Micrometer Economics

There's a meme going around that shows a micrometer and states: "If you can't read this you don't deserve $15 an hour."

Sheesh- what a bassackwards way of someone fucking themselves out of more money! But, that's the system the last forty years. It's an economic variation of the southern strategy where you convince the lowest white man that he's better than the best colored man, you can pick his pockets clean.

I have a friend who probably uses a micrometer in his job at a gun manufacturer in New York. He doesn't make $15 an hour. He doesn't seem to want to. Well, he doesn't seem to understand that if $15 were the minimum, he would get $15 an hour. And likely more. He seems oblivious to that. A rising tide raises all boats, not just yachts.

The media portrays The Fight For $15 as almost strictly a fast-food McDonalds thing. Who doesn't have a McDonalds story of getting the wrong order, cold food, surly service? McDonalds sucks! True, fast-food employees have been on the front lines of this fight but they are not THE people who would benefit from this. Millions of fast-food workers would but many millions more- people NOT making $15 an hour- would. Think Walmart. Your grocery store. Warehouse workers. The dozen or so people who work other manufacturing jobs in the US. Tens of millions of Americans would benefit.

How can any working man or woman be against themselves making more money? It boggles the mind.

What I hear is that "they don't deserve it" and, "that's too close to MY money." That's from the rank and file who, if they stopped to think about it, would realize that they would benefit almost immediately and certainly in the long run. If $15 is the minimum and you are a skilled worker, doesn't it follow that you would get more?

Well, here's the argument against it. "If you ask for more, we'll fire you. We don't want to fire you but, our profit margin is so slim due to democratic presidents, their abusive taxes, the Chinese, yada-fucking-yada, that we cannot pay you more. We just can't! You're just lucky to have a job! Don't screw it up..."

And millions of idiots buy that. They don't pay cash for it though. They put it on their credit card, at high interest, and make the minimum payment on the interest. It's a debt they willfully take on and business is laughing all the way to the bank.

It's always been this way. Your average ignorant, white southerner didn't understand that, in the 1800's, he wasn't working because there was no reason for a plantation owner to pay him for work when he had slaves on staff who did the work essentially for free. After the initial cash layout to purchase a human being, you pretty much just had to feed and clothe them. Slaves of the time didn't simply pick cotton ("the job that Americans didn't want to do" of its day), they were also carpenters, masons and other trades. They did the jobs that Americans wanted to do and they did it without compensation. Now, who is that a good deal for?

Today's republicans- 180 degrees removed from the one's that freed the slaves- not only are against the $15 minimum wage, they are against any minimum wage. They tragically tell people that the minimum (somehow) holds workers back and that without the minimum, workers would (somehow) be free to earn more. It's like they are saying (somehow) that they want to pay you more but, their hands are tied because of that free market-hating minimum wage.

Well, that makes a lot of sense if you don't think about it! And my friend and millions of other Americans are not thinking about it. They are reacting to management rather than thinking for themselves. Management's job is to keep payroll low and profits high. You can have high profits with a high payroll but it's so much easier to cut payroll. It's the lazy way to perceived success.

Working construction, there were times when we'd get laid-off and the company would keep a skeleton crew of idiot family members and hard-working but low-paid Mexicans. I couldn't become an idiot family member or a Mexican but, I recall thinking once that if I took less money, maybe I'd have more employment? They never said that in so many words but, that's exactly what they wanted me to *think*. That isn't thinking at all. It's the modern slavery of letting politicians do all of your thinking for you as they enforce the desires of the filthiest of the filthy rich.

Another argument is that it would most severely effect small business. Small business is something that corporate politicians only pay lip service to around election time. They, and their corporate masters, do not care about your small business unless they can force you out and keep you from getting your market share. If Walmart cared about small business, they wouldn't have virtually wiped out every mom and pop operation in small towns all across America.

But, they ask, how's a guy who opens up a small retail shop supposed to survive when he's forced to pay an employee $15 an hour? Well, if you can't afford payroll, maybe you shouldn't be in business? Give up your dream of the Scotch Tape store and go to work for someone else at the lucrative, current minimum wage. See if you think it's too much then. Payroll is an integral part of the business experience and if you can't figure on your employees making a living wage, you shouldn't figure on them making your boat payments. If it's any consolation to you, Walmart is the largest employer in the US and they "can't afford" to pay their employees a living wage either despite billions in profits. If you fail at your business, you're already almost in good company! You just aren't making the billions is all.

Here's the thing about poor people. They don't have offshore tax shelters to store their money so, they spend it all. It all goes back into the economy in the form of rent, food, clothing and all the etceteras in life. Doesn't it make economic sense to pay working men and women more so that they may spend more and perhaps enjoy the American dream that much more?

How the fuck does that not add up? Who didn't do the math concerning taxes when they came up with the idea to pay workers less? Who would fund a President Trump's war with everybody else in the world with people's fair market value set at around $2 an hour? If you can't tax the rich (because that punishes success...) and the poor don't even make enough to survive, who does pay?

It's insanity. Capitalism only works when partnered with democratic socialism. We had that with FDR (and especially after WWII) until about the time Reagan became president. That's pretty much the era that people want back. They are just not willing to pay- or be paid- for it. They just want the illusion of greatness.