Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Please note I have a new phone number...

512-517-2708

Alan Maki

Alan Maki
Doing research at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

A program for real change...

http://peaceandsocialjustice.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-progressive-program-for-real-change.html


What we need is a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" which would make it a mandatory requirement that the president and Congress attain and maintain full employment.


"Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens"

- Ben Franklin

Let's talk...

Let's talk...

Thursday, June 12, 2014

More questions about the Minimum Wage.

The highest legislated Minimum Wage right now here in the United States is $10.25 an hour. This is the present Minimum Wage on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation. Because of pressure on the part of the people it has been steadily increasing.

Why is everyone talking about a $15.00 Minimum Wage in Seattle when most workers won't receive it for seven years... and other workers will have to wait at least three years.

In Michigan they talk about a Minimum Wage raise to $9.25 an hour... this will take place in four years.

In Minnesota they talk about the Minimum Wage having been raised to $9.50 an hour even though that won't kick in for another three years.

Workers, including hundreds of casino workers, employed on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation are receiving $10.25 an hour right now and no one wants to acknowledge this since the politicians can't reap political benefit from talking about this. In fact, Leech Lakes Minimum Wage makes all these politicians look like a bunch of self-serving opportunists just out to use the victims of poverty in order to get votes.

Why aren't any unions or their foundation-funded think-tanks like the Economic Policy Institute demanding the Minimum Wage be raised nationally to match Leech Lake's Minimum Wage?

Leech Lake's Minimum Wage is still a paltry, miserly pathetic poverty Minimum Wage--- but, it is still the highest Minimum Wage in the country... and, at least it could be emulated rather than ignored... especially by all those who so enthusiastically support these Minimum Wage "increases" that won't even take effect until after inflation and soaring prices eat up these "increases" which will make these "increases" substantially less than the accumulated wages workers employed on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation have accumulated in the meantime boosting their real spending power, today, far in excess of what these phony Minimum Wage "increases" will produce in the future once they take effect.

Of course, those who don't understand the relationship between wages and cost-of-living nor have any concern, other than opportunist political expediency or so well-heeled they can purchase any goods or services without thinking, will never understand this just like they don't understand every single working class family is experiencing a "Cost-of-Living Crisis" making every single day a crisis-of-everyday living as people scrape, scrounge and curtail their lives in order to get by.

Few people involved in this struggle over the question of the Minimum Wage can say they haven't heard of Leech Lake's $10.25 Minimum Wage--- which, in addition to being the highest Minimum Wage in the United States is also the largest pay increase any workers in the United States have received; and, it is one of the higher starting wages in the United States.

In addition, this $10.25 Minimum Wage is higher than many workers get out of union contracts for which they are paying exorbitant union dues to pay the salaries of millionaire labor "leaders" who are no better than the bosses.

This unfounded infatuation with 15 Now, the Democrats, the AFL-CIO and these foundation-funded outfits like the "liberal" Economic Policy Institute and the "progressive" Campaign for America's Future "leading" these "movements" for Minimum Wage "increases" claiming "something is better than nothing" after previously declaring they intended to struggle for real living wages because, as they stated, "No one who works for a living should have to live in poverty," are dishonest in continuing not to note the Leech Lake Minimum Wage of $10.25 an hour which increases the purchasing power of workers right here and now as millions of workers are losing purchasing power and sinking further into the abyss of poverty as businesses--- large and small--- continue reaping massive super-profits from these poverty wages.

Someone should try to calculate just how many hundreds of millions of hours are being worked by workers receiving between $5.25 and $10.25 an hour. The figure is sheer super-profit.

How can a very poor poverty stricken Indian Reservation like the Leech Lake Indian Nation pay its employees, including hundreds of casino workers a Minimum Wage of $10.25 an hour but other cities, states, the federal government and corporations wallowing in record profits claim they can't pay the workers they employ a miserly, measly Minimum Wage of $10.25 an hour lest they go broke? Someone answer this question.