Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal:
The Trade Adjustment Assistance program rests on the principle that consumers whose demands for American-made products help to create jobs for American workers should pay to train these workers for other jobs if these consumers ever shift their demands from American to foreign suppliers (“Dispute Threatens Key Deals on Trade,” May 28).
The merits of this program are doubtful. If the value to workers of this fringe benefit (for that’s just what it is) were greater than its cost, it would be supplied privately on the market. Enough employers would respond to worker demand for a ‘retraining’ fringe by offering, along with wages and other fringes, a promise to pay to retrain workers who lose their jobs to any import-related decline in demand for these firms’ outputs.
Of course, being costly like all other fringe benefits, provision of this fringe benefits would result in lower wages and lower values of other fringe benefits paid to workers. Also like other fringe benefits, though, if the value to employees of this benefit is greater than its cost, employers competing for workers would be obliged to offer it.
But we see very few employers offering worker-retraining fringes – strong evidence that the value of these benefits to workers falls short of the cost of supplying them. As such, it is unjust to force taxpayers to pay for a benefit for these workers that these workers themselves, through their own actions on the market, reveal is not worth its cost.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
The real Qantas kamikaze
Miranda Devine – Sunday, May 29, 11 (08:43 am)
Qantas’ current industrial strife is a worry to fans of the national carrier. Why is a newly arrived Irish CEO with an incomprehensible accent attacking the pilots, of all people, and calling them “rogues” and “kamikazes”.
Clearly Alan Joyce, 44, doesn’t understand Australians’ attachment to Qantas.
As far as passengers are concerned the pilots are royalty.
If they want a couple of free premium economy seats, they should be at the head of the queue.
Business class seems to be full of Qantas employees, anyway, so why shouldn’t the people who actually fly the plane get the odd freebie.
And if unionist Paul Howes gets membership of the exclusive Chairman’s Lounge, then soshould the pilots.
In any case, what the pilots really want is job security and a guarantee they won’t be replaced by cheap contract pilots from Asia.
That’s what the passengers want, too. Without its superbly skilled pilots, Qantas’ edge over its competitors vanishes. Its fares are more expensive but people have been willing to pay for safety, and the familiar Aussie friendliness of the flight attendants.
What Qantas has that no other airline has is what Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man famously said: “Qantas never crashed.” Although that’s not strictly true, Qantas has not had a fatality in 50 years.
We can attribute its safety record to the quality of its pilots, not to mention its engineers, also striking over job security—pilots such as 25-year Qantas veteran Richard de Crespigny who managed to land QF32 safely last year after an engine blew up mid-air, saving the lives of 466 passengers.
Qantas is not just another airline. It’s a national treasure. Australians feel ownership of the flying kangaroo. It’s certainly not like the gimcrack airline Ryanair from Joyce’s homeland, which is so cheap it plans to make passengers stand during flights so it can squeeze in more people, and to make them carry their own luggage to the plane.
Joyce should remember that without passengers he doesn’t have a business.
And while we’re at it, at the risk of appearing xenophobic, why is American amateur pilot John Travolta the face of Qantas? It makes no sense, and Americans, more than anyone, must be scratching their heads.
402 DAYS UNTIL LABOR’S MILLIONAIRE ACTRESS TAX
Tim Blair – Sunday, May 29, 11 (02:36 am)
Cate Blanchett, whose worth is estimated at $53 million, tells Australians to pay more tax:
The 42-year-old has teamed with Packed To The Rafters star Michael Caton to be the face of a series of TV ads branded “Say Yes”, which will screen nationally from tonight.
The ads - funded by a coalition of green groups and unions - are aimed at convincing the average Australian that a carbon tax is a good idea and urging them to “unite” behind putting a “price on pollution” despite the impact on the cost of living.
The ads kick off a “Say Yes week of action” led by the Australian Conservation Foundation, GetUp, Greenpeace, WWF, the Climate Action Network, The Climate Institute, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, Environment Victoria, and the ACTU …
Viewers are told “saying yes” to action on carbon pollution will provide “help for people struggling with bills” …
The Sunday Telegraph was yesterday unable to contact Blanchett, an ambassador for luxury car brand Audi.
This is becoming obscene. And even less popular:
A rally organised by the Youth Climate Coalition in Martin Place yesterday was expected to attract more than 300 people but barely 50 took part.
LIGHT SAVERS
Tim Blair – Saturday, May 28, 11 (11:35 pm)
Australians were quick to secure their globe stocks ahead of impending illumination bans. Now Americans arejoining the hoard.
PALIN HITS THE ROAD
Tim Blair – Saturday, May 28, 11 (11:06 pm)
If Hockey “supporters” said nothing, half this story would not be written
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, May 29, 11 (05:51 am)
Joe Hockey also seems keen to use the email beat-up to advance himself:
LIBERAL Party unity is in tatters, with senior sources claiming leader Tony Abbott’s relationship with his shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, and rival Malcolm Turnbull is ‘’poisonous in every way’’…
The former Liberal leader was furious after chief Whip Warren Entsch sent an email chastising Mr Turnbull and four others for showing ‘’great disrespect’’ to their colleagues by missing a division in Parliament.
The Sunday Age can reveal that while the email had Mr Abbott’s approval, Mr Hockey attempted to warn Mr Entsch against sending it - minutes before the email arrived in Parliament House inboxes.
Supporters of Mr Hockey confirmed he had told Mr Entsch the email would further destabilise the party and unnecessarily aggravate tension between Mr Turnbull and Mr Abbott.
A source said the manager of opposition business, Christopher Pyne, who is a supporter of Mr Abbott’s, also warned against sending the rebuke to MPs, predicting the contents would be leaked immediately.
A lesson in sacrifice for the planet from the woman in the luxury Audi
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, May 29, 11 (05:43 am)
It’s not just the “let them eat cake” attitude but the hypocrisy that makes this a bad career move:
CATE Blanchett ... has teamed with Packed to the Rafters actor Michael Caton to be the faces of a series of TV ads branded “Say Yes”, which will screen nationally from tonight.
The ads are aimed at convincing the average Australian that a carbon tax is a good idea, even if it is tipped to raise the cost of living…
In 2009, BRW estimated the Oscar winner’s wealth at $53 million, putting creature comforts like a $10 million mansion in Hunters Hill on Sydney’s North Shore well within the budget…
“It’s nice to have a multi-millionaire who won’t be impacted by it telling you how great it is,” Terri Kelleher, from The Australian Families Association, said....
Blanchett, who is actually an ambassador for luxury car brand Audi, could not be reached for comment.
If only Michelle had been as outraged by the deaths
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, May 29, 11 (05:30 am)
Michelle Grattan never protested as boat-loads of asylum seekers drowned, lured to their deaths by Labor’s irresponsible weakening of our border laws. But finally, after one false start, she’s outraged:
THE past week has brought home that the Labor government can’t claim a shred of principle on asylum policy any more. It has shamed itself repeatedly and in a most hypocritical way. Those who condemned the Pacific solution have embraced a Malaysian one. The people who said Nauru was unacceptable for offshore processing in part because it wasn’t signed up to the UN convention on refugees aren’t worried that Malaysia is also outside it.
I agree: Labor are hypocrites. But if the Malaysian deal goes ahead, the new regime is at least likely to stop the boats, and the drownings. The greatest sin is that it was ever weakened.
Being a warmist is no longer cool
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, May 29, 11 (05:26 am)
The climate is definitely cooling:
A rally organised by the Youth Climate Coalition in Martin Place yesterday was expected to attract more than 300 people but barely 50 took part.
Seconded
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, May 29, 11 (05:19 am)
I’m naturally grateful, but far more important is that a sloppily worded law be changed to protect the free speech of all:
(Victorian Liberal) Conference delegates passed a motion inspired by the racial vilification case against Herald Sun journalist Andrew Bolt, who was subject to a class action after writing a series of articles relating to light-skinned Aborigines. The motion called on the federal party, should it win government, to amend the Racial Discrimination and Racial Hatred acts so that freedom of speech is better protected in the future.
I’m just astonished that the celebrity advocates of free speech have run dead on this very important issue.
Don’t mention the penis
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, May 28, 11 (05:06 pm)
Surely these parents are kidding:
Baby Storm has big blue eyes, fair hair and chubby cheeks. But whether this baby is a bruising boy or a blushing girl is, the parents say, a secret.
The bizarre move has led to Kathy Witterick, 38, and husband David Stocker, 39, being labelled the most politically correct family in the world…
Her husband chimed in: ‘If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs.’
The couple believe they are releasing Storm from the constraints society imposes on males and females.
(Thanks to reader Catherine.)
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