How Do We Save the Worker? Jesse Ventura Takes on America's Wage Crisis

originally posted by: AazadanThe mid level people at the business deserve a slice of the pie because they're maintaining it. The low level people should get a share too, because without them all of the labor wouldn't get done. Lets divide this into 3 levels.
Owner - 33%
Mid Level - 33%
Entry - 33%

Even if we divide the split evenly between those groups, the numbers of people in each group aren't equal. There is 1 owner, 5 managers, and 25 entry level. So per capita that's
Owner .33
Mid Level .066
Entry .0132

Converted into minmum wages (at $8/hour) that's $606.06 per group or $1818.18 per hour.

Of course if you were to divide it like this:
Entry: $8/hour
Mid: $16/hour (assuming they are actually more efficient than entry level)
Owner: $8/hour (assuming they do nothing other than own the company, they're still getting money for nothing)

That's $368 an hour. Your multipliers are arbitrary.

By increasing entry level wages, this leads to more demand for automation (as a Roomba becomes cheaper than a second maid), which is good - less menial work being done in the world. Eventually you have

Entry: 5
Mid: 4
Owner: 1

Where the $368 an hour gets split
Entry: $26/hour
Mid: $52
Owner: $26

The problem is you've also got 21 people out of work. You could decide that people only need to work 20 hour weeks instead of 40 hour weeks. This is something that the world has to solve - letting go of 2/3rds of the workforce of a country means that you won't have any customers. But it also means that as a society there's more time for leisure. You can waste time on internet bulletin boards looking at cat pictures rather than toiling in a field for 16 hours a day. That's GOOD. Mankinds ingenuity means more time for leisure activities. The problem is ensuring that the remaining work is distributed fairly. If we had unlimited solar power, replicators from star trek, and automated things fixing it, then nobody would need to work. How do we decide who gets to live in a nice house in Malibu and who gets stuck in the middle of Oklahoma?

Capitalism
Capitalism rewards risk. After all why should a garage owner who's funding the garage by putting his house, pension and future on the line, risk everything to do so.

When there's risk, there's luck, some people will risk all and win, others will risk all and lose, others will risk none and stay still (which means losing). It's not a system that by design rewards hard work or good work.

Imagine a situation where you could bet in $1k chunks, and had a 60% chance of getting $2k back, and a 40% chance of getting nothing back.

Great, you think, I'll take that some of that action. After 5 gambles I'll have lost $2k and made $3k, so I'm $1k up.

However after 5 gambles, 1% - or 3 million people in the US, will have lost $5k, and 31% - or about 100 million, will have lost money.

However 200 million will think the system works - they made money. And overall the system does work, more money is made than is lost.

However for 100 million people they are not impressed as they've lost.

Dilution
Of course with so much money sloshing around the value of that extra $1k will be diluted. 100 people started off with $5k, there's $500k in the economy. You now, after just 1 play, have 40 people with $4k and 60 with $6k. After 2 plays 16 people are on $3k, 48 people are on $5k, 36 people are on $7k. But wait, there's now $540k in the economy, meaning that $5k before the game started is now only worth the equivalent of $4630 so in reality even at this stage you've got 64 losers and 36 winners. 2/3rds of people have lost even on a game that appears to be stacked in favor of the player.

Unequal starting points
You then get the inequal value of the dollar. To one person $1000 is a single bottle of champagne. To someone else it's a weekend away. To someone else it's a month of living. Someone will be happier to gamble that second bottle of champagne than a months worth of food and heating.

However after this game is played, the people on the $1000 for the food will still have the $1000 (they didn't gamble), some of those who gambled their champagne bottle will have a night off for their liver, better luck next time, but most of those who gamble the champagne bottle will have two bottles. They may even feel sorry for their friends who lost out that time and invite them over - indeed there's more champagne now than before (60 people have 2 bottles, 40 have none - that's better than 100 having 1 bottle if everyone goes to the same party) Champagne all round.

Offshoring the Economy: Why the US is on the Road to the Third World

www.counterpunch.org...


Lets don't get distracted by this debate over details

Jesse in spirit means well

Whatever plan we do something MUST be done and fast

In 2014 38% of all American workers made less than $20,000; 51% made less than $30,000; 63% made less than $40,000; and 72% made less than $50,000.

The scarcity of jobs and the low pay are direct consequences of jobs offshoring. Under pressure from “shareholder advocates” (Wall Street) and large retailers, US manufacturing companies moved their manufacturing abroad to countries where the rock bottom price of labor results in a rise in corporate profits, executive “performance bonuses,” and stock prices.

The departure of well-paid US manufacturing jobs was soon followed by the departure of software engineering, IT, and other professional service jobs.

I hope people would listen to folks like Jesse and this conservative guy who worked for Reagan, Paul Craig Roberts.

But not enough people are listening.

Thank God for Bernie the only politician who really emphasis this reality

These part-time jobs do not provide enough income to form a household. Consequently, as a Federal Reserve study reports, “Nationally, nearly half of 25-year-olds lived with their parents in 2012-2013, up from just over 25% in 1999.”

Were practically already are a third world economy and if not we'll be there soon.


People in America keep voting for people who are extorted by the elite rich and they assist in destroying the macro economy that outsources good jobs and lowers wages so a few greedy people can have more yachts and mansions and bigger cars

Your children will be lucky to get jobs at Burger King

Pensions have been destroyed


The young are for LIFE burdened with college debt

Millions have lost homes

Jobs are leaving in the millions yet NOTHING is done

and wages are going down, down, and down

ONLY the 1 percent are doing good

When is the American people EVER going TO WAKE UP?

DO WE HAVE TO BE IN SOUP LINES!?

I work in large scale industrial/commercial construction. I have been involved in construction projects from Maine to Florida. I have worked on Universities/Power Plants/Hospitals/Industrial factories/etc - Skilled labor positions vary WILDLY by region. I have worked for millionaire contractors who pay their average workers 30+ an hour, while I have also worked for contractors who have kept their wages stagnant for over 20 years.

One particular contractor sticks out in my mind - they were the largest contractor in a very populous county in a Southern State. They embraced low wage, low skill workers instead of higher paid, better trained workers. They also embraced a policy of abusing immigrant labor (as in hiring immigrant labor, working them for as long as they will show up, and not paying them, banking on the fact that they don't know how the system works here in the states, and they got away with it for quite a long time) - and this was a contractor with Federal contracts (they were eventually taken down for not paying prevailing wage on those contracts, and the Department of Labor shut them down, but workers were just one of many people that company owed money to, they beat a few payroll companies out of millions of dollars).

The problem, especially in the Southern portion of the United States , is fly-by-night contractors can undercut legitimate contractors who pay their workers a fair wage and benefits by exploiting a desperate work force. It almost always bites them in the ass in the end, but it effects bid prices as a whole, hence contractors who want to pay their workers have trouble expanding due to the undercut effect.

I am currently working for a contractor in a southern state who pays their workers a higher wage then their competitors, and provides benefits, but they lose many contracts as their bids come in nearly twice as high as their competitors. They keep 15-40 people working year round, but they can complete a job with 25% of the workforce as their competitors, due to their investment in their workers. They also usually finish their projects within the contract time (when possible) with very little punch list - Usually the only contracts they get are the more intricate work other contractors see as a loser.

This contractor I work for tried to expand into more large-scale production work, but couldn't find a large enough skilled workforce to do so - they tried to supplement with lower paid unskilled labor but it didn't work. 3 of their higher skilled workforce (17-20/hr) could do what 10 unskilled workers (10-13/hr) could do, but without as many mistakes. The problem was they couldn't find enough of a skilled workforce to keep production at a profitable level, as most of the skilled workforce left for better pasture.

They went from earning an average of 20% profit on most contracts, to losing money on projects which resulted in them laying off most of their low wage workers - we now have an apprentice program where we keep 3-5 lower waged workers in which receive training, and after a period of time have an opportunity for advancement. We only retain 1 in 4 of the apprenticeship program, we still lose workers moving to states where they can make more money for less work, and finding employable knowledgeable tradesmen in the south is extremely hard.

originally posted by: bojoboris
The problem is you've also got 21 people out of work. You could decide that people only need to work 20 hour weeks instead of 40 hour weeks. This is something that the world has to solve - letting go of 2/3rds of the workforce of a country means that you won't have any customers. But it also means that as a society there's more time for leisure. You can waste time on internet bulletin boards looking at cat pictures rather than toiling in a field for 16 hours a day. That's GOOD. Mankinds ingenuity means more time for leisure activities. The problem is ensuring that the remaining work is distributed fairly. If we had unlimited solar power, replicators from star trek, and automated things fixing it, then nobody would need to work. How do we decide who gets to live in a nice house in Malibu and who gets stuck in the middle of Oklahoma?

Lets take a small economy, 10 people participate but there is only enough work for 5 jobs or 200 hours/week. There are two solutions:
Solution #1: 5 people work and 5 people don't. This results in half the population being dependent, but everyone presumably being taken care of (assuming those other 5 aren't portrayed as leeches bankrupting everyone else)
Solution #2: The number of hours each person works is cut in half to 20/week, and the economy adjusts to there being less money in everyones pocket. Since less labor is now on the market, this increases wages over time but it's a pretty painful adjustment (France is trying to do this now for a real world comparison). This results in everyone being dependent to start, but everyone eventually being independent.

Alternatively there's a Solution #3 that I didn't mention. The working hours are partially cut putting some to work and making some dependent. This is closest to what Norway is doing. Instead you may have 8 people working 25 hours each and 2 people working none but living on a basic income.

As far as your game of chance goes, it just so happens that I'm really into cheating casinos, video games, and any sort of game I can. Being a game designer it's a huge hobby of mine to find ways to exploit these systems. Without any outside work like statistical analysis on the coin flip chance there's several strategies to what you propose. Most notably, more people can come out ahead by pooling resources. Every 10 people group up and split the proceeds of their 60/40 chance. This reduces the chance of losing it all from .4^5 to .4^50, and your chances of coming out in the negative at all are also severely reduced (minus the inflation portion of the system).

Oddly enough, this answer is reflected in real life. People work together, the ones that get a giant reward split it among everyone who helped to do the work, and even those who didn't have things go their way get more or less taken care of.

But apparently that's against the spirit of Capitalism.

originally posted by: bojoboris


By increasing entry level wages, this leads to more demand for automation (as a Roomba becomes cheaper than a second maid), which is good - less menial work being done in the world. Eventually you have

If you want to see a good example of technological innovation and production efficiency vs. labor input then look no further than the US steel industry.

Ages ago when steel jobs were going away politicians would trumpet "We are bringing jobs back." The truth is the steel industry has become fairly efficient and steel output increases relative to the number of steel workers being employed. In other words, steel production which does fluctuate with demand for steel, doesn't require as many people to produce the steel as it use to.

It doesn't help that most of the world's steel production happens in China now. The truth is we won't be bringing steel jobs back and even if the USA increased production there would be no need to hire as many workers as we previously needed for the same level of output - economies of scale.

There are truths that we must face in America, and many of people that argue against workers and labor in general don't really understand the scope of things.

The economic system that we have is moving dangerously close to monopoly or oligopoly (cartel) type power. Competition only exists for ideas and innovation and not necessarily for production and output prices.

a reply to: Drinking

I agree. Blue collar jobs will always be needed. They are important. Not everyone can obtain a Bachelor's degree let alone a Doctorate anyway. I believe the blue collar workers should earn more, but also wish there was some way that our necessary expenses could be reduced.

originally posted by: Sportbominable46
a reply to: Drinking

I agree. Blue collar jobs will always be needed. They are important. Not everyone can obtain a Bachelor's degree let alone a Doctorate anyway. I believe the blue collar workers should earn more, but also wish there was some way that our necessary expenses could be reduced.

Tax increases reduce expenses because you can add an economy of scale into the spending. Most residents of high tax nations like Luxembourg and Norway have more spending money than residents of much lower tax nations like the US.

As far as blue collar workers earning more, then who in your opinion should earn less? The pie is a finite size, what percent of total earnings should go to each of the following for workers? How about the employers who found the company?
HS Diploma - 25 years experience
HS Diploma - 15 years experience
HS Diploma - 5 years experience
HS Diploma - 0 years experience
Associates degree - 25 years experience
Associates degree - 15 years experience
Associates degree - 5 years experience
Associates degree - 0 years experience
Bachelors degree - 25 years experience
Bachelors degree - 15 years experience
Bachelors degree - 5 years experience
Bachelors degree - 0 years experience

I don't think so. It comes back to this: why is labor considered cheap, yet pushing a pencil you can make millions? I think our moral compasses are upside down.

Many jobs that we have that are required do not require a college education to do them, but where would you be without them? The guy that comes and picks your garbage up doesn’t have a very desirable job, but it's a job that has to be done, isn't it? Therefore the garbage man should be paid well for the job he does that 95% of us would never even consider.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
a reply to: JesseVentura

Jesse Ventura: "If you work a 40 hour work week, you should not be subsidized by the government, no matter what you do."

So, an unskilled person, with limited education, should make the same (or nearly the same) as an educated pencil pusher (to use your words)?


Jesse Ventura: "Raise the minimum wage, and lower the maximum wage, and you might find utopia."

---groan---

So let's remove incentives for working hard at an education to achieve a higher level of income, and reward the uninspired with a "living wage" at the expense of private industry.

While I tend to lean liberal in many social policies, such a statement is beyond liberal and well into the intensely socialist.


We don't have a wage problem in this country.

I'll say it again: we don't have a wage problem in this country.

We have an education problem.


If people are getting married, having families, and can't find the job that earns enough to support their family, it's not society's responsibility to pay them more. It's society's responsibility to ensure they're educated for the job that can support their family.

This problem won't be solved by raising the minimum wage. The result would be a tickle-up, requiring all wages to go up, and the new normal will be no different than it is now.

The only solution is education. But politicians wanting to raise the minimum wage plays better, and gets cheers from doe-eyed young liberals looking for quick fixes.

It's globalism, really. The globalists don't care, and big corporations have no national loyalty. They're going to make their bottom line millions and billions and it doesn't matter if they're doing it in Spain, Antarctica, or the US as long as the corporations are making profit. They have no loyalty to a country.

originally posted by: machineintelligence
a reply to: JesseVentura

The structural problems in this economy is far more complicated then wage disparity Governor. The US keeps entering into trade deals that grease the skids for more jobs to be exported to other nations while job creation and wages keep sliding. The US exports jobs, grain, and Hollywood movies for the most part and little else. They just raised the national debt ceiling. Does anyone still buy it other than the Federal Reserve I wonder?

There are problems you're going to get when you close the border. So I hope you're ready to pay three times as much for your food because there is a very good possibility that the entire agricultural community of California could turn upside down on you and get destroyed. Closing the borders is a technique for1930s Germany, not today.

originally posted by: starviego
Close the damn borders, and a lot of these problems will slowly solve themselves

originally posted by: JesseVentura
Many jobs that we have that are required do not require a college education to do them, but where would you be without them? The guy that comes and picks your garbage up doesn’t have a very desirable job, but it's a job that has to be done, isn't it? Therefore the garbage man should be paid well for the job he does that 95% of us would never even consider.

You offer a wage at a price point necessary to elicit a response for an opening. If you have sufficient candidates at $11/hr there's no point in offering $25 just because the job is distasteful. I wouldn't consider it because I don't have to. For those that need employment, the market should determine the value.

originally posted by: JesseVentura
There are problems you're going to get when you close the border.

I don't think most people want to wall off the border and never allow anyone in. What most of us want is some control and documentation for who's coming in and adherence to the laws in place for immigration. I personally want to see a controlled border where there isn't a human tide flooding over. How many countries allow unrestricted entry?

We're not supposed to, but the enforcement is spotty, at best.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Sparkymedic
Raising the minimum wage is beyond mindlessly stupid. If the minimum wage goes up, would that not just pave the way for all of the things you need/ want to just skyrocket in price...seeing as, ya know...it costs more to provide the goods or services?

It's not a proportional increase because the cost of labor doesn't make up 100% of the cost of goods. There are products like electricity, rent, and raw materials which don't carry a labor cost. In the typical business 33% of your revenue goes to wages, that means only 1/3 of the final cost of your product is paid out in wages. If an increase in the minimum wage increases your wages by 50% the final cost of your product is only 116.5% of what it was prior to the wage increase. So your wages have gone up 50% but the cost of goods only rose 16.5% to compensate.

Yeah, fair enough. Where does it end though? Not hard to realize you'll be back at square one before ya know it. Caplitalism guarantees greed. So why bother meddling with numbers when it'll never be a sustainable solution in the first place? And how will those numbers help the masses when only a minority of workers have work...the rest of the "jobs" being automated to increase productivity and decrease expenses? Capitalism requires competition. Automation of systems and processes is inevitable in this case.

The issue here is the pyramid scheme of ownership and freedoms expressed in purchasing power. It is not sustainable. So how is raising a wage truly making life better for the people who need a better life?

I get what you're getting at, but I don't see the point in raising wages to only have the same issue creep up down to road. That is basically insanity.

Nothing can be fixed until people get over their need to look down upon others as lesser than themselves to feel justified for their meaningless existences.

It's really about nothing other than "the power principle", and it's always been that way.

Not likely to change any time soon..............

a reply to: Sportbominable46

Not so much whether everyone can get a degree, but whether everyone needs one.

No, everyone doesn't need a degree, I have no idea how we were convinced everyone does unless it's something like how we were convinced we all needed a car.

It's more like salesmanship, convincing people to pay for things that will never pan out as a benefit for the sake of floating this big fake economy a little further down the river.