About the Author
Fr. Roderick
Fr. Roderick, a priest from the Netherlands, is the founder and CEO of the Star Quest Production Network and the host and producer of The Daily Breakfast, Catholic Insider and many other shows on www.sqpn.com.6 Responses to “Daily Breakfast 555 - Minimum Wage”
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I would suggest Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org. They have the Summa Theologica available.
Hi, Fr Roderick, I’m writing this comment as I listen to your podcast for today. Thanks for the update on Pope Benedict’s words on the financial crisis. My thoughts exactly!
EA stands for Electronic Arts. For a moment, I thought you were going to talk about Singapore (aka S’pore). :-p
And wow, the Spore game is cool! Hmmm… how would we create the world if we have the power to do so?
Whereas the one of the general ideas of Morgan Spurlock’s documentary is sound — eating fast food too much can be bad for you — it’s hardly scientific, and is mostly a dogmatic hit piece. Remember that he was was eating an average of over 5000 calories a day with almost no exercise during his “experiment”. If I ate over 5000 calories a day of home cooked, organic, but similar comprised food (fat, carbs, protein) over a month, I suspect that the effects on my body would be similar to what he saw happen to his.
Since the movie came out, there have been many people that have run their own “experiment”, eating nothing but McDonalds for 30 days, but going out of their way to eat more balanced and keep their caloric consumption to where it should be. In all cases that I’ve seen (three, and then I got bored looking for them), the eaters lost weight and had their vital statistics improve. They sometimes had burgers, but also had salads, fruit, etc. They also exercised regularly during the experiment.
Again, this isn’t to say that you can go and eat super size meals at Mickey D’s three times a day and feel good, but that like everything else with food, it’s not where you eat or where you shop, but what your choices are when you get there.
The discussion of the minimum wage is very interesting. I would offer this comparison: the world’s economic superpower with low min. wage/ socialistic country with high min. wage.
Fr. Roderick is right on that most folks who are well off complain too much. Especially in America, where the poorest often have luxuries that are unthinkable in third world countries.
I hope to see more development of the clones as individuals in the Clone Wars Series. It’s probably too much to ask for some Mando armor and Republic Commandos to make appearances, but I can dream…
Paul brings up a good point about minimum wage. A low minimum wage, in and of itself, does not cause economic hardship. High minimum wages, for example, have all but eliminated jobs such as pumping gas (does anyone else remember all the confusion caused by the introduction of “self-serve”?!) and movie theater ushers.
Someone had already beaten Morgan Spurlock to the punch, though. Barbara Ehrenreich did the same thing and in 2002 wrote a book about it called “Nickel and Dimed.”
As Matthew Kelly says, “Life is choices.” There are FAR too many people today who have the mentality of “Woe is me, I’m a victim, the government needs to help me out.”
Well, I’m on 90% of minimum wages. And I find it difficult to make ends meet. Sure, I’m not as poor as someone in a Third World (Developing) Country, but my society expects much more of me, than Developing Countries’ societies expect of their members. Lots of things that would make my life cheaper and are allowed there are simply not allowed here.
After I paid rent, health care (manditory health care, you’re not allowed to be uninsured), other insurances, heating, water and electricity almost nothing is left for buying food. And then my health care and rent are subsidized by the state to help me. I get about €750 each month, which really is not much.
So being on a minimum wage really is hard. It even is in a country like the Netherlands. Being on a minimum wage in the United States sounds like an outright night mare for me, with the lack of health care (let alone subsidized health care) and the ability to get subsidized rent like I do. I would be deeply buried in debts for the rest of my life, probably ending up in the gutter because I really am not able to work right now.