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Wages are just pricing labor in a marketplace. Like anything else in the broadest terms it is supply and demand that sets the current value. Government manipulation of any price, including wages, may offer stability in a segment, but really just distorts pricing mechanisms.
Shows how people have been brainwashed to think they only "make it' when their foot is on the neck of others. The Rat Race has hit it's perfect stride.....never did I imagine.
I made $5 an house at unskilled or slightly skilled labor in rural TN in 1974.
I made the same or more in NJ...in 1976.
Those wages, adjusted for basic inflation, would be $23 to $27 an hour today.
Yet people have been brainwashed...and, let's face, those doing the brainwashing are VERY rich people (Heritage, Cato, Kochs, Mercers and many others) to say that I must have become wealthy making that $5 an hour.
In fact, it was so little that I, a semi-skilled framing carpenter (by 76...in 74 I was not) that I stopped doing that particular subcontract work after one house.
Yet Americans are fine with someone making 1/3 that money and having to pee in a jar for the priv.
Is there anywhere it stops? No. I can answer that that. It doesn't. This is exactly why wages have gone nowhere in 40+ years.
You’re free to start a business and pay your employees above market.
You’re free to start a business and pay your employees above market.
Which I have - and I did.
Unfortunately, that doesn't help the forgotten man in bulk......or the average American.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the question except perhaps illustrate that you would pay everyone as little as possible - which is exactly what has brought us to the current situation.
Pay as little as possible - and shove the real costs off to our kids, the next guy, the government, the environment or whatever. Just so YOU can fatten your pockets by an extra dime.
You’re free to start a business and pay your employees above market.
Seems to be the go to answer for all business owners.. ( start your own or shut up) syndrome. You telling me that you cant live off 100k year while your paying somebody 20k a year and ask to be bump up to 25k to keep up with COL inflation rate and your going to tell them to start their own business?
Unfortunately, that doesn't help the forgotten man in bulk......or the average American.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the question except perhaps illustrate that you would pay everyone as little as possible - which is exactly what has brought us to the current situation.
Pay as little as possible - and shove the real costs off to our kids, the next guy, the government, the environment or whatever. Just so YOU can fatten your pockets by an extra dime.
Unfortunately, that doesn't help the forgotten man in bulk......or the average American.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the question except perhaps illustrate that you would pay everyone as little as possible - which is exactly what has brought us to the current situation.
Pay as little as possible - and shove the real costs off to our kids, the next guy, the government, the environment or whatever. Just so YOU can fatten your pockets by an extra dime.
Isn’t that what you do as a consumer? Do you search for deals at the store? Would you hire a plumber or car mechanic to help you with a job at a lower price or do you kick in extra money so they can make more? Why don’t you start paying extra as a consumer? Oh you won’t. But yet you want business to do it.
What you want is a one sided market economy where you get to be paid more....but somehow there’s no rise in prices to pay for everyone making more.
In other words, you want to live in fantasy land.
Your job as a consumer is to make your own income and resources stretch and provide as much value for yourself as possible. Businesses do the same.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12773.htm
Q: How much U.S. currency is in circulation?
A: There was approximately $1.67 trillion in circulation as of June 27, 2018, of which $1.62 trillion was in Federal Reserve notes. (Dollar bills)
1.62 T divided by 327 million Americans = $4,954.12 per capita
- - -
(Billionaires will becomes zero-aires when everyone is trying to "cash out")
- - -
As to the nonsense of a "minimum wage" let's run the numbers:
Assume 1/5 of the population is "labor" : 65,400,000
52 weeks x 40 hours = 2080 hours / year
"Munny" needed = hours x labor = 136,032,000,000 "units"
If the "unit" is $10/hour, that computes to 1,360,320,000,000 (1.4 trillion).
WOW, that's close to the 1.6 trillion dollar bills in circulation!
Where's the munny for anyone to paid MORE?
Or if the labor population doubled to 2/5?
THE.MUNNY.DOES.NOT.EXIST.
Remember, Congress has the power to COIN money (stamp bullion) or BORROW money. It cannot create bullion. All dollar bills (federal reserve NOTES) are debt (IOUs). They are not dollars (coin), but worthless IOUs since 1933.
Now, you may run in circles, scream and shout : "We're doomed!"
Unfortunately, that doesn't help the forgotten man in bulk......or the average American.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the question except perhaps illustrate that you would pay everyone as little as possible - which is exactly what has brought us to the current situation.
Pay as little as possible - and shove the real costs off to our kids, the next guy, the government, the environment or whatever. Just so YOU can fatten your pockets by an extra dime.
You have a great backstory craigiri, but that doesn't make setting a price for job, having someone accept said job, and then expecting said job to be completed as agreed to wrong.
The reality is the lowest paying place will often get the least loyal workforce in return. Talent will flee after gaining experience. It really becomes a full circle type endeavor. At some point, the owner can't compete with the competition on anything but price, and as productivity at other places continues further, they will soon not be able to compete there either.
If you look at the most profitable industries, they do tend to have highly paid employees, and they do tend to have lots of competition and improvement being made. Then you have companies that rely upon cheap labor. They don't advance. Yet, taking the assumption that you need to get better is a best practice, not a regulation.
Besides, the company and the employee made a deal. You truly aren't advocating that the Government now jumps in to correct these deals, right? What if they started readjusting sales prices on your best contracts to match your worst paying ones arbitrarily? Maybe those deals were to start-ups that could grow into big customers, or they were old customers that you've simply not been able to raise rates to the new offering price and have accepted it to retain the overall. Same thing happens with employees...until you regulate things from a party that bears no consequence of the outcome. It throws flexibility right out the window. It creates quagmires like healthcare.
This country was founded by sole proprietors and independent farmers. Unequal access to capital made some big at the cost of others in the old industries, but the quick and the nimble overturned them anyway. The DJIA has none of its original companies. Innovation is directly correlated with ownership of said creation. Innovation is what allows nobodies to rise up and become the richest in the world. People like Page, Zuckerberg, Bezos definitely took people with them and changed the game, just as Franklin, Vanderbilt and Ford did before them. Forcing the last video rental store on earth to pay $24 isn't going to help anyone, but training that employee to be able to service Redbox locations might.
I know a few people that came from very very humble beginnings. They don't pay their people well to start, but they also take on people nobody else would hire. One I know very well does give nice raises afterwards, but he doesn't know if they'll work out or not. I think he's a saint. He's literally pulling people of the perpetual welfare cycle and giving them a shot. He's good at finding out what this guy that screws up 70% of everything can actually do and makes a use out of them.
At the same time I talk to another close friend. She's turned her grocery store's floral department around. They move 12x volume of what they used to and they've established themselves as a quality place to go. I offered to back her if she wanted to open a store. She said she didn't want it. She was comfortable. She was good at her job and everyone admired her for what she was good at. She wasn't good at all of the other aspects of running a full store. Her choice was to forgo the profits of her own establishment because she understood there was a huge difference between operating as an employee and running an entity.
I bet you, if the store came in and dropped her salary by half, she'd be more willing to make it a go. She doesn't make much, but she'd rather drop her expenses than raise her income as is. Most of the time people ask for a raise they usually want recognition, better tools, respect or to be treated better. Sometimes its truly a money proposition. When you put it into the hands of the government, both parties lose flexibility in the opportunity to identify and address the true grievance.
Let's say the Federal Government cut Corporate Taxes to 0% and mandated a minimum wage of $24 per hour for large corporations and $15 per hour for small businesses. Both would increase with future inflation. Is this something that could potentially work? Keep in mind that the Corporate Tax would be cut to 0% so inflation would probably be minimal and other jobs would be created because there would be more money, etc.
If corporate taxes were cut to zero, who would pay for all of the things that corporate taxes are paying for now?
The gov't already often operates at a deficit, meaning that there is less money coming in than is being spent. Corporate taxes are a significant amount of tax revenue. If these dollars are eliminated, then they would either have to be made up by taxing someone else at a higher rate, or spending would have to be curtailed and programs cut.
What programs would you like to see eliminated? Schools? Highways? Welfare? Defense? Salaries for politicians? (OK, I could get behind that last one.)
If corporate taxes were cut to zero, who would pay for all of the things that corporate taxes are paying for now?
With higher personal income taxes. Corporate taxes are irrelevant when they pay out in salaries and bonuses.
Last edited by Merkin; 08-15-2018 at 07:40 PM..
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