Profit Demands Make Minimum Wages Inevitable

As we watch the GOP pretend to politically pursue an answer to poor wages, we could use some honest conversation about this problem. Both parties in Washington seem to agree that WE all feed off the land and the yields from a record harvest should be shared, just as Native Americans suggested. What we can't  figure out is how to pry open the hands of those who have it to fairly share it with those who produce it.

As a means to that end, one political party in America hopes to legislatively force fair wages through mandatory minimum laws, while the other party insists more vibrancy in the market combined with an ample tax break will magically cure our confounding wage issues. Although this game we are playing seems complex, it can be explained quite simply.

Profit demands something. 

At times, the pursuit of profit demands production growth, while other times, raising prices to increase demand gets it done. In either scenario, the size of the apple farm and the market price of apples have constraints.

When the long, arduous hours of apple picking became a significant time and cost detriment to the harvest, technology intervened with machines that harvest apples- because profit demanded it. Inflation makes growth a mandate, so eventually, every farmer must increase production and efficiency to take customers away from the competition- because profit demands it. Nearly every company in America places this intense focus on increased profit and market share just to avoid predatory behaviors inherent to a game in which competition looms.

If the free market was a big muddy pond, WE average workers are its plankton. Our sense of power and our bank accounts remain depleted because plankton is plentiful and often too small to see the collective power of also being the primary consumers. As inflation grew the free market pond, CEO's in America demanded their share. WE, the plankton, did not and thus cannot expect to repair our bleak realities or our fractured bank accounts until WE, like CEO's, learn to alter the demand we place on wages.

Our orange colored president may struggle to say words like regulation, but he does not struggle with eliminating any Obama imposed regulation. Trump's blind Obama hatred intervened to allow America's corporate farms (Monsanto and Dupont primarily) to move full steam ahead with the use of controversial pesticides that they produce all while seizing a 40% hold of the world seed market. Apparently, the same orange president had no clue that his Obama hatred and Big Wall love could subvert Monsanto's GMO seed use in Mexico thanks to Donald Trump's stand against  Mexico and the NAFTA deal.

Monsanto is but one of America's predatory fish, and even they could defensively reply- don't hate the players, hate the game. There are plenty of others who've used global expansion to improve their standing in America's free-market pond. The globalization of American corporations and the growth of American corporate wealth are conjoined to this chase for the cheapest labor sources possible. Globalization's benefits are now global news, however, it was the science of data that pointed American corporations towards utter disregard for our domestic job market long before most of us saw it coming.

Big Data or Big Brother?

Trump isn't only subverting NAFTA, he is subverting the #metoo campaign,  America's greatness and standing in the world, our recognition of media lies as well as the sense of decency we used to expect from our leaders. What Trump can not subvert is Roy Moore's dating history, video evidence of locker room talk, Billy Bush or the power and impact of Big Data, the newest way science and technology are being used to grow market share, pursue profits and steal presidential elections as well.

Beyond the use of poisonous pesticides banned in 5 countries, science continually searches to improve our lives or exploit opportunities for profit- depending on your perspective. If Trump does go down in provable shame, it will be from the science of investigative research and from a preponderance of incriminating data accumulated in a world full of it. Or it will be his own big mouth.

Our Twit-In-Chief is just one glaring example. Everything WE all do becomes a data point for profit. Whether we happily accept the potential societal improvements from Big Data, or we unwittingly or begrudgingly participate in its collection through our computers, phones, traffic cameras, television viewing patterns, etc.  We've become data points for more than just Vladimir Putin's political stature in the world.



America's overriding respect for turning a buck makes us eager for big data improvements and conveniences that appear to make sense but leave us willfully vulnerable to the pervasive ways data gets used against us. It's as if the Big Brother we feared all along is Big Data  and analytics, driven by our own incessant profit pursuits.

We've allowed the way we pursue profit to make decisions for us, including the limits we'll put on our own privacy. Consequently, Google asks you to review restaurants you never told Google you were eating at, and banks like Wells Fargo shamelessly create fraudulent accounts for 3.5 million of their own customers.

With a little help from a young person who understands location tracking, one can easily cure the Google restaurant problem. As for Wells Fargo? Consumers depend on government protection to uncover and punish criminal corporate actions like Wells Fargo's.

Instead of keeping consumers safe, Trump attacks consumer protection regulations and the Consumer Protection Bureau- the same bureau that uncovered the Wells Fargo scam- by appointing a person to oversee it who thinks the Bureau should go away.

All because profit demands it.

Because profit demands it, shady companies  similar to the Trump organization confidently ignore laws, assuming that elected city officials won't risk losing campaign funding by actually charging them with the laws they break. Shady CEO's use the stockholder applause for their profit accomplishments to drown out the contempt for their methods.  Whenever profit dares to threaten dividends, wages get slashed and profits are cannibalized from the producers themselves. After our recent collapse of the economy, most CEO's fear increased wages as a detriment to their dividend promises.

When you think about it, because of promised dividends, saying companies DO NOT increase wages to generate profit is not fully accurate. Spiffs have a long-standing history of use, even though the modern-day spiff is too stiff the workers and give all that money to the CEO's in exchange for squeezing more for less out of the wage frozen masses.

Smart companies actually give some of that money and the benefits to the front line workers so they'll become invested like CEO's.  But not enough American companies are "smart" when it comes to maintaining a happy workforce.

Instead, most companies follow the trend of paying the minimum and doing the least possible with hopes of uncovering the kind of people who work to justify a standard, not an income.

As a consequence of stingy wages and benefits, stingy employers corner themselves into few options but to bleed the life out of their underappreciated workers who swiftly leave for the next unhappy workplace that at least pays a little more than the last. Although our unemployment rate is at a relatively low number, can we call ourselves at full employment when so many people have to work more than one job to make ends meet?

It's not terribly hard to point out these perverse influences of profit or how WE the People are helpless to stop the depravity because- aside from ObamaCare- WE are United in name alone. In fact, we commoners envy the rich and divide our collective power into political and racial lines, to our own demise.

Profit sharks who are bad corporate neighbors need to be delivered an economic message. Like blood in the water, identifying and channeling our consumerism towards good corporate neighbors would create an immediate data point in the profit pond for all the fish to take note of- especially those bloodthirsty sharks.

Like the sharks in higher education for example.

An advanced degree can counter harsh realities. Yet, some of the worse sharks in the higher education profit game are also the last ones to remind you that many industries in America don't currently have enough domestic jobs for all of the people who studied and gained less than a graduate degree to work in that industry, rendering that degree they are overcharging you for obsolete before you earn it. At the cost of a degree, good neighboring colleges and universities fight to limit your debt upon graduating or work hard to get you a job. The awesome neighboring colleges and universities do both.

I mention the depravity in higher education to make a point about the depravity of our profit pursuits, not as an attempt to make an excuse for the educated poor. Whether the college-educated dreamers of America changed their dream or it was changed for them is simply life's evolution. Persistence overrides good fortune every time, and no person intent on reverie can blame the market for their wistful hopes or lack of drive to make them real.

We can blame the free market for dramatically narrowing our chances of enjoying the kind of dreams America promised when these truths were first held to be self-evident. The market should also be blamed for so many noble job dreams being nightmares etched on a glass that shattered before the pursuit began. This is not to say that the potential for great dreams doesn't still exist, but that the dream is broken when too many American companies refuse to offer the American workers their cut of the harvest.
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The current GOP tax plans prove this point.

Demanding a tax reduction bill to increase wages is sort of a declaration that the free market pond needs government assistance to achieve the fair wages that a record stock market and record corporate profits could not. As we watch Republicans push an immensely unpopular plan (75% disapprove), we have to sincerely ask ourselves if the GOP was more dangerous as obstructionists or as a party desperate to finally prove they can do something?

Republicans will insist they can govern and that the free market only needs government to "get out of the way". What neither chamber in Congress can really tell you is how much "out of the way" will be necessary to deal with North Korea, finish off ISIS, maintain our military footprint across the globe in addition to confronting domestic needs including our decaying infrastructure, fixing healthcare and education disparities for every human on our soil, all while lowering the deficit. Republicans in Congress nor God can explain why corporations would want to fairly share the harvest NOW when they never have before?

Cheap labor and corporate profits seem to be baked in the cake 

As we dividedly clamor for increased wages, we should take a moment to seriously consider our cheap labor hunger and how many organizations are just like the Trump organization and depend on an ample access to cheap labor. People who are desperate for work eagerly migrate to any jobs. As it relates to need and hope, cheap labor is not necessarily the problem. Hiring any human for long-term, low-wage work but not educating them, ensuring they are healthy and eventually self-sufficient is a formula for a mass epidemic of sickness, social decay and societal discord that can only feed into the Department of Corrections.

Aside from further expansion of the widespread use of prison labor (which deserves its own conversation), building a wall and getting rid of immigrants in massive numbers hardly comports with the GOP tax plan of increasing investment and production to raise wages and stimulate consumerism. Stated more clearly, America needs more good paying jobs, not just more jobs.

Thanks to those who left the job market altogether, wages have already been forced to rise a bit. Yet, traditionally low-wage employers seem to me to be stashing cash and preparing for the next market collapse instead of positioning themselves for the decades of growth that the GOP tax plan promises.

Some of the best jobs are in America are in higher education and healthcare, two industries with zero incentive to eliminate human ignorance or sickness. In both cases, their profit models depend on customers, not outcomes. Consequently, there are many horrible hospitals and crappy schools.

Unless I am missing something about this profit debate, none of your dreams or my economic disparities become conversation worthy without more corporate profit and lots of it. Because the demand for profit (dividends) makes most corporate decisions for them, we live with the necessity of corporate and personal welfare safety nets to catch the fallout caused by failed profit pursuits.

Wages seem to be a constant part of our focus and conversation, but inflation worthy wages are far from being a part of our current paradigm, and simply raising the minimum wage will only elevate the least of these, it can't repair the overall breach from years of stagnant wages. As companies insist they can't pay us more, have you noticed how much time and free stuff they throw your way to avoid the cost of bad publicity when you give them a bad review online? Is there a chance they could redirect a portion of CEO's wages as well as their damage control budgets towards higher wages and better service on the front side? Not if we don't make them.

I worry if WE will ever realize our fair share of the harvest absent a focused wages and benefits war against corporations, a war that can probably only be achieved through year-round Small Business Saturday type efforts to funnel our spending to companies who directly compete against the large corporations that currently get our money whether they choose to be good neighbors or not.

Republicans who truly wished to change the way WE view their tax plans should join this cause and direct their proposed tax breaks to the companies that actually allow it to trickle it down- but after the promises trickle, not before. For the House of Representatives and the Senate Republicans to square their disparate versions of tax reform and get it signed into law by the president, such a promise could be useful.

Call it the trickle-down promise plan if you wish since that theory is becoming as mythical as the Lochness monster. Even a forced appearance could keep the myth from dying and Republicans from failing again at major legislative change. The wealthy Republican political donors who are demanding this tax break will reject this idea, but I'd expect quite a few Democrats to support a trickle-down plan if it actually came with a promise.

Of course, this could all be the hopeful me rising to the surface again. Aside from ObamaCare repair, Democrats don't really seem encouraged to save Republicans from themselves by authoring sensible legislation or anything else that Trump could get credit for as a result of their help. In essence, they have no reason to be any better to Trump and the Republicans than Trump and the Republicans were to Barack Obama, who came to the table with plenty of negotiation worthy ideas- some created by Republicans- but to no avail.

Because Congress has been way too busy chasing Trump and politically biting off its nose to spite its face with obstructionist behaviors, it took the bipartisan voice of voters from all across America to save ObamaCare from the repeal and replace promise of Republicans who still have nothing stopping them from doing it except the United voice of bipartisan America. If our collective voices can neutralize a repeal and replace promise, the unity of our collective dollars has the power to force the wages we deserve using the same conscientious consumerism we employ during Cyber Mondays or Small Business Saturdays.

Small Business Saturday Should Be Every Day.

Small businesses have long since been the glue of our economy, but they could also become a trend-setting aspect of our economy with a concerted effort to funnel more spending towards them, strengthening the quality of our glue and simultaneously encouraging more people to take an entrepreneurial risk. Conscientious consumerism of good neighbor companies could boost stagnant wages, but most importantly, it could ignite an overdue conversation about what healthy capitalism looks like.

WalMart has almost 5,000 U.S. locations, and close to 7,000 international retail centers of various sorts. While they have increased wages in recent years, can you imagine how many of those 60 checkout counters at WalMart would actually open if they were made to value our visit instead of sort of disregard us as insignificant discount chasers like they do now? Would WalMart simply shut 5,000 domestic locations before opening their coffers to more inflation worthy job positions? Imagine if their profits depended on such a choice?


Whether we see the analytics on our growing power over corporations or not doesn't mean corporations haven't seen the data and analyzed their risk factors. The end of Net Neutrality is likely a reflection of corporate fears of our emerging political and economic power, not a way to reduce your bill as they claim.

Obama, his expansion of health care and a focus on small business brought renewed hope for the entrepreneur's of America who suffered immensely when our economy flopped. Any tax relief would help them, but not if it ends up primarily in the hands of the one percent who hardly need it right now.  Now is the time to invest everything we have in the small business market, in good corporate neighbors and into a declaration of our power and a demand for our cut of the harvest before we are cornered out of entrepreneurial pursuits and into low-wage realities forever.

The choice is ours to make.