“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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The Sunday Sermon.
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Yes folks, you read it in the title, I have discovered a new law of economics. More about that in a moment.
I’m sure there is also another mathematical formula that could be devised for the fact that in general terms the closer one gets to Washington D.C. the more stupidity increases. (Okay, Californian bureaucrats are maybe the exception that proves this rule, but overall the theory is sound.)
It’s not just the meddling in national affairs that they are bad at in Washington. They keep hitting the stupid button on local matters too.
In one of the most recent debacles, last week the Washington D.C. city council passed a bill called the ‘Large Retailer Accountability Act (LRAA) of 2013’ that requires retailers with gross annual sales of more than $1 billion to pay workers an hourly wage of $12.50 an hour, instead of the District’s minimum wage of $8.25 (which is already higher than the national minimum wage anyway).
Although it sounds as if it will apply across the board, in practice this new piece of bureaucratic crap is aimed only at one company – Wal-Mart – and it will require Wal-Mart to pay a wage 52% higher than any other retailer in D.C. must pay, including it’s direct big-box competition.
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If you think the people who would pass a new regulation like this are stupid….
Well, you’d be right!
If you think they can’t get any stupider….
Well, you’d be wrong!
And you’d be wrong because the really, really stupid part of all this is the staggering arrogance of the council members who decided to bring in this latest piece of moronic madness. Politicians who are parasites living off the rest of us, who produce nothing of value and whose only aim seems to be their own self-promotion while making life more difficult and expensive.
Why do I say ‘arrogance’?
Well, for one thing because they are, but for another because council member and bill supporter Vincent Orange admitted it himself when he declared:
“We’re at a point where we don’t need retailers. Retailers need us.”
What a dipstick!
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Of course liberal elements of the media will predictably rush to Vincent Orange’s defense, saying things like Wal-Mart can well afford to pay more to its staff.
That may well be so, but the real question is why should it? Why should it have to pay more than its competitors? Why should success now be penalized in a country that was built on companies that made vast fortunes for their owners and in so doing created the most powerful and richest nation in the world?
It is a very stupid, short-sighted and ultimately self-defeating strategy.
Yes, you can squeeze a few more dollars out of Wal-Mart….
Except you can’t, because the company will just go elsewhere. In fact Wal-Mart has already confirmed it will cancel the build-out of three new stores in the D.C. area if the bill becomes law.
Put another way, Orange’s law of liberal economics states that it is better to have zero jobs paying $12.50 an hour than over a thousand jobs paying at least @8.25 an hour. That it doesn’t make any sense is possibly not the point, it does get him a headline or two!
D.C.’s unemployment rate is already around 8.6%, one of the highest in the nation, and 20% of the population in the D.C. area lives below the poverty line. So the prospect of Wal-Mart bringing an additional 1,800 jobs to the city is something that the local politicians should be trying to encourage. Not only that, but new investment in the area will bring millions of extra tax dollars and lead to additional spin off investment. And through its charitable foundation, Wal-Mart gifted almost $4 million last year to city organizations including D.C. Central Kitchen and the Capitol Area Food Bank.
Contrary to Vincent Orange’s arrogant assertion, it is in fact D.C. that needs Wal-Mart far more than Wal-Mart needs to build more stores in Washington. A company that already has more than ten thousand outlets can live without another half dozen.
Let’s see, shall we chose location ‘A’ where we are going to be regulated out of existence and possibly lose money, or will we chose location ‘B’ where we are going to be allowed to make money?
You only have to be a tiny little bit smarter than Vincent Orange to work that one out!
Now the ball is firmly in the court of another Vincent. This time Mayor Vincent C. Gray, who has the power to veto idiots like his Orange namesake. If he has any sense, he will.
Idiot politicians trying to stick their noses into things they cannot, and do not, understand never works. Idiot politicians trying to screw every last penny out of successful businesses also never works. And idiot politicians who think that they can over regulate and ultimately destroy wealth creating businesses and still be able to afford to create a ‘nanny’ state only end up leaving everyone much worse off.
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fasab 