Stop Raising The Minimum Wage & Stop Whining

reply to post by Solarskye


I think you need to step back and think for a minute. Try walking in someone elses shoes for a minute. Even at 6.55 an hour who the hell can live on that? Some people cannot help the situation that they are in and really are not in a position to be able to better themselves. I do agree that raising the minimum wage solves nothing, but neither does taking such an abrasive stance like yours. I lost my job last year making 30.00 an hour and have had a very hard time finding anything paying much more than 8 dollars an hour. That's a major slap in the face.
I'm really tired of hearing people blaming the poor in this country for the troubles the country is in. That's bull. It's the rich bastards that run the big companies that are screwing us all. The company I was working for a few years ago was bought by another company. We were in a market for roughly 7 technicians I think and 5 sales people. We had 5 techs and 20 sales people. The company that bought us had 5 techs as well and 15 sales people. We should have had roughly 14 or so techs and 10 sales people. When they bought us they laid off 5 of us techs and hired 5 more sales people. So they then had 5 techs and 40 sales people in a market that required 14 techs and 10 sales people. Their sales went through the roof, their field support suffored horribly. They took all those profits and ran. They are sittin pretty somewhere.
Don't blame the poor. Most are poor and can't help it.

OP forgot about the inflation, it grows faster than the minimum wage

reply to post by slackerwire


Hell why do they even "deserve" to eat, or live under a roof?
Perhaps they should be chained up and forced to work harder - perhaps peeling grapes for the rich

...

It's not a matter of what one "deserves", but a matter of what keeps society from disintegrating in class violence.

History provides a simple lesson: when the gap between rich and poor becomes too great, the result is chaos and violence. Poor people - once they get desperate enough - tend to get together, kill the rich people, and take their stuff. The ubiquity of the individual firearm makes this unavoidable.

The purpose of a welfare state, minimum wage, etc., (beyond the moral considerations of allowing people to starve, or prostitute their kids, etc.) is to make sure they never get that desperate.

Lasseiz-fair economics is very similar to it's Marxist mirror image: a very pretty and emotionally appealing theory that seems to make great logical sense internally, but simply doesn't work when tried in the real world.

It's just another silly ideology that inspires blind faith in it's adherents.

[edit on 7/24/08 by xmotex]

Originally posted by TheOracle
so the OP believes a higher education is the solution. Lets assume everybody gets higher education, then please tell me who would clean toilets?
life appears so simple for you right, where can people get an education when they cant even afford to feed themselves?

I don't believe higher education is the solution but it helps. I've never gone to college myself. Life is hard for me and getting harder with all the high prices. I'm giving up a truck that I was trying to pay on but just can't do it anymore and we're back to one vehicle again which is fine as long as we have a roof over our heads and the important bills get paid. America looks like it's feeding itself that's for sure.



And the show I saw the other night with young kids being 500 pounds, it made me cry.

Raising the Minimum wage is another example of treating the symptom not the sickness.

reply to post by ncuncfan2006


I pay my employees exponentially more than minimum wage, because thats what they are worth to me.

If the time comes when they render themselves worthless, I wouldn't hesitate to get rid of them.

People are paid what they are worth. If they want a bigger salary, they first have to make themselves more valuable.

reply to post by xmotex


No one deserves to live under a roof, thats why people WORK for that roof. See those bums sleeping on a bus stop bench? They obviously dont want a roof over their heads bad enough.


As for your other comment, youre basically saying we should bribe the poor so they dont commit crimes. That really a road you want to go down?

reply to post by Dulcimer


You have fun killing the Straw Man sitting at the kids table.

40 hours a week is 8 hours a day for 5 days. This is not that long. 50 hours a week is ten hours a day. Even this leaves 14 hours in the day to do whatever. sleep... 7-8 hours a night. That still leaves you 7 hours. That is enough time to watch all three of the Jaws movies(hope you brought your 3D glasses) and a few episodes of Scrubs and take a 30 minute shower.

What i find humerous is you people are knocking the poor people. How about the hard working people who have worked for a company for 20-30 years been loyal just to one day go into work and be told your job is gone. We are out sourcing to Mexico. Your just a damn number to these companys and guys like slackerwire they dont care you have a family to feed. You guys act like its easy to get a awesome paying job. Maybe where you live it is but not everywhere. As some people can confirm in this thread even some college educated people have a hard time finding a well paying job.

So get off your high and mighty horse.

Why not get pissed about people like that?? Maybe because you are those type of people.



[edit on 24-7-2008 by ncuncfan2006]

reply to post by Christian Voice


I'm sorry to hear you lost such a good job Christian. I respect your opinion and I'm sorry that you disagree with me. It's a give me, give me America now days and I'm tired of seeing people hurt by the high taxes the government puts on our shoulders and drives away corporations. I'm tired of government schools that don't accomplish any teaching but failure and no competition, I'm tired of seeing government politicians get rich while we are the backbone that makes the country work. I don't blame the poor, but I do see a trend of help me!, help me! government and who's to blame. " government" big government.

I have now read this entire thread and the entire argument for the pro-minimum wage side seems to come down to this: someone, somewhere is a hard worker and due to just bad luck and through no fault of their own, they can't get a better job even though they've tried.

I do not doubt that such people exist. But public policy should not be made to benefit the few at the expense of everyone else. I don't care if anyone thinks it already is. It shouldn't be. Public policy is not crafted to save the very, very few who get paid minimum wage and cannot get out of it in any way. In doing so it hurts us all, causes inflation, and causes lots of people at or near minimum wage to lose their job.

All of the other argument devolve into populist class warfare tactics. Minimum wage is NOT going to punish the rich and NOT help the poor.

[edit on 24-7-2008 by ALightinDarkness]

reply to post by ALightinDarkness


the point of the minimum wage is that employers cannot have people working in slave to poverty positions..

That is to say, in a capitalist society the employers are required to support their workings to the minimum poverty standards..

The minimum wage stopped increasing in the 90's.. inflation has ate away the economy this decade.. YES, the minimum wage should be fitted to a gauge of inflation.

My state, Ohio, does just that, we passed a law last year that increase the minimum wage every year according to inflation.

There are not many minimum wage earners out there.. the ones that exist are exploited by greed.

reply to post by ncuncfan2006


My only obligation is to feed MY family. Not to make sure other people can feed theirs. I worked my ass off to get where I am today, if others dont have the motivation , that isnt my problem.

reply to post by slackerwire


I wish people wouldnt work for you then lol that would be funny if noone would work for you. Then we would see how much you really need people.

You worked ya ass off la di da. Tell me how many hours a week do you work? Do you own your business or does it own you?

reply to post by ncuncfan2006



People WANT to work for me. I pay well, and I treat my employees like I would want to be treated.

My business basically runs itself, so my actual time put into it now probably runs around 15-20 hours a week at most. Thats why I pay my employees well, they make it easy to sit back, let them run the show, and let the business take care of itself. When I first started, I was easily putting in 60-70 hours per week to gain more clients so that I could justify hiring my first employee.

I now have 5 full timers and 1 part timer working for me.

reply to post by Rockpuck


I agree with you Rockpuck. Here in Tennessee there is no minimum wage law but most people make more than the federal minimum wage. But if you want a free capitalistic society then the business owners have the right to pay you what they want to pay you and you take it or leave it. Of course it has to be standard federal minimum wage but most companies pay far more than that. I never want to see sweat shops or slave companies that were around in the past, never. But if you start a business you should decide the wage and if you can't hire then raise it.

Originally posted by slackerwire
reply to post by ncuncfan2006

 

People WANT to work for me. I pay well, and I treat my employees like I would want to be treated.

Well then your a fair person

[edit on 24-7-2008 by ncuncfan2006]

I guess this is where I get confused on this issue. How is it that ppl are having such a hard time finding a job? You don't even have to go "out" and work. You can work from home. Build a business of your own. Learn data entry. If you are even that desperate, advertise some kind of service on Craig'sList such as running errands for business ppl who otherwise would fall behind on things such as dry cleaning, grocery shopping, etc (this is actually becoming a popular way to make money), mow yards, whatever. If you want the $$ bad enough, it is there.... even for, dare I say, the uneducated and "less fortunate."

Just seems unfair for ppl who won't get raises while the minimum wage goes up to pay more for the lifestyle they have worked hard to get to.

And really, the main thing that doesn't make sense to me is that the cost of living will go up, so does minimum wage increases really help the poor? OMG!!! Is this how WE or THEY (depending on your position) are wiping out the middle class?



[edit on 24-7-2008 by justamomma]

reply to post by justamomma


You got it Justamomma I know people who earn money at flea markets and yard sales. Like Jeff Foxworthy said on his show. He bought three plastic container lids for 5 cents a piece just to sell them for ten cents at his yard sell.

Labor is a market. If you enforce prices on a market you get devaluation of the commodity(the labor) and currency(use of funds to create other final goods). These two affect inflation thus make products more expensive, and the same needy people have to spend more for goods creating a perpetual feedback loop for raising wages then inflation rinse and repeat.

If the American government is going to coerce businesses to pay higher wages(and then pay taxes on that), than this encourages people to work under the radar(illegal immigrants).

We are out sourcing to Mexico.

Out sourcing has benefited our economy and theirs as well. Would you rather the company that outsourced go bankrupt or move to Mexico? Either way jobs are lost, but with one way we can at least benefit other nations as well as ourselves. Lets try to not be spiteful and say "if we can't have these jobs, no one can".

How about the hard working people who have worked for a company for 20-30 years been loyal just to one day go into work and be told your job is gone.

Industry is like a glacier. It is moving constantly and perpetually growing and shrinking, but most people do not have a long enough attention span to witness these events. There is nothing static about industry. 140 years ago their were no automobiles or factories to build them(jobs), but there were also these things called horses that someone had to care for. Just look at the Tech Market right now. It is moving so fast that it shows exactly my point.

At some point there was a factory of workers that built robots, only to lose their jobs to those very robots. That is life, and that is how the world moves forward. The only people that do not want this are politicians and special interest groups(car manufacturers.... hydrogen fuels were possible 20 years ago).