What Should the Minimum Wage Be (USA)?

by Village Idiot 66 Replies latest social current

  • Saintbertholdt
    Saintbertholdt
    ...you then arrest them for non-payment of bills.

    WAIT A MINUTE... Are you proposing the bringing back of debtors jail?

    Oh BTW the "living wage" goes back to Adam Smith.

  • stan livedeath
    stan livedeath
    LoveUniHateExams43 minutes ago

    What about people flocking to areas with higher minimum wages? Wouldn't it contribute to accelerated urbanization? - good questions, and I don't think that accelerated urbanization is a good thing.

    In the more expensive parts of London, e.g. Chelsea, South Kensington, it's impossible for someone on the minimum wage plus London Waiting to live in these areas

    i think you mean London Weighting

  • Village Idiot
    Village Idiot

    Saintbertholdt:

    "When conditions deteriorated beyond the believable, the unions came into existence."

    In the retail establishments where I have worked people have been forced to work "off the clock" (free labor for the company). Why should anyone have to wait until it gets worse?

  • talesin
    talesin
    ok, so what does work?

    Thank you. The reply was honest. I think that things changed when corporations gained a legal identity. Even Henry Ford warned that this was a bad idea.

    In Canada, we used to be what I would call a 'socialist democracy' ... government was run by politicians, who answered to the people who elected them. We had a community - and a social contract with the government, that spoke of true democracy "of the people, for the people, by the people". Nowadays, politicians must kow-tow to big business, and corporations dictate policy.

    The world definitely needs a quantum shift, towards humanism, rather than capitalism. Medicine for profit - and we call ourselves civilized? Tut, tut!

    I'm not saying my thoughts of how it could and should be, are easily achieved, but it's become 'sink or swim'. The information highway has made it possible for ALL poor people to see that we are serfs.

    LOL, we are free? More free than those who live in so-called 'third world' countries? Most of us are no more than wage slaves. It's time to wake up. (not to anyone in particular, just the whole western world, haha!) xx tal

    PS. That's one point, had a long day, more later! xx

  • Saintbertholdt
    Saintbertholdt
    In the retail establishments where I have worked people have been forced to work "off the clock" (free labor for the company) Why should anyone have to wait until it gets worse?

    I don't know. Shouldn't market forces perhaps correct it?


  • LoveUniHateExams
    LoveUniHateExams

    Are you proposing the bringing back of debtors jail? - there needs to be an effective deterrent to stop Brits from adding to their brood when they can't afford it. If debtors jail doesn't work then somebody should come up with a viable deterrent, pronto.

    Certainly, I believe that foreign-born people who irresponsibly increase their families should be thrown out.

    i think you mean London Weighting - yes, that's it. I know what I'm talking about ...

  • Saintbertholdt
    Saintbertholdt
    Thank you. The reply was honest. I think that things changed when corporations gained a legal identity. Even Henry Ford warned that this was a bad idea.

    Well organizations go back very far and seem to be an organizing principle employed by humans. I believe a feature of global evolution.

    The idea of an organization being a legal person enables organizations to outlive its founder, for example: Ford, Hewlett Packard, IBM and so on.

    The problem also being unlimited liability. If a human supersedes the organization he or she is the head of, the management/workers will always be at risk and not the corporation. Now this may sound like a good idea until you have malicious litigation and so on.

    BTW I'm also conflicted about the rights of corporations to some extent.

  • Village Idiot
    Village Idiot

    Village Idiot:

    In the retail establishments where I have worked people have been forced to work "off the clock" (free labor for the company) Why should anyone have to wait until it gets worse?

    Saintbertholdt:

    I don't know. Shouldn't market forces perhaps correct it?

    And how would such a mystical force do any correcting? You already have laws against it yet places like Home Depot continue to practice it in spite of more than one class action suit. To them it's simply part of the expense of doing business and they profit from that stolen labor in spite of token penalties.

  • talesin
    talesin

    Minimum wage in Canada is $10.00/hour. You can't have a 1BR apt. and eat on that. Something to think about.

    Also, I have a friend in Ohio, and she just had back surgery months ago, and another yesterday. There is NO welfare for housing - she cannot work, has no family support (exJW) and gets only food stamps ...coming out of hospital, she will have to couch-surf because there is NO provision for single adults who are disabled and (yes she has applied for federal benefits and the usual denial, had to get a lawyer, etc. ... the usual BS) unless you are a quad or multiple amputee or on your death-bed with cancer, good luck with getting housing!

    So, yeah, I don't like our system as it is. (lol, yeah, I'm tired, but ack, I get so bothered by our complacency and attitude of superiority - we live in the BEST society/culture - whatEVER). xx tal

  • LoveUniHateExams
    LoveUniHateExams

    Good response, Talesin.

    LOL, we are free? - well, it's relative but we're certainly a lot freer than some poor bastards. Think of gay men living in Syria, atheists living in Saudi or anyone that pisses off Kim Jong Un living in North Korea.

    The world definitely needs a quantum shift, towards humanism, rather than capitalism - agreed, there obviously needs to be some kind of change. I think politics is a necessary evil. There will have to be a political system in place. While there are many good aspects re humanism, is it a political system? How could humanism move into the void left by capitalism?

    Medicine for profit - and we call ourselves civilized? - why is medicine without profit civilized? You're gonna have to expand on this point.

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit