Forum members vindicated on wages (Al Gore, house of representatives, gas price, interview)

[Opin_Yunated]

There is no significant correlation between minimum wage and inflation.

Labor costs are a fraction of the overall cost of business. Oil, energy, and real estate prices are the key determinants of inflation. These are caused by demographics. If there is a war and 3 billion people on this planet perish, there will be deflation.

[USAGeorge]

How's this for basics....The consumer always pays for all costs incurred along the line...And frankly it's not 1890 anymore....Ditch diggers have been replaced by machine operators and unskilled jobs are falling to robots....If you make minimum wages that's not my problem and if you want to raise minimum wages the Chinese will be more than glad for the work...Things change.....and the rules are included....We have a global marketplace where skilled workers are in demand...If someone has no skills or the ability to adjust and learn new ones that isn't my problem,it's theirs. Understand this,,the unskilled job market is shrinking,,getting smaller every year...That's not going to change....

[greywar]

Originally Posted by Mircea

Are you claiming that the US economy is entitled to expand, or are you claiming that economies must expand?

In your mind, which unicorn makes economies expand, the silver one or the white one?

Perhaps you have another color in mind.

Which has what exactly to do with this persons statement? Why don't you answer the question instead of posting this sort of nonsense?

And why would you do that? Is that because you ain't got nothing except a Straw Man?

The irony here.

Because sometimes its instructive to follow things out to their conclusion.

That's not even possible.

Substituting automation for labor still incurs labor costs.

Oh, wait, I forgot....you live in the Special Unicorn Universe where they have Perpetual Motion Machines.

Actually that is in fact possible. Or at least near enough to it that it makes no difference. But its a long ways off.

Here are new words for your vocabulary that are highly descriptive of you:

1] Myopic
2] Ethnocentric

I could make a list for you as well, but I decline to participate in your pettiness and personal attacks. Maybe you should focus on attacking ideas, and not people?

Following your logic to the extreme, a shareholder in the US should demand that the corporation sell only to the 317 Million people of America, and not sell anything to the 6.5 Billion other people on Earth, in spite of the fact $5 Profit * 6.5 Billion is a helluva lot more than $5 Profit * 317 Million.

And here's an economic vocabulary word for you: Diminishing Returns.

you do know that the majority of companies in the US sell only in the us right?

He doesn't have to since you don't understand Deflation.

That much is certain from your comment here....

Ahh the usual Mircea response, refuse to answer the question, and attack the messenger.

Declining wages do not guarantee declining prices.

In fact, prices and wages may decline together without any causal relationship. Or wages may decline and prices may continue to increase.

Rebutting silliness with only 20 lines....

Mircea

But wait! Arent you also always going on about how increasing minimum wages will increase prices, and destroy us all?

Only you would be proud of doing it in 20 lines when half of those are all about personal attacks, or avoiding the questions.

[Loveshiscountry]

Originally Posted by James420

Depending on the type of work, Landscaping is as crooked as it gets throughout most of the country, tons of illegals working for less than minimum wage and under the table. Profits go up because the the cost of labor went down. It's not like the owners of these companies are lowering their prices to consumers even though their cost to do business went down.

I disagree. in my area prices went down. But then again that is a very competitive field here.

When we had the housing boom prices didn't go down but that was because of Congress interfering in the free market. Prices didn't go up here compared to the rest of the country and the housing bust didn't hurt as much.

[Loveshiscountry]

Originally Posted by greywar

So to address the earlier question, do increased labor costs increase pricing. The answer is-often yes, but not always. I know, everyone on the right believe its a yes or no answer, but its not. Theres a ton of variables.

All too often the people here want to argue at a level thats basically slogans. And they assume everything is a 1-1 relationship. The ignore the benefits of increased disposable income to a economy for example. If my labor costs go up 10%, and my sales go up 20%, with a profit margin of 20%, is a business better off? say 100 million in sales, 10 million of that in labor, and im making 20 million in profit. After labor goes to 11 million, sales go to 120 million, and my profit is 23 million after the increased labor costs.
Do you want to make 20 million or 23 million?

The problem is, as with my example, the devil is in the details. Historically increasing the minimum wage hasnt made much of a difference in inflation. But notice how everyone on the right absolutely refuses to address this? I've challenged people over and over on this, and they never reply.

Will increased costs pass on to the customer? Often yes, but if the customers income is increasing more then the passed on cost, guess what? Its to their benefit.

What happens long term? Well things balance out again as inflation eats away at the minimum wage increases. Failing to increase minimum wage for too long though and you're in trouble. The economy depends on people spending money.

Anyways im tired, so im off to read more, maybe some more replies...but bed is calling me soon.

We saw the devastating effect manipulating wages like FDR did during the Great Depression. Granted he manipulated pricing and got involved in running the economy also which was horrific.

When one pays more for a service because minimum wage has been increased, that means the purchaser has less money to buy other goods. Our buying options are decreased.

[Loveshiscountry]

Originally Posted by greywar

Please, now you are acting as if doing so would suddenly cause inflation to go up faster then their new income. Thats not how reality works.

That is what is happening now. The purchasing price of the dollar has gone down tremendously.

Originally Posted by greywar

Your alternative is to simply let inflation eat away at them? forever?

Stop government from inflating the money supply. Treat the cause and not the symptom. Otherwise you're just spinning your wheels.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Driller1

Almost true.....

But, there is a place where the line is crossed.

How hard is the job???

Working for me is very hard work......outside and dirty.

We start new workers at $18 an hour.....they have to pass a background check and drug screen.

Many do not make it a full day.

That's a good wage.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Suncc49

The problem is that we are allowing tons of illegals into the job market and legitimizing them further putting lower pressure on wages. This artificially lowers the prices of goods for awhile until the illegals move up in the economic chain. It also drives citizens out of the job market for those marginal jobs as they can't always work for peanuts.

A lose lose.....

Please don't use logic with lefties. It's all about emotion.

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Boss

The Republican answer is to approve the TPP, so employees will be grateful they make minimum and not the $.25 in the Pacific rim nations.

We saw NAFTA, do we want to go through that again.

Well, the GOP can't use executive orders to push that through.

Try to keep up.

BTW......Clinton signed NAFTA.

[workingclasshero]

everytime we have raised the min wage...costs have gone up, prices on everything has gone up, and jobs have been lost....this includes the minwage raise in 07/09