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I've written another free eBook. This one is in response to all of you who have asked about how to start a podcast, or self-publish a book, or be an affiliate marketer, or whatever. I've learned a lot about that stuff, having done it all myself, and I know how to teach it. After all, between the Tom Woods Show and Contra Krugman, I've released well over 800 podcast episodes. You can trust that I know something about it. Here's a step-by-step overview of exactly what I do -- both in podcasting and in making a living online in general. And yes: all these things can be monetized, if you know what you're doing. You don't have to monetize them, of course. I blogged for years as a pure labor of love. But in my case, with five children and family health issues to cope with, I'm not upset when I'm compensated for something I enjoy doing. Who in his right mind would be? Believe me, over the years I've made a lot of mistakes and gone down a lot of dead ends. You can save yourself the same fate by reading this book. Get it here: http://www.PathsToIncome.com Tom Woods PS. Tom Woods has also put together an amazing resource where you can learn about Liberty, Free Markets and Economics all while commuting to work. Be a smarter libertarian! Check it out! More from LIbertyLOL:
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After giving businesses more than six months to prepare, the final U.S. Department of Labor rule change regarding overtime regulations will become effective Dec. 1, affecting more than 4.2 million workers within the United States. With only one month left, do you know how the law will impact you and your employees?
If you recall back in June 2015, President Barack Obama proposed an adjustment to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) — which establishes the 40-hour workweek and rules to provide employees with a minimum wage and time and a half of their regular rate pay for working overtime — that would raise the minimum salary threshold for exempt employees. Obama's main goal with the new rule is to strengthen the middle class, expand opportunity and grow the economy.
Check out Jason Stapleton's take below:
Patrice L. Onwuka from IWF.org says the first day of December can't come slow enough for many American employers who are scrambling to figure out how to avoid a financial blow when the Obama Administration’s new overtime rule kicks in. Check out her article "New Overtime Rules Will Have Unintended Consequences" here.
Overtime Rules Based on Bogus Economic TheoryThis very day, millions of business managers are pulling their hair out, dealing with a genuine and traumatizing October Surprise that has nothing to do with the election. The Department of Labor, on its own and without a vote from Congress, has made a seemingly small administrative change that is profoundly and disastrously affecting the lives of probably tens of millions of people (if you include everyone directly and indirectly affected). Its final implementation happens December 1, which means the clock is ticking. People who six months ago imagined a career with a particular company now find themselves ghosted in light of financial realities.Anyone making less than $48,000 a year in salary is directly affected, and for many businesses this means thousands of people. This seemingly small change is upending many things about people’s career paths, sense of professional identity, and life plans. And so many others, who are seeking entry-level positions to show how awesome they are, will be denied the opportunity to enter professional life at all, and their absence will not be counted because the costs are unseen. People who six months ago imagined a career with a particular company now find themselves ghosted in light of financial realities. The regulatory change sounds merely technical at first. The government requires overtime pay for anyone working more than 40 hours per week (“time and a half”), but it only pertains to employees making less than $23.6K a year. We’ve come to think of this rule as applying only to entry-level wage employees. No, You Can’t I can recall being 18 years old and begging for more time but being denied by my boss due to this rule – an early experience in dealing with the effects of government regulation. It’s a strange situation: I wanted to work more and my employer wanted me to work more, but government rules made it too costly, so we both lost out. Such rules prevent mutually beneficial exchanges. If you force payment, it means forgoing other things.Still, you were safe once you got on salary and made more than $23.6K. Only then are you free to work as much as you want. But now the Department of Labor, with the stroke of a pen, has raised this level to $48K, meaning that some 4.2 million people are immediately and directly affected. If they work more than 40 hours per week, the regulations now require that employers pay them more for extra hours. That means, at minimum, massive new record-keeping requirements for both individuals and businesses. It turns out that businesses do not have some box stuffed with cash somewhere in a closet that they can raid to toss more money to existing employees. If you force payment, it means forgoing other things. Bureaucrats with lifetime jobs know nothing about work in the private sector.The new rule could mean that millions of people will be reclassified to a lower-status job position: from salaried to per-hour wage. That’s not what anyone wants to happen. Of course, the Department of Labor – because bureaucrats with lifetime jobs know nothing about work in the private sector – thinks that this is going to create new opportunities for the good life, because passing laws does this for society. Actually, the rule is hugely disruptive of people’s actual plans and their capacity to make their own deals with their employers. People who desire to work more will be denied the chance, effectively forbidden by their own bosses from providing more value. It’s true that probably millions of others making between $35-40K will be bumped up to $48K, a raise forced by administrative edict. This is so they can escape the overtime rules, but it comes at a cost. They will be required to put in more value to the company in order to earn this salary increase, which means more work and less leisure time on their part – exactly the opposite of the stated purpose of the new rule. Entry-level positions will be foregone in favor of regulatory compliance.These raises also come at the expense of job creation. Entry-level positions will be foregone in favor of regulatory compliance, which is to say that this small change is a job destroyer of the first order. Bad Theory There are many terrible features of this change. The old law was becoming mercifully less and less relevant to American workers, one of the few good trends in business today. It was always an overly scripted, planned, and coercive way of granting “labor rights” by administrative edict, with all the secondary consequences that kind of bureaucratic rationalism inevitably entails. The Obama administration – with its unfailing instinct for making more messes within sectors that were repairing themselves gradually – has seen fit to blot out of the few good trends in labor markets today. But consider too just how strange the government’s fixation on “labor hours” is. The idea is that the number of hours you work is the only real determination of the value you bring to your job, the only and definitive way to measure productivity. It’s like they are taking seriously Woody Allen’s dictum that “eighty percent of success is just showing up.” Clock in, clock out. You work more (or just show up more), you thereby produce more value; it’s the assumption that productivity is machine-like, and that value is somehow inherent in labor. The Labor Theory of Value Students of history will recognize this whole idea as the labor theory of value. If labor is the source of value, it is surely exploitation for the capitalist to gain so much in profit from the sale of goods. Government still adheres to it. Its outlines were mapped out by the classical economists, possibly even dating back to St. Thomas Aquinas. The classic formulation comes from David Ricardo, as a mistaken derivation of the relationship between cause and effect: “The value of a commodity, or the quantity of any other commodity for which it will exchange, depends on the relative quantity of labour which is necessary for its production..." This minor error, intuitively plausible, persisted for centuries. It took Karl Marx to add the reductio ad absurdum: if labor is the source of value, it is surely exploitation for the capitalist to gain so much in profit from the sale of goods. Everything that doesn’t return to the worker constitutes ill-gotten gains and hence exploitation of the working man. Now, just a moment’s reflection makes you realize that this supposed relationship between work and value is not direct. You can’t just make anything, do anything, sit in a chair, show up on time and vanish at the appointed hour, make whatever, and have the results be thereby valued in the marketplace. The Marxian mania over the labor theory of value caused a generation of economists in the late 19th century to rethink the whole issue and discover the actual source of value. Value emanates from the human mind itself. It is the consumers who act on their values in the marketplace for final goods and services that signal producers about their own decisions. (Their theory in time came to be called the Subjective Theory of Value.) And all capitalists know this. Everything they produce, every penny they spend on workers or research or marketing, is subject to a final test in the marketplace. Consumers can make a rock valuable or worthless, a song go gold or die immediately, a smartphone all the rage or sit on the shelf, a strip mall become a profit center or be boarded up due to lack of interest. There is nothing that more labor can add to determine whether something is or isn’t a success in the marketplace. Work as a Proxy It’s true that sizable portions of today’s contracting workforce charge “by the hour” for its work. By doing so, what you have is the estimation of the passage of time in value terms, given the existence of opportunity costs for the use of that time. But charging by the hour is only a convenient proxy for productivity in general; it is not claiming literally that the passage of time on the clock somehow causes wealth to be produced. And every contractor knows this: if your results are not good, the contract will be discontinued. The Department of Labor wildly exaggerates the role of labor hours in discerning, determining, and measuring economic value.But in the hands of bureaucrats, the allegorical proxy becomes the real thing. With its mechanical understanding of the process of wealth generation, the Department of Labor wildly exaggerates the role of labor hours in discerning, determining, and measuring economic value. It cares nothing for smarter work, more efficient work, the differences in talent between workers, the aspect of learning, the role of entrepreneurship in speculating about the value of future final output, or anything else. Instead, they use a model derived from mechanics to govern human action, which is anything but mechanical. The subjective theory of economic value was a revolutionary insight precisely because it blew up the old assumptions concerning the causative relationship between work and reward. In theory, a worker who has one billion-dollar insight that took 5 seconds to discern is worth vastly more than a worker who spent ten thousand hours making mud pies. And what does this imply about the capacity of outside agents in government to manage economic relationships? It means it can’t be done. We have to leave to market forces to work out what is best for everyone in the ongoing process of experimentation, marketing, innovation, and learning. Bad Theory Comes Home But tell that to the arrogant public servants ensconced in marble palaces in the Beltway. Armed with their dated and formalistic models, they imagine that they can merely change a rule and thereby cause justice to be newly born in the world. They have been trying for 100 years, limiting work, channeling work, managing work, slicing and dicing work. The greatest and most intense cost will be felt by the young and ambitious among entry-level employees. There is far more complexity in labor markets than these rules would indicate. This is especially true today, when people work from everywhere, whenever, however, under an ever-greater variety of institutional arrangements. Every intervention designed to manipulate outcomes will produce unexpected costs that benefit neither workers nor capitalists. At best the attempt creates headaches. At worst, it ruins lives. What will be the worst result of this rule? It will reduce productivity, demoralize many employees, and create vast and useless paperwork. I continue to believe that the greatest and most intense cost will be felt by the young and ambitious among entry-level employees. This person might be hired at $32K but desire to put in an extra 10, 20, or 30 hours will be blocked by supervisors. Excellence is punished. Ambition is blocked. Dreams are crushed. And all from one change in the regulations. In the real world, as versus the artificial models tossed around the halls of the regulatory bureaucracies, bad theory leads to a worsening of the quality of life. And all this happens at the worst possible time for both business and labor. Yes, markets will adapt. They always do. But never think that it doesn’t come at a high cost.
Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker is Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education and CLO of the startup Liberty.me. Author of five books, and many thousands of articles, he speaks at FEE summer seminars and other events. His latest book is Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook. Email. Tweets by @jeffreyatucker This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article. More from LibertyLOL:
Buy $100 of bitcoin or more, and we'll both earn $10 of free bitcoin!
File this one under "Feel Good Story".
When local governmental officials are overloaded with flooding, power outages and possibly looting, it's good to see that the private market can provide a service (pizza) while providing another service (information to loved ones). No. We don't expect government to be able to conduct health and comfort checks on all citizens following catastrophe. The drumbeat from politicians that government can always provide is flawed. So it's good to see that the local Papa John's received a sizable bump in short-term orders and a long-term bump in local goodwill.
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Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus' recent decision to destroy over 240 years of Naval tradition by removing the professional rating system from enlisted sailors saddened many service members.
File this one under "PC Culture gone mad". The original idea to remove the 'MAN' from rating titles such as Corpsman, Fire Controlman, and Yeoman received much blowback this summer including from women who say they surprisingly don't feel oppressed by these rating titles that are centuries old, many which predate the birth of our own country. Plan B now includes removing all rating titles altogether. The PR campaign in full spin mode sells this move as a way to better market our sailors to civilian employers! So instead of "Hey, I see you were a Corpsman in the Navy for 20 years!", your employer will now say "Uh, I see you were a G000 for 20 years... What's that mean?" Maybe this has nothing to do with Political Correctness. Maybe Ray Mabus just hates the Navy (satire)
Satirical Navy FITREP 2016 -- it would be funny if not so close to reality...
The new military Paradigm: I have lost confidence in Captain Smith's ability to command and relieved him of his duties this morning. My lack of confidence stems from: 1. His lack of enthusiasm at a recent Gay Pride ceremony. 2. His failure to blame recent severe weather at his installation on global weather change. Instead, his focus was on the emergency response to keep the facility mission capable. 3. His regular attendance at Christian religious services at the installation Chapel with his wife and two children. His continual display of a traditional family in conservative attire is offensive to many non traditional families. 4. CAPT Smith's wife does not work and volunteers for various traditional charities. There were perceptions that her welcome of male spouses to the Officer's Spouse's Club were not sufficiently sincere and constituted micro aggression. 5. CAPT Smith keeps four personal weapons at the installation armory. One is an AR-15. He regularly checks out his 9mm pistol to shoot at an off base range during off duty hours. CAPT Smith is well known at this civilian range which is frequented by retired and former military gun fanatics. 6. CAPT Smith's children intimidate other less privileged children by being honor students and athletes. Both have expressed interest in attending reactionary, conservative schools like BYU, Liberty University, Hilldale College, Texas A&M University, and Gonzaga. Both the son and daughter participated in Scouting and the son was an Eagle Scout. 7. CAPT Smith drives a Ford 150 pick up truck. He has no bumper stickers that support any POTUS initiatives to make the military a more inclusive environment for those previously oppressed and marginalized. His wife drives a Chevy Suburban which also has no bumper stickers. Neither vehicle is supportive of DoD alternate fuel objectives. 8. CAPT Smith plays golf on Sunday afternoons. This caused him to miss the Transgender Bake Sale. His participation in a game associated with privilege, racism, and sexism has been noted by many in the command. 9. CAPT Smith participated in the installation HQ Physical Fitness Test where his superb level of fitness intimidated other members of his command. Some female participants felt that his efforts were designed to humiliate them. While he did cheer on finishers, he did not jog to the finish line with late finishers and had already departed for his office before the last runners completed the run. 10. CAPT Smith has failed to champion female and minority team members when they achieve significant breakthroughs. For example the Pediatrics Dept at the installation hospital is headed by a contracted female (Pakistani) Muslim, Doctor. CAPT Smith failed to champion this effort, nor was it featured in the Base Newspaper. The Installation Master At Arms recently promoted a gay man to Chief. He is the first gay Master at Arms to be promoted to Chief at this installation. This achievement was not recognized. During CAPT Smith's time in command a female civilian employee became the Deputy at the base wastewater facility. She is the first woman to hold this position which CAPT Jones, despite effusive praise, failed to mention at her promotion ceremony. 11. CAPT Smith has failed to publicly speak out in support of women in combat. 12. CAPT Smith has a hunting trophy in his office (Elk Antlers). Members of his command find this insulting and a micro-aggression. They are therefore very uncomfortable in his office. 13. CAPT Smith has breakfast in the Dining Facility weekly. It has been noted that he has eggs, bacon, ham, a doughnut, and black coffee. His choices are not a good nutritional example to the sailors. 14. Members of CAPT Smith's command who wish to have a same sex marriage must travel out of State (55 miles) to do so. He has never welcomed them back with a public acknowledgement of their commitment to each other, nor has he taken advantage of that opportunity to condemn local state laws. CAPT Smith's gross failures to champion issues that are important to the POTUS, SECDEF and SECNAV make him unsuitable to command. I have lost all confidence in his ability to command. Admiral Brucie Jones, Commanding More from LibertyLOL:
Aside from Lindsay Graham, John McCain could be the largest lobbyist of US-led violence around the world. He has never met a conflict he didn't like. Jason Stapleton warns us that guys like these have only one motive. Grease the palms of their military industrial complex in every way possible so they can then turn around and support them for reelection.
Listen here: More From LibertyLOL:“If Hitler were to invade Hell, I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” — Winston Churchill. In Churchill’s estimation, Stalin was less evil than Hitler. Hence, the Allied Forces’ brief friendship with the Soviets: a marriage of convenience formed in Hell. The Right to Complain. Every four years, Americans face the so-called lesser-of-two-evils (LOTE) dilemma: “Both major-party presidential candidates are lousy, but I’m duty-bound to vote. Free people get to complain.Plus, those who don’t vote can’t complain!” First, why can’t I not vote and complain, all at the same time? I rather enjoy complaining, and complaining about politics can be quite fun. Cathartic, even. The way I see it, my right to complain about the government that taxes me by coercion, and threatens to jail me when I reach the age of majority should I fail to complete a draft card, is not purchased by my quadrennial vote for one authoritarian statist, or the other. I am already a free person, regardless of whether I cast a vote. And free people get to complain. In fact, maybe I’ll vote for a candidate and still complain about them once they are in office. I am just that wild and crazy! Is LOTE Your Only Argument? “Okay, complain. But we should still vote for the LOTE because the country hangs in the balance! Plus, like the ancient Chinese proverb says: If we keep picking the lesser of two evils, things will probably stop being evil, eventually.” Every ballot should include a “None of the Above” option. Because truthfully, this is how the majority of eligible voters feel on election day. That’s probably not an ancient Chinese proverb. But I think it speaks volumes about the presidency that LOTE is the default position for most of the 50% of eligible voters who actually vote. Maybe this is because most people are instinctively uneasy about picking a national leader. Of course, the original job description called for a citizen-executive-officer of one branch, of a limited, constitutional republic. This certainly carries a lower expectation than the current job description, which is on the order of Pontifex Maximus. Moreover, our expectations about who should fill this awesome role is matched only by our emotional intensity over the decision. Most of us don’t get emotionally invested when voting for County Recorder, or Grand Marshal of the local parade. But the presidency is deeply personal, because the role is ubiquitous. Why, the president is our great national father, mother and spiritual leader! Also, voting the “wrong” way can draw the censure of friends and family, and destroy relationships. (So, holding presidential elections right before Thanksgiving is a super idea.) Is it any mystery why half of the eligible voters are driven toward apathy? The presidency has become a title no human deserves to fill, and few voters are fully comfortable bestowing. I predict voter turnout would return to 19th century highs if the presidency (and the federal government) returned to its 19th century (constitutional) scope. Until then, every ballot should include a “None of the Above” option. Because truthfully, this is how the majority of eligible voters feel on election day. Besides, when President X starts pounding the “bully pulpit” on behalf of “the American people” to sell some war, or some new domestic agenda, it would be fitting to remind the president of how a majority of “the American people” actually felt in the prior election. A Moral Duty to Vote? It should go without saying that there is no legal duty to vote. Yet, how often are we hectored for not voting (or voting third party)? Indeed, what kind of misanthrope sits idly by while the country hangs in the balance!? And don’t you know that Literally Hitler is running this year? Not to dismiss the harm that can be – nay, will be done by any incoming president. And I actually agree that some candidates are relatively worse than others. I am also no sanguine optimist about the triumph of third-parties. Let’s be honest, there are two major parties and one will win the presidency. Yes, voting third-party has purposes. It’s just that none of those purposes includes actually winning the presidency. But whether one is reasonable in choosing to vote for the LOTE, is not the same as being duty-bound. And while I can’t speak for everyone, I know Christians are not exactly permitted to “choose” any kind of evil. LOTE – whatever else it may be – is not really a moral doctrine. At least, not in the Western or Christian tradition. Although, it does sound like the Principle of Double Effect (PODE). Saint Thomas Aquinas set forth PODE, thusly: An act or omission having a foreseen harmful effect, that is inseparable from its good effect, is morally justified if: (a) The nature of the act or omission is good or morally neutral; (b) the agent intends the good effect, and not the bad effect (either as a means to the good, or an end in itself); and (c) the good effect outweighs the bad effect, and the agent takes all steps to minimize the bad effects. Thus, again, one may be permitted to make choices having double-effects, while not being duty-bound to make such choices. Civic Duty and the Common Good. One could say abstaining (or voting third-party) constitutes a dereliction of one’s duty toward the “Common Good.” At what point is one’s duty to advance the Common Good through voting, rendered untenable?Many Christian and secular philosophers have articulated a duty to advance the so-called Common Good through civic engagement – thus, one is said to be duty-bound to vote, pay taxes, and serve in juries. Even accepting this premise, it is not clear that the Common Good (however defined) is always, and in every case, advanced by voting. For instance, many would agree that one’s cooperation with a civic institution is conditioned on the institution’s deference to a higher, Natural Law. Even Romans 13 – the Biblical passage oft cited as the basis Christian civic duty – implicitly conditions these duties on the authority’s service to God. In other words, the authority, and the law, must be legitimate. At what point is one’s duty to advance the Common Good through voting, rendered untenable as a result of unjust laws, or authorities acting ultra vires? Notice, this is precisely the moral justification behind the Civil Rights movement – people of moral conscience abstained from obeying authorities inasmuch as the authorities, and the laws, contradicted a higher, Natural Law. Civil Rights Activists were not callously disregarding all law and authority out of convenience. They were very much cooperating with the Common Good, by rejecting oppressive civic institutions. So, if the system produces two monsters to serve as president, either of who will advance an ultra vires agenda in office, can it truly be said that I have a moral duty to pick one? Arguably, might my abstention, or third-party vote, be in furtherance of the Common Good? To Vote, or Not Vote. Every eligible voter will have to decide, based on his or her own conscience, whether the Common Good compels voting for the LOTE. Each will have to assess the relative moral harm of the candidates, based on their own values. At the very least, there are sound moral arguments for a third-party vote. And abstention means “None of the Above.”
Robert ColemanIs a Berkeley alumni and Pepperdine Law graduate, and General Counsel for a national corporation. This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article. "Get the equivalent of a Ph.D. in libertarian thought and free-market economics online for just 24 cents a day." Most of us learned politically correct U.S. history in school. The economics was at least as bad. It's never too late to learn the truth. At Liberty Classroom, you can learn real U.S. history, Western civilization, and free-market economics from professors you can trust. Short on time? No problem. You can learn in your car. FIND OUT MORE HERE More from LIbertyLOL:
Before I fly to Boston tomorrow for the Mises Institute event there (it's sold out, I'm simultaneously sorry and happy to report), I wanted to pass along a gift.
It's my latest free eBook, Education Without the State. Would we really be illiterate morons without public education? (Heck, plenty of people are illiterate morons with public education.) Would only the super-rich be educated? Libertarians get these questions all the time. Here are the answers. Want it? Download it here: http://www.NoStateEducation.com More from LibertyLOL: |
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