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Warren Buffett: $15 minimum wage will hurt the working class

Re: Warren Buffett Don't raise the minimum wage

ok. make education prohibitively expensive, and then conservatives can pay for welfare instead and bitch about it on internet message boards.

or we could educate the kids so that they don't need welfare, and conservatives could still bitch about that.

i prefer the latter.

Education is not prohibitively expensive. I paid my own way through college, it was difficult, but the juice was worth the squeeze.

We already pay for 12 years of school and still have millions either not graduating or simply skating by. You dont need 12 years of school to do the jobs those idiots are destined for. Im sure they can be trained to work in a warehouse in a few short weeks.
 
Re: Warren Buffett Don't raise the minimum wage

Education is not prohibitively expensive. I paid my own way through college, it was difficult, but the juice was worth the squeeze.

We already pay for 12 years of school and still have millions either not graduating or simply skating by. You dont need 12 years of school to do the jobs those idiots are destined for. Im sure they can be trained to work in a warehouse in a few short weeks.

it's worth the investment to have a highly educated population. a first world country that wants to compete in the global market needs a deep intellectual pool to draw from.
 
Re: Warren Buffett Don't raise the minimum wage

Minimum wage needs to be $15 everywhere. We're the richest country in the world.
 
I'm retired....

Do you believe that an elementary school education holds no value because we hand it out to everyone?
 
Re: Warren Buffett Don't raise the minimum wage

Education is not prohibitively expensive. I paid my own way through college, it was difficult, but the juice was worth the squeeze.

We already pay for 12 years of school and still have millions either not graduating or simply skating by. You dont need 12 years of school to do the jobs those idiots are destined for. Im sure they can be trained to work in a warehouse in a few short weeks.


and i guarantee you value what you paid for

one of the issues i see with all the giveaway programs, is people lose the sense of value of the item itself

it took me 8 months of working my paper route to get my first real bike......i paid half, and parents paid half

we arent teaching value.....

there are real lessons in life as to having to choose, budget, and save
 
Re: Warren Buffett Don't raise the minimum wage

Education is not prohibitively expensive. I paid my own way through college, it was difficult, but the juice was worth the squeeze.

And when was it you went to college? You do realize that at a good college, you're looking at 20K-30K per year, right? And when you graduate, it's not unusual to be $100K in debt. And if you're going to a really good college, it's quite a bit more than that.

Maybe that's not "prohibitively expensive" in your book, but I hate the thought of our kids being saddled with $100K or more in debt the day they graduate.

We already pay for 12 years of school and still have millions either not graduating or simply skating by. You dont need 12 years of school to do the jobs those idiots are destined for. Im sure they can be trained to work in a warehouse in a few short weeks.

Yeah, why should we give a damn if the children of the poor get even a high school education, huh? Only the children of those whose parents have enough money to afford to send their children to school even deserve an education, huh? Besides, since when did ANYBODY who got a public school edjimication ever do well, huh? And if there are no more public schools, and the only other schools around require the child to become a member of their religion (even if it's a religion that you don't like), that's no big deal either, is it?

Attitudes like yours, sir, is part of what helped me to change from being a lifelong strong conservative to becoming the strong liberal I am today. Thank you very much.
 
Making it even weirder that you think more access to education somehow devalues education.

ahhh.. now it's simply "more access".... what happened to the whole free college thing?...let me know where you guys decide to land the goalposts, i'm not gonna chase you around .

I'm sorry I screwed up the narrative you were shooting for....better luck next time.
 
Do you believe that an elementary school education holds no value because we hand it out to everyone?

coming from the perspective I am( an economic perspective).. an elementary education has exactly zero effect on the labor market....zilch.

so the answer is yes.. it holds no labor market value.
 
Re: Warren Buffett Don't raise the minimum wage

I'm not surprised that working for wage increases is viewed as "giving" in light of how min wage has not kept up with inflation,

Yes - getting someone with coercive power to force someone else to give you more money in trade for a good or service than they are willing to do so is at best construed as them "giving" it to you.

and you have of course ignored comments on seeking greater wages by the already employed. Dishonest argument.

I agree that those who are already employed will continue to seek greater wages. Certainly I am employed and, if offered greater wages for next year, would be unlikely to turn it down.

Well, now you have your work cut out for you, show that Maine has either increased funding for their "training programs" providing enough spaces for those seeking it (one reason why those have given up) or that there is private employers hiring for those unemployed.

Not really. I haven't said one thing or the other about the meaning of the Maine experiment. But you're free to show, if you wish, that those individuals all continued to be unemployed. Given the rather minimal volunteer hour requirement it seems that either they A) got jobs and no longer needed the program or B) were unwilling to put in even a small amount of effort in return for their aid, and therefore likely did not actually require it.


:lol: Trust ThinkProgress. All they had to do was volunteer a couple of days at a shelter or a food bank. "kicked off" :roll: those people quit.

So has the result of increased EITC caused large wage gains for those in lower quintiles?

I think we have already gone over this. It hasn't.

Post-Tax Take Home it sure has. In 2012, for example, for me, it represented about a little under a 10% pay hike.
 
Re: Warren Buffett Don't raise the minimum wage

I am maintaining the goalpost that I set out in the beginning - that of a forcing function on the employer to raise wages commensurate with the loss of public aid experienced by his or her workers. Thus far you've come back with "well, in such a scenario politics might mandate the increase in the MW" hypothetical, forgetting that A) in that parallel universe apparently going through such a libertarian moment, that is unlikely and B) employers have alternatives to human labor when that labor becomes prohibitively expensive. Demand for low-skill labor is not perfectly inelastic.
I never knew that forcing MW increases was a "libertarian" moment or that alternative universes exist. I understand that this forcing via MW does not fit well into your universe.

:doh Obviously the libertarian moment refers to the hypothetical alternate universe in which we have decided to get rid of the social safety net. Such a movement is unlikely to coincide with a strengthened movement for artificial government-enforced higher price floors on labor.

Not to the extent of new hires to existing employees, stop please, you are reaching for your denials.

I have already linked you the reality of a typical 150% annual turnover. Which is why you declined to respond to it :).

Thats the reality

No, that's a hypothetical.

It is better for the EMPLOYER, it reduces pressure on the EMPLOYER to increase wages....that why he likes it.

At most indirectly, if your hypothetical is correct and if we don't have (as we do have) a surplus of low-skill labor.

The individual it benefits the most and actually, directly benefits is the low-income employee.


Are you really so eager to screw over employers that you will willingly directly screw over their employees, in the hopes of indirectly screwing over the boss as well?


You are assuming that many would be affected by wage increases and that TANF/SNAP would not change. They have changed in the past when MW changes.

I don't see where I have, nor do I see where the people calling for $10.10, or $15, or $25, or $1,000, or whatever the "what we are owed" amount is today have proposed altering SNAP and TANF commensurate with that change.

I know you do, and the belief is that it will cause greater employment, the soup kitchen theory for the elderly and children.

I've never heard of this so-called "soup kitchen theory for the elderly and children". I do believe that when your safety net reaches a certain level of comfort, that it becomes a hammock. But I have consistently pointed out to posters on the left and the right that children, the crippled, the mentally ill, and the elderly should receive public support. Even Milton Friedman said that.

....for businesses.

No. For the individuals involved. We shouldn't punish people for seeking to improve their station in life.
 
Re: Warren Buffett Don't raise the minimum wage

Nearly all student loans are eventually repaid.

Well the federal government does possess unique tools with which to enforce repayment that makes this statement true.

First you were arguing that young people aren't mature enough to realize that they are harming themselves with debt, now you are arguing that they are not credit worthy. That's two totally different arguments.

I'm not sure those arguments are really that different.

So which is the real issue, that college isn't worth debt,

That was never the issue/argument.

or that student loans won't be paid back?

Neither was that. The issue was that we allow immature adults to take on enormous debt before their brains are developed enough to have full long-term consequential cognitive ability and by using very low standards of creditworthiness.

The fact that people can unwittingly plunge themselves into enormous debt on their 18th birthday does some of them no favors.

Personally, I don't see either as an issue, because reality proves that college is generally worth the price over a lifetime of earnings, and that most every student loan is eventually repaid and the government makes a profit off of the student loan program.

Profit shouldn't be a goal or consequence of this, frankly, as the government is not for profit. I agree college is worthwhile generally (but not universally) speaking. Most very successful people went to college and so they help drive the life earnings averages of college graduates up. This widely cited statistic that those with college degrees earn such a great return on their investment creates the cultural belief that college is such a no-brainer that it's worth doing at any price and any amount of debt regardless of whether you have any clue why you're attending.

No investment whatsoever is a universally good one. It can be a good one in a majority of cases but that doesn't mean it always is or that loans should be effortless and virtually infinite to secure. I simply think credit should be a little harder to secure.
 
Re: Warren Buffett Don't raise the minimum wage

Well the federal government does possess unique tools with which to enforce repayment that makes this statement true.



I'm not sure those arguments are really that different.



That was never the issue/argument.



Neither was that. The issue was that we allow immature adults to take on enormous debt before their brains are developed enough to have full long-term consequential cognitive ability and by using very low standards of creditworthiness.

The fact that people can unwittingly plunge themselves into enormous debt on their 18th birthday does some of them no favors.



Profit shouldn't be a goal or consequence of this, frankly, as the government is not for profit. I agree college is worthwhile generally (but not universally) speaking. Most very successful people went to college and so they help drive the life earnings averages of college graduates up. This widely cited statistic that those with college degrees earn such a great return on their investment creates the cultural belief that college is such a no-brainer that it's worth doing at any price and any amount of debt regardless of whether you have any clue why you're attending.

No investment whatsoever is a universally good one. It can be a good one in a majority of cases but that doesn't mean it always is or that loans should be effortless and virtually infinite to secure. I simply think credit should be a little harder to secure.

The thing I like about you is that you always disagree nicely. Never any insults from you.
 
Re: Warren Buffett Don't raise the minimum wage

So you give a minimum wage earner a monstrous wage increase. How does that person "manage" their money? How many of the minimum wage earners are responsible ( I said responsible) heads of family? Will this unearned raise permit them to buy more cigarettes and cheap jewelry and booze? Let's hope so. If I had a store now I would do the work myself or hire illegals to work part time. Yeah, illegals like the millions of the current illegals earn money.
 
Re: Warren Buffett Don't raise the minimum wage

So you give a minimum wage earner a monstrous wage increase. How does that person "manage" their money?

Some will manage it quite well, others won't. So your argument against a higher minimum wage is that some people don't manage money well? Hell, you could make the same argument against paying CEOs or sports stars millions of dollars then, lot's of people in all sorts of income brackets don't manage money well.
 
Re: Warren Buffett Don't raise the minimum wage

The thing I like about you is that you always disagree nicely. Never any insults from you.

Your posts don't deserve insult. Can't say the same about everyone though. ;)
 
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