Seattle just passed a $15 minimum wage...

There is a difference between property rates going up because home values went up and a person voting for every gold-plated toy for their city and then scratching their head when the city raises taxes in order to pay for the said toys.

I can feel sorry for someone forced out because property taxes went up because home values went up.

I do not and will never feel sorry for someone who voted for everything under the sun and then complains that their taxes are too high meaning they now have to move. Shit has to be paid for and contrary to what to many people in this country now think, there are not enough rich people to pick up the tab.

It seems all the FUDders in this thread missed this post. No one would (could?) respond to the facts within it. Instead they just repeated their 'but what if...s'

So I'll repost. Anyone care to try and refute it or will you all just ignore it again?

Well-Paid Workers Strengthen Local Economies

Nick Hanauer is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist in Seattle. He is the co-author of two books, "The True Patriot" and "The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government."

UPDATED JUNE 5, 2014, 12:25 AM

Orthodox economists and trickle-down dogmatists are sputtering in disbelief over Seattle’s new $15 minimum wage, convinced it will destroy our economy. As House Speaker John Boehner is fond of saying, “If you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it.”

They are wrong. Seattle’s minimum wage is already way higher than in most of America. Yet our economy is thriving. At $9.32 an hour, Seattle employers already pay 27 percent more than the federal $7.25 minimum wage. And our tipped workers earn $9.32 as well, 437 percent more than the $2.13 federal tipped minimum. So if Speaker Boehner is right, Seattle must have massive unemployment.

Yet of the nation’s 50 largest cities, Seattle ranked first in population growth last year and third lowest in unemployment. And according to the most recent Paychex IHS report, Seattle is second only to San Francisco in job growth in small businesses.

Guess which cities have the highest minimum wage? In order, San Francisco and Seattle.

This makes perfect sense. The fundamental law of capitalism is that when workers have more money, businesses have more customers — and more workers. A city in which restaurants pay workers enough so that they can afford to eat in restaurants, doesn’t have fewer restaurants. It has more of them. But if a worker earns only $7.25 an hour, almost no money goes to local small businesses. At $7.25 an hour, you can’t afford to eat in restaurants, go to the beauty shop, or buy flowers for mom.

If the minimum wage had tracked productivity gains since 1968, it would be $21.70 today; had it tracked the wages of us in the top 1 percent, it would be $28. Raising it to only $15 in a city as prosperous and expensive as Seattle isn’t a risky experiment. The risky experiment has been the 30 years of trickle-down policy that enriched a few of us while eviscerating the middle class.

The most insidious part of trickle down isn’t the idea that if the rich get richer, that’s good for the economy. It is that if the poor get richer, that will be bad for the economy. A $15-an-hour wage isn’t a risky and untried policy in Seattle. It is the natural evolution of common-sense economic thinking.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...kers-strengthen-local-economies?smid=tw-share

You've yet to learn that Wordforge goes the way it wants. No one wants to discuss that crap you reposted now.

We are now getting on about property taxes, dispatchers vs fast food slaves, and putting wage caps on novelists.

We may get around to talking about your shit again but right now we're talking about this other shit. Go sit in a corner and wait your damn turn.

If I had to argue your position in a debate I'd try to ignore the facts as well.

What position? I do not recall saying one thing about the $15 wage.

The problem is you think you can control the debate. You've yet to learn the debate goes where it wants to go. We posters are mere riders on the ship.

Mom's property taxes did not go up due to an increase in property values, for the most part. They went up due to rigged election tax levies. And yes, the elections were rigged. The population of the town was less than 5K, of which an even smaller amount were registered voters, amazingly enough, however, more people voted in the elections than lived in the town. The state board of elections hand waved it all away, saying the "errors" wouldn't have been enough to shift the vote. (Utterly not true.)

Then they got clever. They knew that growth in the town would be limited unless they got everyone to accept a municipal water system. Nobody in town was going to vote for that, since they knew it would raise their property taxes. So what happened? Wexner, the owner of The Limited put in a giant, Jack Nicholas signature designed golf course. IIRC, it was 28 holes. Golf courses tend to use a lot of water.

It didn't take that course (and the two others he built) long to suck the water table dry, so folks with wells had no choice: They could either vote to adopt a municipal water system, or they could sell and move.

Once the number of newcomers to the town exceeded the old timers, then every year there was a property tax on the ballot, and nearly every year it passed, forcing more and more of the old timers out. All of it for "improvements" that benefited the residents but made it increasingly harder for folks to live there if they weren't pulling down six and seven figure salaries. The high school I went to was built in 1971, it was, quite literally, a warehouse. They tore it down some time in the mid-90s and replaced it with this massive campus which puts some colleges to shame.

The exponential growth (and a few years prior to the '08 crash, New Albany had one of the highest concentrations of wealthy people in the US) only came to a screeching halt because Wexner and his cronies couldn't continue to rig the elections. So they created the town of Easton a few miles away, and started the whole process all over again.

Trying to turn it on me and away from your inability to deal with the facts. Good luck with that.

I will continue to point out the fact that your side has nothing but FUD, hopes, dreams and unicorns backing it up until you lot decide to start operating in the real world.

And every time to try and distract from that, I'll keep pointing out.

The rich don't get rich flipping burgers. The poor aren't going to, either.

You gotta love watching the wonk wonk: "This article that cites a bunch of statistics and says what I agree with factually proves I'm right. Case in point: According to the most recent BlahblahblahXYZ Report, witches burn because they're made of wood. And since wood floats and ducks also float, if someone weighs the same as a duck, they must be a witch."

It is like saying "the bigger the fire, the more fire engines will be there, therefore clearly fire engines cause fires and the more fire engines you have at a location, the bigger the fire you'll get."

Assuming your statistics are good, it is a fact that Seattle is growing. It is a fact that Seattle has low unemployment. It is a fact that Seattle has high wages. It is a conclusion that high wages are causing growth or reducing unemployment. Or whatever the hell point Wonky Wonkerson in your commentary is trying to make. North Dakota also has high wages low unemployment and rapid growth. Meanwhile North Dakota has one of the lowest minimum wages in the nation.

I know, "But blah blah blah. Wonk wonk wonk." We've done it. We've heard it. We just aren't smart enough to appreciate your benevolent brilliance and it is such a shame. You're trying *so* hard to show us Unwashed Masses the Error of our Ways.

Seems to be a bit chicken/egg - do higher minimum wages generate more strong economies, or are strong economies more able to support a higher minimum wage?

An increase in wages will always introduce an element of drag as the money has to come from somewhere, so it is whether other elements overcome that drag. Think of escaping a gravity well, the more oomph you've already got, the further up you can go. In this case the gravity is the economic reality trying to drag you down.

So the question is, not can Seattle support it now (it obviously can, and with benefits to city), but what will happen when that oomph is less?

I've no doubt some 60 years back Detroit could have supported a significantly higher base wage than the rest of the US, and would probably have delayed its fall as that fostered other businesses giving it reduced reliance on the motor industry, but the fall would still have come. So that is the question, when it can no longer support a high minimum wage, how do you convince the people to take a cut?

Why? What's your model?

The simple truth is that there is almost always a broad range of wages at which people will be willing to take a job and hiring an employee is profitable for the employer. Any change in wages within that range acts to redistribute income without any sort of clear drag. Furthermore, even if you don't believe that income distribution itself is an issue of fairness, that workers should participate in productivity gains, it remains the undisputed empirical reality that, contrary to conservative religious belief, income distribution does matter to the health of the economy, at least when the economy is operating below productive capacity as it has been for the past many years. More money in the hands of people who will buy more stuff, as opposed to in the hands of people who will save it, pay down debt, or use it to bid up the price on luxury vanity items, means more of the economy's productive capacity put to use.

Under current conditions increased wages for low wage workers are an undisputed boon to the economy. Anyone saying otherwise isn't operating in the real world but rather in a fantasy world in which externalities don't exist and the cost of information is zero.

Unless you're Too Big To Fail.
Then the money chute has built in perpetual Astroglide faucets.

In the same sentence you quoted.

The money originates from somewhere. A company has a set amount of money, both profits and borrowings, with which it uses to invest in itself, pay it's staff and various other things like increase staff levels, bonuses, etc. An increase in one means a corresponding decrease in one or more of the others, which has an effect on the business. Maybe they wait another 6 months to get a new machine. Maybe they can't afford to pay that new shiny suit. Maybe they put off new hires for a year. There are consequences. In a powerful economy they're mitigated - that suit will get a job someplace else, there will be another customer for that new machine, there will be jobs for the people you may have hired yourself.

In a weaker economy there won't be. That machine not selling may mean that company now his to downsize. The new hires will be unemployed still. The shiny suit, well, fuck him, shiny suits always find something.

This can only be good for the revues.

Did you really just do this massive geography fail?

He's got so many people on Ignore he keeps missing entire conversations, then pitches a hissy because people won't stay on his part of the topic.

That's twice in one week.

"What is the sound of one Ginger clapping?"

"What is 'Rupert Grint's 'stupid' face'?
I'll take 'Ginger Mishaps for $500, Alex."
(Fixt for Jeopardy format)

Seriously, took a week for someone to pick up on my joke, you people are slipping.

Yeah, twice y'all let a joke go right over your head. Usually the AZ/NM same thing gets a from @Chuck at least.

I realize you're just mailing it in these days, but is this really the best you've got left in you.

First off, way to move the goal posts. Remember that you and the market fundies believe that improving the living standard of the working class in and of itself is detrimental to the economy. All growth must flow to the top for an economy to grow. Just two years ago you were claiming that Seattle was torpedoing it's economy by enacting paid sick leave. You even made a thread on it. (Sidebar, but guess which city Seattle modeled its legislation after?). When the market fundies claim that just improving the lives of the poor is bad for the economy all the realists have to prove is that you can do these things without harming your economy. And considering that Seattle and San Francisco have the highest wages, best benefits AND highest growth that is self evident. At least to those not blinded by ideology.

Already answered.

As to where that money would come from, let's flip it around. When wages were divorced from productivity (wealth creation) where did all surplus weath created go?



Possibly here:
Corporate Profits Hit A New Record High Last Year

Or maybe here:
Record High Inequality Threatens Growth

There is plenty of room in there for some higher wages.

They used to be the same thing until 1863.

Nope, Garamet hit it a few posts later, no need for people to repeat her derision, as it was already out there and repped.

Burger flippers might take a life or two depending on the franchise!

"Wonk wonk wonk. Here's a chart. Wonk wonk wonk. Here's a ThinkProgress.org article."

He's a mirror image of you. Neither of you accepts anyone else's viewpoint, you just create your own little echo chamber where you can pontificate about your POV.

The material difference is, one of you is wrong 99.4% of the time.

But it's funny to watch the other one echo my posts without realizing he's doing it.

Thanks for starting this thread. Hilarious on so many levels...