patrick.net

myob says

Does their new, slightly higher wage, result in more food, housing, etc, being built? Not really, they've not how a little more to spend on those things, so through supply and demand, prices go up

You need to go back and take Econ 101 over again.

myob says

I disagree with the standard of living having been higher. We have much better cars, electronics, cell phones, airplanes, houses, appliances, medical care, materials, food, clothing, and countless things I can't even think of than we had in those single wage earner times. The single wage earner was living in a poorly insulated house, with a black and white tube tv and a vacuum tube radio and didn't have A/C or a microwave.

A poorly insulated house, affordable universities, healthcare and pensions.

This was MUCH better standard of living than we have now. These were necessities.

What we got extra are a few gadgets while most families can't pay for a house AND retirement, let alone a house + retirement + kids education.

1960:

Charles, we're pleased that you finished Junior College while working full time. A degree in Psychology! What gumption! Just the kind of guy we need in Management! Let me introduce you to Max, who runs our Executive Training division...

2010:

Listen, kid, Chuck, whatever your name is. All you little brats knock on my door with your University MBAs... it's annoying. Get back to your desk and hit the TPS reports like you should be doing, a task at your level. And don't forget the Cover Letter this time, dummy!

"All I know is if you take the long-run graph over 200 years of the wage rate, it cannot differ from your nation's productivity."

His fail is right there. We're international now whether we like it or not. Wages in one nation are impacted to some extent by what's happening around the globe.

It makes figuring out what to do with minimum wages much more difficult. Services are local, so many don't tend to compete directly with overseas competition. Manufacturing does, however, once you account for transportation costs.

Manufacturing jobs were regarded as high wage jobs when the US had a competitive advantage in production (see industrial revolution.) They may well become the low wage jobs since they compete internationally.

My gut is that major increases in minimum wage without protectionist measurers against international competition will have a negative effect. Small increases that force employers to match inflation shouldn't hurt.

myob says

The rich have no incentive to put capital to work because it's much easier and less risky to borrow against said capital at 0% and speculate! It's much riskier and much more work to actually put it to work. I think we agree in a roundabout way .

Financial policy is to blame

ZIRP is supposed to force capitalists to put capital to work.

You can't trade with nations that have millions of slave like workers without an impact on US workers wages.

You can't let capital and technologies flow freely to other countries without impacting how much capital is deployed in the US.

You can't lose $500 billions in trade, every year, for decades, without a massive financial industry to mask that fact.

Finance is a symptom.

Trade policy is to blame.

The Borowitz Report is satire. A url including /blogs/ is not a strong reference point in a debate.

Call it Crazy says

I would expect that in a fast food place... It still takes the same number of people to flip burgers, make fries, work the counter and clean up. Those positions can't be eliminated if the business is to function

Touch pad ordering stations could easily reduce 20 -30% of fast food jobs. This will (or is) happening regardless of whether the minimum wage increases. Automation in the kitchen is still very expensive, but it too will arrive eventually.

Speaking of touch pads... I ate at a Chili's for the first time in a long time. They now have touch screen devices on every table; you can reorder drinks, desserts, etc, pay your bill and everything.
It had games and a jerky 2 frame per second fireplace app. My GF played the movie trivia game, supposedly against others in the restaurant, but I was unconvinced it was anything other than bot "opponents."
The waitress was just attentive enough; we barely saw her.
Went to pay the bill and it included a 99c table entertainment fee. I about wanted to THROW the stupid thing. Scrolled the tip from 20% down to 14% and that was that for me and Chili's.

"Went to pay the bill and it included a 99c table entertainment fee."

It's all about the extra fees. They don't fear the lash back because we have short memories. A bird in the hand is worth it because we'll promptly forget that Chilis billed us for the bird.

did you enjoy the meal?
If so, as long as the reduced tip alleviates the surprise surcharge, why throw away a viable pitstop??

Automan Empire says

Went to pay the bill and it included a 99c table entertainment fee. I about wanted to THROW the stupid thing. Scrolled the tip from 20% down to 14% and that was that for me and Chili's.

Call it Crazy says

The main reason is that touch pads always show up for work unless stolen , don't call in sick unless broken, and work for the complete shift unless the battery dies and don't goof off agreed!...

Yep - plenty of US people getting technology degrees:

http://www.ibtimes.com/five-companies-responsible-third-new-h-1b-guest-worker-visa-approvals-last-year-businesses-1572499

https://engineering.purdue.edu/ECE/People/GraduateStudents

Yep that Ayn Rand has it all wrong!

GDP over the years:

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/obama-%E2%80%9912-the-echoes-of-incumbents-past/

And everyone knows that if we grow the government prosperity is just around the corner:

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/12/are-federal-workers-overpaid/

Those Randistas are something!

Socialism is not in the US playbook? This is a good economics professor!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/15/seattle-voters-elect-socialist-to-city-council/?intcmp=latestnews

Nobel Prize Winner and his book on causes of Wage Stagnation and related effects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Stagnation

Seattle's minimum wage rising to $15 per hour over 36 months doesn't reek of wage inflation to you?

You really believe there will still be a 7 buck plus combo meal at Mickie D's at the end of this road?

Let me get this straight, the sixteen year old slinging fries in Seattle will be making 30k a year. Check.
We can assume the assistant manager, who actually gets his hands on total receipts and door keys on occasion, will want 20 percent more than that...so 36k. And then the loftiest of the lofty...the big buck earner...the McDonald's Evening Shift Manager, who does the tallies everynight, does the ordering, does the lock up and security will want to pull down around, I'd say 42K or so minimum. Ok. I get the picture.

So, with 900 square foot rents running an average of 1765 per month (now! but certainly more in 3 years, right?), and 3 bed/1 bath wood shacks going for around 490k...Just how far away from town are these manager's commuting? They can't commute from the East End on those salaries can they? What with the 520 bridge tolls running 12 bucks round trip per day. They must be coming from an hour to 90 minutes from the South.

In fact. the 700 grand SHACKS in the bay area must be fairly close to fast food joints, yeah? How are Bay Area McDonald's Manager's affording to live? Do they take commuter flights from Fresno or something? Maybe sleep in their office on Tuesdays and Thursdays to save bucks?

I have news. This is HEAVY wage inflation pressure. Seattle is doing it to pay for the damn bridge, because the huge property tax increases are starting to really hurt people.

There's no way in hell we get out of this with a quarter pounder meal under 12 bucks. Not a chance.

The Trillions in Fed purchases and Treasury bonds, according to the financial press, is "sloshing around in central bank vaults not being loaned out to main street businesses - as increased liquid leverage against future bumps in the road". But that's been a lie until very recently. It isn't sloshing around. It's gone. Literally blown on bad securities, bad collateralized debt, bad derivatives, and other too-big-to-fail financial structures who bet on bogus fundamentals and lost. The Fed covered their losses and told them to keep on gambling. It propped up stocks and real estate quite well. But now we have wage inflation. Uh oh. better hurry and enjoy those horse meat and saw dust burgers while you can.

Which particular part of that highlighted section do you have an issue with?

Bigsby made a funny!

I'll redirect the question to you.

Call it Crazy says

Bigsby says

Which particular part of that highlighted section do you have an issue with?

Go ask the people of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Crimea, etc. for that answer and get back to us....

You could say that about particular countries at pretty much any time in recorded history. Those places constitute a small percentage of the world's population. And you didn't just highlight the violent section, did you?

It's true. He should have included crime too. In the old days you would never hear about genocide or wars because we did not have modern communications.

Call it Crazy says

This year’s projection is that couples retiring at age 65 are expected to incur $220,000 in health care costs on average during their retirement years. This figure is unchanged from last year, although that’s hardly a cause for celebration for your average pre-retiree. Most people haven’t saved $220,000 period, much less earmarked that amount for health-care costs alone.

That's what Midicare is for.

lets increase the minimum wage to $1000 per hour and all live in the newly found paradise. if increasing minimum wage is good then why can't we keep increasing it to the max...what gives ?

Call it Crazy says

I guess you didn't read the rest of the article...

The study assumes that the hypothetical retiring couple has traditional Medicare. The $220,000 total includes monthly premium payments for Parts B and D, plus Medicare cost-sharing requirements–beneficiaries have to pay 20% of most of their doctor bills, along with co-payments and deductibles.

Maybe Obamacare will cover it???

I stand corrected.
My elderly parents have Medicare through Kaiser. Even though my father has severe health issues the total cost seems reasonable.

jkaldi1 says

lets increase the minimum wage to $1000 per hour and all live in the newly found paradise. if increasing minimum wage is good then why can't we keep increasing it to the max...what gives ?

THat's a piece of great reasoning there. Let's see if I can come up with an example to show you how absurd it is.

a) They say that one of the benefits of imprisoning violent criminals, is that it takes them off the streets and prevents them from doing further violence.

b) IF this is true, why don't we just put everyone in prison and that way we would have zero violent crime.

Does the absurdity of (b) make (a) any less true ?

a) Everyone agrees that some kind of post secondary school or training
enhances ones income earning potential.

b) If that's true, then staying in school for life should make one infinitely wealthy.

Does the absurdity of (b) make (a) any less true ?

a) IT's well known that when taxes are too high, (such as before Kennedy lowered fed income taxes), lowering them can actually stimulate the economy enough that the tax revenue to government increases and it's a win, win, win for everyone.

b) If this is true, then the lower taxes, the bigger and better the economy will be, and therefore as taxes approach zero, revenues to the government approach infinity.

Does the absurdity of (b) make (a) any less true ? (unfortunately we have a lot of retards in this country that wish (b) were true, therefore they essentially argue that it is true).

What gives ? It's called reductio ad absurdum (using it falsely). Or see "appeal to extremes."

marcus : I expected this answer..what a relief.
so the next question to you and everybody else on the board: who decides the $10 or $15 ? where does the number come from ? what are the issues...as you keep increasing the number towards the $1000 per hr ? does any of the morons even discuss this ?

Excellent.

Heraclitusstudent says

ZIRP is supposed to force capitalists to put capital to work.

You can't trade with nations that have millions of slave like workers without an impact on US workers wages.

You can't let capital and technologies flow freely to other countries without impacting how much capital is deployed in the US.

You can't lose $500 billions in trade, every year, for decades, without a massive financial industry to mask that fact.

Finance is a symptom.

Trade policy is to blame.

The study assumes that the hypothetical retiring couple has traditional Medicare. The $220,000 total includes monthly premium payments for Parts B and D, plus Medicare cost-sharing requirements–beneficiaries have to pay 20% of most of their doctor bills, along with co-payments and deductibles.

So it's really just for 2 people's premiums, without the copayments???

jkaldi1 says

If there was no -ve impact , we could theoretically increase it to $1000 per hr and then more.

Lose 1 pound in 3 weeks and there is no negative impact.
Lose 100 pounds in 3 weeks and you die.

Drink an extra 8 ounces of water per day and you'll probably benefit. Drink an extra 8 ounces of water per minute and you die.

For some systems, negative/positive impacts kick in only beyond a certain threshold. Google "hysteresis" or "Schmitt trigger" for an electronics example.

And even if there is a negative impact, it may be negligible in comparison to any positive impacts because we're so far to the tail end of the curve: the minimum wage is really puny right now.

When top marginal tax rates fell under Reagan, there was some benefit because they were so high. When Bush II cut them, they were already so low that the marginal benefits to the economy were nearly nil.

We make cost-vs-benefit calculations all the time, and accept some costs in exchange for hopefully greater benefits. If the costs are miniscule and the benefits tangible, it's an easy call

Why would I need to come up with a negative impact of an impossible event?

I know you won't answer this..because you talk more like a politician rather than a person in pursuit of truth. too much ego.
Its simple and you know it as well.
If i increase the minimum wage to $1000 per hr, all the jobs and industries would collapse and move abroad. Capital flight will happen overnight. US economy will collapse.
now...take a step back a bit and increase it only slightly to $20 per hr.
maybe economy can sustain it...may be not. but the risk is there. may be the risk will be at $30 or $40...but its there.
The risk at small numbers won't be that economy will collapse but there could be loss of productivity or competitiveness..
to just say that there is no risk is absolutely idiotic. either you are willingly acting ignorant due to your ego/ideology or you are really one ( which i find hard to believe).

bgamall4 says

I found it quite funny since there is a kernel of truth in some of these satirical positions.

For you that kernel of truth, could be last nights pop corn still stuck in your teeth.

bgamall4 says

Automan Empire says

The Borowitz Report is *****. A url including /blogs/ is not a strong reference point in a debate.

I am glad you got it. I almost deleted you because I wanted everyone else to find out. Just kidding.

I found it quite funny since there is a kernel of truth in some of these satirical positions.

Come on Gary, we all know you took it at face value.

we all agree that if we increase minimum wage substantially , there is real risk to our country's competitiveness .we don't know what that increase is though. so until we know the benefits of increasing the minimum wage beyond helping out the absolutely poor, we should keep our mouth shut and do nothing. we already have enough other problems to deal with.
and i am not questioning the increase of minimum wage to keep it inline with inflation.

jkaldi1 says

and i am not questioning the increase of minimum wage to keep it inline with inflation.

How about a 30% increase, then.

I believe that is almost enough to put it where it was in real terms in the 1970s; that is, to keep up with inflation.

Vicente says

When it comes to anything that might make them less money, oh my God you don't know what you are doing don't touch too delicate!

Will drastic cuts in top tax rates generate more revenue? Only one way to find out: do it!

Will modest increases in the now-piddling minimum wage produce a net benefit? TOO DANGEROUS WARNING ALERT WARNING ALERT DO NOT PROCEED!

Robert Sproul says

FortWayne says

until black people evolve on a mass scale and learn to live within the laws of the land, they are going to be more of them in jail.

After 250 years of slavery, 89 years of Jim Crow, decades of being redlined into declining neighborhoods with substandard schools, them crowding into our prisons (40% of the prison population) is the thanks we get.

Apparently, slavery only existed in the USA and Europe from 250 years ago until the mid to late 1800's. Also, no other ethnic groups in history have encountered severe racial discrimination, substandard schools, or going to prison.

Note that the "substandard" schools are not underfunded. A white school in Indiana gets less funding than SouthEast DC per capita.

Consider the racist photo above. The left simultaneously refers to the above guy as "privileged" and therefore undeserving of any pity for the situation he's in and also a subject of mockery for working in lower class jobs. His real estate will probably go up as liberals flee their crime ridden neighborhoods to move next to him. You should be nice to that inbred guy. He's going to be your neighbor someday.

"Three black teens arrested while waiting for school bus."

Compare and contrast to:
"Black teens charged with hate crime for beating up autistic white student at bus stop."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CKY9YcDtg8

For the record, I've been stopped by the police before as well. I worked a late night shift and since I was the only car on the road the police stopped me to see if I was a bank robber. Another time I was stopped, the police didn't bother to investigate. I suppose my tone and relaxed manner convinced them to not give me any trouble. One of the officers stopping me was black.

Race demographics of Lafayette, California from wikipedia:
"The racial makeup of the city was 86.81% White, 0.55% Black or African American, 0.22% Native American, 8.23% Asian, 0.09% Pacific Islander, 0.81% from other races, and 3.30% from two or more races. 3.95% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race."

Good luck with making the world into Sweden!

This number is similar to what it costs to raise a child not including college. No matter where one is in life cycle, there's a vacuum cleaner to scoop up the money.

PolishKnight says

The left simultaneously refers to the above guy as "privileged" and therefore undeserving of any pity for the situation he's in and also a subject of mockery for working in lower class jobs

See, whenever you try to say what "the left" thinks, you erect a strawman. Please stop.

Cantor's loss is fantastic, it really is great. I'm enjoying the MSM wringing their hands. How could the primary voters reject such a humanitarian and person of gravitas as Eric Cantor, that deep-minded Defender of Freedom(tm)?

He was the handmaiden of Blackstone, Finance, and the Defence and Prison-Industrial interests. He wasn't supposed to lose!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/10/why-cantors-loss-is-especially-bad-news-for-big-business/

The Defence Industry is particularly upset:
"Cantor’s stunning primary defeat is a huge blow to the US defense sector"
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140611/CONGRESSWATCH/306110028

And while the MSM is running with Immigration Issues, it seems Brat's real message to primary voters was his anti-Crony Capitalist stance:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/elites-beware-eric-cantor-s-defeat-may-signal-a-populist-revolution-20140611

Completely nuts on the minimum wage, pro-life, a modern economy, etc. etc. but wonderful on the NSA and Crony Capitalism and glutting the labor market.

This is the kind of unexpected blowback against the 1% underwriters of the tea party that you love to see.