Doing Better Business

Had two ideas for blog posts today, struggled to figure out which one I wanted to do. One was about sex, the other was about business. So I think that what I’m going to do is take care of business tonight – we’ll do sex tomorrow night.

I was webchatting with my bro-in-law the other night after I helped him set up his camera, and he made the observation (beloved by republicans everywhere) that if we JUST give American businesses more tax cuts, they will somehow miraculously start bringing jobs back to America.

Guys.

Come off it.

We have been steadily giving away the farm to corporations for almost the last thirty years. It’s gotten to the silly point where Microsoft pays less in taxes than I do. It’s insane. Obviously, even more tax breaks are not part of the solution.

If you want to know what I think that the answer to bringing jobs back to America is, keep reading. If you don’t, peace.

You still here?

Okay, I think that the ONLY thing that will make American businesses bring jobs back to America is to make them play by OUR rules wherever they do business. Phil Knight, you want to hire a 12 year old Chinese kid to make your Nike’s? Too bad. Child labor is illegal in America, it should be illegal for American businesses to do it anywhere they go. It’s not suddenly legal for me, as an American citizen to rob banks or steal cars just because I happen to be in China or Mexico at the time. Okay, so no more twelve year olds. So when you hire that seventeen or eighteen year old, you’re going to pay them a dime an hour, right? No, you’re not. You’re going to pay them a minimum of $6.55 per hour AMERICAN. That’s right – American Minimum Wage. I think that in Mexico that’s somewhere around a billion pesos per minute. Okay, so now you’re employing an eighteen year old for $6.55 per hour. So you’re going to work them twelve hours per day, six or seven days per week with no overtime pay, right? WRONG! Anything over eight hours per day or forty hours per week gets paid at 9.23 per hour, as American law stipulates.

Might as well bring that job home, huh?

And yes, I will address again one of the dumbest arguments against employing Americans that I’ve ever heard… if we make more stuff here, stuff will cost more. Yes, it certainly will. But with more Americans working, there will be more money in our economy so that we can afford the higher costs.

Guys, I’m not sure how we’ve allowed so many of our companies to become international outlaws, flouting America’s labor laws wherever they go, but it’s time to put an end to it. It will also help our relations with the other countries of the world and may even make us a smaller target for terrorism.

After all, to paraphrase Mr. Bush…

They hate us for our freedom to piss all over them.

Peace.

Randal