So this may sound kinda crazy, but think about it. All you ever hear from politicians is what they don't stand for. You seldom hear about what they do stand for. It's all about how the other guy hasn't done this or how he did that and shouldn't have and so on and so forth. Shut up about the other guy already. Why is voting for you going to lead to better things for me? That's all I care to hear.
Contrast that with most athletes and especially coaches. Athletes seldom declare victory before a game. They rarely blame the refs or the timekeepers or anything of the sort. I mean, I know it happens, but out of all the games that go on year after year after year you only hear that kinda thing a handful of times. And even when you do, the rules are there to discourage that kind of behavior. These people pay hefty fines. Compare that with the last couple of national elections where there has been so much partisan bickering and accusing going on.
In case you missed it, Joe Biden recently announced his candidacy for President in 2008. He then proceeded to rip into the other major candidates, Clinton, Edwards, and Obama. Now if Biden was an athlete, his response instead would have gone something like these. And if you're a politician reading this, feel free to use it. I think it'll get you a lot further with the voters that the venom you normally spew.
Joe Biden, the professional athlete: Today, I'm announcing my candidacy for President in 2008.
Bill, the reporter: Senator Biden, what about Hillary Clinton? Do you think you have more of a shot than she would head to head against some of the more notable Republican candidates?
Biden: Well, there are some excellent candidates out there, Bill. I'm going to have a tough time even convincing my family and personal friends to vote for me, I think.
Reporter: Senator Biden, do you really feel Hillary Clinton is an excellent candidate? I mean, even some fellow Democrats are sounding as if they're concerned whether or not she's too polarizing a figure to have a shot with the more centrist voters.
Biden: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I've known Senator Clinton for a long time, though. I think she's got the strongest team on paper and she really plays the game the right way. If she's in the zone come election day, anything can happen. But I think I've really got a message the voters would like to hear. If we practice hard, take it one voter at a time, I think we can be in this thing at the end with a shot to win it. That's why you count the votes.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
The "Minimum" in Minimum Wage
I can't stand minimum wage laws. They're terrible policy. Anyone with even a basic level of understanding of economics knows and can explain why. Since I don't have one :), I had to read Stossel's. One of the most obvious reasons minimum wage laws are bad policy is that the cut the bottom rungs off the wage ladder. As Stossel explains:
"The law of supply and demand, which operates whether we like it or not, says that when the price of something goes up, people buy less of it. That's why environmentalists like higher gasoline taxes, and anti-smoking activists back higher cigarette taxes."
Given that explanation, when the cost of labor goes up then people (employers) buy less of it. In other words, they don't employee as many people.
As much as I like Stossel (and anyone that's read Stupid in America can attest that I do) even he misses one important point here. I believe that increasing the minimum wage will only increase the number of illegal immigrants that are hired. I know this isn't terribly intuitive so let me try to explain it with an analogy that most people are more familiar with.
Years ago the NBA considered raising the height of the basket. The thought was that there were so many really tall people playing that the 10' height had become outdated. People who were 7'+ tall had an unfair advantage over 6' people because they were so close to the 10' basket height. They did some test to see how effective raising the height of the basket would be in leveling the playing field between people that were 6' and 7' tall. In tests that were done (can anyone find one of those old tests for me to link to?) raising the height of the basket didn't level the playing field as they hoped it would. Instead, it further exaggerated the disparity. It put the 10' goal even further away from the 6' tall person and increased the advantage that the 7' person had.
So how does this basketball analogy have to do with minimum wage laws? Right now mimimum wage is $5.15. That's our 10' basketball goal. The 6' tall people are American citizens that are currently being employeed at minimum wage. The 7' tall people are illegal immigrants. Their advantage is that they can work for a cheaper rate. Surely most companies are law abiding in their hiring policies but some try to break the law and get an advantage by hiring some 7' tall people on their team. They're cheaper to employ. When the height of the basket is raised (when minimum wage is increased) then the 7' tall people (illegal immigrants) have even more of an advantage. They have more of an advantage because whereas currently it costs $5.15 to employ a US citizen versus potentially $4 for an illegal immigrant raising the minimum wage to $7.25, as the house as just voted to do, pushes that disparity from $1.15 to $3.25.
I'm not condoning companies for hiring illegal aliens. Certainly regardless of the money that can be saved it's not a justification for breaking the law. It will encourage a lot of unscrupulous companies to do just that, though. It increases their incentive the break the law. It may not be worth them risking the fines and bad publicity and everything else that goes with getting caught to save $1.15 but it's going to become worth it to more companies for $3.25. The easier it is for illegal immigrants to get a job the more that are going to be streaming across our border. That's the real low point of increasing the minimum wage.
"The law of supply and demand, which operates whether we like it or not, says that when the price of something goes up, people buy less of it. That's why environmentalists like higher gasoline taxes, and anti-smoking activists back higher cigarette taxes."
Given that explanation, when the cost of labor goes up then people (employers) buy less of it. In other words, they don't employee as many people.
As much as I like Stossel (and anyone that's read Stupid in America can attest that I do) even he misses one important point here. I believe that increasing the minimum wage will only increase the number of illegal immigrants that are hired. I know this isn't terribly intuitive so let me try to explain it with an analogy that most people are more familiar with.
Years ago the NBA considered raising the height of the basket. The thought was that there were so many really tall people playing that the 10' height had become outdated. People who were 7'+ tall had an unfair advantage over 6' people because they were so close to the 10' basket height. They did some test to see how effective raising the height of the basket would be in leveling the playing field between people that were 6' and 7' tall. In tests that were done (can anyone find one of those old tests for me to link to?) raising the height of the basket didn't level the playing field as they hoped it would. Instead, it further exaggerated the disparity. It put the 10' goal even further away from the 6' tall person and increased the advantage that the 7' person had.
So how does this basketball analogy have to do with minimum wage laws? Right now mimimum wage is $5.15. That's our 10' basketball goal. The 6' tall people are American citizens that are currently being employeed at minimum wage. The 7' tall people are illegal immigrants. Their advantage is that they can work for a cheaper rate. Surely most companies are law abiding in their hiring policies but some try to break the law and get an advantage by hiring some 7' tall people on their team. They're cheaper to employ. When the height of the basket is raised (when minimum wage is increased) then the 7' tall people (illegal immigrants) have even more of an advantage. They have more of an advantage because whereas currently it costs $5.15 to employ a US citizen versus potentially $4 for an illegal immigrant raising the minimum wage to $7.25, as the house as just voted to do, pushes that disparity from $1.15 to $3.25.
I'm not condoning companies for hiring illegal aliens. Certainly regardless of the money that can be saved it's not a justification for breaking the law. It will encourage a lot of unscrupulous companies to do just that, though. It increases their incentive the break the law. It may not be worth them risking the fines and bad publicity and everything else that goes with getting caught to save $1.15 but it's going to become worth it to more companies for $3.25. The easier it is for illegal immigrants to get a job the more that are going to be streaming across our border. That's the real low point of increasing the minimum wage.
Monday, January 08, 2007
It's a free market. It's not a government market.
I like Fox News but I don't believe everything they report is the equilivant of something being etched in stone tablets. It's just far better than the other news programs out there.
As for their personalities, it's a mixed bag. Hannity is an ignorant boob. O'Reilly is marginally better at times. I really like Neil Cavuto (Porked, anyone?)though and he shows why in this piece. There's really not much I can add. It's simply splendid. This is exactly the way I see the issue.
In case anyone is wondering, I'm also a big fan of Andrew Napolitano, Brit Hume, Shepard Smith, and Tony Snow back when he was around.
As for their personalities, it's a mixed bag. Hannity is an ignorant boob. O'Reilly is marginally better at times. I really like Neil Cavuto (Porked, anyone?)though and he shows why in this piece. There's really not much I can add. It's simply splendid. This is exactly the way I see the issue.
In case anyone is wondering, I'm also a big fan of Andrew Napolitano, Brit Hume, Shepard Smith, and Tony Snow back when he was around.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Obama Yomomma
Reports out today say that in a book Barack Obama wrote in 1995 entitled Dreams of My Father that he admitted to cocaine use. Most people that I usually line up with politically are, I'm sure, outraged. Me? I honestly don't think it's a big deal.
Let me say a couple of things before people jump to conclusions. I'm not in favor of drug use. I've never used drugs myself - never even tried them. But I don't think the fact that Obama tried cocaine when he was reportedly in his late teens or early twenties means that much. If he still used drugs or if he looked back on that time wistfully then that would be one thing. But to say, yeah, I did it, I made some mistakes, don't make the mistakes that I made - which is totally the attitude that it sounds like he has - then that just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. We've all made mistakes and having made a mistake in a previous life shouldn't necessarily make you unworthy to serve as an elected official. Especially not when it's a mistake that most other elected officials have probably also made.
Another word on Obama since he's grabbing so many headlines nowadays. I like the dude. I won't be voting for him in the Presidential election. I disagree with him on way too many issues. I genuinely like the guy, though. He seems like someone I could work with one day. The same goes for Harold Ford, Jr. I wouldn't have voted for him for Senate in TN either but what I know of him, I like the guy. We need good people in elected office, regardless of their past mistakes.
Let me say a couple of things before people jump to conclusions. I'm not in favor of drug use. I've never used drugs myself - never even tried them. But I don't think the fact that Obama tried cocaine when he was reportedly in his late teens or early twenties means that much. If he still used drugs or if he looked back on that time wistfully then that would be one thing. But to say, yeah, I did it, I made some mistakes, don't make the mistakes that I made - which is totally the attitude that it sounds like he has - then that just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. We've all made mistakes and having made a mistake in a previous life shouldn't necessarily make you unworthy to serve as an elected official. Especially not when it's a mistake that most other elected officials have probably also made.
Another word on Obama since he's grabbing so many headlines nowadays. I like the dude. I won't be voting for him in the Presidential election. I disagree with him on way too many issues. I genuinely like the guy, though. He seems like someone I could work with one day. The same goes for Harold Ford, Jr. I wouldn't have voted for him for Senate in TN either but what I know of him, I like the guy. We need good people in elected office, regardless of their past mistakes.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Partial Classes
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 introduce a concept called partial classes. Partial classes allow you to divide the code from a single logical class into multiple files. This can help alleviate the problem of file contention among developers. Visual Studio 2005 uses partial classes when you add a Windows Form to your solution. Instead of having to see all of the designer generated code within your class, this is hidden away in a partial class. The designer generated code for a file named FileName would be stored in a partial class named FileName.Designer.cs.
The only thing you have to do in code to make a class a partial class is to add the partial identifier as part of the class declaration. In C#, all files that make a class have to have the partial class designation. In VB.NET only one of the files that make up the class have to have the partial class designation.
After using partial classes for some time, one of my files was becoming rather large. I decided I'd try to add another partial class, FileName.SectionA.cs. It worked great but unfortunately it didn't appear in VS underneath the FileName.cs file the way FileName.Designer.cs did. This bugged me. After poking around for a while both within Visual Studio and on the web, I was unable to find a straightforward way to do this. I started looking at the project file itself and I noticed that FileName.Designer.cs looked something like this:
<compile include="FileName.Designer.cs">
<dependentupon>FileName.cs</dependentupon>
</compile>
The file that I had added looked something like this:
<compile include="FileName.SectionA.cs">
<subtype>Form</subtype>
</compile>
By editing the project file with Notepad I replaced the SubType node with the DependentUpon node like so:
<compile include="FileName.SectionA.cs">
<dependentupon>FileName.cs</dependentupon>
</compile>
After reloading the project... voila! I got the result I was looking for which was FileName.SectionA.cs appearing underneath FileName.cs.
The only downside to this approach I've found is that by default, if you checkout FileName.cs then all of the subsequent "child" files (such as FileName.Designer.cs and FileName.SectionA.cs) are also checked out. If your main concern is file contention then you need to consider this. If you're more interested in better organization then this is probably not an issue but I felt it was worth mentioning.
The only thing you have to do in code to make a class a partial class is to add the partial identifier as part of the class declaration. In C#, all files that make a class have to have the partial class designation. In VB.NET only one of the files that make up the class have to have the partial class designation.
After using partial classes for some time, one of my files was becoming rather large. I decided I'd try to add another partial class, FileName.SectionA.cs. It worked great but unfortunately it didn't appear in VS underneath the FileName.cs file the way FileName.Designer.cs did. This bugged me. After poking around for a while both within Visual Studio and on the web, I was unable to find a straightforward way to do this. I started looking at the project file itself and I noticed that FileName.Designer.cs looked something like this:
<compile include="FileName.Designer.cs">
<dependentupon>FileName.cs</dependentupon>
</compile>
The file that I had added looked something like this:
<compile include="FileName.SectionA.cs">
<subtype>Form</subtype>
</compile>
By editing the project file with Notepad I replaced the SubType node with the DependentUpon node like so:
<compile include="FileName.SectionA.cs">
<dependentupon>FileName.cs</dependentupon>
</compile>
After reloading the project... voila! I got the result I was looking for which was FileName.SectionA.cs appearing underneath FileName.cs.
The only downside to this approach I've found is that by default, if you checkout FileName.cs then all of the subsequent "child" files (such as FileName.Designer.cs and FileName.SectionA.cs) are also checked out. If your main concern is file contention then you need to consider this. If you're more interested in better organization then this is probably not an issue but I felt it was worth mentioning.
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