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If being one of the most successful businesses in the world means you can’t pay your employees a living wage, then I think there’s a fundamental problem. That’s

If being one of the most successful businesses in the world means you can’t pay your employees a living wage, then I think there’s a fundamental problem. That’s also context.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
> If being one of the most successful businesses in the world means you can’t pay your employees a living wage, then I think there’s a fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is that the government keeps mandating policies that drive up the cost of living so that low-skilled and unskilled workers are constantly struggling to keep their head above water, then tries to solve the problem by doubling down on the same failed policies that make it harder for poor and working class people to survive. Some people don’t make very much when they negotiate because their labor actually isn’t worth very much on the market. Its not worth very much when translated into goods and services. So they work a lot and they don’t have very much and its sad. So people feel bad for them and change the law so they have to get paid more money for the same work. But they aren’t any more productive so there isn’t any more stuff to go around, so when they take their more money to the market, they bid up the prices of goods and end up where they started, sometimes even a bit further behind. But they spent the money at a business that makes a profit. And that profit eventually ends up in the pocket of someone who owns that business. But the working class person is still dependent on that artificially high wage, and the cycle repeats itself.
- La1n 6y ago
  >so when they take their more money to the market, they bid up the prices of goods and end up where they started, sometimes even a bit further behind. I haven't seen any evidence that this actually happens to a significant degree, could you link a study on it? Cause as far as I have read the inflation cause by minimum wage increases is relatively minimal, especially compared the the increase in income.
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    > I haven't seen any evidence that this actually happens to a significant degree, could you link a study on it? No and I’m not aware of a study that shows this, and although there may be one out there arguing one way or the other I’d be inclined to disregard it because a claim like “ceteris paribus bids on scarce resources drive up the price” isn’t empirically testable because ceteris is never paribus. Whatever study that argues anything of this nature is required to use a theory to interpret data and the theory that “prices are the emergent result of repeated bid-ask transactions between interested parties” is more basic than whatever theory they are going to use in those (hypothetical) studies. I’d be happy to entertain objections to my statement. > Cause as far as I have read the inflation cause by minimum wage increases is relatively minimal, especially compared the the increase in income. I’m not arguing that they will always end up with less money. I’m asserting that the increase in wage will all go to consumption goods/services that are provided by profitable businesses owned by “the rich and/or wealthy” and so the minimum wage earners will stay at subsistence level but the people who already own assets will profit. The relative motion of various prices is the result of many complicated factors and its likely that increased profits for the providers of these goods/services would cause more firms to enter the market and there would be more of these consumption items than before. But the people who own businesses would keep accumulating profit and the people at minimum wage would keep spending their entire paychecks on consumption items.

If being one of the most successful businesses in the world means you can’t pay your employees a living wage, then I think there’s a fundamental problem. That’s also context.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago

> If being one of the most successful businesses in the world means you can’t pay your employees a living wage, then I think there’s a fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is that the government keeps mandating policies that drive up the cost of living so that low-skilled and unskilled workers are constantly struggling to keep their head above water, then tries to solve the problem by doubling down on the same failed policies that make it harder for poor and working class people to survive. Some people don’t make very much when they negotiate because their labor actually isn’t worth very much on the market. Its not worth very much when translated into goods and services. So they work a lot and they don’t have very much and its sad. So people feel bad for them and change the law so they have to get paid more money for the same work. But they aren’t any more productive so there isn’t any more stuff to go around, so when they take their more money to the market, they bid up the prices of goods and end up where they started, sometimes even a bit further behind. But they spent the money at a business that makes a profit. And that profit eventually ends up in the pocket of someone who owns that business. But the working class person is still dependent on that artificially high wage, and the cycle repeats itself.

La1n 6y ago
>so when they take their more money to the market, they bid up the prices of goods and end up where they started, sometimes even a bit further behind. I haven't seen any evidence that this actually happens to a significant degree, could you link a study on it? Cause as far as I have read the inflation cause by minimum wage increases is relatively minimal, especially compared the the increase in income.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  > I haven't seen any evidence that this actually happens to a significant degree, could you link a study on it? No and I’m not aware of a study that shows this, and although there may be one out there arguing one way or the other I’d be inclined to disregard it because a claim like “ceteris paribus bids on scarce resources drive up the price” isn’t empirically testable because ceteris is never paribus. Whatever study that argues anything of this nature is required to use a theory to interpret data and the theory that “prices are the emergent result of repeated bid-ask transactions between interested parties” is more basic than whatever theory they are going to use in those (hypothetical) studies. I’d be happy to entertain objections to my statement. > Cause as far as I have read the inflation cause by minimum wage increases is relatively minimal, especially compared the the increase in income. I’m not arguing that they will always end up with less money. I’m asserting that the increase in wage will all go to consumption goods/services that are provided by profitable businesses owned by “the rich and/or wealthy” and so the minimum wage earners will stay at subsistence level but the people who already own assets will profit. The relative motion of various prices is the result of many complicated factors and its likely that increased profits for the providers of these goods/services would cause more firms to enter the market and there would be more of these consumption items than before. But the people who own businesses would keep accumulating profit and the people at minimum wage would keep spending their entire paychecks on consumption items.