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09/17/2004: "Semi-Big-Assed Weekend Edition (Viva Las Nixon)"
Congratulations to Paul Kircher whose show has just been syndicated to the
spiritual and intellectual capitol of America - Las Vegas. And let's here
it for me, because Paul recently promoted me to the position of Head
Writer, or, as I prefer to be called, Rob Goddamn Petrie!* You folks in
the Las Vegas area (AKA, the endless, soulless desert) will be able to
listen to Paul every Friday. Hmmm, maybe I should stop working on this and
round up some guests for next Friday's show.
Speaking of Paul, he and I were sitting outside Stellar coffee the other
day, shooting the bull, when we got around to the subject of the minimum
wage.
Did you know that the last significant increase in the minimum wage took
place under the Nixon administration? In fact, if you take the minimum wage
under Nixon and adjust it for inflation, it comes out to $10.40 - 40 cents
an hour more than the proposed minimum wage that many people, myself
included, are pushing for today. The current minimum wage is a whopping
$5.15 an hour. Republicans don't want to increase that amount at all.
Democrats would like to boost that princely sum by - get this - $1 or $2 an
hour, thus proving my theory that both parties are inhabited, pretty much
entirely, by dickweeds.
Anonymous wins.
I really miss Richard Nixon - and not just because I look like him. Nixon
ended the draft, implemented a broad environmental program, and hated
Hippies. All things that I applaud. Hell, Nixon even brokered a treaty to
limit strategic nuclear weapons. How fucked up have things gotten when we
can refer to the Nixon era as "progressive"? Dick, maybe we've all been a
little too tough on you. I'm sure that my sister feels bad about writing
"Shitty Nixon" on her bedroom wall in 1968.
Shit, Luther, things have gotten so bad that this November's Presidential
Election will be monitored by international observers. You know, like in
the gawddamn Third World.
Getting back to the minimum wage, opponents of increasing the minimum wage
argue that forcing small businesses to pay higher wages will result in
layoffs and that every ten percent increase in the minimum wage results in
a loss of 100,000 jobs. Which would be great points - if they were correct.
A study of minimum wage employees in New Jersey by Princeton economists
David Card and Alan Krueger found little or no impact on employment.
Or, as Nobel Laureate and MIT Economist Robert Solow wrote the "main thing
about the research is that the evidence of the job loss is weak.... And the
fact that the evidence is weak suggests the impact on jobs is small."
At this point in the argument, the anti-increase crowd counters with "Well,
what about teenagers? Many minimum wage workers are not the primary bread
winners in their households. They're teenagers or entry level workers with
few skills who need these jobs to break into the labor force.
Very interesting - but retarded. Do you know who the people are who are
most affected by an increase in the minimum wage? They're adults aged 20
and over. And as for those minimum wage earning teenagers, well more than
half of them belong to households with below-average incomes.
On the subject of below-average incomes, the average full time worker who's
receiving the minimum wage makes a measly $10,712 a year. That, my fellow
class warriors, is way the Hell below the poverty line for a family of three.
Anonymous wins FATALY!
* When I was in High School, I dated a girl who was not only obsessed with
the old Dick Van Dyke Show, but also convinced that Rob and Laura Petrie
were swingers. She came to this interesting conclusion after viewing
several episodes in which Rob and Laura host cocktail parties. It was at
these parties where Laura would don a leotard and entertain the crowd with
a "modern dance" routine. Add to this the fact that almost all of the
Petrie's male friends look exactly like Lenny Bruce and you begin to see
things my ex-girlfriend's way.
