Boss
Take a Memo:
We keep hearing about this "widening gap between rich and poor" which has been the nucleus of an ongoing argument for higher wages, living wages, increasing the minimum wage, more taxation on "the wealthy" or whatever. They come armed with graphs and charts... the statistics to show you the middle class is in decline... the wealthy continue to amass great fortunes while the poor struggle to survive. Our hearts bleed as we're lectured on how we need more government regulations, more agencies and programs, more forced wage hikes and mandates, more restrictions and regulations heaped on big business in order to force them to pay up!
The problem is, we're hearing this from morons who don't understand how free market capitalism works. Oh, not all of them are illiterate morons, some have read books by European socialist propagandists and think they have everything all figured out. They don't seem to understand socialism doesn't work in practice like it works on paper. Every significant sized Socialist nation has failed and most of them have failed hideously. The ideas of people like Marx and Mao are responsible for ten's of millions of deaths. It is clearly a failed ideology by every standard.
Let's first dispatch a few myths and misconceptions. Wealthy people tend to gain wealth faster than poor people because they have a propensity for wealth acquisition... it's how they became wealthy for the most part. So it is perfectly natural in a free market capitalist system for the wealthiest to gain wealth faster than everyone else. It's like having a marathon race where there are runners who are seasoned veteran marathoners, runners who are couch potatoes, and some who run for the fun of it.... Now, in an actual race, who would you expect to lead and eventually win? The couch potato? Of course not... the seasoned vets are constantly going to gain more ground than the couch potatoes... that's perfectly natural and expected. The solution to the problem is not to hobble the veterans so they don't run as fast... the better idea would be to motivate the couch potatoes... train them up... make them better able to compete... turn them into veteran runners.
So this is where the idea of increasing their wages comes... but it's not as simple as merely passing some legislation that corporations MUST pay people $X per hour... that does not work in free market capitalism. What happens is, everything is on a sliding scale, so people make more but things cost more... so very shortly, we are back to square one. So come on Boss... get to the point... how do we increase the rate of pay for the average American in the average job without disrupting free market capitalism or causing inflation?
In order to increase pay you have to increase the demand for labor. In order to do that, you have to create new jobs. Not just new service sector, minimum wage, government or part-time jobs... but real, good paying, legitimate jobs. The way to do that is to encourage expansion of business... this requires taking several steps... lower taxes on corporations... or eliminate corporate tax altogether. Offer tax incentives for repatriated wealth... we have over $20 trillion in US wealth abroad... not doing us a bit of good. Let's bring it home and put it to work creating new business and new jobs. Finally, our trade deals need to account for the disparity in cost of labor. We can't compete with countries who pay their workers $1 a day and a bowl of rice... unless that's the standard we want to live with ourselves. Our trade policies have to take this into consideration and we have to apply tougher tariffs on import goods so our American companies can again compete domestically.
For example, let's use a computer keyboard... If you go to the store today to buy one, you will likely pay around $20 for a standard keyboard which is probably made in Indonesia. Now... An American company, with American workers and paying American taxes, can't buy the materials and assemble said keyboard for $20, much less sell it for that and make a profit. A similar American-made keyboard would be probably $40 or more. So if you have the choice to buy the same keyboard for $20 or $40... which would you likely purchase? Most people aren't going to care about where it's made, money is the deciding factor. However... IF you applied a tariff on Indonesian keyboards of say, $10 each... then the price of the Indonesian keyboard is $30 and the US company has the opportunity to compete... they cut some corners use some competitive ingenuity and manage to whittle their price down to $35... now you have a choice between a cheaply-made Indonesian keyboard for $30 or one that is built to last by Americans for $35. Some will still pick the cheaper keyboard but some will go with the quality.
Now my example is a little exaggerated, we'd never apply a 50% tariff on something... but the point is making imports more expensive so that American companies can compete again. When we change this dynamic, jobs will begin to generate as a result.. more jobs = more demand for labor = higher wages.
The problem is, we're hearing this from morons who don't understand how free market capitalism works. Oh, not all of them are illiterate morons, some have read books by European socialist propagandists and think they have everything all figured out. They don't seem to understand socialism doesn't work in practice like it works on paper. Every significant sized Socialist nation has failed and most of them have failed hideously. The ideas of people like Marx and Mao are responsible for ten's of millions of deaths. It is clearly a failed ideology by every standard.
Let's first dispatch a few myths and misconceptions. Wealthy people tend to gain wealth faster than poor people because they have a propensity for wealth acquisition... it's how they became wealthy for the most part. So it is perfectly natural in a free market capitalist system for the wealthiest to gain wealth faster than everyone else. It's like having a marathon race where there are runners who are seasoned veteran marathoners, runners who are couch potatoes, and some who run for the fun of it.... Now, in an actual race, who would you expect to lead and eventually win? The couch potato? Of course not... the seasoned vets are constantly going to gain more ground than the couch potatoes... that's perfectly natural and expected. The solution to the problem is not to hobble the veterans so they don't run as fast... the better idea would be to motivate the couch potatoes... train them up... make them better able to compete... turn them into veteran runners.
So this is where the idea of increasing their wages comes... but it's not as simple as merely passing some legislation that corporations MUST pay people $X per hour... that does not work in free market capitalism. What happens is, everything is on a sliding scale, so people make more but things cost more... so very shortly, we are back to square one. So come on Boss... get to the point... how do we increase the rate of pay for the average American in the average job without disrupting free market capitalism or causing inflation?
In order to increase pay you have to increase the demand for labor. In order to do that, you have to create new jobs. Not just new service sector, minimum wage, government or part-time jobs... but real, good paying, legitimate jobs. The way to do that is to encourage expansion of business... this requires taking several steps... lower taxes on corporations... or eliminate corporate tax altogether. Offer tax incentives for repatriated wealth... we have over $20 trillion in US wealth abroad... not doing us a bit of good. Let's bring it home and put it to work creating new business and new jobs. Finally, our trade deals need to account for the disparity in cost of labor. We can't compete with countries who pay their workers $1 a day and a bowl of rice... unless that's the standard we want to live with ourselves. Our trade policies have to take this into consideration and we have to apply tougher tariffs on import goods so our American companies can again compete domestically.
For example, let's use a computer keyboard... If you go to the store today to buy one, you will likely pay around $20 for a standard keyboard which is probably made in Indonesia. Now... An American company, with American workers and paying American taxes, can't buy the materials and assemble said keyboard for $20, much less sell it for that and make a profit. A similar American-made keyboard would be probably $40 or more. So if you have the choice to buy the same keyboard for $20 or $40... which would you likely purchase? Most people aren't going to care about where it's made, money is the deciding factor. However... IF you applied a tariff on Indonesian keyboards of say, $10 each... then the price of the Indonesian keyboard is $30 and the US company has the opportunity to compete... they cut some corners use some competitive ingenuity and manage to whittle their price down to $35... now you have a choice between a cheaply-made Indonesian keyboard for $30 or one that is built to last by Americans for $35. Some will still pick the cheaper keyboard but some will go with the quality.
Now my example is a little exaggerated, we'd never apply a 50% tariff on something... but the point is making imports more expensive so that American companies can compete again. When we change this dynamic, jobs will begin to generate as a result.. more jobs = more demand for labor = higher wages.
