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Bush Suspends Minimum Wage (pg. 2)
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| Dervish |
(I know I said I was leaving but I've been checking back every so often and this seems weird to me..)
Ok lets look at this.... what has happened in the affected areas?
People have lost their homes, yes? Thouse include skilled workers yes? For example the people who can rebuild the place.
Now to attract them back to rebuild the place do you:
A) pay them more, because they have nothing to tie them to the area now and you need them to come back and rebuild everyones homes (includeing thouse who work in oil....)
B) pay them the same, because thats what they always got paid and should expect and can probebly expect to get in other areas of the US...
C) try to them... just cos you can (the business way...) having the effect of pushing them away from the area and slowing the rebuilding...
Now if I was a business I'd want C but if I was wanting to rebuild a wreaked area I'd do either A or B personally.... especially if the oil workers and dock workers in one of the US most important area all lived there....
 maybe it is just me |
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| George Smiley |
Thats not a study (unless I missed something?) thats just a collection of articles doing the same as what you're doing - merely predicting
| quote: | Nine out of 10 (89.1 percent) of the small businesses surveyed said the last increase
did not have an effect on their employment or hiring decisions |
http://www.aflcio.org/mediacenter/r...factbooklet.pdf
I said (this is three times now) that the Conservatives (ie right wing economists) said the minimum wage in the UK would result in unemployment - they were wrong. It had no effect whatsoever. As the study above shows, it had negligable effects in America as well. Take a look through the rest of that article might be interesting!
Just to add...
I'm particularly surprised that people in America are still against initiatives like this after the hurricane in New Orleans. Didn't the complete break down in society caused by people being poor as teach you anything? What happens when this spreads? The poorer get poorer every day. In NO you saw what happens when poor people become desperate. The poorer they become, the more desperate they will become and sooner or later you're gonna have like that to put up with in your own middle class neighbourhoods... |
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| Vyper0987 |
| quote: | Originally posted by dj
I wasnt saying we are turning into a third world country because of temporarily suspending the minumum wage in hurricane hit areas. What I was commenting on is "Capitalizt" post about advocating eliminating minimum wage to somehow decrease poor in this country.
All that will do is drive a large wage gap between rich and poor. There is already a problem in America with the shrinking middle class. The problem is that the wage distribution in America is so far off tilt with fairness. Why does a CEO deserve 100x times the average employees salary of the company he works for? CEO's play dumb when hits the fan like ENRON or WORLDCOM, but when things go right like @ GE Jack Welch becomes some sudo American Business Icon. Its really the problem of a greedy capitalist culture.
/dj |
That's because unions make it extremely difficult for companies to operate efficently. So they outsource in order to obtain cheaper labor. Unions want their workers to make $20 an hour. The company can only afford to pay them $17 an hour. Union says we want $20. Company outsources and many people lose their jobs. Unions ruin the middle class, not minimum wage. Minimum wage has no effect on people that make more than it. |
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| Vyper0987 |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
Thats not a study (unless I missed something?) thats just a collection of articles doing the same as what you're doing - merely predicting |
And a large part of economics is predicting...predicting how a certain economic policy will effect the economy. You have to predict because you're not certain. You predict that if you do something, that it will turn out this way....but if it doesn't, then you predicted wrongly in that situation. Just because it didn't happen last time doesn't mean it won't happen the next time. |
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| dj |
| quote: | Originally posted by Vyper0987
That's because unions make it extremely difficult for companies to operate efficently. |
Is efficent another word for greedy?
If an oil company makes 20 billion per quarter and say they can lower the prices to the supplier by 20% which will cut profits by 20% per qtr but have a huge effect on Americans and the economy. Is that a fare thing for them to do in this time when gas prices shot through the roof. Oil companies are a monoply that manipulates market prices (not raw crude prices). |
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| George Smiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by Vyper0987
And a large part of economics is predicting...predicting how a certain economic policy will effect the economy. You have to predict because you're not certain. You predict that if you do something, that it will turn out this way....but if it doesn't, then you predicted wrongly in that situation. Just because it didn't happen last time doesn't mean it won't happen the next time. |
:D |
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| Dervish |
How about this study imagine you are a skilled work man:
Work in location A get paid less.
Work in location B get paid more.
Which one do you pick?
We all know which one is the one which has been "affected" don't we? Correct A. Where do you go to work... B
In effect A gets left to rot.
Now you are an oil worker you are from location A and work near location A:
A) ... was gonna say go home and start working but everyone has left and gone to location B.... there is no one left to rebuild you home... so you don't have one
B) leave the area, hence ing the oil industry
No option it has to be B this time. |
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| Vyper0987 |
| quote: | Originally posted by dj
Is efficent another word for greedy?
If an oil company makes 20 billion per quarter and say they can lower the prices to the supplier by 20% which will cut profits by 20% per qtr but have a huge effect on Americans and the economy. Is that a fare thing for them to do in this time when gas prices shot through the roof. Oil companies are a monoply that manipulates market prices (not raw crude prices). |
Supply and demand. We need it, they'll profit from it. And if they cut the price by 20% to the supplier, who says that the supplier won't put a higher price on it when they sell it. And how can companies be a monopoly? I think that the correct word you're looking for is cartel. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
While economics does indeed base itself on prediction, it also largely bases itself on past trends. So with that, what's some evidence of increasing minimum wage and business impact?:
| quote: | A 1998 EPI study failed to find any systematic, significant job loss associated with the 1996-97 minimum wage increase. In fact, following the most recent increase in the minimum wage in 1996-97, the low-wage labor market performed better than it had in decades (e.g., lower unemployment rates, increased average hourly wages, increased family income, decreased poverty rates).
Studies of the 1990-91 federal minimum wage increase, as well as studies by David Card and Alan Krueger of several state minimum wage increases, also found no measurable negative impact on employment.
New economic models that look specifically at low-wage labor markets help explain why there is little evidence of job loss associated with minimum wage increases. These models recognize that employers may be able to absorb some of the costs of a wage increase through higher productivity, lower recruiting and training costs, decreased absenteeism, and increased worker morale.
A recent Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) study of state minimum wages found no evidence of negative employment effects on small businesses.
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/i...ge_minwagefacts |
and
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_bp150
and
| quote: | The 1996 and 1997 minimum wage increases raised the wages of almost 10 million workers. About 71% of these workers were adults and 58% were women. Just under half (46%) worked full time and another third worked 20 to 34 hours per week.
The average minimum wage worker is responsible for providing more than half (54%) of his or her family's weekly earnings.
The two-stage increase disproportionately benefited low-income working households. Although households in the bottom 20% of the income distribution (whose average income is $15,728) receive only 5% of total family income, they received 35% of the benefits from the minimum wage increase.
Four different tests of the two increases' employment impact - applied to a large number of demographic groups whose wages are sensitive to the minimum wage - fail to find any systematic, significant job loss associated with the 1996-97 increases. Not only are the estimated employment effects generally economically small and statistically insignificant, they are also almost as likely to be positive as negative.
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/studies_stmwp
http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/wages/minimumwage.htm |
and
http://www.ocpp.org/1999/es032399.htm
and
http://www.ocpp.org/1999/es990602.htm
and
http://www.levy.org/docs/pn/99-6.html
To conclude, there is no direct evidence that raising minimum wage has any overall negative impact on jobs, small businesses, or the economy in general. If anything, evidence points towards the opposite.
In a time when we are waayy behind on increasing the minimum wage to keep up with inflation, Bush takes that away to essentially the people that need $ the most. That is unbelievable.
Edited for Shakka :D |
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| Shakka |
Quick, draw a graph. Minimum wage is a price floor, which theoretically creates a supply/demand mismatch, much like rent controls are a price ceiling, generally creating a supply/demand mismatch. Whether or not it ultimately manifests itself as greater unemployment or what have you, it no doubt creates inefficiency in the system at a time when maximum efficiency is desireable in order to rebuild the city as quickly and cost effectively as possible. If a person doesn't want to work for an hourly wage that they feel is unacceptable, nobody's gonna hold a gun to their head and make them do it. YAY FREE MARKET ECONOMICS! YAY LAISSEZ FAIR! YAY INVISIBLE HAND!
Take off your tin foil hat and try to see it from a different perspective. I don't think the motive is to enslave black people in New Orleans.
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago. Wheaties, the Breakfast of Champions. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
Quick, draw a graph. Minimum wage is a price floor, which theoretically creates a supply/demand mismatch, much like rent controls are a price ceiling, generally creating a supply/demand mismatch. Whether or not it ultimately manifests itself as greater unemployment or what have you, it no doubt creates inefficiency in the system at a time when maximum efficiency is desireable in order to rebuild the city as quickly and cost effectively as possible. If a person doesn't want to work for an hourly wage that they feel is unacceptable, nobody's gonna hold a gun to their head and make them do it. YAY FREE MARKET ECONOMICS! YAY LAISSEZ FAIR! YAY INVISIBLE HAND!
Take off your tin foil hat and try to see it from a different perspective. I don't think the motive is to enslave black people in New Orleans.
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago. Wheaties, the Breakfast of Champions. |
Stupid word on my part. I'll edit my post after this one. No I don't think it's enslavement of the po blacks. I do think it's bad business, however. To me this is Bush's way of saving a few $ here and there by cutting corners.
Well here's another thought on saving a few bucks to help pay for the rebuilding - roll back the tax cuts on the top 1%. What would that give - some $600 billion? And you wouldn't have to hurt the people that make the country's economic boost the most - the middle class. They can keep their cuts.
So there's a thought that might need a little more digesting. Rather than cut the pay of people who don't earn in the first place - we can keep their pay normal, WATCH Halliburton a bit more closely (for obvious reasons on their record in Iraq), and roll back the taxes on those who need it the least.
Just a thought. |
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| Fir3start3r |
OMFG I'm laughing so much I'm crying...
MisterOpus1 if you don't change your sig soon I'll never take you seriously again.... :p ;) |
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