Minimum Wage. Good or Bad?

Horse feathers. It would force the sweatshop owners to pay more and accept a less royal life style or get the hell out of the way of rational people who understand that opulence for the elite and poverty for the masses is barbaric.

If the working class prosper, there is a market for the goods designed and marketed by humane entrepreneurs.

 

Just what you said there; or get the hell out. That's exactly what many of them will do. And what have your communist crusade actually done for the poor workers? Nothing at all, except making it worse for them of course by having them take on even worse jobs. Congratulations.

 

I don't get what you're talking about renovating old tenements so poor people can live in them and that, I was just saying that on an absolute scale of poverty the poor today are like the elites of a hundred years ago. I find relative poverty to be just a fancy name to justify jealousy. I don't at all believe that without minimum wages there'd be people living in actual, as opposed to relative, poverty. So to emphasise, I don't give a damn about how relatively poor someone is. And for the people who really are poor.. there's always charities and churches.

I think I must point out that nobody has a right to plumbing, shelter, food, airconditioning, internet, tv, car, or any other stuff. The only rights they have a the natural rights like freedom of speech and right to their life, and their labour and that jazz, and with those they can aquire the above. But they don't have a right to it. Just imagine what that'd mean: It would mean that if I farm some food, everyone could just take it for free because they have a right to it, or a doctor can't charge for healthcare because everyone has a right to it. It would be horrible, and everything would collapse. People simply can't have a right to any commodity.

 

If you believe that about poverty, what about morals? Shouldn't morals be as absolute as poverty?

 

I don't see why one has to affect the other.

I think I'd say morals are absolute. How do you mean?

 

I must point out that no one has a right to anything because there is no such thing as rights, only privileges granted by tyrants and the notion of natural rights is nothing but another idiotic attempt by imbeciles to impose a particular version of tyranny in the completely misguided belief, which all megalomaniacs hold, that the people will find it agreeable.

People are not sheep and if they are abused bad things will come from it. In order to minimize the disruptions caused by disgruntled populations it is important for those with wealth and power to engineer a social economic and political situation that precludes popular disenchantment and the way to do that is to insure that everyone has the opportunity for a decent life. History is littered with the wreckage of civilizations that did not follow this prescription and the world today is led by nations that have.

This is not a matter of rights so much as realizing practical solutions to present real life situations. Absolutes are meaningless, useless and worthless when considering the human condition which is, if anything mutable uncertain and ever changing.

There is a long history of belief seeking to fix humanity to some position or course. These attract many believers by the simple expedient of offering certainty in an uncertain world. They are the cause of all the world's strife.

 

Because, if morals were more absolute, we may not have poverty in our republic.

I believe they may correlate to the extent it may be useful to crony forms of capitalism, whenever personnel decisions need to be made and there is a labor surplus.

 

I believe the rights would still exist, even if people in power doesn't care about them.

how would people be abused by not having the government use force to make their lives better? I don't think that any country would fall if they didn't have a minimum wage. I've pointed to my country, Sweden, all along. We're actually doing better than america when it comes to working conditions.

I also disagree with your claim that civilizations that don't follow that fall. The gallic culture was pretty egalitarian i think, and yet they succumbed to the authoritarian romans. Indains had it much more equal than europeans, but didn't fare so well.

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Why not?

I don't think so. I think employers and workers can manage just fine without government.

 

As long as you have freedom of choice, you'll have relative poverty.​

 

As long as you have capitalism, you'll have relative freedom of choice.

I don't necessarily get to choose which bank or which patent troll robs me, since I may never see it coming, but I do get to choose which landowner robs me.

Too bad you don't get choose not to be robbed, unless I join the robbers and rob others to make up for it or even make a net win.

 

I believe the minimum wage should be a living wage that is tied into inflation.

A phased-in increase of the minimum wage over the course of 20 years to a wage that would be five percent higher than the poverty level would more than likely inject the United States economy with an amazing boost. Yes, this would cause a raise in the cost of living somewhat, but it would ensure economic independence for the vast majority of working Americans. It would also help income tax revenues at the federal and state levels. Entitling working Americans to a minimum wage at this level would give all Americans a better standing to be able to go into business for themselves.

Massive companies like Walmart make billions in profits while paying their workers very little. This creates a captive cycle for them. They pay their workers barely above minimum wage, and as a result, their workers are obligated to find the lowest cost option, which for many products is in fact, Walmart.

Walmart also does not provide many of its workers with healthcare, and since they don't make enough money to provide adequate healthcare, the Federal government must subsidize them.

Basically, the United States is in effect, giving Walmart welfare.

 

There are at least for bad things that result from minimum wage.

1st as already mentioned it reduces the number of entry level positions available in the workforce. By way of example when I first went to work as a machinist in the late 70's minimum wage was $3.42 an hour. I was taught on the job how to be a manual machinist. No one trains anyone ojt these days, you either go to a trade school or you don't get the job.

Another example of how this works in practice:
The place I worked in Alabama had had a ten man janitorial staff back when minimum wage was $3.42. When minimum wage went to $5.25 half of the janitorial staff got laid. When the left began talking about raising minimum wageagain in the late 80's they laid of the rest of them and bought a giant riding vacuum cleaner.

Oh and all those manufacturing jobs that were shipped overseas? With the exception of foundry work and galvanizing they didn't go overseas they simply ceased to exist due to automation.

2nd, the money to pay increased wages for minmum wage has to come from somewhere. It does not, whatever the left may think grow on trees.
Generally speaking the money has to come from one of four places. These four places are Reducing the number of minimum wage slots at the company, reduction in investments by the owner, reduction in the owners life style, and raising prices. Usually the four are done in combination.
None of the four are beneficial to the country's economy.

Lets take a look and see why shall we? We'll look at the least likely to happen, a cut in the owner's lifestyle. Why least likely you ask?
Because Mr. Businessman has a wife and kids too and he's not going to screw them over just because some leftist dick thinks he should. And please note about the only people paying minimum wage are movie theaters. Even fast food generally offers slightly more.

And it isn't just his wife and family going to get screwed if he goes that route. It'll be his yard guy, the waitress at his favorite upscale restaurant. John Dunne, the poet once said "No man is an island" and Simon and Garfunkel even wrote a song with a similar theme and that theme applies to economics as much if not more so than anything else.

I've already shown how cuts in minimum wage postions occur so I won't go over that again, And so the next easiest choice Mr. businessman has is to raise prices, after all there is no reason he shouldn't pass on his increased costs because all his competition has just been hit with the same cost increase. By the way it is at about this point hat some one points to a seriously flawed study in New Jersey that uses one business in one industry in an attempt to show that this doesn't happen. The study essentailly states that when New Jersey raised thier minimum wage McDonalds didn't raise their prices. The study is grossly flawed because it looked at only one business in one industry without bothering to note that McDonalds prides itself in paying slightly more than minimum wage and therefore the minimum wage increase had little immediate impact on them. One suspects that the price of theater tickets and movie popcorn probably did increase a bit.

Reduction in new investments made. This means like it or not that funding of new start ups, and the ability of companies to raise funds for improvements is likely to be more difficult.

And all these things, as bad as they are, aren't even the worst part. No the worst part is that you managed, without actually doing much to help minimum wage workers - unless, of course, you think increasing their numbers helps them somehow - you've managed to screw every non union worker in America. How you ask? Let me explain it to you like this. I was a working man for thirty+ years. I taught school a year before that. The best time were when I was making 2.5 to 3 times minimum wage and it didn't matter a damn whether minimum wage was 3.42 or 5.50 or 7.50. Anytime Iaw as making less than 2 times minimum wage life was really tough. And by really tough I mean not only were we unable to save much money but some months just paying the bills could be tough.

 

Oh please, they are not robbing you. The only people that actually can rob you are the government and criminals. What capitalism does is that it offers you choice to whom you'd like to give your money to in exchange for some service, instead of just robbing you. You aren't given full freedom of choice as some choices cost money, but if you want that you just have to get really good at providing what other people want. Isn't that a good system?

What about letting unions handle wage negotiations? And let them handle negotiating insureance and healthcare coverage for their workers from the employers as well? And what about the many jobs that pay less than the MW, are people really better off by not having them as an option?

 

I'm guessing they were spending their extra wages on hookers?

I'll just add that in the best case scenario, the Minimum wage is increased by such an incremental amount (say, $7.50 to 7.75), that it just translates into noise, rather than a true plus or minus.

 

We can solve poverty, we can't stop people from staying poor on an at will basis.

 

Unless you consider freely making bad choices a choice to be poor, you're not quite getting it.​

 

We don't have to care if they stay poor on an at-will basis, only that they can't claim to be in official poverty, due to Individual Liberty.

 

Minimum wage workers are a permanent underclass created by corporate America. A corporate America which counts on the taxpayers to pick up the slack for housing, feeding and providing health care for the their workers in order for their business models to work.

You think Wall marts low price guarantee would be viable if the taxpayers didn't pick up the estimated $900,000 per store it cost to feed and house their workers?

Then corporate America buys mis-information campaigns through media and politicians which deflect the blame, "hate the lower classes campaigns"... so the taxpayer blames the low wage underclass workers for having to use social programs, instead of the proper villain, corporate America.

That's what corporate socialism is all about.

 

I believe we should actually solve simple poverty through unemployment compensation that clears our federal poverty guidelines; what excuse could civil Persons have in our republic for staying poor on an at-will basis, if it is not what they would prefer.

 

I have no problem with at-will employment. It's at-will compensation I object to.



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So you want to pull the plug on taxpayers picking up the slack? I might be able to support you on that.


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Then we should relegate rights back to where they came from, the hallucinations of feckless philosophers. If rights do not exist they are not rights but ideals. If rights can be removed for any reason they are not rights but privileges.

There is plenty of low wage workers in Sweden. Your taxes that support them are no different than the taxes we pay to support low wage workers here.

Their failures were the result of invasion by overwhelming force, an entirely different thing.

Have you read anything about the labour movement in the 1800s?
You should if you wish to be informed about how labour and management got along in times when the government did not interfere.

 

Why, if solving simple poverty in our republic entails ensuring full employment of resources in the market for labor?

 

Unless you pass a law making work compulsory there will always be poverty. The rpoblem with minimum wage is that it doeant and can't end poverty. It can however spread. The higher you set minimum wage the more people will be making it and whatever you set it at it won't be enough to live on working a forty hour week.

 

Value isn't a set reference. Value is determined by people, and that determination comes from many factors, not just the market. Simply because people put a price tag on something doesn't make it a law. It's just an opinion.

I don't think you read what I wrote. I said that an proffessional excavator like the kind who uses modern equipment would be paid more because of their knowledge or skill, and that the knowledge and skill was rarer than a spoon-digger. Because the machine and the operator can replace so many workers, even though a person is paying for the machine and more for the worker, he still saves, overall.

However, if everyone becomes a qualified professional excavator, the value of the trade goes down because it's not so hard to retain one when you can easily hire another. That's where the concept of competitive wages comes from. You aren't hired by what you know, solely. You are also hired by how attainable and retainable your profession is.