Another Christmas/New Year’s vacation in Oregon nearly done, and the state never disappoints in supplying examples of shooting itself in the economic foot.

From The Bend Bulletin:

Oregon’s minimum wage — already one of the highest in the nation — increases from $7.95 to $8.40 per hour on Thursday, and while a boon to some workers, the new rate likely means higher prices for food, gas and other services.

The 5.4 percent jump in hourly minimum pay is an automatic cost-of-living increase written into the 2002 ballot measure. The increase makes workers at the lower end of the wage scale marginally more expensive compared to higher-paid employees, many who are having their pay frozen or cut. Wonder if some of these minimum-wage workers will lose their jobs instead of getting paid more.

The Oregon Restaurant Association, which is going to ask the Legislature to remove the automatic COLA this year, notes that Oregon does not allow a tip credit. From more from ORA, see this. Also relevant is this from The Oregonian, “Portland’s restaurant scene in trouble”

Elsewhere, in tourism communities like Port Orford on the southern Oregon Coast, first high gas prices and now the recession have just hammered small business owners — many who rely on minimum-wage employees.

There are many nice things to be said for Port Orford, though.

Full-scale shot here.

And for a rainbow over the railroad bridge at Reedsport, go here.

Iain Murray of the free-market advocacy group, Competitive Enterprise Institute, reviews 2008 and finds it awash with economic foolishness, energy idiocy and global warming folderol, and the Conservative Party in Britain didn’t do so well, either. With respect to energy, he observes:

For one brief, shining moment, it looked like even this Congress would be forced to relax idiotic restrictions on oil exploration, but “Drill, baby, drill” was retired as the oil price collapsed and so we will have to go through the whole thing again on the next oil price spike, when we will be told it is too late to explore and drill (again).

“Drill, baby, drill” has been retired? Huh. We missed the retirement party.

The federal moratoria (executive order and Congressionally enacted statute) that prevented natural gas and oil development remain dead (i.e., lifted, not in place) for now. Yes, anti-energy candidates, including anti-oil company populists, gained in the November elections, but trying to reinstate the moratoria will still cause one heck of a fight (especially with respect to natural gas, we’d bet). With many coastal states like California facing budgetary disasters, surely some legislators and executive branch officials will recognize the benefits of OCS-energy revenue sharing.

Maybe Iain’s right on this and history will repeat itself again and again and again. (You know, all those arguments from the ’80s and ’90s: Don’t drill in ANWR. That oil wouldn’t flow until 2004 at least. There’s no point!). But, envisioning that optimistic, allegorical infant of 2009 taking the stage, we still say, drill, Baby, drill.

From Der Spiegel, reporting on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s official address for the New Year:

Chancellor Angela Merkel signalled on Wednesday that she may have dropped her opposition to cutting taxes ahead of a meeting on Monday to discuss a fresh economic stimulus package.

 

She gave a vague pledge to cut taxes in her New Year address due to be broadcast on TV later on Wednesday, saying: “Wherever it is justifiable with a view to the next generation, we will ease the burden on all who pay taxes and contributions.”

 

The remark suggests that she is prepared to make concessions to the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to her conservative Christian Democrats. The CSU has been calling for tax cuts to help avert recession.

Also, from Singapore, “Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s New Year’s Day Message“:

8. Apart from these two measures, we also lowered corporate taxes in 2008. New enterprises and smaller companies enjoy further tax exemptions, which mean that many pay little or no taxes. For households, the 2008 Budget package included Growth Dividends, U-SAVE, S&CC and Rental Rebates, and top-ups to Post-Secondary Education Accounts. These schemes are helping Singaporeans, particularly lower income families, to tide over the difficult period.

From an editorial, Investor’s Business Daily, “Memo To Obama: Cut Taxes For All“:

If Obama is serious about getting the economy going again, he could do a number of things — and right away, not years from now, as with the $675 billion to $775 billion he plans to spend on infrastructure and imaginary “green jobs.” These steps would include:

• Cutting corporate tax rates. U.S. businesses pay a top rate of 35% on income. That rises to 40% when you add in state taxes. In Europe, the average corporate tax in 2007 was 24.2%, according to the international consultancy KPMG.

Is it any wonder some of our most successful corporations move offshore? Cutting corporate taxes even to 25% would improve investment returns — and lead to more jobs and output.

Want to spur investment? Cut capital gains rates, too.

Columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin is the harshest, most unremitting journalistic critic of the federal involvement/aid to various sectors of the economy (like so many, indiscriminately calling them all “bailouts”), and the UAW is one of her many targets. For all the many good points she makes about UAW golf courses, spending and corruption today in her syndicated column, “The UAW’s money-squandering corruptocracy,” we’d also like to hightlight this one:

Curious about how the UAW will be spending my money and yours, I sifted through the union’s most recent annual report filed with the U.S. Department of Labor (which you can find at unionreports.gov). Who knew hitting the links was so central to the business of making cars?

Malkin was able to write an informative and damning column because of reports made available through the Department of Labor. She and other journalists, the public, and union members have all benefited from Labor’s concerted efforts to improve union transparency, most carried out through the Office of Labor Management Standards and including such sites as unionreports.gov.  With all major players in the U.S. economy under increased scrutiny and unions hoping to create a more static, less responsive labor market through the Employee Free Choice Act, maintaining oversight and transparency are critical.

Yet there are many indications that the Department of Labor in the next Administration will head in the other direction, the wrong direction. As the Wall Street Journal reported in a recent editorial, “Quantum of Solis“:

From day one of the Obama era, union leaders want the lights dimmed on how they spend their mandatory member dues. The AFL-CIO’s representative on the Obama transition team for Labor is Deborah Greenfield, and we’re told her first inspection stop was the Office of Labor-Management Standards, or OLMS, which monitors union compliance with federal law.

Ms. Greenfield declined to comment, citing Obama transition rules, but her mission is clear enough. The AFL-CIO’s formal “recommendations” to the Obama team call for the realignment of “the allocation of budgetary resources” from OLMS to other Labor agencies. The Secretary should “temporarily stay all financial reporting regulations that have not gone into effect,” and “revise or rescind the onerous and unreasonable new requirements,” such as the LM-2 and T-1 reporting forms. The explicit goal is to “restore the Department of Labor to its mission and role of advocating for, protecting and advancing the interests of workers.” In other words, while transparency is fine for business, unions are demanding a pass for themselves.

Along similar lines, Mark Tapscott of The Examiner asks if the (very vocal) liberal advocates of transparency and open government will speak up on behalf of the OLMS and Labor’s transparency initiatives.

Organized labor’s leaders sure hold idiosyncratic views about secrecy, don’t they? With the Employee Free Choice Act, they would destroy secret-ballot elections so organizers can force unwilling workers into unions. But in attacking Department of Labor union transparency rules, labor bosses would restore and extend secrecy into union operations so they can spend members’ dues however they want.

Both issues — the Employee Free Choice Act and union transparency — are early tests of an Obama Administration and its views on accountability, transparency and the importance of a dynamic market economy. We certainly hope the decisionmaking is carried out in a transparent way.

The states’ fiscal problems are continuing into the next two years.  At least 38 states have looked ahead and anticipate deficits for fiscal year 2010 and beyond.[1]  These gaps total almost $80 billion — 17 percent of budgets — for the 30 states that have estimated the size of these gaps and are likely to grow as gaps are re-estimated in the next few months

That commentary and the map are from the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, analyzing the financial difficulties facing states and arguing for federal aid to help state governments.

The few states doing well? They are all energy-producing states, where coal and/or oil production make major contributions to the economy and state tax revenues.

So: Not all energy states are doing well, but all states doing well are energy states. Perhaps a lesson for the federal government, as well.

The Washington Times today reports on what it sees as waning support for quick Congressional action on the Employee Free Choice Act, the anti-democratic legislation that would dragoon employees into unions against their will.

The thesis is that the political and economic scenes are such that Congress will be reluctant to move on the bill, organized labor’s top priority. From “Labor’s ‘priority’ on back burner“:

“I suspect that there’s been a bit of a rethink going on,” said Seth Borden, a labor-law attorney representing management groups at Kirkpatrick Stockton. “A lot of the enthusiasm - and fear, on our side - has tempered off a bit.”

Both sides say the sharply deteriorating economy, coupled with such big-ticket items as health care reform and energy policy, will command the attention and resources of both the new administration and key congressional committees. With business lobbies and conservative Republicans geared up to fight EFCA, the Obama administration is seen as not wanting a distraction in his critical first days in office.

“We’re hearing [EFCA] probably won’t happen right away, and we feel good about that,” said Leigh Strope, spokeswoman for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union. “It maybe will not happen in the first 100 days, but we don’t take that as a bad signal.”

That’s just spin from Strope, putting the failure of labor to make its priorities Congress’ priorities. But at least Strope acknowledges the possibility, which is more than other labor leaders do.

Although our ally in the cause Seth Borden is an effective advocate against the Employee Free Choice Act — here’s Kilpatrick-Stockton’s EFCAUpdates blog he co-writes — we disagree with the sentiment in the quote. Many of our NAM members, the smaller companies especially, are just as alarmed as ever at the possibility of action at any time on the Employee Free Choice Act. OK, so Congress won’t pass a law to ruin your business and the economy by March. It may take until June. That doesn’t ease our fears any.

And if there’s a “rethink” by labor, it’s just a political and strategic one. Labor leadership seems as committed as ever to eventually passing the legislation to increase their membership and dues. They’re just figuring out how (and it may come in the form of a new bill all together).

UPDATE (11:45 a.m.): Here’s the New York Times’ take, “Unions Look for New Life in World of Obama“:

Unions are looking to Barack Obama and rising economic anxiety to reverse organized labor’s long slide.

Through three decades of decline, union leaders have been predicting a renaissance that has not come. But labor invested more than $300 million to help elect Mr. Obama and enlarge the Democratic majority in Congress, and it expects both to enact legislation that will make it easier for millions of workers to unionize.

In the Chicago Tribune, “Business takes a liking to Barack Obama“:

WASHINGTON — In these scary economic times, the politics of the business world suddenly seem topsy-turvy.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Association of Manufacturers are openly praising President-elect Barack Obama for being smart and practical, for making business-friendly appointments and for a strong economic stimulus package.

“All the old free-market ideologies are crumbling under the weight of this terrible economy,” said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, an Obama supporter. “Even ardent conservatives are looking to the federal government to rescue Wall Street and Main Street.”

Reich — gee, he’s been in this blog a lot lately — overstates the point about crumbling ideologies, but it is true that some ardent conservatives believe that the federal government has a role to play in stabilizing the financial sector and buttressing the foundation of the economy.

Otherwise, there are plenty of reasons business might generally be favorable toward the incoming Obama administration. Here’s one we find persuasive: He won the election, the voters’ wishes deserve respect and he deserves respect. No matter how many ardent disagreements might ardently develop.

Like on the Employee Free Choice Act…

And then there is the card-check issue, in which today’s secret ballot would be discarded in worker elections to unionize companies.

To please his labor constituency, Obama supported such legislation during the campaign, but Aric Newhouse, senior vice president for policy and government relations at the National Association of Manufacturers, said, “Having a debate about taking away the rights of the private ballot to encourage unionization is not going to be an issue that will encourage cooperation with the Obama administration.”

It’s not just the card check provisions, by the way.

With all the Shopfloor blogging from Oregon on the topic of energy and electricity, we’ve left out one part of what should be a comprehensive approach toward energy — nuclear power.

Thankfully, NEI’s Nuclear Notes did our work for us, granted a few days ago. From “NuScale News“:

NuScale Power, the Oregon-based company that is developing small, modular light water nuclear reactors, has received a lot of positive media attention in 2008. Earlier this year they were featured in a Popular Mechanics article, “Mini Reactors Show Promise for Clean Nuclear Power’s Future.” And in his Emerging Tech blog, Forbes Magazine’s Josh Wolf included NuScale Power in his list of companies to watch [pdf].

Not all of the media coverage, however, has been welcomed. NuScale is up with a corrective on its site, “Fox News Gets It Wrong;” a response to a Fox News story, “Miniature Nuclear Reactors Could Provide Energy—and Opportunity for Terrorists.”

Perhaps the quietest week of the year, with New Year’s Day falling on a Thursday, making Friday another defacto holiday. Except …

On Friday the Senate actually, finally, really adjourns the 110th Congress sine die! Before that, two last pro forma sessions — Tuesday and Friday — so the long arm of the Bush presidency doesn’t reach out from the Crawford ranch to make a recess appointment.

The House is scheduled to meet for the opening of the 111th Congress at 11 a.m. Saturday, January 3. (See Congressional Digest). The U.S. Senate is expected to convene Tuesday, January 6. (See Senate schedule.)

Economic Reports: On Tuesday, the Conference Board releases its consumer confidence index for December. Friday is the release of the Manufacturing ISM Report on Business for December.

Otherwise, let a million retrospectives bloom, along with winners and losers lists, top 10s and bottom fives, and see how many cartoonists can come up with something new in the way of old men with sickles and hour glasses welcoming swaddled children to the world.

And to reaffirm our belief in the value of NAFTA, we close the year with Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians, Auld Lang Syne, 1945.

Happy New Year!

Continuing to look at the Page 1 piece in today’s Sunday Oregonian, “PGE confronts dirty dilemma at Boardman,” we find it represents a fine distillation of the conventional, environmentally tinged wisdom that predominates in American newsrooms. You can see it just in the assumptions…

Inside the plant’s 260-foot-tall furnace, 32 flamethrowing burners ignite the cloud of talcum-size coal particles into a roiling, 3,000-degree ball of noxious gases and ash.

Like a miniature sun, the ongoing eruption creates enough energy to power 280,000 homes served by the plant’s part owner and operator, Portland General Electric. It’s 19th-century technology.But it’s reliable and cheap.

Unfortunately, its [sic] also dirty. Very dirty.

Really nasty, dirty, dirty, dirty.

Well, dirty is in the bemoted eye of the beholder, but NO, the Boardman’s plant is not 19th-century technology. It’s either 50,000 B.C. technology, combustion, or it’s modern technology complete with scrubbers and other emissions controls, burning coal efficiently through high temperatures and transmitting megawatts of electricity through the power grid. Don’t recall any of that in 19th-century Manchester.

Northwesterners love to boast about all the cheap, clean hydroelectric power generated in the region. But the dirty little secret is that coal-fired power plants still provide 40 percent of Oregon’s electricity — about the same percentage as hydro.

Dirty little secret? To whom? Consumers and activists who like to pretend otherwise? Policymakers and, one presumes, journalists know full well that coal is the No. 1 source of electrical generation in the United States; in 2007, 48.6 percent of U.S. electricity was generated from coal. It’s not a secret, dirty or otherwise; you can look it up lots of places.

“It’s not just carbon regulations. We don’t know what gas prices will be, what coal prices will do,” said Jim Piro, who takes over as PGE’s chief executive this week. “If everything was known and knowable, it would be an easy analysis.”

Piro is no global-warming denier. But like many in his industry, he’s convinced that renewables and energy efficiencies can’t meet all the power demands of Northwest consumers. So-called clean coal will play a crucial role, he says.

Ah, so-called clean coal. “So-called” is common journalese for “yeah, what a bunch of garbage.” And we find it hard to believe that Piro said, “Oh, yes, so-called clean coal…”

More importantly, what do the reporter and editors mean by the phrase, “no global-warming denier?” That Piro is a serious man we should give credence to because he accepts that human activity is causing global warming? That sure seems to be the implication, which also suggests that someone who challenges that theory and its public policy implications is beyond the pale, not to be listened to.

The term global-warming denier” is morally and intellectually offensive, a comparison to “Holocaust deniers” used by the most radical of the environmentalist left to bludgeon opponents into silence.  That it’s now acceptable phrasing in a major newspaper’s Page 1 story tells us the green bullies are making headway.

For decades the media have discussed bringing “diversity” into the newsroom, and recently that discussion has turned to the idea of promoting philosophical and political diversity, that is, adding a few conservatives to the overwhelmingly liberal reporting and editing staff. (See this farewell column from Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell for an example.)

Sounds like a reasonable goal. At least readers should expect the employment of a few journalists who, when asked to cover the energy sector and utilities, don’t wrinkle their noses and reflexively adopt the environmental world view (and rhetoric) that regard fossil fuels as bad and morally corrupt.

Earlier post: “In Oregon, A Skewed View of the Energy World”