When Money is No Object
by Andy Caldwell
The great economist, Friedrich Hayek, warned us about the “fatal conceit” of central planners who demonstrate “how little they know about what they imagine they can design.” This quote explains the agenda of CA progressives which has been delivering one fatal blow after another to our economic freedoms resulting in sky-high inflation, debt, and deficits, not to mention the impacts of crime, energy costs, artificial water shortages, and the like.
Progressives in California have created myriad laws, regulations, and mandates, aimed at controlling fossil fuel production, the water available to farmers and urbanites, limits on greenhouse gases that affect manufacturing, industry, and transportation, along with restrictions on how electricity can be generated, not to mention controls on land use and marine resources. There is not one area of our lives that they are not trying to plan (read: control), even though politicians making these decisions know virtually nothing about “what they imagine they can design.”
The latest example has three Santa Barbara County Supervisors (Das Williams, Joan Hartmann, and Laura Capps) considering a proposal to raise the minimum wage for farm workers up to $26 per hour. Let’s point out the obvious: none of these supervisors have ever been involved in farming. In fact, as far as I know, none of them have ever worked in the private sector. Hence, collectively the supervisors have zero first-hand knowledge of the cost of land, labor, fertilizer, farm equipment, water, electricity, fuel, trucking, or any of the other inputs a farmer must pay out to bring a crop to market. Additionally, they have never bothered to calculate the cost to farmers and ranchers having to do with their policy failures that serve to undermine flood control protection, weed abatement, frost protection, and fire prevention.
Unfortunately, much of this collective ignorance is willful. That is, the county has collected zero data on the profit margins of the various crops grown in our region, or the cost of the regulations, mandates, and fees they themselves have imposed on the private sector because the supervisors believe their social justice and environmental agendas are worth every penny of other people’s money. Contextually, our county supervisors don’t pay their own staff a minimum wage of $26 per hour, but somehow, they believe farmers could possibly raise the minimum wage some 60% for their workers. How is the $20 minimum wage working out for the fast-food industry and its customers?
Most people in America are struggling mightily with food prices, which have never been as high as they are today. Why are food costs so high? Our local farmers are being asked to cut back on water, fertilizer, and herbicide uses. They are forced to replace all their equipment with electric vehicles, and their labor costs are already the highest in the nation due to current minimum wage laws, along with limitations on overtime. Then there are the regulatory limits on production facilities which led our largest winery producer to move to another county. Incidentally, did you notice that our county supervisors are suing a farmer for a flood that damaged homes, even though the homeowners themselves are suing the county because they believe the cause of the flood was the failure of a county-owned flood control basin?
Let’s talk about another example of the fatal conceit of these supervisors. These same three progressive supervisors just adopted the county’s climate action plan on a 3-2 vote. While the county counted the costs of this plan on their own operations (over $300 million), the cost associated with forcing farmers – and everybody else for that matter, including you dear reader – to go all electric was purposely not considered in their deliberations.
Why not?
The problem here, despite the warnings of Britain’s late, great, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is progressive politicians don’t think they will ever run out of other people’s money!
A Message from Thomas Cole, Candidate for Congress, District 24
Paid for by Thomas Cole for Congress FEC #C00842757. To learn more about Thomas Cole, his platform, and his campaign, please go to www.thomascoleforcongress.com or call him directly at +1 (805) 637-4702.
Thank you, Andy, you are one of the heroes of this beautiful, endangered city. I'm pleased you quote Friedrich Hayek who was the antithesis of Klaus Schwab, the economic self-proclaimed visionary our progressive officials vie to worship at Davos, when they can grift enough money from us taxpayers to spend a week in elite decadence at the WEF.
Progressives like Das Williams, Joan Hartmann and Laura Capps have been fought against in the past. One of the most famous battles, of course, was between Jane Jacobs and NYC urban planner Robert Moses, who wanted to run an expressway through lower Manhattan, thus obliterating the neighborhoods of SoHo, Greenwich Village, Tribeca. Jacobs won and her groundbreaking work The Death and Life of Great American Cities should be read by all Santa Barbarans.
I believe we can save Santa Barbara from this destruction. I think it's going to take a Jane Jacobs' like campaign, which was not run on party politics, but on the common interest and the love New Yorkers had for what Jacobs praises as real neighborhoods. I really like Andy's column because he doesn't make it a Republican versus Democrat fight. He shows it for what it is: a fight for ultimate control over us by the very people who should be working for our best interests.
I believe that most Santa Barbarans, regardless of their political party, would side with what Andy says. But the moment it becomes a Republican fight, the Dems here will attack the only way they can - through personal incrimination or using words like racist. This week I was dismayed and disgusted at how a couple of visitors here tried to turn discussion about Bonnie's important column on the city budget into them ranting about how awful Trump is as a person. And I hope that can be avoided today.
Thank you Andy for yet again, exposing the malfeasance of the progressive left. Yes, this terrible trio is at it again. And yet, Das Williams has been shown the door by the voters. I guess he’s still trying to remain relevant? Interesting how these leftists are trying to control three critical chock points of our economy, namely; energy, food production and wages. Voters need to send a clear message to Williams…bud out! As a lame duck, it would be much less costly if he just sat on his hands until he can go back to van life!
Sure, control food production, energy to harvest it and the wages to pick it, and you in essence, control society! I don’t think this is by accident.
As with automation in the fast food industry, crops could someday be harvested by robots! Yes, work all day and night, no issues with immigration and a fraction of the cost.
I find it interesting the recent news of the “Chumash Marine Sanctuary,” which is consistent with what these three lefties have in mind…total control! Yes, this all plays into our food supply by virtue of controlling commercial fishing. No doubt the Sierra Club was part of this massive seizure of our Federal waters! That’s right, float this idea of giving control of Federal land to a people of color, so any real criticism can be deflected as racism. Then have allies from the environmental movement oversee it! The perfect land grab!
The war on energy continues to erode our standard of living. High fuel prices, resulting in high food prices…surprise! Not to mention, the loss of royalty from shutting down energy production. This, at a time of massive deficits, unfunded liabilities, deferred maintenance and erosion of the tax base! What could possibly go wrong?