Economics 101: Wages

Congress recently broke an arm or two patting itself on the back for raising the minimum wage. About a month later, Chrysler announced the approaching cuts of 13,000 jobs. Are the two events related? What does it mean that now, as Chrysler cuts jobs, Toyota's car factories are increasing their output and hiring more workers? The answer to the first question is "yes." A higher minimum wage enables unions to negotiate higher wages for their skilled workers. The fundamental difference between Chrysler jobs and Toyota jobs begins with a U: unions. Toyota's flourishing factories are powered by non-union workers, whereas Chrysler's labor is largely unionized, especially in the Detroit area. The car industry in Detroit is declining in part because unionized labor refuses to go the way of the horse and buggy. At the root of this problem are the most basic elements of economics.
In high school, we learn that capital is made of goods and services. Those two commodities are the sources of all value. Land, gold, cars, and clothing are goods. Farm labor, grass cutting, house work and industrial work are services. In the free market, goods are worth what people will pay for them. Labor is worth what a boss will pay for it.
What do union bosses always (and I mean ALWAYS) ask for? "A living wage," is what they want, right? If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times: wages must increase to match rates of inflation and costs of living. Is labor a service? Of course! Labor is a unit of capital that is worth what a boss is willing to pay for it. What should wages for labor have to do with the cost of living? In the free market, nothing. Toyota pays market wage, and manages to fill its employment rolls with workers. Because Toyota pays market wage, they have no worries about a minimum wage hike, whereas Chrysler will be hamstrung with huge increases in the costs of production due to wages getting raised artificially. The economic lesson in all of this is clear: market labor is beating union labor in competition. The days of industrial labor unions are numbered, as their decline continues.
To be fair, Chrysler has multiple problems aside from labor costs. They need to produce more desirable cars and might consider cutting some salaries, but those are decisions for the company to make internally. By raising the minimum wage, the government raises the price of labor artificially, which will only hurt the ability of American workers to compete in a global market.

With young men like these...

I went to National Guard Drill two weekends ago and realized that after eight years in the organization, I am finally looking noticeably older than the seventeen-year-old privates who have just finished Basic Training. I asked one fresh-faced youngster if he had ever shaved in his life. Visibly dismayed that an officer would doubt his skills with a razor, he asked, "Is it growing back already, sir?" I laughed and responded, "No, your face is fine. I meant, 'Are you old enough to shave?'" When I was one of them, a new recruit age 17 in the year 1998, I used to muse that if there were a war, I would serve willingly. Since that time, we have had a war and I have served a year in Iraq, as have countless others.
What impressed me at last Drill was the comments I heard from the kids who were too young to go with us in 2005. Some of them, knowing that American soldiers are facing enemy fire in two theatres, still make comments that are identical to mine: If their nation calls them to war, they will go willingly. This current war against Islamofascism has thus far mainly sought to prevent the next terrorist attack on the United States. At that, we have been successful in preventing the attack and disarming three formerly hostile regimes at a cost of 3,000 men. (The third regime is Khaddafi's Libya, which disarmed peaceably.)
Are we winning? With the Iraqis looking less likely to democratize in fact as well as form, we may not achieve the peaceable ally for which we had hoped. Yet, if we in the future face a war for our own survival, rest assured we will have a willing populace to enlist and fight. As long as we have young men like the ones in my National Guard Unit, the people of this country need not fear any enemy. Hua!

RUSH IS BACK ON TV!

The Fox News Channel is about to air a satire on the news, a show titled, "The Half Hour News Hour," which premiers Sunday, February 18 at 10 p.m. EST. They have done the first two episodes as pilots, but the show has not gotten picked up yet, so it needs an audience to earn a spot on the air. I have seen a preview of "The Half Hour News Hour" on Hannity and Colmes and it is side-splitting. The jokes are witty and highly amusing, as two liberal news anchors give enthusiastic coverage of America's love affair with Barack Obama. I understand that YouTube carries a few other clips, involving messages from the President and the Vice President, played by the Harmless, Lovable Little Fuzz Ball and the Diva of the Right.
Yes, you read that last sentence correctly: Rush Limbaugh is the President and Lady Ann Coulter is the Vice President. I could not have cast it better myself. I know where I will be at 10:00 on Sunday evening. Hua.

The Crime that Never Happened

The situation was far from ideal: a criminal case driven by liberal talking points. Every liberal politician, blogger, opinion columnist and news reporter pronounced the defendant or defendants guilty before some of them were even indicted. Democrats fantasized about watching the defendants getting incarcerated. A prosecutor decided to do whatever it took to gain convictions no matter how much evidence he had to conceal. In the end, everyone who paid attention to the evidence doubted that any crime had even been committed.
Am I talking about the Duke Lacrosse players' rape frame-up by Mike Nifong, or the current trial of Scooter Libby by Patrick Fitzgerald? Actually, both cases match the above description. While it appears only a matter of time until the state drops all charges against the Lacrosse players, Libby is on trial charged with perjury for up to 30 years of his life and may get convicted. The judge in Libby's case has mandated that the jury not be told whether or not Valerie Plame was a covert agent or whether her "leaking" constituted a violation of the law protecting covert agents' identities. Fitzgerald has indicted no one for the leak because the law protects agents' identities until they have been out of covert service for five years. She had been a non-covert employee of the CIA for over six years and therefore was not "outted." No matter how many times MSNBC says she was outted, it is not true. The "leaker," by his own admittance, was Richard Armitage of the State Department. He has not been indicted because no crime was committed. After learning that Armitage was the source for the Robert Novak story on Valerie Plame, Fitzgerald continued his investigation hoping to get someone to commit perjury or to find another underlying crime. He failed in the latter, so the former was all that was left to him.
Why is Scooter Libby charged with perjury, when there was not a crime in the case? Libby is on trial because he said that Tim Russert was the first person to tell him that Valerie Plame was Joe Wilson's wife and the reason for his assignment on the mission to Niger. A year after the fact, Libby identified the specific conversation in which Russert mentioned the Plame-Wilson connection and Russert remembers that conversation. Russert denies that he mentioned the Plame-Wilson connection and the prosecutor believes Russert over Libby. That's it. Never mind the total irrelevance of how Libby learned a non-criminal piece of information; the other question is, "What possible evidence is there to prove Libby guilty?" This is a, "he said, he said," case in which two men remember the same conversation differently. Without some sort of supporting documentation, Fitzgerald has no case - and everything they said or did not say in that conversation was perfectly legal to say. We have a witch trial on our hands, ladies and gentlemen. I intend to contribute to Libby's defense fund.

Movie Review: Dead Man's Chest *

To make a long review short, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" should not have been released. If you have seen the first movie, you will be sorely disappointed. (if you have not, then go and see it now and pretend that no sequel was ever made) All films of this sort need good special effects, which this one has in spades, but it boasts nothing else to recommend it. Good acting, writing, editing and direction will cover a multitude of special effects shortcomings, but the balance seldom works the other way round. For this film, the non-technical side of the ledger is empty. The characters are wooden compared with their forebears from "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" and the plot is as thin as a sheet of notebook paper. Davy Jones gives Captain Jack Sparrow the black spot and a struggle for colonial power prompts a search for a chest containing the beating heart of Davy Jones. Some swordfights, cannibals, a seamonster and a Jamaican fortune teller make appearances. Somehow, this movie manages to consume well over two hours of time dealing with this quest. The plot is also confusing, as the monster who is supposed to attack ships bearing a man with the black spot attacks other ships instead. Jack Sparrow gains and loses the black spot for no apparent reason. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley give decent performances, but they get very little help from the screenwriter. It makes no sense in the least for a girl of any era to decry her deprivation of a wedding night more than the loss of her wedding. Johnny Depp, whose performance in the original movie garnered him an Oscar nomination, extends and exaggerates Captain Jack Sparrow's mannerisms. His trademark swagger - sort of a sailor swing - becomes almost effeminate in this latter installment. At the end, as the captain appears set to die, we receive the "intriguing" assurance that a third movie is on the way. How surprising.
Two or three subplots, five or six characters and thirty or forty minutes could be cut from "Dead Man's Chest" completely, and the movie would benefit considerably as a result. I think I'm being generous giving this film one star - the special effects are all that can recommend it. Do not waste your time on this movie.