How Could Companies Like Wal-Mart EVER Pay What People Call A "Living Wage"?

It's obvious you believe the first half. But who's been refusing you?

 

Leftforge. Remember, I gave Leftforge an opportunity to put its money where its very, very large mouth is. And Leftforge proved that it doesn't believe, not for an instant, in what it preaches for... well, everybody other than Leftforge. Leftforge doesn't believe in spreading the wealth, it only believes in spreading everybody else's wealth. I opened up the opportunity for you all to prove otherwise, and you all fucking failed.

But, y'know, pretend otherwise. Maybe somebody will believe you.

Ha! No. Kidding. i'll make sure they know the truth. Y'all are positively Republican in your stinginess. Y'all just talk a lot of shit to the contrary, but you don't fuckin' mean it.

 

So your point is that prices increase irrespective of movement in wages? Yes, the rest of us have also been saying that the two are not perfectly linked. Welcome to rationality.

 

Given your side’s argument that if all government assistance were terminated, nonprofits would pick up the slack, you’re invited to personally put that to the test. Then we’ll pass the hat for you and see if you're right.

 

Shyaddap, harpie, yawrong. But right now, your wrongness is a gnat. Now, shyaddap.

And, by the way, your cocksuckery of the state is pathetic. Surrender everything you've got to the state in furtherance of your "principles", to the extent you've got any principles. Let us know when you do. You fuckin' empty suit, you.

You only want those who've accomplished more than you to give up everything they've fuckin' earned. You, you, do not believe one word of the fucking garbage you spew about the "less fortunate." You don't believe a syllable of that fuckin' trash. The fact that you give fucking nothing in furtherance of their succor is proof. Oh, you want others to give up every scrap of fucking bread they earn to those who do nothing, but you? Oh, not you. You aren't going to give a god damned thing. You're content to point your gnarled fucking finger at everyone else and blame and snipe at those who don't give up 99% of what they busted their asses for.

But you? Oh, Heaven for-fucking-fend! You can't even donate your fucking time and insight! Gods only know what that might cost!

 

As usual, your air-brained "response" is utterly fucking worthless.

 

Don't worry. Dayton will be along soon to rescue you.

 

Seriously dude, get your meds adjusted.

 

Gotta love the self-righteousness of people who rant and rant about "takers," while according to the very statistics they love to cite about who pays the most taxes, the top 10% is probably subsidizing them.

 

I don't know but i presume that the other nations that have a higher MW should serve as instructive case studies. We shouldn't be in a position of theorizing either way.

 

This is where Castle makes some claim about the United States having more people than Europe or more acreage than Canada, both of which are wrong, and don't necessarily mean anything about the efficacy of a minimum wage. But damn it, we're exceptional and different!

 

Correlation is not causation, and the correlation is not absolute. The MW has not gone up since 2008 or so, and yet prices have steadily risen over the last five years. A similar pattern persists over the last few decades.

 

Was unloading 2x6's today when a guy walked up asking for work, said he was on his way to California, and needed some money. We pointed him to the grain elevator, where they always need labor, and he eagerly walked off in that direction.

Weird.

 

How did you end up on the Grapes of Wrath production lot?

 

I've actually gone back and forth on minimum wage and struggled with if it is a good thing or not. The main thing this has caused me to do is to actually read more about it and I've found their just aren't a heck of a lot of negatives provided the minimum set is reasonable as compared to the median income. What really convinced me, when I wasn't a supporter of it, was how overwhelming numbers of economists were for it even as political demagogues constantly claimed all economists were against it. This is one case where actually reading some dry boring papers on the internet actually helped me change my mind.

 

Re- read the first post of mine you quoted.

 

Canada and most western European nations are noticeably different from the United States gul.

First, most western European nations are actually "city states". That is their population are clustered tightly around one or two major cities.

Second, Canada while large geographically has virtually its entire population in a strip within 100 miles of the U.S. border. I don't want to insult our Canadian brothers, but Canada is basically a suburb of the United States.

 

informative information relating to the whole "theft" argument.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/09/18/who-doesnt-pay-taxes-in-charts/
Albeit taxation is only one aspect of that dynamic.

 

Yep, I think earlier in this thread I posted the key elements of a beneficial minimum wage policy, and that was one of them. The other big thing is letting technocrats rather than politicians make future changes.

 

How utterly naive and illogical. You seriously believe that retailers wouldn't raise their prices if they knew that literally everyone had more cash in their pockets, and thus could now afford to pay more for their goods and services? Businesses charge whatever the market will bear. That's pretty much the most basic tenet of capitalist economics there is. And it goes without saying that if the market has more money at its disposal, it can obviously bear more, and will be charged accordingly.

 

^^
that's where the math get's interesting.

Let's say the MW goes from 7.25 to 10.10 (just to use the previously cited numbers)

that means the MW worker sees - assuming the same hours - a 39% increase in income. Meanwhile, a company like Walmart could easily cover that expense with a 1% rise in revenue with millions of dollars to spare to boost the salaries of other higher paid employees to reflect the new scale.

Thus, the increase spending power on the low end of the spectrum vastly surpasses the increased cost. It's economies of scale at work.

Now, you might say "what about the local diner that's not a mega-corporation? (I know it's a bad example since a lot of these folks get paid mostly in tips but it's the math that matters)
It's hard to quantify the revenue profits of such an operation, but if they are forced to raise each waitresses' pay 2.85 and that waitress serves 4 orders during the hour (which would seem to be a pretty slow day) then each order needs to cost .72 cents more to overcome the cost of her hour's wages. Which is to say, even for the small business the increased spending power would far outweigh the increased price point at the place where they work.

Now, of course it's true there are multiple layers to any retail price but it's still a fair point.

 

Of course, that same logic can be used to make the "minimum wage = higher prices" argument.

It's also not necessarily true. Yes, most businesses will charge what the market will bear, but "what the market will bear" is determined more by competitive forces and by what people are WILLING to pay, not what they can afford to pay.

I could afford to go out and spend $30 on a cheese pizza from Pizza Hut tonight. But I wouldn't do it, even if Pizza Hut priced their pizzas that high, because that would be stupid. And anyone who charged that would quickly go out of business, because their profit margin would be so high that competitors would have an easy time undercutting them.

 

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store...

 

You take 16 Tums, what do you get?
My stomach's still heavin and I'm soaked with sweat.
Bossman don't call me cause I can't go
I'm stuck all day on the porcelain bowl....

 

Hypercalcemia.

 

NOW can we make "Volpone was right" WF's official slogan?

 

Only if we add "up his own ass," right after it, Bert.