Scott Gibbs writes for Examiner.com. Read more articles at http://www.examiner.com/...
It is becoming increasingly apparent that Glen Beck is in over his head. Since becoming the third entry into Fox News' nightly trifecta of ignorance (alongside O'Reilly and Hannity), Mr. Beck has quickly earned his wings as the loud and boisterous voice of paranoid delusions toward a country being taken over by socialists, communists, baby-killers, uppity Hispanic women, and an entire army of militants determined to rape the rich white men who control everything out of their wealth.
So it should come as no surprise that on Friday's edition of the whiny, shrill Beck show he went on a mini-tirade over the recent minimum wage hike from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour. Apparently he and his rich, vapid, elitist buddies are getting nervous that the Fry-Guy at the McDonald's down the street from their houses may suddenly want to move in to one next door. But Beck, pal to freedom and the working man, could never allow that.
On Friday's broadcast Beck compared increasing our country's minimum wage to hugging a polar bear (I swear). His point? That all of these money-grubbing minimum wage workers may look cute (presumably while shining shoes or standing on the street corner holding a newspaper yelling, "Extra, extra!" because Beck apparently still lives in the 1920's), but once you embrace them with that additional $.70 cents an hour those polar bear bastards will waste no time in tearing your throat out.
He cries for the employers. I say, to hell with the employers. The right-wing is continually telling working-class people to suck it up and pull themselves up by those proverbial bootstraps, well, maybe it's time to tell the bosses to do the same. A minimum wage worker will earn, before taxes, about $290 a week (presuming they work a 40 hour work week). That's just over $15,000 a year.
I think the business owners can handle it.
Beck also mentions that of the approximately 2.8 million people earning minimum wage, 53% are between the ages of 16-24. Okay, so that means these "kids," after the wage increase, would have to work full-time for a full year in order to earn enough tuition money for one year at a decent college. And that's without spending a penny for that entire year! But Beck doesn't want poor people to become educated. That would upset the status-quo.
But the disturbing part of this statistic, and the part that Mr. Beck completely ignores, is the other 47% of minimum wage earners. The adults over 24. The forgotten 47% of that 2.8 million. That's over 1.3 million adults in this country trying to live on $290 a week. But those are the irritating poor people and we don't have time for them.
Moreover, another disgusting statistic (1) that Glen Beck would never mention, a staggering 30 million workers in this country, between the ages of 18 and 64, earn less than $9 an hour. And $9 an hour gets you just under $19,000 a year, before taxes.
And Glen Beck is trying to convince us that giving 2.8 million people in this country a raise that will give them about $15,000 a year is killing the country.
But the sad part is, people buy this crap.
Finally, I'll quickly touch on the fact that Glen Beck works for Premiere Radio Networks, a division of Clear Channel Communications, and he earns $23 million a year (2). Struggling Clear Channel has shed 12% of it's workforce (3) this year. If Beck is so concerned with the economic state of business and unemployment maybe it's time for the muppet to offer a pay-cut as a show of solidarity. Nah, that's way too socialist. He just wants to continue raping the poor. Because that's far more patriotic.
I can only shake my head and smile. Or else I might actually scream.
Please watch the video clip below and realize that if Glen Beck's frightening paranoia of social programs and a regulated financial sector are the worst things in the world then this country is going to be just fine. Because what this man seems to be in favor of goes beyond mere free-market capitalism and into something that's downright evil.
(1)http://www.quintcareers.com/...
(2)http://www.forbes.com/...
(3)http://mediamatters.org/...