Adumbration

The Seattle City Council appears predisposed to attempt raising the minimum wage to as high as $15 per hour (currently at $9.19 in Washington). The agenda planned for a council meeting on Tuesday (3/18) has an hour dedicated to presentations by supporters, and 20 minutes reserved for comments; no time allowed for opponents of such a measure. ... I am not hopeful for the fate of unskilled labor in Seattle - the local pols are stacking the deck for making a large increase to the minimum wage, and naysayers don't have much of a voice. As one member states - “If I were against $15, I wouldn’t be on the mayor’s committee” more »

Politicos of various stripes squander the public purse on buildings, statues, and other fabrications that they hope will outlast their time in office more »

Maybe an alternative of free trade, without entangling alliances, will promote the gradual restoration of peace and prosperity for all of us. more »

The people who lose their jobs in the coming months will less clearly see the connection. Those who are never hired at all will just be lost. My pessimistic streak makes me think that the responsible people - Nick Hanauer, Patty Murray, Suzan DelBene, and their ilk - will deflect their responsibility for this disaster and be off on a new crusade to make it all better with a new pronouncement to restrict how the rest of us make our way in this world. more »

Evidently, Nick Hanauer doesn't care that the alternative is no work at all, no production for the benefit of the community, and reduced living standards for everyone. Too bad that the minimum wage policy that he promotes condemns the least well off segment of the population to permanent unemployment. more »

It's easy in such situations to engage in recrimination - they should have done this, or that, or the other thing, instead of what they did end up doing that led to the current disaster. But those are only symptoms. more »

... another figure in the international police establishment coming out in favor of major reform to the prohibition of drugs ... more »

The President of The United States of America, Mr. Barack Obama, is trying hard to convince the American public, congress, and international politicians that prosecuting another war in the middle east is a good idea for peace and prosperity. more »

In all this, President O is known as a constitutional scholar, but it's clear he places little weight on the original construction of that document or the terms of the Bill of Rights. Particularly galling is how he invokes "the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America" to charter the Review Group, but like his predecessors he appears to believe the Constitution is infinitely flexible. more »

My ballot for the primary election includes a mark for Kate Martin, one of the dark horses in the field of eight.... Her candidate statement isn't much more informative than the others, but did strike a couple resonant chords: shared prosperity based on being socially liberal and fiscally conservative. I think there's a recipe in those ingredients, but it all depends on what else is in the shopping cart. more »