Kinda Interesting

I wonder how Windham would compare?  Maybe I’ll have to track down county by county rates somehow.

Unemployment Rates by State

Its a comparison of the average 80’s rate, the average 90’s rate, and the current rate.

Its on the ballot

Interesting, we get to vote on raising the minimum wage in November.  Not sure yet how things will go, but this view isn’t mentioned so much.  From Marginal Revolution

How to Unemploy Immigrants

In a shocking op-ed in the NYTimes two well known liberals, Michael Dukakis and Daniel Mitchell (a former price-control Czar), acknowledge that the minimum wage creates unemployment.  Nevertheless, they are in favor of raising the minimum wage.  Why?  Because it will create even more unemployment among immigrants than among natives.

The mean-spirited, Machiavellian nature of their op-ed is chilling but I will give Dukakis and Mitchell this, their logic is impeccable.  The minimum wage creates unemployment among the low-skilled.  As a result, the minimum wage tends to create disproportionate unemployment among teenagers and young African Americans.

Similarly, since many immigrants have lower-skills than natives, Dukakis and Mitchell are correct that a well-enforced minimum wage will put immigrants out of work reducing the pull of the American economy to workers in foreign countries.

I wonder if the NYTimes would have printed an op-ed that advocated minimum wages as a way of creating unemployment among African Americans and raising white wages?

(Long-time readers will know that the original proponents of the minimum wage had in mind exactly that so Dukakis and Mitchell are true progressives.)

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 85% Conservative, 15% Liberal

Social Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Ethics: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

I hear...

…that it would be an excellent night to stay out of the projects.

Advice needed:

So what do you tell your six year old daughter in this situation?

Her:  Mommy, I’m scared because I had a bad dream and I can’t forget it.

Mommy:  What was your dream honey?

Her:  I forgot.

And how do you tell her anything without laughing?

Council hits the "redo" button

From the Forum

Linkage.

Hat tip to The Voice.

There's gotta be a way

How can we get in on the bidding process? 

Alternative fuel business may be area’s future

Monroe Energy LLC of Greenford is looking at four Mahoning Valley sites for an ethanol/bio-diesel plant that could start turning corn and soy into fuel within two to three years. One site is in Lordstown. This one plant, though itself will only employ about 40 to 100 workers, has the potential to spawn 2,000 support jobs. And there is demand for many, many more such plants.

…

Hopefully, Lordstown’s recent income tax increase will not scare away the Monroe plant. Lordstown already failed to capitalize on The Andersons Inc., which owns a fertilizer distribution business on Muth Road. The company is building its second ethanol plant near its hometown in northwest Ohio. Ethanol helped drive The Andersons Inc. stock from $8 a share in 2001 to $91 a share in March.

…

It is imperative that Ohio, and Trumbull County in particular, prevent Wisconsin, western states and others from taking the lead. Mahoning Valley leaders should consider an alternative fuels summit to capitalize on the state’s close gubernatorial race to solicit support from Columbus. And Ohio leaders should capitalize on this being a battleground state in the next presidential election to solicit federal help.

This window of opportunity will be small. We can wallow in sorrow over Delphi and GM. Or we can rise to the challenge, battle for the next economic trove, and resume our position as a world leader.

You get to keep more of your money

That’s what the term “tax cut” really means.  Not, “they’re giving us our money back” or “they should spend it somewhere else”.  We give our money to the government, when they don’t use it all, they should return it, not find new ways to spend it.

State to accelerate income tax cuts

Rather than transferring money from an expected budget surplus to the state's Rainy Day Fund, Ohio is returning money to residents by speeding up income tax cuts.

Beginning Oct. 1, the Ohio Department of Taxation will cut personal income tax rates by 8.4 percent, double the annual amount called for in the tax reform package instituted last July.

The cut would be in addition to a 4.2 percent cut in tax rates in January. Ohio's tax reform package called for a 21 percent income tax cut phased in over five years.

According to a release from Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, the 8.4 percent cut would average about $390 per Ohioan.

Independence Day

The words that declared our independence over two hundred years ago remain as relevant today as ever.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed…

…We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The Declaration of Independence