Seattle approves $15 minimum wage

a reply to: MyHappyDogShiner
Taxes are such a damn joke. All my vehicles, I paid tax on twice. Once when I bought them, and again when I moved to canada. Even though they were bought and paid for years ago, canada demanded tax on the bluebook values. It's ridiculous all over.

I already run my business with fairly narrow margins. Should I have to pay my people more than I do I promise I will raise my prices to the consumer.

Why don't people understand that most of us non corporate little guys just do not have the wiggle room to keep raising prices and still stay in business? IMO it is because most of the people screaming for higher wages for crap jobs don't understand the first thing about running a business or economics. They are low wage workers for a reason.

Running my business has me up at 4:00am flying by 6:00am and being offloaded and crews sent home by 9:30am. Of course I then spend the rest of my day, returning calls, doing paperwork and working on marketing my business. I usually wrap it up about 6:00pm. Yup 14 hour days is the norm for me (during season) and you know what? For a business owner I have it good.

Wage slaves are completely clueless about what it costs to run a business. Now while the giant corps like Walmart could afford to pay a bit better than they do I have to ask, why would they? Most of the folks I have seen working at Walmart are truly not all that bright.

I know a 16 year old kid that makes almost 1000.00 a month selling these little rubber balloons on the end of a rubber band, they have a little bit of water in them and the darn kids around seven and under snap them up for two bucks each. His cost? 20 cents each. Bet we will NEVER see him needing a job at Walmart.......

In my youth I used to sell bottled water on bike paths and make more money than a Walmart worker....

Those low wage jobs are truly for the wage slaves and the unimaginative. Some/most people are incapable of doing their own thing. They need to know how much they will make each week to be able to plan their spending. Me? I have to deal with four months a year with no paycheck in my business as we have a pretty clearly defined season.

If your average wage slave had to live like I do they would be dead broke just before going back to work. But I bet those Walmart workers nearly all have nice phones, hot showers at home that last as long as they want, in water half the world wishes they could drink. All while getting on the internet on their computer and playing video games and surfing the tube for a few hours an evening. Wage slaves (even minimum wage slaves) still have it better than 90% of the rest of the world.

Whiners.

a reply to: Mamatus
Nice to see how some business owners think of their workers. You outright call them slaves.

a reply to: Mamatus

be careful what you say

im not sure you would like to see "imaginative" wage slaves

if obama signed an executive order to initiate a balance trade, all of our problems would evaporate over night. our manufactuing infrastructure would be totally rebuilt in about 5 years.

Well, I look forward to this. Some city had to be #1 and I'm glad it was a major city at that. The timed phasing of the money is cheesy and won't allow a pure view of the failure this brings, but alas...we'll see enough.

For the love of God and all that's basic to economics though.. PLEASE let this play out in ONE CITY before trying to break the whole country with it. Lets see how Seattle and ..more specifically..the cities surrounding them which do NOT have this instated..do in the next year or more with higher wages imposed.

I'm guessing, if it's left to develop naturally? We'll see profound impact and clear trends which won't be entirely positive.

Then again, I half expect it to be ramrodded through congress as a national thing to keep from ever seeing the fail in contrast to any control areas NOT doing it. Here? $15 would DOUBLE the min. wage. That wouldn't be helpful, it would destroy our damned economy as NO ONE is operating on that much profit margin in being able to raise wages across the board for everyone.

Hell..a good paying job, considered well above min, here is $12 and people are quite content with it.. Keep $15 min., wage on out there in Seattle..and more power to people if that's what they want for their own area. Just...keep it.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000
You have to either normalize the whole economy, or take it on a state by state or even country by county basis. While $12 an hour might be just dandy there, that wouldn't even cover rent, let alone utilities and food where I used to live.

hey anybody know who makes our rawlings baseballs?

a reply to: TKDRL

I'm a 10th amendment kind of guy and regional/local norms for the standards of those living there IS the spice of life, in my opinion.

We're 300 million people with at least 100 million different ideas of how to do things in 50 distinctly different and unique states, each with it's own history and ..while it's being DRIVEN out by force today...still with some cultural identity for the brief time America has had to build such things.

Yes..if this works for Seattle, I am sincere in saying more power to them and I in Missouri have no place to tell them in Washington 'Oh no you can't'....as long as that whole concept works as well in reverse for trying to make the whole nation homogenized like a batch of milk.

originally posted by: TKDRL
a reply to: Mamatus
Nice to see how some business owners think of their workers. You outright call them slaves.

Clearly you do not understand my business. First off my workers are far from wage slaves. I pay my guys nearly 20.00 an hour for a four hour morning. They make more than an eight hour a day fast food worker. I love my employees and take them on annual trips, give them Christmas bonuses etc etc. All in all they do about 40 minutes of manual labor with about 2 hours of driving my chase trucks. The rest is waiting around. My competitors pay $10.00 an hour on average...... But I like smart people and you have to pay for smart people.....

Wage slaves are what an eight hour minimum wage employee's are. That is a simple fact. My guys are not wage slaves.

I agree we have no idea how this might turn out and that it'd be best to let it play out to in fact find out EXACTLY how it effects the economy in Seattle. I believe the post about it being unable to be determined how it may affect the value and such is correct. We can't predict it because we have no model for it up until it goes into effect in Seattle. Everyone who thinks they can predict it, they're fooling themselves. And trying to deceive others.

Personally, I think it would be a godsend if McDonalds raised prices as well as WalMart at least WalMart super centers...less if me having to see obese disgusting people, they'll all lose weight when they can't afford their fattening foods. I just avoid these places anyway right off the bat. I only wish I would never have to set foot in another WalMart but I'm effin dragged in ny my SO, bleghh oh and my kid, grrr. I think it's the foulest business only followed by McDonalds.

originally posted by: ldyserenity
I agree we have no idea how this might turn out and that it'd be best to let it play out to in fact find out EXACTLY how it effects the economy in Seattle. I believe the post about it being unable to be determined how it may affect the value and such is correct. We can't predict it because we have no model for it up until it goes into effect in Seattle. Everyone who thinks they can predict it, they're fooling themselves. And trying to deceive others.



Personally, I think it would be a godsend if McDonalds raised prices as well as WalMart at least WalMart super centers...less if me having to see obese disgusting people, they'll all lose weight when they can't afford their fattening foods. I just avoid these places anyway right off the bat. I only wish I would never have to set foot in another WalMart but I'm effin dragged in ny my SO, bleghh oh and my kid, grrr. I think it's the foulest business only followed by McDonalds.

I'm a skinny guy myself, But your just rude to say that.

a reply to: Mamatus

You want smart people but yet you can't use correct English grammar:
Don't mean to be a grammar Nazi but making a business does not necessarily make one smart, nor does working in a WalMart necessarily make one dumb.
There are many other things to take into consideration maybe that cashier at WalMart or that fry cook at McDonalds stopped school study to care for sick parent/ orphaned siblings/etc. Maybe they had a full scholarship they gave up to care for family. There are just too many examples to list. So you consider them slave workers, well isn't that just grand talking down people from your ivory tower. Here's to blessing you with some karma, hope it delivers with haste.

a reply to: Ancient Champion

I am sorry but I think people would be more healthy if McDonalds wasn't around and life would be more pleasant for our eyes. Just I don't want to see obese people in my eyesight. It's how I truly feel. It's bad in USA makes me not want to leave the house at all so my eyes aren't assaulted. Just one of my pet peeves. Maybe rude, it may be shallow, but it's truly how I feel.

originally posted by: ldyserenity
a reply to: Mamatus

You want smart people but yet you can't use correct English grammar:

I can be quite lazy when posting on ATS. Fortunately I do not get paid to be a writer.

oh and just to be clear, I do think people that work at dead end minimum wage jobs to be "Wage Slaves". They get no time to find ways to better their predicaments as their jobs leave them little time to go to interviews. Hence they are slaves to the wage they earn. Those types of jobs should not be considered a living wage career.

As for my ivory tower? It took years of living quite broke and saving every nickle to get where I am today. One of the things I did was live in a tent for two years to save enough money to start my business.... How many folks have you ever met with that much commitment?

So yes, pardon me for thinking that those who want to get paid a grown up wage for working the line at Burger King are being unreasonable. Making it in this country requires more than waking up at 9am to make your shift at the local burger hut. Maybe some of the whiners in the USA pushing for grown up wages should check out how the average worker lives in say, Bangladesh...............

a reply to: Mamatus

I see you only answered the one sentence and gave no reply on the rest. Not trying to change your mind, but you know nothing of the workers you call "slaves" nor their situations or how they ended up working at such a position. It doesn't make them stupid. Besides it's irrelevant today as many with bachelor's and masters' degrees are more often finding their own selves taking jobs like these simply because their jobs have gone overseas, and not enough room for all business master degree holders to get work as CEOs and such.

Personally, I have already stated my thoughts about McDonalds and WalMart, and several other companies of the ilk, I'd like them all to be vanquished from our economy completely. I'd like our economy not to be a service economy at all. Manufacturing is and always will be the only way to have a sustainable economy. But it takes a lot of hard changes partisan political parties refuse to risk. Because it is not easy, and they want easy oh and cheap.

a reply to: Mamatus

i just wanna know what your avatar is supposed to mean.

a reply to: Mamatus

been there- done that.... but it was not wilderness camping
we lived at a Yogi Bear Campground then bought a School Bus to increase our living space & mobility

that was a 1.5 year escapade which resulted in my starting a contracting business instead of working as a Journeyman Printer


as for 15 bucks for a single market area,,,, I do not think it will work well
besides when I retired, the rate was $26. per hr. to cover all your needs and Allied Signal was glad to pay that rate for qualified & competent sub-contractors (at least in the Phoenix/Chandler AZ facilities)

a reply to: LABTECH767

I won't comment on the whole christian thing, but I will say that Seattle has a very high cost of living compared to the rest of the US. So while $15/hr is a lot, it is more like $10/hr for the rest of the US.

Either way, our economy is destined to fall. The great equalizer that everyone fears is going to happen if we don't get with the program and go back to an industry manufacturing economy and leave the service industry where it belongs, as a low tier business as it should be. Service industry will never work in a global economy because wtf does service export-nothing. Period. Everybody sees and knows that but not a dang person wants to do a dang thing about it. Food(agriculture) isn't a viable economy either because droughts fires and disease affects it. But also because Government doesn't like over production and orders crops and herds destroyed when they have a high yield. We're screwed, and it's sad we keep prolonging the inevitable. I for one will be happy when our Economy goes ass up.