Instead of raising minimum wage, we should lower it! Here's why...

reply to post by MountainEnigma

You're also forgetting what I mentioned above. It has to do with the amount and strength of the dollar, and the cost of the resources in relation to the dollar. So if the purchasing value of the dollar drops by half, the cost of resources and overhead doubles, and so does the cost to the customer.

ColCurious

Your vital need for food (demand) doesn't really decline until you're dead (starved).
And what about all the "non-elitist-corporate"-producers in the food industry?
Middle class and small businesses can hardly compete with the predatory prices of big corporations as it is... you want them to starve too?
Lower wages are not the solution... higher purchasing power overall (via lower taxation) is.

ETA:
I forgot to say I'm not a fan of statutory minimum wages at all.

edit on 25-12-2013 by ColCurious because: (no reason given)

Exactly the opposite...I want the middle class and the small businessman to thrive as they once did in this country. I would prefer to see the lower class begin spending their hard-earned dollars with small business rather than the Wal-marts of America. But, Wal-mart already has a stranglehold on this economy, simply because we can't afford to shop anywhere else and no one can offer the prices they do. And yet, they employ 1% of all Americans at a measly average wage of $11.75 an hour. Here's an article from 2010 about whether Walmart is a problem to our economy or not.

Walmart employs 1% of Americans, should it be forced to pay more?

an astounding 44 million Americans live in poverty, This is the highest number ever and a jump of 4 million from the prior year.
Inequality in the country is getting ever more extreme: The richest 1% of the country owns a third of the country's assets and the poorer 50% owns less than 2.5%.
Well-paid manufacturing jobs are getting shipped overseas. Unemployment is 10%. Real wages are stagnant. Job security is a relic of the past. The "middle class" is disappearing. Americans who want to work are often forced to take poorly paid "McJobs" in the service industry that no one aspires to, that don't produce anything, and that won't lead anywhere.
Meanwhile, one of the world's largest corporations is still on a roll.
Walmart's global sales crossed $400 billion last year. Its profits exceeded $15 billion. Its market value--$200 billion--has weathered the Great Recession and market crash and remains near all-time highs.
Walmart employs an astounding 2.1 million people. In the United States alone, the company employs 1.4 million people. This is a staggering 1% of the U.S.'s 140 million working population.
Walmart, in other words, matters. Its payrolls, and its pay, move the needle.
And right now, many people argue, Walmart is very much part of the problem.
The average Walmart "associate," Wake Up Walmart reports, makes $11.75 an hour. That's $20,744 per year. Those wages are slightly below the national average for retail employees, which is $12.04 an hour. They also produce annual earnings that, in a one-earner household, are below the $22,000 poverty line.

Youre wrong
period

reply to post by MountainEnigma

All this stuff has been lobbied in by corporate money to their personal advantage, and against the best interest of the actual majority. So until someone up there removes those laws, nothing will get better, and it will most likely get MUCH MUCH worse.

reply to post by defcon5


Alright then.
Maybe this is an issue of translation? The term "corporate tax" applies for taxation of businesses regardless of size where I live.

defcon5
These big corps are the scum of the earth, IMHO, and until someone stands up to them, nothing will get better.

I say let an army of small/middle class businesses stand up to them (in a fair fight) and you will have better products for affordable prices.

Kali74
The cost of living isn't really tied to the minimum wage but to the value of the dollar. Raising the minimum wage would have very little effect on the cost of living if "job creators" were to be honest about it, which they wouldn't. But people would rather say that the working poor are greedy than say the bosses are greedy.

I realize that the minimum wage isn't the cost of living indicator, but to make my point I had to use it. I realize that the average median household income would tend to say things are okay...it rose to $40,000 from $10,000 in 1980, but that's simply an average. In reality, the average only rose because the upper class increased their earnings while the lower class still works for wages more relevant to the minimum wage. Also, in order for the median household income to raise, most families have to both work and bring in an income. The average individual income for most folks wouldn't even come close to this $40,000 mark.

reply to post by Rezlooper


You got a firm grasp on the problem, but lowering the minimum wage doesn't work as it will not stop or even slow inflation. However resetting the minimum wage to where it should be and then tying it to the grow with the rate of inflation will. And the reason it will is because if the cost gets passed to consumers the wage will automatically go up. The reason we are in this mess is largely because the minimum wage was not tied to the rate of inflation and requires an act of congress to change it, the corporate lobby having the influence it does actively wages war against the working class to keep congress from increasing it.

reply to post by Rezlooper

Rezlooper
I want the middle class and the small businessman to thrive as they once did in this country. I would prefer to see the lower class begin spending their hard-earned dollars with small business rather than the Wal-marts of America.

And I proposed a way to get there... is it me or is everybody just reading my posts wrong?!
(serious question because I had alooooot of Weihnachtspunsch!)

ImaFungi
Youre wrong
period

That's all you have to offer to the conversation? And I bet you speak from a lot of experience on how the other side lives, right?

Oops! double post.

ColCurious
reply to post by Rezlooper

 

Rezlooper
I want the middle class and the small businessman to thrive as they once did in this country. I would prefer to see the lower class begin spending their hard-earned dollars with small business rather than the Wal-marts of America.

And I proposed a way to get there... is it me or is everybody just reading my posts wrong?!
(serious question because I had alooooot of Weihnachtspunsch!)

edit on 25-12-2013 by ColCurious because: (no reason given)

No, I got ya.

reply to post by Rezlooper

Rezlooper
No, I got ya.

More Punsch then!!

reply to post by defcon5


Will have to ponder that just a bit. It seems the value of the dollar changes on a whim - because of what people perceive about the dollar from foreign countries/federal reserve/international regulatory/etc. I say seems. Just like how oil and stock market prices fluctuate because of perceived issues in the middle east. The Market anticipates potential issues with product quantities because of problems in the ME, so they adjust prices ahead of the final outcome. Each time they do that, prices go up, so more often than not, it is the consumers that are losing out and NOT the companies because they raised prices in anticipation of problems, but may not have had any problems.

If confidence in the US dollar diminishes and does not allow us to purchase the same amount of product for the same price, then that is a cost out side of the particular company I was trying to give an example about - external costs fluctuations.

However, if our government could pay their bills on time and keep confidence in our products, there hopefully should be less fluctation in the value of the US dollar.

I'm not confident in this administration to change their own socks, let alone pay the bills on time.

ColCurious
reply to post by Rezlooper

 

OR...
reduce corporate tax rates and abolish VAT for basic goods = more people can be employed, get payed better AND can actually afford the goods they need for their money = create real aggregate demand AND a higher average QoL in the process.

What the hell planet do you live on?

This has been tried over and over again. Giving corporate tax breaks does NOT increase their employment rates. They just shove more money in their own pockets and continue employing the same amount of people.

Take a step into reality.

Your suggestion is about 20 years out of date.

"Trickle down" economics is bullsh%&! at best. It doesn't work.

reply to post by defcon5


Yeah, I'm against corporate lobbying also, but what can we do to stop the lobbyists? Right now, it is not against the law to lobby the government. What would be the potential downside of removing lobbying from the process?

MountainEnigma
Will have to ponder that just a bit. It seems the value of the dollar changes on a whim - because of what people perceive about the dollar from foreign countries/federal reserve/international regulatory/etc.

There are a number of things that effect its value, but the biggest is the number of them in circulation.

MountainEnigma
Just like how oil and stock market prices fluctuate because of perceived issues in the middle east. The Market anticipates potential issues with product quantities because of problems in the ME, so they adjust prices ahead of the final outcome. Each time they do that, prices go up, so more often than not, it is the consumers that are losing out and NOT the companies because they raised prices in anticipation of problems, but may not have had any problems.

I believe that OPEC sets the price per barrel each year, the “fluctuations” are a result of oil speculators playing with the commodities market. Any product that is sold as a commodity can be subject to those same fluctuations as its bought, sold, and held in the market. Why does the price of gas go up every holiday? Is it because OPEC increases the price at the time of year, or is it because investors expect that the commodities price will go up do to increased market demand at that time of year?

reply to post by TheRegal

TheRegal
What the hell planet do you live on?

This has been tried over and over again. Giving corporate tax breaks does NOT increase their employment rates. They just shove more money in their own pockets and continue employing the same amount of people.

Take a step into reality.

Your suggestion is about 20 years out of date.

"Trickle down" economics is bullsh%&! at best. It doesn't work.

It does work on the planet I live on... if it's applied also for honest, small/medium-sized firms, owned and passed down through families, instead of solely for huge corporations that know no responsibilities.

reply to post by MountainEnigma

The supreme court ruled that corporations have the same right to “lobby” that all citizens do. What they failed to take into account is that a corporation is made up of citizens, and thus the owners get their personal say, plus their corporations say. Then add to that the fact that the corporation has assets in excess of what any individual citizen has, and thus has millions of times the weight behind their lobby efforts.

To be honest, it needs to be relabeled to exactly what it is, bribery, and made illegal. How do we go about doing that? Get the supreme court ruling overturned for one thing.

reply to post by defcon5


Yes, number of them in circulation - big problem - but so does the change in status due to potential default on government loans with creditors such as China.

And I have seen yearly fluctuations around holidays and summer because the oil companies anticipate an increase in demand, but I have also seen daily 20 cent fluctuations for no apparent reason except there was a change in the war in the middle east or something similar. They suddenly increase prices by 20 cents / gallon in anticipation of something that has not happened, but never give that money back to the consumers.

reply to post by Rezlooper

I’ve always been very conservative in my view points. I’ve always been a capitalist. I always held true to the idea that those who work hard and hold on to the dream will succeed

Meritocracy has nothing to do with capitalism, well, ...beyond the idea that the best psychopath wins in the end. In any case there is very few areas where meritocracy is applied just because people work their hardest to be optimal, the largest returns for the least effort, and being the best (or the leader) is ultimately a fools errand (the top dude is the first to have its head off
).

Should we raise the minimum wage (...). No. I believe we should lower it. You’re laughing right now because how crazy this sounds,(---).

Yes it is crazy...

I agree with the general conclusion about how the system works but not that your logic is sane, if so we would have 20 international space stations. Reduction of wages is not a guarantee of lower costs, what you are doing is lowering demand and so production. For someone that states he is a capitalist you do not seem to understand how capital works. It has to do with predicted returns, sadly money may not be used only for production (it is even not the highest returning investment, from a pure capitalistic view). Why do you thing we are at war with the banks, It is not because they invest in production...