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The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

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Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

FreshFish said:
Setting a minimum wage at an "appropriate" level helps people find jobs; setting the minimum wage at "too high" a level actually hurts people, it does NOT help them!
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I don't agree with this either. In terms of gateway jobs...your experience is valid. Yet if you are a person with the talent to get into a higher paying profession as you get older...you will do so. As I'm sure you personally have done.

Now for other minimum wage earners...there is this position that the average worker should not be lavished with riches otherwise they'll stay in a dead end job. This is usually the position of people who are earning alot themselves and would want that money for themselves.

Believe me, minimum wage earners will not be 'incentivized' to stay in these substandard jobs because they are making $40 per week more. Rather it might just keep them off the street though. Would $40 a week incentivize you to work over a hot McDonalds grill all day? They have no choice.

Most do not have the education to move on. Many of us recommend strong job training and re training programs to get these people out of these situations and strengthen the US worker pool. Unfortunately the general conservative position is to stop these programs from existing. So to summarize, these jobs are rarely the choice of those working them, $40 a week is not enough incentive to want to stay there, these workers have no choice as they are not qualified for other positions...and the means of getting them the training is rarely available due to politics.

Look...we don't need high minimum wages, but adequate minimum wages exist for a reason and should keep up with the cost of living.
 
Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

unofan said:
I generally agree that a higher minimum wage curtails jobs, but for someone like fishy to say there's absolutely no reason for having one is equally absurd.
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Do we have to teach reading comprehension all over again? I just listed a series of reasons why one might want a minimum wage at the state level. Just because it is not logical does not mean that there are not other considerations involved besides logic! :rolleyes:
 
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Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

5mn_Major said:
Most do not have the education to move on. Many of us recommend strong job training and re training programs to get these people out of these situations and strengthen the US worker pool. Unfortunately the general conservative position is to stop these programs from existing. So to summarize, these jobs are rarely the choice of those working them, $40 a week is not enough incentive to want to stay there, these workers have no choice as they are not qualified for other positions...and the means of getting them the training is rarely available due to politics.

Look...we don't need high minimum wages, but adequate minimum wages exist for a reason and should keep up with the cost of living.
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Another person who suffers from poor reading comprehension?

if you want to help supplement the income of people who are already working then the Earned Income Tax Credit is a far superior tool than the minimum wage to achieve this end. If you want to have people get an entry level job, so that they can prove that they know how to work an alarm clock and read a bus / train schedule, then a lower minimum wage is better than a higher one, so that people can get more jobs in the first place!

After they demonstrate basic responsibility, then we can do some of the other things you mention. If a person isn't willing to get out of bed in the morning, well, no amount of "training" will help them.
 
Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

FreshFish said:
if you want to help supplement the income of people who are already working then the Earned Income Tax Credit is a far superior tool than the minimum wage to achieve this end. If you want to have people get an entry level job, so that they can prove that they know how to work an alarm clock and read a bus / train schedule, then a lower minimum wage is better than a higher one, so that people can get more jobs in the first place!

After they demonstrate basic responsibility, then we can do some of the other things you mention. If a person isn't willing to get out of bed in the morning, well, no amount of "training" will help them.
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So am I reading correctly in you saying that you'd rather just lower real taxes for this group? Do we then raise taxes on top earners further to cover for them?

Also are you making the assumption that by lowering minimum wages companies will create additional jobs that they don't need today? IE...an assistant for the guy who flips burgers?
 
Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

5mn_Major said:
Also are you making the assumption that by lowering minimum wages companies will create additional jobs that they don't need today? IE...an assistant for the guy who flips burgers?
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That's not an assumption - it's a fact. Maybe a restaurant that closes at 9 pm would be profitable until 11 pm with lower wages. I guarantee you that every single day, businesses decide against expansion/growth by that very laaaaast decimal place. Moving the needle on labor expense, no matter how little, will tip some of those decisions from "no" to "yes" and more jobs will result.
 
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Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

5mn_Major said:
So am I reading correctly in you saying that you'd rather just lower real taxes for this group?
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huh? they don't pay any income taxes now, do they? how can you lower something below zero???

5mn_Major said:
Do we then raise taxes on top earners further to cover for them?
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no. you forget a very basic fact, which is volume. just like in business, if you sell more goods in the same time period, you can increase profits by lowering price if your turnover increases even more. So too we can increase tax revenue without increasing tax rates by increasing the overall level of economic activity. you already know this (or at least you claim already to know this!) so why are you behaving like a troll in the middle of an otherwise-serious discussion?

5mn_Major said:
Also are you making the assumption that by lowering minimum wages companies will create additional jobs that they don't need today?
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no. you already know this too. it is not about "need" it is about revenue vs cost. many companies already "need" more employees than they have, they merely cannot afford to hire them, and so they have to set priorities. If you lower the cost of any business input, no matter what it is, a business can then afford to purchase more of that input at the same overall price they are already paying. if you lower the cost of labor per unit then the business can afford to hire more labor at the lower unit cost without changing their overall wage bill.

if you lower the minimum wage by 20% and business can thereby acquire 25% more labor at that lower cost (because productivity gains per unit exceed wages per unit), then everyone wins. It's a question of the slope of the two curves and where they intersect. We know that the minimum wage is too high when we see teen unemployment exceeding 20%. that is a fact. the "right" level is not at all so clear; all we know is that it is too high now.

you want to put every teenager (except the bosses' kids) out of work? go ahead and do something cosmetic that lets you feel good while other people suffer. if you actually care about other people more than your own "feel good", then be practical.

that's what troubles me the most about both political parties these days, they are both so obsessed with ideological purity that they completely ignore the real-life consequences suffered by living, breathing, aspiring human beings. :mad:
 
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Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

LynahFan said:
That's not an assumption - it's a fact. Maybe a restaurant that closed at 9 pm would be profitable until 11 pm with lower wages. I guarantee you that every single day, businesses decide against expansion/growth by that very laaaaast decimal place. Moving the needle on labor expense, no matter how little, will tip some of those decisions from "no" to "yes" and more jobs will result.
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Definitely not a fact for medium size companies on up. Unless a company is on life support, labor decisions are made by maximizing the customer experience while minimizing costs.

Labor budgets are not fixed spending...i e, a company spending $20m on labor and determining the number of jobs accordingly. The labor budget is always variable. That saying that labor is analyzed deeply at most companies and flexes with need of the company and customer...and NOT with wages. Static or fixed labor budgets would be supremely inefficient...and any chief of the field organization trying such a move would be canned instantly.
 
Shirtless Guy said:
Because the minimum wage is artificial. Very few people earn minimum wage and increasing it doesn't help anyone. A 16yo kid working his first job in fast food does not deserve $7.25/hr, they may get there rather quickly based on the person but a person with a blank resume doesn't "deserve" any specific number. That's the whole point of this discussion and why we argue every 15 years. If there is a job that ANYONE can do and it doesn't require much skill and you really can't improve productivity much with experience, there is no point to having an artificially high wage required. Until an employee can prove they are worth more to a company, no one deserves a forced wage.
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We have this argument every 15 years because we raise it and then let it languish, allowing inflation to reduce the effective purchasing power all over again. Its a vicious cycle. If you index it for inflation like social security, income tax brackets, and a host of other monetary items, we can at least eliminate some uncertainty in the market.

And as I've been told many times, uncertainty is the biggest job killer out there. Right?
 
Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

unofan said:
And as I've been told many times, uncertainty is the biggest job killer out there. Right?
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I'd say technological change is the "biggest" job "killer" but why quibble?

I'd also say that "uncertainty" is not so much a job "killer" as it is a job "suppressor": it doesn't eliminate existing jobs the way technology does, it merely throttles back additional hiring. I'm assuming that's what you meant. :)
 
Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

5mn_Major said:
Definitely not a fact for medium size companies on up. Unless a company is on life support, labor decisions are made by maximizing the customer experience while minimizing costs.

Labor budgets are not fixed spending...i e, a company spending $20m on labor and determining the number of jobs accordingly. The labor budget is always variable. That saying that labor is analyzed deeply at most companies and flexes with need of the company and customer...and NOT with wages. Static or fixed labor budgets would be supremely inefficient...and any chief of the field organization trying such a move would be canned instantly.
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Which windmill were you aiming at here?

I can't fathom how this could possibly be construed as a relevant reply to what I posted (stating that expansion/growth decisions can be affected by labor rates).
 
Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

There are 10 "mom n pop" shops for every McDonalds so saying McDonalds can surive the MW increase misses the forrest for the trees.
 
Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

Why can't I find any video of the filibuster? Is McCain still reading war&peace on the floor? How long has it been going?
 
Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

Whew, what a couple of days! Great work by Major disproving all of the Randian mythmaking out here. Allow me to post a couple of recent studies (ie not Milton Friedman who's been dead for years).

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publi...wage-have-no-discernible-effect-on-employment

http://www.americanprogress.org/iss...er-minimum-wage-will-not-hurt-u-s-businesses/

A few points:

1) I noticed the idea that businesses can always pass on 110% of their costs to customers has been abandoned? Geezer/joecct? Also the part about minimum wage increases hurting the economy every time as every study shows. I've posted studies, have you? Furthermore, I remember a minimum wage increase during the 1990's. Funny, because I don't recall an economic slowdown back then?

2) Lynah brings up a decent point with a terrible example. The notion that Hardees will steal market share from McDonalds due to charging a dollar less for their food makes no sense because it ignores brand loyalty, convenience (there's a lot more McD's than Hardees), different products (try giving a kid expecting a toy with a Happy Meal a Hardee's instead. The wailing on the drive home ain't worth the buck you'd save), advertising, etc. In a classroom this works. In real life it doesn't. There's too many other factors that you can't hold constant.

3) I get a kick out of the certainty of people who have never seen a family business being run in real time. In an econ class or a think tank you can freeze time and sweat every penny. In life you can do that to, but will most likely end up in an early grave. If your revenue is going up, say from an improving economy, you might accept that costs are going up too and labor is a part of that. Furthermore the impact might be small enough that you won't risk disrupting your business by raising prices for fear you might raise them too much. See, most mom and pop shops can't hire McKinsey or Boston Consulting to figure out their peak pricing model. So, put down the Ayn Rand novel and see the world as it is.

4) Lastly, the whole "why do we have a minimum wage" debate needs answering. Someone with an elitist attitude may believe that everyone making minimum wage is either 1) a student needing beer money, or 2) a housewife earning extra cash for their own spending because they want to. This is a dumb and naive view of things. Having worked with people earning at or near the minimum, I can tell you who they were. You had students earning money to pay for school, usually as part time students at a community college. These were people who didn't have the option of following Romney's advice to "just ask your parents" for tuition money. Some of the women were supplementing their husband's income not because they wanted to, but because they HAD to. Far from the haughty attitude of the Fishys/Geezers etc who look down on them, these people were what America is all about. Hard working people who instead of being on the govt dole or ripping people off or dealing drugs were going out every day and busting a hump for low wages to improve their situation, the very personal responsibility conservatives laud but don't support in practice.

But you say, Ayn Rand told me in her novel that its okay to exploit these people just because we can. So, no artificial wages. This is preposterous. Lets say a guy is combat veteran who served in Iraq, but has come home and there's few jobs. Are we to tell someone who got shot at for his country that he should be thrilled to work for 3 bucks an hour because that's what the guy next to him is willing to work for? Maybe its me, but that's not the kind of country I'd like to live in. Anybody who wants to live that way can move to North Korea to find a society more suitable to their tastes.

Finally, a lot of libertarians/cons comfort themselves with the notion that nobody would actually end up working for slave wages. Somehow the magic invisible hand of the market would fix all that, a concept completely obliterated by the financial meltdown of recent years. If any of you grew up in a poverty stricken area, you'd be shocked to realize just how little desperate people are willing to work for. Again, should it be legal to screw these people based on their situation? No it wouldn't but don't take my word for it. Ask the American people who decided this issue 80 years ago.
 
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Re: The 2nd Term - Round 2 - Amensty for Some, Miniature AR-15s for Others...

Congratulations to Mississippi for finally entering the 17th Century. A few more decades and they might get to the 18th...

It’s official: Mississippi ratifies 13th Amendment

With an unlikely boost from Stephen Spielberg’s movie “Lincoln,” the state of Mississippi has finally ratified the 13th Amendment, which outlaws slavery, although the amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution more than 137 years ago.

In a state that trails others in many categories — but is tops as America’s “most religious” state — the Mississippi Legislature finally got around to ratifying the amendment in 1995. The ratification was, however, never filed with the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

A University of Mississippi med school professor, India-born Dr. Ranjan Batra, saw “Lincoln” in December and started researching the issue, later joined by university employee Ken Sullivan. They discovered the embarrassing omission. The state belatedly sent news of the 13th Amendment’s ratification to the nation’s capital.

“Now it’s officially filed and recorded: There’s no asterisk by Mississippi anymore,” Sullivan told the Jackson Clarion Ledger.
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Well, I wouldn't go THAT far. There are plenty of other reasons to put an asterisk next to Mississippi...
 
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