Let me preface this by saying that Henry Ford once doubled the wages of his employees so that they could buy his products. It worked out extremely well.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...m-wage-prices/
You have absolutely no idea what Walmart pays.Originally Posted by Boshembechle
Or how much they would raise prices to maintain their profit margin.
The starting wage here is one of the best in the area. They start above minimum wage. And offer a profit sharing program.
I do know because my wife works there.
Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
Ron Paul 2004
Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
It's all about Freedom
Would you pay one penny extra so these employees can get off of food stamps and other programs? Did you even read the article?
Get a real job if you don't like how much they're paying you.
Deflection, deflection, deflection. Would you or would you not pay one penny extra to get walmart workers off of welfare?
Hell no I did not read that crap. (I won't give them the click traffic)
We are not on food stamps. or any other welfare.
we live on very little income.. and it can be done.
Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
Ron Paul 2004
Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
It's all about Freedom
Nope, and I'd pull the welfare rug out from under everyone else today and let mother nature take it's course. [mod delete]
Even if we grant this assessment as factually accurate, the amount is irrelevant. The operative word is force.
Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the State with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and anti-statism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul. - M. Rothbard
I read the article. I saw nothing about employees being on food stamps and other programs.
#NashvilleStrong
“I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi
How many WalMart workers are on welfare, exactly?
#NashvilleStrong
“I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi
SOLD!
i still wont shop there because of their treatment of the noble land crab, aka hermit crabs!
my friends
FLIP THOSE FLAGS, THE NATION IS IN DISTRESS!
why I should worship the state (who apparently is the only party that can possess guns without question).
The state's only purpose is to kill and control. Why do you worship it? - Sola_Fide
Baptiste said.
At which point will Americans realize that creating an unaccountable institution that is able to pass its liability on to tax-payers is immoral and attracts sociopaths?
But it would force WalMart's smaller competitors to shutter their doors. Why are you here trying to use the government as a tool for corporations to use to cripple their smaller competitors?
NeoLibs and NeoCons are both nothing more than corporatists. It's a multi-pronged attack.
That's why WalMart usually lobbies *for* minimum wage hikes. Last I heard they were reviewing the $10.10 figure to decide if they should support it.
Go post that in the ThinkProgress comments, and they'll snarl something like "any business that can't afford to pay their employees $3.00 more an hour doesn't deserve to stay in business anyway."
They are just horrible, nasty people who don't actually care about the working class.
True.
And similar to the scumbag WallMart execs that lobby the government for such tactics...
Donald Trump > SJW ass-tears
About 15% of Walmart slaves are on the dole.
Let me also say that I posted this not as an indictment of walmart, but as a scientific and arithmetic refutation of the absurd lie that MW increases will cause price increases.
Yet by your own admission prices will be made to increase.
Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the State with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and anti-statism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul. - M. Rothbard
Um, do you realize that even if you use their poor math, that's 1.4% of everything everyone buys at Walmart? Not just one penny.
And it would be way more than that anyway since employers don't just pay wages, but taxes on those wages as well.
But let's use the 1.4%... That means the entire community of Walmart shoppers would be 1.4% poorer since they'd have to pay 1.4% on everything they bought at Walmart. Do you see that this hurts poor people the most? If I spend 10K per year shopping at Walmart, I will now have to spend another $140. That was the $140 I planned on using to get my wife's hair done.
What do you have against hair stylists?! You want to put them out of business!!! It's scientific and arithmetic proof that you hate working women!
"And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat
"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire
When you say that it worked out extremely well, that means you must have done a great deal of research learning how it worked out. Please tell us more about this, and what it is that happened that you have in mind when you say it worked out extremely well.
FWIW, I agree that the argument against MW on the grounds that it will increase prices is not a good one.
Possibly the prices won't change, but this will certainly happen.
But to address your next argument:
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/...ce_of_sel.html
Part of the reason is admittedly my strong prior. In the absence of any specific empirical evidence, I am 99%+ sure that a randomly selected demand curve will have a negative slope. I hew to this prior even in cases - like demand for illegal drugs or illegal immigration - where a downward-sloping demand curve is ideologically inconvenient for me. What makes me so sure? Every purchase I've ever made or considered - and every conversation I've had with other people about every purchase they've ever made or consideredBut suppose you disagree with me on both counts. Suppose you have a weak prior about the disemployment effects of the minimum wage. Suppose further that you think that the best empirical work in economics is very good indeed. Doesn't existing evidence then oblige you to admit that the minimum wage has roughly zero effect on employment?1. The literature on the effect of low-skilled immigration on native wages. A strong consensus finds that large increases in low-skilled immigration have little effect on low-skilled native wages. David Card himself is a major contributor here, most famously for his study of the Mariel boatlift. These results imply a highly elastic demand curve for low-skilled labor, which in turn implies a large disemployment effect of the minimum wage.This consensus among immigration researchers is so strong that George Borjas titled his dissenting paper "The Labor Demand Curve Is Downward Sloping." If this were a paper on the minimum wage, readers would assume Borjas was arguing that the labor demand curve is downward-sloping rather than vertical. Since he's writing about immigration, however, he's actually claiming the labor demand curve is downward-sloping rather than horizontal!2. The literature on the effect of European labor market regulation. Most economists who study European labor markets admit that strict labor market regulations are an important cause of high long-term unemployment. When I ask random European economists, they tell me, "The economics is clear; the problem is politics," meaning that European governments are afraid to embrace the deregulation they know they need to restore full employment. To be fair, high minimum wages are only one facet of European labor market regulation. But if you find that one kind of regulation that raises labor costs reduces employment, the reasonable inference to draw is that any regulation that raises labor costs has similar effects - including, of course, the minimum wage.3. The literature on the effects of price controls in general. There are vast empirical literatures studying the effects of price controls of housing (rent control), agriculture (price supports), energy (oil and gas price controls), banking (Regulation Q) etc. Each of these literatures bolsters the textbook story about the effect of price controls - and therefore ipso facto bolsters the textbook story about the effect of price controls in the labor market.4. The literature on Keynesian macroeconomics. If you're even mildly Keynesian, you know that downward nominal wage rigidity occasionally leads to lots of involuntary unemployment. If, like most Keynesians, you think that your view is backed by overwhelming empirical evidence, I have a challenge for you: Explain why market-driven downward nominal wage rigidity leads to unemployment without implying that a government-imposed minimum wage leads to unemployment. The challenge is tough because the whole point of the minimum wage is to intensify what Keynesians correctly see as the fundamental cause of unemployment: The failure of nominal wages to fall until the market clears.
I concur, and a raise in MW doesn't necessarily mean a rise in prices; there are other areas besides prices where the difference can be made up. Essentially, this thread is a straw man.
Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the State with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and anti-statism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul. - M. Rothbard
And the Ford example is just yet another entirely fabricated liberal lie:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworst...hat-you-think/
It should be obvious that this story doesn’t work: Boeing would most certainly be in trouble if they had to pay their workers sufficient to afford a new jetliner. It’s also obviously true that you want every other employer to be paying their workers sufficient that they can afford your products: but that’s very much not the same as claiming that Ford should pay his workers so that they can afford Fords.
So, if creating that blue collar middle class that could afford the cars wasn’t why Ford brought in his $5 a day wages, what was the reason?
Actually, it was the turnover of his staff.
At the time, workers could count on about $2.25 per day, for which they worked nine-hour shifts. It was pretty good money in those days, but the toll was too much for many to bear. Ford’s turnover rate was very high. In 1913, Ford hired more than 52,000 men to keep a workforce of only 14,000. New workers required a costly break-in period, making matters worse for the company. Also, some men simply walked away from the line to quit and look for a job elsewhere. Then the line stopped and production of cars halted. The increased cost and delayed production kept Ford from selling his cars at the low price he wanted. Drastic measures were necessary if he was to keep up this production.
Last edited by angelatc; 04-19-2014 at 02:46 PM.
Assuming Henry Ford doubling salaries so people could afford his product worked very well, there are several things to take note of:
1. He is not the Government. He raised the salaries on his own, and did not actually force every other company --- regardless of product or profit margin --- to raise their salaries.
2. It was a newer product, demanding a higher price, and a novelty that allowed for the possibility of high profits on each product that the company made.
3. Will you please tell us how many Ford employees at that time ran out and bought a car with their additional wealth?
* * *
No company with more than one product is going to raise all of those products' prices by a penny. That's ridiculous. You generally want to raise prices by percentages, making sure that your biggest high-price sellers bear the brunt of the increase (raising your best-selling TV's price by $5 would, in your theory, allow you to keep/reduce prices on 499 other products in the store).
Moreover, as others have pointed out, you are focusing on WalMart. How much would a small business have to raise their prices to afford to pay a few more dollars an hour? Most likely they'd just ditch an employee or two and try to make do, or else they'd simply go out of business at some point.
Those who remain employed would face higher prices, offsetting a lot of their higher wages to begin with. Those who are unemployed are going to find fewer jobs on the market. Those in the service industry, who rely on tips, are going to have to work their butts off harder to make up the difference between the wage they get and the minimum you're proposing.
And, of course, like every single "raise it to this" argument, you ignore cost of living. $10.10 per hour is absurdly low for some areas. For others, it's really damned high. Instead, you get Federal Government calculations dictating the absolute minimum you can pay someone regardless of where and how they live.
There was no science or arithmetic in your post though.
You...really...have no clue about economics, do you? I'm sorry, but you simply cannot add a bunch on the left side of the equals sign without changing the right side of the equals sign too. I don't care if some advanced Marxist philosopher claims it's possible - he or she needs to take a course in basic math too!
This is another outcome
More hilarity about the Ford piece:
This is what the progressives at ThinkProgress actually advocate for - total control of every single aspect of our lives.It’s also not true that the offer was of $5 a day in wages. It was all rather more complicated than that:
The $5-a-day rate was about half pay and half bonus. The bonus came with character requirements and was enforced by the Socialization Organization. This was a committee that would visit the employees’ homes to ensure that they were doing things the “American way.” They were supposed to avoid social ills such as gambling and drinking. They were to learn English, and many (primarily the recent immigrants) had to attend classes to become “Americanized.” Women were not eligible for the bonus unless they were single and supporting the family. Also, men were not eligible if their wives worked outside the home.
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