The Front Page Cover
~ Featuring ~
A Costly Hurricane
by Brian Marek Weber
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Missouri Takes Action Against Minimum Wage Hike
by Jordan Candler: There are plenty of problems that emerge when lawmakers increase the minimum wage. Look no further than Seattle, where low-income workers’ paychecks are getting skinnier, not bigger. The Missouri legislature understands this adverse economic effect and approved in May a bill to scale back St. Louis’ $10 hourly wage by capping it at $7.70 across the state. On Monday the law automatically became official (more on that below). However, this case is a bit of a novelty in that the new state law, in addition to preempting minimum wage increases, also nullifies an existing ordinance in St. Louis.
Democrats in that city and in the state legislature worked hard to implement and safeguard the $10 hourly wage, but it ultimately didn’t matter. The rationale for the Republican legislature’s action isn’t necessarily about opposition to higher wages. Rather, Republicans are rightly making a statement via the law that local jurisdictions cannot abrogate the new state-wide minimum wage benchmark. The purpose is to create across-the-board stability that ultimately provides for a more business-friendly environment. In the future, this means that those lobbying for a minimum wage increase need to convince the state legislature, not the local city council, to make it happen.
Truth be told, the way the whole situation played out could have been better. This is reflected in the remarks of Missouri Republican Gov. Eric Greitens, who allowed the bill to become law without his signature. Greitens stated: “We have different wages across the state. It’s created uncertainty for small businesses. And it all could have been avoided if the politicians had done their job on time. I disapprove of the way politicians handled this. That’s why I won’t be signing my name to their bill.” That’s his way of telling lawmakers that it’s a situation of their own doing and to quit messing around. And as for those claiming the sky is falling — and there are plenty of them — most companies won’t renege on the $10 hourly wage anyway, which is to say most workers will continue to make more than the new minimum wage.
And a bit of irony, courtesy of Reason’s Christian Britschgi: “A bit more puzzling is why politicians and the media are lavishing special attention on a bill that offers only the potential for worker wage reductions, when laws that certainly reduce their wages escape mention. These laws are called taxes, and most pass without nearly the kind of scrutiny from politicians or national media.” St. Louis has had its fair share of additional tax burdens levied on its residents by the very lawmakers who are demanding higher wages. If only their constituents could articulate the paradox. ~The Patriot Post
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liar-nObama’s Inauguration Day Letter To
Trump Revealed – We Must Continue The Destruction
by rickwells.us
{rickwells.us} ~ The content of liar-nObama’s letter to President Trump that he passed to him on inauguration day were the subject of some interest, as it had been kept confidential... As we now learn, it was more of the same liar-nObama drivel. What President Trump described as “a beautiful letter” left in the Oval Office for him by the pretend ‘president’ started off with an obligatory and insincere congratulations for beating the candidate he had broken the law, spied and physically assaulted through his army of Antifa, communists and BLM thugs to support. liar-nObama acknowledged that he didn’t know if any advice from him would be “particularly helpful,” but based it not on the fact that he’s a communism-supporting globalist but rather the complexities of the office. Still he couldn’t help himself and gave President Trump some pointers on how he would continue his destruction if it had been possible to sentence America to a third liar-nObama term... http://rickwells.us/obamas-inauguration-day-letter-trump-revealed-continue-destruction/
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{thesleuthjournal.com} ~ According to the defense contractor that developed the Predator and Reaper drones for the United States military’s operations in the Middle East, drones will have begun to replace piloted law enforcement helicopters by the year 2025... On Monday, it was reported that the contractor, General Atomics (GA), is pressing hard for the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to change its regulations on unmanned flight over American soil. As such, defense contractors have a vested interest in seeing the FAA adopt regulations that, as Defense One reports, would “open the floodgates” on a brand new aviation market. But GA, which has developed a cousin of its Reaper drone for domestic surveillance use, is ahead of the pack in terms of FAA certification... http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/military-drones-replacing-police-helicopters/
Robocop Reality: Massive Military
Drones Could Start Replacing Police Helicopters
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As GOP Senators, Governors Pitch Plan to Save
liar-nObamacare, White House ‘Can’t
Imagine’ Backing Bailout
by Fred Lucas
{dailysignal.com} ~ The White House says it “can’t imagine” supporting an liar-nObamacare bailout, even as some Republican senators and governors are urging boosting federal subsidies to insurance companies to stabilize the endangered liar-nObamacare exchanges... The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will be holding hearings starting next week on ways to maintain the health insurance markets and is expected to consider an increase in subsidies for insurers. Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of governors, led by Ohio’s John Kasich, a Republican, and Colorado’s John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, unveiled a plan calling for Congress to create a temporary fund for states to reimburse insurance companies for major losses...This is nonsense. http://dailysignal.com/2017/09/02/354203/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTURJMVkySTJObU5qWldKaSIsInQiOiJhRG5JYVwvOEZ6UzE5WWpzcW9VRFlreGNXYm5QTHp6VG9RZXRnckkzMFNqWHl1b29JUUJKUVJsXC9jN0ZZSk5oOWZWM25Oc2FWb3hoSTRsQ1wvWVZrMlBja2taT3dzemtFemZWSHR0UXA5NmFzWDNwR1FvR3JtZko4RWg0ZXJ4YWJDZyJ9
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Anti-Trump ‘Resistance’ Groups
Spreading North Korean Propaganda
by Peter Hasson
{dailycaller.com} ~ Two of the nation’s most active anti-Trump “resistance” organizations are taking decidedly pro-North Korea stances in the United States’ developing nuclear standoff with the communist country, whose leader, Kim Jong In... has repeatedly threatened to launch a nuclear strike against America. One group is Refuse Fascism, a well-funded “resistance” group created for the express purpose of opposing President Trump’s administration. Internal presentations from a Refuse Fascism conference last month said the group intends to make America’s leaders lose “international legitimacy” as a way of ultimately bringing down the Trump presidency, as TheDC first reported. The other group is Workers World Party, a Marxist organization that has played a leading role in anti-Trump demonstrations across the country...Why can't these groups be kicked out from the United States? http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/03/anti-trump-resistance-groups-spreading-north-korean-propaganda/?utm_medium=email.
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A Costly Hurricane
by Brian Mark Weber: There’s nothing more heartwarming than seeing strangers risking their lives to help their neighbors and fellow citizens after a natural disaster. It’s one of those rare moments when people put aside whatever differences they may have for the greater good. But now that Hurricane Harvey’s floodwaters are receding, it’s time to start focusing on the recovery efforts and their associated costs. And the costs are tremendous.
The Houston Business Journal reports, “Moody’s Analytics, a New York-based financial analysis company, has pegged the destruction to southeast Texas, which includes the Rockport area where Harvey made landfall, as of mid-morning Aug. 29 at about $75 billion, covering homes, vehicles, businesses, infrastructure and lost economic output. Homes and vehicles alone in the region are expected to suffer about $30 billion to $40 billion in damage, according to an email from a Moody’s representative. Regional businesses could see up to $15 billion in damage.” Other estimates place the cost closer to $200 billion.
Natural disasters cannot be prevented, but their impacts can be reduced if cities like Houston would take the threat from these storms seriously and act proactively. Data from the National Weather Service show that Texas has been hit by 64 hurricanes and 56 tropical storms since the 1850s. So it’s not like Hurricane Harvey was an anomaly.
Worse, Ralph Vartabedian writes in the Los Angeles Times, “[Houston] has been deceiving itself for decades about its vulnerability to flooding, said Robert Bea, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and UC Berkeley emeritus civil engineering professor who has studied hurricane risks along the Gulf Coast. The city’s flood system is supposed to protect the public from a 100-year storm” that is “based on a rainfall total of 13 inches in 24 hours.”
Clearly, the system wasn’t designed to protect Houston from a storm the size of Harvey. Had various levels of government directed resources into Houston’s infrastructure, the costs incurred would have certainly been less than those the city is now facing. Another way the costs of these powerful storms can be reduced is to fix the flawed and bankrupt National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Government programs always sound good, but there’s always more to the story.
The editors of Investor’s Business Daily write, “[NFIP] owes close to $25 billion to the U.S. Treasury, which means it owes you, the taxpayer. How could that be? The fact is, as with so many government programs, the very name of the agency is false. It is not providing ‘insurance’ in any true sense, but rather a taxpayer guarantee. Big difference.”
Unlike insurance programs in the free market, the NFIP does not charge premiums that are high enough to cover the costs of a natural disaster. They’re simply taking taxpayer monies and subsidizing government payouts from other agencies as well as private-sector donations. But it gets worse. The very existence of programs like NFIP results in developers and individuals building homes in flood areas and earthquake zones knowing full well that they’re going to be covered when disaster strikes. Sure, it’s a great deal for the homeowner, but not so much for American taxpayers or the nation’s economy.
And what’s all this talk about how the devastation in Houston will ultimately boost the country’s GDP? On the surface, this appears true. Billions of dollars will be needed to clean up and rebuild Houston, and this money will boost all sorts of recovery industries. But that only tells part of the story.
Tim Worstall of the Washington Examiner reminds us, “Opportunity costs matter and there are problems with net and gross. So, we will record ourselves as being richer as a result of the storm — but we’ll actually be poorer, by exactly the amount of what we’ve not got, which we should have had if the storm hadn’t happened, plus the damages themselves, which we’ve not accounted for either.”
In other words, all of the services and resources needed to help southeast Texas recover and rebuild will boost the economy in some ways, but these same services and resources being funneled into Houston are thus not going elsewhere. Essentially, the increase in GDP falls short of the tremendous costs involved in such a large recovery operation. And this is money that could instead have become part of a vital infrastructure project, such as the border wall.
Yet another problem we’re seeing in the wake of these ferocious storms is price gouging. $42 for a case of water at Best Buy? That’s not a typo. Now, to be fair, Best Buy doesn’t usually sell cases of water. A company spokesperson claimed that one of its employees mistakenly added up the cost for each bottle, and an apology was issued. Mistakes aside, some people are willing to take advantage of the most vulnerable citizens in a time of tragedy. But we shouldn’t think that everyone is getting away with it, or that there isn’t some market-driven supply and demand at play.
USA Today reports, “The office of the Texas State Attorney General said that as of Wednesday morning, it had received 684 complaints about excessive pricing. They included a convenience store in Houston selling gasoline for $20 a gallon. Such acts can lead to a $20,000 fine, or a penalty of up to $250,000 if the victim is at least 65 years old. The state attorney general has so far notified nine alleged offenders that they have violated the law, and what fines they could face if they don’t stop the gouging.”
But there’s gouging, and then there are natural market forces. John Stossel explains, “Suppose a disaster devastates your town, and your local store is not allowed to raise the price of bottled water. People rush to buy all the water they can get. The store sells out. Only the first customers get what they need. The storeowner has no incentive to risk life and limb restocking his store. He wants to get to safety, too. So he closes his store. But if the owner can charge $99 for a case of water, you will buy less water, and other customers get what they need. More importantly, entrepreneurs have an incentive to move heaven and earth to bring water to the disaster area. They soon do, and the price drops again. That’s economics — supply and demand. It works pretty well.”
In other words, sometimes the high costs associated with disaster ensure that relief goes where it’s needed most. Moreover, numerous charitable organizations and businesses are giving away water and such. The real lesson might be that morality and capitalism must go hand in hand.
Now that the people of southeast Texas and Louisiana are beginning to put their lives back together, it’s time to look at a range of issues associated with the government’s role in natural disasters. This doesn’t mean we should leave our fellow citizens to fend for themselves. The outpouring of support from across Texas and the entire U.S. clearly shows that we’re a compassionate country. But it’s time to get serious. It’s time to get the government out of the disaster insurance business and to be more proactive about infrastructure. ~The Patriot Post
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