Save Social Security by Rasing the Minimum Wage

[insein]

Dear Gotzoom,
I don't know. I would guess they are unskilled; however, they should still make enough to survive. Would you prefer they collect welfare? I really don't know.
Sincerely,
G Edward Cook

People on welfare dont want to get a job. It pays more to be on welfare. Thats the problem with welfare in the first place. Raising the minimum wage isnt going to make those people want to work.

 

[GotZoom]

Dear Gotzoom,
I don't know. I would guess they are unskilled; however, they should still make enough to survive. Would you prefer they collect welfare? I really don't know.
Sincerely,
G Edward Cook

And why are they unskilled?

Did they not pay attention in school? Did their parents not even make them go to school?

As dmp said, there are hundreds of stories of immigrants, who didn't even know the single word of English when they arrived, making it in America.

How did they do this? Work ethic? Self-Pride? Things instilled into them when they were young by their parents?

 

[Mr. P]

Me P, I see what you are talking about, This is in part because because Union wages always go up. There are less Jobs than there were in 1996. If there were more lower paying jobs lost, the average wage would go up. I know the in NEPA the non union pay has gone down. The minimum wage also hasn't gone up in years.

I must go, I am in NH and I must get some sleep. I'm leaving at midnight/. Nice talking to you. Are you ready to join my base, you must move to PA!!!

Sincerely,
G Edward Cook

:rotflmao: Then unemployment should be up, its going down as I recall.

No, you couldn’t pay me enough to move to Pa. much less join your base.
I’m anti union and pro business, so I could never be part of a group that strong arms employers for pay and benefits.

 

[MtnBiker]

This guy is a riot. I am begining to think Mr Cook is a socialist.

 

[Mr. P]

This guy is a riot. I am begining to think Mr Cook is a socialist.

Beginning to? :rotflmao: First post was enough for me. :rotflmao:
Maybe he'll tell us what party he will run with.

 

[MtnBiker]

Beginning to? :rotflmao: First post was enough for me. :rotflmao:
Maybe he'll tell us what party he will run with.

Yeah I believe you are right.

He thinks he is running in the Democratic primary against Bob Casey in PA.

 

[MtnBiker]

There are less Jobs than there were in 1996.

What the hell are you talking about?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistic there are about 18,355,000 more employeed in Janurary 2006 than in Janurary of 1996.

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet

You better have you facts in order if you are going to run for political office.

 

[Mr. P]

What the hell are you talking about?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistic there are about 18,355,000 more employeed in Janurary 2006 than in Janurary of 1996.

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet

You better have you facts in order if you are going to run for political office.

Link no work,MB. I tried it on mine too, had to copy and paste the info.

 

[MtnBiker]

Thanks for the heads up Mr. P

Link to chart generator, http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab1.htm

 

[Hobbit]

Most people who make less than $8/hour are high school students or illegal immigrants. High school students can suck it up. Their room and board is paid for. Illegal immigrants need to go back to their own damn countries and leave mine the hell alone, so no higher wages for them.

Then there's this definition of a living wage. People all over the world live off of less than $8 a week. They just do so without cable tv or internet access.

Then there's how much damage a higher minimum wage can do to the economy, as I have already explained.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

The crash was caused by corporations spending much more money than they had. The only thing like this today it the way Bush is spending like a drunken sailer. this time it may be the US Government that crashes!

Why should French, German, Japan and Chinese Corporations be allowed to come to America and not have to pay AMERICANS a living wage. As a Senator from Pennsylvania, I would see to it that Americans come First, Rick Santorum doesn't!
Sincerely,
G Edward Cook

Only one percent of American Workers kept up with inflation last ear. What's that about?

Ahh yes! What's that about, indeed. You're definitely headed in the right direction (somewhat), but you haven't quite put your finger on the culprit.

The common answer to all the issues I quoted above is: the federal reserve system.

Why was there so much malinvestment during the 1920's? The newly-created (in 1913) federal reserve created a "credit bubble" (read: inflated the money supply). By creating a credit bubble, a central bank fuels an artificial boom, so there are good economic times...for a while. But eventually, the malinvestments must be liquidated in a recession. Either that, or you can inflate even further...which only prolongs the inevitable, and can lead to hyperinflation.

Then of course you've got the Smoot-Hawley tarriffs and the banking laws which forbid US banks from diversifying (see: FDR's Folly) Canada had nowhere near the percentage of bank failures.

Wages that can't keep up with inflation, persistent trade deficits, record low savings rates, asset bubbles (housing bubble)--these are all symptoms of inflation by the central bank. Not to mention wealth transfer. Inflation is essentially a stealth flat tax--whoever creates the money benefits most, whoever gets the money second benefits a little less, and finally it's ordinary workers who get shafted by a continually depreciated dollar. I assume you'd be against a flat tax? What if it were a flat tax with no exemptions for low-income workers, would you support that? What if the funds raised by this flat tax were partially given to the federal government, but mostly given to corporate banks?

In the last century, Labor was very concerned about the inequity of fiat money and Legal Tender Laws. When the U.S. Labor Movement began circa 1830, three issues motivated workers to form unions:

1. The ten-hour workday;
2. Education for workers; and,
3. Hard money (as opposed to paper money, which was issued by banks and was not legal tender).
[Source: Schlesinger Jr., Arthur M. - The Age of Jackson, Little Brown & Company, New York 1945.]

In 1832 Andrew Jackson ran for President as a Populist Democrat. He made hard money and the discontinuation of the Bank of the United States his principal campaign issues. His rallying cry was "Gold is the friend of the farmer" (and the worker). Then, the perils of paper money were well understood.

"... Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money." [Source: Daniel Webster as quoted in Fiat Money Inflation in France by Andrew Dickson White.]

A small group of private corporations, both at home and abroad, has acquired the power to create legal tender money out of nothing.

These corporations are called banks.

Suppose the banking system were to propose legislation to allow itself:

· a monopoly on the creation of money out of nothing;

· an exclusion from Securities and Exchange Commission rules to allow banks—and only banks—the privilege of carrying a substantial portion of their assets at historic cost rather than marking-to-market;

· a public subsidy whereby ordinary taxpayers would guarantee bank balance sheets and replenish them if they become impaired; and,

· the privilege of having some of their very top executives to meet regularly and in secret with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, their putative regulators.

http://fame.org/labor.asp

Mr. Cook, if you are serious about helping ordinary americans, please refer to the articles at fame.org . Or, if you're in Washington sometime, see if you can talk with Congressman Ron Paul, the most persistent (only?) critic of the federal reserve in washington today. Don't worry, he's technically a republican but he's nothing like other Texas politicians.

I am a Teamster, I support all unions. A worker without a union is a slave to the corporation. You must not know much about unions.

I do have to point out of course, that minimum wage legislation:

A) Creates a price floor, which will always create a surplus. In the labor market, a surplus of workers is simply known as "unemployment". Especially among the lowest-skilled workers; note that in western europe their employment is well into the double-digits;

B) Not everyone learns well in school; some learn best on-the-job or in apprenticeships, but you have to get your foot in the door first;

C) Most minimum wage earners are 16~23 or so, and live with their parents (or roommates). Considering that, it's not particularly cruel.

D) It's very telling that, historically speaking, the biggest advocates of the minimum wage have been unions. This is because they (correctly) see unskilled labor as a threat. So, they seek to use the coercive power of The State to make their competition's wage rates unattractive relative to union labor. You may personally care a great deal about unskilled labor and have the best intentions; but I'm afraid that can't be said of much of labor's leadership.

E) Once you stop transferring wealth away from workers via inflation, there will be no outcry for a higher minimum wage.

 

[insein]

do have to point out of course, that minimum wage legislation:

A) Creates a price floor, which will always create a surplus. In the labor market, a surplus of workers is simply known as "unemployment". Especially among the lowest-skilled workers; note that in western europe their employment is well into the double-digits;

B) Not everyone learns well in school; some learn best on-the-job or in apprenticeships, but you have to get your foot in the door first;

C) Most minimum wage earners are 16~23 or so, and live with their parents (or roommates). Considering that, it's not particularly cruel.

D) It's very telling that, historically speaking, the biggest advocates of the minimum wage have been unions. This is because they (correctly) see unskilled labor as a threat. So, they seek to use the coercive power of The State to make their competition's wage rates unattractive relative to union labor. You may personally care a great deal about unskilled labor and have the best intentions; but I'm afraid that can't be said of much of labor's leadership.

E) Once you stop transferring wealth away from workers via inflation, there will be no outcry for a higher minimum wage.

Good summary.

 

[USViking]

All this talk of finding a living wage is lost on me. My background and personal experience argues against a lot of what is posted on this thread. I live in a community of Italian immigrants, with limited skills and education, who should have, if some posters on this board are to be believed, wound up on welfare, on public assistance. In fact, nothing close to that has happened. Most, if not all, have attained a standard of living which rivals or exceeds most people's.

My parents both came to this country, legally, in 1955. They both started working at a local shoe factory, my mom was 18 and my dad was 25.
Anyway, the tannery my Dad worked in eventually closed and he started working in construction, then after that, he got a job in the local village as a laborer. He finally retired at the age 65.

My mom, on the other hand, worked at the company until 1997 until it finally closed its doors. Still wanting to work, she found a temp job at IBM as an assembly line worker, when that gig ended, she found another job as a cleaning lady at a senior living center. She's almost 70 and still works to this day.

Neither one of them has more than a 6th grade education. Yet, somehow, they managed to not only work this entire time, but have owned their own home since at least 1957. Their present one is bigger than most people's. To top it off, they put both me and my brother through college. They accomplished what they did through determination, hard work and frugality.

Neither one of them has ever been on government assistance other than occasional unemployment.

I can't say with any certainty whether their accomplishments are common or not. I can say, I am very proud of them. Their compatriots, who live in the area, also have accomplished much of the same thing. Some of the Italian immigrants own their own businesses, in landscaping, construction and so on. I also had a great uncle who immigrated here back in the 1920s, started a bread bakery business, which still is in business and employing his grandchildren, and soon, his great grandchildren.

The fact that two Italian immigrants and their fellow countrymen were able to come to this country and attain a standard of living which rivals and surpasses the natives without government assistance is nothing short of remarkable.

If my parents were asked why some people are poor, their answer would be that people don't have a chance, nor because of the lack of a living wage, but because some people are lazy, they spend their money on booze and cigarettes, and on foolish things. To them, there is no reason that anyone should be poor in this country. I know this to be true, because the subject has come up time and time again at the dinner table.

To me, my parents are proof that the American form of free market enterprise works and that tinkering with it to achieve some perceived social good is folly. I can understand the good intentions of some of posters on this board, motivated by concern for others for a living wage. However, the fact is that it has been shown and is agreed by almost all economists not to work. So to help your fellow man, instead of proposing something that, will eventually hurt them, instead, we should remove unnecessary government meddling in our pocketbooks and our lives thenlet the natural ability of people to better themselves run its natural course.

I was very moved by this.

If everyone had twp parents as good as yours,
then all our problems would be solved.

 

[dmp]

Answer the discussion about immigrants and their ability to pull themselves from Poverty to Riches. Explain what makes Americans so lazy? Here's how to get people off wellfare - reduce it. Make an $10/hr job pay MORE than what they get for doing nothing but having more kids, while on wellfare.

Bump.

 

[Nienna]

camping...must wait until the weather settles...so I must contribute G Cook has some good points...c'mon guys especially you dmp you are a government employee split SSA/Gov ret...and you come across as if you are a entrepeneur...give the guy a break...he made some good points!

Archie, you old poop-stirrer!

 

[deaddude]

Perhaps if you remove the caps from the payroll tax, but then cut back the percentage perportionally so that the government has more money for Social Security but people who make under 90,000 would actually be paying less, so you cut taxes for the majority of people and put more money toward social security.

 

[theHawk]

I get one every year as do all members of the senate that just rejected the minimum wage increase again. Only one percent of American Workers kept up with inflation last ear. What's that about?
Sincerely,
G Edward Cook

It probably has to do with government staying the hell out of our lives.



I'd like to ask, who are all these people working for minimum wage? Whats their age groups? How many of these people graduated high school? Do they have a criminal record?

 

[Mr. P]

Perhaps if you remove the caps from the payroll tax, but then cut back the percentage perportionally so that the government has more money for Social Security but people who make under 90,000 would actually be paying less, so you cut taxes for the majority of people and put more money toward social security.

If the government is going to continue to FORCE us to contribute so that “THEY” can support us in our Golden years, I say at least let us self direct our money in a few different investment programs. If they won’t do that, let us go PRIVATE!

There is no other way to save SSI (IMO). The burden must be removed from the people.

 

[LOki]

<blockquote><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage" target="_blank">The minimum wage is</a> the minimum rate a worker can legally be paid (usually per hour) as set by statute. It is different from the lowest wage determined by the forces of supply and demand in a free market.</blockquote>
<blockquote><a href="http://www.mises.org/econsense/ch36.asp" target="_blank">In truth, there is only one way to regard a minimum wage law:</a> it is compulsory unemployment, period. The law says: it is illegal, and therefore criminal, for anyone to hire anyone else below the level of X dollars an hour. This means, plainly and simply, that a large number of free and voluntary wage contracts are now outlawed and hence that there will be a large amount of unemployment. Remember that the minimum wage law provides no jobs; it only outlaws them; and outlawed jobs are the inevitable result.</blockquote>

In other words: anybody whose work is not worth the minimum wage set by the government, shall not be employed. Nobody would support any minimum wage law if it were written precisely that way.

So, as an example, an industrious coffee shop owner is forced by the government to pay each employee, regardless of competence or worth, no less than $5.15 to pour coffee and wipe down counters. This means that if there are two employees whose job descriptions are objectively worth $1.00/hr (like pouring coffe and wiping counters for instance) the employer is still obligated to pay them each $5.15/hr--unfair to the employer--and, if one of the two employees' work is worth twice what the other's is, the worth-less employee still gets the same minimum wage as the worthy employee--unfair to the worthy.

But that's not the end of the unfairness--let's say this coffee shop owner works it out so that between the good worker <i>and</i> the slacker he can get $10.30 of work out of them, breaking even. What that means is that the good worker is not only being over-worked and under-paid, but until the slacker decides to step up productivity some, there's no chance for a raise since his productivity is being stolen to subsidize the slacker's slacking habits--which, of course, does nothing to motivate this bong-smoke socialist to do anything but slack off some more.

The injustice is not over yet. Let's assume we are just talking about someonewho really wants to work, and not some glue-huffing retard who thinks his dedication to wearing black fingernail polish, rather than work is merit enough for a rock star's paycheck. Lets also say that welfare pays the equvalent of $3.50/hr. What minimum wage says is that even if this guy who wants to work, <i>wanted</i> to work for $5.00/hr, he would be a criminal for doing so, as well as his employer. That despite the agreement between them that the job is worth $5.00/hr, the government rolls in and declares that this workers effort are worth nothing--so much so in fact, that they are willing to pay him $3.50/hr to do nothing! Not only does this guy get less than he could earn, we don't even get the benefit of his services--the job is not being done, or if it is, it's being done by some poor schlep who's desperately trying hard enough to merit his $11k/year job so he doesn't have to be a $7k/year welfare recipient himself--or, this work being done by someone, like you perhaps, who is getting paid well in excess of the minimum wage because your effort merits it, but now your productivity suffers because you are scrubbing the men's room urinals instead of the actual job you were hired for. Then you wonder why you get no raise despite the fact that you're doing both your job and that of the janitor.

So, the result now,is that we have this cup of coffee that costs a quarter in materials, and has to cost the consumer $5.00 to cover the artificially inflated wages of this apathetic, nose-ringed, angst ridden, hemp activist beverage pourer with sanctimonious delusions of socal entitlement.

In order to cover that $5.00 cup of coffee, the guy who actually earns $5.15/hr must be paid $25.00/hr because that's just about where 1 cup of premium coffee, brewed using the best equipment available, served competently and courteuosly should rate against the wages of someone who's work is worth $5.15--that is ~1/5, or ~$1.00. Thanks to minimum wage, your 5-spot is worth only a buck.

You should also be able to predict from this, that the employer of this coffee drinker must inflate the costs of their services to cover the artificially inflated wages of his employees as well, all which continues to erode the value of the 5-spot--not only the 5-spots being spent, but also the 5-spots being use for wages. The real insidious part of minimum wage infaltion is that it works not only to devalue wages, but it also increases prices at the same time. So the government give the minimum wage recipient a raise--they end up giving everyone else a raise too, while making everything more expensive to buy with a minimum wage; provided employers can still sell enough $5.00 lattes to keep paying minimum wage employees--otherwise: crack whore; the unregulated labor force!

That's right, there's an unregulated labor force out there: prostitution, cock fighting, drug dealing, gun running, child pornography, slavery, burgulary--not to mention "undocumented foriegn laborers." Why are there so many Mexicans and Southeast Asians working under the table in the U.S.? Is it because they have a penchant for exploitation? Hell no! They're here because some jobs are really worth less than $5.15/hr, and they're willing to take that wage, and that's more than they'd make in the country where they <i>were</i> being exploited.

Which brings up racism. That's right; the minimum wage is racist. In this country minimum wage means being white is worth no less than $5.15/hr. How does this work? Like this: If 2 prospective employees--one black, one white, but otherwise equal--apply for a minimum wage job, Mr. AryanFront employer can hire white guy with a crew cut and golf shirt at no financial cost--none. He doesn't even have to worry about his competitors picking up the aspiring black worker for less, because they too have to pay him $5.15/hr. If this black worker were allowed to contract his labor for $4.00/hr, or $5.14 even, choosing the white guy would cost RacistJackass $1.15/hr (or $0.01 depending). Moreover, his competitors, if not racist, have the opportunity to hire the black worker at a cost advantage.

If you think this is not the case, you should check out how the white dominated unions in apartheid South Africa complained that the lack of minimum wage regulations led employers to hire cheap black laborers over better trained and better paid white folks. Which, coincidentally was exactly the same argument (check the cogressional record) used by Robert Bacon when he wrote the Davis-Bacon Act (the first minmum wage law) in response to Southern contractors bringing black labor to a federal project in his Long Island district; a labor regulation which forces contractors engaged in government contracts to pay employees union wage scale (unions, which incidently were, at the time, usually exclusively white); effectively barring Southern blacks and immigrants from working on plush, government funded construction projects.

Minimum wage doesn't neccessarily <i>have</i> to be racist; on it's best day, minimum wage is only a state sponsored protection for older, higher paid workers from the competition of anyone who would accept less pay for the same work. The surprise for me was that though I understood that minimum wage and Davis-Bacon were, in observable and measurable effect, racist policies--I just had no idea that they were racist in intent. It's not my intent to describe why I think racism is wrong, so back to this coffee shop owner I've been discussing.

Consider for the moment that a pound of premium coffee only costs the coffee shop owner about the same $5.15 he's paying his internally and eternally disgruntled employee each hour. I say "only" because it most likely comes from a nation without a state inflated minimum wage; if it did, then eveybody from the bean-bag loader on up would have to be subsidized by the coffee drinker, and that half-caf-2%-double vanilla latte with nutmeg and cinnamon would cost $25.00 instead of the extortionate $5.00 already causing wallet anurisms everywhere.

Things could be worse; we could be subject to the ridiculous notions of "Living Wage" proponents. These short sighted assholes believe any job worth doing for 40 hours a week (even if done poorly) is worth a wage one can live on. It's a career. Like pouring fuking coffee for instance. The thrust (in all our asses) is that if someone's intelligence, talent, industriousness, or abition limits their social contribution to pouring coffee, their claim on society for food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, and pension (not to mention esteem, respect, affirmation and validation) should NOT be limited--and that it is morally valid to make that unlimitied claim at (government) gunpoint.

I doubt that anyone could argue that $100k/year is insufficent to cover the substistence of a family of 4, let alone an individual. You don't have to be an economist as savvy as Greenspan to predict that guaranteeing everyone in the country $100k salary would soon lead to rampant inflation and the loss of jobs (like pouring coffee) that no one under any circumstance will pay $100k for--leaving the poor unable to afford a $100.00 box of Rice Krispies, or any thing else for that matter.

Living wage is just the expansion of minimum wage to dumbass proportions. Minimum wage is morally and fiscally bankrupt for the same reasons that Living wage is; and Living wage is morally and fiscally bankrupt as for the exact same reasons that giving everyone in the country $100k salary would be--and ultimately just as impotent.

Artificially devaluing the rewards for productive capacity (by artificially making $1.00/hr worth of work pay any amount more, say $50.00/hr, for instance) requires more money to be printed because buyers and sellers still know what shit is worth regardless of what the government says about the dollars. Printing more money, without also increasing productivity must lead inevitably to inflation. It does so because there is just more money around. Spain discovered this back in the days when gold was the universal meduium of exchange, and they were looting the central and South Americans of all the gold they had. Ripping off the Mayans did not make any Spaniard any more ptoductive--they weren't creating any new wealth. Introducing all that new gold in the Spanish economy did not make every Spanish citizen more wealthy--they just had more gold. Having more gold was of little consolation when it took twice your daily wages in gold to get a day's worth of food.

The real irony is that those who propose these "wage justice" ponzi schemes do so for the alleged benefit of the poor; yet inflation can benefit the rich that these assholes are opposed to on their bullshit principles. Inflation benefits those who can afford to put their excess wealth into real goods like land, durable goods, stocks, and art. So, if these folks have excess stuff to sell, stuff purchased at pre-inflationary prices--stocks perhaps, they not only get to experience capital gains (if the value of the stock grew) but also the profits from the new inflated price structure.

Those who can merely save, get crushed by the fact that the $10.00 they set aside last week is worth only $9.50 this week. In fact, everyone who acts as a lender, wether it's being a savings account holder, health insurance owner, IRA, 401k, homeowner's insurance, bond holding, etc., get shafted because the money you are being payed back with is worth less than the money you contributed, which cuts into, or negates your interest dividend.

So, those who can have a $5.00 cup of coffee (or a $10.00 loaf of bread) and still have money left over are the ones who could invest. They are the ones who can sell their cheaply aquired stock at a profit for no other reason than the government drove the price up. And if they still have that same inflated amount of money when inflation eventually recedes, they realize a government granted windfall that those unable to afford expensive durable goods, stocks, and $17.50 bowls of cornflakes can't. You should now be able to predict what this trickle-up economic policy means for those at the top of the economic food chain--particularly those who are already rich: a big fat unearned raise provided artificially, through the use of force, by the government. Those at the bottom get a wage (if they still have a job) that looks better than the one they had before, but oddly provides so much less. Well done!

Of course, if we <i>were</i> to make the minimum wage $100k/year, in the long run, provided there is no additional government interference, the whole thing would shake out to just about where we are now, except that the same retarded cranks who now gripe that 17k/year is insufficient for the poor, will then claim that 100k/year is insufficient for the poor. So why do we engage in this bullshit? It's because we would like to say, "Human beings, no matter how worthless, are worth <i>something</i>, some minimum." It's a grandiose gesture that a human being's social worth, particiularly to politicians, is equatable to economic worth--despite the fact that determining such worth is so evasive that it has to be established at gunpoint.<blockquote><a href="http://oregonmag.com/Cox404.htm" target="_blank">Too often, we give the benefit of the doubt to folks who support a higher minimum wage.</a> We shouldn't. There are only two reasons someone would support so bad an idea: either they don't realize the economic harm it causes, or they want the harm.</blockquote>After all this, and all this time, I think they want the harm.

 

[KarlMarx]

If you think this is not the case, you should check out how the white dominated unions in apartheid South Africa complained that the lack of minimum wage regulations led employers to hire cheap black laborers over better trained and better paid white folks. Which, coincidentally was exactly the same argument (check the cogressional record) used by Robert Bacon when he wrote the Davis-Bacon Act (the first minmum wage law) in response to Southern contractors bringing black labor to a federal project in his Long Island district; a labor regulation which forces contractors engaged in government contracts to pay employees union wage scale (unions, which incidently were, at the time, usually exclusively white); effectively barring Southern blacks and immigrants from working on plush, government funded construction projects.

Loki.... what an utterly fantastic post.... I'm green with envy!

You mentioned a not too well known fact was that the minimum wage was introduced, not because someone cared about people getting a living wage (whatever that means). I also read that textile mills in the Northeast were also behind getting the minimum wage enacted. The reason, as you already stated, was so that Southern mills would have to pay more for their labor (which was mostly black). The result was that many blacks were forced out of work and replaced with machines.

And since many unions at the time barred blacks from joining, that meant that a lot of black folks were S.O.L.