Nobody can guareente that a company is going to be successful or can compete successfully in a world market. This is not about socialism, it is capitalism in practice. To label us socialist just because we believe that capitilism applies to all parties, not just the owners is ignorance.
watch what you say
or they’ll be calling
you a radical,
a liberal,fanatical
a criminal…
Lib – that’s just plain silly. Very disappointing, considering the usually thoughtful nature of your posts.
There are some options for people with low IQ’s that pay pretty well. Vocations such as bricklaying, road construction, and some factory work pay quite well, and don’t require much in the way of smarts. A friend of mine first came here from Mexico (legally) several years ago and began working as a bricklayer’s helper. Back then (8-10 years ago) the pay was $9 an hour. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t speak English. After a few years, he was able to join the union and was making $26 an hour.
My Uncle was illiterate all his life, but worked construction and made enough money to support his wife and two kids and, eventually, buy a duplex and rent out the half they weren’t living in to get some extra income.
When I was in college I worked summers at a candy factory packing candy in boxes. In 1985, this payed 9-something an hour, with tons of OT available at time and a half. Being only Summer help, I was not earning the same wage as the regular employees who started at somewhere around $11 an hour with full benefits and were given raises based on both performance and years of service. One lady working on my line had been there about 15 years and was earning over 40K per year. Not bad for packing candy in a box.
All of these jobs are, of course, hard work, but having a low IQ does not automatically condemn one to poverty.
“I should not take bribes and Minister Bal Bahadur KC should not do so either. But if clerks take a bribe of Rs 50-60 after a hard day’s work, it is not an issue.” ----Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Current Prime Minister of Nepal
I think Lib’s point is simply that money doesn’t grow on trees - and that workers cannot expect more value from a company than they bring to it, anymore than a company can expect consumers to pay more for their product than it is worth - or customers to expect a company to sell a product for less than it costs to make.
Regardless of what a living wage is, or how much public assistance we are willing to provide, I really cannot see how it makes sense to provide the public assistance through the farce of ‘minimum wage’. If people cannot find a job that will pay them a living wage, then maybe the government should help them out. It should not force employers to help everyone out. Teenagers should not be given a public dole to spend on CDs, t-shirts and beer.
Obviously, we need to spend more money as a society on humor-enhancement therapy for those intellectually-challenged California Babes out there!
Seriously, yosemitebabe, no real offense - I was merely making a joke about Bill Clinton - don’t take it seriously. I really don’t think that all retards are worthless lazy droolers. . .just the ones in Washington D.C. and Eugene, Oregon!
The living wage is a joke. Forcing businesses to pay any minimum amount is a crime.
Inflation raises the living wage every single year. Businesses raise their prices to pay the increased wage. Then the price of a basket of goods goes up. Then the living wage must be increased. Etc.
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
Yosemitebabe: I didn’t really intend for my remark to be interpreted as my quip about the President- I meant to gently point out that, to me at least, Sake, for whatever reason, intended that to be the point of the example, and that the additional comment about whomever would hire such a person being an idiot was a dig at the American electorate. Whatever relevance such quips might have to a debate about a living wage completely escape me and you will have to ask Sake.
That at least is my reading of Sake’s comments, and I apologize if I have grossly overinterpreted.
Drats! Simulposted!
Lucky, my old man is a builder – he is fully qualified as a bricklayer (he prefers the term mason because he can also lay stone and concrete), carpenter and plumber. It takes more brains than you realize to be able to do those jobs.
FWIW, I have met masons, farmers, carpenters, auto mechanics, carpetlayers, plumbers and electricians who are brighter than many college graduates. In fact, most farmers these days are college grads.
My best friend is a cabinetmaker. He is a talented poet (even better than I am) and has published his work in about 46 journals.
Just because you work with your hands does not mean you are stupid. In fact, I think this society could do with fewer lawyers and managers and a lot more people who actually know how to do something useful.
The equation worker’s salary = what the worker brings to the company is a fantasy. Labour is a competitive market, just like goods, and the desideratum is the circumstantial demand for the worker. Demand is high = high salary; demand is low = low salary.
What this debate has been missing is the concept of wage slavery. The theory of a perfectly competitive marketplace, with no regulation, is predicated on circumstantial worker mobility (i.e., movement to a higher employment area, retraining, time for a job search, etc.). If I’m paid a bare subsistence wage or lower, if I’m working 14 hours a day, seven days a week in two jobs to feed myself and my family, when do I have time to look for another job? With what savings will I move my family to a city with higher employment? With what time and money will I retrain for a higher paying position?
It’s easy to say that I should have thought of that in first place; that ignores the fact that the bottom falls out of markets, or industries go under due to competition or legislation. In practical terms, that kind of mobility is a myth of conservative theorists, at least as far as the lower economic classes are concerned.
If you’re prepared for that kind of employment marketplace, then you’d better be prepared for the kind of violent social upheavals that led to unions in the first place.
Again, why wouldn’t history repeat itself?
Never attribute to an -ism anything more easily explained by common, human stupidity.
Hansel, your point about high demand leading to higher salaries misses the point that this discussion is about workers for whom there is not a high demand, whose contributions to a company cannot equal a living wage. If you mandate they be paid at a rate higher than they can contribute to the company the employers will simply not hire them, and lay off those already on staff. Of course the government could mandate that businesses must hire them and pay them a living wage- but that would be a form of hidden business tax passed along to the consumer. If tax support is necessary in these cases (and I think it probably is) I would prefer Cooper’s proposal of supplementing their wages out of the government’s general fund. It would be more equitable since the responsibility would be spread throughout the whole taxpaying public and thus avoiding the statistical fluctuations which would cause some companies to have to bear more than their share, and others to bear less.
An earlier reservation was made against a similar proposal put forth by mangeorge; that the taxpayers should not be required to subsidize the difference between the minimum wage and a living wage for people who are incapable of earning one. Well the option is either letting them starve or subsidizing them. I won’t support the former, and since they then must be subsidized I’d prefer a system where they contribute to the best of their ability.
My point about high demand leading to high salaries is exactly about those who are in such low demand that they can’t get a living wage. It was the widespread conditions of the underclass that led to unions and labour regulations. My argument against those who say that minimum/living wages can’t be regulated or otherwise directed in society is that we’ve had an unregulated labour marketplace in the past, and it led to unions and labour regulations to correct the more grotesque conditions. How would Libertarian and Sake avoid repeating that?
Some form of societal direction is necessary to avoid the undesirable extremes to which unregulated marketplaces usually go.
Never attribute to an -ism anything more easily explained by common, human stupidity.
Peyote;
I in no way meant to imply that all manual laborors are stupid. I was only pointing out that there are opportunities in those fields for those who are less than brilliant. On large jobs, masonry companies often have people whose job it is to mix the concrete, keep the bricklayers supplied in mortar, clean up, etc. I used to own a chimney sweeping company and we did masonry work as well. We used unskilled helpers all the time, as did our competitors. Of course, the guy who designs the fireplace or the garage or whatever has to know what he’s doing, but the guy that’s mixing the mud doesn’t need to be an engineer. And those jobs, at least in my experience, pay a lot more than minimum wage.
“I should not take bribes and Minister Bal Bahadur KC should not do so either. But if clerks take a bribe of Rs 50-60 after a hard day’s work, it is not an issue.” ----Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Current Prime Minister of Nepal
–===–
I cannot give credence to the notion that some people are just born as dumb asses and therefore cannot gain higher level employment. (excluding actual mental disability) Plus everyone knows that IQ tests are irrelevant because they attempt to define intelligence. Intelligence exists in many forms and in many ways. You can’t just give it a number.
If anything, what affects a person’s ability to learn and be intelligent is how much intellectual stimulation they receive at a young age.
That’s what I think anyway
BJ
Sake - got it, got it! Finally. I usually get sarcasm, but for whatever reason (lack of sleep, probably) I knew that you were being “full of it”, but didn’t get the entire picture.
Good one!
Hansel: I am not denying that the market will create positions that do not pay a living wage. What I would prefer in these cases is that welfare subsidize these families to the extent of their need. Currently, low-level service industries (such as fast food) and agriculture probably pay out the lions share in the public-assistance scheme we call minimum wage. I say they pay the lion’s share, because for these no-skill workers they should probably be paying less than they are more often than other businesses (which generally pay better than minimum wage to start with). The problem is that these two industries pass along these costs to the low-income people you are trying to help. Its the classic food-tax concept - those poorest are those hurt the most by taxes on basic necessities.
If non-living wage families were subsidized by welfare, then the burden for their support would be shared more equally, both among businesses and more wealthy individuals (the way welfare is handled currently). Why should we draw a distinction between the support of someone who does not work, and the person whose work is not highly valued?
It truly surprises me that you say that, BlakJak. There are a percentage of people who are just born without the ability to learn anything complex or abstract. You probably encounter them every day. It has nothing to do with upbringing or education. Please, check around and see for yourself. Weren’t there any kids in school with you who got low grades, no matter how hard they tried?
Peace,
mangeorge
I agree with mangeorge that such people certainly exist - I just don’t attach any particular significance to it and don’t think it has any relevance when discussing public aid. Many people that are considered mentally disabled do not have any specific neurological defect, disease or damage that one can point to and say “this is whats wrong with this person”. Rather, intelligence is a curve - some people end up high, some end up low. Some people are low enough that they cannot function without help - and the degree of help required varies greatly. Intelligence is of course not the only factor that determines whether or not someone will be successful - but there is a minimum level required in order to succeed in daily life. Many people cannot make a living for reasons that have nothing to do with intelligence.
You’re right, Cooper! I have hired many who had average or even higher intelligence, but were totally lacking in common sense! This made it very difficult to have them in positions where they had to “think on their feet, running”!
These people are better in jobs where they can do things by rote, and not deal with the public.
Actually it has been scientifically proven those who increase their vocab increase their IQ’s. How smart you are is not all that matters in business either.
Eric Wilson
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea. -Revelation 21:1
I want to reinforce this statement - anyone who thinks contruction workers etc. are all low intelligence can’t know too many.