It is pretty obvious by now that most, if not all, of the gains from globalization have been extracted from the domestic economy. Why stop with a tax cut for the middle class? Trade requires national clout, ports, customs, navies, and ambassadors. If apple wants to siphon more profit by using Foxconn, then penalize it atthe border, and in salaries made fat by bypassing working America.
Then mail everyone a globalization rebate/stimulus check.

So you're in favor of an economy more and morel populated by subsistence employees? How long can an economy stay prosperous when workers cannot buy what they produce? It's getting to the point fast food workers can't afford to dine in their own restraints as a family within their budget. All to support mass marketing, franchise fees, high upper management fees, and "healthy" margins. Capital returns have so far surpassed the returns of work, we're becoming an old world style oligarchy when all that matters is how much capital your parents had before it went to ****. A job that doesn't enable a decen living is one more nail in the coffin of the American dream.

LOL at arguing people get paid the same amount of value they are to a business.

True, the argument that you should get paid exactly your worth to a company is a bit ludicrous. However, the argument that you should get 1/10th your value to a company is just as ludicrous. There's a lot of room for employees to be paid more, and minimum wage is not where it should be.

Well, one could easily argue that minimum wage causes some to get paid more than they're worth, and others less than they're worth to make up for the former category.

So what does everyone think of Obama's comments on the SCOTUS and Drudge's contention that a defeat of the mandate was linked to Obama. Can someone point me to Obama's exact statement?

I disagree, I don't think there's an argument that it causes people to get paid more than they're worth. I think there's an argument about people getting paid more than their worth, but I can't think of a minimum wage job that's not worth the pittance they get paid.

I know I've had jobs in my youth that took no skills and paid minimum wage, yet were easy or fun enough that I would have worked for less.

I've been told I have a unique desire for compensation, however

My first job was at an amusement park in KC that paid $3.10 an hour - less than minimum wage. Since they were seasonal they got in on some loophole for farm laborers to pay under min. wage. Even in 1985 that dog **** money. You work 40 hours and take home $100. Woo hoo.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...YK01-M1X28.DTL

I have no problem with it. Every time Obama has criticized or mentioned the court, he has included a preamble reminding his listener of the court's final authority on these issues. When he knocked them during the SOTU, he began it with "and with all due deference to the separation of powers..." At the end of the day, they are still unelected unaccountable positions. He is also the President, and a former con-law professor, who should have an opinion on the constitutionality of his signature piece of legislation. It is also a way to send a subtle reminder that the President appoints SCOTUS justices, and the next President will likely appoint at least 2 justices.

Where Obama went wrong is he didnt pass a bill first that stopped the SCOTUS from hearing cases related to healthcare laws. Its the only way to stop legislating from the bench.

Ron Paul concurs

The argument was that people have work which is worth less then the minimum wage. Not that people would have done the job for less. I would definitely say that you have a very unique desire for compensation but it wouldn't lend credence to your argument.

It would be very easy to disprove a certain minimum wage (say $7.25?). All you have to do is:

1) Find a job that doesn't deserve the minimum wage for the amount of work that it puts in
2) Prove that the company couldn't function without that job
3) Prove that the company deserves to continue

1) You can change the wording. My point still stands. It protects the right of the employers over the employees, etc.

2) I really think business moving away is a separate issue and one that can be addressed easily through rewards/penalties. But we have had that problem in that past and America has done ok despite its shortcomings in addressing this problem. In fact under my boy, Obama, the trend has begun reversing without getting rid of the minimum wage (gasp!)

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I don't deny that my line of thinking is anti-free enterprise. Every single law on the books is anti-free enterprise. Take for instance murder and rape laws. Are you going to say that since those are anti-free enterprise that they should be taken off the books?????


The bold section was my favorite part.

Your whole premise is that if businesses can pay their workers less then a minimum wage that they will create more such jobs. ZOMG why would you have 1 $12 job when you could create 6 $2 jobs because people will do more work for lower pay. YAY free enterprise! MOAR JOBS!

I think this line of thinking just feeds into my argument that people can be exploited when they don't have laws protecting their rights.

Lastly, I'm going to address the welfare jab. If by having a job you might, I dunno, make significantly more money then living off welfare (food stamps, unemployment, etc.) then people might tend to not be on welfare if they had the chance.

I'm going to re-post this because I think its a good challenge for anyone who thinks minimum wage laws are stupid. I also think its a good thought experiment to why minimum wage should be higher.

In countries like Cambodia even the govt doesn't pay a living wage. So everyone who works for the govt has some kind of scam going to make more money - usually by using their govt influence. Let's go with that system.

Seems pretty forced, imo. Showing any of those things is difficult, to say the least, even if they might be true.

difficult but philosophically sound. I also think a lot of the difficulty comes from not being able to find many examples to even start. Whereas I think that if you were looking for the opposite (underpaid/necessary/company deserves to continue) you would have a plethora of examples.

movie ticket seller - easily replaced by a machine, takes no skill, no effort, rarely if ever used for information

I'd do that for $7/hour right now in my spare time if I wasn't such an old, cantankerous bastard.

No, I actually didn't argue for ANYTHING, just pointed out the horrible argument made.

IMO minimum wage laws are a bad solution to a very real problem that we need to think outside the box to solve. I have ideas but this isn't my blog to compose essays on. One I find intriguing however is the introduction of a citizens dividend payment. This concept has proponents both within branches of libertarians (geo specifically) as well as within MMT. It's an intriguing idea worth exploring imo.

The current approach is obviously ****ed tho, and the whole idea that businesses that can't pay x amount shouldn't be allowed to exist is obviously economically flawed with some very bad unintended consequences for the economy as well as certain classes of workers.

Movie Ticket Seller. This is a good example because I worked a movie theater for about a year and my sister worked at a movie theater for a couple of years so its something that I have a lot of experience with.

1) Is the job overpaid for the amount of work that it does which happens to start at minimum wage?

Skills - Patience, Handling Money, Basic knowledge of policy, Basic knowledge of how to use their computer system, Personable, etc.

What they do to make the company money - Basic function of selling the product. They can be used for information but it is rare as you pointed out. They have to be able to wait long periods of time during slow hours (in which they may not be earning their keep) and during fast times be able to keep up with the lines. I have found that movie theaters usually place extremely personable and fun people in the box office and concession because they tend to sell more stuff. I know of a couple of times that a customer keeps coming back because they enjoy these people making the profit margin larger. Many times ticket sellers double as managers. They also provide refunds to dissatisfied customers. In many cases they sell gift cards. You will be surprised to know that the main function of ticket sellers isn't to let people see movies, rather its to get people inside to buy concessions which is the real money maker for a movie theater.

I can tell you right now that in this job you will feel underpaid. I don't know what kind of movie theater is in your area or if you have worked at one but almost everyone who works in a busy theater knows they don't get paid enough for the things they have to put up with in order to make the company money. I tend to agree with them. I really don't think that you would sell tickets at a busy movie theater and feel like you were making close to value.





2) Is the job necessary?

You have already stated that they could be replaced in part by machines. I think that fills that requirement.



3) Does the company deserve to survive?

This is really a subjective question. But in areas where there are too many movie theaters I would say no. At some point empty movie theaters need to go under and part of the reason they survive for so long is they are able to work their workers very hard (experience).

Occams Razor

I.e. you concur with Obama that there is effectivle no 3rd branch of government? Such a bill would be so blatantly unconstitutional anyone proposing it should be removed from office.

I realize that most of the answers are going to require anecdotal evidence either for or against such a job. But from both a company perspective and from my own experiences movie theater workers are underpaid.

Usually if a movie theater isn't making a healthy profit margin it is mostly due to;
A. There are two many movie theaters in town
B. It is the slow time and the movies suck (Usually Feb-Apr)

it is definitely not

C. They overpay their workers due to the minimum wage.

Kowboys, do you think that workers wages are a significant part of the cost structure for movie theater's? I know nothing about the business but I would be absolutely shocked if labor was 10 percent of the cost when you factor in the cost of the building, equipment, and films. Your theory that theaters survive on the back of hard working kids seems nonsensical.