Fishing

Hi there, here I am, Mrs. Politically Incorrect again, with food for thought.

There is talk about raising the minimum wage again. People complain that Wal-Mart doesn’t pay a living wage. Well… Minimum is just that – the base pay for non-skilled labor. It’s not meant to be a living wage… It’s meant to be a starting point.

Fifty years ago, in 1964, the minimum wage was $1.25 an hour. Doing some digging through the prices found online, this is what I saw:

Sugar, 5 lbs $1.04

Coca Cola, 12 oz. can $0.13

Milk, gallon $1.06

Apples, lb $0.16

Flour, 5 lbs $0.49

Ground beef, lb $0.45

Eggs, 1 dozen $0.45

Gasoline, gallon $0.30

Butter, lb $0.67

Postage Stamp $0.04

Bananas, lb $0.10

Chicken Noodle Soup $0.10

Bread, loaf $0.21

Colby cheese, lb $0.39

Note: I couldn’t find many of the convenience foods we take for granted – because they did not exist. Cooking was generally done from scratch, and as such, was likely quite a bit healthier! But I digress.

Minimum wage has increased by more than 6 times in the last 50 years. But food and other staples have, as well:

Sugar, 5 lbs $2.79

Coca Cola, 12 oz. can $0.75

Milk, gallon $2.89

Apples, lb $1.33

Flour, 5 lbs $1.79

Ground beef, lb $4.19

Eggs, 1 dozen $1.79

Gasoline, gallon $3.59

Butter, lb $2.99

Postage Stamp $0.49

Bananas, lb $0.54

Chicken Noodle Soup $1.25

Bread, loaf $1.19

Colby cheese, lb $5.65

There’s a correlation, here, and something that bears further inspection: Local produce is rarely sold in large chain groceries anymore. The cost of fuel to transport items to the stores drives up the price. The cost of paying workers is also included. Ergo, the more we raise minimum wage, the higher our prices will get.

So, what happens when we increase minimum wage? Well, the short answer is prices go up. But… Higher wages don’t.

For example, using today’s numbers, if the following are tied to minimum wage at $8/hour, using one pound of butter as our basis:

5% = worker wages

10% = marketing

10% = transportation

25% = store operating overhead

25% = markup from suppliers

5% = packaging

10% = production

10% = ingredients, or actual item

Workers are involved in every step, here, from the harvest and production to packaging and transportation, to the day you actually buy the pound of butter.

Assuming that 5% of each step is worker wages, with an additional 5% tacked on for transportation (for need mechanics and fuel), and an additional 5% for the workers creating the power and building the stores, then $0.35 of each $3.00 is worker wages, or 11.67%.

If you raise the minimum wage 1%, or 8 cents in our model, the price will go up accordingly, or 0.12%. This will raise the price of the butter 3 cents.

Therefore, a minimum wage worker would spend 37.5% of an hour’s wage on a pound of butter in either case. However, a higher wage worker – let’s say someone earning $10 an hour – would start with 30% of their hour’s wage and go up a full third of a percent. Increase the minimum wage more, and the gap begins to narrow. The slightly-higher-paid worker, who is already paying more in taxes, is paying more and more of a percent of their income for butter, while the minimum wage worker, whose wages control the butter price, is still paying the same percentage they have been.

Ergo, the higher you raise the minimum wage, the more things will cost. Also, the more taxes must be paid, so there will be less take-home pay to buy those higher-priced items.

Giving people the opportunity to earn more is worthwhile. But we keep raising wages, and raising prices… And this gives those minimum wage workers no incentive to better themselves, learn a skill set and move up so younger people (teens with their first jobs) can start at the bottom. Of course, there will always need to be a place for those who are disabled or otherwise incapable of moving up.

Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime. -Unknown

Perception

Possibly inflammatory and politically incorrect. Read at your own risk.

All places have their reputations. Few are warranted.

I lived in El Paso, Texas as a child. We “knew” all the people who lived on the South side were in the barrio, the Northeast were Army brats, the West side were all rich. I lived on the East side – we were just normal. Now, this wasn’t strictly true, but that’s the impression we got. I have friends who would argue otherwise! Of course, I went to a private Catholic school (Loretto Academy) through 8th grade… So I met people from all over the city.

When I was fourteen, we moved to Ohio. Things were different here. For instance, even the surface streets had numbers instead of names. And Dayton wasn’t one big huge expanse like El Paso – it was a small city with its suburbs, and some of the suburbs had suburbs. We moved to Springboro. Rich people lived in Springboro (but I didn’t know that till later).

Next door was Franklin, which was white trash; just past that was Carlisle, full of rednecks. North was Miamisburg, a mixture; Centerville, more rich people; Moraine, blue-collar; Dayton itself, the armpit of the universe; and Kettering, normal people. Later I heard more about Oakwood, snooty-snobby rich people (and don’t speed through Oakwood). Beavercreek, also rich & white; Fairborn, military; Riverside, white trash; Xenia, hillbillies, druggies and chip-on-their-shoulder blacks; and Yellow Springs, too – hippietown USA!

Dayton itself has pieces and parts. South is middle- to upper-middle-class; East is white trash; West, black trash; north, just trash. Just past the western city limits is Drexel, which is not somewhere you want to go after dark unless you’re looking for a fix (or in the company of large, scary individuals).

I used to zip over to the Salem Mall (West Dayton) on long breaks in between my classes at Wright State. I was unafraid. But more than a couple of blocks away, and forget it. I’d never venture alone.

So, being a reasonable adult now, and having been a Mall Rat at the Dayton Mall in my late teens, I understand that stereotypes have a grain of truth in them, but they’re mostly crap. It’s like the paper they put in purses and travel bags to make them look good and sit right on the shelves. Logically, I know there’s nothing wrong with any of these places. And I live in Beavercreek, but I am not rich, not snobby, and I could not care less what color you are. Except…

I remember some of the other Mall Rats at the Dayton Mall. They rode the RTA. They caused trouble. The Dayton Mall had curfews and security officers… I was searched more than once, and I was rather preppy. No, I was never arrested or kicked out – I was a good rat.

So when the RTA, which had till that time had no interest in coming to Beavercreek at all, suddenly got upset that we didn’t have stops… And we argued against it… We lost. We got called racist. And worse. But we have a transit system – Greene Cats. They have some regular routes and some on demand service. We have stops – just not ones for huge buses. The Mall has been here for over 2 decades; how have people gotten here before? If people want to come in from Dayton, there’s a stop by Wright State. They could pick up Greene Cats there…

My objection is my experience. I have nearly been squashed by RTAs more than a dozen times. No turn signal, not stopping at a sign, just plain didn’t see me (I’m sure). Maybe it’s my driving? No, I’m not the only one who is terrified they will be run over. I know some (not all, of course) of the people who come in on the bus are up to no good. Does that make me snobby or racist? How can I be racist against certain people when I’ve no idea what color they are?

A couple of days ago, I was nearly hit head-on by a bus on the new route. Pentagon Blvd (by the Mall) to WSU via Drexel. Except I was in the left lane, and the bus turned right – from the right lane – to the left lane going the other way. Across 2 lanes and into a third?!

Stereotypes aside, isn’t that a route that should probably have a stop at the hub in Dayton? Why would they have a direct line from Drexel to Beavercreek? Their logic baffles me. And that little kid inside me that still believes the reputation of certain cities… Is worried.

(For what it’s worth, I’d love to check their actual routes online, but I keep getting the message that their network is down.)

Merry Drama-Free Politically Incorrect but Informed Christmas

It seems like everything has to be a drama-filled controversy anymore.

Well, I have thought about a lot of these things, and I’m not exactly politically correct on any of my beliefs. But I’ve been able to reconcile a lot of things in my heart by reflecting on them.

When I was a child – a tween, to be exact – I informed my science teacher, who was a nun, that clearly the Big Bang Theory and Creation were not mutually exclusive. Here’s why: Any “expenditure” of energy causes a change. For instance, flip a light switch on in a silent room, and you can hear the light coming on. A little popping noise. Now extrapolate that sound to the magnitude of “flipping a switch” on the sun. “And God said, ‘Let there be light’!”… And there was a BIG BANG.

Science points to Evolution, as well… But again, Evolution and Creation are not mutually exclusive. The Bible states that God created the world in six days, and on the seventh, He rested. Well, if you read further in, many of the people in it lived hundreds of years. Noah was around 600 when the Flood came. In fact, his first child was born when he was 500 – compare that to now, when most men who have children have their first child before age 40… And don’t live past 100. This points to God’s timeline being rather fluid, and not rigidly tied to our current seconds, minutes, hours, days… So the seven days it took God to create the world could translate to eons in our understanding. We see pictures of Adam and Eve as modern humans, but we really don’t know – they could have been apelike.

Modern Catholicism (and, for that matter, Christianity) point to Jesus Christ being medium brunette with white or tanned skin. This isn’t very likely, considering where he was born and raised. He was a Jew, and he was born near Nazareth, and raised in Galilee. He was very probably olive-skinned and had very dark hair.

We also celebrate Christmas in December, just after the Winter Solstice. Well, Jesus Christ’s birthday is more liable to be in September. Christianity needed to perpetuate itself, and the best time to get this across to Pagans would be near one of their big celebrations. Samhain, which we now know as Halloween, was the closest to Christ’s actual birth; but it was a celebration of death. No good. Next? Ahhh, Yule. Okay, that’s a celebration and sacrifice for good things to come. Sounds like a winner! (And Easter is near Beltane, a fertility – or rebirth – festival.)

Well, now we’ve come to Christmas. Currently there is a huge debate over what color Santa Claus is. Umm. Let’s see… The original was Saint Nicholas, who was, like Jesus Christ, Mediterranean (Greek to be precise). He wasn’t fat. He didn’t wear fur (for goodness’ sake, have you seen the weather in Greece?) But he was benevolent… Then there’s Sinterklaas of the Netherlands and Belgium; and Father Christmas, in England, who (again, check the weather) wore fur.

Clement Clarke Moore began the tradition of the modern Santa in 1823, with his description of “a right jolly old elf” in his poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”. Later, Thomas Nast immortalized Santa Claus in 1863 in Harper’s Weekly Magazine, though there he was wearing an American Flag. And in the 1930s, the Coca-Cola company used our present “ideal” as a marketing gimmick for soda pop.

All of this just points to Santa Claus being derived from so many different races and ethnicities, he’s a mutt. That, and, well, in my heart, Santa does exist – but not as a human being. Santa is a feeling.

The whole idea of giving gifts also goes right back to the birth of Jesus Christ. The three wise men, or magi, brought gifts to the baby. Gold – to represent his status as King; frankincense is a perfume, to signify his status as a priest and prophet; and myrrh is an anointing oil – used in embalming. How macabre! But now, we give one another gifts as a reminder. And if you subscribe to the Christian beliefs, God gave us his Son, as a Gift.

So I’m not politically correct, but I have some pretty varied beliefs. No matter what else, I have to say… Merry Christmas to you, and yours. I wish for you love, and peace, and joy!