Minor Thoughts from me to you

For decades now state and local governments have been content to turn taxation over to the Federal governmnet. It's a pretty sweet gig. The Feds raise taxes -- capital gains, income, tarrifs, gasoline, whatever -- and get all of the voter anger and contempt. Then the Feds turn around and give the money back to the state in the form of grants, road spending bills, earmarks, or other forms of largesse.

It's an arrangement that gives State and local lawmakers the thrill of spending without the pain of actually, themselves, being responsible for taxing that much out of their residents.

It's an arrangement that does have some downsides. The biggest is the complete lack of local control. Remember the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules. A local Madison neighborhood is finding that out the hard way.

The pedestrian walkway under University Avenue at Spring Harbor Drive may be old and spooky. But school and neighborhood officials say it's necessary to keep kids and residents safe when they cross that roadway, where drivers routinely exceed the posted 35 mph speed limit.

Now they're worried that plans for a $7 million reconstruction of 1.9 miles of the avenue -- from North Segoe Road in Madison to Allen Boulevard in Middleton -- next year don't include re-building the tunnel.

... Madison officials say it would cost $1 million just to build a new tunnel because federal laws would require it to be accessible for people with physical handicaps -- unlike the current walkway -- and so far the money isn't available.

City officials say they'd love to make the passage's users happy, and staff engineer Christy Bachmann said the city has applied several times for federal money to redo the tunnel, but the project always ranks low and loses out on the grants. Ald. Mark Clear, whose 19th District includes the underpass, said the city has to do something with the passage come next spring.

"Because the reconstruction project is federally funded, they require that the pedestrian underpass at University Avenue and Spring Harbor Drive be brought into ADA compliance or removed," Clear said, referring to the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

Glen Yoerger, an engineer for the city of Madison, said the reconstruction of the street, 80 percent of which will be paid for with federal funds with the remainder coming from local funds, will install curb and gutters and medians where needed along University Avenue, among other improvements.

Well, better luck next time kids. Your Aldermen, County Board members, state Assemblymen, state Senators, and Governor long ago gave up the right to actually govern this state. As a result, they're powerless to help you now.

Speaking personally, I'd love to see a State legislature and a State governor stand up to the Feds and fight to keep tax dollars. Then, take responsibility for collecting the money for local needs and spending the money in a way that will best serve local needs. The Feds are never going to be as good at knowing what your State needs as you. Quit dodging responsibility and start doing your jobs.

Can a simple accessory change your life? I guess it depends on how easily the course of your life is altered. But this M-Edge Kindle 2 case did change my life in a minor way. Nothing earth shattering. I haven't discovered a new direction, found new motivation, or rededicated myself to the assistance of aged grandmothers caring for bewildered orphans. On the other hand, I do read my Kindle far, far more than I used to.

Last year, around this time, I read my Kindle frequently. But it wasn't in an all-out fight to my dominant mode of reading. It was nice, but it was somewhat awkward. I enjoyed reading it in bed and I enjoyed reading it while sitting on park benches. I enjoyed reading it while waiting for my grill to heat up, right before tossing a nice juicy steak on it. But I didn't enjoy reading it while eating.

See, I've always read while eating. At least from as far back as I can remember, anyway. I'd even say it's a healthy habit. If I eat while reading, I eat slowly and chew everything thoroughly. Medical type personnel are always apt to say that that's a good thing that promotes healthy digestion. Without a good book, I tend to just bolt my food down so I can get back to something more interesting -- like reading.

Anyway, without this case, it was awkward to read while eating. I had to find something near my plate that I could use to prop up my Kindle: a milk jug, a particularly sturdy napkin holder, a pot of mashed potatoes, etc.

But this case. This case does all of the hard work of propping up a book for me. It supports my book at a perfect reading angle and looks nice doing it. It's now my preferred way of reading while I eat -- by far. It beats a paper book all hollow. And, since so much of my reading time these days is confined to meals, it's my preferred way of reading any book.

Now, if only there were a Kindle lending library stocked with every book ever published, I'd be a happy man.

(About the build quality: I bought the "real leather" variety. Don't waste your money. The leather is probably real but feels little different from the fake leather that I've felt on other products. The padding underneath is adequate but thin. The straps do a great job of holding the Kindle in place and feel like they'll last for a while. Also, this case goes great with an M-Edge e-Luminator2 book light.)

Holy cow. The Wisconsin Democrat is calling it quits:

In a major blow to Democrats, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey has told close associates that he will not seek re-election and an announcement of his plans is expected as early as Wednesday.

The Wisconsin Democrat faces tough poll numbers at home but until Tuesday night his staff had insisted he was running aggressively and had hired campaign staff. But a person close to him confirmed the decision to POLITICO Wednesday and said Obey was preparing to make a statement.

via Obey Won't Seek Re-election - Daniel Foster - The Corner on National Review Online.

Seeing as how I think the House Appropriations Committee is full of the most arrogant, big spending collection of corruptocrats in the entire Congress and seeing as how Congressman Obey was their Chairman -- you might say that I'm elated at this news.

The minimum wage isn't bad because it hurts employers. It's bad because it hurts non-traditional employees.

Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » Case Studies on the Minimum Wage

To run our campgrounds, we mainly employ retired people. Of my 500 workers, well over half are over 60 years old, more than 150 are over 70, some 25 or so are over 80 and a few are even over 90! Most are on social security and medicare, and many have pensions and retirement health plans. A good number are disabled and have some sort of disability support. While they work slower, they make up for their low productivity in part by their friendliness with customers and their life experience.

Most of my employees travel the country in their RV. They take most of the year off, but many like to work over the summer to make a little money and to pay for their camping site. I give many of them a free or subsidized campsite, worth about $500+ a month, plus all their utilities and then pay them minimum wage for the hours they work. Many are thrilled with these terms - so many that I have a waiting list now of over 300 names of people who are looking for this type work. This list is currently growing by about 10 names a day.

There may be employers somewhere who have a power imbalance over their employees. Some days, I envy them. My employees most all have independent means of support. Further, they all have wheels on their houses, so they can and do pick up and leave if they aren't enjoying their job. And, if they don't like our company, there are thousands of other campground operators who are looking for help.

So why are so many people lining up for minimum wage jobs when lefties and progressives are telling them that they should not want those jobs? Here are some reasons:

• They value the amenities that come with the job, including living for free in a beautiful outdoor setting, something it is impossible to value under minimum wage laws
• They have other means of support, so the money is incidental. In fact, I get more inquiries from employees asking me to reduce their hours so as not to mess up their social security or disability payments as I do people asking for more pay
• They get to work with their spouse as a team. There are not many employers out there that let a husband and wife split up work between them any way they want or even work together - can you imagine such a situation on a GM assembly plant?
• They would have a hard time getting hired by anyone else. Very few employers will hire new workers in their sixties, and certainly not older than that. Older workers can be slower and less productive. For $12 an hour, I would have to hire younger workers too, but at minimum wage, I can afford the lower productivity of older workers and gain the benefit of their experience and trustworthiness.

This last point help set the stage for our cases. I love hiring older workers at $5.15 an hour, and they love the job and line up for it. But what happens when I have to pay these less productive workers $6.00 an hour? What about $7.50? What about at $12.00 an hour? Here are some examples of what happens

Case 1: The jobs just go away ...

Case 2: The jobs get outsourced to contractors ...

Case 3: The jobs get automated away ...

Case 4: Prices go up to customers ...

Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » Update on the Arizona Minimum Wage

We are changing our operating strategy from hiring retired couples who live on-site to hiring younger workers. This is a change I really hate. The business model of hiring retired folks who live on-site at a campground is an old and successful one. Folks in their seventies (and I even have workers in their eighties and nineties) don't work very fast, and they have more workers comp claims, but they had the ability to live on-site and life experience that helped them with customer service. But trade-offs that worked at $5.15 an hour don't work as well at $7.25 and higher. So far only selectively, but we are hiring younger folks from the local community to come in and do some of the janitorial and maintenance work. Even if I pay them $8 or $10 an hour, they make sense if they can be twice as productive.

Businesses, sadly, don't have an unlimited ability to raise their prices. Every time the cost of labor goes up, the profit margin goes down. When the profit margin goes below 0% (or whatever margin the owner is willing to accept), prices must go up. If prices can't go up -- as frequently happens in a competitive marketplace -- costs must go down. If the government mandates that labor must cost at least some number, per unit, then the number of units has to go down.

In this case, Warren Meyer is faced with the unpalatable choice of reducing the number of elderly employees at his company or losing the ability to run his business. This isn't something that his specific employees want. They're thrilled with the amount he was giving them. I strongly suspect that they'd work for even less, if given the choice. But they can't. They're not allowed to. They're forced into unemployment because the government refuses to consider that they may not fit the mold.

The minimum wage isn't bad because it hurts employers. It's bad because it hurts non-traditional employees. We're not all alike and it shouldn't be our government's policy to criminalize those who have different preferences about how they'd like to be paid.

The minimum wage isn't bad because it hurts employers. It's bad because it hurts those who want to be their employees. Imagine you're either a recent college graduate or soon to be a college graduate. You're armed with a degree in English, History, Business, Electrical Engineering, or, well, it almost doesn't matter. You're armed with a degree. But so are hundreds of thousands of other recent graduates from across the country.

You can submit a resume to every employer who's looking for help. In fact, you have. But, then again, so have hundreds of other people. Some companies receive hundreds or even thousands of resumes for just one open position. How in the world are you ever supposed to rise to the top of the pile?

You think, despairingly: "If only they knew what a great worker I was. Once they see the work I can do, I know they'll hire me." Then you get a bright idea. You'll volunteer to work for free for a week or a month. You'll let them see the work you can do. Hopefully they will decide to hire you afterwards. And, if they don't, at least you'll have done something better than just sit around waiting.

Not so fast. Your bright idea is illegal. After all, we have a minimum wage in this country. You aren't allowed to work for anything less than $7.25 an hour. And free is most definitely less than $7.25 an hour.

"If you're a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren't going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law," the Labor Department's Nancy J. Leppink tells the New York Times.

The Times also quotes Trudy Steinfeld, director of New York University's Office of Career Services, regarding opportunities for unpaid internships. "A few famous banks have called and said, 'We'd like to do this,' said Ms. Steinfeld. "I said, 'No way. You will not list on this campus.'"

John Stossel relates his experience with hiring unpaid interns.

When I asked WCBS to hire me a researcher, my bosses looked at me as if I'd asked for the moon. Since they wouldn't pay, I started calling colleges to ask if they had students who wanted internships. Many did. From then on, I got much of my best help from unpaid college students.

Many later moved on to paying jobs at the networks, and many became network TV producers…

At first I felt guilty asking students to work for no pay. But I stopped feeling bad about it after most told me they'd learned more in our newsroom than they'd learned on their campuses. Their schools charge them money, while I taught them for free.

And, he discovered, if you did want to work for free, you couldn't do anything that actually helped your possible future employer. So, a practical demonstration of the value you can add to a business is right out.

[T]he six federal legal criteria that must be satisfied for internships to be unpaid. Among those criteria are that the internship should be similar to the training given in a vocational school or academic institution, that the intern does not displace regular paid workers and that the employer "derives no immediate advantage" from the intern's activities -- in other words, it's largely a benevolent contribution to the intern.

Perhaps, in the eyes of the Labor Department, it should be a benevolent contribution to the intern, from the business. But what if the intern genuinely wants to help, in exchange for the possibility of a job? What if the intern wants to create a great resume that can be used to stand out from the pack when applying for the next job? Doesn't the intern have any choice about how and when he can sell his labor? And for what price?

As I see it, the minimum wage is hurting those who want to work hard, who want to stand out. The minimum wage isn't bad because it hurts employers. It's bad because it hurts those who want to be their employees.

Crist Makes Break With GOP - WSJ.com

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist formally launched his bid for a U.S. Senate seat as an independent candidate Thursday evening, abandoning the Republican primary and casting himself as the outsider in a "broken" political system.

Apparently, the political system is "broken" because the political system no longer wants Charlie Crist. Good to know.

The minimum wage isn't bad because it hurts employers. It's bad because it hurts employees.

An Entrepreneur and the Minimum-Wage

To All Team Members:

The schedule for next week has been posted. You may notice that hours have been cut back on your schedule. This is across the board, not just you. I don't want anyone to think they've done something wrong to deserve a cut in hours, so I wanted to explain why it's happening.

There are a couple of reasons for this:

1) May and September are very slow months for our business. Anyone who has worked Sundays recently has seen the drop off in traffic. Now that we're entering May, that drop off will continue on to other days as well, and it will get worse.

2) The recent increase in the minimum wage to $7.25/hour. Since we've opened, I've had a lot of people ask why they can't get more hours, and it's a great question.

I would LOVE to give everyone all the hours they want, and then some. Our customers would be happier across the board, we could accomplish much more every day, our business would grow, I could hire even more people, and on and on. However, we operate on a tight budget just like any other business, and in order to survive, we have to make money. That means our labor cost (the total amount you are all paid) must stay below a certain percentage of our total sales. If it doesn't, we go broke and everyone loses their jobs.

Our brilliant Congressmen in Washington, D.C. decided a couple years ago that it would be a good idea to raise the minimum wage by about 40% to $7.25/hour. It just took effect last year. That probably sounds like great news for everyone - more money in everyone's pockets can only be good, right?

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way in the real world. If I'm forced to pay everyone 40% more, I can't afford to schedule as many employees for as many hours, since our sales aren't going up by 40%. Remember, I can only afford to pay you guys a certain percentage of all the money coming in the door. That means hours get cut, and everyone ends up poorer.

In a perfect world, it should work the opposite way: you should be free to choose how much you think your skills and time are worth (since you know best), and I should be free to pay you whatever that amount is if I want to hire you. Everyone wins in that case. I get as many good employees as I want that I can afford to pay, and you get valuable job training, references, and relationships to carry into the future.

To prove how bad of a deal minimum wage is for you guys as hard-working job-seekers, just look at this way:

I'm not being forced to pay $7.25/hour; YOU are being forced to accept $7.25/hour no matter what, even if you'd be willing to take less in order to get (or keep) a job.

You can thank our elected officials in Raleigh and Washington for sticking you with such a raw deal.

If you have any questions about any of this or want to talk more about it, please feel free to come see me, the door is always open.

(Obamacare delenda est)

The minimum wage isn't bad because it hurts employers. It's bad because it hurts employees.

Armed and Dangerous » Blog Archive » Marginal Devolution

What these guys have in common is that they're only marginally employable. What borderline mental illness has done to one, mediocre skills and the unintended consequences of anti-discrimination laws have done to the other. As long as I've known both (and that would actually be most of my years, for both of them), they've worked dead-end jobs and put their passion into science fiction and wargaming. They're decent, honest, unambitious men who have never wanted anything but steady work, a normal life, and a hobby or two. They're not stupid and they have respectable work habits; in fact they're probably more conscientious and safe than average. Now they don't quite fit; too old, too geeky, too male, too quiet. The job market has discarded one and the other is hanging by a thread.

When I look at these guys, though, I can't buy the explanation most people would jump for, which is that they simply fell behind in an increasingly skill-intensive job market. Thing is, they're not uneducated; they're not the stranded fruit-picker or construction worker that narrative would fit. Nor does offshoring explain what's happened to these guys, because their jobs were the relatively hard-to-export kind.

No. What I think is: These are the people who go to the wall when the cost of employing someone gets too high. We've spent the last seventy years increasing the hidden overhead and downside risks associated with hiring a worker -- which meant the minimum revenue-per-employee threshold below which hiring doesn't make sense has crept up and up and up, gradually. This effect was partly masked by credit and asset bubbles, but those have now popped. Increasingly it's not just the classic hard-core unemployables (alcoholics, criminal deviants, crazies) that can't pull enough weight to justify a paycheck; it's the marginal ones, the mediocre, and the mildly dysfunctional.

Again, the minimum wage isn't bad because it hurts employers. It's bad because it hurts employees. It makes employees more expensive to hire, more expensive to take a risk on, and easier to fire. As soon as someone costs more in salary, benefits, and regulatory costs than they generate in revenue, they become a liability. And few businesses can afford to keep such employees just for the thrill of being charitable.

(Obamacare delenda est)

It seems like the whole world is annoyed that Spirit Airlines decided to charge passengers for carry-on bags.

Some in Congress believe airline fees should have limits. A bill has been introduced to outlaw carry-on baggage fees; another effort is aimed at taxing fees just as tickets are taxed so government doesn't lose out on revenue as airlines shift their charges from tickets to fees. And the DOT is looking closely at Spirit, mostly to see if the airline properly discloses its fees and other charges to consumers.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been vocal in his criticism of Spirit's carry-on fee.

"Charging passengers to stow carry-on bags in overhead bins does not strike me as good customer service," he said in a statement to this newspaper. "We will take up this issue as part of an upcoming rulemaking on consumer protection."

I, for one, think Secretary LaHood needs to muzzle himself. I like the idea of Spirit Airlines charging for carry-on luggage. Luggage belongs in the cargo hold, not the passenger compartment. Spirit is quite clear about their reasons -- and I agree with every one of them.

One reason some airlines are eager to charge fees for carry-on bags: There's no room at the (overhead) bin.

To avoid checked-baggage fees, more travelers are carrying more bags onboard with them. At the same time, airlines have packed flights with more passengers, on average. That's led to a real-estate crisis in the cabins—not enough space in overhead bins to accommodate all customers. So more flights are delayed when customers struggle to cram bags into full bins and airline workers have to send bags that don't fit down to cargo compartments.

I always check my luggage when I fly. I hate lugging a suitcase around an airport. I prefer to travel with a small, personal bag and spend my time doing something other than acting as an unpaid baggage handler. In the few flights I've take recently, I've had to stand in airplane aisles waiting as people try to shove large bags into small openings. I've had to sit and watch (and watch and watch) as the flight crew tries to find a spot for every bit of a family's vacation luggage. I've even had to watch a few (supposedly professional) businessmen yell at the flight crew for not having more space available.

If Spirit Airlines flew out of Madison, I'd look to buy tickets from them first. I want to get somewhere quickly. If charging a fee is what it takes to make my fellow passengers quit acting like idiots, then I'm happy to see the fee imposed. Because -- and let's be clear here -- there wouldn't be a need for a fee in the first place if passengers didn't consistently ignore airline guidelines about carry-on luggage.

"We're not having any second thoughts. Right now, it still seems like a good idea to us," says Ben Baldanza, chief executive of Spirit, based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Mr. Baldanza says Spirit will be able to trim five minutes off each flight—20 hours of airplane time per day. That's like having two extra $40 million planes in your fleet, and would let the airline add more flights without having to buy more planes. Today, without carry-on fees, Spirit is often gate-checking as many as 20 to 30 bags per flight that don't fit in overhead bins.

Passengers who don't like it can feel free to fly with another airline.

The Dividend Tax Bill Arrives - WSJ.com

As the big tax increase day of January 1, 2011 approaches, the Democrats running Congress are beginning to lay out their priorities. Get ready for bigger rate increases than previously advertised.

Last week the Senate Budget Committee passed a fiscal 2011 budget resolution that includes an increase in the top tax rate on dividends to 39.6% from the current 15%—a 164% increase. This blows past the 20% rate that President Obama proposed in his 2011 budget and which his economic advisers promised on these pages in 2008.

(See "The Obama Tax Plan," August 14, 2008, by Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee: "The tax rate on dividends would also be 20% for families making more than $250,000, rather than returning to the ordinary income rate.")

And that's only for starters. The recent health-care bill includes a 3.8% surcharge on all investment income, including dividends, beginning in 2013. This would nearly triple the top dividend rate to 43.4% in Mr. Obama's four years as President.

Do you think this will

a) encourage me to put more money into the stock market
b) encourage me to put my money somewhere else
c) encourage companies to pay out more money as dividends to stockholders
d) encourage companies to put their money somewhere else
e) both "b" and "d"

If you said "e", you're right. And, when the economy keeps failing to recover from the recession, you may try asking Nancy Pelois, Harry Reid, and President Obama if they have any idea what could have caused people to just sit on their money for a while. If you have a 401(k) account, you might also try asking them why they're trying to torch your retirement savings.

Finally, if you live in Wisconsin, you may want to give Senator Russ Feingold a call. He's up for re-election this year and he sits on the Senate Budget Committee. You might want to put those questions to him too. You can reach his local, Madison, office at (608) 828-1200. If you'd prefer email, his address is russell_feingold@feingold.senate.gov. If you'd prefer snail mail, you can send it to:

1600 Aspen Commons
Middleton, WI 53562-4716

Carrie Lukas wrote about the class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart at The Corner on National Review Online. In her post, she provided a great summary of why the median woman earns less than the median man. Hint: it's not rampant sexism.

Women and men tend to gravitate toward different industries and even different specialties within fields. Women leave the workforce more frequently than men do and take more time off while working, and even full-time working women spend about half an hour less in the office each day than their male co-workers. These differences add up, and even liberal groups like the American Association of University Women admit that controlling for personal choices eliminates up to three-quarters of the wage gap.

It’s hard to control for all of the factors that affect earnings. In his book, Why Men Earn More, Warren Farrell looks at many factors, and notes trends that make identifying discrimination difficult. For example, women often are promoted more quickly than men. As a result, women executives often have less experience than their male counterparts and therefore are paid less. Dr. Farrell uses the example of TV news directors. Some claimed discrimination because female news directors were paid about 27 percent less than their male counterparts. Yet the data also showed that the average female news director had less than six years of experience in news, while the average man had more than 14. In this instance, who exactly is being discriminated against?

Other studies have found that women are less likely to negotiate their starting salaries or ask for raises and promotions, which may contribute to them earning less than men on average. That could be a result of socialization, natural instincts, and even the presumption that women who try to negotiate their salaries will be perceived as less attractive candidates (which studies have also found to be true).

Statistics also cannot capture the different goals that men and women have when negotiating employment contracts. While many men might focus exclusively on maximizing pay, many women focus on flexible work schedules or schedules that work with their children’s school calendars.

Disney put together some great viral marketing for Toy Story 3. I'm impressed.

I'm very passionate about the rights of fathers in American culture. There's been an increasing tendency to try to sweep men under the rug, denigrate their honor, or even demonize them when it comes to their relationships with their children. I've written about this slanted treatment before.

I recently read about how horrifically Dr. Phil treated fathers on a recent episode of his show. What I read was enough to get me angry all over again. (For those who don't understand, try reading the article but substitute "mother" everytime you see "father" in the story and visa-versa. Now does it make you mad?)

In the Creek case, Sarah Creek has repeatedly accused father Sheldon Creek of sexually abusing their daughter.

In the episode, Dr. Phil came down unequivicably on the side of Sarah Creek. In so doing, he overlooked 13 different problems with her allegations.

Problem #1-Sylvia Creek has been examined for possible child sexual abuse on 5 separate occasions, and not one of the examinations has substantiated any of the charges

Problem #2 Child Protective Services has repeatedly investigated accusations against Sheldon Creek, and has never substantiated any of them.

Problem #3: Custody evaluator Sean Jackson, PhD did not believe that Sheldon Creek had molested his daughter.

Problem #4: Sheldon Creek passed an FBI polygraph examination concerning the molestation allegations.

Problem #5 The assertion that Sylvia Creek is being sexually abused and is experiencing great trauma is contradicted by the report of Sylvia Creek's therapist Linda Falcon.

Problem #6: The assertion that Sylvia Creek is being sexually abused and is experiencing great trauma is contradicted by minor's [Sylvia Creek] counsel Dana A., Esq. and Sylvia's teachers and other professionals involved in the case.

Problem #7: Mediator Don Yarborough doesn't believe the molestation accusations.

Problem #8: Angela R., MD examined Sylvia on 8/27/07 and found no evidence of sexual abuse.

Problem #9: Sylvia was examined at the Sutter Hospital Emergency Room on 8/3/05 and no evidence of sexual abuse was found.

Problem #10: Sylvia was examined by Sutter Hospital on 2/14/07 and no evidence of sexual abuse was found.

Problem #11: Sylvia was examined at UC Davis on 8-22/23/06 and on 12/24/07 and again no evidence of sexual abuse was found.

Problem #12: Presiding judge Thomas A. Smith concluded that the molestation charges were false, and noted that "psychological evaluations concluded Sylvia was coached to report incidents of sexual and physical abuse"

Problem # 13: Presiding judge Thomas A. Smith agrees with Sheldon Creek's contention that "Anytime a hearing/trial is scheduled, it is almost a guarantee that in the weeks or months prior, Sarah will make an accusation of abuse."

Given the evidence in this case, it would be hard to conclude that Sheldon is/was molesting his daughter. The enormous amount of time and care that social services and the family court have devoted to examining the sexual abuse allegations and the evidence in general belie the mothers' advocates' contention that courts are biased against mothers or are turning their backs on children abused by their fathers. Five separate sexual abuse examinations failed to find any support for the accusations-how many more should they have been expected to conduct?

... Dr. Phil alleges that a family court has given custody to a child molester, yet the evidence is strong that this is not a molestation case, and the court certainly did not award custody in the case capriciously or without a thorough investigation.

Now, Dr. Phil has accused a man, a father, of sexually molesting his daughter. From the evidence I've seen, that charge is false and Dr. Phil is joining Sarah Creek in an ugly divorce power play. There is nothing honorable or good about such behavior. Dr. Phil should apologize to Sheldon Creek. It is absolutely despicable that he would choose to air such wild allegations with not a shred of substantiating evidence. Our society would rip Dr. Phil's career to shreds if made these allegations against a woman, a mother. But, because he's making them against, a man he'll be applauded for his courage and his willingness to be a protector.

Shameful.

Can you trust the police? What about the courts? The answer may depend on whether or not they think anyone is watching.

Last March, after the University of Maryland men's basketball team beat Duke, students spilled out into College Park to celebrate. That brought out the riot police. In footage captured by several students with their iPhones, Maryland student Jack McKenna dances down the street with dozens of other students, then stops when he sees two cops on horseback. Unprovoked by McKenna, three riot cops then enter the picture, throw McKenna up against a wall, and begin beating him with their batons. According to attorney Christopher Griffiths—who is representing McKenna and another student, Benjamin Donat—both suffered concussions, contusions, and cuts from the beatings.

McKenna was charged with disorderly conduct, a charge that as of last week was still pending but now seems certain to be dropped. Prince George's County has since suspended four police officers, the three captured on tape beating McKenna and the sergeant who supervised them. But were it not for those iPhone videos, it would have been McKenna's word (and possibly those of whatever celebrating student witnesses he could round up) against the word of three of Maryland's finest. Or at least three. It seems likely that a number of other cops would have come forward to lie on behalf of those who beat McKenna.

If that sounds harsh, consider this: After the iPhone video of McKenna's beating emerged, investigators subpoenaed 60 hours of surveillance video from the College Park campus police. The only video police couldn't manage to locate was the one from the camera aimed squarely at the area where McKenna was beaten. Funny how that works. Campus police claimed that a "technical error" with that particular camera caused it to record over the footage of the beating. As public pressure mounted, police later found what they claimed was a recording of the lost video. But two minutes of that video were missing. Coincidentally, those two minutes happened to depict key portions of McKenna's beating. The kicker? The head of the campus video surveillance system, Lt. Joanne Ardovini, is married to one of the cops named in McKenna's complaint. (Washington D.C.'s ABC News affiliate, WJLA, a station with a history of deferring to police spokesmen without bothering to verify the accuracy of their statements, quaintly referred to this as "a bizarre coincidence.")

In another instance, Maryland police raided an individual's home for video tapes after he committed the non-crime of video taping a police officer, on a public highway. The judge who authorized the illegal raid?

According to Graber, the name of the judge who signed off on the raid of his parents' home doesn't appear on the warrant. As Graber told Miller, "They told me they don’t want you to know who the judge is because of privacy." If true, that statement is so absurd it's mind numbing. A judge issued an illegal warrant for police to invade the private residence and rummage through the private belongings of a man who broke no laws, and we aren't permitted to know the judge's name in order to protect the judge's privacy?

Here's the bottom line: government officials, acting in their official capacity, have no right to privacy. You work for us. You have no more privacy rights, in the performance of your job, than any private sector employee in the performance of his job. And you're not above the law either. Wearing a uniform isn't an authorization to go out and beat people -- or otherwise break the law -- with impunity. Period. And, no, having a stressful job isn't a good justification for mistreating American citizens.

For the last couple of years, I've been unhappy with the "short term missions" model that many churches use. It seems to involve a lot of good feelings about going somewhere else to experience "true poverty", working there for 1-3 weeks, coming home, showing lots of pictures of really poor people, and talking about the great need for Christian generosity. Now, I am a fairly generous individual. And I don't like seeing poor people suffer in poverty any more than you do. Despite the vast concern for social justice that's put into most trips, I don't think poverty will ever be reduced by them.

Poverty will be eliminated in the 3rd world the same way it was eliminated in the 1st world: growth. And that growth often involves taking the best scientific know-how we have, training people to understand how and why it works, and then letting them get on with the business of making themselves richer. (Growth often involves a strong rule of law and a government that doesn't steal from its own people, but I'll leave that topic for another post.)

I quoted from an article, just a few minutes ago, about the need for appreciating the "modern, science-intensive, and highly capitalized agricultural system" that we have her in America. But what about Africa? Will that really work over there?

Yes (from later in the same article).

Africa faces a food crisis, but it's not because the continent's population is growing faster than its potential to produce food, as vintage Malthusians such as environmental advocate Lester Brown and advocacy organizations such as Population Action International would have it. Food production in Africa is vastly less than the region's known potential, and that is why so many millions are going hungry there. African farmers still use almost no fertilizer; only 4 percent of cropland has been improved with irrigation; and most of the continent's cropped area is not planted with seeds improved through scientific plant breeding, so cereal yields are only a fraction of what they could be. Africa is failing to keep up with population growth not because it has exhausted its potential, but instead because too little has been invested in reaching that potential.

One reason for this failure has been sharply diminished assistance from international donors. When agricultural modernization went out of fashion among elites in the developed world beginning in the 1980s, development assistance to farming in poor countries collapsed. Per capita food production in Africa was declining during the 1980s and 1990s and the number of hungry people on the continent was doubling, but the U.S. response was to withdraw development assistance and simply ship more food aid to Africa. Food aid doesn't help farmers become more productive -- and it can create long-term dependency. But in recent years, the dollar value of U.S. food aid to Africa has reached 20 times the dollar value of agricultural development assistance.

The alternative is right in front of us. Foreign assistance to support agricultural improvements has a strong record of success, when undertaken with purpose. In the 1960s, international assistance from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and donor governments led by the United States made Asia's original Green Revolution possible. U.S. assistance to India provided critical help in improving agricultural education, launching a successful agricultural extension service, and funding advanced degrees for Indian agricultural specialists at universities in the United States. The U.S. Agency for International Development, with the World Bank, helped finance fertilizer plants and infrastructure projects, including rural roads and irrigation. India could not have done this on its own -- the country was on the brink of famine at the time and dangerously dependent on food aid. But instead of suffering a famine in 1975, as some naysayers had predicted, India that year celebrated a final and permanent end to its need for food aid.

What if the American church committed to getting over the West's passion for antiquated farming methods and decided instead to take up the mantle that the U.S. government dropped 35 years ago? We might find that we're far more likely to be of some use that way than we currently are. Instead of sending people over to marvel at poverty why don't we fund the same kinds of projects that enabled India to be self-sufficient?

I talked earlier this week about capitalism and its blessings, in regard to cleanliness. Consider this, about the blessings of capitalism in regard to food.

What's so tragic about this is that we know from experience how to fix the problem. Wherever the rural poor have gained access to improved roads, modern seeds, less expensive fertilizer, electrical power, and better schools and clinics, their productivity and their income have increased. But recent efforts to deliver such essentials have been undercut by deeply misguided (if sometimes well-meaning) advocacy against agricultural modernization and foreign aid.

In Europe and the United States, a new line of thinking has emerged in elite circles that opposes bringing improved seeds and fertilizers to traditional farmers and opposes linking those farmers more closely to international markets. Influential food writers, advocates, and celebrity restaurant owners are repeating the mantra that "sustainable food" in the future must be organic, local, and slow. But guess what: Rural Africa already has such a system, and it doesn't work. Few smallholder farmers in Africa use any synthetic chemicals, so their food is de facto organic. High transportation costs force them to purchase and sell almost all of their food locally. And food preparation is painfully slow. The result is nothing to celebrate: average income levels of only $1 a day and a one-in-three chance of being malnourished.

If we are going to get serious about solving global hunger, we need to de-romanticize our view of preindustrial food and farming. And that means learning to appreciate the modern, science-intensive, and highly capitalized agricultural system we've developed in the West. Without it, our food would be more expensive and less safe. In other words, a lot like the hunger-plagued rest of the world.

(Hat tip to Wilson Mixon, at Division of Labour.)

Liberals might want to consider that one of the reasons most people don't like government is the behavior of, well, government. Two stories caught my eye this morning.

First: One-Fourth of Nonprofits Are to Lose Tax Breaks - NYTimes.com.

As many as 400,000 nonprofit organizations are weeks away from a doomsday.

At midnight on May 15, an estimated one-fifth to one-quarter of some 1.6 million charities, trade associations and membership groups will lose their tax exemptions, thanks to a provision buried in a 2006 federal bill aimed at pension reform.

"It's going to be an unholy mess once these organizations realize what's happened to them," said Diana Aviv, president of the Independent Sector, a nonprofit trade group.

The federal legislation passed in 2006 required all nonprofits to file tax forms the following year. Previously, only organizations with revenues of $25,000 or more -- or the vast majority of nonprofit groups -- had to file.

The new law, embedded in the 393 pages of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, also directed the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the tax exemptions of groups that failed to file for three consecutive years. Three years have passed, and thus the deadline looms.

Next: I Got a Little More Libertarian Today | The Agitator.

So I got an email from TurboTax this afternoon telling me that my federal tax return has been rejected. Reason? Invalid Social Security number. So I double checked the return. Same Social Security number I've been using since I started paying taxes. Same number that's on my Social Security card. So TurboTax gave me the 800 number of the Social Security Administration so I could call to verify my number. Except that when I called, they told me that they can only verify numbers over the phone for employers, not individuals.

... The kicker: According to the TurboTax help forum I consulted, other people this has happened to say they were fined for filing late, even though they had actually filed on time, and it was the government's fault that their Social Security number was rejected.

Back on Earth Day, Don Boudreaux wrote a nice letter to USA Today.

On this Earth Day, Bjorn Lomborg scrubs with facts the noxious notions and emotions that pollute public discourse about the environment ("Earth Day: Smile, don't shudder," April 21). Especially useful is his point that the world’s number one environmental killer remains the indoor air pollution suffered by persons in poor countries who burn wood, waste, and dung to cook their meals and to heat their homes.

As the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay reminded us, it wasn't until Europeans industrialized – or, as we say today, enlarged their 'carbon footprint' – that they were saved from that same filthy fate. Here’s Macaulay's description of the dwelling of a typical 17th-century Scottish highlander:

You'll have to click through to read the full letter. But his point is sound. For the average person, capitalism has't increased pollution. It's greatly decreased it.

Did you know that before British and U.S. governments created public schools, parents still placed a high value on education? That children got a better education each passing year? That schools were cheaper? That 95% of teenagers were literate? That teenagers were more literate without public schools than they are now, with them? Truth.

I recently discovered a fascinating article on The Spread of Education Before Compulsion: Britain and America in the Nineteenth Century from the Freeman.

A few, choice, excerpts. First, the experience in Britain.

Contrary to popular belief, the supply of schooling in Britain between 1800 and 1840 was relatively substantial prior to any government intervention, although it depended almost completely on private funds. At this time, moreover, the largest contributors to education revenues were working parents and the second largest was the Church. Of course, there was less education per child than today, just as there was less of everything else, because the national income was so much smaller. I have calculated, nevertheless, that the percentage of the net national income spent on day-schooling of children of all ages in England in 1833 was approximately 1 percent. By 1920, when schooling had become "free" and compulsory by special statute, the proportion had fallen to 0.7 percent.

The evidence also shows that working parents were purchasing increasing amounts of education for their children as their incomes were rising from 1818 onwards, and this, to repeat, at a time before education was "free" and compulsory by statute. Compulsion came in 1880, and state schooling did not become free until 1891.

... It is not surprising that with such evidence of literacy growth of young people, the levels had become even more substantial by 1870. On my calculations for 1880, when national compulsion was enacted, over 95 percent of fifteen-year-olds were literate. This should be compared to the fact that over a century later 40 percent of 21-year-olds in the United Kingdom admit to difficulties with writing and spelling.

Second, the experience in the U.S.

Sheldon Richman quotes data showing that from 1650 to 1795, American male literacy climbed from 60 to 90 percent. Between 1800 and 1840 literacy in the North rose from 75 percent to between 91 and 97 percent. In the South the rate grew from about 55 percent to 81 percent. Richman also quotes evidence indicating that literacy in Massachusetts was 98 percent on the eve of legislated compulsion and is about 91 percent today.

Finally, Carl F. Kaestle observes: "The best generalization possible is that New York, like other American towns of the Revolutionary period, had a high literacy rate relative to other places in the world, and that literacy did not depend primarily upon the schools."

And, the conclusion.

If, on the other hand, the term "universal" is intended more loosely to mean something like, "most," "nearly everybody," or "over 90 percent," then we lack firm evidence to show that education was not already universal prior to intervention. The eventual establishment, meanwhile, of laws to provide a schooling that was both compulsory and free, was accompanied by major increases in costs. These included not only unprecedented expenses of growing bureaucracy but also the substantial costs of reduced liberty of families eventually caught in a choice-restricted monopoly system serving the interests not of the demanders but of the rent-seeking suppliers. Both sides of the Atlantic, meanwhile, shared this same fate.

We educated our children before we had universal, "free", public schools. We educated our children before the rise of strong national and state teachers' unions. We could have it again.

I recently read two good articles, from Jonah Goldberg, on socialism.

Capitalism vs. Capitalists

If by "capitalist" you mean someone who cares more about his own profit than yours; if you mean someone who cares more about providing for his family than providing for yours; if you mean someone who trusts that he is a better caretaker of his own interests and desires than a bureaucrat he's never met, often in a city he's never been to: then we are all capitalists. Because, by that standard, capitalism isn't some far-off theory about the allocation of capital; it is a commonsense description of what motivates pretty much all human beings everywhere.

And that was one of the reasons why the hard socialism of the Soviet Union failed, and it is why the soft socialism of Western Europe is so anemic. At the end of the day, it is entirely natural for humans to work the system--any system--for their own betterment, whatever kind of system that may be. That's why the black-market economy of the Soviet Union might have in fact been bigger than the official socialist economy. That is why devoted socialists worked the bureaucracy to get the best homes, get their kids into the best schools, and provide their families with the best food, clothes, and amenities they could. Just like people in capitalist countries.

It's why labor unions demanded exemptions and "carve-outs" from Obamacare for their own health-care plans. And why very rich liberals still try their best to minimize their taxes.

The problem with socialism is socialism, because there are no socialists. Socialism is a system based upon an assumption about human nature that simply isn't true. I can design a perfect canine community in which dogs never chase squirrels or groom their nether regions in an indelicate manner. But the moment I take that idea from the drawing board to the real world, I will discover that I cannot get dogs to behave against their nature--at least not without inflicting a terrible amount of punishment. Likewise, it's easy to design a society that rewards each according to his need instead of his ability. The hard part is getting the crooked timber of humanity to yield to your vision.

To understand that last point better, consider these two quotes.

From Hayek's The Fatal Conceit:

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

From Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments:

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.

(Hat tip to Russ Roberts, for the quotes.)

Finally, here's Jonah Goldberg writing about What Kind of Socialist is Barack Obama?

By these lights, socialism is a very sophisticated, highly technical, and historically precise phenomenon that has nothing to do with the politics or ideas of the present moment, and conservatives who invoke the term to describe Obama's policies and ideas are at best wildly imprecise and at worst purposefully rabble-rousing. And yet when liberals themselves discuss socialism and its relation to Obama, the definition of the term "socialist" seems to loosen up considerably.

... But is it correct, as an objective matter, to call Obama's agenda "socialist"? That depends on what one means by socialism. The term has so many associations and has been used to describe so many divergent political and economic approaches that the only meaning sure to garner consensus is an assertive statism applied in the larger cause of "equality," usually through redistributive economic policies that involve a bias toward taking an intrusive and domineering role in the workings of the private sector. One might also apply another yardstick: an ambivalence, even antipathy, for democracy when democracy proves inconvenient.1 With this understanding as a vague guideline, the answer is certainly, Yes, Obama's agenda is socialist in a broad sense. The Obama administration may not have planned on seizing the means of automobile production or asserting managerial control over Wall Street. But when faced with the choice, it did both. Obama did explicitly plan on imposing a massive restructuring of one-sixth of the U.S. economy through the use of state fiat--and he is beginning to do precisely that.

As they say, read the whole thing.