Fun! It looks like Staples has caved in! See the last update here



WAL-MART REVISITED

An excellent email from one of my readers in response to my post yesterday about Wal-Mart:

"Sometimes economic and logical ignorance and anti-capitalist bias just must be rebutted, even though it should be obvious to everyone. In regard to the February 2004 report by the Democratic Staff of the House Education and Workforce Committee concerning the "federal costs" to taxpayers of "Wal-Mart's success in holding employee compensation at low levels," the following observations:

First, where do they think Wal-Mart gets these apparently exploited and "badly paid" employees? From the ranks elsewhere of better-paid full-time employees with full benefit packages? I haven't heard about any Wal-Mart gangs shanghaiing people and forcing them to work for Wal-Mart, so Wal-Mart's employees must be there voluntarily, presumable because Wal-Mart offers them better employment opportunities than they had before.

Second, even if it is true (which I doubt) that most of these employees rely on government-provided or subsidized health care and government assistance paid for by "US taxpayers," is it not then likely these same people were also relying on government-provided or subsidized health care and assistance before they voluntarily chose to work for Wal-Mart? So Wal-Mart's employment of these people would, at worst, have no effect on the cost to taxpayers for these people's government-subsidized health care and other government assistance. More likely, at least some of these employees would now qualify for at least some employer-provided benefits and others would have improved their economic lot sufficiently to pay for at least some of their own maintenance and health care, rather than relying on government assistance.

In addition, since these employees must now have better employment opportunities than they had had before, presumably most of them are earning more than they did before, and paying more taxes! In fact, some of these employees may have had no employment before and been surviving entirely on welfare benefits. Therefore, when Wal-Mart employs these people, tax collections go up, use of government-subsidized health care goes down, and welfare benefit payments go down, which is a net benefit to everyone. The only logical conclusion one can draw is that rather than costing "federal taxpayers ... a total annual welfare bill of $2.5 billion for Wal-Mart's 1.2 million US employees," Wal-Mart's employment of these people reduces the welfare bill the US taxpayers otherwise would pay for these people.

When such obvious logic and facts are omitted from a "report" damning a successful business operation, it is clear the objective is not truth, but rather, to bash successful business and to attack our competitive capitalist system.

I can just see how this logic will play out in the Dems next report attacking not only Wal-Mart, but also all US businesses large and small, for employing anyone at all. Given the actuarial imbalance in the Social Security system, each new hire can be expected to add tens of thousands of dollars to the actuarial deficit. When summed across the entire economy, the deficit is not just a measly $2.5 billion, but rather tens of trillions of dollars! As a result, all these evil businesses in the US are shackling the US taxpayers with TRILLIONS in future tax liability by employing anyone!"

Blithering Bunny has some useful links on the Wal-Mart haters too.

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ELSEWHERE

I have had some good laughs lately, but you should read this dippy email that someone sent Keith Burgess Jackson. Keith's reply is a bit too kind. The moronic email-writer said that he could only evaluate Keith's writings by whether or not Keith's university had a chapter of a prestigious student fraternity. I would have replied that anyone who is so incapable of evaluating arguments that he can rely only on the prestige of the author's employer must be a complete mental cripple. On second thoughts, I think there is a fair chance that the email is a student joke. Keith also has up at the moment some good comments on the many defamatory things that Leftists say about Karl Rove. "The pot calling the kettle black" rather sums it up. I wonder if young people understand that analogy? How many of them have ever seen a black pot or kettle? Perhaps they think the saying should be "The pot calling the kettle Afro-American".

Rafe Champion has just scanned in a great article about the so-called cultural cringe that allegedly afflicted Australian cultural life for most of the 20th century. Knowing the robust independence of most Australians, the whole claim has always seemed rubbish to me and the article demonstrates in great detail what rubbish it is. The only basis for the claim seems to be that certain self-proclaimed Australian cultural elites were not getting as much attention as they felt they deserved. I suspect that they actually got MORE attention than they deserved. I certainly found plenty of Australian books to read when I was a kid in the '50s but I guess much of my reading at that time was distressingly "popular" -- Ion Idriess and the like. I actually think Idriess did an incomparable job of popularizing Australian and Pacific history and I am delighted to say that I think I had read every one of his books by the time I was 12. My interest in history goes back a long way. And I cannot recollect ever hearing a single derogatory word about the Australian poets -- Lawson and Patterson mainly -- whose works I enjoyed learning at school. Lawson's "The Teams" is still one of my favourite poems -- partly because I know how accurate was Lawson's description of the taciturn, hard-working teamsters. My own grandfather was one of them, I am immensely proud to say.

Iraq and Indonesia compared. An email from a reader: "I have just caught up with a friend in the Royal Australian Air Force who has recently been in the Middle East and who has been working on relief flights to Indonesia. He tells me the image we get via TV news of the Iraq situation greatly exaggerates the chaos and violence factor. He says Aceh is the opposite. Nothing on TV shows the extent of the destruction and death. He says you can easily find areas where there are dead and dismembered bodies in every direction".

There are only two Governor's races taking place in the U.S. this year -- in Virginia and New Jersey. Since there are no national campaigns, these governor's races are going to be watched intently. Commonwealth Conservative has the lowdown on the Virgina race.

Brazilian blogger, Luis Afonso reports a couple more of ratty articles about American tsunami aid. Somehow Hiroshima and Nagasaki have got dragged in! I thought my link yesterday about the tsunami being the fault of "THE JOOOOS" was the ultimate but I am beginning to wonder.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a big selection of posts

The latest posting on MarxWords shows that Marx thought it essential to destroy human families -- nice guy!

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions.

Comments? Email me here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

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