Sometimes things are just worth getting stoked about. Especially as you walk across the South Pole.
Highlights at :45 and 2:10.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
A Worthy Upheaval?
This editorial from the Detroit Free Press (of which I am not a frequent reader, it just appeared in Google, although I'm sure it's a fine paper) has a nice overview of the Affordable Care Act arguments going on in the Supreme Court right now.
My favorite bit however, was when they said a ruling against the ACA based on the individual mandate portion would go against past rulings and "invite constitutional challenges to everything from the Environmental Protection Agency to the federal laws guaranteeing occupational safety, food and drug purity, and minority voting rights."
Most of those things do deserve a second, third, fourth, etc. glance, I think. As for minority voting rights, I'm not exactly sure how that's connected, but that should be upheld as voting rights should not be predicated based on ethnicity, or whatever, except age. (Although there are some political theorists who would say voting is far too important of a thing to be left to the people. That's another issue).
Should the EPA have such broad power? Can the government "guarantee" occupational safety? Why is it the federal government's job to regulate food purity? What does "purity" even mean? A farmer down the road can't sell raw cow's milk, yet there is a Taco Bell in every city. Various parties would hesitate to call either raw milk or Taco Bell "pure."
Basically if the Court did have to review all that stuff, maybe it would be a good thing.
My favorite bit however, was when they said a ruling against the ACA based on the individual mandate portion would go against past rulings and "invite constitutional challenges to everything from the Environmental Protection Agency to the federal laws guaranteeing occupational safety, food and drug purity, and minority voting rights."
Most of those things do deserve a second, third, fourth, etc. glance, I think. As for minority voting rights, I'm not exactly sure how that's connected, but that should be upheld as voting rights should not be predicated based on ethnicity, or whatever, except age. (Although there are some political theorists who would say voting is far too important of a thing to be left to the people. That's another issue).
Should the EPA have such broad power? Can the government "guarantee" occupational safety? Why is it the federal government's job to regulate food purity? What does "purity" even mean? A farmer down the road can't sell raw cow's milk, yet there is a Taco Bell in every city. Various parties would hesitate to call either raw milk or Taco Bell "pure."
Basically if the Court did have to review all that stuff, maybe it would be a good thing.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Thoughts on Helium
No, I am not on helium. But this Acton blog post talks about how a government stockpile being released (har) into the market drove prices down so far that we've supposedly been squandering a precious resource.
I am slightly worried. We will see where this goes.
I am slightly worried. We will see where this goes.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Religo-enviro-capitalists
A friend forwarded this article to me about GreenFaith, a non-profit consulting company that works with religious groups of all faiths to help lessen their "environmental footprint." They market it by telling how it saves the churches, mosques, etc money and how it attracts young people who care most about these issues. I also believe it is fulfilling a moral mandate by encouraging believers to be good stewards of this earth. From the article, it appears they are effective. This is encouraging to me because they don't force folks to follow their principles (I'm assuming all this stuff is actually beneficial to people and the earth). It is a voluntary action, messaged in a way that gets people and organizations involved of their own accord.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The Cool
Here's one from the Way Back Machine. Oh, how things have changed. This was the peak of advertising at one point. I wonder what they 80s people would have thought about our current car commercials? I guess we can ask the 80s people, but they went the 90s and 2000s, so they've been corrupted. The jingle also confirms my belief that some Christian worship songs are still stuck in the 80s.
Fair Wages
May I posit that "fair pay" is undefinable? This is based on the fact that we cannot know what certain people are "worthy" of being paid. Any effort on the part of the government or unions to make sure employees "get their fair share" will result in unintended, ill side effects.
From the goodness in our hearts, we can look at those being paid the minimum wage or below and say, They should be paid X amount. X is typically propounded as a reasonable pay rate: not too little (of course) but also not too high. What I find interesting in that reasoning is that there is a perception of economic reality, but not actual follow through on economic reality. For example, we may believe the worker in such and such factory getting paid $10.50 an hour is being paid far too little. We wax eloquent on the greed of the factory owners and give speeches on the rights of the worker. Our solution is to push for a fair wage of $20.00 an hour so he can feed his four children. We have come to this solution by investigating the financials of the factory and think the factory's profit margin is too high and therefore the leadership can afford to pay their workers $20.00/hr.
For the same factory, I think a human being is worth $1000.00/hr. Think of all the good that would come of that pay rate! His entire family never has to work again, he can found charities, travel, and overall benefit himself and his neighbors. I say, forget the financials of the company and whether they can pay that rate for very long! We are talking about a human being here! He is worth $1000.00/hr based on his humanness.
Of course, the second scenario is completely unfeasible as it would put the factory and therefore our worker out of business but we assume the first is feasible (it's often not) because of the magic $20.00/hr rate we came up with. The defunct auto industry in Michigan illustrates what happens when third parties (unions) try to dictate a "fair wage." The Post Office is another example of lofty goals meeting with economic reality.
Both scenarios make their judgements not on the value the worker creates (his output, quality of output, attitude on the job, skill set, experience, etc.) but on the "merit" we assign to him from our perspective, which is a very slippery foundation. It is in the company's interest to pay him more as his experience increases so they don't lose him to another factory that does perceive his value and is willing to pay him commensurately.
Only the individual can decide what wage their skills are worth. Any attempt by third parties to dictate that wage is a mistake and leads to worse things than they were initially fighting against.
From the goodness in our hearts, we can look at those being paid the minimum wage or below and say, They should be paid X amount. X is typically propounded as a reasonable pay rate: not too little (of course) but also not too high. What I find interesting in that reasoning is that there is a perception of economic reality, but not actual follow through on economic reality. For example, we may believe the worker in such and such factory getting paid $10.50 an hour is being paid far too little. We wax eloquent on the greed of the factory owners and give speeches on the rights of the worker. Our solution is to push for a fair wage of $20.00 an hour so he can feed his four children. We have come to this solution by investigating the financials of the factory and think the factory's profit margin is too high and therefore the leadership can afford to pay their workers $20.00/hr.
For the same factory, I think a human being is worth $1000.00/hr. Think of all the good that would come of that pay rate! His entire family never has to work again, he can found charities, travel, and overall benefit himself and his neighbors. I say, forget the financials of the company and whether they can pay that rate for very long! We are talking about a human being here! He is worth $1000.00/hr based on his humanness.
Of course, the second scenario is completely unfeasible as it would put the factory and therefore our worker out of business but we assume the first is feasible (it's often not) because of the magic $20.00/hr rate we came up with. The defunct auto industry in Michigan illustrates what happens when third parties (unions) try to dictate a "fair wage." The Post Office is another example of lofty goals meeting with economic reality.
Both scenarios make their judgements not on the value the worker creates (his output, quality of output, attitude on the job, skill set, experience, etc.) but on the "merit" we assign to him from our perspective, which is a very slippery foundation. It is in the company's interest to pay him more as his experience increases so they don't lose him to another factory that does perceive his value and is willing to pay him commensurately.
Only the individual can decide what wage their skills are worth. Any attempt by third parties to dictate that wage is a mistake and leads to worse things than they were initially fighting against.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Trapped in an Elevator
You guys may of seen this video, but I had never until a few weeks ago. This guy was trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. It's all on this time lapse video. My assumption is that it is legit.
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