The Pain Has Started For The Coal Miners

A mostly overlooked statement in last month's employment report was on page 3:

"Employment in mining continued to decline in September ( -10,000), with losses concentrated in support  activities for mining ( -7,000). Mining employment has declined by 102,000 since reaching a peak in  December 2014."

President Obama's regulation of the coal-fired power industry is finally starting to damage the livelihood of thousands of miners and other workers in related industries.  But, the pain for the coal miner will be especially acute when compared to other people in other professions who will also lose their jobs.

First of all, most coal miners live in towns that expressly exist because of the mine.  Stores, gasoline stations, churches, schools, police and fire departments, are all at risk if it has to shut down.  Homeowners are potentially destined to live in ghost towns. The complete loss of home values is inevitable.  With the average age of a coal miner being 44, the thought of starting over someplace else, with no money to buy another home has to be overwhelming.  Business owners will also see the value of their businesses and buildings fall to zero.

The average coal miner is well-paid at roughly $83,700.  Pretty good money when you consider that 75% only have a high school diploma. However, having to restart in a different profession with only a high school education will be difficult since the average wage at that level is half what they are getting now.  Too, having no experience in a new endeavor certainly insures a lower wage, short of the average high school graduate.

So, what is Obama's solution to the economic strife that he has caused these workers? Go on welfare.  But, what about all the others who will also lose their jobs. Those in the lumber industry that provide the support beams used in the mines?  Those in the rail and trucking industries whose jobs depend on coal transportation to the power plants?  There will be a massive ripple effect as a result of this one industry being shutdown by the President and his EPA.

I personally believe that all unions in the country should join the coal miners in an effort to stop Obama from proceeding any further with his "no more coal" mentality.

References:

THE  EMPLOYMENT  SITUATION — SEPTEMBER  2015:  http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Profile of the U.S. Coal Miner 2014: http://www.nma.org/pdf/c_profile.pdf

Earnings and Unemployment Rates by Education Level: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

Coal Miners Struggle to Survive in an Industry Battered by Layoffs and Bankruptcy: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/business/energy-environment/coal-miners-struggle-to-survive-in-an-industry-battered-by-layoffs-and-bankruptcy.html

A Colorado Coal Mining Town Struggles to Define Its Future:  Tighter regulations, environmental lawsuits and a pivot toward cleaner-burning natural gas have knocked communities like Somerset, Colo., on their heels: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/09/us/coal-mine-closed-colorado-town-struggles-to-define-future.html

Obama Costs Miners Their Job — Tells Them Take Welfare:  http://www.libertynewsnow.com/obama-costs-miners-their-job-tells-them-take-welfare/article1446

Coal miners union to sue over Obama power plant rules: http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/243947-coal-miners-union-to-sue-over-obama-power-plant-rules

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Americans Living on Less Than $2 a Day?

Every once in awhile, I will run across a news or opinion piece that is so over-the-top and intellectually dishonest that I can't believe a major news outlet would dare to print it.

One such case was a recent CBS News article titled: "The Surging Ranks of America's Ultrapoor" written by freelancer Aimee Picchi, who has a history of writing about income inequality in the U.S.

In her opening sentence to this article, she states:

By one dismal measure, America is joining the likes of Third World countries.

Then, goes on to say:

The number of U.S. residents who are struggling to survive on just $2 a day has more than doubled since 1996, placing 1.5 million households and 3 million children in this desperate economic situation.

Then, there was this:

While it may be the norm to see families in developing countries such as Bangladesh and Ethiopia struggle to survive on such meager income, the growing ranks of America's ultrapoor may be shocking, given that the U.S. is considered one of the most developed capitalist countries in the world.

So, in just three statements, the reader is led to believe that the ultrapoor is such a big problem in this country that we have joined the ranks of Bangladesh and Ethiopia.  This is why, along with other facts, that this article is so intellectually dishonest and so over-the-top.  While it may be true that we do have 4-1/2 million adults and children who are living on under $2 a day, it is only 1.3% of our 324 million population.  According to the World Bank, 76.5% of the people of Bangladesh live under $2 a day.  For Ethiopia, it's 72.2%.

But, understand this.  The whole point of the article is to blame this under $2 condition in America on the 1996 reform of welfare and the creation of something called the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, otherwise known as TANF.  That is why, up front, she claims the under $2 population has doubled since 1996; directly because of TANF giving such meager income to the ultrapoor.  To that point, she makes this statement:

Once a family qualifies for TANF, they can receive benefits ranging from about $300 a month for a family of three in Texas to as much as $780 per month in New York. That's hardly living in the lap of luxury, but it would lift those families out of dire need.

However, to simply focus on TANF is both dishonest and totally ignores reality.  Besides TANF, the poor in this country are also eligible for dozens of other assistance programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, housing, child care, and  energy and utility. They also get a free telephone or at least a free cellphone.  All of which add up to a helluva lot more than $2 a day.  Just the free cellphone, alone, cost more than that.

She even takes aim at Wal-Mart for the "under $2" growth in this country.  So, we are supposed to believe that Wal-Mart is hiring and uniforming bunches of people to work less 2 hours a week. That's what you get when you divide the Federal minimum wage of $7.25 into the $14 dollars a week that would qualify someone to be living on less than $2 a day.

What this author, and the study that she outlines in her article fail to inform the reader is that the primary reason for the ultrapoor is homelessness.  For example, she claims 3 million children are ultrapoor.  That's very close to the latest study that found that 2.5 million children are homeless.  The problem with homelessness and TANF and other welfare programs is that they can't be served by those programs.  Without an address, they can't even request that a welfare check be sent to them.

The bottom line is that this author is throwing out a bunch of real, but deceptive, facts in order to convince the uniformed reader that we have a broken welfare system.  The reality is that we don't.  The problem is that we have no good way of rectifying the homeless situation in this country.  Money is available to do so, but the system can't accommodate the homeless other than with food banks and other charitable activities.

References:

The surging ranks of America's ultrapoor: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-surging-ranks-of-americas-ultrapoor/

World Bank:  Poverty headcount ratio at $2 a day (PPP) (% of population): http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.2DAY

Info: U.S. Welfare Programs: http://www.welfareinfo.org/programs/

Number Of Homeless Children In America Surges To All Time High: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/17/child-homelessless-us_n_6169994.html

Hero Mom Of Baltimore Is The Sad Face Of Too Many Black Mothers

When the black, unwed and unemployed mother of six was videoed disciplining her son who was attempting to riot in the streets of Baltimore, she was literally hailed by many as the "mother of the year".  Then, a day later, she was demonized for abusing her child.  In my opinion, she is the face of a major problem for black women in this country: Unwed motherhood.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 73% of all black children are born to women absent a husband (this based on 2010 data published in 2012), and it is a problem that is only getting worse.  In 1960, the black unwed motherhood rate was only 22%. By 2006, 46 years later, it was slightly more than double the 1960 rate at 56%.  Just 4 years later, it exploded to 73%?  This means that out of nearly 635,000 births in 2013, at least a half million are without a father figure or without the social structure of a family.  Of course, this assumes that the 73% has held since 2010, but if the past is any predictor, it is probably safe to assume that it is even higher. For all we know, it could now be be well above 80%.

Obviously, there must be reason that so many in the black community reject the normal family structure so important to raising children.  One would think that, if you grew up in a poor single-parent family, you wouldn't want the same for your children. Apparently not. The reason is most likely because of the expansive welfare system that allows poor single mothers to survive without a husband, no matter how many children she has.  The woman in the video, despite being unemployed with 6 kids, was well dressed and so was her son.

Following the 1996 welfare reforms signed into law by Bill Clinton, black poverty in this country fell to its lowest rate in history.  The belief by Democrats that the poor would be dying in the streets never materialized.  Since President Obama took office, he has made every attempt to dismantle those 1996 reforms, and now we have record numbers in poverty and an explosion in the rate of black children born to unwed mothers.  If this isn't proof that Democrat-backed social programs aren't safety nets but, rather, programs that institutionalize poverty and destroy the family unit, I don't know what is.


References:

Mom of the year? Baltimore woman isn't a hero to all: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/04/29/baltimore-mom-smacks-son-riots/26574143/

Politifact:  CNN's Don Lemon says more than 72 percent of African-American births are out of wedlock:  http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/29/don-lemon/cnns-don-lemon-says-more-72-percent-african-americ/

Number of Births by Race in 2013: http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/births-by-raceethnicity/

How Obama has gutted welfare reform: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-obama-has-gutted-welfore-reform/2012/09/06/885b0092-f835-11e1-8b93-c4f4ab1c8d13_story.html

2003: The Continuing Good News About Welfare Reform:  http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/02/the-continuing-good-news

That's rich: Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/7/obamas-rhetoric-on-fighting-poverty-doesnt-match-h/?page=all

For Some Workers, A Hike In The Mininum Wage Can Cost Them Thousands!

If you are a single parent with at least one child, being paid minimum wage and making less than $15,730, the government says you're in poverty.  As a result, you are eligible for all kinds of public  programs like housing assistance, food stamps, Medicaid, child care assistance, a free home phone and cellphone, Earned Income Tax Credits, and no income tax.  When the state of Pennsylvania itemized all those benefits it came to just under $55,000 in gross combined income for a single parent making up to $15,730.  $57,327 for a welfare mom/dad making $29,000:

Click to enlarge chart

Other states could be higher or lower depending on the cost of living for that given state; but, Pennsylvania approximates the average of all benefits for the contiguous 48 states.

Now, if Obama and the Democrats are successful in increasing the minimum wage by 41% to $10.10 an hour, anyone who is earning a minimum wage and in poverty will see thousands of dollars in benefits just go away.  On top of that, those losing their benefits will have to start paying taxes instead of receiving cash back from their previous Earned Income Tax Credit refunds.

Another reason why raising the minimum wage will make some Americans a lot poorer.

Democrats Craziness On Extended Unemployment Benefits And the Minimum Wage

According to Barack Obama, the current minimum wage of $7.25/hr or $290/week is absolutely not enough to survive on for any of the 1.7 million Americans that earn that wage.  So, he's pushing for a fair, liveable, $9 an hour; or, a weekly income of $360.  But, what Obama isn't telling you is that 2 million people, or 300,000 more than those making minimum wage, work for less than that, and, raising it won't help those people one iota.

Then, there's the issue of Obama's call to renew the extended unemployment benefits for the 1.3 million Americans who saw their benefits expire just after Christmas.  Their average income was $300/week or just $10 more than a minimum wage worker.  Are they, too, like the current minimum wage earners, getting too little money to survive?  Of course, extending the unemployment benefits isn't going to help the 8 million of  the 11 million workers who are officially unemployed and receiving zero benefits.  Nor will it help another 9 million workers who have left the workforce because they are frustrated and cannot find a job.

But, the real irony in all these discussions about wages is that you're probably better off being on welfare than either collecting unemployment or even working for minimum wage.  That's because, in a majority of states, 35 states to be exact, welfare recipients collect the equivalent of $400 a week or higher.  How's that for income inequality, Mr. Obama!


References

Seeking Alpha: Extended Unemployment Benefits Statistics:  http://seekingalpha.com/news/1484551-Over-1M-affected-as-extended-unemployment-benefits-expire

Forbes Magazine: Welfare pays more than the minimum wage: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/09/02/on-labor-day-2013-welfare-pays-more-than-minimum-wage-work-in-35-states/

Bureau of Labor Statistics: Minimum Wage and Lower Income Wage Earner Stats: http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012.htm

The Current Rise In Liberalism Is Actually Being Fueled By The Detrimental Effects of Liberalism

When times are bad, the masses turn to the government for help; and, as long as that government provides that help, it will survive and continue to grow.

This is what's happening in America today.  It doesn't matter if 23 million people are either unemployed or underemployed, the general masses are being satisfied by expanding government programs under Obama's reign; such as increases in medicaid, welfare, food stamps, and with new social programs like ObamaCare.  But, what's interesting is that our current expansion of liberalism in this country is a direct result of it's detrimental effects on our economy.  As our economy further weakens, the trend will only move towards more government dependency.  This is why the voters rejected Romney's fix for American Capitalism. We are literally seeing the destruction of capitalism and the movement towards socialism; right before our eyes.  Obama is, as promised, fundamentally changing America.  We are becoming the likes of Greece and Spain with a similar fate to theirs;  just years away.

Obama Is Gutting Welfare Reform

 Currently, Obama and his people are touting this Romney ad as being a complete lie:



But, is it?


In 1995, before welfare was reformed, there was nearly 10 million individuals and their families receiving  checks.  Back then, all you needed to do to stay on welfare was to go to your local welfare office and tell them that you have been looking for work.  Because of that simple requirement, this country literally created a "permanent" and "growing" class of welfare recipients.  But, in 1996, welfare was replaced with TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families); signed into law by Bill Clinton.  With that, the rolls started to shrink.  Today, there are just about half as many welfare recipients as there were in 1995.  To put that into a better perspective, it is estimated that, by now, the welfare rolls would have been more than triple without the TANF reform.

Key to the success of TANF was the "working requirement" of the law.  If a job was available, you had to take it in order to receive payments, and, acceptable jobs were clearly defined in the law. This became a wake-up call for those who would otherwise prefer to stay on welfare.   Logically, people started looking for work on their own because, if they were going to have to work anyway, they wanted a decent job with decent pay.

Now zoom forward to the Obama Administration.  Using his assumed executive power to do so, Obama had his Health and Human Services (HHS) department send a letter to the states advising them that they could seek waivers on what had been clearly defined as "work" in the original law.  With those waivers, states could fall back on the old "looking for work" as a standard for receiving welfare assistance.  Here's the exact words in that HHS letter that actually does that:

"...job search/readiness programs count toward participation rates..."

In essence, those words gut the law and return welfare back to the system that was in place in 1995, and, Romney is right to expose it as doing so.  In theory, and under what HHS has said, something like dieting could be easily defined as a "job search/readiness" program.  And, believe me, liberal states like California or New York just might do something like that.  Especially, if liberal politicians think they can secure votes in doing so.

Here's the HHS letter: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/policy/im-ofa/2012/im201203/im201203.html#

Socialism Spawns Socialism

We know from past experience, that the welfare system in America has actually locked generations into a losing system for the rest of their lives. Originally intended as a so-called "safety net" to help people get back on their feet during hard times, it, instead, became a way of life with children of welfare recipients becoming future captives of the same system they grew up in.

Socialism is often referred to as "creeping socialism" because it, like some kind of cancer, spreads until, someday, the state government literally runs everything. Socialism is like a narcotic that pulls more and more citizens into its grasp; and, eventually the nanny-state fully evolves.

I often hear people say that the United States is not Europe when it comes to socialism. But, it wasn't very long ago when Europe wasn't what it is today, with all its socialist burdens.

I'm of the belief that socialism spawns socialism by weakening a capitalistic society. With every social program created, workers and money makers have to ante up more and more of their own money in order to subsidize an increasingly larger group of state-dependent citizens. As the state keeps taking more from the successful segment of society, those money makers find themselves being driven out of business and, thus, forced to join the increasingly larger group of state-dependents. Eventually -- too many have jumped into the wagon, with no one left to pull it.

Usually, unemployment insurance is the first step in the creation of a socialist state. It follows the logic that you can't have the unemployed starving and dying in the streets while they're looking for a new job. Then, the socialist will push for a government-run retirement program like our "Social" Security system. Next there's the institution of a welfare system for those who are determined, by the state, to be unemployable. Often, this includes food stamps, housing, and some kind of state-provided salary. Then, there has to be a government-run health care system so that, again, you don't have people dying for lack of care. Oh, and let's not forget that, eventually, higher education should be the right of every citizen as well.

With each of these programs, more and more citizens are being cared for by the government and more and more government funds and people (working for the government) are needed to support the programs. As this occurs, the burden of taxes rises and shaky businesses are forced to go under with the owners and the employees of those fallen businesses being forced to join the increasingly larger group of government-shepherded citizens. Then, ultimately, you have a society like Greece where the state can no longer support itself. Make no mistake, Obama and the Democrats have put us ever closer to the day when that fate will be our own.

On Health Care & Cap and Trade: We Will All Pay. Not Just the Rich!

The wise poet and philosopher, George Santayana, most notably and aptly said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Once again, the Democrats seem to have forgotten their past. For Cap-and-Trade and Health Care Reform, they have wheeled out their age-old tactic of paying for their outrageous spending habits by taxing the rich. But, as in the past, this will ultimately backfire and it is the middle class and the poor who will suffer the most.

Taxing the "rich" has been tried many times before and it hasn't ever really worked. Usually, the economy suffers and, ultimately, it is you and I who will have to pay for that stupidity in either lost jobs or higher costs for everything we buy. Apparently, the Democrats still haven't learned that the rich are really the "Golden Geese" that we need in order to sustain our standard of living and create new jobs; not the broad evil that they are portrayed to be.

To prove this, we only have to look back to 1990 when the Democrats imposed a 10% luxury tax on boats over $100,000; cars over $30,000; and, furs over $10,000. After all, it is only logical that the rich should pay heavily for their shameful excesses. Forget about the fact that those "excesses" helped to support many, many jobs in each of those "luxury" industries. Instead, the Democrats, once again, thought it was their job to screw the rich and take their money and, theoretically, give it to those who were absolutely less dedicated to improving our society.

In the 3 years that the luxury tax had been imposed, more than 30,000 employees in the boating industry (alone) lost their jobs. Century-old and family boat manufacturing operations, those who each employed dozens and hundreds of skilled workers, went out of business and their workers all lost their good paying jobs. Many little towns in New England suffered high rates of unemployment because high-end, specialty boat manufacturing was all that they did. Many of the large boats that were needed to support jobs in the fishing industry were also targets of that tax, and those people were hardly the "rich" that the Democrats wanted to target. Hundreds of others lost their jobs when marginal furriers and high end auto dealers also went under because of the tax. Worse yet, the luxury tax actually resulted in reduced State sales taxes and produced no significant increases in Federal tax revenues. The rich either stopped buying all those luxury items or they bought used items that weren't subject to the tax. Here's a pertinent article from the New York Times that was written in 1993, on the heals of the repeal of that luxury tax: "Luxury-Tax Repeal Encourages Sellers". The boating industry was literally decimated and many of those old family-owned boat businesses just disappeared forever. Worse yet, the Democrats created the thing they hate the most: Big, dominant corporations. As a result of their actions, the entire boating industry was consolidated under just a few, big, corporate names like Brunswick.

No matter what we are being told by Obama and the Democrats, Cap-and-Trade and Health Care Reform will cost "us" more than the rich. The ideological "tunnel vision" of the Democrats never seems to see the unintended consequences of their actions. Then, years later, in the rubble of their caused destruction, those same Democrats, acting totally blameless, must reverse what they've done. The only problem with what they are doing now is that their actions might not be so easily reversed in the future.

In a similar fashion to the luxury tax, the Welfare System had to be killed off because of its own unintended consequences. It was repealed under Clinton and a Republican Congress in 1996. Welfare was a failed Democratic initiative because it locked people into a lifetime of being on the dole and those in the system were never ever really able to break out of it. It wasn't the safety net that the Democrats thought it would be. Instead, it was a web of entanglement that kept hundreds of thousands of this nation's poor from ever becoming productive citizens.

Right now and in just 6 short months, the Democrats are preparing to repeat the mistakes of that old luxury tax and a failed Welfare system with their new Cap-and-Trade and Health Care Reform and another tax-the-rich scheme. In comparison, that old 10% tax on luxury items was just child's play. What they plan to do, now, could literally destroy the health care system in this country and destroy our economy at the same time with highly punitive charges for Cap-and-trade. It won't just be a few workers in luxury industries who will lose their jobs. I expect entire companies to move off-shore to avoid the hefty penalties associated with Cap-and-Trade. The Health Care system will literally collapse under the weight of being forced to be both ubiquitous and low cost. My guess is that the average lifespan of Americans, which had been rising, will start to fall again. For many, the Democrats proposed changes to our health care system is an early death sentence. And, health care will only get more expensive; not cheaper. Just mark my words.