RE: "How can the right-wing be for family values and against a family
wage at the same time?" Jim O'Connor
Jim:
I'm not sure my entry can be considered an official entry in your
contest. You see, it is not my explanation but is rather the words
of Tom Monaghan (founder of Domino's Pizza and, if I recall
correctly, owner of the Detroit Tigers) to a group of execs at
Madonna College (LIvonia, Mich.) in February 1990. Source is
_Harper's Magazine_, August 1990, p. 22. Here goes (3 paragraphs):
"To me one of the most exciting things in the world is being poor.
Survival is such an exciting challenge. There was a study done
about twenty years ago, I think at Harvard, which said that the
average family of four could live on $68 a year. that's a balanced
diet--everything they need for a year. Now today that might be
$250 or $300, but when we see these people in lines in supermarkets
with all these food stamps, buying potato chips and snack foods and
ice cream, I mean give me a break! *That's* poverty?
Now you are probably wondering how you can live on $68 a year. The
first thing you do is go to the Farm Bureau and buy a hundred-pound
bag of powdered milk, like they feed the calves--there's nothing
wrong with it; it tastes just like regular milk when you put a little
water in it. that would probably last you the better part of a year.
While you're at the Farm Bureau you buy yourself a bushel of wheat or
corn, and you mash that stuff up. What you're eating isn't all that
tasty--it kind of tastes like cornmeal mush--but it's healthy. And
you grow some vegetables and you get a few vitamin pills to
sipplement your diet. And I think that's exciting.
You ought to really explore the cheapest ways to live. Living in a
house trailer--my gosh, that was the greatest living I ever did. We
bought a used house trailer for $1,400, and we paid about $30 a month
for the lot. Now you can get a lot for $175 and you can buy a used
house trailer for maybee $5,000. and you're building some equity in
something; you're not paying rent. Oh gosh, I'd love to talk to all
these people who say they can't get by."
So, if by chance this is the winning entry and Mr. Monaghan doesn't
want the _CS&N_ subscription, I'll take it. :-)
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| Brian Eggleston, Ph.D. | |
| Associate Professor and Chair | "It is by invisible hands that we are |
| Department of Economics | bent and tortured worst." |
| Augustana College | |
| Sioux Falls, SD 57197 | Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra |
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] | |
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