The B’ham Times wrote an article glorified press release about payday loans in Alabama based on this study by the Center for Responsible Lending.

From the article:

Alabama residents last year paid $225 million in extra fees for their small, short-term payday loans, the fifth highest amount in the country, according to a report released Thursday by a consumer advocacy group that opposes predatory lending practices.

…

Opponents argue such terms prey on those who can least afford them; advocates say they fulfill a legitimate need for people who need emergency cash.

Lending 101: the interest rate is a function of risk.  People who are seeking payday loans are probably the riskiest of all employed debtors.  If they don’t even have cash to pay their bills what are the odds they’ll be able to repay their loan?  The companies who put their capital at risk deserve a proportionate rate of return on their loan; otherwise they won’t lend the money.

Certainly the payday lenders use methods that reasonably savvy individuals wouldn’t tolerate.  Their favorite is to charge fees for various services associated with receiving a loan - in addition to the base interest rate.  When added up, those fees can result in a high annualized interest rate.

While their practices may be morally lacking, there is no law against honestly preying on the poor judgment of others.  If there were such a law then all of those “impulse” products at the check out lines of super markets would have to go.  As long as the companies are not defrauding their customers by not notifying them of fees and interest rates what is the problem?

By the way, the advocacy group that did the study should change its name to the Center for Responsible Borrowing since their goal seems to be to reduce the number of people who make stupid borrowing decisions.

Only in America’s government schools will you find such a story.

A New York state science teacher who taught for nine years as a man returned to Batavia High School this year dressed as a woman, and parents have been told their children can’t transfer out of class.

Certainly the man woman might be a fine and capable teacher, but that is not the point.  Some parents have their own reasons for not wanting their children in the man’s woman’s class and they are denied their parental rights.  Their reasons really aren’t important.  The point is that they should have a say in who educates their children.

According to officials, Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is defined as a disability under New York’s Human Rights Law and is protected from discrimination. School rules support the law and forbid harassment based on someone’s disability.

That is almost funny.

New York City’s Human Rights Commission is peeved that only 2% of the “upper echelon” in the city’s advertising industry is black.

Faced with the findings, nearly a dozen agencies, including those owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies and the WPP Group, have promised to set numerical goals for increasing black representation on their creative and managerial staffs and to report on their progress each year.

“Numerical goals” is a fancy euphemism for racial quotas.

Under the agreements, the agencies have agreed to submit to three years of monitoring by the city, under which the companies will report hiring, promotion and retention figures to the commission each year. If they do not meet their goals, they will hire an outside consultant to help them do so, among other measures.

At the same time the companies have agreed to set up diversity boards and to link progress on the issue to their managers’ compensation.

The commission has the authority to fine companies up to $250,000 or to sue them, but officials said that they believed the threat of pressure from agency clients like Pepsi and Citigroup was a more effective stick in bringing corporate leaders to the negotiating table.

How in the world is this constitutional?  If I’ve said this once I’ve said it a thousand times - it is in every company’s best interest to hire and promote the most qualified workers. Period.  If the resulting work force is all white, all black, 50-50, or anything else then that is just fine.  Any company that engages in discriminatory hiring practices will hire inferior talent and will eventually not be competitive with the other businesses that choose to hire the most qualified applicants.  Free market forces will produce FAIR results even though the final racial distribution may not placate race baiters on either side.

The New York Times itself would be a good source to talk to about promoting people for the sake of diversity rather than competency.  Remember Jayson Blair?  He was the big time plagiarizer at the New York Times a while back.  Blair, who happened to be black, was promoted for that very reason.  Times Executive editor Howell Raines conceded that his belief in “aggressively providing hiring and career opportunities for minorities” had probably led him to give Blair “one chance too many.”  Blair was an inferior worker who was kept on the payroll for a superficial reason and his “contribution” to his employer was less than desirable.

To point out the absurdity of the Human Rights Commission’s witch hunt against the advertising industry I checked into the racial distribution of the city’s beloved New York Giants.  Of the 53 active players on their roster only 15 are white and the remainder are black.  Put another way barely one-quarter of the team is white, while the remaining three-quarters are black.  The HRC claims that 25% of the city’s population is black, which means that they are grossly over represented on the team.  The HRC didn’t provide statistics on the percentage of whites in NYC, but I’m guessing it is more than 25%.  Will the HRC target the Giants next and demand a proportional racial mix?  Will they have to put Asian and Latin players on the team?  Here’s a rhetorical question for you.  How competitive do you think the Giants will be this year if they have to field a team with an identical racial composition as the city?

The truth is that the racial composition of the Giants’ team is inconsequential.  They have retained the services of the players whom they feel are the most qualified regardless of race, religion, or shoe size.

It should be noted that Huntsville also has a Human Rights Commission.  After reading this story I went to their website to see if they have the same powers as the one in NYC.  The site, of course, has nothing but feel good language and people of every imaginable skin tone smiling.  I’m going to contact my Councilwoman to find out more.

From RealClearPolitics:

Has poverty fallen to a glass floor? After a decade of reducing welfare dependency and building employment rolls, poverty stubbornly refuses to be further reduced.

Census Bureau officials accentuated the positive news in their latest data last week: The number and percentage of those living below the poverty line did not grow between 2004 and 2005. In 2005, the poor accounted for 12.6 percent of the population, roughly the same as in 2004. Hip-hooray.

Throughout human history I haven’t seen one example of a society that did not have poor people.  Humans are real people and as such, some work hard and some don’t.  Some have innate talents that are useful to society and some don’t.  Some have good luck and others are not so fortunate.  Some shrewdly and carefully plan out their life and others make dreadful decisions at every turn.  Poverty cannot be eliminated.

The best weapon against poverty is education.  To break through the “glass floor” we must give the impoverished the proper tools to help them selves.  It’s the old teach a man to fish parable.  Frequent readers know my solution - tie the education money with the kids and give parents a choice.  Poverty is a lot like misery, it loves company.  Poor people tend to live in communities of poor people and consequently they go to sub-standard schools.  They have no choice because they are locked in to a school based on their address.  They can’t afford to move to a good school system so the cycle continues.

To break the poverty cycle we must give these kids the opportunity to attend better schools.  It won’t fix poverty because some people will stubbornly refuse to either learn or apply what they learn, but it will at least shift the glass floor down.

Here is a MUST READ column in the Boston Globe about the serious problems associated with diversity mandates.

If you’re too busy or lazy to read the article here are some of the more salient points.

Textbook manufacturers are required to have a certain number of pictures of handicapped kids in their books.  But, as the author points out, when you’re dealing with children who may be self conscious about their physical appearance it isn’t easy to find willing participants.  So the textbook companies use perfectly healthy children as surrogates.

In a way diversity requirements actually reinforce stereotypes.  The book manufacturers are also required to have certain numbers of people of various races pictured in their texts.  I’ll let the author address this point.

Faked photos of handicapped kids are just one of the ways in which truth is sacrificed on the altar of diversity. The cofounder of PhotoEdit Inc., a commercial archive that specializes in pictures of what it calls “ethnic and minority people in all walks of life,” advises publishers that images of Chicanos can be passed off as American Indians from the Southwest, because they “look very similar.” Similarly, Golden notes, a textbook photographer tells clients that since the “facial features” of some Asians resemble Indians from Mexico, “there are some times where you can flip-flop.” 

Yet pictures of authentic Hispanics who happen to have blond hair or blue eyes don’t count toward the Hispanic quota “because their background would not be apparent to readers.” In other words, rather than expose schoolchildren to the fact that “Hispanic” is an artificial classification that encompasses people of every color, publishers promote the fiction that all Hispanics look the same — and that looks, not language or lineage, are the essence of Hispanic identity.

Of course misplaced sensitivity also drives ridiculous decisions.

Some images are banned from textbooks because they are deemed stereotypical or offensive. For example, McGraw-Hill’s guidelines specify that Asians not be portrayed wearing glasses or as intellectuals and that publishers avoid showing Mexican men in ponchos or sombreros. “One major publisher vetoed a photo of a barefoot child in an African village,” Golden writes, “on the grounds that the lack of footwear reinforced the stereotype of poverty on that continent.” Grinding poverty is in fact a daily reality for hundreds of millions of Africans. But when reality conflicts with political correctness, reality gets the boot.

The goal of showing diversity has also been blamed on glaring historical omissions as well as intentional distortions of events.

Great closing paragraph:

But the “good” intentions of the diversity crusaders cannot be separated from bad methods they resort to, whether those methods involve racial quotas in admissions and hiring, the assignment of schoolchildren on the basis of color, or photographic fakery that puts healthy kids in wheelchairs. By reducing “diversity” to something as shallow and meaningless as appearance, they reinforce the most dehumanizing stereotypes of all — those that treat people first and foremost as members of racial, ethnic, or social groups. Far from acknowledging the genuine complexity and variety of human life, the diversity dogmatists deny it. Is it any wonder that their methods so often lead to unhappy and unhealthy results?

Well, these are the typical results of government getting involved “with the best of intentions.”  The end result is usually something quite different - if not outright opposite - of the intended goal.  Don’t believe me?  Research California’s diversity requirements for textbooks.  The rules they impose on the book companies are essentially rules for the whole country because the book companies sell the same books nationwide.

“Free,” government run healthcare is a liberal priority, but it is a terrible idea.

Britain’s government healthcare system has been “too successful” so it is implementing minimum wait times.  The hospitals over there were becoming too efficient, which is usually a good thing.  But, the government can’t take tax money from the populace fast enough to compensate for the increased efficiency so they are tugging back on the reins.

From the article:

Douglas Seaton, 60, a consultant physician who worked with the restraints of the minimum waiting times before retiring from Ipswich Hospital in June, said: “In the last year, we have seen disastrous strains. The senior managers are following political instructions. The Government is holding the reins and it is not working.”

…

Doctors are also resigning. One gynecologist said that he spent more time doing sudoku puzzles than treating patients because of the measures.

God forbid we ever suffer under such a system here.

(Kudos to Rob at the Say Anything Blog)

Roughly 10 years ago Bill Clinton signed a welfare reform bill that took great strides towards improving a system that had long been a permanent dead end for the unfortunate.  Of course, on this anniversary the sob stories about welfare moms who have fallen through the cracks came from all corners of the MSM.

The NY Times committed one of the more egregious acts of shameful reporting by telling of the plight of Mysheda Autry.  When Ms. Autry initially applied for welfare five years ago she had one child.  The father was no where to be found.  She dropped out of the 10th grade to tend to her progeny.

In steps the benevolent government, promising her five years of free money, food, and training.  All Ms. Autry has to do is take advantage of this great offer and do her part.

How did Ms. Autry respond?  She proceeded to have two more kids with a different man, who is now in prison.  She is now pregnant with the child of a third man.  The article gave no indication of his plans, but her track record at finding winners is not a positive harbinger.  Consequently, Ms. Autry has not been able to take advantage of OUR MONEY that was given to her so that she could better herself.

NPR also had a tear jerker about how hard it is for welfare families to conform to the more strict requirements of the new welfare program.  Apparently the things that those of us who don’t burden society do in the normal course of work are unreasonably hard on welfare recipients.  They talk to a woman who bemoans having to send her children to day care, work 20-30 hours a week, and take classes.  Gosh it sucks having to earn a living!  I work 40+ hours a week, take classes for my masters, keep up with this blog, spend time with my wife and two (soon to be three) kids, and stay politically active in the community.  Hearing about a welfare mom who has to work hard doesn’t exactly tear at my heart strings.

This article from the StarTribune takes aim at the second phase of welfare reform laws enacted by Congress and the Bush administration.  It’s Bush’s fault!  The article discusses what a burden it is on welfare queens to have to seek employment through agencies so that their efforts can be monitored.  Ditto for taking classes; someone must sign off for attendance and homework completion.  After a lifetime of bad decisions that have resulted in a person being on welfare it is only reasonable and prudent to look over their shoulder as they take OUR MONEY.  OpinionJounal played the world’s smallest violin for the lady cited in the article.  Taranto pointed out:

We’d feel more sympathetic if we didn’t also face piles of paperwork every year around April 15, in order to help the government take our money and give it to Angela Dahlin. 

Well said.

When my kids reach the teenage years I fully expect I will use phrases such as, “As long as you live under my roof you’ll life by my rules.”  The clear message is that if I am bank rolling your mere existence then there are some strings attached, namely that you live a certain way.  That logic applies to welfare.  If the government is going to give out free money, food and education then the least it could demand of the recipients is that they follow a few simple rules.  The golden rule is don’t have any more children!

Welfare parents need to realize that the main reason they are on welfare is because they had a baby before they could be financially responsible for it.  The last thing you need to do is compound the problem by having more.  Government can’t legislate who can procreate when, but it can attach strings to handouts.  I think that a stipulation for receiving welfare is that you are on birth control.  Bush just signaled his support for the morning after pill, known as Plan B.  Give people traditional birth control or give them a daily supply of Plan B, I don’t care which.  I will be more than happy to pay for prevention.

Integrating education and job training with welfare is great.  Give a man a fish… yada, yada, yada.

Let me be clear up front, I don’t support increasing the minimum wage, but I thought of an argument for (or at least a positive side effect of) increasing the minimum wage that I haven’t heard before.  I threw it out yesterday on the Matt Murphy show.

When the minimum wage is increased labor costs for employers go up.  Ideally, business owners would like to pass the increased cost on to the consumers, but that isn’t always possible.  So, the employer is forced to lay off workers until his labor costs are back to a pre-minimum wage increase level.  To maintain production levels of his products the employer must get the same amount of output from fewer people, i.e. efficiency must increase.

In a market place free of government tampering the technological and process improvements necessary to increase efficiency would occur naturally.  Implementing and increasing a minimum wage actually accelerates the rate of efficiency improvement.

Matt came up with a good analogy on the spot: an apple farm (I was going to use tree planters).  If an orchard owner can pay people $.50/hr to pick apples then he will hire an army of low wage, low skill people to pick the fruit.  If the owner is forced to pay people $6/hr, then he will have to lay off much of his workforce and find a way to get apples from the tree to the shipping container more efficiently.  Some entrepreneurial soul will respond by inventing an apple picking machine that can do the job of the low wage workers.  The free market would have eventually forced the orchard owner to go this route, but the government forced the invisible hand.

The same argument can be seen in automobiles.  Ever since the government began imposing and increasing fuel economy standards for cars the technology built into the cars has advanced rapidly.  Without those fuel economy restrictions why would auto makers drastically change the technology used in their cars from what they used in the 1960’s?  Well, free market forces would have done it eventually, but we live, even today, in a country where gas is cheap relative to the rest of the world.  In other words, the market forces aren’t here yet.  When the fuel economy standards were first being debated automakers were quick to say that they would be the death of performance cars.  But a funny thing happened.  As automakers had to innovate in order to meet the standards they actually came up with some really good technologies - much better than the old ones.  Today we drive family sedans that get as much horsepower as a 60’s muscle car with better fuel economy, safety, luxury, etc.

Back to minimum wages…

Technology advances are great, but who got burned by the minimum wage in our little apple picking example?  The laid off workers!  Hopefully, the innovation throughout the economy will cause the economy to grow so that some of them get hired, but many will be permanently unemployed.  Why?  Because their skills made them worth $.50/hr and no employer will pay them more than that.

This article reminds me of the line from Christmas Vacation where Ellen tells Clark that Eddie is “holding out for management.”

And to think, one day we’ll support these guys with our tax dollars - which we’ll have to work for!  Oh wait, we’re supporting some of them now (disability, etc.).  They need a proverbial (or real) kick in the hind quarters.

Sad, sad, sad.  I doubt the stats are much better here in the states.