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John M
climber
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Mar 29, 2013 - 12:39pm PT
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Here's a topic...
The Minimum wage.
What do you think, should it be raised, or banished
I would like to hear John's opinion,
JohnE has said the minimum wage hurts small businesses and keeps them from hiring more people, implying that if the minimum wage was lower, then the unemployment rate would also be lower. As if there are tons of people out there who want to work for slave wages.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Mar 29, 2013 - 12:44pm PT
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so how does the minimum wage "hurt" thousands of large companies?
how does Taco Bell or McDonalds get hurt by being "forced" by law to pay a min hourly wage?
go ahead, take a shot at relating min wage to their stock price, I dare ya
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 29, 2013 - 12:45pm PT
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John, let's look at the flip side of the minimum wage dilemma - what they've
done in Europe. It is well accepted that unemployment remains high there
because the minimum wages and onerous hiring laws cause employers to put off
hiring until it is absolutely necessary. To be fair, it is more of the latter
but the labor market is probably the freest market that exists, at least in
Europe.
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John M
climber
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Mar 29, 2013 - 01:29pm PT
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If Europe is such a free market for labor, then why do they get 5 to 7 weeks of paid vacation while in America in the lower paying jobs its hard to even get one week? Their vacation time is mandated.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Mar 29, 2013 - 01:44pm PT
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I know I'm preaching to deaf ears, so continue on.
Back to you John.
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kennyt
climber
Woodfords,California
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Mar 29, 2013 - 01:47pm PT
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What's a vacation is it one of those things you put on a credit card and then work all year to pay it off?
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Mar 29, 2013 - 01:47pm PT
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Neither party holds anything close to a lock on the rational solutions needed to get this country back on track.
True, that. For all of our railing, though, we forget that politics really is "the art of the possible." Once we recognize that not everyone else shares our worldview (and, consequently, our preferred policies), we realize the need to form a large enough coalition to obtain our optimal government. Hence the formation of political parties.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mar 29, 2013 - 02:01pm PT
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John M, sorry, there's no sarcastic smiley face available. There's no free
lunch nor vacation and that's largely why Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy,
and France are in such dire straits and why employers hate to hire people
over there. Did I mention that it is nigh impossible to even lay somebody
off even in dire times? It is sheer insanity.
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kennyt
climber
Woodfords,California
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Mar 29, 2013 - 02:03pm PT
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Don't libertarians always vote for the guy who has no chance of being elected So makes their vote useless?
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John M
climber
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Mar 29, 2013 - 02:06pm PT
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Dr F.. sometimes you are like a dog with a bone. There isn't any way to have a conversation with you because you are going to keep pounding those same line. Can't you see that for a Republican to admit his party is whack, even partly, thats a big step? Thats when you can start a conversation on what to do about our current problems. Rather then just keep pounding the party line. At some point America has to have a conversation if its going to ever get better.
Or should we just resort to a civil war? Us agin them. Like I overheard in the supermarket in Oakhurst.
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John M
climber
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Mar 29, 2013 - 02:07pm PT
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Okay.. thanks Reilly for the explanation. I missed the sarcasm completely. By the way, I love your photos. You have been to some Rad places.
Time to head outside.. Its too pretty of a day to just sit inside yacking on the crazy making machine.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Mar 29, 2013 - 02:21pm PT
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JohnE has said the minimum wage hurts small businesses and keeps them from hiring more people, implying that if the minimum wage was lower, then the unemployment rate would also be lower. As if there are tons of people out there who want to work for slave wages.
What I, and most other economists, say is that if the minimum wage is high enough to make a difference, it will lower employment of the least productive workers. Norton correctly tells us why: the employer makes less money. The issue, though, is not whether, but how much.
Supporters of a higher minimum wage argue that the reduced employment effect of a higher minimum wage is negligible, and the benefits to the lowest paid workers are tangible and real. The opponents of a higher minimum wage argue that the reduced employment is significant, particularly for teenagers and other workers who are not the primary source of support for their families.
"Slave wages" and minimum wages differ greatly. The only persons working for slave wages after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment are prisoners. The issue is whether the minimum wage protects the wages of higher-earning workers. While I personally doubt it, the unions obviously think otherwise.
I do note that a 2006 survey of PhD members of the American Economics Association by Robert Whaples found that 37.7% of respondents supported an increase in the minimum wage, 14.3% wanted it kept at the current level, 1.3% wanted it decreased, and 46.8% wanted it completely eliminated! (Robert Whaples (2006) "Do Economists Agree on Anything? Yes!," The Economists' Voice: Vol. 3 : Iss. 9, Article 1). Not exactly a ringing endorsement of any position, but nonetheless quite surprising to me, because most of my fellow members of the AEA hold views far to my left.
To me the more important question is the one Norton raised much earlier, about whether, in the current and future economy, there will be enough "good jobs" to allow upward mobility from lower to middle class. While all past economic history says those jobs will exist, I can see Norton's point and cause for worry. In addition, past economic history says that whenever we have changes in production technology, economic shocks, resulting in painful dislocations, will result.
I think we've spent the last 70 years or so in a sort of idol worship of education, i.e. "Get a good eduction[usually meaning a college degree] and you'll get a good job." Not surprisingly, that paradigm didn't hold up too well for those getting degrees in areas without significant demand outside of academia. It doesn't surprise me that someone with a PhD specialty of gender studies criticism of classical composers, say, has a hard time getting a job.
In fact, jobs in many lines of work requiring a lot of education aren't easy to come by, particularly those for professorships. My nephew, with his PhD in math, is in the second year of a post-doc fellowship still looking for where he really wants to end up. The boom time market for newly-minted lawyers dried up. Pretty soon, even medicine could become much less lucrative. By definition, a capitalist economy has no guaranty of a good job for any particular individual.
I believe, however, that employment for those younger than Baby Boomers will, in fact, continue to provide upward mobility for those engaged in it, and that most everyone who wants a job in that generation will be able to find one, as the Baby Boomers retire, and those Baby Boomers remaining in the workforce will lose attractiveness to employers because their productivity won't justify their high cost.
Frankly, for Baby Boomers, I worry more about investment returns, because a very large segment of the population will rely on those investments for income. Increasing demand for investments will raise the price of those investments. For those unfamiliar with finance, the higher the price of an investment, the lower the return. (For example, we say bonds are "cheap" when they pay a high rate of interest, and "costly" when they pay a low rate of interest.) It has been my belief for several decades that my generation is going to discover that retirement requires a much more frugal lifestyle than the one to which most of us became accustomed. Personally, I think we're simply reaping what we've sown.
John
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Mar 29, 2013 - 03:57pm PT
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It's worth comparing the current minimum wage with the minimum wages of the past (in inflation adjusted dollars) and correlate them with employment figures of the past. Doing so it becomes obvious that the current minimum wage is Low by historic standards and when it was higher, the economy was doing much better than it is today.
The Dow and SP just set new records. Business is doing fine and CEO are getting double digit increases every year while the little guy gets squat. Somehow the conservative never worry about CEOs getting millions (and many times higher compared to a regular worker than in the past or in other countries) as a factor on the bottom line but a living wage will somehow destroy a business
Peace
karl
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Mar 29, 2013 - 05:06pm PT
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Very good point, Karl. I have to agree with Naomi Klein that the single biggest factor leading to the various economic bubbles we've experienced since 1980 is that the government has abandoned its traditional role of regulating 'greed'. Also, in the 30s and 40s there was an overwhelming public consensus that outrageous profits during an economic downturn or a war with high casualties was not acceptable. Even the CEOs agreed about that back then. I have to agree with the new Pope that worship of the buck has gotten way out of hand. But that's a easy thing to say and a lot harder to do something about. I think about that Asian Tigers who build beach resorts in Ceylon where they can go mellow out with their own personal retinue of meditating Zen monks, but in the process kick all the starving fishermen off the beaches because their catch smells up the neighborhood and blows their buzz. We live in a world full of paradoxes, don't we? And today I have to go down and get my BMW smog tested. What a hassle? The worst bummer ever!
I was thinking too about all the odd-ball specialty Ph.D.s in niche disciplines. After WWII you could go into any field, get a Ph.D., and get a tenure-track university position (if you were a white male of course). It is in the greater interest of society at large if lots and lots of people go into a variety of academic pursuits that do not necessarily fit into the existing economic profit scheme. More ideas our there leads to more creative cross-overs between disciplines that in turn lead to more areas of knowledge. What if Robert Sapolsky hadn't learned swahili gone gone to Kenya to study baboon societies? I can just listen to a little Philistine saying, Why'd he do that? Now those studies of baboon societies are having a direct impact on neuroscience and the biochemistry behind the operation of the human brain. We really owe it to ourselves to underwrite the study of fields that don't have direct economic results on the profit ledger because they certainly will have an impact in that area in the future. A little Philistine with a two-bit gift shop out in Nevada on I80 doesn't see it that way of course, but he's feeding on the free market place of ideas as it flows by him from the major metropolitan areas. He just wants to install a few more slot machines and maybe invest in a few more hookers in the trailers out back. He doesn't read Newman on the purpose of a university either in his spare time. I used to think that 19th century logical positivist social utilitarianism had died with WWI. Don't you believe it. It was transplanted to the Brave New World of America where it still alive an well and flourishing among the petite bourgeois shop keepers and accountants call "The World".
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John M
climber
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Mar 29, 2013 - 08:07pm PT
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The issue is whether the minimum wage protects the wages of higher-earning workers. While I personally doubt it, the unions obviously think otherwise.
We really do need to protect those CEOs..
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Mar 29, 2013 - 08:21pm PT
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No, the "issue" is that American workers "deserve" a minimum wage that their employers cannot pay less than.
Just as American workers deserve to not be discriminated against on the job for race, creed, color, sex, or national origin.
Bear in mind that there are plenty of "outs" for employers to NOT pay the full federal minimum wages such as high school kids, students, etc
The issue is not whether the federal minimum wage is "enough" to live on, but that an hourly minimum amount cannot be paid less than.
Come on, this is 1900, we are better than that now.
No one who has thought this through should actually support employers paying as little as they can find someone desperate enough to do the work.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Mar 29, 2013 - 11:13pm PT
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The haves' cry foul for the have-nots' bringing up class warfare then they turn around and fight tooth and nail to defeat minimum wage legislation....Classic golden rule politics....
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Mar 30, 2013 - 03:36am PT
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Well folks i've been away busy all day and into the night.Just now tuned onto the forum to read the latest installments of this thread. No surprise
here; Dr. F, Hedge, and other less vocal minions keep railing on and on and on. You would think by their vemonous derogation that they won't be
satisfied until guns are blazing in a new civil war and all the evil, greedy, wealthy republicans are rounded up and hung. All the power to them, but why stop there? Do they not realize that there are even more evil,greedy,wealthy and likewise stupid legislators on the other side of the aisle? Dr. F, what do John Kerry(retired to state secretary),Jay Rockefeller,Mark Warner,Jared Polis,Herb Kohl, and Nancy Pelosi all have in common? Well i'll answer for you: they are all have fortunes of over 100 million dollars. Do you think they came about these fortunes by the wit of their minds and sweat of their brows? Do something different for a change will you;check out these rascals.
It is reassuring to see level heads like John E, John M, Reilly and others countering steadily, but damn those minions sure make a hell of a racket. It is like fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard.
Hey Reilly- I know what you mean about the socialist European's reluctance to hire their natives. My daughter just did two three month stints over there to fill a temporary position in a scientific lab. It seems the labor laws are so onerous that they would prefer importing than being saddled with the almost lifetime commitment of hiring in country.
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
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Mar 30, 2013 - 11:29am PT
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Mar 29, 2013 - 11:00am PT
What is the difference between a Libertarian and a Republican?
Social issues
homosexuals, abortion, immigration, the separation of the church and state, drugs, civil rights
if you are against abortion, or equal rights for same sex marriages, you are a Republican, not a libertarian
If you believe as a libertarian but also believe that we should regulate Corporations and tax the rich, then you are a Democrat
The Pauls (Rand and Ron) are Not true Libertarians, they are more like Republicans, since they are against many freedoms that any true libertarains would advocate for, like abortion, civil rights, same sex marriages, they are just another version of the cult of greed and evil, Tea Baggars
Just to let you know there are Democrats who are Believers, who beleive in social justice, who know what to do with true wealth -- pay your fair share in taxes, share your wealth and help others. They know the Good Word, and they live by it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_democracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_democracy#Christian_democracy_in_the_United_States
The Christian Democratic Union of the United States of America
http://cdusa.org/
http://www.uschristiandemocrats.org/
http://ipost.christianpost.com/news/why-start-a-christian-democratic-party-in-the-united-states-10353/
Saved from homosexuality. There is no such thing as a Gay Christian.
http://ipost.christianpost.com/news/saved-from-homosexuality-there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-gay-christian-10039/
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Mar 30, 2013 - 01:12pm PT
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Dr. F, i would say the same to you; wake up, your brain may be calcified with hatred, your neurons and synapses could be hardened to the point that the little thought produced through them travel along a single narrow path-tunnel vision.So let's throw out a few ideas and see if you can process them independent of that tunnel.
Do you think their is a possibility that those liberal names you mentioned, along with the list i previously provided ,just might have a personal enrichment motive behind advancement of social justice issues?Let's do a cursory examination of a couple of them and ask a couple questions about their actions versus personal benefit.
Warren Buffet; Sometimes richest man on the planet who cultivates a folksy,benevolent image of himself in pushing equality of taxation issues that would have the effect of weakening the balance sheets of his fellow hedge fund managers and corporate raiders.Meanwhile old Warren has been quietly fighting the i.r.s. over a billion dollar back tax bill-why doesn't he just do the right thing and pay up uncle Sam so that money can fund additional social safety nets and battle the dramatized effects of sequestration? Did you also know that old uncle Warren was up to his eyeballs in the reinsurance market that enabled the housing bubble mortgages to be sliced and diced and packaged into AAA investment grade products that unraveled and largely caused the great recession? These policies were written in such a way as to satisfy federal regulations while excusing Warren's insurance companies from all liability.Did you know that Elliot Spitzer was investigating these activities (which were fraud plain and simple) when he was conveniently brought down by by a little prostitution patronizing scandal?
Nancy Pelosi: Miss "we'll just have to pass it to see what is in it".The highest percentage of wavers to the ACA were issued to businesses friendly to her in her own congressional district-did you know that? In a recent bill raising the federal minimum wage, American Samoa was exempted from it. Star kist Tuna has a large plant there that is tied to her husbands investment empire-how convenient.Their little empire also has ties to investments into "Green Energy" that their is little risk in due to federal loan guarantees.
Just a few items you might ponder Dr. if you can somehow step outside your bigotry.I'm not defending evil greed, just pointing out it is a cancer killing our country and it has metastasized throughout our government and is blind to political stripe.
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