Folks in my city are starting a coalition pushing for a $3 increase in minimum wage in two years. Good or bad?

Bad. And this coming from someone who generally votes democrat.

Once again, you forgot a period.

marijuologist wrote:

not an eco

Did you know that in the 50s the United States had the most equitable period between the people making the most money and the people making the least money?

Did you know that income equality is an ignoble goal to strive for, motivated solely by envy?

It's less "ignoble" than "meaningless without further context".

The goal should be "increased standard of living/quality of life". This should be independent of income inequality. A society with a VERY low standard of living can have low income inequality. Everyone is just poor. Ethiopia, for example, is very high on the list of low income inequality, ahead of the vast majority of western Europe and North America. Ethiopia is hardly a country to emulate.

When are you going to finally smell the roses? Your posts are consistently complete BS!

#1. comparing a Scandinavian country's economy to that of 300+million in the US is the first sign of BS

#2. the minimum wage is often too high relative to the skill and the doctors pay is too low relative to the skill. I PERSONALLY KNOW DOCTORS THAT DO NOT PRACTICE BECAUSE THEY CAN MAKE MORE IN A DIFFERENT OCCUPATION. This is what will happen in the US, and already is. Scandinavian socialism is not what the retards make it out to be.

The only thing that I'll agree with in your post, is the power structure. Unfortunately, globalists enjoy being a bunch of evil mf'ers. This is not an American thing, it's a globalist power thing, and many of these a-holes are not of American heritage.

32423 wrote:

What are some of the positives and negatives of such a move?

If your city aspires to be the next Detroit, they're on the right track, comrade.

And another thing, Wigins. Doctors in Scandinavia are NOT ALLOWED TO KEEP MEXICANS AS SLAVES. That alone makes the profession far less popular than it is in America.

I personally know people who DIED in Scandinavia because their retarded top-notch health care system will not allow its doctors to perform illegal experiments to transplant children's heads onto the bodies of chimpanzees.

And for an example of skilled people earning higher wages, look at the superior acting skills of Harrison Ford and superior music skills of Justin Bieber.

Norway is not a prosperous country. It's a very poor country and everyone there is miserable despite their high minimum wage.

so, we've got a smartass troll... too bad you can't respond to the comment in any intellectual manner. Congrats!

It will drive up teen unemployment. Why hire someone young and with no work experience.

More people are working part-time as it is.

Puts a strain on small businesses. Profit margins are typically under 3% as is

Minimum wage should be abolished anyway.

I used to be an unfettered capitalist, corporate guy. After 25 years of witnessing the unethical, greed-based garbage thrown at hard working people, I've changed quite a lot.

Raise the minimum wage to a rate commensurate with the basic wage inflation rate over the last 2 decades. It hasn't kept pace with cost of living for entry level folks. Workers lose, the elite prosper.

[quote]blueisthecolor08 wrote:

Everything becomes more expensive, or companies hire fewer people.

Right. We can afford owners who literally make billions per year from their companies but cannot pay millions of workers a living wage

Which owner is making billions per year while millions of his/her workers do not get paid a living wage?

Or were you speaking of owners collectively?

Furthermore, please define a living wage. Is it enough money to survive (i.e., basic shelter, clothing, and food), or is it enough money to live a certain lifestyle?

The irony of the situation is the ones that are demanding a minimum wage increase are the same kind of people that don't understand economics enough to realize that it will just make things worse.

ummm...

A benefit would be that you get a 3 dollar raise?

32423 wrote:

What are some of the positives and negatives of such a move?

I graduated summa c.um laude from my university and was academic all-american. I applied for ~200 jobs and only got a few interviews, and I now make a modest salary. I don't have a big screen tv, a smartphone, a macbook, a tablet, cable TV. What I do have is a laptop which is a 6 year old gift from my grandparents, a crappy but safe apartment in an undesirable part of town, a prepaid cell phone, a ton of debt which is hardly shrinking due to a rising cost of living, and I work 50-60 hours per week.

You better believe I shop at Walmart sometimes because of the cheaper prices, but I certainly wouldn't if my poor @ss made more money.

I do enjoy my job, however, and can't complain about my life other than the lack of material things. I am in an academic research and development field though, which currently does and will continue to puke out our some of America's most talented and intelligent workers because of low wages/high labor demands. If our creative innovation continues to suffer, America will become irrelevant and become surpassed by countries who invest in research.

ummm... wrote:

. I PERSONALLY KNOW DOCTORS THAT DO NOT PRACTICE BECAUSE THEY CAN MAKE MORE IN A DIFFERENT OCCUPATION..

INSURANCE!!!!!!!

That is why the majority of the doctors in my area are from other countries.

Would you want a doctor treating you that puts more importance on money than helping people?

Calm down. No reason to get angry.

My opinion is that overall, corporations have had been a great benefit for America. This is not to say that they have not done anything wrong, because they have. And what you described above is wrong. I'm an anarchist, and as such I highly disapprove of colluding with big government to screw the people. I agree that the situation above should never happen. There should be no government to collude with. Have you ever heard of the 5 steps of corporatism? Here:

And with the minimum wage law, that is essentially what is happening. Let's just say this: If employers have to start paying their employees 3$/hour more (for the sake of this thread), who do you think is going to more affected by it? A small family-owned business, or Megacorp Walmart? Walmart has billions, they can probably find ways around such things or pay the cost off in other ways. The family owned business has 2 options: 1) Fire several employees (now unemployment is up) or 2) raise their prices dramatically (which now means the price difference between small business and megacorp is even greater, which means people are more likely than ever to go to Megacorp since it could adjust to the law without drastically raiing prices)

And there you have it. The best way is to completely let the market decide these kind of things. When government is introduced into the picture in any way, corruption enters, and you will undoubtedly end up with scenarios as you described above.

blueisthecolor08 wrote:

Everything becomes more expensive, or companies hire fewer people. They aren't suddenly going to start making more money, so they're going to have to start either charging more for their goods/services, or hire fewer people. What usually happens is that companies hire fewer employees, the unemployment rate rises, and the people who voted for the increase get to feel good about themselves.

Most economists today will disagree. Recent studies indicate that raising the minimum wage does not cause increased unemployment and does not cause inflation.

This has been relatively easy to study with really good data. As municipalities have raised the local minimum wage, it provides researchers the ability to study similar businesses at nearby locations. They study one business who is inside the municipality and subjected to the increase while looking at another business that is just outside the "increase zone".

Minor changes ( 7 to 9 bucks) isn't going to change much. Talking about huge changes (7 to 15) might.Personally I think this type of law should be done at the local level. 7.5/hr in Arkansas is a liveable wage. 10 bucks in San Francisco, not so much. Personally i would prefer that they bump it up .25 every 2 or 3 years rather than going 10 years and then doing big bumps. Far less destructive.