Will Republicans take the Senate in the election?

The pre-election polling averages (not the FiveThirtyEight forecasts, which also account for other factors) in the 10 most competitive Senate races had a 6-percentage point Democratic bias as compared to the votes counted in each state so far.

We aren’t counting Alaska, where polls haven’t closed yet. We also aren’t counting Virginia, which is much closer than expected. But Mark Warner’s close call makes more sense now given the margins we’re seeing in other states.

The bias might narrow slightly as more votes are counted; late-counted votes tend to be Democratic in most states. Still, this is a big “skew,” and it comes on the heels of what had been a fairly substantial bias in the opposite direction in 2012. The polls — excepting Ann Selzer’s — are having some problems.

the corrupt cesspool that is Chicago politics.....

A Wisconsin judge on Friday struck down nearly all of the state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.

The law also forced most state workers to pay more for health insurance and pensions, and curbed pay raises

GOP senators block top Obama jobs initiative
By Ted Barrett, CNN
updated 8:29 PM EDT, Thu July 19, 2012

On the contrary the massive intrisiveness of Federal regulations in nearly every aspect of business under the current administration has been an enormous and continuing hindrance to investment and risk-taking by businesses across the country and is fairly clearly the reason why this recovery has been so much slower and more tepid than any other for the past two generations.

That's the reason some states and local governments took it upon themselves to increase the minimum wage. They know how to create jobs and success for the majority.

Originally published March 12, 2014 at 9:52 PM | Page modified March 13, 2014 at 7:47 PM
Studies look at what happened when cities raised minimum wage

Raising the minimum wage doesn’t have a drastic, negative impact on employment, according to university researchers who have studied pay hikes in other cities.

By Lynn Thompson
Seattle Times staff reporter

Ten years ago, San Francisco raised its minimum wage from $6.75 to $8.50 an hour, a 26 percent increase. Since then, it has gone up at regular intervals to its current $10.74 an hour, the highest big-city starting wage in the country.

The city has slapped other mandates on businesses, including paid sick leave and a requirement to provide health-care coverage or pay into a pool for uninsured residents.

What have the effects been on employment?

Almost none, according to economists at the University of California, Berkeley, who have studied San Francisco, eight other cities that raised their minimum wages in the past decade, and 21 states with higher base pay than the federal minimum.

Businesses absorbed the costs through lower turnover, small price increases at restaurants, which have a high concentration of low-wage workers, and higher worker productivity, the researchers found.

The average increase among cities raising the minimum wage was 40 percent. The average step increase for a phased-in pay hike was 17 percent.

“Our data show that an increase up to $13 an hour has no measurable effect on employment,” said Michael Reich, a Berkeley economics professor with the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.

When the minimum wage is increased, it puts more money into consumers pockets to spend. When they spend, that creates higher demand for the goods and services.

Put simply, a dollar spent in the market place gets respent by the very people who earn income, and that gets multiplied by factors.

Econ 101.

You are now being ridiculous! I always thought you more intelligent than that!