WHY LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS ABOUT ALMOST ANYTHING?

WHY LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS ABOUT ALMOST ANYTHING?

(CNSNews, Susan Jones, Jeff Chapman, Employment Law Guide)

(Bill Gates, CNBC, Bud Konheim, Nicole Miller, Fox News, Charles Krauthammer)

(Department of Labor Wage Hour Division, Mark Arsten, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

(Steve Contorno, Louis Jacbobson, Karen Herzog, William P. Quigley, Frazer Chronicle)

 

I’ve come to the conclusion that experts are like weathermen, their right about 50% of the time, if they say it’ll be dry, bring an umbrella. This must be the silly season, how else could you explain all of the misgivings, and the positives that are thrown around with the minimum wage debate. First you’ve got Bill Gates talking about the minimum wage, a topic he knows nothing about…..proving my point with his opening line, “Well, jobs are a great thing.” He further states on the MSNBC Morning Joe show “so you have to be careful: if you raise the minimum wage, your encouraging labor substitution, and you’re going to buy machines and automate things…..or cause jobs to appear outside of that jurisdiction.” HUH!

Ok, ok, I get it, what Gates is saying is that jobs are a great thing, jobs put people to work so that they earn money, spend it, and make the economy, and the American way of life can go on, but, “boy it sure seems like everybody’s got that great big butt somewhere in their conversation whenever you talk about raising anything.” In this case, Bill Gates (big but) with regards to what he calls labor substitution is when labor is moved elsewhere, usually off shore where labor is cheap…..and the American worker takes one right up the canister, in this case, so that Bill Gates can maintain his bottom line. Whether jobs are moved to other jurisdictions, or machines and automation go into effect, the American working man looses.

This isn’t even a veiled threat, it’s an “in your face” Mr. American working man, or women, “if you push me for a higher wage, I’ll take my ball and bat…..and go home”. Gates further unloaded his annual letter which states three myths that block progress for the poor ;

Poor countries are doomed to stay poor

Foreign aid is a big waste

Saving lives leads to overpopulation

Microsoft worldwide headquarters is located in Redmond, Washington, a suburb of Seattle  and is ultra-modern, I know, I’ve been there, I delivered 1,200 theater seats for the facility’s auditorium..,…no expense was spared, the chicks were beautiful, all the guys were tanned, in shape, and little eager beavers.

Microsoft is about as far from minimum wage as you can get, oh sure, some of the employee force worked for minimum wage, as teenagers, or college students, but that was awhile ago, and they’ve probably forgotten the real value of a buck. And when you’ve got some maxed out talking head like Bill Gates, who’s so obviously full of himself spinning almost everything conservative…..it doesn’t help to remember where you’ve came from.

Asked about income inequality, Gates told MSNBC “that the poor are not getting poorer,” he said “life is better for more people around the world, including many in China, than it has ever been.” ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FRICKIN MIND, number one, I could care less about China, and the plight of that race, there on their own. Number two, people are getting poorer, right here in the good old U.S. of A, I really have little idea where Bill Gates is coming from with this one…..maybe out of his butt!

AND THEN THERE’S CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

There is a premise here that some people just can’t seem to understand, Fox News contributors are one of them. Simply what these people don’t seem to understand is that in one corner you have company A, who makes 1,000 screw-drivers a day, to run the company smoothly, and economically, you need 50 employees doing all manner of duties. If one employee is absent, the smooth and economical way the production runs is disrupted…..that happens…..it’s the rule of that particular screw-driver company.

If the employer is paying his 50 employees $10 per person, per hour (benefits included), his hourly labor overhead is $500 an hour. After all of the overhead involved is figured into the operation, a screw-driver costs the manufacturer $6 each, or $6,000.

The screw-driver manufacture puts a price of $10 per each driver, for a total of $10,000 per hour gross income. If the employees get a governmental mandated raise to, oh, let’s say $10.10 an hour, that means that that handy-dandy screw-driver will cost the consumer an additional $1 to cover the additional wage hike, and just for good measure, the manufacturer kicks the price up another 50 cents (just in case.)

According to Charles Krauthammer, “a child can tell you; if you raise the minimum wage by a third, you’re going to lose jobs. Krauthammer used the Congressional Budget Office’s, (CBO) report that the wage hike could eliminate 500,000 jobs. If the CBO is right, then my analogy of the 1,000 screw-drivers of full of hot air. There’s only one problem here, Chucky, the screw-driver manufacturer isn’t going to shutter his doors, and he won’t be eliminating jobs, he needs 50 employees  to get his job done. Like I said, he’ll simply pass on the additional cost to…..you and me…..in simple terms, it’s called an increase in price, it happens all the time.

Krauthammer also talks about the Democrats liking to redistribute income, and how it’s from the rich to the poor. Actually here, Chuck has it right, with little exception, when a wage increase is mandated by whoever…..the economical movement isn’t upwards, it’s side to side. Here again “C” leaves out one plain fact, if a poor guy gets a raise, he won’t put it in the bank, hell no, he’s out in the economy, buying that 36” color television, or that C.D. player…..things that he’d been dreaming about for a year or two…..but now he can actually get some of what he wants, what he figures he deserves.

Chucky baby, there’s no damage, it’s all good, fella, the lower strata of America have say…..$50 bucks a week, $400 in a month, and $4,800 in six months in additional income. The working stiff won’t let that $4,800 burn a hole in his savings account for very long…..he wants, and by God, he’s gonna have it. No Charles, a raise of the minimum wage in the United States would be a hell-of-a stimulus…..and you can take that to the bank.

According to Krauthammer, a raise in wage damage those who are the most economically vulnerable, there are going to be about half a million people who go from $7 an hour to zero, they’re going to be destitute. Krauthammer also said that raising the minimum wage would, in fact, have the reverse effect of its intention.  

This is not a question of John Q. Public depending on the federal government; this is not an effort by anybody to rob the people it says it really wants to help. It’s an accusation that is leveled by Republicans against the Democrats, and it just doesn’t work. When is raising wages cause for a reduction in what people with the raise can do with this additional cash…..huh!

A CLEAR CUT CASE OF THE SPINS

Ok, this is how it’s working today…..the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and many of the conservative persuasion actually think that what comes out of their collective mouths is righteous, and THE WAY!  I’m not kidding, these people listen to each other, and they listen to their leaders, and they figure that they’ve got it all figured out.

These people figure; that if a person isn’t making enough at his current job, he needs to double his efforts, and get a second one. These people also figure that you should pray, get your life right, and trust in the Lord. These people also do not believe that more than 2.5 million people in the most developed country in the world…..today, are making a minimum wage, and another 1.5 to 2.0 million are making  less than minimum wage. Together this group represents about 5% of the U.S. work force of all hourly paid workers.

The spin doctors would have us believe that raising the minimum wage would drive many small businesses out of business. Of course they forget to mention the fact that these same endangered businesses would first pass on the extra hourly wage to their customers.

THE FACTS OF THE MATTER ARE

This issue of a higher minimum hourly wage isn’t complicated, it isn’t scary, and it won’t put hundreds of thousands out of work, and cause millions of other American workers to be put on reduced work schedules. I always view a company announcing that they’ll be cutting a number of employees in an effort to save money, to survive…..what a joke.

Here in Wisconsin, Marquette University is cutting 25 high level positions in order to balance their budget, what does that mean. Well to me, it means that 25 people that had been employed for years were filling unnecessary positions…..because there being eliminated…..right. That must mean that, one, whatever the service was that the position was offering will cease, and wasn’t a necessity, or two, if the same service will be offered, existing people will be doubling up on their work responsibilities, then the position wasn’t necessary anyways.

In summation, raising wages does not cost jobs, it in fact cultivates the labor pool, the detractors of raising the minimum wage are operating on decades old information, very little harm is done by raising the minimum wages…..it’s the facts of the 21^st century. A service, or a product is going to go up to help cover the increase in cost of producing that widget  that you’re going to buy, but the increase won’t be much more than a few pennies, for the good of the country’s work force…..I can absorb that much. I guess I’d look at that as my part to help make America’s workers strong and vibrant.  The only question that I have for you is…..can you?

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!