Minimum wage is an evil thing. Jobs have been scarce in Canada since shortly before the Recession hit. I’d been predicting a “second Depression” for years. Many adults with responsibilities and families are stuck working for minimum wage…even with their college/university degrees. We have shifted from an Employee’s Market to an Employer’s Market and now all Employer’s want EVERYBODY to jump through hoops for …you can’t call it a living. Even singles on MW with just the basics (rent, heat/hydro, phone, food) can barely afford to scrape by with their MW jobs. I would love to get into this more, however I just got called away from the computer.

Where did I go wrong?

http://www.tvhistory.tv/1948%20QF.htm

* Television production begins to rev-up. By July of 1948, estimates are that 350,000 TV sets are in operation in the USA. 3/4 of these are in the eastern network cities, and half are around New York City.

* 27 Stations in 18 different cities are in full operation.

* Only one in ten Americans has seen a television set up to this point.

* About two dozen different TV set models are on sale, ranging from Pilot’s 3″ set at $100, to DuMont’s 20″ set at $2,495 ($28,000 in today’s money!).

* A TV station costs $1,000,000 to construct and place into operation. 73 new permits have been issued in the United States.

* Gillette pays $100,000 ($1.1 Million today) for the right to televise the Louis-Walcott return boxing match.

* Television rights for baseball games in New York city cost $700,000 ($7.7M).

* Longest TV network is from Boston to Richmond.

* Average of 3.47 persons watch each night per set in a household.

* Of the 42 hours of TV available for viewing per week, the average set is operating for 17 hours.

* 68% of the viewers remember the names of the programs’ sponsors.

The presumption is that I’ve had it easy since you assume I’ve got it made. You want me to be the fall-guy because you, perhaps, didn’t succeed as well as you perceive I have succeeded?

I built the businesses I ran from scratch since I had no money with which to buy one, unlike Mr Wright who admits he just bought his businesses. I built the race cars I raced because I was the designer and the mechanic as well as the driver. I busted my tail getting a degree in Mechanical Engineering while my peers were chasing women and drinking beer. After paying taxes to educate your children, I then had to pay private school tuition for my kids because the public system failed my kids. I lived my life two years behind my current income while most of America has lived two years ahead of their anticipated income. So now it’s my fault that I succeeded because I deferred my pleasures while you were spending your futures?

My question to you is: Do you not understand the relationship between cause and effect? In physics, I learned that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Do you not understand that when the government mandates higher wages, someone else looses? The very folks you supposedly want to help are the very ones that are hurt the most. I laud Mr Wright for his decision to pay his employees a higher wage but his decision to do so was for his own benefit – retention of good employees. It was not a matter of simply “taking a little less.” For most small businesses, it’s a matter of survival. I again ask: “Would you like a job paying $6.55 per hour or would you prefer no-job paying $7.25 per hour?”

Did you read Rancherlady’s response? Did you pay attention to the wages she references? Our Texas economy has remained well above what passes for the “norm” in America yet we still have limits. My stomping ground in the Hill Country of Central Texas just NW of Austin has about the same wage scale. But let me suggest that wages are in competition with every other expense we face.

We all have limited funds – even the Federal Government although you’d never realize it by the way they waste our money. That means when you spend a dollar for a hamburger, you have a dollar less to spend on a book or a pair of underwear. Person A may be willing and capable of doing a specific job for a dollar less than Person B. Why shouldn’t Person A be able to work for the wage he negotiated? When the government steps-in and says everyone must be paid the wage that Person B demands, the market simply says “Nuts.” Can’t afford the extra dollar. Therefore, no job. Period. Boy, that really solves the problem, doesn’t it?

Are there greedy people out there? Of course. Are there inequities in our system? Of course. Can you name ANY other system that even begins to match our success? Rancherlady is correct when she opines that this is a frontal assault on capitalism – our way of life. I mentioned the poor Mexican that has a color TV because our system makes that possible. Kill the system and you will have absolutely nothing. As Ayn Rand observed, Atlas will Shrug.

Regards, Tex

Jeeziss, this country is filled with automatrons…….

Tex didn’t pick this toy up to play with it, so I’m going to answer for myself, not him.

A bizarre but very practical notion is that employers have to make a profit or there is no point in offering goods or services. They are not in business to support their workers in luxury; somewhere along the line, they have to make enough to support themselves and make their efforts worth while; they need to accumulate capital to expand their businesses or start new ones, which is where jobs come from. I cannot tell you how many times over the last twenty years I have heard small business owners say sadly, “I have the business to expand, but between regulation and increasing minimum wages it wouldn’t be worth my time.”

Tex is absolutely right: when the mandatory minimum wage is increased small businesses hire fewer people BECAUSE THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO SO.

Would YOU cope well with having your “overhead” (in your case, rent, gas, taxes, utilities, food) increased by even five or ten percent? Hey, it’s for the children. It’s for universal health insurance. It’s so that ACORN, the unions, banks, and agribusiness can increase their bottom lines and power, and it is your patriotic duty to sacrifice for their benefit.

When the minimum wage is increased fewer workers are hired, which means that those who retain their jobs must do more work for the same money. If the business that employs you cannot afford to hire an assistant for you because of increased production, you have your choice of working harder for the same money or hunting another job. Think before you quit, because the “official” unemployment rate is ten percent and the rate as sensible people calculate it is twice that.

Why do I suppose you are an employee and not an entrepreneur? Silly question. I’m sure you can work the answer out for yourself.

There are those who attempt to tell the forest from the trees…and those of us who can discern ornamental gardens. Sometime very soon all of those who think the world owes them not only a living but everything else on a silver platter are going to be faced with “try and collect.”

The US has bankrupted itself on the premise that it can provide all things to all people who are not capable of or willing to work for them. You will be able to safeguard yourself and your family better if you pay attention to the advice you get here on Whiskey & Gunpowder. To conserve MEANS to protect and preserve.

Linda Brady Traynham

Why can’t people grasp that when the minimum wage is raised above the point where the work produced is not worth the expense small business owners stop hiring? Worse, hikes in the MW result in more people working under the table, making less than they did before. Those who remain employed in traditional areas must do more work for the same money or they lose their jobs.

I don’t know where in Texas you live or whether or not you deal with part-time workers, but in our neck of the woods the going rate for a part-time hand is seven bucks, nine if he’s building fence efficiently and knowledgeably. These are people with skills and experience taking on afterhours work to try to make ends meet. They aren’t minimum wage kids, but the market commands no more.

I wrote an article last night on a trend I think is building. As we descend further and further into Depression and what I call the Anti-Industrial Revolution we’re going to get back to practices common before the rise of the middle class. I don’t say we’ll get to the point where a house maid or footman will work for ten pounds a year, two work uniforms, one “Sunday best” uniform, alternate Sunday afternoons off, and room and board, but I WILL prognosticate that there will be a great deal of labor available for anyone who provides room and board. It will definitely be a buyers’ market.

During the coming Greater Depression, with probable food shortages and interruptions to the delivery system, the most safety to be had will be on an outfit that can raise meat, dairy products, eggs, and vegetables. No one with sense will want a minimum wage of even $15 in fiat money of declining value because there will be less and less to buy with it.

In the last week I have had FOUR unsolicited applicants for work on our small ranch. People are hurting, even here in Texas where we’re running fifteen per cent. below the national unemployment average. Reduced hours, no benefits, and far more applicants than there are spaces at convenience stores and for “Welcome to WalMart,” and those with a sense of self-preservation conclude quickly that agreeable work in the country that includes room and board is the greatest degree of safety available.

Signature chuckle. If Gary finds room for “Ding, Dong, the Bear is Dead,” Shooters will learn which of the four I hired. Hint: in classic economical times, my new foreman would be considered unemployable and few would consider what I offered him–that has him jumping up and down shouting “Whoopee!”

Isn’t life funny? I’m thrilled to have picked up a young, strong SEAL stigmatized as a “felon” for not being able to pay child support (there being little market for SEALs), and he’s exuberant about getting back to ranching, having his own private quarters, and having full run of the kitchen complete with the joy of cooking for the Boss Lady. He comes with three glowing recommendations, one from the minister he has been living with. What a bizarre world we live in, eh, compadre?

LBT