Thursday, June 9, 2011

The Labor Department Secretary Reports on LBJ's Great Grandkids

LBJ's Great Society ended up being about paying single mothers with poor work skills to have more children, it encouraged the fathers to leave the family nucleus so the LBJ bucks would roll in.  LBJ would take care of everything, including the education.

This "gift" from LBJ (with your money, btw) fell disproportionately on blacks in America .It makes it difficult, if not impossible, for many black Americans to fit into mainstream America. Yup, the mess created by the state and local governments via Jim Crow laws, was going to be fixed by introducing, surprise, more government into the picture by, especially, LBJ's Great Society.

On top of LBJ's Great Society,  minimum wage laws were regularly raised, at the encouragement of unions, which made it difficult for black Americans to find jobs and gain work skills. The situation remains pretty much the same today. Unemployment for black youth is exceptionally high and on top of it many black Americans who do get jobs often end up getting jobs in the government which means they don't learn skills that the free market is looking for, but instead learn how to push paper around and be generally bureaucratic.

As  LBJ's grandkids go wilding in the streets, Labor Department Secretary Hilda Solis  has a comment out today on the those kids:
The unemployment rate for black workers remains unacceptably high at 16.2%.  African American workers are more likely to work in the public sector than either white or Latino workers, so they’ve faced more of the burden of the continuing loss of state and local government jobs...
We also know that jobs in professional and technical services are expected to grow the fastest by 2018, but blacks are underrepresented in these industries...
[Of] particular concern for me: the high rate of black teen unemployment.  In May 2011, the black teen unemployment rate was 40.7%.  


Black unemployment by state. Click on chart for larger view.

24 comments:

  1. Alright! We black folks can look forward to lots of work at less than the current minimum wages! YEEEE HAAAA! That'll REALLY help us out!

    Thanks Mr. Wenzel for helping us black folks!

    By the way, Mr. Wenzel, in case you didn't know it we can already work for less than minimum wage and it's legal. It's true! Mow a law for $20 and if it takes 4 hours, that's less than minimum wage. Build a deck for $1000 and if it takes 200 hours, that's less than minimum wage. See how that works? Lots of people work for less than minimum wage if they have their own business.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Alright! We black folks can look forward to lots of work at less than the current minimum wages! YEEEE HAAAA! That'll REALLY help us out!"

      My grandfather told me something once. "Something is better, then nothing."

      Delete
  2. @Anonymous --

    How many inner-city blacks can realistically open their own businesses mowing lawns or building decks? Who in the ghetto is willing to pay for these services? Because of great poverty and crime in the ghettos brought about by welfare and the drug war, the answer is few.

    Furthermore, the point of the argument against the minimum wage is not that black people would have to live on lower than the minimum wage indefinitely, but if these people have the choice between $5 an hour and $0, shouldn't they have the right to take the former? With such low-paying jobs available, workers with low marginal productivity can get their foot in the door and learn skills that will help them get other jobs and/or help them be promoted at that job. However, under the minimum wage that you support, this experience becomes unavailable for many.

    Also, the government has no right to interfere in voluntary contracts between employers and employees. If someone agrees to work for %5 an hour, then that should be that person's right.

    Finally, something tells me that you are a white liberal, as the largest support for the welfare state comes from white liberals. Many blacks who have seen the effects of these policies firsthand strongly oppose them.

    How can you claim to be in support of poor people, white or black, if you deprive them of the right to make a living? Don't tell me a bunch of nonsense about how they should have the right to a reasonable wage. Under the current system, many of them have the right to no wage at all because minimum-wage laws keep them completely jobless.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There's lots of jobs for ANYONE capable and WILLING to work. Walk the street and pick up cans and loose change. Beg. Flip burgers (they are all hiring with no exceptions).

    We have too many people. Most of the people who are working are doing jobs THAT DON'T EVEN NEED TO BE DONE!!!!!

    So, you compassionate conservatives that wanted all these crack babies because abortion is so horrible: Get off your ass and adopt 3 or 4 of them! YOU wanted them, NOW go do the right thing and take care of them. GET UP AND START ADOPTING!!!!! Give them a good education, health care, opportunities, an inheritance. What's wrong there, cat got yo' tongue?

    ReplyDelete
  4. "So, you compassionate conservatives"

    If you're trolling, har har. If not, you'll find very few of those here. There's always jobs to be had. Point being, the government makes it disproportionately harder for blacks to get into employment of the sort with good career progression. And aside from more entrepreneurial individuals, MW laws will make many youths an out-and-out uneconomic proposition.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Why work if the government is going to take care of your every need? The stupid bleeding heart liberals in government have created this disaster with their welfare programs!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Unfortunately, LBJ's Great Society remains sacrosanct in many quarters despite the fact that evidence now shows that LBJ became President by murdering his predecessor. If you are a Democrat and a Friend of the Common Man, I guess you can get away with anything.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous....You need to go take a basic economics 101 class. One of the most basic things that even the most die hard Keynsian economist will tell you is that if you raise the minimum wage unemployment will go up. Every resource in this world whether it be labor or physical resources has a value. This value is subjective. So when the government says you cannot pay someone less than $8 an hour then employers who think that one of their employees cannot generate at least $8 of revenue per hour are likely to lay off such said individual.

    So now "crack babies" are our fault to now I guess?! Perhaps if there was some economic opportunity in the ghetto which is what this article is trying to get at that seems to have gone completely over your head then we wouldn't have the crack baby problem anymore. I mean haven't you ever asked yourself why "crack babies" and the general problem of shattered homes didn't exist in black America during the pre-civil rights movements of the 1960's during a time whenever it was even harder make a living? Before this period the black family had the lowest divorce rate in the country. The heros of the left like LBJ who under good intentions I am sure really created incentives for families not to stay together.

    You really need to get away from this "us versus them" mentality man!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jim Crow laws were NOT put in place to be cruel to blacks. They were put in place to PROTECT whites from black predation. And no amount of liberal feel-good legislation is going to stop that predation as we can see from the evidence in Chicago and other NORTHERN urban areas which now suffer as a result of the repeal of Jim Crow laws. When the government goes bankrupt from the effort to solve intractable social problems and we descend into chaos, then you will see states and localities laboriously rebuilding Jim Crow laws. And for the same reasons: to protect white societies.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm not sure these statistics mean much. What's missing is the large number of Blacks employed in the black market - Mostly drugs, but also prostitution, illegal gambling, trade in weapons and stolen goods, and illegal knock offs. I'll bet it is substantial - as well as the cost to society in terms of more police and prisons, to interdict this trade. I'm not sure what the end results would show, but it would be interesting to see the complete analysis.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Minimum wage prevents young people entering the job market from developing the skills and experience needed in order to get a better paying job.
    If you can't get on the bottom rung of the job ladder because the pay is arbitrarily set too high for the work that needs to be done then no one is better off.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Great article. I had not realized that the public and local college libraries had locked out blacks. I didn't know that there was a "black" filter on everyone's internet blocking all educational material. No wonder that so few manage to self-educate. Ever realize that without college or even high school anyone with the knowledge gets hired by a business that can make money using them? I only graduated from 8th grade - my last private sector job was $108,000/year. Wake up folks - of all colors.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Stop making excuses for blacks who our RACIST government favors over whites.

    If they are dumb violent stupid and lazy let them suffer

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous...You don't have the reasoning ability and know about as much history as a 5 yr old. Jim Crow laws were not put in place "to PROTECT whites from black predation" as you put it, but were vindictive responses to blacks starting to exercise their civil rights at the voting booth during the reconstruction period. The goal being to stem the tide of black participation in elections and disenfranchise newly freed blacks. Go back to school you moron.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. voting is often a means of theft.

      Delete
  14. The racial group most heavily subsidized by the FedGov is "Native Americans." Look what that brought on them.

    Axiom 1: Supply rises to meet monetary demand, i.e., you always get more of what you pay for. The gov pays for poverty, so you get more of it. DUH.

    Axiom 2: Animals raised in captivity lose their ability to take care of themselves and become caged pets. Welfare (whether it's AFDC, SNAP, Section 8, Medicaid, SS, or Medicare) turn people into dependent pets (or slaves, depending on your definition).

    Given Axiom 2, there are no more cruel people on the planet than those who demand government payment systems ("forced charity") for others. Smug in their supposed moral superiority, they destroy other people's souls by enabling the dole.

    ReplyDelete
  15. It MUST be added that the Federal Reserve has constantly destroyed the purchasing power of the dollar by the cumulative effects of years of inflation which especially hurts poor, lower income and people on fixed incomes, and puts upward pressure on raising the minimum wage law---brought about by a viscous circle of which the Federal Government remains the main culprit of this whole mess. Uninformed folks blame Black folks, but they did not create the Welfare State. The destruction of the Black family structure with its accompanying criminal behavior is a direct result of Welfare Statism PLUS the Federal government's insane drug war.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Why can`t you people understand. Its not that we want to secretly cut Black people down with circular reasoning and the such. We simply do not like them at all. That is not a problem as far as I am concerned and I never plan to like them. All of you liberals can call me a moron, I don`t care. I may be a moron, but I am a damn good looking White man with a good job and I can get all the sex I want from Black and White women. HaHaHa...

    ReplyDelete
  17. I am a Christian and God loves all people, regardless of race, gender, etc. Black people deserve the same dignity and respect as all others. Jim Crow laws were evil. Slavery was evil. However, the current "Great Society" is also evil, though it disguises itself as kindness.

    One thing we could do that would also help poor blacks (and whites, and Hispanics and Asians, and Native Americans and....) is to enforce our immigration laws. I worked for a recruiter - after Katrina, just as an example, we found good paying jobs for 20 guys doing construction. 2 days before they were supposed to leave for New Orleans, the contract was canceled. they found some illegals who worked cheaper.

    If we stopped illegals, that would help the American citizens who want to work and also raise wages for low skilled workers.

    Right now, the Dems refuse to worry about immigration because they want to cater to the Hispanic voting bloc. The GOP refuses to get serious because they want to cater to businesses who want cheap labor. Who suffers? The lowest paid workers.

    Do I feel sorry for poor Mexicans (and Central Americans, and Koreans, etc.) who just want to feed their families? Absolutely. But our government has an obligation to our own people first.

    ReplyDelete
  18. @ Anonymous (June 11, 2011 12:25 PM)

    "What's missing is the large number of Blacks employed in the black market - Mostly drugs, but also prostitution, illegal gambling, trade in weapons..."

    In other words, victimless "crimes". No problem there.


    "I'll bet it is substantial - as well as the cost to society in terms of more police and prisons, to interdict this trade."

    Since the so-called "crimes" mentioned above are victimless crimes, these people should not even be arrested. Should these people not be arrested, the whole argument for more police and prisons falls on its face. The state is creating the problem, and than footing other people with the bill for the "solution".


    "I'm not sure what the end results would show, but it would be interesting to see the complete analysis."

    Since the premise is based on oppressing and arresting people on the basis of victimless crimes, the complete analysis you are looking for is flawed.

    ReplyDelete
  19. To "Anonymous" posting at June 12, 2011, at 10:25 P.M.:

    Excellent comment. Indeed, he who does not care for his own country first is worse than an infidel.

    We'd solve many, many problems, moral and legal, by guarding the borders, enforcing existing laws, and deporting all illegal immigrants.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Maybe there could be "fee interns", people who would pay businesses for the opportunity to work at the business and learn some areas of production. They might then take their knowledge and find jobs at other businesses who were too small to operate a fee intern program, or they could continue at the business where they trained. After mastering some areas of production, they might pay to learn other areas, or simply work at a reduced wage until they gained some experience in those other areas.

    Sorry, I forgot for a moment that this would be heartless capitalism, charging a fee to inexperienced people who might pay and still not learn an area well enough to be productive. It would violate many laws designed to protect unskilled people from being robbed by profit-making organizations.

    Our current system is much better. People called "students" pay fees to organizations which usually don't produce anything from the student's work. They learn things, which may or may not make them employable, from altruistic individuals called "teachers" who communicate the beautiful, ideal parts of things, rather than the grubby details of producing something. The students then graduate to lives of high wages and immediate productivity in their society.

    - -
    Yes, sarcastic. Why shouldn't people be able to make the arrangements that they wish? At least the interns can quit with whatever experience they get. Colleges refuse to grant any credit (no partial degrees) unless the student serves and pays for four years, a type of credential servitude.

    Low wages for inexperienced workers can be seen in the same light. The worker earns less while he learns the business, getting a higher wage job after "graduation". This is a better approach than having the worker pay a school for training which may or may not apply to the jobs available to him. Minimum wages keep this efficient from of training from happening.

    - -
    Yes, sarcastic. Why shouldn't people be able to make the arrangements that they wish? At least the interns can quit with whatever experience they get. Colleges refuse to grant any credit (no partial degrees) unless the student serves and pays for four years, a type of credential servitude.

    Low wages for inexperienced workers can be seen in the same light. The worker earns less while he learns the business, getting a higher wage job after "graduation". This is a better approach than having the worker pay a school for training which may or may not apply to the jobs available to him. Minimum wages keep this efficient form of training from happening.

    Also, the minimum wage has a racist history. It was instituted explictly to keep black workers from competing in the northeast US.

    Minimum Wage Prosperity: Suppressing black competition

    ReplyDelete