Minimum Wage = Maximum Nonsense - A Masochistic Invitation to Derision

mblahnikluver

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!

Yes, I believe that having a job at market rate is better than not having a job at any rate. If you think that means that I don't care, you are an imbecile.

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.

Walmart is the textbook definition of parasitic, crony capitalism. I am sorry but the way you wrote it made me chuckle for a few minutes. I know we live in bad times, but rarely has anyone made it crystal clear like you just did.

A CEO getting paid tens of millions to destroy everything america stands for, just to line the pockets of the shareholders with dividends and stock splits.

Crony Capitalism is just a misleading epithet created to cast an ill light on capitalism while directing attention away from what our system really is: A giant system of interwoven cartels that has nothing to do with the free-market or capitalism.

I understand your enthusiasm for the subject. It is however, misdirected. You cannot change a cartel system by starting with the small fry who benefit at the bottom. You destroy a cartel by destroying the head. If you are really worried about changing things then stop paying taxes and allow yourself to be thrown in jail. While you're at it, round up 10k of your closest friends and get them to do the same.

gladtobehere
The fact is, there are some jobs that dont require any skill and therefore dont command a higher salary. So why should a small business owner be forced to pay these people more?

edit on 27-9-2013 by gladtobehere because: wording

So that they can survive.

Many of you don't understand how business works. A business cant just throw money around willy nilly "thats a business term". Every company has to get a return on investments or it will cease to exist. They are mostly not run by evil suits but by small business owners such as myself that take all the risk and are only trying to make a living.
A $10 an hour employee doesn't cost $10. You have $10 for pay, you have $4 for ssi, you have $1.75 workmans comp and $2.25 health care and that's rising now. That make $18 an hour. Those are not exact numbers but are fairly close. They also expect their paycheck when the company is losing money.
You can see above why $2 labor in Mexico is so appealing.
One of the most irritating things i hear is ( they will just write it off). WTH!
In order for me to write off something I have to spend that money. And then I can only take it off as and expense and not pay income tax on the amount.
A lot of you only see your perspective and not the business owners.

Hoosierdaddy71
Many of you don't understand how business works. A business cant just throw money around willy nilly "thats a business term". Every company has to get a return on investments or it will cease to exist. They are mostly not run by evil suits but by small business owners such as myself that take all the risk and are only trying to make a living.
A $10 an hour employee doesn't cost $10. You have $10 for pay, you have $4 for ssi, you have $1.75 workmans comp and $2.25 health care and that's rising now. That make $18 an hour. Those are not exact numbers but are fairly close. They also expect their paycheck when the company is losing money.
You can see above why $2 labor in Mexico is so appealing.
One of the most irritating things i hear is ( they will just write it off). WTH!
In order for me to write off something I have to spend that money. And then I can only take it off as and expense and not pay income tax on the amount.
A lot of you only see your perspective and not the business owners.

It's so ridiculous. The amount an employer pays really disconnects the average W2 worker from the reality of how high their taxes really are. When you take into account sales, property, etc. people don't realize that approx. 50% of their income is stolen away through taxes(taking into account lost wages if they were being paid directly and then paying the taxes themselves) and lost to a smorgasbord of middlemen before being regurgitated back in the form of public services.

This brings up a good point. A good place to start would be to make all workers similar to self-employed in that they pay the taxes directly from their wages. People are far too disconnected from the reality of how much the government has grown and how far destroyed basic liberty has become. Don't even get me started on employer tied health insurance.

Hoosierdaddy71
Many of you don't understand how business works. A business cant just throw money around willy nilly "thats a business term". Every company has to get a return on investments or it will cease to exist. They are mostly not run by evil suits but by small business owners such as myself that take all the risk and are only trying to make a living.
A $10 an hour employee doesn't cost $10. You have $10 for pay, you have $4 for ssi, you have $1.75 workmans comp and $2.25 health care and that's rising now. That make $18 an hour. Those are not exact numbers but are fairly close. They also expect their paycheck when the company is losing money.
You can see above why $2 labor in Mexico is so appealing.
One of the most irritating things i hear is ( they will just write it off). WTH!
In order for me to write off something I have to spend that money. And then I can only take it off as and expense and not pay income tax on the amount.
A lot of you only see your perspective and not the business owners.

Actually most business owners don't understand how it works. When inflation kicks in businesses ARE SUPPOSED TO RAISE PRICES!!!! That's what business owners don't get. We have a financial system where new money is constantly created. Inflation is DESIGNED INTO THE SYSTEM. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE INFLATION. Well that's how our current system is designed anyway.

Economic growth takes care of it. That's why the argument of WE'RE GONNA LOOSE ALL THE JOBS is complete BS. There is no evidence to support that and all the evidence we have is to the contrary. We have far more jobs now than we did when minimum wage laws were enacted. New businesses start, old businesses close. But over the long haul if you do things to promote growth you'll get NET MORE jobs.

Our system is NOT DESIGNED to keep YOUR minimum wage business open FOREVER just because you started it. You're supposed to COMPETE. If you can't make a profit that means you're a weak company. You go down, stronger companies take over. If over the decades the economy continues to grow that's not a problem. It's more important that there's more NET jobs and GROWTH than it is YOUR business stays open. Understand?

Now I'm not saying I hope your business closes. I hope it stays open. But what I'm trying to explain is that the system has to be designed for the most NET OVERALL benefit. That should be easy to understand. If getting a little more money in the hands of the lower class spurs growth OVERALL but CLOSES your business it's a GOOD THING! Get it?

Now here's where minimum wage comes in. When inflation kicks in business owners are supposed to RAISE the prices. I know that sounds backwards. The first thing all business owners think is NO I HAVE TO KEEP PRICES LOW to compete with the other business. If I raise my prices they WON'T and they'll out compete me!

So, what's the first thing every business owner does! I KNOW I'LL JUST SCREW MY EMPLOYEES! That way I can keep prices low and compete!

That's what minimum wage is there for. It's a fail safe. It's there to MAKE YOU ADJUST FOR INFLATION. The way it works is by making all companies nation wide do it at the same time. That way when you raise your prices EVERYBODY ELSE HAS TO ALSO! That way the prices can go up like they're SUPPOSED TO BY DESIGN instead of everyone screwing the employees.

Krazysh0t
Here is the problem I have with taking away minimum wages, businesses will be able to hire people for literally pennies a day. Now you can argue all day that the natural market will self-correct wages as people refuse to work for companies that pay so little. However, this isn't true. We have tons of immigrants who'd be willing to do these jobs for next to nothing. Not to mention at the turn of the century, prior to the implementation of minimum wage laws, the free market dictated that employees get paid next to nothing. Also, the mere fact that so many companies pay their employees the bare minimum (minimum wage) just says that given the opportunity, companies would pay their employees less.

I am a Libertarian too, so naturally I should be opposed to minimum wage laws. But history shows that without them, businesses are able to take even more advantage of their employees then they do now.

edit on 27-9-2013 by Krazysh0t because: (no reason given)

Thing is... only people who are worth pennies a day will stay on min wage. The rest will line up to get pogey and welfare or end up looking for another job.

reply to post by tinfoilman


First of all you need to grow up a little. I know many business owners like myself and they never say " let's screw the employees" there are probably some out there like that but not many.
I can tell you that alot of employees have the screw the company attitude. Taking a longer break when the boss is out, taking a handful of nails home, just little thing that do add up to big things.
Now you were trying to make a point that inflation should keep pay scales rising by design. That sounds good in theory but is not always practical. I guess I should not bother giving a good employee a raise because inflation will give him a raise anyways. Not forgetting that my costs don't always rise at the same pace as inflation. One example of this is wood finish. I paid $14 a gallon in 2003, now it's $48 a gallon. Shipping and delivery charges went through the roof with gas prices to.
You also mentioned raising prices, that can work sometimes but if a competing product made in China they are not subject to the same expenses as me so they don't raise the price of their product.
Then you the consumer must accept some blame for this too. You don't buy the radio flyer wagon that was made in Wisconsin, you buy the radio flower made in China for 20% lower cost.
And if everybody raises their prices to make up for higher labor costs you are no better off than you were at the lower pay because everything you want costs more now.

Why do you think so many jobs go overseas? no minimum wage laws. It's an outrage if someone in the states earns less than 10 an hour, but think of all those outsourced jobs where ten dollars is an annual salary.

I read a story a while ago (can't find the source) but an Indian couple amassed 100 dollars in earnings in forty years. Forty years.

Face it, if all these outsourced jobs were to return to the states and elsewhere, these companies would go broke,
Unless the CEO's take a massive pay cut, which we all know would be out of the question.

Hoosierdaddy71
reply to post by tinfoilman

 

First of all you need to grow up a little. I know many business owners like myself and they never say " let's screw the employees" there are probably some out there like that but not many.
I can tell you that alot of employees have the screw the company attitude. Taking a longer break when the boss is out, taking a handful of nails home, just little thing that do add up to big things.
Now you were trying to make a point that inflation should keep pay scales rising by design. That sounds good in theory but is not always practical. I guess I should not bother giving a good employee a raise because inflation will give him a raise anyways. Not forgetting that my costs don't always rise at the same pace as inflation. One example of this is wood finish. I paid $14 a gallon in 2003, now it's $48 a gallon. Shipping and delivery charges went through the roof with gas prices to.
You also mentioned raising prices, that can work sometimes but if a competing product made in China they are not subject to the same expenses as me so they don't raise the price of their product.
Then you the consumer must accept some blame for this too. You don't buy the radio flyer wagon that was made in Wisconsin, you buy the radio flower made in China for 20% lower cost.
And if everybody raises their prices to make up for higher labor costs you are no better off than you were at the lower pay because everything you want costs more now.

Keep in mind I didn't design the system. I'm telling you how it is designed. I'm telling you MW is not what you think it is. I am not China. You have a problem with China, take it up with China. Don't ramble on about nonsense racist crap. I'm trying to show you how it really works.

What I am telling you is that inflation was built into the system on purpose. What I'm trying to get through to you is that in your head you have the misconception that minimum wage and inflation are bad or BROKEN because they make prices go up!

What you don't realize is that it was DESIGNED TO DO THAT! It is not broken. It just keeps the poorest employees in line with inflation. It's working perfectly. But the politicians and news media don't tell you how it really works because they're probably not smart enough to figure it out.

This is a conspiracy website. It didn't occur to you it was a conspiracy to do EXACTLY THAT! It's not broken when and if it raises prices. That's what MW IS SUPPOSED TO DO! MAKE you adjust for inflation kicking and screaming if it has to.

And you say if it just makes prices go up you're not better off. MW isn't designed to make you better off. Like I said it's designed to adjust for inflation! That means KEEP YOU WHERE YOU ARE! It's not designed to make you better off, it's designed to keep you from sliding BACKWARDS as prices go up anyway! Get it?

But it shows your total ignorance of how growth and the banking system works in this country. You're thinking about what the employees WILL BUY after minimum wage goes up. Not what they ALREADY bought.

You think people go out and make money and then buy stuff. HAHA foolish text book economics. THIS IS A DEBT BASED SYSTEM! DID YOU FORGET THAT? That's not how Americans roll. Americans BUY STUFF FIRST ON CREDIT! Then try like mad to get a job and figure out how they're gonna pay for it.

MW isn't designed to to make it easier to BUY MORE STUFF. It's designed to keep us where we are as the economy grows and INFLATES out of the debt WE ALREADY HAVE. This is why growth and inflation is so important. This way we don't pay our debts. WE INFLATE OUT OF THEM.

MW isn't gonna help people buy more NEW STUFF. It's gonna help the lowly MW employee pay off his $7,000 car loan for the car he ALREADY BOUGHT three years ago! The loan price doesn't change. Get it now? Then when that's paid off. NOW he's better off and can buy more crap ON CREDIT!

IT'S A DEBT BASED SYSTEM and the GOV IS THE NUMBER ONE BORROWER. Starting to get how it works now?

LIke my mother was the perfect example. She was very poor and made $1.50 to $2.00 an hour and bought her house for $30,000. Even at that lowly price many times she couldn't figure out how to make the payments sometimes.

However, by the time she sold it she made $39 (including bonus, commission and what not) dollars an hour and sold the same house (plus some improvements of course) for $150,000 dollars. Over the years due to growth and inflation that $30,000 loan that seemed so big became nothing and she inflated right out of it into a new home.

Get how it works now?

reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71


Also, as for gas prices I already mentioned that in my first post about how it causes much more inflation than MW does. Yet OP comes in and the first thing he does is attack the poor?

How many posts did you make attacking the poor before YOU finally mentioned gas prices, something that really causes inflation? And you say you don't have a screw your employees attitude or screw the poor attitude?

But no mention of government borrowing, debt, money printing? Fighting the endless wars they want to fight. Let's talk about the the things that cost MOST OF THE INFLATION first before we start attacking the poor and MW which causes the LEAST of the inflation huh? Can we do that?

Yeah, I'm thinking we have an issue on both sides of this scale. If the minimum were higher, an actual decent, living wage, and the maximum was not so extreme, particularly where CEOs and their ilk play games to make their numbers and also don't share the love, and if we applied actual sanity and real values to wages like teaching/firefighting vx acting/playing ball, we'd probably be a lot happier and more balanced all around.

Go ahead. Someone call me a commie now. That is not at all what I mean. I just don't believe that extreme extremes really accurately reflect our collective values and humanity.

reply to post by tinfoilman


Wow! How the heck did you find a racist comment in anything I said? Thats a word people use to try to shut people up.
Ok where to begin. I am not against the minimum wage, I believe its a good thing that gives everyone a starting point. But I don't believe we should raise it to a living wage.

You keep saying its how the system is designed. That's is a true statement. The problem is that we don't have a system that "everyone" plays by the same rules. We live in a global economy now and the other countries play by their rules. Tell the other countries to adopt our minimum wage and see what they say. I can tell you what they will say but it would be censored...

I like inflation too! I know how the system should work and I agree with it,but you will not get inflation with interest rates so low. Checking pays .02% CDs pay 2% "locked" for 5 years. I bought my car for a 2.45% interest rate! I didn't pay cash because I was making 3% at the time on a cd...
When I bought my house in 2000 interest was 8.75% I refinanced twice since then and it's down to 3.25% now. I'm saving $450 a month in interest payments, thats money the banks and investors don't earn. If you want inflation you better hope the interst rates grow to around ten percent.

My wife works in financing and can tell you horror stories about people and their stupid decisions. You mentioned a $7000 car loan. If you buy it and "hope" you'll be able to make the payments you should have bought a $4000 car instead. My wife says she denies around %40 of the loan apps she takes because they want to borrow more than the car is worth or have bad payment history. People are responsible for spending within their abilities.

I'll give you an example of this stupidity. Do you remember back around 2004, I don't remember the exact year, the irs gave people a tax credit in the form of a check? It was around $250 for single people and $500 for married. The guys I worked with all went out and spent the money before the ink was dry! One bought a new cell phone with it so I asked if he could afford the monthly bill, he just looked at me. Some bought video games and beer. The point is they didn't pay car payments or other bills they just threw it away. Stupid is as stupid does...


I understand how the system works and should work, but the world doesn't work on our system..

reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71


You have to understand the system was designed long ago. When I explain how it works, things like the current global economy, our situation with China, and our current situation with illegal immigration just gets in the way of explaining it, because those things weren't an issue when the system was designed.

People see temporary problems like low interest rates and don't understand the system is a never ending cycle over the long haul. That's what an economy is, a never ending cycle which allows its citizens to engage in commerce with each other.

When I say things like economic growth people get confused. OMG interest rates are so low! OMG the housing bubble burst! What are you talking about? And people are so SHORT sighted and don't understand our system was designed to inflate and grow over the LONG HAUL. When you do things to spur growth you have to look at the results 10, 20, 50 YEARS down the line to see if they worked.

Now let's go back to the 20's? We see the system is working fine. We've had plenty of growth since then. A world war, depression, the population is double. Yet the system we have got us through all that and we have far more businesses now in this country than we did then and far more FOOD! which is what's really important.

Simply take a look around your own town and tell me if there are more businesses now or were there more businesses in it before minimum wage laws were enacted? There are more now aren't there? But MW is supposed to cost jobs? Doesn't make any sense, all the jobs should have vanished by now right? But your economy GREW so that didn't happen because we did things to SPUR GROWTH.

Yes you'll lose some jobs in the meantime but the system is supposed to grow OVERALL. See, we don't live in a perfect world. You can't have a perfect system where jobs ALWAYS grow, but you can have an imperfect system where they ALWAYS grow over the LONG HAUL even though there are short term losses.

Inflation works the same way. You might not have much if any every year, but over the LONG HAUL we're supposed to inflate.

Now as for the $4,000 car being better than the $7,000? Not if the person that bought it can pay back the loan. It's better for the economy if the car dealer can sell the $7,000 car. As a business owner you should understand this. It's better to sell the same car at $7,000 than it is $4,000. And if a little inflation can make that happen then over all, over the long haul, better for the economy.

Not buying stuff is NOT the key to keeping an economy going. That's just a race to the bottom. Like I said we have a debt based system. Most of our money supply comes from debt and fractional reserve banking. The more money people borrow the more money is flowing around.

When people stop borrowing, like after the housing bubble bursts, money stops flowing and you have a recession. The gov has an interest in keeping the people in perpetual debt.

And once you understand debt it's fairly stupid to say something like raising the MW doesn't help the poor just because the prices go up! That's not the talk of a business owner, a business owner understands debt.

If I get paid $100 a week and my groceries are $50, and my car payment is $50 then I have nothing left at the end of the week. That's 0% of my income. If they double minimum wage it will not make prices double, but even assuming IT DID make prices double then what do you have?

Then I get paid $200 a week and groceries are now $100 a week, but AHA! My car payment is a LOAN. That's still only $50 a week because I already bought the car years ago! So $200 - $100 in groceries - $50 car payment what do I have? I'm still left with $50 dollars? That's 25% of my income.

25% is greater than 0%. Now that's more money I can either make double car payments with and save on paying the interest, or spend the money into the economy creating GROWTH and new businesses and therefore COMPETITION which leads to lower prices and therefore works to actually keep inflation in check to a certain amount.

Also, with inflation business owners get to inflate out of their LOANS too and the quicker you pay off your loans the quicker you make a what? A profit!

reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71


Also, the concept that you wouldn't want to raise the minimum wage and let ALL the poor backslide into inflation because you work with a FEW morons that don't spend their money wisely is logic I can't even fathom.

Don't understand debt, don't understand inflation, and work with a bunch of morons? Who hired them? Starting to think I know why your business has such a hard time paying its employees a decent wage. Whoever is running that place doesn't know anything about business!

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)

please point out a country that has no minimum wage.....here's a list to choose from that do....
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by tinfoilman


How clueless are you? My business is doing fine and I pay all but one of my workers more than minimum wage.

And I got news for you, there are a lot more than a few morons out there.
I have an idea for you. How bout we make minimum about $12 an hour, that sound good?
Then we get rid of food stamps, subsidized housing and all other handout welfare..
You can leave in disability cases I'm not heartless. Now I'm all for raising the wage..
You conveniently leave out all the programs out there that help low income families and somebody has to pay for all those handouts.

And I didn't say a $4000 cars is better than a $7000 car. I said you buy what you can AFFORD!
You don't understand how sales work either. If I make $500 off selling both cars, why is the more expensive car better for me to sell? I made the same profit. The banks want higher priced cars sold because of more interest payments but a dealer doesn't really care.

You said...

"Simply take a look around your own town and tell me if there are more businesses now or were there more businesses in it before minimum wage laws were enacted? There are more now aren't there? "


Dude minimum wage laws were created in 1938! How do I know what it looked like?


You also said if they double minimum wage prices wouldn't double.. Really!
If I give my minimum wage guy a $7 an hour raise what is the guy making $10 an hour gunna say? He says I want my $7 raise. Now he's making $17 an hour! I can tell you now that prices will absolutely double or worse. You can up minimum a little but not to fast.

Well I gotta go to work for a while because that's what business owners do while the employees stay home and watch football. I'll be back later to point and laugh at people's comments.

reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71


So, you only pay one of your employees minimum and you're RAGING ABOUT IT?? Even though things like health care costs should be killing you far more than MW is? Sounds to me like you got more MW employees than you let on. Prob don't even give health care, that's probably why you don't seem to mention it so much. Shows your mentality! Attack the poor before mentioning health care costs!

Your business is so hot and happening you can't afford to hire another worker and give someone a job so you can take a Sunday off and watch the game huh? Also, how do you sell a $4,000 car for $4,000 and make $500 profit? Then turn around and sell the same car for $7,000 and still only make $500? I said SAME car if you noticed. If the person can pay the loan back then they could afford it couldn't they? In my example I never showed the person having any trouble paying the loan.

I only showed an example of how raising the MW could help them spur even more growth AFTER paying their loan and save them interest. In my example the fictional person had plenty of money to make their loan payment before raising MW! Your first thought in my example is they bought something they couldn't afford? Shows your mentality, you hate the poor! I never said they were having any problems making the loan payments! That's something you injected into the conversation yourself!

As for raising MW to $12 or even $100! Not only should we, but we will! However, the money supply grows overtime. You can't just raise it directly to $100. As the economy grows and the money supply grows you raise it overtime BEHIND inflation.

Currently raising the minimum wage shouldn't be raising prices much at all because they raise it BEHIND inflation. What that means is, after inflation has already gone up. Leaving a minority of MW workers who are not a big enough spending force to cause a doubling of the prices.

Most workers don't make minimum wage. This is how it's supposed to work. They raise MW to say $10 right? Over the next seven to ten years inflation goes up say %10 just to keep it simple. Now according to the free market you shouldn't have any MW employees left in the economy!

That's right, if inflation went up %10, then the wages of all the MW wage workers out there should have ALSO. Your base starting pay should have also went up %10 to keep inline with inflation. Good bosses do this, it's called a cost of living increase!

You DON'T do this. You still got that ONE guy making minimum wage just because the gov SAYS you can right? Heck you'd probably pay him less if you could because the costs are just so high and hard to pay at your hip happening business right? Wait which is it? Are guys making lots of money or is giving that ONE guy his cost of living raise just too expensive? I don't get it? It's got to be one or the other? It can't be both!

That's what good businesses and bosses do. They give raises and cost of living increases and overtime they don't have any employees making MW anymore. It's not a problem. That's why MW wage workers are a minority and raising it won't double prices. There's not enough of them left by the time they raise it again!

But you, YOU STILL GOT THAT ONE GUY! You shouldn't have that one guy anymore! You should have kept your base hiring pay inline with inflation, but even though your business is doing so hot and so well, you don't? Why?

That's what MW is for, to come in and make sure it happens eventually if you like it or not.