When Anthony Haydin woke up on June 30, he did not imagine his street would be the scene of one of Chicago’s most deadly shootings. Three people had been shot in an apartment right across the street from his. Police said the victims had been murdered in a “gang-and-drug related shooting.” On July 13, just hours after guns claimed the lives… return to article
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Reader Comments (10)Page 1 of 1 pagesI like the thrust of the article. I disagree with the overall tone that government has an obligation to force business into a mandated mold however.
The very bottom line is that kids will reflect how they are raised. If Mom and Dad are not setting a proper example, the child is more at risk than if they were. A child whose parent or parents do not teach and practice fundamental right and wrong is easy prey for those elements that lead to crime and entrapment in the ghettos.
A child taught personal responsibility, and held to a moral standard by parents who obviously love him or her is less at risk. He or she will still question why studying in school is needed when the local drug dealer is paying cash for an Escalade.
Governments role in this is to make it possible for business to enter, establish itself, and prosper. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about Wendy, or Ford Motor Company. Capitalism is a proven means to escape a bad situation if applied by a person with an honest work ethic as well as a family that is sustaining.
With a nod to those who truly only want the best for the poor I cannot support the notion that government involvement is the answer. If I were to open a business in a poor section of town, I would hope that the bureaucrats would leave me alone to prosper. I would hope that they would understand that mandates, or excess regulation, would only drive me out and negate their final desired result of less poverty and more employment.
All in all I laud the goal and hope we can continue to discuss the process to achieve it.
Phil
Posted by Phillip on Sep 14, 2008 at 8:04 PM Thank you Phil for responding to my article.
No one I know objects to the idea of “personal responsibility.” In fact that admonition is routinely given at places of worship in the black community. It is a message that African American political and religious leaders have preached throughout history. The problem is it runs up against limits.
You suggest that government has no obligation “to force business into a mandated mold.” By implication, left to their own devices, businesses will act in the best interest of workers and communities. Taken to its logical conclusion this world view posits that we do not need a minimum wage, OSHA to enforce workplace safety, the 8-hour day or mandated overtime pay. The free market will take of everything. Come on now Phil!Setting aside the absurdity of such an argument, let me explain why companies like Wal-Mart should be forced to pay a living wage. There are two ways workers could get a pay raise. They can unionize, or work hard and hope the employer rewards them.
Wal-Mart’s 1.3 million workers are prevented from unionizing, period. Hard work is no guarantee—ask any of the 1.6 million female workers who have filed a class-action gender discrimination suit against the company. The women say Wal-Mart underpaid them because they of their gender. A federal just found probable cause to believe they were discriminated against.
Today’‘s CEO’s are under enormous pressure to please stockholders. Their policies are driven by the quarterly Wal-Street cycle. In that environment, the needs of workers are increasingly sidelined.
So, if the workers cannot join a union, and cannot count on their hard work to earn a promotion, what are their options? The legislative mandates you decry are the only recourse for workers. Companies cannot simultaneously deny workers the right to organize and prevent them from seeking legislative remedies. They simply can’t have it both ways.
The corporations you defend, Phil have a real problem. These days, the average CEO, as I pointed out in my article, makes 364 times what the workers makes. Wal-Mart’s CEO H. Lee Scott makes $35 million per year—that’s $16,000 per hour (!!), while he denies his workers a living wage by blocking unionization and lobbying against living wage mandates. The Economic Policy Institute has found that Wal-Mart could pay $13 per hour to its workers, and the impact on its bottom line would be negligible.
Overwhelming majorities of Americans believe every worker who wants to join a union should do so freely. And, most importantly, they believe people who get up every day to go to work should not be poor. Conservatives—and some liberals—championed welfare reform. But after lecturing to the poor about the dignity of labor, a GOP-dominated congress refused to raise the minimum wage for 10 YEARS, from 1997 to 2007. It was a new Democratic congress that changed that in 2007. How are poor people supposed to make the transition out of poverty? Yet it is conservatives who are quick to denounce “social pathologies” in the inner cities—with no sense of irony whatsoever.
Another damning issue for Wal-Mart and other big retailers is that they receive billions of dollars in public subsidies, and their workers receive federal aid through Medicaid, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Programs (LIHEAP), Section 8 housing subsidies and so on. All these benefits for employed workers amount to a huge tax-payer funded subsidy for these corporations. What happened to the free market, Phil?
The fact is everyone knows if corporations are not pressured to treat workers with dignity and respect and pay a decent wage, they will not do it. Ask a Wal-Mart worker.
James Thindwa
Posted by monomotapa on Sep 15, 2008 at 11:08 PM James, thanks for the response and more importantly; A civil response.
I am not conservative, nor liberal. I am independent. Not “an independent” since that implies I am merely a member of another political faction. Instead I prefer to consider myself to be open minded and reasonable.
My son, 22, worked for Wal-Mart for two years. It is an entry level, low responsibility position. As a cashier his decisions had no effect on the state of business. His diligence merely required him to scan the item and request the customer to pay. Any issue other than that required him to notify an immediate CS Manager. These so-called managers had little to no supervisory authority, and very little measurable responsibility. The question the board of directors and shareholders have to ask is; How much value do those functions add to the profit margin?
The bottom line is that some jobs are simply not worth as much as some would call a living wage. When your major skill is asking, “Do you want fries with that?” you cannot expect to get rich.
To the best of my knowlege there is no legal way you can prevent your workers from organising. I could be wrong. I will also concede that there are ways to “influence” the process as well.
I am not a union guy. I believe that at one time they were needed. I also believe that they are corrupt and do not benefit the worker nearly as well as they raise money for the politician of the week. If you wish to organize, go for it. I don’t believe in forced unionism, such as the “closed shop” anymore than I believe in forbidding unions. Envision a place where you get hired. You are given the option of joining the union or dealing directly with management on your own. Each side makes its’ case, and you make a choice. The freedom for each person to choose their own destiny and manner of seizing it is what America is all about right?
I don’t believe that OSHA and other agencies are bad. But, I believe it should be a local agency. One size fits all regs rarely do. And, the most efficient and responsive .gov tends to be the one closest to the people. So, unless it is in the enumerated powers I think Congress should butt out. And, if it is enumerated, it should be sparingly applied.
Take your example of a minimum wage. I oppose the fed mandating it because I believe in a small central government. But, I have no problem if Illinois wishes to mandate a state-wide minimum. I have no problem if Chicago wishes to expand on that with a city wide minimum. Of the big three (local, state, fed) who would know down to the penny what the requirements of a living wage were for Mr. Jones living at 123 MainStreet USA?
Finally, I do believe that a genuinely free market would deal well with the things we are discussing. The abuse of workers led to the rise of unions. Logically, the unions should fade away as conditions improve. Instead they are artificially kept in place. In a free market you will prosper or wither and in neither case will the government support you. Obviously we don’t have a free market. It would be best, in my own opinion, to get as close to one as we can. The first step is to decentralize the regulating authorities down to the local level so that only needful regulations are put into place. The second step is to cease and desist federal dollars being pumped into the business sector. What the states and localities do is their own business and they can deal with the voters.
I’ve rambled a bit and do apologize. If I were a professional writer I am sure I could make my points stronger and more concisely. I appreciate your patience.
Take care,
Phil
Posted by Phillip on Sep 16, 2008 at 12:48 AM Your correlation between joblessness and gun violence is spurious at best. Chicago has some of the most stringent gun laws in the country, and needless to say the old pro-gun argument that criminals don’t obey gun laws is absolute truth. I’d wager a precious weeks wages that not a single weapon used in any of those crimes was legally obtained, and therein lies all the difference.
I live in the most economically-depressed state in the union, my career was downsized and I had to start a completely new job path from scratch at half the pay I was making, yet at no time did I ever consider joining a gang nor victimizing my fellow man for an easy buck.
The gang mentality is cultural and the problems far deeper than economic opportunity. I would agree that the economy sucks, no one knows it more than I, but that is never an excuse to turn to crime and violence and to lay the blame thusly absolves these miscreants of the responsibility that is theirs alone to bear.
As soon as every citizen stops looking to Uncle Sugar to “solve their problems” the better off they, and everyone else, will be. The nanny state breeds dependance and lack of personal responsibility.
As the old saying goes: “Free your mind, the rest will follow.”
Posted by mattthegreat on Sep 16, 2008 at 9:34 AM Wow. This is almost humorous. Almost. So now we are going to have “collective work gangs?” Government lackies keep proposing the same stupid solutions and when those fail, they insist on more of the same.
More government, more government more government. How much is too much? What is the principle? On that note, I actually liked the old schools socialist better. They were at least operating on some kind of principles, wrong though they were.
Modern socialist propose the same stupid ideas, but base it on little more than fatuous sentimentality (e.g. “Nowhere is it written that people cannot — or should not — earn enough to enter the middle class.”)
-Ken
http://www.LaserGuidedLoogie.com
Posted by Ken-LGL on Sep 16, 2008 at 11:35 AM Local governments can make matters complicated. Phil, your first comment is not so at all, I’ve seen many “good families” succum to the violence of the streets.
Restricting guns was not the answer, and as the early part of the 20th century proved, prohibitions are not the answer but a root cause of all those innocent dead.
A very simple sollution to a wide spread problem is taking back our liberties from organized crime that has enacted these unconstitutional laws.
The enumeration of “intoxicating liquors” in the constitution is not to be construed to deny or disparage other “intoxicants” retained by the people, including and not limited to pills, injections, powders, and plants. (ninth) 9th article to the U.S. bill of rights.
Do you people get it yet?
Posted by MeatwadGetsIt on Sep 16, 2008 at 3:58 PM Local governments can make matters complicated.
Let em. A city councilman is far more likely to bump into the results of his/her meddling and machinations while shopping than a US Senator. The further you are from the people your edicts have an effect on…... the more likely you are to not consider the effect in the first place.
Phil, your first comment is not so at all, I’ve seen many “good families” succum to the violence of the streets.
Never said they couldn’t. What I said was:
A child taught personal responsibility, and held to a moral standard by parents who obviously love him or her is less at risk.
I have no doubt that some fundamentally good men and women finally reached their own breaking point and threw in with the dark side.
The goal is laudable, but the .gov involvement at the federal level isn’t the answer.
Posted by Phillip on Sep 17, 2008 at 12:58 AM This is what you said Phillip,
“The very bottom line is that kids will reflect how they are raised. If Mom and Dad are not setting a proper example, the child is more at risk than if they were. A child whose parent or parents do not teach and practice fundamental right and wrong is easy prey for those elements that lead to crime and entrapment in the ghettos.”
The greater ‘influence’ to people in a “ghetto” is those weilding the bling.
Mom and dad have very little to do with what goes on outside the home. Like I said, good people get trapped into the prohibition scam like “bad” people do.
Stopping the insane prohibitions is the answer to what you see as “the problem”.
Posted by MeatwadGetsIt on Sep 17, 2008 at 10:58 AM Actually MeatwadGetsIt I said both. It actually appears that we are both on the same side. I don’t like the .gov butting into my affairs be they personal or business.
Posted by Phillip on Sep 17, 2008 at 11:49 PM Phillip, to continue on, you also wrote this.
“Capitalism is a proven means to escape a bad situation if applied by a person with an honest work ethic as well as a family that is sustaining.”
I have some good news for you, all those “illegal drug” dealers, are the best capitalist in the whole world!
When will people learn from the mistakes of others and stop this insanity-organized criminal induced prohibition?
Have you EVER considered exactly how “legit” businesses get the raw materials to make all these poppy based drugs? WHO, decides which crop is legal and which is not, organized criminals?
Posted by MeatwadGetsIt on Sep 18, 2008 at 6:19 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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