Dang!
I was hoping to vote against Jermaine Reed for KC City Council, but as he is an in-district candidate in the 3rd District, I won’t get the chance. Maybe I’ll just show up over there and vote anyhow.
I’ll call “racism” if anyone asks for my ID.
I should add that I have never met Reed, and I have no reason to suspect impropriety other than that he is a KC City Councilman, a job that for many of his predecessors was as tempting as Eve’s apple.
Yes, “Ye shall be as gods.”
What bugs me about Reed is that he is championing a “living wage” for all workers in Kansas City. The wage would start at $10 an hour and escalate to $15 in five years.
The problems with Reed’s proposal are many, and they start with the generally fascist overreach of the city government into private business.
The second is that the KC Chamber is credibly trying to position the city as the nation’s entrepreneurial capital, a position that is routinely undermined by a City Council all 13 of whose members are Democrats or fellow travelers. This measure makes the entrepreneurial case seem like a punch line to a bad joke.
The third is that, wherever applied, hikes in the minimum wage cost jobs, even in good deed-doing enclaves like Seattle and San Francisco.
The fourth is that no city in America is more vulnerable to job loss than Kansas City.
“Hmmm,” says the wily entrepreneur, “on what side of State Line Road should I open my new business?” Seattle businesses have no place to run. KC businesses do.
Otherwise, a great idea, but why stop at $15 an hour. City Councilmen make about $60 an hour. That job can’t be much harder than flipping burgers.
Rich Steele is a citizen journalist and head of the NSAAS (Non-Smokers Against Anti-Smoking).
“Fascist overreach of government into private business”
Sigh,
Great to have you back here Rich. Always love to read that foundational idea of you and your buds, ” minimum wage costs jobs”. Chambers of Commerce said the same thing about paid sick leave, family leave laws, restrictions to create safer workplaces, limiting toxins in communities/landfills, greenhouse gases limitations, etc. etc. etc. Easy to say that everything you don’t like will cost jobs when it doesn’t pan out when looking back.
If you tied the minimum wage over the years to any sort of standard over that same time frame ( productivity, cost of living, wages of other workers, etc.), $7.25 would be a joke. Can Armageddon be far behind when workers make a wage that puts them above the poverty line. One would think that business might actually profit if these workers had money to spend on products and services but, oh yeah, that additional minimum wage will just go directly into their retirement accounts and they won’t spend it. I’m sure that keeping the minimum wage at $7.25 is the lynchpin of the Chamber’s strategy of positioning Kansas City as the entrepreneurial capital of the country.
Oops, forgot about Poe’s law here. This was just another example of sarcasm on your part. Nevermind.
Rich,
I generally like reading your posts. But COME ON MAN! On the day we should be celebrating the Rand Paul announcement, I am instead scratching my head at your article. “the generally fascist overreach of the city government into private business”
1. I was unaware there was a “fascist” economic policy. At the very least there is no consensus.
2. Assuming there is a “fascist” economic policy, fascism adheres to a Social Darwinism, where the strongest survive. “In terms of economic practice, this meant promoting the interests of successful businessmen while destroying trade unions and other organizations of the working class.[7] Fascist governments encouraged the pursuit of private profit ”
[CITE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism%5D
3. Fascism promoted an inequality between classes. SEE :“[Fascism] affirms the irremediable, fruitful and beneficent inequality of men”
[CITE “The Doctrine of Fascism”. Enciclopedia Italiana. Rome: Istituto Giovanni Treccani. 1932.]
All of that aside, who do you propose should set regulation, if not cities? The Federal Government, the State, the County?
You may be right on target. After all KC is run by developers and whether they are in JOCO, they are primarily not voters.
As a radical, Lefty McPerson, I find all the herfing and derfing on the minimum wage counter productive. It has never been, nor should it be, a wage for people cradle-to-grave.
Rather why the minimum wage is rapidly becoming the prevailing wage across the country should be what drives the discussion.
We have become a nation of selfish pricks. (This comment awaiting moderation).
Where are the Henry Fords who will offer jobs at good wages?
Where are the Milton Hersheys who will forgo technological advances to keep human beings on the lines?
Where are the Conservative journalists like Ambrose Bierce and HL Mencken who attacked the Trusts and exposed how the railroads suckled the teats of government.
If only Gen Smedley Butler had not died before Congress could have had full committee hearings on the Business Coup of 1933 and Liberals not lined up at the government hog trough during WWII, perhaps we wouldn’t be where we are today.
Sadly most of all that my generation was going to save the world but we are still looking for our car keys.
+100
As a nation, it is difficult for us to think objectively about labor issues. Many of us believe that you can flood the labor market with millions and millions of low-skill workers (supply) and that wages for low-skill jobs will (or should) increase (demand.)
Lydia,
Your comment is woefully uninformed.
Labor Force Participation has been declining since 2000, so the market is not flooded with some wave of workers.
http://philadelphiafed.org/research-and-data/publications/research-rap/2013/on-the-causes-of-declines-in-the-labor-force-participation-rate.pdf
During this same period productivity has increased, but wages have remained stagnant. So more work for the same amount of money.
http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2013/productivity/
What is being missed in all of this is that a “rising tide, lifts all ships.” Its not just minimum wage workers and business owners who will see the effects of a raise in the minimum wage. If they lift the minimum wage to $10 do you think someone who is making $9 now will be paid the same as someone who is currently paid $8? No they are going to be paid more than $10 to compensate for this. Across the board wages have been stagnant but productivity has increased. ALL Americans should be making more money. For all of you capitalists out here, study the charts. Follow the Market and you will see that stagnant wage growth is one of the key factors in keeping the economy from breaking out. Today the Fed will release its minutes from its meeting. In their discussions on whether to raise rates or not you will see a significant emphasis on wage growth indicators.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-03-26/concern-over-stagnant-wage-growth-in-the-u-s-
“Wage growth has significantly underperformed productivity.” Talking about the last decade.
http://www.epi.org/publication/a-decade-of-flat-wages-the-key-barrier-to-shared-prosperity-and-a-rising-middle-class/