Comments by "whyamimrpink78" (@whyamimrpink78) on "Bernie Sanders Proposes $15 Minimum Wage Bill" video.
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
How so? Checks and balances. We do not want one person getting into too much power.
"But then you'd have a country full of different laws and regulations"
We have that already. As long as the state and local governments stick within the confines of the Constitution than we will be fine. But we have different laws all across the country.
"Chicago has extremely strict guns laws, yet people can just go up north
to Wisconsin and buy a gun, go back to Illinois and now you have
citizens with guns in one of the hardest places to buy a gun."
Iowa has no sales tax on food. You can go to Iowa, buy food, and go back to MO, or MN, or whatever neighboring state you want and avoid paying taxes. My city just raised their sales tax. If I were to buy a car I will go to a neighboring city. It happens in many way. My state just gave a company an over $1 billion tax break to build here.
"Actually, really sensitive topics such as gun laws, abortion, free
healthcare, etc come to play. Many states deny a woman from aborting a
child, resulting in people having to leave there own state to aquire a
service they need."
Freedom has a price. Nothing is ideal. It is like free speech. You may disagree with Alex Jones or Pat Robertson and find them to be stupid (I do at least), but we allow them to speak as we do not want the government having too much power. You need checks and balances.
"There are just some situations where government needs to step in."
I agree, but there has to be a standard. To me it is the Constitution.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
" In places where $15/hr was implemented, prices went up, but it was
outpaced by wage growth, so consumers still had more spending money"
This is deceptive. In places where growth happened there was already growth happening due to higher earning jobs that create wealth. Emeryville, CA has had the highest min. wage in the country for years but has had unemployment below the national average. At the same time it has Pixar and two pharmaceutical companies for three of their top four employers. Those individuals earn a lot. The highest employer in my city is the school district. The top four largest employers in Chicago are all government jobs. Places like that will not do well with a higher min. wage as they do not have the jobs that pay well. So it is much more complicated than what you are saying.
"Also, CEO-to-worker pay went from 20:1 in the 50s to 250:1 today"
That is also deceptive. CEOs today manage more than in the 50s. If a CEO managed a company with 5000 employees in the 50s but now manages 50,000, who should get paid more? Who generates more profit? Also, the idea of cutting CEO pay is not true. If you take the top 6 executives of Walmart and spread their salary to the 525,000 lowest paid employees those workers will earn an extra $147 a year. That's it.
" so there's plenty of room for businesses to reduce their profit margin before they have to start raising prices. "
Again, not true. These businesses work on razor thin profits. Also, not every business is a corporation with a CEO.
1
-
1
-
1
-
"Fascinating. So by that logic, if these workers are earning the same,
but produce more, then there wouldn't be enough consumer demand for
those goods and services, correct?"
Nope, prices will drop. Demand is there as people naturally demand better goods and services. This is why companies push for better goods and new technology. When Apple releases a new phone it is usually expensive and not many can afford it. But they release it because people want better phones, even if they can't afford it. Eventually the price drops. People demand better things no matter what their income, thus companies will push for it.
Now on your links. On the first one you see a divide between wages and productivity starting in the early 70s. In the mid 60s the payroll tax increased. That meant that businesses had to pay a higher tax if they paid a higher wage, so instead businesses paid with benefits. Also, productivity went up because of technology and that drove prices down. For example, cars today are way better and cheaper than cars in the 70s. So even if people were earning less, goods and services are way better.
Your second link supports my case as it says people demand better goods at a cheaper price.
1
-
1
-
"Wallmart has a significantly higher profit margin compared to near
competitors and also pays its workers less. But I get what you're
saying; businesses have no obligation to their workers, only their
shareholders who want to see maximized profits. This is why the minimum
wage can't be a voluntary thing and to be fair to all businesses, has to
be a law that applies to all. My point there is just that wages are
only a small fraction of their costs so they would only need to
marginally increase prices to cover greatly increased wages. "
Walmart is as big as they are because of the shareholders. Asking them to cut profits will mean less shareholders forcing them to downsize. For all the complaints about Walmart no one on the left ever praises them for hiring so many people. Many on the left do the ignorant Walmart vs Costco comparison but never complain about how few employees Costco hires. Walmart may pay a small wage, but they do hire a lot and give jobs to people who can't get a job elsewhere.
" Because this is where most of the wealth is. How does it help the
average American that the Wallmart family has more personal wealth than
the bottom 42 percent of America's net value? I have nothing against
them but really, how does it help the average human for that matter?"
The Walton family have that much wealth because they own half of Walmart. You have to fully understand what wealth is. Wealth and income are not the same thing. Income can be a part of wealth but wealth is more than just income. It is similar to how all squares are rectangles but rectangles are not squares. The Walton family own half of the shares of Walmart which is good for the company because it shows to shareholders that the owners are going along with the risk.
Also, you have to consider that in the US many people have negative wealth (including me) because of loans. A person with no debt or assets but only $10 in their possession has more wealth than 25% of the country. Now if someone is in debt is that bad? Not really. I have college loans. But I am a PhD student working in a field that will pay off in the end. It is me willing to regress in some ways to succeed later. In the US we can do that. A poor person in Ethiopia has more wealth than me by definition. That poor person has no debt nor many assets, but has more wealth. But who lives a better life? Me or that Ethiopian?
You also have to realize that placing resources in the hands that develop wealth progresses our nation better. If you give two homes of equal value to two different people within a few years, or maybe less, they will be valued different. For example
Person A: Keeps the house and lawn clean and organized. Pays their bills. Maybe even adds to it.
Person B: Does not keep the house clean. Smokes in it. Walks on the carpet with their shoes. Has four cats, etc. The property value of this home drops.
Placing resources in the hands of people who develop it into wealth is key to progressing our country. That is another problem with the min. wage. It arbitrarily gives money to people for no reason besides they simple fact that they exist. What makes you think they will invest it and grow the economy? They have no track record of doing that.
"Now compare to how a lower or middle income person may spend nearly 100% of their income which goes back into the economy."
This is a very flawed way of thinking and I see this as a reason why these people are poor. If you give them more money they should save it and invest it to grow. If they are just going to immediately spend it than they are poor for a reason as they have poor money management skills. People who bring up this argument are failing to realize that they are saying those poor individuals have poor money management skills.
" It is spending, buying goods and services, and the ability to buy goods and services, that drives the economy. "
If those goods and services do not exist than it does not matter how much money they have. But again, they should invest that money to take college courses at a JuCo for example to become more skilled and productive. If they just spend that money as opposed to investing it than you have not improved anything.
"So it's kind of a no brainier that minimum wage should be tied to the inflation rate or else it constantly falls behind."
Again, not everything inflates. The actual min. wage is $0, because if you are not worth the arbitrary price floor set by the government than you will not get a job. As I showed you with the Blockbuster employee, certain jobs drop in value. Some have increased, look up "Skilled Biased Technological Change". But to say that every job should increase in value is 100% wrong. Not everything inflates. The skill of the McDonalds cook is no greater than what it was 50 years ago. Arguably it is easier to work there as so much is becoming automated and spelled out for you.
The simple fact is that you are paid based on what you produce, period. It is up to you to find a way to make a living. Either cut expenses or earn more money through another job or a higher paying job. Raising the min. wage benefits nobody except for major corporations who have the resources to with stand such regulations where smaller competitors do not. Walmart at one time supported a min. wage increase.
1
-
1
-
" you're right, I had in mind a study that also factored productivity. If
considering increases in productivity, the minimum wage should be
$21.72 if staying in line with 1968 where it effectively peaked,
according to another study: "
That is not true. You are comparing overall productivity to the lowest paid workers. That is similar to saying
"Well the average height of the human has increased for years thus there should no longer be any midgets".
Productivity has gone up because of technology. And people who invested in it and work with it have seen an increase in wages. Look up "Skilled Biased Technological Change". And the average hourly earning is over $25/hr. So the average earnings has kept up with productivity. And higher productivity means better goods and services at a lower prices. But again, you can't compare overall productivity to the wage of the least productive worker.
"What part do you disagree with? Minimum wage tied to inflation, or wage
in general increasing with increased productivity? Inflation increases
as a steady rate, minimum wage does not. Per capita GDP increases but
wages at the bottom do not (concentrated increasingly at the very top).
"
I disagree with both. Again, on inflation not everything inflates. That is why the smart phone does not cost $4000 when the brick cell phone in the 80s did. That is why the Blockbuster employee, or the employees at Energizer in my hometown are now worth $0 in their respective jobs. People no longer rent movies and people do not use batteries as often since we have rechargeable batteries on board. Some goods and services go up in prices, others drop. That is why the min. wage does not increase as the min. wage, in reality, is arbitrary.
On wages the wages for everyone has gone up. Issue is that the payroll tax has hindered wage increases so businesses pay with benefits instead as they are tax free. .
"Also, what sectors are you referring to where labor is almost the entire
expense? It would have to be a business with no physical location.
Maybe something like Uber which is already highly problematic and not
clear if their drivers even make any money at all when factoring fuel
and vehicle maintenance costs. "
Places that sell very little in terms of goods. A hair salon for example, or a gym. A museum. While they may sell goods it is very limited.
"So it's likely profit margins don't change unless people start spending
less. But if instead people start spending more with more disposable
income, that helps businesses. "
What makes you think that people, if they earn more money, will spend at those businesses though? And again, this shows why those people are poor, bad money management skills.
"In your opinion. I guess we will see with California and probably New York raising their minimum wages to 15."
It is a poor comparison as their economies are different. Seattle raised their min. wage and people said it has had no negative effects. Here are the top employers in Seattle
http://www.edc-seaking.org/service/economic-data/economic-basics
Now compare to Chicago
https://www.metromba.com/2016/03/top-employers-chicago-metro/
And look at the unemployment rates for the two areas
https://www.bls.gov/web/metro/laummtrk.htm
Seattle has a lot of private companies that pay high wages. They can raise the min. wage to a high rate and you won't see anything because the wages there are high to begin with. In the mid 90s Robert Reich and Bill Clinton pushed for a min. wage increase and after it happened unemployment went down. But if you expand the graph unemployment and the percent of those earning at or below the min. wage was dropping already. So it had nothing to do with the min. wage as businesses were already hiring at a higher wage.
There is a lot to this, you have to be careful. If it were as simple as raising the min. wage we would have done it by now.
1
-
"Strong Unions. Having strong national unions can lead to very good jobs and well paying jobs."
It can, but unions can also become corrupt as well, just like businesses can. While businesses give money to politicians so do unions. And those unions use politicians in their favor which can hurt others. In states that are not right to work they have higher unemployment as unions has been shown to kill jobs for lower skilled workers. Also, Norway as the advantage of actually using their oil for profit. They are a country that is much smaller than most of our states but yet is willing to use their resources for money.
"Guarantied Minimum Income. "
Not to be rude but this is the dumbest thing to do. People do not value money, they value goods and services. Now because people have been raised to live a simple life and not many like to think too much they feel they value money, but in reality they value goods and services. If you have $5 you do not value that money, you value what you can buy with it.
Money was created to solve two problems in the economy. The Retention of Value Problem and the Double Incident of Wants Problem. In the first case if you sold food for a living you could not save food for large purchases as it will go bad. In the second problem if you sold food furniture for a living you can only trade furniture to people who wanted it. With money, though, you can trade money with anyone so if you want a car you do not have to go around looking for a guy with a car that wants furniture.
Money has no value until it is invested to create wealth. If you just give money away to people for producing nothing than you ruin the value of the dollar. Say you have an economy with $1 million and every cent of that dollar was spent developing wealth as seen in the eyes of the people. That money will be spent well and people will benefit. Now say instead only $600,000 of it is spent on developing wealth. All the wealth you have is just what the $600,000 was spent on, the rest is wasted. It is the same thing if only 60% of society worked. That means the wealth for 100% of society only comes from 60% of it, there is less wealth.
"Guarantied Job. "
Just having a job is not a solution. In reality we should push people to put themselves in a situation to work less and earn more. Jobs are easy to create. If I can do anything I wanted to create more jobs I could get rid of the tractor. With that we will have a lot of farming jobs, but food production will go down. Is that a good solution?
"Negative Taxation. "
Same as guaranteed income.
Now this is not to say that the government cannot create jobs or give out money. It can as long as society is getting their money's worth. You do that with smaller, more local government.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1