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OpEdNews Op Eds The Cost and Uses of Sandpaper |
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It's been 10 years since the last increase. During that time, inflation has run at an average of three percent annually. That's a 30 percent loss of real income for the folks at the VERY LOWEST levels.
They been long years if you're working for $5. The House and Senate haven't missed an annual pay raise, which for the most part has averaged more than three percent.
You do the math: three percent of $5.15 is $1.54 or $6.69. The problem is without a C.O.L.A. even the new numbers around will be too small from Jump Street, and won't provide, at all, for the future.
Inflation is the cruelest tax to impose upon the poor.
I hold it is the greed of grandstanding, that is, self-ingratiation - by both parties - every time they give the very poorest a few pennies more per day sans an automatic COLA. The worst of them might be worried it will eat into Exxon profits of nearly $50 billion a year. Maybe a wage increase is set to take the profits down to $49.75 billion. No doubt!
Recently retired Exxon CEO, Lee Raymond, who will soon be drawing thousands a week from the government as a cabinet member, might lose three cents a share in 2008 Exxon dividends. That could reduce his $400 million golden parachute down to $399,150,000.
And doesn't that suck?
You see the problem with feeding these greedy poor people? A penny here and penny there - for them - and pretty soon we won't be able to buy the nice $19,000 bathmats, or those lovely second homes in Florida for $35 million.
Nearly $7 a hour . . . Eh, the meek are inherting the earth.
How much does sandpaper cost these days and does it have an adverse affect on genital-area skin?
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Dusty Nathan Social Media Pages: 
My career in journalism began as a stringer at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner before making my way east to write at the Washington Star. I toiled for more than a decade as a columnist for Gannett, the world's largest newspaper chain.
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