Various bits of ranting

It’s Tuesday again … my time does fly. First lets get the writing news out of the way … I was on track last Tuesday … even slightly ahead … but fell behind quickly with a bout of writers block and was about a day and a half behind going into the weekend. I made up the ground over the weekend without much incident, and even got into a few good clips at the end of Saturday I was only about 1100 words short of Sunday’s goal. Sunday hit though and I had, not so much writers block as writer’s fatigue and just couldn’t really focus on the task and only banged out about 1000 words, ending roughly 100 words short of the goal.

Then came Monday … oh work wasn’t pleasant and I ended up not leaving the office until a quarter after 1 in the morning. Luckily I did manage to get some writing done at the office once I got things running on autopilot but, given the distractions of work it wasn’t nearly enough. So I sit at 24,615 words starting day 17 who’s goal is a simple 27,421 … a mere 2,806 words away. I can see this weekend is going to be devoted to some serious writing … though I’m going to have to make sure and give myself some more serious breaks on Saturday to avoid the fatigue of last weekend (I did write over 4000 words last Saturday so as long as I don’t get too far behind I can make it up on the weekend).

Now … on to various rants.

Maryland recently passed a law requiring businesses with more than 10,000 employees to pay a minimum of 8% of its payroll on medical benefits for its employees. There is exactly 1 business in the state that fits that bill and it would be the one business that the law is aimed at … Wal-Mart.

Now I’m no big Wal-Mart fan, but the fact of the matter is that the legality of this law is questionable at best. It could be argued that the law is being passed specifically to target Wal-Mart as a corporate entity … targeting laws against (or for) a single entity is illegal. If you prefer to believe that since it would potentially apply to other companies it isn’t targeted at Wal-Mart … well … you’re naïve because no company in their right mind would grow to have 10,000 or more employees at his point.

This law would potentially cost Wal-Mart a cold ton of money in Maryland and if you add that to the fact that other (liberal) states are considering similar laws that would compound that cost to Wal-Mart exponentially.

The law is crap … it is more government regulation where it neither belongs nor helps. Wal-Mart should tip its collective hat to the Maryland legislature and close its books. Issue a statement to the press that the new law makes operating in Maryland prohibitively expensive and announce that it is closing ALL of its stores in the state. See how the citizens of Maryland like loosing 10,000+ jobs in a day. Let the state legislature explain to those 10,000+ unemployed workers how this law was for their own good and how much better the new health care they’ll get from it will be for them and their families.

This would also show other states considering the legislation that maybe it isn’t such a good idea for the workers in their state.

Some people have also suggested closing down a few stores to get the state employee count under the magic 10,000 employee number, but I just don’t think this sends a strong enough message. The fact of the matter is that these types of laws hurt the economic and labor sectors of the states. They stifle the free market economy and artificially inflate the value of labor … this in turn inflates the costs of everything … and as a result the prices of materials produced within the United States are increased making them less desirable than goods produced outside the US where labor can be obtained more cheaply. This in turn moves manufacturing jobs outside the US so that the manufacturer can compete in the market.

If this law stands then Wal-Mart will have to raise its prices in order to cover the additional expense … this will lead to higher prices and, eventually, to a call for an increase to the ever praised ‘minimum wage’ and the cycle will continue.

No one is forcing these employees to work for Wal-Mart … Wal-Mart has grown to the point that it has reached because it keeps its costs down which allows it to keep the prices low. This in turn brings more customers to their stores. It is the responsibility of the individual to make sure that they have medical benefits either because they have them from their employer, or, if their employer doesn’t offer them, that they’ve secured them for themselves. Government needs to get the hell out of the process.

Educational Monopoly

The children of the US are being cheated by a monopoly in the educational system. Monopolies are proven to destroy innovation … since there is no competition there is no need to improve … this inevitably leads to stagnation, apathy, and decline. Where the government has taken steps to try and introduce some competition into the educational system in the form of vouchers, the teachers unions and associations have fought against it … seeking to maintain their monopoly.

The liberals of this country are fond of following the socialist agenda of Western Europe but when it comes to education they apparently consider it a bad example, despite the fact that Western European students show better educational aptitude than their US counterparts.

What is this European system? It’s simple … competition. The tax money is attached to the child and so goes to the school that the child is put into. Therefore parents seek to put their children into the best performing schools … if a school isn’t competitive parents move their kids out of the school and into one that is … if this happens enough then the school goes out of business.

This system is, in essence, vouchers. The ability of the parents to funnel the taxes into the schools that are performing thus minimizing or eliminating the ‘double payment’ that currently exists for parents that care enough about their children’s education to move them into better performing schools.

Well that’s all for now … I’m sure there is still some things I want to rant about, but I can’t think of them at the moment so I’ll leave you with this for now.