Living Wage Bernie Pays His Employees $12/hr

[Andylusion]

How much is "enough to be worth their trip"? In a free market system, we can determine that by the fact people agree to take the job at a given wage. If the wage is too low, people don't take the job. If the wage is too high, employers simply won't employ people. As a result, the natural system will move the wage to the "enough to be worth their trip" level.

But you propose to enforce a wage at the Federal level for "intern". How would the Federal government know what that wage is? If they set it too high, no one get's an intern job, and if they set it to low, no one takes the intern job.

You think some government official is going to know what is the affordable wage in jobs across 50 states, from rural to urban, in low cost of living to high cost of living areas? Of course not. Only the free market can find out those wages across all areas.

. You attribute alot in my name in your post, so are you using me as a platform for your ranting maybe ? I was talking about a musician that may have been sent to the studio lets say for a training session, and how I could pitch in and help if the person needed a little help.. Now what you created out of that was quite interesting..

Your comments seemed more general than that. "If a person works 8 hours they should be given minimum wage IMHO" and "Not sure why it is acceptable to have people train or work for nothing" and "if they are sent by a college or educational department to a location or job market for training, then I think agreements should be made prior that would assist the student in doing so"

That seemed like a wider scope than what you suggest now. But ok....

I would say the same basic economic principals still apply either way. The fact is, there are some internships, which are not worth minimum wage. A great example would be the dealership I worked at. The dealership used to have 3 open apprenticeship positions.

Now they have none. Reason? Too costly. When you join an apprenticeship to be a mechanic, the dealership is effectively paying you to break cars, until you don't break them anymore. They not only have to pay you a wage to break cars, but then pay the experienced mechanic to fix what you break.

When the Min-wage was low, they could afford to do this. But now that it's $8/hr in Ohio, can't afford it. Thus no apprenticeship program.

. Break cars ? Wow. One would think it would be based upon helping to fix cars that come in broken... Hmmm

If they already knew how to fix them, then they wouldn't be in an apprenticeship position. They would be hired as a mechanic.

I worked as an apprentice. That's how I know. I broke every car I touched, which is why I'm not a mechanic now. And I asked my employer about this, and that is literally why they stopped doing the apprenticeship. Too expensive now to pay someone to break cars.

. So your position is training should be free?

Doesn't matter what it should be. I don't base my life on how things 'ought' to be. People that do that will be miserable and angry their whole lives.

Nothing in life is for free. Someone has to pay the rich, to provide those services, or those services are not provided.

The best solution, is to lower the minimum wage, so that companies are willing to pay people, to be trained.

This allows people to not only be trained, but also get paid, and job experience.

Job experience is almost as vital. I know an engineer who after getting his degree, couldn't get a job. No one would hire him, because he had never worked for anyone, anywhere, doing anything. He told me that one company said "so you have never worked anywhere, not even McDonald's?" and they did not hire him.

The fact is, no amount of training in the world, provides you with real skills.

But... if you want to go the free-training route, then there are several things you need to know. First... **YOU** are going to pay for it. You are going to cause higher and higher taxes on yourself, and your family, and everyone.

Second, you are going to pay those higher taxes for people who will spend your money and quit. The research I've seen from Tennessee, suggests that just a tad under 50% of all state sponsored student grants, go to students which quit before getting their degree.

You want to pay for those people? When I worked at McDonald's, my manager had a degree in Architecture. But she was working for an hourly wage, as a shift manager at McDonald's. Why? I asked her what the heck was up with that. Even as a high schooler, I thought she was nutz.

"well I want a job that was more flexible, and I could spend more time with my kids".

You want to be the one that pays for her 'training'? Even though she is using that expensive degree to flip burgers, so she can "spend more time with the kids".

By the way, this is also why women earn less money. It's not sexism, or discrimination. All of that is made up myth.

I'll even take myself as an example. I went to college three times, and failed out three times. I simply couldn't do the work. Now, I paid for it. $100 a month, for several years, paid all my bills.

You want to pay for people like me? And by the way, if provide training for free, there will likely be a ton more people taking the training and quitting. After all.... what's the downside? Worst possible result is, I quit, or fail, or get the degree and decide I don't like it. What's the down side? It doesn't cost me anything, because YOU paid for it.

And then what happens next time we have a recession, and like the UK, simply don't have the money? Then people get mad and riot in the streets. You get to pay higher taxes, and have the people you paid the higher taxes too, destroy your town, and you get to pay taxes to fix everything they broke, being so 'grateful' to you for paying for their education in the first place.

Now if that's really what you want... ok. Go for it. Just understand, they will hate you for it, and you'll pay higher taxes for it.