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Too bad. No matter how bad you had it, you NEVER have a right to steal the property of others. Your ONLY OPTION if you perceive a lack of personal wealth is to identify moral and ethical ways to increase that wealth. And that is done through personal excellence or it is not done at all. It is BLACK AND WHITE and ABSOLUTE. There are no shades of gray and no uncertainty and no nuance.
BAD LUCK DOES NOT CREATE RIGHTS. If you are disadvantaged or crippled or deaf or dumb or blind or stupid or an alcoholic or a redneck, whatever it is, RIGHTS are not created out of bad luck or bad character.
If you genuinely need help, and most people don't, the moral option is to ask for it, not point a gun (either literally or politically).
Thomas Sowell wrote that zoning redistributes income from renters to owners (Markets and Minorities, Chapter 7). Therefore, you NEVER have a right to impose zoning on others.
Increasing the MW will not cause unemployment. ......
An increased minimum wage will increase the costs of providing the same goods and services for any company paying minimum wages. This creates an additional incentive for them to find ways of eliminating or decreasing labor.
McDonalds has just announced that they will be increasing the minimum wages that they pay. That sure makes them sound like good guys. Unfortunately a couple of weeks ago I was reading about their plans to reduce labor. They need people to cook and assemble the burgers so it would seem there is little they can do. Wrong. There are low tech, inexpensive cookers which can automatically dispense a burger and cook it. Same with cooking chicken tenders or fries. So McD can increase wages 10 or 20% but decrease labor by 30%. And of course there is more to the story than meets the eye. McD already pays in the vicinity of $10/hr or more in many parts of the country. That is just supply and demand and what it takes to staff the stores. Overall the increase in wages will be minimal. Two kids in rural Iowa are going to be paid a bit more, but the third kid is not going to have a job.
Lots and lots of minimum wage jobs are already gone. These would include many agricultural jobs. Although many jobs still exist, more and more automated pickers are being used. Sewing and highly labor intensive manufacturing are gone and will not return. Higher wages just push more companies to use offshore production.
The real question: is there anything wrong with some people having more money than other people?
Someone goes to college. They will most likely earn more money than a person without a dress. Is that wrong?
A person writes a book and sells 5 million copies. Is it wrong for that writer to be a millionaire while the person running the printing press is making $10 an hour?
Someone comes up with the idea for the Snuggly. They make millions while the non-inventor takes home a $35k salary from their day job? Is that wrong?
Could it be that in the world we live in, there will always be inequality for a myriad of legitimate reasons and that there could be nothing wrong with that?
Those willing to take risk, put in hard work, harness pop culture, and/or be innovators will always make more money than those not willing to do the same.
I'm not rich but there is nothing wrong with my salary that is above the national average. That is income inequality and yet that is perfectly okay.
This creates an additional incentive for them to find ways of eliminating or decreasing labor.
Which is great! That means higher productivity and aggregate wealth. It's the same thing that has been happening since the industrial revolution began.
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Higher wages just push more companies to use offshore production.
Easily fixed via exchange rates. Something would should have done a long time ago.
Scandinavian countries manage to pay ~$20/hr floor wage. It's not a problem.
An increased minimum wage will increase the costs of providing the same goods and services for any company paying minimum wages. This creates an additional incentive for them to find ways of eliminating or decreasing labor.
McDonalds has just announced that they will be increasing the minimum wages that they pay. That sure makes them sound like good guys. Unfortunately a couple of weeks ago I was reading about their plans to reduce labor. They need people to cook and assemble the burgers so it would seem there is little they can do. Wrong. There are low tech, inexpensive cookers which can automatically dispense a burger and cook it. Same with cooking chicken tenders or fries. So McD can increase wages 10 or 20% but decrease labor by 30%. And of course there is more to the story than meets the eye. McD already pays in the vicinity of $10/hr or more in many parts of the country. That is just supply and demand and what it takes to staff the stores. Overall the increase in wages will be minimal. Two kids in rural Iowa are going to be paid a bit more, but the third kid is not going to have a job.
Lots and lots of minimum wage jobs are already gone. These would include many agricultural jobs. Although many jobs still exist, more and more automated pickers are being used. Sewing and highly labor intensive manufacturing are gone and will not return. Higher wages just push more companies to use offshore production.
Ahhh yes, the "if you raise rates the machines will take over" argument. Followed by "they will go overseas with those jobs"
This is nonsense.
#1 that automation is going to come either way. We are coming to a time where we are beginning to automate everything away, will a higher minimum wage make it happen faster? Maybe. But I am not seeing where this is a bad thing-its going to happen either way.
#2 The jobs that can go oversea that are minimum wage....have. Your argument here is nonsense. Heck lately many jobs have been coming back. Raising the minimum wage will not matter much here at all.
Today, I read an article on whether or not more access to higher education would fix income inequality. A few days ago, I read an article about how minorities suffer from income inequalities. There is a lot of talk floating around, with a lot of ideas.
Fundamentally, it's all talking about how much money the "rich" have compared to the poor. Considering it's an interest game, it seems impossible to catch up. Like how they say it's more important to contribute to your 401k in your 20's because of how compounding interest works. So it seems like people who say, bought $40 coke stock in 1919 would always be significantly richer than those who buy is roughly 100 years later for $40.
Just wondering if anyone sees income inequality as something that can be fixed? And what does "fixed" mean to you?
Our Constitutional Republic was never designed for equal outcomes, only equal opportunities. So if someone wants to be an astronaut and someone else want to be a manual laborer, they have the opportunity to be as ambitious or as laid back as they want.
Of course we are not set up for people to choose to be dependent on the government even though many generations(especially since the 60's) have completely decided they are "entitled" to other peoples money (i.e. taxpayers money).
There comes a time when people (you know the type) who slacked off or dropped out of high school, must pay the price.
It should be left to those who did the right thing to work for themselves and the slug of society. So this liberal minded Utopian notion that income inequality must be fixed, is just that, a dream.
Make people who are collecting welfare and the like learn a trade (whether they like it or not) such as carpenter, plumber, etc. If they refuse, cut off the free supply of money. At bare minimum they should be forced to volunteer to help society by cleaning up refuse on the sides of roads and in their neighborhoods. This rather than watching TV, texting, Facebooking, and being lazy unproductive burdens on taxpayers.
Of course we are not set up for people to choose to be dependent on the government even though many generations(especially since the 60's) have completely decided they are "entitled" to other peoples money (i.e. taxpayers money).
What do you make of the graph below? Anything interesting pop out at you?
Actually the complaining is long overdue. There should have been a serious protest in the 80s that would have nipped this BS (escalating income and wealth disparity) in the bud.
Easily fixed via exchange rates. Something would should have done a long time ago.
Scandinavian countries manage to pay ~$20/hr floor wage. It's not a problem.
Scandinavian countries also have large sovereign wealth funds from years of savings from North Sea hydrocarbon royalties. And even this largesse is under strain from a flood of low-skilled immigration.
How do you know what I consider a basic income? LOL.
We constantly see people talking about he value of our safety net system, many placing it at the 64K level!
My idea (and many others) of a basic income is 1-1.5K/month. With the elimination of safety nets.
Even better is that since it applies to all natural born citizens, no matter their income, it removes the current disincentives to work that exist in our current safety net.
And WHERE does this "free money" come from?
Work the math out for me.....
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