Minimum Wage. Good or Bad?

I'd happily pay a landowner as soon as he can show me how he put the land there that he's "providing". Waiting, waiting, waiting...yeah. Not going to happen.

The way to really make it in Capitalism is to appropriate things which already exist and others need or to make things otherwise in abundance scarce.

It's no coincidence that most of the rich own natural resources or hold intellectual property.

 

Obviously as I previously stated it isn't the land it is what you build upon it but you won't build upon t unless there is some surety that you and yours can hang onto it.

 

Full time employment is not a good thing, if some of those folks are employed to do nothing.


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Tell that to the scumbag land speculator who probably just pocketed millions of dollars for doing nothing by selling a nicely sized empty plot of land less than half a block away from me.

Location, location, location...

Those who get rich in real estate know that.

 

Why is full employment of resources a problem for you under any form of Capitalism with an Institution of money based markets and where it only takes money to make more money, not necessarily a work ethic or learning how to fish.

If we solve simple poverty, more people will be circulating money and paying those general taxes.

 

Employing someone to do nothing, is not employing them. It's handing them charity.

Circulating money in and of itself does nothing. The circulation of money is perceived to be useful because it's generally an indication of productivity. Hand out so much money that no one needs to work and you don't inspire productivity, you end it.



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What if somebody is doing a certain job for fun, and they don't care about whether or not they are paid?

 

Ensuring full employment of resources is one function of Government. It can't be "charity" if it provides for the general welfare. Providing for the general welfare is a privilege and immunity for the citizens in the several States established in our supreme law of the land.

Increasing the circulation of money in our money based markets helps to stabilize our economy and generate general tax revenue for local governments.

 

If you give someone money without receiving anything in return, it's a gift. If you do so because you feel sorry for them, that gift is charity. Paying someone to do nothing is not employment.

Circulating money does not stabilize our economy. It can be an indication of activities that often stabilize our economy, but it's not an end unto itself. If we simply printed $10,000 per person, handed it to citizens each Monday and taxed it back each Friday the economy would not benefit. The economy perks up when folks wanting some product or service work to attain it, and receive it from others who work to produce it. It's the work that gives us the things we want, not the slips of paper we pass back and forth which only try and track how much value we each contributed.


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Median wage is about $35K which is about $17.50/hour. This means that 1/2 of American workers are earning $17.50/hour or less. If you arbitrarily increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25/hour to $15/hour, what do you suppose will happen to all wage scales above minimum wage? Well...and this is something you refuse to acknowledge, but given some time we can assume the current median wage of $35K will increase to ~$70K...logic tells me that if you double the minimum wage then eventually you will also double the median wage. Once this happens, those earning $15/hour will once again be earning the lowest pay in the workplace...yet they will be dealing with all the inflation caused by doubling wages.

And how do you believe the employers will deal with doubling wages? Well this will depend on how much retail prices increase and whether or not consumers will pay the higher prices? And not that most of you even care, but how will doubling wages in the USA help US companies compete in the global marketplace?

Seems you and others continue to believe government can solve so-called poverty issues. They can't! Government can provide services which assist those in need but government cannot force wholesale changes in the private sector without dealing with the consequences of such action...

 

A big problem with the US economy is that median wages have been in a long term declined and the financial calamity of 2008 unmasked the true state of the economy as the easy credit that fuelled steady increases in consumer spending as their wages declined suddenly disappeared.

There is a huge misconceptions about how businesses actually adapt their operations to changing economic conditions. Right now there is a lot of underutilized manufacturing capacity in the US. Capacity that costs money whether it is used or not. In other words, US companies are operating well below their optimum efficiency, waiting for demand to pick up so their plants can return to maximum efficiency, and profitability.

As median wages rise consumer demand will increase and businesses across the supply chain will able to increase the utilization of existing plant and equipment. Higher plant utilization will allow operators to pay higher wages because increased plant utilization will offset any increase in labour expense and allow them to maintain their competitive position in the market by maintaining or even lowering overall unit costs.

If there is inflation they will be able to raise prices and wages. Foreign competitors will not be immune to inflationary trends since the US has vast effect on the global economy. An increase in the price of oil makes it more expensive for them to ship their goods and reduces their comparative advantage, especially in bulky and heavy items, like cars and washing machines, and improves the advantage of US producers because locally produced natural gas is glutting the US energy market and driving down energy prices. It is happening now, more than a few global companies have moved manufacturing to the US because lower energy costs, market proximity and advances in automation make it more profitable.

Wages have become almost an afterthought in the automated world of modern manufacturing. There are few manufacturing sectors left that are so labour heavy that line workers wages have more of an effect on profits than top management compensation. As far as global competitiveness goes, doubling the minimum wage will have almost no effect since very few low wage jobs are not in service, particularly fast food service, and those jobs are not exportable.

A doubling of wages for McDonalds workers would increase the price of a Big Mac by 68 cents. I would gladly pay another $1 for a Big Mac if I knew the people behind the counter did not depend on my taxes and charitable contributions to get by. They could even afford to take their children to the place they work.

 

Providing for the general welfare is specifically enumerated in our supreme law of the land; ensuring full employment in any given market, but especially markets for human capital is a function of our government; there is a difference.

Ensuring full employment of resources in the market for labor could enable persons to pursue opportunity costs other than competing in the market for labor during times of labor surpluses.

We could be lowering our tax burden by simplifying our social safety nets and more fully utilizing existing legal and physical infrastructure in every State of the Union and the federal districts.

 

You want to give money to someone for sitting on their butt. This is neither a constitutional imperative nor an boon to our economy.



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Ensuring full employment of those monetary resources is what drives our capital based political-economy.

 

Charity is not employment.



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Providing for the general welfare is specifically enumerated in our supreme law of the land; ensuring full employment in any given market, but especially markets for human capital is a function of our government; there is a difference.

 

No, it's just charity.


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You obviously don't understand the difference. One promotes the general prosperity and the other only promotes the specific prosperity.

 

Wasn't that the government helping the employers?

That's exactly my point, value is subjective and relative. You can't say that anyone get's paid to little because they always get paied their relative and subjective market value.

And so he is getting paid for how relatively useful and efficient he is, not directly because of his skills. If the skilled operator had to use a spoon instead of an excavator he wouldn't be worth more than another spoon digger. My point is that they all get paid by how much value they generate, not by how educated they are or how much work they put in. Id est, labour isn't what directly affects their pay.

You're making it sounds as if you can't make new stuff. Well, that's not true. How about capitalism now?

 

You cannot provide for the general welfare by taking money from a and givng it to B while leaving 90% of it in the hands of bureaucrats to finance their wet dreams of the moment Daniel. The only thinngs the government currently does that promote the general welfare rather than the welfare of some at the expense of others, is to build roads and infrastructure through which we all benefit, and to defend us from thieves both from within and without.

Under the welfare state however the government simply becomes the head thief.

 

Quoted for truth.

A great post Potter!

 

Cut the CEO and top executive compensation down to something reasonable and you might not have to pay any more for that Big Mac.

http://www.alternet.org/mcdonalds-worker-makes-825-hour-mcdonalds-ceo-made-875-million-last-year

 

No, people certainly do not get paid by how much value they generate. Not in all cases. Perhaps in some. What a person get's paid can be influenced by many factors, but, ultimately, it's comes down to whatever the employer decides to pay them. In actuality, market value only follows percieved value which only follows certain considerations like the skill involed, the availability of that skill, so on and so on. It's why a job in one place might cost something else in another. Change one of these factors, and the price could change, but that's not a rule.

 

Oh, my bad, I didn't mean that they get paid by how much value they make, but their market price which is determined by many things, the latter included.

percieved value is the only value there is.

 

We wouldn't need welfare if everyone paid a living wage.