Category Archives: Wage Slavery

The Minneapolis City Council voted Friday to pass a landmark $15 per hour minimum wage increase. No special allowances were made for tipped employees.

Minneapolis now joins Seattle, San Francisco and Washington D.C. , cities that have passed similar measures (though in D.C. there is an allowance made for a lower wage for tipped employees).

The wage increase comes after a contentious battle between small restaurant owners and servers with the unions and Mayor Betsy Hodges. The mayor wrote an open letter back in February in favor of the raise without what she deemed a tip penalty. She also made a controversial correlation between tipping and slavery.

Many independent restaurant owners like Lina Goh and John Ng of Zen Box Izakaya made impassioned pleas to consider tipped wages as income, while also agreeing that a minimum wage increase was a move in the right direction.

Meanwhile, other business owners like Jamie Robinson of Northbound Smokehouse warned that the steep increase would mean a death knell for many small businesses already operating on razor thin margins. In a statement released today by the Pathway to 15 group, Red Rabbit bartender Jennifer Schellenberg said, The city council has failed tipped restaurant workers in Minneapolis. We took the time to advocate for a solution that would empower all workers in Minneapolis. Instead of listening to our concerns, the council moved forward with a proposal that will put our income and our jobs in jeopardy. We won't give up the fight but we remain disillusioned about how our concerns were dismissed for the sake of campaign politics.

Council Member Lisa Bender championed the passage according to the Star Tribune, This is a huge victory for works in Minneapolis.

The one dissenting vote came from Council Member Blong Yang who expressed concerns about the ordinances affect on small businesses.

The Fight for $15 Now group also issued a statement saying, Fifteen an hour has officially arrived in the heartland! It wasnt easy, but after years of going on strike, taking to the streets and raising our voices for higher wages, we have finally won the raise we need. Getting paid $15/hour will help us pay for groceries, make the rent, and cover the basics without relying on public assistance. Were proud that Minneapolis is the first city in the Midwest to pass $15/hour, but we promise it wont be the last. This movement has momentum that cant be stopped, and well keep on standing up and speaking out until everyone, everywhere is paid at least $15/hour and has the right to join a union.

The ordinance will go into effect citywide by 2024 with an accelerated implementation for large businesses.

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Minneapolis City Council Passes $15 Minimum Wage Without a Tip Consideration - Eater Twin Cities (blog)

New police-style powers have been given to the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) to tackle modern slavery and labour exploitation in the agri-food supply chain.

The new powers allow GLAA officers to carry out arrests rather than refer offenders on to police forces.

Since its expansion two months ago, the GLAA has arrested over 25 people on suspicion of exploiting workers, safeguarded 76 potential victims of slavery, and recovered tens of thousands of pounds in confiscated wages.

The government has invested an additional 2M to extend the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which has been renamed the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority. Its new mission is to prevent, detect and investigate worker exploitation across the entire economy.

Modern slavery is abhorrent; it is described by the prime minister as the greatest human rights issue of our time, said GLAA chief executive Paul Broadbent. Much of it is controlled by organised crime gangs who have links to drug smuggling, and gun violence.

Eradicate slavery

But those who profit and perpetrate slavery and exploitation should now be looking over their shoulders because the creation of the GLAA is a significant step in our desire to see it eradicated.

Estimates put the number of slaves in the UK between 10,00013,000, but the GLAA believes it could be even higher. Slavery and labour exploitation have infiltrated a number of legitimate supply chains, it claims.

Modern slavery is a barbaric crime which destroys lives, said Sarah Newton, minister for vulnerability, safeguarding and countering extremism. We have taken world-leading action to protect victims and deal with perpetrators, and extended the reach of the GLAA to enable them to do even more.

I am pleased to see this important agency putting these new powers to good effect and am confident that officers will continue to stamp out the unscrupulous criminals who exploit the most vulnerable.

Since the beginning of May, the GLAAs new powers have been put to good use across the country with multiple joint operations to clamp down on slavers and ruthless employers.

This included an operation conducted with South Yorkshire Police, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Her Majestys Revenue and Customs (HMRC) last month (June 19) in which warrants were executed at a number of addresses and four men arrested on suspicion of human trafficking and money laundering offences.

Victims of exploitation

Over the following days more than 100 addresses were then visited to identify potential victims of exploitation.

The GLAA will be collaborating closely with the police, NCA, Border Force, Immigration Enforcement, Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, HMRC, the Department of Work and Pensions and others. GLAA analysts are already working within the Joint Slavery Trafficking Analysis Centre the elite intelligence gathering unit set up this year to tackle human trafficking.

Our approach, in terms of prevention, enforcement and support for those who are victims, shows we are now leading the way as a country in tackling this despicable practice, added Broadbent.

I am confident that with our partners, the GLAA will have a major impact on disrupting and dismantling modern slavery networks that have established themselves within the UK and tackling poor and illegal practices that see thousands of workers exploited by employers every year.

Labour market offences are offences under the following legislation: Employment Agencies Act 1973, the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 and Parts 1 and 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Supply chain survey

As part of an online survey that Food Manufacture is conducting over the next couple of months to inform a Supply chain supplement, that is being published in the October issue of the magazine, sponsored by Autenticate Information Systems, readers are asked whether they are either in the process or have already produced a business response to the Modern Slavery Act. Click here to participate in the supply chain survey.

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Gangmasters' body gets policing powers - FoodManufacture.co.uk

A week after the release of a study revealing the high cost of Seattle's minimum wage, the Minneapolis City Council rammed through a $15 minimum wage over the strenuous objections of workers and businesses.

The council voted 13-1 in favor of a tiered minimum wage roll-out schedule for large and small businesses modeled closely on Seattle's. The first of the wage increases will kick in in January 2018.

"The majority of the city council has given us two middle fingers," said Sarah Webster Norton, of Service Industry Staff for Change, which has been fighting the minimum wage ordinance.

Much of the opposition in Minneapolis has centered on the council's refusal to allow restaurants and bars to credit tips to the base hourly wage of their workers.

The tip credit puts more cash in the pockets of workers and gives businesses more flexibility in adjusting to wage hikes. Webster Norton, a server with 24 years of experience, says she expects businesses and customers will scale back or eliminate tipping, cutting her take-home pay by half.

"We've tried to show them the numbers and show them the math, they absolutely, staunchly refuse to listen," she said.

A survey of more than 100 Minneapolis restaurants by Pathway to 15a pro-minimum wage, pro-tip credit organizationfound that 81 percent of businesses would reduce hours, and another 55 percent would eliminate current positions without a tip credit.

Roughly 63 percent of business owners surveyed said they would implement a service charge or change their tipping model if a tip credit wasn't included in the Minneapolis minimum wage ordinance.

Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, a minimum wage proponent, however, described tipping in an essay as a legacy of slavery and demeaning to women. Webster Norton said Hodges and the council have abused identity politics to quiet opposition.

"It's insulting to those of us who have tried to hone our craft, who have worked our asses off to become knowledgeable about food and beverage and alcohol and wine," Webster Norton said. "All the things that make a good tipped employee. It basically just implies that we have to use our feminine wiles to get tips."

Steve Minn, a former council member himself and owner of affordable housing developments in the city, told Reason the rush to a minimum wage increase was political pandering by Hodges and councilman Jacob Frey, who are vying for the nomination for mayor at the Democrat-Farm Labor Party convention July 8.

Minn wrote a lengthy op-ed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune detailing his concerns.

"If this was about good policy, they would have waited and done their study, and paused when the most recent data on Seattle came back," Minn said. "The rush to deal with it this month has everything to do with the mayoral convention that happens in two weeks."

The new ordinance leaves Minn in a tough spot, prohibiting him from raising rents of his affordable housing, thanks to a contract with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Minn says his alternative will probably be to trim services to his tenants.

"Instead of having three cleaning crews a week," he said, "maybe I'll have two."

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Minneapolis City Council Ignores Damning Seattle Study, Passes Its Own $15 Minimum Wage - Reason (blog)

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Would-be retirees are often dismayed when they look at retirement projections based on todays low interest rates and are told their choice is simply to work longer, increase investment risk and/or scale back their expectations of retirement. Sadly, champagne aspirations on a beer budget are not the recipe for a happy retirement.

But working longer need not be as unpalatable as it might seem on first blush. Governments around the world are doing what they can to encourage workers to stay in harness just a few years longer. They have our interests, as well as their down, at heart. Theyve seen the rising life expectancy stats and would prefer that we work longer and keep feeding tax coffers, while at the same time deferring the moment when we start drawing on our government retirement benefits.

The Stephen Harper Conservatives even tried to bump the qualification age for Old Age Security to 67 from 65, although this was later reversed by the Justin Trudeau Liberals. The Tories were on the right track; fact is, we are living longer and healthier lives, which is both good news and bad. Good news because we all want to live a long and healthy life. But not so good to the extent a long life raises the odds youll run out of money before you run out of life.

Add in the fact that many of todays workers will not enjoy the plush defined benefit pension plans many Boomers and their parents received. Then throw in the new reality of miserly interest rates with the risk of soaring inflation. What you get, and its little wonder, many would-be retirees err on the side of working just a little bit longer if theyre at all in doubt about their financial preparation for a comfortable retirement.

Consider the benefits of working a few years longer. Financially, it means that if you are in a DB pension, the ultimate payout will be that much higher. And if your retirement nest egg is based on a defined contribution (DC) plan or RRSP, a couple more years of growth fuelled by todays buoyant equity markets will be that much better. And dont forget that on the withdrawal side, two or three years fewer of annual withdrawals also means your nest egg will be that more sustainable.

Even if you are not part of a company pension plan, working longer can benefit both your eventual CPP and OAS pension streams, says Matthew Ardrey, wealth advisor and vice president with Toronto-based Tridelta Financial. For every year you defer the receipt of CPP benefits, your ultimate payout from the plan will rise by an extra 8.4%, to a maximum of 42% for those who wait right until age 70.

For OAS, the bonus for deferral is slightly less but still tempting. Each year that is deferred results in 6% higher payments, to a maximum of 36% at age 70. This is an important consideration, since both these government pensions are indexed to inflation, deferral can be a double win. Those who lack a DB inflation-indexed pension will want to consider this option carefully.

Of course, the trick is to make it to 70 using alternate sources of income, a luxury not everyone can afford. Some may choose to start withdrawing money from their RRSPs early (and paying tax as they do), or set up their RRIFs a few years in advance of when its required in your early 70s.

Delaying OAS may not make sense for everyone, particularly those who expect to have high enough income that OAS benefits start to get clawed back, which kicks in currently at an annual income of about $75,000. OAS is completely clawed back at an income around $121,000. If youre in those brackets, consider taking OAS as soon as its available at age 65. CPP does not generate clawbacks but like OAS is taxable: the case for waiting till 70 if at all possible is, therefore, more compelling for CPP than for OAS.

One of the benefits of a semi-retirement approach to retirement is that it cobbles together multiple streams of income: employer pensions, government pensions, RRSPs and TFSAs, and non-registered savings. And dont forget the stream of income called part-time work, which can provide a significant boost to your passive retirement income streams. As I have noted in a past MoneySense Retired Money column, even if a single retiree earns just $1,000 a month between ages 65 and 75, it greatly lowers the odds youll run out of money in your late 90s. If youre one half of a couple and both spouses earn that much from consulting or freelance work, so much the better.

The bonus of keeping your hand in the working world is youll feel a lot less isolated: continued interaction with co-workers or clients and some semblance of structure to the working week can provide emotional and even mental health benefits. Having some work-oriented purpose gives you a reason to get out of bed each morning.

Part-time work will feel completely different than the wage slavery of full-time employment. With a traditional job, you have a mix of activities some pleasant, some not so much but in semi-retirement you can jettison the tasks you dont feel drawn to and focus on what youre good at and enjoy. Odds are youll find youre able to be more creative in the assignments you do choose to take on, and ideally find a way to reinvent yourself.

I think of my friend David, who went to a life coach (his sister-in-law) in his mid 50s and discovered he didnt want to be a financial advisor anymore. She helped him rediscover his childhood ambition to become an actor. He started small, taking improv classes then acquired an agent, landed small engagements in TV commercials, moved on to the big screen for some movie shorts and recently returned from the Middle East where he acted in a PBS production on the life of Jesus.

Like anything else its a question of putting in your 10,000 hours and mastering your craft. If you love what you do, it may not even feel like work, in which case why would you ever want to stop?

Jonathan Chevreau is founder of the Financial Independence Hub and co-author of Victory Lap Retirement. He can be reached at jonathan@findependencehub.com

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We live longer. Why not work longer? - MoneySense

How did the son of a wealthy American entrepreneur and Harvard graduate become an ardent supporter of the proletarian revolution in Russia?

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"Here is a book which I should like to see published in millions of copies and translated into all languages" - V. Lenin about John Reed's book. Source: Getty Images

The life of American journalist John Reed (1887 - 1920) was so extraordinary that he inspired film directors on both sides of the Atlantic during the Cold War.

Warren Beatty's 1981 movie about Reed - Reds - won three Oscars. In the USSR, director Sergey Bondarchuk made a two part epic, Red Bells (1982), that was also based on Reeds life.

So why has the late hacks life fueled so much interest?

Reed was raised in an upper-class environment in the Pacific Northwest during the turn of the 20th century. He graduated from Harvard and showed interest in social issues, attending socialist club meetings. Three years after completing his studies he landed a job with the New York-based leftist magazine The Masses, which published articles by prominent radicals of the time.

As a determined champion of social justice, Reed covered strikes by silk mill workers in New Jersey and coal miners in Colorado. He was then sent to report on the Mexican revolution (1910 - 1920). He was appalled by the exploitation of laborers and Washingtons policy towards Mexico. "The United States Government is really headed toward the policy of civilizing 'em with a Krag [a rifle used by American troops] - a process which consists in forcing upon alien races with alien temperaments our own Grand Democratic Institutions: I refer to Trust Government, Unemployment, and Wage Slavery," Reed wrote.

His series on Mexico, later published as a book titled Insurgent Mexico, enforced Reed's reputation as a war correspondent. When World War I broke out in Europe Reed traveled to the Continent on two occasions, resulting in his second book - The War in Eastern Europe.

One of the organizers of the Communist Party of the United States (1919), participant in the Great October Socialist Revolution, author of the book Ten Days That Shook the World American writer and journalist John Reed (1887 - 1920) at a meeting in Nakhichevan. Source: RIA Novosti

However, his most famous work -Ten Days That Shook The World- was not about war, but rebellion. It was published in 1919 and described the events of the Russian revolution. Reed visited Russia in August 1917 and witnessed how the Bolsheviks seized power. He welcomed the uprising and was an enthusiastic supporter of the new socialist regime. "So, with the crash of artillery, in the dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring, new Russia was being born," he wrote.

He met the two main leaders of the Bolshevik uprising in person, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, and was a big fan of the Bolshevik party. "Instead of being a destructive force, it seems to me that the Bolsheviki were the only party in Russia with a constructive program and the power to impose it on the country," Reed wrote in Ten Days That Shook The World.

"Reed died in 1920 in Moscow after contracting spotted typhus at the tender age of 32. He was given a state funeral and buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis." Source: L.Pakhomov/TASS

Its little wonder the book was well received by Lenin. "Here is a book which I should like to see published in millions of copies and translated into all languages. It gives a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant tothe comprehension of what really is theProletarian Revolutionand theDictatorship of the Proletariat," the Bolshevik leader wrote in the introduction of the 1922 edition.

The book was also widely praised by the public - even American diplomat George F. Kennan, who had no sympathy towards the Soviets - gave it a positive review: "Reeds account of the events of that time rises above every other contemporary record for its literary power, its penetration, its command of detail."

Reed died in 1920 in Moscow after contracting spotted typhus at the tender age of 32. He was given a state funeral and buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Remembered for both his brilliant writing and political activism, Reed was also instrumental in establishing the Communist Labor Party of America and took part in the Comintern congress in Moscow shortly before his death, an event advocating world communism. Its no wonder hes inspired film directors and writers - and hell forever be praised as a bastion of social justice and journalistic integrity. He truly was a man of the people.

Link:

Laid to rest in the Kremlin: Why was US hack John Reed buried in Moscow? - Russia Beyond the Headlines

STATE DEPARTMENT

Three videos from a mobile phone that described the beatings of an Indonesian crewman aboard a Taiwan-flagged vessel led Allison Lee to find her role as an advocate for those afflicted: migrant fishermen.

Lee, the co-founder of the Yilan Migrant Fishermen Union, was recognized by the United States for safeguarding the rights of foreign fishermen working in Taiwan.

In accepting her award in Washington on Tuesday, she made one appeal: to end slavery on the open sea.

To know the path from ocean to consumers' dinner plates is to know the story of floating sweatshops, Lee told VOA on Tuesday.

Migrant fishermen are vulnerable to exploitation, she said.

State Department award

Flanked by President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday, Lee was one of the eight men and women to receive Hero Acting to End Modern Slavery Award at the State Department, where the 2017 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report was released.

Lee is the first Taiwan citizen to receive the honor.

Migrant workers aboard Taiwan-flagged fishing vessels that operate in international waters are not covered by the so-called Labor Standards Act, the laws governing employer and employee rights. Therefore, they do not benefit from Taiwan's minimum-wage regulations regarding overtime pay, Lee said.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen reaffirmed her government's pledge to battle against human trafficking.

Taiwan is committed to working with all stakeholders to fight human trafficking, Tsai tweeted.

For eight consecutive years, Taiwan has been ranked in the Tier 1 category, the best ranking in the human-trafficking report.

While acknowledging Taiwan's serious and sustained efforts, Washington urged Taipei to increase efforts to prosecute and convict traffickers under the anti-trafficking law.

'Vigorously investigate' infractions

The State Department also urged Taiwan to vigorously investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute the owners of Taiwan-owned or -flagged fishing vessels that allegedly commit abuse and labor trafficking on board long-haul fishing vessels.

The TIP Report is a symbol of the U.S. moral and legal obligation to combat tragic human rights abuses and as well as to advance human dignity around the world, said Susan Coppedge, the U.S. Ambassador-at-large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Tier 1 countries meet the minimum standards to combat trafficking, but that's just the minimum. They don't rest on their laurels, so to speak, Coppedge told VOA on Tuesday.

They need to continue their efforts to combat trafficking, and one of the areas where Taiwan can make additional progress is in labor trafficking, she added.

On January 15, 2017, the Act for Distant Water Fisheries took effect in Taiwan amid growing pressure on Taiwan's seafood industry to crack down on modern-day slavery and abuses for migrants working on the island's fishing vessels.

Lee told reporters that being a Christian gave her strength to withstand the pressure from government officials and the industry.

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Taiwan Activist Urges Crackdown Against Floating Sweatshops - Voice of America

The Liberty Conservative

The Racist History Of Minimum Wage Laws The Liberty Conservative In it, he argued that the minimum-wage law is the most anti-Negro law on our statute books. He was, of course, referring to the then-present era, after the far more explicitly racist laws from the eras of slavery and segregation had already been removed.

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The Racist History Of Minimum Wage Laws - The Liberty Conservative

I ncreasing the minimum wage is a hotly debated issue in economics, and in political discourse more generally. On the one hand, supporters of increasing the minimum wage argue it will lead to a higher standard of living among low-income workers and their families. On the other, the argument is that tampering with market forces by artificially raising the wage floor will lead to job losses and fewer employment opportunities. As an advocating behavioural scientist I wish to add my two cents.

In 2016 the Government announced an increase in the National Minimum Wage from $5,600 to $6,200 per 40-hour workweek. The relative yet absolute inadequacy of the minimum wage has become apparent enough that it calls for revisions. However, while the Government contemplates a reasonable minimum wage for workers at the lowest scale of the job market, it must in a serious way pay more attention to enforcing all the relevant laws relating to their working conditions.

Minimum wage increase is not just about a few more dollars in the pocket of an individual; it is about attaining psychological well-being for the lowest income earners in our society. I am appalled when I hear the stories of the bad working conditions many low-income workers in some industries have to put up with. In some instances workers cannot afford to get sick; have no safety gear, toilet facilitates, time off, overtime pay; suffer victimisation, and I can go on and on.

Who really looks out for the lowest income earners in our society? It pained my heart when I was told by two domestic workers, on separate occasions, that they are paid $2,000 and $3,000 per week. This is not only wrong; it is criminal and tantamount to slavery.

The lowest income earners in our society are part of the working poor defined as working people whose income falls below the poverty line. What Governments need to remember or understand is that poverty harms people. There is a mountain of empirical evidence to support the damaging impact of poverty on the psychological, social and physical well-being of adults, children and communities. For example, poor children have found to suffer from a long list of physical and psychological disorders at higher rates than do other children, and their levels of success and adjustment in school and beyond are lower.

The MacArthur Foundation 2009 summarised the multitudinous evidence demonstrating that poor adults tend to be sicker and to die earlier than the rest of us. The bottom line is that poverty hurts and diminishes well-being. However, income sufficiency, plus improved working conditions, can reverse the damage caused by poverty.

A higher minimum wage has the potential to:

decrease family stress

give individuals more spending power and provide parents with a little more disposable income to meet their family's needs.

allow better participation in the economy or, remarkably, make educational achievements more possible. Success socially, especially with regard to training,is a great self-esteem booster. Far better than standing in front of the mirror trying to convince ourselves we are special.

make people feel they are being treated fairly, thereby causing them to act pleasantly. Have you ever wondered why there are so many miserable people serving you at some food outlets or selling you a pair shoes in a store? I'd like to think that the living wage is a big part of the reason. Some of the miserable attitudes directed to you have little to do with you. In most cases the bad attitude you get is linked to the amount they earn and consideration for the number of mouths to be fed at the end of the day, the debts owed, the 'partner' to be paid and, of course, that 'inconsiderate' customer who asks a whole heap of questions and still walks out without buying anything. Then came you!

A higher minimum wage and good working conditions, including health care, access to basic services offered by the Government, etc, are likely to see happier employees, even if they don't get the $12,000 per 40-hour workweek that was suggested by one person on Facebook in response to Finance Minister Audley Shaw's question: What do you think is a fair minimum wage?

Additionally, a fair National Minimum Wage is an anchor for employers. It tells employers how to set pay generously and competitively by exceeding the minimum wage. The minimum wage is not intended to be the wage that will make workers feel over the moon; however, it should not be so irrelevant that it cannot keep pace with the economic climate of the country. Neither should it be too onerous on employers that it drives them out of business.

Henry J Lewis is a psychology lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Jamaica. Send comments to the Observer or hjlewis@utech.edu.jm.

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In pursuit of a fair minimum wage - Jamaica Observer

It takes time and therefore money to write a book. Mark Brandi, the author of Wimmera (Hachette Australia), decided to find cash by taking a journey that involved risk, humiliationand getting up closeand personal with Eddie McGuire. He tells his story below.

No one needed to know. Not my work, or my friends. Definitely not my family.

After all, it might be a disaster I could walk away with nothing. Or worse, be humiliated on national television.

Despite hopes of becoming a writer, Id found myself trapped in the drudgery of a policy job in a government department. But with a mortgage and bills to pay, staying put made sense in my head, if not my heart.

Still I wondered could I escape this life of wage-slavery and pursue my dreams? Maybe. But I needed some kind of circuit breaker, something to kick-start a new career. And if I was to write, more than anything, I needed cash.

So I find myself, on a steamy February afternoon, waiting nervously in the green room for Millionaire Hot Seat.

While my fellow contestants scope out each others quiz show expertise, I vividly imagine my impending humiliation. What if I bomb out first question, or just completely freeze? My nerves are jangling. What the hell was I thinking?

I seriously consider doing a runner. But then, I remember something.

In the darkest recesses of my backpack battered and almost two years out-of-date an old packet of Xanax. The stuff never agreed with me, but desperate times

Before I know it, were on set and each waiting our turn in the Hot Seat. The studio lights are blinding and the audience are going nuts; and theres Eddie sharp-suit and make-up like a rat with a gold tooth.

The pills (four within an hour) start hitting me hard.I feel myself drifting outside my body, away from the set, as though watching the whole thing unfold from somewhere in the audience.

Paul, a former AFL footballer, is up and nails the first question before passing. Jim, a video store employee, answers a few before bombing out.

Then comes Kathy.

Kathys the battler with a back-story. She works at Bunnings and keeps greyhounds. And shes from Frankston. Eddies eyes light up.

Despite not knowing the answers, she guesses three and seems destined for the remaining $100,000. Eddie is delighted, the crowd is loving it, and I feel like I might throw up.

But then, it happens.

Kathy falls short, just one question shy of the cash. She trudges off stage and Eddie hides his disappointment ever the pro, the thousand-watt grin shines right through.

Well be right back and Mark Brandi will have one question for the cash on Millionaire Hot Seat!

My turn. One question. $50,000.

I am thrust, with one almighty thump, back to reality. My breathing is rapid and my heart beats up inside my throat.

Its time.

The source of comic-book superhero Green Lanterns special abilities is his power what?

A: Belt

B: Ring

C: Key

D: Watch.

I talk through the answers out loud, my voice distant to my own ears. The Green Lantern? I can almost picture him

Ten seconds, Eddie says.

I read comics as a kid, but more UK than USA. More dystopia than Marvel.

Five seconds

Then, in my minds eye, it appears. I dont know if its a false memory or the benzos or what. But I see my hand reaching inside a cheap carnival show-bag from my childhood, right down in the corner a small, green, plastic ring.

Ill go with B, I say.

Final answer?

Lock it in.

Eddies eyes sparkle somewhere between charisma and malevolence Im sure Ive blown it.

But then, he says it.

Mark. Youve just won fifty thousand dollars!

The audience erupts. Fellow contestants shake my hand. Even some of the crew manage a smile.

As the lights fade and we walk from the set, Eddie pulls me aside.

Well done mate. Fifty grand! Tax-free! You know how long it would take to save that?

We pose for a photo at either end of a novelty cheque.

You won it though, he says. Its yours.

Then, quietly, some sage advice from the boy from Broady.

Dont let anyone get their claws into it, right?

He neednt have worried I had firm plans for the cash. Soon, I changed to part-time hours and tested the waters: the writing life felt good more than that, it felt right. The money gave me time and space to complete early drafts of my novel, Wimmera, while still keeping the wolf from the door.

Publishing is a tough industry for a first-time novelist to break through, all the stars need to align. In my case, one of those stars was a celebrity of debatable talent, but undoubted tenacity a quality also vital to any aspiring author.

So I will always feel a peculiar debt to Eddie McGuire perhaps the worlds most unknowing (and unlikely) literary benefactor.

Wimmera, acrime novel aboutsmall town with a big secret,wasthe winner of the 2016 UK Crime WritersAssociation Debut Dagger for an unpublished manuscript and is now published by Hachette Australia. Brandiwas born in Italy but grew up in rural Victoria and is a former policy advisor for the VictorianDepartment of Justice.

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Mark Brandi discovers Eddie McGuire, the literary benefactor - Daily Review

The Brezhnev Doctrine said that the Soviet empire could only expand and never give back its gains. A domestic version of the doctrine has long applied to the welfare state and never so brazenly as in the debate over the Republican health-care bill.

Its reforms to Medicaid are portrayed as provisions to all but forcibly expel the elderly from nursing homes and send poor children to the workhouse. Bernie Sanders has called the bill barbaric, a word that once was reserved for, say, chattel slavery or suttee, but is now considered appropriate for a change in the Medicaid funding formula.

The Republican health bills have two major elements on Medicaid: rolling back the enhanced funding for the Obama Medicaid expansion, and over time instituting a new per capita funding formula for the program. The horror.

The Democrats now make it sound as if the Obama expansion is part of the warp and woof of Medicaid. In fact, it was a departure from the norm in the program, which since its inception has been, quite reasonably, limited to poor children, pregnant women, the disabled, and the ailing elderly. Obamacare changed it to make a priority of covering able-bodied adults.

Obamacare originally required states to enroll able-bodied adults with incomes less than 138 percent of the federal poverty line starting in 2014. The Supreme Court rewrote the law to make the expansion voluntary, and 31 states and the District of Columbia took it up.

Traditionally, the federal government had paid more to poor than rich states, with a match ranging from 75 percent for the poorest state, Mississippi, to 50 percent for the rich states. Obamacare created an entirely new formula for the Medicaid expansion population. It offered a 100 percent federal match for the new enrollees, gradually declining to a 90 percent match supposedly, forever.

So, perversely, Obamacare has a more generous federal match for the able-bodied enrollees in Medicaid than for its more vulnerable populations.

This higher federal matching rate, writes health-care analyst Doug Badger, allows states to leverage more federal money per state dollar spent on a nondisabled adult with $15,000 in earnings than on a part-time minimum wage worker with developmental disabilities who earns barely half that amount. According to Badger, West Virginia received seven times as much federal money for spending $1 on an able-bodied adult than for spending $1 on a disabled person.

This obviously makes no sense, and the Senate health-care bill phases out the enhanced funding over several years. But it doesnt end the expanded Medicaid eligibility for the able-bodied. And a refundable tax credit will be available for low-income people that is meant to pick up any slack from Medicaid. This is hardly Social Darwinism.

The other, longer-term change in the House and Senate bills is moving to a per capita funding formula for Medicaid, with the Senate bill ratcheting the formula down to a per capita rate pegged toinflation in 2025. Maybe this will prove too stringent, but it used to be a matter of bipartisan consensus that the current structure of Medicaid creates an incentive for heedless growth in the program.

The way it works now, Mississippi, for instance, gets nearly $3 from the federal government for every $1 it spends. Why ever economize? In the 1990s, the Clinton administration advanced what it portrayed as an unobjectionable proposal to make Medicaid more efficient while preserving the programs core function namely, a per capita funding formula.

The presidents per capita cap proposal, the liberal lion Henry Waxman enthused at the time, responds to the pleas of those who want more cost discipline in Medicaid without terminating the guarantee of basic health and long-term care to 36 million Americans.

But that was before Obamacare lurched the program in the other direction. The Brezhnev Doctrine dictates that what once was common sense must now be unimaginable cruelty.

READ MORE: The GOP Is Right: Medicaid Needs Fundamental Reform The Good, the Bad, and the Senate Health-Care Bill The Senates Flawed Health-Care Bill

Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail: [emailprotected]. 2017 King Features Syndicate

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Despite Democrats' continued hyperbole, the Republicans' Medicaid reform is not unreasonable. - National Review