Occupy McDonald's Wage Demand

Recently the headlines have been filled with demands from fast food
employees for wage increases. In loose affiliation with the Occupy
Movement, these employees have demanded wage increases nearly double
their current wages.

As an adherent to Natural Law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, this writer by Text-Enhance"">supports
their right to request/demand such an increase. Yet, as an adherent to
free markets, this writer’s initial impression was that this segment of
the free market cannot sustain a doubling in the wages of fast food
employees, such as McDonald’s workers and the Occupy Moment. And from
this perspective this writer was on the verge of dismissing this
exercise in free market forces as a moot point.


However, upon deeper reflection this writer has developed a new
perspective on these wage demand developments. To facilitate his point,
this writer has delayed writing this analysis article to allow major
media to trot out the status quo usual suspects: Evil, duplicitous
business vs. the naïve, downtrodden labor force. In trotting out the
usual suspects, major media helps sustain and reinforce the status quo.
Said status quo being the false left/right 2 major political party
paradigm. And now, with major media committed to its storyline, this
writer will reveal the truth the 2 major parties and major media tries
so hard to hide and bury.
As this writer’s regular readers are aware, this writer often
assesses issues from original perspectives, refusing to be locked into
the false left/right political
paradigm and traditional 2 major political party dogma. This is one
of those articles that will shatter most American’s false left/right
perception of reality. In so doing, it is this writer’s hope that this
allows WE THE PEOPLE to further advance our peaceful revolution to
restore Natural Law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and retake
our country while restoring true free markets and fundamental economic
fairness.


Can we agree that in this, the greatest nation in earth, our policies
should be reflect an intention that all hard working, dependable, rank
and file Americans who work for hourly wages generally should not see
an erosion in their standard of living. (Unless of course, non
machinated market forces are the cause. For instance, industries in
decline. As examples, buggy whip makers and, more recently, traditional
photography processors.) This writer takes the position that the demand
for the products of the fast food industry is not in decline.

With that premise, let us assess the Purchasing by Text-Enhance"">power of the dollar verses wage increases for fast food workers from 2002 to 2012.

From 2002 to 2012 the purchasing power of the US Dollar decreased 27.6 percent. (http://www.usinflationcalculator.com)

Establishing the amount of wage increases for McDonald's workers
during this same period of time is not as easily done. (Much thanks to
the Monticello, MN Library) First, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
resists giving up these numbers. To sure, they point to some
complicated tables that would take weeks to find the data within, and
then make the calculations to arrive at these numbers for some
occupations. But, as near as I can tell, they do not specifically track
the fast food industry in terms of labor. The nearest this writer could
come was Mean Annual Wages for fast food cooks from 2002 to 2012.
(However, this writer believes that the increase in fast food cook wages
will roughly approximate the wage increases for all fast food hourly
laborers)

In 2002 the mean annual wage for fast food cooks was $14,930.00
In 2012 the mean annual wage for fast food cooks was $18,780.00

This was an increase of 25.79 percent

These numbers represent a decrease in purchasing power for fast food cooks of 1.81 percent (Almost 2%) over 10 years.
When individuals are already at or near subsistence level, 2% isn’t
giving up your annual travel vacation. At these wage levels 2% is giving
up, for example, a gallon of milk each week that your children should
have.

Clearly, the standard of living for America’s fast food cooks has
declined by almost by 2% in the 10 years from 2002 to 2012. Clearly,
wages did not increase enough for employees to maintain their standard
of living. The question is whether or not this decrease in purchasing
power was the result of non-machinated
free market forces or the result
of the amoral, unethical and/or unlawful machinations?

Now it would be easy to jump into that false left/right 2 party dogma
paradigm and declare US business (for our purposes McDonald’s) the bad
guys and McDonald’s employees as the victims, and proceed to vote in the
next election accordingly. But is McDonald’s really the consummate bad
guy in this free market play?
While this writer is not going to try to place the mantle of
Sainthood upon the founder’s, owners, managers and shareholder’s of
McDonald’s neither does this writer believe these just identified folks
bear the majority of the responsibility for the declining standard of
living of McDonald’s hourly wage employees.
Let us begin with this empirical observation and fundamental premise:

If the hole isn’t dug, the bricks aren’t laid, the plumbing isn’t
plumbed, the wiring isn’t installed, the wheat is not sown, the cows are
not fed, the product is not delivered, the burgers are not fried, and
the fries are not salted; the founders, owners and shareholders of
McDonald’s have nothing and get nothing. It is that simple. All value
comes from labor.

In our society, the US dollar is the form and measure of value. And
McDonald’s founders, owners & shareholders use the value they
receive in the form of dollars to pay their employees, pay their
vendors, pay their taxes and what is left over is theirs to keep.

In a true free market system, the founders, owners, shareholders and
investors in McDonald’s are entitled to their profit. Why? Because they
hazarded the risk of beginning the business, they are entitled to the
reward. While McDonald’s is now clearly profitable, when first founded
it could have just as likely failed as succeeded. Before the age of
dubious bank bailouts, in the event of financial failure the founder’s
of McDonald's (any business) would have lost their investment in time and
money, period.

The reward of profit is the incentive for entrepreneurs to take
risks. And those that hazard the risk are entitled to the rewards of
success. [For those of you who refuse to free yourselves from the false
left/right 2 party dogma and believe the founders of McDonald's are not
entitled to their profit this writer puts the following to you… “How
happy would you be if you did not have a job because the founder’s of
McDonald's never hazarded the risk of starting the McDonald’s
franchise?”]

Before we go further, this writer asks you McDonald’s employees
and/or other fast food employees to pull out your last paycheck
(electronic payment statement) and take a look at it. Look at the gross
amount and look at the actual amount of your check.

You employer is not stealing the difference from your gross and net
paycheck from you. Your employer is being forced into the role of the
Sheriff of Nottingham. Your employer is being forced to be a tax
collector. In this manner, your government diverts the scorn from taking
value your labor produced from government to your employer.
Nevertheless your government still gets to take some of the value your
labor produced.

Your government knows that if you were forced to write an actual
check to the government, you would be far more scrutinizing of where
that money went and resentful of the elected officials who took that
value from you. And now you have a basic understanding of the types of
smoke and mirrors your government uses to take from you a portion of the
value your labor produces.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Did you know that when this country was founded, far fewer sources of
income were considered taxes for the purposes of taxation? At the
founding of this country, in most instances your wages that you receive
for your labors at McDonald's would not have been considered taxable by
the Federal government.

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.

This article is going to show you how people who produce little
and/or no value somehow have taken value from all of us who produce
value through our labor.

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand
our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would
be a revolution before tomorrow morning." - Henry Ford

Our current central bank was established by the Federal Reserve
System act of 1913 under Progressive President Woodrow Wilson. The
stated purpose for authorizing the current iteration of the central bank
known as the Federal Reserve System was to stabilize our economy and
monetary system.
How have they done? Stock Market Crash 1929, Great Depression of the
1930s, Stagflation of the 1970s, Real Estate and Stock Market Crash of
2008, 2nd Great Depression of 2008 to 2013 and continuing and growing
rolls of persons on food stamps, etc. This writer’s assessment is that
the FED has sucked at achieving its goal of stabilizing the US economy
and monetary system. Even as you read this, Russia and China are
pushing proposals to replace the US Dollar as the World Reserve Currency
because the FED has so badly mismanaged it. (You need to ask someone
else how bad the replacement of the US Dollar as the World Reserve
Currency would affect your Standard of Living – It would be too long and
distract from the thrust of this article)

Quantitative Easing for Dummies
Now, for this extremely poor alleged attempt by the FED to stabilize
the US economy and monetary system, WE THE PEOPLE pay the private owners
of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank $25 Billion per year as a
return on their initial capitalization of the bank in 1913. (Take a
moment to pause and think about that $25 billion dollars per year that
you pay the FED. Between Congress, the President, the VP, the Supreme
Court and the Cabinet about 540 people run the USA. The FED can afford
to give each of them a $1 million per year and still have more than
$24.4 billion per year left over. Do you think the FED has the power to
corrupt the USA political system? Do you think our Congress acts in the
best interest of WE THE PEOPLE or the FED?)

And the private owners (and their operatives) of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank will shoot back,...

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Those were my thoughts.

In Closing:

Thank you, my fellow citizens, for taking your valuable time to read and reflect upon what is written here.

If what is written here rings true to you, perhaps another helpful
exercise would be to ponder why you have not heard about this in your
local paper or in the major media. [You may find articles about issues
from this writer's local area posted in your area and wonder why. The
reason is this: Remember those travel junkets taxpayers pay for (the
ones the bureaucrats skip to go to the beach or the casino) but
allegedly used for training? Well some government apparatchiks actually
attend those training seminars. And learn nationally en-mass techniques
to "manage" WE THE PEOPLE. Since they all receive similar training in
oppression, it is likely the problems you are experiencing with
government in your area are similar to the problems in your area (unless
you live outside the USA). With that commonality in mind, it is this
writer's intent that insight garnered from this writer articles about
his local issues can be used by the reader to understand and applied to
their local issues.]

Please join with me in mutually pledging to each other and our fellow
citizens our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to our mutual
endeavors of restoring liberty and economic opportunity to WE THE PEOPLE
as our Founding Fathers envisioned and intended. [Last Paragraph,
Declaration of Independence http://bit.ly/ruPE7z ]

This article is written with the same intentions as Thomas Paine http://ushistory.org/paine. I seek no leadership role. I seek only to help the American People find their own way using their own “Common Sense” http://amzn.to/kbRuar

Keep Fighting the Good Fight!

In Liberty,

Don Mashak
The Cynical Patriot
http://twitter.com/dmashak
http://Facebook/Don.Mashak
Don Mashak Google Plus http://goo.gl/1AUrE

The Conundrum: While our #Government works full time with
compensation and funded with our money for the cause of #Tyranny; WE THE
PEOPLE are forced to work part time without compensation for the cause
of #liberty with what is left over of our time, money and energy,

WE THE PEOPLE TAR #WETHEPEOPLETAR
http://WETHEPEOPLETAR.blogspot.com
http://facebook.com/WETHEPEOPLETAR
http://twitter.com/WETHEPEOPLETAR

End the Fed(eral Reserve Bank System) #ETF
National http://bit.ly/ta3Rju Minneapolis http://bit.ly/tjZJKF

Bring Home the Politicians #BHTP
http://BringHomethePoliticians.com

Lawless America #LawlessAmerica
http://LawlessAmerica.com

Term Limits #TermLimit
http://TermLimits.org

Justice in Minnesota #JIM
http://JusticeinMN.com

Critical Thinking Notice - This author advises you as no politician would dare. Exercise Critical Thinking (http://bit.ly/ubI6ve)
in determining the truthfulness of anything you read or hear. Do not
passively accept nor believe anything anyone tells you, including this
author... unless and until you verify it yourself with sources you trust
and could actively defend your perspective to anyone who might debate
you to the contrary of your perspective