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You are ignoring the fact that there aren't enough positions for doctors, programmers, engineers and other high-wage jobs to fill the income void. Increasing minimum wage would personally enrich you -- yes you. You sell stuff for a living. Increasing wages means more (and better) customers.
If you enjoy this race to the bottom that we're in, you don't have to do anything at all. Just watch as we slowly morph into another Brazil or Mexico. Because that's where we're heading.
Sounds great. And how do you plan on making this country that sort of fantastic Utopia where even those without any viable skills have no reason to better themselves?
The better one is at a job, the more skills one has, the higher one gets paid, provided they choose a profession that has the opportunity to support that higher pay. A janitor makes $X. A doctor makes $XXX. Both can be very good at their jobs, and have the necessary skills, but the professions they chose dictate the pay levels they can achieve.
If someone chooses to work at, say, WalMart, or McDonalds, that is because they don't have the skills necessary to work at a job that pays more.
Sure, in an ideal world, everyone would make more money than they could spend. But the world is not ideal, and you do what you can to make it ideal for you.
Stop being short sighted, greedy, selfish morons. Basically.
No one chooses to work at mcdonalds. They take a job and get stuck.
They become a leech instead of contributor. This "incentive" to get skills is such a cop out answer.
2 years for a degree for a job that may or may not exist in 2 years.
2 years spent on the same degree millions of other people are getting because there is demand. Too many workers with the same skill = low demand. I make more as a 50% apprentice carpenter than if I used my accounting degree. In 3.5 years I'll make double that. In 3.5 years an accountant will be making, on average, 50% less than me.
If not for unions standing up for me, I'd make a tick over minimum wage.
It doesn't need to be like this. You don't need to beat down the people who do the jobs you don't want to do, but still utilize.
And when people stop working for a company based on the wages offered, that company goes out of business. A business must stay competitive. If I pay my employees $10/hour, and my direct competitor pays $20/hour, logically the employees would go work for that company. However, if everyone in my industry pays $10/hour, then that is the going rate for those positions and people will then make the CHOICE to work in that industry or not.
It is all about choices. People are paid what someone is willing to pay them. If someone is willing to pay a CEO $10,000,000 per year, than that is the going rate for that position. Why should that person be forced to make $5,000,000 and distribute the rest to those who don't make that? You talk about fairness, how is that fair to the CEO?
And no, it is not a "dream" as you said in your other post, that someone who has an idea and works hard can be rich. It happens all the time. I'm not, by any stretch, rich, but I am comfortable. I both work for a company, as well as own my own company. I work from roughly 6a to 10p between 4 and 6 days a week. I choose not to work at Walmart because I like the quality of life I enjoy. No one is forcing anyone to work anywhere. Walmart pays its employees the amount for which they are willing to work. To vilify a company, or an owner of a company for being successful is just sour grapes, and sounds like it is coming from someone who can't quite figure out how to be successful in your own right, so are jealous of those who are.
Just my perception, I could be wrong.
If there wasn't a minimum wage many companies would pay lower...think about it. Simply look at the fact of how much of our products are made in China in sweat shops. Some companies are only paying minimum wage because they are being told to by law. Please don't forget the amount of people in this country who work for minimum wage or a little more.
You are okay with a minimum wage but not okay with a maximum wage, how is that fair? You are okay with people making a wage less than livable and even more okay with rich people making way more than a livable wage. So who cares if people can pay their bills, feed their families and live...but you shouldn't give a CEO just $5,000,000 a year...give me a break! Are you really failing to realize the clear difference here...one is not surviving and possibly starving while the other is thriving.
Your comments about the American "Dream" is clearly far from fact...again look at the current upward mobility in this country, plenty of studies showing how bad it is. You work from 6am-10pm 4 to 6 days a week, are you proud of that? Is that really how people should be living? You say you like the quality of life you live but work 64 to 96 hours a week...not sure if that is a quality of life most people would say is real quality.
Furthermore you assume.."sounds like it is coming from someone who can't quite figure out how to be successful in your own right"...wrong. I make excellent money and only work 3-4 days a week about 6 hours a day on average. I enjoy spending time with my family and truly having a great quality of life. Just because someone supports the poor and their challenges doesn't make them poor. You fail again to realize how many good people support the upward movement of all people in this country.
There is no way to enforce a maximum wage. It's also not the problem. If I can make a billion dollars and still pay all my workers great wages and benefits, why shouldn't I take my billion for my brilliant idea?
Stop being short sighted, greedy, selfish morons. Basically.
No one chooses to work at mcdonalds. They take a job and get stuck.
They become a leech instead of contributor. This "incentive" to get skills is such a cop out answer.
2 years for a degree for a job that may or may not exist in 2 years.
2 years spent on the same degree millions of other people are getting because there is demand. Too many workers with the same skill = low demand. I make more as a 50% apprentice carpenter than if I used my accounting degree. In 3.5 years I'll make double that. In 3.5 years an accountant will be making, on average, 50% less than me.
If not for unions standing up for me, I'd make a tick over minimum wage.
It doesn't need to be like this. You don't need to beat down the people who do the jobs you don't want to do, but still utilize.
They CHOOSE to be a leech instead of a contributor. Listen, I worked at McDonalds. I was 16. 3 weeks in, I applied to work in a clothing store at the mall making $1/hour more. I worked there for about a year, and left as Asst. Manager to go manage another store for still more money. Then I got a call from my cousin who sold cars. So, not knowing anything about that business, but realizing that it paid about 4x what I was making, I learned it, and spent the next decade and a half doing that.
No college education, but realized that the skills I needed to make a comfortable living could be learned. Without doing it myself, it wouldn't have happened.
Am I really so different than the average person? Or has the average person just resigned themselves to "X", and that's it?
There HAVE to be people to do the jobs we don't want to do, but still utilize. And those people choose to do them. We can choose to do them tomorrow, if we wish. I'm not beating down on those people in the least. They are important jobs. If they're menial, they do those jobs for menial pay. If they aren't menial, like brain surgery, for instance, which I KNOW I don't want to do, because, eww.. they make more.
How does one do that? Are you talking about mandating how much a person can make and disperse the leftover to those who make less? Realistically, I'm not sure how that would work. LOGISTICALLY, I'm not sure how that would work, either.
Would a CEO salary cap be written into the Constitution? Would the companies who now have the extra profit not spent on salary be required to send it to the government? If so, how would the government decide which, specific, citizens then get a check from that company?
I don't see how, exactly, that would work.
"Written into the Constitution", you write that as a joke but fail to realize how big business controls our government today. You speak sarcastically about this subject but again forget about the facts. We are moving away from a Democracy and heading into an Oligarchy.
So please continue supporting big business and their "rights" to not give a livable wage. The taxpayer will continue paying for Walmart's employees, welfare, health insurance and someday retirement. The other big issue you fail to realize retirement. At one point not long ago many more companies gave full retirement, a lot of union contracts have this written in their contracts...today many big businesses don't give retirement...so what happens when all of these workers who live paycheck to paycheck can no longer work. We still currently have a large part of the retired population who are living on retirement either from an employee benefit retirement system or self-funded. So tell me what happens when all of these people retire without any retirement? Tell me when the Social Security Program does actually go bankrupt what we do then. Again you are making this issue as it's not your problem but fail to realize this is a problem we are all facing together.
They CHOOSE to be a leech instead of a contributor. Listen, I worked at McDonalds. I was 16. 3 weeks in, I applied to work in a clothing store at the mall making $1/hour more. I worked there for about a year, and left as Asst. Manager to go manage another store for still more money. Then I got a call from my cousin who sold cars. So, not knowing anything about that business, but realizing that it paid about 4x what I was making, I learned it, and spent the next decade and a half doing that.
No college education, but realized that the skills I needed to make a comfortable living could be learned. Without doing it myself, it wouldn't have happened.
Am I really so different than the average person? Or has the average person just resigned themselves to "X", and that's it?
There HAVE to be people to do the jobs we don't want to do, but still utilize. And those people choose to do them. We can choose to do them tomorrow, if we wish. I'm not beating down on those people in the least. They are important jobs. If they're menial, they do those jobs for menial pay. If they aren't menial, like brain surgery, for instance, which I KNOW I don't want to do, because, eww.. they make more.
So due to nepotism from your cousin you got a break that most people wouldn't.
You work 64 to 96 hours a week, no you are not average, you are overworked...making that great living you are now telling us about.
You say they are menial paying jobs but are important jobs...but don't want to pay them so they can live.
Please go back to working your 64-96 hour a week job and continue believing you are living.
If there wasn't a minimum wage many companies would pay lower...think about it. Simply look at the fact of how much of our products are made in China in sweat shops. Some companies are only paying minimum wage because they are being told to by law. Please don't forget the amount of people in this country who work for minimum wage or a little more.
You are okay with a minimum wage but not okay with a maximum wage, how is that fair? You are okay with people making a wage less than livable and even more okay with rich people making way more than a livable wage. So who cares if people can pay their bills, feed their families and live...but you shouldn't give a CEO just $5,000,000 a year...give me a break! Are you really failing to realize the clear difference here...one is not surviving and possibly starving while the other is thriving.
Your comments about the American "Dream" is clearly far from fact...again look at the current upward mobility in this country, plenty of studies showing how bad it is. You work from 6am-10pm 4 to 6 days a week, are you proud of that? Is that really how people should be living? You say you like the quality of life you live but work 64 to 96 hours a week...not sure if that is a quality of life most people would say is real quality.
Furthermore you assume.."sounds like it is coming from someone who can't quite figure out how to be successful in your own right"...wrong. I make excellent money and only work 3-4 days a week about 6 hours a day on average. I enjoy spending time with my family and truly having a great quality of life. Just because someone supports the poor and their challenges doesn't make them poor. You fail again to realize how many good people support the upward movement of all people in this country.
Actually, yes, as most of that is what I call "work", as it's my company, but it's more of a hobby that happens to pay six-figures. Plus, I work from home with my wife and find it enjoyable
But to your other points, I don't agree with any minimum wage, as then companies would be able to pay people based on skills. I would also submit that it would increase competition for pay, and pay would go up, not down. How many companies pay minimum wage because that is the figure that they are told they have to? If there wasn't a minimum wage, Company A may try to pay $5/hour, but Company B, seeing this, would pay $6/hour, and back and forth we go due to competition, not government mandates.
I am all for people making as much as someone is willing to pay them.
Oh, and by the way, I am very charitable to quite a few organizations, so your last paragraph is moot. I, also, have a great quality of life, and enjoy doing many things that make me happy. Arguing on the internet is not one of those things, so I think we will just agree to disagree and go about our merry days
Some people are not capable of obtaining rewarding skills.
We ARE capabable of ensuring THE GENERAL WELFARE of the country. It's even in the constitution to do so.
A crap economy based on nonsensical values is detrimental to ALL, including you.
You would do a lot better, with less effort, in a better economy. Why are you willingly shooting yourself in the foot with foolish notions?
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