President Obama is striving to raise the minimum wage to $9.5 an hour. Really? Why reward mediocrity? What possible benefit does that give anyone? What happened to helping the middle class? You see, the rising of input prices is going to increase the costs of goods not only for the poor but for the middle class. By raising the prices of goods Pres. Obama has just lowered effectively the distinguishing line of middle class. Thank Pres. for helping me to become poor.
Recent history shows that the Pres. will offer another bailout, which is the equivalent to saying
"sorry i screwed up the first time, i would like to make it up to you by giving you a bunch of money and screw over your decedents...let's eat and run and stick them with the bill".
Would anyone really do that? Imagine these bailouts are no different than a family going to dinner. The husband wife and older children getting in the car and leaving a 5 year old to foot the bill.
I am so tired of politicians and particularly democrats not thinking. A democrat will tell you that forest fire needs to be left alone because it is good for the forest. Yet they will not let the economy have it's own forest fire. Don't they understand that a recession is good the economy it forces us to think differently, to create, to expand, and to grow. And this type of logic just about typifies every democrat is policy by saying... "it's ok to do it here but not here". Democrats are not standard bearer's but bearer's of moral relevancy. How can people not have a standard?
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The Bailout could also be referanced to this analogy. your in a mens room and the toilet is broken but we all keep useing it.. the only differance is they have an endless supply of air freshener.
Some state have even a higher minumim wage Oregon is $9.25 this was not President Obama fault it started years ago.
I agree that the minimum wage should be ZERO. Employers should pay all based on the performance of an individual with a base salary that would accomodate them. raises according to performance but no one in Congress would approve that. it goes against the grain of the old boy network.....
Some say because government neglected to counter bank failures, fear, and deflation it sent our country into a spiraling Great Depression. Sounds like you are calling for another Great Depression by saying the government shouldn't intervene in this economic crisis?
My response to rewarding mediocrity with a 9.5/hr raise: it is most definitely not acting in the best interest of corporations. Their hedge funds can't survive if they have to pay the hamburger flipper an increased substandard wage. By saying this is rewarding mediocrity you are saying that essentially everyone should be judged on the same scale--the one created by corporate elites. When in reality we all have different capabilities, talents and abilities with varying capacities inherent from nature and nurture. With your reasoning, all smart people (who inherited their genes and prosperity) who apply themselves should be millionaires, and all less-intelligent people with limited capacities should be making pennies. I really don't understand your undivided support of preferential treatment for corporations and the rich? Why are you so opposed to government helping the poor? You will still have plenty of money.
You talk of Presidential Democrats raising the national debt and I believe based on statistics you got it all wrong. The national debt decreased under Truman, JFK, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton all Democrats; yet went up under Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush.
And that is just the financial debt. You just talked money, when in reality if we look outside the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation our world is falling apart. Not financially, but environmentally. Our rainforest size, air quality, aquatic life, water systems, animal extinction are the worst they have ever been. You talk about leaving debt for your children, how about leaving a natural world for your children? Based on the facts and plain science, you should be more concerned about the quality of earth you are leaving and not the national debt. America has tackled huge debt in the past and it can do it in the future, but can it tackle the environmental crisis? Our track record is not so hot there...
I think a bit of this may be false alarm raised by corporate greed to protect their billion dollar bonuses. Why aren't you and your parents pissed about the debt your grandparents left you? The 121.7% as percentage of GDP in the 40s makes today's 81% look like chump change.
But James, I understand that you hate corporations...I get it. But raising the minimum, doesn't hurt them. Think about they only have "X" to pay in wages and salaries so what will they do if they are require to pay more...lay off people. Now how is that going to save American jobs? Corporations could care less about minimum wages. Let's say though a company like Wal-mart needs it’s minimum wage workers, what will they do...pass on the expense to us in the form of higher prices. Which equals you subsidizing minimum wage. Why should you subsidize Wal-Mart's workers? Will you receive any benefit? The answer is clearly no. So what are you doing then?......You are throwing money at it hoping to fix the problem when you very well argue that education is the key. You get angry when people just send money to Africa...why because it doesn't help....and you saw that! Throwing money or any resource is not the answer. I agree that nobody should be deprived of a good education and so did our founding fathers. However they as well as I recognize that you are required to give everyone access to the tools, but not the tools. This is where republicans and democrats part ways. Increasing the minimum wage is not going to fix poor peoples problems. All that it does is encourage a kid in high to school to say..... "yeah know what if this high school thing doesn't work I can make pretty good money flipping burgers". That is a great policy! I refuse to help those who are not willing to help themselves. I see workers are Wal-Mart with probably $2500 worth of tattoos. That money could’ve been spent on a year at community college but they made a poor choice. And so now we are going to reward their poor choices. Damn it! Not only does that debase every religious principle we are taught, but it also breeds complacency and mediocrity.
Your argument makes sense as far as the consumer subsidizing minimum wage increases. Its a good point made by many a economics textbook I'm sure. I am sure that will happen to some extent. Ideally, employees should be able to negotiate their wages through their unions and employee agencies, but there just is too much control within the hands of the rich and powerful. Unfortunately, the reality is that the current minimum wage is even too much for many companies and they are packing up their factories and moving them to the developing world where they can exploit cheap labor. As America becomes more and more specialized we are going to see an even larger gap in the wealth inequality.
"A survey in 2006 by Robert Whaples polled PhD members of the American Economic Association. Whaples found that 37.7% of respondents supported an increase in the minimum wage, 14.3% wanted it kept at the current level, 1.3% wanted it decreased, and 46.8% wanted it completely eliminated."
"Fuchs et al. (1998) polled labor economists at the top 40 research universities in the United States on a variety of questions in the summer of 1996. Their 65 respondents split exactly 50-50 when asked if the minimum wage should be increased."
Klein and Dompe conclude, on the basis of previous surveys, "the average level of support for the minimum wage is somewhat higher among labor economists than among AEA members."
While a majority of economists don't favor minimum wage, there is still a significant argument in favor of it.
I won't deny that corporations make their money on the backs of those at the bottom. Toyota is made by the 316,000 employees they have around the world, not the dozen or so CEOs and upper management folk. Your fundamental argument is that capitalism retards complacency and mediocrity, maybe from the perspective of executive. If they work hard, get into a top business school, they make connections and they are on their way to million dollar bonuses and a nice hedge fund. If a factory worker, who may not have graduated from high school, puts in the same amount of effort and time and energy as our rich CEO--what does he get? A plaque on the wall and maybe a 3% raise...which to me isn't really a reward for hard work. I know you are up in arms about the few workers at GM who make "six figures." That is most definitely the exception to the norm.
Its human value not human capital that matters most to me. Of course this is coming from someone who believes that corporate propaganda, wage slavery, and worker exploitation are clear and present dangers to humanity.
You need to know that I love.
It just seems like you want some utopia. I dislike the executive compensation variances. I think it is scary. But profit breeds incentive like nothing else...for the masses. I agree one should be internally driven to be the best they can be for God, their family, and society...but those people do not exist.
The more government gives the more entitlement people require. Look at the welfare systems of Europe. Families have been on welfare for generations. In fact, we need only to the south where there this is issues over represented.
I would say that you're desire to assist mankind is no different than mine. I want much so that I can give much. My ideologies can help the outward physical and the psyche...your abilities will help the inner person. You can't have one without the other.
Whatever happened to your Sterling W Sill mentality?
"Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one"
OK...this is my concluding statement.
Apparently, Barack is no radical. His proposal is simply to match the minimum wage that existed in 1968, which by today's standards would be $9.86. Yet since then, productivity rose 83 percent and the minimum wage fell 22 percent "wages fell 10 percent while domestic corporate profits rose 219 percent, and profits in the disproportionately low-wage retail industry jumped 346 percent." http://www.ms.foundation.org/wmspage.cfm?parm1=562
Also, I see some dangerous contradictions with these statements: "I want much so that I can give much."
"Throwing money or any resource is not the answer."
"I refuse to help those who are not willing to help themselves."
"And so now we are going to reward their poor choices. Damn it! Not only does that debase every religious principle we are taught, but it also breeds complacency and mediocrity."
There are some major development faux pas here. I worry you, and many out there with great intentions, have a great plan for earning money but not a great plan for how to use it to help others.
Every day I hear about future doctors with aspirations to help those in Africa who are in desperate need, when in reality so few of them actually make it out there, or when they do they spend a few week, or months at most, with these people. Then they come home to their McMansion on the mountain. There are great ways to help people, but we have to understand people and their needs first.
Well, I can't argue with your statistics and yes we should move on to another topic. My plan is simple...give $1mm to the PEF. That's man plan. It helps people help themselves.
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