Just before Christmas I received the following from Joe Fullmer, and submit it to readers for their consideration:
“I am a lay economist — I have no formal training, but I read much, and annoy my friends and associates. So, my comments aren’t those of a trained professional economist.
“This morning, in FEE’s daily In-Brief email, I am informed that President Bush has endorsed a specific, Democratic plan to raise the federal minimum wage. Bush also announced recently plans to expand the size of the military, by as many as 70,000 troops. I begin to wonder if the two are related in an economic sense.“Where will these additional soldiers come from? Does the government increase military pay to encourage more voluntary enlistments? Do they impose a draft? Impose stop-loss measures to prevent leaving the military when your time is up (a clear violation of contract, but hey, the government can do what it wants — it’s sovereign). Whipping the public into nationalistic/patriotic fervor increases voluntary enlistment for a while, but with waning public support for the occupation of Iraq, the increased patriotic motivation to enlist which followed after 9/11 is fading fast.
“Beefing up the military is raising the ‘blood tax’ in the country. Those who pay with their lives and blood — the soldiers, and their families (widowed, left fatherless or child-less) — are those that pay this ‘blood tax.’ Tax collection of the blood tax becomes very unpopular once that tax surpasses a certain level. The draft, is a means of tax collection unpopular with those who pay the tax. And, it’s involuntary. Stop-loss measures are just a different flavor of involuntary conscription. Increasing soldier pay to a market rate — the rate at which enough new soldiers voluntarily enlist to meet higher blood tax level — is the most fair means of ‘tax collection’ of the blood tax, but that diverts money from other uses the political class would rather fund.
“So, how does one raise the blood tax without imposing a draft or a stop-loss, nor increasing soldier pay to the market rate? Could it be that supporting the Democrats’ minimum wage increase is a solution to this problem?
“The economic consequence of a minimum wage is that it puts people out of work. The sector most put out of work by it are the less-skilled and teenagers. Teenagers with gloomy prospects for work, become more willing to take Uncle Sam’s alternative — join the military! Raising the minimum wage, and thereby putting teenagers out of work so that they volunteer to pay the newly increased blood tax is the perfect, subtle way to obscure/avoid the unpopularity of it (hey, they aren’t being drafted, they are volunteering!), and also not have to increase their pay.
“It seems to me that Bush’s announcement that he supports the increased minimum wage may go hand in hand with his announcement of an increase to the size of the military.
“I do not assert that there is a nefarious, conspiratorial motivation here. But, to whatever degree government use of inflation to obscure a tax increase is ‘calculated,’ it seems to me that use of a minimum wage increase, with the corresponding increased unemployment, to obscure a blood tax increase is to that same degree a cold, calculated action.
“I have not read before of any correlation between raising the minimum wage, with its consequent unemployment of the soldier-age demographic, and a period of increasing the size of the military, so the idea is new to me. Others may have suggested it before, but I haven’t read it. I don’t know if there *is* a correlation. A graph of periods of military increase lined up with a graph of increases in the minimum wage might quickly show if there is an obvious correlation, but if it didn’t, it doesn’t necessarily discredit a correlation). Nor do I know if there is a causation involved (as in, it’s calculated and intentional, as opposed), or if this is just coincidence. It’s an interesting possible relation, though.
“Part of the costs of war is the dead and wounded. When the State decides to raise this cost, it can become unpopular, just as it can be unpopular to raise taxes. Just as inflation is used to obscure the fact of an increased tax, increasing the minimum wage may be one means of obscuring the fact of an increased ‘blood tax.’”
{ 33 comments }
Dugg this!
http://digg.com/political_opinion/Are_the_minimum_wage_and_the_military_expansion_linked
Bang on! I incline to thinking the scheme is deliberate, and diabolically clever. The average taxpayer wouldn’t grasp this even if it were explained to him, I’d say.
This is one the explanation of which Robert Murphy should tackle, for the good of all (except the political class, and perhaps the military).
Naturally, all the supposedly anti-imperial, antiwar “progressives,” who consider the minimum wage a wonderful thing that only an oppressor of the poor could possibly oppose, miss this relationship altogether — and thus they fail to appreciate how truly sinister the system they claim to oppose really is.
But does the President’s administration realize this, or is it just a political compromise to appease the Democrats which just happens to have beneficial consequences for their purposes? How much credit can we really give Bush for this?
Impossible to know, Michael. Whether or not it’s a conscious policy, though, the fact that a logical connection exists between them — fewer opportunities means greater likelihood one will wind up enlisting in the military — makes me interested in the idea.
Also, I suspect it’s the case that not everyone who governs us is a dolt, though dolts many of them are. Some are probably also rather sinister, and understand more than we give them credit for.
I wonder if anyone’s looked at the real payrate for your basic E-3 or E-4 grunt in Iraq, who works 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. I doubt it amounts to the current minimum wage.
You guys have the wrong image of soldiers. They’re not losers who can’t get work anywhere else so they have to settle for the military. I’ve known a lot of young men who joined the military before they graduated from high school, or soon thereafter. They were all very intelligent and had there choices of several good-paying jobs, none of which were minimum wage.
The kind of guys that the rise in the minimum wage will hurt would never consider the military in the first place, but if they did, the military wouldn’t take them. Kids that I know of working for minimum wage have DUI and drug histories that cause the military to reject them.
The all-volunteer military needs intelligent young men and women who can learn vast amounts of highly technical info in a short time. As a result, no one in the military wants a return to the draft. If the Congress forces a draft on the military, they military will leave the draftees in the US doing manual labor, because no one wants to trust his life to a pot-smoking draftee slacker.
I don’t know, Roger. A friend of mine who spent years in the army described it very differently than you. He said it was teeming with young men whose other options were very limtited. It was their “way out” of the ghetto, or out of rural poverty, etc. In other words, a giant welfare program, unfortunately one that kills and destroys.
I guess it’s a matter of perspective. But back when Kerry made the lame joke about military service, someone did a study of IQ in the Army and found it was average. Also, I think that they won’t take guys with drug convictions, DUI’s or criminal records. I know I’ve heard recruiters complain that they can accept only about 10% of those who want to join because their standards. Does anyone know the Army’s standards for recruits?
I agree with RogerM, MOST people who join the military were given the option for higher paying jobs, some people just want to be a part of something bigger than themeselves, and some are just that patriotic about their country. And besides, you must realize that the military doesnt often recruit morons, you have to know exactly what your doing or your gunna get yer head blown off. And no, i dont know the EXACT standards for recruiting but i come from a history of fathers before fathers who joined the military and everyone of them has told me that morons cant join, they wont make it. I plan on joining the USAF when im old enough and am very proud to do so
Just consider the most recent advertising campaign to beef up recruitment numbers: The so-called “It is now your turn” motiff, where the kid (usually some young and stupid punk) asks the father or mother (supposedly, the camera) what does he or she think about the young cannon-fodder joining the military – and stares at the camera with the eyes of a deer caught in the headlights, waiting for th reply (It is now your turn).
It is clear what is the type of person that is being targeted by the advertisement: low income, low middle class, limited skills (especially if the youth was “educated” in a public school), low prospects.
So if the MILITARY is targeting this market, it clearly means it is NOT expecting to have recruits among the better educated and/or those with better things on their minds than being blown up.
Doesn’t joining an army voluntarily speaks volumes about the recruit’s IQ?
In the most charitable case, he’s weak-minded enough to let emotions like feeling of patriotism override his reason. In the least charitable case, he’s looking forward for killing and torturing some people who didn’t do anything wrong to him or his family.
The army doesn’t need brightest – they need docile and incapable of independent thought.
This is consistent with the minds of Bush and his cohort. Short term thinking and screw the country in the long run. I give them credit for the brilliance of the scheme but as usual (Campaign Finance Reform, Prescription Drugs, etc) there is no thought of how their policy will affect the future.
As for the comments by Roger M, our soldiers are technically skilled and well trained. But we still are running out of them as their enlistments end and what not. Their numbers are not being replaced by the same numbers of recruits.
The military doesn’t want thinking human beings; it wants unthinking, order-following killing machines. Thus do goose-stepping automatons remain the ideal — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose-Step — even as the state works feverishly to replace them with the real thing — http://images.google.com/images?q=robot+soldiers&hl=en&lr=&client=safari&rls=en&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title
But aren’t parents the real problem in that their credulous identification of their country with their government allows them to endlessly offer their children up as cannon fodder?
Who among us would allow their children to join the US military, much less be drafted?
And don’t give me any BS about their being legal adults who can accordingly decide such things for themselves.
RogerM-
I think the last decade or so has been a time of changing demographics in the military in general and the Army in particular.
In the mid 90′s, when I graduate, the military was for young idealistic young men who were at least clearing thinking and many were fairly intelligent. However, many of those that I knew didn’t re-up or found some way out of their commitment – complaining about poor pay and working conditions, but mostly about the military and fellow soliders not meeting their idealistic standards.
In the past 3 years the company I work for has increased its military contracts, and the soliders I have had an opportunity to meet with have had low intelligence, low moral standards, and few delusions of the nobility of the US Army. Though my opinion might be tainted by age and my own ideas, the trend has been noted by others. Look at changes in policy reguarding ASVAB scores, tattoos, and piercings. Or there are news stories reguarding gang violence on bases and Iraq.
Now I don’t think that this will stop the draft, but I think it will make it easier to implement – after all it will drop the un-employment numbers just as WWII did.
CC
Interesting, murder means to actively kill someone for no good reason and it isn’t murder if someone is in a deadly situation and you have the antidote, it isn’t murder to deprive someone of what would save them if you didn’t cause the victim’s hardship in the first place . . .
Then it stands to reason if people want to volunteer to join the Armed Forces then that’s their choice, if they get wounded or killed, tough, it isn’t the movies just because you ‘think’ you’re the good guy that you suddenly become bulletproof. Similarly people feeling a tad coerced to enlist due to lack of employment oppurtunities? So? Aren’t there plenty of low-paid, crappy jobs no one really wants but do anyway because the bills have to paid somehow?
It’s not a “blood tax” unless theirs a draft.
It’s not a “blood tax” unless there’s a draft.
It’s not a tax as long as you are free to leave the country, right?
Someone make sure Ron Paul sees this. It would be funny to see the faces of Congress if he pointed this out in a speech.
Sam wrote: “Aren’t there plenty of low-paid, crappy jobs no one really wants but do anyway because the bills have to paid somehow?”
In the United States as it is nowadays, those kinds of jobs are increasingly filled by illegal immigrants. This fact introduces an unusual kind of squeeze play, one that would be emphasized by re-naming the minimum wage the “American floor wage” (sorry if anyone has to reach for the Pepto-Bismol):
“As an American, you’re entitled to the protection of the American minimum wage. If jobs are scarce, for whatever reason, why not enlist? Whut, you’d rather get a job? Well, if you’re so insistent, why not go compete with the Mexicans instead of taking an American job?”
As someone with no spine D. Ryan, I’m not going to join the army because I hear it pays a bit more than, say, welfare. Indeed I’m not sure the army would even want wusses in their forces. And I’m definitely sure the basic infantry front-line soldier who’d be expecting another to cover for him would probably shoot me first than putting his life in my hands.
(Hence in cyberspace I’m 6’6″ (at least), full of muscles, a chick magnet, . . . XD)
One solution to both problems (army and jobs) would be an American Foreign Legion to fight foreign wars. Any sufficiently healthy alien could serve for seven years and earn a citizenship. Our troops could be brought home to defend our borders. The AFL would be based outside of the 50 states on American bases in Foreign countries. Members would not be permitted inside the USofA until their term of service was complete. It would recruit outside the USofA and inside our prison system. Seven years service would gain a pardon for most anything except homicide.
Hmmm, I do not know, billwald. It has been the historical norm that foreign legions are either king makers or tyrant makers… and they would still have to be paid out of someone’s pocket…
A better solution: A welfare program to pay 18-30 year-old unemployed youngsters a minimum wage to play paintball games with each other. It would be less destructive than war.
The average IQ of those in the military is higher than that of the general US population. The goose-stepping German military also didn’t oppose independent thought. They encouraged it more than most, which is why they were successful.
Sam wrote: “As someone with no spine D. Ryan, I’m not going to join the army because I hear it pays a bit more than, say, welfare. Indeed I’m not sure the army would even want wusses in their forces. And I’m definitely sure the basic infantry front-line soldier who’d be expecting another to cover for him would probably shoot me first than putting his life in my hands.”
No, but he wouldn’t mind at all if he was served food by the likes of your persona, or if he was served in another ancillary capacity filled by your persona. In fact, he might like it a lot, as symbolic of putting the bullroarer (in this case,a faux-6’6″ fellow – your persona) underfoot.
Moving to seriousness, though: using economic policy as a lever to encourage people to enlist, or backing policies that amount to the same thing, does open up a danger. It is possible to turn a scared wuss into something approximating a fighting man, by bullying him; by making him a fanatic; by lying to him, in order to drive him into a state of clamped-down hysteria. It was done all the time during the olden days of mass war.
The trouble is, such an armed force has not only a larger potential of becoming an unruly mob (perhaps semi-surreptitiously), and thus ticking off the people who are supposed to be saved, but also has a much higher death rate. It also degrades the position of officer, except in class-ridden societies.
So it should be of little surprise that the consensus opinion in the officers’ ranks is, “no conscription! We’d rather have a professional military.”
N Joseph Potts said;
“Bang on! I incline to thinking the scheme is deliberate, and diabolically clever. The average taxpayer wouldn’t grasp this (the idea that increasing the minimum wage increases pressure on the poor to enlist in the military) even if it were explained to him, I’d say.”
Average taxpayer – are you kidding? As Henry Hazlitt stated, virtually NO taxpayer understands the real source, nature, purpose, or effects of federal currency creation, and it hits all of them every day.
How much easier is it to get away with an economic sleight of hand that tilts the floor under the poor toward the maw of the killing machine when you can get even the most vocally leftist politicians and social scolds to defiantly demand it on prime-time TV?
“Impose stop-loss measures to prevent leaving the military when your time is up (a clear violation of contract, but hey, the government can do what it wants — it’s sovereign).”
How is this a violation of contract? The stop loss provisions are embedded in the contract. That most people don’t understand this when they sign the contract is a different matter entirely (do you read ever word of ever click-wrap agreement you make?).
Or are you arguing that people should not be allowed to make contracts with flexible ending conditions?
Or are you arguing that people should not be allowed to make contracts with flexible ending conditions?
Freedom of association also includes the freedom to not associate, or similarly, the freedom to join and the right of exit. Contracts are used to help define the nature of a relationship, usually business relationships, but not always. But a contract is unfair or unreasonable if it doesn’t allow for an exit from the relationship. You cannot contract yourself into slavery.
While many Republicans seem to be raising many traditional objections to the minimum wage (loss of jobs due to wage controls, arbitrary nature of the dictate etc) they cannot introduce this ‘blood tax’ concept because of their support for war. While Dems accuse the GOP of ‘ideology’ they fail to appreciate the moral dimension of forcing employers to conform. The CEO earnings before lunch seems to be the operative talking point.
Unfortunately it will pass and the economy will probably just grow through it and politicians will claim once again that no adversity occurred because of it.
The standard in the US for personal-services contracts is that courts will NOT compel specific performance, as it’s called, because to do so would enforce slavery. They often DO award damages to the employer for employees who renege on term-of-service contracts.
Unfortunately, the courts are part of the government, so they WILL compel specific performance in the case of a contract made with the armed forces. This (and the terms of the contracts) makes the back-door draft quite legal.
But it does NOT stop the activity from being slavery.
I agree with RogerM, MOST people who join the military were given the option for higher paying jobs, some people just want to be a part of something bigger than themeselves, and some are just that patriotic about their country. And besides, you must realize that the military doesnt often recruit morons, you have to know exactly what your doing or your gunna get yer head blown off. And no, i dont know the EXACT standards for recruiting but i come from a history of fathers before fathers who joined the military and everyone of them has told me that morons cant join, they wont make it. I plan on joining the USAF when im old enough and am very proud to do so.
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