Topic: national minimum wage LAWS. good or bad? - page 4. (Read 21176 times)

I've had the "pleasure" of watching this happen in real time. Minimum wage went up, out came the McDouble - a double cheeseburger with only one slice of cheese. They reduced the cost of the burger to retain what slim margin they had.

Nailed it.

The wages paid to In n Out Burger employees, the fresh materials used in their products, and the fact that their products cost less than McDonalds.

Let's revisit what you said a few posts back:


Given your above statement, I see an insistence on your part to stick to wages, despite you bringing up the fish analogy, and then you have the nerve to say my CO2 argument is irrelevant, and then state you wish to ignore the pollution argument, and then you wish to continue with discussion on the environment.

It doesn't work that way.


So you're willing to discuss. I already know that. But am I willing to discuss if you dictate the questions which can be asked immediately after telling me what I should or should not bring up? I don't think so.


Regarding the answer to the question you're asking, in actuality, the truth does not hurt my argument in the least.

I'm saying you are using nominal values, when the real value of those is the same. The efficiency of a worker earning $5 in year 1 is the same as the efficiency of a worker earning $8 in year 2 when adjusted for the 60% inflation caused by the rise in that wage. Now, I'll grant you that the inflation jump won't be in the entire economy. As i mentioned previously, high level services and products used by wealthy people will probably not be affected, but things used by those same minimum wage earners, like fast food, bread, milk and other produce, discount store prices, and other businesses like that will be.


In a perfectly competitive market, margins, and thus profits, are zero. A lot of the companies that have minimum wage workers are in industries with enormous competition. McD's has Burger King, White Castle, Hardee's, Checkers/Rally's, Wendy's, Arbys, Roy Rogers, and even Taco Bell to compete against if you include substitutions. Thus I expect their margins to be tiny, pennies per hamburger (close to $0.13 for a BigMac back in 2001, no idea what now). Small margins = raise prices or reduce costs (employees)


This is almost irrelevant, as any company that hopes to compete would keep only the workers it needs. Companies don't hire more employees just to give someone a job. Those that do that are beaten out on price and fail.


Again, irrelevant, because the quality of the product or service is what you are selling, not what you are giving away for free. The reason Checkers/Hardee's can charge more than McD's for their burgers and still stay in business is because they provide more quality burgers. It is NOT because they pay their employees more, and the employees choose to make better burgers as a "thank you" to the company. So, if the quality of your product sucks, yes, you can hire more competent employees and pay them a higher wage (which wouldn't have anything to do with minimum wage laws), but then you would have to include that increased cost in your product, or go broke. And if the quality of your product sucks compared to your competitor, but you are both paying the same wages, then obviously something else is wrong. And if your product just plain sucks, then no amount of well paid employees will help you anyway.

Let me know where I've missed something

Does asking a question not indicate a willingness to discuss? Very well, let me explicitly state it. I am willing to discuss. Please answer the question: Is the environment (ignoring human intervention, either way) self-regulating?

Prediction: you will refuse to answer, deflecting, because you know that the truth hurts your argument.

When you are ready to discuss, let me know, and I will be happy to discuss. Let me know.

Please give him some (A LOT of) credit; at least he's not cunicula.

Witness, everyone, the forum sociopath in his natural habitat. Notice how he avoids answering the question, for he knows he has overstepped his ability to debate. Notice how he switches from debating the issues to debating the character of the poster. Proof positive that he has no argument; else he would advance it.

I say again: Remove humans, and your preconceptions about their effects on the environment. Does the environment regulate itself?

You need to demonstrate some things to follow that line of logic. They are:

- The efficiency of $5 workers vs. $8 workers
- The operating margins of the company
- The law of diminishing returns regarding more workers
- The quality of service or products using cheaper labor

They're not ad hominem attacks. Can you comprehend that? They're forum posts containing text which describe your character. There is nothing about the written observations which relate to the validity or invalidity of your argumentation. Rather, they simply are observations of your behavior.

Now, regarding your question about environmental pollution, did you not just say that you did not want to go down that road? You just accused me of bringing it into the argument.

Knock it off with your hypocritical attitude, and stop with your accusations of me conflating issues, and then you yourself immediately picking up that line of argumentation in your next post (or next sentence, for that matter). Once you can address your own problems regarding posting, we can discuss.

Perhaps you can help by pointing it out? I likely missed it because I confused it with just another random debate post.


For that to be true, you would have to assume that raising the minimum wage does not increase the cost of products&services, and does not raise the price of everything at the same time as well (I.e. a min wage earner earning $5, then getting wages raised to $7, will still be earning an equivalent of $5 when adjusted by the resulting inflation).


Ah, I remember examining and looking for that balance in one of my economics classes. We still used supply/demand/price/quantity graphs to find out where it was and what overall effect it has.

Instead of ad hominem attacks, would you like to respond to the argument? Specifically: Before humans started polluting/attempting to regulate that pollution, would you agree that the environment regulated itself?

I never mentioned climate change until you brought up the fish example analogy. What a hypocrite you are. And apparently a dumbfuck as well if you didn't recognize that my CO2 example stemmed directly from your own actions.

Way to mix your analogies, and bring in your agenda at the same time. You want to try again? Hint: we're actually talking about wages here, not global warming climate change. Let's ignore for the moment the pollution argument, before or against. Before humans started doing that, would you agree that the environment regulated itself?

Actually, the markets, absence regulation are causing excessive warming. It's regulations which are needed to prevent humanity from over polluting. But I don't expect your conspiracy believing clique to buy into that.

So I actually did look at the paper...

1) That paper does not make the claim First Ascent says it does (it claims to have detected publication bias, not "no correlation")
2) That paper is flawed research, and this has been reported in the literature. However it looks like they accidentally came to the correct conclusion
(they had a 50-50 chance of doing this)
3) The claim first ascent is making is supported by other different literature, in fact the same literature that debunks that first paper.

See:
Publication Selection Bias in Minimum-Wage Research? A Meta-Regression Analysis
Hristos Doucouliagos and T. D. Stanley
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2009.00723.x
47:2 June 2009 0007–1080 pp. 406–428


Welcome to the confused world of academia.

Veeery slowly. We might be OK at night, but during the day, I'd wager you'd have to spend half your time remembering to breathe.

it's worth noting that the idea that we suffocate in an environment or an atmosphere without co2 is wrong -- we do not suffocate, we do breathe, even el 100% oxygen, because the body is producing co2 as you breathe so there's always enough co2 to in the lungs to trigger your respiration reflex.

FirstIdiot can't even get his analogies right. Not even that. I loled. plus the analogy is stupid because it doesn't capture minimum wage and its economic implications.

Being willing to turn up every day counts for a lot too. Also commitments so that you don't just walk out when the job gets crappy.

Yep, I see that now. Apples & oranges really. If my posts disappear from this thread, it's because it looks just too daft to keep appearing in my new-replies list. Feel free to quote for posterity...