ROCKABILLY RULES

ROCKABILLY RULES
The Rockin Johnny B

Friday, March 29, 2013

IN TODAY'S PAPER

Lawmakers rush to catch up to public on gay marriage

By JOSH LEDERMAN    The Associated Press

   WASHINGTON — For years, American opinion on gay marriage has been shifting. Now lawmakers are in a mad dash to catch up.     

In less than two weeks, seven senators — all from moderate or Republican-leaning states — announced their support, dropping one by one like dominos. Taken together, their proclamations reflected a profound change in the American political calculus: For the first time, elected officials from traditionally conservative states are starting to feel it’s safer to back gay marriage than risk being the last to join the cause.     

“As far as I can tell, political leaders are falling all over themselves to endorse your side of the case,” Chief Justice John Roberts told lawyers urging the Supreme Court on Wednesday to strike down a law barring legally married gay couples from receiving federal benefits or recognition.    

It was the second of two landmark gay marriage cases the justices heard this week, the high court’s first major examination of gay rights in a decade. But the focus on the court cases — replete with colorful, camera-ready protests outside the court building — obscured the sudden emergence of a critical mass across the street in the Capitol as one by one, senators took to Facebook or quietly issued a statement to say that they, too, now support gay marriage.    

For some Democrats, like Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill and Montana Sen. Jon Tester, the reversal would have been almost unfathomable just a few months ago as they fought for re-election. The potential risks were even greater for other Democrats like North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan and Alaska Sen. Mark Begich, already top GOP targets when they face voters next year in states that President Barack Obama lost in November. After all, it was less than a year ago that voters in Hagan’s state approved a ban on gay marriage.    

Those four Democrats and two others — Mark Warner of Virginia and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia — were swept up in a shifting tide that began to take shape last year, when Obama, in the heat of his reelection campaign, became the first sitting president to endorse gay marriage. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a potential contender in the next presidential election, followed suit in mid-March. As support among party leaders builds, rank-andfile Democrats appear wary of being perceived as holdouts in what both parties are increasingly describing as a civil-rights issue.

Finally, some of these fools are starting to 'get it.'  This is a civil rights issue, not a 'gay' issue.  Are we not all created equal under the law or not?  That's what's at stake here, not the sexuality of some folks and what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms and homes. 

Thursday, March 28, 2013

MARRIAGE EQUALITY

I guess I just don't get it. This marriage equality thing has me stumped. Should gay people have the same rights under the law as straight couples? Here are some of the arguments that people have proposed against it...

Fox Host Bill O'Reilly: Marriage Equality Could Lead To Goat, Duck, Dolphin, Turtle Marriage. What? Come on Bill, that's ridiculous and you know it. And let's say someone did marry a duck...who would get hurt by that reunion? Hmmm. Probably the duck.

Televangelist Pat Robertson Suggested Marriage Equality Could Lead To Legalized Bestiality.   Huh? I can't see the correlation here at all.

Focus On The Family Founder James Dobson: Marriage Equality Could Pave Way For Marriage Between "A Man And His Donkey." [See duck]

Radio Host Mark Davis: Using Equal Protection Argument For Right To Marriage Equality, "I Could Marry My Dog." If the canine would have you. Might be doubtful. Fox's Todd Starnes Reaction To 2012 DOMA Decision: "Do You, Fluffy, Take This Human, To Be Your Lawful Wedded Spouse?" OMG. I can't believe this idiocy.

Pat Robertson Connects Marriage Equality To Biblical Sodom's Destruction, Adds: "If History Is Any Guide, The Same Thing Is Going To Happen To Us."  Son, I don't know how to tell you this, but sodomy goes on all the time and we're still here.

Pat Buchanan: "We Saw Things Like" Marriage Equality "At The End Of The Weimar Republic" [In case you don't know what the Weimar Republic is: The Weimar Republic, proclaimed on November 9, 1918, was born in the throes of military defeat and social revolution. In January 1919, a National Assembly was elected to draft a constitution. The end of this republic had nothing to do with marriage equality but had a whole lot to do with hyper-inflation that caused the people to accept the craziness on Adolph Hitler.

Buchanan Responds To Prop. 8 Ruling: "All The Great Nations Have Proscribed Or Punished" LGBT Relationships. Hmmm. Does that include Rome, Greece and Egypt? Even Native Americans thought gay people where touched by the Great Spirit and were to be protected and revered. Come on Pat, this historically incorrect.

Washington Times' Jeffrey Kuhner On Marriage Equality: "It Is Inherently A Socially Barren Act. A Homosexual Society Is A Childless One - Doomed To Extinction."  Now this is just about the dumbest thing yet. It's as if this Kuhner person believes that gay people would trump all the heterosexual people and there would be no kids. Seems like there's plenty of kids out there with no parents at all. Doomed to EXTINCTION: OMG, the sky is falling, the sky is falling...we are all DOOMED!

Radio Host Michael Savage Linked Marriage Equality To The 2008 Stock Market Collapse. Hehehe. REALLY? What rot. What about the housing bubble? Had nothing to do with it, huh? Oh those terrible gays and lesbians. How could they do that to us?

Pat Robertson Suggested The "Ultimate Conclusion" Of Marriage Equality Is Legalized "Child Molestation And Pedophilia." Gays don't molest children. Child molesters molest children. They are sick people. Some are heteros, and some are not but the bulk of these people are not gays.

James Dobson: Marriage Equality Could Pave Way For "Marriage Between Daddies And Little Girls." Dirty little minds would think up this argument. Makes me worry about their sexuality not the gay's sexuality.

WND Reporter Jerome Corsi: If Marriage Equality Is Legalized, "Why Not Pedophilia?" Oh come on, Corsi.

Glenn Beck Used Toys On His Fox News Show To Illustrate The Slippery Slope From Marriage Equality To Polyamorous Marriage.  To those of us who don't know what the hell polyamorous, and if it is indeed a word, I looked it up, it means the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. Kinda like Beck's Mormon pals in Utah and Arizona who have several wives. Another ridiculous argument. Bill O'Reilly And Mike Huckabee Suggest That Without Prop. 8, "A Man Can Have 27 Wives." O'Reilly: Marriage Equality Will Lead To "Triads." 

Huckabee Opposes Marriage Equality, In Part, Because Of The "Ick Factor."  Let me illustrate this idiocy: "I do believe that God created male and female and intended for marriage to be the relationship of the two opposite sexes," he said. "Male and female are biologically compatible to have a relationship. We can get into the ick factor, but the fact is two men in a relationship, two women in a relationship, biologically, that doesn't work the same." Says Huckabee. I suggest ol' Huck get away from the genitalia if it is icky to him. Me thinks he doth protest to much.

Pat Robertson: "I Don't Really Believe Homosexuals Want To Get Married," They Just Want To "Destroy Marriage." OMG Pat, really? The gays go to through all this BS because they want to destroy hetero marriages? Are you insane? They just want inclusion, not to be ostracized. Pat Robertson On Marriage Equality: "[W]hen Two Men Get Together And Make A Baby, I'll Change My Point Of View." Lordy, lord, Pat. You really don't get the point do you?

Michael Savage Wants "To Puke" "When I Hear About A Woman Married To A Woman Raising Children Because, Frankly, I Think That It's Child Abuse." No Michael, child abuse is not a gay thing at all. And I doubt you want “to puke” at all, it's just hyperbolic to say that. Michael Savage: "Our Children Are Being Destroyed By" Marriage Equality ... "The Children's Minds Are Being Raped By The Homosexual Mafia." Do people actually listen to this guy's radio show? What tripe. Michael Savage On Marriage Equality: "Repugnant," "Sickening," "Disgusting," And Part of "A Degenerate Nation." Again, I think he doth protest too much.

WND Publisher Joseph Farah Suggests Marriage Equality Will Lead To "Sexual Anarchy." Hmmm. Wasn't that the argument in the 60s with the 'free love' generation? Old argument, holds no water.

Rush Limbaugh: Marriage Equality Isn't "Virtuous" -- It Would "Corrupt" An Age-Old Custom. Here I just have to say, HOW would it corrupt the custom?

All-in-all, I really don't see where these arguments hold sway at all. They are all based on bigoted bias and fear related. It's as if these pundits are saying that recolonizing the legitimacy of a gay marriage would ruin society totally. I think I'm more worried about climate change and oil prices. Sorry, folks, but I just can't see where marriage equality is a bad thing. I have a lesbian niece who is with a great lady and they have been in a relationship for over 15 years. They don't harm anyone and I think they deserve the same rights as you and me.

To those of you who say you know no gay people, look around you. I guarantee everyone knows a gay person. It's almost impossible not to...statistically. Ask yourselves, have these people personally harmed you or your children?

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

A DYING VET'S LETTER TO BUSH/CHENEY

On the date of the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War, the dying veteran of that war pens this...
 underlining is mine

The Last Letter

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran
To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.  


I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

In my humble opinion, it could not have been said better...John


Sunday, March 17, 2013

A good piece of reading for us Idahoans.  JB

What was (and wasn’t) discussed about health care

  No one living in Idaho or in other states should be unaware how the cost of health care, and insurance for it, has ballooned in the last few decades, driving people into individual ruin and straining businesses and other organizations (and economic recovery).    

A brush with a hospital is flirtation with bankruptcy — and it has meant bankruptcy for many. That’s true even for the insured, who find their protections eroding each year. And the number of uninsured sits at about 16 percent of all people nationally, 18 percent in Idaho (21 percent among those 64 and younger). This is an enormous problem.    

There is no one cause and no one answer. One tactic intended to help, one that makes use of a marketplace, is an insurance exchange: an organization allowing buyers of insurance to shop around, compare costs and benefits and get assistance, in a way they haven’t been able to. Such a plan was built into the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and in it states were given the option to set up exchanges.     

That’s the background for House Bill 248, which would establish by the state of Idaho an exchange aimed at helping consumers of health insurance to locate and buy appropriate policies. Alternatively, the feds would establish one in Idaho. The bill passed 41-29, after more than seven hours of debate.    

You might suppose that long debate, one of Idaho’s longest legislative debates in decades, would have centered on the problems and costs of health care and insurance. You would suppose wrong.     

The bill’s stated “purpose and intent” begins, “It is the public policy of the state of Idaho to actively resist federal actions that would limit or override state sovereignty under the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Through this legislation, the state of Idaho asserts its sovereignty ...”     

That framing overwhelmed the debate. The need of Idahoans for affordable health care and insurance, whether the exchange was a good solution, whether this specific model might be improved upon: These were touched upon almost not all. The course of debate suggested the health (in effect, the safety) of Idaho’s people wasn’t of significant interest.    Maybe the closest graze came from the conservative Rep. JoAn Wood, R-Rigby, who aptly noted the absence of strong consumer protections in the bill. The “sovereignty” of Idaho seemed the lone general concern — that and taking potshots at anyone federal.     

There were a few somewhat contrary voices on sovereignty, such as Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls, who noted how local governments often work with federal requirements without much trouble. And Rep. Neil Anderson, R-Blackfoot, who delivered one of the most courageous debates in the Idaho Legislature in years by declaring “We are still the United States” and that the federal government should be seen as a partner, while instead “we’ve almost wound up in this adversarial role.” Will he be thrown out of the House Republican caucus for that heresy?     

In those hours of debate, talk of wolves and roadless areas (in the context of federal and state control) roamed free. The only health-related specific subject was abortion, more precisely abortion-related “freedom of conscience” (for people opposed to abortions, not those seeking to have them).     

Health care? Crushing financial catastrophe? The well-being of Idahoans and their ability to live in some measure of financial security? Evidently not the Idaho Legislature’s concern.     

n Randy Stapilus is a former Idaho newspaper reporter and editor, author of The Idaho Political Field Guide and co-author of Idaho 100: The people who most influenced the Gem State, and blogs at www.ridenbaugh.com. He can be reached at stapilus@ ridenbaugh.com  .

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Y'all know I'm a terror on people who misrepresent facts and figures.  I find a lot of folks quoting statistics that they just grab right out the air, then purport them to be actual.  Here's a documented case of just such and abuse...

Paul Krugman accused a Republican Senator of trying to have a debate with all the wrong facts.

During a heated Roundtable discussion on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist told Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) that he had all the wrong facts on Social Security.

“Your facts are false,” Krugman told Johnson, adding, “It's important to realize that the facts that are being brought out here are in fact, non-facts.”

Krugman was taking issue with Johnson’s claim that the fiscal health of the Social Security program is in danger because its trust fund doesn’t really exist. Krugman argued on “This Week” that Johnson was “changing the rules midstream” by denying that Social Security has a dedicated revenue base.

Krugman has criticized Social Security detractors for making similar claims in the past. The program is funded both by the federal budget and by a law that gives it a dedicated source of revenue, according to Krugman. That means that even when the money going into the program may be less than the money it's paying out, its fiscal health isn’t at risk because the program still has the money it needs to run.

Still, that doesn’t mean the Social Security program can run in its current form forever. The trust fund is scheduled to run out by 2033. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said they would be willing to make changes to Social Security do deal with the country’s deficit problems. But they’re far off from an agreement; Republicans say they won’t raise taxes to fix the program, while Democrats don’t want to cut benefits.

See, that's what I mean.  Social Security is far from out of money...  It's true things have to change, but the 'Sky is falling' attitude is a false one.  And it is being used to create unnecessary fear.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Oh those pesky definitions

So you got in that argument with the conservative about the deficit and how it's ruining the country and you said President Obama is lowering the deficit, but you can't back it up...well, here's how you can.

Step One: Establish the facts of what the deficit is and how it works – Ask the conservative, uninformed “independent” or naughty liberal if they understand that the deficit is not the same as the debt. This is super important because the right has gone VERY far out of its way to confuse the two. And for good reason; the debt has never been higher. This is inevitable since we still have a deficit. The debt is a byproduct of the deficit. The only way to pay down the debt is to turn the deficit into a surplus.

The deficit is how much more we spend than we collect in revenue (taxes, etc.). The debt is how much we owe. The deficit is the credit card, the debt is the bill. A bill that the right wants to pin completely on Obama as if we didn’t have a penny of debt until he took office instead of having been built by almost a century of deficit spending by both Republican and Democratic presidents (but mostly Republican).

Do not proceed until these basic definitions are agreed upon or the conservative will attempt to weasel out of the hole you are digging for them by whining about how Obama increased the debt. If they try, mention that every president except Clinton has done that since World War II, why should Obama be singled out? When they invariably say “Because he’s gone higher than any president ever has!” The same was true of Bush at the time and no one on the right seemed upset about it. Ask them to explain why that is or to drop it and move on. Chances are they’ll drop it.

Step Two: Establish when the budget is passed – This is another deliberate lie the right LOVES to pass around. They would very much like you to believe that the 2009 budget with its record shattering $1.4 Trillion deficit was Obama’s. The reality is that budgets are passed and signed into law at the end of the year before. So the 2000 budget was signed into law by President Clinton and President Bush was stuck with it. In 2017, whoever takes the White House will have a budget signed into law in 2016 by the outgoing President Obama. Therefor, the 2009 budget was not “Obama’s,” it was Bush’s. If you need to prove this definitively, share this link to the CATO Institute. The CATO Institute is a respected but undeniably right-wing thing tank. The opening paragraph in their “About Us” section says: “The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank – dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace.” No one in their right mind can argue the CATO Institute is “liberal.” Yet they clearly state that the 2009 budget does not belong to Obama.

Step 3: Establish what the 2009 deficit was – This will be a little tricky because at this point the conservative you’re talking to will be getting VERY uncomfortable with the conversation. They will try to turn the discussion to ANYTHING else at this point. Why? Because it is a tenet of faith among the right that the 2009 budget was $1.4 Trillion and it was all Obama’s fault. Here’s a link to Fox News that should freeze them in their tracks. The relevant part:

    “The federal budget deficit tripled to a record $1.4 trillion for the 2009 fiscal year that ended last week, congressional analysts said Wednesday. – Published October 7 2009

The House and the Senate voted to pass the 2009 budget on June 4-5, 2008. President Bush signed off on all of it. Conservatives will try to blame the Democratic held Senate and House for the deficit but they can’t have it both ways. Either the president is responsible for the budget or he’s not. You can’t blame Obama while holding Bush blameless.

If you want to be a helpful wise ass, remind the person you’re talking to that Obama was elected in November and didn’t take office until January 21. That’s almost a full four months after the 2009 fiscal year, with its 2009 budget, started.

Step 4: What is the deficit now? – That’s easy. Go to the CBO’s page and look. the Congressional Budget Office is nonpartisan. They have to be, anyone can check their math and partisan games would be outed immediately. So here it is. Ready?

    If the current laws that govern federal taxes and spending do not change, the budget deficit will shrink this year to $845 billion, or 5.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), its smallest size since 2008.

Is $845 Billion more or less than $1.4 Trillion? At this point, a conservative will be spitting nails or will have stopped talking to you several minutes ago. An independent voter should be trying to figure out how they could have been so completely wrong. A liberal should be deeply embarrassed they didn’t know.

Just so we’re all on the same page here. Obama knocked $555 BILLION off of the deficit. That’s an entire third of the total deficit. That’s more than every president in the history of the country put  together. Republicans have been screeching for deficit cuts like demented harpies for years (except when a Republican is in office). If a Republican president did this, the Tea Party would be holding parades for him. Obama did it and 90% of the country doesn’t even know it. The GOP has them convinced the deficit is still going up.

Ignorance is the GOP’s best weapon. Knowledge is ours.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Oh that damnedable minimum wage

Why not have $20 minimum wage?
   Concerning raising the minimum wage law here in Idaho, in her recent article Rep. Phylis King states, “Extensive research shows that a higher minimum wage has a positive effect on the economy.”
   This got me to thinking. If that is true, then why not raise the minimum wage to, say, $20 an hour? These wage earners then would have much more money to spend in the local economy, “which raises profits and revenues and leads to hiring,” as states King.
   Doesn’t it seem that if the employer has to pay more in wages, that he will either raise his prices to cover this increase or he will hire fewer employees? How does this lead to hiring, as stated by Rep. King?
   It would seem that if wages are increased that, in most cases, this would cause the businesses to raise their prices to cover the higher wages. Then the low-wage earner, when he goes to buy things, has to pay more. Then the minimum wage would have to be raised again so they can afford to pay the higher prices, and so forth and so on. Where does this stop?
   What if there was no minimum wage and each business paid employees what they felt was fair? If a person wants to work there for that wage, then great. If not, then they go to another business that will pay them more. If no one would work for that wage, then the employer would have to raise his wages till he could attract the employees he needs.
   Doesn’t that sound logical? Why do we need government telling us how much we can pay employees?
   Instead of raising the minimum wage law, I vote for doing away with it.
  
Larry Nielson, Caldwell



Larry, Larry, Larry, I know you actually believe your argument is logical. However, it is not. Raising the minimum wage has been shown to have little or no effect on either hiring or having any hardship on our economy whatsoever.
Let me try this math on you and see if we can clear up your skewed thinking. If you are making $10.00 per hour and I raise your pay to, say...$11.00 per hour what will you do with the extra dollar? There are actually only two choices: spend it or save it, right? Odds are you will spend it because when you make more...for some odd reason, you spend more. Could it be that we spend what we have unless we are miserly and save whatever we are given extra.
So, you have an extra dollar to spend. Where do you spend it? Now, there's only one choice: good/services. Now, your dollar goes into the economy to be used by merchants and other places who also spend it on other goods and services.
You see, that extra dollar I paid you did nothing unusual to the economy. You felt briefly better because you got a raise and you felt you could order up more goods and services and the economy literally sucked up that raise without even working up a sweat.
Then you say we should just do away with the minimum wage altogether. Hmmm. What would that do. Right now, the minimum wage is approximately $7.00 per hour, or for a 160 hour month, $1120.00 per month. What do you think would happen if the poor person making 11-hundred a month was suddenly cut off from that money? Oops? What then would the economy do as a reaction? Now is the time to use your logic and reasoning. What indeed would happen if the majority of modern America was suddenly cut wage-wise the sum of say, even $5.00 per hour? The economy would take a major hit and would probably send it into an immediate recession. Imagine … NO DEMAND … for goods and services. Except, of course, for the rich. But wait. The rich. What would happen to them if the people they depend upon to buy their goods suddenly could not buy their goods? Hmmm. Not a good scenario at all.
Finally, Larry, do you remember when there was no minimum wage? Doesn't sound like it. I'm old enough to remember. I remember no unions. I remember robber barons bringing in scab labor to do the job. I remember the workers taking to the streets with clubs, knives and guns. Minimum wage gave the worker at least some kind of guarantee. At least the minimum wage worker could expect to make a certain wage for their efforts. The minimum wage scale kept this powder keg from blowing up completely. And you want to go back? Not me.
You can go back to 1950, but I like my color TV and my car that can actually go farther than 50,000 miles before it needs a new engine. Things cost more than the did in 1950, but people make more than the did in 1950, so the economy is still the economy that exists. The dollar buys less, but we make more dollars, so the economy just keeps rolling along and it always will as long as there is demand for goods and services and the supply of money stays constant. If we went back to 1950's dollar for dollar value, the economy would still be the same. The same guy who couldn't afford a 1950 Cadillac still cannot afford a 2013 Cadillac.
The point is, Larry, nothing will change with the raise of the minimum wage. All it does is keep the the wages commensurate with the cost of goods and services.