Surprise! The Government Wants to Destroy More Businesses

Last year (late 2007-early 2008) there were a number of product recalls on toys made in China due to the presence of lead. Now, I'm not going to go into the health issues regarding items with lead and pthalates because let's face it, those are well documented.

No, what has me flipping out is the government's response which is of course via a consumer protection act.

What this thing does, is demand that every item (clothes, toys, etc) that is marketed to children 12 years old and younger must be tested for lead and pthalates. Additionally, this is such a widely inclusive law that it applies to thrift stores, donations to thrift stores, new sales, consignment shops and even yard sales.

So consider just what is going to happen here, because truthfully, this things are already happening:

• Thrift Stores will no longer sell children's items, or at least won't for many months--a long enough time that they can, and will, go bankrupt
• eBay, and other auction sites, will stop accepting auctions on children's items as the cost of verifying the legality of an item's sale status would be prohibitive
• Individuals could be fined and/or arrested for holding a yard sale
• Hand-made, and other small, mostly family-owned, children article manufacturers will go out of business
• Charitable organizations will be forced to only accept new toys, as the law covers donations and giveaways

And that's just the things that pop into my head right away. Of those, I'm impacted greatly by at least two, as my church is the Salvation Army and they utilize a thrift store and do a lot of donation work, and there are a number of family friends of my parents who are in the business of creating hand-made objects, some of them aimed at children.

And all this because Clinton-era rules which relaxed trade restrictions with Communist China. Because, one thing we learned is that all the lead-tainted items came from China.

So, how do I think this law needs to be fixed? It's actually simple, and needs to involve these following parts:

• Remove testing requirements on items that cannot actually be tainted with lead
• Make it be based on manufacturing date after 2/10 rather than a sales date of 2/10
• Make items wholly made in America exempt from the testing requirements
• Make the testing rules more stringent on items coming from known sources of contaminants. I.e. stricter testing for Chinese manufactured items as opposed to say Mexican manufactured items, until the Mexican ones start showing up with lead in their more random tests

Of course this implies that the Congress would be interested in not running a number of small businesses out of business, or that they see value in thrift stores and consignment shops. Of course, we all know that Congress, especially a Democratically controlled Congress, has no true concern over small business or anyone that is not on welfare.

But hey, I'd love to be proved wrong.

The Power of our Government

The Federal Government of the United States is an odd beast. On one hand it actively protects consumers via programs such as the FDA which enforces standards on food and drugs, and then there are things such as the recent rulings against COMCAST for their deceptive practices in regards to internet traffic by the FCC.

Being the strict Constitutionalist that I am, I understand the Federal Government's mandate to regulate interstate commerce. Though I do believe that on occasion that particular mandate is stretched to nearly the breaking point in an effort to further socialist programs.

Then, there's the FTC. This particular alphabet department has the unenviable position of dealing with trade issues. Well, one would think that it's unenviable, except as in most government dealings, the FTC has found a way to extort moneys from the very constituents it is designed to protect (other examples of this are taxes and the spectacular failure called the "War on Drugs").

Anyways, S. M. Oliva has posted an article on the Mises Institute website detailing the latest in a long line of abuses by this particular alphabet. This article begins with this paragraph:

On April Fool's Day of this year, New Mexico resident Mark Hershiser received a letter from Erika Wodinsky, a San Francisco attorney, demanding Hershiser turn over all revenue from Native Essence Herb Company, a small business co-owned by Hershiser and his wife Marianne. The letter was not a joke or a mistake. It was a premeditated act of extortion by Ms. Wodinsky. She had never met or spoken with Hershiser; her staff discovered Native Essence through its modest website.

Which is as good a description of what the FTC does to small-businesses as anything else I've read.

I grew up in a small business, my parents owned one, and it would have devasted our entire existence. I can only imagine what it would do to the Hershiser's. Of course, they are doing something which most small business don't do when they receive these demands by the FTC to nationalize their business: they are fighting in the courts.

I am ecstatic to see a business standing up for itself like this. Despite my tendency to not do the whole herbal thing, I am tempted to purchase something from them just because the FTC thinks I shouldn't.

Foreclosing Foreclosures

There must be something wrong with me.

I just don't understand something that is apparently a vital aspect of my country.

It boggles my mind; confounds and confuses me.

I don't know why my country men would be willing to do this, yet more and more it seems like I'm in a minority of those people who don't.

What am I talking about? What has me so confused?

Why people take handouts from the government.

What's worse, is why do our elected representatives continue to provide handouts to the people? Though, ultimately I know the reason for that: they want to buy themselves a vote.

What brought this on today was an AP story that I found on MSNBC talking about the Senate's upcoming vote on an anti-foreclosure plan.

Disgusting if you ask me.

No one forced these people to take these exotic mortgages, and as such they should now suffer the consequences of their bad decisions.

I'm not getting bailed out of my mortgage--nor do I want to.

Especially not by the government. I don't want my tax dollars spent bailing people out of their own bad decisions. That's not the purpose of the Federal government. Heck, it's not even the purpose of state or local governments.

That's the purpose of charitable organizations.

Which, despite the Democrat's intentions, is NOT the point of the Federal Government.

At least not the federal government whose Constitution I had studied.

Wal-Mart Made My Wife Cry

I am irate.

No, scratch that, I'm beyond irate. Irate is what I get whenever Wal-Mart accuses me of stealing when I'm walking out of the store with a large box of diapers that I've paid for--and they insist that I submit myself to their inspection.

This goes beyond that, by an order of magnitude.

Apparently, Wal-Mart has a new policy in effect for the Madison area. Basically, as you come into the store with returns, they force you to submit to an inspection of your property that you're taking back into the store for a refund. What happens is that the door greeter takes a horrendously long time in scanning each and every item to create a number of stickers which they print out and attach to the items.

My wife probably wouldn't have been as distraught over this act if she had not been returning some undergarments.

Basically, this is how the trip went tonight.

We walked in, and waited at the door for one of those stupid pink stickers. The greeter informed us of a new policy, which involved a scanner and a printer and the fact that we had to take every item out of the bag we had it in.

Like I said, this wouldn't have been something that horrid, except my wife was returning undergarments. So this greeter forced my wife to more or less debase herself by having her take out all theses underwear not only in front of the MALE door greeter but also in front of the half-dozen or so male customers and employees who were loitering in the foyer area.

When my beloved made the simple request that he pull the printer and scanner around the corner to hide it from the other men, he refused and said he had to be in front of the camera.

Which confounded me, as I know that there's no camera in the foyer area. So I asked him what camera, and he said the black one on top of the door.

Which looked kind of like this:

Yes, that is a sensor from the automatic doors.

After I questioned him about the utter idiotic statement that there was a camera hidden in said device, we finally received the blessed Wal-Mart approval to head to the "Customer Service" desk.

Now, I was thinking, hey, this junk has already been scanned once, there shouldn't be a need to scan it again.

Boy was I wrong.

We get to the counter, my wife tearing up at this point, and I instantly ask to see an Assistant Manager. So, imagine my surprise (or lack thereof actually) when the Wal-Martian had to scan every item in my stack of stuff (as we no longer had them in nice bags).

So, I'm storming, and my beloved wife is trying to keep me from chewing out the poor CSR. When the assistant manger FINALLY shows up (for the record we stood there maybe 5 minutes, but when you're as beyond-irate as I was that does seem like forever) my wife tells him the story, and one kind of expects apologies from the assistant manager over what is in effect a stupid policy.

Again, boy was I wrong.

Which is highly odd, because I remember having to jump through hoops--and not always proverbial ones--to appease irate customers when I was a Wal-Martian, but I digress.

So, as you can see, it was a fun evening, and I'm still beyond irate. Not only did this policy make my wife cry, which made me angry beyond belief, but the process doubles the time it takes to make a return, as each item has to be scanned twice.

I can admit, we've cut back on the amount that we've been shopping at Wal-Mart. After all, Kroger is not that much more expensive and it's closer. Yet there were still things we purchased there--including those boxes of diapers that I'm constantly getting searched over.

Well, at this point, that's enough. Not even the joy of making the idiotic door greeters squirm when I tell them that they are in effect accusing me of shoplifting by requesting me to submit to a search can entice me to return to Wal-Mart now.

I'll drive an extra 10 miles down the road to go to Target.

Actually, I won't even need to drive extra, there's one I can stop at on my way home from work.


At this point, the only thing that will get me back into Wal-Mart is if I go there, buy 100 of those dollar hot wheels, and then turn back around and return them.

At least if I did that, then the door greeter would be tied up with scanning that he couldn't accuse folks of shoplifting.

Anyways, for more reading on the joys of being treated piss-poor by Wal-Mart then you can read this:

• Wal-Mart Holds Your Credit Card and ID Hostage When You Complain
• Walmart Calls You An Idiot, Tells You To Shut Up And Never Come Back
• Walmart Saves You $10 By Refusing To Sell You Anything
• Walmart Stops You And The Assistant Manager For Refusing To Show Receipt
• Detained And Harassed At Walmart For Not Showing A Receipt

The Housing Balloon

The Senate OK'd a bill that would 'help' thousands of home-owners who made the brilliant decision to use Adjustable-Rate and other exotic mortgages. Why do they need this so-called help? Because these exotic mortgages have a bomb built into them. They start their life out as low-interest loans, and after a few years of getting payments applied to them, their interest rate explodes, leading to higher payments. Additionally, the House has already passed a version of the bill, which means that now both sides of Congress will need to hash out the differences and re-vote before sending it onto the President.

Let me be up front with everyone: I do not like this bill.

I firmly believe it is both unconstitutional and goes against the fundamental concepts of the free-market upon which our society is built.

How can I say this? Is this some evil grinch in me that wants to see people lose their homes? Of course not. I feel bad for them. A little at least.

Yet, these people willingly chose to enter into those loans. They KNEW that the interest rate was going to blow up on them, yet they went into the loan anyways. On the other side of things, the various financial organizations which made those loans also knew that once those rates increased, then the borrowers would be unable to make the loan payments.

How exactly am I supposed to feel bad about people who make informed decisions, even if those informed decisions are not in their long-term best behavior?

Why exactly should our government be trying to help out either people or business who made decisions on their own, about their own finances, and are now effectively in that proverbial lake?

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer opined this about this particular bill:

be a source of salvation for those families who were tricked into unaffordable loans

Do what? How exactly were these people tricked? I don't know what type of loan they signed, but my mortgage has the interest rate, including the fact that it does not change, clearly written on the contract I signed. There is no way that these families were tricked into purchasing such a loan--to imply that is at best to be trying to hoodwink the public into accepting another government handout to cover people's own stupidity. And if they WERE tricked into an ARM, by the mortgage lender not disclosing the fact that it was an ARM, then there are already statutes on the books to deal with fraudulent lending practices.

No. This is merely a bailout of people too stupid for their own good, companies too greedy for their own good, and the Federal Reserver which is responsible for it all, by forcing us to go to a wishes-backed currency rather than the gold standard.

Maximizing the Minimum Wage

Well Congress is at it again. They are once more deciding that Market Forces are not enough to run things in our capitalistic society. Yes, it is yet again time for a discussion on raising the Minimum Wage.

Oh joy.

Of course the Liberal side of the blog-o-sphere is ecstatic over this. Or at least they were until House Republicans attached a few riders to the bill, such as lowering the Estate tax, and a Federal Pension bill. Personally I don’t think that even a reduction of the Estate tax is not worth a hike in minimum wage to me. So while the leftie blogs are happy at the potential for a decrease in the price of skilled labor, they are unhappy that the families of the skilled laborers who have died don’t have to give away a huge portion of their life’s savings to the federal government.

The reasons I despise the minimum wage are quite simple. They drive my own salary down. Capitalistic of me I know, but I am a Capitalist through and through. The only reason I get up and go to work everyday is because of that nice paycheck I get. And I have told my bosses this in no uncertain terms. They know without a doubt that I am there for the money, and that is fine with both them and me.

But when we get these increases, I view it as an attack by the Federal government against my livelihood. Don’t believe me?

Then let’s look at some skilled labor versus a burger flipper at McDonald’s. And we’ll not even use college-educated skilled labor for this. An electrician makes somewhere on the order of twenty dollars an hour (this is an average, some jobs get more, some less), and we compare that to the simplified cost of a burger flipper of six dollars an hour. That is somewhere on the order of 333% more for the skilled labor. And that makes perfect sense to me. After all the electrician has spent years as an apprentice before becoming a full fledged electrician, and it will probably be a few more years before they get the higher paying jobs. Now, if we increase the pay which unskilled labor gets to 8 dollars an hour, that drops the percentage difference between skilled and unskilled to a mere 250% more.

While that does not appear to be an extreme drop, it really marks a huge decrease in the purchasing power, as well as the worth of the skilled laborer. Because there are factors besides just that differential between the skilled and the unskilled which affects the purchasing power of an individual.

Minimum Wage Increases are like Tax Hikes, the only thing they do is decrease the GNP. After all, while a large company might consider hiring two or three people at five dollars an hour, they’d come up with a technological solution, which means the need to only hire one at eight an hour. We saw this in the farming industry, and it’s slowly appearing in the retail industry as well (don't believe me? Go to Wal-Mart or Winn-Dixie and look for the 'self-checkout' lanes).

Of course, this is one of the few Liberal Ideas which I would support if they would do it my way. A minimum wage increase, effective immediately, to raise the minimum wage to five hundred dollars an hour for everyone. Oh okay, waitresses can get a mere two hundred fifty still.

If we’re going to slash the differential between the skilled laborers and the unskilled then let’s really kill that, and make it a true level playing field while we’re at it.

And yes, I think that’s a stupidly silly idea. I realize that it would decimate our economy, drive inflation out of control, and make the dollar worth a little bit less than the peso. But I find the entire concept of minimum wage a stupidly silly idea. We’re a free market society, and as such should allow market forces to guide such things as wages and prices.

10,000 Wal-Mart Employees Can't Be Wrong

Maryland is trying to enact a brand new law. One that states that those companies with 10,000 employees (or more) in their state, must pay a certain amount of their payroll into health care.

Of course, only Wal-Mart has that many employees in state, but hey, the Democrats say that this legislation is not aimed at them. Surprisingly enough, I believe them. I think that the Leftists just put that 10,000 number in there, to make their first victim of this un-capitalistic practice Wal-Mart so that the effect would be more palatable to people. After all, it's Wal-Mart with billions in sales, and millions employed. What could making them pay a little extra to employee health care matter?

This is where the Lefties want things to stand. They want the people happy that they are legally forcing companies to give employees a certain amount of healthcare, because once that is legally acceptable, they can then start lowering that number. After all, if it's ok at 10,000 employees, then it's ok for 9,500, then 9,000 and before you know it for 10. One must remember that for this type of law there is no difference between 10 and 10,000. It is a random number, set high to make it acceptable, because it can only affect one company. That that one company is Wal-Mart is just a bonus in the Lefties eyes. In the same way that the minimum wage is set low to make it acceptable to the most people (I'm still waiting for the $2,000 per hour minimum wage, I could get behind that).

Of course the esteemed lawmakers in Maryland have failed to realize the simple realities of business. They are trying to pass a law that states that the business spends 8% of payroll on healthcare. Now, Wal-Mart has a few options for doing this:

• Pay for it out of profits
• Close stores until they are under the magic number
• Pay their employees less

Gee, I wonder which I would do if I were in Wal-Mart's shoes. There is no way I would pay for it out of profits. That is hurtful to my shareholders. Even if I tried to pay my employee's less, there are artificial limits on how low I can pay them, which a higher minimum wage in conjunction with this health care tax would cause me convulsions. So that leaves the close stores until I'm under the magic number.

Yup, to keep from paying this particular tax, I will close stores, stopping jobs, and depriving thousands of consumers a cheap place to shop. After all, I would be in this for the money.

Who knows, Wal-Mart could do something different, after all, I'm not in charge over there. They could even attempt to question the constitutionality of this law. Unfortunately, capitalism, though a corner stone of our society, has no protection in the Constitution.

Sadly the labor unions are pushing this law in other places. If your state has the misfortune to be one of them, I would get in contact with your legislature. This health tax is not a good thing.