Economics of the Minimum Wage

Discussion in 'Financial Cents' started by Clyde, Jan 14, 2007.


  1. RightHand

    RightHand Been There, Done That RIP 4/15/21 Moderator Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    You make some excellent points duanet and I agree with most of them. My direct work experience is in terms of the majority businesses - the small business and my opinions are formed on that basis.

    There is no way I could begin to disagree with your assessment of the negative effects of government intervention in our lives.
     
  2. Tango3

    Tango3 Aimless wanderer

    You are completely right , but look at it from the corps pov, if youcould live cheaply enough; you wouldn't need to work full time to pay interest, taxes and insurance. where would those industries be?

    especialy if all the worker bees who want to tell their empire building, posterior protecting middle management bosses to stick it could??? Why there'd be no corporate ladder, and no new mercedes every quarter. I sound like a communist...( no rich class)
     
  3. Clyde

    Clyde Jet Set Tourer Administrator Founding Member

    "I sound like a communist...( no rich class)"

    [sheep][sheep][sheep][sheep][sheep][sheep][sheep][sheep][sheep]
     
  4. duanet

    duanet Monkey+++

    One of my favorite stories, might even be true, is about a study that GM made on employee absenteeism on their new Saturn plant. As part of the deal with the state in order to get tax cuts, loans, and "infrastructure grants", they agreed to hire a certian percentage of Vietnam vets with work history problems. Well this one good old boy missed one day a week and did it week after week. They sent in the bosses and the shrinks and they studied the whole thing for a couple of weeks. One day during a coffee break, one of the shrinks flat out broke the "rules" and asked him. Why do you only work four days a week? He answered. "Because I can't live on what you pay me in three days." It is interesting to note that in most "primative" societies life may be short and not up to our standards, but most men, my apoligies to the ladies in the forom but it is true, worked a couple hours a day hunting or fishing and that was it. IMHO if it weren't for our insatabile demand for "goods", most of us wouldn't work 40 hours a week and the whole system would colapse. One of the first things that the British did when they took over South Africa and found gold and diamonds, was to start a "head" tax so that the men had to work in the mines to pay it. Of course they then discovered booze, cigerates, prostitutes, fancy clothes and all of life's benefits and entered the modern industrial age. Funny how they were healther when they lived in the bush on game and fresh grown food. But you know that living on beans, with a high percentage of the people with aids, in one of the worlds worst urban slums has to be perferable to being a "savage" and living in the bush.
     
  5. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    Good assessment duanet.

    I believe we are living in a complete "Consumer Spending" based economy right now. That is, the system which takes its cut off of every dollar passed from hand to hand, needs to keep those dollars moving around and will do whatever is necessary to try to get some more into our hands. Not enough to change our family trees but enough to get us into a new TV every few years.

    Andy is correct. The Feds have no business in this game at all, but we are just a drop in the sea that realize this truth.

    Be interesting to calculate the Benefits to the State on a minimum wage hike like this. From the income tax to the sales tax when you rush to Hollister for a new hoodie.

    My deeper concern, and why I tend to think this whole survival mess will start with an economic problem, is that a system that is based on Spending, isn't sustainable for the long haul. It's like a gigantic pyramid scheme. We don't make much anymore in the US and you hear talk of us being a "Service Based Economy".

    I bet that most of us here are the ones doing the 'serving'. What used to be a job, is now really a form of Slavery in a mercantile system. Don't think so? Then quit your job tomorrow... Oh, you can't? Think about why you can't and then take a good long look at your chains. ;)
     
  6. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    There would be a up side on the sales taxes and such for the state but as far as the income tax it would still be nothing (or at least all refunded at the end of the year). Under about $15k/year or so which is considered poverty line they dont get to keep the income tax, though the more you make (at least in that tax bracket) the more you get back for the earned income credit.

    If we still had land available where you could just go out and claim it and toss up a cabin and live then I probably would be headed for it, but you have to either work or be on the gov doll to have money to pay for the land, not to mention thetaxes on the land. The main difference between most jobs (especialy low end jobs) under the present system and what most think of as slavery is that to a great degree you get to choose you master.
     
  7. duanet

    duanet Monkey+++

    The new game is to "help" you make the right decision in order to lead the "good" life. You need to have health insurance in Mass. We are going to make it easy for you to have it. You have to buy it if you can "afford" it and we will decide what that means. If it cost $6,000 a year and you can "afford" it and you don't buy it, we will "encourage" you to buy it by "taxing" you $3,000 and not supply any insurance for the money. You don"t really need to put money away for the good life or your kids education. Of course we will let the drug companies charge what they want and the hospital corporations do the same and the insurance companies have to make a profit in order to stay in business. You know that this is such a good idea I think we should make it national. Calif. just said that they will try it next. If it doesn't work out in 5 years we can always try something else and look at all of the $ billions we made well we tried it. Wink Wink.

    The sheeple are starting to look at the 401-k plans and say that the bank and the financial system makes money on it if I win or lose and more and more of my money is going into a mutual fund that has paid a huge premium for a stock that was bought from a leveraged buyout firm and is mostly debt. It looks like a scheme to me and I think I will put my money into land and gold and real assets like the rich. The financial system has to keep the money flowing, so the government is going to help you "wisely" invest and is going to "encourage" you to invest by making it difficult to not have your money go into a 401-k. Now if we could just do away with Social Security, we could expand the scheme by $trillons and at least 3 % of a trillion per year isn"t a bad return on someone else's money.

    The one problem I have with politics is that the right and the left appear just as bad to me. It doesn't make any difference to me if I get taken to the cleaners by big govenment or big business. One is just as bad as the other and I find that GE is nuch better and more effective at seperating me from my money than the federal government. The only difference is that the government sends me a tax bill that I can see and the other sells me goods made in China that turns out to be total crap and just as much a waste of money as taxes. Thed sad part of it is that a lot of my taxes also seem to end up at GE or some other corporation.
     
  8. Tango3

    Tango3 Aimless wanderer

    Perhaps I'm off the idea train here;

    melbos' coment sums it up for me: " What used to be a job, is now really a form of Slavery in a mercantile system. Don't think so? Then quit your job tomorrow... Oh, you can't? Think about why you can't and then take a good long look at your chains. ;) I agree, .gov should stay out of the cradle to grave protection business...Mass is liberal always has been,liberal keep theirjobs by convincing folks "how much they need them...

    Theres a fairly large simplicity movement growing with books like "Your money or your life", "Im'not buying it" and "afluenza". The "possum living" thread here is excellant and thought provoking. Alot of "homesteaders have written about living simply, giving 2 or 4hours a day "bread labor" ( work for money, with the rest devoted to providing for yourself
    (family)or community.

    No where is there a law (yet) that requires 40-50or 60 hour weeks toiling for corporate masters. I get as much of a rush buying crap as anybody, its atough addiction to kick,( i'm still working on it) but In this day and age we rivet our own chains. My folks worked 50hours aweek at the same job for a long time, and I grewup thinking that was just normal,The corporate world quit keeping its end of the bargain: Screw 'em...I 've been reading "Ran prieur" lately a young ( I think? Anarchist blogger who advocates less "civilization", ok the fall of "civilization" http://ranprieur.com/ and http://freerangeorganichuman.blogspot.com/) he lives by' squatting in unused buildings, housesitting, dumpster diving,eating cheap foods (grains and on his bit of land)...No one has to go quite that far; Wwhen I first read some of his essays I was appalled; heres this "mooching "bum.", then it got me thinking just what is necessary and what is just preconcieved ideas??..people who pursue less stressful jobs and less agressive carreer paths"are called "slackers"..Well they may be on to something..You can choose to swallow the advertising and lease the new bmw every two year( its "cheaper" than buying???), or you can just step off the "crazy bus" and say no...Worried about what your friends willl say? Get new ones Only caveat is kids...I do not advocate living "fringe lifestyles" with children
    (It's one thing to winnow your own needs, but not fair to those who have no choice but to rely on you..
    Unless you provide for them) .."

    We've got "friends" ( fer true!!) with 2 teen kids in rochester minn who(parents) both work very hard..
    If we ask why they've got (alot, number changes regularly) of big vehicles, She goes into "Well If we want to go somewhere; You should have a vehicle to haul your family, kids get a friend each; yaddda yadda, pretty soon they "need " a nine passenger suburban and they bitch about insurance and how much they hate their jobs...She owns her "shoulds"....We have drifted away from these folks our "fault".
     
  9. Tango3

    Tango3 Aimless wanderer



    ? (Not sure I followed you there clyde...)


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