Saturday Selections – Mar. 16, 2024
Click on the titles below to go to the linked articles...
If $50/hr is a good minimum wage why not $100... or $1,000? (9 min)
A Californian legislator recently proposed raising the minimum wage to $50/hr, or approximately $100,000 US/year (or roughly $135,00 Canadian). And, as the video below shares, Batman himself thinks it's a great idea. But if $50/hr is good, why not $100/hr... or $1000?
These minimum wage proponents and transgenderism activists share one thing in common: both believe that wishing can make it so. But simply declaring everyone worth a certain wage doesn't change reality. Older employees, still skilled but slower than they once might have been, and lower skilled or inexperienced workers aren't going to be able to bring $50/hr in value to their employers. That means this minimum wage is going to price them right out of the labor market. And that's true of every minimum wage, no matter how well intentioned – they declares a minimum value for labor, and anyone who can't meet it, or can't meet it yet, is legislated out of any chance at a job.
Childless China: coercive population plan implodes
"Kenneth Emde of Minnesota, who came of age during the Swinging Sixties, recently explained why he is childless today. 'I was a college student when I read Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb,' he said in a letter published by the Wall Street Journal. 'I took it to heart and now have no grandchildren, but 50 years later the population has increased to eight billion without dire consequences. I was gullible and stupid.'”
This is a secular piece, so it doesn't make the case for how Emde could have known better. He needed to listen to the real Expert, who says in His Word that children are a blessing, not a curse.
On the cost of business subsidies, and the trouble with electric cars
The Fraser Institute was busy this past week, issuing two eye-opening reports. The first was on the $52 billion Canadian governments spent on corporate welfare in 2022. We can't agree on much in this country, but can we at least agree not to take money from some companies to prop up other companies? From 2007 to 2019, PEI, Quebec, and Manitoba spent all or nearly all of their corporate income tax revenue on business subsidies!
The second report was on the impossibility of meeting the new electrical demands that will come if all new cars from 2035 onward have to be electrical. We'd need the equivalent of 10 new dams, each of which, if history serves, would take 10 years to plan, another 10 years to build, and cost $16 billion each. So what happens if we have the cars but not the electricity?
March 16 is the 4th anniversary of "15 days to slow the spread"
In this look back a professor explains how he got fired from Harvard for refusing to be vaccinated (he'd already had COVID), and got fired from the CDC for being too pro-vaccine. Dissenting opinions, whatever the direction, weren't allowed and that came with a cost.
"Sweden was the only major Western country that rejected school closures and other lockdowns in favor of concentrating on the elderly, and the final verdict is now in. Led by an intelligent social democrat prime minister (a welder), Sweden had the lowest excess mortality among major European countries during the pandemic, and less than half that of the United States. Sweden’s Covid deaths were below average, and it avoided collateral mortality caused by lockdowns."
When the pope isn't Catholic
This is a lament from Canada's pro-life and mostly Roman Catholic media outlet LifeSiteNews, highlighting the ways the pope is targeting established Catholic doctrine. Roman Catholics dealing with a corrupt pope face a situation a little like Martin Luther, who wasn't looking to start a new church but was left with no choice once he was kicked out. We can pray that when orthodox Roman Catholics are kicked out of today's Roman Catholic Church, they'll finally stop putting their trust in this institution.
Bluey: the beach (7 min)
Our family just learned about a cute Australian dog named Bluey, and so far we are about 20 episodes into the first season. Our kids are older than the target audience, but the whole family is enjoying the accents, the energetic (and generally respectful) kids, and the super fun dad (mom ain't bad either). This is a current show, so I was wondering if it would take a turn for the weird some time soon. But so far so good, and from what I could read online, it does seem pretty solid. We found it on DVD from our local library, but some episodes can be watched for free online. This one will play everywhere except, unfortunately, Bluey's native land.
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