U Not Gonna Like This

From the comments section of Outcast Superstar's blog from and entery entitled Hookers Are For Loosers (link):

Duane said...

Prostitution and divorce are the same. It's men paying women to get lost. I have more respect for prostitutes because they are honest about who they are.

Most other women get married with the intention of filing for divorce someday. Cashing out. They are worse than prostitutes and those crooks will call you a loser for having a hooker because they don't like the competition.

Tom Leykis did an hour on that called Paid To Get Lost. 08.05.08

Outcast Superstar said...

hi duane

After listening to the clip, it makes very greatful that I'm not in any relationships. There is no doubt escorts and bachelor vacations are the way to go if one can't manage their sex drive.

August 11, 2008 11:33 PM

Anonymous said...

Hookers are for winners. The closer you get to a woman, the more time you spend with her, the more it will cost you. Spend your money on yourself instead and have lots of women. And whatever you do, don't get married and risk losing half your capital (or more) and paying years of alimony.

Overseas, hookers are cheaper and better. In Thailand, for example, you can barfine a go-go dancer or hostess (basically paying the bar or club to take her out of the place and compensating them for losing her; doesn't guarantee she'll have sex with you but she typically will). You never have to mention money to the girl. Have sex with her, spend the night with her, have sex again, take her to breakfast, even spend the day with her, and before she leaves put some money in her purse (the going rate, plus tip, plus taxi fare will make her very happy - 2000 baht to 3000 baht in Bangkok, depending where you got her, plus, say, 500 baht tip, plus 100 baht for taxi; Pattaya would be cheaper; of course it's OK to discuss what she wants in advance, just to make sure your clear on it - up to you).

The girls can be incredibly sweet. When she's sleeping with you she'll probably snuggle up, and she may have had fewer sexual partners than the average AW especially if she's new to the bar or club scene. And even if she's been around for awhile, and has lots of experience, she'll still make a better girlfriend for however long you want her than most AWs.

Enjoy!

Curiepoint said...

Hookers and Lookers
And nookie that stings,
These are few
Of my favorite things.

August 13, 2008 11:19 AM

phoenix said...

In womenspeak, "loser" means someone a woman can't manipulate and control to get what she wants.

August 13, 2008 12:59 PM

More from the Upstream web site (link):

Nicholas Davidson

National Review, Feb 5, 1988 v40 n2 p51(2)



FEMINISM is the gender ideology of our society. For confirmation of this, one has only to consider Robert Bork hastily backtracking on "women's rights" or Ronald Reagan making sure his first Supreme Court appointment went to a woman. While dozens of feminist books appear each month, works critical of feminism have been as rare as hens' teeth. Into this situation steps philosopher Michael Levin with Feminism and Freedom, a work that challenges our gender orthodoxy at every level.



Critical to the current orthodoxy is the notion that "the sexes are in everything inherently alike." Levin shows that, in reality, there has never been a sexually egalitarian or matriarchal society anywhere; reports of such are myths, constructed on the basis of pathetically weak evidence. Patriarchy is the natural and universal condition of human society, and rests on immutable biological differences between mates and females.



Sex differences in the human brain have been extensively studied. These range from receptor points in male brains for the hormones implicated in aggression and dominance behavior, to the discovery that there are major differences between men and women in the structure of such critical brain areas as the hypothalamus, the amygdala, and the corpus callosum.



Conclusive confirmation of the behavioral results of such differences comes from studies of girls who, through rare genetic anomalies, have been exposed to male testosterone levels in the womb. These girls dominate groups of females to which they belong, fantasize about careers rather than marriage and motherhood, and reject doll play in favor of boys' games like baseball and football.



Because feminism's unisexist ideology is incompatible with human nature, society will never conform to the feminist ideal of its own accord. Feminists are obliged to mobilize the coercive machinery of the state in pursuit of their goals. It is the unique virtue of Levin's book to document the degree of mobilization that has been reached.



"Affirmative action" is now ubiquitous in American life. Under the federal gun, corporations, universities, and state and local governments devote enormous amounts of time and money to identifying and selectively promoting lessqualified females at the expense of better-qualified males. Levin calculates the resulting net loss in the productivity of American business, which ma reacb as high as 36 per cent. (Needless to say, the Japanese have no such problem.) That reverse discrimination can on balance benefit women is illusory: when you penalize a man, you also penalize his wife and children. "Affirmative action" is thus best conceived not as an aid to women but as an assault on the traditional family.



That the traditional family is being reduced to an alternative lifestyle is clearly seen in today's school textbooks. In typical texts, the girls are competent and aggressive, while the boys are timid and passive. Motherhood is never depicted as a desirable occupation for women. Indeed, things have reached the point where everything is much as it was, "except that the boys are given girls' names and long hair while the girls are given boys' names and short hair."



Government at all levels heavily promotes the once-radical feminist agenda. Thus, the Iowa Code, Section 257.25, paragraph 1, requires that "a multicultural, nonsexist approach [be) used by school districts." Evaluation is mandated o"each pupil's progress" in learning that the English language exhibits "sexism and cultural, racial bias." Not to be outdone, the Federal Government disburses millions of dollars to feminist organizations through such departments as the Women's Educational Equity Act Program (WEEAP). WEEAP also publishes books such as Teacher Skill Guide for Combating Sexism and Physical Educators for Equity.



Under threat of losing the federal funding to which they have become completely addicted, all American universities maintain affirmative-action offices. Such offices are typically headed by a full-time faculty member who is relieved of all teaching duties in order to combat "sex discrimination." Universities have been obliged to give tenure to feminist faculty under court order or the threat of it. James Dinnan, a University of Georgia professor who refused to disclose his vote in one contested tenure decision, was sentenced to ninety days for contempt of court; the Supreme Court refused to hear his case.



Most campuses now feature so-called "Women's Studies" departments, which proselytize Lesbianism and replace classroom standards with, in the words of one of their advocates, "credit for social-change activities or for life experiences, contracts for self-grading, diaries and journals, even meditation and ritual." "Sexual harassment" laws are becoming a reality in universities and corporations. Under these laws, a man who asks a woman for a date might be committing a civil-rights offense.



The sheer insanity of the feminist program-and the extent to which it is now established as a social norm -is most glaringly apparent in the military. In 1970, the U.S. military was slightly over I per cent female; today it is over 10 per cent female. (By contrast, the Soviet forces are 0.2 per cent female.) Because women are too weak physically to cope with the ordinary tasks of soldiering, standards of training have been lowered. Only 3 per cent of female soldiers are strong enough to accomplish the routine heavy tasks, like carrying ammunition boxes, that are essential in combat. At any given moment, 10 per cent of military women are pregnant, and a comparable number are nursing infants. In a modern war, with its lack of a front line, any soldier is likely to be called upon to fight. American men are evidently content to let young women with babies fight on their behalf



Viewed as a whole, Feminism and Freedom demonstrates that feminism is no longer a threat, but a fact-indeed, perhaps the central fact of American life today. This essential book provides a unique panorama of Feminist America and a closely argued critique of an ideology that currently compels even its most determined opponents to pay lip service to its tenets. It is time to start refusing to do so, and Feminism and Freedom shows us how.

(End of article)

This column from the archives of Men's News Daily (link):

February 20, 2002 by Louis Chandler, Ph.D.



American Feminists, abetted by a fawning media, and emboldened by cowed and spineless politicians, have managed to cobble together a new male image: a feminized male, safe, de-sexualized, and emasculated - a eunuch of the Alan Alda variety. Camille Paglia said it well: "American feminists fear and despise the masculine. The academic feminists think their nerdy book-worm husbands are the ideal model of human manhood."



The picture of what some consider as an appropriate sexual identity for the modern male is becoming clear. He is "sensitive," a sissy who happily joins the growing legion of victims, whiners, and complainers. Tom Purcell has aptly called him: "the pathetic male." But if the pathetic male is the embodiment of modern, politically correct thinking, what are those traditional male values that such women seemingly despise?




A list might arguably include: virility, vigor, potency, masculine pride, assertiveness, rugged individualism, stoicism, a sense of duty, personal integrity, honor and responsibility, and a striving for achievement. Many of these are qualities that feminists both despise (in males) and paradoxically admire when adopted by females. Thus the feminists' hysterical shriek to curb male aggression is placed beside the image of the heroine of the modern Hollywood action film: a karate-chopping, kick-boxing female who, after making mince meat of a gang of tough guys, sends them fleeing in terror.



As has long been the case, it is in the movies of Hollywood that we find the embodiment of our modern myths, of the ideal -- for men, and for women. With a few remarkable exceptions, like Mel Gibson's The Patriot, Hollywood has embraced the perverted, politically correct view of men. But it was the Hollywood of a different era who gave us some of our finest examples of the masculine ideal.



It was in 1952, in the golden age of the western, that High Noon was released: a classic western, and so much more. As a story, it is about a quiet hero who must overcome his fears to stand alone squarely facing a gang of killers. As a morality play, it is the classic fight of good versus evil. As a film, it is stark, spare, and elemental.



Marshall Will Kane (Gary Copper) his gaunt face set in lines of stoic resolve, grimly walks the streets of his frontier town, trying to enlist the townspeople in the coming fight. But one by one, they abandon him until, in the end, he is left alone to face the man who has vowed to kill him.



The townspeople keep urging the Marshall to gather up his new bride and run away before the killer arrives on the noon train. But he knows he can't do that. He has to stay and see it through. For him, there is no choice. The showdown is taut, suspenseful, and masterfully done.



You're not too likely to run into many "Will Kanes," in this, or any other, age. But he remains an icon - a reminder of what every American boy might grow up to be.

(End of article)

Published in Ideas on Liberty - February 1990
by William J. Ellenberger

Economically our country, and much of the world, is in better condition than at any time since World War II. We have not had anything comparable to the Great Depression in half a century and have avoided a repetition of World War II for more than four decades. Econometric data show the cyclic nature of business, but it is flourishing at present. Despite this good overall picture, we have a problem that is perhaps best expressed by Leonard Read's acronym LOOT: living off others thoughtlessly. We have a massive transfer economy imposed by government whereby money is taken from groups of people (generally taxpayers) and given to other groups. Let us follow not 0nly the Golden Rule but also the Freedom Rule: Do not force others to do for you what you would not wish others to force you to do for them. Living by these rules would improve ourselves, our community, and our country.




William J. Ellenberger,


Washington, D.C.

The Soviet Future



Marxism is wrong for a variety of reasons, but most importantly because Marx never appreciated the role individuality has in human life. He was a thoroughgoing collectivist who said, "The human essence is the true collectivity of man." This is dead wrong. Man is by nature both human and an individual, a self-developing, choosing, diverse creature. This is not part of the Marxist-Leninist ideology. And since it is not, Soviet leaders make no plans for this in their conception of the future. They think you can have a little taste of freedom, for practical purposes, and then return to totalitarianism. But that will not work.



Tibor R. Machan,


Auburn University

On Discrimination



American law has ruled that minorities and women are what they always were in the eyes of God equal, as to basic human rights but common sense tells us that every person is different as to talents, qualifications, character, etc. It is ludicrous for civil rights activists to expect applicants to be hired because of their race or gender alone. As a woman, I have no desire to simply satisfy a quota on someone's spreadsheet, but rather to fill a position because I happen to be best suited for the job. If in the workplace I am an equal, then I should be prepared to be judged according to the same standards as all other applicants and hired because of my qualifications, not in spite of them. This same line of thought would hold for racial minorities as well. Being a woman, or black, or Asian, or WASP male, for that matter, should not make or break a prospective employee.

Ellen Gillette,


Fort Pierce, Florida

Projections Without Prices Don't Come True



Projections based on if present trends continue are usually wrong. Such projections depend on baseline data that are often drawn from too short a period. Baseline data on racquetball court construction in the early 1980s, for example, would predict that the entire earth would be covered with racquetball courts by the year 2010. And nature is even less linear. Height projections, for example, based on a baby's growth rate up to age two, would predict teenagers 20 feet tall.



Projecting U.S. forest depletion based on logging rates in the late 1800s would predict that the last tree would have fallen years ago. But projections based on logging and growth rates in the late 1900s would predict that forests would cover every square inch of America in the next century.



Projections of future resource scarcity go off the mark when they fail to include: 1) the effects of future prices on the supply of and demand for that resource, and 2) the effects of new technology developed in response to higher prices to find, conserve, recycle, or discover substitutes for that resource.



The difficulty of accurately forecasting future resource scarcity is not new. According to economists Charles Maurice and Charles W. Smithson, Forecasts of doom and gloom have existed for as long as civilization has existed. The important fact is, however, that all of these forecasts of doom have been wrong. No civilization has collapsed due to the depletion of a resource.



Instead, freely functioning markets with people acting in their own self-interest have eliminated the shortages. (The Doomsday Myth, Hoover Institution Press, 1984)

Gregory F. Rehmke,


writing in the April 1989 issue of Econ Update.

The Essence of the Market




After several decades of uninterrupted government programs in Bolivia, we are forced by events to recognize that this state of affairs must be halted. Another policy must be adopted to permit economic freedom and private initiative to develop fully and to be transformed into the engines of social and economic development. Private enterprise in our country has developed under a system of economic restriction in which government intervention distorts the economy and limits the freedom of the market.


In those countries where the free market has flourished, everyone the entrepreneur, the professional, the worker, the butcher, the baker, the plumber, the policeman, the bureaucrat eats well and dresses well. They can count on having essential services, travel by various means, participate in world events through the communication media. And finally they have access to all those benefits which make their and their family's lives more comfortable.



The essence of the free market system is freedom, freedom to imagine, to think, to discover, to produce, to buy and sell, to own property, to be, and to believe. This freedom is the basis of the system of justice which permits every individual to attain what he wants, to pursue his goals, and to gain by his own efforts. Under this system neither total nor interventionist government is called for; all that is needed is for the legal body to see that the rights and obligations of each individual are respected. Under this system acting individuals may efficiently carry out the basic market function, that is to cope with scarcity and transform it into abundance. This is why the free market is necessary if our country is to be strengthened.



from an editorial in Mundo Empresario,


Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Translated


by Bettina Bien Greaves.

(End of artilce)

Again from Ideas on Liberty archives comes this article (link):



Published in Ideas on Liberty - December 1992
by Tibor R. Machan

The famous Biblical statement about money is not about money but about loving it. It is the love of money that is the root of all evil, not money itself. And that is cruciallove is to be reserved for God, family, and friends in short, for those who are one's personal intimates, not for anything else. No wonder, then, that if one gets confused and actually loves money or golf or deep sea fishing, thus seriously mistaking one's priorities, it leads one astray and ought to be resisted. But there is nothing actually wrong with money any more than with golf or deep sea fishing.

Tibor R. Machan

On Need

In a market economy, consumers get what they want. If you're selling what people want, you will survive; if you're not, you won't. There are no hearings, no votes, no lobbying, no log-rolling, no protesting competitors, no grandstanding by morally superior do-gooders, and no judges.

Determining need by a political administrative process is flatly impossible. Information about need exists only in the minds of potential customers faced with future conditions and alternatives that are unknowable to them. There is no way that future needs can be determined by anyone, even less by a committee that is tugged to and fro by lawyers and others intent on mischief.

The only way to find need is to have an entrepreneur take a chance on his own nickel and see what happens in the market.

John Wenders

A Self-Made Nation

Businessmen, self-made men, and entrepreneurs are vilified in film, fiction, and television. From Sinclair Lewis Babbitt to the Dallas TV soap opera, and the movie Roger and Me about General Motors, businessmen are portrayed as villains and also as graceless, unlettered boors, the true ugly Americans. Why, when we are a nation of self-made men?

Some businessman, some risk taker, had to take a chance on the first railroad, automobile factory, and radio station. On a more prosaic level, someone had to believe in the plastic garden hose, and the stick-on towel rack. More often than not these were individuals who scraped together every nickel they could get their hands on and went to work. Why is there such animosity toward those who are the glue that helps to hold the whole nation to gether?

IBM founder Thomas Watson started as a sewing machine salesman. He was far from rich, but he had something to offer. Robert Gross borrowed $17,000 at the height of the Great Depression to buy the nameplate which was about all that still existed of the Lockheed Aeroplane Company. One of his engineers, Jack Northrop, later struck out on his own, with borrowed money, to start his own company. And so it went with thousands of others who looked into the future, took enormous risks, and in time became successful.

We are a nation of self-made men. And self-made men have made us a self-made nation. They enable us to exist. They are the reason we are unique. To deny this is to deny the color of the grass or the inevitability of the seasons. If there is a moral, it is that we shouldn't be so harsh in our appraisal of the self-made man, the businessman.

Donald G. Smith

Poverty

Poverty has been the natural condition of the world from time immemorial. It remains the condition for the majority of the world's population today. But there is a significant difference. It is no longer the natural condition. Today, each country determines for itself whether it will be rich or poor. Its political policies, past and present, determine its economic status.

One common belief is that countries are poor because they lack capital. But as Lord Bauer has emphasized, if all the conditions for development except capital are present, capital will soon be generated locally or be imported from abroad.

in brief, a necessary, although not sufficient condition for economic development is the establishment of an enabling environment, essentially a classical liberal government which maintains order and protects property but does not interfere in the economic realm.

David Osterfeld

Science and the State

As applied, for example, to science, [central] planning means the attempt to replace the aims which science sets itself by aims set to science by the government in the interest of public welfare. It makes the government responsible for the ultimate acceptance or rejection by the public of any particular claims of science and for granting or withdrawing protection to particular scientific pursuits in accordance with social welfare. The proper aims of science being denied justification and even reality, the scientist still pursuing them is naturally held guilty of a selfish desire for his own amusement. It will be logical and proper for the politician to intervene in scientific matters, claiming to be the guardian of higher interests wrongly neglected by scientists. It will be sufficient for a crank to commend himself to a politician in order to increase considerably his chances of recognition as a scientist. In fields where scientific criteria allow wide latitude of judgment (e.g., medicine, agricultural science, or psychology) the crank who can enlist political support will find easy openings for establishing himself in a scientific position. Thus corruption or outright servitude will weaken and narrow down the true practice of science; will distort its rectitude and whittle down its freedom. And it will similarly distort and whittle down all rectitude and freedom in every field of cultural and political activity.

Michael Polanyi
Science, Faith and Society

(End of article)

More from the Ideas On Liberty section of the Foundation for Economic Education by way of the Internet Archives (link):

Published in The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - December 1992
by K. L. Billingsley


Author and screenwriter K. L. Billingsley writes about California for the Spectator.


The current worldwide recession has hurt business and labor but does not appear to have caused any hardship in America's federal bureaucracy. Alert regulators were recently patrolling the town of Reedley in California's San Joaquin Valley, a rich source of fruits and vegetables for the entire United States. But there was trouble.



It wasn't that the fruit was rotten or contaminated. The problem was size. It seems that the federal government cares so much about the health of consumers that they have established minimum size regulations for peaches and nectarines. Bigger is better. In Reedley, some growers peaches and nectarines were slightly smaller than federal standards.



Farmers are calm, practical people. The size of the fruit they produce is a matter largely out of their hands. California has been in the throes of a drought for several years. The Reedley growers doubtless wondered whether squads of regulators running around measuring peaches and nectarines constituted a wise use of their tax money, especially during a recession.



In spite of massive federal subsidies, some farmers still understand the way the free market works. Two parties agree on a price and make an unco-erced exchange from which both believe they will benefit. This is the way free, responsible people act when left to themselves.



One farmer wanted to sell his crop to low-income consumers in Los Angeles, where recent riots have inflicted additional economic hardships. If the price is right, people in that market are not likely to be concerned if the product is on the small side. Fruit spoils quickly and the growers may well have ended up giving the stuff away. There would have been many takers.



But the federal food police blocked this free exchange. Cheap or free, the fruit did not meet federal size standards. That meant that nobody could have it at any price. People could not be allowed to make their own decisions in the matter.



Federal regulators ordered millions of pounds of perfectly good food to be dumped on a dirt road where it was left to rot in the sun. One could hardly ask for a more vivid parable of arrogance, stupidity, and waste.



All any bureaucracy can do is follow the rules. It matters not if the rules are destructive to the health, freedom, and property of citizens. The regulators must follow orders. They are just doing their job. That is all they can do.



Here is callous disregard for human welfare and common sense (remember waste not, want not?), neither of which impinge on the bureaucratic regime. This episode should be brought up in all discussions about how much the government "cares."



And does the fruit episode amount to a taking of private property by the state without due compensation? Local judges and civil liberties groups appear uninterested in the question. The incident also confirms that bureaucracies are indeed intrusive. Are there not legitimate problems for federal workers beyond the size of peaches and nectarines? Or is the quest of the regulators, as many fear, to justify their positions by finding new ways to complicate life?



Such intrusions are many, and are a major reason that the state can't do what it is supposed to do "protect life, liberty, and property." The Los Angeles riots showed the state's inability to protect innocent civilians from random violence. But citizens can sleep tight knowing that the state's ability to order the destruction of perfectly good food remains secure.



The newly liberated nations of Eastern Europe appear determined not to repeat errors of their own recent past, in which statist dogma quashed private initiative and made life miserable. For the most part, they look to the free market for solutions. In America, on the other hand, politicians of both major parties still hail the state as a problem solver.



The federal government is the nation's largest employer and by far its largest squanderer of money. The federal deficit continues to grow and American competitiveness continues to decline. Yet no major candidate ties these problems to the ever-encroaching state.



Meanwhile, to use Whittaker Chambers illustration, the statist revolution that began in the thirties continues inching its ice cap over the nation. The Reedley farmers would probably not be surprised if, having dumped their fruit as ordered, they found themselves busted for pollution by the Environmental Protection Agency.

(End of article)

From the Internet Archives (link) an article from Foundation for Economic Education (link):

Economics and Ethics in the Public Policy of the Free Society
Published in The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - December 1992
by Alexei M. Marcoux



My economist friend stood aghast upon learning of my support for Proposition 13, the California property tax initiative recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. He argued to him that taxation, being virtually indistinguishable from theft, is morally wrong and therefore any measure circumscribing the taxing power of government even if only over a select group of citizens (in this case, property owners)is just. But, my friend intoned with a note of paternal solicitude, it's inefficient.



How could I, possessed of an undergraduate degree in economics, embrace a public policy initiative guilty of that unpardonable sin? I reasoned that, in a free society, the state exists for the purpose of protecting persons and property from invasion by others. Consistent with that role, the free state favors markets as the highly efficient- and ethicalmeans by which individuals arrange their property holdings so as to maximize their well-being. Where improvements in market efficiency demand property rights violations, however, it is market efficiency, not property rights, that must yield. My friend apparently saw it the other way.



In retrospect, it occurred to me that our brief exchange was a microcosm of the current state of public policy discourse. The economist and the ethicist speak mostly past each other. Where they deign to acknowledge one another, each insists, at best, that the other's criterion is subordinate to his own; at worst, that the other's criterion has no place in public policy. This divergence is apparent among advocates of free markets, as well. Free market economists (e.g., Milton Friedman) stress the market's efficiency while taking a seemingly agnostic position in matters of ethics. Free market philosophers (e.g., the early Robert Nozick) stress the ethical soundness inherent in the voluntary nature of market processes while minimizing the importance of efficiency.



One should not, of course, favor inefficient government policies our deficits (federal, state, and local) are large enough already. Neither, however, should one favor unethical policies on the grounds of their supposed efficiency. What, then, is the correct course when considering issues of public policy?



Efficiency and Ethics



Efficiency and ethics each have a meaningful role in the making of public policy. Moreover, a proper understanding of the nature of efficiency and ethics as evaluational criteria reveals them to be complementary. Consider:



Efficiency is a wholly comparative criterion. That is, a policy or practice is never efficient in and of itself, but only more or less efficient than the alternatives to it. An efficient policy becomes inefficient upon the discovery of a more efficient alternative. Thus, efficiency is a criterion by which alternatives are ranked.



Compare ethics. A policy or practice is ethical (or not) entirely by reference to its content; it either violates an ethical norm or it does not, and this is true irrespective of the alternatives to it. Ethics does not comprise a comparative criterion. It is nonsensical to say that two policies are ethical, but one is more ethical than the other. Rather, ethics provide a benchmark by which to categorize alternatives in a binary fashion, i.e., as ethical or unethical.



Understood in this way, efficiency and ethics need not be traded-off against each other in the making of public policy. Sound public policy is formed in accordance with a simple rule: Choose the most efficient among the ethical alternatives.



Whether ethical or efficiency determinations are made first is immaterial. One can rank all possible alternatives in terms of efficiency and then, beginning with the most efficient, eliminate alternatives until one conforming to ethical norms is found. Conversely, one can categorize all possible alternatives as ethical or unethical and then, after ranking the ethical alternatives in terms of efficiency, choose the most efficient. Either method will yield the same result.



That economics is, as Ludwig von Mises taught, wertfrei (value free) does not imply that the making of public policy (even in the economic realm) is value free. That public policy is laden with ethical considerations does not imply that economics is impotent in its formulation. Market ethics and market efficiency jointly bolster the case for a free society. Each can and should be manifest in a free society's public policy.



This raises an interesting question: When my friend called Proposition 13 inefficient, did he mean that it does not promote efficient markets or that there exist more efficient policies that achieve the same ethical objectives? I must ask him.

(End of article)

This from Outcast Superstar (link):

Here is a post made by systems1082 on the Don't Get Married Board. The Divorce Whore Stories just never stop!

A harsh lesson in reality of women came to pass this last month. A friend who I haven't heard from in over 4 months informed me of his 'cupcake' filing divorce.

She tricked him into marrying, getting pregnant (lost baby in msi-carriage), and getting a divorce.

She acted like she wanted to fix their marriage and they went on a vacation. While away from the house her family drove up from TN and cleaned out the house of everyhting (even his personal items from childhood). She then got a 'call' telling her 'operation cash out' was complete, but told him a family emergency had arrisen in TN. They both flew to TN, and at the airport, she convinced him to continue on back to NJ -- which he did.

When he arrived to the house he found the divorce papers on the floor. He tried to phone her, but the number was changed, and when he went to the ATM he found out the bank account was emptied ($27k).

He kept saying "I can't believe her family tricked he into doing this to us" I told him "SHE did this to YOU"

I'll keep the board posted on the asset redistribution!!.

The the Internet Archives (link) an article from April 1996 by the Heritage Foundation (link) on why increasing the minimum wage is not a good idea.

The Folly of Rasing the Minimum Wage

Congress once again is debating an increase in the minimum wage, this time from $4.25 an hour to $5.15. Although proponents argue that declining real wages require an increase to provide a decent living wage for low-income workers, a minimum wage hike in fact will harm unskilled Americans by destroying entry-level job opportunities.1 Further, it will do nothing to increase the income of nonworking families, while raising prices for both the poor and non-poor.



Decreeing an increase in the minimum wage does not address the underlying cause of stagnant wages: slow productivity growth. Before raising the minimum wage, Congress must ask itself a fundamental question: Should it be illegal for Americans, young or old, to work at even a part-time job for $4.50 or $5.00 an hour?



While proponents make emotionally appealing arguments for raising the minimum wage, these arguments are misleading. To be sure, increasing the minimum wage will help some low-income workers, but it will have the opposite effect for many more Americans. It is also an inefficient way to boost the income of poor households. Among the reasons:



* Increasing the minimum wage to $5.15 will harm the nonworking poor by raising prices and destroying over 200,000 entry-level job opportunities by 1999. The minimum wage is an uncompassionate tax by which some low-wage workers increase their earnings while others lose their opportunity to earn anything at all. Raising it will effectively prohibit people from working unless their skills are worth at least $5.15 per hour.



* Raising the minimum wage generally does not help low-income households. The reason? Over half of the increased income from minimum wage jobs would go to youth and spouses living in families that are well-off, rather than to poor minimum wage workers.2 Moreover, because almost half of minimum wage workers work voluntarily part time, many working only part year, 90 cents more per hour will not substantially increase their annual income but could cost them their jobs.



* Increasing the minimum wage does not help poor families because most do not have anyone working at the minimum wage.3 Of the 23.5 million Americans in poor families, just over 2 percent are working and paid $4.25 an hour.



* Hiking the minimum wage will cost consumers and workers about $2.2 billion per year as the higher cost of entry-level jobs is passed on through higher prices and lower real wages. Taxpayers will also be asked to shell out billions more for ineffective government training programs because the higher minimum wage has priced unskilled Americans out of the job market.4



Over the past 25 years, the United States has moved from a manufacturing to a global service economy, competition has increased, and more American women are working than ever before. Employers are straining under unnecessarily burdensome regulations, mandates, and taxes that have slowed productivity and limited real wage growth. But instead of addressing the impediments to wage growth imposed by government, proponents prefer to blame employers for stagnating wages and curry favor with voters by proposing another hike in the minimum wage.



Imposing another mandate that raises prices and destroys entry-level job opportunities, however, is not a compassionate or sensible response to the problem.



Instead of hiking the minimum wage, Congress and the Administration should focus on removing the barriers to productivity and wage growth that they have imposed on the private sector. Specifically, Congress and the Administration should:



* Cut payroll taxes. Studies also show that changes in legally mandated benefits are largely shifted to workers in the form of lower real wages.5 Cutting payroll taxes will directly increase take-home pay.



* Cut the capital gains tax. This will reduce investment disincentives, increase wages by raising productivity, and increase small business formation and associated job opportunities.



* Balance the budget. This will increase total domestic saving, lower interest rates, and increase investment. The growth in capital per worker is closely associated over time with the growth in labor productivity.



* Increase the skills of the future workforce. What is needed is fundamental change aimed at improving basic education through school choice and enabling local educators to strengthen core curricula, improve discipline, and set high expectations.

* Increase the skills of the current workforce. Enable employers to offer minimum wage apprenticeships that permit businesses to pay the minimum wage as a combination of cash and tax-creditable education.



* Enact significant regulatory reform. The explosion of new regulations since 1988 has raised the cost of labor and capital, creating barriers to the formation of new companies and jobs. The regulatory bureaucracy needs to be rolled back and job-killing labor regulations eliminated.



INCREASING THE MINIMUM WAGE WILL DESTROY JOB OPPORTUNITIES



The vast majority of economists accept that raising the minimum wage will mean fewer job opportunities for lower-skilled workers. Using one of the nation's leading models of the U.S. economy, Heritage economists have estimated the effect of raising the minimum wage 90 cents an hour over the next two years on entry-level job opportunities.6 According to the Heritage analysis:



* A 90 cent increase will cause employers to create over 200,000 fewer entry-level jobs each year by 1999, after which the impact declines. The rise in the minimum wage will increase the unemployment rate by at least 0.1 percentage points in 1998.



* Prices will be at least 0.2 percentage points higher through 1998 as employers pass their increased costs on to both poor and non-poor consumers.

The minimum wage hurts unskilled Americans the most. A recent study by David Neumark at Michigan State University reveals that the significant negative effects on the employment prospects of unskilled teenagers are masked by their replacement in the work force by more highly skilled teens.



* The increase in the minimum wage proposed by President Clinton would increase the number of unskilled teens who are neither in school nor at work by almost 20 percent. Moreover, there is evidence that teens may actually drop out of school earlier in response to a higher minimum wage.



FACTS ABOUT MINIMUM WAGE WORKERS MISSING FROM THE DEBATE



For the most part, the 3.7 million workers who work at or below the minimum wage can be broken down into two broad groups.



* About half are teenagers or young adults age 21 or less, and most (68.2 percent) of these young workers live in families with incomes two or more times the official poverty level for their family size.9 The average family income of a teenage minimum wage worker is around $47,000. Only 12 percent of these young workers live in poor families.



* The other half are workers ages 22 and up. More of these workers live in poor families (27 percent or 367,000 have family incomes below the poverty level) or near poverty (44 percent have family incomes less than one and one-half times the poverty level). However, even among this half of the minimum wage population, 39 percent live in families with incomes two or more times the poverty level, and the average family income of minimum wage workers ages 25 to 61 is around $25,000.



* Only 23 percent of minimum wage workers were the sole breadwinners in their families in the previous year.10 The wage and salary earnings of 56 percent of minimum wage workers account for 25 percent or less of their families' total wage and salary income.



* Only 16 percent of minimum wage workers are full-year, full-time employees. Thirty-three percent are part-year, part-time employees, and almost half (48.5 percent) are voluntary part-time workers.



* Almost 40 percent of the sole breadwinners earning the minimum wage are voluntary part-time workers, while only 18.8 percent of all minimum wage workers are family heads or spouses working full time.



It is incorrect to portray entry-level minimum wage jobs as lifetime dead-end jobs. Instead they should be recognized as opportunities for most people to establish a track record of work and a springboard to better paying jobs. More than 60 percent of all workers can point to a minimum wage job as their first job experience.13 Some 40 percent of workers starting a minimum wage job will receive their first raise within 4 months, and 63 percent of those workers will be earning 20 percent more than the minimum wage within 12 months.14 George McGovern put it best when he said, "We forget that too often a job -- any job -- is the best training for a better or more specialized job."



THE MINIMUM WAGE DESTROYS ECONOMIC FREEDOM AND INCREASES GOVERNMENT DEPENDENCE



Before raising the minimum wage, Congress must ask itself two fundamental questions: Should it be illegal for Americans, young or old, to work at even a part-time job for $4.50 or $5.00 an hour? And does the federal government have the right to destroy the economic freedom of families by telling parents that their young son or daughter may not work this summer for $4.50 an hour, or that a senior citizen may not work part-time for $5.00 an hour next year?



Proponents defend a minimum wage increase by declaring it to be a moral issue and a moral imperative -- not just an economic or political consideration. The minimum wage, however, epitomizes government paternalism at its worst. It presumes that politicians are morally justified in destroying some people's jobs in order to inflate other people's wages. The American principle of economic freedom has been replaced by the principle of "government knows best." Decreeing a higher minimum wage without mandating that every American be given a job just knocks the bottom rung off the economic ladder and denies millions their opportunity to begin pursuing the American Dream.



The state of Oregon, in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court defending its 1917 minimum wage law, revealed the actual implications of such laws: "If Simpson [a woman thrown out of work by the Oregon law] cannot be trained to yield output that does not pay the cost of her own labor, then she can... accept the status of a defective to be segregated for special treatment as a dependent of the state."



Government must share the blame for stagnant wages. Over the years, more and more mandates, higher and higher taxes, and overregulation have shackled the economy, limited productivity, and stagnated real wage growth.17 Employers do not -- indeed cannot -- unfairly keep down the wages of their lower-skilled and entry-level employees. Employers, as well as workers, operate within a competitive labor market in which wage rates broadly reflect the productivity of workers -- less the costs of government-imposed mandates and taxes associated with employing a worker. But instead of addressing the impediments to wage growth imposed by government, proponents prefer to blame employers for stagnating wages and curry favor with voters by proposing another hike in the minimum wage. Imposing another mandate that raises prices and destroys entry-level job opportunities, however, is not a compassionate or sensible response to the problem.



CONCLUSION



Raising the minimum wage appeals to the sense of decency and compassion of Americans. But it would be a mistake. Increasing the minimum wage would impose significant costs, primarily on those unskilled Americans a minimum wage hike is supposed to help. It also would raise prices for both the poor and non-poor. It would destroy entry-level job opportunities that otherwise would have been created, and although it could raise some workers' family incomes above poverty, it would do so at the cost of denying jobs to many more workers.



To raise the standard of living of minimum wage workers without imposing these costs, Congress should focus on policies that would raise worker productivity while reducing government-imposed labor costs on employers.

(End of article)