Abolish Minimum Wage

SoulWinner

Commander
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
2,423
Anyone with a modicum of knowledge regarding economics knows that a Federal or state mandated minimum wage knows that employers are absolved of any impetus to pay higher. The beauty of capitalism is that all prices and wages are set by the consumer, thus negating the need for price controls. One look at the result of California's price controls on energy show that government meddling in market forces is not beneficial to the market or the consumer.

Starting wages are limited by many factors. It costs business money to comply with federal employment mandates, which is money that COULD be paid to the worker. Complying with IRS, EPA, EOC, ADA mandates cost employers billions of dollars every year.Government regulations and "Acts" such as the Americans with Disabilities Act or American Family Leave Act are defacto taxes as they constitute costs to business that result from government intrusion into the economy.

Is there a better way to handle staring remuneration? Several. Letting employers set wages and see who applies to job is one good way. Either applicants appear or they do not.

How about this. Say an employer has an opening for a position that entails stuffing envelopes. My wife took a job several years ago doing just this. Say the employer hires two people; one who is paid based on the number of envelopes stuffed each day, the other paid whatever the prevailing minimum wage is. Which employee will provide the employer with what the employer wants, which is the greatest number of stuffed envelopes in a given eight hour period. The answer is self evident.

Unless you are a doctor or lawyer or biochemist, starting wages are not, and are not meant to be "living wages." High school kids flipping burgers for gas money do not require a living wage. Their parents do. The battle for higher minimum wage is nothing more than thinly veiled socialist policy; one that is having miserable consequences in France. Things like minimum wage, ADA and AFLA are patently un-American. They are tools for a socialist party to gain power by appealing to the lowest common denominator of citizenry, or those who feel guilt because of their success.
 

Firestar

Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
530
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

Agree totally! Strange that the Dem's always seem to be the ones to push for raising minimal wage. Must be catering to their lazy, uneducated constituency. More entitlements. When did minimal wage start being called a "living wage"? I never heard that until recently. Where will the incentive for higher education come from? Why bother to work hard? Socialism didn't work in Russia.
 

SoulWinner

Commander
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
2,423
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

Any time the government mandates broad sweeping regulations that address singular or localized problems, the entire economy suffers. Everyone here can name at least a couple of businesses that had to add wheel chair ramps or ADA accessible bathrooms where it is inappropriate or down right idiotic, at costs that must be passed along to the consumer. Not to mention, thanks to the ADA businesses now have to deal with employees with alcohol or drug addictions with all kinds of touchy-feely tolerance when they should have the option of simply firing the individual.

The decision to make your business accessible or otherwise compliant to the tenets of the ADA should be at the sole discretion the OWNER of the business. Or do we REALLY need Braille on drive through ATM's? Not only is this NOT the the Federal governments business, it is a real stretch to say that the Constitution authorizes congress to issue such mandates.
 

rwise

Captain
Joined
Jul 5, 2001
Messages
3,205
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

ok lets say you just graduated high school, your girl friend is pregnant, you are getting maried, you need a place to stay and the only place that will give you a job (right now!) only pays minimum wage (which is to laugh at) how are you going to make it? (without assistance)
 

danpemby

Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Jul 24, 2006
Messages
497
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

When did minimal wage start being called a "living wage"?

My guess would be this started from the Wally World Bashers 8)
 

SoulWinner

Commander
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
2,423
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

rwise said:
ok lets say you just graduated high school, your girl friend is pregnant, you are getting maried, you need a place to stay and the only place that will give you a job (right now!) only pays minimum wage (which is to laugh at) how are you going to make it? (without assistance)


Why should I pay for someone else's poor life choices? Why should the Federal government pass laws to make life easier for people who make poor life choices? What constitutional authority do they have to do that? Why should the economy subsidize activities like unplanned parenthood?
 

Haut Medoc

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Jun 29, 2004
Messages
10,645
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

What do you have against cripples?
Adding those wheel chair ramps & such creates jobs for someone as well....
Some business has to make the Braille things....
Just because you don't benefit from a particular thing doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing....
I didn't benefit a bit from all of the disaster relief money sent to the Gulf Coast or Florida in the past few years, but I won't whine about it.....
It is for the common good.....
Hopefully you won't need to use a wheel chair access or a Braille ATM in the near future, but they would be there if you did.....
Think about that......
Furthermore, at least the money is spent here, not pi$$ed away on foreign aid or "W's" folly.........JK
 

Haut Medoc

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Jun 29, 2004
Messages
10,645
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

Conservatives & religious zealots fight tooth & nail for right to life & then whine when that life becomes burdensome to them.....
We do need more recruits for Iraq though, so they better get busy up in Detroit......;)
 

PW2

Commander
Joined
Apr 21, 2004
Messages
2,719
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

SW

You'll never get me to agree that the ADA is worthless. For example, one of the many tenets of the ADA requires computer programs purchased by the Federal Government be accessible to those with disabilities.

Some companies (like Apple) decided it was too much hassle to make their's accessible, and said screw it. Microsoft, OTOH, made a commitment to make theirs accessible. It was easy back in the DOS days, less easy as GUI took over.

My daughter, who is blind, makes her living as a software engineer. She'd be making her living selling pencils on a streetcorner without the ADA.

Perhaps, from a pure economic standpoint, it would make economic sense to say the heck with her. That's simply not what societies should, or can do.

Being disabled in this country is a tough show at best. Leaving it solely to open market forces and economics is cruel and inhuman at best. I'm sure there are ADA things that don't make sense. There are far more ADA things that have and do make all the difference in the world.

As far as minimum wage, it depends solely on the labor market at the time. Over supply of labor chasing too few jobs lead to lower wages.

Hopefully, raising the minimum wage in a decent labor market will lead to little effect. In any event, it will make little difference except to the super poor, and hardly an issue to get worked up over.
 

CJY

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined
Jun 19, 2005
Messages
1,242
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

I guess my problem with your post SW is that there are not nearly enough mortgage paying jobs for kids leaving HS and not going on to college. Believe it or not, a large portion of HS graduates do not attend post HS college.

Are you saying college/higher ed should be mandatory?

You are complaining about a minimum wage while we spend billions on other countries. Hmmmm.
 

SoulWinner

Commander
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
2,423
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

PW2 said:
SW


My daughter, who is blind, makes her living as a software engineer. She'd be making her living selling pencils on a streetcorner without the ADA.

.

So, rather than YOU do something to help your daughter, the rest of us should. If that isn't socialism I don't know what is.......
 

SoulWinner

Commander
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
2,423
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

CJY said:
I guess my problem with your post SW is that there are not nearly enough mortgage paying jobs for kids leaving HS and not going on to college. Believe it or not, a large portion of HS graduates do not attend post HS college.

.


Since when in the history of the world does one get out of high school and buy a house? What about getting some job skill and maturity to hold a job and develope some maturity and work ethic? Oh wait, this is supposed be a socialist uptoia right? Sure, that's the American way, right? Wrong......
 

PW2

Commander
Joined
Apr 21, 2004
Messages
2,719
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

SoulWinner said:
PW2 said:
SW


My daughter, who is blind, makes her living as a software engineer. She'd be making her living selling pencils on a streetcorner without the ADA.

.
So, rather than YOU do something to help your daughter, the rest of us should. If that isn't socialism I don't know what is.......



SW, I don't get easily offended, but that ignorant remark offends me greatly.

Do you think it was easy for her to get an engineering degree? The ADA did not make it easy. It only made it *possible*
 

Haut Medoc

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Jun 29, 2004
Messages
10,645
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

Spoken like a true Reich-Winger.....
I got mine, hooray for me, screw everybody else....
 

tommays

Admiral
Joined
Jul 4, 2004
Messages
6,768
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

Those of us like myself who are lucky enough to be born with a fully working brain don't need a minimum wage

On the other hand my younger brother has about a 70 IQ from a childhood illness that caused brain damage.

He has NEVER taken a dime of public aid and gets BUY on that minimum wage and the fact that there is some requirement to hire him for jobs he can do like clean up a parking lot OR carry bags at the hotel he works at now

And believe me the world is FULL of people willing to take advantage of him as well as the many other Americans that were not lucky enough to be born smart


What you should be asking is why is someone living better on welfare than my brother who has always worked?

Tommays
 

Haut Medoc

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Jun 29, 2004
Messages
10,645
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

Amen to that....
P.S. Tom, with those #'s, your brother would be qualified to be president under current conditions.....
 

mattttt25

Commander
Joined
Sep 29, 2002
Messages
2,661
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

ADA is a complicated code and doesn't necessarily force all businesses to simply spend money in compliance. I can't believe anyone would argue against helping those with disabilities get along in life a little better.

If you want to throw minimum wage out the door, you'll need to get rid of every labor union out there. all of them. just making sure you agree with that.
 

CJY

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined
Jun 19, 2005
Messages
1,242
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

SW, I did not buy one while still in school...did you?

Do you think all HS grads live at home forever? Did you not grow up during a time when HS grads could go to work in a factory for a decent wage? All the AFTA's screwed that up...get it? Those are Gov policies. The Gov also has a responsibility to help Americans like they help everybody else in the world. One day, the Iraqi population will have a greater per capita income than America.

Haut,

Well said!!
 

SoulWinner

Commander
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
2,423
Re: Abolish Minimum Wage

Pw, I am a disabled vet, and a member of the American Legion. Go cry in someon eles's beer. In case you can't read, this is a discussion about minimum wage. Please try to keep up. BTW, to say that no one before the ADA could possibly earn a degree is so disrespectful to the achievment of your daughter, you should be ashamed. Sometimes you say things without thinking that are both shocking and discusting. My hat is off to your daughter.

Haut, I am reading Mein Kampf now. You should to. a little education goes a long way. If you understood Hitler, you would see that the Democratic party mirrors the beliefs of socialist Nazi Germany, not conservatism.

Tom, here we have an organization called The Arc of Santa Rosa County. It is thier sole goal to assist mentally handicapped persons. They are community supported, I love what they do.

Commander, unions artifically inflate the cost of good and services, and people wonder why manufactering jobs are going off-shore, or why Ford and GM are in trouble........There was a time when unions were NEEDED, that time is in the past.

Said by Haut: "I got mine, hooray for me, screw everybody else.... "

We give over 25% of our income away. We invested in a family that was on public assistance. Now they are tax payers. The ball is in your court.
 
Top