Archive for August 10th, 2006
Daily I read the media reports about Spitzer’s huge lead over Tom Suozzi for the democratic line in the gubernatorial race. Who are these people favoring Spitzer? I’m lucky if I can name a handful of people, that I know, who support Spitzer. The vast majority that I know who support Tom Suozzi have taken the time to take a hard look at the issues facing New York State and the solutions proposed by the candidates. After applying critical thinking skills, the overwhelming have concluded that Spitzer is nothing more than a walking, talking sound bite.
Tom Suozzi, on the other hand, is regarded as someone with real experience and accomplishments with government reform. Not only that, but he has solid, substantive ideas to fix New York.
Again I ask, Who are these Spitzer supporters? (other than the political status quo) My next question is, Why do they Support him? And, what can we do to help Suozzi win?
Please take a few seconds to vote in the poll at the right if you are a registered democrat.
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Panel Admonishes Wash. Judge Who Urged Courtroom to Say ‘Go Seahawks’
A state panel has disciplined a judge who ordered cheers in court for the Super Bowl-bound Seattle Seahawks before issuing a manslaughter sentence.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Beverly Grant asked about 100 people in court to say “Go Seahawks” before taking their seats on Feb. 3. Dissatisfied with the low volume of the response, she repeated the request.
That same day, Grant sentenced Steve Keo Teang to 13 1/2 years for manslaughter in the 2005 shooting death of Tino Patricelli, 28.
The Seahawks played in the Super Bowl that weekend. Patricelli’s stepmother said she was offended in part because the game fell on the anniversary of her stepson’s death.
Grant, who was appointed to the bench in 2003, apologized the following Monday. She eventually filed the formal conduct complaint against herself.
“Although my intentions were to defuse the courtroom situation, I realize now the inappropriateness of my opening comments,” Grant told the commission.
The state Commission on Judicial Conduct gave the judge an admonishment, the panel’s lowest-ranking punishment. An admonishment is a written reprimand.
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Minimum wage not a remedy for jobs
By Thomas Sowell
August 10, 2006
It was a common political move when Chicago’s City Council voted recently to impose a $10-an-hour minimum wage on big-box retailers. There is nothing that politicians like better than handing out benefits to be paid for by someone else.
What was uncommon was the reaction. Chicago’s Mayor Richard M. Daley denounced the bill as “redlining,” since it would have the net effect of keeping much-needed stores and jobs out of black neighborhoods. Both Chicago newspapers also denounced the bill.
The crowning touch came when Andrew Young, former civil rights leader and former mayor of Atlanta, went to Chicago to criticize local black leaders who supported this bill.
While the $10-an-hour minimum wage was politics as usual, the unusual backlash against it provides at least a glimmer of hope that more people are beginning to consider the economic consequences of such feel-good legislation.
A survey has shown that 85 percent of the economists in Canada and 90 percent of the economists in the United States say that minimum wage laws reduce employment. But you don’t need a Ph.D. in economics to know that jacking up prices leads fewer people to buy. Those people include employers, who hire less labor when labor is made artificially more expensive.
It happens in France. It happens in South Africa. It happens in New Zealand. How surprised should we be when it happens in Chicago? The economic consequence of political largess - whether in the form of minimum wage laws or medical or other benefits mandated to be paid for by employers - is to make labor artificially more expensive.
There is no free lunch.
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Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Note: Mayor Daley, bless his soul, is threatening to veto this law and only needs to sway 2 votes out of 35 to make the veto stick.
