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Thanatosian posted:Literally every other first-world country has universal healthcare. But my taxes! *has a $9,600 deductible*
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Aug 13, 2015 18:59
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Because of the may my mobile app bookmarks are formatted and my eyes skim screens, I just read the thread title as being "how people stay hard at minimum wage" I know I stay hard whilst getting hosed 
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Aug 13, 2015 22:19
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Mister Kingdom posted:I got into this argument with a local nut who claimed a Big Mac would cost $20 each. Because even that small of a price increase would lead people to stop shopping there. Think about it. If it was really this simple, why hasn't Walmart already raised their prices by 46 cents per shopper to collect even more profit on the same merchandise? You do agree that they like money, right? Walmart has pretty thin margins. They made $16 billion profit on $500 billion revenue last year. A 2% decrease in sales volume means they lose 60% of their total profits.
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Aug 14, 2015 03:56
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Xequecal posted:Because even that small of a price increase would lead people to stop shopping there. Think about it. If it was really this simple, why hasn't Walmart already raised their prices by 46 cents per shopper to collect even more profit on the same merchandise? You do agree that they like money, right? This is kinda funny I mean on one hand you say Walmart's margins are poo poo and I assume you understand that that's due to cost of goods sold, yet you think that reducing sales would be 100% profit loss Good one man
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Aug 14, 2015 04:02
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A lot of developed countries that don't have a nationally mandated high minimum wage either a) have industry-specific minimum wages negotiated by unions, corporations, and the government, or b) have such strong unions that it's not really necessary. In the US, we have regulations that cripple unions instead in the form of right-to-work laws instead (funny how conservatives are cool with government intervention in that case).
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Aug 14, 2015 04:03
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signalnoise posted:This is kinda funny OK, let me put it another way. Let's assume that increasing wages costs Walmart 1.5% of current revenue and that the increased prices result in a 2% drop in revenue. These are reasonable assumptions, because if a price increase would increase revenue, Walmart would have done it already. Labor is part of cost of goods sold, and Walmart paid $365 billion for COGS. If we assume 30% of COGS is labor, that means that the $109.5b portion of COGS increases by $7.5b (1.5% of $500b) while the $255.5b portion decreases by $5.1b. (2% of 255.5, since they sell 2% less product) Walmart now has $367.4b in COGS on $490b in revenue. Compared to the $365b on $500b they had before, they have lost $12.4b of the $16b in net income they used to be bringing in. That's 80% of their total profits gone.
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Aug 14, 2015 05:30
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Xequecal posted:OK, let me put it another way. Let's assume that increasing wages costs Walmart 1.5% of current revenue and that the increased prices result in a 2% drop in revenue. These are reasonable assumptions, because if a price increase would increase revenue, Walmart would have done it already.
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Aug 14, 2015 05:43
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Thanatosian posted:People who shop at Wal-Mart typically don't make a lot of money. Raising the minimum wage will increase the spending money of a significant portion of the people who shop at Wal-Mart. This will mean that their revenue will most likely increase to more than make up for any losses on prices rising by $.46 a trip. The linked article's $.46 number was based on just Walmart raising its wages, not a general minimum wage increase. Increasing the minimum destroys the assumptions that number is based on.
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Aug 14, 2015 06:09
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Xequecal posted:The linked article's $.46 number was based on just Walmart raising its wages, not a general minimum wage increase. Increasing the minimum destroys the assumptions that number is based on. Well considering how the bulk of the labour to produce the goods the main minimum wage employers (supermarket and fast food chains) use is outsourced overseas to places like South East Asia, I don't think it destroys it anywhere near as much as you think. A minimum wage increase only affects their storefronts, not their supply chains. Look up OSI foods or the YUM group, they have processing facilities all over SEA, but only a token handful in the USA and their the main suppliers to the big fast food chains. Rudager fucked around with this message at 10:01 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 09:57
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Cicero posted:A lot of developed countries that don't have a nationally mandated high minimum wage either a) have industry-specific minimum wages negotiated by unions, corporations, and the government, or b) have such strong unions that it's not really necessary. In the US, we have regulations that cripple unions instead in the form of right-to-work laws instead (funny how conservatives are cool with government intervention in that case). You are misinformed as to labor laws around the world: quote:First, in both Denmark and Sweden, union-security agreements arevirtually nonexistent.As strange as it sounds, they are essentially right-to-work countries. quote:David Rolf, head of the Service Employees International Union in the Pacific Northwest, has been an advocate of alternative modes of organizing for years now. At a January symposium, he pointed out that most countries don’t have the “agency shop” model under which workers can be forced to pay fees — even in Germany, where social norms have long supported high union membership (though it also has declined in recent years). Australian unions, Rolf points out, bounced back after an anti-labor government significantly curtailed their power in 1996. Thanatosian posted:People who shop at Wal-Mart typically don't make a lot of money. Raising the minimum wage will increase the spending money of a significant portion of the people who shop at Wal-Mart. This will mean that their revenue will most likely increase to more than make up for any losses on prices rising by $.46 a trip. Perhaps Walmart, but how would businesses as a whole bring in more revenue? If they spend 10b more on wages and expect to get 15b in revenues, where does that extra 5b appear from? (In the long term, ignoring short-term stimulus effects)
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Aug 14, 2015 12:33
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Series DD Funding posted:You are misinformed as to labor laws around the world: Walmart wouldn't be the only business spending more on wages but workers from other businesses also shop there.
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Aug 14, 2015 12:45
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Dirty Sanchez posted:Walmart wouldn't be the only business spending more on wages but workers from other businesses also shop there. And like I said, other businesses would be paying more out in wages
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Aug 14, 2015 13:03
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Xequecal posted:OK, let me put it another way. Let's assume that increasing wages costs Walmart 1.5% of current revenue and that the increased prices result in a 2% drop in revenue. These are reasonable assumptions, because if a price increase would increase revenue, Walmart would have done it already. Why do you think Walmart would buy the product they're not selling? If they lose 2% sales, they will buy 2% less product. You're also not accounting for the increase in value per sale with your weird idea that everything else remains the same. All the shoppers that stay shopping at Walmart will be dropping 46c more per transaction. That's a fuckload of money. Enough, say, to offset the labor cost?? Like the article said it would? So for the sake of reality, throw away your change in labor cost because it's being pushed off on the consumer. You can make the assumption that they lose 2% sales, who cares, they buy 2% less product to sell. You and I are both making a lot of assumptions but the #1 bad assumption here is that Walmart doesn't know about supply chain management. signalnoise fucked around with this message at 13:32 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 13:28
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Series DD Funding posted:Perhaps Walmart, but how would businesses as a whole bring in more revenue? If they spend 10b more on wages and expect to get 15b in revenues, where does that extra 5b appear from? (In the long term, ignoring short-term stimulus effects) This would make sense if everybody in the US was on minimum wage, but they aren't. Across the board price increases to accommodate higher labour costs will mean that every other consumer who isn't earning minimum wage subsidies the cost increase, and allows shops to retain their previous level of profitability, or greater. This is also a highly simplistic view of economics. Clearly, it isn't always as simple as money in, money out. Imagine every single person in the US earned the exact same per hour, and worked the same hours. They demand a 10% wage increase. In your example, shops would just increase prices by 10% and nothing would change. However, the world is not quite so black and white. 10% wage increase goes through, this stimulates consumer demand, call it 10% again. Bulk buying congloms then save 2% on their contracts of Chinese garbage, and then raise prices by 8%. Consumers see an increase in relative wage of 2%, while shops lose nothing. Obviously, even that is ridiculously simplistic. There is a curve, and increases in MW will lead to higher profits for shops along it up until a certain point where it flips inversely. And clearly, the benefit will not be similar across the board. Businesses with international competition may be hit adversely while restaurants and casinos do very well.
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Aug 14, 2015 13:41
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Xequecal posted:Walmart has pretty thin margins. They made $16 billion profit on $500 billion revenue last year. A 2% decrease in sales volume means they lose 60% of their total profits. This is what happens when someone says "as soon as I have a number that looks like it proves my preconceived notions, I'll stop thinking." But seriously folks, think of that sad, lonely mom and pop chain "Walmart" that's just barely scraping by. YOU'RE KILLING THEM.
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Aug 14, 2015 15:17
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_family Barely scraping by  If the dividends paid out JUST to the Walton family were instead distributed to their employees every single wal*mart employee would be getting roughly $2.3k more. Roughly a 15% raise and that's JUST the Walton family share, wal*mart itself would still remain profitable. Necc0 fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 15:23
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A single company paying more wages to minimum wage employees is a very different thing from all of them doing so. That's the nice thing about a nationally mandated minimum wage, you don't lose a competitive edge to it (for work that can't be outsourced to other countries) because other companies have to pay them as well. McDonald's burgers being $0.40 more expensive would definitely affect sales, a >10% increase is not as trivial as some of you are arguing it to be, but if Burger King's burgers also become $0.40 more expensive people won't be switching from McDonald's to Burger King over it.
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Aug 14, 2015 15:52
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Griefor posted:A single company paying more wages to minimum wage employees is a very different thing from all of them doing so. That's the nice thing about a nationally mandated minimum wage, you don't lose a competitive edge to it (for work that can't be outsourced to other countries) because other companies have to pay them as well. McDonald's burgers being $0.40 more expensive would definitely affect sales, a >10% increase is not as trivial as some of you are arguing it to be, but if Burger King's burgers also become $0.40 more expensive people won't be switching from McDonald's to Burger King over it. It's also not something that would happen in one day and 20 years ago a quarter pounder w/ cheese meal was 3 dollars. Now it's 5. People still go to mcdonalds. Peel that bandage off slowly and no one will give a gently caress
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Aug 14, 2015 15:57
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Jeza posted:This would make sense if everybody in the US was on minimum wage, but they aren't. Across the board price increases to accommodate higher labour costs will mean that every other consumer who isn't earning minimum wage subsidies the cost increase, and allows shops to retain their previous level of profitability, or greater. Yes, higher earning consumers also lose out some. But if a business could've gotten back all the profits plus more by raising prices after the increase, they could've increased profits by raising prices beforehand. quote:However, the world is not quite so black and white. 10% wage increase goes through, this stimulates consumer demand, call it 10% again. Bulk buying congloms then save 2% on their contracts of Chinese garbage, and then raise prices by 8%. Consumers see an increase in relative wage of 2%, while shops lose nothing. Why didn't they save the 2% already?
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Aug 14, 2015 16:06
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"Series DD Funding" posted:Why didn't they save the 2% already? Because they didn't have the demand to increase their purchases. You don't follow?
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Aug 14, 2015 16:18
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Series DD Funding posted:Yes, higher earning consumers also lose out some. But if a business could've gotten back all the profits plus more by raising prices after the increase, they could've increased profits by raising prices beforehand. No, because minimum wage increases puts more disposable income in people's hands. Prices for essentials and basic goods are priced into a minimum wage earner's reach, because otherwise they would not sell as many they would want. In general, people spend within their means. If you earn minimum wage, the chances are you don't save much money at all, and spend all your income on whatever you need to get by unless you are in a specific living situation, like rent-free at home. It's well known that the lowest income earners are the most profligate with their income as a total percentage of wage earned. If the minimum wage increases, this is more money in what is a relatively unthrifty bracket of the population, which is good news for shops. The basic principle is that things are already priced to sell, as well as the shop is able to do so. Shops probably shouldn't be able to increase prices much without some kind of wage increase, otherwise they had the price set wrong in the first place. The expected effect of a large MW increase would be increased prices, because in a purely rational capitalist world, people are considering their purchases in relation to their income. So a $1 toilet roll is a ridiculous luxury if you earn $5 a day in India, but the same toilet roll priced at $2 is nothing when you're pulling in $200 a day in the US. So you price to your market, which is why shops carry several varieties of each product in a different price range, so as to capture as much of the market as possible. Series DD Funding posted:Why didn't they save the 2% already? signalnoise posted:Because they didn't have the demand to increase their purchases. You don't follow? What he said. Jeza fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 16:55
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They did. Profits are artificially high because wages are artificially low.
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Aug 14, 2015 17:26
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Necc0 posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_family Not paying dividends to your stock holders is a pretty good way to tank your stock and make sure nobody ever buys another share too.
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Aug 15, 2015 17:34
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The Locator posted:Not paying dividends to your stock holders is a pretty good way to tank your stock and make sure nobody ever buys another share too. Yeah, google, facebook, amazon, adobe, ebay, netflix's stock are all in the toilet.
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Aug 15, 2015 22:20
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The Locator posted:Not paying dividends to your stock holders is a pretty good way to tank your stock and make sure nobody ever buys another share too. Yes, we're all aware of this.
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Aug 16, 2015 00:46
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The Locator posted:Not paying dividends to your stock holders is a pretty good way to tank your stock and make sure nobody ever buys another share too. Yeah because the Waltons are big supporters of Walmart with all the stock they buy. What could possibly have made you think that what you said was relavent to what you quoted?
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Aug 16, 2015 01:28
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Jeza posted:This would make sense if everybody in the US was on minimum wage, but they aren't. Across the board price increases to accommodate higher labour costs will mean that every other consumer who isn't earning minimum wage subsidies the cost increase, and allows shops to retain their previous level of profitability, or greater. I think it's most useful to look at the nations with a high minimum wage relative to the median wage. Australia and Puerto Rico are two good examples. Both countries suffer significantly higher youth unemployment(compared to the US) and a compressed middle class. For example, despite Australia's high minimum wage, their PPP adjusted median wage is actually lower than that of the US. Basically you're squeezing the middle class when you increase the minimum wage. Instead of doing that, why not just increase taxes a little and give the money to the poor as a direct wage subsidy?
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Aug 16, 2015 06:20
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Gamesguy posted:I think it's most useful to look at the nations with a high minimum wage relative to the median wage. Australia and Puerto Rico are two good examples. Both countries suffer significantly higher youth unemployment(compared to the US) and a compressed middle class. For example, despite Australia's high minimum wage, their PPP adjusted median wage is actually lower than that of the US. Minicome is basically the best long term solution for an ever changing global job market, but some people are convinced that destiny values the few over the many, so FYGM.
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Aug 16, 2015 06:28
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Gamesguy posted:Basically you're squeezing the middle class when you increase the minimum wage. Instead of doing that, why not just increase taxes a little and give the money to the poor as a direct wage subsidy?
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Aug 16, 2015 10:45
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Gamesguy posted:I think it's most useful to look at the nations with a high minimum wage relative to the median wage. Australia and Puerto Rico are two good examples. Both countries suffer significantly higher youth unemployment(compared to the US) and a compressed middle class. For example, despite Australia's high minimum wage, their PPP adjusted median wage is actually lower than that of the US. Where are you getting those figures for Australia? World Bank has their Youth Unemployment lower than the US. And Puerto Rico, well. Not necessarily comparable. Still, I'm not going to nickel and dime your argument, because I agree mostly. Pretty sure somewhere in this thread I already stated that a significant MW increase would lead to knock on unemployment. But in the US MW increase is long overdue, and I don't think the effect will be drastic, and neither do I think that it will squeeze the middle classes badly. From a strictly utilitarian view, a mild decrease in their standard of living will be peanuts compared to the increase for those on MW. And yes, it'd be nice if you could just tax the rich and give it to the poor, but as has been pointed out, good luck with that.
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Aug 16, 2015 16:34
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signalnoise posted:Yeah because the Waltons are big supporters of Walmart with all the stock they buy. What could possibly have made you think that what you said was relavent to what you quoted? The Walton's get all those dividends because they collectively own over 50% of the stock of the company. I'd say it's fairly relevant to a post about how much Walmart could give their oppressed workers by not paying those dividends. I'm not a Walmart fan, and never shop there even if it costs me more to shop elsewhere, but it's silly to say that Walmart could give their workers a 15% raise if they would just stop paying those filthy dividends to some of the richest people in the world, when the dividends are going to all the shareholders, not just the Walton's, since dividends are paid per share.
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Aug 16, 2015 18:31
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The Locator posted:The Walton's get all those dividends because they collectively own over 50% of the stock of the company. I'd say it's fairly relevant to a post about how much Walmart could give their oppressed workers by not paying those dividends. I'm not a Walmart fan, and never shop there even if it costs me more to shop elsewhere, but it's silly to say that Walmart could give their workers a 15% raise if they would just stop paying those filthy dividends to some of the richest people in the world, when the dividends are going to all the shareholders, not just the Walton's, since dividends are paid per share. Which has what to do with tanking their stock? I mean, at best what you're saying is "that would be a bad business decision" to a hypothetical. No poo poo. So question for you, since that's what you seem to be about. Even if the stock went down, why in the gently caress do you think the Waltons would ever drop below a majority interest? This is a non-issue.
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Aug 16, 2015 18:54
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signalnoise posted:Which has what to do with tanking their stock? I mean, at best what you're saying is "that would be a bad business decision" to a hypothetical. No poo poo. So question for you, since that's what you seem to be about. Even if the stock went down, why in the gently caress do you think the Waltons would ever drop below a majority interest? This is a non-issue. So my point was missed entirely. The stock dividends to the Walton's don't matter. It was the implication of not paying out dividends at all (since you can't pick and choose what stock holders get dividends as far as I know). Publicly traded companies big overall purpose is to keep the stock holders happy, and for a company of that size that has historically paid dividends to just suddenly stop doing so would, as you put it, be a bad business decision. I never said anything about this, or any other action changing how much of the company the Walton's held, no idea how you got that out of my simple statement that not paying dividends would be a 'bad thing' (I used tanked stock as the 'bad thing'). For the record, it wouldn't bother me at all if Walmart (and everyone else) started paying their employees more than they currently do. I think the minimum wage hasn't kept up at all with cost of living, and a gradual phased increase in the 'floor' would probably be good, but I'm not nearly well educated enough in this area of economics to know what the long-term impacts would be, although I'm sure it wouldn't be the dire end of the world that some of the biggest critics think. There are plenty of terrible wage issues in the world. Why do we pay EMT's that drive ambulances around and save lives every day so poorly that raising the minimum wage will have burger flippers making as much as they are? Given how huge ambulance bills are, I have no idea why this is, and personally, I think that the EMT is a much higher value to society (and should therefore be paid more) than the dude who makes me a burrito at Taco Bell.
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Aug 16, 2015 19:10
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I got really excited when I saw the title thinking that it would be a thread where people on minimum wage shared how they get by (or don't) and maybe an insight into the life of a minim wage worker. But nope, like everything else goons ruined it by waving their dicks at each other over what minimum wage should be.
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Aug 16, 2015 19:11
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The Locator posted:The stock dividends to the Walton's don't matter. It was the implication of not paying out dividends at all (since you can't pick and choose what stock holders get dividends as far as I know). quote:Publicly traded companies big overall purpose is to keep the stock holders happy, and for a company of that size that has historically paid dividends to just suddenly stop doing so would, as you put it, be a bad business decision. I never said anything about this, or any other action changing how much of the company the Walton's held, no idea how you got that out of my simple statement that not paying dividends would be a 'bad thing' (I used tanked stock as the 'bad thing'). Thats cool man
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Aug 16, 2015 19:12
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The Locator posted:There are plenty of terrible wage issues in the world. Why do we pay EMT's that drive ambulances around and save lives every day so poorly that raising the minimum wage will have burger flippers making as much as they are? Given how huge ambulance bills are, I have no idea why this is, and personally, I think that the EMT is a much higher value to society (and should therefore be paid more) than the dude who makes me a burrito at Taco Bell. The fast food workers fought for their wage increase with strikes, allying themselves with other movements, and organizing several mass demonstrations over a few years. It sucks, but this is America, and if you want a living wage, you have to beat the bars and scream for it. Maybe you can lobby and protest for higher wages for everyone making less that $15/hr, instead of sneering at the fast food workers who made it happen.
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Aug 16, 2015 20:42
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The Locator posted:There are plenty of terrible wage issues in the world. Why do we pay EMT's that drive ambulances around and save lives every day so poorly that raising the minimum wage will have burger flippers making as much as they are? Given how huge ambulance bills are, I have no idea why this is, and personally, I think that the EMT is a much higher value to society (and should therefore be paid more) than the dude who makes me a burrito at Taco Bell. So because one group of people are getting hosed over, then everyone you deem to be less worthy than that group must also get hosed over?
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Aug 16, 2015 21:18
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Bobbie Wickham posted:...instead of sneering at the fast food workers who made it happen. Rudager posted:So because one group of people are getting hosed over, then everyone you deem to be less worthy than that group must also get hosed over? Pretty sure I never said either one of those things, but since apparently lots of things I don't say are being read into everything I do say (which started with a simple comment about dividends), I'll just leave you all to your little party here and move on.
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Aug 16, 2015 22:10
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Bobbie Wickham posted:The fast food workers fought for their wage increase with strikes, allying themselves with other movements, and organizing several mass demonstrations over a few years. It sucks, but this is America, and if you want a living wage, you have to beat the bars and scream for it. Maybe you can lobby and protest for higher wages for everyone making less that $15/hr, instead of sneering at the fast food workers who made it happen. Never happen. Strikes only work when the striking workers have another means of support. People living hand to mouth and without the backing of a union and collective bargaining can't afford to strike. Especially when it is unskilled work that the company can bring in scrubs for easily and just fire the strikers under Right To Work rules. Basically, the business world took a long hard look at how the current worker protections came to be, and went on to spend decades of concentrated effort to destroy anyone who could fight for more.
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Aug 16, 2015 23:46
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The Locator posted:Pretty sure I never said either one of those things, but since apparently lots of things I don't say are being read into everything I do say (which started with a simple comment about dividends), I'll just leave you all to your little party here and move on. The Locator posted:There are plenty of terrible wage issues in the world. Why do we pay EMT's that drive ambulances around and save lives every day so poorly that raising the minimum wage will have burger flippers making as much as they are? Given how huge ambulance bills are, I have no idea why this is, and personally, I think that the EMT is a much higher value to society (and should therefore be paid more) than the dude who makes me a burrito at Taco Bell. So to re-iterate, just because one group gets hosed over, that means another group you deem less worthy should also be hosed over? You are literally saying that fast food workers should get hosed over by not paying them the same/more than EMT's because EMT's are being hosed over and not paid enough.
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Aug 17, 2015 00:31
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