2016 POTUS Election Thread

[Cowboysrock55]

Maybe... there's (effectively) no minimum wage in China, and they just seem to have no middle class as a result. same with Singapore. Both countries live with extreme wealth disparity, as seems to be forming in the U.S. So make of that what you will. It's obvious that the healthiest economies all have either minimum wages or collectively bargained wages.

Regarding the minimum wage, here is some data for Western Europe:

There are nine countries with a minimum wage (Belgium, Netherlands, Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Luxembourg). Their unemployment rates range from 5.9% in Luxembourg to 27.6% in Greece. The median country is France with 11.1% unemployment.

There are nine countries with no minimum wage (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland.) Five of the nine have a lower unemployment rate than Luxembourg, the best of the other group. The median country is Iceland, with a 5.5% unemployment rate. The biggest country in Europe is Germany. No minimum wage and 5.2% unemployment.

Still want to raise our minimum wage to $10? Germany used to have really high unemployment. Then they did labor reforms to allow more low wage jobs, combined with subsidies for low wage workers. Now they don’t have high unemployment.

Still want to raise our minimum wage to $10?

 

[townsend]

Regarding the minimum wage, here is some data for Western Europe:

There are nine countries with a minimum wage (Belgium, Netherlands, Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Luxembourg). Their unemployment rates range from 5.9% in Luxembourg to 27.6% in Greece. The median country is France with 11.1% unemployment.

There are nine countries with no minimum wage (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland.) Five of the nine have a lower unemployment rate than Luxembourg, the best of the other group. The median country is Iceland, with a 5.5% unemployment rate. The biggest country in Europe is Germany. No minimum wage and 5.2% unemployment.

Still want to raise our minimum wage to $10? Germany used to have really high unemployment. Then they did labor reforms to allow more low wage jobs, combined with subsidies for low wage workers. Now they don’t have high unemployment.

Still want to raise our minimum wage to $10?

So you want collectively bargained minimum wages? Because that's the model in all of the "no" minimum wage countries you listed. I don't trust American unions that much, they pretty much ruined our biggest industries.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

So you want collectively bargained minimum wages? Because that's the model in all of the "no" minimum wage countries you listed. I don't trust American unions that much, they pretty much ruined our biggest industries.

Stick to one topic at a time my friend. Deal with minimum wage first. This idea that you need a minimum wage to somehow force big bad businesses to pay workers is purely a figment of people's imagination. If you want to legitimately raise people's wages and not do it artificially with a minimum wage you need to reduce unemployment. A minimum wage is specifically designed to make people unemployed.

 

[Jiggyfly]

Regarding the minimum wage, here is some data for Western Europe:

There are nine countries with a minimum wage (Belgium, Netherlands, Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Luxembourg). Their unemployment rates range from 5.9% in Luxembourg to 27.6% in Greece. The median country is France with 11.1% unemployment.

There are nine countries with no minimum wage (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland.) Five of the nine have a lower unemployment rate than Luxembourg, the best of the other group. The median country is Iceland, with a 5.5% unemployment rate. The biggest country in Europe is Germany. No minimum wage and 5.2% unemployment.

Still want to raise our minimum wage to $10? Germany used to have really high unemployment. Then they did labor reforms to allow more low wage jobs, combined with subsidies for low wage workers. Now they don’t have high unemployment.

Still want to raise our minimum wage to $10?

So you are ok with the bolded part?

And unless you give median incomes of all countries it's hard to put the minimum wage differences into context.

 

[townsend]

Stick to one topic at a time my friend. Deal with minimum wage first. This idea that you need a minimum wage to somehow force big bad businesses to pay workers is purely a figment of people's imagination. If you want to legitimately raise people's wages and not do it artificially with a minimum wage you need to reduce unemployment. A minimum wage is specifically designed to make people unemployed.

you're the one who brought up Western Europe's richest nations with the misleading concept of them having "no minimum wage." Gov't enforced collectively bargained wages are minimum wages, you're just dividing the responsibility over another couple of governing bodies.

So I have every nation with a middle class represented as having some form of minimum wage, along with South Korea and Japan, you have sweat shop Asia as the proof of what the economy looks like without minimum wage.

Now this may be correlation and not causation, but I have yet to see a nation with a healthy middle class that hasn't sponsored some form of minimum wage. That puts your ideas in bed with communism as "things that are supposed to work on paper, but somehow South Asia just keeps screwing it up."

 

[Cowboysrock55]

So you are ok with the bolded part?

And unless you give median incomes of all countries it's hard to put the minimum wage differences into context.

I'm absolutely ok with more low wage jobs when the alternative is no job at all. There is nothing wrong with that. Better a person to be working a low wage job then to not be working at all.

 

[Clay_Allison]

I'm absolutely ok with more low wage jobs when the alternative is no job at all. There is nothing wrong with that. Better a person to be working a low wage job then to not be working at all.

What about the subsidies for low wage workers? That was in the bolded part too.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

you're the one who brought up Western Europe's richest nations with the misleading concept of them having "no minimum wage." Gov't enforced collectively bargained wages are minimum wages, you're just dividing the responsibility over another couple of governing bodies.

Not true at all. You're the one who was attempting to show that real life examples prove minimum wage is the way to go. I was simply showing that it is false. Something that is bargained for in no way is the same as the government just artificially determining a minimum wage.

With all of that being said real life examples are flawed in so many way. To say China is what happens without a minimum wage would be foolish. There are so many variables at work and to say that not having a minimum wage is the cause of their economic status is a ludicrous argument to make. Same could be said for the whole list of countries that I pointed out that don't have a minimum wage but are doing better.

To say that a minimum wage doesn't hurt the overall productivity of an economy is to basically deny that human nature exists.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

What about the subsidies for low wage workers? That was in the bolded part too.

I don't love any subsidies personally. But if you're going to give them out it sure makes a hell of a lot more sense to give them to someone working a full time job and earning something then to give out the subsidies to someone who isn't working at all. Make sense?

Lets say it takes $1000.00 to live (Totally arbitrary). Do you want to let someone work for $500.00 and have the government give them the other $500.00 or do you want them to not work at all and just get $1000? I'm sure you can see which one is better for an economy.

 

[townsend]

Not true at all. You're the one who was attempting to show that real life examples prove minimum wage is the way to go. I was simply showing that it is false. Something that is bargained for in no way is the same as the government just artificially determining a minimum wage.

With all of that being said real life examples are flawed in so many way. To say China is what happens without a minimum wage would be foolish. There are so many variables at work and to say that not having a minimum wage is the cause of their economic status is a ludicrous argument to make. Same could be said for the whole list of countries that I pointed out that don't have a minimum wage but are doing better.

To say that a minimum wage doesn't hurt the overall productivity of an economy is to basically deny that human nature exists.

We're never going to be able to eliminate all of the variables. Once again you're arguing for an "on paper" concept that is never going to be unaffected by variables.

So if a bunch of elected legislators argue for a minimum wage, how different is it than an elected union representative doing the same thing. At that point it's semantics. One just happens to be more ideologically pure to a free market mind set. The point is you aren't just having your value determined on a person by person basis, like your vision of no minimum wage would look like.

What I'm asking is, how little would people be willing to pay, if they didn't have to. Waitresses aren't given minimum wage, so restaurants pay them just enough to offset taxes on their tips. What would a place be able to low ball a convict to, when work is what keeps him out of prison. 3 dollars an hour? What does that do to people who suddenly have to compete with desperate people who can't not work? Are all service jobs now going to see a dip because of that?

I think desperation is the key component here. Wheb someone is working for the very minimum they are probably barely keeping their head above water. Are they supposed to starve and hold out for more money?

 

[townsend]

I don't love any subsidies personally. But if you're going to give them out it sure makes a hell of a lot more sense to give them to someone working a full time job and earning something then to give out the subsidies to someone who isn't working at all. Make sense?

Lets say it takes $1000.00 to live (Totally arbitrary). Do you want to let someone work for $500.00 and have the government give them the other $500.00 or do you want them to not work at all and just get $1000? I'm sure you can see which one is better for an economy.

But that's what happens a lot anyway. Wal-Mart lets food stamps take up the slack on the people they pay less than enough to survive. Poor ol' Wal-Mart with it's few trillion dollars effectively getting a government handout.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

But that's what happens a lot anyway. Wal-Mart lets food stamps take up the slack on the people they pay less than enough to survive. Poor ol' Wal-Mart with it's few trillion dollars effectively getting a government handout.

So Walmart paying workers what they are worth is effectively a government handout? Dear lord, I don't feel bad for Walmart by any means but you have no idea what a government handout is.

 

[townsend]

So Walmart paying workers what they are worth is effectively a government handout? Dear lord, I don't feel bad for Walmart by any means but you have no idea what a government handout is.

Okay, a company pays it employees less than what they need to live. If they die, they can't continue working. There is not situation where you aren't "worth" enough money to keep you alive. Unless Wal-mart is comfortable training a new employee every 45 days or so when their old stocker succumbs to consumption.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

Okay, a company pays it employees less than what they need to live. If they die, they can't continue working. There is not situation where you aren't "worth" enough money to keep you alive. Unless Wal-mart is comfortable training a new employee every 45 days or so when their old stocker succumbs to consumption.

if people didn't make enough money to live while working at Walmart you know what they would do? Not work at Walmart. Then Walmart would either have to raise their wages to keep the employees or employ less people. Paying someone and providing them a job is in no way a company receiving a handout. Literally in no way is it a handout to the company and economically speaking behaves nothing like a handout. When you say things like that it makes me wonder if you've just been listening to too much liberal propaganda. You could say that Walmart is subsidizing the American Welfare system if you'd rather. It's an equally untrue play on words.

Walmart is always the punching bag but hell even they pay more then minimum wage most of the time. I know locally here they offer starting wages a couple of dollars above minimum wage. Also, someone can "survive" on pretty low wages. The definition of livable wages to American's is laughable to me as well. It's like you can't live if you don't have a decent car, cell phone, crab legs and a computer these days. No one would literally die from a Walmart wage as you suggest without the government coming in and saving them.

 

[Clay_Allison]

No one would literally die from a Walmart wage as you suggest without the government coming in and saving them.

Yeah, they would, because even if they could afford food, without section 8 housing they'd be homeless and that would lead to a pretty shitty winter for them in a lot of places

Walmart is accepting a government handout in the form of a subsidized work force that would not be available to Wal-Mart at that price if the government wasn't maintaining it for them. If the housing and food weren't there for free from the government, Walmart would have to pay more to maintain their workforce. That's them benefiting directly from a government handout program even if they aren't the ones receiving them.

Hell, they also get a government handout in the form of all the food stamps those people spend at Walmart buying groceries.

 

[Clay_Allison]

I don't love any subsidies personally. But if you're going to give them out it sure makes a hell of a lot more sense to give them to someone working a full time job and earning something then to give out the subsidies to someone who isn't working at all. Make sense?

Lets say it takes $1000.00 to live (Totally arbitrary). Do you want to let someone work for $500.00 and have the government give them the other $500.00 or do you want them to not work at all and just get $1000? I'm sure you can see which one is better for an economy.

I've always been in favor of that. IMO, almost anyone should be able to get a minimum wage job. A lot of people don't even want them because the benefits they are receiving are worth far more. If you let minimum wage earners keep their benefits they are a lot more likely to want that money and they'll be out there competing for those jobs because the money they would make from them could actually give them disposable income.

Also I think subsidized food and housing for minimum wage earners gives them a lot more buying power than raising the minimum wage.

 

[Jiggyfly]

Yeah, they would, because even if they could afford food, without section 8 housing they'd be homeless and that would lead to a pretty shitty winter for them in a lot of places

Walmart is accepting a government handout in the form of a subsidized work force that would not be available to Wal-Mart at that price if the government wasn't maintaining it for them. If the housing and food weren't there for free from the government, Walmart would have to pay more to maintain their workforce. That's them benefiting directly from a government handout program even if they aren't the ones receiving them.

Hell, they also get a government handout in the form of all the food stamps those people spend at Walmart buying groceries.

Good points.

I sometime wonder if some people really understand how adults get by working at places like Wal mart and fast food.

 

[L.T. Fan]

What if you look at it this way. The government is benefiting from Wal-Mart who provides jobs and therefore the employees don't have to take as much money from the government as they would if they were not working. You can slice and dice this scenario which ever way it suits you.

 

[townsend]

What if you look at it this way. The government is benefiting from Wal-Mart who provides jobs and therefore the employees don't have to take as much money from the government as they would if they were not working. You can slice and dice this scenario which ever way it suits you.

Every employee Walmart has is worth X amount of dollars. A cashier earns Walmart about $200,000 dollars per year. So essentially they're buying labor, essential for their enormous profits, with a subsidy.

 

[Smitty]

Good points.

I sometime wonder if some people really understand how adults get by working at places like Wal mart and fast food.

You're not supposed to get by, those jobs don't earn enough income for the employer to support high wages.