Unpopular decisions

I'm going to say something that is going to be unpopular.

Before you gather together and plan out a lynching, please hear me out.

Popular decisions are made to please the majority of the audience.
They aren't necessarily good.
They aren't necessarily right.

If I wanted to be popular with my kids, I'd give them everything they ever wanted.
Doesn't sound that smart.

I make decisions in my household that I think are best for my family, despite how unpopular they may be.

But I'm not looking for re-election as daddy in four years.
I'm not looking to boost my ratings in the polls.

In consultation of my co-parent, we make decisions even if the rest of the household is pissed off.

Maybe that's the problem with a democracy.

If you are in a democracy, give the people what the want.
What do they want?

MORE.

This is a rant based on one of my "pet peeves". I recently heard about another minimum wage increase.

And it pisses me off.

I believe everyone should be able to earn more.
But minimum wage doesn't do anything but put more taxes in the governments' pockets.

Let me demonstrate:
If the average person words 40 hours a week with 2 weeks vacation per year, he will work 2000 hours per year.

An increase of $0.50 will give that employee an extra $1000 in annual earnings, before taxes.

Assuming a tax rate of 25%, the employee taxes home an extra $750 in the year.

Yay! That's great news. $750 is more than they had the year before.

But let's look what happens in a free market.

The employer who hired that employee doesn't like to lose profit margin.
So she raises her prices and so do her competitors. If the $0.50 represents a 5% increase in labour costs, the employer raises her prices by 5%.

So if the employer owned a grocery store, prices across the sales mix go up an average of 5%, just to cover off labour. If there other inflationary pressures like energy, interest rates or exchange rates, that number could easily be 10%.

An average family of four will spend about $100 per week on groceries. That's $5200 per year. A 5% increase in the cost of groceries will result in an increase of $260 spent on groceries the following year.

Minimum wage increase has now put an extra $490 in the family's coffers. But if the prices at the grocery store had to go up by 10%, the family now only has $230 extra at the end of the year. That's an extra $4.42 per week. That's barely enough to buy two coffees per week. The price of coffee will also have gone up due to their employees making the minimum wage increase.

Now imagine this. The amount of people exiting the workforce is the biggest it has ever been. Retirees no longer work for minimum wage. They no longer depend on government assisted wage legislation.

Retirees, on fixed incomes, have less and less disposable income because the price of necessities continue to rise.

Minimum wage increases are popular decisions. But it doesn't change anything. The base of poverty moves to a new higher number. And by doing that, new categories of people fall into the poor class.

Minimum wage increases reduces jobs and increases taxes. It doesn't encourage investment. It is an economy killer.

There will always be abuse. Employers have taken advantage of the unskilled labour force and for that government stepped in to protect the employee.

Unions have done the same.

Minimum wage is the least of our problems. In the politics playbook, it says, "when you're down in the polls, increase minimum wage to increase your popularity."

Who does minimum wage increases help?
I believe the only winners are politicians who've dipped in the polls.

But this is a democracy.
If yon't don't like it, leave.
If you don't like it, vote in a new party next time.

That's what we've been doing in this province for the past 15 years.
How has that rhetoric worked out for us?

It's time for unpopular decisions.
Some of the kids won't like it.
But they don't always know what's good for them.

C'mon daddy, step up and be the leader. Stop your political bullshit.

We can't afford it anymore. Time is running out.