Nomi Prins
Thanksgiving Thoughts on Enough
Last night, I watched KVUE news (an Austin ABC affiliate) do a number of Thanksgiving stories. One struck me as particularly meaningful; about a woman named Lola, the focus of local documentary director, Michelle Nehme. A damn good cook and human, Lola's proof that you don't have to have a lot to give a lot.
She is effectively homeless, living in the back of her tiny restaurant, Nubian Queen Lola's Cajun Kitchen. On Thanksgiving eve, she got on her bike and rode through the streets of East Austin, handing out food to people who needed it. To her, "it's not how much money you have, but what you're going to do with what's in your hands" that counts. It's the idea that if you have enough, you can afford to give away the extra.
Close to Lola's place, there's another Thanksgiving phenomenon occurring. Whole Foods Market is bustling with people buying pie, sides and last minute turkeys. The CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, publicly gets the concept of 'enough' with respect his employees. Company policy caps the amount that any of the executives can make at 14 times that of the average worker's compensation. His network of stores continues to expand and he has one of the best balance sheets in the food industry.
Outside of Whole Foods, the average CEO made 431 times the average worker's pay in 2004. In 2005, the average CEO made 821 times what a minimum wage worker took home. Since the last vote for minimum wage increase in 1997, Congress voted itself 8 raises.
Congress should now gets its act together. It should not just pass, but shoot through, minimum wage hikes, right to a living wage. Corporations may complain that paying people more makes them less competitive. Tough. They can look at Whole Food's balance sheet and realize that greedy doesn't equal better. Learn enough is enough.
Meanwhile, this corporate disconnect and non-thanksgiving like selfishness seeps into other issues that Democrats should focus on fixing. Among them is health coverage: while fewer Americans have insurance at all, health insurance premiums and deductibles have doubled. While last year's federal budget cut governmental plans like Medicare and Medicaid, gifts for drug companies, ala Medicare Prescription D were plenty.
Likewise, government sponsored insurance for credit card companies in the form of last year's Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act, made it harder for people to file bankruptcy, yet put no restrictions on fees or rates card companies charge.
Whole Foods doesn't make the kind of profits Exxon-Mobil does, but it makes money, fairly compensates workers, and carries quality products - including amazing sweet potato pies, fantastic creamed spinach and pumpkin ravioli. It shows something that we, who are lucky enough to have Thanksgiving dinners, know in our stomachs: enough is enough is healthier individually and still leaves plenty to go around the table.
