The Trump Presidency

you need to reconsider your comment.
You are suggesting that a social welfare payment or service have greater value than a minimum wage...which would be counter productive to all.
I might add governments are elected to represent the people as well...by those people, including small retail.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

In a competitive economy it's not up to a business to have an arbitrary wage imposed on it that is unrelated to the underlying business.

You can give everyone a job and then have their wage subsidized by the government. I'm open to the many ways of addressing this. Subsidized wage, minimum income while undergoing job retraining, minimum income for those that can't be retrained.

It needs to come out of everyone's taxes rather than to be imposed artificially on a business.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I'm actually more unsettled at having opened two closely occurring paragraphs with the same word.

Tossup.

To the one, like I said: Certain job creation was made up of insecure, low wage jobs, like fast food. And, remember, one of the reasons people have been fighting about minimum wages so loudly these recent years is that the employment environment, as such, includes McDonald's telling workers to sign up for food stamps instead of ask for better wages.

The thing about getting rid of McDonald's, as such, has to do with the idea that this is the business model. It's one of the few times I find use for a weird conservative argument: People with better financial security are paying for McDonald's employees to survive. Naturally, the solution to this problem in the employment environment seems to be cutting SNAP allocation.

Did you miss the news of a $1.2 billion tax beak for Amazon, approximately forty-eight thousand dollars per job promised? These, however, are supposed to be jobs worth a hundred fifty thousand dollars salary. Meanwhile, a fast food job in New York will, pretax, make just enough to cover rent in Crown Heights.

A bit of irony: Fast food operations often claim WOTC, a tax credit intended to hire disadvantaged workers, including food stamp recipients. Meanwhile, "Those businesses didn't start because of 'tax breaks for large corporations'", is just another strawstuffed distraction.

More of your straw.

That's pretty much a matter of will.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

The will is not here.

 

Which would be our common ground, except—

—there is something about your regard for business that doesn't quite make sense. Fixing the larger problem is going to impose on buisness. But, you know, it's not up to a business, this; we shouldn't impose on a business, that; you're pretty confident—

—compared to what you can't figure out about running a business. In the end, it almost sounds—

—like those employers probably shouldn't be adminstering employment at all.

Which is what it is, and all, sure, but resolving the larger question will inevitably impose on business. As I said↑, if the business model requires employees to operate in a state of suffering, work quality reflecting that priority is a problem of the business model. Such as it is, certain business models depending on deprivation will be imposed upon by functional address and implemetation of solutions described by the fact of and need for a minimum wage discuussion.

And therein we encounter the question of will. In that context, sure, the fact that you're here, carrying a pitch that starts with deprivation, reminds something or other about why that will is absent.

 

The main reason for Government regulating minimum wages is to prevent or at least minimize exploitation of the work force, slave labor, and obligating employees to assume the economic risks that the employer undertakes by being in business. Other reason is to ensure that time spent legitimately working for someone is more profitable than looting a house or mugging a pedestrian, or getting involved in other criminal activity just to survive, pay the rent and put bread on the table.
Generally speaking, Governments only regulate because the population have proven that they are incapable of self regulation.
Employees have been forced to live in squalor, enslaved by their needs for their family suffering the unconscionable conduct of greedy landlords and employers. Thus regulation becomes necessary to protect those that need protection.

"You only have to be one dollar short of your rent and homeless you can become"

History is littered with examples of what happens when the poor people decide that they have had enough...of having too little...of the cake...

 

I didn't say that business shouldn't be taxed, just as I didn't say anything about individuals not being taxed.

I said that it's not up to a business to pay someone based on their need. Their pay is based on their job. If I have a wife and 4 kids to support and I work at McDonald's that's a problem under any scenario. You can't realistically expect a job at McDonald's to support that many people.

If it's governmental policy for the lowest paid person to make 50k/yr then nothing will be selling hamburgers or you can start such a business and pay people however much the business can justify based on the selling price of a hamburger and the government can subsidize the rest if that is what voters want.

Or they can leave it as it now is. You can live in a smaller city, in a cheap apartment and live on a McDonald's wage. If you get a roommate you can get a better apartment. If you later get a better job you can do even better. Just like people have always done.

 

Another straw man.

Okay, dude. Whatever.

As noted, this is a problem of the business model.

Another straw man.

What's that? Another straw man?

Oh, yes, because telling the poor they can up and move isn't an overworn trope.

They're going to commute with what money? You know, becaue poor people can afford to commute. Two people working fast food jobs can't qualify for a one-bedroom apartment without assistance, in Kent. You should try commuting from Kent on a bus. The whole idea of living in Tukwila in order to hold a McDonald's hourly job at Westlake really ought to make some sort of point. North side? Snoco? Bus commute from Alderwood or Canyon Park is insidious, and rent is higher in Mill Creek and Everett than in Tukwila. Something goes here about living in the real world↑.

You missed the Republican joke, didn't you?

Which leads to such dissatisfaction that, to hear the justifying analysis, people voted for Trump in order to wreck things.

Do you really think thoughtless mimicry of heartless fantasies that buried American workers over the course of decades was somehow useful? Really? Just repeat the same old blithe, dehumanizing formulations that got us into this mess in the first place? Maybe if poor people keep digging a hole, at least some of them will one day strike gold? Is that it? Or has it just been so long, since the Eighties, that you expect people have forgotten? Because there was also the Nineties. Oh, yeah, and the Aughts. One of the reasons American society is in the hole it finds itself is that we constantly defer to these abstract questions of what a business ought or not as if the business itself is the object of consideration, instead of the worker, who is also the consumer, who is also, y'know, a person. And this is important to take a moment to consider, because it's true that, on paper, our businesses will outlast us. If we program the computers well enough, our businesses will continue to run, for a short while, at least, after humans are gone. To the other, we're probably not going out that way. Still, is the Economy, as such, a tool in service of humans life, society, persistence, and evolution, or is the Economy some manner of deified idea we exist to serve? The latter is what your arguments prescribe.

It's true, we can work all these things out and still figure out how to have a McDonald's in Westlake Center. But, presently, if we absolutely need such unsustainable employment in the city, we fail to account for it. No matter how we account for it, business will be imposed upon. Business operates within society; at some point, what employees need is, in fact, a necessary consideration of business.

 

Consider that Seattle has (I think) the highest minimum wage in the country ($16/hr). The result has largely been that those who had full time jobs now work less hours for about the same amount of money and those who weren't full time now work less hours for about the same amount of money.

In any event, what much of the country is arguing for, Seattle has. That's not the real issue. You don't base a permanent lifestyle on working at a minimum wage job.

Who thinks that you can live in SF, Seattle, NYC and work at McDonald's for any reason other than a part-time job or a temporary solution.

Groceries went up as a result of the Seattle experiment. So you have people working less hours for the same amount of money who now have to pay more for groceries. It's all related. Spare me the strawman nonsense.

"Poor people" isn't a permanent class from an individual standpoint. On the other hand there will almost be a group (revolving) of poor people. What is more important is to work for ways to move out of that category. You can't just raise the bottom so that there are no poor people.

 

I do think you have a valid point.
Fast food has always been a "between job" filler or "teen pocket money work experience" for most workers in the industry. Certainly here in Australia it seems to be. The industry it self would not survive if the minimum hourly rate was raised too high leaving all those who seek experience or pocket money with out the ability to do so. Mind you, losing most of the fast food would probably go a long way to solving the obesity crisis and save the community huge amounts of health related money by default.

It is true also that as Tiassa is suggesting that it is the Fast food industry business model that is flawed if it is ever expected to provide viable full time employment.

How many industries survive only because they employ low paid apprentices, interns etc? (rhetorical)

The problem, though, is exploitation, slavery and setting a minimum that allows litigation later if proven that exploitation has occurred.
The other issue is that once a minimum hourly rate is struck or even implied, it requires maintenance, management and upgrading as needed, to avoid the Min. Hourly Rate itself becoming a tool for exploitation.
If the minimum hr rate falls behind inflation then it can be used by employers to justify exploitation.
So once the MHR is struck which is often the case the community is stuck with it, and has an obligation to attend to it's ongoing value.

 

It's really a solution without a problem. Whether you have a minimum wage law or not doesn't really matter. We have more or less full employment. As you point out, most minimum wage jobs are temporary entry level jobs.

They would pay about the same with or without the law. Most of those jobs pay better than the minimum wage if you stay there full-time for very long anyway. They never pay great but just market forces cause them to pay a little more than any minimum wage.

Let's face it, "slavery" isn't really a problem as it is being described. Market forces allocate wages based on qualifications and demand. Talking about minimal wage is really just worrying about a problem that doesn't really exist.

Not being able to make enough money to live in a big city is a legitimate problem but no realistic minimum wage law is going to fix that. That would be like addressing the problem of not enough cheap, affordable housing in Beverly Hills. No one expects there to be any.

No one expects to move to Beverly Hills with a plan based around getting a job at McDonald's. It's silly to pretend otherwise.

When I was between college and grad school, I worked in retail for a year while getting all the paperwork taken care of. I was paid the minimum wage initially and within a few months I was making more than that (not a lot more but more). I was made an assistant-buyer.

I was living in a decent sized city but not something like Seattle. I was able to rent an apartment in an old building and it was fine. It was temporary. If I wasn't going to go to grad school I would have picked another job but even if I had picked that same job I would have just been on track to eventually become a buyer/manager and that pays a decent salary.

This isn't a real problem.

 

You need more contact with the real world. (For one: We have "full employment" only because we allow subsistence-level wages. That is poverty, not prosperity - it is easily possible to have full employment and poverty at the same time, even in a modern industrial economy, as the US is demonstrating).

1) It's not arbitrary.
2) The "competition" in the US economy drives wages to below subsistence levels - labor has little bargaining power.
3) If you want to restore bargaining power to low wage earners, instead of measures such as a minimum wage, you will have to restore the New Deal financial regulations and the New Deal support of unions.

No fix that does not include a minimum wage will work.

A minimum wage is necessary, not sufficient.

Speaking of the real world:
You can't do that on minimum wage any more, in the US. Rents have gone up, wages have gone down.

 

As the "old folks" used to say "Can't, can't do anything".

If someone has no interest in doing anything to help themselves, so be it.

 

on top of which, Trumps tariffs can be added to the misery...

 

The current minimum wage in Seattle is $12/hr.; there are different classifications, and the highest minimum wage will exceed $16/hr. in 2020, however, that's for large employers. Smaller employers whose employees can be projected to earn $2.25/hr. in tips will pay only $13.50.

Even at $16.39/hr., the minimum wage is not enough to qualify for a one-bedroom apartment without assistance.

That attitude didn't work at Taco Bell or Pizza Hut in Salem, Oregon, in the '90s, either. It was a closer pitch, though: At minimum wage, you could presume a full forty-hour work week and qualify for an apartment at $300/mo.

And on that point, we might recall what I said earlier:

• Those who are old enough can remember Clinton and Bush Sr., or other politicians, arguing about job creation, with the bitterly muttered punch line among workers being, yeah, sure, but these were insecure, low wage jobs; sure, the factories are gone, but, hey, at least they created a bunch of fast-food jobs by giving tax breaks to large corporations.​

We come back to the business model: "Who thinks that you can … work at McDonald's for any reason other than a part-time job or a temporary solution?"

Great question. Now enforce the answer as a matter of societal consequence and process.

McD's will lose a bunch of tax credits, because the jobs can't be projected to achieve, for instance, the WOTC need. And, sure, that's fine with me. But it won't be fine with them. And you can blithely rely on Beverly Hills fallacies, but, once again, something goes here about living in the real world↑.

†​

One aspect that remains is why anything might matter. To wit:

We come back to the question fo the Trump presidency: Why does any of this matter, say, to you? The problem with touting employment numbers while ignoring quality of life is allegedly what brought us to the current diminishment of the working classes: Real wages and purchasing power became such a persistent crisis that employment rates, such as "more or less full employment", does not seem to help relieve either growing financial distress or living dissatisfaction.

In terms of the Trump presidency, declining real wages and purchasing power, the loss of property and security in the face of mounting expenses, greater expectation, and lesser effective remuneration, is ostensibly a problem driving all manner of societal anxiety, unsettlement, and anger.

Addressing the question from a standpoint presuming such frailty of business that it just can't work unless inflicting needless cruelty against human beings doesn't really help anything, except maybe your personal satisfaction, which, in the end, amounts to pretty much the same.

 

You want me to live in the real world. I would suggest that you take some of that advice.

We live in Seattle. The economy couldn't be much stronger than it is here. Look at all of the major corporate headquarters located here. You want good paying jobs. That what we have here. Most of the jobs here aren't low paying jobs.

Most people here, even young professionals into their 40's, if they aren't married or living with girlfriends/boyfriends do have roommates and sometimes multiple roommates.

That is a good way to adapt to a strong economy in a large city. You can live in a house with other like-minded people. Maybe everyone skis or likes to rock climb, gets together and rents a house.

I don't know why that wouldn't be appropriate for someone making less money as well.

Or, if this economy is too strong and one doesn't have the skills to compete in this environment move to a more favorable environment as many do in retirement.

There are plenty of places where you could work at McDonald's and walk or bus to a nearby apartment house in Ohio for example. That's the kind of place where the economy isn't strong and where housing is cheaper and where there are more McDonald's than in more affluent places. That doesn't work for you either.

I guess we could subsidize income for young professionals as well if they can't afford the standards that you have set forth.

I'm not the one who isn't living in the real world. People leave Norway too for more opportunity. High taxes and a high cost of living and a hard time making it into the middle class and beyond is a de-motivator there.

Perhaps you have examples of where the system is working better than here and let's keep it in the real world.

 

And yet these unmotivated Norwegians somehow are more prosperous than Americans - they can afford to see a doctor, they take long vacations, they can afford a college education if they want one, they live well without piling up huge debt in their youth that will cripple them for decades.

It's perfectly appropriate. It just isn't possible for the bottom 2/3 of the US economy.
Meanwhile, the absurdity of calling an economy "strong" when the median job cannot even rent the median apartment (let alone buy the median house, as used to be standard) is noted in passing.
As for the rest of the country, less fortunate than wealthy Seattle:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/11/whats-behind-the-subprime-consumer-loan-implosion.html

 

"manufacturing" classes ...

 

they appear to be punitive in their application as a perception of the mainstream public
this aligns them to a nationalistic concept

meanwhile ... Dakota pipe line ...

 

No confusion, just your seeming inability to fathom anything from a viewpoint other than your own narrow one. I understand that leftists think allegations are accumulating, even Russia collusion is still valid to them, regardless of the Mueller report (or even inexplicably because of it). You presuming people on the right don't know this is pure ignorance on your part, failing to understand how much leftist media they are regularly exposed to or how Jonathan Haidt's research has shown conservatives to understand leftists much better than vice-versa (which you seem to be illustrating here). That accumulation is your leftist bias, that you're apparently so immersed in that you somehow believe to be some flavor of fact.

When I ask "which one", I'm expressing that none have been conclusively shown or even as yet successfully acted upon. You believe otherwise. And? I'm not saying you don't. Only that I disagree. That you don't seem to understand that speaks volumes.

The question was whether to support impeachment, not what flavor of impeachment to support. But your mental gymnastics are fun to watch.

IOW, you have no argument other than continuing your usual ad hominems. Yawn.

Why is it so hard for you to understand that a difference of opinion is not ignorance or confusion? Just your narrow-minded presumption that you must be right and any other opinion must be due to personal failing.

Ahem:

Maybe you should bother to read what you're ignorantly opining about.

That you can't see the spinelessness or moral failing in Democrats thinking a high crime has been committed and checking with public opinion on whether to proceed speaks volumes about you. I'm holding them to their own claims. Impeachment does not require an actual crime, but they insist actual crimes have been committed. So either they're lying or they really don't mind checking public opinion before prosecuting actual crimes, likely out of political expedience. That you can't comprehend this simple notion is indicative of the bubble you live in.