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Nah, McD's have lots of employees in their Australian locations. Many of them are on the lower 'youth' minimum wage, but that's still higher than the US federal minimum.
Interestingly, Australia's minimum wage is nearly $20 an hour, and was that high even when the $A was stronger than the $US. And Australia's unemployment rate is about the same as America's, and for a long while was actually lower.
Any consistent argument against the minimum comes down to 'I don't think those people are worth it.' The so-called economic arguments against it are politically-charged at best, but more often are simply bereft of substance.
In particular, presuming businesses hire more people because they're cheaper is absurd: no business retains more staff than it needs. That's terrible management. Good businesses hire the fewest staff necessary at the lowest prices they can get away with. Good governments put a floor beneath those prices that allows people to live on the wages they earn.
People need to live long-term on minimum wage for a number of reasons: low IQ, no chance to retrain, mental health issues and so on. Telling these people they're essentially worthless is ethically repellent. They're not resources. They're human beings. If a business can't run by paying its staff a living wage then it shouldn't exist, much as businesses who need to poison the environment to be profitable shouldn't exist.
I would agree that it's not Cook County's place to jack up the minimum. The Feds should do it for the whole nation.
In one sentence you write that "Good businesses hire the fewest staff necessary at the lowest prices they can get away with"
Yet one paragraph later you state "If a business can't run by paying its staff a living wage then it shouldn't exist"
Contradictory?
I understand people need to work minimum wage jobs and can't avoid it for various reasons. To raise a family (spouse/kids/dog) on 1 minimum wage job is irresponsible. Government shouldn't be rewarding irresponsible with a pay raise, it's not government's job to tell your employer what to pay you.
If someone can only work minimum wage, they shouldn't raise a full family on it without compensating in some way: 2nd job, extra hours, additional workers in the household etc. People who make above minimum wage have sacrificed by showing up, learning skills, going to school on their own time outside of work so they can move up, even if it's just a few steps higher.
And it's not that businesses don't think people are worth the pay, but the business needs to survive. If entry level is making $xx amount of money, then he has to raise the wages of the supervisor or other skilled workers, if he doesn't then they aren't willing to do the higher job, productivity/progress suffers. Or he pays the entry level and also pays the skilled worker, but then profit is taken out of owner's pocket. He then asks, why is he even in business if he can't make himself any money?
There are so many outcomes that have yet to be determined. Wages are only one part, we have to see what else plays a factor.
I'm generally skeptical when people point to automation as the cause of the rapid decline of our manufacturing sector. That has become a common refrain for those who support the bad trade agreements we have entered into since the early 1990s. However, automation's impact on the labor market has been disputed:
The evidence suggests there is essentially no relationship between the change in manufacturing employment and robot use. Despite the installation of far more robots between 1993 and 2007, Germany lost just 19 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 1996 and 2012 compared to a 33 percent drop in the United States.
More likely, trade agreements allowing competition from cheap labor/low regulation countries has had the greater impact. For one example, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico has risen from $2 billion in 1994, the year NAFTA was passed, to $60 billion in 2015. According to the Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA led to the net displacement of 682,900 jobs. Of these, 61% were relatively high paying manufacturing jobs (thank you, Wiki):
Aside from that, let's just look at plain old common sense. If automation has rendered low skilled human labor obsolete in manufacturing, then why are U.S. manufacturers flocking to Mexico and China and pushing for the passage of TPP to open up other cheap labor markets? According to Coldwine, it is prohibitively expensive to ship things from overseas back to the U.S. So, if the manufacturing process is automated anyway, then why don't we just make our manufactured goods here with robots and save the shipping costs? As an added bonus, the technological jobs needed to maintain automated factories could be kept here.
Why are you focusing on the manufacturing sector, which only employs 10% of the workforce?
Why are you focusing on the manufacturing sector, which only employs 10% of the workforce?
Because that's a reason why wages are so low on the bottom end. One of them anyway.
It really does seem that a lot of liberal people truly believe that the reason wages are so low on the bottom end is because a group of greedy rich employers are colluding to oppress wages at the bottom, and all we have to do is force them to pay more (and offer everyone free college) and all will be well. That is very unfortunate.
You know, I was at a Michigan airport some decade ago, I think Detroit. The trains had no operators, it was completed computer generated.
Can you imagine if 1 day, the CTA trains could be completely computer-run? With motion-sensor doors and such. Why, they could lay off all their train operators, except for the construction workers and stuff to fix.
You know, I was at a Michigan airport some decade ago, I think Detroit. The trains had no operators, it was completed computer generated.
Can you imagine if 1 day, the CTA trains could be completely computer-run? With motion-sensor doors and such. Why, they could lay off all their train operators, except for the construction workers and stuff to fix.
Wewt.
In about 25 years this could happen to buses as well.
Technology doesn't only affect the manufacturing sector.
Automation just eliminates the need for people to do some repetitive task. Many of those jobs won't be returning and the money previously allocated to that service (as a salary) gets shifted elsewhere.
Where it goes is more interesting than to claim that technology has no influence on labor demand erosion... Which is dumb.
And Congress, or in this case the Cook County Board of Commissioners, is the one equipped to decide this, not the market which uses the labor? Le sigh.
Look, just admit it guys. You want to shift wealth from one group to another group which you feel is more deserving than what the job market believes they are worth. I can accept that, if not agree with it (it's a slippery slope for one thing, and just a Band-Aid of course), but at least own it.
No problem - I'll own that. We're a society of humans, not a system of economic units. I know people to the right of me differ on this.
Quote:
It really does seem that a lot of liberal people truly believe that the reason wages are so low on the bottom end is because a group of greedy rich employers are colluding to oppress wages at the bottom, and all we have to do is force them to pay more (and offer everyone free college) and all will be well. That is very unfortunate.
That's not quite true. More that many liberals acknowledge that profit motivates business owners to absolutely minimize their employment costs. It's an amoral process, not an immoral one. I know for a fact that business owners don't sit around mwoahahaha-ing in collusive greed because I've been one. I just tried to make a buck and mostly-sorta do the right thing.
The role of government is to put a constraint on that profit optimization process -- putting every business owner in the same boat.
That's not quite true. More that many liberals acknowledge that profit motivates business owners to absolutely minimize their employment costs. It's an amoral process, not an immoral one. I know for a fact that business owners don't sit around mwoahahaha-ing in collusive greed because I've been one. I just tried to make a buck and mostly-sorta do the right thing.
The role of government is to put a constraint on that profit optimization process -- putting every business owner in the same boat.
Well on an emotional argument, I saw a documentary on the life of Steve Jobs. And there was a section where iPhones are made in China. Why in China of all places? Must be that they don't want to pay the U.S. employees minimum wage, so they go even lower elsewhere. And the living conditions and the toxic metal liquid, just goes straight to the China rivers. And so in the documentary, an employee there once committed suicide, and since all the employees live in the same building, they added long rope nets outside so if employees further tried to commit suicide by jumping off their window, they would land on the rope nets.
As a country we tend to do quite a lot for other countries. A lot of free money we give the Israel government and a lot of job opportunities in other countries.
Contrary to this...
And believe it or not, there are other companies that are not like that. I volunteer for Friends of the Chicago River, where they are a 501(c). And so they get free money from rich corporations that want to "give" back to the community. And so these corporations look for non-profit organizations to give free money to, ones that meet their companies values. Friends of the Chicago River was when, and I attended some of their yearly events.
These companies started out as trying to maximize profit, but once they reached past a peak, they looked for ways to give back to the community.
Okay I kind of waited for the topic to die down before adding some new things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BRU67
I think macroeconomics and microeconomics should be a requirement for liberal arts degrees, as well as bachelor of science degrees.
Was wondering what else you would add to the list?
For me it's.
-Micro and macro.
-An applied computer science course.
-Applied math course.
-Logic philosophy.
As for chemistry 101 and biology 101, I have some things that aren't in any but can be combined. I think a good hybrid course that talks about cleaning agents is useful. For example, the difference between acid-based cleaners and base-based cleaners. As well as oxidizing-agent cleaners.
So janitorial supplies such as bleaches and detergents and surfactants, pinesol.
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I believe I made a post earlier on what you thought was the most useful major, and I do vote for a least-useful major.
Which I would say is marketing, at least for the COBM. I mean, marketing is like pure common sense, the psychology equivalent of COBM.
I skimmed through a marketing textbook 1 day, and it was all chapters and chapters of common sense. I could not see how anyone except for women could ever want to major in that.
So some examples of marketing, at least for applied, gave examples of making a website. Says it's really liked by people if you have an instant contact-the-webmaster button, and to take into consideration the font size, font colors, etc. I just went wow... all common sense /facepalm.
I feel sorry for whoever is a marketing major out there, and then they include the core elective courses in COBM like finance, accounting, business, etc.
Hasn't anyone bothered to read any elementary economics or history textbooks in the United States?
You can take shipbuilding as an example. That industry used to be present in the United States. No longer is this the case after it moved closer to where the inputs of production and labor costs were cheaper (Manchuria). It's not just the presence of subsidies in other countries that caused most of the heavy shipbuilding to leave- this is just a natural progression and part of how our nation developed over time to where we stand now. Start talking about various plastic 'widgets' and it's even easier to see why they aren't made here. Robots aren't yet a complete solution in many manufacturing cases. Being closer to the complete supply chain in China is how Apple can stay more nimble vs this mystical solution of 'bring it back to the US and the robots can do it all' mentality of some.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BRU67
I'm generally skeptical when people point to automation as the cause of the rapid decline of our manufacturing sector. That has become a common refrain for those who support the bad trade agreements we have entered into since the early 1990s. However, automation's impact on the labor market has been disputed:
The evidence suggests there is essentially no relationship between the change in manufacturing employment and robot use. Despite the installation of far more robots between 1993 and 2007, Germany lost just 19 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 1996 and 2012 compared to a 33 percent drop in the United States.
More likely, trade agreements allowing competition from cheap labor/low regulation countries has had the greater impact. For one example, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico has risen from $2 billion in 1994, the year NAFTA was passed, to $60 billion in 2015. According to the Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA led to the net displacement of 682,900 jobs. Of these, 61% were relatively high paying manufacturing jobs (thank you, Wiki):
Aside from that, let's just look at plain old common sense. If automation has rendered low skilled human labor obsolete in manufacturing, then why are U.S. manufacturers flocking to Mexico and China and pushing for the passage of TPP to open up other cheap labor markets? According to Coldwine, it is prohibitively expensive to ship things from overseas back to the U.S. So, if the manufacturing process is automated anyway, then why don't we just make our manufactured goods here with robots and save the shipping costs? As an added bonus, the technological jobs needed to maintain automated factories could be kept here.
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