A Just Wage–Flourishing in the Balance

 

Without a doubt, this past year you’ve heard the Bernie Sander’s mantra “a just wage”. When Bernie wasn’t chanting, Bernie railed against the 1 %, Wall St., corporations and just about anyone who made money (except those on the Left making money (i.e. George Soros, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett)).

And, as you know, Bernie’s answer to income differences was the penumbra of socialism’s cloud by day and a minimum wage increase to provide a home fire at night.

Yet, nothing happens in isolation, Bernie. Griping about unfairness may get you ten thousand followers but it doesn’t feed those followers in a desert economy. A kingdom understanding can and does. So, for starters, ….

Below is an excellent brief discussion about the minimum wage. Samuel Gregg, of the Acton Institute, speaks of a need for awareness on the part of both employers and employees about economic conditions and for each not to be myopic in their concerns.

 

Nothing happens in isolation.

 

Living in a Material world, The Impoverished Thinking of “Income Inequality”

It’s a mystery to me

We have a greed with which we have agreed

You think you have to want more than you need

Until you have it all you won’t be free

Society, you’re a crazy breed

I hope you’re not lonely without

 

Though the message of the above song resonates within me throughout and though I have seen others on the same road as Alexander Supertramp I do not recommend walking away…

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Two recent events reveal the impoverished thinking of populist economics and “society’s crazy breed”: A mandated minimum wage increase in Chicago (Chicago-Minimum-Wage-Notice) and Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman’s macro-hypocrisy increase.

Let’s start with the subliminal wage increase.

It feels so “Oprah-kind” to know that the minimum pay for your effort will be set at a fixed rate by Big Brother. Big Brother, of course, is not paying for the increase but he is certainly gaining political capital and tax revenue from your increased paycheck.

The media abets the ravenous pols by constantly bombarding us with income deltas as if materialism is the bread of life. Karl Marx did care about how much someone else made, he dined out on it.

On a daily basis I find some financial webpages and articles written about comparative CEO salaries. OMG! Reporter, get the socialist’s dirty needle out of your arm! Are you reporting these numbers so as to invoke class-ic envy?

“There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest, For I did dream of money-bags to-night.” William Shakespeare

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Thomas Sowell, economist

Thomas Sowell, economist

“Minimum wage laws make it illegal to pay less than the government specified price for labor. By the simplest and most basic economics, a price artificially raised tends to cause more to be supplied and less to be demanded than when prices are left to be determined by supply and demand in a free market. The result is a surplus, whether the price that is set artificially high is that of farm produce and labor.

Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount….” Quote from Thomas Sowell, economist, “The Thomas Sowell Reader”.

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Nothing happens in isolation. Consider also that the Obamacare/health “coverage” is also mandated. So, a worker’s hours are restricted to ensure that a business remains profitable to ensure employee jobs. And, a worker who doesn’t fulfill the Obamacare mandated-Justice Ruth Ginsburg-and-Justice John Roberts-mandated requirements is fined or taxed-actually, both. Big Brother has the gun law of coercion to your back.

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Under the “People should and do trust me” department…

Hillary Clinton and Income Reality Inequality! Hillary Clinton Broke?

Why “income inequality”? Because good money is thrown after bad. 

Paul Krugman, pop economist

Paul Krugman, pop economist

Paul Krugman Sticks It To Poor People With $225,000 Salary To Study Income Inequality

By Eric Owens, Education Editor:

“This week, trustees of the cash-strapped, taxpayer-funded City University of New York (CUNY) system approved a hefty annual salary as well as the fancypants title of “distinguished professor” for Paul Krugman.

New York City’s public college system pays Krugman $225,000 each year to analyze the vexing problem of income inequality at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Luxembourg Income Study Center, Gawker notes.

Krugman’s $225,000 salary — which is $18,750 per month — does not include his undisclosed earnings from other ventures, the sum of which could be substantial.”

 

Why “income inequality”? (You don’t have to pay me!)

A Fool and his money are soon parted. Duh!

A Fool and his money are soon parted. Duh!

-Folly:  A fool and his money are soon parted.” That’s what state lotteries and casinos count on.

-Government and Progressive Income tax: I made a few dollars as a store clerk at age thirteen. Now I make a whole lot more money closer to retirement. And this is because I have worked a lifetime to obtain skills that have been of value to my employers. Should I be taxed more because I make more money due to the manifest effort on my part to take care of my family and to pay my bills, just to satisfy the ‘social justice” gnosis?

Time and experience: Over the course of decades I have had “income inequality” every year of my life. Should I demand equal pay because someone is making more at some point in time? No way! I need to make myself of more value to my employer and then ask for an increase in pay or find a better paying job. This brings me to my next point…

-Denial: Degreed Millennials, as an observation, think that their academic credentials buy them a ticket to ride without much effort on their part. Some even think that blue-collar labor is beneath them. This denial of reality of their situation and a lack of healthy self-awareness is the result, in part I believe, of the effects of psychotherapy’s delusional self-awareness pharmacopeia on our culture. Psychotherapy provides the illusion that you can live an existence free of any tension over time, through endless sessions of… therapy. An analysand’s every thought must be reviewed, be given equal doses of “hmmm” and then before the open-ended session’s time is done, be given equal value. “You are not to blame yourself. XYZ is responsible. Look, our time is up. See you next week. Pay up front.” And, psychotherapy’s moral deficit is not a cure for a person’s lack of awareness of the obvious-many a Millennial thinks he is entitled. And, of no value is the politician’s “Hope and Change” pharmacopeia. A Minimum wage is not a cure at all. It is a placebo that generates no economic health whatsoever. In fact it denies the existence of bad economic choices an individual has made. Yet, perverse politicians say “it’s not you. You didn’t build that problem. The institution of big business is the problem. It must take our ‘medicine’ for your cure.

-Misdirected Self-awareness:  Millennials tend to think of only what they need and not what an employer needs. Naiveté.

Money Well Spent?!? sodahead.com

Money Well Spent?!?
sodahead.com

-Some people have a spending problem: Some people reinvest their money and create jobs. Others will spend their money and ask “Why am I ‘poor’ when others are rich?” The makeshift poor will demand the doctors of politics to up their dosage of cornucopian wealth.

-Lack of wisdom: “He that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends.” William Shakespeare

-Lack of wisdom: “It is senseless to pay tuition to educate a fool, since he has no heart for learning.” Proverbs 17:16

-Lack of wisdom: “Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper.” Proverbs 13:4

-Lack of wisdom: “Work brings profit, but mere talk leads to poverty!” Proverbs 14:23

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In a twist of a Thomas Sowell quote, ”It is amazing how many people seem to think that the government exists to turn their prejudices into law.” I say, ”It is amazing how many people seem to think that the government exists to insure them against their bad decisions.”

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Added 7-15-2015:

Thomas Sowell – Minimum Wage Exploitation (Economics 101)

Immigration Fiat Meet Multiculturalism or Don’t Pass the Fiat Fondue Melting Pot

Remember when your parents said, “Eat your supper, eat your peas or go to your room without supper.”?  no peas

 That is the Eat-Your-Supper-Fiat. Whether you liked the food or not your were required to eat whatever was set before you because, “I said so.” You were offered two choices:  “accept what I am demanding of you or face the consequences of not obeying me.”

 As adults, as voting adults, as voting adults with representatives we are now told by Dear Leader Obama that we must swallow his Executive Fiat without representation. And, we must also accept the consequences of not loving him with supine obedience:  a renunciation of the U.S. Constitution and a negation of our elected representatives.

 And here’s the excuse for just such a demand: there are “poor little children from other countries torn from their families, who do not have a regular meal to eat.” Sob. Sob. Sniffle. Sniffle. “Shame on you, taxpayers! You did not obey my commands!”

 How these children were torn from their families and became hungry is another story involving crossing our sovereign border and avoiding immigration authorities. They snuck into our country illegally in hopes of demanding to be fed and taken care of by U.S. taxpayer money as in “Illegal immigrants to be eligible for Social Security, Medicare”  BTW: They are illegal immigrants and not ‘undocumented” travelers on the road of life.

 Now that the ‘dinner’ has been served sitting in front of us is a smorgasbord multinational characters, some who may be Jihadists, felons, drug dealers, gang members, diseased and most certainly impoverished. Yet, we are informed by IL-Rep Luis Gutierrez that we the voters are uninformed children in need of Dear Leader’s guidance. Remember, we are the “stupid voters” ala Jon Gruber. We are not supposed to care what we are fed as long as “Change” is on the menu.

The Dear Reverend Hussein Obama has also blessed the meal. He used Holy Scripture to endorse his lawlessness and to promote his legacy of “Me, Myself and I”. The spirit of anti-Christ is crouching, ready to devour.

The Gospel-according-to-Progressive George Soros funded Illinois Voices For Immigration Deformity has also blessed the meal with their alliterative babble” “Bibles, Badges, Business.” They forgot to add “and Balkanization to boot.” Their “Call to Action” is the new Evangelical Gospel of antinomianism.

 Now that Dear Leader has served us his self made whipped up fiat fondue we are told to eat and like it: “If you don’t eat what I am serving, you can’t have any pudding, how can you have any pudding if you don’t eat what I am serving!” But there is more to this fiat force feeding than meets the throat.

Multiculturalism and Immigration Fiat now meet face to face-a few million times over.

 Forced multiculturalism, whether as found in England or Germany or France hasn’t worked out well. Many immigrants do not share the same values as their host country. In fact, the immigrants often isolate themselves into their own cultural collectives. And, the radical Islamists currently crossing our border make no distinction between church and state. They want us to be under their Sharia law. They will kill us to make this happen.

In The New Criterion article by Roger Kimball titled “Institutionalizing our demise: America vs. multiculturalism”, Kimball mentions a book by the Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington

“Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity” (2004), Kimball writes:

“Does it,” Huntington asks, “take an Osama bin Laden … to make us realize that we are Americans? If we do not experience recurring destructive attacks, will we return to the fragmentation and eroded Americanism before September 11?”…

Multiculturalism is a moral intoxicant; its thrill centers around the emotion of superior virtue; its hangover subsists on a diet of nescience and blighted “good intentions.”

Wherever the imperatives of multiculturalism have touched the curriculum, they have left broad swaths of anti-Western attitudinizing competing for attention with quite astonishing historical blindness. Courses on minorities, women’s issues, the Third World proliferate; the teaching of mainstream history slides into oblivion. “The mood,” Arthur Schlesinger wrote in The Disuniting of America (1992), his excellent book on the depredations of multiculturalism, “is one of divesting Americans of the sinful European inheritance and seeking redemptive infusions from non-Western cultures.”

A profound ignorance of the milestones of American culture is one predictable result of this mood.”

 

Let it be known that Our Dear Leader, Supreme Professor of Cultural-Legal-Social-Economic-Self-Aggrandizement Studies, has enslaved us to Multiculturalism. His doting bureaucrats will feed his new slaves from the fiat fondue melting pot, a pot laced with every form of human depravity known to man. 

Dear Leader, in his great wisdom, has purposely created this ad hoc toxic milieu so as to dilute America’s melting pot with third world values. Progressive dictatorships feed off of this pot.

Equally as important to Dear Leader is creating millions of worshippers of Progressivism’s cult combine of language, morally relative values, lowest common denominator culture, Gaia-incensed global-warming and the rule of ad hoc law.

Dear Leader wants to amass voters who are submissive, “stupid” and obedient. And, like him, they must not care that there are laws to obey or boundaries to be wary of, or red lines to never cross. The illegal immigrants are to be his hapless ‘victims,’ Dear Leader is to be their Savior and America (always the oppressor in his anti-colonialism zeitgeist) will now submit to him. We are to be his colony of worker bees.

For the ‘victims’ there is to be the 1%’s pot of gold to be had and a third world free-for-all party to attend. “Go ahead. Break the law. Just don’t get caught. But if you do, we have liberal–minded judges who will ‘figure’ it out for you at the time. Remember, laws are meaningless under ‘social justice.”

How else can the Democrat/Progressive party survive? Only by mandating desperate, “stupid” and lawless voters out from shadowy existence and thrusting them into ‘daylight’ of the voting booth. That is how the Progressive Party survives. That is how illegal immigrants will be used. And, that is why Hillary Clinton nods her approval while awaiting her throne.

 

Here, the Rev. Robert A. Sirico speaks to the issue of Multiculturalism and the fact that all cultures are not equal:

 

 

And, Thomas Sowell, as well, about multiculturalism, affirmative action and the minimum wage, all of which comes into play with millions more people entering the country willy-nilly:

 

 

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Lest anyone think that I am not being Christian enough, insensitive to the plight of others and a bigot in my opinion post above, let me summarize my own situation and realign your thinking.

  I am a Christian woman who lives in an apartment building, not an ivory tower. Above me lives a Hispanic family. Below me lives another Hispanic family. Across the hall from me is a single black woman with her son. 

 The apartment buildings surrounding me are filled with a majority of Hispanics, some black Americans and some white Americans.

 The apartment building complex south of me is occupied mostly with Hispanics, with some black Americans and some white Americans.

Reader, can you say that about where you live?

 Mi amiga, Veronica, works in the food service cafeteria where I work.

 I have no problema with Hispanics or with legal immigrants. I do have a big problem with Obama’s edict and the illegal process he used and coercive multiculturalism.

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SNL spoofing the executive fiat:

 Obama Shoves Legislative Process Down Capitol Steps

The Vision of the Anointed is Our Nightmare; Ivy League Progressives and Creeping Racism

Ferguson, Missouri; Michael Brown; the race industry’s huckster’s ‘Reverends’ Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson; “No Justice, No Peace”.

 Should we listen to and embrace the inflammatory NeveReverending racial rhetoric that bellows out from under a sheep skin, rhetoric that leads to societal schism? OR, should we listen to and follow the wise words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s niece Dr. Alveda King as she says: “Know peace and you’ll know justice”? You tell me.

 And, should Obama be just as arrogant as President Lyndon Johnson?

 Since the earliest days of my youth I have been seeking wisdom, knowledge and a good understanding. This pervasive endeavor was birthed in me as my mother read from the book of Proverbs at the dinner table each night after dinner.

 Please, please, please sit down with your coffee and listen to the wisdom, clarity and common sense that Thomas Sowell brings to the issues of race, affirmative action, minimum wage, the negative effects of today’s intellectualism, multiculteralism, social justice, environmentalism, political correctness, diversity and a host of other hot-button cultural and economic topics. You will be doing yourself a favor – wisdom is like that. 

 

Wisdom’s, Rebuke (Proverbs Chapter One)

 

Out in the open wisdom calls aloud
she raises her voice in the public square;
on top of the wall she cries out,
at the city gate she makes her speech:

 

“How long will you who are simple love your simple ways?
How long will mockers delight in mockery
and fools hate knowledge?
Repent at my rebuke!
Then I will pour out my thoughts to you,
will make known to you my teachings.
But since you refuse to listen when I call
and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand,
since you disregard all my advice
and do not accept my rebuke,
I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you;
I will mock when calamity overtakes you—
when calamity overtakes you like a storm,
when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind,
when distress and trouble overwhelm you.

 

“Then they will call to me but I will not answer;
they will look for me but will not find me,
since they hated knowledge
and did not choose to fear the Lord.
Since they would not accept my advice
and spurned my rebuke,
they will eat the fruit of their ways
and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.
For the waywardness of the simple will kill them,
and the complacency of fools will destroy them;
but whoever listens to me will live in safety
and be at ease, without fear of harm.”