Fallacious Right-Wing Arguments

An old friend sent me the meme here, to which I responded:

Thanks. I’ve seen this. The fallacy in it is that most of the cost factors in milk production are not employee salaries, but rather things like procuring, feeding, housing, and providing veterinary care for cows, milking, pasteurization, energy, bottling, distribution, sales, marketing, debt service on the capital equipment, and G&A (general and administrative).

Providing a living wage offers additional benefits:

• Less dependence on food stamps and other government services

• Less employee absenteeism

• Better morale

• Better access to healthcare means less disease brought to the workplace

• Less desperation also means less disease brought to the workplace

• (For most employers) Better peace of mind, knowing that they’re doing the right thing

I’ve seen all this with my own eyes.  I had about 110 employees at the height of my marketing services agency in the late 1990s.  I paid my people well, offered full benefits, handed out nice Christmas bonuses, and threw great holiday parties.  In return, my people loved me and worked very hard to make sure the business survived and I was successful.

In turn, we had clients all over the world, most of whom were ecstatically happy with us, and had no problem paying us handsomely, often for numerous projects that stemmed from the success of the first engagement.  We did 26 projects for Digital Equipment Corporation, over a period of six years.