Brexit

[Moiraine]

 

 

 

No person should be forced to invest in SS. It should be completely optional. That would be a capitalist program. Having a gun put to our heads (figuratively of course) and ordered to throw money into it when it's going to dry up and people from my generation will never see a dime of our own money that we were forced to pay into it.

 

If people didn't get 30% of their paycheck deducted through tax, SS, etc every month, we would not hear near as much about raising minimum wage. Of course there would be a few entitled individuals who would still push for it but would be way less.

 

People who work full-time are entitled to a living wage whether you agree with it or not.

So, if a person works full time on their art, are they entitled to a living wage?

 

If a person works 40 hours per week flipping a burger, they are entitled to a living wage? What about the person who works 40 hours a week in a metal factory or scrubbing office toilets? Same living wage?

If the person working on their art is hired to do that job, then yes they should be making a minimum wage which should be enough for someone to live on if they're working full time.

 

I'm not sure why you're saying "same" living wage unless it's just your phrasing. I'm not proposing that all jobs are worth the same amount of money.

 

For the record, Nebraska's living wage is $9.63 per hour if there is one adult in the family and no children. I'm of the mind that people should be responsible and if they're going to have kids they should make sure they can get better jobs than this minimum.

 

Also, having an across the board national minimum wage is stupid if it's any higher than the lowest state living wage. Nebraskan companies should not have to pay employees $15/hour. Things don't cost as much here. It would drive businesses away from the state or raise our prices a lot more than they would be raised in more expensive states.

[HuskerShark]

Moraine, I definitely agree with your last sentence 100% so +1 on that. On the rest of it, minimum wage jobs are not, should not, and were never meant to be worked by people who are trying to support families on that wage or even just themselves. It's not the employer's responsibility to make sure all of its employees are able to make ends meet. That responsibility lies with each individual to get more skills, invest in their own personal development (notice I said personal development, not professional development), and go out and become more marketable for higher paying jobs - or to go a better route in entrepreneurship.

 

I know that sounds ruthless and heartless to a lot of "progressives" but it's not. It's the most genuine and ethical way of going about the employer/employee situation. Employee and employer should be able to freely negotiate the agreed-upon wage that both meets the needs/wants of the employee while providing the employer with value as well. That way there isn't a 3rd party that isn't even involved in the situation (the gov't) pointing a gun at the employer's head demanding that they HAVE to pay $___ to the employee, OR ELSE. There is no reason if 2 parties agree on terms for the employee to work for $5/hr on a certain job - both parties willing - that they should not be able to make that agreement.

[cm husker]

 

 

 

 

No person should be forced to invest in SS. It should be completely optional. That would be a capitalist program. Having a gun put to our heads (figuratively of course) and ordered to throw money into it when it's going to dry up and people from my generation will never see a dime of our own money that we were forced to pay into it.

 

If people didn't get 30% of their paycheck deducted through tax, SS, etc every month, we would not hear near as much about raising minimum wage. Of course there would be a few entitled individuals who would still push for it but would be way less.

 

People who work full-time are entitled to a living wage whether you agree with it or not.

So, if a person works full time on their art, are they entitled to a living wage?

 

If a person works 40 hours per week flipping a burger, they are entitled to a living wage? What about the person who works 40 hours a week in a metal factory or scrubbing office toilets? Same living wage?

If the person working on their art is hired to do that job, then yes they should be making a minimum wage which should be enough for someone to live on if they're working full time.

 

I'm not sure why you're saying "same" living wage unless it's just your phrasing. I'm not proposing that all jobs are worth the same amount of money.

 

For the record, Nebraska's living wage is $9.63 per hour if there is one adult in the family and no children. I'm of the mind that people should be responsible and if they're going to have kids they should make sure they can get better jobs than this minimum.

 

Also, having an across the board national minimum wage is stupid if it's any higher than the lowest state living wage. Nebraskan companies should not have to pay employees $15/hour. Things don't cost as much here. It would drive businesses away from the state or raise our prices a lot more than they would be raised in more expensive states.

I meant, let's say the living wage is $9, as you mentioned. Let's say a minimally skilled job, for example fast food order cook, produces $8 for an employer. Just off of the bat, you're asking an employer to take a hit of -$1. Or they will raise their prices, which is simply another tax on poor people who eat at minimum wage based restaurants, because let's face it. Most wealthy people don't eat at McDonald's. Or, they simply won't hire a worker and will try to eek the same productivity out of smaller employee force in order to maintain the margins necessary to make running the restaurant a viable enterprise.

 

So, that alone introduces a host of problems.

 

Now, let's add the inherent value judgment you're making about labor. You're essentially saying every job, of any sort (that is employee based), should pay $9 an hour. Now let's say that another minimally skilled but arguably more difficult job, coal miner, pays $9 an hour previously. Now your workers are going to want an "easier" job that pays the same (almost any rational laborer would), so you're going to bleed resources from one job sector to another, and all under a false pretense that "all 40 hour per week jobs are at least equal to a certain value."

 

This whole minimum wage issue also ignores the large portion of service industry people who are self employed. Granted, most of these people probably charge more than $9 an hour, but they also have a lot other costs that a salaried work may not have and they have less predictability of hours. Think maids and uber drivers. Why should they work hard (and yes, cleaning houses is harder than fast food work) but arbitrarily be left out of the "living wage" analysis and solution?

 

This is all a long way of saying that although I'm open to the idea of redistributing the larger pool of benefits gained by more efficienct productivity, forcing minimum wage on employers (under the label of living wage) is a terrible at to approach the issue.

[Guy Chamberlin]

 

Oh yeah, and hiring low paid immigrants to run their gaudy hotels and casinos, then decrying the flow of immigrants as a threat to all that is America.

 

True capitalism would put your mother on an ice flow and your kids on the assembly line, so let's not over-romanticize its glory.

 

And cutting Social Security would be unpopular only because it's so incredibly stupid.

 

1. The most furvant people who are opposing open labor markets and freedom of movement are liberal labor advocates. The casino owners mostly love immigrarion, though maybe they have personal life issues with it.

 

2. The ice flow argument is just nonsense. That's not at all what a move to open market capitalism means. It actually means ever that the economy would be more productive (and we can discuss how to share that productivity), which means less ice flows. Because, recall, it wasn't capitalist societies, but rather communal, barter based civilizations who have been required to use "thin the herd" tactics, such as the true ice flow Inuits and the "one child" rules in China.

 

3. Social security relies on a vibrant market. The government is a chief investors in American stock markets as a result. And that's problematic on a number of levels. For as much as the politicians moan about rampant capitalism and bubbles, they have to institute policies that cause those very things in order to balance their books.

 

 

I agree with a lot of this, but in terms of

 

1) I'm talking about one specific casino owner who is making a lot of hay with the issue.

 

2) We already have tons of Open Market Capitalism and clearly millions of people profit nicely from it. Government regulations (the good ones at least) protect the young, the old, the environment and the vulnerable because pure free market capitalists make more money when allowed to pollute, hire children and require workers to shop at the Company Store. It's a nice aphorism, but a rising tide doesn't necessarily raise all ships at sea. Don't get stuck on having to choose between Open Market Capitalism and Big Government because you don't have, too. Neither is perfect, both have bureaucratic inefficiencies, and both really depend on each other. They generally provide a decent system of checks and balances and some would argue that's exactly what makes America great.

 

3) Agree. But it's also true that Capitalists don't want Big Government to get out of Big Business, because they get a lot of perks from it. Definitely a tricky balancing act. But a visit to life before banking regulations and Social Security is pretty illuminating. I think a lot of free marketers would come rushing back to the 21st Century and all that comes with it.

[cm husker]

1. I don't even know what trump believes; i doubt he does. But I'll agree with just about any criticism of the guy based on what I do know. And it seems like yours is more than fair.

 

2. Actually, in almost every instance, open markets do raise all ships. You mention pollution, and we can talk about market based solutions to make sure polluters internalize the costs associated with pollution. That's how you solve that problem and by making it cost based you'll drive innovation to improve, not just comply, with standards of emissions (for example). As far as child labor goes, my grandfathers worked real jobs from age 10 or so. One was a farmer laborer, among other things, and the other was a clerk and delivery kid. They did this because they needed the income to subsist. They were also child laborers. And their efforts meant my parents could go to school and not work at 12. And that I could eventually go to school. It's a generational thing. One generation must be allowed to work hard to set up the next to not need to (while being as or more productive). Unfortunately, under the guise of "protect the children" anti-labor competion has push through unnecessary laws. I say unnecessary because for all but the children who NEED to work, the rest wont whether there's a law in place or not. It's not child slavery.

 

I feel the need to insert again that I'm open to minimum incomes for US citizens so perhaps less kids kids will NEED to work at young ages.

 

The unfortunate thing is, we kept minorities out of the market through blatant racism and now our "progressive" labor laws are achieving the same effect.

 

This is an important article from huffpo about why minimum wage is hurting the poorest among us: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/the-mythology-of-the-mini_b_4338234.html

 

I fundamentally disagree that big gov and big biz check each other. I think it's more accurately viewed as they enable each other on a quid quo pro basis. For the most part, big gov laws are written by existing industry entities and enforced by people with a relationship to this entities (either former or future employees, for example). The result is laws and enforcement that protects existing competitors from new competition. Look no further than the taxi lobby for a current example of this behavior.

 

It's impossible for a company to maintain a monopoly without government sponsorship.

 

Reduce big gov and by nature you'll reduce big biz, because the insulations from competition will evaporate.

 

3. I agree that certain entities love their corporate entitlements. That's why we need to strangle them.

 

 

Please explain or send me a link to "life before banking regulations and social security" that makes it clear we didn't trade one set of problems for a bigger set.

 

Remember to that as things like information gathering and productivity improve, the nature of a market, and the business within it, will improve even without regulation. I reiterate the story of OSHA and work place safety as a perfect example.

[cm husker]

Wow. That was a long post. This article on minimum wage is an important read, as it pulls the covers off of some of the more prominent misinformation out there:

 

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/the-mythology-of-the-mini_b_4338234.html

[cm husker]

As to child labor, I visited a family run candy factory in Vietnam. Some of the grandchildren were the wrappers. They were probably none older than 13.

 

Should we tell them that they can't work and that the family must hire other labor for that job?

 

It may seem harsh for wealthy people to see kids working in a candy factory at 12, but that's what they need to do as a family unit to survive. The alternative is much worse, and no one in that country or outside of it are stepping up to make the work unnecessary.

[huKSer]

Another name for minimum wage job is entry level job. A job to get experience, a recommendation and something to put on your resume under "previous employment". If you are 35, been working at a restaurant for 15 years and STILL making minimum wage you have a problem. You must have failed every employee performance evaluation you ever had and should be thankful that you still have a job.

 

The economics of day time help I am perplexed. Who works these jobs? Teens are in school. I'm guessing community college students who go to school in the evening, some high ability mentally disabled, retired people looking for some extra income (this was my mother) and _____?

[Guy Chamberlin]

Well part of free market enterprise is having a labor force that freely chooses not to live like they do in Vietnam.

 

For better or worse.

 

But mostly better.

 

I also come from farm family, and like most family businesses minors are still allowed to do a sh#t ton of work without government intervention.

 

It can certainly build character, but it can also encourage young people to find jobs where they never, ever have to do that again.

 

There's another level to this that leans towards exploitation. An unfettered Open Market has little motivation to self-correct because they have all the leverage. It's never quite as simple as believing a Nice Company will then step in to lure employees away with better pay and benefits.

 

And yet another level that shows the exploited labor underclass comes with a lot of hidden costs to the company and to society at large and the free market mantra rarely addresses this.

 

Again, there were eras where America operated much closer to the model you prefer, but it really wasn't that Great.

[84HuskerLaw]

Nobody seems to address the fundamental economics of the labor supply and demand and therefore the wage rates provided to workers generally. The biggest single problem with wages today is the excess supply of cheap labor created by uncontrolled immigration into the marketplace. We have literally 20 million or more immigrants that have entered the country over the past decade or so, all coming into the market seeking a better life than they had in the previous homeland. Whether from Mexico or the middle east or the far east or elsewhere, they all come here to find a better life. One way or another, they need money to survive and that means either getting money by working or by government assistance or private support of myriad types and ways. We all know the primary ways are either jobs or welfare assistance.

 

The continual introduction of new available workers has allowed the relatively 'free' market for labor prices (wages) to keep prevailing wages from rising with the cost of living. We have many workers today working for wages not much higher in nominal terms than they were 20 or even 30 years ago. Despite what 'government' says, inflation has been significant over the past 30 years. For example, when I graduated high school in 1977, the starting wage earned by a number of my fellow graduates at the local meat packing plant was $8 per hour and certain positions were over $9. A new car in that year was $5800 for a nicely equipped midsize car. In other words, a recent high school graduate could earn more than enough to afford to pay a $100 a month rent plus $25 for utilities for a house and pay for a new car in 36 months, and live otherwise. The same starting wage in a packing plant today might be around $15 but the new car will be $25000 or even $30,000 and rents, etc have gone up similarly. Wages have doubled but living costs have tripled or even quadrupled. Why? Because the supply of relatively unskilled labor has skyrocketed due to uncontrolled immigration. This has in turn led to low wages for far too many Americans (already here), keeping the living standards down and going down even more. This has created a massive underclass of perhaps as many as 50 million Americans who are now 'working poor' with little or no hope of climbing the economic ladder. There are not 50 million more higher paying jobs out there so no matter how many college degrees or 'skills' these folks may want to acquire, there are no jobs for them that will provide the wages sufficient to support a family in a middle class status.

This is the root problem that people are experiencing and why they support Donald Trump. The all recognize the problem is the jobs in general do not pay a 'living' wage. Many workers have 3 jobs as it takes 65 hours a week at $10 per hour to survive.

[cm husker]

An open market for labor has all kinds of incentives to improve, often through automation that leads to healthier more productive employees.

 

Again, work place safety wasn't a result of OSHA. It was a result of companies wanting to cut costs and be more productive. Despite the charactertures, most companies recognize that miserable and injured workers drive up their costs greatly.

 

I admit that there's a large pool of low skilled laborers available to do work. But that doesn't mean we should artificially restrict the size of the pool so that the included win and the exluded are left to rot, whether on welfare in this country or in their country of origin.

[cm husker]

84, your post is rife with factually wrong information, but let's hone in on one that may be provable or disprovable: over all cost of living has significantly exceeded wage growth.

 

What's your evidence?

 

You seem to be mixing non-inflation numbers with inflation adjusted numbers. Generally, consumer products are incredibly cheaper and more widely available today than in the history of the world.

[Guy Chamberlin]

The real culprit -- along with the related exodus of manufacturing jobs -- is the huge wage inequity between upper management and workers. It's been growing for 35 years and some say it's easily traced to the supply side revolution of the Reagan years. Turns out that rising tide didn't raise all ships at sea. It just made management believe that its new and exponentially higher compensation was business as usual. Catering to the short term whims of stockholders didn't help, either. That's where the middle class got spanked.

 

The hard-working America we yearn for included executives who lived quite nicely at 100x their employees' compensation, rather than 1000x.

 

http://www.epi.org/publication/wage-inequality-continued-its-35-year-rise-in-2015/

[ZRod]

Nobody seems to address the fundamental economics of the labor supply and demand and therefore the wage rates provided to workers generally. The biggest single problem with wages today is the excess supply of cheap labor created by uncontrolled immigration into the marketplace. We have literally 20 million or more immigrants that have entered the country over the past decade or so, all coming into the market seeking a better life than they had in the previous homeland. Whether from Mexico or the middle east or the far east or elsewhere, they all come here to find a better life. One way or another, they need money to survive and that means either getting money by working or by government assistance or private support of myriad types and ways. We all know the primary ways are either jobs or welfare assistance.

 

The continual introduction of new available workers has allowed the relatively 'free' market for labor prices (wages) to keep prevailing wages from rising with the cost of living. We have many workers today working for wages not much higher in nominal terms than they were 20 or even 30 years ago. Despite what 'government' says, inflation has been significant over the past 30 years. For example, when I graduated high school in 1977, the starting wage earned by a number of my fellow graduates at the local meat packing plant was $8 per hour and certain positions were over $9. A new car in that year was $5800 for a nicely equipped midsize car. In other words, a recent high school graduate could earn more than enough to afford to pay a $100 a month rent plus $25 for utilities for a house and pay for a new car in 36 months, and live otherwise. The same starting wage in a packing plant today might be around $15 but the new car will be $25000 or even $30,000 and rents, etc have gone up similarly. Wages have doubled but living costs have tripled or even quadrupled. Why? Because the supply of relatively unskilled labor has skyrocketed due to uncontrolled immigration. This has in turn led to low wages for far too many Americans (already here), keeping the living standards down and going down even more. This has created a massive underclass of perhaps as many as 50 million Americans who are now 'working poor' with little or no hope of climbing the economic ladder. There are not 50 million more higher paying jobs out there so no matter how many college degrees or 'skills' these folks may want to acquire, there are no jobs for them that will provide the wages sufficient to support a family in a middle class status.

This is the root problem that people are experiencing and why they support Donald Trump. The all recognize the problem is the jobs in general do not pay a 'living' wage. Many workers have 3 jobs as it takes 65 hours a week at $10 per hour to survive.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph

[cm husker]

The real culprit -- along with the related exodus of manufacturing jobs -- is the huge wage inequity between upper management and workers. It's been growing for 35 years and some say it's easily traced to the supply side revolution of the Reagan years. Turns out that rising tide didn't raise all ships at sea. It just made management believe that its new and exponentially higher compensation was business as usual. Catering to the short term whims of stockholders didn't help, either. That's where the middle class got spanked.

 

The hard-working America we yearn for included executives who lived quite nicely at 100x their employees' compensation, rather than 1000x.

 

http://www.epi.org/publication/wage-inequality-continued-its-35-year-rise-in-2015/

A disparity in income doesn't necessarily mean the tide isn't rising for all.

 

From a quality of life and sol perspective, the gap between rich and poor is smaller than ever.