Chicago: Land of the Free...except with regards to drinks

In what should not surprise anyone who understands the nanny-state, protect you from yourself, Government style out of Chicago, a proposed ban on 'Large Energy Drinks' is the latest out of the genius mind of Alderman Edward Burke.

This is nothing better than hearing Government wonks tell you what you can and can not do to your own body.  If someone wants to drink 5 red bulls a day, its within their Liberty to do so.  I don't care.  If this Alderman wants to ban anything, I would like to propose banning illegal searches conducted by police, red light cameras, and defined benefit pension plans.

Read Red Bull Ban here

A good idea out of Detroit..Seriously, I am not kidding

I nearly did a double take when I saw what one group of investors were preparing to show Detroit City Council (the most brilliant of its kind).

As the broken city thinks big and radically about its future, a developer is stepping forward with a revolutionary idea: Sell the city's Belle Isle park for $1 billion to private investors who will transform it into a free-market utopia.  

The Detroit News: 

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130112/BIZ/301120319#ixzz2I0z2tGRw

 I love this response because of whom the person is associated with:

The idea won't go anywhere, said George Jackson, president and CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., the quasi-public agency that promotes development for the city.  

I would love to know what ideas the 'quasi-public' agency has for spurring growth.  I am sure higher taxes and more public-private partnerships would work out...

Turning Belle Isle into a State Park is one of the dumbest ideas the council could endorse (if they do so).  A free market utopian would absolutely spur people to visit Detroit.  Yes, people would actually want to go to Detroit...gasp!

New Minimum wage - $5.35/hour

Kramer's union's demands are met 12 years after the bagel shop workers went on strike. are met...

Only the 'Good' guys should have guns

In what comes to no surprise for those living in Rahmaland, the city's top cop has come out proclaiming the only way to stop all this maddening violence is less guns.  So the only state that does not have a conceal and carry law, which has a city with one of the highest murder rates in the country, feels like making it harder to get a gun will lead to less murders...

McCarthy during a Rainbow/Push Coalition dialogue:

“When people say concealed carry, I say Trayvon Martin,” McCarthy said, referring to the unarmed 17-year-old who was shot and killed last February by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida, sparking controversy across the country. 

When I hear this man's logic, I think of Melinda Herman:

Melinda Herman grabbed a handgun and hid in a crawl space with her two children when a man broke in last week and approached the family at their home northeast of Atlanta, police said. Herman called her husband on the phone, and with him reminding her of the lessons she recently learned at a shooting range, Herman opened fire, seriously wounding the burglary suspect.

I wonder if Melinda asked the intruder to place down his gun (if he had one) so she could see he has all the proper permit and paperwork in place.

What laws really should be repealed in Chicago are the laws that hurt the poor: Minimum wage laws that prevent the unskilled from getting jobs, inflation induced by the Federal Reserve who actually targets a % of inflation for every year (making your money worth less), and the war on drugs that has failed miserably.

$20 Everyday McValue menu

It used to bother me that CEOs made lot$ of money.  "They don't deserve that!"  "How much money does one man deserve?"  "He should pay more taxes!".  Sadly, this is what I used to say with my beloved Pro-Union Grandpa shaking his head in the background.  How silly of me.  The reasons CEOs get paid what they get paid is because they take on huge responsibility leading global companies.  This is not the same as the CEOs of Bankster companies that get bailed out by the government *cough AIG, B of A, GM * cough.  Those CEOs don't deserve the chairs they sit in.

Which brings us to a Bloomberg article that claims the whoa is me mantra of a lower wage earner.  I am not attacking this man's character.  He appears to work hard.  But his wage is determined by the marginal revenue product of his labor skills.  See Labor follows the law of supply and demand just like any other aspect of the economy.  This worker's skills are easily replaceable with another worker, thus his wages are lower.  I like these quotes:

Johnson would need about a million hours of work -- or more than a century on the clock -- to earn the $8.75 million that McDonald’s, based in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, paid then- CEO Jim Skinner last year.

And he would need two million hours of work to double the CEOs salary!  This is great math.  Here is what I propose, pay everyone equal amount.  From the french fry cook to the CEO.  See how long the company stays in business, and what people want to buy their shares.

Employers are doing more to keep workers from organizing, said Dorothy Sue Cobble, labor professor and historian at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “The numbers of people who get fired for joining a union or trying to organize one has increased dramatically over the last 30 years,” she said.

There is a reason.  Business' don't want to deal with Unions.  They do not (in just about every case) add value to a business or shareholders.

If McDonald's paid its lowest wage earners the same as the CEO, we would all be enjoying the $20 Everyday McValue menu, not the $1 menu that is currently being assaulted by our fearsome President of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Ben "Hellicopter" Bernanke