It’s Friday, February 8th, 2013….and here’s The Gouge!

First up, in “If At First You Don’t Succeed” segment, James Taranto details the latest Liberal attempt to ban guns at any cost….to you!

Insurance as Punishment

The latest assault on the Second Amendment.

 

If you can’t force people to do what you want, force them to buy insurance: That seems to be the strategy of the liberal left in the Obama era. We refer not only to the ObamaCare health-insurance mandate but to the latest bright idea under consideration in mostly Democrat-dominated state capitals.

“Democratic lawmakers proposed legislation Tuesday that would require California gun owners to buy liability insurance to cover damages or injuries caused by their weapons,” FoxNews.com reports. The idea isn’t brand new: “Bills have been offered unsuccessfully in Massachusetts and New York since at least 2003,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

But the idea has drawn added attention amid the inevitable delirium following a horrific crime involving firearms: “Similar bills have been introduced in other states after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre. They include Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York.

“Gun-insurance mandates won’t solve illegal gun possession or illegal gun use, and no form of regulation will bring an end to gun violence,” writes political scientist H.L. Pohlman in a Hartford Courant op-ed. Yet strangely, Pohlman is a proponent of the idea. Essentially his argument is that it would encourage people to behave in desirable ways:

Rapid-fire weapons capable of mass casualties would require higher premiums than less-lethal firearms. Some gun owners would avoid the high rates by purchasing less-lethal weapons (while criminals would avoid such insurance entirely!), decreasing over time the number of rapid-fire weapons and their accessories in America.

Responsible gun ownership would increase. (?!?) A weapon that is secured when not in use is less likely to be used in an illegal or harmful way. Requiring gun owners to carry theft insurance, for example, would provide an effective incentive for proper firearm storage.

Pohlman makes some unfounded assumptions here. For one thing, what makes him so sure that scary “assault rifles” (a term he doesn’t use but seems to be hinting at in the first quoted sentence) would command higher liability premiums? FBI statistics show that handguns, not rifles, consistently account for a large majority of firearms homicides. (Hat tip: Tom Maguire.)

The idea that mandatory theft insurance “would provide an effective incentive for proper firearm storage” is a head-scratcher too. If anything, the incentive should work in the opposite direction, since theft insurance reduces the cost of having the insured object stolen. But think about it: You probably have theft insurance on your car, but does that make you any more or less likely to lock your car when you leave it unattended? Or do you lock your car because you don’t want it stolen?

Advocates of mandatory gun insurance, like advocates of mandatory health insurance, liken it to auto insurance. Pohlman:

It is common for our society to throw the risk on the owner of a potentially harmful commodity. Motor vehicles, for example, must be registered and insured in case their use harms humans or property; and the thrill of driving a high-performance car comes with a higher insurance premium.

As with health insurance, the analogy is flawed, albeit for different reasons. States require auto insurance as a precondition not of ownership but of driving on public roads. Guns, by contrast, typically are kept in the home, and liability for accidents there is covered by homeowners insurance. “You must disclose to your insurer that you have firearms,” according to the website of the 1st Alliance Insurance Agency:

Guns must be properly secured in order to get decent home insurance rates. Your home insurance company will likely favor gun owners who have safety locks and proper storage that helps keep the firearms out of the hands of children and other untrained individuals.

It would also be constitutionally suspect for the government to condition the exercise of one’s rights under the Second Amendment on the purchase of insurance. Pohlman denies this:

Perhaps the chief virtue of mandated gun-owner insurance is that it is consistent with the Second Amendment. No one who can safely be entrusted with the type of gun that is protected by the Second Amendment will be prevented from owning that type of gun. Gun insurance does not take away our liberties; it merely requires gun owners to pay the social cost of the exercise of that liberty. (Can we assume in Pohlman’s scheme, like every other Liberal plan, the less-fortunate would have their gun insurance paid by the rest of us?)

Perhaps one could successfully defend that position in court, but it seems to us far from an open-and-shut case. Large publishers typically carry insurance to cover the risk of libel. Does anyone think the First Amendment would permit a state to require that all individuals buy libel insurance before publishing a pamphlet or starting a blog?

In Pohlman’s account of the virtuous incentives his insurance scheme would purportedly establish, he leaves out the most obvious: By burdening gun owners with an additional cost, it would encourage some to give up guns altogether. We suspect that the real goal here is to deter gun ownership or, failing that, to punish law-abiding gun owners. As for criminals, we doubt any of them will ever hesitate to use a gun because it is uninsured.

Note Pohlman admits gun control does not work, thus confirming all of this has nothing to do with guns, and everything to do about control.  That, and of course, deflecting attention from the nation’s economic death spiral.

In a related item, courtesy of Balls Cotton, Bob Owens (Bob-Owens.com) offers his personal observation of that…

Something funny happened on the way to tyranny

 

I dropped my car off this morning at my mechanic’s, as the clutch appeared to be on its last legs. Being a beautiful morning in the mid-40s, I decided to walk home, and soak in some of the small-town downtown ambiance along the way. The sleepy antique stores were not seeing much business, and I nodded to the painting crew who was outlining the wooden window frames of the bakery in brilliant blue paint as I passed by.

Most of the downtown shops, in fact, weren’t doing much business except the two gun stores. I’d been in one several days ago to pick a .22LR for an article I’d be writing for Shooting Illustrated, and decided to stop in at the other to see what the current political environment had left behind.

There were no less than six clerks working feverishly with the dozen or so customers, so I simply stepped to the side and walked the aisles. The cases of ammunition that typically lined the far wall were picked to pieces. There was a 100-round case of .50 BMG, and cases of European shotshells suitable for small game. The .223 Remington, 5.56 NATO, 7.62×39, 7.62 NATO, and 7.62x54R had sold out long ago, along with the bulk 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP.

Delinquent taxpayers?!?

A few pump shotguns remained along with a smattering of deer rifles, single-shots, and longer double-barreled shotguns suitable only for trap or skeet. Even the semi-automatic .22LR rifles like Ruger 10/22s were gone, along with all but one BX-25 magazine. The customers in the shop were picking through what remained; lever-action rifles, oddball shotguns, and the smattering of name-brand centerfire pistols. One man was attempting to trade in an antique double-barrel shotgun for something more current.

I did speak to one harried clerk, briefly. They didn’t know when they’d be getting anything back in stock, from magazines to rifles to pistols. Manufacturers were running full-bore, but couldn’t come close to keeping up with market demand. It wasn’t just the AR-15s, the AK-pattern rifles, the M1As, and the FALs that were sold out. It really hit me when I realized that the World War-era M1 Garands , M1 carbines, and Enfield .303s were gone, along with every last shell. Ubiquitous Mosin-Nagants—of which every gun store always seems to have 10-20—were gone. So was their ammo. Only a dust free space marked their passing. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Every weapon of military utility designed within the past 100+ years was gone. This isn’t a society stocking up on certain guns because they fear they may be banned. This is a society preparing for war. (Now why would anyone….

….be thinking that?!?)

I wonder if this is what it felt like during the time of the Powder Alarm, and fear politicians both sides of the aisle are no more speaking the same language as most Americans as Gage was unable to think like the Colonials. There is an earnestness now on both sides, and a great chance for unintended consequences.

Tread carefully.

Government, at every level, should pay particular heed to Owens’ admonition.  “Preparing for war”?  Yes.  A trigger-pull away from a 2nd American Revolution?  Not even close….at not yet.

Then again, the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral wouldn’t have happened had the Earp brothers not attempted to disarm five cowboys.  We envision two seminal moments which would likely force a shift from preparation to active resistance; first, a SCOTUS decision effectively overturning the 2nd Amendment.  Second, the first wide-scale raids to confiscate firearms from law-abiding civilians.  Then all bets are off.

Meanwhile, here’s a story which highlights everything wrong with Progressive gun control proposals:

L.A. Police Shoot Two Innocent People During Manhunt for Ex-Cop

 

Los Angeles-area police shot and wounded two innocent women early Thursday during a manhunt for an ex-LAPD officer suspected of shooting three cops and killing a couple. The two women were delivering newspapers, the Los Angeles Times reported. One was shot in the hand and one was shot in the back:

The women, shot in the 19500 block of Redbeam Avenue, were taken to area hospitals, Torrance police Lt. Devin Chase said. They were not identified. One was shot in the hand and the other in the back, according to Jesse Escochea, who captured video of the victims being treated.It was not immediately known what newspapers the women were delivering. After the shooting, the blue pickup was riddled with bullet holes and what appeared to be newspapers lay in the street alongside.

A second shooting, involving Torrance police officers, occurred about 5:45 a.m. at Flagler Lane and Beryl Street in Torrance. No injuries were reported in that incident.

Chase said that in both instances police came across vehicles they thought were similar to the one [suspect Christopher] Dorner is believed to be driving. Neither vehicle was Dorner’s. “Now it appears neither of them are directly related,” Chase said. “In both of them, officers believed they were at the time.”

Are you with us so far?  Police mistake the occupants of two blue pick-up trucks, at least two of whom were women, for a 6′, 270 lb. black ex-cop, an errant assessment the LAPD lamely justifies on the grounds officers “believed” them to be the bad guy.  Did the officers bother to ID the occupants; or because Dorner stated he’s targeting law enforcement they thought it prudent to shoot first and ask questions later?

Fortunately, their aim was no better than their judgment.

Later that evening….

Authorities search door-to-door in Big Bear in hunt for former cop

 

….the perp’s actual pick-up was found smoldering near Big Bear Lake; which begs the questions posed by contributor Bill Meisen:

I’d like the press to take a poll of the folks that live in Big Bear Lake and the surrounding San Bernadino are the following:

Authorities believe there is a murderous lunatic running around somewhere in your neighborhood.
 
1. Should private citizens have the right to own a firearm?
2. Should private citizens have the right to own a semi-automatic firearm?
3. Should private citizens be limited to 7 or 10 bullets in a magazine?
4. Are you comfortable limiting yourself to dialing 911 as the sole or primary protection for you and your family?

Then there’s these fun facts about Mr. Dorner you’ll never catch in the MSM, courtesy of Carl Polizzi and WeaselZippers.com:

From Christopher Dorner’s manifesto:

Anti-NRA:

Wayne LaPierre, President of the NRA, you’re a vile and inhumane piece of shit. You never even showed 30 seconds of empathy for the children, teachers, and families of Sandy Hook.

Loves Piers Morgan:

…give Piers Morgan an indefinite resident alien and Visa card. Mr. Morgan, the problem that many American gun owners have with you and your continuous discussion of gun control is that you are not an American citizen and have an accent that is distinct and clarifies that you are a foreigner. I want you to know that I agree with you 100% on enacting stricter firearm laws.

The killer is also a huge Obama supporter and fan of gun-control.

Loves Obama:

You disrespect the office of the POTUS/Presidency and Commander in Chief. You call him Kenyan, mongroid, halfrican, muslim, and FBHO when in essence you are to address him as simply, President. The same as you did to President George W. Bush and all those in the highest ranking position of our land before him. Just as I always have. You question his birth certificate, his educational and professional accomplishments, and his judeo-christian beliefs. You make disparaging remarks about his dead parents. You never questioned the fact that his former opponent, the honorable Senator John McCain, was not born in the CONUS or that Bush had a C average in his undergrad. Electoral Candidates children (Romney) state they want to punch the president in the face during debates with no formal repercussions. No one even questioned the fact that the son just made a criminal threat toward the President. You call his wife a Wookie. Off the record, I love your new bangs, Mrs. Obama.

Pro Gun Control:

Who in there right mind needs a fucking silencer!!! who needs a freaking SBR AR15? No one. No more Virginia Tech, Columbine HS, Wisconsin temple, Aurora theatre, Portland malls, Tucson rally, Newtown Sandy Hook. Whether by executive order or thru a bi-partisan congress an assault weapons ban needs to be re-instituted. Period!!!

Mia Farrow said it best. “Gun control is no longer debatable, it’s not a conversation, its a moral mandate.”

Is it any wonder Liberals only want cops, retired cops and “government officials” to have guns?!?

Next up, courtesy of Tom Bakke, a rather intriguing bit of commentary from Zero Hedge, the subject of which is inextricably intertwined with the Progressive push for banning guns:

Why Reforms Won’t Work

 

Is it too late?

The list of public/private institutions that desperately need structural reform is long: the Pentagon, healthcare (a.k.a. sickcare), Social Security, the complex mish-mash of programs that make up the Welfare State, the 73,000 page tax code, public pensions and the financial sector, to name just the top few.

Every reasonably informed person knows that all these institutions need deep, systemic reforms, not another layer of bureaucratic oversight or a few policy tweaks. As evidence that the Status Quo is finally confessing to the obvious, please read Can America Be Fixed? The New Crisis of Democracy by Fareed Zakaria (Foreign Affairs).

The article lays out the unsustainability of current public/private institutions and policies in irrefutable detail.

Regardless of the need for reform, it isn’t going to happen for these structural reasons. In a nutshell, the public-relations America presented by the mainstream media and the State bears little resemblance to the actual machinery of finance and governance.

1. Elections have become the means to control the redistribution of national wealth to politically powerful cartels and constituencies rather than the pathway to good governance. Good governance gets abundant lip-service (propaganda supporting the flimsy facade of PR America), but American government has by and large lost the institutional memory of actual (as opposed to PR) good governance.

We might use the career of Paul Volcker as a window into what has been lost. As Austan Goolsbee writes in his review of Volcker: The Triumph of Persistence by William L. Silber: “Volcker still believes that public service is the most important thing someone can do, but he fears that this attitude may be a relic of a bygone era.”

Why be coy? In a nation of revolving doors between public service and fat-cat corporate lobbying positions, it is decidedly a relic of a bygone era.

As Mr. Zakaria observes, “The system works better as a mechanism for campaign fundraising than it does as an instrument for financial oversight.”

This institutional corruption and loss of good governance cannot be repaired in a single election, and it renders real reform impossible.

2. In a bought-and-paid for democracy like America’s, vested interests protect their perquisites, power and share of the swag/national income regardless of the costs to the economy and society at large. This perversion of “national interest” to serve provincial, neofeudal fiefdoms necessarily leads to the real national interest being subverted and sacrificed on the altar of expediency and protection of the Status Quo at all costs.

In a bought-and-paid for democracy like America’s, it is impossible for a government whose first priority is serving and maintaining vested interests to assert the national interest if that requires dismantling the vested interests’ power and share of the swag.

3. This feeds a self-reinforcing feedback loop of political expediency. Since real reform requires cutting the perquisites and swag of self-serving fiefdoms and crony-capitalist cartels, phony “reforms” are passed in a purposefully obscure flurry of complex legislation that leaves all the real work to regulators who are politically in thrall to the very interests they are supposed to regulate.

These simulacra reforms feed the PR need to “do something to fix the problems” while doing nothing but extending the Status Quo and making the problem’s next crisis that much worse.

Here is the perverse feedback loop: when the next crisis hits, the cuts to the Aristocracy’s fiefdoms and constituencies would need to be even deeper and are therefore even more repellent, so real reform is even more impossible than in the initial crisis. Another round of toothless, hyper-complex regulation is hurriedly enacted, erecting a Complexity Fortess around the parasitic fiefdoms and cartels.

4. The political, corporate/financial and National Security State Elites represent a vanishingly thin layer of the American economy and society. America today is the nightmare scenario feared by James Madison and other Federalists: a covertly created monarchical (what I term neofeudal) empire much like the Roman Empire–a republic in name but in reality a highly centralized Empire operated for the benefit of tiny Elites who buy complicity of the masses with free bread and circuses.

The “Monarchical Federalists” Madison and Jefferson feared have indeed established a neofeudal, neocolonialist Empire.

In this context, it is interesting to note that fully 20% of all entitlements (tax credits, Medicare, Social Security, etc.) flows to the top 10%, 58% goes to middle-income households and 32% goes to the bottom 20%. The swag of bread and circuses is remarkably well-distributed, buying off every sector of the populace.

5. Behind the PR facade of democracy and free-market capitalism, a parasitic Aristocracy extracts income and wealth from a financially indentured class of serfs. This Aristocracy is composed of several Elites which are served by what I term the Upper Caste of technocrats (prep-school/Ivy League graduates who enter technical/managerial service in key institutions, plus a handful of officers brought up through the service academies and war colleges).

These Elites and the Upper Caste serve each others interests, a social heirarchy that Hilton Root characterized as a “society divided into closed, self-regarding groups.” The slow trickle of the “best and brightest” into the Upper Caste via Ivy League university admission is also a propaganda facade, as Ron Unz ably and exhaustively proves in The Myth of American Meritocracy How corrupt are Ivy League admissions?

The trick is enable just enough meritocracy to support the PR facade. The Ivy League has mastered that balancing act.

These Elites have few if any links to the social layers below. Charles Murray spoke to some aspects of this trend of financial/social Elitist isolation from the debt-serfs and middle managerial class below in Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, but the key dynamic that is outside Murray’s sociological purview is the stark reality that the Elite class is devoid of any real feeling for or interest in the common good or public weal.

That is, not only have the key institutions of American governance and power lost the memory and mechanics of good governance, the Elites running the institutions have become an inbred neofeudal Aristocracy characterized by an unexamined (and thus deeply adolescent) sense of entitlement to the reins of power and control of the national income.

It’s not just the institutions that have lost any conception of good governance — the Aristocracy ruling the nation has lost all interest or recognition of the common good. This is of course not unique to America; the same disregard for the common good is at the root of Greece’s status as a failed state.

The incestuous embrace of privilege and power by protected, socially isolated Elites characterizes failed states and brittle, doomed regimes throughout history. It is painful to recognize that this is precisely what America has become: a failed state that refuses to admit to its institutional failure because that would require the recognition of a neofeudal, neocolonial Empire ruled by a small, self-serving, parasitic political and financial Elite.

There is one last dynamic that has yet to unfold: the disconnected, protected and politically incestuous Elites at the top of the monarchical Empire recognize the need for real reform at the last minute, when it is too late to effect repairs on a rotten-to-the-core and bankrupt State.

America may be as long as a decade away from this final recognition and frenzied rush to reform what has already been destroyed by self-serving Elites and parasitic, parochial fiefdoms.

One key element in this dissolution of the corrupt regime is the wholesale abandonment of the Elites by the managerial class which belated[ly] grasps its role as enforcers of the parasitic class and accepts that its naive aspirational ties to the Elites were illusory: When Belief in the System Fades.

As we said, intriguing; it would certainly explain what has heretofore been, at least to us, the baffling sell-out of America’s national defense by her senior military leaders.  As noted previously, though every gun ban thus proposed exempts cops, retired cops and “government officials”, members of our Military, active, reserve or retired, are NOT granted a similar exception, despite having more firearms training and experience.  No why would that be?!?

Moving on, Victor Davis Hanson describes what he considers our….

Incoherent Immigration Reform 

 

Nothing about illegal immigration quite adds up. Conservative corporate employers still support the idea of imported, cheap, non-union labor — in a strange alliance with liberal activists who want the larger blocs of Latino voters that eventually follow massive influxes from Latin America. Yet how conservative are businesses that in the past flouted federal law — and how liberal are activists who undermined the bargaining power of American minimum-wage, entry-level workers, many of them minorities?

The remedies for illegal immigration under discussion are just as incoherent. If the government now plans to offer some foreign nationals a pathway to citizenship, does it also suddenly have the will to determine who among illegal immigrants does not qualify for citizenship?

Millions of illegal immigrants have resided in the United States for some time. They have not been convicted of crimes. And they have been hard-working and self-supporting. But if the majority deserves a chance to obtain legal residence and begin the process of citizenship, what about others who would not qualify under those same considerations?

There is also talk of reforming legal immigration as well. From now on we would select most immigrants for citizenship not by their place of origin, or by the fact of their prior illegal residence in the United States, but on the basis of needed skill sets and education, and their willingness to wait in line legally.

Yet are loud proponents of “comprehensive immigration reform” really willing to embrace the reforms they boast about? It might spell the end of privileging millions from Latin America to enter the United States without requisite concern about legality, education, English fluency or particular skill sets.

Massive illegal immigration is not ethnically blind or based on education. For decades it has favored more proximate Latin American arrivals who can easily cross the U.S.-Mexican border over those from distant Asia, Africa or Europe who simply cannot.

The politics of immigration are just as weird. Democrats, buoyed by the two election victories of Barack Obama, now welcome large pools of new Latino citizens to vote in bloc fashion for Democratic candidates. But if the border were actually closed and immigration returned to a legal, systematic process, then in time Latinos — in the pattern of Greek-, Italian- and Armenian-Americans — would follow most other ethnic minorities and decouple their ethnic allegiances from politics.

Republicans seem more confused. After needlessly bombastic talk in the 2012 presidential primaries, they have gone to the other extreme of emphasizing amnesties instead of enforcement — largely in efforts to pander to growing numbers of Latino voters.

Here, too, paradoxes abound. Various polls suggest that immigration was not the primary reason why Latinos voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. When the Pew Research Center recently surveyed Latinos and asked whether they preferred high taxes and big government or low taxes and small government, they preferred high taxes and big government by a 75-19 margin. And they usually see liberal Democrats as far better stewards of redistributionist government, and Republicans more as heartless advocates of a capricious free market.

Stranger still, Asian-Americans, for whom illegal immigration is not really an issue, voted for Democrats by about the same margins as did Latinos — and perhaps for similar perceptions of minority-friendly big government.

Moreover, the largest concentrations of Latino voters are in Southwestern blue states like California, New Mexico and Nevada, where Republicans usually lose anyway, and for a variety of reasons other than immigration. Ironically, the best long-term strategy for Republicans would be to close the border and allow the forces of upward mobility, assimilation and the natural social conservatism of Latinos to work.

Everyone talks grandly of passing bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform as if the present system had not sprung up to serve the needs of all sorts of special interests that certainly have not gone away.

–  We forget that too many employers still want the cheap labor of foreign nationals.

–  The Mexican government still promotes illegal immigration as a political safety valve and a valuable source of cash remittances.

–  Too many ethnic activists, whose support derives from large numbers of under-assimilated Latinos, don’t want to deport anyone and do not welcome legal immigration redefined by ethnically blind, skill-based criteria.

–  Democratic politicos don’t want closed borders, only to see the melting pot someday turn their loyal supporters into independent voters. And panicky Republicans simply have no idea what they want — other than to cater to as many constituencies as they can.

The present system of immigration is far too often illegal and immoral. But it is also weirdly rational in the way that it serves so well so many lobbies — and so poorly the shared public interest at large.

For more on the subject, we turn Hard Left for this from Kevin Drum writing at Mother Jones:

Support for Immigration Reform is Paper Thin

 

ABC News reports that their latest poll is good news for President Obama:

Public approval of Barack Obama’s handling of immigration has jumped to a career high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, buttressed by majority support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and, much more broadly, endorsement of stricter border control.

….Obama’s approval rating on immigration is 11 percentage points higher than it was seven months ago; disapproval, down by 9 points. His approval score now numerically beats his previous best, three months after he took office, albeit by a single point.

Well, maybe. But a good rule of thumb is that on any contentious issue, you’d better start with at least 60 percent support. Two-thirds is even better. Because once the attack ads start running and the radio bloviators start bloviating, those numbers are going to slide downward. If “path to citizenship” is only polling at 55 percent before this stuff starts, it’s not likely to stay in majority territory for very long.

This confirms two of my beliefs about this issue. First, passage needs to happen quickly. The longer it drags out, the more likely it is that support will drop below critical mass. Second, Marco Rubio is key. If he can get the Fox/Drudge/Limbaugh axis to moderate their opposition, conservative support might get wobbly but nothing worse. If he fails, and they go into full flamethrower mode, this isn’t going to end well.

And this from the Hard Left.  “This isn’t going to end well”?  Guess that depends on your perspective; i.e., are you worried about continued Dimocratic dominance or the best interests of your country?  We only hope Marco Rubio is paying attention.

Next up, Jillian Melchior, writing at NRO‘s The Corner, offers the latest on the War of Words between Jerry Brown and Rick Perry:

California’s Tax Man Cometh 

 

Coincidentally, courtesy of Balls Cotton, Military.com just released its list of the…

10 Top Cities for Job Seekers

 

It’s not always about what you do, but where you do it — or at least, that’s one way to approach a job search, and the financial website NerdWallet followed this line of thinking in analyzing the 26 biggest cities in the nation to come up with the following list of the ten most promising cities for job seekers.

For the study, data such as population growth between 2010 and 2011 as an indication of overall business growth, local unemployment rates, residents’ median income, and the cost of living were all taken into account. The bottom line? If you’re seeking a city for a bright future, Texas seems to be the place to go, with five of the top ten cities. The worst? Not so surprisingly, Detroit (although median rent there is certainly lower than in any of the places in the top 10).

In the interests of full disclosure, Austin was #1, followed by San Francisco (#3), Houston, Fort Worth and Dallas (#s 5, 6 & 7), with San Antonio coming in at #9.

On the Lighter Side….

Then there’s brilliant bit of Dimspeak (read the entire letter, not just the highlighted portion), courtesy of Randy Jugs, which is either Conservative disinformation….or the work of Joe Biden:

Finally, we’ll call it a week with another basic principle of economics Liberals seem institutionally incapable of ever grasping, courtesy of Best of the Web:

If You Can’t Beat the High Cost of Living, Join It

 

Washington Post columnist Matt Miller argues for raising the minimum wage, currently $7.25 an hour:

It’s no surprise that [Ralph] Nader, 78 years old and still fighting the good fight, worked with a couple of dozen liberal Democrats in Congress last year on a bill to lift the minimum to $10. That would still be below 1968’s level, but it would represent a $5,000-plus raise for close to 30 million workers at or near the minimum today (it would also add $25 billion to gross domestic product, according to the Economic Policy Institute).

If you can make the economy grow just by raising the price of labor, presumably raising other costs would also work. But an increase of $2.75 an hour is kid stuff. Congress would probably get more bang for its buck by mandating a raise in the salaries of top executives, who make much more money.

And if this works for labor, surely raising other costs would help the economy too. Imagine how much the economy would grow if Congress enacted a law causing health-insurance premiums to skyrocket. Oh wait . . .

Magoo