@ Lay Low Your first reply about my King Obama remark didnt address what I said. I have seen huge increases in the amount of people who refer to him as "King", specifically with his remarks on executive orders, and those same people act like no other president has done such a thing. It's the double standard and hypocrisy I cant stand. Your second reply basically reiterated what I had said. I have reiterated everything others have said in this thread, only I put an "assumption" in front of it. You can study history as much as you like, but that doesnt mean the future is necessarily going to pan out how you think. And your last reply gives no credit to the destructiveness of big business. All of what you said can be true, however if you have companies that give raises to CEO's instead of its people, well do I need to explain further?
History alone isn't a reliable indicator, that's why I mentioned sound theory also. With the twin tools of theory and history, one can be fairly certain of future outcomes. How a business pays its workers is a separate issue than the middle class and poor losing wealth. CEO salaries have grown, that's true, but that isn't the causative reason why the middle class in general is getting poorer. That has to do mainly our macroeconomic structure, which is government caused. In free markets there is no tendency towards wealth concentration. The rich, middle class, and poor all gain in wealth in free markets, this is also proven through both history and theory.
Lay Low your attitude that big business is infallible is horrid. Your really going to try and tell me, that while the MASSIVE, and yes it is MASSIVE gains that big business and CEO's and the investment class have made over the past few decades, that all the wealth those few people are accumulating for themselves couldnt possibly make life better for the middle or lower class? That is an argument you are never going to win. I'm not saying that all the blame is on the government or business, but to say that it is one over the other is ignorance at its finest.
None of your points will ever get through to one another when no one explains their reasoning. Its nothing but statements. "Your argument isnt gonna win. Its based on history. Saying this is ignorant. No thats wrong. Etc etc etc etc." YOU GOTTA ADD WHY. Debates are so stupid.
I think I explained why... so not sure who you're talking to. I listed many reasons why wages have gone down for some.
Well the only part I was referring to you was the part where you said "proven in history" because those types of statements dont really help the person you're talking to, you know? But it wasnt just regarding you, or just goober, Its more of a frustration I get when see any debate and I just all of a sudden wanted to rant about it I just see a whole lot of "ITS THIS ITS THIS" but never why or how as if people just expect you to believe them.
If someone wants to challenge what I said I'll bring up links and explain more. If not, I don't waste my time. I post from my phone so I rarely post links of any kind because it's too much of a pain in the ass. It's not worth it anyways. People just ignore the evidence if they want to. I used to post much longer posts with pretty graphs and shit, but all it does is kill the thread since the other person just never responds anymore. I'm done wasting my time, I actually study this stuff. My own study time is much more important to me than trying to convince random idiots on a forum to see things differently. When someone is totally ignorant of economics, yet clings tightly to economic opinions, that's evidence of their lack of intellectual integrity. Such people (many who post here) are a lost cause and a waste of effort to convince.
You're right. I just continue to have this insane thought that logic and reason can change peoples minds but usually it doesnt even matter. Rarely does one change their mind. I only think this way because im constantly changing my opinion on things and thats how I got to anarchism. Forever doubtful.
I think Obombya is being a little stingy here. Surely a $10/hr dollar minimum wage must be better than $9/hr.
Me too. I'm always questioning everything, even my own beliefs. It's what drives me to continue learning. I used to have doubts about Austrian economics, but after learning it more deeply, and also learning every other school of economics somewhat, it's ridiculously clear to me that Austrian economics is head and shoulders above the rest, not only in its conclusions, but also in methodology. It's literally the only school of thought that even attempts to explain reality. That's why it's referred to as a causal/realist school. In contrast, almost all other schools, whether "free market" or Keynesian, focus on literally unreal states. The focus is on long run equilibrium, or so called "perfect competition", which is based on a theoretical world which can never exist in reality. Any Keynesian who actually knows Keynesianism will admit this. How can conclusions be drawn about what to do in the real world when the original premise is wholly unreal? They can't be. The great Austrians are all among the greatest economic minds that have ever lived. /end mini rant
I'm making 15.25 an hour after 11 months at my job and I know for a fact I'm getting ripped off, what the fuck is 9 dollars an hour? Who the fuck can make a living off of that? What rich people are crying because they dont wanna pay a shitty wage? Fuck that noise it's either profitable companies pay a good wage or I PAY OUT MY PAYCHECK IN TAXES GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE. Fuck corporate welfare and fuck the parasite rich.
How would you feel if the minimum wage was raised to $15.25 an hour, and a new employee who doesn't know shit, and has no experience was all of a sudden earning the same wage it took you 11 months to earn?
They left out the most important variable. To compare Nevada to Vermont is disingenuous. If you were to take NV's minimum wage @ $7.25, and raise it to $9, you WOULD see an increase in unemployment, depending on how many jobs are WORTH less than $9/hr. It just so happens that there are not a lot of jobs that are worth less than that. Keep raising minimum wage, and you will continue to destroy jobs. Once you get into the $15+/hr range, jobs will be made illegal en masse. It is very simple math. You have a product, that needs to be prepared, and then sold. Raw materials+labor must cost less than retail price, or you will lose money. If you raise the price of labor, you will need a more productive workforce. If it normally takes 4 hours to construct your product, but you have a person that can construct that product in 1 hour, you can afford to pay him 4 times more. But humans are not machines, and you cannot just add a blanket raise to everyone. The majority will not work harder to compensate for the cost in development. And even if they will, raising minimum wage will eventually get to a point beyond human capacity, therefore making certain jobs too expensive to keep in the market. People get too worked up over the number on their check, rather than the value. If minimum wage were to be abolished, the price of EVERYTHING would drop. Not the value, the price. If the whole country was only making $.50/hr, nobody would be able to afford computers that cost multiple hundreds/thousands of dollars. Therefore, cpu companies would have to lower their prices to match the market in order to stay in business. Minimum wage is one of the legs behind the GMO industry. The reason organic food is so expensive to buy, is partly because it's so cheap to produce, but farm workers must be paid minimum wage, so the costs are passed on to the buyer. The food industry cannot really afford a smaller workforce, as food is a high demand product, and demand must be met with supply. Real food takes time to prepare, in order to have large supply ready for consumption, you need a LOT of labor. That's where GMO's come in. Hormones prepare the livestock faster, and GMO seeds harvest faster, while "snacks" and fast food is created in conditions that are not largely effected by seasons.
More people with more money is a good thing for the economy, as opposed to a very large portion of our wealth concentrated to a very small percentage of the population. The average CEO earns (on average) over 200 times more then their average employee. 30 years ago they earned less than 30 times more. The wealth in this country is NOT being distributed downwards. Say you have 500 people on a poverty wage of $20k per year and one CEO on $10M. The CEO is going to buy a fancy house, maybe a boat, a fancy car, some luxury items. That is all very nice for the handful of people selling boats, fancy cars, fancy houses. It keeps the wealth polarized. Those 500 employees are going to just scrape by, but you can bet your last dollar that they will all be spending THEIR last dollar, every single year. money that is circulating is good for the economy. Now imagine that $10M spread out among the 500 employees. All of a sudden they each have doubled their income to $40k per year. There is still fuck all room for savings on that much per year, so they will all be still spending their last dollar ie returning it to the economy and keeping it moving around. Say, they all buy a car with their new found wealth. That is 500 extra cars in the economy, all requiring gas and servicing and air fresheners to hang off the mirror. Instead of one fancy car in our economy, although it might get very fancy service, it isn't worth 500 regular services to the economy. All that extra spending = lots of extra jobs Now extrapolate all of that to everything that people might purchase or do with a proper living wage and you start to see how raising the minimum wage (and perhaps capping CEO incomes ~the horror~) is a good thing for EVERYONE - not just business owners.