To understand the arguments of capitalists against the minimum wage, follow the money. In all the thickets of pious reasoning about the merits of capitalism and the market, and of freedom of contract, and of allowing this marvelous mechanism to work its magic, and of what Adam Smith said, the key is the dollar. The rest is fraud. Carefully ignored is the question that will be crucial in coming decades: What to do about an ever-increasing number of people for whom there is no work.
There is of course much hypocrisy in the theoretical edifice. For example, businessmen argue that the minimum wage constitutes intolerable interference by the government in the conduct of business—meanwhile sending armies of lobbyists to Washington to make the government interfere in the conduct of business. In fact capitalists have no objection to federal meddling. They just want it to be such meddling as puts more money in their pockets. Nothing more. Ever.
In like fashion they say that they want to protect the worker’s freedom—yes, his freedom, such is the capitalist’s benevolence, the worker’s freedom–to sell his labor at a mutually agreed price. Curiously, in practice this means the employer’s freedom to push wages as close to starvation as he can get away with. This miraculous congruence of high principle with low profit is among the wonders of the universe.
A capitalist will similarly object to zoning on grounds of protecting property rights–it’s his land, and he can do with it as he likes—but if you buy the lot next to his house and build a hog-rendering plant, he will shriek for…zoning.
In every case, without exception, his high principles will lead to more in his pocket. He will be against a minimum wage because, he says, it prevents young blacks from entering the job market and learning its ways. You can just tell he is deeply concerned about young blacks. He probably wakes up in the middle of the night, worrying about them. He doesn’t, however, hire any. Purely incidentally, not having a minimum wage saves him…money. And if he were truly concerned about young blacks, might he not express this concern by—paying them a living wage?
Nah.
The quest for cheap labor has perhaps caused less misery than war—itself a most profitable business, war—but it is neck and neck. Businessmen imported blacks as slaves to have cheap labor, with disastrous results continuing to this day. Businessmen encourage illegal immigration from the Latin lands so as to have cheap labor. They sent America’s factories to China to have cheap labor. And now they peer with wet lips and avid gaze at…robots.
These will drudge away day and night, making no demands, never unionizing,, needing no retirement or medical benefits. Actually, though, capitalists want robots because capitalists care about freedom and want to help young blacks.
A cynic might see this as intellectual scaffolding for social Darwinism and unaccountability–see, it’s all due to the workings of the market. and the capitalist is only a bystander But no. It is about freedom., and justice, and all.
Among the fantastic trappings of—”free enterprise” sounds nicer than “capitalism,” doesn’t it?–is that it rewards hard work and determination which if pursued will lead to prosperity. This is both believed and beloved by many who believe it in part because for them it performed as described. The intelligent, healthy, ambitious and–a major advantage–unscrupulous can usually get ahead. And so, talking with others like themselves, they ask, “If I can do it, why can’t they?” The underlying notion is that the poor are poor because they are lazy and lack ambition. Some fit the description. Lots don’t.
Here we come to Commentator’s Disease, epidemic and among talking heads and columnists.
A woman of my acquaintance once said, “In Washington, you assume that everybody is in the 99th percentile.” Decompressed from the apothegmatic, it is true. Cognitive stratification is very real, though seldom noticed and never mentioned. The city attracts the highly bright. They hang out together. They date. They marry. They don’t know anybody who is not like them. The same holds in many places, and on the web, but Washington is where policy comes from.
By and large they are neither arrogant nor snobs. Since they are all in the same bracket, snobbery would be difficult. They include a great many journalists. It is fun to speak of the press as imbeciles, but, apart perhaps from babble-blonde anchors chosen for their looks, they are not. The duller probably clock an IQ of 120. Even at dismal publications like Army Times and Federal Computer Week, with both of which I was once familiar, you find very smart people.
What has this to do with the minimum wage? A fair amount. People of IQ 130 and up tend to assume unconsciously–important word: “unconsciously”–that you can do anything just by doing it. If they wanted to learn Sanskrit, they would get a textbook and go for it. It would take time and effort but the outcome would never be in doubt. Yes, of course they understand that some people are smarter than others, but they often seem not to grasp how much smarter, or what the consequences are. A large part of the population can’t learn-much of anything. Not won’t. Can’t. Displaced auto workers cannot be retrained as IT professionals.
Few of the very bright have have ever had to make the unhappy calculation: Forty times a low minimum wage minus bus fare to work, rent, food, medical care, and cable. They have never had to choose between a winter coat and cable, their only entertainment. They don’t really know that many people do. Out of sight, out of mind.
Cognitive stratification has political consequences. It leads liberals to think that their client groups can go to college. It leads conservatives to think that with hard work and determination…..
It ain’t so. An economic system that works reasonably well when there are lots of simple jobs doesn’t when there aren’t. In particular, the large number of people at IQ 90 and below will increasingly be simply unnecessary. If you are, say, a decent, honest young woman of IQ 85, you probably read poorly, learn slowly and only simple things,. Being promoted, or even hired, requires abilities that you do not have. This, plus high (and federally concealed) unemployment allows employers to pay you barely enough to stay alive. Here is the wondrous working of the market.
As the stock market reaches new highs and the nation’s wealth concentrates in fewer and fewer hands, we hear that a rising tide floats all boats. This is fine if you have a boat. Maybe it only looks as though capitalists flourish while the middle class sinks and the welfare rolls grow and kids have to live at home and they will have no retirement. Well, some boats leak, I guess.
When the theorists of free enterprise imagine that our dim-witted young lady should be permitted the freedom to sell her labor for what it is worth, they do not worry that her labor isn’t worth enough to feed her. Some who say this simply do not understand what her life is going to be if she is paid what her labor is worth. Others, with the lack of empathy that characterizes conservatives, don’t care. If you look at the godawful conditions of their employees in the sweatshops of, say, Bangladesh, you will see that not caring is common. Let them eat cake.
The question arises: What does the country do with the large and growing number of people whose labor is worth nothing? Or, perhaps more accurately, whose labor isn’t needed? We see this in the cities today. An illiterate kid in Detroit has no value at all in the market for labor. Assuming that he wants to work, a questionable assumption, what then? Endlessly expanding welfare? What about the literate, averagely intelligent kid for whom there are no jobs? If people working in McDonald’s can barely live on their wages, and strike, or the state institutes a higher minimum wage, McDonald’s will automate their jobs, is automating their jobs, and conservatives will exult—the commie bastards got what they asked for.
This is capitalism in its perfection.
For being one of the smarter guys in the blogosphere Fred sometimes misses key details.
There is a difference between capitalism and crony corporatism which is a form of fascism. The bulk of businesses in NA are small to medium size and are in fact capitalist. The vast majority of us will never be able to ‘automate’ – this is the realm of the corporatists. In fact most small and medium sized businesses exist in spite of the myriad of regulations and obstacles placed in front of us by the same government Fred figures should also be setting standards for a living wage.
We (my business) don’t pay our employees minimum wage and never have. The problem of course with a rising minimum wage is that it devalues the work of those who are already earning more and forces us to raise what is already considered a living wage. In a world of declining revenue and profits this forces small and medium size capitalists to do one of two things: let wages remain stagnant and hope that people don’t quit and seek employment elsewhere for the same wages but with fewer responsibilities or to let people go so we can marginally increase the wages and work load of those who remain. A business has to make a profit – something which is apparently lost on ex journalists – and for those of us not large enough to automate and get bailouts from the federal government the option is either cut staffing or shut things down. I don’t ASSUME RISK for wages. I didn’t start a business to have a job. Either the place makes money or I shut it down. Then we can all go to work for the government at minimum wage or for free handouts and benefits.
The fact that there are so many “low IQ” workers out there (as Fred so eloquently calls them) who barely scrape by is nothing new. It has been this way throughout the history of mankind and it is certainly not the fault of small and medium businesses that they exist. It is a problem no doubt but it is not one that can be fixed with even more government intervention in a economy that is already struggling to stay afloat. Perhaps if the government hadn’t been so busy bailing out large corporations and meddling in the economy in general (welfare for the very big and for the disenfranchised) we wouldn’t be where we are to begin with. At this stage all I can say is it is unlikely it can be fixed. All I know is that more meddling will make it worse – not better – and if I have to shut things down here as a result I’ll soon be working on HSF’s farm for maple syrup and bacon.
In short. Fred – please pull your head out of your ass.
Fred confuses the “minimum wage” with a so-called ‘living wage”! Back in the long past, the minimum wage was paid to part time high school students. They worked a few hours at MacDonald’s or bagging groceries at Kroger’s. It provided gas money, but was never intended to feed and clothe them!!
Nowadays, the economy is in a near depression; so many workers are desperate for any job that will provide a bit of money to get by on.
Well, you can’t provide for the family on $7.55 an hour ,so the libs want a hamburger flipper to make at least $15.00 an hour. Very altruistic, but economically unsound!!
Fred, lets raise the minimum wage to 55.00 per hour!! That would instantly solve all the problems to your way of thinking.
We would finally pay our wonderful working class a “living wage” People would start spending money again!! The economy would boom!!!
Unfortunately, as we learn from past experiments; businesses close or move elsewhere and people
lose their jobs resulting in “no wages” And MacDonald hamburgers would cost $15.00 each!!
Get past the arguments over ideology and the meaning of “capitalism.” Fred makes a very important point – what is to be done about increasing numbers of people who don’t have any real value on the labor market, whether or not there is a minimum wage?
I don’t know the answer to that. It is a deep question.
(No, I am not a socialist, communist, or Sanders supporter.)
Francis….except for your last sentence, that was a good comment. Also. I don’t know why you received a downer, unless it was for your last sentence. Mine was an up vote.
Persnickety,
You’re right – it is an important question. I personally don’t think there is anything you/we can do about it. Until your/our economy is strong enough there is a labor shortage then you will not see a solution that does not involve more government intervention. It is a classic cluster fuck and it will not end well for either the economy or the social fabric of the west.
Sure it is a problem having lots of people who can’t or won’t learn. Big government giving them money to have extra kids is probably not a good solution.
All our governments want total control. If we adopt single-payer medical, the government will control whether you live or die for want of meds – and do you think for a moment they won’t use that power against anyone perceived as an enemy? If we phase out cash, your financial records will be used against you (even more than they are now), to enhance their control. If you participate in Facebook, Myspace, Twitter or similar, your information will be used against you (if you enter it accurately). If you work for a large corporation, your taxes are automatically withheld, to the enhancement of government control and power.
Capitalism (as in free market, are there any left?) is a threat to total control – all those entrepreneurs, making deals and hiring people as they choose without government approval, who do they think they are! But these people are amateur systems engineers – and their oversights / lack of comprehension of system dynamics will lead to the Crunch, where reality will rule and their plots, schemes and goals crash along with the rest of things. Rebuilding may not find a need for the world’s biggest military, just one big enough to protect us from invasion. It may not find room for the DHS, the DH&HS and several other worthless agencies. Let us conserve our strength, our wealth (not in currency!) and our efforts for the rebuild – for trying to keep what we have now is counterproductive, and futile.
I will not enjoy watching it burn down, but I will enjoy the rebuild, should I survive to do so.
Good comment, Fred.
A country rich enough to build armies that are powerful enough to conquer the world (please don’t confuse equipment and training with will and motivation), drones to attack the unsuspecting, missles able to destroy every living blade of grass; such a country surely has enough spare cash about to ensure citizens receive enough to get by on. I would assume those who make the snide comments about low iq people getting a Govt stipend and then running out and to mindlessly have more kids are exactly the same people who are against Planned Parenthood. How much cheaper it would be to hand out free contraception? Hell, you could include some religious texts in the same package if it makes you feel better. And don’t forget the poor filling the ‘for profit’ prisons, (capitalism at its finest).
Privatise the profits, and socialise the losses…..Capitalism at its finest. Coming to an economy near you. And guess who will pay for it? (Hint, it won’t be the connected or the rich).
I agree with Francis. There’s a vast category of businesses still to be washed out by big mandatory wage hikes. The ” Buy USA Made” campaign was a resounding failure. The lowest cost provider always gets the sale, whether it’s done with robots, overseas manufacturing or whatever.
I believe there are a lot of businesses out there that are marginally making it as it is. After all we are in a failing economy, our lifestyle dependent on trillion plus annual govt. subsidies, supporting our consumption of 20% of the worlds resources. The minimum wage issue is completely missing the elephant in the room.
There is still a place for the “dumb” worker. The problem is toooo muuucccch gubbermint. I was a union carpenter at one time and rose through the ranks very quickly and was running crews at 22-23 years old. The problem was always what to do with the guy who couldn’t rise through the ranks. He was fine at the lower apprentice wages, but soon his skill could not match the new wage he was due via the union. Soon the worker who was fine at $10-12 per hour (at the time) was unemployed at $14 per hour.
That is the problem with unions and government trying to set wages. Once the wage is set there is no common sense only unintended consequences. The carpenter “thinks” he is worth X$$$ because the union/gov’t told him so, whether it is true or not.
The unskilled workers are gone. I hire only skilled carpenters and pay them a very healthy wage with benefits. Two things discourage me from hiring unskilled labor.
1) My work comp rates make the unskilled worker at $12-15 per hour almost as expensive at the skilled worker at $30+ per hour. I pay triple the WC rate for an unskilled worker vs. a skilled, so I have little incentive to train and with the rates so high it is not worth it. The unskilled employee invariably gets hurt and then you have to deal with him going legal on you and your rates go up…….
2) There are very few unskilled looking to work hard in the trades anymore, so there is especially no reason to want to hire a 90 IQ person who is unwilling to kick butt and work his ass off.
Small business is getting squeezed by rising costs on all sides. Labor/ insurance/gubbermint crap. It is not easy to squeeze out a $$$ at the end of the day.
Charity worked in this country before the welfare state. It will work again, but it is almost impossible to cut the cord on welfare. In some form or another everyone of us is dependent upon Uncle one way or the other. It sucks, but the progressives have succeeded in getting us hooked on sucking Uncle’s Tit.
And seeing Uncle is transgender I wonder which bathroom he/she uses.
Persnickety, I suppose that some of those people that you speak of might potentially have value in the labor market, or what is left of it, if the market was allowed to function without the constant idiotic Central Banks and government’s interventions. ZIRP, QE, phony inflation targeting etc. etc has done virtually nothing to improve the economy over the last eight years. Yes, it has inflated asset prices greatly and vastly widened the economic gap between the haves and have nots, but overall the economy, as you know, still sucks for most people despite all the phoney baloney economic statistics that the government blows out its bunghole.
The insatiable greed of the bankers and government at the expense of the general population is and has been choking the living breath out of the economy. As long as they can fool the fools with propaganda, and appease them with bread and circuses then the game will continue as is and those people who are locked out of the doors of the economy will stay on the outside. In short, I see nothing significantly changing as long as the game is run by those who profit greatly from it. In a true free market capitalist system the deck is not stacked to benefit the house – much to their dismay. That was the old casino, the one where cheaters and bottom-of-the-deck dealers were dealt with in a most harsh manner.
Speaking of sucking on Uncles Tit.
I got a call from a Customer today. The Gov’t wants them to completely dismantle an old historic building, move it to a new location. I have some expertise in the type of construction the building is, so do I want to be involved? YOU BET. $$$$$ (in my head).
So yeah, we all suck from uncle.
“I suppose that some of those people that you speak of might potentially have value in the labor market, or what is left of it, if the market was allowed to function without the constant idiotic Central Banks and government’s interventions.”
OK. What if there’s a pool of occasionally drooling 72-IQ guys who are basically mobile but incapable of heavy lifting. They can lift 10-15 lbs at a time and move it 50 feet, and do so at 0.5 mph plus breaks. Would a fair market wage for them be – what? A few pennies per hour? Compare the cost of diesel fuel and equipment maintenance to do similar moving work with a front end loader.
For argument’s sake, let’s say they are worth 1 penny per hour, and somewhere there is someone looking to employ them. That’s not enough money to buy food – and I mean ANY food – to sustain them. They are human beings, and their inability to do paying work isn’t their own fault. Do you:
-let them starve (and realize they will probably become criminals of some sort to survive)?
-pay them welfare for existing, which encourages more uselessness?
-create an artificial minimum wage and try to goad someone into hiring them at $15/hour?
???
#1 is inhumane. #s 2 and 3 are stupid. Can anyone provide a palatable #4 option?
I give full points to Fred for this one. This is a question that literally every one of you will have to answer very soon. Some sooner than others but soon non the less. Simply project the future where robots do all of the labor. They make everything you eat, drive, and wear. Once that event horizon is reached, who needs you? What do all of you “Capitalists” want to do with all of those excess human beings? Is Soylent Green the answer? It actually is to any capitalist who has sold his soul for a pittance but let’s face it – – – Every one of you, including MDB, is on the wrong side of this equation. Capitalism’s end game is not going to be in your best interests. It is already not in your children’s best interest.
Well done Fred.
My point is that before the economy became extremely manipulated to benefit the financiers and politicians, the people you speak of could still find employment in the market even with a below average IQ. We’re going back decades for sure, but it is my belief that a centrally-planned economy hurts the already worse off first and hardest. All of the FED’s manipulations coupled with ridiculous government regulations stymies the free market and keeps the marginally-employable on the outside looking in.
The FED’s manipulations have only validated the Cantillon Effect and by the time those on the bottom find their share of QE or ZIRP money, if they find it at all, inflation has already eaten up the newer money to the point where they are no better off than they previously were.
Because the system will not change significantly for the better any time soon, Rob may very well be right with his Soylent Green answer. I think of that frequently. Centrally-planned economies and governments generally have not ended up well for their citizens. They don’t necessarily end up as food, but more often, fertilizer.
Much of our commerce is not important. I went be a local strip mall at lunch. Here’s what they have for stores: Beauty supply, nails, tanning, craft store, Little Ceasars, within one block Arby’s, Popeye’s, Burger King, Wendy’s. How can you base an economy on this shit?
I know I’m sounding like a Nazi, but we have too many people that are basically worthless for any real work – they don’t seem to ‘get’ anything. Unfortunately / fortunately we can’t send them out to make a subsistence living farming, the way it was in the 1800’s. Thus the FSA, modern welfare state keeps expanding.
Last night I got a pizza to go. I asked the gal at the counter (maybe 21?) for some of the dried hot peppers, she paused for a minute and said: “we don’t have any”. As I was leaving, I decided to grab some napkins at another counter. There were a ton of little plastic cups (that they filled) with the crushed red pepper. A lot of these people aren’t even worth min wage.
Rob if I could down arrow you more than once I would spend the rest of the day standing on that button. The alternative to capitalism (real capitalism – not the cronysim we have today) are forced labor camps and more cronyism. I was watching a video yesterday of a bunch of socialists debating with an ex soviet citizen on the evils of capitalism. They told him that when the revolution comes he will be in a labor camp and they will be running things but it will be better than what happened in Soviet Russia because they have “learned” a lot from the past. Horse shit. Nobody has learned anything.
There will always be those who own things and those who don’t. You can have a system where people own things based on merit and trade or you can have a system where people own shit because they are willing to simply take it. Our system is edging dangerously close to the latter. It is an issue of extremes is all it is.
As for a future where robots do everything… I suspect we’ll have imploded long before then – since the system is to inbred at this stage to be saved. My advice to you is to quit reading Asimov, put on your big boy panties and get ready for a shit storm. Because it’s coming whether we want it to or not.
Long term, and I mean 75 to 100 years away, a living wage will be implemented. Those people, the ones who are incapable of producing at the level as the IQ 130s (Fred’s example) will be good only for the following:
1 – Fighting
2 – Fucking
3 – Voting
We aren’t ready for that big step yet, there are plenty of “low IQ” jobs right now, with the primary wedge between these people and their jobs being Congressional in nature, that is to say that legislation and the action of Washington DC have gutted their opportunities, making it almost impossible to hire idiots.
But, that day is eventually coming, a day when cheap technology and skilled labor are able to do the work of the entire “lower class.”
My fix….sorta, revolution will always happen, you can’t prevent it, but this is where things are heading:
1 – “Living wage” for all.
Healthcare not included, social security not included, Obamaphone not included. A single system. Food stamps not included.
Only the first two child gets some sort of subsidy. Any subsequent children are 100% on the parents.
2 – Abolish minimum wage.
Believe it or not, but people are bored easily, and won’t be against doing idle labor for some side scratch.
3 – Neuter immigration
Gut it.
—————————————————–
Now that we are done reading stuff from the Syfy network, lets actually solve the problem.
Press 1 for Civil War
Press 2 for WW3
Press 3 for Blow me
Have to agree with Francis and most posts above……..HOWEVER
The real problem I see, is that we in NA refuse to look at this problem as a GLOBAL issue…
With free trade agreements abounding everywhere, we are now in a truly global community, and we have to think of our local problems from a global perspective.
While it is somewhat true that you can live on less than a dollar a day in other producing economies, such is NOT the case in NA. Free trade agreements allows business to source the cheapest labor in the world’s markets and ship goods over borders seamlessly without tariffs.
This creates the skilled labor unemployment situation in NA. forcing people into jobs that cannot sustain a family in NA, BUT will sustain a family just fine in a third world country. Add in monetary inflation of the money supply in NA, which only amplifies the situation even more.
If you are a small business owner in NA….. this is a recipe for disaster!! The costs keep spiraling upwards, while the competition across the pond has virtually unlimited supply of really cheap labor and costs, essentially putting you out of business. If your business doesn’t compete on the open market, you are constantly bombarded by labor cost increases, due to the expansion of the money supply.
The only way to stop this insanity is to either scrap the free trade agreements, or adjust the living scales so everyone can live on a dollar a day – so to speak, (leveling the playing field globally) which will collapse the economy and we all know that neither will happen!!
It took us over thirty years to get here, but we finally get to reap what we allowed to sow…..
@Fiatman – I left out ” scrap the free trade agreements” in my above wish list. Good catch.
@constman54 – “Charity worked in this country before the welfare state.”
This may be true to some extent, but human nature makes this impossible now and in the future, due to he huge numbers of the needy that now exist. Just as you see differences in how people interact and react to someone in need in a big city versus in a rural environment, the same phenomenon occurs in a macro scale – the more “needy” there are, the less empathy we have for each needy person because it is too psychologically draining otherwise.
Your knowledge of the time before the welfare state may also be skewed because life, in general, was less valued way back then since so many died of random diseases all the time, so no one noticed or cared when the local “moron” (that was a technical term back then) died in a ditch in the woods.
There is also another issue that is making that pool of low IQ people bigger every day in the U.S., our fascist gov’t allowed the use of lead in all kinds of consumer products that are still damaging our children permanently, not to mention the lead contaminated tap water crisis across the country. Everyone should see John Oliver’s piece from last Sunday on this issue.
Our gov’t is so penny-wise and pound-stupid…
@Francsis Marion: “The fact that there are so many “low IQ” workers out there (as Fred so eloquently calls them) who barely scrape by is nothing new. ”
What’s new about it is automation. For the centuries, there has been subsistence farming – now 5% of the people grow everything we need. People who filled out forms, tellers, grocery check out clerks, gas station attendants, etc.
More and more of self serve combined with bar coding of products and credit cards will eliminate even more jobs. Normalization of data will allow even more electronic interchange of data. At one time it took a couple of weeks to get pre-approved for a mortgage – now you can do it on line – in a day! That’s all because of integration of data. This wipes out ‘loan officer jobs’ Same for insurance (remember the ‘insurance man’?).
The low IQ had some value before automation – now they have little or no value.
Dutchman,
Agreed. The problem is how do you fix it? More gov’t programs? Fewer? Either solution goes down a path to destruction. You’ll either bankrupt the system with more or hasten the rioting and looting with fewer. Thus my assertion – it is a cluster fuck.
Capitalism is obviously very bad, very evil.
That’s why people are migrating in such huge numbers from Capitalist to non Capitalist countries..
Uh ……….. or maybe I got that backwards.
@Francis: I agree it’s a cluster fuck – too many people. Where’s Joe Stalin when you need him?
Seriously, it almost looks like we are creating a Cast system – the way they have it in India. A lot of people at a completely lower standard of living.
I say we fence off California, and let them live there.
The obvious solution is to auction off the right to the labor of those indigents, with a requirement that the entity holding those labor rights also provides for the basic needs of the indigent.
Should work out fine.
Henry Ford paid his people $5.00 per day, when the average wage was about $1.50 per day. This was done in order to stabilize his workforce, but was also done as Ford believed that his workers should be able to afford his products.
Henry Ford realized that paying people a decent wage would come back to reward him immensely. Of course, the wall street banksters howled in protest, stating that Ford’s high wages would “destroy capitalism” as they knew it…Henry Ford mistrusted banks and knew of their destructive potential. His writings have stated as such.
Henry Ford had a great part in establishing a “middle class” and was instrumental in helping quell the “class warfare” that was evident in other parts of the world.
Our present “race to the bottom” with the implementation of the fraudulent H-1b visa program has made native-born Americans second-class citizens in our own country. The “pointy-headed intellectuals” in our “business schools, colleges and universities have lost sight of the fact that a well-functioning economy requires a consumer base that is able to afford the consumer products available to them. It helps to have the products produced by the very consumers that eventually purchase them…in today’s business schools, the stockholder is looked upon as the one entity that must be “stroked” at all costs…the balance that is required for an economic system to flourish is ignored…a well-functioning economic system is like a three-legged stool that requires consumer/employees, investors/consumers.employees, and financial backers, also consumers,employees,investors to properly function. Take the employees out of the equation (with the siren song of cheap imports) and you have the mess that we are in today…
Looks like francis is already on the wrong side of the capitalistic great divide. Nothing that a load of cheap beer and some weed won’t fix thought. I am sure that it will all work out great.
I’m saving myself for francis.
If people cannot support themselves with their own labor (regardless the level of skill), we will have ever more millions of people who will be a burden on society. If a person cannot support themselves, he becomes societie’s issue.
Francis has said it all well. I have covered this many times – forcing the employer to pay more for a worker than he or she or it (gotta be politically correct these days) is worthy simply is not going to work. Employers will not hire workers under that condition.
Where folks have tiptoed around is the question of hat o do with the masses who are incapable of earning more than a few dollars an hour.
The answer is they need to be forced to accept such work. There s no right to welfare or a middle class lifestyle.
These folks will need to return to old values, where families matter, single parents with 10 welfare kids are anathema, families will need to van together, and members will need to look out for each other.
Every kid will not get its own bedroom, housing will not necessarily be one family, they will have to cook their own meals (I remember all of this – I never had a bedroom of my own. Two was the fewest number in a room ever – before more came along).
They will need to learn about making big pots of beans and cornbread for a couple dollars or so. Stews and soups homemade. Pasta with little meat. Etc. Home cooking done cheap.
The adults will all have to work, and he teenagers. Maybe share one car, if that. Second hand clothes. Hand-me-downs. Repair their own stuff. No fucking mobile phones. No electronic gizmos – here is a baseball, go play. Ever heard of bikes? Cheap as can be used.
Seriously, his entire argument is a load of shit.
People will have to band together and learn to survive. People do not need the modern crap – big TVs, SUVs, I gizmos, restaurants.
There is no right to a middle class living, a soft life, etc.
Those wanting the $15 an hour want to promote the status quo of single parents, welfare, and debt.
Fuck that shit.
Llpoh- Words of wisdom for a confused population, I agree. Besides I like beans and cornbread, I was raised on it.
Fred’s VERY brief mention of robotics misses a very important point, and one that is often missed. The “Best” use of robotic systems is not to automate jobs that us Humans can do (and do with an acceptable profit margin for whoever / whatever chooses to employ “us”), rather, robotic systems are better “employed” to the jobs we CANNOT do, or where our abilities do not match those of the robots. Good examples are “high-hazard” jobs (e.g. Nuclear industry / Radiochemistry / Radiopharmaceuticals), high – precision / critical jobs (typically but not exclusively microelectronics, and SMT assembly), and areas (such as endosurgery) where our physical limitations (vision / dexterity, etc.) simply cannot match the currently available tech, let alone the proposed future tech.
In my business Robotic systems provide me with fast, 24/7 pathologies, with the traditional “have to wait for microbial growth” being much shorter thanks to electronic / bioelectronics detection. The areas where the BIG expansion WILL occur must be Surgery – telemedicine has become a mature technology, and with cheap, fast, bulk data transfer the ability for a Surgeon to “direct” a remote system is certainly here now (and has been available for some time – pioneered by the French decades ago). It is much cheaper / safer / time-effective to direct a semi-autonomous surgical robot (or robots) at a remote Hospital than have to ship the Patient by Air Ambulance to a major Regional centre, where they face the added risk of acquiring interesting infections brought in by other Patients / visitors (because that’s what happens – especially when we manage overseas visitors!)
Because of our remote population centres, Australia could well be THE place where this tech will take hold. The machinery is not cheap (but what is these days), and I have seen Business Plans where the benefits (even after multi-million $$ investment) are so substantial (drugs / bed-days saved / transport) that break even is but a few years.
THIS is where robotic systems SHOULD be developed. Not to replace already capable workers “just to chase the extra fractions of a cent per item produced”, rather to literally “go where no-one has been before”, and create NEW employment opportunities for all.
Could happen, should happen, but probably won’t happen (without major attitude changes in “our Leaders”)
I am a business owner. The purpose of any business is to serve needs and make a profit. Three books I really benefitted from in the past are as follows: “The Goal” by Eliyahu M. Goldratt (who addressed the Theory of Constraints) plus “Built to Last” and “Good to Great’ by Jim Collins.
Get the the right people in the right positions and pay them what they are worth. Simple economics and common sense. The government does not belong anywhere in the equation. They are and it’s why I went Galt in 2011. My bad.
In other words, the government taxes and regulates you into oblivion. Then, they tell you what you should pay your employees while knowing absolutely fucking nothing about your business and ignoring the risks, and 2 o’clock mornings, you took to get where you are (without the benefit of government backed loans).
I agree with Francis Marion. I’m just a small business owner, not Exon or Coca-Cola. Sue me. I’ll take care of mine and my own. This is not my fault.
Just as an example, I am part owner of a plastics company. A few years ago, we had an opportunity for a million plus order, but we could not meet the needs of the client due to the environmental regulations in the US. We could meet the fulfilment of the plastic injection (and client was willing to front the cost of the set-up) – but we could not do the colorization of the product in the US. We could do it in Mexico and China though. I passed because I didn’t have an international contract attorney that I trusted. Oh well…
And even if I did have a good International attorney that I trusted, I didn’t feel confident that I could enforce the agreement overseas if the Mexican or Chinese vendors fucked us.
I would have much preferred to do business in the US. Wasn’t possible though. Not my fault.
I blame Al Gore and the climate change cult. Too bad…
Unscrupulous – nice decision. Your investment could have been a donation in reality.
Thanks llpoh. Truth is, I’m just not an international businessman like you. But I do admire you for it. Have a good weekend, bro…
I was a big fan of Jim collins and ‘good to great’ was a very helpful book for me. However, as we learned more about wall streets game of big boxing and crowding out market segments, his thesis started looking more and more suspect. I tried to engage Jim in a discussion on that subject, using his example of walgreens, but the coward wouldn’t do it. Fuck Jim collins.
Star – personalities aside – of the three books that I mentioned above – “Good to Great” was my favorite. It actually blew me away. “The Goal’ was my second favorite because it describes business/ manufacturing as an “chain gang”
and we’re only as fast as the “slowest link”. Address that, money flows in.
Again – IMO – all of the books were good. And none of them were written by the government. 🙂
PS – Star – Wall Street contamination(s) aside – what I really liked about “Good to Great” was finding the “right people” first, then figuring out the “game plan”. It works. Smarter people than me have made me somewhat affluent. Works for me!
I’m not proud. Just a dude with more balls than brains, two ears and one mouth. Always listen twice as much as you speak.
No apologies…
In fact, we’re going out fishing next week in the far north of Canuck-land. If we don’t leave on Sunday we’re leaving on Monday or Tuesday. Either way, I will be gone for awhile again. But I will always catch up later here on TBP.
Talk amongst yourselves and I will catch up with everything down the road.
Later TBP commenters. I think you are all awesome…
Fred says locals cant live on min wage, but somehow mexicans and work visa foreigners like indians undercut even that wage AND STILL SEND MONEY OVERSEAS. live crowded, cheap home cooking rice etc. Grow garden, use public transport, stay home friday night etc.
I see so many that really are more stupid than Fred described. How many times fast food workers ask u if u sant something cold warmed up. I put a whole plate of food in a microwave for 1 or two minutes. They always put something small in for over 5 minutes. Waste of time saying ‘ ok but not too hot i want to eat it for lunch not dinner.’ Waste of time saying ‘if i cant even hold it how can i eat it?’. They cant think about the length of time it takes to heat something up, less than 500 degrees, they are in a daze. Others who put tins and bottles in bags with soft fruit and vegetables etc, thats close to half of cashiers. I dont think such people are owed more pay that just makes the product more expensive. Manila call centres where they call u sirrrr a lot but cant fix your simple phone problem. If they have more brains then they can specialise in something and if they get paid more, its not unfair they dont if they cant.
If you get the govt out of the way someone could offer to work for free for a month or just for lunch and transport expense when hes been told ‘sorry we are not hiring’, gets a foot in the door. Then when hes learned enough to start doing things involving skills and not taking the time of someone already skilled to show him, he can be
paid a starting wage. When he gets better over time he can get paid more. Employer now knows this guy would be valuable to his competition now, so pay him what hes now worth. After some time this guy can be trusted to run things and employer can take a vacation etc. Thafs how it should be able to work. Instead employer has to take a huge risk and sign up an unknown who might be unproductive with all the taxes and insurances Nd paid time off. If he can’t pass that cost on to customers he cant do it.
Llpoh says: There s no right to welfare or a middle class lifestyle….Fuck that shit.
LLPOH, Folks just don’t know how to do poor. Can you believe they actually go online to research survival skills? Like what do you need to learn about cooking beans over a campfire? Or washing the bare minimum in an effort to save water for cooking?
Somewhere along the way, folks bought into the Brady bunch bullshit that they have to have all the creature comforts of middle class living.
I was chagrined to see a woman living on welfare and section 8 in a house like mine and her kids playing Nintendo on their own color TV in their own bedroom. I didn’t fault them for it but like I said, it made me feel humiliated that I worked and had no better lifestyle.
I recall the first rumblings of the welfare state were meant to keep kids from going to bed hungry at night. Today, it has to do with moving the whole family out of the poor sections of town to help them escape the ‘cycle’ of poverty, due to poor schools and environment but not poor parenting.
As FM said, when you raise the living standard of the poor, you devalue the income of the middle class. Then the workers want a raise and pretty soon the work is shipped to China so the employers can keep paying for the welfare nut.
Human nature doesn’t change. Facts are facts and Bruce Jenner is a male no matter what he thinks or does. There is nothing we can do to change physics. Evolution will take care of those unable to adapt. I used to rail against the welfare queens and then against the corporate cronies, now I realize it is all a survivor competition. The weak will not survive.
“What to do about an ever-increasing number of people for whom there is no work.”
Don’t have kids.
“Do you:
-let them starve (and realize they will probably become criminals of some sort to survive)?
-pay them welfare for existing, which encourages more uselessness?
-create an artificial minimum wage and try to goad someone into hiring them at $15/hour?
???”
Option #2, on the condition of sterilization.
I’ve seen arrows and targets before, but I’ve never seen anyone miss by as much as Fred Reed has here.
The first question that should be asked after “Do we raise the minimum wage?” is “Why does the prior minimum wage no longer work, and why did the ones prior to that fail also?
If you don’t ask and answer these questions, any diatribe you post on minimum wage should immediately be discredited as either ignorance or polemic.
The reason socialists don’t raise these issues is because devaluation of wages is the work of central planners at central banks and their fiat currency. Their inflationary policies attack the poor, the homeless, orphans, widows, retirees, the handicapped, anyone else on a fixed income, and the late receivers of freshly printed money–generally Joe and Joanna Punchclock and small businessmen. The greater the printing effort, the faster wealth is transferred from the 99 percent to the elite.
Rather than acknowledging the failure of this central planning, and the inhumane hardship and tragedy it forces on those citizens that the socialists and the progressives claim they wish to help, they’d rather hide from their failure by creating more policies, like minimum wage, despite these policies debilitating the real economy even more…
Which leads to another layer of policies intended to fix the problems of that layer which was intended to fix the problems of the previous layer and so on, in an epic linear regression of falsehood and fraud and intervention.
Aside:
To the poster above who claimed that trade is becoming more global, trade was far more global prior to WWI than it is today. And if global trade were truly free from intervention, like it was back then, we wouldn’t need free trade agreements–which have become corporate socialism wrapped in bureaucratic lies.
You miss the whole point, Solon. Yes the minimum wage is not a living wage here. However, Fred is wondering about Capitalist’s practices around the world. Now that industry is globalized, work goes to the lowest bidder. Your $400 running shoes were assembled by a 4 yr old working for 4 cents an hour to supplement his family’s income in a place far away from your imagination. Fred asks a question that according to you, only a ‘communiss’ would ask, regardless of its validity in a moral universe.
@Full Retard
WTF?
Where did I ever say “communiss” or even communsts?
And my point, by the way, and it applies to your rebuttal, is that this is all happening in a macro-environment that ensures it happens, so until we deal with that, any other question is putting the cart before the horse.
The example you describe is a perfect example of the boon to society that is free trade. Or do you seriously believe shoemakers out-number shoe-wearers? Or that the poor in subsistence countries should be denied an income despite your outrageous example?