Response to We Need More Money

Response

We Need More Money
I am sure that most of you drove past the gas stations this week and saw how ridiculous the gas prices were. $ 4 a gallon is just ridiculous. If the president would just listen to me, I have an idea on how to help the average person to pay for there gas. The government should set a National minimum wage that is 7 dollars or higher to help the people cope with inflation.In the last year, the cost of gas has risen a considerable amount. More than most of us could have ever imagined and to be honest no one has a set idea as to why. Many believe its because of the war and others believe its our problems with other foreign nations. Either way you look at it, the people get the short end of the stick. 5 dollars and 15 cents an hour barley gets you a gallon and a half of gas, but compare that to all the other things we have to pay for like medical insurance, food, shelter and clothing, the average American person will simply not be able to live if the price of gas and inflation keep going up and the minimum wage stays the same. All our government has to do is raise how much we get paid hourly, and then we will spend more and in return our economic spending will increase.But lets just face it. Were going to end up the poorest country in ten years if this keeps up.
Response to We Need More Money

In the article titled We Need More Money, a few claims are made which require debate.

First, the article proposes that we simply raise the minimum wage to $7.00 an hour. This is no simple task and its implications are extremely far reaching. On May 25th of 2007, Bush actually did sign a bill that would increase the minimum wage in 3 parts. “to $5.85 per hour effective July 24, 2007; to $6.55 per hour effective July 24, 2008; and to $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009” In economics, it has to be understood that if an employer has to pay more for each employee and the income of the business does not increase, than that employer will in turn have to lay off employees in order to keep the business from failing. In fact, since the minimum wage was just raised to 5.85$ on July 24th, 2007 several people have alluded to a correlation with the downturn of the economy.

Second, while the prospect of gas at $4.00 a gallon is not the happiest moment in my day, I will say that anyone who has ever had to buy gay in another country still isn’t all that shocked. While I was an exchange student in Voronezh, Russia in 1993 and 1994, almost 15 years ago, “Petrol” or Gas was around $5.00 U.S.D. In 2006, I traveled to Ireland for work. Gas there is sold by the liter. At the time, gas was at about 2.09 Euro for a liter. Given the exchange rate of Euro’s to Dollars of about 1.59$ and 3.785 liters to the gallon, I paid about 12.57$ per gallon (2.09 x 3.785 x 1.59). I’ve been told that it is up over 3 euro per liter there now. In Vancouver, Canada last year, I paid about 4.50$ per gallon.

How do people survive in Russia, Ireland, and Canada with gas prices that high? They use the public transportation system. You’ve actually already paid for it in your sales taxes, why not use it and save the money for more important things like food and shelter; and be glad your income tax rate is no where near as high as it is in those other countries.