How Special-Interest Groups Benefit from Minimum Wage Laws - Gary Galles - Mises Daily

How Special-Interest Groups Benefit from Minimum Wage Laws - Gary Galles - Mises Daily: "Non-union workers and employers in high cost of living areas, where virtually everyone earns above the federal minimum wage, benefit, by raising the cost of production imposed on rivals where wages are lower (Which is why many in high-wage areas favor higher federal minimum wages, while those in low-wage states — the alleged beneficiaries — often oppose them). Workers and producers where state minimum wages exceed the federal minimum also gain because it raises the cost of production where the federal minimum is binding, relative to where they are located."



"Because Wal-Mart already pays more than the federal minimum, in low-wage areas a federal minimum-wage increase raises competitors’ costs, but not theirs. In high-wage areas, supporting a higher federal minimum wage is a costless way for Wal-Mart to demonstrate compassion for workers."



"The same mechanism is at work in the depression-era Davis-Bacon Act, which is still in force. It required the payment of “prevailing wages” on any project that received federal money. But its genesis was the explicitly racist intent to exclude lower-cost southern firms employing black workers from underbidding local white workers for construction projects, by forcing them to pay their workers more."

Presidents Day: What's to Celebrate? | Cato Institute

Presidents Day: What's to Celebrate? | Cato Institute: "The demands Americans place on the presidency are virtually boundless: They “invest in the president their highest aspirations not just for the federal government, but for the general polity, for their communities and families, and for their own private lives.” Responding to the incentives that confront them, presidents naturally seek power to meet the insatiable public demands for presidential salvation.

Thus, Howell writes, “from nearly the moment he assumes office, the most self-effacing presidential candidate will quickly be transformed into a great apologist for presidential power.”"



“presidents can ill afford to repudiate any power that might enable them to address the onslaught of expectations put before them.”



"The private interests of individual congressmen lead them to cede power to the executive branch and focus on reelection. Congress rarely guards its institutional turf — yet every president ends up leaving the presidency stronger than he found it."

In a pickle: New Jersey breaks out the brine for snowy roads as it awaits fed OK for salt delivery | Fox News

In a pickle: New Jersey breaks out the brine for snowy roads as it awaits fed OK for salt delivery | Fox News: "The salt is sitting at a port in Maine, docked until New Jersey officials obtain a federal waiver. Once that is done, it will take two days to ship the load from Maine to Newark.

The shipment is being denied entry because it’s on a vessel that isn’t flying under a U.S. flag – a violation of the 1920 federal Maritime Act -- also known as The Jones Act -- that requires shipments to arrive on a ship with goods traveling between two U.S. ports to be flying the American flag."