Michelle Bachmann, Kids, and Minimum Wage

I agree minimum wage laws should be repealed but Ron Paul also believes that and he also believes in ending the IRS and federal reserve so until Bachmann jumps on that bandwagon I'm not too convinced she will be any different from Obama claiming to bring home the troops and then turning 180 on that promise.

Well I like the idea of employees paying for their mistakes..

Politicians are employees of the people so lets start running up a bill of what they personally owe us..


Wars based on false information..
Bank bailouts..
Failed and over budget programs..
Monies unaccounted for..

Hmmm, how much ya reckon each pollie would owe??

Originally posted by filosophia
I agree minimum wage laws should be repealed but Ron Paul also believes that and he also believes in ending the IRS and federal reserve so until Bachmann jumps on that bandwagon I'm not too convinced she will be any different from Obama claiming to bring home the troops and then turning 180 on that promise.

Bachmann bringing home troops? After watching the debate it seems like she was ready to march into Iran day one.

This is another thing that I simply cannot understand. Americans want to bring our troops home but Ron Paul is the only person on that stage that wants to actually do it... yet he has no electability?

Originally posted by e11888

Originally posted by filosophia
I agree minimum wage laws should be repealed but Ron Paul also believes that and he also believes in ending the IRS and federal reserve so until Bachmann jumps on that bandwagon I'm not too convinced she will be any different from Obama claiming to bring home the troops and then turning 180 on that promise.

Bachmann bringing home troops? After watching the debate it seems like she was ready to march into Iran day one.

This is another thing that I simply cannot understand. Americans want to bring our troops home but Ron Paul is the only person on that stage that wants to actually do it... yet he has no electability?

Maybe you should re-read my post because I don't mention anywhere about Bachmann bringing home the troops. In fact I compare her to Obama lying about bringing home the troops.

Originally posted by e11888
It makes no logical sense to pay Bill that sits on his butt all day and complaines the same wage as Bob that busts his ass and actually helps a business compete.

That's why Bob ideally gets a raise, above minimum wage. Eliminate minimum wage, however, and Bill won't see any incentive to even pretend to work at legitimate employment. Assuming that Bill is a genuine lowlife, he'll likely do something like buying some guns and becoming a drug dealer instead.

Make minimum wage low, if you want; but get rid of it completely, and you're asking for a lot of social problems. Bill needs to eat, and if he can't earn the money he needs in order to do that, he will resort to other, less socially desirable means.

Part of the problem with extreme/Randian Capitalism, is that only the individual who is willing to work or make something of themselves is considered. The problem is that not all of society is like that. You're always going to have your low level sociopaths who insist on a free lunch. If you don't give them said free lunch in a cubicle, they'll resort to crime to get it.

So you don't have small elements of socialism like a minimum wage because you're an altruist, even. You do it because you're going to want the area you live in to be safe and crime free, for your own sake.

You have to understand that we live in a free market and that competition is the center block of it all.

No, you don't. If you really lived in Rand or von Mises' ideal scenario, you wouldn't have had Obama bailing out the banks and other corporations back in 2008. Under a legitimately Capitalist or free market system, those corporations, if they were going to go broke, simply would have.

Pure Capitalism would actually be a great thing. The problem is, that like Marxist Communism in pure terms, it won't work, because reality keeps getting in the way.

Neither of these systems factor in, or consciously acknowledge the problem of psychopaths. Marx assumes that everyone is going to be willing to share and play fair, and Rand and von Mises assumed that force, fraud, and coercion would not be used, and that people would be honourable within the free market. Both assumptions, unfortunately, are a complete fantasy. People are going to be jerks.

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Bachmann scares me too...everybody running is scary.

So, when are we all going to enter politics, since we are the brain trust of a freer America?

What? Anybody... all the smart folks here? Anybody gonna run?

Hello......?

Originally posted by e11888
reply to post by petrus4

 

So really this is all about making sure the people that dont want to work are given a free lunch ticket so that they dont commit crime... isnt that why our population is supposed to be armed?

No, your population is supposed to be armed in order to do what you're likely going to need to do before too much longer, once your government gets completely out of hand.

The American dream that is now dead because we have to cater to corporate interests or the guy too lazy to put in his fair share.

The American dream hasn't been a good thing since you started relying on oil as an energy source. Assuming said dream is meant to be attainable by anyone who can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, it'd generally be a good idea to make sure that said dream doesn't rely on technologies that are potentially going to render the planet uninhabitable.

Part of the problem there is the fact that Capitalism has never really worked the way it should, at least not since the Industrial revolution. If it had, Tesla would have got richer than Bill Gates from his radiant energy generation, rather than Capitalism being used by OPEC as an excuse to sodomise the lot of us.

Von Mises proposed a system where people got rewarded for innovation, and the creation of new markets. Morgan sabotaged Tesla's work, because his idea of making money was maintaining artificial scarcity, rather than go with the more genuinely Capitalist model of making money from new inventions and products. Most of the corporate world still does that now, and people justify it. Consumerism is a product of this kind of thinking.

You know what happens in nature when an animal refuses to put in the work to survive? It dies. It doesnt get handed a food stamp card to go buy food. It doesnt get handed shelter to protect it from the cold. It dies. I know this seems like an extreme but we live in a world that isnt exactly kind.

Yes, except the fact that you're using this argument, tells me that you aren't in a position where you need food stamps yourself. If you were, my guess is that you'd likely be able to come up with a rationalisation for why someone else should give them to you.

This is one of Objectivism's core problems. Any semblance of empathy gets thrown completely out the window. The attitude is purely that as long as you as one individual are fine, then # everybody else.

Don't get me wrong; a big part of our current mess has been caused by the fact that we've gone WAAAAAAAY too far in the other direction, at least in some respects. There is a balance, however, and being at the Randian end of the scale isn't it. That is the other extreme end of the spectrum.

The other point is, that while individual animals in nature might die if they don't do what they need to, nature as a whole is actually very interdependent. Prey actually need predators in order to regulate their numbers, and vice versa. Ecosystems don't work via species existing in isolation, even if individuals members of a species sometimes do.

Id love to see the people that lived in farming communities in the 1700s told that if they didnt work hard they would be given a food stamp card. They would call you insane.

edit on 15-8-2011 by e11888 because: (no reason given)

Well, the other issue is that there's different kinds of work. Lots of different kinds. So from our original analogy, if Bill isn't all that smart, he could still do manual work. The problem now is that that doesn't work any more, because all of the human manual labour has been replaced by robotics. We've let technology take over a bit too much.

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Bachmann is bat S crazy.

How this woman could win any kind of poll is beyond me. SHE'S NUTS!!!

It's these kind of statements that will doom her in the end however.

3. How does eliminating the minimum wage allow for employees to be given more than they could imagine? If the minimum wage is the bottom line and it is not like a tax or mass of fees, then taking that away would in no way raise incomes.

reply to post by Misoir



Hypothetically, if you reduce the minimum wage to either something very low, or nothing at all, it would indeed spur mass economic growth and virtually eliminate unemployment.. wages would then increasingly gain momentum because employers would be forced to compete for skilled labor as all skilled labor would be employed.

However...

This does not work with mass immigration.. because you always have a huge stockpile of workers willing to work for less than the next, and an endless supply willing to travel to this labor market.

The minimum wage being as high as it is (almost $9/hr here) stiffles economic growth big time.. start ups and small businesses are the main employers in this country, quite often they simply cannot afford to hire help because minimum wage requirements are so damn high. For instance I would love to hire an employee to assist me in my work, but if I did, my employee would probably end up making more than me once wages, taxes and overhead are considered. The government gives me no room to move.

Also, consider: Because minimum wages have been increasing year over year (many states adopted inflation adjusted hikes) it slowly deteriorates the wage base of virutally every wage above it until you get past the 100k/yr wages. Most jobs are not increasing their wages, so every penny increased in the minimum wage is a decrease in their pay. Essentially this lowers the overall broader earnings of the entire working and middle class.

Minimum wages are nothing more than manipulations of the economy to make it appear there is wage growth and wealth inflation among the entire populace, even if all the "growth" is centered entirely on the lowest income class.

Originally posted by James1982
reply to post by the owlbear

 

I don't think Paul is against minimum wage. I think he is against a FEDERALLY MANDATED minimum wage. He wants it left up to the states, as it should be. The federal government has no right to dictate what a state's minimum wage should be.

Anyway,

This woman is a complete moron. She, like most right wingers and conservatives, have a VERY warped view on how the world works. Just like that idiot Reagan, trickle down economics DOES NOT WORK.

We have proof time and time again, that if you give corporations and big business more money, they just want MORE MONEY. It's completely ridiculous to think that the more money they make, the more they will share with their employers. It doesn't work that way. Companies don't give a crap about their employees, they want slaves that cost them as little as possible. If you get rid of minimum wage, you will have companies paying people $3 an hour.

Oh yeah, richest, most prosperous country in the world. Where the republicans and conservatives want people to be slaves that do nothing but work (for 80 hours a week, can't afford a place to live, food to eat, not to mention medical care) from productive ages of 16-35, then promptly DIE as to not be a drain on society. All while the super rich keep getting richer, and keep saying "IF YOU GIVE ME MORE MONEY IT WILL HELP OUT EVERYBODY" When we know for a fact that's NOT how it works.

Whoever came up with this economic model where allowing the rich to get richer at the cost of your average person's quality of life, in the sick twisted hope that they will pay their workers more should be shot. And anyone that believes in that crap is too mentally lacking to be of any use to the world.

edit on 14-8-2011 by James1982 because: (no reason given)

Agreed. But after reading your post, what difference does it make once you abolish a FEDERAL (ooo scary word) minimum wage and replace it with a state one? Most major employers are interstate corporations. Paul is just as bad with this...but he didn't have a giant corn dog. I guess what I'm saying is why defend Paul when it's obvious that you're against the kind of thing that he supports (basically, a Do What Thou Wilt economy)?

Originally posted by Rockpuck

3. How does eliminating the minimum wage allow for employees to be given more than they could imagine? If the minimum wage is the bottom line and it is not like a tax or mass of fees, then taking that away would in no way raise incomes.

reply to post by Misoir

 

Hypothetically, if you reduce the minimum wage to either something very low, or nothing at all, it would indeed spur mass economic growth and virtually eliminate unemployment.. wages would then increasingly gain momentum because employers would be forced to compete for skilled labor as all skilled labor would be employed.

However...

This does not work with mass immigration.. because you always have a huge stockpile of workers willing to work for less than the next, and an endless supply willing to travel to this labor market.

The minimum wage being as high as it is (almost $9/hr here) stiffles economic growth big time.. start ups and small businesses are the main employers in this country, quite often they simply cannot afford to hire help because minimum wage requirements are so damn high. For instance I would love to hire an employee to assist me in my work, but if I did, my employee would probably end up making more than me once wages, taxes and overhead are considered. The government gives me no room to move.

Also, consider: Because minimum wages have been increasing year over year (many states adopted inflation adjusted hikes) it slowly deteriorates the wage base of virutally every wage above it until you get past the 100k/yr wages. Most jobs are not increasing their wages, so every penny increased in the minimum wage is a decrease in their pay. Essentially this lowers the overall broader earnings of the entire working and middle class.

Minimum wages are nothing more than manipulations of the economy to make it appear there is wage growth and wealth inflation among the entire populace, even if all the "growth" is centered entirely on the lowest income class.

And yet with our minimum wage being as "high" as what it is, we find our economy in this position. Obviously, with all this wealth the people that earn this wage can not only spend to spur on our economy, but can save as well. Oh, and invest! Please.
I am in fear of a time in the near future where all of this comes to a head. The people earning minimum aren't guarenteed anything, wages drop because collusion for labor is legal, and you have a whole gang of hungry folks cheesed off cuz all the "entitlement" programs were cut off first.

It's not the level of skill, knowledge nor expertise that determines pay but supply and demand.

An Administrative IT worker 10 years ago could make 25 to 30 dollars an hour, and today its down to 10 to 15 dollars an hour in many places. When you have to compete with the rest of the world, that is what is going to happen. The same can be said with manufacturing jobs. You could support a family on those wages back then. The skill and knowledge never dropped, but the supply and demand equation changed. Robots don't have any knowledge or skills, but they act as a cheaper alternative in the supply and demand curve.

It is not the same with CEO pay however, since there is no global open free market for their jobs, since the pay is decided by the board of directors (whom also good exorbitant pay) rather than what some CEO is getting paid in Europe for example. CEO's in the US get paid 30 to 100 times what they get paid elsewhere.

The best thing to do in our position is to get rid of the illegals in this country, retire a lot of older people get rid of worker visa's and add tariffs like every other country does. This will drive up demand for employee's and wages as well.

As it is now, we are competing on a global level, and the elite in this country want everyone else in the US to sink to that level, but not them nor their pay. Which explains the 1% holding the majority of the wealth. There is a major imbalance that can't be maintained, and fortunately, mother nature or whatever you want to call it, will right the situation in time, either through violence, economic crash, war etc. History repeats itself

Originally posted by e11888
I do have to agree on a few aspects of abolishing minimum wage. I personally believe that a man or woman in The United States should be paid based on their level of skill, knowledge and expertise in any given area as well as the performance shown on any given job. It makes no logical sense to pay Bill that sits on his butt all day and complaines the same wage as Bob that busts his ass and actually helps a business compete. Now we can eliminate Bill's wage altogether by terminating his employment, but we cant lower his wage to more accurately reflect his contribution to the company. This is the part that makes absolutely no sense to me. Its almost like we are protecting the people that are too stupid to up and quit the job themselves.

You have to understand that we live in a free market and that competition is the center block of it all. If the burger place across the road is paying their employees $1 more than the other place well everyone is going to want to work for the man paying more. The other joint will eventually have to raise his wage or risk losing competent employees. Now picture that on a GLOBAL scale. Its the same as what would have happend if we didnt bail out those banks. New branches would have sprung up when those banks went under and took over the market. The problem is when you start dictating (ala dictatorship see dictate) the way a business should run or show favortism towards certain aspects of the market (obamacare), you no longer have competition and in turn you no longer have a free market.

So should there be a minimum wage in this country? Why should there be when competition and the market itself will dictate the minimum wage? Why do we need Government to tell us how to run our lives (or for that matter our business) in a free market?

For the record I do not support Bachmann (nor would I ever considering she voted for The Patriot Act).

edit on 15-8-2011 by e11888 because: (no reason given)