Top Economists Are Backing Sen. Bernie Sanders on Establishing a $15 an Hour Minimum Wage

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
lol, I know your talking in jest, but these people aren't so fictitious, there everywhere up in tropical Queensland. With there half million dollar yachts just cruising around the different tropical islands with there blonde hot young bikini wearing trophy wives. Seriously... where do all these dudes get there money from?

If you think that people with $500,000 yachts are the middle class you need to rethink your perception of what it means to be middle class.

And frankly you sound quite jealous, who cares what someone's wife looks like or what type of recreational vehicle they have?

Ok then, so who would you personally be, a person earning a casual minimum wage in Australia at $20.50AU an hour, which works out to be $596US for a 40 hour week. Or a person earning minimum wage in the US at $7.25US an hour, which works out to be $290US for a 40 hour week?

Like seriously, inflation included, who would you rather be?

I would rather be myself who earns substantially more than that because I created value for my work in the market place.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

And frankly you sound quite jealous, who cares what someone's wife looks like or what type of recreational vehicle they have?

Obviously I'm jealous, I mean who wouldn't be? Quite honestly though, I just want to know how they hooked up such an awesome lifestyle, that's all. lol.

I would rather be myself who earns substantially more than that because I created value for my work in the market place.

Hmmm, well I didn't actually expect a straight answer, it was more of a rhetorical question anyway.

It's quite obvious what wage you'd choose for yourself if you had to decide between the two. Yet, you still expect others to work for the lesser wage.

It's kind of elitist of you, wouldn't you agree?

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
Obviously I'm jealous, I mean who wouldn't be? Quite honestly though, I just want to know how they hooked up such an awesome lifestyle, that's all. lol.

Go and ask them.

Hmmm, well I didn't actually expect a straight answer, it was more of a rhetorical question anyway.

It's quite obvious what wage you'd choose for yourself if you had to decide between the two. Yet, you still expect others to work for the lesser wage.

It's kind of elitist of you, wouldn't you agree?

I would not 'choose' either, I have not made minimum wage since I was 17 and I would immediately be finding a way to increase my value and subsequently my salary.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
I would not 'choose' either, I have not made minimum wage since I was 17 and I would immediately be finding a way to increase my value and subsequently my salary.

That doesn't work because the minimum wage jobs still need to be done. Everyone could be a college graduate and the no skill positions would still need to be filled.

originally posted by: Aazadan
That doesn't work because the minimum wage jobs still need to be done. Everyone could be a college graduate and the no skill positions would still need to be filled.

Then the free market should dictate what those wages are, same as for everyone else.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
Then the free market should dictate what those wages are, same as for everyone else.

So you're in favor of there being no minimum wage at all? What will you do when people are working for less than they need to pay for food and shelter? Do you think rent prices will go down so that people can do so? Do you think wages will be made up with welfare programs? Should we cut all of those off too so that employers must pay what people need? If history is any example that just puts a lot of people in poverty. A modern day example would be Singapore which has no social safety nets and no minimum wage. They have a very bad poverty problem.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
Then the free market should dictate what those wages are, same as for everyone else.

Since those ready to jump headfirst into raising min wage to $15/hr obviously won't ask you, Augustus, would you please explain (briefly) what the free market is and how artificial constructs like a mandate doubling the minimum wage send negative and damaging shock waves through the system, effectively destroying the free market and requiring more and more artificially manipulative mandates be passed?

a reply to: burdman30ott6

So you also believe there should be no minimum wage?

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Pick me - I can explain that!!

The free market is an imaginary system whereby somehow things are supposed to work out OK despite all the evidence to the contrary and in opposition to basic human behavior.

Do I get a star??

originally posted by: Aazadan
a reply to: burdman30ott6

So you also believe there should be no minimum wage?

Quite the contrary, I believe every worker should have a value which they set for themselves via their production, skills, and talents.

Bottom line, something must significantly change or America will die. You CANNOT have global free trade alongside strong labor benefit mandates. That's what turned America from a manufacturing nation to a service based nation and, if they keep pushing these outrageous mandates, it will ultimately turn America into an automated service nation.

Either we install tariffs and import taxes up the wazoo or we abolish things like the minimum wage.

History is with me on this one. During the 50s and 60s, as wage laws were strengthening and the middle class was booming, there were also rigorous national protectionist laws in place that made it more lucrative for companies to produce what they sold in the US here inside the US. As those tariffs were removed and the labor laws continued to escalate, companies got smart and realized "Damn, I can manufacture this in Taiwan and not have to worry about this headache here in the US" and that's what they did. It's economic osmosis... the money will constantly try to flow across the weakest membrane to the area hungriest for money it can find. You either toughen the membrane or you make the American worker less demanding... nothing else will prevent the loss of prosperity in America.

originally posted by: Aloysius the Gaul
Do I get a star??

no

originally posted by: Aazadan
So you're in favor of there being no minimum wage at all?

Yes.

What will you do when people are working for less than they need to pay for food and shelter?

They will need to make other arrangements; live with family, get a roommate(s).

Do you think rent prices will go down so that people can do so?

Yes, I do, that is how the free market works, if less people can afford rent than less people will rent, the price of rent will conversely have to drop as demand decreases.

Do you think wages will be made up with welfare programs?

If we allow people to continue to collect them, yes, however we are in dire need of entitlement reform as there are too many people collecting who can be working.

Should we cut all of those off too so that employers must pay what people need?

I am all for less government and keeping more of your pay. If employers cannot locate the help they need than wages will go up, this is the free market in action again.

If history is any example that just puts a lot of people in poverty. A modern day example would be Singapore which has no social safety nets and no minimum wage. They have a very bad poverty problem.

I am not advocating for no safety nets, just not easily abused or perpetual ones.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

I believe, Burdman, that in the copious amounts of posts I have made in this thread I have, but I can, once more, explain it in an overly simplistic manner.

Artificial constructs that influence the economy of wide reaching and often unintended consequences. Increasing the minimum wage for a select group(New York City's fast food workers) or en masse (advocates for a nationally aligned minimum $15 wage) causes those not covered by the increase to asses there own market place value and petition for an increase based on the occupation they have in relation to a fast food worker.

This drives the costs of goods up via fixed charges (labor) being passed on to the end user. Eventually, what buying power the minimum wager earner benefitted from is erased due to market dynamics and the decrease in buying power (relative to there now higher-paid counterparts) and places them back in the same position they were prior to the increase.

Inflationary economic distress can only be remedied by additional market intervention and the cycle repeats ad nauseum until it becomes unsustainable. The free market finds equilibrium by allowing employers to negotiate with employees on a regional or micro regional level. The fast food worker who lives in Manhattan, New York, may indeed end up earning more than the one in Manhattan, Kansas, not because of a interventionist economic policy, but because the employer in New York can pay more due to being able to charge more.

By forcing the artificial wage structure on all employers you also marginalize the middle class further as the rich are not impacted due to their wealth and the poor are also not impacted due to subsidization via societal programs. Basic necessities, their processing and delivery to market, are impacted and affect the middle class in a more pronounced manner as they do not have the luxury of wealth or the recourse of social program benefits.

In essence, you are trying to drag people up to the middle class but unintentionally drag the middle class down.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Then the free market should dictate what those wages are, same as for everyone else.

The only problem id there is no free market, there will never be a free market in the USA.

The free market ideal is appealing, but in reality the current market has to many influences to ever become a free market again.

originally posted by: Aloysius the Gaul
The free market is an imaginary system whereby somehow things are supposed to work out OK despite all the evidence to the contrary and in opposition to basic human behavior.

The free market is far from imaginary and as it is amoral in the purest sense is not concerned with having things work out 'okay'. As soon as you interject human activity into the free market, via artificial means, you make it even less 'okay' as you now have competing moralistic views pulling supply and demand, which is really the simplest of systems, in multiple directions.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
The only problem id there is no free market, there will never be a free market in the USA.

I agree it is not completely free, but that is due to continued and for the most part, totally unnecessary government intervention, typically by people who do not even have a minimal grasp of economics.

The free market ideal is appealing, but in reality the current market has to many influences to ever become a free market again.

Yet we want to add more? Everyone has their pet policy which will somehow right all the wrongs and make the planets align in perfect order.


You want to know what it really is? Keep government as far out of economics as you can.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

How would you propose to turn real estate into a free market, it has been propped up by 40 years of get rich marketing plans and interest bearing loans. How does one ever take away the these influences and create a free market.

While the current system needs tweaks and frequent tune ups to run correctly, it is better than the anarchy of having no system in place.

The minimum wage should have been adjusted for cola and productivity on a timely manner, then there would have been no need to beg for a $15 an hour wage!

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: WTFover

So since we don't need people to make goods anymore what's the next step?

Sorry, but I'm not following your question. Why do we not need producers?

a reply to: burdman30ott6

We're not that far off then, except there's one major difference. In our current economy and likely our future economy workers as a whole cannot set their own value and leave it up to employers to determine if that cost is reasonable. We're entering a society where there are far more workers than there are jobs for them to fill and every day that automation improves we go a little further down that path. 40% of our jobs are currently low skill positions that can be automated, within 30 years if not sooner these positions will be gone. While that happens our population is going to continue to increase and there are no replacement jobs coming. Our current economic model only works when the need for jobs is greater than the supply of labor, and in industries where that's still true you can see it mostly work fine. What are we supposed to do about everyone else though?

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
Yes.

Let me tell you from experience, lacking a minimum wage doesn't work. I've got a disability, that qualifies me for subminimum wage laws. The fact that I can be paid much less doesn't make me more competitive, it makes me less competitive. Because now in order to cover my expenses such as a small apartment in the bad part of town I'm not going to an employer saying "give me minimum wage" I'm going to him and trying to argue why he should give me minimum wage when that's 28 times as much as he can legally pay me. How many jobs would you get if the going rate for your labor is $10/hour but you had to work for 28x that or $280 per hour?

They will need to make other arrangements; live with family, get a roommate(s).

Most people on minimum wage already do this. In order to get rental prices within what is considered healthy (30% of income) you generally need 2 people per bedroom. Is it a valid business model for McDonalds to say that in order to work for them you have to live with your parents? These are career jobs now, them not offering independence is not good.

Yes, I do, that is how the free market works, if less people can afford rent than less people will rent, the price of rent will conversely have to drop as demand decreases.

Rent only goes down if property values go down. In order for this deflation you speak of to happen, peoples investments in their homes need to lose value. This also means their retirement accounts and other investments that are based on property values also depreciate. This would also mean property tax revenues decline which will result in large tax increases in other areas.

If we allow people to continue to collect them, yes, however we are in dire need of entitlement reform as there are too many people collecting who can be working.

Let me explain the economics of disability to you. You get $x/month. If you work, your earnings are taxed at the full value, so for example if like me you get paid $1/hour you end up seeing 20% of that taken in taxes. But after this you also lose $1 in disability for every $2 you make gross. So on that $1 you also lose 50 cents in other income. This makes that $1 after taxes and that penalty pay 30 cents. What this often times means is that you spend more in gas to go to work than you make on a shift.

Which on that note, our travel costs do not proportionately scale down, with a lower wage comes the same price of fuel as it's sold on a global market while wages are local which means a greater percentage of a persons earnings don't go towards rent, food, or the extras that make our economy run but rather go to transport to and from work.

I am all for less government and keeping more of your pay. If employers cannot locate the help they need than wages will go up, this is the free market in action again.

Or they automate it, which creates a glut of labor and wages go down. Alternatively they do what the tech industry has done and import all the labor with H1B visas leaving Americans without jobs.

I am not advocating for no safety nets, just not easily abused or perpetual ones.

We currently don't have perpetual safety nets. We have a cash assistance program that lasts for a maximum of 5 years, and a program to feed and house children. If you are single and able bodied there is zero help beyond some very minimal food assistance.

We will also never get the government out of the market. Free markets are completely unsustainable because they result in monopolies. Competition as a concept is flawed because inevitably someone doesn't lose, which allows them to push everyone else out. This is why the most formidable economies on the planet today use government to fuel the private sector.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

So basically your advocating for a system where the democratically elected government has absolutely no power, but mega corporations and 1% have total rule over everything?

Where the lower class live under primitive 3rd world conditions, with no welfare and are forced to work for basically nothing with no OH&S regulations.

A world where theirs no maintenance of infrastructure, because the mega corps have banned the government from taxing them.

This free market system of yours would surely result in a baron waste land of a society. Where the only people who have any kind of quality of life are the super rich who can afford 10 foot security fencing around there property and armed guards at every entrance.

No wonder the secret service have the fanatical conservatives under the radar! With such dangerous and extreme ideas, there a danger to the very fabric of society.