It pays to coast in Pennsylvania, where, if you earn $29K, the government taxes others in order to give you $28K worth of welfare.
Err on the side of ambition and aim to earn $55K—and you’ll end up paying $5K in taxes, netting $50K. Work out which pay grade “pays” better!
Coming to your state or to a state near you. The plague of living parasitically is spreading.
Business, Europe, Labor, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Private Property, Regulation, Welfare
Permanently tethered to the welfare state, Europeans are unwilling to make the connections between the regulatory state and steep prices, high unemployment, and a declining standard of living. It would seem obvious that the greater the cost of doing business, the less business will be done. But not to the individual who is motivated to keep the gravy train chugging along.
He wants to get that free lunch, even if it is his Last Supper.
Via John Stossel:
In Europe …workers … get “vacation do-overs”- if they are sick on vacation, they get additional paid time off to make up for it. In Spain, employers must give 24 months of severance pay after they fire someone. No wonder companies don’t hire. [Unemployment among youth there is 50 percent.]
America doesn’t have mandatory vacation time, but we still have 170,000 pages of rules.
Want to expand your business? The costs to a proprietor of adding new workers will be prohibitive, often in excess of the workers’ productivity.
In Italy, it is near impossible to fire an employee once he has been hired. If he steals and worse; the onus is on the business owner to prove his case before he can fire the offender. Bad work habits and low productivity don’t constitute cause for dismissal.
In all, a European business is better off staying small. Don’t reach for the sky. Limp along below the regulator’s radar.
Government, Political Economy, Private Property, The State, Welfare
A Staten Island resident who lost it all in Hurricane Sandy could be heard demanding, on Huckabee’s Fox News show, that the government fix the shoreline. If it does that small thing, she and her plucky neighbors would gladly rebuild.
Yes, Uncle Sam, roll back the sea for the good lady, will you?
Another Huckbee guest complained that FEMA aid and private home insurance did not cover the cost of a new home. Kick in the difference, will you, Unckie Sam?
“Where I am going to spend Christmas?! Where do I put decorations up? Where do I put a Christmas tree up?”, demanded a gentleman who attended a FEMA town-hall meeting in New York, earlier this week. A neighbors chimed in, complaining that the lion’s share of the help she has received—and the only assistance matching her needs—came from her neighbors.
This you bemoan? Is it not a lesson for you?
Pundits soon turned to the question of suing the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And most agreed about the “wisdom” of “governmental immunity,” intended to “stop people from suing the government and government employees and officials in many cases.“
Indeed, legislators have used their position to pass laws exempting themselves and many others from liability. (In the event that you sue the state, guess who pays? We The People.) And the people want more of this corruption? (They will soon get doctors who can’t be sued.)
Let’s see: The victims described are surprised to have received close to no assistance from an entity whose employees are impervious to litigation, and immune from public shaming or loss of employment.
FEMA “victims” are surprised to have received the finger from an entity which is fortified by failure. The more a government agency fails, the more likely it is to receive more taxpayer funds.
In the bureaucracy, incentives are always inverted. Failure results in success: in more funds, more training, more time off. Failure will never see the closing of a government agency, or the firing of nasty, inefficient, over-paid, affirmatively appointed official.
These victims (and all those who demand from government what it cannot and will never give) refuse to comprehend that because of its very nature—a system without the imperatives of private property—government will never allocate or conserve resources efficiently.
Why on earth would anyone seek to interact with such an entity? (I have a good ideas why.)
UPDATE (Dec. 5): Predictably, Gov. cozy-up to Obama, cap-in-hand Chris Christie is on board with the mindset described. Two days ago he “announced that he has formally requested federal approval of 100% reimbursement for state and local government costs associated with debris removal and emergency protective measures that continue in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.”
Who said local was best? Not this big, fat ponce, to whom re-election is everything.
Constitution, Military, Morality, Sex, The State, War, Welfare
Historum, a forum dedicated to military history, writes about the sad camp that marched after the Roman legion. It was far more sympathetic than David Petraeus’s and Gen. John Allen’s skanks:
“When a Roman legion was on the march its womenfolk – both free and slave – presumably followed behind in the baggage train. When a legion set up camp, at least in friendly territory, all the non-combatants set up their own ‘camp’ on the outskirts of the legionary castrum. These civilian settlements were called canabae. Women set up shops that saw to the basic needs of the soldiers, such as repairing clothing, etc. and the military prostitutes would have plyed [sic] their trade here as well.”
Not much has changed, except that, unlike Paula Broadwell and Tampa tart Jill Kelley, the pitiful prostitutes who attached themselves to the Roman Army were tragic figures. “A combination of STD’s and the general filth of their surroundings must have reduced their likelihood of ever living to see freedom greatly,” writes Historum.
Where is the clap when you need it?
Oh, and did I mention that, according to ABC’s Brian Ross, Jill Kelley and her husband have been sued “at least 9 times, and faced foreclosure on their home.”
Sordid stuff.
In the meantime, the Federal Goblins have raided the Petraeus mistress’s home, and were snapped by paparazzi carrying boxes of documents away. The objection to the violation of Broadwell’s constitutional rights have been sounded, and are serious. Still, I care not a wit about Broadwell. She is the type of broad who’d order a raid on you or me or any Iraqi in a jiffy.
Meantime, the not-to-be pitied Petraeus testified today, Nov. 16, “in private hearings before the House and Senate intelligence committees,” about Benghazi-gate (never touching, naturally, on the crux of the issue, which is “To be or not to be in Benghazi…”). Via Fox News:
Former CIA Director David Petraeus stoked the controversy over the Obama administration’s handling of the Libya terror attack, testifying Friday that references to “Al Qaeda involvement” were stripped from his agency’s original talking points — while other intelligence officials were unable to say who changed the memo, according to a top lawmaker who was briefed.