Ah, good old social Darwinism. The idea that will never die.
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People in this thread are not proposing that workers should starve. My feelings have always been that if we, as a society, want to provide a minimum income to all adults that we, as a society should do that. Just because I have a job to be filled, does not mean that I, as an employer, am suddenly responsible for the needs of the the worker I hire. Sure, it’s in my best interest to pay him enough so that he can actually do the job, but if there is someone who can do it as well and will do it for less money, then I’m going to hire the guy for less money.
I just don’t understand that idea that when someone creates a job, he then incurs a duty to make sure the worker can pay his mortgage.
You mean a guaranteed minimum income like Thomas Paine outlined? I’d be all in favor of that.
This is a wonderful story of a perfect information world. But what usually happens is you (hypothetical you) don’t know that the cheaper guy will do the same job, and you hire him anyway, because what you do know is he will be cheaper.
Greed is a horrible, horrible tendency in the human animal. Capitalism brilliantly finds a way to harness this force for some social benefit—if it is guided. Unfettered, capitalism does as bad as anything, maybe even worse. I love market economies, but I always felt that workers should be “paid enough to quit.” If you only pay your workers enough to get by, you limit their mobility, which means they will not be in their socially optimum job, but stuck at yours. Who is that good for?
You have hit on an ingenious solution to the problem posed by the guy in the OP. There are too many businesses in America, and the ones who don’t pay a living wage can be shut down.
Makes perfect sense - he won’t have to spend the $10 a day commuting, and will have plenty of time for basketball practice.
Sounds like a win to me.
Regards,
Shodan
Because I laid out a ten point plan in my post… :rolleyes:
But if you care about your workforce, they will care about your company. I’m pretty sure my company could find someone who could do my job for less money but they are invested in me, they gave me a raise after being here a year as well as an end of year bonus and the company is not even doing that well.
The fact that they treat me well means that I am less likely to quit and am going to be incredibly loyal to my company. I will also do my job at 110% and more.
The minimum wage went down? Did I miss a memo? I mean it’s possible that a state or two lowered a minimum wage, but I sure didn’t hear about it. Anyone have a cite for that? I personally believe that minimum wages should be higher, but I don’t think they have been reduced.
As for someone’s ‘slave wage’ comments…that’s not what we are talking about here. The story in the OP is not making ‘slave wages’. How do I know this?
Because he purchased a house and a car. People making slave wages do not but houses and cars. Which is kinda what is wrong with story. His problem is not that he cant afford to go to work, his problem is that he is not making enough on his job to cover the purchases he has already made. Does he bear no responsibility in this? Did he not consider his wage when taking out loans? (Did the banks not consider it either???)
I am not a conservative. I am a liberal. Centrist liberal, but still liberal. I think that a lot of companies should pay better, if for no other reason than to avoid turnover costs. I believe higher wages at the bottom would benefit us all. Also, I believe a vast number of companies overpay executives to shocking degree.
But let’s not get stupid. Can we all agree on what ‘living wage’ means? I think it would enough to be able to live on, not enough to buy real estate. People who have invested nothing in their own futures have some responsibility for where they find themselves.
<sob story snipped> I don’t know where you get the idea I have these positions. The reason for the social safety net is that we can’t expect businesses to keep people employed without a good business reason. That is exactly why Republican proposals for increasing employment by giving businesses and the rich more money are so bogus - if there is no market, there will be no hiring, and businesses sit on the money, as they are doing today.
I very clearly stated that the reason for higher pay with increased productivity is that there is now extra money which could be (and should be) shared. if a tenant farmer breaks his back to increase crop yields, do you think it is right for the owner of the land to give him exactly what he would get if he did nothing?
That’s brilliant. Is it from somewhere?
It perfectly encapsulates the thought that it is healthy from a libertarian standpoint for workers to have benefits other than a simple agreed-on wage. The agreed-on wage is very likely to be equivalent to slavery. Working for an agreed wage because you and your family will die otherwise is hardly “liberty.” Liberty doesn’t come from choosing which slave-master you will work for. It comes from, exactly as you said, being “paid enough to quit.”
And people having the freedom to quit will drive economic and cultural progress, not supress it.
No. But my point is that the most efficient way of determining the “right” split is the market system. I think that now that we no longer have vassals and a feudal system, the tenant farmer can pack up and leave if he’s being mistreated economically. And if this happens, the owner’s land will produce nothing.
Ha, ha, just listen to you. Players on the same team put the interests of the team first. You pass to the guy closer to the basket, you don’t take all the shots yourself. What we are hearing from the right in this thread is that employees should be treated less as team members and more like sweat socks. Keep the cost down and never, never share in the profits they help you make.
Some businesses do treat employees like team members, and much of the time they get reviled by Wall Street. (See CostCo.) But it seems rare enough these days to be news.
I believe it is an instance of self-quoting. If it is from somewhere else, I don’t know where I got it from.
I hope you aren’t doing this.
Companies can’t afford to be loyal. In 2008 I had the bad luck to be working for a company where our choices where, literally, lay off 30% of our staff and give everyone else a 10-30% paycut (execs took the 30%), or shut our doors and employ no one at all. We’d made some longshot investments that didn’t pan out, had gotten margin erosion from the increase in materials prices, particularly fuel which meant it was more expensive to ship, and then saw the line of credit we were depending on to keep things running dry up.
It’s a jungle out there, one in which employees and employers embark on a mutually parasitic and symbiotic relationship. But that doesn’t mean a company won’t, and shouldn’t for survival, layoff or reduce salaries.
Take your employer for everything you legally can, be willing to jump ship for a better deal, improve your skills, and live beneath your means. Because if your employer can process improve your job out of existence, they have to to keep employing everyone else.
Put me on the “meh” side of this debate. If you have desirable skills you will command a job that will pay you a living wage. If you don’t, you will have a shitty job that wont (or no job at all). That isn’t the fault of the system, the greedy fatcats lighting cigars with $100 bills, Obama or Gingrich. Take responsibility for your life.
And take the land with him? Especially when there is a line of people willing to get ripped off for a while?
In the past decade the effective freeze on salaries, even during a time of prosperity, let to a Fed-encouraged increase in consumer debt which was one of the causes of the crash. So I dispute that the market worked very well.
Second, there is an obvious imbalance in power between workers and management, especially in times of high unemployment. It is a bit tough for the average worker to pick up and move - especially when your house is under water. Now unions help restore the balance we know how pro-union Republicans are, don’t we? It is a much more even market with them. Just as people who take a job which pays too little when there are other options might have to suck up, employers who sign union contracts which they think pay too much should suck it up too.
Employers love the free market at times like the present, when unemployment drives down wages. They hated it during the Bubble when wages got driven up.
Well, if I’m a lousy manager then I’m going to hire lousy people and I’m probably going to go out of business. Managers have to make those types of decisions all the time, and it’s only at the very bottom of the pay scale that you’re going to get the “cheapest” guy. Last time I looked, it was only something like 3% of the workforce who make minimum wage, so I don’t really see this as a big problem.
Some jobs just aren’t worth much, and it’s not the managers job to make them worth more. It’s the employees job to make his skills worth more. People at the bottom are going to be competing with machines soon enough, so if your only skill is something that a machine can do better, in behooves you to learn something else.
On the other hand, when we see resumes from people who jump ship every two years or so, they go right in the recycling bin. You might know you are doing it for more money but it looks like you can’t hack the job - and why would we hire someone who will leave in a few years?
Far better to understand the job and get a skill which makes it more painful for them to fire you than keep you. It is not a guarantee, so be aware of the status of your company and division, and definitely jump ship if trouble is brewing. In my industry at least we know these things, and no one thinks badly of someone leaving a company in trouble.
How much responsibility can I take for what others judge as “desirable”?