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As a result of the media focus on the crash of a commuter flight in Buffalo, NY it has been revealed that pilots starting out and breaking into the industry make about as much as the girl at Starbucks that hands you your coffee in the morning. Add on to that, the fact that the pilots work long days at a job that it is critical they maintain focus and composure and you get a mild national shock.

I was surprised also. I really shouldn't have been given the nature of corporate America that pays the people that actually do the work a pittance while the executives who have never worked a day in their lives rake in exorbitant salaries. Still when you think of a pilot, its the one job that you wanted as a child that even from adulthood still looks like it has the least chance of turning out like the soul crushing office work you wound up doing.

Now more than ever we need the minimum wage to be set to the actual living wage. There really shouldn't be a distinction between the two. Congress should act now because the old argument that raising the minimum wage would cost jobs doesn't fly when companies nation wide have already cut their staff down to bare bones, cutting labor down to workers with essential functions and then cutting just a few more. There aren't any more jobs to loose.

You might still be foolish enough to believe in the American Dream, that hard work pays off, or you might be an aspiring corporate raider and make the argument that this still increases overhead of even small businesses. Sure it does, but you are willfully ignoring the big picture. To be trite, the rising tide raises all boats. If everyone is being paid a living wage, suddenly you have a surge of new consumers that have never had disposable income before. They are buying their coffee from Starbucks instead of from Maxwell House, which increases the dollars in circulation and increases profits and liquidity.

Of course this only happens if Starbucks, forced to increase wages, doesn't increase the price of their already overpriced coffee. Theoretically this could cause an increasing spiral where the costs of goods is increases commensurate to the increase in the minimum wage creating an runaway spiral of inflation. But that's where the other market forces come in. First, not every company will simply raise prices to artificially keep wages low. In our global mega corporation economy where even the store brand discount paper towels are made by the massive conglomerate that makes the costly brand name ones it is easier for such companies to spread any cost increase out over a large population and over time. This doesn't even have to turn into a situation where Congress is robbing the rich to pay the poor.

This was what we once got from unions. We have them to thank for the weekend and the forty hour work week. Unfortunately now they have turned into a punchline about organized crime and an albatross around the neck of the poorly run auto companies. If unions want to become relevant again they need to seize on this recession and take big bold action that will carry us out of the recession. I don't see this happening. They protect workers who don't work and see themselves as the enemy of management. Even worse younger workers have to pay dues into the union and get little out of it by being relegated to the worst jobs not by the company but by the union that is supposed to be looking out for them, and they still get crap wages because the union had to sell out the decent wages of new employees to maintain the benefits of the retired.

That being said, I have worked for companies that hate unions, ones that just aren't unionized, and ones that have a large powerful union and ones where the union is a minor impact on a portion of business, and I have seen that the big powerful unions still have a beneficial impact on more than the quantifiable benefits and wages one gets.

Finding a New Dealer

With the announcement that GM and Chrysler will be slashing their dealer networks over the coming weeks it is obvious that thousands of family owned small businesses will be going out of business. This will of course exacerbate the current recession. Clearly this will cause a similar chain of events that the auto giants threatened us with when they blackmailed Congress into bailing them out. The dealers go out of business, sending their employees out into the street and into unemployment and into the worst employment market in decades. Auto repair technicians who were making a middle class living will now be changing your oil at Speedy Lube for minimum wage. This cuts into the spending power of the community at large, and greatly reduces local tax revenues, which are already having the carpet pulled out from under them because of the housing market collapse. I hope you are getting ready for monthly garbage pick up instead of weekly because as the purse strings tighten municipalities all over the country are going to start looking as dilapidated as Detroit and Cleveland.

The closing of auto dealers also helps to worsen the recession by directly adding to the liquidity problem that got us into this recession in the first place. All those acres of cars that the dealer can't sell anyway will not be packed up onto trucks and hauled back to the manufacturer. Oh no. These cars will continue to sit in your dealers lot.

The dealer doesn't own those cars either. The dealer has huge loans to keep those things on property. The longer they sit there the less profit they make. More seriously for the rest of us though, is the probability that these cars will now be sold at fire sale prices by dealers desperate to unload unpopular merchandise and avoid bankruptcy. Which is exactly like those assholes that were flipping houses in Vegas and Atlanta. Except auto dealers know how to unload cars and house flippers couldn't tell their own ass from a hole in the wall.

The real threat is that banks might wind up owning these unwanted cars. That's something no one wants so hopefully they will all see their own best interest is in making credit available to dealers to keep the cars profitable and by making auto loans available to buyers so the dealers can unload these heaps of smoking steel and glass on us. Somehow I don't see that happening, and what we end up with is a sub prime mortgage and credit default swap sundae with bad auto loan sprinkles.

The Ongoing Torture Debate

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 1
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

It is unfortunate that the most complete and honest debate regarding the current state of affairs as it surrounds the use of torture by America was on The Daily Show.

Guns on the Border

With people turning to gun violence during times of desperation and with the recession increasing incidents of desperation the MSM has been covering incidents of gun violence frequently lately. Of course in the MSM this topic always is an opportunity to discuss gun control. At the same time the Obama administration has been discussing gun control in relation to Mexican drug cartel violence on the border. In the MSM this leads to discussions that assume the return of the Brady Ban. I get the feeling that this is a wag the dog situation. Especially since it seems that reports in the MSM of violence on the boarder are inflated beyond all proportion.

My suspicions are raised even more that the MSM is just getting their gun control rocks off when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says that a renewed assault weapons ban would not be effective in reducing Mexican drug cartel violence.

Coming Home

The DOD recently decided to continue not awarding the Purple Heart to solders with post traumatic stress disorder. The blogosphere has been set aflame with the debate over the issue with one side arguing that this would make a substantial step toward acknowledgment, reducing stigma, and treatment of the disease within the military, and the other side trying hard to find new ways to say that PTSD doesn't exist while not overtly saying that.

This was followed the next day with the revelation that military suicides have reached a new record and have surpassed the rate of suicide in the general population. The close timing gave me pause to think about the significance of the two stories in relation to each other. I am not saying that awarding a medal for having PTSD would reduce suicide among military veterans. I just think that there needs to be a better way of serving those who have done their service to protect us. Having veterans among my family, friends, and co-workers, I have found that many of the combat vets are too proud too seek help even when they need it. You would think that psychologists could find a way to communicate directly with a soldier's experience and explain that getting treatment doesn't detract from their valor or self reliance. But I am not a soldier and I don't have any answers. I just don't like the toll that the psychological wounds of war are taking.

The LHC And the United States Committment to Science Education

The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest and most powerful super collider in the world and humanity hopes to discover new fundamental truths about reality through its use. It was built in France and Belgum but there was once the possibility that an even bigger, more powerful collider would have been built in the U.S. except congress lost the nerve to fund the project after already dumping millions into partial construction. This was not just a loss to the local community and the University system of Texas but to U.S. education. Now the best and brightest minds in physics will be compelled to go to France instead of being drawn to America. New discoverys will be made that will lead to marketable technologies that could have been discovered within U.S. jurisdiction. The loss of talent and potential discovery and the immesurable loss to the U.S. economy is particularly irksome in the current economic crisis. This shortsitedness reflects a general U.S. failure to focus on quality of science education in order to maintain our technological and intellictual superiority in the world.

The Burning Questions

Whether you supported John McCain, Ron Paul, or even Brian Moore, the real Socialist candidate, congratulations are certainly in order for the winner of the 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, there are more than a few questions he needs to answer almost immediately. Sure, he can have a few days to bask in the glory of the acceptance of an entire nation-state, if not the entire world, but try to keep it short. Some of these questions may have already been answered in campaign promises, but as the last few presidential campaigns have demonstrated, promises can be forgotten so easily, and so these need to be asked. So without further avail, in no particular order, are the list of questions we here at the Fringe Element would like to see Barack Obama answer. 

• Will you promise not to lie to the American people, even if the truth will hurt your political aspirations?
• Will you move the U.S.A.'s foreign policy away from the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strikes into foreign countries?
• Will you free the West Memphis Three and Mumia Abu-Jamal?
• Do you plan to amend the FISA Act and discontinue the NSA's domestic surveillance programs?
• Will you use neutral experts to evaluate science and policy before committing tax money to any specific plans and regulations?
• Your running mate is famous for having been the reason for the creation of PGP encryption. Will you enunciate a series of principles governing your administration's relationship to the internet, and will you continue to support net neutrality? Furthermore, will you enforce net neutrality regulations with civil and criminal penalties?
• Do you realize and acknowledge that infrastructure, the environment, the economy, taxes, energy, crime, prisons, and drugs are all interrelated facets of one national domestic problem that must be solved with a cohesive effort and a comprehensive policy?
• How do you plan to address the ongoing global economic crisis? Do you want to convene a Bretton Woods II, or try to create a novel set of policies?
• How will you direct your appointed Treasurer to manage the funds under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act? Will you direct these funds to help homeowners or businesses?
• Will the focus of whatever economic plan you craft be to create jobs, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt with his New Deal, or to help corporations?
• How do you plan to regulate big business? That is to say, how do you plan to regulate corporations so that no corporation is "too big to fail"?
• How do you plan to encourage the creation and growth of small businesses while protecting the public interest?
• Do you plan to trim down the budget of the Department of Defense? Or, if not, at least demand better accountability of funds that are spent?
• How will you encourage private, self-interested companies to develop alternatives to fossil fuels and solutions for our energy crisis?
• How do you plan to address the shortage in funds in the Social Security trust that were promised to the now-retiring baby boomer generation?
• Do you plan to continue the War on Drugs?
• To what extent, if any, are you going to restructure the military-industrial complex?
• To what extent, if any, are you going to restructure the prison-industrial complex?
• What measures do you plan to take in fostering a so-called green economy?
• What is your plan for addressing America's crumbling infrastructure?
• Do you plan on re-tasking the FBI from its current counter-terrorism mission to being more focused on domestic crime, such as white collar crime and political corruption?
• Do you promise not to politicize the Justice Department and the various U.S. Attorneys?
• What type of Judge will you appoint to the Supreme Court if given the chance?
• How do you plan to address the Bush Administration's last minute changes to federal regulations governing such matters as consumer safety and the management of federal lands, and such bureaucracies as the Environmental Protection Agency?
• Do you plan to drill for oil and natural gas offshore and in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge?
• How do you plan to address the growing shortage of lending for college students and their families?
• Do you have any plan to provide health care for all American citizens?
• Are you going to follow-up on Vice President-elect Joe Biden's promise to prosecute former members of the Bush Administration for their various allegend misdemeanors and felonies?
• Do you plan to continue to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons?
• Would you be interested in negotiating a multilateral treaty governing Space, the Internet, and other facets of information warfare?
• Will you continue to address terrorism as a national security issue, or view it as a problem of criminal justice?
• Do you plan to rehabilitate ties with Russia?
• Are you going to continue with the installation of the missile defense shield, especially in the Czeck Republic and Poland?
• Do you plan to change America's foreign policy in regards to the Republic of Georgia?
• Do you plan to change government policy as it relates to selling weapons to foreign nations?
• What will be your administration's policy towards Israel? Are you going to take meaningful steps in creating a Palestinian state or otherwise realizing peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians?
• Will you denounce Israeli settlements in the West Bank that have been recognized as illegal under international law?
• You have already expressed a willingness to negotiate with the government of the Republic of Iran directly, but will you continue to enforce unilateral sanctions placed upon that country by the Bush Administration?
• How long is your timeline for pulling American troops out of Iraq?
• What is your plan for Afghanistan? Will you follow-up on your promise of deploying additional troops to the region? How will you address the concerns of the Afghani government about civilian casualties? 
• You have also addressed a willingness to address the various problems in Pakistan, such as the Taliban haven along its shared border with Afghanistan, but will you direct the Department of Defense to continue using Predator drone missile strikes into Pakistani territory to kill militants? Will you continue to support the Pakistani government's campaign to fight the aforementioned militants in the form of cash payments and limited training, or will you try a different approach? Do you have any plan for addressing Pakistan's foreign exchange problem?
• Do you plan to convene peace talks between Pakistan, India, and the People's Republic of China over the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir?
• Do you have any plan to address the ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka?
• Do you plan to engage in talks with the military government of Myanmar?
• At the risk of asking too large of a question, what will be your administration's policy towards the People's Republic of China? Will you continue to sell armaments to Taiwan?
• Do you have any plan to address the ongoing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
• How do you plan to address piracy in the Gulf of Aden based in Somalia?
• Do you have any plan to engage in talks with Robert Mugabe's government and alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe?
• Do you plan to continue the DEA's coca eradication program in South America?
• Do you plan to lift the embargo on Cuba?
• How do you plan to mend ties between the U.S.A. and Latin America?
• Do you have any ideas for combating the rise in drug-related violence in Mexico?