Salvaging What Is Left Of America. Step 5. The minimum wage and the cost of a head of lettuce.

First let's get one thing straight from the get go. The minimum wage has always been the wage paid to part time employees who are just entering the work force. This entry level wage must not be confused with the wage paid to full time employees who have families to feed and children to cloth, I will deal with this thorny issue in the paragraphs below. I do not believe the government should be involved, in any way, with the wage an employer pays an entry level part time worker. My first summer job, at age 13, was for about 50 cents an hour. During my last year in high school a similar job was paying me $1.10 an hour. In either case, the government was not involved in my decision to work or my employers willingness to hire me. The pay received by a person who is just entering the work force will depend on a variety of issues including location (city vs. rural), personal relationships, and a variety of other factors, but the government should have nothing to do with it! Now let's deal with the full time employee and the head of a house hold. I believe these workers should be paid a wage that would provide them and their families a decent standard of living based on what goods and services cost if produced in America, not some third world country where the average person does not have indoor plumbing or sanitary drinking water. In a previous blog, using a farm worker as an example, I calculated what a head of lettuce would cost if the person who cultivated and harvested the lettuce were to earn $50,000 a year rather than the $22,000 he is now being paid. If all of the other costs that determine the retail cost of that head of lettuce remained constant (landowners profit, transportation costs, retail sales costs, etc.) it would only increase the price of a head of lettuce at Safeway about 50 cents if the farm worker were to be paid a decent living wage of around $50,000 a year. I, for one, am willing to pay an extra 50 cents for my lettuce if, by so doing, I raise the farm worker out of poverty and end his dependency on welfare. This is the point worth emphasizing. We have a large percentage of the population, probably about 30 to 40 percent, who cannot, because of mental capacity and a variety of other factors, become members of the educated class. Recognizing this fact, we have to do everything possible to make these people functional members of society. To accomplish this goal these people must have meaningful well paying jobs and we, as a society, must be willing to pay for our goods and services based on what it would cost to produce them in America, rather than what it would cost if they were made in some third world country where people work for near slave wages. This means that there will have to be tariffs on most of the goods and services that are produced in third world countries and imported to America. Of course, we already have tariffs on imported goods but, obviously they are not high enough. Along these same lines, I cannot understand why those $200 a pair tennis shoes that we buy at the sporting goods store could not be made in America, something is definitely wrong with this picture. In any case, the goal is to have more things we buy made by American workers even if they will cost a little more if they are manufactured here. Now this is only half the story. The Blacks were brought here to cultivate and pick cotton but now, 150 years after the end of slavery, they refuse to work in the fields thinking that it is somehow beneath them to do so. There are millions of Whites who have the same view of life. These people basically do nothing to contribute to society and survive on some form of welfare. At last count there were 52.2 million people on the government dole. A small percentage of these individuals are permanently disabled and cannot work, but most could work if there were an available job for them and an insensitive for them to take the jobs avaliable. As discussed above, the government has a responsibility to make jobs available to its citizens, especially those who do not have the intellect to benefit from some form of higher education. However, there also must be an insinuative for the chronically unemployed to take the jobs that are available to them, wherever that job may be. That insinuative for this back to work program is simple, you either work or you starve. No if ands or buts about it, welfare as we know it has to come to an end. I think Bill Clinton said something like this 20 or so years ago, but as with most of his policies, he was lying through his teeth. This time we must follow through with our policies. Now here's another point worth making. I have been walking on this earth for one month shy of 81 years. My observation has been that people who have a job are happier and more content than those who do not work. If our government has any role, beyond keeping us safe from foreign invaders, it is to provide meaningful jobs for its citizens rather, as now is so often the case, providing welfare checks for those who chose not to work. In my next blog I will discuss public employee unions, I believe we should eliminate them. Now, the answer to the question posed in my last blog. You have a choice of green, red or black grapes, which should you buy? Green grapes are the least nutritious, red grapes are second in nutritional value, while dark skin or black grapes are the most nutritious. I would also argue that black skinned grapes are more favorable. You may follow my blogs on The Conservative Pulpit by Daniel C. Merrill MD. There are over 200 posts to date covering a far ranging list of gardening and health related topics, as well as the political issues of the day.