Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyB
I was choosing a 50% figure to intentionally be silly and make a point. You responded to a post about raising the minimum wage in Calgary to $30/hour and in SF to $100k/annum with support for those raises. That $30/hour would be a 230% increase above Alberta's increased minimum wage this year.
The silliness of such dramatic proposals is why I asked if you were actually being serious in the first place.
I'm not even opposed to minimum wage increases. I am opposed to dramatically raising minimum wages at levels like that and telling businesses that can't afford it to just close up shop. That’s just a harmful thing to do.
You saying that cost of living, labor markets, and the economy aren't complex suggests to me this isn't going to be a productive conversation though. From my point of view, acknowledging these things are complex systems issues is foundational to even recognizing the basic nature of what we’re discussing.
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I would think a key to a productive conversation would be to reference what I said verbatim, not purposefully misrepresenting or misunderstanding without asking for clarification and going off that, no?
I said "Let's raise the minimums then." I support a living wage, we should raise minimums to a living wage. My response was serious, but I also had the gift of knowing nfotiu was lying about the living wage in Calgary being $30/hr and $100k/year in SF. If those were the living wage numbers, I would still agree. But they're not. So when I said I was serious, I was serious that minimums should be living wages. I just assumed you also knew nfotiu was making up numbers to make a point.
I also didn't say "cost of living, labor markets, and the economy aren't complex" I said "The system isn’t that complex. We invented it. Every single complexity that exists is one we invented and one we can change if we want to." You quoted that, so I assume you read it, and it doesn't require context to avoid misinterpreting it as "the system isn't complex" when I specifically mention the "complexities." 'That' is a pretty key word here. The point being, it's human. We engineered the complexity into it. We can engineer it out.
If you want a productive conversation, sure. First step: let's keep it honest. Second step: let's assume we're beyond the foundational basics and that everyone understands "the economy" and everything related is complex. It'll make for a more interesting conversation. Just saying it's complex like that is a salient point in and of itself is kind of lazy. You reducing it down to "just crank hard on one lever to fix the system's problems. It would certainly cause a lot of other problems" means you're coming in late to the conversation and asking to be hand held on stuff people have already addressed. Which is fine, but don't act like we're all starting at zero again once you show up.