Why do *you* want a minimum wage increase?

Private Joined: Jan 03, 2006 Posts: 265

In another thread not on this topic,

rwbazillion wrote:

I do agree with raising the minimum wage and healthcare. But each internal problem isn't that simple to solve.

That's because it's not the government's problem to solve. It's not even possible, which is why every time they place their duck fingers on it the problem gets worse.

rwbazillion wrote:

Raising minimum wage has good and bad. It helps the workers who are working, but the company or business loses profits and has less workers. So the prospect of losing the business due to lack of profits is greater.

No, no, no. How will it help the workers who are working? Companies don't lose profit. Unless you're talking about small businesses, for whom governmentally-imposed burdens of providing healthcare and minimum wages simply mean that they have to roll down the shutters and join the ranks of the "workers" again. That means not only are they out of work, but their employees go back into the available labor pool too.

Remember when everybody was so hot on taxing the oil companies when gas topped 3 bucks a gallon? Sounds great, doesn't it? Stick it to the bastages! But then comes the lonely voice of realism in the back of the mob... Um... if we increase the taxes on the companies, won't they just pass that increase on to us at the pump...?

So it is with minimum wage increases. Businesses NE-VER absorb cost increases.

How many of you actually earn minimum wage? Any of you?

So, what happens to the rest of us when minimum wage gets raised? Corporations pass the increased cost of operation on to us all. Read: Higher priced goods and services. Net effect on purchasing power for those earning above minimum wage: Pay cut.

No thank you.

Admittedly, I have not had any schooling in economics beyond a semester in high school, so somebody else can surely do a better job of explaining this. I invite you to please do so. [/rant]

Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 4:23 pm

Government really has no business messing with such things. Raising minimum wage just increases inflation, and all prices rise. Just like M_R said, all it really does it close the small businesses down and give room for the huge corporations (who conveniently work with and for the government) to take over.

Freedom doesn't come from more government mandates on business -- it comes from less. We can't have a "free market" with all of these regulations. Anyone that's tried to go into business for themselves and has had to pay all of the taxes, insurances, fees, and everything else understands this. It's so difficult these days. What happened to just opening up your storefront and selling your goods? Now the government gets its dirty hands into EVERY private transaction.

Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 4:41 pm

I'd say you summed it up rather well, lack of formal economics education not withstanding.

Would just add that a lot of proponents for an increase talk about a "living wage" Of course they ignore that these jobs are starter jobs. Not the sort of thing you'll end up working for 30 or 40 years at, unless you have absolutely no ambition or marketable skills.

I think they are still a lot of people yacking about "tax the oil companies"
That voice of reason needs to keep shouting.

I'll believe the government will spend those "excess profit tax" monies specifically on alternative fuel research when pigs fly.

Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 9:15 pm

I don't think it's a good idea. It'll ultimately hurt more people than it'll help. It'll especially hurt the lower and middle class. The lower class may get a bigger paycheck but I guarantee the business costs increase in everything will be more than their raises. Therefore, they'll lose more than they gain.

The middle class workers who already make more than minimum wage won't be getting a cost of living increase. Therefore, they'll have less expendable income and they're going to cut down on things that aren't necessary.

The businesses will raise the cost of everything at a higher than proportional rate than the minimum wage will increase.

People should be paid market value and not what the government mandates. The politicians who want to pass these kinds of things are just going for votes. What their constituents don't know is that in the long run, raising the minimum wage will actually hurt them.

Private Joined: Sep 20, 2005 Posts: 287 Location: Dolton

Well something gotta be done somewhere..good paying jobs are hard to come by..Allotta people who are desperate for jobs are forced to take
jobs that pay min. with no benies..

What do ya tell people who have been permanately laid off from their
high paying job...they pound the pavement and then find the only jobs available pay 6bucks/hr..while their savings are drying up..house to pay,
kids to feed..may have to hustle two jobs..maybe more

At the same time congress dont wanna raise min wage...why not..because
it will hurt business..or hurt the economy? what about the states that
have raised the min wage..such as il..6 and some change an hour..
And some other state..on the east coast raised theirs to 8bucks an hour
on a veto override.

People cannot live on 515/hr..they hate making 515/hr..at the same time

the jobs that they could of gotten for 10hr for ex.. those jobs packed up and left for china or japan or mexico for obvious reasons

If raising min wage is not the answer..then what is the answer..

Private Joined: Sep 14, 2005 Posts: 126

The answer is to get government out of our lives and let the free market function. I started working out of the Army for a very modest wage, not enough to get my own place and afford a decent car. Guess what? I worked my way up, took a lot of crap, and now am living a pretty good life. The govt had squat to do with any of it, other than to steal money from me via withholding. I like Rush's comment about minimum wage; "why not make it $20, why not $50?" Please excuse the rant, I hate govt in my face on any level.

Private Joined: Jan 03, 2006 Posts: 265

hemi7000 wrote:

Well something gotta be done somewhere..good paying jobs are hard to come by..

If raising min wage is not the answer..then what is the answer..

But why does it have to be the government that does something?

The answer is that each person has to find his own way to make a living. If that means selling your house and moving elsewhere to look for a job, so be it. The reason jobs are moving overseas is because companies make more money paying the lower labor costs elsewhere. It's not that they pay those other places too little; it's that we're demanding too much. And we're letting our government take too big a slice of the pie. You could get by on less if you didn't have to give up so much of it in taxes.

Seriously, do you not see that it will erode your purchasing power?

Private Joined: Jan 03, 2006 Posts: 265

This is gut-wrenching to write, and if you don't care to hear about details from my own life, skip on past. It's sort of an illustration about learning from positive and negative role models.

My family in IL is poor. Most of them make less than minimum wage, because they work in restaurants where you depend on tips to bring you up to minimum, but in an area where people tip like #$&%.

Some of them are retired and live on social security, some live on disability/SSI. One of them has a two year old and is going to college, probably on some government-funded program, farming her kid out on her mother who works at the munitions plant and has to drive to another state to go to her job, or her grandmother who just had a kidney out and can't work. Maybe if they didn't have so damn many kids when they weren't situated to support them, they wouldn't be in this vicious cycle. They know what causes that, and if you choose to make another person when you can't afford to, that is just selfish and irresponsible.

My father is more than half a century old, and he has bounced around from dead-end job to dead-end job, in those rare months when he actually had a job, for most of his life. He is a waste of skin.

By contrast, his two brothers each started working for someone else. Hard, construction-type labor. They worked hard and scrimped by, and when their bosses wanted to get out of the business, they each bought their respective boss's company. One of them clearly still has to be careful with his money, but the other one (This is the "baby" of my aunts and uncles, whom I never thought would "grow up", but he rose to the occasion) has enough money to keep his six children in a nice home and they have reliable cars and can enjoy time off with them.

Guess what, though? Friday night on his son's birthday, he's still answering cell-phone calls for people who need urgent repairs. It's a sacrifice he makes. I'm not saying you shouldn't make family time a priority; I'm just saying that until you move a little further up the hierarchy of needs, you may not have the luxury of turning down multiple low-wage jobs in favor of spending more time with your family.

Sometimes, your situation just sucks (trust me, I've been there!!!) -- there's no external authority to whom you can appeal to get it fixed. Speaking with my mathematician hat on, not every problem has a solution. Confused

Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 4:07 pm

http://www.wrisley.com/cycle.htm

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.

"From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:

* from selfishness to apathy;
* from apathy to dependence;

Dr. Alexander Tytler, a Scot professor, wrote a scholarly tome, from which this concept comes, called "The Athenian Republic" which was published shortly before the thirteen American colonies gained independence from Britain. "Google" him to learn more.

Like that site said, our forefathers looked at debt as slavery. Dependence is slavery. I bolded 2 of the steps above -- the steps I personally believe we are on (probably the 3rd to the last). So raise that minimum wage, shut down the businesses, make way for the corporations and "public/private partnership/enterprise/etc" (fascism).

Corporal Joined: Sep 20, 2005 Posts: 788

SAK wrote:

Raising minimum wage just increases inflation, and all prices rise.

I do like this quote that SAK made. I think a balance needs to be made and I think that SAK has found it. Raising the minimum wage increases inflation, but allowing minimum wage without a government standard will allow wages that people cannot live off of and bring in exploted wages. I think that a balance needs to be made and that balance keep inflation at bay. It's just finding that balance point.

Because an increase in inflation will cripple the middle class but poor people need to make enough at least to privide for basic needs, food and shelter.

Even if the wages are increased the economy will balance itself out. If wages are lowered or there is no bottom, the economy will balance itself out regardless.

Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 11:02 pm

I think there is always a natural balance. A natural balance will always occur. Just as we can't count on government mandates to protect us, we can't count on government mandates to protect the economy. The more laws, regulations, restrictions, etc we pass, the more problems we cause.

Remember, it's supposed to be a "free" market. I believe a free market will take care of itself. Employers will HAVE to pay decent wages, or no one will work for them (save maybe illegal aliens who shouldn't be here in the first place). I truly believe in freedom in every aspect of life. We always get ourselves into this flawed thinking pattern that "if only there were a law..." Laws and restricting freedom will not solve our problems.

Cadet Joined: Nov 28, 2005 Posts: 81

I would like to throw a comment out there. We already have a problem with illegal Immigrants taking some jobs. Now, what happens if/when we raise the minimum wage? And don't try and tell me that corporations do not hire illegals. I have seen it first hand.

Private Joined: Jan 03, 2006 Posts: 265

If the illegals can come here and work for a much lower wage, then that is the wage that the market will bear. Why should simply being here and looking for work be a crime? Man, lots of our families wouldn't even be in this country if it hadn't been much easier to immigrate than it is now.

Don't tell me about what poor people "need" to make to provide food, clothing and shelter. Think about that. What they *need*, they have to *earn*. It cannot be guaranteed by the government in the form of a minimum wage.

Even if it was the government's job to mandate a minimum wage, which it is most definitely not, when the cost of goods inevitably goes up, those poor people will be right back in the same situation they were before. Only now the middle-class purchasing power is eroded, so they have less disposable cash for things like charitable donations.

These illegals earn a much lower wage, yet they survive on it or they wouldn't be able to continue working for said lower wage. It is wrong-headed to look to government for protectionist policies because you feel entitled to a certain standard of living.

There is a balance point, and it's worldwide population reduction such that the available labor supply is exactly what is needed, and no more, to provide the population with goods and services with the resources available at this point in time and no more.

We've been waiting thousands of years for that to happen, and we've been stymied by growth curves and carrying capacity. You can't fool Mother Nature. Good luck dictating that with a law, my friend.

Private Joined: Jan 03, 2006 Posts: 265

rwbazillion wrote:

I think a balance needs to be made and I think that SAK has found it.

Balance, you mean like a compromise? Yes, we should compromise, because no law-abiding citizen should need to carry more than 10 rounds in his magazine.

It's very simple. As I said before, businesses do not lose money. They either do what they can to hold down costs, pass cost increases on to consumers, or they go out of business (resulting in employees not having any wage at all). Part of what they can do to hold down costs is seeking cheaper labor.

Labor is a commodity just like guns and butter. There are two choices when dealing with commodities: either the commodity goes to the market or the market goes to the commodity. So if we try to suppress immigration of cheaper labor, the commodity can't get to the market. Therefore, the companies pack up and go overseas, taking the market to the commodity. What does it say about our labor force when it is less expensive to ship materials overseas, pay for labor to manufacture products, and then ship them back than it is to pay for labor to manufacture them where the materials and the consumer market are?!

So, you propose for government to force a business to pay more for some commodity, including labor, than the market will bear? That is no different from the government forcing you to pay $100,000 for a car worth $20,000 in the free market to guarantee that the company makes a certain amount of money. You wouldn't stand for that, would you? Of course not, that is government controlling the means of production.

Gee, government control of the means of production sounds familiar... Where have I heard that before? I think I read it in some sort of manifesto. By this guy, Karl something...

Minimum wage laws are government interference with market forces. That, my friends, is communism.

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 11:50 am

As a big fan of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and the whole gang of the Austrian school of economics, I’d like to express my opinion regarding one minor point raised during discussions of the topic at hand. Hope I don't step on any toes on this volatile issue. (Yes, Bob, I'm ready for my bashing.)

That which is often called “inflation” is rather an increase in relative pricing at the consumer level, as true “inflation” is actually a monetary phenomenon related to an increase in the supply of currency. Because fiat currency is, in fact, a type of commodity (although one with only declared, not inherent, value), any increase in its supply tends to dilute the perceived value of its individual units, resulting in a greater number of those monetary units being required in an exchange for another commodity. In other words, more dollars are then required in an exchange for another product, owing to the devaluation of the dollar. (Of course, market-place competition for goods does increase the perceived value of the product as well, and that is part of the pricing equation.) To compensate for the devaluation, however, a worker receives more of the dollars in exchange for his labors, in an ongoing balancing process that seeks to determine the value of labor.

When thought of in this way, it’s easier to see that the labor behind the manufacture of a consumer product contributes to the base value of that product vis-a-vis other products, including the currency. Likewise, when the government orders a manufacturer to pay its workers more, such as by mandating benefits or higher wages for the same amount of labor, that mandate obviously does not increase the inherent value of the manufactured commodity but simply decreases the profit margin of the business. And while the business might well seek to restore the previous profits by recoupment of costs on the consumer end, the result is far more likely to be a decrease in the profits, perhaps even to the point of destruction, of that business (at least in the absence of other governmental “protections” for that industry), as the competition inherent in the marketplace is simply too great a force for those businesses to increase the price of the goods and not hurt sales. (After all, if a manufacturer could raise its prices, even in the absence of higher labor costs, it would.)

The bottom line is this. To a consumer, the “price” of goods is relative to the value of the commodity used to trade for those goods, that is, the dollar. You can properly blame the government for putting employers out of business by increasing their costs beyond the breaking point, but more importantly the Congress and the Executive branch can be blamed for the rising “costs” of consumer-product commodities--not the workers--owing to their excessive creation, though excessive borrowing, of our debt-based currency, the commodity which our legal-tender laws force you to accept in exchange for your labors.

You can, though, protect yourself, to a certain extent, from currency dilution by converting those dollars to another commodity that tends to retain its perceived value over time, such as gold or silver. Such metals are not, of course, the only commodities that provided protection from the ravages of inflation. Fine art, such as a high-grade, curly-maple-stocked Lehigh Valley flintlock for instance, might as well. Wink

If you care to read a very good dissertation on this topic, I’d suggest something by Dr. Paul Hein entitled “All Work and No Pay,” reproduced at http://www.usagold.com/AllWorkandNoPay.html