Snorkelson
Footballguy
While I’m sympathetic to the impact to your livelihood, the plus side is I haven’t had to go to any weddings. Not a fan.
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This NONSENSE of 23 States refusing money intended to help those who were flushed off the face of the planet with the pandemic. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Ministry of Pain
- Start date
The Commish
Footballguy
That's fine....I was talking about wages in my comment...not "overall compensation". In my view, what you point out here is all the more reason to detach insurance from employment. Clarity would certainly help here in getting our healthcare industry to begin changing.
supermike80
Footballguy
It just DOESN'T work that way. Ever. This is a market economy. If you start paying everyone more, everything will increase in price and erode those gains. I wish you guys could see that...But you can't. Paying everyone more money will not fix anything. Not only will everything cost more, but there will be far far less jobs as companies innovate. It will not fix it.
There is a reason wages are where they are..its because that's what the market dictates. I employ truck drivers, hundreds of them and I support warehouses that employ thousands of warehouse workers. Contrary to what most might think about the evil mustache twisting employer, I would LOVE to pay everyone of them more, a lot more. Especially if it would reduce my turnover and make their lives better. But I can't. I cant because the customer I support would find someone cheaper. And of they didn't do that, THEIR competition would take market share away by having less expensive products because after all WE the consumer want to spend less money.
I know it feels good to want to pay everyone 50K a year minimum but it would actually make things worse. If you want to get out of that $12/hour job, better yourself rather than wait and hope for someone to make it better for you. That is how you succeed. And I understand there are barriers to that, but as they always say, if it was easy, anyone could do it.
DocHolliday
Footballguy
This. Many companies are desperate for workers and are paying more than twice minimum wage and including sign on bonuses. If people are not working now, it is because they don’t want to work. I could have a job today at Menards, Walmart, hospitals, restaurants, construction, light manufacturing, warehouses, etc.
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
This seems like a compelling argument in favor of government intervention. If you and all your competitors all had to pay the same amount for labor, then it would prevent this race to the bottom where businesses feel compelled to pay crappy wages* or else go out of business.
*I don’t know the wages you pay your truck drivers they may not be crappy. But you get the basic idea.
supermike80
Footballguy
The Soviet Union did that. I have ZERO desire to work in a world like that. Wow. That's a frightening thought that you would want that.
So whatever job you have now, the government will dictate how it pays. What if it's decided it will pay less than what you make now? You OK with that?
Why would you ever want to get good at your job? Why would you try to improve yourself? There would be zero motivation to do that.
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FairWarning
Footballguy
I knew you would be a big government guy in this topic. Pay everyone the same, reward bad help.
The Commish
Footballguy
I have. I don't currently. Minimum wage here seems to be the least of our concerns though. I am generally of the "let the market decide" mentality, but evidence grossly supports the reality that we need an established floor in this country. We can't rely on companies to evaluate themselves unfortunately.
The Commish
Footballguy
This isn't a "problem" with only "non-skilled workers". You'll have to show me the studies pointing to the direct links of "causation", because we can show that without that influx of immigrants those jobs go unfilled. US citizens aren't doing them. This is true of farming in California, Iowa, Florida. It's also true in the tech industry as we continue to farm out entry level positions because people don't want to work on help desks, do the inventory jobs or be the grunt doing things others don't want to. They are "above" that.
FairWarning
Footballguy
I am also, let’s start by eliminating the $300 and let’s put these people to work. We’ll see what they are worth.
quick-hands
Footballguy
Nothing like manipulating the market to even things out and everything works out......somehow.
shadrap
Footballguy
Ministry of Pain
Footballguy
I'm all for helping people get back on their feet and moving forward but we shouldn't slap them across the face as we are trying to pick them up off the floor.
Meat skyrocketing, Cost of goods in general seems like it's rising, wood/lumber very expensive, all home projects are rising in costs, new homes are up 30%, did you get a 30% increase in pay? I didn't. We have a lot of problems right now and I don't think kicking people while they are down is the right move at this particular moment.
I really appreciate your posts and your candid nature, it feels like you are right on the pulse of this thru your work and I get more info that way than a silly news article. A lot of people like working weekends with the idea they get the middle of the week to themselves when others are working, can get more done. I used to go balls to the wall Thur-Sun Nights and then take Mon and Tue off.
People who do work though should get all the love, not the ones at home. I would like to see that avg wage go from $15 an hour to a lot more, even if the government has to subsidize them a bit. Make people who have jobs proud to go to work and feel better about themselves.
I remember as a kid when people had regular jobs but seemed to live pretty good lives, maybe it was more unionized and there are downsides to it all but people in general were living better lives IMHO in different eras than we see now. The buying power of the avg worker started taking a nose dive in the 70s and 80s.
whoknew
Footballguy
I think that maybe its not nearly as exaggerated an increase in prices as you suggest. And, as a result, there may be a benefit from raising the minimum wage - at least in small chunks.
Findings from a 2016 study on the subject -
1) The impact of minimum wage hikes on output prices (more precisely, on the FAFH CPI) is substantially smaller than previously reported. Whereas the commonly accepted elasticity of prices to minimum wage changes is 0.07, we find a value almost half of that, 0.036. Importantly, the value we found, 0.036, falls far short of what would be expected if low-wage labor markets are perfectly competitive.
2) Increases in prices following minimum wage hikes generally occur in the month the minimum wage hike is implemented.
3) The effects of federal, state, and city minimum wages on prices are not necessarily the same: the size of the effect, along with when the price effect occurs, can potentially change for these different types of minimum wage policies.
4) Small minimum wage hikes do not lead to higher prices, and they might actually lead to lower prices. On the other hand, large minimum wage hikes have clear positive effects on output prices.
5) We find evidence that the particulars of a minimum wage policy (indexed, oneshot, scheduled) might affect how price changes occur within the relevant area.
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Ministry of Pain
Footballguy
I understand Economics, we've been doing the way you are saying it should be done since forever now, let's try it the other way and see what happens. Maybe the Corporate Wall Street Barons could help pick up some of the money I am needing to make this program work and if we got enough off the top to start with we could build a program that was almost self sufficient long term with huge endowments created by Commercialism ironically. Companies give to charity for a lot of tax purposes, they will do anything to save on paying taxes so why not make it easy for them to donate to people already working anyways and invest in people. They'll get a tax break from this of course and maybe we could try something different.
shadrap
Footballguy
The Commish
Footballguy
supermike80
Footballguy
Sand
Footballguy
I'd disagree that wages and overall compensation are different - that's nonsensical. Even if I do concede that point, those two are always going to be directly correlated. And yes, we can conclude that the causation for after expenses compensation not going up is at least in part due to the fact that employers are paying more for healthcare for employees.
Rich Conway
Footballguy
I would agree that government does not do a particularly good job at "picking winners and losers". I would argue that a significant reason for that is due to the fact that government representatives (selfishly) like to use picking winners and losers as a way to influence votes rather than a way to "most appropriately help their constituents".
Maybe the solution is to look for ways to help constituents while simultaneously removing the ability of government representatives to pick winners and losers in the first place? UBI would be a perfect example of this.
Ministry of Pain
Footballguy
There sounds eerily like when I posted earlier about changing family arcs and we took a lot of the Zip n Pip out of people but those of you(most of us in here) felt little to no pinch and now we want these people to just pop right back into the landscape that as making our lives convenient. That's part of my point here in doing this exercise.
Everyone getting angry at these poor people who are supposed to just show up and go back to their pitiful lives and maybe some of them or a lot of them were working trying to get ahead and that was stripped from them. Those who sit in office space or home offices and don't work on their feet all day or lift anything heavier than an ink pen couldn't possibly understand IMHO. Other than the jobs you had as a teenager, I understand a lot of these jobs are entry level but a lot more than those jobs were stripped from the landscape.
The Commish
Footballguy
Over 25 million people (part time employees) don't even have benefits like healthcare. Companies fight to keep them just under that level to avoid paying for such things. Their pay rates have been stagnant as well and their pay is the only "compensation" they get. So your assertion might be correct in some instances, but not nearly as many as you'd like and certainly not enough to be able to pass it off as "generally speaking".
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Ministry of Pain
Footballguy
People milk the system from all walks of life especially the rich and wealthy, and people milk the system in ways that are not trying to squeeze a little check thru the mailbox. Some people work the system thru the media so let's be careful how we are framing this.
These dirty filthy rotten no good poor people are "milking" the system for a couple hundred bucks a week, let's put a stop to that vs not scaring 3/4 of the population to wear masks outdoors and "milk" the system to win an election based on a lot of bull#### masked as science...wanna keep going?
Now let's get back to the poor people who have nothing and are looked at like 3rd World immigrants in here that need to report to the fields immediately to grab their shovels. I'm not feeling a lot of love for humans in here and I thought the last year we were protecting everyone especially the weak and meek so why the about face over a couple hundred bucks a week?
Business as usual I guess, kinda proves the charade of the last 12 months whipped up by the CCM
-Humans are used for corporate consumption
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
So I know like five different people quoted me and I'd like to respond to all of you but kinda busy today. I'll try to come back later to follow up but here's my basic feeling about all this stuff:
When I think of what we should be striving for, it is for people to WORK LESS. People's lives would be made better if they had more time and energy to spend with family and friends, to do the things they love, to sleep, to exercise, and to have sex. These are the things that make people happy.
Yet despite all the amazing technological improvements and leaps in productivity, the amount we're working han't really diminished, in many cases it has actually increased over the last several decades. The expectation is still that everybody is supposed to be working at least 40 hours a week but probably more and maybe you have a second job and of course your spouse also works but that's really the only way to pay for basic necessities in life like food and shelter and health care.
Any public policy that is specifically designed to make people work more is something I'm going to reflexively oppose. Because it's moving us further away from what I think our destination should be.
When I think of what we should be striving for, it is for people to WORK LESS. People's lives would be made better if they had more time and energy to spend with family and friends, to do the things they love, to sleep, to exercise, and to have sex. These are the things that make people happy.
Yet despite all the amazing technological improvements and leaps in productivity, the amount we're working han't really diminished, in many cases it has actually increased over the last several decades. The expectation is still that everybody is supposed to be working at least 40 hours a week but probably more and maybe you have a second job and of course your spouse also works but that's really the only way to pay for basic necessities in life like food and shelter and health care.
Any public policy that is specifically designed to make people work more is something I'm going to reflexively oppose. Because it's moving us further away from what I think our destination should be.
Ministry of Pain
Footballguy
Let me share that in the last year I have gotten healthier than I have ever been physically, better relationships with my entire family including my brother who I have been estranged from for many years and he just moved from DC down here to South Florida. I see my son all the time, we talk every day, my wife and I are spending more quality time, I stopped watching news, most TV shows if they are not live sports or maybe a topic specific show like Space Science or something in nature. I agree with you, even though i know we have a lot of differences, we definitely connect on this part.
I'm All IN
It wasn't that long ago that life could be lived with one income worker at a furniture manufacturer and you had a nice house and food on the table for your family.
supermike80
Footballguy
That argument falls flat with me.I worked through HS...I paid my own way through college. I worked hard for over 30 years in the industry I'm in. Ok I don't flip burgers. I also don't start for the Detroit Tigers and make 20 million a year. And I'm not jealous or resentful of those that do. To say because I don't lift things I don't understand what they go through is flippant at best and downright insulting at worst.
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My argument is never so much about how much people make at the top. It is what it is. My issue is always with the increase in that spread between the top and bottom. That's an insane increase for the top income earners over the last 30 years while mostly everyone else has been flat and low income earners have even decreased.
Then close the border and get rid of illegal immigration. That is the biggest driver in the stagnation of wages at the low end of the income spectrum.
I have never seen any evidence that supports that theoryJohn123 said:
Middle income earners have not seen their real wages increase either. About 150 million people are middle class (not all working). It's hard for me to say that the small trickle of illegals is impacting that mean wage.
There's plenty of evidence of it. I'm gonna guess you've never looked for it either.
I love that you call illegal immigration a trickle. You sound like Biden or the Iraqi information minister.
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supermike80
Footballguy
Im not arguing against an adjustment to the minimum wage etc. I get that. I was more pushing back on the concept of everyone making 50K a year etc.killface said:
Feel free to link something. I actually look for this kind of stuff all the time. Big fan of statistical science
I hear you and I'm in agreeance. I'm not even saying we should raise minimum wage because that just creates salary creep. Why be an engineer making 50k when i can be a lawn mower making 40?
We just have to figure out at a way to raise wages for most working american families. They have gone up leaps and bounds for those at the top
Again when you got nothing get defensive.Resort to name calling. Nice.
If you would like to participate in the argument and not just be derogatory then feel free to add something of value. Otherwise please don't respond to me at all. At least have respect for that
Sand
Footballguy
There is no universe that you can convince me that importing hundreds of thousands of low skilled workers per year doesn't result in downward pressure on low skilled wages. We can do all the handwaving we want to try and convince us otherwise, but it won't negate basic tenets.The Commish said:
Yeah, it's like these people forget basic economics when it doesn't suit their world view.There is no universe that you can convince me that importing hundreds of thousands of low skilled workers per year doesn't result in downward pressure on low skilled wages. We can do all the handwaving we want to try and convince us otherwise, but it won't negate basic tenets.
dkp993
Footballguy
This is exactly the point I’m making, these same costs (and many others) are rising for businesses too. Many of which already had low profit margins to begin with, many of these businesses are also recovering from an extraordinarily difficult year too. Adding on a huge increase in labor costs will simple drive many of those businesses under. It’s a vicious cycle.Ministry of Pain said:
While I truly appreciate where you’re hearts at, and I’m certain we as a people can do more for each other, the hard truth is unless we abandon the monetary system in its entirety someone is going to have to pay for what your heart wants. And while there’s a case to be made that the billionaires of the world can do more, the reality is at the end of the day the policies that are being discussed here we’re going to disproportionately affect the majority of small business owners in this country. It will only further widen the gap of big business to small, and I think that’s something none of us want or see as a good thing.
supermike80
Footballguy
But what you might be missing.....A lot of the conversation about the increase in meat, and the 30% increase in homes, as well as other items is because of all this money flying around recently. It drives costs up. If you throw around $$ like we have in the past year, inflation naturally follows.Ministry of Pain said:
shadrap
Footballguy
sounds like a lot of posters don't want to work or do little work & still make enough money to live, eat, frolic, & dance.Ministry of Pain said:
I personally can't believe this thread.
yea, okay, I want to sit on a beach & paint pictures. It's my right! come on businesses & government give ME the dollars to do it!
I am out of here with such foolishness.
good luck.
While you would never see these kind of statistics I would love to know who is buying homes. I live in Seattle. Basic homes are being overbid and costing 1.4 million right now. And I mean basic.
People like me (and I'm upper middle class) aren't buying these houses so it makes me wonder who is? They are flying off the shelves. I couldn't afford that kind of price and I pull it close to 200k
I think there is a massive foreign influence in this and I also think housing has become a commodity like the stock market for the rich. The people buying these homes already probably own many homes.
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supermike80
Footballguy
I will never get it either. Ever. Just about every new subdivision in my area (Detroit Metro) are advertising new homes in the "low 300's" and I don't know who is buying up that many homes. I said the same thing back in 2008/09 right before the bottom fell out.
I can only dream of $300k up here
I'm from northern Michigan so we are practically neighbors I just don't know if it will fall out this time. I think there is too much foreign influence and as I said the rich have come to the conclusion they should just own houses. Housing costs is a major concern for this country. I'm just not sure what you do when people can't dream of owning a home anymore
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/magazine/wall-street-landlords.html
quick-hands
Footballguy
Thanks biden. Turning this country into rental society. Dont worry you will be happier not owning things.
That's ridiculous to pin this on Biden. If you have something to add factually feel free to do so.
