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San Francisco Becomes First U.S. City to Top $10 Minimum Wage

Incorrect.
The money supply is, almost always, expanding.
A properly regulated money supply expands with the population so that the amount of money per person remains the same and prices can remain constant. It shouldn't expand beyond this, so that the money supply is in one way limited.

The poor and everyone else, will be spending more per item, than they previously were because businesses make adjustment to item prices based on expenses.
Yes we established this, the poor will pay a little bit more but they will make substantially more so they can afford it. Businesses will also be making more because the poor will be spending their wages. It ideally works out in the end as a net equitable distribution of wages. What about taxes, do they cause inflation as well?
 
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A properly regulated money supply expands with the population so that the amount of money per person remains the same and prices can remain constant. It shouldn't expand beyond this, so that the money supply is in one way limited.

The money supply expands for a variety of reasons, but not necessarily because of the population.
It's in the best interest of a government, with fixed interest debt to expand to the money supply, to pay it's creditors with less valuable dollars.

Yes we established this, the poor will pay a little bit more but they will make substantially more so they can afford it. Businesses will also be making more because the poor will be spending their wages.

That's dependent on the individual business.
Some people may loose their jobs, others will realize a temporary increase.

With taxes, I'm not sure.
I suppose it could encourage inflation, depending on how it is used.
 
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The money supply expands for a variety of reasons, but not necessarily because of the population.
It's in the best interest of a government, with fixed interest debt to expand to the money supply, to pay it's creditors with less valuable dollars.
That's true but the way it should be is that the money expands proportional to population. Yeah if they printed money they could pay off debts easily.

With taxes, I'm not sure.
I suppose it could encourage inflation, depending on how it is used.
By the argument used for passing on the higher price of labor to the consumer, taxes would cause lots of inflation because everybody has a higher cost of doing business so everyone will raise prices simultaneously to create inflation, but I don't believe that happens. So I don't believe a minimum wage would cause as much inflation as well.
 
Your understanding of the laws of economics is flawed, so that is a big part of your problem. Minimum wages serve a purpose.

hmmm, well yes, but I wonder if you know whose.
 
No, its a more equitable distribution of wages. The poor earn more, everybody does not earn more. Non-poor do not earn more, in fact, the non-poor pay more but the poor earn more.

Why doesn't everyone else earn more than the poor?

That makes no sense - maybe in Austrailia they're more socialized as far as how wages go - but in the US whenever the min wage increases everyone else's wages increase accordingly because they have - at some point - done something to earn an increase and that increase must be maintained.
 
I would like to point out San Francisco has one of the highest Per Capita incomes in the country. I'm guessing the living costs are pretty high there. If that's what the citizens of San Fran want...why exactly are you up in arms.

I believe in giving poor people a fair shot at climbing the ladder. putting the bottom rung beyond their ability to jump strikes me as not only bad economic policy, but immoral as well.
 
Actually, it's going to make things worse for the working poor, because now, businesses are going to raise qualification standards for entry level positions. Some of those working poor won't be able to meet those standards and instead of having a low paying job, won't have any job at all.

that is precisely correct. everyone always forgets that the real "minimum wage" is zero. when you institute a price floor, you simply push everyone below it down to nothing.
 
I believe in giving poor people a fair shot at climbing the ladder. putting the bottom rung beyond their ability to jump strikes me as not only bad economic policy, but immoral as well.
Giving a decent living wage for a decent day's work is immoral? I think anything else is immoral.
 
That's a ridiculous statement based on nothing at all. You'd be the first one to say that minimum wage jobs require little to no skill, so I don't see how you can argue that just because the pay grade was raised that all of the sudden the skill level is raised as well. So now, instead of just flipping burgers, they need to know Calculus too?

either your reading comprehension suffers, or you are being deliberately obtuse. he was pointing out that when you raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour, those whose skill sets makes their labor worth less than $10 an hour are no longer employable.
 
That's true but the way it should be is that the money expands proportional to population. Yeah if they printed money they could pay off debts easily.

What they should do and what they actually do, are two different things.


By the argument used for passing on the higher price of labor to the consumer, taxes would cause lots of inflation because everybody has a higher cost of doing business so everyone will raise prices simultaneously to create inflation, but I don't believe that happens. So I don't believe a minimum wage would cause as much inflation as well.

People will raise prices to compensate for the greater taxes on profit, which falls most to the consumer of those products.
That doesn't necessarily cause inflation, but could cause a decrease in income utility.
 
I believe in giving poor people a fair shot at climbing the ladder. putting the bottom rung beyond their ability to jump strikes me as not only bad economic policy, but immoral as well.

This idea that we'd be flooded with jobs if we got rid of minimum wage is ridiculous. There is no way an American citizen could live off of say Chinese 2 dollar a month salaries (the global price of unskille exportable labor). It would never happen. The cost of living in the US would remain much higher than Chinese cost of living due to the strength of the dollar and the fact most Americans are not earning minimum wage salaries.

The majority of jobs that are not-exportable (service) are the majority of unskilled labor that we're basically competitive in (due to the fact they can't be exported). That's where minimum wage comes into play and it does equal to some extent higher prices for all...but I think most people agree there should be a basement. There should be a wage aperson earns that at least allows them to survive.

By no means is minimum wage a cushy salary.
 
This idea that we'd be flooded with jobs if we got rid of minimum wage is ridiculous. There is no way an American citizen could live off of say Chinese 2 dollar a month salaries (the global price of unskille exportable labor). It would never happen. The cost of living in the US would remain much higher than Chinese cost of living due to the strength of the dollar and the fact most Americans are not earning minimum wage salaries.

The majority of jobs that are not-exportable (service) are the majority of unskilled labor that we're basically competitive in (due to the fact they can't be exported). That's where minimum wage comes into play and it does equal to some extent higher prices for all...but I think most people agree there should be a basement. There should be a wage aperson earns that at least allows them to survive.

By no means is minimum wage a cushy salary.

Minimum wage is an entry level wage.
Most do not stay at it for very long, the problem is that you're predetermining what the value of work done is worth, without evaluating the individual job.
So in essence, you're giving a "non contact" security guard a wage increase and someone else who does more difficult work.
One may deserve a wage increase, while the other may not.

It's an arbitrary and broad value judgement of the worth of specific work.
 
my first full-time job, in 1999...paid $10 an hour.

that was 12 years ago. how much have prices gone up in twelve years?

My first job, paid $5.15 an hour, I now make much more than that.
Minimum wage is an entry level paying job, it's for people without any definable skills or skills in the particular job field.
 
You think I should have shot for a minimum wage of $50K a year?

at what point do you accept that the laws of economics yes apply to people too?

At what point do you understand that cost of goods has been steadily increasing anyway, regardless of wages?

Wages need to match cost of goods, since cost of goods are rising disproportionately thanks to corporate greed and outsourcing. The price of fuel is one such example.
 
Minimum wage is an entry level wage.
Most do not stay at it for very long, the problem is that you're predetermining what the value of work done is worth, without evaluating the individual job.
So in essence, you're giving a "non contact" security guard a wage increase and someone else who does more difficult work.
One may deserve a wage increase, while the other may not.

It's an arbitrary and broad value judgement of the worth of specific work.

If by arbitrary it's not set by market values I agree. Minimum wages are determined generally by prices for the necessaties...bread milk etc. It's not entirely arbitrary in the sense someone says "10 bucks.....sounds good".

I think we've had this argument before Harry over minimum wages. Yes, it's not based on skill level etc. It's based entirely on the cost of necessaties. I would argue that it generally goes up slower than inflation so it doesn't even do a good job with that.

If it was gotten rid of tomorrow....I'm sure most poeple wouldn't make below minimum wage. At the same time...should anybody realisticlly make less than the federal wage of 7.25 or something an hour?
 
No, without a minimum wage you would be guarantee an underclass of workers

we already have an underclass. a minimum wage ensures that they remain so. that, after all, was the reason we adopted the minimum wage in the first place.

Supply would dictate a ridiculously low wage

then you admit that minimum wage laws increase unemployment (ie: reduce the supply of available workers).

given that the first portion of "supply" to be reduced is the most vulnerable among us, how do you justify such a thing?

the workers would have to work because they have no alternative

perish the thought!

and a group would be overpowered by the rich, because those who have would be at the mercy of those who have for a job. This is not a symmetrical situation here that's what you're neglecting. Those who don't have don't have the ability to hold out for more while those who have can always pass an employee opportunity and wait them out.

that depends entirely on the employee and the nature of the position.

in reality, however, these people's labor is already worth a set amount to an employer. when you deny the employer the ability to pay them what they are worth, he is simply not going to pay them at all. The Americans with Disabilities Act would be a prime example - passed in 1992, the ostensible goal was to help the physically or mentally impaired... but because the ADA raised the cost of businesses for hiring such individuals, employment of people with disabilities declined, as employers were unable and unwilling to spend more than an employee was worth.

You are failing to realize how powerful monopolies work.

actually I think that you are failing to realize how "powerful monopolies" typically fall.

The can sign exclusive contracts with suppliers which prevents any other business from entering the market.

no, it prevents those suppliers from supplying competitors.

Those suppliers that don't cooperate can be dumped against and put out of business

dumping supply is one of the more laughable claims. oh - don't get me wrong here - it's been tried. it just also fails.

Free markets tend to aggregate into monopolies, because ideally, anything a small business can do, a larger business can do more efficiently ideally.

that is incorrect both historically and economically. free markets tend to destroy monopolies, historically, monopolies that survive require government intervention. and this is precisely because large businesses are always susceptible to innovators, such as small businesses.

Free markets do not result in the best possible outcome, what they do is maximize profit for a certain business.

wrong. free markets being made up of mutually beneficial trade, what they do is maximize profit for the largest possible number of people, while ensuring that that number of people also steadily goes up.

Ok you are completely wrong here because high prices in cities are a result of property demand/demand to be in the city, not labor costs. Ok, I understand you're example, you left one choice out: D) deal with less profit

profit is not guaranteed, and businesses live on the margins. the vast majority of small businesses already can't maintain that margin, and shut down. when you thin the potential margin by placing on it a drag of higher labor costs, therefore, you increase the percentage of business failures. Businesses are not there to serve as charities, they are there to engage in mutually beneficial trade - trying to change that model to one where business owners pay employees more than they are worth will only break them.

Most likely businesses will raise prices to recover the cost of labor and what this amounts to is a tax on everybody so that the poorest laborers can make a living wage.

except that since the prices of everything have just gone up, that "living" wage isn't as "livable". the working poor are no better off than they were before, and the formerly working poor are now much worse off. They suddenly find themselves with no income, but with the price of necessary goods climbing higher than before.
 
If by arbitrary it's not set by market values I agree. Minimum wages are determined generally by prices for the necessaties...bread milk etc. It's not entirely arbitrary in the sense someone says "10 bucks.....sounds good".

I think we've had this argument before Harry over minimum wages. Yes, it's not based on skill level etc. It's based entirely on the cost of necessaties. I would argue that it generally goes up slower than inflation so it doesn't even do a good job with that.

If it was gotten rid of tomorrow....I'm sure most poeple wouldn't make below minimum wage. At the same time...should anybody realisticlly make less than the federal wage of 7.25 or something an hour?

Depends, I'm willing to bet that if there were no minimum wage, that the "stickiness" of wages would be less and there would of been less job loss in the recession.

Even $7.25 is arbitrary and in some areas, people should be paid less.

An example, a company needs someone to watch some security monitors in the evening.
That's all the person is supposed to do during their time at work.
They hire a retired person, who just wants some extra spending money, even though they're already drawing a pension, SS or have funds to live on.
In this example, the $10 an hour is too much, I'd argue that $7.25 was too much as well.
 
At what point do you understand that cost of goods has been steadily increasing anyway, regardless of wages?

and so the plan is to accelerate the process, but only in specific locales?

Wages need to match cost of goods, since cost of goods are rising disproportionately thanks to corporate greed and outsourcing.

wrong. outsourcing (evil corporate greed practice, that) leads to lower prices, which in turn increases the standard of living for our poor.

The price of fuel is one such example.

:lol: the price of fuel is going up because our government is busy destroying the dollar. and it is staying up because our government is also stupid enough to artificially constrain supply.
 
My first job, paid $5.15 an hour, I now make much more than that.
Minimum wage is an entry level paying job, it's for people without any definable skills or skills in the particular job field.

I'd like to know how many people are actually helped by raising minimum-wages.
 
This idea that we'd be flooded with jobs if we got rid of minimum wage is ridiculous.

that is correct because there is still a high regulatory cost that burdens employers for each American they hire. It is cheaper for the lowest-skill-job employers, therefore, to hire illegal aliens. You will note that we have millions of employed illegal aliens in this country, yet the unemployment rate for young people without a high school diploma is sky high? those two facts are connected; because they are competing for jobs, but government imposes a disadvantage upon one of them.

now, if we were to mandate use of E-Verify, put in some tough enforcement mechanisms, and reduce the regulatory cost of hiring American workers.... then we would indeed see a flood of jobs... assuming we also tossed our young people off of welfare and unemployment.

The majority of jobs that are not-exportable (service) are the majority of unskilled labor that we're basically competitive in (due to the fact they can't be exported). That's where minimum wage comes into play and it does equal to some extent higher prices for all...but I think most people agree there should be a basement. There should be a wage aperson earns that at least allows them to survive.

the problem being that in trying to give them that wage, you actually reduce the wage of many to "nothing"

By no means is minimum wage a cushy salary.

agreed. but it is a salary. and more importantly, it is the first rung on the ladder, which allows you to climb up it. as you work you build experience which you can take with you elsewhere. putting that bottom rung beyond the reach of our poorest citizens and then telling them you are doing it for their own good is a cruel jape.
 
I'd like to know how many people are actually helped by raising minimum-wages.

not a few union contracts are negotiated in terms of "multiples of the minimum wage".

which is why you will often see them advocating for an increase in it. they seem to care less about the poor getting tossed out of work.
 
The liberal ideology of raising the min wage is a horribly failed one. Those already making the min wage only get a wash because for the added cost that business must absorb to pay their low wage workers, they must pass on to the consumer with higher prices. So, the low wage workers don't ever get ahead of the curve on this one. Where it hurts overall is that many businesses will reduce manpower as well, and are now less likely to give bonuses or raises or as much as they had in the past. That hurts the middle income. Businesses will also absorb the increased cost on increasing HC costs to its employers, or will take them longer to provide it if they are a growing business. Middle income workers now not getting as much if any raises and bonuses are now hit with inflation due to the raised min wage. Its a lose lose all the way around.
 
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