Hand over your money

It's stories like these that frustrate me to levels I can't even describe.

It's been reported on Yahoo News that the median net worth of black Americans is less than 10 percent of whites.

This, obviously, is a problem. And it really doesn't matter what color appears first or second in that sentence. In the land of the free, brave, and equally protected, we should do everything we can to give everyone in this country the same chances to succeed. The part that really burns me though, is the National Urban League's solution to this problem: 1. Raise the minimum wage and 2. More help for blacks to purchase homes and start businesses.

This idea is so silly that it makes it hard for me to type logical sentences, but let's try to break it down some:

Raising the minimum wage. Somebody needs to enlighten me on how this helps people accumulate wealth. Minimum wage laws were enacted to ensure a basic subsistence level of pay, to ensure that people were not being unfairly taken advantage of by employers. They were not designed, nor will they ever fulfill a person's dream of becoming financially independent. It is simply not possible for people to get wealthy working for minimum wage, nor will increasing it help any. Increasing minimum wage leads to increases in price for the products and services that you purchase, thus nobody wins-not even the person who had their wage increased.

More help to purchase homes. Initially this sounds like a really good idea. Houses usually accumulate equity, making owning a home a sound idea. But who's going to pay for this "help"? Well, of course everybody would pay, in the form of higher taxes so that more (and bigger) grants could be given out. Why not let me keep my money, so I can try to purchase my own home? By the way, how many lenders do you think will approve me with my new, higher, minimum wage? How many of your friends were successful in securing financing while getting paid minimum wage?

More help to start a business. Another great idea, on the surface. Once again, you have to look deeper. I'm not going to copy and paste my "where's this money coming from" complaint again. It's the same complaint listed in the last paragraph. The same basic problem still applies. There are also a whole new set of things the Urban League obviously failed to consider. According to the Dept. Of Labor, "The Census Bureau reports that 76 percent of all small businesses operating in 1992 were still open in 1996." Well, what that really means is that 24% of the businesses are no longer open. They failed. So let's be clear on something here. The Urban League wants us to provide more funding to a program that statistically shows us that 1 out of every 4 people that gets a grant will be wasting money. I'm not even going to get into the issues of self-discipline, the tremendous financial burden placed on someone when they open a small business, and the legal expenses required to make sure you're in compliance with all the labor and business laws currently on the books. Where is this money supposed to come from? Oh yeah, you're getting paid minimum wage! Does that mean we shouldn't promote small businesses, the bread and butter of America's economy? No, not at all. But we shouldn't increase the funding when the answer lies elsewhere.

Answer Time. Ok, so given those 3 items, I'm prepared to provide you all the answer to the wealth-gap problem. It can be summed up in this short sentence: Self Policing and Education. Regardless of the color of your skin, most of our problems can be corrected by policing ourselves, and our race. If your kid wants to skip school, kick his or her ass. If they want to perform poorly when they do attend school, kick their ass. If you had a child with a deadbeat spouse, kick his or her ass till they either pay child support or get tossed in jail. If your kid is running with gangs and smoking crack, instead of cracking the books, kick his ass too. If you know someone who has talent, but is wasting their life away on drugs or alcohol, kick their ass till they straighten up too. You can only acquire wealth a handful of ways. Some will be lucky enough to inherit it. Most will have to work hard, practice financial discipline, save, and have career/life goals. You will never become wealthy having the government throw money your way. You will not have learned the life lessons required to maintain that money. You will waste it on needless things.

My suggestion to the Urban League is simple. Police your people. Put their feet to the fire, and make them achieve the things in this country that others have done on their own. Keep your kids in school. Encourage post-high school education. Encourage your single mothers not to have more children out of wedlock. Encourage your fathers to remain committed to the families they helped create. Clean up your neighborhoods. Encouraging people to invest in their own neighborhoods will go along way to solving the problem. Encourage the young dreams of owning a business by showcasing the successful businesses in your neighborhood. These things will fix the problem you care so deeply about. More government welfare programs are not the answer.