The Minimum Wage Debate

fortsbest · Jan 13, 2015

Another Paul Harvey gem that sort of relates.

Jiggyfly · Jan 13, 2015

E_D_Guapo said:
One word for the tone of this thread: sanctimonious.

I'm glad somebody said it.

boozeman · Jan 14, 2015

fortsbest said:
In most of the places I've seen with minimum wage workers, if you work hard and make the effort to do good work, you won't be at minimum wage for long. The problem is the many who are just there for a paycheck that have no pride in how they look or work and are satisfied at that wage, or don't have the pride or desire to do any better. That gents is the problem.

The problem is patience.

The minimum wage workforce is a transient one.

But you are right, all of the companies with that workforce scratch their heads trying to figure out why turnover is so high. But raising wages is not always the answer because eventually that cuts into profits.

The problem is that we have greedy employers who would rather use a disposable workforce than develop long term employees that eventually you have to pay benefits for etc.

But you are right, for that 1 out of 10 guys who work at a minimum wage job that do well, there are opportunities.

There is no easy answer and certainly no specific culprit for the problem. It is just institutionalized but nobody wants to admit it.

Cowboysrock55 · Jan 14, 2015

L.T. Fan said:
That's the point I made early on in this thread. Earnings are calculated in relation ship to the production value of the employee in the private sector but conversely in government jobs there is no production and employees are paid in accordance to their credentials.

Well you are accurate as a generalization. That's why the public sector is far less efficient then the private sector. In general the public sector has absolutely no competition and thus no motivation to be efficient. Essentially they will exist even if they suck at their job. It's like going to the DMV. No matter how bad they are run or no matter how terrible their employees are, everyone who wants a drivers license is still going to have to go to their office to get it and pay the fees associated with it.

All of this is exactly why the government shouldn't create jobs by spending money to create more public sector jobs. It's horribly inefficient and only hurts the private sector more, the private sector which is actually paying for those jobs.

L.T. Fan · Jan 14, 2015

Cowboysrock55 said:
Well you are accurate as a generalization. That's why the public sector is far less efficient then the private sector. In general the public sector has absolutely no competition and thus no motivation to be efficient. Essentially they will exist even if they suck at their job. It's like going to the DMV. No matter how bad they are run or no matter how terrible their employees are, everyone who wants a drivers license is still going to have to go to their office to get it and pay the fees associated with it.

All of this is exactly why the government shouldn't create jobs by spending money to create more public sector jobs. It's horribly inefficient and only hurts the private sector more, the private sector which is actually paying for those jobs.

Absolutely correct. Using tax revenues from private citizens with productive businesses to expand a work force that produces nothing is obviously economic suicide. It is acknowledging there is a problem but the solution is to create a bigger problem. There is only one solution to an economic solution in a capitalistic base system and that is to allow the market place to operate freely. In the recent past the federal reserve has completely shut down the market place by capping interest rates and allowing government to continue to borrow fund programs that are a burden on the system.

Cotton · Jan 14, 2015

L.T. Fan said:
Absolutely correct. Using tax revenues from private citizens with productive businesses to expand a work force that produces nothing is obviously economic suicide. It is acknowledging there is a problem but the solution is to create a bigger problem. There is only one solution to an economic solution in a capitalistic base system and that is to allow the market place to operate freely. In the recent past the federal reserve has completely shut down the market place by capping interest rates and allowing government to continue to borrow fund programs that are a burden on the system.

I'm not sure you can say all publicly funded jobs produce nothing. I mean, like the people that work for universities that are paid by tax payers do produce educations for people to be more productive in society. People that work for TXDot produce better roads with tax payer money. Or am I misunderstanding you here?

L.T. Fan · Jan 14, 2015

Iamtdg said:
I'm not sure you can say all publicly funded jobs produce nothing. I mean, like the people that work for universities that are paid by tax payers do produce educations for people to be more productive in society. People that work for TXDot produce better roads with tax payer money. Or am I misunderstanding you here?

Economically speaking it is a service funded by revenues paid from income producers. The service provides an education but does not generate sufficent revenues to create an excess that is considered for taxation. The product of the institution is only the service.

Cotton · Jan 14, 2015

L.T. Fan said:
Economically speaking it is a service funded by revenues paid from income producers. The service provides an education but does not generate sufficent revenues to create an excess that is considered for taxation. The product of the institution is only the service.

But, does that not in turn produce factors that will be contributing to the status of the economy?

FBI
CIA
Universities
DOTs
Teachers

Are you saying these should be privatized?

L.T. Fan · Jan 14, 2015

Iamtdg said:
But, does that not in turn produce factors that will be contributing to the status of the economy?

FBI
CIA
Universities
DOTs
Teachers

Are you saying these should be privatized?

Not saying they necessarly should be privatized. I am just classifying their position in the economic structure. Services are necessary but they are just that and will remain so as long as they are structured through this system. The just dont produce income that is taxed toward general revenues.

Cotton · Jan 14, 2015

L.T. Fan said:
Not saying they necessarly should be privatized. I am just classifying their position in the economic structure. Services are necessary but they are just that and will remain so as long as they are structured through this system. The just dont produce income that is taxed toward general revenues.

Now, I agree with don't produce income, but I do not agree that they don't produce anything which is what you state above.

L.T. Fan · Jan 14, 2015

Iamtdg said:
Now, I agree with don't produce income, but I do not agree that they don't produce anything which is what you state above.

Again "Economically" speaking. The system needs services. They are funded by tax revenues. The fact that they dont produce revenues isnt a condemnation of what they do it is just a classification of the role they occupy in the overall scheme. Some businesses and individual produce income sufficent to be taxed to pay for the services necessary to support the needs of the public.

Cotton · Jan 14, 2015

L.T. Fan said:
Again "Economically" speaking. The system needs services. They are funded by tax revenues. The fact that they dont produce revenues isnt a condemnation of what they do it is just a classification of the role they occupy in the overall scheme. Some businesses and individual produce income sufficent to be taxed to pay for the services necessary to support the needs of the public.

Fair enough. It just seemed like you were painting with too broad a brush with your initial statement.

L.T. Fan · Jan 14, 2015

Iamtdg said:
Fair enough. It just seemed like you were painting with too broad a brush with your initial statement.

Thats because it was a broadbrush topic.

jeebs · Jan 14, 2015

Iamtdg said:
We pay back almost a million a year to the University. If anything we are paying back into the system instead of taking.

Lol, they give you the right to take that money. The university generates the money. You are he bureaucracy to collect the money the university earns, it is not the parking attendants who are generating the money (merely collecting, in a monopoly atmosphere, which is why I think fines and taxes are two sides of he same coin.)

And I really don't mean this as a knock on your profession, my point is it is far from free market capatalism.

Cotton · Jan 14, 2015

jeebs said:
Lol, they give you the right to take that money. The university generates the money. You are he bureaucracy to collect the money the university earns, it is not the parking attendants who are generating the money (merely collecting, in a monopoly atmosphere, which is why I think fines and taxes are two sides of he same coin.)

And I really don't mean this as a knock on your profession, my point is it is far from free market capatalism.

Our payroll generates that money. If you're talking about the University providing the environment to generate that revenue, I guess so. But, that's no different from any division of any company gaining the tools from the momma umbrella to benefit the family.

jeebs · Jan 14, 2015

Iamtdg said:
Our payroll generates that money. If you're talking about the University providing the environment to generate that revenue, I guess so. But, that's no different from any division of any company gaining the tools from the momma umbrella to benefit the family.

What do you sell? The right to park, right? Well is it your divisions that adds the value to the right to park, which the people buy? Or is it the university which adds the value and is the reason people pay, while the parking department collects it?

Truthfully, I think part of our disagreement is symantics and partly me not knowing why we are having this discussion.

Cotton · Jan 14, 2015

jeebs said:
What do you sell? The right to park, right? Well is it your divisions that adds the value to the right to park, which the people buy? Or is it the university which adds the value and is the reason people pay, while the parking department collects it?

Truthfully, I think part of our disagreement is symantics and partly me not knowing why we are having this discussion.

Parking is part of the equation, but what affects me most is the transportation fee. But, to address your parking question, yeah, the right to park is a big part of that side of the equation. It ain't free providing that service. Petroleum products are ridiculously expensive. (seal coats, overlays, recons) The University doesn't pay for any of that. Matter of fact, the parking fees also toss in a lot of money on road maintenance as well. (which doesn't have much to do with parking) Like I said in an earlier post, we are completely self-sustained and we even give back around a mill a year back to University which mostly goes to our grounds maintenance department and the police department.

The transportation side isn't as simple. I can explain if you want, but I'm already tired of typing.

Clay_Allison · Jan 18, 2015

L.T. Fan said:
And yours.

My view remains that the minimum wage doesn't do anything. I do care a lot about the hard-working poor, but the minimum wage does fuck-all for them.

IMO. If we would stop regulating everything out of their price range, they could actually save some money and get themselves out of poverty.

You can't have cheap housing, because people call them slums and want to shut it down and replace it with housing poor people can't afford. You can't have cheap medical care because government regulation has made US medical care the most expensive in the world. You can still get cheap used cars, but not for long, government regulations continually drive up the prices of American automobiles versus prices on the world market. The answer to helping poor people is less government-driven gentrification of the country.

Clay_Allison · Jan 18, 2015

Newt said:
I just read an article bashing McDonald's for a commercial that aired sunday, the writer said that McDonald's could become a "responsible company" by paying their workers $15/hr. Not sure why this commercial triggered that response but I can't imagine a McDonald's worker making $15/hr. At least not a cashier or a cook. I have never worked at a McDonald's but if they ever start paying $15 an hour I may consider a second job.

Funny thing about McDonalds is it's not a long road from flipping burgers to managing a restaurant. I've said many times that your fastest way out of poverty is managing a place where everyone hates to work.

Cowboysrock55 · Jan 18, 2015

Clay_Allison said:
My view remains that the minimum wage doesn't do anything. I do care a lot about the hard-working poor, but the minimum wage does fuck-all for them.

IMO. If we would stop regulating everything out of their price range, they could actually save some money and get themselves out of poverty.

You can't have cheap housing, because people call them slums and want to shut it down and replace it with housing poor people can't afford. You can't have cheap medical care because government regulation has made US medical care the most expensive in the world. You can still get cheap used cars, but not for long, government regulations continually drive up the prices of American automobiles versus prices on the world market. The answer to helping poor people is less government-driven gentrification of the country.

Most people with any knowledge of economics would actually say raising the minimum wages hurts economic efficiency. All you're doing to artificially raising the expense associated with production and it can hurt your ability to trade with other countries. Of course the problem is someone will then point to a country with a high minimum wage who has decent exports and claim that the two aren't related. As though there are no other factors involved. It doesn't change the fact that a minimum wage is counter productive to an efficient economy.

The Minimum Wage Debate

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