Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Who's the real Taker

There is a great debate going on now in this country about how much the elites "make" in this country versus the rest of us "takers"  who are deemed dependent on the elites. A major American retailer is under fire from the organized portions of their workforce demanding fairer wages, full-time hours and benefits. The retailer defends it's practices with the suggestion that to extend those benefits to all their employees would put them at a competitive disadvantage forcing the cost onto their customers. Independent surveys have looked at the workers demands and determined that the costs would only be an increase of 15 cents on the the total bill of the average customer. At the same time the retailer proudly trumpets its best holiday shopping profits in many years. The retailer would claim the titles "self-made" and "job creator" but the title self made denies the benefits they derive from a low-payed workforce that is forced to take government subsidies for their basic survival. So if you do the math the pennies you save at the cash register are more than erased by the taxes you pay to keep the cashier alive. Almost any corporation in America depends on the infrastructure we as taxpayers subsidize. While they may have a claim at the title job creators they don't create jobs out of a pure sense or motive of altruism. They create jobs that benefit their own bottom line and when the business no longer benefits them the business disappears and so do the jobs. When the central Florida economy was booming in the mid 1990's and growth seemed out of control there were many in local politics calling for "concurrency" which says that if you're a developer adding thousands of new homes and presumably thousands of new demands on the local infrastructure that you the developer would have to offset that new demand by paying for the new schools, roads, and fire services. That to me is a more responsible model for how we move in the future.