Don't like how much you make? Move to China!

[LegendKiller]

This comes on the heels of the "Kristalnacht" moron. These people are really out of touch with reality.


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-12/luxury-brand-ceo-poor-stop-whining-or-move-china

 

[Doppel]

Few people can really empathize with the plights of others, and the further from one's circle another is the harder it is to do. This is a foundational problem with the country, because rich people disproportionately guide policy, despite simply being unable to understand how most of their people live.

 

[glenn1]

He's correct that someone complaining about "only" make $35,000/year is a #firstworldproblem. Complaining about a CEO who complains about people who make that complaint makes it #überfirstworldproblem. Or maybe #metafirstworldproblem. Next someone will complain about me complaining about those who complain about CEOs complaining about people complaining about making $35,000/year. And so on until we reach #infiniteloopfirstworldproblems.

 

[LegendKiller]

He's correct that someone complaining about "only" make $35,000/year is a #firstworldproblem. Complaining about a CEO who complains about people who make that complaint makes it #überfirstworldproblem. Or maybe #metafirstworldproblem. Next someone will complain about me complaining about those who complain about CEOs complaining about people complaining about making $35,000/year. And so on until we reach #infiniteloopfirstworldproblems.

He is not correct, at all. A poverty wage is a poverty wage no matter where you live.

 

[fskimospy]

He is not correct, at all. A poverty wage is a poverty wage no matter where you live.

It's like that clown has never heard of purchasing power parity.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Making 35k a year means a decent salary in Europe, as there's so many government benefits you get when retiring. In the US 35k means you can't save any money in a lot of the bigger cities, and that means you'll have no pension whatsoever. Saying that those who think 35k is too little should move to China is idiotic. There's a whole bunch of third world countries where earning over 1k a year means you're well above the average. Does that mean 1k a year should be fine for the US too?

Lower the standard of living for the working classes enough and you basically go back to Feudalism.

 

[glenn1]

He is not correct, at all. A poverty wage is a poverty wage no matter where you live.

"Poverty wage" is a construct term which is a comparative to others in the same nation. Even if we used U.S. definitions, $35k/year isn't "poverty" unless your household is above 7 persons. You're also neglecting that costs vary from country to country, and the the standard of living for an American deemed to be in poverty is far different than someone deemed to be in poverty in most other countries, especially one like China (#3 on Human Development Index vs. #101). If you're telling me that you see no difference between being considered poor in the U.S. vs. being considered poor in somewhere like Haiti because "a poverty wage is a poverty wage no matter where you live" then you're quite frankly hopelessly naive.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=United+States&city=New+York,+NY
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=India&city=Chennai&displayCurrency=USD

You pay less than half for a 3 bedroom appartment in the city centre of Chennai (India) than for a 1 bedroom appartment outside the centre in NYC. You can probably live in relative luxury for $25k a year too in Chennai. Would love to see someone who opposes minimum wages to try and live on $25k in NYC. Move to the worst parts of the Bronx just to be able to afford the rent, then try and get by on the rest of the money.

 

[glenn1]

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=United+States&city=New+York,+NY
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=India&city=Chennai&displayCurrency=USD

You pay less than half for a 3 bedroom appartment in the city centre of Chennai (India) than for a 1 bedroom appartment outside the centre in NYC. You can probably live in relative luxury for $25k a year too in Chennai. Would love to see someone who opposes minimum wages to try and live on $25k in NYC. Move to the worst parts of the Bronx just to be able to afford the rent, then try and get by on the rest of the money.

This is why I don't argue minimum wage laws with people. Raise them however high you like; it doesn't oblige people to hire them if their labor doesn't create enough value to the employer to justify paying the wage. The supply of labor is already vastly higher than the demand so pushing the curve further out seems really counterproductive to me.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

This is why I don't argue minimum wage laws with people. Raise them however high you like; it doesn't oblige people to hire them if their labor doesn't create enough value to the employer to justify paying the wage. The supply of labor is already vastly higher than the demand so pushing the curve further out seems really counterproductive to me.

It's how consumerism has grown in the US. Look at the price of fast food in the US and in Europe, as well as what you get for that price. While prices in the US are lower than in the Netherlands, the portions are bigger. If you sell more for less of course you have to cut down on other costs when wanting at least the same profits. And then wages are the easiest target, considering the location and the building maintenance can't easily be made cheaper.

If you want lots of cheap labor you have to provide cheap living (which people don't want nearby as they don't want to have to look at it usually) and cheap transport to/from work, as well as a hospital and police and such for those cheap cities. Which basically means you'd need to get decent and fast transport from Detroit to the rest of the country

 

[senseamp]

Interestingly CEOs never seem to apply that "logic" to their own pay.

 

[LegendKiller]

"Poverty wage" is a construct term which is a comparative to others in the same nation. Even if we used U.S. definitions, $35k/year isn't "poverty" unless your household is above 7 persons. You're also neglecting that costs vary from country to country, and the the standard of living for an American deemed to be in poverty is far different than someone deemed to be in poverty in most other countries, especially one like China (#3 on Human Development Index vs. #101). If you're telling me that you see no difference between being considered poor in the U.S. vs. being considered poor in somewhere like Haiti because "a poverty wage is a poverty wage no matter where you live" then you're quite frankly hopelessly naive.

Look chuckles, I know very well what purchasing power parity means. To think that somebody making $35k here is doing OK is simply naive, especially when you consider what you have to do to make that. Being poor here is much better off than being poor in China, but being rich here is much better off than being rich in China also. What this guy doesn't understand is that $35k isn't doing great at all and simply saying that if you want to complain about it you should move there is silly. Furthermore, his response to the outrage over his statement was to say "Learn what poor means as far as wants or needs". This coming from a guy that peddles clothes made in China as a "want" and making many millions on that.

So a guy born into wealth played the ovarian lottery (Buffett's words) and suddenly thinks that everybody else should just deal with it because they are better off than somebody poor in haiti?

Do you not see the problem with this?

Do you not see the endgame here?

How long do you think people are going to be "happy" with getting an ever smaller share of the economic pie? How long do you think they are going to put up with self righteous fucktards like this guy saying "if you don't like what I give you, move to a shithole because I'm not going to give you any more". That's pretty much what the King of England said to the colonists. Except he just said "love it or die".

We are not this asshole's subjects.

 

[LegendKiller]

This is why I don't argue minimum wage laws with people. Raise them however high you like; it doesn't oblige people to hire them if their labor doesn't create enough value to the employer to justify paying the wage. The supply of labor is already vastly higher than the demand so pushing the curve further out seems really counterproductive to me.

I agree with you, raising the minimum wage is not the answer. In fact, it will only exacerbate the issue.

The answer is raising the marginal tax brackets to 70% and capital gains to 25-30% or just taxing them the same as you would regular income, disincentivizing super high pay while promoting hiring from below. Furthermore, pass and strongly enforce reciprocal trade laws as well as tariffs on currency manipulating (pegging) countries.

Watch how fast this asshole stops chirping about the poor when his company's wares need to be made in the US because the Chinese labor arbitrage collapses and his own company won't pay him such high wages because it isn't tax beneficial.

And don't go on about how I want a bigger government through taxation. The taxes have nothing to do with growing the government and everything to do with disincentivizing these people from actually even earning outsized wages.

 

[glenn1]

It's how consumerism has grown in the US. Look at the price of fast food in the US and in Europe, as well as what you get for that price. While prices in the US are lower than in the Netherlands, the portions are bigger. If you sell more for less of course you have to cut down on other costs when wanting at least the same profits. And then wages are the easiest target, considering the location and the building maintenance can't easily be made cheaper.

If you want lots of cheap labor you have to provide cheap living (which people don't want nearby as they don't want to have to look at it usually) and cheap transport to/from work, as well as a hospital and police and such for those cheap cities. Which basically means you'd need to get decent and fast transport from Detroit to the rest of the country

Raising the federal minimum wage involves a lot more than a few McDonald's workers in Detroit, and the impacts cascade up and down the economy. Even if the McDonald's owner could afford the higher wages without reducing staff, now the workers will have to pay more for childcare since you raised those wages also. Maybe the worker can afford it with the higher wages, maybe they can't and need to drop the McD's job to watch their kiddos.

Another McD's worker might be a teenager and have extra spending money to buy stuff at the mall, whereas the mall store owner has to cut staff due to higher payroll. Yet another minimum wage cashier at WalMart might get a pay bump that helps them afford college classes, while another person never gets hired as a cashier in the first place because the store decides improved customer experience doesn't justify the extra payroll costs and everyone gets to wait in longer checkout lines. There's no right or wrong answer for what the "proper" minimum wage level should be, just decisions about what trade-offs you're willing to make.

 

[glenn1]

I agree with you, raising the minimum wage is not the answer. In fact, it will only exacerbate the issue.

The answer is raising the marginal tax brackets to 70% and capital gains to 25-30% or just taxing them the same as you would regular income, disincentivizing super high pay while promoting hiring from below. Furthermore, pass and strongly enforce reciprocal trade laws as well as tariffs on currency manipulating (pegging) countries.

Watch how fast this asshole stops chirping about the poor when his company's wares need to be made in the US because the Chinese labor arbitrage collapses and his own company won't pay him such high wages because it isn't tax beneficial.

And don't go on about how I want a bigger government through taxation. The taxes have nothing to do with growing the government and everything to do with disincentivizing these people from actually even earning outsized wages.

Let's leave aside all other considerations about increased taxes and just have a closer look at your premise that they "disincentivizing super high pay while promoting hiring from below."
What is the causal mechanism for this? All but a tiny fraction of people will look to maximize their own self-interests, including and perhaps especially salary. Why would someone suddenly reduce their salary demands if you raised the marginal tax rates on them? Who says, "Before when my tax rate was 35% my agreed-upon salary was $5MM, but now that it's 75% you can reduce it to $2MM and give the rest to my subordinates"? Or for that matter, why would a company suddenly seek to reduce their wages from $5MM to $2MM? If anything, your plan of raising rates would likely cause most people to seek even higher wages to maintain the same level of take-home pay after accounting for taxes.

 

[LegendKiller]

Let's leave aside all other considerations about increased taxes and just have a closer look at your premise that they "disincentivizing super high pay while promoting hiring from below."
What is the causal mechanism for this? All but a tiny fraction of people will look to maximize their own self-interests, including and perhaps especially salary. Why would someone suddenly reduce their salary demands if you raised the marginal tax rates on them? Who says, "Before when my tax rate was 35% my agreed-upon salary was $5MM, but now that it's 75% you can reduce it to $2MM and give the rest to my subordinates"? Or for that matter, why would a company suddenly seek to reduce their wages from $5MM to $2MM? If anything, your plan of raising rates would likely cause most people to seek even higher wages to maintain the same level of take-home pay after accounting for taxes.

Why would a company pay an executive that much when the government woukd take 70pct when they could instead invest it in projects that are taxed far less. Why do you think they are buying back stock at an all time high rate? Because cap gains taxes are cheaper than income taxes and they want to make execs and 1% that much more wealthy.

Incentives.