Anyone who opposes the minimum wage is anti-labor. That would be a greedy, money grubbing capitalist pig who would oppose the minimum wage. Is that right? Minimum wage laws have been instrumental in driving low skilled or unskilled labor jobs out of our country to Mexico, China, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, India, or you name it -- any low cost country in the world. If having a minimum wage causes you to lose your job, is that a good thing? Whom would benefit from that law? Maybe you would if you prefer to lay in bed all day in your public housing project home.
Look at what that does for us as a society. It takes a person that was employed and paying some taxes and social security, medicare, etc. out of the workplace. They now pay no taxes. They do collect various benefits from the government now though. That could include unemployment for a while, and when that runs out, they get free housing, food stamps, welfare, earned income tax credits, aid to families with dependent children, medicaid now/Obamacare later, etc. etc. etc. Fewer and fewer people pay into the system every year. That means businesses and individuals need to pay more and more in taxes, yet we still borrow 40% of what the federal government spends. Taking this income from businesses reduces their capital for reinvestment. Taking it from individuals leaves them less money to spend on cars, houses, dinner at Applebees, furniture, movies, etc. etc. etc. More and more people lose their jobs.
If the politicians help us much more, nobody will have a job. I guess we can all go to work in a fast food restaurant.
I still remember when Dick Gephardt was running for president; do you remember his solution to stop job losses to low cost countries? He suggested that we should force countries around the world to pay their workers higher wages if they wanted to export to the USA. How might he force this rule upon another country? (Come to think of it, how did congress force this rule on us here at home?)
For a politician to say that minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, and welfare are good for the workers, one of two things has to be true. Either they are totally ignorant of the basic laws of supply and demand, or they are disingenuous (i.e. they are liars). Neither is good, but I guess I'd prefer a dummy to a liar. These politicians do things that, I believe, they know are bad for the "little guy." Why? Because these things can be spun in such a way that the "little guy" believes it is good for him. An opposing politician is made out to be the devil incarnate. Pretty soon the "little guy" loses his job, and viola, the opposing politician somehow still gets blamed for it because he was supporting the evil large corporation that laid him off to avoid paying him a higher wage.
I guess the unintended consequences were on the part of the voter. He voted with the good intentions of giving himself a raise along with his fellow workers, but got the unintended consequence of unemployment. The politician, by contrast, didn't get any unintended consequences. You see, he didn't care whether the "little guy" made more money or was unemployed. His intended consequence was to get re-elected and to discredit his political opponent, and that happened.
I have to blame the "low information" voter that voted for the uncaring politician. That's the classic way to create a MessAPolitico.
No comments:
Post a Comment