Unemployment Rate Down…

In spite of Government Stupidity


They APPARENTLY had some good news down in Florida this week:

TALLAHASSEE, Florida's unemployment rate dropped a fraction to 3.3 percent in December, a 30-year low.

State labor officials said Friday that's down three-tenths of one percent from November.
Officials said the December jobless rate is lowest among the nation's ten most populous states.

Florida leads those states in creating new jobs, as well. The state added more than 248,000 jobs last year.

Those increases occurred as Florida increased its minimum wage last May to a dollar more than the federal minimum wage.

Some critics had predicted the increase would cut jobs.

Actually, assuming that that the 3.3% number is correct, the employment rate is quite amazing, because at first glance it would appear that extra people are actually moving to the state of Florida because of the recent higher minimum wage. At least that’s what the media and the government wants you believe.

I guess that it could be true, but it’s not a given.

I don’t think it's true myself.

You see, as anyone that has taken a class in economics knows, an unemployment rate of about 5% is actually considered “full employment” by economists. Of course the newspaper reporters either don’t know this fact or pathologically fail to mention it when they lament the national average unemployment rate being at 5.5% right now.

Any way, the so called “economic experts” are said to use the 5% number because they know that at any given time there are people that are not in the labor force, but not because of evil “Republican greed” or “Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.” Rather, they are voluntarily out of the labor force—people like pregnant women, people that are sick/injured, persons moving between jobs of their own will, or those that otherwise just don’t want to work at the moment.

I wrote about unemployment and the issue of "Living Wages" in 2004 when I first started blogging, and I want to bring up a couple of the same things again here in light of Florida’s high employment rate and the recent override of the Maryland Governor’s veto of a law requiring Wal-Mart to pay higher health insurance benefits.

Mainly, what I have to say on this subject is this:

THE GOVERNMENT CAN’T LEGISLATE ECONOMIC PROSPERITY.

That’s right, no matter what you FEEL in your juicy little heart, and no matter what your lard assed local and national politicians tell you while standing on the campaign stump, 99 percent of the economic success of this country has been accomplished IN SPITE of the government....not BECAUSE of the government.

What the government actually does best most of the time is impede economic prosperity, and when the owners of private industry finally manage to get ahead, the government is quite happy to step in and not only try to take credit for the success, but it also takes its big fat slice of the profit—RIGHT OFF OF THE TOP.

The government’s impediment to business development takes many forms. For instance, just to start a business requires things like a buying a business license, paying intangible taxes on office and manufacturing equipment, paying incorporation fees, etc.

By demanding that a new business owner come up with the funds before or shortly after going into business, the government is in effect demanding their share of the owner’s profit, UP FRONT, before the owner has actually even earned one thin dime.

Next, when the business OWNER gets things rolling for himself and actually needs some employees, the government again comes riding to the rescue and tells the owner how much his employees are worth, classically in the form of a minimum wage.

Now the State Government of Maryland, under the auspices of the AFL-CIO is telling business owners in the state (at least one business owner—the shareholders of Wal-Mart) how much their employees’ health insurance should cost.

I know that Wal-Mart is really relieved to have that burden lifted off of their shoulders…

NOT!

It’s a good thing that I’m not in Sam Walton’s shoes today (oops, I guess in that case that I’d be dead…but any how…) because based on Maryland’s new law there would be at least 10,000 new unemployed people in the state after I closed my stores and told them to kiss my sweet hairy derrière.

Is some invisible villain holding a gun to the Wal-Mart employees’ heads forcing them to work at the Wal-Mart stores?

No.

Can anyone tell me how the hell it makes sense for the government to be telling Wal-Mart what its health insurance package should look like?

The key to this issue is the union’s involvement.

Various unions have been trying to organize Wal-Mart employees since old Sam hired his first dozen employees, but they’ve been unsuccessful to date. For some funny reason the majority of the Wal-Mart EMPLOYEES have yet to make their own decision to support unionization.

Since the unions can’t make the employees vote for them, they’ve decided to get their allies—the Democratic party—to legislate their agenda for them.

Everyone is going to end up losing in the long run, unless they are very lucky. Besides that, since companies don't really pay taxes and benefit costs, all the Maryland state legislature is actually doing is raising consumer prices in the state of Maryland. It's yet another case of income redistrubution, no matter how they try to define it to the voters.

Ridiculously high cost benefit packages including wages, insurance, and retirement are currently breaking the financial spines of airlines like Delta, US Air, and United. They have already caused the demise of Eastern and Pan Am, not to mention dozens of smaller airlines that have fallen by the wayside under their employees’ contribution to the cost of their operations.

Likewise, there are rumblings at auto makers General Motors and Ford about similar issues of retirement benefit and health insurance costs causing the possibility of their own bankruptcy filings later this year.

And what is the common denominator in the potential insolvency of these giant companies?

UNIONS, and union employee compensation demands.

Going back to my original point now…Florida’s low unemployment rate is certainly good news for their population, BUT…

allowing the minimum wage advocates and the government bureaucrats to take credit for the numbers is a complete farce.

Florida has accomplished their economic boom, IN SPITE of government meddling, and I GUAR-AN-DAMN-TEE YOU that, as soon as the economy takes a downturn, the higher minimum wages will be a huge liability to Florida employers.

It will end up costing people their jobs, and owners their businesses.

Of course the government and the wage advocates will blame everyone but themselves in that event--and of course, whoever is sitting in the US President's office at that time.

Someone will then suggest that they raise taxes to pay increased unemployment benefits...yeah, THAT will solve things...

I guess that the old adage “make hay while the sun shines” might be the best policy there in the “Sunshine State” today.