Originally posted by biofellis

Good stuff 

In an effort to cut the huge quotes to something more comparable I'd like to modulate our conversation.  I will first touch upon your points :)

Your first point is very good.  I actually agree with you.  However I draw the line and say that what you describe is called Corporatism not Capitalism.  I know you're not claiming that it is, I just wanted to take a moment to illustrate the difference.  Corporatism is only possible through the cooperation of government.  It's government help, be it through bail outs (most recent examples) or mandates (such as forcing everyone to buy a product, like health insurance) or regulations (utility monopolies) that help corporations grow bigger and have more influence than they normally would.

Capitalism is self correcting.  When companies get too big they will become complacent.  It's human nature to get comfortable and take good times for granted.  When the inevitable bad times come around due to market corrections monopolies and corporations should suffer the worst as smaller more agile companies are able to take advantage of new opportunities.

Take for example the bank bailouts.  The first problem is their profits were on fake assets (CDO's) and wealth but that is for another discussion. :) The second problem is they should have been allowed to die.  Yes this would've been harsh, and yes this could've driven us in to a depression but I truely think we're going to head there anyways.  Furthermore the money spent to consoldiate the financial system was with TARP funds.  Companies like Chase would not have been able to buy Bank of America if they didn't have these TARP funds.  If Goldman Sachs had been allowed to die smaller community banks would've been able to buy small parts of it or rose up to provide the exact same services that GS did.

I only want to touch on one more point to keep this post short :) (relatively!)

You bring up some examples of good regulations.  I just don't think they are necessary.  yes there are bad companies, and those will die on their own.  Your example of bad management is great because I hate bad managers.  I'm under one now which is why I'm leaving to start my own thing :)  I believe that if the government would just get out of trying to run our daily lives (and this includes our work lives) that we'd all have more choices and would be better off.  To address your specific point of companies promoting safe places to work.  I don't think we need government regulations to enforce this.  The bad press alone of having a worker die on site would be enough to sink that company.

I just want to end on this last point

"Getting sick should not enslave you to another"

with

"Nor should others become enslaved to you when you become sick"

The only virtuous way to deal with you being sick is through mutual voluntary exchange.  Its up to you and your doctor to determine what that is. (money, goods, services, charity, whatever, it's up to you)

apparently my only wanting to touch on 1 point turned in to 3 =p

I wanted to thank Bio and Smoke for the excellent exchange of ideas in the above posts.  Very informative and civil

Originally posted by biofellis

Originally posted by kiddyno071

Originally posted by biofellis

Originally posted by kiddyno071

 If you would care to go back a read my earlier post you will see that it is about increasing profit and lowering overhead.   You can come work for me for $2.00/hr, if you work out you can expect an $0.11 raise within the year. 

Are you guys really so wrapped up in this idea that you can't see, realize or appreciate that the costs of living aren't going to go down?

People can't live off $2.00 an hour ($360/mo)- except as virtual slaves.

Get a roommate- or two or four, barely afford food, live in the dark.

Oh what a great era you will usher in.

Bio... Please take a breath and really read my earlier posts on this thread... then we can talk.

Fair enough. Am I the only one that knows that sarcasm doesn't always translate well in text?

Anyway, I'll assume I missed something, apologize, and check the thread later- I gotta run.

Take care!

Its really no big deal, really.  I wouldn't expect that you would have known I was being sarcastic, I wouldn't have reading my post.  I directed you to read my series of posts on this thread as it shows my evolving opinion on the topic of the MW.  I actually really agree with much of what you are saying and my $2.00/hour posts out of context really gives the impression that I am anti-MW which is not the case.

Peace!

Originally posted by kiddyno071 

Dek, I have to say that this has to be one of the most judgmental, narrow minded and offensive statements I have read in some time.  You fail to appreciate that sometimes financial misfortune strikes families, unemployment or serious illness, and this does not mean they are "unfit" parents.

I'm not speaking of ones who fall on hard times, but of those who are on welfare programs - those who cannot support themselves - and they continue to keep popping out kids. I can see where otherwise that would be offensive. I should have clarified.

Originally posted by biofellis

Originally posted by Fishermage

 

All my assertions are built upon the pages of posts I have made elsewhere. You dismissed my thoughts by calling them "an illusion." That means you do not wish to even engage me. that is why i dismissed you. We have nothing more to discuss.
i am aware that profits can be made in all sorts of ways -- none of taht touches MY argument. But since you do not believe in it, it doesn't effect you.

I believe in the principle of self ownership, you do not., End of discussion.

After that moment nothing can be argued and all that is left is the personal. Go argue with people who share your premises. I do not.

 

Appeal to motive. Ah! Coupled with Straw man? And the thought-terminating cliche- how adorable- I haven't seen that in a while.

It is you who have refused to actually argue the issues, and instead 'argue the argument'. Whatever.

'Go argue with people who share your premises'?

You don't realize that makes no sense, do you?

Well, I don't take it personally, but do what you will.

There can be no debate if we disagree with basic premises. If you do not believe people own themselves, we have nothing to discuss. In that all you want to do is make an appeal to utility (which is not a fallacy by the way, just an approach I am bored with on these forums), then smoke is the guy for you. He still enjoys it. I tired long ago with such things, and engage in it rarely.

As it stands I believe in self ownership, and you don't. End of discussion.

Originally posted by Fishermage

LOL. malthus = the most disproven guy in the history of socioeconomic thought.

I'd love to know how you can disprove what basically amounts to supply and demand. Now, I'm not going too deep into Malthus's stuff here, because yes, the guy was a toolbox. But he did have a point in saying that too much available unskilled labor will cause employers to pay peanuts for the labor they can get. In fact, last I checked, this is the entire reason we have a border patrol and why we don't like illegal immigrants.

Also, given that the current state of the economy was directly caused by economists, I wouldn't really rely on ANY economic theory to support an argument. What I'm saying should just be common sense.

Originally posted by Draq

Originally posted by Fishermage

LOL. malthus = the most disproven guy in the history of socioeconomic thought.

 

I'd love to know how you can disprove what basically amounts to supply and demand. Now, I'm not going too deep into Malthus's stuff here, because yes, the guy was a toolbox. But he did have a point in saying that too much available unskilled labor will cause employers to pay peanuts for the labor they can get. In fact, last I checked, this is the entire reason we have a border patrol and why we don't like illegal immigrants.

Also, given that the current state of the economy was directly caused by economists, I wouldn't really rely on ANY economic theory to support an argument. What I'm saying should just be common sense.

The main thing that was refuted by Malthus was his ideas that such a thing as "overpopulation" was really possible. he never accounted for the fact that changes in technology and increases in scientific knowledge would increase supply of food an other commodities way beyond any population growth.

We now have more than enough food to feed everyone until they were fat forever -- the only problem is socialist and semi-socialist political systems that screw up distribution.

The current state of the economy was caused by socialism and government control over the economy -- and it was economists (classical liberal and libertarian ones) who predicted and warned of everything that happened.

there are economic theories that work, and others that don't. Governments have chosen the ones that don't, because they buy votes fro short periods of time by giving people free stuff at the expense of the future. Those chickens are coming home to roost, as many economists warned of.

Reapectively, I post only, my opinion, and experience, on this matter.

As it is a subject, that comes up, everytime the minimum wage is raised, and, there seems to be no end to new and creative argeuments, both for , and against it, ultimately, I feel, and have noticed, that

A) while we didnt raise the wage for years, prices on goods and services continued to go up steadily, and

B) if we had never raised it ,since I first entered the workforce, ithe minimum wage would be $1.10 per hr.

Now Im going to be sarcastic. Clear?

It would be great for employers, to be able to pay those,cry baby poor people 5 bucks, or 4 bucks, or even a buck ten. After all, arent they allready sub human? That would mean the Government would have to tax those bisnesses even more, to fill the huge void in revenue, to pad their pockets, in the manner they have been accustomed to.

Now I am going to be serious,

Anyone, who doesnt understand  all the things minimum(and below) wage workers provide for them.

Hant HAD, to live on minimum wage. Thats more than just bugdgeting, for you are treated as sub human, in so many ways I am not even going to list ANY of them.

Is a buisness owner who blames everyone else for their poor buisness management ability's

Is a buisness owner that has just been caught by this whole economic situation, and is hurt and at whits end, because they may have to go to work for minimum wage, and needs something , or someone else to blame.

Doesnt have a soul

Is a waste of cranial space

Has limited experience in life, and forms judgements, opinions, and words based on theory.

Honestly beleives poor people ARE sub human

Or a combination of these listed above

There of course may be other type casts, these Ive listed have just been what Ive seen in my life.

Minimum wage was't a factor in my life, for many years, as I was basically middle class all my life. I know how much it costs to live, and as I stated early on, I saw while that long period of time that the minimum wage didnt raise much, the prices of things, increased steadily.

Try living on mimimum wage, acquire some knowledge about the subject, by living it. Realize that while everyone can go to college, and get a degree. There arent, and cannot be, well paying jobs for every person in the USA.

There will always be minimum wage jobs. And prices will allways go up, regardless.

And these are a few practical reason why. And a bit of a slam in defense of my opinion.

It just seems so crazy to me to even question why, or should we.

Originally posted by Dekron

Originally posted by kiddyno071 

Dek, I have to say that this has to be one of the most judgmental, narrow minded and offensive statements I have read in some time.  You fail to appreciate that sometimes financial misfortune strikes families, unemployment or serious illness, and this does not mean they are "unfit" parents.

 

I'm not speaking of ones who fall on hard times, but of those who are on welfare programs - those who cannot support themselves - and they continue to keep popping out kids. I can see where otherwise that would be offensive. I should have clarified.

Fair enough, I may have been a little reactive to your post and apologize if I offended you.  We are often at odds, but I do enjoy our discourse.

Originally posted by mudstuck

Reapectively, I post only, my opinion, and experience, on this matter.

As it is a subject, that comes up, everytime the minimum wage is raised, and, there seems to be no end to new and creative argeuments, both for , and against it, ultimately, I feel, and have noticed, that

A) while we didnt raise the wage for years, prices on goods and services continued to go up steadily, and

B) if we had never raised it ,since I first entered the workforce, ithe minimum wage would be $1.10 per hr.

Now Im going to be sarcastic. Clear?

It would be great for employers, to be able to pay those,cry baby poor people 5 bucks, or 4 bucks, or even a buck ten. After all, arent they allready sub human? That would mean the Government would have to tax those bisnesses even more, to fill the huge void in revenue, to pad their pockets, in the manner they have been accustomed to.

Now I am going to be serious,

Anyone, who doesnt understand  all the things minimum(and below) wage workers provide for them.

Hant HAD, to live on minimum wage. Thats more than just bugdgeting, for you are treated as sub human, in so many ways I am not even going to list ANY of them.

Is a buisness owner who blames everyone else for their poor buisness management ability's

Is a buisness owner that has just been caught by this whole economic situation, and is hurt and at whits end, because they may have to go to work for minimum wage, and needs something , or someone else to blame.

Doesnt have a soul

Is a waste of cranial space

Has limited experience in life, and forms judgements, opinions, and words based on theory.

Honestly beleives poor people ARE sub human

Or a combination of these listed above

There of course may be other type casts, these Ive listed have just been what Ive seen in my life.

Minimum wage was't a factor in my life, for many years, as I was basically middle class all my life. I know how much it costs to live, and as I stated early on, I saw while that long period of time that the minimum wage didnt raise much, the prices of things, increased steadily.

Try living on mimimum wage, acquire some knowledge about the subject, by living it. Realize that while everyone can go to college, and get a degree. There arent, and cannot be, well paying jobs for every person in the USA.

There will always be minimum wage jobs. And prices will allways go up, regardless.

And these are a few practical reason why. And a bit of a slam in defense of my opinion.

It just seems so crazy to me to even question why, or should we.

There's a  lot of interesting thoughts in this post.  I'd like to counter your post with a short series of my own points

1) If even after 2 years of unskilled labor work, you still only meet the requirements of unskilled labor than you are doing something wrong.  I worked as a bus boy for 3 years and was able to move up the chain at the restaurant and eventually used skills I was learning at high school to work in a computer department for a local retail store earning $11/hour.

2) Being treated as unhuman is irrelevant to having a minimum wage.  All labor should be respected but you won't change human nature.  Forcing minimum wage requirements on unskilled labor won't make society look down upon them any less.  This is a failure of that individual or company and the solution is not more money.

3) We have already shown the facts that unemployment rises and prices rise when you institute a minimum wage.  Stating "Prices will always rise" is first - not true (up until 1913 when the Fed was instituted prices continuously decreased as the dollar increased in value due to sound money principles), and second - minimum wages increase the rate of any natural rising in prices we are experiencing today (again due to bad Fed monetary policy).  Please address these points :)

4) We have already shown it is possible to live on $7/hour earlier in this thread, it won't be pretty, you'll need to work more than 40 hour weeks, but its possible.  yea it sucks, but it also provides motivation to learn skills that will pay you more

5) For all of your examples of poor managers who manage minimum wage employees I know just as many good managers who put time and effort in to empowering and developing their employees.

6) Wages have historically been the last things to increase in value.  This is pretty much an uncontested economic fact.  The "solution" if there is one is not government intervention, it is the elimination of inflation and the slow but steady deflation of our currency.  The optimum would be zero change obviously but that is impossible.  So 1% either way is ideal.  We have been living in an average of 5% inflation for some time (3 year moving average).

I'd be more than happy to explain inflation and why it is the true cause of the income gap if you are interested.  but we should probably make a different thread if that's the case :)

Thanks for posting mud!

One thing about inflation that does have a bearing on minimum wage is that the minimum wage increase CAUSES inflation. In that it is a non-market oriented increase in wages, and is immediate and widespread, it instantly increases the purchasing power of everyone who receives it, and it does so unnaturally.

This causes  demand-pull inflation. More people suddenly have more money and they spend more on consumer goods. This bids up the prices of those goods.

At the same time it raises the cost of goods, since businesses need to pay workers more. That raises prices through cost-push inflation.

That is one of the many utilitarian arguments against minimum wages or increases in them. The increase tends to be eaten up by rising prices.

Originally posted by smokemonsc

Originally posted by mudstuck

Reapectively, I post only, my opinion, and experience, on this matter.

As it is a subject, that comes up, everytime the minimum wage is raised, and, there seems to be no end to new and creative argeuments, both for , and against it, ultimately, I feel, and have noticed, that

A) while we didnt raise the wage for years, prices on goods and services continued to go up steadily, and

B) if we had never raised it ,since I first entered the workforce, ithe minimum wage would be $1.10 per hr.

Now Im going to be sarcastic. Clear?

It would be great for employers, to be able to pay those,cry baby poor people 5 bucks, or 4 bucks, or even a buck ten. After all, arent they allready sub human? That would mean the Government would have to tax those bisnesses even more, to fill the huge void in revenue, to pad their pockets, in the manner they have been accustomed to.

Now I am going to be serious,

Anyone, who doesnt understand  all the things minimum(and below) wage workers provide for them.

Hant HAD, to live on minimum wage. Thats more than just bugdgeting, for you are treated as sub human, in so many ways I am not even going to list ANY of them.

Is a buisness owner who blames everyone else for their poor buisness management ability's

Is a buisness owner that has just been caught by this whole economic situation, and is hurt and at whits end, because they may have to go to work for minimum wage, and needs something , or someone else to blame.

Doesnt have a soul

Is a waste of cranial space

Has limited experience in life, and forms judgements, opinions, and words based on theory.

Honestly beleives poor people ARE sub human

Or a combination of these listed above

There of course may be other type casts, these Ive listed have just been what Ive seen in my life.

Minimum wage was't a factor in my life, for many years, as I was basically middle class all my life. I know how much it costs to live, and as I stated early on, I saw while that long period of time that the minimum wage didnt raise much, the prices of things, increased steadily.

Try living on mimimum wage, acquire some knowledge about the subject, by living it. Realize that while everyone can go to college, and get a degree. There arent, and cannot be, well paying jobs for every person in the USA.

There will always be minimum wage jobs. And prices will allways go up, regardless.

And these are a few practical reason why. And a bit of a slam in defense of my opinion.

It just seems so crazy to me to even question why, or should we.

 

There's a  lot of interesting thoughts in this post.  I'd like to counter your post with a short series of my own points

1) If even after 2 years of unskilled labor work, you still only meet the requirements of unskilled labor than you are doing something wrong.  I worked as a bus boy for 3 years and was able to move up the chain at the restaurant and eventually used skills I was learning at high school to work in a computer department for a local retail store earning $11/hour.

2) Being treated as unhuman is irrelevant to having a minimum wage.  All labor should be respected but you won't change human nature.  Forcing minimum wage requirements on unskilled labor won't make society look down upon them any less.  This is a failure of that individual or company and the solution is not more money.

3) We have already shown the facts that unemployment rises and prices rise when you institute a minimum wage.  Stating "Prices will always rise" is first - not true (up until 1913 when the Fed was instituted prices continuously decreased as the dollar increased in value due to sound money principles), and second - minimum wages increase the rate of any natural rising in prices we are experiencing today (again due to bad Fed monetary policy).  Please address these points :)

4) We have already shown it is possible to live on $7/hour earlier in this thread, it won't be pretty, you'll need to work more than 40 hour weeks, but its possible.  yea it sucks, but it also provides motivation to learn skills that will pay you more

5) For all of your examples of poor managers who manage minimum wage employees I know just as many good managers who put time and effort in to empowering and developing their employees.

6) Wages have historically been the last things to increase in value.  This is pretty much an uncontested economic fact.  The "solution" if there is one is not government intervention, it is the elimination of inflation and the slow but steady deflation of our currency.  The optimum would be zero change obviously but that is impossible.  So 1% either way is ideal.  We have been living in an average of 5% inflation for some time (3 year moving average).

I'd be more than happy to explain inflation and why it is the true cause of the income gap if you are interested.  but we should probably make a different thread if that's the case :)

Thanks for posting mud!

Oh yeah, I completely understand, what you describe, mostly because you describe it well.

I was just describing what I have seen with my own eye's, in my life.

not what Ive seen in forums, or on the news, or even in the few classes Ive had after highschooll.

And absolutely, there has to be a beter way.

Sorry to take so long to get back to you, but I've been busy with having just moved and trying to get new employement. That 'experience' (which isn't over yet) has shown me this argument- though not irrelevant, is overcast by another issue.

The job I got I found out about at a job fair. The lead and panel interview to follow for the prospective company of my employ was 'brokered' by a temp agaency I have never met. It seems they were at the job fair 'representing' that company. The name of the woman who I deal with was written in on a card as a representative of a whole other company.

Not comfortable with all the misrepresentation, but I go on.

So- I'm going to earn 'X' dollars an hour, and this woman who 'herder' and 'tricked' me is going to get a cut of a 'higher wage' the company that employs me is actually paying- possibly 30%- maybe more.

Lets just say arguing about minimum wage is laughable in the sense of what employers could pay if not for these middle men- now seen as a 'neccessary evil' by businesses, because no one wants to actually worry about their employees.

I could make anaolgies, but I'll let you chew on that for a bit. But I know these companies make $20/hour and more off 'skilled' workers (the workers getting $40)- and they provide a service- granted- but the biggest single employer of workers in the United states is Manpower services. That's just 1 temp service.

I'm gonna guess they're making a profit.

And how many of the 'minimum wage' jobs do you guess they're brokering out?

Gotta run again- life's hectic, Take care.

Originally posted by smokemonsc

There's a  lot of interesting thoughts in this post.  I'd like to counter your post with a short series of my own points

1) If even after 2 years of unskilled labor work, you still only meet the requirements of unskilled labor than you are doing something wrong.  I worked as a bus boy for 3 years and was able to move up the chain at the restaurant and eventually used skills I was learning at high school to work in a computer department for a local retail store earning $11/hour.

2) Being treated as unhuman is irrelevant to having a minimum wage.  All labor should be respected but you won't change human nature.  Forcing minimum wage requirements on unskilled labor won't make society look down upon them any less.  This is a failure of that individual or company and the solution is not more money.

3) We have already shown the facts that unemployment rises and prices rise when you institute a minimum wage.  Stating "Prices will always rise" is first - not true (up until 1913 when the Fed was instituted prices continuously decreased as the dollar increased in value due to sound money principles), and second - minimum wages increase the rate of any natural rising in prices we are experiencing today (again due to bad Fed monetary policy).  Please address these points :)

4) We have already shown it is possible to live on $7/hour earlier in this thread, it won't be pretty, you'll need to work more than 40 hour weeks, but its possible.  yea it sucks, but it also provides motivation to learn skills that will pay you more

5) For all of your examples of poor managers who manage minimum wage employees I know just as many good managers who put time and effort in to empowering and developing their employees.

6) Wages have historically been the last things to increase in value.  This is pretty much an uncontested economic fact.  The "solution" if there is one is not government intervention, it is the elimination of inflation and the slow but steady deflation of our currency.  The optimum would be zero change obviously but that is impossible.  So 1% either way is ideal.  We have been living in an average of 5% inflation for some time (3 year moving average).

I'd be more than happy to explain inflation and why it is the true cause of the income gap if you are interested.  but we should probably make a different thread if that's the case :)

Thanks for posting mud!

1)  I take it you went to high school in a middle class to upper middle class neighborhood?

2)  Getting paid less than a living wage is getting paid slave wages.  A slave wage is when you earn just enough money to meet the basic necessities of life.  A person in America that draws that sort of income will become subhuman.  These are excerpts from John Steinbeck when he visited squatters' camps in California:

"There is more filth here. The tent is full of flies clinging to the apple box that is the dinner table, buzzing about the foul clothes of the children, particularly the baby, who has not been bathed nor cleaned for several days. This family has been on the road longer than the builder of the paper house. There is no toilet here, but there is a clump of willows nearby where human faeces lie exposed to the flies - the same flies that are in the tent.

Two weeks ago there was another child, a four-year-old boy. For a few weeks they had noticed that he was kind of lackadaisical, that his eyes had been feverish. They had given him the best place in the bed, between father and mother. But one night he went into convulsions and died, and the next morning the coroner's wagon took him away. It was one step down.

They knew pretty well that it was a diet of fresh fruit, beans and little else that caused his death. He had had no milk for months. With this death there came a change of mind in this family. The father and mother now feel that paralysed dullness with which the mind protects itself against too much sorrow and too much pain.

Here, in the faces of the husband and his wife, you begin to see an expression you will notice on every face; not worry, but absolute terror of the starvation that crowds in against the borders of the camp. This man has tried to make a toilet by digging a hole in the ground near his house and surrounding it with an old piece of burlap. But he will only do things like that this year. He is a newcomer and his spirit and his decency and his sense of his own dignity have not been quite wiped out. Next year he will be like his next-door neighbour."

You would reduce your fellow man to this?

3)  You've presented theories not facts.  It was theorized 20 years ago that America couldn't survive under a service economy by the same brand of people you're quoting today.

4)  Don't look now, but it looks to me like you agree with minimum wage, just not where the wage is set.

5)  His examples are not diminished by your positive examples.  Bad managers in one company are not cancelled out by the good managers in another company.  It is the bad managers that are the issue.

6)  I'm curious, has minimum wage increased with inflation or is it less?

I work for a company that has everything a person could ever want from a company.  Good pay,  profit sharing,  a stock purchase plan, flex benefits, an education allowance, and RRSP contributions.  Although I enjoy all of these things I fully recognize that my employer is unique and not the normal.  I am aware that other people and companies exist that exploit any situation to increase their profits.  If all companies were run by Ebenezer Scrooge (post 3 ghosts) you could do away with minimum wage.  What is in place to prevent the exploitation that occured before minimum wage was put into place?  How do you propose we prevent employers from trapping employees into a system of wage slavery?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boXa8c6OuRQ (understand that song and you'll understand the problem)