Obama wants to raise the minimum wage when we're on the verge of a second recession?

[Quantum Windbag]

all the studies show small raises in the minimum wage to not adversely effect unemployment

So does all the historical reality.

Wrong again.

Minimum Wage Increase Leads to Higher Teen Unemployment Rate - WSJ.com

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Post proof of a subsidy! A loan paid back with interest is not a subsidy.

I fail to see how the 'profitability' of these special favors has any bearing. Unless you are positing profit as the point of government - which I would argue vehemently against.

We're really in the midst of a transition from a liberal democracy, based on universal rights and rule of law, to a corporatist state, based on group-rights and rule by decree. Under the 'new normal', your rights depend on who you are, who you know or what group you belong to. If your business, or a business you've invested in, is "too big to fail" or simply well-connected in DC, you're more likely to get bailouts and exemptions. If not, too bad. If you belong to a class or group with an aggressive lobbying presence, your needs will be attended to. If not, too bad.

Equal protection isn't such a bad thing. We should reconsider it before leaping to the bottom of this ravine.

Why did the government take GM stock for collateral and sell it when it did?

Because there were a bunch of idiots in charge?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

You're claiming that more consumer spending in a slow economy is not good?

Not necessarily, no.

So it can be bad for consumer spending to pick up in a slow economy? How?

Because sometimes it is better if consumers save money, or pay down debt.

By the way, the last effort of the government to increase consumer spending actually resulted in consumers pay down their debt, which just made things worse under those circumstances.

 

[Bern80]

Not necessarily, no.

So it can be bad for consumer spending to pick up in a slow economy? How?

Because sometimes it is better if consumers save money, or pay down debt.

By the way, the last effort of the government to increase consumer spending actually resulted in consumers pay down their debt, which just made things worse under those circumstances.

Right. Because they did what most businesses did with their extra money. They hoarded it instead of spending it. They did this because the future was (and still is). Great they have more money now, but since they couldn't predict their expenses in the future because of Obama's lack of direction on taxes and government spending, they sat on it. When both businesses and consumers can safely predict their future taxes then they'll both start spending again.

 

[Political Junky]

Austerity hurt much of Europe. Now it's hurting Germany itself | Business | The Observer

Austerity hurt much of Europe. Now it's hurting Germany itself
At the end of last year, Berlin itself was affected by the slowdown that its rigid fiscal policies have done so much to foster. Now, it's said, Keynesian ideas may be taking hold even there
<more>

 

[Dubya]

I'm not a fool who doesn't know the difference between micro and macro economics. It's really this simple, if you are capable of thinking. Our market is only whatever size it is at a given time in history. When the populace loses purchasing power over time, it shrinks the market that entrepreneurs depend on. It should be obvious that many people work hard for a living and still don't get enough money to have decent lives. That means they can't do things like go to the ball park, go to the movies or simply live in ways that would bring down the prices of such activities. Why wouldn't it be nice if someone could paint and have a market for their paintings? How is keeping people poor benefiting me? Am I suppose to lord over my fellow citizens because I was lucky enough to earn money when the minimum wage was the highest and say **** you, I've got mine?

No one arguing that that wouldn't be nice or that our economy requires a population of people with certain level of purchasing power. What is being argued is who is supposed to be responsible for assuring they have that purchasing power. You contend someone else is supposed to ensure that for you. I contend that is your responsibility. Just because you choose to do something like under water basket weaving, doesn't mean there's going to be demand for it and it doesn't mean your entitled to money even if no body wants your crap. The growing entitlement mentality in this country has to stop. On some level you seem to claim that you want our society to be better. Simply giving people more money isn't going to make it better. It will make it worse because your subconciously teaching people providing for their own needs is not their responsibility. It's someone elses. Teaching people that they are entitled to at least enough to live on regardless of any effort on their own part doesn't make society better.

Take any business that hires minimum wage people! How much extra is it really going to cost a person to pay those people enough to live when they buy the products or services? Isn't someone paying for it, if they are allowed to collect substandard wages for their work and need social programs to make up the difference? Is it going to break anyone's bank if a buck double becomes a buck and a half double? It can't, because giving more money to the workers, who are now historically low in their purchasing power will create more business. If doing so causes manageable inflation, so what? A business has inventory that is valued at the price of cheaper labor, before the increase. If the price of labor increases, the amount of profit the business makes off of their inventory from the past increases with it. Increases in minimum wage can be and usually are scaled up over a period of time to not shock the economic system. Minimum wage should be scaled up to the point where 2000 hours per year is at the poverty level and should be adjusted so the cost of living keeps it constant. That should be the minimum standard for wages and it may be smarter to be above that standard, but it's stupid to be below that standard.

That simply isn't true. Wage increases don't occur in a vacuum. I gave the example of the North Dakota oil boom earlier. The state has almost no unemployment. You can get a job at McDonald starting at $11-$12/hr. well above what that pays anywhere else. But you know what? A Big Mac costs more there too.

This is why 'everyone should get to make at least enough to live on' doesn't work. When wages go up, cost of living goes up. You along with the rest of the libs to get that an economy can't function that way. It can not be the responsibility of an employer to ensure that you have enough to live on. Labor is a commodity. Like gas, like food, like cars, etc. The market establishes labors value through supply and demand for skills just like all other commodities. If you change that paradigm to the value of labor being derived from what a person needs to live on you set up a system where people don't need to be accountable to themselves for their outcomes. That doesn't do a society any favors when you teach people that. It also sets up unfairness in the work place. It would require that two employees possibly get paid entirely differently even though they do the same job. Not everyone's dollar figure for what is enough to live is going to be the same you know. It would take away merit incentives for doing your job well and going above and beyond as well. If my pay is based on what I need to live on and not the value of my skill or how well a perform that skill what's the point of working hard. Again your simply sending society the signal that someone else is responsible for their outcomes.

There is plenty of talk and little reason in what you wrote.

The cost of labor is only part of the cost of doing business and at some point wages will make up for the increase in price that an increase in wage will cause. There is also a factor that the increase in wages all an increase in the efficiency of doing business. A McDonalds can do twice the business without needing twice the labor force. Many businesses are not near their potential, because the public lacks the money to make the business highly profitable. In many businesses, the cost of labor is a minor percentage of the cost of doing business. All business aren't as labor intensive as fast food, but the point is if someone is buyng fast food they should be paying for it and the employee shouldn't be getting public assistance. If you want a burger, you pay for it.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Austerity hurt much of Europe. Now it's hurting Germany itself | Business | The Observer

Austerity hurt much of Europe. Now it's hurting Germany itself
At the end of last year, Berlin itself was affected by the slowdown that its rigid fiscal policies have done so much to foster. Now, it's said, Keynesian ideas may be taking hold even there
<more>

Austerity did not hurt Europe half as much as pretending they cut spending while massively increasing taxes.

 

[Political Junky]

Denmark Is Happiest Country, U.S. Misses Top 10 | LifesLittleMysteries.com

Denmark Is Happiest Country, U.S. Misses Top 10


A new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has found that Danish people are the happiest among those in the 40 countries that were studied. Depending on the happiness scale used, Americans rank somewhere between No. 12 and No. 19 in the results.
>

Highly taxed, the Danes are the happiest folks.

 

[Wiseacre]

Danes eat little fishies for breakfast, how happy can that be?

 

[Dubya]

Danes eat little fishies for breakfast, how happy can that be?

Are you saying their women smell better?

 

[Bern80]

There is plenty of talk and little reason in what you wrote.

There is no reason behind the notion that your employer be responsible for your well being more so then yourself.

The cost of labor is only part of the cost of doing business and at some point wages will make up for the increase in price that an increase in wage will cause. There is also a factor that the increase in wages all an increase in the efficiency of doing business. A McDonalds can do twice the business without needing twice the labor force. Many businesses are not near their potential, because the public lacks the money to make the business highly profitable. In many businesses, the cost of labor is a minor percentage of the cost of doing business. All business aren't as labor intensive as fast food, but the point is if someone is buyng fast food they should be paying for it and the employee shouldn't be getting public assistance. If you want a burger, you pay for it.

And you claim I'm the one that can't reason. I'm not making up what's going in North Dakota. What you claim happens when wages go up, mandated or market driven, simply isn't happening. And where is the reason of mandating a living wage that people don't need. Why unneccesarily burden businesses ability to do business? That's another thing your missing. Not everyone working a minimum wage job is doing so in an effort to make enough to live. They are teenagers or there just making supplemental income. What you're plan for them? Pay them less because they don't need it, then someone who does doing the same work? It is you people that don't have reasonable answers to my questions. Forget reasonable, you haven't given any answer to my question; How do you morally justify paying two equally skilled, equally merited employees do the same job, different salaries that your system would require? Why is labors position that they should get more compensation than they're getting have more objective merit than business' position to pay less than they're paying? It's you who can't reason bud, because you don't have the answers to those questions. Your position makes no logical sense and nor does it make any moral sense. It is in no way moral to insist that which you can provide for yourself is someone elses' responsibility, especially when that someone else had to provide for themselves first that which you think you are entitled to from them.

 

[jgarden]

Obama wants to raise the minimum wage when we're on the verge of a second recession?

Isn't the direct result of the Congressional Republican/Tea Party threats of allowing the country to go over the "fiscal cliff" and not raising the "debt ceiling" is to create a 2nd recession?

The last thing conservatives want is for the country to experience an economic recovery - when they're not in a position to lead it!

 

[Dubya]

There is plenty of talk and little reason in what you wrote.

There is no reason behind the notion that your employer be responsible for your well being more so then yourself.

The cost of labor is only part of the cost of doing business and at some point wages will make up for the increase in price that an increase in wage will cause. There is also a factor that the increase in wages all an increase in the efficiency of doing business. A McDonalds can do twice the business without needing twice the labor force. Many businesses are not near their potential, because the public lacks the money to make the business highly profitable. In many businesses, the cost of labor is a minor percentage of the cost of doing business. All business aren't as labor intensive as fast food, but the point is if someone is buyng fast food they should be paying for it and the employee shouldn't be getting public assistance. If you want a burger, you pay for it.

And you claim I'm the one that can't reason. I'm not making up what's going in North Dakota. What you claim happens when wages go up, mandated or market driven, simply isn't happening. And where is the reason of mandating a living wage that people don't need. Why unneccesarily burden businesses ability to do business? It is you people that don't have reasonable answers to my questions. Forget reasonable, you haven't given any answer to my question; How do you morally justify paying two equally skilled, equally merited employees do the same job, different salaries that your system would require? Why is labors position that they should get more compensation than they're getting have more objective merit than business' position to pay less than they're paying? It's you who can't reason bud, because you don't have the answers to those questions. Your position makes no logical sense and nor does it make any moral sense. It is in no way moral to insist that which you can provide for yourself is someone elses' responsibility, especially when that someone else had to provide for themselves first that which you think you are entitled to from them.

I don't take anecdotal boom town economic advice for the whole world's macro economics, because such things are the exceptions and not the norm. You are talking to someone who has been involved in investment and I know how to make money in a failing economy, just as I know how to make it in a prosperous one. If I want to make money, I don't need to know how good it will be, because I make my money knowing the direction of what an economy will be. I don't have a fortune to "invest" and it's put in quotations marks to point out that isn't investing in my country. Investing in your country means you don't take accumulated wealth and invest it in a sure win circumstance. It means you take your chances to find what tomorrow will bring and that's a great unknown. That's true investment and sometimes it fails and sometimes it doesn't. That's called capitalism and there are winners and losers when you put your capital up in primary investmens to make profit.

Show me the person who gives a **** in our society, if people in the past cared enough about society to give their fortunes away towards the last year of their lives.! Maybe they do try and try is just another name for fail, but I'd be damned if I had control of all that money and wasted it like they often do.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The state of Washington has a minimum wage of $9.19 and an unemployment rate of 7.6%, below the national average.

According to some of the arguments in this thread, WA should have the highest UE in the country.

Obviously those arguments are without merit.

 

[JoeB131]

What planet do you live on where you believe this to be a good idea?

Beyond that when I take on commercial work I often have to hire temporary help. Help that picks up debris or does simple meanial tasks. Definitely not worthy of the 20+ dollar an hour cost it would end up being going though a temp agency. I simply wouldnt hire while others would resort to illegal under the table practices.

Well, just because you're a poor businessman who pays his people crappy wages doesn't mean everyone else is.

We hear this song every time this subject comes up. "Oh, if you raise the minimum wage, employers will slash payrolls!"

Except it never happens.

 

[NYcarbineer]

all the studies show small raises in the minimum wage to not adversely effect unemployment

No they do not.

Raising the Minimum Wage Leads to Higher Unemployment: Amity Shlaes | Daily Ticker - Yahoo! Finance

lol. I love it when some nut posts a link with a title that says one thing, and then,

when you actually read the link, you get something like this:


"In terms of government “mandating” some of that corporate cash be spent on paying workers a higher minimum wage, the modern research on how that impacts employment is mixed."

 

[Bern80]

the whole world's macro economics, because such things are the exceptions and not the norm. You are talking to someone who has been involved in investment and I know how to make money in a failing economy, just as I know how to make it in a prosperous one. If I want to make money, I don't need to know how good it will be, because I make my money knowing the direction of what an economy will be. I don't have a fortune to "invest" and it's put in quotations marks to point out that isn't investing in my country. Investing in your country means you don't take accumulated wealth and invest it in a sure win circumstance. It means you take your chances to find what tomorrow will bring and that's a great unknown. That's true investment and sometimes it fails and sometimes it doesn't. That's called capitalism and there are winners and losers when you put your capital up in primary investmens to make profit.

Then prove it. Why are they the exception? What is the factor in play there that shows the market is not behaving the way it 'should'. Further all of you've done is claim it's an exception. You have yet to point to any real world examples that prove your point. As far as your 'investment' strategy goes, if that's what it is, your the last person I would take advice from because your advice is idiotic. No actual investor would do that. In fact, arguably the most successful investor says exactly the opposite. Warren Buffett has said investing is like baseball and a batter waiting for the perfect pitch to knock out of the park. The only difference is in investing you never have to swing. You don't 'swing' until condition are perfect, until you know you're going to hit a home run. Keep following your own advice, investing in a bunch of stuff you hope makes it instead of researching whether it actually will and you'll be broke. If you want to learn about true investing watch some educational television like Shark Tank. Please, please, please stop dispensing investment advice or telling people how it works because you are clearly clueless.

Show me the person who gives a **** in our society, if people in the past cared enough about society to give their fortunes away towards the last year of their lives.! Maybe they do try and try is just another name for fail, but I'd be damned if I had control of all that money and wasted it like they often do.

It's irrelevent. It's their money. You don't get a say in how the spend it. Wisely or unwisely.

 

[Bern80]

The state of Washington has a minimum wage of $9.19 and an unemployment rate of 7.6%, below the national average.

According to some of the arguments in this thread, WA should have the highest UE in the country.

Obviously those arguments are without merit.

If that is what you think then you haven't been listening very well. North Dakota minimum wage is $7.25/hr. Their unemployment rate is like 3%. Clearly your pattern doesn't hold and you are not able to grasp the fact that more than just what the minumum wage is plays into unemployment rates. Nor does the min wage have a large impact in total unemployment. What would have to be measured to determine the effect of the minumum wage is does the number of min wage jobs go up or down when there is a mandated min wage increase. In ND for example a min wage increase may no effect on unemployment rates because everyone already gets paid well more than that. In another place where there are a lot of min wage jobs you may see greater increases in unemployment.

 

[chikenwing]

If business responds by laying off workers, that means there will be fewer jobs, and potential employees will have to compete even harder for those jobs, and thus, they'll do more to get qualified. That means businesses will have a more talented pool to pick from HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! HOORAY OBAMA HAHAHAHAHAHA!

What kind of fucked up nonsense is that???!!!!!


Whooooo hooow this ones on a roll!!!

 

[dblack]

If business responds by laying off workers, that means there will be fewer jobs, and potential employees will have to compete even harder for those jobs, and thus, they'll do more to get qualified. That means businesses will have a more talented pool to pick from HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! HOORAY OBAMA HAHAHAHAHAHA!

There's truth to this. This part of why big corporations favor such policies. Not only that, but it raises the overhead in running a business, which always favors larger concerns that can more readily absorb the costs. It's no surprise to see Obama promoting their interests.