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The United States is ranked 4th in largest gap between rich and poor outside of the third world. Only Chile, Mexico, and Turkey have larger gaps.
Since the beginning of the "Great Recession," 67% of all new jobs created were considered to be low wage.
Only 11% of Americans unemployed for longer than 6 months have found work.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a problem. Modern capitalism is about hoarding wealth, not investing it or sharing it. A conservative estimate of funds sitting unused in offshore tax havens is roughly $27 trillion. Economists are calling this an 'economic black hole' - it is money literally taken out of the American economy where it is not being invested nor is it being taxed.
Today, providing jobs, paying well, making a good product, and providing a good service all come in at a very very distant second behind hoarding wealth and pandering to the stockholders. The rise of corporatism has destroyed the passion and pride one used to feel making a good product and earning a good salary that most Americans once possessed - something that used to make us the envy of the world.
Would $15/hour kill SOME businesses? Sure ... but you know what? Change is always difficult, especially in the economic world. But MOST companies can afford to pay those kinds of wages. They simply don't want to because it would eat into their net profits. Do they have to raise prices? No ... but they will because they're greedy and don't want to use their profits for anything but power politics and hoarding. If your net profit goes down - for any reason - so too do your stock prices, and that's when people begin to sell off your stocks. And businesses don't want that, no sirree.
The competition in today's game is to have infinitely increasing net profits. This year's net profits have to be higher than last year's, and next year's net profits have to be higher than this year's. And companies lay people off, make shoddy goods, provide lousy service, kick unions to the curb, tack on a cornucopia of mysterious fees, force customers into expensive contracts, and pay poverty wages in order to accomplish this.
Far too many people see businesses as sugardaddies who will provide jobs and pay decently because they are concerned for their employees and want our nation to be strong. NO! Corporatism has no soul. It is as dispassionate as a rock, and if they could throw every last working man and woman out on their ears to avoid having to pay them, they'd do it so fast that an eyeblink would be in slow motion by comparison.
"Trickle-down" economics is a proven failure. To trust in the free market sorting itself out, to trust that laissez faire capitalism is the best route to take is the same thing as trusting in the better angels of the rich, trusting in their generosity. Now ... why would you do that?
But I'm not against businesses making money nor do I expect top tier executives to make the same as the guy emptying ash trays. But modern capitalism is like watching Ghenghis Khan and his Mongol horde cresting the next rise - knowing they're going to murder, rape, plunder, loot, and pillage everything it can before clearing off, leaving nothing but desolation in its wake.
I'm all for $15/hour ... but it won't do any good. The corporate suits will just jack up all the prices in order to take all of that new money away from the people without actually giving them more products and services. Essentially, a $15/hour worker won't be any better off than someone making $7.50 today.
Does it have to be that way? Certainly not. But modern capitalism insists that net profits always have to grow, thus they will raise prices and lay people off to make sure it does.
There are things that could be done to mitigate some of the issues. Making the agricultural sector exempt from the minimum wage hike would be one way. Perhaps businesses which make less than a certain amount of gross profit per year could also be exempt.
But the way in which business is done today IS unsustainable. A consumer-driven economy cannot continue to function when the consumers are too broke to support it.
He's right. Artificial props like "rent control" and "high minimum wage" simply make the problem worse. Now there will be less jobs, and more demand for them.
Hopefully it doesn't get to where you need a billion dollars to buy a loaf of bread like people needed in Zimbabwe.
The difference is that at least people were paid hundreds of millions of dollars in Zimbabwe. If we had that type of hyperinflation here do you think wages would rise? Nope, not at all.
So apparently paying farmer workers a living wage to pick tomatoes would increase the price by about 10 cents a pound.... (source is the book Tomatoland. Forgot the exact number, but it was only a few cents)
People are exaggerating quite a bit.
The other thing, that minimum wage increase do not account for, is the decrease in turnover when people make a decent wage. If you lose 200% of your employees every year and that cuts down to 20%, you save costs in many other places in your business.
the average profit for a business is 5% Gross. If the government forces expenses on any company-thru regulations, which this 15hr is, Small business will go broke and big business will be forced to cut jobs or shut down locations and sell the real Estate they own. Why do people with out any economics in their expertise think they can be smarter than the marketplace? 15hr is a job killer and will put small businesses out of work. It is not the private sector that is responsible for helping workers get a living wage.
It is the educators that have failed to create high levels of literacy. It is the educational system that could deliver college degrees online for 1/10th the current cost-because of the internet and innovation. And yet they raise the tuition much faster than inflation-to build fiefdoms and tenureship and fat pensions. They talk a good game"we want everyone to have a good education" but they think only of their own profit.
Education suffers from government subsidy and greed just like the Medical marketplace. We need to do what Obama did to medicine, To education. Fire the Unions and deliver a product that people can afford. Cut off all Government subsidy for College tuition and lets see how fast the cost of tuition drops. Educators are self-serving Hippocrates.
Help everyone get an education and get a good job and grow the economy. Build FREE online colleges that compete with state and private colleges. Let the employers decide if these graduates will make good workers! Soon the low-wage jobs will be hard to fill at 15ph!
the average profit for a business is 5% Gross. If the government forces expenses on any company-thru regulations, which this 15hr is, Small business will go broke and big business will be forced to cut jobs or shut down locations and sell the real Estate they own. Why do people with out any economics in their expertise think they can be smarter than the marketplace? 15hr is a job killer and will put small businesses out of work. It is not the private sector that is responsible for helping workers get a living wage.
It is the educators that have failed to create high levels of literacy. It is the educational system that could deliver college degrees online for 1/10th the current cost-because of the internet and innovation. And yet they raise the tuition much faster than inflation-to build fiefdoms and tenureship and fat pensions. They talk a good game"we want everyone to have a good education" but they think only of their own profit.
Education suffers from government subsidy and greed just like the Medical marketplace. We need to do what Obama did to medicine, To education. Fire the Unions and deliver a product that people can afford. Cut off all Government subsidy for College tuition and lets see how fast the cost of tuition drops. Educators are self-serving Hippocrates.
Help everyone get an education and get a good job and grow the economy. Build FREE online colleges that compete with state and private colleges. Let the employers decide if these graduates will make good workers! Soon the low-wage jobs will be hard to fill at 15ph!
Disagree 5% is very low, unless its a grocery store.
Disagree 5% is very low, unless its a grocery store.
Yep. Mcdonalds posted 18%. To me, that's still pretty tight. I like mine to be over 25% but I shoot for 33%. Keep my operating budget low and 'stuff the mattress' incase we need to ride a low. That way, we all stay employed.
He is out of touch with reality. If you work full time and make 15 dollar an hour you make 2,400 a month or 28,800 a year. That is what the people who come in and clean Starbucks makes if Starbucks don’t hire cleaning-firms that use illegal immigrants.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina
The United States is ranked 4th in largest gap between rich and poor outside of the third world. Only Chile, Mexico, and Turkey have larger gaps.
Since the beginning of the "Great Recession," 67% of all new jobs created were considered to be low wage.
Only 11% of Americans unemployed for longer than 6 months have found work.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a problem. Modern capitalism is about hoarding wealth, not investing it or sharing it. A conservative estimate of funds sitting unused in offshore tax havens is roughly $27 trillion. Economists are calling this an 'economic black hole' - it is money literally taken out of the American economy where it is not being invested nor is it being taxed.
Today, providing jobs, paying well, making a good product, and providing a good service all come in at a very very distant second behind hoarding wealth and pandering to the stockholders. The rise of corporatism has destroyed the passion and pride one used to feel making a good product and earning a good salary that most Americans once possessed - something that used to make us the envy of the world.
Would $15/hour kill SOME businesses? Sure ... but you know what? Change is always difficult, especially in the economic world. But MOST companies can afford to pay those kinds of wages. They simply don't want to because it would eat into their net profits. Do they have to raise prices? No ... but they will because they're greedy and don't want to use their profits for anything but power politics and hoarding. If your net profit goes down - for any reason - so too do your stock prices, and that's when people begin to sell off your stocks. And businesses don't want that, no sirree.
The competition in today's game is to have infinitely increasing net profits. This year's net profits have to be higher than last year's, and next year's net profits have to be higher than this year's. And companies lay people off, make shoddy goods, provide lousy service, kick unions to the curb, tack on a cornucopia of mysterious fees, force customers into expensive contracts, and pay poverty wages in order to accomplish this.
Far too many people see businesses as sugardaddies who will provide jobs and pay decently because they are concerned for their employees and want our nation to be strong. NO! Corporatism has no soul. It is as dispassionate as a rock, and if they could throw every last working man and woman out on their ears to avoid having to pay them, they'd do it so fast that an eyeblink would be in slow motion by comparison.
"Trickle-down" economics is a proven failure. To trust in the free market sorting itself out, to trust that laissez faire capitalism is the best route to take is the same thing as trusting in the better angels of the rich, trusting in their generosity. Now ... why would you do that?
But I'm not against businesses making money nor do I expect top tier executives to make the same as the guy emptying ash trays. But modern capitalism is like watching Ghenghis Khan and his Mongol horde cresting the next rise - knowing they're going to murder, rape, plunder, loot, and pillage everything it can before clearing off, leaving nothing but desolation in its wake.
I'm all for $15/hour ... but it won't do any good. The corporate suits will just jack up all the prices in order to take all of that new money away from the people without actually giving them more products and services. Essentially, a $15/hour worker won't be any better off than someone making $7.50 today.
Does it have to be that way? Certainly not. But modern capitalism insists that net profits always have to grow, thus they will raise prices and lay people off to make sure it does.
There are things that could be done to mitigate some of the issues. Making the agricultural sector exempt from the minimum wage hike would be one way. Perhaps businesses which make less than a certain amount of gross profit per year could also be exempt.
But the way in which business is done today IS unsustainable. A consumer-driven economy cannot continue to function when the consumers are too broke to support it.
The problem with United States and the rest of the west is that there are so few highly productive jobs left. America created its wealth through industrial production but most of it has been outsourced to third world countries and the rest has been replaced by robots. America has a growing population (mainly through immigration) but it is not a growing population United States need but a reduced population so wages and work-opportunities meet the demand. USA just as Western Europe has an oversupply of workers and it needs to go down significantly. In 1850 to 1920 tens of millions of Europeans immigrated to United States from Europe – because the industrial age made it impossible for people to live of the land. In United States –there were a demand for colonialists, farmers and workers and so they could find employment. A higher minimum-salary would mean that the fast-food industry (that employ a growing number of Americans) would mean lower profits just as the margins was lower in the USA in the 1880, when USA did not have an minimum-wage. The consequence would likely be more automatization – people will be replaced by robots. A lot of white-color or blue-color jobs in offices have been replaced by robots. For example has secretaries been replaced by computers. In the future I think economists and accountants will have hard time to find jobs with more advanced computers. If this going to work out – you has to lower the population but the political and media elites has no intrest in this because it raise salaries – but one wonder. What will happen when 30-40 percent of the population is out of the work-force and lives on welfare-checks and food-stamps? Things going really bad in Southern Europe – and people are starting to vote on Neo-Nazis and communists. If I were part of the elite I would worry – but it seems that Western elites rather stay in power with the same policy than make any changes.
Last edited by Sconesforme; 06-25-2014 at 11:21 PM..
What are widely considered "producers" of our country are not having children until either way later in life or at all. The population is increasing from as you say, immigrants- and my addition, not exactly the brightest.
We can live with pie in the sky dreams here and act like everyone has a fair chance and in America, kids have the freedom to be whatever they want. The reality is, the future for these new kids are auto mechanics (on the high level) and unemployable mouth breathers (on the low end).
Unfortunately, these jobs are not going to be there. Lest us also remember that robots weren't just implemented to save money, but also to provide reliable work. Work that doesn't show up late, drunk or high. Robots are dependable. The people whose job they replaced are usually not. And no, no one will pay them more. We need to get over that. Forklift drivers are lucky to have a job. In 10 years, they won't. Kick, scream, whatever- these jobs are leaving.
In 10 years, America will be a wasteland of derelicts and mega rich. It will be Europe. UE in the 50%'s. Bums and drovers lining every inch of public real estate.
And let's get serious, us, as consumers, are just as much to blame. We keep buying this garbage and helping in this country's race to the bottom.
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