One should note that Arnold the dickheads at the Chamber do not represent even the majority of businesses. When the law was signed, one survey showed that 60% of businesses felt it would level the playing field and punish fly-by-night cheats.

But that's our Chamber! Lowering the bar at the expense of families!

er, Arnold and the dickheads

he plays air guitar

Damn. Sorry, Nathan, I was talking about a different law. Never mind.

WANT TO PROTECT LABOR'S FLANKS FOR ALL TIME: JUST ORGANIZE THE WHOLE COUNTRY OVER NIGHT AS SUGGESTED BELOW [finally found an excuse to post this here ;-)]:

Indexing federal minimum wages of past years (in today's dollars) for per-capita economic growth would yield, from: *
a) 1980: $7.00 x 145% = $10/hour;
b) 1974: $7.50 x 160% = $12/hour;
c) 1968: $8.50 x 180% = $15/hour;
d) 1956: $7.00 x 235% = $16/hour;
e) 1939: $4.00 x 400% = $16/hour.

An oral surgeon extracts a tooth these days for $200+. A 1950s dentist might have charged only $5:
a) Multiplying that by 7 for inflation = $35;
b) Multiplying by 2-1/2 times for 50 years of expanding per-person, economic output = $90;
c) Multiply by whatever aptitude an oral surgeon today brings to the job that a dentist 50 years ago did not and we should probably leave a tip.

All of which is to say that labor has been taking home less and less of it's fair share of productivity over a long stretch of time -- American labor that is.

The book "The State of Working America" demonstrates that folks bringing advanced education to the stateside labor market (computer programmers, etc.) have not been running off with a disproportionate share of income. Federal stats disclose that the top 5% of earners have been scooping up a disproportionate share of -- America's -- growth: folks who bring a unique talent or product to market. European CEOs to take an example of a heavily unionized economy take home around 5% of what their American counterparts earn.

It's the "self-reliant" pioneer spirit that enfeebles American labor, stupid! If you squeeze a toothpaste tube at the bottom - where there is no back pressure -- the goo oozes through the middle - where inside and outside pressures equalize -- and flows out the top -- where nothing gets in its way.

Should America's "self-reliant majority" ever wake from their go-it-alone complacency and catch on to the decades of growth that have passed all of us by, the kindest and gentlest way to organize 90% or ourselves overnight would be to employ 51% of the vote in Congress to a mandate German style, sector wide labor agreements from sea to shining sea.

The fast food, instant on, plug and play appeal of universal unionization to hurry, hurry Americans would be bolstered by the knowledge that said system was designed by and has been operated for half a century by those moderate, methodical folks who send us VWs, BMWs and Benzs.

The moderate to conservative majority of American workers will have little wish to import Europe's wild welfare schemes (which do not produce an American-style underclass over there seemingly because people get paid enough to work over there) nor the continent's business strangling over-regulation which hinders "creative destruction". America could, very quickly, lead the world again in both wealth sharing and healthy economics if we could just get ORGANIZED.

Denis Drew
Chicago
ddrew4u@aol.com

[* www.eh.net/hmit/gdp -- Economic History Services' GDP figures use the Census's CPIU-X1 inflation measure and 1996 dollars; simple arithmetic converts these numbers to current dollars and the BLS's, roughly 25% higher, CPIU inflation rate for compatibility with my minimum wage chart.]