gbaji wrote:
Friar Bijou wrote:
Ok, if I'm reading you correctly, gbaji, having the, say, top 20% of wage earners making more and more money each year driving up prices is cool. If the bottom 30% make more money and that drives up prices, that's bad.
It's not about making more money. It's about the government passing a law forcing them to be paid more money. The top 20% of wage earners are earning their wages because the market naturally values whatever they do at that amount. Period.
Edited, Mar 3rd 2014 10:56pm by gbaji
Who or what "naturally values" any individual person to the extent they make as much as the top 10-20%? They could suddenly die and be replaced with someone who is equally, if not more qualified than they are, within 24 hours. They make as much as they do because that is how much they have decided to take for themselves and those closest to them. In other words, it is how much they "naturally value" themselves over the rest of their company.
Quote:
If the government raises the minimum wage, that means that everyone who's wage is actually increased by that is now getting paid more than their labor is actually valued by the market
So what then? Suppose there was no minimum wage at all.
People would be "earning" $0.75 a week the way they do in the third world-- because that is how much their labor is "valued by the market." Millions of people would just have to accept this, working like animals just to save up for a loaf of bread to eat once in a while. These companies would not treat American workers any differently than they do their peasants in other countries.
Typically the response to this would be: "Oh well then they should all just go to college and get better jobs then. All of these people who are fast food/retail workers, janitors, bank tellers, delivery men/women, factory workers, Baggage porters/bellhops, call center workers, Funeral attendants, maids, security guards, waiters/waitresses, taxi drivers-- all of these people are simply lazy and unmotivated, stupid and perpetually on drugs and alcohol. They should all quit what they're doing and go back to school so they can add to the already enormous pile of people fighting for those "good" jobs.
Actually, what I am now expecting is for you to say that they won't be paid so little. Perhaps they will somehow get paid even more! Or perhaps BECAUSE they don't get paid anything, the price of day to day life will go down so tremendously that it won't make a difference. Meanwhile the top 10-20% control more money than ever before. The money has not been removed from the economy, it is just no longer in the hands of the people who will circulate it to places that aren't the top 10-20%. Because of this, the economy as we know now exists exclusively at the top. Everyone else must now resort to bartering cows and chickens, while their underage daughters vie for the attention of those few wealthy businessmen in the area who might give them a shiny new nickle for sucking their ****.
All of this only after the first initial waves of massive and widespread murder and looting, destruction of property and public hysteria.
I am not making this up. This is how much of the rest of the world works already. Why are we trying so hard to make it happen here?
Edited, Mar 4th 2014 11:46pm by Kuwoobie