Unions and govt have been joined at the hips for years. Its surely a stretch to call them "private organizations": The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 National Labor Relations Act of 1935
well, today, it would be more accurate to say the union is joined at the hip with the democrat party, and the CEO and the corp are joined at the hip with the republican party At one time my father in law was a union boss. It was really kind of funny. Every so often he would meet with the CEO and the accountant. He would ask for 25 cents. The CEO would offer 7. He said that will cost you 60 days. The accountant would shake his head. They would eat food and drink alcohol and bargain all day and night. Finally the deal would be 17 cents and 7 days. They would shake hands and laugh and depart, both happy that they made a good deal. Then he would get on the stump and call the CEO all kinds of names and claim he was holding out for 25 cents or go on strike. The CEO would respond by saying, no, no that is not possible. Then as agreed upon, the workers would go on strike. And after the agreed upon 7 days, he would tell the workers he can get 17 cents and they should probably vote for it. It cost the corp a little. The workers lost money on the deal figuring their lost wages on the strike. But the union, just like the bookie or the broker always made money on the deal.
Good grief! One size never fits all! A living wage in NYC is a great wage in Nowhere La.Wherever possible the Feds should be restrained. Isn't that how the Constitution proposed that the country should be run?
The problem isn't wages. Its buying power. Every few years we get this same, tired argument from the brain dead liberals. You'd think they would start to "get it" after umpteen times being wrong. But knock yourselves out trying to reason with an idiot like db. He's an assholes asshole.
Top Koch Strategist Argues The Minimum Wage Leads Directly To Fascism At a political strategy summit hosted on June 16 by the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, Richard Fink, their top political strategist, told the private audience that when he sees someone “on the street” he says, “Get off your ass, and work hard like we did.” Fink's anecdote came during his presentation titled “The Long-Term Strategy: Engaging the Middle Third,” which capped off a session of four speeches detailing the intellectual foundation of Charles Koch’s political ideology. Audio of the event was obtained by The Undercurrent and shared exclusively with The Huffington Post. Charles Koch opened the session by laying out his grand vision for the conference; Dr. Victor Hanson, a military historian, described the nature of the threat of collectivism; and Dr. Will Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute, discussed the features of a free society. Fink rounded out the set, outlining the path to achieve the goals of deregulation and limited government. The message, he said, should focus on intent, meaning, and well-being. Of the four speeches, Fink’s was the longest and the most candid, offering observations on fascism, environmentalism, and the application of business marketing principles to the Koch brothers' political messaging. His statements were not offhand remarks, but rather should be seen as representative of the Kochs, as he was hailed as their “grand strategist” by emcee Kevin Gentry in the proceedings and sits on the boards of several of their organizations. Full transcripts are available here. Messages left for Koch, Fink and Ruger with Koch Industries and the Charles Koch Institute were not returned. Collectivism: Framing Liberals as Fascists In his speech titled “American Courage: Our Commitment to a Free Society,” Charles Koch echoed an op-ed he wrote earlier this year in the Wall Street Journal in both his paranoia and self-pity. The billionaire oil industrialist, hosting some of the most powerful men in Washington, without irony claimed in his speech that he and his brother were “put squarely in front of the firing squad.” He later framed the path ahead for America as a binary choice between freedom and collectivism, a catchall term he used to describe liberalism, socialism, and fascism. Koch refrained from drawing explicit parallels to fascists, but his lieutenants did not. (Perhaps he learned from a past audio leak wherein he seemed to liken President Barack Obama to Saddam Hussein.) Ruger warned that liberalism sets society on a march toward the fate of totalitarian North Korea. “We clearly see the difference between free societies and collectivist regimes in this nighttime satellite image of the Korean peninsula, where the collectivist north is literally in the dark due to its poverty,” said Ruger. “This is what collectivism gives you.” This conflation was a running theme throughout the session, articulated in large part by grand strategist Fink. An economist by training, he pointed to psychology to explain the dangers of raising the minimum wage vis á vis totalitarianism. “Psychology shows that is the main recruiting ground for totalitarianism, for fascism, for conformism, when people feel like they’re victims,” said Fink. “So the big danger of minimum wage isn’t the fact that some people are being paid more than their value-added -- that’s not great. It’s not that it’s hard to stay in business -- that’s not great, either. But it’s the 500,000 people that will not have a job because of minimum wage.” He continued, “We’re taking these 500,000 people that would’ve had a job, and putting them unemployed, making dependence part of government programs, and destroying their opportunity for earned success. And so we see this is a very big part of recruitment in Germany in the '20s.” “If you look at the Third -- the rise and fall of the Third Reich, you can see that,” Fink said. “And what happens is a fascist comes in and offers them an opportunity, finds the victim -- Jews or the West -- and offers them meaning for their life, OK?” Fink cited the historical examples of Nazi Germany and communist Russia and China to segue to terrorism. “This is not just in Germany. It's in Russia, in Lenin, and Stalin Russia, and then Mao,” said Fink. “This is the recruitment ground for fascism, and it's not just historical. It's what goes on today in the -- in the suicide bomber recruitment.” Lack of Meaning in Life Leads to Environmentalism Fink’s commentary on collectivism led to observations on the psychological underpinnings of the environmental movement. According to Fink, in the same way that lack of meaning in life leads to terrorism, it leads to environmentalism. “The environmental movement. Occupy Wall Street. These kids are searching for meaning. They're protesting the 1 percent. They are the 1 percent, but they're protesting the 1 percent. The environmental movement and climate change. It's not about climate change. I studied climate change for six years. I can't figure it out, quite frankly. Charles is ahead of me on this. I'm not a climatologist, but I'm not completely stupid. I can tell you I meet with people, particularly in California, that are convinced the world is going to burn up in you know, a year or two. They don't know the answer -- they don't even know the question, because it's not about climate change. It's about a cause. It gives their life meaning.” Fink's statement that he's not a climatologist is notable considering both his education and employment. Koch Industries is a leading proponent of climate change skepticism. David Koch has posited that climate change may turn out to be good for humankind in that longer growing seasons would support greater food production. And Charles Koch personally helped found the Institute for Energy Research, a group that defends oil industry tax subsidies. Despite his actions, Charles Koch railed against this type of behavior during the seminar. “So to truly help the poor and the economy, we have to eliminate cronyism,” he said. “We have to eliminate welfare for the rich.” Fink also pointed to blocking cap and trade as a success of the Koch network, appearing to give it equal weight to their success in flipping the House of Representatives. Cap and trade, a market-based approach to curbing carbon emissions, was first implemented on a large scale during George H.W. Bush’s administration to combat acid rain. The measure, derided by the tea party as “cap and tax,” died in Congress in 2010, chiefly as a result of staunch oil industry opposition. Later that year, the movement would claim victory in the historic landslide election that turned the House of Representatives over to Republican control. Both Koch Industries and David Koch have previously been reluctant to acknowledge any involvement in the early days of the tea party movement, though Americans for Prosperity has fueled much of its rise. AFP was founded by David Koch and is the primary vehicle of the brothers’ political activity. Applying Business Marketing to Political Messaging Fink described the differences between the three thirds of the electorate -- the "freedom" third, the "collectivist" third, and the non-ideological middle third of voters, whose recruitment he said is crucial for the Koch network’s success. “Mitt Romney won on leadership. He won on the economy. He won on experience,” Fink said. “What did he lose on? He lost on care and intent. Intent is extremely important.” Fink spoke at length about the appearance of the Koch network’s motives to the middle third, and the business-oriented solutions for improving its political brand. “Yeah, we want to decrease regulations. Why? It’s because we can make more profit, OK? Yeah, cut government spending so we don’t have to pay so much taxes,” said Fink. “There’s truth in that, you all know, because we’re in the 30 percent of the freedom fighters. But the middle part of the country doesn’t see it that way.” “When we focus on decreasing government spending, over-criminalization, decreasing taxes, it doesn’t do it, OK? We’ve been reaching the third by telling them what’s important -- what we think is important should be important to them. And they’re not responding and don’t like it, OK? Well, we get business -- what do we do? We want to find out what the customer wants, right, not what we want them to buy,” he said. Fink concluded that if the brothers' network could solve its messaging problem, it would “earn the respect and good feeling through the middle third.” He also held up the Koch partnership with the United Negro College Fund as emblematic of their strategy. Lauren Windsor
Minimum Wage Hikes: A Death Knell to "the Little Guy" September 3, 2014 - 12:09 PM, By Jen Kuznicki http://cnsnews.com/commentary/jen-kuznicki/minimum-wage-hikes-death-knell-little-guy My children have some good friends, and even though it's difficult in this economy, all of them have part-time jobs. It makes me happy knowing that their lives are starting out much like mine did – learning how to interact with consumers, working as a team to complete tasks, and making a starting point for their future. This is a small town. In fact, I used to joke that we only have one light, but this year they changed it to a blinking red light. The only intersection, the one that used to have the only light in town, is now a four-way stop, and it seems to be working out splendidly. The local business men and women do try to employ the children for the two years before they leave for better horizons, and many of the local teens have jobs in town as waiters and waitresses, as grocery clerks, as farmhands or general laborers, and also as employees at our only fast food joint, McDonald's. McDonald's has done more than its fair share of hiring young kids and giving them a leg up on life, and the experience of working there really does help kids learn how to talk to people of all ages who expect the same great service and food every time. Over the weekend, one of my daughter's best friends told me about an incident at work that had never happened before. It reminded me of when I was her age, how my thoughts began to form about governmental intrusion and the raising of the minimum wage. While cashiering at McDonald's, she was yelled at by an elderly customer because the price of the senior coffee went up. I can't recall the exact amount, but it was around a dime. The elderly gentleman told her that he wouldn't be able to make it, that prices, like the price of his cup of coffee, are going up, and that, on his fixed income, he just could not support any more increases. The girl told me that she knew the price of the senior coffee went up because there was a hike in Michigan's minimum wage. This girl, who knows very little about the goings-on in day-to-day politics, made the connection between her receipt of extra pay and the elderly man’s unfortunate predicament of having to stop getting coffees altogether, just so that he can make his payments. Michigan's minimum wage hike was implemented on September 1, 2014. The first hike is $0.75, making the current minimum wage $8.15, and this increase will be phased in over four years until the minimum wage is $9.25 in 2018. If it takes ten teenagers to cover the shifts at McDonald's every day, the franchise owner has a new weekly bill of, maybe, $300 or $400. That is $300 or $400 that he didn't have to spend in August, and the costs are just going to continue to go up. He doesn't get anything extra for it, thanks to our meddlesome government. He may cut shifts. He may keep a skeleton crew, but for the most part, it has got to come out of the customer's pockets, which, need I remind you, are not very deep. Raising the minimum wage is a very dangerous and irresponsible thing to do, and the more people that can learn this truth from real life experience, the better. My experience as grocery store clerk taught me about unfairness too. Often, new hires would come in with a higher minimum wage than I had been making, and I had been working for a longer period of time. It was galling that these new workers, who had no experience, got handed a higher wage than I, when I had to work my way up the wage ladder. I had more experience, but I was suddenly equal to those who had none. People sometimes think that prices always go up, that there is nothing we can do about it, but the fact that the market didn't demand inexperienced labor at a "pulled-out-of-thin-air" wage insures that prices will go up. This affects those who have no real ability to pay higher prices - those people who can't find extra income to pay them - especially in a small town where the children grow up, but almost always leave, leaving behind an ever-maturing customer base that almost always has a fixed income. Your labor and experience is worth something, and when the government decides that your labor is worth whatever they say it is, it takes the decision-making out of the business-owner's hands. It leads to an auto-pilot style of management and lowers the work ethic of the laborer. And of course, this leads to a misconception held by many workers, wherein your boss is the enemy and unionizing against him is the only way. The President's recent remarks that, "America deserves a raise," and, "If I were busting my butt in the service industry and wanted an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, I’d join a union," makes that connection complete. Fortunately, there are young people out there who are learning how it all hurts the little guy. And information learned by experience is a powerful tool against rhetoric from a mere politician
well, we will find out if the prices get so high at McDonalds that nobody can afford to eat there anymore, and they close their doors and go out of business in your tiny little town. If that doesn't happen then you are wrong, just like you were wrong the last time they raised the minimum wage. It's the tax and spend democrats who are going to learn the law of the market. When they finally realize that the only one at that franchise paying federal income taxes is the owner and raising his labor costs cost him money, and that cuts in to his profit, hence, less taxes paid. That means less money for their only solution to every problem. They can only raise his taxes so much then he will actually close the doors, and then no money for their next scheme. But a small raise for the poor isn't going to be much of an economic disaster, except for the old man on the fixed income, and I'm pretty sure Social Security can give him a cost of living increase of ten cents a day.
And yet McDonald's flourished. As for affording to eat there, a BigMac runs around $4. A chicken burrito at Chipotle runs around $6.50, and Chipotle is doing just fine. Perhaps McD franchise owners should demand lower franchise fees. Then we could look at where to go from there. Actually an increase in wages will eventually result in the MW worker paying income taxes, and there are taxes other than income that MW workers pay regardless of whether they pay income tax or not, sales and property, for example. Labor costs are deductible. No, a small raise for the poor isn't going to be an economic disaster. Rather it would result in an increase in consumer spending.
To sum up: Person A freely decides to hire someone at a particular price. Person B freely decides to work for person A at that particular price. Person C decides that A and B need to do what Person C wants them to do. Screw person C