West Coast Connection Forum
Lifestyle => Train of Thought => Topic started by: Ant on August 20, 2006, 10:35:14 PM
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Since some people like to mistakenly believe that I live far to the left. I'll offer some my thoughts on where conservative ideology trumps the left. See below:
Minimum Wage - The optimal minimum wage is $0.00. Plain and simple, in general, people make what they are worked. Sure, some people get screwed. I'm not disputing that underpaid individuals exist in society, but this is not as much of a problem as we think.
Tax Cuts - Any tax cut is a good tax cut. Why? Reductions in taxes decrease government revenue and force an eventual reduction in government spending. The only way to reduce government spending is to reduce taxes. Unfortunately, this leads to the creation of deficits, but if it also leads to reducing government spending then the positives outweight the negatives.
Government Spending Should be Reduced Drastically - Why? The government sucks at getting things done. Private industry is almost always more efficient than the government. I'm not arguing for it to be reduced to almost zero, but it could go down significantly. Government spending equals almost 35% of GDP. Conservative economists argue 20% is a much more reasonable number.
Education - The liberals are primarily responsible for the mismanagement of the American education system. Why? They implemented the idea of a top-down government organized education system and furthermore assisted the Teachers Unions rise to political power. If government sucks at most everything else why would we assume it would be good at managing education. It isn't. The conservative option is for government to fund massive voucher programs that give parents the freedom to choose the right school for their child rather than forcing them into the local public school system.
I could have written more on these, but didnt feel like writting an essay. If you want further explanation feel to ask. Unfortunately, the current GOP is a mess as we all now know. This much at least doesn't need any explanation. The modern republican party is a) dumb b) often dishonest and c) more concerned with political victory than good governance.
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i wanna know your thoughts on why there should be no minimum wage whatsoever
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supply and demand.............
additonally lots of people here complain about immigrants taking our jobs (mainly eastern europeans these days), they would hapily work for less than minimum wage, so if the supply is there and business demand their services they will get work, putting more people into employment and its win win for everyone. it would also makes us more competitive against emerging economies.
Out of interest what is the US min wage, in the UK its the equivilant of $10/hour
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"if you want further explanation" there's no explanation necessary, you're not dealing with a bunch of retarded children. You're right on the three or four topics you noted though, I agree. If you weren't such a fucking idiot about the other things you believe you'd possibly have a chance of my commentary on some of your posts. That likely will not happen, though. Keep working, maybe one day you'll realize what a dumbass you've been and beg the King Of Kings' forgiveness.
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Out of interest what is the US min wage, in the UK its the equivilant of $10/hour
I think it's $5.15 p/h, but it's more in some states (up to $8.50, I think).
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Minimum Wage - The optimal minimum wage is $0.00. Plain and simple, in general, people make what they are worked. Sure, some people get screwed. I'm not disputing that underpaid individuals exist in society, but this is not as much of a problem as we think.
Tax Cuts - Any tax cut is a good tax cut. Why? Reductions in taxes decrease government revenue and force an eventual reduction in government spending. The only way to reduce government spending is to reduce taxes. Unfortunately, this leads to the creation of deficits, but if it also leads to reducing government spending then the positives outweight the negatives.
I don't think the problem is the government spends too much money, but what the government spends its money on. Spending over a billion on a heap of warheads that are only going to sit in a bunker their whole life seems ridiculous when there are people scraping by on a $5/hour wage and rotting away from poverty.
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"if you want further explanation" there's no explanation necessary, you're not dealing with a bunch of retarded children. You're right on the three or four topics you noted though, I agree. If you weren't such a fucking idiot about the other things you believe you'd possibly have a chance of my commentary on some of your posts. That likely will not happen, though. Keep working, maybe one day you'll realize what a dumbass you've been and beg the King Of Kings' forgiveness.
i love this guy, he's so self righteous, kook
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Conservatives are always "Right"...on the political spectrum. But that's where it stops. They are the most evil, sadistic, backwards people in this country. All will have to perish come Judgment Day.
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"if you want further explanation" there's no explanation necessary, you're not dealing with a bunch of retarded children. You're right on the three or four topics you noted though, I agree. If you weren't such a fucking idiot about the other things you believe you'd possibly have a chance of my commentary on some of your posts. That likely will not happen, though. Keep working, maybe one day you'll realize what a dumbass you've been and beg the King Of Kings' forgiveness.
does george give you sexual favors in return for these kinds of posts to liberals?
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^^ haha seriously. I was wondering at first like who is this dude til I realized it was Trauma. Ah well... the dude is just sad.
Anyways, why shouldn't there be a minimum wage?
A few reasons:
1) People in general make what they are worth. Why do we only impose minimum wages on low-skilled labor? Why don't we impose minimum wages on all forms of labor? We don't say, for example, an account shall make no less than 50k /yr, a plumber shall make no less than 20$ /hr, and so on? But, we say, low skilled labor shall make no less than x amount. The market does a fairly good job of determining what people are worth. If the minimum wage was 10$ hr what happens to people who simply don't produce 10$ /hr worth of value for their company? Trust me, these people exist. There are people who quite possibly aren't worth 5$ /hr, sounds cruel, but its reality.
2) Raising minimum wages makes american firms less competitive and the american economy less efficient. Arbitrary rules always decrease efficiency. Would you rather have China doing all the hand labor jobs, or would you prefer they stayed here? Too late, these types of positions already left the American Economy. Why? The minimum wage made it infeasible for companies to offer piece rate, hand labor jobs in America. Any type of product whose production isn't highly automated is typically done overseas. It didn't have to be. We could have kept these jobs here, and let Americans decide whether or not they are willing to accept them. Instead, we don't even have the choice. Sure, these jobs aren't great to raise a family on, but some really low-paying jobs are good for certain people, for example, an unemployed mother who can't work full time because she wants to raise the kids but wouldn't mind earning some extra money. Or, younger kids with low skills that need a few extra bucks.
3) Raising the minimum wage significantly impacts teenage employment. As we raise the minimum wage we also raise the teenager unemployment. This is unfortunate. Research shows that joining the workforce later in life negatively effects personal income and also individuals who join the workforce later tend to have less career stability.. they change jobs often.
A simpler way to think of it. If you think of the two extreme ends of the spectrum, those being, no minimum wage or a ridiculously high minimum wage (100$ /hr) which would you prefer for society? Obviously as the minimum wage moves higher it will negatively impact our economy. Even people that support the minimum wage know that no minimum wage is preferably to 100$ /hr minimum wage. Maybe this is overly simplified, but it makes a good point. If a massive increase to the minimum wage is definitely bad, but an elimination of the minimum wage is arguably good what does that say about the two positions?
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^actually i totally agree with you but its just not realistic in the society we've already built for ourselves. America would be super bomb if we still earned what we worked for. its just sad to look at the decline of our culture ever since people started demanding handouts. welfare was a good idea during the depression, too bad it just gave way for a bunch of idealistic lazy asses to start telling the government it had to take care of everybody
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yeah... its definitely a pipe dream now that the only party in this country that is used to support an intelligent political ideology has been over taken by religious nut jobs and foolishly idealistic neo-cons.
My hope is that there is massive backlash against the last 6 years within the republican party and someone like Chuck Hagel gets a shot at the presidency. There are almost no traditional conservatives left on the right. If they do exist their scared to show their true colors.
Instead, we have a party of retarded Cwalkers, Traumas, and woodrows.
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I'm not comfortable with people with a shaved head, especially if they are white. Imma ask for them to get kicked out of the plane too.
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Since some people like to mistakenly believe that I live far to the left. I'll offer some my thoughts on where conservative ideology trumps the left. See below:
Minimum Wage - The optimal minimum wage is $0.00. Plain and simple, in general, people make what they are worked. Sure, some people get screwed. I'm not disputing that underpaid individuals exist in society, but this is not as much of a problem as we think.
Tax Cuts - Any tax cut is a good tax cut. Why? Reductions in taxes decrease government revenue and force an eventual reduction in government spending. The only way to reduce government spending is to reduce taxes. Unfortunately, this leads to the creation of deficits, but if it also leads to reducing government spending then the positives outweight the negatives.
Government Spending Should be Reduced Drastically - Why? The government sucks at getting things done. Private industry is almost always more efficient than the government. I'm not arguing for it to be reduced to almost zero, but it could go down significantly. Government spending equals almost 35% of GDP. Conservative economists argue 20% is a much more reasonable number.
Education - The liberals are primarily responsible for the mismanagement of the American education system. Why? They implemented the idea of a top-down government organized education system and furthermore assisted the Teachers Unions rise to political power. If government sucks at most everything else why would we assume it would be good at managing education. It isn't. The conservative option is for government to fund massive voucher programs that give parents the freedom to choose the right school for their child rather than forcing them into the local public school system.
I could have written more on these, but didnt feel like writting an essay. If you want further explanation feel to ask. Unfortunately, the current GOP is a mess as we all now know. This much at least doesn't need any explanation. The modern republican party is a) dumb b) often dishonest and c) more concerned with political victory than good governance.
Minimun wage I think is a good thing, though companies will still find a way to fuck over lower skilled workers. As someone who has worked for minimun wage, and has managed those that also have, I think it's fine the way it is. I understand your logic, by nature you are a right wing person, in the same sense as George H. W. Bush and John McCain, and I respect that. I do not agree with this one though.
Tax Cuts are always good. It was Kennedy who used tax cuts so America entered the 60's in one of the biggest economical upswings in history. And it was LBJ who also championed tax cuts. High taxes were only used for the New Deal to pull us out of depression, so it basically used the rich money to have the government pay for more jobs to get people working. Taxes where meant to be lowered once the time was right. But when Eisenhower became president after Trauman, he left everything status quo, and did not lower taxes like a good Republican should, so Kennedy did. The only problem I have with tax cuts is that we are in MAJOR DEBT. I think we should get out of debt, and get out of debt soon. We own China a lot of money, and at any time they can pull our card and fuck us over. I think that Clinton's economics where very smart in the 90's, and Bush cut taxes and spend more has hurt us. Our economy is not as strong, and notice that with our economy goes gas prices. Our dollar value has dropped since the 90's, and gas prices are higher because of it. After all, ifthe dollar's value drops due to our debt, then we pay more dollar's internationally, and then our gas is more expensive. As for the Euro, well, Europeans always get fucked because traditionally they've always had high gas prices. Fix the economy, then cut taxes.
Government spending. I disagree because I am a true Democrat. I am more of a Clinton Democrat, get job programs instead of straight welfare, give student aid to college students, and fix our public schools. I will admit, priviate is better at getting things done, but our government needs to get things done as well so people who can't take advantage of priviate companies for their needs, can have some help in reaching the next level. I'm an example, I had thousands of dollars in college grants, my father was on welfare after my parents divorced, my mom was on dissablity because of her drug problem, and our family still never had money because they don't give you enough, they give you enough so your kids don't starve. And that's the way it should be, people need help, my dad lost his wife to drug, job to the bad economy, and his house because he couldn't afford it no more. He lost everything, but the government was there to make sure we don't starve. I would cut some programs, but I would keep ones that actually help people, and I would add a vet job/housing program, because there are too many vets who are homeless after they risked their lives for us.
Education, the education system is in shock. Why, because our schools are over crowded. They thought the Baby Boomers were bad, once those Baby Boomers had kids, there was no way in the world our country was ready. The southern schools, were teacher's unions are weak, are the poorest schools, the northern states, like Minnesota and Iowa, have strong unions and strong schools. It's not the teacher unions though, it's the efford people put into school, and the population. Minnesota has 7 homes for sale for every 1 person who wants to buy, and tons of jobs for everyone because no one lives here. Smaller class sizes equals better schools. States like California, Texas and Florida have 40 kids in a class room, and they are over crowded. There is no money to build new schools, and in fact many southern states can't make money from their tax base. To support tax cuts, they cut education, and the future suffers. The federial government needs to find a way to even the odds between education in the north and south. I don't trust this current government, but something is needed. No Child Left Behind is putting pressure on teacher who are set up to fail.
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I enjoy reading your posts Ant, however on the issue of the minimum wage I have very mixed feelings. On the one hand I can understand where your logic is based but on the other hand here in england I saw the effects of no set minumum wage, it was horrendous, so therefore let me ask you something. In the county which I live in there are some parts which are essentially small villages which are very cut off and for that reason of course jobs are scarce. For some people, moving to the city, just isnt an option, whether that is because they want to stay close by to support their parents. or indeed they simply can not afford to move straight into accomodation in the cities. Now with that being said, and with extortionate bills encountered on a constant basis. how are they expected to get by without a minimum wage? Americans like to talk about their ghettos, but the poverty in some of these places is disgusting, they need some sort of a safety net wouldnt you agree?
Furthermore when you talk about government overspending in the united states, don't forget that Cynthia Mckinney was questioning Donald Rumsfeld as to why there is 3 trillion dollars unaccounted for in the militarys finances. This means that the american economy is literally being plundered and pillaged via criminality on an unimaginable scale. Therefore the so called government overspending overlooks that, the fact is, if the money was being spent honestly then no american would struggle. The american economy is being hollowed out, anyways that is a seperate issue and would like to read your response to the question I have posed.
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In regards to government spending,
The argument presented is of course the traditional liberal argument for big government... "if only we could spend this money properly so much could be done." The problem is, the government is NEVER going to be good at spending its money effectively. To think that the government could solve all sorts of social problems is an ideological pipedream. The supporters of increased government spending, often liberals who want government to create institutions that improve society and solve social ills, never end up achieving the goals they actually set out to do. What makes things worse, is our political system is structured so that the ineffective institutions we create to "fix" things NEVER die when they prove ineffective. They just go on living, doing nothing, and consuming resources. It's a matter of fact, once someone creates a government institution, that institution will be there indefinitely. In the business world, things operate a lot differently, ineffective organizations die and are replaced by more effective ones. Organizations that don't serve a purpose are forced to repurpose themselves of close shop. This doesn't happen in government, and never will. So what is the end result? The "do gooders' push for increased government spending to solve x, y, and z problem. The government increases its revenue, creates some institution to try to solve problems x, y, and z. None of these problems get solved and the government never gives the money back. They just keep on spending it. Government revenues continually grow, and you end up where we are now. The government is collecting near record revenues, but little is getting solved, and liberals are still saying "if only the government wasn't so corrupt, if only it spent money on the important things, if only...."
I don't doubt the intentions of those who want to fix societies problems. I just doubt their understanding of governments ability to actually do such a thing. In the business world results are what justify spending. Only in politics can we justify spending with intentions.... "I want to help these people" ok lets spend more money "I want to improve education" ok here is some cash. "I want to save the middle east from tyranny" ok here's a 300 billion. We need to stop spending money just because we "wish we could improve things." There are things government can improve, but the traditional liberal, IMO, way overestimates governments ability to do good. If government could do good things wouldn't be as fucked up as they are now.
On Minimum Wages:
"In the county which I live in there are some parts which are essentially small villages which are very cut off and for that reason of course jobs are scarce. For some people, moving to the city, just isnt an option, whether that is because they want to stay close by to support their parents. or indeed they simply can not afford to move straight into accomodation in the cities. Now with that being said, and with extortionate bills encountered on a constant basis. how are they expected to get by without a minimum wage?"
Keep point here. You said "jobs are scarce." Forcing employers to raise wages will make jobs even scarcer. This is at the core of the problem with advocating minimum wages. You can't force people out of poverty by killing off the incentives for businesses to operate in their area. Poverty will always exist, minimum wages IMO creates more poverty. It doesn't alleviate it. Case in point. Manufacturing jobs are getting to the point where they barely exist in the US. They're declining every year. A lot of people who were traditional blue collar workers are now completely displaced in American society. They can't just make a jump from manufacturing to another job sector when their job left and went over seas. But why did their job go overseas? Lower labor costs. I happen to work in the manufacturing sector of our economy. I can tell you from my experience. Unless you can automate a process to the point where labor is a very small percentage of cost, you can't make that product in the US. When you force employers to raise wages you also give employers incentives to spend money trying to automate and reduce their head count. This is a fact.
This isn't necesarily a bad thing. when employers can figure out how to use one person to do the job of five thats called improved productivity. When employers improve their productivity they can also improve the wages of their workers. For example, company x opens and uses 100 employees to make 10,000 widgets each year. Company Y opens a few years later, but uses advanced manufacturing processes (better machinery and IT system) to make 10,000 of the same widgets but using only 50 employees. Company Y sells their widgets at a much lower price to gain market share, but also pays their employees a somewhat higher wage than company X. You might doubt this will happen, but often it is the case. Maybe you think Company Y is greedy, but even if they are, they just made labor a much less significant cost. They may decide its in their own best interests to raise their wages slightly above company X so that they can recruiter higher quality talent. They can afford to do this because they have lower costs. End result: the widgets costs less, and employees for company Y are making more. Of course, company x may have to lay people off, but thats the way the market works.
IMO, its much better to have this progression happen naturally, as it does happen. Than to force it to happen unnaturally, as it does when politicians force employers to raise wages. The latter is much more disruptive to the economy.
Another example from real life.... In my town, my company pays labor between 8.00 and 10.00 to start. We're already way above the minimum wage. Why? Because we automated to the point where labor is an insignficant cost, and also because we need to be more selective in who we hire. Being slightly above minimum wage allows us that luxury. Anyways, recently Target Corporation moved into my town and opened a distribution center where they needed to fill 1,000 new positions. They didnt have time to mess around with staffing so they immediately posted that they are offering a minimum starting salary of $12.50 with some jobs offering even better starting pay. Why did they do this? They realized if they were going to staff their facility they would need high quality motivated people, and they would probably need to steal people from existing employers. To steal employees from my company, they had to offer substantially higher starting pay.
So whats the story... the market is willing to pay people well above minimum wage without being forced by government to do so. When the market pays at the minimum wage level its because thats all companies can afford to offer employees given their current economic situation. Of course, we often forget that employees have the right to refuse to accept substandard pay when we fight to force corporations to raise wages.
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There needs to be another Party formed. No bipartisanship. They need to take the most intellegent people and run them for public office. The intellegent people make the world better. Not a government who has an idiot in power just because of financial status.
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Again if we go back to England, I can show you that your argument does not hold up. Fundamentally you are saying there should be complete deregulation, allow the market to set the wage level. Yet in England the national minimum wage was only introduced in 1999. Now lets take the grocery sector as an illustration, before 1999, the major corporations including Tesco and Sainsburys were well underway in their plans to totally decimitate the competition through ruthless pricing strategies. The smaller independently owned grocery sector, our traditional corner shops just could not compete with companies who were able to offer their customers such a vastly lower price through economies of scale.
Not only was the threat to genuine competition coming from pricing strategies, but also from acquisitions, which in turn leads to downsizing. Further increasing the power of Sainsburys and Tesco, which I have been informed are owned by the same americans but that is a seperate issue. With competition so stifled and a select few corporations able to wield such ridiculous power, then it is only right for a minumum wage to be imposed. Therefore, before the minumum wage was introduced these supermarkets were paying whatever they could get away with. As the type of work is unskilled, they were able to get away with paying very very little because supply of such labour far outstripped demand. Left to the market forces, this position would remain completely unchanged. Indeed, we can all see in which direction this country is heading, the outsourcing of I.T jobs continues unabaited and so the role of groceries becomes ever more prominent. So whilst you may be all for the free market, what you are actually advocating would lead to people living in deeper poverty than they are now.
We in this country are being taxed to the hilt, profiteerting knows no bounds and without the minimum we would be working as complete slaves. Furthermore in the case of america as I have said above 3 trillion dollars is unaccounted for in the defence budget. Your country is being run by the most criminal and corrupt individuals on the face of this planet and is being hollowed out. The problem does not lie with a shitty ass minimum wage.
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I really disagree with your argument. I don't believe for a minute that there will be no "losers" if the minimum wage was eliminated. In fact, I am certain that certain jobs would be offered at lower rates if the minimum wage was abolished. I'm trying to be fair in my analysis. But to be equally fair, we have to recognize that there are losers in the current system. There are low-skilled labor currently that cannot get jobs because the minimum wage set the bar too high. There are also businesses that cannot operate in their home country because the minimum wage is set too high for them to compete internationally.
You can't look for one case of people "losing" and use that to prove that value of a minimum wage. Instead, to be fair, we have to consider the net effect of a minimum wage and I strongly believe the net effect is negative. Meaning, we do more damage to society by raising a minimum wage than we would do by abolishing it. In fact, I believe we would improve society by abolishing it.
Your post singles out a very specific situation as justification for a minimum wage. Again, this is an unfair tactic, but a closer look at your example I feel further justifies my argument. I'll explain...
You criticize Tescos and Sainsbury for "decimating" the competition using "ruthless" pricing strategies. And you go onto claim:
"Not only was the threat to genuine competition coming from pricing strategies, but also from acquisitions, which in turn leads to downsizing."
You claim these companies threated "genuine competition" but you completely neglect to consider that these companies are introducing "genuine competition" into the market place. Tesco and Sainsbury aren't government subsidized corporations beating up on the little guys. The owners and managers of these companies used the freedom provided to them by a free market system to devise a lower cost structure for providing food products to consumers. You even state that they achieved their cost reductions through "economies of scale," which is hardly a ruthless means of beating your competition. There is nothing unfair about people freely organizing and developing ideas and methodologies to increase productivity. In fact, there is a bit of irony in these types of arguments for the "poor local producer," that being, no one criticizes the local producers for trying to beat each other, but when one of those producers becomes so advanced he beats almost everyone suddenly its unfair.
"With competition so stifled and a select few corporations able to wield such ridiculous power, then it is only right for a minumum wage to be imposed."
But competition wasn't stifled, it was fiercer than every. And I'm really unsure of what reason supports your arguement at this point. The claim that it is "only right" is pure subjective conjecture.
"Therefore, before the minumum wage was introduced these supermarkets were paying whatever they could get away with. As the type of work is unskilled, they were able to get away with paying very very little because supply of such labour far outstripped demand. Left to the market forces, this position would remain completely unchanged."
They weren't paying whatever they could get away with. They were paying the rate at which they felt their business would maximize productivity. You said yourself, the work is "unskilled" and even more damaging to your argument you mention that "the suppy of such labor far outstripped demand." In other words, you mean there are a lot of people without jobs. I agree, poverty is an unfortunate circumstance that we should fight to minimize, but your logic just doesn't work here. If the problem with the location is that people need jobs, then imposing rules that hurt business is not the wisest decision. Again, you completely ignore a few things a) these people are free to refuse their rate of pay and look for work elsewhere b) tescos is passing on its savings to the people that live in the community c) some people are quite simply poor workers, if its soooo easy for you to visualize rich assholes why is it so hard for you to visualize poor assholes. there are poor, low-skilled people living in this world, that businesses have a very hard time employing. Finally, again your last comment that left alone these conditions would never change are pure conjecture. Some how, market conditions change all the time under a free market system. You should reevaluate your core assumptions when you say things like that, which are very obviously untrue.
"Indeed, we can all see in which direction this country is heading, the outsourcing of I.T jobs continues unabaited and so the role of groceries becomes ever more prominent."
This is a little looney. I find it hard to believe that the english economy is becoming dependent on groceries. If that is the case, then I'd suggest your reliance on minimum wage to save everyone is completely misplaced. For society to have a reasonable standard of living you need to raise the skills of your population. Higher skilled people earn more money. But that's not all. Businesses need to exist that can employee these high skilled people. Luckily, a free market system let's high skilled people organize and form businesses that can employ other high AND low skilled workers. Groceries and the minimum wage are not going to save your community. Increasing the availability of high skilled jobs, and the human capital within your popultion is what lifts populations out of poverty. Enforcing minimum wages on companies that are trying their hardest to compete kills jobs and helps a few. But how much does it help them really, raising the minimum wage doesn't lift anyone out of poverty. It puts a few extra bucks in their pocket, but they live pretty much the same life as before, only some of them get laid off.
"So whilst you may be all for the free market, what you are actually advocating would lead to people living in deeper poverty than they are now."
Pure conjecture, and avoid using words like "whilst" they sound elitist. I don't mean to be so critical, but if you really care about poverty you need to have an open mind. Instead of being ideolistic and saying "if only we could force businesses to pay people more" you have to be more open minded and realistic. Right now, I get the impression that your stuck on your beliefs. I thought thru both sides for a long time before leaning in this direction. I could refute your final comments as well, but this is getting lengthy.
There are a few major points that need to be kept in mind
1) The only way to be fair is to allow everyone the freedom to make their own decisions.
2) The market does a reasonably good job at paying people what they are worth. Some people get screwed, but then again some people make out better than the deserve. Some how the market knows that a good accountant is worth 80k a year without being told so by the government. No one complains that the market at times pays high skilled workers unfairly, but we think it selectively discriminates against low skilled workers. Low skilled workers are paid low wages not because the market is unfair, but because the market is realistic.
3) Decreasing personal responsibility has a corrosive effective on society. Research shows that individuals who start working earlier in life tend to earn more later in life. We also know that societies with higher minimum wages have workers low-skilled workers with poorer work ethics. I've seen it a million times, it can be extremely difficult to find low-skilled labor in the US with a good work ethic. As an employer, you almost have to take as a given that some your employees will not always show up to work, that a large percentage of them will be on some types of drugs, that they will get disgruntled over the most trivial matters at times, and so on. You take all these things with a grain of salt, but then again, as an employer, you also see a vast difference when hiring immigrants from low-income societies. For whatever reason, these people show up to work every day, try their hardest to do their job well and improve, their always looking for ways to increase their value and in turn earn more money, their amazing at saving money (unlike US workers that piss it all away on alcohol and other fleeting forms of consumption), and often times they are vocal about their frustration with the laziness of their american co-workers.
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I'm not comfortable with people with a shaved head, especially if they are white. Imma ask for them to get kicked out of the plane too.
Skiheads?
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"I really disagree with your argument. I don't believe for a minute that there will be no "losers" if the minimum wage was eliminated. In fact, I am certain that certain jobs would be offered at lower rates if the minimum wage was abolished. I'm trying to be fair in my analysis. But to be equally fair, we have to recognize that there are losers in the current system".
Ok let us get this first point into perspective, the point about small businesses struggling under the weight of the minimum wage does have some sense of credence in theory. However the national audit commission and the UK Business trade association both had to admit that following the implementation of the minimum wage that it has not had the negative impact on businesses which they claimed it would have.
"You can't look for one case of people "losing" and use that to prove that value of a minimum wage. Instead, to be fair, we have to consider the net effect of a minimum wage and I strongly believe the net effect is negative".
I am sorry "one case"? that seems an ill thought out point to make, when the supermarket sector is one of the biggest employers in this country. Therefore the purpose of using this sector was to illustrate with an actual example of how the minimum wage has been effective. Improve society by abolishing it? when such a vast number of people rely upon low paid jobs to pay their bills.
"Your post singles out a very specific situation as justification for a minimum wage. Again, this is an unfair tactic, but a closer look at your example I feel further justifies my argument." I'll explain...
You criticize Tescos and Sainsbury for "decimating" the competition using "ruthless" pricing strategies. And you go onto claim:
"Not only was the threat to genuine competition coming from pricing strategies, but also from acquisitions, which in turn leads to downsizing."
"You claim these companies threated "genuine competition" but you completely neglect to consider that these companies are introducing "genuine competition" into the market place".
No you have misinterpreted what I have said, I have used just one example, ok let me clarify my point here, Tesco and Sainsburys have used a number of pricing strategies, you may argue that using economies of scale is just, but in reference to ruthless pricing strategies I was talking about destruction pricing. A tactic I am sure you are familiar with so I do not need to explain it. Secondly I think you have chosen to distort the point I am making with this, those are smart tactics employed by the businesses, when did I say they were not. However I should add there are of course other dirty tactics they play, like purchasing a piece of land and signalling their intention to build upon it, but never following through with this intention. You can argue that these strategies are showing a company getting it's marketing mix right, however they now make a mockery out of the notion of competition because the barriers to entry are now so high, that is the point i was making.
"With competition so stifled and a select few corporations able to wield such ridiculous power, then it is only right for a minumum wage to be imposed."
"But competition wasn't stifled, it was fiercer than every. And I'm really unsure of what reason supports your arguement at this point. The claim that it is "only right" is pure subjective conjecture".
I am sorry but you are missing the point, the knock on effect of these strategies is that competition became extremely stifled and you only need to look at the humungous market share of Tesco and Sainsburys for my point to be validated. As for me saying "its only right" in my opinion it was downright necessary then.
"They weren't paying whatever they could get away with. They were paying the rate at which they felt their business would maximize productivity. You said yourself, the work is "unskilled" and even more damaging to your argument you mention that "the suppy of such labor far outstripped demand."
"Maximise productivity" no there was no incentive for the supermarkets to increase workers wages because yes the work is unskilled. If anything the market forces are moving towards a greater number of new supermarket stores so forr me to say that things would not alter is not pure conjecture at all. This is all about the supermarkets wanting to make astronomical profits and protect these astronomical profits. Finally in this paragraph I should point out that Tesco recorded a profit of 1 billion pounds last year in the UK.
"Indeed, we can all see in which direction this country is heading, the outsourcing of I.T jobs continues unabaited and so the role of groceries becomes ever more prominent."
"This is a little looney. I find it hard to believe that the english economy is becoming dependent on groceries. If that is the case, then I'd suggest your reliance on minimum wage to save everyone is completely misplaced. For society to have a reasonable standard of living you need to raise the skills of your population. Higher skilled people earn more money".
Until you know how many people are employed with the low paid service sectors then to address my point as looney is totally laughable. If you are suggesting that it is looney that high skilled jobs are now being outsourced then you must be writing with blinkers on, I can present you with many sources from here in the UK if you like, illustrating just that. Slowly for example I.T jobs are seeping away to India, this is going to continue as well under this wonderful umbrella they call globalisation. This is something you chose to ignore in your retort, jobs are going to india because there are lots of indians who are equally well educated and of course are paid for less, however in Indian terms their standard of living is excellent.
"Pure conjecture, and avoid using words like "whilst" they sound elitist. I don't mean to be so critical, but if you really care about poverty you need to have an open mind. Instead of being ideolistic and saying "if only we could force businesses to pay people more" you have to be more open minded and realistic. Right now, I get the impression that your stuck on your beliefs. I thought thru both sides for a long time before leaning in this direction. I could refute your final comments as well, but this is getting lengthy".
"Avoid using words like whilst they sound elitist" lol i had to laugh at that, I will use whatever words I like there is nothing elitist about my views on poverty, nothing elitist about my views on anything, its part of the english language so I will use it. I am not being idealistic I am being realistic the minimum is extremely low as it is, the level of suffering would be much worse without it. As for refuting my final comments referring to the american government, you can not refute that 3 trillion dollars is unaccounted for, when the figures were laid bare in congress, it's not a difficult to reach the conclusion that america is being hollowed out by a bunch of criminals.
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A few things:
1) I don't really care what's happening in America. It has little to do with this discussion. If anything, your point that the US is being controlled by criminals strengthens the traditional conservative argument for small government and minimal government intervention. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Its a nice fantasy to think "if only good natured, intelligent, compassionate individuals ran the government" but its never going to happen. Sorry, but Plato's philosopher kings never materialized and never will. Tradtional conservatives rightly believe we need to stop criticize the people in charge, and start criticizing the nature of government itself.
2) You contradict yourself in regards to your critcism of Tescos. You make the following claims criticizing Tescos: 1) their pricing strategies are ruthless 2) they are using destruction pricing 3) they make a mockey of competition by creating enormously high barriers to entry 4) tesco's makes "astronomical profits. But then again, you also admit that smaller companies cannot compete because tesco's prices are so low. If this is the case, there is an obvious contradiction in your argument. If competition is so stifled, if tesco's is practicing destructive pricing strategies, and exploiting workers to reap astronomical prices THEN why are they passing on extraordinarily low costs to consumers? The whole point of competition is to increase the purchasing power of consumers. Companies compete for market share and struggle to find way to cut costs and improve services to win customers. But in your opinion, competition is something completely different. It seems, in your opinion, competition is when there are lots of "competitors" but absolutely no improvements are occuring. In reality, the very fact that prices have been driven so low that no one can compete with tesco's is evidence that fierce competition exists. Competition has little to do with how many competitors there are, it has to do with the intensity of their rivalry.
3) You are still completely ignoring the fact that many people are hurt by minimum wage increases. Like all minimum wage advocates, you want to believe this is a completely one-sided argument. It incredibly easy to support a policy that has no downside, but this just isn't the case. You really need to spend some time contemplating the negative aspects of a minimum wage hike. If you dwell all day on the people being helped by a minimum wage, and never think about the poeple being hurt, of course your going to advocate the position you currently do. My guess is, to date you have thought only minimally about the harm you will cause by raising the minimum wage. It's a point of fact, if you push a policy onto society there are always going to be winners and losers. The losers are not just rich people.
4) If minimum wage hikes have not hurt businesses, and therefore have not hurt workers, then why are most labor intensive jobs performed overseas? These jobs migrated for some reason.
5) You still refuse to comment on the possibility that certain individuals in society do not offer enough value to be worth the minimum wage. This is the truth. Its fun to believe that the rich are all evil and the poor are all good. But I said before, there are rich assholes and there are poor assholes. There are a lot of poor people that are virtually unemployable at the prevailing minimum wage.... meaning, they suck so bad, that an intelligent manager can not afford to hire them period. I'm sorry, but people who make minimum wage aren't all poor hard working folk that are trying hard to get by and raise a good family. A lot of people who earn minimum wage are degenerate losers that do drugs, gamble to much, have kids with multiple partners, don't even care enough to brush their teeth on a daily basis, and have pure contempt for any form of work. It's a liberal fantasy that the poor are all good people. Ironically, many of the idealized poor person struggling to work hard and raise a good family, you know, the type of person that liberals think every poor person is like, well for some reason, all of the people I know who are like this have nothing but contempt for the lazy poor people who rely on the government for hands outs like the minimum wage, unemployment, workmans comp, etc.
Ironically, I know quite a few once poor people, usually immigrants, that came to the US, started at the very bottom and pulled themselves into othe middle class and in many cases into the higer end of the middle class. These people can't stand government hand outs. And I'll guess that a large part of their success was their ideology of personal responsibility. In fact, as strange as it may sound, I've seen these people be forced by their employer to even accept things like workmans compensation when they were hurt on the job. Hand outs hurt their pride... they want to show they can do things on their own. That's the attitude of the once poor who moved up in society.
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We can go back and forth about this continually. but the crux of it is this most economies have now been fully explored by corporations and so they are now in a period of wanting to consolidate their riches. They are not happy with making billions, no, the ante has to be upped each and every time. The way in which they are going about this, is to drive down their costs, inevitably this leads to the outsourcing of labour, much easier to exploit a very countries people. Now, this is occuring as I mentioned before in the skilled sector also, its a worrying trend and one that shows no signs of stopping, if anything there should be stricter regulations in place, to prevent this from occuring. The crux of it is this, corporations have such dominance of market sectors now, that the minimum wage is there to ensure that workers don't become complete slaves, the abolition of the minimum wage, would lead to much lower wages in these sectors.
Please spare me the conjecture retort, it is not in the mandate of corporations to have morals they will pay whatever they like, as so many people are already struggling to abolish the minimum wage would be criminal. This situation was created by greedy corporations who only have one thing in mind driving their costs as low as possible. There needs to be much stricter laws in much restricting the ability of companies to outsource. It is the destruction of the manufacturing base, which is creating all of this hardship, the consequences of it happening in england are still felt to this day in places like Yorkshire. The answer does not lie in abolishing the minimum wage. as the minimum wage is barely enough anyway.
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At this point all I can say is you need to make a concerted effort to read literature that disagrees with your current world view.
I consider us to be much the same, in that we are both genuinely concerned with the well-being of people, but your views are single minded. It is quite obvious you spend most of your time reading literature that confirms your existing world view. I think I'm reasonable good at explaining things, but their are people who are far more eloquent than I.
I'll tell you, I seriously held similiar beliefs as you did, until I got past all the rhetoric. I used to fall for the myth that everyone who wants to do things like abolish minimum wage, shrink government, and decrease minimum wage were greedy capitalist. If you just listen to right wing pundits all day its easy to side against the conservatives. The pundits and the politicians are cynical pricks. But, eventually I woke up and realized, that there are lots of conservatives who genuinely care about the well being of society.
After listening to, and reading the thoughts of conservative thinkers like Milton Friedman, Greg Mankiw, Ben Bernake, Karl Popper, and others I feel strongly that these are individuals who are genuinely concerned with societies well being. They have an opinion different from your own, not because they are greedy capitalists, but because they think their ideas would do a lot to help society.
A lot of what you believe, in my opinion, is liberal propaganda. I know we all believe that only the other side creates propaganda, but the left creates disingenious arguments just like the right does.
You can say this argument will go in circles all day, and it certainly will, if you continually refuse to accept the plausibility of ideas that disagree with your current worldview. The difference is, I already understand your side, I spent plenty of time reading literature and listening to commentary that supported your world view. In contrast, you've spent relatively little time trying to understand why people who care as much about society as you do, come to such different conclusions.
These are the types of contradictions in liberal thought that I respect traditional conservatives for understanding:
1) You say government is corrupt, but you think the government needs to create regulations to protect workers. If government is corrupt, how can you trust it to create "fair" regulations.
2) You say big corporations are greedy and only care about reducing costs. But, don't the small businesses that you idolize care about the same thing? Why is it ok for the underdog to care about their self-interests, but once you get too big its suddenly "evil?" Liberals will at times go so far as to excuse immoral activity like stealing when the little guy does it, but when a corporation acts in its own best interests they are condemned.
3) You need to save all the workers from being exploited, but you refuse to consider that works also exploit corporations. I've pointed this out multiple times now, liberals want to live in a fantasy world where all the poor are good hard working people that were screwed by society. There are definitely poor people that got screwed by their circumstances, but there are also poor people who screw themselves. They choose to develop a poor work ethic, they choose to do drugs, and have multple kids with different partners, they choose to disrespect their employers, they choose to try cheating the system. Liberals can condone this type of immoral activity when its perpetrated by poor people, but when a big company does something immoral its a different story all together.
4) Outsourcing has been happening for ages, but the liberal hatred of outsourcing is diametrically opposed to their desire to help "all people." Liberals, and even many modern conservatives, fearing globalization have turned protectionist. But if you care so much about people, why do you support policies that attack other populations (i.e. the populations the jobs would be outsourced to). It really annoys me when the do-gooders turn protectionist. If they care so much, why don't they care about people in other countries that need jobs too. Why don't they care about ideas like "fairness." It's unfair to limit the freedom of other populations to compete for jobs. If indians can do a good job at IT, good for them. In your view, the countries with the jobs today should keep them forever, and the countries without them should live in poverty forever. Of course that isn't your view, but that is the sentence you impose other societies when you advocate protectionist policies.
I personally think liberal ideology does a lot of harm to the poorer among us for psychological reasons as well as economic. I see it at play all the time. Poor people get so influenced by liberal propaganda that they think every corporation is trying to exploit them even when this just isnt the case. There are companies that sincerely care about the well being of their employees, but because of people like you, some workers think even these well intentioned companies are taking advantage of them. What's the end result when this happens? These people end up not making it very long. You can say this is the fault of the company, but well-intentioned companies, that are trying their hardest to take care of their employees who realize "we're all in this together" cannot tolerate new employees that don't want to become part of the community and only want to spread dishonest propoganda to the rest of the company. Often times, the smart employees who realize their copmany is well-intentioned have no desire to work with these types of people and are happy to see them go. It's unfortunate, because I personally think everyone is a victim of circumstance, I don't get upset at people for being influenced by propaganda, but I'm realistic about their prospects for being a good employee.
I've said this before, but you need to stop judging policies by their intentions and start judging them by their results. Just because a policy sounds well intentioned doesn't mean it is helping. Likewise, sometimes policies that certain interest groups want you to believe are "bad" in fact are helping people. Either way, your comments are almost wholly about intentions and only minimal about results.