Here’s a letter sent to the Wall Street Journal:
So the Obama administration is rescuing exploited American youth from working as unpaid interns at for-profit companies (“War on Interns,” April 7).
It’s unclear, however, why the same young people whom the President judges to be unfit to choose for themselves whether or not to work as unpaid interns at for-profit firms are fit to choose for themselves whether or not to work as unpaid interns at not-for-profit organizations. So I urge this administration, which is ever-vigilant at protecting us from our irrational and helpless selves, also to prohibit young people from working as unpaid interns at not-for-profit outfits – such as political campaigns.
Indeed, Mr. Obama should not only apologize to the thousands of young, unpaid volunteers whom he exploited in 2008 for his own profit – namely, to win his election to the highest pulpit in the land – he should also give to each and every one of them back pay (with interest) for their efforts on his behalf.
Our Father-in-Chief surely doesn’t want history to remember him as a cruel exploiter.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
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For years I wanted to work as an historian. When I finally retired from the Navy, I decided to give it a go. Now, my MA degree is decades out of date. But I figured I could volunteer and get to know some people and find out where the opportunities are hidden. That was a couple of years ago. My first book will be out this summer. Seems to me to be a good idea to trade time for access.
If you ever go into business for yourself you will find that you want to be non-profit. The real trick to operating a business is to make no money and live well. Not making a profit and choosing not to make a profit may seem like a subtle difference to the layman, but is a real issue to most businessmen.
The people who write the rules always leave themselves a back door, and it's available to everyone willing to restructure. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows who is going to pay the taxes.
Of course it's an issue.
It's an issue of who gets the control. Either YOU control your own employment and internships or Obama does. You seem like a smart kid. I'm sure you can figure out which one is more capable of those decisions.
Your “company” gets 62% of its funding from the government. I'm sure you didn't work with your funders at all.
No, Matt. I was not a rich kid (I worked several jobs to pay for college while simultaneously going to school and didn't take loans until my final year) and my husband was neither rich nor connected.
We both got paid internships on *gasp* merit while in college. We also did get some “connections”. We both excelled enough to garner the attention of our professors who put their reputations on the line to recommend us. We are but two examples. Also, our company does not take interns based on their connections. It's a huge wast of or time and money. We need competent people who may join the company after graduation, not a bunch of empty-headed preppies with rich daddies.
Daniel, I understand that, as it happens, you don't support this legislation because you just said so.
However, Matt pointed out to you that what you meant to say and how it was perceived differed. This is what your Obama would call “teachable moment”. We all know that you already know everything there is to know and understand about everything. However, it may behoove you to reflect on what Matt said and think about how you may have better communicated your thoughts.
Or you could just clear things up by simply stating that you were talking about Yglesias' blog post and that you were against this legislation. Sans “trigger happying” and “y'alling” everyone to death. Then your dazzling thoughts would be made clear to all of us bumbling morons slogging through your posts and you would not have to risk your precious kidneys with the increase in your blood pressure brought on by the outrage over being completely misunderstood AGAIN!
I don't understand why we class political campaigns as non-profit. Many of them turn a pretty handsome profit over time. Many don't. But the same can be said of the “for profit” business world as well.
Non-profit is simply a term we have created to provide preferential treatment to certain types of businesses.
Daniel, sometimes you crack me up! I have enjoyed a huge laugh over this whole post. This is farce at its best! I can see you at your computer, red faced, sputtering “But, but that's not what I meant!!” Actually, for the first time in a long time I saw your point and thought it was indeed thoughtful (wrong headed by Yglesias, but thoughtful nevertheless). Thanks for the fun!
But when you post you're never trigger happy. And it's like you expect other commenters to forget about past discussions and attitudes that you bring. Are you being serious with your whinning here?
Whatcha doing – spending your evenings reviewing our annual reports? The funding for the internship program comes from the Ford Foundation. And before you raise the issue, all of our funding is dedicated – it's not really fungible across projects.
You always say things like “us bumbling morons” and “dazzling thoughts” and talk about my “outrage”. Maybe I'm just not communicating effectively again, but you really don't have to worry about this condescension day after day. Maybe I'm miscommunicating something (again), but I want to assure you that there's no condescension on my part. I'm just trying to comment. So you can stop worrying.
Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Which I guess means that you're not communicating effectively. Is that right? This is starting to get confusing – maybe you can explain it to me. All I wanted to say was that unpaid internships introduce an obstacle to well qualified low income students. That's really all I was saying. Really.
Not red in the face – it's easy to pound out “where did I say that?”
it's been enlightening, though. I am honestly befuddled at how that could have caused such an uproar. Glad someone saw my point.
Kominsky Park! Can you imagine the dominant leftard media letting that one pass if Mrs Palin said that?
You'd have thought Olbermann would have got up off of his knees long enough to correct the president on that.
I think there is a fundamental difference between unpaid political volunteers and unpaid business interns. The reason there is an issues in the business world is that people like myself – students paying their own way through college – are unable to compete in a highly competitive job market by because I can't NOT get paid. However more and more in today's market, it is becoming harder and harder to do. There is only a small number of these highly sought after positions available.
A political volunteer, on the other hand, is someone giving their free time to further a cause that they believe in. There is no lack of positions, it is not realistically required for a career (there are few exceptions, but regardless it is not anywhere near as needed in politics as it is in business).
Yea, it's terrible that Obama wants to make sure people are getting paid for their work. What if some young professional was willing to do your job for nothing? I bet you'd support the idea of making sure companies had to pay their workers then.
And if you're so up in arms about the government getting its hands in labor laws, why not take up the fight against child labor restrictions?
Also, non-profits are more akin to volunteer work. Unpaid internships in for-profit companies undercut and threaten paying jobs from hard-working Americans.
Your writing sounds like an op-ed in a high school newspaper.
Such a shame that the president is enforcing established law that was passed in 1947.
Yeah, there's no reason that non-profits should be exempt from the law. We should change it. Then we can start forcing the church to pay choir boys for their services!
Any company that doesn't pay its employees is using slave labor. Is it slave labor if one volunteers to work for free for a for-profit company? There are minimum wage laws that are being circumvented, obviously. The company should be fined and the offending executives should be executed, those cheapsakes.
One donates one time and effort to get one's favorite candidate elected in lieu or in addition to donating money. Who donates money to a for-profit corporation? I see a big difference here even if you don't.
Don, you don't get it… Those unpaid volunteers working to get Obama elected were working for 'Change'. How can anyone put a price tag on 'Change'? :')
POTUS is a walking, talking contradiction. Internship is one example. The other example is his stammering at the question when asked who his favorite Chicago White Sox player happened to be. What a 'tell' about the man. I thought Ralph Kramden was in the booth.
Guess there was no teleprompter in place to help the President.
The President's first pitch at the Washington Nationals opener was an embarrassment…. Compare Obama's first pitch against Roger Staubach's at the Texas Ranger's opening day ceremony; night and day…
So, you've still learned nothing. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is not surprised.
“And before you raise the issue, all of our funding is dedicated – it's not really fungible across projects.”
Think about that statement for a while, Danny. Think hard. Harder than you usually do. Then, maybe you will understand why I giggled when I read it.
Obama will be tempted to issue another one trillion of debt to pay the interns that back pay. And ACORN (or whatever are they are currently called) will be paid for the help in the election as well.
After all, its only “fair.”
Well it sure sounded like you alluded to it. Maybe I'm wrong, but even if others thought similarly about your comment and it's implications, I'm happy to have my arguments out there. However if you didn't imply that, sorry for the “shot.”
“All I wanted to say was that unpaid internships introduce an obstacle to well qualified low income students. That's really all I was saying. Really.”
You're free to make that case, however I made arguments against it.
Yes you did – I read that comment. I thought they were good points. I'm really thinking on the margin here. I'm not saying it's always a problem – but on the margin it can influence the composition of interns. Everything you mentioned definitely holds as far as I'm concerned.
As someone who graduated with a 4 year degree a few years ago, I strongly disagree with this opinion and also find it to be an unfair comparison.
It has become standard practice for a lot of companies to DEPEND on free work from college students and because of this, few people will hire you unless you have been willing to work for free. Personally, I found this to be insulting, because my time does have value, I did perform well through an expensive four year education which I'm not paying off and I do have to pay rent and feed myself.
When working toward a career, you should not be forced to work for free, but when that is presented as standard practice, refusing this or quitting often means that you won't have a chance at your career unless you're lucky enough to know the right people.
Not for profits are a different story. These are campaigns and companies that believe that they must sacrifice time and efforts to further a cause or make some sort of change. As the name suggests, these companies are not intended to make a profit and therefore do not have excess funds floating around. Money that comes in has to be cautiously spent to support the cause. A person who is volunteering their time at one of these entities is not doing so out of a desire to further a career and eventually accumulate wealth, they are volunteering because that is a powerful way to support a cause.
If I'm making money to fatten the bank account of someone who already has a 6 figure salary or better, I want my fair cut. If I'm trying to feed the homeless, reduce greenhouse gasses, or elect an official who I believe holds similar ideals as I do, it might just be worth it to me to make a personal sacrifice.
You're twisting concepts because you don't agree with the President. What's worse is that you're fully aware of this. It's deceit and it will perpetuate ignorance.
You know there is a difference between the resources and goals of a for profit and a not for profit organization and shame on you for pretending there isn't.
For the record I have worked an unpaid internship, I am currently employed, but my current employment was in no way thanks to my free labor. Also minimum wage is a joke. Thanks to inflation, minimum wage can only support a person with multiple jobs.
“such as political campaigns”
Ouch! I did not see that one coming but it was an overwhelming knockout punch.
The general idea is for gov't to have everybody dependent upon them so when things start to get bad, people will run to gov't as their savior rather than picking themselves up and being powerful by themselves. So they make private companies out to be exploiting people while creating laws against private companies to make gov't look like the solution. The deterioration of private business is the growth of gov't.
Maybe I'm a literal reader of the Constitution, but it seems to me that to ban internships anywhere by anyone is Unconstitutional under the First Amendment — the Rights to Free Speech & Association shall not be prohibited by law. If one person wants to ask for free labor (actually, the price paid is mentoring, experience and passed on expertise, and time, so it is hardly free at all.) and another wants to provide it — it's none of anyone's business – especially for the government. Once denied the right to volunteer (which is an internship) without government permission it will lead to a further erosion of the rights to volunteer, mentor, speak and associate. My advice it to attack it on this very clear and simple ground — it's against the Constitution to prevent people from Associating with each other for their own benefit.
That this administration is requiring people TO associate with insurance companies — and pay for the privilege — while banning people from associating for free is just mind-boggling irony.
This letter sent to the Wall Street Journal is hollow and bilious. It seems like a cheap shot tying a very serious issue, that of our youth at times being exploited through internships, and Obama's presidency.
Many, many hard working free thinking young people have felt compelled to take unpaid internships, whilst often having to take a second job to pay off their ever increasing student debts. The system of internships is often very exclusionary favouring the middle and upper classes rather than the working class. It is a horrible system which I myself am trapped within trying to get enough 'experience' to be considered for a 'proper' (read paid) job whilst doing the same amount of work that many of my paid co-workers are doing.
Donald J. Boudreaux muddies this important issue by twisting it to be used as a political smear.
~A disappointed intern.
This letter sent to the Wall Street Journal is hollow and bilious. It seems like a cheap shot tying a very serious issue, that of our youth at times being exploited through internships, and Obama's presidency.
Many, many hard working free thinking young people have felt compelled to take unpaid internships, whilst often having to take a second job to pay off their ever increasing student debts. The system of internships is often very exclusionary favouring the middle and upper classes rather than the working class. It is a horrible system which I myself am trapped within trying to get enough 'experience' to be considered for a 'proper' (read paid) job whilst doing the same amount of work that many of my paid co-workers are doing.
Donald J. Boudreaux muddies this important issue by twisting it to be used as a political smear.
~A disappointed intern.
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