# according to this the american factory is dead and not coming back **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 30, 2016, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/according-to-this-the-american-factory-is-dead-and-not-coming-back/753525 "2016-04-30T17:58:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/according-to-this-the-american-factory-is-dead-and-not-coming-back/753525/82 "2016-05-09T05:26:16Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > According to his preference, apparently. > There’s nothing confusing about what you’re saying. You’re trying to pretend that your expressed preferences are some kind of immutable economic laws while other people’s preferences are “hypocritical”. Since your reasoning is faulty, nobody’s buying it. > That’s your preference, but you don’t get to unilaterally decide what in a society counts as solely “the responsibility of the individual” and what doesn’t. > Except this is nonsense, because the societies with documented highest worker productivity **do** have significant wage floors. Your supply-side fantasies don’t correspond to the real world. I don’t think you know what supply side economics means. And what part of a support for universal basic income enacted through taxation is supply side? That’s completely incongruous. Enough of that sidetracking though, why does your side conveniently and consistently ignore the migration of industrial capital? Why does your side ignore that consumers would rather enrich the billion or so foreign laborers that work cheaper than Americans than buy domestic goods? Why does your side ignore that agriculture, service, construction, and day labor is populated by millions of illegal laborers supplying labor? Instead you would rather signal to the world that you care! Even though these so-called caring policies price millions of your fellow citizens out of the work force. And concerning how many cats? 8 or 9. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/according-to-this-the-american-factory-is-dead-and-not-coming-back/753525/83 "2016-05-09T07:46:34Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Where else does government revenue come from if not taxes, fees, and I suppose in some cases rents? > > This has nothing to do with soaking the rich. Increasing the size of the economy even with no change in the tax rate causes increase in revenue. More people working due to the removal of a price floor on wages increases productivity. Furthermore, the fact that we have higher than minimum wage labor currently means that supply and demand does in fact work for labor. Which is no surprise. Okay, I was wrong. You do seem to think the tax revenue to pay for this is falling from the sky, since you don’t seem to want to say whose taxes will be raised to pay for it. You might do a quick calculation on the cost, too. As for decreasing wages increasing productivity, one curious thing is that productivity in the last few years has not gone up as quickly as expected as unemployment drops. One theory is that we have reached into the less productive pool of employees now, since the productive ones have jobs already. I’d hate to think what the pool of $2 an hour employees would look like. Of course supply and demand works for labor - nobody is doubting that. But if you mark down a widget that doesn’t sell, the widget doesn’t care. If you mark down a person, he and his family starves. > [@](#): > > And the idea that government is subsidizing employers is a disingenuous farce. It’s not a company’s responsibility to pay my bills. That’s MY responsibility. Burger King is not responsible for my choice of car, my cell phone, my entertainment, my rent, my kids college or whatever. Those are my choices and my expenses. And if I can’t afford my expenses I can either increase and seek my market value or I can cut expenses. Or if I am Congress I can ignore debt. Or have the government subsidize it. You think WalMart and McDonalds doesn’t know that they can pay less because their workers can get food subsidies? You think people are so stupid that they’d work 30 hours a week and starve versus not working and starving? BTW, even at minimum wage I understand there are problems with turnover and the like. How much worse would it be at $2 an hour? We’d be in the “you pretend to pay me, I pretend to work” mode. I wouldn’t want someone making $2 an hour cooking my french fries - Og knows what he will do to them to get back at his bosses. > [@](#): > > There is a large amount of numbers between 0 and the current minimum wage that is currently being supplied by either black market or offshore labor. For example, if I want to pay someone to clean my house am I obligated to pay minimum wage? Nope. Not at all. I can just pay a company that happens to be a single person DBA So and So’s Maid and I can pay whatever we agree to. So, how many maid services are charging less than MW? (Who are documented, that is.) Maybe someone smart enough to set this up is smart enough to charge enough to live on. And so are their competitors. > [@](#): > > Thing is if I want to get someone to clean my house that won’t eat my cat because they can’t afford food or won’t rob me blind as soon as I turn my back I’ll probably end up paying around $15+ an hr. That’s the funny thing. Everyone thinks that with no MW everyone would be slaves even though prior to having a MW and even with slaves in the economy people still earned good amounts of money! Plus there is insurance and bonding. You seem to be saying that house cleaning is specialized enough so that cleaners can demand more than MW. You might as well be using computer designers as an example also. You can offer MW but you sure as hell wouldn’t want to hire someone who took your offer. > [@](#): > > With regards to education, not all education pertinent to value in the market place is book learning. You discount the type of social learning that occurs with regards to punctuality, participating in a productive enterprise, dressing for a role, seeing how successful people deal with customers, etc. These social skills internalized and reinforced by actually working for a portion of one’s living actually increase one’s market value! Even hygiene and the way you speak signals to the market place economic value. Sitting on your ass, smoking dope, and getting a check or a food card for a vote does not. An apprenticeship or job training is hardly book learning. Going to school teaches punctuality also - I bet the kind of people who would take $2 an hour jobs didn’t do too well at that either. Plus, no matter how much PHBs would rather deny it, job performance is a two way street. As Costco shows. Even where I work our management believes in a pay system that gives most people no raises - and then wonder why people stop working extra or scoot out early. And we make tons more than MW. > [@](#): > > We live in a global world. The people outside the borders of the United States and other rich Western nations are just as human as you and me. Why is it ok to try to feel virtuous about advocating a counterproductive minimum wage in the USA while purchasing goods and services that are made overseas or via illegal labor? It’s complete hypocrisy and from a national point of view it’s counterproductive. Ah, the old guilt again. I don’t shop at WalMart, but it is not like the average person has a lot of choices, or the information about the supply chain for his or her clothes. Anyhow, this doesn’t respond to my point, which is that making the US into a nation of sweatshops does not help conditions in Bangladesh at all. Someone who wants to chop the salaries of a lot of the working poor isn’t on moral high ground exactly. I do shop at Costco, partly because they pay their workers decently. > [@](#): > > It’s also bad national policy in an age of competing nations to empower one’s strategic allies to strengthen their own industry at the expense of ours just to satisfy one party’s goal of purchasing votes. Let’s strengthen the industries where we have a competitive advantage, which does not include low wage manufacturing. Manufacturing output in the US is at an all time high. Manufacturing jobs in the US isn’t. Are you proposing to toss out the automation for $5 an hour workers? Not too clever. And $5 an hour is way too expensive to compete anyway. > [@](#): > > People fixate too much on money instead of focusing on wealth. Generating more wealth by increasing productivity and providing people with money by increasing money velocity from the top 30% (which comes right back) by providing cash and increasing the pool of labor is a win win. The only group that loses are some of the poor that would have to actually work for their benefits which even the communists agree with and certain political types who are seen as benefactors. Try this again. First, it is not at all clear that cutting wages is going to be increasing productivity, especially as we get close to the natural floor on unemployment. Our problem now is inequality and low wage growth (though that is finally improving) and cutting wages is not going to help. How is this going to increase spending by the top 30%? (I assume that this is what you mean be velocity.) I’m not exactly sure where I stand, I think top 10%, but giving me more money does nothing to increase consumption. I got a big tax refund and it went right into my investment account. It will increase consumption maybe 20 years from now, today it ain’t doing squat. Remember, by the way, lots of the poor do work, and get no benefits from their employers. How is cutting their pay going to help? During the bubble even drug dealers discovered that they’d make more money with a job. That was not the result of cutting the MW. Those drug dealers are not about to get out of their underground business to work for peanuts. You must think they’re stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/according-to-this-the-american-factory-is-dead-and-not-coming-back/753525/84 "2016-05-09T10:55:21Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Or have the government subsidize it. You think WalMart and McDonalds doesn’t know that they can pay less because their workers can get food subsidies? I don’t. Show us that they do > [@Voyager](#): > > You think people are so stupid that they’d work 30 hours a week and starve versus not working and starving? I still worked when I had net outflow to reduce that outflow. Starvation is not binary. Was I stupid? > [@Voyager](#): > > BTW, even at minimum wage I understand there are problems with turnover and the like. How much worse would it be at $2 an hour? We’d be in the “you pretend to pay me, I pretend to work” mode. I wouldn’t want someone making $2 an hour cooking my french fries - Og knows what he will do to them to get back at his bosses. If turnover is worse, to the point of being detrimental to business, then a competitor who pays more will do better. Just like most companies pay more than minimum wage. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/according-to-this-the-american-factory-is-dead-and-not-coming-back/753525/85 "2016-05-11T06:32:29Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > I don’t. Show us that they do You remember the McDonalds memo about how to apply for food stamps? And do you doubt that it isn’t in the best interest of companies that hire workers with few skills to cut wages as much as possible? > [@](#): > > I still worked when I had net outflow to reduce that outflow. Starvation is not binary. Was I stupid? But you got minimum wage, right? What if you were making 1/5th that amount. There is opportunity cost in working, after all. > [@](#): > > If turnover is worse, to the point of being detrimental to business, then a competitor who pays more will do better. Just like most companies pay more than minimum wage. I have heard managers accepting turnover to save money. Remember, saving money is direct, the cost of turnover is indirect and in the future, so there is probably a huge discount rate which applies. If high turnover (which I assume you admit happens) cause companies to go under, the forces of the market would reduce the prevalence of companies which have policies encouraging high turnover. It hasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2016, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/according-to-this-the-american-factory-is-dead-and-not-coming-back/753525/86 "2016-05-11T11:08:58Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > You remember the McDonalds memo about how to apply for food stamps? And do you doubt that it isn’t in the best interest of companies that hire workers with few skills to cut wages as much as possible? Are you going to make a point, an assertion, and back it up, or stick to JAQing at us? If you think that SNAP lowers workers’ reservation wages, then show us the goods. > [@Voyager](#): > > But you got minimum wage, right? What if you were making 1/5th that amount. There is opportunity cost in working, after all. You asked if “people are so stupid that they’d work 30 hours a week and starve versus not working and starving.” The answer is yes, people will work even if the wages do not cover all of their needs. Negative 1 is better off than negative 100. So yes, people will work to starve less. > [@Voyager](#): > > I have heard managers accepting turnover to save money. Remember, saving money is direct, the cost of turnover is indirect and in the future, so there is probably a huge discount rate which applies. Turnover has a cost. Preventing turnover has a cost. You balance them, or you don’t and someone else does it better. If a $2 wage makes poor business sense, then that’s a self-correcting problem that doesn’t require government intervention. There are plenty of well-reasoned arguments for government intervention in wage floors, but high job turnover is not one. > [@Voyager](#): > > If high turnover (which I assume you admit happens) cause companies to go under, the forces of the market would reduce the prevalence of companies which have policies encouraging high turnover. It hasn’t. Turnover is not a binary condition. I did not state that high turnover causes companies to go under. If worsening turnover is detrimental to the business, that provides an opportunity for competitors. Walmart just boosted its wages to stem turnover. Although IMO as a shareholder, probably not enough. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/according-to-this-the-american-factory-is-dead-and-not-coming-back/753525.md?page=4)