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"This is the question the right has to answer. Do you want smaller government with less handouts, or do you want a low minimum wage? Because you cannot have both. If Colonel Sanders isn't going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to, and I for one am getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers.: ~ Bill Maher
There is no smaller government or lower minimum wage choice. It's a false dichotomy built on the assumption that people are guaranteed a standard of living.
America survived just fine for centuries with no minimum wage and no handouts. We did not have mass starvation. We did not have people dying in the streets of untreated illness.
And that's something liberals never address. They just take it as a given that without subsidies people will be miserable and die. But history shows they won't. History shows that when people are motivated to work, they work. When you don't live in an entitlement culture to begin with, people don't get into the situation of depending on aid to live in the first place. They grow up as children of people work expecting to work themselves. It is socialized into them from birth. They grow up from infancy with the expectation that they will make their own way in life.
When they enacted the bipartisan welfare reforms, guess what? Welfare went down and poverty did not go up. People went to work.
Well then, if automation replaces many jobs, there should be no reason why the employer cannot pay more to the remaining employees.
Case cost. That is what drives payroll, raw material selection and upgrades. The number one cost to a case of paper towels, toilet paper or disposable diapers is payroll.
If factory A in the USA spends $14.00 to produce a case and Factory B in Mexico spends $7.00 to produce a comparable case, how can Factory A increase pay and still compete? Mexico still needs to ship and that adds to the cost, but not enough to offset the difference.
With automation comes costs. Re tooling, training and a start up curve. With it comes the cost to maintain. The savings from automation is not in the cost to produce, it is in the productivity and reliability.
For the sake of argument though. Why would I pay Joe more if it is the machine that has increased productivity and now Joe does less? If I invest in buying an expensive machine why would I not reap the reward? Why would I give the increased profit to Joe who risked nothing, sacrificed nothing and will risk nothing in the future to keep my company productive and competitive?
There is no smaller government or lower minimum wage choice. It's a false dichotomy built on the assumption that people are guaranteed a standard of living.
America survived just fine for centuries with no minimum wage and no handouts. We did not have mass starvation. We did not have people dying in the streets of untreated illness.
And that's something liberals never address. They just take it as a given that without subsidies people will be miserable and die. But history shows they won't. History shows that when people are motivated to work, they work. When you don't live in an entitlement culture to begin with, people don't get into the situation of depending on aid to live in the first place. They grow up as children of people work expecting to work themselves. It is socialized into them from birth. They grow up from infancy with the expectation that they will make their own way in life.
When they enacted the bipartisan welfare reforms, guess what? Welfare went down and poverty did not go up. People went to work.
Actually there were many people who died on the job due to dangerous working conditions, who died due to untreated diseases, and starvation in America before government stepped in.
Case cost. That is what drives payroll, raw material selection and upgrades. The number one cost to a case of paper towels, toilet paper or disposable diapers is payroll.
If factory A in the USA spends $14.00 to produce a case and Factory B in Mexico spends $7.00 to produce a comparable case, how can Factory A increase pay and still compete? Mexico still needs to ship and that adds to the cost, but not enough to offset the difference.
With automation comes costs. Re tooling, training and a start up curve. With it comes the cost to maintain. The savings from automation is not in the cost to produce, it is in the productivity and reliability. For the sake of argument though. Why would I pay Joe more if it is the machine that has increased productivity and now Joe does less? If I invest in buying an expensive machine why would I not reap the reward? Why would I give the increased profit to Joe who risked nothing, sacrificed nothing and will risk nothing in the future to keep my company productive and competitive?
Because if the company is not paying Joe, Joe will not be able to buy the companies paper towels. Hence, company fail.
I know. This is exactly what astounds me about the die hard right!
Answer me, what have your polices done?
Are the homeless no longer homeless?
Are the hunger no longer hunger?
Are the under and unemployed employed?
Are the kids suffering in failing schools no longer in failing schools after the property tax is hiked and the money goes the NEA?
How has the war on poverty worked out? $7,000,000,000,000 wasted and we have 15% poverty in this nation 3 to 5% more then in 1965, $7,000,000,000 wasted and what do you have to show for it?
When they enacted the bipartisan welfare reforms, guess what? Welfare went down and poverty did not go up. People went to work.
So jobs magically appeared? And poverty didnt go up? really?
*checks poverty numbers
If by "didnt go up" you mean went from 12% being in poverty to 15% being in poverty today without any decreases from the signing of the reform laws to today then sure....you're correct. (small hint-you're wrong)
Keep in mind this was during a period where our economy was doing better and better every year.....our % in poverty INCREASED.
Seriously, would you rather have an increased tax base and less government assistance or have more government assistance programs and less people earning a taxable income?
As far as I know Democrats haven't been offering to trade a reduction in welfare programs for a higher minimum wage, just demanding a higher minimum wage.
I think if they were doing that - and realistically under a different President, no one on the other side of the aisle trusts Obama at all and that makes it hard to get stuff done - there would be room to strike a deal along those lines, but I haven't seen any Democrat politicians (or any Republican politicians either; just not something happening right now to my knowledge) seriously trying to put that sort of deal on the table.
Are the kids suffering in failing schools no longer in failing schools after the property tax is hiked and the money goes the NEA?
How has the war on poverty worked out? $7,000,000,000,000 wasted and we have 15% poverty in this nation 3 to 5% more then in 1965, $7,000,000,000 wasted and what do you have to show for it?
Yeah this is kind of what makes a lot of this discussion irrelevant. Its not going to matter what wage we pay people when we can replace them by more and more increasingly inexpensive automation. And we are doing so.
Thank you for the Jamba information, its a pretty clear indicator of whats going to occur. And the resulting economic and political chaos is going to be extreme. People here arguing about minimum wage, should start to realize that it wont matter what the wage is when automation starts crowding out jobs....
And, back to the original topic and my original post, raising minimum wage will only accelerate the process of displacement of the lowest skilled workers. The politicians know this; the union management knows this; the left leaning do-gooder voters are too ignorant to know this because they have "compassion", but little common sense or the concept of cause and effect.
"This is the question the right has to answer. Do you want smaller government with less handouts, or do you want a low minimum wage? Because you cannot have both. If Colonel Sanders isn't going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to, and I for one am getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers.: ~ Bill Maher
Your first failure is using Maher for any form of wisdom.
We should have NO minimum wage and smaller government. And yes, we can have both.
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