I'm becoming increasingly confused by certain aspects of this discussion. Aren't the majority of employees currently earning minimum wage in the service/food preparation industries? These aren't typically industries that would be in danger of losing jobs to automation. They also aren't very susceptible to out-sourcing of labor as they are tied to fixed locations.
I'm becoming increasingly confused by certain aspects of this discussion. Aren't the majority of employees currently earning minimum wage in the service/food preparation industries? These aren't typically industries that would be in danger of losing jobs to automation. They also aren't very susceptible to out-sourcing of labor as they are tied to fixed locations.
I guess you've never heard of vacuum tubes.
If these ingrates aren't willing to work for pennies, they can all hit the streets and the powers that be can have a cheeseburger prepared in Bangalore and whisked across the planet, through the vacuum tubes, and onto your plastic platter in a matter of seconds. You won't even know it happened, and Robo-Cashier isn't going to say a goddamn thing if he knows what's good for him.
This is a new world, people. A new time. A new hope.
__________________
The Following User Says Thank You to RougeUnderoos For This Useful Post:
In macroeconomics it's foolish to point to one company and say "there, there is your bad guy". It's equally foolish to say that they're just providing low cost goods and are guilt free in what's become a race to the bottom in North America.
Walmart, Canadian Tire, Target, Best Buy, all these giant stores are all symptoms of a bigger issue. Globalization and the laughable lack of investment in education. Germany gets more dollars from the sale of an iPhone than China. Why? Because they have a highly trained and educated work force to make parts that can never be made in China due to the skill and training needed.
While a lot of places in Europe educated their youth last several decades, America and Canada (to a lesser extent of course) have been allowing their work force to become dumb and skill-less, creating a demand for cheap crap. We're an economy with crappy jobs, a shrinking middle class, but cheap crap to keep most people happy.
I wish a politician had the balls and eloquence to get people to buy into funding education more, making post secondary attainable for people, and selling people on short term pain (ten-ish years) for a long term gain of a highly education, well paid work force. Instead you have these giant money making corps making things worse, destroying unions and waging war on the middle class. It's short sighted but I don't blame giant corporations. They aren't people; they exist only to increase profits and pay the share holders. No one is looking out for the middle class and our children. If you think it's scary now in the USA and Canada, wait another couple decades when mortgage rates can possibly go back up to 10+%. Who could possibly afford a home with mortgage rates 10% or above? I imagine if that was the case tomorrow by Friday hundreds of thousands of people would be walking into banks handing their keys over.
Just raising the minimum wage isn't a real solution, but, it's a badly needed band aid.
edit: Just did quick math and my mortage at 10% would go from 1455 a month to 2700 dollars. At the same rate my parents paid for their 1st mortage it would be 3533. There's another thing that has people so deluded with how bad our economy and jobs are. These mortage rates are so low and affordable it's covering up a lot of problems that exist. Another 10 years from now, who knows what rates could be. It's scary to consider.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by puckluck2
Well, deal with it. I wasn't cheering for Canada either way. Nothing worse than arrogant Canadian fans. They'd be lucky to finish 4th. Quote me on that. They have a bad team and that is why I won't be cheering for them.
Last edited by Brannigans Law; 05-04-2014 at 08:30 PM.
Who could possibly afford a home with mortgage rates 10% or above?
Mostly the same people who can afford them now, because prices would drop. The big losers would be the people with home equity, after prices "unstick".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goodlad
I'm becoming increasingly confused by certain aspects of this discussion. Aren't the majority of employees currently earning minimum wage in the service/food preparation industries? These aren't typically industries that would be in danger of losing jobs to automation. They also aren't very susceptible to out-sourcing of labor as they are tied to fixed locations.
You can definitely eliminate some job. Cashiers can be replaced with a terminal. Servers can be replaced with "pick up your own food".
If these ingrates aren't willing to work for pennies, they can all hit the streets and the powers that be can have a cheeseburger prepared in Bangalore and whisked across the planet, through the vacuum tubes, and onto your plastic platter in a matter of seconds. You won't even know it happened, and Robo-Cashier isn't going to say a goddamn thing if he knows what's good for him.
This is a new world, people. A new time. A new hope.
You are not that far off. I have used a touch screen kiosk to order dinner in McDonalds. They have also experimented with using drive through order takers who are remotely located.
To say that the economic research either argues that minimum wage laws are bad demonstrates that you aren't current with the newest research on the effects of minimum wages.
America’s academics still do not agree on the employment effects. But both sides have honed their methods and, in some ways, the gap between them has shrunk. Messrs Card and Krueger moved on to other work, but Arindrajit Dube at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Michael Reich of the University of California at Berkeley have generalised the case-study approach, comparing restaurant employment across all contiguous counties with different minimum-wage levels between 1990 and 2006. They found no adverse effects on employment from a higher minimum wage. They also argue that if research showed such effects, these mostly reflected other differences between American states and had nothing to do with the minimum wage.
Messrs Neumark and Wascher still demur. They have published stacks of studies (and a book) purporting to show that minimum wages hit jobs. In a forthcoming paper they defend their methods and argue that the evidence still favours their view. But even they are no longer blanket opponents. In a 2011 paper they pointed out that a higher minimum wage along with the Earned Income Tax Credit (which tops up income for poor workers in America) boosted both employment and earnings for single women with children (though it cost less-skilled, minority men jobs).
The welfare benefits and costs of minimum wages are very much up in the air as far as the most current analysis goes but there seems to be movement toward the idea that minimum wages have more benefits than costs.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Tinordi For This Useful Post:
What I don't get is how you can be against these laws while employers continue to pay wages that force more and more people on to the social welfare system, which YOU as a tax payer are paying for.
The minimum wage laws are supposed to put that burden on to the businesses where it belongs and not tax payers.
__________________ Allskonar fyrir Aumingja!!
Last edited by Thor; 05-07-2014 at 06:40 AM.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Thor For This Useful Post:
To say that the economic research either argues that minimum wage laws are bad demonstrates that you aren't current with the newest research on the effects of minimum wages.
When I was in high school, I did an experiement where, if I had extropolated my results, I would've discovered a source of infinite energy.
I see these minimum wage studies as very similar. Push the minimum wage high enough, and there will be adverse effects. It is simply not possible to create infinite wealth, just like it's not possible to create infinite energy.
When I was in high school, I did an experiement where, if I had extropolated my results, I would've discovered a source of infinite energy.
I see these minimum wage studies as very similar. Push the minimum wage high enough, and there will be adverse effects. It is simply not possible to create infinite wealth, just like it's not possible to create infinite energy.
I don't think anyone would argue that there isnt a tipping point where the net benefits of increasing minimum wage do not out weigh the harm done.
The question is where is the tipping point.
The Following User Says Thank You to GGG For This Useful Post:
What I don't get is how you can be against these laws while employers continue to pay wages that force more and more people onto the social welfare system, which YOU as a tax payer are paying for.
The minimum wage laws are supposed to put that burden on to the businesses and not tax payers.
I think the explanation is simple, he doesn't want to pay for the social programs either.
Just guessing of course, based on posting history
__________________
"Wake up, Luigi! The only time plumbers sleep on the job is when we're working by the hour."
The Following User Says Thank You to Rathji For This Useful Post:
