Wednesday, December 22, 2004

A Fair Wage to Pay for Rent

It is but a truism that labor is most productive where its wages are largest. Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over.
Henry George (1839 - 1897), economist

The mantra of many Republicans is supply and demand. For those who may not yet be familiar with the theory, or law, of supply and demand, the market prices of commodities and services are determined by the relationship of supply to demand. Theoretically, when supply exceeds demand, sellers must lower prices to stimulate sales; conversely, when demand exceeds supply, buyers bid prices up as they compete to buy goods.

It works well enough except when greedy captains of industry decide to capture a market and create a monopoly and hold the necessary service or product for ransom. Other downsides, and it takes many forms, includes crony capitalists in government granting favors to people who have helped them or can help them in the future. Those exceptions have been the catalyst for myriad laws.

Here is The Misanthrope’s question and maybe some reader can help enlighten us: If supply and demand were allowed to operate honestly wouldn’t the jobs that Americans do not want to apply for begin to pay more in order to attract people to fill the positions? If the positions paid more wouldn’t they then be able to make what a typical California wage earner must make ($44,000 a year), or least $21.24 an hour to afford the rent on a two-bedroom apartment?

But once again, corporations don’t want to pay that much per hour because they would have to raise the prices of goods and services to a level that even more people could not afford. But the Republicans who believe in privatizing and supply and demand, don’t play fair. President George W. Bush wants to permit “good-hearted” people to come here to work and “do the jobs that Americans won’t do…”

We don’t know the answer, but we know something is not right. Isn’t that serving only to keep people in poverty or ensuring that the rich get richer?

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