Who does a $15 an hour minimum wage help?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by doombug, May 2, 2018.

  1. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    The nomenclature is a bit intimidating, and took me a long while to learn it. I almost spewed my water when Reiver popped out with 'profit maximization under monopsonistic power' fancy words for being the only employer in town, and I that I can't see applying anywhere in the US. In days of old when the Mill was the only place anybody could work, maybe applicable, but people now are too transient to even think about trying to play that game.
     
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  2. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    It removes the incentive of the person you just stole the $8,000 from. Do I need to draw a chart?
     
  3. Guess Who

    Guess Who Well-Known Member

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    I know what it does. It closes down all small businesses and gives the demorat republicon big business lobbies all the power over this carpetbagging banana republic.
    Just like the laws now protect immorality and attack morality. You can murder and suck the brain's out of a newborn full term baby and sell its parts on the market. And call this murder " womens rights " because they are not human unless somebody else causes you to lose it then the baby magically becomes human so it is murder,
    You can rape all the young men in our military and persecute them for even smiling at the women. Now male on male rape is epidemic in our military and nothing is being said much less down to stop it. While much of the time women have sex to get pregnant and avoid combat tours or just because they want sex, then say they were raped to avoid repercussions.
    Little girls are exposed to grown men in public restrooms. Schools are teaching and having prayer time for islam while christians are expelled for as much as wearing a necklace with across or praying during a grammar school sports event. Little grade school children are made to watch homosexual porn between two mommies or two daddies and fed half truths and lies about our history.
    A $15 wage is just another nail in the coffin. Americans don't have lobbies like all the invaders coming illegally do,so the third world will get the few higher paying jobs jobs left and the americans will again get the shaft.
     
  4. Distraff

    Distraff Well-Known Member

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    Lets say that Jeff Bezos just got taxed $8,000 to give to his $20,000 workers. Jeff Bezos is still going to get richer when he earns more, even though it won't be as much richer as if he went tax free. If anything earning only $20 billion instead of 30 billion will make Jeff work harder because it will take more work to reach his financial goals. What about only keeping only say 60% of what he earns will make him immediately stop working?
     
  5. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    So lets take a realistic person, someone who makes (after standard deductions) $50,000 a year, and after all the other taxes, now gets tapped with your hypothetical 'inequality' tax. After other taxes, which will actually provide some sort of benefit to the payor down the road, Federal withholding on the $50k is about $6250. SS is 6.2% for $3,100, MCare at 1.45% = $725. They now have $39.925. Possible local or state taxes. How much more do you feel is reasonable to take from this person, for which they have no future benefit?

    Mind you, I am putting aside the fact that what you are suggesting is just plain theft.
     
  6. One Mind

    One Mind Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So, what was the cause that created the effect of min wage? Is it possible, even possible, that we had far too may employers paying slave labor wages for jobs that needed to be done?

    I cannot imagine that democrats were reacting to something that was not a problem and did not exist....too low wages.

    Most law and policy that we get is a reaction, a reaction to a problem. At least in older times this was what happened. Wages for particular work must have been a problem?
     
  7. Distraff

    Distraff Well-Known Member

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    The middle class has seen their income share drastically decline because of increasing inequality and have seen less and less of the economic growth go to them. Under my plan, I'd redistribute to that person making $50,000. So maybe instead he will get $55,000 or $60,000 depending on what the calculations come up with. Rather than taxing and then giving him money, I'd redistribute to him by cutting his taxes and adding it to the rich so maybe his income after taxes will go from $39,000 to $45,000.
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2018
  8. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    I suspect the monopsony idea comes from the assumption of socialists that all capital is greedy and evil, even if we are speaking of a diverse field of businesses and labor demographics.
     
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  9. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    Monopsony: A market situation where there is only one buyer.

    A figment of the socialists' imagination.
     
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  10. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    You speak of 'income share' as though it were a stagnant pool. It's not, it's constantly churning. If a person want's their income to grow, they increase their own worth in the marketplace. Further education, more responsibilities, higher production. It's all there for the taking if you want it badly enough.

    Your assumption wobbles on the basis that people should receive more money with no additional input. Purely a governmental mandate of theft from one party to another. I'll take a wild shot and bet that you feel the 'wealthy' (your use of Jeff Bezos) won't feel it and they 'owe' it. Do you understand Noblesse Oblige? Do you also understand that the standards that it existed under are not applicable today?
     
  11. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    Minimum wage was created in the late 1930's in response to the FLSA. People were not being fairly compensated for their work, so a baseline was created.

    I don't mind having a baseline, as a starting point. Anyone worth anything won't be there long, but it gives a point for the unskilled, inexperienced to start their journey upward.
     
  12. One Mind

    One Mind Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So, you are in the crowd that believes taxation is thievery? You do realize that no nation would ever exist without taxation, right? So is that what you want? Thankfully human intelligence did not go down that road and we have civilization because it did not. You love da
    And yet particular sectors in our economy are min wage sectors. Or just above min. I can recall that quite a few jobs would pay a dime over min, as it that would make a difference. ha ha

    Generally with such laws as the min wage, there was a good reason why such laws were needed in the first place. Why is this, given that some believe that capitalism, and its laws, are like natural law? That supply and demand will always give us the wages that are fair and natural? Well, obviously what can be put down on paper as a theory, doesn't have to actually match reality nor does it, when you throw in the complicating factor of human nature. Especially when the rate of pay of my employees, directly affect my own rate of pay. The less I must pay, the more that I can keep for myself. ha ha. And if I can use the argument of supply and demand, I can justify not paying my workers enough to even survive on, along with using industry averages.

    I think about this pay rate deal in a different manner. I think that if a good or service is not worth paying at least enough for the producer of that good or service enough to survive on, then we should not have that good or service. Period. I can bet you and win, that if a good or service is needed for society, it can be supplied by labor rates that are enough to survive on. Can walmart remain in business by paying their workers living wages? Well, our locally owned stores that walmart put out of business indeed did pay such a wage. So, it of course can be done and was done before the business model of walmart took over, which depends upon me, a taxpayer, subsidizing their too low wages so their workers can survive, in order to max out the profits of that corporation and its stockholders.
     
  13. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    Share of what?
     
  14. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    I agree. No state could exist without taxation.
     
  15. TedintheShed

    TedintheShed Banned

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  16. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Formula? It's supply and demand. Are you saying that supply and demand is irrelevant to the labour market?
     
  17. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Monopsonistic power merely refers to wage making power (ie the firm faces elasticity in its labour supply). To suggest that is socialist is not credible.
     
  18. TedintheShed

    TedintheShed Banned

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    Some would argue that a vouluntaryist state may work as well. I can understand how in theory it may. If one signs an individual contract for services and are free to leave and enroll as one it may dilute government power enough, but I am not convinced.
     
  19. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    Assumptions don't benefit anyone.

    Taxation that benefits the payor isn't a problem, but taxation that strictly takes from one to give to another is theft. There is no dressing it up any other way.

    Did you bother reading on when and why Minimum Wages was established? I haven't argued that it wasn't necessary at the time it was created, so that blather is just to hear yourself talk. It still provides a place to start for those who are unskilled and unexperienced.

    You are welcome to support only those companies that pay their workers above the market wage for that particular service or product. That's called voting with your wallet. It's when the government steps in and mandates a wage, and those who have no concept of the wage impact on the overall economy and supply market that support it, well, I'm not going to waste my breath explaining it to you.

    So you are of the group that thinks employers should pay the employees a 'living wage', regardless of their skill, experience, hours worked, lifestyles, and market attributes? Do you understand the overall impact of wage increases on the economy and inflation? The stability of 'buying power' when wages are increased?

    No, I didn't think so.
     
  20. One Mind

    One Mind Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And so civilization is therefore based upon thievery, if one follows this out to its most logical conclusion. Yet the people who actually see taxation as thievery, would never want to live in darwin's jungle either. I guess they want their cake and to eat it too? ha ha It really does boil down to that, and that is where you see the incoherence in thought with these people. And yet some appear to have a higher education. ha ha.

    These people also have this delusion that the creation of wealth is a lone wolf endeavor. And yet, how many people have ever generated great wealth, all by themselves, without the factor of the providers of labor? Yet when you believe falsely in the lone wolf paradigm, then labor is not important at all, especially what they might want in exchange for creating my own wealth. ha ha. Only the provider of capital has importance and relevance. Yet the inconvenient truth of reality is that it takes both capital, an owner, and massive labor in order to generate income and wealth. So why is it that labor is seen as of little significance? Well, if we really gave labor its due, these dirty masses might want to be paid enough to survive on!! And we cannot have that. For give them an inch and they will take a mile! And pretty soon they will all be living in huge mansion, driving cars that cost as much as a house, a big house, while the owner will be living in a shack, in squalor, and relying upon welfare in order just to have a meal.

    I have always believed that if a good or service is demanded by society, then those that actually labor to provide them should be paid enough to live on, in a modern civilization where hardly anyone grows their own food anymore. It is a basic principle involving morality and social responsibility that we have lost since the FDR model was dismantled by both dems and repubs. So ironic how once we learn a valuable lesson about human existence and capitalism, that sooner or later we will as a nation forget what was learned, and once again move into something else, that we had already learned would not work out for a nation and her people. But who moves us away from wisdom, into idiocy? Would it be those at the top, who could not max out their own wealth optimally because of lessons learned as a nation, from consequences of doing something in a particular way? IMO, yes, for nothing else can explain it as well as that. ha ha
     
  21. TedintheShed

    TedintheShed Banned

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  22. One Mind

    One Mind Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So, redistribution of taxes is theft, and this would of course reply to the redistribution involved in having a defense dept, to protect even the poor who do not pay taxes, along with the people that do.

    Sorry, but your argument that involves what you see as theft just does not pass the smell test of logic, reason and rationality. Taxation has always involved redistribution in some form. For anytime money changes hands, it has a source but also a place where it goes.

    I think some people just hate it that they are taxed and then some of that money goes to people who are poor, disabled, or old. And if they can call that theft, they think that somehow this will make taxation a most evil and unjust thing, and is not acceptable. But this cannot be based upon christian doctrine, so religion must be left out of it completely, given what christ said about rome extracting taxes from the jews. And so, if you leave religion out of it, when using a moral argument, what is left? I would think that the same people who consider taxation as theft, do so for non religious and non moral reasons. We have people and have always had them, who do not want any of their money taken from them. Especially if some of it is to be given to a group of people who they consider to be lazy bums, who refuse to care for themselves, and are basically leeches on everyone else. And if this is a person's view of the complete reality, I cannot blame them, if that view is truth, and the entire story. I just do not believe it is the truth nor the entire story and I do not think there is enough evidence to back it up. There is not just one reason for poverty. If there was just one reason, a leech, a user, of course I would agree somewhat with you, but never on taxation being theft. I do not think this view that you embrace is reality at all. And I have a hard time in understanding how anyone could create such a view, rationally.

    Fact is, and it is a hard fact, civilization would not exist without the collective being taxed and that money being redistributed. Into many areas. So to call it theft is, for me, delusion and confusion within those minds that propose it.

    I have never mind being taxed given that I do not want to live in a darwinian jungle, and the law of the jungle being reality. What is it worth to me not to live in such a nightmare? Well, not all of my income, for then I would starve. But this is not to say that I agree with how tax revenues are spent by politicians. For I do not think so much should be spent on war mongering, and keeping our elites as rich as they possibly can be, and I would spend it differently. If you are gonna tax a people, then it should be spent in their best self interests, instead of the interests of a very small group of elites who enrich themselves even more from that expenditure. Granted, the best interests of our elites sometimes is also in my best interest as well. And if only that was done, it would be different, but truth is, most times it hurts average citizens, as only the elites get benefits.
     
  23. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    Again, you make assumptions. Social Security and Medicare are taxes that benefit the Payor. Federal withholding supports the infrastructure and military. Social Security also assists the elderly and disabled. I am not particularly in support of CONTINUAL support of people who can, but choose not to, work. Those who truly need charity are usually supported by their community without the need to tax people. That is called a society. Mandating the garnishment of the fruits of one's labors by extortion to redistribute it to others of their decision, is not for the benefit of the general citizens, it is for the benefit of a certain group.

    But that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. While you carry on about what you feel is justified in taxation, that has nothing to do with a $15 minimum wage.
     
  24. Daggdag

    Daggdag Well-Known Member

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    As much as leftists want to pretend that a $15 minimum wage will do away with all poverty, it won't. They love to pat themselves on the back whenever they raise the minimum wage, even when it still leaves millions of people well under a living wage

    In Indiananplis alone, a family of 5 with 1 working parent and 3 children needs the working parent to bring home almost $24 per hour to be above the cost of living. $15 dollars per hour doesn't even come close for most families. In States like New York it's even worse. And yet once $15 per hour is passed, liberals will pretend poverty is abolished.

    Federal minimum wage does nothing. Each state needs to pass their own minimum wage equal to the cost of living in their state.
     
  25. One Mind

    One Mind Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I wanted to respond to this part of your post a bit more...

    Thing is, what is now called unskilled, like making widgets in a factory that we lost to slave wages, once paid at least lower middle class wages. I only heard the term unskilled bantered about much later on, when used as a reason to pay less than it takes to live on. If so called unskilled labor adds the value seen in manufacturing, then calling it unskilled is just a ploy to justify workers needing welfare in order to eat, after working for a week at such a factory or business.

    The guys who work their arses off, regardless of weather, are unskilled people, and yet their jobs are essential. So, if this unskilled, dirty job was only paid the lowest of wages, does the term unskilled have a thing to do with the necessity of that work? Or should we also judge a job, its pay rate as being essential or non essential?

    We once upon a time, paid wages to people, that they could live on, because the work was so damned back breaking. While being unskilled. But using that term unskilled IMO, is nothing more than a sneaky ass ploy to underpay people. And I say this because I have personally watched so called unskilled people make a living from their work, and than as times went on, not to make a living from the same work. And the only thing that really changed with this idea of unskilled vs skilled. ha ha ha.

    I am reminded of the gripes and even the wringing of hands coming from meat packers and farmers, who claimed that losing their illegal labor was stopping their ability to process meat and grow crops. ha ha ha. But if they believed in supply and demand, instead of wanting to get around it, an increase wages, they would have offered citizens enough in wages to take those jobs in meat processing plants. ha ha. Not wanting to do that, and not submit to supply and demand, turned them into whiners.

    We had a meat packing plant here, that paid both blacks and whites lower middle class wages for several generations. Sarah Lee bought it, closed it down and moved to another state with high illegal aliens living there. They stopped paying lower middle class wages for they could man their plants with illegals who work so much cheaper. Welcome to how capitalism really operates and reality! We also had a raid years ago with a chicken processing plant, a huge corporation, that cleaned out the illegal aliens. The next day, there was a line of people wanting those jobs, that looked like people going to a concert. Many were old employees who had been displaced by illegals. This corporation had no choice but to up the wages, so americans didn't have to be on welfare in order to hold that job. I am sure there was much chagrin within management, having to once again pay wages for unskilled work that those people could actually live on. ha ha ha But one could expect for this to happen again in that factory, when the heat got off of them.

    I used to watch Dirty Jobs and discovered that this meme about americans not working dirty jobs because they were too lazy and unskilled, was a delusion perpetrated by some on the right side of things. It seems we will do the most dirty of jobs if we can make a living by doing it. But if you call such work unskilled and not worthy of a living wage, you can fool people especially on the right side of things into believing in the damndest things, even when completely outside of common sense. Of course you see the same thing happening on the left in regards to other things so it is not a left or right deal here.
     

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