Was doing some web surfing and saw some links to current events and possible discussion of some of the recent democrat calls for a guaranteed annual minimum salary paid for of course by taxing the rich and the corporations. Oh yes and there was or is no apparent requirement to actually perform any work to qualify for the wages either. I got to thinking just why do all the current proponents of the guaranteed "living" wage" think they have a "brand new Idea?" The earliest I can remember was Hubert Humphrey trying to get it added to the platform of the democrats way back in 1968 during the nomination convention. Not that there weren't other people proposing the same thing earlier either. After all socialist have been around for lots longer than the sixties. Of course I was all of 16 back then and part of the discussion included making the wage start at age 18 and possibly even younger if the person was already employed in any capacity in a part time job after school. Which would have been great for me since I was a part time short order cook in a White Castle style restaurant and could then quit working and actually get more from the national guaranteed wage. Really fun discussions in my history class back then and just how many of the students actually said if there was a guaranteed annual wage then there was no reason for them to attend college or take shop classes to learn a trade. They could get the money right after school and spend the time at the beach or doing whatever they wanted since they would not have to work. More than a quarter of all the students in the class did profess they hoped the measure passed so they could avoid having to do all the hard work to earn a living. Then of course there were also the other side proponents that over joyously proclaimed that made it even easier for then to get the good paying jobs because there would be less competition because of the "free loaders" not even trying. Yeap not all the great new ideas are all that new.
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