patrick.net

Similar video asking patriot millionnaires lobbying for higher taxes on themselves if they would donate to help pay down the deficit
http://youtube/fTaeJ5RMHzU

smaulgld says

Similar video asking patriot millionnaires lobbying for higher taxes on themselves if they would donate to help pay down the deficit

http://youtube/fTaeJ5RMHzU

Uh, lobbying for higher taxes on oneself is offering to donate to help pay down the deficit.

How about a poll asking gun nuts if they support pistols and rifles?

Watch out for falling standards of Living.

HydroCabron says

smaulgld says

Similar video asking patriot millionnaires lobbying for higher taxes on themselves if they would donate to help pay down the deficit

http://youtube/fTaeJ5RMHzU

Uh, lobbying for higher taxes on oneself is offering to donate to help pay down the deficit.

How about a poll asking gun nuts if they support pistols and rifles?

yes which is why these videos are not really as instructive as they seem.

In the real world I would like to see what would happen if

taxes were raised on the wealthy -and they actually had to pay them what they would do and

walmart paid their workers more what types of prices they would charge and whether it would hurt sales and profitability.

The videos do highlight a nagging truth-when people are making policy judgements its in theory and they are generally excluded from the equation!

HydroCabron says

smaulgld says

Similar video asking patriot millionnaires lobbying for higher taxes on themselves if they would donate to help pay down the deficit

http://youtube/fTaeJ5RMHzU

Uh, lobbying for higher taxes on oneself is offering to donate to help pay down the deficit.

How about a poll asking gun nuts if they support pistols and rifles?

Nobody forces them to not pay higher taxes - the IRS is happy to take in some extra $$. No (lobbying for a) law change needed to get started - just do it.

smaulgld says

The videos do highlight a nagging truth-when people are making policy judgements its in theory and they are generally excluded from the equation!

That's it - or they get in return policies that by far offset their contributions, such as QE, bailouts, special deductions etc.

Those millonniares are for raising the marginal rate knowing. (Like buffet) they themselves wont pay because of deductions they can take
In their minds it makes them look good and doesnt cost them anything

You know that a lot of the people who work at Walmart, they only make about 8 dollars an hour. How do you feel about that?

We want $15/hour. Do you support $15/hour pay?

Great. Our organization is 15 for 15, and what we want is Walmart to raise prices by 15% and then give the money to the workers.

Holy shit! I'm glad I didn't invest with Peter Schiff's investment firm, Euro Pacific Capital, if he's that bad at math and accounting. Let's go over this completely wrong math.

1. A pay raise from $8 to $15 is not a 15% increase. It's a 87.5% increase. However…

2. An increase of x% in worker pay is not an increase of x% in total cost as worker pay is not the only cost that Walmart has. In fact, worker pay is actually pretty low.

3. Just because $15 and 15% both have the base ten digits 1 and 5 does not mean they are the same value. 15 does not equal 0.15. In octal, 17 does not equal 0.1146314631463146314.

4. Walmart had a revenue (sales) of $470 billion with a "b". A 15% increase in prices, assuming same sales as Schiff asks the customers to maintain, would be increased revenue of $70.5 billion.

If we divide that evenly among Walmart's 2 million employees (about half of which are outside the U.S.) as Peter Schiff suggests then that’s a raise of $35,250/yr for each employee.

I would need to know the average number of hours worked to see what this comes out to as an hourly wage increase. Unfortunately, the Internet isn't forth coming with that information. However, the average worker's income is $250/week or $12,500/yr. So a $35,250/yr raise would be an increase in pay of 282%. That means the workers would be being paid 3.82 times as much as they are currently making or $47,750.

There's a huge difference between an income of $47,750 and one of $12,500. And that's a lot more than what the Walmart employees are asking for.

Peter Schiff does have one point. The public does not want to pay for the increase wages -- granted, the wage increase his 15-15 plan would entail is far, far greater than the $15/hour the workers are demanding.

However, it is not at all necessary to raise prices to increase the pay of Walmart employees. All that needs to be done is a little less siphoning of their wealth production by Walmart. In other words, if Walmart would simply reduce the amount it taxes its employees for the privilege of working, then the employees could easily earn 50% more.

If government taxation to pay for anti-poverty programs, anti-starvation programs, education, and infrastructure is bad, then employer taxation of employees to pay for mansions, yachts, expensive jewelry, and European vacations is way the hell worse.

Walmart had revenue of $470 billion. Minus what it pays its suppliers for goods, that is $114.8 billion in revenue that was generate by 2 million employees. That's a wealth production of $57,400 per employee per year. The average pay, with little or no benefits, is $250/week or $12,500 per employee per year.

That means that Walmart taxes its employees 78.2% of their wealth production. FUCK! Imagine if the federal government taxed the rich at 78.2%. And that's effective tax rate, not marginal.

Now, of course, Walmart does have to tax its employees something in order to pay for stores, electricity, accounting, IT, local taxes, advertising, transporting the goods, etc. -- remember that the cost of the goods themselves was already taken into account -- but all of these things do not amount to 78.2% overhead. That's just ridiculous.

So, yes, Walmart can easily raise the working wage to $15 without raising prices one bit. All they have to do is tax their employees a little bit less.

Republicans hate when the government taxes them, but loves when corporations tax their employees obscene amounts! Vote for lower taxes; Vote Democrat.

Dan8267 says

1. A pay raise from $8 to $15 is not a 15% increase. It's a 87.5% increase. However…

I think you are taking this a bit too seriously - 15 for 15 was just a good slogan to use.

mell says

Dan8267 says

1. A pay raise from $8 to $15 is not a 15% increase. It's a 87.5% increase. However…

I think you are taking this a bit too seriously - 15 for 15 was just a good slogan to use.

I know. But a good slogan can be bad math. And in his use of that slogan he strongly implied that a 15% increase in prices would just barely cover increasing the wages of the employees to $15, which is utter nonsense.

I'm surprised that Peter Schiff actually did math like that. He's usually much smarter. I guess his political philosophy clouded his accounting abilities.

I still give him props for calling the housing bubble and the flaws of Keynesian theory, but he is utterly wrong about the question of whether or not Walmart can raise wages to $15/hour without raising prices one bit and still being extremely profitable.

sbh says

"The lower the wage the higher the standard of living." Whoever promulgated this concept, your work here is over, you can rest easy knowing your seat in the HOR is secure.

Look Satan's Bitch!
If you raise wages then you wrote in all of the manipulated inflation which the FED and the offical Government's policy ignores.
So where do prices go from there, when energy prices do go back down, and investors grow bored of skimming their VIG off the top of the worlds dinner plate at every meal? That's right they don't, but you add a wage increase on top of all of the other unnecessary bullshit that is already manipulating those prices, and there's no one like Elizabeth Warren(but a for realzies one, not one of them imitation Indian variety kinds either) to beat back the robber barons, and commodity monopolies, then what happens to the standard of Living?

Trick question, it wont fucking matter when you're jacked on the street, rammed through the gut with a knife by a Burger King employee who makes $15.00 an hour and works 17 hours a week, because he still had real life bills to pay and mouths to fee. He doesn't nor can't make more because Corporate can't give you more hours without costing them thousands in fines, taxes and fees as per mandated by this fucking Administration you voted in. Nor can he time a second job, because the hours are sporadic and don't coincide from week to week.

Quit presenting half facts, based on Liberal talking point, and start telling the real Goddamn truth for once, you Dante Trollop.

How in the fuck do expect someone making minimum wage now, and STILL not getting a full time job,(Which btw that bastard on the Hill redefined as 30 fucking hours.Nice Job ASSHOLE!).?

To be in any better shape if you made the employee double the wages. IS your distorted thinking that if they are only giving the employees 17 hours, then forcing them to pay them double will give that person the same effect as working full time at the minimum wage?

That makes no fucking sense what so fucking ever!
First even 45 hours at minimum wage is no let's start dancing pic-fucking-nic. Not to shit in your party punch bowl here, but what's to then stop these Employers to only give each employee only 8 hours a week?

You should try a one of these, it might work for draining shit for brains.

Looks like WalMart is going to have to start hanging elderly greeters from the yard arms, covered with blue pricing stickers, and then run them over with 500 pound cellulite monsters in WalMart scooters, until this rebellion is quelled.

Ceffer says

Looks like WalMart is going to have to start hanging elderly greeters from the yard arms, covered with blue pricing stickers, and then run them over with 500 pound cellulite monsters in WalMart scooters, until this rebellion is quelled.

This sounds eerily similar to what the czarist thugs did to the protesters in russia during bloody sunday of 1905.

I am sick of Ignorance.

Does nobody read "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt?!

It is clear that low wages mean prosperity for all, like in Burma and Haiti. Aren't Japan and Norway poor ass countries where people live in filth and die at age 20?

sbh says

Everything they get they'll spend on the shit they always spent it on. And corporations will try to say it forces them to fuck the serfs in new and exquisite ways.

Nothing will change. You're such a drama queen.

That is where you are wrong.
There's plenty that has changed, just a few years ago it would not have been a far streatch for those min wage workers to find them selves in in a business starting out on their own.

Mandatory burdens that large corporations get loopholes to fuck their loyal employees in the ass, while those small business people starting out, will have to walk the full course, and entertain every mandate, requirement, fee, form, tax, insurance, background checks. These large corporarations are rigging the game so that the only way to make business is in a multibillion dollar a year budget and doing such a massive volume you're damn near a legilated assisted monopoly.

Put on your fucking hat on there boogie woogie burger boy, there's a fucking war going on, you're not on either side, you're just target practice. Now get in there and say "Can I take your "ORDERS" please?".

$15 an hour at even 17 hours is no fucking picnic. And for that extra hundred it MIGHT bring a week at that schedule, they'll loose a hell of a lot more, when they grow up and realize what time it is. If they want to play then take your chances on the Wallstreet Bingo Crapshoot, Roulette wheel extravaganza. You might get ahead by time you retire(he he he he)That is is you can afford a few dollars to put into a 401K when your only bringing home less than 220 a week after taxes. (Then again you might also be the second coming of Jesus.) Just like it was before min wage was set at $15 and full time was redefined at 30 hours a week. So they cut your hours to just 17 hours. Where's the net gain there Mathslick?

Dan8267 says

So, yes, Walmart can easily raise the working wage to $15 without raising prices one bit. All they have to do is tax their employees a little bit less.

Isn't that just another way of saying corporations should reduce their profit and pay their employees more?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for income equality, but let's look anotherway:
Walmart 2013 net income ~$17 Billion. That divided by 2 million employees ~ $8,500 per employee in net profit.
Lets assume that raising min wage to $15 doesn't increase all employee's pay by 87.5% (which would equate to ~$10k each, more than net profit). Lets say$5k per employee in raise. Then walmart reported profit drops from 17B to 7B.

Sure maybe in a very long term profits may rise from employee's spendign, maybe. I don't think investors will take that chance.

Jim1234 says

Isn't that just another way of saying corporations should reduce their profit and pay their employees more?

Whether or not they ought to is a different question then whether or not they can and still remain immensely profitable without raising prices.

I deal in objective issues as I understand that few people give a rat's ass about moral and ethical issues. And objectively, everyone, even the parasites, are better off if all employers are forced to tax their employees less.

Each individual employer is better off if he can wring every penny out of his employees that he can, but that employer is worse off if other employers can do the same to their employees. It's the Tragedy of the Commons.

When wealth producers, a.k.a. employees or workers, retain the majority of their wealth production, a virtuous cycle of prosperity occurs that maximizes real GDP and improves the quality of living for all, even the filthy rich. That is a an indisputable fact.

Whether or not this is a good thing, is an opinion.

Jim1234 says

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for income equality, but let's look anotherway:

Walmart 2013 net income ~$17 Billion. That divided by 2 million employees ~ $8,500 per employee in net profit.

you should divide the pre-tax profit (not net income) if you're going to give it all away : )

$28B / 2 million employees is a $14,000 bonus.

Dan8267 says

Each individual employer is better off if he can wring every penny out of his employees that he can, but that employer is worse off if other employers can do the same to their employees. It's the Tragedy of the Commons.

This is a very, very important point.