Business leaders pad pay while cheering plight of low-wage earners

[Sherman A1]

StlToday Editorial.....

Wonder why the folks occupying Wall Street and Kiener Plaza are angry? It's this kind of thing:
Last week, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, the state's biggest business lobby, cheered because the Missouri economy was so weak that the minimum wage would not be raised.
"At a time when Missouri businesses are struggling to provide jobs in today's difficult economic climate, it is good news that labor costs will remain stable and competitive compared to other surrounding states," wrote chamber President Dan Mehan.
Three cheers for low-paying jobs!
It will be recalled that the chamber successfully lobbied for tax breaks for corporations earlier this year and then supported another corporate tax cut in the failed special legislative session.


Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/article_134daf70-8b92-534b-b41d-e2fee2342ef6.html#ixzz1bt4a8GHZ
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/article_134daf70-8b92-534b-b41d-e2fee2342ef6.html

[IndyPragmatist]

1. Labor costs are more than just wages

They include taxes and benefits.

[Sherman A1]

9. Indeed they are, however

wages generally form the basis for the others, taxes are based upon the wages paid, pensions (should they exist at all) or contributions to 401k's are usually by percentage thus linked to wages. Health benefits may be stand alone costs and indeed do contribute to the total cost of compensation, yet in how many cases would a minimum wage worker even qualify for health benefits?

[redqueen]

2. Who are they expecting to be their customers?

The unemployed and underpaid?

[Lindsay]

3. I'm sure they figure there's always just a little more

blood they can squeeze out of those stones.

[redqueen]

4. I thought the middle class was shrinking here...

maybe they're counting on finding customers in India or China or something.

[Sherman A1]

8. Don't know what they are thinking beyond greed

it's a consumer driven economy and if the consumers don't have the money to spend, it all comes unglued..... but, wait that's already happening......

[unblock]

5. capitalist theory says that the riches are the reward for efficiently allocating resources

yet the fact that resources aren't getting to those in need, and the labor resources of millions of people are going unused, strongly points to the conclusion that resources overall are NOT being allocated particularly efficiently.

[Sherman A1]

6. Indeed

There of course is also the morality of the inequality of our current distribution with a system so skewed.

[unblock]

7. absolutely. we revere the those who have amassed fortunes, as if hoarding were a virtue.

how often do we admire someone who gives back from their own compensation so that their employees or customers might benefit?

there are companies with ceos who could afford to give back a dollar to every single customer and they'd still be living in luxury. but whenever anything remotely like this happens, it's a one-day feel-good news item, and that ceo then vanishes into obscurity. meanwhile, the hoarders get continued attention.