$15 Worth of Hysteria

B.C. just had its provincial election. Christy Clark won in maybe the sketchiest election in B.C. ever. It took 15 days to "understand" who had won the election. Have you ever golfed with a cheater? A guy who lies even when he doesn't have to? A compulsive prevaricator? I have. And when you ask him what he got on the last hole it's always the same glazed look at the invisible scorecard in the air, the silent stroke count accompanied by possible finger chalk-ups for each stroke and then the result will be what Tiger Woods scored last time he played this hole. Ask a member of the B.C. Liberal party who won the election between May 9th, (election day), and May 24th, (result day), and you would have gotten something similar. Because they're all the kind of people Canadian politics attracts.

Clark, a former minister of education who made cuts to education that were ruled unconstitutional by the B.C. Supreme Court and sends her kids to expensive, private school, has been involved in lots of scandals and investigations. B.C. Rail, B.C. Hydro, freedom of information, even being too pretty and showing too much of her awesome rack. It is awesome though, I gotta respect her for that!

So pretty much exactly what everybody wants in a candidate for provincial premier, she ran again this year. And she was so unpopular in B.C., she got re-elected! After reshuffling and recounting the votes. Like a magician who's made a mistake and starts the card trick over. But she won. Didn't she?

Now Ontario is having their provincial election. June 7th. So the last minute mud slinging has begun. Kathleen Wynne, who has made some major moves up the ladder of popularity after recently jumping on the $15 an hour minimum wage bandwagon, (probably just an election tactic), looks as though she might. Wynne. Get it? Har har.

This is not rocket science. Here's a good article with some staggering stats! Did they say a quarter of the workforce in Ontario make less than 15 bucks? Well then you'd have to be either a lunatic or, (excuse me while I laugh my arse off), HONEST, ha ha ha ha ha, to run for premier and say you DON'T support it, wouldn't you? That's 1.6 million voters who will get a raise! Is there a better way to get votes than to buy them? Now whether she will put Ontario's money where her mouth is or not, it doesn't really matter in politics. As long as you get elected. The people will forgive you for lying. They always do.

Much like Christy Clark, Wynne has been involved in scandals, denied the scandals, was busted, apologized but denied involvement, and she too is, as it seems every politician is regardless of party nowadays, all for privatization and deregulation. That's what the hydro comment in the vid is about. However, she is the opposite educationally. She is an educator and supports funding for public education. So at least she's got that going for her. Much like Clarke with her good looks, Wynne scores points for being openly gay. And I have nothing against being gay or having a nice rack or being good looking but I wish people wouldn't vote for people because of that.

Anyway, I'm not going to bore you with Canadian politics and I don't much care who wins the election in Ontario, but I have seen a lot of talk about the $15 minimum wage lately and it is becoming clear to me that people in Canada may be a bit more gullible than I had thought. All Wynne had to do was mention her support for this idea and suddenly she went, as the article states, from cold to hot. And now her opposition has cooked up their defence spreading fear of the $15 minimum wage. And people are falling for it. It's just last minute tactics. Political sophistry. A mudslinging sprint to the finish.

Pay careful attention to the ad. Almost everything it says the minimum wage hike will bring can not be caused by a minimum wage hike. They are things that can only come about when CEO's, heads of corporations, captains of industry and business owners decide to do them. More automation from big corporations. Only if big corporations decide on more automation. Fewer employers will hire young people. Again, their choice. Small businesses forced to close. This is the one legitimate concern, but it isn't as certain as they are trying to scare voters into believing. More on that later. Higher prices for groceries. Again the choice of the business owners. And almost everything else? Well then with higher prices on almost everything, the extra money for those 1.6 million people won't make any difference, will it? That's what the makers of the ad hope people get out of it. It's a political trick that goes back to the time when Moses wore short pants. And STILL people are falling for it!

I lived in Canada a few years ago and I was making 10 or 11 bucks an hour. I was working shiftwork, 12-hour shifts with a weekly turnaround of 8 hours I had to manage. I was working more than 40 hours a week every week. I was wearing a uniform that included a vest and heavy boots. I was walking, sweating, running, tackling, chasing, arresting, restraining and/or standing for 12 hours straight most shifts working security in Calgary hospitals. Every month I made a few hundred more than my brother I lived with. He was on welfare. I had one shift during which I got kicked in the shins by a lady with a cast on her leg who I was trying to restrain, I had to go into a room in full mask, gown and sterile equipment worn overtop of the uniform to struggle with a man who had a bowel disease, who was covered in his own stinking, diseased feces and shared that with all of the security guards who dealt with him, I think we had an escaped patient as well so I had to run all over the hospital, and the usual abuse from superiors. I got home and said to my brother that, pride be damned, I'd PAY a few hundred bucks a month to not have to work. It was basically that extra few hundred and pride at being employed that I was being shit on, metaphorically AND literally, for.

The time before that when I lived in Canada I tried to make a go of the ESL teaching market in my own country. I found that it was not an easy thing to do. One major trend in business across Canada that most Canadians don't know about until they're looking for work is the trend AWAY from hiring someone full time. And just try to find the good old jobs where the employer WANTED you to work expensive overtime! I dare you! The education industry is bad for this. Teachers have always worked short weeks since they do a lot of lesson planning, marking and other work at home. Modern business solution: Declare their 12-20 hours a week "part time," don't give them any credit for extra hours they have to put in at school or at home, and don't pay them any benefits. I was not qualified to teach in regular schools but there was a time when I could get lots of hours substitute teaching and working at ESL schools. No more. Now fully qualified Canadian teachers with teaching certs are subbing. Some schools take nothing less. They're also working ESL camps and at ESL schools. To make up for the loss of benefits. This and the fact that becoming a certified teacher has gone from a cheap, one-year education certificate to a year or two of upgrading and a two or three year teaching certificate that is now 10 times more expensive every year, scared me away from that forever. Education is now a racket in Canada and regular people are being priced out of it along with other pie-in-the-sky luxuries like housing, driving, retiring...

In Canada, I was just spinning my wheels. I looked at the people I worked with. About half were from other countries where, when their paychecks were converted, 10 bucks an hour was a great wage. They also told me they had ways to work enough time to collect Unemployment Insurance, or I guess now they call it Employment Insurance, go back to their country and STILL collect. I'm not kidding! And the worst part about this is I think the appropriate agencies in Canada KNOW about this but do nothing.

Some of my co-workers were part timers, students, wives supplementing husbands' incomes, and a LOT of them were people who still lived with their parents. THAT'S one way to make 10 or 11 bucks an hour work for you! Cut out rent and food and BOOM! See? We don't need no stinking minimum wage increase! We just need people to move back in with their parents! Actually, there's another benefit to the minimum wage hike. How many of those people who were in the same, demoralizing jobs as I was, and gave them up to go on welfare or move back home, will suddenly insert themselves back into the workforce? How many parents will be glad to get 30 or 40-year-old kids out of the house?

Listen, as someone who has tried, and remember I'm on my own, no wife and no kids, it is impossible to get anywhere on minimum wage in Canada. Even 15 bucks isn't going to keep up with inflation. I've read that the living wage, that's just enough to pay the bills, in Vancouver is over 20 bucks an hour nowadays. They say half of Canadians have degrees. I read a stat from a prominent university that I was shocked at: 23% of degree holders in Canada are unemployed. Since they're the smart ones, they're probably living with Mom and Dad or living on Swellfare. Canada is richer than ever but a quarter of the people in Ontario make shit wages! I wonder how many make less than the average wage. 60 years ago average Canadians made average wages. And they were enough to pay for their cars, houses, (yes I'm talking outright ownership, not the word "buy" we use today that means a lifetime of mortgage), kids educations, vacations, even a pretty good retirement. What happened?

I'll tell you what happened. Deregulation. Same as America. Politicians have been bought, rules and laws have been changed, legislators have been lobbied, banks, investment firms and insurance companies have been turned into casinos. Canada may have been boring 60 years ago, but give me some of THAT boredom! Now the people who have almost all the money in our country have been given free reign to do unspeakable things with it. One example is something that appears every now and then in some media or other and quickly disappears. It's a story close to my heart because water is important to me and I don't think unbridled capitalism gets any worse than the story of Nestle water in Canada. They have done this in both Ontario and B.C. but I will give up beer if either of the candidates above talked about it in their campaigns or has any plan to end such illegal activity.

Nestle goes into Ontario and pays $3.71 per million litres of water, puts it into plastic bottles that are a huge ecological blight on the whole world, then sells it back at, what 2 or 3 bucks a litre? Depending on where you buy that water it's half a million to a million times what they paid for it! They continue pumping a million litres a day during drought and forest fire season. They don't care and they are not regulated. In B.C. it's even worse! They pay $2.25 to steal the water from British Columbians then sell it back to them. MORE than a million times what they paid. WHO are the people responsible for signing these contracts with Nestle? And why are THEY not busted down to a minimum wage job? Why are there no regulations on this? That's the issue that comes up every time this is mentioned but it gets forgotten about and Nestle keeps on pumping.

The exact same thing is happening in other deregulated industries like housing, oil, banking, stocks, and, most unfortunately, education. I don't know, but probably mining, logging and all other major Canadian industries too. Greed is being allowed to run amok. Can we stop this already?

And this comes back to the minimum wage and the elections. One way to offset this situation we've gotten ourselves into is to increase the minimum wage. Now, of course, businesses are instantly going to be against that because it will hurt if they aren't paying their employees $15 an hour. Obviously, right? Well, as I said above, it's not as obvious as all that. Probably the most famous economist of our time, John Maynard Keynes, would say that those businesses will actually HELP themselves by increasing the minimum wage. Now, I think, maybe down at Chick/Brody Porsche and Audi, they may not feel the benefits so much because people making minimum wage, even 15 bucks, aren't shopping there. But it will be good for the economy and the majority of businesses. Here's how.

But this will only work IF the business world doesn't just instantly raise prices and stop hiring and do all those things that stupid ad talks about. And don't fault me for saying that, if you are saying that giving a 4 dollar an hour raise to 1.6 million people in Ontario won't mean more customers, more business and a shot in the arm to a stagnant economy, then I question your intelligence and/or your honesty. You can guess which one it is for yourself.

Keynes sees a minimum wage increase as a good way out of a recession. And if you don't think Canada's in a recession, what happened to the whole world in 2008? Forget so soon? Here's a reminder. From Forbes Magazine. Even the businessmen know the causes of that meltdown. To sum them up in one word: deregulation. When derivative salesmen and CDS hawkers and banks and Moody's and AIG and all those avaricious Tazmanian Devils were finally cornered, do you know what they said? Do you know what even the big daddy of deregulation, Alan Greenspan, said? "We're sorry. We were wrong. But can you blame us? Why weren't we regulated?" Please skim or read this article. It's a pretty long list of people who got rich from deregulation. They are all despicable and although none are in jail, at least some of them really should be. Ratings companies giving triple A ratings to obvious crap. "Let's hope we're all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters," one said. Political leaders repealing regulation laws and encouraging "liar loans" and lending to ninjas. (no income no job applicants), and de-staffing, basically shutting down the SEC, which is supposed to regulate stuff like this. AIG insurance bosses getting 100 bill. from the American tax payer to keep their company afloat after careless investment in credit default swaps and other financial weapons of mass destruction, then spending it on lavish executive golf and hunting trips. Steve Eisman, who was portrayed by Steve Carrel in "The Big Short," (WATCH that movie many times!), has the best quote of all: "These guys lied to infinity. What I learned from that experience was that Wall Street didn't give a shit what it sold." These people needed regulation. Companies like Nestle stealing from Canada and selling them back what they stole at criminal profit margins need to be regulated. The people who allow Nestle to do that need to be regulated. People who are eliminating full time, long term jobs and making the job market of Canada largely temporary need to be regulated. Minimum wage needs to be regulated. How can Canada claim to be a civilized country when disgustingly rich companies are ALLOWED to pay their workers minimum wage, knowing that minimum wage is far from a living wage?

So don't fall for the tired, old arguments of, "Well that's socialism!" Or "That's communism!" It's just plain good sense and it was part of capitalism when capitalism was thriving. The reasons communism and socialism have many examples of failure are the identical reasons for the crash of 2008, a failure of capitalism, just greedy people getting out of control. Another good Keynesian quote, "When the capital development of a country becomes a byproduct of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill done."

So relax about the 15 dollar minimum wage. If it's implemented, and that's not even all that likely in my opinion, and if knee-jerk business tactics are not implemented without thinking, the market will do what it is supposed to do and adjust itself and things will be a little bit closer to the glory days of our country. But if not, and I have to say, I have a feeling none of the businesses in Canada will give the minimum wage hike a chance, if not, we'll just be a little bit closer to yet another meltdown. And even IF it's introduced and the instant price hikes are the reaction, costs will not be inflated that much. Like the writer of this article agrees, wouldn't you pay a few cents more for a meal knowing the worker serving it was earning a livable wage?

You would think the one bullet point to take away from the 700 billion dollar bailout of 2008, which has turned into trillions by now, would have been, "How 'bout we work on some regulation here?" Inconceivably, that still hasn't happened! Chalk it all up to the power of greed. But I have one last thing to add: If you don't trust companies, government, or banks to stop lying, cheating and stealing from us, or being greedy, as consumers, we have power. An important point in that above article was that one of the "people" who caused the financial crisis of '08 in the States was the American public. Don't take risky loans from sketchy bankers or derivative salesmen. Don't be greedy yourself! Try to avoid credit. Don't vote for crooked politicians. Don't shop at rich companies whose workers make minimum wage. Don't EVER buy another product from Nestle! Don't buy so many bananas. I'm trying not to. It's tough, but we can all make a difference if we choose our battles wisely in the fight to wrestle our country back from our greedy owners. It will take time, sacrifice and patience, but I think it can be done.



*** By the way, the Ontario election isn't until June 7, 2018! Shows you how closely I follow Ontario politics. So Wynne has a whole year to actually raise the minimum wage. I hear there is talk of going to 14 bucks in 2018 then 15 in 2019. This will allow companies to be proactive, raising prices today! Then whether this actually happens or not, you still get more money from your fewer customers while ensuring that the poor won't be able to pay their bills. So it's a win-win for business.