Minimum wages, First Democrat assault on the economy.

[amicus]

Minimum wages, First Democrat assault on the economy.



While the ‘new’ Democrat Majority in Congress are still picking out office space and measuring drapes, the ‘buzz’, the political rumors, are hinting that legislation to increase the ‘minimum wage’ is going to be first on the agenda of the new powers that be in the United States Congress.

Minimum wage is a buzzword for the left, has been for a long time, as they attempt to garner the support of the young and stupid who only see that a larger paycheck for flipping burgers is a good thing, and then they will become lifelong Democrats.

Sad.

I don’t do ‘fast food’ much, once in a while a ‘Whopper Junior’ for a buck, that is a portable snack as I go from here to there…well…if the Dem’s get their way, it will be two bucks for a ‘Whopper Junior’.

Owning, running, managing a business, large or small, is all pretty much the same…you have a ‘nut’ to crack, an amount of income necessary to pay for the building, the utilities, the raw product, the fees, the taxes and licenses, et cetera, all the costs of doing business, then you calculate the price you charge for the end product and then add the percentage of income you desire from the business.

Employee costs, wages, benefits, insurance, et al, is always and by far, the largest cost of doing business, especially at the entry level, which minimum wage mainly deals with. High school kids, first job, no experience, no knowledge and most of them don’t last a week, I know, been in business, been there, done that.

Now the Democrats want about a $2.00 per hour increase, about 25 percent increase in labor costs to your local snot burger fast food joint.

So, okay, the price of a Whopper Jr. (name your poison), has to increase to cover higher labor costs.

But…it doesn’t stop there. The cost of all the supplies will also increase, and the cost of pay higher wages for the delivery truck driver and the warehouse worker and at every level for every product supplied to the snot burger outlet.

But…it doesn’t stop there…snot burger joints are seldom mom & pop, but corporations, usually large ones who have a credit line and investments. So, increased prices for the end product inevitably mean lower demand, lower demand means fewer new hires and the unemployment rate goes up.

But…it doesn’t stop there…the increased ‘minimum wage’ means a gross increase in tax dollars from mandatory withholdings for income tax, social security, state tax, county tax and of course, the higher minimum wage ripples across the economy to gas stations and factories and shopping malls and prices go up and the larger paycheck is consumed by higher prices and suddenly, Jimmy Carter styled inflation rears its’ ugly head.

But…it doesn’t stop there, the ‘Fed’s’ step in to manage the money supply and interest rates go up, your variable rate mortgage goes up, it costs more to borrow money, fewer people invest, fewer new homes and business are started and the economy slows.

Yes…all because of a left wing liberal infatuation with raising minimum wage for low level employees, an entire economy can come to a halt.

And…the political buzz is, that Pharmaceuticals and Energy Companies are next on the agenda of the left wing to cripple the economy; higher drug prices and higher energy costs and more revenue for government, geez, I hope you folks are finally happy.

Amicus…

 

[kendo1]

The people voted.

You reap what you sow.

Besides, GW is still in power.

 

[amicus]

The people voted.

You reap what you sow.

Besides, GW is still in power.

Hey...ur up late tonight...

amicus...

 

[kendo1]

It's 10.30am here in Scotland.

I'm having a day off, to catch up on paperwork.

 

[TheEarl]

Amicus: There is actually sound economic theory behind setting a minimum wage at a particular level kick-starting an economy and having no effect on inflation at all. I know it sounds intuitive that it would donald the economy, but a minimum wage set at the right level helps it.

I'd offer to show you the graphs, but the last time I did, you ignored them and accused me of being an imperialist Briton longing for the days when the sun never set on the British Empire.

The Earl

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'd offer to show you the graphs, but the last time I did, you ignored them and accused me of being an imperialist Briton longing for the days when the sun never set on the British Empire.

The Earl

As Homer Simpson said: Facts are meaningless. They can be used to prove anything.

 

[Pure]

ami Yes…all because of a left wing liberal infatuation with raising minimum wage for low level employees, an entire economy can come to a halt

and with full UNemployment, sanitation measures are cut back, rats multiply, and soon you've got the bubonic plague.!

holy bejeezus! who'd have thought it! i guess it all goes back to the 'statist' second handers who insisted on freeing slaves and ruining the economies of the southern states.

but surely the coup de grace was long before 'minimum wage.' wasn't it giving women the vote that threw the whole US society down the toilet?

 

[Tuomas]

Minimum wage hike already? What's it now? $7-$7.50 an hour? Do you know what people are paid an hour here in this podunk country? $1. One measly little dollar.

Now, since the Dems are always ever so charitable, how come they aren't out fixing the world's low wages, before they vote themselves more money into their own pockets? (sorry, their constituents' pockets )

Although, on a more selfish note, I do have to applaud the action your brave new elected Congressional representatives would like to enforce, since that means I, the unfeeling foreigner, will be making a neat sizeable profit from it. So, way to go! Keep up the good work. Dems rule!

 

[cloudy]

Minimum wage hike already? What's it now? $7-$7.50 an hour? Do you know what people are paid an hour here in this podunk country? $1. One measly little dollar.

Try $5.25/hr.

Even if you work full-time, with 20 hours of overtime a week, you can't live HERE on $5.25 an hour.

 

[Tuomas]

Try $5.25/hr.

Even if you work full-time, with 20 hours of overtime a week, you can't live HERE on $5.25 an hour.

I wish I was paid $5.25 an hour

You should be ashamed for flauting your cushy lifestyle

 

[Pure]

apparently some *six* states had measures on the ballot setting higher minimum wages, and all passed.

(i realize ami is a bit conflicted over 'states rights' since he has the difficult position of defending a state's right to slavery while denying its right to authorize abortion.)

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/931hiavy.asp

SIX STATES VOTED Tuesday on ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage. All six endorsed those initiatives, mostly by solid or overwhelming majorities. (The states were Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Ohio.) This news may come as little surprise--boosting the minimum wage always polls well--but it did signal an Election 2006 trend: Economic populism was a big winner.

 

[Pure]

but tuo, in your country (chile? peru?) what does a loaf of bread cost. here, it's often 2 dollars.

 

[Matadore]

So late with the critique?

As usual radicals (who didn't vote) begin with the "doom and gloom" of how devistating raising the minimum wage is going to be on the world economy.

Was it only in my nightmare that increased personal income for the top 1% of the population combined with a useless and decitful war drove the biggest increase in national deficit ever, devaluation of the dollar around the world, and erased eight years of serious belt tightening to create a surplus in a year?

God forbid that the working poor in this country should be able to earn enough to eke out a living.

Maybe the USA can contemplate paying off some of the debt owed to China and Mexico and still have enough to take care of our own who have suffered from natural disasters. We will still afford to haul the miserable asses of dozens of third world countries out of poverty and starvation.

Gee, it took more than 20 hours after Sen. Maccawitz conceeded before the naysayers managed to surface...can we suppose that they were caught sleeping at the switch or was it just a continuation of the right's bling arrogance?

Yap, yap, yap

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

The vast difference in view point on Minimum Wage will never be reconcilled. The Democrats see MW as a "Base Point" to measure the wellness of the working class. Raising the MW automatically increases the health of the American Worker. The fact is, a small portion of workers will take home a few dollars more in their weekly paycheck, and the government will recover a substantial portion of that pay increase in tax revenues. And don't forget "The McDonald's Law" that exempts fast food workers from MW.

The Republicans, on the other hand, insist that by making the wealthiest 2 or 3% even wealthier the money will increase the volumn of the economy and everyone is better off. In fact, this same, sorry-ass, theory has been called by a number of names: "Trickle Down Theory", "Reganomics", "Supply Side Economics" and others. The basic flaw in this is the assumption that the Wealthy are GENEROUS. If they were this Economic policy would work andthe wealthy would be less wealthy. But they aren't so it doesn't work, never has, never will.

 

[R. Richard]

As Cloudy pointed out, you can't really live on $5,25 per hour. However, you can live on $5.25 per hour MUCH better than you can live on $0.00 per hour.

You can't force a company to pay more for labor than the company thinks the labor is worth. [Are you aware that MickeyDs has to put pictures on their cash register keys because the minimum wage people they hire can't read?] What happens is that a company will automate jobs out of existence if the labor is not worth the money they have to pay. In extreme cases, a company will shut down because they can't pay a new minimum wage and still make a profit.

Why do the Democrats support a higher minimum wage? Because a lot of union contracts are tied to the prevailing minimum wage, at least for entry level positions. Raise the minimum wage, raise the wages of union members! Take care of your political base.

What about the poor devils who no longer have a job because of the new minimum wage? Hell, not many of those people vote anyhow.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

You can't force a company to pay more for labor than the company thinks the labor is worth. [Are you aware that MickeyDs has to put pictures on their cash register keys because the minimum wage people they hire can't read?] What happens is that a company will automate jobs out of existence if the labor is not worth the money they have to pay. In extreme cases, a company will shut down because they can't pay a new minimum wage and still make a profit.

Why do the Democrats support a higher minimum wage? Because a lot of union contracts are tied to the prevailing minimum wage, at least for entry level positions. Raise the minimum wage, raise the wages of union members! Take care of your political base.

There are a couple of things here I can respond too. First of all, Mickey D doesn't pay minimum wage. There is an exemption (The McDonald's Law) for fast food workers. Rather than $5.25 per hour, they are getting closer to $3.50.

Second, Union Contracts are tied to the "Federal Pervaliling Wage" not the Minimum Wage. Those are two different things. Frankly, Pervailing Wage is outrageous. As I recall, a steel worker gets $30.63/hour on Pervailing Wage, which is some $63,000 per year. Union Wage Contract steel workers get $23.18/hour or about $48,000 per year. This in apposition to a minimum wage earner who gets $11,900 per year.

 

[ungenderless]

I think how someone feels about this is relative to where they are in there life.

It's so easy to dish out facts of why raising minimum wage is a bad idea when you're not the one trying to afford an apartment & pay bills while working at Wal*Mart. When you're in that position, you don't care about those things; you just wonder how in the world you are supposed to be able to afford three times the rent (which almost every renting place around here requires you to make) on $6 an hour.

On the other hand, if you owned yor own business, I could see those facts that you listed being much more significant to you.

 

[Pure]

the effects of raising minimum wages are a matter of fact.

they have been studied. the ideological and imaginative approaches are not anchored in reality.

 

[Tuomas]

but tuo, in your country (chile? peru?) what does a loaf of bread cost. here, it's often 2 dollars.

Here it's $1 (alright, 98c ), and we are the third largest per capita consumer of bread in the world. Not only that, the price of bread is going to go up an additional 20c, again because you Americans can't stop using those great big cars of yours and driving everwhere with them

So, anyway, the point is, we should get a $2 raise in our wages... and since 60% of our exports go to the US, that means you have come up with said cash (law of transfering wage increases to the consumer). I expect a check for US$12billion by the year's end.

 

[wazhazhe]

ami Yes…all because of a left wing liberal infatuation with raising minimum wage for low level employees, an entire economy can come to a halt

and with full UNemployment, sanitation measures are cut back, rats multiply, and soon you've got the bubonic plague.!

holy bejeezus! who'd have thought it! i guess it all goes back to the 'statist' second handers who insisted on freeing slaves and ruining the economies of the southern states.

but surely the coup de grace was long before 'minimum wage.' wasn't it giving women the vote that threw the whole US society down the toilet?

I agree. Giving women the right to vote opened the floodgates.

Just four years later American Indians were made US citizens and it's been all down hill since.

 

[Liar]

I think I did this in another thread a while back, but here we go:

Minimum Wage For Dummies.

1. In order to Work, people need to Live and be Healthy.

2. To Live and be Healthy costs Money. Rent, food, health care, clothes et al.

3. If the Money you get from Work isn't enough to Live and be Healthy, there's a Problem.

Ask any single parent with a Wal-mart-ish job if they make ends meet. Worst case scenario, you simply can't afford to work. It will be easier and more economically viable to collect welfare and do black market work on the side. Which can't be a good solution.

4. The solution to this Problem is one of three things: Get more Money per hour, Work more hours or reduce the cost of Living.

So which one of the three is the most plausible thing to do? Live cheaper? Not an option for most. They still need to live in some kind of proximity to their jobs. Rhey probably eat and wear on a budget as it is. Work more? A possibility. For those who are young and healthy enough to do that withouit wearing their health down. And kidless enough not to have a family responsibility that limits avalílable time. That leaves the more money-option. Sucks for whoever has to pay it. employer or goverment by subsidiaries but the only plausible option so that people can even afford to sell their time to employers.

It's basic market economy. If the cost for a product (in this case the labor the emplyee sells to the employer) exceeds the gain of selling it...why sell it? Why work if you can't live of it?

Also, if people have an extra dollar to consume (and believe you me, people on minimum wage won't start saving their extra dollar) will increase the basic consumer demand for goods and services. Which generates kick-back for the employer side of the equation.

 

[R. Richard]

I think how someone feels about this is relative to where they are in there life.

It's so easy to dish out facts of why raising minimum wage is a bad idea when you're not the one trying to afford an apartment & pay bills while working at Wal*Mart. When you're in that position, you don't care about those things; you just wonder how in the world you are supposed to be able to afford three times the rent (which almost every renting place around here requires you to make) on $6 an hour.

On the other hand, if you owned yor own business, I could see those facts that you listed being much more significant to you.

I grew up as Whi' Boy in the South Central. I had to live in an abandoned building and shoplift my food, because age discrimination in employment doesn't apply to 12-year-olds. Probably most of you have it much worse.

Of course, I had a ticket up. If I would just memorize enough poetry and enough historical dates, I would instantly make big bucks. On the other hand, if I learned anything to do with mathematics or the sciences, it would be useless information. Yeah, right.

I learned to fight and take money from other people. It was an easy life, unless you take into account that one failure, one loss would cost me my life. I sure should have stuck with memorizing poetry and made the bifg bucks there.

I now own my own business. I employ specialists who are good and efficient workers. I pay WELL above minimum wage. I also don't hire those whose talents are the memorization of poetry. [By the way, some of my workers can't read or write. HOWEVER, they are all spectacularly good with the tools of the trade. Some of my business endeavors include collecting what is owed The Man.]

 

[R. Richard]

I think I did this in another thread a while back, but here we go:

Minimum Wage For Dummies.

1. In order to Work, people need to Live and be Healthy.

2. To Live and be Healthy costs Money. Rent, food, health care, clothes et al.

3. If the Money you get from Work isn't enough to Live and be Healthy, there's a Problem.

Ask any single parent with a Wal-mart-ish job if they make ends meet. Worst case scenario, you simply can't afford to work. It will be easier and more economically viable to collect welfare and do black market work on the side. Which can't be a good solution.

4. The solution to this Problem is one of three things: Get more Money per hour, Work more hours or reduce the cost of Living.

So which one of the three is the most plausible thing to do? Live cheaper? Not an option for most. They still need to live in some kind of proximity to their jobs. Rhey probably eat and wear on a budget as it is. Work more? A possibility. For those who are young and healthy enough to do that withouit wearing their health down. And kidless enough not to have a family responsibility that limits avalílable time. That leaves the more money-option. Sucks for whoever has to pay it. employer or goverment by subsidiaries but the only plausible option so that people can even afford to sell their time to employers.

It's basic market economy. If the cost for a product (in this case the labor the emplyee sells to the employer) exceeds the gain of selling it...why sell it? Why work if you can't live of it?

Also, if people have an extra dollar to consume (and believe you me, people on minimum wage won't start saving their extra dollar) will increase the basic consumer demand for goods and services. Which generates kick-back for the employer side of the equation.

Liar:
Why don't you examine another alternative? Why don't the people trying to subsist on minimum wage acquire some skills that would allow them to earn above the minimum wage? [Hint: Memorizing poetry is not one of the needed skills.] Why don't the people who are subsisting on minimum wage take the high wage skills they learned in your public schools and use then to get a good, high-oaying job? [Whazzat? The public schools don't teach high wage skills? Maybe you have just identified the source of the problem. As far as I am concerned, the public schools can kiss my ass!]

 

[Tuomas]

There are a couple of things here I can respond too. First of all, Mickey D doesn't pay minimum wage. There is an exemption (The McDonald's Law) for fast food workers. Rather than $5.25 per hour, they are getting closer to $3.50.

Do you have a source for this? Because I've been looking for a while, and I can't find anything on McDonald's paying less than minimum wage. The only thing close was an article from the UK, claiming they pay something like 3.60 pounds sterling...

 

[Pure]

actually i agree

Originally Posted by Pure
P: but tuo, in your country (chile? peru?) what does a loaf of bread cost. here, it's often 2 dollars.


Tuo Here it's $1 (alright, 98c ), and we are the third largest per capita consumer of bread in the world. Not only that, the price of bread is going to go up an additional 20c, again because you Americans can't stop using those great big cars of yours and driving everwhere with them

So, anyway, the point is, we should get a $2 raise in our wages... and since 60% of our exports go to the US, that means you have come up with said cash (law of transfering wage increases to the consumer). I expect a check for US$12billion by the year's end.

I agree your workers deserve a raise.

I suppose I'm a hopelessly naive sobsister, ignorant of Rand's profundities, but I certainly prefer to buy foreign items from countries/companies that pay their workers a decent wage. A few goods are now labeled (i don't know the accuracy) "fair trade" items.

Heck, if i knew, i'd avoid buying goods produced by child labor (i.e., kids working full time and not going to school).

I know it's going to cause the downfall of the "American Way" and the freest nation in the world's history, but I can't help it. I admit i don't always buy the cheapest goods. So beat me.