Minimum wage & The cost of living

[3kushn]

It's pretty much proven that a federal minimum wage increase does nothing good for the people it's set to help. In many cases, however, it does create inflation. It works pretty much the same way the labor unions work. When one interrupts a free market by setting an arbitrary price floor -- the minimum price above equilibrium in which prices cannot drop -- than one creates greater supply than demand; or, in other words, by stifling the price mechanism, one creates unemployment.

Bureaucrats/technocrats/ politicians do not fully understand the implications to their welfare policies. A study done back in the 80's showed that for every $8 dollars allocated for redistribution, and collected from tax dollars, only $1 actually reached the person it was intended to help.

-Shane

Exactly right. There's not only price competition between companies and their products but price competition for jobs and wages. This horrible pres. has set the stage for near full employment. Supply and demand says that wages should go up when help is scarce. Raising minimum wage is only a political move and not only doesn't help it hurts low skilled people. If you were hiring people for a job that pays $8 per hour and had 2 candidates, one you feel can produce $10 per hour and one that can produce $7 per hour, which one gets hired? Simple business decision. You can say "Well they the $7 dollar guy just to be nice but that's not how it works. You have to look at the reality. In this situation the lower skilled worker is left out in the cold and stays on the dole, which is what the politicians really wanted in the first place. The more unemployed the more money they get to dole out and the more powerful they become. Money is power and this power buys votes.

The higher the min wage the fewer unskilled workers find work. It's a bad deal.

 

[Scaramouche]

man, are gasoline prices HIGH! Those dirty rotten oil companies and their record profits make me SO mad. How much do they pocket per gallon??? I mean, all they do is either buy it from someone else (or drill for it in some cases), get it here, refine it (in antique refineries, I might add; can't build new one's - 'nother topic all together), and then get it to stations all around the country. How much $$$ do they get to do that? Alot less than our government gets for each gallon.....what do they do for their RECORD profits off of gasoline? They try to tax those same oil companies more for winfall profits....hilarious....drive up the price some more Congress. GEESH!

May I assume that you have been long oil stocks for a while?

 

[cueandcushion]

Just curious

How many of you are invested in oil companies stock? Everyone complains about the oil company profits, but those profits go to the stockholders as dividends. Last year I made 40% profit on my stock holdings. So I made a lot more money in dividends than I spent on gasoline.

Adding more taxes to oil companies is going to hurt most Americans in the long run. WE pay those taxes one way or another.

 

[Dawgie]

Just for conversation let's say the min. wage is $5.25 and is scheduled to go to $7.25 over the next three years. (this is about what is to take place.) Most employers don't pay minimum wage anyway, they pay more than $5.25 and in most cases they pay 8 to 10 dollars per hour. Just look at your local convenience store and you will see hiring signs advertising 8 to 10 dollars per hour. So having the minimum wage set at $7.25 is just a smoke screen. Nobody will work for $5.25. Even at 10 bucks it is hard to find someone that will be a good employee.

The average rent in NJ is over $1,400 per months plus utilities. You ain't goin to get a very nice place to live on 10 bucks per hour.

 

[BlackDragon]

"Do you know what the average Chinese salary is ...is somewhere in the range of $400 to $800 per year" RC

I think its higher now with farmers on a hundred a month and others in the middle class getting eight hundred a month.
I was with a chinese family being driven to a scenic park in a 4WD. Asked the english speaking daughter the price. A hundred and fifty thousand, she says. ($US20 thou). Expensive, I say. She disagrees. Her father heads the science dept at the high school. He has no other business.
Its the farmers here whose cash is eaten by medical bills on a regular basis then education bills keeps everyone down with the shoulder to the wheel working non stop to stay afloat.
There are many affluent chinese though with incomes, apartments, cars, clothes and modcons who enjoy a (western) lifestyle.
Theres less red tape for buying and selling here, for private enterprise and small business in China than there is Australian. Its actually more of a 'free market' economy and self expression and non-invasion of privacy by the powers that be in daily life is pretty much the norm.
Those who think life in communist countries is doomed haven't been there imo
Five bucks for a gallon of milk. I had to ask what a gallon of milk was, being an american term. Four litres, right. Five bucks isn't much imo. Ten bucks would be about right if it was on par with other countries.
In China, a dollar gets a dollars worth. Same as Australia. The exchange rate is really meaningless. A buck is a buck anywhere in any denomination when you're in that country.
Taxation is why prices are high in western countries and the welfare system.
China has virtually no welfare, very low taxation and hospitals and many schools and universities are run as private businesses.
About Iraq and American confrontation, it has made Muslim regions dangerous places to visit and any muslim person looks at me sideways.
Ambivalent feeling towards America worldwide, I'd say.
Hasn't engendered a feeling of goodwill that you would expect from a Superpower but then those jihadist are fking crazy.

 

[chefjeff]

How many of you are invested in oil companies stock? Everyone complains about the oil company profits, but those profits go to the stockholders as dividends. Last year I made 40% profit on my stock holdings. So I made a lot more money in dividends than I spent on gasoline.

Adding more taxes to oil companies is going to hurt most Americans in the long run. WE pay those taxes one way or another.

BUMP for a non-violent solution to high gasoline prices.

Get in on the supply side and use those earnings to buy gas. It hedges itself...if the price of gas drops, you're saving money; if it goes up, you''ve got extra income to pay for it. Woo Hoo!

Jeff Livingston