Ted Kennedy, Minimun Wage

[retired]

This is a very small example of what happens when the govt. raises the minimum wage. Ca. recently raised the wage to $7+.

A few days ago, I was in the local market and bought some frozen Minute Maid lemonade. The price before the wage increase was $1.29. It was now $1.59. I asked the mgr. if this was due to the recent frost damage to the crops. He said no, it was due to the minimum wage increase.

As has been stated, the manufacturer or any other business down the line will pass the costs on down the line. The customer, you and I are at the bottom of that line.

So, minimum wage goes up, the prices go up to compensate for that and basically, you really have not accomplished anything.

TxPete, I like your posts. I have never owned a business and obviously do not know the complexity of doing so like you do, so your explanation is revealing. Thanks for the insight.

Edited to add: I'm not a Republican nor am I a Democrat. I'm an independent. I vote for the person who agrees with my beliefs, no matter the party. Even when I was a Democrat (when they were not so far left), I voted for the person, not the party. I voted for Republicans and Democrats.

[jkswiss]

So why was minimum wage so HIGH ten years ago? How come businesses did not fall under and why wasn't there massive unemployment due to the insane rate of $5.15 an hour? Why can't we just adjust the rate to the same buying power as it did back then? Wouldn't that just be status quo? Ten years ago you could buy a bottle of pop for around fifty cents. Now, its around a dollar. Back then, gas was under $2.00/gal, now it sure as hell ain't. CPI has risen over the years. Minimum wage has not.
Republicans have lost touch with the working class base. Out to make a profit yes..Doesn't mean you have to milk your employee's dry. They're just trying to make it in this world, same as you.

[jkswiss]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Ahhh ... to once again be living in the blissful artificial world of collegiate life.

You see, there is a finite amount of money in a business. The more they pay each employee the fewer employees the business can employ. There isn't some magical money tree the business can shake harder to get more money for more employees. Of course, this is an unfathomable situation tenured professor.

The Republicans, so dead set against a minimum wage hike, have engineered an economy with record low unemployment. Now, you and your wise old democrat classmates, sit back and watch while the minimum wage goes up and unemployment right along with it.

If you admire Ted Kennedy I feel genuine pity for you. Not belittling sarcastic pity, genuine pity for your tiny, narrow window on the world.

What in the world brought you to this site anyway? Surely you can't enjoy firearms or shooting sports since your democrat idols are dead set on stripping all of us our right to keep and bear arms, and that will include you my blissfully ignorant friend.

No need to get personal. I have been on this site far longer than you have my friend.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by jkswiss

No need to get personal. I have been on this site far longer than you have my friend.

Length of time means nothing. Your pal Teddy Kennedy has been the Senate for damn long time and it doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about either.

Your post about "ten years ago" indicates you've not comprehended anything posted here. You're circling back to your initial question, which has been answered repeatedly with real life examples given.

Continue to educate yourself, but get the heck away from professors and politicians who have never had to generate a net profit in order to survive. Go talk to some small business owners in your area and ask them how a minimum wage hike will affect their business.

[gsh341]

Originally Posted by jkswiss

So why was minimum wage so HIGH ten years ago? How come businesses did not fall under and why wasn't there massive unemployment due to the insane rate of $5.15 an hour? Why can't we just adjust the rate to the same buying power as it did back then? Wouldn't that just be status quo? Ten years ago you could buy a bottle of pop for around fifty cents. Now, its around a dollar. Back then, gas was under $2.00/gal, now it sure as hell ain't. CPI has risen over the years. Minimum wage has not.
Republicans have lost touch with the working class base. Out to make a profit yes..Doesn't mean you have to milk your employee's dry. They're just trying to make it in this world, same as you.

It sounds like a good iea at first, but it is a vicious cycle. Raise minimum wage, costs go up, minimum wage has the same buying power as before. So, raise the minimum wage to compensate, prices go up, new wage hike still has the same buying power. If wages reman fairly steady, prices will stay fairly steady. Sure, some prices have gone up, but some prices have come down. Gas went up, but computers have come down. Houses have gone up, but mortgage rates have come down. Overall we have had general inflation and the minimum wage doesn't cover basic living expenses, it never has, but the average wage in the US has gone up in the last 10 years.

If you can't get a job for more than minimum wage, you don't deserve anything better. Seriously, the local Dairy Queen starts new employees out at more than minimum wage for part time!

[dualcert]

Face it jkswiss, the minimum wage angle is just that, an angle and talking point. Do you know anyone personally that works for minimum wage? I sure as heck don't, the local Publix grocery store started my friends high school age daughter out at $6.25/hr as a cashier.

[Son of Norway]

Originally Posted by Son of Norway

Minimum wage should be adjusted quarterly to the CPI.

"Raising" the minimum wage is a misnomer. The current minimum wage doesn't have the buying power that $5.15 had back in '97. This is the focal point for the argument that minimum wage should be adjusted to the CPI.

I believe that "Minimum Wage" is just that: Minimum. It is not a "living" wage.

I believe that a value should be set as a base for minimum wage, and then adjust it quarterly to the CPI. This is a double edged sword because if the economy is doing good, the minimum wage could be adjusted down. But bottom wage earners should not suffer devaluation for 10 years at a time.

I believe there is no such thing as "unskilled labor". That (to me) is a slur. There is only "untrained" labor. Face it, it takes skill to make a Big Mac. "Unskilled" leaves the impression that this person can't do anything.

My 2c's. YMMV

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Son of Norway

I believe there is no such thing as "unskilled labor". That (to me) is a slur. There is only "untrained" labor. Face it, it takes skill to make a Big Mac. "Unskilled" leaves the impression that this person can't do anything.

My 2c's. YMMV

I agree. It has always bothered me when people demand their employer pay them more for the same work they've always done in a low-skill-requirement position (COL not withstanding). If you want to make more money, seek training, gain skills, increase your earning potential. Don't sit around stamping your feet.

[Alaskapopo]

Originally Posted by TxPete68

They are compensated at a fair rate. And that rate is determined by a number of factors. Such as what the customer is willing to pay, how much that individual employee contributes, what the labor market is like in a particular area for a particular job, etc. These all contribute to paying what the market will bear. This is what a free market economy is all about. What is fair is whatever someone agrees to work for, and what I am willing to pay. And is it self regulating. If the going rate for a particular job is $6 and I am willing to pay $12, that is unfair to me and I will be unable to keep a business operating because the market will not support the price I have to charge in order to pay that wage. Conversely, if the going rate is $12 and I pay $6, that is unfair to the employee and I will not be able to keep a business operating because I will be unable to retain employees. So if you leave it alone, what do you get? a fair market value wage.



And who determines what a minimum living wage is? If someone is wants more money, they can get more training/education, assume more responsibilities and earn more money. Or they can aquire the skills needed to get a better paying job. In reality, those people that are "stuck" in minimum wage, dead-end jobs, are those without the motivation to better themselves, or they are happy where they are. For the most part, minimum wage jobs are just that, jobs. They are not careers.




Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.

Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.

It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one’s birth or station in life.
Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient.

Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living.


The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another’s wealth but also the desire to see another’s wealth lowered to the level of one’s own. Socialism’s teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: "Common good comes before private good." Fascism, said Mussolini, is " a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests…realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies."
Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.



You are correct - liberals are turning us into a socialist country.

Pete

A socialist country is better than a pure capitalistic one. Neither is perfect. What you need is a capitalist economy with good government controls.

We are not going to agree on this obviously. So good day.
Pat

[Alaskapopo]

Originally Posted by FrankRizzoXD40

Some statistics, please, that show that all big business owners are republicans.

Thanks in advance,

Frank

If your not aware of the fact that big buisness is prodminently republican its not worth debating this topic with you as your not armed with the facts.
Pat