patrick.net

Reality says

You living in one right now!

If you're really trying to suggest that our current economic twilight is the result of the minimum wage, then you're a lost soul.

JodyChunder says

Because snotty faced 15 year olds is what springs to mind when I'm discussing living wages -- which is insane, as a 15 year old is still a fucking dependent.

People at minimum wage jobs often are dependents. Everyone has to start somewhere. You are proposing to ban the dependents from working. That's horrible for both the young needing work experience and the families that count on the dependents for part of the household income.

Reality says

So you think you'd create more jobs if you are required to pay them more while they don't have jobs?

I know, from experience, that no hike in the minimum wage has ever caused my bottom line to flag. More money in the economy means more demand, and more demand means more work to fulfill the demand. It's very basic.

Reality says

People at minimum wage jobs often are dependents. Everyone has to start somewhere. You are proposing to ban the dependents from working.

Let me clarify: at 15, you are not even legally eligible for full-time employment.

JodyChunder says

Reality says

You living in one right now!

If you're really trying to suggest that our current economic twilight is the result of the minimum wage, then you're a lost soul.

Of course it is the result of both de jure minimum wage, as well as de facto "minimum wage" due to a combination of welfare, unemployment benefits and graduate school /unemployment deferment on student loans. For many of the heavily burdened with student debts, garnishment of loan repayment on top of high taxation is making illegal jobs such as drug trafficking and prostitution much more attractive than legit jobs that face taxation and garnishment.

JodyChunder says

Reality says

People at minimum wage jobs often are dependents. Everyone has to start somewhere. You are proposing to ban the dependents from working.

Let me clarify: at 15, you are not even legally eligible for full-time employment.

With over 1/4 of college graduates moving back to their families, the dependents can be as old as 22yo or older.

sbh says

Reality says

So you think you'd create higher paying jobs if you are required to pay them more while they have jobs?

FTFY. Yes.

okay, you got me there, missing the word "no" in my post. should be "while they have no jobs?"

JodyChunder says

Let me clarify: at 15, you are not even legally eligible for full-time employment.

you can go down to 14 in some cases, with PT.. thats OK, by the time
your 18 you have some great work history and several references.
thats what many want to see anyway. Your way past min wage by
that time. But today, most of these jobs are given to older immigrants.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets wage, hours worked, and safety requirements for minors (individuals under age 18) working in jobs covered by the statute. The rules vary depending upon the particular age of the minor and the particular job involved. As a general rule, the FLSA sets 14 years of age as the minimum age for employment, and limits the number of hours worked by minors under the age of 16.

Also, the FLSA generally prohibits the employment of a minor in work declared hazardous by the Secretary of Labor (for example, work involving excavation, driving, and the operation of many types of power-driven equipment). The FLSA contains a number of requirements that apply only to particular types of jobs (for example, agricultural work or the operation of motor vehicles) and many exceptions to the general rules (for example, work by a minor for his or her parents). Each state also has its own laws relating to employment, including the employment of minors. If state law and the FLSA overlap, the law which is more protective of the minor will apply.

Reality says

If you're really trying to suggest that our current economic twilight is the result of the minimum wage, then you're a lost soul.

Of course it is

You're seriously undermining your already precarious footing here by even suggesting this. Rampant speculation and fraud were the two engines in the economic downturn of 2008. Nothing to do with our shitty minimum wage.

Reality says

With over 1/4 of college graduates moving back to their families, the dependents can be as old as 22yo or older.

Right -- but they're eligible for full-time employment, unlike the 15 year-old.

JodyChunder says

Reality says

So you think you'd create more jobs if you are required to pay them more while they don't have jobs?

I know, from experience, that no hike in the minimum wage has ever caused my bottom line to flag. More money in the economy means more demand, and more demand means more work to fulfill the demand. It's very basic.

In the US, about 1/2 of all workers are hourly workers. Of those, about 2% are at Federal Minimum Wage. So you are saying roughly 1% of existing workers making a little more would mean more money in the economy. I'd think the 10+% working age population not working is likely gated out of work, and raising the gate would shove more people into the unemployed and underemployed.

JodyChunder says

indigenous says

The irrelevance is that unless the business is able to create jobs everything you said is irrelevant.

I can't create jobs for people who don't have money to spend on my products and services. Get it?

That is a fundamental difference between Keynesians and Austrians.

If what you are saying is true then what does someone buy if it hasn't been produced?

Do people first have to have money and then the products can be produced? Is that what happened with Henry Ford, did he pay the factory workers so they could then then buy a car?

Reality says

So you are saying roughly 1% of existing workers making a little more would mean more money in the economy.

I am, yes. I'll hazard an even grosser bit of conjecture: If they made significantly more money, it would mean significantly more money in the economy.

JodyChunder says

Reality says

If you're really trying to suggest that our current economic twilight is the result of the minimum wage, then you're a lost soul.

Of course it is

You're seriously undermining your already precarious footing here by even suggesting this. Rampant speculation and fraud were the two engines in the economic downturn of 2008. Nothing to do with our shitty minimum wage.

Failed speculations and fraud work out as reduction on the demand side for labor. Minimum wage works as gating on the supply side. It takes a mismatch between the supply and demand to vaporize jobs.

indigenous says

If what you are saying is true then what does someone buy if it hasn't been produced?

This is a little like debating the chicken or the egg.

And yes, Henry Ford compensated his workers enough so that they could afford his product, and did so with this explicit end in mind.

sbh says

Sorry, old man, but I flagrantly butchered your post in the quote to highlight your manipulation. I thought that was obvious. But I'm proud you presumed you had made the mistake when really it was I who punked you.

It was late at night for me . . . and I assumed there was some kind of intellectual honesty involved here . . . apparently not the case at all for the left-leaning crowd, who apparently takes pride in outright fraud and dishonesty :-)

My point is to contest your presumption that banning a wage level bans the job itself.

A job offer comes with a wage level as its intrinsic component. If a listing is not legal, the job is banned, as simple as that.

Surely in your codified Talmud of axioms it does, but in the rest of the world we disagree. Still, I think more of you for having owned it.

I'm open to correcting my own mistakes. I make typographical mistakes quite often because I don't have patience for proof-reading myself. That's usually my secretary's job for work, but this is not work.

JodyChunder says

indigenous says

If what you are saying is true then what does someone buy if it hasn't been produced?

This is a little like debating the chicken or the egg.

And yes, Henry Ford compensated his workers enough so that they could afford his product, and did so with this explicit end in mind.

This is utter nonsense. Henry Ford said that for propaganda value. There were 15 million Ford Model T's alone. How many workers did Henry Ford have when making Model T? 20k? Even if every single one of his workers bought a Model T, their purchase would have accounted for something like 0.2% of total output! Henry Ford was just being a good propagandist. The real reason why he had to pay his workers much more was because his job offerings were boring as hell compared to craftsmanship at his competitors.

indigenous says

Do people first have to have money and then the products can be produced? Is that what happened with Henry Ford, did he pay the factory workers so they could then then buy a car?

his factory workers skills were rare. there wasnt that many he could hire easily. this was all during the very very early years of the Auto industry.

so where do you go to find this rare and skilled workers?

and he certainly didnt want them to leave for the competition as the industry grew.

JodyChunder says

And yes, Henry Ford compensated his workers enough so that they could afford his product, and did so with this explicit end in mind.

The point is that the cars were produced first. The reverse is impossible. Do you get that?

Another point about minimum wage is that the jobs would simply go to China, oh that's right they did...

thomaswong.1986 says

his factory workers skills were rare. there wasnt that many he could hire easily. this was all during the very very early years of the Auto industry.

so where do you go to find this rare and skilled workers?

and he certainly didnt want them to leave for the competition as the industry grew

That is not the point. But the whole idea of the assembly line was to be able to use lesser skilled workers.

JodyChunder says

Pure bullshit. Show me one single example of a recession or spike in unemployment caused by a hike in the minimum wage anywhere in the world

Perhaps you did not hear about American Samoa. I am not saying the degree of economic damage will be same everywhere. But just saying it has no bad effects is a dishonest argument.

I personally think raising minimum wage will drive up the inflation quite a bit. If you increase the supply of money without increasing the supply of products and services, you would end up raising prices of the same products and services.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/352332/raising-minimum-wage-bad-ideas-have-consequences-james-sherk

http://americansamoa.gov/index.php/news-bottom/30-gov-togiola-tells-u-s-congress-minimum-wage-increase-will-destroy-as-economy

JodyChunder says

Reality says

So you are saying roughly 1% of existing workers making a little more would mean more money in the economy.

I am, yes. I'll hazard an even grosser bit of conjecture: If they made significantly more money, it would mean significantly more money in the economy.

The average wage in the US is over $44k. The minimum wage earner even at full time 40hrs a week, 2000hrs a year only makes about $14k. Most minimum wage jobs are part time, so if the average is 20hrs a week, that's $7k a year. Since minimum wage jobs account for only about 1% of all jobs, that means minimum wage jobs pay only about 0.15% of all wages paid out. What "significantly more money" are you day dreaming about? If you want to increase the total wage paid out, tinkering with minimum wage is clearly no the answer. In fact, gating the first job to higher productivity requirement may well prevent the young new workers ever get started on legal jobs.

Bellingham Bill says

More people employed requires more money in the masses hands.

Depends on how that money gets there. If by government bureaucratic redistribution, the result is definitely destruction of jobs simply because each government bureaucratic job costs twice as much as each private sector job on average; that's even before counting the retardation caused by the actions of the government bureaucrat.

It is impossible for the Romneys of the world to create enough demand to employ everyone again like how the housing bubble economy was floating all boats last decade.

The Romneys are actually far more likely to buy made-in-USA goods and probably have a far higher service component in their consumption than the low income family shopping at Walmart does.

That being said, there are of course other very good reasons why the rich should not be allowed to use the government to rob the middle class.

Bellingham Bill says

As for American Samoa, there's no law saying US workers here have to directly compete with Chinese and Pakistanis for their jobs.

(And if there is, we can repeal it.)

Do you think a law to "repeal" your own right to shop everywhere else but force you to shop at Nordstrom and Tiffany's would stick? Heck, even the high price on prescription pain killers have spawned an entire illicit drug industry, high state taxes on cigarettes have spawned interstate cigarette trafficking.

The human desire to get the most bang for one's own money (fruits of one's own labor) is a natural law, just like human desire for freedom. Make-belief "lawmaking" by a few actors in costumes is not going to repeal it. Not even with something like the Berlin Wall with machine gun nests mounted on top.

One other passing thought:

If not for FED meddling we would be in the midst of a deflation because of demographics and technology.

If the economy were allowed to rebalance without government "help" the economy would solve itself.

Of course that can't happen because inflation is our "friend" and the powers to be would lose too much.

I saw this this AM:

http://mises.org/daily/6630/The-Minimum-Wage-Forces-LowSkill-Workers-to-Compete-with-HigherSkill-Workers

For you mutts who will not read the article it points out that min wages keep competition at bay this was the intention of Davis Bacon.

The idea is that through comparative advantage everyone can have a job.

E.g. If Bill Gates makes $100k per hour and can clean his office better than any janitor it would not matter as many are willing to clean the office for $15 per hour. So this mechanism keeps everyone employed.

indigenous says

The idea is that through comparative advantage everyone can have a job.

That is not comparative advantage.

Comparative advantage is a country with a mild climate making wine. Or an area with lots of snow becoming a ski resort.

Paying people shit wages because there are more people than jobs is NOT comparative advantage.

tatupu70 says

indigenous says

The idea is that through comparative advantage everyone can have a job.

That is not comparative advantage.

Comparative advantage is a country with a mild climate making wine. Or an area with lots of snow becoming a ski resort.

Paying people shit wages because there are more people than jobs is NOT comparative advantage.

Sure it is and its a full employment policy

indigenous says

If not for FED meddling we would be in the midst of a deflation because of demographics and technology.

You say that as if it were a good thing. Along with this deflation would come huge unemployment and a depression. Fed meddling is what kept us from a much worse depression.

indigenous says

If the economy were allowed to rebalance without government "help" the economy would solve itself.

lol--like it did in the 1930s before FDR?

tatupu70 says

indigenous says

If not for FED meddling we would be in the midst of a deflation because of demographics and technology.

You say that as if it were a good thing. Along with this deflation would come huge unemployment and a depression. Fed meddling is what kept us from a much worse depression.

You are conflating deflation with less prosperity. Usually the lowering of the standard of living is associated with inflation. Inflation in Wiemar was just as hard or harder on the German people as deflation in this country.

tatupu70 says

indigenous says

If the economy were allowed to rebalance without government "help" the economy would solve itself.

lol--like it did in the 1930s before FDR?

Very funny as if FDR fixed anything. The real problem was the dollar was undervalued in the 20s so there had to be a rebalancing which is what is about to happen in China now. In addition 1/3 of the banks went under causing l/3 less money supply. By the time the FED figured it out it was too late to avoid the damage. Then FDR came along with massive government intervention that completely squashed any market clearing. The US did not come out of this until foreign countries started buying war goods. NOT the usual war spending myth, which the Keynesians said we must keep up the spending or we would go into another depression, in other words 180 deg wrong.

sbh says

Reality says

Depends on how that money gets there. If by government bureaucratic redistribution

There need not be new gov. jobs to raise the minimum wage.

Raising minimum wage doesn't "get there" at all, in fact goes in the opposite direction: Raising minimum wage benefit higher income earners at the expense of lower income earners, whose jobs get destroyed. For example, if an experienced worker can make 200 widgets in an hour and is paid $15/hr; two less experienced workers each can make 120 widgets an hour and are paid $7.50/hr each. With these parameters, the employer can consider hiring two newbies instead of an experienced worker if he has the time to train newbies. With minimum wage raised to $10/hr, the two newbies literally get banned from being hired, and the employer can only hire the experienced worker.

sbh says

Luckily they are relegated to re-working the past to fit their scripture since no one in power is foolish enough to institute their principles and give their madness a test case

If Obama could win in 2008, Cruz could win in 2016 . . .

Cruz is the perfect storm of Texas wingnut, the mirror image of Obama maxed out. His Christian fundamentalist bona fides are much stronger than Bush's, he's got an immigrant story like Obama, and he's made a name for himself with the shutdown bullshit.

On my jog yesterday I was thinking how German fascism's electoral rise came from a deeply divided populace, with the nazis promising a "compassionate nationalism" (that's where they got their name), coopting the socialist left by ostensibly rejecting the Misean strains of traditional German conservatism.

Our economy in 2016 isn't going to look like the disaster that was depression era Germany, but some of the themes are the same.

Cruz and Ryan are bullshit artists par excellence. They're the system's last and best hopes in finally killing and burying the welfare state that arose 1950-1980 and has been under attack since then (with ACA being a rare reversal for them).

So the 2014 election cycle is going to be interesting, if not pivotal. The American people have a choice again; they can go 2010 (rightward) or 2012 (leftward), and I don't know which as of now.

I *am* seeing tons more in the media about inequality etc. compared to ten years ago, so that's good at least.

sbh says

Depends on how that money gets there. If by government bureaucratic redistribution

There need not be new gov. jobs to raise the minimum wage.

Raising minimum wage doesn't "get there" at all. Raising minimum wage benefit higher income earners at the expense of lower income earners, whose jobs get destroyed.

OK, so you bailed on the "government" scare-job. Thanks for that.

No I did not. Raising minimum wage just doesn't happen to be one of those events that redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor; instead, it's the other way around.

sbh says

If you insist on setting parameters in order to give advantage to your argument you needn't converse with anyone but yourself. Minimum wage "get's there" the same way it always does: it's enacted. And the experienced worker will just holdout for more in wages as a result. The jobs don't get destroyed, the wage rate gets destroyed.

I did not at all set up contrived parameters. Do you not believe that workers make twice as much as minimum wage can be close to twice as productive as a newbie? Raising minimum wage effectively protects the experienced worker against competition from newbies. Jobs get destroyed here all the time: look at the automatic check-out machine, look at the assembly robots, look at Chindia.

sbh says

In a previous example you suggested how few in America make MW and how little an increase would help the economy. If that's the case then the resulting costs passed on to consumers would be lesser still as more people who make above MW would help absorb those the increase. I bet there would be no noticeable increase at all. It's just fear-mongering.

I'm not concerned about inflation resulting from raising minimum wage. I'm concerned about low-end jobs being destroyed leaving the youth permanently unemployed as they can't get started on the ladder for legal jobs. They would then have to resort to the illegal job market in order to make a living. When legit jobs are made illegal, they will have to have illegal jobs. There is always a labor market demand for drug trafficking and prostitution.

JodyChunder says

And yes, Henry Ford compensated his workers enough so that they could afford his product, and did so with this explicit end in mind.

Actually, he did so because people hated working there, and Ford's company town was very snoopy and intrusive, an Orwellian State. They took jobs, worked for a few months, and then skedattled at first opportunity. Ford had to offer higher wages to get workers to stay on, and he gave up his Utopian Police State idea as well.

Reality says

I'm concerned about low-end jobs being destroyed leaving the youth permanently unemployed as they can't get started on the ladder for legal jobs.

There is no ladder anymore. If you start as a burger flipper, you'll get as far as shift supervisor at maybe $9/hr max. Past that, you need to find $30k for college at least. This ain't 1955, there is no upward path for unskilled workers without massive educational costs (and then, no guarantee of a job, also unlike 1955, when it was unheard of of a college graduate not to find a middle class job almost instanteously).

Bellingham Bill says

I *am* seeing tons more in the media about inequality etc. compared to ten years ago, so that's good at least.

That is on the 2014 agenda for Obama. So the media lackies are

following Obamas lead so they spread the word across all media channels.

Min. wage is their resultion to inequalities...

No new jobs, no economic expansion no boom to hirings/careers.

This is it.. this is all you get... this is your future.

Eight stinky ass years of incompetent anti business crap from the

Democrats.

indigenous says

Another point about minimum wage is that the jobs would simply go to China, oh that's right they did...

Nothing to do with minimum wage. Are you being intentionally facile or are you just ignorant? I really can't tell.

Reality says

This is utter nonsense. Henry Ford said that for propaganda value.

Everything outside of fucking and eating is propaganda. So what's your point?

JodyChunder says

indigenous says

Another point about minimum wage is that the jobs would simply go to China, oh that's right they did...

Nothing to do with minimum wage. Are you being intentionally facile or are you just ignorant? I really can't tell.

If the Americans were willing to work for the same wages why would the jobs go offshore?