SK790 wrote:it's so dumb the studies that have been done in places where $15/hr has already been put in place have shown it to be wildly successful. i'm sure you have plenty of talking points about how prices are going to rise and employment will go down(which directly contradicts the studies).

The thing about us businesspeople is that we love our customers rich and our employees poor. So for as long as there has been capitalism, capitalists have said the same thing about any effort to raise wages. We’ve had 75 years of complaints from big business—when the minimum wage was instituted, when women had to be paid equitable amounts, when child labor laws were created. Every time the capitalists said exactly the same thing in the same way: We’re all going to go bankrupt. I’ll have to close. I’ll have to lay everyone off. It hasn’t happened. In fact, the data show that when workers are better treated, business gets better. The naysayers are just wrong.

It makes perfect sense if you think about it: If a worker earns $7.25 an hour, which is now the national minimum wage, what proportion of that person’s income do you think ends up in the cash registers of local small businesses? Hardly any. That person is paying rent, ideally going out to get subsistence groceries at Safeway, and, if really lucky, has a bus pass. But she’s not going out to eat at restaurants. Not browsing for new clothes. Not buying flowers on Mother’s Day.

Is this issue more complicated than I’m making out? Of course. Are there many factors at play determining the dynamics of employment? Yup. But please, please stop insisting that if we pay low-wage workers more, unemployment will skyrocket and it will destroy the economy. It’s utter nonsense. The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics isn’t believing that if the rich get richer, it’s good for the economy. It’s believing that if the poor get richer, it’s bad for the economy.

CalvinBall wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Dems put a $15 minimum wage in their platform. Good thing platforms don't become law because yeesh that's fucking dumb.

What's your suggestion to help people that work their assess off yet still can't get by?

Grotewold wrote:Yeah I never got the thing about the pizza shop owner who will go under if he pays two dollars more per hour. Might he be running on too tight a margin, then? Is he entitled to own that business forever?

And if he *were* to close, wouldn't that mean the next pizza shop over would make more profit, some of which could be passed along to workers?

TenuredVulture wrote:Well, it seems to me that while it's a good idea to raise the minimum wage, the question is by how much--is $15 really optimum? What if it were $12? or $18? I mean, at some point you would have to think business couldn't operate profitably.

I do think we absolutely somehow index the minimum wage to inflation.

Polar Bear Phan wrote:

SK790 wrote:it's so dumb the studies that have been done in places where $15/hr has already been put in place have shown it to be wildly successful. i'm sure you have plenty of talking points about how prices are going to rise and employment will go down(which directly contradicts the studies).

Really? You have any citations for this in academic journals?

[For reference, this is in contrast to what PolitiFact found only a couple of months ago.]

Werthless wrote:

SK790 wrote:it's so dumb the studies that have been done in places where $15/hr has already been put in place have shown it to be wildly successful. i'm sure you have plenty of talking points about how prices are going to rise and employment will go down(which directly contradicts the studies).

Do you believe that a doubling of the minimum wage will help jobs in rural areas?

Grotewold wrote:Yeah I never got the thing about the pizza shop owner who will go under if he pays two dollars more per hour. Might he be running on too tight a margin, then? Is he entitled to own that business forever?

And if he *were* to close, wouldn't that mean the next pizza shop over would make more profit, some of which could be passed along to workers?

SK790 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

SK790 wrote:it's so dumb the studies that have been done in places where $15/hr has already been put in place have shown it to be wildly successful. i'm sure you have plenty of talking points about how prices are going to rise and employment will go down(which directly contradicts the studies).

Do you believe that a doubling of the minimum wage will help jobs in rural areas?

Do you want to build a strawman?

TenuredVulture wrote:Well, it seems to me that while it's a good idea to raise the minimum wage, the question is by how much--is $15 really optimum? What if it were $12? or $18? I mean, at some point you would have to think business couldn't operate profitably.

I do think we absolutely somehow index the minimum wage to inflation.

SK790 wrote:

Polar Bear Phan wrote:

SK790 wrote:it's so dumb the studies that have been done in places where $15/hr has already been put in place have shown it to be wildly successful. i'm sure you have plenty of talking points about how prices are going to rise and employment will go down(which directly contradicts the studies).

Really? You have any citations for this in academic journals?

[For reference, this is in contrast to what PolitiFact found only a couple of months ago.]

From the super liberals at Goldman Sachs:

http://cepr.net/blogs/cepr-blog/2014-jo ... nimum-wage

Grotewold wrote:Yeah I never got the thing about the pizza shop owner who will go under if he pays two dollars more per hour. Might he be running on too tight a margin, then? Is he entitled to own that business forever?

And if he *were* to close, wouldn't that mean the next pizza shop over would make more profit, some of which could be passed along to workers?

Warszawa wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Well, it seems to me that while it's a good idea to raise the minimum wage, the question is by how much--is $15 really optimum? What if it were $12? or $18? I mean, at some point you would have to think business couldn't operate profitably.

I do think we absolutely somehow index the minimum wage to inflation.

Businesses can run just fine with $15/hr min wage. And if you follow the Henry ford philosophy of business the more money you pay your employees the more money they have to buy your product. I'm so tired of this supply side economic theory which is #$!&@ dumb.

Another argument is automation. First, if businesses could automate they already would have done so. The objective of all businesses In a capitalistic society is to automate as much as possible and decrease labor costs. Anyway i believe this strategy will eventually backfire in a service economy because who the #$!&@ wants to deal with a goddamn robot. If McDonald's wants to do that good luck to them.

This whole idea of fear perpetrated by the right concerning business is a joke. You know how businesses succeed? Offer a product or service that people want or need. The rest will take care of itself. When I see someone open a shoe repair shop or a Christian book store - that's called a business that should never have opened in the first place.

Bucky wrote:
one of my best friends is a cobbler and he does quite quite quite well for himself