Today’s links

Last updated on: May 1, 2014 at 8:49 am by Jane the Actuary

Today’s links 2014-05-01T08:49:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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1) The Swiss are voting, in one of their national referenda, on what would be, by far, the world’s highest minimum wage, according to Bloomberg. The proposed rate is CHF 22 per hour, which works out to USD 25 per hour; on a purchasing-power-parity basis, it’s only $14, due to the high cost of living in Switzerland. Compared to other European countries: “Corrected for purchasing power, Switzerland’s planned minimum would work out to about 2,500 euros a month, more than the 1,921 euros in Luxembourg and 1,502 euros in Belgium, the bloc’s two highest in early 2014, according to its statistics office.”

As is the case in the U.S., critics say it’ll cost jobs, and defenders dispute this. In particular, in Switzerland, “the Swiss Federation of Labor Unions says a minimum wage wouldn’t lead to higher unemployment because it would mostly affect domestically-oriented sectors where outsourcing isn’t possible,” — but they miss the point that, if a wage increase drives up the cost of services, including such things as restaurant meals, then people will cut down on their purchases.

But you know what? Part of me hopes this passes. Better that they be the guinea pigs, than the U.S.; trouble is, Switzerland is a quite different country than the U.S. so the effects there will be muted compared to the U.S., with the high numbers of unskilled workers we have.

2) Here’s a myth-busting piece on immigration in the National Review. And, as a companion, here’s an article on “rescue beacons” that DrudgeReport linked to. But here’s the peculiar thing: after reading that article, but not really noticing the images, I was curious about the mention of “three languages” and looked this up. According to one article, the third language is a local Indian language. But that doesn’t seem to consistently be the case: in at least some instances, the third language is Chinese — with what prevalence I can’t figure out. Now, I’d read in the past statements that there were large numbers of Arabs (= potential terrorists) crossing the border from Mexico, and hadn’t given these claims much credence, but if there are enough Chinese crossing that the Border Patrol considers it appropriate to include that language on their signs, what is going on?

3) Locally, the Independent Maps group for fair, nonpartisan voting districts has now submitted their petitions, some 500,000+, well in excess of the required 300,000, to allow for signatures which will inevitably be disallowed. And already Madigan and his proxies are fighting this, filing suit to block the amendment. Sure, they’ve identified reasons: they say, for instance, that the proposed remapping process improperly takes this authority away from the General Assembly — which is sort of missing the fact that this is a constitutional amendment, which, by it’s definition, changes the constitution. But according to this Tribune editorial from a couple days ago, Madigan is pretty open in his opinion that remaps are political, they’re supposed to be political, it’s all about one party gaining an edge over the other, and Republicans are just trying to change the game because they’ve lost:

Here’s what Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan wants you to believe about that redistricting amendment: It’s all about electing more Republicans. Baloney.

“Over the last 50 years, five maps. Republicans have done one out of five,” Madigan said last week. “They’re angry, and this is part of their Republican politics.”

So ordinarily I’d say that their lawsuits are going nowhere, and that reason will prevail. The Independent Maps leadership has said repeatedly that they have had the amendment thoroughly vetted with top lawyers to withstand any challenge. But this is Illinois, so who knows?

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