FlyingIguana

now you're getting into competitive advantage issues that you don't seem to know much about. allowing other countries to handle these extremely low paying jobs is better than having people here making peanuts when they won't be able to afford anything to live.

FadeEP

Interesting...

FlyingIguana

supply and demand determines what they are worth. why does wendys pay 8 bux? because there isn't enough people willing to work for 7.

UnseenWorld

The employer will pay what it takes to get what he wants. You're talking like if a floor sweeper is worth $6 an hour so is an account manager or heart surgeon.

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BJ

Exactly. I used to work for a large company in korea, and in their factories they used an employment technique that was very efficient and benefited the workers. Basically, workers were paid higher wages, but they learned and worked every single part of the assembly line and even had janitorial duties. They would rotate job duties every 2 weeks. Over time, they would skim the workforce until the entire factory was operating at maximum efficiency. Not a single second wasted. People employed earned high wages, but there was less people to pay.

Entry level, (low paid) workers were required to learn every aspect of factory production. as they did so, there wage increased. The were rewarded for their efficiency over time and become more valuable in the workforce.

The current wage system offers no motivation or incentive for people to increase their income. Employers use the minimum wage against their employees. They are able to say this is a minimum wage job and if you dont like it, go down the street. If you really think about it, it keeps the employee from advancing.

UnseenWorld

I guess if you don't get paid enough to live on, what you would do is burglarize people's houses or sell crack. Do I have you right there?

It wouldn't occur to you to look around and find something worthwhile you could do which other people might want?

You must be the most weak-backboned, lazy, fatalistically-inclined, "I can't succeed unless success is handed to me on a silver platter" slob I've ever heard about, then.

Do I have THaT right?

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UnseenWorld

Every prostitute and drug dealer is someone who took an easier (if more risky) road than that of doing something more worthwhile.

Perhaps if someone has NO talent to bring to the market, nothing to offer of any value, no contribution to make, even if they make it themselves on a freelance basis rather than on someone's payroll...perhaps they don't belong here. Or, perhaps they belong in an institution where someoen can wipe the drool off their chins while they fritter away the hours till their extinction.

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Joe Sixpack

1. If i had the choice of dealing drugs or working for $4 an hour then yes I would deal drugs. But I actually see drug dealers as providing an important service to the community, so I wouldn't have a problem with it anyway. After all, it's not THAT different to smut peddling.

2. "Success" depends on your definition.

Warphead

I think the only fact that really needs thinking about is that someone working full-time at min-wage is well below the "poverty level", and the average min-wage worker isn't a high school kid saving for a car, it's someone supporting children. The richest country on earth (according to GNP) should be able to do better.

On the other hand, it makes the 200 bucks I offer for a nude shoot seem a lot more impressive.

BJ

Everytihng has its price and can be bought and sold in a free market at a reasonable profit. (including people)

Frank W

Maybe the reason the US became the richest country in the world is that we resisted the temptations of being a SOCIALIST state [in the case of Europe] or cultural Paternalism [see Japan]. I don't mean to bash on Europe or Japan but compare their system to ours and our culture and you would easily realize why the US is so rich and powerful.

Frank W

-- drugs should be legalized. Shit, as long as its made legal only to responsible adults, then have at it. We're all adults here....we don't need the government to hold our dicks while we take a piss. Besides, it would free up all that cash that leaves or gets reduced due to money laundering and could circulate freely back into the economy.

FATPad

Legalized drugs and prostitution would be SOOOO good for the economy. Tons of money previously wasted on stomping out things that can't be stomped out could be put to better use. Tons of money could be gained through direct taxation and regulation fees. Tons of money previously hidden would be circulated freely throughout the economy giving it a nice boost. And both activities would be cleaner and safer saving money on the health costs later on.

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FlyingIguana

legalized drugs and prostitution would also take some power away from gangs and give the governement more money. plus they could try to help people with a drug problem instead of just sweeping it under the carpet.

problem is, you'll never get elected if you want to pull this off.

Just the Village Idiot

n/m

Frank W

Right on, actually a lot of conservatives like William F. Buckley argue the same point. Drug Money is actually poisoning governments the world over due to bribery and corruption--this is another cost we pay in the War on Drugs. If a govt official agrees to look the other way while drugs are imported, what's preventing them from being bribed to look the other way while terrorists or others smuggle weapons of terror into the country?
Legalization destroys this cultural degradation.

Carrie

This says nothing about the business, and everything about the maids.
If they can make $8/hr at Wendy's pulling fries out of the cooker, why aren't they doing it? With that extra $3 per hour perhaps they could quit one of those extra jobs you talk about.

Point blank, some people have no ambition, and even less common sense. If the maids can do less back-breaking work for more money and they're not over there doing it - it is NOT the fault of the business. It's their own fault.

Giving these people a minimum wage enables them, encourages them, to stay right where they're at instead of aiming for something higher. (Enable in psychological terms, not physical terms.)

Carrie

This is the whole point of things. Being responsible and doing what needs to be done - no matter what you THINK you're worth, no matter what your pride tells you your job title SHOULD be.

If you've got bills to pay and mouths to feed, you get off of your ass and do your duty.

Amend that - people with a sense of responsibility get off of their asses and do their duty. Everyone else seems to think the gov't should take care of them in one way or another.

Carrie

I just find all of the responses for keeping minimum wage laughable.

Consider what you all do. You sell porn. You advertise sponsors who pay you $X per signup.
If you do a better job than your fellow pornmaster, the sponsor pays you $X +$5 per signup.
If you do *really* well, the sponsor pays you $X +$10 per signup.

That's called incentive to do better. To learn more skills in marketing, filtering traffic, and basically making the sale. The more you learn, the better your sales, the more you get paid.

Now let's change this to a minimum wage situation.
All sponsors are now required to pay $50 per signup. It doesn't matter if you send them 1 sale per week or 300 sales per week.
The sponsors will immediately STOP rewarding the webmasters who learn more and do better - because they can't afford the extra bonuses when they have to pay the unlearned peons a whopping $50 per signup.
And where is the incentive to do better? There isn't one. Because Joe Schmoe over there knows that he can make just as much money *per signup* as Quiet without ever lifting a finger and putting some work into really learning how to filter and sell. So rather than focus his priorities on learning how to sell the traffic he's got, he focuses his priorities on numbers - building as many shitty websites as possible and getting as many hits as possible in the hopes of making that sale that is equal to the highly filtered, pre-sold sale that Quiet makes.

What happens? The amount of freely available porn increases exponentially - far worse than what it is now, OVERALL conversions drop, everyone's ratio suffers and everyone's sales go down. Even better - the sponsor now has to increase the monthly membership fee to their website because they've got to pay out $50 per signup no matter what. The membership drops off, the signups get fewer and far between, because no one wants to pay those high prices.

Now then - how about we institute a minimum per signup so that YOUR 300 highly targeted signups per week won't get you any special bonuses and will only pay you a flat rate with no hopes of ever increasing if you do better?

I didn't think so.

FlyingIguana

thats not really the same situation. even if everyone gets paid the same there is always more incentive to make more sales, because you make more money.

take out min wage and you'll have a ton of workers pretty much on welfare to supplement their extremely low income. i don't consider min wage to be a decent wage and you'll just barely get by. take it away and you'll see students and unskilled workers making pathetic wages, even if they're good workers.

JConway

The fear of doing away with minumum wage is that the bottom would fall out of the economy. The work force would become over saturated and underbid itself to a point of poverty. My standpoint, and maybe this is very naive, has always been that anybody who really wants a job can get a job, as long as they are not overly selective. And as it is, they would be assured of making at least $6.75/hr.(or so it is in Ca.) rather than $6.75/day.

Theo

your example is laughable and it's 100% unrelated with the min. wage of the employees. You don't even gave a some kind of accurate parallel example.


"Now then - how about we institute a minimum per signup so that YOUR 300 highly targeted signups per week won't get you any special bonuses and will only pay you a flat rate with no hopes of ever increasing if you do better?"

min wage = no less than X amount
minimum per signup should be no less than X amount. Having minimum wage limit for an employee doesnt mean he can't earn more than the limit. The difference is that you can't have him as an employee paying him less than the min wage stated by the law. So obviously, your example is not valid.

Theo

I bet a lot of people would like to employ others for way less than the min wage. People that due to bad life circumstances have to get a low-paid job and because of the lack of min. wage they would get paid even less, but they'll do it because of obligations and need. No other choice. Personally I deny to get someone with a wage equal to poverty stantards. I'm glad the min. wage exists, it's a right that employees gained through time and it wasn't an easy accomplishment in many countries.

As said before, if you can't afford to hire someone for the min wage you suck 14" cock and you should better reconsider your business abilities than seeking to avoid few bucks from someone that will work in order to support his family. Unemployment will always exists and min wage definetely is not one of the reasons.

i'm out bitches :-)

UnseenWorld

The richest country on earth wasn't built on handouts.

I hear too many people who feel all is lost if someone doesn't offer them a job, like they can't sit down and think of a business they could start or a service they could offer on a freelance basis. If a company doesn't offer them a job, they're ready to start digging themselves a grave. How did our country ever reach the point where people just gave up if they couldn't get a salary out of someone else?

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UnseenWorld

And, as I say elsewhere, the only source of income doesn't have to be a salary from a job in a company. They can make employment for themselves by offering something on a freelance basis. They can offer to help people garden, they can write how-to booklets (I get a helluva a lot of income from some I wrote).

Where is it written that the only way to make money is to get a paycheck from a company? Fuck! Start a business! Offer a service!

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FATPad

Of course unemployment will always exist. A certain amount of unemployment is actually a healthy, desirable situation.

Too bad you can't refute the original post with real facts instead of "I think minimum wage is good because I like it and it makes me feel good about the world" type of arguments.

Would you rather have one unmotivated, uneducated, person working making $6/hour or two unmotivated, uneducated people with no ambition making $3/hour? You can't have both working at $6, so now the arbitrary, feel good, minimum wage number has contributed to unemployment. How can you even deny that?

The bottom will always be the bottom, and there will always be a way out for people who want the way out, regardless of arbitrary minimum wage figures.

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FlyingIguana

sure you have two people making 3 bux an hour, but they'll need welfare so they can actually afford a dump to live in. instead of one person on the system who needs a job, you have two who work all day and still need assistence.

Joe Sixpack

I think anyone advocating paying someone $3 an hour should be forced to live on it themselves. People need to be paid a wage they can live on and it's the governments responsibility to see that employers do the right thing.

After all, we all know that given the chance, most companies would be sending eight year olds down mines for eighteen hours a day like they were in England during the industrial revolution in the 19th century.

UnseenWorld

Yes, but then suppose there is no assistance? Hmm, maybe they'll have to go to Plan B: think of something to do that makes money, and maybe it'll turn out to be something that makes a helluva a lot more than minimum wage.

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FATPad

What's a livable wage? $5/hour? $10/hour? $500/hour?

Set minimum wage to whatever you want. Everyone will end up in the exact same situation they're in right now. No one's actual purchasing power will increase. Standards of living won't change.

A static barrier in a relativity based situation is pointless.

Good standard of living = 2.5 x minimum wage (for example)

not

Good standard of living = $X so set minimum wage = $X.

Change the minimum wage to $100/hour, you change the amount required for a decent standard of living and accomplish nothing. But everyone will feel better knowing their guaranteed making $100/hour at least. Weeeeeeeee......

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FATPad

btw, if McDonald's could pay it's French Fry Engineers $2.00/hour, Big Mac's wouldn't cost $2.00 each.

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FlyingIguana

its not possible for every single person to do that. its a nice thought in theory but won't happen in reality. fact is a lot of people are just plain stupid.

Squishy

Sure they would. And the execs would buy Gulfstream IV's instead of Jaguars.

FATPad

No they wouldn't. Because Burger King could pay it's Fryolator people $2.00 an hour, too. If McDonald's kept charging $2.00 per Big Mac, BK would see a great opportunity to increase it's market share by cutting the price on it's Whopper to $1.00. They'd still be making hte same profit per unit sold, but now they would be increasing market share and pulling in more money than ever.

McDonald's could either stand by and watch, or lower it's prices to compete.

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Mr.Fiction

There has been a federal minimum wage since the 1930's. The United State's wealth and power has grown exponentially since then. Your statement, if you are calling minimum wage "handouts", is simply wrong. The current wealth and power of this country were, in fact, built during a time where the government supported a minimum wage.

The correct statement would be:

The richest country on earth got that rich while supporting minimum wage (and welfare too).

FlyingIguana

i don't think it would have that much of an effect on prices. people making under min wage would barely be able to afford a place to stay let alone food. you'd have much less income being spent meaning lower demand.

there's a ripple effect that needs to be considered.

Joe Sixpack

A liveable wage is exactly that - it's a wage a person can live on. Nobody can live on $3 an hour. It's not possible.

Mind you, I think part-time workers and teenagers (who don't have to support themselves necessarily) should be treated differently. But if you employ someone full-time, yes that person should be paid a wage they can live on. Employers should be held accountable.

Squishy

Just on CNN right now...30 years ago, the average CEO made 42x the wage of an average production worker. Today, it's now 400x. That is sickening. I could tell you why, but Isomeone dosed me with PCP on monday, and my IQ has dropped 80 points. When it returns, I'll make more of an effort.

Lexxx

What's the minimum wage for an adult webmaster?

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Squishy

Or they could just call each other on the phone, and say, "Heh heh, my fellow rich bastard! Keep them prices up, and ride the train to an extra billion dollars!" Not in America, you say? Put "Archer Daniels Midland" and "price fixing" into google, and you'll see why a farmer makes 10 cents off a gallon of milk, and you still pay 3 bucks for it. If the government could kill that type of behavior, your arguement is true. But they'll just take a nice campaign donation instead.

UnseenWorld

Yes, and the liberal sees stupid people as more people needing their life handled by the government. Beautiful. How typical.

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foe

$5 dollars per hour .... I would die.

UnseenWorld

You forgot what I was responding to. Someone referred to people on sub-poverty-level wages as requiring welfare. Welfare is a handout, not minimum wage. Minimum wage is government interference in a market.

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FlyingIguana

would you rather people live on the street or in shacks like in some 3rd world countries?

Joe Sixpack

Speaking of government handouts, why do we never hear conservatives bitching about the billions of dollars in agricultural export subsidies handed out to farmers every year (remember, these people are land owners). These industries are obviously inefficient and are propped up year in and year out with huge government handouts.

UnseenWorld

Yes, me, too. That's why I'm self-employed.

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BJ

people already do. I live 2 blocks from cabrini green and some of those people would never be hired at any minimum wage job. Living conditions are horrible. Yet the govt supllies them with money and they continue to live there with no ambition of ever leaving. Welfare is lees than minimum wage and people will stay on it without ever trying to get a job. PLent of people here in this country are happily content living at below minimum wage income levels.

UnseenWorld

Yes, me, too. That's why I'm self-employed.

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FlyingIguana

there will always be poverty and homeless people. but you need to provide things like welfare to help those who are in an unfortunate position better themselves. there will always be abuse of the system, but it needs to be there regardless.

take out min wage and companies will pay less to people. those people might as well be on welfare because they won't have any money to get ahead if they desired. min wage is nothing to be proud of, but its certainly better than 2 or 3 bux an hour and at least someone working full time can actually live on that wage.

UnseenWorld

I don't count myself as a "conservative" per se. I'm more libertarian than conservative. However, you'll never hear libertarians arguing in favor of price supports like that.

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