patrick.net

edvard2 says

Either way, an answer like that informs me of a general lack of knowledge when it comes to the economy or financial affairs and hence why the rest of your responses were equally null and void of any meaningful facts.

Your answers informs me of a general lack of knowledge when it comes to the economy or financial affairs and hence why the rest of your responses were equally null and void of any meaningful facts.

The STEM Crisis Is a Myth
http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth

Report: There Are No Jobs Americans Won't Do
Native-born dominate virtually all occupations
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/report-there-are-no-jobs-americans-wont-do-205731341.html

We live in the world where the largest economic problem is the lack of end-demand.

And end-demand is low, because most people just don't have enough revenues.

There are more poor people while the rich have more money they don't spend. And corporations have record profits whiles wages are down in real terms.

Republicans traditional solutions: supply side economics, are obviously wrong headed in this situation.

Heraclitusstudent says

And end-demand is low, because most people just don't have enough revenues.

There is plenty of demand in the US. It's just that this demand is being met with imported goods and immigrant labor instead of made in USA products and American born labor. I offer the normally long lines at WalMart as a fine example of this. The only time I can get in and out of a WalMart in a reasonable amount of time is when the Ravens are in a playoff game.

Call it Crazy says

But, as this thread shows, it always reverts to a liberal vs. conservative fight, instead of looking at the overall big picture in the country..

It's because liberals can't possibly defend their job killing minimum wage hikes, so they attack the messenger or deny the truth.

zzyzzx says

As opposed to liberals who will pretend that raising the minimum wage won't cause job losses?

No liberal I know has made such a claim. But putting pithy ideology aside for a moment, imagine that you suddenly got a decent raise. The choice of what to do with the money would include things like putting more into retirement, maybe buying more stuff, like a car, or going out to eat more, or whatnot. But with any of those outcomes the end result is an increase in money being cycled into the economy. With more spending on a whole comes more overall sales and with those increases comes the need to either hire more/produce more/invest more.

This is a simple concept that seldom gets discussed. If everyone makes a lower wage then the opposite happens: Consumers will spend less and thus less money goes into the economy in which to hire more, invest more, and so on. The current situation that we are now in is that the model used by many big box stores is actually economically destructive:

1: Workers are paid less and thus can afford less

2: In order to price items those workers can afford on less income cuts are made, meaning product is cheapened or production and manufacturing is offshored ( Big box stores are infamous for doing this)

3: The result is that US factories are shut, those workers will likely end up at lower income jobs.

4: Over time the overall working and middle class's total spending power diminishes and to compensate goods must be made cheaper still, which means more outsourcing and less jobs that pay decent incomes.

This model isn't sustainable. Furthermore, the result is that the overall country has less and less financial flexibility since the total amount of income the government can use to fund infrastructure falls over time.

This definitely goes back to a spending issue. Not government spending, but consumer spending. 75% of the US economy is based on consumer spending. By suggesting that wages should be kept forever low ensures a future of less and less spending power and therefor a greater reduction of funds in which to keep the country running as whole.

zzyzzx says

Previous minimum wage hikes have also caused job losses

When? What was the economic situation then?

How much lower is the minimum wage now than it was when you were working for $3.35/hr?

zzyzzx says

Your answers informs me of a general lack of knowledge when it comes to the economy or financial affairs and hence why the rest of your responses were equally null and void of any meaningful facts.

oooohhh ohhhh! you just repeated what I said. Good for you. Still doesn't compensate for the obvious though. Learn a bit more about general economics and then get back to us.

http://www.npr.org/2014/02/18/279216349/cbo-predicts-job-losses-from-minimum-wage-hike

CBO Predicts Job Losses From Minimum Wage Hike

The Congressional Budget Office is projecting job losses as a result of a proposed federal minimum wage increase. The raise to the hourly wage has been a cornerstone of President Obama's recent policy speeches. According to predictions by the non-partisan CBO, approximately 500,000 jobs would be lost by late 2016 due to such a law's implementation.

zzyzzx says

There is plenty of demand in the US. It's just that this demand is being met with imported goods and immigrant labor instead of made in USA products and American born labor.

See my above comments. The reason that goods are so heavily imported is NOT because of immigrants in the US. In fact, exactly WHO do you think were making all of those shirts, clocks, radios, cars, typewriters, and so on back in the 1900's-1920's in the US? Almost ALL of them were immigrants. Hence again why the idea of banning immigration would be an outright disastrous idea.

Article includes results of a study

http://www.epionline.org/minimum-wage/

5 Things You Didn’t Know About the Minimum Wage

For every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, teen employment at small businesses is estimated to decrease by 4.6 to 9.0 percent.1
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, teen unemployment averaged a record high 24.3 percent in 2009.
For every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, estimates show employment may fall as much as 6.6 percent for young black and Hispanic teens ages 16 to 19.2
African American teen unemployment averaged 39.5 percent in 2009, which is more than four times the national unemployment average and 26 percent higher than last year.
According to recent U.S. Census data, only 16.5 percent of minimum wage recipients are raising a family on the minimum wage. The remaining 83.5 percent are teenagers living with working parents, adults living alone, or dual-earner married couples.3
Raising the minimum wage is an ineffective tool to fight poverty. Programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit are far better at helping low-income Americans.4
The average annual family income of those earning the minimum wage in 2009 is over $48,000.2
One study found that only 10.5 percent of the beneficiaries of then-candidate Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 would come from poor families.4
Economists at the University of California-Irvine and the Federal Reserve reviewed the economic evidence and found a majority in support of “the view that minimum wages reduce the employment of low-wage workers.”5
27 million Americans lack even the basic skills needed to fill out a job application.6 Minimum wage increases make it more difficult to hire and train less-skilled individuals like this.

Between July 2007 and July 2009, the federal minimum wage increased by 40 percent. A new study from Ball State University found there were 550,000 fewer part-time jobs as a result of this increase.

Federal policy makers allowed the wage hike to go through despite decades of research showing that minimum wage hikes take a sledgehammer to the entry-level job market. As employers are faced with higher labor costs, they hire workers who have more work experience or higher skill levels. This leaves unskilled applicants without a job, and without the invisible curriculum that comes with a first job experience.

zzyzzx says

Total Liberal Bullshit

Most people would probably quietly back out of a conversation once they've realized they have lost that debate...

edvard2 says

See my above comments. The reason that goods are so heavily imported is NOT because of immigrants in the US. In fact, exactly WHO do you think were making all of those shirts, clocks, radios, cars, typewriters, and so on back in the 1900's-1920's in the US? Almost ALL of them were immigrants. Hence again why the idea of banning immigration would be an outright disastrous idea.

Excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but when you don't have enough jobs for your own people, the last thing you need to be doing in importing more people. It's called common sense!

Here's reason why most of us should have read where the source of this information came from. Had we done so we wouldn't have wasted our time. Its a bunch of conservative nonsense.

"The Employment Policies Institute (EPI) is a fiscally conservative non-profit American think tank that conducts research on employment issues like minimum wage and health care. EPI was established in 1991[1] and has been described as "a nonprofit research group that studies issues of entry-level employment."[2]

According to Source Watch, EPI is one of several front groups created by Richard Berman of Berman and Company, a Washington, D.C. public relations organization that lobbies for the restaurant, hotel, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries."

http://www.epionline.org/study/r98/

The Effect of Minimum Wage Increases on Retail and Small Business Employment

zzyzzx says

Excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but when you don't have enough jobs for your own people, the last thing you need to be doing in importing more people. It's called common sense!

I like common sense, but only when its applied to something that actually makes sense. Such as the fact that the US was founded by, populated by, and is still being run by and populated by immigrants. Had there been a policy to stop immigration then the US wouldn't exist.

edvard2 says

Here's reason why most of us should have read where the source of this information came from. Had we done so we wouldn't have wasted our time. Its a bunch of conservative nonsense.

Like what I said above, when you can't handle the truth, you deny the results. Obama did the same thing when the CBO also claimed job losses. Of course now you will claim that the Congressional Budget Office is a conservative news source.

zzyzzx says

There is plenty of demand in the US. It's just that this demand is being met with imported goods and immigrant labor instead of made in USA products and American born labor.

Unemployment shows there is not enough demand in the US to create near full employment.

Economic activity is created when money circulates in the economy. Accumulation points like we have today with the rich, is what keeps the economy below its potential.

The trade deficit is a reflection of low demand in other countries and in the end the difference is paid with printed money.

zzyzzx says

The Effect of Minimum Wage Increases on Retail and Small Business Employment

As mentioned before all of your sources are from a conservative leaning lobby whom works on behalf of the very businesses who don't want to have any raises in wages because it affects their bottom line. Hence its nothing more than a shill piece. You need to realize that lobbys are simply in existence to not help you, but instead help the special interests they serve and in the end that special interest is none other than the boards of the respective companies. So it has nothing to do with you, me, or anyone else except for them and only them. As such, by taking their bait and running with it under a flag of ideaology is merely doing precisely what lobby groups are made to do: Get people to really believe that what they say is for their benefit. Think again.

zzyzzx says

Like what I said above, when you can't handle the truth, you deny the results. Obama did the same thing when the CBO also claimed job losses. Of course now you will claim that the Congressional Budget Office is a conservative news source.

I'm not the one taking the words of a lobby and claiming that they are the truth. As such, there isn't any truth to the assertions you've made and hence I feel fairly confident in my opinions here.

edvard2 says

I'm not the one taking the words of a lobby and claiming that they are the truth. As such, there isn't any truth to the assertions you've made and hence I feel fairly confident in my opinions here.

I am not taking the words of Obama, and claiming that they are the truth, like you are.

Why should I believe a "left-leading Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research"??? They are just another mouthpiece for Obama.

zzyzzx says

Here is a third one, done in Maryland:

"A study commissioned by a pro-business group in Maryland warns that raising the state’s minimum wage could lead to thousands of job losses, increase the price of consumer goods and weaken the state’s competitive position."

So yup- same thing. Its a pro-business group. No need to read furtherzzyzzx says

I am not taking the words of Obama, and claiming that they are the truth, like you are.

This is getting to be hilarious. Guess when you can't win a debate, time to get goin' with comments like that?

But you know what? Let's take this a step further. So correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to be suggesting that minimum wages should not be raised, right? Ok, well if we're going to go with that logic, then it would be exactly no different than saying that NOBODY else should have their wages raised... ever. I can only assume that you would wholeheartedly agree with that logic since it matches the logic being applied to not raising minimum wages. As such, with inflation in fuel, food, consumer goods and housing prices, if nobody gets anymore wage increases or better yet- wages stay the same for years and years on end then that sure makes a whole hell of a lot of sense, don't it? Surely you must agree. If you don't then reckon you're gonna' have to change your stance on minimum wages too because its the same damned thing.

edvard2 says

So correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to be suggesting that minimum wages should not be raised, right?

I am saying that if we had an immigration ban, and throw out illegals, and had import duties, there would be so many jobs in the US that wages would go up more than any minimum wage hike would provide.

Lookup something called "supply and demand".

zzyzzx says

edvard2 says

So what is your suggestion? That we continuously and forever keep those wages low?

Ban on immigration. Throw out illegal aliens. Import duties. Then the free market will raise domestic wages, most likely by quite a bit.

None of that shit will work if outsourcing is still allowed.

zzyzzx says

Stephen S. Fuller, an economist at George Mason University

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercatus_Center

"After the Koch family provided more than thirty million dollars to George Mason University, the Center moved to George Mason in the mid-1980s before assuming its current name in 1999."

zzyzzx says

I am saying that if we had an immigration ban, and throw out illegals, and had import duties, there would be so many jobs in the US that wages would go up more than any minimum wage hike would provide.

I asked a specific question. I asked if you agreed or disagreed with raising minimum wages. Its a simple yes or no question. Furthermore I extrapolated the same scenario for the general economy as well in which you also have the opportunity to answer.

Ahh, a race to the bottom.. That's A LOT of people that won't buy the products of the companies they are being fired from or it's competitors.

Firing employees to cut costs is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's all interconnected... People on unemployment or not in the workforce... can't spend money.

edvard2 says

I asked a specific question. I asked if you agreed or disagreed with raising minimum wages. Its a simple yes or no question. Furthermore I extrapolated the same scenario for the general economy as well in which you also have the opportunity to answer.

I don't think we need a national minimum wage. At the individual state level, possibly so. We need import duties and an immigration ban to stimulate demand for American workers instead. I'd say that very few, if any, other countries allow almost everything to be imported, while at the same time hire foreigners while their own people sit unemployed.

Dan8267 says

Of course some jobs will be cut if the minimum wage is raised, just like some jobs were lost when slavery was banned. However, those jobs, as I said, should be lost because they are evidently less productive than the effort they require. That's how a free market ensures that resources aren't wasted.

I suspect that some service level jobs will be replaced with robots.

ZZYZZX,

How is firing people gonna help the economy? Please explain how more unemployed... and less government assistance will result in more money spent on products, goods and services?

Seems these companies are very short-sighted... You should be demonizing the companies that are doing layoffs instead of cutting CEO pay.

zzyzzx says

I was able to save a bunch of money when I was working for the minimum wage. It was $3.35/hr then. I lived at home. That's why. Did it through college and when I graduated in 1988, I owned a new car that I paid for and had $30K in the bank. Anyone can do this.

When you graduated college, you had a new car and 30K in the bank, all, we are to believe, from working a 3.35/hr part time job. Even if it was full time, that's not possible without other things you aren't telling us.

Either there's a lot that you aren't telling us, or you're lying.

My observation is that republicans (notice I don't say "conservatives" because I'm conservative) generally speaking, are liars. Above all, they are good at lying to themselves, and believing those lies.

A lot of people don't have parents that pay for all their living expenses and other college expenses, and basically take care of them all through college.

"anyone can do this".

Right...

humanity says

When you graduated college, you had a new car and 30K in the bank, all, we are to believe, from working a 3.35/hr part time job. Even if it was full time, that's not possible without other things you aren't telling us.

I probably don't have my 1988 bank statements saved, to back this up, but it's true. I also owned some stock that I am not counting here. Just because people are too fucking lazy to work their way through college now, doesn't mean it wasn't possible at one time. Yes, it was way cheaper to go to college them, even in constant dollar terms.

zzyzzx says

I don't think we need a national minimum wage

very good. That's all you needed to say since the rest of your response was unrelated. Now for the second question I asked you. Should the same logic be applied to the other income levels in the US? If not, then why not?

edvard2 says

very good. That's all you needed to say since the rest of your response was unrelated. Now for the second question I asked you. Should the same logic be applied to the other income levels in the US? If not, then why not?

We don't need a national minimum wage when almost every state already has it's own minimum wage. That's something that liberals don't get, since they seem to like redundant laws. In so far as things being applied to other income levels, if immigration were banned, and illegals thrown out, and import duties raised, it should make all Americans richer, since the proverbial rising tides will raise all boats. Is that what you were asking?

edvard2 says

Switzerland, Norway, and the Netherlands along with a number of other countries all of whom share the same attributes:

Norway exports a lot of oil, so again, they have an export based economy which often leads to low unemployment levels.

zzyzzx says

We don't need a national minimum wage when almost every state already has it's own minimum wage.

Nope. try again. That's not the question I asked you. I asked if you think that the same should be true for all other income levels. Let me rephrase: Should wages be kept the same for all middle and upper level income Americans?

zzyzzx says

Norway exports a lot of oil, so again, they have an export based economy which often leads to low unemployment levels.

We export a lot of oil too. Nice try.

edvard2 says

We export a lot of oil too. Nice try.

We import way more oil than we export (if we export any oil). Nice try.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_m.htm
U.S. Imports by Country of Origin

zzyzzx says

I probably don't have my 1988 bank statements saved, to back this up, but it's true. I also owned some stock that I am not counting here.

If you worked FULL TIME making $3.35, for 50 weeks a year while in college, for four years, and if you were paid in cash, or otherwise had no payroll taxes taken out, or any other taxes. And if you spent ZERO of that, then you would have $26800.

Why do you assume it took me only 4 years to get my first degree? It took me longer than that. Why do you assume that, even working at a fast food place (which I was) I would only be making $3.35 the whole time. At times I made more, but still fast food wages. Yes, the minimum wage was $3.35 the whole time.