Minimum Wage Goes Up!

[Paradoxium]

epic fail

 

[Majic Walrus]

Raising the minimum wage IS an undeserved raise not only for the employee who hasnt earned it, but the other employees who were making over minimum wage must also get an increase. That raises the cost of absolutely every aspect of business.

Why do employees who were already making more than minimum wage get an increase? I didn't get one.

And what people are doing is blaming everyone but the individual for the persons lot in life. Your life is YOUR responsibility, not mine. It is a FACT that if you take responsibility for your own, get an education, and bust your rear end you CAN advance. Every company wants to promote the best people who's talents will benefit the profit margin the most.

Educations are expensive and people's life situations are not always the same. You cannot make statements about whether or not every person can succeed if they apply themselves because that is not always true.

But no...lets blame society and the evil cheapskate boss and the taxpayer and lets never, ever blame the individual for their lack of success.

Who's not blaming the individual for having a minimum wage job? I don't think that anyone is saying that we should increase minimum wage so that everyone lives comfortably and happily. What I am saying is that over time for various reasons the cost of living increases and in an effort to protect the people who are working we must ensure that they are being paid fairly and treated fairly. Part of that is not allowing companies to pay employees too little.

Also I'd like to mention that minimum wage workers are taxpayers too. Please don't discount the fact that they still have to pay taxes on whatever they make.

And do you own your own business and did you recently have to start paying your workers more money? Because no one is calling cheapskate bosses out on being evil, but the it does remain that many many many companies will pay their employees as little as they can. As is it now minimum wage jobs often don't get a full forty hour work week so the employee is already bringing home less.

Some employers will do anything they can to line their pockets and if that means short changing workers, they'll do it. Companies like McDonald's and Wal-Mart having been doing that for years.

 

[Heretic]

Many wrongs there to address...

When you take the unskilled employee who shows no initiative, and give them a raise because its the taxpayers responsibility to make their lives easier, then you have an entire stream of people who are then shortchanged. What happens when the unskilled labor makes only slightly less than the supervisors? They get a raise. Then they make what the assistant makes, so they get a raise...and they make what the manager makes, so the manager gets a raise.

End result: The price of everything goes up due to increase costs, and the increased minimum wage has done NOTHING to increase the original employees lot in life because everything costs more.

Its a scheme to bleed "the rich"...because lets give money to the lazy, unskilled people instead of the people with a proven track record of hard work and wealth creation.

Second, minimum wage employees are NOT tax payers. If you are only making minimum wage then you are ABSOLUTELY getting a full refund on your taxes, an probably extra bonuses like head of household etc so you actually get back more taxes than you put in every year. Of course, I abhor the Federal Reserve for enslaving our country, and believe both it and the IRS should be abolished, but thats another subject.

Yes, I am a business owner...but my only employee is me...so Im not affected by any increase. Nice try though.

A corporation is not a human being. It exists only to make money. It is the RIGHT thing to do to guard the profit margins for the shareholders. Lets face it...Wal-Mart and McDonalds could hire the dumbest people on earth to do the grunt work and have a few skilled people to oversee the morons. There is no need to pay unskilled, lazy people top dollar. So, if you are a valuable employee, why are you at Wal-Mart or McDonalds? Times are tough, so i can see why someone would take a job there...but if your skills and work ethic are above the braindead co-workers you have, you should either rise to the top quickly, or move on to another job...and if you are truly valuable then they will give you a raise just so they dont lose one of the good workers. What you as a good employee should NOT do, is accept that you have an entry level job, get comfortable in that position, and not try to advance. if you do...again, that is your fault.

 

[StrainedEyes]

You're so angry.

 

[Heretic]

Angry? Not at all.

I just feel bad for my country because hard work is punished and laziness is rewarded.

Again, despite everyone saying otherwise, training is FREE. Whatever your job is, you can learn more...and use that to advance. lazy people who expect handouts dont do that...and yet they are heroes who deserve more money, while people who bust their butts their entire lives have to pick up the tab on their laziness.

It isnt anger...its remorse that humanity has sunk so low to where it is a virtue to be lazy and an evil to work hard and actually succeed.

 

[katie_girl09]

Please explain this statement to me.

Maybe its an overly simplistic view, but don't prices increase a lot in capitalist economies? Isn't it all about making money?

epic fail

I apologize for my knowledge of economics not being as superior as yours. But can you at least capitalize the beginnings of your sentence? Gosh! I guess you don't know everything either!

 

[Paradoxium]

I am half serious katie, don't take it personally. It's more of a pet peeve that riles me up. t:

scarlet spidey's point is really important. The vast majority of price increase and expenses is combo of many factors. A chunk of it comes from the government and their control of the money supply (whilst perverting the private market). Technically speaking, a hardcore capitalist economy would have a full reserve system or gold standard. Under a tight reserve or gold system, most prices would be stable as hell, even to the point where it will deflate. Meaning $20 100 years ago would be worth pretty much the same now, maybe even more if people spend less.

Look up the topic "fractional reserve" system (here and here), because this is what we have. It is government demand management of the economy, the opposite of capitalism. Hence the irony of your post.

edit add: In other words, price increases for the most part is a symptom of inflationary practices by the government. While companies have some degree of control of prices it is negligible at best. It is not the case where companies act like ***** and decide to raise price arbitrarily. If they did that in a full reserve or gold standard system, they will have no demand anymore. They they would go bankrupt, because no one would be able to afford it by virtue of the limit in money in circulation. They have the ability to do so in our modern banking system because of more money pumped into the system (thus devaluing the value of each dollar - but its a bit more complicated than this, but giving you the thrust of the point).

 

[Majic Walrus]

Many wrongs there to address...

When you take the unskilled employee who shows no initiative, and give them a raise because its the taxpayers responsibility to make their lives easier, then you have an entire stream of people who are then shortchanged. What happens when the unskilled labor makes only slightly less than the supervisors? They get a raise. Then they make what the assistant makes, so they get a raise...and they make what the manager makes, so the manager gets a raise.

Raising the wages for the supervisors and managers are decisions that the company makes. If it is a good company to work for than the worker will stay, if the company chooses to neglect their upper-level positions by not increases their wages then the supervisors and managers can just go out and work hard and get a better job, right?

End result: The price of everything goes up due to increase costs, and the increased minimum wage has done NOTHING to increase the original employees lot in life because everything costs more.

I agree. And for the record I don't think that this wage increase was necessary I just think that a minimum wage is necessary and that eventually increases will have to occur.

Its a scheme to bleed "the rich"...because lets give money to the lazy, unskilled people instead of the people with a proven track record of hard work and wealth creation.

My question of earlier still remains, why do places like McDonald's keep lazy unskilled workers employed? Isn't it the responsibility of the company to only hire people and only keep people employed that do the job well?

If McDonald's only hired and kept satisfactory employees then they would only be increasing the wages of satisfactory employees.

Second, minimum wage employees are NOT tax payers. If you are only making minimum wage then you are ABSOLUTELY getting a full refund on your taxes, an probably extra bonuses like head of household etc so you actually get back more taxes than you put in every year. Of course, I abhor the Federal Reserve for enslaving our country, and believe both it and the IRS should be abolished, but thats another subject.

I agree that the Federal Reserve and IRS should be eliminated but it doesn't change that minimum wage employees are tax payers. Not just income tax though, sales tax on the stuff that they can afford to buy now that they make enough money to go shopping for more than what their food stamps can buy.

Yes, I am a business owner...but my only employee is me...so Im not affected by any increase. Nice try though.

Thanks. I try when I can.

A corporation is not a human being. It exists only to make money. It is the RIGHT thing to do to guard the profit margins for the shareholders. Lets face it...Wal-Mart and McDonalds could hire the dumbest people on earth to do the grunt work and have a few skilled people to oversee the morons. There is no need to pay unskilled, lazy people top dollar. So, if you are a valuable employee, why are you at Wal-Mart or McDonalds? Times are tough, so i can see why someone would take a job there...but if your skills and work ethic are above the braindead co-workers you have, you should either rise to the top quickly, or move on to another job...and if you are truly valuable then they will give you a raise just so they dont lose one of the good workers. What you as a good employee should NOT do, is accept that you have an entry level job, get comfortable in that position, and not try to advance. if you do...again, that is your fault.

Oh you answered the earlier question I asked. McDonalds and Wal-Mart specifically hire lazy and generally unskilled workers so that they don't have to give them raises. They hire people who are not ambitious and do not wish to succeed and then proceed to ***** when they have to pay those people more.

Why?

Because the entire reason of hiring them in the first place was to not have to pay them money. If someone is an unskilled worker then FIRE them, don't complain when you have to pay them more even though they are unskilled. If they were really unskilled and lazy then they would be fired.

 

[Majic Walrus]

I am half serious katie, don't take it personally. It's more of a pet peeve that riles me up. t:

scarlet spidey's point is really important. The vast majority of price increase and expenses is combo of many factors. A chunk of it comes from the government and their control of the money supply (whilst perverting the private market). Technically speaking, a hardcore capitalist economy would have a full reserve system or gold standard. Under a tight reserve or gold system, most prices would be stable as hell, even to the point where it will deflate. Meaning $20 100 years ago would be worth pretty much the same now, maybe even more if people spend less.

Look up the topic "fractional reserve" system (here and here), because this is what we have. It is government demand management of the economy, the opposite of capitalism. Hence the irony of your post.

edit add: In other words, price increases for the most part is a symptom of inflationary practices by the government. While companies have some degree of control of prices it is negligible at best. It is not the case where companies act like ***** and decide to raise price arbitrarily. If they did that in a full reserve or gold standard system, they will have no demand anymore. They they would go bankrupt, because no one would be able to afford it by virtue of the limit in money in circulation. They have the ability to do so in our modern banking system because of more money pumped into the system (thus devaluing the value of each dollar - but its a bit more complicated than this, but giving you the thrust of the point).

I think what Katie is saying is that the goal of capitalism is to succeed and get filthy ****ing rich. When there is a lot of money going around now the demand starts to exceed supply, and then prices go up.

 

[Ahura Mazda]

I am half serious katie, don't take it personally. It's more of a pet peeve that riles me up. t:

scarlet spidey's point is really important. The vast majority of price increase and expenses is combo of many factors. A chunk of it comes from the government and their control of the money supply (whilst perverting the private market). Technically speaking, a hardcore capitalist economy would have a full reserve system or gold standard. Under a tight reserve or gold system, most prices would be stable as hell, even to the point where it will deflate. Meaning $20 100 years ago would be worth pretty much the same now, maybe even more if people spend less.

Look up the topic "fractional reserve" system (here and here), because this is what we have. It is government demand management of the economy, the opposite of capitalism. Hence the irony of your post.

edit add: In other words, price increases for the most part is a symptom of inflationary practices by the government. While companies have some degree of control of prices it is negligible at best. It is not the case where companies act like ***** and decide to raise price arbitrarily. If they did that in a full reserve or gold standard system, they will have no demand anymore. They they would go bankrupt, because no one would be able to afford it by virtue of the limit in money in circulation. They have the ability to do so in our modern banking system because of more money pumped into the system (thus devaluing the value of each dollar - but its a bit more complicated than this, but giving you the thrust of the point).

That is very well said and many should refer to this post beyond the question of minimum wage.

 

[Spider-Who?]

I make 35 an hour, so this really has no effect on me.

 

[Ahura Mazda]

And do you feel it necessary to add that for all those that do not earn as much as you?

 

[Heretic]

Majic Walrus:

When the forces a company to increase the pay of their least skilled workers, the company is all but forced to raise everyones salary. Companies ALWAYS want skilled, hard working people in the key positions, so to keep them from leaving, they will generally increase their pay.

McDonalds and Wal-mart dont fire unskilled employees because you dont have to be skilled to do those jobs! Those jobs are not intended to be life-long careers that you raise a family on. They are for people just starting out who are unskilled and likely have a poor work ethic. Fortunately, being a cashier at McDonalds doesnt require you to be anything more than a functional idiot. They dont fire you because they dont need a brain surgeon in that position...

So...these are ENTRY LEVEL positions designed for ENTRY LEVEL employees...and yet we are forcing the companies to pay them enough to raise a family on??????

Also, while entry level employees do pay sales tax, they are NOT being raped by the IRS. They are getting MORE than they paid back in return.

Of course, I am much more interested in ridding the country of the real problem, which is the devaluing of the dollar due to the Federal Reserve. As the actual worth of the dollar sinks to a quarter of what it was once worth, people need more of those pieces of paper to afford what they need. People always blame evil rich corporations for inflation, yet never focus on the Federal Reserve, which even former Presidents have said has taken over and enslaved the country.

 

[Majic Walrus]

Majic Walrus:

When the forces a company to increase the pay of their least skilled workers, the company is all but forced to raise everyones salary. Companies ALWAYS want skilled, hard working people in the key positions, so to keep them from leaving, they will generally increase their pay.

It is the company's choice to increase wages for their more skilled employees.

McDonalds and Wal-mart dont fire unskilled employees because you dont have to be skilled to do those jobs! Those jobs are not intended to be life-long careers that you raise a family on. They are for people just starting out who are unskilled and likely have a poor work ethic. Fortunately, being a cashier at McDonalds doesnt require you to be anything more than a functional idiot. They dont fire you because they dont need a brain surgeon in that position...

So...these are ENTRY LEVEL positions designed for ENTRY LEVEL employees...and yet we are forcing the companies to pay them enough to raise a family on??????

Firstly I believe it is slightly unethical to hire someone to do a job in order to pay them very low, even poor wages, and then get upset when you have to pay them actual amounts. American workers should not be treated like migrant illegals and I promise you that removing a minimum wage would do just that. It would have the majority of the unemployed fighting over jobs that pay 1.00 dollar an hour.

Secondly minimum wage is HARDLY enough to raise a family on. I doubt it's enough to live by yourself on.

Also, while entry level employees do pay sales tax, they are NOT being raped by the IRS. They are getting MORE than they paid back in return.

They aren't getting raped by the IRS because they don't have **** to rape.

Of course, I am much more interested in ridding the country of the real problem, which is the devaluing of the dollar due to the Federal Reserve. As the actual worth of the dollar sinks to a quarter of what it was once worth, people need more of those pieces of paper to afford what they need. People always blame evil rich corporations for inflation, yet never focus on the Federal Reserve, which even former Presidents have said has taken over and enslaved the country.

Too true man. Just out of curiosity... If you did get rid of the Federal Reserve what would you propose replace it? Would you still have forced taxes?

 

[Majic Walrus]

I make 35 an hour, so this really has no effect on me.

What do you do making 70K+ a year?

 

[terry78]

What do you do making 70K+ a year?

Moderating the Hype.

 

[Heretic]

Majic:

When Ronald Reagan came into office, he wanted to lower taxes, but needed to know what income tax money went where so he wouldn't hurt the country in the process. So, he brought about the Grace Commission, to study these things. They found, AND I QUOTE:

"100 percent of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal debt and by Federal Government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services which taxpayers expect from their Government."

Therefore...ALL OF YOUR INCOME TAX is going to the Federal Reserve. NONE OF IT goes to roads, education etc. Income taxes were created to pay the Federal Reserve to make money...which happens to be a job that Congress is suppose to do, according to the Constitution. So...if we followed the Constitution and ended the Federal Reserve, then there would be no need to pay them 100% of our income tax, and therefore no need for a federal income tax at all.

I suppose I shouldnt even get into the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that the 16th amendment did NOT create any new taxes, and therefore the IRS is illegally stealing our money.

 

[Majic Walrus]

Moderating the Hype.

Mod me plz.

 

[Majic Walrus]

Majic:

When Ronald Reagan came into office, he wanted to lower taxes, but needed to know what income tax money went where so he wouldn't hurt the country in the process. So, he brought about the Grace Commission, to study these things. They found, AND I QUOTE:

"100 percent of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal debt and by Federal Government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services which taxpayers expect from their Government."

Therefore...ALL OF YOUR INCOME TAX is going to the Federal Reserve. NONE OF IT goes to roads, education etc. Income taxes were created to pay the Federal Reserve to make money...which happens to be a job that Congress is suppose to do, according to the Constitution. So...if we followed the Constitution and ended the Federal Reserve, then there would be no need to pay them 100% of our income tax, and therefore no need for a federal income tax at all.

I suppose I shouldnt even get into the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that the 16th amendment did NOT create any new taxes, and therefore the IRS is illegally stealing our money.

Right I totally agree that (I'll conservatively say) the overwhelming majority of taxes are going to pay the Federal Reserve but if there were no money going to the Federal Reserve how could the Federal government pay off its debt?

For the record this wouldn't be an issue if we had FairTAX.

*waits for SuBe to arrive*

 

[Heretic]

What debt????

You see...in American history, there has been NO debt...except for a brief period during the civil war when Lincoln flooded the market with cash.

When the Federal Reserve began printing money, we IMMEDIATELY went into debt, paying that private corporation interest on what they created...which is something we had always done a fine job of doing ourselves without paying any interest to anyone.

That debt is what has crippled us. The Federal Reserve is a corrupt private corporation who has hel our country captive (according to former Presidents of the United States) and I feel no need to pay them one further dime.

IF we audit the Federal Reserve, we WILL discover massive theft perpetrated on the American people...which is why they are threatening to destroy the economy if Ron Pauls bill is passed. We find the theft, we shut them down, we start over.

As far as debt to China or whatever..you could keep the income tax for a few years, pay off all that debt, and then get rid of it.

 

[enterthemadness]

Raising the wages for the supervisors and managers are decisions that the company makes. If it is a good company to work for than the worker will stay, if the company chooses to neglect their upper-level positions by not increases their wages then the supervisors and managers can just go out and work hard and get a better job, right?



I agree. And for the record I don't think that this wage increase was necessary I just think that a minimum wage is necessary and that eventually increases will have to occur.



My question of earlier still remains, why do places like McDonald's keep lazy unskilled workers employed? Isn't it the responsibility of the company to only hire people and only keep people employed that do the job well?

If McDonald's only hired and kept satisfactory employees then they would only be increasing the wages of satisfactory employees.



I agree that the Federal Reserve and IRS should be eliminated but it doesn't change that minimum wage employees are tax payers. Not just income tax though, sales tax on the stuff that they can afford to buy now that they make enough money to go shopping for more than what their food stamps can buy.



Thanks. I try when I can.



Oh you answered the earlier question I asked. McDonalds and Wal-Mart specifically hire lazy and generally unskilled workers so that they don't have to give them raises. They hire people who are not ambitious and do not wish to succeed and then proceed to ***** when they have to pay those people more.

Why?

Because the entire reason of hiring them in the first place was to not have to pay them money. If someone is an unskilled worker then FIRE them, don't complain when you have to pay them more even though they are unskilled. If they were really unskilled and lazy then they would be fired.

Wow, OMG. I worked at a Wal-Mart for nearly 2 hours. Most of my co-workers in the parking lot worked hard at times (due ot low pay and **** by the managers, we didn't always work as hard. But I always gave it hard work when by myself on one side.)

The only lazy people we had were the managers. Damn it to fire Hell, they were ******ed and only did it for the money. There's only 1 or two managers, maybe 3 that I knew of that cared about their job. Not only that, our store would cut hours down a lot. I went from 40 to 16 sometimes. And I was damn good....when I wans't talking to my friends of course, but still. I worked had when I didn't ahev to and when I had to. And I made 7.90. And there was a friend of mine...he was steady...but he was slow at his job and and few other things. He made almost a dollar more than me. Messed up. It's messed up also cause I was there 3 months before him, but he was older than me and had more experience.


Wal-mart should pay more. Not everybody can go to college. I love to see the President shove a Union up Wal-Mart's Ass. And the Walmart where I live (I worked at one 20 mins away). Wow...yeah, rumors of 'Having to kiss ass to keep your job' are true there. Seriosuly?

 

[The Spawn]

This is the best argument I've read here in years.

Applauds.

 

[Heretic]

Wait a second...so you ADMIT to slacking...and you ADMIT that the other guys in your little group were slackers, but you're angry that you werent paid more??

Wal-Mart is the most profitable store on earth. They DO NOT make money by promoting slackers who dont work. If that were the case the stores would implode within days. People get promoted every day at Wal-Mart. Those people have shown that they can master several jobs, stay on task and lead others.

Your own statement shows that you DO NOT lead others to work...you DO NOT stay on task...

Why is Wal-Mart wrong for wanting to promote people who wont cause the destruction of their stores???

 

[Spider-Who?]

What do you do making 70K+ a year?

I'm an animator. I've done **** for Camp Chaos, SpikeTV, Nickelodeon, even did some work for the Simpsons a while back.

 

[SuBe]

Out here in California it's $8.00...but everything out here is more expensive than the rest of the states anyways so I guess that's fair.

Maybe everything costs more because Production and Labor is so expensive.