Repeal minimum wage says the Grouch

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Las Vegas had an argument about repealing minimum wage back in February.
The debate went no where.
Now the tunnels under the city are filled with homeless.

Maybe the Chamber of Commerce isn't everyone favorite body, but in this case
it is possible that they were actually concerned for the unemployed.


David Grouchy

Samuel McMullen, representing the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, argued that a minimum wage shouldn't be locked into the constitution. "Let the people take it out and manage it on a case-by-case basis," he said.

lasvegassun.com/ bill seeks reapeal nevadas 825 minimum wage

(edit All I'm saying is that the individual couldn't do much worse that the institutions and criminal penalties we have in place. Employers are terrified of jail time if someone gets paid the wrong amount. In my experience if the boss didn't have to fear the government so much they could spend more time taking care of their people.

Maybe I am an optamist after all.

reply to post by dreamseeker


Yep. Your right.. Not sure if you were being sarcastic. Hope you were not.

Originally posted by davidgrouchy
Las Vegas had an argument about repealing minimum wage back in February.
The debate went no where.
Now the tunnels under the city are filled with homeless.

Maybe the Chamber of Commerce isn't everyone favorite body, but in this case
it is possible that they were actually concerned for the unemployed.

David Grouchy

It's the unskilled and unemployed who get hurt in all this minimum wage business. Minimum wage laws sound real good when you're not living on the street.

reply to post by Nosred


With all those casinoes how could they have the highest unemployment rate? Wow. I am shocked.

reply to post by Nosred

And instead of sitting back and collecting unemployment, you can actually go out and find a job and contribute (even a low paying job is better than nothing at all).

You keep repeating this nonsensical mantra ad nauseum, but it is just not true. If a low paying job is suppressing a persons living condition, and forcing that person to work more hours than their physical body can comfortably handle, it follows that they are not truly "contributing" much at all and nothing at all would at least give them some needed time and rest to reevaluate their life strategies.

Earlier you quoted Ayn Rand, but I wonder just how much you understand about her philosophy. While John Galt worked on the rails for Taggert Transcontinental, and it was never made clear how much he was paid to work for Taggert Transcontinental, it is fairly presumed he was paid a might better than just a little, but even if it was a little, it really didn't matter to Galt who owned Galt Gulch and started his own damn economy. John Galt was clearly well off, as was all the other protagonists of Atlas Shrugged.

Howard Roarke in the Fountainhead found himself out of business with his architecture business and wound up working in a quarry for a while, but again, it is doubtful that Roarke was earning just a little, and most certainly doubtful he would have accepted just a little.

Ayn Rand never advocated that people work for a paltry amount of money so they can "contribute". Ayn Rand advocated we all flourish and prosper, and that ain't gonna happen for the poor souls who take your advise of working for just a little, rather than nothing.

While I am a huge fan of Ayn Rand, she and I part ways on our perception of Eastern philosophies. She apparently thought that Zen was translated literally to mean "no thought". I can understand how this translation would rankle her, but Zen does no mean "no thought", but more correctly is translated into meaning "the way of the small thought", which is to say an intense focus.

Anyway, my point with Eastern philosophy is that one of its tenets, in the Tao, is to leave the cup empty so it can be filled. A cup filled with tea cannot be filled with more tea, so it becomes necessary to empty the cup if you want another cup of tea.

In Western thought, what that means is that doing nothing can be better than doing a whole lot for very little.

Another Taoist thought:

One conquers the world by not conquering it

Another Taoist thought:

Remain undisturbed

A man, or woman, working hard for very little is more than likely working for jerk, and under such conditions it is more than likely very difficult to remain undisturbed. Better to do nothing and remain undisturbed than to waste your life making someone else wealthy while you toil away in life fully disturbed.

All people have the right to do what they can to lawfully flourish and prosper. Working hard for very little will not - by any stretch of the imagination - lead to flourishing and prospering.

Originally posted by ldyserenity
reply to post by Nosred

 

With all those casinoes how could they have the highest unemployment rate? Wow. I am shocked.

It's like that everywhere, casinos or no. That's why we have this "Unemployment crisis" you keep hearing about. If you've ever been to a big city anywhere and seen a woman lying on the street in rags because she can't get a job, I somehow doubt you'd be saying the same things you are now. The only people minimum wage laws help are the people who are already wealthy.

I wonder if taxes would go down, income taxes that is. Would they still have the same tax laws meaning if you bought in $3.00 per hour they still take all that federal tax out regardless? See you need to remember, the illegals get paid under the table so what they gross is what they get with out minimum wage laws we could be making $3.00 / hr and still paying ten percent of that. That would be like $108/week that's a little over $400 a month that is ridonculous!

Ayn Rand never advocated that people work for a paltry amount of money so they can "contribute". Ayn Rand advocated we all flourish and prosper, and that ain't gonna happen for the poor souls who take your advise of working for just a little, rather than nothing.

I'm not the one saying that people will be earning a paltry amount of money. If an unskilled and uneducated man wants to find a job and is willing to accept low pay then that is his right and it is his right to determine what is a fair wage for the job he is performing; if an employer wants to pay lower wages that is his right as well, but he has to be aware that if his wages aren't fair he will lose high quality workers to competitors who are willing to pay more. If you aren't being payed enough for what you do, either demand more money or find a job elsewhere.

Minimum wage laws violate the rights of both the employee and the employer by stripping both of their freedoms to determine what is a fair wage.


Edit: Also Taggart and Roarke were not unskilled workers, which was kind of the point.


Edit: Also the unskilled are not working just to "contribute" they're working to support themselves, so the skilled don't have to.

Originally posted by davidgrouchy
(edit

All I'm saying is that the individual couldn't do much worse that the institutions and criminal penalties we have in place. Employers are terrified of jail time if someone gets paid the wrong amount. In my experience if the boss didn't have to fear the government so much they could spend more time taking care of their people.

Maybe I am an optamist after all.

edit on 1-8-2011 by davidgrouchy because: (no reason given)

I don't think you're an optimist, now you're just asking for miracles. These are the people poisoning some areas of the world some of those areas already in a bad state to begin with. And you think they give a rat's a about taking care of anyone? You were kidding, right?

Originally posted by Nosred

Ayn Rand never advocated that people work for a paltry amount of money so they can "contribute". Ayn Rand advocated we all flourish and prosper, and that ain't gonna happen for the poor souls who take your advise of working for just a little, rather than nothing.

I'm not the one saying that people will be earning a paltry amount of money. If an unskilled and uneducated man wants to find a job and is willing to accept low pay then that is his right and it is his right to determine what is a fair wage for the job he is performing; if an employer wants to pay lower wages that is his right as well, but he has to be aware that if his wages aren't fair he will lose high quality workers to competitors who are willing to pay more.

Minimum wage laws violate the rights of both the employee and the employer by stripping both of their freedoms to determine what is a fair wage.

The last time you made that point in this thread, I starred that post. I will not, however, go along with your nonsensical assertion that earning a little is better than earning nothing at all.

As you have said, if people want to buy into that crap, it is their right, as imprudent as exercising that right may be, but if they are working hard for very little simply because they were convinced by people like you that this is better than doing nothing at all, then it is my right to argue otherwise.

My craft, my skill, lie in the words I string together. Sometimes the market will only bear a little, and at these points I have to decide, do I want to work hard for little or do I want to work hard for more? Like Roarke, I would rather work in a quarry - that really doesn't require much skill at all but commands a might better than a little - rather than agree to write for people who place little value on my effort.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
The last time you made that point in this thread, I starred that post. I will not, however, go along with your nonsensical assertion that earning a little is better than earning nothing at all.

You're arguing semantics here. I'll put it this way, if you're so unproductive that you're not worth much to the people offering money for your work then it's better to have the legal option of a job than to have your work outlawed because its value is below an arbitrary legal minimum.

That better?

Originally posted by brilab45
reply to post by dreamseeker

 

Yep. Your right.. Not sure if you were being sarcastic. Hope you were not.

Not one bit. Meant every word I said.

Originally posted by Nosred

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
The last time you made that point in this thread, I starred that post. I will not, however, go along with your nonsensical assertion that earning a little is better than earning nothing at all.

You're arguing semantics here. I'll put it this way, if you're so unproductive that you're not worth much to the people offering money for your work then it's better to have the legal option of a job than to have your work outlawed because its value is below an arbitrary legal minimum.

That better?

No it is not better. First of all, I am not arguing semantics, I am arguing that you are flat out wrong and you have only demonstrated that wrongheadeness in your last post. Let's break it down, shall we?

If someone is so unproductive that they're not worth much, who the hell benefits by employing them? Seriously? Business is not in the business of providing jobs, and history certainly doesn't chronicle captains of industry simply because they provided jobs. Business is in the business of supply and demand.

Supply and demand is the bottom line here. If I have a demand for my supply to the point that I can longer meet that demand by doing it on my own, then I will have to find other people to help me carry this load. My clients do not want unproductive laborers as some sort of pretense at meeting that demand. They just want their demand met, and really do not care how I meet it as much as they care it is met.

Let's take the restaurant business as an example. If I have a demand for the food I serve in this restaurant, that demand was created by the quality of food and service I provided. This means, if I am working the front end of the restaurant, that someone is in the kitchen making the food. That someone is a skilled employee of mine and worth more than just a little. If the restaurant has developed to the point where this chef needs a sous chef to help meet the demand, that sous chef is also a skilled employee worth more than just a little. If this restaurant has such a demand that my chef also needs a saucier and someone making salads and petite fours, that person is also a skilled person who deserves more than just a little. Of course, the salad and petite four cook is not nearly as skilled as the saucier, sous chef and chef, and each command different wages, but all command more than just a little.

Lower down the ranks, I need someone to wash the dishes. This is an unskilled job, but a job that is hard and thankless and only a fool would try to pay that dishwasher less than minimum wage. Further, the smart restauranteur promoted his last dishwasher up to salads and petite fours, promoted the salads and petite fours man up to saucier and so on. The smart restauranteur does this because a good sous chef working under a great chef is smart enough to know that if that chef is happy where he is, that sous chef will not be the next chef of the restaurant anytime soon. So that smart sous chef has used his job at my restaurant to springboard into a chefs job at another restaurant...unless, of course, I expand and open a second location, where then I would make this sous chef the chef of the second location.

My point is this, as that restauranteur, it is just not at all in my best interest to hire unproductive unskilled people just to save a few bucks. I may give an unskilled person a shot as a dish washer to see what he does with this and how quickly he picks up the skill of salads and petite fours, but if this guy, or gal, only seems interested in remaining an unskilled unproductive person, even their job as dish washer will be sub par, and not in my business' best interest.

Perhaps some might call such thinking visionary, but I think it is just plain common sense.

No sir, you have not improved your so called "semantic" argument much at all. You are strangely defending low pay as being a right, while not at all acknowledging that these people also have the right to flourish and prosper. You are oddly defending peoples right to be unproductive low skilled workers, rather than acknowledging that they also have the right to be highly productive skilled professionals.

Most disturbingly is the gross emphasis, by far too many in this thread, on jobs altogether. Not everyone wants to have their own business, I understand this, but if we have a nation of employees, with a handful of employers, this is not good news at all. Sadly, this is the state of affairs we are heading towards, and like yesterday.

I agree that the government has no lawful authority to intervene in contracts made between people in business. The difference between you and I, it seems, is that where you want to advocate peoples rights to be unskilled unproductive employees, I advocate that every person has withing them gifts and talents, and if they work these gifts and talents, skills that should place them in a position to negotiate a contract worth far more than just a little...even if it is just washing dishes to start.

This is not semantics. There is huge ideological rift between you and I, and that rift lies somewhere in the field of how many will and should flourish and prosper. I would suggest that it is the moral duty of each and everyone of us to flourish and prosper, which makes your vile advise of working for very little better than doing nothing at all something else altogether.

The last thing people want to do, while finding ways to flourish and prosper, is be out back taking the trash out when opportunity knocks. If they are working hard for very little, chances are they will never hear the knock of opportunity. It is better then, to do nothing until they can secure something of worth.

That is not semantics, we apparently, just do not agree on this.

It's too late. Once you add something like this into the law there's no taking it back because people get used to it.

Originally posted by 547000
It's too late. Once you add something like this into the law there's no taking it back because people get used to it.

I agree. There does seem to be a lot more tied up in the minimum wage laws than just what is written on paper. It seems to be tied up in world view, philosophy, and sense of identity as a citizen. I figured this law was deeply entrenched and would meet no small measure of resistance to remove. But I had no idea how strong the positions around this issue were.

This thread has been very illuminating for me.

Thank you everyone who participated.


David Grouchy

They did this in Latin America once: Didn't turn out so good.

Strange that in 5 pages of debate, not once was the sensible alternative mentioned.

In a 'globalized' world labor standards for the home country but not for imported goods make little sense...so you either repeal them...or have a tariff.

Tariff...is it a dirty word now? ~Five pages and nobody has even said it once.

The last 30 years have proven that not all protection of the home economy is nonsensical 'protectionism.' Pretty much every major economy that has prospered has exploited the US move towards free trade by increasing exports to the US while maintaining protection for their own industries and more importantly, their own accepted standard of living. China did it with rock bottom wages, but Germany has done it while protecting their standards of what is acceptable compensation.

Guess what this economic system is called? The American School.

Yep, it's the one that made the USA so prosperous to begin with. While I agree it is important to avoid letting home industry run amok with irrational, greedy protectionism, it should be clear that things are currently too far out of whack in the other direction.

A tariff for labor standards is essential if those standards are supposed to mean anything in a globalized world.

The same goes for environmental quality standards. There is little sense in 'exporting pollution' when there is really only one atmosphere and one ocean. Environmental tariffs would help ensure that the world develops in an environmentally friendly way. We wouldn't be at a competitive disadvantage because we've demanded clean air and clean water.

Oh but guess what...those tariffs would be illegal because of the WTO.

As for the effect of repealing the minimum wage...

Nominal prices are not real prices. The overall end result of inflation vs deflation is not necessarily all that different. But nominal prices do matter. How will people in debt ever pay that debt working for $2 an hour? How will any consumer driven business survive?

Repealing the minimum wage would be something you might dream of if you had a mountain of cash and you wanted it to become extremely valuable so you could buy up assets for next to nothing. And it's kind of already happening in some places, like the people buying houses/land in Detroit for next to nothing.

reply to post by davidgrouchy


Not according to your theory no!
Take it or leave it.

Originally posted by GeorgiaGirl
reply to post by davidgrouchy

 

In theory, wages would adjust to the market. If people were willing to work for low wages, they could. If not, they simply would not take those jobs.

Economists disagree on the effects of minimum wages. Some argue that minimum wages increase unemployment (for many reasons: one being the fact that higher minimum wages result in more people being willing to accept these jobs at the higher rate; therefore, more people are competing for them. Another reason, it is argued, is that employers, who have to pay more for labor, simply employ fewer workers to cut costs.)

Others argue that we must have minimum wages to prevent the kind of "sweatshops" that exist in parts of the world today, and used to exist here in America.

Since even economists do not agree, I can only give what is my personal opinion based on what I have learned and seen. I think that it's possible we might be better off without minimum wage laws. I think the government does too much regulating. I know many will disagree with me, because you think that government's job is to protect us (although there will be some who agree!) The reason I think we'd be better off is that people who start off at minimum wage and work hard....good, reliable workers... generally receive raises and are promoted (I think of my own experiences working in fast food in high school.) If the place were a sweatshop, you wouldn't see that.

The latest analysis of the affect of the minimum wage over here in the UK is that it increased employment! I'll now try and find the research so I can post it up. I do remember that one line conclusion because it silenced the anti minimum wage supporters over here.

I'm sorry for sounding really stupid, but some words I'm just not familiar with. Maybe because I'm from Europe, originally. But what does this "repeal" mean?? Does it mean to lower the minimum wage, or increase it?