The buck stops here


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @HardwareGeek said:

    Even people with Ph.D.s in economics can't agree on what the effect of a given change in the minimum wage would be on inflation and unemployment, much less where the balance should be.
    Technically, where the balance should be is politics and not economics. There's a number of arbitrary weighting factors in the models, and the values you use for them vary by your position on the political spectrum.



  • @Snooder said:

    The point is that the current wage of $7.25 is not enough to live on.

    Reminds me of that time McDonalds made a campaign to teach their workers how to plan their finances, they had to add a second full-time job and make half the expenses ridiculously low (like no heating) to make the ends meet.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Snooder said:

    @boomzilla said:
    The minimum wage is a red herring here, and you still haven't understood the minimum wage very well.

    The minimum wage is not a "red herring."

    Yes, in the context of the post I quoted it was.

    @Snooder said:

    To clarify, let's take the example of McDonalds minimum wage. Sure, paying a minimum wage of $15 would be outrageous. That's not the point. The point is that the current wage of $7.25 is not enough to live on.

    That's not the point at all. No one thinks you'll be living the high life on $7.25 per hour. If you're an unskilled person and cannot improve yourself or your prospects, life is going to suck for you. You may have just gotten a really shitty deal in life, but most likely, you participated in fucking yourself over. Raising the minimum wage just makes it more difficult for people like you to climb out of that hole, no matter how good are the intentions of the people setting the minimum wage. Magical thinking and magical thinking for the good of mankind are both magical thinking that doesn't work.



  • @boomzilla said:

    That's not the point at all. No one thinks you'll be living the high life on $7.25 per hour. If you're an unskilled person and cannot improve yourself or your prospects, life is going to suck for you. You may have just gotten a really shitty deal in life, but most likely, you participated in fucking yourself over. Raising the minimum wage just makes it more difficult for people like you to climb out of that hole, no matter how good are the intentions of the people setting the minimum wage. Magical thinking and magical thinking for the good of mankind are both magical thinking that doesn't work.

    "most likely, you participated in fucking yourself over" Bullshit. Prove it. If someone from a wealthy background with good educational opportunities ends up in McDonalds than fair enough, they wasted their chances. But if someone is born into poverty how the hell are they meant to get out of it? A college degree is very expensive and doesn't even guarantee a good job, it's just a basic requirement to get as far as an interview. How is someone from a poor background where they barely have enough money to pay for food and rent meant to get the training and skills for a software engineering job for example? They won't, too busy working overtime in awful jobs for shit money. Credit to you though, at least you're honest with the whole "fuck the poor, they probably deserve it" thing, most folks I know with your views hide their feelings towards the poor behind more BS.




    Your solution for getting more people to "climb out of that hole" is garbage btw. Hateful garbage. "Give them even less money so they starve faster" will probably thin the ranks of the poor alright, but they'll be getting buried in holes, not climbing out of any. Do you seriously want to go back to Victorian times, give people pennies for hours of labor, and laugh in your mansion as they slowly starve to death? You think that will make more people successful? Jesus, talk about "magical thinking", at least our "magical thinking" doesn't end up with piles of rotting corpses.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @KillaCoda said:

    "most likely, you participated in fucking yourself over" Bullshit. Prove it. If someone from a wealthy background with good educational opportunities ends up in McDonalds than fair enough, they wasted their chances. But if someone is born into poverty how the hell are they meant to get out of it? A college degree is very expensive and doesn't even guarantee a good job, it's just a basic requirement to get as far as an interview.

    You are doing well in the stupidest post in the thread contest. You don't need a college degree to get a good job, and you definitely don't need one to get something better than McDonalds. You don't have to be a genius at something, but you generally have to be willing to work and interested in learning things.

    @KillaCoda said:

    Credit to you though, at least you're honest with the whole "fuck the poor, they probably deserve it" thing, most folks I know with your views hide their feelings towards the poor behind more BS.

    Stop making shit up. I never said, "fuck the poor." I said people who are stuck forever in minimum wage type jobs have probably contributed to their situation. Your denial of reality is counterproductive.

    @KillaCoda said:

    Your solution for getting more people to "climb out of that hole" is garbage btw. Hateful garbage. "Give them even less money so they starve faster" will probably thin the ranks of the poor alright, but they'll be getting buried in holes, not climbing out of any.

    It's less garbage than your strawman debating technique. No one is talking about giving anyone less money. I can't help that you don't like kids or unskilled people--typically immigrants and minorities--but I don't have to buy into your horrible world view that thinks colored people are retards. The question is whether you consciously think that or just can't be troubled to examine your beliefs.

    @KillaCoda said:

    Do you seriously want to go back to Victorian times, give people pennies for hours of labor, and laugh in your mansion as they slowly starve to death? You think that will make more people successful? Jesus, talk about "magical thinking", at least our "magical thinking" doesn't end up with piles of rotting corpses.

    Wow, I didn't realize the Victorian era was all about rotting corpses. I've always associated that more with the sorts of societies where they believed they could rewrite economics and human behavior by fiat. Thanks for the laughs.



  • @boomzilla said:

    You don't need a college degree to get a good job, and you definitely don't need one to get something better than McDonalds. You don't have to be a genius at something, but you generally have to be willing to work and interested in learning things.

    And of course we have a tidy ready-made solution for all those ε- semi-morons who are simply not good at learning things: stick them in prison so they can beat and rape each other instead of letting them continue to fuck up my hamburgers. Truly stupid people are quite clearly incapable of contributing to society in any meaningful way, and it's quite clearly their own fault that they're stupid, so it's only right and proper that we arrange for them to have horrible lives. Fucking weaklings. Who needs them anyway.

    Am I doing this right?



  •  @PJH said:

    Given the fact that (a high) minimum wage actually increases youth unemployment (the typical cohort for whom the minimum wage applies) then 'attack' is an apposite term. e.g. http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/23/the-minimum-wage-is-too-high-youth-unemployment-proves-it/

    That very article shows that Spain has one of the lowest minimum wages in Europe while having one of the largest youth unemployment rates in Europe. I would not be surprised if you could find no correlation or even a negative correlation between both indicators using European countries as sample. Discuss. 

    And yes, I know we Spaniards just suck, but please provide better arguments for the sake of discussion flame.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @flabdablet said:

    Am I doing this right?

    Yes, you appear to have a natural aptitude and are willing to work at misunderstanding and extrapolating.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @javispedro said:

    That very article shows that Spain has one of the lowest minimum wages in Europe while having one of the largest youth unemployment rates in Europe.
    Spain is an outlier - it has the highest (all cohorts) unemployment rate by a long shot.



  • @javispedro said:

    That very article shows that Spain has one of the lowest minimum wages in Europe while having one of the largest youth unemployment rates in Europe.
     

    The question is: is the Spanish minimum wage, as the article describes, more or less than 40% of the average Spanish wage?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @javispedro said:

    @PJH said:
    Given the fact that (a high) minimum wage actually increases youth unemployment (the typical cohort for whom the minimum wage applies) then 'attack' is an apposite term. e.g. http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/23/the-minimum-wage-is-too-high-youth-unemployment-proves-it/

    That very article shows that Spain has one of the lowest minimum wages in Europe while having one of the largest youth unemployment rates in Europe. I would not be surprised if you could find no correlation or even a negative correlation between both indicators using European countries as sample. Discuss.

    Before drawing any conclusions, I'd want to compare the youth with non-youth unemployment rate. I'd be surprised if they were independent. The fact that the curves shoot up for Greece and Spain are evidence against. The article also talks about when at at what levels minimum wages have more consequences, which seems reasonable. Given these facts, a simple correlation (as suggested by you) is probably not a useful way to analyze the topic.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Another perverse consequence: Why Walmart is the Big Winner in DC's Minimum Wage Increase. Like many regulations, larger firms are better able to deal with the increased costs. Many people who argue for increased minimum wage also argue against things like Walmart vs small operators. Maybe not all of the proponents in this thread, but it seems pretty common to me.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Before drawing any conclusions, I'd want to compare the youth with non-youth unemployment rate. I'd be surprised if they were independent. The fact that the curves shoot up for Greece and Spain are evidence against. The article also talks about when at at what levels minimum wages have more consequences, which seems reasonable. Given these facts, a simple correlation (as suggested by you) is probably not a useful way to analyze the topic.
     

    Agreed. The problem is that the article mentions this correlation -- and then fails to explicitly mention that with the partial data they provided it is a negative correlation, i.e. unemployment grows as the minimum wage rises. Which is nonsense. Clearly, correlation is not useful for this topic, because there are a shitload other factors.

    However, the article's author, wanting to make a point, proceeds to single out Germany (which is the actual outlier in their own sample data, and not Spain!) and assert that this demonstrates the minimum wage is too high. TRWTF.



  • @javispedro said:

    @boomzilla said:

    Before drawing any conclusions, I'd want to compare the youth with non-youth unemployment rate. I'd be surprised if they were independent. The fact that the curves shoot up for Greece and Spain are evidence against. The article also talks about when at at what levels minimum wages have more consequences, which seems reasonable. Given these facts, a simple correlation (as suggested by you) is probably not a useful way to analyze the topic.
     

    Agreed. The problem is that the article mentions this correlation -- and then fails to explicitly mention that with the partial data they provided it is a negative correlation, i.e. unemployment grows as the minimum wage rises. Which is nonsense. Clearly, correlation is not useful for this topic, because there are a shitload other factors.

    However, the article's author, wanting to make a point, proceeds to single out Germany (which is the actual outlier in their own sample data, and not Spain!) and assert that this demonstrates the minimum wage is too high. TRWTF.




  • @javispedro said:

    and then fails to explicitly mention that with the partial data they provided it is a negative correlation, i.e. unemployment grows as the minimum wage rises decreases. Which is nonsense. Clearly, correlation is not useful for this topic, because there are a shitload other factors.
     

     Minor correction there. Otherwise my post does not make sense. Now it might. 

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @javispedro said:

    Clearly, correlation is not useful for this topic, because there are a shitload other factors.

    I think one important issue that's often overlooked is how few jobs actually pay minimum wage and how many people are qualified for just those jobs. Both are small numbers relative to most of the labor market. So I don't doubt that in aggregate numbers, you don't do much until you really start fucking things up (and there's a point where even the most economically illiterate start to balk).

    To paraphrase a great man in the world of economic justice, "One unemployed man is a tragedy, the unemployment of millions is a statistic." Like most statistics, I believe that this one is misused. When someone tells you that you have to break some eggs to make an omelette, you should be wary, because they often never get past the egg breaking stage.



  • @boomzilla said:

    you appear to have a natural aptitude and are willing to work at misunderstanding and extrapolating.
    Fries with that?



  • If you worked at McDonalds and were actually good at it, in 3-4 years you'd be an Assistant Manager and in another 3-4 years you could be a full Manager, and they make a livable wage. Since McDonalds hires a lot of transitory workers (high school kids over the summer, people looking for something else, crackheads temporarily without their crack...) turnover is high and the promotion prospects come fast. Hell, my brother was offered Assistant Manager at Burger King in less than 2 years, and he's a complete fuck-up.



  • @KillaCoda said:

    ...

    "most likely, you participated in fucking yourself over" Bullshit. Prove it. If someone from a wealthy background with good educational opportunities ends up in McDonalds than fair enough, they wasted their chances. But if someone is born into poverty how the hell are they meant to get out of it? A college degree is very expensive and doesn't even guarantee a good job, it's just a basic requirement to get as far as an interview. How is someone from a poor background where they barely have enough money to pay for food and rent meant to get the training and skills for a software engineering job for example? They won't, too busy working overtime in awful jobs for shit money. Credit to you though, at least you're honest with the whole "fuck the poor, they probably deserve it" thing, most folks I know with your views hide their feelings towards the poor behind more BS.




    ....

    I call bullshit on this. There is [i]tons[/i] of help for the poor to go to college and end the cycle of poverty - but few see the need since they can make it just fine on the multitude of other handouts given to them. My family couldn't afford college when I was younger, but I went on grants on scholarships. It was easy to get to college without paying a dime. But I screwed it up and partied to hard... but managed after a few years to carve out a decent living (more than my parents) with a blue collar job. Fast forward a few years, and I return to college to become a programmer - and it was MUCH harder to go to college as someone who made money. But this time I did it, and since I had to work so hard at it this time I did much better (although now I have student loans - but it was worth it).




    Point being, there are several ways for those in poverty to rise up beyond it, but the easy handouts is what holds them back. It doesn't help in the long run.




    I'm all for helping those in need - and things like welfare, unemployment, food stamps, ObamaPhones, etc. are good as a temporary boost for people, but making it so they rely on it, and convincing them they can't survive without it, causes the real damage.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @flabdablet said:

    @boomzilla said:
    you appear to have a natural aptitude and are willing to work at misunderstanding and extrapolating.
    Fries with that?

    Can I substitute onion rings?



  • @boomzilla said:

    You are doing well in the stupidest post in the thread contest. You don't need a college degree to get a good job, and you definitely don't need one to get something better than McDonalds. You don't have to be a genius at something, but you generally have to be willing to work and interested in learning things.

    You don't technically need one, but good luck going up against the candidates who DO have one. Which is more people than ever nowadays. Hmmm uneducated poor person or middle class university grad, who are businesses gonna hire?

    @boomzilla said:

    Stop making shit up. I never said, "fuck the poor." I said people who are stuck forever in minimum wage type jobs have probably contributed to their situation. Your denial of reality is counterproductive.

    People in minimum wage jobs ARE the poor. You dismissing their situation as probably their own fault is a nice way of saying "fuck 'em".

    @KillaCoda said:

    It's less garbage than your strawman debating technique. No one is talking about giving anyone less money. I can't help that you don't like kids or unskilled people--typically immigrants and minorities--but I don't have to buy into your horrible world view that thinks colored people are retards. The question is whether you consciously think that or just can't be troubled to examine your beliefs.

    Yes, you are.

    @KillaCoda said:

    Wow, I didn't realize the Victorian era was all about rotting corpses. I've always associated that more with the sorts of societies where they believed they could rewrite economics and human behavior by fiat. Thanks for the laughs.

    Yeah keep talking your bullshit and wishing more poor people could be even poorer. At least your type will never win, your time was a century or more ago.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @flabdablet said:
    @boomzilla said:
    you appear to have a natural aptitude and are willing to work at misunderstanding and extrapolating.
    Fries with that?

    Can I substitute onion rings?

    No you fucking can't, you fucking corporate oppressor. You'll eat the fucking fries I slaved over a vat of boiling fucking fat to cook for you and you will fucking well like them.

    Fucking onion rings!?

    Fuck.

    Certainly, Sir. Can I supersize that for you?



  • @flabdablet said:

    Can I supersize that for you?
     

    You clearly already are.



  • @DrakeSmith said:

    Point being, there are several ways for those in poverty to rise up beyond it, but the easy handouts is what holds them back.
     

    Falling down a hole (for whatever reason) and then being treated as inferior by at least half of society is what holds them back.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    If you worked at McDonalds and were actually good at it, in 3-4 years you'd be an Assistant Manager
     

    Why would I want to be a manager?



  • My point is that even if you are a loser who never looks for another job, you can still earn a livable wage working just for McDonalds... all you have to do is not be completely dim, and manage to go a few years without being fired.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @KillaCoda said:

    @boomzilla said:
    You don't need a college degree to get a good job, and you definitely don't need one to get something better than McDonalds.

    You don't technically need one, but good luck going up against the candidates who DO have one. Which is more people than ever nowadays. Hmmm uneducated poor person or middle class university grad, who are businesses gonna hire?

    Stop being stupid. There are lots of good jobs that don't require a degree and that lots of people make a living off of. Many of them don't involve sitting in front of a computer in an office, but your ignorance doesn't preclude their existence.

    @KillaCoda said:

    @boomzilla said:
    Stop making shit up. I never said, "fuck the poor." I said people who are stuck forever in minimum wage type jobs have probably contributed to their situation. Your denial of reality is counterproductive.

    People in minimum wage jobs ARE the poor. You dismissing their situation as probably their own fault is a nice way of saying "fuck 'em".

    I guess your poor reading comprehension shouldn't be surprising any more. I never dismissed them. Your feeble mind doesn't seem to comprehend that not all of them are poor (some are kids or secondary wage earners, etc) and that more importantly, not all of them stay at minimum wage sort of jobs (see blakeyrat's post above). I dismiss your clearly wrong arguments, not poor people or their situations.

    @KillaCoda said:

    @boomzilla said:
    Wow, I didn't realize the Victorian era was all about rotting corpses. I've always associated that more with the sorts of societies where they believed they could rewrite economics and human behavior by fiat. Thanks for the laughs.

    Yeah keep talking your bullshit and wishing more poor people could be even poorer. At least your type will never win, your time was a century or more ago.

    C'mon, you're not even trying to make sense any more. Don't we deserve a higher quality troll than this?


  • BINNED

    @boomzilla said:

    trying to teach a pig to sing

    You do realize you're wasting your time here, right?


    @boomzilla said:
    Don't we deserve a higher quality troll than this?

    There's no meaningful difference between trolls and the willfully ignorant except in their own minds.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @PedanticCurmudgeon said:

    @boomzilla said:
    trying to teach a pig to sing

    You do realize you're wasting your time here, right?

    I know that I'm not going to edumacate anyone, but my kids and the dog appreciate the reduced beatings brought about by yelling at people around here.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    My point is that even if you are a loser who never looks for another job, you can still earn a livable wage working just for McDonalds... all you have to do is not be *completely* dim, and manage to go a few years without being fired.


    It's certainly valid to say that wages at the lowest level of McDonald's employment should not be subject to a minimum wage because they are intended to be temporary work only and no competent adult should have the job long-term. Much the same way that one wouldn't apply a minimum wage provision when paying some kid to mow your lawn, or hiring a babysitter. Which is itself a concession that the wage isn't livable, just with the caveat that it isn't supposed to be, and there are counter-valing reasons why. However, that doesn't mean that a minimum wage in itself is invalid, just that the jobs that we are talking about shouldn't qualify for it.


    And in any case, I think one place where the discussion goes off the rails is in considering a minimum wage to be a "handout." It's not. The point of a minimum wage isn't really to uplift anyone or reduce income inequality. It's purely a regulatory control on the negotiating power of employers to keep employment contracts at least marginally fair. The reason it's a regulatory control is because individual employees have very little negotating power, so the only way for them to gain some parity when arguing for contract terms of employment like wages, holidays, etc. is to use the power of their combined numbers. Normally, this would be done through a Union, but in the case of the lowest level of absolutely unskilled workers, it's not really possible to create a union. There would be no way of generating the necessary amount of organization and cohesion. So instead, they have to wield the only power they DO have in a democratic society, the vote. There are plenty of other governmental controls on the power of contract, not least of which is that simple fact that you have to have a government in order to enforce a contract at all. And yes, that includes employment contracts.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Snooder said:

    The point of a minimum wage isn't really to uplift anyone or reduce income inequality. It's purely a regulatory control on the negotiating power of employers to keep employment contracts at least marginally fair. The reason it's a regulatory control is because individual employees have very little negotating power, so the only way for them to gain some parity when arguing for contract terms of employment like wages, holidays, etc. is to use the power of their combined numbers.

    Yes, their combined numbers. But that's more powerful than you seem to think it is, even if you can't watch it as closely as you can a particular employment agreement. Think about the ridiculous job offers that float through here, where the requirements call for outrageous things and levels of responsibility for $30K (or whatever ridiculous number). People who can actually do what they're asking for can get better deals elsewhere. So they either don't hire anyone, pay more than they thought about, hire someone more in line with the salary or get super lucky and land someone taking a huge pay cut. These all have effects, and if they manage to get someone to take a huge cut, that guy is only going to stay around until he can find something better. There are certainly people who try to run their businesses as sweatshops, and this can even work for very low skilled things (like, say, flipping burgers or cleaning toilets). Once you get beyond things that take little or no skill, however, it's to their advantage to behave otherwise, and largely, they do.

    You can hopefully see how your argument breaks down when you consider the prices for other things. Why is the price of labor so special? How do you determine when enough is enough?

    There's obviously friction involved in all of that, and only the truly ignorant or those crafting straw men say otherwise. But the alternative is to give artificial incentives to the owners to find ways to increase productivity, either by hiring more capable people or some sort of capital investment (which may also spur something like new automation technology). And then we complain about the lack of entry level sort of jobs.

    Of course, in the US especially, you also need to consider other pressures involving people getting paid under the table, and therefore already outside of the law, so who cares if you violate minimum wage statutes?


  • BINNED

    @Snooder said:

    individual employees have very little negotating power


    I'm in general staying out of this argument, but this is a real howler. Are you seriously saying this on a forum mostly composed of IT professionals?



  • @boomzilla said:

    @Snooder said:
    The reason it's a regulatory control is because individual employees have very little negotating power, so the only way for them to gain some parity when arguing for contract terms of employment like wages, holidays, etc. is to use the power of their combined numbers.
    There are certainly people who try to run their businesses as sweatshops, and this can even work for very low skilled things (like, say, flipping burgers or cleaning toilets).

    Pretty sure that Snooder meant for the regulatory control to be on those very low skilled things, but wasn't properly qualifying his statements.  So it's more of using minimum wages to help keep people from running those sweatshop like businesses.




  • ♿ (Parody)

    @locallunatic said:

    @boomzilla said:

    @Snooder said:
    The reason it's a regulatory control is because individual employees have very little negotating power, so the only way for them to gain some parity when arguing for contract terms of employment like wages, holidays, etc. is to use the power of their combined numbers.
    There are certainly people who try to run their businesses as sweatshops, and this can even work for very low skilled things (like, say, flipping burgers or cleaning toilets).

    Pretty sure that Snooder meant for the regulatory control to be on those very low skilled things, but wasn't properly qualifying his statements.  So it's more of using minimum wages to help keep people from running those sweatshop like businesses.

    Yes, and if you raise wages above what the sweaters can produce, the employers will find a better way and those guys will be out of luck. It doesn't really matter if the supply is constrained by people not finding it worthwhile or regulated out of existence. Or, they'll just pay people illegally, like I said.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @locallunatic said:

    @boomzilla said:

    @Snooder said:
    The reason it's a regulatory control is because individual employees have very little negotating power, so the only way for them to gain some parity when arguing for contract terms of employment like wages, holidays, etc. is to use the power of their combined numbers.
    There are certainly people who try to run their businesses as sweatshops, and this can even work for very low skilled things (like, say, flipping burgers or cleaning toilets).

    Pretty sure that Snooder meant for the regulatory control to be on those very low skilled things, but wasn't properly qualifying his statements.  So it's more of using minimum wages to help keep people from running those sweatshop like businesses.

    Yes, and if you raise wages above what the sweaters can produce, the employers will find a better way and those guys will be out of luck. It doesn't really matter if the supply is constrained by people not finding it worthwhile or regulated out of existence. Or, they'll just pay people illegally, like I said.

    I agree with the finding a better way point, and that is how I see minimum wages working.  Made Up Example: you could hire 4 dishwashers to do it by hand for pennies or buy a dishwashing machine and hire one person (granted when I worked as a dishwasher I made more than minimum wage).  Most businesses tend to only look at the short term and so would want to do the 4 really crappy jobs rather than one kinda crappy job and an investment, but limits on how low they can pay mean that it is a way to push businesses to go with the later option.  You do remove possible jobs, but the one that remains now can actually help create jobs as they rent and buy food rather than living under a bridge and eating out of dumpsters.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @locallunatic said:

    @boomzilla said:

    @Snooder said:
    The reason it's a regulatory control is because individual employees have very little negotating power, so the only way for them to gain some parity when arguing for contract terms of employment like wages, holidays, etc. is to use the power of their combined numbers.
    There are certainly people who try to run their businesses as sweatshops, and this can even work for very low skilled things (like, say, flipping burgers or cleaning toilets).

    Pretty sure that Snooder meant for the regulatory control to be on those very low skilled things, but wasn't properly qualifying his statements.  So it's more of using minimum wages to help keep people from running those sweatshop like businesses.

    Yes, and if you raise wages above what the sweaters can produce, the employers will find a better way and those guys will be out of luck. It doesn't really matter if the supply is constrained by people not finding it worthwhile or regulated out of existence. Or, they'll just pay people illegally, like I said.

    I've seen employers deal with the increased labor costs in a lot of different ways, but it always ends up being a cost to or burden for the employee, usually increasing responsibilities, decreasing training time, or dropping benefits (or simply refusing to hire employees "full time"), sometimes they'll just require employees to work extra hours (usually store opening/closing) without pay.

    People can argue the morality of it as much as they want, but in the end, some people are just going to be goats, and some are going to be cars.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Yes, their combined numbers. But that's more powerful than you seem to think it is, even if you can't watch it as closely as you can a particular employment agreement. Think about the ridiculous job offers that float through here, where the requirements call for outrageous things and levels of responsibility for $30K (or whatever ridiculous number). People who can actually do what they're asking for can get better deals elsewhere. So they either don't hire anyone, pay more than they thought about, hire someone more in line with the salary or get super lucky and land someone taking a huge pay cut. These all have effects, and if they manage to get someone to take a huge cut, that guy is only going to stay around until he can find something better. There are certainly people who try to run their businesses as sweatshops, and this can even work for very low skilled things (like, say, flipping burgers or cleaning toilets). Once you get beyond things that take little or no skill, however, it's to their advantage to behave otherwise, and largely, they do.

     

    Sorry, apparently I was unclear. I was only referring to unskilled or low-skilled workers. Obviously, the more integral a specific individual is to the workings of the business, the more control he has over the negotiation process.

    @boomzilla said:

    You can hopefully see how your argument breaks down when you consider the prices for other things. Why is the price of labor so special? How do you determine when enough is enough?


    What makes you think the price of labor is special? There are plenty of other places where the government sets controls to prevent unfair abuse in an otherwise free negotation. Usury laws, for example, exist to prevent unscrupulous lenders from taking advantage of people. As do laws against pyramid schemes and other shady investment packages that prey on the gullible. Or, if we move beyond just wage control, we begin to look at things like mandatory holidays, 40 hour work-weeks, mandatory time-and-a-half overtime, etc. Which is no different from laws requiring landlords to keep their property in livable condition, or requiring insurance companies to provide a certain minimum level of coverage. It's one thing when both parties in the negotiation are relatively sophisticated actors, but when we have a huge disparity in power, it's unfair to just wash our hands and say "eh, he got a shit bargain, it's his fault."

    Edit: and when I say "unfair" I don't mean that in a moralistic sense. I mean it in a "the guy getting the shaft is going to be pissed off and we can't blame him" sense. Which, if there's no legal recourse will lead him to try extra-legal methods of redressing the balance. And giving some minimum wage schlub a buck extra so he doesn't feel angry enough about his lot in life to start burning cars seems like a smart plan to me. Society, especially democratic society, relies on people feeling that even if they may not be at the top of the hill, things are mostly "fair" and they don't get shafted unless they did something to deserve it. When you force someone to choose between shitty sweatshop conditions and no job at all, they rapidly begin to feel that things aren't fair. And then they start to do something about it. And not just minor whining about the 1% or corporate greed; we're talking straight up blood, fire and anarchy.



  •  @Shoreline said:

    @PJH said:
    @gu3st said:
    But I thought 'murica was fucked cause them darn immigrants.
    The 1400's bunch or the 1900's/2000's bunch?

    The 1000s bunch. Damn danish.

    Great, now I want pastry. I'm trying to diet, you know!

    It was actually the 15000BCE one. That's what brought in them darn injuns. If they hadn't come, mined all the gold and buried it deep down beneath the mountains, we'd all be rich now!

     


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Buttembly Coder said:

    've seen employers deal with the increased labor costs in a lot of different ways, but it always ends up being a cost to or burden for the employee, usually increasing responsibilities, decreasing training time, or dropping benefits (or simply refusing to hire employees "full time"), sometimes they'll just require employees to work extra hours (usually store opening/closing) without pay
    Zero-hour contracts. That's another consequence over here.



  • @boomzilla said:

    It's not really necessary for the WTF, but it makes it a bit richer, and gives us stuff to argue about (which is really the most important thing for a sidebar post). It's kind of like the President's daughter, but more relevant and better done, IMHO. I think a more relevant criticism of the OP would focus on his lack of paragraphs. Paragraphs, man! Hitting the quote button, I see line breaks, so I assume he's using chrome and not caring enough about his readers to add the tags, the selfish bastard.

    @boomzilla: Thanks for getting "it" and the praise. My original post was a copy / paste job from notes on my iPhone. Apparently the paragraph breaks didn't make it and for some reason I'm not allowed to edit my posts...

    Anyway, getting into the whole minimum wage debate: there are serious issues that occur when the minimum wage is raised that most proponents don't even think about. Sure, raising it from $7.25 to $10.00 sounds like an awesome idea! After all, Walmart/McDonald's could just raise their prices by less than 1% to cover it so prices "shouldn't" be impacted by too much and those wage earners would be so much better off. So why wouldn't you do it?

    The answer is simple when you actually understand economics: The main thing to remember is that prices are rarely, if ever, based on the actual cost to create and get an item to a retail shelf. Instead they are almost entirely based on the price that the market is willing to pay for it.

    In 2012 roughly 4.7% of hourly workers in the US were paid at, or below, minimum wage. This is a significant number of people who are buying groceries, gas and other essentials. Typically within one to two month's after a minimum wage increase the prices paid for those essentials goes up. Why? Because there is now more money in the system and producers take advantage of the fact. Every single time more money is pumped into the system whether through min wage increases, lowered restrictions on gaining credit or even straight up hand outs then prices rise.

    A minimum wage worker usually has a period of about two months after getting the raise before they are right back to where they started with regards to buying power. Sometimes they are even worse off as they don't realize things are going to return to normal and make stupid decisions during this time. In other words, you really aren't doing them a favor by raising rates. Oh, you'll get the popular vote because the idea sounds great; but it's a very short term "patch" which is why the timing of the past increases should be interesting to voters...

    This effect was seen on an enormous scale when the ability to obtain mortgages in the US was increased into the stupid area. The combination of more people being able to obtain mortgages plus higher loan amounts ( or lower monthly payments depending upon your perspective) encouraged house prices to skyrocket. After all if you were previously paying around $1000/month for a $100k house and now you can pay $1000/month for a $200k house then pretty soon house prices double. The crash happened when the fine print on those crazy mortgage instruments starting kicking in (such as increased APR after 3/6/10 years, repayment of actual loan - not just interest - starting at 5 years) and raised the monthly payments to where they should have been to begin with caused a glut of homes to be put up for sale and, therefore, lowered prices into a death spiral. Not only was this completely foreseeable but two companies I worked with during this period had plans in place to capitalize on the downward spiraling event several years prior to it happening.

    That said, the absolute best way to help the poor is to provide a mechanism that they can optionally take advantage of in order to better their situation. One example is free university education combined with free child care - with a requirement for making forward progress at school. I'd even go so far as paying for food and housing while they were going to school. This would be a huge benefit and ultimately the right thing to do as teaching a man to fish is far better than handing him one every Tuesday. The thing to remember though is that only some lower income people will take this path... after all, it's hard work to better yourself and a great many of them simply aren't interested in anything other than forcing others to pay for their life. Bread and Circuses and all that.

    So, yes, I poke fun at American Liberals as most of them seem to encourage hand outs from "Them" with little or no personal responsibility. Then again, I also frequently poke fun at American Conservatives as most of them seem to just not get what it actually takes for someone to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Both of those groups have lost sight of what it really takes to encourage and maintain a healthy growth path for the country. And no, I'm not a communist or tea partier either. I'm just a guy who knows what it takes to build something and has a few ideas on how others can do the same.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @clively said:

    and for some reason I'm not allowed to edit my posts...
    You can; there's simply a time limit within which you can do so.



  • @clively said:

    That said, the absolute best way to help the poor is to provide a mechanism that they can optionally take advantage of in order to better their situation. One example is free university education combined with free child care - with a requirement for making forward progress at school. I'd even go so far as paying for food and housing while they were going to school. This would be a huge benefit and ultimately the right thing to do as teaching a man to fish is far better than handing him one every Tuesday. The thing to remember though is that only some lower income people will take this path... after all, it's hard work to better yourself and a great many of them simply aren't interested in anything other than forcing others to pay for their life. Bread and Circuses and all that.
     

    You seem rational now. Sorry for making you the butt of my discussion on the first page.



  • @clively said:

    This would be a huge benefit and ultimately the right thing to do as teaching a man to fish is far better than handing him one every Tuesday.

    Knowing how to fish is of limited use when all the fishing holes have been bought up and fenced off.

    @clively said:

    So, yes, I poke fun at American Liberals as most of them seem to encourage hand outs from "Them" with little or no personal responsibility.

    ...as opposed to the thrifty, hardworking self-made men who run the huge American financial and military contracting concerns.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @flabdablet said:

    @clively said:
    So, yes, I poke fun at American Liberals as most of them seem to encourage hand outs from "Them" with little or no personal responsibility.

    ...as opposed to the thrifty, hardworking self-made men who run the huge American financial and military contracting concerns.

    I know you're a foreigner, but you should understand that American Liberals are all about increasing corporate welfare. It's basically their signature issue right now, and since you're against that, you must be racist.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    I know you're a foreigner, but you should understand that American Liberals are all about increasing corporate welfare. It's basically their signature issue right now, and since you're against that, you must be racist.
    From the outside, it looks to be mostly a tussle between different corporate groups over who gets the lion's share of the corporate welfare. Oh, and with a large slice of beggar-my-neighbour-ism too. (It appears that some of the big beneficiaries of the past have realised — at least intellectually — that the game is basically up, but aren't being very gracious about ceding their time in the sun. Messy.)

    The other big thing appears to be long-term demographic and cultural shifts that appear to be favouring the Democrats more than the Republicans. The fix for the Right there is to modify or drop some of their policies so that they can get more votes from parts of the population where they're currently underrepresented; this is not going to be popular with their current rank-and-file at all…


  • BINNED

    @clively said:

    That said, the absolute best way to help the poor is to provide a mechanism that they can optionally take advantage of in order to better their situation. One example is free university education combined with free child care - with a requirement for making forward progress at school. I'd even go so far as paying for food and housing while they were going to school. This would be a huge benefit and ultimately the right thing to do as teaching a man to fish is far better than handing him one every Tuesday. The thing to remember though is that only some lower income people will take this path... after all, it's hard work to better yourself and a great many of them simply aren't interested in anything other than forcing others to pay for their life. Bread and Circuses and all that.

    It's always interesting to see this type of argument here on a forum composed mostly of IT professionals, many of whom don't have a college degree. College education has never been the only way to get ahead; these days it's not even a way to get ahead unless you major in a STEM discipline. I can't be the only one who knows coffee shop managers with degrees who are still there because they can't get a real job.



  •  So... getting jobs is hard, let's go shopping! oh wait we can't?


  • BINNED

    Again, most of us have jobs in IT, and we don't all have college degrees. There are other lucrative professions (auto mechanic comes to mind) that also don't require a degree.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @dkf said:

    The other big thing appears to be long-term demographic and cultural shifts that appear to be favouring the Democrats more than the Republicans. The fix for the Right there is to modify or drop some of their policies so that they can get more votes from parts of the population where they're currently underrepresented; this is not going to be popular with their current rank-and-file at all…

    That's certainly the conventional wisdom. But we'll see. There are a lot of unsustainable things going on with our Federal government that seem to be nearing the point where it's not just obvious, but stuff starts to fail. The Democrats made a big mistake in designing a program that causes immediate and traceable pain to a lot of people, and no amount of spinning (even with enthusiastic partners in the media) can overcome direct experience. The next few months should be interesting as even the lowest of the low information voters get an education. If interest rates ever get out of the basement, times will get very interesting.

    The Republicans also have a problem in that their established office holders and associated flunkies are often more interested in the status quo (though still less than the Donks are) than is the base.


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