The Real Reason Behind $15.00 an Hour Minimum Wage

 

There are all the usual reasons behind the proposing of a $15.00 an Hour Minimum Wage and it has little to do with actual minimum wage. One of the standards for an increase in the minimum wage is and has always been the unions. Many unions have salary agreements based on the minimum wage. This means increase the minimum wage, and union salaries automatically get a boost. When union salaries get a boost, then union dues get a boost. If union dues get a boost, the union leaders get more money for their own wages and for political donations. As political donations go higher, then incumbents get support of more PAC monies and this cements their job for life. So, in the end the politicians raise the minimum wages and the donations to the parties and their own campaigns increase thus making it that much more difficult for some upstart young man with the dreams of repairing the system to ever have a chance and the system is comfortably maintained. But even more is at stake this time around.

 

The introduction of ObamaCare forced employers of minimum wage employees to cut their hours to thirty hours so many positions became four six-hour days or three eight-hour days thus producing a twenty-four hour workweek. With these hours it also made it easy to establish seven-day-a-week, twenty-four-hours-a-day coverage by employing four shifts of six-hours/four days a week, and three shifts of eight-hours/three days a week, and presto-chango the twenty-four/seven week scheduling was covered. This actually worked out cleaner and easier to now cover the twenty-four-seven workweek than it had been with the forty hours a week which left weekend scheduling which often had two twelve-hours-a-day weekend staff which led to poor performance as twelve hour shifts have proven to be overly taxing on the individual worker according to many studies. The twenty-four hour workweek solves that problem very tidily. This caused a different problem in that the forty hour a week minimum wage earner now being reduced to twenty-four hours per week part time work placed an undue strain on the finances of anybody attempting to live on a minimum wage salary. The solution, make a twenty-four hour workweek pay close to what the forty hour workweek had paid in salary. The current Federal Minimum Wage of $7.25 per hour making a forty hour work week pay $290.00 and if one were reduced to a twenty-four hour workweek one would need a salary of approximately $12.10 per hour and if working a mere twenty hour workweek would require a salary of $14.50 per hour. This makes a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage a slight increase in pay and would actually cover a minimum wage using the twenty-four hour workweek of $9.00 per hour for a forty hour week. (For a list of minimum wages by state see here.)

 

Where this would be a nice explanation, there is even further reasoning behind this and that is the idea which has begun to be floated of a minimum livable salary for everybody. This idea is a guaranteed minimum annual salary paid by month which would be given every citizen of voting age regardless of their work status. This living wage would be based at, you guessed it, the $15.00 an hour minimum wage and be set just a mere $1200.00 per year less than working the forty hour workweek at $15.00 an hour. The worker at this imaginary line would earn an annual salary of $31,200.00 per year and the guaranteed monthly minimum would be $2.500.00 per month or $30,000.00 per year, a mere $1,200.00 less than the standard forty hour per week at $15.00 an hour minimum wage. Thus if you worked one of the twenty-four hour part time workweek at $15.00 an hour your salary would equal $18,720.00 per year thus you would receive a check each month of $940.00 each month bringing your salary up to the guaranteed yearly rate of $30.000.00 a year. Further, when this guaranteed minimum wage would be enacted ObamaCare would already have been amended into a single payer healthcare system exactly like those failing healthcare systems throughout Europe thus there would no longer be any need for the twenty-four hour workweek and employers could resume having forty hour workweek employers unless they found the part time system to their advantage. With the minimum wage at $15.00 an hour and working a forty hour workweek one would be being paid $31,200 per year, a dizzying $1,200 more than the guaranteed minimum salary. For that minuscule difference to make a difference there would need be a earned income credit for people not collecting anything on the guaranteed minimum salary making employment even at minimum wage for full time forty hour workweek more attractive otherwise there would be even more people forgoing working and just taking the guaranteed salary, something which would likely occur no matter what the incentives.

 

Tech Workers of the World Striking

 

The libertarians and conservatives would likely gasp and potentially come close to having a stroke at this idea and it will be strongly resisted but in time reality would force some system similar in nature to this even if initially at a lesser guaranteed minimum salary. The reason will become evident in the near future as Wendy’s is going to provide stores with an automated cashier and likely when possible automated food delivery as well. We can expect as robotics improve and become less temperamental (known as more dependable in the automation and artificial intelligence community) there will be more and more positions worked by automated employees, otherwise known as robots. In industrial positions, the first to automate, the robotics need not resemble humans in any manner other than wielding tools, even should those tools resemble appendages. In human interaction the initial AI robotic interface with the public or other employees will likely obviously appear robotic even if their actions appear close to natural. Their mode of transportation is more likely to be wheeled for speed and stability but expect bipedal as walking robotics become more stable and safe. Their appearances will also go from R2D2 to C3PO to so human in appearance it may be next to impossible to tell the robotic organisms from the human employees except the robotic employees will not get all of the jokes and will be pranked constantly by those who feel a need to show their greater imaginations. Eventually the robotic organisms will even match or exceed us in these fields as well though they will likely only use such areas of their programs as a defense mechanism and in getting revenge on their human tormentors.

 

The future will present the problem that almost all low skill and even moderate and eventually all but the highest level requiring human traits such as imagination will be filled largely by robotic organisms. Robotic organism lawyers will have sued to have them referred to as organisms even if we lesser humans insist on using the robotic label in order to feed our egos and to make ourselves feel superior in some esoteric manner. There will be no reason why robotic organisms cannot teach school having a human reference person available to assist when a robotic organism has difficulty interacting with biologic lifeform students but such humans will be mostly bored and will probably be able to back-up many scores of robotic organism teachers. Waiters, stockroom workers, sales positions, almost any position will eventually be filled by robotic organisms such that we will eventually reach a point where humans will only need work if they so choose. All of this is dependent on our robotic organisms at the least being amused at our presence or needing us to be consumers for their products. Of course there is always the science horror possibility that they will perceive us as unnecessary and eliminate us. There is one position which will be legally restricted from robotic organisms being employed, politicians. There are already long-haul truck companies starting to look into automated tractor trailers for inter-city long-haul truck routes which is being fought against by the Teamsters Unions. No surprises there. There will be no preventing the use in more and more positions of robotic organisms even if at first it will be a bit of a novelty, it will soon thereafter become a necessity for doing business as the company using robotic organisms will have a large advantage over one using old fashioned human workers. Competition will lead to replacing human organisms with robotic organisms even to the point of their using robotic organisms as the supervisors until they realize that robotic organisms do not require supervisors, just repair technicians which can also be robotic organisms. It’s the future and that is part of the $15.00 an hour minimum wage which will lead to the $2,500.00 a month individual minimum wage. The only thing we would like to request is please do not kill the messengers as was the case in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Nation State or International Integration

 

The election this fall is not about Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Taliban, or other security. It will not be about most of the items the media is talking about. What it is about is the economy, jobs, employment, wages, and everything about the economy but not in the obvious ways being discussed. Where will this next Presidency balance? The main item is which way does it benefit the United States most, continuing internationalism or returning to nationalism.

 

The media and most politicians are pushing this global economy, global integration, global cooperation, global solutions while hiding a dirty little secret, they are selling global as the solution while having the United States and the advanced nations pay for everything while equalizing the global playing field, whatever that means. We had a debate last night and we heard more of the same. Clinton claimed more globalism and taxes on the rich and Trump tried and may have meant to sound like Reagan. What they were not telling the people is that Clinton was using the same internationalism where the world matters more than the United States so in order to equalize the world the United States and the advanced world has to bleed to allow the rest of the world to catch up and then all will be well and how wonderful the world can be. Trump is actually claiming that every nation take their own and put them first and attempt to allow the nations who are leading the world to continue to be the leaders and then assist other nations in making gains and follow and give them access to advances as they are able to implement these advances. So, which way will work best. That depends on which nations one decides should be permitted to advance their own interests than to share with the world.

 

Internationalism is wonderful if your country is on the receiving end and not so wonderful if you are being bled to bring the other nations up to their level. The problem with that are many of these nations that are presumably being given advances in order to raise them to the same level are led by dictators who are enriching themselves and not making their nations any closer to the advanced world as that does not directly benefit them. What these dictators are not being intelligent about is that had they advanced their nation they would have enriched themselves in the process. They are not even thinking nationally rather than internationally. Internationally is a recipe for disaster as it inhibits the leaders from leading and demands that the least efficient be granted the largess while the leaders are placed in financial straight-jackets. Internationalists place a stop sign where all nations must park their own business and park their nation by the side of the highway and wait for the rest of the world to reach an equal position. The problem is that many of these nations, which they are waiting for to reach the same point, are themselves broken and not gaining and will never catch up as they are not even making any effort to reach the next level. Internationalism believes that making all nations equal will solve the world’s problems and inequalities, despite it not ever bringing the rest of the nations to first world status.

 

 

World Map with Borders Deemphasized

 

Nationalism is the opposite view which allows each nation to advance at their own rate and still demands that the first world assist the developing nation but does not demand they try to make equal those nations so dysfunctional that they are the closest thing to an economic black hole as can be found. Nationalism rewards each nation for their efforts and allows each nation to gain at their own speed. Allowing the leaders to lead gives other nations a target and proven path they can emulate but without national gain by the wealthiest nations to blaze the trail for the others to follow. The basis for nationalism is it allows each nation to set their own monetary policies and is against unifying monetary policies as such a system is flawed and destroys the lesser productive nations which has been proven by the European Union Euro which has benefited Germany while leaving Greece behind. Nationalism allows each country to do the best for their own people and society. That does not mean that nations which are developing should not be aided and it is in the interest of the most advanced nations to assist those nations who are developing and making the right choices and allowing them to benefit from the experiences of those nations who have traveled those roads before them. But those nations which are completely dysfunctional cannot be assisted as long as their governance is broken and until the nation decides to change their dysfunctions there is no reason to throw good money after bad.

 

Internationalism is a wonderful, feel-good policy filled of kind words and low on actual results. Internationalism demands that all nations be made to give according to their ability and the funds are granted to countries according to their needs. Internationalism demands open borders allowing free immigration with no limits or criminal and other background checks or other limits or restrictions. The policies sound as if they will allow all nations equal opportunities in word while defining this policy as bringing all nations up to the same level and making things fair for all nations. The truth is that this is accomplished by tearing down the greater nations while benefitting some of the least deserving nations who are corrupt criminal enterprises more than they are actual functional nations. Rewarding the worst while impeding the best prevents progress and will constantly restrict progress and the discoveries of new technologies and new systems which would result in assisting those nations seeking a better future to implement the proven methods. To get an idea on the difficulties caused by internationalism there is a perfect example which we can observe, the European Union. How has that equal currency been working for over half of Europe who are not Germany or Britain but are Greece, Spain, Italy and even France and many of the former Warsaw Nations. The common currency has taken the small differences of economic production where the agrarian economies which work on a different production level having to survive with the same policies of the industrial and other highly developed nations.

 

World Map and Relative Wealth of Nations

 

Permitting each nation to perform at their highest level and to their full potential will set target paths for other nation to follow along the proven road set by the highest performing nations. Progress is the fuel that raises all nations in turn. Progress provides the test paths and allows developing nations to benefit from their more advanced nations but only when they decide to advance. No nation could be forced to grow their economy and advance their national infrastructure and when a nation refuses to advance itself then forcing the rest of the world to wait for such a nation to reach an equative level is ridiculous and counterproductive. Internationalism is wonderful idea if it could function as promised. Nationalism is the dirty sounding word which is accused of being selfish because it benefits the wealthy nations and prevents developing nations from ever reaching the top level. The obvious fault is that accusation is completely false. If nationalism prevented up and coming nations from ever becoming the top nations were true then China would have ruled the world, Spain would be a leading nation, Greece would be the top nation in Europe, Egypt would be the most advanced nation in construction and engineering, Persia would still control East-West trade routes, Portugal would be a great power with colonies throughout the world, and the Hittites would be the great power in the norther worlds of Europe through to Turkey. Top nations change and have changed throughout the history of the world while nationalism was the rule of the world. Internationalism has caused massive stagnation as the world as a whole is not permitted to advance because the leading nations are held back presumably for the benefit of the lesser nations. This will always be a supported philosophy as there will always be more developing and undeveloped nations than leading nations as only a few nations will be in the top ten percent, which is why it is referred to as the top ten percent. Internationalism has been working so well over the past twenty to thirty years since 1979 while the rest of history was pathetic and without economic advancement advances by all nations and we are still using salt as a currency, aren’t we? The progress from salt as money to salt as something on almost every dinner table was a result from nationalism, not internationalism.

 

Compare the two with eyes open and the preferable form, open competition or controlled advancement, the choice could provide opportunity or a slow decadence and eventual decimation. Internationalism is welfare on an international scale much in the form of the Soviet Union and the initial Plymouth Rock Colony which would have starved if not for the Native Americans who grew and hunted for surplus for the winter and had sufficient to teach and feed the Pilgrims. After that experience of all get all they need, while most gave nothing in effort, they introduced a new program where each family kept a percentage of what they grew and the remainder was shared, the amounts of food skyrocketed. That is the balance which nationalism can produce, the most advanced achieve at their highest level and those developing nations learn from those leaders and in time some will replace them as they eventually falter. That is the secret of effort based economies, the people or nations at the top changes with time when another makes decisions which make them even more profitable as the other sinks under likely bureaucratic waste. You decide.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Brexit, Obama, Cameron and the EU Elites

 

What do Brexit’s opposition, President Obama, Prime Minister Cameron and the European Union Elite have in common along with the British Treasury, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development? They all are using hyperbolic, exaggerated paranoid economic forecasts of doom and gloom pitched with great arm waving and volume. Those supporting the British Isles leaving the European Union are equally voluminous and strident. There are entire lists of arguments favoring each side as well as dire predictions of horrific disasters with which to attack each side. So, where is the reality which a sane and measured approach of scientific study would support? The sad truth is that no such rational and unemotional report has actually been released and for good reason, leaving the European Union is a completely unprecedented occurrence. The best thing we can do in approaching Brexit is to simply add another opinion which in reality is not that different from every other opinion out there, the best we can reason out and then we will wait and see what happens should the vote go the way we would advise, but we so not expect to influence too many Brits as the other thing that has been polled is that the populace is divided mostly by age and everybody has chosen and are unlikely to compromise on their assumptions. The older generations, possibly because they remember the pre-European Union Britain, favor Brexit while those who have lived entirely as members of the European Union do not support rocking the boat. Perhaps it does break down to whether you lived in a period when Britain was not just another national entity lost within the folds and bureaucracy known as the European Union.

 

The one thing which the British have done which would facilitate their leaving the European Union much more easily than most other European Union nations is the British kept the Pound Sterling as well as accepted the Euro. This may prove to be one of the smartest decisions the British have ever made as eventually, whether it is next month or not all that far into the future of humankind when the European Union finally tears itself apart as the economic strains of retaining Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Poland and Germany as a single economic union while continuing to allow each of the aforementioned nations to rule themselves and make their own economic decisions within some unenforced presumed limitations which would have made minimal difference anyway. So, there will come a time when Britain will be leaving the European Union or the European Union will be leaving Britain along with every other member nation as it melts down from economic hemorrhage. The one thing which is easy to predict is what will happen if Brexit is voted down next month, nothing, absolutely nothing as the entire world will continue with possibly a slight amount of sighs in Brussels and a few perplexed looks from some of the financial wizards across Europe and in the United States as all their studies and predictions of the perils that Brexit will entail.

 

Pound Sterling

 

The question which needs examination is what will happen should Brexit pass. The only honest answer is that we have no idea, none at all. President Obama has predicted that should Brexit pass that Britain will lose out in every manner especially in trade with other nations. President Obama threatened that Brexit passing will necessarily place the British at the back of the line in trade with the United States. The President did not explain why this condition would come to pass; he just claimed that would be the result. Perhaps somebody should inform President Obama that first he cannot place anybody at the back of a line which does not exist and unless he was going to place trade sanctions on the British, there was nothing preventing their trade continuing with the United States without suffering any change as membership with the European Union has little effect on United States trade with Britain. The trade between the two nations would simply revert to the same manner as before Britain joined the European Union. Sure there would likely be some legislation passing through the Congress and being sent to the President reverting some of the trade regulations clarifying trade relations but even that would likely be more a reassurance than any drastic alteration such as what President Obama threatened. Even should President Obama veto such legislation, it could be readdressed come January 21 immediately after the new President is sworn in and it is doubtful that whomever should be in the White House would make any difference as such legislation is fairly innocuous and there would be little reason outside obstinacy for a veto.

 

That will not prevent us from offering our point of view. The immediate advantage the British would gain is they would no longer be constrained by the monetary policies of the European Union and the Euro. The British have had the advantage in setting some form of monetary policy free of European Union regulations as they did maintain their old currency, the Pound (we love the old term of Pound Sterling as it sounds so provincial and proud). The British also have their natural relations with the Anglosphere nations of New Zealand, Australia, Canada, United States and a few other more minor English speaking nations. Such a natural set of trading partners being made simpler by a common language grants Britain an easier transition should Brexit pass and they be free to trade under their own desires free of European Union constraints. Further, the British economy would no longer be having some of their resources diverted to support those nations which are in financial meltdown which is causing an ever more serious crisis one after another. Despite the economic restructuring and presumed limitations placed on spending pressed upon those nations suffering economic difficulties ranging from slow economic growth after the 2008 worldwide financial meltdown which began with market collapse in real estate and mortgage collapse due to lax lending standards which were dependent upon rising real estate prices to complete financial freefall such as the collapse in Greece, these nations often ignored these limitations regarding them as impinging on their national pride and being so draconian that they prevent their addressing the economic needs to climb out of their difficulties. Whatever the reasoning, the strain these failing economies place on the productive nations is slowly strangling their monetary gains, threatening to drag them down the same drain with the financially crippled nations. This could be the main reason for the appeal to many British and the reason that establishment supporters of the European Union desire to persuade the defeat of Brexit as they fear an even faster decline of the European Union should the British economy be removed from the sum total of the European Union economy.

 

What those who have as their desire the continued existence of the European Union fear most is Brexit passing as they are completely aware that Brexit would be the first and far from the last nation to exit the European Union. The reality is well known, once Britain leaves the European Union the writing is on the walls in Brussels, the end is nigh. How much longer would France or Germany remain should the British economy become positive and surging forward with a bright future becoming apparent? The answer is not long, weeks, months, but definitely not years. As the European Union is seen as the best stalwart against another ruinous European war and the only manner where the continent of Europe can fairly compete with the United States, China, Brazil, India and any other up and coming economic powers; the European Union core believers are of the mind that only as a unit does the European nations have any hope of competing with any form of equality with the far larger economies and simply larger nations which have the advantage that size brings. The European Union members see their union as the enabler of trade advantages and refuse to see that they are simply another layer of regulatory strangulation and further taxation depriving the nations and some companies from greater profits. They claim that without the European Union such companies as Airbus could never have been created and survived as it was the European Union which allowed the separate nations to work as if a single unit. The reality is that the nations would cooperate as doing so increases their financial strength and in this world of information technology the old differences and impediments which often strangled trade with tariffs and protectionism would not return as the new reality so obviously rewards cooperation between nations and so many of the corporations are now international in nature that nations no longer benefit from such measures. That is the reality and the British remember the freedom of pre-European Union Britain and with any luck, they will be able to reason and influence those without such experience and Brexit will pass and strike a mortal blow to the European Union.

 

Counter to what numerous economists claim, and luckily this is not a universal opinion, the European Union is not the answer to the problems faced by the troubled economies such as Greece, Italy and Spain but rather the result of the Economic Union and its common currency, the Euro. Whether Brexit passes inflicting a mortal wound to the European Union or if we need wait for the European Union to reach its inevitable implosion, the individual nations reverting to their natural independent currencies will initially cause some difficulties but will soon be able to alter their currencies in relation to one another and thus permit the struggling nations to have a devalued currency permitting them to have economic advantages of lower manufacturing costs and thus an economic advantage that accompanies such. That will bring a new vitality which is impossible when they must share an equal cost rate against Germany as the two nations are as different as night and day. Greece and the other struggling nations are closer to an agrarian or light industrial base while Germany is a heavily industrialized and entered the information age and has robotic manufacturing in many industries making a similar currency preposterous in the max. Brexit may just be the key to freeing Europe from Brussels and the self-appointed crowned aristocracy which has placed themselves over a continent for far too long and have reached well past the point where they have gone from a unifying and strengthening of the continent to a detractor which now regulates Europe slowly into a stagnation which was unavoidable as the simple fact that the European Union was an unelected oligarchy which thought itself above the people and not for or of the people and saw the people and individual governments and the nations as merely pawns in their social and economic games and misadventures. There may never be a study done which will find exactly when the European Union went from a path for greater economic growth and strength to a drag upon the continent and a guarantee of a slow but inevitable decline as the bureaucracy grew to the point that it became a ponderous beached whale no longer capable of reacting to financial needs and instead squelching any vibrancy making responding to changing economic forecasts next to impossible. The European Union has gone from a force for European economic cooperation to a farce siphoning off an ever increasing price dampening economic activity.

 

Beyond the Cusp