Wednesday, May 11, 2005

But, I need more....really!

Reading Thomas Sowell’s latest article, “The Latest Liberal Crusade”, this comment pops out:

The fashionable notion of "a living wage" is a wage that will support a family of four. And, sure enough, The New York Times finds a Wal-Mart employee who complains that he is not making "a living wage."

How is he living, if he is not making a living wage?

Should people be paid according to what they "need" instead of according to what their work is worth? Should they decide how big a family they want and then put the cost of paying to support that family on somebody else?

If their work is not worth enough to pay for what they want, is it up to others to make up the difference, rather than up to them to upgrade their skills in order to earn what they want?

Quite incredible if you ask me, and Sowell’s point is spot on. I wanted a lot of things when I was younger, usually anything that had to do with X-Men or baseball. I could never get my parents to agree that those were things that I absolutely had to have and that I could not nearly live without them. Now I realize that maybe what I thought I needed wasn’t that whichI really needed. (And I grudgingly admit that terrible truth of the ages…my parents were right. *shudder*)

But some people never grow up I guess.

Hat tip to Right Wing News on the quote.

No comments: