Take the Knee: My take on this NFL protests

Toward the end of the week, I intended to write an article on the solution for the DACA kids, but a quick thumb through Instagram netted a more pressing issue on hand at the moment.  In a world where college kids and professional protesters are injuring people every time someone who they don't agree with speaks, and when a small Asian man threatens to launch the doomsday missile every day, there is a much bigger issue.  Healthcare costs are spiraling out of control, and almost every human being in the country is dissatisfied with the amount of taxes he pays, there is still a bigger issue at hand.  Apparently the biggest issue in the world right now is whether or not all players in the NFL stand up for the National Anthem in the NFL games.  

I'm not writing a parody right now, I'm being quite serious.  Celebrities, commentators, coaches, team owners, and even the NFL itself can't help themselves from weighing in on the issue and making demands as to what is acceptable behavior by the players on the various teams, and it's all really stupid.  This is not a difficult issue at all, but so many people have made it into a do or die issue that will make or break the world.   

In 2016, second string Quarterback Colin Kaepernick made waves throughout the media because he took a knee and refused to stand while the National Anthem was played before his games.  Kaepernick was no stranger even then to controversy on the field.  During his first few seasons, Colin was very much on fire as far as statistics were concerned.  The 49ers Quarterback set record after record very quickly during his first few seasons, even spending his first two NFL seasons undefeated against the Green Bay Packers (a statistic he yelled very loudly to anyone who would listen).  Colin quickly gained infamy for excessive celebration at every chance he could celebrate.  He coined the term "Kaepernicking", a classless and derogatory dance that he would do after every good play.  

Colin's luck would eventually run out, as is with most people.  After a couple seasons like this, Kaepernick's statistics started to decline quickly.  After a crushing defeat by the Cardinals in 2015, the biggest story on ESPN was that the game against the Packers would be just what the young Quarterback needed.  History shows us that the victory didn't come, and was a continuation on a severe slide in Colin's performance.  By the end of 2015, his total quarterback rating had fallen below 50, and he was quickly falling out of favor with sports writers, fans and his coaches.

While I'm fuzzy on the details, I've read the reports that it was at about this point in history that Colin converted to Islam, possibly at the behest of his girlfriend.  I know that he grew his hair, and a beard.  But what I do know is that during his last season as an NFL Quarterback, he began sitting/kneeling for the National Anthem, citing a protest of the racism of the collective police force against black men.  It didn't take long for a fire to grow under the other black players in the league across the country, and now we sit with a growing civil disturbance festering under our feet.

Look anywhere on social media, and you'll surely find a post telling the black people of the NFL to take a knee in the name of solidarity or in the name of racism or just to protest the United States of America, and generally the following post is some middle American telling the players that they can't or shouldn't kneel for the National Anthem.  Next you'll find some post from someone telling you that if you don't support Kaepernick getting hired, you're a racist.  Immediately following that will be a post saying that Kaepernick's civil unrest should get him black balled from sports.  I'm here to honestly tell you....you're all wrong, at least in one way or another.  

To the players who need to hide in the locker room, kneel, or anything else to protest the United States because all black people are oppressed by the American Racism:  Get over yourselves.  First off, if you're in the NFL, you're not oppressed.  You may have experienced some form of racism early in your lives, and there may be some horrific comments made by some flyover state rednecks.  But let's be honest about a few facts.  Most of you out there have a multi-million dollar contract, and for every one of those contracts, there is another team waiting out there to give you another contract should you not see eye to eye with your current team.  The magic of these contracts is that you make upper 1% level money, but no one in the mainstream expects you to give it all away, as they expect with a CEO or another top earner.  It's socially acceptable for you to be able to keep all your money in spite of the fact that you don't directly employ anyone.  And yet, you kneel to protest the treatment of blacks across the country.  There is some honor in this, as you are making a statement from the platform that you're given.  However, I don't agree with this being the best way to help your community.  The big argument to celebrities is that if they speak out in bringing refugees, that they should give out rooms in their homes or pay for refugee shelter themselves.  I'm not 100% on board with this, but it presents an idea of what you, as multi-millionaires can do for the people that you kneel for.  Buying, restoring, and renting low income housing; donating food; and small business grants to help employ people in affected areas will help millions more people than taking a knee against a free enterprise country that gave you the tools to make millions.  Scholarships will help many more young blacks to go to college instead of going to the streets, and give some more of them opportunities to get noticed by the NFL and other sports, and have the opportunity to make millions themselves.  

To the people who say that the players of the NFL shouldn't kneel for the National Anthem: just stop talking.  To those who say they should be fired or arrested for doing so: delete your social media accounts.  Now, I defend your right to speak freely, so I can't actually force you to disable your social media or stop you from talking.  But my statement is in defense of the players to peacefully make a protest that is protected the same way your freedom to protest their protest.  Unless this branch of the movement turns to violence, just let them express themselves.  You don't have to like it, but there is no law requiring anyone to stand for the flag, pledge allegiance to it, or respect the National Anthem. We are not Soviets, Nazis, or North Koreans in this country.  It's also your right to not participate in their careers, and that is a path that more and more Americans are taking, rather than making idle threats and accusations against the players.  I do offer the same opinion to coaches and team owners.  You can't penalize your players for exercising an American Right.  This is the land of the free, and the people that our great flag honors fought hard for these players to have that right.  The best thing as Americans that honor the flag can do is let the protesting players come back to us on their own.  Anything else would be dictatorial and fascist.

To the general public who wants to throw the racist card around because no one is hiring Colin Kaepernick: I challenge you to look at the stats, along with the current situation in the NFL.  Currently, dozens of players across the country sit out from the National Anthem, and their jobs are perfectly intact.  Kaepernick had a couple of really good, really lucky seasons, but the numbers speak for themselves as far as he's concerned.  Colin was a lighting strike, and he doesn't have the numbers to make a starter salary a worthwhile investment to the business owners involved.  If Number 7 was putting up the the numbers like he did in 2012, it wouldn't matter to any team owner what his beliefs were.  Star players and big plays bring in crowds, and crowds bring money to team owners, vendors, and sponsors.  

Finally, to those who think that all these players, Kaepernick included, are ungrateful and should be blackballed:  Just stop.  Colin Kaepernick has the right to free speech, free practice of religion, and has the right to assemble his like minded brethren peacefully as he sees fit.  If he gets his spark back and can make consistent numbers again, there are enough fans that want to see him playing again that if the 49ers can't find the means to hire him, another team will come up with the money.  Plain and simple.  If he can't get his numbers and consistency back, he'll have to accept another lifestyle, and that's just how it is.  

One final thought that I had while remembering the way things used to be before the protests began.  I remember seeing the players standing during the anthem, helmets off hands over their hearts.  I remember being so inspired by the black players during the anthem.  Try and find some old footage of the Anthem being played.  You could almost see a tear in the eyes of the black players as they gripped their shoulder pads.  I've never had an opportunity to interview these players, but I'd die to know what they were thinking as those familiar bars played.  It's so unnerving to see people who were seemed so inspired by our nation's anthem feel such a need to protest it now.  

We all need to step back and look at our country and our lives.  One small exercise of the First Amendment has become another thing that has polarized us not even two decades after we all stood united under the flag as a nation against a terrorist attack on US soil.  I don't know about any of you, dear readers, but I don't want unity to come at the cost of so many lives again.  

The fight for $15

After scrolling through some news headlines today, I noted that there was another "Fight for $15" rally that was planned for today.  It's been quite a while since we've heard these fateful words.  I don't know that I've heard of any of these rally's since November to be completely honest, but in any case, they are back, even if they are on a reduced form.  The fight for $15 has roots in an honorable cause, but in reality, it's a movement designed to please big business donors before completely wrecking the economy.  Let's look at the minimum wage, and why such a drastic increase would be detrimental, if not dangerous while we are so early in our recovery.

Most people fighting on for a fifteen dollar minimum wage will tell you that we've been in a major recovery since about 2010.  While it is true that we experienced a period of economic growth during the last seven years, by the numbers our economy has actually been quite stagnant since the "Great Recession". There were a few quarters that surged over 3% here and there, but overall the total economic growth under the Obama Administration was around 1.4%.  His best year in that was 2015 at 2.9%.  So why is that important?  The growth of GDP versus the growth of dollars circulating in the economy is the definition of inflation, and while the Federal Reserve continued to print dollar bills at an accelerated rate, the value of each of them dropped.

An interesting discussion came about one day at work when a rather outspoken employee started mouthing off an A&W employee getting his sandwich wrong, expressing that "this idiot wants 15 bucks and hour!"  This caught the ear of the inventory controller, who doesn't make even that much, and he, in turn, started yelling back about how he doesn't make that much.  The night service adviser quelled the situation, steering the discussion away from "who should make what" into "why is the dollar so worthless that we feel the need to double the federal minimum wage."  It's a point worth noting.  The minimum wage is essentially just an arbitrary number, with loose ties to the inflation level and the Gross Domestic Product.  It's also a very low baseline.  Currently, only two States in the Union have a State Minimum Wage lower than the federal one, in addition to the five states that don't have any minimum wage at all aside from the Federal one.  There are also 14 states that currently use the Federal Minimum Wage, so the $7.25 only applies to 21 states.  Furthermore, this statistic only applies to 2.7% of workers nationwide, or a grand total of 2.2 million people as of 2016, with that number dropping off all the time.  With numbers like that, the bare minimum of the minimum wage affects a very niche group of people.  However, we are still in the earliest stages of economic recovery, and that is still quite a large number of people to have these kinds of jobs.  The other driver is the demographic that sits in the rather large swath of people that have jobs that sit between the minimum wage and the golden number that has been set as a goal of how to make the entire country rich at once.  Large groups in the movement are the people who are making 10 or 12 bucks and hour.  The unfortunate myth with them is that the majority of them would get moved to $15, and probably not more until they earn it, increasing the number of "minimum wage" jobs through the ceiling, and precipitating a further level of unrest while the workers who were above minimum wage demand a higher wage yet.

So what does an increase of over 100% in the minimum wage mean for jobs on the whole? Well, in the beginning, the vast majority of US workers would be entirely unaffected.  Most people fall above this threshold, or are close enough to it that it will be just a mild pay raise.  The immediate concern would be with the fast food, grocery, foodservice, retail, and CNA fields.  While the medical industry will find a way to accommodate it's employees, there will definitely be cutbacks and layoffs.  The retail and food industries, on the other hand, will see drastic cutbacks, and automation will cease to be a meme and become a reality.  As time progresses, though, many to all of the smaller stores and restaurants will start to go under, paving the way for IHOP and Denny's and other big corporate businesses to take over.  The next immediate concern would be pricing.  If the minimum benchmark for an hour's labor doubles, the cost of production will go up.   I don't believe costs will double, as material cost increasing will be a secondary effect, and many manufacturers are closer to the fifteen dollar an hour benchmark, but there will be increases.  States will also mandate higher state minimum wages to remain competitive for laborers.  As time goes on, production costs will continue to increase, as manufacturers increase wages to attempt to retain workers dissatisfied with suddenly being relegated to minimum wage status.  Costs will go up, and wages will slowly rise to match, and then in a couple of years, after the federal reserve has printed money to supply the economy, we will be having this argument again.  $15 will no longer be a living wage, and then we will have the fight for $30 on our hands.

A dramatic increase in the Federal minimum wage will have drastic effects.  As I mentioned earlier the first problem will be that it will starve out all the small employers, leaving the giant corporations to take over.  The layoffs will leave more people living on entitlements, and our economy will go right back into the tank.  Over a few years, the economy will come back around, and as inflation equalizes, and small businesses will begin to rise again as the American Entrepreneurial spirit takes over.  But the reality is that as the currency increases, it continues to be devalued until we have a currency as worthless as Venezuela.

A minimum wage is an arbitrary number that represents the value of the lowest level of work.  Unless you are in a full Communist economy, no matter how high you raise it, the economy will adjust to match it.  The minimum wage is just that: A minimum.  If you want to have a higher wage, get a better job.  Trust me, if you work hard at what you do, the employers will start fighting over you, and you'll see the wages to match.

I have one final thought on this.  Over the last 10 months, it seems that there has been very little on the fight for $15 front.  It's a little hard to explain from November to...let's say April, but after that, our economy has been booming.  The reeling back of regulations has allowed the creation of over a million jobs to date, and I'd lay a bet that the majority land between $12 and $20 per hour.  When many of the "Fight for $15" movement go back to their regular jobs, what's left are the people that the jobs were intended for: Young people starting out with few to no bills.  If you're still in the minimum wage group, hang in there for a little while.  Take some time, and look outside of your job market, too.  I thought I was stuck in my $12 an hour part time job, but I got up and moved one day, and I suddenly found myself constantly with offers on the table for employment even before the recovery.

As always, leave your comments below, and you can share, with my permission, all across social media.  Get a discussion going and see what's best for you and yours.  We can start fights and get nowhere on the issues, or we can discuss them and find the best solution for everyone.