How the Minimum Wage hurts those that it "helps"

[shanek]

In several threads, people have defended the Minimum Wage as being necessary to make those evil, greedy corporations stop "exploiting" low income workers and give them decent wages.

But that just isn't what happens. In fact, the minimum wage condemns many of them to unemployment.

When we talk about the "job market," that’s exactly what it is—a market. The workers are the supply and control that side of the equation. More workers are willing to get a job if it pays higher wages. Employers provide the demand, and they’re more willing to hire workers at lower wages just as we’re more willing to buy an item at a lower price. As with the rest of the free market, the equilibrium point is the wage at which the number of people who want the job at that wage equals the number of jobs employers are willing to provide at that wage, and the market, if left alone, will automatically settle on this number.

The minimum wage, however, pushes the wage of lower skilled jobs above this equilibrium point. When that happens, more workers are demanding those jobs but fewer jobs are being supplied—and the inevitable result is unemployment.

This is not just theoretical economics—it's a very real effect. Economists David Neumark and William Wascher did a study of New Jersey payroll records (http://papers.nber.org/papers/W5224.pdf) (PDF) before and after a minimum wage increase, and found that the New Jersey minimum wage increase led to a 4.6 percent decrease in employment in New Jersey relative to the Pennsylvania control group.

What’s more, the ones who are hired are usually new applicants who can demand the wage. In a study by Boston University professor Kevin Lang (http://www.epionline.org/lang.pdf) (PDF file), it was concluded: "When the minimum wage is set above the level that would be offered by low-wage firms in the absence of legislation, low-wage jobs become attractive to some high-quality workers... The competition from higher quality workers makes low-skill workers worse off."

Not only that, but most of these are people who are trying to get off the government dole, according to Prof. Peter Brandon of the University of Wisconsin, who in his study (http://www.epionline.org/study_detail.cfm?sid=12) found that, "Research proves that higher mandated wages reduce employment opportunities for the least skilled. This effect is magnified for the welfare population, with studies showing higher minimum wages (1) lead to longer spells on welfare and (2) cause shifts in the profile of “who gets hired,” leading employers to favor higher-skilled applicants at the expense of low-skilled adults."

Unskilled jobs don’t pay poorly because bosses are mean, but because that’s what the market will bear. Economists everywhere have concluded that minimum wage laws hurt those they’re supposed to help. As always, govenrnment only makes it worse.

[Malachi151]

:rolleyes: more stupidity :rolleyes:

[no one in particular]

Originally posted by Malachi151
:rolleyes: more stupidity :rolleyes: That is hilarious Malachi, in the past I have considered removing the “content” of your posts and inserting the above in its place. This time, I did not have to do so.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Malachi151
:rolleyes: more stupidity :rolleyes:

Uh-huh. Sound economics with links to three entire studies is "more stupidity."

Your complete inability to refute the above points has been noted.

[gnome]

I would consider any job that could not pay enough to allow the person to survive on that job, a market failure.

If it's not worth enough to pay a survival wage, why is it worth a full working day of a person's time?

yes, there will be fewer slave wage jobs available and this will drive up unemployment figures. Instead of slowly starving, the workers that would have those jobs qualify for assistance.

What would your solution be instead? Or how would it work out so that there's not a problem?

[Ion]

I second this:
Originally posted by gnome
I would consider any job that could not pay enough to allow the person to survive on that job, a market failure.

If it's not worth enough to pay a survival wage, why is it worth a full working day of a person's time?

yes, there will be fewer slave wage jobs available and this will drive up unemployment figures. Instead of slowly starving, the workers that would have those jobs qualify for assistance.

What would your solution be instead? Or how would it work out so that there's not a problem?

The opening post demonstrates to me sheer stupidity, especially considering the obscene profits that a few make.

As for why I take the side of defending the minimum wage, I say it is not because I use it, I have an advanced Engineering degree that gives me employment accordingly, but I like to see people around me who can afford going to the dentist, for example.

[shanek]

Originally posted by gnome
I would consider any job that could not pay enough to allow the person to survive on that job, a market failure.

Why? Isn't it better than them not working at all? And isn't it good for them to develop a work history and experience so that later on they can get a better-paying job?

If it's not worth enough to pay a survival wage, why is it worth a full working day of a person's time?

Surely that's up to the person. A day of your time is worth whatever you think it is, and whatever you can successfully demand of others.

Even $10 an hour is not worth a full working day of my time. That doesn't mean that we should get rid of all jobs at that level and below.

yes, there will be fewer slave wage jobs available and this will drive up unemployment figures.

And that's a good thing?

Instead of slowly starving,

No one is starving in this country. Not even the unemployed. And it's not due to anything the government has done, but to the wealth the market has created for everyone.

I mean, for crying out loud—you see HOMELESS PEOPLE in the parks feeding the pigeons!

the workers that would have those jobs qualify for assistance.

Which still doesn't pay them that much, ultimately keeps them out of work longer, and doesn't do anything to build up their work experience and job history.

What would your solution be instead? Or how would it work out so that there's not a problem?


With people working these lower wages, they would gain experience and a work history that would allow them to later on get better jobs. It's not a permanent situation; it's an entry (or sometimes re-entry) into the job market. And it's an entry that the government is barring.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion
The opening post demonstrates to me sheer stupidity,

Why?

Is no one going to refute the DATA in the STUDIES?

especially considering the obscene profits that a few make.

Corporations simply do not take profits at the expense of employee wages. They want to attract the best workers possible without paying too much for them. Just as it doesn't work to overcharge for products, it doesn't work to underpay for workers. They can't just take the money. They have to pay what both the company and the workers agree the job is worth.

As for why I take the side of defending the minimum wage, I say it is not because I use it, I have an advanced Engineering degree that gives me employment accordingly, but I like to see people around me who can afford going to the dentist, for example.

Then you should hate the Minimum Wage, since as I showed that's actually preventing people from doing that.

[Ion]

Originally posted by shanek

...
With people working these lower wages, they would gain experience and a work history that would allow them to later on get better jobs. It's not a permanent situation; it's an entry (or sometimes re-entry) into the job market. And it's an entry that the government is barring.
Why later?

Make the minimum wage jobs, OK jobs, right now.

You don't know about later, so don't dream about later, but make the minimum wage job giving enough earning to live on, right now.

[WildCat]

Originally posted by gnome
If it's not worth enough to pay a survival wage, why is it worth a full working day of a person's time?
Because the majority of min. wage jobs are taken by 16 and 17 yo kids looking for spending $, not survival.
And gnome, here's a question for you: If a $7 min. wage is good, why not $15? Or $20? What the hell, just make the min. $50 and then everyone will be rich, won't they?
And, even burger flippers can be replaced by a machine. (http://uktop100.reuters.com/latest/McDonalds/top10/20030731-LEISURE-MCDONALDS.ASP)
The gov't cannot fix the price of labor any more than they can fix the price of gasoline, cell phones, or any other commodity.

[Ion]

Originally posted by shanek

...
Corporations simply do not take profits at the expense of employee wages.
...

That's exactly what they do.

In 1998, I developed software for the 56k modem for 3Com, I was laid off, and 3Com is making profits "...at the expense..." of my wage by inserting the 56k modem in any computer sold worldwide as we speak now in 2003.

[Malachi151]

The minimum wage, however, pushes the wage of lower skilled jobs above this equilibrium point.

What equilibrium point? That's just a vague idea that you can't define.

The whole minimum wage issue is such a load of crap, in fact a number of other longer term studies in larger areas have shown exactly the opposite, because in the long term what happens is that large numbers of workers end up in jobs that pay for little that they can barely afford to live, and thus they hardly participate in the economy. When minimum wages are implimented the wages go up and more people can afford to do more then just pay for a bed and cheap food and that's when progress really starts to happen because it helps create more demand.

Secondly employment in America is heavily controlled by the Federal Reserve and its control of the money supply. The Fed aims to maintain an unemployemnt rate of around 5% to 6%, so THAT is what is really controlling unemployment, the Fed, not minimum wages. As minimum wages have gone down over the past 20 years unemployment has stayed generally the same at around 5% to 6% even while the minimum wage has gone down when adjusted for inflation.

Unemplyment was hitting 4% and even 3% briefly in 1999, to which the Fed responded with increasing interest rates to try and increase unemployment. Now, my argument at the time was that this was stupid as hell, and what SHOUDL have been done is that the MINIMUM WAGE should have been increased instead.

Effectively the Fed was saying that in order to keep more people unemployed to keep the economy "under control" :rolleyes: (which is a whole crock in and of itself) they decided to increase interest rates, which was a good thing for investors, which the desired result would be to increase unemployment, in order to stave off the "threat" of inflation, which bascially means the threat that employeers would start having to pay more to workers and reducing profits.

If you look at job creation vs unemployment you see that under Cater only a couple million jobs were created, and unemployment was about 5.5%, under Reagan about 17 million jobs were created and guess what, unemployment was about 5.5%.

Job creating and the number of people being employed does not translate into unemplyment figured. You can create a billion new jobs and still have unemployment. You can lose jobs and reduce unemployment. What we saw with Reagan was that as jobs were created, there was also an increased demand by citizens to work because wages were low and supply of goods was high so more people needed to work, the need to work rose faster than the creation of jobs, even though job creation was high, which is because wages were low so more people had to work two or more jobs and more families had to transition from single worker to two or three worker.

So, not having a higher minium wage certianly didn't help all those people.

And the argument that minimum wages are bad for unskilled workers on the ground that then more skilled workers move from skilled labor jobs to unskilled labor jobs is asinine. Who then takes those skilled labor jobs? Duh, prices would go up there and keeping the skilled workers attracted to those positions, however there is some truth in that now those jobs are shipped over seas. This is not a problem of minum wages though, its a probelm of free trade and out sourcing labor.

If companies didn't ship those jobs over seas then there would not be a problem.

Mostly what minimum wages do is increase demand in the economy by making it so that more people have enough money to do more in the economy and that increased demand fuels the creation of even more jobs, and it makes sure that every jobs pays enough money to support a decent life.

The minimum wage now should be about $8.00 an hour. Its hard to discuss how wages effect economies in the cases of small states where people and busineses can easily and freely move from state to state. In that case an emplyer may decide to move from one state to the next just to save money on labor costs, but the real problem is not that one state raised the minimum wage, its that the other states did not, so jobs may shift location, in what becomes a wage labor bidding war, bidding down, down, down.

That's the whole issue with all of this. We are in a global economy, where the fact that wages are kept low in China can create unemployment in America. The issue is not one of the totla economy, its not that jobs are lost, its that they are moved. The only way to fix this is through global wage controls and global economy planning, again, back to the global Socialist Revolution. The fact is that all minimum wgaes around the world need to be raised. We have to stop these wage labor price wars, where the only people who benefit are the capitalsits and the majority is just constantly hurt by waves of unemployment and even reducing shares of the economy.

[Ion]

False:
Originally posted by WildCat

Because the majority of min. wage jobs are taken by 16 and 17 yo kids looking for spending $, not survival.
...

When going to McDonald's, I see more than 50% of their employees being older and surviving on minimum wage.
Originally posted by WildCat

...
And gnome, here's a question for you: If a $7 min. wage is good, why not $15? Or $20? What the hell, just make the min. $50 and then everyone will be rich, won't they?
...

You got the right idea.

Now, support it.

[Malachi151]

And, even burger flippers can be replaced by a machine.

As they should be. We should be automating everything and impliment a national investment system whereby eveyrone in the country is given an account that is maintianed by the government, which invests in all of the American companies. Right now only the very wealthy make money from investing, everyone should be making money from investing, the problem is that it take smoney to get into the system. Its a ponzi scheme.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion

Why later?

Make the minimum wage jobs, OK jobs, right now.

But they can't! They can't demand the price, so the jobs are just given to those that can!

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion

That's exactly what they do.

Evidence?

In 1998, I developed software in the 56k modem for 3Com, I was laid off, and 3Com is making profits "...at the expense..." of my wage by inserting the 56k modem in any computer sold worldwide as we speak now in 2003.

Did you not get paid for developing the software? So how are they getting rich at your expense? You got paid for it, didn't you? You agreed to that salary, didn't you?

[CFLarsen]

shanek,

You should read more history.

You should also get out more. Or rather: Get out, period. You have lived in your fantasy world for far too long.

[Ion]

Originally posted by shanek

...
Did you not get paid for developing the software? So how are they getting rich at your expense? You got paid for it, didn't you? You agreed to that salary, didn't you?
The point is that 3Com makes profit off my work.

Sharing more or less of this profit with me, that's up to 3Com.

I don't have the lawyers to fight 3Com for profit sharing.

At McDonald's employees don't have lawyers to fight for profit sharing, either.

The point remains that obscene profits that are not shared, are all over.

Sharing in the profits, from minimum wage up to me and higher than me, that would be just.

[Nitpick]

Ok, let us go back to 19th-Century Capitalism and then let our (grand)children deal with the next big wave of communist(oid) movements...
Why learn from history anyway? We seem not to have enough fantasy to afford a new set of mistakes for every new generation.

[The Mad Linguist]

If you don't mandate a minimum wage, then the government has to cover the difference between what the employer is paying and a living wage. Otherwise, starvation results (IN THEORY, I don't know what the situation is in America). That's your tax money paying the employer's wage bill.

Capitalists like having a relatively large pool of unemployment because it makes it a buyer's market for employment. This gives them leverage over their employees - it's harder for someone to threaten to withdraw their labour if there are three million others who'd take on that job. Similarly capitalists dislikes unions because unions are, essentially, price-fixing cartels in the labour market.

Shanek, you're right that if left to itself, the market would settle on a "correct" price for labour. That's not what a minimum wage is for. A minimum wage is for making sure that the market cannot pay a person less than what is judged commensurate with human dignity. This has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with ethics. The "correct" price for labour may be degradingly low, if unemployment is high enough.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Malachi151
What equilibrium point? That's just a vague idea that you can't define.

No, it's not, and it is easily defined, and if you'd just bother to take a simple economics class you'd know that.

More people want a job if it pays a higher wage. Employers can afford to higher more people at lower wages. So there's going to be one wage level where the number of people wanting the job equal the number of people the employer is willing to hire. That is the equilibrium point. It IS real, and it DOES work that way.

The whole minimum wage issue is such a load of crap, in fact a number of other longer term studies in larger areas have shown exactly the opposite,

References?

because in the long term what happens is that large numbers of workers end up in jobs that pay for little that they can barely afford to live, and thus they hardly participate in the economy.

They can participate better than they can without a job, which is the alternative.

When minimum wages are implimented the wages go up and more people can afford to do more then just pay for a bed and cheap food

Evidence? The studies I posted show otherwise.

Secondly employment in America is heavily controlled by the Federal Reserve and its control of the money supply.

??? How can the Fed control unemployment?

As minimum wages have gone down over the past 20 years

????????????????

Do you have ANY idea what you're talking about?

and what SHOUDL have been done is that the MINIMUM WAGE should have been increased instead.

That would have just meant that the companies wouldn't have had enough money to hire all the people they had. Result: More unemployment.

Effectively the Fed was saying that in order to keep more people unemployed to keep the economy "under control" :rolleyes: (which is a whole crock in and of itself)

Now that I'll agree with.

But you still need to post references for your figures.

And the argument that minimum wages are bad for unskilled workers on the ground that then more skilled workers move from skilled labor jobs to unskilled labor jobs is asinine. Who then takes those skilled labor jobs?

Other workers who can demand the higher wages. In other cases, the jobs go overseas where there aren't any such restrictions.

Mostly what minimum wages do is increase demand in the economy by making it so that more people have enough money

Provide evidence that more people have more money under minimum wage...particularly the people it's supposed to help.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion
When going to McDonald's, I see more than 50% of their employees being older and surviving on minimum wage.

McDonalds pays its workers more than the minimum wage.

[shanek]

Originally posted by CFLarsen
shanek,

You should read more history.

You should also get out more. Or rather: Get out, period. You have lived in your fantasy world for far too long.

And Claus comes in with his usual rational rebuttal... :rolleyes:

[Lyle Beaudoin]

When we talk about the "job market," that’s exactly what it is—a market. The workers are the supply and control that side of the equation. More workers are willing to get a job if it pays higher wages. Employers provide the demand, and they’re more willing to hire workers at lower wages just as we’re more willing to buy an item at a lower price. As with the rest of the free market, the equilibrium point is the wage at which the number of people who want the job at that wage equals the number of jobs employers are willing to provide at that wage, and the market, if left alone, will automatically settle on this number.

The minimum wage, however, pushes the wage of lower skilled jobs above this equilibrium point. When that happens, more workers are demanding those jobs but fewer jobs are being supplied—and the inevitable result is unemployment.

Works in theory. But so does Communism, and look how well that works in real life.

If an outfit needs three janitors, they probably won't hire six at half the price just because they can. They'll hire three and pay them peanuts. I have no reason to think employers would do otherwise.

That a company would lay off employees to keep the bottom line steady when expenses (wages) go up comes as no surprise to me. Particularly low-paying outfits who ask me if I want fries with that. I flipped burgers when I was a teenager, and was one of the few who paid attention. Reducing payroll wouldn't necessarily increase staff. Overworked staff and more money in the corporate sock under the bed would be the likely result.

There's no guarantee minimum wage-type employers would behave according to the glorious, utopian theory they're supposed to in order to reach Nirv - er - Equilibrium Point.

The minimum wage, however, pushes the wage of lower skilled jobs above this equilibrium point.

I agree. So what? If we did things differently, things wouldn't be the same. Why is this particular "equilibrium point" so desirable? Lots of people making $1.00/hr is good for unemployment numbers, but that's it. What can I do with $1.00/hr?

I see that the New Jersey payroll reference is indeed a fast-food industry study, too. I'd peruse, but they want $5.00 for it. Fat chance.

I don't understand this, from the EPI report:

Thus, in 2001,Congress will be debating a national minimum wage hike that will affect low-skilled people who have dramatically fewer options if they cannot find work.

Why would I have fewer options? If all I can do is sweep a floor and there are ten outfits I can sweep floors for, what does the wage really matter? They need their floors swept regardless, don't they? The necessity for filling the positions wouldn't go away, would it?

That these positions pay $6.00/hr instead of $3.00/hr hardly brings in higher skilled unemployed folks in droves. (Maybe a few dotcom victims). And if the lower skilled workers are being bumped out by unemployed engineers used to making $70 000/year, then the economy's troubles lie elsewhere altogether.

I'd add that the study seems to be a rebuttal to a specific wage increase proposal, and not necessarily the idea of a minimum wage in general.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion

The point is that 3Com makes profit on my work.

Which they paid you for.

I don't have the lawyers to fight 3Com for profit sharing.

Which you probably wouldn't get anyway, since that apparently wasn't part of your original agreement. You'd be looking to renig on your deal.

[shanek]

Originally posted by The Mad Linguist
If you don't mandate a minimum wage, then the government has to cover the difference between what the employer is paying and a living wage.

Why?

Otherwise, starvation results (IN THEORY, I don't know what the situation is in America).

The situation in America is that WE DON'T HAVE STARVATION HERE. Not even among the homeless. In fact, we have the fattest poor people on Earth! One big thing the nutritionists are all about is the staggering levels of obesity in the lowest income and even unemployed adults! OBESITY! People just don't starve in America!

Capitalists like having a relatively large pool of unemployment because it makes it a buyer's market for employment.

No, they don't. Unemployment means that the economy isn't producing at its maximum level. Unemployment will drop until the level of Long Term Aggregate Demand is reached.

That's not what a minimum wage is for. A minimum wage is for making sure that the market cannot pay a person less than what is judged commensurate with human dignity.

So, better to have them not working at all? Because that's the choice.

[WildCat]

Originally posted by Ion
False:

When going to McDonald's, I see more than 50% of their employees being older and surviving on minimum wage.
OK, also retired folks looking to supplement their Social Security. I doubt you've seen many people trying to live solely off their McDonald's jobs.
You got the right idea.
Now, support it.
The question was rhetorical. Setting such a high min. wage would be inflationary and/or lead to an enormous rise in unemployment.
The gov't setting the price of labor has similar effects of them setting the price of other commodities - doesn't anyone remember the economic disaster that ensued when Nixon implemented wage and price controls?
And around here, most fast food jobs pay well above the min. wage because they wouldn't find anyone willing to work for the lower wages. Imagine that, the market setting the labor rate!

Edited for spelling

[The Mad Linguist]

Shanek, I get that there's no starvation in America. What I'm suggesting is that if people are earning less than a living wage, then the money that is preventing them from starving must be coming from somewhere, and ultimately I imagine it's coming from the government. That's certainly the case in the UK.

Yes, better to have them not working at all. Although from what I've read I think the economic argument over the cost in terms of jobs of a minimum wage is far from settled.

Shanek, I don't usually post in economics threads. but an attack on the minimum wage - which in UK is one of the finest achievements of an underperforming government - brought me out of my hole. My point, and it is this point that you are missing, is that labour is not and should not be treated like any other commodity. Its price SHOULD be fixed. Why? Because we are talking about PEOPLE'S LIVES. We are talking about the worth of a human being.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by shanek


The minimum wage, however, pushes the wage of lower skilled jobs above this equilibrium point. When that happens, more workers are demanding those jobs but fewer jobs are being supplied—and the inevitable result is unemployment.



I don't see anything wrong with this. If one is going to get less than the minimum wage if they work, they might as well be unemployed. Providing they can get benefits of course which you can in the UK. Time can be more profitably spent than doing a cr*ppy job with low wages.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Lyle Beaudoin
Works in theory.

The studies I mentioned show that it works in real life, too.

But so does Communism, and look how well that works in real life.

Communism was just made up without having been tried. Economics has studied these real-world effects and reached conclusions based on direct observations. There's a difference. This effect DOES happen in real life.

If an outfit needs three janitors, they probably won't hire six at half the price just because they can.

No, but if they want to hire three janitors at $4/hour, and there's a $6/hour Minimum Wage, then they're probably only going to hire two of them. And since more people will be going for the job, and the employer will be looking for the most qualified workers, chances are none of the original three janitors will get the jobs and they will go to two better-skilled janitors.

They'll hire three and pay them peanuts. I have no reason to think employers would do otherwise.

Because they want the best janitors they can afford. In the above example, they'd be willing to pay $4/hour for a janitor because the janitor would be giving them at least that much in return. But at only $2/hour, the janitors they would have to choose from wouldn't be as good as the janitors that could demand $4/hour and they wouldn't get that great a return.

There's no guarantee minimum wage-type employers would behave according to the glorious, utopian theory they're supposed to in order to reach Nirv - er - Equilibrium Point.

That has been the OBSERVED EFFECTS of wages in the economy. Denying that is like denying that the Earth goes aroung the sun.

I agree. So what? If we did things differently, things wouldn't be the same. Why is this particular "equilibrium point" so desirable?

Because you don't have unemployment (a surplus of workers) and you also don't have a situation where the company can't find enough workers to fill the jobs.

I see that the New Jersey payroll reference is indeed a fast-food industry study, too. I'd peruse, but they want $5.00 for it. Fat chance.

What are you talking about? I linked directly to the PDF file of the study! They don't want any money for you to see it! What are you trying to pull here?

Just click:

http://papers.nber.org/papers/W5224.pdf

Why would I have fewer options?

Because there wouldn't be as many if any jobs available at the wage level you can demand.

They need their floors swept regardless, don't they?

Not necessarily. Not if they have to pay a greater amount than clean floors are worth. At some point, the employer may just grab the broom himself and do it.

That these positions pay $6.00/hr instead of $3.00/hr hardly brings in higher skilled unemployed folks in droves.

It DOES bring them in. More people apply for higher-paying jobs. And those jobs will go to those who are more qualified, who are the ones who can demand the higher wage and thus wouldn't bother applying for a lower-wage job.

And if the lower skilled workers are being bumped out by unemployed engineers used to making $70 000/year,

Who says they are? What are you even TALKING about?

[shuize]

Shanek,

You are exactly right on the minimum wage issue. The higher the minimum wage, the higher the level of unemployment. This is basic economics and, despite the fact that many refuse to accept it, basic common sense.

[Ion]

Originally posted by shanek

...
Which you probably wouldn't get anyway, since that apparently wasn't part of your original agreement. You'd be looking to renig on your deal.
I say again, obscene profits like in this example exist.

3Com, McDonald's, Qualcomm, they make obscene profits.

Fairer salaries, including higher minimum wage, can be easily drawn by distributing to the workers these obscene profits.

[Ion]

Originally posted by shuize
Shanek,

You are exactly right on the minimum wage issue. The higher the minimum wage, the higher the level of unemployment. This is basic economics and, despite the fact that many refuse to accept it, basic common sense.
So what?

gnome pointed out at the beginning of the thread:

what's the point to be full-time employed for barely above zero pay and slowly dying?

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by WildCat

Because the majority of min. wage jobs are taken by 16 and 17 yo kids looking for spending $, not survival.



I thought that free market was interested in economic growth that is driven by spending.Teens and young adults are those who have the best disposable income to financial responsibilities ratio.

Just an argument in the spirit of liberalism...

The main argument remains the one Mad Linguist posted and I quote him verbatin since I can't word it better than him in English :

A minimum wage is for making sure that the market cannot pay a person less than what is judged commensurate with human dignity.

[shuize]

Originally posted by Ion

So what?

gnome pointed out at the beginning of the thread:

what's the point to be full-time employed for barely above zero pay and slowly dying?

The point is that everyone who crys to "raise the minimum wage" must also understand that by doing so they will also contribute to a higher level of unemployment. That, I believe, was Shanek's point in the title of the thread "How the Minimum Wage hurts those that it 'helps.'" You can't just "pass a law" to give people higher wages without it putting others out of work. If your goal is to help some people more at the expense of others, then by all means, pass higher minimum wage laws. Just don't be stupid and think that "everyone benefits."

[Ion]

Originally posted by shanek

But they can't! They can't demand the price, so the jobs are just given to those that can!
That's the problem in U.S.:

greed.

A more benevolent society, shares companies' profits.

I am in U.S. not because I condone the stupid greed widespred here, but because I have a hobby in U.S..

[toddjh]

I'm amazed no one has brought up what is probably the most important defense of the minimum wage: the fact that it forces employers to pay its employees in real money, not in "company scrip" or in exchange for worthless and self-perpetuating services.

It's not about the market, or a "living wage," it's about stopping the companies from carving out their own little micro-countries with virtual slave labor. Union protection laws are along the same lines -- in fact, you could make a good argument that we don't need both, but it's naive to think that the minimum wage is just about economics.

Jeremy

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by shanek
The situation in America is that WE DON'T HAVE STARVATION HERE. Not even among the homeless. In fact, we have the fattest poor people on Earth! One big thing the nutritionists are all about is the staggering levels of obesity in the lowest income and even unemployed adults! OBESITY! People just don't starve in America!

shanek, it's comments like these that make me say, in all earnesty: You need to get out of the house. Leave your cocoon. And listen to people that have different opinions than yourself.

[Ion]

Originally posted by shuize


The point is that everyone who crys to "raise the minimum wage" must also understand that by doing so they will also contribute to a higher level of unemployment.
...

Raise the minimum wage and raise the assistance sociale.

That works.

The profits are in a few greedy hands, so there is money to afford the raise.

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by The Mad Linguist
My point, and it is this point that you are missing, is that labour is not and should not be treated like any other commodity. Its price SHOULD be fixed. Why? Because we are talking about PEOPLE'S LIVES. We are talking about the worth of a human being.

With respect for the sentiment, I have to disagree: we are not talking about the worth of human beings. The amount any person is paid or not paid for their job has no connection or correlation to what they are "worth," no matter how that broad term is defined.

My father was an electrician. Many people earned more than he throughout his lifetime. To say that someone earning more shows that they had more "worth" is simply incorrect - and using emotionally charged terms rather than a real argument.

You can disagree with whether the downside of minimum wages outweighs the percevied value; youi can disagree with the level that a minimum wage is set; but those arguments are separate from the economic effects that Shanek has listed.

The trends he highlighted in his studies are precisely on target: raising minimum wage will lessen the number of jobs, raise the price on goods employing persons making such a wage (i.e., increase inflatiuonary pressure), and (therefore) comparatively hurt the people earning just over the minimum wage. It may be argued that such effects are outweighed by the positive effects of such a move -- if someone wants to take that position -- but several people on this thread appear to be simply denying that the effect occurs, and that position is simply wrong. The number of studies and models showing such an effect is staggering.

Real life anecdote: I worked at a fast food chain at the end of high school/beginning of college. We had 5 "restaurants" in the city I lived in. While working there, the minimum wage was raised $.15. I had been working there for a year or so, and had started at minimum and had received a $.15 raise over that time.

So, a month before the rate increase, here is how the chain handled it:

(1) The price on the vast majority of our items increased by a nickel or a dime, each.

(2) the minimum wage employees got the raise, but no one else did. So I went from being $.15 over the minimum wage to earning minimum wage again. Combined with the first item, I was effectively worse off than when I was earning the lower minimum wage, but when prices were lower.

(3) they closed the least profitable store - the one barely earning a profit before the cost increase - meaning about 20 employees lost their jobs. Any employees hifted to another store meant a "new" worker was not hired, so a net 20 people were not working who otherwise would be.

That, in a microcosm, is what happens every time the minimum wage goes up.

---------

I think that getting rid of the minimum wage would make sense if we also went to a system such as a negative income tax for people earning under a certain amount - a system that would reward people for working, even if they earned only a small amount. It would involve much less bureaucracy and red tape than the present systems and provide a real incentive for persons to find jobs and report income.

NA

[bpesta22]

Shanek.

I haven't read all the posts here, so I don't know if this was brought up.

But, there was a classic study done showing that your concerns just don't pan out when it comes to increasing the MW.

In theory it makes sense, but when you actually collect data, increasing the MW doesn't increase U.

It's by card and krueger:

http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/5632.html

The end result of rasising the MW seems to be that some teenagers might lose their jobs at fast food places if they live in a local economy where the MW is actually higher than firm's golden rule of hiring the last worker so that his marginal revenue = his wages.

[DeathToSophists]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Time can be more profitably spent than doing a cr*ppy job with low wages.

:D

DTS

[Malachi151]

Here you go shanek, now this graph may be a little hard to understand, but I'll explain it.

http://pw1.netcom.com/~rdavis2/minwage.html

http://pw1.netcom.com/~rdavis2/minwage.gif

Its actually esier if you go to the link and look at the raw data.

The main thing to look at here is the blue line, that is the minimum wage adjusted for inflation in 2000 dollars.

What we see is that the highest minimum wage in America was in 1968 at $7.92 per hour. In 2001 the minimum wage in 2000 dollars was $5.01.

The Average Wage shown is not adjusted for inflation. Unfortunately this does not show average wage adjusted for inflation, that would be very nice to know.

I didn't feel like adjusting all the average wages for inflation, but I did for 1968, and there I got 13.81 as the average wage in 2000 dollars.

I did these adjustments for average wage:

1968 = $13.81
1980 = $13.09
1985 = $13.45
1990 = $13.85
1995 = $13.94
2000 = $16.08

So there was obviouly a big jump there between 1995 and 2000 in average wage, but really, for the most part between 1968 and 1995 there had been little difference at all. Keep in mind that this is AVERAGE wage, not median, so as the end goes way up it drags it all up.

But as you can see, the average wage in 80 and 85 was less than 68, by 90 it was back to par 95 is was a little higher, and in 2000 it was way up.

Between 68 and 89 minimum wages fell dramatically. Then they were bumped in 90 and 91 and again in 96 and 97, which also had a corresponding effect of rasing average wages. In ADDITION, when Clinton bumped the minimum wages for the most significant time since teh 1960s, not only did average wages go up dramtically, but unemployment also went down.

So, all your little ranting BS is easily proven false by looking at basic data. Again I repeat that we have many economists in America that are full of crap.

[Tmy]

Find me one person who is unbale to find a minimum wage job. Sure maybe a raise will MW will couse SOME places tocut back a workforce due to cost beneifit. But you act like those out of work employees are unable to find other work. In reality MW jobs are plentiful. Open any want ad section in any newspaper.

These large companies who provide mostof the MW jobs also reap billions in profits. So excuse me if I dont cry for McDonalds.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by shanek
What are you talking about? I linked directly to the PDF file of the study! They don't want any money for you to see it! What are you trying to pull here?

Just click:

http://papers.nber.org/papers/W5224.pdf


See: http://papers.nber.org/papers/expecting/w5224

They want $5 to read the study. It's definately not worth that much to me.

IMNSHO, www.mises.org has the best economic papers on the internet. I remember one editorial, where they commended Ebineezer Scrooge for his keen business sense, no joking. They've also suggested that such things as Grave Robbing are great and should be allowed in a free market. These arguments make just as much sense as the no Minimum Wage arguments, IMO. But what they all lack is the appreciation that we are not dealing with automatons who can be traded like commodities, but with real live people, who have real emotions - that don't follow utopian economic rules.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion
3Com, McDonald's, Qualcomm, they make obscene profits.

How much of a profit is "obscene" and above what point do you think companies should start raising wages? Provide numbers, please.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
I thought that free market was interested in economic growth that is driven by spending.Teens and young adults are those who have the best disposable income to financial responsibilities ratio.

They are, but they're also unskilled and inexperienced.

[shanek]

Originally posted by CFLarsen
shanek, it's comments like these that make me say, in all earnesty: You need to get out of the house. Leave your cocoon. And listen to people that have different opinions than yourself.

I have. There IS NO PROBLEM WITH STARVATION IN THIS COUNTRY. I've been to low income areas and seen people 300+ pounds. I've seen homeless people feeding pigeons in the park.

Yes, there are people going hungry...Yes, there are people who are eating things they'd rather not be eating. But WE DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH STARVATION.

And if the best you can come up with is "leave your cocoon," while presenting absolutely no data to show that my claim is wrong, then I must reiterate my conclusion that you are no skeptic.

[Ion]

This is important:
Originally posted by Suggestologist

...
But what they all lack is the appreciation that we are not dealing with automatons who can be traded like commodities, but with real live people,...
...

More important to me than to be reminded by The San Diego Union Tribune in July 2003, that an executive at Qualcomm made millions last year, during the height of the recession.

And looking at his picture in the paper, having me wondering where is he spending his money, given that he appears like a chubby ugly-looking guy who spends less money than I do to look handsome and in decent human shape.

[shanek]

Originally posted by bpesta22
But, there was a classic study done showing that your concerns just don't pan out when it comes to increasing the MW.

In theory it makes sense, but when you actually collect data, increasing the MW doesn't increase U.

It's by card and krueger:

The Neumark/Wascher study discredited the Cark and Krueger study. Read it and you'll see why Card and Krueger were way off the mark.

[Tmy]

data? How about using common sense instead two dementional graphs. If economists really knew what was up then they wouldnt become economists because the employment market for them is so bad.

Isnt it physically impossible for bumblebees to fly. Yet we see them buzzing about.

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by Malachi151
Here you go shanek, now this graph may be a little hard to understand, but I'll explain it.

I understand it -- but I don't see where you've worked to isolate the minimum wage amount from the many other factors influencing employment.

You -did- do that, right? You wouldn't simply put up a graph and say "post hoc, ergo propter hoc"?





edited to correct quotation

[Ion]

Originally posted by shanek

How much of a profit is "obscene" and above what point do you think companies should start raising wages? Provide numbers, please.
At the current cost of living, I say nobody (including talented Michael Jordan) is worth more than a million per year.

Even one million, that's kind of obscene, but a few rare exceptions might reach it.

The difference between this million for each person who makes more than a million, and what they actually make, I arbitrarily call it 'obscene profit', and I would put it in a national bank to raise the minimum wage and social services.

No more greed.

OK?

[Malachi151]

When adjusted for inflation the minimum wage today is less than it was in 1950. Enough said.

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Raising the minimum wage and then saying there was a rise or decrease in employment/unemployment shortly following implementation of a mw increase shows correlation not causation.

It takes months to realise if there is a net incease or decrease in the number or part time jobs/full time jobs, or if there is a boom or bust in the economy. An economy could be starting to pick up or slow down as the mw increase is implemented, and this could have more influence on hiring practices the mw increases. High inflation could influence companies to be more fiscally conservative and hire accordingly.

When did these mw increases occur? During high or low inflation? Before the economy tanked or after it recovered? Mw increases and their measured affects on the economy and employment figures are limited in scope.

[Ion]

That's sad:
Originally posted by Malachi151
When adjusted for inflation the minimum wage today is less than it was in 1950.
...

The fat profiteers of U.S. are doing this.

[Lyle Beaudoin]

I'm not trying to pull anything, shanek. That link takes me to a page that starts like this:

Please complete this order form to download this paper.
We will send you an email message confirming your order and payment.
Items in red are required fields. Please ensure that all required fields are filled in.

And if the lower skilled workers are being bumped out by unemployed engineers used to making $70 000/year,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Who says they are? What are you even TALKING about?

Well, who are these more highly skilled people stealing these lucrative low-rent jobs because they pay too well?

Because you don't have unemployment (a surplus of workers) and you also don't have a situation where the company can't find enough workers to fill the jobs.

Instead, once the dust settled, you get people with jobs that don't cover the cost of living but require the same amount of time and effort to perform. Is this better?

Imagine how long it would take the dust to settle, too. Abolish minimum wage tomorrow, and how many McWorkers would walk when told to deal with what they deal with for $2/hr? You'll have a very difficult time convincing someone making $4/hr that they'd be better off making $2/hr. I'm sure they won't care if that means Head Office can open another store somewhere else or not. Why should they care if McDonald's Inc. is doing better if their paycheck keeps getting smaller?

[Tmy]

Ever notice how all these social programs aimed at the poor and downtrodden are always claimed to hurt these groups? We've had min wage and welfare and housing programs for years. The result.........almost no homeless and/or hungry people in the entire country.

[The Mad Linguist]

Yes, and the people doing the claiming are rarely poor and downtrodden themselves.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Tmy

...
We've had min wage and welfare and housing programs for years. The result.........almost no homeless and/or hungry people in the entire country.
That's good.

It should be improved further, so that it becomes:

very good.

Maybe later on it can become:

excellent.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Malachi151
If you look at job creation vs unemployment you see that under Cater only a couple million jobs were created, and unemployment was about 5.5%, under Reagan about 17 million jobs were created and guess what, unemployment was about 5.5%.

Okay, I've found figures that completely refute your idiotic claim that the unemployment rate has remained stable. This graph was made from data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at bls.gov. It looks like you just selected two different data points to make your point, as those are the only two points where unemployment dropped down to that level.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tmy
Isnt it physically impossible for bumblebees to fly. Yet we see them buzzing about.

No, it isn't physically impossible. The beating of their wings creates tiny little eddies in the air around them which generates the lift they need. But it's hardly surprising that this, like your economic knowledge, is incredibly lacking.

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by shanek
Okay, I've found figures that completely refute your idiotic claim that the unemployment rate has remained stable.

This is why you are in such disdain here, shanek. You are boorish, rude, obnoxious and childish.

Let go of your contempt for other people. Seriously. :mad:

[shanek]

Originally posted by Lyle Beaudoin
I'm not trying to pull anything, shanek. That link takes me to a page that starts like this:

Well, when I click it, I just get the PDF file...and it never asked me anything about paying for it.

Instead, once the dust settled, you get people with jobs that don't cover the cost of living but require the same amount of time and effort to perform. Is this better?

Than those same people being out of a job? You bet!

Do you have any actual DATA to present, or just assertions?

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tmy
Ever notice how all these social programs aimed at the poor and downtrodden are always claimed to hurt these groups? We've had min wage and welfare and housing programs for years. The result.........almost no homeless and/or hungry people in the entire country.

Which was the case even before those programs came around.

[Tmy]

Yeah Shanke Im sure you have a graph showing ZERO homeless and hungry before we became a "welfare state".

Have you ever even had a min wage job? Hve you elver lost a job or know someone whos lost a job because of an increase in min wage? Have you ever open the classifeds to find NO help wanted?

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tmy
Yeah Shanke Im sure you have a graph showing ZERO homeless and hungry before we became a "welfare state".

I never SAID zero homeless and hungry!

I've presented the data. Is no one even going to TRY and refute it? Or is this going to be the typical tactics of the big government types: Strawman, lies, and ignoring my points? :mad:

[Tmy]

Originally posted by shanek


No, it isn't physically impossible. The beating of their wings creates tiny little eddies in the air around them which generates the lift they need. But it's hardly surprising that this, like your economic knowledge, is incredibly lacking. http://plus.maths.org/issue17/news/bumble/


Hey look, I have a link that says different! I must be right since I have a LINK! Thats how it works doesnt it.

[Malachi151]

Originally posted by shanek


Okay, I've found figures that completely refute your idiotic claim that the unemployment rate has remained stable. This graph was made from data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at bls.gov. It looks like you just selected two different data points to make your point, as those are the only two points where unemployment dropped down to that level.

You would be correct, at the end of the Reagan era unemployment was ~5.5 after having created 17 million jobs at the end of the Carter era unemployment was ~5.5 after having created 2 million jobs.

Now, that's for the graph, becuase all it does is DISPROVE your point.

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/attachment.php?s=&postid=1870052699

http://pw1.netcom.com/~rdavis2/minwage.gif

Notice anything... like say, the minimum wage dropping like a rock while unemployment sky rocketed? Actually when you look at the data you can see that ther is no direct connection between minimum wage and unemployment. Minimum wage is just one of many factors in the employment rate, and its not the governing factor in our economy.

[Tmy]

Originally posted by shanek


I never SAID zero homeless and hungry!

I've presented the data. Is no one even going to TRY and refute it? Or is this going to be the typical tactics of the big government types: Strawman, lies, and ignoring my points? :mad:

I was being sarcastic. Plus i think I remember your data. It was incomplete since it only had stats from a couple years before welfare and then stats some 40 yrs post welfare.


"In theory Communism works. IN THERORY!" -Homer Simpson

[Nitpick]

Originally posted by shanek


Well, when I click it, I just get the PDF file...and it never asked me anything about paying for it.



Quote: (http://papers.nber.org/papers/expecting/w5224)

"You should expect a free download if you are a subscriber, a corporate associate of the NBER, or a resident of nearly any developing country or transition economy.

If the option of downloading a .pdf (or .html for some papers) version of the working paper is not available, it is usually because your computer's numeric Internet address could not be matched with our list of subscribers and others eligible for no cost downloads. Please visit our help page for more information."

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by shanek
I never SAID zero homeless and hungry!

Really?

Originally posted by shanek
No one is starving in this country. Not even the unemployed. And it's not due to anything the government has done, but to the wealth the market has created for everyone.

I mean, for crying out loud—you see HOMELESS PEOPLE in the parks feeding the pigeons!
.....
The situation in America is that WE DON'T HAVE STARVATION HERE. Not even among the homeless. In fact, we have the fattest poor people on Earth! One big thing the nutritionists are all about is the staggering levels of obesity in the lowest income and even unemployed adults! OBESITY! People just don't starve in America!

"No one" means "more than zero"? "People just don't starve in America" means "more than zero"? "WE DON'T HAVE STARVATION HERE. Not even among the homeless" means "more than zero"?

shanek, I really think you should consider what words you use. That always seems to get you in trouble.

Originally posted by shanek
I've presented the data. Is no one even going to TRY and refute it? Or is this going to be the typical tactics of the big government types: Strawman, lies, and ignoring my points? :mad:

It's been less than 5 hours since you started this thread. It's also a sunday, shanek. And yet, you fly off in a rage because not that many people want to debate you on this.

You're like a little child, mad that nobody wants to play. And you are absolutely furious that nobody wants to play your way. Have you tried anger management? Or perhaps you should start realizing that the reason people don't believe you is because you make a very lousy case?

Having a debate is fine, but very few people like to be ridiculed, like you ridicule people here.

Learn some manners, you boor.

[Malachi151]

Okay, here we go, unemployment rates in one graph, and minimum wages in another:

Unemployment rate:

http://www.forecasts.org/data/images/UNRATE.gif

minimum wage (the blue line is what we are looking at here):

http://pw1.netcom.com/~rdavis2/minwage.gif

As you can see unemployment was generally lower when minimum wages were higher.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tmy
I was being sarcastic. Plus i think I remember your data. It was incomplete since it only had stats from a couple years before welfare and then stats some 40 yrs post welfare.

No, it had stats from DECADES before Welfare. One of them went all the way back to the late 19th Century.

But, I guess any ol' excuse to ignore data you're uncomfortable with...

[shanek]

Originally posted by Nitpick
Quote: (http://papers.nber.org/papers/expecting/w5224)

"You should expect a free download if you are a subscriber, a corporate associate of the NBER, or a resident of nearly any developing country or transition economy.

If the option of downloading a .pdf (or .html for some papers) version of the working paper is not available, it is usually because your computer's numeric Internet address could not be matched with our list of subscribers and others eligible for no cost downloads. Please visit our help page for more information."

It may be a problem with your IP address then, if your ISP's addresses aren't in the global registry. Where are you located?

Anyway, PM me with your EMail address and I'll be more than happy to forward it to you.

[shanek]

Originally posted by CFLarsen
Really?

Really. Claus, this is beneath even you! Emphases are mine:

No one is starving in this country. Not even the unemployed. And it's not due to anything the government has done, but to the wealth the market has created for everyone.

I mean, for crying out loud—you see HOMELESS PEOPLE in the parks feeding the pigeons!

There is a difference between claiming that no one is STARVING and the difference between saying no one is HOMELESS OR HUNGRY!!! IN FACT, I ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THERE WERE BOTH HOMELESS AND HUNGRY!!!

It's been less than 5 hours since you started this thread. It's also a sunday, shanek. And yet, you fly off in a rage because not that many people want to debate you on this.

No, I'm flying off the handle because of the way I get treated here by people like you! Okay, it's only been a few hours, but that hasn't stopped people from resorting to their typical name-calling, strawman arguments, etc.!

[CFLarsen]

shanek,

You don't "like" the way you are "treated"? Do you think it has anything to do with how you treat people yourself?

Anything at all?

[Malachi151]

So let's recap. During the 1950s and 1960s unemployment was generaly lower, taxes on the wealthy were higher, redistribution of income was greater, there were more social programs, minimum wages were higher, the cost of living was lower, the cost of healthcare and education was lower, and there was no trade deficite. Hmm.. I think I see a pattern here...

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by shanek


It may be a problem with your IP address then, if your ISP's addresses aren't in the global registry. Where are you located?

Anyway, PM me with your EMail address and I'll be more than happy to forward it to you.

Is pirating intellectual property helping the economy? It's not a "problem" with the IP address. The IP address lets the website know where you are likely located, and if your IP is in a range that the website owner wants to charge $5 for a paper, as is the case here, then you cannot (legally) view it free.

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by Suggestologist
Is pirating intellectual property helping the economy? It's not a "problem" with the IP address. The IP address lets the website know where you are likely located, and if your IP is in a range that the website owner wants to charge $5 for a paper, as is the case here, then you cannot (legally) view it free.

I agree. Encouraging unlawful practices could very well be extremely damaging to JREF.

shanek, I strongly suggest that you withdraw your illegal offer.

[Malachi151]

Originally posted by Suggestologist


Is pirating intellectual property helping the economy? It's not a "problem" with the IP address. The IP address lets the website know where you are likely located, and if your IP is in a range that the website owner wants to charge $5 for a paper, as is the case here, then you cannot (legally) view it free.

Actually I argue yes. It increases the spread of information and may increase demand for other goods and services. If no one is going to pay for it anyway than it can hardly be considered to be said to cost anything. Information does not cost anything to share, unlike resources.

So, if no one here is goign to pay the $5 either way then they are losing out any more by sharing it then by not sharing it. They only lose out if someone decides not to pay for it that otherwise would have paid for it.

[shanek]

FYI: Historical Minimum Wage levels from the DOL (conversions to current dollars I did with the EHS online converter (http://eh.net/hmit/ppowerusd/)):
<table border=1><tr><td>Year</td><td>Rate</td><td>Rate in current dollars</td></tr>
<tr><td>1938</td><td>$0.25</td><td>$3.18</td></tr>
<tr><td>1939</td><td>$0.30</td><td>$3.88</td></tr>
<tr><td>1945</td><td>$0.40</td><td>$4.00</td></tr>
<tr><td>1950</td><td>$0.75</td><td>$5.60</td></tr>
<tr><td>1956</td><td>$1.00</td><td>$6.62</td></tr>
<tr><td>1961</td><td>$1.15</td><td> $6.91</td></tr>
<tr><td>1963</td><td>$1.25</td><td>$7.35</td></tr>
<tr><td>1967</td><td>$1.40</td><td> $7.55</td></tr>
<tr><td>1968</td><td>$1.60</td><td> $8.28</td></tr>
<tr><td>1974</td><td>$2.00</td><td> $7.29</td></tr>
<tr><td>1976</td><td>$2.30</td><td> $7.28</td></tr>
<tr><td>1978</td><td>$2.65</td><td> $7.31</td></tr>
<tr><td>1979</td><td>$2.90 </td><td> $7.19</td></tr>
<tr><td>1981</td><td>$3.35</td><td> $6.63</td></tr>
<tr><td>1990</td><td>$3.80</td><td> $5.23</td></tr>
<tr><td>1991</td><td>$4.25</td><td> $5.61</td></tr>
<tr><td>1996</td><td>$4.75</td><td> $5.45</td></tr>
<tr><td>1997</td><td>$5.15</td><td> $5.77</td></tr></table>

Looks like once adjusted for inflation the minimum wage has held up pretty good despite Malachi's assertions. It's much higher now than it was initially, and although it's down from its peak in the late '60s, it's still hardly the picture Malachi was painting.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Suggestologist
Is pirating intellectual property helping the economy?

This would fall under "fair use," at least in the US.

[shanek]

Originally posted by CFLarsen
I agree. Encouraging unlawful practices could very well be extremely damaging to JREF.

shanek, I strongly suggest that you withdraw your illegal offer.

It's not illegal in the US for someone who has obtained a copy of a material being discussed for educaitonal purposes to share that material with the participants. It's under "fair use?" here.

[shanek]

Okay, people, if you're really worried about the legalities of me EMailing the paper, how about going to a place where they will EMail you the paper?

http://papers.nber.org/papers/mail/w5224

[Ziggurat]

What I find kinda amusing about Shanek's opposition to the minimum wage is that he's also opposed to the social programs that would more directly address the problems mimimum wage is supposed to solve.

Capitalism is inherently amoral. There is no mechanism in raw capitalism that can ensure employment, and even more importantly no mechanism that can ensure that workers will all get wages that can provide an acceptable minimum standard of living. This is not an acceptable proposition for society, so we try to solve the problem through government intervention. One way is to provide social services (like health care, public housing, education, etc) so that even those earning very little can have an acceptable baseline standard of living. This costs money, of course, and shanek seems generally opposed to social programs.

Minimum wage is a shortcut for the government. It tries to ensure a minimum standard of living by setting a minimum income for workers. The advantage, from a political point of view, is that the cost is not carried directly by the government - it therefore looks like it's free to the government. But of course it isn't really free - higher costs for businesses can do all sorts of things, like reduce tax revenues, possibly increase unemployment, etc. On this point, I think Shanek is actually right, minimum wage is a half-assed solution. The irony, though, is that without it, we'd need to resort to a direct solution, that is, much larger social programs (and higher taxes to pay for them) to ensure that the baseline standard of living for anyone working was acceptable. And of course Shanek doesn't want that either, and since it puts the cost directly on government budgets (rather than indirectly on the economy as a whole), it's going to be very hard for a politician to advocate that sort of approach.

[Malachi151]

Originally posted by shanek
FYI: Historical Minimum Wage levels from the DOL (conversions to current dollars I did with the EHS online converter (http://eh.net/hmit/ppowerusd/)):
<table border=1><tr><td>Year</td><td>Rate</td><td>Rate in current dollars</td></tr>
<tr><td>1938</td><td>$0.25</td><td>$3.18</td></tr>
<tr><td>1939</td><td>$0.30</td><td>$3.88</td></tr>
<tr><td>1945</td><td>$0.40</td><td>$4.00</td></tr>
<tr><td>1950</td><td>$0.75</td><td>$5.60</td></tr>
<tr><td>1956</td><td>$1.00</td><td>$6.62</td></tr>
<tr><td>1961</td><td>$1.15</td><td> $6.91</td></tr>
<tr><td>1963</td><td>$1.25</td><td>$7.35</td></tr>
<tr><td>1967</td><td>$1.40</td><td> $7.55</td></tr>
<tr><td>1968</td><td>$1.60</td><td> $8.28</td></tr>
<tr><td>1974</td><td>$2.00</td><td> $7.29</td></tr>
<tr><td>1976</td><td>$2.30</td><td> $7.28</td></tr>
<tr><td>1978</td><td>$2.65</td><td> $7.31</td></tr>
<tr><td>1979</td><td>$2.90 </td><td> $7.19</td></tr>
<tr><td>1981</td><td>$3.35</td><td> $6.63</td></tr>
<tr><td>1990</td><td>$3.80</td><td> $5.23</td></tr>
<tr><td>1991</td><td>$4.25</td><td> $5.61</td></tr>
<tr><td>1996</td><td>$4.75</td><td> $5.45</td></tr>
<tr><td>1997</td><td>$5.15</td><td> $5.77</td></tr></table>

Looks like once adjusted for inflation the minimum wage has held up pretty good despite Malachi's assertions. It's much higher now than it was initially, and although it's down from its peak in the late '60s, it's still hardly the picture Malachi was painting.

Umm... dude, thats essentially the same exact data that I posted in the first place, except the data I posted was more recent.

http://pw1.netcom.com/~rdavis2/minwage.html

[Nitpick]

Originally posted by shanek
Okay, people, if you're really worried about the legalities of me EMailing the paper, how about going to a place where they will EMail you the paper?

http://papers.nber.org/papers/mail/w5224

Sorry, this also doesn't work if you're not resident of a developing country. They still want 5 $.
Anyway, thanks for the offer.
:)

[gnome]

Originally posted by shanek
There is a difference between claiming that no one is STARVING and the difference between saying no one is HOMELESS OR HUNGRY!!! IN FACT, I ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THERE WERE BOTH HOMELESS AND HUNGRY!!!

If you're so hung up on the difference between "starving" and "homeless and hungry" I am happy to rephrase my comments.

If a job's "market value" does not pay enough for the person to avoid going hungry, how is that a positive economic figure? Yes, techinically more people will have jobs. But are those bottom-of-the-barrel below-sustenance-level jobs meaningful when measuring the employment situation? They will still need assistance to have enough to eat.

If you cannot afford to pay full-time workers enough to keep them healthy, how viable is your business?

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by shanek
It's not illegal in the US for someone who has obtained a copy of a material being discussed for educaitonal purposes to share that material with the participants. It's under "fair use?" here.

It is not "fair use" to send the whole document. You can quote from a document, you can't send the whole document.

Originally posted by shanek
Okay, people, if you're really worried about the legalities of me EMailing the paper, how about going to a place where they will EMail you the paper?

http://papers.nber.org/papers/mail/w5224

How about you learning what to do, instead of trying to shift the onus on somebody else? You made the offer, you deal with it.

And stop shouting. It doesn't work here.

[gnome]

Originally posted by WildCat
And gnome, here's a question for you: If a $7 min. wage is good, why not $15? Or $20? What the hell, just make the min. $50 and then everyone will be rich, won't they?


Are you really suggesting I am trying to make everyone rich? How come every time someone tries to raise the bar a little bit they're accused of trying to flatten income distribution entirely?

Let me put it this way: if you hire a worker full-time, and don't pay them enough to live off of, how is that different from slavery?

You'll answer: he can leave.

My answer: only if the worker is willing to choose nothing over inadequate. That will be rare.

Let's say you win and there's no minimum wage. What is your policy towards those that are earning these minimal amounts and are going hungry and homeless?

[Malachi151]

Originally posted by gnome


Are you really suggesting I am trying to make everyone rich? How come every time someone tries to raise the bar a little bit they're accused of trying to flatten income distribution entirely?

Let me put it this way: if you hire a worker full-time, and don't pay them enough to live off of, how is that different from slavery?

You'll answer: he can leave.

My answer: only if the worker is willing to choose nothing over inadequate. That will be rare.

Let's say you win and there's no minimum wage. What is your policy towards those that are earning these minimal amounts and are going hungry and homeless?

Yeah, I've heard these minium wage arugments before: "Minimum wage causes unemployment!!" I'm thinking okay even if that were true, which it isn't, what are they suggesting, that we should have more sweet shops and people working 2 or 3 jobs to get by?

If you keep minimum wage and also a 40 hour work week then essentially you are saying that people would have to simply work 60 or 80 hours a week to survive by working two jobs or by making overtime or something. I mean WTF are these people thinking? Oh boy, we moved teh unemployment figure from 6% to 4%, success, of course we now have a class of enslaved people too poor to even buy decent food and shelter who work 80 hours a week, but hey, we got that derned unemployment figure down!

Or the argume that its mostly teenagers. Umm.. .okay, so these are supposed to be going to school as it is and they typically try to work as little as poissble to get by while going to school, so now you take that away and they either can't get by at all, or have to work longer, interfering with school. Gee, great option there.

Or how about, I know, we have a minimum wage and employers just make tens of millions of dollars instead of hundreds of millions of dollars... :rolleyes: I mean Jesus Christ people, why is this so hard? All of these stupid argument just for the purpose of essentially not sharing the wealth :rolleyes:

I mean when you have some employers making millions and billions of dollars why are we argung to make more people poor in this situation? How about we get rid of minimum wage and add a maximum wage? ;)

Wages for the average America have not gone up in 30 years, fact. The minimum wage has gone down significantly in the past 30 years, fact. The top 1% takes in a larger share of the nation's economy than any time in American history, fact. The top 1% now takes in 20% of the nation's income each year, fact. American job's are being exported over seas at an alarming rate, fact. The people taking those job's aren't allowed the same types of labor protection laws that we enjoy here, but are employeed by American companies, fact. American businessmen and politicans work to support leaders that oppose increases in labor protections in these countries, fact. All of the places in the world that still do not have a minimum wage are in dire poverty, fact. The American middle class is losing its grip on the economy fast, fact.

Gee, tell me again why we are arguing that we need to take away the protections of the poor again?

Give that I've already proven that when the minimum wage was higher in America unemployment was lower, and that the minimum wage is lower now than it was in 1950, tell me again why anyone thinks that the minimum wage is a part of the problem in our economy? The only problem with the minimum wage is that its too low in America and everywhere else in the world.

[Ion]

I agree and emphasize this:
Originally posted by Malachi151

...
Or how about, I know, we have a minimum wage and employers just make tens of millions of dollars instead of hundreds of millions of dollars... :rolleyes: I mean Jesus Christ people, why is this so hard? All of these stupid argument just for the purpose of essentially not sharing the wealth :rolleyes:

I mean when you have some employers making millions and billions of dollars why are we argung to make more people poor in this situation? How about we get rid of minimum wage and add a maximum wage? ;)
...

The full demonstration is in the entire post.

To be read carefully.

Back stabbing and greed, eh?

Hopefully not much longer.

Maybe 2004 with a new election will change some of this, but the more ingrained cultural dog-eat-dog will take years to change.

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Myself and hundreds of others took jobs where we got no pay in 1994 to 1997 in Alberta, Canada. The economy was in dire straights at that time.

Restaurants and grocery stores would train "potential employees" for up to two weeks without pay. The restaurants and grocery stores lobbied the populist provincial government with the arguments that there is no loyalty from employees to their employers anymore. Turnover was expensive, and there was a huge labour pool to draw on. The companies, unions and the government were negotiating a repeal of minimum wage statutes. What they got was a moratorium on increases to mw, and businesses given the freedom to train potential employees for up to two weeks (or 35 hours, which ever came 1st) without pay.

People getting these training positions thought they would continue employment, or at the very least be paid for up to 2 weeks of training when the term was up. Thousands were released before the terms were up without pay. On "the 11th hour", I and others were told that we were not hired, and a new, fresh batch of potential employees came in eager to work.

The government is still persuing legal action against various businesses for these practices, with little success in getting compensation for lost tax revenue and lost wages for the individuals that lost out on wages. The employers had broken Alberta Labour laws. Some of these cases go back 8 or 9 years. Few people affected by these practices had the resources or time to persue and follow through with complaints. Few people see the point in trying to get the wages back years later.

One Restaurant, Buffet World, has over 80 complaints from past employees going back to 1994.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by NoZed Avenger
I think that getting rid of the minimum wage would make sense if we also went to a system such as a negative income tax for people earning under a certain amount - a system that would reward people for working, even if they earned only a small amount. It would involve much less bureaucracy and red tape than the present systems and provide a real incentive for persons to find jobs and report income.

NA

We have earned income tax credit in the US, which effectively is a negative income tax for the "working poor".

If we got rid of the minimum wage and had the government make up the difference for poor working families, what would stop employers from paying their cheap labor about 5-cents per hour, and making the government pay the rest?

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ziggurat
What I find kinda amusing about Shanek's opposition to the minimum wage is that he's also opposed to the social programs that would more directly address the problems mimimum wage is supposed to solve.

How do these programs actually solve the problems I mentioned? (Hint: Throwing money at someone and saying "Here you go" is NOT a solution.)

Capitalism is inherently amoral.

So? Government cannot enforce morality. That just doesn't work.

There is no mechanism in raw capitalism that can ensure employment, and even more importantly no mechanism that can ensure that workers will all get wages that can provide an acceptable minimum standard of living.

It's life. There are no guarantees. And "acceptable" means different things to different people. Suppose someone does consider $2/hour to be acceptable. What business does the government have stopping him from taking a job at that level?

This is not an acceptable proposition for society, so we try to solve the problem through government intervention.

Typical. Try to solve a problem caused by government intervention through more government intervention. Makes a lot of sense...

One way is to provide social services (like health care, public housing, education, etc) so that even those earning very little can have an acceptable baseline standard of living. This costs money, of course, and shanek seems generally opposed to social programs.

And one way is to stop the foolish, stupid government program that's causing the problem in the first place!

Minimum wage is a shortcut for the government. It tries to ensure a minimum standard of living by setting a minimum income for workers.

But it DOESN'T WORK! All it does is take jobs out of the economy.

The irony, though, is that without it, we'd need to resort to a direct solution, that is, much larger social programs (and higher taxes to pay for them) to ensure that the baseline standard of living for anyone working was acceptable.

Why?

[shanek]

Originally posted by Nitpick


Sorry, this also doesn't work if you're not resident of a developing country. They still want 5 $.
Anyway, thanks for the offer.
:)

Hmm...well, I tried. Sorry. (Still trying to figure out why North Carolina is apparently a "developing country...")

[shanek]

Originally posted by gnome
If you're so hung up on the difference between "starving" and "homeless and hungry" I am happy to rephrase my comments.

That's fine. Just understand: Homeless and hungry &ne; starving. Starving is when you haven't eaten in WEEKS, your stomach bloats due to your body retaining fluids, and you die a slow, miserable, agonizing death. THAT is what starving means.

(And actually, it just occured to me that people ARE starving in America&mdash;like Karen Carpenter, people who suffer from anorexia and its more heinous sibling bulemia. But you'll pardon me if I don't think they count for the purposes of this conversation.)

If a job's "market value" does not pay enough for the person to avoid going hungry, how is that a positive economic figure?

Because the person IS producing something for the economy, and getting paid for it. And someone in that position has an enormous incentive to take advantage of every bit of on-the-job training and other opportunities that are open to him. And that will ultimately lead to a better job. And a better one after that. And a better one after that...

Yes, techinically more people will have jobs. But are those bottom-of-the-barrel below-sustenance-level jobs meaningful when measuring the employment situation? They will still need assistance to have enough to eat.

And there are many charities that will help them out and even give them training. If we were to have our dollars from the Income and SS taxes back, and if we were to free the charities from the costs of regulatory compliance, they'd once again be in a very good position to provide for this. And charities have every incentive to actually get the person to work or to a better-paying job as soon as possible.

If you cannot afford to pay full-time workers enough to keep them healthy, how viable is your business?

If you FORCE them to pay whatever you conclude is the right amount, the business is NOT going to be that viable...and therefore everyone will suffer.

Read Chapter 3 (http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/chap3.html) of Mary Ruwart's book Healing Our World (link is to the old edition, available free online; a new and updated edition is for sale).

[Ion]

Originally posted by shanek

How do these programs actually solve the problems I mentioned? (Hint: Throwing money at someone and saying "Here you go" is NOT a solution.)
...

Throwing money at somone who is poor and say "Here you go" -in the same way it is being done now whith throwing profits at somone who is rich and say "Here you go"-, that is the solution.

It amazes me how people in North America are prudish about money, worship money and think that money are a substitute for human values.

So, yeah, throw money at someone who is poor and say "Here you go", if you genuinely want to address poverty.

Me, I do throw some of my money at the poor and I do say "Here you go".

[shanek]

Originally posted by CFLarsen
It is not "fair use" to send the whole document. You can quote from a document, you can't send the whole document.

Not true. I learned this in my years as an instructor. If it's a learning environment, meaning that the objective of everyone involved is to educate themselves or one another (and this would be bolstered by the fact that this is, after all, an Educational Foundation), then material in its entirety may be distributed among those involved. It can't be done in a way that would be visible to others outside of those involved, which is what posting the study in its entirety here would do. But EMailing it to specific participants in this thread would not be public. I ran into that exact situation with someone who was going to miss a day, and wanted the material EMailed to him. It's perfectly allowable under "fair use."

Quoting, on the other hand, need not be for educational uses. As long as proper attribution is made, and you don't quote over a certain percentage (I forget what that is, sorry) of the material, that counts as fair use, too.

So I'm 99% positive EMailing the study to a participant in this thread would fall under the former situation.

IANAL, though, so if a lawyer comes in here and explains differently I'd have to defer to his opinion.

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by Suggestologist


We have earned income tax credit in the US, which effectively is a negative income tax for the "working poor".

I am speaking of a specific type of system where the amount earned by a person decreases the amount of negative taxes paid to him or her, but not by as much as he or she earned -- so that a person making $5,000 in a year, as an example, would have their benefits decreased by only $2,500. This means that even a part time job would increase the net amount of income for such a person, while decreasing the tax money paid to them.


If we got rid of the minimum wage and had the government make up the difference for poor working families, what would stop employers from paying their cheap labor about 5-cents per hour, and making the government pay the rest?

Who would work for $.05 cents an hour, regardless? The employee would have to see a real benefit over the amount established as the baseline set by the government. The employer would have to compete with the other employers out there, as well.

For that matter, (under the current system) if taking a job for $10,000 or $15,000 per year means that the person might simply lose his tax credit and other benefits -- meaning he is working, but not getting any real benefit from working-- what would stop those persons from choosing to avoid work entirely and "making the government pay the rest"?

NA

[shanek]

Originally posted by gnome
Are you really suggesting I am trying to make everyone rich? How come every time someone tries to raise the bar a little bit they're accused of trying to flatten income distribution entirely?

Because ultimately, whether you intend for it to happen or not, that's where the tendency is going to go. That's why Medicare ended up costing over $110 billion in 1992 when Congress originally predicted it would be only $12 billion (in 1992 dollars).

Ironically, one government blunder is actually helping the minimum wage avoid this: The unnaturally large span of inflation we're currently in, and have been since the '40s. To cut the minimum wage, all you have to do is nothing. You actually have to raise it to keep up with inflation. But could you imagine the outcry if someone actually suggested cutting the Minimum Wage? Even if it's the most prudent thing to do? Even if it were a case of deflation, and it was being done just to even things out?

The political realities rarely match the economic realities. That's why it doesn't work to have politicians control the economy. Nixon himself, years later, admitted that his wage and price freeze (which was probably the largest contributing factor to the bad '70s economy) was sound politics but not sound economics.

Let me put it this way: if you hire a worker full-time, and don't pay them enough to live off of, how is that different from slavery?

Um, because they can get another job? Or start their own company? Or any number of different alternatives? Employment is a voluntary arrangement.

My answer: only if the worker is willing to choose nothing over inadequate.

The problem is, Minimum Wage forces him to choose "nothing" over "inadequate"! So, by your definition, the Minimum Wage must be slavery!

Let's say you win and there's no minimum wage. What is your policy towards those that are earning these minimal amounts and are going hungry and homeless?

Understand that I'm proposing this as a much larger package which would cut the government down to its Constitutional size and eliminate the Income, SS, and most other taxes except for excises. That would leave over $1.5 trillion dollars into the hands of those that earned it, and that will be more than enough to provide a job for everyone who can work and charity for everyone who can't.

[shanek]

Originally posted by PygmyPlaidGiraffe
Myself and hundreds of others took jobs where we got no pay in 1994 to 1997 in Alberta, Canada. The economy was in dire straights at that time.

Heck, I took a job with no pay in 1995. Many people today work jobs with no pay. They're called "internships."

What sense does it make to allow people to work for nothing, and allow them to work for over $5.25/hr, but not anywhere between those amounts? This is government thinking, folks.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion

Throwing money at somone who is poor and say "Here you go" -in the same way it is being done now whith throwing profits at somone who is rich and say "Here you go"-, that is the solution.

But that is not what's happening now, and that's what you refuse to understand.

It amazes me how people in North America are prudish about money, worship money and think that money are a substitute for human values.

Really? I've lived in NA all my life and never met anyone who thought that. Care to name some of them?

Me, I do throw some of my money at the poor and I do say "Here you go".

If by that you mean you donate to charity, what you are doing is considerably different than that. Charities do a lot more than just give people money.

[shanek]

Originally posted by NoZed Avenger
I am speaking of a specific type of system where the amount earned by a person decreases the amount of negative taxes paid to him or her, but not by as much as he or she earned -- so that a person making $5,000 in a year, as an example, would have their benefits decreased by only $2,500. This means that even a part time job would increase the net amount of income for such a person, while decreasing the tax money paid to them.

As appealing as this idea sounds, and as preferable as it may be to a minimum wage, there are still going to be problems of growth.

Let's say someone is making $6/hr and getting the equivalent of $4/hr from the government. They now have a chance to get a job making $8/hr. BUT, that would reduce the amount they're getting from the government to $3/hr. To them, they're going from making $10/hr to making $11/hr, a 10% gain. But the actual job itself represents a 33% gain over his current one.

That means that his new job will be 33% more work, either in labor, or skills, or both. But he'll only be compensated 10% more. He may quite easily decide that it's not worth it and he's better off with his old job. Whereas without this system, a 33% increase in the amount of work would equal a 33% raise in pay, and so he would be much more likely to take the higher-paying job.

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by shanek


As appealing as this idea sounds, and as preferable as it may be to a minimum wage, there are still going to be problems of growth.

I think that's a legitimate criticism of the system, although it is largely an outgrowth of the problem with the current system -- i.e., not working or taking a job because the government benefits might be lost, creating a disincentive to work.

I don't think it is an ideal solution by any means, but do think that it has a number of advantages over the present tax and welfare systems, including a signifigant reduction in the size and complexity of the system needed to run it (comparitively). I also think that it is more politically feasible than doing away with the minimum wage and welfare systems entirely, in that it sets a minimum amount that the workers would receive, and that could be set to above the calculated "poverty line" to ensure that the more "socialist"1 concerns of having an adequate safety net could be met.

Several economists in the Chigaco school had worked out a few variations on this; I just found it interesting as a concept.

NA

1 Not strictly speaking, but as compared to a true laissez faire position.

[Ion]

Originally posted by shanek

...
Really? I've lived in NA all my life and never met anyone who thought that. Care to name some of them?
...

I can name thosands here.

You have no reference to compare to, and you don't know what I know from Europe:

I compare to Europe.
Originally posted by shanek

...
If by that you mean you donate to charity, what you are doing is considerably different than that. Charities do a lot more than just give people money.
Both.

Charities and directly to people who know me and complete strangers who ask money in the street.

In Tennessee I gave someone I didn't know $92 in 2000.

If I were a politician I wouldn't do the patch work I describe, but as a permanent solution I would tackle the poverty by raising the minimum wage and investing profits from companies into social services.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion
I can name thosands here.

Go for it. Support your argument.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by NoZed Avenger


I am speaking of a specific type of system where the amount earned by a person decreases the amount of negative taxes paid to him or her, but not by as much as he or she earned -- so that a person making $5,000 in a year, as an example, would have their benefits decreased by only $2,500. This means that even a part time job would increase the net amount of income for such a person, while decreasing the tax money paid to them.



Who would work for $.05 cents an hour, regardless? The employee would have to see a real benefit over the amount established as the baseline set by the government. The employer would have to compete with the other employers out there, as well.

For that matter, (under the current system) if taking a job for $10,000 or $15,000 per year means that the person might simply lose his tax credit and other benefits -- meaning he is working, but not getting any real benefit from working-- what would stop those persons from choosing to avoid work entirely and "making the government pay the rest"?

NA [/B]

Currently, what stops people staying on unemployment in the US is that there is a life-time limit on the amount of unemployment payments someone can get.

Well, as Shanek wrote, they might work to gain experience -- or perhaps to have a chance at getting promoted to a $0.15 per hour job, where they might gain experience (sounds like the "great" unpaid intern system), and eventually get to a job that actually pays them something. The problem is that the millions of low level jobs which are now paid the minimum wage would be paid for by the government, resulting in skyrocketing taxes, which the $0.05 per hour workers need not pay, and said unpaid minimum wage could then be kept by the employers -- keeping unprofitable businesses alive longer, making it harder for the good profitable businesses (that want to pay more than $0.05 per hour) to survive due to excess competition. So; there would be a reduction in paychecks paid by business, and higher burden of payout by the government.

Now, perhaps we would have to institute a higher employment tax on the employers to keep things working -- but this would only encourage a race to the bottom of the salary scale by the employers -- so that even employers who initially decide to pay a decent wage would be forced to lower it toward the $0.05 level.

[Ion]

Originally posted by shanek

Go for it. Support your argument.
If I name them you don't know all of them.

I will go by functions:

.) the landlord;

.) teammates in the sport of swimming that I practice;

.) the U.S. co-workers who speak of teamwork, and do dog-eat-dog and self-promotion instead;

.) you;

.) people like you, around you.

All these people I mention, consider money to be holly, higher than humans.

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

Originally posted by shanek


Heck, I took a job with no pay in 1995. Many people today work jobs with no pay. They're called "internships."

What sense does it make to allow people to work for nothing, and allow them to work for over $5.25/hr, but not anywhere between those amounts? This is government thinking, folks.

Oh don't get me wrong I am not complaining.
I and others are grateful for the character building experience resulting from the weeks on end of working and not getting paid; living on crackers and TacoBell hotsauce week to week as we spent every dollar we had on transit, working 2 jobs a day for 7 hours (3 1/2 hours of training per job per day) and using our time to hunt for those mythical paying jobs; volunteering our free time to inner-city food programs (sponsored by churches) dishing out food to hungry kids/people because the government cut off funds to the programs ("Let the churches feed the hungry and house the poor" was the Premier's response.), getting harrassed by police and risking getting the stuffing kicked out of us sleeping in the city parks. After all we were penniless vagrants looking for a handout, and expecting the world to be served to us with hotsauce. Come to think of it, we never were served hotsauce, we just helped ourselves. :D

All the while just doing our internships and our little part to strengthen the economy......

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by Suggestologist


Currently, what stops people staying on unemployment in the US is that there is a life-time limit on the amount of unemployment payments someone can get.

But not on the other governmental progrtams -- and the states' unemployment can be several years.


Well, as Shanek wrote, they might work to gain experience -- or perhaps to have a chance at getting promoted to a $0.15 per hour job, where they might gain experience (sounds like the "great" unpaid intern system), and eventually get to a job that actually pays them something.

How long do you think an employer can get away with that before the tactic becomes known -- assuming that the job does not, in fact, make them more employable somewhere else?


The problem is that the millions of low level jobs which are now paid the minimum wage would be paid for by the government,


snip. -- All the devastating effects listed aftewards depend on this premise, which you simply fiat into existence. They also assume that paying the employees a set level of income under such a system would automatically be more than is being paid under current compensation systems, which may or may not be true.

Your point seems to rely on the fact that there is an infinite supply of labor willing to take jobs at $.05 per hour, which is conjecture, at best. It certainly sounds counter-intuitive to me.

For example, in most cities in Texas that I am familiar with, the low-level employers such as fast food places are starting employees at $1.00 to $3.00 -over- the current minimum wage. You seem to indicate that these same employers, after the minimum wage is gone, will suddenly find people for $.05 per hour when they have to pay over the minimum now?! I do not see how these employers, who cannot attract workers for the minimum now, will suddenly have thousands of people vying for the same position at $.05 a pop.

NA

PS - you and Shanek appear to be arguing against the idea from diametrically opposed standpoints: between you both, it seems to be simultaneously stated that: (1) employees won't move up to higher paying jobs so that they can keep the government benefits - thus sticking them at a $4 job instead of having them move to a $6 job (he); and (2) the employee will be willing to take a $.05 job, even though he would be receiving essentially the same benefits from not working (you).

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion

If I name them you don't know all of them.

Well, obviously it doesn't do any good to name ones that I can't check out for myself.

Let me rephrase my request: Are there any verifiable examples?

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by NoZed Avenger


But not on the other governmental progrtams -- and the states' unemployment can be several years.


Well, whatever -- it's still not a lifetime worth of unemployment benefits; unless the person is disabled or something like that. So unless they want to steal or starve, they have to find employment or a sugardaddy.





How long do you think an employer can get away with that before the tactic becomes known -- assuming that the job does not, in fact, make them more employable somewhere else?

[/b]

snip. -- All the devastating effects listed aftewards depend on this premise, which you simply fiat into existence. They also assume that paying the employees a set level of income under such a system would automatically be more than is being paid under current compensation systems, which may or may not be true.

Your point seems to rely on the fact that there is an infinite supply of labor willing to take jobs at $.05 per hour, which is conjecture, at best. It certainly sounds counter-intuitive to me.
[/B]

Well, I like to go to the boundaries first; the boundaries are where the territories (concepts) get defined.




For example, in most cities in Texas that I am familiar with, the low-level employers such as fast food places are starting employees at $1.00 to $3.00 -over- the current minimum wage. You seem to indicate that these same employers, after the minimum wage is gone, will suddenly find people for $.05 per hour when they have to pay over the minimum now?! I do not see how these employers, who cannot attract workers for the minimum now, will suddenly have thousands of people vying for the same position at $.05 a pop.


Great, let's use your framework then. Let's say that an employer paying $2.50 per hour is the equivalent of $1.00 per hour -over-the minimum wage. The government is now forced to come up with the money to make up the rest; for jobs that were previously fully paid for by the employers -- who can now keep the extra money for themselves. But where does the government find the extra money to pay the employees?


NA

PS - you and Shanek appear to be arguing against the idea from diametrically opposed standpoints: between you both, it seems to be simultaneously stated that: (1) employees won't move up to higher paying jobs so that they can keep the government benefits - thus sticking them at a $4 job instead of having them move to a $6 job (he); and (2) the employee will be willing to take a $.05 job, even though he would be receiving essentially the same benefits from not working (you).

If you can't agree with people of different opinions on some points, even if you got there by respectively different pathways, you're doing something wrong. :)

Why do people spend money learning skills in colleges, universities, and institutes so that one day they can be turned down for a job because they're overqualified?

[kerfer]

Originally posted by Ion

The point is that 3Com makes profit off my work.


Duh.

If they don't make money off your labor, what are you there for?
That's why they hired you in the first place...to help them make money.


The point remains that obscene profits that are not shared, are all over.


The profits are shared. With the owners of the company, who have the right to those profits (because they own the company). If you want a share of those profits (that belong to the owners), buy part of the company, and become an owner. You can do so for $5 a share!

[Ion]

Originally posted by shanek


Well, obviously it doesn't do any good to name ones that I can't check out for myself.

Let me rephrase my request: Are there any verifiable examples?
Yes.

You.

[Ion]

Originally posted by kerfer

Duh.

If they don't make money off your labor, what are you there for?
That's why they hired you in the first place...to help them make money.
...

I remember you.

You are the triathlete from the 'Sports' section, who discussed me on the merits of the T.I. program in swimming.

As for "...to help them make money.", I help them make too much money for my taste, hence the profit sharing idea that I push for.
Originally posted by kerfer

...
The profits are shared. With the owners of the company, who have the right to those profits (because they own the company). If you want a share of those profits (that belong to the owners), buy part of the company, and become an owner. You can do so for $5 a share!
Not that route requiring an expensive investment of capital that I don't have.

I would rather think of a royalty, given that I made much of the product which became an industrial success:

if I were the C.E.O. of 3Com, I would hunt down the author of the 56k and offer profit sharing in the form of royalty, as a sign of gratitude to what keeps 3Com afloat today.

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by Suggestologist

Well, whatever -- it's still not a lifetime worth of unemployment benefits; unless the person is disabled or something like that. So unless they want to steal or starve, they have to find employment or a sugardaddy.

Yes, but my point was a bit broader -- the welfare programs, both federal and state, are not limited to unemployment alone, and many are without end. I would not argue that its lucrative, but it definitely isn't limited to unemployment.


Well, I like to go to the boundaries first; the boundaries are where the territories (concepts) get defined.


But beleiving that the employers may underpay by some amount is a bit different than saying they'll pay a nickel -- if you are looking at it from merely a pressure/trends standpoint, then I understand your point better.

But, if you argue an underpayment will occur, we need to look at the cost of the underpayment and compare it to the costs of the present system -- to do that, I think we'd need better models than trying to guess the effects. I am afraid the only ones I was familiar with are old (college days); I have nothing current or that I could lay my hands on easily.




Great, let's use your framework then. Let's say that an employer paying $2.50 per hour is the equivalent of $1.00 per hour -over-the minimum wage. The government is now forced to come up with the money to make up the rest;
[snip]

I am not following this -- the rest of what? You are saying that the employer is paying -over- minimum wage. If the minimum wage is set below the poverty line, then that money is already being paid to the employee under the current system through aid programs and the earned income tax credit, etc. I don't think we can assume a net increase in payments out to them.


for jobs that were previously fully paid for by the employers -- who can now keep the extra money for themselves. But where does the government find the extra money to pay the employees?


This seems to circle around the initial question: why are we assuming that the employer, who pays over a minimum wage under the present system (i.e., -more- than it is mandated to pay by the government), will suddenly pay the employee far less if the minimum wage law is done away with?

Where does this assumption come from and how do we reach that conclusion? Under the above, the government is only mandating a $1.50 wage. Yet the evil employer, who would like to pay $.05, is paying $2.50. If it is so easy for the employer to dictate the price of wages, why aren't these wages set to the minimum and kept there? It appears that something othjer than the minimum wage is responsible. Whatever this force is, why does it disappear as soon as the minimum wage go away?


If you can't agree with people of different opinions on some points, even if you got there by respectively different pathways, you're doing something wrong. :)

Sure -- but I cannot be wrong for -both- reasons given (I think), as they appear to be mutually exclusive. Shanek argues that employees will refuse to take jobs, even if the would represent overpayment, while you assume that employees would take effectively worthless jobs under almost any circumstance.


Why do people spend money learning skills in colleges, universities, and institutes so that one day they can be turned down for a job because they're overqualified?

Well, the glib answer is that they don't do those things in order to be turned down. The slightly less glib answer, but still oversimplified, is that the people are free to make the choices that they feel best - sometimes inefficiencies or inadequate information prevent optimal solutions from happening.

NA

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by shanek


When we talk about the "job market," that’s exactly what it is&mdash;a market. The workers are the supply and control that side of the equation. More workers are willing to get a job if it pays higher wages. Employers provide the demand, and they’re more willing to hire workers at lower wages just as we’re more willing to buy an item at a lower price. As with the rest of the free market, the equilibrium point is the wage at which the number of people who want the job at that wage equals the number of jobs employers are willing to provide at that wage, and the market, if left alone, will automatically settle on this number.


More 'invisible hand' fantasy. This icon ranks up there with the tooth fairy and father christmas.

Your economic models are not describing the real world. Look at the complexity of models needed to describe weather, which you don't trust. Now look at trying to model human behaviour. We are going from modelling a physical system made up of inanimate objects to one made of self-aware humans who can break any rules they feel like breaking.

In Australia, everytime there is a push to raise the minimum wage by $20 a week, there is an outcry that this will mean the end of the world. It hasn't happened yet. This money, given to the most poorly paid people, always goes directly back into the economic system and stimulates the economy. At the same time, the loudest complaints are coming from those who have just given themselves a multi-million dollar pay rise and stock options. If these guys fail, there contract always seems to say they get a million dollar payout.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion
I would rather think of a royalty, given that I made much of the product which became an industrial success:

if I were the C.E.O. of 3Com, I would hunt down the author of the 56k and offer profit sharing in the form of royalty, as a sign of gratitude to what keeps 3Com afloat today.

Sounds to me like you are just bitter that you did not have enough business savvy to market what you can create and you taking it out on 3Com. If you are indeed as smart as you claim to be, then why don't you start your own business and sell software to places like 3Com then you get to keep all the profit for yourself.

[The Mad Linguist]

Now I see how King Shanek intends to solve the "going hungry" problem!

It will not be the case, as I thought, that the government will have to step in the cover the living costs of those who are paid less than a living wage.

No -- because King Shanek will abolish all government social programmes too!

And -- get this -- CHARITY will look after the working poor!

Never mind what happens if the rich don't want to hand their cash over to charity.

Never mind that the poor might actually have some pride and self-respect.

But all this is OK, because the guy on sub-minimum wage work is doing on-the-job training that will let him get a better job - and that will solve the problem!

Never mind that twelve hours a day washing dishes for peanuts leads exactly nowhere, except to more dirty dishes.

Never mind that those millions of sub-minimum-wage jobs are always going to be there, regardless of who happens to be working them at any particular moment in time.

Shanek, a minimum standard of living is something that every human being should have a right to - NOT something for which some human beings who happen to be poor should be dependent on the generosity of others.

Shouldn't a man have the right to say, "If you will not pay me enough to support me and my family, I will not work for you" -- and NOT go hungry (or go crawling to the rich for charity) as a result?

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

FYI: The Employment Policies Institute is a one of several front groups created by a Washington, DC public affairs company called Berman & Co. Here's a link to some background: Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda (http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Berman_%26_Co.) Berman & Co., a Washington, DC public affairs firm owned by lobbyist Rick Berman, represents the tobacco industry as well as hotels, beer distributors, taverns, and restaurant chains. Berman & Co. lobbies for companies such as Cracker Barrel, Hooters, International House of Pancakes, Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, Red Lobster, Steak & Ale, TGI Friday's, Uno's Restaurants, and Wendy's. It also operates a network of several front groups, web sites, and think tanks that work to keep wages low for restaurants and to block legislation on food safety, secondhand cigarette smoke, and drunk driving.
The Employment Policies Institute (EPI) calls itself a "non-profit research organization dedicated to studying public policy issues surrounding employment growth." In reality, EPI's mission is to oppose any increases in the minimum wage so that restaurants can continue to pay their workers as little as possible.

They also have a page on the "Institute" itself:
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Employment_Policies_Institute
In 1995, EPI lashed out at Princeton University professors David Card and Alan Krueger, after they published a survey of fast-food restaurants which found no loss in the number of jobs in New Jersey after implementing an increase in the state's minimum wage. Berman accused Card and Krueger of using bad data, citing contrary figures that his own institute had collected from some of the same restaurants. But whereas Card and Krueger had surveyed 410 restaurants, Berman's outfit only collected data from 71 restaurants and has refused to make its data publicly available so that other researchers can assess whether it "cherry-picked" restaurants to create a sample that would support its predetermined conclusions.
Now excuse me while I sit back and wait to be accused of "attacking the source," because, as we all know, determining bias and conflict of interest has no place in rational debate.

[a_unique_person]

I can walk up to a monument constructed to the creation of the 40 hour week. At the time, there were predictions it, too would mean the end of capitalism. It didn't happen.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion

Yes.

You.

Provide evidence of that ridiculous and desperate accusation.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion
Not that route requiring an expensive investment of capital that I don't have.

Think about it, will you?

3com hired you to do a job. They paid you what you BOTH AGREED was a fair price in return for your skillful labor. Before they even hired you, they spent time figuring out the right price for a worker like you&mdash;and that was the most they could get away with offering (to attract the best programmers for that particular job) without overpaying and shooting themselves in the foot. Let's say that amount is $x.

Now, they probably had to pay $u in unemployment insurance in whatever state you worked in. They also probably had to pay $m for medical insurance and $b for other benetifts. They also had to pay $e for your expenses&mdash;keeping up your desk, computer, etc. And most certainly $t in taxes.

What you got paid was $x - $u - $m - $e - $t. The employer sees what it's paying out for you as the whole of your expenses, not just your salary.

So, let's say you want n shares of stock as well as your pay. n shares of stock cost $s, so if they give you that then your pay actually goes down to $x - $u - $m - $e - $t - $s. So it's really no different than if you had just taken $s from your paycheck and bought the stock yourself!

Many people understand this. So many people say things like, "Okay, this job doesn't pay quite as well, but look at the benefits package!" They understand that after all of the benefits are added in the second job actually pays better than the first. But to give you those benefits, it has to come out of what they otherwise would have paid you directly.

[shanek]

Originally posted by The Mad Linguist
And -- get this -- CHARITY will look after the working poor!

Why not? It did before all these government programs, and I proved in another thread that the money would be there.

Never mind what happens if the rich don't want to hand their cash over to charity.

Giving, USA found that, on average, everyone gives about 2-2.5% of their take-home pay to charity, regardless of changes in their take-home pay. And they found that the rich actually pay a greater portion of their income in taxes! (The middle class are actually the worst offenders here). By giving people their tax money back, 2-2.5% of that would go to charities, and that's obviously more than enough considering that that's about how much gets to them after our money is filtered through the government bureaucracy.

Never mind that the poor might actually have some pride and self-respect.

Oh, it takes "pride" and "self-respect" to take a government handout, but not charity? :rolleyes:

Never mind that twelve hours a day washing dishes for peanuts leads exactly nowhere, except to more dirty dishes.

You just proved how ignorant you are of the job market. It will lead other places, if he proves he's a good worker and gets the experience to show it.

Never mind that those millions of sub-minimum-wage jobs are always going to be there, regardless of who happens to be working them at any particular moment in time.

So? Newer people, seeking these opportunities, will want to benefit from them as the older ones leave. What's the problem here? It's called, "progress."

Shanek, a minimum standard of living is something that every human being should have a right to

Why do they have a "right" to take other people's money by force to get it?

Shouldn't a man have the right to say, "If you will not pay me enough to support me and my family, I will not work for you" -- and NOT go hungry (or go crawling to the rich for charity) as a result?

Well, you advocate them crawling to the government for "charity," only that money has been forceably taken from others, not given voluntarily with generosity as in the case of charities.

[Malachi151]

Originally posted by Grammatron


Sounds to me like you are just bitter that you did not have enough business savvy to market what you can create and you taking it out on 3Com. If you are indeed as smart as you claim to be, then why don't you start your own business and sell software to places like 3Com then you get to keep all the profit for yourself.

Where do you people come from?

Seriously, do you have a job? How old are you? Have you ever worked in an industry?

First of all cooperaton and the use of corporations is a good thing in theory IF the companies would excersize fiar business and employment practices. It works a lot better to have large devleoped teams of people who can work togehter on projects.

Its stupid to essentially say, either accept the abuse or go out on your own. That's not productive.

All development is a team effort, and requires the cooperation of many people, skills, and resources. The type of technology that companies build today can't be done by lone individuals going out on their own to "make it".

And that's the issue, people like me, and I'm sure Ion too, are interested in MAKING THINGS and making progress and helping to build progress. It's really a waste of effort to start your own orgnization to do something that others are capable of doing with greater ease. Its more effecient to work through exiting channels in terms of busines sand industry, thats why researchers and scientists and engineers go to work for companies, they dont' get some science degree and then waste 20 years trying ot found a company, they get a degree and go to work for an established company. Now, all that works great as long as the established company gives fair compensation for the people who do the work that provides the profits.

What is happening now is that big business is getting so abusive of power that people are being really discouraged from working for large companies, because you invariably get screwed, so that has a negative impact on the whole system, as you can easily witness in our society today.

The cheapskates here are the executives and owners who are trying to get labor for nothing They don't want to pay for the work that's being done. I was robbed at my previous job, 5 years of software development taking a project from the ground up and producing a software product worth millions of dollars for which I was paid well under industry average in my area, as all the programers, because the owners and executives want to get something for nothing.

That's why industry is getting shipped over seas, everyone wants something for nothing. There is no appreciation for work. Its all capitalists, investors, owners, exectutives, and patent holders, who want to simply come up with an idea and then pass it off to other people to make it and make it work and they then want to get the majority of the profits, even though they do nothing. They just want to finance the work and not work themselves. Well, that only works when you are in a position of control.

Everybody wan't something for nothing, and that's the issue, these people want to make millions and billions of dollars by not paying people what their labor is worth. The people at the top only make money off of the work done by the people below them in the system. They want to just sit on top and reap the rewards while others ot the work.

Of course, who doesn't, everyone wants to be in that position, which is exactly why we need rules, regulations, and taxes to prevent people from abusing that power, which there is the very natural tendancy to do.

Its why we had slaves. Its why business opposes labor laws. Its why manufacturing is going over seas. No one really wants to work, they want to get rich off of other people's work, AND YOU and people like YOU want to allow that. I have no idea why other than perhaps you believe that one day you will be in that position as one of the top 1% and you want to get rich off of other peopke's work.

Rich people are ultimately cheap skates, hell ask any resturant worker, the rich tip the least. People get wealthy by being cheap, by getting people to work for them for as little as possible and then protifing from that work as much as possible, I mean duh, that's how you do it. Anyone who's not an idiot should want to get as much as possible for the work that they do, and in order to do that you have to use government, unions, orgniazation, etc. The alternative, that you propose is simple, "we should all allow oursleves to be taken advantage of, and just try to one day the the guy that takes advantage of others." BS, how about being fair in the first place and having a more cooperative and productive society from the get go.

I've been there, and done it. I worked for 5 years, way under paid along with all my coworkers, we all comp,anied about it, we all asked for raises, raises were suspended for 2 years totally, we got compensated for over time (we were salary) with performance options, that ended up expiring worthless, and we helped build a produc that is world class, and build a company that is now worth millions of dollars, which I know the CEO has already made millions just working there, and he and the other small group of investors will end up making large profits from the sale of the company. We (the developers) were promised the world, and when we had completed the project and delivered a working stable application most were let go except a few of the lower end gusy who are being kept on for maintance. We were always under paid, the whole time, we were promosed we would get significant pay increased, they never came, we were given bonuse that ended up being worthless, and any of the former programers for that project now has absolutly nothing to show for the work done other than experiance gained, and the "capitlasits" still own the product, which they got for about half of what they should have paid for it.

The whole system is designed for people to make money off of other people's work, which is precisely why there have to be safeguards, controls, and a constant evaluation of the entire system so make sure that it is operating fairly, which is it obviously not at present.

[The Mad Linguist]

You don't get it. I say it and I say it but you don't get it.

First of all: your stats are irrelevant in this context.

I say "Never mind what happens if the rich don't want to hand their cash over to charity".

You say "but the facts show that the rich will give their money to charity".

BUT WHAT IF THEY DON'T? What if, at some unspecified point in the future, they don't? WHAT HAPPENS THEN?

In terms of pride and self-respect, there is a WORLD of difference between taking money from the government because as a citizen in trouble you are entitled to it, and taking money from a rich person because they feel sorry for you and feel like dropping a few pence in your begging bowl.

You clearly accept that those millions of sub-minimum-wage jobs are always going to be there. So you accept millions of working people living in poverty, staying above the breadline at the whim of their better-off peers. You are advocating grinding poverty as a permanent state of affairs - whether for a given individual or for society, it doesn't matter.

You seem to think that the right of the rich to keep every penny of what they earn is more important than the right of the poor to a minimum standard of living. Well, I'm happy for you. Really. It must be lovely to be so lacking in anything resembling a conscience or a sense of social justice.

Shanek, you are a repulsive individual. I gather from some of your posts that you are yourself not badly off. And yet you seek to remove government protection from your poorest fellow-citizens, on the basis that "It'll be all right - someone will help 'em out!"

If you were spouting this stuff while on a minimum wage job yourself, I might listen to it.

I'm sorry, I'm getting far too emotional about this. Carry on as you were, I will leave you in peace henceforth.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Mahatma Kane Jeeves
But whereas Card and Krueger had surveyed 410 restaurants, Berman's outfit only collected data from 71 restaurants and has refused to make its data publicly available so that other researchers can assess whether it "cherry-picked" restaurants to create a sample that would support its predetermined conclusions.

That just isn't true. The Card/Krueger survey was a phone survey. The Neumark/Wascher study I mentioned surveyed actual payroll records. They also had a control group: a similar area in Pennsylvania with no change in the minimum wage rates, just as C&K did.

From their study (red emphases and any typos mine):

We re-evaluate the evidence from Card and Krueger's (1994) New Jersey-Pennsylvania minimum-wage experiment, using new data based on actual payroll records from 230 Burger Kind, KFC, Wendy's, and Roy Rogers restaurants in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We compare results using these payroll data to those using CK's data, which were collected by telephone surveys.

(230's a bit more than 71, wouldn't you say?)

[T]he employment data collected by CK appear to contain substantially more variation over the eight-month period between their studies than do the payroll data. Overall, the standard deviation of employment change in CK's data exceeds that in the payroll data by a factor of three, and the 90th-10th centile difference exceeds that in the payroll data by a factor of 2.6....In our view, the much higher variability of employment change in the data collected by CK raises serious doubts about the quality of their data.

The Employment Policies Institute (EPI) supplied us with data on the 71 Burger King and Wendy's franchises used in the earliest version of this study. Because the EPI has a stake in the outcome of the minimum wage debate, we took a number of steps to confirm the validity of the data supplied by the EPI. First, we spoke with each franchise owner who supplied data and verified that they provided numbers from their payroll databases. Frequenty, the francisees reported obtaining the data directly from ADP, a New Jersey-based payroll processing firm. Second, we requested and received signed statements frome ach franchisee attesting to the veracity of their data; these statements included a transcription of the actual payroll data. Finally, to protect against the possibility that EPI withheld data on restaurants for which the results were consistent with CK's results, we contacted every franchisee in the Chain Operators Guide, to veryfy that franchisees had not supplied data to the EPI which were not subsequently supplied to us. As a result of the combination of these procedures, we are confident that the data are valid. Nonetheless, to avoid conflicts of interest we subsequently took over the data collection effort from EPI, so that the remaining data came from the franchisees or corporations directly to us.

It doesn't seem like EPI's data was at all unavailable, was verified, and was NOT cherry-picked. Moreover, the NW study added on more data which they got directly, and the effect still applied.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Malachi151
First of all cooperaton and the use of corporations is a good thing in theory IF the companies would excersize fiar business and employment practices.

And who defines "fair," if not both the employer and the employee for a particular job? It's a voluntary arrangement, and they've both agreed to all the parameters.

And that's the issue, people like me, and I'm sure Ion too, are interested in MAKING THINGS and making progress and helping to build progress.

Then stop favoring policies that destroy this. Progress is what the free market does best!

[shanek]

Originally posted by The Mad Linguist
You say "but the facts show that the rich will give their money to charity".

BUT WHAT IF THEY DON'T?

Well, what if a frog had wings? Then he wouldn't bump his ass a-hoppin'...:rolleyes:

In terms of pride and self-respect, there is a WORLD of difference between taking money from the government because as a citizen in trouble you are entitled to it,

You're ENTITLED to money earned by others and taken by FORCE???

If you were spouting this stuff while on a minimum wage job yourself, I might listen to it.

I worked for minumum wage all though high school and the first part of college. Quit your whining. I got to where I am today in large part BECAUSE of working those ***** jobs where I proved I was a hard worker and a dedicated, loyal employee.

If you have to resort to ad hominem attacks, if you have to resort to emotion instead of logic, then it's time to reexamine your position.

[Malachi151]

You seem to think that the right of the rich to keep every penny of what they earn is more important than the right of the poor to a minimum standard of living.

And this is really the issue.

Who is to say what who earnes?

There is no real way to determine how much anyone "earns", that was the goal of Communism, but its relly not possible, but I'll give an example of how it works in our system.

A guy starts a lawn mowing business.

He buy's a truck, a and lawn mower. He hire's someone to do the work.

His profits are simply going to be whaetver is left over after he pay's for the labor and equipment, so what he "earns" is never really defined. Its not as though his work determies how much money he makes, what determied how muh money he makes is simply what is left over after he pays for everythig else.

So, let's say he pays the guy $4.00 and hour to mow lawns, and he charges the client $10.00 an hour. He's now making $6.00 an hour. Now, the only reason that the guy working for him isn't simply running his own business is because he can't afford to buy a truck and a lawn mower. He is poor from the start and so has to accept working for what he can.

He makes so little that he is never able to save up enough to buy his own equipment either, so he's locked into making low wages unless he can find another employer who will pay hom more, which he may not be able to do. Now the owner of the business raises the fees to $15.00 a hour, but he still pays the worker on $4.00 an hour, or maybe he gives him a raise to $4.50 an hour.

So, now the owner is making $10.50 an hour.

To look at the system and say that the owner is earning his money is a crock. The worker is earning $15.00 an hour, the employeer is only paying him $4.50 an hour though and he keeps the rest, its essentially the same as pimping.

Now obviously this is a somewhat silly example, but the same principle applies in all cases. Employeers essentially just "keep" whatever they can after paying for the work that others do, so to say that the rich are "earning" their money is a bit of a fallacy IMO. The workers earn the money, the rich siphon off the top.

Now, that's all fine and good and its needed in some ways for it to work like that, but when the owners are taking in billions of dollars and paying the workers who are doing the work to generate those profits only a very small fraction of that, thousands of dollars, then we have a problem. Capitalists by definition don't "earn" money, they get other to earn their money for them.

The system can either work well or poorly depending on if the capitalist is providing oppertunity or creating oppression. The difference between the two is a fine line. Capitalism can be very good, or it can be oppressive which is why it requires close monitoring and supervision by the public, we the people, and right now, its out of control and oppressive.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Malachi151
Who is to say what who earnes?

Um, the people who give them the money, maybe?

A guy starts a lawn mowing business.

He buy's a truck, a and lawn mower. He hire's someone to do the work.

His profits are simply going to be whaetver is left over after he pay's for the labor and equipment, so what he "earns" is never really defined.

Sure it is. You have:

THE PRICE. This is how much he charges for mowing lawns. It could be a flat fee, or a price per acre, or whatever, but it's a price that's set at a level where enough people think it's worth it that he has enough business but not so much that he's swamped.

THE EXPENSES. You mentioned these. Equipment, gasoline, travel, etc. They all have prices, and he's going to try to get the best deal on them he can. Ultimately, he's going to pay what he feels is worth the money.

THE LABOR. This is an agreement between him and his employee(s). It could be a flat salary, or it could be per hour. But like the price above, he's going to set it high enough so that he has a good pool of skilled workers to choose from without charging so much he has a glut of applicants to deal with or loses the ability to hire however many people as he wants.

What he earns is simply the revenue, minus the expenses and labor. If he's done a good job running the business, he'll make a lot of money. If not, he won't make as much or may even lose money.

Its not as though his work determies how much money he makes, what determied how muh money he makes is simply what is left over after he pays for everythig else.

But he doesn't just pull those numbers out of a hat. They're all based on what the market will bear.

So, let's say he pays the guy $4.00 and hour to mow lawns, and he charges the client $10.00 an hour. He's now making $6.00 an hour.

You're forgetting the expenses. You might have to figure in a dollar or two for that.

Now, the only reason that the guy working for him isn't simply running his own business is because he can't afford to buy a truck and a lawn mower.

Sure. The owner of the business has made a capital investment in the equipment necessary for the running of the business. What's wrong with making that back and profiting from it? Realistically, it'll probably be a year or more before those costs are completely reclaimed.

What, do you think that lawnmowers, the trucks to move them, are free?

To look at the system and say that the owner is earning his money is a crock.

Only to people who don't know squat about how businesses are run, and you are apparently one of them.

What happens when someone else runs a lawn mowing service and his employee is doing such a good job he can go to the other service and get $5 or $6 an hour? He's going to want to pay the person what the market can bear. Of all the people out there seeking lawn mower jobs, and all of the lawn mowing companies out there who want to employ them, a balance will naturally be reached. He will either have to raise his wages or accept the fact that he's going to lose that employee and have to hire someone else who isn't as good.

Employeers essentially just "keep" whatever they can after paying for the work that others do,

As I pointed out above, that just isn't the case.

Do you really think the owner of the company is just sitting around doing nothing?

[Malachi151]

As I pointed out above, that just isn't the case.

Do you really think the owner of the company is just sitting around doing nothing?

It does not matter what he is doing, the fact remains that he is not making a wage salary, he is taking profits. Now in many cases of small businesses this can actually be a harder position to be in. Nonetheless it does nto change the fact that employers do not earn wages, they keep profits, two totally different things.

An employer may make $30,000 one year and $200,000 the next year, but his employees will be making essentially the same every paycheck.

This is not an arguent for or against anything, its simply the fact of the matter.

[Ion]

Originally posted by shanek

Provide evidence of that ridiculous and desperate accusation.
From the opening post, this:
Originally posted by shanek

...
Unskilled jobs don’t pay poorly because bosses are mean, but because that’s what the market will bear.
...

shows shanek from U.S. worshiping holly profits made by bosses, but that gets debunked by The Mad Linguist who shows mean bosses here:
Originally posted by The Mad Linguist
Now I see how King Shanek intends to solve the "going hungry" problem!

It will not be the case, as I thought, that the government will have to step in the cover the living costs of those who are paid less than a living wage.

No -- because King Shanek will abolish all government social programmes too!

And -- get this -- CHARITY will look after the working poor!

Never mind what happens if the rich don't want to hand their cash over to charity.

Never mind that the poor might actually have some pride and self-respect.

But all this is OK, because the guy on sub-minimum wage work is doing on-the-job training that will let him get a better job - and that will solve the problem!

Never mind that twelve hours a day washing dishes for peanuts leads exactly nowhere, except to more dirty dishes.

Never mind that those millions of sub-minimum-wage jobs are always going to be there, regardless of who happens to be working them at any particular moment in time.

Shanek, a minimum standard of living is something that every human being should have a right to - NOT something for which some human beings who happen to be poor should be dependent on the generosity of others.

Shouldn't a man have the right to say, "If you will not pay me enough to support me and my family, I will not work for you" -- and NOT go hungry (or go crawling to the rich for charity) as a result?
and by Malachi151, who shows bosses "..providing opportunity or creating oppression..." here:
Originally posted by Malachi151

And this is really the issue.

Who is to say what who earnes?

There is no real way to determine how much anyone "earns", that was the goal of Communism, but its relly not possible, but I'll give an example of how it works in our system.

A guy starts a lawn mowing business.

He buy's a truck, a and lawn mower. He hire's someone to do the work.

His profits are simply going to be whaetver is left over after he pay's for the labor and equipment, so what he "earns" is never really defined. Its not as though his work determies how much money he makes, what determied how muh money he makes is simply what is left over after he pays for everythig else.

So, let's say he pays the guy $4.00 and hour to mow lawns, and he charges the client $10.00 an hour. He's now making $6.00 an hour. Now, the only reason that the guy working for him isn't simply running his own business is because he can't afford to buy a truck and a lawn mower. He is poor from the start and so has to accept working for what he can.

He makes so little that he is never able to save up enough to buy his own equipment either, so he's locked into making low wages unless he can find another employer who will pay hom more, which he may not be able to do. Now the owner of the business raises the fees to $15.00 a hour, but he still pays the worker on $4.00 an hour, or maybe he gives him a raise to $4.50 an hour.

So, now the owner is making $10.50 an hour.

To look at the system and say that the owner is earning his money is a crock. The worker is earning $15.00 an hour, the employeer is only paying him $4.50 an hour though and he keeps the rest, its essentially the same as pimping.

Now obviously this is a somewhat silly example, but the same principle applies in all cases. Employeers essentially just "keep" whatever they can after paying for the work that others do, so to say that the rich are "earning" their money is a bit of a fallacy IMO. The workers earn the money, the rich siphon off the top.

Now, that's all fine and good and its needed in some ways for it to work like that, but when the owners are taking in billions of dollars and paying the workers who are doing the work to generate those profits only a very small fraction of that, thousands of dollars, then we have a problem. Capitalists by definition don't "earn" money, they get other to earn their money for them.

The system can either work well or poorly depending on if the capitalist is providing oppertunity or creating oppression. The difference between the two is a fine line. Capitalism can be very good, or it can be oppressive which is why it requires close monitoring and supervision by the public, we the people, and right now, its out of control and oppressive.

[kerfer]

Originally posted by Ion


if I were the C.E.O. of 3Com, I would hunt down the author of the 56k and offer profit sharing in the form of royalty, as a sign of gratitude to what keeps 3Com afloat today.

Breaching your fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to maximize their return on their investment?

No. CEO's don't think that way.

The responsibility of the CEO of a corporation is not to the employees, but to the Board of Directors, and the shareholders. Employees are a cost of doing business. That cost is to be minimized, to the point where the people who can do the job effectively can be retained, if the CEO is to do his job. The sad fact is, is that as that cost increases domestically through vehicles like high wages, the way to minimize that cost is to take it to places like India, where educated people will work for peanuts.

[Ion]

I woke up this morning, and read the post starting with this:
Originally posted by Malachi151

Where do you people come from?

Seriously, do you have a job? How old are you? Have you ever worked in an industry?

First of all cooperaton and the use of corporations is a good thing in theory IF the companies would excersize fiar business and employment practices. It works a lot better to have large devleoped teams of people who can work togehter on projects.

Its stupid to essentially say, either accept the abuse or go out on your own. That's not productive.

All development is a team effort, and requires the cooperation of many people, skills, and resources. The type of technology that companies build today can't be done by lone individuals going out on their own to "make it".
...

I read it slowly.

I will read it, again.

I thought, being in U.S. never allows the chance to find intellectually like-minded people, because U.S. is culturally hijacked by puritanical people like Grammatron, shanek and many appearing in this thread who bring off-the-shelf stereotypes that justify money being hollier than humans.

Based on shaneks and Grammatrons all over U.S., I mentioned in this thread of seeing 'thousands' of profit-worshipers across U.S..

I think that once in a while, there is in U.S. an enlightened person, Malachi151 here, who shines with more of an intelligent vision of life.

[Ion]

Originally posted by kerfer

Breaching your fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to maximize their return on their investment?
...

That's a good idea.

Do it because the employees are the health of the company.

If you don't then that's antagonizing the workers, which I say it happens.
Originally posted by kerfer

...
No. CEO's don't think that way.

The responsibility of the CEO of a corporation is not to the employees, but to the Board of Directors, and the shareholders. Employees are a cost of doing business.
...

The C.E.O. at 3Com then -Eric Benhamou- and the Human Resources were making a big fuss in conferences about how much they value the employees, and that the responsibility of the C.E.O. was to make the employees happy.

The C.E.O. lied.

[gnome]

Originally posted by shanek
Because the person IS producing something for the economy, and getting paid for it. And someone in that position has an enormous incentive to take advantage of every bit of on-the-job training and other opportunities that are open to him. And that will ultimately lead to a better job. And a better one after that. And a better one after that...

If the employer can't pay him a decent wage, just how much money do you expect them to invest in training to do anything except what his specific job is?

And there are many charities that will help them out and even give them training. If we were to have our dollars from the Income and SS taxes back, and if we were to free the charities from the costs of regulatory compliance, they'd once again be in a very good position to provide for this. And charities have every incentive to actually get the person to work or to a better-paying job as soon as possible.

The worker is putting in full time--why should charity be footing his employer's bill? The money should be saved for people that can't work.

If you FORCE them to pay whatever you conclude is the right amount, the business is NOT going to be that viable...and therefore everyone will suffer.

Ones that can pay their full-timers a survival wage are perfectly viable in those circumstances. You didn't answer my question.

[gnome]

Originally posted by shanek
Because ultimately, whether you intend for it to happen or not, that's where the tendency is going to go. That's why Medicare ended up costing over $110 billion in 1992 when Congress originally predicted it would be only $12 billion (in 1992 dollars).

That doesn't really answer what I said. I complain about a straw man argument and you change instead to a slippery slope argument.

I do not support a horizontal income distribution, and if you want to argue that minimum wages lead to that, do so (i hardly see how) or stop accusing me of seeking that. Or admit that the argument is an exaggeration. It really just sounds like you're trying to call me a communist without justification, just because everyone hates communists. Really a pathetic debating trick.

(I allow that you did not make the initial comment, but if you are defending it, this is how I feel)

Um, because they can get another job? Or start their own company? Or any number of different alternatives? Employment is a voluntary arrangement.

Well obviously they wouldn't accept such low wages if these other alternatives were available. But if it never happened, the minimum wage law would be irrelevant. How is this different when it DOES happen?

The problem is, Minimum Wage forces him to choose "nothing" over "inadequate"! So, by your definition, the Minimum Wage must be slavery!

They aren't forced to choose "nothing" when unemployed, there is guaranteed assistance offered.

Understand that I'm proposing this as a much larger package which would cut the government down to its Constitutional size and eliminate the Income, SS, and most other taxes except for excises. That would leave over $1.5 trillion dollars into the hands of those that earned it, and that will be more than enough to provide a job for everyone who can work and charity for everyone who can't.

That this result can be expected is, I suppose, a matter of opinion that I choose to disagree with. I don't know if it's testable in advance...

[Ed]

Originally posted by shanek


Think about it, will you?

3com hired you to do a job. They paid you what you BOTH AGREED was a fair price in return for your skillful labor. Before they even hired you, they spent time figuring out the right price for a worker like you&mdash;and that was the most they could get away with offering (to attract the best programmers for that particular job) without overpaying and shooting themselves in the foot. Let's say that amount is $x.

Now, they probably had to pay $u in unemployment insurance in whatever state you worked in. They also probably had to pay $m for medical insurance and $b for other benetifts. They also had to pay $e for your expenses&mdash;keeping up your desk, computer, etc. And most certainly $t in taxes.

What you got paid was $x - $u - $m - $e - $t. The employer sees what it's paying out for you as the whole of your expenses, not just your salary.

So, let's say you want n shares of stock as well as your pay. n shares of stock cost $s, so if they give you that then your pay actually goes down to $x - $u - $m - $e - $t - $s. So it's really no different than if you had just taken $s from your paycheck and bought the stock yourself!

Many people understand this. So many people say things like, "Okay, this job doesn't pay quite as well, but look at the benefits package!" They understand that after all of the benefits are added in the second job actually pays better than the first. But to give you those benefits, it has to come out of what they otherwise would have paid you directly.

Add in $x/2 (or more) if they used a headhunter to find you. That is year 1, naurally.

[Malachi151]

How do you say that an empoyeer "can't" pay higher wages? If the company i smaking $5 billion a year in profits adn paying its workers $1.00 a hour (real case scenario in teh case of foreign labor), then how can you say that teh company "can't" pay higher wages?

The company certianly CAN, and that IS the issue.

Why should a company get away with paying workers $1.00 an hour to the point where those people can't even get by fully without assistnce, yet the companyes nets $5 billion a year in profits? That makes no sense at all.

Now, if the company was losing money or bairly getting by, maybe that makes sense, but why would you support a company that is losing money while also barely paying workers?

Again, PROFITS are the excess money that is left over after paying for all expenses. Labor is an expense.

How can anyone say that someone who is working full time, and is still poor is simply not working hard enough? If the people working for a company are all poor, and the executives and owns are making millions, that is a sign that something is wrong.

This is why markets are not a good way to determine the value of labor.

If my job is to lay bricks and I work 8 hours a day every day laying bricks. And my employer employs thousands of brick layers and as a result he makes $5 million a year. And all of his brick layers are poor. The reason that they are poor is becuase many people can lay bricks. However, just because many people CAN lay bricks takes nothing away from the work that they do. They are still busting their ass, they are still wroking hard every day, yet, because of the market they are poor. Add to this that the employer sits in an air conditioned room and makes phone calls all day and does paper work. He makes $5 million a year. Let's say that he pay's a brick layer $25,000 a year.

What this is saying is that the employer is working 200 times harder than the brick layers.

Is this really correct? Can we really verify that this is true? How can we quintify work in such a way to prove that the employer really works 200 times harder?

What many modern free-market economists say is that the fact that he makes 200 times more money is the proof that he works 200 times harder. This is a total crock though.

The money that he make sis not a result of market pressures. The money he can charge is a result of market pressures and the money that he has to pay employees is a result of market pressures, but his earnings are not. His earnings are a result of play the market pressures of the brick layer against the market pressures of the need for brick laying. He simply pockets the difference in whatever he can get his workers to agree to work for and what he can get customers to agree to pay.

This does NOT mean that he is working 200 times harder than they are, however that is the reult in terms of reward. And, this si exactly why everyone wants to be a manager or an owner or whatever. We all know its the easier job that makes more money. It may not be easier in every way than the jobs below it, but in terms of payoff the "ease per unit compenstation" is higher. We all know that, its why people want those positions.

[Ziggurat]

I was involved in another thread on the Irish potato famine, and it occured to me that Shanek's ideal government really has absolutely no way of dealing with a crisis of that sort. By his logic, the British government had no right to force English taxpayers to pay money to keep poor Irish farmers from starving to death, because after all that amounts to stealing. And they didn't, and hundreds of thousands starved to death, even though plenty could have been done if the government had the will to act. Sorry, Shanek, but I don't want to live in the kind of world you advocate.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Malachi151


Where do you people come from?

Seriously, do you have a job? How old are you? Have you ever worked in an industry?
Well, my location is stated to the left, I am not goingto disclose my age but I do have a job in the IT/Computer industry, a very good job I might add.

First of all cooperaton and the use of corporations is a good thing in theory IF the companies would excersize fiar business and employment practices. It works a lot better to have large devleoped teams of people who can work togehter on projects.

Its stupid to essentially say, either accept the abuse or go out on your own. That's not productive.

A good programmer at the level Ion claims to be at, will get around 100K+ a year that most likely will include benefits. If some company out there would like to "abuse" me like that, please contact me :)

All development is a team effort, and requires the cooperation of many people, skills, and resources. The type of technology that companies build today can't be done by lone individuals going out on their own to "make it".
That is precicely the claim Ion is making; he alone is responcible for that software, he wrote by himself with no help from any employee of 3Com and with out using any of their equipment.

And that's the issue, people like me, and I'm sure Ion too, are interested in MAKING THINGS and making progress and helping to build progress. It's really a waste of effort to start your own orgnization to do something that others are capable of doing with greater ease. Its more effecient to work through exiting channels in terms of busines sand industry, thats why researchers and scientists and engineers go to work for companies, they dont' get some science degree and then waste 20 years trying ot found a company, they get a degree and go to work for an established company. Now, all that works great as long as the established company gives fair compensation for the people who do the work that provides the profits.
If that is indeed all you are interested in, then why do you care about great sums of money and acknowledgement from CEOs? And I still want to know how does one define "fair" compensation.

What is happening now is that big business is getting so abusive of power that people are being really discouraged from working for large companies, because you invariably get screwed, so that has a negative impact on the whole system, as you can easily witness in our society today.
I got news for you: Small business makes more money and employes more people than big business and it has been like that for a while. Yet, I do not see any negative imact of that happening.

The cheapskates here are the executives and owners who are trying to get labor for nothing They don't want to pay for the work that's being done. I was robbed at my previous job, 5 years of software development taking a project from the ground up and producing a software product worth millions of dollars for which I was paid well under industry average in my area, as all the programers, because the owners and executives want to get something for nothing.
If you don't like your job, get a better one. It's not slavery.

Everybody wan't something for nothing, and that's the issue, these people want to make millions and billions of dollars by not paying people what their labor is worth. The people at the top only make money off of the work done by the people below them in the system. They want to just sit on top and reap the rewards while others ot the work.
You make it sound like the people in charge do nothing at all and that's just an out right lie.

[Dancing David]

Despite what other people will say I feel that raising the minimum wage is good for one reason, it will give more money to people who will spend it. Currentlt there are many people who have to work to two jobs to provide for thier families, give them more money and they will pour it back into the economy.

I agree though that it will lead to some people having a harder time finding work, but if you look at the job standard for employment at Taco Bell these days, it is very tough, it won't hurt to pay them more.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Malachi151
It does not matter what he is doing, the fact remains that he is not making a wage salary, he is taking profits.

So? That just means if the company does well, he does well. If the company does crappy, he does crappy. His well-being is tied directly to that of the company. That's not the case with the workers. They get compensated for their labor no matter what.

It still doesn't mean that the owner didn't earn it. If the owner runs his company well enough that it makes him a nice profit, why has he not earned it from a job well done?

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion

From the opening post, this:

shows shanek from U.S. worshiping holly profits made by bosses,

No, it doesn't. Quit with the ad hominems.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion
U.S. is culturally hijacked by puritanical people like Grammatron, shanek and many appearing in this thread who bring off-the-shelf stereotypes

:id:

[Malachi151]

Originally posted by Dancing David
Despite what other people will say I feel that raising the minimum wage is good for one reason, it will give more money to people who will spend it. Currentlt there are many people who have to work to two jobs to provide for thier families, give them more money and they will pour it back into the economy.

I agree though that it will lead to some people having a harder time finding work, but if you look at the job standard for employment at Taco Bell these days, it is very tough, it won't hurt to pay them more.

Actually I totally disagree. I think that it would dramatically reduce unemployment right now.

#1 As per the graphs I have already presented unemployment was lowest in the US when the minimum wage was higher and on the rise.

#2 Teh more money peopl have the more they can spend, and the more that created demand for goods and services.

#3 The more money people have the more confident they are and the more they are willing to starta new business because the more they are confident that they will have a market.

#4 By increasing the minimum wage the most direct way to deal with that by industry is simply to reduce profits, and if some company won't do it then some other company will.

Increasing the minimum wage needs to be done in conjunction with an effrot to get other countries to increase their minimum wage, the establishment of an international minimum wage for US companies, i.e. they have to pay a certina minimum if they employ labor over seas, and a possible increae on tarrifs in the mean time while all that takes effect.

I guarentee you that if we did that you would see unemployment drop and the economy pick up.

[shanek]

Originally posted by gnome
If the employer can't pay him a decent wage, just how much money do you expect them to invest in training to do anything except what his specific job is?

Ah-huh. Nice mangling. Do you know what "on-the-job training" is? It's the training needed to do their specific job.

And if they do it well enough, the employer may decide to train them for a higher paying job and give them a promotion.

The worker is putting in full time--why should charity be footing his employer's bill?

Why is it the employers bill? Can't you see how immature you're being here?

Ones that can pay their full-timers a survival wage are perfectly viable in those circumstances. You didn't answer my question.

Yes, I did. You just didn't like the answer.

Why do you refuse to face up to the consequences of what you're defending?

[shanek]

Originally posted by gnome
That doesn't really answer what I said. I complain about a straw man argument and you change instead to a slippery slope argument.

It was neither. It ACTUALLY HAPPENED. It ALWAYS HAPPENS.

It really just sounds like you're trying to call me a communist without justification, just because everyone hates communists. Really a pathetic debating trick.

I never once called you a Communist...and the irony is, YOU accusing ME of calling you that is itself a "pathetic debating trick."

Well obviously they wouldn't accept such low wages if these other alternatives were available.

Stop switching the goalposts! You asked how it was different from slavery, and I answered you. The other job doesn't have to be higher wages; if he doesn't like the job he's doing, he can switch.

They aren't forced to choose "nothing" when unemployed, there is guaranteed assistance offered.

Which, as I've pointed out, just prolongs the period of unemployment. Besides, you just went back to throwing money at the problem.

[Dancing David]

Malchi,
If we raise the minimum wage the one thing it does do is squeeze the marginal employees out of work, they usualy quit anyhow, but it would cause employers to fire whatever deadbeats they have.

I am for raising the minimum wage, anyone who says that employee get paid regardless of thier job performance hasn't been a wage slave.

In our free sytem I would like there to be accountablity for the upper mangaement, no more loot and run at the top. But I can't think of a way to do it and preserve the good parts of our system, there is a movement amongst the mutual funds to start holding the boards accountable for some of the more outrageous stuff.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Malachi151
How do you say that an empoyeer "can't" pay higher wages? If the company i smaking $5 billion a year in profits adn paying its workers $1.00 a hour (real case scenario in teh case of foreign labor), then how can you say that teh company "can't" pay higher wages?

I explained it. Try reading sometime.

If they set the wage too high, they'll have too many people coming for the job and not enough positions for all of them. That will result in unemployment just as the Minimum Wage does!

The company certianly CAN,

NO IT CAN'T!!! What happens if the profits fall off next quarter? Would you be in favor of the employees all having their pay cut? Who would work for a company where the pay swings wildly up and down like that?

and that IS the issue.

No, the issue is your pigheaded refusal to learn anything about economics or how to run a business.

Now, if the company was losing money or bairly getting by, maybe that makes sense,

But even that company doesn't have the option, so there it goes, bankrupt, taking all the jobs with it.

How can anyone say that someone who is working full time, and is still poor is simply not working hard enough?

Because it's not just how many hours you work. It's the benefit of the work you do. Spending 1 hour designing a lifesaving medical device is worth a lot more than spending 1 hour digging a ditch.

This is why markets are not a good way to determine the value of labor.

So who determines it? Who has the magic insight? Do we ask one of those 8-ball things? :rolleyes:

The market WILL settle on the actual value of the work. I have explained this to you many, many times in many, many threads. I have shown you real world examples and shown why it works. You just refuse to listen.

However, just because many people CAN lay bricks takes nothing away from the work that they do.

Sure, it does. Supply and demand. There's a big supply of workers, so the supply curve moves out to the right, and the wage drops. Just like if a company overproduces a product and has to drop the price.

Add to this that the employer sits in an air conditioned room and makes phone calls all day and does paper work.

You make that sound so easy. :rolleyes:

What this is saying is that the employer is working 200 times harder than the brick layers.

No, it says that he's generating 200 times the wealth of the brick layers...and he most likely is.

How can we quintify work in such a way to prove that the employer really works 200 times harder?

By letting the market determine these prices.

The money that he make sis not a result of market pressures.

Bull$#!7! It absolutely is the result of just that! The market pressures for what to pay his workers, the market pressure that sets the value of all of his expenses, and the market pressure that determines the value of his products and/or services and the amount sold ALL determine how much he makes!

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ziggurat
I was involved in another thread on the Irish potato famine, and it occured to me that Shanek's ideal government really has absolutely no way of dealing with a crisis of that sort.

As was pointed out in that thread, the potato famine was a direct result of the Irish government saying who could eat what. The Corn Laws, which made foreign corn expensive, forced Ireland to continue to export food even at the height of its famine. This wouldn't have happened at all were it not for government. Moreover, that was covered in the thread, so it's blatantly dishonest of you to represent it otherwise here.

Here's the thread:

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25328

Yes, I lurked in it. Ol' Ziggy probably figured that since I hadn't posted in it that I hadn't read it, and that he could get away with pulling that crap here.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Dancing David
Despite what other people will say I feel that raising the minimum wage is good for one reason, it will give more money to people who will spend it.

But will that net out above the people who will lose it? Money has to come from somewhere. It isn't created by wages.

[Malachi151]

Originally posted by Dancing David
Malchi,
If we raise the minimum wage the one thing it does do is squeeze the marginal employees out of work, they usualy quit anyhow, but it would cause employers to fire whatever deadbeats they have.

I am for raising the minimum wage, anyone who says that employee get paid regardless of thier job performance hasn't been a wage slave.

In our free sytem I would like there to be accountablity for the upper mangaement, no more loot and run at the top. But I can't think of a way to do it and preserve the good parts of our system, there is a movement amongst the mutual funds to start holding the boards accountable for some of the more outrageous stuff.

Well, for one thing I have always argued that the minimum wage should be maintined ona yearly basis, always. That means that every year at a certian time eveyone knows that the minimum wage will be adjusted. Its something that can be planned for that way. In addition, it will make for smaller changes, so you have more adiustments, but they are much smaller so its much easier for businesses to plan for these things, it sit becomes a part of the business.

This way you avoid the problem that we have of rasing the wage and the potential loss of jobs.

Again though, look at the facts:

http://www.forecasts.org/data/images/UNRATE.gif

http://pw1.netcom.com/~rdavis2/minwage.gif

You are looking at the blue line in the bottom graph.

As you can see, wage hikes often accompanied a lowering of unemployment. The facts simply don't support the claims.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Malachi151


Well, for one thing I have always argued that the minimum wage should be maintined ona yearly basis, always. That means that every year at a certian time eveyone knows that the minimum wage will be adjusted. Its something that can be planned for that way. In addition, it will make for smaller changes, so you have more adiustments, but they are much smaller so its much easier for businesses to plan for these things, it sit becomes a part of the business.

This way you avoid the problem that we have of rasing the wage and the potential loss of jobs.



Would everyone get a raise? If the economy is doing poorly will there be a cut in minimum wage?

Minimum wage will only work if there is a maximum wage, however that will have a negative impact to the economy.

[shanek]

How Regulation Is Destroying American Jobs (http://www.heritage.org/Research/Regulation/BG926.cfm)

Many regulations directly increase the cost of employing workers and thereby act like a hidden tax on job creation and employment. Among such regulations are minimum wage laws and federal labor laws. These regulations place especially heavy burdens on small businesses, the primary engines of job creation. And exempting smaller businesses from regulations generally does not solve the problem. Instead it simply creates a "Catch 22" situation in which growing small firms are penalized by an increase in the number of regulations they became subject to.

It is now almost universally accepted that minimum wage laws reduce the employment of low-skilled workers whose productivity simply is not worth what the employers are required by law to pay. (See, e.g., Simon Rottenberg, ed., The Economics of Legal Minimum Wages (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1981).) The only major disagreement today is over the degree of employment reductions caused by the minimum wage requirement. (Some studies note, for example, that while the minimum wage law reduces employment of low-skilled workers, it may increase employment of medium-skilled workers who, to some extent, can be used in lieu of the low-skilled workers whose labor the minimum wage renders too expensive. However, the increase in employment of medium-skilled workers is never enough to fully offset the decrease in employment of low-skilled workers.)

For the nine years running from January 1981 through March 1990, the federal minimum wage remained fixed at $3.35 per hour. Because of inflation, however, the real value of the minimum wage -- and therefore the real cost to businesses of employing less-skilled workers -- declined. Not surprisingly, the percentage of teenagers with jobs climbed from 41 percent to over 48 percent over the same period. (Alan Reynolds, "Cruel Costs of the 1991 Minimum Wage," The Wall Street Journal, July 7, 1992, p. A14.)

Congress decided in 1989 to increase the federal minimum wage to $3.80 per hour as of April 1, 1990, and to $4.25 per hour as of April 1, 1991. Again, not surprisingly, teenage employment fell immediately after each of these increases. Just four months after the 1990 increase, for instance, the percentage of teenagers with jobs had fallen from over 48 percent to less than 43 percent, undoing most of the previous nine years' improvement. (Ibid.)

In total, the federal minimum wage rose by 27 percent, and teenage employment fell by 11 percent. (Ibid.)The 1990 and 1991 minimum wage increases made it harder for teenage workers to get summer and Christmas vacation jobs. The hikes made it harder for young adults with little education, skill, or experience to obtain their first full-time entry-level jobs. These are the jobs where they would acquire the training, experience, and work habits that eventually would make their labor worth more than the legal minimum. And the increases in the minimum wage made it harder for unskilled housewives trying to supplement their family's income while their children are in school to obtain part-time work.

Calculations by economists Lowell Gallaway and Richard Vedder of Ohio University show that the total cost to a business for each worker hired and for each hour worked rose sharply after each of these increases in the minimum wage, but especially after the first -- which was the larger of the two increases in percentage terms. (Lowell Gallaway and Richard Vedder, "Why Johnny Can't Work: The Causes of Unemployment," Policy Review, Fall 1992, p. 29.) Furthermore, calculations by Gallaway and economist Gary Anderson of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) of Congress suggest that the total cost per worker hired and per hour worked rose particularly sharply for smaller businesses. (Gary Anderson and Lowell Gallaway, "Derailing the Small Business Job Express" (Washington, D.C.: Joint Economic Committee, November 7, 1992), pp. 25-28.) Larger corporations tend to be less affected (at least directly) by increases in the minimum wage, since they already pay most if not all of their workers wages well above the legal minimum. By contrast, the overwhelming majority of businesses that employ people at the minimum wage are small and medium-sized. Consequently, increases in the minimum wage -- like most other increases in the regulatory burden -- tend to have a greater impact on smaller firms, and to exacerbate the disparity that already exists between small and large firms. (For a discussion of the disparate impact of regulation on small business, and of the importance of this disparity from the standpoint of job creation, see pages 10-12 below.)

Private-sector employment peaked in March 1990, and started declining sharply in April 1990. It appears likely, therefore, that the legally mandated explosion in the cost of employing relatively unskilled workers was a significant factor contributing to the 1990- 1991 recession and the stagnation of the past year.

[Tmy]

Im thinking the biggest min wage employers are the resturants. If youve ever worked at one you know that they employ the min # of people needed at any one time. They dont have people just milling about. So when the min wage does go up they dont fire people. Ill admit that there are jobs that do get phased out when MW rises, but the rise in pay for the other employees greatly outpaces the # of jons lost. And I doubt the unemploed have any problems in finding another min wage job (which now pays more than there old one.) Its a win win!


Has anyone ever seen a McD's go out of business????

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tmy
Im thinking the biggest min wage employers are the resturants. If youve ever worked at one you know that they employ the min # of people needed at any one time. They dont have people just milling about. So when the min wage does go up they dont fire people.

That just does not follow. Where is the extra money going to come from? If they can't lay off people, then the extra cost must be passed on to the consumer. But at the higher rates, fewer people may eat at the restaurant, choosing instead to eat somewhere cheaper or at home. If enough people stop eating, the business will drop to a level where they will have to lay some people off.

Has anyone ever seen a McD's go out of business????

Yes.

[Tmy]

It could come out of the profit margin. Fast food is a very competitive and lucrative business. "Passing it on" to the consumers may not work to the companies advantage.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by shanek

As was pointed out in that thread, the potato famine was a direct result of the Irish government saying who could eat what.


You didn't get my point at all. First, the Irish government laws didn't dictate who could eat what. Second, my point isn't fundamentally about the cause of the famine - yes, it was exacerbated by bad government laws, but repealing the corn laws alone wouldn't have fixed the problem. My point is you're a fool to think that the free market system can protect society against massive disaster, and if disaster does strike, government intervention is generally the only thing that can help people on any significant scale. And yet, you'd still believe that even if government taxation and welfare programs were the only way to solve such a crisis, you'd say it was unjustified theft, and those that starved could just suck it up, they should have just gotten better jobs. You're an extremist, shanek - you argue that ANY government regulation is necessarily bad, but absolutist logic like that never works. You can count up all the bad regulations you want (and I'm not one to argue that there aren't plenty to go around), but your conclusion is still wrong. The abundance of bad regulations does not mean good regulations are nonexistent, just like the abundance of stupid people doesn't mean that the world is populated exclusively by idiots.

[Malachi151]

Originally posted by Tmy
It could come out of the profit margin. Fast food is a very competitive and lucrative business. "Passing it on" to the consumers may not work to the companies advantage.

That's just it, profit margins have grown considerably over the past 20 years while wages have gone down. I mean duh, its obvious what is happening here.

These guys like shanek and etc, are of the mind set that its okay for profit margins to go up, but its not okay for wages to go up. WTF!?! What kind of reasoning is that? In terms of inflation profits and wages are the same thing.

The issue is cost of goods.

Its absurd to have the position that its okay for wages to go down while profits go up, but that's exactly what has happened in America, and its a disgrace that people are arguing that should continue.

If wages and profits can both go up together then that's great, but it makes no sense to accept a loss for the majority for a benefit of the few. And, in the end, this kind of economics will not work anyway. As the few get meeker and meeker the abilty to participate in an economy deminishes, until the whole system is a mess, as is happeneind right now.

The current economic situation is a result of not sharing the profits of industry with the workers who create those profits, and then the majority no longer have the money needed to participate in the economy, demand is deminished, and the profits ultimately deminish too, this is the internal conflict inherent in capitlaism, it always creates its own problems of one sort or another, and is never inhernetly fair.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tmy
It could come out of the profit margin.

Show how it could. Make sure you show it doing so without hurting the company and its investors.

Fast food is a very competitive and lucrative business. "Passing it on" to the consumers may not work to the companies advantage.

I thought we were talking about regular restaurants, not fast food. Most if not all of the fast food restaurants already pay their workers above minimum wage.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ziggurat
You didn't get my point at all. First, the Irish government laws didn't dictate who could eat what.

In a way, they did. By creating a situation where foods were to be exported rather than eaten locally, they did exactly that.

My point is you're a fool to think that the free market system can protect society against massive disaster,

Why?

A few years ago, the eastern part of NC was hit by two hurricanes one right after the other. There was an untold amount of damage, and it was one of the worst disasters in NC history.

Everyone all over the Carolinas (and from elsewhere in the country, too, from what I gather) all chipped in. Food drives, bottled water, and other supplies that people in this area needed...Money for the cleanup and rebuilding efforts...even people, going over there to voluntarily offer their labor to help clean things up. Even, if not especially, the companies. At the time, I was working for a company that was the biggest in the world of its type. They donated money, got their clients and employees to do the same by matching them, and everyone&mdash;employees, management, everybody&mdash;chipped in extra hours at night and on the weekends to make sure the money and supplies got to where it needed.

The result: The damage was all but fixed, and the people compensated, and most people were at a point where they could at least resume their lives BEFORE ONE PENNY WAS RECEIVED FROM THE GOVERNMENT.

So don't tell me we need the government for disaster relief!

[shanek]

Originally posted by Malachi151
That's just it, profit margins have grown considerably over the past 20 years while wages have gone down. I mean duh, its obvious what is happening here.

Why don't you explain it to us?

These guys like shanek and etc, are of the mind set that its okay for profit margins to go up, but its not okay for wages to go up.

No, we aren't. That's your pathetic strawman again. We're against the government forcing prices. I'd be just as much against a maximum wage as I am against a minimum wage. I'm just as much against price supports as I am against price caps.

It's called "consistency."

Its absurd to have the position that its okay for wages to go down while profits go up, but that's exactly what has happened in America, and its a disgrace that people are arguing that should continue.

It only seems absurd and a disgrace to you because you insist on seeing it as a zero sum game.

[Tmy]

Originally posted by shanek


Show how it could. Make sure you show it doing so without hurting the company and its investors.



Succsessful business is acomplicated evolving formula. But you can even make the argument that higher min wage can increase profits.

We may call these workers "unskilled" but thats really a misnomer. We talking people and not robots. All workers are skilled, some more than others. Higher min wage can attract a better skilled employees to your business. They can be more efficient or better wh customer service. (We all can appreciate a good waiter). Your business is now making a better product wh in tern attracks more customes. In the end you may be paying more forthe employees but in fact you are now generating greater profit.

[WildCat]

Originally posted by Malachi151

That's just it, profit margins have grown considerably over the past 20 years while wages have gone down. I mean duh, its obvious what is happening here.
Oh really? Could you please cite some statistics to prove it? Oh, I'll just supply the info for McDonalds (this is the quintessential fast food chain after all). From here: (http://www.valueline.com/Dow30/f5707.pdf)
Net Profit Margins:
1993 - 14.6%
1994 - 14.7%
1995 - 14.6%
1996 - 14.7%
1997 - 14.4%
1998 - 14.2%
1999 - 14.7%
2000 - 13.9%
2001 - 11.9%
2002 - 11.0%
Not quite the trend you were looking for, was it?
What the economically ignorant never seem to understand is it is almost impossible, in a free market, to make obscene profits. To do so draws others into the market and the competition invariably pulls down profit margins. In fact, in any industry profit margins between 9 % and 15% are typical, make less and you're in serious danger of going out of business, more and you will draw the attention of competitors who will undercut you on price to steal your market share. The only exceptions to this (assuming it's not an illegal monopoly) are if your innovations are protected by patents, thus protecting you from competition. Also if your in an industry where the entrance costs are so prohibitively expensive (think auto manufacturing and aerospace) that new competitors are unlikely.

And if you think I'm full of fecal matter, just open your own fast food restaurant and see for yourselves how easy it is to m,ake obscene profits. You may be surprised how difficult it really is.

[WildCat]

Originally posted by Tmy


Succsessful business is acomplicated evolving formula. But you can even make the argument that higher min wage can increase profits.

We may call these workers "unskilled" but thats really a misnomer. We talking people and not robots. All workers are skilled, some more than others. Higher min wage can attract a better skilled employees to your business. They can be more efficient or better wh customer service. (We all can appreciate a good waiter). Your business is now making a better product wh in tern attracks more customes. In the end you may be paying more forthe employees but in fact you are now generating greater profit.
Absolutely, this can be the case. You reweard valuable employees in order to keep them, especialy if they increase business. But this has nothing to do w/ gov't mandated min. wages.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by shanek

The result: The damage was all but fixed, and the people compensated, and most people were at a point where they could at least resume their lives BEFORE ONE PENNY WAS RECEIVED FROM THE GOVERNMENT.

So don't tell me we need the government for disaster relief!

That's a heartwarming tale, good for them. But it's also irrelevant. First, the scale of that disaster doesn't even compare to what has happened and what can happen. Second, I noticed that it was other people in NC who helped those in NC in need. Disaster relief is much easier to scare up from private sources when it goes back to the communities it comes from. But if the local community can't provide sufficient resources for itself, scaring up private relief from outside is much harder. That's one of the reasons that the Irish potato famine was so bad - England was distanced from its effects, and private relief efforts never scaled to the size of the problem. If the problem is big enough, that can happen very easily.

I'm not saying private relief efforts aren't great, but they aren't something that people should depend upon, because they're not guaranteed. Hope is not a plan.

[gnome]

Originally posted by shanek
Ah-huh. Nice mangling. Do you know what "on-the-job training" is? It's the training needed to do their specific job.

And if they do it well enough, the employer may decide to train them for a higher paying job and give them a promotion.

So a good worker may get promoted... he's still gotta support himself while he waits for an opening. What kind of an economy do you have if only people that rise above entry level can afford their own life?

Why is it the employers bill? Can't you see how immature you're being here?

Because they're taking up all of his working time. They're purchasing all of the work a person can give. Does that not merit at least enough to maintain that worker's life?

Yes, I did. You just didn't like the answer.

I asked how viable a company was that could not afford to pay its full-time workers enough for them to survive... or to put it another way, enough to be able to stay at the job. You answered with a question, and said nothing about the company's viability. You brought up another company's viability.

Why do you refuse to face up to the consequences of what you're defending?

What consequence am I refusing to face? The only one you've mentioned is the unemployment of those that would not have a viable job in the first place. My response to that consequence is for them to avail themselves of temporary government assistance, and perhaps some support from friends or family or charity if it is available, until a full-time job is available for them.

[gnome]

Originally posted by shanek
It was neither. It ACTUALLY HAPPENED. It ALWAYS HAPPENS.

Income distribution has been horizontal? And that always happens when there is a minimum wage? Maybe I misunderstand you.

I never once called you a Communist...

To suppose that I am in favor of a horizontal income distribution is exactly accusing me of being a communist.

Stop switching the goalposts! You asked how it was different from slavery, and I answered you. The other job doesn't have to be higher wages; if he doesn't like the job he's doing, he can switch.

Okay, I must grant you that difference, he can choose which inadequately-paying job he wants to do.

Another difference from slavery--housing and food was provided for the worker.

Ok I'll admit that I am evading the most obvious difference, that the slave is held there against his will. I wouln't trade places with a slave even if I was working poor.

My point is that the freedom to leave a job is not useful to someone who cannot afford to, and thus is an unreliable safeguard against exploitation.

Which, as I've pointed out, just prolongs the period of unemployment. Besides, you just went back to throwing money at the problem.

Better a period of unemployment where I have food and shelter, than a period of minimal employment when I have no home and not enough food--even if it's somewhat longer.

And yes I'm "throwing" money at the problem. Food and shelter cost money. It doesn't mean I've stopped looking for ways to reduce the need for assistance.

[Suggestologist]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by NoZed Avenger

[snip]

I am not following this -- the rest of what? You are saying that the employer is paying -over- minimum wage. If the minimum wage is set below the poverty line, then that money is already being paid to the employee under the current system through aid programs and the earned income tax credit, etc. I don't think we can assume a net increase in payments out to them.
[QUOTE]

Ok. Let's say that Right now minimum wage is about $6.00. Under a system where everyone gets subsistence payments that are gradually reduced by the amount they earn at their jobs: Earning $2 at your job, will reduce your subsistence payment by $1. So your subsistence payment from the government is $5, and your employer pays you $2. You have an income of $7 per hour; assuming a 40 hour week.

Now, what are the effects relative to current low-level jobs? People who already earn $6 at their jobs would now earn, $6 from their jobs plus $3 from subsistence payments -- for a combined wage of $9 -- but this would be an overpayment for the low-level job. Why would anyone buy something for $6 when they could get the same thing for $2?. Employers would be more likely to pay $2 and have the government pick up the tab. Where does the government get the money?

[Ed]

Originally posted by WildCat

What the economically ignorant never seem to understand is it is almost impossible, in a free market, to make obscene profits.

Malichi is irretated that some people make a lot of money. He thinks that because a company makes a profit it necessarily follows that there is something "wrong" about retaining earnings. His characterizations of executives are simply ad homs. It comes down to jealousy, I think. It certainly is not rooted in experience.

[Malachi151]

Originally posted by WildCat

Oh really? Could you please cite some statistics to prove it? Oh, I'll just supply the info for McDonalds (this is the quintessential fast food chain after all). From here: (http://www.valueline.com/Dow30/f5707.pdf)
Net Profit Margins:
1993 - 14.6%
1994 - 14.7%
1995 - 14.6%
1996 - 14.7%
1997 - 14.4%
1998 - 14.2%
1999 - 14.7%
2000 - 13.9%
2001 - 11.9%
2002 - 11.0%
Not quite the trend you were looking for, was it?
What the economically ignorant never seem to understand is it is almost impossible, in a free market, to make obscene profits. To do so draws others into the market and the competition invariably pulls down profit margins. In fact, in any industry profit margins between 9 % and 15% are typical, make less and you're in serious danger of going out of business, more and you will draw the attention of competitors who will undercut you on price to steal your market share. The only exceptions to this (assuming it's not an illegal monopoly) are if your innovations are protected by patents, thus protecting you from competition. Also if your in an industry where the entrance costs are so prohibitively expensive (think auto manufacturing and aerospace) that new competitors are unlikely.

And if you think I'm full of fecal matter, just open your own fast food restaurant and see for yourselves how easy it is to m,ake obscene profits. You may be surprised how difficult it really is.

LOL, MCDonnals is doing poorly, we all know that. They showed a loss for the first quarter in history earlier this year.

Not a very good example there :rolleyes:

Uggg.. again we go back to the "free-market", how many times do I have to explain that there is no such thing as a free-market in the first place, and at any rate should that not underscore the depth of the problem here even more?

What is a fact is the the rich are gettgn richer, period. The poor, pooer, period, and the middle class weaker and falling much farther behind the rich.

The top 1% now take in over 20% of America's income, a 12% in the past 20 years. Hello.

Do you no think that is an issue to be concerned about?

The wealthy pay lower taxes than any time in the past 70 years of US history. The poor and middle pay as much or more than any time in US history. The minimum wage is lowser than it was in 1950. Again, hello. Do you say that these are not problems?

Debt is up in all sectors in the US, household debt hit all time highs in 2000, I am not sure if the recent low interest rates helped reduce that figure or not.

Record profits have been posted in many industries over the past 10 years, McDonnalds is not representative of the entire economy its a single company that is losing ground to competition.

If you say that high profits are not possible in a free-market, then do tell what is it about the market that is causing these high profits?

I agree that high profits are not possible in a truely free market, however the market is not free, it has never been free, and never will be free. The existance of capital by its very definition breaks the free market, so even without any government regulations at all there can be no free market.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tmy
We may call these workers "unskilled" but thats really a misnomer.

I take your point, but we take "unskilled" to mean things that don't require any training.

Higher min wage can attract a better skilled employees to your business.

But will you benefit from having better skilled employees? And will you benefit enough to offset the extra amount you have to pay them?

If the answer to these is "yes," then the incentive will be there to offer the better salary anyway as that will increase profits. If the answer to either is "no," then they will lose profits by paying out more money and not gaining enough benefit to offset it.

Minimum wage will do NOTHING to help corporate profits this way. If higher wages will achieve greater profits, then businesses don't need a minimum wage to do it. Minimum Wage is only "necessary" when they won't profit from it; when their profits will suffer because of the extra costs.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ziggurat
That's a heartwarming tale, good for them. But it's also irrelevant.

No, it isn't. YOU said we needed the government for disaster relief. I debunked it.

First, the scale of that disaster doesn't even compare to what has happened and what can happen.

These hurricanes together wiped out nearly half the state! It took over three months to get power restored everywhere. Almost three million people lived in the affected part of the state. They had to deal with the lack of food or even running water. they had to rebuild their homes. Most of them had to start over completely.

Not many disasters compare to that.

Second, I noticed that it was other people in NC who helped those in NC in need.

And SC, too. And there was a lot of other help nationwide. But it's a lot easier for someone in western NC to go over to eastern NC and help out than it is for someone in CA to go help out, isn't it?

So, as per your usual, this proves absolutely nothing.

Disaster relief is much easier to scare up from private sources when it goes back to the communities it comes from.

These weren't the same communities! The whole Charlotte Metro area was completely unaffected, yet that area provided a great portion of the help!

Just how many excuses can you dredge up?

[shanek]

Originally posted by gnome
So a good worker may get promoted... he's still gotta support himself while he waits for an opening. What kind of an economy do you have if only people that rise above entry level can afford their own life?

A well-functioning economy that will increase wealth for everyone.

Because they're taking up all of his working time. They're purchasing all of the work a person can give. Does that not merit at least enough to maintain that worker's life?

Not if the value his skills create don't equal that much.

I asked how viable a company was that could not afford to pay its full-time workers enough for them to survive.

Why do you refuse to see that the one has absolutely nothing to do with the other?

What consequence am I refusing to face?

The LOSS of those jobs...the LOSS of the economic wealth those jobs create...and the LOSS of living standards FOR THE VERY PEOPLE YOU CLAIM TO BE HELPING!

Not to mention the fact that you are FORCING others AT THE POINT OF A GUN to pay for this!

How is that in ANY way wise or moral?

The only one you've mentioned is the unemployment of those that would not have a viable job in the first place. My response to that consequence is for them to avail themselves of temporary government assistance, and perhaps some support from friends or family or charity if it is available, until a full-time job is available for them. [/B][/QUOTE]

[shanek]

Originally posted by gnome
Income distribution has been horizontal?

When did I say that?

To suppose that I am in favor of a horizontal income distribution is exactly accusing me of being a communist.

When did I say that?

My point is that the freedom to leave a job is not useful to someone who cannot afford to, and thus is an unreliable safeguard against exploitation.

Huh. I knew that word "exploitation" would pop up sooner or later. Maybe it's time for me to quote here the post for the other thread I started which everyone ignored (well, everyone except Unas, who just insulted me):

From shiftless bum to employee. Who can argue with that? Apparently the usual suspects at Commercial Alert, one of Ralph Nader's anti-capitalist "watchdog" organizations. Gary Ruskin, director of Commercial Alert, said the homeless who act as billboards should be paid minimum wage.

"If they don't get minimum wage, this is exploitation," he said.

How could it be exploitation? As the participants themselves relate, each sees it as a win-win situation. In Portland, the restaurant chain Pizza Schmizza offered to pay homeless people a slice of pizza, soda and a few dollars in exchange for holding a sign for 40 minutes on downtown sidewalks that read: "Pizza Schmizza paid me to hold this sign instead of asking for money.''

Peter Schoeff, one 20-year-old homeless man employed in this way, said of the offer: "I think it's a fair trade. We're career panhandlers, that's the only other way we can get money.'' As he told Andrew Kramer, a reporter for the Associated Press, he "woke up in an abandoned house and planned to spend his day dumpster diving and asking for spare change."

"We dig in trash, but usually, you can't find anything good in the trash," he said. "Just half-eaten sandwiches, cold french fries, crumbs in a bag of chips."

So a slice of hot pizza seemed like a good deal, especially since all it required was holding a sign for 40 minutes.

Using human beings as billboards has at least one precedent. During FDR's Great Depression, it was a common sight to see men sandwiched between two boards carrying the advertising of merchants. The New Deal, through its ongoing effort to raise prices and wages, prolonged the correction in the prices for goods and labor required by the Fed induced boom of the 1920's. As a consequence wages for unskilled labor were artificially high, increasing the cost of unskilled labor for employers which had the inevitable result of reducing the number of employment opportunities.

The problem of vagrancy is, as usual, a byproduct of public ownership of streets and other public places on the one hand, and on the other, the modern refusal to protect property values in any concerted way by cooperating with storeowners and others who are now forced to accept behavior and conditions that discourage a pleasant shopping experience.

The minimum wage for unskilled labor is an arbitrary price, not based upon supply and demand within a given area, but pulled out of thin air by interests that believe they are doing good by appearing kind and compassionate when it comes to the lives and conditions of the poor. In reality, they destroy opportunities for the poor to rebuild their lives by destroying employment and in many circumstances, potential employers.

When an employer offers a wage that the employee agrees is fair, as Peter Schoeff said himself, there is no exploitation involved here. Genuine exploitation exists where one party to a transaction is compelled, through fear of the consequences of disobedience, to submit to the theft of his property. Taxation comes to mind. As well as the rest of the modern welfare/warfare state apparatus of compulsion and deceit.

If the unwanted advice of Ralph Nader, Gary Ruskin and their like were heeded, these human billboards would be even worse off then they are now. In their demand for an arbitrary politically dictated minimum price for unskilled labor, the Naderites would be repeating the mistakes of the same New Deal wage controls that drove men to sandwich boards in the first place.

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1261

[shanek]

Originally posted by Malachi151
Uggg.. again we go back to the "free-market", how many times do I have to explain that there is no such thing as a free-market in the first place, and at any rate should that not underscore the depth of the problem here even more?

Infinite, because we all realize that you're talking complete crap.

Let me ask you something: If the corporate profits are obscene, then why aren't regulations obscene? Companies spend more money every year complying with regulations than they make in profits! Why isn't the government the money-grubbers in this scenario?

The poor, pooer, period, and the middle class weaker

No, they aren't, as I have shown, and as you have ignored. And as you also keep ignoring, this is not a zero-sum game. The poor still benefit no matter how much more other people might be benefitting.

And you just make yourself look more stupid and more pigheaded the more you stubbornly cling to this inanity.

[WildCat]

Originally posted by Malachi151


LOL, MCDonnals is doing poorly, we all know that. They showed a loss for the first quarter in history earlier this year.

Not a very good example there :rolleyes:
My figures went back to 1993. perhaps you'd like to show me figures from any company in existence that shows profits consistently higher than 15%? You made the claim of obscene profit margins, now prove it!

Originally posted by Malachi151
Uggg.. again we go back to the "free-market", how many times do I have to explain that there is no such thing as a free-market in the first place, and at any rate should that not underscore the depth of the problem here even more?

You can repeat it all you want, but you haven't presented any evidence to support that extraordinary claim.
Originally posted by Malachi151

What is a fact is the the rich are gettgn richer, period. The poor, pooer, period, and the middle class weaker and falling much farther behind the rich.
Do you have any evidence that the poor are getting poorer? And if the rich get richer faster than the poor get poorer, so what? Everyone is still better off, and all the Marxist rhetoric you can spew out doesn't change that fact.
Originally posted by Malachi151

Debt is up in all sectors in the US, household debt hit all time highs in 2000, I am not sure if the recent low interest rates helped reduce that figure or not.
I am sure debt increased because of lower interest rates - people can now afford to take on more debt and they're buying homes! In fact, home ownership rates are at the highest level since that statistic was first collected. (http://www.danter.com/statistics/homeown.htm) Hello!
Originally posted by Malachi151
[B]Record profits have been posted in many industries over the past 10 years, McDonnalds is not representative of the entire economy its a single company that is losing ground to competition.

If you say that high profits are not possible in a free-market, then do tell what is it about the market that is causing these high profits?[B]
Once again, I ask you to prove that profit margins are higher. And I'm curious, are you saying that there is competition (Re: McDonalds)? How can this be if there is not a free market? :rolleyes:

Your jealousy of the rich and obsession w/ class warfare is clouding your "thinking".

[Ed]

Originally posted by Malachi151


Well, for one thing I have always argued that the minimum wage should be maintined ona yearly basis, always. That means that every year at a certian time eveyone knows that the minimum wage will be adjusted. Its something that can be planned for that way. In addition, it will make for smaller changes, so you have more adiustments, but they are much smaller so its much easier for businesses to plan for these things, it sit becomes a part of the business.

This way you avoid the problem that we have of rasing the wage and the potential loss of jobs.

Again though, look at the facts:


You are looking at the blue line in the bottom graph.

As you can see, wage hikes often accompanied a lowering of unemployment. The facts simply don't support the claims.

Do you really think that a simple bi-variate model is adequite for this? How do you know that this is not a spurious correlation? I really don't know but claiming a relatinship because two graphs zig and zag at the same time is not very compelling.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Ed


Do you really think that a simple bi-variate model is adequite for this? How do you know that this is not a spurious correlation? I really don't know but claiming a relatinship because two graphs zig and zag at the same time is not very compelling.

Maybe it is not that simple, but Shane treats the minimum wage as if it is just a bottomless hole in a companies expenses. Since the employees on the minimum wage tend to spend everything they earn, and a greater proportion of that on locally produced products, then the whole economy benefits, including the company they are working for.

[Ziggurat]

Originally posted by WildCat

"Uggg.. again we go back to the "free-market", how many times do I have to explain that there is no such thing as a free-market in the first place, and at any rate should that not underscore the depth of the problem here even more?"

You can repeat it all you want, but you haven't presented any evidence to support that extraordinary claim.


Well, what sort of evidence are you looking for? Want to know about massive subsidies in certain industries like agriculture? Or what about protectionist trade agreements? How about intellectual property laws that guarantee monopolies for certain products?

We're also not a truly free market society because the labor pool is not liquid but the capital pool is. workers cannot compete directly on a global level because workers can't just move to any old country they choose, but capital pretty much can.


Do you have any evidence that the poor are getting poorer? And if the rich get richer faster than the poor get poorer, so what? Everyone is still better off, and all the Marxist rhetoric you can spew out doesn't change that fact.


Everybody isn't better off unless everybody is richer. Otherwise only some people are better off. That's pretty much a tautology, isn't it?

One of the things that many leftists (and don't pull that cheap Marxist accusation crap) worry about is how extreme inequality polarizes society. For good and ill, our democracy is driven by money. When wealth becomes concentrated, so does political power. And extreme concentration of political power in a small slice of the population which may have interests that diverge from the rest of society is dangerous. For example, why would a politician placed in power by the rich care about anything beyond lip service for issues like water quality or public educatiion in low-income water districts? Why would a news organization owned by the super-rich, supported by advertising dollars of companies also owned by the supper-rich, want to cover news stories that might be critical of the way those large corporations are run? There is an inherent danger to democracy in extreme inequality.

Government attempts to redistribute wealth (generally through progressive taxation and social programs) certainly come at a cost - the extreme of marxism certainly doesn't work, and governments do introduce inefficiencies. But this has to be balanced against the fact that capitalism naturally drifts towards extreme inequality, which is also very bad for society. Somewhere in the middle lies an optimal balance. Deciding exactly which side of the balance we're on at any one time is a complicated issue, and will always be a constant tug of war, but if you can't recognize that some balance is needed, then you've deluded yourself.

[Gem]

Well, let me point this out.

A mother in South East Asia sells her daughter to prostitution.
It's not "exploitation" because the demand side of the market (the pimps) and the supply side (the mother) are both willing and able to do the transaction. It's not exploitation because both are willing!

Same thing with the homeless. It's not immoral exploitation like my example above, but it still is exploitation.

What really irritates me about the free market is that labour is not paid for what it's worth, but for how much it's demanded and supplied. So if the free market dictates that your salary is $3 dollar an hour or less, that's what you get, even if you work very hard. Or it will pay you millions of dollar to manage an airline company who has to make pay cuts.

Gem

[shanek]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
Shane treats the minimum wage as if it is just a bottomless hole in a companies expenses.

BS. Show me one post of mine where I have done so. If you can't, I'll thank you to quit with the strawmen.

Since the employees on the minimum wage tend to spend everything they earn, and a greater proportion of that on locally produced products, then the whole economy benefits, including the company they are working for.

I've already posted why this is bogus.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Gem
A mother in South East Asia sells her daughter to prostitution.
It's not "exploitation" because the demand side of the market (the pimps) and the supply side (the mother) are both willing and able to do the transaction. It's not exploitation because both are willing!

Isn't the daughter the supply side?

[Gem]

Isn't the daughter the supply side?

But it is the Mother who receives the money. Let's say the daughter was food instead. The mother "makes" food and sells it. She receives the market price for "food." No problem there. The mother supplies the "food", no?

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by Suggestologist

Ok. Let's say that Right now minimum wage is about $6.00. Under a system where everyone gets subsistence payments that are gradually reduced by the amount they earn at their jobs: Earning $2 at your job, will reduce your subsistence payment by $1. So your subsistence payment from the government is $5, and your employer pays you $2. You have an income of $7 per hour; assuming a 40 hour week.

Now, what are the effects relative to current low-level jobs? People who already earn $6 at their jobs would now earn, $6 from their jobs plus $3 from subsistence payments -- for a combined wage of $9 -- but this would be an overpayment for the low-level job. Why would anyone buy something for $6 when they could get the same thing for $2?.

Maybe its late and I'm too tired - but you seem to be jumping to your conclusion without any "middle" part.

Where have we established that anyone can get anything for $2? Doesn't that assume the answer without ever showing why it would be so (i.e., begs the question)?

If the minimum wage is $6 and the employer is paying $8 now -- that is the kind of scenario we were originally looking at -- how does the elimination of the minimum wage allow the employer to suddenly attract employees for $1 or $2 per hour?

If the employer can absolutely dictate the wage level -- even to making the employee taking $.05 per hour -- why is it having to offer -more- than the minimum wage now? I don't see how the employer expects to hire any more people at $2 an hour after the change than it expects to get with $6 under the current system (i.e., zero, as it has to offer over the minimum -now-). The employee, when looking at the expected job, would only receive (effectively) $1 per hour - why is he suddenly jumping to take this, but unwilling to work for under $8 now?

I honestly can't see where you're answering this -- is there a different angle that you can take on this one; I am just not seeing where you show this.

From my perspective, Shanek's criticism (that the employee may well decide to stay un or under-employed, so that he will have to be "over paid") seems to be more substantial.

NA

[Ion]

I was away for many hours since this morning, I didn't post, the thread evolved a lot, but this doesn't get refuted:
Originally posted by Malachi151

...
.. again we go back to the "free-market", how many times do I have to explain that there is no such thing as a free-market in the first place,...

What is a fact is the the rich are gettgn richer, period. The poor, pooer, period, and the middle class weaker and falling much farther behind the rich.

The top 1% now take in over 20% of America's income, a 12% in the past 20 years. Hello.

Do you no think that is an issue to be concerned about?

The wealthy pay lower taxes than any time in the past 70 years of US history. The poor and middle pay as much or more than any time in US history. The minimum wage is lowser than it was in 1950. Again, hello. Do you say that these are not problems?

Debt is up in all sectors in the US, household debt hit all time highs in 2000, I am not sure if the recent low interest rates helped reduce that figure or not.

Record profits have been posted in many industries over the past 10 years, McDonnalds is not representative of the entire economy its a single company that is losing ground to competition.
...

Regarding Grammatron's mentioning that a programmer with the skills I described that I had when I was at 3Com makes in excess of $100,000 per year, at 3Com I was making in 1997 $57,000 per year, I was raised to $60,000 when I did program for the 56k modem the Dual Tone Multi Frequency Detection (D.T.M.F.) with the Goertzel algorithm (the mathematicians in this board do understand the algebra of the Fast Fourier Transform series), D.T.M.F. generation, byquad Infinite Impulse Response filters, and I wrote the functional specification of the modem;
others were in the 56k project to program the modulations, including the design and coding of the then-pioneer V.90 modulation.

I make $94,000 now in software for another company.

3Com laid me off in 1988 when thinking that the avent of D.S.L. on the market was to supersede the existence of the modems.

In time, it turns out that the 56k modem is an industrial success no matter the D.S.L., and the 56k modem is incorporated for a royalty given to 3Com by computer makers like Dell.

Myself, I look instead of an always individualistic dog-eat-dog and do-or-die in gross overtime type of software work in U.S., for a less stressful living allowing to relax from more profit sharing than what I encountered in U.S..

I used to know of teamwork from the management down when doing software and firmware projects in Europe.

See Malachi151 posts about the management here not working with the workers, but siphoning at the top of the hierarchy.

I persist in U.S. because of an extra-curricular hobby that I have, not because I like the work ambiance.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion
I was away for many hours since this morning, I didn't post, the thread evolved a lot, but this doesn't get refuted:

Regarding Grammatron's mentioning that a programmer with the skills I described that I had when I was at 3Com makes in excess of $100,000 per year, at 3Com I was making in 1997 $57,000 per year, I was raised to $60,000 when I did program for the 56k modem the Dual Tone Multi Frequency Detection (D.T.M.F.) with the Goertzel algorithm (the mathematicians in this board do understand the algebra of the Fast Fourier Transform series), D.T.M.F. generation, byquad Infinite Impulse Response filters, and I wrote the functional specification of the modem;
others were in the 56k project to program the modulations, including the design and coding of the then-pioneer V.90 modulation.

I make $94,000 now in software for another company.

3Com laid me off in 1988 when thinking that the avent of D.S.L. on the market was to supersede the existence of the modems.

In time, it turns out that the 56k modem is an industrial success no matter the D.S.L., and the 56k modem is incorporated for a royalty given to 3Com by computer makers like Dell.

Myself, I look instead of an always individualistic dog-eat-dog and do-or-die in gross overtime type of software work in U.S., for a less stressful living allowing to relax from more profit sharing than what I encountered in U.S..

I used to know of teamwork from the management down when doing software and firmware projects in Europe.

See Malachi151 posts about the management here not working with the workers, but siphoning at the top of the hierarchy.

I persist in U.S. because of an extra-curricular hobby that I have, not because I like the work ambiance.

I don't understand what you are trying to say here. Are you telling me that it's better to work in Europe where you can almost never achieve the wealth level you can working in America or the team work is better therefor you don't care if the company doesn't credit you with achievements? I also still don't see why if you are that good with programming you don't start up your own business and get as reach as you want to be.

[gnome]

Originally posted by shanek
A well-functioning economy that will increase wealth for everyone.

A lofty prediction... but what it boils down to is I don't agree. Maybe there's no point in arguing it further.

Not if the value his skills create don't equal that much.

Chalk it up to another difference in the way you and I value something.

Why do you refuse to see that the one has absolutely nothing to do with the other?

I'd say that a business that had to hire full-time workers that would leave at their soonest opportunity, or get sick from malnourishment, or, say, lose their home and their car and no longer be able to show up, would have terrible turnover problems. That's the kind of viability I'm talking about, and it has everything to do with adequate pay.

The LOSS of those jobs...the LOSS of the economic wealth those jobs create...and the LOSS of living standards FOR THE VERY PEOPLE YOU CLAIM TO BE HELPING!

Ok, take a chill pill. Intellectually disputing these consequences is not the same thing as refusing to face up to them if they were to happen.

My contention is that the difference will not outweigh the problems. Again, it will have to be a matter of opinion I suppose since we've both stated our case.

Not to mention the fact that you are FORCING others AT THE POINT OF A GUN to pay for this!

This is an exaggeration, as they will not shoot you if you refuse to pay, they will imprison you. It's not quite the same as the mugging you compare it to. But even so, "at gunpoint" is only to the extent that all laws are enforced at the point of a gun. Would you have it otherwise, or is your real problem with the law, not the guns?

[shanek]

Originally posted by gnome
A lofty prediction...

Not a prediction. A conclusion based on observation.

but what it boils down to is I don't agree.

Well, you can disagree that the sky is blue, too. Doesn't mean anything.

Chalk it up to another difference in the way you and I value something.

The difference is, you want to force your definition of "value" on others.

This is an exaggeration, as they will not shoot you if you refuse to pay, they will imprison you.

If you refuse the imprisonment, and resist it, they will most certainly shoot you.

ALL government programs are backed up by men with guns. Always remember that.

Would you have it otherwise, or is your real problem with the law, not the guns?

My problem is with the use of the gun to enforce stuff like this. It's force, done at the point of a gun. And therefore should only be used when there is no other alternative.

[gnome]

Originally posted by shanek
When did I say that?

This may be a big misunderstanding. Let's go to the record:

Originally posted by WildCat:
And gnome, here's a question for you: If a $7 min. wage is good, why not $15? Or $20? What the hell, just make the min. $50 and then everyone will be rich, won't they?

Originally posted by Gnome:
Are you really suggesting I am trying to make everyone rich? How come every time someone tries to raise the bar a little bit they're accused of trying to flatten income distribution entirely?

Originally posted by Shanek:
Because ultimately, whether you intend for it to happen or not, that's where the tendency is going to go.

Aren't you here defending the accusation that I am trying to flatten income distribution entirely?

Originally posted by Gnome:
That doesn't really answer what I said. I complain about a straw man argument and you change instead to a slippery slope argument.

Originally posted by Shanek:
It was neither. It ACTUALLY HAPPENED. It ALWAYS HAPPENS.

Did we stop talking about a flattened income distribution at some point without me realizing it?


Huh. I knew that word "exploitation" would pop up sooner or later. Maybe it's time for me to quote here the post for the other thread I started which everyone ignored (well, everyone except Unas, who just insulted me):

Perhaps we differ on the definition of the term "exploitation."

In the circumstance I describe I would say that someone who is forced to act against their interest (accepting a full-time job for wages they can't support themselves on) by circumstances beyond their control, is being exploited. I haven't worked out all the possibilities of that proposition yet, but let's see if it flies.

Let's have a look at the article:

a slice of pizza, soda and a few dollars in exchange for holding a sign for 40 minutes

This actually sounds like it might exceed minimum wage if you add up the prices and say they get about 4 bucks besides...

When an employer offers a wage that the employee agrees is fair, as Peter Schoeff said himself, there is no exploitation involved here.

This rests on the proposition that fairness rests only on consent. Would you say that there is no such thing as an "unfair deal" if the person gave their agreement?

For example, if you come across a guy crawling through the desert (a bit comical, but it makes the point)... if you happen to be coming through with a water truck, would it be fair to ask the man for $1000 for a 20 oz bottle? If he had it, I bet he'd take the deal.

[chulbert]

Originally posted by shanek
The Neumark/Wascher study discredited the Cark and Krueger study. Read it and you'll see why Card and Krueger were way off the mark. http://www.uvm.edu/~vlrs/doc/min_wage.htm

"Card and Krueger have received some criticism for their study from a number of conservative think tanks that published their commentaries in opinion-editorial fashion rather than in peer-reviewed journals. Critics claim that the Princeton Study looked specifically at minimum wage issues in the fast food industry, which leaves out a significant population of the minimum wage work force. They also claim that the Card and Krueger data is inconsistent with the actual payroll records of the Burger King franchises; Card and Kreuger chose to rely on the Bureau of Labor Statistics for their data. Richard Berman of the Employment Policies Institute also disagreed with the methodology of the Card and Kruger study. He argues that the analysis should have focused on the number of hours worked instead of the number of employees (Berman 1998). Despite the claims of these critics, there has been no peer-reviewed research to date that contradicts the findings of Card and Kreuger or supports the claim that an increase in the minimum wage increases unemployment."

[Ed]

Originally posted by Malachi151
How do you say that an empoyeer "can't" pay higher wages? If the company i smaking $5 billion a year in profits adn paying its workers $1.00 a hour (real case scenario in teh case of foreign labor), then how can you say that teh company "can't" pay higher wages?



Is $1 an hour a good or a bad wage? Are you so ethnocentric and culturally biased that you cannot envision a society where your western values of what a "good" salary is don't apply?

[shanek]

Originally posted by chulbert
Despite the claims of these critics, there has been no peer-reviewed research to date that contradicts the findings of Card and Kreuger or supports the claim that an increase in the minimum wage increases unemployment."

The existance of the study I cited debunks that. Read my post to Mahatma Kane Jeeves.

[gnome]

Originally posted by shanek
Not a prediction. A conclusion based on observation.

You're making an assertion about what will happen. That's a prediction.

Well, you can disagree that the sky is blue, too. Doesn't mean anything.

Except we can go outside and measure the wavelength of the light coming from the sky and no one could dispute the result. You can't "measure" what's going to happen in the future, so I think there's legitimate room for disagreement without being the intellectual equivalent of a blue-sky denier.

The difference is, you want to force your definition of "value" on others.

There has to be some definition accepted, or else how make policy? I'm not personally trying to force it on anyone, I'm just taking my turn at the voting booth like everyone else.

If you refuse the imprisonment, and resist it, they will most certainly shoot you.

It depends on how you resist. If you don't use deadly force on the police, they won't use it on you.

ALL government programs are backed up by men with guns. Always remember that.

My problem is with the use of the gun to enforce stuff like this. It's force, done at the point of a gun. And therefore should only be used when there is no other alternative.

Once again I am startled that you focus on how it is enforced... how would you prefer that the law be enforced?

[shanek]

Originally posted by gnome
Except we can go outside and measure the wavelength of the light coming from the sky and no one could dispute the result.

And we can measure the economic effects of things like Minimum Wage. The studies I have presented have done exactly that.

You can't "measure" what's going to happen in the future,

You're kidding, right?

We can't measure when the sun's going to rise tomorrow?

How to they launch probes to Mars when they don't know exactly where Mars is going to be when they get there?

And I don't think anyone is going to dispute what's going to happen when someone jumps off the Empire State Building.

There has to be some definition accepted,

Why?

or else how make policy?

You can set your policy to have the market determine the value.

It depends on how you resist. If you don't use deadly force on the police, they won't use it on you.

Uh, NOT true...Ruby Ridge, anyone?

how would you prefer that the law be enforced?

I would prefer that things like that not be laws in the first place, and have the laws only be there for things that need force to protect our liberties, like law enforcement and national defense.

[chulbert]

Originally posted by shanek
The existance of the study I cited debunks that. Read my post to Mahatma Kane Jeeves. You're certainly welcome to think it does. Unfortunately the economic community and standards of peer review apparently disagree.

I'll point out that my references are current as of April 25, 2001.

I might also direct your attention to more recent writings on the subject by Kreuger and Card: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W6386

[Ion]

I got you, here:
Originally posted by Grammatron

I don't understand what you are trying to say here. Are you telling me that it's better to work in Europe where you can almost never achieve the wealth level you can working in America...
...

I get Americans who answers like you do.

For me, the European, work happines is not when at the top of one's list one does "...achieve the wealth level..." because I see managers and co-workeres who do this with dog-eat-dog and individualistic back stabbing work ethics.

For me, work happiness is when these things happen (in descending order):

1.) there is teamwork and collegiality, as opposed to an individualistic self-promotion;

2.) managers manage work that they can do themselves because they are professionally qualified about what they oversee, and in hard times they show that they are in the team by mentoring and going in the trenches themselves, along with the workers;

3.) managers and workers are aware of and address the fact that overtime takes away from a needed emphasis that each person needs to put into developing a harmonious and balanced life, encompassing time to physically exercise so that one is good looking, time to take care of oneself cosmetically -like going regularly to the dentist-, time to live, have hobbies and educate oneself.

4.) management shows integrity towards employees;

in contrast to integrity, see the U.S. airline company that was in the news two months ago where the managers laid off employees by lying to their union about profits while giving handsome pensions to the executives, then when the trick was discovered, the employees striking with "I though we were in this together", or in contrast to integrity see 3Com doing lip service about needing the fidelity of their employees in 1997, laying off these same employees in 1998 and later on noticing that the work from these employees done in 1998 is what keeps 3Com afloat in 2003.

5.) a decent wage from the management down to me and below me, but not of the "...achieve the wealth level..." which instead sabotages 1.) thru 4.)

I didn't achieve the $94 k now with 1.) thru 5.), but after becoming cynical in 1998 at 3Com, jumping from company to company with the mentality of placating the "This guy must be good. Let's hire him and let's skin him" with my own "I don't enjoy this work anymore, but gee, I am going to skin this company.".
Originally posted by Grammatron

....
I also still don't see why if you are that good with programming you don't start up your own business and get as reach as you want to be.
You should pay attention to Malachi151, when he writes:

"...All development is a team effort, and requires the cooperation of many people, skills, and resources. The type of technology that companies build today can't be done by lone individuals going out on their own to "make it"...."


The entire post is worth learning by rote, just to get educated:
Originally posted by Malachi151

Where do you people come from?

Seriously, do you have a job? How old are you? Have you ever worked in an industry?

First of all cooperaton and the use of corporations is a good thing in theory IF the companies would excersize fiar business and employment practices. It works a lot better to have large devleoped teams of people who can work togehter on projects.

Its stupid to essentially say, either accept the abuse or go out on your own. That's not productive.

All development is a team effort, and requires the cooperation of many people, skills, and resources. The type of technology that companies build today can't be done by lone individuals going out on their own to "make it".

And that's the issue, people like me, and I'm sure Ion too, are interested in MAKING THINGS and making progress and helping to build progress. It's really a waste of effort to start your own orgnization to do something that others are capable of doing with greater ease. Its more effecient to work through exiting channels in terms of busines sand industry, thats why researchers and scientists and engineers go to work for companies, they dont' get some science degree and then waste 20 years trying ot found a company, they get a degree and go to work for an established company. Now, all that works great as long as the established company gives fair compensation for the people who do the work that provides the profits.

What is happening now is that big business is getting so abusive of power that people are being really discouraged from working for large companies, because you invariably get screwed, so that has a negative impact on the whole system, as you can easily witness in our society today.

The cheapskates here are the executives and owners who are trying to get labor for nothing They don't want to pay for the work that's being done. I was robbed at my previous job, 5 years of software development taking a project from the ground up and producing a software product worth millions of dollars for which I was paid well under industry average in my area, as all the programers, because the owners and executives want to get something for nothing.

That's why industry is getting shipped over seas, everyone wants something for nothing. There is no appreciation for work. Its all capitalists, investors, owners, exectutives, and patent holders, who want to simply come up with an idea and then pass it off to other people to make it and make it work and they then want to get the majority of the profits, even though they do nothing. They just want to finance the work and not work themselves. Well, that only works when you are in a position of control.

Everybody wan't something for nothing, and that's the issue, these people want to make millions and billions of dollars by not paying people what their labor is worth. The people at the top only make money off of the work done by the people below them in the system. They want to just sit on top and reap the rewards while others ot the work.

Of course, who doesn't, everyone wants to be in that position, which is exactly why we need rules, regulations, and taxes to prevent people from abusing that power, which there is the very natural tendancy to do.

Its why we had slaves. Its why business opposes labor laws. Its why manufacturing is going over seas. No one really wants to work, they want to get rich off of other people's work, AND YOU and people like YOU want to allow that. I have no idea why other than perhaps you believe that one day you will be in that position as one of the top 1% and you want to get rich off of other peopke's work.

Rich people are ultimately cheap skates, hell ask any resturant worker, the rich tip the least. People get wealthy by being cheap, by getting people to work for them for as little as possible and then protifing from that work as much as possible, I mean duh, that's how you do it. Anyone who's not an idiot should want to get as much as possible for the work that they do, and in order to do that you have to use government, unions, orgniazation, etc. The alternative, that you propose is simple, "we should all allow oursleves to be taken advantage of, and just try to one day the the guy that takes advantage of others." BS, how about being fair in the first place and having a more cooperative and productive society from the get go.

I've been there, and done it. I worked for 5 years, way under paid along with all my coworkers, we all comp,anied about it, we all asked for raises, raises were suspended for 2 years totally, we got compensated for over time (we were salary) with performance options, that ended up expiring worthless, and we helped build a produc that is world class, and build a company that is now worth millions of dollars, which I know the CEO has already made millions just working there, and he and the other small group of investors will end up making large profits from the sale of the company. We (the developers) were promised the world, and when we had completed the project and delivered a working stable application most were let go except a few of the lower end gusy who are being kept on for maintance. We were always under paid, the whole time, we were promosed we would get significant pay increased, they never came, we were given bonuse that ended up being worthless, and any of the former programers for that project now has absolutly nothing to show for the work done other than experiance gained, and the "capitlasits" still own the product, which they got for about half of what they should have paid for it.

The whole system is designed for people to make money off of other people's work, which is precisely why there have to be safeguards, controls, and a constant evaluation of the entire system so make sure that it is operating fairly, which is it obviously not at present.

[shanek]

Originally posted by chulbert
You're certainly welcome to think it does. Unfortunately the economic community and standards of peer review apparently disagree.

Aside from the little reference at the bottom, where does your source even mention the Neumark/Wascher study? Much less debunk it?

[gnome]

Shanek,

You missed one :P check back a few posts where we were disputing what had been previously said...

To keep it all from compounding so much, I will respond in a combined post...

[shanek]

Originally posted by gnome
To keep it all from compounding so much, I will respond in a combined post...

Works for me. This thread's gotten way too confusing to keep track of everything...

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion
I got you, here:

I get Americans who answers like you do.

For me, the European, work happines is not when at the top of one's list one does "...achieve the wealth level..." because I see managers and co-workeres who do this with dog-eat-dog and individualistic back stabbing work ethics.

For me, work happiness is when these things happen (in descending order):

1.) there is teamwork and collegiality, as opposed to an individualistic self-promotion;

2.) managers manage work that they can do themselves because they are professionally qualified about what they oversee, and in hard times they show that they are in the team by mentoring and going in the trenches themselves, along with the workers;

3.) managers and workers are aware of and address the fact that overtime takes away from a needed emphasis that each person needs to put into developing a harmonious and balanced life, encompassing time to physically exercise so that one is good looking, time to take care of oneself cosmetically -like going regularly to the dentist-, time to live, have hobbies and educate oneself.

4.) management shows integrity towards employees;

in contrast to integrity, see the U.S. airline company that was in the news two months ago where the managers laid off employees by lying to their union about profits while giving handsome pensions to the executives, then when the trick was discovered, the employees striking with "I though we were in this together", or in contrast to integrity see 3Com doing lip service about needing the fidelity of their employees in 1997, laying off these same employees in 1998 and later on noticing that the work from these employees done in 1998 is what keeps 3Com afloat in 2003.

5.) a decent wage from the management down to me and below me, but not of the "...achieve the wealth level..." which instead sabotages 1.) thru 4.)

I didn't achieve the $94 k now with 1.) thru 5.), but after becoming cynical in 1998 at 3Com, jumping from company to company with the mentality of placating the "This guy must be good. Let's hire him and let's skin him" with my own "I don't enjoy this work anymore, but gee, I am going to skin this company."



So let me get this straight, you want a good none-competitive working environment in a place where competition is key to survival of the company but you want the company to somehow make money. On top of that you want all the credit for the work you do including profit sharing...sound to me like you should follow my suggestion and start you own company. Perhaps, you should also look into working for a smaller company, I work exclusively for small business because there is a more real relation with them, you get to know almost everyone in the company right away and people actually care, but that's just my personal opinion/experience.

You should pay attention to Malachi151, when he writes:

"...All development is a team effort, and requires the cooperation of many people, skills, and resources. The type of technology that companies build today can't be done by lone individuals going out on their own to "make it"...."


The entire post is worth learning by rote, just to get educated:


Malachi151's understanding of economy, technology and most of history is laughable at best. The fact of the matter is that most of the business in technology field were and still are done by "lone individuals."

[Ion]

Originally posted by Grammatron

So let me get this straight, you want a good none-competitive working environment in a place where competition is key to survival of the company...
...

No, you still don't understand.

My points are about fair competition.

Instead of the unfair competition I describe.

I doubt you could get me in fair competition in professional skills, like in Digital Signal Processing mathematics, but I don't doubt that you could get me with self-serving back stabbing like the situation I described the airline company was doing to its employees.

Regarding your opinion on Malachi151, I think he is respectable and your education is laughable.

[Lyle Beaudoin]

He's right about working for a smaller corporation rather than a larger one, though. My resume's none the poorer for it and I made a bundle. Peanuts wages at the start meant a lot of shares. Selling at IPO price would've been money in the bank. That it really paid off was an unexpected bonus.

But stock performance aside, my wages doubled in 4 years. Financially, I can't complain about my treatment by The Man. Then the telecom industry dried up overnight and that was that.

How I was treated professionally is another matter.

[Lyle Beaudoin]

As for the minimum wage, I agree with gnome when he put it thus:

I'd say that a business that had to hire full-time workers that would leave at their soonest opportunity, or get sick from malnourishment, or, say, lose their home and their car and no longer be able to show up, would have terrible turnover problems. That's the kind of viability I'm talking about, and it has everything to do with adequate pay.

If that's the cost of marking up a profit margin from 11% to 12%, then the cost is too high. The world is better for a select few, and the benefits of creating more inadequately paying jobs are dubious.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Lyle Beaudoin
If that's the cost of marking up a profit margin from 11% to 12%, then the cost is too high. The world is better for a select few, and the benefits of creating more inadequately paying jobs are dubious.

But what corporation in its right mind would drive itself into banruptcy like that?

[NoZed Avenger]

Just a note: I will be out of town constantly into next week sometime, and will probably be unable to get to a computer to check on replies.

Thanks to those answering my above posts; the messages to me were in a civil tone, and I appreciate it.

I'll check back as soon as I am able.

NA

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion

No, you still don't understand.

My points are about fair competition.

Instead of the unfair competition I describe.

I doubt you could get me in fair competition in professional skills, like in Digital Signal Processing mathematics, but I don't doubt that you could get me with self-serving back stabbing like the situation I described the airline company was doing to its employees.

Regarding your opinion on Malachi151, I think he is respectable and your education is laughable.

What the heck is fair or unfair competition?

And what about "[my] education" is laughable?

[Ion]

You are too American for me:
Originally posted by shanek

But what corporation...
Forget corporations, and think people, first.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Grammatron

What the heck is fair or unfair competition?
...

Simple:

do you overtake me in a one-on-one professional competition, say in mathematics applied to D.S.P. electronics?

As for having a competitive education, I doubt your intellectual ability manages more than one language, and I make 100% of my living not in my native language, not in a second best language, but in English -my third best language-.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Ion

No, you still don't understand.



Free advice Grammatron.

To understand Ion you would need to be born retarded, sniff glue and have a stroke. Only then would his dribble begin to seem coherent.

[Ion]

Attempt at void of content hit-and-run by 'beloved' and 'respected':

Tony Baloney.

From Texas!

[shanek]

Originally posted by Grammatron
What the heck is fair or unfair competition?

Our government has actually penalized companies who set their prices too low, calling it "unfair competition."

This is government thinking.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion
Forget corporations, and think people, first.

We were talking about corporations and corporate profits, Nimrod.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion

Simple:

do you overtake me in a one-on-one professional competition, say in mathematics applied to D.S.P. electronics?
I am sorry, I still do not understand what fair and unfair competition is, can you provide a better example please?

As for having a competitive education, I doubt your intellectual ability manages more than one language, and I make 100% of my living not in my native language, not in a second best language, but in English -my third best language-.

Thanks for the insult, but if you must know, I speak four languages, fluent in three and like you, I make 100% of my living in my none-native language. I, however, don't stoop so low as to insult someone I am having an argument with.

[Ion]

I am talking about corporate profits too, when I say that people not profits should come first.

[Lyle Beaudoin]

Originally posted by shanek


But what corporation in its right mind would drive itself into banruptcy like that?

Maybe I misunderstand, but if you have a profit margin of 11%, how can you be bankrupt? So fewer people spent money on your product this year as opposed to last. Alas, that's the way the market goes. When it affects the company, it lays off staff, takes its finger out of a few pies, and basically makes do with what they have.

If paying your employees according to the law of the land is resulting in bankruptcy, you're doing something wrong. It's not an excuse to slash wages.

Sorry if you feel otherwise. Perhaps you should be told "Yeah, we can afford to pay you properly, we'd just rather make investors happy. So we're cutting your wages to the point where you can buy a bus pass and eat your McMeals here, and that's about it." Because that's pretty much where abolisment of minimum wage will lead.

[Ion]

Originally posted by Grammatron

I am sorry, I still do not understand what fair and unfair competition is, can you provide a better example please?
...

In my previous post starting with "For me work happiness...", which you misunderstood as promoting non-competition, I describe a fair play competitive environment.
Originally posted by Grammatron

...
Thanks for the insult, but if you must know, I speak four languages, fluent in three and like you, I make 100% of my living in my none-native language. I, however, don't stoop so low as to insult someone I am having an argument with.
Point taken.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Lyle Beaudoin

Sorry if you feel otherwise. Perhaps you should be told "Yeah, we can afford to pay you properly, we'd just rather make investors happy. So we're cutting your wages to the point where you can buy a bus pass and eat your McMeals here, and that's about it." Because that's pretty much where abolisment of minimum wage will lead.

That's interesting considering you can't afford the things you mentioned and pay for rent if you work for minimum wage.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Ion

In my previous post starting with "For me work happiness...", which you misunderstood as promoting non-competition, I describe a fair play competitive environment.


I re-read your post and I think I understand what you mean. It appears you want a place with teamwork, good managers and essentially good leadership all together. I work at a place like that right now and if you never had I'm afraid you just had some bad luck. I worked for companies where people stab each other in the back, the boss/manager is a greedy unqualified moron, etc. Those places don't tend to last long because they fall apart from the inside. Places that have goals and team works survive.

[Lyle Beaudoin]

Originally posted by Grammatron


That's interesting considering you can't afford the things you mentioned and pay for rent if you work for minimum wage.

Probably not in Los Angeles, no.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Lyle Beaudoin


Probably not in Los Angeles, no.

Where then can one live on minimum wage?

PS California's minimum wage is $1 above national.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Lyle Beaudoin
Maybe I misunderstand, but if you have a profit margin of 11%, how can you be bankrupt?

He said that the company was inviable. That means they're not gonna last. That was his parameters in the scenario.

[shanek]

Okay, here's the post I missed, gnome. Sorry.

Originally posted by gnome
Aren't you here defending the accusation that I am trying to flatten income distribution entirely?

No; I'm saying that you don't account for the fact that government programs always get expanded way beyond what they were ever intended to do.

Did we stop talking about a flattened income distribution at some point without me realizing it?

Me, personally, I was never talking about that.

In the circumstance I describe I would say that someone who is forced to act against their interest (accepting a full-time job for wages they can't support themselves on) by circumstances beyond their control, is being exploited.

And where, exactly, does the force come in?

This rests on the proposition that fairness rests only on consent. Would you say that there is no such thing as an "unfair deal" if the person gave their agreement?

I would say that if that person made an unfair deal (and there was no fraud involved) then they have only themselves to blame.

For example, if you come across a guy crawling through the desert (a bit comical, but it makes the point)... if you happen to be coming through with a water truck, would it be fair to ask the man for $1000 for a 20 oz bottle? If he had it, I bet he'd take the deal.

He'd probably feel it was worth it. Since the water is worth more than him than it is to you, you would both consider it a good deal. Low supply, high demand.

Let me ask you this: Should the guy be able to come back later and demand his $1,000 back?

[Earthborn]

They have to pay what both the company and the workers agree the job is worth.I think this is where Shanek's error of thinking lies. He assumes that employer and employee are in an equal relationship and can negiotiate wages on an equal basis. This is usually not true with low-wage jobs.

People who apply for low-wage jobs are often desperate to get any payment, and are likely to accept very low wages. For employers it is often easier to offer ridiculously low wages and waiting for someone desperate enough to take them then it is to give someone a higher salary. There is no shortage of people who are willing to work hard for any wage higher than nothing, so there is no incentive for employers to offer wages high enough to live from. From the people applying to such jobs there is a shortage of workplaces, so they cannot be too picky about what their salary will be, or even about work circumstances. For them there is a huge incentive to take anything, since something is better than nothing. This is likely to lead to wages no one can live from, for jobs that do take someone's entire time.

By setting a minimum wage this stops and ensures that people can survive if they work for their money. Assuming minimum wage is high enough.

Yes, it will increase unemployment. Some people will not find jobs, because some potential employers will not be able to afford to hire people for minimum wage. But isn't something better than nothing?

Well, if implemented correctly, the people who won't be able to get a job won't have nothing. They would have some kind of social security.

Minimum wage and unemployment benefits are two sides of the same coin: you can't have one without the other and still have a working system. Of course to prevent too many people living on government subsidies, there must be an incentive to work. Ideally, minimum wage should be about twice as much as the lowest unemployment benefit. It would make it possible for the unemployed to double their income by working. But the unemployment benefit should already be a liveable income! This is more or less true in the Netherlands, although there is of course some discussion of what constitutes 'liveable'.

If there are people who are living on the streets begging and would improve their lives by advertising for a few scraps than such a system is not working, at least not for them.

I believe governments are meant to protect people, especially the low classes against such things as war, crime, and also against poverty and exploitation. But maybe that's just me.

Of course indirectly everyone benefits: less poverty means less crime, less disease, more spending.but I like to see people around me who can afford going to the dentist, for example.Then you should hate the Minimum Wage, since as I showed that's actually preventing people from doing that.Unless they get universal healthcare.

[Shanek now faints :)]

[gnome]

Thank you, Earthborn, for putting things into much better words than I could hope to come up with.

Originally posted by shanek

No; I'm saying that you don't account for the fact that government programs always get expanded way beyond what they were ever intended to do.

A bit different from the topic at hand, but fair enough. Heck, I'll even agree that this happens.

And where, exactly, does the force come in?

Whether you do something that isn't in your long-term interests because someone's personally forcing you, or because someone's got you by the short hairs, makes very little difference, wouldn't you say?

I would say that if that person made an unfair deal (and there was no fraud involved) then they have only themselves to blame.

For choosing the lesser of two sucker options?

He'd probably feel it was worth it. Since the water is worth more than him than it is to you, you would both consider it a good deal. Low supply, high demand.

Plenty of supply, you've got a TRUCK. If this isn't taking advantage, I don't know what is.

Let me ask you this: Should the guy be able to come back later and demand his $1,000 back?

He shouldn't have to. The guy that charged him $1,000 for 20 ounces of water just because he could, shouldn't even be able to look himself in the mirror until he sends most of it back.

[Ion]

Exactly:
Originally posted by Grammatron

I re-read your post and I think I understand what you mean. It appears you want a place with teamwork, good managers and essentially good leadership all together. I work at a place like that right now and if you never had I'm afraid you just had some bad luck. I worked for companies where people stab each other in the back, the boss/manager is a greedy unqualified moron, etc. Those places don't tend to last long because they fall apart from the inside. Places that have goals and team works survive.
However I take exception to "Those places don't tend to last long because they fall apart from the inside." when speaking of work in the U.S.A.:

.) Malachi151 describes in a surprisingly lucid way -to me reminiscent of how Europeans think- the work culture in the U.S.;

.) I think that the description below of the U.S. mentality in politics has many points crossing over into the U.S. work culture, when replacing the word 'politics' with the U.S. stereotype of 'corporate profits' -which I observe are looking out for number one by crushing humans, in layoffs, lack of teamwork and in many other ways-:

(it comes from another forum, where it got mired into sniping about its Israeli source rather than debated on content)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2003Aug14.html

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Israel, columnist Larry Derfner, writing in the Jerusalem Post, had much the same thought.

Schwarzenegger's "debut as the instant favorite in the race for governor of California only confirms the world's opinion of Americans," he wrote. "They like violence, power, revenge, riches, success and fame, and they don't know the difference between real life and fantasy, between real people and characters in an action movie."

"As for their politics, it amounts to 'looking out for number one.' They don't have a society and don't want one. The world outside America's borders is irrelevant to them except as a threat or a target. "

But Derfner says the real precedent for Schwarzenegger is George W. Bush.

"Bush also gets over on his image as a terminator, a blaster of bad guys, a man with a swagger, an action hero who delivers killer one-liners ('Bring 'em on!'). What are his politics? We're good, they're evil. Taxes are evil. Now did you get all that, or do you need some help?"

"From George W. Bush, then, it's just a half-step down to Arnold Schwarzenegger."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again:

I persist living in the U.S. because of a hobby that I have here, not because of the U.S. culture of obscene greedy profits which I observe being practiced against human qualities.

[gnome]

Sorry, I realized I forgot the combined post. Next time.

Originally posted by shanek
And we can measure the economic effects of things like Minimum Wage. The studies I have presented have done exactly that.

You're kidding, right?

We can't measure when the sun's going to rise tomorrow?

How to they launch probes to Mars when they don't know exactly where Mars is going to be when they get there?

And I don't think anyone is going to dispute what's going to happen when someone jumps off the Empire State Building.

You don't "measure" where the sun is going to be... you can only find out for sure by letting it happen. You predict it, and the prediction is only as good as the predictive science behind it.

I don't think anyone would say that we're as good at economic predictions as we are at astronomical and physics predictions.

it just doesn't have the same exactness...

Why?

You can set your policy to have the market determine the value.

And that's a decision to accept the "market value" definition of value.

Uh, NOT true...Ruby Ridge, anyone?

Would you consider such an abuse typical? Frankly I've always been a supporter of investigating and prosecuting those responsible. It was an illegal action.

So if a cop murders someone, it means that cops should never use deadly force? I'd say it means nail the cop.

I would prefer that things like that not be laws in the first place, and have the laws only be there for things that need force to protect our liberties, like law enforcement and national defense.

Then, as I said, your beef is with the legislature, not the men with guns.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Earthborn
People who apply for low-wage jobs are often desperate to get any payment, and are likely to accept very low wages.

And why would they do that if they could get more money elsewhere?

I think pretty much anyone would like to make more money than they do now. Does that mean they're all exploited and being paid an unfair wage?

There is no shortage of people who are willing to work hard for any wage higher than nothing,

But there are a lot fewer people who can demand the Minimum Wage. The rest are relegated to unemployment.

By setting a minimum wage this stops and ensures that people can survive if they work for their money.

But it also ensures that fewer people can work for their money.

Yes, it will increase unemployment. Some people will not find jobs, because some potential employers will not be able to afford to hire people for minimum wage. But isn't something better than nothing?

But we're not talking about something vs. nothing. We're talking about something that some people will accept which politicians and others say is unacceptable.

They would have some kind of social security.

And again, we go back to them being dependent on the Welfare State.

Of course to prevent too many people living on government subsidies, there must be an incentive to work.

What good is an incentive to work if there aren't any jobs out there at the eages they can demand?

I believe governments are meant to protect people, especially the low classes against such things as war, crime, and also against poverty and exploitation. But maybe that's just me.

No, I agree. I just disagree that taking a job for $2/hour is "exploitation."

Unless they get universal healthcare.

Which just exacerbates all of those problems.

[shanek]

Originally posted by gnome
Whether you do something that isn't in your long-term interests because someone's personally forcing you, or because someone's got you by the short hairs, makes very little difference, wouldn't you say?

What do you mean, "by the short hairs"? Let's be precise here and not use euphemisms.

For choosing the lesser of two sucker options?

No, they have more options. You're trying to box this all into one transaction and make it a zero-sum game. That's not how it works.

[shanek]

Originally posted by gnome
it just doesn't have the same exactness...

Margin of error notwithstanding, the point is that reliable predictions can and have been made with economics just as they have with astronomy.

No, it's not as exact. If it were, these government programs designed to regulate the economy might actually work.

And that's a decision to accept the "market value" definition of value.

Right. So you're not defining it yourself.

Would you consider such an abuse typical?

It's an extreme example, but the extremes happen when government gets too intrusive. Had it not been for the Federal government violating the second amendment, the whole Ruby Ridge affair might never have happened.

Then, as I said, your beef is with the legislature, not the men with guns.

My beef is with the Congress and legislators using the threat of the men with guns to do their bidding in areas where it isn't at all justified.

[Earthborn]

And why would they do that if they could get more money elsewhere?What if they can't get more money elsewhere? It would mean that they have to accept what is offered, don't they? Even if it is less than they need to survive.I think pretty much anyone would like to make more money than they do now. Does that mean they're all exploited and being paid an unfair wage?No, not always. But it is if they would like enough money to buy food, clothes and pay the rent. Anything below that is an unfair wage.But there are a lot fewer people who can demand the Minimum Wage.No, they can all demand minimum wage. It is a matter of the willingness of employers to pay minimum wage.The rest are relegated to unemployment.Yep. If employers are unwilling to pay a fair wage, they don't deserve employees.But it also ensures that fewer people can work for their money.There are more important things in life than having a job. Like survival.But we're not talking about something vs. nothing. We're talking about something that some people will accept which politicians and others say is unacceptable.That's not the point. The point is that some people will accept something because it is better than nothing, not because they consider it an acceptable wage. Politicians will say that some wages are unacceptable, because a society is in danger if some people work for wages that don't allow them to survive without crime or compromising their healths.And again, we go back to them being dependent on the Welfare State.Yes, wonderful isn't it! :)What good is an incentive to work if there aren't any jobs out there at the eages they can demand?With a minimum wage they can demand a higher wage. And companies that want people to work for them have a huge incentive to make sure to become strong enough to pay for them. Everybody benefits in the end.No, I agree. I just disagree that taking a job for $2/hour is "exploitation."How much would consider exploitation? $0.50? $0.00?

It is nice to know that you agree the government should protect people from poverty. How do you imagine it should do that?Which just exacerbates all of those problems.But it does ensure people stay healthy as possible. And everyone benefits from a healthy population.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Earthborn
What if they can't get more money elsewhere?

Then they'd be one of those relegated to unemployment by a minimum wage.

But it is if they would like enough money to buy food, clothes and pay the rent. Anything below that is an unfair wage.

Why? What if they job they do just isn't worth that much? How does however much money they need to survive in any way at all relate to the amount of benefit the company derives from their work?

No, they can all demand minimum wage.

I've already shown that that's not the case.

It is nice to know that you agree the government should protect people from poverty. How do you imagine it should do that?

By keeping its grubby mitts out of the economy. The free market all but solved the problem of poverty before the government started meddling. Government meddling is now just about the only thing keeping people in poverty.

But it does ensure people stay healthy as possible.

Uh, no, it doesn't. All it does is to drive up the price of health care so that even fewer people than before can afford it.

[Earthborn]

Then they'd be one of those relegated to unemployment by a minimum wage.Yep. And it would not be so bad if we don't have your ideal world.What if they job they do just isn't worth that much?If it is a job someone does fulltime, it better be worth that much, or else the person who does it can't lead a reasonable life. If an employer values the work of a worker that little, he shouldn't have workers.How does however much money they need to survive in any way at all relate to the amount of benefit the company derives from their work?That is irrelevant when discussing minimum wage. What is relevant is how much society values people working for their living.I've already shown that that's not the case.I'm sorry, I missed that. Please cite the evidence you provided.By keeping its grubby mitts out of the economy.That's not what I mean. Just imagine for a moment that some things change in the world and the free market no longer can solve poverty. What do you think the government should do to protect people against poverty? (This is not a hypothetical but how most people seem to think the free market works. Just assume they are right for a moment.)The free market all but solved the problem of poverty before the government started meddling.Where and when exactly did that happen?Uh, no, it doesn't. All it does is to drive up the price of health care so that even fewer people than before can afford it.How does that work if healthcare premiums are progressive? Rich people can afford higher premiums, so they pay more. And the costs of healthcare can be shared by all, not just the sick. And the government can set price caps if something becomes too expensive... This is appearing more and more like Shanek's worst nightmare. :) But it works!

[shanek]

Originally posted by Earthborn
Yep. And it would not be so bad if we don't have your ideal world.

In my ideal world, they'd have a job and better prospects for the future.

If it is a job someone does fulltime, it better be worth that much, or else the person who does it can't lead a reasonable life.

So an employer should lose moneyjust so that someone else can have a "reasonable" (by whose definition?) life?

If an employer values the work of a worker that little, he shouldn't have workers.

Spoken like a true authoritarian. Who the &^% are you to decide who should have workers and who shouldn't?

I'm sorry, I missed that. Please cite the evidence you provided.

It's all in the opening post. Read the studies.

That's not what I mean. Just imagine for a moment that some things change in the world and the free market no longer can solve poverty. What do you think the government should do to protect people against poverty?

Well, obviously I can't answer that without knowing what changed to prevent free market solutions to poverty, now, can I?

I know what is preventing free market solutions to poverty right now, and that is exactly what I'm working to repeal.

Where and when exactly did that happen?

I demonstrated this in another thread. I posted graphs showing the median income rising quite nicely until the advent of the welfare state, at which point it just levelled off. Here's one of the graphs I posted:

http://harrybrowne.org/articles/Econom2.gif

These figures are in 2002 dollars.

How does that work if healthcare premiums are progressive?

The problem is that 50% of our health care dollars are being spent by people who have absolutely no incentive to make sure they're spent efficiently (i.e., the government).

And the government can set price caps if something becomes too expensive.

Oh, yes, we all know ho well thise work... :rolleyes:

Price caps just lead to shortages. You will be denying health care to many, mahy people, mostly those you're trying to make it affordable to.

Back before government meddling, medical insurance was cheaper than a power bill, and they never considered things like "preexisting conditions." Free clinics and charity hospitals were everywhere; now, the exorbitant costs of regulation have driven almost all of them completely out of business. Everyone, including the poor, had much better access to health care before the government stepped in to make sure people had better access to health care.

Or, as P.J. O'Rourke said, "If you think health care's expensive now, wait'll you see how much it costs when it's free!"

[Ion]

Atta boy!

You made it:

(wasn't I telling you that you hold employer's money hollier than human conditions?)
Originally posted by shanek

...
So an employer should lose moneyjust so that someone else can have a "reasonable" (by whose definition?) life?
...

Yes.

('reasonable' has been defined numerous times to you before this, as food, shelter and spare money)

[Earthborn]

In my ideal world, they'd have a job and better prospects for the future.Yes, in your ideal world they'd have a job that doesn't pay the rent, but that's okay because they were promised that it will be better in the future. But there are no guarantees that it will.So an employer should lose moneyjust so that someone else can have a "reasonable" (by whose definition?) life?That's exactly right!Spoken like a true authoritarian. Who the &^% are you to decide who should have workers and who shouldn't?I just use these as a guideline: Human Rights (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html). If someone cannot pay for all of these, because the person they work for wants to save a few bucks, then I think it is an injustice. Exploitation.

Here's one that contains things that people usually have to pay for. If they can't pay for them because their wages are too low, then their employer is a criminal, and the government should pretect them against him:25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.It's all in the opening post. Read the studies.At this moment, I have no PDF viewer on my computer. And your descriptions of the studies do not give the impression that there will be any evidence that with a minimum wage people can't demand a higher wage (at least minimum!) than without it. Quite the opposite: without minimum wage, wages will be lower making it easier for companies to hire people.Well, obviously I can't answer that without knowing what changed to prevent free market solutions to poverty, now, can I?Use your imagination. How about the gap between rich and poor will become so big, that the rich don't care about the poor anymore and try to screw them whenever they think it will give them a profit.I know what is preventing free market solutions to poverty right now, and that is exactly what I'm working to repeal.And the funny thing is that the countries with the least poverty are also the countries with the most government invlovement: Scandinavian countries, The Netherlands... None of them are perfect of course.I posted graphs showing the median income rising quite nicely until the advent of the welfare stateOkay, what has the median income to do with poverty? Have you noticed that the coordinate system doesn't even show anything under 20 thousand dollars. 20 thousand! And the graph itself is consistently above that.

So the graph levels when social programs are put in place. That should not surprise anyone. Money from the relatively rich is skimmed of, lowering the average. Now show a similar graph of what happens to the lowest incomes. Are those improving? If so, then I guess the social programs are working.The problem is that 50% of our health care dollars are being spent by people who have absolutely no incentive to make sure they're spent efficiently (i.e., the government).You could also say that those health care dollars are being spent by people who don't need to make a profit and can thus keep the price low. Maybe the two effects balance eachother out nicely.Price caps just lead to shortages. You will be denying health care to many, mahy people, mostly those you're trying to make it affordable to.Maybe so. In the Netherlands the government can set price caps and demand that farmaceutical companies or manufacturers lower their prices. And hospitals get a limited amount of money they will just have to cope with.

Does that cause problems? Yes, it does. But let's do a quiz. One of the following forms of care is not available freely to people on welfare (all people on welfare have medical insurance. It is mandatory). Which one is it?

a. Transplants
b. Electric Wheelchairs
c. Sexchange Surgery
d. Antidepressants

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ion
(wasn't I telling you that you hold employer's money hollier than human conditions?)

If you want to continue to make yourself look stupid and ignorant by holding fast to that mischaracterization of my views, then I really can't stop you.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Earthborn
Yes, in your ideal world they'd have a job that doesn't pay the rent, but that's okay because they were promised that it will be better in the future. But there are no guarantees that it will.

When are there ever guarantees? And do you honestly think the government can guarantee anything?

That's exactly right!

How is that at all justified?

I just use these as a guideline: Human Rights (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html).

Except that:

Article 17. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property

You're advocating the violation of this one.

Besides, I'd hardly call the UN documents authoritative or even rational.

If someone cannot pay for all of these, because the person they work for wants to save a few bucks,

It isn't a matter of "wanting to save a few bucks"! It's a matter of what the value created by the labor is!

Here's one that contains things that people usually have to pay for. If they can't pay for them because their wages are too low, then their employer is a criminal,

Criminal??? What crime has he committed?

At this moment, I have no PDF viewer on my computer.

Hardly my fault. It's not like they cost money or are spyware or anything.

And your descriptions of the studies do not give the impression that there will be any evidence that with a minimum wage people can't demand a higher wage (at least minimum!) than without it.

On the contrary; they show exactly that.

Use your imagination. How about the gap between rich and poor

:rolleyes:

When are you people going to realize that this "gap" thing is completely meaningless?

And the funny thing is that the countries with the least poverty are also the countries with the most government invlovement: Scandinavian countries, The Netherlands...

Zimbabwe, Argentina, Rajasthan...

You need to look at the world situation a little more closely. Everywhere you look, the more intrusive the government, the less wealthy its people. Nice job hand-picking, but in those places you mentioned the people enjoy much more freedoms than in the more intrusive governments of the world.

And why did America become so prosperous at a time when its government was so limited?

Okay, what has the median income to do with poverty?

The median income is the level at which equal numbers of the population make above and below. If the median income rises, then that means the lower half are doing better than they were. The levelling off of median income means that the lower half of American workers aren't doing any better than they were.

Have you noticed that the coordinate system doesn't even show anything under 20 thousand dollars. 20 thousand! And the graph itself is consistently above that.

So?

So the graph levels when social programs are put in place. That should not surprise anyone. Money from the relatively rich is skimmed of, lowering the average.

???? Do you have any idea what you're talking about??? If money were taken from the rich and given to the poor, it would cause the median to go up!!!

Now show a similar graph of what happens to the lowest incomes.

Define "lowest incomes."

You could also say that those health care dollars are being spent by people who don't need to make a profit and can thus keep the price low.

That makes absolutely no sense! When people purchase something with money they earned, and that money is limited and relatively difficult to get, they're going to try to get the best bang for their buck. But when that money is spent by politicians who didn't work to earn it and have a basically unlimited pool (since they can always raise taxes or run up a deficit), there is no incentive whatsoever to economize. Profit has zilch to do with it!

Maybe so. In the Netherlands the government can set price caps and demand that farmaceutical companies or manufacturers lower their prices. And hospitals get a limited amount of money they will just have to cope with.

Oh, yes, it just seems to be working so well...

http://www.ifmsa.nl/am2003/en/nederland/gezondheidszorg.htm

The Netherlands has a high-quality health care system, but, like its counterparts in other developed nations, it faces tremendous strains. An aging population has put pressure on the budget. The public demands access to modern treatments and will no longer accept impersonal care and long waiting lists. In the struggle to make ends meet, more attention is paid to short-term curative care then to prevention. Moreover, many frustrated health care practitioners are leaving the system and recruitment has become rather more difficult, resulting in a lack of doctors and nurses.

[snip meaningless "quiz"]

[Gem]

And why did America become so prosperous at a time when its government was so limited?

What period are you refering too?

Gem

[Earthborn]

When are there ever guarantees? And do you honestly think the government can guarantee anything?Not absolutely. But perhaps better than people who are just trying to profit from me and I can't try to vote away.How is that at all justified?It is justified because people have a right to live, and someone needs to provide them the means for that. If the government doesn't want to do it directly, it must make sure the jobmarket does.Article 17. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his propertyYou're advocating the violation of this one.I think there is nothing arbitrary with demanding people to make some kind of contribution to society. They benefit from it too, after all.It's a matter of what the value created by the labor is!There is also a value to labour itself. And apperently society values labour so much that it has set a minimum price on it.Criminal??? What crime has he committed?Demanding people to work for a wage not enough to sustain life.On the contrary; they show exactly that.I'll look into it later.When are you people going to realize that this "gap" thing is completely meaningless?Depends on what you mean by it of course. If you assume that it is a gap in income alone, there is of course the middle class filling the gap.

But that the rich is socially completely out of touch with the poor and have absolutely no idea what the poor have to endure (or vice versa) is all too real.Nice job hand-picking, but in those places you mentioned the people enjoy much more freedoms than in the more intrusive governments of the world.That's why I said it in a specific order: the countries with the least poverty have the most government involvement. The opposite is not necessarily true: just having a lot of government involvement does not automatically make the poor richer. The government involvement should consist of decreasing poverty.And why did America become so prosperous at a time when its government was so limited?Irrelevant. How were the poor doing?The median income is the level at which equal numbers of the population make above and below.Yes, that is correct.If the median income rises, then that means the lower half are doing better than they were. The levelling off of median income means that the lower half of American workers aren't doing any better than they were.Poppyc*cks!

I'm going to make this very simple for you Shanek, so even you will be able to understand. Imagine for a moment a society with only 7 inhabitants. We put them on a line that represents their yearly income.

You can see an interactive graph of it here (http://standards.nctm.org/document/eexamples/chap6/6.6/).

Move Dan Doe, the median guy a bit to the right: he is becoming richer. Does Arend Armoed who has no money at all get richer? No. Some of the poorer people can even become poorer. For instance, move Bernard Bum a bit to the left. Does the median change? No of course not.If money were taken from the rich and given to the poor, it would cause the median to go up!!!Right... Got back to the interactive graph. Move Gerard 'Giga' Gates a bit to the left: he has to pay higher taxes. Thanks to this increase in tax, both Arend Armoed and Bernard Bum can become richer. The median stays the same.

The leveling in your graph shows that the middle class takes the heaviest burden. Well, that is if we assume that increased taxes caused that leveling and the dotted line actually represents a realistic increase in income for this group had it not for this tax increase. It says nothing about how the poor or the rich are doing. The poor could have nothing at all, or be even heavily in debt. The rich might have enough money to make everyone millionaire by sharing it among the population. It makes no difference: the median only says something about the middle class.

So show a graph of how well the poor and the rich are doing. That might be more interesting.Define "lowest incomes."Well, excluding people who have nothing at all, how about welfare level? How much does a person on welfare get where you live? How did it change in time?

[Ion]

Originally posted by shanek

If you want to continue to make yourself look stupid and ignorant by holding fast to that mischaracterization of my views, then I really can't stop you.
Anyway, this stands:
Originally posted by shanek

...
So an employer should lose moneyjust so that someone else can have a "reasonable" (by whose definition?) life?
...

Yes.

('reasonable' has been defined numerous times to you before this, as food, shelter and spare money)

[Reager]

Originally posted by Ion

('reasonable' has been defined numerous times to you before this, as food, shelter and spare money)


I would say that the definition of "reasonable" should be agreed upon by our elected representatives (after proper debate, study, constituent input, etc...). It's what they're there for.


Mike

[Ion]

I would say that Earthborn gave a good definition of 'reasonable' from the Human Rights.

So that every politician and capitalist fan follows it, way before jumping to profits.

[Reager]

Originally posted by Ion
I would say that Earthborn gave a good definition of 'reasonable' from the Human Rights.

So that every politician and capitalist fan follows it, way before jumping to profits.

Don't get me wrong, I'd have no problem with Earthborn's definition. I was just pointing out that it's not like there is no mechanism for a society to decide what the definition of "reasonable" should be.

Mike

[shanek]

Originally posted by Gem
What period are you refering too?

Mostly, the period before WWI. That was when we really became one of the world's biggest economies.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Earthborn
Not absolutely. But perhaps better than people who are just trying to profit from me and I can't try to vote away.

Why would you need to "vote" them "away"? Just don't deal with them!

It is justified because people have a right to live, and someone needs to provide them the means for that.

But you're talking about giving one person the means to live by pointing a gun at another. The ends don't justify the means.

I think there is nothing arbitrary with demanding people to make some kind of contribution to society.

There's that ficticious "society" thing...

They benefit from it too, after all.

You're going along with that bogus "zero-sum game" idea?

There is also a value to labour itself.

Yes, and as I've been saying all along, the market should be allowed to determine the value of labor and set wages accordingly.

And apperently society values labour so much that it has set a minimum price on it.

No, governemnt does that.

Depends on what you mean by it of course. If you assume that it is a gap in income alone, there is of course the middle class filling the gap. But that the rich is socially completely out of touch with the poor and have absolutely no idea what the poor have to endure (or vice versa) is all too real.

None of that has anything to do with how well the poor are doing.

That's why I said it in a specific order: the countries with the least poverty have the most government involvement.

No, they don't. That's just crap. America became the most prosperous society in the world with a minimal government. And we're the longest-running existing democratic republic.

Irrelevant. How were the poor doing?

Much better off than they were. We conquered the problem of starvation, mortally wounded illiteracy, and our suicide rate plunged (it's now much lower than most European countries. Is that not a good measure of quality of life?). Before government meddling, we had the richest poor people on the planet, and as I showed they'd be even richer without all of this intrusion.

That's what the free market does: it creates wealth for everyone. People like you like to b!tch and moan about the "widening gap between rich and poor" while ignoring the fact that the poor get richer, too. Our poor now have temperature control, TVs, and even DVD players. Check out any low income area. Most of them even have cars!

I'm going to make this very simple for you Shanek, so even you will be able to understand. Imagine for a moment a society with only 7 inhabitants. We put them on a line that represents their yearly income.
You can see an interactive graph of it here (http://standards.nctm.org/document/eexamples/chap6/6.6/).

Move Dan Doe, the median guy a bit to the right: he is becoming richer. Does Arend Armoed who has no money at all get richer? No. Some of the poorer people can even become poorer.

Except that that's not how it happens in an economy! It's not a zero-sum game! One person getting richer DOES NOT mean that another is getting poorer!

Well, that is if we assume that increased taxes caused that leveling and the dotted line actually represents a realistic increase in income for this group had it not for this tax increase.

This is pre-tax income. So increased taxes do not figure in, except for the harm to the economy that they cause.

It makes no difference: the median only says something about the middle class.

Do you have ANY idea of the significance of the median income in economic examination? These things do not happen in a vacuum. A rich person getting richer isn't just going to sit on that money. He's going to want to invest it. Investing creates more jobs of all kinds, new or expanded businesses, more wealth in the economy, and more money to reflect that new wealth. No one goes up or down alone in an economy.

So show a graph of how well the poor and the rich are doing.

Define "poor" and "rich."