Out of self-interest, Hillary Should...

[cthulu2016]

call for an attention-getting minimum wage hike. $14.00? $15.75? Something that is perceived as an unrealistic number, but still less than the minimum wage used to represent.

A while back someone asked what she would do to woo (the other kind of woo) center-progressives.

Minimum wage is the best target because the general idea has wide support and the facts have a big liberal bias.

It is an area where what sounds radical is actually not. The minimum wage really should be MUCH higher. It wouldn't be an economic disaster. In most ways the economy would be better.

Making 15 a campaign slogan/theme/thing would be a nice round number. Would affect whatever congress does, probably for the better. To the media, Hillary represents a sort of mainstream, conventional-wisdom center so it would at least take double-digits off the "crazy" pile. (Maybe we'd get $9.99/hour)

And by 2016 would be in no way crazy. It is one of those issues about the real-world that only gets stronger with time.

[Chan790]

1. I'd still lean on her to index it.

It just makes too much sense for progressives to insist that the minimum wage be indexed now that we have momentum on this; it means we never need tilt this joust again for the lowest-waged workers.

[cthulu2016]

2. Indexing minimum wage is *more* radical than it sounds

I think the minimum wage should be a lot higher today than what is being called for. I am all about higher minimum wage.

But indexing it is something that even I would want some sober economic thought about before supporting it.

The problem is that pathological inflation (not caused by devaluing a currency) is a classic "wage-price" spiral. Having wages on both sides of the equation can get into feedback-loop territory.

I am not saying I am against indexing, in current political terms.

I would vote for it today. Partially because it would be a chip of value to be given up someday if it turned out to be too much of a problem.

[Proud Public Servant]

3. The trick is to choose the right index

You don't index it to inflation. You index it to Congressional salaries.

[jeff47]

9. Not that difficult a problem to solve.

If such a feedback loop starts happening, and is actually driven by the indexing, you can change or remove the indexing in future legislation.

Not indexing it means it will fall far behind again. We should make the default be for it to 'keep up', and require special effort to alter that.

[cthulu2016]

14. I agree. I would vote for it in todays world

because we could fix it if nessecary.

[OnyxCollie]

4. Minimum wage hike? LOL!

Our "inevitable" Democratic candidate for 2016, Hillary Clinton.

The Clinton Foundation - About
http://www.clintonfoundation.org/main/our-work/by-initiative/clinton-foundation-in-haiti/about.html

The Clinton Foundation has been actively engaged in Haiti since 2009, focusing on economic diversification, private sector investment and job creation in order to create long-term, sustainable economic development. After the devastating earthquake in 2010, President Clinton formed the Clinton Foundation Haiti Fund and raised $16.4 million from individual donors for immediate earthquake relief efforts. Since 2010, the Clinton Foundation has raised a total of $34 million for Haiti, including relief funds as well as projects focused on restoring Haiti's communities, sustainable development, education and capacity building. In 2012, the Clinton Foundation concentrated on creating sustainable economic growth in the four priority sectors of energy, tourism, agriculture, and apparel/manufacturing, working to bring new investors, develop and support local organizations and businesses, and create access to new markets. The Clinton Foundation also continued working to support government efforts to improve Haiti’s business environment and supported programs in education and capacity building.

Washington Backed Famous Brand-Name Contractors in Fight Against Haiti’s Minimum Wage Increase
http://www.haiti-liberte.com/archives/volume4-47/Washington%20Backed%20Famous.asp

The U.S. Embassy in Haiti worked closely with factory owners contracted by Levi’s, Hanes, and Fruit of the Loom to aggressively block a paltry minimum wage increase for Haitian assembly zone workers, the lowest paid in the hemisphere, according to secret State Department cables.

The factory owners refused to pay 62 cents an hour, or $5 per eight-hour day, as a measure unanimously passed by the Haitian parliament in June 2009 would have mandated. Behind the scenes, the factory owners had the vigorous backing of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Embassy, show secret U.S. Embassy cables provided to Haïti Liberté by the transparency-advocacy group WikiLeaks.

The minimum daily wage had been 70 gourdes or $1.75 a day.

The factory owners told the Haitian parliament that they were willing to give workers a mere 9 cents an hour pay increase to 31 cents an hour – 100 gourdes daily – to make T-shirts, bras and underwear for U.S. clothing giants like Dockers and Nautica.

Report: State Department-Backed Garment Complex in Haiti Stealing Workers’ Wages
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/17/headlines#10179

A new report by the Worker Rights Consortium has found the majority of workers in Haiti’s garment industry are being denied nearly a third of the wages they are legally owed due to widespread wage theft. The new evidence builds on an earlier report that found every single one of Haiti’s export garment factories was illegally shortchanging workers. Workers in Haiti make clothes for U.S. retailers including Gap, Target, Kohl’s, Levi’s and Wal-Mart. The report highlighted abuses at the Caracol Industrial Park, a new factory complex heavily subsidized by the U.S. State Department, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Clinton Foundation and touted as a key part of Haiti’s post-earthquake recovery. The report found that, on average, workers at the complex are paid 34 percent less than the law requires. Haiti’s minimum wage for garment workers is between 60 and 90 cents an hour. More than three-quarters of workers interviewed for the report said they could not afford three meals a day.

Let's vote for whomever will lie to us best.

[el_bryanto]

5. Is there a direct connection? nt

[OnyxCollie]

6. The Hillary Clinton-led State Dept./Clinton Foundation

pushed for lower minimum wages on behalf of Hanes et al. in Haiti.

Are you planning to vote for whomever promises the best pony?

[el_bryanto]

7. Well yes, because I'm a shallow idiot. Why wouldn't I vote for the best pony?

Please provide a link for the Clinton Foundation pushing for lower minimum wages.

I'm not likely to support Clinton in the Primaries, just so you know. I just like to be thorough.

Bryant

[OnyxCollie]

8. From my second link:

The factory owners refused to pay 62 cents an hour, or $5 per eight-hour day, as a measure unanimously passed by the Haitian parliament in June 2009 would have mandated. Behind the scenes, the factory owners had the vigorous backing of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Embassy, show secret U.S. Embassy cables provided to Haïti Liberté by the transparency-advocacy group WikiLeaks.

~snip~

For a 20 month period between early February 2008 and October 2009, U.S. Embassy officials closely monitored and reported on the minimum wage issue. The cables show that the Embassy fully understood the popularity of the measure.

The cables said that the new minimum wage even had support from a majority of the Haitian business community “based on reports that wages in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua (competitors in the garment industry) will increase also.”

Still, the proposal engendered fierce opposition from Haiti’s tiny assembly zone elite, which Washington had long been supporting with direct financial aid and free trade deals.

[el_bryanto]

10. And what is the direct link to the Clinton Foundation? nt

[OnyxCollie]

11. Uh, that the woman who led the State Dept.

in pushing for lower wages for the apparel industry is the wife of the man whose foundation is benefitting by "working to bring new investors, develop and support local organizations and businesses, and create access to new markets" from that same industry.

I'm sorry, but I don't have "Fuck 'em! They get nothing!" on Clinton Foundation letter head.

[el_bryanto]

12. I'm sorry the Clintons have been accused of a lot of thing over the years

As I'm sure you are aware. Worthwhile to thoroughly investigate each claim.

It looks like the Janet Sanderson, named in the article, was sent to Haiti by the Bush state Department - she served from 2006 to 2009 (which means she was moved out of Haiti presumably at some point during this story). The other key person David E. Lindwall, I can't find out much about except in response to this one story; there is a reference to a wiki-leaks story, but I can't find a link to the original wiki-links story.

Bryant

[OnyxCollie]

13. It's general neoliberal theory.

That the Clinton's are involved is irrelevant.

[el_bryanto]

15. Well it is relevant insofar as she may run for president

As I have said before I'm unlikely to support her for the primary (I don't think she's going to run but I like Elizabeth Warren).

At any rate I don't think the Clinton Foundation is doing anything particularly sinister here - like you say they are pushing a Neoliberal agenda you (and I) may disagree with, but I'm not sure the Clinton Foundation is directly strongarming the Haitian Government; they may be but I see no direct evidence of it.

Bryant

[OnyxCollie]

16. "...I see no direct evidence of it."

That's how it works.

Spawned from the concept of the charitable trust, the foundation is what Friedmann (1957) characterizes as “the most important modern institution in the field of group power” (p. 157). A chiefly American invention, the foundation is a permanent charitable institution that provides a tax shelter to donors, primarily heads of corporate empires (Friedmann, 1957). The foundation accomplishes this in multiple ways: through gifts exempt from gift taxes, which are then allowed to be deducted from income; through bequests deductible from estate taxes; and through the exemption of the foundation itself from income tax, property tax, and other taxes (Friedmann, 1957). The foundation allows for large sums of wealth to be diverted from tax collection, while simultaneously awarding control, credibility, and a perception of social responsibility (Friedmann, 1957).

Friedmann, W. G. (1957). Corporate power, government by private groups, and the law. Columbia Law Review, 57(2), 155-186.

[el_bryanto]

17. Do you think that there is something sinister in the Clinton's setting up a foundation

to help people?

Bryant

[OnyxCollie]

18. Who are they helping?

I've already provided evidence that it's not the Haitian workers.

Your turn.

[el_bryanto]

20. Ah no you provided evidence that a Bush Appointee pressured the Haitian Government

to keep them from raising the minimum wage and may have also pushed the Haitian Government to act as strike breakers. This evidence is not verifiable. You've also suggested that the Clinton Foundation believes that a strong Haitian Garment industry would benefit Haitian Garment Industry workers; although you are skeptical of their methods.

At any rate the question was more directed towards the quote you presented which seemed to suggest that charitable foundations in general were a bit of a scam. Perhaps I misunderstood?

[OnyxCollie]

23. Oh, FFS.

I give up.

The Clinton's are wonderful people. Between NAFTA, the Telecommunication Deregulation Act, the repeal of Glass-Steagel, voting for the Iraq war, directing diplomats to surreptitiously collect email passwords, fingerprints & iris scans, and threatening to "totally obliterate" Iran, I don't know which one I love more.

[el_bryanto]

25. That is a common response these days.

If you don't feel like your own arguments are worth serious analysis, how can you expect other people to take them seriously?

Bryant

[OnyxCollie]

27. No...

Debating with you is like debating with my dogs. Their limited comprehension ensures that my time will be wasted.

[el_bryanto]

29. That's pretty insulting; but common enough from people who throw out conspiracy theories

and then get angry when those theories are analyzed.

Bryant

[OnyxCollie]

32. You've provided nothing but faith-based evidence.

We assume that statesmen think and act in terms of interest defined as
power, and the evidence of history bears that assumption out. That assumption
allows us to retrace and anticipate, as it were, the steps a statesman-
past, present, or future-has taken or will take on the political scene.
We look over his shoulder when he writes his dispatches; we listen in on
his conversation with other statesmen; we read and anticipate his very
thoughts. Thinking in terms of interest defined as power, we think as he
does, and as disinterested observers we understand his thoughts and actions
perhaps better than he, the actor on the political scene, does himself.

The concept of interest defined as power imposes intellectual discipline
upon the observer, infuses rational order into the subject matter of politics,
and thus makes the theoretical understanding of politics possible. On the
side of the actor, it provides for rational discipline in action and creates that
astounding continuity in foreign policy which makes American, British, or
Russian foreign policy appear as an intelligible, rational continuum, by and
large consistent within itself, regardless of the different motives, preferences,
and intellectual and moral qualities of successive statesmen. A realist theory
of international politics, then, will guard against two popular fallacies:
the concern with motives and the concern with ideological preferences.

~snip~

Yet even if we had access to the real motives of statesmen, that knowledge
would help us little in understanding foreign policies, and might well
lead us astray. It is true that the knowledge of the statesman's motives may
give us one among many clues as to what the direction of his foreign policy
might be. It cannot give us, however, the one clue by which to predict his
foreign policies. History shows no exact and necessary correlation between
the quallty of motives and the quality of foreign policy. This is true in both
moral and political terms.

We cannot conclude from the good intentions of a statesman that his
foreign policies will be either morally praiseworthy or politically successful.
Judging his motives, we can say that he will not intentionally pursue
policies that are morally wrong, but we can say nothing about the probability
of their success. If we want to know the moral and political qualities
of his actions, we must know them, not his motives. How often have
statesmen been motivated by the desire to improve the world, and ended
by making it worse? And how often have they sought one goal, and ended
by achieving something they neither expected nor desired?

Morgenthau, H. (1948). Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace (pp. 5, 6). New York: Knopf

Sunstein and Vermeule (2008) describe “an effort to explain some event or practice by
reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have managed to conceal their role” (p. 4)
as a conspiracy theory, a pejorative term which denotes a faulty epistemology, rumors, and
speculation. Furthermore, it is asserted that such analysis overestimates the ability of government
bureaucracies to carry out “sophisticated and secret” (p. 6) plans in an open society. Alternately,
Parenti (2010) quoting Karp (1973) suggested that:

When it can be established that when a number of political acts work in concert to
produce a certain result, the presumption is strong that the actors were aiming at the result
in question. When it can be shown that the actors have an interest in producing these
results, the presumptions become a fair certainty- no conspiracy theory is needed.

Sunstein and Vermeule (2008) assume a well-intentioned government may decide to
defuse conspiracy theories “if and only if social welfare is improved by doing so” (p. 15), yet
they concede that governments themselves may be purveyors of conspiracy theories. Parenti
(1993) suggested the beneficiaries of said social welfare may be an entire class interest.
Following this reasoning, conspiracy theories may be eliminated to prevent exposure of
particular factions, or they may be furnished to enable a certain objective. According to Parenti
(2010), the term conspiracy theory can be used to dismiss: “(1) the idea of a conscious design by
policy makers; (2) a hidden, but knowing intent; (3) a secret plan; (4) a secret interest.”

[el_bryanto]

36. All I've done is read your links and reviewed them, and then did some additional research using

Google; You haven't really responded to any of that, instead throwing up theoretical arguments about the way that Power and Power Elites work.

The Clintons have been maligned both fairly and unfairly for years; they are not my cup of tea and I'm not likely to support Clinton in the 2016 Primary; but I don't think the proof you've provided proves that they have conspired against the Haitian people.

Bryant

[Egalitarian Thug]

28. You didn't really expect this to go anywhere, did you?

This is a well known, long time 2%er.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4289453

Still, it's always good for a bunch of kicks to the tread.

[el_bryanto]

30. Are you calling me a 2%er? And if so on what grounds. Your link wasn't illuminating. nt

[OnyxCollie]

34. Upton Sinclair said it best:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked

[Egalitarian Thug]

39. +1

In this case I doubt there's any actual remuneration. Just a sad illusion of relevance.

[OnyxCollie]

41. Doing it to put a smile on a child's face.

[Egalitarian Thug]

43. And what a beautiful child you have there. n/t

[Whisp]

40. doesn't that want to make you fucking Puke?

remember the first days after the Haiti tragedy - bill clinton and his adopted brother George W Bush are treated like saviours and heroes in a fine spotlight focused on their great humanitarianism for jumping in to help the Haitians..

makes me want to puke and spit. spit and puke.

[Whisp]

42. Clintons' Pet Project for Privatized 'Aid' to Haiti Stealing Workers' Wages: Report

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/10/16-4

Clintons' Pet Project for Privatized 'Aid' to Haiti Stealing Workers' Wages: Report
Published on Wednesday, October 16, 2013


Thieves.

Haiti's Caracol Industrial Park—the U.S. State Department and Clinton Foundation pet project to deliver aid and reconstruction to earthquake-ravaged Haiti in the form of private investment—is systematically stealing its garment workers' wages, paying them 34 percent less than minimum wage set by federal law, a breaking report from the Worker Rights Consortium reveals.

Critics charge that poverty wages illustrate the deep flaws with corporate models of so-called aid. "The failure of the Caracol Industrial Park to comply with minimum wage laws is a stain on the U.S.'s post-earthquake investments in Haiti and calls into question the sustainability and effectiveness of relying on the garment industry to lead Haiti's reconstruction," said Jake Johnston of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in an interview with Common Dreams.

Caracol is just one of five garment factories profiled in this damning report, released publicly on Wednesday, which finds that "the majority of Haitian garment workers are being denied nearly a third of the wages they are legally due as a result of the factories’ theft of their income." This is due to systematic employer cheating on piece-work and overtime, as well as failure to pay employees for hours worked.
...
Financers included the Inter-American Development Bank, the U.S. State Department, and the Clinton Foundation, who invested a total of $224 million with promises to uphold high labor standards. Its anchor tenant is the Korean S&H Global factory, which sells garments to Walmart, Target, Kohl's, and Old Navy, according to the report.

[MO_Moderate]

19. How many voters earn minimum wage?

[el_bryanto]

21. How many voters want to see the economy recover and are tired of an economy which

benefits the 1% and craps on the rest of us?

Bryant

[cthulu2016]

22. All wages are tied to minimum wage

No way around it.

When the most base job pays $15/hour then attracting people with skills requires offering more than $15/hour, and so on up the ladder.

[MO_Moderate]

31. Thank you

Such an adjustment would take time to have an effect on those who make more than $15 an hour, so I don't think it would have much of an impact on their vote, but I was just curious about how many would be directly affected by such a raise.

[pampango]

24. From CAP's report today: raising the minimum wage and indexing it is very popular (80%).

...increase the minimum wage and make sure it rises with inflation (80 percent total support and 58 percent strong support).

http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/WOP-PollReport2.pdf

People support the idea whether they make the minimum wage themselves or not. It is not about "What's in it for me?" all the time.

[MO_Moderate]

35. But

is it a defining enough of an issue to base her presidential hopes on?

[pampango]

37. It is certainly very, very popular. Whether it is "defining" is in the eye of the beholder. n/t

[orpupilofnature57]

26. Out of self interest she should distance herself from a

Multi-National Police force !!

[Whisp]

33. what Hillary should be talking about is reducing the Maximum Wage

that she and her husband are enjoying without limits and most likely through some of their investments are making money off the backs of slave labour.

[bigwillq]

38. .....Should retire