BJ

Agriculture is probably the single most important industry in the US. It is nearly impossible to run a profitable farm as an individual. The subsidies are there to encourage farmers to work the land.

FlyingIguana

without the subsidies, they'd prolly make a nudist camp or something

FATPad

Farm subsidies are just as dumb as minimum wage rates.

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UnseenWorld

I guess I don't understand. Why would removing subsidies force farmers to work the land as individuals?

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Jayson

Yep, no motivation to improve your skills/techniques, just like minimum wage wont motivate people to improve themselves if they are content on that.

Australian sugar cane farmers have to survive on $160 (no subsidies) a tonne or whatever it is and the US farmers get $900 because of subsidies - why would they bother improving when they are guaranteed $900 no matter how badly they do it.

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BJ

I meant that an individual farmer (not corporate run farms) needs these subsidies in order for it to be worth it to them to work the land. Generally, at least here in illinois, crop profits are just barely enough to pay property taxes. But since we need food the government offers the farmers incentives.

Carrie

Gee, ya mean like the webmasters here have done? Because they weren't happy with what they were making at their jobs?
And look at them all talking about how minimum wage is so great, LOL.
They are making your point for you, and don't even realize it.

Carrie

"a wage that people can live on.... a wage that people can live on..."

How can you keep repeating that over and over?
Minimum wage is not MEANT to be a wage for people to live on. It's meant to be an ENTRY-LEVEL wage.
As in no skills, no experience, never-had-a-job-before wage.

People are not supposed to LIVE on minimum wage. This is the feel-good bullshit that keeps getting the wage hiked up and pushes people out of jobs each time.
Teenagers getting out of school, co-eds in college - THESE are the people who get ENTRY LEVEL jobs. Because they have no job skills. Because they've never had a job before. Because they are not WORTH more money with nothing to bring to the table.

And here's a fucking clue for you - teenagers and co-eds do not live on minimum wage!!! They live on mommy and daddy's dollar, they live in a dorm, they live with roommates.

If someone is 30+ years old and the only job they can get is an ENTRY LEVEL position, then that's their own damn fault. They don't have a RIGHT to be paid a "living wage" - no one has a RIGHT to be paid a "living wage". Those people had the opportunity to learn a skill, learn a job, get some experience - and evidently they wasted it.
Rather than just handing them more money that their non-skilled asses do NOT deserve, make them get two jobs!
Maybe they'll learn a thing or two about job skills then.

You cannot honestly sit there and tell me that EVERY person that walks through your door is worth $6.75 per hour. Especially when they are unskilled, have no idea what the concepts of being punctual, professional, and reliable are; when you're going to have to spend at least two weeks training them to do their job - if not more...
Earning a minimum wage is not a RIGHT. Earning a "living wage" is not a RIGHT.
It is something that you EARN. Hence the word, WORK!!
Get it? Earning? Work?

You are talking about money for WORKING. If you want more money, you EARN it. By showing your employer that you are going to stick around, that you are going to be there faithfully every day, on time, that you are going to do your best to do your job correctly, that you are serious about having the job. You EARN a higher wage.
No one is ENTITLED to a higher wage.

gooeycandy

CARRIE CARRIE CARRIE

What is this thing you have about minimum wage/living wage? I don't know anyone who can live on a minimum wage. You seem to be prejudiced against people with an education and those with parents who help their kids get through college.

Having a college degree means nothing. I know people on the internet who have nothing but a HS degree, and they are making more than my relatives who have degrees out the kazoo!

Do you have a degree? Does your husband? Did the degrees help, if you have them?

Take a deep breath and get back on the Prozac and life will look brighter in the AM

Frank W

Amen. Another form of welfare.

BJ

except for the fact the farms actually produce tangible goods which we consume, wheras welfare simply produces lazy americans.

Im not sure if I agree with farm subsidies, I knew a lot of people in college who's whole education was paid for because their parents owned farms. Most of the parents had well paying jobs in addition to owning the farms, so I guess its another abused system.

But I'd rather see government money go towards making sure I can eat than seeing it go to some crackhead on the street.

Carrie

Confucy, I suggest you go back and re-read my post thoroughly.

"I don't know anyone who can live on a minimum wage."
Well hot damn, that's the point I was making, wasn't it? Minimum wage isn't meant to live on, it's meant to be an entry-level wage for people with no skills who have never had a job.
So stop talking about people having to "live" on minimum wage. It's not a valid argument. 30, 40, 50 year olds *have* worked at a job previously and *do* have a set of skills to bring to the table that will make them worth more than the pimply-faced teenager who has never had a skill.
So, the teenager gets the entry-level wage - minimum wage - and the 30/40/50 year old gets a higher wage based on their skills, knowledge, and experience.

These people that are being thrown up as examples of needing a "wage that they can live on"; a "living wage", are not the recipients of minimum wage and have no place being in the debate whatsoever.

Frank W

Production is NOT the core activity being subsidized--it is non production that is being encouraged. You get paid only for certain amount of production cuz we'll pay you not to grow more.

gooeycandy

Carrie, who the hell knows what your point is! You get bored and start pontificating about bullshit that has nothing to do with porn. Aren't you satisfied boring the shit out of people on Netpond? Do you really have to repeat the same crap here! You have confusy on the brain. Grow up!

FlyingIguana

carrie those with parents don't need to live on min wage, those without do

Carrie

I have Confucy on the brain? LMAO
This obssession you have with me is flattering, but useless. I shall ignore you here just as I have done in email. I'm finished with you attempting to bait me into whatever reaction it is you're looking for.
I've told you again and again - you are not worth my time. I don't care who you are, I don't care what money you have, I don't care what programs you help influential people run. I don't care if your best friend is a hacker and your moustache got itself in a twist this morning, or if your "kitty" bitched you out this afternoon. The last time you called my family "white trash" was the kicker. I am done with you.
Follow me to whatever board you want, it won't help. Find another obsession.

Oh yeah...
GO FUCK YOURSELF.

Frank W

So following this logic, its okay to subsidize inefficient producers and industries? The vast majority of food consumed in the US are produced by factory farms. They are the efficient wave of the future. Subsidies just seek to preserve economic inefficiency. Just like the minimum wage.

FlyingIguana

i believe having a min wage helps the economy by making companies pay a wage which doesn't require people to seek assistence.

the poor would be even more poor than they are now without a min wage. young workers would have a harder time getting money together to help pay for their education.

i think a country should strive for a decent standard of living for everyone, even the dumb people, because there's gonna be stupid people who have no choice but to take shit jobs. obviously someone who just rides the system shouldn't get shit, but people who want to improve their life need some certain amount of money to do that and 2 or 3 bux an hour isnt gonna cut it.

it sux seeing tax dollars go to some crack head with 10 kids, but if it can help someone get on their feet, i think the system is a bit of a success. whether its min wage or welfare.

gooeycandy

"This obssession you have with me is flattering, but useless."

Carrie, aren't you the one who registered confucycash.com? No, that couldn't be someone who hates confucy so much. Why don't you take a trip and relax. It seems to me that I was the one who did not answer your email. So sorry!

I think you are so uptight because you are moving. That can be a very stressful ordeal. Oh yes, and money is tight because hubby lost his job. But he can find a minimum wage position, I'm sure.

Sweet dreams!

quiet

what the fuck is 'confusy'?

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BJ

I never said I agreed with these subsidies, but If I had to choose between giving farmers money and welfare Id go with the farmers.

I just don't think that if you did away with minimum wage that all of a sudden Mcdonalds would start paying people $2/hr. The labor market would be more competitive and advantageous to those who under the current system, can't find work.

dirtymonkey

? minimum wage. Nah!

FlyingIguana

so you want more people working and not having enough money to pay their rent? a lot of companies would drop wages to low levels. i think the negatives outweigh the positives.

BJ

I would rather see people paid based on their virtues, ie. productivity, then on some arbitrary number the government decides.

Sooner or later increasing minimum wage will catch up with productivity. what would we do then? decrease minimum wage? that would go over real well.

FlyingIguana

when i was gettin min wage i was being paid less than i was worth. take out min wage and the company would be ripping me off.

bhutocracy

It's not an arbitrary figure It's based in part on the poverty line.

your last paragraph is just plain wrong.

the minimum wage isn't increasing.. it's decreasing in real terms. a person on minimum wage twenty years ago was better off than a person on minimum wage today because it hasn't been increased enough you should be CHEERING any current rise because it's actually a long term decrease.

Joe Sixpack

People forget that those on minimum wage don't have much bargaining power. These people are, more likely than not, not experienced enough or smart enough to negotiate wage and working conditions with their employer. So if you dropped the minimum wage, these people would need some kind of collective bargaining i.e. trade unions.

Someone needs to look out for people on the bottom rung. Big companies have the government to do their bidding. I'd like to see tough as nails trade unions take it to the big companies and protect these workers from being fucked over.

bhutocracy

it's like people who think they're getting tax cuts when really it's just tax brackets not being indexed to inflation being aligned every couple of years.

BJ

What about the rung on the employment ladder below the minimum wage rung, what about those people?

Joe Sixpack

What's below minimum wage? Slavery?

Verbosa

Illegals employed as domestic help. For cash, under the table.

Sly_RJ

Actually, you're wrong. Minimum wage started in the '60s I believe (someone please correct my time frame). It was created for the sole purpose for people to live on. Seriously... look it up.

I made the same argument you are many times, until I opened a book and noticed I was wrong. Although the original intention of the minimum wage for survival, I'll agree with you that it isn't the case these days. Minimum wage is for college kids, high school students, etc.

I always find it sad when I notice an older person cleaning the floors at McDonald's... no skills, no motivation, no life.

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bhutocracy

public works for the dole. building playgrounds.. weeding public gardens.. cleaning.... something to get people out of a welfare state of mind and working... either that or "education for the dole" where you must learn new skills or a trade at pass levels to qualify for government support.
This is actually seen as a right wing position here.. but i know nothing would get me motivated to find real work more than manual public works.

StacyCat

So, because there are endless supplies of immigrants willing to work for minimum wage, their back breaking labor isnt worth 10 bucks to you, but to be served by an english speaker at wendy's is?

What determines the worth of a job? How many people are willing to do it? Or what it takes to do the job?

In a society, it shouldnt be "how much would I pay that person to do that job" its "how much would I need to be in that job." Yes, im sure all of us would take minimum wage jobs if that it was it took to survive.

Its not just "Entry Level" jobs that pay this, Carrie. Its employers taking advantage of those that are less fortunate in order to get more money from them. Janitors and housekeepers arent entry level jobs, but 5.25 an hour is what they earn.

So, I dont have a "right" to earn more than minumum wage? If I have a harder work ethic than you, if I am willing to stoop to the level of minimum wage to live? Can you survive on 15k? if you were pushed out onto the street at 16, could you do it?

And there are people that have to "live" on minimum wage. Even at 30-40 years of age, if those are the only places that will hire them, thats what they have to take.

If not minimum wage, what wage should they earn? The "living wage"? The rate that set, for working 40 hours a week, will get them a place to live at 35% of their income? Will allow them a place to sleep and be rested for their next day at work?

http://www.universallivingwage.com/

Check it out for austin. you go look in the paper, see how many jobs are offering to hire at 10 bucks an hour (which is enough to get an efficiency, by the way)

Carrie

It's an anon who thinks I wouldn't be able to recognize the writing style and baiting tactics a mile away. Followed me here from Netpond, where it attempts to draw me into some stupid "I'm going to get you to lose your temper and show your true self" bullshit. It constantly emails me privately with more and more vicious personal attacks on myself and when that didn't work, on my family.
Its email is now being deleted from my server before I ever see it.

Its made quite a name for itself over the past year, bashing everyone that it can, generally making an ass of itself on the boards and in the adult webmaster radio shows. Sharky even made up some t-shirts to show it what a laughing stock it is:
http://sexia.com/gallery/webmaster/page2/sharky.jpg
And it worked - Confucy was the laughing stock of Internext, just as it is every day at various other boards and in radio chat rooms. (I can hear Lensman now: "There are other boards?" LOL)

It claims to be a person that is big in the industry, whom most everyone knows by a different name. This just goes to show the level of cowardice at not being man enough to voice its feral opinions in its "real" name - nothing like a kiss-ass during the day who must go anon at night to tell people what it really thinks of them.
I do believe I know who it is, and yes, this person is in a somewhat powerful position - certainly with powerful friends. I could give a shit less. I don't kiss anyone's ass - especially when they don't have the balls to tell people what they think and must go anon to do it.
http://www.gotkinky.com/ignored.jpg

Just ignore it. It hates that. The only way it feels that its pathetic life is validated is if it gets attention, since it doesn't have the balls to say all of this shit as its real self. Trying to be civil to it and work on the "treat people as you'd be treated" doesn't work with this living pile of yellow-bellied bullshit.

BJ

FlyingIguana

again supply and demand. if they will work tough labor jobs for min wage fine. if you're 30-40 years old and making min wage, thats your problem for not working on a better life for yourself.

there's a premium placed on some jobs, and others there isn't. depends on the skills that they need. you don't need much in the way of skills to make someone's bed or clean a toilet.

Carrie

Well, if you don't have the skills to get a job making $10 per hour (which isn't that hard to do), and consequently you can't pay the bills - then you get a second job.

Quite honestly - our grandfathers (and great-grandfathers) worked their asses off so that we could have the luxury that we have today. Would they have asked for a minimum wage? No... they would have (and often did) take a second or third job if necessary, they would barter services for things they needed, they would network with people in their community.
They didn't go crying to the gov't saying "I'm not making enough money to pay my bills, you have to force my employer to pay me more."
They just did what needed to be done, and sadly that's something that has been lost. Personal responsibility.

FlyingIguana

on average don't people today work harder then in the past? in more families both parents now work full time jobs and end up having less and less free time to enjoy life than they have in the past.

UnseenWorld

Touche.

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UnseenWorld

I've worked AT minimum wage, and in the last three years, while I was getting my business started. I saw people who were habitually late for work with excuses that were either patently lies, or not excuses at all (though the didn't seem to realize it...like, "I got so wasted last night"). Then, they were always disappearing, leaving the work to suckers like me, I guess. And when they couldn't subvert those of us who actually did work, they'd badmouth us or ridicule us for actually trying to give some value to our employer.

Yeah, a lot of the people who'd benefit from a "living wage" or "minimum wage" wouldn't even be worth the money.

People who push the minimum wage or living wage seem to forget that not everybody is a gold star worker, and not every job is necessarily worth what a minimum wage would pay, so those jobs get lost to automation, are sent overseas, or are eliminated as the employer goes out of business.

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UnseenWorld

Your point being?...

Like I've said before, how did we reach the point where the only way to earn a living is to work for a company? Is it a law of the universe that people who aren't making it on one job can't moonlight or start a part-time business (a web site perhaps?).

What a world of cry-babies we live in. Suppose our country had been founded by this bunch of whiners.

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FlyingIguana

having those types of jobs go overseas is good for a country like the states. you want higher paying jobs instead of measly jobs which don't advance the standard of living for those workers.

automation improves productivity and makes domestic companies more competitive in a global economy. businesses don't go under because they have to pay minimum wages, they go under because of a poorly executed business model or sometimes a plain shitty business model.

FlyingIguana

the failure rate for businesses is very high. odds are if these people tried they most likely would fail.

i'd hate to see where this industry would go if everyone not happy with their low wage job started a porn site.

UnseenWorld

But it's like a hidden tax, where you're taxed but it's hidden behind the price of the product. In this case, it's hidden government assistence, isn't it? So, what difference does it make whether the government taxes the company by forcing them to overpay for labor or simply taxes them and sends the money to the worker in an envelope?

Young workers would be able to get jobs easier, because the employers would be able to offer jobs to them at what they are worth. Let's consider a little art theatre that needs three employees to operate it at all times. A ticket seller, a snack counter clerk, and someone to operate the projector. This theatre provides a service to the community by showing independent and art films. However, the downside is that frequently there are only ten or twenty people in the audience. Most of us know about theatres like this. The theatre operator has fixed costs: rent, film rental fees, the cost of snack foods and beverages, trash pickup, etc. He's already minimized those expenses to whatever degree possible. All that's left to manipulate is employees' wages. However, now the state has decided that a living wage is $10/hr. The guy who dreamed up the theatre as a labor of love, and got it up and running is now in the rather strange position that his *employees* might actually get more per hour than he does, because there is a dictated "living wage" for employees, but not employers.

Strange, isn't it?

I agree that a country should strive for a decent standard of living for everyone. Where I disagree is that I think the country should do so by fostering healthy businesses who can pay people what they are honestly worth. A healthy economy with the highest degree of employment possible is a better situation than one with fewer jobs where wealth is redistributed by the government.

What the living/minimum wage proponents don't talk about is that by requiring every worker, no matter how worthless, to get (what? $10 an hour?) will mean that the labor part of the pie, which is a fixed figure pretty much, will have to be given to fewer people instead of distributed more thinly across more workers.

You can't require a higher wage than the market dictates without it costing jobs and increasing unemployment with all the hopelessness and crime which go along with it.

I agree: the government should not be in the position of facilitating crack mothers by sending them crack money (because, that's where most of it will go). Take the kids away until the mother has proven she has given it up. Getting the kids back will be further incentive to give up the drugs.

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UnseenWorld

Here's a surprising fact: Most of them would NOT go into porn.

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FlyingIguana

me as a student getting paid under 20 bux an hour is less than i am worth. less than min wage would be a complete joke. so companies wouldn't be paying what the person is honestly worth.

take away min wage and companies would take advantage of less skilled workers and give them even more pathetic wages than the min.

employment levels in north america are fairly high now, and just a few years ago the unemplyment rate was under what was considered to be full employment. sure, min wage may lower the number of available jobs somewhat, but overal it pumps more money into the economy. those same positions have to be performed anyways in most cases.

if you're making a wage that means you can't pay your rent, you're gonna feal very hopeless. that extra buck an hour could be the difference between paying the rent and not paying the rent.

bhutocracy

the minimum wage is based on the poverty line.. if the cinema owner can't pay his workers enough to stay out of poverty then he should fucking well do something else.. should people have to work for me at less than minimum wage because im in the business of solar-powered torches???
and nice strawman $10 figure.
once again you're a little confused about the relativity of price increases as they relate to inflation.

If a business owner can't make money by paying his workers above the poverty line he needs to find another line of work.

and again.. a minimum wage DOES NOT drive jobs offshore. if you can't see the difference between $5 an hour and $5 a week it's no wonder there is this misconception..
labour costs offshore are a HUNDREDTH of the costs in america.. even a DOUBLING of the minmum wage isn't going to mean dick when most people likely to go offshore are much more impressed at the "hundred times cheaper" than the measly few % increase in the minimum wage.

UnseenWorld

Once again, it never occurs to you (is this a generational thing?) to not settle for the wage from that one job. Instead, one can cut expenses so that money goes further, take on a second job, or start a little business. Just about anything is better than having the government meddle in wages.

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UnseenWorld

So, the cinema (and the low-wage jobs) are better sacrificed to the God of Living Wage, eh? Well, this is your opinion and I disagree. No one is holding a gun to the heads of the employees and telling them they have to work at that wage.

To be sure, if someone wants to make shoes for $15 and sell them for $112 (Nike?), they are probably already doing it, but don't deny that a mandatory increase in wages would exceed the tipping point for some businesses. To do so would defy reason and logic and appear stupid.

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