Not everybody is qualified to do more. Some people are just not born all that smart. For some a fast food restaurant is as much as they can do. Should they live unprotected and on the streets for their entire life? Do we have nothing that we could or should do for them? Are they lesser people with no reason to live?
I suppose I could just ignore this, like you ignored my question, but I won’t. My time and effort is worth more than that of a mop jockey. I can push a mop. He can’t practice law. I can replace him tommorrow with any warm body off the street. I can only be replaced by someone with a ticket to practice law in my jurisdiction, with comparable experience in my areas of practice.
Or, you could admit I asked a question you can’t answer. I never said a living wage would cause the downfall of America. I said it would lead to inflation, and would be ineffective at raising the standard of living of unskilled labor. You said you can keep that from happening by regulation…then you said that doesn’t mean price controls. I wanna know how you propose to do it. I don’t think you can.
As a lawyer you already make plenty more an hour above the suggested living wage. So I still don’t see how the janitor getting a few more dollars an hour hurts you, or justifies your position that you should get more money too. Right now this reads like a kindergarten fight over dessert.
“HE got some more, I should get some too!”
“But Oakminister,ou’ve already had four bowls and he only had a half of one.”
“It doesn’t matter! if he gets more I sjould get some too!”
That, or you are just miserly and don’t want to shell out.
Or you could just start a new thread and stop trying to hijack this one with obfuscating side arguments.
I can understand your position. How much more than minimum wage? I’m sorry that some people are less intelligent than I am. Should I subsidize their health care? Or maybe help them rent a house, or buy a car?
My house isn’t fancy and nobody is looking to help pay my bills.
That is simply not true. Their is a difference in make zero dollars an hour or making 6 dollars an hour and you know it. Even if the person can only afford one of those he still can afford one of those Or a person could find a place for three hundred or even two hundred a month. (I have friends who have a two bedroom apartment for 250 a month, outside of Lynchburg, Va, admittedly not possible everywhere)
Your argument says nothing concerning how a living wage would help if it put people out of a job. Also the ethical issue for forcing someone, with a threat of violence, to pay a higher wage than he would like seems to me to be wrong.
Crap. my edit function is not working. Mods, could you note that I didn’t mean to misspell Oakminster’s user name in the previous post. I was too fast on that post button.
Not all that much more, actually. I work for a non-proft, as I have for the majority of my career.
Let me put it this way. My employer has X amount of dollars to spend on salary. Lawyers get Y%, non-lawyers get Z%. If Z% rises, then X% has to fall. This means I get less, as a percent of the salary pool, than I get now…my work is devalued. Yet without lawyers, my employer is out of business. Therefore, Y and Z need to stay about the same % of X.
You brought it up. I called you on it, and now you don’t wanna play any more. Not my fault there’s a problem with your proposed solution.
Whoa there! “threat of violence”? Where did I ever endorse violence?
If your asking government to enforce a living wage or even a minimum wage you are endorsing violence. The only way the government can ensure this law be carried out is by the threat of violence, followed up by violence if the law is ignored.
.
A choice you made freely and of your own volition. With your credentials you could be making considerably more. Handicapping your own salary in the name of charity is admirable, but it still doesn’t justify your position. So once again, how does paying the janitor a living wage hurt you, or diminish your position?
I’ll do this once more for comprehension:
Start a new thread. The issues you want to discuss are too big, convoluted, and unrelated to this thread to discuss here. If you are really interested in my position on them you can easily find out. Playground taunting does not a convincing argument make.
Dude…I didn’t even notice until you mentioned it. No harm, no foul.
I take it you are an anarchist then?
Thanks, after that fiasco over in the pit, I’ve tried to be really careful about my typos.
But that is false also. The money paid to workers as increased wages comes from stockholders as decreased profits, resulting in lower dividends and stock value. Any increased spending by workers is offset dollar for dollar by decreased spending by stockholders, resulting in no inflationary pressure.
not quite. I think violence is justifiable in certain situations, but that is not the point of this discussion.
I noticed that you seem to be bothered by the idea of violence or threat of violence being used for this type of thing, or had you just not though of it in that terms?
regardless of the ethical thing Im not sure if things are as bad as you seem to think they are, lets do that math:
Someone making 6 dollars an hour at forty hours a week makes 960 dollars a month and 12,480 dollars a year.
assuming rent is 400 dollars that leaves 560 dollar for other payments.
Someone can live off that, at least where I live.
If he spends his money wisely he would even be prepared for emergencies
I’m risking the dreaded double post here…
We all want more money. Raises don’t come around often in my line of work. Usally go years between them. When we get them, it’s done across the board…X% for all employees. (X might equal 3, if we’re lucky. Last time, it was 1.5). If the janitor gets a 25% raise, that means I probably won’t get a raise for the next decade. I don’t like that idea one little bit.
I’m actually not taunting. I’m pointing out that there is no magical money tree. The money to pay for raises has to come from somewhere. An obvious source for that money is increased prices for goods/services…but if every employer/producer/business does that, then the worker hasn’t really gained anything.
It’s easy to say give the lowest wage earners more money. It’s not so easy to pay for it. TANSTAAFL applies.
That’s a theory. And one that does not apply to small businesses, which generally do not have stockholders…other than “Mom & Pop” who own the business and aren’t likely to want to lower their own standard of living.
You’ve never paid for health insurance out of pocket, have you?
Last time I checked working full time the individual would have access to relatively cheap insurance as well, even at a place like McDonalds. Im not saying that this would be an easy way to survive. But that a single individual could survive atleast where I am at in this nation. He would have a roof over his head and enough food on his plate. The biggest thing is though that if someone is a hard worker they will not be making minimum wage for long. They will soon be making a lot more than minimum wage. showing up on time repeatedly will get you a raise within your first six months at alot of these places.
Allright. That is a fair grievance. Apparently, the way that your particular employer does business makes such a deal bad for you. Surely you realize though that most corporations and small business do NOT operate like that. Raises are doled out due to promotions, exceptional performance, or the acquisition of increased responsibilities.
of course we all want more money. It is a natural thing to want to improve one’s lot in life, but if we are doing that at the cost of cheating some of our hardest workers out of the ability to even meet their bills, or raise a family, then we are seriously corrupt as a society.
I know that there isn’t a magical “poof” solution to the problem. It is more like a plague than a cancer, and we might have to burn it all start again fresh to make it truly work. I’m not advocating pure socialism or nationalism, but unregulated capitalism has gotten us into the mess that we are discussing, so it certainly is no unsullied ideal. Most likely, MY solution would involve caps in terms of % increases in prices over a certain period, (for example, no more than 25.% for the next three years) combined with requiring a certain amount of liquidity in businesses to be maintained at all times. The point would be to grow solid, dependable bases for these industries to operate off of. We produce far more of the basics than we need and I wouldn’t mind seeing certain basic necessity industries such as power, and base food heavily nationalized to ensure cheap access to them by all citizens.