NationStates Jolt Archive

My opinion is that the minimum wage severely restricts employment opportunities for low-wage workers, causes companies to restrict their employment or go out of business, weakens our welfare system because of an increased percentage of people on it, and forces companies to outsource labour, furthering the problem. The tax money that we have to pay to preserve the minimum wage is also weakening to our economy. What's your take on the minimum wage (poll coming)?

Begoner21;11664080']My opinion is that the minimum wage severely restricts employment opportunities for low-wage workers, causes companies to restrict their employment or go out of business, weakens our welfare system because of an increased percentage of people on it, and forces companies to outsource labour, furthering the problem. The tax money that we have to pay to preserve the minimum wage is also weakening to our economy. What's your take on the minimum wage (poll coming)?

You're damn right.

Well have to agree with the statement of the OP. Minimum wage should be abolished all together. For the record I have run a few business. Currently involved in three. The wife and I have two restaurants and also in partnership with an investment company. The two restaurants are min. wage for the servers. I know they make between 40k-60k a year with tips. We have a medium to high end clientele. The investment company is strictly commission. They make starting 75k to well over 100k a year.

The definition of the minimum wage is the outlaw of work of a certain price set via a state mandated level.
Now any worker who dares price their labour below this is thus punished particuarly the employer who dares agree to this voluntary trade.#

How are the poor supposed to be better off with restricted options. Most of the disadvantaged by they disabled/old/unskilled have simply the ability to lower the price of their labour at their disposal.

Do you know who then benefits from the minimum wage. Unionized workers (generally who make more than the minimum wage) who benefit from less competion from cheaper labour as these disadvantaged workers cannot compete with the more experianced and skilled labour.

Its a potentially dangerous and destructive idea that hurt the worst off. Honestly if you think companys will pay people more because they have a minimum limit why not set the minimum wage to £1000 an hour. The only thing the minimum wage does is destroy the least productive and essential jobs that many extremely poor relied on for their survival.

Begoner21;11664080']My opinion is that the minimum wage severely restricts employment opportunities for low-wage workers, causes companies to restrict their employment or go out of business, weakens our welfare system because of an increased percentage of people on it, and forces companies to outsource labour, furthering the problem. The tax money that we have to pay to preserve the minimum wage is also weakening to our economy. What's your take on the minimum wage (poll coming)?

But what do you base that opinion on?

That has been the opinion on the minimum wage hyped by a lot of conservative politicians and economists, but it was never more than an untested theory. Just because a Nobel Prize winning economist has an idea doesn't make it true. Nobel Prizes have been given to economists for directly contradicting eachother.

Now it is more than a theory, and it turns out that the conservative theory is deeply flawed. States and cities that raise their minimum wages get growing economies, not shrinking ones. You can argue as long as you like about what would happen to them, however much sense your arguments make they will fall flat in the face of what has happened.

Liberal view on minimum wage - Raise the minimum wage because people can't live on it.
Conservative view - Lower it because the lower overhead will be good for business.

Reality - Raise it because when working class people have more money it increases economic demand, which causes the economy to grow resulting in more jobs, more commerce, and more economic growth.

Without the minimum wage people could get paid amounts so small they may as well be slaves.

Well have to agree with the statement of the OP. Minimum wage should be abolished all together. For the record I have run a few business. Currently involved in three. The wife and I have two restaurants and also in partnership with an investment company. The two restaurants are min. wage for the servers. I know they make between 40k-60k a year with tips. We have a medium to high end clientele. The investment company is strictly commission. They make starting 75k to well over 100k a year.

Damn, I want to work in such a restaurant. Where I live servers at restaurants make between 8k and 12k a year. Including tips.

in the UK the minimum wage is between £3 (16-17) and £5 (22+) how much less can you pay some one before they are literally working for peanuts?

in the UK the minimum wage is between £3 (16-17) and £5 (22+) how much less can you pay some one before they are literally working for peanuts?

Minimum age in most US states is $5.15 for 18+. I forget what it is for 16-17.

Reality - Raise it because when working class people have more money it increases economic demand, which causes the economy to grow resulting in more jobs, more commerce, and more economic growth.

This does not follow. If the money is not paid to workers, it is kept by the firm, and invested and saved. This also creates more jobs, more commerce, and more economic growth. The minimum wage does not necessarily do anything magical.

Additionally, employees are a form of human capital. Firms will not invest in capital if the output gained from the input is less than the returns on the natural rate of interest- they won't take out loans because they will not be able to pay them off, and they won't do it out of their own savings because they could make more money off of depositing the money. If you push the wage floor to a level in which certain jobs will not attain the needed level of output, they will not be hired- the money will be depositied instead. There is absolutely no way around this.

Without the minimum wage people could get paid amounts so small they may as well be slaves.

Wages are not charity. Just like businesses will compete over other forms of capital like machinery and computers etc., businesses will also compete over human capital to gain the output that said human capital will be able to provide. If you create a wage price floor, in which input results in an output less than savings, the human capital will not be purchased- i.e., the employee will not be hired.

I'm just glad I don't have to live in the States. Anyone else see the episode of 30 Days where a couple tried to live on minimum wage for a month? Morgan Spurlock I think it was.

The definition of the minimum wage is the outlaw of work of a certain price set via a state mandated level.
Now any worker who dares price their labour below this is thus punished particuarly the employer who dares agree to this voluntary trade.#

How are the poor supposed to be better off with restricted options. Most of the disadvantaged by they disabled/old/unskilled have simply the ability to lower the price of their labour at their disposal.

Do you know who then benefits from the minimum wage. Unionized workers (generally who make more than the minimum wage) who benefit from less competion from cheaper labour as these disadvantaged workers cannot compete with the more experianced and skilled labour.

Its a potentially dangerous and destructive idea that hurt the worst off. Honestly if you think companys will pay people more because they have a minimum limit why not set the minimum wage to £1000 an hour. The only thing the minimum wage does is destroy the least productive and essential jobs that many extremely poor relied on for their survival.


Wow! You must be able to grow a lot of intellectual weeds with that much casual bullshit occupying your head.

Do you realize that there's a difference between an idea and a slogan?

A) In practical fact minimum wages are irrelevant anyway, because they're almost always a small fraction of the prevailing wage. Look at NYS. In most of the state you can't get people to work for less than $7.00/hour. The legislature voted to raise the minimum wage, and federal republicans, despite all their "states rights rhetoric," said "that's a job for the federal gov't." But the legislature raised it anyway. What did they raise it to? $7.00/hour. What people were already making.

B) Idealogically, they're an outgrowth of collective bargaining. The people's representatives say "you shouldn't be put in a position that you have to work for less than this amount," that way employers can't undercut you. "Don't want to work for the price of rent+food+gas? Fine, I'll find a Mexican who'll do it for enough money to buy a bag of rice and pack of lentils." It is not taking people's choices away. It is people together as a society, democraticlly, saying "you must do better by us."

C) Minimum wage does not destroy jobs. I've linked enough studies that debunk that myth on this board that I feel confident leaving you to find your own if you care. But can you show me one piece of evidence other than some conservative politician or economist (many of whom are changing their minds now) that says it "would" do that?

D) The "why not raise it to $1,000 an hour," is a bullshit argument. It demonstrates your inability to think outside of bumper stickers. In any economy there will be an optimal range for worker wages (as opposed to professional wages) that will keep the economy in the best condition. The two forces working to keep actual wages close to ideal wages are employers trying to keep wages down and workers trying to keep it up.

Employers invariably gain the upper hand and force wages down to below the optimal amount. Not because they're evil, but because they view labor as overhead. If you look at an accounting chart, you'll see how they could think that way.

The problem is, that worker wages aren't just overhead. They're also an investment in future growth. When you pay higher wages, as long as everyone pays them, you are investing to produce future demand. But employers don't usually see it that way, and so they lower wages to the point that they strangle growth.

The market force isn't the benevolent all-powerful being that you right wingers seem to think it is. It works like evolution. Yes, there are some forces that strive for balance. But there are other forces, which left unchecked, will lead to horrible consequences like cystic fybrosis and sickle-cell anemia.

in the UK the minimum wage is between £3 (16-17) and £5 (22+) how much less can you pay some one before they are literally working for peanuts?

As a young person (Aged 17) living in the UK I feel the minimum wage is a godsend. Without it I would be exploited by the local business I work for. Young people such as myself aren't taken seriously by employers as it is, especially when we haven't yet "graduated" from high school. If they could business would pay me peanuts for my part-time job which I would have to accept because I haven't got time to pursue better paying full-time work whilst I'm at University.

Thankfully, the minimum wage for my year group is increasing to £3.30 in October.

I'm amazed by how many people want to abolish minimum wage. If it was abolished, many employers would find immigrant workers that are willing to work for next to nothing, and far too many lower-class workers would go hungry. Minimum wage is very neccesary, for the good of the country. Nothing about abolishing minimum wage would help lower-class workers, and you are a fool if you think it would. And I think that it could stand to be raised a bit, but that it's not a huge issue.

Wages are not charity. Just like businesses will compete over other forms of capital like machinery and computers etc., businesses will also compete over human capital to gain the output that said human capital will be able to provide. If you create a wage price floor, in which input results in an output less than savings, the human capital will not be purchased- i.e., the employee will not be hired.

How can companies expect their workforce to survive on wages so low that they become a mere formality? Business and wages may not be charity, but no one should have the right impoverish anybody, it's not always the case that the worker can go somewhere else and have the choice.

This does not follow. If the money is not paid to workers, it is kept by the firm, and invested and saved. This also creates more jobs, more commerce, and more economic growth. The minimum wage does not necessarily do anything magical.

You don't seem to understand. You're still arguing what "would" happen. I'm pointing out what actually happened. Once it actually happens and you don't see how, you have to get past what would happen, because like it or not, you already know. You have to start asking "why?"

I'll explain as simply as I know how.

Imagine you've got a small town with a bakery in it.

Every day the bakery bakes 20 apple pies. On an average day they'll sell about 15, on a good day 18, and occaisionally, they'll sell their last pie and someone else will wander in at 5 minutes to closing time and ask if they've got any apple pies.

The economy is taking a downturn and the shop is having a little difficulties. So they speak to two councilmen, one liberal and one conservative. They also speak to a baker in the next town who's having the exact same problem.

The conservative says "ok, I'll suggest a bill to lower your property taxes, and make businesses able to take out low interest loans so that you can update your baking machinery to produce more stuff for less cost. This will lower your overhead and let you make more money."

The liberal says, "ok, I'll suggest a bill to raise the minimum wage, so that you have to pay your workers more. So do all the other businesses. Then people will spend more, but your overhead will be higher."

The politicians leave it up to the baker. And they pick the conservative's plan. They buy a new oven with their low-intrest loan and can now bake 40 pies at once. They also hire a new baking assistant to help with all this extra baking. Then on their first day with the new equipment, they bake 40 pies for not much more than it used to cost them to make 20. Then they sell 18 pies. Their business hasn't improved at all. They pocket a tiny bit more, but that does nothing to prevent the troubles that are coming, and now they have a loan that they can't pay off and have to lay all their staff off.

Then they speak to the baker in the next town. He says "we went with the liberal's plan. It sounded wierd, but I was born democrat and I'll die democrat. And it was the darndest thing! We could barely pay the wages we were already paying, but a week later we went from selling most of our pies by 8:00 to selling all of them by 5:00. We had to start baking in double shifts. We had to hire more help. We had to pay them more than we used to, but the extra business didn't leave us much choice. Eventually we had to buy a bigger oven. Hey, wanna come work for me?"

I'm dressing the liberal side up a bit, but only timewise. It doesn't matter if you don't see how it happens. It happens. It's already happened. What you think makes sense doesn't matter. I can argue all day about how the world is the center of the solar system (as the greatest scientific minds of the middle ages did) but once you take a look you'll see that it isn't true.

A) In practical fact minimum wages are irrelevant anyway, because they're almost always a small fraction of the prevailing wage. Look at NYS. In most of the state you can't get people to work for less than $7.00/hour. The legislature voted to raise the minimum wage, and federal republicans, despite all their "states rights rhetoric," said "that's a job for the federal gov't." But the legislature raised it anyway. What did they raise it to? $7.00/hour. What people were already making.
.

So a state bureaucracy is set up to create a law that does nothing? If according to you they do nothing then why have them.


B) Idealogically, they're an outgrowth of collective bargaining. The people's representatives say "you shouldn't be put in a position that you have to work for less than this amount," that way employers can't undercut you. "Don't want to work for the price of rent+food+gas? Fine, I'll find a Mexican who'll do it for enough money to buy a bag of rice and pack of lentils." It is not taking people's choices away. It is people together as a society, democraticlly, saying "you must do better by us."
.

Yes the option is either you work for X ammount or you can't work. And you've proved my point, the unionized labour don't want the competition they just want the privilaged to work.



C) Minimum wage does not destroy jobs. I've linked enough studies that debunk that myth on this board that I feel confident leaving you to find your own if you care. But can you show me one piece of evidence other than some conservative politician or economist (many of whom are changing their minds now) that says it "would" do that?
.

Its just a simple fact that jobs that bring a benefit that is less than the minimum wage can't exist. And we all know no studies can exist that prove anything. As you stated a vast minority of people work at minimum wage thus to measure any cause and effect corellation is impossible.


D) The "why not raise it to $1,000 an hour," is a bullshit argument. It demonstrates your inability to think outside of bumper stickers. In any economy there will be an optimal range for worker wages (as opposed to professional wages) that will keep the economy in the best condition. The two forces working to keep actual wages close to ideal wages are employers trying to keep wages down and workers trying to keep it up.
.

The ideal balance is what the market of supply and demand levels out at. The hand of the state can't somehow determine the perfect balance.


Employers invariably gain the upper hand and force wages down to below the optimal amount. Not because they're evil, but because they view labor as overhead. If you look at an accounting chart, you'll see how they could think that way.
.

They simply act within supply and demand. They need to attract the best workers for the right ammount so they won't leave.


The problem is, that worker wages aren't just overhead. They're also an investment in future growth. When you pay higher wages, as long as everyone pays them, you are investing to produce future demand. But employers don't usually see it that way, and so they lower wages to the point that they strangle growth.
.

As opposed to inflaritory wages that are unsustainable. If companys make less or no profit from a larger overhead they either have to let workers go/raise prices (killing relative wage growth) or relocate to another place. All bad for the long term economy.

If you really want the real worth of wages to be higher than abolish VAT. Thats the worst tax that makes living expences particuarly for the poor much worse.


The market force isn't the benevolent all-powerful being that you right wingers seem to think it is. It works like evolution. Yes, there are some forces that strive for balance. But there are other forces, which left unchecked, will lead to horrible consequences like cystic fybrosis and sickle-cell anemia .

Yes only the state is benevolent and all powerful...
And besides all I've said is why I'm against the minimum wage. I totally support free clinics and the profits from curing such diseases are so large that hundreds of scientists are looking for cures.

As a young person (Aged 17) living in the UK I feel the minimum wage is a godsend. Without it I would be exploited by the local business I work for. Young people such as myself aren't taken seriously by employers as it is, especially when we haven't yet "graduated" from high school. If they could business would pay me peanuts for my part-time job which I would have to accept because I haven't got time to pursue better paying full-time work whilst I'm at University.

Thankfully, the minimum wage for my year group is increasing to £3.30 in October.

Where do you work. Seriously. Mc Donalds offers £4 for 16-17's.

the poll is rather useless eh? the minimum wage ranges from pitiful to fair depending upon location.

if its fair, why raise it? if its pitiful, it should be raised.

We could barely pay the wages we were already paying, but a week later we went from selling most of our pies by 8:00 to selling all of them by 5:00. We had to start baking in double shifts. We had to hire more help. We had to pay them more than we used to, but the extra business didn't leave us much choice. Eventually we had to buy a bigger oven. Hey, wanna come work for me?"

So, you're suggesting that with their higher wages, the former minimum-wage workers were able to buy more pies because they now had more money to spend on them, and that increased demand was turned into profit? That's absolutely ridiculous. What you're saying is tantamount to this: let's give everybody $1000 bucks. With that money, they'll buy some of our pies. In fact, they'll buy a lot of those pies. We'll have to work double shifts and whatnot due to the extra business. What you fail to see is that they are buying pies with the money you gave them. In effect, you are buying your own pies and claiming that business is improved. In reality, you are just wasting money. The business which followed the "liberal" plan would be out of business while the one that followed the "conservative" plan would be raking in the big pie bucks.

Begoner21;11664080']My opinion is that the minimum wage severely restricts employment opportunities for low-wage workers, causes companies to restrict their employment or go out of business, weakens our welfare system because of an increased percentage of people on it, and forces companies to outsource labour, furthering the problem. The tax money that we have to pay to preserve the minimum wage is also weakening to our economy. What's your take on the minimum wage (poll coming)?

You've been listening to too much talk radio.

Work low wage earners gets is so necessary that it has never been lost due to increased in minimum wage.

Minimum wage increase usually helps business because it adds money to the economy at the bottom where it ripples through creating more business not less. Give money to the poor and they spend it. Give it to the rich and they warehouse it. They are spending all they want to spend so, while it is invested, it does not get spent over and over.

How would it increase welfare? If you're at a wage above the poverty level you aren't on welfare. Of course, it would take a massive increase to meet the poverty level.

Outsourcing is seldom at the level of minimum wage. Minimum wage jobs are those terrible jobs that must be done and can't be exported.

How does taxes preserve minimum wage???

When the economy was really good in the 50's and 60's minimum wage in real buying terms was several times what it is now. At the time, I paid every cent to go to college and paid cash for a new 6 passenger car. AND only worked during the summer months.

No minimum wage is slavery. In a sense, the current low minimum wage is less than slavery. At least a slave owner provided some type of food, clothing, shelter, and medicine, just as I do for my cows today. Employers who pay minimum wage care less about their employees than I care about cows.

Where do you work. Seriously. Mc Donalds offers £4 for 16-17's.

I'm never working at McDonalds on principle. Also, I've just started, so they pay me just over minimum wage.

When I was a kid working on farms (putting up hay, cutting and hanging tobacco, etc) minimum wage was $1.00 to $1.25 per hour. Gasoline was about $.28 to $.30 per gallon. So you could buy approximately 4.2 gallons of gas for each hour of work. Since minimum wage is $5.15 per hour and gas is say approximately $2.50 a gallon now you can buy about 2.1 gallons of gas per hour worked. So I'd say a fair minimum wage would be about $10.30 per hour.
Now I know a lot of businesses could and do just ship their manufacturing out of the U.S.A. to bypass all of us greedy U.S. working types. So if you want to get rid of minmum wage, fine! I propose a maximum wage. An employer can get paid a maximum of 40 times the wage of their lowest employee. So lets say you make those 100 dollar tennis shoes in Malaysia or China or someplace and you're paying your workers $.30 an hour (hahahahaha). Then you're entitled to, as an employer, $12 per hour. No problem! You can pay 'em $.02 per hour if you want.
However, the money you have to shell out to the government to beat, kill and imprison anyone who interferes with totally free enterprise in that country would not be figured into your expenses.

Begoner21;11664546']So, you're suggesting that with their higher wages, the former minimum-wage workers were able to buy more pies because they now had more money to spend on them, and that increased demand was turned into profit? That's absolutely ridiculous. What you're saying is tantamount to this: let's give everybody $1000 bucks. With that money, they'll buy some of our pies. In fact, they'll buy a lot of those pies. We'll have to work double shifts and whatnot due to the extra business. What you fail to see is that they are buying pies with the money you gave them. In effect, you are buying your own pies and claiming that business is improved. In reality, you are just wasting money. The business which followed the "liberal" plan would be out of business while the one that followed the "conservative" plan would be raking in the big pie bucks.

The difference is giving "everybody" more money and giving the bottom more money. When those at the bottom get more money they spend it, and those they spend it with spend it, and those that receive it spend it.........

Give money to the top as we've done for 26 years and they warehouse it because they are spending all they care to spend. True the warehoused money is put in stocks that adds some to the economy, but that is only one turn of the money, where money at the bottom turns and turns until the rich get it and then it is invested. The difference is what happens before the warehousing of the money.

Even though most on this forum are to young to remember a good economy, much less a great economy, this isn't it. During the 50's and 60's money was being pumped into the bottom and everyone was prospering. During the 50's we built all of the interstate highway system and fought Korea. During the 60's we went to the moon and provided civil rights, and fought Vietnam. And during these times a family needed only one income. The second was for luxeries. During the '70's we started a "conservative" movement. We were still able to finish the war and begin the environmental movement, and begin energy conservation. Then came the '80's and we.........well we lowered taxes on the rich and did away with all of the energy conservation laws and froze the minimum wage.......Then the 90's we.........well we.......well the economy was the pits until we raised the minimum wage then is rose for a litle while and we saw the national debt go down......Then the 00's and we......................Well, it's pretty obvious we haven't done crap to brag about since Nixon began to turn the nation to the right. Why?? because we can't afford it....why, if we have such a wonderful economy with tinkledown can't we affore it? Are we working less than in the '50-60 era. NO, in fact we are working far more hours and are far more productive.

Maybe we have a basic flaw in economic theory.

i defenetly need to study some economics... this thread hypnotised me:) (and im quite surprised it actually managed to change my views on how an ecenomy would work within a nation state... coz in anarchy it would be a completly different story:p )

It's too simplistic to argue that a change in the minimum wage will affect the overall economy for good or ill--it's only one of a host of factors. But one thing has been borne out over time--raising the minimum wage, whether modestly or in larger jumps, does not have the devastating effect that many conservatives screech about, for reasons outlined by other posters in this thread. It's not a cure-all for a stumbling economy, though it can serve as a boost, but it's certainly not a death knell for any economy.

Without the minimum wage people could get paid amounts so small they may as well be slaves.

Exactly. If we don't enforce restrictions on businesses, businesses will exploit the heck out of our people. If there isn't a rule saying that people need to be paid a certain amount of money for their services, than how do we know that corporations aren't going to start paying people ten cents a day, like they do in foreign countries? I'm sorry, but you can't blame the working class for problems like outsourcing jobs. We depend upon fair wages to keep our lives afloat, just as much as the upper class depends on the exploitation of the lower classes to their yachts afloat.

Begoner21;11664080']What's your take on the minimum wage?

its only a band-aid on an unjust system. band-aids are good, but sometimes they aren't enough to really fix the problem.

If there isn't a rule saying that people need to be paid a certain amount of money for their services, than how do we know that corporations aren't going to start paying people ten cents a day, like they do in foreign countries?

If the true value of the services somebody offers are only slightly over 10 cents a day, then they should only be paid 10 cents a day. The people who would do such jobs currently are unemployed, because no company is willing to pay minimum wage for a job that only nets them, say, $1 a day in profits. Instead of working for $0.10 a day, those people are currently preying on the hard-working people and taking advantage of the welfare state. However, that is quite unrealistic. Very few jobs are actually minimum wage jobs, and very few of those are so under minimum wage. Companies cannot pay people $0.10 a day for a very simple reason -- going on welfare is much more profitable than working under those conditions. Of course, we should also abolish or drastically reform welfare so that can't happen.

When I was a kid working on farms (putting up hay, cutting and hanging tobacco, etc) minimum wage was $1.00 to $1.25 per hour. Gasoline was about $.28 to $.30 per gallon. So you could buy approximately 4.2 gallons of gas for each hour of work. Since minimum wage is $5.15 per hour and gas is say approximately $2.50 a gallon now you can buy about 2.1 gallons of gas per hour worked. So I'd say a fair minimum wage would be about $10.30 per hour.

You have to remember, though, that cars were much less efficient in the 1950's than they are today; the average car got 14 miles per gallon, a number which fell steadily until the 1970's when it bottomed at 12 miles per gallon. So, you needed to buy more gas in order to travel the same distance compared to today; it takes less than half as much gasoline today to travel the same distance today as it did in the 1950's. Also, some of the more efficient models can reach even higher, especially if you have very little in the way of amenities and a small engine.

Today, an average can get 24-30 combined miles per gallon; that's nearly double the efficency of a similar car in the 1950's, so you only need half as much gas now as you did then. So, $5.15 is proportional to $1.00-1.25 in terms of gasoline expenditures; adjusted for inflation, $0.30/gallon is fairly close to $2.00-$2.50 in 2005 dollars. And if you're driving a vehicle that gets 12-14 mpg today, you definitely aren't earning minimum wage.

However, it's not the gas that is a problem; it's the other things like rent, food, utilities etc. that eat away at its purchasing power. However, it would make more sense to provide people with more financial aid and thereby expand their opportunity to get their GED, go to college and get a useful education so they don't have to earn minimum wage; that makes more sense than increasing the price floor for labor and forcing employers to pay more for work that wouldn't be justified by the market for other occupations.

[QUOTE='[NS:]Begoner21;11664546']So, you're suggesting that with their higher wages, the former minimum-wage workers were able to buy more pies because they now had more money to spend on them, and that increased demand was turned into profit? That's absolutely ridiculous. [QUOTE] How the fuck is the idea that people with more money are able to spend more ridiculous?

There's a lot of other factors you're not considering, Begoner. For starters, you talk about "the average car." But most people at that wage range, have to buy what they can afford, which is usually a beater, and isn't particularly efficient, assuming it's reliable to begin with. The same goes with housing. In her book Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich asks a woman who's working two low-paying jobs why she rents a crappy hotel room, when in the long run, it's more expensive than an apartment. Her answer? She doesn't make enough to be able to put together the capital for first and last months' rent and security deposit. At that wage level, it's damn near impossible for people who work hard to get ahead. Hell, it's hard enough to keep from sinking at that level. I know--I spent many years there myself.

Begoner21]What's your take on the minimum wage (poll coming)?

It is far too often used as an excuse to appear "progressive" when its actual effects tend not to be that substantial. It is no substitute for real change, and like other attempts to change the behavior/effect of capitalists without changing their disproportionate share of power (corporate taxation, price controls, trade unions, etc.) it can backfire.

I tend to support it, but I won't deny that the right-wing arguments against it are fairly strong. Sometimes it can be like refusing to give a robber what he demands; sure, your insistence might be just, but you still get shot. Better to take away his gun.

Begoner21;11664953']If the true value of the services somebody offers are only slightly over 10 cents a day, then they should only be paid 10 cents a day. The people who would do such jobs currently are unemployed, because no company is willing to pay minimum wage for a job that only nets them, say, $1 a day in profits. Instead of working for $0.10 a day, those people are currently preying on the hard-working people and taking advantage of the welfare state. However, that is quite unrealistic. Very few jobs are actually minimum wage jobs, and very few of those are so under minimum wage. Companies cannot pay people $0.10 a day for a very simple reason -- going on welfare is much more profitable than working under those conditions. Of course, we should also abolish or drastically reform welfare so that can't happen.

What kind of services are only worth ten cents? Minimum wage jobs are important, essential jobs on which the entire economy depends. Scrubbing toilets is NOT less important than sitting on one's ass in an office, ordering one's inferiors around. Would you be satisfied if your burger wasn't flipped on time, or if your cleaning lady didn't scrub your shower properly, or if the gas station attendant didn't fill up your lexus on time for you to get to your staff meeting? These jobs are brutal, and not exactly fun, and the people doing them deserve proper compensation. You can't expect anyone to live on ten cents a day, with how prices are now.
In addition, you are quite misunderstanding the reality of welfare. Nobody is "taking advantage of welfare." It's not a walk in the park to be on government assistance. It's humiliating, and even it hardly pays the bills. Contrary to what you might think, minimum wage workers and people on social assistance are not lazy bums who can't be bothered to get 'real' jobs; they're people who weren't born with the same advantages as the upper class, who are just trying to support themselves. You don't see a lot of hotel heirs forsaking the silver spoon for a life of welfare, that's for sure. You were obviously lucky enough to be born into a life in which you could get a solid, well-paying job, but don't assume everyone is exactly like you.

How the fuck is the idea that people with more money are able to spend more ridiculous?

Because you're giving them the fucking money. It's like buying your own pies and saying you're successful and that business is booming, when in reality you are just wasting money and resources. It's your money they're going to be buying the pies with -- you're giving them the money, they're giving you the money back, and they're taking the pies. Basically, you're just losing pies.

Its just a simple fact that jobs that bring a benefit that is less than the minimum wage can't exist. And we all know no studies can exist that prove anything. As you stated a vast minority of people work at minimum wage thus to measure any cause and effect corellation is impossible.

The ideal balance is what the market of supply and demand levels out at. The hand of the state can't somehow determine the perfect balance.

Yes only the state is benevolent and all powerful...
And besides all I've said is why I'm against the minimum wage. I totally support free clinics and the profits from curing such diseases are so large that hundreds of scientists are looking for cures.

Wow. You're living in a fairy tale land. You even deny knowledge itself as a means of knowing things. I can't help you.

What kind of services are only worth ten cents? Minimum wage jobs are important, essential jobs on which the entire economy depends.

Exactly. There is enough demand for these jobs relative to the supply of labor that the market would set wages. The notion that these jobs are only worth X dollars is ludicrous; the market will set a wage for these jobs according to how much people are willing to work for. These jobs are plentiful and are badly needed; as a result, they're going to offer more money in order to get people to work for them.

In fact, as unemployment falls low enough these jobs will often offer much more than the minimum wage; in southwestern Ohio, the economy has been growing quickly over the past decade or so and unemployment is very low as a result. It's not uncommon to see Wendy's or McDonalds offering $7-8/hour or more with partial or even full medical benefits in the fastest growing areas.

Begoner21;11665050']Because you're giving them the fucking money. It's like buying your own pies and saying you're successful and that business is booming, when in reality you are just wasting money and resources. It's your money they're going to be buying the pies with -- you're giving them the money, they're giving you the money back, and they're taking the pies. Basically, you're just losing pies.

Yes but other buisnesses are also having to pay their employees more money, so those employees have money to spend that didn't come from you. Besides you wouldn't price your pies at a cost that just covers their manufacture.

Begoner21;11664546']So, you're suggesting that with their higher wages, the former minimum-wage workers were able to buy more pies because they now had more money to spend on them, and that increased demand was turned into profit? That's absolutely ridiculous. What you're saying is tantamount to this: let's give everybody $1000 bucks.

No. Once again, you display your incapacity for rational thought.

California is east of New York. If I applied your reasoning to directions I would end up in the Pacific Ocean and head towards China because "California is East."

Or. Deer eat plants and get eaten by wolves. The more plants they eat and the less wolves there are the better off they deer will be. Eventually they run out of plants and starve. It is their natural drive to eat until there's nothing left. Only the opposition of hunters will prevent them from doing that so that they can continue to exist.

What I'm saying is employers want to push wages down to save on overhead. There comes a point at which they will push wages down so low that they have no customers because once people have paid for food and rent they have nothing left but debt. It is not the foresight of business that keeps wages up at sustainable levels. It is the intervention of either unions or the government. You will see brief spurts in wages in particular industries when there is suddenly high demand for a particular skilled job, but quickly people will develop that skill and bring wages back down. Like how home care workers, actual credentialled nurses, only make $10.00 in many parts of New York, which is not a living wage.


With that money, they'll buy some of our pies. In fact, they'll buy a lot of those pies. We'll have to work double shifts and what not due to the extra business. What you fail to see is that they are buying pies with the money you gave them. In effect, you are buying your own pies and claiming that business is improved. In reality, you are just wasting money. The business which followed the "liberal" plan would be out of business while the one that followed the "conservative" plan would be raking in the big pie bucks.

Look! I see your logic. It makes a certain kind of sense. But it doesn't happen. There are perfectly rational arguments that explain how the Earth is the center of the universe, but it isn't so. I've told you of the folly of "what would happen." All across the country some places have tried the liberal way, some have tried the conservative way. I'm not telling you what I, as a liberal, think would happen. I'm telling you what happened in actual, politically unaligned, reality. And reality, in its typically liberally biased way, has decided that the liberal way of handling minimum wages is the way to go. If you don't like it you shouldn't argue with me, you should argue with God and tell him you don't like the way he made money work.

Those who support minimun wage have no idea about Economics... I suggest you to learn the basics and after that give your opinion about this topic.

There's a lot of other factors you're not considering, Begoner. For starters, you talk about "the average car." But most people at that wage range, have to buy what they can afford, which is usually a beater, and isn't particularly efficient, assuming it's reliable to begin with. The same goes with housing. In her book Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich asks a woman who's working two low-paying jobs why she rents a crappy hotel room, when in the long run, it's more expensive than an apartment. Her answer? She doesn't make enough to be able to put together the capital for first and last months' rent and security deposit. At that wage level, it's damn near impossible for people who work hard to get ahead. Hell, it's hard enough to keep from sinking at that level. I know--I spent many years there myself.

Terry Pratchett had what he called the "Vimes Economic theory of being rich enough not to spend money." "A good pair of boots, that will last you the rest of your life, costs $50. A guardsman makes $30 a month, so he can only afford the $10 boots that wear out in three months. In two years the guardsman has spent more on boots than a rich man ever will and the whole time the rich man has still had dry feet!"

The premise of the minimum wage is that it is supposed to provide an inflation-relative annual "living" income for the lowest possible jobs in America, that is, that at its conception the MW was supposed to make living in America possible for everyone on a single, full-time job. This is why you hear the phrase "cost-of-living" tossed around so much; that was the original idea of the minimum wage.

Prior to the minimum wage, you had what conservative historians called the "working poor" and what I call the "perpetual underclass:" people who were payed so little money that it was impossible for them to survive (infant mortality rates in this class typically were devestatigly high) no matter how much they worked, partially because, no matter how 'good' they were at their jobs, they could never ask for a raise because unskilled labor can be easily replaced.

The idea behind abolishing the minimum wage betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the market functions, and also a political hypocrisy within the American conservative movement. American conservatives believe in Reagonomics ("trickle-down economics") but do NOT believe that the lowest-paid workers in America should have enough to pay for rent and food? The inherent contradiction here is that those two principles are mutually serving, yet the American conservative reveres one and abhors the other.

Let us take a look at the states with the 13 highest minimum wages, accounting for all factors such as hourly pay, hours per week, 7th-day overtime, and so on:
Alaska 7.0%
Massachusetts 4.7%
Connecticut 4.3%
New York 5.1%
Rhode Island 5.6%
Washington 5.3%
Wisconsin 5.0%
Oregon 5.6%
New Jersey 5.1%
Hawaii 3.0%
Washington, DC 5.7%
Florida 3.3%

However, the American average unemployment rate, nationw-wide is 4.7%. Notice the number of states with high unemployments. Alaska, for example, has the highest unemployment rate on the list, but also the highest minimum wage.

But on the other hand, notice the unemployment rate of states with lower average minimum wages:
Arkansas 5.4%
Kentucky 6.3%
Michigan 7.0%
Mississippi 8.0%
South Carolina 6.2%
Texas 5.2%
Kansas 4.8%
Tennessee 5.9%

The truth is that those states with the lowest unemployment rates, such as Louisiana (2.9%) Wyoming and Oregon (3.0%) are those states whose minimum wage laws are also accompanied by better state health care options, and higher income taxes (Alaska, for example, has no state income tax).

The liberal-conservative dichotomy of the minimum wage is very complicated. The presence of a large number of liberal economic institutions (good welfare, extremely high percentage in health insurance, moderate to high state income taxes, and incentives for blue collar workers) yield economically sucessful states such as Hawaii, Louisiana, Oregon, and Wyoming. Conservative or libertarian institutions such as low state taxes combined with poor public schools create states with high unemployment, such as Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas.

However, states like Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island, which do not currently offer state incentives for health care (though Massachusetts has a planned program that would mandate health care for all residents, slated to take effect gradually over the coming few years) create states with relatively high median incomes, certainly far higher than typical red states, but with mixed employment rates.

The result is that a complete liberalization of the national economy (extremely high spending on public schools, the creation of a national health care system to replace private accounts, modestly higher taxes, a reformed income tax structure that place greater taxes on those corporations that outsource and on American's most highly-paid citizens, while decreasing taxes on the lower-class average American spender) can be demostrated, factually, to produce economic success, high median income rates, and low unemployment, while the absence of many of these systems produces the opposite problems. Because these systems are mutually complementary, they are also dragnets by themselves (high taxes are extremely harmful if people have low minimum wages; a high minimum wage is also useless without state-sponsored health care because a $40,000 heart operation will ruin you no matter how many minimum wage hours you work).

And for example, look at states like Louisiana. Their current, extremely low unemployment is not due to institutional factors, but because many of the very poor are simply no longer there, and many more are employed by (re)construction firms and FEMA, who will put a pickaxe and a paycheck in the hands of anyone wiling to work. And on the other hand, states like Mississippi have lately been the victims of extreme, global warming-induced droughts that have made it extremely difficult to fully exploit arable farmland (the Mojave Desert, for example, is expanding outwards in all directions at thousands of yards every year).

The conclusion we can draw then is that states like Massachusetts would probably be much more economically succesful if their leadership were more willing to furter their liberalized economies. Because remember, success economically is not just about employment; median income is a very useful factor in determining such success. States like Alabama have unemployment of 3.9%, but that state is also 46th for median income. On the other hand, the highest median incomes are found in New Jersey, Maryland, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Connecticut, Minnesota, Alaska, Massachusetts, and Virginia, mostly blue states.

The complete abolition of libertarian conservative ideology can be illustrated factually to have economic benefit for the invididual American state. For example, the highest per-pupil expenditures in free, public education are Alaska ($1,446), New York ($1,380), New Jersey ($1,065), Massachusetts ($942), Connecticut ($998), in fact, mostly blue states, and in nearly the same order as in the highest median incomes.

Conclusion? Higher Minimum wage, high public school expenditure, higher-than-current graduated taxation, work incentives, higher sales taxes, and so on, all point to a good economy. Libertarian conservative ideologies typically produce states with either dismal unemployment, lower median income rates, or both.

Sources:
Employment figures from www.bls.gov, the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Per-pupil expenditures from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Per-state taxation rates from www.taxadmin.org
Health care coverage by state from www.census.gov
Current average unemployment rate from the Economic Policy Institute.

AIM- ChrisRay6000

Minimum wage!!

Hee-yah!!!!!

*Whip crack*

Libertarian United;11665130']Those who support minimun wage have no idea about Economics... I suggest you to learn the basics and after that give your opinion about this topic.

Minimun wages? Is that anything like Cinnabun wages?

Again, you're basing your opinion on theory that has been rendered obsolete. There was a time that if you studied astronomy and were a heliocentrist you would have been called a buffoon for failing to realize what it would mean if the Earth orbited the sun in a universe without parallax.

You are siding with economic theories that were developed in a time when there was no hard data. It was all about what would happen if...

Many of the anti-minimum wage economists are now changing their tune in light of new evidence. I suggest you join them. A little metaphorical light might do your metaphoricly jaundiced complexion good.

All that aside, may I sarcasticly congratulate you on a marvelously well balanced and strongly supported argument full of analysis and insight.

Sources:
Employment figures from www.bls.gov, the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Per-pupil expenditures from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Per-state taxation rates from www.taxadmin.org

AIM- ChrisRay6000

Sources?!! Don't you know that those make conservative heads explode. You murderer.

Besides. Everyone knows that the Bureau of Labor and Statistics has a strong liberal bias. They have "Labor" right in the title. :D

What kind of services are only worth ten cents? Minimum wage jobs are important, essential jobs on which the entire economy depends.

Yes, and because the economy does depend on those jobs, we are going to have to pay the workers enough to ensure that the jobs are done sufficiently well. We are not going to pay them $0.10 dollars a day because they aren't going to want to work for that little money -- we're going to have to give them enough money so that there will be competition amongst the workers. Only then will the job be done well.

Scrubbing toilets is NOT less important than sitting on one's ass in an office, ordering one's inferiors around. Would you be satisfied if your burger wasn't flipped on time, or if your cleaning lady didn't scrub your shower properly, or if the gas station attendant didn't fill up your lexus on time for you to get to your staff meeting?

But more people are capable of scrubbing toilets than sitting on one's ass in an office. Thus, the people who scrub toilets are paid less, since there is more competition for that particular job. My burgers will get flipped well, regardless of the wage the burger-flipper is paid. That's because if I don't like the way my burgers are flipped, I always have the option of taking my business elsewhere. That's why companies pay just enough to ensure that they get a worker who is adequate at his job, and no more.

Nobody is "taking advantage of welfare."

Lol. It is a walk in the park to live off welfare -- you get money that hard-working people made, but you don't earn a penny of it. Instead, you can spend it all on drugs and booze and still have an easy life.

Begoner21;11665186'].

But more people are capable of scrubbing toilets than sitting on one's ass in an office. Thus, the people who scrub toilets are paid less, since there is more competition for that particular job. My burgers will get flipped well, regardless of the wage the burger-flipper is paid. That's because if I don't like the way my burgers are flipped, I always have the option of taking my business elsewhere. That's why companies pay just enough to ensure that they get a worker who is adequate at his job, and no more.

Thats the problem, they pay the workers as little as they can get away with paying and that isn't necessarily enough for that work to buy either their or anyone elses product, meaning their are fewer custumers and therefore less demand. This is one of the contributing factors to the great depression companies weren'tpaying the workers to buy products they were producing, so people went in to debt trying to make purchases.

Begoner21;11665186']. Lol. It is a walk in the park to live off welfare -- you get money that hard-working people made, but you don't earn a penny of it. Instead, you can spend it all on drugs and booze and still have an easy life.
And you know this how? Personal experiance? Statistical sources? Talk Radio antidotal scare tactics?

Begoner21;11665050']Because you're giving them the fucking money. It's like buying your own pies and saying you're successful and that business is booming, when in reality you are just wasting money and resources. It's your money they're going to be buying the pies with -- you're giving them the money, they're giving you the money back, and they're taking the pies. Basically, you're just losing pies.

When Henry Ford started his company he paid the highest wages of any manufacturer at the time and became the "Bill Gates" of his era, the wealthyest man alive. Why did he pay so much? So he could drive up wages nationwide so people could afford to buy Ford Automobiles.

Begoner21;11665186']Yes, and because the economy does depend on those jobs, we are going to have to pay the workers enough to ensure that the jobs are done sufficiently well. We are not going to pay them $0.10 dollars a day because they aren't going to want to work for that little money -- we're going to have to give them enough money so that there will be competition amongst the workers. Only then will the job be done well.



But more people are capable of scrubbing toilets than sitting on one's ass in an office. Thus, the people who scrub toilets are paid less, since there is more competition for that particular job. My burgers will get flipped well, regardless of the wage the burger-flipper is paid. That's because if I don't like the way my burgers are flipped, I always have the option of taking my business elsewhere. That's why companies pay just enough to ensure that they get a worker who is adequate at his job, and no more.



Lol. It is a walk in the park to live off welfare -- you get money that hard-working people made, but you don't earn a penny of it. Instead, you can spend it all on drugs and booze and still have an easy life.


Well, if Burger flippers are being paid enough anyways, what's the harm in minimum wage?
And, again, you misunderstand the nature of drug addictions and alcoholism. Nobody chooses to be an alcoholic. I'm sure if you actually took the time to get to know someone on welfare, particularly someone with an addiction, you'd learn a lot. Like I said, it's not worth the humiliation. If you think it's such a fun time, give it a try. Maybe that'll help you wake up and smell reality. Walking a mile in someone's shoes may be a cliche, but it's also an important step towards tolerance and acceptance.

Well, if Burger flippers are being paid enough anyways, what's the harm in minimum wage?
And, again, you misunderstand the nature of drug addictions and alcoholism. Nobody chooses to be an alcoholic. I'm sure if you actually took the time to get to know someone on welfare, particularly someone with an addiction, you'd learn a lot. Like I said, it's not worth the humiliation. If you think it's such a fun time, give it a try. Maybe that'll help you wake up and smell reality. Walking a mile in someone's shoes may be a cliche, but it's also an important step towards tolerance and acceptance.

Or to phrase it another way there is a damn good reason it is a cliche.

Begoner21;11665186']Yes, and because the economy does depend on those jobs, we are going to have to pay the workers enough to ensure that the jobs are done sufficiently well. We are not going to pay them $0.10 dollars a day because they aren't going to want to work for that little money -- we're going to have to give them enough money so that there will be competition amongst the workers. Only then will the job be done well.
.

Or perhaps the people who would normally do that job have to do this "10 cent job" on top of other work in order to ensure he is productive enough to be worth hiring.

Begoner21;11665186']
That's why companies pay just enough to ensure that they get a worker who is adequate at his job, and no more.
.

Thats pretty much how unskilled labour works. If I need a hole dug generally I don't care about the quality of the hole. If I need a guy in an office doing more skilled work I need to be more selective in finding someone with the appropriate skills to do the job as well as possible.

Begoner21;11665186']
Lol. It is a walk in the park to live off welfare -- you get money that hard-working people made, but you don't earn a penny of it. Instead, you can spend it all on drugs and booze and still have an easy life.

The only arguement I favour for the minimum wage is to get people off welfare (assuming welfare exists). As if a job pays £100 a week and I can get £200 a week on welfare I have 0 incentive to get that job. Atleast if a minimum wage exists and I COULD get onto the job market legally it is better than welfare. (which I wouldn't call an easy life)

Begoner21;11665186']Lol. It is a walk in the park to live off welfare -- you get money that hard-working people made, but you don't earn a penny of it. Instead, you can spend it all on drugs and booze and still have an easy life.

Have you ever met these wlefare recipients, or do you just look at the caricatures and nod?

Begoner21;11665050']Because you're giving them the fucking money. It's like buying your own pies and saying you're successful and that business is booming, when in reality you are just wasting money and resources. It's your money they're going to be buying the pies with -- you're giving them the money, they're giving you the money back, and they're taking the pies. Basically, you're just losing pies.

So why is Wal-Mart in favor of raising the minimum wage? After all they were the people that first pushed down the wages under the idea that it would allow them to sell cheaper. Well, what they discovered is they have pushed down the wages to the point that their audience of customers can no longer afford to shop at Wal-Mart. But if they raise on there own competition will take customers away. So the solution is to raise wages nationwide. Then those at the bottom will spend more money and it will ripple through the economy and all will prosper.

When Henry Ford started his company he paid the highest wages of any manufacturer at the time and became the "Bill Gates" of his era, the wealthyest man alive. Why did he pay so much? So he could drive up wages nationwide so people could afford to buy Ford Automobiles.

He paid people so much because he made them work so hard. It was a tougher job with less breaks and repetative jobs.

And following the logic of your arguement its in the best interest of all companys to raise wages. In which case no legislation is needed as companys that do so will flourish (just as Ford did)

When Henry Ford started his company he paid the highest wages of any manufacturer at the time and became the "Bill Gates" of his era, the wealthyest man alive. Why did he pay so much? So he could drive up wages nationwide so people could afford to buy Ford Automobiles.

The only reason Henry Ford could do that was because he had a monopoly on cars manufactured via assembly line (ie, they were much cheaper than the competition). Therefore, he could afford to pay his workers more and still sell his car at a competitive price. However, there was no economic incentive more his competitors to also jack up their wages -- if they did it, they had no reason to do so. If only Ford increased their wages, that would be a terrible strategy.

All I have to say is if they raise the minimum wage, it better go over 8.00 an hour. Because if it doesn't, then I don't get a raise goddamit!

So why is Wal-Mart in favor of raising the minimum wage? After all they were the people that first pushed down the wages under the idea that it would allow them to sell cheaper. Well, what they discovered is they have pushed down the wages to the point that their audience of customers can no longer afford to shop at Wal-Mart. But if they raise on there own competition will take customers away. So the solution is to raise wages nationwide. Then those at the bottom will spend more money and it will ripple through the economy and all will prosper.

Walmart want to raise the minimum wage because they already pay the majority of their workers over mimum wage anyway. Where as many competators don't. The result will be competition will suffer profit from increased expenditure on labour and will fail to compete with an already dominant business.
Walmart have the muscle to pay more for their workers quite easily small businesses can't do so as easily, so a further raise will only benefit walmart and hurt competiton.

So why is Wal-Mart in favor of raising the minimum wage? After all they were the people that first pushed down the wages under the idea that it would allow them to sell cheaper. Well, what they discovered is they have pushed down the wages to the point that their audience of customers can no longer afford to shop at Wal-Mart. But if they raise on there own competition will take customers away. So the solution is to raise wages nationwide. Then those at the bottom will spend more money and it will ripple through the economy and all will prosper.

Well, let's say that I'm a company which sells only 10-foot-wide plasma TVs which cost $1,000,000 dollars. Obviously, not many people are gonna want to buy them, right? So I'd want the minimum wage to be increaesd to $1,000,000,000 dollars a year so more people can buy my products. Is it an economically practical strategy? Hell, no. All businesses would declare bankrupcy -- there is no way they could afford to keep employees at such ridiculous wages. The same thing would happen, albeit on a much smaller scale, if the minimum wage is only raised slightly.

Well, if Burger flippers are being paid enough anyways, what's the harm in minimum wage?

Some workers may be getting too much and some people are unemployed because their particular skill set cannot be used in an economy where they are forced to work for a particular wage. People are unemployed because companies are not allowed to hire them for under minimum wage, even though they may desperately want that job.

Nobody chooses to be an alcoholic.

Yes, I'm sure somebody ties them down and forces the alcohol down their throats. Everybody who is an alcoholic is so because of bad personal decisions; it's their own fault, nobody else's.

Like I said, it's not worth the humiliation.

For some people -- namely those who would rather work for a living -- it is humiliating. For others, it's a way to breeze through life at the expense of tax payers.

Begoner21;11665333']Some workers may be getting too much and some people are unemployed because their particular skill set cannot be used in an economy where they are forced to work for a particular wage. People are unemployed because companies are not allowed to hire them for under minimum wage, even though they may desperately want that job.



Yes, I'm sure somebody ties them down and forces the alcohol down their throats. Everybody who is an alcoholic is so because of bad personal decisions; it's their own fault, nobody else's.



For some people -- namely those who would rather work for a living -- it is humiliating. For others, it's a way to breeze through life at the expense of tax payers.
Source

Begoner21;11665309']Well, let's say that I'm a company which sells only 10-foot-wide plasma TVs which cost $1,000,000 dollars. Obviously, not many people are gonna want to buy them, right? So I'd want the minimum wage to be increaesd to $1,000,000,000 dollars a year so more people can buy my products. Is it an economically practical strategy? Hell, no. All businesses would declare bankrupcy -- there is no way they could afford to keep employees at such ridiculous wages. The same thing would happen, albeit on a much smaller scale, if the minimum wage is only raised slightly.

Name ONE....just ONE....any ONE...time in the history of minimum wage when raising it cost jobs. Name ONE...just ONE...any ONE...time in the history of minimum wage when the economy suffered.

Begoner21;11665333']Some workers may be getting too much and some people are unemployed because their particular skill set cannot be used in an economy where they are forced to work for a particular wage. People are unemployed because companies are not allowed to hire them for under minimum wage, even though they may desperately want that job.



Yes, I'm sure somebody ties them down and forces the alcohol down their throats. Everybody who is an alcoholic is so because of bad personal decisions; it's their own fault, nobody else's.



For some people -- namely those who would rather work for a living -- it is humiliating. For others, it's a way to breeze through life at the expense of tax payers.


Do you call five bucks an hour (or whatever it is in the US) too much? How can anyone live off that? It's impossible.
Alcoholism is a disease, not a choice. That's the first thing that alcoholics learn when they go into rehab.
If living on welfare is such a fun time, why don't you give it a shot?

But what do you base that opinion on?

That has been the opinion on the minimum wage hyped by a lot of conservative politicians and economists, but it was never more than an untested theory. Just because a Nobel Prize winning economist has an idea doesn't make it true. Nobel Prizes have been given to economists for directly contradicting eachother.

Now it is more than a theory, and it turns out that the conservative theory is deeply flawed. States and cities that raise their minimum wages get growing economies, not shrinking ones. You can argue as long as you like about what would happen to them, however much sense your arguments make they will fall flat in the face of what has happened.

Liberal view on minimum wage - Raise the minimum wage because people can't live on it.
Conservative view - Lower it because the lower overhead will be good for business.

Reality - Raise it because when working class people have more money it increases economic demand, which causes the economy to grow resulting in more jobs, more commerce, and more economic growth.


This is one of the beter arguements for raising or at least keeping the minium wage. Yet I want everyone to read this section of a understanbly wrong poster and instead turn ourselves to Chicago......

Now, those not familiar with the situation should try and listen to this, The Wall Street Journal ran a few editorials on it but sadly I doubt any newspaper can keep one subject "interesting" fo more than 4 or 5 articles. The story goes that Chicago raised its minium wage thinking that it would help poor people and whatnot; of course that doesn't happen an big box stores that sell a lot of stuff cheaper than the mom and pop operations have to leave. Stranding the now jobless and increased living cost people deep in the iner city while the box stores happily live out in the subabrs. Moral of the story: Minium Wage doesn't work.

I will try to get a link up with the editorials....

Regardless it shows that conservative economics is not a theory but a said fact, buisness encourages profit and wage, the government just does the opposite. Besides, minium wage only helps uniounized workers, now they don't need to worry about getting in a "wage war" with less skilled and/or weaker labor. Just another example of uniouns getting a little bit to much.

Begoner21;11664080']My opinion is that the minimum wage severely restricts employment opportunities for low-wage workers, causes companies to restrict their employment or go out of business, weakens our welfare system because of an increased percentage of people on it, and forces companies to outsource labour, furthering the problem. The tax money that we have to pay to preserve the minimum wage is also weakening to our economy. What's your take on the minimum wage (poll coming)?
You're working under the assumption that the minimum wage is intended to be a living wage -- it was not created as such. If you want to set up a living wage, that's a completely different discussion.

Name ONE....just ONE....any ONE...time in the history of minimum wage when raising it cost jobs. Name ONE...just ONE...any ONE...time in the history of minimum wage when the economy suffered.

If you would do economics you would know its almost impossible to say. There are hundreds of factors involving growth and employment, as the number of workers in the minimum wage bracket is a small percent thus no figure could give a direct cause and effect relationship on the success or failure of a minimum wage.

But to put the arguement into perspective. If minimum wage is what you need to create growth and prosperity why don't you tell all the people in bangladesh to unionize and demand a good minimum wage and see how a much weaker economy deals with it.

Name ONE....just ONE....any ONE...time in the history of minimum wage when raising it cost jobs. Name ONE...just ONE...any ONE...time in the history of minimum wage when the economy suffered.

I always hate it whn I set myself up to be turned into a idot and I don't think you will like it either.

Please, look above, I am trying to find the linky, if Wall Street has a back edition thing on their webpage.

The pie story is pretty hilarious. As has been pointed out, while you may get more people buying pies, you're actually just buying your own pies because you gave them the money in the first place. I am prepared to believe that there will be a short-term economic boost - lots of seductive economic ideas involve short-term benefits that get negated (or worse) later on - but it can't possibly work out better overall because the sums just don't add up that way.


Here's a useful piece of knowledge that will help anyone trying to work out the economic benefits of any action. If an action increases production or reduces waste, then overall wealth will increase. If it reduces production or increases waste, then overall wealth will decrease. This is self-evident, because when you take a complete economy, wealth = production - waste. Wealth is simply the consumption and use of what we have created.

This is why we know that increasing the velocity of money (i.e. allowing it to be spent more often) will not make anyone any wealthier at all - it has no effect on production. If you double the velocity then twice as much money is being spent in a given period on the same amount of production. Money will be worth half as much and so the price of everything will double through inflation, and you'll be no better off - you'll just have horrific inflation.

Incidentally, the "invested money is uselessly stored" theory is also completely wrong. Invested money is invested into companies, which are using the money as capital in order to build business and create more wealth. Even if it was just hidden under the bed, then, with the velocity of money correspondingly decreasing, you would get deflation (or less inflation), and everyone else's money would be worth more.

These are all medium- and long-term effects. Economics works that way, and you have to act with your eye on these rather than on the short term, or you will quickly dig yourself into a hole.



And one final point to whoever gave their potted history of US economics - the US economy was shafted by the early 1970s, long before right-wing economic ideas came to be widely used. The 1990s were a huge long period of prosperity for America as well. I really don't know where your ideas come from.

If you would do economics you would know its almost impossible to say. There are hundreds of factors involving growth and employment, as the number of workers in the minimum wage bracket is a small percent thus no figure could give a direct cause and effect relationship on the success or failure of a minimum wage.

But to put the arguement into perspective. If minimum wage is what you need to create growth and prosperity why don't you tell all the people in bangladesh to unionize and demand a good minimum wage and see how a much weaker economy deals with it.

Sure there are a lot of factors, but obviously you can't find and exception to the min. wage factor.

I don't know about Bengladesh but I understand that India is increasing minimum wage and is experiencing the best economics in their history to the point where it is challenging the caste system.

Name ONE....just ONE....any ONE...time in the history of minimum wage when raising it cost jobs. Name ONE...just ONE...any ONE...time in the history of minimum wage when the economy suffered.

I didn't find a lot of historical data regarding economic indicators and the minimum wage, but when it was raised to $4.25 in 1991, the unemployment rate swung up sharply:

http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/em165/images/unemployment.gif
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

If living on welfare is such a fun time, why don't you give it a shot?

Because I acknowledge that hard-working tax payers are the ones who are going to be footing the bill for the people on welfare, and I don't want to put an additional burden on them.

Sure there are a lot of factors, but obviously you can't find and exception to the min. wage factor.

I don't know about Bengladesh but I understand that India is increasing minimum wage and is experiencing the best economics in their history to the point where it is challenging the caste system.

Correlation =/= Causation.

Counter-theory (not necessarily my philosophy): India's getting a business boost because of cheap labor => state of economy goes up => lower castes challenge upper castes => India's government raises minimum wage to temper growth rate of lower castes => businesses less willing to do business at higher wages => state of economy goes back down to original level.

However, it's not the gas that is a problem; it's the other things like rent, food, utilities etc. that eat away at its purchasing power. However, it would make more sense to provide people with more financial aid and thereby expand their opportunity to get their GED, go to college and get a useful education so they don't have to earn minimum wage; that makes more sense than increasing the price floor for labor and forcing employers to pay more for work that wouldn't be justified by the market for other occupations.

Not to mention that gas isn't always what makes for transport costs.

In NYC low wage earners (and a good many mid-wage earners) don't get around by car. It's a hastle. But for subway riders transportation costs have doubled in the last 10 years. Wages have most definitly not kept track... No pun intended.

Sure there are a lot of factors, but obviously you can't find and exception to the min. wage factor.

I don't know about Bengladesh but I understand that India is increasing minimum wage and is experiencing the best economics in their history to the point where it is challenging the caste system.

Well A: India was doing at its best before min. wage and is still doing good while min wage is low. Saying "it is about to increase" the min wage because that is keeping the economy going is so moronic that I have half a mind to stop discussing with you.

Sadly, I won't, India has had a 100%+ increase in its overall economy, to increase its minium wage by a 1% or 2 doesn't mean that India is even remotely encouraging minium wage, it just says that it is conceding the fact because it wants the goodwill of the small .1% of incorrect hobos who have not been able to attend colleges and go over to America like their brothers and sisters have. Those guys just want some more money so they can be "successful" to; India is in no way going to go so overboard on min. wage as America has.

A-ha! Found it!

From the Economic Policy Institute (http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_livingwage_livingwagefaq):
How is the minimum wage different from a living wage?
The federal minimum wage is the minimum amount that a worker can be paid an hour (currently $5.15) and applies to almost all workers. States may also set a minimum wage that is higher than the federal minimum. Living wages commonly refer to wages set by local ordinances that cover a specific set of workers, usually government workers or workers hired by businesses that have received a government contract or subsidy. A "living wage" is a also term often used by advocates to point out that the federal minimum wage is not high enough to support a family.

Begoner21;11665453']I didn't find a lot of historical data regarding economic indicators and the minimum wage, but when it was raised to $4.25 in 1991, the unemployment rate swung up sharply:

http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/em165/images/unemployment.gif
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

In 1991 Bush Sr. was president. The min wage (if I remember correctly) wasn't raised until the Clinton administration. If you will remember the economy started to go up and the government started collecting enough taxes to project paying off the National Debt. Then of course it has been froze during the GW administration and the economy has gone flat, and we all know about the National Debt.

Begoner21;11665453']I didn't find a lot of historical data regarding economic indicators and the minimum wage, but when it was raised to $4.25 in 1991, the unemployment rate swung up sharply:

http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/em165/images/unemployment.gif
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

Unemployment was on a tremendous upswing during Bush senior's policy of Reaganomics, which slowed down and then reversed after the minimum wage was increased and Clinton came into office. Do you not know how to read a graph?

Why is it that half the time when conservatives try to provide data backing up their claims the data actually refutes them?

In 1991 Bush Sr. was president. The min wage (if I remember correctly) wasn't raised until the Clinton administration. If you will remember the economy started to go up and the government started collecting enough taxes to project paying off the National Debt. Then of course it has been froze during the GW administration and the economy has gone flat, and we all know about the National Debt.

No, it was raised in 1991 (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html). As for the rest of it, that's some spin you put on that ball. It missed the batter and headed for first base.

Unemployment was on a tremendous upswing during Bush senior's policy of Reaganomics...

That's the problem with providing data that proves that raising the minimum wage raises unemployment. You say that it was Reaganomics which caused that upswing in unemployment and I say it was the 1991 minimum wage raising. There is no concrete way to show it one way or the other -- the closest thing to proof is common fucking sense. Use your mind -- are companies going to hire more people or fire more people if it costs more to keep them on? Seriously.

Correlation =/= Causation.

Counter-theory (not necessarily my philosophy): India's getting a business boost because of cheap labor => state of economy goes up => lower castes challenge upper castes => India's government raises minimum wage to temper growth rate of lower castes => businesses less willing to do business at higher wages => state of economy goes back down to original level.

So, where is the exception to the original challenge. Show a time when Min. wage hurt the economy.

In NYC low wage earners (and a good many mid-wage earners) don't get around by car. It's a hastle. But for subway riders transportation costs have doubled in the last 10 years. Wages have most definitly not kept track... No pun intended.

Well no duh; it's New York where the office space is so out of ack that it costs almost 125USDs just to get 1 square foot. That is pathetic, I don't want to give you a shock so you kneel over and die but NY is overpacked and crowded. Nothing will fix anything there until some people move away or the housing bubble finally bursts. (Commerical is always a year or two behind residental.)

This is one of the beter arguements for raising or at least keeping the minium wage. Yet I want everyone to read this section of a understanbly wrong poster and instead turn ourselves to Chicago......

Now, those not familiar with the situation should try and listen to this, The Wall Street Journal ran a few editorials on it but sadly I doubt any newspaper can keep one subject "interesting" fo more than 4 or 5 articles. The story goes that Chicago raised its minium wage thinking that it would help poor people and whatnot; of course that doesn't happen an big box stores that sell a lot of stuff cheaper than the mom and pop operations have to leave. Stranding the now jobless and increased living cost people deep in the iner city while the box stores happily live out in the subabrs. Moral of the story: Minium Wage doesn't work.

I will try to get a link up with the editorials....

Forget the editorials, especially from the Wall Street Journal. Try data.

Wall Street Journal ran editorials saying that unemployment was really high in Clinton's term of office and much lower in Bush's which indicates that Bush's economic policies are superior. What they didn't make a big deal about is that they were pointing to the numbers when these presidents came into office. i.e. when they inhereted their predecessors numbers. i.e. they blamed Clinton for Bush Senior's numbers and credited Bush Jr. with Clinton's numbers. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page is second in hackiness only to FOX's "hard" news.

and we all know about the National Debt.

Yes, the liberal media has told us all about the national debt. What it hasn't told us is that the national debt is lower now than it was in the Clinton years as a percentage of our GDP, which is the only thing that matters.

So, where is the exception to the original challenge. Show a time when Min. wage hurt the economy.

In Chicago they did and all the big box stores went bye bye, now guess who gets hurt the most? The people who shop at Prada (the people who increased minium wage) or the people who shop at Target and Wal-Mart?

So, where is the exception to the original challenge. Show a time when Min. wage hurt the economy.

I didn't say it does -- read it before you pounce on me. I was challenging the logic of his argument because he was using the correlation of raising minimum wage while the economy is on an upswing to infer a causal relationship.

I don't think minimum wage hurts the economy and I've never said that. What I said was that a government could raise it because THEY hope it would hurt the economy.

Economic actions frequently take several years to have an effect. Moreoever, unemployment levels are affected by a huge number of factors, not just minimum wage laws. In fact, the wages are at a fairly low and constant level between 1985 and 1996 (the right hand column being the important one), so I doubt that they were having a huge effect on those figures.

Looking at a graph and then one set of figures isn't going to get us very far in either direction.

Forget the editorials, especially from the Wall Street Journal. Try data.

Wall Street Journal ran editorials saying that unemployment was really high in Clinton's term of office and much lower in Bush's which indicates that Bush's economic policies are superior. What they didn't make a big deal about is that they were pointing to the numbers when these presidents came into office. i.e. when they inhereted their predecessors numbers. i.e. they blamed Clinton for Bush Senior's numbers and credited Bush Jr. with Clinton's numbers. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page is second in hackiness only to FOX's "hard" news.

Bah, Wall Street uses enough graphs to make anyone happy, just of course, not you. They have always consistently gotten both parties to contribute something to their editorial section and if you don't belive me go over to Chicago and see where all the Wal-Mart stores went. Honestly, go find a webpage or GoogleEarth and look for one.

The real problem is that the uppermost 25 to 30% of payroll (such as to CEO and Board of Directors) needs to be reclassified as a distribution of PROFIT and thus taxed rather than treated as a business expense.
That minor alteration would decrease the attempts of corporations to achieve slave labor and increase tax revenue by hundreds of trillions of dollars per day.

Begoner21;11665527']Yes, the liberal media has told us all about the national debt. What it hasn't told us is that the national debt is lower now than it was in the Clinton years as a percentage of our GDP, which is the only thing that matters.

At the end of Clinton's presidenc, the national debt constituted about 60% of the GDP. As percentage of GDP, it has been INCREASING NON-STOP since George W. Bush took office.

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

The information you provide in your quote is a flat-out lie, on which all conservative economics are based.

You are a liar and a manipulator. Notice thtat during the Bush Sr.-Reagan years, the debt did not decrease AT ANY POINT as a percentance of GDP. Under Cliton, it did. Under W. Bush, it has NOT STOPPED INCREASING.

These are the facts. Stop lying to promote a faulty agenda. This country is better than that.

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

Liberal media, indeed.

AIM- ChrisRay6000

Well no duh; it's New York where the office space is so out of ack that it costs almost 125USDs just to get 1 square foot. That is pathetic, I don't want to give you a shock so you kneel over and die but NY is overpacked and crowded. Nothing will fix anything there until some people move away or the housing bubble finally bursts. (Commerical is always a year or two behind residental.)

The funny thing is that with a little planning it would be a lot cheaper and easier to live in NYC than most other places. Transportation costs could be practially nothing.

New York real estate isn't expensive because a lot of people live there. It's expensive because the rich people live in the same area as the poor and because developers and speculators keep the prices artificially high. You have the same thing a few miles out on Long Island where the population is much more spread out, but 3 bedroom houses that don't really look very nice are selling for over a million dollars. The poor can't compete. Especially since it isn't like in Balitmore where rich people are happy living walking distance away from a slum.

The only thing that makes NYC adjacent housing affordable to New York working class people is the stigma attached to living in New Jersey, where my friend who works for UPS works delivering packages in Manhattan (on foot) recently bought a house.

No, it was raised in 1991 (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html). As for the rest of it, that's some spin you put on that ball. It missed the batter and headed for first base.
You are correct. Well actually it was 1990. It was $3.35 for so long it seemed like forever. That's when inflation made it so far below the poverty level.

Abolish it.

Bah, Wall Street uses enough graphs to make anyone happy, just of course, not you. They have always consistently gotten both parties to contribute something to their editorial section and if you don't belive me go over to Chicago and see where all the Wal-Mart stores went. Honestly, go find a webpage or GoogleEarth and look for one.

But the editorial pages distort the message in those graphs for readers who don't understand them.

Like (I think it was) Begoner who pointed to a graph that according to him said that an increase in the minimum wage raised the unemployment rate, when the graph clearly said that an upwards trend in the unemployment rate existed before the wage-hike, but turned around after the minimum wage hike was instituted.

Begoner, and the Wall Street Journal editorial pages, misinterpret hard data to further their agenda, but must lie to do so.

As for Wal-marts leaving. That's a good thing. I'm not going to get into all the reasons why here, but in short, Wal-mart shows up, puts all the small businesses out of business, sends all the town's money to Alabama, then no one can afford to shop at wal-mart, or find a job anywhere other than walmart, then you really have that "buying yor own pies" scenario mentioned earlier in the thread. Then the Wal-mart's close down.

Then again, they also close them out of spite because the one thing walmart wants more than money is control.

just for reference:


January 1981 $3.35
April 1990 $3.80
April 1991 $4.25
October 1996 $4.75
September 1997 $5.15

I didn't say it does -- read it before you pounce on me. I was challenging the logic of his argument because he was using the correlation of raising minimum wage while the economy is on an upswing to infer a causal relationship.

I don't think minimum wage hurts the economy and I've never said that. What I said was that a government could raise it because THEY hope it would hurt the economy.

Look at Begoner's graph.
http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/em165/images/unemployment.gif

The economy was showing a bad trend (unemployment going up). Minimum wage was increased. The trend changed. Unemployment was still going up, it had momentum, but then it turned around. Minimum wage was raised when things were going from bad to worse. Then things went from worse, to less worse.

And that was approaching a Presidential transition, which tends to make the economy a bit shakey because of market uncertainty.

Begoner21;11665527']Yes, the liberal media has told us all about the national debt. What it hasn't told us is that the national debt is lower now than it was in the Clinton years as a percentage of our GDP, which is the only thing that matters.

Well it hasn't told us that because it isn't true. But someone else has already handed you your correction on that.

I'd like to point out that if there was ever any case to be made for the "liberal media" myth, it died after CBS pulled the Ronald Reagan biopic because conservatives didn't like it, even though it was fairly flattering, but ABC insists on airing a "docudrama" claiming to be the Official True Story even though it is based on a work of fiction by a Bush PR hack.

There is no liberal media. There is the Conservative media which is somewhat beholden to reality, and there is the Right-wing media which, in 10 years, will be rerun on the Sci-fi channel.

Cthulhu-Mythos;11665571']The real problem is that the uppermost 25 to 30% of payroll (such as to CEO and Board of Directors) needs to be reclassified as a distribution of PROFIT and thus taxed rather than treated as a business expense.
That minor alteration would decrease the attempts of corporations to achieve slave labor and increase tax revenue by hundreds of trillions of dollars per day.

If someone is doing work, they should be paid for it like anyone else, surely? And it is therefore a business expense?

I also think it would make absolutely no difference at all to the wish for companies to make money.

Look at Begoner's graph.
http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/em165/images/unemployment.gif

The economy was showing a bad trend (unemployment going up). Minimum wage was increased. The trend changed. Unemployment was still going up, it had momentum, but then it turned around. Minimum wage was raised when things were going from bad to worse. Then things went from worse, to less worse.

And that was approaching a Presidential transition, which tends to make the economy a bit shakey because of market uncertainty.
LOL, you're preaching to the choir, I agree that raising the minimum wage doesn't hurt the overall economy. But showing a graph and comparing it to another isn't proof.

Raising the minimum wage forces unskilled workers wages up, raising their buying power. Labor unions, who have a vested interest in the differential between skilled and unskilled wages, use the minimum wage hike to justify raising wages in their contract. (My union did exactly that after the mimimum wage hike of 1996.) This raises union workers buying power. This rise in savings, investment, and consumption stimulate the growth of industry due to the multiplier effect more than enough to offset the decline in funds availability caused by the original wage hike.

There's a cause and effect. No graphs except yours to illustrate the argument. But not to prove it.

EDIT: Yes, I know I neglected non-union skilled workers, but the argument still holds even without including them.

LOL, you're preaching to the choir, I agree that raising the minimum wage doesn't hurt the overall economy. But showing a graph and comparing it to another isn't proof.

Raising the minimum wage forces unskilled workers wages up, raising their buying power. Labor unions, who have a vested interest in the differential between skilled and unskilled wages, use the minimum wage hike to justify raising wages in their contract. (My union did exactly that after the mimimum wage hike of 1996.) This raises union workers buying power. This rise in savings, investment, and consumption stimulate the growth of industry due to the multiplier effect more than enough to offset the decline in funds availability caused by the original wage hike.

There's a cause and effect. No graphs except yours to illustrate the argument. But not to prove it.

EDIT: Yes, I know I neglected non-union skilled workers, but the argument still holds even without including them.

"Multiplier effect"? What would that be?

Also, if you think about it, there is no extra money being spent in this scenario. It is just different people spending it. The economy will therefore not actually be stimulated any more in the end. It is just a redistribution.

In any case, "stimulation" is an effect where money is invested in order to get people off the dole and into work, thereby increasing production (and therefore wealth). If you already have high employment, stimulation just caused inflation. It cannot create growth beyond the current economic capacity of the system.

Of course we should raise the minimum wage. You can't exactly survive on $5.15 an hour. Give these people more money and the economy can only improve.

LOL, you're preaching to the choir, I agree that raising the minimum wage doesn't hurt the overall economy. But showing a graph and comparing it to another isn't proof.

Raising the minimum wage forces unskilled workers wages up, raising their buying power. Labor unions, who have a vested interest in the differential between skilled and unskilled wages, use the minimum wage hike to justify raising wages in their contract. (My union did exactly that after the mimimum wage hike of 1996.) This raises union workers buying power. This rise in savings, investment, and consumption stimulate the growth of industry due to the multiplier effect more than enough to offset the decline in funds availability caused by the original wage hike.

There's a cause and effect. No graphs except yours to illustrate the argument. But not to prove it.

EDIT: Yes, I know I neglected non-union skilled workers, but the argument still holds even without including them.


I just had to point it out again that Right wingers are self refuting :)

"Multiplier effect"? What would that be?

Ahem: (source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplier_effect)) "In economics, a multiplier effect – or, more completely, the spending/income multiplier effect – occurs when a change in spending causes a disproportionate change in aggregate demand. It is particularly associated with Keynesian economics; some other schools of economic thought reject or downplay the importance of multiplier effects particularly in the long run."

Also, if you think about it, there is no extra money being spent in this scenario. It is just different people spending it. The economy will therefore not actually be stimulated any more in the end. It is just a redistribution.
Not true, the money supply actually increases when the people invest it, or even just put it in the bank. (source (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/MoneySupply.html)) "Because money is used in virtually all economic transactions, it has a powerful effect on economic activity. An increase in the supply of money puts more money in the hands of consumers, making them feel wealthier, thus stimulating increased spending. Business firms respond to increased sales by ordering more raw materials and increasing production. The spread of business activity increases the demand for labor and raises the demand for capital goods. In a buoyant economy, stock market prices rise and firms issue equity and debt. If the money supply continues to expand, prices begin to rise, especially if output growth reaches capacity limits. As the public begins to expect inflation, lenders insist on higher interest rates to offset an expected decline in purchasing power over the life of their loans."

In any case, "stimulation" is an effect where money is invested in order to get people off the dole and into work, thereby increasing production (and therefore wealth). If you already have high employment, stimulation just caused inflation. It cannot create growth beyond the current economic capacity of the system.
I follow your logic, I just respectfully disagree with your conclusion, sir.

"Multiplier effect"? What would that be?

Also, if you think about it, there is no extra money being spent in this scenario. It is just different people spending it. The economy will therefore not actually be stimulated any more in the end. It is just a redistribution.

In any case, "stimulation" is an effect where money is invested in order to get people off the dole and into work, thereby increasing production (and therefore wealth). If you already have high employment, stimulation just caused inflation. It cannot create growth beyond the current economic capacity of the system.

Why oh why do you anti minimum wage people keep trying to defend what you think should be true, but isn't?

Different places is a stimulation of the economy. Business exists to get money out of the poor and into the rich. The more hands it has to go through to get there, the better for everyone, but to the frustration of the rich. If the rich already have all the money then there isn't going to be any investment.

Right wingers keep saying that the more money the rich have, the more they'll invest. But that's not true. They only invest where they see a capacity for a payoff, and if the market isn't demanding then there will be no investment. If there is demand and the rich don't have quite enough money, then they'll borrow because they know they'll pay it off and make big profits. The need for supply side economics, that right-wingers posit, doesn't exist. And if it did exist, supply side economics wouldn't satisfy that need.

Supply side economics is like masturbating with premature ejaculation. Sure it's the quickest way to get your payoff, but in the end it's really unsatisfying, pisses off those who are in it with you, and leaves you all alone with nothing to do.

I just had to point it out again that Right wingers are self refuting :)

Yeah, I know. Just trying to keep us honest. :cool: Don't want you-know-who to come out of the far right corner of the universe and smack us down on a technicality. :D

If not for minimum wage, what would I have? Well... I would be dead. As a minimum wage worker in America, I am lucky when I make $700 a month, which is just barely enough to feed myself and buy gas to get to work and back. At the end of the month I have nothing left over, and if it wasn't for my grandparents letting me live with them I don't know what I would do.

Look at the ridiculous situation we have here: My hard earned tax dollars pay for the big fat business grants that my government gives to immigrants when they come to this country because we bleeding-heart Christians are just so over-anxious to help them start a new life. They don't even have to be able to ask for the grant in English, that's how easy it is for them to get it. So with their business grant that I help pay for on minimum wage, they buy up fast food and gas station franchises and hire we citizens who were born here for minimum wage, (which, since it is just enough to keep the worker perpetually in the same place, it is a slave's wages). So I work for foreigners who didn't have to do a damn thing to get their business, and now they sit at home and watch me work over cameras that are fed through the internet, just soaking up the profits of my labours. Meanwhile I am producing more income taxes to pay for more foreigners to come to my country and enslave more of my brothers.
And do you want to know the real travesty of it? When a guy like me tries to go and get a grant to go to college so that he won't have to work for minimum wage and for foreigners, they tell you that you don't qualify. I think sometimes they sit in their government offices and laugh at us.

The information you provide in your quote is a flat-out lie, on which all conservative economics are based.

Sorry, what I meant to say was that the debt increased more under Clinton than it did under Bush (136% and 132%, respectively). I got my facts mixed up -- that doesn't mean that "conservative economics" are based on lies, although I prefer the term "liberal economics" to describe my standpoint.

Look at Begoner's graph...the economy was showing a bad trend (unemployment going up). Minimum wage was increased. The trend changed.

What the hell are you talking about? The minimum wage was raised in April, 1991, which corresponded to a sharp upswing on the graph. The unemployment rate ballooned to 8% after the increase in minimum wage.

Begoner21;11665800']What the hell are you talking about? The minimum wage was raised in April, 1991, which corresponded to a sharp upswing on the graph. The unemployment rate ballooned to 8% after the increase in minimum wage.

We have to remember, though, that there were a number of extraneous factors in 1989-1992; remember that the Savings and Loan crisis, the spike in oil prices following the Gulf war, the Black Monday stock market crash, the debt crisis in Latin America and the collapse of the housing market all were causes of the severe job losses during the 1990 recession, and that trend continued well in to the 1990's at least until inflation was contained and oil prices fell in 1992/1993.

It took a long time for the economy to recover from these shocks; the effect of the minimum wage either way was entirely nonexistent. The rebound was caused more by falling interest rates, the recovery of the stock market and the rise of telecommmunications, technology, and the Internet in the early and mid 1990's. The minimum wage had no effect whatsoever on the economy's performance in 1989-1992.

Ok... Moron.
Without a minimum wage... how the hell do you expect people to make money.
Trickle-Down Policies DO NOT WORK!
Hell its obvious.
Lets make the rich even richer
and let them refuse to pay people decent money
for doing their bitch work.

Im in a labor union,
happily.
I get paid 42$/hr to cast steel.
I pay... OMG! 100$/mo in union dues.
Oh wow... big chunk from the greedy union
who gives health/dental to the whole family.

I work with company workers who make $17.75/hr because they dont wanna pay union dues.
Lol. Idiots i swear.

Without a minimum wage... how the hell do you expect people to make money..

Maybe they should get an education?

People are hiring college graduates like there's no tomorrow, and there are more benefits, more opportunities and a higher salary available in these jobs than anything at the bottom of the scale. There are plenty of opportunities and financial aid to help you to get your GED, and even an associates degree from a community college will help you earn 3-4 times the amount you'd make at McDonald's.

There is financial aid available for those who have the grades to get in to college, and the government has a lot of programs to help people get a better education...if you put in the effort, you will be rewarded. It's hard work, but the effort is definitely preferable to living paycheck to paycheck in a dead end minimum wage job.

Ok... Moron.
Without a minimum wage... how the hell do you expect people to make money.
Trickle-Down Policies DO NOT WORK!
Hell its obvious.
Lets make the rich even richer
and let them refuse to pay people decent money
for doing their bitch work.

Im in a labor union,
happily.
I get paid 42$/hr to cast steel.
I pay... OMG! 100$/mo in union dues.
Oh wow... big chunk from the greedy union
who gives health/dental to the whole family.

I work with company workers who make $17.75/hr because they dont wanna pay union dues.
Lol. Idiots i swear.

So is that why the steel industry is facing the biggest roll backs ever? I honestly couldn't understand why the jobs were being sent elsewhere.... Hmm... Now I know. What honest buisness is going to be spending that much (600$ a week, 5 days a week, 6 hours a day) with dental on such a low capitalization but heavy on the labor industry.

Sometimes, its not all about you. Economy goes in ups and downs, yet the trickle down effect is obviously working in South Korea with massive gains are getting to the workers. To bad no "gains" period are happening anywhere. First our majestic airlines are now reduced to nickel and diming you to death and only go to main hubs.

Guess why? A air pilot gets over 100000$ a year. How do you make a profit that way? Because uniouns and there efforts to make more money, make themselves before anybody else. Much less the people they should be serving, the consumer.

How do yo uexpect to pay for an education when you cant make money to pay for it?

As for whatever that person said about me being wrong that trickle down doesnt work...

South Korea has a grip on their economy. Its not so free-enterprise like the US is so the corporate fat cats can just keep their money and send their jobs to korea so people can work for shit/hour

How do yo uexpect to pay for an education when you cant make money to pay for it?

As for whatever that person said about me being wrong that trickle down doesnt work...

South Korea has a grip on their economy. Its not so free-enterprise like the US is so the corporate fat cats can just keep their money and send their jobs to korea so people can work for shit/hour

America has ceased being a free-enterprise economy long ago. Being free actually means "free". Not free as in "Need to pay people certain amount, haveto file such and such each month, must not pay yourself to much, must meet certain guidlines," ect ect.

Where are all the so-called "conservative christians"? I guess it's praise god and screw the poor and the weak.

What a religion the conservatives follow!!

How do yo uexpect to pay for an education when you cant make money to pay for it?

Financial aid. The kind of money you can get for education is more than enough to pay your way, especially if you combine it with interest-free loans, tax credits for education, and the opportunity to waive part of your college costs if you join the military.

It's not easy, but you can do it.

South Korea has a grip on their economy. Its not so free-enterprise like the US is so the corporate fat cats can just keep their money and send their jobs to korea so people can work for shit/hour

So does the US...do you really think that we keep all those farmers in business because demand for our crops is high? Don't forget that we also refuse to raise fuel economy standards as a handout to the automotive industry, and our 5th fleet is used to secure oil exports from the Persian Gulf . You might add in the subsidies and tariffs for lumber producers, commerical fisheries, offshore oil and gas producers and steel mills.

The US has billions in subsidies handed out to our corporations to give them an advantage over foreign competition...we're not the victim here by any stretch.

The simple fact is that economics is not a science.

It is impossible to conduct a controlled experiment in an economic system. There are way too many variables to control to actually prove any economic hypothesis. All we can do is look at statistics and try to reason why they are what they are. Arguements must be evaluated based on their logic first, and how they relate to statistics second. Economic statistics are affected by countless different factors, and one must be careful not to single out any one of them just to support a philisophical arguemnet. More often than not, you will miss the big picture and have convinced noone.

Where are all the so-called "conservative christians"? I guess it's praise god and screw the poor and the weak.

What a religion the conservatives follow!!


They worship the great god Mahr-Khet, whose force makes sure that all money ends up in the hands of those who deserve it, unless they're engaged in a business that white protestants don't want to try to become competative in. I think it's an Egyptian diety. The one with the head of a Bull. His head has a halo which, unlike most halos that symbolize the sun, symbolizes the shape of his logic.

Ok... Moron.
Without a minimum wage... how the hell do you expect people to make money.
Trickle-Down Policies DO NOT WORK!
Hell its obvious.
Lets make the rich even richer
and let them refuse to pay people decent money
for doing their bitch work.

Im in a labor union,
happily.
I get paid 42$/hr to cast steel.
I pay... OMG! 100$/mo in union dues.
Oh wow... big chunk from the greedy union
who gives health/dental to the whole family.

I work with company workers who make $17.75/hr because they dont wanna pay union dues.
Lol. Idiots i swear.


Commie. :D

Begoner21;11665800']What the hell are you talking about? The minimum wage was raised in April, 1991, which corresponded to a sharp upswing on the graph. The unemployment rate ballooned to 8% after the increase in minimum wage.

Upswing means that it was descending before the wage hike and then went up or "swung" around.

You posted a graphy which showed unemployment going up before, and shortly after, the wage hike.

You're interpretation of the graph:
"Unemployment was going up. Then they raised the minimum wage. That cause unemployment to go up. What do you mean "what about before that?"? I'm talking about the wage hike and onwards. I don't care about information that disproves my hypothesis."

My interpretation:
Unemployment was going up before the minimum wage was raised. Therefore the wage hike can't be said to have caused the increase in unemployment. The graph doesn't prove that the wage hike helped reduce unemployment afterwards, but it's entirely plausible that failing businesses continued to add to the unemployment numbers until the working class was able to benifit from the wage hike to the point that their spending habits could improve reviving the business sector. Then businesses had to start hiring people to meet the increased demand resulting in the long downward trend in unemployment figures.

It could also be argued that the only reason that unemployment numbers dropped was because people's unemployment benifits ran out and they dropped off the unemployment charts. But other economic indicators of the early 90's make this unlikely.

They worship the great god Mahr-Khet, whose force makes sure that all money ends up in the hands of those who deserve it, unless they're engaged in a business that white protestants don't want to try to become competative in. I think it's an Egyptian diety. The one with the head of a Bull. His head has a halo which, unlike most halos that symbolize the sun, symbolizes the shape of his logic.

I would have said they worship at the altar of Oil (how the hell do you make this one a God?)...after all, there is nothing more inimical to the lifestyle "conservative Christians" than having their precious oil cut off.

That might force them to commit the most grievous of sins: conservation (or that which shall not be named), recycling and cutting back on wasteful consumption. After all, America was chosen by God so we can do whatever the hell we want as part of our God-given right to burn oil and cut down forests...and by doing so, we get the side benefit of hastening the Second Coming.

It could also be argued that the only reason that unemployment numbers dropped was because people's unemployment benifits ran out and they dropped off the unemployment charts. But other economic indicators of the early 90's make this unlikely.

Not really; both the participation rate and the employment-population ratio increased along with the fall in unemployment from mid-1992 onwards.

That means that the bulk of unemployment decline came from more jobs being created; the rising participation rate means more people are in the labor force as a percentage of total working-age population, and the rising E-P ratio is a sign that jobs are being created faster than the growth in the population so more unemployed people are absorbed along with new entrants to the labor force.

The economic argument against the minimum wage makes sense to me, but I said I was in favour of keeping it the same.

To some of you that probably seems like a contradiction, but I can assure you it's not.

The simple fact is that regardless of its economic justification, I believe that abolishing the minimum wage is a political fight that cannot be won.

For starters, it's called the "minimum wage". It's similar to arguing against "this bill is compassionate and anyone who is against it is a selfish jerk" legislation. It doesn't matter if you're right. It matters how many you can convince, and I believe that the average person is not intelligent enough to understand the economic rational behind abolition and the inevitable dichotomy created by a price floor such as this.

I'd rather just ignore the issue and let inflation erode its effect into insignificance.

I have never been paid minimum wage. Even when I was paid above minimum wage it was still not a living wage. Nor should it have been. I was just trying to cover the cost of my books and tuition.

I have said several times before that a raise in minimum wage would not benefit enough of the workforce because only 2.4% are paid minimum wage. Most of those are below the age of 25 and it's usually an entry level wage for grunt work. The minimum wage is not meant to be a living wage. A raise wouldn't cripple the economy and drive up prices on all goods, but it wouldn't encourage growth either and it wouldn't benefit enough people to be worth it.

New Domici, you mentioned in your first post that cities and states that raised their min. wage experienced economic growth, vast prosperity, warm fuzzies, and the like. Would you please provide examples. With numbers so that we can see just what happened. And please show any other factors that may have been an influence.

Minimum wage is awesome.I choose to earn min wage, thats how cool it is.:cool:

Unfortunatly these modern monterist seem to have forgotton about the Guilded Age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilded_Age) when companies had an influx of cheap labor from europe. Unfourntatly this had the effect of depress wages and keeping most of the workers as poor as possible. While industrial growth was hgh most people could afford little.The same thing will happen now if you abolish the minimum wage.

Remeber this: When the workers got tired of the ill treatment they threw their sabots in to the machine. Hence the term sabotage.

Ok... Moron.
Without a minimum wage... how the hell do you expect people to make money.
Trickle-Down Policies DO NOT WORK!
Hell its obvious.
Lets make the rich even richer
and let them refuse to pay people decent money
for doing their bitch work.

Im in a labor union,
happily.
I get paid 42$/hr to cast steel.
I pay... OMG! 100$/mo in union dues.
Oh wow... big chunk from the greedy union
who gives health/dental to the whole family.

I work with company workers who make $17.75/hr because they dont wanna pay union dues.
Lol. Idiots i swear.

Where are all the so-called "conservative christians"? I guess it's praise god and screw the poor and the weak.

What a religion the conservatives follow!!

Most of the people have forgotton what it was to be extremly poor and what their(and my) grand and great-grand parents had to fight for so that they could live better lives. I would love to able to join a union but I live in a "right-to work" state (GA) which people can pay you next to nothing. BTW in the Atlanta region the lowest rent is $500-600 a month. Most places require you to earn 3 times the rent.($1500-1800)

$5.15*40*4=824 -23%(17+6)= $624
$7.00*40*4=1120-23%=$862
$8.00*40*4=1280-23%=$984
$9.00*40*4=1440-23%=$1108
$10.00*40*4=1600-25%=$1200
$11.00*40*4=1760-25%=$1320
$12.00*40*4=1960-25%=$1440
$13.00*40*4=2080-25%=$1560

Most jobs in GA start you between $7-9 an hour their are few that are $10 and none above that. Even with a degree you will start out in the low range and in this state there is very little advancement because of the high level of low wage labour from Mexico.
BTW You have to also include Utilities which in Ga are high. Car,Food,Clothing.

I suggest a minimum wage of at least $10 an hour and a living wage of at least $12.50 in more expensive areas.

BTW in the Atlanta region the lowest rent is $500-600 a month. Most places require you to earn 3 times the rent.($1500-1800)...


Most jobs in GA start you between $7-9 an hour their are few that are $10 and none above that. Even with a degree you will start out in the low range and in this state there is very little advancement because of the high level of low wage labour from Mexico.
BTW You have to also include Utilities which in Ga are high. Car,Food,Clothing.

I suggest a minimum wage of at least $10 an hour and a living wage of at least $12.50 in more expensive areas.

This whole post has a hole big enough to drive a truck thru it. Lets see. Noone in the state of GA makes over $10/hr yet the state doesnt have a 100% home vacancy rate because by the authors own math noone who lives in the state of GA can afford to live in them. I call Bullshit.

This whole post has a hole big enough to drive a truck thru it. Lets see. Noone in the state of GA makes over $10/hr yet the state doesnt have a 100% home vacancy rate because by the authors own math noone who lives in the state of GA can afford to live in them. I call Bullshit.

Yeah cause most people work two jobs or have two income families. Duh! :headbang: I never said their were no jobs I said only a few jobs start above $9 an hour. sheesh Trust me I have lived here for 25 years. It's a two class town.

Raise it.


when people have more money to spend, the economy does better.

when people spend 100% of their income on necessities, the economy does worse.

rather simple.

raise minimum wage, and people will have more money to spend, and the economy does better.

abolosh minimum wage, and people will work for little more than they can spend for food, and stores that sell nonessentials will go out of business because disposable income will disappear.


putting a minimum wage in place is the best thing that can happen to the economy, because with no minimum wage, half the businesses in the nation would die when people don't have anything left to spend.

. It's a two class town.

I assume one of the 2 classes is making more then $10/hr despite what you keep insisting.

Begoner21;11665797']Sorry, what I meant to say was that the debt increased more under Clinton than it did under Bush (136% and 132%, respectively). I got my facts mixed up -- that doesn't mean that "conservative economics" are based on lies, although I prefer the term "liberal economics" to describe my standpoint.

What a load of CRAP. You knew exactly what you wanted to say, it's just that you wanted to say was total, undiluted lying BULL. Here's what you said:

"Yes, the liberal media has told us all about the national debt. What it hasn't told us is that the national debt is lower now than it was in the Clinton years as a percentage of our GDP, which is the only thing that matters."

There is NO WAY you mistook that for what you actually "wanted" to say. You just got called on your bullshit. You clearly say you meant percentage of GDP. Also, your reply is just some more bullshit. Classic!!!:D

The economic argument against the minimum wage makes sense to me, but I said I was in favour of keeping it the same.

To some of you that probably seems like a contradiction, but I can assure you it's not.

The simple fact is that regardless of its economic justification, I believe that abolishing the minimum wage is a political fight that cannot be won.

For starters, it's called the "minimum wage". It's similar to arguing against "this bill is compassionate and anyone who is against it is a selfish jerk" legislation. It doesn't matter if you're right. It matters how many you can convince, and I believe that the average person is not intelligent enough to understand the economic rational behind abolition and the inevitable dichotomy created by a price floor such as this.

I'd rather just ignore the issue and let inflation erode its effect into insignificance.


That's why Conservatives put so much effort into renaming everything. Even accusing the Democrats of creating the original name as propaganda (they always accuse the democrats of doing whatever it is they're in the middle of doing).

Bill Frist accused the Democrats of coining the term "Nuclear Option," to make it scarey, when he himself was instrumental in coining the term because he thought it would make the Republicans sound tough. He claimed that the real name was, and had always been, "THE Constitutional Option," which by inference means that other options are unconstitutional.

When Bush was peddling his efforts to destroy social security for once and for all he came up with the term "private accounts." Then they realized that it wasn't testing well, so they called it "personal accounts," and then accused the media of demonstrating a liberal bias for using the poorly testing phrase "private accounts."

And of course, there's the prime example. Renaming the "estate tax" the "death tax."

Republicans are masters of controling the thoughts of conservative voters through the power of NewSpeak.

British Government doesn't really follow its own minimum wage laws anyway

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1466443.ece

British soldiers risk death for less than the minimum wage

British Government doesn't really follow its own minimum wage laws anyway

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1466443.ece

Well, the American conservative argument would be "why should we pay more than minimum wage to anyone so stupid and useless that they have to take a job dying that pays less than minimum wage.

The economic argument against the minimum wage makes sense to me, but I said I was in favour of keeping it the same.

I've said plenty of times in this thread that the anti-minimum wage argument makes sense. But that isn't the same as "is true."

The author Terry Pratchett has made a career out of making fun of the difference between common sense and logic.

It makes sense that the sun goes around the earth. Do you ever feel like you're being swung around like on the tilt-a-whirl at the carnival?

It makes sense that cold weather causes the flu. Why do you think we get flu shots in the winter?

It makes sense that the minimum wage will decrease the number of jobs. If employers only have so much money to pay out in wages and have to put more of it into one person, there'll be less left over for other people.

It makes sense that poor families benifit from the existence of child labor. If the father can't find work, at least little Timmy can bring in a few bucks.

But once you apply data and logic to the situation you see that
The Earth goes around the Sun.
The flu is caused by a virus.
Minimum wage hikes increase demand and stimulate the economy, producing jobs.
Abolishing child labor shrinks the labor pool making it easier for adults to find work at a living wage.

The last two are actual arguments used by the anti-labor (conservative) politicians who want to suppress the potential for political influence from the working class. The Child labor one has fallen out of favor, we can only hope that the anti-minimum wage one will follow.

Not really; both the participation rate and the employment-population ratio increased along with the fall in unemployment from mid-1992 onwards.

That means that the bulk of unemployment decline came from more jobs being created; the rising participation rate means more people are in the labor force as a percentage of total working-age population, and the rising E-P ratio is a sign that jobs are being created faster than the growth in the population so more unemployed people are absorbed along with new entrants to the labor force.

So once Clinton came into office jobs were being created faster than workers were being created to fill them, and since Bush Jr. came along the job creation rate hasn't even kept up with population growth?

I would have said they worship at the altar of Oil (how the hell do you make this one a God?)...after all, there is nothing more inimical to the lifestyle "conservative Christians" than having their precious oil cut off.

That might force them to commit the most grievous of sins: conservation (or that which shall not be named), recycling and cutting back on wasteful consumption. After all, America was chosen by God so we can do whatever the hell we want as part of our God-given right to burn oil and cut down forests...and by doing so, we get the side benefit of hastening the Second Coming.

Silly Heathen! You don't worship oil. You smear it on, or put it in, the things you do worship. That's why we put it in our cars (our other national religion), rub it on our sex toys, and our former Attorney General smeared it on himself.

Check the dictionary:
Anoint - The oiling of a king that is already sufficiently slippery.

You might have a different dictionary than me.

I voted for the last option, "Abolish it."

There is financial aid available for those who have the grades to get in to college, and the government has a lot of programs to help people get a better education...if you put in the effort, you will be rewarded. It's hard work, but the effort is definitely preferable to living paycheck to paycheck in a dead end minimum wage job.

So then how do people survive who are frankly not all that bright? Some people just arnt cut out for school. It doesnt have anything to do with being stupid or lazy nessesarily but not everyone can be a college graduate. What is societys oibligation to protect thier ability to make a survivable living?

So then how do people survive who are frankly not all that bright? Some people just arnt cut out for school. It doesnt have anything to do with being stupid or lazy nessesarily but not everyone can be a college graduate. What is societys oibligation to protect thier ability to make a survivable living?

Isn't it amazing that all of those conservatives believe in "survival of the fittest" in economics and religion but not in biology. The again, starving the weak is survival of the fittest in biology, but they don't believe it counts if nature is doing it, only if good "christians" are causing it.

Minimum wage hikes increase demand and stimulate the economy, producing jobs.
I'm confused. How does changing who gets the money affect the overall demand.

Let's say minimum wage goes from $5/hr to $6/hr.

I have $30/hr of operational time available for wages.

I originally had 6 people working at $5/hr. Now I have 5 people working at 6$/hr.

I'm still only putting $30/hr into the economy. All that is happening is that I'm getting rid of the very weakest member of my staff to pay for wage hikes for others.

In that sense, minimum wage does look out for some of the lower rungs of society, but it does so at the expense of the lowest rungs.

I wish you were right and that minimum wage really helped the poor, but I don't believe your analysis is correct.

So then how do people survive who are frankly not all that bright? Some people just arnt cut out for school. It doesnt have anything to do with being stupid or lazy nessesarily but not everyone can be a college graduate. What is societys oibligation to protect thier ability to make a survivable living?

That's not our problem...if you're not cut out for higher education, you need to find a way to support yourself through other means. If you're can't handle or don't want to do college level work, you can learn a trade or become self employed by starting your own business. For example, entry-level manufacturing positions pay quite well (up to $25/hr with benefits), have few requirements and often come with training for higher level occupations and even provide money for college. Jobs in construction and raw-materials production also pay very well; they require little education and training, and can pay over $20/hour for a skilled worker. All you have to do is be willing to work hard for long hours; it's not the best, but it's more than enough to pay for your living expenses.

Also, pretty much all high schools in the US offer vocational classes like auto repair, woodworking, and metalworking. There are other programs like administrative assistant, cosmetology, tech support, computer programming and accounting that all come with free educational aid. Even better, these jobs usually offer students employment either while they are still in school or after they graduate, and all of them pay far more than the minimum wage. If you don't want to do the work to get these jobs, you don't deserve the money and opportunities they provide. We shouldn't reward laziness with artificially high wages; there is no other justification for a capable worker not taking these opportunities than unwillingness to put in the effort.

It's unfair to everyone else to force companies to pay people artificially high wages for work that the market wouldn't value as such. A "living wage" is often at levels similar to people who put in the work to learn a trade or other vocational skill; I don't think it's justified to force companies to pay people more for work that isn't worth that amount, especially when it's at levels similar to that of people who put in the effort to learn their trade and work their way up to that position. Even worse, those higher wages are going to be reflected in higher prices paid by people who made the effort either to get an education or work their way up through experience. You don't have a right to a survivable living; it's up to you to do the work necessary to support yourself. If that means working two or three jobs, so be it.

I'm confused. How does changing who gets the money affect the overall demand.

Let's say minimum wage goes from $5/hr to $6/hr.

I have $30/hr of operational time available for wages.

I originally had 6 people working at $5/hr. Now I have 5 people working at 6$/hr.

I'm still only putting $30/hr into the economy. All that is happening is that I'm getting rid of the very weakest member of my staff to pay for wage hikes for others.

In that sense, minimum wage does look out for some of the lower rungs of society, but it does so at the expense of the lowest rungs.

I wish you were right and that minimum wage really helped the poor, but I don't believe your analysis is correct.There's another option. You raise the unit price of what you sell by a couple of pennies to offset the extra $5/hour to keep your production at the same level. You're now putting $35/hr into the economy, but more importantly, your employees (and other employees at the same income level) now have an extra dollar/hr to spend, and those dollars add up quickly at the bottom level, because those folks don't have money to save--they spend everything they have. Ideally, that will drive demand for your product, which will put more money in your pocket.

There's another option. You raise the unit price of what you sell by a couple of pennies to offset the extra $5/hour to keep your production at the same level. You're now putting $35/hr into the economy, but more importantly, your employees (and other employees at the same income level) now have an extra dollar/hr to spend, and those dollars add up quickly at the bottom level, because those folks don't have money to save--they spend everything they have. Ideally, that will drive demand for your product, which will put more money in your pocket.

No real effect in places where no one is paid the minimum wage.

I've often felt that the minimum wage is often used as an excuse by employers to justify how little they can pay you ("after all, we're paying the minimum wage!") and somehow sound proud of it.

Minimum wage should be a constantly flowing ammount based on the current costs of living in that area. If you stop to think about it if any job would provide enough income for anyone able to easily have enough to live on crime would probably go down, atleast theft and robbery. Seeing as they dont have to find other ways to get money to pay bills and other stuff. My first job for example only payed $6 an hour and if at that time I hadnt still lived with my parents I would have been living on streets as 65% of my pay went either to taxes or just food. Had I had a house payment or bills id of had to declare bankruptcy every 6 mo.

There's another option. You raise the unit price of what you sell by a couple of pennies to offset the extra $5/hour to keep your production at the same level. You're now putting $35/hr into the economy, but more importantly, your employees (and other employees at the same income level) now have an extra dollar/hr to spend, and those dollars add up quickly at the bottom level, because those folks don't have money to save--they spend everything they have. Ideally, that will drive demand for your product, which will put more money in your pocket.
But at the same time, the rise in price will cause some people (particularly the unemployed) to be unable to afford your product. On a personal level, if that were true you would have already raised prices. However, you are saying it is only by all firms raising prices can this benefit be guaranteed.

I don't think this is true either. The money you give your employees is paid for by the raised prices on all products produced by minimum wage. In turn, while your employees have more money, they have acquired it off the backs of those who are unemployed and now have even less purchasing power because their fixed income (welfare) does not get adjusted for the hike in prices.

Even in this scenario, your workers only gain at the expense of people even poorer than them.

No real effect in places where no one is paid the minimum wage.

I've often felt that the minimum wage is often used as an excuse by employers to justify how little they can pay you ("after all, we're paying the minimum wage!") and somehow sound proud of it.

It takes a fucked up sense of pride to brag that you're paying someone the minimum the law allows.

In places where no one is paid the minimum, that's certainly the case, but there are plenty of places where people are making the minimum, and where they're having trouble surviving on it, even working more than one job. That's who I'm most concerned about.

There's another option. You raise the unit price of what you sell by a couple of pennies to offset the extra $5/hour to keep your production at the same level. You're now putting $35/hr into the economy, but more importantly, your employees (and other employees at the same income level) now have an extra dollar/hr to spend, and those dollars add up quickly at the bottom level, because those folks don't have money to save--they spend everything they have. Ideally, that will drive demand for your product, which will put more money in your pocket.

Well, the problem is that it will not really work that way. If you're selling a large volume of items that are fairly inexpensive, that increase in prices may ultimately lead to a price differential that costs you sales. This is especially true if you're competing in retail; people may only save $0.25 on an item by shopping at Sam's Club rather than Costco, but when that is applied to a huge volume of items, it adds up. Also, the psychological effects are significant; you might not really be saving much money, but it still motivates you to choose the better deal (it's why gasoline is priced at $X.XX 9/10 rather than rounded up to the next cent).

The other option is that everyone raises prices to boost profits; they don't pay their workers more, but they raise prices anyway to make more money. The result is that prices have inflated enough that the $1 raise is totally absorbed by inflation. There is generally a surplus of workers for minimum wage workers, so they have no real reason to hike wages; if employees quit, it won't be difficult to find replacements.

Also, the turnover cost of these employees is generally far less than the cost of higher wages; as a result, the only way minimum-wage positions can see significant raises is if there is more demand for workers than there are available. In a high-growth environment, this is entirely possible and will lead to real wage gains for minimum wage employees rather than just nominal ones. The competition for workers likely means that profits and sales are growing rapidly, so the cost of higher wages and benefits will be absorbed by the growth in revenue and the overall rate of wage growth will be far faster than rises in prices. This is combined with already-existant competition between firms that keep prices contained, so the overall real wages of these employees increases.

But at the same time, the rise in price will cause some people (particularly the unemployed) to be unable to afford your product. On a personal level, if that were true you would have already raised prices. However, you are saying it is only by all firms raising prices can this benefit be guaranteed.

I don't think this is true either. The money you give your employees is paid for by the raised prices on all products produced by minimum wage. In turn, while your employees have more money, they have acquired it off the backs of those who are unemployed and now have even less purchasing power because their fixed income (welfare) does not get adjusted for the hike in prices.

Even in this scenario, your workers only gain at the expense of people even poorer than them.I'm talking about scale here--the price increases are miniscule compared to the number of people who would benefit from the increased wages, and since we're talking about a mandated pay increase, the assumption is that either prices would go up across the board, or profits would dip--slightly in either case.

The other part of the equation is this--the increased spending power of the people at the bottom drives economic growth (not on it's own, but it is a factor), and with economic growth comes increased employment opportunity thus reducing some of the welfare obligations and allowing that money to go farther.

It takes a fucked up sense of pride to brag that you're paying someone the minimum the law allows.

In places where no one is paid the minimum, that's certainly the case, but there are plenty of places where people are making the minimum, and where they're having trouble surviving on it, even working more than one job. That's who I'm most concerned about.

Easy way to fix this make government controls on pirces for things and have minimum wage set at what basic cost of living + another 5-6% so people will have a little to either invest or spend on them selves. Those that done invest will just get buy with one job those that choose to invest will have more income. Also would help if not solve the unemployment problem cause if people can get buy with just one job it will have several openings from all the people working 2+ jobs.

It takes a fucked up sense of pride to brag that you're paying someone the minimum the law allows.

Have you ever seen how Wall Street reacts when it hears that wages are rising faster or slower than anticipated?

They believe slow wage growth is good, and fast wage growth is bad. Wall Street and the Federal Reserve generally fail to discern between growth in real wages and nominal wages, and they have evolved that to a point where any wage growth can be seen as a bad thing. Wage-earners have seen their real wages erode since the uptick in inflation in 2003; the result is that their overall purchasing power has fallen, meaning they have less to spend on goods and services. The additional dollars of nominal wages have been eaten up by inflation, leading to a decline in physical consumption of goods and services.

Also, they forget that wage growth doesn't always translate in to higher prices. If real wages rise 2% and productivity rises 2.5%, you've actually reduced labor costs by 0.5%; the past 10 years have seen productivity generally outpace labor costs (with the exception of 2000 and 2006), so nearly all of these additional wage pressures have been absorbed with no effect on profit margins. The rest have been absorbed by competition, and some by job cuts or attrition.

That defeats the purpose of capitalism and it hurts the business sales. The government should in no way control the prices.

The minimum wage should be kept the same. It's fine where it is. The minimum wage is for entry level work. Most companies will raise the employee to their actual standard pay after the employee has proven themselves and are willing to work for more than a month. They did that with me when I worked at a no name local grocery store in Oklahoma for my first job. I think that's how it should be done because you always have workers that quit before even working a month.

That would put strain on the employers if the minimum wage were raised because of a couple of bad apples not even giving the job a fair shot and we'd all take it in the ass b/c the company would then have to raise the price on goods just to keep from losing any revenue and sales. Raising the minimum wage is dumb and it defeats the purpose of what it really is.
Why'd you just copy and past what you said just like four posts a go. If they didn't buy the line that time what makes you think repeating it will convince them?

Easy way to fix this make government controls on pirces for things and have minimum wage set at what basic cost of living + another 5-6% so people will have a little to either invest or spend on them selves. Those that done invest will just get buy with one job those that choose to invest will have more income. Also would help if not solve the unemployment problem cause if people can get buy with just one job it will have several openings from all the people working 2+ jobs.

No, it would cause shortages, inflation, and massive unemployment. Price controls cause shortages by making production unprofitable, resulting in supply falling behind demand and causing items to run out. In fact, because labor costs are rising faster than productivity and prices are contolled the economy would actually contract due to the need to cut production to keep from going bankrupt.

A mandantory 5-6% disposable income would further worsen the situation by driving up demand artificially, and that money would be totally eroded by hidden inflation in the black market. Unemployment would soar because there would be no money to invest in new production, and the growth in the labor supply would far outpace the growth of the economy. The cutbacks in production would further worsen unemployment and shortages, and the entire system would be mired in inflationary depression.

This would create a situation similar to the USSR but without the government muscle to back it up; huge amounts of cash in workers' pockets, but no goods to buy with them. And, if you used the government to subsidize production the system would collapse just like the USSR.

Why'd you just copy and past what you said just like four posts a go. If they didn't buy the line that time what makes you think repeating it will convince them?

Sorry my browser was acting weird and I thought it didn't post. I've deleted the repeat messages. Didn't do it on purpose. Carry on...:cool:

If there are government controlled prices for everything thier prices are going to reflect thier costs wich government would more or less have controlled.

(set ammount to make item A) + (percentage of costs for emplyees to sell inventory based on size of inventory and the liquidity of inventory) + 2% mark up for profit = what price would be set at.

I had 3 years of accounting, and 2 years of ecconomics in College while I never actually earned a degree before getting a job as a Detention Officer I do have more than a passing understanding of what im talking about. Minnimum wage is way below what it should be any way I make almost double minimum wage at my current job, and 85% of my pay is taken up with just rent electricity and gas bills. Then I have to pay my gas for my car not to mention buy food and other neccisarry items like soap. and I live in the cheaper part of town.

control costs to make some thing and you controll the price of the item.

If there are government controlled prices for everything thier prices are going to reflect thier costs wich government would more or less have controlled.

(set ammount to make item A) + (percentage of costs for emplyees to sell inventory based on size of inventory and the liquidity of inventory) + 2% mark up for profit = what price would be set at.

I had 3 years of accounting, and 2 years of ecconomics in College while I never actually earned a degree before getting a job as a Detention Officer I do have more than a passing understanding of what im talking about.

control costs to make some thing and you controll the price of the item.

Did your instructors also mention that that is a surefire way to find yourself with supply shortages?

Not to mention the nightmare bureaucracy that would result from that.

No, it would cause shortages, inflation, and massive unemployment. Price controls cause shortages by making production unprofitable, resulting in supply falling behind demand and causing items to run out. In fact, because labor costs are rising faster than productivity and prices are contolled the economy would actually contract due to the need to cut production to keep from going bankrupt.

A mandantory 5-6% disposable income would further worsen the situation by driving up demand artificially, and that money would be totally eroded by hidden inflation in the black market. Unemployment would soar because there would be no money to invest in new production, and the growth in the labor supply would far outpace the growth of the economy. The cutbacks in production would further worsen unemployment and shortages, and the entire system would be mired in inflationary depression.

This would create a situation similar to the USSR but without the government muscle to back it up; huge amounts of cash in workers' pockets, but no goods to buy with them. And, if you used the government to subsidize production the system would collapse just like the USSR.


Totally agree. Like I said before, the government should never be in charge of prices. You forgot one thing though. Government controlling prices would destroy competition. Competition promotes growth and profit. Everyone would be forced to sell everything for the same price and none of the companies would progress at all and be driven into the dust. This also brings up something that just came to mind. Why do liberals hate Wal-Mart so much?

They always seem to complain about it on the news and I've heard plenty of people bitch and moan about it. The problem I think is other stores in competition with Wal Mart refuse to change their policies to adjust. That was the exact problem with the grocery store I worked at. We had this policy that if the customer wanted to save money, they had to sign up for a saver's card. It was a total joke.

Half the time we wound up scanning store cards for irritated customers and even with the cards, competition like Crest and Wal Mart were always cheaper. Many customers suggested buying direct from wholesale distributors. This was significantly cheaper and we would be able to sell the products for less. I know for a fact that is what Crest did, but none of the suits at the main office would listen. The store went under 6 months after I had left. This is the best example of if you can't beat them, join them.

This also brings up something that just came to mind. Why do liberals hate Wal-Mart so much?

They always seem to complain about it on the news and I've heard plenty of people bitch and moan about it. The problem I think is other stores in competition with Wal Mart refuse to change their policies to adjust. That was the exact problem with the grocery store I worked at. We had this policy that if the customer wanted to save money, they had to sign up for a saver's card. It was a total joke.


They hate walmart so much because they are cheap and cut corners the local walmart back when I was in college lost 65% of thier employees because they where illegal imigrants and where hired because they would work for under minimum wage.

They hate walmart so much because they are cheap and cut corners the local walmart back when I was in college lost 65% of thier employees because they where illegal imigrants and where hired because they would work for under minimum wage.

Don't forget how they seemed to get sued about one a week for labor violations, a bit of hyberbole I know.

They hate walmart so much because they are cheap and cut corners the local walmart back when I was in college lost 65% of thier employees because they where illegal imigrants and where hired because they would work for under minimum wage.

That would be the one time I feel that government intervention would be needed. Wal Mart should have been forced to pay the illegal immigrants the standard minimum wage. That would practically destroy any incentive to hire them over anyone else.

If there are government controlled prices for everything thier prices are going to reflect thier costs wich government would more or less have controlled.

(set ammount to make item A) + (percentage of costs for emplyees to sell inventory based on size of inventory and the liquidity of inventory) + 2% mark up for profit = what price would be set at..

But that doesn't take in to account supply and demand; if there isn't demand for the product at the price set, it's not going to work. It doesn't matter if the government or a formula feel that price X is acceptable; if the market only tolerates a price of .5X or 2X, that's what will be charged, and anything else will have severe economic effects. There is no such thing as an objective value for a good; it is what the market will pay, nothing more and nothing less. Another problem is that you assume the cost of production will remain constant; otherwise, there is no control on prices and the government is just interfering with the free market, causing the same shortages, unemployment and inflation as price controls.

It's even worse if demand for that product is greater than the supply at that price; that leads to shortages and the creation of a black market, as the higher equilibrium price motivates companies to sell goods illegally. Furthermore, the size and liquidity of inventory also affect profit and are very volatile; inventories and sales swing by easily 10% a year, If such a system were in place, you would be looking at inflationary swings of easily 10-20% each year with the possibility of shortages and severe unemployment as additional risks. The cost of production is also very volatile; if the price or supply of raw materials swings dramatically, price controls are not going to be able to respond to these changes in time. The result will be shortages and hidden inflation, along with drastically reduced profits; price controls

Also, profits can't be set; there is no such thing as an "acceptable profit". In fact, 2% profit is so small that most companies would not be able to raise capital to invest in expanding production. If the demand for a good sets a market price of $50 and the net cost of production is $25, then a $25 profit is an acceptable profit An oil company has a profit margin of 7%, but a networking equipment maker has a profit margin of 40%; it all comes down to cost of production and whether volume makes up for lost margins.

Let's say you own a cookie-making factory. You have 10 employees who mold the cookies and put the in the oven, quite a simple task. However, some are more skilled than others. 1 of the best can bake 10 cookies an hour, 8 can bake 7 cookies an hour, and 1 can bake only 5 cookies an hour. Each hour, 71 people come in asking for a cookie (ie, the total number of cookies produced per hour). Let's call the price at which the cookie is sold x and the wage of each employee w (per hour). That means that the total profits your business makes are (x dollars per cookie * 71 cookies per hour * 10 hours) - (w * 10 employees * 10 hours). Overall, your profit is 710x - 100w. Now say that the minimum wage is raised by, say, 1 dollar/hour. Your profits become 710x - 100(w + 1) = 710x - 100w - 100. Already, it's starting to eat into your profits. So what happens if you lay off the slowest worker? That would come to a total of 670x - 90w - 90. To quantify this, assume that the price of a cookie is $1 dollar. Your total profits would be:

Case 1: $710 - 100w - $100 = $610 - 100w.
Case 2: $670 - 90w - $90 = $580 - 90w

Now, to see at which point the two would be financially equal:

610 - 100w = 580 - 90w
10w = 30
w = 3

So that means that unless you are able to pay your workers $3 dollars per hour, you have to fire some of them to make your business as profitable with 10 workers as it was with 9. Since you cannot do that, you'll be forced to lay off a worker to keep more profits for yourself. Say the minimum wage is $6 dollars per hour. Your total profits then would be:

Case 1: 710 - (100 * 6) - 100 = 710 - 700 = 10
Case 2: 670 - (90 * 6) - 90 = 670 - 630 = 40

If you keep all 10 workers on, you'll make only $10 dollars in profit -- 1/4 the profit you would make had you fired someone. Clearly, raising the minimum wage would put the burden on the slowest worker -- the one that is not so valuable to the company to justify the increase in his wage.

Totally agree. Like I said before, the government should never be in charge of prices. You forgot one thing though. Government controlling prices would destroy competition. Competition promotes growth and profit. Everyone would be forced to sell everything for the same price and none of the companies would progress at all and be driven into the dust. This also brings up something that just came to mind. Why do liberals hate Wal-Mart so much?

Government price controls fail miserably, and always have. Look at the 1973 and 1979 energy crises; the first one had massive gas lines and both had soaring prices, but the second one had almost no gas lines. Why? Because price controls were removed and the market was able to adjust!

Wal-Mart is simply good at retailing; they know how to keep costs down, and they know how to win market share. If people don't want a Wal-Mart in their community, they just shouldn't buy from it. No one forces people to shop there; they could all choose to buy from local stores or competitors and put that store out of business. Wal-Mart isn't invincible, and it doesn't have unlimited resources; by not shopping there, you can put the store out of business.

However, most people want lower prices, so they shop at Wal-Mart...it's totally the consumer's fault that Wal-Mart is so successful. Don't like it? Don't shop there! Honestly, it's like people who complain about gas prices as they drive in their H2...

It should be scaled with inflation and also regionally -- minimum in Pasco, Washington and Manhattan should not be the same.

That said, minimum wage should always equate to about being about 1/20th the cost of a median house in an area. After all, we're talking minimum here.

Ergo: if the average house costs $300,000 in your area, a minimum wage job should be $15,000 a year. If it costs $150,000, it should be $7,500 a year.

Why? Because minimum wage is not meant to be a living wage. It's meant to be so that people don't work for free. Want a living wage? Get a skill someone will pay you for.

Sorry to go back a little, but I do want to address these points:


Different places is a stimulation of the economy. Business exists to get money out of the poor and into the rich. The more hands it has to go through to get there, the better for everyone, but to the frustration of the rich. If the rich already have all the money then there isn't going to be any investment.

If money goes through more people's hands in a given amount of time, that doesn't increase real wealth. You simply generate inflation. This is basic stuff, and not something that is part of any left-right debate. Overall wealth can only ever increase when overall production increases (or waste reduces). Moving money more quickly clearly has no effect on either.

Wealth is not like a bag of marbles, where the goal is to get all the marbles, and once you have it you are rich. Wealth is the total produce of a society at any time. It is an ongoing thing.

Right wingers keep saying that the more money the rich have, the more they'll invest. But that's not true. They only invest where they see a capacity for a payoff, and if the market isn't demanding then there will be no investment. If there is demand and the rich don't have quite enough money, then they'll borrow because they know they'll pay it off and make big profits. The need for supply side economics, that right-wingers posit, doesn't exist. And if it did exist, supply side economics wouldn't satisfy that need.

Rambling nonsense that does not in any way reflect the investment habits of the wealthy - I assume you know nothing about this? Rich people always invest the money that they don't spend, because they will always do better that way then they would do by keeping it under their bed. What else do you think they do with it?

Incidentally, putting it into a bank counts as investment - the bank will take it and invest it itself. Although it is a poor investment in a current account, because the interest rates are below inflation, so your money is always losing value.

Supply side economics is like masturbating with premature ejaculation. Sure it's the quickest way to get your payoff, but in the end it's really unsatisfying, pisses off those who are in it with you, and leaves you all alone with nothing to do.

I don't believe in supply-side economics, and nothing that I have written could possibly have suggested to you that I do. Unless you're lumping all free-market economists into the same bracket because you don't understand it? No, surely not...

I think you're right about supply-side economics. But I doubt you really understand why.


Ahem: (source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplier_effect)) "In economics, a multiplier effect – or, more completely, the spending/income multiplier effect – occurs when a change in spending causes a disproportionate change in aggregate demand. It is particularly associated with Keynesian economics; some other schools of economic thought reject or downplay the importance of multiplier effects particularly in the long run."

Ah yes, I have seen this before. You will see in the Wiki article itself that the effect is based on the assumption that the economy has unused resources. This is what I was talking about when I discussed "stimulation" as being effective as a way of getting people off the dole, but not being effective when the economy is at or close to capacity. The Wiki article agrees with me on that point.

The article also uses the example of an increase of government spending without increasing taxation. The part about taxation is important because it is recognition that pulling money out of one part in order to put it into another part isn't going to help. It's like moving water from one part of a waterbed to another in order to help the sagging waterbed. What you need is more water - and in recessions governments will get that money by borrowing from abroad. It is money from outside the economy that will stimulate it. The minimum wage just moves money about inside the economy.



Anyway, as far as price controls go - history pretty well shows us how useless they are. A study of 1970s America is pretty instructive.

Wal-Mart is simply good at retailing; they know how to keep costs down, and they know how to win market share. If people don't want a Wal-Mart in their community, they just shouldn't buy from it. No one forces people to shop there; they could all choose to buy from local stores or competitors and put that store out of business. Wal-Mart isn't invincible, and it doesn't have unlimited resources; by not shopping there, you can put the store out of business.

However, most people want lower prices, so they shop at Wal-Mart...it's totally the consumer's fault that Wal-Mart is so successful. Don't like it? Don't shop there! Honestly, it's like people who complain about gas prices as they drive in their H2...

The collective consumer's fault, sure - but not the individual consumer's. In fact, she has virtually no control over whether or not Wal-Mart will put the other stores out of business; whatever she does, the outcome will be almost exactly the same. She might as well go with the low prices.

Of course, when everyone does this, the stores go out of business - even if every one of them would have preferred that Wal-Mart leave and the stores remain open.

The collective consumer's fault, sure - but not the individual consumer's. In fact, she has virtually no control over whether or not Wal-Mart will put the other stores out of business; whatever she does, the outcome will be almost exactly the same. She might as well go with the low prices.

That's true. Of course, a lot of that is the product of the belief that the individuals can't do anything to change things; if individual consumers were to band together and boycott Wal-Mart, it would have a pretty huge effect, undoubtedly enough to force the store to change. The reason why the individual consumer can't really change anything is because they believe they can't; they believe they can't change anything, so they don't, which further convinces them that nothing can be done, and it just keeps compounding.

(At the same time, however, there are people who do need lower prices; Wal-Mart does help these lower-income consumers by providing goods for far cheaper than other brands.)

Of course, when everyone does this, the stores go out of business - even if every one of them would have preferred that Wal-Mart leave and the stores remain open.

The best way to change it is to compete with Wal-Mart on its own grounds; Costco in particular has been very successful at competing with Wal-Mart even though it offers pay and benefits well above that of their competitiors.

However, the world of small retail has been dying out for a while; it's no longer economically viable and has been replaced with larger nationwide retailers. Of course, that doesn't mean that these nationwide retailers need to be held to lower standards than small retailers; if consumers are willing to sacrifice some of their savings to ensure that all of the workers get wages and benefits comparable to smaller stores, then all the more power to them.

Of course, the easiest way to get rid of Wal-Mart is to unionize the employees...they'll pack up and leave overnight.

)edit: to Soheran) If every one of them wanted Wal-Mart to close down, no one would be shopping at Wal-Mart. The free market is just a big popularity contest - if you give people what they want at the price they want, you will prosper.

Sadly people choose Wal-Mart. I wouldn't like it, but there you are. It seems most people actually do.

If every one of them wanted that, no one would be shopping at Wal-Mart. The free market is just a big popularity contest - if you give people what they want at the price they want, you will prosper.

Sadly people choose Wal-Mart. I wouldn't like it, but there you are. It seems most people actually do.

That's the way the free market works; the only way to change it is to either convince consumers to stop shopping at Wal-Mart or to start your own company and compete with them in the same industry. Most people choose low prices over workers getting healthcare or higher wages. That might be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your viewpoint, but it is the way it is.

One might argue that the social costs of Wal-Mart aren't factored by shoppers in to their purchases who see only the sticker price, but for many people saving money is more important. That's not a bad thing if you're a low-income consumer who needs the savings, but people with a little more disposable income should definitely consider it.

That's true. Of course, a lot of that is the product of the belief that the individuals can't do anything to change things; if individual consumers were to band together and boycott Wal-Mart, it would have a pretty huge effect, undoubtedly enough to force the store to change. The reason why the individual consumer can't really change anything is because they believe they can't; they believe they can't change anything, so they don't, which further convinces them that nothing can be done, and it just keeps compounding.

Yes, it would have to be a boycott - it would have to be coordinated, and there would have to be some kind of assurance, implicit or explicit, that the others would hold by it.

(At the same time, however, there are people who do need lower prices; Wal-Mart does help these lower-income consumers by providing goods for far cheaper than other brands.)

I'm not exactly in the anti-Wal-Mart camp; to a degree, opposing Wal-Mart is like supporting the minimum wage, it doesn't get at the root of the problem and it isn't really clear it will improve all that much. I just find the logic you used in your post to be flawed.

)edit: to Soheran) If every one of them wanted Wal-Mart to close down, no one would be shopping at Wal-Mart. The free market is just a big popularity contest - if you give people what they want at the price they want, you will prosper.

Sadly people choose Wal-Mart. I wouldn't like it, but there you are. It seems most people actually do.

Surely you have heard of the Prisoner's Dilemma? Maximizing nominal individual choice is, in some cases, not the same thing as maximizing the satisfaction of individual desires.

Surely you have heard of the Prisoner's Dilemma? Maximizing nominal individual choice is, in some cases, not the same thing as maximizing the satisfaction of individual desires.

The prisoner's dilemma is not applicable to the economy. For one, the prisoner's dilemma is based on the fact that no prisoner is aware of the choice of the other prisoner. However, this cannot be applied to the economy, where each consumer has access to the information about a certain company, product, etc. Second, the prisoner's dilemma only yields a negative consequence for a prisoner due to the fact that the other prisoner is rewarded when he harms another prisoner. In the economy, you do not benefit if you "hurt" another consumer by forcing them to mis-allocate their money to less optimal companies, as that would consequently hurt you. Third, the prisoner's dilemma requires lack of communication between the two prisoners -- should they talk about a strategy beforehand, there would be no dilemma. Also, the prisoner's dilemma cannot apply to a group which is fully informed of the actions of the others in the group.

Begoner21;11670090']The prisoner's dilemma is not applicable to the economy. For one, the prisoner's dilemma is based on the fact that no prisoner is aware of the choice of the other prisoner. However, this cannot be applied to the economy, where each consumer has access to the information about a certain company, product, etc. Second, the prisoner's dilemma only yields a negative consequence for a prisoner due to the fact that the other prisoner is rewarded when he harms another prisoner. In the economy, you do not benefit if you "hurt" another consumer by forcing them to mis-allocate their money to less optimal companies, as that would consequently hurt you. Third, the prisoner's dilemma requires lack of communication between the two prisoners -- should they talk about a strategy beforehand, there would be no dilemma. Also, the prisoner's dilemma cannot apply to a group which is fully informed of the actions of the others in the group.

What are you talking about? Of course it can apply to an economy; the most obvious example is environmental devastation.

The destruction of local stores by companies like Wal-Mart runs according to the same principles. Either the stores will be destroyed, or they won't. My decision will only barely affect the outcome, and thus I don't consider that concern in my decision. Everyone makes the decision in the same way, and that "barely" becomes a matter for concern.

As with the Prisoner's Dilemma, the choice to defect (shop at Wal-Mart) is always in my self-interest, but if everyone follows this line of logic everyone is worse off.

What are you talking about? Of course it can apply to an economy; the most obvious example is environmental devastation.

If such companies are really devastating the environment, then the consumers have the choice of boycotting them. However, an overwhelming majority of consumers do not feel that such companies negatively affect the environment to such an extent that they stop purchasing their products. It is two completely different things -- companies answer directly to the wants of the consumers. Those consumers have the choice of communicating with each other to arrange large-scale boycotts. If your logic was true, then nobody would vote because their vote would not affect the person who was elected at all.

I just want to say that I take heart in the fact that 65%+ of voters on the poll would like to see the minimum wage raised.

Begoner21;11670180']If such companies are really devastating the environment, then the consumers have the choice of boycotting them. However, an overwhelming majority of consumers do not feel that such companies negatively affect the environment to such an extent that they stop purchasing their products.

No. They do not feel that their purchases negatively affect the environment to such an extent. You have no idea what they think of the companies; conceivably, they could prefer getting rid of them, or banning the production of certain items, to tolerating the environmental devastation they cause.

It is two completely different things -- companies answer directly to the wants of the consumers. Those consumers have the choice of communicating with each other to arrange large-scale boycotts.

Yes, but large-scale boycotts are hard to arrange and impossible to enforce.

If your logic was true, then nobody would vote because their vote would not affect the person who was elected at all.

Voting is a special case, because a feeling of civic duty and political commitment lead many people to assign a higher value to voting than is really merited. Also, the value of each person's vote is inversely proportional to the number of people who vote; as the number of people who rationally choose not to vote increases, the value votes have increases as well, and thus the problem can be naturally counteracted.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard124.html
http://www.mises.org/story/2130
http://www.mises.org/story/2266
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/political-hoax.html

I just want to say that I take heart in the fact that 65%+ of voters on the poll would like to see the minimum wage raised.

Well, since the average age of most people who visit these forums are around 20, the age in which the increase of minimum wage increase their paycheck the most, and who in later years the minimum wage would cut into their paycheck. So like, duh, no one activly wants to have the chance that their paycheck would be lowered.


I was in this last weekend and feel that the goverment shouldn't try to act like the consumer and market and dictate to the companies in any form.

For example, if I want to hire an all girl team for my buisness I don't want the government to say "you can't".

I consider everyone is based on their merits, no one is "entitled" to a wage, the only thing you are entitled to is life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and Social Security. In no way can my liberty be sacrificed for you security, for as Benjamen Franklin said so many years ago.

If liberty is sacrificed for a little security, they will recive none and deserve neither.

The government cannot dictate what I am to build, by any means. They should not go anywhere near my products, safty is good, but they cannot make my products in anyway less appealing through their direct efforts. Laws, tarrifs, or even a special session of Congress to exclude me, I think that is wrong and a perverse use of any political power.

That sums it up, quite obvious I voted against minium wage.

Minimum age in most US states is $5.15 for 18+. I forget what it is for 16-17.

Federally, yes. In some states (like Florida) it is $6 or more.

As for my position, raise it to $7 an hour, compensated annually for inflation (and the like) and never raise it again. That way, we can spend less time debating on that issue and look to optimize other areas, like Welfare and Education. Autonomizing all of government (not making it an autocracy, BTW) would reduce costs ,and thus reduce taxes. Less tax=more money in people's pockets=more spending= bigger economy= more money the corporations get= more tax collected there= more to spend on autonomizing the government= more savings and so on...

Autonomization is the solution. We have the resources. Now we must use them.

Automonzation? Could you supply a helpful link for the not so learned of us?

When you increase the minimum wage workers are more productive, ultimately when you think past the short term expentiture of business to pay people, it is benefitial to businesses to pay more because workers are more productive when they're actually getting paid something a little more reasonable. If you want to make expenditures easier on business (and small business in particular) what you should be doing is creating a nationwide single payer health care program so that businesses don't feel obligated to supply health care to their workers. Fewer sick days as a result of affordable and available health care increases productivity as well.

So if you increase the minimum wage and create a single payer health insurance system then you make up for the extra money that business is spending on employees by paying them more since they no longer have any need to supply health insurance to their workers. Those workers will in turn be more productive for being better paid and for being in good health. The two policies would work beautifully together.

When you increase the minimum wage workers are more productive, ultimately when you think past the short term expentiture of business to pay people, it is benefitial to businesses to pay more because workers are more productive when they're actually getting paid something a little more reasonable. If you want to make expenditures easier on business (and small business in particular) what you should be doing is creating a nationwide single payer health care program so that businesses don't feel obligated to supply health care to their workers. Fewer sick days as a result of affordable and available health care increases productivity as well.

So if you increase the minimum wage and create a single payer health insurance system then you make up for the extra money that business is spending on employees by paying them more since they no longer have any need to supply health insurance to their workers. Those workers will in turn be more productive for being better paid and for being in good health. The two policies would work beautifully together.

So where is this magical pot of gold bullion going to come from to fund the national health service? No, don't tell me, the middle class. The ones who pain the second most but it is the highest amount of all classes percentage wise. The rich pay the most, but still only pay maybe 1%, the middle class a lot worse. Now guess who is the small buisness man, thats right. The middle classman (or women if you prefer).

So then not only would you be taxing the man slightly more for the mythical health care program you would also be raising the minium wage. Brilliant!

Begoner21;11664546']So, you're suggesting that with their higher wages, the former minimum-wage workers were able to buy more pies because they now had more money to spend on them, and that increased demand was turned into profit? That's absolutely ridiculous. What you're saying is tantamount to this: let's give everybody $1000 bucks. With that money, they'll buy some of our pies. In fact, they'll buy a lot of those pies. We'll have to work double shifts and whatnot due to the extra business. What you fail to see is that they are buying pies with the money you gave them. In effect, you are buying your own pies and claiming that business is improved. In reality, you are just wasting money. The business which followed the "liberal" plan would be out of business while the one that followed the "conservative" plan would be raking in the big pie bucks.
I take it then, that you're against tax cuts? Cause all they do is 'give' people extra money.

Walking a mile in someone's shoes may be a cliche, but it's also an important step towards tolerance and acceptance.
That way even if you still don't agree with each other, you're a mile away with their shoes.
It's win-win either way for you!

You are correct. Well actually it was 1990. It was $3.35 for so long it seemed like forever. That's when inflation made it so far below the poverty level.
It hadn't been raised since 1981, when it was set at $3.35. the rise to $3.80 was an increase of 13.4%.
However, inflation from 1981 to 1990 was 50% (according to Consumer Price index).
Thus, if it had kept pace with inflation the min wage would have been $5.04 in 1990.
After the increase, min wagers in 1990 were still around 1/3 worse off than they would have been in 1981 in real terms.

Out of interest, $3.35 in 1981 $ = $7.50 in 2005 $.



Also, just out of interest, at present around 1.5 million workers (1 mill women, 0.5 mill men) in the US aged 19 and over are on $5.15 or less. 2 million if we include 16 and over.
Of that 2 mill, 1.24mill are part time workers.
There is 134 million workers in the US, 74 million are wage earners.
That 1.5 mill represents 1.1% of the total workforce and 2.2% of wage earners). If you want to include 16-19, it jumps up to 1.5% (of total workforce) and 2.7% (of wage earners).
So an increase in min wage is hardly going to destroy the economy, nor many businesses now, is it?
http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2004tbls.htm

Anyone who has taken high school economics can see the idiocy of a minimum wage law.

So if you haven't taken high school economics, or you were slacking off in the back row, or you didn't care, pay attention now.

The laws of supply and demand drive every aspect of economics. As the price of a good goes up, suppliers will be willing to sell more of it but consumers will not be willing to buy as much, and vice versa when the price goes down. Seems simple enough, right? So, if you put the price of a good on the y-axis of a graph, and the quantity of that good on the x-axis, you can plot the supply curve (how much suppliers will be willing to sell at a given price) and the demand curve (how much consumers will be willing to buy at a given price). Where the supply curve and demand curve intersect, suppliers and consumers agree on a price and quantity, and (in the absence of any intervening factors) the good will sell, at that price, in that amount.

Now, usually, we think of your average Joe Schmoe as being a consumer--he buys stuff that companies provide for him. But when it comes to labor, Joe Schmoe is the provider--he's the one doing the work--and he'll sell his time and effort to the highest bidder (the bidders in this case being companies). So, we can think of labor as being a good just like any other--consumers and suppliers agree upon a price and a quantity, the equilibrium settles at that price and quantity, and the efficient market does its job.

Here's where minimum wage comes in and fouls the whole thing up. If we think of labor as being a good, then the minimum wage is your basic "price floor"--that is, the government says that labor cannot be "sold" below a certain price (in the United States, that price is $5.15 per hour). Now, if the price floor is BELOW the equilibrium price (the price that the market settles on of its own volition), the price floor is meaningless--if you say that something cannot sell for an amount less that what it already sells for, who cares? There is no effect on the market. But if the minimum wage is set ABOVE the equilibrium price (as I believe is the case in the United States), that DOES have an effect on the market, and here's how: as I said earlier, as price goes up, suppliers are willing to sell more but consumers are not willing to buy as much. When you impose an artificially high price floor, there is a barrier that prevents the market from reaching equilibrium, so suppliers are willing to sell more than consumers are willing to buy. In the case of labor, that translates to there being more workers willing to work (to "sell" their labor) than there are consumers (companies) willing to buy that labor. This, in turn, translates into unemployment.

This creates something of an ethical dilemma--for those who can find jobs, even with the minimum wage in place, their pay is obviously higher. But others, who would have gotten jobs and been paid at the natural market rate without the minimum wage law, cannot find any jobs whatsoever. Should we give slightly higher pay to some by robbing others of jobs altogether? That's a question of morals, to be decided on an individual basis, but I think that to do so is wrong.

All of this illustrates one of the most basic points in economics: price floors create surpluses (more goods being supplied than are demanded), while price ceilings create shortages (more goods being demanded than are supplied). If we abolished the minimum wage, some people who are working now might see their wages dip a little bit, but many others, who want jobs but can't find them, would suddenly find themselves employed. Without the minimum wage, I truly believe that we could cut unemployment in the U.S. by half.

And THAT'S The CO Springs School's world-famous rant on minimum wage.

Here's an interesting study on Minimum Wage (MW) as it relates to youth employment. Very long, but very well-researched. Some of the research is dated (to the 1970s), but unless the economy has changed significantly for youth employment in that time, I see no reason why they cannot still be considered.
In essence, the study concludes that there is almost no discernible change to youth unemployment due to a raise in the MW. The worst study showed a drop of 1% in youth employment after a 10% MW raise - and that was due to people staying longer in said jobs (which implies no change in overall employment rates)
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/strat/publ/etp26.htm#2

I'll just post one quote from the article:
In their study, Card and Krueger surveyed 410 fast-food restaurants located in (i) New Jersey (331 units) where the state MW had been increased from $4.25 to $5.05; (ii) Pennsylvania (79 units) where the state MW did not rise, remaining at $4.25, with a view to examining the impact of MW on employment. The approach used was as follows: the restaurants were surveyed twice: the first time in February-March 1992, before the MW rose in New Jersey (April 1992), and a second time about eight months after the MW movement (November-December 1992).
....
In addition to the comparison made between New Jersey and Pennsylvania fast-food restaurants, the authors undertook a second set of comparison between high-wages restaurants in New Jersey that had been paying $5.00 or more per hour before the law took place, and lower-wage restaurants which had to increase their wage rates in order to comply with the law.
...
The results of the study conducted by Card and Krueger show clearly that the MW increase in New Jersey did not lead to employment contraction. On the contrary, the results of the comparison indicate that, on average, employment expanded in New Jersey relative to Pennsylvania where the MW remained constant. The comparison within New Jersey between high-wage restaurants and low-wage restaurants that were affected by the MW increase led to similar results: relative to high-wage restaurants, employment increased at restaurants affected by the MW.
...
Did employers in New Jersey take some measures to offset the labour cost increase, such as a reduction in the amount of fringe benefits or on-the job training, as the theoretical literature predicts? According to Card and Krueger, there is "no strong evidence that New Jersey employers changed either their fringe benefits or wage profiles to offset the increase in the MW"

Okay, just one more:
Along the same lines, Katz and Krueger (1992) surveyed 104 fast-food restaurants in Texas in 1991 with a view to measuring the effect of the Federal MW increase, from $3.80 to $4.25 per hour, which took place in April 1991. This two-wave survey rested on the comparison between higher and lower-wage restaurants within the same state. The conclusions reached are similar to that found in the New Jersey-Pennsylvania survey: fast-food restaurants that had to increase pay to meet the new federal MW experienced faster employment growth than did those (high-wage restaurants) that were paying $4.25 per hour or more, and that were not affected by the law.

Anyone who has taken high school economics can see the idiocy of a minimum wage law.
I guess this economist hasn't taken high school economics class then:
On the other hand, the MW can play a significant role also in income distribution. Indeed, it has been considered as an attractive redistributive tool in comparison with other economic instruments. Freeman (1993)* attributes four characteristics to the MW, namely:

* "the MW redistributes incomes with no immediate consequences on public finances, since it does not lead to an increase in taxes and so forth;
* unlike many other instruments that transfer income to the poor, the MW increases the incentive to work ;
* the MW is administratively simple, particularly in countries with a national minimum;
* the MW and mandated benefits guarantee a base compensation that takes end benefits out of competition at the bottom of the wage distribution.

Professor Richard B Freeman. Holds the Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University.
Freeman's bio (http://www.nber.org/%7Efreeman/)
Perhaps you should tell him (and Harvard) that he is an idiot when it comes to economics. I'm sure they'll respect your opinion over his.

*Freeman, Richard B., 1993, "Minimum wages - Again!", Actes du colloque international: Analyse économique des bas salaires et des effets du salaire minimum, 30 sept.- 1 oct. 1993, Arles, France, pp. 499-523.

Here's an interesting study on Minimum Wage (MW) as it relates to youth employment...the study concludes that there is almost no discernible change to youth unemployment due to a raise in the MW.

As Ronald Reagan once said, "Economists are people who see something work in practice and wonder if it could work in theory." As strange as that sounds, it's absolutely true.

Economists are famous for getting so absorbed in applying the details of specific situations to the discipline as a whole that they contradict the most basic tenets of the science that is economics. Show me one study that says minimum wage has no effect on unemployment, and I'll show you two that say minimum wage CAUSES unemployment. It's just like studies on secondhand smoke--half say it's the most dangerous thing in the world, half say it has no effect on your health whatsoever.

I'm not saying the economists who conducted this study concocted their numbers from thin air. All I'm saying is that this study applies only to a very thin slice of the working demographic (teenagers). It's difficult to apply the effects of the market for teen labor to the labor market as a whole because most teenagers live at home and can thus remove themselves from the labor force more easily than adults can. Because unemployment is not a function of how many people don't work, but rather a function of how many people who want to work don't work, and since teenagers can fairly easily say, "I can't get a job--therefore, I don't want to work," it makes sense that market forces regarding unemployment would affect the market for teen labor to a much lesser extent.

I guess this economist hasn't taken high school economics class then:


Professor Richard B Freeman. Holds the Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University.
Freeman's bio (http://www.nber.org/%7Efreeman/)
Perhaps you should tell him (and Harvard) that he is an idiot when it comes to economics. I'm sure they'll respect your opinion over his.

Nothing that you quoted there from Freeman, except perhaps the bit about not raising taxes, contradicts anything I've said or thought about the minimum wage.

On the first point: While the minimum wage does redistribute income (something to which I am averse), it usually, but not always, increases tax revenues brought in by the government (something to which I am also averse). So while tax RATES do not increase, tax REVENUES usually rise as the result of a minimum wage.

On the second point: OF COURSE the minimum wage increases the incentive to work. But what good is increasing the incentive if you're decreasing the opportunity? People think that the minimum wage is to protect them from being underpaid, but in more cases it actually prevents them from being paid at all.

On the third point: Yes, the minimum wage is administratively simple. So are non-production subsidies, which are basically the government paying corn farmers to NOT work. Just because something is easy to run doesn't mean it SHOULD be run.

On the fourth point: Yes, the minimum wage removes benefits from competition. Is that a good thing? NO. A market economy THRIVES on competition and scarcity of resources--without them, capitalism could not function.

You'll notice that Freeman didn't say a word in your quote (and I couldn't find any mention in the paper, either) about unemployment, which was my main focus.

I'm sure Mr. (or, more probably, Dr.) Freeman is a very smart man, with a LOT more insight into advanced economics than I have, and I never claimed otherwise. But if he can honestly say that a minimum wage has no effect on unemployment (or that it is good for the economy as a whole), then I know at least one thing that he doesn't.

when they raise the minimum wage, the employers will end up passing on to the consumers higher prices. So as I see it just more higher costs for the people, We already have to deal with high insurance costs, the unstable fuel prices, high electric bills, etc...with this next minimum wage hike it's gonna end up being close to $10/meal at McDonalds. I'm not gonna go out and eat no more. I'll just deal with grocery stores even though they'll end up being forced to raise their prices too but it will still be cheaper than ordering or eating out. The cost of living is getting out of control. Prices on everything has and is going up. I get descent raises with my job and all but put price raises on a scale with pay raise you will see that price raises clearly outweigh pay raises and that is not a good thing :headbang: :headbang:

when they raise the minimum wage, the employers will end up passing on to the consumers higher prices. So as I see it just more higher costs for the people, We already have to deal with high insurance costs, the unstable fuel prices, high electric bills, etc...with this next minimum wage hike it's gonna end up being close to $10/meal at McDonalds. I'm not gonna go out and eat no more. I'll just deal with grocery stores even though they'll end up being forced to raise their prices too but it will still be cheaper than ordering or eating out. The cost of living is getting out of control. Prices on everything has and is going up. I get descent raises with my job and all but put price raises on a scale with pay raise you will see that price raises clearly outweigh pay raises and that is not a good thing :headbang: :headbang:

This is the reason prices will go up, because moronic consumers think they have to. Keep prices the same on high demand items and more of them are bought instead of the same amonut being bought once prices are raised to match. It's not even economics, it's common sense.