EUREKA!
I FINALLY UNDERSTAND IT
(FRAZER
CHRONICLE)
(All
the News That Nobody Else Will Print)
I read an article in the US Today dated 4-1-15 (could this be a
joke) about the Koch brothers, who were being defended by some of their donors. Yeah, I was shocked too,
I understand that people like the Koch brothers didn’t need any help to advance
whatever agendas that they might
have. And anyway, the group being subsidized, Freedom Partners, a
non-profit doesn’t need to disclose its donors.
But a few have, people and businesses like John Saeman, an investment
firm founder, and Chris Ruger, CEO of a California tomato-processing company
says that he donates between $500,000 and $1,000,000 yearly. Stanley Hubbard, a
Minnesota broadcasting magnate said that he “disagrees sharply with Democrats portrayal of the Koch brothers being
power hungry billionaires.”
The “small-government, free-market agenda” isn’t something new, that
thinking as been going on since back in the early 19th century. Look,
economists and big business moguls sing the praises of mass production, of a
free market system and a more mobile work-force. And all of this is true…..and
helps out the business mogul…..only.
Big business talks about how
government gets in the way of progress, and of developing natural resources for
human consumption, and creating new jobs…..and this is all true. But did you
know that the United States industrial revolution (somewhere between 1840 and
1900) gained its impetus from the 1807 Embargo Act and the War of 1812.
The Embargo Act of 1807
forbade all exports from the United States; the act was sponsored by President
Thomas Jefferson and enacted by Congress. The goal was to force Britain and
France to respect American rights during the Napoleonic Wars (you see, even 208 years ago, appearance was
important). Britain, France and others were involved in a series of
military conflicts pitting the French Empire led by Emperor Napoleon I against
an array of European powers. The wars were long, 1803-1815, and bloody and
caused much destruction and death.
The ideas of small government
and free markets is almost a cornerstone of Capitalism, you remember that
concept of living, (Capitalism) don’t you? Capitalism
is an economic system and a mode of production in which trade, industries, and
the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned and operated
for a profit. Characteristics of Capitalism include private property, capital
accumulation, wage, labor and, in many models, competitive markets. In a
Capitalists economy, the parties to a transaction typically determine the
prices at which assets, goods, and services are exchanged.
THAT
WAS IN THE OLD DAYS
Today there aren’t really
any Capitalistic economies to be found…..unless you can tell me where I can
find a gallon of gasoline for less than $2.44.9 a gallon, or where I can find a
tube of tooth-paste for less than $3.00, or buy a pound of hamburg for less
than $4.59 a pound. Producers dictate the prices…..not the consumer as in
decades past.
One thing that does remain
from the old days is the fact that management dictates wages, and by management, I mean the owners or
shareholders. It has very seldom mattered how much work was produced, a good
employee opposed to a bad employee in the long run has made little or no
difference in what an employee was paid, at least in the corporate picture.
I usually tried to give an
honest effort for a day’s pay, I say “usually” because I had bad days the same
as anybody else. I believe that the vast majority of workers, no matter the
color, the education, or the background attempts to give his best effort while
at his job.
However things have changed
over the past thirty to forty years and for the worker, not for the better. Union’s
authority and power in the work-place has been waning over the past several
decades to where it’s now just a shadow of its former prominence. Early in the
union movement in the United States, pay, job security or the length of the
work-week was not the issue, workplace safety was the biggest complaint, and
was a paramount issue for several years after the Wagner-Act which gave
employees the right to collectively bargain.
The act, also known as the
National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was by far the single biggest governmental
intrusion into the private work area in the first half of the 20th
century. It was also fought hammer and tong for close to three years by
corporate America before the act finally became the law of the land.
The effects of that act can
still be felt in today’s workplace, but it’s under attack from almost all
sides. And the worst part of the situation is the fact that organized labor and
their membership have not seen, in time, that bargaining for personal days,
sick days, paid holidays, and astronomical pensions, health insurance, and
other union benefits could only be supported for so long by not only the
private sector, but the public sector as well.
Part of the problem today
can be traced right back to the solution that initially helped labor, and brought
to light how shabbily some industries actually treated their employees…..and
some of those employees were as young as 5 years old, early in the 20th
century.
It has never been the job of
the corporate world to create new jobs for the people that they were making
products for. With little exception, creating jobs was somebody else’s
responsibility and worry. It is a kind of strange and antiquated way to look at
the situation (paying substandard wages
to workers, and then expecting them to purchase what they’ve just produced). But
that is really the way that corporate America looks at the wage issue, today as
they did back then!
SO I
DON’T GET TOO EXCITED
These business leaders, the
Koch brothers, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett have been fooling around with people’s
wages for as long as they’ve been alive. I’m sure some of them played childhood
games with an emphasis on fleecing the working class out of a decent wage for
his job. How could it be any other way, seven
of the top richest people on the face of the planet reside in the United
States.
I suppose you could say that
it’s not their fault, it’s in the water, or that they’ve been practicing
inbreeding for a few generations. Whatever the reason, like one economist put
it…..”we are in a pickle.”
I’m a baseball fan, and I read
the other day the average big league baseball player’s salary had hit
$4,000,000. Wow there’s lots of ball players who are making $10, $12, or
$15,000,000 a year because there’s still some players who are making the
minimum Major League salary of $500,000. Sadly these guys are in the same boat
as the average union worker was years ago, you
ask for the moon, and pretty quick the moon’s too far off to visit.
I have yet to read about a
baseball owner offering a player $30, 40, or $50,000,000 a year, but I also
read about that same owner who capitulates to a players agent who says that his
“agent is worth $4 or $5,000,000 a year,
and the owner pays that kind of money.” Now I ask you, who’s at fault here,
the player and agent for asking, or the owner paying…..in my view their both at
fault.
These people bear watching,
these private and secretive outfits that eventually mold the future in a way
that is financially advantageous to their kid’s kids. It’s how they operate, to
them it’s simply a board game kind of like Monopoly, and everybody knows how
that game came out…..the person with the most money always won.
HAVE
A NICE DAY!
No comments:
Post a Comment