Saturday, March 28, 2009

The Non Stimulus Effect – Moving Slightly Forward

The state of Oregon has issued a map, which is linked to the data of what counties are receiving Federal stimulus monies. If you notice the counties with the largest liberal voting blocks are receiving the most money. The counties that are more conservative politically are receiving less.

http://www.oregon.gov/recovery/StimulusReporting/index.shtml

And then there is Tri-Met, also receiving Federal stimulus money, making the deceleration that the money that they receive will be used to install heated switches, repair worn-out track, upgrade the roadbed that the track sits on. Using existing vendors, which means that, with an unemployment rate greater than ten percent, no one without a job already will get a new one.

So much for the word stimulus, in point of fact this is just business as usual, because Tri-Met plans to lay off some drivers and curtail service. So as you can see our original thesis is correct. The Federal government is going head over heals in debt and the alleged stimulus is having zero effect.

Sherman.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Follow The Money!

Here is what the State of Oregon is doing with the stimulas money, that pile of cash the Fed's are geiving away.

http://www.oregon.gov/recovery/StimulusReporting/index.shtml

Good reading!

Sherman

Saturday, February 21, 2009

The Non Stimulus Effect

Recently there has been a lot of discussion about the effect that the Federal Stimulus package, Obama Just signed it, will have on the economy of Oregon. The total impact for Oregon businesses will be minimal and the impact on individuals even less.

The Oregon legislature, a few days prior to the signing of the bill by Obama, cut the Oregon tax code loose from the Federal tax code. This was done because the Federal package contains tax cuts to businesses and to individuals. Tax cuts are said to cost the government of Oregon money.

However, Oregon has a two-year budget processes in which they project the amount of tax dollars that the state will receive. The legislature, and the governor, then makes spending plans based on the projection. They do not make plans on spending the based on how much actually comes in. The result is that there is a “shortfall” which is the amount of money they are projected to not receive. At no point in the budget process do they actually spend real money.

At no point in the process do they make any real cuts or spending adjustments either. It is all based on projections of what they think will wind up in the state coffers or not wind up there. Therefore the only way for them to keep the budget balanced is to cut services, or raise taxes and fees. A federal tax cut for business is good for the business. They get to stay open, pay employees, pay state, federal, local taxes and fees.

But the budget “projection” shows a shortfall in state collections, can’t have that, resulting in the raising in fees at the local and state level. Explaining why the state took the action that they did. An action that both the governor said was to balance the budget and keep schools solvent, schools that gobble up piles of money and fail to educate the children in their care.

So Average taxpayer, making forty grand or less at a job that will not give you a raise this year. No tax relief for you because the state is unwilling to run heir budget process based on real money.

Sherman

Friday, January 30, 2009

The Effects of Going Green.

Five years ago the Governor of Oregon touted green industries and environmental ideas as the wave of the future. Since this Blog is about the effects that laws, and the political ideas that spawn them, have on us all . I decided to point our a little known fact.

The more that the state of Oregon chases “Green” companies, “Green” building and the sacred cow of “Sustainability”. The higher the state’s unemployment gets, the less is manufactured, and the less money that government makes.

In five years of going “Green”, the average wage in Oregon has fell from forty eight thousand a year to forty thousand a year. In the same period the unemployment rate has risen to 9.1 percent.

Proof that going “green” has cost people their jobs or forced people to take lesser paying jobs. This in turn costs the state government, and retailers money. Never fear governor has a plan.

Raise taxes, raise fees, and invent new fees to rise. This will have the effect of the few “green” manufactures removing to a state that is more business friendly. This is how Oregon lost bio-fuel companies, and manufacturing to other states and countries.


Sherman

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Oregon Governor Revokes Part of The US Constitution

It appears that our current governor wants to place a price tag on your freedom of movement.
The Oregon governor, a democrat, has passed on to the Oregon legislature a most ominous idea. He wants this idea to become law. With nary a whimper from the ACLU or any of the alleged personal rights advocates. What is this heinous idea?

The governor wants every automobile to have a GPS device installed in it, either at the factory or as an after market device. This device would then “talk” to the fuel pump at the gas station and you could receive gas for your car, as well as pay a per mile tax for using the public road. Seems like a good idea fro making money.

However, this device could be used to deny you the fuel that you need, place you on unannounced fuel ration, and then also allow the government to confiscate your private car. No way to work because you do not live where there is public transportation. Or because public transportation does not run at the hours your need in order to get to work.

The US Constitution, and subsequently the Oregon Constitution allow for freedom of movement. The governor’s idea is to place a price tag on the freedom that we all have right to via the US Constitution. In addition it prevents people that live in rural parts of the state form buying goods where they want, prevents competition in the private sector, limits commerce to trains, drives up ambulance costs, and ultimately will cause the death of completely innocent people. Because they can not afford the per mile charge,

The state of Oregon already receives fuel tax making a mileage tax unneeded. If you think that the government will not rise the per mileage tax to any number that they want, remember in 1955 Washington State citizens were told that the sales tax would never need to go higher than 3 percent. Fifty-three years later the sales tax is 8.3 percent in most places, yet another example of how government lies to us all.

What other freedom will he want to sell next, and to whom?

Sherman

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Pending Doom In Oregon State

Every one likes a raise; at least I haven’t seen anyone turn one down. Oregon is one, of at least two states, that have automatic raises built into their basic wage law. The supporters of this idea point out that people at the bottom are more deserving, then the rest of us, and need the money.

There are a few observations to make about this:

1. Employers cannot always raise prices in order to cover the added cost. More so in an economic climate where they are lowering their prices in order to attract business.


2. The last time the basic wage was raised one hundred people in Portland Oregon found them selves out of a job. Mostly restaurant workers, because the management of the various restaurants decided that they could do with one less shift. A good method of controlling cost without raising prices.


3. This year businesses are looking to lay people off rather than providing wage increases. The question, with the unemployment rate in Oregon at 8.1 percent, is how the State legislature can defend the automatic wage increase. The automatic wage increase puts people out of work.

Since the practice of raising the basic wage was instigated there have been, state wide, one thousand businesses close their doors in the state of Oregon. If the average employment by those one thousand businesses employed ten workers each, then raising the basic wage automatically has cost ten thousand people their jobs.

The final observation is simply this. Entry-level jobs, jobs that require little or no skill, will be given to illegal aliens. These people will take money under the table and then deprive the legal citizen of a job.

In my opinion, this is what happens when legislation is not thought through and then the people in power do things on a purely emotional basis.