LEO Weekly welcomes letters that are brief (350 words max) and thoughtful. Ad hominem attacks will be ignored, and we need your name and a daytime phone number. Send snail mail to Inbox, 301 E. Main St., Suite 201, Louisville, Ky. 40202. Fax to 895-9779 or email to [email protected]. We may edit for length, grammar and clarity.
Correction
Our sincerest apologies to Judge Erica Lee Williams, who, in our Sept. 10 “Deadbeat TV” article, was misidentified as Judge Erica Lee Miller. We regret the confusion.
The Minimum Wage Debate
[In the Sept. 10 Inbox], a commenter [Rich Mills] posed the question of $1,500 an hour for a minimum wage being better than $15 an hour. I would ask is 5 cents an hour any worse? The problem with both these numbers is they’re arbitrary. A minimum wage should be tied to increases in inflation and production in the economy as a whole. According to Senator Elizabeth Warren, the number should be closer to $22 dollars per hour if increases in inflation and production were taken into account. The economy is demand driven and the minimum wage is important because it protects the purchasing power of the bottom-level consumer. It also increases the engine of our economy, demand. In addition to the above points it’s just more fair and humane.
Bruce Self, Jeffersonville, Ind.
Disappointed in ?Bourbon Feature
I was highly disappointed in the article from Matthew Landan for your feature article in the bourbon issue. His information was stale. The same information that could be obtained from any distillers’ website, was barely substantive and all in all a disappointing read. He is just another proprietor that helps feed into all of the “hoopla” surrounding the premium bourbons. In the every day bourbon world, the market is still being driven by the Old Grand Dad and Old Fitzgerald brands because these are the bourbons that are available on a consistent basis. Maybe if you had gone outside your comfort zone and you could have found a better author for the story, after all a better author makes for a better story.
P.S. Even three years ago you could not find Pappy on the shelves for a non black market price. Cheers!
Emily Celeste
Stop Rand Paul’s Right-to-Work Legislation
Don’t skim this because politics is as boring as owl poop! The following is happening NOW, and our only choice if it is passed will be to accept it or remain unemployed. If you care about labor unions, and I do because they help more than harm — think of teachers — (you all know anything is subject to power-hungry persons who use the guise of helping people to make more money for themselves), please look into stopping the right-to-work legislation Rand Paul is trying to pass. He only wants it because it puts power of control directly in the hands of those corporate executives who can lower salaries and take away benefits. This makes corporate executives happy, makes them contribute, from the bazillion dollars leached from employees, to the politicians supporting this legislation.
Wake up! Most politicians don’t care about the working person! If a mid- to low-level employee approaches a politician at the same time a rich corporate executive does, who do you think he will help? He will try to talk the employee into believing he is helping him with legislation that is named something the employee will be fooled into believing helps him.
“Right-to-work” sounds like it and most people won’t look any further into it because it is frickin’ boring! The politician will tell the employee how beneficial it will be and one hand shakes the employee’s hand while the other accepts a whopping political contribution. Nothing is all good; nothing is all bad. So accept there will be abuses of power in unions. It is still the best way to protect employees, most of whom willingly pay the union fee. You won’t pay a union fee in a right-to-work state. You WILL be forced to accept lower salaries and possibly no benefits paid by corporations, because without a union the choice is theirs. The corporation’s executives, however, will have salaries and bonuses great enough to move into an upper-income echelon. Why should they care about you?
You...have...a...vote! Do NOT allow a Republican takeover of our salaries.
Rebecca Meichler, Hikes Point
