Voted YES for Stronger enforcement against gender-based pay discrimination in the Paycheck Fairness Act
(Jan 2009)
Females earn roughly 30% less then males earn in the work place.
When Nita Lowey looks at this general statistic she wrongfully assumes that the free market has failed and that this wage gap is due to sexism in the work place and that male employers have some kind of natural animosity towards women. This, of course, is completely untrue. Although I do not deny that there is sexism, the free market is actually a deterrent of it and creates more equality in the work place...not less.
Profit, above all else, is what drives entrance into the free market. If there is no profit to be made there is little motivation to start your own business. Why then would an employer knowingly hire a male employee, when he knows that if he hired an equally capable female, he could pay her 30% less, keep the difference, and increase his profits? The answer is...he wouldn't. The female would certainly be hired. But let's say the employer was sexist and foolish and didn't hire the female. In a free market with open competition, there is always market forces grinding away at its competitors that hire higher priced workers when they could have hired lower priced workers. These sexist employers would either be weeded out of the market by losing business to cheaper competition or forced to adopted non-sexist policies.
The argument that the market is inherently sexist doesn't make much sense. But nevertheless, the fact remains that females earn roughly 30% less then males. So why is this?
This actually can be explained by the:
Marital Asymmetry Hypothesis:
This says that marriage/relationships have asymmetrical effects on male and female incomes and is the leading cause for men to earn more than women.
If we compare the pay between women that have never been married and never have had children to a man's salary it has a difference of 1%. But once a woman has married or has had children, the gap becomes enormous. If there was actually sexism in the free market the large gap in income would always be there.
So now we have to ask: Why does this huge gap appear when a woman is married and/or has children?
This is because there is an unequal sharing of chores and child raising in the household, which happens to predominantly fall on the woman's shoulders. In a society, where two groups are more or less equal, and you give a burden to one of the groups, something has to suffer. This is called opportunity costs...whenever you do one thing it always comes at the cost of something else. For example, Michael Phelps would not be a world class swimmer if he had to sacrifice his time in the pool for any number of different things. Such is the case with women's salaries. By taking more time away from their profession then their spouse they are in turn causing their skilll level to atrophy thus stagnating their salary. This holds true for men that stay at home or for single parents who can not afford to work late and put in extra hours or take classes to help them advance in their field.
But what Nita should ask herself is: Why do women predominantly choose to take on the responsibilities of household chores and child care?
Students of socio-biology say that this is human nature and that we are somehow hardwired this way because of what it took millions of years ago to survive. Like all living beings our main purpose is to procreate to ensure our society's longevity. Beings that do not live by this code eventually become extinct. We have evolved into a patriarchal society because we have descended from civilizations where the men were more expendable to the society and as a result would risk their lives to hunt and protect the village. Women, on the other hand, stayed in the village and took care of the children because they were a precious commodity. For the same reason, farmers only need to keep one bull on the farm to procreate with fifty cows to have a healthy number of livestock, men would risk their lives knowing that it would take fewer men to populate the society then women. Women are nature's insurance policy.
For more sociobiological information I suggest listening to Walter Block's lecture:
The pay gap is not due to sexism in the free market but because of the individual's choice on how to balance the responsibilities of a relationship, a family and a career. And unless Nita wants to do something as ridiculous as begin to attack a family's right to choose how to most effectively provide for themselves, she will not be able to lower the pay gap without destroying the economy. This bill may seem as if it promotes equality in the work place but what it actually does is open businesses up to frivolous lawsuits and a lot of extra expenses that will either result in a loss of jobs or the destruction of the business.
IT'S TIME FOR NITA TO LEAVE THE FREE MARKET ALONE!
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
NITA LOWEY IS A CRONY CAPITALIST
Voted YES on regulating tobacco as a drug.
(Apr 2009)
This law calls for new FDA testing requirements, advertisement restrictions like a ban on words such as light, mild and low and also places a ban on all flavored cigarettes, (except of course menthol.)
This is a perfect example of how the government creates laws that hurt the consumer financially while at the same time bringing in more revenue for the government and protecting big business from competition. Now putting aside the fact that this is a total attack on consumer sovereignty and a person's individual liberties and freedoms, one has to wonder why Nita Lowey and Altria Group aka Philip Morris, one of the world's largest tobacco corporations, would favor this legislation.
It's simple really...regulation actually benefits big business and corporate greed, while simultaneously killing small businesses that are the backbone of our now faltering economy. Philip Morris can easily abide by these new regulations because they have the finances to do it, but a new smaller competitor does not. The result is a so-called consumer protection that only protects big business and cripples its competition. And as a result, by the time the bill was introduced and passed, Philip Morris' stock rose more than 35 percent.
But besides the billions of dollars of wasted capital spent in Washington DC by lobbyists on politicians every year, there is another reason why taxing cigarettes is so appealing...it brings in more revenue for the government. Let's face it, the government is broke and the only way to generate new revenue is either by printing new money or by taxing. And one of the first rules in economics is that if you are going to tax, tax items that have an inelastic demand curve. This is pretty much just a fancy way of saying that no matter what you charge for a particular product, people are still going to pay the higher price. This is why the government continues to tax highly addictive substances like tobacco and sugar. People are far more likely to pay a higher price for these products than for celery and carrots. So, do not fool yourself for a second that even the new proposed soda tax is for the "greater good" of society. New regulations and taxes are just another way for Nita Lowey to bring in revenue for a highly incompetent government while destroying the savings of lower-class Americans.
I'll leave you now with a pop quiz:
What does this vote tell you about Nita Lowey?
Either:
a) She is completely not compassionate to the struggles of the lower-class
b) She thinks that she knows how to run your life better than you do
c) She is a crony capitalist that takes the first chance she can get to help out big business.
or
d) All of the above
No matter how you look at it, it is time to vote her out of office.
DEFEAT NITA LOWEY!
Further Reading:
The Future of America: Rat Burgers
(Apr 2009)
This law calls for new FDA testing requirements, advertisement restrictions like a ban on words such as light, mild and low and also places a ban on all flavored cigarettes, (except of course menthol.)
This is a perfect example of how the government creates laws that hurt the consumer financially while at the same time bringing in more revenue for the government and protecting big business from competition. Now putting aside the fact that this is a total attack on consumer sovereignty and a person's individual liberties and freedoms, one has to wonder why Nita Lowey and Altria Group aka Philip Morris, one of the world's largest tobacco corporations, would favor this legislation.
It's simple really...regulation actually benefits big business and corporate greed, while simultaneously killing small businesses that are the backbone of our now faltering economy. Philip Morris can easily abide by these new regulations because they have the finances to do it, but a new smaller competitor does not. The result is a so-called consumer protection that only protects big business and cripples its competition. And as a result, by the time the bill was introduced and passed, Philip Morris' stock rose more than 35 percent.
But besides the billions of dollars of wasted capital spent in Washington DC by lobbyists on politicians every year, there is another reason why taxing cigarettes is so appealing...it brings in more revenue for the government. Let's face it, the government is broke and the only way to generate new revenue is either by printing new money or by taxing. And one of the first rules in economics is that if you are going to tax, tax items that have an inelastic demand curve. This is pretty much just a fancy way of saying that no matter what you charge for a particular product, people are still going to pay the higher price. This is why the government continues to tax highly addictive substances like tobacco and sugar. People are far more likely to pay a higher price for these products than for celery and carrots. So, do not fool yourself for a second that even the new proposed soda tax is for the "greater good" of society. New regulations and taxes are just another way for Nita Lowey to bring in revenue for a highly incompetent government while destroying the savings of lower-class Americans.
I'll leave you now with a pop quiz:
What does this vote tell you about Nita Lowey?
Either:
a) She is completely not compassionate to the struggles of the lower-class
b) She thinks that she knows how to run your life better than you do
c) She is a crony capitalist that takes the first chance she can get to help out big business.
or
d) All of the above
No matter how you look at it, it is time to vote her out of office.
DEFEAT NITA LOWEY!
Further Reading:
The Future of America: Rat Burgers
Sunday, February 28, 2010
NITA LOWEY WANTS TO POLICE THE WORLD
"President Obama’s comprehensive strategy to dismantle Al Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan will renew our focus on defeating the terrorists responsible for the September 11th attacks and others who threaten our national security. The President’s proposal to modestly boost American combat forces with a greater reliance on training Afghan security forces will help improve the security of the region while the economic and agricultural aid will help provide alternatives to poppy cultivation for rural Afghan farmers."
-Nita Lowey, House Representative for the 18th District of New York
Cost: over $1 trillion dollars per year to maintain a world army with 700 bases around the world in 130 countries.
After voting for an unconstitutional war in Iraq, it is no surprise that Nita Lowey wants to continue to trample on the Constitution and escalate the war in Afghanistan. If you look at her record, Nita has consistently pushed for the United States to police the world, nation-build, and waste trillions of dollars on an over-extended military in the name of national security.
The United States government has had a long history of using fear tactics to promote its foreign wars, whether it was to stop the spread of communism in Vietnam (which never happened) or to prevent WMDs from being used by Saddam Hussein (which he never had). But right now, I want to focus on the fallacy that by occupying Afghanistan we are somehow making the United States safer.
We are constantly told that we have to "win" in Afghanistan so that al-Qaeda cannot use that territory to plan further attacks against the US. But we need to remember that the attack on September 11th, was, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, largely planned in the United States and Germany by terrorists who were in our country legally. This shows that just by invading Afghanistan does not stop terrorists from gathering in other locations. By endorsing military action in Afghanistan because of al-Qaeda presence, implies we should favor US air-strikes against our own states and even Germany. This is absurd. We need to understand that the Taliban allowed al-Qaeda to remain in Afghanistan because both had been engaged, with US assistance, in the insurgency against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
The main problem stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. It is our presence as occupiers that feeds the insurgency. With every civilian death, we unify diverse groups in a common goal against our occupation. Bin Laden has repeatedly stated this, but for some reason, we believe his threats, but we refuse to listen to the reasoning he gives for them. The fact remains that al-Qaeda members are 10 times more likely to come from a US occupied territory. By adding more US troops we will only assist those who recruit fighters to attack our soldiers and who use the US occupation to convince villages to side with the Taliban.
Nita also argues that we must train and build an Afghan national army to take over and strengthen the rule and authority of Kabul. But what we actually have done is entrench ourselves in the middle of a 35-year old civil war, while setting up a government, that encourages an ideology and system of rule unknown and unwanted by the Afghan people. This will only lead to greater tragedy and greater civil unrest down the road.
What concerns me further is that not only is Nita in favor of an escalation in Afghanistan but she also wants to escalate the fighting in Pakistan as well. Already CIA drone attacks on Pakistan soil have destabilized that country and have killed scores of innocents, displacing thousands of people, and producing strong anti-American feelings. I do not see how that contributes to our national security.
If we continue to follow down this path and invade country after country, when will it end? At what point do we say enough is enough. Right now, the only end in sight will be a destruction of our dollar. Most great nations faced economic ruin because they have stretched themselves too far beyond their borders. We must ask ourselves: What if the Chinese invaded us and told us how to live, and how to run elections? How quickly would we unite to defend our land?
If we truly want to make America safe we can use the powers of marque and reprisal within our Constitution to target specific terrorist suspects, instead of invoking war against an entire foreign state. Safety will only come when we stop this policy of preemptive war. Instead we need to promote diplomacy, free trade and personal liberties, and at the same time bring our troops home to secure our borders.
Most importantly, we need to find out how and why our government bureaucracy failed to stop the 9/11 attack from happening. We need to discover why the FBI did not act on 70 internal field tips, and why the various intelligence agencies could not collaborate on information to prevent the attacks while spending 40 billion of our dollars per year. This is where our focus should be and not overseas. If we follow Nita Lowey's approach and continue to invade and nation-build, we face a future as an isolated nation with few allies, a weakened military, and a destroyed currency.
Further Reading:
...And What Have The Romans Ever Done For Us?
-Nita Lowey, House Representative for the 18th District of New York
Cost: over $1 trillion dollars per year to maintain a world army with 700 bases around the world in 130 countries.
After voting for an unconstitutional war in Iraq, it is no surprise that Nita Lowey wants to continue to trample on the Constitution and escalate the war in Afghanistan. If you look at her record, Nita has consistently pushed for the United States to police the world, nation-build, and waste trillions of dollars on an over-extended military in the name of national security.
The United States government has had a long history of using fear tactics to promote its foreign wars, whether it was to stop the spread of communism in Vietnam (which never happened) or to prevent WMDs from being used by Saddam Hussein (which he never had). But right now, I want to focus on the fallacy that by occupying Afghanistan we are somehow making the United States safer.
We are constantly told that we have to "win" in Afghanistan so that al-Qaeda cannot use that territory to plan further attacks against the US. But we need to remember that the attack on September 11th, was, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, largely planned in the United States and Germany by terrorists who were in our country legally. This shows that just by invading Afghanistan does not stop terrorists from gathering in other locations. By endorsing military action in Afghanistan because of al-Qaeda presence, implies we should favor US air-strikes against our own states and even Germany. This is absurd. We need to understand that the Taliban allowed al-Qaeda to remain in Afghanistan because both had been engaged, with US assistance, in the insurgency against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
The main problem stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. It is our presence as occupiers that feeds the insurgency. With every civilian death, we unify diverse groups in a common goal against our occupation. Bin Laden has repeatedly stated this, but for some reason, we believe his threats, but we refuse to listen to the reasoning he gives for them. The fact remains that al-Qaeda members are 10 times more likely to come from a US occupied territory. By adding more US troops we will only assist those who recruit fighters to attack our soldiers and who use the US occupation to convince villages to side with the Taliban.
Nita also argues that we must train and build an Afghan national army to take over and strengthen the rule and authority of Kabul. But what we actually have done is entrench ourselves in the middle of a 35-year old civil war, while setting up a government, that encourages an ideology and system of rule unknown and unwanted by the Afghan people. This will only lead to greater tragedy and greater civil unrest down the road.
What concerns me further is that not only is Nita in favor of an escalation in Afghanistan but she also wants to escalate the fighting in Pakistan as well. Already CIA drone attacks on Pakistan soil have destabilized that country and have killed scores of innocents, displacing thousands of people, and producing strong anti-American feelings. I do not see how that contributes to our national security.
If we continue to follow down this path and invade country after country, when will it end? At what point do we say enough is enough. Right now, the only end in sight will be a destruction of our dollar. Most great nations faced economic ruin because they have stretched themselves too far beyond their borders. We must ask ourselves: What if the Chinese invaded us and told us how to live, and how to run elections? How quickly would we unite to defend our land?
If we truly want to make America safe we can use the powers of marque and reprisal within our Constitution to target specific terrorist suspects, instead of invoking war against an entire foreign state. Safety will only come when we stop this policy of preemptive war. Instead we need to promote diplomacy, free trade and personal liberties, and at the same time bring our troops home to secure our borders.
Most importantly, we need to find out how and why our government bureaucracy failed to stop the 9/11 attack from happening. We need to discover why the FBI did not act on 70 internal field tips, and why the various intelligence agencies could not collaborate on information to prevent the attacks while spending 40 billion of our dollars per year. This is where our focus should be and not overseas. If we follow Nita Lowey's approach and continue to invade and nation-build, we face a future as an isolated nation with few allies, a weakened military, and a destroyed currency.
Further Reading:
...And What Have The Romans Ever Done For Us?
Saturday, February 20, 2010
NITA LOWEY LOVES BREAKING WINDOWS
Voted YES on $2 billion more for Cash for Clunkers program.
(Jul 2009)
Total cost: $3 billion
Edmunds.com, the premier resource for online automotive information, has determined that Cash for Clunkers cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold.
There is a clever anecdote called the Broken Window Fallacy that gives insight into the evils behind the Cash for Clunkers Program. The parable describes a shopkeeper whose window is broken by his young son, and who then has to pay for a glass maker to fix it. To the casual onlooker this is perceived to stimulate the economy because there is a boom to the glazier's business. However, the onlooker ignores the cost to the shopkeeper.
Since the shopkeeper was forced to spend his money on a new window, he could no longer spend it on something else, such as bread or shoes. The boy's actions may have benefited the glazier, but at the expense not only of the shopkeeper, but the baker and the cobbler. As a result, the child, in fact, made the town poorer by at least the value of one window, if not more.
But now suppose it was discovered that the little boy was actually hired by the glazier, and paid for every window he broke. Here in lies the truth behind the Cash for Clunkers Program.
By voting for this bill, Nita Lowey is wreaking havoc on the free market system, all in the name of stimulating the auto industry and combating global warming. When in fact it does nothing but weaken the American economy and take away the personal liberties of its citizens.
Here are the actual effects of this stimulus plan:
We have to understand that by tampering with the free market system with incentives like this we are only creating an artificial boom period. In the long run, this is not helping the auto industry but only setting them up for a bigger fall. Let us not forget that this $3 billion dollars is only the tip of the iceberg. We have been continually bailing out the auto industry for the last 30 years at the consumer's expense.
In all, this program was little more than a political redistribution of wealth from the people of America to the Nita Lowey’s power base which includes unions, environmentalists, and social justice bulldogs. But we really shouldn't expect anything else from her.
Further Reading:
Nita Lowey Loves John Maynard Keynes
(Jul 2009)
Total cost: $3 billion
Edmunds.com, the premier resource for online automotive information, has determined that Cash for Clunkers cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold.
There is a clever anecdote called the Broken Window Fallacy that gives insight into the evils behind the Cash for Clunkers Program. The parable describes a shopkeeper whose window is broken by his young son, and who then has to pay for a glass maker to fix it. To the casual onlooker this is perceived to stimulate the economy because there is a boom to the glazier's business. However, the onlooker ignores the cost to the shopkeeper.
Since the shopkeeper was forced to spend his money on a new window, he could no longer spend it on something else, such as bread or shoes. The boy's actions may have benefited the glazier, but at the expense not only of the shopkeeper, but the baker and the cobbler. As a result, the child, in fact, made the town poorer by at least the value of one window, if not more.
But now suppose it was discovered that the little boy was actually hired by the glazier, and paid for every window he broke. Here in lies the truth behind the Cash for Clunkers Program.
By voting for this bill, Nita Lowey is wreaking havoc on the free market system, all in the name of stimulating the auto industry and combating global warming. When in fact it does nothing but weaken the American economy and take away the personal liberties of its citizens.
Here are the actual effects of this stimulus plan:
- More Debt. Americans who cannot afford to buy a new car are heavily persuaded by the large rebates to stretch their budget even further and go into even more debt to take advantage of this deal. This is the housing bubble all over again, but now with automobiles.
- Destruction of Charity. Charitable donations of "clunkers" fall dramatically since the dealers were required to disable the cars, leaving the poor and the truly impoverished without any means of transportation.
- Increased prices of used cars. Prices are decided by supply and demand, and as the supply of available used autos shrinks, low-priced vehicles become more costly to purchase. Auto parts face the same price increase making it more costly for the poor to keep their cars running.
- Increased Driving. By subsidizing fuel-efficient vehicles more driving is encouraged which causes total fuel consumption to decrease less than expected.
- MPG. New federal data analyzed by The Associated Press finds that the single most common swap, at an occurrence rate of more than 8,200 times, involved Ford F-150 pickup owners. The fuel economy for the new trucks ranges from 15 to 17 miles per gallon, which equates to a mere 1 to 3 mpg improvement over the clunkers.
- Loss of Freedom. The government directed the allocation of funds upfront by selecting the industry that would receive the subsidies, and the administration in power set the rules for allowable purchases under strict guidelines that induced the consumer to purchase smaller, more “green friendly” automobiles that conform to its long-term, environmental ambitions.
- Waste of Capital and Resources. Used cars are destroyed depleting valuable resources and capital that could have been reused or repurposed.
- Redistribution of Wealth. Money that would have been spent elsewhere is now reallocated to the well-connected unionized auto industry causing many other businesses to lose profits.
We have to understand that by tampering with the free market system with incentives like this we are only creating an artificial boom period. In the long run, this is not helping the auto industry but only setting them up for a bigger fall. Let us not forget that this $3 billion dollars is only the tip of the iceberg. We have been continually bailing out the auto industry for the last 30 years at the consumer's expense.
In all, this program was little more than a political redistribution of wealth from the people of America to the Nita Lowey’s power base which includes unions, environmentalists, and social justice bulldogs. But we really shouldn't expect anything else from her.
Further Reading:
Nita Lowey Loves John Maynard Keynes
Friday, January 29, 2010
NITA LOWEY LOVES JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES
Voted YES on the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008
(Jan 2008)
Total cost: $152 billion
This law provides for tax rebates to low- and middle-income U.S. taxpayers, tax incentives to stimulate business investment, and an increase in the limits imposed on mortgages eligible for purchase by government-sponsored enterprises (e.g., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). For this article, I will be focusing on the effect of the tax rebate on the economy.
The justification for this bill and in fact, all government spending, relies on the principles of the Keynesian Economic Theory. It states that government stimulation and control of the economy is necessary for its general health. In this bill's case, by increasing the money supply and sending everybody a check, people will be encouraged to buy things and, as a result, stimulate the economy. Sounds good, right? But it is this injection of new money into the market system, even when directly sent to lower income individuals, that creates artificial bubbles of prosperity resulting in a greater depression.
When people decide to spend a stimulus check in the market, they create a demand for items that they would not have usually purchased. As a result of this increase in sales and profits, entrepreneurs begin to reinvest the new money into their own store in an expectation to meet future demand. By this time, however, all of the stimulus money has been spent and the store owners are left with an overstock of items that people are no longer willing to buy. Entrepreneurs have now wasted precious capital and resources, and must sell their products at a loss only to eventually go bankrupt. That is, unless another stimulus bill is passed, which inevitably happens.
Nita Lowey's unwavering support of stimulus packages, like this one, leads to a constant injection of new money into the market. This not only destroys businesses, but also destroys the value of the dollar. She does not understand that real growth in an economy comes from savings. An increase in savings, increases the supply of lending capital and lowers interest rates naturally. It is at this time that businesses should be investing in new technology and products.
It is time that Nita Lowey is replaced by someone that understands the importance of a free market system and that will allow our economy to actually grow.
(Jan 2008)
Total cost: $152 billion
This law provides for tax rebates to low- and middle-income U.S. taxpayers, tax incentives to stimulate business investment, and an increase in the limits imposed on mortgages eligible for purchase by government-sponsored enterprises (e.g., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). For this article, I will be focusing on the effect of the tax rebate on the economy.
The justification for this bill and in fact, all government spending, relies on the principles of the Keynesian Economic Theory. It states that government stimulation and control of the economy is necessary for its general health. In this bill's case, by increasing the money supply and sending everybody a check, people will be encouraged to buy things and, as a result, stimulate the economy. Sounds good, right? But it is this injection of new money into the market system, even when directly sent to lower income individuals, that creates artificial bubbles of prosperity resulting in a greater depression.
When people decide to spend a stimulus check in the market, they create a demand for items that they would not have usually purchased. As a result of this increase in sales and profits, entrepreneurs begin to reinvest the new money into their own store in an expectation to meet future demand. By this time, however, all of the stimulus money has been spent and the store owners are left with an overstock of items that people are no longer willing to buy. Entrepreneurs have now wasted precious capital and resources, and must sell their products at a loss only to eventually go bankrupt. That is, unless another stimulus bill is passed, which inevitably happens.
Nita Lowey's unwavering support of stimulus packages, like this one, leads to a constant injection of new money into the market. This not only destroys businesses, but also destroys the value of the dollar. She does not understand that real growth in an economy comes from savings. An increase in savings, increases the supply of lending capital and lowers interest rates naturally. It is at this time that businesses should be investing in new technology and products.
It is time that Nita Lowey is replaced by someone that understands the importance of a free market system and that will allow our economy to actually grow.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
NITA LOWEY CREATES INFLATION
Voted YES on Congressional pay raise.
(Jun 2009)
Nita Lowey's salary: $174,000
The average United States citizen's income: $46,000
Want a raise? Don't beg your boss, just vote yourself one. That's what Nita Lowey did. While our government was in the process of increasing our debt by one trillion dollars in one of the worst economic crises, Nita Lowey thought it would be a good time to vote for a 2.8 percent pay raise for herself and her fellow Congressmen on Capitol Hill. This, of course, is just above the 2.7% inflation rate that the country faced in 2009 and cost the taxpayers $2.5 million. But isn't leadership like this worth it? Not at all.
The reason for this $4,700 increase was to compensate for the increase in the cost of living(COLA), which as we all know as the inflation rate. But it is important to know what causes inflation.
Inflation, in short, is an increase in the amount of money in circulation. Money is printed, some might say counterfeited, by the Federal Reserve and sold to the US government, who then distributes it to the most well-connected businesses. In the last year, this was Wall Street and the Auto Industry. With the increase of money in the system, people spend more, increasing the demand for goods. And since prices are determined by supply and demand, as demand goes up so do prices.
The people who receive the money first before the prices rise benefit. But the money takes time to trickle down to the working class and the poor, and their salaries do not adjust until after the price increases have taken effect. This indirect tax, is referred to as an inflation tax and is a major cause of the redistribution of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the politically well-connected.
The worst thing about this system is that as citizens, we can not do anything directly about inflation. It is caused by an injection of money into the economy by the Federal Reserve and the government. The only thing we can do is vote for a Congressman that has some economic sense about them. Sadly, Nita falls way short in this category having voted to spend:
Further Reading:
A Letter to Your Representative
The Life and Death of the US Dollar
(Jun 2009)
Nita Lowey's salary: $174,000
The average United States citizen's income: $46,000
Want a raise? Don't beg your boss, just vote yourself one. That's what Nita Lowey did. While our government was in the process of increasing our debt by one trillion dollars in one of the worst economic crises, Nita Lowey thought it would be a good time to vote for a 2.8 percent pay raise for herself and her fellow Congressmen on Capitol Hill. This, of course, is just above the 2.7% inflation rate that the country faced in 2009 and cost the taxpayers $2.5 million. But isn't leadership like this worth it? Not at all.
The reason for this $4,700 increase was to compensate for the increase in the cost of living(COLA), which as we all know as the inflation rate. But it is important to know what causes inflation.
Inflation, in short, is an increase in the amount of money in circulation. Money is printed, some might say counterfeited, by the Federal Reserve and sold to the US government, who then distributes it to the most well-connected businesses. In the last year, this was Wall Street and the Auto Industry. With the increase of money in the system, people spend more, increasing the demand for goods. And since prices are determined by supply and demand, as demand goes up so do prices.
The people who receive the money first before the prices rise benefit. But the money takes time to trickle down to the working class and the poor, and their salaries do not adjust until after the price increases have taken effect. This indirect tax, is referred to as an inflation tax and is a major cause of the redistribution of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the politically well-connected.
The worst thing about this system is that as citizens, we can not do anything directly about inflation. It is caused by an injection of money into the economy by the Federal Reserve and the government. The only thing we can do is vote for a Congressman that has some economic sense about them. Sadly, Nita falls way short in this category having voted to spend:
- $825 billion for the economic recovery package
- $192 billion in additional anti-recession stimulus spending
- $15 billion for the bailout of GM and Chrysler
Further Reading:
A Letter to Your Representative
The Life and Death of the US Dollar
NITA LOWEY DESTROYS JOBS
Voted YES on increasing minimum wage to $7.25.
(Jan 2007)
Although this may appear to be an economically sound vote in support of the low-skilled worker, it in fact, destroys jobs, eliminates opportunities to learn new skills and wastes resources. With an estimated 300,000 jobs destroyed by this wage increase and unemployment now hovering at 10%, it is time to vote Nita Lowey out of office and look to someone that will eliminate the minimum wage law.
Things Nita Lowey doesn't understand about minimum wage laws:
1. Reduces Future Earnings Unskilled workers use low paying jobs as a training ground to learn the skills they need to advance and increase their future earnings. Since having a job is one of the most important ways to acquire valuable skills, today's minimum wage-induced unemployment translates into tomorrow's reduced earnings.
2. Creates Underemployment Not only does it create unemployment, it also creates underemployment. Even if a higher minimum wage doesn’t manifest itself into lost jobs, it will lead to fewer hours, reduced benefits or both. Some workers who would have received paid training won’t. Employee discounts and other perks might fall.
3. Increases Prices A reduced amount of labor leads to increased prices. Because prices are determined by supply and demand, if less of a product is produced, it will become more scarce resulting in higher prices. If wages were allowed to fall to market level, there would be more jobs, output would be increased making the product less scarce, in turn, lowering the price and increasing everybody's real wage.
(A person's real wage is determined by the strength of the purchasing power of their dollar. For instance, even though you may not have received a raise this year, if prices fall, you're real wage actually went up because you can buy more than you did before. But when prices rise at a higher percentage than your wage does, your real wage actually goes down because your dollar can not buy as much.)
4. Discrimination Over the years, steady hikes in the minimum wage have priced out of the market the most vulnerable workers, including minorities, teenagers, and women with limited skills. The bias of minimum wage laws against disadvantaged minorities has been conspicuous ever since 1956, when the minimum wage shot up from 75 cents to $1.00 an hour. During the next two years, nonwhite teenage unemployment spiraled from 14 to 24 percent.
We must ask ourselves, if minimum wage laws are so bad, why would Nita vote for them?
I'm sure Nita can answer this question herself. You see, Rep. Lowey not only supports minimum wage laws but she is also a big supporter of labor unions.
Labor unions play a critical role in the minimum wage laws. Unions spend millions of dollars a year (a huge waste of valuable capital) lobbying congress to increase the minimum wage in the name of the "greater good."
But by increasing the minimum wage, unions are in fact, pricing unskilled workers out of the market. Where you might have once been able to hire 5 unskilled workers to do one job, it is now cheaper to hire one skilled union worker instead. An obvious example of this is an increase in the amount of self checkout areas in supermarkets. Once there might have been 5 cashiers ringing up customers, but now there is only the cost of one union worker to service the new machines. Sadly the cashier is going the way of the elevator operators and ushers of the 1950s.
No matter how Nita may word it: Unions, laws, and regulations do not increase the standard of living of the ordinary people. The real thing that protects the worker is the existence of alternative employers competing against one another for new workers. People do not look to stay at a minimum wage job. They use them to acquire the skills needed to obtain better jobs elsewhere. If Nita really cared about the workers she would do away with the minimum wage and support the creation of new jobs, by cutting taxes and getting rid of regulations that interfere with the creation of new businesses.
If wage increases were truly the only thing necessary for improved living, than why not push for $100/hr minimum wage?
(Jan 2007)
Although this may appear to be an economically sound vote in support of the low-skilled worker, it in fact, destroys jobs, eliminates opportunities to learn new skills and wastes resources. With an estimated 300,000 jobs destroyed by this wage increase and unemployment now hovering at 10%, it is time to vote Nita Lowey out of office and look to someone that will eliminate the minimum wage law.
Things Nita Lowey doesn't understand about minimum wage laws:
1. Reduces Future Earnings Unskilled workers use low paying jobs as a training ground to learn the skills they need to advance and increase their future earnings. Since having a job is one of the most important ways to acquire valuable skills, today's minimum wage-induced unemployment translates into tomorrow's reduced earnings.
2. Creates Underemployment Not only does it create unemployment, it also creates underemployment. Even if a higher minimum wage doesn’t manifest itself into lost jobs, it will lead to fewer hours, reduced benefits or both. Some workers who would have received paid training won’t. Employee discounts and other perks might fall.
3. Increases Prices A reduced amount of labor leads to increased prices. Because prices are determined by supply and demand, if less of a product is produced, it will become more scarce resulting in higher prices. If wages were allowed to fall to market level, there would be more jobs, output would be increased making the product less scarce, in turn, lowering the price and increasing everybody's real wage.
(A person's real wage is determined by the strength of the purchasing power of their dollar. For instance, even though you may not have received a raise this year, if prices fall, you're real wage actually went up because you can buy more than you did before. But when prices rise at a higher percentage than your wage does, your real wage actually goes down because your dollar can not buy as much.)
4. Discrimination Over the years, steady hikes in the minimum wage have priced out of the market the most vulnerable workers, including minorities, teenagers, and women with limited skills. The bias of minimum wage laws against disadvantaged minorities has been conspicuous ever since 1956, when the minimum wage shot up from 75 cents to $1.00 an hour. During the next two years, nonwhite teenage unemployment spiraled from 14 to 24 percent.
We must ask ourselves, if minimum wage laws are so bad, why would Nita vote for them?
I'm sure Nita can answer this question herself. You see, Rep. Lowey not only supports minimum wage laws but she is also a big supporter of labor unions.
Labor unions play a critical role in the minimum wage laws. Unions spend millions of dollars a year (a huge waste of valuable capital) lobbying congress to increase the minimum wage in the name of the "greater good."
But by increasing the minimum wage, unions are in fact, pricing unskilled workers out of the market. Where you might have once been able to hire 5 unskilled workers to do one job, it is now cheaper to hire one skilled union worker instead. An obvious example of this is an increase in the amount of self checkout areas in supermarkets. Once there might have been 5 cashiers ringing up customers, but now there is only the cost of one union worker to service the new machines. Sadly the cashier is going the way of the elevator operators and ushers of the 1950s.
No matter how Nita may word it: Unions, laws, and regulations do not increase the standard of living of the ordinary people. The real thing that protects the worker is the existence of alternative employers competing against one another for new workers. People do not look to stay at a minimum wage job. They use them to acquire the skills needed to obtain better jobs elsewhere. If Nita really cared about the workers she would do away with the minimum wage and support the creation of new jobs, by cutting taxes and getting rid of regulations that interfere with the creation of new businesses.
If wage increases were truly the only thing necessary for improved living, than why not push for $100/hr minimum wage?
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