Our economy is based on consumption, the poor spend their money, while the rich sit on their money. There is also many more poor people than there are rich people. Instead of deregulating banks again how about we just increase minimum wage, so people who are working full time can actually have enough money left over after paying for bills, food, and gas.
I’d rather have 250 million people start spending their money all across the states, compared to having a single family of multi billionaires receiving a multi million dollar tax cut so they can sit on all of it.
Do you imagine there’s any upper limit beyond which it would be unwise to increase minimum wage? Or if $15 is good is $30 better, and $100 even more better?
I think you mean GDP growth per year, not ‘rate’…whatever that means. I don’t see how increasing minimum wage gets us to 4% growth, however…sounds like perpetual motion machine logic. I mean, if we get 4% growth by increasing MW to, oh, say $20/hour, why not increase it to $40/hour and get 8% growth? Or $80 and get 16% growth?? :eek:
The problem with that argument about “why not increase the minimum wage” to a huge amount then? Is that it is an absurd argument with a pinch of straw man. What it is proposed does fit into the idea that there is an optimal level for an increase.
Of course in this case the OP needs to clarify or see that the minimum wage does help, but it has its limits. And it will not get as high as the OP is implying or the opponents of the increase usually ‘argue to the absurd’ about.
Before jerking your knee then putting back in the major point about the OP, why not speak in terms of the OP…as I was? For instance, I notice that no where in your cite does it say that increasing the minimum wage will increase GDP to 4%…in fact it doesn’t address that at all it doesn’t appear.
How about the people who make just above minimum? They still won’t have much, if any, disposable income.
And before demanding they move, remember the low paying jobs they do that are absolutely needed for society to function.
Who runs the registers, mops floors, stocks shelves, picks up trash, etc?
While I have learned from this board how much the Americans love to argue about the trivial policy that is the minimum wage, to return, the OP has tried although getting the term and the concept wrong to ask about I think the rate of the GDP growth.
The idea of the consumption driven doubling or more of the GDP growth rate, it is a way to disaster.
To clarify, it was mostly directed to what HurricaneDitka said. That bit about “Do you imagine there’s any upper limit beyond which it would be unwise to increase minimum wage? Or if $15 is good is $30 better, and $100 even more better?” That tired reductio ad absurdum argument. The OP seems to go in the other direction and so my comment for the OP to clarify.
:smack: Ah, my apologies then. I was only trying to make the point that increased MW doesn’t directly correlate to GDP growth per year, which seemed to be what the OP was getting at…I think.
Someone working 12 hours a day 7 days a week should be making at least close to a grand a week. As it is now, they’ll be making half that.
The reality is people cannot live off minimum wage without income from some other source. Most people will lose their source of income due to lack of income. As gas prices get higher, as everything gets more expensive in general the regular joe will be forced to cut out so much of his personal life that his entire existence is devoted to making it to and from work, all while providing the necessities for him to survive and travel. This leaves no room for his quality of life, at this point some people would philosophize he’s a slave.
No, I’m saying giving a consumers the ability to consume more they will. It’s like feeding a fish, they’ll eat until they explode. So there does exist a problem on both sides of the scale, but I’m sure with reasonable people (who aren’t corperatists investing into big pharma then signign a bullshit healthcare bill to fill their own pockets) could figure out a balanced way of getting the poor a little more wealthy so they can in return help the middle class who are the ones benefiting the most from the poor having more money to spend more.
Basically if we do things like increasing minimum wage, giving poor more tax credits, and actually covering basic survival needs like healthcare then the poor specifically will have more money so they’ll spend more. The poor will benefit as well as the people selling to the poor. That being the middle class, and when they sell more they can expand their businesses in return producing more, for more consumption.