The Minimum Wage Is No Friend of the Poor

[Denny Crane]

In theory I agree but history shows that the job market isnt that simple, if it was there would have been no need for the rise of unions and various other employee protection laws.

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Unions aren't government regulations. They are private sector organizations.

 

[maxiep]

I didnt realize my only options were to quit, join your side, or be grateful I have a job. Many successfully companies have embraced employee happiness as a means to boost productivity. So the good companies do care about this and feel that it effects their bottom line. Compare shopping experiences at Walmart vs Winco or Costco for good examples here. Fundamentally our ideas of pro-growth policies are different.

Yes they are. And I'm more than comfortable with that.

 

[donkiez]

Unions aren't government regulations. They are private sector organizations.

So? If companies treated their employees fair and gave them safe working conditions on their own then unions wouldn't be necessary either.


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[Denny Crane]

So? If companies treated their employees fair and gave them safe working conditions on their own then unions wouldn't be necessary either.


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Sure they would.

Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale were pretty well paid pitchers for the Dodgers.

http://voices.yahoo.com/sandy-koufax-don-drysdales-bid-baseballs-1st-million-2940502.html

 

[maxiep]

So? If companies treated their employees fair and gave them safe working conditions on their own then unions wouldn't be necessary either.


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That was the initial raison d'etre for unions. We needed them because they saved us from Communism at the turn of the century. However, government has taken over that role through labor laws. Now unions exist to extract extra-market wages and benefits. Their role has changed and is less important.

I'm more than fine with private unions. They have a naturally adversarial role with company management. I think public unions should be outlawed, however. In that case, unions help elect the people sitting on the other side of the table. It's a conflict of interest.

 

[maxiep]

And the minimum wage is another market-distorting affect.

If you want to raise the minimum wage without government intervention, stop illegal immigration. You decrease the available labor pool and you increase wages without doing a thing. Besides, the setting of the minimum wage is so arbitrary. It's the very definition of Hayek's knowledge problem. There's no way the government can set a wage more effectively than the market. And the problem is that difference in information costs jobs.

 

[Denny Crane]

And the minimum wage is another market-distorting affect.

If you want to raise the minimum wage without government intervention, stop illegal immigration. You decrease the available labor pool and you increase wages without doing a thing. Besides, the setting of the minimum wage is so arbitrary. It's the very definition of Hayek's knowledge problem. There's no way the government can set a wage more effectively than the market. And the problem is that difference in information costs jobs.

So you'd distort the labor market by having government limit it?

The threat of "take this low wage or I call the migre" isn't competitive.

 

[donkiez]

That was the initial raison d'etre for unions. We needed them because they saved us from Communism at the turn of the century. However, government has taken over that role through labor laws. Now unions exist to extract extra-market wages and benefits. Their role has changed and is less important.

I'm more than fine with private unions. They have a naturally adversarial role with company management. I think public unions should be outlawed, however. In that case, unions help elect the people sitting on the other side of the table. It's a conflict of interest.

Look at that, we do agree on something. Unions are outdated and public unions are a farce. I wouldnt outlaw public unions though, I would just knee cap them to limit their bargaining power.

Big problem I see with minimum wage jobs though is that you cant unionize so you are dependent on the laws and/or the good graces of the company you work for. Just for clarification because I know Denny will say they can unionize, they can, but it wouldn't do any good because of the vast pool of minimum wage workers willing to break the line.

Would you guys favor a minimum wage increase if it was also accompanied with a real reduction in welfare, food stamps and unemployment benefits? That seems like a reasonable trade off to me.

 

[Denny Crane]

Look at that, we do agree on something. Unions are outdated and public unions are a farce. I wouldnt outlaw public unions though, I would just knee cap them to limit their bargaining power.

Big problem I see with minimum wage jobs though is that you cant unionize so you are dependent on the laws and/or the good graces of the company you work for. Just for clarification because I know Denny will say they can unionize, they can, but it wouldn't do any good because of the vast pool of minimum wage workers willing to break the line.

Would you guys favor a minimum wage increase if it was also accompanied with a real reduction in welfare, food stamps and unemployment benefits? That seems like a reasonable trade off to me.

You can unionize minimum wage jobs, and you have the proposition backwards.

Eliminate the minimum wage, but have real increase in welfare, etc. it would cost less and be far more effective.

 

[donkiez]

You can unionize minimum wage jobs, and you have the proposition backwards.

Eliminate the minimum wage, but have real increase in welfare, etc. it would cost less and be far more effective.

Cost who less? Seems to me in that scenario we end up with companies like walmart double dipping, keeping pay down and having their employees rely on federal assistance at the same time.

 

[Denny Crane]

Cost who less? Seems to me in that scenario we end up with companies like walmart double dipping, keeping pay down and having their employees rely on federal assistance at the same time.

Cost the taxpayer less. Those welfare programs are targeted at keeping the poor from being dirt poor.

Walmart is subsidizing welfare. If the poverty level is $20K, and Walmart pays $5/hr x 2000 hour/year, then the government only has to cover $10K to meet the poverty level. Your alternative is the govt. covers the whole $20K, since Walmart will fire their most inefficient workers.

The way the OP suggest only requires poor people get welfare. Mags' wife doesn't need more pay to keep his family from being poor, nor do his kids working part time for their allowance.

 

[donkiez]

Cost the taxpayer less. Those welfare programs are targeted at keeping the poor from being dirt poor.

Walmart is subsidizing welfare. If the poverty level is $20K, and Walmart pays $5/hr x 2000 hour/year, then the government only has to cover $10K to meet the poverty level. Your alternative is the govt. covers the whole $20K, since Walmart will fire their most inefficient workers.

The way the OP suggest only requires poor people get welfare. Mags' wife doesn't need more pay to keep his family from being poor, nor do his kids working part time for their allowance.

So your saying Walmart is subsidizing welfare rather than welfare subsidizing walmart? Ill mull that over for a bit. Cutting back (not eliminating) food stamps and unemployment would be the big savers IMO, the idea is to make enough money to afford that stuff yourself rather than relying on government programs, and really if you devote yourself to a full time job there should be no reason you can't make ends meat. Add the savings of the social programs to the increased payroll tax revenue of raising the minimum wage and things are looking better IMO.

Free market question, why does the free market not work with a baseline wage to start from? Like say if we built an economy solely from your ideas but made $10 the start point, is that still no good?

 

[Denny Crane]

So your saying Walmart is subsidizing welfare rather than welfare subsidizing walmart? Ill mull that over for a bit. Cutting back (not eliminating) food stamps and unemployment would be the big savers IMO, the idea is to make enough money to afford that stuff yourself rather than relying on government programs, and really if you devote yourself to a full time job there should be no reason you can't make ends meat. Add the savings of the social programs to the increased payroll tax revenue of raising the minimum wage and things are looking better IMO.

Free market question, why does the free market not work with a baseline wage to start from? Like say if we built an economy solely from your ideas but made $10 the start point, is that still no good?

Yes, I'm saying Walmart is subsidizing welfare. It's also subsidizing a pretty great standard of living where a lot less money buys a lot more goods. I'm not saying they're perfect - hardly. I can name a few things that bother me about Walmart, but I also think those things are creations of govt.

Your proposal is going to pay the HS kid working part time for allowance a big raise when he's lucky to have a job at all.

It's not a free market if you have ANY rule or regulation at all. A $10 starting point makes it a managed market and managed markets are messed up. You can see it in health care costs, single providers of utilities and cable/internet, etc.

ObamaCare is a perfect example. Mandate everyone gets it, and you think the companies will pay and eat the cost. But they don't and won't. They'll cut hourly workers to under 30/week to avoid the law's requirements (which is how it was in Hawaii for decades, where employer mandates existed). You've distorted the market that much.

It's even dubious that a public/private partnership works. The govt. did provide land for the railroads, but the railroad barons put up enormous amounts of capital (at risk), so they deserve the reward. The land? Worthless to anyone else, so no loss to anyone including the taxpayer.

 

[maxiep]

So you'd distort the labor market by having government limit it?

The threat of "take this low wage or I call the migre" isn't competitive.

Protecting our borders--which is one of the primary jobs of the Federal Government--isn't distorting the market. Nice try, however.

 

[Denny Crane]

Protecting our borders--which is one of the primary jobs of the Federal Government--isn't distorting the market. Nice try, however.

Our borders always have been protected. We used to have the longest peaceful borders north and south of any nation in the world until we tried to keep people out for no good reason.

 

[donkiez]

Yes, I'm saying Walmart is subsidizing welfare. It's also subsidizing a pretty great standard of living where a lot less money buys a lot more goods. I'm not saying they're perfect - hardly. I can name a few things that bother me about Walmart, but I also think those things are creations of govt.

Your proposal is going to pay the HS kid working part time for allowance a big raise when he's lucky to have a job at all.

It's not a free market if you have ANY rule or regulation at all. A $10 starting point makes it a managed market and managed markets are messed up. You can see it in health care costs, single providers of utilities and cable/internet, etc.

ObamaCare is a perfect example. Mandate everyone gets it, and you think the companies will pay and eat the cost. But they don't and won't. They'll cut hourly workers to under 30/week to avoid the law's requirements (which is how it was in Hawaii for decades, where employer mandates existed). You've distorted the market that much.

It's even dubious that a public/private partnership works. The govt. did provide land for the railroads, but the railroad barons put up enormous amounts of capital (at risk), so they deserve the reward. The land? Worthless to anyone else, so no loss to anyone including the taxpayer.

My proposal is pretty vague and obviously not complete. So we could make provisions for highschool kids working. Heres a thought though, currently high school kids dont find work as easily as the use to, I know cause we have one in our house looking, mainly because there are plenty of grown ups who will work harder and be more responsible for the same pay so business owners figure why bother with the young punks? So even if the worst thing to come out of my proposal is a few highschool kids, who actually find jobs, get overpaid then I can live with that.

Obamacare is another issue that is tied to this issue, much like education and immigration. We can go on a huge tangent with this but for the sake of this thread Ill save it for the next chain email someone posts here. I do however feel that all these issues are intertwined and part of the same problem. For the record there are plenty of things I dont like about Obamacare but there are more that I do like, but I think you knew that already.

Your no rules free market is just to radical (dude). Does that extend to the EPA regulations on business also? Doing a quick search on countries without minimum wage yields the results of such economic goliaths as North Korea, Malaysia, Somalia, Burundi, Guinea, Kyrgyzstan and Suriname. Actually on further investigation Malaysia now has a minimum wage, and the reason stated is

"The Malaysian government is seeking to transform the country into a high-income nation by 2020, which would require the average annual income to rise to the equivalent of $15,000. Mr. Najib said last month that per capita income had increased to $9,700 a year, up from $6,700 two years ago"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/business/global/malaysia-enacts-minimum-wage.html?_r=0

Heres an interesting article I found on our minimum wage and its history and effects. Interesting that we didnt have a minimum wage till 1938 and what followed after that was the least amount of income disparity in our nations history along with a the most robust and flourishing economy the world has ever seen.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/24/opinion/greene-minimum-wage/

(CNN) -- Here's a question for you:
What do you think life in the United States would be like if there were no minimum wage?
If employers were allowed to pay workers anything they wanted?
Would much of American life turn into something out of Charles Dickens? Or would the country flourish?
It's not as outrageous a notion as it sounds
For most of the time this nation has existed, that was the case: There simply was no such thing as a minimum wage.
Right now the minimum-wage debate is in the news because President Barack Obama has proposed that it be raised. Currently, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour; Obama wants it to be raised to $9 per hour.
In his State of the Union address this month, the president said:
"Let's declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty."
The political battle will be over how much -- if at all -- the $7.25 minimum wage should be raised. There is significant opposition to an increase; Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, speaker of the House of Representatives, summed it up when he said:
"When you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it. Why would we want to make it harder for small employers to hire people?"
There was no U.S. minimum wage at all until the eve of World War II. States had tried to institute minimum wages, but the United States Supreme Court repeatedly struck down those state laws. The Supreme Court's reasoning was that a minimum wage deprived workers of the right to set the price of their own labor.
CNNMoney: The impact of a $9 minimum wage
This sounded increasingly absurd during the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, knowing he had the nation on his side, threw down the gauntlet when he proclaimed: "All but the hopeless reactionary will agree that to conserve our primary resources of manpower, government must have some control over maximum hours, minimum wages, the evil of child labor, and the exploitation of unorganized labor." A federal minimum-wage law was passed that the Supreme Court did not overturn.
And so, in 1938, the first federal minimum wage went into effect
Twenty-five cents per hour.
As the number has increased over the decades, there have always been serious voices in agreement with Boehner's position: that when the minimum wage is raised, businesses are able to hire and pay fewer workers, so that not only is the economy harmed, but people who want jobs have a more difficult time finding them.
On the other side, some economists argue that the higher-minimum-wages-means-fewer-jobs theory is, in the phrase used by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, "baloney." Reich recently wrote that providing a bottom line beneath which workers' hourly pay must not fall is the nation's moral duty, and "a decent society should do no less."
The minimum wage has been a part of American life for so long now that very few citizens have any memory of a time when it did not exist. But the United States was built by workers who were guaranteed no minimum wage -- in a country that, until the 1938 law, let the marketplace determine how much anyone was paid.
(Reich's contention is that there is really no such thing as "a 'market' that exists separate from society. . .[T]here's no 'market' in a state of nature, just survival of the fittest.")
Some states have their own minimum-wage standards that are higher than the federal rate; the states are free to demand that workers earn more per hour than the federal $7.25 level, but may not pass laws that pay workers less.
One of those states is Florida, where the current minimum wage is $7.79 per hour. I asked Mike King, a grocery worker in Collier County earning the minimum wage, if the increase to $9 would make an appreciable difference in his life.
"There's no question about it," he said.
What may seem like small change to wealthier people, he said, would allow people in his situation to be at least a little better off: "I'd be able to buy better quality food some of the time. I could pay for gas and car insurance, so I could drive to my job instead of taking public transportation or riding a bicycle. And it would help me be able to pay my electricity and phone bills on time."
The federal minimum-wage law has always served a symbolic purpose beyond setting a specific number.
It has sent a signal to even the lowest-paid workers:
The country believes that what you do has value. The country will offer you a layer of protection that no one can undercut.
Today's column began with one question, so let's end it with another.
If there had never been a minimum-wage law passed -- if, as in the years before 1938, Americans today could be paid as little as employers could get away with -- and if, in 2013, someone in Congress proposed the first law ever that would guarantee workers a minimum wage. . . .
Do you think, in our current political atmosphere, such a law would have a chance of passing?

So in effect, we've already tried no minimum wage and some other countries already dont do it, so we dont need to reinvent the wheel on this issue.

 

[Denny Crane]

Sure, we had a booming economy after 1938. Shortly after, we bombed Japanese and German production into oblivion. When we were the only industrial nation left standing, all bulked up from massive military production, boom!

Austria has no minimum wage. There are quite a few others.

It seems like our economy is strong enough that you don't see the negative effects of poor policies as much. Unemployment at 7% is better than more socialist nations but is maybe double what it could be.

How has minimum wage worked for Bosnia, or African nations, Caribbean nations, etc? Not too good. You've got many of those places providing $75 to $200 per month along with struggling economies.

You might also look at how we grew big cities and people owned real assets (land, homes), etc, before 1938.

 

[Denny Crane]

The Chicago Fed wrote this report in 2003. The short version is minimum wage hike of 10% results in a 2-4% job loss for unskilled workers and a 1-3% job loss among skilled workers.

On top of that, any higher cost of employees is passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

The caveat is this is for the food industry, which employs "only" 11.5 million workers.

Over half that number is high school kids working for an allowance.

http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/working_papers/2003/wp2003-17.pdf

 

[Denny Crane]

I don't mean to spam the thread, but I've been reading Robert Reich's blog for a few years now, and I am stunned by the lunacy of what he talks about. For example,

http://robertreich.org

If the Affordable Care Act were repealed, hundreds of thousands of Americans would have to go back to working at jobs they don’t want but feel compelled to do in order to get health insurance.

We’d create jobs, but not progress. Progress requires creating more jobs that pay well, are safe, sustain the environment, and provide a modicum of security. If seeking to achieve a minimum level of decency ends up “killing” some jobs, then maybe those aren’t the kind of jobs we ought to try to preserve in the first place.




For starters, he concedes ObamaCare costs hundreds of thousands of jobs. Then he goes on to profess he's some sort of psychic who can devine those people don't want those jobs, or the we shouldn't have those sorts of jobs.

All in the name of "progress."

Yikes!

 

[maxiep]

Our borders always have been protected. We used to have the longest peaceful borders north and south of any nation in the world until we tried to keep people out for no good reason.

Pancho Villa would disagree with you.

 

[Denny Crane]

Pancho Villa would disagree with you.

Even so, it was the longest and most peaceful border in the world for over 100 years.

The border between China and Russia is a long one, but the two were basically cold war enemies.

 

[maxiep]

Even so, it was the longest and most peaceful border in the world for over 100 years.

The border between China and Russia is a long one, but the two were basically cold war enemies.

We get it. The nation state has no meaning for you. However, to solve the problem of the minimum wage, by allowing free flow one way (as Mexico does not allow illegal immigration), all you do is bring the standard of living down, between US and Mexican standards.

I do believe in the nation state. I have no problem if the policies of my country allow for more growth and prosperity than others. If Mexico decides it's interested in growing its own economy, they can change the direction of their own country.

 

[Denny Crane]

We get it. The nation state has no meaning for you. However, to solve the problem of the minimum wage, by allowing free flow one way (as Mexico does not allow illegal immigration), all you do is bring the standard of living down, between US and Mexican standards.

I do believe in the nation state. I have no problem if the policies of my country allow for more growth and prosperity than others. If Mexico decides it's interested in growing its own economy, they can change the direction of their own country.

Your nation state bit is a straw man because you're making an argument on my behalf that I do not make. Borders are where the nation state's laws and obligations to its citizens and others within basically end. This is supposed to be a "free country" so it makes no sense to build a wall around it to keep people who want to be free out. That wall is a recent thing and racially motivated.

Free country, as in free market, as in you don't restrict who participates.

There is a rather free flow of people from the US to there. I know at least half a dozen americans that live in Mexico and commute to work in the USA. They do need a passport, but as late as 20 years after the immigration law was passed you didn't need one.

 

[jamsim67]

You cannot continue to take more and more from business owners, in the form of taxes and then force them to pay even more money to there help. Minimum wage jobs were never expected to be the type of jobs where you would be able to raise a family.

 

[Sinobas]

To sum it up: micromanaging contracts between employer and employee is ham handed blunt instrument way of addressing a perceived problem.

The problem isn't people not being paid enough, it's that some people need assistance. We already have a gazillion programs at fed, state, and local levels to address providing assistance.

In the progressive world, it's better to spend $20K, per recipient, of taxpayer money on welfare programs when you could write those recipients a check for $10K and they wouldn't be poor anymore.

But some people need assistance because they are not being paid enough. So in a sense, we the taxpayers are compensating these low income workers with money that could be paid to them by their employer. If you have a corporation like WalMart that makes 16 billion a year in profit, while a great number of their employees require public assistance, what if they paid their workers more so that they required less assistance? If they gave have their profits to their employees, they could give each of their 2 million employees an extra $4,000 a year. Which is a big deal to people that poor.

Also, corporations like WalMart have worked hard to smash employees attempts to negotiate a contract by smashing unions.

 

[Denny Crane]

But some people need assistance because they are not being paid enough. So in a sense, we the taxpayers are compensating these low income workers with money that could be paid to them by their employer. If you have a corporation like WalMart that makes 16 billion a year in profit, while a great number of their employees require public assistance, what if they paid their workers more so that they required less assistance? If they gave have their profits to their employees, they could give each of their 2 million employees an extra $4,000 a year. Which is a big deal to people that poor.

Also, corporations like WalMart have worked hard to smash employees attempts to negotiate a contract by smashing unions.

Put Walmart out of existence. Now who pays for the unemployed workers who used to work there? Public assistance. But instead of Walmart covering 70% of their needs and the taxpayer 30%, it will be the taxpayer covering 100%.

As I wrote earlier, I have issues with Walmart. I'm not saying they couldn't do things better.

Walmart's hiring strategy reminds me of google's ad network strategy.

Google sells ads on sites like this one and many many that are smaller. Individually, none of these sites are big enough to warrant a sales guy trying to sell the ads for. Combined, all these little sites constitute what Google calls the "tail of the WWW" and is worth hiring many ad guys to sell the ads for.

Walmart hires the tail of the workforce - people who command minimum wage or would command even less, and who don't stick with the company for very long. It makes sense that they don't stick because minimum wage jobs for the vast majority of workers are a stepping stone to something bigger and better. There are a lot of businesses, big and small, that churn each other's minimum wage employees. From perusing several message boards where people were describing their work experience at Walmart, the workers didn't complain about the pay as much as the aches and pains of having to do the physical labor parts (moving boxes around, stacking stuff on shelves, etc.). It was pretty common to see them talk about how their experience as cashier at Walmart was better or worse than being cashier at Walgreens.

Getting a business unionized is not an easy thing. The unions are corrupt and in any large organization, you have people equally corrupt. Walmart has over a million employees, and just organizing them all to have a fair vote on the issue is a huge expense. I've seen news stories about Walmart and employees and unions over the years.

Here's one that describes some of the issues. An unskilled 13 year employee of the company makes $12.40/hr or 1.5x or more of minimum wage and $2.30 over what Obama proposes. She organizes an employee based movement to unionize and the article talks about the results. Walmart has 1.4M employees.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-13/walmart-vs-dot-union-backed-our-walmart#p1

OUR Walmart, or Organization United for Respect at Walmart, the group of employees who defied one of the most powerful companies in America by holding protests at about 1,000 stores on the busiest day of the year for retailers. OUR Walmart says it has at least 4,000 members. The protests, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, involved about 500 of them, as well as many thousands of others sympathetic to their cause.

(that's 4000 members and only 500 bothered to picket - out of 1.4M)

...

Organizers at the UFCW felt the same way. In 2010 the union hired a veteran labor leader, Dan Schlademan, to be the director of “Making Change at Walmart,” a campaign it had just launched. “We needed to build something new,” says Schlademan. He connected with Murray and a few other Walmart employees and then turned to ASGK Public Strategies, the media and branding firm started by David Axelrod, a senior political adviser to President Obama. (Axelrod had sold his stake by 2010.) “There is a permanent political campaign around the legitimacy of Walmart on both sides,” says Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara and author of The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business. “Walmart hires operatives who are in and out of political campaigns. Unions enlist the hottest political consultants around.”

On its side, Walmart had Leslie Dach, who had been a strategist in several Democratic campaigns and a vice chairman at public-relations firm Edelman. Dach was hired in 2006 in part to improve the company’s reputation, especially with liberal politicians and shoppers. By 2010 the company had reduced waste and energy use, tried to offer more affordable health insurance, and had supported Obamacare. At an analysts’ meeting that October, Dach said: “I think the numbers clearly show that customers and elected officials like us better. … And that makes it easier for us to site stores, makes it easier for us to stay out of the public limelight when we don’t want to be there.”

(Corruption on both sides)

 

[maxiep]

Your nation state bit is a straw man because you're making an argument on my behalf that I do not make. Borders are where the nation state's laws and obligations to its citizens and others within basically end. This is supposed to be a "free country" so it makes no sense to build a wall around it to keep people who want to be free out. That wall is a recent thing and racially motivated.

Free country, as in free market, as in you don't restrict who participates.

There is a rather free flow of people from the US to there. I know at least half a dozen americans that live in Mexico and commute to work in the USA. They do need a passport, but as late as 20 years after the immigration law was passed you didn't need one.

You are dismissing the idea of the citizen. We are free within our own country. We can import labor as we see fit, but I don't believe people can come uninvited and without approval.

The larger issue, however, is that you and I have gone round and round on our philosophies of immigration and the nation state. I think you're an internationalist fool and you think I'm a close-minded nationalist. We're never going to agree. Your arguments I don't find convincing and vice versa.

 

[Sinobas]

Put Walmart out of existence. Now who pays for the unemployed workers who used to work there? Public assistance. But instead of Walmart covering 70% of their needs and the taxpayer 30%, it will be the taxpayer covering 100%.

They wouldn't be in danger of going out of business if they were still getting 8 billion in profit. But of course WalMart is an easy example because they make so much profit. We wouldn't want to drive industries out of business, but would that really happen, or is that just a scare tactic?

We have a higher minimum wage in Oregon and I still see plenty of McDonald's and WalMarts around here. Fred Meyer's competes here with a wage substantially higher than minimum wage.

It gets a little murkier with businesses like fast food franchices. The individual franchise would foot the minimum wage bill while the corporate profits remain untouched. But the franchises could negotiate a better contract with corporate. Let it trickle up.





[

 

[Denny Crane]

You are dismissing the idea of the citizen. We are free within our own country. We can import labor as we see fit, but I don't believe people can come uninvited and without approval.

The larger issue, however, is that you and I have gone round and round on our philosophies of immigration and the nation state. I think you're an internationalist fool and you think I'm a close-minded nationalist. We're never going to agree. Your arguments I don't find convincing and vice versa.

Who says people who immigrate here must become citizens? When you lived in countries overseas, were you citizen of those countries?

I'm guessing not, or at least not in most cases.

The constitution talks about Persons (capital P) to cover those who aren't citizens.

I'm not an internationalist, just if you want "FREE" markets, then the source of Labor needs to be free. Not some subset.

 

[Denny Crane]

They wouldn't be in danger of going out of business if they were still getting 8 billion in profit. But of course WalMart is an easy example because they make so much profit. We wouldn't want to drive industries out of business, but would that really happen, or is that just a scare tactic?

We have a higher minimum wage in Oregon and I still see plenty of McDonald's and WalMarts around here. Fred Meyer's competes here with a wage substantially higher than minimum wage.

It gets a little murkier with businesses like fast food franchices. The individual franchise would foot the minimum wage bill while the corporate profits remain untouched. But the franchises could negotiate a better contract with corporate. Let it trickle up.





[

The unemployment rate in Oregon is 1.1% higher than the national average. You're not going to drive industries out of business, you're going to drive people into homelessness.

If you want to start up a big business that does $billions in profit and give it all away, go for it. Otherwise, I'm not sure anyone but the shareholders should be deciding what Walmart should do with theirs.