Greed is Good (Fodder for a broad discussion of economics :))

[Libertarian666]

jafs, all you'll succeed in doing is preventing people from being hired at all.  Why should I hire somebody if I have to pay more than he's worth?  You'll eliminate the entire class of entry-level jobs, which teach teenagers and others how to work, and also teach them that they probably don't want to be in entry-level jobs their whole life.

You can't expect a socialist to admit reality. I guess the "solution" will be that all employers will be forced to hire people at the minimum wage. Or maybe the government will do it?

[jafs]

I say that anybody working a full-time job is "worth" enough to live on.

I say that's pretty asinine.  As an employer, if I would have to pay more to an employee than the value he brings in, then I simply won't hire him.  We've now found the objective value for how much an employee is worth.

A citizen's dividend wouldn't eliminate poverty unless it were pretty high, I would think, and has the undesired (to me) element of helping people who don't need help.

Well, it could be pretty high.  The amount of a citizen's dividend (as opposed to "basic income") is set by how well the economy is doing.  In other words, if there's unemployment as a result of people not being needed to do jobs, then the dividend is high.

And the idea of helping only people who need help is one of the primary things that's wrong with social assistance.  THAT is what locks people into poverty.  Why exactly would you give people DISINCENTIVES to lift themselves up by their bootstraps?  Why would you train people that diving in and being entrepreneurial is the wrong thing to do?

This will be my last response to you if you insist on insulting me and using profanity.

Most jobs don't correlate precisely to bringing a certain level of income into a business - they're structured so that people just come in to work and do a day's worth of labor.

Why would we need to help people who don't need it?  Again, doesn't make sense.

And I notice you didn't respond at all to my question of the alternative to a humane minimum wage.

[Libertarian666]

I say that anybody working a full-time job is "worth" enough to live on.

I say that's pretty asinine.  As an employer, if I would have to pay more to an employee than the value he brings in, then I simply won't hire him.  We've now found the objective value for how much an employee is worth.

A citizen's dividend wouldn't eliminate poverty unless it were pretty high, I would think, and has the undesired (to me) element of helping people who don't need help.

Well, it could be pretty high.  The amount of a citizen's dividend (as opposed to "basic income") is set by how well the economy is doing.  In other words, if there's unemployment as a result of people not being needed to do jobs, then the dividend is high.

And the idea of helping only people who need help is one of the primary things that's wrong with social assistance.  THAT is what locks people into poverty.  Why exactly would you give people DISINCENTIVES to lift themselves up by their bootstraps?  Why would you train people that diving in and being entrepreneurial is the wrong thing to do?

This will be my last response to you if you insist on insulting me and using profanity.

Most jobs don't correlate precisely to bringing a certain level of income into a business - they're structured so that people just come in to work and do a day's worth of labor.

Why would we need to help people who don't need it?  Again, doesn't make sense.

And I notice you didn't respond at all to my question of the alternative to a humane minimum wage.

I didn't see any profanity. As for insulting you, I didn't see that either.

But it is obvious that you have absolutely no knowledge of business or economics.

Read "For a New Liberty" by Murray Rothbard, then get back to us with your newfound knowledge.

[jafs]

Determining what an employee is "worth" isn't an objective assessment.  I say that anybody working a full-time job is "worth" enough to live on.  Think about it - what are the alternatives?  Paying somebody little enough that they have to work 60 hrs/week just to get by, with two jobs?  Sounds sadistic to me.  Or needing government assistance programs to supplement full-time worker income, which is also less desirable.

Teenagers working part-time jobs are in a different group, clearly.

And, unless there are a lot of better jobs up the ladder, many people get stuck in low wage jobs their whole life these days, so they're not just "entry-level" any more.  I'd also be in favor of policies that made sure there were better jobs available and improved socioeconomic mobility.

A citizen's dividend wouldn't eliminate poverty unless it were pretty high, I would think, and has the undesired (to me) element of helping people who don't need help. 

"I say that anybody working a full-time job is "worth" enough to live on" it just sounds like a wonderful and Utopian theory, unless you have worked along side a min wage worker recently, the kind of old fashion work ethic and knowhow that justifies they make that kind of money isn't there anymore, what is needed is a scaled or tiered wage rates, getting hired doesn't make you worth a living wage, but if you get the job done and show some skill, you will soon earn a living wage, if you stick around and show some loyalty to the employer you can pick up some amount above living wage and if you excel you get promoted... unfortunately minimum wage laws, regulatory pressures, education system failures and immigration don't support or promote a tiered system in any way ...they do the opposite.... there is an endless stream of sub-par workers to hire from, few of which are worth the amount or minimum wage employers are forced to pay now....  So they just churn through the large pool of riffraff who can barley work... if at all... hoping they can find/put together a small core of decent workers who are desperate enough to keep making the effort who will keep things functioning. They then skim the rare cream from that group to supervise the rest, at a wage that is barely above what the lousy worker makes, because they have an endless supply to churn through so even a decent worker or one capable of supervising is still infinitely replaceable...

It's not Utopian, it's just basic humanity.

Why do people not see a connection between how much employees are paid/how they're treated, and how good a job they do?

I wouldn't expect anybody working for minimum wage to do more than the very least they can get by doing, if it's not enough to support themselves.

Businesses benefit in certain ways if there's a large segment of unemployed folks who are desperate for any job they can get - it's a sort of nasty undercurrent in our society.

[jafs]

I say that's pretty asinine.  As an employer, if I would have to pay more to an employee than the value he brings in, then I simply won't hire him.  We've now found the objective value for how much an employee is worth.
Well, it could be pretty high.  The amount of a citizen's dividend (as opposed to "basic income") is set by how well the economy is doing.  In other words, if there's unemployment as a result of people not being needed to do jobs, then the dividend is high.

And the idea of helping only people who need help is one of the primary things that's wrong with social assistance.  THAT is what locks people into poverty.  Why exactly would you give people DISINCENTIVES to lift themselves up by their bootstraps?  Why would you train people that diving in and being entrepreneurial is the wrong thing to do?

This will be my last response to you if you insist on insulting me and using profanity.

Most jobs don't correlate precisely to bringing a certain level of income into a business - they're structured so that people just come in to work and do a day's worth of labor.

Why would we need to help people who don't need it?  Again, doesn't make sense.

And I notice you didn't respond at all to my question of the alternative to a humane minimum wage.

I didn't see any profanity. As for insulting you, I didn't see that either.

But it is obvious that you have absolutely no knowledge of business or economics.

Read "For a New Liberty" by Murray Rothbard, then get back to us with your newfound knowledge.

I get it - you're a Rothbardian.  I've had lengthy intense discussions/debates with others who share your views, and I've found them unconvincing.

"asinine" is both profane and insulting.

Since I've had other lengthy debates with other Rothbardians, I'm not inclined to do that again with you here.

[jafs]

jafs, all you'll succeed in doing is preventing people from being hired at all.  Why should I hire somebody if I have to pay more than he's worth?  You'll eliminate the entire class of entry-level jobs, which teach teenagers and others how to work, and also teach them that they probably don't want to be in entry-level jobs their whole life.

You can't expect a socialist to admit reality. I guess the "solution" will be that all employers will be forced to hire people at the minimum wage. Or maybe the government will do it?

I'm not a socialist.

Although I understand that some folks have very limited options - like libertarian or socialist - that leave out most of the population.

[Libertarian666]

I get it - you're a Rothbardian.  I've had lengthy intense discussions/debates with others who share your views, and I've found them unconvincing.

"asinine" is both profane and insulting.

Since I've had other lengthy debates with other Rothbardians, I'm not inclined to do that again with you here.

I'm an anarcho-capitalist. I recommended Rothbard because he had a good explanation (for his time) of why that is the correct economic and political system.

And of course you don't want to have that debate, because facts and logic are not on your side.

Have a nice life.

[jafs]

You too.

[rickb]

Traditionally, minimum wage jobs were entry-level and stepping stones to better opportunities, but we've seen that change over time.  People are working at minimum wage levels (and slightly above that) because employers can get away with it.  Even if they were stepping stones, I'd still argue for a basic minimum wage that was enough to live on.

Why can employers get away with it?

Because the U.S. government has used its power to create easy access for U.S. corporations to access cheap foreign labor markets and to create illegal foreign labor markets here in the U.S.

As he so often does, MT hits the nail on the head here.

Due to transnational capitalism "American" companies effectively have access to a labor "market" consisting of the entire population of the earth.  There are a few jobs that don't relocate to 3rd world countries very well, but the vast majority do and when you've relocated those there simply aren't enough left to go around.  This affects not only unskilled, but medium and highly skilled labor as well.  Highly trained radiologists in India are willing to read x-rays for far less than radiologists in the US.  Patent attorneys in India are willing to work for a fraction of what US attorneys are paid.  etc etc etc

What unskilled labor is "worth" is about $1/day.  Because that's what it's worth in the shittiest shit hole on earth. 

[Jake]

The minimum wage started as a policy of the eugenics movement:

"“Progressive economists, like their neoclassical critics,” Leonard explains, “believed that binding minimum wages would cause job losses. However, the progressive economists also believed that the job loss induced by minimum wages was a social benefit, as it performed the eugenic service ridding the labor force of the ‘unemployable.’”

At least the eugenicists, for all their pseudo-scientific blathering, were not naïve about the effects of wage floors. These days, you can count on media talking heads and countless politicians to proclaim how wonderful the minimum wage is for the poor. Wage floors will improve the standard of living, they say. But back in 1912, they knew better — minimum wages exclude workers — and they favored them precisely because such wage floors drive people out of the job market. People without jobs cannot prosper and are thereby discouraged from reproducing. Minimum wages were designed specifically to purify the demographic landscape of racial inferiors and to keep women at the margins of society."

http://fee.org/freeman/the-eugenics-plo ... imum-wage/

[Pointedstick]

As he so often does, MT hits the nail on the head here.

Due to transnational capitalism "American" companies effectively have access to a labor "market" consisting of the entire population of the earth.  There are a few jobs that don't relocate to 3rd world countries very well, but the vast majority do and when you've relocated those there simply aren't enough left to go around.  This affects not only unskilled, but medium and highly skilled labor as well.  Highly trained radiologists in India are willing to read x-rays for far less than radiologists in the US.  Patent attorneys in India are willing to work for a fraction of what US attorneys are paid.  etc etc etc

What unskilled labor is "worth" is about $1/day.  Because that's what it's worth in the shittiest shit hole on earth. 

The logical conclusion of this process is a single global labor market with no particular geographic wage differences.

Of course, we'll never get there because there will be violent revolutions that halt the process as more and more people in first and second world countries become destitute as their standards of living fall. The trend toward global wage equalization strongly harms developed countries, and the global price equalization that comes along with it isn't a good enough consolation prize--and of course it hurts the third world in reverse, as their goods become more expensive.

I think there's a lot of potential for compromise on outsourcing and immigration. It seems like there's broad agreement--especially on outsourcing--and we could probably look forward to some kind of compromise on that matter. Of course this would be strongly against the vision of most Republicans who call themselves conservatives, but hey, Trump's in the middle of destroying them.

[Xan]

"asinine" is both profane and insulting.

There's no way it's profane.  Donkeys are asinine, cows are bovine, pigs are porcine, etc.

Insulting, maybe, but I didn't say YOU were asinine, just that one remark you made was "pretty asinine".  That is, attempting to tell employers what their employees are worth, even when they're not.

[jafs]

It's not Utopian, it's just basic humanity.

Why do people not see a connection between how much employees are paid/how they're treated, and how good a job they do?

I wouldn't expect anybody working for minimum wage to do more than the very least they can get by doing, if it's not enough to support themselves.

Businesses benefit in certain ways if there's a large segment of unemployed folks who are desperate for any job they can get - it's a sort of nasty undercurrent in our society.

exactly there is a connection, and it only works the way you envision if there is a chance that hard work will result in rewards, why would i put in any more then the minimum necessary (assuming i can work which many cant)  if i get a living wage for just getting hired? and if giving a living wage or any minimum wage lowers the number of people being hired (it does) then it is promoting the creation of a "large segment of unemployed folks who are desperate for any job they can get" so your living wage employee has just become even more infinitely replaceable. combine that with the other pressures i mentioned (regulatory pressures, education system failures and immigration) and its little wonder employment is headed in such a messed up direction..  raising the wage will only exacerbate the problem not fix it, there will be more lousy workers competing for even fewer jobs for companies to churn through. you might get a chance to feel good that that smallish handful of people are making a living for the time they can hold the job, but in the balance more harm is being done if employment levels have dropped (more people making no wage)

A humane minimum wage doesn't mean that working harder won't get you a raise, by any means.  Nor does it mean setting it at ridiculously high levels.

All it means is that somebody working full-time can support themselves without government assistance.

..but it does... a companies wages payed are a cost and if the cost of x# of employees is forced up then they will reduce to y # of employees and/or stop giving raises to make up the difference....

being humane is sometimes better accomplished with tough love than with entitlement, it is not sadism to arrange things in a way that teaches understanding of how things really work, if you are robbed of the chance to learn that, what you get is based on the value you create, you will likely never rise above min wage even if you have the potential..
the salary of the guys at the top who keep the whole thing together, have "provide real value" marketable skills and competition driving their high wages if the CEO has a choice between getting lower wage or getting the other CEO job, guess where they go... the min wage guy is providing a limited value in a glut market, there is little or no market feed back already. this is all messed up by far more than the min wage alone of course, and there is little or no competition or market value for those skills already. raising the cost of them isn't the answer, the real answer will likely need to tackle it on multiple fronts..

[jafs]

It's a basic human dignity thing for me, that's all.

That's how I define "worth" in this case - a human being willing to work full-time deserves to get paid enough to support themselves (modestly, not extravagantly).

As I said, what are the alternatives?  Sadism or government assistance.

[Xan]

It's a basic human dignity thing for me, that's all.

That's how I define "worth" in this case - a human being willing to work full-time deserves to get paid enough to support themselves (modestly, not extravagantly).

As I said, what are the alternatives?  Sadism or government assistance.

It's a question of what kind of government interference.  A minimum wage, particularly one from this utopian world you're describing where people are forced to hire people even if they don't want to, is one of the worst kinds.

A citizens' dividend, I think, is one of the best kinds.

[Pointedstick]

I see an opportunity for compromise, but it requires that both sides acknowledge one of the truths that the other side is right about.

jafs: everyone else is right that the details matter. You're right that this is a basic human decency thing, and even in the practical realm, a lot of related problems crop up when low-skill people can't support themselves working. But you need to step outside of the realm of the moral and into the realm of the technical: the devil's in the details with a policy like this. You don't want your proposed policy to accidentally destroy the market for the labor of the people you're worried about. There is substantial evidence that the policy you favor--the minimum wage--does just that. If you care more about your moral proposition than the minimum wage, it would be prudent to drop it and find a policy that better supports your goals, particularly since the one you favor has political battle lines drawn around it and there is no compromise to be had there.

everyone else (seemingly): jafs is right that it's a basic human dignity thing. We're all right that the minimum wage destroys the value of the labor of the people we're talking about, but what's our alternative? We need to acknowledge that the moral dimension of this matters too, and "the market will sort it out if only we can delete all government interventions" isn't a satisfying answer for the real world. If we really care about the plight of people who supply low-value labor, let's propose some realistic solutions for these people. Reducing low-wage labor competition is definitely a start; what's next?

[MediumTex]

It's a basic human dignity thing for me, that's all.

That's how I define "worth" in this case - a human being willing to work full-time deserves to get paid enough to support themselves (modestly, not extravagantly).

As I said, what are the alternatives?  Sadism or government assistance.

I don't think that Xan was being profane or insulting with his asinine comment.  Maybe if he'd spelled it "ass-inine" or something like that it would be insulting and profane, but just basic asinine seems reasonable.

Libertarian666 is probably closer to being insulting to you, but I just think it's because he is easily frustrated with people with beliefs like yours.  I think that I probably disagree with much of what you're saying as well, but I want to hear more about why you feel as you do and how you arrived at your beliefs.

For me, here are the two questions that usually make the wheels fall off of many well-intentioned efforts at making the world a better place:

Who decides?

and

Who pays?

If you're a bureaucrat or politician who has never started a business or put your own money at risk in a business venture, it's too easy to spend other people's money.  It's too easy to make mistakes that other people have to pay for.  The track records of these people when it comes to improving society isn't good enough for me to have faith in their ability to tell employers how much they should be paying their employees.

I think that the best the public sector do-gooders can do is to create an environment where employers have an economic incentive to hire legal American workers, but instead what has happened is the do-gooders have been thoroughly corrupted through their support of policies that encourage offshoring a lot of work that COULD be done here, and then it's the guilt from their own corruption that leads them to talk about "living wages" and that sort of thing as empty ways of glossing over the damage they themselves caused.  It's just a variant of the old arsonist-turned-firefighter thing.

I think there are far more options than sadism or government assistance.  The U.S. had a vibrant and expanding middle class in the decades following WWII with minimal government activity around wage controls.  If the government simply gave organized labor the same support it gives big business, I think that a lot of the wage issues you are describing would self-correct.  For whatever reason, though, when workers organize people think of it as some kind of larval communistic activity, but when business interests organize, that's just good old capitalism.

[jafs]

Thanks PS.

I agree that the details are important, and we'd want to make sure that whatever policies we enact aren't counterproductive.

It's not "entitlement" to pay somebody enough to live on for working a full-time job, in my view.  And this notion of value created by employees is only valid in very select situations - most of the time that isn't a good model to use.

Why do I feel this way?  That's hard to say - I have a basic sense that all human beings deserve to be treated with basic respect and to be afforded basic decency.  It probably stems back to some philosophical/spiritual values in some way.

The idea that CEO's are being paid what they're "worth" in some objective, morally defensible way is clearly incorrect, from just a little research.  When CEO's who are fired for poor performance receive multi-million severance packages, they certainly didn't "earn" those.

how is it not an entitlement? didn't you yourself say just a few posts ago they were entitled to earn a living wage? ( if you haven't used the word entitled you certainly said "deserved" giving the same meaning)
as for CEO's i don't entirely disagree, there is an element of corruption that has slipped into the pay-scale of people that run companies, but using government (most often the muscle behind that corruption) to fix the problem runs into many of the same problems and unintended consequences that using it to provide a living wage at the bottom does..

[Pointedstick]

Thanks PS.

I agree that the details are important, and we'd want to make sure that whatever policies we enact aren't counterproductive.

It's not "entitlement" to pay somebody enough to live on for working a full-time job, in my view.  And this notion of value created by employees is only valid in very select situations - most of the time that isn't a good model to use.

If you were a business owner, how do you think you would pay your employees? What metrics would you use to determine what levels of pay balanced your moral feelings and the practical necessity of generating a surplus--which is what allows you to expand your business and hire more workers, and keeps all of you from the unemployment line?

I think this is an important mental exercise to do because you are proposing to alter the parameters of the activity as actually performed by others--millions of others--in the real world. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. Think about it. Try it out. Let us know what you would do after you've imagined walking a mile in their shoes.

[jafs]

Well, I would start from the idea that any employees should be paid what I consider appropriate, which is about $10/hr (that's the minimum wage from the '60's adjusted for inflation).

Then, I wouldn't necessarily feel a need to continually expand - I prefer a sustainability model, so if my business were successful enough for me and whatever employees were necessary to make enough and pay the bills, that would probably be fine with me.  Small is beautiful 

For some years, I thought about opening a coffee shop with associated other things involved, like chess clubs and community classes/events.  I'm somewhat risk averse, so my idea usually included buying a building with apartments upstairs and storefronts down, using the storefronts for the business, living in one of the apartments upstairs, and renting out other ones.

I still sort of like the idea, but probably won't do it, because of other factors.

[jafs]

Thanks PS.

I agree that the details are important, and we'd want to make sure that whatever policies we enact aren't counterproductive.

It's not "entitlement" to pay somebody enough to live on for working a full-time job, in my view.  And this notion of value created by employees is only valid in very select situations - most of the time that isn't a good model to use.

Why do I feel this way?  That's hard to say - I have a basic sense that all human beings deserve to be treated with basic respect and to afforded basic decency.  It probably stems back to some philosophical/spiritual values in some way.

The idea that CEO's are being paid what they're "worth" in some objective, morally defensible way is clearly incorrect, from just a little research.  When CEO's who are fired for poor performance receive multi-million severance packages, they certainly didn't "earn" those.

how is it not an entitlement? didn't you yourself say just a few posts ago they were entitled to earn a living wage? ( if you haven't used the word entitled you certainly said "deserved" giving the same meaning)
as for CEO's i don't entirely disagree, there is an element of corruption that has slipped into the pay-scale of people that run companies, but using government (most often the muscle behind that corruption) to fix the problem runs into many of the same problems and unintended consequences that using it to provide a living wage at the bottom does..

Most people use the word "entitlement" with a negative connotation that people are getting things they don't deserve - since I feel full-time workers deserve to get paid enough to live on, it doesn't apply for me.

What would we be teaching them?  We'd be teaching them that the willingness/ability to work full-time is worth being able to support themselves - it's hardly charity/welfare.

[jafs]

Here's a question for you all - I've answered a lot of those already 

Do you think that paying somebody $10/hr instead of $7/hr might change how well/hard the employee works?

[stuper1]

Nobody is stopping businesses from paying employees $10/hr if they think they are worth it.

What we are trying to say is that businesses shouldn't be forced to pay people $10/hr who are not worth it.  All that does is cause price inflation and less employment at the lower end.

[jafs]

Nobody is stopping businesses from paying employees $10/hr if they think they are worth it.

What we are trying to say is that businesses shouldn't be forced to pay people $10/hr who are not worth it.  All that does is cause price inflation and less employment at the lower end.

The question is who gets to determine what they're "worth" and how that's determined.

So, no minimum wage at all?  Let businesses pay employees $2/hr?

it would probably work in practice after a ton of turmoil and some settling in of new practices for wage negotiation/collective bargaining ....it would not be remotely easy.... but it can never happen in a vacuum. without correcting immigration, off shoring, improved education to give upward mobility, and eliminating the high costs of regulatory compliance (and obama care) it probably would become the industrial revolution era style horror-show that you likely envision when you contemplate the idea of no minimum wage... with those other issues being worked on and fixed at the same time? ....maybe.....

[jafs]

how is it not an entitlement? didn't you yourself say just a few posts ago they were entitled to earn a living wage? ( if you haven't used the word entitled you certainly said "deserved" giving the same meaning)
as for CEO's i don't entirely disagree, there is an element of corruption that has slipped into the pay-scale of people that run companies, but using government (most often the muscle behind that corruption) to fix the problem runs into many of the same problems and unintended consequences that using it to provide a living wage at the bottom does..

Most people use the word "entitlement" with a negative connotation that people are getting things they don't deserve - since I feel full-time workers deserve to get paid enough to live on, it doesn't apply for me.

What would we be teaching them?  We'd be teaching them that the willingness/ability to work full-time is worth being able to support themselves - it's hardly charity/welfare.

but it isn't worth that..  a willingness to work full time alone is not of that high a value, we would be teaching them wrong.. a willingness to do a good to excellent job an ability to acquire new skills and exhibit some leadership for 40 hours a week is worth a living wage (or should be the market value of)

Here's a question for you all - I've answered a lot of those already 

Do you think that paying somebody $10/hr instead of $7/hr might change how well/hard the employee works?

yes... but only if it was a reward for working hard, not if they just get it because they are employed. 

(saying they deserve it for just showing up and not getting fired seems a lot like saying they are somehow  entitled to it to me )

Well, this is just a difference between our values.  I feel that doing an adequate job working full-time is worth enough to live on, and wouldn't require people to do an excellent job for that.

Again, this isn't saying they'd be able to support a family of 5 on one job, or that they'd be living in luxurious settings with fancy cars.  I'm just talking about living in a modest small apartment, being able to pay their bills and have a little fun on top of their basic needs.

The idea of a minimum wage is a "floor" idea, not a "ceiling" one.

i guess so... to me doing an adequate job is enough to make an adequate living, if adequate is the best you can manage and your employer struggles to keep you, over hiring a better worker, then you should be making enough to scrape by or force you to cut your cost of living down (making what you offer) not more..