Minimum Wage

End social services, and let the charities take over like before 1960

 

Kode- the employees are indeed sharing, they get paid for the services they sell, at a price they agreed to sell for. THEY are getting business from a continuous buyer. The employer is their CUSTOMER.... and that customers pays his bills to the employee, even when the employee short-changes him. And if the company loses money, the employees don't participate in the loss. They get their money anyway. IF you want to participate in the company gain as an employee, by all means- buy stock in the company. It's open to anyone.

CEO's and board members certainly do have loss exposure. A lot of compensation for them is tied to overall company performance. When profits fall, bonuses, stock options and other benefits dry up, and jobs are at risk as well. The stockholders at large vote on the retention or firing of virtually all executives. When I think one needs to go, I vote my shares against him. In addition, virtually all those executives are major stockholders- and when the company fails to profit, their stock go down too.

You think the wealth of the top people wouldn't exist without workers. This is also not true, and the steady expansion of technology and automation is steadily reducing the dependence on workers. There are businesses today that have reduced employment by 90% through such means, with excellent results- so there will be more. Replacing workers in this way also dramatically reduces problems, and that is a big incentive.

 

$0/hr would be the best. Then everything would have to be free.

 

So, if no pay was given for services, then the costs of everything would plummet. Food would then be cheap.

 

No, food would go through the roof. If you could not get a profit, nobody would grow anything except to feed themselves. You starve.

 

Then I have to assume that given the growing wage and income disparity, you must believe the workers need to organize, unite, and strike for a proper share of the gains.

 

Funny I thought it was the left that made health care insurance mandatory (Obamacare), and used the IRS to enforce penalties if you didn't have it. You might want to take a long hard look in the mirror.

 

It's a moral argument, not an economic one.

 

I taught at a small college that turned out a lot of education majors. While there were good ones, my first experience was my first day when students were signing up for class. A couple of young ladies were very upset that they had enrolled in the only college they could find that had zero mathematics requirement, but the college had imposed a one-semester of math requirement. My impression was that education students were happy with crappy compensation if they could get tenure and not have a boss looking over their shoulder on a day-to-day basis. I did not have the impression that there were many ed majors who could have made a lot of money in engineering or finance.

Eventually our college obtained waivers* so education majors did not have to take a bunch of education courses, but were required to complete a major in another field. Many of the courses were things like how to operate a movie projector. Or a slide projector. They were automatic A's. Before I left teaching, we had a teaching student who majored in math, and did his student teaching at the local HS. He did the semester there and when the final exam was delivered, the actual teacher had to call him in after the term of his student teaching because she was unable to do the problems he had put on the final. Knowing teaching techniques is of little value when you don't know anything you can teach.

Easy A's and an unsupervised work environment seemed to be the motivator for a lot of ed majors.

*The pattern you see around the country is that when students are failing, legislatures will act to pass new requirements on teaching degrees. That is where the requirements to take courses in multimedia, child development, psychology, etc. come from. In the end, you have to create an education major which has no content other than technique. Good luck teaching civics or biology after four years of that.

 

AS long as it is an open shop, and employees have a choice, or they are simply changing slave owners. Unions are corrupt and as bad as employers. Been there, done that.

 

Few teachers could make it in the real world, where they had to perform to a "test" called productivity and common sense.

 

Bull, lots of teachers, IN particular fields, do so as they retire. We might as well tell the truth. MOST of those that could make it in the real world, could NOT make it as teachers.

Although MOST moldmakers used their elbows to preclude the apprentices from stealing their secrets, I thought my teaching all others as much of what I learned as possible, was my most important job, IN THE REAL WORLD.

 

No; that would be stupid and harmful; and is more akin to theft than sharing.

What is appropriate is learning how to make your productivity increase and become more valuable, because that does move you up. Opportunity for success is not disappearing, it is growing very fast- but it is also changing, and it requires adaptation.

We have a major transition happening today, where the need for many skills is being altered by technology. This supports the need and value of high skills to advance and manage the technology and changes. That area has demand growing faster than supply of people with the talent and most importantly motivation- thus, their value is increasing.

On the other end of the spectrum the reverse in happening. Technology reduces the need and value of positions where technology is performing the work and those operating a process monitor it. People are becoming less motivated, less skilled, and more likely to believe in entitlement over earning. This is worth less, it cannot command the price which genuinely skilled workers have in the past.

For example, 40 years ago a machinist had to be highly skilled. Today with CNC (computer controlled machines) the person doing what that machinist did inserts a blank of metal in the machine, sets the starting point and starts a program on a computer will will make the part. The old time machinist took many years to master the job. The current machinist can be trained in a few months or less. Same "position", but the skill level is far less and that makes it less valuable- much easier to replace.

The world has always changed, but never so rapidly as today. Wisdom says we adjust to the changes, not pretend they shouldn't have any effect and ignoring facts. Technology brings huge opportunities, but just as it took the machinist some real dedication to master his skill, the new opportunities require dedication to master as well. Many of the younger generations simply don't want to do that; the motivation and ambition is declining as fast as technology is advancing. That is not a good thing.

I'm saying this is a problem with the mindset and perception of people. Yes, it is a difference in the way economics work- but it is the people who must adjust to it. There are more opportunities than ever before, but they are different; recognizing that is part of the process of adjustment. Those who fail to do so will not participate in the rewards the changes bring.

It still comes down to what you know and can do, and putting yourself in a position to make the most of that. That aspect never changes.

 

I have done all those things, professionally. And guess what, you are not golden, you are no better than the people they intend to replace with tech. I have worked, as a process engineer, an automation engineer, a product developer, a moldmaker, taught qc, did troubleshooting at the highest levels.

JUST another employee.

 

Tax revenue or tax rate cut economics. Which party has the better record for controlling spending and balancing budgets?

 

Let's end corporate welfare, first.

 

economics in a vacuum of special pleading, just like you right wing arguments.

 

OK, I have no idea what that has to do with what I said.

 

The moral argument is about equality and equal protection of the law, as moral value.

 

So you expected that as an employee, they would eventually make you CEO automatically?

As an employee- you are a VENDOR, someone selling a service to a business that has many vendors. Some sell them raw materials, some sell them engineering or mechanical skills like a moldmaker. YOU are selling your services to a customer, just as your employer is selling theirs to their customer... Just as your grocer is selling theirs to you when you shop there. The difference is you only have one customer to keep happy; they have many. It is how people perceive this relationship that gets them in trouble.

What do you as the customer owe your grocer beyond the price of the goods purchased? Retirement benefits?
In terms of employment, employees seem to think that unspoken, unwritten obligations that they make up are somehow fair, even though they have never been discussed or agreed to.

Your employer is YOUR customer. Most vendors appreciate the customers business, continually work to keep it, work to be sure their performance earns more business, and never assume they own it. Employees rarely think that way at all; they do indeed assume they own their job and the employer should be more grateful for the privilege of being their customer.

When you pay your bill as a customer, the restaurant asks you if enjoyed your meal and if everything was ok; they thank you for your patronage and invite you to come again. They do that every time you come in. How many employees take their paycheck and express that kind of gratitude to their customer for the business? Have you ever?

On the other hand- you can indeed become golden. I have a son-in-law who started as a welders helper in a trailer factory. No degree; just HS education, but a very quick study and a go-getter. A month ago, he was again visited by head-hunters who brought him another better offer. He left his job as a GM of a Gates Rubber plant to move to a new company. His new salary- $190K, $25K signing bonus, stock options, car allowance, moving allowance, performance bonuses. He's 50. He became a general manager before he was 40, he advanced rapidly because he brought things to the job that were exceptionally valuable, above his position level- not just because he worked there.

Attitude makes a very great deal of difference, and the right stuff is extremely rare.

 

Ah. So bargaining while providing a persuasive reason for the other side to listen and negotiate is theft if it applies any pressure on a capitalist. Got it.

Are you telling me that the capitalist, who you want to be in complete control, won't and doesn't use such improvements to his own advantage and ultimately land the worker right back in the same situation again? LOL!!! Only a capitalist would think that.

In plain English then, we have a major transition happening today wherein workers are being replaced by automation.

-for a while. We've seen this movie before.

People are becoming more apprehensive and dubious of the "benefits" capitalism offers them because they know that the technology to which you refer is always used by the capitalist to reduce costs, labor being at the top of the list.

You do realize you just shot yourself in the foot by contradicting your own story of "opportunity", right?

Yes, the capitalist would have us "adjust to the changes". IOW we should accept a lower wage and dumb down our lifestyle and standard of living to match that of the Third World so that the capitalist may continue to elevate his own lifestyle. That is the reality behind what you're saying.

You haven't yet cited any "opportunities". You're talking pie in the sky and blaming workers for not reaching for it.

Which is essentially the position that "if the worker isn't prospering it's his own fault".

Capitalism is in crisis around the world, but nowhere so clearly as in the USA. And more and more, workers are not buying into the propaganda.

 

Are you by chance an emissary of the Venezuelan government?
Just reverse engineering your logic to see what the source might be.

 

I expect people to get paid for working for you yes, sorry you can't pay people 3.50 an hour, if it's not worth it for you to pay them a real wage, then do it yourself, I mean after all, you think it's just breathing air

 

If you have no argument to offer against reality, you can always be silly.

 

Prices would go through the roof? If no one was buying food?
Simply, the production of food would stop to a commercial business. But in reality, no one wants to go back to the 1800s and grow ones own food.
That is what conservatives want, they want to bring the USA back to the 1800s. They are a regressive party.

I'll take a min wage and the life style that we've created. Sure there are down falls, but it's still far far far better than the 1800's and will get better than even the 1900's. Technology will do that.
Along the way, jobs will be lost, jobs will need retraining, jobs will be created. And the social programs make those transitions smoother on the whole. So we pay for them with taxes. I'll pay the taxes and live with today's technology than not pay taxes and go back to 1800s and growing one's own food.