Wednesday, May 17, 2006
DAMN GOOD IDEA
VIA Orbusmax, kbcitv.com reports on a change of policy in Idaho:
“Wages must double for employers to receive state funds”
http://www2.kbcitv.com/x51828.xml?URL=http://localhost/APWIREFEED/d8hlki480.xml&NewsSection=StateHeadlines
The Idaho Workforce Development Council, which pays up to $3,000 per worker to businesses which locate or expand in Idaho, formerly offered assistance to any business paying at least $6 an hour. That will now be raised to $12 an hour and / or benefits.
“Officials say that paying six an hour is a hidden tax because those workers are eligible for food stamps, housing assistance and Medicaid.”
Damn good idea - $6 an hour is a sweatshop wage. Or at least it’s a damn good start…
We have a problem in this nation. On one hand, government has “sold” the electorate on policies that amount to a defacto guarantee of a minimum standard – not just a minimum wage employers will pay but a minimum standard of care.
Minimum compensation should meet the minimum expectation…
I know… What I just said is in some senses absurd. Who defines “minimum?” Should a minimum standard of care imply therefore that compensation should be linked to family size?
Now there’s an idea… If you want to promote a baby boom…
But that absurdity is exactly what we have, via that minimum standard. A young single person with no dependents isn’t eligible for anywhere near as much state aid as that same person would be as a single parent of two or a traditional family of five…
Yes, I know we “do it for the kids.” I also know subsidies have often counterintuitive economic effects, one of which is exploitation of the system by capitalist pirates.
You don’t have to pay your people enough to survive if their survival is otherwise assured…
The enemy of capitalism is capitalists… The inspired thinkers who, many years ago, outlined the principles of capitalism wrote at length of the necessity for capitalism to be self-regulated by the ethics of the participants. It’s just plain unethical to offer poverty wages – and it’s doubly unethical take state training money and use it to set up a shop that pays a poverty wage…
And when a state agency allows that to happen it stops being a promoter, becoming instead an enabler… The government shouldn’t enable the unethical.
“Wages must double for employers to receive state funds”
http://www2.kbcitv.com/x51828.xml?URL=http://localhost/APWIREFEED/d8hlki480.xml&NewsSection=StateHeadlines
The Idaho Workforce Development Council, which pays up to $3,000 per worker to businesses which locate or expand in Idaho, formerly offered assistance to any business paying at least $6 an hour. That will now be raised to $12 an hour and / or benefits.
“Officials say that paying six an hour is a hidden tax because those workers are eligible for food stamps, housing assistance and Medicaid.”
Damn good idea - $6 an hour is a sweatshop wage. Or at least it’s a damn good start…
We have a problem in this nation. On one hand, government has “sold” the electorate on policies that amount to a defacto guarantee of a minimum standard – not just a minimum wage employers will pay but a minimum standard of care.
Minimum compensation should meet the minimum expectation…
I know… What I just said is in some senses absurd. Who defines “minimum?” Should a minimum standard of care imply therefore that compensation should be linked to family size?
Now there’s an idea… If you want to promote a baby boom…
But that absurdity is exactly what we have, via that minimum standard. A young single person with no dependents isn’t eligible for anywhere near as much state aid as that same person would be as a single parent of two or a traditional family of five…
Yes, I know we “do it for the kids.” I also know subsidies have often counterintuitive economic effects, one of which is exploitation of the system by capitalist pirates.
You don’t have to pay your people enough to survive if their survival is otherwise assured…
The enemy of capitalism is capitalists… The inspired thinkers who, many years ago, outlined the principles of capitalism wrote at length of the necessity for capitalism to be self-regulated by the ethics of the participants. It’s just plain unethical to offer poverty wages – and it’s doubly unethical take state training money and use it to set up a shop that pays a poverty wage…
And when a state agency allows that to happen it stops being a promoter, becoming instead an enabler… The government shouldn’t enable the unethical.
