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Ice Phisherman posted:Yeah. This. There are real reasons why minimum wage isn't pegged to inflation for example both good and bad, but if you go too high too fast businesses won't be able to adjust. Also going too high will increase the pace of automation. Its already coming down the pipeline and you can see it increasingly replacing jobs, but increasing minimum wage will definitely accelerate the process. It'll also make many of our businesses less competitive because the work can be done cheaper overseas. That's one opinion I guess, but take a look at a fact maybe: Every year your income doesn't keep pace with inflation you have less spending ability than the year before, in essence taking a pay cut. You can come up with a lot of excuses or "reasons" why we shouldn't do it but none of them change that fact. I'm not advocating that a minimum wage job should be able to provide for an entire family (if you could even find a full-time minimum wage job) just stating that if minimum wage doesn't keep with inflation it's slowly going down over time, meaning the same type of person with the same type of reasons for working at a lovely minimum wage job is going to have a harder time getting their life together and becoming independent than the minimum wage workers that came before them and puling yourself up out of those poo poo jobs takes time and money.
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May 30, 2017 07:21
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Ice Phisherman posted:Pegging the minimum income to an arbitrary number is a bad idea. The rate of inflation isn't some arbitrary number, it's the best measure we have of the buying power of money today versus the past. What IS actually arbitrary is someone saying: Ice Phisherman posted:I feel like pegging minimum wage to inflation is a recipe for a crisis. Basing their minimum wage beliefs/arguments on feelings and other non-fact based information.
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May 30, 2017 07:26
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RandomBlue posted:That's one opinion I guess, but take a look at a fact maybe: Every year your income doesn't keep pace with inflation you have less spending ability than the year before, in essence taking a pay cut. I agree. Earlier I thought this. I know about the pay cut that people get every year that pay doesn't go up. I never said it should not go up. I just didn't think that it should be pegged to inflation is all. I just felt like there were no good fixes for this that didn't include politicians voting on it every decade or so. Also a little later two people gave me articles that may make me change my mind. I'm going to read them tomorrow and see if my mind changes. https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/documents/archives/exhibitions/minwage/exhibitionpaper-100yrsminwage.pdf - Aussies used to have minimum income pinned to inflation http://equitablegrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/01152902/061715-wageindexing.pdf - Another paper. So I'll give them a read. My views could be wrong. We'll see.
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May 30, 2017 07:27
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Ice Phisherman posted:I feel like pegging minimum wage to inflation is a recipe for a crisis. When, not if, but when we enter a period of stagflation (stagnation and inflation) and we see nasty inflation like we did in the Carter era for example (15%) you'll see wages rise uncontrollably with inflation and when it picks up steam and the minimum wage raises and picks up people making just over it and so on and so forth you can see a nasty negative feedback loop until it stabilizes. If it stabilizes. 2.9% of all workers in the US make minimum wage (http://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/who-earns-the-minimum-wage-suburban-teenagers-not-single-parents) that's not going to tie us to some inflation loop that destroys the country.
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May 30, 2017 07:29
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Ice Phisherman posted:
I think "wildly inflationary" here might be a little speculative; I think the wage floor might have less of an effect on inflation than you would expect. Even granting that, the last two decades we've had extremely low levels of inflation, which, ultimately, benefits the capital owners as their assets degrade much more slowly.
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May 30, 2017 07:34
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Those eighth graders can throw Ryan all the shade they like, I can almost guarantee his first thought was "gently caress you little shits, you can't even vote for another six years."
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May 30, 2017 07:35
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Trabisnikof posted:That's the problem. The mythical left of the '60s got crushed and never overcame that crippling disadvantage. There is a reason their single defining moment of political and cultural importance was a bunch of naked morons listening to corporate sellouts, drinking, smoking, loving, and really making havoc for the local town. Majorian posted:Nope, just that if you opposed Keith Ellison for a bullshit reason like saying nice things about Farrakhan one time, you're probably not going to support Black Panthers running on the Democratic ticket. RandomBlue posted:2.9% of all workers in the US make minimum wage (http://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/who-earns-the-minimum-wage-suburban-teenagers-not-single-parents) that's not going to tie us to some inflation loop that destroys the country. Fulchrum fucked around with this message at 07:40 on May 30, 2017 |
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May 30, 2017 07:37
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I don't... I said I'm going to read some scholarly stuff and maybe change my mind. I don't know what's so hard about getting that. I'm going to do this thing when I'm focused tomorrow. But all these quotes.
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May 30, 2017 07:37
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TheKingofSprings posted:IDK that Zuckerberg would make a good or bad president because I don't think he's ever put out any tangible policies or platforms but I think the amount of influence he would have in an election is so terrifying that he should be barred from running. Mark "Why Not Cure All Diseases?" Zuckerburg will be awesome President. You can't against go full bore "The Secret (if you believe enough it'll magically come true)" to solve super complex problems can you? You got a better idea? Also, if he can make computers work good why not people work gooder?
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May 30, 2017 07:40
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VitalSigns posted:Our economy and our businesses are suffering from slack demand, giving poor people more money is the most effective way to increase demand. The highest nominal minimum wage is Australia's at 13.16 and it's lower when you adjust for purchasing power. Perhaps listening to actual economists, even if only the ones on the left edge of the orthodox like Piketty, is not a terrible strategy here.
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May 30, 2017 07:47
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mynnna posted:You know how there was that article...somewhere, I can't for the life of me recall where...a few years ago that was a look into how the tea party was basically a huge grifting operation, sucking craploads of money out of gullible idiots? With his wealth I doubt it has much to do with money and everything to do with his hugely inflated ego and self worth. He thinks he's the golden child because he was the one that pulled the right lever on the right machine at the right time while everyone else around him were obviously morons. He can everything by sheer brain power. I hope he figures Game of Thrones is fantasy and not a documentary and being smart will only get you so far before some idiot with more political firepower guns down your career... or Hillary has you assassinated. People thinking they can hop right into the highest position in government and fix all these minor political problems with zero government or political training need get the gently caress out. At best they might pull off an inoffensive term, at worst the trigger world war or set the country back decades on multiple fronts.
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May 30, 2017 07:50
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Starmaker posted:I remember when I was in Australia for a year way back in 2006 (it was $15/hr then). Food and clothing were a bit more expensive than back home (in Canada) but not insanely so, and it's not really clear that their high minimum wage plays any part in that. I remember wondering how it managed to work, at such a comparatively high wage, and why we couldn't have it in Canada, too. Min wage jobs tend to suck and generally rely on young people with no real experience or skills to fill most positions. Almost everyone gets into a min wage job in high school or shortly after and moves on to something better fairly quickly. It's a very small portion of our job market. Saying pegging 2.9% of our job market to inflation will cause an economic disaster about as logical as saying the automotive market would collapse if the price of tires was pegged to inflation.
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May 30, 2017 07:56
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I think a household working 80hr/wk should be able to support a family without government assistance.
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May 30, 2017 07:58
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RandomBlue posted:Min wage jobs tend to suck and generally rely on young people with no real experience or skills to fill most positions. Almost everyone gets into a min wage job in high school or shortly after and moves on to something better fairly quickly. It's a very small portion of our job market. Define young before you get called out on your bullshit. Edit: added snark.
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May 30, 2017 07:59
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EngineerJoe posted:You guys called it:
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May 30, 2017 08:02
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RandomBlue posted:Saying pegging 2.9% of our job market to inflation will cause an economic disaster about as logical as saying the automotive market would collapse if the price of tires was pegged to inflation. A huge portion of the country makes $15/hr or less, though. Some would get raises with a minwage increase to that level, but many would not. A lot more people will hold minimum wage jobs after a very large increase. That doesn't mean it's a bad idea, but you shouldn't use this talking point unless you're discussing VERY small minwage increases.
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May 30, 2017 08:07
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VitalSigns posted:Everyone should be paid a universal basic income, Mark Zuckerberg has said Let's see what he thinks of employee ownership and democratic socialism though before we get all googly-eyed. Still, if the choice were between Booker and Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg would be my choice. I haven't seen The Social Network though 
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May 30, 2017 08:21
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RandomBlue posted:2.9% of all workers in the US make minimum wage (http://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/who-earns-the-minimum-wage-suburban-teenagers-not-single-parents) that's not going to tie us to some inflation loop that destroys the country. FYI although I agree with your position re:inflation, that 2.9% figure is disingenuous conservative propaganda. They're defining "minimum wage" as making $7.25 or less, so if you get a 10c raise six months into your McDonald's job then according to the Heritage Foundation you're not working minimum wage anymore, and that's how they conclude it's all "high school students" (because a working adult has probably worked there long enough to get a nominal raise but $7.50/hr is still a loving poverty wage). This is of course bullshit: the percentage of people who would be affected by a $15/hr minimum wage is everyone currently making less than $15/hr, not everyone making exactly $7.25/hr or less. Once you look at who makes less than $15/hr it turns out it's about half of American workers.
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May 30, 2017 08:23
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JeffersonClay posted:The highest nominal minimum wage is Australia's at 13.16 and it's lower when you adjust for purchasing power. Perhaps listening to actual economists, even if only the ones on the left edge of the orthodox like Piketty, is not a terrible strategy here. Yes if you use a Heritage Foundation / Fox News level of disingenuous argumentation then Australia has the highest statutory minimum wage, because you've excluded all the countries that set a de facto minimum wage via collective bargaining agreements. Then you can pretend that, say, Denmark and its de facto minimum wage of US$18 doesn't exist.
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May 30, 2017 08:28
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SardonicTyrant posted:I fear a world where history is kind to Trump. America is a nation of infinite forgiveness and incurably short memory, where the Overton Window only moves in one direction: rightward. It's only a matter of time before the most left leaning of liberals utters the words "you know, Donald Trump wasn't actually that bad" in comparison to a future President Richard B. Spencer.
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May 30, 2017 08:28
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VitalSigns posted:Yes if you use a Heritage Foundation / Fox News level of disingenuous argumentation then Australia has the highest statutory minimum wage, because you've excluded all the countries that set a de facto minimum wage via collective bargaining agreements. Then you can pretend that, say, Denmark and its de facto minimum wage of US$18 doesn't exist. I was going to say this. Just lol at Australia being higher than anywhere in Scandinavia, or Switzerland
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May 30, 2017 08:30
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WeAreTheRomans posted:I was going to say this. Just lol at Australia being higher than anywhere in Scandinavia, or Switzerland He does this every time the minimum wage comes up. I've seen so many people correct him that fast food jobs in Denmark pay ~US$20/hr minimum (that was 2014, the US dollar has strengthened since then so it's less now) after he goes on about how $15 has never been done anywhere in the worldby statute, I can only assume the dishonesty is deliberate at this point.
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May 30, 2017 08:35
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VitalSigns posted:FYI although I agree with your position re:inflation, that 2.9% figure is disingenuous conservative propaganda. They're defining "minimum wage" as making $7.25 or less, so if you get a 10c raise six months into your McDonald's job then according to the Heritage Foundation you're not working minimum wage anymore, and that's how they conclude it's all "high school students" (because a working adult has probably worked there long enough to get a nominal raise but $7.50/hr is still a loving poverty wage). I never argued for $15/hour, just that it should be tied to an economic indicator of the value of money like the rate of inflation so it automatically follows the economic health of the country. There are lots of edge cases and conditionals that would likely have to be taken into consideration as well along with perhaps having the rate adjust, at least to some degree, to cost of living for that state/city. Obviously $15/hour in SF, NY or LA is not comparable $15/hour in Potato Suck Hollow, ID. We have fairly usable formulas to adjust for most if not all of that (with a degree of error of course) so it's not like it's some impossible obstacle to automatically adjust it based on location and inflation. I don't know what it should be right now. $9-10/hour in Springfield, MO would probably be pretty good but that works out to around $16-$18/h in SF by CNN's cost of living calculator. RandomBlue fucked around with this message at 08:38 on May 30, 2017 |
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May 30, 2017 08:36
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RandomBlue posted:I never argued for $15/hour The point was your heritage foundation link is dishonest conservative propaganda and you shouldn't use it to justify your (correct imo) point that we need to adjust to inflation. Not saying you had dishonest intentions, just that you accidentally cited a dishonest conservative source. 2.9% of workers is the amount that earns exactly $7.25 and not a penny more, but the actual number of people who would be affected by raising the wage and linking it to inflation would be everyone currently earning your proposed $new_wage or less. Setting it to $9-10/hr nationwide would affect a hell of a lot more people than the Heritage Foundation's 2.9%. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 08:42 on May 30, 2017 |
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May 30, 2017 08:40
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BarbarianElephant posted:When I say "alt left" I'm talking about those annoying folks who lay into the Democratic Party for being willing to compromise. We can't simultaneously bitch about the Democrats being too eager to compromise and also bitch about both parties being bad because they can't reach a compromise. That's as dumb as those sexist guys who call a girl a "whore" because she won't sleep with them. I'd like a better term than alt-left if there is one. They aren't the same as "far left" because actual far leftists have entirely different concerns. Yes, compromise is good. Decorum does actually serve a purpose and should be respected. Holding to those ideals when your political rivals have abandoned them utterly weakens you and makes it orders of magnitude harder to press your agenda. We will not get back to political stability if Democrats prioritize extending an infinite number of olive branches above all else - what we will get is effectively a one-party state where the Republicans, who do actually represent their (truly awful) constituents win elections and Democrats (who represent no one) mostly do not. I suppose that is a sort of political stability, but I think a one-party authoritarian state is not what you had in mind. In the short term the Democrats need to play to their historical base, that being the left and the (sigh) "center"-left, sincerely and with conviction and actually getting poo poo done. And we have to hope that in doing so, they are so successful that the Republican party is forced to massively realign and basically abandon its base of shameless bigots and profoundly stupid conspiracy theorists and all the rest. In other words they have to force the GOP to go back to being the party of business, as opposed to the party of far-right nationalism they are now. And if the Democrats do that, and they fail anyway, then basically what we're seeing are the limits of humans to organize themselves in a modern context and at scale, and basically we're totally hosed. Personally I suspect this to be the case. Gotta try though.
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May 30, 2017 08:40
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Perhaps a nationwide minimum wage could actually go some way to addressing the horrific disparity between coastal and flyover states, in terms of population, opportunity, quality of life, level of education, health outcomes, etc. E: it shouldn't just exist to ameliorate the problem of the rental crisis in coastal cities, that's precisely backwards
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May 30, 2017 08:40
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WeAreTheRomans posted:Perhaps a nationwide minimum wage could actually go some way to addressing the horrific disparity between coastal and flyover states, in terms of population, opportunity, quality of life, level of education, health outcomes, etc. Where we at with artificial ocean and mountain tech?
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May 30, 2017 08:44
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nine-gear crow posted:America is a nation of infinite forgiveness and incurably short memory, where the Overton Window only moves in one direction: rightward. Don't forget it's entirely our fault for being so mean to Trump and this is what let Spencer win. I really wish I still had my Al Franken book from 2006 that goes over how the Bush Administration's incompetence led to 9/11 happening, as well as how the entire Republican Party ran a smear campaign on Kerry, saying he somehow lied or faked it and didn't deserve his medals. But now, Dubya is written off as a sort of benign bungler surrounded by evil madmen. But because people were so mean to him at the time, it somehow desensitized the public and they just couldn't grasp the horror of Trump. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 08:48 on May 30, 2017 |
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May 30, 2017 08:45
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America is the richest country and has the highest wages! ...because one quarter of the population can't really budget from petty cash the cost of passports for their entire family, one half can't afford to go on a *domestic* vacation because of shoestring budgets, and three-quarters can't afford to fly to and adequately lodge and feed themselves in another country because their social programs make everything more expensive. America's only ~the bestest cuntry on earf~ because most of our population can't leave it without winning a contest and they have no other frame of reference. 
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May 30, 2017 08:46
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WeAreTheRomans posted:Perhaps a nationwide minimum wage could actually go some way to addressing the horrific disparity between coastal and flyover states, in terms of population, opportunity, quality of life, level of education, health outcomes, etc.
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May 30, 2017 08:46
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Kilroy posted:Minimum wage isn't going to help if there aren't any jobs in the first place. And it's not going to revitalize their culture which is rotten to the core, either. Counterpoint: yes it will, it will help both of those things. Broad economic incentives are one of the only things that could help, at least in lieu of genuine humane welfare policy
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May 30, 2017 08:53
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WeAreTheRomans posted:Perhaps a nationwide minimum wage could actually go some way to addressing the horrific disparity between coastal and flyover states, in terms of population, opportunity, quality of life, level of education, health outcomes, etc. How would a higher national minimum wage get people to move to fly over country? It's flyover country because there's nothing there to begin with besides small towns scattered about to work the farms or mine or whatever. Those industries can only serve so many. Economic developments a whole different ballgame though.
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May 30, 2017 08:53
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Mustached Demon posted:How would a higher national minimum wage get people to move to fly over country? It's flyover country because there's nothing there to begin with besides small towns scattered about to work the farms or mine or whatever. Those industries can only serve so many. There is an industry for flyover country. Wind power. Republican politicians who don't live in those states are actively trying to kill it because there's more campaign funding in sucking the CNG lobby's cock, and it's literally one of the only things those specific politicians from wind power states will demonstratively break with their party on. The other problem is that wind power jobs largely require ~edumucashion~, while fracking jobs largely just require a few knowledgeable people and a lot of dumb expendable laborers willing to work around cancer-causing *flammable* chemicals being shot into the earth under high pressure. It's like coal mining, only not underground! 
BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 09:01 on May 30, 2017 |
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May 30, 2017 08:59
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WeAreTheRomans posted:Counterpoint: yes it will, it will help both of those things. Broad economic incentives are one of the only things that could help, at least in lieu of genuine humane welfare policy Don't get me wrong, if we're not going to do basic income then sure, raise the minimum to $15/hr at least. But it seems to me minimum wage is a distraction, and perhaps a deliberate one. The Democrats should be focusing on basic income and single-payer health care.
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May 30, 2017 09:00
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VitalSigns posted:The point was your heritage foundation link is dishonest conservative propaganda and you shouldn't use it to justify your (correct imo) point that we need to adjust to inflation. Not saying you had dishonest intentions, just that you accidentally cited a dishonest conservative source. Yeah, I barely awake and was being lazy and didn't bother to vet my sources properly. Pew Research Foundation seems to agree with them in general on that particular of % of workers AT min. wage though I'm not sure what number I should shoot for as going for the cost of living for some of the most expensive cities in the world isn't going to be particularly useful.
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May 30, 2017 09:06
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Kilroy posted:Minimum wage is a relic of an era when we thought full employment was a worthwhile thing to target, and also when it was a thing we could still sort of actually do. The former is certainly not the case anymore, and the latter probably isn't either. I agree fully. But UBI is essentially Full Communism Now for much of the population, unless the DNC throws a lot of rhetorical weight behind it. That's a gamble that might bear immediate fruit, but Id be surprised if they were that forthright RandomBlue posted:Yeah, I barely awake and was being lazy and didn't bother to vet my sources properly. Pew Research Foundation seems to agree with them in general on that particular of % of workers AT min. wage though I'm not sure what number I should shoot for as going for the cost of living for some of the most expensive cities in the world isn't going to be particularly useful. If you miss the point this completely you're either being totally disingenuous or you're fully an imbecile. Either way I would encourage others not to respond except by emptyquoting this
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May 30, 2017 09:08
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Mustached Demon posted:How would a higher national minimum wage get people to move to fly over country? It's flyover country because there's nothing there to begin with besides small towns scattered about to work the farms or mine or whatever. Those industries can only serve so many. Everything is flyover country until it's not. Cities grow and become real big boy cities over time unless our population is in decline as a country.
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May 30, 2017 09:10
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Kilroy posted:Minimum wage is a relic of an era when we thought full employment was a worthwhile thing to target, and also when it was a thing we could still sort of actually do. The former is certainly not the case anymore, and the latter probably isn't either. Eventually the basic math of automation will catch up to us and we have to realize that there only jobs for X% of our people and that X will shrink every year. Then the rich will decide whether they purge all the poors quickly, let them starve in the gutter slowly or decide we have to come up with a system to give basic necessities to everyone because work no longer become the main indicator of a person's value like many seem to think it is now.
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May 30, 2017 09:14
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Vaishino posted:I know this is from like, 10 pages ago but I brought her up in the previous thread. We think she's dead now. Which is a good thing.
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May 30, 2017 09:18
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WeAreTheRomans posted:If you miss the point this completely you're either being totally disingenuous or you're fully an imbecile. Either way I would encourage others not to respond except by emptyquoting this I wasn't missing or arguing that point, I understand his point completely and agree I wasn't taking that into account and used a poor source for my data. My point is that I don't know what dollar figure I'd use at the moment to try and determine what percentage of our workforce makes that much or less since I'm not pushing for $15/h or any specific number, just that whatever we do it needs to be tied to economic indicators to adjust automatically or we'll keep having to go through this poo poo over and over.
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May 30, 2017 09:18
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