Minimum Wage = Maximum Nonsense - A Masochistic Invitation to Derision

stormson

EarthCitizen07
The problem is illegals kill the job market for legals,

if a person with an 8th grade education, no technical skills, and doesnt even speak the language can take your job, you have bigger issues.

The government encouraging illegals to cross the border and stay in america is the bigger issue.

Business does what business knows best, and that is increase the profit margin. If I own a small business and NEED illegals to survive then you better believe that is exactly what I will do. You would be suprised how many businesses GO UNDER because of high pricing. The only solution is to keep payroll expenses down.

walmart has the best business model

1. buy cheap stuff from china, putting manufacturing out of work.

2. hire those workers at poverty wages so they are forced to by your cheap chinese stuff. this way you get some of your payroll money back.

3. help your employees file for foodstamps, since you pay them so little, to keep them from unionizing for better pay. side benefit, they buy their food from you, so you get the gov money to keep your people on poverty wages.

so you keep money by underpaying your people. you get most of what you do pay back by being the cheapest place so your poverty wage workers have to buy from you. keep the wages low so they have to go on foodstamps, and collect money from the gov.

no wonder their ceo makes tens of millions a year.

the poor just need to educate themselves to get out of poverty.

which is incredibly easy to do when you work 60 hrs a week and have a kid to raise.

wait a minute, what about all those college grads that cant find work, so they take the minimum wage job and have to live with their parents? just an anomaly i suppose.

reply to post by greencmp


The minimum wage is to protect the low skilled workers so they do not have to work 24 hours a day just to earn a living.
But there is more to it, if they earn at least a minimum wage on which they are able to live, the government does not have to pay benefits like foodstamps, also the low skilled worker would pay some tax on his salary which means more tax revenue for the government.

So in this way it is a good thing to have, for teens it can be lower with a few staps to reach the normal minimum wage when they reach the age of 21.

reply to post by EarthCitizen07

When profit margins go down, a lot of times business owners need only remember that their own lifestyle is not determined by the business, but successful business is determined by lifestyle. Otherwise known as living below one's means, and this is one thing you don't want to throw in people's faces, like a lot of accountants will do.

It's the same problem many are having regarding education, as they go into debt for an education, finish school and the jobs are gone to the last batch of graduates. Then they either have to relocate, or take a job outside their chosen field to pay back the student loans.

Nobody in their right mind would go into debt to get a job, or go into excessive debt to improve upon a business, let alone take out short term paper to pay employees.

The entire business / credit / debt way of doing things is all messed up unless you have a lot of resources just laying around, which once again is determined by whether or not you use your business as a personal cash machine, or plan for adversity as a way of life.

And from all of the responses here, it is obvious that the problem may have to be approached from the opposite direction.

"Promote the General Welfare", as that Constitution thingamabob says, which nobody really pays attention to any more.

If paying a higher minimum wage only results in higher prices which negates any gain or advantage, what do you do but place some controls on prices of things that everyone needs to live?.

If anyone is going to accomplish anything, we will have to accomplish it together by giving and taking a little here and there, but that ain't never gonna happen cuz we all seem to think we are entitled somehow.

I myself live very frugally simply because I absolutely hate being exploited.

reply to post by greencmp


This is nonsense with misguided understanding of the current system I see quite often. In the current system people cannot survive without the stipulation of a minimum wage. This has nothing to do with free-markets as the current system is in no way a free-market system.

In an ideal land where the federal reserve, governments, and fiat money cease to exist...there is no need for a minimum wage because in that world people would have 100% control over their own personal unit of human capital. It's far more complicated than that example but to put it plainly: free-market principles cannot be applied to only one segment. It is all or none.

To take away minimum wage in the current system will do nothing but force people to break the law, which would have been a good thing if the federal reserve hadn't been invented which made us all slaves to the fiat petrodollar.

Again it's all or none. You cannot simply apply free-market theory to one segment of society without eliminating all laws and government. In a system that is essentially a cartel of businesses(regulatory agencies) and violence cartels(police/military) free market principles do not apply anymore.

reply to post by greencmp


Having had family that worked for different companies, I can tell you that 'most' employers are cheap and more interested in using workers for as little pay as they can get away with. I'll give you a recent example:

At Papa John's they're delivery people only make $4.50 per hour.On top of this, The owner cut most of the people's hours so he didn't have to provide insurance for them.THEN raised the price of his pizzas using obamacare as an excuse.Now how do you use it as an excuse if you already cut your peoples wages so you don't have to pay it?

The greed of the market is beyond what the people can any longer bare at this point. You have ceo's that have they're own helicopters to fly around with,yet won't even think about giving any of they're employees a raise.The mindset is 'I got myself here by building this company up from nothing,no one helped me and I did it all by myself.Therefore I'm ENTITLED to pay myself anything I want and pay as little as possible to my employees as I can get away with so I can hog the profits with the shareholders or just myself.'

Theres some flawed thinking, let me explain.How many big companies do you know of that employ only the owner and no one else?There isn't any.In order for a company to truly be successful, it takes many people WORKING TOGETHER, for it to be a success. Owners tend to forget that there was other people that were there helping to make the company grow all along.

The issue is the money. Money is power and power corrupts.The more you have, the more you want.One after another moral crashes into the dirt in your constant pursuit of more money.Those that have can't ever get enough.And for those of us that don't have it....well, we would like to think we would do better than that.But in truth, we would probably be the same way,never questioning our morals on it.

Those owners that have successfully built they're companies while treating they're employees well have gone by the age old rule of only paying themselves a certain amount.The rest goes into upgrading equipment, employee pay,and saving for when things aren't so good.They don't give themselves huge pay increases or golden umbrellas etc.They're heart and soul is in the building up of the company for the sake of the company. Not for they're own personal gain first.

reply to post by greencmp


Given your profound enthousiasm for abolishment of minimum wages I suggest you take it to the next level: why not restore slavery then? Or even better: perhaps people should start paying for the privilege of "having a job". After all, "having a job" seems to be the most important thing in the world nowadays, and if you don't have one, you're screwed. It must be worth something then! So, don't be a pussy: make these bastards pay for the privilege of having a job..

stormson
walmart has the best business model

1. buy cheap stuff from china, putting manufacturing out of work.

2. hire those workers at poverty wages so they are forced to by your cheap chinese stuff. this way you get some of your payroll money back.

3. help your employees file for foodstamps, since you pay them so little, to keep them from unionizing for better pay. side benefit, they buy their food from you, so you get the gov money to keep your people on poverty wages.

so you keep money by underpaying your people. you get most of what you do pay back by being the cheapest place so your poverty wage workers have to buy from you. keep the wages low so they have to go on foodstamps, and collect money from the gov.

no wonder their ceo makes tens of millions a year.

This is actually a model that I have observed as a trend. It's what I call a future socialist/corporate feudal state. Corporations actually encouraging and supporting government welfare of people so they can pay less, and through personal spending, return that money to the government. Those who work will be paid so low they have to be subsidized by the government, and the needed things they spend money on are all corporate owned private property (housing, food, medical, ect) so in effect the government, banks, and corporations will become the equivalent of feudal lords, with you and your future progeny becoming serfs.

Awesome, ain't it? How far we have come after feudalism began to decline. Property taxes. Rent. Debt. All forms of feudal subservience. 90% of the fruits of your labors going to your lords so they can eat roasts every day while you subsist on gruel.

Australia has a higher minimum wage than us and lower unemployment. They also have a graded scale that has a lower minimum wage for teenagers, which gradually increases to about $12 an hour for adults, so the lower wages for teens is also overcome. This is necessary because in developed nations the cost of living is large enough that you need a bare minimum for people to afford rent, food, energy and healthcare.

In the US we have such a low minimum wage that many families with both spouses working multiple jobs can't afford those 4 things for their families. So what happens then? Section 8 housing, food stamps, energy subsidies and medicare. All the things that straight free market people claim to hate. All we do is allow corporations to pay low wages, then tax everyone in the country to subsidize those low wages.

TL;DR Our piss poor minimum wage is the reason for the increasingly ubiquitous welfare state.

reply to post by evictiongnostic


Exactly why I can't abide by this non-sense. I get paid more to do low skill/untrained work because min wage for casual employment is so high, that is the driving motivator to do this work, and even then it's not really worth it due to the other non-sense you have to deal with having zero value and being easily replaced. I now work in an office for less but am working full-time so I get about the same amount per week.

I have chosen less money for more work because of the opportunity it affords me (although it may just be a carrot on a stick). In a low-skill dead-end job you have no chance to move up any ladder, you stay on the bottom rung where you belong. If you don't have any incentive to do these low skill jobs; like perhaps getting enough money to live, then there is literally no reason to do these jobs unless you desperately need to eat, and of course employers only want to pay enough so that their worker will make it to work the next day.

There needs to be a maximum wage and a minimum wage.

Skadi_the_Evil_Elf

stormson
walmart has the best business model

1. buy cheap stuff from china, putting manufacturing out of work.

2. hire those workers at poverty wages so they are forced to by your cheap chinese stuff. this way you get some of your payroll money back.

3. help your employees file for foodstamps, since you pay them so little, to keep them from unionizing for better pay. side benefit, they buy their food from you, so you get the gov money to keep your people on poverty wages.

so you keep money by underpaying your people. you get most of what you do pay back by being the cheapest place so your poverty wage workers have to buy from you. keep the wages low so they have to go on foodstamps, and collect money from the gov.

no wonder their ceo makes tens of millions a year.

This is actually a model that I have observed as a trend. It's what I call a future socialist/corporate feudal state. Corporations actually encouraging and supporting government welfare of people so they can pay less, and through personal spending, return that money to the government. Those who work will be paid so low they have to be subsidized by the government, and the needed things they spend money on are all corporate owned private property (housing, food, medical, ect) so in effect the government, banks, and corporations will become the equivalent of feudal lords, with you and your future progeny becoming serfs.

Awesome, ain't it? How far we have come after feudalism began to decline. Property taxes. Rent. Debt. All forms of feudal subservience. 90% of the fruits of your labors going to your lords so they can eat roasts every day while you subsist on gruel.

edit on 27-9-2013 by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf because: (no reason given)

Everything your saying comes down to number one.
You the consumer must stop buying the cheap Chinese junk.
Walmart can't sell it so they will not buy it.

The minimum wage doesn't only affect minimum wage employees.
Let's raise it to ten an hour. Ok now the guy that was making ten is going to want his raise also, now he's getting 13. It will work its way up the ladder. Now the employer has to make up the difference or lose his profit. Now a Big Mac is $5.99 instead of $3.99.
I know the unions want to get ahold of walmart employees and give them raises but if Walmart has to pay cashiers and stock boys $10 an hour starting they will fire most of the morons they have now and hire better people.
I own a cabinet shop and if I can't make a profit of at least 10% I'm closing the doors.
The risk of losing my investment and all the work involved is worth at least that much.

OrphanApology
reply to post by greencmp

 

This is nonsense with misguided understanding of the current system I see quite often. In the current system people cannot survive without the stipulation of a minimum wage. This has nothing to do with free-markets as the current system is in no way a free-market system.

In an ideal land where the federal reserve, governments, and fiat money cease to exist...there is no need for a minimum wage because in that world people would have 100% control over their own personal unit of human capital. It's far more complicated than that example but to put it plainly: free-market principles cannot be applied to only one segment. It is all or none.

To take away minimum wage in the current system will do nothing but force people to break the law, which would have been a good thing if the federal reserve hadn't been invented which made us all slaves to the fiat petrodollar.

Again it's all or none. You cannot simply apply free-market theory to one segment of society without eliminating all laws and government. In a system that is essentially a cartel of businesses(regulatory agencies) and violence cartels(police/military) free market principles do not apply anymore.

I agree, it is a matter of commitment to equitable trade, anything less is what we have or worse.

Crony Capitalism - The American Economy is Not a Free-Market Economy

It is time to demand the only equalizer, the free market.

I belive in complete equality of every human being on earth, and abundance not scarsity. Inequaity is the root of all evil, all murders, all rapes, all dictatorships, all horrors in the universe.

There shouldn't be money.

But if there is money it should be equal.

Unity_99
I belive in complete equality of every human being on earth, and abundance not scarsity. Inequaity is the root of all evil, all murders, all rapes, all dictatorships, all horrors in the universe.

There shouldn't be money.

But if there is money it should be equal.

Hard work must be rewarded or nobody works hard. I'm worth more than the lazy jerk beside me so paying him to do half as much work sounds fair to you?

greencmp

gladtobehere
reply to post by Krazysh0t

 

Not sure what kind of "libertarianism" you're following, hmmm.

Of-course there should be no minimum wage laws. They're bad for businesses, bad for employees and bad for the people.

I think you misunderstand this post, I am against minimum wage laws.

edit on 27-9-2013 by greencmp because: (no reason given)

So you mean to tell me you'd get a job working for pennies a day instead of a mandated pay scale? I highly doubt it.

I am going to go with you are one of those where if it doesn't affect you you don't care. I think minimum wage is GOOD thing otherwise like others have said employers would pay crap!

reply to post by greencmp


In a perfect world, minimum wage should not exist, although we are not living in a perfect world - we live in a world dictated by money.

I have seen way too many companies, who are simply taking advantage of the desperate people in order to raise their profits. People are very often not paid what there value is, but the minimum they are willing to accept and for very desperate people, even specialists, that amount is extremely low, not even livable. The more desperate people are out there, the lower the "expense" for the company can be (the higher profit they can earn from the particular person´s work).

Everybody is not given the mental skills to become a specialist, yet everybody has to live somehow. Does it mean they should starve to death or be homeless? Everybody gives value to the company at the end, most companies would not be able to survive without the low-skill employees. When somebody works 40h a week, they should get at least enough money to survive.

What I would prefer is double minimum-salary, one over the nation and the second one for trades set by the unions. No engineer should earn similar amount to a salesperson, yet the salary of the salesperson should be enough to survive, to get the food and pay the rent and bills without any extra-luxuries.

reply to post by Krazysh0t


Not if u are going to enforce the immigration laws. Plus, it's illegal for employing illegals. But we all know this administration will not solve the problems.