Minimum Wage

A democratic attempt to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour was recently defeated. Do these idiots actually think they would be helping ANYBODY by raising minimum wage? Simple economics shows that if something, say labor, costs more; you buy less of it. So a mandatory increase in minimum wage would simply result in fewer jobs.

Furthermore, the last time minimum wage was raised I was working my way through college and one of my jobs was at seven eleven. I had been there a while and had gotten a few raises based on performance. Then the idiot congress goes and raises minimum wage and suddenly the bonehead I'm training is making the same pay I am! This pissed me off.
The owner said she couldn't afford to give me a raise, what with having to pay the new hires so much.

Minimum wage is a training wage, only about three percent of the population earns it. If you keep a job for any length of time, you will soon be making more than minimum wage. Isn't an unskilled worker, like a high school or college kid, better off with a job at the current minimum wage, than unemployed at the new one?

 

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There is no minimum wage on Florida tomato fields. Labor and employers "negotiate" their own terms without meddling of pesky government. It's pure free market, unlike to the sheltered (of the holy free market) existence you have. The fact that mutually "agreed" wage is something like $10-20/day is not important. Its holiness "free market" is all that counts. It's too bad that your free market deity likes hungry and desperate labor force; it's too bad that given free hands the rightwing deity drives wages to the bare minimum (sufficient for physical survival) in a heartbeat. It's too bad that we live in a oppressive hierarchical society ruled but the wealthy (for time being) and their chain dogs. It's too bad that the majority is chronically incapable of organizing to stop exploitation by parazites.

To suggest that untamed plutocracy, backed by all the power of the state, and isolated labor units can negotiate fair wages is so insane that only the most "bright" (and sheltered of free market, I might add) rightwinger can buy into it.

It's simple rightwing bullsh*t for braindead. Capitalist economy is a gigantic pump sucking up the labor and sweat of many in the pockets of the few. It's true that without "turning down" the valve, increase of minimum wage will be largely eaten by inflation. Thus, increase of minimum wage should be accompanied with slowing down the wealth deluge going to the top. In other words: increase of minimum wage without true mini redistribution of the wealth pie is just cheap gesture of the spineless libs. Printing more green paper to increase minimum wages WILL NOT CUT IT.

 

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Have you heard about "black plague" in mediaval Europe? 30% of the labor force died out then, which forced nobility to shed some serious dough to the bottom (forced voluntary redistribution of the wealth) to get necessary labor force. That was time of incredible rise in living standards of plebeians.

OK, now let's assume that black plague has never happened and that Jesus appeared in nobilty's dreams 600 years ago and said: "biatches, are you ever going to take my Sermon on the Mount seriously?" Fear stricken nobility out of kindness of its heart threw twice as much "dough" to the bottom... The effect would've been just the same.

Humanity must destroy hierarchy of the wealth (or any other hierarchy) if it wants to advance anywhere. Giving up labor to make rich richer and richer and expecting crumbles in return (no matter their size) ain't smart or just.

I leave your obvious thirst for higher perch in a hierarchy of life without comments. However, would you care to think slightly why an increase in minimum wage back then did not lead to the higher sales in junk food sold at 7/11, so that owner could pay you few cents more, so that you could feel more superior to the bonehead you were training, so that your life would be more full of meaning and accomplishment?

And another 20% gets minimum wage + few dimes

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, which is about the same. Remember about them too. Training for what? What is the employment structure in the USA? How many spots for "trained" and how many for "untrained"? What about those who simply cannot be trained for better paying jobs? Let's assume that the obvious nonsense "if everybody works hard he can advance in a hierarchical capitalist society to infinity and beyond" is true. Besides, in a free market, training doesn't have a squat to do with salaries of laborers. Supply and demand does. Ponder about those things in the short breaks between Rush and Hannity shows then rewrite the above sentence to reflect the reality of life not the propaganda staples sitting in your head.

Yeah, $6.50/hr will make a huge difference in one's life

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What skill should have to do with anything? Person A is doing job X. Job X is in demand by society. That means job X should pay bare minimum necessary for decent existence. Whether job X is janitorial or teaching, for example, is absolutely IRRELEVANT. Whether job X could be done by a high school student or a Mexican or a prisoner for much less is IRRELEVANT.

Some people can't get more lucrative skills because they are lacking mental abilities. Some people are DOOMED to be losers in life's rat race because we are living in a piramidal hierarchical society with broad base, narrowing middle and extremely narrow top. Somebody must be at the bottom NO MATTER how everybody tries. That the world we live in. That's why universal living wage is a matter of justice and mere decency. If it will be universal, if it will be enforced, there is no reason whatsoever why employment should drop.

If it will not be universal that certainly will keep business owners on the move in the search of the most desperate and cheap. Profit is a king, after all.

 

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Humans are naturally hierarchical. Even under communism, the system you seem to thirst for, where people can't compete economically. They competed for political power with bloody purges and massive sufferring. Better to let them compete economically, it's a lot less bloody.

The seven 11 was on the bad side of town. Most of the customers were on food stamps, disability, or were criminals. Wage levels had no effect on them.

Every job requires training. All spots are preferably held by trained employees. You may start at minimum wage, but before long you should either get a raise or get fired.

Obvious nonsense? Sounds like a lazy man talking. I've held a lot of jobs over the years, in every one of them hard work allowed one to move ahead.

The greater the level of skill, the lower the number of people likely to possess it Therefore, one should be able to command a higher salary.

Job X should pay what it's worth, no more. If you mandate a minimum salary, then job X may not get filled.

And by creating an artificial minimum salary, you may be dooming these low ability individuals to unemployment.

 

But Job X should pay no less than what it is worth....

 

Naturally??? What does it mean naturally? Is hierarchy insribed into human brains by Allah, Jesus, Zews? Is it genetical? Or, hierarchy is product of human cultures and being transmitted from generation to generation like religions and lots of other things. If we are indeed hierarchical animals what are the parameters humans build hierarchy upon? It was not always wealth. BTW, North American Indians were pretty much non hierarchical that's one of the main reasons why they were exterminated by hierarchical Christian brethren.

I still didn't figure out what communism is to thirst for it. What does it mean compete economically? How workers can compete economically? I don't get it. They can sell themselves at lower prices. However, in the most of the cases, they just take what is offered (or starve under bridge). Isolated workers have no power to compete economically. Sure, once hired they can engage into superior's as$ kissing, backstabbing, office politics, etc. to climb on the higher perch. You can call it economic competition.

If you think USSR was as communist as you can get, I can tell you that official incomes of workers, managers, scientists, etc. could differ LEGALLY as much as 1:10. Lot's of space for a rat race. That's certainly not 1:400 American CEOs enjoy, but it's mighty significant for a commie state. In the undeground economy, one could become soviet millionaire provided the right staff. The only significant difference between USSR and USA was that in USSR money could not buy mega power and power could not buy mega wealth.

Who are "they" - people? Soviet people competed for political power because they could not built an economical perch? Common, that's silly. Russian revolution won because and only because the Russian peasants (80% of population at the time) supported it or, at least, were neutral. Why? One of the reasons: tsarist government has decided to build an economic perch in quite egalitarian Russian villages by encouraging creation of the large&medium farms (a la USA), which would had resulted in massive displacements of peasants into city's slums and concentration of the "dough" in the hands of the fewer and fewer people. You see, world is/was not made in the image of the USA. Unfortunately, that's changing.

Training could be accomplished in 10 mins. Who said that one should get a raise? Is that a law of nature? Besides, as a said, $5/hr and $7/hr have one thing in common - one can't live decently on that.

you sound like a man who stuck face in a full trough (sweet success) who doesn't want to look on the society as a whole system. Your personal job rewards means nothing in the great scheme of things. I repeat, current society is a wealth piramide. Had it been populated exclusively by your clones, some of them still would be digging in a garbage can.

Lots of trades and professions make pretty darn sure that the number of skilled folks in the field is limited. Doctors, dentists and pharmacists are prime examples. In the fields without birth control supply of the highly skilled is so large (relatively to demand) that correlation between absolute rarity of a skill and income is quite weak. This planet is quite crowded

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Who decides what job X is worth? Yup, I would have definitely hired 20 folks (no kidding) to do errands had they be willing to work for $.1/hr. What a shame 20 jobs are lost because of the damned minimum wage and not sufficient level of desperation around me. It freaking TWENTY jobs lost. Think about that. I bet you could create 1000 jobs at that rate. If a job cant provide minimum decent living, I couldn't care less if it's not filled. Filling of a job is not a goal in itself.

Yeah, I would create 40 jobs for low ability folks willing to work for $.05/hr. Damned minimum wage. Having a job is not the goal in itself.

Your dream economy was already created in the past. Just read history of 19th century England and USA with emphasis on the life of working people, and enjoy. Lemme guess, you think that this time it will be different

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Dream on man.

 

I think kids have realistic expectations. They just don't believe as much in the "blue dream" anymore to start rat race at the bottom, buy an apple, wash an apple, sell an apple, and yadda, yadda, yadda. They rely more on luck.

Rule #1: No matter what you do, no matter what calculator you use to calculate change, most likely, your socio-economic status will be just the same as that of your parents (this is especially true for the very top and the very bottom). That's statistics.

Can't get obsession with math. From what I seen, knowledge of math and arithmetics doesn't help much financially. It's rather income lost. Most trades and professions require bare minimum of math once per year. There are engineering fields where one could be a quite successful professional if he knew (barely) four basic operations of arithmetics. Unless one likes math, wasting time on it is just that - waste, useless in everyday life.

Does that include parents in trailer parks, inner cities, depressed and rural areas? You should leave your gated community once in a while.

A a foreign observer, I must say American family ties are quite weak or even non existent by the average world's standards. Kids are not princes and princesses. They are rather just a line on the "to do in life list". Amount of stuff kids get is not a sign of super love, it's rather pay off to buy some free of kids time.

I think American Aristocracy is the problem

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Once one got to the top 5%, he stays there no matter what. Then one makes top 5% babies, babies go to ivy league schools and get the most desirable jobs (with minimum work and maximum pay). The number of aristocracy members grew, the number of desirable spots didn't grow as much. Thus maintaining the myth from "rag to riches" is more and more difficult, kids of working and middle class slobs don't buy into it as much as their parents did.

 

That's crap. My grandfather came to this country from Cuba with nothing, not even a knowledge of english. Did he have an advantage over the poor downtrodden lower class people you keep talking about? He worked his whole life, raised four kids, and retired a fairly wealthy man in Florida. I worked my way thru college, and now make many times what my father or grandfather ever did. I have a cousin whose parents were wealthier than mine, lived in a great neighboorhood with a huge house. Now she's on welfare and just barely escaped being sent to prison.

People have free will. They are not pieces of driftwood being tossed about on the sea of life. Sure, sometimes people get dealt a really bad hand. Some people are physically or mentally disabled and can't make it on their own. They are a minority. The vast majority of people should be able to stand on their own two feet.

 

That's not crap, that's STATISTICS. Again, you don't see the whole picture while keeping your head down in the trough of your/your family success. Logic: "Gee, if everybody been like me, everyone would be living in relative luxury like me" doesn't apply to hierarchical, capitalist societies. You won - congrats. However, there are folks who worked equally hard and lost in a rat race.

I knew folks who worked hard through college, graduate school ... to become virtually unemployable. No large houses and incomes there.

Again, people with free will are greatly constrained by societies they live in and yeah they definitely can be tossed as pieces of sh*t on the sea of life. After, all they are not Gods having every parameter of existence under their control. There is lots of stuff that even you cannot control. You can respond to changes in environment (if you'll have time and means). Chinise central bank can definitely wreck your savings/investments

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Can you control/predict that? If you can, lots of folks on Wall Street would be glad to talk to you.

Do you suggest that had everyone had as much free will as you do,there would not be janitors, cachiers, cab/truck drivers, laborers, unemployed..... There would be just highly compensated paperpushers living in burbs. Had everyone been just like you . Claiming that all those folks at the bottom could be future CEOs, doctors and paper pushers working through college cannot be true in this society.

I think that while working hard through college you've missed trigonometry lessons, and concept of piramide is absolutely out of your touch.

Its projection in 2D it looks something like this:

*
* *

* *

* * * *

Rat racers on the bottom physically CANNOT all move up to the top, no matter how hard they will try and how much of free will they will exercise. That is constraint society imposes on them (and you). Some win, much more lose. F*ck losers, they deserved it. After all, had they been fluffy just like you they would have won.

 

Yes; the minimum wage increase proposal was defeated in the US Congress - yet they did manage to find it in their hearts to give themselves a pay raise. That fat six-figure salary apparently wasn't enough for them to make ends meet.

Of course, this is the same group of 'public servants' who, though whilst enjoying full health care benefits themselves, have repeatedly rejected all proposals to provide health care to their downtrodden constituents. So this is the type of government they are trying to impose on Iraq? No wonder the insurgency is growing by the day.

Dixonmassey is spot-on. The system is fatally flawed, and for every success story, there are countless stories of unconquerable ennui and glass ceilings based on non-meritorious factors.

 

Of course everyone can not be "at the top", but it's not a zero sum game. In my experience, in every job I've held hard work pays. I've worked at 7/11, a lumber yard, a factory, a grocery store, a restaurant, a hospital, even for the government. In all these jobs those who put forth the effort and applied themselves moved up. Those who didn't didn't.

Since I believe in free will, you're probably right. Still, it seems to me from watching my kids that a lot of your personality is inborn, so I'd expert a low percentage of homelessness among my clones. Did you ever see that special on twins seperated at birth? There was a set of twins who'd never met. Grew up in different parts of the country. Until they met at a firemen's convention. Their wives even looked alike. Wierd.

 

Agree, some people are better than the others in selling themselves. Some people are willing to work harder, some people are more gifted, etc., etc., etc. However, that's not the point. Had everyone been identically gifted in the above areas, there would be still people digging in garbage cans. Hierarchical capitalist system simply cannot accomodate everybody on the top or in the middle. Thus, system's promise "work hard and you'll make it" is simply a lie to keep social peace. Thinking globally, working hard, etc. alone is not enough. Sure, one can follow your example and think locally: "I can run hard in a rat race and I can make it". Sure you can. Also you can make a jack pot providing the right choices of numbers. However, you CANNOT extrapolate your local experience on a hierarchical society as a whole and say "gee, if only everybody made right choices as I did, there would be no $5/hr janitors". That would be a lie. Sure, one can say - "everybody cannot make the right choices. Everyone deserves what he gets." However, it's a straw because, as I said, had everyone made the right choices there would be still poors. That making the right choices alone is not the answer.

The "right choice" argument is quite absurd if one would think deeper. In this argument, the hierarchical system apriori is assumed to be just and fair, allowing "unlimited possibilities" (even Bill G, has his limits) for everyone making the right choices. If one "made it" in the system, that is yet another automatic proof of system's fairness. If one didn't make it, obviously it's because he's made the wrong choices along the way. the system can do no wrong. What a killer argument. Sounds like yet another religion where deity can do no wrong.

You see, an hierarchical society cannot exist without some kind of enforcement of hierarchy. People do not accept eagerly and voluntarily that 5% own 95% of the wealth. After all people are greedy and want a greater share of action too. Thus masses needed to be put under control. Masses must be convinced that such 5/95 distribution is fundamentally just, divinely ordained and virtually anyone can join 5%

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Of course, in the primitive societies, rude force is far more important than brainwashing. However, in the USA rude force alone would not fly, plutocracy needed to create a temple/myth of "Unlimited opportunities for everyone. It aced the project. Western Democracy without brainwashing is like a cowboy without a handgun.

Generally speaking, humans cannot ascertain whether or not they have free will. It's impossible. They can believe they have it. However, Bible, to put it mildly, is very ambiguous in this regard. Calvinists would disagree with your pick.

 

What does a homeless guy digging in a garbage can contribute to society? How is the position, "bum", integral to the success of a hierarchical capitalist system?

We may need ditch diggers and janitors, but we don't need bums. And what about a society of high tech super genious's, couldn't they build robots to do the scut work? I myself own a vacuuming robot, the "Roomba".

 

As a point of interest what DO you suggest we do with the bums in society?

 

One thing that a lot of people don't seem to realize is that almost no one actually makes minimum wage. Only 3% of full-time american workers make the minimum wage. Of those, about half are under 18 and haven't graduated from highschool yet.

 

Yeah. It is.

Even among native Americans, children are not equal to their parents. Elders and chieftains command respect. Hierarchy permeates human society, be it formal or informal. A few are always privileged, be that privilege given or taken.

 

i am surprised that adult mexicans can survive on $220 a week, wonder what they eat?

 

Ramen and Easy Mac, maybe?

 

If so, what kind of hierarchy is genetical? 1% owns 10% of the wealth, or 1% owns 99.9%. Could it be even more natural, if the most deserving ones hold everyone else in slavery?

I did observe that many common (i.e. little $) folks derive lots of their self-worth from the number of population/language/class/economical status .... groups they feel superior too. There is defite longing (among many but not all) to place oneself on the higher perch of life, whether it's real one (with cash value) or imaginary. However, ALL of the "superiority reference points", I'm aware of, are inherited from the previous generations. Which makes me wonder if some other factors than Zews and genes are involved.

It would be really interesting to study mechanisms of creation of hierarchy ladders in the human groups. Once the ladder is created it's relatively easy to maintain. However, the geneses of hierarchy is another matter. Why and how majority accept domination by the minority, if majority doesn't benefit much (or at all) of the ladder existence? It's even more interesting because it appears that minority doesn't do much of the "domination work" itself. It just transforms the lesser ones into their own jailers. Is that genetical too?

There was no hierarchical ladders (meaning the system transforming sweat of the many into the "wealth", and "pumping" that wealth to the top) among North American Indians. I do realize that some people have larger fists and muscles, some are more likable, etc. which is genetic. However, even the most husky fellow (or suck up) is not capable to create the ladder on his own. Thus, the ladder is rather social/cultural than genetic.