IsRomneypoisedforacomeback? posted

Is Romney poised for a comeback?

posted at 8:41 pm on July 31, 2014 by Allahpundit

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I’m pretty sure the answer was, is, and will remain “no,” but if it’s a day ending in “y,” I’m willing to troll you guys by revisiting the subject. Matt Lewis makes the case:

Romney would similarly have to get real. No more phoniness. No more telling us what he thinks we want to hear. He would have to be utterly authentic, and he would have to show that losing caused him to encounter pain and reflection. (The good news is that the Netflix film, Mitt, already helped show this side of Romney.)…

People like comebacks. We can identify with the guy or gal who is struggling to redeem themselves (and nobody has ever identified with Mitt Romney before).

Ironically, Romney is almost tailor made to benefit from having lost before. What might be a devastating blow to most political figures — a blight on their resume — actually transforms Romney into a more compelling candidate. Having struggled and stumbled is, for Romney, at least, a feature, not a bug. The same could be said for Hillary Clinton, who only became a compelling candidate in 2008 when she lost her frontrunner status…

[Pat] Buchanan, whose sister was a Romney advisor, believes that Romney should take a page from the Nixon handbook. Having lost to Kennedy in 1960, and then having lost the 1962 gubernatorial election in California, Nixon was assumed politically dead. But he was revived by working hard for other candidates — he worked hard for conservative Barry Goldwater in 1964, and backed liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller’s candidacy in New York — just to name two of the many GOPers he hit the hustings for between 1962 and 1968.

Let me see if I can talk myself into this. Point one: Romney’s just seven months older than Hillary Clinton and has always seemed fit, energetic, and younger than his years. He’d be the same age as Reagan was on election day 1980. He’s not too old.

Point two: The big takeaway from the past six months of Republican primaries is that business interests are willing to spend big bucks to squash tea partiers before they can get traction. They’re tired of watching conservatives shutting down the economy and flirting with hitting the debt ceiling. They want someone sympathetic to them as nominee. There’s no one more sympathetic than Mitt.

Point three: Arguably, despite his record as a presidential loser, Romney’s still the most likable RINO on the Republican 2016. Ask yourself — if you had to choose between Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Mitt Romney, which one would you prefer? One guy has heavy baggage from his last name and will give away the farm on immigration; the second guy is boorish, has an anti-gun record (for which he’s lately tried to make amends), and smells of scandal. The third guy is Romney. QED.

Point four: Although it’s true that presidential losers are typically disqualified from future runs nowadays, Romney’s unusual in that he has a laundry list of told-ya-so’s he could run on a second time. The campaign commercials write themselves: First comes the clip of him saying something prescient about Russia or ObamaCare in 2012, then come the headlines from 2013-14 bearing him out, then comes the 2016 pitch (“a man of vision” or whatever). That sort of thing could, I guess, move perceptions of his candidacy from also-ran dismissal to “yeah, maybe we should have listened to this guy.”

Honestly, if he hadn’t run in 2008 and flamed out in the primaries, I think he’d be thinking seriously about it now. The main bar to another Romney run isn’t that he lost in 2012, I suspect, it’s that this would be three campaigns in eight years. A second bite at the apple doesn’t seem crazy; a third bite at the apple does, kind of. (And exhausting!) And if he did run, he’d (once again) be poorly suited to repel Democratic class-warfare attacks. Rubio, Ryan, and Mike Lee are building agendas aimed at the working class in hopes of siphoning off support from one of the Democrats’ core constituencies. A party that’s doing that doesn’t want to go into battle behind Mr. “47 Percent,” especially when Hillary will have no choice but to adopt Warren-esque populism for her own campaign, to appease progressives. How does Romney, who worked hard to undo his image as a centrist in 2008, then worked hard to undo his image as a social conservative in 2012, undo his image as a country-club Republican who sees the world in terms of “makers” and “takers”? And how does he improve with Latinos, who broke for Obama in a landslide because of his “self-deportation” comments?

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Tags: 2016, business, centrist, christie, establishment, Jeb Bush, Matt Lewis, Republicans In Name Only, romney

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Bill Clinton, September 10, 2001: I could have killed Bin Laden once but called it off because of civilian casualties

BillClinton,September10,2001:Icouldhave

TheGOPdoesn’tneedtolosethelabel

The GOP doesn’t need to lose the label of “Party of the Rich”

posted at 5:01 pm on July 27, 2014 by Jazz Shaw

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I’m not sure exactly where Ross Douthat was going with this editorial piece in the New York Times this weekend, but it has something to do with how fast both parties should be running away from their association with “the rich” before the next elections. Now, I can understand the dangers and pitfalls of populism in American politics, and no serious party should dismiss them without consideration. Ross is correct in implying that perception on matters of wealth and opportunity and how they intersect with government policy can be a powerful talisman in the hands of a skilled politician. But this still gives me pause.

But if the G.O.P. fully embraces the ideas its younger-generation leaders are pursuing, the Democrats could suddenly find themselves in a difficult spot. Liberals can theoretically outbid a limited-government populism, yes — but given the fiscal picture, they would need to raise taxes significantly to do so, alienating their own donors, the middle class or both. And the immediate liberal critique of Ryan’s new plan — that it’s too paternalistic, too focused on pushing welfare recipients to work — harkened back to debates that the Democratic Party used to lose.

Meanwhile, Obama-era liberalism has grown dangerously comfortable with big business-big government partnerships. It’s a bad sign when even the tribune of left-wing populism, Elizabeth Warren, feels obliged to defend, against libertarian populist attacks, an icon of crony capitalism like the Export-Import Bank.

So there’s a scenario — still unlikely, but much more plausible than a year ago — in which the pattern of 2012 could be reversed: A deepening association with big money and big business could suddenly become an albatross for Democrats, and the Republicans could finally — and deservedly — shake their identity as a party that cares only about the rich.

The message which incorrectly underpins this entire argument is the concept of conservatives and capitalists as people who care only about the rich. That’s a big club which liberals frequently wield with great success against fiscal conservatives, but that represents a victory for clever marketing and plying the fears of uncertain workers rather than a reflection of the truth. I don’t want to go off on some deep dive into Vox-style “explanatory journalism” here, but taking the wrong lesson away from the cautionary tale Douthat tells is a trap, not a solution.

If conservative policy were actually only interested in benefiting rich, corporate benefactors at the expense of the poor and the working class, it would shrivel up and disappear in a single election cycle. Unfortunately, muddled messaging allows populists to paint precisely that picture and run away with some victories. But the underlying truth is a much more appealing story when properly defined and it’s a positive message for people in every economic niche. You see, Republicans should be the party of the rich. But that also includes those who also aspire and work to become rich. The wealthy and successful build the structure for others to participate and follow the ladder upward. The government, by contrast, collects the earned rewards of others and redistributes them while building no structure for others to climb. That’s the message which voters need to be made to understand.

To modify a line from AC/DC… For those about to prosper, we salute you.

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Tags: business, Republicans, wealthy

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TheVirginiaDMVjustissuedacease-and-desistto

The Virginia DMV just issued a cease-and-desist to ostensibly illegal taxi companies, a.k.a. Uber, Lyft

posted at 6:41 pm on June 5, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

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I’ve always liked living in Virginia because it’s a state that, in my humble opinion, generally has its head screwed on at least relatively straight in terms of taxes, regulations, budgets, and overall business climate. It has its flaws (and its unfortunately growing purplishness, ugh), of course, but in matters both state and municipal it typically displays plenty of good common sense.

Until now, evidently. I never imagined that we would descend to the progressive depths of France, or London, or New York City, or Washington, D.C. because of a bunch of bass-ackwards regulations that protect established businesses from good ol’ fashioned free-market competition, but here we are. This is an embarrassment.

Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles sent cease and desist orders today to Lyft and Uber, telling the two ride services that they must stop operating in violation of state law or face fines against their part-time drivers.

The DMV had already issued civil penalties against the companies in April — $26,000 for Uber and $9,000 for Lyft — for trips that their drivers provided in Virginia despite warnings by the state agency that Virginia law does not allow their business model. …

The DMV is studying Virginia’s motor carrier laws with an eye toward legislative changes next year that could allow Lyft and Uber to legally operate in the state. Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne said last week that he liked the companies’ business models, but until the law is changed, they are violating it. …

In the cease and desist letters, DMV Commissioner Richard Holcomb told representatives for both companies that he is “once again making clear” that they must stop operating in Virginia until they get the proper authority.

What, exactly, are “passenger carrier laws” — or, for that matter, any gratuitous professional licensing requirements — good for? …Not much, except imposing prohibitive regulatory burdens on entrepreneurs and innovative newcomers and thereby protecting entrenched rent-seekers as well as their higher prices. In the long run, everybody loses, and in the meantime, the DMV is trying to deprive smartphone-wielding Virginians of an excellent, efficient, and explosively popular service that allows them to avoid having to wait out on dark street corners, hastily calculate cash tips, or fight over the proffered credit card machines with shady cab drivers.

I’m disappointed in you, Virginia.

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Tags: business, regulations, taxi, unions, Virginia

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TheVirginiaDMVjustissuedacease-and-desistto

The Virginia DMV just issued a cease-and-desist to ostensibly illegal taxi companies,” a.k.a. Uber, Lyft

posted at 6:41 pm on June 5, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

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I’ve always liked living in Virginia because it’s a state that, in my humble opinion, generally has its head screwed on at least relatively straight in terms of taxes, regulations, budgets, and overall business climate. It has its flaws (and its unfortunately growing purplishness), of course, but in matters both state and municipal it typically displays plenty of good common sense.

Until now, evidently. I never imagined that we would descend to the progressive depths of France, or London, New York City, or Washington, D.C. because of a bunch of bass-ackwards regulations that protect established businesses from good ol’ fashioned free-market competition, but here we are. This is an embarrassment.

Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles sent cease and desist orders today to Lyft and Uber, telling the two ride services that they must stop operating in violation of state law or face fines against their part-time drivers.

The DMV had already issued civil penalties against the companies in April — $26,000 for Uber and $9,000 for Lyft — for trips that their drivers provided in Virginia despite warnings by the state agency that Virginia law does not allow their business model. …

The DMV is studying Virginia’s motor carrier laws with an eye toward legislative changes next year that could allow Lyft and Uber to legally operate in the state. Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne said last week that he liked the companies’ business models, but until the law is changed, they are violating it. …

In the cease and desist letters, DMV Commissioner Richard Holcomb told representatives for both companies that he is “once again making clear” that they must stop operating in Virginia until they get the proper authority.

What, exactly, are “passenger carrier laws” — or, for that matter, any gratuitous professional licensing requirements — good for? …Not much, except imposing prohibitive regulatory burdens on entrepreneurs and innovative newcomers and thereby protecting entrenched rent-seekers as well as their higher prices. In the long run, everybody loses, and in the meantime, the DMV is trying to deprive smartphone-wielding Virginians of an excellent, efficient, and explosively popular service that allows them to avoid having to wait out on dark street corners, hastily calculate cash tips, or fight over the proffered credit card machines with shady cab drivers.

I’m disappointed in you, Virginia.

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Tags: business, regulations, taxi, unions, Virginia

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Thepro-businesspartywinsbyalandslidein

The pro-business party wins by a landslide in India’s national elections

posted at 11:31 am on May 17, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

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In an outright rejection of the corruption, incompetence, inefficiency, dynastic politics, and welfare-state promises of the now formerly ruling Congress Party, Indians turned out in record numbers over the past five weeks to vote in parliamentary elections that propelled the pro-business Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister-Elect Narendra Modi to not merely the expected victory, but a total landslide. India has been struggling beneath an economic crisis of high inflation and too little job growth to keep up with the booming population, while Modi has been the governor of the relatively prosperous and growth-oriented Gujarat state for over a decade (Texas is a very rough but probably the closest U.S. comparison we could use) — and Indians are ready to embrace the economic model on which he focused his campaign:

Narendra Modi thundered to victory on Friday in India’s election, trouncing the ruling Nehru-Gandhi dynasty in a seismic political shift that gives the Hindu nationalist and his party a mandate for sweeping economic reform.

Modi’s landslide, the most resounding election victory India has seen in 30 years, was welcomed with a blistering rally on India’s stock markets and raucous celebrations at offices across the country of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), where supporters danced, let off fireworks and handed out sweets.

The BJP looked certain of a parliamentary majority, giving the 63-year-old former tea-seller ample room to advance reforms started 23 years ago by current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but which stalled in recent years.

Speaking to a sea of people dressed in the party’s official orange colors and chanting his name in his home state of Gujarat, Modi thanked the nation, and immediately addressed concerns his pro-Hindu leanings would sideline minorities.

“The age of divisive politics has ended, from today onwards the politics of uniting people will begin,” Modi said. “We want more strength for the wellbeing of the country … I see a glorious and prosperous India.”

Concerns about his Hindu nationalism could very well be warranted; Modi has been on the United States’ list of people disallowed from obtaining a visa since 2002, on suspicion that he didn’t do anything to stop rioting in his region that killed a thousand Muslims (an often unpopular minority in India), and the caste and identity politics with which Modi has a pretty sketchy reputation are still very much a thing in India.

Still, the WSJ editors are tentatively optimistic that Modi will bring back some of the economic reforms and open markets that gave India a taste of major growth in the 1990s and 2000s and put the country back on track:

In parliamentary elections that lasted five weeks and counted some 550 million ballots, Indians put their faith in a party promising economic opportunity and better governance over the traditional Indian formula of welfarism, patronage, corruption and hostility to foreign competition.

Mr. Modi will be the first Prime Minister to govern without a coalition in nearly 30 years, and he has a rare mandate to enact market-opening reforms that had stalled under the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Indian equities soared on the news, though there’s also a risk that he could attempt to implement a Chinese-style version of state capitalism on a country that lacks Chinese-style political controls.

Mr. Modi’s record offers reason for optimism. As governor for 13 years of Gujarat state, he was the archetypal energetic executive, forcing through approvals of new projects and welcoming foreign investment. Gujarat now accounts for 25% of India’s exports, and the poverty rate has plunged. As the son of a tea-seller, Mr. Modi also has a gut sense of the economic aspirations of ordinary Indians.

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Apriljobsreport:288,000jobsadded;U-3falls

April jobs report: 288,000 jobs added; U-3 falls to 6.3 percent

posted at 9:21 am on May 2, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Economists were expecting good news from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs report today, and in some ways, they got it: The topline unemployment rate fell to 6.3 percent, the lowest level since September of 2008:

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 288,000, and the unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage point to 6.3 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment gains were widespread, led by job growth in professional and business services, retail trade, food services and drinking places, and construction. …

In April, the unemployment rate fell from 6.7 percent to 6.3 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, at 9.8 million, decreased by 733,000. Both measures had shown little movement over the prior 4 months. Over the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons declined by 1.2 percentage points and 1.9 million, respectively. (See table A-1.)

But lest we forget, the labor force participation rate in September of 2008 was 66 percent; this month, another 806,000 people dropped out of the labor force, leaving the participation rate right around its new-normal low of 62.8 percent. That means that just about 92,594,000 Americans are not in the labor force right now. Sure, the U-3 unemployment rate has dropped, but the employment-population ratio hasn’t really budged at all:

The civilian labor force dropped by 806,000 in April, following an increase of 503,000 in March. The labor force participation rate fell by 0.4 percentage point to 62.8 percent in April. The participation rate has shown no clear trend in recent months and currently is the same as it was this past October. The employment-population ratio showed no change over the month (58.9 percent) and has changed little over the year. (See table A-1.)

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed at 7.5 million in April. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find full-time work. (See table A-8.)

In April, 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down slightly from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)

Read: The net number of employed Americans actually fell by 73,000. Yes, this job report is an improvement over a lot of the trends we’ve been seeing in the past few years, but that’s hardly a metric worth celebrating — we’re still nowhere near our pre-recession unemployment or labor force participation rates. Stay tuned for the White House’s ritual spin-doctoring/endzone dancing.

Tags: business, economy, jobs, jobs report

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Seattleisprobablygoingtoenacta$15/hour

Seattle is probably going to enact a $15/hour minimum wage

posted at 8:41 am on May 2, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Last November, Seattle elected a straight-up socialist to their City Council who, among other economic/social-justice aspirations, included the already popular idea of a minimum wage hike to $15/hour in her campaign platform. Evidently, the fact that that is now very likely going to happen in a gradual phase-in over the next few years isn’t quite good enough for her, via the NYT:

Mayor Ed Murray presented on Thursday what he described as an imperfect but workable plan to increase the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, more than twice the federal minimum wage and one of the highest anywhere in the nation, through a series of complex and phased-in stages. Just as crucially, he said, the plan has broad political support, with a coalition of labor and business groups ready to push hard for it at the City Council, starting with the first hearings next week.

But the plan, which in many other cities might be seen as a liberal Democratic agenda at the frontier of social and economic engineering, was immediately attacked not from the mayor’s right, but from his left.

Kshama Sawant, a Socialist Alternative Party member who was elected to the Seattle City Council last year on a single-minded drive to raise wages, said the plan had been “watered down” by business interests on the mayor’s 24-member committee on income inequality, of which she was also a member. In a packed news conference at City Hall right after Mr. Murray’s, she called on her supporters to continue their effort to gather signatures for a possible ballot initiative on wages this fall. The campaign might also put pressure on the Council to make the mayor’s plan better for workers, she suggested. “Every year of a phase-in means yet another year in poverty for a worker,” Ms. Sawant said. “Our work is far from done.”

A handy 21 of the city’s 24 council members are on board with the plan, which designates that large Seattle-based employers (with 500+ employees, no matter where those employees are in the country) start paying the $15/hour rate as soon as 2017 with smaller businesses phasing in by 2021 — and all this despite the fact that Washington already has the highest minimum wage in the country:

Washington is home to the nation’s highest state minimum wage, at $9.32 an hour. As of April 8, 38 states had considered minimum wage bills in 2014, with 34 of them considering increases, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Minnesota and West Virginia have passed increases. Hawaii is expected to join that list after legislators approved a future hike Tuesday to $10.10, the level President Obama has pushed for nationwide. Workers in several states will see minimum wages of at least $10 in several states within a few years.

States and cities have led the charge as federal legislation has languished. San Francisco started the year with a $10.74 minimum wage, while Sante Fe’s hit $10.66 on March 1. A $15 minimum wage went into effect for some workers on Jan. 1 in SeaTac, the small city that is home to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport.

I might add that, while a “coalition of business and labor groups are ready to push hard” for the hike, there are other groups equally ready to push hard against it:

Seattle’s push to become the first big U.S. city with a $15-an-hour minimum wage has hit a snag: opposition from waiters and bartenders. …

“People are talking about moving to a European system of tipping,” says Maloney, 28, meaning less automatic and not as generous. She has become a spokeswoman for a group called Tips Are Wages, appearing in the Seattle Times, KIRO Radio, and other local media to argue for a carve-out that keeps tipped workers at a lower minimum. “I have built a life around the current model of tipping,” she says. …

Restaurants have warned they might boost menu prices as much as 25 percent or force servers to share more of their tips with cooks, dishwashers, and other back-of-the-house staff. …

Kshama Sawant, a socialist elected to the council on her own $15 pledge, calls those suggestions “fear mongering” and says people who cling to tips miss the point. “We don’t want any worker to be beholden to the mood of the customer on any given day,” she says.

Well. So much for the “service” industry.

I would estimate that Seattle will eventually come to regret this decision in the long run, but hey, that’s what federalism and local governance are for, I suppose — a notion that desperate Democrats in Washington are currently refusing to grasp.

Tags: business, economy, jobs, minimum wage, progressives, Seattle

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Gallup: Europeans not feeling great about their business, entrepreneurship prospects

Gallup:Europeansnotfeelinggreatabouttheirbusiness,

Frenchbusinesses,entrepreneurslivingthedream—but

French businesses, entrepreneurs living the dream — but not in France

posted at 6:31 pm on March 23, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Quoth the New York Times, after first introducing the story of one Guillaume Santacruz, a 29-year-old entrepreneur who moved to London to work with start-ups after “his attempt to start a business in Marseille foundered under a pile of government regulations and a seemingly endless parade of taxes”:

France has been losing talented citizens to other countries for decades, but the current exodus of entrepreneurs and young people is happening at a moment when France can ill afford it. The nation has had low-to-stagnant economic growth for the last five years and a generally climbing unemployment rate — now about 11 percent — and analysts warn that it risks sliding into economic sclerosis.

Some wealthy businesspeople have also been packing their bags. While entrepreneurs fret about the difficulties of getting a business off the ground, those who have succeeded in doing so say that society stigmatizes financial success. …

Hand-wringing articles in French newspapers — including a three-page spread in Le Monde, have examined the implications of “les exilés.” This month, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris, which represents 800,000 businesses, published a report saying that French executives were more worried than ever that “unemployment and moroseness are pushing young people to leave” the country, bleeding France of energetic workers. As the Pew Research Center put it last year, “no European country is becoming more dispirited and disillusioned faster than France.” …

Today, around 1.6 million of France’s 63 million citizens live outside the country. That is not a huge share, but it is up 60 percent from 2000, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Thousands are heading to Hong Kong, Mexico City, New York, Shanghai and other cities. About 50,000 French nationals live in Silicon Valley alone.

The election of self-professed Socialists like Francois Hollande didn’t exactly help with the growing national stigma against the self-made wealthy, nor did one of his biggest policy proposals to impose a 75 percent super-tax on millionaires deter people from fleeing the country for greener, more competitive pastures — and the semi-surrender he made in announcing some new ideas for tax cuts and labor-law streamlining weren’t enough to convince them that France is truly turning a corner. The government wants to have its cake and eat it, too, in trying to both introduce “significant proposals to make France more alluring for entrepreneurs and business” while simultaneously “seeking to preserve the nation’s model of social protection,” as the NYT puts it, which sounds like a great way to achieve exactly nothing but stagnation in either direction — and in the meantime, France is still one of the heaviest economic anchors in Europe:

Surveys of thousands of companies by the financial information firm Markit show private businesses enjoyed their fastest growth rate in over two and a half years last month.

It was though a mixed picture as manufacturing growth slowed, while the service industry expanded quicker than had been initially calculated from the first reading of the February data.

And there was big geographic variation. The gulf between expansion in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, and the decline in No. 2 France has only been wider once in the 16-year history of the surveys.

Germany’s composite purchasing manager’s index compiled from the surveys – which includes services and manufacturing – soared to a 33-month high.

By contrast France’s fell further below the line between expansion and contraction where it has languished for most of the past two years.

Tags: business, competition, economics, economy, entrepreneurship, France, Francois Hollande

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Businessgroups“blindsided”byObamaovertimeredefinition

Business groups “blindsided” by Obama overtime redefinition

posted at 12:01 pm on March 13, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

“Blindsided … stunned …” These are the reactions from business groups and Republicans to yesterday’s announcement of a redefinition of overtime exemption from Barack Obama, according to The Hill. Both have been fighting the White House proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, which lost support among Democrats after the CBO estimated it would cost 500,000 jobs by 2016. This time, Obama can go it alone … sort of:

Business groups and congressional Republicans are blasting regulations President Obama will announce Thursday that could extend overtime pay to as many as 10 million workers who are now ineligible for it.

While liberals lauded the plan as putting more cash in the pockets of millions of workers, business groups warned it would damage the economy and Republicans said it was another example of executive overreach.

Trade associations already battling the White House over a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour said they were blindsided by the announcement.

“This came as a shot out of the blue,” said David French, the National Retail Federation’s senior vice president for government relations. “Just on the surface, this looks like an enormous new administrative burden.”

It’s not really executive overreach, though. Unlike the minimum wage, which is set by statute and has to be amended by Congress, the definition of overtime exemption is handled by Department of Labor regulation. However, that regulatory process takes quite a long time, and it may be months or even into next year before Labor can act on the directive from Obama. Business groups and Congress will weigh in on the proposal, and no doubt Republicans will demand a CBO analysis of the impact of this change, too.

And … what is the proposal, anyway? No one knows, and the White House isn’t saying. Right now, the exemption allows businesses to claim overtime exemption for people earning $455 a week or more (annual salary of $23,660)* just by asserting that any part of their duties is “executive” in nature. That’s a ridiculously low level, but businesses have structured their work forces on the basis of this regulation. No matter what level the White House chooses, it’s going to impact staffing decisions; the question is how bad it will get, and how many jobs end up going from full- to part-time in defense of potential unforecasted costs in smaller businesses especially. Ron Fournier reports that former Obama economic adviser Jared Bernstein wants it raised to about $51,000, which would impact five million workers, or less than 4% of the currently employed in the US.

The real problem in flat compensation, though, is the dysfunctional job-creation that exists under Obamanomics — high regulation, hikes in capital-gains tax rates, and ObamaCare. I argue in my column for The Fiscal Times that this is just another intervention that’s likely to produce a lot of unintended consequences, like the rest of the White House’s policies:

Almost all of these ills, however, and especially that of burgeoning corporate ledgers, comes from the interventions conducted by the Obama administration’s economic policies. At the end of prior recessions, the US has acted to reduce costs on investment through lower taxes and regulatory costs.

The Obama administration has piled on in both areas, especially with the added hiring costs of the Affordable Care Act and the 2012 increase in the capital-gains tax rate. Capital that might have gone into business expansion that creates jobs instead stays in corporate coffers to earn interest instead of return on risk.

In a growing economy, businesses would add staff to deal with increased demand, not increased regulation and mandates from Washington. The civilian workforce participation rate has dropped to lows not seen since the Jimmy Carter era, and chronic unemployment has made workers nearly powerless in the labor market.

In a healthy economy with robust job creation, employers would not be able to force low-income workers into exempt definitions, because those workers would find better-compensated work elsewhere. Businesses that might have hired more workers are now looking for ways to duck the costs of employer-subsidized health insurance by cutting hours to less than 30 a week.

The problem Obama claims to be solving is largely that of his own making – and this top-down change will have significant consequences as well. The White House argues that it will either force employers to pay overtime or to hire more workers to perform the work. Forcing a change of any significance through regulation now, with job creation at stagnation levels, will not inspire confidence in the necessary expanded investment to boost hiring and then compensation.

Can Obama do this on his own? Yes, within the parameters of regulatory changes at Labor, and the White House has already said it will respect that process. Should he? Republicans and the business community will have trouble defending the current definition, but this ignores the real problems of the economy – and may well aggravate them, especially if the redefinition is as sharp as Bernstein wants. It’s recutting a shrinking pie rather than figuring out how to make it larger, and it’s bound to fail in every way except perhaps politically — and even that win will be minor and short-lived.

Update: I rewrote the explanation of the current definition in order to make it more clear.

Tags: Barack Obama, business, Department of Labor, executive authority, overtime, small business

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UAWaskstheNLRBtoinvestigate“interferenceby

UAW asks the NLRB to investigate “interference by politicians and outside special interest groups”

posted at 4:41 pm on February 21, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Last Friday, the United Auto Workers’ push to finally gain a foothold with a foreign-owned assembly plant in the South went devastatingly awry when the Volkswagon workers at the intended Chattanooga plant voted against joining the ranks of Big Labor. I’ll refer you to Jazz’s thorough rundown for more on that dramatic turn of events, but you know the UAW was never going to graciously bow out of this one. The union has been steadily declining in membership and influence — UAW workers assembled 5.91 million of the 10.9 million cars and trucks made in the U.S. in 2013, down from 10.8 million of the 12.6 million in 1999, according to Bloomberg — and they saw this as their big chance to start reinvigorating their dominion in the changing auto market.

Ergo, via Reuters:

The United Auto Workers filed an appeal with the U.S. government on Friday, asking it to set aside the results of an election last week where workers at a Tennessee Volkswagen plant voted not to join the union.

Citing what it called “interference by politicians and outside special interest groups,” the union said the U.S. National Labor Relations Board would investigate the election and decide if there are grounds to scrap it and hold a new one.

Labor lawyers and academics said last week it would be difficult for the union to make a case for setting aside the election. They said labor law does not limit what can be said in a union election campaign by politicians, as long as they are stating their own views and not doing the bidding of management.

They do say denial is the first stage of grieving. Over to George Will:

Sixty years ago, some 35 percent of the U.S. workforce was unionized, almost entirely in the private sector. Today, 11.3 percent is unionized . About half (49.6 percent) of this minority are government workers whose union dues do much to elect their employers. UAW membership has plummeted as far and fast as Detroit has — from 1.5 million in 1979 to about 380,000 in 2012. In 2011, UAW President Bob King said, “If we don’t organize these transnationals, I don’t think there’s a long-term future for the UAW.” …

It is commonly, and carelessly, said that Washington bailed out “the” automobile industry. Actually, government bailed out two of the three companies in one of the two U.S. auto industries — the UAW-organized one. The other industry, located in the South and elsewhere — Americans making 30 percent of the vehicles Americans purchase — did not need rescuing because it does not have a UAW presence, which helped ruin General Motors, Chrysler and their headquarters city, Detroit.

Tags: Big Labor, business, Tennessee, unions, United Auto Workers

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Source from: hotair

Thefederalgovernmentisfinallytryingtodigitize.

The federal government is finally trying to digitize. The paper lobby doth protest.

posted at 4:01 pm on February 19, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

This is just another of the many reasons why big government is such a confoundedly awful idea: Just about any industry that can manage to scrape together a lobby can find a way to get a foothold, even if that foothold comes at the expense of the federal bureaucracy finally getting it together and joining the 21st century.

The Obama administration has been making a concerted effort to improve efficiency, save resources, and cut down on costs by going digital and rejiggering its services toward online communication, forms, direct deposit, and etcetera. As you might imagine, the paper lobby — or perhaps you didn’t imagine it, because who even knew there was such a thing? — is not a fan of this initiative from one of its biggest single customers. The inaptly named Consumers for Paper Options (inaptly, because it is comprised not of consumers but rather a creation of the paper industry itself) is is working Congress in closed-door meetings, underwriting research favorable to its position, and putting together a media campaign in an effort to preserve Washington, D.C. as the capital of paper, the Washington Post reports:

The group — which bills itself as “a coalition of individuals and organizations advocating for access to paper-based services and information” — was set up by the Envelope Manufacturers Association (EMA), officials from both organizations said. It receives financial backing from the paper industry’s largest trade group, several of North America’s biggest paper manufacturers and EMA, according to documents and interviews with company and trade association officials. The EMA and other paper companies are also pushing for Congress to pass legislation to help stabilize the Postal Service.

Consumers for Paper Options is led by a veteran advocate for the industry’s interests on Capitol Hill. His previous posts include head of federal government relations for International Paper, the largest pulp and paper company in the world, and treasurer of its PAC. …

At Treasury, which last year suspended most paper mailings for all but the very aged and those with “mental impairments,” officials estimate the shift will save $1 billion over 10 years. The move by the Social Security Administration in 2011 to stop mailing paper earnings statements to 150 million Americans is saving $72 million a year. …

For the paper industry, the stakes are high. The digital age has ravaged sales of envelopes, office paper, catalogues and pulp products, with industry analysts saying that demand for paper products dropped 5 percent on average in each of the past five years. Mills have closed, and thousands of employees have been laid off.

The paper lobby’s best and biggest argument in this facepalm-worthy fight against creative destruction is that up to a quarter of Americans are still without home Internet access, and that the federal government should probably accomodate some paper options while the full population catches up so as not to “disenfranchise” the elderly or the poor — but come on, now. Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that the paper lobby is some kind of social-justice martyr that won’t do anything and everything humanly possible to lobby for the preservation of paper-heavy processes wherever it can, with whatever excuses it can think up, to keep themselves viable at the expense of overall economy and national budget.

Tags: bureaucracy, business, Congress, federal government, lobbyists, Obama administration

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Source from: hotair

BusinessactivityshrinksinSocialistFrance;stillwaiting

Business activity shrinks in Socialist France; still waiting on Hollande to make moves

posted at 7:11 pm on January 24, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

While the rest of the eurozone was off to an at least relatively decent start in terms of business activity throughout the first few weeks of 2014, the bloc’s second-largest economy is still very much down in the mouth — but hey, the rate at which their business activity has lately been shrinking did slow down ever so slightly, so that’s… something, I suppose.

French business activity shrank again in January, albeit at a slower pace than expected, a monthly survey showed on Thursday, adding to government pressure to revive the struggling corporate sector.

With business recovering in much of Europe, the French corporate sector’s weak performance increasingly stands out…

Data compiler Markit said its composite purchasing managers’ index rose in January to a three-month high of 48.5 from 47.3 in December. It remained below the 50-point threshold separating expansions in activity from contractions.

“Companies are worried about the outlook,” Markit chief economist Chris Williamson said.

“They’re worried about the political situation, about the lack of proper reforms and just how the French government is going to bring about a recovery in the economy,” he added.

Oof. There were a few semi-positive indicators in the mix, but the gist is still one of stagnation — the only good news there being that France’s continued lethargy could maybe help to encourage along some of the necessary political teeth to Socialist President Francois Hollande’s recent white-flag-waving overture to more business-friendly policies by promising to bring down government spending a big notch in exchange for lower taxes on labor. The details on that plan, however, are still pretty thin, and a final policy change is still going to depend on negotiations with politicians, labor unions, and business leaders. To help propel France’s business confidence, there was some hope that Moody’s might relent on Friday in their Aa1 credit rating and negative outlook for the country, but nothing doing there, via Bloomberg:

France’s Aa1 credit rating was affirmed by Moody’s Investors Service, which maintained a negative outlook based on the continued reduction in the competitiveness of the nation’s economy.

The decline risks triggering a further deterioration in France’s government financial strength and the nation’s long-term growth prospects, Moody’s said in a statement today. The debt-to-GDP ratio has risen to 93.6 percent in 2013 from 90.2 percent in 2012, and Moody’s expects a further increase to above 95 percent by the end of 2014.

Tags: business, competition, economy, France, Francois Hollande, labor, socialism, taxes

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Source from: hotair