Switzerland will vote on $25 min wage on May 18th

[Veliko]

Difficult to say we should be like Europe, but you have to admit their overall quality of life is vastly superior to that in the USA.

It's curious to wonder that due to the economic, social, politicial differences, it's practically impossible to be like France or England when it comes to social justice.

French women are hairy and us Brits have bad teeth.

What the Lord giveth with one hand, he taketh away with the other.

 

[mizzou]

French women are hairy and us Brits have bad teeth.

What the Lord giveth with one hand, he taketh away with the other.

Oh lord, the french hairy thing again. This is so untrue it's ridiculous.

But yes the english have horrible teeth

 

[BoberFett]

Difficult to say we should be like Europe, but you have to admit their overall quality of life is vastly superior to that in the USA.

Why would one have to admit that? They're better in some areas, worse in others.

 

[BoberFett]

People buying 20% more shit is precisely the point of raising/introducing the minimum wage as the increased demand creates jobs.

You're an idiot.

 

[zanejohnson]

america is a 3rd world country with a state of the art police state., and naziesque propoganda platform (3 basically state ran news networks all playing off of eachother, 3 different news networks working in concert to pound opposite sides of ONE ISSUE AT A TIME.. got news folks.... that's not democracy, that's propoganda

it's pretty obvious quality of living is in the gutter, (literally) in the usa, some places it's more extreme than others.... i know i can drive 20 miles in any direction and find shanty towns and homeless folks... then there's that pesky 20 PERCENT INCARCERATION RATE.... that's some straight up north korea shit....

 

[Veliko]

Oh lord, the french hairy thing again. This is so untrue it's ridiculous.

But yes the english have horrible teeth

It rains lots here as well.

 

[norseamd]

It rains lots here as well.

you guys are called the misty isles for a reason or more

going to look that up to make sure that is the right name

 

[Matt1970]

There will be an inflationary effect, yes, but it won't be on anywhere near a 1:1 basis

The only way for it to not be a 1:1 bases would be for someone to eat the added costs of the new labor. Now factor in all those people that are used to making twice minimum wage. You either need to adjust their rate as well or you are effectively giving them a pay cut.

You seem to have only a very basic understanding of economics and what wealth is.

Maybe before you accuse others of only having a very basic understanding of economics, maybe you should learn a bit more.

Derp derp.

Exactly.

 

[Veliko]

As was so acutely observed in another thread on a similar subject:

Every economics thread on this forum:

1. "Here's a problem. I suggest A as a solution."
2. "If you do A, it will just cause [plausible but theoretical problem]"
3. "Actually, this has been studied a lot and in reality, though plausible, that problem doesn't occur in reality."
4. "No if you do A it will just cause [plausible but theoretical problem] everyone knows that it's just common sense."
[GO TO 3]

Actual evidence from reality has no claim on 'common sense' when it comes to economics, where everyone assumes his own experiences and pet theories can be extrapolated perfectly to the world.

 

[realibrad]

The problem is that the minimum wage does not increase the overall demand. Like I said before, only those who keep their jobs get the benefit of an increased wage.

All workers will earn less than what they make the employer. Its a necessary thing when you think about it. How can an employer pay someone more than what they make the employer? You cant...

If the argument for a minimum wage is to help the poor. Either you think that they are being abused by being under paid, or they will die because they dont have the money to purchase the things they need.

The first part is much easier to argue against, so ill start there. Not every person who employs a person is rich. An unskilled person who say wants to take a job cleaning a store because they need an income, will find it hard to get a job. This is because the person who is unskilled will bring very little profit to the employer per hour. If a person wants a job, you can only accept once that person brings enough value to you. The tragedy of the minimum wage is that it raises the bar for employment. Poor people will find it much harder to get a degree, and if they dont, will be stuck working their way up. If they cant take the first step by getting a low wage job, then they will have to get money from the state. Getting money from the state does not give you skill and so its an endless cycle.

If the argument is that people inherently have a higher value per hour than the lowest minimum wage, then how do you measure? The high school drop out rate in the US is in the mid to upper single digits. Most of those people have very few marketable skills. If they truly had value above or equal to the minimum wage, then it would be very easy for them to get a job, and yet we have a very large pool of people who are unemployed. Greedy employers wanting to make money would scoop up those unskilled works and make as much profit as they could, but for some reason they dont...

If you view minimum wage as a social tax, then you have to answer is the tax worth the benefit. Like I have explained before, the minimum wage hurts the poor far more than it helps them, so the tax does not help them. And if not them, then whom?

 

[AViking]

If you want to see how higher wages work then go to Europe. What happens in practice is simply that you have a huge middle class.

Now I don't know how this is going to hold up over time but right now the standard of living and quality of life in Europe is higher than it is in the US. What is projected is that the global middle class will grow so much in places like China and India that North America and Europe will become a minority. If we then choose to also have low wages I can't imagine that getting any better.

 

[Matt1970]

If you want to see how higher wages work then go to Europe. What happens in practice is simply that you have a huge middle class.

Now I don't know how this is going to hold up over time but right now the standard of living and quality of life in Europe is higher than it is in the US. What is projected is that the global middle class will grow so much in places like China and India that North America and Europe will become a minority. If we then choose to also have low wages I can't imagine that getting any better.

All the links I can find show only Norway (population 5 million or less than Maryland) and Netherlands (population 16 million) have a higher standard of living, and that's just barely. Those 2 countries combined have less than 7% of the population the US has.

http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-quality-of-life-map.html

 

[realibrad]

If you want to see how higher wages work then go to Europe. What happens in practice is simply that you have a huge middle class.

Now I don't know how this is going to hold up over time but right now the standard of living and quality of life in Europe is higher than it is in the US. What is projected is that the global middle class will grow so much in places like China and India that North America and Europe will become a minority. If we then choose to also have low wages I can't imagine that getting any better.

Standard of living and quality of live are very subjective though. It is true that Europeans live longer and are generally healthier, but that is about it. The income distribution is more even in Europe, but the buying power of the US is far greater. We have far fewer taxes and it makes things far cheaper to buy. The poor can buy much more than the poor in Europe.

Most of the graphs you see about the middle class being bigger, are showing income distribution, but not adjusted for buying power. If you were to compare the poor in the US, to the poor of Europe, you should see that the middle class in Europe is closer to the lower middle class of the US.

 

[beginner99]

What a bunch of idiots. Sure their minimum wage earners might soon be making $25 or more an hour, but the government probably walks away with 50% to pay for all the healthcare/college/mater/paternity leave. Americans are far better off. At least the $7.25 Americans make here is hardly taxed at all in comparison.

Even at $4000 monthly you will get subsidies for health insurance and pay almost no taxes. Rich people however pay a lot more taxes. The richer you are the higher the percentage is you pay. So if you earn like 150K, expect to pay like 30k in taxes.

All the links I can find show only Norway (population 5 million or less than Maryland) and Netherlands (population 16 million) have a higher standard of living, and that's just barely. Those 2 countries combined have less than 7% of the population the US has.

http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-quality-of-life-map.html

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index for how it is calculated. It doesn't consider at all the available infrastructure. Europe and especially Switzerland is far, far ahead in terms of infrastructure compared to US. Power grid is extremely stable, no need for an UPS for home use. Roads are a lot better and Switzerland has the highest highway density in the world and probably the best railroad/public transport as well. You can travel to pretty much everywhere without a car. I lived in US for 1 year so I'm not making that up. I've also been to NYC, DC, SF, LA,...

The problem with this index concerning Switzerland is the education part. A lot of people here do a so called apprenticeship for 3 years starting at age 16. They do have school 2 times a week and some longer courses but I doubt this index considers this. All in all this isn't for stupid people. However the learn to work practicality. A good example being lab technicians. They run circles in the lab around your average bachelor/master student and even vs. phds. The Dr. here to the thinking not the working in the lab. Much more efficient.

About the $20 bus ticket, that is way to high. Yes, single/return tickets are quiet expensive but most people either have a monthly/yearly ticket that is way, way cheaper or you can get a half-price travel card, meaning you only pay half for all your trips. Taxis however are very expensive. I never use them but you also don't need to due to the good public transport system.

I'm pretty sure this vote will not pass. $4000 is too high for a lot of jobs like cleaning toilets or field workers. Also small to middle companies can currently keep low-wage workers like in production plants employed during bad times but with a $4000 wage, they would have to fire them and hire them back when demand increases again. And the companies will make up for this by saving wages in the middle class. You can bet management won't lower their own wages but those in the middle, were I am.

 

[drebo]

Difficult to say we should be like Europe, but you have to admit their overall quality of life is vastly superior to that in the USA.

It's curious to wonder that due to the economic, social, politicial differences, it's practically impossible to be like France or England when it comes to social justice.

I think it's to more liberal social attitudes. Sex isn't criminalized there the way it is in the US. They are, in general, far less prudish.

Both liberals and conservatives in the US just love to try and legislate morality. If they both just stayed out of our private lives, our quality of life would improve drastically, as well.

 

[biostud]

The problem is that the minimum wage does not increase the overall demand. Like I said before, only those who keep their jobs get the benefit of an increased wage.

All workers will earn less than what they make the employer. Its a necessary thing when you think about it. How can an employer pay someone more than what they make the employer? You cant...

If the argument for a minimum wage is to help the poor. Either you think that they are being abused by being under paid, or they will die because they dont have the money to purchase the things they need.

The first part is much easier to argue against, so ill start there. Not every person who employs a person is rich. An unskilled person who say wants to take a job cleaning a store because they need an income, will find it hard to get a job. This is because the person who is unskilled will bring very little profit to the employer per hour. If a person wants a job, you can only accept once that person brings enough value to you. The tragedy of the minimum wage is that it raises the bar for employment. Poor people will find it much harder to get a degree, and if they dont, will be stuck working their way up. If they cant take the first step by getting a low wage job, then they will have to get money from the state. Getting money from the state does not give you skill and so its an endless cycle.

If the argument is that people inherently have a higher value per hour than the lowest minimum wage, then how do you measure? The high school drop out rate in the US is in the mid to upper single digits. Most of those people have very few marketable skills. If they truly had value above or equal to the minimum wage, then it would be very easy for them to get a job, and yet we have a very large pool of people who are unemployed. Greedy employers wanting to make money would scoop up those unskilled works and make as much profit as they could, but for some reason they dont...

If you view minimum wage as a social tax, then you have to answer is the tax worth the benefit. Like I have explained before, the minimum wage hurts the poor far more than it helps them, so the tax does not help them. And if not them, then whom?

You have to find a balance of redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor, otherwise you'll end up with powerful oligarchs or a modern aristocracy who can do pretty much what they want without fearing for the law.

That's the reason why it's a "good idea" to give more money to the wealthy to create growth, but an extremely bad idea to give it to the poor. And the reason why economical crime in the billion dollar crime is punished with a slap on the wrist and small crimes are punished with several years in prison.

 

[AViking]

All the links I can find show only Norway (population 5 million or less than Maryland) and Netherlands (population 16 million) have a higher standard of living, and that's just barely. Those 2 countries combined have less than 7% of the population the US has.

http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-quality-of-life-map.html

Ok clearly you didn't put any time into this. First off so that you can look at this objectively I am not saying that the USA is a 3rd world country and has the standard of living of Angola. Now that we have that out of the way lets look at this realistically.

First off you have the Human Development Index. That measures potential and the USA is good there. Third behind Australia and Norway. However the real index is the Inequality Adjusted one. Let me quote:

"the IHDI is the actual level of human development (accounting for inequality)" and the unadjusted calculations for "the HDI can be viewed as an index of “potential” human development (or the maximum IHDI that could be achieved if there were no inequality)"

The USA is up from #23 to #16. Pretty much behind most of Western Europe, Australia, and Canada. In my opinion that's embarrassing.

They have another index of note.

The Social Progress Index measures the extent to which countries provide for the social and environmental needs of their citizens. Fifty-two indicators in the areas of basic human needs, foundations of wellbeing, and opportunity show the relative performance of nations.

The three different dimensions of the model—Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing, and Opportunity—are each weighted equally in the overall index

Once again the US is #16. Switzerland is actually #2 on this list.

 

[realibrad]

You have to find a balance of redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor, otherwise you'll end up with powerful oligarchs or a modern aristocracy who can do pretty much what they want without fearing for the law.

That is the idea I worry about. Taking from the rich to give to everyone else. In capitalism, the poor are not poor because of the rich. The poor are poor because they dont bring enough value to be rich. Redistributing wealth is not about improving the economy, but morality. People will try and say there is a net benefit to the economy, but all the empirical data shows otherwise. At best, there is a small negative impact, but its hard to measure.

As for morality, its subjective. What is the threshold that a person must get in society?

The question I have been trying to answer is how can we improve the value of poor people. Most would say send them to college, and is why we subsidize college at the levels we do. But it turns out poor people have a hard time going to, and staying in college. When you look at the data, you see that college subsidizes mainly go to the middle and upper classes, which effectively means we are subsidizing middle and upper class people to go to school. Whats worse is some of those subsidizes come from the poor, which then means the poor are paying to improve the lives of the rich, which is very sick.

My point is that trying to engineer a transfer payment system tends not to work. The reason the US is the economic world leader is not just because it is, but because of the structure that is set up. Unfortunately our 2 party system seems committed to taking it all apart.

As for inequality...
What is important is not how equal everyone is. Its a rather bad way to measure the health of society, by looking at the gaps of income. A better way is to look at the bottom, and see the quality of life they have. If the society is improving the poor at a faster rate with inequality vs a society with greater equality, I would argue the former is better than the latter. The argument can be had on if this is happening, but the idea that equality should be the goal is in my opinion is wrong. A society is better off if it is creating a world where the poor are improving and it should have nothing to do with the rich.

 

[Matt1970]

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index for how it is calculated. It doesn't consider at all the available infrastructure. Europe and especially Switzerland is far, far ahead in terms of infrastructure compared to US. Power grid is extremely stable, no need for an UPS for home use. Roads are a lot better and Switzerland has the highest highway density in the world and probably the best railroad/public transport as well. You can travel to pretty much everywhere without a car. I lived in US for 1 year so I'm not making that up. I've also been to NYC, DC, SF, LA,...

The problem with this index concerning Switzerland is the education part. A lot of people here do a so called apprenticeship for 3 years starting at age 16. They do have school 2 times a week and some longer courses but I doubt this index considers this. All in all this isn't for stupid people. However the learn to work practicality. A good example being lab technicians. They run circles in the lab around your average bachelor/master student and even vs. phds. The Dr. here to the thinking not the working in the lab. Much more efficient.

If you have a better way of calculating it, post your own results on the net, until then I will go with theirs.

 

[AViking]

If you have a better way of calculating it, post your own results on the net, until then I will go with theirs.

See my post above. They came out with a new index that does factor in inequality. It's better.

 

[BoberFett]

Inequality by itself measures nothing.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/b...wiss-defeat-minimum-wage-by-large-margin.html

 

[Matt1970]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/b...wiss-defeat-minimum-wage-by-large-margin.html

The proposed rate — considerably higher than elsewhere in Europe and more than double the $10.10 President Obama has sought in the United States — found little support in a national referendum, with 76.3 percent opposed, according to initial results released by the government.

"A fixed salary has never been a good way to fight the problem,” said Johann Schneider-Ammann, the economic minister. “If the initiative had been accepted, it would have led to workplace losses, especially in rural areas where less-qualified people have a harder time finding jobs. The best remedy against poverty is work.”

 

[BoberFett]

I guess the Swiss hate people too.

 

[dmcowen674]

That's too bad. I thought this would be the place you guys would get me a one way ticket to.