Judge Conducts Citizenship Oath Ceremony In Spanish

Maybe the judge was just following this warped advice on how not to be “embarrassed.”

Night Of The Living Dead Businesses

Japan had a recession in the 1990s that was very similar to our current one.  So far, the actions we’ve taken have mirrored Japan’s, which only further damaged their dire situation.  I know.  It’s shocking that these liberal ideas, designed to help, almost always backfire.

With the government propping up poor business models rather than allowing further job losses, firms wound up operating over the long-term without making a profit or adding any value to society. Their utter lack of vitality earned these perpetual money-leaching entities the moniker “zombie businesses.”

First mistake. The Bank of Japan tried to ease economic pains during their downturn through the 1990s by loaning large amounts of money to businesses. However, such attempts to recapitalize the market were counteracted by underlying management problems endemic to the dying firms.

Second mistake. With all those loans, the Japanese government was simply too integrated into the market to have adequate incentives to create the right policies. Daniel Okimoto, former director of the Asia-Pacific Research Center, points out that the interests of Japan’s economic bureaucracies, such as the Ministry of Finance, became interdependent with the banking industry.  Moreover, government officials suppressed data revealing the intense scope of the economic malaise, all while regulations were developed with government interests in mind. Transparency and public accountability were basically nonexistent.

Fourth mistake. Japan tried to climb out of its economic mess by raising taxes and cutting interest rates. Okimoto cites a series of policy mistakes in a report on Japan’s economic stagnation that includes a consumption tax hike, business taxes, and heavy-handed reliance on interest rate cuts that reduced investment incentives.

Eerily, and obviously, given the missing “third mistake,” there’s lots more.

Minimum Wage Laws Do The Opposite Of What Liberals Intend

As usual, liberal ideas that are well intended, do the exact opposite of what they were meant to do.

From John Hawkins Rightwingnews.com:

In 2005, 1.5 percent of all wage and salaried workers received the federal minimum wage or lower.

That amounts to roughly 2 million people. Of that number,
- about half are under age 25
- less than one-quarter work full time (35 hours or more a week)
- three-fifths work in the food service industry, where, according to government reports, tips and commissions often supplement the hourly wages
- more than 70 percent are at least high school graduates
- two-thirds are women

The percentage of people who earned the minimum wage or less has dropped from 7.9 percent of all wage and salary workers in 1979 to 1.5 percent of all wage and salary workers in 2005. 

But, the gap between rich and poor keeps growing! [ed]

How many of the 1,000,000 minimum wage earners under 25 live at home with their mother and father?  According to the  National Center for Policy Analysis, 40% do.

Here is the Bureau of Labor Statistics Report on miminum wage earners in 2005.  Don’t believe me.  Read it for yourself (but be advised, it is a pdf.)

Also, here’s 50 years of research into the minimum wage.  A few of the things found:

• The minimum wage reduces employment.
• The minimum wage reduces employment more among teenagers than adults.
• The minimum wage reduces employment most among black teenage males.
• The minimum wage hurts blacks generally.
• The minimum wage hurts low wage workers.
• The minimum wage hurts small businesses generally.
• The minimum wage hurts the poor generally.
• The minimum wage does little to reduce poverty.

The campaign for an increased minimum wage has a twofold benefit for the Democratic party.  While they campaign for an increase in the minimum wage, they use class warfare tactics to demonize the Republicans for opposing it.  This turns lower income workers against the Republicans, even though the Democrats are actually hurting the very people they claim to be fighting for.

At the same time, they are helping one of their biggest sources of campaign cash on the sly.  Unions will continue to fork over cash to the Democrats, helping them win more elections in the future.

So there you have it.