So, he is talking again, or maybe not. Well, I guess he isn't, I mean he kind of controls what the House can and cannot do anymore. One of those secret rules changes that nobody heard about until after it was passed. So anyway, he apparently said that he would rather kill himself than increase the minimum wage. Okay, I can get into the passion such a statement implies. But apparently he is still talking, because dead men tell no tales.
But, he shouldn't be. You see, he did at least once in his career vote to raise the minimum wage. Sure it was a show vote to back his party's line. He figured it wouldn't pass, which it didn't, but he said yay, and well should have killed himself as promised. Yeah, I know all politicians lie, some more than others, but it would be nice if one of them just kept their word one time, but, that is a lie, some of them do keep their word some of the time.
But here is the scope of things. Boehner is so set in everything he does, like people from both sides of the isle are, that he would go so far as to say he would kill himself before he would vote to increase the minimum wage. What if he had applied that passion to something helpful to people, not companies.
See, the problem is this nation is hung up on profits. We tend to want profit at any cost. Now many people tend to not understand what I mean about profit at any cost. They seem to think that profit is inherently good. For those who own stocks in a business, or own the business, profit is inherently good. But for the people who work for the company, unless it has a profit sharing system or is employee owned, it is not so good.
Low wages tend to cause people to have less money to spend. If you look back at this blog, you will see several entries about this topic. More or less, the problem is discretionary spending, you know the money you have after paying all your bills every month, and know you have the money to make it back to work if something bad should happen, like someone throwing nails in your driveway causing several flat tires, or someone siphoning the gas out of your car. Its the money you set aside to by movies, books, dinner out at KFC, or maybe a subscription to a video game or netflix. When you don't make enough money to pay the bills, you don't spend it for those things.
Now in simple terms, the more discretionary money you have, the more you spend, which creates more jobs. As much as I dislike Ford, he was forced to pay more to his employees than everyone else. It flew against conventional wisdom, but a funny thing happened. His employees could afford the cars they built. It created another source of income for his business. Now, if people were paid a decent wage, some would still fall into poverty, it is the nature of the beast, but Walmart would be able to make more money, and do you want to know why?
Because people would be able to afford DvD's, computers, video games and consoles, and they wouldn't have to run someplace like Game Stop, or FYE. But here is the thing, some people, like those who work at FYE and Game Stop, might elect to spend their money in the store they work at. But they would certainly spend more money on more than games and movies. They will eat out more, they will buy more food, and that money goes to places like Walmart. The kicker is, if people are spending more money on food, they will have less waste, which is a benefit to them, because they won't loose money on reduced prices for nearly outdated food, food going into the trash, or food being returned to the vendor, which will also save the vendor money.
The problem is profit at any cost. These companies and politicians want you to believe they will be forced to cut jobs. Which they will, because they are concerned about short term profits, rather than long term goals. Year to year, they want to increase their profit gains, and in the short term, while the market adjusts to higher wages, they would loose some money. The problem is, unwilling to loose profit, they raise prices on their goods, negating the potential ability of people having more purchasing power.
Ultimately, this is why the minimal wage fails. Companies want to retain their profits, while people want to be able to feasibly spend more money. The problem is, who has the most money to loose, companies. Who has the most to give, companies. And we are stuck. It all boils down to which comes first, the owners, or the employees. People want to side with one or the others, and I always try to point something out to both sides. Sure, if the owner does not employ people, there is no business. However, if the employees take no pride in their work, if they couldn't care less about the product or service, you have no business either. You need both groups to make a business.
This is what we have lost in the past 30 years or so. We lost the ability to say that we need both groups to create a successful business. Until we return to that principle, we will continue to see problems in the financial sectors. Until we realize that the poor and middle classes of this country drive its economy by spending, we will never move forward, we will never diminish the effects of income inequality.
If you are wondering why America is slipping in the financial sectors of the world, why we aren't the economic juggernaut we were 50 or 60 years ago, this is the reason. We neglect the people who create the economy while promoting the people who are only a small segment of it.
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