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Darkbloom
Guest
That’s the same as continually using the force of government to make an employer pay more than the job he or she is hiring for is worth?
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CPA2
Guest
I made up the words, “stupid organization.” I make observations and then I make up words to describe my observations. Guess I will need to explain my thinking.
You may remember the prisoner’s dilemma from economics. How do you get people to work for the good of the organization instead for their own best self-interest? Force is one way (e.g. Mafia, government). Another way is to appeal to a higher interest (e.g. religion).
Private business is a smart organization. The owner/manager has the authority to change the incentives and disincentives. He can change the corporate culture.
The government is a “stupid organization (e.g. IRS).” The people in the organization may be smart (e.g. state university), but the organization will be forever stupid. Why? Top management does not have the flexibility or the authority to change the incentives and disincentives. In short, government is a “stupid organization” because there are no incentives to improve the organization.
The next time the common man tells me that a person with a college degree has no common sense, I will agree with him. I will point out that there is a difference between schooling and education. There are many people with little formal schooling who are well educated. On the other hand, there are many people with college degrees who have no education.
Not everyone’s elevator goes to the top floor. I work with some of these people, and I admire them because they give 100%. Public universities are another matter. I classify these institutions of higher learning as stupid organizations. It is my belief that no one can improve a stupid organization if there is no incentive for improvement.
For example, XXX State University employs a lot of nice, intelligent people. However, XXX University is a stupid organization. If I do not learn anything else in IT, I have learned that IT people need to look on the business side. XXX University does not look on the business side of anything. Committees run the university “in the spirit of compromise.” Committees do not follow the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle.
XXX University gets an A+ for confusion. Tonight is online registration. How about online frustration? It took me 50 minutes for me to get online to register. The first time I got online, the system threw me out because I took too long to look up the numbers of the courses. The second time I registered for 6 courses. I only got one course. Tomorrow the accounting department cannot do anything because they are locked out of the system until Wednesday. I am locked out of 5 courses because I do not have the prerequisites. Do prerequisites matter if I want to audit 4 of the courses? I am locked out of one accounting course because I did not take an undergraduate course in statistics. My graduate course in statistics at XXX University doesn’t count. Oh, I forgot to tell you. The entire system is down after only being up 55 minutes!
I never made these stupid logic errors when I was in business. I tested any new service before I offered it to the public.
You may remember the prisoner’s dilemma from economics. How do you get people to work for the good of the organization instead for their own best self-interest? Force is one way (e.g. Mafia, government). Another way is to appeal to a higher interest (e.g. religion).
Private business is a smart organization. The owner/manager has the authority to change the incentives and disincentives. He can change the corporate culture.
The government is a “stupid organization (e.g. IRS).” The people in the organization may be smart (e.g. state university), but the organization will be forever stupid. Why? Top management does not have the flexibility or the authority to change the incentives and disincentives. In short, government is a “stupid organization” because there are no incentives to improve the organization.
The next time the common man tells me that a person with a college degree has no common sense, I will agree with him. I will point out that there is a difference between schooling and education. There are many people with little formal schooling who are well educated. On the other hand, there are many people with college degrees who have no education.
Not everyone’s elevator goes to the top floor. I work with some of these people, and I admire them because they give 100%. Public universities are another matter. I classify these institutions of higher learning as stupid organizations. It is my belief that no one can improve a stupid organization if there is no incentive for improvement.
For example, XXX State University employs a lot of nice, intelligent people. However, XXX University is a stupid organization. If I do not learn anything else in IT, I have learned that IT people need to look on the business side. XXX University does not look on the business side of anything. Committees run the university “in the spirit of compromise.” Committees do not follow the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle.
XXX University gets an A+ for confusion. Tonight is online registration. How about online frustration? It took me 50 minutes for me to get online to register. The first time I got online, the system threw me out because I took too long to look up the numbers of the courses. The second time I registered for 6 courses. I only got one course. Tomorrow the accounting department cannot do anything because they are locked out of the system until Wednesday. I am locked out of 5 courses because I do not have the prerequisites. Do prerequisites matter if I want to audit 4 of the courses? I am locked out of one accounting course because I did not take an undergraduate course in statistics. My graduate course in statistics at XXX University doesn’t count. Oh, I forgot to tell you. The entire system is down after only being up 55 minutes!
I never made these stupid logic errors when I was in business. I tested any new service before I offered it to the public.
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CPA2
Guest
It is impossible for a “stupid” organization like the government to calculate a minimum wage that is “fair.” A minimum wage is just another socialist fairy tale.
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JBCatholicRN
Guest
LOL. The way taxes are going up, the Feds should be able to handle that through giveouts.
If I had to pay all my employees based on that definition, I’d have to lay off half of them.
While that is a nice ideal, simple economics dictate it as impossible. You can’t pay a McDonald’s employee $25 plus bennies for flipping hamburgers and sell hamburgers for a buck or two each. Six bux apiece and $10 for a happy meal, that could work, except nobody would pay $6.00 for a hamburger that now costs $0.89, and you’d have to lay off that $25 an hour employee.
Again, simple economics. There aren’t as many “living wage” jobs available as there are people who want them. There will always be poor, middle class and rich. Even if we were to redistribute the weatlh of the rich (socialism), such has not been shown to work. Capitalism, on the other hand, has been successful every time it has been attempted.
John 12:8 “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
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stinkcat_14
Guest
Getting back to the original question, what is the harm of the minimum wage law as it exists in the United States. If it causes unemployment, how many people are unemployed because of the minimum wage?
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jmcrae
Guest
Because the reason I work is so that I don’t have to get money from my husband or my parents - I work to pay my own bills.
If the work I’m offered doesn’t allow me to do that, then why should I bother? I can stay home, indulge myself in my hobbies, and get exactly the same result - sponging off my family to pay my bills, instead of earning my own money.
Therefore, you can bet that if you needed my skills for your business, and offered me to work for you for free or for not enough to pay my bills, then my answer to you would be “no.”
Get one of those kids who is going to be living in his parents’ basement for the rest of his life. He may not have any street sense, he’ll tell your customers all about his alien conspiracy theories, and he’ll steal all of your software, but hey - you can afford his services.
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CPA2
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The young and unskilled are unemployed if the minimum wage is too high. The minimum wage is just another socialist fairy tale.
The minimum wage causes unemployment among unskilled workers and teenagers. There is over 50 years of solid economic research to support this statement.
The minimum wage is a floor on wages that causes a surplus of young and unskilled workers if the minimum wage is above what employers are willing to pay (the equilibrium wage). Why should I hire unskilled and teenage workers when I can hire skilled and older workers for the same minimum wage?
About 70% of economists surveyed agree that the minimum wage is responsible for an increase in unemployment among the young and unskilled laborers IF that wage is above the equilibrium wage. The minimum wage would have no effect on unemployment if the minimum wage were below the equilibrium wage.
Government is only capable of producing surpluses of young and unskilled workers through a price floor such as the minimum wage. Additionally, government is only able to produce shortages through price ceilings.
Government is a parasite. It is only able to produce a shortage or surplus of resources through socialist meddling in the economy. Government meddling in the economy is the cause of the misallocation of resources. I am not aware of government producing much good. In the gospel, God told the people of Israel through Samuel something to that effect when they asked for a king. There is no such thing as a free lunch!
On fixing a wage, in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, Pius XI asserted “the condition of a business and of the one carrying it on must also be taken into account; for it would be unjust to demand excessive wages which a business cannot stand without its ruin and consequent calamity to the workers.” (#72). Even here, this does not consider the effect of reduced employment if the business still operates at all.
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Darkbloom
Guest
The reason you work is irrelevant if your work simply isn’t economically viable.
Then stop being passive and accepting what you’re “offered” and improve your skill set.
And your example here is a perfect expression of my argument that it is not simply the cheapest possible rate an employer looks for, but a rate that will insure optimum success.Get one of those kids who is going to be living in his parents’ basement for the rest of his life. He may not have any street sense, he’ll tell your customers all about his alien conspiracy theories, and he’ll steal all of your software, but hey - you can afford his services.
I could fire people who have several weeks of vacation and a wage well above the starting rate due to the raises they have earned, but I would be a fool to do so.
My guys are dependable, efficient, and trustworthy. That is worth way more than I would save in payroll by hiring new people earning well less than the starting wage, but it’s terrible business.
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jmcrae
Guest
Yes, you would. So, why are you advising people in this thread to hire at less than the minimum wage?
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jmcrae
Guest
I have certifications in Authorware, Director, Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, DreamWeaver, InDesign, AVID, and many others (most of which no longer exist) - in the end, it’s good old Microsoft Office that gets me through the day.
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stinkcat_14
Guest
The key point here is: if the minimum wage is too high. What evidence is there that the minimum wage is too high? The question I asked was about the minimum wage as it exists in the United States today. How many people are unemployed because of minimum wage laws?
While it is true that if the minimum wage is set above equilibrium it can have a negative effect on employment. However, when it comes to studies that focus on the United States, the evidence is mixed. There are some studies that show small employment decreases and other studies, such as by Card and Krueger who find no effect on employment.
Tell me, how many older workers are willing to work for the minimum wage? Once you get above age 40 less than 1% of workers earn the minimum wage. If the minimum wage is such a bad policy, how come so few businesses pay it, even for young and unskilled workers?
So, the real question is whether or not the minimum wage is above equilibrium and how much is it above equilibrium? How many people are unemployed because of this law?
Unions can do the same things. So can businesses if they are not smart enough to change their prices when markets change.
Actually, there are many good things produced by the government. For example, our education system is one of the best in the world, and it is for the most part a government education system. We do have a private system and it is better, but for those who cannot afford private schools, people still do have access to education. Also, we have a pretty good road system which the government developed. Our economy would be much smaller if there were not such a system. Government is inefficient, this there can be no doubt, but if government were purely a bad thing, then we ought to go to Somalia to live, because they have no government.
This I think is most interesting. How many businesses go under each year because of the minimum wage law in the US?
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sidbrown
Guest
How many people become sick from malnutrition because they cannot afford to live on the minimum wage.
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Darkbloom
Guest
Because A) it is ineffective and B) anti-capitalistic.Yes, you would. So, why are you advising people in this thread to hire at less than the minimum wage?
It’s about the margin. Would I rather hire someone for $8.00 who brings in $10.00 or someone who earns $9.00 and brings in $11.50? The math is simple and irrefutable.
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Darkbloom
Guest
Seems web design is not a high wage field. Maybe try another computer related field.
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stinkcat_14
Guest
You claim that the minimum wage is ineffective, but you actually offer zero proof of that. I asked a simple question: How many people are unemployed because of the minimum wage and nobody here wants to give a straight answer to that question. If you cannot answer that question, then how can you say that it is ineffective?
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CPA2
Guest
The government cannot give you a straight answer on how many people are unemployed! The government uses phony accounting.
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CPA2
Guest
I lost confidence in most government statistics many years ago. A prime example is the CPI. I think that the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses something called the “hedonic factor”. They actually try to calculate the increased “productivity” of computers to calculate the CPI. I call this the “fudge factor.” Beat the data until it confesses! As a consumer I only look at the price at the gas pump and at the food store. That is my CPI.
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CPA2
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Do your homework!
February 15, 1995
50 Years of Research on the Minimum Wage
Introduction
For many years it has been a matter of conventional wisdom among economists that the minimum wage causes fewer jobs to exist than would be the case without it. This is simply a matter of price theory, taught in every economics textbook, requiring no elaborate analysis to justify. Were this not the case, there would be no logical reason why the minimum wage could not be set at $10, $100, or $1 million per hour.
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Historically, defenders of the minimum wage have not disputed the disemployment effects of the minimum wage, but argued that on balance the working poor were better off. In other words, the higher incomes of those with jobs offset the lower incomes of those without jobs, as a result of the minimum wage [See, for example, Levitan and Belous, (1979)].
Now, the Clinton Administration is advancing the novel economic theory that modest increases in the minimum wage will have no impact whatsoever on employment. This proposition is based entirely on the work of three economists: David Card and Alan Krueger of Princeton, and Lawrence Katz of Harvard. Their studies of increases in the minimum wage in California, Texas and New Jersey apparently found no loss of jobs among fast food restaurants that were surveyed before and after the increase [See Card (1992b), Card and Krueger (1994), and Katz and Krueger (1992)].
While it is not yet clear why Card, Katz and Krueger got the results that they did, it is clear that their findings are directly contrary to virtually every empirical study ever done on the minimum wage. These studies were exhaustively surveyed by the Minimum Wage Study Commission, which concluded that **a 10% increase in the minimum wage reduced teenage employment by 1% to 3%. **
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TenBobNote
Guest
Complete fallacy. If no minimum wage existed food products would be much cheaper then they are currently. Food production contains many minimum wage workers. I argue that they would eat more nutritional.
If your argument is correct, why not raise the minimum wage to $100 an hour, people would eat much more nutritional if that was the case, wouldn’t they?
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stinkcat_14
Guest
I find this little comment amusing. Since you are under the illusion that you can make a claim and not have to back it up. I ask my students to back up their claims with data and facts, and if one told me to do my homework, I would flunk him.
Second flaw in your response. You are attempting to tell us what the effect of a minimum wage law is in the US in 2010 by referring to a document 15 years old. Not only that, it is not a peer reviewed document, but a document put out by politicians with an axe to grind. The question is:Are you interested in the truth or are you just pushing an agenda?
The standard historical argument about the minimum wage.
These of course, are not the only studies that have found these results. So I think that we can agree that the empirical evidence, at least since the 1990’s on the effect of the minimum wage is mixed.
Here even the authors of this study, whoever they are, clearly admit that they cannot explain the contrary findings.
The actual results of the literature are much more mixed than this “study” would lead one to believe.
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