Raising the Minimum Wage is a good start
The quick serve franchise model in this country is one of the problems. They are the bottom feeders in our society; parasites by any definition. They produce nothing, but permeate our thoroughfares to suckle the teats of neighborhoods. The brand names tend to squeeze regional operators to leverage profits from the fruits of their uber-low-wage workforce. There is so little profit margin for operators that it’s not feasible to own just one McDonald's restaurant, nor is it in their revenue interests to pay a living wage. Not to mention the fact that they sell notoriously unhealthy meals.
States and communities should begin putting their collective legislative feet down and facilitating some local requirements on absentee parasite corporations that tend to hurt communities as opposed to acting as responsible corporate citizens. There could be local ownership requirements in addition to an objective measurement of economic and commercial impact; the ratio of what a restaurant brings to a community versus what it removes. The ratio of revenue versus wages & taxes, for example.
But that's not the most fundamental issue in this society.
Let’s be clear. The so-called Republicans who purport to identify with conservatism are advancing policies that help corporate interests amass or export the wealth of this country, leaving the rest of us with fewer greenbacks – of diminishing value – after ever-expanding payroll deductions and expenses are withheld.
The idea that low wages are caused by unemployment, as Heritage Foundation’s Chief Economist Steve Moore recently claimed, is the wrong assessment. Unemployment might give corporations a better negotiating position, leading to lower salaries, but it hurts them in the end when domestic markets can’t afford to buy whatever it is they’re selling. This is of course partly helped by the flood of currency being created out of thin air in hopes some of it will land in consumers’ pockets (but oddly never does as promised).
Moore's right about one thing: we need dialogue on job growth policies. But the only rational, effective job growth policy is to adjust wages with inflation, not only because it respects the workforce – without which there is no business – but because it's ultimately better for the economy because it puts more buying dollars in the marketplace.
The reason people won’t or can’t pay the extra buck for a sandwich at a minimum-wage eatery, whose pay suddenly becomes $10.10 an hour, is because the office workers haven’t received a cost-of-living or merit increase for the last six years. It's the office workers who are getting pinched, but when they complain about how expensive the food is at the lunch counter or grocery store, they should rightly direct their anger at their employers for stagnating wages instead of parroting the lies being fed to them by corporate-run media outlets who want you to think that equitable wages leads to job loss.
It’s fundamental that poverty creates no demand, and that’s the real harm to our economy; when people aren't paid equitably for the fruits of their labor, they buy cheaper and fewer products and services. It’s intuitive that when wages contract, consumer demand contracts.
Corporations don’t add jobs when they’re handed a few tax breaks and other subsidies. They add jobs when demand increases; when the customers are there. If a corporation gets a gift from the tax payer, it makes more sense that the CEO buys a Learjet than to add jobs if demand can’t support the additional workforce.
You cannot have a conversation about the housing bubble and its economic impacts without also talking about depressed wages and lost jobs and the suffering on Main Street and in our neighborhoods. In the game of musical chairs that is our financial markets, it’s not hard to see who got the cushy chairs when the music stopped; they’re the same ones to whom the political class are beholden, and therefore shielded from any accountability.
But we’re getting used to CEOs taking the first slice of the pie for themselves. They’re people, too, right?
Corporations are comprised of individuals, so the notion that they, as entities, are entitled to be recognized as people is completely beyond the pale of fairness. When corporations are granted the same rights as individuals, we find that corporations exercise extra rights – super rights, if you will – through enormously greater power and influence … more than any other collective of people.
Corporations already have a huge advantage when it comes to influencing government via their in-house captive audience, those individuals who comprise the corporation, who are at least somewhat subservient to their employer. To add to that the extraordinary status as “person” is mind boggling.
States and communities should begin putting their collective legislative feet down and facilitating some local requirements on absentee parasite corporations that tend to hurt communities as opposed to acting as responsible corporate citizens. There could be local ownership requirements in addition to an objective measurement of economic and commercial impact; the ratio of what a restaurant brings to a community versus what it removes. The ratio of revenue versus wages & taxes, for example.
But that's not the most fundamental issue in this society.
Let’s be clear. The so-called Republicans who purport to identify with conservatism are advancing policies that help corporate interests amass or export the wealth of this country, leaving the rest of us with fewer greenbacks – of diminishing value – after ever-expanding payroll deductions and expenses are withheld.
The idea that low wages are caused by unemployment, as Heritage Foundation’s Chief Economist Steve Moore recently claimed, is the wrong assessment. Unemployment might give corporations a better negotiating position, leading to lower salaries, but it hurts them in the end when domestic markets can’t afford to buy whatever it is they’re selling. This is of course partly helped by the flood of currency being created out of thin air in hopes some of it will land in consumers’ pockets (but oddly never does as promised).
Moore's right about one thing: we need dialogue on job growth policies. But the only rational, effective job growth policy is to adjust wages with inflation, not only because it respects the workforce – without which there is no business – but because it's ultimately better for the economy because it puts more buying dollars in the marketplace.
The reason people won’t or can’t pay the extra buck for a sandwich at a minimum-wage eatery, whose pay suddenly becomes $10.10 an hour, is because the office workers haven’t received a cost-of-living or merit increase for the last six years. It's the office workers who are getting pinched, but when they complain about how expensive the food is at the lunch counter or grocery store, they should rightly direct their anger at their employers for stagnating wages instead of parroting the lies being fed to them by corporate-run media outlets who want you to think that equitable wages leads to job loss.
It’s fundamental that poverty creates no demand, and that’s the real harm to our economy; when people aren't paid equitably for the fruits of their labor, they buy cheaper and fewer products and services. It’s intuitive that when wages contract, consumer demand contracts.
Corporations don’t add jobs when they’re handed a few tax breaks and other subsidies. They add jobs when demand increases; when the customers are there. If a corporation gets a gift from the tax payer, it makes more sense that the CEO buys a Learjet than to add jobs if demand can’t support the additional workforce.
You cannot have a conversation about the housing bubble and its economic impacts without also talking about depressed wages and lost jobs and the suffering on Main Street and in our neighborhoods. In the game of musical chairs that is our financial markets, it’s not hard to see who got the cushy chairs when the music stopped; they’re the same ones to whom the political class are beholden, and therefore shielded from any accountability.
But we’re getting used to CEOs taking the first slice of the pie for themselves. They’re people, too, right?
Corporations are comprised of individuals, so the notion that they, as entities, are entitled to be recognized as people is completely beyond the pale of fairness. When corporations are granted the same rights as individuals, we find that corporations exercise extra rights – super rights, if you will – through enormously greater power and influence … more than any other collective of people.
Corporations already have a huge advantage when it comes to influencing government via their in-house captive audience, those individuals who comprise the corporation, who are at least somewhat subservient to their employer. To add to that the extraordinary status as “person” is mind boggling.
