Bitcoin Forum

Do you think the government should force employers at the point of a gun to pay a wage that the federal government comes up with and spur the robot and automation industry to replace jobs or send jobs overseas?

it's not going to fix everything, but the current problem is that the big corporations are eating up small businesses and multiplying in number, which means they get more "bidding" power with laws. they use loopholes to pay their employees as little as possible while gaming the social security/foodstamps, so yes, i think minimum wage should definitely be more than $7.25. the middle class is the engine of our economy anyways.

the waltons are worth about over $150 billion collectivelly, yet they don't make enough money to hire their employees full-time.

How do you think they're going to pay for it? Higher taxes and when they can't squeeze more money out of people, hyperinflation and more borrowing, you have people cheer leading this but they have clearly never considered the mathematics behind this, pretty much like they do with almost anything suggested in politics and why we're in such a disaster right now. I can understand the argument and the same goes for the ideas of a national healthcare system, but you cannot just ignore basic mathematics and have to consider whether the country you're in can even afford it.

It's a bit like trying to save an endangered species, sure, it may seem like a great idea, but if that species relies on changing the whole eco system around it in order to survive and you kill off everything else in the process of saving that one species it's not really that much of a good idea in the long run is it? People complain about this type of thing but in the end they're never willing to pay for it honestly and the politicians get round it by borrowing the money instead so they're forced to pay for it later and then everybody wonders why we're all bankrupt.

Yes. To level where regular person can cover their basic needs including healthcare in their location. So it's variable rate based on cost of living in the area. 40-hour work week should be enough to get some reasonable apartment, food, method of transportation, healthcare and basic goods for living(clothing, some electric appliances).

Why not? What would be the worst that could happen?

Why 40 hours?

Death of couple americans... Not really that major thing, might be some global economic issues too. But net positive for the world in long run.

40 hours at high end. Realistically depending on job less would do.

My point is, nobody should be forced to work 40-60 hour a week to cover their basic needs. It's not needed anymore and productivity drops over that number(or even lower number). Mainly it's norm that is reasonable currently.

Obviously there should be a standard minimum living wage set by law, and if the current one isn't actually liveable on then it should be raised. In this country we have a real problem with the benefits system because for a lot of people it's not worth it to work. You can earn the same if not more than the minimum wage by just shitting out a couple of kids and living tax free in a free house, so I can't blame them really. The system needs to be fixed and it needs to be beneficial for people to want to get back into work and raising the minimum wage is one way to do this.

How would people die from the minimum wage being raised?

I actually support people working such short hours. It leaves those of us who work 70-80 hours a week with a huge advantage over everyone who only want to barely get through life.

I think we should try to find a system where any amount of income earned nets person more money, while the basic needs are still covered. Basic wage could be one of these. Ofc, there is lot of issues with implementation and cost differences between countries...

Economy would grind to halt for a while. So people might starve to death or not considering state of population ;D Effects of such policy isn't really simple to find out. But it would probably lead to hyperinflation for moment at least.

I keep seeing this word "obviously" as if the government being involved in every part of our lives is so natural. That is quite scary (the ease of giving up freedom).

So, only a mild form of this is a good idea?

I think the system you are looking for is "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs..."

What exactly do you suggest as an alternative? No government and allowing people to pay their employees whatever they want? I don't see how we're giving up freedom by expecting certain rights and standards.

Yes, just consider what would happen to prices if wages of people working in labor-intensive and service fields would increase x10. That is food industry, retail industry and such. In long term it would balance out, but for moment there would be massive problems like layoffs and people just not being able to afford anything and as such to pay anyone that new wage.

No, just that as western societies we can afford to cover the basic needs of everyone who lives here and we already do just that. The current way is just inefficient and bureaucratic. I want to keep doing the same and just find a way where there is always incentive to work or produce something.

Why should there be a minimum wage in the first place?

hyper-inflation would happen

To stop employers exploiting their employees and paying them peanuts.

Yes! Allow people to be free, freely exchanging services for compensation...a mutually agreed upon salary without the threat of a gun.


And that is the main problem in the US...though most people do not understand what freedom really is. Government telling you what to do is not it.

People losing their jobs, automation and robots for as many jobs as possible, even more jobs going overseas.

Welcome to McDonalds, may I take your order:
http://www.neowin.net/images/uploaded/mcdts.jpg

Why work for those employers? Vote with your feet.

If you do not have that option, you obviously do not have skills that are of any value.

Shall we abolish punishment for rape and murder as well and let people settle their differences the good old fashion way? I'm sure living in a libertarian utopia is great in theory, but I've yet so see a workable solution from anyone. All I ever hear is 'government is bad' and 'without the threat of guns' etc.


And for those that don't have a choice? What's the option? I guess they'll have the right to choose to be homeless and starve to death, right?

And that's a very snobby and elitist/condescending thing to say.

Free market doesn't work for labour market as some participant have needs they must fullfill.

A cheap security service to protect yourself from such crimes would be more efficient for people initiating force against you.


If you decide not to choose you still have made a choice. This is a huge world. You can work anywhere, there are jobs all over. Who are these people with no choice?

Go where the jobs are. Go where you can live on whatever wage is paid. I left the US several years ago, they are so business unfriendly. I would never start a business there.

Elitists look at individuals and try to decide how they should live and condescendingly believe they know what is best for other people. Let people live their own lives, stop being so elitist and condescending.

Free market works best in the labor force. Being free is the best way forward for exchanging your service for fair compensation. It is when outside forces pervert the relationship between employee and employer that the fairness is destroyed.

Hyperinflation and a Great Depression following the collapse of the country and its currency since they'd have to devalue the currency in order to pay for it, while minimum wages certainly alone won't be responsible ( we have minimum wage in the UK ) many measures like it are the cause because people simply refuse to pay directly for it, especially the very people who champion things like the minimum wage.

The no minimum wage plan worked in Germany for years with less problems that in country where the minimum wage just drove people to work without papers and led to lots of abuse.

Medieval Europe did not have bitcoins and crowdfunding.


Works well in Detroit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqlVL26jrCA

That looks kind of nice , at least it is more accurate that one worker i ran into which took 5 minute to get my order , asking me twice about everything.
Also , the main transport company in my city has two times more ticket sellers than drivers. At this point shouldn't people ask themselves if those jobs are really needed?

I have traveled in Australia where the minimum wage is around $17. Everything was very expensive and services that are common in other countries do not exist (most restaurants do not have waiters/waitresses, you do much of the work yourself, young people having a hard time getting jobs, most small businesses run by the owner's family, etc.)

Great, so we now have private mafias and personal armies roaming around who would be ten times worse than the police without no restrictions/laws in place to keep them in check. So I guess you're probably one of these people who wants a police and government and wants to live under the threat of a gun, but just as long as we can call them something else whilst having the choice to choose whether to pay them or not? I've had these discussions several times on here and they go nowhere, but I'll entertain your fantasy if you wish.


Except there are not jobs all over and some people don't have the means to travel the world to go where they can. There are never enough jobs for everyone so there's always people that get left out, but fuck the little people, right? Without minimum wage laws set etc, many places that hired unskilled workers would completely exploit everyone they could. Illegal immigrants would flock to all these employers who pay peanuts forcing everyone else out of a job, and then even more people who are willing to work for a little bit less would then force them out a job and the cycle continues until people are practically working for free.

Minimum wage laws are only enforceable to a certain extent. Pushed too far, Walmart will eventually just hire "John Doe Cash Handling Services (DBA)" instead of John Doe and bypass the enormous mountain of employee regulations. -And I think that's great, because employee contracts are much more like wage slavery than the much more explicit and meaningful contracts for independent contractors, where your boss, Four-Fingered Jimmy, can't immediately fire you because you told him to go eat dog shit after he asked you to clean out the toilets (unless that's explicitly part of your contract).

Having the right to choose things as opposed to being forced...crazy idea huh? (hint: otherwise known as freedom)


Like those rich Mexicans that fight to get to the US to get a below minimum wage job? Here in Afghanistan many Pakistanis are shipped in to work getting paid around $5 per day. They come here and make those sacrifices for such high paying jobs. I have stopped working in the US because of what it has become and have so many more options with such a large world.


But I do know that a higher minimum wage and other socialist programs will help speed up the end of the US economy and its eventual reboot. I will ride this out from across the pond, keeping my money in bitcoins and hopefully help to rebuild afterwards if people learn their lesson. Or just leave it as just the place I grew up.

So , this is what happened in Germany?
I think it is not even close to your predicament ;)

$100 per hour? Already the manufacturing sector in the US is in serious decline, due to the import of cheaper goods from countries such as China. Any such move to raise the minimum wage will finish off the industry once and for all.

m8, you can't win an argument against ancaps. they want complete hands-off, even if it means the bad guys can get control of the bureaucracy.

as it currently is in the U.S., the middle class is significantly underrepresented by our "government." continuing to mute the voice of the middle class is not going to help anything at all, because the wealthy will just continue buying out washington to get more money, power, and influence.

When price levels rise with wages, output declines and it would have hugely negative inflationary effects. Even small increases on minimal wages have been shown to have large effects down the line on unemployment and general shopping baskets.

One of the best things about America is the low minimum wages in certain states. Sure wish we had that in the UK.

The situation in the US is a bit complex. There are millions of illegal aliens there, who are ready to work for sub-minimum wage rates. So the industry is able to cut down on the costs. This is not practicable in the UK.

I'm sorry, but this seems like the propaganda going around about the evils of raising the minimum wage; do you have any decent sources to back that up?

EDIT: because remember, we're talking about people that are already receiving the minimum wage; these people aren't going to save what little extra more they might get with an increase - they're going to spend it in their other basic needs. So, this is money that's going directly back into the economy, perhaps providing more business to the very guys paying the minimum wage as well, now that more people can afford their goods.

It's not propaganda.
We have a country that flourished and with no workers abuse without a minimum wage at all - Germany.

The whole minimum wage increase is an evil socialist propaganda :)

During the 1980s, Germany (Federal Republic of Germany to be precise) was home to more than 2 million Gastarbeiter, most of them from Turkey, Spain, Greece, Morocco.etc. The German manufacturing industry was at its peak. But things began to change in the 1990s, when the Gastarbeiter started demanding citizenship and additional benefits associated with it.

It has been decided that there will be a minimum wage of 8.50 Euro/hour in Germany next year.
There will be exceptions, like people that have been unemployed for a long time, or some internships.
Let's see if germany's economy will go down the drain.

In the UK we have a minimum wage - but this effectively only applies to single people.

If a man/woman with a family is on minimum wage their income is topped up via state benefits. This means that state taxes are subsidising the private businesses that are paying wages below that which is deemed sufficient. You could say that Govt. taxes are providing the private sector with their profits.

Of course, if the subsidies (or top up benefits) were removed from business, and they were forced to pay the deficit (between what they pay now and a decent living wage) they would go bust - or they would ship out production to China, if they operated within a sector where that would be an option (manufacturing for e.g.).

Welcome to global capitalism.

Maybe the anti-tax lobby on BitcoinTalk might wish to take this problem on board ?

That will accelerate the immigration from the new-EU states, such as Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia. € 8.50 is almost a day's wage in these countries. And unfortunately, this is going to result in many native Germans losing their jobs.

Down the drain , of course not.
But not all the changes will be positive, and I think that the negative ones will be more and they will be the ones making the news.

But only time will tell ...

Average wage in Poland is 680 euros , that's 34 euros /working day.

What about the blue-collar jobs? I am sure that the average salary for the blue-collar jobs in Poland must be well below € 34 per day. I won't be surprised if it is close to € 10 per day.

In my country the worst jobs are averaging 200 euros , so , I doubt that there are any like this in poland.

Also the minimum wage in Poland is 300 euros , so :).

The Swiss are proposing an equivalent of £14.70 per hour minimum wage - which would make it the highest in the world.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/16/swiss-vote-referendum-world-highest-minimum-wage-manufacturing (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/16/swiss-vote-referendum-world-highest-minimum-wage-manufacturing)

Remember this one : ?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=358727.0

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/switzerland-to-vote-on--2-800-monthly-%E2%80%98basic-income%E2%80%99-minimum-for-adults-181937885.html

It depends what you mean by sources.

Almost no economists would dispute the negative economic effects that increasing the minimum wage can have on society by driving price levels up. http://ftp.iza.org/dp1072.pdf

Just typical AS/AD diagram shows this...

The real problem is a political and a welfare one, which is much harder to model.

Well, yes of course it is harder to model it when you're looking at the real world, but that's what you have to work with; and in this context there is no evidence that small increases to the minimum wage will have large negative effects down the line, especially when you consider my previous argument and the fact that productivity continues to increase.

As for "no economists disputing the negative economic effects that increasing the minimal wage can have on society", here's someone who disagrees:
An interview with Robert Pollin from the Political Economy Research Institute on The Real News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKXTUJrk3GY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKXTUJrk3GY).

Switzerland's economy is looking strong, thanks to the financial sector. I think they can afford a minimum wage of £14.70 per hour ($25 per hour), despite the effect it can have on the inflation.

Actually, when you consider the mathematics, if people are being paid more, it stands to reason that more tax revenue would be generated.  You wouldn't need to raise the levels of tax.  Also, the more disposable income people have, the more they will spend, hence more money circulating in the economy.

All this Austerity nonsense we have at the moment is contributing towards the stagnation of our economy.  If people are relying on food banks because they can't afford to buy food, that means less people are buying food.  Less money being spent means less money circulating in the economy.  While a wealthy minority (who wouldn't be able to spend the same proportion of their overall wealth if they tried) just end up accumulating and hoarding their money, so again there's less money in circulation. 

A healthy economy doesn't have skyrocketing disparity between rich and poor.  If you think the current "trickle down" theory we use today actually works, you've got it all backwards, I'm afraid.

Simple increasing of average wage won't change anything, because this action will cause proportional jump of inflation.

When have I ever said I support trickle down economics? Way to go with your rant against an imaginary version of myself, do you even understand how money printing works? In an economy where we don't have money printing yes, tax revenue would go up, but the point is people barely have any money as it is now, if you raised the minimum wage then the government would be forced to print more and devalue the currency to support it. Then that would push up the prices of everything, then that would mean that the minimum wage raise would do absolutely nothing for your average person and in fact make their lives worse because you just pushed everything up and made them have to work longer for less.

This isn't a matter of 'tax the rich' and to be fair, I don't really give a crap much about corrupt and rich CEO's, they're a different matter entirely, what I'm talking about are the average businesses out there that are struggling, if the minimum wage was raised and they couldn't afford it, they'd be put out of business and that's a mathematical fact, you can't ignore that just because it's inconvenient to your world view.

As I said before, your conclusion completely ignores hyperinflation, you need to go and read up on it, as for trickle down economics, that's just made up bullshit created by Aristocrats and Oligarchs to justify them stealing from people through hyperinflation and they've used tricks like this for centuries, it's the equivalent of having a feast at a table and then giving their employees the leftovers and saying that their employees are benefiting from their kindness while of course always keeping the majority of the food for themselves.

And it will make a lot of business either shut down , go to the black market or move out of the country which will lead to less taxes and less jobs .

Definitely. Unemployment will increase by many times as well.


Either the businesses will shut down, or they will be forced to employ illegal immigrants.

They didn't have to print money out of thin air to introduce the minimum wage in the first place, nor did they have to increase taxation.  Your argument that more money would have to be printed in order to raise it is a reasonably baseless assumption.  Also, I don't it's logically possible to occupy two stances at once by saying that the current system we have boils down to stealing using hyperinflation, while also stating that doing the opposite and transferring wealth back down to the bottom of the pyramid would cause hyperinflation as well.  Which is it?  Or do you think hyperinflation happens either way?  I'd argue the current system is more likely to cause hyperinflation because it effectively excludes people from the economy by pricing them out of it. 

As for SMEs not being able to afford it, I'm sure I recall hearing the same argument every time someone proposes a raise to minimum wage (although obviously the figure of $100 in the OP is silly).  A larger amount of capital flowing around the system effectively pays for itself.  More people with disposable income means more consumption.  More consumption means companies make more money.  When there is less consumption, companies need to raise prices to continue to make the same amount of money.  The more people we drive into poverty, the less consumption there will be and the higher prices will get.  Ergo, higher base wages would cause the exact opposite of inflation.

People generally underestimate the complexity of this issue.
There's a whole network of cause and effect relationships that's really hard to understand by the average person.

There's pros and cons to raising minimum wage. If minimum wage is increased, business owners can suffer too...
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #3vhvmlWWC6uYA1Ed

Who's 'they'? And it's not a baseless assumption it's a fact, because America doesn't have another source of income to tax as they've raised the taxes as high as people can pay without just making everybody unemployed, other countries have managed to install a minimum wage because they've mathematically calculated what they can actually afford, mind you, the situation is still fucking ridiculous and hasn't stopped them from printing money to pay for everything.

When it comes to your comments about consumption, no, more consumption doesn't make more money, especially if a government is using a devalued currency in order to get people to consume because that means that the company is actually earning less since the prices for everything they're going to buy rises. As for your comment about my two stances? It is actually exactly the fucking same, I make no distinctions between the wealthy and the poor, stealing is stealing, I don't care if you borrow, print, tax in order to do it, in the end your just stealing from both groups and if you don't think it's stealing then it's clear you're just going to keep talking to yourself for the next several pages.

I'm hoping we're on the same page here.  I'm talking about the same 'they' as you are.  I'm working under the assumption that you're talking about your own domestic government, or at the very least governments in general:


That 'they'.


Perhaps I'm not explaining this right.  I'll give it one more try before giving up.  If someone is making $50,000 a year, that person will be paying a larger amount in tax and will have more disposable income to spend than someone making $10,000 a year.  There would be no need to increase taxes or dilute the value of money by printing more.  It has nothing to do with 'stealing' from anyone.  It's called paying people a fair wage for the work they do.  People who earn a decent wage will pay a higher amount of money in tax and spend a higher amount of money back into the economy than those on very low incomes.  Are you with me so far?

Right now you have an increasing number of people falling under the poverty line.  Those people are not able to put a great deal of money back into the economy, but it is pretty much the entire proportion of what little income they have that gets fed back into the system.  They're not holding on to any of their money because they can't afford to.

Right now you have an increasing number of millionaires.  The definition of a millionaire is someone who has at least $1,000,000 in their possession.  It doesn't mean someone who had a million and then spent it back into the economy.  They're good at holding on to that money and finding creative ways to pay very little tax on it.  Millionaires are only spending a small proportion of their overall worth.  The rest of society and the economy in general doesn't receive a great deal of benefit from this.

That's not a recipe for a healthy economy.  What you actually need is more people making a good, solid, average wage.  Not so much that it creates excess extravagance and not so little that someone can't afford to live.  A rise in minimum wage would help slow the rate at which more people are falling under the poverty line, which in turn means more people would have a disposable income to spend back into the economy and generate more tax money for infrastructure.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with money printing.  That's a completely separate issue and it will continue to happen anyway, whether you raise the minimum wage or not.  You can easily have higher wages without printing money.  That seems to be the point we're stuck on here and I'm sorry if you can't see that.  

Finally, there seems to be some confusion here on the difference between asset inflation and wage inflation.  These two are separate things.  You already have increasing asset prices, but not a corresponding increase in wages to support it.  If this continues, the outcome will unequivocally be more people falling under the poverty line because they don't earn enough to be able to pay for the things they need to live.  That means less taxes are collected and there will be less spending back into the economy.  Wages need to increase to make the economy sustainable for everyone, or all that will happen is an increasing burden of poverty and economic stagnation.

If that still doesn't make sense, then yes, I'll agree that I'm clearly talking to myself and I'll move on.


//EDIT:  I'll leave this here as well as a final thought:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

They've already done what you've said it hasn't worked and as I said before, no matter what you try to call it all these methods are stealing and if you're going to run around posting videos, you desperately need to look at this one, the problem of wages is something that is much deeper than simple tax rates or the minimum wage, you can't just point a gun at somebody and order them to pay their employee a certain amount.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0

Wages don't increase because that's businesses trying to save essentially so that they can afford to buy assets ( as you call them ) or even just basic supplies you can't just force the wages up, then that's going to put them out of business because they won't be able to cope with rising asset prices and wages at the same time. I was talking about the U.S government and giving an example of minimum wage here in the UK as I understand both, you think that we don't have problems? Trust me, it's all just as bad, low wages are a result of inflation.

When I talk about inflation, I talk about inflation of the money supply, I'm not confusing anything, asset prices and wages are a symptom of inflation, you use goods that have value to measure how much currency is being created, why do you think Bitcoins are worth so much now?

Here are two things that happen when a standard business that doesn't commit fraud goes along with your idea:

1. They increase the wages, pay their employees what the government calls 'fair' wages and go out of business quickly because they can't afford to pay the employees because of rising costs

2. They keep the wages the same to try and postpone the inevitable, asset prices increase, keep increasing until even the business can't afford to pay their employees

Inflationary economies are doomed to failure because of these reasons.

If I own a business and hire people to work for me at a wage we both agree on it is no ones business what that wage rate is. The work performed and the amount paid should be a private transaction. If I am paying more than the market average i get a better choice of employees that stay to work for me for a longer period of time. If I pay less than the market average I only attract low skill workers that only stay long enough to hone some skills so they can go look for higher wages. The market works if government keeps its money grubbing fingers out of it. It is completely contrary to the principles of freedom and the sovereignty of the individual to use violence or the threat of violence to force businesses to pay a wage that the government deems acceptable.

I've read the Bank of England paper explaining money creation (http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q102.pdf), so I don't need a 30 minute youtube video to spoon-feed the concept to me, thanks.  I get how that works and agree that it's a problem that needs looking at.  However, wealth inequality is still an issue, even once you've sorted out the entirely separate issue of money itself.  

We'll forget the US for a bit, since I'm a Brit too.  The fact that we already have a minimum wage here demonstrates that you can force a company to pay their employee a certain amount and we didn't have to point a gun to their head to achieve that.  You'll have noticed an increase in the UK in things like zero-hour contracts.  This is a deliberate attempt to undermine the concept behind minimum wage.  There's also an increase in the number of people pushed into the 'Workfare' scheme which is another deliberate (and more direct) attempt to undermine the minimum wage.  Some companies are shedding their regular paid staff and taking on workfare claimants for a fraction of the cost.  It's actually causing unemployment, but the government get to fudge the figures because they class people on workfare as being in employment, even though they're technically working for unemployment benefit.  

Most of the companies utilising these two measures can easily afford to pay the current minimum wage, but if they have a way to increase profits, they'll happy take that path, even if it means driving an increasing number of people into poverty.  In the long term, this will be disastrous for the wider economy, but fantastic for the people who own those companies and can make a few extra million in profits.  If you say you don't support trickle down theory, you've got a funny way of showing it.  The minimum wage runs in direct contrast to the principles of trickle down, so if anything, you should be arguing for an increase like I am and speaking out against any attempts to undermine it, but instead you have this rather strange idea that the minimum wage is 'stealing', which doesn't actually make any sense.

Also, if a company can't come up with a sustainable business model that doesn't effectively rely on slave labour, it stands to reason they haven't got a good business model.  If your profits depend on paying peanuts for your workforce, you're going to have an unhappy and unproductive workforce.  It also stands to reason that if such workers are living under the poverty line, they're more likely to suffer with their health, which means more time taken off sick and more lost productivity.  This is what will continue to worsen if we carry on along the current path we're heading down.

I'm in a position where I'm fortunate enough not just to have a job, but one that pays above minimum wage and even earns me a little commission on top, so this is nothing to do with me wanting something for nothing or trying to steal anyone else's money.  I keep a close eye on the deteriorating standards of living in this country which are being whitewashed over by manipulated government figures while they try to leech more money from those who have the least.  Almost all the political parties in the UK support this right-wing neo-liberal farce of a system, which only serves to transfer wealth to the top.

As stated by this recent BBC article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27047966), the Office of National Statistics themselves have provided figures showing how inflation has eroded the value of pay over the last six years.  While earnings rose by 8.6% since July 2008, consumer prices rose by 16.9%.  It will be several years yet before real wages are back to the level they were before the financial crisis.  The Office for Budget Responsibility has estimated that real incomes will not return to their 2009-10 levels until 2018 at the earliest.  And since the start of the financial crisis, real pay has fallen by a 10%.  That is said to be the biggest fall in any five-year period since the 1920s.  Is that really what you want to argue in favour of?  

I reckon part of the problem is the ease with which capital can flow across national borders - it wasn't always thus.

In years gone by cheap labour could be imported - look at West Yorkshire for eg. and the mills, as recently as the 50's 60's. Today its easier and more profitable to take the mills to the cheap labour.



Further, and complimentary to the above, as soon as a company is "publicly" floated in todays world, and as soon as enough companies are so floated, it seems to me that control of the economy by the national Govt./citizens of the country is proportionately diminshed. And seeing as how the ownership of UK listed companies is extremely difficult to pinpoint, you have to ask the question, who owns and runs the UK economy ?

You've just been feeding yourself central bank propaganda, the video I posted explains that's exactly what happens in a central bank and with our current economy, good day.

On the contrary, it's the first time a central bank has been honest about it.  If you're having difficulty understanding what it actually says, there's a helpful column here (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/18/truth-money-iou-bank-of-england-austerity) that explains it in plain English.  Good day to you too.

While I can understand the disgruntlement of the fast food workers who staged a one-day strike not that long ago, I've always kinda assumed that community colleges and government-backed student loans existed for a reason. If nothing else, go freelance. If enough people get out of the fast food industry, places like McDonalds will basically be forced to either pay their workers better or automate the job.

Education is being valued less less these days. But unemployment is also at record highs, as a lot of jobs are being moved to countries such as China and other Asian / African nations due to higher taxes.

I don't think most people grow up dreaming of being a McDonald's employee; but life happens, and especially if you have a family to feed, you might not have that many options of where to work. Often times this is true even for people with college degrees, sadly enough. And needless to say that going freelance isn't always an option, and when possible can still be a huge risk.

That is true. When you go freelance, you probably still won't be able to quit your day job for a while until you build up your reputation. But there are benefits, including the fact that many freelancers don't need to commute.

Sub poll:
   How many libertarians and anarchists voted "yes"?

Whatever the result, the number would likely be higher if the poll values were realistic to being with... one might be libertarian/anarchist and still look to a gradual change in the system towards their ideal, even if just by freeing people from the misery they're in.

Very few. I could count only 6 YES votes out of 100+. Considering the fact that at least half of all the Bitcointalk users are Libertarians, that represents only a very small minority.

so what the idea of basic income and rise of wages? I believe that it's at least worth considering. Sooner or later we as a society will have to face the challenges created by the technological development and its effects on employment. Computerization, advancements in robotics and manufacturing and soon self-driving cars, the future is already here and jobs will be lost. It's true that the history teaches us that for every job lost due to a technological revolution thousands new are created but will it be the case this time as well? Basic income might just become a necessity to keep the economy from collapsing.

The great majority of jobs are already in the services sector; considering many of those could be easily automated tomorrow if we wanted, I'm not sure it would be possible to re-train everyone for others tasks anytime soon. And even then, re-train them to do what exactly? Official youtube/facebook like giver? Or for that matter, forum poster?

The Green Party have something similar to this in their manifsto, they're calling it a citizen's income (http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ec.html#EC730):

That reminds me of the unconditional income the Swiss had proposed a few months ago, as well as an European initiative with the same intention that failed to gather enough signatures to move forward. Also, things like these have been tested before, as in for example Mincome, in Canada. Too bad no one ever bothered to continue looking at it.  :(

well that I can agree with , thanks for your inputs

The way you state it sounds very bias. Like the type of person that cares more about ideology than truly thinking through what the best solution would be.

I did just for kicks.  It'd be a very good lesson for people as to what the real effect of a minimum wage is.


Fair enough; the best solution is to stop interfering with the lives of individuals.  If a man feels he is worth $1/hr, so be it; if he feels he is worth $100/hr, so be it; who are we to tell him his "minimum worth"?  It assumes he is as an animal, or that we are as gods: either he is too stupid to make decisions for himself, or we are so beyond him we should dictate his wages.  People aren't animals, people can reason, and if a man reasons $1/hr as his ideal wage, so be it.  The only thing a minimum wage does is create unemployment, as anyone who is not worth $7.50/hr (or whatever has been decided) is not going to get to work, and thus cannot get the experience necessary to be worth more than $7.50/hr.  Now you've created a dependency class; this is fundamental in our welfare/warfare society, as these people will literally go along with whatever you're doing so long as you feed and clothe them.

It is difficult for some people to hear things the way they actually are. It is much better to think that people are following laws because they agree with them. Not because they are forced to do so under threat of being kidnapped and thrown in a cage.

Market is run by supply and demand.

If someone else can do a job for cheaper, business will use the cheaper labor.

This is exactly what a minimum wage is doing to prevent the situation.
It forces the company to pay a minimum wage even if people are willing to do it for less.

There are advantages as well as disadvantages. Recently I have noticed the trend by several employers, of using cheap illegal labor. This results in the unemployment of the well-qualified native citizens. Minimum wage, prevents this. But at the same time, it encourages unhealthy practices, such as blackmailing by employee unions.

The minimum wage doesn't prevent this , it is the cause of it. If they would be able to pay legally less , they will do it legally , if they are forced to pay something that makes no sense to their production cost, they will employ on the blackmarket.

Perhaps you should look up the definition of nationalize.  ::)

And we got a commie right here , such a rare sight on this forum.

You want to do the same as the Russian did to the kulaks :?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak

I like this idea. And why stop with property? Many ugly men go their whole lives without having sex with a beautiful woman while good looking men have hot girlfriends. This is obviously unfair. Men with hot girlfriends need to give them up proportionally to ugly men a few times a month for sex to even things out. Same with good looking guys being required to have sex with ugly women. Equal rights for all. Nationalize it all.

NO , NO and NO.
That is not how commies do it.

First the guy with a beautiful girlfriend will have to be shot. His family sent to siberia because with his cute girl he threatened the stability of the state.
Then the girlfriend will become common property for all the guys in town who have only managed to reach 2nd grade , are mentally retarded and suffer from alcoholism (the commie ruling class) and have wanked all their life.

If your basic needs are covered no matter what then if your ability to work will only pay for something just above your basic needs then you will likely not want to work at all because your needs are taken care of one way or another. This puts an overall drag on the economy.

I like your use of sarcasm in order to get your point across.

Nationalizing property and income is essentially socialism. Socialism will never succeed because people do not have an incentive to do their best work because they get the same reward no matter how they perform

Bad idea! A nationalized industry is a failed industry. The end result of nationalizing an industry is that the workers would end up with less money and higher future liabilities.

As I like my work, I can't imagine myself not doing it, even if all my basic needs were taken care of. Of course not everyone likes their job, and a lot of people would try to take advantage, but I don't know if it would be the majority. Have you heard of mincome? I think we should try something like that xD

Tell that to the bankers who were bailed out in the last financial crisis ;)

Minimum wage should be raised though. I think $100 might be a bit too high, will be interesting to see if NYC's mayor Bill de Blasio living wage plans get expanded across the city:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/nyc-mayor-de-blasio-plans-expansion-of-living-wage-nyt/

"New York Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to expand the city’s living wage measure to include thousands of additional workers, as well as increase the amount workers are paid under the law, the New York Times reported on Monday.

De Blasio will sign an executive order on Tuesday to make the change, which his administration estimated could extend coverage to 18,000 workers over the next five years, the newspaper said on its website.

The living wage would go to $11.50 an hour from $10.30 for workers who receive benefits such as health insurance, and for those without benefits, it would rise to $13.13 an hour from $11.90 an hour, the paper said".

Fixing an unsustainable minimum wage is only going to accelerate the trend of industrial automation
Common man is fucked no matter what

Only if they want to increase unemployment.

Increasing minimum wage would only make the dollar be worth less.

The only 'real' use of minimum wage is to help make sure things like slavery are not big issues.

TL;DR at the bottom of this post.

Most everything else with minimum wage is pointless.

in '12 about 73.5 million workers with about 3.5 million at or below minimum wage.  That is about 5% of ALL workers.

Of those 3.5 million about 1.7 million where under 25, about 990 thousand with out HS diploma/GED.  These people are probably in high school or college supplementing their coursework either to pay their way through school or to party ;-)  Or even just for work experience.  Wopper flopping your way through school looks better on a resume than playing world of warcraft 30 hours a week, even if you spent the money on hookers and blow (as long as you didn't get caught lol)

There are always going to be those who make less.  Everyone has a chance to live the dream but sometimes that dream is a nightmare.  How you live in a free market democratic system is up to you.  You don't like your situation there are ways out of it... and often it is not as hard as it seems.

Point is the amount of people making the federal minimum is not all that high and in many areas is enough to live on if you are single.  If you got kids chances are you got enough assistance to make it work fairly easily financially though it might still be a headache.  It is just another one of those "War on somethings" like healthcare, LGBT, different Sexes, climate etc that really do not effect a lot of people until there is a law to change it and then it screws everyone over.  I think the whole raising the min wage is to put people into higher tax brackets for a temporary boost in revenue.

IMO: Federal minimum wage should be abolished and replaced with State and local minimum wages. (almost done now)  New York state just raised minimum wage this past January to $8 an hour and will be raised again next January.  In New York City or Buffalo it is very rough to live on.. but in rural areas that is more than enough.  I think one county out west somewhere raised their minimum wage to $15 an hour.  I bet the cost of living is really high there.

Another thing to consider.  If minimum wage is $8 per hour, I make $9 per hour at a semi-skilled job and then minimum wage gets raised to $11 an hour I get a $2 raise with my skill set.. unskilled positions get a $3 raise.  Basically I got a pay cut.

TL:DR: not really much of a problem, just a scare tactic against the GOP and the 1%, IMO put minimum wage on states and local governments as the COL is different for different areas.  and don't eff my pay up by raising it to what I make ;-)

Ofcourse not.

Supply and demand, it's that simple.

Say this 100$ an hour is a 20% raise over the previous year, and the company has reached a 3% improve in profit, it would mean the company has to get that 17% from somewhere.
Most high position people are also investors, they want to get their money back, not lose even more. What is going to happen to give people their 17%, is that 17% of the employees are getting fired.

otherwise the company will go bankrupt, and firing people is bad for the economy which in it's place will create a downwards spiral.

Basic economy with kuusj98.

Two videos from Schiff for those interested by the topic :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW_MHVTjfz8&list=UUIjuLiLHdFxYtFmWlbTGQRQ
43:42 - LA raises minimum wage for hotel workers


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZDvVaUrM4&list=UUIjuLiLHdFxYtFmWlbTGQRQ

He explains that when you raise the minimum wage the firms will have higher costs so higher prices slower business so will need less workers; they will hire better skilled workers and fire a lot of unskilled workers that are working for them because they can afford workers with more skills, they will try to use less workers for services or replace them by automation.

Investors generally will want to see profits increasing every year, and if they do not they will demand changes. Investors will likely demand that these low wage workers be replaced by automation which will result in them not having any work at all

Simply put, no, in my belief no one has a right to force you via coercion to do something, but I feel people should vote with their money more wisely, if you're on the West Coast find a local WinCo and shop there, at least your money stays local instead of going into some (Wall St.) shareholder's pocket. If you're on the East Coast well crowdsource something similar to WinCo.