Raising Minimum Wages is stupid

Woohoo for the minimum waged people.. Now people like me who make more than minimum wage won't have as much value to my dollar. Not only that but prices will go up everywhere.. This lowers the value of the dollar and doesn't do jack **** for people like myself. You raise minimum wage only to shortly have prices rise to. So whats the point in raising minimum wage? Theres no real good point. My Pay won't go up because of it and yet i'll have to fight with higher costs..

Thank jesus for raising the minimum wage (Sarcasim)..

Stupid mofo politicians..

You're complaining because we're getting more money?

I understood. I don't see the sense in your argument.

Had minimum wage was to stay the same, prices would go up and we'd be getting paid the same wages, meaning it'd be harder for us to acquire whatever items.

However, as prices are going up, we're getting and increase on minimum wage that way we make more money so we end up breaking even, like you said.

So what the **** is your argument!?

The current minimum wage is not liveable. You can't get by on it. People who are forced to live on it also get foodstamps and state funded health care. That costs us money too.

[quote=Fei-on Castor]The current minimum wage is not liveable. You can't get by on it. People who are forced to live on it also get foodstamps and state funded health care. That costs us money too.

That's true, but what he's saying is that the new minimum wage is also going to become not liveable due to price increases.

therefore, i believe random should stop whining and learn to manage money

You're wrong, Random. You would've been partially right in 1975, but the nearly automatic link between rising wages and inflation has been effectively broken by 30 years of economic reforms. Rising wages are not the cause of inflation, the impact will be negligible.

The effect of lower-end labour costs on inflation is minimal these days. Demand-pull (people want to buy lots of things, unemployment is low, prices go up) is the primary cause of inflation in the modern developed world, not cost-push (costs of production go up through higher wages or oil prices or whatever, prices get raised to compensate).

Average real wages in the USA have scarcely risen since the 1970s, to claim that a small and overdue rise in the minimum wages is going to be a cause of crippling inflation is perverse business-lobby propaganda. The primary culprit is continued high consumption, ie, demand.

14 MILLION people are in POVERTY or are HOMELESS because minimum wage laws don't provide a liveable wage. Not working full time, not even working overtime. "Waa prices on things will increase". No, they won't. You know why? TAX INCENTIVES will go away to punish companies who gouge.

Random, get a fukken clue before you post stupid **** on this forum. You have a right to complain, sure, but when you're being a moron, you can just shove it.

If you're what being conservative is about (ie: fukking over 14 million people) well you sure have a lot to be proud of!

Wow ok Arwon a few months after Minimum Wages go up and prices do too then we'll probably discuss this again. Corporate companies retarded. They're not going to dish out more money and yet not raise their prices. They wouldn't dare lose a nice sized profit. Businesses exist to make money. They don't intend on handing over money without raising some prices.

Trust me on this.. I mean I could be wrong and companies could go and lose millions over it.. What do I know? I don't seem to have any common sense what so ever rofl...



Oh wait I still don't see why "I" and other Middle Class people who make more than minimum wage shouldn't be ****ed. I mean hell.. The value of the dollar is now less.. So my paychecks are really worth less.. Splendid!


Miso.. Yeah I understand its hard for people to live on minimum wage. Don't get me wrong.. Thats why you find a better job.. I mean why not? Sure it sucks but raising the minimum wage will raise prices.. Not everything will rise right away but it'll come and then they'll raise minimum wage again someday only to prove that it didn't work before.


I've gone through some hard financial times trust me, but I find ways to live. If it meant getting another job working 13 hours a day 7 days a week or if it meant doing simple errands to make extra cash on the side it was done. People can survive on minimum wage or at least adapt how to. I don't see why we have to destroy our economy for something that won't make a significant difference if any difference in the long run.

I liked the part where Random completely ignored Arwon's posts with speculation and "trust me"s and then that was it. I make more than minimum wage, but I don't get some jealous stick up my *** when joe schmoe at mcdonald's can afford to put more than 5 dollars' worth of gas in his hoopdee. It's cool. After law school I'll look at random down the barrel of my nose and hope he gets impovershed into a crack house or something. Because then I'll be better than him, and can call anything that benefits him stupid. That'll be neat.

Oh for f*cks sake Random, learn some basic economics or shut the hell up. Firstly, prices rise anyway. America's annual inflation rate is something like 3 or 4 percent. EVERY YEAR PRICES GO UP. THAT'S INFLATION.

Hey, guess what? Australia has REGULAR MINIMUM WAGE INCREASES every other year or so. Business lobbies scream about it and the f*ckwits in governments talk doom. We have a much higher minimum wage than America. And our economy is stronger than yours in many ways. We have a lower unemployment rate, much less of a "working poor" and things are going alright. A rising minimum wage does not destroy an economy. Now, if it was hiked to like 40 dollars then that would do damage, but incrimental increases roughly in line with basic cost of living and inflationary expectations are not a bad thing.

Will an incrimental minimum wage rise push prices up excessively? No. I'm not in the US so I haven't seen, but I'm assuming "WAGE RISES WILL RAISE PRICES" has been a Fox News/Republican Party/talkback radio talking point recently. It's good politics, because if you appeal to the traditional middle class fear of the poor like that you can get them to forget about page boys and wartime incompetence and corruption scandals and stuff.

At any rate, the idea being presented is attributing way too much influence to wages and totally misunderstanding how markets work. Firstly, wages aren't the only cost. Follow this carefully: WAGE COSTS ARE JUST ONE COST AMONG MANY. For example, oil costs are rising far far faster (as are liability insurance costs), they are a far bigger influence over prices than the cost of minimum wage employees. Wages have gone up a few percent in a decade. How much have oil (and thus transportation and manufacturing expenses) costs risen in this time? Which is the bigger pressure on companies?

Secondly, you're acting like "companies" are one big conspiratorial group plotting to screw you over. What're you, a f*cking communist? I love this, I'm lecturing the "conservative" about how markets work and why companies don't set out to be evil.

One word: competition.

Companies act as individual entities. Not as a single group BEING EVIL AND OMG SCREWING YOU OVER. When company A raise their prices, they become less competitive. If company B decides not to raise their prices, they become more competitive versus company A. Companies balance the need to cover costs against the need to be competitive. In an environment where there's OMG LOTS OF COMPANIES they can't all decide to raise their prices simulteneously because markets don't work like that (and there's laws against collusion like that), those that do raise them excessively will get out-competed by those who don't.

Only in an environment where all wages and prices are set by a single central body will a rise in wages be automatically transmitted into equivalent inflation. This is kind of what happened in the 70s when more centrally determined prices and incomes created the wage-price spiral that occurred.

Some companies will have slightly increased production costs as a result of having to lift their human resources budget by a few percent. Some will choose to defray those costs with price rises, others won't bother. Some are for the wage increase, because employees who can afford to feed, house and clothe themselves are healthier and work harder and thus more productive (and if this company knows their competitors all have to raise prices too, it means they can get this increase without losing relative competitiveness).

These incremental price rises won't wipe out the gains by the bottom end of the labour pool. They won't "ruin the economy" or any of the other baseless dramatics you've been screaming about. Price rises might eat a small percentage of the gains (inflation eats a few percent of the value of a dollar each year anyway), but they won't wipe the gains at the bottom out. That's delusional propaganda by a business-dominated poor-hating Republican party.

As for the whining about gains at the bottom end making your pay worth less relative to them, that's just tough sh*t. You're not worried about your dollar being worth less, you're worried about the poor you consider yourself so superior to being raised closer to your level. Every post you make drips with contempt for those at the bottom and maybe a touch of the classic "middle class" fear of the poor. That's what galls you. So tough sh*t.

If you don't like your working conditions, get a new job, or go join or form a union and lobby for your own bloody price rise. Grow a spine. Go be a self-helping individualist capitalist free market loving conservative, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and stop blaming the government for your problems. *** I hate the whinging middle class false sense of entitlement. Suck it up. You sure love telling the poor to cop it on the chin, so stop being a hypocrite.

I'm going to let you know right now you've made me angry, Random. Why? Because you're being blantantly stupid, almost vulgarly so. Now, I will do a bit-by-bit (shit-by-shit?) analysis of why you're wrong.

Seems unfair to keep minimum wage static if prices go up. Thats just the final insult of someone getting minimum wage anyway.

I make $6.50 an hour PLUS commision, and still i have to live at home. If I wanted a place of my own, I'd have to get at least one more full time job.

The current wage is unliveable.

Michigan's minimum wage just went up recently. Our prices are yet to be affected. A minimum wage increase isn't going to do anything other than cause some possible lay-offs, not mass inflation for all companies paying minimum wage to its workers.

Stop making threads in here, Random.

I make thirty bucks an hour and still hesitant to get my own place, simply because the cost of living is insane in the parts I want to live. I can't imagine what it's like for someone trying to live on seven dollars an hour.

Boner, when every country in the world experiences inflation it's far less of a big deal because relative values are still approximately the same. Inflation is not, in itself, a bad thing because money has no inherent value, but only relative value.

[quote]The overall value of the dollar is falling, and has been for many years. So many different countries rely and depend on the USD (U.S. dollar) holding its value. Many things, including gold, silver, and oil, are measured in $US. How much longer will this be so? Not much, is my best guess.

Actually, it's a common misconception that a strong currency is good and a weak currency is bad. It's more complex than that. When a currency is too strong, your exports are less competitive. Your trade deficit rises. This is the reason countries like China keep their currencies low instead of floating them--better for exports. The "strong US dollar" policy was unsustainable in many ways, and what exactly is wrong with a system where the currency floats freely on international exchange markets?

Also:

[quote]Raising the minimum wage helps nothing! It creates a mere illusion that thinks will be better for those that see the increase. Higher wages lead to higher exspenses for a company, which leads to them having to charge a higher price for goods and services to maintain a profit. This will either end up in higher costs for the consumer (remember, minimum wage earning people are consumers too!) or OMG STEALING OUR JOBS

Does nobody read my posts? Didn't I just point out that Australia has minimum wage rises without increased inflation levels? Didn't I just point out why this idea is flawed because of markets of competing companies, and the impact of other costs of production and stuff? Sure, you're going to have a fraction of the gains wiped out by inflation, but the erosion of wage value happens anyway and even with an inflation rate of 10% (a ludicrously high estimate) 90% of the gains from a wage increase still remain.

In economies that have natural inflation, ie, ALL OF THEM, regular incrimental minimum age increases are a must. What alternative, exactly, are you kooks proposing? Let the wages erode into oblivion?

And oh ***, not the "furriners are stealing our jobs" thing again. COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE you selfish prats. Go do the things you can afford to do. And while you're at it, drop those bloody farm subsidies so you stop screwing up the third world.

I couldnt take Arwon's post seriously because of the first word. HA HA!

Hah.

Here's a good link for you, Arwon. And, yes, inflation is bad. It is very bad and highly dishonest. And almost everyones' brain is programed to think it's "ok". I know of no currency in the history of man that was not backed by gold and/or silver that have survied, nor the economies that used them. Keep in mind that the world currencies used today are still fairly young by comparison. These is still plenty of time for them to disolve.

[URL="http://www.gata.org/node/4466"]http://www.gata.org/node/4466[/URL]


Oh, and...

[URL="http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1162170540.php"]The US Constitution and honest money.[/URL]

Edit: Oh, and one more thing! I know of no savings account, beit CDs, bonds, or otherwise, that keeps up with the rate of inflation. Hence, the value of our money, even when earning interest, is going down hill.

Since it seems like the common trends are "Hate random for spouting ignorance" and "Get angry because Random hates the poor," I'll add a few cents (maybe less, with taxes taken out) from the point of view of those crazy "legalize the sidewalk" (this still strikes me as funny, partly because its true) libertarians (read: I'm not saying I completely agree with them).

From the beginning, we have been looking at this from the point of view of "the many," so to speak. That is to say, the impoverished who need more money to make ends meet. But when I was reading each parties' platform (as I always do before arguing any issue) the Libertarians brought up an interesting point that I hadn't even bothered to think about. That is: what about the people who run the businesses whom the minimum wage is imposed upon? According to them, (The libertarians) the minimum wage is an unfair infringement of the business' right to operate as they see fit, and that the free market would regulate what fair wages are. Now, to some of you, this may just show that libertarians know nothing about economics, but before you jump to such conclusions, consider that they have a point. Now if you're somebody who believes in doing the most good for the most number of people, feel free to disagree, but I believe (and I think this is one of Random's points) that everyone should be taken into account when considering people in general. The point that I thought the libertarians had, was that the people who run the businesses are people too, and they have to be considered when passing a law. Is it too much to ask that a company pay a decent wage that can be adjusted to help people make a decent living? Perhaps only in principle, but I do also agree that there would be at least one company out there who would pay decently if the government took its hands off. It comes back to what Arwon said: Competition. As long as one company in the area pays decently, all the other companies will have to raise their wages to a decent amount to compete with the others. Ideally, this would occur until it reached a point that the businesses could no longer afford to pay their workers any higher, and people would make more money for their jobs. Of course, I'm not sure if this would happen, seeing as the free market has never been given a chance to operate on its own, without government interference, but what the hell, I'm not even saying I completely agree with the libertarians on this one.

If you are a utilitarian or socialist of any sort, and didn't find any water in the previous arguments, another point I stumbled across while looking up the topic quite a while ago, was the idea that increases in minimum wage could reduce overall employment. I can't explain it as well as this site: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mert2049/politics/blair-minimumwage.shtml so I won't attempt to.

Alright, time to be made a fool of by Arwon's evil, evil logic.

*Braces self*

**** you U.S. history; prove me wrong no more!

Why is inflation inherently bad? What special value does money have that you can say "this banana is rightfully worth $1" ... the concept has no meaning because the value of that dollar only exists relative to real tangible things, things like rents, wages, the costs of other goods, and so forth. Money has no intrinsic value except as a medium of exchange... if both prices and income go up by a few percent, it basically evens out.

Oh ***, you're one of those gold standard kooks.

Le sigh.

Currencies backed by the gold standard collapsed in 1929. The post-war Bretton Woods System backed by the gold standard collapsed in 1971. The gold standard is certainly not foolproof.

An internnational Gold standards system such as Bretton Woods has been shown to be unstable, and if you're propising returning to the Gold Standard in one country, a fixed rate of exchange and fixed money supply, this creates massive problems. It means fiscal and monetary policy is really really inflexible--you certainly can't protect yourself from inflation and depression elsewhere in the world, and you can't increase money supply in times of downturn to stimulate economic growth. The tendency, then, is for downturns to be intensified.

Moreover, belief that the Gold Standard provides currency stability requires the belief that money supply is the only cause of inflation and thus to prevent inflation you only have to limit supply of money. Which isn't true. Or rather, its consequences in terms of massive recessions and austerity measures and so forth, aren't worth it.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that the US currency as basis for reserves and as an anchor currency is flawed, but returning to a system of fixed exchange rates decreed by governments and set in terms of gold is not a good idea. Countries retaining gold as a hard liquid asset--that seems like a good idea, but tying money supply to those assets? Nah.

I agree with you up until:

Well, sort of. We actually do have some public housing here. It's crappy and the neighbourhoods are mostly a bit scary, but we do have it.

Broadly though I'd argue that when you're talking about government interventionism you have to take each situation for what it is, do a cost-benefit analysis (that's why I disagree with libertarianism as an ideological ends in itself but I find the perspective quite valuable and useful as a means). Weigh up the level of imposition, the amount of coersion and limits to freedom required, the practical benefits, the side-effects and consequences. One difference between those two examples is you're involving tax-payers in the case of the latter. Whereas the point of the minimum wage basically involves protecting people with little negotiating power from exploitation, not just "giving them money". I mean, they still have to find and hold a job, don't they?

Are you talking about national public debt, or private debt? Because you seem to be talking, rather interchangably, about both the federal debt and about household credit debt. I'm not gonna argue the federal debt isn't an issue, because it is, but it's not insurmountable. Countries such as Japan are in far more debt. Australia used to be in a great deal of public debt, a decade or two of budget surplusses has pushed it down. With any luck, a less feckless congress will begin to reduce the US debt as it did under Clinton.

As for household debt, again, that's an issue, but it's not going to destroy the economy. We've got the same problem here, the Australian household is a net borrower, because interest rates have been too low for too long. It'll probably bite a LOT of people in the arse when interest rates get too high for them, but then, that's just what happens.

In either case, inflation occurs even in economies without significant public or private debt levels. Funny that.

"Inflation is created essetially by one sole thing....THE PRINTING OF MORE MONEY!"

No, it's not. You posted a link to the wikipedia article about inflation, try reading it. Money supply is not, in the end, the sole cause of inflation. Inflation is the percentage increase in the cost of things versus a standard baseline year, and in the end, that is not affected only by the money supply. Why do you think the main measure of inflation is the Consumer Price Index? Why do you think people worry so much that rising oil prices will push inflation up? That's an increased cost, that gets transmitted, in part, all over the economy. Hell, if printing more money was the main cause of inflation in 2006 America, why do people think increasing the minimum wage and thus pushing production costs up, will push prices up? Minimum wage has nothing to do with money supply, after all.

Again, if inflation is so awful, why is it that all the world's major economies including the US at 2.7% (and China at 1.5%) have inflation rates between about 1% and 4% CPI change per year? Why does virtually every government and central bank shoot for a target of between 2 and 3% inflation? Could it be because that's about what seems to be healthy?

****... all this logical and passionate debate going around and I've only found out about it now. This makes for good reading material, chums. Keep it up!

Do what Aioros does. Steal money. Then you dont need to worry!

Yay a Democrat agree's with me. The Middle Class is going to get screwed over this!

The Lower and Upper class will stay the same and the middle class will become the new lower class.

Basically prices will go up (Because business's like earning money) when they have to pay their workers more. So with that other things such as gas and other utilities will also rise. While Minimum wage goes up, the people making more than minimum wage who work for business's will get screwed because their company won't pay them more because they're still above minimum wage and they won't have to worry about it.

THUS SHOWING THERE ARE INTELLIGENT PEOPLE STILL ALIVE..

THIS WONT HELP.. ITLL HURT THE MIDDLE CLASS, HURT THE ECONOMY, AND MAKE LESS BANG FOR OUR BUCK..

kk done

So go get a better job.

Like I said, um, TAKE AN ECONOMICS CLASS, then come back here and see if you can argue your stupid banter.

I like how even thought its been shown that raising wages=/= raising prices, he still keeps yelling it like its true.

TRUELY YOU ARE A MASTER DEBATER, SIR.

Random, read Arwon's previous posts on this matter, I believe he addressed the raising minimum wage = raising prices thing.

My only point at this time is that even if we raise the minimum wage, it's still not a livable income, and if we raised it to a point where it is a livable income, companies would either have to fire employees/reduce hours or fold. Businesses (or at least the one's I know of) usually pay their workers based on a percentage of the profit they make. If the wages of workers suddenly went way up, and the profit stayed relatively the same, companies would probably reduce the hours that certain workers work at the very least, to stay competitive.

Basically, it boils down to this (in my mind): If companies suddenly have to pay their workers a LOT more, they will probably start firing employees or reducing the hours that employees work, thus not decreasing poverty (this would probably actually increase the number of people who are jobless, or at the very least, not increase the amount of money made by minimum wage workers). If, however, it is a small increase, the minimum wage is still unlivable, and thus nothing significant has really been accomplished.

*Cue Arwon to come and make a fool of me*

ARE YOU RETARDED? IT HAS ALREADY BEEN PROVEN, WITH REAL WORLD DATA, THAT YOU ARE WRONG. THE ENTIRE NATION OF AUSTRALIA HAS YEARLY WAGE HIKES, AND YET THEIR INFLATION IS NOT ANYTHING LIKE THE RAMPANT NIGHTMARE YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. UNLESS YOU'RE GOING TO TRY TO TAKE THE POSITION THAT ALL AUSTRALIAN COMPANIES ARE NONPROFIT, YOU NEED TO SHUT YOUR ******* MOUTH AND GET A NEW ARGUMENT, YOU STUPID ****ING SACK OF ****. JESUS ****ING CHRIST, ARE YOU SERIOUSLY THAT ******* DENSE?

@ Random: Not only are you the "retard", but you're obnoxious too. You're uneducated in a complex subject and you think that wages paid is the primary factor in determining what things cost. And you hate the poor, which is a pretty weak basis for an argument.

So, uh, go fuck yourself. You lost this argument pages ago. Stop trying, idiot.

edit: ninjitsu in here.

ok.. sure you win.. Companies will lose millions over this and they'll be fine with that. mmmhmmm ok good job guys..

i'm not saying its impossible but highly unlikely. Unless the government pays companies the difference in profit.. Oh wait.. as a nation we're already in debt..

HOW IN THE HELL ARE COMPANIES GOING TO FIX THEIR LOST PROFIT? EXPLAIN SOMEONE?? HOW WOULD PRICES NOT GO UP? YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THE RICH WILL LOSE MONEY OVER THIS? I DOUBT THATLL SLIDE REAL WELL..

Prices will go up. Idc what you say. It won't be right away, but it'll take a little bit of time to change once companies realize their not making the profit that they once did. Thusly the middle class will be screwed.. So explain how the companies won't raise prices mk?

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/06/the_minimum_wag_1.html

http://www.examiner.com/a-376994~Max_Borders__Five_reasons_not_to_raise_the_minimum_wage.html

Yay read the second one.. I lol'd coz its true... Especially pointing out kids who are going to college. I'm around that age range and we make stupid mistakes because we simply dont' know any better. We're not yet wise enough to realize whats right and whats wrong. That'll hurt many in the long run.

http://www.examiner.com/a-376994~Max_Borders__Five_reasons_not_to_raise_the_minimum_wage.html

um yeah.. Small business's will fail.. Like my uncles.. Its a small business and it'll flop. He's afraid of that and i'm sure it'll hapen. Its a sad truth. Hes owned it for so long. Its truley sad to see his company go downward because of this bull****.

Large companies can raise prices to offset this but still doesn't help the Middle Class man who makes more than minimum wage. Why would companies pay them more if they don't have to? They simply won't. Thus they will be harmed by the raise. So wouldn't the middle class go downward and perhaps fall into the lower class? So basically we will have more poor people than before. Thusly we fixed nothing and only hurt the economy. Oh and like i've been complaining I'LL HAVE LESS VALUE OUT OF MY DOLLAR AND ITLL BE HARDER FOR "ME" TO GET BY. I have a right to be ****ed.. If you don't care then **** you..

What about the high school kids? Theres a grocery store down the road from me that is 90% high school kids and 10% high school drop outs that deserve to be there because they gone and F***ed up.

Kids 16-18 years old can easily fill that. Thats why you see so many young workers at McDonalds. The kids that don't have to rely on money because daddy and mommy still pay for them. A lot of minimum waged workers are the kids and its fine to keep it that way. Like I said they've got mommy and daddy.

And Arwon.. Why should I get a better job? Why don't these Minimum Waged people get better jobs if its a free market eh?

Why would anyone work "MINIMUM"?? Thats so downgrading. You should always set a higher standard for yourself.

Its disguisting that we'll have a lot Middle Class workers who'll be screwed over this so people think they're making more when in all reality after a few months of paying them more, prices will rise faster offsetting what was even DONE!

Hmmm so how much more is the Euro worth nowadays? I might just move away because our Economy is going to ****.

Oh one last thing. Don't give me that bull**** that they can't find "BETTER JOBS" because there are a ton of jobs out there. Bush has the best Jobless rate of any president EVER! So I don't want to hear any B.S.

Oh and besides computers and robots are starting to take over simple jobs like McDonalds and your local grocery stores so whats it matter?

Oh and one last rant.. I know I keep going.. If companies have to pay "us" more, they'll just keep sending their jobs over sea's where they can pay some Mexican, or Indian, or hell even a Bengladeshian to do our work.

So I say suck it, and suck it hard..

"And Arwon.. Why should I get a better job? Why don't these Minimum Waged people get better jobs if its a free market eh? "

Yo do realize that what you are saying is essentially, "No, im not being a big baby, YOURE being a big baby. Go cry baby!" and then, when someone tells you to stop being a big baby, you cry. ****ing moron, if its so easy for them to get a better job, why the hell dont YOU get a better job? See the double standard there? If the middle class is getting screwed over so much then suck it up and work to become upper class. Stop being such a hypocritical pussy and just shut the hell up. You have no valid argument, and even the resident conservative here (bj, for the record) thinks you're such a ******* moron that he would rather have a racist moron back than deal with you.

jesus ****ing christ, trying to get loigic into your head is like trying to talk to bebop.

oh *******it, **** you. you made me break a post down. thats the first sign that this thread is over. you've been proven wrong, case closed,, please, dear *** someone shoot me. i just cant stand to let someone stand around and be so stupid, but trying to educate this faggot is really starting to **** me off.

Guys, it took me days to outline the fact that Xbox was a commercial and financial failure and selling a couple million more units than Gamecube doesn't count as kicking it's ass when it loses 4 billion dollars. If he couldn't understand something as terrifyingly simple as that then there's no way in hell he's gonna get this.

My warning seems to have worked!

I like how he thinks that a few anecdotes cancels out the existance of the entire nation of australia. Sorry, Arwon, but since random knows some people who agree with him, your entire nation not only is wrong, but apparently doesnt work the way you think it does!

its cute, really.

Somehow, I don't think that Wal*Mart can support itself without paying it's employees dirt wages. I mean, they only makes millions of dollars in net profit daily, and billions annually. And the poor, poor Walton family, attempting to survive on just $20billion dollars each. How do they do it?

Even if I were to buy everything I wanted I dont think I'd top like 50 mill.

BOOHOO ONLY 20BILLION

Random is the worst capitalist ever.

WOW YOU GUYS STILL RUN AROUND WHAT I SAID..

NOT ONE OF YOU ANSWERED ANY OF THE QUESTIONS..

GOOD JOB..

OHH WOW IT WORKED IN AUSTRAILIA..

Oh i'm sorry Spam, this isn't austrailia. The economy is completely different. They don't have as many companies or even anything that matches ours. So saying "IT WORKED IN AUSTRAILIA, ITLL WORK HERE" is like saying a guy from Russia has just as big of a Penis as someone in Italy because they have the same mom. Ain't gonna happen.

So til you guys show evidence of it actually working, I technically win because I show more harm than you guys can show help.

Ninja'd~!

Wheres the debate at? C'mon guys.. You guys have slacked. You silly liberals are all trying to rally together and call me an idiot but you can't seem to answer questions. Its rather funny.. You remind me of your democratic politicians who raise our taxes and do jack **** for us =)

I did say some prices would rise, this is what happens when costs of production increase. But I also said A) Prices rise anyway, this is natural inflation, B) Price rises wouldn't wipe out the gains for minimum age earners made with a rise in minimum wages, C) Incrimental rises in minimum wage don't have a very large impact, D) Not all prices would rise everywhere in the economy as a result of minimum wage rises (how does minimum wage affect petroleum prices, for example?), E) The impacts on overall inflation levels (and thus, the value of a dollar) would be fairly minimal, and F) Higher wages will also continue to rise gradually as they always have done.

You haven't offered anything to contradict any of this, just a lot of socialist ranting about evil companies and the enriching of the elites.

As for people on fixed incomes.. well yes, that sucks. Welfare payments like pensions, unemployment benefits and so forth should be indexed to the CPI so when costs rise, their payments rise too.

Also, you know nothing about Australia, much less Australia's economy, so shut the f*ck up on that front. Our economies are broadly comparable in structure, and we tend to follow the same trends in things like inflation and interest rates. And beyond that, we're not comparing every facet of the two economies, simply the relationship between minimum wage levels and inflation.

Finally, can you just clarify that you do, in fact, understand the concept of inflation and CPI and how when you talk about price rises, that's what you're actually talking about?

Oohhh Feisty are we??

So you admit fixed incomes will be hurt? Point goes to me for that...

Well i'm sorry, comparing Austrailia's economy is nothing like comparing ours. That'd be like comparing apples and oranges. There are some similarities but also some differences.

Prices are inflating. More than just a couple bucks here and there. For instance, i've been eyeing up a camcorder at wal mart that just went up $50 a few days ago. Tis a shame..

This isn't about my friends agreeing with me on what'll happen.

My uncles small business will go under because of it. Thus is a problem. Other business's will follow and crash and burn hurting the small companies/business's agreed?

More jobs will soon go over sea's. Why pay Joe 7.25 an hour when you can pay Jafar 2 bucks an hour in Bengladesh?? The company can live with paying $5.15 an hour to Joe Shmoe but not 7.25... Agreed? Or else that'd be stupid that the business would just take a slash in profit.

Its a problem when my grandmother who's 70 has to work because she has a fixed income and prices will raise..

I really don't care if you guys think prices won't go up much because they are. They've started going up and they'll keep going up.

To counter it, companies will simply spend less making their products or jack their prices. Either way we lose. Maybe McDonalds can shrink the size in their burgers for the 5th time in the last 10 years.

Still no one answers my questions on the middle class..

I'm disappointed you guys aren't keeping up with me ^_^

Inflation in America is about 2.7% CPI increase. That's completely average among the 30 or so OECD countries (ie, the rich countries). America is nothing special in this regard.

You say that "They've started going up and they'll keep going up" but this is, well, dumb. PRICES HAVE BEEN GOING UP BASICALLY FOREVER. As I said, inflation is generally about 2 or 3% annually. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Consumer_Price_Index_US_1913-2004.png]HERE IS A GRAPH[/url]. The blue line is "prices" and the red line is "how much they increase from year to year". See the steadily but gradually rising blue line showing a gradual price increase since the early 80s? See the red line hovering fairly steadily? Tell me, based on that, what has changed to alter this so dramatically?

You're right that inflation levels are probably going to increase, but this is basically because oil prices have been rising and they're an incredibly big influence over prices because oil prices are involved in so much of the economy. Not only transport, but everything that gets transported, as well as things like manufacturing of plastics, fertilisers, chemicals, and so forth. If you're looking for the big inflation threat, stop looking at workers being given a raise to help them live in at least a somewhat dignified manner, and start looking at things like petroleum prices. They're the things having a global impact. Tell me, if price rises in America were only caused by local issues like the minimum wage laws... why would it be that all rich countries are worrying about increasing inflation right now?

You're also bringing in totally different issues in a general sort of uneducated "man the economy is going to hell" style doom-mongering. The nativist outrage at outsourcing of various types of jobs goes far beyond the minimum wage issue. If you wanna compete with Bangladesh in the areas where they have comparative advantage (cheap manufacturing, I guess), you're going to have to ditch a whole lot more than just minimum wage laws.

Likewise, the growing gap between rich and poor (what you so quaintly call "harm to the middle class") is an issue far far greater than simply minimum wage laws and blaming them for this 30 year international trend is obscene. To argue against that is, to some extent, to argue against the very concept of an unfettered market economy. If you wanna do that, be my guest, but I think you might have to turn in your Conservative badge at the next meeting.

[quote]Well i'm sorry, comparing Austrailia's economy is nothing like comparing ours. That'd be like comparing apples and oranges. There are some similarities but also some differences.
Did you not read his post? Even if there's plenty of differences, minimum wage and price fluctuation isn't one of them. The differences aren't going to compromise the similarities between price and minimum wage.
[quote]Prices are inflating. More than just a couple bucks here and there. For instance, i've been eyeing up a camcorder at wal mart that just went up $50 a few days ago. Tis a shame..
There's very little inflation here in Michigan. Does that make me right by just saying that? No. Just giving an example of a price change isn't going to mean anything unless you can prove the cause.
[quote]My uncles small business will go under because of it. Thus is a problem. Other business's will follow and crash and burn hurting the small companies/business's agreed?
Your uncle sucks if he can't run a business well enough to pay off employees and gain reasonable profit. Ever hear of Social Darwinism? The economy's not going to crash because your uncle can't manage a business to deal with these situations.
[quote]More jobs will soon go over sea's. Why pay Joe 7.25 an hour when you can pay Jafar 2 bucks an hour in Bengladesh?? The company can live with paying $5.15 an hour to Joe Shmoe but not 7.25... Agreed? Or else that'd be stupid that the business would just take a slash in profit.
Most small companies don't do business outside of the country. You're being too broad. The effects aren't as wide-spread as you're trying to say.
[quote]To counter it, companies will simply spend less making their products or jack their prices. Either way we lose. Maybe McDonalds can shrink the size in their burgers for the 5th time in the last 10 years.
Ah, it's the apocalypse! A $.75 raise in minimum wage is going to cause all businesses to raise the price of their products $5 and severely reduce the quality! You don't realize how dumb you sound.
[quote]I'm disappointed you guys aren't keeping up with me ^_^
I'm dissapointed in Jesse for not allowing us to put blog mods on ignore.

If you having to get a second job is such a bad thing, then what of the people who are stuck on minimum wage for whatever reason? why should THEY have to get second jobs etc? If its unfair for someone to force you to work harder, its unfair to force them to work harder. How can you not see the hypocrisy in that? Are you really that blind or are you just doing the neocon "ignore anyone who ****s my arguemnt to hell" thing again? I noticed you also chose to gloss over me pointing that out previously, so I'm just going to assume thats what it is.

Since you're not paying attention anyway, I might as well talk about whatever the hell I want. I choose dirtbikes. Dirtbikes are really freaking fun. I love riding around in big open cowfields, doing jumps and whatnot, and sliding around turns whiling leaning in. And now, I type out an insult as the last sentence since most people only read hte fierst and last bits anyway.

You're a retarded neoncon *******, complete with the contradicotry viewpoints and immature arguent methods. I hate the fact that you are what has come to represent the conservative party of this nation, and am sicked when you liken yourselfs to past republicans (some of whom were actually pretty badass). I am consoled only by the fact that you are too petty and retarded to ever be able to affect and great change, an wish you a slow and uneventful death of mediocrity and isolation.

@ Random:
NO, NO, and NO!
I'm not sure why the concept is so lost on you, but prices are not going to increase anywhere near that dramatically because of a minimum wage increase, you ****tard. Why? I'll explain:

COMPAINIES MAKE MILLIONS/BILLIONS IN PROFIT ANNUALLY. And because idiot consumers like you won't be willing to pay a few more cents on the dollar to support a minimum wage increase, these companies will cut the loss by reducing their bottom line - or, in otherwords, their huge profits will be taking the hit more likely than prices increasing several percent like your doomsday theory would have us all believe.

For example, take China for example. They barely even pay their labourers, and they live in mediocre conditions. South Korea, on the other hand, has a highly skilled labour force which happens to be unionized and very well paid. Yet, if you were to buy a car from either of the two countries (currently Chinese cars are not avaible in the US, but they are in Mexico), for a similarly equipped model, a Chery (Chinese manufacturer) car tends to cost about as much as a Daewoo or Hyundai (both South Korean). It's not just what they pay labourers that determines cost, it's a myriad (a lot) of different factors. And you'd have to be pretty stupid to think you're going to see $50 price hikes due to minimum wage increases, especially since most stuff you buy is made in China anyway.

I like how Random's just totally ignored most of what I've said about the actual history and current situation of inflation, the impact of petroleum prices on prices, and the fact that inflation wasn't just invented this year with minimum wage increases.

That link you showed, Random, it's not talking about the minimum wage by itself, it's talking about the folly of automatically indexed wage rises, which I'll happily agree with because they've historically been a very bad idea.

Now you're bringing in rostering disputes? Jesus. $50 camera increases, manufacturing outsourcing, the fact that your job sucks... what won't you blame on minimum wage at this point? It sounds like you have far deeper issues with the capitalist system... you should stop blaming it all on this one law.

i agree with random, because if ur making minimum wage and are complaining about it, get a better job. if u can't get one, go to a community college, work hard, live in ur car or a box for a while if u have to, and nail a higher paying job. it just will affect all of the people that are working hard and the worth of everyones dollar will go down, even the money of the people with minimum wage. it might be so bad that they r actually making the same worth of money even after the amount is increased.

[quote=Lord of Spam]So now we know that random knows nothing about economics AND genetics. w00t.
Clearly it's the result of being inbred.

I'm just going to stop talking to this stupid boy. He can call it defeat if he wants, but I'm pretty sure everyone's given up on the possibility of him absorbing any sort of logic and rational thought through his thick skull.

If you all want to continue going in circles, you may, but clearly learning through repitition isn't something Random is capable of, so it's pointless.

[quote=Anti-Muffla]i agree with random, because if ur making minimum wage and are complaining about it, get a better job. if u can't get one, go to a community college, work hard, live in ur car or a box for a while if u have to, and nail a higher paying job. it just will affect all of the people that are working hard and the worth of everyones dollar will go down, even the money of the people with minimum wage. it might be so bad that they r actually making the same worth of money even after the amount is increased.

The idea is no one should ever have to go through that in the great country known as the USA, you total, total imbecile.

Hey guys, Skitzo here, just to tell you that I'm working a minimum wage job in California ($6.75 an hour, 20 hours a week) and am able to get by with what I need: rent, food, and utilities. This minimum wage hike coming up in January (to $7.50 an hour) will be mostly irrelevant for me, because my rent is being hiked up along with it. That extra dollar I make an hour will be negated by all but $30 a month from rent and utilities hikes.
---
What I mean to say is that, much like the use of Enzyte and other natural "male enhancement" pills, individual results may vary. Although my life working at minimum wage works out alright, it may not work for others. Also, this raise in minimum wage may help some people, and others it may not. Look at your bar graphs, your political debates, your half-flaccid penis all you want, but none of them tell you what's going on better than living in it.

Random, your dollar will not be worth less. You, as with most of the so-called "middle-class" (which, by the way, is a self-delusion: there's no such thing as a middle-class in America, anymore), will be mostly unaffected. The inflation that could possibly come with this minimum wage hike will be negligible, at best. Your argument has been debunked, man, and that's all there is to it.

I should point out, if we're telling personal details here, that I'm actually working below our equivalent of minimum wage ('award' conditions) at the moment, because I get paid under the table and its better for me than taking a job the tax office knows about (if I had to report this income I'd lose part of Youth Allowance, the student welfare payment, at the rate of 50 cents on the dollar).

If I didn't have my Youth Allowance payment (and it's a b!tch to qualify for) and a small bit of help from my parents that lets me buy food other than instant noodles and frozen vegetables, there's no way I could afford to A) live in Sydney or B) study at university.

yo Misoxeny,
Just because i'm helping Random, doesnt mean I think he's right, I just think he needs some help because you all are ganging up on him. You dont have to believe in the devil to play devil's advocate. Please don't take that word for word, and give me more bad rep. then I need.

lol don't let the Transexual (Miso) get to you. He-she is just a fagggg..

Its funny.. I didn't realize VGC was full of Communist Rat Mothers..

Raising minimum wage will raise prices while you'll have the middle class making less value.

Geez I wish there was a way I could make a bar graph.

Ok i'll try to work with the best that I have.

Pretend "A" stands for the lower class in which they make, and pretend "B" is what the middle class makes. Pretend the dotted line at the left is where it starts and the line on the far right is where it ends.

(Before the Rise)
Here we have the lower class. Seems small right?
A) --------|

Here we have the Middle Class
B) --------------|

Kay now theres 8 little dashes for the lower class and 14 for the middle class.

Now you raise the pay in the lower class but KEEP IN MIND PRICES HAVE RISEN and the middle class has no or an insiginicant amount increased in pay.

A) ----------| Kay now theres 10

BUT!

The Middle Class
B) ------------| now has 12

Seems like a victory for the poor right? Well a loss for the middle class..

Whats really going on is one side is going to decrease while the other increases til equal pay is amongst both. A communist value none the less.. Equal pay.. hmmmm Geez..

Oh just so you know guys, i'm not too big on Communist theories. Not to mention it didn't really work for the Soviets.

ok folks lets do some reading shall we!!

http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Enc/Reaganomics.html

Reagan was the mofo man! He was a true conquerer of the Economy.

Fun Fact: In a lot of states, you can make more by going on welfare, than by having a full time minimum wage job. If I were in that predictament, and people like Random were trying to prevent me from being able to have a decent livable wage, I think I'd just want to say screw it and go on welfare instead. Then, those same people could call me lazy and a burden on society! But I'd just say "well you know what? I would have been happy to go out and work hard instead, but you don't want me to even be able to make a living wage, so this is how it's gonna be. **** You, and enjoy having my welfare taken out of your taxes!"

[quote=Random]
Logic? Read my last few posts. Read my other posts. I prove more harm to it. I even show more FACTS and you guys gallop around your Communistic traits.

Going in circles? I've even added more. You guys stopped adding more long ago. I've been proving a lot more..
Christ, shut up. You aren't proving anything. You've just repeated "but my uncle" and made up your own statistics. What do you do when you see actual evidence? You ignore it, like you have through this whole thread. Insulting people and ignoring logic and proof isn't going to make you right and apparently that's all you can do.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba499/

If you guys wanted proof, why don't you look it up to make sure that your own arguments aren't bull****?

Sorry, but one study rattling off the textbook arguments against minimum wage laws doesn't prove a thing, as there is absolutely no consensus among economists about the effects of minimum wage laws. If I had the time and inclination I could find you ten economics papers arguing these things you've just linked to, and then ten economics papers arguing the exact opposite.

For example, for, every study claiming that minimum wage causes unemployment there are others saying there is little to no correlative relationship, let alone a causitive one.

...

I do think though, letting politicians and citizen referendums decide the minimum wage level is the worst possible way of doing it. It'd be far smarter to have an independent body set up to set the level based on submissions from labour groups, governments and business groups.

That graph was shown on the right hand side of the web page.

Wow, this thread is still going?!? Actually, I'm kind of glad to see that. In my earlier posts in this thread, I hit on the topic of inflation, only to be ridiculed by uneducated people. I think my favorite argument that I read was how creating more money isn't the main cause of inflation. My second favorite was when someone mentioned that inflation isn't bad. Well, I found a great video clip that I'd like to link here. It's about 40 minutes long. It really is quite informative. But, if you aren't going to sit through the whole thing, you may as well not even bother.

[SIZE="3"][URL="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-466210540567002553&q=money%2C+banking%2Cand+the+federal+reserve"]Money, banking, and the Federal Reserve.[/URL][/SIZE]

Heh.. I doubt they'll be posting again.

Owned shall I say?

So which is it, Boner? You can't have it both ways. In the contemporary First World, is rising prices thanks to increasing demand and costs of production (oil, wages, insurance premiums, whatever) the main cause of inflation or is it printing more money leading to currency devaluation? If it's the latter, why is there inflation in virtually all countries even beyond the reach of the insidious Federal Reserve? Do they all pursue the same policies? Wouldn't it make more sense that given the international impact of inflation, to say that the culprit must be internationally based (or at least independent of any specific national policy or economic characteristic) as well? If it isn't rising demand that's a significant factor in inflation, why is inflation generally higher during periods of high growth?

Second, if low-level inflation (refer back to my graph of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Consumer_Price_Index_US_1913-2004.png]US CPI changes[/url], particularly post-1980) is so horrendous why is it that virtually every advanced economy in the world shoots for (and mostly achieves) an inflation rate of between about 1% and 4% CPI increase a year rather than zero? Could it be, shock horror, that the price of zero-inflation or deflationary policies massively outweigh the benefits of "money not being worth less"?

Wow, Arwon give up. We've shown more bad than good and you keep ranting on and on. You can't even defend anything we've been saying. There's obviously two sides in which neither will give in.

Actually no, Boner's largely arguing something different to what you're arguing, and you've pretty much given up doing anything except saying the same hysterical and things over and over again and using words like "pwned".

Actually if you'd read all of my posts you'd see i've mentioned many different points on why its a stupid idea. Perhaps you should do some reading. Not to mention when any of us post an intelligent argument you tend to talk around it and say it wouldn't affect us.

The more people get paid, the more money they will spend.

Wal-Mart might have to pay 8 dollars an hour, but guess what it will lead to? That's right, people who make 1.25 more per hour than they used to, spending their extra cash at Wal-Mart. The average American is not very good at saving their money.

Overall, it really won't have a such a huge effect in the long run.

It's not really "extra cash" when businesses have to raise the price of products and services they sell in order to pay their employees.

Yes, it largely maintains the status quo in terms of the real value of one's pay, and helps minimum wage earners to keep up with (or catch back up with, given how long it's been since it was raised) the real cost of living.

Which is the f*cking point we're making.

Yeah except for the fact that raises unemployment and encourages people not to receive a full education (high school and college).

[quote=Captain Cleanoff]Minimum wages have been the same for the last 5 years or so here in California, though, and inflation has moved far faster than the minimum wage. If anything, the minimum wage is merely catching up - In the short term, some companies will lay off employees or raise prices, but in the medium term, they will sell more products total, and in the long term, the same scenario will happen again in the next 5-10 years.

I... actually admit defeat in this matter. You win.

It's a requirement by law, that an employer adjust your hourly pay, to increase based on the current minimum wage. You only have to request about "if" it will happen. To see people *****ing and arguing over the concept of recieving more income with their paycheck, it's ridiculous. So, jobs will downsize to make up for the lack in budget due to the wage increases. Companies have been doing this for ages, it's the way of the better business.


[quote=Random]Heh.. if you want to help the poor, you might as well help me. I'm on my way to becoming poor with the motion of the raise already.

Tsk Tsk.. Grand.. We'll have even more poor people.

Well, then we initiate a Soylent Green procedure.. Yes, some of you will have to eat the poor, to conserve the costs of producing other foods.