PLEASE SEE DISCLAIMER ON THE POST "EDUCATION BENEFITS AND YOU NUMBER ONE - CIRTIFICATION"
You may qualify for these benefits if you:
• Entered active duty on or after September 10, 2001.
• Served at least 90 aggregate days of active duty
• You may also be eligible if you were honorably discharged from active duty for a service-connected disability and your served 30 continuous days
Please note the following upcoming changes to the Post 9/11 GI Bill:
http://gibill.va.gov/post-911/post-911-gi-bill-summary/Post911_changes.html
Benefit Guidelines
Based on your length of active duty service, you are entitled to a percentage of the following:
Individuals serving an aggregate period of active duty after September 10, 2001, of: Percentage of Maximum Benefit Payable
At least 36 months 100
At least 30 continuous days and discharged due to service connected disability 100
At least 30 months < 36 months 90
At least 24 months < 30 months 80
At least 18 months < 24 months 70
At least 12 months < 18 months 60
At least 6 months < 12 months 50
At least 90 days < 6 months 40
• Cost of tuition and fees, not to exceed the most expensive in-state undergraduate tuition at a public institution of higher education (paid to school);
• Monthly housing allowance* equal to the basic allowance for housing payable to a military E-5 with dependents, in the same zip code as your school (paid to you);
• Yearly books and supplies stipend of up to $1000 per year (paid to you)
*NOTE – The housing allowance and books and supplies stipend are not payable to individuals on active duty. The housing allowance is not payable to those pursuing training at half time or less or to individuals enrolled in distance learning.
Chapter 33 benefits do not affect your eligibility for federal subsidized loans. However, these benefits are included as income when your eligibility for campus-based aid (work-study, Federal Perkins, and matching grants) is determined.
Benefits, generally, must be used within 15 years; however, the time limit may be shorter or longer in rare circumstances.
Documentation Required for Chapter 33
To receive education benefits, you must have a Certificate of Eligibility (COE). A COE can be obtained by going to the Department of Veteran Affairs website and applying for your federal GI Bill education benefits utilizing their Veteran On-line Application (VONAPP).
Please submit completed forms or document copies to either the Department of Veteran Affairs or the Registrar’s Office, according to your circumstances.
If you have never applied for benefits, submit
1. An Application for VA Benefits (22-1990) through VONAPP
2. A Certificate of Eligibility to the Registrar’s Office
3. Enrolment verification form (different for every school, they need this in order to tell the VA that you are attending school and are asking to use your benefits)
If you have had a one-year break in attendance at the University, or if you used your benefit at another institution, submit:
1. A Change of Program or Place of Training (22-1995) through VONAPP
2. A Certificate of Eligibility to the Registrar’s Office
3. Enrolment verification form (different for every school, they need this in order to tell the VA that you are attending school and are asking to use your benefits)
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
American Decline (By David Campbell)
Introduction
When the question “Is America in a state of decline?” the first and foremost idea that comes to mind is our current economic situation. However, there multiple perspectives that must be observed to properly consider this question. Based on the research and opinions found, I have seen two analyses of today’s state in America. It is without a doubt that we have suffered set back within the last decade to some degree at the very least. There are those that say we are most definitely in a decline culturally, economically, and politically. Others compare our current situation to mere indigestion. In this paper I will review evidence supporting both view points and potential policies which could be implemented to recover.
Evidence supporting decline
As I mentioned before, the idea of decline is something relative that must be viewed from multiple perspectives. In regards to being in a state of decline, there are a couple points I would like to highlight. The two key issues revolve around being involved militarily around the world and the economic crisis of 2008. For many years now, the United States of America has been the global hegemon in many aspects. Our nation has since had extremely well established hard and soft powers on a global level. This was firmly established particularly after World War II. Since then, our military can reach out and have boots on the ground anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours. The United States has not only had the biggest stick on Earth, but it has also had a powerful way of swinging it both physically and diplomatically.
That said, we have been officially tied up in conflicts for over a decade across southwest Asia through Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, we have been involved militarily in several other asymmetrical conflicts in the Philippines, Libya, Djibouti, and other countries in Africa. Much of these other conflicts are only vaguely covered in the news, if at all. Because of all these various conflicts over the last ten years, starting with September 11, 2001, some scholars are saying that we have overstretched our reach. Some historians like Frank Cerruti, a professor at Northern Virginia Community College, compare the United States to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire being a large imperial nation whose ambitions led to its own downfall. Robert Gilpin refers to this as the hegemonic cycle. The hegemonic cycle states that a nation’s economic order plays to the international scene. Eventually, the global hegemon’s power deteriorates over time through over extending and over spending.
The Hill newspaper recently conducted a poll in October 2011 in which 69% of Americans now believe the United States is in a state of decline (O’Reilly, 2011). As Bill O’Reilly explains, the collapse of America’s “Don’t Tread on Me” traditions began with the Vietnam War. This was the first time the average American could witness an uncensored reality of war. Compared to the controlled footage shown at movies during World War II, this was a significant difference that came about with the modern news reporter. This only intensified feelings that Americans, particularly young Americans, experienced in regards to war. Furthermore, the Vietnam War was a vaguely defined conflict. It was an asymmetric conflict in which a body count did not make a difference in the way Americans were used to. Even prior to World War II, the United States has a history of attempting to install democracy in foreign nations.
That said, I quote an interesting question posed by Christopher Coyne, an Assistant Professor of Economics at West Virginia University. “Can a liberal democracy be exported at gun point?” His answer to this question is that we have focused solely on military occupation and reconstruction instead of exporting our values and ideas through trade and non-intervention. This has been shown in the history of U.S. foreign policy through Cuba, Somalia, Vietnam, and several other nations. This answer applies directly to our conflicts we have experienced over the last ten years. However, Operation Enduring Freedom is currently the United States’ longest ensuing conflict which involves both occupation and reconstruction (Coyne, 2008).
Ultimately, war is economically inefficient. It may provide temporary benefits and jobs, as witnessed in World War II, but it is not necessarily a sound long term investment. That said, we have been performing something unsustainable for a decade now. Undoubtedly, our current conflict in Afghanistan and our enduring presence in Iraq has contributed to our economic issues and our national debt in the trillions. Albeit a much smaller portion of our deficit in reality than the average American believes. From this point of view, the United States has definitely overstretched its reach as the global hegemon. The question that remains is what our recovery to a peacetime nation will be like. Will our withdraw from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom be a graceful maneuver or will it signify a retreat to the world?
How we handle the withdraw will have a significant impact on both our soft power and hard power. To begin with, our soft power has already come in to question by different nations. According to a Pew poll listed by Al Jazeera, in 15 out of 22 nations surveyed, people believe that China will replace or has replaced America as “the world’s leading superpower.” Even more ironically, many of the negative opinions came from some of our long time allies including Japan, Turkey, Latin American countries, and other countries in Eastern Europe (Nye, 2011).
In terms of our military power, it will largely depend on where future budget cuts are made and how the military plans to handle it. In 2009 I worked in Recruiting for the United States Marine Corps. At that time, the entire U.S. Armed Forces had not only met its recruiting quota, but it had surpassed it as well. At that point, the Marine Corps had reached its highest numbers around 210,000. Today, with the given economic situation and the end of combat operations in Iraq, the U.S. military is beginning the process of force restructuring.
That said, Congress has mandated that the Marine Corps must reduce its numbers to 185,000 by 2013. The other branches are experiencing cuts proportionally similar to this as well. This will mean that the United States will have a significantly smaller stick than it has had over the last several years. If the military’s numbers are ultimately reduced in the same way they were during the Clinton administration we may suffer similar inconveniences when it comes time to mobilize again. Therefore, our hard powers have decreased and are still decreasing at least in terms of sheer numbers.
The second major piece of evidence supporting the idea that the United States is in a state of decline is our current economic crisis. As every American is aware of, we entered an economic recession in 2008 and the recovery has been somewhat troubled. Although there are currently many Americans protesting through the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, there is much more that caused the economic crisis than the executives on Wall Street.
The economic crisis America is experiencing arguably began as early as 1971 when President Nixon took the United States off the gold standard. From here on out was the beginning of a US Dollar backed by nothing but the word of the government. Essentially, the US dollar became a receipt for something that did not exist.
This practice of American assets not being backed by anything carried in the late 1990’s when cheap credit became easily available. In reality, much of this was a result of direct foreign investment in the United States particularly from China. This cheap credit that became available to virtually anyone who wanted it resulted in inflated assets. This trend continued in to the late 2007 and 2008 time frame. These assets came particularly in the form of the U.S. housing market. Essentially, Americans began purchasing homes that they could not realistically afford. This in turn caused the housing bubble to burst in the United States and thus was the first symptom of the American and global economic crisis (McGlinchey, 2011). The United State’s proverbial house of cards built with money and assets that did not exist in the first place came crashing down.
In the long run this is another aspect that has damaged America’s soft power. Essentially, what our enormous outstanding debt has signaled to the world is that our government is unreliable. It has affected our national image. Between the economic crisis and the Global War on Terrorism, we have tried to spend our way out of the problem. This also supports Robert Gilpin’s concept of the Hegemonic Cycle I mentioned earlier, providing evidence supporting that the United States may indeed be in a state of decline. The current administration has attempted to spend our way out of this crisis through a variety of methods.
After President Obama was elected, our government took on more interventionist economic policies. They attempted to resurrect the economy by providing economic stimulus and bailout funds to various major businesses. Since then, the administration has introduced more plans in order to recover beginning with Obamacare in an attempt to provide health insurance for the public. Following that, there have been a number of federal and state level job acts and economic recovery acts. The idea behind these plans is to fix the economy and fix the approximately 9% unemployment rate. However, all of these plans are ultimately inefficient and are only pushing America further towards declination (BLS, 2011).
As supporting evidence of this, one could argue that America is slowly falling down Friedrich Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom.” As his book shows, it begins by war forcing national economic planning. In doing this, individual freedoms are given up. One could compare this to various legislations like the Patriot Act that resulted from the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Since then, the “blank check” that was given to President Bush has continued on with the spending and planning of this administration. As Hayek says, the government continues to plan a utopia for all. However, a utopia is ultimately subjective to each individual person. Some may argue that this is conspiracy theory, but it is certainly worth consideration.
As I mentioned before, the Global War on Terrorism has played a part in building up our national deficit. Furthermore, when many Americans are asked what should be done to help the economy, a common answer is to end the war. It is true that America’s conflicts are expensive. However, in reality the war only makes up 20% of the national budget (Anonymous, 2011). The entire war, not including things like the troop’s base pay, is funded under the United States budget’s discretionary funds. The rest of the military makes up a much smaller portion of the mandatory funds.
It is here where America has the large elephant in the room that makes up for over 50% of the national budget’s mandatory funds. The elephant that no one wants to discuss and has the largest cumulative amount of expenditures is comprised of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security (Anonymous, 2011). All three of these programs are unsustainable at their current rate. Furthermore, their expenditures will continue to rise as America’s Baby Boomer generation begins to retire.
All of this data based primarily on the current economic crisis and the global war on terrorism points to the idea that America is currently in a state of decline. Furthermore, this data supports Robert Gilpin’s theory of the Hegemonic Cycle which says the United States is on its way out. However, for every argument, there is a counter argument.
Evidence showing only temporary issues
The resounding two opinions supporting the idea that the United States is only experiencing minor technical difficulties are interrelated. The first point is to look at our overall history and see that we have experienced substantial troubles before. Additionally, our current problems are only being further exacerbated by poor decisions made by our current and previous presidential administrations.
As Joseph Nye’s article on Al Jazeera shows, Americans have quite a long history of underestimating their powers. When everyone thought that the Soviets would best us in the space race, arms race, or Cold War, America pulled through. Later in the 1980’s everyone thought Japan’s industry would overtake ours. Today, everyone is worried that China will best the United States. Even through our current economic recession, America still has a very productive economy. Additionally, America still ranks first in research and development expenditures, university rankings, Nobel prizes, and entrepreneurship. That said, the one thing that has pushed America as far as it has gone so far has been innovation. Even today we are still the front runner in rapidly emerging industries such as biotechnology and nanotechnology. People still want to come from all over the world to experience success in the United States (Nye, 2011).
Although our military is beginning the process of downsizing, it is still highly unlikely that we will lose our edge especially given the innovation America has. The military’s manpower may decrease, but we can still swing a big stick from across the globe when we need to. Along with this war has come the unmanned aerial vehicle. These are being widely used today as a lethal and efficient tool throughout our conflict areas. Take for example our recent strike in Yemen.
As another counter to the idea that we are declining, one could argue that we have gotten to where we are because of poor governmental decisions. We are also experiencing turmoil because we are in a political stagnation right now. Much of this could change though based on who is elected in the upcoming 2012 elections. Although there has been an exorbitant amount of expenditures in recent years, this does not necessarily mean that the next administration will fall under this. In fact, based on the history of swinging between Liberal and Conservative, I would say that we will not continue our current spending.
Much of what supports the idea that we are only experiencing temporary difficulties is in of itself. Things will change over time. For instance, according to statistics collected by the Bureau of Labor, the majority of people who are experiencing unemployment are in their 20’s and early 30’s. Eventually, when the baby boomer generation begins to retire, the jobs that are locked up will open to the next generation.
Ultimately the resounding argument supporting the idea that America is only witnessing temporary setbacks is that we simply need to hold on and ride out the crisis. As long as there is still innovation combined with a spirit of entrepreneurship, we can make it through anything. All we have to do is wait and see what tomorrow brings.
Potential Policies
As for policies to amend America’s “decline,” I have come across two approaches to this. The first is called the policy of retrenchment. The second idea is that we need drastic changes in our government’s unchecked and unaudited spending across the board.
According to Paul MacDonald and Joseph Parent, most great powers who adopted retrenchment policies during sharp decline were significantly more successful than states that did otherwise. The strategy begins by retracting grand commitments abroad in an effort to gracefully decline. The core principal of retrenchment involves a great power shifting burdens to allies, reducing military expenditures and personnel, and avoiding militarized disputes.
To support this, history has shown that putting up a façade, catering to private interests, and holding up unrealistic burdens causes these nations to be exploited by the more disciplined opponents. Furthermore, studies have shown that the quicker retrenchment is undertaken, the greater the alliance agreements are and the more swift the recovery will be (MacDonald & Parent, 2011). What this translates to is that a declining hegemon should set itself up for success, not failure. It needs to give itself a chance to maintain credibility in order to maintain posture in the long run.
The second major idea is that we need major spending cuts throughout the entire United States government. Much of this I discussed already in terms of social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. These programs are positive feedback loops that have reinforced themselves over the last several decades. The issue with this though is that nobody wants to be the one to say that an older generation should not receive healthcare. Furthermore, anyone who would say that might have difficulty getting elected.
Since the early 1900’s the United States has adopted many social programs that cater to a variety of interests beginning near the great depression. The problem with social programs though, is that if you approve one you have to approve them all in order to keep it “fair.” These spending cuts must happen at some point. The only question is to what degree they will occur. Much of that will be determined by the next administration to come about.
Final Analysis and Conclusion
My own personal opinion takes in bits and pieces of everything. I do not believe that we are in a terminal state of decline. However, I do not believe that this situation is simple as some people say. Others compare this to the great depression in the early 1900’s, but I believe it has the potential to become much worse than that. In this case, we have worked our nation in to a corner with a plethora of policies and legislations held in place by a bipartisan system that refuses to budge.
In order to maintain our position as global hegemon we must remove ourselves from all these military conflicts abroad and make serious cuts to the spending our nation performs. This means that everyone has to be willing to give up their handouts and be willing to improvise, adapt, and overcome the challenges ahead of us. That means that there will be business failures and people without health insurance. I will be the first to admit that the thought is unnerving, but it is something that must happen for the United States to continue on. If this does not happen, I think it is very possible that the next generation will not be as well off as we are. At the end of the day though, Americans want their Starbucks coffee and I believe that we will pull through this one way or another.
Bibliography
Anonymous. (2011) Interview. White House Office of Management and Budget. (I have kept this person’s name anonymous at their request.)
Antle, W. (2011). Is america in decline?. The American Spectator, 30-35. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=c785ce89-7e15-4c75-827f-cf9bb144eef4@sessionmgr111&vid=2&hid=107
BLS. (2011). Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population by age, sex, and race, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Coyne, C. (2008). After war: the political economy of exporting democracy. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Datta, M. (2009). The decline of america's soft power in the united nations. International Studies Perspectives, 10, 265-284. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=5f39a527-a714-471f-94d9-03f5c958d513@sessionmgr115&vid=2&hid=107
Hayek, F. (1944). The road to serfdom. University of Chicago Press.
MacDonald, P., & Parent, J. (2011). Resurrecting retrenchment:. International Security, Retrieved from http://www.ciaonet.org/pbei/isp/0022202/f_0022202_18269.pdf
MacDonald, P., & Parent, J. (2011). Graceful decline?. International security, 35(4), 7-44. Retrieved from http://www.ciaonet.org/journals/is/v35i4/f_0022251_18307.pdf
McGlinchey, E. (2011). GOVT 132 Lecture. George Mason University
Nye, J. (2011). Decline and fall of the us' decline and fall. Al Jazeera, Retrieved from http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/10/2011108122558980585.html
O'Reilly, B. (2011, October 29). Dependency leads to a declining u.s.. Retrieved from http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/2011_1029dependency_leads_to_a_declining_us/
Prasad, E. (2009). Effects of the financial crisis on. The Cato Institute, 223-235. Retrieved from http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj29n2/cj29n2-1.pdf
When the question “Is America in a state of decline?” the first and foremost idea that comes to mind is our current economic situation. However, there multiple perspectives that must be observed to properly consider this question. Based on the research and opinions found, I have seen two analyses of today’s state in America. It is without a doubt that we have suffered set back within the last decade to some degree at the very least. There are those that say we are most definitely in a decline culturally, economically, and politically. Others compare our current situation to mere indigestion. In this paper I will review evidence supporting both view points and potential policies which could be implemented to recover.
Evidence supporting decline
As I mentioned before, the idea of decline is something relative that must be viewed from multiple perspectives. In regards to being in a state of decline, there are a couple points I would like to highlight. The two key issues revolve around being involved militarily around the world and the economic crisis of 2008. For many years now, the United States of America has been the global hegemon in many aspects. Our nation has since had extremely well established hard and soft powers on a global level. This was firmly established particularly after World War II. Since then, our military can reach out and have boots on the ground anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours. The United States has not only had the biggest stick on Earth, but it has also had a powerful way of swinging it both physically and diplomatically.
That said, we have been officially tied up in conflicts for over a decade across southwest Asia through Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, we have been involved militarily in several other asymmetrical conflicts in the Philippines, Libya, Djibouti, and other countries in Africa. Much of these other conflicts are only vaguely covered in the news, if at all. Because of all these various conflicts over the last ten years, starting with September 11, 2001, some scholars are saying that we have overstretched our reach. Some historians like Frank Cerruti, a professor at Northern Virginia Community College, compare the United States to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire being a large imperial nation whose ambitions led to its own downfall. Robert Gilpin refers to this as the hegemonic cycle. The hegemonic cycle states that a nation’s economic order plays to the international scene. Eventually, the global hegemon’s power deteriorates over time through over extending and over spending.
The Hill newspaper recently conducted a poll in October 2011 in which 69% of Americans now believe the United States is in a state of decline (O’Reilly, 2011). As Bill O’Reilly explains, the collapse of America’s “Don’t Tread on Me” traditions began with the Vietnam War. This was the first time the average American could witness an uncensored reality of war. Compared to the controlled footage shown at movies during World War II, this was a significant difference that came about with the modern news reporter. This only intensified feelings that Americans, particularly young Americans, experienced in regards to war. Furthermore, the Vietnam War was a vaguely defined conflict. It was an asymmetric conflict in which a body count did not make a difference in the way Americans were used to. Even prior to World War II, the United States has a history of attempting to install democracy in foreign nations.
That said, I quote an interesting question posed by Christopher Coyne, an Assistant Professor of Economics at West Virginia University. “Can a liberal democracy be exported at gun point?” His answer to this question is that we have focused solely on military occupation and reconstruction instead of exporting our values and ideas through trade and non-intervention. This has been shown in the history of U.S. foreign policy through Cuba, Somalia, Vietnam, and several other nations. This answer applies directly to our conflicts we have experienced over the last ten years. However, Operation Enduring Freedom is currently the United States’ longest ensuing conflict which involves both occupation and reconstruction (Coyne, 2008).
Ultimately, war is economically inefficient. It may provide temporary benefits and jobs, as witnessed in World War II, but it is not necessarily a sound long term investment. That said, we have been performing something unsustainable for a decade now. Undoubtedly, our current conflict in Afghanistan and our enduring presence in Iraq has contributed to our economic issues and our national debt in the trillions. Albeit a much smaller portion of our deficit in reality than the average American believes. From this point of view, the United States has definitely overstretched its reach as the global hegemon. The question that remains is what our recovery to a peacetime nation will be like. Will our withdraw from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom be a graceful maneuver or will it signify a retreat to the world?
How we handle the withdraw will have a significant impact on both our soft power and hard power. To begin with, our soft power has already come in to question by different nations. According to a Pew poll listed by Al Jazeera, in 15 out of 22 nations surveyed, people believe that China will replace or has replaced America as “the world’s leading superpower.” Even more ironically, many of the negative opinions came from some of our long time allies including Japan, Turkey, Latin American countries, and other countries in Eastern Europe (Nye, 2011).
In terms of our military power, it will largely depend on where future budget cuts are made and how the military plans to handle it. In 2009 I worked in Recruiting for the United States Marine Corps. At that time, the entire U.S. Armed Forces had not only met its recruiting quota, but it had surpassed it as well. At that point, the Marine Corps had reached its highest numbers around 210,000. Today, with the given economic situation and the end of combat operations in Iraq, the U.S. military is beginning the process of force restructuring.
That said, Congress has mandated that the Marine Corps must reduce its numbers to 185,000 by 2013. The other branches are experiencing cuts proportionally similar to this as well. This will mean that the United States will have a significantly smaller stick than it has had over the last several years. If the military’s numbers are ultimately reduced in the same way they were during the Clinton administration we may suffer similar inconveniences when it comes time to mobilize again. Therefore, our hard powers have decreased and are still decreasing at least in terms of sheer numbers.
The second major piece of evidence supporting the idea that the United States is in a state of decline is our current economic crisis. As every American is aware of, we entered an economic recession in 2008 and the recovery has been somewhat troubled. Although there are currently many Americans protesting through the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, there is much more that caused the economic crisis than the executives on Wall Street.
The economic crisis America is experiencing arguably began as early as 1971 when President Nixon took the United States off the gold standard. From here on out was the beginning of a US Dollar backed by nothing but the word of the government. Essentially, the US dollar became a receipt for something that did not exist.
This practice of American assets not being backed by anything carried in the late 1990’s when cheap credit became easily available. In reality, much of this was a result of direct foreign investment in the United States particularly from China. This cheap credit that became available to virtually anyone who wanted it resulted in inflated assets. This trend continued in to the late 2007 and 2008 time frame. These assets came particularly in the form of the U.S. housing market. Essentially, Americans began purchasing homes that they could not realistically afford. This in turn caused the housing bubble to burst in the United States and thus was the first symptom of the American and global economic crisis (McGlinchey, 2011). The United State’s proverbial house of cards built with money and assets that did not exist in the first place came crashing down.
In the long run this is another aspect that has damaged America’s soft power. Essentially, what our enormous outstanding debt has signaled to the world is that our government is unreliable. It has affected our national image. Between the economic crisis and the Global War on Terrorism, we have tried to spend our way out of the problem. This also supports Robert Gilpin’s concept of the Hegemonic Cycle I mentioned earlier, providing evidence supporting that the United States may indeed be in a state of decline. The current administration has attempted to spend our way out of this crisis through a variety of methods.
After President Obama was elected, our government took on more interventionist economic policies. They attempted to resurrect the economy by providing economic stimulus and bailout funds to various major businesses. Since then, the administration has introduced more plans in order to recover beginning with Obamacare in an attempt to provide health insurance for the public. Following that, there have been a number of federal and state level job acts and economic recovery acts. The idea behind these plans is to fix the economy and fix the approximately 9% unemployment rate. However, all of these plans are ultimately inefficient and are only pushing America further towards declination (BLS, 2011).
As supporting evidence of this, one could argue that America is slowly falling down Friedrich Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom.” As his book shows, it begins by war forcing national economic planning. In doing this, individual freedoms are given up. One could compare this to various legislations like the Patriot Act that resulted from the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Since then, the “blank check” that was given to President Bush has continued on with the spending and planning of this administration. As Hayek says, the government continues to plan a utopia for all. However, a utopia is ultimately subjective to each individual person. Some may argue that this is conspiracy theory, but it is certainly worth consideration.
As I mentioned before, the Global War on Terrorism has played a part in building up our national deficit. Furthermore, when many Americans are asked what should be done to help the economy, a common answer is to end the war. It is true that America’s conflicts are expensive. However, in reality the war only makes up 20% of the national budget (Anonymous, 2011). The entire war, not including things like the troop’s base pay, is funded under the United States budget’s discretionary funds. The rest of the military makes up a much smaller portion of the mandatory funds.
It is here where America has the large elephant in the room that makes up for over 50% of the national budget’s mandatory funds. The elephant that no one wants to discuss and has the largest cumulative amount of expenditures is comprised of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security (Anonymous, 2011). All three of these programs are unsustainable at their current rate. Furthermore, their expenditures will continue to rise as America’s Baby Boomer generation begins to retire.
All of this data based primarily on the current economic crisis and the global war on terrorism points to the idea that America is currently in a state of decline. Furthermore, this data supports Robert Gilpin’s theory of the Hegemonic Cycle which says the United States is on its way out. However, for every argument, there is a counter argument.
Evidence showing only temporary issues
The resounding two opinions supporting the idea that the United States is only experiencing minor technical difficulties are interrelated. The first point is to look at our overall history and see that we have experienced substantial troubles before. Additionally, our current problems are only being further exacerbated by poor decisions made by our current and previous presidential administrations.
As Joseph Nye’s article on Al Jazeera shows, Americans have quite a long history of underestimating their powers. When everyone thought that the Soviets would best us in the space race, arms race, or Cold War, America pulled through. Later in the 1980’s everyone thought Japan’s industry would overtake ours. Today, everyone is worried that China will best the United States. Even through our current economic recession, America still has a very productive economy. Additionally, America still ranks first in research and development expenditures, university rankings, Nobel prizes, and entrepreneurship. That said, the one thing that has pushed America as far as it has gone so far has been innovation. Even today we are still the front runner in rapidly emerging industries such as biotechnology and nanotechnology. People still want to come from all over the world to experience success in the United States (Nye, 2011).
Although our military is beginning the process of downsizing, it is still highly unlikely that we will lose our edge especially given the innovation America has. The military’s manpower may decrease, but we can still swing a big stick from across the globe when we need to. Along with this war has come the unmanned aerial vehicle. These are being widely used today as a lethal and efficient tool throughout our conflict areas. Take for example our recent strike in Yemen.
As another counter to the idea that we are declining, one could argue that we have gotten to where we are because of poor governmental decisions. We are also experiencing turmoil because we are in a political stagnation right now. Much of this could change though based on who is elected in the upcoming 2012 elections. Although there has been an exorbitant amount of expenditures in recent years, this does not necessarily mean that the next administration will fall under this. In fact, based on the history of swinging between Liberal and Conservative, I would say that we will not continue our current spending.
Much of what supports the idea that we are only experiencing temporary difficulties is in of itself. Things will change over time. For instance, according to statistics collected by the Bureau of Labor, the majority of people who are experiencing unemployment are in their 20’s and early 30’s. Eventually, when the baby boomer generation begins to retire, the jobs that are locked up will open to the next generation.
Ultimately the resounding argument supporting the idea that America is only witnessing temporary setbacks is that we simply need to hold on and ride out the crisis. As long as there is still innovation combined with a spirit of entrepreneurship, we can make it through anything. All we have to do is wait and see what tomorrow brings.
Potential Policies
As for policies to amend America’s “decline,” I have come across two approaches to this. The first is called the policy of retrenchment. The second idea is that we need drastic changes in our government’s unchecked and unaudited spending across the board.
According to Paul MacDonald and Joseph Parent, most great powers who adopted retrenchment policies during sharp decline were significantly more successful than states that did otherwise. The strategy begins by retracting grand commitments abroad in an effort to gracefully decline. The core principal of retrenchment involves a great power shifting burdens to allies, reducing military expenditures and personnel, and avoiding militarized disputes.
To support this, history has shown that putting up a façade, catering to private interests, and holding up unrealistic burdens causes these nations to be exploited by the more disciplined opponents. Furthermore, studies have shown that the quicker retrenchment is undertaken, the greater the alliance agreements are and the more swift the recovery will be (MacDonald & Parent, 2011). What this translates to is that a declining hegemon should set itself up for success, not failure. It needs to give itself a chance to maintain credibility in order to maintain posture in the long run.
The second major idea is that we need major spending cuts throughout the entire United States government. Much of this I discussed already in terms of social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. These programs are positive feedback loops that have reinforced themselves over the last several decades. The issue with this though is that nobody wants to be the one to say that an older generation should not receive healthcare. Furthermore, anyone who would say that might have difficulty getting elected.
Since the early 1900’s the United States has adopted many social programs that cater to a variety of interests beginning near the great depression. The problem with social programs though, is that if you approve one you have to approve them all in order to keep it “fair.” These spending cuts must happen at some point. The only question is to what degree they will occur. Much of that will be determined by the next administration to come about.
Final Analysis and Conclusion
My own personal opinion takes in bits and pieces of everything. I do not believe that we are in a terminal state of decline. However, I do not believe that this situation is simple as some people say. Others compare this to the great depression in the early 1900’s, but I believe it has the potential to become much worse than that. In this case, we have worked our nation in to a corner with a plethora of policies and legislations held in place by a bipartisan system that refuses to budge.
In order to maintain our position as global hegemon we must remove ourselves from all these military conflicts abroad and make serious cuts to the spending our nation performs. This means that everyone has to be willing to give up their handouts and be willing to improvise, adapt, and overcome the challenges ahead of us. That means that there will be business failures and people without health insurance. I will be the first to admit that the thought is unnerving, but it is something that must happen for the United States to continue on. If this does not happen, I think it is very possible that the next generation will not be as well off as we are. At the end of the day though, Americans want their Starbucks coffee and I believe that we will pull through this one way or another.
Bibliography
Anonymous. (2011) Interview. White House Office of Management and Budget. (I have kept this person’s name anonymous at their request.)
Antle, W. (2011). Is america in decline?. The American Spectator, 30-35. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=c785ce89-7e15-4c75-827f-cf9bb144eef4@sessionmgr111&vid=2&hid=107
BLS. (2011). Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population by age, sex, and race, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Coyne, C. (2008). After war: the political economy of exporting democracy. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Datta, M. (2009). The decline of america's soft power in the united nations. International Studies Perspectives, 10, 265-284. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=5f39a527-a714-471f-94d9-03f5c958d513@sessionmgr115&vid=2&hid=107
Hayek, F. (1944). The road to serfdom. University of Chicago Press.
MacDonald, P., & Parent, J. (2011). Resurrecting retrenchment:. International Security, Retrieved from http://www.ciaonet.org/pbei/isp/0022202/f_0022202_18269.pdf
MacDonald, P., & Parent, J. (2011). Graceful decline?. International security, 35(4), 7-44. Retrieved from http://www.ciaonet.org/journals/is/v35i4/f_0022251_18307.pdf
McGlinchey, E. (2011). GOVT 132 Lecture. George Mason University
Nye, J. (2011). Decline and fall of the us' decline and fall. Al Jazeera, Retrieved from http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/10/2011108122558980585.html
O'Reilly, B. (2011, October 29). Dependency leads to a declining u.s.. Retrieved from http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/2011_1029dependency_leads_to_a_declining_us/
Prasad, E. (2009). Effects of the financial crisis on. The Cato Institute, 223-235. Retrieved from http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj29n2/cj29n2-1.pdf
Friday, January 27, 2012
Maximum Unemployment Through Minimum Wage (By Walter Sweeney)
I wrote this last year for a class that I was taking at the time. I hope that you find it informative and interesting. Enjoy!
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Minimum wage; its morality, its effect on the employment rates and its effect on the economy as a whole has always been a controversial issue since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” program. The idea is that if employers pay a certain minimum amount to an employee in wages then the overall quality of life and economic stability of the country will increase. Many argue that minimum wage is just a set basic starting rate of income for new employees. Is that really how it works, though? Historically, there are many examples of the effects of minimum wage and there are more than a handful of modern statistics and cases that show how minimum wage effects the world we live in today. It has been proven that the opposite of minimum price laws (i.e. minimum wage) are not healthy for the economy. This has been shown through rent control and other such maximum price limits. Is it possible that minimum wage could be healthy? In retrospect it has been proven otherwise. Employers base the amount of money they will pay someone on the productivity they have witnessed by said employee. By setting a minimum wage the government requires employers to pay a certain hourly-based rate to their employees, regardless of their productivity level. Minimum wage should be abolished since it has been proven to be a serious contributing factor of high(er) unemployment -- which in turn hurts the economy -- because no employer is willing to pay someone for more work that could otherwise require less compensation.
In 1938, during the Great Depression, the United States Congress passed the Federal Labor Standards Act (FSLA). The act set the limit for the first ever minimum wage level in America protecting workers from borderline “inhumane” paychecks. Worker’s unions fought for the cause under the assumption that they would soon fall victim to further financial gaps between their paychecks and that of their employers, or at least that is what the unions who lobbied for it despite the fact that a union with members who receive minimum wage are rare, assuming such a union actually exists. “The FLSA introduced sweeping regulations to protect American workers from being exploited, and created a mandatory federal minimum wage of 25 cents an hour in order to maintain a minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general well-being, without substantially curtailing employment” (minimum-wage.org). Since the FSLA was passed in 1938 congress has amended it multiple times, always increasing the minimum wage to eventually reach the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per-hour. There have been many studies concerning the effects of minimum wage over the 73 years it has existed. Most of the studies have shown, beyond any shadow of doubt, that when minimum wage is increased, there is a decrease in employment on an average of 10% increase causes 1% more unemployment (uva.edu). The reason the increase in unemployment is directly related to an increase in minimum wage is because every employer evaluates the productivity level of each of his or her employees in terms dollar per hours. If an employee is less productive than set the minimum wage, then there is no reason for that employer to keep that less productive employee on the pay roll. Additionally, requiring employers to pay a certain higher amount to their employees in wages, the profit margin for that business will decrease unless some workers are let go.
In the modern era of minimum wage, it is the unskilled laborers who suffer the most at the hands of minimum wage laws. Because of their over-representation on the lower end of the labor marker, it is adolescents and minorities who are the most negatively effected by minimum wage laws. This is ironic since that is the demographic that the FSLA is meant to assist. Some theorize that raising the minimum wage compels high school students to drop out of high school in order to take advantage of the newly increased wages, but if this were to happen, then those adolescents (unskilled labor) would be hard pressed to find a job since there are fewer jobs available (Hamrock, Caitlin, and Warren 1). Furthermore, in 1983, the US House of Representatives commissioned a study in which they discovered that minimum wage increases reduce the average earnings of teenaged workers. That is to say that if you look at a sampling of 20 adolescent workers who are each receiving $5/hr (average of $100/hr) but then 4 of them loose their jobs as a result of minimum wage of $2/hr, the overall average of the wages paid to those workers will decrease (new average of $90/hr). In the case of minorities, Ken Kersch writes, “The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which set a national minimum wage, might have played a significant role in the development of a black underclass” (gmu.edu). In August of 2011 there was a study that showed that, “Overall U.S. unemployment is 9.1 percent. For white adults, it's 8 percent, and for white teens, 23 percent. Black adult unemployment stands at 17 percent, and for black teens, it's 40 percent, more than 50 percent in some cities” (Williams). Again, this is an over-representation of this demographic as the teenaged African American community is far less than 40-50% of the overall workforce in this country.
While minimum wage laws are a form of minimum price control, there is such thing as a maximum price control. Rent control is a excellent example of this. Where minimum price controls create a surplus people looking for work, maximum price control causes a shortage of available housing. The graphs bellow (figure 1) demonstrates this phenomenon. At the intersection of the supply and demand curve is the equilibrium price for the respective economic goods of employees and housing. At that price, the market is cleared…anyone who wants a job has one and anyone who wants a house has one.
(Figure 1)
When the price of a good like employees or housing is artificially modified by an outside source like the government, there is either too much or too little of that good at the previous/equilibrium market price. What does this mean for unemployment? The surplus that is shown above the intersection of the supply and demand curves represents all those workers who are seeking employment, but cannot find it…there are more of them seeking work than there was previously. Whenever prices are altered, these shortages and surpluses occur, and they are always negative for the economy as a whole as the economy relies on equilibrium prices in order to remain stable and healthy.
There are those that argue in favor of maintaining minimum wages and, if at all possible, raising them even higher. The common argument is that it is worth the trade off of higher unemployment (particularly among teenagers and minorities) for overall higher wages for those who are employed. “Labor activists and liberals have actively pushed for a higher minimum wage, claiming that the minimum wage must also serve as an adequate living wage for all workers. The current minimum wage rate, they claim, is much too low to serve as a living wage in today's economy” (minimum-wage.org). Others will argue that the minimum wage is just a launching point and that workers will advance past the bare minimum quickly and it is only “fair” that everyone starts at the same place. Andrew Lustig writes that since the wage would increase for everyone (both employer and employee), no one will be adversely affected by minimum wages, since the cost of consumer goods raises relative to the price to employ workers and the workers get paid more so no one gets hurt (1).
The idea that minimum wage should behave as a base level “living wage” for all of American workers (minimum-wage.org) is a conclusion that has been come to with less than all the facts. Either that or it is the result of political posturing. In a June 1996 publication, Kevin Kelly points out that much of the minimum wage debate is nothing more than an “unfortunate side show” that serves the purpose of distracting from “far more substantive economic issues” (1). Kelly goes on to say that, “when you increase wages, employers will find some way to reduce the impact on their profits by getting rid of some workers” (1). Not only does Kelly show that increasing unemployment is inevitable when minimum wage is raised, but he also sites information from a Federal Reserve Board study which estimated that, in 1996, “a ninety-cent increase [in minimum wage] would reduce overall employment by 400,000 jobs, and that about half of those who lost their jobs would not find new [jobs]” (1). The assumption that minimum wage is merely a “starting point” for a new workers has also been disproven. In 2000 a Senior Economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC published a paper documenting that a “significant number of new workers stay at or near the minimum wage long after their initial foray into the labor market” (Schmidt 1). The actual data shows after a decade or more in the working world nearly 20% of employees who started off at minimum wage will spend more than half of their overall career within $1.50 of minimum wage (Schmitt 1). This study stood the pro-minimum wage activists on their head, as it totally invalidated their claims that minimum wage acts as an even starting point for first-time employees.
Not only do minimum wage laws hurt the individuals that they are meant to economically stimulate, but they also damage the economy as a whole by causing a surplus of job seeking workers in the labor market. Despite all the data that as proven the economic turbulence caused by minimum wage, we still live in a country that clings to the idea that maybe someday all of the economic theory and data that stands against minimum wage will miraculously change someday. Most shocking of all is not the data that disproves the benefits of minimum wage, but it is instead the 1935 Supreme Court decision (Poultry vs. US Government) that ruled minimum wage unconstitutional. In 1937 this decision was later reversed in the West Coast Hotel vs. Perish decision. Prior to this second decision, President Roosevelt (a staunch supporter of the FLSA and minimum wage) threatened to add judges to the Supreme Court, increasing the total number of judges on the high court by six, making it a total of 15. After reversing the 1935 decision, Justice Owen Roberts was heard to say, “a switch in time saves nine,” an expression of how it was better to allow this one unconstitutional law to pass than to allow FDR to be able to essentially control the Supreme Court with the appointment of so many new judges. One year later the FLSA was passed and the estimate that 30-50,000 people would be unemployed as a result was far surpassed. In Texas alone 40,000 people lost their jobs and the lines at unemployment offices across the country increased by a total of 3 million people.
-w
Works Cited
“History of the United States’ Minimum Wage.” minimum-wage.org/history.asp. Minimum-Wage.org, 2009-2001. Web.
“Effects of Increases in the Minimum Wage.” uvm.edu/~vlrs/doc/min_wage.htm. University of Vermont, 1991-2001. Web.
Hamrock, Caitlin, and John Robert Warren. "The effect of minimum wage rates on high school completion." Social Forces 88.3 (2010): 1379+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web.
Kersch, Ken. “Blacks and Labor – The Untold Story.” mason.gmu.edu/~dbernste/publicinterest.html. Public Interest, 2002. Web.
Figure 1: Deborah Ma. Supply and Demand Graph. 2011. University of British Colombia, Canada. UMBCwiki. Web.
Williams, Walter. “Why Minimum Wage Keeps Blacks Jobless.” Washingtonexaminer.com. Washington Examiner, 31 AUG 2011. Web.
Schmitt, John. "Minimum Wage Careers." The American Prospect 11.10 (2000): 8. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web.
Lustig, Andrew. "Bare minimum: what constitutes a just wage?" Commonweal 133.3 (2006): 7+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web.
Kelly, Kevin. "A minimal gesture: the politics of wage hikes." Commonweal 123.11 (1996): 8+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web.
Gorman, Linda. “Minimum Wages.” Econlib.org/library/enc/minimumwages.html. Library of Economics and Liberty, n.d. Web.
-------------
Minimum wage; its morality, its effect on the employment rates and its effect on the economy as a whole has always been a controversial issue since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” program. The idea is that if employers pay a certain minimum amount to an employee in wages then the overall quality of life and economic stability of the country will increase. Many argue that minimum wage is just a set basic starting rate of income for new employees. Is that really how it works, though? Historically, there are many examples of the effects of minimum wage and there are more than a handful of modern statistics and cases that show how minimum wage effects the world we live in today. It has been proven that the opposite of minimum price laws (i.e. minimum wage) are not healthy for the economy. This has been shown through rent control and other such maximum price limits. Is it possible that minimum wage could be healthy? In retrospect it has been proven otherwise. Employers base the amount of money they will pay someone on the productivity they have witnessed by said employee. By setting a minimum wage the government requires employers to pay a certain hourly-based rate to their employees, regardless of their productivity level. Minimum wage should be abolished since it has been proven to be a serious contributing factor of high(er) unemployment -- which in turn hurts the economy -- because no employer is willing to pay someone for more work that could otherwise require less compensation.
In 1938, during the Great Depression, the United States Congress passed the Federal Labor Standards Act (FSLA). The act set the limit for the first ever minimum wage level in America protecting workers from borderline “inhumane” paychecks. Worker’s unions fought for the cause under the assumption that they would soon fall victim to further financial gaps between their paychecks and that of their employers, or at least that is what the unions who lobbied for it despite the fact that a union with members who receive minimum wage are rare, assuming such a union actually exists. “The FLSA introduced sweeping regulations to protect American workers from being exploited, and created a mandatory federal minimum wage of 25 cents an hour in order to maintain a minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general well-being, without substantially curtailing employment” (minimum-wage.org). Since the FSLA was passed in 1938 congress has amended it multiple times, always increasing the minimum wage to eventually reach the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per-hour. There have been many studies concerning the effects of minimum wage over the 73 years it has existed. Most of the studies have shown, beyond any shadow of doubt, that when minimum wage is increased, there is a decrease in employment on an average of 10% increase causes 1% more unemployment (uva.edu). The reason the increase in unemployment is directly related to an increase in minimum wage is because every employer evaluates the productivity level of each of his or her employees in terms dollar per hours. If an employee is less productive than set the minimum wage, then there is no reason for that employer to keep that less productive employee on the pay roll. Additionally, requiring employers to pay a certain higher amount to their employees in wages, the profit margin for that business will decrease unless some workers are let go.
In the modern era of minimum wage, it is the unskilled laborers who suffer the most at the hands of minimum wage laws. Because of their over-representation on the lower end of the labor marker, it is adolescents and minorities who are the most negatively effected by minimum wage laws. This is ironic since that is the demographic that the FSLA is meant to assist. Some theorize that raising the minimum wage compels high school students to drop out of high school in order to take advantage of the newly increased wages, but if this were to happen, then those adolescents (unskilled labor) would be hard pressed to find a job since there are fewer jobs available (Hamrock, Caitlin, and Warren 1). Furthermore, in 1983, the US House of Representatives commissioned a study in which they discovered that minimum wage increases reduce the average earnings of teenaged workers. That is to say that if you look at a sampling of 20 adolescent workers who are each receiving $5/hr (average of $100/hr) but then 4 of them loose their jobs as a result of minimum wage of $2/hr, the overall average of the wages paid to those workers will decrease (new average of $90/hr). In the case of minorities, Ken Kersch writes, “The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which set a national minimum wage, might have played a significant role in the development of a black underclass” (gmu.edu). In August of 2011 there was a study that showed that, “Overall U.S. unemployment is 9.1 percent. For white adults, it's 8 percent, and for white teens, 23 percent. Black adult unemployment stands at 17 percent, and for black teens, it's 40 percent, more than 50 percent in some cities” (Williams). Again, this is an over-representation of this demographic as the teenaged African American community is far less than 40-50% of the overall workforce in this country.
While minimum wage laws are a form of minimum price control, there is such thing as a maximum price control. Rent control is a excellent example of this. Where minimum price controls create a surplus people looking for work, maximum price control causes a shortage of available housing. The graphs bellow (figure 1) demonstrates this phenomenon. At the intersection of the supply and demand curve is the equilibrium price for the respective economic goods of employees and housing. At that price, the market is cleared…anyone who wants a job has one and anyone who wants a house has one.
When the price of a good like employees or housing is artificially modified by an outside source like the government, there is either too much or too little of that good at the previous/equilibrium market price. What does this mean for unemployment? The surplus that is shown above the intersection of the supply and demand curves represents all those workers who are seeking employment, but cannot find it…there are more of them seeking work than there was previously. Whenever prices are altered, these shortages and surpluses occur, and they are always negative for the economy as a whole as the economy relies on equilibrium prices in order to remain stable and healthy.
There are those that argue in favor of maintaining minimum wages and, if at all possible, raising them even higher. The common argument is that it is worth the trade off of higher unemployment (particularly among teenagers and minorities) for overall higher wages for those who are employed. “Labor activists and liberals have actively pushed for a higher minimum wage, claiming that the minimum wage must also serve as an adequate living wage for all workers. The current minimum wage rate, they claim, is much too low to serve as a living wage in today's economy” (minimum-wage.org). Others will argue that the minimum wage is just a launching point and that workers will advance past the bare minimum quickly and it is only “fair” that everyone starts at the same place. Andrew Lustig writes that since the wage would increase for everyone (both employer and employee), no one will be adversely affected by minimum wages, since the cost of consumer goods raises relative to the price to employ workers and the workers get paid more so no one gets hurt (1).
The idea that minimum wage should behave as a base level “living wage” for all of American workers (minimum-wage.org) is a conclusion that has been come to with less than all the facts. Either that or it is the result of political posturing. In a June 1996 publication, Kevin Kelly points out that much of the minimum wage debate is nothing more than an “unfortunate side show” that serves the purpose of distracting from “far more substantive economic issues” (1). Kelly goes on to say that, “when you increase wages, employers will find some way to reduce the impact on their profits by getting rid of some workers” (1). Not only does Kelly show that increasing unemployment is inevitable when minimum wage is raised, but he also sites information from a Federal Reserve Board study which estimated that, in 1996, “a ninety-cent increase [in minimum wage] would reduce overall employment by 400,000 jobs, and that about half of those who lost their jobs would not find new [jobs]” (1). The assumption that minimum wage is merely a “starting point” for a new workers has also been disproven. In 2000 a Senior Economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC published a paper documenting that a “significant number of new workers stay at or near the minimum wage long after their initial foray into the labor market” (Schmidt 1). The actual data shows after a decade or more in the working world nearly 20% of employees who started off at minimum wage will spend more than half of their overall career within $1.50 of minimum wage (Schmitt 1). This study stood the pro-minimum wage activists on their head, as it totally invalidated their claims that minimum wage acts as an even starting point for first-time employees.
Not only do minimum wage laws hurt the individuals that they are meant to economically stimulate, but they also damage the economy as a whole by causing a surplus of job seeking workers in the labor market. Despite all the data that as proven the economic turbulence caused by minimum wage, we still live in a country that clings to the idea that maybe someday all of the economic theory and data that stands against minimum wage will miraculously change someday. Most shocking of all is not the data that disproves the benefits of minimum wage, but it is instead the 1935 Supreme Court decision (Poultry vs. US Government) that ruled minimum wage unconstitutional. In 1937 this decision was later reversed in the West Coast Hotel vs. Perish decision. Prior to this second decision, President Roosevelt (a staunch supporter of the FLSA and minimum wage) threatened to add judges to the Supreme Court, increasing the total number of judges on the high court by six, making it a total of 15. After reversing the 1935 decision, Justice Owen Roberts was heard to say, “a switch in time saves nine,” an expression of how it was better to allow this one unconstitutional law to pass than to allow FDR to be able to essentially control the Supreme Court with the appointment of so many new judges. One year later the FLSA was passed and the estimate that 30-50,000 people would be unemployed as a result was far surpassed. In Texas alone 40,000 people lost their jobs and the lines at unemployment offices across the country increased by a total of 3 million people.
-w
Works Cited
“History of the United States’ Minimum Wage.” minimum-wage.org/history.asp. Minimum-Wage.org, 2009-2001. Web.
“Effects of Increases in the Minimum Wage.” uvm.edu/~vlrs/doc/min_wage.htm. University of Vermont, 1991-2001. Web.
Hamrock, Caitlin, and John Robert Warren. "The effect of minimum wage rates on high school completion." Social Forces 88.3 (2010): 1379+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web.
Kersch, Ken. “Blacks and Labor – The Untold Story.” mason.gmu.edu/~dbernste/publicinterest.html. Public Interest, 2002. Web.
Figure 1: Deborah Ma. Supply and Demand Graph. 2011. University of British Colombia, Canada. UMBCwiki. Web.
Williams, Walter. “Why Minimum Wage Keeps Blacks Jobless.” Washingtonexaminer.com. Washington Examiner, 31 AUG 2011. Web.
Schmitt, John. "Minimum Wage Careers." The American Prospect 11.10 (2000): 8. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web.
Lustig, Andrew. "Bare minimum: what constitutes a just wage?" Commonweal 133.3 (2006): 7+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web.
Kelly, Kevin. "A minimal gesture: the politics of wage hikes." Commonweal 123.11 (1996): 8+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web.
Gorman, Linda. “Minimum Wages.” Econlib.org/library/enc/minimumwages.html. Library of Economics and Liberty, n.d. Web.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The Good, The Bad, The 99% (By Jacob Coy)
This article is about a very important issue in my mind and I hope that most of you agree. We all know about the Occupy Wall Street Movement and what they represent but do they themselves know what they’re doing this for? I don’t believe they do and as I go on, I’ll explain the pros and cons of this current movement and why it doesn’t have the effectiveness it should.
I always enjoy starting on a good note, so here it goes. A movement such as this has been able to turn the tides of governments, dictators, whole countries and most importantly, have inspired people to get involved. I love seeing the Occupy Movement in the sense that people are passionate about what is happening in this country and they want you to care about it too. I also believe that they are protesting some key elements that are bringing this country down such as the Federal Reserve and a corrupt money market that essentially dictates the direction this country is heading in. I love seeing the streets filled with people fighting for a cause they believe in because, after all, a revolution is how this country was founded. I also love how they have remained non-violent, for the most part. So, in short, I’m all in favor of an occupy movement. I’m just not in favor of THIS occupy movement.
The problem I have with this occupy movement is the lack of intellect, the lack of planning, the lack of cognitive thinking, the fact that they refer to themselves as the 99% and most importantly, the lack of knowledge on the very issues they are out there protesting. I’ve been to a couple occupy movements in Charleston, S.C. and I’ve seen the videos and done the research on as many as I could find. The one, fundamental problem that I have seen in every single movement around the country is that people just straight out do not know what they are there for. They say things like, “End the Fed’” and “Wall Street is corrupt.” Or my favorite, “We are the 99%.” The people I have asked and the people I have seen asked about these issues don’t have a damn clue as to WHY the Federal Reserve is a bad thing or Why Wall Street’s practices are not in within the highest standards of a money market that handles our countries finances. They think that they’re the 99% because we have a high unemployment rate or, because although the cost of living has gone up and minimum wage has not, that they have been short-sided. These things may be true but they are in no way whatsoever the 99% of the world, nor are they the 99% of this country for that matter.
I could go on for days about why we should end the Fed or why we need to change the practices of Wall Street but that is not the intent of this article. The one message that I want to promote to everyone above everything I ever write, is that you need to educate yourself on the issues and get involved. Having a firm knowledge on what your point of view is not only lets people know that educated and prepared for debate, it also gives credibility to your claims. Do you have any idea how ridiculous those people sound when they’re asked why the Fed is bad and they blurt out some random gibberish? They bring down the status of the movement and then a stereotype begins that everyone there is just like that one moron. You lose credibility on everything you are fighting for. Nobody wants to listen to that and eventually your voice is drowned out by morons. Educate yourselves. Help educate others. Spread what you know and stand by the things you say. They’re absolutely right, they are the 99%.They’re the 99% that don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. I’ve seen some amazing speakers at these movements who have really had inspiring words and knew what they were saying. If this movement was filled with people like that, I’d quit my job and go live in the streets with them.
This was also very poorly planned. Maybe not poorly planned but definitely poorly executed. The word of this movement didn’t spread far enough, the message wasn’t clearly stated and goals were not outlined in detail. Once people got wind of the movement, every retard who wanted to say something decided to show up. There were so many different points of view and lack of knowledge on THEIR OWN VIEWS!!!!, that it was nauseating. There was no clear message, you couldn’t find a knowledgeable person due to the crowd of incompetent sheep and you could figure out which direction they were firing these shots at. There was no objective. No goal line. No push for the hill because nobody had a clue where the hill was. It’s mass madness aimed in no particular direction, with no particular point and that is why this movement will fail.
In conclusion, I love the idea of this. I love the passion, although it’s not known what that passion is, and I love that so many people are willing to get behind something like this. However, we need to be educated and knowledgeable on the issues. The best analogy I can think of is, you can’t fire a weapon that has no ammunition. We are all capable of being this great weapon that can turn the tides of the country we live in but it’s the ammo that makes the weapon effective. Once again, thank you for reading and I welcome any comments, good or bad.
Monday, January 23, 2012
8 Character Qualities - An Introduction (By Walter Sweeney)
As mentioned in my previous post, there are certain qualities of character that are possessed by Veterans of America's Armed Forces. Not that these character qualities are non-existent in civilians, but in my experience, they are more fully developed and more prevalent in Veterans. I will be writing several blogs about these qualities, why Veterans seem to have them in spades and what that means for the Veterans community and the civilians that we interact with on a daily basis. Before getting into that, however, I would like to introduce these character qualities to you briefly.
The first (and my favorite) of these character qualities is Loyalty. Dictionary.com says that loyalty is, "Faithfulness to commitments or obligations," and "faithful adherence to a sovereign, government, leader, cause, etc." In a post that I will compose and post soon, I will expand on that loyalty and give examples of it in action.
Persistence/Perseverance, "Lasting or enduring tenaciously," or "steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement." This is the second of the qualities of character that I would like to introduce to you today. From their/our experience as member of the military, Veterans have learned to push through and complete the task, regardless of the opposition that we inevitably face. Again, I will be writing a full post about this at some point in the future.
Another character quality that I will be expanding more on in the future is the inherent Boldness of military Veterans. Again quoting from Dictionary.com (what would I do without that site?), bold is defined as, "Not hesitating or fearful in the face of actual or possible danger or rebuff; courageous and daring." Surely this is a quality that, in many cases, can make the difference between life and death (either your own or someone else's) while in the military, and something that each and every one of us take out into the civilian world once our military obligation has been completed.
The, "ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like," is another great trait that Veterans are far from unfamiliar with. This quality is more readily know as Resilience. When I was in the United States Marine Corps, I learned from day one at Parris Island that it is a waste of time to let things get you down. Every day someone or something is going to try to knock you down (figuratively and literally). Cliche though it may be, Veterans are particularly resilient because each and every one of us know that there is nothing to be gained from laying on your back once you have been knocked to the ground. Getting knocked down doesn't matter...you have to be able to stand back up and keep fighting even when it seems pointless.
If I had a nickle for every time there was some officer or higher ranking enlisted person that I had to restrain myself from cursing out or hitting, I wouldn't be hosting this blog on a free site since I would have the money to just buy my own domain. The ability to deal with someone appropriately and respectfully despite what your animal instincts may tell you to do is called Tact. It is a "keen sense of what to say or do to avoid giving offense; skill in dealing with difficult or delicate situations," (again, shout out to Dictionary.com). Find me a Veteran who has never had to exercise tact, and exercise it a lot, and I will find you someone who has never actually served in the military.
While you would not be incorrect to assume or say that Vets can be very stubborn or hard headed at times, that doesn't necessarily mean that we are not also exceptionally Flexible. Sure, it's nice when things go the way that we would like them to go (hell, who doesn't like it when that happens?), but when they don't Veterans possess the ability to quickly and easily adapt and overcome. We are "susceptible of modification or adaptation" because, let's face it, when you work in a place where you don't get to make the rules and the rules that are made are non-negotiable, you learn to adapt.
Decisiveness, that is the next of our qualities...it a quality that allows you to "put an end to controversy; characterized by or displaying no or little hesitation; resolute; determined." When we make a decision, we stick with it, and when it comes time for a decision to be made, we make it. Veterans come from a world where a moments hesitation could impact you and/or the people around you drastically and forever. We can't afford to be anything but decisive in war and since it kept us alive there, it is a quality that we carry with us into the relative peace of the "civilian world."
Last, but hardly least, is Leadership and the Veterans intrinsic ability to lead. Not to say that we all desire to take control of whatever we involve ourselves in and do things our way. That is not the case. In fact, I would wager that I know more Veterans who would rather follow than have the responsibility of leading...after all, once must be an excellent follower in order to be any kind of quality leader at all. Regardless of an individual Veterans desire to lead or desire to follow, each and every one of us have it in us to be a "guiding or directing head" for whatever group we are put into. We know how to work in a team, with a team and as the leader of a team, and we do all of those things well.
So there you have it, eight qualities of character that set Veterans apart from civilians. Over the next several weeks and months I will be posting a more detailed description of each of these character qualities and the secondary qualities that are encompassed by the "Big 8." I will work to have a new character quality blog posted by the end of the day each Friday. At that rate, this particular theme of posts will last for about 2 months starting on Friday, January 27th and ending on Friday, March 16th. Please don't hate me if I fall a little behind, ok? The spring semester starts on Monday, so my life is about to get a lot busier here in a few days. Finally, I haven't made a decision about which order I want to do the character qualities in yet. If anyone would like to hear about one or a few more than other, leave me a comment or send me an email and I will work to get those more demanded posts written first.
-w
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Educational Benefits and You Number One - Certification (Posted by Walter Sweeney)
DISCLAIMER AND INTRODUCTION
One of the things I would really like to do with this page is routinely post general information about Veteran's Educational Benefits and other benefit related topics. It is important that you, as the reader, be aware that these posts are borrowed from outside sources, some of whom post information specific to their state or institution. The information posted here is meant to be nothing more than a resource to understand how things work in some places, so maybe it will be easier for you, as a Veteran, to figure out how they work in the place where you are. If you have specific questions about where the information is taken from or where it specifically applies to, please feel free to contact us at VeteransVoiceOnline@gmail.com and we will attempt to assist you. Again, we have received no formal training concerning Veterans Benefits and can speak only based upon our own individual experiences to try and help friends figure out their situations. If we're wrong, don't hate...we don't claim to be right all the time. That being said, hope this and the posts to follow help.
Part One - Certification of GI Bill and Educational Benefits
Certification Required
To receive education benefits you must be certified, a process that
can take up to three months. Your first step is to go to the Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA) website and apply for your federal GI Bill
education benefits utilizing their Veteran On-line Application (VONAPP). Applicants for Chapter 31 must meet with a US Department of Veterans Affairs counselor.
Once a student has applied for benefits and registered for classes
they will need to submit a Veteran Registration Reporting Form (VRRF) to
the Office of the Registrar. The Office of the Registrar will then
issue a Verfication of Enrollment (VA Form 22-1999) via VA ONCE to
inform the VA that the student is enrolled at Mason and requesting
education benefits. For more information regarding the veteran
enrollment certfication process at Mason please visit the Office of the Registar.
Keep in mind that any veterans’ education benefits you receive must
be reported on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). If
you have specific questions, please contact the US Department of
Veterans Affairs' Buffalo Office toll-free at 1-888-442-4551 or go to
the US Department of Veterans Affairs web site, www.gibill.va.gov.
Verify Your Enrollment
Chapter 30, 1607 and 1606 recipients: Once you are
certified for your benefits, you must verify your enrollment with the
Veterans Administration at the end of each month before you will receive
your payment. To verify enrollment, go to the Web Automated Verification of Enrollment (WAVE) or call 1-877-823-2378.
Duey's Corner - The First Conversation (By Dave Warner)
This is a hybrid version of an Argument paper I wrote for my
English class last fall semester in Florida.
It was written around the time Ron Paul was rising in the polls, right
before he received negative ‘press’ from the media. The paper is for withdrawing all of our
military Armed Forces from foreign bases and how it can benefit and improve our
economy and the country in general. Enjoy.
Withdrawing our
military forces worldwide and bringing them home can be beneficial to the
United States.
The United
States has the biggest military in the world, having 865 military bases in more
then 40 different countries throughout the world. Our government is currently spending billions
per month in three active “conflicts”
each involving separate countries and other minor disputes around the globe.
For the year 2010 Congress passed an over $680 billion dollar military defense
budget through the House of Representatives without a second thought on how
that vast amount of money could be used in better ways. Not a single cent of
that money will go towards the hard working Americans that make the defense
budget possible. No other country around the world currently, or in past
history, has achieved the military might and budget that the United States maintains
today. More people throughout the United States and the world are coming to realize
these types of polices cannot last much longer. Our country and the world are
currently struggling through a bad economic recession, which started in 2008
and has no foreseeable end in sight. Many Americans are asking ‘what can our
country do different’? and ‘how can we make our economy better and lower the
overall debt’? It’s simple, withdraw our
troops from all of our military bases around the world and bring them home. By
withdrawing our troops from every base and country around the world we can; save
American and civilian lives; stop providing American money and manpower to
defend the United Nations; keep our country and citizens safe from more
conflicts as a result of our deployed troops and lastly, put that money towards
good use within our countries’
borders for the benefit of our citizens
and economy.
One of the most
prevalent and deadly tactics “terrorists” use against coalition forces is the
suicide bomber; a man/women who straps a vest with explosives or rides in a
vehicle with explosives and detonates it with the intent on killing themselves
and others. In their book, Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global
Terrorism and How to Stop it authors Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman
explain that suicide bombers haven’t been around as long as people think, and
the general assumption that there are scores of fighters willing to sacrifice
their life for their cause is false (Pape and Feldman 81). Jason Kelly stated
in an article in the Chicago Journal that, “until the 2003 invasion of Iraq,
there (has) never been a suicide terrorist attack in the country.” Our militaries
occupation in countries around the world is a direct cause of the wounded and
dead in our military branches. We cannot talk about the wars our country is
current fighting in and not mention the innocent civilians that have been lost
as a result. In their article, in the
New York Times, Sabrina Tavernise and Andrew W. Lehren state that there was an
estimated 100,000 innocent lives lost in Iraq between 2004-2009. They mention
that in the city of Fallujah during the 2004 “push” none of the Iraqis killed
were categorized as civilians. Our military occupies countries under the banner
of “democracy” and “freedom” in order to end tyrannical rulers and allow the
people to live in a peaceful country yet hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians
die due to their occupation, the very people they were sent there to help
protect!
The United
Nations is the world’s sole organization of powerful countries from around the
world, their purpose is to maintain peace and settle disagreements without military
intervention and also promote progressive and fair economic policies. As the
only Super Power in the world, our country has a responsibility to lend a helping
hand to nations in need. That was the idea when the United Nations was started
and supported by the United States shortly after World War II. However, due to
the devastating effects of the Second World War on the major European nations,
they could not provide adequate defense over their own countries and their
allies. The United States stepped in to provide protection from the threat of
Communist Russia. This eventually led us to the point we are at now. Hundreds
of thousands of our military men and women are sitting in bases around the
world idly. We have three active conflicts [when this paper was written] with
American and civilians wounded and killed everyday. The countries of Germany,
Japan and South Korea depend on our military forces to defend their county.
Germany and Japan lost their privileges to hold a national military force after
World War II as part of the peace treaty that ended the war. Over sixty-five
years our country has protected Germany, Japan, South Korea and Israel from
foreign threats while they spend money on their economy and other domestic
needs. What do we, as a country, have to show for all of this effort? Very
little with a multi-trillion dollar national deficit, failing national credit
ratings, failing banks, and a failing economy we cannot afford to maintain this
military standard around the world. No
country in history has ever been able to maintain a massive military force spread
throughout the world for very long without dire effects on their security and
economy.
One very real
and potentially dangerous problem brought about from our bloated hegemonic military
presence around the world is Iran and its mission of obtaining nuclear
power/weapons. There is a very logical reason for Iran to want nuclear power
and eventually weaponize it, and that is for its security. Countries with
nuclear weapons do not go to war with each other. Iran sits on very big and
profitable reserves of oil and other natural resources. The United States with
the help of the U. N. wants these resources. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons,
however, the U.N. and U.S. will not be able to obtain those resources using the
same methods as Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan because it could possible start a
nuclear war.
In this map the
white stars represent all the active United States military bases that are
currently around Iran. Put yourself in the shows of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s
president. With the long list of occupied countries and conflicts in the Middle
East region by the United States what other choice does he have? If war broke out between Iran and the United
States, Iran would surely lose. If,
however, Iran obtained nuclear weapons no major war would break out for fear of
those weapons being used. In the days of the Cold War, this type of tactic is
called MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). It means that if you have nuclear
weapons, then I have a comparable amount that we can use to mutually destroy
each other when and if the time comes that nuclear weapons need to be used. This
is a prime example of why our military forces need to be brought home. Our
presence in countries (whether we are actively fighting or are simply
occupying) causes there to be more conflict
between our country and others. If we bring our troops home and stop
interfering in other countries affairs our country will benefit because less
wars would be fought.
When we served
in the Marine Corps most of us were stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
in the city of Jacksonville (or in your respected units base). According to Lindell Kay’s Forbes article,
Jacksonville, NC was rated the number one city for jobs and economic stability
during this recession. The majority of the population of Jacksonville is
military members and their families because of the military bases that
surrounded the city. The only reason why Jacksonville was given this rating was
because of the thousands of military personnel and their family’s living and
spending money there, just imagine the economic boost if all of our troops
overseas were brought home. We would not need the massive military force we
have now if we withdrew our troops, which makes millions of workers available
to work. Our economy would not be fixed overnight from this recession just
because we brought our troops home. It would take a couple of years to
stabilize unemployment and the economy but in the long run our country would
reap the rewards. Also, the billions spent on our defense budget could be put
towards other projects that will benefit Americans more directly; our dilapidated
highways and schools are two good examples. In his book, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives,
author Nick Turse states that we could clear $2.6 billion if we would sell our
base assets at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and earn another $2.2 billion
if we did the same with Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Closing just two bases would
save us $4.8 billion dollars. Imagine if
we closed all of our military bases around the world. It would save trillions. If
our country uses the money and manpower that funds our obtuse military into
public works and the national debt we would benefit greatly.
The United
States of America is a force to be reckoned with on both the military and economic
side of the spectrum. We spend billions of taxpayer’s money a month on three
separate wars without any positive results for American citizens. Unless you
think a defaulting economic system and American flag draped coffins are signs
of success then you know this path our country is currently on is not
sustainable. It is time for us to take
the high road as a country and a people to cease all these wars. How do you think our country looks to others?
We bully countries around, forcing them to commit to policies that will benefit
us at the expense of others. It is a blatant abuse of power. We should be using
our position as the only Super Power in the world for good, not endless war and
evil. Our government was founded by free men, for free men; they gave the voice
of power to the people so that they can decide what the government will do for them not what the people
will do for the government. It is up to the masses to let their voices be
heard. The only way this country can change is through the people and their
power at the voting booths. Our country has been running around the world
causing unchecked havoc for years. We have wasted billions on wars throughout
the world, countless thousands of American, Coalition allies and, innocent
civilian lives lost, and exorbitant amounts of destruction to economies and
countries around the world. Our country’s economic situation is not hopeless,
and in this case, the grass is greener on the other side. History has shown us
that war is never the answer and more problems are caused through wars then are
solved. It is time we start paying attention to the policies our government has
in place for our military and act accordingly because there will come a time
when our wasteful spending cripples our country for good.
~ How can you change political policy on the international
scale? It’s easy. Using a local VFW post, your
college/university student veterans organization or even local activist groups.
All of these groups and organizations have a similar ‘brotherhood’ atmosphere.
It sounds hypocritical to join Veterans for Peace or Veterans Against the Iraq
and Afghanistan Wars organizations having served in those wars and fought and
honestly, had some really funny/good moments along with the bad moments. Regardless of that, those experiences changed
you and if you feel that the ‘conflicts’ that this country is fighting in are
not worth the loss of life and economic resources there is no reasons why you
can’t actively (and maturely) oppose it.
If any one is interested in information on local Veterans Organizations
or on the G.I. Bill/V.A. stuff let me know, I’d be more then welcome to provide
information and at the least point you in the right direction. Hope you enjoyed the post, kudos to both
Jacob Coy and Walter for their awesome
posts, if you haven’t checked then out you should.
-Dave
W.
Works Citied
Kay, Lindell. “Forbes Magazine names Jacksonville No. 1.” JD News. N.p. 22 Apr. 2010. Web. 11 Nov.
2011.
Kelly, Jason. “Suicidal Tendencies.” Chicago Journal, 2010.
Gale
Opposing Viewpoints. Web. 11 Nov. 2011.
Lehren,
Andrew W., and Sabrina Tavernise. "Buffeted by Fury and Chaos, Civilians
Paid Heaviest Toll." New York Times 23 Oct. 2010: A1(L). Gale
Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 11 Nov. 2011.
Pape, Robert A., James K. Feldman. Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to
Stop it. Chicago; U of Chicago, 2010. Print.
Turse, Nick. The
Complex: How the Military Invades our Everyday Lives. New York, NY.
Metropolitan Books. 2008. Print.
“U.S. Military Bases around Iran.” Map. Google Maps. Web. 19 Nov. 2010.
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