"That's a lot of extra
Slurpees to sell"
The potentially-devastating impact of a $15 minimum wage was evident moments after it was unanimously passed by the Montgomery County Council yesterday. A Bethesda restaurant owner observing the proceedings, who had been planning two additional ventures in the county, declared he would never open another restaurant in the jurisdiction. He said his existing downtown Bethesda restaurant might even have to close in the coming years, as a result of the new financial burden in a razor-thin-profit-margin industry.
Just consider the impact of two full restaurant operations, with all of the employees those would entail, now never existing. All of those jobs just vanished, and the economic impact of that unemployment far outweighs the slight cash boost to workers in existing restaurants - assuming they don't lose their jobs, or get replaced by touchscreen kiosks. Now multiply that among other entrepreneurs deciding to take their dreams - and jobs - elsewhere. Montgomery County's outlay of services, required by those unemployed folks, will increase, not decrease. Taxpayers will pick up that bill, along with the increased prices of food and merchandise. Heckuva job, Brownie!
Of course, this is exactly what the Council wants. The more unemployed people, the more people who have to crawl on their knees to the Council for "services." Dependency on government is the aim, and that involves keeping those at the bottom of the ladder from climbing the rungs.
Councilmember Hans Riemer and his colleagues effectively terminated the middle-class business opportunity of Airbnb a few weeks ago. Up until that point, a modest real estate investor could have bought a few small homes and condo units, and generated a good cash flow from Airbnb rentals.
Without the same level of tenant damage concerns, or having to seek evictions of problem tenants, a middle-class County resident could have more-easily generated money for larger investments and ventures than with traditional renting. Now, you can only rent out your own current place of residence - just one unit - and you have to be on the property during the rental. Nothing makes an Airbnb more appealing than a hotel room than a landlord sitting on your couch, right? Thanks, Hans!
Imagine, initiative and some work allowing County residents to attain upper class status - status the County Council enjoys now, as they work a few hours a week for $137,000 a year. Notice they don't consider you deserving that amount, too. $15 isn't even close to a living wage in Montgomery County, and they know it.
Increasingly moribund Montgomery County has suffered a net loss of over 2000 retail jobs since 2000, according to the Maryland Retailers Association. We've had a net loss in jobs since 2005, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows. Montgomery County's restaurant sector has "slowed since 2012, and remains flat," according to Melvin Thompson of the Restaurant Association of Maryland.
Surprisingly, Councilmember Craig Rice also voted for the bill, despite his previous and correct concerns about the impact on African-American job-seekers, young workers in particular. According to a 2015 survey by The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region, BETAH Associates, Inc. and Montgomery College, only 8.7% of black high school students surveyed in the County are employed, and only 30.7% of black high school dropouts have been able to obtain employment. Among Montgomery County's young black high school graduates, only 39.7% of those surveyed are currently employed.
The hits just keep on coming from the most anti-business elected officials in the region. A Council that has done literally nothing to improve traffic congestion, or to provide direct access to in-demand Dulles International Airport for international businesspeople, is spending most of its time criticizing Gov. Larry Hogan - - who is actually doing something in proposing Express Lanes for I-495 and I-270, and funding Metro. And that's when they're not telling us which snacks to buy from vending machines, or banning circuses.
Reaction to the $15 wage vote by local Chambers and business organizations was muted yesterday. In the next few days, we'll find out if those leaders are ready to "get dangerous" and challenge the MoCo cartel, as former Gov. Bob Ehrlich exhorted them to do in 2004. Or go quietly into the good night, in the most moribund private sector economy in the D.C. region.
Who was the "Bethesda restaurant owner"?
ReplyDelete7:26: Someone speaking on condition of anonymity.
ReplyDeleteBeing self employed, I could be in big trouble the weeks I'm not earning $15/hr
ReplyDeleteJournalism 101: "Attribute own opinion to 'anonymous source'."
ReplyDelete"Hans Reamer has given you a raise!" is the message local legacy media like WMAL is reporting.
ReplyDeleteThis could be Reamer's campaign slogan!
There's really no point in saying a restaurant owner told you they'd not expand if they're not willing to put their name to it. They clearly don't have confidence in their own comments.
ReplyDelete"...to provide direct access to in-demand Dulles International Airport for international businesspeople, is spending most of its time criticizing Gov. Larry Hogan"
ReplyDeleteGov. Hogan thinks your bridge idea is idiotic too. You are probably the only one in the state who thinks building a new billion dollar bridge is a good idea.
7:42 AM If I were the owner, I may not want to be named in public.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of passion around this issue on both sides, so why wade into this when you have customers and employees to serve?
"'Hans Reamer has given you a raise!' is the message local legacy media like WMAL is reporting."
ReplyDeleteYou are retarded.
Ever notice that the talking point "local legacy print media" seems to be defined such that it excludes everyone except Robert Dyer and his hobby blogs?
ReplyDeleteI fully agree with Dyer on this one. What this does is get rid of pure entry-level jobs that would be filled by high schoolers and others who need some work experience. Then for those a bit higher up, it's going to eliminate jobs.
ReplyDeleteWell, MoCo may become a showcase for the nation in automation! Every part of a business that can be automated will be, due to high labor costs. You can already see it at Giant and McDonalds -- more ordering kiosks and self-checkouts being installed.
What's disgusting is the unions came out in support of it -- this is actually going to reduce jobs for their members. Monitor local unions like UFCW 400 -- I bet we'll see a decline in membership in a few years as their jobs are eliminated due to high costs.
Now, I get the overall goal that they want people to earn enough to support a basic level of living, but there's a much easier way to do this -- raise the Earned Income Tax Credit. This goes to those who actually need it, since it's based on household size and _total_ household income.
But, council members wouldn't get Union support for that, so that's why they didn't even consider it.
Also notice no mention of the cost to the County for passing this bill? They will have to raise the wages of some County workers also. How much will that cost?
Oh no, automation! Let's smash some looms!
DeleteYeah yeah, as if we haven't heard the "we can't pay low-wage earners more! That'll ruin everything!" argument repeatedly for a hundred years now. And yet we're still at full employment. I'm sure in another 100 years there will be new Dyers spewing the same nonsense and they'll still be wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe cost to county government will be enormous because of the high number of seasonal and part-time employees, many of them high school and college students. I think there are around 5,000 such employees in jobs like county government aides, summer camps, program instructors, teacher assistants and etc.
ReplyDeleteJust going to leave this here, that I do agree with Dyer. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/new-study-casts-doubt-on-whether-a-15-minimum-wage-really-helps-workers/
ReplyDeleteInteresting statistic from the election in Virginia last night - the Democrats captured approximately 70% of Robert Dyer's coveted 18-29 age demographic.
ReplyDelete8:24 AM - That study was fatally flawed. Oops!
ReplyDelete"Councilmember Hans Riemer and his colleagues effectively terminated the middle-class business opportunity of Airbnb a few weeks ago. Up until that point, a modest real estate investor could have bought a few small homes and condo units, and generated a good cash flow from Airbnb rentals."
ReplyDeleteHey, Dyer - Do you realize that most homeowner associations and condos have covenants that prohibit short-term rentals, and that this has been true for decades now? Not just in Montgomery County, but nationwide.
Do you have a business relation with AirBNB (or Uber) that you have not disclosed to your readers? Are you in violation of your own community association's covenants?
@9:05 Most homes (townhouses and single family homes) in MoCo are _not_ in a homeowner's association. They're pretty much exceptional cases like King Farm and Kentlands.
ReplyDelete8:36 AM, In the article you posted in response to 8:24 AM, did you even read where it linked you to? The report it was referring to was completely different than the Seattle one being referred to by 8:24.
ReplyDeleteRobert Dyer: "What MoCo really needs is more low-paying jobs for the blacks!"
ReplyDelete8:24 AM & 1:24 PM -
ReplyDeleteSorry, wrong debunking. Here is the debunking of the University of Washington study.
Also, the Washington Post article linked by 8:24 lists a second study, mentioned in the paragraph right below, a study by University of California at Berkeley which "found no job losses for low-income Seattle restaurant workers when their wages increased to $13 an hour."
"the most moribund private sector economy in the D.C. region."
ReplyDeleteSo you're saying that Washington DC, which enacted its own $15 minimum wage in June 2015, a year and a half ahead of Montgomery County, and with a faster implementation schedule, is doing just fine?
Great news.
8:16: If we have "full employment," how do you explain the obscenely-high unemployment rate among black youth and black young adults in Montgomery County? It's proof positive of the books-cooking strategy of removing long-term unemployed from the statistics. This is why Bernie and Trump were so popular - people are sick and tired of Wall Street and the globalists claiming this fake unemployment rate is reality.
ReplyDelete4:12: Wrong - D.C. has far more of a cushion than we do - their economy was booming before they approved $15. But will it stay that way with $15 minimum wage? Unlikely. You conveniently leave out that DC's wage doesn't hit $15 until 2020.
We, in contrast, were already tanking before the increase.
Saith Dyer: "You conveniently leave out that DC's wage doesn't hit $15 until 2020."
ReplyDeleteYou conveniently leave out the fact that MoCo's wage doesn't hit $15 until as late as 2024.
5:38: only for very small businesses, much sooner for larger ones. And as you can read above, businesspeople already canceling plans and looking elsewhere just minutes after the wage increase was passed yesterday. We're doomed on present course.
ReplyDelete#ThrowTheBumsOut
#LockThemUp
Saith Dyer: "And as you can read above, businesspeople already canceling plans and looking elsewhere just minutes after the wage increase was passed yesterday."
ReplyDeleteOne "anonymous source". LOL
6:32: One actual Bethesda businessman canceling two planned ventures due to $15 wage passage vs. the Council basing their decisions on fake reports, projections and "feelings." LOL
ReplyDelete“much sooner for larger ones”
ReplyDeleteYou conveniently leave out the fact that “much sooner” means 2021 in this context — still later than DC, which you brought up as an example of a jurisdiction with a cuishoned phase-in.
“businesspeople already canceling plans and looking elsewhere”
Yes. A single business owner who’s not even willing to provide their name. That’s real commitment!! /s
I do not know enough about the minimum wage other than it has been relatively proven that the minimum wage has a very small affect on unemployment. My only question is does doubling the minimum wage also have an affect on Cost of Living?
ReplyDelete@5:35 Yes. Imagine the minimum wage was $50/hour. Any business using labor would have to raise their prices to cover the increased costs.
ReplyDelete"only 8.7% of black high school students surveyed in the County are employed, and only 30.7% of black high school dropouts have been able to obtain employment. Among Montgomery County's young black high school graduates, only 39.7% of those surveyed are currently employed."
ReplyDeleteHow many white high school students are employed? White high school dropouts? "Young" white high school graduates?
What is a "young high school graduate"? What is the specific age range?
6:01 AM - IMAGINE IF THE MINIMUM WAGE WAS TEN GAZILLION DOLLARS AN HOUR!!!
ReplyDeleteWe need Sam Brownback on the case.
ReplyDeleteIt would certainly solve the full employment problem.
"In the next few days, we'll find out if those leaders are ready to "get dangerous" and challenge the MoCo cartel, as former Gov. Bob Ehrlich exhorted them to do in 2004."
ReplyDeleteYeah...Bob Ehrlich...who ran a campaign which robocalled black voters telling them to stay home.
9:37: Ehrlich didn't authorize those calls. It was a set up by Democratic operatives from the cartel.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile....yeah....Chris Van Hollen...who ran a campaign in which HE HIMSELF told union leaders to suppress black turnout in the 2016 election. And then got body slammed by Hillary Clinton when she found out about his racist plot. Yikes.
It's your blog, but you've lost me as a reader.
ReplyDelete7:04: On what grounds? Because Chris Van Hollen tried to suppress the black vote? What does that have to do with me?
ReplyDeleteI believe you're confusing the words COUNCIL and CARTEL. Here ya go, courtesy of Oxford Dictionaries
ReplyDeleteCOUNCIL - noun
1. an advisory, deliberative, or legislative body of people formally constituted and meeting regularly
CARTEL - noun
1. an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition
"Chris Van Hollen...who ran a campaign in which HE HIMSELF told union leaders to suppress black turnout in the 2016 election. And then got body slammed by Hillary Clinton when she found out about his racist plot. Yikes."
ReplyDeleteAlleged by sore loser Donna Edwards, and corroborated by absolutely no one else.
2:04: WRONG! You lie. There was more than one source for the Van Hollen black voter suppression plan, including those inside the Hillary Clinton campaign, who leaked Hillary's reaction when she found out about Van Hollen's racist scheme.
ReplyDelete9:56: You left out the parts of the definition that apply to the Montgomery County cartel, which is not just the Council, but a cartel of a majority of Councilmembers + certain developers + non-profits working as shell entities to funnel public funds back to the councilmembers themselves. They are a criminal cartel a la drug cartels.
Here's the rest of the definition:
2 :a combination of independent commercial or industrial enterprises designed to limit competition or fix prices illegal drug cartels
3 :a combination of political groups for common action
A criminal cartel. lol. That's a crock and you know it.
ReplyDeleteI think they're saints for not going after you for your false, ridiculous and often defamatory accusations. None have sunk to your low level of personal attacks.
6:28: Funneling public money into your own campaign account while you're a sitting councilman? Definitely illegal. The reason they don't "go after me" is because I only print the facts. You can't win a libel suit when the accusations are factual.
ReplyDeleteActually you print mostly opinion.
ReplyDeleteHere, for example, you say
"Funneling public money into your own campaign account while you're a sitting councilman? Definitely illegal"
That's a general statement, not directed at anyone. And probably true. (I'm not taking the time to research) One sentence of probably fact. Then an opinion sentence. Then another possible fact. A "sandwich" so to speak.
You see this often on alt-right type of sites. It's a common way to push mis-information.
4:46: Only, there is no misinformation here. Just facts.
ReplyDelete