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Wanted: Conservative explanation of perpetual low wages

Winston said:
Already said the dead-beat accusations are untrue. Would you like me to re-read my OP to you? Maybe I can PM it to you, so we can go back through the extra hard parts together.
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Why is it that it's always the liberal whining about pay anyways?

Most conservatives are too busy working and getting on with their lives, while people like you constantly whine.

Wages will always reflect exactly what you think you are worth at the moment of being employed.

Don't like it? The aim higher! It's pretty freaking easy. :roll:
 
Winston said:
Every baker working for himself is a pipe dream. If the private sector won't pay bakers a decent wage, then the government must act in order to improve the life of all citizens.

Who would even do the baking, if all bakers must work for themselves? One person?
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If I were you, i wouldn't worry about every baker. I'd worry about just one.

Again, where does it say that it's the government's job to improve bakers life? The only guarantee you get is the right to improve your life yourself.
 
RetiredUSN said:
Why is it that it's always the liberal whining about pay anyways?

Most conservatives are too busy working and getting on with their lives, while people like you constantly whine.

Wages will always reflect exactly what you think you are worth at the moment of being employed.

Don't like it? The aim higher! It's pretty freaking easy. :roll:
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Enough with the sanctimonious crap. There's nothing "low" about baking. Do you eat bread? Do you look down on the people who baked it for you? Bakers don't need to "aim higher", they need some basic guarantees from the government that if they get sick they aren't going to go broke and once a year they can relax in Florida.
 
jimbo said:
If I were you, i wouldn't worry about every baker. I'd worry about just one.

Again, where does it say that it's the government's job to improve bakers life? The only guarantee you get is the right to improve your life yourself.
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Wait a minute:

Is baking even important? If it's not important then who cares. Let's just quit baking altogether. **** it, let's just eat salads from now on. Until the influx of unemployed bakers drives the wages of the farm workers down and they all quit too.

Okay, so maybe baking is important. If a baker's wage tops out at $12.00/hour the only conservative solution I've seen proposed by you and others, is for that baker to quit working for someone and work for himself. How is this a solution? Since he would need to employ.. bakers. But, then we run into the paradox that your solution requires bakers to only work for themselves. So, how is anyone ever going to get a loaf of bread, if all baking must be done in sole proprietorships.
 
Winston said:
Okay, so I'm often told that I am deficient or a failure in some way by the conservative posters around here, because I am paid low wages. My line of work is food production and I've been in the field for roughly 15 years. I make pretty low wages and always have. I understand in some cases, people do pay only what they can afford and not a nickel more, especially in small businesses. But, there are also some businesses where I felt exploited. Given that in the exploitative situations, my labor led to tens of thousands of dollars in profits. And my piece was a mere 3-400 dollars a week.

I recently started a job at a bakery. My wage is low. I'm not expecting to make the big bucks, but, I enjoy the hours, and it will hold me over until I can find something that pays better. (I'm still looking and applying at places that pay above $10.00/hour)

But, it has come to my attention that the head baker there, who has been employed there since the 90's. (I'm not talking the floor manager, rather the one tasked with most of the baking.) He is still making starvation wages after two decades of seniority. My question is, if these jobs top out at around $12.00/hour, are most bakers failures in life then? See When I argue economics with conservatives here, it inevitably ends with a proclamation that the reason low wage people can't go on vacations or to the doctor is because they have failed in life.
There's a logical hiccup there when you look at someone like our baker here, who is clearly not a failure. He has been dedicated. He has shown personal responsibility and he has shown a willingness to work hard, long hours.. and his end game is $12.00/hour? That's okay with you?
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I know of no conservative who will claim you're a failure.

Winston said:
My solution is easy: The market has failed him and the government must step in. He should be afforded at least healthcare and 7 days vacation. And don't give me that crap that he should've made better life decisions so he didn't "wind up in some dead end job." There's nothing wrong with baking bread and selling it. If you're prepared to go that route, I hope every time you eat a piece of bread, you think to yourself some lazy piece of **** baked this.
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What "perpetual low wages"? Wages are going at a rate faster than they have in several years. My question to you I what have you done to make yourself more valuable to your employer? Added any additional skills or knowledge? If you want to make $12.00 an hour with healthcare and sick days gain the skills that will qualify you for a job like that. Baking cakes isn't going to suddenly afford you a six-figure income. Your solution of having someone else obtain better wages or benefits is a loser; nobody owes you a thing.


Simple as that.
 
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Winston said:
Wait a minute:

Is baking even important? If it's not important then who cares. Let's just quit baking altogether. **** it, let's just eat salads from now on. Until the influx of unemployed bakers drives the wages of the farm workers down and they all quit too.

Okay, so maybe baking is important. If a baker's wage tops out at $12.00/hour the only conservative solution I've seen proposed by you and others, is for that baker to quit working for someone and work for himself. How is this a solution? Since he would need to employ.. bakers. But, then we run into the paradox that your solution requires bakers to only work for themselves. So, how is anyone ever going to get a loaf of bread, if all baking must be done in sole proprietorships.
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Starting your own bakery was one, but not the only. possible solution I suggested. You are telling me that there are plenty of bakers working at or near minimum wage. So staffing the new endeavor shouldn't be a problem. There's no paradox there. You're just making excuses. But to answer your last question. I'm a solve your own problems kind of guy. If there were nowhere in my area to get a loaf of bread, I'd buy a bread machine and make my own. It's not that difficult. 6 ingredients. I do make much of my own.
 
Winston said:
Enough with the sanctimonious crap. There's nothing "low" about baking. Do you eat bread? Do you look down on the people who baked it for you? Bakers don't need to "aim higher", they need some basic guarantees from the government that if they get sick they aren't going to go broke and once a year they can relax in Florida.
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Booo hooo hooo! You would be the first one in line to whine about a 9 dollar loaf of bread.

Want a low paying job..............aim low!

So stop whining about how people are getting screwed.
 
jimbo said:
Starting your own bakery was one, but not the only. possible solution I suggested. You are telling me that there are plenty of bakers working at or near minimum wage. So staffing the new endeavor shouldn't be a problem. There's no paradox there. You're just making excuses. But to answer your last question. I'm a solve your own problems kind of guy. If there were nowhere in my area to get a loaf of bread, I'd buy a bread machine and make my own. It's not that difficult. 6 ingredients. I do make much of my own.
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You don't see the paradox?

All baking must be done in sole proprietorships, otherwise you would be being paid low wages and therefore not trying hard enough or whatever other weak ass thing y'all say.

So, if all bakers must work for themselves in order to get anywhere in life there would be 1 baker employed at all bakeries.

Since the solution for bakers is to quit and open your own bakery there would be a maximum allotment of one baker per bakery. This is what you support?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
RetiredUSN said:
Booo hooo hooo! You would be the first one in line to whine about a 9 dollar loaf of bread.

Want a low paying job..............aim low!

So stop whining about how people are getting screwed.
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Might as well just abolish all baking because it's a fools errand. Low life bakers! Scum sucking blood sucking parasites! The lot of 'em!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Winston said:
Might as well just abolish all baking because it's a fools errand. Low life bakers! Scum sucking blood sucking parasites! The lot of 'em!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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:lamo

Nobody said that baker were scum suckers....................only you did. :lamo

Your tear jerking is almost comical.
 
Winston said:
Every baker working for himself is a pipe dream. If the private sector won't pay bakers a decent wage, then the government must act in order to improve the life of all citizens.

Who would even do the baking, if all bakers must work for themselves? One person?
Click to expand...

Someone already explained what needs to happen. Labor needs to organize.
UNIONS.

Bakers and Allied Food Workers Union (BFAWU)

Bakery Confectionary Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM)

I don't know if it is possible to unionize your shop or not but perhaps check with one or both of the above unions to see if it is possible. Find out what is required for you to join the union. Perhaps you may wind up with a union baking job somewhere else.
 
RetiredUSN said:
:lamo

Nobody said that baker were scum suckers....................only you did. :lamo

Your tear jerking is almost comical.
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Except your sanctimonious crap about bakers needing to aim higher.. grow up.
 
phattonez said:
How is a guy making $12 an hour supposed to be able to afford to do that?
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So everyone is just a victim and can never improve and upward mobility is 100% impossible, have I accurately summarized your beliefs?

If not give a detailed coherent explanation.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Someone already explained what needs to happen. Labor needs to organize.
UNIONS.

Bakers and Allied Food Workers Union (BFAWU)

Bakery Confectionary Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM)

I don't know if it is possible to unionize your shop or not but perhaps check with one or both of the above unions to see if it is possible. Find out what is required for you to join the union. Perhaps you may wind up with a union baking job somewhere else.
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Yes, you need to organize so out of your 12 dollar wages you pay 2 to the union, who will force you to work certain shifts and never get time off because the more senior baker will get first pick on vacations and scheduling.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Someone already explained what needs to happen. Labor needs to organize.
UNIONS.

Bakers and Allied Food Workers Union (BFAWU)

Bakery Confectionary Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM)

I don't know if it is possible to unionize your shop or not but perhaps check with one or both of the above unions to see if it is possible. Find out what is required for you to join the union. Perhaps you may wind up with a union baking job somewhere else.
Click to expand...

My state is a right to work state. Not sure how that would play out here.
 
Winston said:
Might as well just abolish all baking because it's a fools errand. Low life bakers! Scum sucking blood sucking parasites! The lot of 'em!
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You are absolutely right, but not only them, but also people who cook or other food production workers. They all should be CEOs like for instance Denise Morrison of Campbell Soup who made over $7 million.
 
Winston said:
My state is a right to work state. Not sure how that would play out here.
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That is why you need to get in touch with union officials to find out what the prospects are.
What state are you in, if you don't mind my asking.
 
Winston said:
Okay, so I'm often told that I am deficient or a failure in some way by the conservative posters around here, because I am paid low wages. My line of work is food production and I've been in the field for roughly 15 years. I make pretty low wages and always have. I understand in some cases, people do pay only what they can afford and not a nickel more, especially in small businesses. But, there are also some businesses where I felt exploited. Given that in the exploitative situations, my labor led to tens of thousands of dollars in profits. And my piece was a mere 3-400 dollars a week.

I recently started a job at a bakery. My wage is low. I'm not expecting to make the big bucks, but, I enjoy the hours, and it will hold me over until I can find something that pays better. (I'm still looking and applying at places that pay above $10.00/hour)

But, it has come to my attention that the head baker there, who has been employed there since the 90's. (I'm not talking the floor manager, rather the one tasked with most of the baking.) He is still making starvation wages after two decades of seniority. My question is, if these jobs top out at around $12.00/hour, are most bakers failures in life then? See When I argue economics with conservatives here, it inevitably ends with a proclamation that the reason low wage people can't go on vacations or to the doctor is because they have failed in life.

There's a logical hiccup there when you look at someone like our baker here, who is clearly not a failure. He has been dedicated. He has shown personal responsibility and he has shown a willingness to work hard, long hours.. and his end game is $12.00/hour? That's okay with you?

My solution is easy: The market has failed him and the government must step in. He should be afforded at least healthcare and 7 days vacation. And don't give me that crap that he should've made better life decisions so he didn't "wind up in some dead end job." There's nothing wrong with baking bread and selling it. If you're prepared to go that route, I hope every time you eat a piece of bread, you think to yourself some lazy piece of **** baked this.
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Conservative philosophy does not explain it, neo-liberal philosophy does. The problem is globalization. We don't compete with local wages anymore, but global ones. A company will not pay higher wages for labor that is much cheaper to procure in a foreign country with cheaper wage laws. The only thing sustaining wages in the U.S. at any level at all is labor laws. By creating a floor price for wage, companies can't go below it. It's that simple.

Because of outsourcing, the U.S. market has shifted to a service economy. I think this was a huge mistake. It has turned us into a second rate power that is losing major influence around the world because the countries we outsourced to now hold all of our manufacturing capital. They can and will use it against us, as we are seeing. It's always the manufacturing nations that have the real economic power. It's why Germany is doing so well in the EU.

What happened to the U.S. was not orchestrated by its government, it was created by the neo-liberals. These are both Republicans and Democrats. Classical conservativism has gone the way of the dodo bird. The neo-liberal globalists want to maximize their personal profits at the expense of entire nations. They simply don't care.

The only thing that can really save us at this point is automation. If we can automate the production of our inelastic goods then we could theoretically live without the need for mandatory basic income... but that's unlikely to happen as long as consumer capitalism is still the driving force.
 
Northern Light said:
Conservative philosophy does not explain it, neo-liberal philosophy does. The problem is globalization. We don't compete with local wages anymore, but global ones. A company will not pay higher wages for a product that is much cheaper to produce in a foreign country with cheaper wage laws. The only thing sustaining wages in the U.S. at any level at all is labor laws. By creating a floor price for wage, companies can't go below it. It's that simple.

Because of outsourcing, the U.S. market has shifted to a service economy. I think this was a huge mistake. It has turned us into a second rate power that is losing major influence around the world because the countries we outsourced to now hold all of our manufacturing capital. They can and will use it against us, as we are seeing. It's always the manufacturing nations that have the real economic power. It's why Germany is doing so well in the EU.

What happened to the U.S. was not orchestrated by its government, it was created by the neo-liberals. These are both Republicans and Democrats. Classical conservativism has gone the way of the dodo bird. The neo-liberal globalists want to maximize their personal profits at the expense of entire nations. They simply don't care.

The only thing that can really save us at this point is automation. If we can automate the production of our inelastic goods then we could theoretically live without the need for mandatory basic income... but that's unlikely to happen as long as consumer capitalism is still the driving force.
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Thoughtful post, thank you.
 
Winston said:
You don't see the paradox?

All baking must be done in sole proprietorships, otherwise you would be being paid low wages and therefore not trying hard enough or whatever other weak ass thing y'all say.

So, if all bakers must work for themselves in order to get anywhere in life there would be 1 baker employed at all bakeries.

Since the solution for bakers is to quit and open your own bakery there would be a maximum allotment of one baker per bakery. This is what you support?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I never said anything of the sort. i said if it were me, I would position myself to rise above the rest. If not as a baker, as an owner. If not as an owner, in another line of work. I would never stay anywhere for 15 years working for minimum wage.

You've been 15 years in a profession making basically minimum wage, and you can't see the problem. That's not the owner's fault. Presumably by your statements he's doing quite well.
 
Mr Person said:
How does someone rent/buy property, let alone all the equipment, on savings from $12/hr?

Or do you have this fantasy of him just pounding pavement until a movie-made moment arrives in which a bank gladly lends him millions of dollars, no worries?





I suspect the OP just wants you to be honest about your conservatism. That means saying "well, I've got mine, and I just don't care about whether there's a permanent underclass." That would be your honest answer. So say it, instead of hiding behind these idiotic conservative bootstrap myths.
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There will always be an underclass, classes and orders are an undeniable part of society. no such thing as a classless society exists. There is nothing morally wrong with a society have poor people. It does not in fact bother me that poor people exist. They are supposed to, poverty is the default state of human existence.

However, the underclass is not permanent in the sense that it is not the same people. virtually all American millionaires are self made. I work in a job with plenty of people who started out with far less then I did.

You rent or buy equipment with planning and saving your money towards it. If you saved 50 dollars a paycheck, you'd have 2,400 dollars a year. x 5 is 12,000 which will buy you a decent set of commercial cooking equipment. but see poor people don't think ahead which is why in many cases they stay poor. they value the pleasure of today over the wealth of tomorrow. This is why poor people smoke, why they buy lottery tickets, why they consume more soda, more fast food, take out payday loans, rent to own appliances, etc. They have a problem doing without. These are all personal choices.


It is not a myth that if you work hard, devise a plan to improve your life, and act with virtue you will be rewarded.
 
jimbo said:
Because no one has a right to other peoples stuff.

Every day thousands if not millions of people take steps to better themselves. Get a better education, get a better job, open their own, often business.
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And do you think a rich man hoarding all of his wealth and paying his employees as little as possible is a virtue? When did avarice become glorified rather than treated as a vice?
 
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