The Land of Lawyers, Union Blues & Dues from Palm Beach County to Detroit – Top 3 Takeaways – September 21st, 2023
- The land of lawyers. On occasion you might hear me say how you can tell a good lawyer from a bad one. If you find a lawyer, who doesn’t generally like lawyers, you’ve found a winner. If you find a lawyer who loves to hang out with other lawyers – run the other way. Also, those are the ones who’ve driven up the cost of everything from what you’re driving, to what you're paying for where you’re living. Earlier this week Tribeca Lawsuit Loans completed a study and found that Florida has far and away been the most litigious state. That’s true in total lawsuits filed and that’s true in population adjusted lawsuits – where 345% more lawsuits have been filed over the past year in Florida than the average other state. For years we’ve been on the American Tort Reform Foundation’s “Judicial Hellhole Watchlist” and with lawsuits filed and flying as fast as they have been it’s easy to see why. And this land of lawyers and lawsuits we’ve created comes with a cost to you whether you’re ever directly been involved in a lawsuit or not. It’s been determined that the “tort tax” for Florida has been $812.52 per person over the past year. That means if you have a family of four you’ve paid an extra $3,250 in soft costs to facilitate the litigation nation that Florida had become. Most notably that comes in the form of higher property insurance premiums and higher auto insurance premiums – both of which are now the highest in the nation. This is why the tort reform which recently took effect in Florida is so important. The elimination of one-way attorney fees, bad faith lawsuits and shorter time horizons to file lawsuits is critically important to reign in our land our lawyers and to drive down the cost, literally in some cases, of living in Florida. Speaking of the cost of living in Florida...
- Because your property taxes aren’t already high enough. It’s just about that time of the year. The time when you’re compelled to pay the most regressive anti-American tax that there is...property tax. You know the one you must pay or they’ll take the property that you’re supposed to own away... It’s always a good idea to review your property tax bill to see how much you’re paying and to whom. And with record high property taxes set to be paid by residents of Palm Beach County yet again, and with the largest beneficiary of those taxes being the Palm Beach County School District, the effort’s already under way to spend every dollar they rake in. On Wednesday, Palm Beach County School Superintendent Mike Burke, who himself just received a 9% raise, said he’s backing a newly union negotiated 7.5% raise that is set to go to the school board for a vote. Now, to date he’s not explained why he deserved a bigger raise than the teachers within his school district. That would no doubt result in an interesting answer if a reporter were to actually ask it. He’s also not explained why public-school teachers deserve much larger raises than the community they serve. The average public-school teacher in Palm Beach County currently earns 13% more than the average full-time salaried employee within the county. The average wage gain by all full-time employed employees in the county over the past year has been 5.8%. So, the teachers already earn a lot more than the people who pay the taxes that pay their salaries in the communities they serve and they’re attempting to fast-track raises that would be a lot more than those of the community they serve. These are the facts and the types of conversations you won’t hear elsewhere – because others in news reporting don’t dare challenge the topic of teacher compensation critically...but they should. There are people in our community who are literally being taxed out of their homes to pay for these decisions. We should demand to know why a superintendent who receives a 9% raise, seeks a 7.5% raise for teachers in a community which has only, on average, experienced a 5.8% raise. And the Palm Beach County School District should be made to answer to this prior to voting this proposal into existence. Our property taxes are most certainly already more than high enough to account for the needs of this county. Hence the Palm Beach County Commission cutting the milage rate this year by 5% to help offset the increase in property taxes. But what the County Commission is getting right, the School District is getting wrong. There’s simply no excuse for government employees who already earn much more than their constituents, receiving raises that are much larger than their constituents, paid for by property taxes by their constituents. Speaking of union negotiated nonsense...
- The UAW is killing the American auto industry. From the onset of the UAW strike last week I’ve been clear in my position and on the facts. As I stated last Friday... The UAW is the problem. And as I mentioned at the time, it’s not even about their beyond absurd demands like getting paid for five day 40-hour work weeks, while only working four days and 32 hours. I mean seriously, how can your proposals even be taken seriously when you demand such things? Or the 36% to 42% raises they’ve been demanding, which as I illustrated earlier this week, would result in the increase in the per automobile production cost of $1,500. An increase which would be passed along to consumers. But no, the biggest issues with the UAW stem from who created them. Them. They created their own problems when they endorsed Joe Biden for president and Democrats for Congress. Over the past thirty or so years the UAW has donated over $60 million to politicians and political causes – 99% of it to Democrats. The same Democrats who’ve cut trade deals that gutted American manufacturing, that Donald Trump effectively began to unwind a la the USMCA in creating an American manufacturing resurgence. The same Democrats like Joe Biden and the previous Congress’ Democrat majority that brought us 40+ year high inflation. The UAW brought about the very problems that they now are demanding that they’re compensated to cover...along with a huge raise on top of that...along with only working for four days but getting paid for five. And as I’ve also pointed out, this isn’t just a cautionary tale of leadership going rogue. 97% of UAW workers voted for this strike. And many have started to get what they probably deserve – which is fired. Since the strike started over 2,000 employees have been laid off with an additional 668 who have been furloughed. That’s nearly 2% of the entire remaining UAW membership who have lost their jobs which may never return. The UAW’s previous demands and strikes resulted in their membership dropping from 1.5 million members in the 1970’s to only a tenth of that size entering this strike. In a matter of 45 years the UAW has driven over 90% of American auto manufacturing jobs away. What they’re doing today is more of the same. They’ve set a noon deadline for a deal to be reached or the next more aggressive phase of the strike will begin. Should that occur, what this will no doubt result in is more of the employees in the picket line ending up in unemployment lines. The UAW is killing what’s left of the American auto industry and they have no one to blame but themselves.