Seattle Minimum Wage not working out...

thewanderingjack said:

I think there's an impetus, the economic/job market problems... I think their "solution" is not entirely well thought out.

You have made many solid points about that.

I also agree that "a lot" of people game the system... sorry if I made it seem like only a little... I meant some not all. But then we should improve the screening process...

And still, I don't think that SSI and other benefits, as a rule, over pay... I mean yeah to those ripping it off... but to those who actually need it? it's pretty low... for the most part it's assistance (I think ood stamp's around $150 a month or something right now? That's not exactly actually paying for someone's foods for a month. The other benefits are equally low, hence section 8 housing (a whole nother bag of mess... truly cheap housing). So, granted that there's a loss there we need to plug... but anyone who's not taking our whole budget into account, including all the money we spend on things that have no transparecy... well, there's a lot of places we can talk about fixing.

Ignoring that is just as bad as the people who think raising the wage is gonna make money magically appear (as opposed to lower the value of the dollar/cause a lot of the problems here described., and the reason we have so many arguments and not a lot of solutions.

People are afraid to compromise (rightly so, since usually means both parties are unhappy and not getting anything they want)... but also to meet in the reasonable middle.

If things the grass is really that toxic on the other side (to flip a metaphor, since here each side thinks the others is full of shit) then why not do the decent thing and split? This country is unwieldy anyway. If States had more power to define how things are run, we could all have a state that caters to out personal proclivities, or at least accepts them.

Maybe, rather than keep new immigrants out we should see if any citizens want to go abroad. At least the people coming in want to be here and most are looking or the "American Dream"... for those already here, it seems it's mostly disillusionment. A lot of those countries are charting higher on education anyway... and we need bright minds. The Nazi scientists were good enough, why not the Irish farmer? (sorry, wrong immigrants everyone wants out... Italians? no no they have been welcomed here too now... um French? Japanese? I forget, who are we trying to keep out now? Or are we back to penning natives? I get so lost sometimes...

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tangerinegreen555 said:

Then you live in a shitty republican controlled hell zone...

Too bad. I wouldn't leave the house in the morning for less than $30 an hr. with 1.5X OT after 8 hrs.
Plus incentive.

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Fogdog said:

not a single fact in that. Not one.

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Milliardo Peacecraft said:

Oh like Detroit, Chicago, or Baltimore lol.

There is no way to justify a "minimum wage". That's economic illiteracy at it's finest. What's the old adage? "If you want more of something, get the government to subsidize it". You set the Pell Grant maximum subsidy to $4500 a semester, suddenly every public college costs exactly $4500 a semester. Subsidize corn and soy, every farmer is growing corn and soy. Mandate a wage, suddenly everyone is paid that wage. All minimum wage has done is remove workers' rights to bargain on merit-based pay. The people lobbying for minimum wage hikes are not humanitarians, they are multi-national conglomerates trying to destroy local competition because they can just borrow the difference in labor prices at 0% interest where small business cannot.

Raising the minimum wage makes absolutely no sense, you cannot mandate an employer to do business in your city. The real minimum wage is ZERO DOLLARS. Seattle particularly, is blindly following the metric of property values (the only real growth in the city) to deduce a fictitious median income, and adjusting prices and wages according to a false premise. Mark-to-model rather than mark-to-market economics. Foreign investors have ruined Seattle's property market (along with pretty much every major city around the world), by parking money in property bubbles, driving up asset prices in an artificial market. Look at the 32% increase in Vancouver housing prices since last year or the median home value in SF being well over a million dollars. This is foreign capital flight and nothing else. The minimum wage and median income of Seattle is reflecting the income produced by these speculators and not Joe Sixpack, who is incapable of adjusting his wages as productivity and demand for goods are not rising at the rate of artificial income growth through speculative asset bubbles growing like a cancer in every major city.

The real solution has nothing to do with minimum wage, that is just a symptom of a much larger disease. The problem isn't the amount of money people are making, rather the markets that are being manipulated by artificial growth. You get rid of rampant speculation, you lower the mean income to what it actually is, prices for goods and services re-adjust themselves to what is actually the situation on the ground and not some academic model. With all these absurd "stimulus" plans (QE and the like), we have seen a slowdown in global demand (Baltic Dry index flat-lining, highest inventories ever, falling consumer demand, $2 gas in the peak of driving season), the only growth has been in ASSETS. Property, fine art, richie-rich bullshit. All this funny money is infecting property markets in big cities and giving an artificial signal to raise prices where they should be deflating in the current economic climate. Minimum wage is only going to expedite the process of pushing out labor in the interest of keeping the cancer alive. Companies in Seattle will soon vacate, what happened when labor became too expensive in Detroit? Detroit happened.

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NLXSK1 said:

15% of people in America are on food stamps... It isnt a couple of people gaming the system. Disability has gone through the roof. That is full social security payments to people in their 20's, 30's, 40's etc... We are 20 trillion dollars in debt, most of that is supposedly owed to the American people. Who is going to pay that back?? When are we going to stop burdening our future children??

The government is trying to force economic activity by raising wages when there is no impetus. Which means it puts a crunch on jobs. We need more jobs and the government is doing everything it can to create less jobs.

Again, how much is the UNEMPLOYED person going to benefit from the new minimum wage?

Nobody is saying there should be no safety nets but there is also too much.

Obama will be the first president in the history of America to govern over a period with less than 3% growth. That is for his full 8 years. That is jobs not being created and prosperity being crushed by legislation, litigation, excessive regulation and a general attitude that business people are rich greedy bastards.

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Fogdog said:

not a single fact in that. Not one.

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NLXSK1 said:

The first sentence was a single fact. Sorry you missed it with all the other words in there.

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Milliardo Peacecraft said:

Oh like Detroit, Chicago, or Baltimore lol.

There is no way to justify a "minimum wage". That's economic illiteracy at it's finest. What's the old adage? "If you want more of something, get the government to subsidize it". You set the Pell Grant maximum subsidy to $4500 a semester, suddenly every public college costs exactly $4500 a semester. Subsidize corn and soy, every farmer is growing corn and soy. Mandate a wage, suddenly everyone is paid that wage. All minimum wage has done is remove workers' rights to bargain on merit-based pay. The people lobbying for minimum wage hikes are not humanitarians, they are multi-national conglomerates trying to destroy local competition because they can just borrow the difference in labor prices at 0% interest where small business cannot.

Raising the minimum wage makes absolutely no sense, you cannot mandate an employer to do business in your city. The real minimum wage is ZERO DOLLARS. Seattle particularly, is blindly following the metric of property values (the only real growth in the city) to deduce a fictitious median income, and adjusting prices and wages according to a false premise. Mark-to-model rather than mark-to-market economics. Foreign investors have ruined Seattle's property market (along with pretty much every major city around the world), by parking money in property bubbles, driving up asset prices in an artificial market. Look at the 32% increase in Vancouver housing prices since last year or the median home value in SF being well over a million dollars. This is foreign capital flight and nothing else. The minimum wage and median income of Seattle is reflecting the income produced by these speculators and not Joe Sixpack, who is incapable of adjusting his wages as productivity and demand for goods are not rising at the rate of artificial income growth through speculative asset bubbles growing like a cancer in every major city.

The real solution has nothing to do with minimum wage, that is just a symptom of a much larger disease. The problem isn't the amount of money people are making, rather the markets that are being manipulated by artificial growth. You get rid of rampant speculation, you lower the mean income to what it actually is, prices for goods and services re-adjust themselves to what is actually the situation on the ground and not some academic model. With all these absurd "stimulus" plans (QE and the like), we have seen a slowdown in global demand (Baltic Dry index flat-lining, highest inventories ever, falling consumer demand, $2 gas in the peak of driving season), the only growth has been in ASSETS. Property, fine art, richie-rich bullshit. All this funny money is infecting property markets in big cities and giving an artificial signal to raise prices where they should be deflating in the current economic climate. Minimum wage is only going to expedite the process of pushing out labor in the interest of keeping the cancer alive. Companies in Seattle will soon vacate, what happened when labor became too expensive in Detroit? Detroit happened.

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tangerinegreen555 said:

A. TLDR
B. Fuck off
C. It's middle class stupid fucking idiots like you that let the 1% run fucking wild...And keep middle class wages stagnant for the last 30 yrs.

Go suck a Trump.

View attachment 3748736

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Milliardo Peacecraft said:

Oh like Detroit, Chicago, or Baltimore lol.

There is no way to justify a "minimum wage". That's economic illiteracy at it's finest. What's the old adage? "If you want more of something, get the government to subsidize it". You set the Pell Grant maximum subsidy to $4500 a semester, suddenly every public college costs exactly $4500 a semester. Subsidize corn and soy, every farmer is growing corn and soy. Mandate a wage, suddenly everyone is paid that wage. All minimum wage has done is remove workers' rights to bargain on merit-based pay. The people lobbying for minimum wage hikes are not humanitarians, they are multi-national conglomerates trying to destroy local competition because they can just borrow the difference in labor prices at 0% interest where small business cannot.

Raising the minimum wage makes absolutely no sense, you cannot mandate an employer to do business in your city. The real minimum wage is ZERO DOLLARS. Seattle particularly, is blindly following the metric of property values (the only real growth in the city) to deduce a fictitious median income, and adjusting prices and wages according to a false premise. Mark-to-model rather than mark-to-market economics. Foreign investors have ruined Seattle's property market (along with pretty much every major city around the world), by parking money in property bubbles, driving up asset prices in an artificial market. Look at the 32% increase in Vancouver housing prices since last year or the median home value in SF being well over a million dollars. This is foreign capital flight and nothing else. The minimum wage and median income of Seattle is reflecting the income produced by these speculators and not Joe Sixpack, who is incapable of adjusting his wages as productivity and demand for goods are not rising at the rate of artificial income growth through speculative asset bubbles growing like a cancer in every major city.

The real solution has nothing to do with minimum wage, that is just a symptom of a much larger disease. The problem isn't the amount of money people are making, rather the markets that are being manipulated by artificial growth. You get rid of rampant speculation, you lower the mean income to what it actually is, prices for goods and services re-adjust themselves to what is actually the situation on the ground and not some academic model. With all these absurd "stimulus" plans (QE and the like), we have seen a slowdown in global demand (Baltic Dry index flat-lining, highest inventories ever, falling consumer demand, $2 gas in the peak of driving season), the only growth has been in ASSETS. Property, fine art, richie-rich bullshit. All this funny money is infecting property markets in big cities and giving an artificial signal to raise prices where they should be deflating in the current economic climate. Minimum wage is only going to expedite the process of pushing out labor in the interest of keeping the cancer alive. Companies in Seattle will soon vacate, what happened when labor became too expensive in Detroit? Detroit happened.

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thewanderingjack said:

I hear yah...

What is the number one reason companies move out of an area (like all the companies here with factories in china?): cost. Yes, we do have to protect our employees, and our environment... people like to take advantage... that's why min wage has become standard base pay for so many (most?) jobs... because that's all companies are required to pay. And despite the benefit of merit-based wages, they'd rather not give raises etc. That's why the EPA is finding violators all around (near me there's a coal plant that'd rather pay the fines than shut down, still cost effective to them... totally out of date, running dirty).

Unless you're not worried about those things (which I think is trusting of employers/companies too much) how do we resolve this? I mean sure, we could tarrif the crap out of imports.... if it ain't made in America, then fuck it. I'm down, I'm all about independence, and local sourcing... keeps overheads down.

But then we have to up our production facilities for everything, deal with all the crap tade agreements we already have in place... what else other crap...

I think the answer is in the people.

If all employees went on strike, a better situation may be talked out. If people didn't keep spending good cash on what are really low value goods... then we could get things maybe working better.

A lot of our conflicts have to do with our interests outside out borders. It costs us money and pisses people off. Anyone hear this much about Muslim terrorist before we'd had been messing in that area? We have the resources here to thrive, what's the deal... cut our dependence on foreign oil, boom, savings and maybe peace... American companies are so concerned with selling their shit al over the world, they stop being American in any meaningful way. I would think patriotism would also mean wanting your own country to do better.

Millionaire movie stars? really? While oh idk, doctors and teachers lose jobs and salaries... seems crazy to me.

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tangerinegreen555 said:

A. TLDR
B. Fuck off
C. It's middle class stupid fucking idiots like you that let the 1% run fucking wild...And keep middle class wages stagnant for the last 30 yrs.

Go suck a Trump.

View attachment 3748736

Click to expand...

thewanderingjack said:

I hear yah...

What is the number one reason companies move out of an area (like all the companies here with factories in china?): cost. Yes, we do have to protect our employees, and our environment... people like to take advantage... that's why min wage has become standard base pay for so many (most?) jobs... because that's all companies are required to pay. And despite the benefit of merit-based wages, they'd rather not give raises etc. That's why the EPA is finding violators all around (near me there's a coal plant that'd rather pay the fines than shut down, still cost effective to them... totally out of date, running dirty).

Unless you're not worried about those things (which I think is trusting of employers/companies too much) how do we resolve this? I mean sure, we could tarrif the crap out of imports.... if it ain't made in America, then fuck it. I'm down, I'm all about independence, and local sourcing... keeps overheads down.

But then we have to up our production facilities for everything, deal with all the crap tade agreements we already have in place... what else other crap...

I think the answer is in the people.

If all employees went on strike, a better situation may be talked out. If people didn't keep spending good cash on what are really low value goods... then we could get things maybe working better.

A lot of our conflicts have to do with our interests outside out borders. It costs us money and pisses people off. Anyone hear this much about Muslim terrorist before we'd had been messing in that area? We have the resources here to thrive, what's the deal... cut our dependence on foreign oil, boom, savings and maybe peace... American companies are so concerned with selling their shit al over the world, they stop being American in any meaningful way. I would think patriotism would also mean wanting your own country to do better.

Millionaire movie stars? really? While oh idk, doctors and teachers lose jobs and salaries... seems crazy to me.

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NLXSK1 said:

Yes, that is exactly what you did as well. They may be better off, they may be worse off. But even if they are better off it is $250 bucks a year. It isnt going to change anyones lifestyle.

However, that job that would have paid a kid $12.50 and got him a start in the business world is no longer available. The government has now forbidden it. But you always have been a prohibitionist so this would make you happy.

So that kid gets no job, gets no future... Thanks Fogdog and Obama and Seattle.

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Milliardo Peacecraft said:

Forcing wage growth with declining demand isn't going to solve the problem. Sorry you cannot understand economics without reddit dog memes, long-form is how the world actually works. You cannot have depth without substance, and you have neither.

Wages reflect prices and demand. Prices are currently detached from demand, that is the problem. When your indexing phony growth figures in price discovery, you are not accounting for declining demand. Wages are reflecting nothing as wages are a function of productivity, productivity now has nothing to do with price. Companies that produce nothing are valued higher than highly productive companies (twitter valued higher than a steel refinery doesn't make any economic sense).

If I can borrow money at 0% interest, buy property in Seattle that will produce 13% growth in a year, and then sell that asset for the margin price and pay back the loan that has accumulated 0% interest, I have made money with absolutely no growth taking place. That money doesn't create demand for goods and services, it just creates larger amounts of money to be re-invested in speculation. Minimum wage workers are being railroaded by this artificial income growth that does not add to any productive economy. Now a bigmack costs $6 because some investor in New York is becoming fabulously wealthy, your wages will never rise fast enough to compensate. An asset bubble growing at 13% dwarfs the rest of the economy that was just clocked at 1.2%. You cannot index one asset bubble and adjust prices to that model.

Imagine a bar full of 100 guys making $400 a week. The average income in that bar is $400 a week. Now Bill Gates walks in the door. The average income is now well over a million dollars a week. Suddenly a beer costs 10x what it did before. This is not sustainable, as one guy is not going to drink as much beer as 100 guys. That's where your declining demand and increasing inventories are coming from. The solution is to cut off the 0% interest. If speculators are allowed to borrow into infinity, artificial inflation will never be curbed and your $15 minimum wage will mean nothing as it will not grow at nearly the rate of the asset bubble's margin gains.

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bundee1 said:

Says the asshole who complains about that same $250 coming out of his pocket in taxes. You're way better off than the people who need that $250 in the first place. Right? I mean thriving small business man and all. Coke Zero how apropos.

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NLXSK1 said:

In 2014 I paid over $14,000 in federal and state taxes. You are damn right I am complaining.... You seem to think all this money the government is spending comes from nowhere....

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NLXSK1 said:

The government took in a record amount of revenue last year. It isnt the money going in that is the problem. It is how it is being spent.

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NLXSK1 said:

In 2014 I paid over $14,000 in federal and state taxes. You are damn right I am complaining.... You seem to think all this money the government is spending comes from nowhere....

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NLXSK1 said:

Naah, needed the loan for living expenses.

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NLXSK1 said:

I paid over $13,000 dollars in taxes.

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Milliardo Peacecraft said:

That's absolutely true. The money went into bailouts. The bailouts were necessary because of speculation on fictitious assets and obscure derivative products. What did they do with the money? Buy more obscure derivatives, and speculation in asset markets. No structural reform was borne of the bailouts, the bubbles just got larger. Productivity, spending, and demand have all stagnated, so in order to signal any kind of growth, they moved the goalposts to include these 0% interest speculative bubbles in the GDP. No physical growth is taking place, just the opposite, prices are rising where they should be falling with decreased demand. Wages are not going to make a dent, your wages are shoveling sand against an ocean of bubble markets. Hedge funds that produce nothing are buying productive assets like factories, just to liquidate them and all the jobs they provide to make more money on margins. The solution isn't to raise wages, rather to reintroduce risk into investment. Even if your factory is only running at 2% growth per year, a hedge fund borrowing at 0% interest will acquire that business just to liquidate it for that 2% with no overhead risk via servicing the interest on the initial loaned capital.

The dot-com bubble burst, and the money became the mortgage bubble. The mortgage bubble burst and became a hybrid beast. Now tech companies like Twitter and Apple can get a 0% interest loan of a few billion dollars, buy back their own stock in inflate it's value, liquidate that stock to pay back the loan for the original amount of money, and then take the margin earnings and buy assets like real-estate that will inflate even faster. We move those interest rates by 1%, the whole castle comes down. The minimum wage argument is deflecting from the actual matters at hand, which is our whole economy has become Enron.

Stop talking about irrelevant wages and start talking about 0% interest rates. Remove the punch bowl and your money will be worth something again.

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tangerinegreen555 said:

Then you live in a shitty republican controlled hell zone...

Too bad. I wouldn't leave the house in the morning for less than $30 an hr. with 1.5X OT after 8 hrs.
Plus incentive.

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