tzor wrote: PLAYER57832 wrote:AND.. funny how you all seem perfectly happy to "justify" why a CEO should make millions... but its perfectly OK for someone working hard at their job to make only $7.50 an hour or less.
Well I have never "justified" why a CEO should make millions. IMNSHO, those who do should not and those who do not should. Let's be honest here, a large company could not care less about the so called "minimum wage," as it is always lower overseas. Let's also understand that the question of "minimum wage" is also avoided by the use of illegal workers. In both cases the result is the same; the person could have a job at level X, but that job isn't available as it was given to someone else at a lower level and the poor worker can't take advantage of that so he doesn't get paid anything.
Which is Precisely why major unions are now for immigration reform instead of opposed, because the threat of deportation seems to make people endure a LOT. This whole bit of "I'll just go overseas" is a bit of a red herring. Companies don't because there are a LOT of benefits to staying in the US. But, they want to take those benefits and not offer a return to the lowest ranks.
Also, we need international tax reform.. that, too, would stop some of the loopholes that allow companies to shift profits and avoid paying taxes.
tzor wrote: Furthermore, the whole question of the "minimum wage" cannot be taken apart from the fact that we are up our necks in the "welfare state." The person who makes a minimum wage is also entitled to a bucket load of additional benefits, worth far more than even a modest increase in the minimum wage might grant. I forget the exact links to the study but there were some cases where you could literally double the income of a single mother and she would wind up with less net pay as a result
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EXACTLY why we need a rise in minimum wage... and some welfare reform as well. Welfare is supposed to be a bottom line hold over for people who have NO work, not a supplement so companies can get by with paying too low of wages.
Oh, and when I say "welfare reform", I mean REFORM, not just cuts. But we need a few other changes. HIdden in that "poor single mother" garbage are a LOT of moms who are getting nice, fat checks from their kid's fathers and yet not having to claim it as their income. THAT all needs to end. Child support should be listed as the child's income, put on the Mom's EZ or 1040 form and then taxed just as if it were her income, becuase it effectively is. It should not be counted as part of the father's income. Worse, if she has multiple kids from multiple fathers, then she tends to get even more because the father has to fork over a somewhat higher percentage usually for that one child than for more than one. We reward bad behavior and penalize people who choose to be responsible.
tzor wrote: There are certain laws in the universe that you can't mess with; conservation of energy, gravity, and the law of supply and demand.
Oh please, the idea of supply and demand is not a "law of the universe".. or rather what you types like to claim is "supply and demand" utterly ignores the fact that the earth is a dynamic system with very serious limits that cannot be ignored. You cannot just "econimic" yourself more gas.. not matter how much you try to claim you can. Raw petroleum in the form we are used to using is not being produced any longer. Alternatives might be encouraged to come about, but we have failed miserably in that becuase the impact of rising oil prices would be "too harsh". And investing in research is now no longer something popular--- neve rmind that most industries in existance today can than government research for their existance.
You cannot just "economic away" things like pollution or global warming. You can use economic tools to manipulate things toward a solution, but that requires a concerted effort of intelligence intstead of folks thumbing their noses because they have money and power and most 'ologists don't... and so in their world are stupid dumbasses.
tzor wrote: If you want to increase the wages of all, you need to increase the demand of people wanting people to work for them while keeping the supply of laborers constant. Increasing wages while unemployment is still high is like getting energy from nowhere or living on a mountain of Upsidasium.
Not at the bottom. If your theory were correct, we would not have slavery or people working in extremely dangerous conditions or other abuses.
Laws are not to control honest and decent business people, they are to keep the nasty jerks from being so abusive and getting advantages over the more honest folks.
Laws are ALSO for seeing that people gaining from other people don't pass on the risk and damage onto others. When employers say "its OK to pay $7.35 because that person gets medicaid, housing subsidies, etc, etc,... it means WE, not he is paying for that employee.. and we are not gaining more than a few cents, not even generally a real income tax because most of the money in that business will be classed as "investment" or written off in various ways.
A basic minimum wage sets the field in an honest way. No one denies that it takes more than $7.35 an hour to get by. Pretending it is OK to do so means you are supporting the welfare state, not opposing it.