Why can't Public Assistance increase?

[dblack]

Fortunately, there is an endless supply of mindless unskilled people available able to say "Welcome to McDonalds, may I take your order?

Hardly worth $31,200 per year.

That's what seems nuts to me. Minimum wages laws make these jobs illegal. If both employer and employee can agree on a wage why does it need to be illegal?

 

[Boss]

That's what seems nuts to me. Minimum wages laws make these jobs illegal. If both employer and employee can agree on a wage why does it need to be illegal?

The minimum wage is one of the worst things to ever happen to wages in America. It removes the individual opportunity to negotiate. Even the non-minimum wage jobs are very often baselined on the minimum wage rate. Raises are very often conditional upon raising of the minimum wage instead of performance. The dirty little secret FDR didn't tell you is... the Corporatists LOVE the minimum wage! It allows them to baseline labor cost. Rather than having a bunch of varying wages based on the individuals negotiating on the basis of their skills and what they bring to the table, they have a standard rate of pay for all... baslined on the minimum wage.

In 1932, when FDR introduced it, he said: "Any company that can't pay it's workers a decent living wage has no business in America!" Clearly, his plan didn't work because we still hear the same exact rant from the progressives. Raise the minimum wage and the corporations simply re-tool the formulas, lay people off, increase prices, downsize operations, increase productivity demands and life goes on. NEVER does the increase come out of the great big giant profit bucket.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

If McDonalds opened and their were no employees to take the order, collect the payment, make the 'food', serve the 'food', and clean-up after you, what kind of revenue would the restaurant make?

None. But that's not a worry of theirs because there will always be people who will take those jobs.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

How much do you pay an employee that makes you all of your money?

As little as you have to pay him.

 

[dblack]

In 1932, when FDR introduced it, he said: "Any company that can't pay it's workers a decent living wage has no business in America!" Clearly, his plan didn't work because we still hear the same exact rant from the progressives. Raise the minimum wage and the corporations simply re-tool the formulas, lay people off, increase prices, downsize operations, increase productivity demands and life goes on. NEVER does the increase come out of the great big giant profit bucket.

The aspect that's ignored by this perspective is that all of society is to 'blame' for not valuing certain kinds of work very highly. The reason fast-food joints can't afford to pay people very much to make fast food is that we, as consumers, don't value fast food very much. If it costs much more, we'll not bother with it. That's the case for a lot of services that are optional. We'll pay for them if they're cheap, but go without if they're expensive.

What I don't understand is why some people feel justified in making these kinds of decisions for others. If someone else wants to work for peanuts, why should that be illegal?

 

[Pumpkin Row]

Give a person a check, you food them for a day. Get a person a job, you feed them for the duration they can hold that job. What you're advocating is perpetuation of laziness and government reliance.

 

[Boss]

The aspect that's ignored by this perspective is that all of society is to 'blame' for not valuing certain kinds of work very highly. The reason fast-food joints can't afford to pay people very much to make fast food is that we, as consumers, don't value fast food very much. If it costs much more, we'll not bother with it. That's the case for a lot of services that are optional. We'll pay for them if they're cheap, but go without if they're expensive.

What I don't understand is why some people feel justified in making these kinds of decisions for others. If someone else wants to work for peanuts, why should that be illegal?

It's called "free market capitalism" and it works brilliantly whenever it is allowed to work. It's not "fair" in any respect. Free market capitalists fail all the time. They have to look at what went wrong and try again. Other free market capitalists prevail because they have a better system and formula...it's not "fair!" Consumers are sometimes very wise in their buying choices, sometimes they are very irresponsible and stupid... it's not "fair" but that's how things work in a free market capitalist system. Whenever you seek to use government tyranny to make things "more fair" then you end up with North Korea. Now.... North Koreans don't have to worry about fast food or jobs in fast food making $15/hr. Life is fair for them... no problems... they are all equally poor. One can't have more than the other because they all have nothing. One can't have more opportunity than another because they all have NO opportunity. Things are perfectly fair in North Korea.

 

[JoeNormal]

That's what seems nuts to me. Minimum wages laws make these jobs illegal. If both employer and employee can agree on a wage why does it need to be illegal?

The minimum wage is one of the worst things to ever happen to wages in America. It removes the individual opportunity to negotiate. Even the non-minimum wage jobs are very often baselined on the minimum wage rate. Raises are very often conditional upon raising of the minimum wage instead of performance. The dirty little secret FDR didn't tell you is... the Corporatists LOVE the minimum wage! It allows them to baseline labor cost. Rather than having a bunch of varying wages based on the individuals negotiating on the basis of their skills and what they bring to the table, they have a standard rate of pay for all... baslined on the minimum wage.

In 1932, when FDR introduced it, he said: "Any company that can't pay it's workers a decent living wage has no business in America!" Clearly, his plan didn't work because we still hear the same exact rant from the progressives. Raise the minimum wage and the corporations simply re-tool the formulas, lay people off, increase prices, downsize operations, increase productivity demands and life goes on. NEVER does the increase come out of the great big giant profit bucket.

Are you saying that corporations aren't already running as 'lean' as they possibly can?

 

[Ame®icano]

Ya know. I keep hearing from fake conservatives about how we spend too much on welfare. Welfare would cause taxes to raise. Poor people want to steal more of my money. Blah, blah, blah.

Some interesting statistics:

Finland spends 3.2% of its federal budget on public assistance.

Great Britain spends a little over 4.6%

Israel spends 2.4%

Norway spends a whopping 6.2%.

And the US? 0.7%. That's it.

So, why can't we just increase that to 2%? We can take that 2% away from our bloated military budget. It would still make us the Western nation that spends the least amount of money on their poor, but imagine the massive effect that would have on poverty in this country. And it wouldn't even cost the tax payers one. Red. Cent. more than they are paying, now. Because I'm not suggesting increasing the budget. I'm suggesting giving public assistance a slightly larger piece of the existing budget.

Why is that such an outrageous idea?

Link?

 

[JoeNormal]

It's called "free market capitalism" and it works brilliantly whenever it is allowed to work.

Where is that? I'm guessing that if it exists, it's a shit hole.

 

[Boss]

That's what seems nuts to me. Minimum wages laws make these jobs illegal. If both employer and employee can agree on a wage why does it need to be illegal?

The minimum wage is one of the worst things to ever happen to wages in America. It removes the individual opportunity to negotiate. Even the non-minimum wage jobs are very often baselined on the minimum wage rate. Raises are very often conditional upon raising of the minimum wage instead of performance. The dirty little secret FDR didn't tell you is... the Corporatists LOVE the minimum wage! It allows them to baseline labor cost. Rather than having a bunch of varying wages based on the individuals negotiating on the basis of their skills and what they bring to the table, they have a standard rate of pay for all... baslined on the minimum wage.

In 1932, when FDR introduced it, he said: "Any company that can't pay it's workers a decent living wage has no business in America!" Clearly, his plan didn't work because we still hear the same exact rant from the progressives. Raise the minimum wage and the corporations simply re-tool the formulas, lay people off, increase prices, downsize operations, increase productivity demands and life goes on. NEVER does the increase come out of the great big giant profit bucket.

Are you saying that corporations aren't already running as 'lean' as they possibly can?

*Sigh* ...I don't know of ANY corporation that intentionally spends capital they don't need to. The goal and objective of all capitalists is profit. In their board meetings, no one is saying... hey, we're making too much profit here, let's find something wasteful to blow money on so our profits aren't so high next year!

So you are asking me a straw man question. It has nothing to do with the point I made.

 

[Boss]

It's called "free market capitalism" and it works brilliantly whenever it is allowed to work.

Where is that? I'm guessing that if it exists, it's a shit hole.

It's right here in the USA. It is the very reason we rose from a fledgling upstart country 250 years ago to the world's leading superpower. It's the very reason you have virtually everything you have that makes us NOT a shithole.

Now.... we've never had PURE free market capitalism. Just as we've never had PURE freedom. But the idea is to come as close to that as we possibly can... not try to destroy it and condemn it as something evil and bad.

 

[dblack]

It's called "free market capitalism" and it works brilliantly whenever it is allowed to work.

Where is that? I'm guessing that if it exists, it's a shit hole.

I wouldn't call the US a shit hole, but it's had the most free market capitalism historically, though we seem to be giving up on it.

 

[JoeNormal]

That's what seems nuts to me. Minimum wages laws make these jobs illegal. If both employer and employee can agree on a wage why does it need to be illegal?

The minimum wage is one of the worst things to ever happen to wages in America. It removes the individual opportunity to negotiate. Even the non-minimum wage jobs are very often baselined on the minimum wage rate. Raises are very often conditional upon raising of the minimum wage instead of performance. The dirty little secret FDR didn't tell you is... the Corporatists LOVE the minimum wage! It allows them to baseline labor cost. Rather than having a bunch of varying wages based on the individuals negotiating on the basis of their skills and what they bring to the table, they have a standard rate of pay for all... baslined on the minimum wage.

In 1932, when FDR introduced it, he said: "Any company that can't pay it's workers a decent living wage has no business in America!" Clearly, his plan didn't work because we still hear the same exact rant from the progressives. Raise the minimum wage and the corporations simply re-tool the formulas, lay people off, increase prices, downsize operations, increase productivity demands and life goes on. NEVER does the increase come out of the great big giant profit bucket.

Are you saying that corporations aren't already running as 'lean' as they possibly can?

*Sigh* ...I don't know of ANY corporation that intentionally spends capital they don't need to. The goal and objective of all capitalists is profit. In their board meetings, no one is saying... hey, we're making too much profit here, let's find something wasteful to blow money on so our profits aren't so high next year!

So you are asking me a straw man question. It has nothing to do with the point I made.

It has everything to do with the point you were trying to make. Here, look. I've even bolded where you said it.

Raise the minimum wage and the corporations simply re-tool the formulas, lay people off, increase prices, downsize operations, increase productivity demands and life goes on. NEVER does the increase come out of the great big giant profit bucket.

 

[JoeNormal]

It's called "free market capitalism" and it works brilliantly whenever it is allowed to work.

Where is that? I'm guessing that if it exists, it's a shit hole.

I wouldn't call the US a shit hole, but it's had the most free market capitalism historically, though we seem to be giving up on it.

The height of the free market was the gilded age and for the vast majority, it sucked.

 

[Boss]

The height of the free market was the gilded age and for the vast majority, it sucked.

Nope... you've been pumped full of propaganda from the Marxist-Socialist indoctrination (aka: Public Education). That period of time, we experienced incredible advancements that made lives better. It was actually government intervening into free market capitalism with Smoot-Hawley and other things, which brought about the Great Depression just as it recently caused the financial crisis and housing bubble burst.

 

[Boss]

That's what seems nuts to me. Minimum wages laws make these jobs illegal. If both employer and employee can agree on a wage why does it need to be illegal?

The minimum wage is one of the worst things to ever happen to wages in America. It removes the individual opportunity to negotiate. Even the non-minimum wage jobs are very often baselined on the minimum wage rate. Raises are very often conditional upon raising of the minimum wage instead of performance. The dirty little secret FDR didn't tell you is... the Corporatists LOVE the minimum wage! It allows them to baseline labor cost. Rather than having a bunch of varying wages based on the individuals negotiating on the basis of their skills and what they bring to the table, they have a standard rate of pay for all... baslined on the minimum wage.

In 1932, when FDR introduced it, he said: "Any company that can't pay it's workers a decent living wage has no business in America!" Clearly, his plan didn't work because we still hear the same exact rant from the progressives. Raise the minimum wage and the corporations simply re-tool the formulas, lay people off, increase prices, downsize operations, increase productivity demands and life goes on. NEVER does the increase come out of the great big giant profit bucket.

Are you saying that corporations aren't already running as 'lean' as they possibly can?

*Sigh* ...I don't know of ANY corporation that intentionally spends capital they don't need to. The goal and objective of all capitalists is profit. In their board meetings, no one is saying... hey, we're making too much profit here, let's find something wasteful to blow money on so our profits aren't so high next year!

So you are asking me a straw man question. It has nothing to do with the point I made.

It has everything to do with the point you were trying to make. Here, look. I've even bolded where you said it.

Raise the minimum wage and the corporations simply re-tool the formulas, lay people off, increase prices, downsize operations, increase productivity demands and life goes on. NEVER does the increase come out of the great big giant profit bucket.

I don't know what you think that proves. If you raise the minimum wage, these companies who are "running lean" as you say... are going to find ways to run leaner. They do this by laying people off and increasing the productivity demand on their remaining employees, incorporating new technology, raising prices, re-examining cost-effectiveness of various aspects of their operation, etc. What they DON'T do is take away from their profit margins. In fact, studies show that for many companies, profits are increased as a result of the measures they take.

 

[dblack]

It's called "free market capitalism" and it works brilliantly whenever it is allowed to work.

Where is that? I'm guessing that if it exists, it's a shit hole.

I wouldn't call the US a shit hole, but it's had the most free market capitalism historically, though we seem to be giving up on it.

The height of the free market was the gilded age and for the vast majority, it sucked.

Hmmm... I guess it's a matter of perspective. I certainly wouldn't call that the 'height'. Overall, it's been a damn good ride though, and the vast majority didn't think it sucked. Most of the world envied it, in fact, and tried to reproduce it with varying degrees of success.

You 'freedom is bad' people really are a dismal lot.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Now.... North Koreans don't have to worry about fast food or jobs in fast food making $15/hr. Life is fair for them... no problems... they are all equally poor. One can't have more than the other because they all have nothing. One can't have more opportunity than another because they all have NO opportunity. Things are perfectly fair in North Korea.

Yep. And they don't have to worry about healthcare because government takes care of that and they don't have to worry about guns either. Of course if they had guns, they probably wouldn't be confined and poor because they would be able to change their government.

 

[koshergrl]

It's called "free market capitalism" and it works brilliantly whenever it is allowed to work.

Where is that? I'm guessing that if it exists, it's a shit hole.

I wouldn't call the US a shit hole, but it's had the most free market capitalism historically, though we seem to be giving up on it.

The height of the free market was the gilded age and for the vast majority, it sucked.

No, for the "vast majority" it was wonderful. They settled the west, fortunes were made and could be made by anybody with drive and ideas, and your station was entirely the result of your own efforts.