There is a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10 per hour and of course the corporate elite have their propagandists attacking the idea, saying it is completely uncalled for and that it will destroy small businesses. Isn’t this the way of things? When it is to their advantage the corporate elite will expound that they are one and the same with the middle class, the working poor, and small businesses.
They like to say things like “We need to end all taxations for corporations so that we can create jobs” or “We cannot afford to pay US workers $10 per hour”. You see when they are talking about “they” of the “we” at the bottom of the economic scale, “Oh my God, $10 per hour is an astronomically huge amount of money, in fact enough to completely destroy our economy.”
But when they are talking about the “we” at the top it is a different story. I mean why are people talking badly about Jamie Dimon? He only lost a measly couple of billion dollars that belonged to the “we” somebody else. What is the big deal?
And then there is the assertion that “we” need to start taxing the “we” working poor living under the poverty level, while at the same time “we” need to give trillions more over to the top 1% through extensions of the Bush tax cuts.
Don’t you know “we” have a couple of trillion dollars sitting in off shore accounts that “we” could bring back to the United States if only “we” can pass a law saying “we” do not have to pay any taxes on them. Of course if “we” funneled $10,000 out of this country and put it in offshore accounts to avoid taxes, “we” would be sitting in a federal penitentiary.
When these corporate elitists want something from us like our vote, we are one of them. When they don’t, we are lower than the dirt beneath their feet. I think it is way past time we took our country back and put them in jail where they belong.
God bless this Republic, death to the international corporate mafia, we shall prevail
Occupy, occupy,and occupy again and watch for the scum trying to take over the movement. We are all in this together.
The knee jerk reaction is to support the Min wage but consider..In a free market, demand is always a function of price: the higher the price, the lower the demand. What may surprise most politicians is that these rules apply equally to both prices and wages. When employers evaluate their labor and capital needs, cost is a primary factor. When the cost of hiring low-skilled workers moves higher, jobs are lost. Despite this, minimum wage hikes, like the one set to take effect later this month, are always seen as an act of governmental benevolence. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When confronted with a clogged drain, most of us will call several plumbers and hire the one who quotes us the lowest price. If all the quotes are too high, most of us will grab some Drano and a wrench, and have at it. Labor markets work the same way. Before bringing on another worker, an employer must be convinced that the added productivity will exceed the added cost (this includes not just wages, but all payroll taxes and other benefits.) So if an unskilled worker is capable of delivering only $6 per hour of increased productivity, such an individual is legally unemployable with a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
You would be correct if we were operating within a free market with a level playing field. But we are not.
I am not endorsing the minimum wage hike, I am simply saying we can continue playing by the rules and doing what is correct in the free market while those at the top devalue the dollar until we are working for the same wage as a China-man.
The point of the article is that it seems to be perfectly acceptable to be greedy and self-serving at the top, when on the other hand, it is outrageous for an American worker to want enough for his labor to survive on.
They have mistaken our kindness for weakness. I don’t want the $10 per hour, I want the $32 trillion they have stolen back, then the federal minimum wage, like every other socialist policy, will cease to exist because it will no longer be necessary.
Only a beaten dog is happy with a tossed bone.
One should consider the elitist controlled opposition here. The minimum wage will in fact be cause for higher payroll taxes and associated fees. Besides a $10 minimum wage will do little considering inflation with monetary supply policy. As the elitist corporations continue to raise prices to sell us more cheaply made, short life products from China the purpose is the continued transfer of wealth. The small businesses that have hung on will drop like flies as corporate steals a larger share of the marketplace.