Pete, Well said.
This offer of 'inducements' is now the way things are done. Wal-Mart is just one of many thousands of concerns who take advantage of the situation. Actually, the offerings may be so desperately attractive they would be silly not to. Towns and cities are acting out a scenario not unlike that which faces the employee looking for a job. There are a lot more unemployed (cities) looking for jobs (commercial expansion) than there are jobs (commercial expansion) available. Thus, employees will take any job for an income and cities selling the farm to get some worthwhile building going. This is accepted as the way things are. Neither left nor right look for the causes of the problem. They are too busy slapping on Band-Aids to wonder why the Band-Aids are needed. The left wants larger Band-Aids, but little else separates them. Classical Political theory suggests that wages are decided by freely available rent-free land. If there is rent-free land available offering the opportunity of (say) a wage of $10 an hour to the lowest paid workers, then labor will not work for less. Everyone won't rush back to the land, but sufficient will settle to cause a labor shortage, which will everywhere push up the wages of the lower paid. The Feds assume (properly so) that the poor give up half their income for a place to live. A laborer who returns to the land has the opportunity to build his own house at low cost. I should point out to Malthusians that there is plenty of land available. In fact if you divided earth's 6 billion people into nuclear families of four and settled them in single family homes in the US, each family would have more than a hectare apiece (2.6 acres). Yet, billions of people are pressed into high-priced hovels and slums. Why? Certainly it isn't because we are running out of land. If our young nuclear family work hard and build a house as they do, they will not only have a good income but they'll have good but inexpensive 'affordable' housing. How would they get affordable housing? The present high "housing" cost is actually a land cost. It is likely that over the years, house building costs have dropped - yet 'housing' prices have soared. This is a pure land-value 'bubble'. Before every depression there has always been a wild speculation in land-values. Current neo-Classical economic comment is blearily beginning to note this - something the Classicals analyzed 150 years ago. Will there be a depression? Maybe, but government control of the economy may subdue it even as other problems result. Classical theory suggests that that just as soaring land prices lead to the crash, so do rock-bottom prices allow production to begin an upward movement. The economy picks up, land prices begin to rise, and we are ready for the upward curve toward the next crash. However, there is a difference. Large landholders who sold land at high prices can now buy it back for peanuts. This is a major reason why there is such a high concentration of land holding and the gulf between rich and poor. I've written more than I intended, but I hope you find it interesting. Harry ******************************** Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 818 352-4141 ******************************** -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of pete Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2005 3:55 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Futurework] Send to a Friend: Article from TomPaine.com On Wed, 9 Nov 2005, Harry Pollard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Sally, > >Yet another strike at Wal-Mart, when the attack should >really be on the politicians that give a myriad companies >special deals. This has been going on for decades (maybe for >centuries). At the moment, in Los Angeles, there is a huge >effort to attract a football team, with all kinds of >"incentives" being offered by the Democratic Council. I dunno, harry. It read to me as an indictment of the politicians who offered the subsidies, at least as much as Walmart for fishing for them. You could make a case that if the subsidies are being offered, it is just good business for the company to ask for them. Of course, a more virtuous company wouldn't do that, but what is virtue in commerce? >Don't blame a company that brings cheaper prices and better >quality to the people - blame those bloody politicians who >make the deals. > >As is to be expected, the "meager" wages paid by Wal-Mart is >brought up - an indication that this is not exactly an >impartial view of the goodies that Wal-Mart gets. > >I will ask again - if the wages are so poor, why do people >work there? Umm. Because living in your country with even a modest amount of comfort and security requires an income, and income requires employment, and employment is in shorter supply than potential employees. Isn't this true everywhere in the third world? -Pete >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: [Futurework] Send to a Friend: Article from TomPaine.com > >I thought you'd find the following item >interesting: > >http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051109/walmarts_tax_on_u s.php> > >Wonder how widely this is known? _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
