Re: Oh my Gawd! Carly!

all of these things can, and do, happen. AIUI GuangZhou is the slave labour capital of China. Pentiums have been stolen in armed robberies, and lets not forget Enron et al.

Cheers Terry

That strikes me as an odd description of the above. How do you define "non sequitur"? Do you take it to mean "any statement I disagree with"?

It sets the lower value that can be placed on any human labor. That is the floor.

It therefor is worth something.

There was no need to agree to those treaties. BTW you are repeating yourself when you say "international law". International law is a set of treaties.

If you see what I said above as insane you either (a) have a very interesting definition of insane or (b) are your self without reason.

Most will. The myth of the lazy poor is just that, a myth.

The minimum wage improves the operation of the economy and thus improves the market in which the businesses live. When people who can't produce up to the minimum wage get an education or merely stumble on something they can do well enough to make at least the minimum wage, the economy improves. It doesn't just improve for the one person who found their calling it improves for those who can then sell them things and use whatever good or service they produce. The effect ripples out intothe economy in general.

[....]

Yes and that doesn't mean that we should make the taking of them by armed force legal. We will keep that as a crime just like we maintain a minimum wage.

You were living in a place with a minimum wage and "full time" didn't mean 80 hours a week. In the subsistence situation where it takes all of your time to get enough to feed yourself, you wouldn't have had the option of going to school.

society

Out of curiosity, Joeseph, how long ago was that?

It's pretty much impossible to pay for any regular four- or five-year college today working, say, 20 hours a week at near-minimum wage during the school year and 40 hours during summer. Hence, the vast majority of kids today who aren't getting financial support from their parents and aren't lucky and/or talented enough to find higher-paying jobs end up taking out loans and repaying them after college, at which point they're expected to have better-paying jobs.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is the way it is -- "higher education" today is much different than it was even 25 years ago, much less

---Joel

[...]

Why can't they? They could, at least, force everyone to accept minimum & no more (i.e., if indeed before they could force acceptance of less than minimum wage).

Following your premises, if companies have ultimate power to set pay, are hell-bent on increasing profits, and lowering wages increases profits, it follows that companies should actively lower wages to the legal limit: minimum wage.

Why don't we all get minimum wage then?

If the logic is sound but the conclusion false, the premises must be flawed.

Cheers, James Arthur

No they can't do that because the workers currently have enough income that doing things like moving to get a new job or even taking a day of work to go for an interview are practical.

No, they can't do that because the employees have the where-with-all to leave. You seem to have missed the part of the discussion where I made the analog with making a boat seaworthy so that the rising tide can lift it.

You are suggesting a conclusion based on a mistaken view of my logic and premises and then suggesting that it indicates that the premises is flawed. There is a flaw but it is in the addition premises you inserted.

I'm not convinced we're talking about the same people though--very few amongst us are actually unemployable. And, as we try to do good, we must not ignore that basic law: "Anything you tax, you get less of; anything you subsidize, you get more of."

Re: skills, I'm not sure what jobs will look like in the future, or that all of them will require enormous brains. We'll always need cooks and craftsmen and ironworkers and engineers (at least for the foreseeable future).

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution we've displaced and changed function after function, yet employment keeps developing and evolving. And people find meaningful ways to work & contribute.

Most recently we're turning away from factory and manufacturing work toward "service" industries. There's a world of things to be done out there, and a pressing need for zillions of people to do them.

And tiny businesses, getting started to do them, will always have to do a lot of things by hand--mail letters, fill boxes, process orders. Perfect entry-level work. Make that too expensive and you kill startups, favoring the established much-criticized mega-corps.

So those are my concerns.

Some people think, some people feel. Some of us try to do both.

Cheers, James Arthur

I was summarizing in presenting your premises, but trying to be fair. The logic was neither mine nor yours, but simply what follows from the premises.

ISTM that workers have ways of demanding their pay, and employers--who need workers--are forced to comply a) in accordance with the supply of such workers, the demand for them, and the value their work creates for their employers and b) by pure economics.

Namely, while you propose companies lower wages to increase profits, I propose paying sustenance wages decreases profits. Unhappy, unskilled, hungry, disgruntled employees aren't as productive. It behooves companies to pay more. So, mostly, they do.

You've shown above that workers *do* have the ability to demand pay, and have illustrated one way to do it--saving, giving you freedom, mobility, confidence, and choices. Another way is to simply work more. No one says you have to work 40 hours, or have only one job. There are many good ways.

Subsidies and social programs drive down wages, this I concede.

I have not understood how you feel the existence of a (low) minimum wage and a few workers receiving it in any way forces employers to pay almost everyone else considerably more. ISTM that, all by themselves, workers and employers do a pretty good job of sizing up jobs, and negotiating what they're worth.

(sorry for any typos--I've got a cat bashing my hands, swatting the mouse, and walking on the keyboard, demanding affection)

Cheers, James Arthur

People like us are lucky that we have skills that happen to be in demand now. Technology has made us enormously productive, so we can have comfortable lives. That same technology, which we build as well as benefit from, destroys some formerly respectable jobs. I don't think that a little income redistribution, properly applied, is a bad thing. Once kids get off the street and work a real job for a while, they may be one an upward path, both of material benefit and of feeling useful and integrated into the general world. If morons pass laws that kill entry-level jobs, by pricing them out of the productive range, said morons should consider subsidizing the minimum wage so it is a net benefit to society. As is, it's probably an overall loser.

I agree that most jobs and people adjust as technology pushes stuff around. But we ought to do something to create jobs for the minority who would become criminals (or parents!) if left alone. It surely costs more than $5.50 an hour to keep somebody in prison.

John

You add some of you own premises.

No you are assuming the lowering. My premise was to "not raise them above mere survival or subistance level". There is a sticking point at the bottom.

You are assuming that the amount of increase in "gruntledness" per dollar is more than the amount of increase that can be had by simply hiring another employee are the subsistance rate.

There is a dip in the curve. When you pay someone just barely enough for them to eat, they don't have the where-with-all to change jobs. If you increase slightly above that they do and thus a small increase causes your employees to leave looking for better conditions.

Remember we are talking of an economy with no minimum wage. This won't be our economy because this one does.

Workers at the subsistance level have no such choices.

If you are working all the hours you can just to eat you have no such option.

In an economy without a minimum wage many will have to work more than

40 hours.

You are actually wrong in this. You have concluded it somehow so please state your argument.

You are looking at an economy with a minimum wage to prevent a portion of the populace from getting stuck in the trap at the bottom. You are seeing a harbor where all of the boats are already seaworthy.

Consider what happens when some fraction of the populace is living hand to mouth and working all the hours they can just to do that. Then consider what would happen if you moved those same people into higher paying jobs where they were more productive. The economy will be on the average more productive. Those people will now start buying some goods etc also. This will raise the "tide in the harbor" and help you as well.

Stop now and give that cat the affection it is demanding plus some. You will find that once it feels that it has your attention for a while it will leave you alone. Besides it is your job to do that, just ask the cat.

The difference between cat and dog:

Dog: They feed me and keep me warm therefor they must be gods.

Cat: They feed me and keep me warm therefor I am a god.

For the same reason a teen living at home can work for less: economics. Someone with lower expenses can work for less.

People who don't pay taxes, people getting free food, healthcare, childcare, or any other of life's essentials can all afford to work for less. And usually will.

So then an employer can attract workers with a wage that usually wouldn't suffice. Quickly, everyone must sign up for the subsidy, thus confirming the need for it. A self-fulfilling prophesy.

Cheers, James Arthur

I was working overtime some of the time (and glad for the extra), made a damn sight more than minimum wage, and still had cash flow problems. I had other interferences and obligations as well. I did not let it stop me. It is an attitude difference, how well do you know any teens in your area? Do any of them have the kind of won't quit attitude?

society

It took from 1978 to 1992. Followed that with a semester of graduate school then work needs clobbered my time (lots of unpaid overtime, salaried position you know).

Have you noticed that blast of advertising for educational loans, the new "payday" loan program? It preys on a somewhat different segment of society.

I see no reason not to use the standard definition, the premises do not support the conclusion or, more literally, "it does not follow".

And what do you propose to do when that price rises above the typical competence of high school graduates? Or associate degree? Or bachelor's degree?

Only if it can be (economically) applied to doing useful work.

It actually extends beyond that to include "gunboat diplomacy" and "covert ops".

Perhaps my definition is unusual. It includes doing the same thing when the result is not the desired one.

You need to get out more.

Non sequitur, see above.

Non sequitur.

No, they do not even get a job at all.

What production, what income, they are unemployed.

People don't only consider what they can afford to work for when they decide what job to take. Those with skills, will not work for less just because they have lower expenses. When you are discussing people with a marketable skill and the freedom to select among jobs, it is supply and demand that determines the price of labor. Since a subsidy to a worker effects neither, the cost of labor is not effected.

For the extremely poor, the subsidy can increase the cost of labor because it give the poor person the option of traveling a greater distance to the job etc and thus gives them more power to demand higher wages.

When I was in school, my wife and I both worked at minimum wage jobs. All they would "give" me during the school year was 20hrs/wk, but if there weren't any classes I worked 40. My wife didn't go go to college until I'd graduated and making the "big bux" as an engineer (a little over twice minimum).

--
Keith

In that case I don't see how you can be making the claim that the premise doen't lead to the conclusion. The question was asked about whether or not minimum wage has a purpose. I suggested a purpose for the minimum wage. It is like saying "seatbelts are to keep you alive in a crash". It is a statement of the purpos of an item.

I'm cursing google groups for a lack of cursor. This won't be pretty but I will try to make it make sense.

That is like arguing against seat belts saying "what do you propose to do when the seatbelt wraps around the top of your head and covers your eyes so that you can't see". I'm not proposing raising the minimum to the point you describe just as I would not put the seatbelt over your eyes. Many things can be changed from good to harmful by changing some property of them. Minimum wages are no different from other things in this regard.

Even if it can't be applied economically to a task it is still worth something. A solid gold paperweight is still worth something as a paper weight. It also has a value for just being gold. The same can be said of the human eye.

[....]

The US has the biggest gun boats. Few others would go that route. Covert ops always exist but they are not "international law"

[...] >> If you cannot understand the insanity of that, there may be no point

You have not demonstrated that the result of the action is not a good one. You have only a conjecture to that end. Can you point to an experiment that shows that a country does better without a minimum wage?

[....]

I've been out. There are lazy rich people. There are lazy poor people. There are hard workers in both groups.

Still not a non sequitor see my comments above.

As I explained, they do get an education. You seem to want to ignore the point and call it a non sequitur so there is little point in my repeating the whole argument. You will find most of it still here.

On May 2, 6:11 pm, JosephKK wrote: [....]

You are proving my point. You were working in a place where there was a minimum wage and getting more than the minimum wage and were not living purely hand to mouth and not having to work all the hours you could just to feed yourself. You gat an education. Now reconsider what would have happened if you had had to work absolutely every waking hour just to get enough to feed your self. Would you have gotten the education, obviously not. As a result you would not be contributing as much to the economy.

You seem to have a low view of the youth of today. The elders ever since there have been written records have been bemoaning the laziness of the youth and yet there is no evidence of a long term decline.

society