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The Library => The SGA => Topic started by: AUChizad on August 02, 2013, 11:34:20 AM

Title: Fight For 15
Post by: AUChizad on August 02, 2013, 11:34:20 AM
http://chicagoist.com/2013/08/01/fight_for_15_movement_begins_two_da.php#photo-1

(http://galleries.gothamistllc.com/asset/51fa569607fa4e7087e86ecf/mobile/2013_8_1_FF15_5.JPG)

Quote
Minimum Wage Workers Walk Out To Fight For 15

A second wave of protests to raise the minimum wage began in Chicago Wednesday with workers from the Fight for 15 movement and other labor organizations picketing two McDonald’s locations and Whole Foods on Halsted and Waveland. The Chicago protests are part of a larger national week of action, with rallies to raise the minimum wage and other strikes happening in Michigan, New York, Wisconsin and Missouri.

“We’ve got people working really long hours,” said Jose Rodriguez, a cashier at Whole Foods. Rodriguez and several other workers walked out of the store in the morning to join more than 100 people picketing out front. Rodriguez said he and other striking workers were looking for better wages for the work they do, as well as sick days and vacation time. Matthew Camp, another cashier at the location said, “We started organizing at this location against the points system. It’s an unfair attendance policy in which we don’t have sick days. Any reason why we miss a day of work goes on our records as a demerit.”

The fight to organize low wage workers has spread like wildfire across the country, with dozens of labor organizations organizing both national days of action and local strikes. Last week, more than 200 people protested in front of three different food and retail locations, demanding both better wages and fairer labor standards. Both organizers and workers say increased wages and benefits mean a healthier economy. In a press release, Carlos Cardenas, vice president of community organizing group ONE Northside said “The workers’ action will lift up all of Chicago. If they have more money in their pockets, they’ll spend it right here, helping to boost the entire economy.”

On Thursday, activists with the Fight For 15 movement and their allies plan to stage a series of protests beginning in the early morning and lasting all day at more than 20 locations throughout the Loop and Magnificent Mile.
How about learning a skill that could not be performed by a retarded monkey?

$15/hour works out to about $30,000 a year, which is what my first CAREER job with a college degree paid. Are they suggesting that a fry cook at McDonald's is equally as important to society and equally demanding of skill as such an office job?

Minimum wage jobs are not intended to be careers. You shouldn't BE trying to feed a family of four on them. You shouldn't BE comfortable. You should be trying to work your way up and out of the cash register job. I'm aware that for some, there's no other choice, and to that I say, everyone in America can't be successful. Artificially making a job cleaning toilets on par with a entry level job that requires a college degree is not solving anything but driving up inflation.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Townhallsavoy on August 02, 2013, 11:41:38 AM
Why not just mandate a flat rate for all jobs?  All 1st year employees get 15 per hour with a max of 40 hours per week.  It raises a dollar each year until retirement.  All extra money goes to the government for programs and infrastructure. 
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Snaggletiger on August 02, 2013, 11:46:29 AM
Alabama is an at-will employment state.  Simply means there doesn't have to be a reason to fire someone, as long as it's not for discriminatory reasons or in breach of a written contract.   If our employees walk out and protest, we will simply block their access to the computers, change the locks and tell them thanks for playing.  Then go hire someone who wants to work.  Now take your signs and get the fuck off our lawn.   
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Vandy Vol on August 02, 2013, 12:04:56 PM
Alabama is an at-will employment state.  Simply means there doesn't have to be a reason to fire someone, as long as it's not for discriminatory reasons or in breach of a written contract.   If our employees walk out and protest, we will simply block their access to the computers, change the locks and tell them thanks for playing.  Then go hire someone who wants to work.  Now take your signs and get the fuck off our lawn.

When did you stop caring?
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Buzz Killington on August 02, 2013, 12:10:35 PM
Chicago Labor Unions...imagine that.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Snaggletiger on August 02, 2013, 12:12:54 PM
When did you stop caring?

Look, "Lawyers That Care" is all we could fit on the sign.  There's much more we wanted to say but money and space didn't allow us to.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: ssgaufan on August 02, 2013, 01:01:43 PM
If this passes do I get a raise to keep me where I'm at above the minimum wage?  Or will it just drive the price of everyday products even higher which therefore puts me closer to where they are now?
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Townhallsavoy on August 02, 2013, 01:04:50 PM
If this passes do I get a raise to keep me where I'm at above the minimum wage?  Or will it just drive the price of everyday products even higher which therefore puts me closer to where they are now?

I wonder this too. 

As a teacher, I was making what?  $22/hour? 

For $7 less and a lot less time and effort, I could go do something easier.  Mindless.  Like work at McDonalds. Except wait, those people will be replaced by robots soon. 

Then there will be higher unemployment.  And people with the remaining menial jobs will want more money.  Then we'll raise minimum wage again forcing more tax dollars to be paid thus giving the government the ability to give out money to more people unemployed. 
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: AUChizad on August 02, 2013, 01:24:34 PM
I wonder this too. 

As a teacher, I was making what?  $22/hour? 

For $7 less and a lot less time and effort, I could go do something easier.  Mindless.  Like work at McDonalds. Except wait, those people will be replaced by robots soon. 

Then there will be higher unemployment.  And people with the remaining menial jobs will want more money.  Then we'll raise minimum wage again forcing more tax dollars to be paid thus giving the government the ability to give out money to more people unemployed.
Is it even that much of a gap?

I know a lot depends on the school system, tenure, etc., but don't a lot of teachers make right at around $30,000?
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Townhallsavoy on August 02, 2013, 02:12:12 PM
Is it even that much of a gap?

I know a lot depends on the school system, tenure, etc., but don't a lot of teachers make right at around $30,000?

Varies by state.
 
Alabama starts out at $36k.  By year three, a teacher without a master's jumps up to $40k. 
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Ogre on August 02, 2013, 02:40:39 PM
The current minimum wage in Chicago is $8.25/hour.  That equates to $330/week in gross pay for a 40-hour a week job.  If you raise the minimum wage to $15/hour, that would raise the employee's gross wages to $600/week for a 40 hour week.  Essentially the employer will now be doubling their Salary & Wage expenses, which means if they want to continue to operate in a profitable manner they are going to have to cut that expense elsewhere.  More than likely they will cut their minimum-wage staff by 1/2 and try to figure out how to operate on a skeleton crew.

These people don't realize that businesses have to make money in order for them to keep a job.  They can continue to hike the minimum wage and watch unemployment skyrocket. 

I'd guestimate that half of the employees at my company make less than $15/hour.  We are 90 employees and 6 locations.  If something like that passed here we'd be forced to shut down at least 2 of our operations and trim our minimum wage staff at every other store by at least 25%. 

I'd start by laying off anyone with an Obama bumper sticker.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: AUChizad on August 02, 2013, 02:50:42 PM
HuffPost posted an article saying it would only raise the cost of a Big Mac $0.68.

However:

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/big_mac_numbers_too_good_to_ch.php
Quote
Big Mac numbers too good to check—or to correct
Fixes and non-fixes following a Huffington Post story

By Ryan ChittumFacebookTwitterEmailPrint More Sharing Services One Page
The Huffington Post has all but retracted the story on Big Macs and wages that I criticized here (as did Tom Maguire, who deserves credit for getting there first). It has pointed out the errors, where they came from, and how they were made. It’s admirably done what you’re supposed to do when you mess up.

That’s far more than you would ever get from, say, the serially wrong Matt Drudge.

But since the wrong information went big on the Internet after the original HuffPost piece, we thought it would be interesting to see how other outlets have handled the fixes. It’s not very encouraging.

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell ran an embarrassing segment the other day about the erroneous non-study:

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell broke down the numbers in his latest Rewrite segment, pointing to new research by Arnobio Morelix at the University of Kansas. The study, which looked at labor costs at McDonald’s, found that if you double every salary of every worker at the fast food chain, the price of a Big Mac would increase just 68 cents from $3.99 to $4.67.
MSNBC’s piece stands uncorrected.



Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Forbes, which was a key vector in the story’s spread, has updated its post with a note at the top that says, “Questions have been raised about the study at the center of this post, and the post has been changed accordingly.” MSN also put a big correction at the top of its story, as did David Atkins at Digby’s Hullabaloo.

ABC News had even less excuse to write about this “research” since by the time it published its story, it knew that it was some undergrad’s work. It did some actual reporting that introduces some skepticism and context, but the headline still says, “Price of Big Mac Could Rise by 68 Cents If Minimum Wage Doubles.”

Reading through the hits on this is an appalling tour of click-whoring aggregation at its worst. A site called Opposing View calls it “a new study conducted by a University of Kansas scholar” and rewrites Think Progress and the Huffington Post, burying links to the sources at the bottom. Fox News Radio ran it through the talk-radio wringer, unchecked.

The Houston Chronicle aggregated the HuffPost, didn’t namecheck HP till after the end of the post, and then aggregated the HuffPost’s retraction. The coup de grace, though, is that the Chron also reprinted an erroneous Business Insider aggregation. It’s uncorrected. Great work, Hearst! Business Insider itself put a three-paragraph correction atop its post. Henry Blodget also updated his post.

Gawker aggregated and its errors are uncorrected. Also uncorrected: The Washington Post, The Franchise Herald, KIRO radio in Seattle, Newser, The Week, The Spokane Spokesman-Review, PJ Media, Truthdig, the Albany Times-Union, LiveLeak, The Daily Meal, AMNewYork, Moyers & Company’s blog, HuffPostLive’s video, and ABC Action News in Tampa.

The Jane Dough corrected its post to call the KU researcher an undergrad, but has left all the other wrong information as is.

The New York Times puts its multiple corrections at the bottom of its erroneous post. Think Progress puts its corrections at the bottom, as well, and leaves the body of the post—errors and all—as is. A strikethrough would work best here.

We’ll induct this gem from Oklahoma City’s KFOR-TV into the Hamster Wheel Hall of Fame for this dumb aggregation, which has no correction and, egregiously, introduces its own fact error, calling the KU kid’s numbers a “study from Kansas State University.” And maybe The Examiner too. It aggregates MSN Money aggregating The Huffington Post and its post is also uncorrected.

And, of course, my favorite, the false MLive story on the “comprehensive research conducted by the University of Kansas,” hasn’t been touched.

I said yesterday that one of the first rules of Internet journalism is that false news is far more likely to go viral than factual news. Audit Boss Dean Starkman points out that’s nothing new and that Mark Twain said it best more than a century ago:

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes

And

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/08/02/the-real-change-in-the-cost-of-a-big-mac-if-mcdonalds-workers-were-paid-15-an-hour-nothing/

Quote
The Real Change In The Cost Of A Big Mac If McDonald's Workers Were Paid $15 An Hour: Nothing
 14 comments, 2 called-out Comment Now
Follow Comments
I will admit to having been amused at the error strewn Huffington Post piece which insisted that doubling the wages of McDonald’s workers to $15 an hour would have only a minimal effect on the price of a Big Mac or the dollar menu. Clare O’Connor here at Forbes describes what went on. My amusement isn’t at the errors in the calculation, nor in the way that it was subsequently re-reported. We all make errors at times and the important thing is what one then does: just as Mother always said, ‘fess up and try not to do it again. On which point everyone has acted excellently.

My amusement rather is about the fact that a doubling of, or a halving of, or any other change in, the wages of McDonald's MCD +0.03% workers will have absolutely no effect whatsoever on the price of a Big Mac or the dollar menu. For prices are not set by the cost of production of something, but by the supply and demand for that item.

Adam Ozimek makes an excellent point here about changes in labour costs. The choices available are not only whether to raise prices in order to cope with those changes in costs. Instead, a change in the price of labour leads to the opportunity to substitute capital for labour.

 
Will the Living Wage Trend Kill or Make McDonald's and WalMart?
Adam HartungAdam Hartung
Contributor
 
Doubling McDonald's Salaries A Great Way To Get Workers Replaced By Machines
Adam OzimekAdam Ozimek
Contributor
 
How Much Would A Big Mac Cost If McDonald's Workers Were Paid $15 Per Hour? (Updated, Corrected)
Clare O'ConnorClare O'Connor
Forbes Staff
 
Would A Higher Minimum Wage Help McDonald's Workers?
Art CardenArt Carden
Contributor
Doubling of labor costs will simply increase a fast food restaurant’s incentives to adopt technology like this. And if fast food wages doubled everywhere it would spur the development of these technologies even faster.

The obviousness of this point is demonstrated by the way in which Apple AAPL +1.02% gets its kit manufactured in China. There’s, as we all know, some 250,000 people working at Foxconn to make all that shiny shiny gadgetry. They’re paid $400 to $500 a month to do so. If all that manufacturing were done in the US people would be being paid $2,000 to $3,000 a month for the job: but there would be many fewer of them and many more machines. A change in the labour costs changes the trade off between employing labour and employing capital to reach the same production goal. This is of course why a rise in the minimum wage does indeed increase unemployment. Perhaps not much, not as much as some alarmists claim, but it really does.

But my major point is this that Adam alludes to:

What do people expect will happen when prices go up 17%? If McDonald’s could raise its prices by that much without lowering demand they would.

Take a step back a moment. We all know that McDonald’s is indeed a rapacious capitalist organisation. It cares only about the profits being made for its shareholders, not for the wider group of stakeholders that is its employees and the community. We know this absolutely because this is the very thing that everyone is complaining about: McDonald’s cares so much about profits that it’s not paying a living wage to its workers.

Hmm. Well, what else can we surmise about a rapacious capitalist organisation? In that ruthless pursuit of gelt and pilf for its shareholders it is going to gouge the customers for the absolute maximum that it can, yes? This is what capitalists do: we hear people complaining about that all the time as well. What limits McDonald’s ability to entirely empty our wallets every time we want a hamburger is that there are other people who will also sell us one. Wendy’s, Jack in the Box, In and Out, there’s a multiplicity of places where we can go to fur our arteries. Which leads to our conclusion on pricing in a capitalist and free market economy. The capitalists charge the absolute maximum they can get away with, that ability being limited by the competition that comes from alternative suppliers.

Thus the price is not determined by the cost of production of an item. Which means that, if we raise McDonald’s production costs by increasing the wages of the workers, the price isn’t going to change. For it’s not production costs that determine prices: it’s competition that does. Another way to put this is that McDonald’s is already charging us the absolute maximum that it can for its current level of sales. Thus it cannot raise its prices if its production costs go up.

All of which means that the real change in the cost of a Big Mac, or the dollar menu, if McDonald’s workers were paid $15 an hour is: nothing. For production costs simply do not determine the prices that can be achieved in a competitive market.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: GH2001 on August 02, 2013, 05:47:20 PM
When did you stop caring?

He does care. It's for their own good. The commie bums.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Token on August 02, 2013, 10:32:29 PM
You know, I dont make a lot of money, I average between 35 and 40 depending on OT. But the truly rewarding part of my job is being able to tell a worthless piece of shit that they are a worthless piece of shit. It appears as though I should take my talents north.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: The Prowler on August 03, 2013, 08:57:31 AM
I flip burgers all night at Wendy's. I'm not out there protesting, but if I get a bump in pay AWESOME, if not...oh well, kay say ra say ra.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Kaos on August 03, 2013, 10:47:37 AM
So here's the basic economic point these idiots fail to understand. 

If I'm required by law to bump all my minimum wage employees to double what they're making, that has to come from somewhere.  In order to maintain my profit margins, keep my stockholders happy, stay in business I'm going to have to do one of two things:

1) Raise my prices
2) Let people go.

Actually, I'll probably do a combination of both.  When I raise my prices that will cause the people who use my products to raise theirs in order to keep their businesses alive. 

So these clowns will make $15 an hour.  Yay!  Oops.  Gallon of milk now costs $8.  Gallon of gas goes up to $6.50.  The bama t-shirt he wears under his Hardee's uniform now costs $16 instead of $5.  The flat-brim douche hat sets him back $45.  He's got more money, but can buy less. 

Idiot. 
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: RWS on August 03, 2013, 12:38:11 PM
It is absolutely saddening that this is what our country is coming to.  If you want to get paid $15/hr, go get a real job.  Why should some burger flipping cock goblin make as much or more than an entry level police officer or firefighter? 
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Buzz Killington on August 03, 2013, 10:53:28 PM
Hey, I started out mopping the floor just like you guys. But now... now I'm washing lettuce. Soon I'll be on fries; then the grill. In a year or two, I'll make assistant manager, and that's when the big bucks start rolling in.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: GH2001 on August 04, 2013, 09:52:46 AM
So here's the basic economic point these idiots fail to understand. 

If I'm required by law to bump all my minimum wage employees to double what they're making, that has to come from somewhere.  In order to maintain my profit margins, keep my stockholders happy, stay in business I'm going to have to do one of two things:

1) Raise my prices
2) Let people go.

Actually, I'll probably do a combination of both.  When I raise my prices that will cause the people who use my products to raise theirs in order to keep their businesses alive. 

So these clowns will make $15 an hour.  Yay!  Oops.  Gallon of milk now costs $8.  Gallon of gas goes up to $6.50.  The bama t-shirt he wears under his Hardee's uniform now costs $16 instead of $5.  The flat-brim douche hat sets him back $45.  He's got more money, but can buy less. 

Idiot.

This guy gets it. ^^^^

It really is that simple.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Kaos on August 04, 2013, 10:29:24 AM
This guy gets it. ^^^^

It's really is that simple.

It's not how much you make, it's the purchasing power of that amount. 

And it really is that simple. 

My first job I got paid $3.35 an hour.  Seems like slave wages! How did I survive? 

Stamp cost .18 cents.
Gas cost $1.20 a gallon
New cars cost $6-10k
A nice house might set you back $50k
Movie tickets were $3
Could get a pair of Levis for $15 (Wranglers/Lees for much less)
Pair of Nikes were $20 (and couldn't afford them)

If I could scrape together $20 I could take my girlfriend to dinner and a movie and have some pocket change left over. 

I thought then that if I could ever get to where I made 20-30k a year I'd be set for life.  Rich, I tell ya. 

It's all relative -- something these idiots just can't understand. 
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: GH2001 on August 04, 2013, 10:47:40 AM
It's not how much you make, it's the purchasing power of that amount. 

And it really is that simple. 

My first job I got paid $3.35 an hour.  Seems like slave wages! How did I survive? 

Stamp cost .18 cents.
Gas cost $1.20 a gallon
New cars cost $6-10k
A nice house might set you back $50k
Movie tickets were $3
Could get a pair of Levis for $15 (Wranglers/Lees for much less)
Pair of Nikes were $20 (and couldn't afford them)

If I could scrape together $20 I could take my girlfriend to dinner and a movie and have some pocket change left over. 

I thought then that if I could ever get to where I made 20-30k a year I'd be set for life.  Rich, I tell ya. 

It's all relative -- something these idiots just can't understand.

I don't expect a fry cook or grocery bagger to understand the basic laws of macro economics. I know I didn't when I made 4.25 an hour in 1994. I just played along and was happy I had some cash. Of course after high school or college I wasn't too much worried about it because I knew I wouldn't be making that anymore. I knew the days of making 180 bucks a week and bagging groceries was only temporary and everyone had to pay their dues in this type of job.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Townhallsavoy on August 04, 2013, 10:56:40 AM
Kaos - I get your point, but one of the arguments by those in favor of raising the minimum wage is that inflation has risen faster than the minimum wage.  So while yes, you could survive back then making $3.35/hour, people nowadays are struggling because $7/hour and even $10/hour are failing to keep up with $4/gallon gas, $4/gallon milk, $15k+ for a reliable car, $10.50 movie tickets etc. 

The problem I have with all of this is that inflation has been caused by the government and the government has not acknowledged their responsibility for it and instead is trying to do things that make it seem like it's the citizens' fault, which only the government can fix. 
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Kaos on August 04, 2013, 11:30:20 AM
Kaos - I get your point, but one of the arguments by those in favor of raising the minimum wage is that inflation has risen faster than the minimum wage.  So while yes, you could survive back then making $3.35/hour, people nowadays are struggling because $7/hour and even $10/hour are failing to keep up with $4/gallon gas, $4/gallon milk, $15k+ for a reliable car, $10.50 movie tickets etc. 

The problem I have with all of this is that inflation has been caused by the government and the government has not acknowledged their responsibility for it and instead is trying to do things that make it seem like it's the citizens' fault, which only the government can fix.

Disagree.  That $3.35 I made (minimum wage was 3.15) is roughly equivalent to $6.50 now.   

I didn't STAY at that rate either.  I didn't consider it the acceptable standard for raising a family. 

If they want to adjust it a little, sure. 

But you go blasting it up to $15 and the whole thing collapses.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: RWS on August 04, 2013, 04:08:36 PM
But you go blasting it up to $15 and the whole thing collapses.
Exactly what I was thinking.

If you bump minimum wage to $15/hr, this country will fall apart with a quickness.  Gas would probably be $7/gallon.  A gallon of milk $8.  The price of literally everything you buy will go up exponentially.  That's what these fuckers don't get.  The reason that they don't get it is because they live in their own little world where only they are what matters.  As long as they're getting theirs, then they don't care.  But they fail to realize that if they are getting theirs, then so is everybody else.  It would be a cataclysmic implosion of our economy.  It wouldn't fix anything.  You're just making a lot more problems.   
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: AUownsU on August 04, 2013, 07:42:36 PM
Exactly what I was thinking.

If you bump minimum wage to $15/hr, this country will fall apart with a quickness.  Gas would probably be $7/gallon.  A gallon of milk $8.  The price of literally everything you buy will go up exponentially.  That's what these fuckers don't get.  The reason that they don't get it is because they live in their own little world where only they are what matters.  As long as they're getting theirs, then they don't care.  But they fail to realize that if they are getting theirs, then so is everybody else.  It would be a cataclysmic implosion of our economy.  It wouldn't fix anything.  You're just making a lot more problems.   
Not saying I agree with these dipshits but I'm gonna need someone to explain to me how minimum wage rising will affect oil companies so severly that gas prices will double? Pretty sure noone working on a rig, driving a truck, or working in a refinery is making minimum wage.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Kaos on August 04, 2013, 10:07:06 PM
Not saying I agree with these dipshoots but I'm gonna need someone to explain to me how minimum wage rising will affect oil companies so severly that gas prices will double? Pretty sure noone working on a rig, driving a truck, or working in a refinery is making minimum wage.

Cost of goods and services they rely on will go up. 

It's a simple concept.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: GH2001 on August 04, 2013, 10:11:36 PM
Not saying I agree with these dipshits but I'm gonna need someone to explain to me how minimum wage rising will affect oil companies so severly that gas prices will double? Pretty sure noone working on a rig, driving a truck, or working in a refinery is making minimum wage.

Last time I checked those guys don't sell the gas at spectrum. But the cashier that works there, the stocker and possibly others in the supply chain I would imagine make minimum or close to it.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: GH2001 on August 04, 2013, 10:13:13 PM
Disagree.  That $3.35 I made (minimum wage was 3.15) is roughly equivalent to $6.50 now.   

I didn't STAY at that rate either.  I didn't consider it the acceptable standard for raising a family. 

If they want to adjust it a little, sure. 

But you go blasting it up to $15 and the whole thing collapses.

Bolded. Dead on.
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: Kaos on August 19, 2013, 06:39:58 PM
Amazingly, this completely sane and rational explanation comes from Cracked.com

Quote
Now surely this can't be argued: The world governments and economies are full of exploitative, corrupt practices that somebody could stop if they just had the balls.

For instance, you may have heard that there was recently a nationwide strike by fast food workers demanding a doubling of the minimum wage. That's a perfect example -- if the minimum wage is leaving people impoverished, why not just raise it? Because politicians won't stand up to the evil corporations, that's why! It's the same reason they won't just ban the big-money special interests and lobbyists that are corrupting democracy. In a perfect world, if oil prices are too high, the government would stand up to the greedy oil executives and force them down! The fact that they could do it and choose not to is a perfect reason to get enraged, damn it!

And I agree -- nothing curls my fist tighter than finding out that somebody is screwing the rest of us by gaming the system. Like the recent news that hospitals conspire to mark up dirt-cheap aspirin by 1,000 percent, or that banks secretly jack up the prices of commodities like aluminum. Can't somebody just put a stop to this kind of price fixing? If there is plenty of something, it's immoral to jack up the price. It's like the evil tycoon in Total Recall forcing people to pay for oxygen. Shove that asshole out onto the surface of Mars and make his eyes explode!

But, well, here's the thing ...

Unskilled workers are also plentiful. If your only skills are in customer service jobs that anyone can do with one day's training, then you, as a worker, are as plentiful as oxygen. Because this resource (unskilled, mildly motivated workers) is plentiful, the people who pay for it (employers) expect it to be cheap (low wages).

Of course, if your resource is more rare (say, if you are a top-notch software developer), then they expect it to be more expensive and will pay accordingly. So the only way for people with unremarkable "plentiful as oxygen" skills to get paid significant money is, you guessed it, by engaging in the same price fixing you just hated the greedy bastards for -- either by having the government intervene and artificially set the price higher (i.e., a minimum wage) or by the sellers of the resource grouping together to set the price higher against the buyer's will (labor unions). And that practice suddenly becomes OK when it's done to our benefit.

And no, please don't bombard me with links advocating a higher minimum wage or tell me I've lost touch with the working man due to my hundreds of dollars of fart monster money. I totally want a higher minimum wage. A certain amount of price fixing is a good thing, whether you're talking about the price of labor or aluminum, and capitalism only works when everybody is strongly advocating for their own benefit.

My point is that you can apply this to anything. Want to ban the big-money special interests and lobbyists from government? Fine, just know that environmental and gay rights groups are among those lobbyists who'll be banned. If we prevent the evil oil millionaires from buying political ads to advance their agenda (i.e., getting "big money" out of elections), we also have to prevent the weed legalization groups from buying theirs. Wait, you didn't mean the practice should just be banned for people who disagree with you, right?

So once again, what looks like inexcusable corruption in the system turns out to be the side effect of other people having access to the same awesome stuff you do, only they're using it to advance an agenda you don't like. Trayvon Martin's killer walked because the standard for convicting someone is intentionally set high -- something you will be thankful for if you're ever accused of a crime.

Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: AUChizad on August 19, 2013, 06:48:32 PM
Amazingly, this completely sane and rational explanation comes from Cracked.com
Nice. From David Wong. Author of John Dies at the End.

Link to the whole thing, which is one of the best blog posts I've read in a while.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-reasons-news-looks-worse-than-it-really-is_p2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CrackedRSS+%28Cracked%3A+All+Posts%29
Title: Re: Fight For 15
Post by: RWS on August 21, 2013, 10:32:21 PM
Last time I checked those guys don't sell the gas at spectrum. But the cashier that works there, the stocker and possibly others in the supply chain I would imagine make minimum or close to it.
It doesn't even matter if they're making $10/hr.  The new minimum would be $15.  So everybody would have to make at least that.  And you're right, everybody in that supply chain isn't making $15/hr presently.  Not only would the cost of nearly everything go up, alot of people are going to lose their jobs as well. 

Some may think that it is hyperbole to say that the country would collapse upon itself if $15 were the new minimum wage, but I really think that it would.