Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
Lawmakers should be required by law to pass a financial literacy test before taking office. California has repeatedly raised the minimum wage as the cost of living continues to rise. They have not lowered the amount of taxes that the state will collect from these workers. California has the highest debt of any state in the US, with some reports estimating it to be around $520 billion. The cost of living continues to rise, but would raising the minimum wage actually help?
Now, I am not against raising the minimum wage. In Florida, I voted for a hike in the minimum wage in 2020 that would increase the minimum wage gradually to $15 an hour. Under the mandate, Florida’s minimum wage rate increased to $10 an hour in September 2021. The minimum wage then will increase by $1 each year until it reaches $15 an hour in 2026. The minimum wage rate applies to all public and private sector employers, regardless of size or number of employees. I voted for it because by 2026 we should see a rise in inflation due to shortages.
I would prefer to see the minimum wage qualified by age. The youth should not be discouraged from seeking their first job due to wage mandates that force employers to downsize. Small businesses were decimated after COVID lockdowns and increasing health care costs have made it difficult for small businesses, especially those service-oriented, to hire additional staff. This is why we see an increasing number of self-check-out options, automated jobs, and outsourced customer service positions in countries outside of the US.
Barbara Lee, a Democratic candidate in California, is advocating for a $50 minimum wage, which would equate to approximately $104,000 per year for a full-time worker. “In the Bay Area, I believe it was the United Way that came out with a report that very recently $127,000 for a family of four is just barely enough to get by,” Lee said. “Another survey very recently: $104,000. For a family of one, barely enough to get by low income because of the affordability crisis.”
California already has a $20 minimum wage in place. Countless employers were forced to let go of employees and raise their prices to meet this requirement. In no reality should a minimum wage employee receive a six-figure salary as it simply is not worth the cost to the employer or consumer. Minimum wage jobs were intended to be entry-level. Inflation will continue to rise
I believe they are seeking to raise the minimum wage to unsustainable levels in an attempt to usher in Universal Basic Income. The Federal government is not permitting migrants to work and using them as the test subjects for UBI. The cost of living will continue to rise as government spending is only rising with no chance of stopping due to numerous wars. Politicians should not be allowed to toy with the minimum wage to buy votes as it is detrimental to the economy.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Can someone tell me again why this guy is considered some legendary genius?
He does appear to be a bit of a dim bulb.
If you’re not able to tell us where Martin got it wrong, or show us you make more money than he does doing what he does, then you’re just another Jim Kramer.
Show us how you make more money than Taylor Swift.
I never claimed to, but if I ever did? I’d bring the fucking receipts.
Women made Taylor Swift rich. Women will also pay high prices for potions that obviously don’t work.
Scrotumizer
How does a minimum wage help an unemployed inner city youth who lives in an area with 40% unemployment?
You misunderstand me entirely. I’ve been against a minimum wage since I was old enough to work for money (13). I’ve been in Adam Smith’s camp ever since I heard of him. Reading Keynes only cemented the conviction that I had chosen correctly.
My position is that Martin is a very smart man in a very limited capacity. So much so that he has made a VERY good living taking advantage of his resources. Is he perfect? One would have to be a fool to embrace that notion. Is he right more often than he’s wrong? All the evidence I’ve seen says “yes”.
So, IF Martin thinks he sees a way to make minimum wage fiscally viable, I’d give him a fair hearing BECAUSE OF WHO HE IS and NOT based on my perception of its viability.
The solution is more dialogue, not condemnation before investigation.
13 me as well.
minwage (unionwage, too) is the fake wage response to fake money & fake interest rates. designed to mitigate, for another little kick of the can while, plebeian/peasant/collateral-serf uprisings as they are robbed back into feudal subsistence.
solution is decidedly *not* more dialogue.
not that there is a solution to human condition/design features not bugs. Truly there is no problem, despite transhumanist dreams of solutions contrary.
this is it. & that’s all. Pangloss ~ El Coyote.
Every comment that you write further substantiates the reputation you’ve earned on this site.
Money is not the purpose of life. The love of money is the root of all evil. Those truths aside, let’s address the absurdity at present in the article above.
The very idea that the government has the right to mandate the terms of agreement between individuals flies in the face of every concept of freedom and autonomy. Intentions notwithstanding, the fixing of prices, whether of incomes, goods or services, always leads to outcomes never stated in the beginning. There could hardly be a more clear and convincing argument made than that of minimum wage. Throughout my life I have witnessed an observable reaction to every government mandated increase in minimum wage and it has always, in every case, most adversely affected those at the bottom end of the income scale, either by inflated costs for goods and services, or in the replacement of that labor through automation or undocumented labor.
If you are going to mandate higher wages to offset higher costs, why not just mandate fixed prices for certain items? What difference is there? Or mandate that people only spend so much and no more? Or that the basics of life be provided at no charge?
It’s all so absurd I don’t understand how anyone with an IQ above room temperature could continue to promote such an idea. It is akin to helping design your own handcuffs, but only being able to select the color, not the efficacy.
Yet here we are, again.
You make some good points I haven’t considered, Hard Scrabble Apostrophe. I am convinced. It would seem monopolistic and cartel behavior are more directly related to the ostensible goal of wage controls.
Armstrong is making the case that the $50 minimum wage makes no sense. Do you think it does?
Did you catch the line where Cali already has $20/hour minimum wage, and is still turning into more of a shithole by the day?
Did you read the second fucking paragraph, fucktard?
Armstrong supports raising the minimum wage, just not as much.
Why not?
wages increase -> costs increase -> prices increase -> wages must increase
Yeah. I read it. Now YOU try reading for comprehension and try using a little discernment…unless God has left you devoid of such blessing in that area.
Because Socrates bamboozles us to this day.
by promoting hemlock-drinking.
Why not $100 an hour. The bottom is always the bottom and prices will always rise to the level of the bottom. Stupid people deserve everything they don’t get. We do not deserve to effected by their personal insanity.
I’d like to point out that to argue against minimum wage is to argue against unionized labor itself.
I have no problem with that, as I’ve always been anti-union. I never liked Communist organizations either.
Honesty and honor have departed this land. What you see is what is left…and what we get. And what’s left is false pride, vanity and hubris by the boat load.
Improvise, adapt, overcome.
OUTLIVE THEM.
Increasing any wage without a corresponding increase in productivity and profit is f*****g stupid.
That assumes that you began this little experiment in a state of parity. We did not. The sad fact is that productivity has always outpaced compensation and it always will. No one gets paid what they are worth. Most get far less and a few get far more than they contribute.
Another thing that never changes is demand. Demand that we plebs CONSTANTLY increase our productivity…as if there were no fucking ceiling on THAT commodity! “You’re only giving us 125%. We want 200% and we want it yesterday or you’re fired!”. Anyone besides me seeing trouble ahead with this model? Frankly, it speaks to the stupidity of the plebeians that it has gone on this long.
Perhaps if the plebs were as greedy as the overlords, we could end this problem tomorrow. The solution being…the plebs keep 100% of the fruits of their labor working for THEMSELVES while the reptilian overlords go fuck each other forever.
Sounds equitable to me!
Must be a cold day in hell.
If you’re not getting paid what you think you’re worth, then quit and get a job that pays what you think you’re worth. And if you’re going to complain that no one will GIVE you a job that pays you enough, then give yourself a job, start your own business and pay yourself what you’re worth.
The Invisible Hand reveals everyone’s true monetary value. Unfortunately, Maynard Keynes’ crackpot theories shattered every bone in that hand. Now we’re all just fucked.
theories is fearies tales. its ‘practitioners” all too visible hands in your cookie jar & lunchbox that fill excavations with sherds.
One can always choose to assume all of the risk and work for himself, non?
That would require both courage AND faith…although sheer desperation can be a viable , if undesirable, platform to build on.
If we rule out desperation as motivation, very few Americans have the tools required to make a go of it. That is WHY Deagal predicts such a gigantic die off in the first place.
We have fallen FAR from our first estate.
Then it is as Nature ordains.
No species was meant to live in a perpetual state of inertia and ease. It is perhaps, as much as any other factor, why we find ourselves in our present state.
Yet it remains popular because most people are uninformed and/or stupid.
…which is by design. Just LOOK at our “education” system.
What?….
Ass clown propagandists working both sides of the street. Nothing to see here. Move along folks.
Our confusion is their amusement. And their paycheck.
Honorable people, ain’t they? /s
$50 is ridiculous but that being said why does everyone assume minimum wage is only for high school kids? When I go shopping I see lots of people in their 30’s, 40’s and even 50’s employed at these jobs. High quality blue collar jobs no longer exist so where is the non-college graduate supposed to work? You either wait tables, work in a grocery store or retail store. Government job openings are 100% slanted against whites.
A lot of older retired people that their savings have run out and need to supplement their SS too. Many can’t work a full time job anymore.
That is true. A lot of them work at Home Depot.
That was your first sign that shit has gone horribly off the rails. Did that not occur to you in real time? It’s as visible as the masks on their faces. Ever notice how much shame you can hide with a little paper mask? You can still see it in the eyes though, if you bother to look.
What an obnoxious comment. People are supposed to be ashamed to have a job??? Would you prefer it if they were on welfare? You wing nuts need to make up your fucking mind.
Yes, some jobs are shameful. Usually they are the ones that make more money though.
…or are at least illegal and therefore tax free.
No, I actually mean the most legal jobs.
You make a good point.
I’m not “saying” ANYONE should be ashamed. I’m telling you what the fuck I SEE. What you do with that is your business.
.
High quality blue collar jobs no longer exist so where is the non-college graduate supposed to work?
Self-Employment in the trades. They are still in demand and will be in demand as long as there is still housing and infrastructure. Apprenticeships if college isn’t in the cards.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Minimum wage jobs were stepping-stone jobs when I worked them in the 80’s, and they should still be nothing more. Gain experience, then move up. There is no reason they should be “livable wage” jobs while there is a dearth of carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers or electricians. Frankly, I’d like to see all those military aged male illegals given a choice between doing roofing and carpentry 60 hrs/wk just to qualify for their handouts, or being immediately deported with no chance to return, but that’s another issue.
“I’d like to see all those military aged male illegals given a choice between doing roofing and carpentry 60 hrs/wk just to qualify for their handouts”
that’s half the reason the invasion was orchestrated
There is a tremendous shortage of skilled tradesmen, mechanics, plumbers, electricians, welders, HVAC technicians, etc.
As I told my grandsons, “Learn a skill, make a very nice living for yourself and maybe you will get good enough that you can start your own business.”
Careful now. Someone might accuse you of fomenting rebellion!
Good or bad, right or wrong, like it or not, when income/wealth inequality get bad enough, bad things happen.
I’d rather not live in a 3rd world shithole but, at this point, I believe it to be inevitable.
We are currently importing the third world, Glock.
“…but what if you couldn’t awaken from that dream, Neo? How would you tell the real world from the dream world?”
Good luck, copper tops!
“income/wealth” is 3D ghillie camo cover. its mulct/booty. earned vs ill-gotten is a distinction.
The death spiral of higher costs generating higher pay generating higher costs will continue until the environment that creates it is terminated.
Cut out the politicians and government insertion into our lives and the spiral ends.
My advice to my 18 year old grandson is : 1) Avoid both the university and the military. 2) Learn a trade and avoid debt. 3) Avoid marriage.
A “HUMAN BEING” IS A “GODLY” PERSON IS “BORN-FREE”….UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS, YET???
WE WERE “NEVER FOR SALE” AT ANY PRICE…RE-MEM-BER???
Do yourself a favor and read Paul’s epistle to the Romans.
When you have zero skills, you get to choose ONLY the bottom rung of the ladder of success. As your skills rise, you can rise on the ladder. EVERY rise in the minimum wage knocks another rung off that ladder at the bottom. We have come to a point where purchasing robots is cheaper than hiring unskilled labor. That’s fine with the criminals in government as they need as many dependent voters as possible.
Lots of people in the 1920s-1970s made a go of it with zero skills. People bought houses and saved money with a high school diploma or less. The problem is not local. If someone is reasonably intelligent and articulate companies should hire them train them and promote them. That is how it used to work. What happened to on the job training? Why does a person have to take out student loans to get a subpar education only to end up behind a desk waiting to be replaced by an AI? White collar jobs are going to go bye bye too. Technology is coming for us all.
You appear to think I don’t value folks with zero skills, or think they can’t make it. EVERYONE starts with zero skills. It is the bottom rung however, and an employer can ONLY hire them if they feel that they are trainable, and the cost to try them out is low enough to cover the value they will hopefully return. To what extent someone can hire someone else, depends on their company, their needs, and the prospective employee. Nobody “should” hire anyone they don’t want. And from the 20s to the 70s, there was a LOT MORE FREEDOM, and a LOT LOWER MINIMUM WAGE (actually NO minimum before 1938 – FDR tried in 33 but it was found to be Unconstitutional…that mattered once).
This has been a great discussion! You’ve both made good points and I only wish we had more of this type of dialogue in the comments section instead of the usual racist garbage, lunatic bs, and ad hominim.
Stay strong!
I submit to you that no one has ever SEEN the top of that ladder…and never will this side of the veil. It is not within humanity’s abilities to climb that high. The simple truth is that if it were not for Christ Jesus, no one would even have a clue that there was more to the ladder than we see.
rungs, overhead & underfoot, are overrated.
school o’ ’72. down south somewhere. red beans-necks & rice.
out behind the modular/trailer classrooms was the playground. most prominent equipment feature was a galvanized pipe tripod, maybe 2″ od, that apexed maybe 20 feet up. I climbed it, hand-over-hand up & down, every day.
hand grip strength “is widely used to assess upper-extremity function. Although grip strength is a quantitative measure of function, grip strength is a reflection of both physical impairment as well as subjective, psychological factors.”
to complete the picture, hand-over-hand was deemed conspicuous consumption of the psychological composure of some of the many who couldn’t do it. a hand strength supremacy pre-micro-aggression?
three of those tripodboys one day shinnied up to the top before i arrived for my constitutional & spit phlegm all over the pipes (in that time & place kids called that “hawkering/hockering”). one of my hands slipped off, but the other was in a dry hold & gravity didn’t get me.
explaining to vp later the psychological group counseling i was obliged to provide, he, ex-military of some kind but still in demeanor told ’em they got what they deserved. way more often the vp’s had psyche-composure problems of their own.
its the people, runged & rungless, ranged all around you. crabs in a bucket. from the bottom, up.
or … rungs, like a lot of things, are training wheels. past a point, if those are not unbolted, they debilitate, rider atrophies weaker & weaker, missing the point all the while.
(too bad the scene from Shout! can’t be had/linked: the piano-player kid who can’t – refuses – to play anything/w/o the sheet music training wheels.)
cue the greta thunberg “how dare you!” not miss the point, too.
but also true nurture-wrung natures are not chosen. me & the olive oyl spit-boys are all/each yam what i yam.
& inconspicuous consumption is learnable – or it isn’t.
hint to proper little lord Fauntleroy grammarians & strict constructionist definitioneers & such: you are (among other training wheel self-cuttings) lubing the large language model training wheel machine. “broken on the wheel.”
& … do not cue Springsteen’s for whom the bell tolls “Glory Days,” else tel training wheels too. I was younger, stronger, healthier in less hoary days but otherwise all else was the same then as now.
Ch-ch-change, ch-ch-change – change of fools ~ Aretha is more like it (how in hell did the Boss get there? Peter principle?)
No income tax for under 100k a year income might improve the situation ? But that would allow the poor a way out ? Less of a need for Gov help programs, and an incentive to try to prosper and a restoration of self sufficiency…
Yeah that just wouldn’t work out…
Yeah i know, why not 200k, 1 million, 10 million, just putting it out there as a start.
Why not $0k as the Amendment was unconstitutional and passed fraudulently anyway?
Something I do not hear much about is how the US minimum wage prices us out of global trade. Let’s say I have a factory and minimum wage is 20 an hour. So, to make a item to sell costs me 5 dollars. But some dude in China, Vietnam, India, you name it, has a factory where he can make the same item for 2.5 dollars due to much lower wages and regulations. Add in additional shipping cost to the product so it is really 2.75 dollars. Now, who do you think is going to get the Walmart contract for thousands of these items ? So, let’s raise the minimum wage some more ? That just makes it worse.
That’s why tariffs should have been imposed and raised gradually right along with all the legislation and regulations that pushed jobs and businesses out of this country.
I can’t endorse Trump’s idea to jump straight to 60% tariffs on China overnight. That would destroy us more than them. Still tariffs were the way to go in order to sustain domestic production and employment … which is exactly why the globalists have forever argued for “free trade” (i.e., against tariffs).
tariffing & feathering serfs is popular.
an economic ignoramus spouting economic ignorance is typical among the professional political class who love forcing all brand ignorance down our throats. it shows everywhere.
“The youth should not be discouraged from seeking their first job due to wage mandates”
which is exactly what he did in the previous paragraph
I told my computer [Diogenes] about this one and he just flashed a lamp on the screen and went back to playing games.
I heard that in the 80s, the CIA bribed a bunch of Afghans with pallets full of hundred dollar bills.
Nothing smaller.
No change.
Soon after that?
The cheapest item you could buy in the town or village, like, say, a cup of coffee, was $100 dollars.
LOUC -Law Of Unintended Consequences.
“LOUC, I’m your father!”
Are these politicians stupid or evil? Yes.
One thing I always thought was a huge mistake was when High Schools eliminated shop classes; Liability exposure I believe was the excuse.
When I was in high school, I took a number of classes, welding, auto mechanics, woodworking, drafting, and it was the drafting class plus electronics courses in college that got me into the field of electronics. The other classes didn’t do much for me in my working career, but in retirement have been a huge benefit.
A nearby town built a new $100 million high school 5 years ago and fully 1/2 of the floor space is devoted to vo-tech training. Students spend 1/2 a day on core curriculum and half a day on technical training. The welding students are Certified Welders when they graduate, the nursing students are Certified Nursing Assistants when they graduate, the auto mechanic students gain ASE certifications through their classwork. It has been a tremendous success.
The minimum wage should be ZERO. Let supply and demand determine the cost of labor. If the employer is not willing to pay for a better worker, he will save on wages and suffer a lazy employee.