Central Perk: 20 oct. 2012

sâmbătă, 20 octombrie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish Obamacare Mailbag: Expect More Part-Time Jobs

Posted: 20 Oct 2012 12:05 AM PDT

I received a number of interesting emails from readers in response to Prepping for Obamacare, Olive Garden and Red Lobster Cut Workers' Hours; Are Other Companies Doing the same? Tip Sharing Lowers Minimum Wage; Like One, Like All?.

Here is a sampling of emails.

Reader John, Owner of 37 Restaurants Chimes In

Hello Mish,

I own a chain of 37 fast food restaurants. I am doing the same thing as Olive Garden [going to part-time workers] as are many of my small (50 to 1000 employees) competitors. This ObamaCare tax will continue to cause a large shift in employment figures starting now and continuing for the next several years, decreasing the unemployment rate as each full time employee gets replaced with more than one part time employee.

John

Reader Kris writes About Whole Foods

Hello Mish,

Thanks for your wonderful data analysis on all my favorite B(L)S topics...

As an anecdotal note to Prepping for Obummer care... Whole Foods also limits their non-management hourly workers to 20 to 29 hours per week. Says so right on any of their existing location employment openings via their online application process.

Thanks and keep up the great debunking work.

Kris.

Reader Mark (a Medical Doctor) Discusses Obamacare

Hello Mish,

That Obamacare encourages part-time employment is as clear an argument as can be made for separating health care coverage from employment. There are no advantages to the American public at large of creating a large underclass of uninsured people flooding ER's for expensive and fragmented care providing poor outcomes at high cost. That is where we will be headed if corporations decide that their workers don't matter.

As an aside, I would expect workers placed in such situations to provide worse service and to degrade the experience of customers in these restaurants (and other businesses) damaging the businesses themselves over time.

Mark

Small Business Owners Focus On The Economy

The above anecdotes are via email from Mish readers. Let's now take a look at snips from the Yahoo!Finance article Small Business Owners: Engines of the American Economy

Cham Chun To, Owner of Big Wong take-out restaurant in Manhattan writes ...

Will we be able to handle the additional cost of health insurance for the employees? If we can, we'll keep doing business; if not, we'll have to stop. Our employees are self-insured now. Things are going to change in 2014. It's going to be hard to maintain. It's another expense, and it's going to be no easy feat for us. The government can't handle it, decided to pass the responsibility down. How are we going to handle that? We will lose money, especially when the economy is no good. We haven't been able to increase the prices on our menu. We used to be able to increase a quarter on our prices every half a year or so. We'll lose customers if we do that now.

John Pruitt, Owner of The Frameworks (picture framing) in Carrollton Texas writes ...

"I think more than anything else, I'm going to repeat what 90 million people are saying, get rid of Obamacare, or at least most of it."

Sarah McNally Owner of McNally Jackson Books in Manhattan, New York writes ...

"Bring down health care costs. We spend a damn fortune. We offer health care to all employees over 24 hours a week, and their families, common law partners, etc."

Jeff Popp of Mile High Mountaineering Complains About Tariffs ...

The biggest issue that absolutely drives me crazy and makes me want to pull my hair out is how high tariffs and duties are to import backpacks. And I understand that they want to protect American industry, but the fact is there is no American industry for stitched goods anymore. There's just not, so I really don't know who they're protecting. And we're getting charged — by the time shipping, duties and taxes are included — 24% of each product, is about what it costs. And that's ridiculously high.

If they lightened up on duties, that would help us a lot. But we haven't even found a manufacturer that would be capable of making our packs because they're pretty complex and technical. Any American-made backpacks you find are going to be really simple, usually school-oriented type stuff. And if we did it here they'd be four times the cost. So even with the high duties and tariffs, it's still way cheaper for us to offshore.

The talent is all over there now. That's the thing. People always think that offshore goods are always cheaply made and stuff but no, those factories are on it. They do everything in one house; they're very talented sewers, they know what they're doing. No one here knows how to sew anymore.

Obama Responsible For Surge in Part-Time Jobs?

On October 9, I asked Is Obamacare Responsible for the Surge in Part-Time Jobs?

Clearly my readers believe that, and judging from Yahhoo!Finance, many others do as well. More importantly, anecdotal evidence suggests that business owners are indeed reacting that way as well.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

"Wine Country" Economic Conference Hosted By Mish
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Damn Cool Pics

Beautiful Babe Catherine Vandareva is a Model Boxer

Posted: 19 Oct 2012 08:53 PM PDT

Don't be fooled by Catherine Vandareva's cute smile, killer looks and impressive body; she is also a World Champion Thai boxer who kick's ass.

Weekly Address: Congress Should Join the President to Help Responsible Homeowners

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Weekly Address: Congress Should Join the President to Help Responsible Homeowners

President Obama urges Congress to act to build on the momentum we are seeing in the housing market by helping responsible homeowners refinance, saving $3000 a year. Construction workers are building new homes at the fastest pace in more than four years, home values are rising, and foreclosure filings are at the lowest point since the housing bubble burst five years ago.

The steps that the President has already taken have given hundreds of thousands of Americans with high-interest loans the chance to take advantage of the low rates, and the President is calling on Congress to act to help millions more.

Watch President Obama's weekly address.

Photo of the Day

Today, October 20th, is the final public White House Garden Tour for this year. As part of the event, we invited 50 of our followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ for their own "social" tour -- members of the public tour shared their photos on social media as well.

Here's one of our favorite photos from yesterday's tour:

President Barack Obama waves from the Colonnade to visitors as they tour the White House grounds and gardens, Oct. 19, 2012. Members of the public were invited to tour the grounds as part of the 2012 White House Fall Garden Tours. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)