Obama to raise the Min. wage... WILL THIS WORK? (video)

This will further the plunge with small businesses. They are already struggling with Uhbuhma care, and he knows that this is another nail in the coffin.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by CALGARIAN

 

You need to CAP profits not increase wages. I think capping yearly earnings at $150,000 a year would create a great trickle down effect.

If you prevent gross wage abuse of empoyees and price gouging then all those massive profits that line the bank accounts will have to go elsewhere. Money is the blood of the economy and right now its clotting because rich people just want to get richer for no other reason than greed.

So people who have created a demand for themselves and get compensated for it in excess of $150,000 shouldn't see more? I am aghast at such a notion. Sure there are people who make gross amounts of what some may think "why?" and there are some who benefit from shady deals. Those people should be targeted and not some blanket governmental decree that people cannot exchange their labor/talent for just compensation at the whim of citizenry that is angry/jealous they don't have the means of.

Maybe we should just have the government set all wages, prices and what we can keep because many here believe it would cure the world.

Originally posted by CALGARIAN

Look for next years Dictionary to have this Video under the Definition of Stupid.
Nothing he said is even close to the Truth.
For those of you who think eliminating the Min Wage is the right Path, just ask yourself 2 questions.

Will people with More Disposable Income be able to Buy more Goods and Services?

Is More People Buying More Goods and Services good for the Economy?

Originally posted by IndieA
Raising the minimum wage would only hurt everyone earning above those wages because those people would not see a raise. Next you would get inflation, hurting us all, due to the price of goods going up to cover the increase in wages for the unskilled jobs.

That is an incorrect assumption.

The people earning minimum wage spend the majority of their money every month. This means that
those same people will be interjecting a larger amount of capital into the economy, capital that will be
recaptured by business.

Originally posted by defcon5

The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

Maybe I'm just old fashion, but my old man owned and ran a large manufacturing plant when I was a kid. The plant was having a hard time competing. To keep his employees working, paid, and with benefits, he went with no salary for years while working there.

That's not how these businessmen/owners are today, at least not in my experience. Lets look at this Stewart Parnell guy from PCA, he's a LOT more akin to the employers I have known in the modern world. Especially in the south where the government has less oversight, like all these businesses want.

He's employing 90 people at slave wages working in third-world conditions, I'm sure he's not paying any benefits, not paying upkeep on his facilities (roofs leaking, broker windows etc), not paying maintenance on his equipment, obviously not paying for cleaning, not paying to keep his licenses up, not paying for required testing, hes buying scrap peanuts from central/south America, His main office is a garage behind his house (aka no overhead), and he only has like 4 or 5 executives/managers, yet he's making $30million a year and crying that “he's going broke”... WTF!!!

Where's the damn $30million/year going to?

The fact is that all these guys think that because they are business owners that they are entitled to the lifestyle of “Bill Gates”, and the moment they aren't getting it, they are whining that its “not enough”, “I'm going broke”, “cut corners or we'll have to start beating the employees”... “What do you mean the employees are passing out from heat... Tell them that's why they call it a sweatshop... Air conditioning costs money, and I'm broke because our corporate Lear jet is in the shop getting the engines upgraded, and you know I need that for my upcoming business trip to Jamaica... What are these employees going to gouge us for next... Clean water, a lunch break, what?”...etc...

I've seen it over and over down here in the south...
You guys that want to pull all the oversight from corporations, need to take a good look at this as an example. It does not matter how much these guys make, they always have an excuse to cry, beg, and straight out steal more.

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.

There isn't much thought, humanity or decency in the core of those ideas. These "conservative" folk
forget that what is "good" actually helps to beget more good in the world. I find it unsavory to have the
entire world, and life itself based purely upon money. If that is not the most corrupt thing to build a world
view upon, I don't know what is. Somehow we are supposed to believe that everything on this Earth
costs money, when it was all sitting here free for the totality of history. 10,000 years ago, humans used
to be born with everything, boundless resources, now we are charged rent to live on our own planet.

I own a very small business and I make sure my employee is always taken care of, before myself.
I think that is right, and I know my employee will work three times as hard because he knows how
I do things.

I true...fasten your seatbelts for an upcoming inflation of the mighty dolla..

reply to post by ownbestenemy


They didnt create the demand.... the demand always existed.

If they dont fill that demand then someone else will. Reducing profits doesnt prevent anything other than greed being a motivation.

Originally posted by IndieA
Raising the minimum wage would only hurt everyone earning above those wages because those people would not see a raise. Next you would get inflation, hurting us all, due to the price of goods going up to cover the increase in wages for the unskilled jobs.

Hmm...
If businesses can just raise prices to make up for the increase in labor costs, why do they have to wait until labor costs increase, and can't just raise the prices right now, and keep the money as profits?
Could it be that prices are already as high as the market will bear? (That's what I try to get when I sell something, dont you?)

As the OP said the minimum wage should be 21.75/hr, it never kept up with inflation. One of the few things that Obama said during the State of the Union that I actually liked, was tying the minimum wage to the cost of living. That is probably more along the lines of what needs to happen, which is why of course, it won't. My only concern is that small businesses won't be able to do that, so maybe there needs to be exemptions for businesses that have smaller profit margins.

There's other things too though that we need to look at, I'm sure many people saw the huge article in the recent issue of Time, that talked about the cost of health care, mainly the cost of medical equipment. The cost of health insurance could be brought way down if gauze pads didn't cost 77 dollars or an aspirin 200 dollars.

Things never should have gotten this out of control, if the income gap hadn't reached such ridiculous levels in the 1st place we might not be in as large of a mess as we are now. There's no way that a company who pays it's CEO upwards of 10 million a year, should have a single employee paid below the cost of living.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by CALGARIAN

 

You need to CAP profits not increase wages. I think capping yearly earnings at $150,000 a year would create a great trickle down effect.

If you prevent gross wage abuse of empoyees and price gouging then all those massive profits that line the bank accounts will have to go elsewhere. Money is the blood of the economy and right now its clotting because rich people just want to get richer for no other reason than greed.

Really? Let's see how that floats in Hollywood, Professional Sports, Entertainment, and those getting rich on Federal govt. wages....

reply to post by CALGARIAN


Here's what happens...

Raise the minimum wage and businesses raise the cost of products and services to cover their expense. This counts as inflation. So, every time you raise the wage, the cost of living goes up to offset the imbalance.

The only way to counter this is to set price limits. Many administrations have tried this and in each instance, the effort was a failure, leading to layoffs as business adjusted expenses by reducing the workforce.

reply to post by CALGARIAN


Op, raising the minimum wage has never helped a single person, it has though hurt quite a lot of people over the years.

For example, I think a lot of of the college degree holders are forgetting is one very essential thing here. For the most part, college educated folks onlyb consider college education as a sign of intelligence, and consider anyone without a degree to be unskilled, which is stupid.

How many of you college types can fix your own car? Or build your house? How about driving a forktruck?

All 3 of my examples require a certain amount of skill, much more than flipping a burger at mikydeez. Yet I had to get out of the automotive trade, as I am not ASE certified, which nowadays means that a kid from lincoln tech that knows dick and cant even properly change oil, is now more " skilled" than I am, even though. I been doing this since birth.

Or how about construction? I cant do it anymore either, as it pays nothing anymore, as the mexicans will do the job half as well as I did for half the price. So you get china made walmart goods instead a proper built home, which is going to require much maintenance and repair over the years, as it was not correctly constructed, because the contractor you went through okly cares about his bottom line, not building your home correctly.

Fork truck drivers now get paid as much or less than the fast food places, back in the day, they were paid over 2 times the amount that minimum waged required.

The list goes on and on, every time they raise the minimum wage, they dont pull a single person out of poverty, instead they lower those that were above the poverty line down to it.

When I started working at 16, MW was $4.25 an hour, meaning anyone making $8.00 was making almost 2 times the poverty level wages. Fast forward a few years, theyraised MW to $7.25 an hour, now all those folks that were almost 2 timez above the poverty line are now at it, and now considered to be skilless workers, even though most people cant do the job, as it requires skill, and honestly most dont have any actual skills, even with a college education. All they have is a piece of paper saying that they are certified capable of using a calculator to do math, so now they deserve to make $80, 000 a year, even though everyone on earth can do the same thing. Which is the problem, since when did the only thing that denotes skill become wether or not your family had enough money to pay for your education?

Honestly, I cant be the only person here that has met and knows several of these "highly skilled" idiots, that need a calculator to do math that most of us do in our heads. Yet somehow, they are considered "skilled" and valuable, despite the fact your average fastfood wrker could do their job without any training.

The world needs to readjust its priorities. Any job important enough to need someone to do it, is important enough to pay the person doing it a fair livable wage, otherwise the job cant need to be done that bad, as if it were important, it would pay like it was.

Originally posted by redoubt
Here's what happens...

Raise the minimum wage and businesses raise the cost of products and services to cover their expense. This counts as inflation. So, every time you raise the wage, the cost of living goes up to offset the imbalance.

Umm No.
Inflation is caused by too many dollars chasing the same number of goods.

Can we put our heads together and find out "who' has been putting more Dollars into the System?

Starts with a F , cmon , heres another hint , has a D at the end of it , and a vowel in the middle.

reply to post by Tw0Sides


In response to your post about people making more being better, look at mexico, most folks make millions of pesos a year, they are not doing well, more is not better, when the ability of each unit is decreased proportionally.

Is it better to make $1.00 a year or $1, 000?

Trick question, the answer is, how much buying power does each unit have? An american dollar has a lot more buying power than one thousand pesos . So in this example it would be a lot better to make a single dollar than a thousand pesos.

40 years ago $5 was enough to fill your tank, or eat out several times, now $5 is about a gallon of gas and a fountain soda.

It is far more important to factor the ability of each unit to purchase goods and services, than it is to factor the amount of units.

When they raise the minimum wage, business adjusts their prices, making the buying power of each dollar less, offsetting the raise for the poor. So they make the same amount of buying power as before, they simply have to use more units for the same purchase that before took less.

As I have shown, there is not now, nor has there ever been a benefit to those on the bottom, by raising the minimum wage, it only makes those above it have less purchasing power, thus brining them down to the poverty level, not raising those in poverty out of it.

Originally posted by inverslyproportional

As I have shown, there is not now, nor has there ever been a benefit to those on the bottom, by raising the minimum wage, it only makes those above it have less purchasing power, thus brining them down to the poverty level, not raising those in poverty out of it.

The key word you used in your summation sentence was Purchasing Power.

Inflation averaging between 2-3% is eating into the Purchasing Power of the Min Wagers as well as those "above it".
Those people earning the Min Wage have no buffer to stop a slide from being working poor, to working slavery.
Obama has said he wants to tie the Min Wage to the cost of Inflation, with that done, there will be no further need to Raise the Min Wage.

Originally posted by Tw0Sides
]Umm No.
Inflation is caused by too many dollars chasing the same number of goods.

Can we put our heads together and find out "who' has been putting more Dollars into the System?

Starts with a F , cmon , heres another hint , has a D at the end of it , and a vowel in the middle.

Um, yes, lol.

I didn't say that this was the ONLY form of inflation but it is ONE form of it and certainly has that effect.

As for the smartassery, I'll step aside and let it pass. There's a million websites where finding civil dialogue is impossible. I don't come to ATS to play in the political bicker cesspool.

Thanks for the reply

Originally posted by redoubt

I didn't say that this was the ONLY form of inflation but it is ONE form of it and certainly has that effect.
Thanks for the reply

Well it was the only form of inflation you mentioned, I corrected you because I, and Many others, truly believe Inflation will Skyrocket soon, and this Min Raise will be a Minor, very minor impact on that.
No need to thank for the reply friend, its an open forum, and yes ,,I can be an Ass.

Hey, there is a surprise bonus, too!

The Unions will get as much as a 40% increase in pay! Isn't that great!

You see, Union wages are directly linked to minimum wage. Obama doesn't want to help minimum wage earners, he wants to give his Union buddies a raise.

6% of the workforce earns minimum wage.

12% of the workforce is Union.

Of that 12%, about 90% is federal employees.

Most unions, including SEIU, have contracts linked to minimum wage, for every 1.50 minimum wage goes up, Union workers get as much as 5.75 an hour increase.

Minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage, it was meant to be for teens in highschool to get a job for spending money, or to learn how to work. It was designed for seniors to supplement Social Security without losing it.

Increasing minimum wage will hurt working seniors, either causing them to quit and lose supplemental income, or earn over the threshold, and lose Social Security benefits.

Who, exactly, is Obama trying to help here? He just wants to give the illusion it is for the low wage earners, but who really benefits in the end? The guys already making 75.00 an hour, or a Senior trying to earn money for their power bill?

Originally posted by redoubt
reply to post by CALGARIAN

 

Here's what happens...

Raise the minimum wage and businesses raise the cost of products and services to cover their expense. This counts as inflation. So, every time you raise the wage, the cost of living goes up to offset the imbalance.

And again:
Why do businesses have to wait until labor costs increase to increase prices?
If they can get more $ for their stuff right now, why don't they do so to maximize profits?