On the whole, it would appear to be for the best that the great majority of human beings should go on living in the place in which they were born.Great post over at Cream City Catholic, go read it there
(T.S. Eliot, Notes towards the Definition of Culture)
I'm in the midst of an email exchange with some people about minimum wage and justice. I brought up the issue of a 'living wage' as opposed to a minimum wage, which is discussed in this essay by Allan Carlson. It is a good essay, and I think many of the themes will resonate with you. Here is a glimpse of how even the old capitalists believed, at least to a certain extent, that justice must reign in an economy:Image
In the United States, Henry Ford startled observers in 1914 by doubling the wages paid to married workers, arguing that the worker "is not just an individual....He is a householder....The man does the work in the shop, but his wife does the work in the home. The shop must pay them both." The alternative, Ford emphasized, was "the hideous prospect of little children and their mothers being forced out to work."
The next big battle over Minnesota's liquor laws is fermenting at brew pubs.continue at Star Tribune (video)
When Minnesota breweries won the right to sell their beer to visitors at on-site taprooms last year, brew pubs across the state thought they were next in line to broaden their reach.
Under state law, brew pubs are prohibited from selling their beer off-site to bars, restaurants or bottlers.
"People just assumed we'd be able to sell ours," said Dave Hoops, master brewer at Fitger's Brewhouse in Duluth, which serves its acclaimed beer at the three restaurants and five bars it owns and operates. But Hoops knows from experience that challenging the rest of Minnesota's liquor establishment is never easy.
"This is my 14th year at the brewhouse and I've spent 10 of them going down to the Legislature" to push brew pub bills, he said. "But I think there's hope."
This year, the Town Hall brewery in Minneapolis hired a team of lobbyists to build the support needed to change the state's long-standing and elaborately constructed walls between retailers, brewers and distributors. Brewery founder Pete Rifakes knows it will be a long-haul fight.
General Electric Co.'s health-care unit, the world's biggest maker of medical-imaging machines, is moving the headquarters of its 115-year-old X-ray business to Beijing to tap growth in China.Business Week
“A handful” of top managers will move to the Chinese capital and there won't be any job cuts, Anne LeGrand, vice president and general manager of X-ray for GE Healthcare, said in an interview. The headquarters will move from Waukesha, Wisconsin, amid a broader parent-company plan to invest about $2 billion across China, including opening six “customer innovation” and development centers.
The move follows the introduction earlier this year of GE Healthcare's “Spring Wind” initiative to develop and distribute medical products and services in China, GE said in a statement today. More than 20 percent of the X-ray unit's new products will be developed in China, LeGrand said.
Chesterton quote of the day: "You cannot combat Communism with certainty of its defeat if the people themselves do not recognise instinctively why Communism is wrong. You cannot prevent the spread of Socialism if its faults are not clearly apparent. You cannot replace Capitalism easily, if the majority of those around you do not see the principal reasons why Capitalism has failed."The Distributist Review
We are frequently told how, if government would simply get out of the way and stop over-regulating businesses, "the market" will automatically adjust itself in a way that is best for everyone. There was a time when the regulations on businesses were much less than now. History has documented what this prosperity looks like. DWCDistributist Review. And a point of clarification:
Mr. Purdef, You may have misunderstood my point. I am not making a statement about regulation. I am pointing out that those capitalists, particularly of the Austrian school, who claim that "real" Capitalism - that is, Capitalism unfettered ...by the government - would result in the greatest prosperity for the most people are wrong. History shows their claim to be untrue because, when it was essentially unregulated, the result was that working families were so poor that, despite the fact that it was often the case that both parents worked long hours, they couldn't afford to live unless they also sent their children out to work in these kinds of conditions. Capitalists of the time fought very hard against all attempts to bring and end to these conditions. You are correct, though, that this happened because Capitalists separated ethics and morality from economics and business. DWC
Again, the point is not about regulations, the point is that capitalists, especially of the Austrian School assert that allowing the "laws of the market" to work unfettered will result in the greatest prosperity for all. The truth is that their promise actually resulted in extreme poverty and virtual slavery for a large portion of the working class while the capitalists lived in extreme luxury.The funny thing is that Wisconsin public sector unions try to make this work in complete reverse where union members are given lavish benefits that no one but themselves enjoy in society.
I have an acquaintance, TJ Buczak, who is a pretty good plumber. Everyone should know a good plumber, right? But what makes this plumber even better than most is that he has put his knowledge of liquids and pipes into a very fun hobby, making his own beer.continue at MacIver Institute
Unlike a lot of home brewers, our plumber friend TJ is actually pretty good at making his own beer. I know this because I’ve sampled it. TJ is now at the stage of entering his different types of beer in competitions and, very soon, he will start selling the beer to other people. With any luck, our friend will someday join the sixty commercial craft brewers that make up 5% of the beer market in Wisconsin.
It’s the Wisconsin dream. Frederick Miller. Frederick Pabst. Gottlieb Heileman. Jake Leinenkugel. And now?
Making beer is something Wisconsinites are naturally good at. That’s not surprising considering how much we consume. Heck, legislating in Wisconsin is a two-drink minimum. We even have a baseball team named after the brewing industry in a stadium named for a brand of beer.
Unfortunately, the state legislature may make it harder for craft brewers. The Joint Finance Committee (JFC), in a move designed to stifle competition with MillerCoors from Anheuser-Busch, adopted as part of the state budget changes in the way beer can be distributed in Wisconsin. The biggest change in the law would prevent brewers from owning beer distributorships.
Wisconsin already has an arcane system of rules governing the way beer is sold in Wisconsin known as the three-tier system. Manufacturers (tier 1) sell to wholesale distributors (tier 2) who sell to retailers (tier 3). Most of us then buy our beer from tier 3 rather than the manufacturers or even the wholesalers.
The excuse we’re given for the three-tier system is that it protects competition because the distributors have a vested interest in meeting the demands of the consumers in what types of beer it provides rather than the needs of the manufacturer to maximize market share. The distributors also claim that the system aids in the collection of taxes (something attractive to lawmakers) because of the accountable nature of the system, and the excise tax on beer is collected from wholesalers.
MILWAUKEE (AP) - A fight brewing over beer in Wisconsin pits the growing market of craft brewers against a large, well-known brewer.LAX Trib
A group of craft brewers say a proposal being supported by MillerCoors, the Wisconsin Beer Distributors Association, Tavern League of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Grocers Association and others would limit smaller brewers' ability to expand and could limit them from getting beer to consumers in the future.
"This is all about money and restricting competition. This isn't idle child's play," said Jeff Hamilton, president of the Wisconsin Brewers Guild and Sprecher Brewing Co. in Milwaukee.
Wisconsin has three tiers, like many other states, for alcohol distribution: a brewer, a wholesaler that distributes the beer and a retailer that sells it. The system was put in place at the end of Prohibition and used by brewers that made Milwaukee famous: Miller, Blatz, Schlitz and Pabst. (They've since moved all or most of their facilities out of the state.)
The proposal was inserted into the proposed state budget by the Legislature's budget committee. It would combine the brewer's permit and wholesale and retail licenses given out by municipalities into a single permit under state control. It would effectively ban brewers from purchasing wholesale distributors - something craft brewers say they might need in the future to avoid getting squeezed out of the market by large corporate brewers.
The bill begins with an enormous number of definitions, most of which simply pass the buck to other federal statutes for their content. One of those defined in the section, however, is that of "family," and the definition as given should give distributists serious concern. "The term 'family,'" the bill tells us, "means an individual and includes the individual’s dependents."more at The Distributist Review
Surely, this is a curious definition; a family normally involves, at the very least, more than one person. A quick search of a dictionary reveals a number of definitions, all of which involve a group of people of some kind. This one, however, states that a family is "an individual." Certainly, it also includes his "dependents," but doesn't have to. What does this mean for distributists?
First, this definition is perfectly open to, and is conducive of, definitions of the family that distributists should adamantly oppose. By refusing to cite to a married couple, man and woman, it opens the door for literally any type of "family" that our increasingly degenerate society decides to recognize. Cohabiting couples; homosexual couples, whether "married" or not; all of these easily fit into the definition of family as described here, provided that one of them is a "dependent." The definition of "dependent" doesn't help any, either; it is left entirely up to "the Commissioner," the only proviso being that it "includes a spouse." Note that here, too, there is no mention of a spouse of the opposite sex, a pretty glaring omission given the enormous controversy currently ongoing about the subject.
Pepsico, Kraft Foods, Campbell Soup, Solae and Nestlé are among the corporations partnered with a biotech company found using aborted fetal cell lines to test food flavor enhancers, according to a pro-life watchdog group.LifeSite
The internationally recognized biotech company, Senomyx, boasts innovation and success in “flavour programs” designed to reduce MSG, sugar and salt in food and beverage products. Senomyx notes their collaborators provide them research and development funding plus royalties on sales of products using their flavor ingredients.
Pro-life watchdog group, Children of God for Life (CGL), has called upon the public to target the major corporations in a boycott, unless the company ceases to use aborted fetal cell lines in their product testing.
“Using isolated human taste receptors,” the Senomyx website claims, “we created proprietary taste receptor-based assay systems that provide a biochemical or electronic readout when a flavor ingredient interacts with the receptor.”
“What they do not tell the public is that they are using HEK 293 – human embryonic kidney cells taken from an electively aborted baby to produce those receptors,” stated Debi Vinnedge, Executive Director for CGL, the watch dog group that has been monitoring the use of aborted fetal material in medical products and cosmetics for years.
“They could have easily chosen COS (monkey) cells, Chinese Hamster Ovary cells, insect cells or other morally obtained human cells expressing the G protein for taste receptors,” Vinnedge added.
I just learned that Campbell's Soup, in response to the concerns raised by pro-life groups, has cut ties with Senomyx, the company that uses fetal cells derived from aborted unborn children for testing. This is great news!
http://www.cogforlife.org/senomyxalert.htm
Here's the relevant information in the updated alert:
"Within hours of our press release, Children of God for Life received notice from Campbell Soup that they have severed their ties with Senomyx.
Stated Juli Mandel Sloves, Senior Manager of Nutrition & Wellness Communications at Campbell Soup Company, "We are no longer in partnership with Senomyx. This fact was discussed during the Senomyx conference call with its investors earlier this month."
If you choose to write to Campbell Soup, please thank them for their decision. Mmmm good!"
A United States District Court has ruled that the interstate commerce clause of the US Constitution grants the federal government the authority to force you to engage in commerce on the grounds that you deciding not to do so can impact interstate commerce in some way. This ruling is regarding the requirement imposed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that individuals purchase health insurance. The plaintiff’s argument is that the decision not to engage in commerce cannot be regulated by the federal government. The government’s counter argument is that the likelihood that an individual will need health care at some point means that the decision not to have health insurance impacts the health insurance market overall and can therefore be regulated.The Distributist Review
The government’s position was supported by a case in 1942, where a penalty was imposed on a farmer for choosing to grow wheat for his own family’s consumption. The wheat was not being offered for sale in any way, even locally. His decision not to participate in the wheat market was determined to have an impact on that market, not only locally, but also across the country. Therefore, his decision to grow wheat for his own family was determined to have an impact on the federal government’s ability to regulate the price of wheat and the fine was upheld.
So, if you have a garden, uproot it. If a kid wants to sell lemonade made from lemons grown in his back yard this summer, warn him that the feds may come to knock over his stand. Don’t participate in any “buy local” campaigns. In fact, you better not even discuss the potential economic impact of buying locally because your action may influence someone’s purchasing decisions; thereby having a potential impact on interstate commerce and government schemes to regulate prices and the economy in general. Don’t even think about it, because that may influence your own decisions. I guess this means the content of our articles for The Distributist Review can be regulated by the federal government on the grounds that they could have some influence on your economic decisions. Even your decision to read them could be said to do the same. In fact, you better not even think about anything related to economics because it could influence your purchasing decisions and thereby impact interstate commerce and be subject to government regulation.
