Stop ALL corporate food, farm, Big Oil, Energy subsidies. Instead subsidize LOW WAGES..

to a $14 an hour LIVING wage standard.

Economic stimilus.

Would you benefit? Rising national wages tend to increase wages for most workers. Even those who earn more than $14 an hour.

cattle ranchers and corporate farmers, but to suggest a guaranteed living wage-which would alleviate reliance on poverty programs and promote spending and increase business-no, that's un-American. Rick Santorum stated that poverty builds character, and thus is good for people (Only for poor people, though...the rich still get tax breaks.)

rec.
mark

You've got my vote.

:fistbump:

to offset inflation that would inevitably eat into the living wage?

Problem is, we don't have healthy competition in American business. The super rich crush small business. Corporations despise competitors.

That needs to change.

Profiteering can also be a big contributor to inflation. Collusion, price fixing can also contribute to rising prices.

Price controls ain't a bad idea and perhaps should be part of strong regulatory oversight. Said regs should also include the use of anti-trust authority to break up any "Too Big" corporation, as well as strong worker protections, safety, wage protections, passage of Employee Free Choice Act etc.

Inflation can be controlled by a government willing to show some guts and do there f'n job. Govern America.

So much needs to change to make any of this happen. But I think the American worker is ready to take off the gloves and start fighting for what is right.

The right to earn a real living for a fair days work.

:fistbump:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704025304575283933964515188.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

(I believe that the current exchange rate is about $1.20 Australian to our dollar.)

Shows how far on the minimum wage we have to go. Your suggestion to stop corporate subsidies is also a great one! :)

I've been following that story since it broke. Thanks for posting the link for others to see.

:fistbump:

We should get rid of the minimum wage and just give everybody a $15,000 tax rebate instead. Reduce the tax rebate by one dollar for every three dollars a person earns.

A one time tax rebate would be a jump start but won't sustain a growing economy like wage gains will.

Edit: I'm not against tax breaks or perhaps a rebate for poor and middle class people. We may very well need another round of said tax cuts/rebates for struggling poor and MC folks.

If you had absolutely no income in 2010, you would get a $15,000 check from the government. If you found a job in July 2011, that paid you $20,000 that year, then you would still get $8,300 from the government. When you got paid your full $40,000 salary in 2012, you would get $(15,000 - (40,000/3)) = about $1,600.

There are situations where people ask employers to cut their hours because an extra $15 or $20 a week is all it takes to put them "over the top" and make them ineligible for food stamps or medicaid or whatever. We should just get rid of the minimum wage, medicaid, food stamps, etc, and replace it with a tax rebate system that gradually reduces as your income increases.

That got my attention. Sounds like a very good idea.

However, I'd be worried about what happens if a Repub gets elected President. A 'Thug would eviscerate this tax rebate but keep in place the no minimum wage part. I belive we need MW protections.

But that tax rebate idea got me thinking. Sounds like a very workable idea that may help more poor and struggling MC folks with immediate economic relief.

hand out free hemp seeds to every man, woman and child.

http://www.hemp.co.uk/Hemp_UK/Hemp.html

Hemp, quite simply, is the worlds premier renewable resource.

Hemp Fuel, food and fiber - the basic building blocks for an industrial society, all from a single plant source.

Hemp is the number one plant for producing clothing, paper, plastics, building materials, food, beverages, cosmetics, methanol fuel and an impressive array of cleaning and paint products.

And we can keep growing it every year.

_____________________

Ummm, well no we can't. Ever wonder why?

And here is an interesting link to show another little known corporate giveaway. It's called the WOTC tax credit.

www.doleta.gov/business/incentives/opptax/

When combined with all the other 'corporate welfare giveaways', it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how all of these 'big box' low-wage employers got so big so quickly.

Sickening!

Union, YES!!!! Let's start leveling the playing field!

Because as soon as the wages were subsidized by the government the corporations would lower what they pay employees and keep it for themselves then allow the government to make-up the difference and then they would raise prices to take back "their money" from the other side of the economic revolving door.

You would need strict wage and price controls.

...but that scares people.

I say, if we can create things as complex as insurance actuarial tables then having a wage and price index for jobs doesn't seem too impossible. It's just a lack of imagination.

K&R for the workers!

from the collectivization of Soviet farms in the 1930s by that pillar of the free market, Joseph Stalin.
Corporate owners and executives owe their entire concept of production and labor to Soviet economic planning.
We have all the collectivization without any of the protections the Soviet people had. Like, oh, unconditional health care.

Almost all protections(worker safety, wage protection, right to unionize) gone.

30 years of Ray-gun economic Fascism.

If you provide a government subsidy to low wages, then you need to raise taxes to pay for it, and employers will cut wages to compensate.

"Raise taxes on the rich and cut them for the poor" has all the benefits of what you propose, and does not have the disadvantage of making it harder to finetune the economy, I suspect. That said, I'm anything but an expert on economics; there may be something in what you say. But I'd bet against it, I'm afraid.