How, pray tell, does a body get a raise in this world? How the hell does a guy making 13 bucks an hour convince his boss that he oughtta make $13.50, or $15, or $20?
In “Why Wages Rise,” F.A. Harper tells you one way that you don’t make more money: By negotiating a higher salary. By talking your Law Makers into raising the minimum wage. By joining a Union. Those things give you inflation, but they don’t give you a raise.
There’s only one way to get a raise, and it has to do with how you make money in the first place.
You make money by creating something of value and selling it. That’s all there is to it. Really.
So how do you get a raise? You create more. Either you create something of greater quality, or you create somethings in greater quantity.
That’s all there is to it. Really.
Don’t take my word for it. Mr. Harper explains it better than I could. Here’s a link to the book.
2/26/14
The revolution will not be televised - not here, anyway
Stephen Cox notes the utter failure of the American media to "get" what happened in Ukraine over the weekend.
Here's the whole article.
For CNN (“we bring you the world”), the big stories, oft repeated, were a gay football player who remains a gay football player; a racial complaint in Mississippi; how to lose weight; replays of video footage, thought to be “viral,” about a child who might have been injured but wasn’t; and a variety of other non-news features. For Fox News, the stories were the chronic errors of President Obama, a US win at the Olympics (over 20 years ago), how to look good, and a variety of other non-news features. Both cable news networks had correspondents stationed in Kiev, but they were summoned to the camera about as often as brothers-in-law are requested to receive excess funds.
Here's the whole article.
2/25/14
My name is Brian Richardson
My name is Brian Wilson Richardson. I am told I was conceived while the Beach Boys’ new album, “Pet Sounds,” was playing on the stereo. I try not to think too much about that, because who wants to envision what your parents were doing when you were conceived? TMI, says I. TMI.
The name Brian suits me, I think, but most of my friends call me B.W.
I was raised in a small state on the East Coast somewhere between New York and Delaware, then packed off to a private college out here in, well, the state where I am now. There, a rodent with a walrus moustache tried to indoctrinate me into the ways of the collective, but I am my father’s son, and my father was an individual.
One of the first thoughts I remember having along the lines of the way the world is: The folks who signed the Declaration of Independence did not believe they were forming a new country.
“We, therefore … solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states …”
Notice the plural? States? What’s the difference between a country and a state? In 1776, there was no difference. United states, yes – one nation? Not so much. More like a federation, like our United Nations today. That’s why the first contract between the states were articles of confederation.
My ideas about The Way Things Are kind of riff off that thought. “Libertarian” describes my philosophy better than “republican” or “democrat” or “conservative” or “liberal,” and if you suggest that I sometimes veer toward anarchy, I don’t take that as an insult. Just keep in mind that my heroes are people like Gandhi and Thoreau and King – people who used their minds and their creativity to change the world, not their fists or other physical weapons.
If there is a battle between two dichotomies in this world, I suggest it is between the individual and the state. Call me an anarchist, and I respond that I fear a world without individuals more than I fear a world without states. But I don’t necessarily believe the institution of government is bad, if that government is an organization created by individuals to serve individuals, not rule them. I’m just not aware of any government that functions under that code.
I was murdered four years ago. All right, that is not exactly what happened. My father put me to sleep, believing that I had outlived my usefulness.
It’s time to wake up.
P.S. You think you know who my father is, and who I am. Maybe you don’t. In any case remember Tom Paine’s words from “Common Sense”: “Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN.”
The name Brian suits me, I think, but most of my friends call me B.W.
I was raised in a small state on the East Coast somewhere between New York and Delaware, then packed off to a private college out here in, well, the state where I am now. There, a rodent with a walrus moustache tried to indoctrinate me into the ways of the collective, but I am my father’s son, and my father was an individual.
One of the first thoughts I remember having along the lines of the way the world is: The folks who signed the Declaration of Independence did not believe they were forming a new country.
“We, therefore … solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states …”
Notice the plural? States? What’s the difference between a country and a state? In 1776, there was no difference. United states, yes – one nation? Not so much. More like a federation, like our United Nations today. That’s why the first contract between the states were articles of confederation.
My ideas about The Way Things Are kind of riff off that thought. “Libertarian” describes my philosophy better than “republican” or “democrat” or “conservative” or “liberal,” and if you suggest that I sometimes veer toward anarchy, I don’t take that as an insult. Just keep in mind that my heroes are people like Gandhi and Thoreau and King – people who used their minds and their creativity to change the world, not their fists or other physical weapons.
If there is a battle between two dichotomies in this world, I suggest it is between the individual and the state. Call me an anarchist, and I respond that I fear a world without individuals more than I fear a world without states. But I don’t necessarily believe the institution of government is bad, if that government is an organization created by individuals to serve individuals, not rule them. I’m just not aware of any government that functions under that code.
I was murdered four years ago. All right, that is not exactly what happened. My father put me to sleep, believing that I had outlived my usefulness.
It’s time to wake up.
P.S. You think you know who my father is, and who I am. Maybe you don’t. In any case remember Tom Paine’s words from “Common Sense”: “Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN.”
2/24/14
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