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[Virex]

You know what, all this economy stuff is way to complicated, and doesn't serve any good purpose anyway. Let's just put it all in a common pile and give everyone his share.

But that would be communaziism! McCarthy died for our consumerism, do you want to defile his legacy in such a vile way?

[misko27]

You know what, all this economy stuff is way to complicated, and doesn't serve any good purpose anyway. Let's just put it all in a common pile and give everyone his share.

To go in the other direction, That would mean, say, Urist McEatSleepDrinkRepeat would get the same as Urist McLegendary hardworker. And there would be a subtantially reduced reason to work hard or innovate. Remember, Republicans may be mad, but that doesn't make them automatically wrong. Also, That's sounds as simple as me saying "Human interaction is way too complex. Let's just throw it together and hand our at random.
 
Remember, a system is only equal if the designer doesn;t know were he would be in the ladder, i.e., everyone would be put randomly, even into the upper echelons, or botton 5%. And only getting as much as the lazy bum who takes a 2 hour linch break is not equal to me.

[10ebbor10]

You know what, all this economy stuff is way to complicated, and doesn't serve any good purpose anyway. Let's just put it all in a common pile and give everyone his share.

To go in the other direction, That would mean, say, Urist McEatSleepDrinkRepeat would get the same as Urist McLegendary hardworker. And there would be a subtantially reduced reason to work hard or innovate. Remember, Republicans may be mad, but that doesn't make them automatically wrong. Also, That's sounds as simple as me saying "Human interaction is way too complex. Let's just throw it together and hand our at random.
 
Remember, a system is only equal if the designer doesn;t know were he would be in the ladder, i.e., everyone would be put randomly, even into the upper echelons, or botton 5%. And only getting as much as the lazy bum who takes a 2 hour linch break is not equal to me.

I didn't say Equal share. We just need to find some way of easily judging everyone to his capacity, then objectively handing out stuff. WHitout creating a bureaucracy several times larger than our economy.

[misko27]

Hey, that Bureaucracy employs many many people, the majorirty of them women.
 
And yes, it would be nice if soemone coul dole eveything out fairly. But this isn't a videogame, not everyone is judged all the time by the scoerboard of life, And people will sometimes be lower or higher on the board then they should.

[Pnx]

Sorry for being a bit late to the punch here, but there was something I wanted to say.

I have read, i don't remember where, that if the minimum wage had increased with inflation it would be aground $20 per hour.
And that is the lowest estimate.

But if we were to scale the minimum wage with inflation, then it would make inflation rise faster. God help us if it spirals into hyper-inflation.

I guess revolutions are good for resetting the system, but not so good at replacing it.

Inflation is dependent on a hell of a lot more than what the lowest strata of workers earns. While it's true that the minimum wage will have an effect on inflation, inflation has a lot more to do with things like government spending, the economic trade situation, and lots of futzy factors like confidence in the currency, or the relative trading value of other currencies.

Increasing the spending power of the lowest wage earners might increase the demand for certain goods, but it won't increase demand equally across the board. For example, a worker earning subsistence wage will typically consume the same amount of food as someone who is earning slightly more than subsistence, they might buy more quality food, but their demand for food has not increased in proportion to what they earn, instead they'll be spending more on smart phones, TV's, gym fees, trips to see their family, or whatever. So the idea that you'd need to keep raising the minimum wage because the minimum wage increases inflation is a bit ridiculous.

What the minimum wage does have a big impact on is the cost effectiveness of employing someone, which leads to employers making less of a profit, which means they have less spending power, and perhaps motivates them to move what they can of their business overseas to somewhere with a lower minimum wage.

I would also argue that the money is actually better served lower down the food chain, because increasing spending power in the lower strata increases the circulation of money lower down, trickle down economics is kind of BS, most of the money the richest people spend tends to go more into the pocket of other rich people, rather than the poorer strata's that would hypothetically be employed by them. Some of it does trickle down, but the wicking up effect is far more powerful, in addition a lot of the wealth that "trickles down" is trickling down in other countries, which is sort of bad in terms of the microcosm. Wealth lower down will circulate more locally, and since this is all basically about trying to keep a "healthy" circulation...

I think that's all I really have to say right now, I gotta get back to work.

[Aseaheru]

I find it funny that here we are with our currency that is "backed" by gold not seen since the 50s, printed whenever, and we have inflation.
CIVIL WAR. NO INFLATION W/ MONEY PRINTED WHENEVER WANTED.

Heres an idea: make it so that a business owner cant make over 200% the wage of their poorest-paid employee.

[Nadaka]

I find it funny that here we are with our currency that is "backed" by gold not seen since the 50s, printed whenever, and we have inflation.
CIVIL WAR. NO INFLATION W/ MONEY PRINTED WHENEVER WANTED.

Heres an idea: make it so that a business owner cant make over 200% the wage of their poorest-paid employee.

That is a pretty terrible rule. A company's poorest paid employee makes $20k a year, that limits profit to $40k a year. Because a business that is publicly traded could be owned by millions of different people, their maximum allowed profit would be fractions of a penny per share per year.

[Aseaheru]

what?
i have no idea where you pulled that out of but that just looks wrong to me...

company paying dude$5 per hour can only have a dude making $400 per hour.
$20000 per year = $4000000

[Doomblade187]

200% is double, so a company with a worker getting paid 20k could only have the owner get paid 40k.

On a sidenote, two things- ~5% of Americans actually earn minimum wage or less, about half of them under 25. Another thing is that I heard from a caller on a radio program who used to work two minimum-wage jobs that raising hte minimum wage actually hurt him by cutting his welfare benefits, and not keeping up with cost of living.

While I realize I'm not elaborating much, and that increasing minimum wage tends to raise most wages, price of goods may also increase if minimum wage goes up, reducing its effect. Also, I realize that 5% is about 3.8 million people, and hence quite a lot.

[GreatJustice]

what?
i have no idea where you pulled that out of but that just looks wrong to me...

company paying dude$5 per hour can only have a dude making $400 per hour.
$20000 per year = $4000000

100% of $5 is $5
200% of $5 is $10
400% of $5 is $20

On that note, why can't the worker, I dunno, work out the wage with the employer and try to come to a mutually beneficial wage? A lot of what the minimum wage does is cut off entry level jobs that pay quite a bit higher once you get better experience. I'd quite happily work $3 CAD an hour if I knew that my wage would increase tenfold after a year's experience, especially considering the alternative is interning and getting paid nothing.

[Doomblade187]

A lot of what the minimum wage does is cut off entry level jobs that pay quite a bit higher once you get better experience. I'd quite happily work $3 CAD an hour if I knew that my wage would increase tenfold after a year's experience, especially considering the alternative is interning and getting paid nothing.

That's the other main worry about raising minimum wage- it would reduce entry-level hiring due to the greater cost.

[Newbunkle]

The minimum wage is a miniscule step in the right direction, but it's essentially a band-aid that doesn't deal with the underlying problem: that people have to sell their labour to survive instead of having the ability to work and enjoy the benefits of that work without being ripped off and having their successes expropriated by the people exploiting them. Better to put control of the means of production in the hands of all people.

[Nadaka]

The minimum wage is a miniscule step in the right direction, but it's essentially a band-aid that doesn't deal with the underlying problem: that people have to sell their labour to survive instead of having the ability to work and enjoy the benefits of that work without being ripped off and having their successes expropriated by the people exploiting them. Better to put control of the means of production in the hands of all people.

It would be great if survival was not tied to labor, only luxury. But that means an alternative minimum income or universal welfare system.

[misko27]

what?
i have no idea where you pulled that out of but that just looks wrong to me...

company paying dude$5 per hour can only have a dude making $400 per hour.
$20000 per year = $4000000

Your thinking of it as a salary, but the wealth of the owner, at least, is tied to the company, due to ownership laws. If it was publically taded, they are all eually the owner, so the larger it was, the less it wold be worth.

[GreatJustice]

The minimum wage is a miniscule step in the right direction, but it's essentially a band-aid that doesn't deal with the underlying problem: that people have to sell their labour to survive instead of having the ability to work and enjoy the benefits of that work without being ripped off and having their successes expropriated by the people exploiting them. Better to put control of the means of production in the hands of all people.

Who's this "all people"? So I own 1/8,000,000,000th of everything on the Earth?