California/Texas Exodus

There have been a lot of articles like this one recently. All this emphasis put on business growth while ignoring everything else.

We are importing workers with our jobs, therefore existing citizens don't necessarily have an advantage. We have been growing gang busters for decades, but our state is still broke. Income inequality gets worse. Air gets worse. Water gets worse. Traffic gets worse. Public schools get worse. The impoverished bear the brunt of growth because they must move further away from their jobs due to sprawl and pay more in gas or bus fare to get where they're going while their wages do not grow and cost of living rises.

Growth is not black and white; I don't see that its really a good thing just as a brute fact. Good growth is good, bad is bad, just as good policy is good and bad policy is bad. Maybe it's too hard to open a Carl's Jr. in Cali, or maybe there are too many Carl's Jr's there. Maybe it's too hard to build, or maybe there are too many buildings there. Maybe environmental policy is too harsh, or maybe the environment has already suffered enough.

If California's economy is weak, then perhaps it is because they have relied too much on constant growth in the past to fuel their economy. Perhaps what we will see developing out of their folly will be a more sustainable model; although considering they're looking at us Texans for ideas, I highly doubt that, since we're just going down the same path that they have already trodden.

Trickle Up Economics

I haven't heard any talk anywhere from anybody on this, but that's not to say its not out there. Certainly we haven't brought it up in this forum, so I will now.

Why not raise minimum wage?

I can hear the shrill cry that this will kill business, but I don't see why that should be, particularly since during this economic hullabaloo, big business has been setting record profits. But this hasn't benefited your average American.

Your minimum wage earners are the folks who are going to spend more money if they have it. They'll buy more goods, they'll be able to potentially buy better goods and services than they do now, meaning, ideally, more locally produced, long lasting goods. They might even gain enough of a level of sustainable reprieve from the stress of constantly living paycheck to paycheck to improve themselves or, who knows, dabble in entrepreneurship.

I think we've largely agreed that there is too much money pooling at the top, and that the trickle down isn't really working. It was just a theory after all; no reason to give it the credence that a fact would have. Over 80% of the cash in this country is tied to the very top tier of income earners (top 2%), so there's plenty of cash to spread around. And politically (to sustain (or recreate) our Republic) and economically, its actually necessary that that capital see movement and dispersal.

And what is more, people never feel quite right about taking 'somebody else's money' and giving it away, because we have this unusual notion that you make what you earn and you earn what you make (in other words, whatever you make is whatever you deserve to make). This is one thing that nobody likes about welfare programs, and something that isn't even good for the people receiving welfare. After all, they will always have that feeling that they are being given something they haven't earned, but which they deserve. Or at least that's the line. So we can get around all the necessity of social welfare programs if we just make sure people are earning enough for the time they spend so they can actually get by in the world. You won't have any complaints about people being given money by our 'communist state' for free, they're just earning what their time is worth and what they need to get by, but they still must 'earn' it. (And yes, I do actually recognize that setting wages is closer to communism than income re-allocation, a fact lost on most Americans, but this is only the 'minimum' wage, not all wages)

If the average household has more money to spend then: more money will be spent in the market place, on better goods, making demand rise, encouraging job growth and the creation of new ways for people to spend their money. (Another aside, I'm not in support of an ever growing economy as it is not sustainable, but that can be treated on later)

Compared to the complications of figuring out who deserves to receive what amount of welfare, how much money you can get back from the government for tax exemptions, medical care, insurance, education cuts, the privatization or publicazation of 'everything', et al., doesn't just raising the minimum wage seem just a little more elegant?

Taxes

Its really looking like if we want to take care of our debt, we need to raise taxes. Our tax burden isn't that bad compared to our taxes historically. One problem is that the super rich are super richer than ever before, but are paying much lower taxes (this is both a tax problem and points to a problem in the market). Another problem, as the first story below points out, is that a lot of people who should be paying taxes don't have to, thanks to a plethora of exemptions and loopholes.

Audio: Tax exemptions and loopholes

A history of tax burden

I sometimes wonder if our problems with taxes have less to do with the loss of money itself, and more to do with A) the stress of filling out paperwork (there are studies on this out there) and/or B) our increasing lack of a feeling of solidarity for the national welfare. After all, we are encouraged by objectivism, very prevalent both in the fore and background today, only to watch out for number one, and for years our presidents have been saying "The business of America is business!" instead of something more idealistic, for instance, "The business of America is Justice" or perhaps even "Think not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Perhaps if we stressed public spiritedness, we'd be more apt to take direct part in our government and wouldn't feel like it was this alien entity robbing us or hindering our "real" business.