So you want better paying jobs?

[Wyatt earp]

I would rather pay $200 bucks for a pair of levis made by an American worker, then the paper thin ones they sell today for $60 bucks.

The true cost of Made in the USA Levi s 178 GlobalPost

When Levi's were made by American worker the retail cost was $25.00. The move by Levi Strauss was purely for greed.

when? 1970?

In the 80s they were $60~$75 bucks

 

[Boss]

I heard today the best way to raise wages is to go find a better job.

Did you believe that?

Again... Wages will rise when there is a demand for labor. Right now, there is more supply of labor than demand. The problem can't be fixed until that dynamic is changed... plain and simple.

We can certainly discuss all kinds of ways to get there... We can impose heavy import tariffs on foreign goods... that makes American products more competitive-- which will increase sales-- which will increase production-- which will increase jobs. We can cut corporate US tax making our market more attractive to foreign companies who would love to tap into it... creating more new jobs here. We can offer tax incentives for bringing foreign-held American wealth back to create new business-- thus, new jobs. And we can limit regulations and restrictions on American companies-- allowing them to expand easier-- create more jobs.

Again... Wages will rise when there is a demand for labor again. Whenever I can't find someone who wants to work for me at $7.50/hr... guess what I will do? That's right.. .I'll offer more!

 

[Boss]

Greedy capitalists steal their business. Big box is a great example of capitalist greed.

Well again... no it's not.

Big box stores are the result of free market capitalism, not greed. The capitalist realizes a demand from consumers and steps in to supply that demand. People wanted a low-cost alternative where they could buy in bulk quantity and save money. A capitalist made that happen and both parties were mutually satisfied.

The real "GREED" is when we have half-witted morons shitting on cop cars, demanding we shut down capitalism because it's "not fair to everyone." Free market capitalism IS fair to everyone. It is a fair transaction between two parties who are mutually satisfied with the trade.

Again... A greedy free market capitalist will soon find he has no business, a less greedy free market capitalist has taken it away.

 

[Moonglow]

Greedy capitalists steal their business. Big box is a great example of capitalist greed.

Well again... no it's not.

Big box stores are the result of free market capitalism, not greed. The capitalist realizes a demand from consumers and steps in to supply that demand. People wanted a low-cost alternative where they could buy in bulk quantity and save money. A capitalist made that happen and both parties were mutually satisfied.

The real "GREED" is when we have half-witted morons shitting on cop cars, demanding we shut down capitalism because it's "not fair to everyone." Free market capitalism IS fair to everyone. It is a fair transaction between two parties who are mutually satisfied with the trade.

Again... A greedy free market capitalist will soon find he has no business, a less greedy free market capitalist has taken it away.

Hardly is it free when illegals can determine the price of labor, but goods gain in price...

 

[Boss]

Hardly is it free when illegals can determine the price of labor, but goods gain in price...

Illegals don't determine the price of labor. Again... the price of labor is determined by the law of supply and demand. More supply than demand equals lower price for labor. Goods gain in price because of inflation, not greed of the capitalist. As I said, a greedy capitalist soon finds a less greedy capitalist has taken his customers, in a free market system.

Now... it is true, with 20+ million illegals here, who crony corporatists don't have to pay even the minimum wage... provides a cheap abundance of labor and exacerbates the problem.

So now... let's imagine you have a lettuce farm. We're going to also imagine there are no illegals and no minimum wage. You want to hire me to pick your lettuce. You say you will pay me $3 hr. and I look at the task and tell you that I won't do it for less than $10 hr. Now, maybe there is an over-supply of labor who wants to do it for $3, but maybe there isn't? Maybe there is no one who will do it for $3 or even $5 or $8... but I will do it for $10. Now, you have to get the lettuce picked some way... no one else wants to do it at your price... what are you going to do? I'll tell you--- You're going to pay me $10 to do it... you may have to raise your price, but that's your only alternative because unless you do that you'll have to eat your lettuce.

This is how supply and demand works. With labor and wages, we have to first create a dynamic where labor is in demand. Right now, we have a surplus of labor... including 20 million illegals.

 

[Moonglow]

Hardly is it free when illegals can determine the price of labor, but goods gain in price...

Illegals don't determine the price of labor. Again... the price of labor is determined by the law of supply and demand. More supply than demand equals lower price for labor. Goods gain in price because of inflation, not greed of the capitalist. As I said, a greedy capitalist soon finds a less greedy capitalist has taken his customers, in a free market system.

Now... it is true, with 20+ million illegals here, who crony corporatists don't have to pay even the minimum wage... provides a cheap abundance of labor and exacerbates the problem.

So now... let's imagine you have a lettuce farm. We're going to also imagine there are no illegals and no minimum wage. You want to hire me to pick your lettuce. You say you will pay me $3 hr. and I look at the task and tell you that I won't do it for less than $10 hr. Now, maybe there is an over-supply of labor who wants to do it for $3, but maybe there isn't? Maybe there is no one who will do it for $3 or even $5 or $8... but I will do it for $10. Now, you have to get the lettuce picked some way... no one else wants to do it at your price... what are you going to do? I'll tell you--- You're going to pay me $10 to do it... you may have to raise your price, but that's your only alternative because unless you do that you'll have to eat your lettuce.

This is how supply and demand works. With labor and wages, we have to first create a dynamic where labor is in demand. Right now, we have a surplus of labor... including 20 million illegals.

They damn sure do affect wages in construction..It happened before the crash of '08....I have experienced it first hand....

 

[Boss]

They damn sure do affect wages in construction..It happened before the crash of '08....I have experienced it first hand....

Yes, as I said... they do have an effect on labor supply. They effect the wages by increasing the supply of cheap labor. But they aren't setting the price of labor.. that's supply and demand as always.

 

[Moonglow]

They damn sure do affect wages in construction..It happened before the crash of '08....I have experienced it first hand....

Yes, as I said... they do have an effect on labor supply. They effect the wages by increasing the supply of cheap labor. But they aren't setting the price of labor.. that's supply and demand as always.

When you work by the brick, the price will drop when someone used to making less under bids you and works around the legal limits of a business operation...

 

[Boss]

When you work by the brick, the price will drop when someone used to making less under bids you and works around the legal limits of a business operation...

Yes, but is what we are talking about here a problem with free market capitalism? Is it even a problem with our laws and justice system? Is it possible to pass a law to demand people obey the laws? It's supposed to be illegal to hire illegal undocumented laborers in America. We don't enforce the laws because... guess who controls the politicians? Crony corporatists who like having a cheap source of abundant labor.

This is a thing that is effecting free market capitalism AND wages. It's not a part of free market capitalism and those who exploit the resource of illegal labor are not free market capitalists.

I am 110% behind measures to sock it to employers who hire illegal immigrants. I would fine them $500k for every offense and if they can't pay the fine... 10 years in the pokey. But most importantly... I would ENFORCE that law. We have to eliminate illegals in our workforce. Period.

Let's get back to the OP argument... How do we get better paying jobs? Illegal immigration is certainly not helping us create more demand for labor.

 

[The sheeple sea]

We keep hearing about this "widening gap between rich and poor" which has been the nucleus of an ongoing argument for higher wages, living wages, increasing the minimum wage, more taxation on "the wealthy" or whatever. They come armed with graphs and charts... the statistics to show you the middle class is in decline... the wealthy continue to amass great fortunes while the poor struggle to survive. Our hearts bleed as we're lectured on how we need more government regulations, more agencies and programs, more forced wage hikes and mandates, more restrictions and regulations heaped on big business in order to force them to pay up!

The problem is, we're hearing this from morons who don't understand how free market capitalism works. Oh, not all of them are illiterate morons, some have read books by European socialist propagandists and think they have everything all figured out. They don't seem to understand socialism doesn't work in practice like it works on paper. Every significant sized Socialist nation has failed and most of them have failed hideously. The ideas of people like Marx and Mao are responsible for ten's of millions of deaths. It is clearly a failed ideology by every standard.

Let's first dispatch a few myths and misconceptions. Wealthy people tend to gain wealth faster than poor people because they have a propensity for wealth acquisition... it's how they became wealthy for the most part. So it is perfectly natural in a free market capitalist system for the wealthiest to gain wealth faster than everyone else. It's like having a marathon race where there are runners who are seasoned veteran marathoners, runners who are couch potatoes, and some who run for the fun of it.... Now, in an actual race, who would you expect to lead and eventually win? The couch potato? Of course not... the seasoned vets are constantly going to gain more ground than the couch potatoes... that's perfectly natural and expected. The solution to the problem is not to hobble the veterans so they don't run as fast... the better idea would be to motivate the couch potatoes... train them up... make them better able to compete... turn them into veteran runners.

So this is where the idea of increasing their wages comes... but it's not as simple as merely passing some legislation that corporations MUST pay people $X per hour... that does not work in free market capitalism. What happens is, everything is on a sliding scale, so people make more but things cost more... so very shortly, we are back to square one. So come on Boss... get to the point... how do we increase the rate of pay for the average American in the average job without disrupting free market capitalism or causing inflation?

In order to increase pay you have to increase the demand for labor. In order to do that, you have to create new jobs. Not just new service sector, minimum wage, government or part-time jobs... but real, good paying, legitimate jobs. The way to do that is to encourage expansion of business... this requires taking several steps... lower taxes on corporations... or eliminate corporate tax altogether. Offer tax incentives for repatriated wealth... we have over $20 trillion in US wealth abroad... not doing us a bit of good. Let's bring it home and put it to work creating new business and new jobs. Finally, our trade deals need to account for the disparity in cost of labor. We can't compete with countries who pay their workers $1 a day and a bowl of rice... unless that's the standard we want to live with ourselves. Our trade policies have to take this into consideration and we have to apply tougher tariffs on import goods so our American companies can again compete domestically.

For example, let's use a computer keyboard... If you go to the store today to buy one, you will likely pay around $20 for a standard keyboard which is probably made in Indonesia. Now... An American company, with American workers and paying American taxes, can't buy the materials and assemble said keyboard for $20, much less sell it for that and make a profit. A similar American-made keyboard would be probably $40 or more. So if you have the choice to buy the same keyboard for $20 or $40... which would you likely purchase? Most people aren't going to care about where it's made, money is the deciding factor. However... IF you applied a tariff on Indonesian keyboards of say, $10 each... then the price of the Indonesian keyboard is $30 and the US company has the opportunity to compete... they cut some corners use some competitive ingenuity and manage to whittle their price down to $35... now you have a choice between a cheaply-made Indonesian keyboard for $30 or one that is built to last by Americans for $35. Some will still pick the cheaper keyboard but some will go with the quality.

Now my example is a little exaggerated, we'd never apply a 50% tariff on something... but the point is making imports more expensive so that American companies can compete again. When we change this dynamic, jobs will begin to generate as a result.. more jobs = more demand for labor = higher wages.

You have an excellent grasp of how to create higher paying jobs in America, in a free market capitalist society. Everything you stated is a perfectly reasonable argument, and I know that I open myself up for quite a bit of criticism, but I respectfully ask that you hear me out.

The model you suggest works in a world where production jobs are needed. I've worked in production, making American made products and I understand just how hard a time companies have it here competing with foreign production for exactly the reasons you stated.

But the problem, the real source of today's jobs crisis and the falling value of the American worker is technological in nature, let me explain.

There is a battery plant near my home that competes quite well with foreign battery plants, their workers enjoy good wages and benefits, above average for their field in fact. This battery plant produces batteries that are used all of the world, the demand is quite high. Their production rate puts to shame competing factories around the world. The problem with this plant in a jobs sense however, is there are only 6 employees.

Shifts of 2 engineers at a time run the entire plant from their offices with ipads. This plant is fully automated. Where most of their competitors around the world employ hundreds, they have a much, much lower labor cost. The initial investment in this plant was staggering over 4 times the cost of building a normal factory, but as prices fall other companies are struggling to start mimicking this business model.

In my plant, which is a bit more rundown, and uses technology from the 70s and 80s, automation has been introduced in certain processes that was able to reduce the labor force by about a hundred or so.

I can already hear your argument, so allow me to make it for you. While these technologies may take jobs in one sense, they create them in another, mechanics, engineers, software technicians, and you would be right. But of those hundred jobs lost only about 8 were created.

Despite these advances my plant still continues to struggle, we do still employ a sizeable work force, and our pay isn't terrible. We make foam and plastic products. A simple product, but still.

Recently, there has been cause for worry as a few of our smaller customers began using 3-D printing technology to make the same products we make more effienctly, and without the need for transport costs. Well, that's fine, 3-D printers aren't that great yet and on a mass scale they can't handle production like we can.

They are catching up though. We employ throughout the country at various plants some 15,000 employees. Now, this as I said is a simple product to make, from an engineering standpoint, and I can already here the rallying cry that, well, get a job for the 3-D printer company then.

Those 3-D printer companies, as an advanced technology already understands that this old worker production is ineffective are far too expensive. I mean, the third world workers making a dollar a day and a bowl of rice can even compete, no, those companies are investing in automated production. And they already have the 6 workers they want.

I went to a restaurant with my wife the other night, our waiter was a tablet system that was wired to the table. Interesting, but no waiters to be found, just a couple cooks andan overworked server.

Japan has robot cooks now, robots handling their food, Americans may be more squeamish about this, and right now its an oddity. But when it starts to make better business sense what do you think companies that own restaraunts will do?

The factories that produce these robots, you guessed it, automated. Google used to offer a prize only ten years ago to any group that could build a self driving car though the desert. They all got lost, it was pretty funny. Last year, they navigated a busy city in full traffic. It may take a while for laws of the road to allow such a thing, but companies would lobby hard, could you imagine? Replace cross country truck drivers with self driving trucks. They don't get tired, they don't get paid, they don't complain or quit or need health insurance.

Again, you could put laws in place to protect American jobs, I see truckers picketing now "no robots on our roads". But when it makes business sense, what are we going to do?

Do you deny you have seen more automatic services than their has been? And as companies start to want these things, market forces at work, they become more affordable. More available to all manner of business, and these machines get smarter year after year, just look at how far self driving cars have come in a decade.

How do you create good paying jobs ten years from now? Fifteen? Should we be preparing now? How? Your model of jobs worked in the 70s and 80s. But we are not living in the 70's and 80's. I would like to hear your solution to this dilemma. You seem like a level headed person, and I hope you don't just dismiss this off hand. I look forward to your response

 

[OnePercenter]

I would rather pay $200 bucks for a pair of levis made by an American worker, then the paper thin ones they sell today for $60 bucks.

The true cost of Made in the USA Levi s 178 GlobalPost

When Levi's were made by American worker the retail cost was $25.00. The move by Levi Strauss was purely for greed.

when? 1970?

In the 80s they were $60~$75 bucks

501 shrink to fit were $25.00 in 1993. It wasn't until the late 90's did Levi's raise in price when they left the country. All Levis sold on the west coast were manufactured in Vegas.

 

[OnePercenter]

Did you believe that?

Again... Wages will rise when there is a demand for labor. Right now, there is more supply of labor than demand. The problem can't be fixed until that dynamic is changed... plain and simple.

We can certainly discuss all kinds of ways to get there... We can impose heavy import tariffs on foreign goods... that makes American products more competitive-- which will increase sales-- which will increase production-- which will increase jobs. We can cut corporate US tax making our market more attractive to foreign companies who would love to tap into it... creating more new jobs here. We can offer tax incentives for bringing foreign-held American wealth back to create new business-- thus, new jobs. And we can limit regulations and restrictions on American companies-- allowing them to expand easier-- create more jobs.

Again... Wages will rise when there is a demand for labor again. Whenever I can't find someone who wants to work for me at $7.50/hr... guess what I will do? That's right.. .I'll offer more!

You would pay $7.75/hr to a person that makes you all of your money because the market dictates it? So workers are now soy beans?

 

[Ernie S.]

Now my example is a little exaggerated, we'd never apply a 50% tariff on something... but the point is making imports more expensive so that American companies can compete again. When we change this dynamic, jobs will begin to generate as a result.. more jobs = more demand for labor = higher wages.

Interesting, socialism doesn't work, Marx is evil, only the free market can provide etc....

But you're promoting tariffs, which is interfering with the holy free market, as the solution.

Seriously?

OUR free market. not the whole worlds free market. Pre Civil War, the US main source of revenue was from tariffs.

 

[Ernie S.]

Did you believe that?

Again... Wages will rise when there is a demand for labor. Right now, there is more supply of labor than demand. The problem can't be fixed until that dynamic is changed... plain and simple.

We can certainly discuss all kinds of ways to get there... We can impose heavy import tariffs on foreign goods... that makes American products more competitive-- which will increase sales-- which will increase production-- which will increase jobs. We can cut corporate US tax making our market more attractive to foreign companies who would love to tap into it... creating more new jobs here. We can offer tax incentives for bringing foreign-held American wealth back to create new business-- thus, new jobs. And we can limit regulations and restrictions on American companies-- allowing them to expand easier-- create more jobs.

Again... Wages will rise when there is a demand for labor again. Whenever I can't find someone who wants to work for me at $7.50/hr... guess what I will do? That's right.. .I'll offer more!

You would pay $7.75/hr to a person that makes you all of your money because the market dictates it? So workers are now soy beans?

Pretty much. I'll pay top dollar for the best soy beans.

 

[Boss]

We keep hearing about this "widening gap between rich and poor" which has been the nucleus of an ongoing argument for higher wages, living wages, increasing the minimum wage, more taxation on "the wealthy" or whatever. They come armed with graphs and charts... the statistics to show you the middle class is in decline... the wealthy continue to amass great fortunes while the poor struggle to survive. Our hearts bleed as we're lectured on how we need more government regulations, more agencies and programs, more forced wage hikes and mandates, more restrictions and regulations heaped on big business in order to force them to pay up!

The problem is, we're hearing this from morons who don't understand how free market capitalism works. Oh, not all of them are illiterate morons, some have read books by European socialist propagandists and think they have everything all figured out. They don't seem to understand socialism doesn't work in practice like it works on paper. Every significant sized Socialist nation has failed and most of them have failed hideously. The ideas of people like Marx and Mao are responsible for ten's of millions of deaths. It is clearly a failed ideology by every standard.

Let's first dispatch a few myths and misconceptions. Wealthy people tend to gain wealth faster than poor people because they have a propensity for wealth acquisition... it's how they became wealthy for the most part. So it is perfectly natural in a free market capitalist system for the wealthiest to gain wealth faster than everyone else. It's like having a marathon race where there are runners who are seasoned veteran marathoners, runners who are couch potatoes, and some who run for the fun of it.... Now, in an actual race, who would you expect to lead and eventually win? The couch potato? Of course not... the seasoned vets are constantly going to gain more ground than the couch potatoes... that's perfectly natural and expected. The solution to the problem is not to hobble the veterans so they don't run as fast... the better idea would be to motivate the couch potatoes... train them up... make them better able to compete... turn them into veteran runners.

So this is where the idea of increasing their wages comes... but it's not as simple as merely passing some legislation that corporations MUST pay people $X per hour... that does not work in free market capitalism. What happens is, everything is on a sliding scale, so people make more but things cost more... so very shortly, we are back to square one. So come on Boss... get to the point... how do we increase the rate of pay for the average American in the average job without disrupting free market capitalism or causing inflation?

In order to increase pay you have to increase the demand for labor. In order to do that, you have to create new jobs. Not just new service sector, minimum wage, government or part-time jobs... but real, good paying, legitimate jobs. The way to do that is to encourage expansion of business... this requires taking several steps... lower taxes on corporations... or eliminate corporate tax altogether. Offer tax incentives for repatriated wealth... we have over $20 trillion in US wealth abroad... not doing us a bit of good. Let's bring it home and put it to work creating new business and new jobs. Finally, our trade deals need to account for the disparity in cost of labor. We can't compete with countries who pay their workers $1 a day and a bowl of rice... unless that's the standard we want to live with ourselves. Our trade policies have to take this into consideration and we have to apply tougher tariffs on import goods so our American companies can again compete domestically.

For example, let's use a computer keyboard... If you go to the store today to buy one, you will likely pay around $20 for a standard keyboard which is probably made in Indonesia. Now... An American company, with American workers and paying American taxes, can't buy the materials and assemble said keyboard for $20, much less sell it for that and make a profit. A similar American-made keyboard would be probably $40 or more. So if you have the choice to buy the same keyboard for $20 or $40... which would you likely purchase? Most people aren't going to care about where it's made, money is the deciding factor. However... IF you applied a tariff on Indonesian keyboards of say, $10 each... then the price of the Indonesian keyboard is $30 and the US company has the opportunity to compete... they cut some corners use some competitive ingenuity and manage to whittle their price down to $35... now you have a choice between a cheaply-made Indonesian keyboard for $30 or one that is built to last by Americans for $35. Some will still pick the cheaper keyboard but some will go with the quality.

Now my example is a little exaggerated, we'd never apply a 50% tariff on something... but the point is making imports more expensive so that American companies can compete again. When we change this dynamic, jobs will begin to generate as a result.. more jobs = more demand for labor = higher wages.

You have an excellent grasp of how to create higher paying jobs in America, in a free market capitalist society. Everything you stated is a perfectly reasonable argument, and I know that I open myself up for quite a bit of criticism, but I respectfully ask that you hear me out.

The model you suggest works in a world where production jobs are needed. I've worked in production, making American made products and I understand just how hard a time companies have it here competing with foreign production for exactly the reasons you stated.

But the problem, the real source of today's jobs crisis and the falling value of the American worker is technological in nature, let me explain.

There is a battery plant near my home that competes quite well with foreign battery plants, their workers enjoy good wages and benefits, above average for their field in fact. This battery plant produces batteries that are used all of the world, the demand is quite high. Their production rate puts to shame competing factories around the world. The problem with this plant in a jobs sense however, is there are only 6 employees.

Shifts of 2 engineers at a time run the entire plant from their offices with ipads. This plant is fully automated. Where most of their competitors around the world employ hundreds, they have a much, much lower labor cost. The initial investment in this plant was staggering over 4 times the cost of building a normal factory, but as prices fall other companies are struggling to start mimicking this business model.

In my plant, which is a bit more rundown, and uses technology from the 70s and 80s, automation has been introduced in certain processes that was able to reduce the labor force by about a hundred or so.

I can already hear your argument, so allow me to make it for you. While these technologies may take jobs in one sense, they create them in another, mechanics, engineers, software technicians, and you would be right. But of those hundred jobs lost only about 8 were created.

Despite these advances my plant still continues to struggle, we do still employ a sizeable work force, and our pay isn't terrible. We make foam and plastic products. A simple product, but still.

Recently, there has been cause for worry as a few of our smaller customers began using 3-D printing technology to make the same products we make more effienctly, and without the need for transport costs. Well, that's fine, 3-D printers aren't that great yet and on a mass scale they can't handle production like we can.

They are catching up though. We employ throughout the country at various plants some 15,000 employees. Now, this as I said is a simple product to make, from an engineering standpoint, and I can already here the rallying cry that, well, get a job for the 3-D printer company then.

Those 3-D printer companies, as an advanced technology already understands that this old worker production is ineffective are far too expensive. I mean, the third world workers making a dollar a day and a bowl of rice can even compete, no, those companies are investing in automated production. And they already have the 6 workers they want.

I went to a restaurant with my wife the other night, our waiter was a tablet system that was wired to the table. Interesting, but no waiters to be found, just a couple cooks andan overworked server.

Japan has robot cooks now, robots handling their food, Americans may be more squeamish about this, and right now its an oddity. But when it starts to make better business sense what do you think companies that own restaraunts will do?

The factories that produce these robots, you guessed it, automated. Google used to offer a prize only ten years ago to any group that could build a self driving car though the desert. They all got lost, it was pretty funny. Last year, they navigated a busy city in full traffic. It may take a while for laws of the road to allow such a thing, but companies would lobby hard, could you imagine? Replace cross country truck drivers with self driving trucks. They don't get tired, they don't get paid, they don't complain or quit or need health insurance.

Again, you could put laws in place to protect American jobs, I see truckers picketing now "no robots on our roads". But when it makes business sense, what are we going to do?

Do you deny you have seen more automatic services than their has been? And as companies start to want these things, market forces at work, they become more affordable. More available to all manner of business, and these machines get smarter year after year, just look at how far self driving cars have come in a decade.

How do you create good paying jobs ten years from now? Fifteen? Should we be preparing now? How? Your model of jobs worked in the 70s and 80s. But we are not living in the 70's and 80's. I would like to hear your solution to this dilemma. You seem like a level headed person, and I hope you don't just dismiss this off hand. I look forward to your response

Thank you for that well-thought out post, you made some outstanding points. I don't know that I have an answer for this dilemma, however it's not something unique to free market capitalism. You have to remember that free market capitalism ushered in the Industrial Revolution. We've been dealing with advancement in technology ever since.

One of the "propagandist" arguments is this graphic they show where the productivity of the average worker has risen dramatically high while his wages have remained dramatically low. But what they fail to comprehend is the advancement of technology which increases production. We're able to be more productive due to advanced technology and a commitment from capitalists to invest in said technology for the future.

A friend of mine was an old school photographer who knew all about darkrooms and film processing... he had a job with a newspaper as their photographer for many years. Well.. computers came along and digital photography, and the newspaper began to hire reporters who were trained in photojournalism and pretty soon, he found that his talents were obsolete. So he retrained himself in graphic design and photoshop and again, got a decent job with a commercial art house... well, again... technology changed and now anyone with an iPhone can do what he was doing. They make a template or an app... *poof* another career bites the dust.

Buggy whip makers had to find new jobs when the automobiles came along. Ice houses had to close down when refrigerators came along. These are all things that happen in a free market capitalist system. What happens is, people adapt with the times. Life goes on.

I would say that we are definitely moving in to an era where technical skills will be very important. You are going to need to know how to fix robots... how to program automated machines... how to troubleshoot problems with networks, etc. Those skills are going to require trained people who know what they are doing because if the automated plant goes down, it's big bucks. So we may see fewer actual jobs in the future but they will require a higher level of skill which will be in demand. This means higher wages.

 

[OnePercenter]

Greedy capitalists steal their business. Big box is a great example of capitalist greed.

Well again... no it's not.

Big box stores are the result of free market capitalism, not greed. The capitalist realizes a demand from consumers and steps in to supply that demand. People wanted a low-cost alternative where they could buy in bulk quantity and save money. A capitalist made that happen and both parties were mutually satisfied.

The real "GREED" is when we have half-witted morons shitting on cop cars, demanding we shut down capitalism because it's "not fair to everyone." Free market capitalism IS fair to everyone. It is a fair transaction between two parties who are mutually satisfied with the trade.

Again... A greedy free market capitalist will soon find he has no business, a less greedy free market capitalist has taken it away.

Big box stores are the epitome of greed and coercion. Greed, in that a city Father can steal business from a neighboring town to boost sales tax revenues, and coercion, in that the big box can dictate whatever the subsidy they want to open. It got so bad that cities would have to put an offer package together to receive an appointment to meet with the big box.

From 1980 to 1997 (when I retired the first time) I owned two businesses in Vegas, a marketing company, and a graphics/printing company. Part of my marketing companies work was to solicit offers on behalf of K-Mart and Target. That's YOUR 'free market,' fool.

 

[OnePercenter]

Hardly is it free when illegals can determine the price of labor, but goods gain in price...

Illegals don't determine the price of labor. Again... the price of labor is determined by the law of supply and demand. More supply than demand equals lower price for labor. Goods gain in price because of inflation, not greed of the capitalist. As I said, a greedy capitalist soon finds a less greedy capitalist has taken his customers, in a free market system.

Now... it is true, with 20+ million illegals here, who crony corporatists don't have to pay even the minimum wage... provides a cheap abundance of labor and exacerbates the problem.

So now... let's imagine you have a lettuce farm. We're going to also imagine there are no illegals and no minimum wage. You want to hire me to pick your lettuce. You say you will pay me $3 hr. and I look at the task and tell you that I won't do it for less than $10 hr. Now, maybe there is an over-supply of labor who wants to do it for $3, but maybe there isn't? Maybe there is no one who will do it for $3 or even $5 or $8... but I will do it for $10. Now, you have to get the lettuce picked some way... no one else wants to do it at your price... what are you going to do? I'll tell you--- You're going to pay me $10 to do it... you may have to raise your price, but that's your only alternative because unless you do that you'll have to eat your lettuce.

This is how supply and demand works. With labor and wages, we have to first create a dynamic where labor is in demand. Right now, we have a surplus of labor... including 20 million illegals.

Supply and demand? Try greed.

 

[OnePercenter]

They damn sure do affect wages in construction..It happened before the crash of '08....I have experienced it first hand....

Yes, as I said... they do have an effect on labor supply. They effect the wages by increasing the supply of cheap labor. But they aren't setting the price of labor.. that's supply and demand as always.

Supply and demand is nothing but an excuse to pay workers dirt wages.

 

[OnePercenter]

We keep hearing about this "widening gap between rich and poor" which has been the nucleus of an ongoing argument for higher wages, living wages, increasing the minimum wage, more taxation on "the wealthy" or whatever. They come armed with graphs and charts... the statistics to show you the middle class is in decline... the wealthy continue to amass great fortunes while the poor struggle to survive. Our hearts bleed as we're lectured on how we need more government regulations, more agencies and programs, more forced wage hikes and mandates, more restrictions and regulations heaped on big business in order to force them to pay up!

The problem is, we're hearing this from morons who don't understand how free market capitalism works. Oh, not all of them are illiterate morons, some have read books by European socialist propagandists and think they have everything all figured out. They don't seem to understand socialism doesn't work in practice like it works on paper. Every significant sized Socialist nation has failed and most of them have failed hideously. The ideas of people like Marx and Mao are responsible for ten's of millions of deaths. It is clearly a failed ideology by every standard.

Let's first dispatch a few myths and misconceptions. Wealthy people tend to gain wealth faster than poor people because they have a propensity for wealth acquisition... it's how they became wealthy for the most part. So it is perfectly natural in a free market capitalist system for the wealthiest to gain wealth faster than everyone else. It's like having a marathon race where there are runners who are seasoned veteran marathoners, runners who are couch potatoes, and some who run for the fun of it.... Now, in an actual race, who would you expect to lead and eventually win? The couch potato? Of course not... the seasoned vets are constantly going to gain more ground than the couch potatoes... that's perfectly natural and expected. The solution to the problem is not to hobble the veterans so they don't run as fast... the better idea would be to motivate the couch potatoes... train them up... make them better able to compete... turn them into veteran runners.

So this is where the idea of increasing their wages comes... but it's not as simple as merely passing some legislation that corporations MUST pay people $X per hour... that does not work in free market capitalism. What happens is, everything is on a sliding scale, so people make more but things cost more... so very shortly, we are back to square one. So come on Boss... get to the point... how do we increase the rate of pay for the average American in the average job without disrupting free market capitalism or causing inflation?

In order to increase pay you have to increase the demand for labor. In order to do that, you have to create new jobs. Not just new service sector, minimum wage, government or part-time jobs... but real, good paying, legitimate jobs. The way to do that is to encourage expansion of business... this requires taking several steps... lower taxes on corporations... or eliminate corporate tax altogether. Offer tax incentives for repatriated wealth... we have over $20 trillion in US wealth abroad... not doing us a bit of good. Let's bring it home and put it to work creating new business and new jobs. Finally, our trade deals need to account for the disparity in cost of labor. We can't compete with countries who pay their workers $1 a day and a bowl of rice... unless that's the standard we want to live with ourselves. Our trade policies have to take this into consideration and we have to apply tougher tariffs on import goods so our American companies can again compete domestically.

For example, let's use a computer keyboard... If you go to the store today to buy one, you will likely pay around $20 for a standard keyboard which is probably made in Indonesia. Now... An American company, with American workers and paying American taxes, can't buy the materials and assemble said keyboard for $20, much less sell it for that and make a profit. A similar American-made keyboard would be probably $40 or more. So if you have the choice to buy the same keyboard for $20 or $40... which would you likely purchase? Most people aren't going to care about where it's made, money is the deciding factor. However... IF you applied a tariff on Indonesian keyboards of say, $10 each... then the price of the Indonesian keyboard is $30 and the US company has the opportunity to compete... they cut some corners use some competitive ingenuity and manage to whittle their price down to $35... now you have a choice between a cheaply-made Indonesian keyboard for $30 or one that is built to last by Americans for $35. Some will still pick the cheaper keyboard but some will go with the quality.

Now my example is a little exaggerated, we'd never apply a 50% tariff on something... but the point is making imports more expensive so that American companies can compete again. When we change this dynamic, jobs will begin to generate as a result.. more jobs = more demand for labor = higher wages.

You have an excellent grasp of how to create higher paying jobs in America, in a free market capitalist society. Everything you stated is a perfectly reasonable argument, and I know that I open myself up for quite a bit of criticism, but I respectfully ask that you hear me out.

The model you suggest works in a world where production jobs are needed. I've worked in production, making American made products and I understand just how hard a time companies have it here competing with foreign production for exactly the reasons you stated.

But the problem, the real source of today's jobs crisis and the falling value of the American worker is technological in nature, let me explain.

There is a battery plant near my home that competes quite well with foreign battery plants, their workers enjoy good wages and benefits, above average for their field in fact. This battery plant produces batteries that are used all of the world, the demand is quite high. Their production rate puts to shame competing factories around the world. The problem with this plant in a jobs sense however, is there are only 6 employees.

Shifts of 2 engineers at a time run the entire plant from their offices with ipads. This plant is fully automated. Where most of their competitors around the world employ hundreds, they have a much, much lower labor cost. The initial investment in this plant was staggering over 4 times the cost of building a normal factory, but as prices fall other companies are struggling to start mimicking this business model.

In my plant, which is a bit more rundown, and uses technology from the 70s and 80s, automation has been introduced in certain processes that was able to reduce the labor force by about a hundred or so.

I can already hear your argument, so allow me to make it for you. While these technologies may take jobs in one sense, they create them in another, mechanics, engineers, software technicians, and you would be right. But of those hundred jobs lost only about 8 were created.

Despite these advances my plant still continues to struggle, we do still employ a sizeable work force, and our pay isn't terrible. We make foam and plastic products. A simple product, but still.

Recently, there has been cause for worry as a few of our smaller customers began using 3-D printing technology to make the same products we make more effienctly, and without the need for transport costs. Well, that's fine, 3-D printers aren't that great yet and on a mass scale they can't handle production like we can.

They are catching up though. We employ throughout the country at various plants some 15,000 employees. Now, this as I said is a simple product to make, from an engineering standpoint, and I can already here the rallying cry that, well, get a job for the 3-D printer company then.

Those 3-D printer companies, as an advanced technology already understands that this old worker production is ineffective are far too expensive. I mean, the third world workers making a dollar a day and a bowl of rice can even compete, no, those companies are investing in automated production. And they already have the 6 workers they want.

I went to a restaurant with my wife the other night, our waiter was a tablet system that was wired to the table. Interesting, but no waiters to be found, just a couple cooks andan overworked server.

Japan has robot cooks now, robots handling their food, Americans may be more squeamish about this, and right now its an oddity. But when it starts to make better business sense what do you think companies that own restaraunts will do?

The factories that produce these robots, you guessed it, automated. Google used to offer a prize only ten years ago to any group that could build a self driving car though the desert. They all got lost, it was pretty funny. Last year, they navigated a busy city in full traffic. It may take a while for laws of the road to allow such a thing, but companies would lobby hard, could you imagine? Replace cross country truck drivers with self driving trucks. They don't get tired, they don't get paid, they don't complain or quit or need health insurance.

Again, you could put laws in place to protect American jobs, I see truckers picketing now "no robots on our roads". But when it makes business sense, what are we going to do?

Do you deny you have seen more automatic services than their has been? And as companies start to want these things, market forces at work, they become more affordable. More available to all manner of business, and these machines get smarter year after year, just look at how far self driving cars have come in a decade.

How do you create good paying jobs ten years from now? Fifteen? Should we be preparing now? How? Your model of jobs worked in the 70s and 80s. But we are not living in the 70's and 80's. I would like to hear your solution to this dilemma. You seem like a level headed person, and I hope you don't just dismiss this off hand. I look forward to your response

Thank you for that well-thought out post, you made some outstanding points. I don't know that I have an answer for this dilemma, however it's not something unique to free market capitalism. You have to remember that free market capitalism ushered in the Industrial Revolution. We've been dealing with advancement in technology ever since.

One of the "propagandist" arguments is this graphic they show where the productivity of the average worker has risen dramatically high while his wages have remained dramatically low. But what they fail to comprehend is the advancement of technology which increases production. We're able to be more productive due to advanced technology and a commitment from capitalists to invest in said technology for the future.

A friend of mine was an old school photographer who knew all about darkrooms and film processing... he had a job with a newspaper as their photographer for many years. Well.. computers came along and digital photography, and the newspaper began to hire reporters who were trained in photojournalism and pretty soon, he found that his talents were obsolete. So he retrained himself in graphic design and photoshop and again, got a decent job with a commercial art house... well, again... technology changed and now anyone with an iPhone can do what he was doing. They make a template or an app... *poof* another career bites the dust.

Buggy whip makers had to find new jobs when the automobiles came along. Ice houses had to close down when refrigerators came along. These are all things that happen in a free market capitalist system. What happens is, people adapt with the times. Life goes on.

I would say that we are definitely moving in to an era where technical skills will be very important. You are going to need to know how to fix robots... how to program automated machines... how to troubleshoot problems with networks, etc. Those skills are going to require trained people who know what they are doing because if the automated plant goes down, it's big bucks. So we may see fewer actual jobs in the future but they will require a higher level of skill which will be in demand. This means higher wages.

The answer is regulation.


-Base Federal tax for corporations at 30% of revenue.

-Raise minimum wage to $23.50/hr. Based on where minimum wage should be using 1970-2015 rise in food, shelter, and transportation.

-Eliminate all business subsidies (deductions/write-offs/write-downs) except for employee expenses which are deducted dollar-for-dollar on all city, state, and Federal taxes and fees with the Feds refunding city, State, and fees.

-Companies with 500 employees or less, employee expenses above the deduction are subsidized at 100% with funds usually give back to the States.

-Adjust Social Security and private/public retirement and pension payments using 1970-2015 price structure.

-Remove the FICA limit.

-Back down ALL costs, prices, fees, to January 1, 2009 levels and hold them for 10 years which will eliminate inflation.

-Recall ALL off-shore investments tax free, and disallow any further off-shore investments.

-Make inversion illegal.

 

[Boss]

You would pay $7.75/hr to a person that makes you all of your money because the market dictates it? So workers are now soy beans?

Hey... I didn't baseline labor cost... I'm just a capitalist operating under free market principles of supply and demand. Labor is just one of my many costs. I have all kinds of expenses and costs involved with my business other than labor. If my profit margin falls below ~10%, then I am losing ground to my competition who is growing faster. I have to maintain at least a growth rate of 10% in order to stay in business. So anytime you are looking at an annual rate of profit for any company, bear this in mind... the first 10% is essential for growth. It's not money hoarded away in a mattress by Monty Burns of the Simpsons.