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Poverty Solved!!

by T-Mex Friday, Nov. 08, 2002 at 2:47 AM

Its so simple.

Why a minimum wage?

Why a "living wage"?

Why not a statutory "affluence wage"???

Yes, why don't we just pass a law today saying "no one may be paid less than 0,000 per year"?

Then every working American would be wealthy. . . every sanitation worker, every bus boy, every life guard on the beach, would all be wealthy.

Why don't they do this in the Sudan, for Christ's sake? Why do they put up with abject poverty there instead of just passing an "affluence wage law"?

Hmmmm. . . maybe its not that simple.

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uh, i'll take the bait

by G-mex Friday, Nov. 08, 2002 at 9:01 PM

You must be joking. Nobody with half a brain thinks having a higher minimum wage is about a bus boy making 100k a year. Of course a solid education should enhance your worth in the market. What minimum wage is about is people being fairly compensated for what they do. A hard day's work should be enough to live on. Get it? And if the 10% wealthiest own 90% of the wealth, you'll have a hard time convincing me that they couldn't afford to pay out just a little bit more to their workers. You know, workers... the people who worked hard to generate all that wealth in the first place.

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OneEyedMan

by KPC Friday, Nov. 08, 2002 at 9:04 PM

It is not that he is joking, it is that he is a joke.

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Lemme splain

by T-Mex Friday, Nov. 08, 2002 at 10:00 PM

You say:

What minimum wage is about is people being fairly compensated for what they do.

What is "fair compensation"???

What is the fair value of an hour of your time?

Who should decide that?

Fair is what a willing buyer will pay to a willing seller.

If you are willing to sell an hour of your time for a penny, and you can find someone to pay you for that. . . god bless you.

The Left doesn't like that though. . . they think THEY should be in charge, and THEY know better.

History, as you are finally starting to learn, has shown otherwise. (Amazing how you can trivialize the murder of millions of peasants!)

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Just shut up and pull the trigger T

by 48 Friday, Nov. 08, 2002 at 10:47 PM

>What is "fair compensation"???

>What is the fair value of an hour of your time?

>Who should decide that?

Apparently, the barrel of your gun decides that, T. The government decides that with National Guardsmen and stuff like the Taft-Hartley Act. Unwilling sellers stop working and demand fair wages and working conditions, according to their ideas of what would constitute fair, and suddenly troops appear and poor workers die and eventually the factory is up and running again and not much changes for the workers. Funny how that works--whether you're in America at just about any point in its history, or in the Soviet Union. Funny how it works the same whether you call yourself a Soviet communist or an American capitalist.

In any case, what do you care about what's fair T? You, and those who "buy" labor, have no need to care about fair, because your "free" market is padded with all kinds of goodies like laws and interpretations of laws that favor YOUR idea of "fair compensation," and weapons and troops to back those ideas up when others don't agree. Why bother talking about fairness or about "who should decide that" when it's obviously much easier to call in the troops and just shoot the motherfuckers into working for YOUR idea of what they should be compensated?

Being in charge: Most of the people I know on the "left" (whatever the fuck that means) seem to express the view that no one should be in charge of anyone else, T. Not me, not you, not Stalin, not Bush, and not all the rest of the chimps with the guns who insist that THEY know better.

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an observation

by greenguy Saturday, Nov. 09, 2002 at 12:22 AM
ont

a person with great work habits and who is indispensable to the job is an employers nitemare. I know I'm one of them workers(electronicstech).

Mainly because they Must pay what the worker is worth!

For most others, i think it's a cat&mouse game, and we know which one is the cat.

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48 - Once your done

by T-Mex Saturday, Nov. 09, 2002 at 1:17 AM

with your 1984 fantasy, why don't you check into reality?

The Union Advantage in Pay and Benefits

Union Workers Earn More

Wages and benefits for the average union worker in the private sector totaled .80 an hour in March of this year, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

http://www.uaw.org/publications/jobs_pay/01/0901/jpe05.html

Sounds like a nice middle class life to me. . . not the Jungle!

(Oh, and by the way, these guys can work OT. In France, the people in charge decided that's illegal!)

And, if you don't know what the "Left" is. . . maybe you need to start (re)thinking your politics.

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OneEyedMan

by KPC Saturday, Nov. 09, 2002 at 1:20 AM

...my god, SheMex...you get more and more lame with each post...that classifies as your most arrogant non-answer yet...

...I thought you were at the pinnacle of lameness...keep surprising me

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Just to remind you

by T-Mex Saturday, Nov. 09, 2002 at 2:59 AM

insulting someone is very different from refuting him.

You do the former prodigiously, that latter not at all.

(I'm also rather shocked at your very sexist use of the term SheMex as an insult. . . in my world, calling someone a "woman" is not an insult. In yours, apparently it is. Yet another reason I'm glad we live in such different worlds!)

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Stop joking!!!

by G-mex Saturday, Nov. 09, 2002 at 3:19 AM

You're killing me with your ignorance, T!

"If you are willing to sell an hour of your time for a penny, and you can find someone to pay you for that. . . god bless you."

Wow. Are you trying to equate a free market with fairness??? If so you've been brainwashed! And for the record, just because two parties agree to something doesn't mean the agreement is fair. That penny salary, in America today, is clearly NOT fair.

"Amazing how you can trivialize the murder of millions of peasants!"

Are you trying to imply that raising a minimum wage is the cause of murder? What's the logic here? Is the logic that those poor tomato farmers won't be able to stay in business because they won't be able to afford to harvest their crops, and the people that they couldn't afford to hire will starve?

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say. Are you trying to say that America setting up a sweat shop in some third world country and essentially enslaving the workers is not a bad thing?

And lastly (though there's much more wrong with your arguments...) "Union Workers Earn More".

Well, yeah, that's true. Many Union employees do make good coin. However, since we're talking about minimum wage here, that's irrelevant. The fact is that it can be pretty difficult to live on minimum wage. Pardon me for thinking that, if a person puts in a hard day's work, he/she deserves to be able to pay rent and eat a healthy meal, and probably to have health insurance. Are you saying that a hard day's work shouldn't be able to provide for all that when CEO's make millions per year?

Anyway, if you want to drag Union wages into the mix, fine with me. 1. Union workers who make 25 dollars an hour are by far and away the minority for the "worker" job sector. That's why those jobs are so sought after. 2. If you have a good job and aren't the boss, you have quite a bit to thank Unions for. Like, your vacation time, your sick leave, your health insurance, and other benefits. But those things were accomplished because the government didn't meddle in the affairs of the workers. Bush's invocation of the Taft/Hartley is against the principle of negotiation. So go ahead and oppose Unions if you want--when your cute little compensation package vanishes into thin air, you'll have yourself (and not some evil boss) to thank.

Have a nice day, and try not to think about the people half way across the globe who are daily beaten down to support your consumerist lifestyle.

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G

by T-Mex Saturday, Nov. 09, 2002 at 11:36 AM

Everyone who disagrees with you is brainwashed??



You ask:

"Are you trying to equate a free market with fairness??"

A free market is the very essence of fairness. Anyone who fails to understand that does not understand what a free market is.

Let me help you in that regard.

(But first, you misunderstood my reference to the dead peasants. . . you might have to go back and read earliers posts to get it.)

Thanks again to Walter E. Williams:



What or who is the market?

very day, we hear something about markets. Your 6 o'clock news anchor might say, "The market had a bad day." Last year, Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan talked about the market's irrational exuberance. I guess now he'd say the market has irrational pessimism.



In college, your professor might have told you that the market can't be trusted and that's why we need government. Your politician might preach, "Who gets prescription drugs shouldn't be left up to the market." A civil-rights leader or a feminist might say that the market is racist and sexist and possibly homophobic.



Here's my question: Who is this guy we call the market? If he raises so much havoc in people's lives, shouldn't we find a way to make him behave? If we're going to straighten out this market guy, we should start first by identifying him.



Suppose every single American just went about his business every day, kept his money in his pocket and had absolutely nothing to do with the stock market. Would the stock market be exuberant or pessimistic? What would a news anchor say the market did today? My guess is the market wouldn't do anything. In fact, the stock market wouldn't even exist.



You say, "What's your reasoning, Williams?"



What we call the stock market is literally millions upon millions of independent people around the world making independent decisions.



A simply put example is this: I think or guess AT&T shares will rise in price, so I want to buy a hundred. Somebody else might think or guess that AT&T shares are going to fall in price, so he wants to sell his 100 -- but there's a big problem. I don't know where he is, and he doesn't know where I am. No sweat. There are specialists who, for a price, get us together so we can make the transaction. We call him a stockbroker.



Schoolteachers are more important to society than professional basketball players. The fact that professional basketball players earn more money leads some people to condemn the market for not having the right priorities. The reason why professional basketball players earn more money is both a result of reality and decisions made by millions of decision-makers.



The first reality is the number of people with skills to do what Michael Jordan does is far smaller than the number of people who possess teacher skills. The second reality is that Michael Jordan's personal contribution to the benefit of society far exceeds the personal contribution of an individual teacher. The third reality is that millions upon millions of Americans want to see him play and cough up big bucks to see him do so.



What we call the market is really a democratic process involving millions, and in some markets billions, of people making personal decisions that express their preferences. When you hear someone say that he doesn't trust the market, and wants to replace it with government edicts, he's really calling for a switch from a democratic process to a totalitarian one.



An excellent example is when people demand that government confiscate the earnings of wealthier Americans to give to poorer Americans. Michael Jordan is much wealthier than I, but whose doing is that? It's decisions made by millions upon millions of people who prefer to fork over their money to watch him play basketball. I'd be just as rich if they were willing to do the same to watch me play. When someone condemns Jordan's earnings, they are really condemning the voluntary decisions made by millions of people.



Tyrants always condemn and seek to replace the market process with government coercion because tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrants think they should do.

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unions

by red-baited Saturday, Nov. 09, 2002 at 4:59 PM

how does the invocation of the taft hartley act against the ILWU fit into this free market as democracy framework? is that not the essence of government coercion and interference? after all, they are halting a negotitiation between buyer and seller.

isn't it democratic if a group of workers reach a concensus, decide to form a union, and demand better working conditions? what is so wrong about workers combining their bargaining strength? they're only determining their own worth on the market. it can be seen as an entirely capitalist venture. wanting more money for less hours worked is something any business owner would want and the same goes for a dockworker.

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Bravo, T, but you still don't get it

by G-Mex Saturday, Nov. 09, 2002 at 6:51 PM

I'll pass on reading previous posts to understand your reference to dead peasants. But I'm glad it wasn't as simplistic as I thought it was. As for your explanation of free markets, here we go (like I said, brainwashed)!

First, I want to congratulate you for (pretty much) getting the definition of free market pretty much correct. It's not through what you have said, but rather through what you haven't, that your definition missed the mark.

In keeping with the topic of this thread, which you initiated, and which seems to be against minimum wage, let's go! A free market, if left entirely to its own devices, will result in some poor folks and some rich folks. Fine. I agree with you that some people deserve more for what they do than others.

BUT fairness to me implies that a person's hard day's work will reward him/her with enough to eat, pay rent, and perhaps pay health insurance. Please tell me how it's fair that a person work for 1 penny an hour in America while that person's boss makes millions a year.

You say that "Fair is what a willing buyer will pay to a willing seller." But that's a warped statement. Suppose for sake of argument that you were wrongly placed in a prison and this guard walks over to you and says "you can take it up the ass and live, or you can choose not to and die". Would that be "fair" just because you agreed to take it up the ass? In the same way, the person who works for minimum wage does not have much of a choice. Work, and scrape by, living in some wretched apartment eating wretched food and not having any health insurance OR don't work, and become homeless and spend a lot of time hungry and forget about health insurance. Well, you're probably gonna take the shit job. That doesn't make it fair.

That's why I say you're brainwashed, because you buy into the line that it's fair as long as two parties agree to it. Well, America used to have its wealth controlled by a few people (with much more wealth than Bill Gates even), and the workers got treated like third world slaves (even if they DID agree to work in those conditions). That's the free market for you, and it's the regulations we have in place, like minimum wage and the existence of unions, that keep things ever-so-slightly better here in America.

There--I just said what you didn't in your cute little free-market treatise, and I think that combining your statement and mine, we NOW have a fairly complete and "fair" definition of the free market.

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To BA

by G-Mex Saturday, Nov. 09, 2002 at 7:04 PM

In typical fashion of an ignoramus, you generalize. Not ALL unions are corrupt like that, and even if they were, that would not prove that unions suck. Don't overlook what unions have given us, and don't neglect the fact that some things can be decent even under corrupt leadership (look at America and all those nasty Democrats!).

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my sentiments

by red-baited Saturday, Nov. 09, 2002 at 7:13 PM

my sentiments exactly.

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BA

by G-Mex Sunday, Nov. 10, 2002 at 4:11 AM

Let's think about that last statement of yours. "They are in the business of creating problems, not solving problems." Sure, there are quite a few parasitic union leaders--I'll give you that. But if they're in the business of creating problems, I'd like to know who they're creating them for. I mean, if your average union employee makes such a damned good salary (you can thank your buddy T-Mex for that statistic) then how can you say that unions aren't serving their members? If that were true, wouldn't union members be getting shit salaries and no benefits?

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don't be historically myopic

by G-Mex Sunday, Nov. 10, 2002 at 9:39 PM

Before going on to kick your logic to the curb, I'd like to point out that this thread began as a discussion on increasing minimum wage, and that it seems pretty clear to me that that's been settled--it's the right thing to do. Now, you seem to want to squabble about Unions, which is really irrelevant to the thread since their members make far more than minimum wage. Got it?

"In the short term Unions can aid workers by driving up salaries and benefits. The problem is that the union bosses, like sports agents, must continue to deliver more and more. That can only lead to excessive labor costs in the world market."

That increase in salary and benefits would appear to be a LONG-TERM benefit since Union workers still make good coin. Do you think those high salaries would stick around if Unions just disappeared? How naive. Does an excessive labor cost lead to jobs going overseas? Well yes, yes it does.

But let's not pretend that shipping jobs overseas is always fair. First of all, as I've mentioned above, and you've failed to refute, working for a penny an hour isn't fair in America, and last time I checked it wasn't fair in just about every country in the world. A hard week's work deserves enough money to pay for food and rent and, in my mind, health insurance--and that's not even considering taking care of other family members. Secondly, most of those jobs that went overseas didn't do so out of necessity (the companies were still making money). They went overseas out of greed--they didn't care about paying their workers a good wage, and they went somewhere where they could pay shit wages and not have to deal with Unions.

Now as far as I know, you are right on about the Merchant Marines. The labor went overseas, and people overseas were still payed decent wages. When two similar countries in different lands both pay good wages, and one goes under--that's comparative advantage that I don't object to. Of course, that's not Nike, which makes plenty enough to afford to set up shop here in America. That's not the Gap or the Banana Republic, which make plenty of money already.

I do object to shipping clothing jobs overseas, and it may be a harsh reality that that's the free market--once one company goes overseas and makes cheap products, the other companies are undercut on pricing and that's when they get backed into a corner. So when you say Unions made it too expensive, you're wrong--the companies were still making money and didn't have to go overseas. They initially chose to out of greed and flagrant disregard for the value of human life. Only then were SOME of the remaining companies forced into such a situation.

As things stand now, though, most clothing manufacturing jobs are already overseas, and most electronic trinkets manufacturing jobs are overseas--the minimum wage we're talking about here isn't going to send many more jobs overseas since they're already there. The minimum wage we're talking about now is mostly for retailers where the jobs CANNOT go overseas.

I don't expect you to care that the reason clothes are so cheap is because the people who make them get shit salaries and really can't afford a good meal and place to live. I don't expect you would be willing to pay just a little more for some clothing that was made WITHOUT oppression of some 3rd world citizen.

You just go right ahead, and be a good little consumer, and revel in your cheap goods. Don't worry that you have a hand in the starvation of some poor worker halfway around the world.

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