Repeal minimum wage says the Grouch

Originally posted by mjleonid12
I'm sorry for sounding really stupid, but some words I'm just not familiar with. Maybe because I'm from Europe, originally. But what does this "repeal" mean?? Does it mean to lower the minimum wage, or increase it?

Here's an idea! Look it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia. Those reference sources exist in hard copy form and online. It would might consume a whole minute olf your life to do that.

When speaking of the law-making process, "repeal" is the opposite of "enact". To "enact" a law means to create a new law. To "repeal" a law means to remove an existing law such that it has no further legal effect and no-one needs to obey it thereafter. Laws are enacted and repealed by a state's legislative body. The Legislature in a US state. Congress in the U.S. federal government. Parliament in the UK. The Knesset in Israel. Etc.

Find a good online dictionary and put a link to it on your desktop.

I could not agree more. The minimum wage needs to go, so do child labor laws, because why should kids get a free ride? They could be put to work, make the little rug rats work 70 hours a week, heck, we dont have public schools anymore anyway, so why not put them to work. Then we can REALLY start to compete with the Chinese! Its time for all you freeloaders and parasites on the REAL Americans, the rich, to stop getting a free ride.


Makes you want to throw up, huh? THIS is how the far right thinks.

Originally posted by openminded2011
I could not agree more. The minimum wage needs to go, so do child labor laws, because why should kids get a free ride? They could be put to work, make the little rug rats work 70 hours a week, heck, we dont have public schools anymore anyway, so why not put them to work. Then we can REALLY start to compete with the Chinese! Its time for all you freeloaders and parasites on the REAL Americans, the rich, to stop getting a free ride.


Makes you want to throw up, huh? THIS is how the far right thinks

No, that is NOT how the far right thinks. But I have seen that it is how the far right is PORTRAYED.

Both parties want prosperity for America. They just disagree about how to get there.

It's the POLITICIANS of BOTH parties who have protected their buddies by supporting legislation that benefits their buddies. THAT is what makes me want to throw up.

Originally posted by dubiousone

Originally posted by mjleonid12
I'm sorry for sounding really stupid, but some words I'm just not familiar with. Maybe because I'm from Europe, originally. But what does this "repeal" mean?? Does it mean to lower the minimum wage, or increase it?

Here's an idea! Look it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia. Those reference sources exist in hard copy form and online. It would might consume a whole minute olf your life to do that.

When speaking of the law-making process, "repeal" is the opposite of "enact". To "enact" a law means to create a new law. To "repeal" a law means to remove an existing law such that it has no further legal effect and no-one needs to obey it thereafter. Laws are enacted and repealed by a state's legislative body. The Legislature in a US state. Congress in the U.S. federal government. Parliament in the UK. The Knesset in Israel. Etc.

Find a good online dictionary and put a link to it on your desktop.

Haha, thank you! And I did look it up, but I still couldn't find exactly what it meant in my words. The definitions I found for it were other words that still confused me.

The soviets used to say if unemployment is the only problem then hand out spoons for ditch digging projects.

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Some money better than no money? Can you say sweat shops?

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If a business can't survive paying its employees a livable wage then its a poor business model and maybe the business shouldn't exist in the first place. Consider for a moment all the places that pay minimum wage to a large portion of their employees and ask yourself would we be better off without them?

But we can't make a profit if we pay them a livable wage!!

Plantation owners in the deep south with slaves argued the same point.

WORST SUGGESTION EVER!!

Just look at China, and how great the "no minimum wage" thing is for the general population. The only thing it'll accomplish is to further increase the gap between rich and poor...with the amount of poor people increasing (as the middle class dies off even more) and the rich getting richer. Of course for some politicians that's their true goal.

Bachmann made the same stupid suggestion, which means one of two things:

1) She really has no clue about economics and is just plain stupid.
2) She wants more benefits for the rich and her corporate donors while the rest of the country's screwed.

Either way, horrible horrible horrible suggestion...and people who believe otherwise should look up the "working poor". It won't solve anything, on the contrary.

reply to post by davidgrouchy


Repeal minimum wage?

Lets see, what would the super rich who control a bigger and bigger % of Americas wealth say?

CHA CHING!

It isn't people who are inheritantly unproductive...people have always had something to do in their 'tribe'. It's the billions of dollars sitting around in accounts doing nothing that could be put to a better use that is unproductive.

reply to post by davidgrouchy


Well a bit torn on this idea...it does seem the minimum wage law inhibits some business from hiring more people. the minimum wage in some areas does not affect the people as business is forced to pay more to compete for employees. In a smaller area the minimum wage is the rule of thumb as less competition means they can pay minimum wage and still have a large pool to choose from. Small business maybe exempt, those with less than 50 employees but across the board repeal would not work.

I'm all for minimum wage, here in Australia our minimum wage is double that of America's and our dollar is worth more than the greenback, our unemployment is also lower than America. America is just way out of hand imo, but whats worse is the IMF and the Federal Reserve, how the **** do banks get away with lending money they dont even own and then charge interest on it. Theres no point arguing about a cure when what is needed is prevention, that being abolish the FED and the IMF, easier said than done, the poeple have been sleeping for too long(and not just Americans), worrying about filling their own greedy lives with materials they dont need and borrowing too much money which feeds the zionist bankers. I hate to be all doom and gloom, but nothing short of a massive revolution will bring things to where they should be, the governments steal our earnings and use them for some good of course(only because they have to or they know the people will get off their fat buts and revolt), but when billions of dollors are going into black operations and invading other countries under false pretenses(not to mention the banks decide if a country goes to war these days, not the government, they arent in charge of a single thing) something needs to be done.

There are sooooo many contributing factors to the economy, but one thing is for sure minimum wages beign set is not what is crippling America.

On a side note, you may laugh, but I bet if the citizens of many countries didnt have any TV's the revolution would of already been fought and won.

If somebody provides free housing and storage, free food, free water, free health care, free transportation, and free utilities... Sure, I'd be fine with no minimum wage. (If that was satisfactory enough and I have everything I feel I need past the basics, I might even do work for free if the vocation is interesting and stimulating enough.) Of course those costs would have to come from somewhere, wouldn't they?

The problem is the cost of living, and even the minimum wage as it is now does not meet that when based on a realistic index. The reason why other places in the world can get away with it is because the cost of living there is so low, but even that is changing over time.

If we lived in a society where businesses actually cared about the people then lower minuim wage might work. The problem is we live in a society where businesses and the rich exploit people. No matter what there would still have to be a minium wage because if prices somehow went down I doubt .50 per hour would be enough to live on. Believe me there would be companies who would try to pay .50 an hour.
We can't solve the illegal immegration problem either by repealing minuim wage. We just need to enforce the current illegal immegration laws. Why let companies get away with paying people next to nothing? The government's job should be to protect us not screw us over!

threads like this make me feel sad about the state of the human race.

You basically said, can't we enact rules to make it easier to take advantage of my fellow man?

Exactly the type of thinking that it pushing us over the cliff

Minimum wage was a great idea until landlords, shops, services, garages all suddenly realised that everyone buying there stuff/services has a minimum wage.

My theroy is that this has lead to prices being increased steadily with increases to the minimum wage.

If that is true which I think is hard to deny then minimum wage has not been a good thing for the economy or in general for the people on them, in saying that I think its to late to repeal it in any meaningfull way as employers will take the piss and decrease wages whilst all the things you buy would still go up in price.

One thing though I think would solve the problem would be for people and companies to stop looking for constant and never ending growth.

Chris Martenson said himself "we can only have infinite growth with infinite energy"

Edit to add: be warned Chris seems to want you to enroll to read any of the articles at only $300 a year of course but you can still watch the crash course which is good.

reply to post by jpmail

If that is true which I think is hard to deny then minimum wage has not been a good thing for the economy or in general for the people on them...

You are wrong!

Pay special attention to the section talking about the US. It should be pretty self-evident that repealing minimum wage would only make the situation worse.

Look at countries that don't have minimum wages, and then tell me their population is doing better...look at China (average citizen is doing worse) or Africa (worse too).

The only thing this would accomplish is a larger gap between rich and poor, and the middle class would be the ones ultimately losing out. Hell, even the economy would probably suffer a bit because less people could afford their goods/services. If you think companies would lower prices, you don't really understand companies. They aren't "moral entities", their goal is to make PROFIT...so good luck making them come down with prices simply because salaries drop

I agree with repealing the minimum wage as long as we also enforce our illegal immigration laws. Based on first hand observation the illegal immigrants would work for much less because they utilize free healthcare, school, etc. and also do not obey occupancy laws. Due to this their cost of living is much less than law abiding citizens so they could work for a lot lower wage than should be appropriate. Combine that with the fact that $100 in the US is worth so much more in Mexico and you have a group that would undercut US citizens, utilize the resources we pay taxes on, save up their earnings and head back to Mexico when they have made enough to live off of. Again, I have experienced all of these first hand and befriending an immigrant who is now legal was very eye opening to what is happening. So get them out of the country, then repeal the minimum wage.

reply to post by williegreen

I agree with repealing the minimum wage as long as we also enforce our illegal immigration laws. Based on first hand observation the illegal immigrants would work for much less because they utilize free healthcare, school, etc. and also do not obey occupancy laws.

So you are under the impression companies would offer higher salaries if illegal immigrants are gone? Really? You expect them to offer this out of kindness or something?

Companies have one goal, and one goal only, MAKING PROFIT. And unless you force them to, they will pay Americans just as little as illegal immigrants if they get a chance to. According to fools like Bachmann, they deserve that chance

Originally posted by davidgrouchy
First it should be done with publicity saying “Start asking for raises” as my experience shows that many American wage earners labor away quietly disgruntled and just wait for a wage increase. Somehow it is taboo for many to even ask. And employers seem to have little practice being asked. It almost shocks them sometimes. This should change.

Yes, by all means, once labor laws like minimum wage are retracted, we can just ask for raises...



...and I'm sure without our labor rights, the owners will be more than happy to appease us...you know, as long as it doesn't interfere with profits.

So the question remains.
Am I crazy?

hmmmm....yes.

reply to post by jkm1864


Put everyone on salary, then you don't have to worry about how many hours you work their sorry butts.

reply to post by MrXYZ


No, I am saying that with the illegal immigration problem you can't have a level playing field. And yes, companies are in it to make a profit. But they also realize that the cost of training new employees is more than the cost of retaining employees. So they can pay as little as they want, the business down the street will pay a little more to attract the good people. Besides, minimum wage work should be looked at as a stepping stone not as a life long solution.