonsense”!

Even though this may be an anathema for liberals, let’s look at this logically. Since Donald Trump has been elected the stock market has taken off. From his election till mid June 2017 the DJIA had risen more than 16%, the S&P 500 more than 13%, and the Nasdaq more than 18%, and these gains have not regressed since then. Does any rational person believe that these significant gains and the Trump presidency are merely a coincidence?

Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary, said the following on CNBC in June: “We’re lowering taxes, we’re cutting regulations, we’re stimulating the workforce, helping to develop the workforce of the future, unleashing our energy resources and redoing our trade agreements. That’s the whole package that President Trump was elected on, and it’s the whole package that’s driven the stock market to $4 trillion of gains since the election.”

So how does this have anything to do with California?

Let’s first take a look at  Calpers (California Public Employees’ Retirement System). I  believe that it is in fact very reasonable to assume that what is good for Calpers is good for Californians as eventually it is the taxpayers of this state that will ultimately be responsible for the continued underfunding of this pension system. This year Calpers has earned 11.2%, largely because of stocks, but despite this it is still underfunded as it now has only 68% of the assets that it needs to pay for future benefits. Marcie Frost, Calpers Chief Executive has warned that Calpers is vulnerable to a downturn in the stock market, and no doubt she and Calpers are rooting for the Trump bull-market to continue. How many of the 1.8 million Calpers state workers and retirees are rooting for a continued bull market and vis-a-ve are now admiring what Donald Trump is doing?

In the same vein, The California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) is the largest teacher’s retirement fund in the U.S. It has reported a 13.4% gain this year in its markedly underfunded retirement system. Raise your hand if you think that the almost one million California teachers and retired teachers are secretly rooting for and now admiring our President.

If you add these “secret” almost 3 million Trump admirers to the almost 4.5 million Californians who voted for Mr. Trump, you can optimistically almost start to see a start of a ground swell!

At one point host Tucker Carlson rhetorically asked if this was a parody when referring to his ongoing interview on 8/1/17 with Shanker Singam, the Vice President of the California Freedom Coalition (CFC). Although he did not say it, he was probably thinking, “Is this really the best they can do? Is this is the educated spokesman (he was dressed in a coat and tie) for the CFC or is this Sesame Street? Is this a joke?”

To his credit Mr. Singam had a few well rehearsed lines when referring to California’s economy, but when he was asked questions about anything else, he came off more like Big Bird. When asked about the myriad of middle income earners who had left the state, he responded that they were bringing California’s blue philosophy to other parts of the country, akin to missionaries. Of course he did not answer why they were leaving, but he did imply that he was happy to be exporting the middle class as this would make way for the next wave of immigrants.

Another one of his rehearsed lines was that California pays more in taxes than it receives in benefits, but explaining the economics of this would have been like trying to explain calculus to Grover, and mercifully Tucker Carlson did not persist here.

His response to a question about what to do with federal land like Camp Pendleton in Southern California along with its thousands of marines was even more confusing, as he then started to explain that California would lease this land to the U.S. just like the U.S. now has bases in Germany. I guess that Elmo did not know that Camp Pendleton already is U.S. Federal land.

At this point even though the eye-rolling by the host was making me dizzy, it certainly would have been interesting to have the CFC spokesman explain the plan for the National Parks in the new “state”, and even more interesting to hear his response about what California would do if North Korea launched a missile in this direction

I can almost hear some of you saying that one ill-prepared spokesman does not destroy an entire movement. Well the CFC is apparently now out on the streets of California trying to obtain the necessary 585,000 signatures necessary to put the “California Autonomy From Federal Government” initiative on the ballot for 2018, despite the fact that a prior attempt in April was dumped after failing to find enough support.

Cost? It has been estimated that in the final analysis the cost to the state for “an advisory commission to assist the governor on California’s independence and its associated unknown potential fiscal effects” would be about $1.25 million per year.

Err . . . perhaps Miss Piggy and the CFC should rethink its position on middle class taxpayers.

An optimist would say that at least we in California do not have to put up with the machinations of the legislature as they are not presently in session, whereas a realist would say, “Who do you think is out there collecting signatures? Ernie, Bert, and Mr. Snuffleupagus?”

It was Kermit, err . . . California’s Attorney General, who went along with the potential initiative that would allow the state to be a “fully functioning sovereign and autonomous nation” within the U.S. Now keeping in mind that this is the Attorney General of California speaking, one can now understand to whom Shankar Singam was referring when he said, “We [in California] are fundamentally different in the way we speak, and how we think about the world.”

This is Sesame Street!

Help!

 

Going all the way back to the Dust Bowl days California has been a magnet for immigrants – legal immigrants. However since 1990 The Golden State has lost some of its luster. According to the Manhattan Institute there has been a recent net migration of 3.4 million people out of California to other states. The reasons for this exodus are the usual suspects, as the Democratic hierarchy in the state government seems to be almost daring businesses to leave with high taxes, onerous regulation, high labor costs, etc.

Now there is a new theater opening down the street in Arizona which threatens to draw  more people away from this Democratic tragic-comedy, which is currently playing on the stage in California. This adjacent theater’s new production, “A Chance at a Good Education” is being produced by the Empowerment Scholarship Account program in Arizona. However, the latest wrinkle is that the “Actor’s Guild” known as “Save Our Schools Arizona” (SOSA- aka the Teachers’s Unions) has collected thousands of signatures in order to delay implementation of this new production. I wonder while they were collecting signatures, if SOSA used  their real slogan, “save our jobs in the public schools; the hell with the children!”?

Anyway the story line of this new production (now possibly delayed) goes something like this:

In Arizona parents who take their children out of public schools can receive money deposited into their own “education savings accounts”. This money can then be used for private school tuition and other school related expenses, like uniforms, tutoring, etc. Since 2011 this program had been limited to certain groups like special needs children and foster care children, but now has been expanded to all children in Arizona on a first come, first serve basis. The enrollment is now capped at about 5500 students per year and will expand over the next five years to include more than five times this number.

So while this is  good for the parents and their kids in Arizona, how does this affect California?

Follow me on this:

Let’s assume that I am a parent with young kids who in essence will be, or already are forced to attend a poor or even failing school here in California. I cannot afford the tuition at a private school and now I cannot afford the gas to drive them to another better, but more distant, public school.  As the legislature and their left-leaning judges here in California are failing to help my kids get a reasonable education, why should I not move to Arizona? Initially, as I establish residency in Arizona, my kids will go to their local public school, but then I will be eligible to enter the “lottery” for the education savings account money. What do I have to lose? My chances of finding work in Arizona are just as good, if not better than in California, as the unemployment rate is lower there. If I move my family to Arizona, at least my kids will have a chance.

So sayonara Golden State!

Is this a farfetched? Who knows . . . but if there seems to be more and more cars (many with U-Hauls attached) heading east on our highways, now you will know why.

 

 

I want to start out today a bit more philosophical than usual. Let’s say that in an “experiment” you take 100 subjects and you do something that will affect all of them – some in a good way and some in a bad way. Is there a point at which you say, “this experiment is not working”, because too many people are being adversely effected. Or do you just plow ahead, saying as long as good is being done for some, maybe even for a lot, then, “oh well, it’s too bad about those who are getting shafted . . . as that is just ‘an unfortunate part of life’!”

When I presented this abstract philosophical problem to my poker group, most of them responded that, in general, it depended on the gravity of the harm versus the quantification of the good. I felt that this was a reasonable response recognizing that judging the amount of harm versus the amount of good is often not that easy.

Now let’s look at an experiment that is affecting people today in their everyday lives. This “experiment” is the mandated rapidly increasing minimum wage. Yes, I do think that it is an “experiment” as no one really knows what the outcome will be.

Today I read about a young man, Devin Juran, who works at Z Pizza in Seattle. As reported by a local TV station, (K13-Fox) he was initially happy because his (minimum) wage had been recently raised to $11.00 per hour, and it was scheduled to go to $15.00 per hour over the next several years. He said, “I definitely recognize that having more money is important, especially in a city as expensive as this one.” However his euphoria was short lived, because Z Pizza is closing its doors in a few months, resulting in Devin and an additional 10 of his coworkers losing their jobs at Z Pizza. “People like me are finding themselves in a tougher situation than ever.”  The owner, Ritu Shah Burnham, said that she had tried everything that she could to try to keep Z Pizza opened, but with the new increased minimum wage she could not make it. She is very concerned about her employees. “I am absolutely terrified for them as I have no idea where they are going to find jobs, because if I’m cutting hours, I imagine that everyone is across the board.”

On the other side of the issue, let’s look at the everyday life of Shardeja Woolridge in early 2016 before the minimum wage was increased in California. She lived in a two bedroom apartment in Hayward, Ca. with her mother who was on disability. She had a part time job at McDonalds and struggled to pay the rent (they had received eviction notices already), and also struggled  to keep the electricity turned on, as it had been turned off in the past. When asked about a raise in her minimum wage to $15.00 per hour . . . “Whoa”, she exclaimed. At $15.00 per hour she could help pay the rent. She could stock the fridge with food. She could afford Wi-fi.

Now back to the original philosophical question. Is the “experiment” in question (the mandatory raising of the minimum wage) a good thing or not?  How many people like Devin Juran have to lose their jobs, before raising the minimum wage for people like Shardeja Woolridge starts to lose its appeal? Are people losing their jobs like Devin and his co-workers just ‘an unfortunate part of life’, while many more like Shardeja are benefiting from the increased minimum wage?  As my poker group wanted to do, can we compare the gravity of the harm to the Devins to the benefits of the Shardejas? Is the gravity of Devin’s losing his job as bad as, comparable, or worse than the benefit in the day to day lives of Shardeja and her mother because of her increased minimum wage?

Who is right? At this time, I surmise that no one really knows.

Those on the right will side with the Devins – against the increasing minimum wage.

Those on the left will side with the Shardejas – for the increasing minimum wage.

However, I believe that as the situation becomes clearer in the next few years that either the right or the left will admit the error of their thinking, and say “this experiment is or is not working!”

“Oh yeah, BTW I still believe in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.”

 

In my neighborhood there is a store called The Dollar Store, but soon it may need to be called “The Dollar Nine & One-Half Cent Store”.

“Why?”,you ask.

Basic economics – related to the recent rise of 9.5% in the minimum wage, which went from $10.50 to $11.50 per hour in San Diego on January first of this year. The profit margin at this Dollar Store is small, and as almost all of its employees are minimum wage employees, the only way to maintain this small profit margin is (Door #1) to layoff some employees, or (Door #2) to raise prices . . . and thus the potential name change.

Which do you think will happen?

In a similar vein this week two ladies told me that they had stopped going to a particular movie theater because it had raised the senior rate from $8.50 to $11.50. This increase in the senior rate was 35%! They could no longer afford to go to that theater any longer.  “Our Social Security COLA this year was only 0.3% and so we can no longer afford to go to that theater.” Coincidentally, another movie theater that my wife and I usually go to raised its rate a similar 35%. When I asked, “Why the substantial increase?”, the answer revolved around the increased minimum wage. At this theater there are always four to five very young employees doing menial tasks, such as asking to which movie you are going and issuing a ticket, serving popcorn, drinks, and candy, and collecting the tickets. None of them are old enough to be a bread-winner for a family. None of them are minorities. All are teenagers; some out of high school, some not.

We will not be going back to this movie theater.

At this point both of these movie theaters have apparently opted to substantially raise their prices (Door #2) rather than lay anybody off(Door #1).

Why this minimum wage frenzy? Well the party line is that this increase will allow individuals to better raise a family . . . except that the minimum wage employees that I have run into are not raising families. While I am sure that there are some who are, these menial jobs were never meant to support a family. For the politicians it certainly is a “look at how wonderful I am; look what I am doing to help the less fortunate; and of course by raising our local minimum wage more than is mandated by the state of California, I am even more saintly.” Whether it will actually do more harm or more good is irrelevant for them because rather than thinking about the consequences of their actions, they are all about emotion, and besides ” I will be out of office when the sh** hits the fan.”

Whether the business establishments choose Door #1 or Door #2, only bad things will happen for either for the employees (some will get laid off), the consumers (who will be forced to pay higher prices), or the businesses (decreased profits as some customers will go elsewhere).

Unfortunately at this point, there is no Door #3.