"In 2020 you will fight to keep your job" -Forbes Mag

[Hacp]

Minimum wage is almost meaningless. Virtually nobody working in a manufacturing environment is working close to it and this includes non-union shops. Jobs are mainly going overseas because a buffoon can work many of them and a buffoon in Mexico costs $3/hour whereas a buffoon in Michigan costs $20.

Why does it cost 20 dollars in the US? There is something artificial preventing companies from lowering wages, especially with unemployment this high.

 

[PrinceofWands]

If people can't work for wages that low, then they won't work for wages that low. No one forces them to work for lower wages.

And so what use is your plan? If there's no real chance of lowering costs by lowering wages, why lower wages?

 

[PrinceofWands]

Why does it cost 20 dollars in the US? There is something artificial preventing companies from lowering wages, especially with unemployment this high.

You're right, there is something artificial preventing it. Prices.

Cost of living. How much does it cost to have a place to live, basic utilities, clothes, and enough food to eat in Juarez, versus Ann Arbor? What about cultural expectation differences in what constitutes a minimum acceptable lifestyle?

 

[ShawnD1]

I think that is a good thing. The IDEAL world is a world in which no one needs to work. We can sit around, travel, debate philosophy, create art, or whatever we want without worry about jobs, income, food, etc. The technology can do it all. 100% UNemployment is the true perfect world.

We would still need jobs, but for more leisurely things. If you told someone 500 years ago that your job was to play basketball, they would probably laugh at you. Sports and science in those days were a hobby, not a job. Science is progressing a lot faster these days just because we can afford to have more people doing science things. Only 5% (number I just made up) of the population needs to work on farms to produce enough food to feed the entire country. What if we had manufacturing down as well? We could focus on less important things like medical research, interior decorating, writing articles for anandtech, etc. Having the entire economy shift toward the service industry shows how much our society has developed over the centuries.

Shit countries still do not have service industries. Try to be a graphic artist in Nigeria. You'll be known as that retarded guy who isn't farming and will likely starve to death.

 

[Genx87]

You're right, there is something artificial preventing it. Prices.

Cost of living. How much does it cost to have a place to live, basic utilities, clothes, and enough food to eat in Juarez, versus Ann Arbor? What about cultural expectation differences in what constitutes a minimum acceptable lifestyle?

How abut we move your locale to Detroit. I have a feeling even a Mexican working for 3 bucks an hour can afford housing in parts of that city.

 

[PrinceofWands]

How abut we move your locale to Detroit. I have a feeling even a Mexican working for 3 bucks an hour can afford housing in parts of that city.

Housing has tanked, but have utility costs, food costs, clothing costs, etc? Has it reduced enough that the general population can go from $30,000/yr to $11,000/yr without relying on government services that are no longer funded because revenues are down? The bullshit economic concept that price is defined by what people will pay needs to be removed from our consciousness. There IS a bottom line cost to producing goods or services. An amount below which that good or service cannot be produced any longer. If that cost in the above listed areas remains beyond the ability of the bulk of wages to afford, it's all over for EVERYONE.

Roughly 50% of the population makes 30k/yr or less. If prices don't allow our culturally defined minimum lifestyle at those wages (which is obvious given the level of foreclosure, increasing debt ratios, growing lack of health care, etc), then how in the world is it all going to be magically fixed by dropping wages to 11k/yr for that 50%, while the other 50% increases its margin from the resulting savings?

 

[Hacp]

You're right, there is something artificial preventing it. Prices.

Cost of living. How much does it cost to have a place to live, basic utilities, clothes, and enough food to eat in Juarez, versus Ann Arbor? What about cultural expectation differences in what constitutes a minimum acceptable lifestyle?

I think the artificial thing is the social safety net. Workers would rather slother in their couches having fun on the government dime rather than work a hard day's labor for food and shelter.

 

[Hacp]

We would still need jobs, but for more leisurely things. If you told someone 500 years ago that your job was to play basketball, they would probably laugh at you. Sports and science in those days were a hobby, not a job. Science is progressing a lot faster these days just because we can afford to have more people doing science things. Only 5% (number I just made up) of the population needs to work on farms to produce enough food to feed the entire country. What if we had manufacturing down as well? We could focus on less important things like medical research, interior decorating, writing articles for anandtech, etc. Having the entire economy shift toward the service industry shows how much our society has developed over the centuries.

Shit countries still do not have service industries. Try to be a graphic artist in Nigeria. You'll be known as that retarded guy who isn't farming and will likely starve to death.

What if someone designed a machine to play basketball better than you?

 

[ShawnD1]

What if someone designed a machine to play basketball better than you?

It would form another basketball league that nobody cares about.

 

[PrinceofWands]

I think the artificial thing is the social safety net. Workers would rather slother in their couches having fun on the government dime rather than work a hard day's labor for food and shelter.

Bullshit. You aren't having much fun on the few hundred dollars a month ss provides.

 

[StageLeft]

Why does it cost 20 dollars in the US? There is something artificial preventing companies from lowering wages, especially with unemployment this high.

That's just how it is. Minimum wage is for highschool kids and people who are quite demonstrably stupider than sheep and so do tasks barely befitting a parrot on an intellectual level. Even somebody doing a task as simple as screwing a plate onto a box can make more than minimum wage.

 

[Nemesis 1]

How about we level the playing field. And I don't mean at $3/hr, 60 hours a week so Hacp's stock will go up a quarter of a point.

In America we have (more or less) decided that certain things are important to us here. We have laws regarding the environment, companies can't just dump toxins in the river anymore, we have laws regarding child labor, can't put the 12 year olds in the mine anymore, a general quality of life is expected.

We should use tariffs a lot more aggressively. <Madden mode> If a country uses child labor BAM! 25&#37;. Dumps waste anywhere? BOOM! 20%. Average wage is a buck a day? POW! 50%. </Madden mode>

Sure it means most European countries and say, Japan, won't be paying too much in tariffs, but it still gives American companies a slight leg up on transportation costs. And for the rest of the world? Well, if China wants to sell us lead covered toys, they better get their crap together.

Of course, this would require our government and leaders standing up to foreign pressure and ignoring all the bribes (sorry, I mean campaign contributions and attack ads against their opponents) that the corporations that profit from the current structure will be sending their way.

This will never happen. Everyone knows this.

YA want to bet . Its going on in my villlage right now . DNR and all government agencies have been contacted about it. (Polluting water and covering wet lands) there not doing a dam thing about it . FACT!

 

[piasabird]

Just move the labor to a low wage country. Bank of America stores images checks on servers and then someone in India is inputting the information. Do you feel that is keeping your data safe and secure?