You're not going to agree with me and that's ok. More eggs/food. More jobs. If the private sector keeps failing at those then yes, the government should take it over. And you get to vote out the people in charge if they suck.
Funny thing, just today I read an article about how things in real terms are actually cheaper than they were a few years ago, but people still "feel" like prices are high. Like how people forget that gasoline was $3.50/gal for regular way back in 2005, and right now in my neighborhood it's... $3.39/gal. (To be fair, something did get busted with grades of gasoline; they used to be $0.10 apart, and now they are I think $0.60 or $0.70 between grade levels.)
Basically eggs were getting cheaper (in real terms) for a long time, and then recently they effectively re-normalized. So they weren't stable, but were falling. The way you get prices stable: start making more eggs! There's a massive amount of property out there, raise some chickens and start farming! And don't sell the farm to the big chains. I mean what do you want, someone (e.g., the government) to force people to farm eggs, when they'd rather do something else? Do you really want the government to set the prices for the goods you sell? Clearly you don't want that as a sole proprietor - so what non-arbitrary point do you want to start saying it's OK for the government to declare the price of eggs? I mean heck what if I only wanted to produce 1 dozen eggs a year and support my family off that, why can't I charge $100k for that super special ultra pure, lovingly tendered eggs that my kids snuggled and played with the chickens all day?
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Minimum wage effects are extraordinarily complex, so I basically discount all discussion on them because those conversations are almost always political or sentimental instead of based in actual fact. Basically, minimum wage by itself doesn't correlate with employment, it's always coupled with other factors.
There's no way to "steal money from society" incidentally; money doesn't work like that. The money in fact is still "in" society, and it's extremely difficult to determine if profit to companies is more or less efficiently allocated that way than if it was paid as wage or salary.
I mean think about it this way: say you designed some new fancy widget, but need 9 people to make and sell them. When you get $100 for the widget (after paying for raw materials), how do you distribute that among the 10 of you? What about if you now designed a new widget, and need 4 more people to make the second one? Say you get another $100 net per new widget. Do the 9 workers making widget A "deserve" some of the revenue from widget B? What about you as the designer - you're getting money from 2 widgets, but you didn't "build" any of them. What about if you hire a cleaning crew to clean your facility, and you hire them 1 day a week (and they are hired by different companies on other days of the week). How much of the revenue from your widgets should the cleaning company get?
Saying "people should have enough income to live" is also somewhat disingenuous, because there is such a wide range of living situations there is no meaningful minimum level. Does everyone "deserve" to live by themselves in a 1000 square foot house? Is it "wrong" for people to have to live with roommates or family? Should society foot the bill to allow that, even if a person isn't doing work that is highly valued (see my example of "do you really think society should pay you $50k (or whatever) for any arbitrary task?")
Economics is, sadly, substantially more complicated than people think. There truly is "no such thing as a free lunch." I mean think about it - you could take all $40 billion or whatever Elon Musk is worth and distribute it equally across the US - and you'd give everyone a mere $121. And if you gave people $121, do you think we'd get more eggs? No, probably what we'd get is basically the same number of eggs, but people would complain slightly less about the extra $1 every couple weeks.
"The way you get prices stable: start making more eggs! There's a massive amount of property out there, raise some chickens and start farming! And don't sell the farm to the big chains. I mean what do you want, someone (e.g., the government) to force people to farm eggs, when they'd rather do something else?"Yes. I'm tired of mass hunger as a "choice." There's enough land out there. They could work up a system to pay for it. But please we should go ahead and have more lawns that don't do anything but cost money to mow? Letting people go hungry should not be an option. Let's just make more people we can't feed?
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/key-statistics-graphics/13.5% of US households are food insecure. Out of those 5.1% are very food insecure.
This is not an acceptable or sustainable thing. I hear a lot about how people should get jobs, and it is time we created some when the private sector has failed to do that after we gave them so many tax breaks for it, yes as an end goal, and yes on taxpayer's dimes, specifically rich ones who can pay a larger percentage of their incomes or a proxy for incomes when they disguise their compensation as something else.
We have millions of hungry kids in this country that only get stable meals through free school lunches that are just not funded right.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7220a6.htmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YypArYDcjA John Oliver's show on it presented on Youtube.
https://apnews.com/article/free-school-lunch-child-hunger-7d38b5a84e533129f507d76cc05c622fAccording to Wikipedia this is 8% or Four million American children "experience prolonged periodic food insufficiency and hunger each year", which amounts to 8% of children under the age of 12. [ 7 ] An additional 21% are at risk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_meal_programs_in_the_United_States#:~:text=Four%20million%20American%20children%20%22experience%20prolonged%20periodic%20food,health%20and%20well-being%20of%20children%20in%20several%20ways.
We have old people in this country who don't have food and at times have to chose between food and medication. Here is Jim McGovern trying to get funding for meals on wheels to feed hungry senior citizens. I don't want old people going hungry and I am glad taxes, including mine, go to feed them. If that makes me a bad person or something then I'm ok with that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2JRdz550N0Then we have conservative politicians saying more bonkers things like hunger just doesn't exist:
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/gop-rep-claimed-s-never-met-hungry-person-state-rcna75023If this politician wants to meet hungry people then soup kitchens/ food banks like the one I volunteer at can give him a ladle to help feed them.
"Do you really want the government to set the prices for the goods you sell? Clearly you don't want that as a sole proprietor - so what non-arbitrary point do you want to start saying it's OK for the government to declare the price of eggs?"Yes, through increasing production through government owned and operated enterprises as the private enterprises fail. Ideally the entire egg industry thing would be nationalized and eminent domain would pay for the acquisition as partially paid for by future profits. As an accommodation, private enterprises could pay the government for the privilege of being able to operate in the production of eggs under the government's rules. Operation without license: criminal offense, educational classes, repeat offense imprisonment for destabilizing the food supply, third offense felony. Operate within the system or don't. That'll eliminate some CEOs (an absolutely wonderful thing to get rid of) while creating proper government control that should have expanded after it rescued us from the Great Depression. The quantity of production can be controlled and that means the price can be. I just don't believe it is impossible. The government could do something. The government could own the land and the chickens. Yes, this is "radical." No, I don't care.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/02/living-in-shelters.html "Nearly 327,000 in U.S. Lived in Emergency and Transitional Shelters." The answer to that can't just be a shrug and a "you don't really want the government to do [insert thing here], but that's exactly what it has been forever. Your answer is pretty much the standard usual answer. I get it. It's getting worse though. It is now a crime to sleep outside too. Those are just the numbers of people in bad situations like that, but there are a lot of others hurting but doing a little better and it is too many.
I kinda do want the government in charge of this. I want someone researching this in real time to get the right answer on pricing signals to increase or decrease productivity instead of whatever magic buzzword corporate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts dartboard gets darts thrown at it to make whatever corporate executive decision buzzword result that is completely divorced from real life. We already have this and it's called Wall Street and it is not working as well with the horrid "deregulation." Governments tell people what to do because without them the strong abuse the rest and corporates tell us what to do. It is a massive difference hearing from people who get to tell others what to do when the government doesn't instead of the rest of us. We are going to be told what to do no matter what. I can vote out a bad government, but once that CEO is in, good luck getting him out if he's terrible for everyone but the board of directors making them money at our expense.
"There's no way to "steal money from society" incidentally; money doesn't work like that. The money in fact is still "in" society, and it's extremely difficult to determine if profit to companies is more or less efficiently allocated that way than if it was paid as wage or salary."
It absolutely is possible to steal from society. Money does work like that. The argument that it somehow is still in circulation makes it ok makes 0 sense to me. So if someone steals a ton of money but it is still spent in society that means it wasn't stolen? I'm sorry but no thank you on that answer. The middle class has been ruined and the top 1% has taken way too much they did not earn and only got by abusing their power. This is not an isolated political belief. We don't need CEOs making as much as they do and there is no benefit to it for anyone but them. Having a middle class that can't really afford to buy much of anything kills demand (willingness and
ability to pay). Somebody has to have money to buy the things the businesses make and it is not unreasonable to see that as a good thing. CEO pay is inefficient and every time someone tries to do anything about it there's a fit.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/30/investing/elon-musk-pay-package-thrown-out/index.html They are taking far more than their share and that's the thing they stole and are only able to keep by abusing their corporate leadership position.
The widget thing answer can't be all the benefit goes to the top. Just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's impossible. The compensation can be worked out, but it should not include people adding value getting not enough to live on. Otherwise there is a problem with the business model. I'm tired for large, incredibly profitable corporations paying their workers so little they have to apply for public benefits, which means we the taxpayers are paying what should be the corporation's labor costs.
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/11/18/taxpayers-subsidize-poverty-wages-walmart-mcdonalds-other-large-corporations-gaohttps://www.businessinsider.com/companies-pay-workers-less-than-worth-biden-wants-to-change-2022-3https://apnews.com/article/how-companies-rip-off-poor-employees-6c5364b4f9c69d9bc1b0093519935a5ahttps://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0512/how-large-corporations-get-around-paying-less-in-taxes.aspxI will never believe economics runs by some sort of natural economic system best done with no "intervention." All the rich ever do is intervene and this is "good" but the government does it and it is magically bad? We are all told what to do. There is no way we get to exist without being told what to do. I would rather be able to elect the people telling me what to do instead of some horrible corporate CEO that basically can't be removed no matter what. I get he can be but it won't happen or it will only happen after his golden parachute separation package. CEOs of large companies are parasites who should not exist.