Minimum Wage of $15

[B.H.]

My dream is for the government to tell places like Walmart to up their wages for their workers and not raise prices or the government would open up big box retail stores everywhere there is a Walmart or Target and pay high wages they won't and sell for cheaper than they could. Command economies can control inflation because they set prices, wages, and make the money used to pay wages. It's supposed to be about choice over here. Okay. Let us have the choice of a government owned and run retail chain and let's see who can deliver goods better, pay better wages and benefits, and have the best working conditions.

BTW, we rely on the post office to deliver our special orders now. We used to use privately owned companies to deliver but they always tore up our boxes or brought in stuff damaged. With the US post office doing our deliveries much greater care and respect is shown for our products and how the boxes are presented. Government run business is the winner. Privately owned business is the crap.

[Cootie Brown]

I think the minimum wage should vary according to location and cost of living. Minimum wage should be higher in places like New York and Hawaii. That just seems logical to me.

Supply & demand applies to labor as well as products. In areas like you noted in your post employers are forced to pay higher wages just to fill needed positions.

That is why a number of car manufactures have built large factories in the Deep South. These companies pay good wages and benefits for the area where they built, but they know they would have to pay a lot more if they built factories in higher income areas of the country.

It all tends to even out over time because these companies raise the standard of living in the areas where they build these new factories & thus the cost of living increases too. It's a never ending cycle.

[KLP]

Minimum wage needs to be $22 for fulltime and $12 for part time and entry level. And employee cannot be kept at $12 for more than 24months.

BTW, due to the nutso regulation of the USPS (the post office), Amazon is being subsidized to keep prices low. Amazon uses USPS for last mile delivery at a cost per package below cost to USPS. Many Hate on Walmart as convenient and easy virtue signaling...but will they really hate on the wonderful Amazon for the same things? Believe it or not, it is not easy to make a living as a contractor working in an Amazon warehouse.

http://fortune.com/2017/07/16/amazon-po ... e-subsidy/

[Cootie Brown]

Minimum wage needs to be $22 for fulltime and $12 for part time and entry level. And employee cannot be kept at $12 for more than 24months.

BTW, due to the nutso regulation of the USPS (the post office), Amazon is being subsidized to keep prices low. Amazon uses USPS for last mile delivery at a cost per package below cost to USPS. Many Hate on Walmart as convenient and easy virtue signaling...but will they really hate on the wonderful Amazon for the same things? Believe it or not, it is not easy to make a living as a contractor working in an Amazon warehouse.

http://fortune.com/2017/07/16/amazon-po ... e-subsidy/

I know you realize when wages are increased the price of goods & services also increase. McDonalds will willingly pay their employees $25 per hour as long as their customers are willing to pay $10+ for a Big Mac. At that point it becomes more cost effective to automate & eliminate employees.

As far as Amazon, Walmart, etc. the golden rule applies. Those with the gold make the rules. It's kind of like the government.....we make rules for the people, but those rules don't apply to the rule makers.

[agricola]

OTHER similar businesses pay FAR better than Walmart - and hire the same kind of people who do the same kind of jobs - and yet, those businesses still manage to be profitable to the shareholders. As to customer service, in a way, you get what you pay for: if Walmart pays a wage too low to actually live on, then why on earth should their staff CARE about that job, particularly, and strive to do 'better' to the customer?

But a person can only take a job which is available, and in some areas, Walmart is all that is available. Not every person has the wherewithal or interest in picking up and moving to a strange place, to work with strangers, away from family and all that is familiar. It certainly SOUNDS nice to say 'they should move to where the jobs are' but in practice that is not often an option.

I hear people say that 'fast food jobs' should deserve low pay for entry level because the workers are - supposedly - teens and young adults in college working part time - but that is simply false. At least half the workers in fast food - or a majority - are adults with families working, usually two full time jobs to get by, and trying to support an actual adult life on 'entry level' pay.

I am not necessarily in favor of '$15 minimum', mainly because different areas of the country have different economic situations. But when CEO salaries in the US average around 400 times more than the average of their employees, that's a sign that company profits are out of whack as to distribution. No other country has anything like that level of discrepancy - not even close.

And when employees see that THEIR wages haven't gone up in real terms in the last twenty years, while upper management levels have soared exponentially, it is very hard to pull the wool over their eyes and insist that they can't get a raise because of the economy. If they can't get a raise, how come upper management gets - relatively - 40 of them?

Somehow, there is a 'rising tide' that is only lifting the yachts, and not the small boats.

[tarheel]

OTHER similar businesses pay FAR better than Walmart - and hire the same kind of people who do the same kind of jobs - and yet, those businesses still manage to be profitable to the shareholders. As to customer service, in a way, you get what you pay for: if Walmart pays a wage too low to actually live on, then why on earth should their staff CARE about that job, particularly, and strive to do 'better' to the customer?

But a person can only take a job which is available, and in some areas, Walmart is all that is available. Not every person has the wherewithal or interest in picking up and moving to a strange place, to work with strangers, away from family and all that is familiar. It certainly SOUNDS nice to say 'they should move to where the jobs are' but in practice that is not often an option.

I hear people say that 'fast food jobs' should deserve low pay for entry level because the workers are - supposedly - teens and young adults in college working part time - but that is simply false. At least half the workers in fast food - or a majority - are adults with families working, usually two full time jobs to get by, and trying to support an actual adult life on 'entry level' pay.

I am not necessarily in favor of '$15 minimum', mainly because different areas of the country have different economic situations. But when CEO salaries in the US average around 400 times more than the average of their employees, that's a sign that company profits are out of whack as to distribution. No other country has anything like that level of discrepancy - not even close.

And when employees see that THEIR wages haven't gone up in real terms in the last twenty years, while upper management levels have soared exponentially, it is very hard to pull the wool over their eyes and insist that they can't get a raise because of the economy. If they can't get a raise, how come upper management gets - relatively - 40 of them?

Somehow, there is a 'rising tide' that is only lifting the yachts, and not the small boats.

You are missing the point. It is not our responsibility to raise the small boats. There will always be small boats and any attempt to raise them will only be temporary and inflationary.

While I agree there is disparity in the pay of a lot of the CEO's and the plant workers they aren't really to blame. It is the board of directors who write their employment contracts and sign off on them. They are apparently worth it to the owners (the stockholders) and their job is totally different from line employees. If you are not happy with what you are being paid, the company doesn't have a ball and chain around your neck. in a free market society there is going to be someone who might pay more but there is only so much that can be paid for a certain task to be performed. If you really want more, improve your skill set and make yourself worth more to your employer.

The other point I want to make is that is really none of our business what private business owners and public CEO's make. To be frank, the root of the interest is envy and jealousy. These are privately and publicly owned companies. If you feel that strongly about it, buy stock, attend stockholders meetings and make your point. Otherwise let the market control the outcome. The government has no business telling a business what it should pay it's employees. That is the company's job. A manager's job is to attract the best people possible for the job, pay what it takes to keep trained happy productive employees for each skill level required. Most often that includes profit sharing and 401K matching. That is the concept of a free capital market. An individual business will either survive or it won't.

[Cootie Brown]

Reality sucks, doesn't it? Excellent points Tarheel.

[B.H.]

Minimum wage needs to be $22 for fulltime and $12 for part time and entry level. And employee cannot be kept at $12 for more than 24months.

BTW, due to the nutso regulation of the USPS (the post office), Amazon is being subsidized to keep prices low. Amazon uses USPS for last mile delivery at a cost per package below cost to USPS. Many Hate on Walmart as convenient and easy virtue signaling...but will they really hate on the wonderful Amazon for the same things? Believe it or not, it is not easy to make a living as a contractor working in an Amazon warehouse.

http://fortune.com/2017/07/16/amazon-po ... e-subsidy/

KLP, I am sorry but your link will not work on my computer. Would you tell me how they are managing to get the subsidy? Is it because of a bulk discount perhaps?

[B.H.]

You are missing the point. It is not our responsibility to raise the small boats. There will always be small boats and any attempt to raise them will only be temporary and inflationary.

It is the responsibility of those on the bottom of the economic ladder to raise themselves up. That is a core belief of all Marxist Leninists. The Russians didn't sit on their asses and wait for communism to come to them. They took the initiative and built it to make their lives better. And regarding your point about raising small boats being only temporary and inflationary it is true only under a capitalist economic system. Under a socialist command economy run by the workers through elections to their local, state, and national soviets there is no reason for the raising of the boat to go down nor for inflation to eat the rising boat up. One, there would be no need to have certain parts of the workforce unemployed to prevent inflation. Housing and rental prices would be controlled in such a way they would not lead to inflation either. Also, those who may be out of work due to technology changes would be trained for new jobs with the training counting as a type of job until placed in their new positions. Also, since the government, reflecting the will of the workers, has the power to set prices and wages there will be no inflation in that regard either.

While I agree there is disparity in the pay of a lot of the CEO's and the plant workers they aren't really to blame. It is the board of directors who write their employment contracts and sign off on them. They are apparently worth it to the owners (the stockholders) and their job is totally different from line employees.

There are plenty of people in the past who have run large organizations and economic enterprises who do not make the killing these ceos and upper management make. Look at your monk and priest scholars, lawyers and doctors in the middle ages who did what they did for hardly any wages at all. Look at your factory managers in the USSR who were willing to run huge industrial enterprises and not make near what a factory manager here would make. The problem is attitude--these people were highly capable and intelligent people but they wanted to use their skills to make the world and better and more just place. We only promote people who want money into positions of authority. It is regarded as a form of security for the current system. Allow only the greedy and selfish to develop leadership skills and technical knowhow and people not like that will be scared to try to change things. The greedy and selfish ones with know how and in leadership positions will bluff and blowsmoke they will let everything fall apart if they don't get their way.

There is a way this bluff can be called effectively. It's been done on several occasions in the past and can be done again.

If you are not happy with what you are being paid, the company doesn't have a ball and chain around your neck. in a free market society there is going to be someone who might pay more but there is only so much that can be paid for a certain task to be performed. If you really want more, improve your skill set and make yourself worth more to your employer.

And improving your skill set won't do much if everyone else tried to also anyway. You know the more people able to do a particular job drives wages down in the current system. You made the comment earlier many will choose not do go learn a skill. My point is that while it may be true they won't it wouldn't do anygood if they all did anyway.

Markets are for people not people for markets. The people do not exist for the market. If you are not valued by the capitalist market you should choose an new way to do economic activity, the socialist market.

[B.H.]

The other point I want to make is that is really none of our business what private business owners and public CEO's make.

Sure it is. If their actions hurt us and make us go without it sure is our business.

To be frank, the root of the interest is envy and jealousy.

No, it is about the narcissism and psychopathy of business owners and leaders and how to get the great masses of people out from under their thumb of exploitation. I would not let a person suffering from hallucinations they were back in a war have a gun and I do not think narcissists and psychopaths should be able to hurt the great mass of people through their ownership of the means of production or any type of leadership position in society..

These are privately and publicly owned companies. If you feel that strongly about it, buy stock, attend stockholders meetings and make your point. Otherwise let the market control the outcome.

No, because the market will not fix its own failures and exploitations regardless of the best intentions of the person buying the stock.

The government has no business telling a business what it should pay it's employees. That is the company's job. A manager's job is to attract the best people possible for the job, pay what it takes to keep trained happy productive employees for each skill level required. Most often that includes profit sharing and 401K matching. That is the concept of a free capital market. An individual business will either survive or it won't.

Business has no right telling the mass of workers what their economic choices will be.

If your way of doing things is so great let it go up against a government owned and run enterprises and see how that works out for the privately owned enterprises. The government run enterprise will pay better wages, give a better service for less than your private company could, and before you know it run it out of town. You are all about choice. Well, let us have that choice. You wont because you know you would lose.