Ted Kennedy, if you really cared about the working population, you would reduce our taxes. You would also stop supporting programs that punish success and hinder economic growth. And you would quit rewarding people who will not work.
Enough with this talk of minimum wage increases. All you'll do is cause a rise an unemployment (fewer jobs because smaller business can't afford as many workers as they once had) and make it harder to access entry-level jobs.
Oh, and this will only make illegal labor even more attractive to businesses.
Nice job Ted. Really.
Yes, the minimum wage just interferes with the free market, preventing it from magically making everything about our economy perfect through the magic of the invisible hand.
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Do you know what getting paid minimum wage is? Minimum wage is an employer's way of saying "If I could pay you less, I would."
Twenty years ago, it was possible to live off $5.15 an hour. Now it's practically impossible to keep a roof over your head for twice that amount of money, let alone feed yourself. The minimum wage isn't about wealth redistribution, it's about establishing a social safety net, which beyond it's moral benefits, is eminently practical.
The reasoning being something along the lines of: no matter what system is in place, there will always be some number of people who fall as far as society lets them. Since there will always be X number of people at the bottom rung of society, it's is in everyone's best interests to accept a financial burden to make the bottom rung survivable. If not, the inevitable result is disease, crime, and social instability and that's ultimately more expensive than maintaining the bottom rung of society at a higher standard of living than it might ultimately settle at without intervention.
So, one major purpose of the minimum wage is to help keep Ultra from being stabbed to death for his wallet. Or he and his family would be killed in a riot, or they'd die of the cholera epidemic that wracks the country after some poor @#%$ in a shanty town turn into viral incubators, or any number of unsightly, unpleasant, and costly alternatives. I'm guessing he's never considered that, though. Sometimes I think the USA should just enact the economic free-for-all for a while, because I think a lot of people who figure they'd thrive in economic Thunderdome would just end up dead or destitute anyway.
If you're willing to participate in society, doing whatever shithole, menial job, and you're working and not sponging off the rest of us, then you deserve a minimum income that basically equates to financial protection from the hyper-capitalist fatcats at the top who see you as nothing more than a 6-digit number and own 90% of the companies you have the possibility of working for and wouldn't think twice about paying you a penny an hour, if only it were legal.
Wow. Lots of fire and brimstone there.
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Since there will always be X number of people at the bottom rung of society, it's is in everyone's best interests to accept a financial burden to make the bottom rung survivable. If not, the inevitable result is disease, crime, and social instability and that's ultimately more expensive than maintaining the bottom rung of society at a higher standard of living than it might ultimately settle at without intervention.
Certainly. Question is, what's the most effective way of carrying it out?
I'm not arguing that the free market system is perfect. However, it's not enough to just point out flaws; you also have to show how government could do better in its place. If government concentrated on only a few things, it could be extremely effective. Spreading it out over lots of things (in a country of over 300,000,000 people?), diluting its effectiveness? Not so much.
Ordinarily, when government decides to transfer income to some group or another - whether it be the working poor, the unemployed, the victims of a flood, etc. - we (the taxpayers) pay for the transfer out of general tax revenue. That has two advantages: It spreads the burden across all taxpayers, and it makes politicians accountable for their actions. It's easy to look up exactly how much the government gave, and it's easy to look up exactly which senators voted for it.
By contrast, the minimum wage places the entire burden on one small group: the employers of low-wage workers and, to some extent, their customers. Suppose you're a small entrepreneur with, say, 10 full-time minimum-wage workers. Then a 50 cent increase in the minimum wage is going to cost you about $10,000 a year. That's no different from a $10,000 tax increase. But the politicians who imposed the burden get to claim they never raised anybody's taxes.
If you want to transfer income to the working poor, there are fairer and more honest ways to do it. The Earned Income Tax Credit, for example, accomplishes pretty much the same thing as the minimum wage but without concentrating the burden on a tiny minority. For that matter, the EITC also does a better job of helping the people you'd really want to help, as opposed to, say, middle-class teenagers working summer jobs. It's pretty hard to argue that a minimum-wage increase beats an EITC increase by any criterion.
The minimum wage is nothing but a huge off-the-books tax paid by a small group of people, with all the proceeds paid out as the equivalent of welfare to a different small group of people. If a tax-and-spend program that arbitrary were spelled out explicitly, voters would recoil.
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So, one major purpose of the minimum wage is to help keep Ultra from being stabbed to death for his wallet. Or he and his family would be killed in a riot, or they'd die of the cholera epidemic that wracks the country after some poor @#%$ in a shanty town turn into viral incubators, or any number of unsightly, unpleasant, and costly alternatives.
All because the minimum wage isn't increased by two dollars an hour?
As for the bolded part...well, that's where firearms and the 2nd Amendment comes in.
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So, one major purpose of the minimum wage is to help keep Ultra from being stabbed to death for his wallet. Or he and his family would be killed in a riot, or they'd die of the cholera epidemic that wracks the country after some poor @#%$ in a shanty town turn into viral incubators, or any number of unsightly, unpleasant, and costly alternatives.
All because the minimum wage isn't increased by two dollars an hour?
No, he was talking about what would happen if there was no minimum wage at all. Are you paying attention?
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As for the bolded part...well, that's where firearms and the 2nd Amendment comes in.
Great thinking. It doesn't matter if a huge portion of the country is poverty stricken, as long as I'm still able to shoot them if they try to mug me!
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No, he was talking about what would happen if there was no minimum wage at all. Are you paying attention?
Tell me where I said "get rid of minimum wage".
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If you're willing to participate in society, doing whatever shithole, menial job, and you're working and not sponging off the rest of us, then you deserve a minimum income that basically equates to financial protection from the hyper-capitalist fatcats at the top who see you as nothing more than a 6-digit number and own 90% of the companies you have the possibility of working for and wouldn't think twice about paying you a penny an hour, if only it were legal.
You know Cycle, not every businessman/CEO is out to crush the little guy. And if someone doesn't like the pay being offered them at one job, guess what? They'll go hunting for a new one.
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Great thinking. It doesn't matter if a huge portion of the country is poverty stricken, as long as I'm still able to shoot them if they try to mug me!
Two things.
1) Self-defense. What's wrong with that?
2) Define "huge portion". Are you suggesting that a majority of the entire US working population is in poverty (or would be, if minimum wage didn't exist)?
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You know Cycle, not every businessman/CEO is out to crush the little guy.
Name ONE.
CEO John Mackey of Whole Foods Market.
For Orbnauticus' sake, Ultra, there's nothing wrong with self defense. But you're trivializing it. You're basically saying that it's okay if someone is so poor that they need to mug Rico, as long as Rico can shoot him.
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2) Define "huge portion". Are you suggesting that a majority of the entire US working population is in poverty (or would be, if minimum wage didn't exist)?
Hell no, not a majority. But I'm sure that a lot more working-class people would become poor if minimum wage didn't exist. I in no way suggested that almost the entire American working class is currently in poverty.
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But you're trivializing it. You're basically saying that it's okay if someone is so poor that they need to mug Rico, as long as Rico can shoot him.
Certainly didn't mean for it come out like that.
Not saying that it's okay for the situation to get like that. But if someone is coming for me with an intent to harm, I will defend myself. If it gets to where I have to pull out my gun, so be it. Hope he'll have the sense to run.
John Mackey from the... entity he's co-founded looks like he's from one of those weird 60's cults.
~Tobe
