SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS
Re: Enemy Central’s The Heat
Is On :
I truly enjoyed reading this on Saturday morning. I wouldn’t miss
a day of The American Spectator.
It gave me great pleasure to hear VP Cheney’s remarks to Leahy. I
have used worse than that in my reference to Leahy (and Kennedy,
and KKK Byrd, and Clinton, etc.). At least I can laugh about the
Democrats. Gore seems to have lost any sense of humor if he ever
had one. I would be the first to sign any papers that would put
Maureen Dowd in Iraq. She doesn’t offer much but maybe the
terrorists would understand her kind of hate. She could take Paul
Krugman along for companionship. If she needs female
companionship I suggest Ellen Ratner. I saw her this morning on
the TV with a turkey. Had trouble figuring out which one was the
turkey. There goes that sense of humor again. If I don’t laugh at
the Democrats I might actually believe them. Poor souls are truly
lost.
— Jane
Connecticut
FLOYDADAESQUE
Re: George Neumayr’s Lonesome
Love:
Hi folks!
“The Floydada corridor”?
Hey! I lived on it, right there in Crowell, county seat of Foard
County, where Thalia is located.
I never heard any local wits refer to it as that. Perhaps I
didn’t hang out with folk who were quite as witty as the ones Mr.
McMurtry did.
“Fornicating presidents will find no welcome there”? Well, hey!
Senator Kennedy carried the county when I lived there in 1960. I
guess he wasn’t yet a fornicating president. Yeah, that explains
it.
“Elephant gun”? Mr. McMurtry must know President Clinton pretty
well.
— John N. Davis
Having been in the middle of Jesuit high school training at the
same time that Clinton was at G-town, I find it extraordinary
that any Jesuit inclined to see Slick Willie as a Jesuit recruit,
would also find it praiseworthy that he “write(s) like a Catholic
think(s) like a Catholic.” In the Regis High School class of 171,
this accolade would have been viewed by faculty peaceniks as
grounds for suspension, rather than a résumé enhancement.
— Richard Cross
Leominster, Massachusetts
Here’s a newsflash for Bill Clinton. They never stopped making RC
Cola and it is still available nationally. He can’t even
reminisce truthfully about minor points.
— Mitchell A. Kaufman
Independence, Ohio
IRON CLAD
Re: Lawrence Henry’s The
Culture of Iron Will:
Yes, and the scary thing is that organizations that actually do
stuff, like produce tangible goods or provide healthcare or
education are run the same way.
— Dennis M. Duggan
He gets it dead right.
— John Schuh
AT HARD LABOR
Re: Brandon Crocker’s Minimum
Wage Myths:
One adverse consequence of raising the minimum wage that is not
mentioned in Brandon Crocker’s fine article is the labor
substitution effect. Raise the minimum wage, and you draw in
senior citizens looking for a way to get out of the house and
stay part of a team. As an employer, you now have your choice
between hiring a senior citizen with a 40 year history of
responsibility, versus a teenage high school drop out. No
brainer, right? Oh, and by the way, raising the minimum wage also
increases the high school drop out rate. So now you have coaxed
more teens, most specifically more black male teens, into a
workforce where they bring few skills, and you make them compete
against old people. Net effect: greater unemployment among black
teen age males. It’s been documented — google it and you’ll find
plenty of studies.
Oh, and did I fail to mention that many government union
contracts specify hourly wages that are a multiple of the
prevailing federal minimum wage? It will help the union members
to be able to move out of those neighborhoods that experience an
increase in the population of male high school drop-outs.
So let’s do something constructive — get high school dropouts to
organize politically to protect their own interests and vote
against Kerry! Calling Al Sharpton. Al, are you with us? Jesse?
Anyone? Bueller?
— John Hatch, Ph.D. (economics)
Arlington, Virginia
Further to Brandon Crocker’s “Minimum Wage Myths,” I see the nut
of the matter in simpler terms. The most important factors are:
(a) These are entry level jobs where young or under-educated
people can begin in the job market to obtain experience and build
a good work record.
(b) Increasing the minimum wage will absolutely drive many small
businesses out of the market place, taking their entry level and
other jobs with them (increasing the minimum wage from $5.50 to
$7.00 an hour is an increase of over 27%, a huge increased
expense for any business, even if it’s over a 3 year period).
(c) Inflation — a cruel tax on everyone, including minimum wage
earners — will be stimulated not only because the increased
minimum wage costs must be passed along to consumers but, also,
co-workers earning more than the minimum wage will fairly expect
an increase in their wages, again to be passed on to the
consumer. And, naturally, labor unions will quickly begin efforts
toward concomitant raises for their members, which, again, must
be passed to consumers. For unions, a 27% raise for lowest wage
earners would be a robust starting point to begin their new
negotiations; and
(d) In any case, as a percentage of workers in this country, very
few rely on minimum wage jobs as a long-term source of support
for themselves and their families. They quickly move up, or on,
when they demonstrate a good work record.
The bottom line problem, of course, is artificial influence being
placed on our whole system of commerce affecting hiring,
producing, pricing, marketing, distributing, and consuming goods
and services. This perverts the entire market place, and John
Kerry’s flip comment that past increases in the minimum wage
“never” have resulted in fewer jobs or increased prices
illustrates either his ignorance, his refusal to believe his
lying eyes, or his steadfast adherence to a long-standing concept
used so well by liberals: lying through his teeth.
— A. A. Reynolds
Chula Vista, California
Thank you for your excellent article on the myths of the minimum
wage. However, I must point out one rather glaring error of basic
economics:
“The common sense notion that if you increase the price of
something, all other things being equal, you will decrease the
demand for that something, has been demonstrated…”
This statement is the single surest sign of someone who wasn’t
paying attention in their college econ class. An increase in
price does not decrease demand. Instead, it decreases the
quantity demanded (all other things, etc. etc., of course).
Otherwise, an excellent article!
— Sean Parnell
B.A. Economics, Drake University, 1996
TO THE RESCUE
Re: John Tabin’s Ryan
Express Ways and Terence McMahon’s letter (“Not in the Mood”)
in Reader Mail’s Who Goes
There?:
It is not my task here to defend Mr. Tabin or his article. First
the statement by Mr. McMahon that “anyone with half a brain”
knows the difference between a real person and a character in a
Clancy novel is an expression of opinion NOT fact. The examples
of folks in today’s society that obviously do NOT appreciate the
difference between fiction and reality are too numerous to need
any serious citations.
Finally, if this “lame attempt at humor” is all that it takes to
get Mr. McMahon’s panties all in a wad, he must live in some kind
of Camelot where serious problems and errors simply do not exist.
In other words, get a life Mr. McMahon and save your righteous
indignation for something at least mildly serious. Take another
Prozac and chill out.
— Ken Shreve
New Hampshire
