3chordcharlie
Diamond Member
- Mar 30, 2004
- 9,859
- 1
- 81
Originally posted by: Vic
This is not true at all. A worker always has the freedom of becoming a business owner. We don't live in a caste system.Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
Cost of living is a very valid phrase to use, especially when I already said it has nothing to do with the relationship between employer and employee.
As a business owner, you always have the option of leaving the market and selling your skills to someone else for a wage; as a worker, you do not have this same freedom; you have to take a job whether it pays your bills or not. It's such a bad analogy I can't believe people still try to use it
An employee's bills aka cost of living has nothing to do with this. What if a particular person foolishly decides to live a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget? Under what you propose, it seems you feel they should be rewarded for their fiscal impropriety. Now do you see the ridiculousness in the "cost of living" argument?
You're completely mischaracterizing what I'm talking about; I don't think you realize that I'm not your average leftist, and I'm not arguing for a separation between productivity and wages, I'm simply pointing that you aren't quite right.
As far as any citizen being 'allowed' to start a business, that's true, and any citizen is 'allowed' to become president. A much larger portion of the population actually can start a business than run for president, but adults working for minimum wage are not well-represented in either group.
None of this changes the fact that there is a significant pool of unskilled labour available which drives the price of unskilled labour well below it's productivity; so long as minimum wages do not exceed actual productivity (i.e. 'willingness to pay'), there's no economic damage.
Poverty Fact Sheets
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/5000/5711.html
Poverty in America
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10049/10049.ch01.html
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/5000/5711.html
Poverty in America
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10049/10049.ch01.html
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
- 136
It is not flawed in any fashion. You're simply ignoring the logic of it as you're ignoring the costs for the sake of the benefit. Which is the endless fallacy of all the feel-good arguments of both the right and the left. For example (to be fair), from the right: "Who cares about the costs of the drug war, we MUST save these addicts from themselves!" Or the left: "Goddamnit, why can't the poor people shop at Costco?" Populism, populism, populism... it will always fails as nature as always laughs last. As, it appears, I am forced to laugh at you now.
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
- 136
You realize that the majority of the homeless live that way out of choice, right? I know that sounds horribly callous, so my suggestion is that you spend so time volunteering at the shelters so you can witness it firsthand, as I have. Most of them suffer from addictions or mental illnesses (or both) which they prize above their own welfare. There's nothing quite like seeing firsthand a homeless person refuse to accept a bed in a shelter on a cold night because he won't agree to be sober.
Otherwise, we're back to emotional feel-goods. Or are you arguing that a free market causes an increase in poverty? I sincerely hope not, otherwise you better brush up on your history. Might I suggest pre-revolution France?
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
- 136
NO ONE is paid at the level of their productivity. Short of unearned gifts, that would be an economic impossibility. Even Bill Gates has not been compensated for the actual level of productivity that he created. Everyone pays their debt to society in some fashion or another. Everyone is, however, paid exactly according to their perceived value. There are NO exceptions to that short of forced government interference.
And if you don't want me to confuse you for your average leftist, then don't spout your average leftist talking points.
Dullard's already presented his complex math. What ridiculous equations did you plug and chug to come up with this?
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
- 136
But no more or less than his perceived value (even though he did break even the most basic laws governing even the freest market).
Can I ask when the fsck you are going to learn to read? This is like the 5th time you've done this to me in this thread.
I guess it's all in who's doing the "perceiving", huh. Maybe you should learn how to express yourself better, LOL!
Ken Lay was obviously paid way above his level of producitivity.
3chordcharlie
Diamond Member
- Mar 30, 2004
- 9,859
- 1
- 81
No one is payed according to their perceived value unless they are either unique, or possess a skillset which is very highly in demand, in which case they will end up being paid the value of the value of the least productive position occupied by someone with that skillset (in a perfect economic world, which of course is a joke; but I'm trying to err on the side of your argument here).
Libertarians love to spout of about 'keeping the fruits of your labours' but your pay has nothign to do with your labour. It is an exchange of goods (currency for time) and it is sort-of voluntary, though hardly 'free exchange' when you hit the bottom-of-the-barrel 'take this job or you will literally starve' level. But hey, don't let that stop you from your pipe-dreaming.
If you've got me confused with an average leftist you either aren't reading or aren't nearly as versed in economics, socialism and libertarianism as you claim to be.
Forced government interference won't change this either.
The difference is that a fair wage would be determined soley between an employer and an employee. Society passes laws because they about what wages are allowed because they are effected by the resulting wage.
People die and suffering from not getting paid enough isn't an emotional appeal it is reallity. Along with increased crime.
Stunt
Diamond Member
- Jul 17, 2002
- 9,717
- 2
- 0
No matter what you raise minimum wage to, people will continue to be paid and work for less. A minimum wage does nothing more than encourage employers to pay the minimum and not price labour relative to skills and demand. Of course the fiscal left feels great when minimum wage is raised; unfortunately it has little to no effect on real wages.
Actually it forces many employers to pay more which helps raise the pay on the rest of the low paying jobs. Supply and demand. It doesn't help much, but it's better then doing nothing.
3chordcharlie
Diamond Member
- Mar 30, 2004
- 9,859
- 1
- 81
I'm waiting for someone with actual knowledge of what minimum wages do to step in here. It's not a particularly good policy tool, but most of the anti-minimum-wage crowd has entirely the wrong reasons for supporting it.
An efficient solution would separate labour markets so that students, second-income-earners, and sole-providers did not compete for jobs, but this is completely unrealistic, unfair, and impractical.
A less efficient, but still 'better' solution would recognize that most minimum wage earners (unlike most highly paid individuals) are directly productive; i.e. they have a measurable output. Pay could then be based on a percentage of actual productivity, rather than a competitive market with unequal players and unequal 'freedom of choice'. This one won't happen either.
The fact is that under a competitive market, it doens't matter how high productivity is for unskilled labour; if the jobs have alternative employees in the youth and second-income segment, they will never have to pay what any of us would consider a 'living wage', regardless of how you define that.
They used to do that by being full time or part time, but the employers get around that by not letting people get enough hours to be full time.
My wife used to do piece work at a sewing factory. She busted her ass and made some pretty good money for about 6 months, then they just changed the quota on the pieces she was making so she had to bust her ass to make quota. The employers hold all the cards in these deals, that's why the govement has to step in and make them pay more.
Collective bargining is the only answer and that is pretty hard to do with all the outsourcing and illegal labor.
3chordcharlie
Diamond Member
- Mar 30, 2004
- 9,859
- 1
- 81
Collective bargaining is a good solution when employers act as monopsonists, or collude to keep wages low; I don't think it's a good solution when there are many unemployed and under-employed people around willing to work for very little. When you take a workforce that isn't overly replaceable with jobs that aren't easily replaceable, collective bargaining can help even out the lumps; both sides have something like similar dependencies on the other. I don't see this as being the case for low-paying unskilled labour.
Why should I be forced to pay for other peoples food stamps, section 8, health care, etc., instead of the person employing them, making money off of them. They way I see it, if you can't afford to pay people living wages, your business simply isn't profitable, so you have to make it profitable. My tax dollars shouldn't be used to keep your business profitable while keeping your employees earning 2/3 of the poverty rate.
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
- 136
These privileged college kids who've never spent a day working in the private sector in their entire lives are simply never going to understand this. They just require that the rest of us pay for the guilt they suffer as a result of their affluent upbringing.
Of course not; if you're doing the same work as a teenager you merit the same pay. But there is a way around that; without school, you're more than free to work well over 40 hours a week.
3chordcharlie
Diamond Member
- Mar 30, 2004
- 9,859
- 1
- 81
When you look at the actual (usually physical) productivity of a minimum wage employee, they are producing enough wealth in a 40 hour week that there is no reason they should have to work more; there is no]/i] market solution to this, but as I've mentioned there may not be a reasonable regulatory or other solution, either, at least under the umbrella of a free-market-economy-with-tinkering.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 21K
-
-
-
Facebook
Twitter