Forum Post: The "American Way" to increase minimum wage
Posted 11 years ago on Feb. 13, 2013, 5:15 p.m. EST by arturo
(3169)
from Shanghai, Shanghai
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The key is to redevelop industries which produce high wages as a minimum, such as manufacturing. In high-tech manufacturing, workers are highly productive, due to their ability to use, and at higher levels of skill, install and repair advanced equipment.
This could be done through a New Deal style economic development program, which would produce millions of decent paying jobs in its own right, building advanced infrastructure.
This would automatically initiate a high demand for high tech manufactured goods, which would also provide high paying manufacturing jobs.
As workers are attracted to these high paying jobs, low paying employers will find it increasingly difficult to attract workers, unless they raise their wages as well. However, This shouldn't be a problem in an economy with lots of good paying jobs, since business will be good for everybody.
This was how the "American System" of economics was originally set up by people like Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Carey and Abraham Lincoln. It's an economic system which results in a win/win solution for everybody.
It's our own heritage, it's what has always worked for us, and it's what we should dump free trade / globalization to return to.
In fact that did not work. In Franklins time we had no industrial revolution or free labor/wage labor market.
It is absolutely impossible to compare the times. Economies were nothing like each other.
And eventually once you get to current times 9please let's stick with current times) we realized that business will pay too low a wage for people to survive, so the peoples govt must step in to force a minimum wage.
$9 is still not enough, but we'll have to get it and build on that.
In fact, it did indeed work. Roosevelt's build up of US manufacturing capacity is what enabled us to help defeat the Nazis in WW2.
You may wish to "stick with current times" but I would prefer to learn from history. This allows us to avoid repeating what didn't work, and to repeat what was once successful for us.
$9 is not enough, as a result of the New Deal, we had large numbers of factory workers earning the equivalent of about four to five thousand dollars a month. This is the "American Way", its what we should return to.
FDR's time was when unions/labor was at it's strongest. We had a strong advocate for labor as well. And we had high tax rates forthewealthiest.
That I would support. Is that what you are talkin about?
Yes indeed.
Aiight then. Have at it. Whats the plan?
First, pass Glass Steagall exactly the way FDR did it. Next, establish a national bank to provide credit for repairing and building new infrastructure. Then, start a large scale New Deal style public works program with emphasis on high technology, such as a fast electric train network. Finally, provide selective financing to manufacturing firms capable of producing high tech infrastructural goods.
Ok. I'm ok with all that. Seems like I've seen proposals (tech/infras jobs,high tech, volcker rule) like that. Are you familiar with them.?
Yes, somewhat. My understanding of the Volcker rule is that it is inadequate:
Volcker Confesses to $2 Trillion Swindle of the American People
http://www.larouchepub.com/pr_lar/2012/120619_volcker_confesses.html
Volcker's efforts to kill Glass-Steagall, which has been reintroduced into the House of Representatives by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) as H.R. 1489, with 67 co-sponsors, were first made public by Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Tex.), during a recent district town hall meeting, at which he told constituents that he would not support Glass-Steagall and H.R. 1489, because he had spoken with Volcker and had been told that it was unnecessary because the Volcker Rule was sufficient. It has been further confirmed by top Democratic Party sources that the Volcker calls to pro-Glass-Steagall economists and politicians are part of a larger push by the Obama White House to push back against Glass-Steagall.
For months, the Obama White House and Treasury Department have played down the Glass-Steagall issue, due to the broad and growing public support for a return to the FDR-era separation of commercial banks from the speculators. But, following the recent admissions by JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon that the bank had lost billions of dollars on bad speculative bets on the survival of the euro, support among members of Congress, state legislators, and other elected officials for an immediate return to Glass-Steagall has skyrocketed. Now, the Obama White House, along with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is on a desperate, all-out drive to kill the Glass-Steagall initiative. The Volcker Rule, from the outset, LaRouche has warned, has been nothing but an Obama and City of London weapon to blunt support for the only viable option for dealing with the trans-Atlantic bankruptcy: immediate reinstatement of Glass-Steagall in the United States, and full bank separation in Europe.
Yeah a bunch a corrupt politicians.
FDR Glass STeagall is huge.
Yes, but it faces substantial opposition from the financial oligarchy as well. In his time, FDR fought against the financiers, even though he was born into that class. Today, unfortunately, Obama and many senators are fighting for the financiers against Glass Steagall. This is what must be overcome if we are ever to attain a prosperous economy once again.
So you want to "develope industries". What about all those enviornmentalists who don't want polluting factories.
It takes energy to produce plastic, oil, gasoline, steel - how do you think this can be accomplished?
A steel mill requires temps of upwards of 2000 degrees just for mild steel - when you get into other metals the temperature is much higher to melt them - I know of no electrical system that has the capability to do that other then fossile fuel. Ever been to a working steel mill?
It also holds true for oil and gasoline - ever been to a oil refinery?
Or for that matter have anyone of you ever been around a Operating boiler or a operating Nuclear Plant?
Those environmentalists should be convinced that we need to solve the problems of high-density energy sources such as nuclear energy. Bankrupting the financial oligarchy through Glass Steagall should help, since it is in fact the oligarchical financiers who provide the backing to environmentalism.