Tag: OAC archive

Archival posting of One America Comittee blog

BruceMcF in Arguments & Analyses, 7/06/2006 at 7:15 AM EST

This last Sunday, I was reading the local paper, and was surprised to “learn” that the proposed rise in the Minimum Wage would cost the Buckeye State 12,000 jobs.

The source was a study from the “Employment Policies Institute”. I do not know their story, but they appear to be opponents of minimum wage increases.

And then I looked into the details. And when I looked into the details, it turned out that the formal and professional looking report was built on a foundation of sand.

Pic: Strategy: Get the Employment Impacts in Fast Food wrong, then apply statewide

(NB. This is not the image from original OAC posting)

Archive post from OAC blog, shutting down today

BruceMcF in Arguments & Analyses Feed of

8/17/2006 at 9:24 AM EST

(Original picture: Graduation at Maysville Community and Technical College,

no idea where this one is from)

There are two sides to public funding of tertiary education. One is education as a requirement for career opportunities. To the extent that education is required for entry into “good” careers, then our American ideals demand public funding of those without the means to go proceed with tertiary education on their own. Otherwise higher education becomes a means of establishing a permanent class system, and ends the dream of a land of opportunity.

This diary is not about that aspect of public funding to tertiary education. It is about the other aspect: education as a tool of economic development.

I am proposing a system here to identify skills that we need to develop sustainable competitive advantages, and then to help fund the education of most qualified candidates for those programs.

When I refer to it as the Tertiary Education Contribution System, I am making three references. First is a reference to the Australian HECS (H is for Higher) system, from which I borrow freely (but not entirely). Second is a reference to the Student Contribution portion of the program. Third is a reference to the Contribution that the successful students will make to their Nation’s Economic Independence.

Archived from the OAC Blog, shutting down today

BruceMcF in Arguments & Analyses

4/18/2006 at 1:13 PM EST

Why are the experts wrong so often about the impact of “free trade”?

What is wrong with “fair trade” agreements?  Why is it that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was sold as a job creator but turned out to be a destroyer of jobs both North and South of the border?

Its very simple.  The arguments for these so-called “free trade” agreements are about how the agreements work in a make-believe world.  The make-believe world is different from the real world in very important ways.  So when set loose in the real world, the predictions turn out to be false.

Why should ordinary people care about “fair trade”?

The thing is, there is a lot to like about that make-believe world.  If we could move the real world closer to the make-believe, it would benefit America.  And that’s what I call a fair-trade agreement — a system that tries to actually deliver the benefits that so-called “free trade” agreements can never deliver.