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Most Dangerous
The top 25 most dangerous neighborhoods in America. Detroit has four of them, including the top three. Chicago claims the fourth most dangerous. Together, Michigan and Illinois contain 11 of the 25 worst neighborhoods.
Houston has two, Memphis has two, and just across the river, West Memphis has one. St Louis has two, Indianapolis has two, and the remaining 25 are rounded out with cities that have one each: Tulsa; Flint, and Saginaw, MI; Atlanta; Nashville; Greenville; and Spartanberg.
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Minimum wage again
The Obama administration is talking about a minimum wage hike. The one that has been proposed is a hike to $10.10 an hour, which equates to $21,000 a year. The Federal poverty level for a family of four is $22,320, and for a single person is $10,890. So Obama’s plan will wipe out poverty, right?
Wrong.
Coming on the heels of the massive costs involved with Obamacare, it would cost $12,000 more per year to hire a new worker than it did when Obama took office. Employers are not bottomless pockets full of money. In order to afford these new, higher wages, employers will have to do one of three things: cut costs, raise prices, or a combination of the previous two. Most likely, this will be done as a combination of the previous two. The first effect will be fewer jobs.
The second effect will be pay compression. Let me give an example: In 2004, workers in Florida followed the Federal minimum wage law. The minimum wage in Florida was the same as the Federal wage, $5.15 an hour. In those days, an unskilled position like fry cook at KFC started at about $6.50 an hour. A
semi skilled position, EMT, started at $8 an hour. A
skilled position, Paramedic, started at $14 an hour.
In 2005, the voters of Florida put a law in place that increased the state minimum wage each year. (Here it is – pdf warning) Right now in Florida, an unskilled position like fry cook at KFC starts at about $8 an hour. A semi skilled position, like EMT currently starts about $9 an hour. A skilled position like Paramedic starts at about $13 an hour. So, the minimum wage in Florida increased by $2.64 (a 51% increase) over 7 years, and while the wages of unskilled labor climbed by 23%, the wages of semi-skilled laborers climbed by only 12.5%, and skilled labor actually fell by 7%. Factoring in inflation, and unskilled laborers were the only ones who saw an increase. This is illustrated in this Sentinel article. About three quarters of the way through the article,
Eric Jackson is CEO and president of Total Roofing Services, a
2-year-old Orlando company with about eight employees. Jackson starts
his employees out at $10 an hour, saying he wants to give everyone “a
chance to earn a living wage.”
Jackson said he’s not particularly concerned an increase in the federal
minimum wage would drive up his labor costs. He said he’d tell new
employees, “I’m already paying you a buck above that. Prove yourself,
and you’ll make more.”
So the skilled workers making more than minimum wage would not make more when the minimum wage is raised, and would be making the same as what a KFC fry cook makes, only now all of the businesses who had to give raises to their employees (KFC, grocery stores, gas stations) charge more. Inflation.
Inflation brings us to the second way that employers react to an increase in labor costs: they raise prices. They pay for the wage increases and the increased costs of providing health insurance by raising prices.
One of the biggest complainers about the minimum wage law is waiters and waitresses. They have a “tipped minimum wage” that is only $2.13 an hour. They claim that this places them below the poverty level. I claim bullshit. I know your game. Waiters and waitresses make HUGE amounts of money, they just don’t claim them. Since much of these wages are “under the table,” unreported income, they appear poor, but my daughter works as a server, and she regularly brings home $200 a night in tips after an 8 hour shift.
A meal for two at a moderately priced restaurant like the Outback or Olive Garden runs about $35, meaning a tip of $4 or more. The average server works 3-5 tables. This translates into $12-20 an hour in tips. For a job that requires no licenses or real skill. All you have to do is write down what the customer wants and carry it to the table.
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Banks screwing up
For those who may not remember or are new to this blog, I was swept up in the mortgage mess that started our economic downturn. You can read about the summary here. I declared bankruptcy in 2009 as a result. My mortgage bank lied and provided false documents in court, and I was able to prove it. I sued them in Federal Court, and we settled out of court for $7,500. They paid me to go away. Then, in June of 2011, I won the foreclosure case after a year and a half of acting as my own attorney as I fought it in court.
Because no one knows who owns the mortgage, there are three different entities who have a potential claim:
1 The original bank. (Let’s call them Mortgage Trust Company) They are the ones that I beat in court. They claimed to own my mortgage, sold it, filed the assignment with the courthouse, but still claim to be the mortgage holder.
2 Fannie Mae (FNMA) They also claim to be the owner, and they claim that Mortgage Trust Company is acting on their behalf. Like Mortgage Trust Company, they cannot produce a single document to show that they are the owners of the note or mortgage.
3 Nationstar mortgage. There is a recorded document at the courthouse that names Nationstar as the mortgage holder, and it is signed by Mortgage Trust Company’s agent, MERS. The problem here is that Nationstar has no record of this.
Clear as mud? So last year, they started trying to collect money again. So, last month, I filed another lawsuit in Federal Court. This time, I was able to get an attorney. Let’s see how much money we get this time.
I am not alone. In Florida, the banks are still lying and committing fraud to steal people’s homes. This needs to stop, but I am not counting on our corrupt government to stop it. This family has been messing with it for two years:
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Killer Cop
There are some lessons to be learned from the case of Phoenix Police Officer Richard Chrisman. He was caught on video and later admitted to planting a crack pipe on a homeless woman in 2005.
Then, in 2011 he was arrested for murder when he placed his service weapon against a suspect’s head and pulled the trigger, after killing the man’s dog. His own partner turned him in.
So after all of this went down, he accepted a plea deal (according to the questionable reporting at this link) where he will plead guilty to negligent homicide with an opportunity to have the charge expunged from
his record after completing an unspecified term of probation. He was fired from Phoenix, but the plea deal will
allow Chrisman to regain employment as a cop in another jurisdiction or
even in Phoenix.
The family of the deceased boy sued the city for unlawful use of force resulting in death, and the court threw out the suit.
So what are the lessons?
1 There are actually a few honest cops left who are willing to stand up against their fellow officers who are lawbreakers. Thanks to Chrisman’s partner for having the morals to do this.
2 The police union in this case, standing up for a murdering criminal cop that plants evidence makes all unions look bad.
3 There is no limit to what a cop can actually get away with. This guy literally got away with murder.
4 Whatever you do, seriously think about what could happen if you ever need to call the cops.
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Frequent fliers
Frequent flyers are the bane of EMS systems nationwide. A woman in South Caroliina was just charged with abusing 911 after calling them with bogus medical complaints more than 100 times since 2005, according to deputies. That sounds extreme until you think that this case is not even the average for abusers.
In my first due area, I had a patient (let’s call him Jimmy) that used to call 911 4 or 5 times a week. I once ran on him 5 times in one day. (That is the record for my system: 5 in a day for one patient. The previous record of 4, to a patient we called Miss Cleo because she looked like the celebrity, was also mine.) The reasons for this vary.
In Jimmy’s case, he would call to get a ride to his sister’s house when he was out of money after having spent it all drinking, or he would call 911 to be taken to the ER, where they would give him a sandwich and a Gatorade, and he would walk out.
Miss Cleo was a different story. She had psychiatric problems. The first time I ran a call on her, she was lying on her back trying to do CPR on herself because she couldn’t find her own pulse.
There is Kevin, the homeless guy that just needs a place to sleep. There is Eric, who knows the ED staff will feed him. The list goes on.
The problem is multiplied nationwide. Indianapolis. Also in Washington, DC. In Louisville.
Some measures, like the one in DC help, others won’t. For example, in Houston they are charging a $13 per mile fee. The problem is that this won’t stop the abusers: Medicare and Medicaid won’t pay that rate, and neither will the abusers who won’t pay the ER, either.
EMTALA and legal liability are at the heart of this issue. EMTALA says that everyone has to receive treatment, even if they can’t pay. Legal liability is the fear of being sued of you refuse to transport a person and they turn out to actually be ill. The frequent flyers know how to play the game: feign chest pain, go to the head of the line.
This is a problem that has no easy answers.
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Since Newtown
I have signed up two people for Life memberships, and four people to annual memberships in the NRA. While I don’t agree with everything they do and every stance they take, the NRA is the 800 pound gorilla in the room where gun rights are concerned.
I also have donated to the SAF and to Florida Carry. What have you done to protect your rights? If each gun owner just sent in the cost of what one AR15 magazine is going for, we could raise billions for the cause.
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Success
I finally was able to make my first contacts. Saturday was a contest day, and this meant that there were plenty of HAMs looking for contacts. I worked the 40 meter band for about half an hour and made three contacts.
My antenna is simply a 1:1 balun hooked to an 80 foot long piece of wire that runs out the window and through the trees, and the other side of the balun is hooked to the downspout of the gutter. I made contacts with this in Miami, Bradenton, and New Orleans. I will take what I can get for now.
On the down side, the tuning dial on my rig has a bad encoder after only a week. I bought it at AES, I called them, and they said that I could return it for another.
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Government destroying the auto industry
I was recently looking for a compact pickup truck. Something small. After looking, what I found was that the smallest trucks are what used to be called mid-sized trucks. I wondered why the smaller compact ones were no longer made. It turns out that the answer is: government.
The biggest stumbling block is the chicken tax. Passed in 1963, this law is a protectionist tariff imposed by the U.S. in 1963 after Germany tripled
the duty on frozen U.S. chicken products coming into that country.If a small truck is imported into the US, it is subject to a 25% tax. This has a big effect on not only “foreign” car makers, but the domestics as well. Why? Because it is a tax based on where the truck is MADE, not where the company is based. (After all, Toyota USA is a domestic company.)
One is Ford Motor Co.’s Transit Connect small van, which the firm builds in Turkey and wants to sell in the US. Another is a compact diesel pickup truck that Indian manufacturer Mahindra wants to offer U.S. buyers. The problem is that small vehicles that are subject to this tax cannot compete with larger, midsized trucks, because a $12,000 truck when imported becomes a $15,000 truck, and is now in the price range of the midsized trucks.
The tax started in a classic trade war between nations but now is a
powerful protectionist tool for U.S. interests. The hefty levy forced
Honda, Nissan and Toyota to build trucks here, but Ford and Mahindra
have other ideas until they can prove the market is ready for their
products.
But what about building them here? Well, you can thank CAFE for that. CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) came as a
result of the 1973 oil embargo, as a means to mandate fuel economy
targets for cars and light trucks. Over the last four decades, the
standards have evolved, with the latest iteration being the targets set
for fuel economy in the year 2025. The 2025 targets were released this
summer, and comprise 1,944 pages
full of legalese.
One of CAFEs biggest impacts in recent times has manifested itself in
how auto makers classify products. Under CAFE, vehicles can be labeled
“passenger cars” or “light trucks”, with the latter category required to
meet less stringent standards for fuel economy and CO2 emissions. A
decade ago, the Chrysler PT Cruiser was the most egregious example of
this. The PT
Cruiser was designed to meet NHTSA standards for classification as a
light truck, for the express purpose of raising Chrysler’s light truck
average fuel economy. At the time, the minimum fleet average for
passenger cars was 27.5 mpg CAFE, while for light trucks it was 20.7 mpg
CAFE. A small, four-cylinder vehicle like the PT Cruiser was
effectively a “ringer” for Chrysler’s fleet average. The year 2000 CAFE
targets discussed above translate to 21 mpg IRL for passenger cars and
15 mpg IRL for light trucks. A “light truck” like the PT would
obviously have no trouble surpassing these standards.
On the surface, the footprint requirements can be viewed as logical; a
compact, fuel-efficient car like the Honda Fit, should be able to hit
tougher targets, by virtue of its small size, aerodynamic profile and
powertrain choices. It manages a respectable 28/35 mpg. The Ford F-150 has a
very different mission; it must be large, durable, powerful and able to
meet the needs of a full-size pickup, and will naturally be less
conducive to achieving the kind of fuel economy that a Fit can.
Unfortunately, the footprint method has the opposite effect; rather than
encouraging auto makers to strive for unprecedented fuel economy in
their passenger car offerings, it has incentivized auto makers to build
larger cars, in particular, more car-based crossovers that can be
classified as “trucks” as used to skew fleet average figures. Compact trucks have become nearly extinct as a result.
Because of these regulations and taxes, it costs $1 billion at minimum to design and test a new model. So this is why we get so few new cars that are truly new. What we mostly get is minor changes to existing designs, and they slap a new name on it. So the small truck has either been taxed or regulated out of existence. Now you know…