Remember that $70K salary experiment? Here's what happened over a year later

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Right. If a CEO chooses to do it of his own accord, cool... but if you do it through government mandate do you really think they'll simply accept any loss of disparity? No, they'll get it back somehow, someway, while simultaneously lowering the value of our dollar as more must be flushed into the system to keep up with the increasing costs of doing business.

They're hinging too much on the idea that the CEO or shareholders will simply take the loss, they won't. They're far too greedy for that more often than not.

Which is why a pure Free Market is too flawed and I don't know why many people(Making a general statement here) romanticize it so much.

[Captain N]

Yes but if inflation and costs of goods rises up with the broad-based increase, then that will still likely not favor small businesses. Have to realize X amount of cents per item increase, across hundreds of grocery items for the common man, can mean a significant hike overall. You guys seem to fail to understand that even small, tiny increases to common goods can be detrimental in a larger sense. I go buy just a bag of apples? Sure, not a big deal. I go to buy what is typically 300-400 dollars worth of groceries? Different picture.

You're also, simultaneously, devaluing the dollar because if everyone from the grocery bagger to the CEO has an increased income then more money must be printed into existence to help drive this movement. Our GDP does have a finite potential; especially as population growth diminishes over time. So if the worth is continuously stretched, then doesn't each dollar thereafter have that much less impact and therefore helping to also negate these raise increases?

Meanwhile all of us know the bulk of it will simply centralize itself yet again. The biggest issue we're facing economically as a people is the fact that too few hold too much. Our government isn't active in breaking up businesses that are arguably a national security threat due to their sheer size while sadly, actually bailing them out despite legally questionable business ethics. Meanwhile small businesses come and go in the blink of an eye with no such considerations and they're the ones that can help, in the long-term, spread wealth through a more natural means.

This is an awful lot of talking points and falsehoods. Inflation occurs even without wage increases and small amounts of inflation is good. The cost of goods argument is absurd as labor is not 100% of a companies cost. Yes there would be small price increases but nowhere near the amount your arguments seem to put it at.

Devaluing the dollar by making it so more people can contribute in a consumer based economy is absurd. Are you claiming that giving people a raise is somehow producing new money that isn't already in the system?

At this point you've resorted to gish gallop in some weird attempt to cover your initial claim that skilled employees cannot negotiate better wages when minimum wage increases occur. I'm sorry that your anecdotal experiences with being unable to negotiate your own wages conflicts with historical evidence.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

Which is why a pure Free Market is too flawed and I don't know why many people(Making a general statement here) romanticize it so much.

Free markets are great but much like a country's own existence, you have to fight for it. The government should be actively dissolving and breaking apart monolithic businesses as a means to ensure market purity and keep any one person or persons from getting too much power. Right now, I think you could readily argue for this based upon a need to shore up our national security - especially in the case of foreign or non-loyal interests corrupting our legal system with excessive flows of money.

[alexw]

No, it gives us less room for negotiation on an individual level. Try to convince me otherwise but I've seen it on the ground floor, both from a union and non-union perspective. Why should I work harder when the base minimum is consistently raised and through this process my employer often simply "melds" my earnings into these raises making them essentially pointless in the first place? It completely removes any real sense of merit from the equation.

I don't mind everyone getting a pay raise to meet the costs of living but it definitely has its negatives and that's because the assholes who run the show will never be satisfied. They will always try to undermine and work around it and it often ends up hurting those of us that work the hardest. Like again, prior pay raises being stuffed into these minimums being uplifted. That is complete and utter horseshit and these fuckless dicks will simply find a way to swallow up the excess wealth anyway making that uptick meaningless in the long run.

Until we somehow deal with the centralization of wealth within this country, we can't really counter the common man's plight.

This is nonsense. What you are saying goes against every understanding of economics that we have. Lets say you work in a job earning $16 an hour currently. Now along comes the rise in the minimum wage. Now why would you not pack in your $16 an hour job and do a much easier $15 an hour job? Yes you lose a little pay but the work would be a lot less demanding. The answer is of course its a no-brainer choice for most people and the $16 an hour paying company is going to lose its work-force pretty fast if it doesn't give it's workers a pay raise to make it worth those workers staying. Now repeat that across the entire work force and you see the bottom 80% or so all getting pay rises with those earning the least getting the largest rises. The ones who lose out from this are the wealthiest, particularly the top 1% or so. Which is why they fight rises in the minimum wage tooth and nail. They are smart people and understand everything I've posted here. They are not about to let others have a bit more of the economic cake if they can help it.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

This is an awful lot of talking points and falsehoods. Inflation occurs even without wage increases and small amounts of inflation is good. The cost of goods argument is absurd as labor is not 100% of a companies cost. Yes there would be small price increases but nowhere near the amount your arguments seem to put it at.

Devaluing the dollar by making it so more people can contribute in a consumer based economy is absurd. Are you claiming that giving people a raise is somehow producing new money that isn't already in the system?

At this point you've resorted to gish gallop in some weird attempt to cover your initial claim that skilled employees cannot negotiate better wages when minimum wage increases occur. I'm sorry that your anecdotal experiences with being unable to negotiate your own wages conflicts with historical evidence.

Nothing about what you're saying makes any goddamn sense. You're basically ignoring cause and effect. For instance; if EVERYONE is going up in an equalized manner from the bottom up... more money HAS to be injected into the system in order to ensure this can actually occur. The upper echelon of our society will not accept losses - period. They will retain their disparity - period. So this means nothing will change accept the raw amount of money that has to be in circulation to meet the new government mandated demand. It is not healthy nor natural to the system itself.

How you think that is not possible is beyond me. Do you think we just have money hiding in secret pockets of our economy that magically disperse when there is a need? No. It first comes from the top, gets injected into the bottom, and then works its way back up requiring that more money be printed to adjust for the new minimum wage. The only way you could avoid that is if the top takes a loss and then doesn't recoup it. They will and even greater amounts than before.

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This is nonsense. What you are saying goes against every understanding of economics that we have. Lets say you work in a job earning $16 an hour currently. Now along comes the rise in the minimum wage. Now why would you not pack in your $16 an hour job and do a much easier $15 an hour job? Yes you lose a little pay but the work would be a lot less demanding. The answer is of course its a no-brainer choice for most people and the $16 an hour paying company is going to lose its work-force pretty fast if it doesn't give it's workers a pay raise to make it worth those workers staying. Now repeat that across the entire work force and you see the bottom 80% or so all getting pay rises with those earning the least getting the largest rises. The ones who lose out from this are the wealthiest, particularly the top 1% or so. Which is why they fight rises in the minimum wage tooth and nail. They are smart people and understand everything I've posted here. They are not about to let others have a bit more of the economic cake if they can help it.

This is purely ideological rubbish. Has nothing to do with reality itself.

[alexw]

Yes but if inflation and costs of goods rises up with the broad-based increase, then that will still likely not favor small businesses. Have to realize X amount of cents per item increase, across hundreds of grocery items for the common man, can mean a significant hike overall. You guys seem to fail to understand that even small, tiny increases to common goods can be detrimental in a larger sense. I go buy just a bag of apples? Sure, not a big deal. I go to buy what is typically 300-400 dollars worth of groceries? Different picture.

You're also, simultaneously, devaluing the dollar because if everyone from the grocery bagger to the CEO has an increased income then more money must be printed into existence to help drive this movement. Our GDP does have a finite potential; especially as population growth diminishes over time. So if the worth is continuously stretched, then doesn't each dollar thereafter have that much less impact and therefore helping to also negate these raise increases?

Meanwhile all of us know the bulk of it will simply centralize itself yet again. The biggest issue we're facing economically as a people is the fact that too few hold too much. Our government isn't active in breaking up businesses that are arguably a national security threat due to their sheer size while sadly, actually bailing them out despite legally questionable business ethics. Meanwhile small businesses come and go in the blink of an eye with no such considerations and they're the ones that can help, in the long-term, spread wealth through a more natural means.

Load of gibberish really. Here is what holding down wages which you support has resulted in -

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

Load of gibberish really. Here is what holding down wages which you support has resulted in -

I need the source for that graph and I also need to see your thesis concerning it, how it plays into your narrative.

[Endus]

You're really just nitpicking the word "double". You and I have had this discussion before. We both acknowledge that prices will increase, more than likely in a direct correlation to what % they are already running. For some businesses, that increase will be relatively low, for others it will be a sizable chunk.

I'm not "nitpicking" anything.

The reality is that no business runs where 100% of their price point goes to payroll. That's not a functional business. Even aside from obvious costs like insurance, material costs, utilities, location rents, and so forth, you have profit margins.

It doesn't functionally matter if one business has a relatively high proportional payroll compared to another; if wages increase across the board, everyone sees a proportional increase in spending power, even after the resulting price increases are accounted for. Some products and services may see their prices jump proportionally more than others, but they're still always going to lag behind the increase in spending power.

Free markets are great but much like a country's own existence, you have to fight for it. The government should be actively dissolving and breaking apart monolithic businesses as a means to ensure market purity and keep any one person or persons from getting too much power. Right now, I think you could readily argue for this based upon a need to shore up our national security - especially in the case of foreign or non-loyal interests corrupting our legal system with excessive flows of money.

A government actively breaking apart monopolies and managing the market is the opposite of a "free market".

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

I'm not "nitpicking" anything.

The reality is that no business runs where 100% of their price point goes to payroll. That's not a functional business. Even aside from obvious costs like insurance, material costs, utilities, location rents, and so forth, you have profit margins.

It doesn't functionally matter if one business has a relatively high proportional payroll compared to another; if wages increase across the board, everyone sees a proportional increase in spending power, even after the resulting price increases are accounted for. Some products and services may see their prices jump proportionally more than others, but they're still always going to lag behind the increase in spending power.



A government actively breaking apart monopolies and managing the market is the opposite of a "free market".

To me it is no different than the idea of being in a "free country" - obviously that has limitations; especially in one that has an inherent distrust of excess power. Money in of itself is power and influence. So if you truly believe in keeping things "free" and "fair" then you have to have limitations on what that means, otherwise you won't have anything remotely resembling these nobler concepts.

The longer we take to come to this realization, the more dependent we become on these giants of our economy and the more indebted to them we are.

[alexw]

This is purely ideological rubbish. Has nothing to do with reality itself.

Lol what on earth? You do understand that what I posted is textbook economics? That I've posted in laymans terms how we understand the system to work, and what economists who study this issue have observed whenever minimum wages are raised irrespective of nation? And hence you are basically denying reality?

If you don't believe me here are a couple articles on the wage compression effect of minimum wages -
http://economics.mit.edu/files/3279
http://publications.dyson.cornell.ed...son-eb1602.pdf
https://core.ac.uk/download/files/153/9312307.pdf

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I need the source for that graph and I also need to see your thesis concerning it, how it plays into your narrative.

google top 1% share of income and you will find gazillions of hits showing this graph in one form or another. For example here is a wikipedia link -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income..._1913-2013.png

And the answer of how holding down wages has caused this is quite simple. If you pay your workers less that enables you to pay yourself more, and keeping minimum wages low has enabled that in spades.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

Lol what on earth? You do understand that what I posted is textbook economics? That I've posted in laymans terms how we understand the system to work, and what economists who study this issue have observed whenever minimum wages are raised irrespective of nation? And hence you are basically denying reality?

If you don't believe me here are a couple articles on the wage compression effect of minimum wages -
http://economics.mit.edu/files/3279
http://publications.dyson.cornell.ed...son-eb1602.pdf
https://core.ac.uk/download/files/153/9312307.pdf

I don't trust economists, ultimately - as much as I hate to put it so simply. We've taken economic hits as a common people and seen the rise of monsters in who's shadow we reside within now. All these economists did and do seemingly is offer excuses as to why we need them and why we should simply keep feeding into them. No thank you. They're part of a broken system that doesn't look out for the well-being of the country, only what is best for them. How we could simply follow them blindly is beyond me at this point, since I would think we'd all have developed a healthy distrust of the mouthpieces by now.

What I noted above, I cannot ignore, as I see no other way that the system would circumvent it. Surely, we can just believe in voodoo and disregard the raw fundamentals of our economy but I don't think that'd serve us well in the end. To me money isn't so much complicated, rather, we have an inherit desire to over-complicate it, which is only a crude why of ensuring the laymen can't wrap their heads around what's going on. The religious have been hilariously doing this for centuries and religious or not... everyone needs something to believe in.

Everyone needs their priests and clergymen to show them the way and bring enlightenment.

Personally I'd rather grapple with it from my own perspective, lame or not, and hopefully come to some baser truths. I don't have an agenda nor am I beholden to anyone and that, in of itself, puts me far ahead of most of the people out there passing off their own narrative as truth.

Now if you can give me a compelling enough argument I'll ponder it but so far, I'm not seeing it.

[Vynny]

I don't necessarily think that everyone should be paid $70k/year. I mean, I wouldn't be against it, but I don't think it's a realistic goal for every single company and every single employee. I'm personally a liberal because I recognized that people are naturally self interested and at the bare minimum will not always do right by others unless it stands to benefit them, so when real wages have been falling for the past 40 or 50 years while worker productivity, profits, and executive income have been skyrocketing, I think it's the governments job to redistribute some of that wealth for the sake of keeping society firing on all cylinders.

Personally, I hope that the lower economic make enough of a ruckus to make the 1% and politicians that it's there problem too because if the current rules aren't working for the majority of Americans then they're vote in politicians that are offering solutions rather than saying "too bad". The danger of that obviously being that the solutions may not be good ones, like socialism for example, but lo and behold as the rich and the establishment have worked to keep things as they are, the lower classes have voted in favor of more and more socialist leaning candidates to the point where they voted in a "social democrat" in Obama and nearly nominated Bernie Sanders who is an outspoken socialist. People feel cheated, they work excessive hours just to make ends meet, they're retiring later and getting the social security benefits that they were promised and paid in advance for slashed while companies like Walmart get over a billion in tax dollars in your average year (which is much more than they contribute in tax dollars by the way), and companies are shipping more and more jobs overseas with the use free trade deals making it harder to find a job here and easier to lose it which makes your bargaining position much worse. The working class feel screwed at every turn and with few options in the current system to fix their losing lot in life they're willing to do something as extreme as changing the whole system. The point is that if these problems aren't fixed and in fact keep getting worse then the lower income classes will vote in any extreme or incompetent candidate that says they're going to fix things and that's a scary thought.

[Hinastorm]

You know how fucking pissed I'd be if I made 15 USD at a job that I built towards where 10 USD is the starting pay and all the sudden everyone got bumped to 15 USD across the board? Kiss my ass!

This attitude is disgusting.

I work at costco, we start at 11 or 12? an hour, and top out at 22 an hour. It takes most people an average of about 5-6 years to top out, i've been there for 9 now and topped out a couple years ago.

You know how I would feel if everyone in my warehouse was making 22 an hour all of a sudden, overnight? I'd be ecstatic. I would be happy as fuck for those people, and continue on earning the wage I have for the last 2 years.

This should be the prevailing attitude.

[alexw]

I don't trust economists, ultimately - as much as I hate to put it so simply. We've taken economic hits as a common people and seen the rise of monsters in who's shadow we reside within now. All these economists did and do seemingly is offer excuses as to why we need them and we why should simply keep feeding into them. No thank you. They're part of a broken system that doesn't look out for the well-being of the country, only what is best for them. How we could simply follow them blindly is beyond me at this point, since I would think we'd all have a healthy distrust of the mouthpieces at this juncture.

What I noted above, I cannot ignore, as I see no other way that the system would circumvent it. Surely, we can just believe in voodoo and ignore the raw fundamentals of our economy but I don't think that'd serve us well in the end. To me money isn't so much complicated as we have an inherit desire to over-complicate it, which is only a crude why of ensuring the laymen can't wrap their heads around what's going on. The religious have been hilariously doing this for centuries and religious or not... everyone needs something to believe in.

Everyone needs their priests and clergymen.

I don't know what to say. I mean you are denying observed reality. How can I argue with that? If reality is a) and we know reality is a) and you are provided proof its a) but still insist no reality is in fact composed of 100% moon-cheese then its plainly obvious that nothing anyone ever says will get through to you, as you live in a reality bubble that does not match with what we know to be real.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

This attitude is disgusting.

I work at costco, we start at 11 or 12? an hour, and top out at 22 an hour. It takes most people an average of about 5-6 years to top out, i've been there for 9 now and topped out a couple years ago.

You know how I would feel if everyone in my warehouse was making 22 an hour all of a sudden, overnight? I'd be ecstatic. I would be happy as fuck for those people, and continue on earning the wage I have for the last 2 years.

This should be the prevailing attitude.

It should be the prevailing attitude, if it was so simple as everyone being an fairer grounds. It doesn't work that way though and it also mitigates merit.

[Vynny]

No, it gives us less room for negotiation on an individual level. Try to convince me otherwise but I've seen it on the ground floor, both from a union and non-union perspective. Why should I work harder when the base minimum is consistently raised and through this process my employer often simply "melds" my earnings into these raises making them essentially pointless in the first place? It completely removes any real sense of merit from the equation.

I don't mind everyone getting a pay raise to meet the costs of living but it definitely has its negatives and that's because the assholes who run the show will never be satisfied. They will always try to undermine and work around it and it often ends up hurting those of us that work the hardest. Like again, prior pay raises being stuffed into these minimums being uplifted. That is complete and utter horseshit and these fuckless dicks will simply find a way to swallow up the excess wealth anyway making that uptick meaningless in the long run.

Until we somehow deal with the centralization of wealth within this country, we can't really counter the common man's plight.

That's why people want minimum wage to be indexed to inflation, so that we don't have to constantly keep updating it and it should keep up with rises in the cost of living. This way, the wage floor updates itself and then people have to negotiate with their employers and earn their raises rather than petitioning the government to raise their wages.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

I don't know what to say. I mean you are denying observed reality. How can I argue with that? If reality is a) and we know reality is a) and you are provided proof its a) but still insist no reality is in fact composed of 100% moon-cheese then its plainly obvious that nothing anyone ever says will get through to you, as you live in a reality bubble that does not match with what we know to be real.

To not deny YOUR chosen reality is to ignore the one that I see daily. In which case, I might as well start going to church and pondering the greater workings of God. I try to operate, as best as I can, from a central point of observation - that point is me, obviously. From there I incorporate information and observation of others and try to apply it to my own sense of understanding. It doesn't matter how lauded or grand the source of the information is, I still have to be able to make sense of it and find trust within it. If I cannot, then I'm not going to force it. I will stand my position until further information at last nudges me if at all.

Sometimes I shift. Sometimes I don't. In this instance, I find it incredibly difficult for me to shift.

[Hinastorm]

It should be the prevailing attitude, if it was so simple as everyone being an fairer grounds. It doesn't work that way though and it also mitigates merit.

Just to be clear, costco does not have merit raises for rank and file workers, its all based on hours worked.

There are plenty of people I work with who have 2 years seniority, and are far better workers than the 10+ crowd.

If this is not what you ment by your comment, I apologize.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

That's why people want minimum wage to be indexed to inflation, so that we don't have to constantly keep updating it and it should keep up with rises in the cost of living. This way, the wage floor updates itself and then people have to negotiate with their employers and earn their raises rather than petitioning the government to raise their wages.

That is a more arguable position in my opinion - to simply mandate X increase for Y inflation which would be incremental but still allow people to more readily keep their merit adjustments. However, huge upticks in which swallows merit n' all whole, I'm not a huge fan of. "Oh you were at 13.40? Well that two extra dollars an hour you busted ass to earn no longer means fuck all. You're at 15 with everyone else." Merit is extremely important and you should always make your better employees feel rewarded but companies simply don't give a fuck when they have fundamental shifts like this. Walmart did it of their own accord even and they still absolved merit essentially in the process of, which shows you just how petty they are considering those raises were extremely small to begin with.

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Just to be clear, costco does not have merit raises for rank and file workers, its all based on hours worked.

There are plenty of people I work with who have 2 years seniority, and are far better workers than the 10+ crowd.

If this is not what you ment by your comment, I apologize.

Merit is based on performance, not simply time accrued.

[Hinastorm]

I think we're having a disconnect, are you saying costco should have merit raises, and not the time accrued based raises it currently has?