South Africa

Debating Minimum Wage In SEATTLE and NEW YORK CITY

Published by Papa Giorgio

So, I debated on whether to add this to our (Chris L. and myself conversation, posted HERE) earlier conversation, but, I decided to post it separately. So, in the same conversation he finally took a jaunt over to my MINIMUM WAGE portion of my ECON 101 page. He still doesn’t know why the minimum wage was used during the Davis/Bacon Act days (a), why the apartheid unions in South Africa used it (b), and why unions here use it and which community it hurts the most (c) — but at least he a c t u a l l y went to my link… and got it all wrong – lol:

…An even more insidious substitution effect of minimum wages can be seen from a few quotations. During South Africa’s apartheid era, racist unions, which would never accept a black member, were the major supporters of minimum wages for blacks. In 1925, the South African Economic and Wage Commission said, “The method would be to fix a minimum rate for an occupation or craft so high that no Native would be likely to be employed.” Gert Beetge, secretary of the racist Building Workers’ Union, complained, “There is no job reservation left in the building industry, and in the circumstances, I support the rate for the job (minimum wage) as the second-best way of protecting our white artisans.” “Equal pay for equal work” became the rallying slogan of the South African white labor movement. These laborers knew that if employers were forced to pay black workers the same wages as white workers, there’d be reduced incentive to hire blacks.

South Africans were not alone in their minimum wage conspiracy against blacks. After a bitter 1909 strike by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen in the U.S., an arbitration board decreed that blacks and whites were to be paid equal wages. Union members expressed their delight, saying, “If this course of action is followed by the company and the incentive for employing the Negro thus removed, the strike will not have been in vain.”

Our nation’s first minimum wage law, the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, had racist motivation. During its legislative debate, its congressional supporters made such statements as, “That contractor has cheap colored labor that he transports, and he puts them in cabins, and it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white labor throughout the country.” During hearings, American Federation of Labor President William Green complained, “Colored labor is being sought to demoralize wage rates.”

Today’s stated intentions behind the support of minimum wages are nothing like yesteryear’s. However, intentions are irrelevant. In the name of decency, we must examine the effects….

…The white labor unions and other white supremacists lobbied for other regulations which, in effect, prohibited blacks from being hired. These groups demanded that the hiring of blacks and other nonwhites be subject to the same compulsory employer compensation and minimum wage requirements granted to white union members. The intent of such legislation, Williams contends, is obvious. Such labor laws took away the only bar-gaming chip available to the blacks and other non-whites—their willingness to work for a lower wage. Many whites recognized this. In 1925, for example, the report of the Mining Regulations Commission proposed a mandatory system of minimum wages per job “in order to rescue the European miner from the economic fetters which at present render him the easy victim of advancing native competition.”

Contrary to the view accepted by many on the political left, apartheid is not the result of white businessmen attempting to maximize profits by enslaving cheap black labor. It is instead a product of political privilege. Says Williams:

The mere existence of South Africa’s extensive racial regulatory laws is evidence enough that racial privilege is difficult through free market forces. Consider South Africa’s job reservation laws, which mandate that certain jobs be performed by whites only . . . . The presence of job reservation laws suggests that at least some employers would hire blacks in the “white jobs.” The fact that they would hire blacks to do white jobs neither requires nor suggests that these employers be necessarily any less white supremacist than anyone else. It does suggest that those employers who would hire blacks considered such a course of action to be an attractive alternative because blacks were willing to work for lower wages—“uncivilized wages”—than white workers. The business pursuit of profits—which caused employers to be less ardent supporters of the white supremacist doc-trine-has always been the enemy of white privilege. This is why South African white workers resorted to government.

“The whole ugly history of apartheid has been an attack on free markets and the rights of individuals, and a glorification of centralized government power,” Williams concludes. Only when South Africa’s people—black, white, or colored—“de-dare war against centralized government power” will there be genuine progress toward freedom. Walter Williams’ new book provides powerful intellectual ammunition for that war.

  • Matthew B. Kibbe, FEE

(Via AEI)

There is no inherent reason why low-skilled or high-risk employees are any less employable than high-skilled, low-risk employees. Someone who is five times as valuable to an employer is no more or less employable than someone who is one-fifth as valuable, when the pay differences reflect their differences in benefits to the employer.

This is more than a theoretical point. Historically, lower skill levels did not prevent black males from having labor force participation rates higher than that of white males for every US Census from 1890 through 1930. Since then, the general growth of wage-fixing arrangements: minimum wage laws, labor unions, civil service pay scales, etc. has reversed that and made more and more blacks unemployable despite their rising levels of education and skills: absolutely and relative to whites.

And here’s the “money quote”:

In short, no one is employable or unemployable absolutely, but only relative to a given pay scale.

And that highlights the essence of the economic logic that explains why the most vulnerable workers (low-skilled, uneducated, teenagers, etc.) are the group that is most harmed by minimum wage laws — those laws artificially raise the wages of low-skilled workers without increasing their productivity, and therefore significantly reduce their employability relative to higher-skilled workers.

For example, in the study from the team of researchers at the University of Washington on Seattle’s $15 an hour minimum wage, they reported (emphasis added):

Our preferred estimates suggest that the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance caused hours worked by low-skilled workers (i.e., those earning under $19 per hour) to fall by 9.4% during the three quarters when the minimum wage was $13 per hour, resulting in a loss of 3.5 million hours worked per calendar quarter. Alternative estimates show the number of low-wage jobs declined by 6.8%, which represents a loss of more than 5,000 jobs.

The work of least-paid workers might be performed more efficiently by more skilled and experienced workers commanding a substantially higher wage.

Bottom Line: Thomas Sowell’s comments illustrate an economic reality that is frequently overlooked: Workers compete against other workers (not employers) to find jobs and get the highest wages. Employers compete against other employers to find the best workers. In other words, low-skilled workers compete against high-skilled workers in the labor market. Low-skilled workers who would be employable at a low wage become unemployable at an artificially higher wage. And that explains the perverse cruelty of minimum wage laws: it inflicts the greatest harm on the very workers it is allegedly designed to help.

However, this is not the reason for this post. I merely wanted to show the hubris out there in stating propaganda (not intentionally, just in ignorance). Here is the portion that that I wanted to highlight and respond to. Here is the video so people can glean context:

So, here are the main points of the above:

  1. Minimum wage is still not $15.00 an hour
  2. It is $13.50 and in 2021 will be $13.69 (which he is right about, but we are talking about SEATTLE)
  3. [QUOTE] “Sean Giordano this is why I & everyone else should dismiss what ever you post. First minute & a half & anyone can prove she’s full of shit” [UNQUOTE]
  4. New York (remember, she said New York CITY) does not have $15.00 minimum wage, they are near $11.80
  5. California isn’t even over %15.00 an hour
  6. THEY ARE FULL OF SHIT!!

So my first response is to points #1 and #2

The Prager U video specifically mentions Seattle and New York City. This is key. I used two websites to find the current minimum wage in Seattle, Washington: MINIMUM-WAGE.ORG and SEATTLE GOVERNEMNT’S website. In the conversation I noted this many times, but granted, I wasn’t clear.

During the long discussion that followed a few paths, what I learned is that franchises are all included together as a large business. So if I were to franchise, say, The Brass Tap (bar/restaurant chain focuses mostly on its craft beer offerings), if the franchises nationwide have 501 employees, the tips earned do not lower the to $13.50. To make the point clearer I made a crude version:

A sad article of sorts was this one detailing the info:

Justices Reject Franchise Appeal Over Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage (May 2, 2016)

SEATTLE — The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear a challenge to Seattle’s $15-an-hour minimum wage from franchise owners who say the law discriminates against them by treating them as large businesses.

Seattle was one of the first cities in the nation to adopt a law aiming for a $15 minimum wage, giving small businesses employing fewer than 500 people seven years to phase it in. Large employers must do so over three or four years, depending on whether they offer health insurance to their employees.

Five franchises and the International Franchise Association sued the city, saying the law treats Seattle’s 623 franchises like large businesses because they are part of multistate networks. But the franchises say they are small businesses and should have more time to phase in the higher wage.

[….]

“Seattle’s ordinance is blatantly discriminatory and affirmatively harms Seattle hard-working franchise small business owners every day since it has gone into effect,” Robert Cresanti said in a statement. “We are simply attempting to level the playing field for the 600 local franchise business owners employing 19,000 people in Seattle.”….

Remember, Seattle has a higher minimum wage than the rest of the state.

I likewise responded to points #4 thus

This comes from the NEW YORK CITY GOVERNMENTS website:

The minimum wage in New York City is $15.00 per hour. The New York State Department of Labor oversees wage regulations in New York State. Businesses employing people in New York State should be aware of wage requirements and regulations.

After December 31, 2019, all employees in New York City must be paid at least $15.00 per hour. …

#5 deals with California as a state

However, just like New York state/New York City and Washington state/Seattle, so to goes California. There are many cities in California that have differing minimum wage laws than the state. Here is just one example (click to enlarge):

So, there are a couple numbers not dealt with yet…

they are numbers #3 and #6

  • #3 [QUOTE] “Sean Giordano this is why I & everyone else should dismiss what ever you post. First minute & a half & anyone can prove she’s full of shit” [UNQUOTE]

If the opposite of Chris L’s premise is in fact shown, and if his position is “true” of me — that is: “why I & everyone else should dismiss what ever you post.” Why should I, or we, not dismiss whatever he says. I mean, he is full of shit (#6!!).

Later in the conversation discussion about the effects of minimum wage hurting restaurants, to which Chris posted the following:

I merely responded with

  • The hospitality group, which lobbies on behalf of the restaurant and hotel industry, concluded that Seattle was the hardest-hit city in Washington state, with 624 bars and bistros that have permanently shut down. (BLOG.RESTUARANT)  

So, if 29 opened up DESPITE minimum wage and covid… would the 624 be closed BECAUSE of the minimum wage and covid?

 

FARMLANDS (2018) | Official Documentary

Published by Papa Giorgio

From the intricacies of the methods used in farm killings to the enduring consequences, this documentary tells important stories from South Africa. Stories of murder, brutality and corruption – but also stories of bravery and triumph.

It focuses on the people telling the stories in an intimate way. Farmlands the documentary pulls all of these stories, and some new ones, together and explain how they fit into the wider context of South Africa’s history.

South African Violence and Agricultural Shifts (It Begins)

Published by Papa Giorgio

The South African Parliament voted to confiscate land

from white farmers without payment last week.

On Sunday night Julius Malema called on his followers to go

after the white man and cut the throat of whiteness.

Julius Malema: Go after a white man…

We are cutting the throat of whiteness.”

(GATEWAY PUNDIT)

UPDATE via GAY PATRIOT

The wolves have voted: The sheep are to become dinner.

South Africa’s parliament on Tuesday passed a motion brought by the radical left party, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), to carry out land expropriation without compensation, a key pillar of the ruling ANC government and new President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The motion, which would include a review of the constitution, was brought by leader of the EFF Julius Malema and was passed by an overwhelming majority of 241 votes in favour versus 83 votes against the proposal.

The justification for the law is, of course, peace, justice, and equality.

“For a lasting peace‚ security and justice‚ land must be expropriated without compensation for equal redistribution.”

UPDATED VIDEO

THE NEW OBSERVER, has some stories about the issue:

At least ten White South African farmers have already abandoned their home country in the face of offers of land and ultimate citizenship of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, one of their largest farmers’ unions has announced.

The Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa (TAU-SA) confirmed in a statement that their memorandum of understanding, signed with the previous Georgian government in August 2010, would still be honored by the newly-elected government in Tbilisi.

[….]

Earlier, one of the first Boer farmers to move to Georgia under the scheme, 66-year-old Piet Kemp, was quoted as saying that “I have a new life here,” he explained.

“I try to make friends with all the people in Georgia, learning their culture. I have been here since 3rd of March, and I have not heard of one murder in Georgia in this time. I didn’t hear about any bank robbery. I didn’t hear about any one hijacking.”

“There is no security of land, absolutely no security of land in South Africa,” he stressed.

Kemp said that over the last decade he successfully helped hundreds of white farmers hold on to their farmland in face of legal challenges from black farm workers and squatters.  But now, he says white farmers face threats of farm seizures.

“They have done exceptionally great job over the years in South Africa, and to give them an opportunity to do the same thing here and for Georgian farmers to learn from the experience they will receive from their new neighbors, from the South African farmers,” said Georgia’s Canada-educated Economy Minister, Vera Kobalia.

Kobalia praises Sandra Roelofs, the Dutch-born wife of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, for promoting the program.  Dutch is the mother language of Afrikaans.

“It helped in terms of making them feel more secure in Georgia,” Kobalia noted.  “There is definitely that connection, the Holland connection in Georgia.”

[….]

“I do not want to live in constant fear,” the 67-year-old said emotionally as he recalled the widespread killings of other white farmers in South Africa. “We tried to defend our rights, but we lost this war.”

Amid the violence, Kemp said that he felt he had no choice but to leave.

“In Georgia there is no violence, the crime rate is extremely low. So I will never go back,” Kemp declared, comparing the situation here to the high violent crime rates back home, which include some 46 murders a day.

He sold his farm in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province, was given Georgian citizenship in 2011 and in March that year rented 700 hectares (1,730 acres) of land in the village of Sartichala, where he now cultivates maize and wheat.

“I moved to Georgia because I see tremendous opportunities here — there is a good climate, fertile soil and a good market,” he said.

Some of the recent radicalism is linked with communist/Marxist groups held in check by Mandela (as a leader among them). This restraining influence is gone now, and what many worry about may come true more-so than it has as of late.

An amazing story via LIBERTARIAN REPUBLICAN (<<<now defunct — which is too bad, it was a great site), take note that in the video seen at LR’s website the shirt being worn is that of Nelson Mandela:

No hyperbole. No exaggeration. This really happened.

Note – it’s not being covered at all in any of the American media. Only here at Libertarian Republican.

From Arutz7, “South African BDS Protesters: ‘Shoot the Jew’ — A South African protest against an Israeli musician quickly deteriorated into a call for the murder of Jews”:

Anti-Israel students and activists showed their “true colors” last Wednesday night, Jewish students at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa said.

Moving quickly from “anti-Zionism” to classic anti-Semitism, a melange of students and BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) activists began screaming “Shoot the Jews” at a concert featuring religious Jewish jazz saxophonist Daniel Zamir.

[….]

Of course, the South African blacks were urged on by Muslims in the crowd. 

Continuing:

Dozens of South African Muslims and BDS supporters gathered outside Wits’ Great Hall, with security personnel keeping them outside. Several scuffles were reported, and concert-goers were subject to a great deal of verbal abuse. 

At that point, said witnesses, the protesters broke into a sing-song chant of “kill the Jews,” (“Dubula e Juda” in Zulu), a take-off on a protest song sung in the 80s against whites. When questioned, Muhammed Desai, coordinator of the protest and leader of “BDS South Africa,” said that the protesters did not mean the term “kill the Jews” literally. (Emphasis added.)

Note – this “Kill Whites” song has been sung at political rallies by numerous political leaders in the South African left, including Nelson Mandela.

FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE noted this about the revival of this song and why many farmers/ranchers are on the move:

For decades, the country of South Africa was the focus of an international rallying cry against the injustices of apartheid. On June 17, 1991, South Africa’s Parliament abolished the legal framework for the practice of racial persecution. In 1994, Nelson Mandela and his Marxist African National Congress (ANC) assumed the reins of power. The international community looked away, satisfied that justice had prevailed. They continue to look away, even as South Africa has degenerated into another racist pit, best described by an Afrikaner farm owner: “It’s politically correct to kill whites these days.”

In July of 2012, Dr. Gregory Stanton, head of the nonprofit group Genocide Watch, conducted a fact-finding mission in South Africa. He concluded that there is a coordinated campaign of genocide being conducted against white farmers, known as Boers. “The farm murders, we have become convinced, are not accidental,” Stanton contended. “It was very clear that the massacres were not common crimes,” he added — especially because of the absolute barbarity used against the victims. “We don’t know exactly who is planning them yet, but what we are calling for is an international investigation,” he added.

The number of farm murders, or “plaasmoorde” as it is called in Afrikaans, is staggering. Over the last decade, it is estimated that at least 3000 Boers have been killed. Estimating the number of murders is necessary because the ANC has banned crime statistics from being compiled, claiming they scare off foreign investment.

[…..]

The ANC, whose leader Jacob Zuma was reelected with over 75 per cent of the total voting delegates at the ANC National Conference held in Bloemfontein last December, denies that genocide is occurring, insisting that such attacks are part of the larger crime problem. Yet a report filed by the South African Institute of Race Relations notes that while crime has ostensibly declined between 1994 and 2011, “substantial numbers” of police stations have manipulated their crime statistics. The report sub-headline underscores the corrupt nature of crime statistics in the country: “Is this a true reflection of the crime statistics in South Africa? Who knows!” it states.

What is known is that the ANC celebrated in 100th year anniversary with a song led by President Zuma himself. “Dubula iBhunu” or “Shoot the Boer” was a line in the lyrics of an apartheid-era song, “Ayesaba Amagwala” (“the cowards are scared”) that violates the South Africa constitution prohibiting the “advocacy of hatred that is based on race … and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.”  Yet Zuma apparently felt no compunction to refrain from singing it, because the ANC considers it an integral part of the anti-apartheid movement that is part of their heritage.

In 2010, Julius Malema, then leader of the ANC Youth League, revived the practice of singing the song after many years. After the South Africa High Court ruled it was hate speech, the ANC appealed. Last October, the ANC and AfriForum, a lobby group that wanted the song banned from public performance, reached an out-of-court settlement.

Dr. Stanton concluded that Malema’s revival of a song advocating murder moved South Africa from the fifth stage on his genocidal scale to stage six. When the South African judiciary ruled it to be unlawful hate speech, Genocide Watch put South Africa back at stage five. When President Zuma was caught on tape January 2012 singing, “We are going to shoot them with the machine gun, they are going to run/You are a Boer, we are going to hit them, and you are going to run/shoot the Boer…” South Africa was raised to stage six once again.

Stage six is known as Preparation: “Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity. Death lists are drawn up. Members of victim groups are forced to wear identifying symbols. Their property is expropriated. They are often segregated into ghettoes, deported into concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved.”

The sixth stage is followed by stage seven: Extermination….

[….]

Embedded in that platform is the idea that making peace with white South Africans following the end of apartheid has “hampered” the transfer of wealth to black South Africans. Thus, a “second transition,” was proposed, which even the see-no-progressive-evil New York Times was forced to concede represents a “sharp leftward shift for the A.N.C., which despite its roots has largely backed a free-market economy with minimal state intervention.”

Stanton sees a bigger picture. In a speech in Pretoria, organized by the Transvaal Agricultural Union, Stanton claimed the ANC was demonizing white farmers, who have been in South Africa since the 1600s, by calling them “settlers.” A Genocide Watch reports reveals the strategy behind those efforts. “High-ranking ANC government officials who continuously refer to Whites as ‘settlers’ and ‘colonialists of a special type’ are using racial epithets in a campaign of state-sponsored dehumanization of the White population as a whole,” it stated. “They sanction gang-organized hate crimes against Whites, with the goal of terrorizing Whites through fear of genocidal annihilation.”

ANC President Jacob Zuma continues to fan the flames of racial division. Last December, he admonished black South Africans for being dog owners, saying that doing so amounts to copying white culture. Zuma’s office contended the message was aimed at “the need to decolonize the African mind post-liberation.”….

Mandela sings song about killing whites!

The Lonely Conservative has a good commentary that one should read in full on his site… here is a teaser:

I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, especially when they still haven’t even been buried. (I also don’t like to speak ill of the Pope, although I’ve been tempted to at least speak ill of his ideology.) But I do think it’s important to add some perspective to the legacy of Nelson Mandela that you aren’t going to get from the media.

Those who escaped Cuba, and those who are still there, probably aren’t shedding too many tears this morning over the passing of Nelson Mandela, who seemed to have no problem with the ruthless ways of the Castro regime. Fellow travelers and all.

From JTF.ORG:

….Mandela also was always an enthusiastic supporter of Ugandan Muslim dictator Idi Amin, and Mandela met with his fellow terrorist Yasser Arafat in the 1970s to publicly deplore Israel’s “barbaric” rescue of innocent Jews who were taken hostage by PLO-Fatah airplane hijackers in 1976 and then flown to Uganda’s Entebbe Airport where Amin and Arafat planned to murder them.

To this day, Mandela strongly supports other “progressive” Third World dictators like Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Hafez el-Assad of Syria and Moammar Khadafi of Libya.

In South Africa itself, since Mandela and other savages seized power from the white minority, the country now has more than five times the homicide rate of Washington, DC, the murder capital of the United States….

…read more…

Some more commentary by Joel Pollak who offers a more fair-and-balanced [conservative] approach to Mandela’s legacy. And while Mandela was not anti-Israel… many in his own party and those he had as fellow contemporaries were. All that being said, we must remember Jerusalem’s Post commentary that Mandela was no Martin Luther King Jr., but more like a BILL AYERS type:

Imagine a person who planned acts of sabotage and incited violence, resulting in the deaths of innocent civilians and damage to public property. A man who embraced brutal dictators throughout the Third World, such as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Cuba’s Fidel Castro, singing their praises and defending them publicly even as they trampled on the rights and lives of their own people. A person who hugged Yasser Arafat at the height of the intifada, hailed Puerto Rican terrorists who shot US Congressmen, and penned a book entitled, How to be a good Communist.

Picture all this and, believe it or not, you will be staring at a portrait of Nelson Mandela….

(JERUSALEM POST)

Oooops! Democrats On the Wrong Side of History ~ AGAIN!

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via the Daily Caller:

While a progressive advocacy group has used the death of former South African President Nelson Mandela to advocate against voter ID laws, a picture of Mandela has surfaced that indicates the former president might not have agreed.

Friday, One Wisconsin Now issued a statement calling on Wisconsin Republicans to “honor” Mandela by stopping their “attacks on the right to vote for legal voters in the state of Wisconsin.” Those “attacks” are attempts to implement a voter identification requirement.

South Africa, however, requires an ID to vote.

Media Trackers, first highlighted the discrepancy Friday, noting that election officials in South Africa require an ID both to register to vote and to vote.

“That constitution allows for and supports a rigorous election integrity process far more stringent than anything GOP lawmakers have proposed in Wisconsin,” Media Trackers notes.

To make matters worse for One Wisconsin, a picture of Mandela from 1998 finds the former political prisoner attending a rally at the start of the African National Congress 1999 election campaign wearing a T-shirt with the instructions: “Get an ID. Register. Vote.”

Black Islamo-Nazi`s and Marxists Chant for Killing Jews (Africa)

Published by Papa Giorgio

An amazing story via Libertarian Republican, take note that in the video seen at LR’s website the shirt being worn is that of Nelson Mandela:

No hyperbole. No exaggeration. This really happened.

Note – it’s not being covered at all in any of the American media. Only here at Libertarian Republican.

From Arutz7, “South African BDS Protesters: ‘Shoot the Jew’ — A South African protest against an Israeli musician quickly deteriorated into a call for the murder of Jews”:

Anti-Israel students and activists showed their “true colors” last Wednesday night, Jewish students at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa said.

Moving quickly from “anti-Zionism” to classic anti-Semitism, a melange of students and BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) activists began screaming “Shoot the Jews” at a concert featuring religious Jewish jazz saxophonist Daniel Zamir.

[….]

Of course, the South African blacks were urged on by Muslims in the crowd. 

Continuing:

Dozens of South African Muslims and BDS supporters gathered outside Wits’ Great Hall, with security personnel keeping them outside. Several scuffles were reported, and concert-goers were subject to a great deal of verbal abuse. 

At that point, said witnesses, the protesters broke into a sing-song chant of “kill the Jews,” (“Dubula e Juda” in Zulu), a take-off on a protest song sung in the 80s against whites. When questioned, Muhammed Desai, coordinator of the protest and leader of “BDS South Africa,” said that the protesters did not mean the term “kill the Jews” literally. (Emphasis added.)

Note – this “Kill Whites” song has been sung at political rallies by numerous political leaders in the South African left, including Nelson Mandela.