matthew wrote:I think some of you folks are missing the point here. I am certainly not saying that employers ought not to compensate people for work in some instances what with setting the minimum wage at $0.00. After all, no one in their right mind would take a job which offered a wage or salary of nil. I'm merely saying that the market ought to decide how much or how little labor costs, because that is...once again...simply how the world works. The price of anything is ultimately determined by supply and demand (or at least the perception thereof), and labor is no exception. Ask anyone who owns a business.

No one in his right mind would CHOOSE TO take a job that pays 6 bucks an hour, given a free choice. The problem is that I might have no choice. Maybe I dropped out of high school, say.

Now you want to come along and take away the minimum wage altogether. It's already too low for a working family to survive on. You want to be able to pay employees 3 bucks an hour instead of 6.

Your reasoning: "Hey, I'm not forcing them to take the job! And what business is it of mine if my employees can't feed their families? The only thing I need to be concerned about is the bottom line--one word: PROFITS."

And you call yourself a Christian? Aren't you supposed to care about the poor?

clocker bob wrote:A laissez faire trickle down Christian.

So good...

matthew wrote:I think some of you folks are missing the point here. I am certainly not saying that employers ought not to compensate people for work in some instances what with setting the minimum wage at $0.00. After all, no one in their right mind would take a job which offered a wage or salary of nil. I'm merely saying that the market ought to decide how much or how little labor costs, because that is...once again...simply how the world works. The price of anything is ultimately determined by supply and demand (or at least the perception thereof), and labor is no exception. Ask anyone who owns a business.

matthew, you should know human beings better than that, and yes, as the compassionate, empathetic individual that god made you, you should also realize that should we toss the minimum wage, there will literally be people forced to work for server's wages, without the tips, because the "market" (i.e. some butthole in butthole nowhere, missouri) is a dipshit with no business sense who's only idea for cutting cost is cutting labor. there are going to be people, people who have maybe seen hard times and have some past to work through, that won't be able to get but one job, and that employer will take advantage of it. sure, supply and demand... but when you get human beings involved as the commodity, you have to set limits so that these human beings walk in with worth just for being a human being. and not even much worth, 6 f'n 50 an hour. is that enough? well it's better than nothing.

you want the minimum wage set at 0.00? that's called volunteer work, matthew.

also, the lowest hourly wage is always going to corrolate with the highest hourly wage (aren't you catholic? you don't buy into natural law)? meaning, you have a 2 dollar and hour dishwasher, you're going to have 6 dollar an hour cooks.

matthew wrote:I think some of you folks are missing the point here. I am certainly not saying that employers ought not to compensate people for work in some instances what with setting the minimum wage at $0.00. After all, no one in their right mind would take a job which offered a wage or salary of nil. I'm merely saying that the market ought to decide how much or how little labor costs, because that is...once again...simply how the world works. The price of anything is ultimately determined by supply and demand (or at least the perception thereof), and labor is no exception. Ask anyone who owns a business.

I own a business. You are full of shit.

To pretend that unskilled labor is a market, and that workers can negotiate a fair wage is to ignore the difference between a powerful employer and a pool of potential workers who need jobs and have no resources of their own. In the words of someone famous, "How does a cleaning woman effectively negotiate with General Motors?"

A minimum wage puts a bottom rung on how low an employer may sink in the exploitation of people (real people already born, so they may not matter much to you, Matthew). The employer is not interested in paying a fair wage, he is only interested in paying the absolute minimum he can without going to jail. This is not negotiation and does not resemble a market.

matthew wrote: The price of anything is ultimately determined by supply and demand (or at least the perception thereof), and labor is no exception. Ask anyone who owns a business.

Why don't you ask some of America's agri-giants, who benefit from price supports that were intended for family farmers? Bought any Cuban sugar lately? Miss how good Coca Cola used to taste before it was sweetened by high fructose corn syrup?

The Archer Daniels Midland Corporation (ADM) has been the most prominent recipient of corporate welfare in recent U.S. history. ADM and its chairman Dwayne Andreas have lavishly fertilized both political parties with millions of dollars in handouts and in return have reaped billion-dollar windfalls from taxpayers and consumers. Thanks to federal protection of the domestic sugar industry, ethanol subsidies, subsidized grain exports, and various other programs, ADM has cost the American economy billions of dollars since 1980 and has indirectly cost Americans tens of billions of dollars in higher prices and higher taxes over that same period. At least 43 percent of ADM's annual profits are from products heavily subsidized or protected by the American government. Moreover, every $1 of profits earned by ADM's corn sweetener operation costs consumers $10, and every $1 of profits earned by its ethanol operation costs taxpayers $30

Price supports for human beings?? That's communism!

Unsurprisingly, the same clinically certifiable website that gave us Soy makes you a fag also gives us The minimum wage is immoral.

lemur68 wrote:The minimum wage is immoral.

That rules. What prompts them to ring the alarm about tyranny? The minimum wage increase.

WND wrote:Maybe you don't think America is in any danger of becoming a tyranny. Perhaps you believe we are truly a free society.

Yeah, man. And seat belt laws! TYRANNY!

rzs wrote:I'm sure that guy wouldn't have murdered someone in front of Wrigley Field a couple of years ago in a traffic dispute if he hadn't been traveling with a gun.

You realize he was already breaking the law by having that gun with him, right? So in addition to the law against killing someone, he was already breaking the law about carrying a weapon, and whatever traffic laws he broke to start the ball rolling. You think adding another law somewhere up the river would have mattered? Really?

A total ban isn't necessary. Hunting, etc. is fine. But if guns are harder to obtain, maybe every random idiot won't have them and allow themselves the possiblilty to make terrible heat of the moment decisions.

You think terrible, heat-of-the-moment decisions are what cause gun deaths? Not people choosing to arm themselves and shoot at people? Honestly, you think that's the problem? Or you think that's more of a problem than criminals acting like criminals>

If so, I disagree. I think regular people kill each other pretty rarely, and we shouldn't go crazy trying to prevent it because using drastic means to solve small problems inevitably makes bad laws with unintended consequences. Prohibition, Patriot Act, Alien and Sedition Acts, HUAC, etc. as evidence.

I had a guy fake-shoot me in the head yesterday.

I don't know if he wanted a gun and couldn't get one, and therefore he could not actually shoot me in the head, even though he wanted to do so.

Or if he was just fuckin' with me.

There are very, VERY few people on the planet I wouldn't mind having dead. Rush Limbaugh is one of them.