"Corporations are People"

There is a trend on both sides that annoys me - if a candidate on the other side says something that sounds bad out of context, or sounds the least bit stupid, they latch onto it like a hungry snake. One that the left really latched onto is the, "corporations are people, my friend." Out of context, it sounds like a dumb out of touch rich guy (fair description of Romney, perhaps) saying quite literally that corporations as a whole deserve all the same rights as people.

That's not quite what he was saying, though. Let's put in the rest of what he said for context (thanks to Washington Post for the text):

“Of course they are,” Romney said. “Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people. Where do you think it goes?”

That much is true. I won't argue that point. But, contrary to what Romney said, corporations indeed are not people. They are made of people, but in themselves are not people. What the businessmen built were not people, but businesses. Made of people, from the lowly customer service type people who will likely side with the ones who say they're underpaid (liberals) to the execs and business owners who will side with whoever will let them keep the larger portion of their wealth (conservatives) and everyone in-between.

What Romney was saying here was that giving tax cuts to a corporation is the same as giving tax cuts to people as a whole. I'm guessing that he figures it will trickle down. But, remember what I keep saying: the rich really like to just keep their money. Why trickle it down when they could just keep it instead? It's not like there's any limit on how much money they can have.

Yeah, they'll spend some money, and that will help keep other businesses in business... but in general, they will not hire more workers than they really have to, and they will not pay said workers much more than they have to. Raise the legal wages? Fine, they'll raise prices and lay off workers, then keep even more profits to themselves. That's the way it works. Trickle Down is a rotten lie. But, in general, the rich like it. It moves their responsibilities to a "good faith" footing.

Hey, Republicans - don't look at me like that. I said I was putting the quote in context, not that I was defending Romney.

Living Wage

This is something that's been getting increasingly common, and is supported by liberals and hated by conservatives. For my part, I'm generally seen as fairly liberal, but I don't love it or hate it. The idea behind the living wage is pretty simple - some areas are more expensive to live in than others, so the federal minimum wage simply doesn't cut it. Of course, that is likely the case nationwide - that the federal minimum wage doesn't cut it. But, as I've said before, wage increases simply don't work like we'd like them to. Rather than execs or business owners taking a cut in their pay, they lay off workers and raise prices, thus causing more unemployment and higher cost of living across the board, thus being a self-perpetuating problem. It's ugly, but that's the way it works. A city raising its living wage also will encourage businesses to either open up just outside of town or to move just outside of town to avoid having to pay the living wage.

That is not to say however that current, even living wages, are sufficient to get by on, as many Republicans suggest. For my part, I live in the southwest, so that's the area I'm most familiar with. The federal minimum wage is, if memory serves, $7.50/hour. The Santa Fe living wage is $10.29/hour - the highest in the nation, or so I've heard. Now, Santa Fe has always had a high cost of living - that's no secret. A big part of it is that they have ordinances saying that it shall always remain a small city, no buildings over two or three stories without a special permit, that sort of thing. It's for the tourists.

So, let's do the math here:
$10.29/hour ˣ 40 hours per week = $411.60 per week, or if we go by the average 2 week pay period, $823.20 per pay period. Using two pay periods (4 weeks) to represent a month, as most bills are due monthly, that's $1,646.40 per month.

That's before taxes.

For filing single, the federal income tax looks to be about 15% in this bracket. So, $1,646.40 ˣ 0.15 = $246.96. So, we subtract that from our original figure: $1,646.40 - 246.96 = $1,399.44. But, we're not done yet. Let's look at the state income tax. The state income tax for New Mexico is 4.9%, so subtract 4.9% from the original figure: $1,646.40 ˣ 0.049 = $80.67, so let's go ahead and take that out of the $1,399.44 figure = $1,318.77. Looking around online, it seems that the Social Security withholding is 6.2%, although I think it's probably more. We'll go with the 6.2% though. $1,646.40 ˣ 0.062 = $102.08. So, let's take that out of the 1,318.77 = $1,216.69. There are other deductions, but the big three will work as a jumping-off point. We already know that Santa Fe has a high cost of living, so let's apply there living wage numbers to a nearby larger city with a lower cost of living. Because I have some experience with it, I'll use Albuquerque as an example.

I used to have a low income apartment there, where they got their profits in part from tax credits for providing the low income housing for qualified tenants. I was paying $600/month for a one-bedroom apartment, all utilities included. Not bad... so let's take that out of the $1.216.69 = $616.69. Me, I don't have car payments - my car was bought straight-away from a private individual rather than a dealership, and I get pretty reasonable mileage. But, if you have car payments, that can take anywhere from another $200-$400 out of that $616.69... and someone with this kind of income, well... often, the predatory types are the only ones who will sell a vaguely modern/reliable car to someone with this sort of income. Let's do kind of a conservative estimate and say payments are $250, and take that out of the remaining monthly income = $366.69. Insurance is probably another $70/month, roughly, so that brings us down to $296.69. $200 a month seems about right for groceries, right? Assuming one's not going on an all-Ramen/mac and cheese diet (really unhealthy). How about gas? Right now, it's about $3.70/gallon.

Well, with those figures, you'll be lucky to break even... that's assuming no incidentals, like medical bills, car repairs, etc. With those, hopefully you'll have some savings, but not too likely. Your option then is to get a roommate or to find a cheaper apartment. Like I said, that was already a low income apartment. Maybe find a studio? Maybe a cheaper part of town (like the war zone)? And roommates aren't often all that great, either. I've known best friends to turn into worst enemies for that.

"But minimum wage is just for people flipping burgers!" Not really. People working call centers/customer service make about that Santa Fe living wage. As do many people working in the medical field with "certified" or "assistant" in their titles - medical assistants, certified pharmacy techs, certified nurse's assistants, etc. They often have to take more than one job to make ends meet, and their hours don't always make it easy to plan around to have another job. Also think of your waitresses - they generally make below minimum wage (there are special exceptions for jobs that get tips), and survive off their tips. Bank tellers also make around that Santa Fe living wage.

Yet, with all that financial stress of their own, all these people are nonetheless expected to show up every day dressed nice and with a smile and cheerful attitude to help you out.

While a living wage is not the answer for the reasons I've mentioned in previous posts as well as toward the beginning of this post, I think that we do need to find an answer.

Minimum Wage

I'm not a fan of Mitt Romney, although I'd prefer him over Gingrich. But, I came across this article on CBSnews.com: Club for Growth doesn't like Romney's minimum wage stance. The short of it is that Romney has a fairly progressive attitude toward wages, and does believe in a minimum wage. Although I know it's not anything new, it still does surprise me when I hear Republicans wanting wages to be completely left to the free market.

Why, you ask? Because businesses have proven time and time again that they really can't be trusted any more than anyone else. Sure, we want business to grow. But don't we also want fewer people on welfare? I think that the current wage standards are more than reasonable from a business standpoint, although still pretty impossible to really live on.

We keep seeing such experiments every time Republicans are in power. Remember Bush's "trickle down" philosophies? Remember how the only thing to trickle down was a stream of urine from the rich? I hate to sound like I'm just spouting liberal propaganda here, but this is simple greed. The rich want to get richer, and they don't care whose heads they step on on their way up. And, news flash: the economy really didn't improve under Bush. Instead, we kept seeing a steady stream of jobs leaving the US from greedy companies whose executives only cared about making more money.

The problems that come from a minimum wage (and increases in it) are this: in a perfect world, when the minimum wage is increased, the business owners might slap their foreheads and say, "holy shit, what have we been doing to our workers? I guess I can accept a little less pay this year." That seems to be what people expect when they hear of a minimum wage increase.

But what actually happens is, "shit, I'm not giving up my money. Guess I better make some lay-offs and jack up prices." So, we have increased unemployment and price inflation as a result.

It might seem like the solution would be to set a maximum wage. But no, that would be counterproductive. I don't want to punish people for being rich; I have nothing against the rich. I want to discourage greed. I don't use "greedy" and "rich" interchangeably. Hell, I'd like to be rich... but I don't see myself being greedy. Perhaps then the solution could be setting wages at percentages? To give an extreme example, imagine a CEO deciding him and the board of executives gets 90% of the company's money for wages, leaving the remaining 10% to be split among everyone else - the manufacturers, the customer service, the marketing, the accountants, the engineers, etc. Not very fair, right? Start with adjusting those percentages until they are more fair. I'm willing to still let the owners and execs have the lion's share, but not to the point of starving everyone else. For the companies, it would have the advantage of encouraging better work and loyalty from the employees, as they would see the more direct results of their success or failure. Seems also that it may take some of the point out of being greedy.