The Superior Express -

Thankfully, election day is almost here. It’s been a long time coming for the candidates and their supporters have been beating their campaign drums since before the last election. Unfortunately, the drum beating won’t stop on election day for the campaign for the 2024 Presidential Election began almost before the 2020 polls closed.

The result has been election overload for many voters. Many of us are so tired of the constant campaigning we have quit reading about the issues or are only reading stories that support our preconceived ideas.

In some issues, I believe both sides are wrong and whichever side wins their plan will be bad for our country.

Among the issues Nebraska voters will be asked to decide is a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour. At first glance that seems like a good idea. With inflation sending the prices of needed goods and services skyward, people trying to live on fixed incomes or minimum wages are having a real struggle.

Inflation isn’t a new problem. In the 1970s, I purchased a 30-year-old truck for $300. While it perfectly fit my needs and was an easy starter, it needed considerable work and its payload was about a third of what the new trucks were hauling. This week I saw an advertisement for 50-year-old truck. The seller said it started and ran but would need repairs. Like my truck, its payload is about a third of what the popular trucks being used today will haul. But the price was more than 20 times what I paid for my truck.

With prices paid for products increasing, salaries need to also increase but raising the minimum wage from $9 to $15 without considering the value of what the workers produce will only add to inflation.

If the minimum wage is increased by nearly 170 percent, a similar increase will be demanded by all workers.

When all the price adjustments are made, the minimum wage earners will not have benefited and those living on fixed incomes and savings will be the losers.

If the minimum wage is increased, the cost of this newspaper will likely have to increase from the current 75 cents per copy to $1.25 or more. We say more because the higher price will shut some folks out of the market and fewer copies will be sold. Fewer copies sold will mean each copy sold will have to contribute a larger share of the fixed production costs.

Inflation is a vicious cycle and a large part of the current cycle has been brought on by a federal government that has distributed money without regard to where it is coming from.

I recently listen to a local board discuss the purchase of a new piece of equipment. In this case, the equipment is probably needed but those benefiting from it will not be directly asked to pay for it. The purchase will be funded from a combination of funding sources which trace to the federal government’s COVID-19 dole. Supposedly the federal dole was needed to keep factories running during the pandemic, but the factory is currently so far behind it will take a year or two before orders placed now are filled.

This newspaper daily faces supply shortages. While today we have a year’s supply of newsprint in the warehouse, earlier this fall our supplier said to insure we didn’t run out, he needed to book our next order. When I suggested fall of 2023, he objected and said I should book for late spring to insure I would have before fall and our supply was depleted.

A printing customer recently asked for a price quote on items for which we will have to order supplies. I don’t know how to quote a price. We don’t have the items. The mill is running 90 days behind on orders and prices charged will be the then current prices, not the prices when the order is placed.

It doesn’t matter which political party is in control, both are guilty of messing with our nation’s economy.

The newsprint market has not recovered from President Trump’s meddling and President Biden’s give-aways are sending inflation through the roof.

This has been quite a rant this week and it would at best rate a “D” grade from a college writing professor. Opinion pieces like this are supposed to clearly direct the reader to an action. I haven’t done that. I don’t know how to correct some of the problems we currently have with our government. But I am convinced voting to increase the minimum wage will make the poverty problem worse rather than better.

I am thinking about a story I heard Sunday in church. The morning’s speaker, a white man, told about an Easter Sunday experience he had several years ago in the deep south. He had car trouble in a black neighborhood and was stranded at the edge of road. A black man came across the street and offered to help.

This Good Samaritan helped get the preacher’s vehicle to a nearby repair shop and rousted out a black mechanic who diagnosed the problem. When parts were needed, they drove the preacher to a nearby town where he was able to buy the parts, returned to the shop and repaired the car.

When the work was finished, they refused to charge for what normally would have cost the preacher hundreds of dollars.

It’s going to take a lot of understanding and giving on the part of all involved to rectify our current problems.