The McDonald’s nation
By Robert T. Smith
web posted June 5, 2017
The mantra on the left is that we need to “biggie size” the minimum wage to $15 per hour. No thought is given to the question of “what then?”
The President 0 had created an economy of long-term unemployment and underemployment, with significantly more people categorized as living in poverty, and who were/are on food stamps, as examples. A significantly low labor participation rate for those of working age added to the misery that all experience. President 0 and his toadies in the mainstream media touted how well the economy was performing. Who should those who lived daily in a poorly performing economy believe, then President 0 or their lying eyes.
As two sides to the same coin, both The Progressives and The Donald had harnessed the anger tens of millions of citizens had for the economic situation. According to The Progressives, establishment rich people have taken more of the available pie than The Progressives have determined they should. Consequently, others have not enough of the pie. The Progressive supporters demand that by force of government pie should rightfully be taken from the evil pie hoarders and given to all to enjoy equally.
According to The Donald, the establishment had stolen the ingredients for making pie and transferred these ingredients to other nations. The Donald supporters demanded that the ingredients for making pie be returned to our country and they themselves will make as much pie as they would like to consume.
As usual, today’s oxymoronic Progressives are simply the reheated leftovers of failed policies from the past, all centered around the collectivist notion of command and control by our betters in the centralized government. As a part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) National Recovery Act (NRA), the conditions for the conduct of business and industry were controlled at the federal level.
Tenets of the National Recover Act included the control over the cost of labor and reduced hours. In the Progressive minds of those master planner’s in the FDR administration, more pay for workers would boost the economy and reducing hours would lead to businesses necessarily hiring more workers, who would also be paid more. Divorcing the cost/value of labor in relationship to the cost of goods or services provided in this equation is at best naively simplistic, and is a clear example of the types of tragic failure of centralized, collectivist governments throughout the past.
This brings us to the McDonald’s nation of $15 per hour labor. McDonald’s and other similar stores typically have a clear matrix of positions, from entry cashiers, food preparers, shift supervisors, etc, to management. Working from the lower labor value salary to a higher labor value salary is the means of improving your financial situation as a worker at McDonalds. Each step requires more and better skills and responsibility, consequently a higher value for a person’s labor is provided to the store and a commensurate higher rate of pay.
Artificially increasing the cost of the lowest laborer to $15 per hour necessitates increasing the entire matrix of positions upward in labor cost, devoid of any relationship to a value added to the store’s product for these workers. The McDonald’s hamburger is not bigger or tastier, or provided even quicker, its cost simply increased to pay for the increased cost of the workers. McDonald’s cannot maintain its products at an affordable price with the artificially increased cost of labor.
Ultimately, there is no “value meal” at McDonalds and the consumer’s money is spent on more affordable food, either at home or otherwise. The eventual choice is McDonald’s goes out of the affordable, fast-food business, no jobs for anyone, or McDonald’s chance of survival dictates that machines substitute for many of its labor workers, McDonald’s work force gets “little sized.”
Sure, let’s increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour, but why stop there, let’s simply make everyone rich and set it even higher. In a Progressive McDonald’s nation, no thought is needed for the question “what then?” 
Robert T. Smith is an environmental scientist who spends his days enjoying life and the pursuit of happiness with his family. He confesses to cling to his liberty, guns and religion, with antipathy toward the arrogant ruling elites throughout the country.