Senate Passes Minimum Wage After All

[Pangloss]

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=2842529

 

Apparently the addition of a second amendment did the trick. It has the one Democrats hated, which gave a tax incentive for small businesses, but now it also has an additional amendment that raises taxes on people who make more than $1 million per year. Guess they figured that was a wash (idiots).

 

The House will have to vote again, and it'll have to get past the president. I expect both of those things to happen, since the president already promised to sign if it included the first amendment, and as for the second amendment he just gave a speech on Wall Street railing about high pay for CEOs. As for the House, the Democrats' majority leader already spoke in favor of the first amendment, and of course they'll love the second one.

[Tetrahedrite]

It really is strange how right wing US politics is......In Australia, legislation like that would probably be supported by 90 percent of the population. It seems like good policy to me???

[Pangloss]

Well I don't think you have to be "right wing" to disagree with socialist policies. But raising the minimum wage is something that I believe most of the US population supports. In fact it was already higher than the Federal minimum in something like half the states (in my state it was almost as high as the new federal minimum). That's due to a change in regulations that happened during the Clinton administration.

 

Personally I think minimum wage is a bad idea and I don't understand why the argument about how hard it is to get by on minimum wage even comes up. Jobs aren't a right, they're a privilege that you earn by the nature of the fact that your labor is valuable to another person. If your labor isn't valuable to another person, then another person shouldn't be forced at the point of a gun to pay you. Not in an ostensibly free society. And let's be honest, for many liberals minimum wage is just a matter of keeping the slaves happy on the plantation.

 

But ultimately what this is really about is economic controls and political compromises. On that landscape I find the current level acceptable. Basically we shove a few bucks around to keep the tree-hugger types happy and the "living below the poverty line" types loaded up with X-box 360s and deep in debt, which they owe to the smarter types... like me.

 

Since I can't have what's really best for society, I'll settle for coming out on top.

[Mokele]

Personally I think minimum wage is a bad idea and I don't understand why the argument about how hard it is to get by on minimum wage even comes up.

 

Tried it lately? Sure, it can be budgeted for...until you get sick. Or your car needs $3000 worth of repairs. And the landlord raises the rent every year but your wage remains the same. Tried raising kids on it? What happens when they get sick? I mean *really* sick, meaning $20,000+ hospital bills. What happens if *you* get sick, enough that you can't work? No health insurance to pay the bills, and you can't work when you're sick, but you still need shelter and food. Poor people get cancer too, you know.

 

Jobs aren't a right, they're a privilege that you earn by the nature of the fact that your labor is valuable to another person.

 

So you'd rather support them on welfare? Because your choices are either that jobs *are* a right, that welfare is a right, or that people don't have a right to live. Those are the only options, because last time I checked, food and shelter cost money.

 

Mokele

[bascule]

The emergent behavior of large businesses, particularly large corporations where people like CEOs are not only absolved of moral responsibility due to the distribution of decision making among multiple parties, but may be morally motivated to make changes but incapible of doing so because such changes are shot down by the board (whose emergent behavior is inevitably to focus on the bottom line) follows the emergent principles of selfish gene theory. While I adamantly disagree with Sumner's assertion that the social classes owe each other nothing, his Darwinian take on capitalism provides an excellent platform for finding similarities between biological systems and economic ones (Dawkins mentioned this in the Selfish Gene as well)

 

I wish Dawkins would've gone more into the application of selfish gene theory to corporations, but it's quite clear that short of a highly charismatic CEO who can sway the board to focus on things other than the bottom line, a corporation will just as inevitably underpay its workers as populations will grow ahead of the food supply.

 

One of the great things about being conscious, moral beings is that we don't have to let natural tendencies be our better. We can legislate a minimum wage because we see the consequences of not having one as being socially undesireable (people working full time yet being paid below the poverty line, and having to sacrifice various essential goods/services in order to stay solvent)

[ParanoiA]

Tried it lately? Sure, it can be budgeted for...until you get sick. Or your car needs $3000 worth of repairs. And the landlord raises the rent every year but your wage remains the same. Tried raising kids on it? What happens when they get sick? I mean *really* sick, meaning $20,000+ hospital bills. What happens if *you* get sick, enough that you can't work? No health insurance to pay the bills, and you can't work when you're sick, but you still need shelter and food. Poor people get cancer too, you know.

 

If I own a business and I hire you to do work for me, then how is any of the above my problem? Where are you when I can't get my business to work out and I go under? You just get another job. I go bankrupt and possibly lose everything I own. How come you don't care about my kids? My hospital bills? My car? I actually employed someone for a given amount of time - I provided a job.

 

But that's not good enough is it? Oh no...I have to pay for their poverty too huh? You want me to provide health insurance too. You want me to pay them out the ass so a grown adult can flip french fries and pay for their whole life with it.

 

Why do you think minimum wage jobs deserve to be higher pay or benefits? It's perfectly reasonable to assume french fry skills should provide an adequate income? Talk about reaching low.

 

The whole point of a job is that an employer hires me to do work for him for a given wage, benefits - whatever deal we agree on. If I don't like his offer - then screw him. If I like his offer, then I'll take it. If I make myself valuable to him, then he'll want to give me raises or whatever it takes to keep me. That's exactly what has happened in my jobs. While everyone is burning cigs at the smoke hole crying and bitching about "the man", I'm busting my ass and demanding raises. I've quit more than one job because they wouldn't pay me what I wanted. Minimum wage is unnecessary when you realize a job is not an entitlement - it's something you earn.

 

Otherwise, go hunt and gather on public hunting land. Nothing stopping you, but you.

 

So you'd rather support them on welfare? Because your choices are either that jobs *are* a right, that welfare is a right, or that people don't have a right to live. Those are the only options, because last time I checked, food and shelter cost money.

 

Those are not the only options. Jobs and welfare...or death? come on...

 

You don't have a right to live anyway. You earn your right to live. You've studied nature enough, you know this already. You don't have a right to my stuff because you suck at getting stuff. You don't have a right to my food and shelter because you can't figure out how to get food and shelter yourself.

 

You have a right to pursue food and shelter. None of us should be obligated to provide any of it for you. Welfare is the sheeple's way of feeling good about themselves while not personally having to help others less fortunate - it's also the public's way of taking care of the offspring that irresponsible, lazy humans won't take care of. We basically feel sorry for them. No...it's not a right either.

 

So, neither one is a right. They seem like rights when an economy works so well, when a society thrives to the point that survival has been mastered to the point that it's no longer much of an effort. It's down to preference, comfort. That's why I don't feel sorry for poor assholes that "can't get a job". I feel sorry for the handicapped. I feel sorry for single moms that got screwed over. I feel sorry for their kids. I don't feel anything for the idiot hunter gatherers than haven't figured out how to hunt and gather in the easiest place on earth to do it.

[1veedo]

That's a huge stereotype. Most people who go on welfare end up finding another job within six months. People on welfare are not lazy people who dont want to work. In fact, people on welfare actually want to find a job!

 

Welfare serves a completely different purpose then minimum wage though.

[ParanoiA]

That's a huge stereotype. Most people who go on welfare end up finding another job within six months. People on welfare are not lazy people who dont want to work. In fact, people on welfare actually want to find a job!

 

Welfare serves a completely different purpose then minimum wage though.

 

 

That's a huge stereotype that I lived with for about 7 years of my life. Don't lecture me on welfare, I had to support my poor wife and kids in a nasty apartment complex littered with section 8 welfare recipients. I wasn't on welfare. I had a job, a crappy job, and had to pay to live in those conditions that those people lived in for free. The taxes I paid went to these losers.

 

Some of these people get drunk all day, deal drugs in the courtyard. I had to walk through gangs of drunks and cracker haters after work to get to my apartment. Mothers teaching their kids how to drain the system. You should hear these people talk about our government. They believe, after all of this welfare, that they are owed this and so much more. They bitch about being screwed by the government. Yes, you read that right. They actually believed their welfare was an entitlement they weren't getting a fair amount of.

 

I have a rotten outlook on welfare because it is a thoughtless, careless institution. Like I said, it's society's way of dealing with people who won't take care of themselves - without having to do it directly. No one wants to take personal responsibility. That's why it's basically a shit hole.

 

You don't want to bring the homeless guy into your house and feed him at the table with your family. Instead, you just earmark taxes so some program, somewhere in the bureaucratic empire will go feed him. This is welfare. Throw some tax money at it, and I don't have to look at hungry kids begging for food in front of the supermarket. Instead, they'll be pinned up in the broken down apartment complex, out of our view.

 

I'd like to meet a welfare recipient that wants a job. Somebody who wants a job, has a job. I've never gone without work. I'm 35 and just got my degree when I was 29 and started work at my current job. So all of my work was without a high school diploma, nor any college at all. I was able to support my wife and kids as well.

 

What you're advocating is a myth. Welfare is an attitude. So is homelessness.

[ecoli]

minimum wage in my state is already 7.15, so I don't expect that it'll affect us directly very much. But as to the indirect affects, I'm not sure. Have we talked about a potential inflation problem?

 

And, I agree with you about welfare, paranioA... it's a terribly implemented system that should be thoroughly reworked.

[ParanoiA]

Just to be clear though, I'm not necessarily against minimum wage. I was just taking issue with some of Mokele's and 1veedo's statements.

 

I'm sort of on the fence really...because on the one hand MW goes against what I believe in terms of a truly free society. On the other hand, it's quite pragmatic. Businesses will screw people over and hold them down to pennies of what they're worth if they can. Just like I'd pay a dollar to have my lawn mowed if I can.

[Pangloss]

Tried it lately?

 

For the record, I was employed at minimum wage early in my career.

 

 

Sure, it can be budgeted for...until you get sick. Or your car needs $3000 worth of repairs. And the landlord raises the rent every year but your wage remains the same. Tried raising kids on it? What happens when they get sick? I mean *really* sick, meaning $20,000+ hospital bills. What happens if *you* get sick, enough that you can't work? No health insurance to pay the bills, and you can't work when you're sick, but you still need shelter and food. Poor people get cancer too, you know.

 

You make it sound like they had no choice. I reject that notion wholesale. And as such, you're asking the wrong questions. The right questions are: Why would you try raising kids while making minimum wage? Why would you buy a car while making minimum wage? Why would rely on a minimum wage job and do nothing about your future knowing that at some point in the future you could get sick?

 

Even more revealing, people who find themselves accidentally in these kinds of situations do have options. Hospitals don't turn people away. Children can be given up for adoption. Federal student loans and grants are available. Private help organizations abound. We extend so many helping hands in this society that there really is no excuse for failure.

 

 

Because your choices are either that jobs *are* a right, that welfare is a right, or that people don't have a right to live. Those are the only options, because last time I checked, food and shelter cost money.

 

In fact I choose neither -- jobs are not a right, and welfare is not a right. Jobs are a privilege I grant to someone whose productivity I am willing to pay for. Welfare is a temporary boon that I grant with money out of my pocket because I have a big heart and also because I consider it a valuable investment. But the moment they come to see either of those things as a right is the moment I stop supporting them.

 

Socialism is a preference, not a requirement. And it is mutually exclusive to freedom, not complimentary to it. It's just a different set of people getting the shaft.

 

I'm not sure why people find this so hard to understand. Money really doesn't grow on trees, you know. Sure people have a right to raise a family and live a prosperous life. But they do NOT have a "right" to do that at someone else's expense. Thinking so is about having a big heart but zero interest in how the economy actually works.

 

A strange mind set for a scientific crowd, where reality is supposed to reign supreme. But hardly uncommon I suppose.

[-Demosthenes-]

Tried it lately? Sure, it can be budgeted for...until you get sick. Or your car needs $3000 worth of repairs. And the landlord raises the rent every year but your wage remains the same. Tried raising kids on it? What happens when they get sick? I mean *really* sick, meaning $20,000+ hospital bills. What happens if *you* get sick, enough that you can't work? No health insurance to pay the bills, and you can't work when you're sick, but you still need shelter and food. Poor people get cancer too, you know.

 

 

 

So you'd rather support them on welfare? Because your choices are either that jobs *are* a right, that welfare is a right, or that people don't have a right to live. Those are the only options, because last time I checked, food and shelter cost money.

 

Mokele

 

Is minimum wage the answer?

[Mokele]

If I own a business and I hire you to do work for me, then how is any of the above my problem?

 

Because you have a basic ethical obligation that if you're going to expect someone to give you full time work, you'd better give them enough to live off. Exploiting the desperation of those who will work for less and try to scrape by is no different morally than employing sweatshop labor: you're taking advantage of someone's bad position for your own financial gain at their expense.

 

Where are you when I can't get my business to work out and I go under? You just get another job. I go bankrupt and possibly lose everything I own. How come you don't care about my kids? My hospital bills? My car?

 

I do, which is why I support laws mandating that when your business fails and you need another job, employers can't take unfair advantage of your bad situation to pay you pathetically small amounts of money.

 

I'm also all for measures that all you to go bankrupt as a business but not as an individual, so you lose the business' assets and such, but your own stuff is untouched. IIRC, you can do this by incorporating the business.

 

Why do you think minimum wage jobs deserve to be higher pay or benefits?

 

I think they deserve to be able to live. Minimum wage hasn't risen in 30-something years, while inflation has steadily increased the cost of living. It's only logical that the two should keep pace.

 

The whole point of a job is that an employer hires me to do work for him for a given wage, benefits - whatever deal we agree on. If I don't like his offer - then screw him. If I like his offer, then I'll take it.

 

And what if you don't have enough options to say 'screw him'? If there's a hundred other workers who are willing to work for less than you, they'll all get hired and you'll be getting evicted for not making rent.

 

You don't have a right to live anyway. You earn your right to live. You've studied nature enough, you know this already. You don't have a right to my stuff because you suck at getting stuff. You don't have a right to my food and shelter because you can't figure out how to get food and shelter yourself.

 

You know, here I was thinking we were a sentient race, with ethics, morals, and the ability to act in ways beyond biological necessity.

 

Silly me, I thought humanity aspired to something *more* than "nature, red in tooth and claw"

 

So I guess it's OK with you if I murder you and your family, take all your stuff, and roast and eat your corpses? After all, according to you, there's no right to exist, and I should just do what I can. Clearly, therefore, you don't have a right to exist either, therefore killing people, taking their stuff and eating them is ethically sound and how we'll run society.

 

Exucse me, I have to on a killing spree, erm, 'grocery shopping'....

 

You don't want to bring the homeless guy into your house and feed him at the table with your family. Instead, you just earmark taxes so some program, somewhere in the bureaucratic empire will go feed him. This is welfare. Throw some tax money at it, and I don't have to look at hungry kids begging for food in front of the supermarket. Instead, they'll be pinned up in the broken down apartment complex, out of our view.

 

It's better than letting them starve. Oh, right, you're an anarchist who wants legalized murder, I remember now...

 

'd like to meet a welfare recipient that wants a job. Somebody who wants a job, has a job.

 

I'll introduce you to a friend of mine sometime. She graduated with a degree in astrophysics and a 3.9 GPA. Then she got sick. VERY sick. She spent 4 years in near-constant agony, often unable to leave bed for days at a time, while the doctors tried to find what was wrong with her.

 

But I'm sure she just didn't *really* want a job, and wasn't *really* a hard worker. Because hard workers don't get sick, ever, do they?

 

What you're advocating is a myth. Welfare is an attitude. So is homelessness.

 

Factually incorrect. Most homeless are in that state because they're mentally ill. The drugs and alcohol are merely self-medication; their *real* problems are things like PTSD, depression, schizophrenia, etc.

 

You make it sound like they had no choice. I reject that notion wholesale.

 

You're right, I'm sure they're *choosing* to get sick.

 

What about people like you were, who are just starting out? Everyone has to start somewhere.

 

Why would you try raising kids while making minimum wage? Why would you buy a car while making minimum wage? Why would rely on a minimum wage job and do nothing about your future knowing that at some point in the future you could get sick?

 

Because they had the kids before they wound up working minimum wage? Because in the US, you NEED a car to have a job (most cities have nowhere near the public transport to make a car optional, even large ones)? Because you're working this crappy minimum wage job while going to college or trade school?

 

Children can be given up for adoption.

 

You're ****ing kidding, right? "Oh, sorry Billy, I can't afford to keep you anymore, so I'm gonna just ship you off like an unwanted pet goldfish."

 

In fact I choose neither -- jobs are not a right, and welfare is not a right. Jobs are a privilege I grant to someone whose productivity I am willing to pay for. Welfare is a temporary boon that I grant with money out of my pocket because I have a big heart and also because I consider it a valuable investment.

 

So you have no moral qualms about saying people have no inherent right to live? In a society where the basic requirements for life cost money, either you have a right to life (and therefore the money to get those things) or you don't, period.

 

Socialism is a preference, not a requirement. And it is mutually exclusive to freedom, not complimentary to it. It's just a different set of people getting the shaft.

 

Yeah, Interstate highways are the opposite of freedom. Public education is the opposite of freedom. The Rural Electrification Project was the opposite of freedom.

 

------------------

 

 

Am I *seriously* the only one here who covered the Industrial Revolution in school? Am I the only one who remembers the workers being reduced to slaves, no weekends or holidays, dangerous work environment, child labor, miserable wages, and 16 hour workdays?

 

We *tried* the market-based solution, lasiez faire capitalism, and it FAILED. It produced a few exceptionally rich people and millions who toiled in abject poverty. It produced a system where if the cost of replacing a worker was less than the safety equipment to keep them from being killed, then their life was considered not worth protecting with even basic safety measures.

 

You know why we don't have that today? One reason: because we realized that someone had to step in and mandate rights for the workers, rights to safety, to decent work hours, to a living wage. The right to a life as something more than an expendable slave to a corporation.

 

Seriously, give me one reason why we should ignore the previous utter failure of a market-based solution to wages and job conditions.

 

Enjoy your Weekend, brought to you by Labor Unions.

 

Mokele

[Pangloss]

Mokele, I don't appreciate being lumped in with Paranoia, as if our arguments are the same. They aren't, and now I'm supposed to figure out which quotes are mine and somehow not miss anything in that wall of text? Come on, that's not fair, especially when your entire argument is based on demonization.

[Pangloss]

I'll take a shot at a couple of things I spotted that looked like they were aimed at me. (sigh)

 

Because you have a basic ethical obligation that if you're going to expect someone to give you full time work, you'd better give them enough to live off.

 

No, I don't. That's entirely your creation based on the assumption that money grows on trees or created out of thin air or something. A strange position for someone who ostensibly follows the path of science.

 

 

 

So I guess it's OK with you if I murder you and your family, take all your stuff, and roast and eat your corpses? After all, according to you, there's no right to exist, and I should just do what I can. Clearly, therefore, you don't have a right to exist either, therefore killing people, taking their stuff and eating them is ethically sound and how we'll run society.

 

Exucse me, I have to on a killing spree, erm, 'grocery shopping'....

 

As for the rest of your post, it's very revealing that all you have is demonization. These arguments always come down to making people who recognize that money has to be created through hard work are somehow bad people and therefore have to be attacked.

 

It's a pretty pathetic argument, really. Downright unscientific.

 

 

 

But I'm sure she just didn't *really* want a job, and wasn't *really* a hard worker. Because hard workers don't get sick, ever, do they?

 

Of course they do, which is why our society should continue to extend a helping hand to people in need. I'm also not opposed to increasing the current annual expenditures in this area, which, by the way, total almost as much money as the Defense budget.

 

(But perhaps your text there was aimed at Paranoia, I don't know, because again you forgot to specify. Yeesh!)

 

So you have no moral qualms about saying people have no inherent right to live? In a society where the basic requirements for life cost money, either you have a right to life (and therefore the money to get those things) or you don't, period.

 

What I have are moral qualms about taking people's hard-earned money away at the point of a gun and giving it to people who haven't earned it just so they can buy an XBox 360.

 

What I *don't* have are qualms about taking a small percentage of people's hard-earned moeny away at the point of a gun and giving it to people who haven't earned it but are temporarily down on their luck and need a hand. That's good for me, that's good for the future of society, and it's a sound investment.

 

What's so hard for you to understand about that? (Or again were you talking to Paranoia? Curse you, you posting dweeb!)

 

 

Am I *seriously* the only one here who covered the Industrial Revolution in school? Am I the only one who remembers the workers being reduced to slaves, no weekends or holidays, dangerous work environment, child labor, miserable wages, and 16 hour workdays?

 

I read my Upton Sinclair. Did you read your Ayn Rand? If we're talking about extremes it seems only fair to look at both sides of the coin before we meet in the reasonable middle.

 

 

We *tried* the market-based solution, lasiez faire capitalism, and it FAILED.

 

ROFL, right ok. Now the truth comes out -- you're not really looking out for the disadvantaged, you're just obsessed with the requirement that everyone make the same amount of money, regardless of the value of their work or the amount of treasure that work actually generates.

 

Haven't we tried that as well? And didn't it also fail? Duh.

[Pangloss]

Actually it's pretty obvious at this point that we have a significant ideological difference that we're not going to be able to find common ground on. So I'm just going to say that we'll have to agree to disagree on it and leave it at that. You can keep arguing with Paranoia if you want.

 

My position is that we have (and should continue to have) a modified capitalist system in which the harder you work and the greater the value of your work, the more money you earn, and those who temporarily need assistance should be able to get it (even if that means taking some, maybe even more, money away from the earners).

 

Your position is that everyone should make the same amount of money, regardless of the value of the work or the amount of effort they put into it. Because what's "fair" is more important than the monetary equivalent of basic physics.

 

Good luck with that. I hope it works for ya.

[Dak]

kindof inline with what mokele's saying: we know that buisnesses, if left unrestrained, will produce some undesireable results.

 

we know that companies will strive to, and sometimes succede in, gaining a monopoly, which they will use to their advantage at the expence of the people -- hence, we have anti-monopoly laws.

 

we know that companies will join together to form cartels in order to raise prices etc, again for their benifits and again at the expence of the people, and so we have anti-cartel laws.

 

we know that companies will treat employers as a material commodity and strive to get them as cheaply as possibly, which, unless unenployment is pretty-damn low, is again to their own advantage and again to the detriment of the people, and so we have minimum-wage laws.

 

or. look at it like this: if someone looks for work, but cannot find any work that pays him enough to cover his traveling-to-work expences and leaves him enough for food/bills/rent then his options are:

 

# become a bum, contributing nothing to society and burdening it with giving him basic medical cover etc, not to mention looking after any of his innocent dependants.

 

# draw social security to make ends meet: in other words, have a net negative financial contribution to society.

 

# turn to crime to make ends meet.

 

# get payed enough to meet traveling costs, rent, bills, and food in the first place.

 

which would you all prefer?

 

pangloss it's not 'everyone earning the same', it's 'everyone earning an amount in proportion to the worth of their work, or $x/hour, whichever is higher'.

 

or, in other words, 'everyone earning at least enough to survive, and more if they're skilled'.

 

if you expect people to work for their ability to survive in your society, as opposed to, say, robbing, defrauding, drawing social security from other tax payers, being a bum, etc, then they have to have the option there to actually earn enough to survive through legitimate means.

 

i.e.: unenployment must not be too high, minimum wage must be set and realistic.

[Saryctos]

pangloss it's not 'everyone earning the same', it's 'everyone earning an amount in proportion to the worth of their work, or $x/hour, whichever is higher'.

 

and exactly how would you set the worth of a specific job? arbitrarily? Or by watching the market forces? If someone wants to take a job for $2.00/hour why would you artificially inflate that price? If you hang a now hiring sign out front and gradually raise the price from whatever you originally set, why is it wrong to allow someone to take the job below an arbitrary gov't set price? You're not forcing them to take the job, they can wait for the price to go up, or go find a different job...oh wait right, competition may make those jobs a bit harder to find, silly me forgetting about compedative markets.

 

Also, if you keep forcing wages up, it retroactively drives the price of goods up as businesses re-price everything to overcome the new losses. Instead of giving in to inflation, we should be letting the market settle back down to decrease the cost of living. Then, those smaller wages won't be as small as they used to be. Because the higher minimum wage goes, the more you're screwing the un-employed by raising the cost of living, that they already can't afford.

 

"But if people start working for less, the greedy corporations won't lower their prices, they'll just keep charging the same and screw everyone over." Prices will fall when they're not making as much as they used to.(cry strawman if you must, I just heard someone saying that in the back of my mind)

 

Minimum wage increases are exactly the kinds of things that make the gap between the poor and the middle class grow larger.

 

Imagine if you will, inflation as an inch worm. Right now the top end(middle class & rich) is extended, causing inflation. Wait for a bit and it'll come back, overstretched and exhausted. Then think of the tail end(poor & middle class), currently holding firm until the gap is widened, allowing the worm to move a little further up the inflation money tree. It'll keep going until it falls right back to the ground unless you keep it under control. Money can only last us so long, eventually we'll go onto the next economic stage, or keep repeating the same mistakes untill someone else does it.

[Dak]

and exactly how would you set the worth of a specific job?

 

what people are willing to work for.

 

BUT, this only works if the workers aren't in over-abundance, or have a union to back them up, or are slightly 'bulshy'. take doctors, for example -- they're rare enough that they can be pushy, and get a high wage (fitting for their worth) by quitting and finding work elsewhere. most workers can skoff at a pitance and find work elsewhere. if all of the available jobs pay peanuts, then workers with a union can strike, which is effectively the same but en mass.

 

If someone wants to take a job for $2.00/hour why would you artificially inflate that price?

 

because unskilled workers (e.g, the poor) can't do this. if they say 'hey, i'll not work for this low, give me a pay rise', they'll just get sacked and replaced with another poor person -- poor people aren't exactly in short supply, and theres no 'poor people and unskilled workers union'.

 

and people dont want to work for $2/hour. they have to, to just-about get a sub-acceptable quality of life. or did you think that the thought of looking for a higher-payed job never occoured to poor people?

 

 

If you hang a now hiring sign out front and gradually raise the price from whatever you originally set, why is it wrong to allow someone to take the job below an arbitrary gov't set price? You're not forcing them to take the job, they can wait for the price to go up, or go find a different job...oh wait right, competition may make those jobs a bit harder to find, silly me forgetting about compedative markets.

 

no, they can't wait for the price to go up. these are poor people we're talking about (minimum wage isn't exactly for laywers and doctors) -- they have to work, and can't afford to wait around for the price to go up. and, if they did, some other poor person, in desperate need of a job, will accept it before the price goes up.

 

'find a different job' -- if they were skilled, and could get a different job, they probably wouldn't be poor. all jobs available to poor people pay crap (else they wouldn't be poor).

 

Also, if you keep forcing wages up, it retroactively drives the price of goods up as businesses re-price everything to overcome the new losses. Instead of giving in to inflation, we should be letting the market settle back down to decrease the cost of living. Then, those smaller wages won't be as small as they used to be. Because the higher minimum wage goes, the more you're screwing the un-employed by raising the cost of living, that they already can't afford.

 

the market isn't 'settling back down' tho, it's inflating -- which is why the minimum wage is going up.

 

yes, there'll undoubtably be a cost-of-living increase, but not enough to negate the minimum wage increase from a poor persons pov. from a non-poor persons pov, they'd be paying either way -- either through social security or through COL increases.

 

the flip side, of course, is that having less extremely poor people = having more people spending. people spending is good for the economy.

 

"But if people start working for less, the greedy corporations won't lower their prices, they'll just keep charging the same and screw everyone over." Prices will fall when they're not making as much as they used to.(cry strawman if you must, I just heard someone saying that in the back of my mind)

 

no, the buisnesses will charge as much as they can get away with. obviously, when a competetor starts to charge less and yoink their customers, they'll be forsed to lower their prices. however, this doesn't work with workers, unless, as i said, workers are a rare commodity.

 

poor workers are not a rare commodity. companies will not try to 'steal' them from one-another, thus naturally forsing wages up in order to be able to hire. they'll try to get them as cheap as possible, using their poverty against them. why pay them a decent wage, when you can pay them a pitance and they'll have to accept it 'cos they're poor?

 

 

Minimum wage increases are exactly the kinds of things that make the gap between the poor and the middle class grow larger.

 

Imagine if you will, inflation as an inch worm. Right now the top end(middle class & rich) is extended, causing inflation. Wait for a bit and it'll come back, overstretched and exhausted. Then think of the tail end(poor & middle class), currently holding firm until the gap is widened, allowing the worm to move a little further up the inflation money tree. It'll keep going until it falls right back to the ground unless you keep it under control. Money can only last us so long, eventually we'll go onto the next economic stage, or keep repeating the same mistakes untill someone else does it.

 

if you're getting at what i think your getting at, then i'd point out that £3 used to be a pretty decent yearly wage in the uk. now the minimum required to survive is concidered as being >£10,000.

 

inflation doesn't matter. it's rapid inflation that hurts.

[Mokele]

Mokele, I don't appreciate being lumped in with Paranoia, as if our arguments are the same.

 

Totally OT - I wonder if there's a hack for this system that let's you automatically do that "quote by User" thing, rather than manually adding it in.

 

No, I don't. That's entirely your creation based on the assumption that money grows on trees or created out of thin air or something. A strange position for someone who ostensibly follows the path of science.

 

Why is that wrong? Money isn't energy or mass, and doesn't follow the conservation of energy. I bought some Star Wars figures when I was a kid for about $3 each, now most are worth over $40, some over $100, and I didn't do squat. If I find a precious gemstone, it's free money, money that didn't exist before.

 

Alternatively, if I buy stock in a company, and that company goes under, where is my money? Moved to somewhere else? No, it's gone.

 

That's why one of the big roles of the federal government is actually deciding how much money to print or take out of circulation, because money *can* just appear and disappear. There are economic consequences of this, but the point is, it's not thermodynamics by a long shot.

 

Money *does* grow on trees, ask anyone who sells fruit. That's what farmers do: they put in a certain effort, nature does the rest, and they harvest the results. While their efforts are worth something, the profits are from simply harvesting renewable natural resources.

 

As for the rest of your post, it's very revealing that all you have is demonization. These arguments always come down to making people who recognize that money has to be created through hard work are somehow bad people and therefore have to be attacked.

 

It's called taking a train of thought to it's logical conclusion; I see very severe flaws in the ethics and results of such a system, and illustrate them in a hyperbolic manner.

 

As for "scientific", this isn't a scientific discussion. There's ethical aspects (not a science) and economic aspects (not a science, no matter how much they want to pretend otherwise), and that's it.

 

What I have are moral qualms about taking people's hard-earned money away at the point of a gun and giving it to people who haven't earned it just so they can buy an XBox 360.

 

Strawman. I'm talking about food and shelter here; obviously crap like that isn't part of the deal. Secondly, you can get a used Xbox for freaking $50 if you know where to look. Wow, those poor people are living it up!

 

I read my Upton Sinclair. Did you read your Ayn Rand? If we're talking about extremes it seems only fair to look at both sides of the coin before we meet in the reasonable middle.

 

Actually, yes. She's an absolutely terrible writer; I've seen more character development in car ads, and I'm not exaggerating there.

 

For what it's worth, I'm not advocating anything more extreme than the notion that minimum wage is a good thing. That's it.

 

ROFL, right ok. Now the truth comes out -- you're not really looking out for the disadvantaged, you're just obsessed with the requirement that everyone make the same amount of money, regardless of the value of their work or the amount of treasure that work actually generates.

 

You know, for all your complaints about my tactics, I expected more than this strawman from you. Find where I said that, or even implied it. All I've said is that people should be paid enough to live.

 

Honestly, this is something I don't get. I respect your political opinion immensely, as even when we don't agree, you've clearly got a well-thought out position which you're willing to discuss. But when this sort of subject comes up, it seems, to me at least, that you jump on this "socialism bad, capitalism good" bandwagon, and seem disinclined to hold forth at length.

 

I'll say this: I don't really have an agenda, or an allegiance. I'm sorting this out as I go along, and in part because I've never actually found *any* real discussion, here or anywhere else on socialism and what it even *is*. All I know is that it's constantly demonized and linked to communism, and that the people who seem attracted to it are much cooler than usual.

 

If someone wants to take a job for $2.00/hour why would you artificially inflate that price?

 

Um, ethics?

 

Nobody *wants* a job that pays low, but they're forced into it because, at that time and in their status, they have no other available options. Employers can, will, and have exploited that in order to pay workers a pittance.

 

Also, if you keep forcing wages up, it retroactively drives the price of goods up as businesses re-price everything to overcome the new losses.

 

Yeah, because it's not like they can cut the $3 million dollar salary of a CEO who does nothing but play golf and make bad decisions all day.

 

Instead of giving in to inflation, we should be letting the market settle back down to decrease the cost of living.

 

Has that ever happened?

 

"But if people start working for less, the greedy corporations won't lower their prices, they'll just keep charging the same and screw everyone over." Prices will fall when they're not making as much as they used to.

 

Wait, what? Forget strawman stuff (it isn't anyway, it's just a hypothetical), I don't even follow this logic. If the cost of labor (and therefore of production) goes down, won't the businesses be making *more* money? So why would they lower the price?

 

Imagine if you will, inflation as an inch worm. Right now the top end(middle class & rich) is extended, causing inflation. Wait for a bit and it'll come back, overstretched and exhausted. Then think of the tail end(poor & middle class), currently holding firm until the gap is widened, allowing the worm to move a little further up the inflation money tree. It'll keep going until it falls right back to the ground unless you keep it under control.

 

So, wait, is the worm moving or not? If the back end of the worm never moves, the worm can't move as a whole.

 

No offense, but I don't think this is a very good analogy.

 

Mokele

[ParanoiA]

Because you have a basic ethical obligation that if you're going to expect someone to give you full time work, you'd better give them enough to live off. Exploiting the desperation of those who will work for less and try to scrape by is no different morally than employing sweatshop labor: you're taking advantage of someone's bad position for your own financial gain at their expense.

 

I simply don't agree that's it's my problem how much you require to buy bread and wine. I'm paying someone to do a job. Depending on the complexity of that job, the supply and demand of the labor market and costs associated with training and re-training will determine how much I'm willing to pay someone.

 

This is business. We are a capitalist country and everything we do is a contract or agreement, supported by laws. You don't owe benefits to the guy that mows your lawn do you? That's silly. If a job is super simple and virtually anyone can do it, then it isn't worth much as a job.

 

How is it that my friend makes 30 dollars an hour at telecommunications? How about the hundred or so people on his floor that also make that wage? How about the 14 floors of similarly slicked up folk making similar salaries, give or take a few? What about the vision, dental and health benefits they receive?

 

The market has failed for them? You mean all of those slicksters running around downtown on their cell phones and shiny watches are poor folk that the market has failed on?

 

Please...they get paid what they do because they are a valuable business asset. They made themselves valuable by going to school to learn things others don't know and then used that to market their labor. Also, because of Unions. Unions are not the government. They are the people organizing and using their power of alliance to levy change. Quite american, in my opinion and is a necessary force for keeping labor from being exploited unfairly. To me, Unions are as much a market institution as any other private business and should be playing the role here.

 

Employers who take good care of their people can avoid Unions and many do, just for that reason.

 

I think they deserve to be able to live. Minimum wage hasn't risen in 30-something years, while inflation has steadily increased the cost of living. It's only logical that the two should keep pace.

 

That's not true. Minimum wage has increased several times, just in the past 15 or so years. When I was 16 it was like 3.35 an hour, now it's around 5 or 6 something.

 

Exucse me, I have to on a killing spree, erm, 'grocery shopping'....

 

You're really equating a reasonable hunting and gathering expectation on others with killing sprees and mayhem? I already made it clear that helping the handicapped, elderly, mentally ill, anyone who can't take care of themselves, should be expected from the people. And I'm not really against helping the impoverished. I'm for doing the job right or not doing it at all. It's a worthwhile investment to help people become productive, but handing them checks and looking the other way isn't helping. Either declare them mentally ill and zap their asses or something...

[Pangloss]

kindof inline with what mokele's saying: we know that buisnesses, if left unrestrained, will produce some undesireable results.

 

(etc)

 

I agree. That's why we don't let them operate unrestricted.

 

 

or. look at it like this: if someone looks for work, but cannot find any work that pays him enough to cover his traveling-to-work expences and leaves him enough for food/bills/rent then his options are:

 

# become a bum, contributing nothing to society and burdening it with giving him basic medical cover etc, not to mention looking after any of his innocent dependants.

 

# draw social security to make ends meet: in other words, have a net negative financial contribution to society.

 

# turn to crime to make ends meet.

 

# get payed enough to meet traveling costs, rent, bills, and food in the first place.

 

which would you all prefer?

 

Well again when it comes to the current minimum wage situation, it's not something I'm really opposed to. Not only is it an acceptable political compromise to me, but I also think that the vast majority of minimum wage earners are temporary, and move on to something as soon as they can. To that end, if a bump here and there can help those people out, that's fine -- I just see it as another form of welfare.

 

It's if/when you start talking about "living wage" and "fairness" that we disagree. Like this:

 

 

pangloss it's not 'everyone earning the same', it's 'everyone earning an amount in proportion to the worth of their work, or $x/hour, whichever is higher'.

 

In your judgement. That's the point -- you're making a decision based on what you think is "fair", rather than what kind of revenue that amount of labor actually produces.

 

It's a bit like having a society that uses energy based on the amount of energy it wants to use, rather than making that call based on how much energy it can actually manage (e.g. pollution). Why is it that we understand the concept of balancing our "in" and our "out" when it comes to something like global warming, but the same followers of scientific principles can't seem to fathom it when it comes to financial matters?

 

(I guess it shouldn't be too surprising, though. I've met rocket scientists who couldn't balance their checkbooks!) ;-)

[Pangloss]

Why is that wrong? Money isn't energy or mass, and doesn't follow the conservation of energy.

 

I appreciate you being more clear in the direction of your replies last time. That was really frustrating me, and if I misunderstood you I apologize.

 

Anyway, to answer the above: Because in fact what you're talking about is earning $1,000 and paying out $2,000 in wages.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that the average profit margins of corporations has risen and companies can often afford to pay more than they do. I'm all for people walking off the job if they don't think the company is paying them enough. That's the American way.

 

But forcing companies to pay more is how we got into this problem in the first place. The moment you force a company to pay a specific amount, that's what they're going to pay, and not a dime more. You're just screwed over anyone who wants to take initiative for themselves.

 

 

Money *does* grow on trees, ask anyone who sells fruit. That's what farmers do: they put in a certain effort, nature does the rest, and they harvest the results. While their efforts are worth something, the profits are from simply harvesting renewable natural resources.

 

And how much profit is that renewable fruit going to generate if it's rotting on the branch because the people in the store are only willing to pay $1 for it but the people who pick it want $2?

 

Supply and demand controls this just fine, along with a useful set of laws that generally helps us avoid the extreme excesses. Controlling it completely doesn't mean people make more money, it just means we end up staring at fruit nobody can afford.

 

 

Strawman. I'm talking about food and shelter here; obviously crap like that isn't part of the deal. Secondly, you can get a used Xbox for freaking $50 if you know where to look. Wow, those poor people are living it up!

 

Strawman yourself. I don't care how much it costs, if you're forcing me to buy it for them and calling those people "poor", that's just wrong. They don't need a $50 XBox360 to "live" (that was your word, remember? "To live" is what you said. Not "have the same toys as the Jonses.")

 

 

Actually, yes. She's an absolutely terrible writer; I've seen more character development in car ads, and I'm not exaggerating there.

 

Yeah yeah, we know, people who write for the right are incompetent and people who write for the left are literary geniuses. It's a familiar refrain.

 

But great, that's fine, then we've answered your question -- you're not the only one who's paying attention to the suffering of the common man. I'm glad we cleared that one up.

 

Now let me ask you a question, paraphrasing your own: Am I the only one who remembers the fall of the Soviet Union and the stories that came out of that failed experiment in socialism?

 

 

For what it's worth, I'm not advocating anything more extreme than the notion that minimum wage is a good thing. That's it.

 

Well I think you've obviously gone (and continue to go) quite a long ways past that, but ok. As I said above, I don't really have a problem with the current minimum wage increase, and would probably accept an even larger one, under the right circumstances. See my post directly above.

[-Demosthenes-]

Because you have a basic ethical obligation that if you're going to expect someone to give you full time work, you'd better give them enough to live off. Exploiting the desperation of those who will work for less and try to scrape by is no different morally than employing sweatshop labor: you're taking advantage of someone's bad position for your own financial gain at their expense.

 

In some respects the free market has failed us. Our society (and many others) cannot govern themselves on this issue. People will be taken advantage of. I don't see any other way to fix it.

 

And what if you don't have enough options to say 'screw him'? If there's a hundred other workers who are willing to work for less than you, they'll all get hired and you'll be getting evicted for not making rent.

 

Many homeless people should be in government care medical/mental heath facilities anyway, most should be aided in some way in a society that takes care of the mildly or otherwise mentally ill.

 

You're right, I'm sure they're *choosing* to get sick.

 

Is it acceptable for a family to become homeless because of the sudden illness of a working family member? Because if it isn't, what alternative do we have?

 

Children can be given up for adoption.

 

I have to believe that you neither have siblings nor children.

 

Socialism is a preference, not a requirement. And it is mutually exclusive to freedom, not complimentary to it. It's just a different set of people getting the shaft.

 

Socialism is the little bit of legislation that that protects us from the failings of capitalism, as capitalism is the piece of freedom that shields us from government over-control.

 

There's a reason why you drive in the middle of the road -- the sides are just gutters.

 

We *tried* the market-based solution' date=' lasiez faire capitalism, and it FAILED.[/quote']

 

Miserably.

 

No, I don't. That's entirely your creation based on the assumption that money grows on trees or created out of thin air or something. A strange position for someone who ostensibly follows the path of science.

 

Does money have to grow on trees for reasonable money to be paid for full time work?

 

What I have are moral qualms about taking people's hard-earned money away at the point of a gun and giving it to people who haven't earned it just so they can buy an XBox 360.

 

Then the systems broken.

 

I read my Upton Sinclair. Did you read your Ayn Rand? If we're talking about extremes it seems only fair to look at both sides of the coin before we meet in the reasonable middle.

 

Quote of the day.

 

ROFL' date=' right ok. Now the truth comes out -- you're not really looking out for the disadvantaged, you're just obsessed with the requirement that everyone make the same amount of money, regardless of the value of their work or the amount of treasure that work actually generates.

 

Haven't we tried that as well? And didn't it also fail? Duh.[/quote']

 

I don't think Moleke was suggesting totalitarianistic communism, I think he was arguing for the small measures put in place that are socialistic, but are required to protect from the failings of free market capitalism.

 

Your position is that everyone should make the same amount of money, regardless of the value of the work or the amount of effort they put into it. Because what's "fair" is more important than the monetary equivalent of basic physics.

 

Brain not comprehend -- is there a post that I didn't read? No one said that.

 

We are a capitalist country...

 

The Gilded Age America was a capitalist country. We are a socialist-capitalist hybrid -- we are talking about minimum wage aren't we? One of the US's socialist measures?

 

Employers who take good care of their people can avoid Unions and many do, just for that reason.

 

Why do Employers have reasons to take care of employees ParanoiA? In a real capitalist country an employer could pay your MBA degree holding friends $2.50 and hour if he could make a deal with other companies who employed similar people. I agree (as an employer) not to hire people for more than $3 an hour, and so will you, then our company makes more money. Are you saying that if there were no law regarding economic (ie were were "capitalist") then there would be no businesses doing this? By agreeing to hire people for less they could make more money? Is it even possible to believe that no one with get screwed?

 

I agree. That's why we don't let them operate unrestricted.

 

Hence: capitalism without socialism has failed.

[Dak]

Totally OT - I wonder if there's a hack for this system that let's you automatically do that "quote by User" thing, rather than manually adding it in.

 

just click the quote buttons, and the first one should have the quotees name at the top.

 

Well again when it comes to the current minimum wage situation, it's not something I'm really opposed to. Not only is it an acceptable political compromise to me, but I also think that the vast majority of minimum wage earners are temporary, and move on to something as soon as they can. To that end, if a bump here and there can help those people out, that's fine -- I just see it as another form of welfare.

 

It's if/when you start talking about "living wage" and "fairness" that we disagree. Like this:

 

[...]

 

 

In your judgement. That's the point -- you're making a decision based on what you think is "fair", rather than what kind of revenue that amount of labor actually produces.

 

I'm not sure i get your point? people should, at the least, get enough to live on to an acceptable standard. that means no $2/hour jobs, even if the companies could get away with it without legislation.

 

if you're getting towards the point that certain small enterprises couldn't afford the wages, then i have two retorts:

 

1/ if they can't break even, they fold. simple law of economics. its up to them to figure out how to make an enterprise profitable, and if they can't they collapse.

 

2/ humans come before buisnesses imo. if it's a choice between people being forced to work for pitance, or a few buisnesses folding, i'd choose the latter. if a buisness needs to profiteer on peoples poverty in order to break even, then it shouldn't exist.

 

a few companies may fold, but i doubt that huge sectors of the economy will collapse because they're too unprofitable.

 

otoh, i do think it risks widening the gap between big buisness and little buisness, and i think certain people should be exempt from minimum wage. childeren, for example -- when i was a kid, the only jobs i could get (with my lack of experience) i got because i was cheaper then adults (paper-round and working in a pizza place), so it's a good way for kids to get work experience, and less profitable enterprises to break even.

 

another one springs to mind: i'm going to start work in a lab soon, and, given that i'm unexperienced, i'm likely going to have to do it for free in order to actually get the work.

 

now... say i'm there for a while, and my enployers think i'm worth a pittance. i'd accept, as i need the experience, but they likely wont even offer me a pittance, because afaik for them it's a choice between nothing or at least minimum wage. so, at least till i can proove that i'm good enough for minimum wage, i'll be getting nothing -- less that i'd be getting without minimum wage laws.

 

 

But forcing companies to pay more is how we got into this problem in the first place. The moment you force a company to pay a specific amount, that's what they're going to pay, and not a dime more. You're just screwed over anyone who wants to take initiative for themselves.

 

not atall. the people who can take initiative for themselves are not the people to whom this law applies in effect. i've never taken minimum wage since i was 17, even doing shitty data-entry jobs. if i'm offered minimum wage, i'd refuse, barring it being lab-experience related.

 

again, tho, it's the people in abject poverty, who are unskilled, who can't take the initiative. these people need a minimum, as they can't control their own wages. if a person cannot stop a company from paying them as little as it can, then they'll get the govournment-descided minimum neccesary to live on. if they can stop a company from paying as little as possable, then they'll get what their works worth.

 

 

Now let me ask you a question, paraphrasing your own: Am I the only one who remembers the fall of the Soviet Union and the stories that came out of that failed experiment in socialism?

 

 

communist russia was a despotic communism, which had the US spend quite alot of money trying to make it fall, and the majority of western europe wasnt exactly friendly towards russia.

 

i think it's clear that russia demonstrated merely a slightly atypical experiment in despotism. and, like all despotisms, conditions were not nice. (tho, interestingly, they were quite fair -- they were decades ahead of the west in terms of racial and sexual equality)

 

so, what have we learnt? well, communism is not enough to counterbalance despotism. that's all. see also despotic communist (lately hibrid) china. or any other despotism, for that matter.

 

I could dig out a few links of despotic capitalisms if you want, to prove that it's the despotism -- and not the comunism -- that caused the nastyness.

 

if you're talking of economic instablility, then communist china -- which, iirc, wasn't part of commiform and so wasn't targeted as heavily by the US -- is still going strong, and, my history's a tad wonky, but iirc democratic capitalistic US's economy kinda collapsed around the same timeish that russia folded.