I'll agree, Palin is a powerful speaker (or is that reader? who wrote that speech?). But her record is not quite as impressive, as anti-lobbyist, as anti-waste, as she'd like you to believe. And by the way, her newfound passion for special needs families is counter to the GOP tendency to slash special education funding.

A brief article of interest:

Attacks, Praise Stretch Truth at GOP Convention
Wednesday 03 September 2008

by: Jim Kuhnhenn, The Associated Press

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.
Some examples: PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere." THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars." THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded. Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families. He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state --- by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC. THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right - change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington - throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin." THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

McCain voted last year for an amendment that would have effectively abolished the federal minimum wage, leaving states to set their own. How would that help the economy or the poor and working people of America? What does that say about his attitudes toward business and a laissez-faire economy? With no minimum wage, what's to prevent any state, especially a "right to work" state, from allowing employers to pay 2 or 3 bucks an hour? In today's economy, how far is that from starvation? Is abolishing a federal minimum wage a question of states' rights, or a question of unadulterated rapacity and greed?

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 110th Congress - 1st Session
as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate
Vote Summary
Question: On the Amendment (Allard Amdt. No. 116 )
Vote Number: 24 Vote Date: January 24, 2007, 05:11 PM
Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote Result: Amendment Rejected
Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 116 to S.Amdt. 100 to H.R. 2

Statement of Purpose: To afford States the rights and flexibility to determine minimum wage.

Grouped By Vote Position
YEAs ---28
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS) Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT) Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lott (R-MS)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thomas (R-WY)

Did you ever watch "Deadwood" Rin? Can you imagine their response to slimy politicians that pander to the electorate by always pushing the minimum wage fallacy?
"Cocksuckers!" Can you imagine their response to the AP acting as the arbiter of non-partisan truth in any matter given the state of their credibility? "Cocksuckers!" Given that businesses are already cutting back on costs (including workers) and that for EACH State, increasing the minimum wage by $1 increases unemployment by some 15,000 workers, what do you think they would say? Do you know that raising taxes to business increases the cost of everything those businesses sell? To you. And to me. That recovering their costs-- including taxes-- is part of the price of all goods and services? Did you know that wages are set by the market--by supply and demand--and labor is no more sacred than goods? Did you know that the primary beneficiaries of minimum wage changes are the union members that already receive multiples of the minimum wage and have contracts that link their wages to the minimum wage giving them a raise with every increase? Do you know that the irony of minimum wage increases is that they may hurt the people they are designed to help—namely the least-skilled workers? That employers that face mandated wage hikes often try to offset higher employment costs by hiring more-productive workers? If $7 and change is good, why not $100/hr? Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't that eliminate the need for other social programs? Except unemployment compensation, of course.

What would the Deadwoodians say to the gutless SOBs that are always stuck on the same page? And the ones that couldn't get cabinet positions because they never even paid the required Social Security portion of their help? I would think they would be paying a visit to Mr. Wu's pigs, don't you?

Larry Elder likes to talk about how, when he was growing up, every time the minimum wage was raised his parents would sit down at the kitchen table and talk about whom his father was going to have to lay off from the restaurant.

I like the fact that ACORN once filed a request for exemption from the minimum wage . . . because they pointed out that they could hire more leftist activists if they got a waiver . . .!

Minimum laws ALWAYS hurt the people they are supposed to help. Always.

How can you say labor is no more sacred than goods? Labor is human beings, and goods is just the stuff they make.

Big business is posting record profits while people with jobs are living in homeless shelters, their cars, or a cousin's garage. Labor does not pay enough in America, despite the fact that productivity has gone up decade after decade.

If employers will not pay a living wage on their own, and will not reward increased productivity with an increased share of rising profits, then it seems entirely fair to me for government to stipulate some minimum acceptable wage.

Even at the California minimum wage of 8 bucks an hour, full-time work pays only 1280 a month... before taxes. Not a living wage!

Never mind that it's unfair and obscene. Does the economy really benefit from having millions of people living on subsistence wages, choosing between ramen and mac'n'cheese for dinner, going without shoes and dental work?

Surely trickle-up economics would work better than the trickle-down kind? If minimum wage workers took home 12 or 14 bucks an hour, so they could buy shoes and cookies and the odd pizza or dvd, wouldn't that help the economy directly, infusing cash into small businesses all across America?

We look at countries that have no minimum wage, or where it's 89 cents an hour, and we call those countries fascist or communist or vile. Those workers are starving.

But by first-world standards, with our cost of living, our minimum wage workers are practically starving. And it's not right.

The perfect free market economy, with employers paying as little as they have to to maintain the worker's ability to continue to work, is slavery. Bread and a smock in exchange for labor.

I'd like to see a maximum wage law, personally.

;-)

A rise in the minimum wage sometimes leads to temporary layoffs.

The restaurant you mentioned above might well lay off a worker initially in response to rising payroll.

But when they see that the neighborhood is prospering, that all the local workers have more money to spend locally, at the restaurant and the shoe store and the donut shop and the doctor's office, and that their sales and income are rising, they'll hire that laid off worker back... and add another worker in addition.

Raising the minimum wage boosts the economy in the long run.

Labor is simply another one of the factors of production. Your Marxian fixation on the primacy of labor cannot overturn the fact that the price of labor is ultimately determined by the forces of supply and demand, just like the price of anything else. And if we mandate business costs, should we not also mandate selling prices? Do we need minimum prices too? Don't salivate, Rin. It ain't gonna happen.

No one complains when the market works to the employee's benefit. Five-or-so years ago, the Chicago Tribune had a series of articles about suburban fast food chains having to pay $20/hr for help. Seem that teenagers in the affluent suburb didn't understand the concept of waiting a week for their checks. Or never reappeared after they had their first check. The Regional Transportation Authority had to add buses to handle the Chicago teenagers that understood the concept. Should the government step it to rectify these market inequities? Of course not. The market is always right.

Intervention just begets more intervention. The government is not responsible for our well-being and prosperity--it never was. We are.

I wrote a brilliant rebuttal this morning, and these are just a few of the bits and pieces. Fluffy ate it, you see. More later.

supply and demand only works when you can choose to do without something.

If the price of apple pie is too high, I can withhold my custom until it drops.

But labor cannot withhold its labor, cannot refuse to accept low wages, if all employers collude and pay pretty much the same.

Without the intervention of institutions (government, unions, and similar coalitions) we'd still be seeing 14-hour workdays, 6 and 7 day workweeks, no OSHA protections, child labor, no compensation for injury or death on the job, and starvation wages... or no wages at all.

The most perfect system for maximum profit/minimum expenditure, unhampered by any legal or moral considerations, is slavery. But the most rapacious exploitative impulses of the owner/employer must be checked, and typically the workers themselves do not have the power to negotiate, withhold, or demand improvements. That falls to larger systems, like democratic governments.

If the minimum wage were abolished (as McCain voted to do last year, in the Allard amendment) and large swatches of employers colluded in an area to pay only 3 or 4 bucks an hour, what could local workers do? They are often bound by transportation problems, cultural and regional and family ties, inherited homes they could not sell or replace elsewhere.... They are trapped in a local economy.

The company towns of the 18th and 19th (and 20th) centuries had a captive audience of workers who could not negotiate, could not move, and could only barely survive (sometimes not even that) on what they were paid.

It's wrong, and it's bad economics.

But mostly it's just wrong, repugnant, vile, and counter to human progress and the religious values I bet you espouse.

You can always do something! You are free to move to any one of the hundreds of thousand of local employers in a major city. Or millions in the nation. You can apply outside of the food services or retail industries (the principal 'minimum wage' employers) and do better. You can avail yourself to the taxpayer subsidies education programs to advance yourself. Or buy a book and do it yourself. That's the beauty of a free market. No one can control it for long, barring intervention. Collusion breaks down under competition. And I'd like to see you make a compelling case that collusion exists under our current system.

The so-called 'Robber Barons" paid wages well above the typical rates. That's why they were able to attract the best and brightest employees of their time. Let's look at Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Northeast Railroad guy that everyone loves to hate. He made his fortune laying thousands of miles of track and buying hundreds of locomotives. He did it all with 15-25-cent rides, depending on distance. He brought tracks into NY City. above ground, and built a clear-span station, Grand Central, that everybody said couldn't be built. After business people complained about noise, soot, and ashes of the above ground system, he put the tracks under street level with grates to release the smoke--all while the trains kept rolling. He later electrified the system. After an accident that killed 20 or so people, he built two levels for the trains--while the system was operating. He topped it off by building one of the greatest stations in the world, the current Grand Central. He still did it for 15 cents to 25 cents a ride. His worker were paid two to three times the prevailing wage. And his foremen were experts at weeding out the drunkards, anarchists, and malingerers/malcontents of the time. His engineers had little formal education, many were from a practical mining background. He'd choose the man for the job by asking workers "How would you do this?" and chose the one that gave him answers that made sense to him.

I know this will piss you off, but slavery is more a socialist/Leftist concept. And it is one of the least cost-effective systems, despite what you read in Academia. That's why you see it in agriculture and you rarely see Capitalists even try it. Socialists define slaves as people outside of their group. like in the Nazis, Soviet, and Chinese work camps. Or anyone outside someone born in Rome or Athens. In the end, no one worked in Rome, no one joined the army. The empire existed to provide the needs of the citizens--food, clothing, and shelter. Groups in England defined people as being born "selected" by God. Those same sects are left-leaning today, no? And it isn't because of any new-found wisdom. Machines ended slavery for all time. And machines are a Capitalist concept. As is the energy to run them.

Capitalism is NOT A ZERO-SUM GAME. Wealth is created out of thin air by our financial system with money being deposited and loaned, and re-deposited and re-loaned ad infinitum, only mitigated by the reserve requirement at the banks. In a centrally-planned economy, wages go up by some percentage every year with prices doing the same. There are no big price drops like here. Creativity, innovation and competition means sub-$100 DVD players, VCRs, etc when they once started at $1000 or more. That's the real reason Europe needs a bailout. Or needs the US and Japan to join the colllective.

--To be continued to thwart Fluffy. . .

You mentioned American companies paying 89 cents/hr for labor in their foreign plants. What you don't mention is that is three times the prevailing income or more. For that Nike plant, the prevailing local income was something around $3/month equivalent. And remember that people were able to buy food/live on that amount. In other words, Nike was paying three-months wages every day, assuming a ten-hour shift!!! That's why they had to establish hiring rules about one job/family and they had lines for miles with applicants before the opening. One local managed to earn 'employee of the month' for six straight months when the plant opened. To avoid problems they "retired' his title, making him ineligible for future awards. But they offered him a one-time 'wish', within reason. He asked them to hire his sister saying she is a much better worker than he.
The papers reported afterward that the brother/sister were flooded with offers of marriage/solicitations to court their daughters. And some of the offers came from the elite class, of which the brother/sister were not members! American unions want American wages for these plants so that the plants will be shut down, or not built to begin with. That sounds humane, doesn't it? "Thanks for looking out for me, cocksucker!"

In 1980 or so this guy at work asked to have a friend of his from Yale (that he had not seen for years) join us for a scheduled lunch. He asked about a female that he had once dated that was a relative of this visitor, and asked specifically about her time in the Peace Corp(he last saw her on her send-off). This Yale guy said "She got kicked out, didn't you hear? She created an international incident and everything!" It seems she was sent to a remote African village. In the training sessions, she was told that PC workers were allowed to hire a local to act as a housekeeper and they were to pay them $15/month. Well she had inherited money from two sets of grandparents prior to her graduation(neither liked the spouse of their kid so both left it to the grandchild)so she smuggled cash with her in case of an emergency(forbidden). And she decided to pay her housekeeper $100/month because she thought the $15 wasn't fair(her relative said why not $1200 or what you would pay in the US then and she said "Do I look stupid?') Well, after she paid the $100, word quickly spread and there was a riot. The villagers said it must have been for sex, and she must be a lesbian. The second day her brother facing the crowd smashed her head in with a rock to restore the family honor while denying the charges. The Peace Corp had to bribe a local army commander to come into the village and create a diversion while the PC workers were
hurried out in another direction, and flown out of the country. It supposedly took more than a year and payments for past wages to the chief's daughters (who were also housekeepers) to bring anyone back in. In the meantime, the villagers had destroyed the well and other improvements that past Peace Corp workers had provided.

You abide by local conditions or you'll destroy the local economy and bring misery to everyone. The worst markets for farmers are in areas with foreign food hunger assistance shipments. People won't pay anything when food is available for free. And farmers won't/can't plant a second crop when they can't sell the first. Areas that were once breadbaskets for the continent are now waste lands. It would be better to sell the food at local prices and use the money to subsidize local farmers until they are re-established. Then work that money into the local economy in a way that will help everyone.

Yeah, what he said.

The essential requirement for free markets to work is COMPETITION. And, one can argue, free flow of information. And I don't think I can add to what Darrell has mentioned, except the fact that suppliers of manpower (ergo, us), are SUPPLIERS. We're part of the economy, and independent contractors, to a certain degree. How do suppliers of manpower flex their muscle? Through guilds and unions, that's how. It's not as if you have a monolithic 'management' and a bunch of small, scrappy worker-fighters. The 'management', guess what, are suppliers of manpower too!

Now, let me give you this; the only time you don't have competition is when you have either a monopoly (in which there are no other providers) or an oligopoly (where there are a small number of providers who are of roughly the same size, roughly control the same amount of market share, and who each supply a significant, but not a majority of the marketplace).

Strangely enough, the government is a monopoly. Oligopolies include the oil, beer, tobacco, accounting and audit services, aircraft, military equipment, and motor vehicle industries - which also, strangely enough, suffer the highest amounts of government regulation and interference, increasing masively the barriers to entry.

And do you know what a union is? Yes, in a union shop, the union is a MONOPOLY. And not a good one for the putative monopolists either.

You have to wonder about that wealth-creation, though, Darrell. It's pretty awesomely jaw-dropping, the way the supply of money goes up simply by banks doing their stuff.

I must wonder, though - Attila, you mentioned that Rin is a friend, and that she's plenty smart. Okay, Rin, will you at least concede that we occasionally make sense, and that we did so this one time?

Rin is wondering how we missed the indoctrination.

Friends are loved unconditionally. . .

I am interested as to how you became enlightened, Gregory. Any more like you in your circle of friends? Interested in Statehood?

Dear Darrell;

Eh? Well...

When I was a high-school student, the 'smart' students went into the pure sciences track (bio/chem/phys), and the 'not so smart) students went into the arts track (acct/eco).

Well, come to uni time, and I did my first economics class EVER. And that's where I learnt the basics of the free market. Of course, no econs lecturer worth his salt is going to avoid discussing market failure, and all the 'opolies', and how government is involved in the whole 'public goods' and 'tragedy of the commons' stuff. But if you're asking about 'enlightenment', that's where.

Most of my circle of friends are interested in earning and spending money; they have an excellent grasp of economics as it applies in their life. The political stuff? I'd say most of 'em prefer if the pollies just stayed the hell away and out of their lives. Kinda how I feel too, most of the time.

You wouldn't want Malaysia as a State, anyway. No welfare, crappy State hospitals (and still some are better than some private hospitals), affirmative action for the majority race, overt racism, teh hate on teh gays (sodomy is still a crime on the books, and still being prosecuted), State and Church (well, Masjid/Mosque in this case) most emphatically NOT separated, dirty, dirty politics, absolutely no Green policies to speak of, Constitution amended more often than underwear changed, 30% flat corporate tax (down to 26 this year), 28% highest personal tax bracket, censorship of TV and all other media EXCEPT Internet, monopoly broadband provider, ~$14,400 per capita GDP - not very encouraging, is it?