Maybe I Can Discuss the Downside of Same-Sex Marriage

The link above is to a news story about a couple who are being sued because they had reservations about doing business with a same-sex couple; they did not refuse, they were simply upfront about their reservations.

This was not a case of refusing service or denying someone the necessities of life (food) based on their lifestyle. This was a case of an inn-keeper and wedding chapel owners being upfront and honest about their reservations about being expected to participate in a same-sex wedding, so now they are being sued.

Business should operate on a simple principle, that of Adam Smith's invisible hand. Both firms and consumers are free to do business with who ever they choose and both firms and consumers are free to boycott one another for any reason. Business relationships are dynamic and businesses and consumers are boycotted constantly. I know of one lady who refuses to do business with a firm I work with based on an experience with a manager who has left and a staff that has turned over completely. I also know of one firm that refuses to business with the owner of the firm I work with, regardless of how much money is involved, for personal reasons.

Are the same-sex couple being discriminated against? Yes, but so are the other two example I have cited. The invisible hand guides money from one place to another and each business determines how much of what is in that hand is given to them based on their behaviour in the market place. The courts should have no say in such matters, it is a simple case of supply and demand and if the firm owner refuses to meet the demand they can suffer the economic consequences.

The Economics of Gay Weddings

My religious convictions aside yesterday's legislation could be good for Canada. Already there is a burgeoning industry around gay weddings, particularily with regards to tourism.

It seems to me, just from watching a few news reports that we have become a destination for gay tourism. I am aware of both American and Israeli same-sex couples who have come here to get married and we have shows such as My Fabulous Gay Wedding on prime time. The gay community has been capitalising on this and our national protestant denomination, The United Church of Canada, and many of our Anglican diocese have little problem performing gay weddings and have not been shy about being gay friendly. Therefore it would seem to me that it would be a wise move, economically, to get on board with this trend.

Statistically speaking, homosexuals live a more affluent lifestyle than the general population and are therefore a very lucrative market segment. Canada would be foolish to ignore this and particularily in economically depressed areas, such as the maritimes and parts of the praries. These are people with deep pockets and a desire to spend big, observe a gay pride parade, and do not forget that because they generally have no children that translates into a greater disposable income even at the lowest rungs of society.

It simply makes good economic sense to exploit the new economic opportunities this legislation represents.

However as a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth I must caution my reader that I have expressed a short-term view. To quote Steve Taylor, "..for if the Lord don't care and he chooses to ignore-ah, tell it to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah"; in the long-term there will be grave consequences, grave economic consequences. But that is a religious, not an economic argument and therefore in best addressed at Search for Righteousness (However it has not been addressed at this time).

So both the Saskatchewan government and the opposition are both in favor of raising the minimum wage. But do they have a formula or anything? Seemingly, NO! It appears that both parties subscribe to the certerus paribus school of economic thought, where they can arbitratily change a variable and nothing else will change. A word exists to describe such thinking, naive; businesses are going to raise their prices to reflect their added costs.

What we need is a formula that allows for inflation and states what the objective of minimum wage legislation ought to be and guess who has such a formula? ME!!!!

The majority of minimum wage employees are young, inexperienced workers. Therefore, in my humble opinion we ought to be looking at what their needs are and the needs of the society at large and how we can best meet everyone's needs.

I believe the best way to do this is to determine what a single individual needs to survive. We sit down and determine what an adequent, but not extravagant, lifestyle should cost for a single individual and how we as a society can best assist them in achieving their full potential, both for their own benefit and society's. Therefore we must also include the cost of education.

So what I propose is that a person should be able to pay rent, buy food, purchase clothing, pay for transportation, entertainment and also cover the cost of tuition and books at a post-secondary institution, all on the income generated from a 30, not 40 a hour work week. The reason for a 30 hour work week is that I want to give these people the time and financial resources to better themselves without having to incure massive debt.

Working 30 hours a week and taking two or three classes is mangable for most people. No one should ever feel that they do not have access to education based on price or time restictions. An educated society is something that is valued and should be promoted and supported ar all cost.

How I would determine the wage is very simple, it would be calculated backwards from the mean cost of education at the provincially funded post-secondary institutions. In the case of the technical schools it would be the mean cost of all their programs for a given years, in the case of the univesities it would be the mean cost of all the under-graduate programs. By addding these two numbers together and dividing by two we would have our starting point. This number should be 30 % of a person's annual income.

Next we look at the cost of food and housing. Food is easy enough to determine, again 30% is the magic number. In this case it is 30% of Statisics Canada's "basket of goods" for a household of four. The number 30 is chosen over 25 to simply allow for things such as cleaning supplies and other items that are included in the basket, but are consumed relatively equally regardless of the household size. Housing is determined by taking the average cost of renting a legal one bedroom apartment within a 3.5 Km distance from the provincially funded institutions; walking distance.

Transpostation is costs are determined by the mean cost of public transit in the various training centers as well as a five year mean cost of gas and oil only for a new, barebones economy car travelling no more than 10,000 km a year. Purchace, insurance and all other costs are excluded. The logic behind this is that using public transits costs alone is unrealistic in some circumstances, due to it's lack of existence, but at the same time it is assumed that other costs, such as housing in a rural community can offset the added vehicle expenses.

Entertainment can now be calculated in using the simple number of 10%. We simply add an additional 10 % to the now determined wage to allow for entertainment. I know that some have other suggestions, but I stated in the beginning that I was concerned with meeting people's needs and society's needs, not meeting everyone's whims.

I realise I have not proposed a perfect solution, but I believe it is far superior to the ridiculous idea that a simple wage hike is any knid of a solution at all.