Apparently Joe Miller did not take economics 101 at Yale, but must have done well in Creative Constitutional Manipulation 101. The main theme for that course would be just declare everything that keeps corporations and the wealthy from getting their way and protects the average citizen unconstitutional. So much for an Ivy League education.
Decreasing the minimum wage will be inevitable in many states if the federal government does not require it. That would be a devastating blow to the economy and working people. As it is, many working people can’t live on what they are making and wages are dropping in many ways. Decreasing minimum wage would allow corporations to increase their profits by paying people cheap wages. That is after all why so many of them relocated to the third world. I do want to live in third world America.
From Joan McCarter on the Daily Kos:
Add that to Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits as things that are unconstitutional in Miller's world. As Scott McAdams says, in the best political line yet of this election cycle, Miller "wants to repeal the 20th Century."
Yale might be considering taking that law degree back.
One would wonder how the heck he got that law degree and what went on behind the scenes for him to become a magistrate in Alaska. Standards must be pretty low in the Ivy league. I learned in junior high school that a thriving middle class is what makes a capitalist economy strong.
The really sad thing is some of the very people who will be harmed the most will get behind this crazy idea to lower the minimum wage because they don’t do their own research and believe the puppets who speak for and are funded by the wealthy. They’ll be waving a flag, wearing a red, white, and blue tee shirt, while clutching their Bibles in support of policies that if implemented would destroy this country.
Does Joe want to eliminate all the interstate commerce laws as well? Why doesn’t the Tea Party just pool their billions and buy an island somewhere? They could have their own screwed up country and make Sarah Palin and Joe Miller king and queen. They could take turns making crazy pronouncements, “I declare today Joe Miller day, all royal subjects bow before me and listen to my words of wisdom. Our economy here on Tea Party Island is just fine as a result of adjusting your wages downward continually.” Then Sarah Palin says, “Let them eat cake.”
What is behind this kind of thinking? Not just the United States government, but several countries are devaluing their money to create jobs. In the United States this is about the wealthy getting wealthier and taking more control of the country. If the dollar is devalued it decreases the profits of corporations and they can decrease income for workers to make up for it if not required to pay a minimum wage. There will be more jobs with crap wages and crap benefits without a minimum wage, especially with the devaluation of the dollar. Many of the rich have moved into special communities with security. Will they be building castles and digging motes soon to keep the starving hoards out of their castles?
Robert Reich explains why weakening the dollar is a bad idea:
But using a weak dollar to create American jobs is foolish, for two reasons.
First, no other country wants to lose jobs because its currency becomes too high relative to the dollar. So a weak dollar policy invites currency wars. Everyone loses.
At least a half dozen other countries are now actively pushing down the value of their currencies. Japan recently sold some $20 billion of yen in order to keep the yen down, the biggest ever sell-off in single day.
Last week, Brazil's Finance Minister lashed out at the US, Japan and other rich nations for letting their currencies weaken to spur jobs. Brazil's high interest rates are attracting global investors and pushing up the value of Brazil's currency. This is crippling Brazil's exports and fueling unemployment.
Here's the other problem. Even if we succeed, a weak dollar makes us poorer. Imports are around 18 percent of the US economy, so a dropping dollar is exactly like an extra tax on 18 percent of what we buy.
It's no big accomplishment to create jobs by getting poorer. You want to know how to cut unemployment by half tomorrow? Get rid of the minimum wage and unemployment insurance, and make everyone who needs a job work for a dollar a day.
*******
Since the start of the Great Recession, millions of working Americans have had to settle for lower wages in order to keep their jobs. (Here at the University of California, the wage cuts are called "furloughs.")
Or they've lost higher paying jobs and can only find work that pays less.
Or they've lost their benefits. Or their co-pays, deductibles, and premiums have soared. And their employer no longer matches their 401(k) contributions.
Two-tier wage contracts are the newest vogue in labor relations. Older workers stay at their previous wage; new hires get lower wages and smaller benefits.
This is one of the reasons for increased workplace bullying in health care. The older and more experienced nurses make more money so they want to bully them out of the hospitals The older nurses are the guardians of safe health care, the advisors to prevent infections, the watchers of incompetent doctors, and the ones who teach younger less experienced nurses how to deliver excellent care. This is happening in many industries. It is easy to see how quality staff and excellence have been eroded in this country. It is part of the cause of incompetence and unethical behavior, there are less mentors to stand as examples of personal and professional excellence and ethics.
Even a wage freeze becomes a lower wage over time, as inflation eats into it. For three decades America's median wage has barely budged, adjusted for inflation.
Get it? The goal isn't just more jobs. It's more jobs that pay enough to improve our living standards.
Using a weakening dollar to create more jobs doesn't get us where we want to be.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/joe-miller-minimum-wage_n_748937.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/post_988_b_748511.html
malfeasance
Found in notes received from the public defender agency secondary to my FOIA request. DA John Earthman engineered my wrongfull arrest/incarceration 3 days after I filed an appeal.
2 comments:
The same thing is happening here in Ga with the teachers. Many of the older, more experienced teachers' contracts were not renewed because most systems have republican-dominated school boards that felt it was cheaper to hire new, less experienced teachers. After furloughing thousands of teachers, implementing new teaching guidelines which decrease the amount of time teachers have to focus on planning for instruction, and the decision to not contribute to teacher retirement funds, the very people who vote these anti-public education board members and legislators into office are complaining about lower test scores, and about Ga's #49 ranking on SAT test results. I'm glad that I retired at the end of the 2008-09 school year. On a recent visit to my former school, I was appalled at how demoralized many of the teachers have become. The results of this demoralization took its toll on the school. For the first time in 4 years, the school failed to make Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) for the 2009-'10 school year. AYP is a measure of how well the school is doing in educating the students and a requirement of NCLB as measured by standardized test scores.
@majii, it so sad for the younger generations that our school systems have deteriorated. I had a pretty good education in public schools and it made a huge difference in my life. When teachers are demoralized it makes it hard for them to perform at their best. The anti-education thinking is so hard for me to understand. Teachers should be paid well and valued, that is how the excellent ones are retained.
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