A living wage--for all of us
By Roar Bjonnes
Do you know why there's so many arguments about raising the minimum wage? Doyou know why there's so much ink wasted on instituting a living wage? Becausenobody has the guts to call a dollar a dollar and take the time to discuss the realcause of disparity in our land of gluttonous plenty.As you know, all the money for those starving entry level workers just keeps floatingby them. It floats down--no, up--the capitalist river. Actually, the money keepsflooding all the way to the top of the money mountain. Up there in capitalism'scorporate heaven, up there where there's plenty of dough to go around for all of us.Plenty of bucks for everyone to drive a Toyota Camry and live behind a picket fencein a 3 bedroom house. Plenty of dollars for the waitress with 3 kids and a husbandwith 2 jobs to go back to school and get that business degree. Plenty of that crispy,green stuff to clean up the environment, too.So why isn't it happening? Why isn't all that money trickling, or streaming, down tothose of us who desperately need it? Is it because of the low minimum wage. Is itbecause there's no living wage? Nope. It's because there's no maximum wage. That'sright. What we really need is a maximum wage. A nicely designed cap on wealth. Aredistribution of all that gold piled up at the end of the corporate rainbow. Areduction in the wealth disparity from around 2000-1 to, oh, maybe 10-1. You heardit. 10-1 max. The there’ll be a living wage for all of us. Then there’ll be enoughmoney for the small business owners to pay their entry level employees a decentsalary. Simply because the total economic pie--which now is mostly up there in thecapitalist sky--will be more equitably shared. Thereby the purchasing capacity of allwill increase dramatically. That means Bill Gates giving up all his billions to share itwith all the waitresses on the Ashland Plaza (my hometown in Oregon, USA) and allthe salespeople along Main Street and those down in the Railroad District.While we are at it, what about a living rent? A living mortgage? A friend of minerecently overheard two women in the seats in front of him at the movie theatersaying that a friend's rent had recently been increased from $700 to nearly $1200.In Palo Alto, California, where I used to live, I heard of a guy recently whose rentwent up from $1500 to $3000. That's not a living rent for someone who makes45,000 a year? That's a living hell. (Just a subtle hint to all the well-to-do landlordsof Ashland to increase their good karma and improve the overall welfare of our littletown by lessening the economic burdens of the less-well-to-do by keeping the rentsreasonably low!)So, let's have the Bill Gates’ out there do some real charity by giving us hardworkingpeople a decent income. Let's have the Rupert Murdochs’ out there pay our rent andour mortgage. How? By reducing their annual earnings from billions of dollars to,let's say, a million bucks. That means you and I will still make about $100,000--which is enough to even buy a house here in Ashland. Sounds like a better way, tome. Why waste all that energy fighting over a petty few minimum or living wagebucks? Let's go for the big guys with the big bucks instead. Let's persuade them toshare that pie they can only eat a few bites of anyway. Let's just have a drasticreduction in the maximum wage. Then there'll be plenty to go around for all of us.Then the minimum wage will dramatically increase without anyone even lifting afinger. No need to even dream about a living wage--we will all have one! The money
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