Monthly Archives: January 2014

College for Everyone?

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Maybe not.  I’ve written about the question of college for everyone elsewhere.

A report on a different subject, The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America, posted at Knot Yet, has this in its “Conclusions and Implications:”

2 – How do we improve the job prospects for young adults who will not get a college degree but are willing and able to receive vocational training?
Surely improving the economy overall will help young adults without college degrees, as a rising tide lifts many boats, but how can these young adults be better prepared to enter the labor market even when the economy isn’t booming?  Even during recessions, there are decent jobs that go unfilled due to a lack of qualified applicants.  How can education and industry leaders work together more closely to target high-demand occupations that pay good salaries and formalize pathways into jobs in these sectors?  Countries like Austria, Germany, and the United Kingdom are achieving good success with vocational training, apprenticeship programs and placements for their young adults in industries as varied as nursing, information technology, and advanced manufacturing.  There certainly seems to be untapped potential for the United States to follow in their footsteps….

The Urban Institute‘s report, “Expanding Apprenticeship: A Way to Enhance Skills and Careers,” identified in a footnote to the above quote, points out that apprenticing—a natural extension of VoTech training (and given the modern responsibilities of office occupations—these aren’t your grandmother’s secretarial jobs—to Office Occupations training, also)—offers significant economic benefits to non-college graduate graduates (using middle-skill jobs as the baseline):

Looking at earnings impacts during the first 2.5 years after exiting [an apprenticeship] program, [Kevin Hollenbeck] estimated that the net social benefits to apprenticeship were about $50,000 per apprentice, far more than minimal gains accruing to community college students and WIA trainees.  In other words, it takes little time for a significant payoff to apprenticeship training to accrue to the worker and society at large.  On a lifetime basis, Hollenbeck projects the present value of earnings gains less costs at $269,000 per apprentice, compared to $96,000-$123,000 per community college attendee, and about $40,000 per WIA trainee.

We need to bring the VoTech and OO programs—updated to today’s technologies and business needs—back into our high schools, including public, private, parochial, charter, and make all of these programs voucher-accessible to the extent the programs are not already.

The UI report is well worth reading in its entirety, as is the Knot Yet report for its separate, main subject.

Income Inequality

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According to a recent Fox News poll, most Americans don’t agree with President Barack Obama’s emphasis on income inequality, nor are we as dumb as Obama makes us out to be on the matter.

Obama’s latest squirrel is income inequality.  However,

  • all of 21% of voters with annual household incomes below $30,000 think the government should do something about it
  • 12% of those with incomes $100,000 or more feel that way.

What’s up with that?  It turns out that most Americans understand that economics in a free market isn’t a zero-sum game.

  • 84% of voters understand that if someone makes a lot of money, it does not mean someone else has to make less

It’s income agnostic, too:

  • 83% of voters with incomes below $50,000 say that
  • 84% of those with incomes $50,000 or more say that

Most Americans also understand that “spreading the wealth around” isn’t the path to prosperity.

  • 55% of voters think giving unemployment benefits to people who have been out of work for a long time discourages them from looking for a job.

Again, it’s income agnostic:

  • More voters than not in both higher and lower income groups say the benefits keep people from trying to find work.

More Obamacare Dishonesty

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It’s gotten so blatant that now they’re not even trying to disguise it.

What the Obama administration said publicly:

Per John Goodman:

Week after week, month after month, the Obama administration kept telling us everything’s working fine, there’s no problem and then they turn on a dime and fire their contractor.

President Barack Obama himself, through his Press Secretary, Jay Carney:

I didn’t see the article [containing statements to CGI’s replacement contractor on the ObamaMart re-do] I’m not aware of those statements[.]

What HHS said in its no-bid (!) contract request to Accenture, who’s replacing CGI on the ObamaMart Web development/fix:

the problems with the website puts “the entire health insurance industry at risk”…potentially leading to their default and disrupting continued services and coverage to consumers.

And

without the fixes “the entire health care reform program is jeopardized.”

And

if the problems were not fixed by mid-March, “they will result in financial harm to the government.”

Actually, not so much the government, beyond the precious egos of the current Senate and White House occupants, rather the financial harm is to those funding the government—us taxpayers—in the form of wasted taxes, higher health coverage costs, less access to the medical facilities of our choice, etc.

Among those fatal flaws is that ObamaMart’s back end—the part that’s supposed to transmit enrollment data, subsidy eligibility and amount, and so on to the insurer—hasn’t been built.  Not after almost four years since Obamacare was enacted, not nearly four months after the ObamaMart Web site was forced live and the failures of the site and of the law made manifest.

But the Obama administration continues to insist, publicly, that everything’s jake.

Obama’s Obamacare Tax Increases

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Here are many of the ones that start this year.  As does President Barack Obama’s war on marriage, using his IRS to prosecute it.

  • top marginal tax rate rose to 39.6% for those at higher incomes
    • $400,000 for single filers
    • $450,000 for married couples filing jointly
    • $425,000 for heads of household
  • itemized deductions and personal exemptions phase out as income increases
    • beginning at $300,000 for married couples filing jointly
    • $250,000 for singles
  • higher capital gains taxes—up to 20% for some taxpayers
  • additional 0.9% Medicare tax
    • on earnings over $250,000 for married couples filing jointly
    • $200,000 for singles and heads of household
  • 3.8% tax on investment income
    • on earnings over $250,000 for married couples filing jointly
    • $200,000 for singles and heads of household

Notice that marriage penalty.

It’s Time

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…I think, to end the monopoly that is the United States Post Office.  The Constitution does not support this monopoly, saying only that one of the powers of Congress is To establish Post Offices and Post Roads.  Congress can do this just fine by fostering competition and getting out of the way of the private sector handling all of our mail delivery.

The trigger for this is the USPS’ union mendacious claims concerning USPS’ new partnership with Staples to open mini-post offices in Staples stores

…staffed by Staples employees, not postal workers

The American Postal Workers Union objects; the move “replaces good-paying union jobs with low-wage, nonunion workers.”

Don’t worry about what’s good for the customer; worry only about what’s good for the union.  Meanwhile, the price of a first class stamp keeps rising steadily.

In the end, nearly the only thing left to de-monopolize is first class mail delivery; the private sector competes quite effectively in all other classes of mail.  Package delivery, for instance, in direct competition with the USPS is faster and cheaper.  The only place where the private sector declines to compete (as opposed to being barred from competing) is in bulk junk mail delivery.  I still get my Tuesday and Wednesday rations of that like clockwork.  And I won’t miss it in the slightest.  I suspect my city’s recycling center won’t miss the clutter, also.