6 ms·

"Ever heard of minimum wage? Yeah, that one did not work as expected either (and created massive unemployment when the threshold was set too high as well)." Ci

"Ever heard of minimum wage? Yeah, that one did not work as expected either (and created massive unemployment when the threshold was set too high as well)." Citation needed. Your assertions do not match my understanding of the facts about the result of the minimum wage. (Though I would have agreed with you ten years ago, a better understanding of it has altered my opinion significantly.)

blumkvist 11y ago
Or perhaps you read a bunch of pretty words that seem to make sense? They got citations and proper syllogisms and all that jazz. Communist rhetoric always makes sense. It makes sense to your feelings, at least.
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  Don't equate communism with a minimum wage, that's just intellectually dishonest.
  - blumkvist 11y ago
    Same rhetoric used by the same people. liberty, equality, fraternity and all that jazz. You just don't know human nature. Especially the low part of its spectrum.
ekianjo 11y ago
You should not need a citation for anything here. Look at what unions do in general when they get powerful enough in a specific company - they enforce high salaries, protect jobs and protest against any reduction of personnel, making it very expensive for the management to keep the current staff, and very hesitant to hire more (increased costs vs fixed returns, and lack of flexibility to adjust the workforce vs the ups and downs of the company's economic activity). There's enough case studies out there about the pernicious effects of such policies - they should serve as a warning that you don't solve ANY economic issue with a single bullet.
- tinco 11y ago
  Are you a troll? Besides the sentence "you should not neer a citation" should never be uttered, you deflect criticism on an unfounded argument with another unfounded argument. Tour first comment was unduly down voted but this one is just blabber.
MCRed 11y ago
When you raise the minimum wage, you don't change any of the other aspects of the business affected by it. So, say you have 15 employees making $10 an hour to keep your company afloat. (Just to keep things simple ,this is about the logic of it.) Now the minimum wage goes up to $15. What are you going to do? You would be losing money with a %50 increase in your costs. Most likely what you will do is lay off 5 employees (The weakest 5) and keep the remaining 10-- but now they have to do the work of 15. Remember the alternative is closing the business and they all lose their jobs. Plus if some don't like the workload there are many people who just got laid off (you laid off 5) who would happily take their jobs. When you set a minimum wage- or engage in any kind of price fixing- you distort the market and historically that has always hurt the poorest people the most. Looked at another way, minimum wage is the wage below which you will be unemployed rather than allowed to work. A minimum wage is a penalty that keeps workers unemployed if they don't have sufficient marketable skills to overcome it. Imagine if the minimum wage was $100 an hour. How many of us would be unemployed? People seem to imagine that there's just a lot of money out there and the only reason that anyone might not have enough is that people are being greedy. This is zero sum theory, and it is not true in economics. It's nice to imagine that you're "foreign the rich people to give up the money they are hoarding"... but you're hitting businesses that are on the margins. What's the average margin for a business? IT's not the %50 that intel enjoys-- a grocery store maybe makes %3. What do you think a business that is clearing %3 net is going to do when you increase labor costs by %50? (in this example.) Edit: You can disagree with my position, or even find an error in my argument, but I'm tired of spending time explaining things and giving examples like this only to be downvoted for ideological reasons... constantly. Is a circle jerk what you really want HN to be? I don't think any rational person can say that my comment wasn't a quality explanation for the position.
- chrisbennet 11y ago
  I don't disagree with your argument. On the other hand... Currently, employers that pay a less than living wage are subsidized in effect - the government (tax payers) makes up the difference in the form of food stamps, healthcare, etc. Is it right that businesses should get subsidized labor?

blumkvist 11y ago

Or perhaps you read a bunch of pretty words that seem to make sense? They got citations and proper syllogisms and all that jazz. Communist rhetoric always makes sense. It makes sense to your feelings, at least.

InclinedPlane 11y ago
Don't equate communism with a minimum wage, that's just intellectually dishonest.
- blumkvist 11y ago
  Same rhetoric used by the same people. liberty, equality, fraternity and all that jazz. You just don't know human nature. Especially the low part of its spectrum.

ekianjo 11y ago

You should not need a citation for anything here. Look at what unions do in general when they get powerful enough in a specific company - they enforce high salaries, protect jobs and protest against any reduction of personnel, making it very expensive for the management to keep the current staff, and very hesitant to hire more (increased costs vs fixed returns, and lack of flexibility to adjust the workforce vs the ups and downs of the company's economic activity). There's enough case studies out there about the pernicious effects of such policies - they should serve as a warning that you don't solve ANY economic issue with a single bullet.

tinco 11y ago
Are you a troll? Besides the sentence "you should not neer a citation" should never be uttered, you deflect criticism on an unfounded argument with another unfounded argument. Tour first comment was unduly down voted but this one is just blabber.

MCRed 11y ago

When you raise the minimum wage, you don't change any of the other aspects of the business affected by it. So, say you have 15 employees making $10 an hour to keep your company afloat. (Just to keep things simple ,this is about the logic of it.) Now the minimum wage goes up to $15. What are you going to do? You would be losing money with a %50 increase in your costs. Most likely what you will do is lay off 5 employees (The weakest 5) and keep the remaining 10-- but now they have to do the work of 15. Remember the alternative is closing the business and they all lose their jobs. Plus if some don't like the workload there are many people who just got laid off (you laid off 5) who would happily take their jobs. When you set a minimum wage- or engage in any kind of price fixing- you distort the market and historically that has always hurt the poorest people the most. Looked at another way, minimum wage is the wage below which you will be unemployed rather than allowed to work. A minimum wage is a penalty that keeps workers unemployed if they don't have sufficient marketable skills to overcome it. Imagine if the minimum wage was $100 an hour. How many of us would be unemployed? People seem to imagine that there's just a lot of money out there and the only reason that anyone might not have enough is that people are being greedy. This is zero sum theory, and it is not true in economics. It's nice to imagine that you're "foreign the rich people to give up the money they are hoarding"... but you're hitting businesses that are on the margins. What's the average margin for a business? IT's not the %50 that intel enjoys-- a grocery store maybe makes %3. What do you think a business that is clearing %3 net is going to do when you increase labor costs by %50? (in this example.) Edit: You can disagree with my position, or even find an error in my argument, but I'm tired of spending time explaining things and giving examples like this only to be downvoted for ideological reasons... constantly. Is a circle jerk what you really want HN to be? I don't think any rational person can say that my comment wasn't a quality explanation for the position.

chrisbennet 11y ago
I don't disagree with your argument. On the other hand... Currently, employers that pay a less than living wage are subsidized in effect - the government (tax payers) makes up the difference in the form of food stamps, healthcare, etc. Is it right that businesses should get subsidized labor?