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Topic: [Poll] Should the minimum wage be raised? - page 3. (Read 4858 times)

sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
If I own a business and hire people to work for me at a wage we both agree on it is no ones business what that wage rate is. The work performed and the amount paid should be a private transaction. If I am paying more than the market average i get a better choice of employees that stay to work for me for a longer period of time. If I pay less than the market average I only attract low skill workers that only stay long enough to hone some skills so they can go look for higher wages. The market works if government keeps its money grubbing fingers out of it. It is completely contrary to the principles of freedom and the sovereignty of the individual to use violence or the threat of violence to force businesses to pay a wage that the government deems acceptable.
legendary
Activity: 1540
Merit: 1000
They've already done what you've said it hasn't worked and as I said before, no matter what you try to call it all these methods are stealing and if you're going to run around posting videos, you desperately need to look at this one, the problem of wages is something that is much deeper than simple tax rates or the minimum wage, you can't just point a gun at somebody and order them to pay their employee a certain amount.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0

Wages don't increase because that's businesses trying to save essentially so that they can afford to buy assets ( as you call them ) or even just basic supplies you can't just force the wages up, then that's going to put them out of business because they won't be able to cope with rising asset prices and wages at the same time. I was talking about the U.S government and giving an example of minimum wage here in the UK as I understand both, you think that we don't have problems? Trust me, it's all just as bad, low wages are a result of inflation.

When I talk about inflation, I talk about inflation of the money supply, I'm not confusing anything, asset prices and wages are a symptom of inflation, you use goods that have value to measure how much currency is being created, why do you think Bitcoins are worth so much now?

Here are two things that happen when a standard business that doesn't commit fraud goes along with your idea:

1. They increase the wages, pay their employees what the government calls 'fair' wages and go out of business quickly because they can't afford to pay the employees because of rising costs

2. They keep the wages the same to try and postpone the inevitable, asset prices increase, keep increasing until even the business can't afford to pay their employees

Inflationary economies are doomed to failure because of these reasons.
legendary
Activity: 3948
Merit: 3191
Leave no FUD unchallenged
How do you think they're going to pay for it? Higher taxes and when they can't squeeze more money out of people, hyperinflation and more borrowing, you have people cheer leading this but they have clearly never considered the mathematics behind this.
Actually, when you consider the mathematics, if people are being paid more, it stands to reason that more tax revenue would be generated.  You wouldn't need to raise the levels of tax.  Also, the more disposable income people have, the more they will spend, hence more money circulating in the economy.

All this Austerity nonsense we have at the moment is contributing towards the stagnation of our economy.  If people are relying on food banks because they can't afford to buy food, that means less people are buying food.  Less money being spent means less money circulating in the economy.  While a wealthy minority (who wouldn't be able to spend the same proportion of their overall wealth if they tried) just end up accumulating and hoarding their money, so again there's less money in circulation.  

A healthy economy doesn't have skyrocketing disparity between rich and poor.  If you think the current "trickle down" theory we use today actually works, you've got it all backwards, I'm afraid.

When have I ever said I support trickle down economics? Way to go with your rant against an imaginary version of myself, do you even understand how money printing works? In an economy where we don't have money printing yes, tax revenue would go up, but the point is people barely have any money as it is now, if you raised the minimum wage then the government would be forced to print more and devalue the currency to support it. Then that would push up the prices of everything, then that would mean that the minimum wage raise would do absolutely nothing for your average person and in fact make their lives worse because you just pushed everything up and made them have to work longer for less.

This isn't a matter of 'tax the rich' and to be fair, I don't really give a crap much about corrupt and rich CEO's, they're a different matter entirely, what I'm talking about are the average businesses out there that are struggling, if the minimum wage was raised and they couldn't afford it, they'd be put out of business and that's a mathematical fact, you can't ignore that just because it's inconvenient to your world view.

As I said before, your conclusion completely ignores hyperinflation, you need to go and read up on it, as for trickle down economics, that's just made up bullshit created by Aristocrats and Oligarchs to justify them stealing from people through hyperinflation and they've used tricks like this for centuries, it's the equivalent of having a feast at a table and then giving their employees the leftovers and saying that their employees are benefiting from their kindness while of course always keeping the majority of the food for themselves.

They didn't have to print money out of thin air to introduce the minimum wage in the first place, nor did they have to increase taxation.  Your argument that more money would have to be printed in order to raise it is a reasonably baseless assumption.  Also, I don't it's logically possible to occupy two stances at once by saying that the current system we have boils down to stealing using hyperinflation, while also stating that doing the opposite and transferring wealth back down to the bottom of the pyramid would cause hyperinflation as well.  Which is it?  Or do you think hyperinflation happens either way?  I'd argue the current system is more likely to cause hyperinflation because it effectively excludes people from the economy by pricing them out of it.  

As for SMEs not being able to afford it, I'm sure I recall hearing the same argument every time someone proposes a raise to minimum wage (although obviously the figure of $100 in the OP is silly).  A larger amount of capital flowing around the system effectively pays for itself.  More people with disposable income means more consumption.  More consumption means companies make more money.  When there is less consumption, companies need to raise prices to continue to make the same amount of money.  The more people we drive into poverty, the less consumption there will be and the higher prices will get.  Ergo, higher base wages would cause the exact opposite of inflation.

Who's 'they'?

I'm hoping we're on the same page here.  I'm talking about the same 'they' as you are.  I'm working under the assumption that you're talking about your own domestic government, or at the very least governments in general:

How do you think they're going to pay for it? Higher taxes and when they can't squeeze more money out of people (...)

That 'they'.

And it's not a baseless assumption it's a fact, because America doesn't have another source of income to tax as they've raised the taxes as high as people can pay without just making everybody unemployed, other countries have managed to install a minimum wage because they've mathematically calculated what they can actually afford, mind you, the situation is still fucking ridiculous and hasn't stopped them from printing money to pay for everything.

When it comes to your comments about consumption, no, more consumption doesn't make more money, especially if a government is using a devalued currency in order to get people to consume because that means that the company is actually earning less since the prices for everything they're going to buy rises. As for your comment about my two stances? It is actually exactly the fucking same, I make no distinctions between the wealthy and the poor, stealing is stealing, I don't care if you borrow, print, tax in order to do it, in the end your just stealing from both groups and if you don't think it's stealing then it's clear you're just going to keep talking to yourself for the next several pages.

Perhaps I'm not explaining this right.  I'll give it one more try before giving up.  If someone is making $50,000 a year, that person will be paying a larger amount in tax and will have more disposable income to spend than someone making $10,000 a year.  There would be no need to increase taxes or dilute the value of money by printing more.  It has nothing to do with 'stealing' from anyone.  It's called paying people a fair wage for the work they do.  People who earn a decent wage will pay a higher amount of money in tax and spend a higher amount of money back into the economy than those on very low incomes.  Are you with me so far?

Right now you have an increasing number of people falling under the poverty line.  Those people are not able to put a great deal of money back into the economy, but it is pretty much the entire proportion of what little income they have that gets fed back into the system.  They're not holding on to any of their money because they can't afford to.

Right now you have an increasing number of millionaires.  The definition of a millionaire is someone who has at least $1,000,000 in their possession.  It doesn't mean someone who had a million and then spent it back into the economy.  They're good at holding on to that money and finding creative ways to pay very little tax on it.  Millionaires are only spending a small proportion of their overall worth.  The rest of society and the economy in general doesn't receive a great deal of benefit from this.

That's not a recipe for a healthy economy.  What you actually need is more people making a good, solid, average wage.  Not so much that it creates excess extravagance and not so little that someone can't afford to live.  A rise in minimum wage would help slow the rate at which more people are falling under the poverty line, which in turn means more people would have a disposable income to spend back into the economy and generate more tax money for infrastructure.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with money printing.  That's a completely separate issue and it will continue to happen anyway, whether you raise the minimum wage or not.  You can easily have higher wages without printing money.  That seems to be the point we're stuck on here and I'm sorry if you can't see that.  

Finally, there seems to be some confusion here on the difference between asset inflation and wage inflation.  These two are separate things.  You already have increasing asset prices, but not a corresponding increase in wages to support it.  If this continues, the outcome will unequivocally be more people falling under the poverty line because they don't earn enough to be able to pay for the things they need to live.  That means less taxes are collected and there will be less spending back into the economy.  Wages need to increase to make the economy sustainable for everyone, or all that will happen is an increasing burden of poverty and economic stagnation.

If that still doesn't make sense, then yes, I'll agree that I'm clearly talking to myself and I'll move on.


//EDIT:  I'll leave this here as well as a final thought:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
legendary
Activity: 1540
Merit: 1000
How do you think they're going to pay for it? Higher taxes and when they can't squeeze more money out of people, hyperinflation and more borrowing, you have people cheer leading this but they have clearly never considered the mathematics behind this.
Actually, when you consider the mathematics, if people are being paid more, it stands to reason that more tax revenue would be generated.  You wouldn't need to raise the levels of tax.  Also, the more disposable income people have, the more they will spend, hence more money circulating in the economy.

All this Austerity nonsense we have at the moment is contributing towards the stagnation of our economy.  If people are relying on food banks because they can't afford to buy food, that means less people are buying food.  Less money being spent means less money circulating in the economy.  While a wealthy minority (who wouldn't be able to spend the same proportion of their overall wealth if they tried) just end up accumulating and hoarding their money, so again there's less money in circulation.  

A healthy economy doesn't have skyrocketing disparity between rich and poor.  If you think the current "trickle down" theory we use today actually works, you've got it all backwards, I'm afraid.

When have I ever said I support trickle down economics? Way to go with your rant against an imaginary version of myself, do you even understand how money printing works? In an economy where we don't have money printing yes, tax revenue would go up, but the point is people barely have any money as it is now, if you raised the minimum wage then the government would be forced to print more and devalue the currency to support it. Then that would push up the prices of everything, then that would mean that the minimum wage raise would do absolutely nothing for your average person and in fact make their lives worse because you just pushed everything up and made them have to work longer for less.

This isn't a matter of 'tax the rich' and to be fair, I don't really give a crap much about corrupt and rich CEO's, they're a different matter entirely, what I'm talking about are the average businesses out there that are struggling, if the minimum wage was raised and they couldn't afford it, they'd be put out of business and that's a mathematical fact, you can't ignore that just because it's inconvenient to your world view.

As I said before, your conclusion completely ignores hyperinflation, you need to go and read up on it, as for trickle down economics, that's just made up bullshit created by Aristocrats and Oligarchs to justify them stealing from people through hyperinflation and they've used tricks like this for centuries, it's the equivalent of having a feast at a table and then giving their employees the leftovers and saying that their employees are benefiting from their kindness while of course always keeping the majority of the food for themselves.

They didn't have to print money out of thin air to introduce the minimum wage in the first place, nor did they have to increase taxation.  Your argument that more money would have to be printed in order to raise it is a reasonably baseless assumption.  Also, I don't it's logically possible to occupy two stances at once by saying that the current system we have boils down to stealing using hyperinflation, while also stating that doing the opposite and transferring wealth back down to the bottom of the pyramid would cause hyperinflation as well.  Which is it?  Or do you think hyperinflation happens either way?  I'd argue the current system is more likely to cause hyperinflation because it effectively excludes people from the economy by pricing them out of it. 

As for SMEs not being able to afford it, I'm sure I recall hearing the same argument every time someone proposes a raise to minimum wage (although obviously the figure of $100 in the OP is silly).  A larger amount of capital flowing around the system effectively pays for itself.  More people with disposable income means more consumption.  More consumption means companies make more money.  When there is less consumption, companies need to raise prices to continue to make the same amount of money.  The more people we drive into poverty, the less consumption there will be and the higher prices will get.  Ergo, higher base wages would cause the exact opposite of inflation.

Who's 'they'? And it's not a baseless assumption it's a fact, because America doesn't have another source of income to tax as they've raised the taxes as high as people can pay without just making everybody unemployed, other countries have managed to install a minimum wage because they've mathematically calculated what they can actually afford, mind you, the situation is still fucking ridiculous and hasn't stopped them from printing money to pay for everything.

When it comes to your comments about consumption, no, more consumption doesn't make more money, especially if a government is using a devalued currency in order to get people to consume because that means that the company is actually earning less since the prices for everything they're going to buy rises. As for your comment about my two stances? It is actually exactly the fucking same, I make no distinctions between the wealthy and the poor, stealing is stealing, I don't care if you borrow, print, tax in order to do it, in the end your just stealing from both groups and if you don't think it's stealing then it's clear you're just going to keep talking to yourself for the next several pages.
legendary
Activity: 1050
Merit: 1004
There's pros and cons to raising minimum wage. If minimum wage is increased, business owners can suffer too...
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #3vhvmlWWC6uYA1Ed
hero member
Activity: 675
Merit: 514
People generally underestimate the complexity of this issue.
There's a whole network of cause and effect relationships that's really hard to understand by the average person.
legendary
Activity: 3948
Merit: 3191
Leave no FUD unchallenged
How do you think they're going to pay for it? Higher taxes and when they can't squeeze more money out of people, hyperinflation and more borrowing, you have people cheer leading this but they have clearly never considered the mathematics behind this.
Actually, when you consider the mathematics, if people are being paid more, it stands to reason that more tax revenue would be generated.  You wouldn't need to raise the levels of tax.  Also, the more disposable income people have, the more they will spend, hence more money circulating in the economy.

All this Austerity nonsense we have at the moment is contributing towards the stagnation of our economy.  If people are relying on food banks because they can't afford to buy food, that means less people are buying food.  Less money being spent means less money circulating in the economy.  While a wealthy minority (who wouldn't be able to spend the same proportion of their overall wealth if they tried) just end up accumulating and hoarding their money, so again there's less money in circulation.  

A healthy economy doesn't have skyrocketing disparity between rich and poor.  If you think the current "trickle down" theory we use today actually works, you've got it all backwards, I'm afraid.

When have I ever said I support trickle down economics? Way to go with your rant against an imaginary version of myself, do you even understand how money printing works? In an economy where we don't have money printing yes, tax revenue would go up, but the point is people barely have any money as it is now, if you raised the minimum wage then the government would be forced to print more and devalue the currency to support it. Then that would push up the prices of everything, then that would mean that the minimum wage raise would do absolutely nothing for your average person and in fact make their lives worse because you just pushed everything up and made them have to work longer for less.

This isn't a matter of 'tax the rich' and to be fair, I don't really give a crap much about corrupt and rich CEO's, they're a different matter entirely, what I'm talking about are the average businesses out there that are struggling, if the minimum wage was raised and they couldn't afford it, they'd be put out of business and that's a mathematical fact, you can't ignore that just because it's inconvenient to your world view.

As I said before, your conclusion completely ignores hyperinflation, you need to go and read up on it, as for trickle down economics, that's just made up bullshit created by Aristocrats and Oligarchs to justify them stealing from people through hyperinflation and they've used tricks like this for centuries, it's the equivalent of having a feast at a table and then giving their employees the leftovers and saying that their employees are benefiting from their kindness while of course always keeping the majority of the food for themselves.

They didn't have to print money out of thin air to introduce the minimum wage in the first place, nor did they have to increase taxation.  Your argument that more money would have to be printed in order to raise it is a reasonably baseless assumption.  Also, I don't it's logically possible to occupy two stances at once by saying that the current system we have boils down to stealing using hyperinflation, while also stating that doing the opposite and transferring wealth back down to the bottom of the pyramid would cause hyperinflation as well.  Which is it?  Or do you think hyperinflation happens either way?  I'd argue the current system is more likely to cause hyperinflation because it effectively excludes people from the economy by pricing them out of it. 

As for SMEs not being able to afford it, I'm sure I recall hearing the same argument every time someone proposes a raise to minimum wage (although obviously the figure of $100 in the OP is silly).  A larger amount of capital flowing around the system effectively pays for itself.  More people with disposable income means more consumption.  More consumption means companies make more money.  When there is less consumption, companies need to raise prices to continue to make the same amount of money.  The more people we drive into poverty, the less consumption there will be and the higher prices will get.  Ergo, higher base wages would cause the exact opposite of inflation.
legendary
Activity: 3766
Merit: 1217
Simple increasing of average wage won't change anything, because this action will cause proportional jump of inflation.

Definitely. Unemployment will increase by many times as well.

And it will make a lot of business either shut down , go to the black market or move out of the country which will lead to less taxes and less jobs .

Either the businesses will shut down, or they will be forced to employ illegal immigrants.
hero member
Activity: 826
Merit: 501
in defi we trust
Simple increasing of average wage won't change anything, because this action will cause proportional jump of inflation.

And it will make a lot of business either shut down , go to the black market or move out of the country which will lead to less taxes and less jobs .
legendary
Activity: 1540
Merit: 1000
How do you think they're going to pay for it? Higher taxes and when they can't squeeze more money out of people, hyperinflation and more borrowing, you have people cheer leading this but they have clearly never considered the mathematics behind this.
Actually, when you consider the mathematics, if people are being paid more, it stands to reason that more tax revenue would be generated.  You wouldn't need to raise the levels of tax.  Also, the more disposable income people have, the more they will spend, hence more money circulating in the economy.

All this Austerity nonsense we have at the moment is contributing towards the stagnation of our economy.  If people are relying on food banks because they can't afford to buy food, that means less people are buying food.  Less money being spent means less money circulating in the economy.  While a wealthy minority (who wouldn't be able to spend the same proportion of their overall wealth if they tried) just end up accumulating and hoarding their money, so again there's less money in circulation.  

A healthy economy doesn't have skyrocketing disparity between rich and poor.  If you think the current "trickle down" theory we use today actually works, you've got it all backwards, I'm afraid.

When have I ever said I support trickle down economics? Way to go with your rant against an imaginary version of myself, do you even understand how money printing works? In an economy where we don't have money printing yes, tax revenue would go up, but the point is people barely have any money as it is now, if you raised the minimum wage then the government would be forced to print more and devalue the currency to support it. Then that would push up the prices of everything, then that would mean that the minimum wage raise would do absolutely nothing for your average person and in fact make their lives worse because you just pushed everything up and made them have to work longer for less.

This isn't a matter of 'tax the rich' and to be fair, I don't really give a crap much about corrupt and rich CEO's, they're a different matter entirely, what I'm talking about are the average businesses out there that are struggling, if the minimum wage was raised and they couldn't afford it, they'd be put out of business and that's a mathematical fact, you can't ignore that just because it's inconvenient to your world view.

As I said before, your conclusion completely ignores hyperinflation, you need to go and read up on it, as for trickle down economics, that's just made up bullshit created by Aristocrats and Oligarchs to justify them stealing from people through hyperinflation and they've used tricks like this for centuries, it's the equivalent of having a feast at a table and then giving their employees the leftovers and saying that their employees are benefiting from their kindness while of course always keeping the majority of the food for themselves.
legendary
Activity: 3108
Merit: 1359
Simple increasing of average wage won't change anything, because this action will cause proportional jump of inflation.
legendary
Activity: 3948
Merit: 3191
Leave no FUD unchallenged
How do you think they're going to pay for it? Higher taxes and when they can't squeeze more money out of people, hyperinflation and more borrowing, you have people cheer leading this but they have clearly never considered the mathematics behind this.
Actually, when you consider the mathematics, if people are being paid more, it stands to reason that more tax revenue would be generated.  You wouldn't need to raise the levels of tax.  Also, the more disposable income people have, the more they will spend, hence more money circulating in the economy.

All this Austerity nonsense we have at the moment is contributing towards the stagnation of our economy.  If people are relying on food banks because they can't afford to buy food, that means less people are buying food.  Less money being spent means less money circulating in the economy.  While a wealthy minority (who wouldn't be able to spend the same proportion of their overall wealth if they tried) just end up accumulating and hoarding their money, so again there's less money in circulation. 

A healthy economy doesn't have skyrocketing disparity between rich and poor.  If you think the current "trickle down" theory we use today actually works, you've got it all backwards, I'm afraid.
legendary
Activity: 3766
Merit: 1217
The Swiss are proposing an equivalent of £14.70 per hour minimum wage - which would make it the highest in the world.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/16/swiss-vote-referendum-world-highest-minimum-wage-manufacturing

Switzerland's economy is looking strong, thanks to the financial sector. I think they can afford a minimum wage of £14.70 per hour ($25 per hour), despite the effect it can have on the inflation.
legendary
Activity: 2562
Merit: 1071
I'm sorry, but this seems like the propaganda going around about the evils of raising the minimum wage; do you have any decent sources to back that up?

It depends what you mean by sources.

Almost no economists would dispute the negative economic effects that increasing the minimum wage can have on society by driving price levels up. http://ftp.iza.org/dp1072.pdf

Just typical AS/AD diagram shows this...

The real problem is a political and a welfare one, which is much harder to model.

Well, yes of course it is harder to model it when you're looking at the real world, but that's what you have to work with; and in this context there is no evidence that small increases to the minimum wage will have large negative effects down the line, especially when you consider my previous argument and the fact that productivity continues to increase.

As for "no economists disputing the negative economic effects that increasing the minimal wage can have on society", here's someone who disagrees:
An interview with Robert Pollin from the Political Economy Research Institute on The Real News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKXTUJrk3GY.
sr. member
Activity: 470
Merit: 250
When price levels rise with wages, output declines and it would have hugely negative inflationary effects. Even small increases on minimal wages have been shown to have large effects down the line on unemployment and general shopping baskets.

One of the best things about America is the low minimum wages in certain states. Sure wish we had that in the UK.

I'm sorry, but this seems like the propaganda going around about the evils of raising the minimum wage; do you have any decent sources to back that up?


It depends what you mean by sources.

Almost no economists would dispute the negative economic effects that increasing the minimum wage can have on society by driving price levels up. http://ftp.iza.org/dp1072.pdf

Just typical AS/AD diagram shows this...

The real problem is a political and a welfare one, which is much harder to model.
hero member
Activity: 770
Merit: 500
The Swiss are proposing an equivalent of £14.70 per hour minimum wage - which would make it the highest in the world.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/16/swiss-vote-referendum-world-highest-minimum-wage-manufacturing
hero member
Activity: 826
Merit: 501
in defi we trust
Average wage in Poland is 680 euros , that's 34 euros /working day.

What about the blue-collar jobs? I am sure that the average salary for the blue-collar jobs in Poland must be well below € 34 per day. I won't be surprised if it is close to € 10 per day.

In my country the worst jobs are averaging 200 euros , so , I doubt that there are any like this in poland.

Also the minimum wage in Poland is 300 euros , so Smiley.
legendary
Activity: 3766
Merit: 1217
Average wage in Poland is 680 euros , that's 34 euros /working day.

What about the blue-collar jobs? I am sure that the average salary for the blue-collar jobs in Poland must be well below € 34 per day. I won't be surprised if it is close to € 10 per day.
hero member
Activity: 826
Merit: 501
in defi we trust
It has been decided that there will be a minimum wage of 8.50 Euro/hour in Germany next year.
There will be exceptions, like people that have been unemployed for a long time, or some internships.
Let's see if germany's economy will go down the drain.

That will accelerate the immigration from the new-EU states, such as Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia. € 8.50 is almost a day's wage in these countries. And unfortunately, this is going to result in many native Germans losing their jobs.

Average wage in Poland is 680 euros , that's 34 euros /working day.
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