NY Senator Chuck Schumer, in response to questions about his support for union card check legislation, said 3 weeks ago that union membership in the US is down and that card check is needed to increase union membership. Firstly, union membership itself isn’t a goal. Why should it be? Employees ARE NOT voting unions in because the employees don’t believe the unions will benefit them. Card Check, BTW, replaces secret ballot elections by employees for unionization with a union only needing a majority of employees signing cards – and the cards are not secret. “Hey Brutus, Jeff over here would like you to encourage him to sign his card.”

There are 2 factors that have harmed US auto manufacturers and neither one is the economy. One is that they have not produced the cars that consumers want, either in design or quality. The biggest factor though is union wages, rules, and pensions. A union company forced to pay it’s workers $73.26/hr in wages and benefits cannot compete with a non-union company paying $53.20/hr. But that’s not all. A union company forced to pay workers even when they are not working cannot compete with non-union companies who pay employees for actual work performed.

This past Saturday United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger said that workers will not make any more concessions and that getting the automakers back on their feet means figuring out a way to turn around the slumping economy. In other words, we want to continue to make 50% more than other auto workers and we want taxpayers to give us money to do that.

Talk about spreading the wealth. It will be the taxes of an autoworker at the BMW plant in Spartanburg, SC making $59,000 per year that will pay for the Chrysler autoworker to make $81,000 per year.

And get this. That BMW X5 or X6 that the Spartanburg autoworker makes? About every other one is shipped to Europe. If you purchase a X5 or X6 in Germany, it’s made in Spartanburg. Today Germany has an unemployment rate of about 10%, almost twice that of ours in the US. You’d think with that many available workers it’d be better to make them in their home country of Germany. But you’d be wrong. Hiring a worker in Germany is like hiring a union worker in the US. So, it’s a few thousand folks in Spartanburg, SC who get the non-union BMW jobs which come with an average $59,000 in wages plus health, pension, and other benefits. The effectively unionized German workers get… Nothing.

This past week I got to spend several days in Vienna and Budapest with my son. Great conversation, great coffee, great food, great photographic subjects. Ah, I’m ready to go back.

In very brief research before going (we only decided a few days beforehand) one thing became apparent – Vienna is Coffee Café heaven. Everything written about visiting Vienna included a comment on making sure to visit one of their café’s. Given that I spend several hours almost every day with my laptop in some café somewhere in the world, this sounded like my kind of place.

What makes the Viennese café’s so special?

At the very top of the list is the overall atmosphere. Unlike the average coffee café in the US, the ones in Europe and in particular those in Vienna are quiet. Even with 30 people and a dozen conversations it’s quiet. I was heartened when in one café a group of 3 people began talking somewhat loudly and several people began giving them ‘the look’. They quieted down. When they’d become louder again about 30 minutes later and weren’t seeming to notice the looks of others, a waiter told them to either quiet down or leave. Yes, my kind of place. Surprisingly the offending group wasn’t a bunch of Americans, who are the usual loud and obnoxious offenders of decorum, but a group of Italians.

Interestingly, as I’m writing this, it’s the employees in this US coffee café who are the most offensively loud, not the patrons.

Next on the list is quality. At least at the café’s we were able to visit, the quality of their coffee drinks and rather fattening pastries* was extremely high. The Viennese know how to do it right. While the average high school kid can become a barista in Starbucks in a few hours, in Vienna it takes months and sometimes years.

Aside from Starbucks and CoffeeHeaven, Viennese café’s all have table side service – and very excellent service at that**.

Many of the café’s, particularly the newer ones, take in to account laptop users and provide numerous places for users that allow for privacy, don’t have window glare in front or behind, and often convenient power.

Finally, they take it seriously. From drinks to décor to cleanliness to atmosphere the owners and employees make their patrons and a quality experience in every way their top priority.

Next spring in Vienna sounds good to me!

* Austria is one European country where food portions are huge.

** A very interesting difference in the US and Europe is the general quality of wait staff in all kinds of eateries. In Europe they take good service seriously and for many men it is a career. In the US we treat it as nothing but a stepping stone to something else with many wait staff actually quit incompetent.

Gravity and trajectory are interesting things. Normally water drops straight down towards the earth. That’s what we expect it to do. When we turn on a faucet we expect the water to come out of the faucet into the sink below. If however, the sprayer is in it’s holder and locked on, water may actually defy gravity. You turn the water on to fill your teapot and instead of the water obeying gravity it comes out of the sprayer with great force. Much of it doesn’t fully obey gravity until it hits some other object such as a range, cabinet, oven, microwave or similar unobstructable element of our world. And that water moving with such great force across space can find even the smallest of gaps – namely what was previously thought to be a tiny gap between pantry doors hiding all forms of canned goods.

Our brains are interesting things too. Realization, resolution, and action don’t happen all that fast. Yes brain, there is water moving at great force across space. Pause Yes, turning the water off will be a good idea. Pause. OK, as the Nike commercial says, let’s just do it.

The island remained dry however, my body saved it from the fate of other cabinets.

Most people who know me will be very surprised that I don’t support SF’s Prop K. This is the bill that many claim will decriminalize prostitution in San Francisco and anyone who knows me knows that I’m a fairly strong proponent of that. So why do I believe Prop K is short-sighted?

Prop K doesn’t actually decriminalize prostitution. It will be a city law and laws against prostitution are state laws. What Prop K does is say that the City cannot spend any money enforcing the state prostitution laws. It prevents city police from arresting anyone for prostitution. It does not, in any way, limit the city from investigating, arresting, and prosecuting people for crimes such as human trafficking or underage prostitution. So far, so good.

With Prop K someone can establish a brothel anywhere in the city they want. They can put up any signage they want. Streetwalkers will be able to ply their wares on any corner or in front of any store.

I’m all for ending our wars on prostitution. SF spent between $2.8 and $11 million last year enforcing prostitution laws and yet they have just as much prostitution as any other city. Civil prohibitions against personal vice are simply not realistically enforceable, no matter how much money we spend. As Steven Levitt noted in his 2007 draft paper on prostitution – “A prostitute is more likely to have sex with a police officer than to get officially arrested by one.” Our laws don’t reduce activity, they only drive it underground which makes life that much easier for human traffickers to enslave women of all ages and makes things that much more dangerous for the prostitutes and their clients. And the list goes on and on.

Our war on prostitution causes far more problems than the original problem it was intended to solve.

However, I’m also a proponent of limited (VERY LIMITED) regulation. I have no problem with sex workers who provide outcall services going anywhere in the city to meet a client. A brothel next to a school or streetwalkers on any corner is another matter. Not just for me, but for most people in San Francisco. With legal prostitution cities need to be able to, within reason, regulate where businesses are located. They need to be able to establish zones where indoor brothels or red light windows can be located and what kind of advertising they may post on the outside of their buildings. They need to be able to limit where streetwalkers may ply their trade.

Prop K may not allow this. Depending on one’s reading of the laws it may be impossible to establish any zoning under Prop K.

Here’s what I fear will happen. The average San Francisco sexworker is not a wallflower. Just watch many of the annual parades with Scarlet Harlot and her entourage if you don’t believe me. With no boundaries they will go wherever they want and do whatever they want to get attention and make money. If I were them I’d do the same. That’s the point. Find as many potential customers as possible so you have the greatest choice of who you service and can make the most money with the fewest hassles.

Many people who support decriminalization will find a brothel across from their favorite kids store or streetwalkers in front of their favorite café. “This isn’t what I signed up for.” They’ll say. The political types in city hall will start getting engulfed in complaints.

Now, the average politicians way of dealing with things is brash and trash. Nuance is not their strong suit. While a good option at this point would be very moderate regulation, they’ll instead pontificate on the need to reverse Prop K. Instead of finding a way to establish some reasonable zones for brothels, windows, and streetworkers, they’ll go full throttle back to the current failed attempts at civil enforcement of prostitution laws. Instead of a proposition on the 2011 ballot to allow the moderate regulation that Prop K doesn’t allow, expect a proposition to abolish Prop K. And it will likely pass with a large margin.

And you know what, prostitution won’t go down any, but complaints will. The bulk of prostitution will go back underground and streetworkers will re-congregate to ‘safer’ areas. People will be less likely to complain about it, even when they see it near their favorite café, if they just think the cops are doing something about it, than if not.

After this it could be 50 years before anyone can even think of decriminalizing prostitution again in San Francisco. And worse, anytime decrim is brought up anywhere else, all the opponents will need to do is point to the failed decriminalization in San Francisco of 2008 and the battle will be done.

There is a lot of focus on raising taxes on the rich, corporations, and small-businesses and giving tax cuts to the middle-class. Do these really matter?

Think about this:

If I raise taxes on a big corporation like Target what will they do? First, they’ll increase the cost of the goods they sell by a little more than that amount. You and I will pay more for everything we purchase and probably buy a bit less. Since they’ll sell less they’ll also lay off a few people, not very many, but a few. The layoffs and price increases will hardly be noticeable.

If I raise taxes on those who make over $150k or $200k, or $250k what happens? Realistically the companies they work for will, over time, increase their salary by enough to make up the difference. In order to attract someone to do a more difficult job the relative increase in their take-home must make it worthwhile for them. This increase will also find it’s way in to the cost of the products they sell and yep, you guessed it, you and I will pay more, buy less, company will lay off a few people, etc.

If I then give the middle class a tax cut what happens? Will the companies they work for give them lower wage increases over the next few years? Relative to those who’ve had their tax burden increase, you betcha. Even without the lesser wage increases will that tax cut be enough to make up for the increased cost of goods because of the higher prices from the tax increases above?

Guess what, this is kind of a zero sum game. How you spread the tax burden has little real impact on individual’s daily lives. A free economy will eventually work it out so everyone maintains about the same relative spending power.

The key is that phrase Tax Burden. The more money that is taken out of the economy by government for government programs, the worse off everyone is. It’s not really born more by the rich or by big bad corporations or by the middle-class. It’s born by everyone. Every single dollar of additional government spending negatively impacts each and every single person who earns their own way in this world.

Any focus on how the burden is spread is nothing but a smoke screen. It only hides increases in government spending. “Hey middle-class, we’re going to take $200 less from you and instead take $400 more from those terrible corporations and wealthy folk and then use that extra $200 for government programs.” Sounds good doesn’t it? What nobody mentions is that the cost of goods will go up by $400 so the middle class is actually less well off by $200.

In the end, any increase in government spending impacts everyone. The person who makes $45k per year may take home $1k more but will also find that stuff they want to buy has increased by $3k so they actually have $2k less to spend. There goes that flat-screen TV or Disneyworld vacation. But hey, we got tax break and a government program in the trade!

Sort of old news by today, but thought I’d bring it up anyway. The California Teachers Association has give over $1 million this year to fight California’s Prop 8. In other words, they’ve spent over a million bucks of already underpaid teachers money to prevent the state of California from defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. And this has what to do with the average teacher or with educating our children?

Oops, according to this on Foxnews there is yet one more previously unknown element to Obama’s relationship to William Ayers. This book BTW, endorses some of the same government agencies and tactics as were involved in the raid on the YFZ ranch. If I remember correctly, Rozita Swinton, who made the false claims against the FLDS (and who has still not been charged for filing a false report) was an Obama delegate from Colorado Springs. I’m not in to conspiracy theories, but this is interesting.

Update: Not a bad deal for Ayers. In the past 6 hours this book has jumped from #51,021 on Amazon to #6,710.

The Tennessee Tribune is publishing lists of people who don’t vote. Is this a good idea? Will forcing people to vote, people who likely have little interest in an election and thus know little or nothing about the candidates, improve our country? Will the knowledge that they WILL be voting, voluntarily of course, encourage them to take an interest and learn more about the candidates or will they just vote according to who their neighbors or the Tennessee Tribune supports?

Everyone in the Media has some political bias. Even if not a favorite candidate, at least strong preferences on some issues. It’s part of being human. Even the most unbiased reporter will be biased to some extent on some issues. It’s going to happen. The question is how much and to what extent it will be admitted.

During this election we’ve seen what is perhaps an unprecedented level bias and of kid gloves treatment of a candidate – Barack Obama. From an overtly racist, hate-filled, and conspiracy theory worshiping pastor to a close friend who to this day has no qualms about bombing innocent judges homes or even the Pentagon. From questions about his citizenship to an unusually very high number of illegal and questionable campaign contributions, many in the liberal side of the media have soldiered on. They’ve ignored or soft-pedaled issues and helped cover flip-flops on everything from accepting public financing to meeting with terrorists with no pre-conditions.

ACORN is apparently proving too much. Whether too much in itself or just the straw that broke the camels back, some in the normally liberal leaning media are backing off on their preferential treatment of Obama. The cost has risen too high. Individually each of the other issues could be explained away. Obama didn’t know Bill Ayers had been a terrorist and still harbored terrorist views. Obama only heard good sermons from Rev. Wright, never any of the hate filled racist diatribes he was so well-known for. Obama had no idea the church’s mission statement was racist. Questions about Obama’s having been born in Kenya and receiving Kenyan citizenship or having later become an Indonesian citizen are just the rantings of a crazed lunatic (and they may well be), nothing for serious media folks to be concerned with or investigate.

ACORN can’t be explained away so easily. Questions of voter fraud have trailed them for several years and across several states. They’ve had a reputation. Obama was an attorney for them. His campaign gave their associated organization nearly a million dollars this spring for get out the vote efforts. There is no way Obama couldn’t have known their history. No plausible deniability here. At a minimum they were a known very questionable organization for a presidential candidate to be involved with and give so much money to. The very best that can come out of this one is some extremely poor decisions on Obama’s part. Decisions that question both his decision-making and integrity. But this time, the best case is unlikely.

Expect a lot less soft-pedaling on this one after today.

I don’t dare comment further…