Yanno the argument that "If Gubmint didn't give these people handouts, they could always rely on charity"? Historically, charities arose in the late 19th century over precisely those concerns: "If we don't feed these people, they'll be subverting our servants, breaking into our houses, and stopping our carriages to drag us out and kill us in the streets."
The minimum wage isn't some magic fix to problems - ironically it was the left who used to be against it as a means of keep average wages artificially deflated - and causes as many problems as it solves. Right now it acts as a barrier to youth employment in the UK as, for a small premium, you can hire an economic migrant for less financial risk - something that is amplified when businesses are even more cautious about spending. This is storing up problems for the future, especially when the government is refusing to tackle the underlying issue with the benefits system in that it needs switching from it's current Ponzi type system (which demands ever increasing private job growth to keep costs down) to a two tier system split between a genuine social safety net and individual contributions that are actual contributions, not a tax. So yes, we need to get rid of the minimum wage, but only if we also we tackle the issue with benefits and the fact technology means there are going to be more people than jobs.
Which would be why so many people, on both the left and the right, oppose having a minimum wage. BTW anyone who claims benefits like Social Security is a ponzi scheme either has no idea what a ponzi scheme is or they're deliberately lying. Ponzi schemes are a way to defraud people and frauds don't last 80 years paying out benefits to people.
Something, something, you're gay, something, something, anal cream pie. That should have been the end of the thread. Three pages? For shame, rest of WF, for shame.
Feel free to tell us all the difference between a Pyramid scheme (which requires an ever increasing new layer of investors to pay out to the previous investors) against the UK style benefits scheme (which requires an ever increasing source of tax revenue to pay out social benefits to those whose taxes paid the previous claimants benefits). They are, at the very least, parallel in nature. Oh, and "BTW", anyone who decides that someone they disagree with is either lying or clueless purely on the basis of disagreement is a worthless son of a herpes infested whore
I'm waiting for the "Why have a minimum age???" parody thread, but I really don't want to be the one to start it. :
If I got $18000 a year for free, I don't think I'd ever be a productive member of society again. I'd get a bunch of buddies/girlfriends/fuckbuddies together and rent a place. $1200 (average for a pretty good home) a month divided by 4 would be 300 a month. $1500 minus rent would give you $1200 to play with. Internet/TV would be around $100, again divided by 4. That's $25. Tack on another $40 for cell phone. Food can be had for about $100 per week if you know how to shop. The most expensive thing would be car/gas/insurance. Still, you could scrape by easily with cash to spare unless you wanted to live by yourself. Moving back in with parents would give you even more to play around with.
Somehow the system has eaten my penultimate post, which is why the last one starts off with "worth a longer comment". Anyway, I'll just note down the highlights: Which will either leave them still working the same job for the same wage, or not leave them working the same job for the same wage; i.e., either a subsidy to the employer or an abolishment of the sub-minimum wage job. Which is what the employer is doing in these situations. Fascinating. I'm pointing out that according to your logic, sub-minimum wages can only exist outside of voluntary negotiation. Which is true. It also means that a legal minimum wage only works because free markets produce negotiations under duress. The correlation is between prosperity, and a balance of capitalism and labour rights. Where does that balance lie? Well, your example of a wonderfully prosperous country is one that has a minimum wage, so that's what your chosen empirical source points to.
You can do all of those things right now while keeping your job and your presumably higher than 18k income, and have even more money left to play! Why don't you?
You could make roughly the same money and have roughly the same lifestyle working part-time at some low paying job with decent fringe benefits, like a video store that gives you free rentals or a fast food place that gives you free meals. I know, I did it for a couple years when I was younger. So, why doesn't everyone do it now?
Well, the Mob has spoken. Sorry Paladin, but your selfish, outmoded way of thinking will be replaced with compassionate progressivism. Oh, and you'd better ask your boss for a raise. It sounds like Scorponok will be quitting his job to become a gentleman of leisure and I'll certainly be leaving mine to spend more time with friends and focus on my art and writing. That's gotta be at least $40k right there, coming out of your paycheck (because I'm sure the IRS will get a cut to administer it). If you're making less than $58k a year we'll have to find someone else to tax to get you back up to $18k.
I disagree it's a subsidy to an employer because I don't acknowledge that the employer has ANY obligation to make sure the wage paid is enough for someone to live an arbitrarily independent lifestyle. EVEN IF I accepted that premise, you'd have to accept that not all job seekers are equally placed. Many people at the low end of the spectrum are young people who live at home. Many people work a job just to bring in extra money for the family. Not every person is trying to survive independently on the proceeds from one job. How so? Unless you assume at the outset that every employer owes every employee an independent lifestyle--which will inevitably lead to both far few employers and far fewer employees--the owner is only "taking" what he and the employee have agreed upon. I could get a second job that would pay me far less than what I need to live. I would be earning a "sub-minimum" wage for that job and it would be purely voluntary. A teenager could get a job at a fast food restaurant and make far less than he could survive on INDEPENDENTLY. But that's okay, he still lives with his parents. Voluntary. And on and on... You've decided on some arbitrary minimum but you need to define what that minimum is. Does that minimum come from working full-time? More than one job? With roommates? With parents? In what part of the city, county, state, country? People aren't all identically situated. So your idea about a "sub-minimum" wage is hardly universal. Therefore you can't claim that any wage below your arbitrary level is below the subsistence level. Therefore you can't claim that acceptance of a job is involuntary. Of course, none of that matters to me; I only point it out as a flaw in your position. I hold it as a principle that an employer and employee should agree freely to a wage for a job, and you (or I or anybody else) have no business sticking our opinions into that. Again, no they don't. The employee is free to seek other employment at a better rate if he can find it. Competitive forces ensure that the wage and the labor will be appropriately matched. Eh, mostly capitalism. Things like organized labor have only served to make us less competitive--anyone who thinks a vigorous labor movement will produce prosperity oughta spend an afternoon in Detroit--which is why union membership is on a steep decline. The market works. A minimum wage that at best, keeps a few people at the lower end priced out of the job market. A minimum wage and a so-called "living wage" are very different things. We are nowhere near--and I will oppose vigorously--instituting anything near the latter.
You insist on calling it an arbitrary standard. It's not arbitrary, although it can be different in different societies. It's the limit at which the employee will not continue to work for the employer. No matter any obligation on the employer's part, he will only receive the work he's buying if either he or someone else pays the employee at least that much. If it's not the employer, he's being subsidized. Given the first job, you could. So now your first employer is subsidizing your second employer. And now the parents are subsidizing the employer. No, see, I don't, because the market actually takes care of that, you just don't want to see it because you insist on this fantasy market that only yields the results your ideology agrees with. It doesn't yield evaluations of wages as too low, it doesn't yield labour movements, it doesn't yield revolutions, when in reality, it leads to all and any of the above. This is, of course, in direct contradiction to any empirical data we have. Capitalism without labour rights only exists in third world hellholes, and even then it never lasts. Go on opposing vigorously what was once and will be again the function of your minimum wage. You know, I don't usually agree with Marxism's historical automaton, but you almost convince me that the struggle of the capitalist does inevitably lead to a socialist reaction; yours is certainly designed to do just that.
If the employee will not continue to work, isn't his participation voluntary? And how is your definition different than the market rate for that labor? Joe won't continue working at one place for $6/hour if the place down the street is paying $8/hour... I still don't see a subsidy. If Joe's labor is worth $8/hour, $8/hour is what Joe receives. If that's enough for Joe to survive (or to live in some arbitrarily independent fashion), Joe should get a second job. The onus is on Joe to satisfy his own needs. Why is anyone subsidizing anyone? I've already got my survival taken care of with my first job. Why should there be any obligation on the second employer to pay me more given that my "needs" are already taken care of? If the kid quits working altogether, who are the parents subsidizing? Look, it's simple... You claim that any wage below a certain survival level amounts to a subsidy to an employer by someone else in society. Fine. How do you define that level? And don't use circular logic and tell me it's the level that someone could survive at, because I've already shown that, since all people are not equally situated, that level DIFFERS. If I don't resist, society will stagnate. The welfare state has turned millions of people into helpless good-for-nothings. If the choice is conflict or making THAT problem even worse, I'll take conflict.
Yes, that's exactly the point. The only reason someone will work for less pay than they need in order to continue working is if they have no alternative, or involuntarily (or both). At this point, I feel like asking you to read over the last two pages again. The employer needs A's work. He isn't paying hte cost for A's work. Other people are paying A to work for this employer. How is that not a subsidy? If the kid quits working altogether, who are the parents subsidizing?[/quote]The parents are paying for wahtever the kid does with his time. If part of his time is spent for the employer's benefit, they're subsidizing the employer along with the kid. If the time is spent only for the kid's own benefit, they're subsidizing only the kid. At the point where given the freedom to decide voluntarily, the employee will see no benefit in working that job for those wages. You're not getting much conflict, though. What you're getting are increases in socialism and nationalization of assets.
Let's say you need $500/month to LIVE. That's what you NEED. That's the minimum that will keep a roof over your head, clothes on your back, and food in your belly. Suppose you get offered a job that pays $350/month. What are your options? (1) Decline it because it's insufficient. (2) Accept it and look for other means to cover the additional $150/month (perhaps a second job). I've just given you a circumstance where your wage is less than your need and you'd still be better off taking the job. We're talking around each other. I think I understand what you're getting at, it's just so completely foreign to my way of thinking that I'm not going to be able to agree. I'm never going to accept the idea that the employer owes the employee ANYTHING beyond what they contract for. And I'm never going to accept the idea that someone owes someone else some particular standard of living. And, even if I grant you that circumstances make the employee's choice to work "involuntary," that isn't going to change anything. We ALL have needs and we all need to work to fulfill them. In my world, if I become responsible for my employee's standard of living, I will have NO employees, at least not any whose value is below that of the cost of that standard of living. And I don't accept that I am being subsidized just because I'm paying someone the market value for their labor. The market value IS the legitimate, right, fair, honest value. It's the value that all participants accept willingly. You cannot achieve what you want to achieve except through state coercion. He's paying the value of A's work. The value of A's work is set by the market, not by A's needs. If other people choose to financially support A, that's THEIR concern. There is no obligation on the employer beyond what he agreed to in hiring A. And, if you must view this as a subsidy, they're subsidizing A. A is the one in need, not the employer. So, parents raising their kids are "subsidizing" them? Isn't the employer "subsidizing" the parents when the kid is working for him? He's relieving them of the cost they would otherwise bear entirely. If that sounds crazy to you, that is how your notion of subsidy sounds to me. At the point where given the freedom to decide voluntarily, the employee will see no benefit in working that job for those wages.[/quote] That definition is far too loose. Someone may offer me a job with a perfectly liveable wage, but I may see no benefit in accepting it. The long-term trend is toward national bankruptcy. I think a large part of the country will re-align itself with our founding principles when that crisis comes.
Welcome to the military life. The Army and Marines at least have advancement based on achievement in the line of duty, but in the other three branches, you can make rank very easily with book smarts alone and not know shit as far as actual work goes. Many people do stay in for exactly the reason Paladin described--easy money for little work, which is why the some of the senior enlisted are ass-backwards retards. The ones that could do other work get out on their first enlistment.
If the first job leaves room for a second job and remunerates the time spent on the first job such that similar remuneration for a whole month's full time work will reach the hypothetical $500 limit, that's fine. But if the first job takes all the time and effort one can reasonably expect from one person per month - which I'd put at roughly 60 hours per week, if it's to be sustainable at length -, then the job can only be sustained because someone else is financing the employee, thus subsidising the employer. Say, a local charity will hand out $150/month to this guy. Given the charity and the job, he can survive, so absent better paying alternatives, he'll take it. The employer has no incentive to offer the guy more than $350 in this scenario, unless there is an explicit minimum wage or any assortment of other factors that lead to an effective minimum wage, and so he won't. Who is financing the employer's business? The charity.
I don't care a whit about intent, and I'm sure it could be argued that using what is ostensibly described as 'insurance' and is used as tax certainly qualifies as dubious at best. I'm more concerned with actual outcomes. And on that score social security and Ponzi schemes/Pyramid schemes have an awful lot in common. For example, take a hypothetical where the US stopped having immigrants and the population stopped having kids. How, exactly, do you think the benefits you have paid for are going to be costed? My point is that both require an ever expanding number of investors, in in both cases they're unsustainable in the long term.
Is that old chestnut still being kicked around here? A pyramid or Ponzi scheme promises tier n that it will be reimbursed for all its payments to tier n-1 by tier n+1. This is not the case with social benefits. Social benefits only have two groups, 0 and 1, where 1 earns money and pays part of it to 0, NOT in hopes to become 0 and certainly not in hopes to add a tier 2, but only as insurance -- thus the name -- for the event that they might become 0 despite all attempts to avoid it. (Or in the case of old age pensions specifically, knowing that they will eventually end up there lest they die beforehand, but not to be reimbursed for their current payments through another synchronous tier.) There is no need to add tiers. There is, however, a problem when the sizes of groups change: When the younger generation no longer outnumbers the older generation, or the employed no longer outnumber the unemployed, or the healthy no longer outnumber the invalid. But that is not a problem created by the insurance scheme: If you're in a market where invalids, seniors and unemployed outnumber the healthy and employed, you're fucked anyway. You're not producing any value for the majority to live on, no matter how much money they have or keep for themselves. That's the problem; the insurance situation only accurately reflects it.
Incorrect from the off. There are 4 states, not two. 0 pays in and take nothing out, 1 pays in and takes some out, 2 pays nothing in and takes out and 3 has paid in and takes out. Of course it is a bit more complex than that, but since we're moving from the model itself to inside it and trying not to get overly complex, so be it. Right. And what happens when the size of the incoming investment in a pyramid scheme changes? What, perchance, occurs when the value of the promised returns exceeds the inbound investment? Would it approximate the what occurs when the value of promised benefits exceeds what the tax base can afford where benefits are concerned? Of course a nation has rather more options open to it than a fraudster, but the underlying issues remain the same. We're entering an era where work is going to be increasingly limited, and the west can either have an adult debate over it's social systems or it can try the ostrich approach. So far the ostrich approach is coming with some wonderfully wacky concepts in the UK and I genuinly cannot wait to see the sturm und drang when they get exported.
You got mixed up somewhere in your list, but whatever -- you can belong to several of my groups at once, or none. That's not the point. No, it wouldn't. In a pyramid scheme, the last layer is fucked even if every member of every layer can pay in the same amount. In an insurance, there are always only two layers, and the second layer isn't expecting to get its payments back from another layer. All true, but thinking that the structure of insurances and social benefits programs is what creates the problem, as would be true of pyramid schemes, is itself part of an ostrich approach. It fosters the illusion that the problem can be solved by reforming, or abandoning, entitlement programs. But it can't, because this problem isn't in the programs' structure. If you're going to have more old people than young people, for instance, that right there is your economic crisis, no matter how you organize old age pensions.
Not really, you specified a distinct binary when that isn't the case, even more when you specified members of group 0 did not wish to be members of group 1, which is demonstrably false. In a genuine insurance system that would be correct, however that is not how social systems operate. Example - how are state pensions in the UK funded? It's a generation getting entirely funded by another one, so yes we do have two different layers, at least, albeit somewhat muddled due to the vagaries of state funding. The remainder of your quote goes against the first two words... I'm not entirely sure why people are assuming that an ageing population is the only economic crisis going on that is going to adversely affect the tax base, but whatever. And it speaks volumes that you feel reforming the system would appear to be useless? It would appear you wish to keep going along the same old route until it crashes? I think some bankers had similar attitudes on a somewhat different economic challenge.
On the contrary, I neither specified a binary nor distinct groups. Really? The healthy wish to become invalids? The employed hope to lose their jobs? Yes, that's what I'm saying. I have never seen anyone assume that. Didn't say that either. I only said it wouldn't solve the problem you describe. On the contrary. I'm saying changing the tires while continuing on the same route won't avoid the canyon. Let me repeat: An ageing populace is an economic problem. It doesn't become a problem through a specific OAP scheme, and it won't be solved by changing the OAP scheme.
Some follow-on questions: 1. Suppose someone works two jobs and between them makes a "living" wage. Is either job being "subsidized" under those conditions? 2. Now suppose one of those jobs is eliminated. Does that change the answer in #1? 3. If quitting a job puts someone below the liveable wage threshold, should it be legal for them to voluntarily quit a job? Also, I still haven't seen a definition for a liveable wage. Is it the same everywhere in the city, county, state, nation? Under what conditions is it--living on one's own, having roommates, etc.? There does now seem to be a time limit--Packard has called 60 hours the upper limit of one's capabilities (a notion I'd challenge but will accept for the time being).
Ummmm.....no. I have a brain, and I wouldn't sit around and do nothing. I care if I can do more than just barely survive. I want to better myself and be productive and be able to provide a nice home and secure financial future for children and grandchildren. PS - thanks for the food stamps! this chicken salad is delicious.
Indeed. Pretty much anyone could do what $corp suggests with the right part-time job, but very, very few people do for very long. But if Paladin admits that, it'll undermine his argument against minimum wage, so....
Yeah, I could see that argument holding a lot more weight if we were talking about $40 - 50K per year, but I don't know many people who would just be content living on $18K for an extended period of time unless they really weren't capable of doing any better for themselves.
