OK, Explain this to me Like I’m a Complete Idiot, Part VIII: Lowering/Abolishing Minimum Wage.

[HughBeaumont]

A popular political position among Republicans and Libertarians alike is to lower or abolish the Minimum Wage.

The current Federal minimum is 7.25. Some states have rates higher than that. 7.25/hour wasn’t an adequate wage in 1995, let alone 16 years later. Many Americans are forced to make do with just such a sum, thanks to 31 years of scorch-the-Earth economic policy.

So, astonishingly (or not so astonishingly, really), with so many Americans struggling to make ends meet and going into debt just to feed themselves, it’s naturally an appropriate time for Republicans to dole out one of their more head-scratching positions that they say will improve the economy – to lower, or even more hilarious yet, get rid of the Minimum Wage.

Now, I want you to plumb the depths of your inner, evil dark side. Spelunk, if you will, to the tar-black, rotted icy heart that comprises Republican logic.

I want to hear a rational and logical explanation, one that requires no drop in IQ points or empathy to understand, as to how saddling struggling, debt-heavy workers with an even LOWER minimum wage than they’re already bound by is going to somehow improve the economy.

(aside: You and I both know the real reason these pigs want to lower the minimum wage is to please their cheap-labor crony handlers so that they can get away with paying them 3, 2, maybe ONE dollar an hour. Or use it as an excuse to pilfer the never-ending supply of cheap and cheaper foreign labor. This is called “benefit of the doubt”. Play along.)

[TBF]

1. First they break the unions, lower wages follow -

the trick is that they are only improving the personal economies of the top 1% or so.

I'm glad some folks are waking up, but I'm still constantly amazed by the amount of union-bashing I see both on DU and in general. I am old enough to know it wasn't always this way.

[HughBeaumont]

2. I think this will sink without some clarification -

I want a Republican's viewpoint as to how this policy is FAIR.

I want to know how they go about convincing the people that this position is benevolent, helpful and a net gain for workers . . . in their language.

[0rganism]

10. Then you're probably looking in the wrong place

"I want a Republican's viewpoint as to how this policy is FAIR."

I'm not really qualified to speak on their behalf, my take is that it's as fair as unregulated capitalism itself. Labor would simply be treated as another commodity, subject to the same laws of supply and demand as any other resource or material. Also, minimum wages could be seen as a burden on potential employers who might hire additional willing workers to do a particular job for less than the regulated minimum wage were it not in place.

"I want to know how they go about convincing the people..."

Propaganda works, and it costs money to do right. The capitalists have the money and they've been doing it right for 30 years. Their task is made easier by only having to convince the authoritarian followers (aka the GOP rank&file) of the soundness of their position, as that will often give them elective pluralities in our apathetic nation.

"... in their language."

Oops. Sorry. Can't help you there. Try asking in Freeperville.

[HughBeaumont]

21. I'd probably have to go where they pass around the shared brain, IOW.

:rofl:

[0rganism]

36. welcome to the Free Republic, brain line starts over there

[WinkyDink]

3. Globalization! Competitiveness!

[HughBeaumont]

4. Yes, and what's the rational side of it?

How do they go about explaining that the way to compete against people making teensy wages is to pay American workers even teensier wages?

How do they sell that to the Factoid Following??

[WinkyDink]

5. Corporations will move HERE from Indonesia!

Hey, look; you really aren't expecting SENSIBLE responses to your queries, are you? Because there is no such animal.

[HughBeaumont]

11. Not so much "sensible", because yes, it makes no sense at all . . .

. . . What I'm looking for is "How does a Republican, with all of the Luntzes and Roves at his disposal, SELL this obviously stupid and poor-damaging position . . . to middle/working/poor people?"

See, the Repub wordsmiths have successfully turned most of their explicitly damaging domestic policies into attractive bumper-sticker-length slogans that an idiot with the brain of a first grader can lap up like an ice cream sundae.

How do you sell "We're going to pay you less, and since it's better for American business, it's going to be good for YOU. Trust us!!"??

[blindpig]

6. It is the capitalist's ideal

Pay the workers just enough to survive and produce children for the next generation of workers, anything beyond that is considered a waste of money. Mind that their idea of survival is quite minimalist.

[backscatter712]

7. It improves the economy... for the one-percenters.

The other 99% get screwed, of course...

And I'll admit, this explanation flagrantly fails the empathy test.

[valerief]

8. It's going to improve the .1%'s bottom line. That's the only thing that matters.

Making rich people richer is the most important thing in the world.

[ProfessorGAC]

38. ONly In The Short Term

For all his faults, Henry Ford was thought a lunatic by the monied classes when he started paying his workers what at the time seemed a ridiculously high wage. HIs rational was that he wanted his workers to be able to be his customers.

Sadly, that long term sentiment is lost in today's quarterly statement financial environment.
GAC

[valerief]

63. Yeah, the .1% don't need customers. They have Wall St. magic toys and their Fed. nt

[ProfessorGAC]

79. Only In The Short Term

Eventually a lcak of an economy makes their wealth meaningless. They don't have a mountain of gold. It's currency and equity. When the currency is worth nothing and the equity approaches zero, they won't be 0.1%ers anymore.
GAC

[TBMASE]

9. There are actual studies that have been done showing that as the minimum wage rises

unemployment in the unskilled and more specifically teens and young adults tends to rise.

[HughBeaumont]

13. If a business owner thinks $7.25 is too goddamned much to pay a worker . . .

. . . why is he even in business? He shouldn't be. That should be accounted for. $7.25 is not an adequate wage for ANY skill level. It wasn't an adequate wage in 1995.

If you don't have a workforce with disposable income to spend and buy products with, this "benevolent" thing called capitalism slowly grinds to a "Game Over" halt . . . you don't have to be an economist to work that OUT.

[TBMASE]

16. Usually people start businesses to make money not hire people

It all comes down to their bottom line not other people's

[bowens43]

20. and this is the fundamental flaw capitalism nt

[bowens43]

22. .

[TBMASE]

26. Why?

If I were to go into business for myself, my primary motivation would be providing for my family first and foremost.

[ieoeja]

62. Because it is not based on need.

A Caterpiler plant in Indiana produces more product with a couple dozen employees today than they did with a couple thousand employees thirty years agao.

My farm plants and harvests more produce by two guys in two days than we did with our entire family working for weeks at a time when I was growing up.

People go hungry when there is not enough food. Should they go hungry because there are not enough jobs? The latter is an artificial construct. It is not based on reality, but on something we just flat out invented. As a society we have decided that people who can not (or, in relatively few cases, will not) work should go hungry, sleep in alleys and do without medical care.

Why?


For that matter we have decided as a society that people who can and do work should do so for less money, work longer hours, get less time off, and retire later in life even though, as a society, we could easily afford just the opposite. I have been working without a break since 1984. I have worked through over a dozen federal income tax cuts during that time. And the economy has gotten progressivly worse most of that time.

When I was a kid we went to the moon, gave out college grants like candy, had generous welfare and was fighting the Cold War. Today, they pretend that we can not afford Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. I didn't get to the city til 1984. But I am told by lifetime residents of Chicago that they do not ever recall seeing someone sleeping in the park or on a sidewalk prior to 1981. By 1984 I was walking over sleeping bodies just about every block in downtown Chicago. I must have walked by twenty or thirty this morning.

My first career job was at the Veterans Administration. I started in February 1985. The place was still buzzing with angry, furious people. Because on November 7, 1984, the day after his re-election, Ronald Reagan signed an executive order closing every VA mental health facility in the world. After scrambling to find relatives, then find other places to take as many of the worst cases as they could, employees were finally left with no choice but to force those that could leave to do so knowing they had no place to go. Those that couldn't?

The employees carried them out to the public sidewalk. Helped them out of the wheelchairs onto the ground. Brought the taxpayers' wheelchairs back into the building. Locked it up. And walked away, many of them in tears.

That is their idea of what America should be. And you will have to excuse my complete fucking disgust with it!

[FloridaJudy]

73. Bravo! Eom

[HughBeaumont]

25. What about filling a need/demand?

Without customers, you have no business or hires to meet that demand. And you can't be a customer if you're underemployed/laid off.

Chicken or egg?

[TBMASE]

29. Can't answer that

but I know if I worked for myself, my motivation would be to take care of my wants and needs and those of my family first

[HughBeaumont]

33. That being said, what would be in it for you . . .

. . . if your customer base were underpaid or laid off to the point that they couldn't buy your products or services? That really wouldn't go very far in feeding your family, would it?

Ever heard of the phrase "When we all do well, we ALL do well"? Or did the Econ 101 professor say "that's just something the smelly Commies tell you"?

[TBMASE]

40. I guess the solution is for you to start a business and run it the way

you think businesses should run. Let me know how it works out for you.
I wouldn't go into business for myself to make less money than I could working for someone else. And quite frankly, hiring people wouldn't be my first priority if I were to go into business for myself.

[smokey nj]

78. That would depend on the kind of business you start, wouldn't it?

Generally, the point of starting a business is to provide a service for which other people are willing to pay. If you can, and are willing to service your clients on your own, there's no need to hire anybody else. If you're like my boss who owns a pet sitting business but doesn't want to actually walk dogs or cat sit, you have no business without employees. She can sit in the office and sign on new clients all day, but those customers won't be too satisfied when their dogs aren't walked and their cats starved to death while they were on vacation.

[MattBaggins]

43. Which is why your business would ultimately fail

[TBMASE]

46. Really? Apple didn't fail

and Jobs was motivated by profit

[LanternWaste]

74. You left out other relevant motivations-- idealism, vision...

Motivated only in part by profit. You left out other relevant motivations-- idealism, vision and passion. Remove one leg fron a chair and it falls, attribute the stability of chair to only one leg, and it fails. :shrug:

[DonCoquixote]

72. ah, but you forget

China is the new middle class, as is Brazil, as is India.

[HughBeaumont]

76. Right. I forgot.

But will they be able to afford the products on the shite wages they make?

[IndyPragmatist]

39. Don't try to rationalize it. I've seen people here argue that a business should be willing to...

lose money to hire more workers. They were serious that if a business could not provide for those in need of jobs then it should not exist. I wonder how those people feel about the self-employed.

[TBMASE]

41. Clearly the self employed are merely selfish individuals

who only care about making money.

I certainly don't understand why people think a business exists to hire people instead of making money for the people who own it.
I know I wouldn't work for myself if I couldn't make more than I do working for someone else

[HughBeaumont]

42. And clearly, Libertarians have NO answer as to how Capitalism survives . . .

. . . with an underpaid/laid off middle/working/poor who cannot purchase.

The mistake that both of you are making is that no one is taking away your selfishness. Be as goddamned self-serving as you wish!! What you're not answering is how you can logically justify corporations/businesses paying people 3 bucks an hour (IF YOU SO CHOOSE) and expect your beloved Capitalism, let alone your small businesses, to survive.

As a business, you need customers in order to survive. Wealth isn't created in a vacuum. Yes, it really IS that simple. The problem is DEMAND, not supply.

[TBMASE]

45. My question is why aren't you starting a business and hiring people

since you know so much about what businesses should be doing?

You have all the answers, show the world the way things should be done instead of yelling at me for pointing out that most people go into business to make money not hire people.

[HughBeaumont]

51. No, YOU don't get to ask a question until you answer mine.

How does lowering the minimum wage help the economy?

And whether or not I start a business or not to prove your weird theories wrong doesn't mean I cannot criticize business practices that are detrimental to the long-term outlook on the economy. It's called Burden of Proof.

I would need a product to sell, therefore, I would need start up capital. I would need demand for that product. I would need an audience/market FOR that product. It would have to be a product that a corporation couldn't undercut me in cost, logistics or distribution. I would also need to account for times where I'm not going to have income vs times I will have income to meet bills and costs (the former will be more the case than the latter). I als have to account for health care, since there's no universal care in this country (which makes entrepreneurship and mobility a lot easier in other countries as opposed to ours). I can't pay bills on a crapshoot. Unfortunately, this is where unbridled capitalism left us.

And if you want a real world example of how paying your workers an adequate wage means better business for you, look at Costco or any of the thousands of employee-run co-ops in America and around the world. It doesn't have to always be about making a killing.

Laissez-faire FAILED America. We tried it. It failed. I don't know what's so hard about this.

[TBMASE]

56. Look, I steered you toward some studies, including one done by the federal government

you can look at the unemployment rate among teens and how its been affected or not affected.
I don't work for minimum wage, haven't worked for minimum since I was in HS.

It seems all you want to do is complain about the problem and make excuses for why you can't be part of the solution. You don't need capital to sell your skills to people who need it, which is how the majority of self employed people become self employed. So you can go ahead, start your business and hire as many people as you want today

[HughBeaumont]

57. Because I know Horatio Alger is bullshit, that's why.

"If I can do it, ANYone can" is a lottery fantasy. The reason I'm NOT doing it is because I want and need a steady paycheck, something I'd never get if I were self-employed. I've read the testimonies of too many people on this very board who explain in no short order how they've either shuttered their businesses or struggle to make ends meet in their business ventures.

What you call "excuses", I call reality. How am I going to be the one to beat the 1 out of 10 startup success rate? You cannot say "just, plain and simple, work really really HARD" because there are probably more than a handful on this board alone that have gone through the ringer and will tell you that such Horatio Alger yarns are nothing but homespun BUNK. If hard work was all it took to be successful in life, then why are so many people NOT successful?

All you got is Burden of Proof. And bootstraps.

[Name removed]

59. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HughBeaumont]

65. OK, now can you post a study that's NOT a right-wing-biased source?

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2010/02/08/81257/debt-berman/

:eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

[TBMASE]

67. The Federal Minimum Wage Commission was one I referred to previously

said pretty much the same thing and I don't think that had a slant to it.

I don't see how looking at the unemployment rate of teens where the minimum wage is highest can have a slant, especially when the outcome is in line with the BLS reports.
DC has 40% unemployment for teens

[bowens43]

18. really? Let's see them. nt

[TBMASE]

24. Federal Minimum Wage Study Commision has them

Cato has them, WaPo does them.
in 1995, the Minimum Wage Study Commision found that for a 10% increase in the Minimum Wage, unemployment in teens rose 3%

I'm sure there are more, that was just from a quick google search

[HughBeaumont]

28. Cato, WaPo studies on how paying poor people more causes unemployment.

"Quel Surprise" is all I gotta say to that. :eyes: :eyes:

[TBMASE]

30. Like I said, it was a quick google search

but we went over it in my Econ 101 courses in college too

[Luminous Animal]

53. And there are actual studies showing otherwise. Most recently this study at UC Berkeley

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:PQ7j6Mc2SpoJ:www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/166-08.pdf+minimum+wage+teen+employment&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShWm2VMVQvyo7k3QG7Cdc5CP-XQ9kZXf04fw0Ribh6XRD_HWhX5lHMsw0zZAiadDsJtuFpMnuQyLFm2Mwma3Dgx8m0WalBcoY-nhaRYf9isc3xeT74JDJV7oQP4U-MtzcKQUEzP&sig=AHIEtbSRqRvOkmfi97Gl2u3WKbiBsl-lpQ

[TBMASE]

58. yes one that used control factors well above the generally accepted method

normal studies use about 80-100, the Cal Berkley used almost 1000

The impact of minimum wage is felt most with teens and unskilled workers, which have seen their unemployement numbers grow well above those of more skilled and older workers.

DC for example, has 40% unemployment rate for teens while the national average is 27%. And DC is generally a better economy than other parts of the country

[Luminous Animal]

60. Like I said... there are many others that dispute your assertion. You might think

that flat out making a statement means it cannot be disputed but that is not true.

Do you have a study that shows that DCs youth unemployment rate is due to minimum wage?

[Name removed]

61. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Doctor_J]

12. Their main reason against raising it is a lie that a 5-year-old could see through

I remember pappy bush saying the raising the minimum wage would cause massive lay-offs at McDonalds and so forth. As if the McDonald's owners would suddenly see a drop in staffing requirements if they had to pay their floor sweepers $9/hr. Right now they have on the payroll a minimum number of people required to keep the business. Paying those people an extra $3.00/hr won't change the staffing needs. No one ever points out that lie to its purveyors.

[backtoblue]

14. throw the peasants fewer crumbs...so they can fight over them

and not fight their oppressors.

[corkhead]

15. its FREEDUM!!11!1

there is no maximum wage, therefore there should be no minimum either. Its only fair.

[TBMASE]

17. The question is, what is the perfect minimum wage?

[dionysus]

19. the repuke version of "improving the economy" = 1% ers make more money.

[HughBeaumont]

23. "Feeding the birds by giving the horse more oats" - TahitiNut.

:)

[unblock]

27. get back to work, you ingrates! people in india get by on nine dollars a month!

the republican "logic" is simple(-minded). any paying job is better than no job.

they figure that there are some jobs that would exist if the employer could pay $7.24/hr that don't exist because they have to pay $7.25/hr. so there are some unemployed people that could be working for $7.24/hr, but can't because of the minimum wage.

now, of course, there are VASTLY more people who are already employed who would lose $0.01/hr, and gosh, isn't it just a completely irrelevant happenstance that owners would benefit and workers would suffer as a result. but ignore that ultra rich man behind the curtain.

[Nye Bevan]

31. It's unthinkable for people to be paid less than $7.25 per hour. Right, DU moderators?

;-)

[hfojvt]

32. Do you really want to hear their argument?

It goes like this. The unemployment rate is 9.1%, and the under-employment rate is even higher. The unemployment rate for teenagers is even higher.

Which is better, even for a struggling, debt heavy worker? A $5 an hour job, or no job? Is it easier to live on nothing than it is to live on $200 a week gross pay?

[HughBeaumont]

35. And when does it plunge to $4 . . $3 . . . no, $2 dollars an hour??

"Hey, it's better than nuthin! Suck it up, whiners!"

Actually, in some states, UI IS better than a minimum wage job, albeit temporary. So even that falls flat on it's face.

[hfojvt]

48. why should it fall though?

There's always going to be competition. Those who want skilled workers, or otherwise better, more reliable workers, are going to pay more. I work for the city where they pay $11, $12 an hour and we still cannot seem to get quality people.

Saying that UI is better than a minimum wage job just seems like an argument against UI to them, and to me as well. I get tired of reading stories about people who have been collecting unemployment for 99 weeks at $300 a week. My last paycheck, even on a good week, working 59 hours instead of my usual 40, and I only took home $284 a week, and those people make $300 a week for doing nothing?

[HughBeaumont]

55. People on UI aren't "Doing nothing".

They're actively looking for work or else they don't get UI. Is it somehow their fault there are 6 applicants to every 1 job on average in this country? Like it was stated above, employers aren't going to hire unless there are customers coming through the door, and you can't BE a customer if you're not gainfully employed. Multiply this by a dozen million and you have a serious problem.

The whole point is if you lower the miniumum wage, it opens the floodgates for wages to be lowered on other jobs also. "Well, Yahoo just put out this nifty article on a guy making 11 grand a year, and he doesn't seem to be complaining. Why should I pay this skilled worker any more than that? Employer's market, baby!" When does it stop?

[hfojvt]

70. that's only technically true

they say they are "looking for work" and I imagine that many really are doing so, but not all. When I was on it, I spent about an hour a week looking for work. I was required to check at three places a week and that is what I did. While the money lasted, I was basking in the paid time off.

Maybe that is just me.

During this recent downturn, I had two co-workers who were collecting unemployment. One previously had a full time job along with the same part-time job that I have, a good paying part-time job with benefits. He got laid off from his other job, and proceeded to collect unemployment for a year. Technically he was "looking for work" but in actuality he had no interest in getting another job - not when he could still get paid for doing nothing. The other was my boss's wife. She, of course, was married to my boss, who still had his good paying job, PLUS he is retired military, collecting pay and benefits from that. She had no interest in finding another job, but she/they were happy to collect the free money.

But back to the minimum wage. A person can actually look at what happened when it fell. Because, in real terms, it fell all through the 1980s simply by not going up when the price of everything else went up. http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth484/minwage.html

But look at what happened. In 1980 and 1981, 15% of the labor force was covered by the minimum wage. But as the minimum wage fell, employers did not seem to take advantage of it. Suddenly by 1984 only 10% of the labor force was making minimum wage and by 1988 that number had fallen to about 5%. As time went on, fewer and fewer employers were taking advantage of the lower minimum wage. The minimum wage was bumped up to $3.35 in 1981, which was $8.15 in 2011 dollars. By 1989, it had fallen to $5.98 in 2011 dollars, but many employees did not see their wages fall that much. Instead some employers were paying them more than minimum.

Some of that may have been because more liberal states were raising their own state minimum wage even while the Federal minimum stayed flat. Employers will probably never hold all of the cards. Many people have options. They have spouses who work, they can live with their parents or siblings or kids, they are retired, they can goto school, or start their own business, etc. The 1980s showed that wages did not fall as far as they could have.

[CreekDog]

75. you're really good at playing devil's advocate, you know, making the Republican argument

in fact, better than you are at making any Democratic arguments.

perhaps you consider that a service. :shrug:

[hfojvt]

77. I consider providing tax data a service

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/169

although it was not one that many people wanted.

Perhaps progressive taxes are not a Democratic argument.

How about when I compared Carter to Reagan? http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/142

But actually I do think it is important to understand and be able to talk to the other side, rather than just to fling poo at them.

[Spike89]

34. They will shift the talk to regulation in general

They know the wage issue is an intellectual dog whistle that when chased down converts to "pay the desperate masses less and you can hire more of them and pocket the profits" and they rely on their deluded supporters to assume that the desperate masses are everyone else, but not themselves.

So, because it is too easy to bring the wages thing back on them, they divert to the broader issue and will say "government regulation is strangling small business" because even though this is an even weaker argument, it is also broad enough and generalized enough that it isn't easily debunked in a regular conversation.

[intaglio]

37. The end of this is either

Indentured Labour or Slavery. I also imagine, just to be helpful of course, that companies would give credit for people to spend at Company Stores.

[Javaman]

44. you won't get logic or rational, because lowering the MW defies both. nt

[kenny blankenship]

47. Undercut the Third World on labor costs = General & Everlasting Prosperity

It's because the Free Market Totalitarians are psychopaths, and because the rank and file of all political parties that led by these monsters are too weak-minded/poorly educated to understand where these business-friendly "ideas" are leading them. There's no point in looking for a coherent explanation for how these ideas are supposed to produce the benefits claimed for them. The "thinking" behind it never gets that far. It doesn't have to.

[chemp]

49. copied your question, verbatim, to Yahoo!

The responses are amazing.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111026100733AAnYk2l

[HughBeaumont]

64. The more drawn-out responses read like racist Bircher boilerplate.

With lots of fellow brain-renters liking it.

Typical of Yahoo, the Right-wing Liquid Pigshit Waller of the Internet. Bunch of non-thinking, non-caring basement-dwelling reactionary fascist assholes.

[Shandris]

50. ...you really don't know how they do it? Ok, well, here it is.

I've made no attempt to hide over the years that I was raised as a right-winger by a right-wing family. That means I know their arguments and justifications pretty damn well, and this one is no different as the fundamental argument hasn't changed since I was about 15 or so and the prevailing 'teen' wage was $3.35 for grocery stores. With that said, I am stating their argument as they see it. Please understand that what is below is NOT WHAT I BELIEVE. But is IS their argument.

"The minimum wage exists as a low-level figure that is provided primarily and almost exclusively only to teens and first-time entry-level workers. It isn't a livable wage because it's not MEANT to be lived on. It's not a breadwinner salary, it's not the salary of someone who has spent time working. It's simply a low-level wage that gets people used to working, and pays them while they get some experience. That experience is what will determine their salary as they continue on further in their adult life, and it will rise to the level of their experience, skill, knowledge, learning, training, application, and inborn ability. Continuing to raise the minimum wage hurts people by making an expectation of business owners who would otherwise hire these first-time workers so they begin accumulating their experience; as the wage rises, fewer of these businesses can afford to pay people for what is essentially on-the-job experience acquisition, thus limiting their earning potential in the future."

Okay, back to the real Shandris again. :) The above is generally the accepted rhetoric, and it makes perfect sense -- until you examine it carefully, at which point it begins to fall apart. In a perfect world, with perfect people with no needs who never make any mistakes and will only work one career track ever, it looks good. Unfortunately, that world can exist only on paper. But the tired masses usually don't have the reasoning power to tear the argument apart, and even when they can it often relies on 'exceptions' -- the whole model is built to resist exceptions, and the typical conservative will just laugh at your 'anecdotal' evidence even if you get a list of 30,000 exceptions together - that's why empathy is such a dangerous thing to a conservative. Once a conservative develops empathy...they cease to be a conservative. Believe me, I'm intimately familiar with that truism.

[HughBeaumont]

52. Many of the "Yes" arguments at that link . . .

. . . leave you wondering "Do these people not get that what they're saying is stupid and bad for the economy? Or is it worse than I feared . . . that they just don't really CARE whether it's good or bad or not?"

:)

[Shandris]

54. No, they don't get that at all.

Because they see the world in stark contrasts. What can be good must not, perforce, be bad; and the opposite of what can be good must be by definition bad. There is very little to no middle ground. This is why conservatism and religion fit together so well. There is good and evil, and if you are not one then you are the other by definition, and BOTH definitions are defined by the person doing the rationalizing! It's all so very simple to understand, and so viciously difficult to combat. It's easy to tear away someone's empathy...it's very difficult to make someone who has never considered it before, do so.

[Celefin]

69. Thanks for educating me.

Seriously.

It is logical, it is perfectly consistent and it makes sense on every level.
Especially if presented in a somber, adult manner. It actually makes you want to believe it.
Because the reasoning is beautiful.

This has so often had the effect on me that I found myself unable to argue against it although, when up against something like that, I know in my gut it is wrong but can't articulate it. It is so flawless that it is intimidating.

Truth equals beauty. Ergo, beauty equals truth.

THAT is why an argument like this is so difficult to fight, it is flawless and has no cracks or points for leverage.
And the only tool you have to get into this is the fuzzy, unwieldy and untidy reality of the real world.
Your arguments can thus only be imperfect, and because of that, they are messy, ugly, and therefore ultimately untrue.

/talk to self

Hey, I've learned something!

[Shagbark Hickory]

66. Their reasoning is simple. Say someone will gladly work for 48 cents an hour...

There's plenty of people working at slave wages like that already in this country such as undocumented agricultural workers and live-in nannies, or what I like to call "slaves".

They feel that since this is a free country the gummit should not get in the way of you hiring someone to work at a lower wage if the worker is OK with the wage.

More recently, they've said employers could hire more people since more people are willing to work for less than minimum wage.

It's a fair enough point but where it falls apart is you can already hire someone and pay them at whatever amount they agree to if they're an independent contractor.

This topic is just a way to rally support from their wealthy selfish base that feels there should be a ditch-digging class and as long as they're not in it, they're for it.

[Nye Bevan]

68. Wikipedia is usually a useful resource

Arguments in favor of Minimum Wage Laws

Supporters of the minimum wage claim it has these effects:

Increases the standard of living for the poorest and most vulnerable class in society and raises average.
Motivates and encourages employees to work harder.
Stimulates consumption, by putting more money in the hands of low-income people who spend their entire paychecks.
Increases the work ethic of those who earn very little, as employers demand more return from the higher cost of hiring these employees.
Decreases the cost of government social welfare programs by increasing incomes for the lowest-paid.
Encourages people to join the workforce rather than pursuing money through illegal means, e.g., selling illegal drugs
Encourages efficiency and automation of industry.
Removes low paying jobs, forcing workers to train for, and move to, higher paying jobs.
Increases technological development. Costly technology that increases business efficiency is more appealing as the price of labour increases.

Arguments against Minimum Wage Laws

Opponents of the minimum wage claim it has these effects:

As a labor market analogue of political-economic protectionism, it excludes low cost competitors from labor markets, hampers firms in reducing wage costs during trade downturns,
generates various industrial-economic inefficiencies as well as unemployment, poverty, and price rises, and generally dysfunctions.
Hurts small business more than large business.
Reduces quantity demanded of workers, either through a reduction in the number of hours worked by individuals, or through a reduction in the number of jobs.
May cause price inflation as businesses try to compensate by raising the prices of the goods being sold.
Benefits some workers at the expense of the poorest and least productive.
Can result in the exclusion of certain groups from the labor force.
Is less effective than other methods (e.g. the Earned Income Tax Credit) at reducing poverty, and is more damaging to businesses than those other methods.
Discourages further education among the poor by enticing people to enter the job market.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage

[mmonk]

71. Jobs at 25 cents an hour.

Remember, we need to run this country like a business. Isn't that what the cult says?

[ck4829]

80. Stupidest thing I have ever heard (Not the question mind you)

Today's cost of living can not be sustained by the minimum wage, so lowering or abolishing it? What are the advocates of doing this smoking, besides 100 dollar bills apparently?

[HughBeaumont]

81. Did you see the Yahoo link above?

If we're fishing for "extremely high to the point of incoherence", look at some of the right wing answers to my questions (you'll have to slog through all of the usual ad hominems, of course). My God, what astoundingly stupid reasoning.

Yes, let's ignore the fact that even 1.5 to 2 TIMES the current minimum wage couldn't sustain today's bare essential cost of living, and instead advocate and give reasons for putting LESS and LESS money in the hands of poor people. Yyyyyyyyeah, lemme know how that works out for Uhmerica.

One person even said something to the effect of "They should be paid 2 dollars an hour, anything beyond that is charity"!

:wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow:

It's just dumbfounding how proudly uneducated on economic matters some of these people choose to be.