Globalization

I heard a left-leaning socialist advocate a $15/hour minimum wage, nationwide.

The idea was greeted with applause.

It sounds good. It would help restore income equality.

Or, would it?

The cost of making a burger would go up.

There’d be no more beef, no more bread. No additional burgers to go around.

You’d have the same number of people competing over the same amount of material.

My guess is the rich figure out a way to ensure you keep getting the same amount of burgers, continue to live in the same house and get the same gallons of gasoline for your same old car.

But, maybe I am wrong. Assuming this is a good idea, let’s apply the formula to a world-wide model, for there are those who’d like to see implementation of such a plan.

How much does a fast food worker in India earn?

Or Somalia?

What happens when we discover that someone making minimum wage here in the US earns more than a substantial majority of the citizens of this planet? $34,000 a year places you in the top one per-cent of earners, worldwide. Median income world-wide is $1,225 a year. Per year, not per month.

So, most of you are the 1%. Are you now prepared to take less than half of what you currently earn to help someone else in a third world country achieve a better life, or do you want someone to insure that you continue to get more than your share?

We’ve reached limits on this planet. There is no additional oil to be produced. Not everyone can have a car or fly around in airplanes.

We have passed a point of diminishing returns on food production; almost all arable land is in use and in essence being mined by extractive industrial methods which fail over time.

How do you like having meats, grains, fresh fruits and vegetables from around the world in your grocery store the year round?

Just about all essentials are scarce and in diminishing supply.

I know many dispute these facts. I have no time to argue the point.

Currently, the US is the largest debtor nation in the world, due to perennial trade imbalances made possible by the dollar’s special status.

Worldwide debt has reached critical levels. Money is debt; 2/3 of the world’s money is denominated in dollars.

The Federal Reserve is insolvent. They hide this fact, but word gets out.

We scammed the rest of the world. Gave them paper for real goods. They’re tired of a system that perpetuates current inequalities.

A reset is on the way; plans are in place to kill the dollar. A new reserve currency will be established.

When your dollars are redeemed, you will lose most of the wealth you think you have.

You wanted globalization….

You may be about to get the fair treatment you think you desire.

Conversely, we decide to keep the advantages we have and go to war.

Which will prove worse.

I see no easy way out.