Vox Popoli

Deborah Robinson didn’t call a doctor, prosecutors said yesterday, when her daughter botched an attempt to pierce her own belly button and a life-threatening infection set in. She didn’t call one when the girl, in excruciating pain, took to the living room couch three weeks ago and basically stopped eating or moving, prosecutors said. And she didn’t call when her daughter lost control of her bowels; instead, prosecutors say, Robinson put her 13-year-old in diapers….

”She walks her kids to school and picks them up every day,” said Pamela Gray, a friend and neighbor who said she has known Robinson for nine years. ”She was really involved.”

Um, wait a minute…. okay, never mind, call off the media hounds.

Lisa Lisa tickles her tonsils with her toes:

Yes. It’s defintely the influx of WOMEN into the workforce that casued this low ‘real wage’. It’s not:

a) the exponential increase in child births
b ) the exponential influx of immigrants (both legal and illegal)
c) the increase in the retirement age, thus putting exponential increases of people working later in life in the work force
d) the exponential growth of corporations in this country
e) drops in economy because of exponential offshoring of jobs

Jesus….for a woman….I just made this guy look like an idiot. I better get back in the kitchen. What are these shoes doing on my feet?

Let’s deal with this intelligent, liberated woman’s points one at a time, shall we?

a) US birth rate 1970: 18.4. US birth rate 2004: 14.1. It would appear that Lisa Lisa is making use of a hitherto unknown usage of the term “exponential increase”.

b) Immigrants increase consumption demand as well as labor supply. This mitigates their impact on labor pricing. Domestic women, already being consumers, can only drive the price of labor down by increasing its supply.

c) “Census and Social Security data show that between 1975 and 1990, the labor force participation rate among 55- to 64-year-olds changed differently by gender. Men’s labor force participation rate fell to 68 percent from 76 percent, while that of women rose to 45 percent from 41 percent. For women older than 65 years, the labor force participation rate rose slightly to 8.7 percent from 8.2 percent, although among men older than 65 years, it fell to 16 percent from 22 percent.” Again, Lisa Lisa has it backwards. The net effect of changes in the retirement age was beneficial to the price of labor.

d) More corporations = less labor? (shakes head in disbelief)

I have to go mow the lawn, so I’ll address e) in a bit, as well as provide some BLS statistics I’ve got somewhere for c) that cover the full range of years from 1972 to 2003 and make the picture more clear.

But she sure made me look stupid, didn’t she! I don’t think it would be wise to leave this woman alone in the kitchen with sharp objects, let alone a voting booth.

UPDATE: Where were we? Ah, yes, BLS statistics… let me see….

c) In 1970, 83 percent of men 55-64 and 26.8 percent of 65+ men worked. In 2000, those numbers had dropped to 67.3 percent and 17.5 percent. Women went from 43 percent (55-64) and 9.7 percent (65+) to 51.8 percent and 9.4 percent. As I already stated, the net effect on the price of labor was positive.

e) Globalization is a mixed bag. Jobs go elsewhere, reducing demand for labor, but the opening of foreign markets to US products also creates demand for it. This is Lisa Lisa’s one potentially salient point, but its net effect cannot quantified or even characterized with any degree of certainty, whereas supply/demand effects are pretty obvious. The labor force grew from 60 percent of the population in 1970 to 67 percent in 2000, a 11.7 percent increase. Only those completely ignorant of basic economic theory could believe that the simultaneous 16.3 percent decline in real wages is purely coincidental.

From Drudge:

Workers repairing a sewage pipe in the old city of Jerusalem have discovered the biblical Pool of Siloam, a freshwater reservoir that was a major gathering place for ancient Jews making religious pilgrimages to the city and the reputed site where Jesus cured a man blind from birth, the LOS ANGELES TIMES reports.

The pool was fed by the now famous Hezekiah’s Tunnel and is “a much grander affair” than archeologists previously believed, with three tiers of stone stairs allowing easy access to the water, according to Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archeology Review, which reported the find Monday.

“Scholars have said that there wasn’t a Pool of Siloam and that John was using a religious conceit” to illustrate a point, said New Testament scholar James H. Charlesworth of the Princeton Theological Seminary. “Now we have found the Pool of Siloam … exactly where John said it was.” A gospel that was thought to be “pure theology is now shown to be grounded in history,” he said.

You’d think those foolish scientists would have learned by now. From Assyrians to Hittites, from obscure Greek honorifics to the Pool of Siloam, the Bible repeatedly proves to be more reliable than the conceit-filled opinions of modern archeologists.

That’s an impressive series of coincidences for an ancient book of fairy tales with no historical value whatsoever.

Spacebunny writes:

I don’t actually pick the movies. These are just the ones that happen to be on t.v. I haven’t actually rented a movie in years. Besides, the last movie Vox picked was Van Helsing for pity’s sake.

It was a movie with Kate Beckinsale wearing a tight corset! I apologize for nothing. Sure, it wasn’t as good as the movie with Kate Beckinsale in a vinyl catsuit, but… oh, who am I kidding. Van Helsing was the worst movie I have seen in a long, long time. The writers should have VH branded on their foreheads just so no one will ever make the mistake of hiring them again, and the director should be rolled in bat guano then forced to parade through Hollywood wearing nothing but a black cape and plastic fangs.

The Sports Guy doesn’t have a monopoly on those who tread the borderlands between sanity and lunacy:

I’ve survived the diversity training courses they made me take, ala “A Clockwork Orange”. They can’t break me. I may end up on the desk like Gibson in Braveheart screaming “Freedom!” but I won’t be wearing any rainbows.

That’s the spirit! Nice work, BillyD.

Paula unleashes a cri de cuoer:

“So what, no woman should be allowed to work out side the home because wages are lower? I like my job. My Irish ancestory “lowered” the wages for other workers, like former slaves, and it all worked out in the end. I’m better at what I do than most men or women. Welcome to captialism. Get over it.”

Actually, capitalism existed quite nicely without women’s rights for decades, indeed, the West enjoyed a faster growth rate than it does now. But when did I say anything about outlawing women’s labor? It’s a question of what society encourages and discourages. A society that discourages its women from reproducing is not long for this world, regardless of how much you like it. Also, your Irish ancestors increased domestic consumption and therefore demand for labor. You didn’t.

Imagine the ultimate World of Women. Nothing but trashy romance novels, unfattening gourmet food, robots who look like Brad Pitt and George Clooney equipped with adjustable-speed vibrating genitalia and none of those mean, brutish beings called men. Imagine that every woman thought it was paradise. How long would it last if women were too happy and self-fulfilled playing with their pleasure robots to bother propagating the species?

It doesn’t matter that Paula and Jennifer and Susie all like their jobs and feel more productive making Powerpoint presentations and writing legal briefs than they would raising children. There is a tipping point at which a society begins to die, and that is 2.1 children per woman. We’re still there thanks to our formerly Mexican neighbors. France is still close, thanks to a population now 10 percent Muslim. Most other countries in Western Europe are already down to half that rate – Italy is at 1.17 – and it is mathematically impossible for them to maintain their existing society without following France’s lead.

In the long run, there appear to be four choices for American women. A return to Western tradition, economic collapse and whatever follows that, Mexification (which could be described as a half-baked version of the first option), and sharia. But the liberated secular society is a dead end every bit as untenable as Soviet Communism, and considering it is a mere 33 years old, may not even last as long as the 70-year Soviet experiment.

Welcome to demographics. Deal with it.

Meanwhile, Missy adds:

Despite the apparent sense that a lot of WND’s readers tend to be Judeo-Christian – based conservatives, I’m sure you’ll get a lot of vitrolic hate mail from some women. So, as a Christian conservative, college-educated former IT professional of nearly 18 years and not some dumb redneck white trash chick (as some feminists might think of we “unenlighted” women) – let me say thank you so much for having the courage and conviction to say the truth. I hope mine is one of the first of only many other letters of appreciation and encouragement you receive. 🙂

Actually, I’ve received more emails of support from women than I have opposing emails, let alone hate mail. In fact, the only thing that was even close was Proud Liberal’s little essay, and that was downright friendly compared to some I’ve received in the past.

My theory is that the numbers were too scary for the feminists to mess with. You know what Barbie says. Math is hard!

He who shall not be named discovers this for himself:

Experimentation gone bad. I printed out several copies of VD’s article this morning, and scattered them among the employee cafeteria tables here at my workplace before 9:00 break. By 9:15, there were already several woman at the Human Resources directors door, bitching. I had to grab an IS guy and have him wipe my pc records for net surfing and printing so as not to be identified.

The HR lady was not amused. I, however, was.

As usual, the first and only response, run to authority…. A most excellent fnord. You see, it’s at moments like this that I deeply regret that whole syndication thing not working out.

And in the meantime, half of corporate America is being forced to attend feminist reeducation camps by their employers. This is the home of the free, right?

It turns out my column today was slightly inaccurate. Weekly real wages peaked in 1972, not 1973 as I wrote, at $331.59 (in 1982 dollars), which equals an annual salary of $34,979.36 in 2005. In the last 32 years, wages have declined 16.3 percent to an annual salary level of 29,280.68. This long-term decline resumed again in 2004, as the Congressional Joint Economic Committee reported that real wages declined another .4 percent last year despite the economic recovery.*

Meanwhile, the average married women’s contribution to family income has increased from 26.7 percent to 35.2 percent in the same time frame, a 31.8 percent increase. In other words, fully half of a wife’s contribution to household income is eaten up by the decline in wages, which stems from the increase in the labor supply.

From 1973 to 2004, the percentage of women working rose from 44.7 percent to 59.2 percent. The effects of this increase were obviated somewhat by the declining percentage of men who worked, from 78.8 percent to 73.3 percent. The reason that this effect is a generally negative one is that unlike in the case of immigration, these new workers were already consumers, so they did not bring the concomitant increase in consumption (and demand for labor) that immigrants do. Considering that this had a definite effect on the number of children being raised, it should probably be characterized as a net demand-reducing development.

*The situation is actually worse than it looks here because the Federal Reserve’s CPI manipulations seriously underestimate inflation and therefore the true decline in real wages and purchasing power is greater than these statistics would indicate. But we have to work with the tools available to us.

Proud Liberal Man demonstrates his rudimentary grasp of the language:

The only evil is this recent composition of yours. “vanilla minded commentators?” more then likely just a smarmy-unhip white boy trying to distance himself from is culture. “Customary for women to immediately reject any assertion that womens rights are wrong?” How about when a silver spoon hate filled little ultra conservative starts spouting off on what he thinks are original and thoughtful insights. “I very much like women” yeah and I bet you have black friends too, and call them bro. The intelligent women I know are not lamenting but making substantive life choices, albeit they dont follow your capital-communist loving ideals. And unlike generations before her, she does’nt have to put up with a shit kicking lout that swarms in your lineage, where she needed permission to purchase a house or get a credit card. Feminzation of the Courts? thats a good one, Unless you mean that to your chagrin that more women are becoming lawyers and judges. You hardly know your history o f marriage as a financial contract if you think it was beneficial to both. It was always favorable to the male by law. Paternal responsiblity for the young females? you must mean some of the southern stalwarts that have incest or rape of the underage girls..or would that be that grand old roman catholic church that has permanently destroyed the belief of god in a multitude of girl childern? The present need for women to work outside of the home is the Conservative(libertarian republican) love affair with communist china and their espoused cry of “free trade”. So your afraid that europe is’nt reproducing fast enough eh? To bad white boy, whether you are liberal or conservative, we are going to outnumber you very soon..Hows your spanish..better yet, have you brushed up on your ebonics? Unborn baby girls are being aborted because the male is elevated to a small deity status..The problem in china started in the early seventies due to the attempt at populatin control..(tsk,tsk..you’ ll never be big as karl the turdblossem if you dont get at least your grain of truth right) I hardly think a womens personal choice is murder, when mankind is so much better at slaughter, (do pause for a moment of silence for just a moment for the slaughter of every child in the last and present wars. The right to work, vote and have sex as one choses with out your small minded, narrow point of your religon and god on my woman’s body is all that I ask for now. at least in my party,,, our women are taught not to be cocksuckers, but hey, keep training yours the way you do..I love getting head from the republican, libertarian girls..you fellas sure know how to train them..

Well, if liberal women are all frigid or lesbians as Proud Liberal Man implies, it’s no wonder that he’s so angry. I’m betting he scored at least a 75 on his TOEFL, however. Good for him.

The thing that amuses me about liberal positions is that they are so prone to recommending impossible solutions to deal with easily averted problems. Faced with the problem of millions of women choosing to murder their unborn daughters, they’ll advocate changing 6,000 years of Chinese culture. Right, good luck with that.

I might add that I have not ever referred to anyone, of any color, as “bro”.

DC writes approvingly:

As a Christian mother and grandmother, I want to thank you so much for your WND article “Why women’s rights are wrong”! It has long been my contention that we ladies were far better off before anyone ever heard of Womens’ Lib.

I am almost one of the Baby Boomers (born slightly before the end of WWII) – and I was never taught that I needed to be “liberated”. What I was taught was that I was a free, native-born American citizen and as such, was guaranteed the right to pursue my “happiness” – whether that was marriage and family or being an astronaut. I was also taught that the Constitution did not guarantee that I would achieve that goal.

As a result, over the years, I have reached some goals – and been disappointed in others. That’s called Life. I have held “traditional” and “non-traditional” jobs, and in every case, because of my hard work, I earned the respect and friendship of both male and female co-workers. Yes, I have encountered incidences of sexual harrassment, and even physical abuse – but my mother taught me very effective ways of handling those. In short, I have never felt the need of a courtroom, attorney or judge to establish or affirm my “rights” as a woman….

My late dad made a truly profound statement not long before his death: “We are the only nation on earth stupid enough to kill off our own future taxbase.”

Oh, for the days “when men were men, and women were women” – oh, for the days when they were allowed to be!

She sounds very oppressed to me. Page Gloria Steinhem, stat! Meanwhile, BW demonstrates that the oppression spans generations:

Awesome commentary! From a stay home mother who homeschools and loves every minute.Whose children, 5 and 7, want to adopt so they can have other brothers and sisters; who, themselves, play with their babydolls and have their pretend family. Maybe we’ll adopt the little boy who can grow up learning that daddy loves their mommy and loves his role as husband, provider, protector and daddyman.

Thanks and keep them (commentaries) coming!

Doesn’t she know that I hate women? What’s a poor embittered mysogynist to do?