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Unless Walmart is in control of all jobs in the market or unless Walmart and other employers are illegally colluding by sticking to a low wage agreement - the v

by crusso 14y ago

Unless Walmart is in control of all jobs in the market or unless Walmart and other employers are illegally colluding by sticking to a low wage agreement - the value of productivity per hour is what workers at Walmart are negotiating. If Walmart isn't paying people what they feel they are worth then they're free to go elsewhere to redefine what their labor is worth. just be taken out of that job and subsidized by the state wholesale That completely eliminates the ability of some to find part time work to supplement their income. Maybe a mom without any real skills in the job market would like to work a few extra hours at an entry level job to bring home some spending money for herself and her family. Maybe a teenager would like to get some experience and earn some gas money while in high school. By eliminating jobs through manipulating the minimum wage so thoughtlessly, you would destroy vital segments of the job market that serve a purpose.

eli_gottlieb 14y ago
Unless Walmart is in control of all jobs in the market or unless Walmart and other employers are illegally colluding by sticking to a low wage agreement - the value of productivity per hour is what workers at Walmart are negotiating. That is ludicrously utopian thinking. Reality does not conform to theory, there is always some gap between productivity and wages. Oh hell, it's been a growing gap, for the past 40 years. By eliminating jobs through manipulating the minimum wage so thoughtlessly, you would destroy vital segments of the job market that serve a purpose. No, I ensure that jobs go to people who actually need them. Besides, teenagers earning spending money can shovel snow off the books, or any number of other small jobs that they already do without recourse to an official employment contract.
- danenania 14y ago
  Of course there's a gap between productivity and wages. It's called profit. If a company doesn't make some profit off an employee's endeavors, why would they hire him/her? And if this gap, as you call it, is too high for the American workforce in general, for millions and millions of people, it would mean there is tremendous money to be made by companies willing to pay higher and so capture a portion of this surplus. The real reason that Americans are so exploited economically is because they lack the ability to reason about economics and are easily fooled by fallacious claims that benefit the most powerful at their own expense. The minimum wage is just a minor example among countless schemes designed to make the poor, working, middle, and even upper middle classes feel they are being aided by government policies while they are actually being copiously robbed in broad daylight.
likeclockwork 14y ago
There is no negotiation. This is Walmart, not silicon valley. You don't like what we're paying? Starve, see if we care, we'll find someone who will work for half what we offered you and let us throw paint on him to boot. These jobs aren't taken by people whose needs are taken care of and are just looking for a little 'pocket money' or some gas so they can take the old car around and see their buddies on weekends.
- illuminate 14y ago
  "Starve, see if we care" Even if they like what Walmart is paying, their workers are still on food stamps.
  - Nursie 14y ago
    And there is the issue! The rest of us, through taxes, are already subsidising the big corps and their minimum wage employees. We do this because people shouldn't have to starve in the modern world, but where people are employed we shouldn't need to. By forcing a raise in the minimum wage we stop the employer from taking from our collective pocket to support their broken business model.
    - nathan_long 14y ago
      But what's the root issue? Worker X is not able to produce value of more than $X an hour. Do we mandate he/she is paid more anyway, or do we try to train and educate a workforce that can produce more value?
      - Nursie 14y ago
        Why must it be that the worker isn't producing the value? Worker X may be producing value of $10X or $20X per hour, but corporation Y is pocketing the difference, and can do so because there is an oversupply of workers.
        crusso 14y ago
sergiosgc 14y ago
You wrongly assume the job market is a perfect market. It's not; there are barriers to entry, barriers to exit and lots of asymmetric negotiation positions.
- crusso 14y ago
  Nobody said it's a perfect market. It's not a market dominated by monopolies either. The heavy handed solutions provided by minimum wages and other government measures doesn't help matters. They mask some problems while creating many others due to economic dislocation. In the end, masterminds planning all our lives and trying to create utopia on earth have never done better than following simpler rules of law and letting people deal with each other in a free market capitalistic system.
  - sergiosgc 14y ago
    Sorry, the GP reasoning assumes a perfect market, when stating that people are free to choose another employer if the current one is not paying enough. What wasn't stated in my comment is that the market is not perfect because of monopolistic behaviour. You kick off your argument with two misinterpretations of my comment and the GP's. The market is illiquid, for example, because of exit/entry costs associated with relocation, such as selling your home at underwater values. This is one example of the factors I mentioned. Others abound. The utopia/mastermind argument falls flat when you consider whether the US model is ahead of social-democrat states such as Denmark or Sweden. A cursory look at stats such as infant mortality rates or % of population below the poverty line strongly suggests the "mastermind" model is better.
    - crusso 14y ago
      * The utopia/mastermind argument falls flat when you consider whether the US model is ahead of social-democrat states such as Denmark or Sweden* If we're doing a comparison, we need to compare across other utopian states. You need to throw in Greece, Italy, Portugal, the Soviet Union, North Korea, etc. You don't just get to cherry pick a couple of the few reasonable successes on your side of the ledger. Furthermore, you have to realize that there's a memetic/genetic difference in Denmark vs the US. We can no more adopt the rules and policies of Denmark here than the US can impose its style of democracy on Afghanistan. Finally, I would argue that countries like Denmark receive an amazing amount of benefit from other countries like the United States which provide most of the defense and technological advances that give them a cozy safe environment in which they get to spend most of their money on social programs.

by crusso 14y ago

eli_gottlieb 14y ago

Unless Walmart is in control of all jobs in the market or unless Walmart and other employers are illegally colluding by sticking to a low wage agreement - the value of productivity per hour is what workers at Walmart are negotiating. That is ludicrously utopian thinking. Reality does not conform to theory, there is always some gap between productivity and wages. Oh hell, it's been a growing gap, for the past 40 years. By eliminating jobs through manipulating the minimum wage so thoughtlessly, you would destroy vital segments of the job market that serve a purpose. No, I ensure that jobs go to people who actually need them. Besides, teenagers earning spending money can shovel snow off the books, or any number of other small jobs that they already do without recourse to an official employment contract.

danenania 14y ago
Of course there's a gap between productivity and wages. It's called profit. If a company doesn't make some profit off an employee's endeavors, why would they hire him/her? And if this gap, as you call it, is too high for the American workforce in general, for millions and millions of people, it would mean there is tremendous money to be made by companies willing to pay higher and so capture a portion of this surplus. The real reason that Americans are so exploited economically is because they lack the ability to reason about economics and are easily fooled by fallacious claims that benefit the most powerful at their own expense. The minimum wage is just a minor example among countless schemes designed to make the poor, working, middle, and even upper middle classes feel they are being aided by government policies while they are actually being copiously robbed in broad daylight.

likeclockwork 14y ago

There is no negotiation. This is Walmart, not silicon valley. You don't like what we're paying? Starve, see if we care, we'll find someone who will work for half what we offered you and let us throw paint on him to boot. These jobs aren't taken by people whose needs are taken care of and are just looking for a little 'pocket money' or some gas so they can take the old car around and see their buddies on weekends.

illuminate 14y ago
"Starve, see if we care" Even if they like what Walmart is paying, their workers are still on food stamps.
- Nursie 14y ago
  And there is the issue! The rest of us, through taxes, are already subsidising the big corps and their minimum wage employees. We do this because people shouldn't have to starve in the modern world, but where people are employed we shouldn't need to. By forcing a raise in the minimum wage we stop the employer from taking from our collective pocket to support their broken business model.
  - nathan_long 14y ago
    But what's the root issue? Worker X is not able to produce value of more than $X an hour. Do we mandate he/she is paid more anyway, or do we try to train and educate a workforce that can produce more value?
    - Nursie 14y ago
      Why must it be that the worker isn't producing the value? Worker X may be producing value of $10X or $20X per hour, but corporation Y is pocketing the difference, and can do so because there is an oversupply of workers.
      - crusso 14y ago

sergiosgc 14y ago

You wrongly assume the job market is a perfect market. It's not; there are barriers to entry, barriers to exit and lots of asymmetric negotiation positions.

crusso 14y ago
Nobody said it's a perfect market. It's not a market dominated by monopolies either. The heavy handed solutions provided by minimum wages and other government measures doesn't help matters. They mask some problems while creating many others due to economic dislocation. In the end, masterminds planning all our lives and trying to create utopia on earth have never done better than following simpler rules of law and letting people deal with each other in a free market capitalistic system.
- sergiosgc 14y ago
  Sorry, the GP reasoning assumes a perfect market, when stating that people are free to choose another employer if the current one is not paying enough. What wasn't stated in my comment is that the market is not perfect because of monopolistic behaviour. You kick off your argument with two misinterpretations of my comment and the GP's. The market is illiquid, for example, because of exit/entry costs associated with relocation, such as selling your home at underwater values. This is one example of the factors I mentioned. Others abound. The utopia/mastermind argument falls flat when you consider whether the US model is ahead of social-democrat states such as Denmark or Sweden. A cursory look at stats such as infant mortality rates or % of population below the poverty line strongly suggests the "mastermind" model is better.
  - crusso 14y ago
    * The utopia/mastermind argument falls flat when you consider whether the US model is ahead of social-democrat states such as Denmark or Sweden* If we're doing a comparison, we need to compare across other utopian states. You need to throw in Greece, Italy, Portugal, the Soviet Union, North Korea, etc. You don't just get to cherry pick a couple of the few reasonable successes on your side of the ledger. Furthermore, you have to realize that there's a memetic/genetic difference in Denmark vs the US. We can no more adopt the rules and policies of Denmark here than the US can impose its style of democracy on Afghanistan. Finally, I would argue that countries like Denmark receive an amazing amount of benefit from other countries like the United States which provide most of the defense and technological advances that give them a cozy safe environment in which they get to spend most of their money on social programs.