4 ms·

> All it matters is people interacting voluntarily My point is that it is most certainly not voluntary. There are people in the world who are not as lucky or i

by czep 8y ago

> All it matters is people interacting voluntarily My point is that it is most certainly not voluntary. There are people in the world who are not as lucky or intelligent or resourceful as you, me, and most others on HN. Try to empathize and put yourself in the shoes of the disadvantaged, they do not know the world as we do, they cannot shop around for high paying jobs, and if they miss a paycheck, they may very well lose their housing. Given this asymmetry, society absolutely needs to step in to enforce basic protections that the free market cannot solve.

ttoinou 8y ago
Putting myself in their shoes is exactly why I think they should be allowed to do whatever they think is best for them. What paycheck would they risk loosing if they can't find a job anyway ? Minimum wage exclude and marginalize poor people Asymmetry and inequalities are everywhere. I don't know which perfect egalitarian symmetric insert here another utopic adjective society you live in, but it's not certainly not mine
- java_script 8y ago
  > I think they should be allowed to do whatever they think is best for them. I think they should be allowed to vote and agitate for whatever they think is best for them. And thus.... viola, minimum wage and subsequent increases. Although I know majorities are a touchy subject with libertarians since there are like six of you total nowadays.
  - ttoinou 8y ago
    I agree with the first sentence. The rest of it is a personal attack, please read the guidelines and respect rules of places you make use of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - java_script 8y ago
      Thank you for the constructive feedback. I have some to offer as well. This is you: https://i.imgur.com/jPyEBOD.jpg https://i.imgur.com/jPyEBOD.jpg
      - ttoinou 8y ago
        Very mature, thanks for passing by and trying to change my opinion
      - dang 8y ago
        That is so... zany that I'm not going to ban you for it, plus it actually took a bit of work to make. But come on.
        ttoinou 8y ago
        Wow I didn't realize he made it just for me, I am so proud a troll takes time to insult me !
  - dang 8y ago
    Please keep ideological flamewar off HN, regardless of how annoying or wrong another comment is. It leads to degraded discussion, as amply demonstrated below!
- Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
  > Minimum wage exclude and marginalize poor people The elimination of minimum wage would marginalize poor people even more. It's easy to think that the demand for labor is nearly infinite but at a super low wage. I mean, I'd gladly pay someone $2/hour to clean my house, and there are probably people desperate enough for money to buy food that they would do it. But minimum wage laws generally forbid it. But consider employees at McDonalds. Walmart cashiers. Any other minimum wage job. If you eliminate the minimum wage, you create a race to the bottom. Eventually, you end up with people willing to flip burgers or work a cash register for $2/hour. They'll be living in a cardboard box with all their belongings in a shopping cart, but at least that $2/hour will buy them some semi-decent meals to survive. Without a minimum wage, sure we'll probably see 0% unemployment, or something very close to it. But you'd end up absolutely tanking the median wage and standards of living. The term "working homeless" would replace the term "working poor" until some extremely low-quality housing popped up that someone could live in for $200/month.
  - ttoinou 8y ago
    you create a race to the bottom But this is true for everything where you can apply supply and demand, and there's always a balance between the two. you end up with people willing to flip burgers or work a cash register for $2/hour But what happens in your scenario where there is a minimum wage law ? Those people magically make 5 times more ? Do you think you can force business to hire at any rate ? Or does the rate needs to follow productivity and current standard of living indexes ? What if your increase this rate by 100x, what happens ? But you'd end up absolutely tanking the median wage and standards of living If the scenario where people don't work for 2 USD/hour they have 0 of salary. So the second scenario where they work for 2 USD / hour makes everyone more rich, I would be more inclined to believe the median wage would increase, but that's a hard question. The most important is that people worked and sustained themselves.
    - Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
      > But what happens in your scenario where there is a minimum wage law ? Those people magically make 5 times more ? ....yes? Considering that's what we have right now? You don't need to imagine this scenario. We're in it right now. In Oregon, the minimum wage is $10.75/hour. > Do you think you can force business to hire at any rate ? [...] What if your increase this rate by 100x, what happens ? Obviously not. I knew someone would try to make this argument, but I think its absurd. > Or does the rate needs to follow productivity and current standard of living indexes ? I'd make it follow a standard of living index. What the standard should be is up for debate, but I think at a minimum, someone working 40 hours a week should be able to live in a studio apartment on their own and buy food without government assistance. Two people working 40 hours a week each should be able to have a 2-bedroom apartment while raising a kid. > If the scenario where people don't work for 2 USD/hour they have 0 of salary. So the second scenario where they work for 2 USD / hour makes everyone more rich, I would be more inclined to believe the median wage would increase You're forgetting that the people formerly making minimum wage would either have their wage reduced to the hypothetical $2/hour or end up being replaced by a worker willing to work for $2/hour. If you lower or remove minimum wage, every minimum wage job will have a reduction in the wage. When an employer pays minimum wage, they're implicitly saying "I'd pay you less, but the government won't let me." > The most important is that people worked and sustained themselves. Only by a technical definition of "sustained".
- pessimizer 8y ago
  > I don't know which perfect egalitarian symmetric insert here another utopic adjective society you live in, but it's not certainly not mine Societies make a decision to be as they are. If you're trying to say that you prefer an inequitable society, that's fine. If you're trying to say that nature is inequitable, and that society has some responsibility to coordinate with it to preserve that inequity, I'd say 1) that's a weird nature-religion, and 2) property rights protect the weak from the strong.
  - ttoinou 8y ago
    I am not saying any of those and I don't want to preserve inequity. I am worried by people trying to force society to be more equal, and in that process produce effect that are going in the opposite direction. Unfortunately the chances of everyone are rigged because of each of our societies history and past injustices. That's something we need to deal with and it's a hard problem

by czep 8y ago

ttoinou 8y ago

Putting myself in their shoes is exactly why I think they should be allowed to do whatever they think is best for them. What paycheck would they risk loosing if they can't find a job anyway ? Minimum wage exclude and marginalize poor people Asymmetry and inequalities are everywhere. I don't know which perfect egalitarian symmetric insert here another utopic adjective society you live in, but it's not certainly not mine

java_script 8y ago
> I think they should be allowed to do whatever they think is best for them. I think they should be allowed to vote and agitate for whatever they think is best for them. And thus.... viola, minimum wage and subsequent increases. Although I know majorities are a touchy subject with libertarians since there are like six of you total nowadays.
- ttoinou 8y ago
  I agree with the first sentence. The rest of it is a personal attack, please read the guidelines and respect rules of places you make use of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - java_script 8y ago
    Thank you for the constructive feedback. I have some to offer as well. This is you: https://i.imgur.com/jPyEBOD.jpg https://i.imgur.com/jPyEBOD.jpg
    - ttoinou 8y ago
      Very mature, thanks for passing by and trying to change my opinion
    - dang 8y ago
      That is so... zany that I'm not going to ban you for it, plus it actually took a bit of work to make. But come on.
      - ttoinou 8y ago
        Wow I didn't realize he made it just for me, I am so proud a troll takes time to insult me !
- dang 8y ago
  Please keep ideological flamewar off HN, regardless of how annoying or wrong another comment is. It leads to degraded discussion, as amply demonstrated below!
Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
> Minimum wage exclude and marginalize poor people The elimination of minimum wage would marginalize poor people even more. It's easy to think that the demand for labor is nearly infinite but at a super low wage. I mean, I'd gladly pay someone $2/hour to clean my house, and there are probably people desperate enough for money to buy food that they would do it. But minimum wage laws generally forbid it. But consider employees at McDonalds. Walmart cashiers. Any other minimum wage job. If you eliminate the minimum wage, you create a race to the bottom. Eventually, you end up with people willing to flip burgers or work a cash register for $2/hour. They'll be living in a cardboard box with all their belongings in a shopping cart, but at least that $2/hour will buy them some semi-decent meals to survive. Without a minimum wage, sure we'll probably see 0% unemployment, or something very close to it. But you'd end up absolutely tanking the median wage and standards of living. The term "working homeless" would replace the term "working poor" until some extremely low-quality housing popped up that someone could live in for $200/month.
- ttoinou 8y ago
  you create a race to the bottom But this is true for everything where you can apply supply and demand, and there's always a balance between the two. you end up with people willing to flip burgers or work a cash register for $2/hour But what happens in your scenario where there is a minimum wage law ? Those people magically make 5 times more ? Do you think you can force business to hire at any rate ? Or does the rate needs to follow productivity and current standard of living indexes ? What if your increase this rate by 100x, what happens ? But you'd end up absolutely tanking the median wage and standards of living If the scenario where people don't work for 2 USD/hour they have 0 of salary. So the second scenario where they work for 2 USD / hour makes everyone more rich, I would be more inclined to believe the median wage would increase, but that's a hard question. The most important is that people worked and sustained themselves.
  - Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
    > But what happens in your scenario where there is a minimum wage law ? Those people magically make 5 times more ? ....yes? Considering that's what we have right now? You don't need to imagine this scenario. We're in it right now. In Oregon, the minimum wage is $10.75/hour. > Do you think you can force business to hire at any rate ? [...] What if your increase this rate by 100x, what happens ? Obviously not. I knew someone would try to make this argument, but I think its absurd. > Or does the rate needs to follow productivity and current standard of living indexes ? I'd make it follow a standard of living index. What the standard should be is up for debate, but I think at a minimum, someone working 40 hours a week should be able to live in a studio apartment on their own and buy food without government assistance. Two people working 40 hours a week each should be able to have a 2-bedroom apartment while raising a kid. > If the scenario where people don't work for 2 USD/hour they have 0 of salary. So the second scenario where they work for 2 USD / hour makes everyone more rich, I would be more inclined to believe the median wage would increase You're forgetting that the people formerly making minimum wage would either have their wage reduced to the hypothetical $2/hour or end up being replaced by a worker willing to work for $2/hour. If you lower or remove minimum wage, every minimum wage job will have a reduction in the wage. When an employer pays minimum wage, they're implicitly saying "I'd pay you less, but the government won't let me." > The most important is that people worked and sustained themselves. Only by a technical definition of "sustained".
pessimizer 8y ago
> I don't know which perfect egalitarian symmetric insert here another utopic adjective society you live in, but it's not certainly not mine Societies make a decision to be as they are. If you're trying to say that you prefer an inequitable society, that's fine. If you're trying to say that nature is inequitable, and that society has some responsibility to coordinate with it to preserve that inequity, I'd say 1) that's a weird nature-religion, and 2) property rights protect the weak from the strong.
- ttoinou 8y ago
  I am not saying any of those and I don't want to preserve inequity. I am worried by people trying to force society to be more equal, and in that process produce effect that are going in the opposite direction. Unfortunately the chances of everyone are rigged because of each of our societies history and past injustices. That's something we need to deal with and it's a hard problem