U.S. is a Consumer Economy

If the USA is a consumer economy, then there must be good wages paid to the consumers to drive the economy. The business community thinks they have the right to pay anything they wants in wages, but what they don’t want to consider is that their businesses is not totally theirs if in order to conduct their business they use the commons (e.g. roads), which is paid for by all the U.S. people who actually pay their taxes or at least subsidized by the people like the railroads and post office, law enforcement, schools, bank regulators, Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration, to name a few. Without most of these things there would be no way to have or conduct a business. The taxes to support our schools that train the workers in math and English the companies then hire. Without good wages as the base pay it must be very solid or the consumer economy will crumble and with it the whole system. The more we make the more we spend and the more we must produce, which is more jobs. With more spending and taxes being paid, which will pay for more commons, which will help business make more money. Paying a decent wage will keep angry people from the streets for they will be busy working and spending their money and paying down their school debts or whatever. Austerity will only hurt in the long run. If there is austerity used in the consumer economy it could end a democracy, just look at some of the countries with governments who don’t understand this, such as Brazil, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. But there are some countries that do understand austerity, low wages and not letting workers organize ends up hurting their economy. One country that understands this logic has gone even further by divesting its pension from Walmart stock. The Norwegian government had invested its surplus oil revenues and decided, based on ethical reasons, to sell its $400 million Walmart stock because the retailer has serious and systemic human and labor rights violations. If only our government leaders had this kind of concern, respect and decency to protect its workers as the Norwegian government.