Minimum wage revisited

A while back, I wrote a post wherein I said that, despite being against a federal minimum wage, I supported the federal government raising the minimum wage.  I still say that, at the time, it was what needed to be done.  However, as time passes, circumstances change, and, sometimes, people need to see what needs to be done now, rather than think that what may have been a good idea in the past will forever be a good idea.  This is, I think, one of those times.

First, let me go back a bit.  When I wrote earlier, I complained that places like Walmart and McDonald's were benefiting from government subsidization of the low wages they were paying.  Of course, in the end, that government money has to come from somewhere, so the result is higher taxes and nobody is better off.  But businesses (and rational people) tend to be risk-averse, and the idea of changing the low pay philosophy to one in which businesses compete for better workers, in part by paying more, may have seemed too risky.  The status quo appeared to be working.  I can't say for sure whether that was the thought process, but it seems logical.  In the meantime, these companies experience high turnover rates, which costs them more, even if the job isn't rocket science and therefore doesn't require a lot of training, as some people have said.  And paying higher wages is money out of pocket now, in the hope that things work out better in the future, a risky proposition.

Well, over the months since I wrote that, I started looking around at people, and it became clear that a lot of people who have jobs aren't actually doing work that is worth $7.50 an hour, and I began to question my original idea that raising the minimum wage was a good idea.  Still, from an economic perspective, I did feel like it might help boost the economy in the short term, but it would also depend on the government cutting welfare spending and subsequently cutting taxes, which, sadly, doesn't really happen much in real life.

But then, a surprising thing happened.  These companies gradually started upping their pay scales, despite not actually being required to by law.  To me, this is a sign that these companies are beginning to realize that they may need to compete in the labor market.  Of course, it may also be that there is some public pressure on these companies to raise wages for the workers, even if it means having to pay slightly higher prices.  Whatever the reason, I think it's a good sign, and perhaps the government doesn't need to raise the minimum wage now.  However, I do think the government still needs to look at welfare reform, as that is part of the total equation.

One area of our welfare system that deserves a closer look is Social Security Disability.  Since 1986, the population of the U.S. has increased by approximately 30 percent, while the number of people on current pay status for disability has more than tripled.  At the same time, the average benefit amount also tripled.  (For some context on that benefit increase, the CPI a little more than doubled over the same period.)  I think that's significant, and an unsustainable trend.  But what do I know, right?

I guess the final straw for me, though, was seeing the response of at least some of the workers affected by the wage increases offered by these companies.  Apparently, they don't feel like it's enough.  And all I can say to, not all, but many of them is, "Earn more."  Take your bigger paycheck and get the skills to get a better job.  But don't just think that anyone owes you more for flipping burgers. It isn't rocket science, and someone else that can do it just as well as you will walk in the door, and maybe they'll do it for less than you.

And another thing to those workers that think that they deserve more.  I know that I can live on $7.50 an hour.  In fact, I can live on less than that, but fortunately, I work hard and my employer thinks I'm worth more than that.  I developed skills over my life.  I've also been in the position where I didn't have a choice but to work for minimum wage.  But, I worked to get out of that situation, and thankfully, now I'm in a better place.  So, here's some advice.  If you are working for minimum wage, don't have that baby that you really, really want to have.  Don't spend your money on booze or drugs, or big screen televisions, or iPhones.  Spend your time improving yourself.  Get some skills.  You can pretty much get a college degree without paying a penny out of pocket, so do it.  It's really up to you, and it really isn't up to your employer to make life good for you.

Do atheists believe in free will?

So, I'm having a tough time keeping up with the volume of stupid thinking in the world today, which is why I haven't posted here in quite a while.  By the time I have time to write about any foolishness in the world, a whole new batch of idiocy is making headlines.  Still, part of the rampant "stupid problem" is that so many people are in a rush to move on to the next big thing, allowing just enough time to demonstrate their ignorance first, apparently in an effort to move on before their ignorance becomes plain even to themselves.  So, with that said, here are a few observations from the last few months.

Obama apparently thinks that apologizing amounts to accepting full responsibility for killing innocent people.  Not surprisingly, though, that thinking only applies to him.  Most of us regular folk could expect to be put to death.

On the day that Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for President, there was a spike in searches for Tom Cruise on Google.  Do I need to say more?

After the U.S. government announced a deal with Iran, Iran made the statement that there was no deal, only a framework for a deal.  And apparently, while making a speech, the Ayatollah responded to chants of "Death to Americans" with something like "Yes, yes, of course, death to Americans."  Well, perhaps I'm just taking this all out of context, or maybe, something got lost in the translation.

I seem to be seeing a growing number of people that think that a declining birth rate is something to be worried about, and yet, I don't really see any good reasons why that's a bad thing.  So, I'm asking you.  What is bad about a declining birth rate?  Honestly, I can't think of one major problem that reducing the population of the world wouldn't at least help fix.

And while I'm asking questions, here's one for the atheists out there.  I know you're out there.  And don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking your disbelief, I'm just trying to understand it.  I probably wouldn't even care except that I recently read "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins , in which he apparently labeled me as an atheist.  Of course, not me specifically by name, but by the way in which I think about God.  At any rate, the question is pretty straight forward: Do atheists believe we have free will?

I truly don't see how they can, other than the way that most people end up believing they have free will, which is by the appearance that we exercise free will all the time.  Some would say that as I write this, I'm clearly exercising free will, but of course, it isn't really clear that I could have done anything other than write this, since this is what I'm doing, and I can't go back and see if I could have done anything else.

So, the dilemma arises from the idea that we are nothing more than a mass of chemicals all reacting with each other.  In order for me to exercise free will, I would need to be able to control the outcome of those chemical reactions, but as yet, I've never found that I actually have that kind of control of chemical reactions.  They happen, or they don't, and my will has nothing to do with the outcome.

Of course, the previous paragraph is referring to chemical reactions outside myself, which might be a totally different thing.  But, when I think about chemical reactions inside myself, it gets worse.  Because, if I'm just a mass of chemical activity, then, what exactly is my will?  Where does it come from?  Is it really possible that a chemical reaction has a will of its own?  This doesn't seem to be the case since I can create a situation in which certain chemicals always react in a particular way, whether or not those chemicals want that reaction to happen.

In short, I'm just having a problem understanding how a chain of chemical reactions can be controlled by my will, and further, how a chain of chemical reactions can, in fact, have a will.  I'm sure there is an simple answer to the question, and I just haven't happened on it yet.  So, if you don't want to comment here, drop me an email at quasisane@comcast.net.  I know, I really shouldn't put that here, but I already get so much spam that I don't think it matters much.

Speaking of spam,  a while back I started to sign up for Obamacare, because, you know, it's all awesome and stuff, and besides, it's yet another thing the government says I have to do.  Anyway, for a while there, that action was the source of the majority of spam I as getting.  It was nonstop.  The truly funny thing about it was that I had forgotten my password, and tried several times to use the "I forgot my password" option on the website.  Each time, I was informed that I would receive an email, but I never got one.  I did, however, get other emails from healthcare.gov including one to remind me to file my income taxes.  I still don't know what my password is, but luckily, I got insurance elsewhere.  And before Obama gets overly excited, it actually had nothing to do with Obamacare, so no, Barrack, you cannot take credit for saving me.

Okay!  That's about all I have time for.  I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment (I think I have an antispam thing activated so you'll have to do the annoying "type the characters in the picture" thing), follow @quasisane on Twitter, find me on Facebook, or email me at the previously mentioned address.  It's all good.