MINIMUM WAGE

[Marv Tripp]

FROM MY NOTES:  MARV TRIPP,  May 1, 2014

MINIMUM WAGE: 

Altho polls show that some 75% of Americans support a raise in the minimum wage, the Repblicans used another filibuster to halt the proposed bill in the Senate.  The bill would have raised the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10.

 

The following is from my notes on an article in THE WEEK, March 28, '14 :

Many Repubs believe there is a culture of stupid and lazy folk in our inner cities who are unwilling to work or even think about work.  I suppose there are some such, but it doesn't explain the fact that 41% of the 50 million people living in poverty are white and the highest poverty rates are found in the conservative states in the south.

"It's just dishonest to insist that gov't can pay no useful role in helping the poor to succeed.  They (conservatives) fail to acknowledge that poor people want jobs that will lift them out of poverty, but can't find them .... because they're gone."   What happened to those jobs that lifted folk into the middle class?  To cut costs, manufacturing plants have been relocated to foreign nations with cheap labor.  And company profits do just fine, thank you. ...... And the execs receive big bonuses.

MANAGING THE WORLD:

"Americans have lost faith in the idea that American political and military institutions can do much to shape the world.  There has been surprisingly little outcry against the proposed defense cuts, which would reduce the size of the U.S. Army to its lowest levels since 1940.  That's because people are no longer sure military might gets you very much.  In an age of global markets and global media, the power of the state and the tank it is thought, can pale before the power of swarms of individuals, flowing along the arteries of the internet.  Political leaders are not at the forefront of history; real power is in the swarm."  David Brooks in the New York Times