Should we lower the minimum wage?

[bamacre]

The supply of labor far outstrips the demand for labor and the ease in which you can move capital around the world is so incredibly efficient, now capitalists are even thinking of outsourcing factories out of China and into places like Vietnam because the peasants are getting 'uppity' about being treated like slaves who work 6/7 days a week and paid a pittance. This is why your LOLbertarian fantasy of free markets solving everything is retarded.

WTF are you talking about? The Chinese are complaining about their government creating inflation. FYI, your government is doing the same thing, putting us on the same path. Why are you not bitching about it?

 

[BoberFett]

I'm sorry you never saw a supply/demand curve before

Since when do leftists believe in supply and demand?

 

[Phokus]

Since when do leftists believe in supply and demand?

When we point out that the supply curve shifts due to free trade/outsourcing and the new equilibrium point leads to stagnant/lower wages for your average worker for the past few decades? Boy you sure (aren't) smart.

 

[shira]

This is exactly the kind of response I knew I'd get, and this is exactly why I created the OP.

Nevertheless, our current government is busy printing dollars, to devalue it, so our labor costs the rest of the world less. They are saying that if we take a pay cut, more people can afford to pay for our work, increasing the work we do, increasing exports, and lowering unemployment.

Instead of lowering the amount of dollars, they sneakily lower the value of each dollar. I don't agree with doing this, either, but it's interesting to see how the Left reacts to these two scenarios. Adamantly opposed to doing it one way, all the while their overlords are busy doing this, only in a more deceitful manner.

Not sure what you've been smoking, but the concern the past couple of years has been DEflation, not inflation. Or hadn't you noticed that SS will receive no COLA for an unprecedented second straight year?

 

[Phokus]

WTF are you talking about? The Chinese are complaining about their government creating inflation. FYI, your government is doing the same thing, putting us on the same path. Why are you not bitching about it?

If that will fuel exports then fine. China's currency manipulation is unfair and they take advantage of free trade morons fucking the rest of us over even more so than if China's currency were allowed to appreciate.

 

[Phokus]

WTF are you talking about? The Chinese are complaining about their government creating inflation. FYI, your government is doing the same thing, putting us on the same path. Why are you not bitching about it?

Actually just re-reading your reply, you really don't understand that capitalists do everything they can to open trade with as many countries as possible in order to reduce overall labor costs by increasing the supply of labor?

Let this CEO explain it for you:

Tom Wilson, the CEO of Allstate (another underwriter of the festival), made the essential — and brave — point that the fates of American business and American society may be starting to diverge. “I’ll get them [workers] anywhere in the world,” Wilson said. “It is a problem for America, but it is not necessarily a problem for business. I have workers in Belfast, I have workers all over the world. American business will adapt.” Like Splinter, Wilson urged more investment in education.

 

[soulcougher73]

I dont know have you ever tried to live on minimum wage? It is not pretty. May as well just be on welfare at that point.

 

[soulcougher73]

I would rather abolish the stock market then minimum wage. It would do more good for our country. Get away from the profit at any cost mentality and maybe the world wouldnt be the shit hole it is today.

 

[bamacre]

Not sure what you've been smoking, but the concern the past couple of years has been DEflation, not inflation. Or hadn't you noticed that SS will receive no COLA for an unprecedented second straight year?

Actually, we have asset deflation, housing prices are dropping, still. We're trying to inflate, Bernanke said last week, inflation isn't high enough. How high does he want it? More importantly, what makes you think he knows when to hit the brakes?

 

[bamacre]

Actually just re-reading your reply, you really don't understand that capitalists do everything they can to open trade with as many countries as possible in order to reduce overall labor costs by increasing the supply of labor?

Let this CEO explain it for you:

LOL. I point out the hypocrisy shown here, and your reply is this? Diversion? :hmm:

 

[bamacre]

If that will fuel exports then fine. China's currency manipulation is unfair and they take advantage of free trade morons fucking the rest of us over even more so than if China's currency were allowed to appreciate.

LOL, so you're fine with gov't deciding all Americans should take a pay cut so more foreigners can afford our work? Hey, maybe we should have a maximum wage? Think how much of our work we can export!

 

[Capt Caveman]

Raise it to a livable wage.

 

[theeedude]

Nigeria would not be better with some minimum wage. All such labor laws are a drain on the economy, and a nation has to be able to afford such a drain. Nigeria cannot, it would simply collapse into oil producers and subsistence farming/mass starvation. When it can afford such laws, it will probably adopt them.

We can afford them.

 

[Kirby]

I dont know have you ever tried to live on minimum wage? It is not pretty. May as well just be on welfare at that point.

You can't live on minimum wage, that's why only high schoolers make it. Everyone else is on welfare.

 

[glenn1]

Raise it to a livable wage.

Improve your skill set and that won't be a problem. For many minimum wage workers, the value proposition of their labor doesn't even justify minimum wage, and thus won't get hired except in extremely marginal positions.

 

[werepossum]

We can afford them.

Granted - which is why we have them. Nations that can afford laws against child labor, pollution, and substandard wages tend to have them - as they should.

Interesting tidbit - laws against child labor go back to at least the High Middle Ages, where they were designed to protect adult male workers from low-rate competition.

 

[lothar]

No. Of course we can always get some 'good results' by workers working for less, and less, and less, and eventually slavery.

That's not our goal as a society which should be the opposite, for as many as possible to have as much wealth as possible.

The minimum wage is an essential tool for preventing the race to the bottom of people working for just enough to eat, and it's too low.

Rather than having international competition be used to break labor organization and pull American workers down, a global approach should be made to pull others up.

You mention the minimum wage is too low. What dollar figure or range do you think it should be?

Do you believe a federal minimum wage would do a better job than states in setting "minimum" wage floors for what they consider to be? Why?

Do you believe there should be a "maximum" wage? If so, what should it be?

Let me return the agreement - we can't bring the rest of the world 'up to US standards'. For resource alone, we'd need like five planet earths for copying our consumption.

But I'm saying that our policies should try to raise others rather than pull the US down to the extent possible. Unfortunately, almost no one has that agenda (but progressives).

That's not possible.
"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction".

It's complete utopia to believe that we can pull people in 3rd world countries without a detriment to the US and other 1st world nations.

If you're for "pulling the 3rd world countries up from their bootstraps", then surely you must support outsourcing because it achieves exactly that.
Look how far China and India have advanced the past 20 years...If there were no outsourcing those factory and call center workers would still be living in rural areas plowing fields(actually they might even be jobless since it's their grandparents and parents that own the fields and not them).
As China and India develop to 2nd world, jobs will be outsourced to Vietnam which would later increase the livelihood of the citizens there.

I see Progressives as having the same problems as Capitalists...Great in theory, no basis in reality.

Most Capitalists, along with the Chamber of Commerce believe in "unfettered" free trade. We both know what the result of that is, so I won't go much into it, but if you want to know...See NAFTA. Mexico was the beneficiary of it mostly to the detriment of USA.

Most Progressives believe in high tariffs and prevention of outsourcing, but yet they still say they are trying to pull 3rd world countries up by denying them manufacturing jobs that they are easily capable of doing?

Somewhere between the Capitalists and the Progressives, I'm sure there's a middle ground on trade, but I can't make any sense of where exactly that is.

 

[dmcowen674]

I use to work for about $3.30 an hour.

The question is do we want most of the work force to live in huts?

14 states are rallying for $3.25 hr and yes they want tent cities that they can police the serfs easily.

It's all been planned out.

 

[BoberFett]

When we point out that the supply curve shifts due to free trade/outsourcing and the new equilibrium point leads to stagnant/lower wages for your average worker for the past few decades? Boy you sure (aren't) smart.

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Leftists don't believe in the supply demand curve, they just assume that every product has a price at which the producer makes a "fair profit". Your hate the free market is obvious, why try to hide it?

 

[nobodyknows]

I posted this question because I knew a lot of the left-leaning posters would oppose such an idea (yes, I admit I had an ulterior motive in the OP). My question for them is, do you support the devaluation of our currency to lower the cost of labor, and thus lower the cost of our exports? I understand the two actions are not the same, and have different results, but the ideas behind each are quite similar.

LOL, did you ever consider that perhaps management is overpaid and underworked and costs could be cut there, not to mention investors should be happy with 1 or 2% returns because that beats inflation which the goverment claims is 0%, right?

The people who can't pay there bills will get food stamps/heating assitance, etc. to supplement their income because the Waltons can't afford to pay their help more and the middle class will just have to suck it up and shrink some more.

Misery loves company.

 

[Acanthus]

The answer is to stop global labor arbitrage via slaves overseas.

Not to bring slavery back to the US.

 

[Acanthus]

Since when do leftists believe in supply and demand?

Most leftists who discuss economics in any serious fashion believe in Keyenesian economics.

Where we diverge in opinion is things that are not backed up by statistics. Like trying to fuel an ailing economy with tax cuts. Globalization... etc.

 

[First]

The fail is strong in this thread.

 

[Cogman]

Raise it to a livable wage.

Impossible. The more you raise the minimum wage, the higher the cost of living will be in almost all areas of life (Apart from perhaps imported products and illegal labor).

 

[Craig234]

Impossible. The more you raise the minimum wage, the higher the cost of living will be in almost all areas of life (Apart from perhaps imported products and illegal labor).

Because of wealth disparity, raises to the minimum wage making a big difference to people are very cheap overall to cost of living. And those people spend the money in the economy.