Minimum Wage – Maximum Intent

Off hand, there are very few people living in the US that will turn down a raise, particularly an approximate 25-30 raise but the consequences could be severe and anyone that doesn’t think such a move will drive prices up across the board needs to retake a basic accounting course. I’m all in favor of people making a living wage but there are some exceptions and they do need serious consideration. Your basic high school student doesn’t need to make $10 an hour. Oh he most definitely WANTS to, but rarely do they need to. That first job is about learning to work as well as appreciate the value of that dollar. So what is fair?

We certainly don’t want to discriminate against anyone but I think there are a few exceptions that should be made. We could make that wage standard based on age … but then again there are single mothers and very young couples out there that are struggling, living on their own, and need every penny they can get. Citizens vs. all others? Well, I suppose that would work but what are we teaching others about the “American Way” and all that other propaganda we send world wide? Hmmmm … come to think of it, it would be very difficult to single out anyone else and you certainly don’t need another PO’d teenager throwing your big mac at you because he can’t get the same bucks that the local garbage man can.

It seems the real problem is not earnings, but that of COST. For a century or more any company that was making a profit of 12-15% was doing great. Costs were held down and companies worked hard to be competitive. I’m not sure it started with health care but about the same time companies started looking for much larger profit margins, paying out much larger dividends to stock holders and paying those disgustingly high salaries to senior executives AND the stock holders allowed it. Boards of Directors started getting some pretty fat checks themselves and the perpetual circle of greed grew larger and larger to the point now reported that the top 1% of the world population control over 50% of the wealth of the world.

While the president’s proposal is genuine, it appears to be short sighted. Sadly, because of our political system, making the necessary changes to tax codes, breaks, and incentives simply cannot happen without a major overhaul to the system (some would call that OUR Arab spring). And if we continue down this path, soon we will resemble the final days of the Nazi 3rd Rich where it would take several bushel baskets of money just to buy a loaf of bread. The suggestion has been made on more than a few occasions that we could face the same fate that Greece faced last year where the country simply claimed 50% of all assets in order to pay it’s debts …. Oh, now that could get our Arab Spring off to a nice start!