First Constructive - Boo to time changes.

In 2001 I moved to Phoenix, Arizona; prior to this for my entire life I had been forced  twice yearly to reset my natural clock, upset my circadian rhythms, and generally function poorly in my endeavors whilst my body and mind adjusted to the forced machinations of The Man.  Imagine my surprise then, when in Arizona and the dreaded "spring ahead" was fast approaching, I found myself in an enlightened state and did not have imbibe copious amounts of caffeine to make up for my lost hour, as they do not engage in the barbaric practice.  Fast forward to today and I find myself once again in a darkened state and forced to deal with this antiquated fallacious practice and all of it's egregious side effects and problems.

The tradition and act of colloquially springing ahead and falling back does not realize significant energy savings, promotes confusion, and losses in productivity; daylight saving should be abandoned or utilized the whole year round.

Government and some no doubt erudite think tanks point to the energy savings that comes with daylight saving and this is the primary reason for its use in modern society.  Historic studies show marginal energy savings and more modern energy studies on daylight saving show an increase in energy usage due to the our society's well deserved obsession with air conditioning.

Disrupting our internal clocks and circadian rhythms has a costly affect on our bodies, health, and welfare.  When you change times and throw off you clock, you end up having a greater risk for a heart attack, getting in a car wreck, or injuring yourself in the workplace.   It is unnatural and dangerous to your well being to disrupt your sense of time twice yearly for potential but minimal energy savings.

Yearly, in early February our society focuses on a pigskin ball and the big game.  Economists note that the economic losses for the Super Bowl, from productivity and other avenues (sick time, tardiness to work), run upwards of 850 million dollars.  Is it any surprise then that forcing people to change times and reset themselves also has a significant economic impact?  Recent studies have estimated the economic losses caused by time change, via decreased productivity and other avenues to be 434 million dollars.

Let us abandon the practice or wholly embrace daylight saving to encompass the entire year so that time change is relegated to anecdotes and history books(subject to change).  To paraphrase the simple genius of Dr. Seuss. I do not like changing times, I do not like it here or there, I do not like it anywhere.  I will not like it in Mountain, Central, or Pacific Time, I will not like it anytime.  They say, try it, try it, and you may.  I have tried it, left it, tried again and I can say that it is a: feel good energy savings, negative health and wellness effects, economically bi-annually debilitating load of.....curds and whey.

Cogent and Fallacious Reasoning #1 -- Bill Clinton knows why income is stagnant.

I came across an article on Yahoo Finance about Bill Clinton's reasons for stagnant US median household income growth.  One reason, among others, is that we should increase in minimum wage.  I'd like to focus on this one as many of the others I believe to be cogent.  I believe this reason to be fallacious (though perhaps cogent on the fact that it could actually raise household income in the US, it doesn't affect the purpose of increased incomes, less poverty and less government assistance), as minimum wage increases tend to not have long term positive effects on purchasing power and poverty, inflation quickly corrects for the legislated wage increases as corporations and businesses increase prices to counteract the hit that general across the board wage increases have on their profits.  The proposed wage increases to either $9.00 per hour or $10.10 per hour would still result in many of these households still being below the poverty line and still reliant on government assistance programs.  A better tool to combat poverty and have lasting and significant affects on low income households would be to increase the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit as this lowers the tax burden if not eliminates it from low income families and may provide additional income that truly helps these households while not significantly affecting businesses and their pricing models.  In today's economy the minimum wage increase statement or legislation is more of a political tool to garner support of a mass of lower income voters, than it is an effective economic tool to maintain or spur a robust and increasing economy.  It sounds good and may actually increase numbers, which looks good on paper, but does not positively affect peoples lifestyles which is what the end result of increased incomes should be.

The best way to increase household income and combat poverty is to try and get jobs back in the US and not shipped overseas, so adults can get a decent job, perhaps even without a college degree ,then many of these minimum wage jobs could revert back to part time, student, or teen jobs and not seen as careers.  But I don't know how to do that.