Baltimore mayor vetoes $15 minimum wage bill

[IAMX 3,055]

6 minutes ago, smilesammich said:

there are still quite a few factories around these parts. when i was in highschool, lots of kids aspired to get on full time at one of these factories because you could make a decent wage starting out and there were benefits, retirement even. these jobs are still here, but mostly all staffed through outside agencies not paying anything (charging their customers 15 bucks an hour but paying their temps 10). the factories are still paying 15 bucks an hour for the employee, but that's not what the employee is getting. this has nothing to do with worker competition and everything to do with a company's bottom line.

if i own a factory and i don't want to have to maintain a large permanent payroll, dole out benefits, go through hiring process or basically have to be accountable to my help in any way i either hire illegals who will work for nothing, or if that's too risky, go through a temp agency. i don't understand why you think if there were even more entry level unskilled jobs that for some reason these employers will automatically want to pay their unskilled laborers even more? because suddenly there will be so many jobs that workers can set their own base salary/demand benefits? that's just not how it works, not in a 'right to work' state anyway.

No doubt there are still producers. Heck, even Walmart has pulled back a little bit from its offshoring and has been producing more in the US because of this slow backlash against losing production jobs (that and companies were almost installing Chinese escalators.. but I guess that one was too far for people). Would be nice if people would stay focused on stuff like this and bring back production jobs instead of demanding fast food pay living wage salaries. There was absolutely no effort of this sort by Hillary. This is what Obama focused on, which is why Trump nabbed so many votes from the same people in the rust belt who voted for Obama 08/12. Of course, while Obama's focus of this was on the campaign trail, his delivery was mediocre.. most of his job creations were like Bush's.. service sector jobs. Thus far I'd say Trump's is likely the same. It's all about whether or not he converts his campaign promises of punishing outsourcers/offshorers as he says he will.

Edited March 31, 2017 by SRVT

[smilesammich 10,727]

6 minutes ago, SRVT said:

No doubt there are still producers. Heck, even Walmart has pulled back a little bit from its offshoring and has been producing more in the US because of this slow backlash against losing production jobs. Would be nice if people would stay focused on stuff like this and bring back production jobs instead of demanding fast food pay living wage salaries.

i don't get why you're so focused on fast food jobs. i could understand if fast food jobs were still 'teen' jobs - but they're not anymore. people are trying to support entire families on fast food jobs, because that's the job they have or all they can get. those same people that are working fast food jobs as 'careers' usually end up needing to supplement their income with foodstamps/medicaid for their kids and most certainly receive large tax refunds (if they have dependents) and that is looked upon by the right as 'welfare' and 'bad'. this is who 'working poor' refer to. you can bring back a billion jobs, if those jobs aren't paying enough to support people's existence you're going to have masses of people that have to rely on government assistance. you just can't have it both ways.

Edited March 31, 2017 by smilesammich

[IAMX 3,055]

Just now, smilesammich said:

i don't get why you're so focused on fast food jobs. i could understand if fast food jobs were still 'teen' jobs - but they're not anymore. people are trying to support entire families on fast food jobs, because that's the job they have or all they can get. those same people that are working fast food jobs as 'careers' usually end up needing to supplement their income with foodstamps/medicaid for their kids and most certainly receive large tax refunds (if they have dependents) and that is looked upon by the right as 'welfare' and 'bad'. this is who 'working poor' refer to. you can bring back a billion jobs, if those jobs aren't paying enough to support people's existence you're going to have masses of people that have to rely on government assistance. you just can't have it both ways.

I would separate the right (politicians) from the right (voters) in this case. The politicians on the right are perfectly okay with 1) having low wage workers on welfare, and 2) them drugging themselves up while on welfare. The overt stances are to make the right voters believe otherwise because the right voters are not okay with it. 

 

It's much like right politicians are ok with amnesty to illegals (except for Trump) while voters are not ok with amnesty. 

 

But anyhow, if this life of juggling welfare and ####### jobs are as far as those people want to go, power to them. It's because of them that I can go grab a burger that's made right roughly 50% of the time. In my job, when I meet with other managers, and I screw up a project of a few million dollars 50% of the time, I lose my job in a heartbeat. They get to keep theirs. Be happy with that. In other industries those skills aren't acceptable.

[smilesammich 10,727]

1 minute ago, SRVT said:

But anyhow, if this life of juggling welfare and ####### jobs are as far as those people want to go, power to them. It's because of them that I can go grab a burger that's made right roughly 50% of the time. In my job, when I meet with other managers, and I screw up a project of a few million dollars 50% of the time, I lose my job in a heartbeat. They get to keep theirs. Be happy with that. In other industries those skills aren't acceptable.

i think the reason we're not seeing eye to eye here is that you're focusing on skill level and you feel a job deserves and i'm looking at employers and their actual propensity to voluntarily raise employee wages and benefits. i guess it all comes down to if you sincerely believe that those that hold the wealth and economic power are only waiting for the right environment to loosen purse strings. i don't subscribe to the trickle fairy tale at all. 

so you think that a person at mcdonalds screws up they don't get fired? why do you assume they get to keep their job? they're easily replaceable, hence the high turnaround..

[IAMX 3,055]

41 minutes ago, smilesammich said:

i think the reason we're not seeing eye to eye here is that you're focusing on skill level and you feel a job deserves and i'm looking at employers and their actual propensity to voluntarily raise employee wages and benefits. i guess it all comes down to if you sincerely believe that those that hold the wealth and economic power are only waiting for the right environment to loosen purse strings. i don't subscribe to the trickle fairy tale at all. 

so you think that a person at mcdonalds screws up they don't get fired? why do you assume they get to keep their job? they're easily replaceable, hence the high turnaround..

Your issue then is with trickle down economics. That's a whole different beast than minimum wage. I would agree with you saying trickle down sucks. But this is not that.

[smilesammich 10,727]

1 minute ago, SRVT said:

Your issue then is with trickle down economics. That's a whole different beast than minimum wage. I would agree with you saying trickle down sucks. But this is not that.

well i was referring to the trickle down premise in your line of thinking, that if there were more factory jobs open that factories would pay workers more to fill those positions. so whiles it's not the same thing, you're still relying on those with the economic power to spread the wealth via hourly wage and benefits. and, i might be assuming, but you're asserting that they'd spread it around willingly not because of government regulation.

[IAMX 3,055]

11 minutes ago, smilesammich said:

well i was referring to the trickle down premise in your line of thinking, that if there were more factory jobs open that factories would pay workers more to fill those positions. so whiles it's not the same thing, you're still relying on those with the economic power to spread the wealth via hourly wage and benefits. and, i might be assuming, but you're asserting that they'd spread it around willingly not because of government regulation.

Nononono. Austrian economics are nothing like Supply Side. Supply side economics are the view that tax cuts to the rich specifically creates the trickle down effect leading to investment and jobs.

 

Except that:

 

- The investment into labor and production tends to go out of the country (you lose the cycle this is supposed to create immediately)

- It lowers labor value by forcing Americans to compete with foreign workers who are paid pennies on the dollar in comparison (in cases like China this income depression is deliberately done by the government)

- Tariffs were always the norm before FTA's

- FTA's are government created economic favoritism (not capitalism)

- Federal governments constituents are Americans, not everyone else in the world

- Lowers exports, creating the excessive reliability on debt financed consumption, only helping the finance industry which always creates the export situation now where US #1 export is debt, not any tangible product

 

Trumps policy of bringing back jobs to the US:

- His target are those very production jobs lost

- If he could destroy NAFTA, CAFTA, etc. by himself he would, except it's passed by Congress

- Congress, especially the Senate, are full of globalist turds in the pocket of globalist corporations, regardless of party

- Realistically no useful overhaul or removal of these FTA's would happen under the current people in Congress

 

So all Trump can do is issue penalties and threats to companies who want to produce American goods elsewhere. It may not be much, but it's something. Moreover, it's more than Obama and Bush did, and would have been sure as hell a lot more than Hillary would have done. I think conservatives supporting the GOP should do well to remember that Bush very much supported further departures of American jobs elsewhere. But this also goes back to Bill Clinton as well. Clinton and partly Bush were the premise for Naomi Klein's book No Logo, which, while I think has a lot of anti-globalist overtones, was part of my Business thesis with marketing focus at SJSU. People thought George Bush was a conservative but he was extremely liberal about government.. he advocated for amnesty for all illegals, vouched for trade that wrecked labor value by not only overtly permitting illegals (despite deportations which were simply following the law) but his acts, like Obama, helped spur the massive influx of illegals.

 

Regarding the topic, tossing a minimum wage increase does absolutely nothing to fix problems that are far more underlying, they only exacerbate them for feel-good politics.

Edited March 31, 2017 by SRVT

[Dashinka 26,709]

Economic theory essentially says as costs go up business owners have limited options, eat the costs and reduce the profits, reduce costs by laying off workers, reduce costs by increasing technology, or raising prices.  All of them leave the business owner in a precarious situation as profit margins may not allow for eating the costs, laying off workers may reduce the quality of the service provided, they may not be able to afford the technology, or the market may not sustain price increases.  There are other factors of course, but many of the businesses that utilize low skilled workers making minimum wage may not be able to cope with the cost increases and then everyone loses.  Like I said in an earlier post, setting artificially high wage floors generally have a negative economic impact especially when they are regional which is why it was the right decision by the mayor to veto the measure even though it was a backtrack to a major campaign promise.

Edited March 31, 2017 by Bill & Katya

[spookyturtle 9,466]

I could use a couple of people to shovel asphalt. Starting pay is $25 hr. Any of you guys interested? 

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

Just now, spookyturtle said:

I could use a couple of people to shovel asphalt. Starting pay is $25 hr. Any of you guys interested? 

Will we have breaks to use the internet?  Can I come in my pajamas?

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

9 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

Economic theory essentially says as costs go up business owners have limited options, eat the costs and reduce the profits, reduce costs by laying off workers, reduce costs by increasing technology, or raising prices.  All of them leave the business owner in a precarious situation as profit margins may not allow for eating the costs, laying off workers may reduce the quality of the service provided, they may not be able to afford the technology, or the market may not sustain price increases.  There are other factors of course, but many of the businesses that utilize low skilled workers making minimum wage may not be able to cope with the cost increases and then everyone loses.  Like I said in an earlier post, setting artificially high wage floors generally have a negative economic impact especially when they are regional which is why it was the right decision by the mayor to veto the measure even though it was a backtrack to a major campaign promise.

As wages rise so does the spending power of the workers.  Raising the spending power of the lowest wage workers provides stimulus to the entire economy based on the assumption that the lowest wage workers do not invest or save but spend.  Whether they spend it on that big mac that they can now afford is another question.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

4 minutes ago, ccneat said:

Will we have breaks to use the internet?  Can I come in my pajamas?

No. I'm a slave driver. 

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

Just now, spookyturtle said:

No. I'm a slave driver. 

Thats fine, you wont get much out of me regardless.  I am going to need to take next Friday off.

[IAMX 3,055]

1 minute ago, Bill & Katya said:

Economic theory essentially says as costs go up business owners have limited options, eat the costs and reduce the profits, reduce costs by laying off workers, reduce costs by increasing technology, or raising prices.  All of them leave the business owner in a precarious situation as profit margins may not allow for eating the costs, laying off workers may reduce the quality of the service provided, they may not be able to afford the technology, or the market may not sustain price increases.  There are other factors of course, but many of the businesses that utilize low skilled workers making minimum wage may not be able to cope with the cost increases and then everyone loses.  Like I said in an earlier post, setting artificially high wage floors generally have a negative economic impact.

Not necessarily reduce profits -- that's a last resort. Any good company will first try and manage their overhead by adjusting costs from the logistical side first because there's two angles -- they'd rather piss off wholesalers or those contracted to ship for them than 1) customers, and 2) investors.. eating into profit is going to piss off investors and there's no one in management that would want to piss off the people who give you your job.

 

I think the last part of your post though hits home at something myself and others have been sort of overlooking: small business.

 

- Small businesses account for over 99% of all businesses

- 95% of those small businesses have 10 or less employees

- As a raw number of people employed in the US entirely, small businesses take up the most population of those employed (~ 55% of population), not corporations.

- These min wage laws are aimed directly at corporations, the very entities who are most able to withstand such not-so-well-thought-out changes

- They ruin small businesses, who employ the most people, because those small businesses do not have the clout and resources corporations do to handle the logistical side of things

- Very few min wage laws account for this, because politics

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

5 minutes ago, spookyturtle said:

No. I'm a slave driver. 

Are you going to need any ID for me to start?

 

never mind found it 

Edited March 31, 2017 by ccneat