Why You Should Be In Favor Of No Minimum Wage - General

Why You Should Be In Favor Of No Minimum Wage

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[QUOTE=Pepin;32312585]It's good to see Somoa has it's own law because there was a whole incident where they decided to force the Federal rate, which caused most everyone to lose their job there. It's easy to say that raising the minimum wage to $100 an hour would put people out of work, and as far as Somoa went, the difference to be made up was far too much. Perhaps not as drastically as increasing ten fold, but enough to cause huge economic issues.[/QUOTE] According to the law applying to Samoa they are gradually bumping the minimum wage to federal levels over time. So soon it will be at federal levels. However Obama also delayed it this year so minimum wage won't increase in Samoa.

[QUOTE=NorthernFall;32304957]There is no shortage of unemployed people wanting to work, and they will be forced to devalue themselves in order to be employed.[/QUOTE] It won't work because people who need jobs will get jobs? Again, being underpaid is better than not being paid. [QUOTE=Megafanx13;32306481]And there is more to lose with no minimum wage than there is with a minimum wage. They are "more likely to make an amount equal to what they produce"? I cannot think of a time or a case where a minimum wage didn't exist and that's what happened, so why would it start now?[/QUOTE] Your phrasing is a bit hard to decipher, or maybe it's just me. I think it's just me. Could you rephrase that? The way I read it, it sounds like you're agreeing with my point. [QUOTE=Mlisen14;32312864]OP the idea that all countries must go through a period of industrialisation has been discredited by academics for decades.[/QUOTE] You're making an appeal to an anonymousness authority. You can still try to back it up, but before backing it up you may want to complete the rest of your sentence.

Child labour laws keep kids from just going "well hurr durr I hate skool bkuz its boring and i iz a rebel and shit, smoke week erry'day wit swag yo dawg so lets drop out an' jus' work 4 livin man."

[QUOTE=Pepin;32313392]It won't work because people who need jobs will get jobs? Again, being underpaid is better than not being paid.[/QUOTE] Society shouldn't be based on exploitation of the desperate though. I agree with your point, if someone offered me a job for $3 or $4 an hour I would take it in a minute because I am that desperate for work. However is that something that is right for society to do? Just allow everyone to be exploited because they are that poor?

[QUOTE=Pepin;32315381]My use of the word underpaid would be paying the unskilled worker what they are worth, which would not be $7.50 an hour. It would be beneficial that people would be getting paid a price about equal to what they produce.[/QUOTE] lol nope, because the producers are not the ones who will be deciding the salaries. the management decides that; and the management will always pay as little as they can get away with, it's simple business. and, as lankist showed, through collusion, rather than competition, companies can find ways to pay people very very little and still ensure a stream of employees [QUOTE=Pepin;32315381]I really don't understand the exploitation argument. Clearly without the job, the worker would be worse off. Not only does the employer gain, but so does the employee. Is it considered exploitation because they are conditions that we would not agree to?[/QUOTE] if a worker is forced to either take a job or end up on the streets, and the job they take not only fails to provide them with a realistic living wage, but could potentially provide them with a realistic living wage if not for the pursuit by their employers of ever further extremes of profit then, yes, it's exploitative [editline]16th September 2011[/editline] the "well a really shitty job is better than no job" argument is garbage because it's an acquiescence to a dichotomy that doesn't exist. your argument is basically that, in refusing unemployment as a favorable condition, every other possible condition becomes infinitely preferable no, nuh-uh. quit it. cut it out [editline]16th September 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Pepin;32315381] But I suppose if that doesn't work, I might as well make the kidney argument again. Most people would consider the selling of kidneys to be exploitative, and due to this nature, the practice should be banned. Yet when looking at the statistics, the majority of people with failed kidneys never receive a donor and die. This policy is clearly not helping the person with failed kidneys, if anything, it is hurting them. If exploitation were allowed, thousands and thousands of lives could be saved, all from greed. Is this right for society to do? Certainly, as long as the seller old enough and made aware of the risks.[/QUOTE] in all of your daydreaming you seem to have passed right over the sorta~fact that any society in which people, in large numbers, are willing to sell kidneys for money is profoundly fucked. you seem to have not noticed that, in any hypothetical economy in which an organ market is a real, legitimate thing, there must be something so profoundly wrong with that market as to pretty much invalidate the hypothetical wholesale basically, if, in your libertopia, some people need to sell their kidneys for financial sustenance then i think there's something wrong with your libertopia bro [editline]16th September 2011[/editline] "in my perfect hypothetical free-market paradise in which the economy is running smoothly and there's almost no unemployment because there's no minimum wage, when anyone is so perpetually unemployed and so hard up for cash that they're willing to have a doctor take a knife to their flesh to literally sell their bodies for just a few short months worth of financial security they can do that because it's perfectly legal" yeah uhh wait a sec dude, i dont think the thing before the comma jives with all that stuff after it

that was a great post

[QUOTE=Pepin;32313392] You're making an appeal to an anonymousness authority. You can still try to back it up, but before backing it up you may want to complete the rest of your sentence.[/QUOTE] Okay World Systems Analysis which is widely academically accepted (I don't know how to back that upfurther other than you looking up its champions) kind of disagrees with your analysis that peripheral states need necessarily go through an industrialisation that will lead them to have better social standards. In fact it's kind of necessary that they stay there while core western states benefit. I don't know what you meant about finishing my sentence, but you wrote anonymousness which isn't a word - so fuck your grammar.

[QUOTE=Pepin;32315381] I really don't understand the exploitation argument. Clearly without the job, the worker would be worse off. Not only does the employer gain, but so does the employee. Is it considered exploitation because they are conditions that we would not agree to? No, that wouldn't make much sense. Forcing our idea of what is agreeable would result likely have bad effects, especially pay wise. But I'll take this in the direction of the sweatshop where if the worker doesn't work at that job, the worker will likely die of starvation. I wouldn't consider this exploitation, I'd consider this trade, and it benefits both parties and providing needs. More so, without the so called exploiter, life would be far worse.[/QUOTE] No, it is exploitive because it forces these people into substandard job conditions with no ability to break free of it. Sweatshops are bad because they provide no alternative. There is absolutely no room to move up in a sweatshop hierarchy and it's nearly 100% impossible for someone who needs to work in a sweatshop to move up in society anyways. It's like a caste system, you are born a slave, you live a slave, and you die a slave. It also provides no incentive for the company to increase wages. There is no shortage of people to work in sweatshops, if workers organize a strike, or try and demand higher pay, the company can just fire them and hire a new batch of sweatshop slaves.

Why do libtards insist on removing laws enacted to protect the general public after employers proved themselves unable to provide an adequate living wage for their workers?

[QUOTE=yawmwen;32313883]Society shouldn't be based on exploitation of the desperate though. I agree with your point, if someone offered me a job for $3 or $4 an hour I would take it in a minute because I am that desperate for work. However is that something that is right for society to do? Just allow everyone to be exploited because they are that poor?[/QUOTE] If you don't like that job offer you're free to find another one, more on that later, but labor isn't exploitation. Not at any level, unless you're being forced to work. [QUOTE=Mlisen14;32312864]OP the idea that all countries must go through a period of industrialisation has been discredited by academics for decades.[/QUOTE] So I guess all the countries which recently industrialized and improved their standard of living was a bourgeois lie? Please. [QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32315562]lol nope, because the producers are not the ones who will be deciding the salaries. the management decides that; and the management will always pay as little as they can get away with, it's simple business. and, as lankist showed, through collusion, rather than competition, companies can find ways to pay people very very little and still ensure a stream of employees[/quote] The management doesn't set the price of labor, though. Laborers do. Tell me why hospitals don't collude to push doctor's wages low. Why aren't they being paid minimum wage? It's easy to completely destroy that argument if you actually think about it logically for a moment. Do you think companies would like to pay everyone minimum wage? You bet your ass they do, I bet most of them with everyone would work for free, actually. They can't pay EVERYONE minimum wage though because a) The workers being paid over minimum know their labor is worth more than minimum b) If none of the workers found the pay acceptable they could leave for an employer who would pay them more. This is how wages are created. You can come up with all of the imaginary scenarios you like but collusion never works, for precisely the reason why you think they will work. Businesses are greedy, good employees help them to be greedy. [QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32315562]if a worker is forced to either take a job or end up on the streets, and the job they take not only fails to provide them with a realistic living wage, but could potentially provide them with a realistic living wage if not for the pursuit by their employers of ever further extremes of profit then, yes, it's exploitative[/quote] It isn't exploitative if that's what their labor is worth. Couple things: Some people don't need a living wage. Believe it or not, there's a lot of people who don't own a home and need the money anyway. College students, people living with their parents, people who generally don't need that much money to survive and only want the money to save or supplement their lifestyle. Also, if they take the job they stay off 'the streets', if they don't take the job they automatically go to the streets, no looking for alternate employment? If there's only one job being offered for the skills they possess and it doesn't pay very well, forcing companies to pay more isn't helping BECAUSE that job won't exist anymore. Now nobody gets the job, wonderful solution. Before you say something stupid like "herr derr the job won't go away just because they have to pay people more", why would somebody hire another person AT A LOSS? On to the profit motive, how do you think companies make money, anyway? I mean, do you just assume by default their motive is all profit and no expansion? They just keep saving up their dollars so they can make a dollar pool and swim around in it? [QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32315562]the "well a really shitty job is better than no job" argument is garbage because it's an acquiescence to a dichotomy that doesn't exist. your argument is basically that, in refusing unemployment as a favorable condition, every other possible condition becomes infinitely preferable no, nuh-uh. quit it. cut it out[/quote] [QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32315562]in all of your daydreaming you seem to have passed right over the sorta~fact that any society in which people, in large numbers, are willing to sell kidneys for money is profoundly fucked. you seem to have not noticed that, in any hypothetical economy in which an organ market is a real, legitimate thing, there must be something so profoundly wrong with that market as to pretty much invalidate the hypothetical wholesale basically, if, in your libertopia, some people need to sell their kidneys for financial sustenance then i think there's something wrong with your libertopia bro[/quote] And what would people in your socialitopia do to obtain kidneys? Yeah, they'd die, fuck off with your condesending bullshit, it isn't funny. To address your stupid post seriously, as if I'd have to, they aren't your fucking kidneys. You aren't the boss of somebody else's kidneys. Some people sell it for financial profit, and so what? Some people give kidneys away for free because there's a shortage of kidney's, I don't see you bitching at them. You simply hate it because they have to do it for money, that because their motives aren't as pure as a live donor they must be subjecting themselves to some sort of degrading practice because you're a conceded fuck. [QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32315562]"in my perfect hypothetical free-market paradise in which the economy is running smoothly and there's almost no unemployment because there's no minimum wage, when anyone is so perpetually unemployed and so hard up for cash that they're willing to have a doctor take a knife to their flesh to literally sell their bodies for just a few short months worth of financial security they can do that because it's perfectly legal" yeah uhh wait a sec dude, i dont think the thing before the comma jives with all that stuff after it[/QUOTE] "in my perfect socialist paradise where nobody has to work to get kidneys or houses or cars and there's an abundance of everything on earth because I made a law that said there is, people will have infinite kidneys!!1211" Yeah, you're a fucking moron. Stop pretending like you have the answers to everything in the known universe. [editline]e[/editline] [QUOTE=yawmwen;32316476]No, it is exploitive because it forces these people into substandard job conditions with no ability to break free of it. Sweatshops are bad because they provide no alternative. There is absolutely no room to move up in a sweatshop hierarchy and it's nearly 100% impossible for someone who needs to work in a sweatshop to move up in society anyways. It's like a caste system, you are born a slave, you live a slave, and you die a slave. It also provides no incentive for the company to increase wages. There is no shortage of people to work in sweatshops, if workers organize a strike, or try and demand higher pay, the company can just fire them and hire a new batch of sweatshop slaves.[/QUOTE] It isn't exploitative because that's the best society can do for them at that time. As they work more and as time progresses they will have opportunities for better jobs, sweatshops aren't bad because "they provide no alternative", they have alternatives, they can work in a field and exert far more energy for far less pay. That's a horrible alternative. There is absolutely an incentive for the company to increase wages, and as it stands most of the time sweatshops pay more than other local businesses because they're used to export things, normally. I also have already explained how people get paid more for labor, so I'll just leave it at that. [QUOTE=Mlisen14;32316157]Okay World Systems Analysis which is widely academically accepted (I don't know how to back that upfurther other than you looking up its champions) kind of disagrees with your analysis that peripheral states need necessarily go through an industrialisation that will lead them to have better social standards. In fact it's kind of necessary that they stay there while core western states benefit. I don't know what you meant about finishing my sentence, but you wrote anonymousness which isn't a word - so fuck your grammar.[/QUOTE] As bad as some countries in the world are today, they were way worse one hundred years ago. Countries are benefiting from western industrialization and they're benefiting from their own industrialization, while it's true people will lag behind for a time, all countries on the planet have been rising in standard of living for quite a long time. I'd like for you to present some data which says their standard of living has been remaining stagnant for centuries or even decades, really. I already know you'll have trouble finding it, because it's false.

[QUOTE=yawmwen;32316476]No, it is exploitive because it forces these people into substandard job conditions with no ability to break free of it. Sweatshops are bad because they provide no alternative. There is absolutely no room to move up in a sweatshop hierarchy and it's nearly 100% impossible for someone who needs to work in a sweatshop to move up in society anyways. It's like a caste system, you are born a slave, you live a slave, and you die a slave. It also provides no incentive for the company to increase wages. There is no shortage of people to work in sweatshops, if workers organize a strike, or try and demand higher pay, the company can just fire them and hire a new batch of sweatshop slaves.[/QUOTE] Incorrect in that assumption because sweatshop labor is far better than alternative labor. [url=http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1369]Not only does it pay more, but the conditions are much preferred to alternative, which would be the farm job[/url]. Many people who are against sweatshop labor will cite how much a sweatshop laborer will make in terms of dollars without comparing it to the national average. You can certainly say there is not enough opportunity in general, but your criticism doesn't make much sense as what are you comparing it to? The opportunity in America? Believe it or not, sweatshops has made education possible for a great deal of people, and without the higher pay the sweatshops pay, that education would not be possible. It is very similar to what happened during the American industrial revolution, where couples started having less kids and started saving for their education because they now had that ability with the greater pay. Sweatshops or any other vehicle to foreign trade is the best way to achieve modernization which is the only true way for opportunity to be increased. And you're right that there is no shortage of demand for sweatshop labor, but it is because the jobs are so valuable. And again, we take out the sweatshop entirely, and most of these nations will not only be worse off, but they will be more enslaved and will progress slower. Economic progression in an African nation is hard to guess because countries they are leader driver, and rich countries like Zimbabwe can get screwed over very fast. And by all forms of logic, nobody would predict Botswana would be doing so well.

Pepin, here's what I don't understand. What you're proposing is, in every way, a step backward. Surviving on minimum wage is a feat in and of itself, but asking someone to survive on LESS than minimum wage is arguably just sadistic. Yeah, it might be preferable to making no money at all, but that is completely invalidated when you think about how shitty the job is and the fact that the person STILL won't be able to survive. At the core of your argument, you're essentially saying that horrific working conditions are acceptable because at least it means more people will have jobs. Do you not realize just how -wrong- that is? Don't get me wrong, I have every sympathy for those people who are unfairly unemployed, but it is unacceptable to think that we should lower the standards of living for EVERYONE to make up for this. Do you realize just how difficult it is to make ends meet at $8/hr? Depending on where you live, it might even be impossible. How is it a good idea to make even less money than that, ensuring that millions of people live horrible lives, just trying to survive on a day to day basis?

[QUOTE=s0beit;32319575] Couple things: Some people don't need a living wage. Believe it or not, there's a lot of people who don't own a home and need the money anyway. College students, people living with their parents, people who generally don't need that much money to survive and only want the money to save or supplement their lifestyle.[/QUOTE] Looks like you've never went to college. Maybe you should leave, and let the educated Facepunchers have a discussion.

I started reading the OP, and at the first hint of dumb I scrolled down to the ratings. Thanks for saving me 5 minutes of my life FP.

[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32315562]nope, because the producers are not the ones who will be deciding the salaries. the management decides that; and the management will always pay as little as they can get away with, it's simple business. and, as lankist showed, through collusion, rather than competition, companies can find ways to pay people very very little and still ensure a stream of employees[/QUOTE] Really? I thought I covered this pretty well, though I suppose I didn't convince you so I might as well go a step further, though I already made this argument. Surely if bidding down theory was true, everyone at this moment would be making minimum wage. Prior to minimum wage and labor unions, nobody would be making anything. It is irrational to believe that the minimum wage is prohibiting such phenomenon as it would still occur. Further, this idea that labor contracts are one sided is rather odd. Surely any job offering pay above minimum wage would provide as proof that employers need to appeal to potential workers, especially if the work is bad. I can give an example where I worked at a place where we sanded log homes, the work was rather tough, and it was obvious why the needed to advertise a starting wage of $10 an hour. They were also pretty quick to give raises, and this was likely because they had a habit of losing employees. A friend of mine had her pay raised to $11.25 after three months of working. Certainly anecdotal evidence doesn't mean anything, but I can again hammer in my point that a person is not going to work a job that doesn't pay enough for their time (or where the labor is not fitting). As far as monopoly goes, it isn't a factor, regardless if you think it is or not. Even it was, your argument still wouldn't hold up at all as my points would still be valid. We can even look at real life monopolies like the one on education. Do their salaries ever get dropped? [QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32315562]if a worker is forced to either take a job or end up on the streets, and the job they take not only fails to provide them with a realistic living wage, but could potentially provide them with a realistic living wage if not for the pursuit by their employers of ever further extremes of profit then, yes, it's exploitative[/quote] Forced? Who is doing the forcing, the employer? No, there isn't even force involved in this. And this is where you're incredibly confused. The role of the employer is not to provide a living wage to the employee, but rather it is to trade money or some other good for labor. But your view is insisted on and the employer must be forced to pay a livable wage. The result? The worker doesn't get employer, the worker is far worse of as a result of those good intentions. [QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32315562]the "well a really shitty job is better than no job" argument is garbage because it's an acquiescence to a dichotomy that doesn't exist. your argument is basically that, in refusing unemployment as a favorable condition, every other possible condition becomes infinitely preferable no, nuh-uh. quit it. cut it out[/quote] It certainly does exist, and it's well documented. If you want data and highly accredited opinion I can give you that. [QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32315562]in all of your daydreaming you seem to have passed right over the sorta~fact that any society in which people, in large numbers, are willing to sell kidneys for money is profoundly fucked. you seem to have not noticed that, in any hypothetical economy in which an organ market is a real, legitimate thing, there must be something so profoundly wrong with that market as to pretty much invalidate the hypothetical wholesale[/quote] Alright, I think I've done pretty well to make counterarguments, but I can't with this, because you didn't say anything of value there besides "I'm opposed to that idea because it is wrong" and you threw in a few fallacies. [QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32315562]basically, if, in your libertopia, some people need to sell their kidneys for financial sustenance then i think there's something wrong with your libertopia bro[/quote] If you need to make a straw man that obvious, there is something wrong with your argument. Though, I suppose you certainly wouldn't deny that someone selling their kidney, making a good deal of money, and living, would be better outcome than them just dying. It would also be good to keep in mind that two lives would have been saved, wow, two for the price of one. [QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32315562]"in my perfect hypothetical free-market paradise in which the economy is running smoothly and there's almost no unemployment because there's no minimum wage, when anyone is so perpetually unemployed and so hard up for cash that they're willing to have a doctor take a knife to their flesh to literally sell their bodies for just a few short months worth of financial security they can do that because it's perfectly legal" yeah uhh wait a sec dude, i dont think the thing before the comma jives with all that stuff after it[/QUOTE] This would be a great example of a straw man. What makes it better is what is added. Please actually attempt to make an argument about the selling of organs. I can't at all respond to what you say unless you make an argument. [QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;32321162]Looks like you've never went to college. Maybe you should leave, and let the educated Facepunchers have a discussion.[/QUOTE] Please, if you're going to call someone an idiot please have the statistics on your side. 50% of people making minimum wage are between the age of 16-24. Most at this age are either living at home or attending college, making the point completely valid. The other 20% of those making minimum wage have their income supplemented by social security and medicare. I'll link you to the the 2006 study since I already I have the link. [url]http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2006tbls.htm[/url] [QUOTE=JeanLuc761;32321160]Surviving on minimum wage is a feat in and of itself, but asking someone to survive on LESS than minimum wage is arguably just sadistic. Yeah, it might be preferable to making no money at all, but that is completely invalidated when you think about how shitty the job is and the fact that the person STILL won't be able to survive. At the core of your argument, you're essentially saying that horrific working conditions are acceptable because at least it means more people will have jobs. Do you not realize just how -wrong- that is? Don't get me wrong, I have every sympathy for those people who are unfairly unemployed, but it is unacceptable to think that we should lower the standards of living for EVERYONE to make up for this. Do you realize just how difficult it is to make ends meet at $8/hr? Depending on where you live, it might even be impossible. How is it a good idea to make even less money than that, ensuring that millions of people live horrible lives, just trying to survive on a day to day basis?[/QUOTE] Statistically as I've shown, most nobody survives off minimum wage. 50% of the people that make it are teenagers, the rest are a collection of college students, and the elderly. 95% of Americans make above minimum wage. Many old people do, but it is of course supplemented with social security. To make my argument really simple, would lowering minimum wage have any effect on the pay that 95% of Americans are making? No, they would continue to make amount they are making. Minimum wage is not a floor that raise or lowers every else's wages, it is irrational to think that without minimum wage you'd be making $8 an hour as opposed to $10. The reason this is, is because people make about what they produce, and granted that this doesn't change, their wages will remain the same. How about people currently making minimum wage? They'd still make the same, unless what they produced was less than what they were earning. So would be the end result? The people who's productivity were below the old minimum wage's, but is not beyond the new minimum wage's will now be employable. Taking the minimum wage to $0 would have the same effect. I'm ignoring what you said because I don't quite think you understand my argument.

I don't think you framed resumes very well. You seem to think that a manager is going to hire people based SOLELY on the resume, while quite often the resume is the least of a company's concerns. Maybe Wal-Mart and other big-name places will just run through a resume as a means of screening, but there's a reason that a job interview is standard practice; because basing your hiring process on simply a piece of paper is ludicrous. [B][quote]Who Does Minimum Wage Harm Most?[/B] It harms the low class worker with few or no skills. I feel as though I should qualify that with more specific groups. Teenagers are low skilled workers for obvious reasons, they have low skills and no work experience. Low skilled workers are comprised of high school drop outs, illegal immigrants, the handicapped, and the elderly. Certainly there are exception to this, there may be some high school drop outs who are very successful. But in general there is no reason to believe an individual with few or no skills is likely to be successful. [U]A worker in some way can be thought of an investment, and their resume can be though of their risk. A worker with a good resume shows low risk. It is a safe investment because the worker is pretty much guaranteed to make a profit.[/U] A worker with an alright resume may be of moderate risk, they aren't likely to lose you money, and you are likely to profit. [B]A worker with a bad resume shows quite a bit of risk and would be someone not to hire. A worker with no resume is essentially a blind pick. It would be the equivalent to picking stocks without knowledge of the stocks you are picking.[/quote][/B] The bolded section, in my eyes, is over-all false. While I agree that someone without a resume is harder to judge than someone who presents one, it's unfair to say that you are making a blind pick by choosing that worker over the other. There are plenty of ways (interview, intuition, ext.) to judge an employee candidate that are not only beneficial to look into, but often times will tell you much more than a resume. I would say it's less like picking a stock without knowing what stock you're picking, and more like picking an IPO stock. There is no history on it, but you can still make judgement. [quote][U]A worker in some way can be thought of an investment, and their resume can be though of their risk. A worker with a good resume shows low risk. It is a safe investment because the worker is [I]pretty much guaranteed[/I] to make a profit.[/quote][/U] [quote] Non skilled and low skilled workers are blind picks. The employer has no clue if hiring them will at all be profitable or not, so what incentive is there to take the risk? Overall, what this results in is employers avoiding hiring non skilled workers unless there are no alternatives. And to be clear, the issue certainly is not that an employer will never higher an unskilled worker, it is just that an employer will only hire a worker at a wage that they believe them to be worth. [U]Though a worker may not be profitable and worth the risk at $7.50 an hour, they may be profitable and worth the risk at $4.75 an hour[/U].[/quote] Where I underlined I would also disagree with. I see that you understand that any time you are making a choice of whether to hire somebody or not, you are taking a chance. There is no such thing as a "safe investment" when it comes to human capital, because people are volatile and unpredictable. Let's use this stock example that you used before. If choosing an employee is like choosing a stock, I would say that a resume can be like a graph of a stock's history. While investing in gold is considered a "safe" investment (and t-bills are considered even safer for that matter), you never know what the future holds. You can analyze the data in the past and try to predict the future, but when it comes down to it, nobody can predict what is going to happen. Like a stock's worth can erode in a matter of weeks/days/hours/minutes, so too can an employee's. So what I'm saying when it comes to investing in human capital is that it's never a sure thing and if you think that it is, you're going to end up getting screwed over. While a resume can be helpful, I do not think it can "pretty much guarantee" anything. Lastly, I think it's important to point out that while risk is in fact a big portion of what makes hiring so difficult (mainly because the hiring/training process is so costly in both time and money), it is not fair to say that someone without skills/experience working should be valued as worth less than somebody else just because they have never had the opportunity to work before. Wage should not be (solely) based on the risk you are taking with the candidate, but (also) the worth of the job that they are doing. I am not fighting for or against minimum wage, I am simply stating that you seem to be putting a value to people (something that has been attempted for as long as can be remembered), and not taking into account the value of the job that they are doing, which should in fact be the bigger determinant of how much a person gets paid.

[QUOTE=Pepin;32270488][B]Intro[/B] I'll start this off with a fictional scenario. There are only two mining companies in South Africa, one that pays well above minimum wage: Company A; and the other that pays minimum wage: Company B. Both companies are pretty equal in performance and both of course want to come out ahead. Although Company B has managed to compete with Company A by hiring low skilled labor, Company B does not really have any options to gain an edge that Company A would not have. Company A does not have the choice of cutting its workers salaries as its workers are highly skilled and demanding, but Company A does have one trick up their sleeve... To raise the minimum wage. What effect would this have? Simple, it would force Company B to pay their employees a higher wage which in turn would raise the prices of Company B's product making them less competitive. It would have no ill effects on Company A because everyone within Company A makes well above the minimum wage. In effect, Company B will eventually be put out of business, and these low skilled workers will be out of a job. To some this might some like some contrived scenario, yet it has been the tool of many foreign unions and businesses in African nations. Most of these unions and businesses have been made up of white racists and it has been used quit effectively to eliminate competition from local business. Over the years this has resulted in a large distrust in western entrepreneurs in many African countries, and large amounts of protective legislation has been made against foreign business. [B]Intention Does Not Matter[/B] Certainly nobody would argue the the intention of a piece of legislation somehow affects its total outcome. You could make an argument as to how the law is interpreted, but as far as the minimum wage law goes, there is only one interpretation. If the opening example appears to be true and backed up in practice, why would it differ when backed by people with good intentions? The situation in Africa is very similar here in America, high skilled workers who are not affected by the minimum wage are lobbying for a higher minimum wage. The only difference is that these lobbyist are not racist and are portrayed to care about the lower class worker. Yet regardless if they sincerely care, their support of the minimum wage will have the same negative effects it does in Africa. Worse are the groups that lobby in the US that lobby to raise the minimum wage in third world countries. Just like in the intro, competing unions and businesses are the ones lobbying for this, so it really has to be called into question as to whether they really care about the third world nation, or if they'd rather just eliminate their competition. Consider the reasons why a third party supports a cause that does not affect them. Take Honey Nut Cheerios raising breast cancer awareness. Logically, this makes little sense. But to most anyone, their purpose is clear: to give the company a good name and to raise awareness of breast cancer. Some might consider this exploitation in that the company is trying to make money as a sponsor of breast cancer awareness, but this should really only be an issue if it is at someone's loss, which it is not. Everyone gains, the company gets a good reputation with increased sales and the public becomes more aware of breast cancer. As far as Unions and other groups advocating raising the minimum wage, it is a similar situation, except with their success, it is at a loss to those who now can't compete, just like the example in the intro. [B]Who Does Minimum Wage Harm Most?[/B] It harms the low class worker with few or no skills. I feel as though I should qualify that with more specific groups. Teenagers are low skilled workers for obvious reasons, they have low skills and no work experience. Low skilled workers are comprised of high school drop outs, illegal immigrants, the handicapped, and the elderly. Certainly there are exception to this, there may be some high school drop outs who are very successful. But in general there is no reason to believe an individual with few or no skills is likely to be successful. A worker in some way can be thought of an investment, and their resume can be though of their risk. A worker with a good resume shows low risk. It is a safe investment because the worker is pretty much guaranteed to make a profit. A worker with an alright resume may be of moderate risk, they aren't likely to lose you money, and you are likely to profit. A worker with a bad resume shows quite a bit of risk and would be someone not to hire. A worker with no resume is essentially a blind pick. It would be the equivalent to picking stocks without knowledge of the stocks you are picking. Non skilled and low skilled workers are blind picks. The employer has no clue if hiring them will at all be profitable or not, so what incentive is there to take the risk? Overall, what this results in is employers avoiding hiring non skilled workers unless there are no alternatives. And to be clear, the issue certainly is not that an employer will never higher an unskilled worker, it is just that an employer will only hire a worker at a wage that they believe them to be worth. Though a worker may not be profitable and worth the risk at $7.50 an hour, they may be profitable and worth the risk at $4.75 an hour. The issue in simple terms is that the low class worker cannot get their foot in the door. Certainly many do, put a large portion do not, especially those who do not have access to good education. It is well known that blacks receive far inferior education in America, and as a results of this they have far less skills than whites. This puts black teenagers at a huge disadvantage to white teenagers as the employer is going to hire the applicant who is most qualified. Certainly one could argue that this is racism on side of the employer, yet this is quite the stretch to make if their decision was based on qualification. [B]Minimum Wage Ensures Unemployment[/B] A large issue with people's understanding of legislation similar to this is that it only goes one way. That the minimum wage only ensures that the employer pays the worker an amount greater or equal to it. But it also works the other way around. It make it illegal for someone to work, even voluntarily, below minimum wage. It is as much a restrain on the employer as it is on the worker. Really, this makes as much sense as the laws forbade the selling of organs. There is no law against working for free, but there is a law against working for a penny. Surely if the issue is the low skilled laborers are not attractive enough at minimum wage, then it is easy to say that they won't be hired. The minimum wage ensures their unemployment. [B]Why The Minimum Wage Should Be Abolished[/B] It should be clear that if the issue is employers not wanting to pay a rate that they do not believe a laborer is worth, then the solution is to abolish the minimum wage. This will not be at a loss to the unskilled laborer as in the alternate scenario they were jobless. Furthermore, now that they got their foot in the door, they are now able to attain skills that will help them compete in the job market. Abolishing the minimum wage would also be a great means of ridding the form of corporatism talked about in the introduction. To go further, the minimum wage law is an abridgment of contractual rights. Two individuals out to have the right to come to an agreement that they both believe the benefit from. They should be the only ones to have a say in the contract. Similar to trade contracts, labor contracts must be consensual and both parties must believe they are befitting at the time. Certainly if an individual wants to work below what you'd consider a decent wage, why shouldn't they be allowed to? [B]Why That Wouldn't Lead To Capitalist Pigs Bidding Down Our Wages To The Lowest Possible Price[/B] Well, surely the title is misleading because employers will always try to negotiate for the lowest possible wage just as you'll be negotiating for the highest possible wage. That is how all trade works. But the idea behind the title is more this idea that all workers wages will be bid down to extremely low levels and that there will be no way to beat the system. I've heard this type of argument a few times and it's a bit hard to follow, though in some sense it is a bit poetic because the phrasing seems to describe the very fallacy it is. But even assuming that such a slippery slope is conceivable, the outcome make no sense unless you also assume everyone is the same in every way. Furthermore, this idea that employers would be able to drive down wages in such a way in all areas is ridiculous. What this statement effectively does is say that employers will not complete for labor, which is untrue. What would realistically happen in such a scenario is that people would refuse to work for a wage they did not agree on. Like in the introduction, Company A could not lower their worker's wage because they knew they workers would not agree on it. The same is true of Company B, and there is no reason to assume people are incapable of negotiating their own wage. [B]That It?[/B] I could have taken this a lot of directions, but I preferred a direction that would stay away from research as others sources do that better. It has been debunked time and time again, the minimum wage does not protect the poor, if anything it protects the wealthy. Have I not convinced you? Look into the matter for yourself. [B]Further Readings[/B] [url]http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/MinimumWages.html[/url] [url]http://www.economist.com/node/8090466?story_id=8090466[/url] [url]http://www.creators.com/conservative/walter-williams/minimum-wage-s-discriminatory-effects.html[/url] [url]http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2006/04/26/minimum_wage,_maximum_folly[/url] [url]http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1828[/url] [url]http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa106.html[/url] [url]http://mises.org/daily/1950[/url] [url]http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/07/24/reporting-the-minimum-wage/[/url][/QUOTE] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9kpTvm6CYA&feature=related[/media] Entire thread could have been solved with one post containing this and a lock.

[QUOTE=Pepin;32321738]Statistically as I've shown, most nobody survives off minimum wage. 50% of the people that make it are teenagers, the rest are a collection of college students, and the elderly. 95% of Americans make above minimum wage. Many old people do, but it is of course supplemented with social security. To make my argument really simple, would lowering minimum wage have any effect on the pay that 95% of Americans are making? No, they would continue to make amount they are making. Minimum wage is not a floor that raise or lowers every else's wages, it is irrational to think that without minimum wage you'd be making $8 an hour as opposed to $10. The reason this is, is because people make about what they produce, and granted that this doesn't change, their wages will remain the same. How about people currently making minimum wage? They'd still make the same, unless what they produced was less than what they were earning. So would be the end result? The people who's productivity were below the old minimum wage's, but is not beyond the new minimum wage's will now be employable. Taking the minimum wage to $0 would have the same effect. I'm ignoring what you said because I don't quite think you understand my argument.[/QUOTE] Maybe I'm misreading it, but it appears that you think wages should be decided up on how much "worth" the employee shows. That idea may work on paper, but I can guarantee it wouldn't work in practice. Most companies won't even flinch at the possibility that they can get their workers to do twice the amount of work for no increase in pay, and they can get away with that. If I'm missing your point, then please explain it to me. As far as I can see, nothing in your plan prevents a company from paying me $2 an hour even if I'm doing work that, by any ethical standard, would be worth $10 an hour. Companies have proven, time and time again, that they will make their employees do as much work as they can dump on them for as little pay as they can manage without going under minimum wage.

The OP's idea is so dumb I can't even come up with a logical response. Not trying to be mean or flame but that is just one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. All I can say is [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0[/media] edit Yep I just noticed someone else posted this video, damn. But oh well, it sums things up pretty good.

[QUOTE=Meader;32323584]I don't think you framed resumes very well. You seem to think that a manager is going to hire people based SOLELY on the resume, while quite often the resume is the least of a company's concerns. Maybe Wal-Mart and other big-name places will just run through a resume as a means of screening, but there's a reason that a job interview is standard practice; because basing your hiring process on simply a piece of paper is ludicrous.[/quote] Personally, I'd consider the interview to be apart of the resume, but I didn't make that exactly implicit. Nor did I point out how successful the employer is depends on their ability to value to the employee based on their resume, including the interview. Of course, although on paper a person might look weak, during the interview process the person might look very good. The same is true of business interviews, though a business may look very bad on paper, if you check out what they are doing, they might be the Pixar. [QUOTE=Meader;32323584]The bolded section, in my eyes, is over-all false. While I agree that someone without a resume is harder to judge than someone who presents one, it's unfair to say that you are making a blind pick by choosing that worker over the other. There are plenty of ways (interview, intuition, ext.) to judge an employee candidate that are not only beneficial to look into, but often times will tell you much more than a resume. I would say it's less like picking a stock without knowing what stock you're picking, and more like picking an IPO stock. There is no history on it, but you can still make judgement.[/quote] There is some name for this fallacy, but it is essentially mistaking that conditions are the same. To make the conditions similar, let's instead assume there is a price control on stocks. A stock cannot be sold below that amount. Now as an investor, you are given the choice to invest in a stock that you have no information on (stock A), or a stock you do have information on and you known is doing alright (stock B), for the same price. To make the matter worse, it is well known that the stock has no information is because it has yet to produce anything in its life. Now an investor is given the option to pick between stocks, which one will they choose to buy for the same price? Most will choose stock B. If you take the price control off, stock A be sold at a lower price, but at at a price that people will be willing to purchase it for. [QUOTE=Meader;32323584]Where I underlined I would also disagree with. I see that you understand that any time you are making a choice of whether to hire somebody or not, you are taking a chance. There is no such thing as a "safe investment" when it comes to human capital, because people are volatile and unpredictable. Let's use this stock example that you used before. If choosing an employee is like choosing a stock, I would say that a resume can be like a graph of a stock's history. While investing in gold is considered a "safe" investment (and t-bills are considered even safer for that matter), you never know what the future holds. You can analyze the data in the past and try to predict the future, but when it comes down to it, nobody can predict what is going to happen. Like a stock's worth can erode in a matter of weeks/days/hours/minutes, so too can an employee's.[/quote] What is the point of making the "there is no safe investment" and "you can't predict the future" argument? Is this because I used the word "guaranteed"? I don't know what this suggests, should we not use data to make prediction as our predictions might be wrong? It Really just seems like an argument against inductive reasoning, which of course has it faults, but proves to be very effective at the same time. Also, realize that safety is relative in that although you can make that the absolute statement that "nothing is ever safe", you can just as easily make the assessment that it would be safer to hire an engineer to design the bridge as opposed to a janitor. [QUOTE=Meader;32323584]So what I'm saying when it comes to investing in human capital is that it's never a sure thing and if you think that it is, you're going to end up getting screwed over. While a resume can be helpful, I do not think it can "pretty much guarantee" anything.[/quote] So was this all just about the word "guarantee". [QUOTE=Meader;32323584]Lastly, I think it's important to point out that while risk is in fact a big portion of what makes hiring so difficult (mainly because the hiring/training process is so costly in both time and money), it is not fair to say that someone without skills/experience working should be valued as worth less than somebody else just because they have never had the opportunity to work before.[/QUOTE] No, that's a contradiction because the risk is factored in the lower pay. There is no incentive for the employer to pay the same amount when the risk is greater. [QUOTE=Meader;32323584]Wage should not be (solely) based on the risk you are taking with the candidate, but (also) the worth of the job that they are doing. I am not fighting for or against minimum wage, I am simply stating that you seem to be putting a value to people (something that has been attempted for as long as can be remembered), and not taking into account the value of the job that they are doing, which should in fact be the bigger determinant of how much a person gets paid.[/quote] I can agree with the first statement, and surely if an employee is productive their pay will move towards their productivity, and if their current employer refuses to give them a raise, they can likely find a higher paying job somewhere else. I'm not sure what the "worth of the job" part means exactly, or the next couple of sentences for that matter. Can you expand?

[QUOTE=yawmwen;32312395]Washington States minimum wage went up about a quarter to rise with inflation. Most states continually bump minimum wage up every couple years for inflation. Private sector tends to do it better though, most jobs have a contractual yearly raise that coincides with inflation. [img]http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.gif[/img] Green = States with a higher minimum wage than federal Blue = States with minimum wage equal to federal Red = States with lower minimum wage than federal Yellow = States with no minimum wage law Orange = American Somoa, has it's own special minimum rate laws Honestly I don't see why you would have a law for lower minimum wage than federal, since when federal and state minimum wages aren't equal the highest one is law.[/QUOTE] Because the laws go off the higher of the two to protect the employee so having a big government pow-wow to change it when it doesn't matter is pointless unless you plan to raise it above the minimum and for government workers who are on a fixed pay they don't give a shit.

[QUOTE=Wilford Brimley;32323720] Entire thread could have been solved with one post containing this and a lock.[/QUOTE] you quoted the op WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU

Start commune, abolish money within, make stupid little trinkets that outsiders will buy for no apparent reason, run high speed internet to commune, live in utopia.

[QUOTE=s0beit;32319575]It isn't exploitative if that's what their labor is worth.[/QUOTE] I'd respond to this by saying that the value of the labor required of most minimum wage jobs in the U.S. is actually higher than the minimum wage. At the least, the cost of labor exists on a scale sliding between employee compensation and profit margins, and that the "value of labor" comes nowhere into the equation. Even if the almighty god cracked open the sky and in his infallibility told everyone that the value of mopping floors at 7/11 is, objectively, "X", and employers could get away with paying their 7/11 floor moppers [i]less[/i] than "X", they would do so; that's simple capitalism which I am neither criticizing nor supporting here. The "value of labor" has nothing to do with what anyone's getting paid; rather it has to do with scarcity of qualified employees and employee demands vs. employer concessions and government legislation and all sorts of other stuff that's what more complicated than any quantifiable "value of labor". [QUOTE=s0beit;32319575]Before you say something stupid like "herr derr the job won't go away just because they have to pay people more", why would somebody hire another person AT A LOSS?[/QUOTE] herr derr (haha you nailed me and my mannerisms there bro, i'll give ya that) i'll take false dichotomy for 800 SpaceBucks Alex. What is: 'hey dude, your "the job will disappear" scenario only exists in the instance that a low-level employee is being paid the absolute maximum amount of money that they can be paid for their job while keeping the company afloat, that is, that the company must be operating at a 0 percent profit margin for the slight increase in the wage of their employees to cause the company start losing money.' At which point I direct you to, say, the publicized profit margin of a huge employer like Wal-Mart and sorta tilt my head towards it while I wink coquettishly at ya, big boy. [QUOTE=s0beit;32319575] And what would people in your socialitopia do to obtain kidneys? Yeah, they'd die, fuck off with your condesending bullshit, it isn't funny. To address your stupid post seriously, as if I'd have to, they aren't your fucking kidneys. You aren't the boss of somebody else's kidneys. Some people sell it for financial profit, and so what? Some people give kidneys away for free because there's a shortage of kidney's, I don't see you bitching at them.[/QUOTE] uhh dude you completely missed the point of my post. I wasn't arguing against the sale of kidneys (I won't elaborate on that), I was arguing against the widespread sale of kidneys being any sort of remedy for any economic malady. Yes, it would help people who need kidneys, but it certainly would not lead to a decrease in poverty because anyone who is willing to sell a kidney is so hopeless and deeply entrenched in their poverty that the small injection of cash that the sale of a kidney would give them would do no long-lasting good. [QUOTE=s0beit;32319575]You simply hate it because they have to do it for money, that because their motives aren't as pure as a live donor they must be subjecting themselves to some sort of degrading practice because you're a conceded fuck.[/QUOTE] cool. lets be jerks: you confused the word "conceited" with "conceded". haha, owned nerd loser [editline]16th September 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Pepin;32321738]It certainly does exist, and it's well documented. If you want data and highly accredited opinion I can give you that. [/QUOTE] cool, come at me bro. I'd love to see the statistics you have that somehow counteract, not a statement of fact, but a judgment of value. I'd like to see how that thing that don't make no sense from a logical perspective annihilates me. [QUOTE=Pepin;32321738]This would be a great example of a straw man. What makes it better is what is added. Please actually attempt to make an argument about the selling of organs. I can't at all respond to what you say unless you make an argument.[/QUOTE] cool, see above [editline]16th September 2011[/editline] like two three above

I think this is retarded on a scale never seen before, because as it is minimum wage will have you living in a shitty century-old never renovated apartment with 4 other people in a 2 bedroom apartment, eating shitty food, and barely getting by. God forbid you actually have to drive to work, or anything happens to you EVER. [editline]16th September 2011[/editline] At any rate, I think I'm in favor of heavy birth control being universalized. The problem is that as long as there is surplus labor, the world can't move forward. The world needs to make it so that it is quite literally almost impossible to have a child unintentionally. The only reason why we got out of the shithole that is being a serf and taking it up the ass from some random guy who claims to be of nobility is because the Black Death made a labor shortage that made it possible for normal workers to negotiate. [editline]16th September 2011[/editline] I don't think the OP understands that being poor has special ways of fucking you in the ass.

Dear Pepin, I've been reading your posts and I have one question. Does your ass ever get jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth?

[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32332004]cool, come at me bro. I'd love to see the statistics you have that somehow counteract, not a statement of fact, but a judgment of value. I'd like to see how that thing that don't make no sense from a logical perspective annihilates me.[/QUOTE] Your claim is erroneous because it states that low skilled workers should be making a wage that nobody is likely to hire them for, and that for whatever reason they will still be hired. I don't quite get the sense behind your position because why would an employer pay the same price for unskilled labor when they can get skilled labor for the same price. Also, what judgement of value is being made here? What is being measured how well off a person is economically. Clearly a person will be able to live better off of $4 an hour than $0 an hour. Even if you add in welfare, the math still works out the same. The claim being made here is that minimum wage does not create unemployment in that the people who's marginal revue product fall below the minimum wage which is untrue. I can certainly get into the data that tracks individuals and shows that those starting out at the bottom move the fastest up the economic ladder, and once you accept the notion that people can't get on ladder, the minimum wage law is not only a law that is keeping the unskilled unemployed, but it is also a law that is keeping them from getting on the ladder. If an unskilled person is able to get a job, they will be able to move up the ladder and move towards a much higher pay, where in the scenario of a minimum wage, they don't get hired and what chance do they have at opportunity? There is a reason why I've kept economic opinion and research out of this, and it is because it would be no argument with it. Really, the majority of Facepunch and politicians are economically illiterate when it comes to this topic. [quote]The minimum wage reduces employment. Currie and Fallick (1993), Gallasch (1975), Gardner (1981), Peterson (1957), Peterson and Stewart (1969). The minimum wage reduces employment more among teenagers than adults. Adie (1973); Brown, Gilroy and Kohen (1981a, 1981b); Fleisher (1981); Hammermesh (1982); Meyer and Wise (1981, 1983a); Minimum Wage Study Commission (1981); Neumark and Wascher (1992); Ragan (1977); Vandenbrink (1987); Welch (1974, 1978); Welch and Cunningham (1978). The minimum wage reduces employment most among black teenage males. Al-Salam, Quester, and Welch (1981), Iden (1980), Mincer (1976), Moore (1971), Ragan (1977), Williams (1977a, 1977b). The minimum wage helped South African whites at the expense of blacks. Bauer (1959). The minimum wage hurts blacks generally. Behrman, Sickles and Taubman (1983); Linneman (1982). The minimum wage hurts the unskilled. Krumm (1981). The minimum wage hurts low wage workers. Brozen (1962), Cox and Oaxaca (1986), Gordon (1981). The minimum wage hurts low wage workers particularly during cyclical downturns. Kosters and Welch (1972), Welch (1974). The minimum wage increases job turnover. Hall (1982). The minimum wage reduces average earnings of young workers. Meyer and Wise (1983b). The minimum wage drives workers into uncovered jobs, thus lowering wages in those sectors. Brozen (1962), Tauchen (1981), Welch (1974). The minimum wage reduces employment in low-wage industries, such as retailing. Cotterman (1981), Douty (1960), Fleisher (1981), Hammermesh (1981), Peterson (1981). The minimum wage hurts small businesses generally. Kaun (1965). The minimum wage causes employers to cut back on training. Hashimoto (1981, 1982), Leighton and Mincer (1981), Ragan (1981). The minimum wage has long-term effects on skills and lifetime earnings. Brozen (1969), Feldstein (1973). The minimum wage leads employers to cut back on fringe benefits. McKenzie (1980), Wessels (1980). The minimum wage encourages employers to install labor-saving devices. Trapani and Moroney (1981). The minimum wage hurts low-wage regions, such as the South and rural areas. Colberg (1960, 1981), Krumm (1981). The minimum wage increases the number of people on welfare. Brandon (1995), Leffler (1978). The minimum wage hurts the poor generally. Stigler (1946). The minimum wage does little to reduce poverty. Bonilla (1992), Brown (1988), Johnson and Browning (1983), Kohen and Gilroy (1981), Parsons (1980), Smith and Vavrichek (1987). The minimum wage helps upper income families. Bell (1981), Datcher and Loury (1981), Johnson and Browning (1981), Kohen and Gilroy (1981). The minimum wage helps unions. Linneman (1982), Cox and Oaxaca (1982). The minimum wage lowers the capital stock. McCulloch (1981). The minimum wage increases inflationary pressure. Adams (1987), Brozen (1966), Gramlich (1976), Grossman (1983). The minimum wage increases teenage crime rates. Hashimoto (1987), Phillips (1981). The minimum wage encourages employers to hire illegal aliens. Beranek (1982). Few workers are permanently stuck at the minimum wage. Brozen (1969), Smith and Vavrichek (1992). The minimum wage has had a massive impact on unemployment in Puerto Rico. Freeman and Freeman (1991), Rottenberg (1981b). The minimum wage has reduced employment in foreign countries. Canada: Forrest (1982); Chile: Corbo (1981); Costa Rica: Gregory (1981); France: Rosa (1981). Characteristics of minimum wage workers Employment Policies Institute (1994), Haugen and Mellor (1990), Kniesner (1981), Mellor (1987), Mellor and Haugen (1986), Smith and Vavrichek (1987), Van Giezen (1994).[/quote] [url]http://www.house.gov/jec/cost-gov/regs/minimum/50years.htm[/url] Those are some of the key economic studies on minimum wage, all finding what? And why? One of my major claims is that the unskilled which is mostly made of teenagers are mainly affected by the minimum wage. With such a graph, could you doubt correlation? Showing a graph of black teen unemployment would just be too unfair. [IMG]http://i56.tinypic.com/m7qpg1.jpg[/IMG] And really, who do you want quotes from? You'd probably be surprised that Greenspan came out against it, as anyone in a more political position has to be careful, as this is not an issue economic issue, it is a political issue. It is the number one reason why there needs to be a vote on it, it needs the be an issue, if it is tied to some formula, it stops becoming politics. Hardly any credible economist will say that minimum wage does anything for poverty. Why is this? Because making that statement would be irrational. As I've said over and over again, 50% of the workers making minimum wage are age 16-24 and dependents, 20-25% are seniors and and receiving social security and medicare and maybe other benefits (from the DOL report I keep citing). How could anyone make the statement that minimum wage is a tool for fighting poverty not only when the research shows that minimum wage hurts the poor, but when that over 70% of the people earning minimum wage are not in poverty? Even then, when focusing on that 30% [quote]Additional evidence on the distributional effect of minimum wages comes from David Neumark, Mark Schweitzer, and William Wascher. Raising the minimum wage increases both the probability that a poor family will escape poverty through higher wages and the probability that another nonpoor family will become poor as minimum wage increases price it out of the labor market. They found that the unemployment caused by minimum wage increases is concentrated among low-income families. This suggests that minimum wage increases generally redistribute income among low-income families rather than moving it from those with high incomes to those with low incomes. The authors found that although some families do benefit, minimum wage increases generally increase the proportion of families that are poor and near-poor. Minimum wage increases also decrease the proportion of families with incomes between one and a half and three times the poverty level, suggesting that they make it more difficult to escape poverty.11[/quote] [url]http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/MinimumWages.html[/url] The supposed benefit cancels out when in effect it causes another family to go into poverty, and it also makes it more difficult to escape poverty. I can give you far more but I really don't think it'll be necessary. Really, the best you can give is the 1994 study on the minimum wage from economists David Card and Alan Krueger which has been pretty discredited. You could also give me a link to economist calling for a raise in the minimum wage, yet I do not suggest doing this as their argument for doing so is not to fight poverty, but rather to provide a stimulus, and they are of course using the Krueger study to make the point that a small increase in the minimum wage will not have an effect on employment. But even the, as far as polls go, 90% of economists in the 79 believed the minimum wage decrease, and in a recent poll 46% fully agree'd, 28% agreed, and 27% disagreed. These numbers are just kind of quoted because they are from a magazine, you can find them cited a lot of places. [QUOTE=SigmaLambda;32332004]uhh dude you completely missed the point of my post. I wasn't arguing against the sale of kidneys (I won't elaborate on that), I was arguing [B]against the widespread sale of kidneys being any sort of remedy for any economic malady[/B]. Yes, it would help people who need kidneys, [B]but it certainly would not lead to a decrease in poverty[/B] because anyone who is willing to sell a kidney is so hopeless and deeply entrenched in their poverty that the small injection of cash that the sale of a kidney would give them would do no long-lasting good.[/QUOTE] I'm mixed up, maybe I didn't make my point clear enough, or maybe you misinterpreted, I'll assume the first, but I am not at all suggesting that the sale of kidneys be a solution for poverty. It certainly would have some positive economic effect for the poor, and it would also save lives, but the main idea I was trying to get across is that what you may consider exploitation may be the best to allow when the probability of getting through on donations is just not statistically backed up. I am parreling this to the situation with minimum wage and also to sweatshops where allowing what you'd consider exploitation is far more beneficial to the person being exploited than having a law forbidding the exploitation. The only alternative scenario that could match the lives saved would be means of force, in the case of kidneys, forcing people to donate their kidneys. [QUOTE=Hunt3r.j2;32332443]because as it is minimum wage will have you living in a shitty century-old never renovated apartment with 4 other people in a 2 bedroom apartment, eating shitty food, and barely getting by.[/quote] Why not raise the minimum wage to $100 an hour? Or $1000? That's about as basic as your logic is. I'm not sure where you get the idea that minimum wage has an effect on the majority of the population granted only 2.2% the Federal minimum and 5% make the state minimum, half of those being dependent teenagers. [QUOTE=Hunt3r.j2;32332443]The only reason why we got out of the shithole that is being a serf and taking it up the ass from some random guy who claims to be of nobility is because the Black Death made a labor shortage that made it possible for normal workers to negotiate.[/quote] Unless you consider that during the 1870's Americans made the largest increase in standard of living than they ever had. This continued in the early 1900's as well, and the US had achieved far more than ever without the help of unions. I really don't have a clue what you're talking about in the quote, but I'd like you to address the huge standard of living increase during those periods.

[QUOTE=Pepin;32343571]Your claim is erroneous because it states that low skilled workers should be making a wage that nobody is likely to hire them for, and that for whatever reason they will still be hired. I don't quite get the sense behind your position because why would an employer pay the same price for unskilled labor when they can get skilled labor for the same price. Also, what judgement of value is being made here? What is being measured how well off a person is economically. Clearly a person will be able to live better off of $4 an hour than $0 an hour. Even if you add in welfare, the math still works out the same. The claim being made here is that minimum wage does not create unemployment in that the people who's marginal revue product fall below the minimum wage which is untrue. I can certainly get into the data that tracks individuals and shows that those starting out at the bottom move the fastest up the economic ladder, and once you accept the notion that people can't get on ladder, the minimum wage law is not only a law that is keeping the unskilled unemployed, but it is also a law that is keeping them from getting on the ladder. If an unskilled person is able to get a job, they will be able to move up the ladder and move towards a much higher pay, where in the scenario of a minimum wage, they don't get hired and what chance do they have at opportunity? There is a reason why I've kept economic opinion and research out of this, and it is because it would be no argument with it. Really, the majority of Facepunch and politicians are economically illiterate when it comes to this topic. [url]http://www.house.gov/jec/cost-gov/regs/minimum/50years.htm[/url] Those are some of the key economic studies on minimum wage, all finding what? And why? One of my major claims is that the unskilled which is mostly made of teenagers are mainly affected by the minimum wage. With such a graph, could you doubt correlation? Showing a graph of black teen unemployment would just be too unfair. [IMG]http://i56.tinypic.com/m7qpg1.jpg[/IMG] And really, who do you want quotes from? You'd probably be surprised that Greenspan came out against it, as anyone in a more political position has to be careful, as this is not an issue economic issue, it is a political issue. It is the number one reason why there needs to be a vote on it, it needs the be an issue, if it is tied to some formula, it stops becoming politics. Hardly any credible economist will say that minimum wage does anything for poverty. Why is this? Because making that statement would be irrational. As I've said over and over again, 50% of the workers making minimum wage are age 16-24 and dependents, 20-25% are seniors and and receiving social security and medicare and maybe other benefits (from the DOL report I keep citing). How could anyone make the statement that minimum wage is a tool for fighting poverty not only when the research shows that minimum wage hurts the poor, but when that over 70% of the people earning minimum wage are not in poverty? Even then, when focusing on that 30% [url]http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/MinimumWages.html[/url] The supposed benefit cancels out when in effect it causes another family to go into poverty, and it also makes it more difficult to escape poverty. I can give you far more but I really don't think it'll be necessary. Really, the best you can give is the 1994 study on the minimum wage from economists David Card and Alan Krueger which has been pretty discredited. You could also give me a link to economist calling for a raise in the minimum wage, yet I do not suggest doing this as their argument for doing so is not to fight poverty, but rather to provide a stimulus, and they are of course using the Krueger study to make the point that a small increase in the minimum wage will not have an effect on employment. But even the, as far as polls go, 90% of economists in the 70's believed the minimum wage hurt the poor, 70% in the 90's. Currently I believe it is about 55% believing it would, with 25% not being sure, with only 20% believing it is helpful. I forget what you said there, but from what I remember it was just a big slippery slope. I don't have time to make a response now, but I will when I get back.[/QUOTE] [video=youtube;3tPs1Fn8xeY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tPs1Fn8xeY&feature=related[/video]

Holy shit.. Unit makes a very good point here.. You can use just about EVERY word Sgt. Hartman says to privet pyle in full metal jacket as a reply to pepin... for example.. you could use [video=youtube;oXwyVcLq4Ec]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXwyVcLq4Ec[/video] to his last post.. People who disagree with pepin can help by adding more clips

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