Tag Archives: Minimum Wage

Trump’s Labor Secretary: Fast-food Magnate Is Anti-Minimum Wage

Monday, 12 December 2016 06:26

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, December 9, 2016:

When President-elect Donald Trump nominated Andy Puzder, the head of CKE Restaurants (Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.), on Thursday, he called him the “ideal candidate,” stating, “Andy Puzder has created and boosted the careers of thousands of Americans, and his extensive record fighting for workers makes him the ideal candidate to lead the Department of Labor. Andy will fight to make American workers safer and more prosperous by enforcing fair occupational safety standards and ensuring [that] workers receive the benefits they deserve. [In addition] he will save small businesses from the crushing burdens of unnecessary regulations that are stunting job growth and suppressing wages.”

Puzder is ideal in more ways than one.

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McDonald’s Response to $15 Minimum Wage: Automation in Every Store

Wednesday, 23 November 2016 17:01

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, November 23, 2016:

It’s official: McDonald’s says that every one of its 14,000 stores nationwide will be replacing order takers with automated touch-screen kiosks. They’re starting with stores where minimum-wage laws mandate the highest rates, such as Florida, New York, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Seattle.

According to CNNMoney:

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Beware the 300-Pound White Penguin Watching You at the Mall

Wednesday, 07 September 2016 05:48

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, September 5, 2016:

In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Big Brother’s primary enabler was the telescreen. It could be turned down but never turned off, and it recorded all behaviors and conversations to be analyzed for traitorous intent.

Knightscope has no discoverable link to the telescreen with its big, fat white Penguin called K5, but its capabilities are astonishing. Those capabilities came to light following an incident at an upscale mall in Palo Alto last month when a K5 ran over a 16-month-old toddler by mistake. Company officials expressed “horror” at the incident, apologized, and then invited the family of the toddler to view its upgraded version of K5, which, it promised, would avoid such incidents in the future.

The rollout of K5 (version 2.0, if you will) was no doubt impressive, as K5 has an amazing array of technology designed as “an advanced anomaly detection device” – read: detect, record, analyze, and then inform its handler of suspicious activities taking place nearby. Stacy Dean Stephens, Knightscope’s vice president of marketing told Digital Trends:

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Knightscope Robots: Enhanced Safety or More Invasive Surveillance?

Tuesday, 06 September 2016 04:58

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, September 5, 2016:

NXT Robot

Not a Knightscope robot, but close

Knightscope robots — one for inside work, the other for outdoors — have been under development for three years, and have logged 35,000 hours of testing and 25,000 miles of rolling through malls, parking lots, and manufacturing facilities. And yet, within weeks of the K5 outdoor model being released in the Stanford Shopping Center, an upscale shopping mall in Palo Alto, California, one of them couldn’t avoid hitting a 16-month-old toddler and running over his foot.

It was a poor start to Knightscope’s first major public contract with the mall, and they did the best they could to ameliorate the situation:

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Vulture Funds Expecting to Profit Handsomely from Puerto Rico’s Problems

Monday, 29 August 2016 15:26

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, August 29, 2016:

English: Map of Peuto Rico, with inset showing...

Map of Peuto Rico, with inset showing it’s position in relation to American continents.

George W. Plunkitt was not the world’s first dishonest politician, but he might have been one of the first ones to be honest about his dishonesty. Plunkitt was a Tammany Hall pol who served in the New York State Assembly and then in the New York State Senate around the turn of the 20^th century. He called what he did – and what made him wealthy – “honest graft.” He defined “dishonest graft” as efforts to work solely for his own interests. “Honest graft,” on the other hand, was graft that worked for the interests of his own party.

He made his money by

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What Would the Apostle Paul say About the Minimum Wage?

Saturday, 06 August 2016 05:22

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, August 5, 2016:

One can surmise from his instructions to believers in the church in Thessalonica: “When we were with you, we gave you this rule: Whoever will not work should not be allowed to eat.” What’s less clear is: what if government mandates keep one from working, or keep employers from hiring those willing to work?

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St. Paul assumed that people had the freedom to contract out their labor, to sell the one primary thing they possessed: their time and effort in exchange for money. He also assumed that employers, given the opportunity, were free to hire someone who could add value to their businesses.

Minimum wage laws abrogate that essential freedom, with all manner of negative results. One,

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More Proof: Raising the Minimum Wage Increases Unemployment

Friday, 05 August 2016 05:12

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, August 4, 2016:

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If more proof were needed that raising the minimum wage would increase unemployment among lesser-skilled workers, the Heritage Foundation’s latest study provides it.

For one thing, the push for a national minimum wage of $15 an hour would actually cost employers $18.61 an hour, thanks to payroll taxes, unemployment insurance and ObamaCare taxes. The proposed increase, if passed into law, would, according to Heritage, impact one-third of all American workers, and hurt the most those working in lower-cost states.

The math is simple, and deadly.

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Iowa Senator Joni Ernst on Trump’s VP Short List

Wednesday, 06 July 2016 05:30

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, July 5, 2016:

English: Official portrait of Iowa State Senat...

Senator Joni Ernst from Iowa

Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst, one of just a very few being currently vetted for Donald Trump’s running mate for vice president, met with The Donald on Monday. Also in attendance were Paul Manafort, Trump’s chief campaign strategist, and Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC). Following the meeting, Ernst told reporters:

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About That New, Dreadfully Misnamed Puerto Rico Bailout law

Tuesday, 05 July 2016 05:29

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, July 1, 2016:

Investors saw the market values of their Puerto Rican bonds soar with news that Congress passed the “Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act” (PROMESA). They had a right to be happy: prior to the news their long bonds were trading at about 62 cents on the dollar. Afterwards they jumped to 66 cents. Still a paper loss of a third of their initial investment, but better than anticipated.

What’s anticipated is that the new oversight board, populated with politicians (but none from Puerto Rico), will solve all of the island’s problems,

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$15 Minimum Wage Laws Spreading Across the Country

Tuesday, 05 April 2016 06:10

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, April 4, 2016:

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Today (Monday) California Governor Jerry Brown will sign a bill raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, the first state to do so. The law will do it in stages over the next six years so that the unemployment impact won’t be so severe. In the next couple of weeks, legislation that has passed the New York legislature also raising that state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour is expected to be signed into law as well.

Unions and others pushing the “Fight for $15” policy are now gearing up to push the $15 minimum wage on other states, such as

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The PC Crowd, Economic Ignorance, and the Minimum Wage

Tuesday, 05 April 2016 06:03

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, April 4, 2016:

Nick Adams, the Australian author of Retaking America: Crushing Political Correctness, has arrived on the American scene at precisely the right moment. He has appeared on nearly every major TV and radio show, writes for Townhall.com and Townhall Finance, and serves as a Centennial Institute Policy Fellow at Colorado Christian University. And he was named Honorary Texan in 2013 by Texas Governor Rick Perry.

PC is being used as a hammer to intimidate, emasculate, or otherwise neutralize opposition to any Progressive agenda. Rather than answering legitimate questions or responding to thoughtful objections, the PC crowd instead accuses the questioner of being

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Maduro’s Venezuela: Proof that Socialism is a form of Mental Illness

Saturday, 20 February 2016 06:01

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, February 19, 2016:

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Craig Andresen, writing for the National Patriot, described socialism as a mental disorder:

Socialism is a disease. It’s a mental affliction and it causes those infected with it to lose their minds.

It’s also contagious.

Now there’s proof positive:

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Venezuelan President Maduro Raises Gas Prices 6,000 percent, Devalues Bolivar

Friday, 19 February 2016 06:17

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, February 18, 2016:

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During a five-hour TV speech on Wednesday that turned into a harangue against capitalism and President Obama, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro exercised the powers granted to him in January to deal with the country’s economic crisis. He did what most socialists do when their policies don’t work:

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Factory Owners Increasingly Going Robotic

Tuesday, 26 January 2016 06:53

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, January 25, 2016:

Picture a factory where the owner has cut his Social Security and Medicare taxes by 90 percent. Where surveillance by the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) no longer exists. Where minimum wage laws don’t apply. Where there are no more reports to be filed with OSHA. Where the factory doesn’t have to be retrofitted to handle handicapped employees. Where there is no “family time” off for pregnancies. Where there are no pension or health care plans to fund. Where there are no unemployment insurance taxes. Where no one is demanding special break rooms and time off for prayers. Where Obamacare doesn’t apply. No transgender bathrooms. No lunchroom or recreational facilities.

It’s already happening in China’s Pearl River Delta (dubbed “the world’s workshop”).

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Robots Transforming China, Causing Heartburn at World Economic Forum

Monday, 25 January 2016 09:04

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, January 25, 2016:

Shenzhen Evenwin Precision Technology Company, located in China’s Pearl River Delta (dubbed “The World’s Workshop”), has nearly completed the first stage of turning its plant that produces mobile phone components into one of the world’s first nearly 100-percent robot-operated factories. According to the company’s chairman, Chen Xingai,

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Minimum Wage Hikes Are Costing Jobs

Monday, 25 January 2016 08:48

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, January 21, 2016:

Employment data now coming in from six U.S. cities that have mandated increases in the minimum wage are proving a basic economic law: When the price or cost of something increases, less of it will be demanded.

In his analysis of the preliminary data now available from Chicago, Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., Jed Graham wrote:

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Fourth Republican Debate: Feisty, Hilarious, Little Change in Polls

Thursday, 12 November 2015 06:31

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, November 11, 2015:

View image | gettyimages.com

A more orderly and respectful atmosphere surrounded the fourth Republican debate on Tuesday night, a sharp contrast to last month’s debate where the moderators became the issue. That didn’t mean there were no fireworks, or disagreements, just that the tone was more serious, as the candidates tried to shore up their positions and their poll numbers as they approached the final debate in December.

The topics included questions on

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Seattle Progressives Prove Certain Economic Laws Cannot Be Repealed

Saturday, 15 August 2015 05:36

This article was published at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, August 14, 2015:

By changing the meaning of the word “flowers” to “businesses,” the lyrics from Peter, Paul & Mary’s anti-war song applies perfectly to the new Seattle under its new minimum wage mandates: Where have all the businesses gone?

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?”
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

And when will Mayor Ed Murray and his gaggle of progressives who unanimously passed the anti-business, anti-employment minimum wage law last summer ever learn: you cannot fool Mother Nature, and you cannot repeal economic laws.

In Murray’s case the economic law still to be learned is:

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Seattle’s Minimum-wage Increase Starting to Cost Jobs

Friday, 14 August 2015 05:13

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, August 13, 2015:

Jodi Hall, owner of Cupcake Royale, a small th...

Jodi Hall, owner of Cupcake Royale

The Seattle city council mandate that business owners must raise the minimum wage they pay to their workers to $11 an hour (on the way to $15 an hour over the next few years) is already having its predicted effect: In the first six months of this year, 1,300 restaurant workers in the city have lost their jobs, according to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

In the single month of May, one month after the $11 mandate kicked in on April 1, 1,000 workers lost their jobs which, according to AEI economist Mark Perry, “was the largest one month job decline since … the [start of] the Great Recession.”

In simple terms, thanks to the progressives running the city council, Seattle restaurant workers are suffering their own recession.

To add salt to the wound, statewide (not including Seattle), restaurant employment has increased by 3.2 percent, adding 2,800 jobs over that same period.

This wasn’t supposed to happen,

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U.S. Economy Goes Negative in the First Quarter

Friday, 29 May 2015 11:34

This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, May 29, 2015:

View image | gettyimages.com

The Commerce Department reported on Friday that the U.S. economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.7 percent, a sharp downward revision from its previous tepid estimate that it would grow by 0.2 percent.

It caught most mainstream economists off guard once again, with many predicting positive growth right up until Friday, and more remaining doggedly optimistic that growth will return. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal just 10 days ago were holding to a 3-percent growth rate in the economy for 2015, while analysts polled by the AP just prior to the release on Friday were still predicting growth of between 2 and 2.5 percent for the year.

Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, is waiting for evidence that growth will return in the second quarter:

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