We reached a milestone this year... in 1974, the minimum wage was 2 bucks per hour. The average inflation per year has been 4.13 percent since then. That means, if the wage kept up with inflation, it'd be 15.13 today. So considering that I've always said our minimum wage should be the same as the 1970s, after all these years my position is officially that the minimum wage should be 15 bucks.
I've finally officially accepted that the minimum wage should be 15 bucks an hour
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@n8nrgim
you should also consider some things that are not included as "inflation". Housing being the primary example. In 1974, a median priced home cost about 3.7 times the median income. So if you could somehow put 100% of your income into paying for your home, you could pay it off in less than 4 years. Today this about 7.6 times and still climbing.
Because houses are treated as an investment, this isn't included in inflation statistics. Someone earning 15 dollars an hour probably would never be able to own a home. Maybe somewhere super rural they could. 15 dollars an hour still wouldn't be enough for someone to chase the american dream of owning a home.
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@HistoryBuff
a year ago bernie sanders said he thought 17 an hour was a good idea, or maybe more. i actually thought that by now he'd want it to be a lot higher, given in 2016 he thought 15 was good. i wonder what his current thought is?
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@HistoryBuff
i often associate you with bernie sanders type of voters, is why i make the points in the last post .
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@n8nrgim
Which will cause more inflation.after all these years my position is officially that the minimum wage should be 15 bucks.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Why stop at 15? Surely there are no drawbacks to giving the poor money through wage price fixing....
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Yes it will cause inflation, but it will disproprtionately help those in minimum wage territory, which is the point. Some conservatives say increasing the minimum wage is pointless cause inflation will offset it... but that's irrational. The only way a wage increase would be pointless is if everyone's wage was increased artificially.
My theory is that if the minimum wages of the past was good enough for our country and the country still prospered, it's good enough for us now too at that rate. Notice I'm basing it on past precedent, not arbitrarily picking a number that I like.
A decent wage is good for those workers and stimulates our economy and overall job growth, even if some businesses cant handle it. Lowering our minimum would be bad for stimulating our economy and bad for overall job growth. Its counterintuitive to say lowering the wage is bad for job growth... but the masses of people r stuck down there, and their aggregate effect effects business output and thus jobs. Some businessess will expoit our working class if the wage is lowered and gain us some jobs, but the overall effect is bad for our ecomomy. We need a balance and past precedent is the best way to make that determination.
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@Greyparrot
See my last post on why I don't arbitrarily say the minimum should be 25 or whatever
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@n8nrgim
it will disproprtionately help those in minimum wage territory, which is the point.
It will not. It will simply render them jobless, then they will go on welfare; which will reduce production leading to a universal loss of buying power.
My theory is that if the minimum wages of the past was good enough for our country and the country still prospered, it's good enough for us now too at that rate.
That theory can be applied to smokers and alcoholics.
"I'm not dead yet" isn't a sufficient argument when there are many factors and degrees.
Notice I'm basing it on past precedent, not arbitrarily picking a number that I like.
It doesn't matter. No matter the number the increase over the natural price creates more poverty than it alleviates.
A decent wage is good for those workers and stimulates our economy and overall job growth
I repeat GP's question. If high wages increase job growth and "stimulate" the economy, why not set it at $5000/hour? What is your understanding of the detriment?
We need a balance and past precedent is the best way to make that determination.
If your ship is flooding at a constant rate, you're in balance of a sort; but you're not really balanced in the way you need to be. Past threats against employees and employers has led to the current problem (inflation) through the increasing poverty and the increasing welfare and government spending that is used to justify.
A differential equation is solved by exponential functions, and when you scale the amount of bad-causing things by that amount of bad you have exponential growth of bad.
That is what you are suggesting and we've seen it happen in a dozen countries already. The collapse is exponential, you can just look at the inflation charts. This is what your balance looks like:
Venezuela never tried to mandate luxury. That is the result of trying to mandate a basic quality of life.
We can all live well, but NOT BY DOING THIS.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
You are doing good at showing me the theories that say a wage increase is bad. I showed my theories that say a balance is needed, cause no minimum wage is exploitative plus also bad for our economy. I can't say for sure what the best wage set should be, just that it seems that there should be one, and that past precedent shows what has worked before. You r just arguing theory... I'm arguing theory plus using past precedent. Your theory lacks real world application, it's just theory. Which is a recurring issue that always arises with libertarianism. (That is, back to the idea that there r no successful libertarian countries) so that should be said too... minimum wage is standard in the developed world too.
Plus supply and demand determines prices, not wages primarily. Mcdonalds sells things for 2 dollars cause that's where it maximizes profit. To some extent, wages affect prices, but its predominately supply and demand. And if u look at the industry standards, walmart and mcdonalds, they're already starting around 14 an hour. This is all within current territory anyway is what I'm getting at. Making it 15 is just setting the floor, setting a standard.
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@n8nrgim
How about 24 then. Surely that is a safe point to fix a price.
Clearly anyone opposing minimum wage simply hates welfare for the poor.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Also I googled it, and only 12 percent of the workforce makes less than 15 right now. Maybe I'm wrong and 15 isn't the sweet spot, but paying 12 percent of workers more isn't going to break the market, it's just giving a raise to the bottom and those toward the bottom. Plus I'd rather 10 get paid decent with two unemployed than for all 12 to be expoited
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@Greyparrot
Again I'm arguing past precedent. U on the other hand r just being ridiculous
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@n8nrgim
Thinking 24 dollars an hour is wageflation is ridiculous.
a better argument you guys could make is that instead of fifteen, it should be closer to the average wage historically. or the average wage internationally. or the maximum wage internationally, which is closer to 14. of course, this would require you to accept that there should be a wage to begin with, instead of just being outside of civilized society and arguing there should be no minimum wage. there are other ways to argue for you guys, better ways, but instead ya'll are just being weak AF.
If you accept $15.00 an hour as a wage, it probably costs the company $30.00 an hour just to have you work there with all the shit you fuck up.
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@n8nrgim
a year ago bernie sanders said he thought 17 an hour was a good idea, or maybe more. i actually thought that by now he'd want it to be a lot higher, given in 2016 he thought 15 was good. i wonder what his current thought is?
yeah, this is kind of the problem with national minimum wage. It doesn't make alot of sense. The amount of money you need to live in new york is very different the amount of money you need to live in a small town. The cost of living is drastically different. So forcing them to have the same minimum wage is silly. No matter what you set it at, it will almost certainly be too high in some areas and too low in others.
It would probably be a better system if you could tie it to something more local.
i often associate you with bernie sanders type of voters, is why i make the points in the last post .
this is probably fair. I agree with him about alot of stuff.
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@n8nrgim
You are doing good at showing me the theories that say a wage increase is bad.
Artificial wage increases (which may or may not be realized since nobody is guaranteed a job), because all fixed prices are either forcing people to 'trade' or threatening them with force if they do trade.
cause no minimum wage is exploitative plus also bad for our economy
That is not a given.
The proper check against unfairness is consent. If the worker doesn't think the wage is fair, then he or she doesn't need to work there. Fraudulent advertisement should be dealt with as fraud. Low balling can be dealt with by unionizing.
Life isn't fair, we need to eat, we get sick, we die. The question is not "what is fair" it is "which situation will most likely provide someone with options". The more we produce per person the more options there will be because we'll need to be less productive to attain a basic standard of living.
Maximize production, let people associate with whom they wish how they wish. That is what is good for our economy and our society.
just that it seems that there should be one
Can you do better than "it seems"?
past precedent shows what has worked before
No, it has shown us that minimum wages have existed before. Every prediction of my economic theory has come to pass. Things did get more expensive. Employment is repeatedly taken hits. It may not be possible to prove one cause from another, but it's not like anyone can prove a minimum wage helped more than it hurt by that same token.
Your theory lacks real world application, it's just theory.
Not threatening to jail people because one person is working for another person voluntarily is "just a theory"?
Plus supply and demand determines prices, not wages primarily.
Wages are the price of labor....
Labor is the primary factor in production which is a primary factor in supply....
And if u look at the industry standards, walmart and mcdonalds, they're already starting around 14 an hour.
Then why threaten them?
Making it 15 is just setting the floor, setting a standard.
Setting the price of a burger would be "setting a standard" too, and it would damage efficiency and create poverty too.
but paying 12 percent of workers more isn't going to break the market
12% sounds like an awful lot to be flippant about, but suppose it only hurts the market without breaking it. It still hurts the market and that means it hurts people.
Then you see more people struggling and you say "clearly $15 isn't enough to live on and we need more welfare because look at all these homeless people"
Plus I'd rather 10 get paid decent with two unemployed than for all 12 to be expoited
I'll break it down by category since you've had trouble with the intersection before:
Economic: Well great you prefer 12% to be unemployed than making slightly less than you think is fair, but now there are only 10 workers while there are still 12 mouths. Are you going to let the unemployed starve or are you going to steal from the 10 workers to feed the other two?
In that case you have just made the ten work harder for less rewards than if all twelve were working. Which means the effective wage (the buying power) of the 10 is still less than your so called minimum wage. You can see this easily by simply taking it to the extreme. Suppose you raised the wage to such a level that 11 of the 12 are unemployed.
Then you steal enough product from the one employee for the other 11... oh wait, one person can't produce enough for all 11 can they? So whatever number you come up with, you're rationing the product which means the one worker gets less for himself than he would if all twelve were working.
There is no peak of efficiency between full employment and almost no employment. It's just worse which means there is just no reason (economically) to prefer that some people are unemployed because of a minimum wage.
Moral: What you would rather see is irrelevant. What matters is that the employer and employee agree with each other. Your consent is not needed.
this would require you to accept that there should be a wage to begin with
What if that's false? Then it's not the better argument to make.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
You keep harping on the consent of the worker, but that doesn't remove exploitation, because if there's effectively unlimited labor or subpar workers, it's easy to take advantage. I know we're talking about minimum wage but this is especially true with fair trade globally.
You ask if I can do better than what it seems to be best to me. Neither of us can prove we're right, but I do have the history of the USA and the rest of the developed world who says minimum wage is good. I'm just sticking to what works and not allowing for your untested theory. If we had no minimum we know for a fact people would be expolited and we'd be outside of civilized society.
If mcdonalds sells something for 2 bucks, they r maximizing profit. They can't just ask for more money to make up for a minimum wage... they'd be forced to cut their workers in on profit. It is true that wages in aggregate can effect prices but only at the margins, not at the levels I'm proposing.
Not everyone can unionize etc.
I accept u have a point that paying decent 10 and having two unemployed could morally be argued with. I just disagree that it's worse, it's a principle. Plus if the wage works the way I hope then in the aggregate people won't lose their be unemployed to begin with. It might cause shifts in employment and the market tho
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@n8nrgim
You keep harping on the consent of the worker, but that doesn't remove exploitation, because if there's effectively unlimited labor or subpar workers, it's easy to take advantage.
Unless it's an artificial monopoly it is society which reaps the advantage including the workers.
If this is asymmetric that is the market sending a message: There are more laborers in this field than is efficient
Neither of us can prove we're right
but I come closer
I do have the history of the USA and the rest of the developed world who says minimum wage is good
No you don't. The history of the developed world exists in the shadow of socialism which starved 60 million people to death.
Just because something is common in a shared cultural context does not mean it's good.
I'm just sticking to what works
You have no reason to support it "working".
and not allowing for your untested theory.
My theory is tested by the same history as yours. It just makes better predictions.
If we had no minimum we know for a fact people would be expolited
We would know nothing of the sort until "exploited" was defined in an objectively and could be measured objectively.
we'd be outside of civilized society.
Maybe we're outside of civilized society now and we just don't know it.
If mcdonalds sells something for 2 bucks, they r maximizing profit. They can't just ask for more money to make up for a minimum wage... they'd be forced to cut their workers in on profit. It is true that wages in aggregate can effect prices but only at the margins, not at the levels I'm proposing.
What do you suppose McDonald's profits are? What if they respond to your minimum wage by automation?
could morally be argued with
...and practically....
it's a principle
The wrong principle. Your misguided notions about what is fair do not trump the liberty of employees and employers and you aren't even correct about it improving general quality of life even though that would be no excuse.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
i think your argument is somewhat formidable in the USA, at least to the point that maybe the minimum wage should be something like 10 bucks or what it is now.... just that we should have one i think is hard for you to argue against.
i suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. you did a good job arguing your case. you are a smart and capable and fun sparring partner. if we were arguing free v fair trade, i would be a lot more likely to insist on my ideas of fair trade, cause laissez faire free trade would necessarily lead to 'a race to the bottom' given that there is effectively an infinite labor pool globally.
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@n8nrgim
I'm really happy that we can see the experiment of the progressive Utopia, so people can see in real time what it is like to enact these policies. Same thing with Chicago, same thing with New York. We're able to see, it's not theoretical anymore... ....lo and behold it's a disaster.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
California thought 20 dollars as a fixed rate for labor was a good idea. You are right, the world is not a fair place, and forcing the creation of participation trophies by mandating wage prices for the least effort applied in a productive job only ensures nobody has an incentive to improve themselves. As that happens, you no longer have to wonder why the population naturally becomes fat, stupid, and unproductive.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
It's also baffling that those businesses were already suffering with Bidenflation, being forced to charge 15 dollars for a combo meal.... I guess they realized people wouldn't shop there anymore if they were forced to charge 20 dollars for a combo meal. Mandated wages only work if there is also mandated consumption. Cue the subsidies and tax theft....
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@Greyparrot
Yea, well the key insight is realizing that the people were struggling because combo meals were $15.It's also baffling that those businesses were already suffering with Bidenflation, being forced to charge 15 dollars for a combo meal.... I guess they realized people wouldn't shop there anymore if they were forced to charge 20 dollars for a combo meal. Mandated wages only work if there is also mandated consumption. Cue the subsidies and tax theft....
It's a vicious cycle. They react to increasing prices by doing things that reduce production leading to increasing prices.
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@n8nrgim
laissez faire free trade would necessarily lead to 'a race to the bottom' given that there is effectively an infinite labor pool globally.
Your argument that "laissez-faire free trade would inevitably result in a "race to the bottom" due to the presence of an infinite global labor pool"
is founded on a slew of false premises.
Free trade exploits comparative advantages, not workers. Every nation that has engaged in consenting trade has mutually benefited on a macro scale, and every consumer benefits on a micro scale due to the exploitation of comparative advantages.
The simplistic notion of the existence of an "infinite global labor pool" overlooks the role of supply and demand dynamics in labor markets. There is a demand and a supply for everything, including labor. Labor is never immune to the rules of economic scarcity. While there may be a large labor supply in certain regions, skills mismatches, and logistical constraints limit the mobility and interchangeability of labor on both a global and local scale, not to mention the fact that labor rarely has the most optimal skills for an existing local economic market at any given time. The cost of labor accordingly naturally varies wildly in different regions.
Furthermore, the concept of a "race to the bottom" assumes that countries will engage in a race to lower labor standards and wages in order to attract investment and remain competitive. This ignores the potential for countries to compete based on factors other than labor costs, such as innovation, infrastructure, and regulatory environment, all of which will affect the cost of labor. Countries with higher labor standards and wages still remain competitive mostly through productivity gains and technological advancements as they exploit their competitive advantage, and this happens because the workers themselves demand standards and wages, not the communist state. A race to bottom can only happen in a restricted market where no other comparative advantages are allowed to be exploited.
I really do get your concerns about a "race to the bottom," but the assertion that laissez-faire free trade necessarily leads to this outcome ignores the fact that in a competitive world where workers are free to choose, employers also have to compete for scarce QUALIFIED labor. Also, the ability of workers to freely choose their employment opportunities empowers them to negotiate for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. As competition for scarce qualified labor increases, employers are then incentivized to offer competitive compensation packages and also invest in employee development and retention. This is the free market dynamic that creates a cycle of upward pressure on wages and labor standards, so it actually creates a "race to the top" rather than a "race to the bottom."
Only in a heavily regulated environment where the unskilled workers have few choices (minimum wage job or no job for example) will you see a true race to the bottom, as ADOL correctly attributed to communism where all workers had few to no choices.
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@HistoryBuff
Someone earning 15 dollars an hour probably would never be able to own a home. Maybe somewhere super rural they could. 15 dollars an hour still wouldn't be enough for someone to chase the american dream of owning a home.
I believe that with the current inflated prices, you need to earn 6 figures to purchase a median priced home in many cities. Wage price fixing has the effect of raising all prices, including homes.
If you want to see lower prices, tell the government to stop stealing so much, stop regulating home production so much, stop limiting free choices about what people can do with their property, and start protecting private property rights again.
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@Greyparrot
I believe that with the current inflated prices, you need to earn 6 figures to purchase a median priced home in many cities.
That is definitely true.
10 days later
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@n8nrgim
Way to go genius. Next you be declaring you believe cigarette smoking is bad for your health.
If you want to see lower prices, tell the government to stop stealing so much, stop regulating home production so much
By government you mean local government. Not the Federal government or Joe Biden. But don’t MAGA MORONS like yourself blame Biden for the lack of affordable homes right now?