Randi Rhodes Forums

Minimum Wage: Catching up with 1968
By Ralph Nader http://www.nader.org/[url][/url]

How inert can the Democratic Party be? Do they really want to defeat the Congressional Republicans in the fall by doing the right thing?

A winning issue is to raise the federal minimum wage, stuck at $7.25 since 2007. If it was adjusted for inflation since 1968, not to mention other erosions of wage levels, the federal minimum would be around $10.

Here are some arguments for raising the minimum wage this year to catch up with 1968 when worker productivity was half of what it is today.

How inert can the Democratic Party be? Do they really want to defeat the Congressional Republicans in the fall by doing the right thing?

A winning issue is to raise the federal minimum wage, stuck at $7.25 since 2007. If it was adjusted for inflation since 1968, not to mention other erosions of wage levels, the federal minimum would be around $10.

Here are some arguments for raising the minimum wage this year to catch up with 1968 when worker productivity was half of what it is today.

1. Pure fairness for millions of hard-pressed American workers and their families. Over 70 percent of Americans in national polls support a minimum wage that keeps up with inflation.

2. Already eighteen states have enacted higher minimum wages led by Washington state to $9.04 an hour. With the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the New York State legislature is considering a bill to raise the state's minimum wage. The legislature should pass the long-blocked farm workers wage bill at the same time.

3. Since at least 1968, businesses and their executives have been raising prices and their salaries (note: Walmart's CEO making over $11,000 an hour!) while they have been getting a profitable windfall from their struggling workers, whose federal minimum is $2.75 lower in purchasing power than it was 44 years ago.

4. The tens of billions of dollars that a $10 minimum will provide to consumers' buying power will create more sales and more jobs. Aren't economists all saying the most important way out of the recession and the investment stall is to increase consumer spending? http://www.nader.org[url][/url]

Why in hell would anyone in the Democratic Party, or even regular ordinary democrats setting at home, give a damn what Ralph Nader may think, or suggest, after what that bastard did?

And there is the main culprit in the whole mess, inflation caused by debt and borrowing. Inflation affects everyone but it has it's greatest effect on those who have the least, and think that the big borrowers in government are actually acting in their best interests.

Because their borrowing and spending caused the problem to begin with?

Actually, Mr. Nader, what I'd like to see the U.S. do instead of continuing to raise an arbitrary "floor" minimum wage for the entire country, is simply set rules that every employee in the U.S. have a living wage, and allow states and municipalities to implement the terms of that. A living wage in Florida could be very different from a living wage in Nebraska.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage#United_States

I think my idea is more progressive than yours. And the Repubs might even like it because it's more flexible.

I sense a fallacy of single cause.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation#Causes

I tend to subscribe to the Keynesian view, which is that government borrowing and spending is one possible cause of inflation, but probably not the largest and most important.

Fallacy of the single cause comes up when there are several valid causes for something and, one is held above all the others as being the only cause. This one liner doesn't get far enough to reach being even one of several valid causes, to have it held above the the others as the primary cause.

The problem in this argument begins with the word "their," where it was stated, "Because 'their' borrowing and spending,..." I assumed "their" meant Democrats because I was talking about Democrats:

Democrats do not spend money alone, both houses act and then the president signs. There is no well defined accounting for what Democrats have added, or what Republicans have added, to the total.

And then the problem in this argument is compounded by the assertion that "borrowing and spending" caused the problem of the minimum wage having not been raised for five years, as Ralph said, "being stuck at $7.25 since 2007."

Remember that the OP defines the problem to be, failing to raising the minimum wage for five years. Inflation was mentioned in the OP, but failure to raise the minimum wage is the problem the OP brought to this discussion.

There is no reason which I can see for me to assume for DaDoktuh that inflation was the cause for a failure of Congress and the President to act on this given issue. If DaDoktuh want's to change the subject under discussion to address inflation it needs to say inflation is the new topic.



So Seeker this is an occasion where a statement was so ill-defined that it can be seen as udder nonsense. If one can somehow see past the nonsense by filling in the weaknesses of that statement, and apply inflation as the cause of what may have been meant.

Then as a fallacy a proposition which requires proof, is assumed without proof. It's begging the question.

But I'm not going to fix DaDoktuh's nonsensical verbiage babble to get it to the point where it can run aground on a fallacy. I'll allow it to sink on it's own to the bottom of the deep blue sea.

When are we going to unlock ourselves from the two party system? Lets get over blaming a man for running on a third party platform, when the two party's are basically the same?

It isn't a matter of simply parties, though I'll grant that some do argue it that way. But more true is that it is a matter of interests and Nader is personally guilty of sacrificing the interests of any who would have held his arguments as valuable by putting his ego ahead of the bigger picture and doing it mulitple times. He doesn't care about you, he cares about being seen to appear to care about you but in truth he has never been there to make his ideals work as a viable political option. Where was he stumping for McKinney if he is so dedicated to manifesting his ideals? Where is the follow-through in the party built largely on his shoulders?

I'm blaming him for taking money from the GOP backers to finance his third party run.

You said "we" and "ourselves," and said, "the two party's are basically the same."

I'll tell you this right up front, I'm not a part of that "we" and "ourselves," when that sententia about, "the two parties are basically the same" came out.

Some people drop the modifier, basically; basically, I can't see any difference.




To adopt a view that the two parties are the same, one would need I'd think view a rationalization made, as being most important, that would be needed to form an association between the two parties.

And do all that over viewing the two parties from the original source material, news, bills, statements, and records.

I think it would start with looking a the ways in which the two parties are most alike. Then a rationalization would be made about those qualities. To adopt a view that the similarities are most important, and the differences between the parties through the power of that rationalization, pale.




Do feel free to say so, if you adopted the view that "the two parties are basically the same," and got there by a different path than the one I lined out and was speculating about.

I'd be willing to view that failure to stump over McKinney as a blessing.

If he didn't do it, it didn't happen, and that was all for the greater good, and digestion.

People say that, but it's not true. Are you seriously gonna tell me that Dennis Kucinich and James Inhofe are exactly alike ideologically?

What they really mean is they are not different from each other enough to satisfy them; that's a different problem.

I actually would agree with you that the U.S. has a moderate-center-right party (Democrats) and a center-far-right party (Republicans esp. Tea Party). They're still different from each other. Maybe not as left enough as some progressives would like - but still different from each other.

It doesn't have a center-left party like European Labor parties or Social Democrats. Let alone Socialist parties. That's true. There are historical and institutional reasons.

Here's the problem: Ralph's several runs for president have made it no easier to run third parties in this country, nor done anything to promote third parties institutionally (such as the Greens). So he's been both futile and changing nothing.

In the existing winner-take-all, plurality-vote system of the U.S., Ralph has mostly helped the Republicans win. FACT. Gore lost Florida by 500 votes. Nader got 90,000 votes in Florida. I realize many Nader voters would not have voted for Gore if Nader was not on the ballot. However, let's say 10% would have .... that's 9000 votes. Nader helped ensure Gore lost. He should be changing that system, rather than running within it, if he wants there to be viable third parties in this country.

Why should I applaud that?

Agree, Seeker. Plus the American political party system just doesn't seem to have an analogue in other places. The two parties are not specific ideological institutions; more, they're like "tendencies." When choosing a party to register with, I pick the one that TENDS to be more like my own beliefs and opinions. After that, we can view the parties themselves as simply money caches to support those who run under their banners.

Admittedly, the Republican party seems to be more ideological now than during the 50s or even the 60s, but I'm hoping that's just a cycle it's going through. Remember, prior to the "Southern Strategy," the Democratic party was half moderate-progressive and half bigot. So, now, I have even more reason to support the Democrats than back then, since it's now only partly corrupted by "blue dogs."

And yeah, sure, it could be a lot better, but let's work with what we have.