Social Issue: On Economies - The Minimum Wage

Originally posted by Two Steps Forward
And if we're going to bring up the WWII generation, we should also recognize that most of them would radically disagree with laissez-faire capitalism. And while it's certainly true that they experienced far greater economic hardship than we must endure today, it is also true that they were responsible for unionizing America's industries and so rectifying that injustice, and so I doubt they would be lacking in sympathy for the plight of the working class.

REPLY: You are absolutely correct; They indeed start the ball rolling in the direction of Socialist Capitolism and unions. America has suffered ever since; and I doubt we'll ever get that cat back into the bag.

"Lowest depths of poverty"

For the region's 7,000 unemployed, of course, it was far worse. "Thousands who were once possessed of an honest independence gained by laborious industry, are now sunk in the lowest depths of poverty," said Lancaster's letter.

"Thousands who once looked forward with confidence to a decent competence to support themselves in old age are now reduced to the melancholy alternative of subsisting on casual charity or becoming the inmates of a workhouse."

It continued: "Were the humane man to visit the dwellings of four fifths of the weavers and see the miserable pittance 16 hours' hard labour can procure, even of those fully employed, divided between the wretched parents and their starving little ones, he would sicken at the sight and blush for the patience of humanity!"

And he laid the blame firmly at the door of the Corn Laws and the power loom: "But whatever may have been the evils inflicted by the operation of the Corn Laws, they vanish into nothing when compared with those which followed the adoption of the power loom," he insisted. "This was the grand blow which struck at the root of our domestic happiness - this completed what the Corn Laws had begun - and like the tenth Egyptian plague, this exceeded all the commercial evils which had ever visited this once happy country.

"This machine produced a new epoch in our manufactures. One boy or girl was able to perform as much work as several handloom weavers - immense numbers, in consequence, were thrown out of employment. The handLoom manufacturers were forced to reduce their wages, that they might be able to meet their rivals in the market. Reduction followed reduction until at this time, our wages are 80 to 90 percent less than they were 20 to 25 years ago.

"The power loom has done incalculable injury to the country - it has forced thousands to the workhouse - the land has been taxed to support them - rents have consequently risen - and, we venture to assert, that three fourths of that opposition which has been manifested towards any alteration in the Corn Laws may be traced to the Power Loom, and the recent improvements in machinery, as its parents."

www.cottontimes.co.uk...

The workers on the ninth floor, however, were not as fortunate. The flames had raced upward and enveloped most of the ninth floor, where most of he additional 300 workers were struggling to escape from the rapidly igniting piles of cotton fabric. At first the women stampeded to the east stairway, but it was an impassable tower of flame. They then raced to get to the west-end stairway and passenger elevators, but the door was locked, and the elevator was slow in coming to their aid. The frantic women began to hurl themselves down the elevator shaft and out the ninth-floor windows, all of them falling to their death. In addition, those seeking to escape by the rear fire escape were killed when the structure collapsed under their collective weight.

By that time, fire rescue teams had arrived, but their life nets simply ripped apart when struck by the force of three or four bodies at once. Moreover, their ladders were useless, extending only to the sixth floor, and the stream of water from their hoses reached only the seventh floor.

www.deathreference.com...

and why were the doors locked??

"Most of the exit doors were kept locked to enforce worker discipline, and fire protection was confined to twenty-seven buckets of water and a single fire escape."



ahhh...yes, the good ole days, when you could hire kids, lock them in your factories, and pay them a pittance of a wage....the women and children who died in the fire traded their lives for a mere $6 a week.

but, of course, changing these horrible conditions ruined our lovely utopia!!!

you really need to read a history book!

Originally posted by zappafan1

Originally posted by dawnstar
I'm a generation after than one.....I remember cokes costing 5 cents a bottle, and order of french fries, good one, made fresh from real potatoes, 25 cents. a loaf of bread, I think was around 10 cents. a buck would buy you a bag of candy that would last for days!!! $10 dollars bought more back then.

REPLY: Ah yes......... and what were the wages?

my mother was a bartender, my father a taxi driver who had a portion of his check sent to children from his first wife. we manage to live, even managed to buy a house on that....so, I guess is was sufficient. oh, by the way, another thing I remember about back then the professional doctor lived in the same neighborhood as the taxi driver or bartender and their children were best friends....there wasn't as much of an unequal distribution of money!!

[edit on 28-7-2006 by dawnstar]

Yes, true, dawnstar. I used to find such imbalances in certain third world countries, not expecting to see it here.
My father never worked at a union job but acknowledged that the only reason he got a pension and benefits was because other workers who were unionized got them. In fact, he got "profit sharing" every year; I suppose now the owner of the company would be labeled a socialist, as if that were somehow Unamerican.

Originally posted by zappafan1
REPLY: You are absolutely correct; [the World War II generation did] indeed start the ball rolling in the direction of Socialist Capitolism and unions. America has suffered ever since; and I doubt we'll ever get that cat back into the bag.

America has suffered far less since then than before, in terms of economics anyway. That transition has done nothing but benefit our economy.

I am as grateful to that generation for the changes they made in the American economy as I am for their sacrifice and victory in a dreadful war that had to be won, if not more so. My own generation seriously butted heads with them back in the '60s and '70s, so that the term "generation gap" was coined to describe the conflict. But that was over changes that needed to be made in the country's culture and values -- our strong point, their weak one. When it comes to managing economics and politics, the institutions that make a nation run smoothly and provide for its collective well being, they have no living adult peers, and are sorely missed now that they have almost all retired from public life.

May the young people who are being raised to replace them continue to show similar virtues, as they are beginning to do, and as none of the generations between -- mine included -- have done.

the institutions that .... provide for its collective well being....."

REPLY: A somewhat noble idea, but it's not governments job to do this, and is against everything that made this country great. The socialist programs instituted since Roosevelt have done nothing but hurt the economy. Last year, over $550 Billion dollars went to Health and Human Services, and is the largest expense of our taxes..... more than military, education, etc. We're not getting our monies worth from the money spent on education, bit that's another issue.

by Two Steps Forward:

No, that's not how pricing works in most industries.

I can guaratee you that most all businesses who provide goods and services fold their taxes, and the costs of complying with the tax code, into the costs of those goods and services.

I wish to point out that in ordinary and common usage of the English language, reading propaganda tracts does not constitute "research."

REPLY: It would appear that, although educated, whatever you read pertaining to economics would fit into the category you mentioned above.

The bottom line here: government must provide certain services, and must levy taxes for the purpose. There is no free lunch. SOMEBODY is going to have to pay.

REPLY: The use of the Fair Tax would cover all of the (Socialist) services the government currently provides, at the same time allowing more of what someone earns to stay in their own pocket. And no, there has never been anything like it used in this country.

Claims that this will boost the economy are based on supply-side economic theory, which history shows to be incorrect.

REPLY: Actually, history shows that to be totally wrong, as it's worked every single time it's been used. Where did you get your education on economics? More recently, since the implementation of Bushs's tax rate reductions, since 2003.... less than three years, the size of Americas economy has increased just over 20% .... how much is that? .... $2.2 TRILLION dollars. To put that into perspective, that is an amount of wealth roughly the same size as the entire Chinese economy!

In the 2 1/2 years before the rate reduction were put into place, economic growth in America averaged 1.1% each year. In the time since the 2003 tax cuts, it has averaged 4% Per year. In the first quarter of this year it was right at 5%. During the same time period, overall individual GDP has risen 7.8%, and 5.3 Million new jobs have been added to the economy. Unemployment in early 2003 was 6.1%. This year, it's 4.6%. In the past year, across-the-board pay increases have been 4%.

Incomes are up too: The amount of people earning over 50K per year rose from 40.8% to 44.2%. Recently the dems have raged that "we're losing the middle class". Why???? Because they're getting richer, and moving into the higher class. The income of the top 10% of earners has actually DROPPED because they're paying more taxes.

Federal tax receipts are up 13% to 15%.... heading towards 20%. Remember when the GAO and the Dems screamed that reducing the Capital Gains Tax from 20% to 15% would "break the bank"? Reducing the tax rate to "The Rich" has resulted in an increase of revenue to the government of 79%. Cutting the Dividend Tax Rate from 39.6% to 15% resulted in increased dividend tax receipts of 35%.

Tax rate cuts work, and they work for everyone. For the average worker, for companies and corporations, and even for the government.

You might take a look at the graph I linked earlier in regard to economic growth pre- and post-FDR. Just in case you would like a reality check.

REPLY: The graph was all well and good for some, but it can't stand against the actual numbers as shown above, and every time the tax rates were reduced.

Originally posted by dawnstar

"Lowest depths of poverty"

For the region's 7,000 unemployed, of course, it was far worse. "Thousands who were once possessed of an honest independence gained by laborious industry, are now sunk in the lowest depths of poverty," said Lancaster's letter.

A terrible, unfortunate incident. But back on topic please???

zappafan1

Do you have some links or citations for those figures?

Originally posted by zappafan1

the institutions that .... provide for its collective well being....."

REPLY: A somewhat noble idea, but it's not governments job to do this

I disagree. That is EXACTLY government's job, which is why I used the word "collective." What isn't government's job, except in a few cases, is to provide for someone's individual well-being. But:

What is an army for, if not to provide safety from invasion, and so provide for the collective well-being?

What are highways for, if not to facilitate travel and commerce, and so provide for the collective well-being?

Ditto currency, ditto regulation of commerce, ditto enforcement of law, ditto protection of property rights, ditto protection of civil liberties. All of these are government's job, and all of them provide for the collective well-being.

[edit on 28-7-2006 by Two Steps Forward]

Originally posted by Two Steps Forward
What are highways for, if not to facilitate travel and commerce, and so provide for the collective well-being?

Here in New Mexico, streets and highways are for fixing, transportation be damned. If you don't use up those federal highway dollars, then they cut your allocation. We have the best streets here in ABQ that I have seen anywhere, but they don't do us any good, because whereever you go the streets are torn up and traffic is backed up for miles. The term "yellow barrel" is local joke that needs no elaboration. So much for "public convenience."

Originally posted by zappafan1
I can guaratee you that most all businesses who provide goods and services fold their taxes, and the costs of complying with the tax code, into the costs of those goods and services.

It is true that prices are never set lower than the cost of production, including all these factors. It is NOT true that when one of these factors is increase, the price will increase by the same amount -- unless, of course, the increase is such as to make the price less than cost of production. And that is rarely the case.

The use of the Fair Tax would cover all of the (Socialist) services the government currently provides, at the same time allowing more of what someone earns to stay in their own pocket.

As we are already running a deficit, that is quite impossible. Unless, that is, what it does is to allow more of what SOME people earn to stay in their pockets, and raise OTHER people's taxes to compensate. Which, in fact, is what it would do.

And no, there has never been anything like it used in this country.

It may never have been duplicated in exact detail, but to say that nothing LIKE it -- a tax burden that falls primarily on the middle class -- has ever been done, is false.

Actually, history shows that to be totally wrong, as it's worked every single time it's been used.

It was used during the entire industrialized history of the U.S. until the 1930s. That is the history to which I'm referring. Things have been better since the '30s than they were before it, consistently. The growth rate in per capita GDP has been several times larger, the recessions have been milder and the booms boomier, and standards of living for almost everyone have been higher.

What you are doing is making micro-observations of minute fluctuations in policy since that massive change in how we run things, and trying to draw conclusions from this. But the basic American economic policy was established during the Great Depression, and everything since has been no more than tinkering around the fringes. Comparing either of them to Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan and Lyndon B. Johnson could be identical twins, politically. It is only if one limits oneself to considering the postwar period that they look different from each other.

The type of policy you are advocating was in place in the pre-Depression period. It has not existed since then. There is no need to go into convolutions of theory, or attempt to draw conclusions from hesitant and partial attempts to return to what we once had. All you have to do, is look at conditions that obtained when what you are advocating was in force, and compare them to those that have obtained since it was abandoned.

Everything you have said in response has compared one part of the postwar period to another. If you want to respond to my argument, you need to compare the pre-Depression period with the postwar period. As you have not done that, you have not responded, and none of your "figures" has anything to say.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Here in New Mexico, streets and highways are for fixing, transportation be damned.

Yes. Well, just because government is supposed to serve the common well-being doesn't guarantee it will always do a good job, more's the pity.

Originally posted by zappafan1
Where did you get your education on economics?

Just FYI, Zappafan, I have a policy of not responding to ad hominem questions or comments such as this one.

Where I got my economic education makes no difference and is none of your business. Perhaps I graduated from an Ivy League school. Perhaps I am the CFO of a major corporation. Perhaps I was Secretary of Commerce under Clinton. Perhaps I am entirely self-educated in the subject.

Any of those could be true as far as you know, the truth or falsehood of none of them will change my expressed economic views, and really questions like that have no place in this discussion.

I can't stop you from asking them, but I certainly will not answer.

[edit on 28-7-2006 by Two Steps Forward]

[edit on 28-7-2006 by Two Steps Forward]

Originally posted by zappafan1
Where did you get your education on economics?

I see this more as a rhetorical question.

Originally posted by Two Steps Forward
...I have a policy of not responding to ad hominem questions or comments such as this one.

Such a question doesn't really require an answer, but sharing the source of one's knowledge never hurts, in my opinion.


[edit on 2006/7/28 by GradyPhilpott]

by Two Steps Forward:

I disagree. That is EXACTLY government's job, which is why I used the word "collective." What isn't government's job, except in a few cases, is to provide for someone's individual well-being.

REPLY: I hate to say it (but glad it's true): there is no "right" to an education, or welfare, or a house, or healthcare, or a job, etc, etc. The entire idea of a "nanny state" borders on Communism. The things entioned above are against everything that made this country great, and all the ideals it was founded upon.

Personal responsibility has almost gone by the wayside because of all the people shouting ME ME ME ME, who "feel" they're entitled to the profits of someone else's hard work merely because he/she exists.

posted by GradyPhilpott: Do you have some links or citations for those figures?

Hi Grady: What I posted was somewhat of a summation from two different sources, both of which I heard on the radio. The first link, below, details much of what I posted, and the 2nd link backs it up. As for the rest of the info, I'm going to try and find a source link right now.

[link] www.opinionjournal.com...


[link] opinionjournal.com...

[link] www.opinionjournal.com...

I'm still looking for the other one....

I FOUND IT!!!! [link] www.realclearpolitics.com...

By the way, our "massive" deficit, it's currently 2.3% of GDP, quite manageable, and just happens to be the 50 years average; no biggie!

[edit on 28-7-2006 by zappafan1]

[edit on 28-7-2006 by zappafan1]

by Two Steps Forward:

Just FYI, Zappafan, I have a policy of not responding to ad hominem questions or comments such as this one.

REPLY: Long day, and I somewhat apologise. However, it does make a difference as it could indicate where you get your opinions from. I wasn't being sarcastic or vitriolic.

an interesting point should be made....

this country wasn't so great UNTIL AFTER the great depression and world war 2!!! maybe it was the policies of my father's generation that made it great??

I mean, I wonder just what our GDP would be if there was no road system, never were any unions, no workers rights, an average wage of $6 a week, over half the population illiterate because of the lack of schools and besides, you need your kids out there earning their $6 dollars a week in order to live.

And, I also wonder just what our current GDP would be if....
credit wasn't so freely given and the interest rate wasn't kept so low, which has lead to a housing boom that's about doubled the value of houses in the past 6 or so years. what would it be if our government wasn't so eager to help every tom, dick, or harry with a half-arsed business plan regardless of weather or not the plan will work? what would it be if a significant portion of our population wasn't literally given money to spend through the social services benefits? and just what would it be if the government actually had to function on a monetary system where the dollar actually had a set value, like the gold system.

for some reason, I don't think the GDP would be as impressive then.

by the way, my previous post was on topic. you must of just missed it. ya see, before industrialization, alot of telanted people, including women, made decent living using their talent...they were artisans and craftsmen. Industrialization displaced these people and society was faced with the challenge of how to deal with the poor (long before my father's generation). and taxes were already being levied to help meet their needs.....(long before my father's generation). Labor unions are just the modern day version of the guilds of the earlier time.

a century later, a person can make many, many more peices of sellable goods than these artisans and craftsmen did, and yet, can't even come close to earning a livable wage. why is that? and we are struggling even more to help meet the needs of the poor, and industrialization have found a new crop of labor to exploit for their profits overseas. maybe it's time we stop struggling to just help the people, and address the true problem. that industrialization doesn't require people with specialized skills, it just requires people, which are a dime a dozen, and therefore industry doesn't value them. like I keep saying industry needs living breething people to do these jobs, the should be paying enough to keep them living and breething. if they can't see fit to do this, or if society can't bear to pay a little extra for them , well, I would prefer they just pull the social service programs all together. then employers can just sit by and twiddle their thumbs while their living breething employees become non-breething dead bodies for all I care, and the rest of society can just have to face the ugliness that such blatant direspect for others naturally brings.

by dawnstar:

This country wasn't so great UNTIL AFTER the great depression and world war 2!!! maybe it was the policies of my father's generation that made it great??

REPLY: This is totally your opinion, not factual, and goes against historical record.

"...living breething employees become non-breething dead bodies...."

REPLY: Could you please supply links with photos showing all the bread lines you must believe are consuming much of Americas real estate? Also, if people were dying because of them being on the minimum wage, I'm sure we'd have heard about it by now. The rest of what you wrote, though time consuming, is totally irrelevant.

Funny...... about 45% of those working for minimum wage are living in households with an income of over $65,000 per year.

Back on topic, it appears Chicago has now become another over-arching governmental force upon private business, and claims that the "box stores" must pay a minimum wage of $9.25 per hour, plus $3.00 per hour in perks. Maryland found such a law to be invalid, but it must not matter to Chicago.

So, that's effectively $12.25 for a job that is probably worth maybe $7.00. Figure in all the extra costs to the employer, and that's around $20.00 per hour. If it is allowed to stand, I'm fairly sure it will have the same results as has happened eveywhere else; higher prices, fewer employees, and other store who once wanted to open stores in the area will not do so, resulting in fewer job opportunities. Another example of what always happens: "Liberalism always generates the exact opposite of it's stated intent."






[edit on 29-7-2006 by zappafan1]