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Message 1708158 - Posted: 3 Aug 2015, 18:45:05 UTC - in response to Message 1707860.  

According to economic theory there are 3 factors of production, land labor and capital. Each should earn according to it's marginal productivity. As we advance our technology robotics and computers, which are capital are replacing much labor. The problem is what do we do with the displaced. As it is they are putting downwards pressure on the price of labor while those who own the capital are able to keep a larger portion of their production. This will create social chaos, witness the French or Russian revolutions, where the critical factor was land and eventually the "pitch forks" came out. To avoid that it is obvious that the market has to find a way to distribute more equitably across the populous.

Ah one of the factors. Another is the transportation efficiencies that we have made, speed and cost. Today an unskilled and/or semi-skilled labor job does not always have to be done near the point of consumption. This has allowed the large pools of unskilled and semi-skilled labor to be able to compete for jobs anywhere on the face of the planet. This increases the pool of available labor and puts significant downward pressure on the price of labor.

The reality is that humans have over bred. This also jibes with the issues humans have with AGW. Unfortunately people don't like to face the root cause of these issues.
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Message 1708164 - Posted: 3 Aug 2015, 19:19:25 UTC - in response to Message 1708049.  

Negative to your above opinion.

Peer Review, is many times, just those who have the same opinion.

Those holding an opposite opinion. Which may be correct. Are usually ridiculed and dismissed, by the Scientific Establishment. Of course, this and any Establishment, include both positive and negative aspects.

Yeah but the type of science where opinions come into play are generally only social sciences. And those sciences don't deal with truths in the way the natural sciences do. As a result there are usually varying theories that are looking at one phenomena, only from different angles. Non of the theories claim that they are the final, all encompassing answer to explaining why the phenomena they study is what it is.

It does mean that in peer review studies, you want scientist that follow the same theoretical approach look at a study. Its not because they have the same opinion, its because they follow the same theoretical approach, and are therefor best equipped to deficiencies in a study.

Negative.

The Leakey quote was about All Science. Not just Social.

As he, and many, many, many others, point out.

The assumptions and culture the Scientists and the Science Establishment brings to the Research:

May, in too many cases, 'color' in what direction the Research progresses.. Which Data is given importance or rejected. Etc.

Science is not, has never been, and will never be, a purely intellectual pursuit.

BTW: I decided to reference 'Origins', because it is an excellent General Reference Book regarding Leakey's Research into Evolution. And a must read, for those interested in the subject.


Re: your Leakey/Lewin quote:

Or as Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin noted in their book - Origins:

"illustrates the sometimes indecent eagerness with which scientists will accept what they want to believe. Researchers today are not exempt from this weakness, and it can be seen in all branches of science."


O_o

Match point, CLYDE!

A lot of people around here would do well to remember that quote on a host of other topics too... notably the AGW ones.

There is an awful lot of politics (governmental and otherwise) in science.

But, as enlightening as this bit is, it is becoming off topic.

@ everyone

Back to 'to work or not to work... that is the question...'

A lot of people on Govt. Benefit programs of one sort or another do not wish to either get a job or increase their hours or their pay. This is in many cases due not to 'lazy'... It is due to them wanting to maximize their 'incomes'.

This is an issue due to poor design of these various social programs benefit structures. In these cases, for every additional dollar of 'earned income' (wages) they receive, it can end up costing them *MORE* than a dollar of their incomes from the social programs. This is a powerful disincentive.

If we *must* have government social programs as a 'safety net' (I dispute this, but your mileage may vary), we *must* redesign the benefit structures to remove this disincentive to working.

On to the topic of 'minimum wage'. Yes, it may seem a great many people (including many here) that the 'evil, rich, business owners/investors/capitalists' can afford to pay their employees more. While in some industrial sectors this might be the case, in many it is not.

Let us consider the poster-child of the $15/hr movement... McDonalds.

Yes, McDonalds.

MCD

Official Global McDonald's Corporate Website

On the surface it appears that McDonalds is a rather rich multinational corporation, and as far as that goes, it *is*...

However this fact, for the most part, is irrelevant.

Per the McDonald's 2014 Annual Report
Item 6 (on page 11 of the report which is on page 17 of the PDF linked above), at end-of-year 2014 there were:

Company-operated restaurants  6,714
Franchised restaurants       29,544
Total Systemwide restaurants 36,258
Franchised sales(2)         $69,617  [figure is in millions of $]


(2)
While franchised sales are not recorded as revenues by the Company, management believes they are important in understanding the Company's financial performance because these sales are the basis on which the Company calculates and records franchised revenues and are indicative of the financial health of the franchisee base. Franchised restaurants represent more than 80% of McDonald's restaurants worldwide.


OK, over 80% of the McDonalds locations in the world are not corporate locations (owned by McDonalds) but are *Franchises*. Effectively these franchise locations are Small Businesses, owned by the Franchisee. The typical franchisee for McDonalds is someone with 10 to 20 years experience in fast-food resturant management that has decided to stop working *FOR* 'the man' and *BE* 'the man'. So, they raid their savings, and often max out the mortgage their home (going into debt up to their eyeballs in so doing), and scrape together enough to either buy an existing McDonalds franchise from another franchisee that wants out, or starts a new McDonalds franchise. They are risking virtually everything they have, and have to work LONG hours at least until the franchise is well enough established to afford a competent management team to help out the franchisee.

By the figures above, the average revenue (sales) for a McDonalds franchise location worldwide is (69,617,000,000.00 / 29,544 = $2,356,383.70) uhh.. $2.4 million per year. Remember that this figure is worldwide.

Ok, I have done some research, and have come up with a set of figures for the 'average' US McDonalds franchise. You are free to do your own, and you will probably come up with some different numbers, but the base concepts are what is vitally important, not the exact numbers.

Here it is.

The important lines are:

Net Sales / year = $2.7 million.
Crew Payroll / year = $540,000 (20% of net sales).

and

Store-level Operating Income / year = $153,900.00 (5.7% of net sales).


This $153,900.00 figure is what the owner (the franchisee) has to service his debt on (if any) and to live on. You know... His/Her yearly *income*.

Now then, I do not know what the average hourly wage is for McDonalds crew in the US is, but I do know what the *starting* wage is in this area for a McDonalds crew position...

$8.50/hr.

Now then, to increase this to $15/hr would be a... uhh.. 76.5% wage increase.

The crew payroll line above would go from

$540,000.00 (20% of net sales) to roughly

$953,100.00 (35.3% of net sales)...

OOPS!!!

Where is this money going to come from?

It can't come out of the owner's profit... The owner's profit is only 5.7% of net sales, totally insufficient to cover a raise of 15.3% of net sales.

There is no choice but to raise prices on the food McDonald's sells by at least (ignoring, for the moment, the other effects of doing so) 15.3%. But you can't really get away with ignoring the other effects...

Now then, if it was *just* McDonalds, it wouldn't be so bad. Just stop eating McDonalds if you can no longer afford it... BUT...

It is not JUST McDonalds. You are talking about raising the US Federal Minimum Wage from the current $7.25/hr to $15.00/hr...

Many of you have NO idea what that would DO to the US economy and (indeed in today's global economy) even the WORLD economy. It wouldn't be pretty.

Let us examine, for a moment, just how many people that federally mandated raise in wages to $15.00/hr would affect.

According to the US Federal Government, specifically the Department of Labor, the median wage/salary income for ALL working people in the US is $801.00 per week.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t05.htm

This works out to about $20 per hour, but this includes salaried people too.

Perhaps a more appropriate figure to consider:

42% of working people in the USA make less than $15.00 per hour... 42%.

Source: A National Employment Law Project report dated April 13, 2015.

You all are seriously proposing giving 42% of working people in the USA a Federally mandated raise? Do any of you have any idea what that would do to prices on virtually everything?

And what about those currently making $15/hr? They are making about twice federal minimum wage right now. They are going to start wanting $30/hr...

Beginning to get the picture?

And here is another point to consider...

Government taxes and benefits...

Any idea what going to $15/hr on the minimum wage is going to do to people and their tax and benefit situation?

Remember that currently in the USA, almost 50% of people pay no Federal Income Tax, and many get huge tax credits refunded to them (Earned Income Tax Credits, for instance) that reimburse them for their Social Security Taxes as well, and then some?

Well going to a Federal minimum wage of $15/hr would bump most of these people into a tax bracket that would require paying income taxes and losing the tax credits they get currently that gives them Federal Income Tax refunds of many thousands of dollars a year. Furthermore, going to a Federal Minimum wage of $15/hr would bump most of the people currently getting government social program benefits off of eligibility for said programs.

So, effectively, many many people would be worse off... Increased prices on goods and services, especially the ones that people of lesser financial means rely on... Plus loss of exempt from Federal Income Tax status... Plus loss of Government social program benefits...

Hmm... maybe we SHOULD raise the Federal minimum wage to $15/hr or more... I'll have to think about it some more. There may be a silver lining in the misery it would cause.
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Message 1708187 - Posted: 3 Aug 2015, 20:12:36 UTC

If poor McDonalds is so poor that it can't possibly afford a higher minimum wage, then why the hell does it still operate in the rest of the industrialized world, which has much higher minimum wages than in the US? Why aren't they going out of business yet? Indeed, why isn't every business operating in Europe going down since they can't possibly afford to pay those high minimum wages?
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Message 1708193 - Posted: 3 Aug 2015, 20:22:51 UTC - in response to Message 1708164.  

Plus loss of exempt from Federal Income Tax status... Plus loss of Government social program benefits...

Major 1 point that should be considered is that the fast food model you describe is one that relies on a govt subsidy for the cost of labor. Another point is if these costs are passed on to the consumer is how much business will be lost. The answer to that would be determined by how elastic is the demand for greasy burgers.
I ask who should be paying for that labor, all of society or the consumers who use the service?
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Message 1708196 - Posted: 3 Aug 2015, 20:27:43 UTC - in response to Message 1708187.  

If poor McDonalds is so poor that it can't possibly afford a higher minimum wage, then why the hell does it still operate in the rest of the industrialized world, which has much higher minimum wages than in the US? Why aren't they going out of business yet? Indeed, why isn't every business operating in Europe going down since they can't possibly afford to pay those high minimum wages?

LOL, the classic answer is American exceptionalism.
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Message 1708289 - Posted: 4 Aug 2015, 2:06:58 UTC - in response to Message 1708278.  

Guy change the slopes of the curves and different results pop out. That is what I was talking about with my statement about elasticity of demand. The graph you posted is a straw man argument until you know the elasticity.
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Message 1708290 - Posted: 4 Aug 2015, 2:10:28 UTC - in response to Message 1708274.  

The reply's by betreger were just a silly ideological rant, as usual.

Ad hominem as usual.
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Message 1708347 - Posted: 4 Aug 2015, 4:05:11 UTC

I still think asking the fast food industry tp pay $15.00 and hour is obscene.
I operate CNC machinery And get paid $17.10 an hour. ( And no Im not complainging about my wage) I hasve to hold some critical dimemenions on the parts I make to +/- .0005 of an inch. Does a freaking burger flipper have to hold to such a tolerance?
Some of you thought the trickle down theory was idiotic. Do do you want to belive in the trickle up theory now?


Said burger flippers will find they are no longer needed as the burger company will not hire anyone who wont or cant work a 40 hour week, And said folks will be asked to work harder.

Im tempeted to quit my high skilled and high stress job and flip burgers. But then I dont have a degree in food prep to quailify.

When employers are forced to pay high wages for unskilled labour. You can bet your keyster they get very picky on who they hire.
[/quote]

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Message 1708368 - Posted: 4 Aug 2015, 4:57:53 UTC - in response to Message 1708164.  

Let me simply point out my post http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=77773&postid=1707230
And the section where I quoted a report http://www.heritage.org/research/testimony/2013/06/what-is-minimum-wage-its-history-and-effects-on-the-economy who quotes the GAO [Government Accountability Office]
This part talks specifically about what actually making such a huge stepped raise in the minimum wage has done in American Samoa. Result, much lower standard of living and much higher unemployment.

You can bet Mickey Dees is working on a burger flipping robot. Works 24/7, doesn't need meal or rest breaks, doesn't join a union, and his "pay" is a few pennies in electricity and oil. They already have used offshore call centers to take the drive through orders and internet the pull tickets to the kitchen!

When you flip burgers, your labor isn't worth more than a robots! So you can expect to be paid like a robot.

Aside, McDonald's same store sales
McDonald’s is struggling to turn around its business after 11 straight months of declining global comparable-store sales.
are not doing well (so bad they are embarrassed to release them), even with its new advertising being blasted all over. They already are priced out of the market and are getting the backlash. They have no room to raise prices as the fast casual burger restaurants are barely higher in price and an order of magnitude better in quality.
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Message 1708451 - Posted: 4 Aug 2015, 9:07:24 UTC - in response to Message 1708347.  

I still think asking the fast food industry tp pay $15.00 and hour is obscene.
I operate CNC machinery And get paid $17.10 an hour. ( And no Im not complainging about my wage) I hasve to hold some critical dimemenions on the parts I make to +/- .0005 of an inch. Does a freaking burger flipper have to hold to such a tolerance?

Perhaps you are grossly underpaid as well then?

Some of you thought the trickle down theory was idiotic. Do do you want to belive in the trickle up theory now?

I do and we know it works. Think about it, in a consumer economy, what keeps it going? CONSUMPTION of course! But if you don't earn a living wage, how can you consume? You can't, because all your money is spend on the cheapest food, rent and other basic necessities, and even then people often need government support to make ends meet. We are at a point where most people waiting tables don't earn enough to ever go to a restaurant themselves. What happens when they earn more. Well obviously then they can go to a restaurant once in a while. That means that suddenly restaurants have a much larger pool of potential customers. Which means they have more business, they sell more of their service, they serve more customers. You want to tell me thats bad for the economy?

Really, why the hell do people buy into this narrative that says that poor people somehow don't deserve to be able to afford a basic but somewhat comfortable lifestyle? Americans work the hardest of any industrialized nation, take the least amount of time off, yet they have the highest poverty rates and the biggest wealth gap of any industrialized nation in the world. How the hell can you look at these facts and not realize that you guys are getting screwed over? How the hell can you look at Germany or Sweden or the Netherlands or even France and go 'why can't we have what they are having?' Our poor are better off than your poor, but you don't want what we have because our rich have to pay more taxes and are perhaps not as obscenely rich as your rich?

Well I guess that is the problem of Americans. Blind optimism. Because you all buy into this ridiculous narrative that if you work hard, you'll some day belong to the 1% yourself. Sure, the system is rigged for everyone who is not the 1% and you are totally aware of how unfair it is, but once you made it, you can look down upon all the suckers who didn't make it and feel good about it, because now the system is finally rigged in your favor. Of course, in reality you will never belong to the 1% ever and you will live your whole life getting screwed over, but optimism has completely blinded you to that fact.
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Message 1708531 - Posted: 4 Aug 2015, 15:46:44 UTC - in response to Message 1708500.  
Last modified: 4 Aug 2015, 15:48:00 UTC

The reply's by betreger were just a silly ideological rant, as usual.

Ad hominem as usual.

betreger...

Again: Where are MajorKong's numbers incorrect?

Clyde, I did not say the good Major's numbers were wrong, don't put words into my mouth!
You used the word "again". Where did you previously ask that question, I must have missed it or are you just being delusional?
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Message 1708542 - Posted: 4 Aug 2015, 15:56:35 UTC - in response to Message 1708368.  
Last modified: 4 Aug 2015, 16:00:09 UTC

Let me simply point out my post http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=77773&postid=1707230
And the section where I quoted a report http://www.heritage.org/research/testimony/2013/06/what-is-minimum-wage-its-history-and-effects-on-the-economy who quotes the GAO [Government Accountability Office]
This part talks specifically about what actually making such a huge stepped raise in the minimum wage has done in American Samoa. Result, much lower standard of living and much higher unemployment.


Yep. Try convincing a lot of people (especially around here) of this... It kinda ruins their economic world-view. One thing I noticed was American Samoa has *different* minimum-wages for *different* industries. Maybe the rest of the USA might need to consider this. Or not.



You can bet Mickey Dees is working on a burger flipping robot. Works 24/7, doesn't need meal or rest breaks, doesn't join a union, and his "pay" is a few pennies in electricity and oil. They already have used offshore call centers to take the drive through orders and internet the pull tickets to the kitchen!

When you flip burgers, your labor isn't worth more than a robots! So you can expect to be paid like a robot.

Burger-flipping robots? That has been invented already. The prototype (all over the news a couple of years ago) is capable of making 360 burgers an hour (one every 10 seconds).

http://singularityhub.com/2013/01/22/robot-serves-up-340-hamburgers-per-hour/
http://www.businessinsider.com/momentum-machines-burger-robot-2014-8
http://momentummachines.com/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2014/09/06/mcdonalds-should-either-raise-wages-or-have-robots-flip-burgers/

From the businessinsider link:

Momentum Machines cofounder Alexandros Vardakostas told Xconomy his "device isn’t meant to make employees more efficient. It’s meant to completely obviate them."


From the Forbes link:

Installing robots to flip burgers would help McDonalds to further standardize its menu, getting rid of its labor problem for good. Robots are very good at following company manuals, do not protest, and do not file lawsuits.


Food prep robotics is here already. What is holding things back? Money. At today's current low wages, the fast food (and other restaurants as well) industry is still using people to do the work. You increase the wages, and the robots start looking like a better deal. All it will take really is one major (or several minor) chain(s) to start converting over to the robots, and economy-of-scale will kick in making the robots a LOT cheaper, and before you know it, burger-flippers will be GONE. The technology is HERE, already. And the robotics can deliver a more standardized, higher quality product than a human can.

Counter help. Several chains are ALREADY converting over. Touch-screens displaying the menu. The customer touches what they want to order, confirms the order, and pays (either swipes the card or inserts cash) and a receipt is printed and the order sent to the kitchen. Fewer mistakes. No hourly wage. What is not to like about it from the restaurant owner? Nothing.

Clean up crew. This is not yet here, but there is a LOT of research going on at the moment on robotics to do housework, for instance for the elderly. Get this working, and it can be re-purposed with minimal effort to clean-up at a restaurant. Say bye-bye to your job scrubbing toilets mopping floors, taking out the trash, and wiping down tables.

Even the people delivering the food and supplies to the locations are at some SERIOUS risk. Driverless cars. Robots unloading the trucks and placing the food and supplies in their designated spots in storage/walk-ins.

The process is already underway. Raising wages will only accelerate the process.

Just like unions priced their members out of jobs when it became cheaper to make the items half-way around the world and ship it back than to make it locally and the USA lost most of its manufacturing jobs, everyone agitating for a higher wage (especially a higher minimum wage) are pricing themselves out of the unskilled/low-skilled labor market (and even quite a number of higher-skilled professions as well).

Remember, even the Chinese company that *makes* robots is replacing most of its workers WITH robots.

Be careful what you wish for... You just might GET it.

There is even a move now to automate farms. Say bye to migrant farm work.

What un/low-skilled jobs will be left? The military?... Uhh.. wait, they are working to automate that too with robots...

The bulk of humanity is gonna be screwed, one way or the other...


Aside, McDonald's same store sales
McDonald’s is struggling to turn around its business after 11 straight months of declining global comparable-store sales.
are not doing well (so bad they are embarrassed to release them), even with its new advertising being blasted all over. They already are priced out of the market and are getting the backlash. They have no room to raise prices as the fast casual burger restaurants are barely higher in price and an order of magnitude better in quality.


Yep. McDonalds is kinda screwed. They are about to have no way forward except to automate.

To paraphrase someone in this thread...

Technology allows the replacement of labor by capital.

To extend the remark,

Once technology allows it, sooner or later, economics demands it.

The workers might win the battle to give them a higher wage...

But in so doing, they will lose the war as their jobs get eliminated.

The problem in this nation, indeed the world, is not that wages are too low.
The problem is that prices are too high, and two of the main reasons are high taxation and excessive governmental regulation.
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Message 1708580 - Posted: 4 Aug 2015, 16:18:56 UTC - in response to Message 1708542.  

Major you understand how capital is replacing labor as a production factor but I feel your conclusion is wrong, the problem is how the product of the improved productivity is distributed. Remember how in France and Russia when the key factor of production was land violent revolution occurred. Beware of the pitchforks.
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Message 1708587 - Posted: 4 Aug 2015, 16:24:08 UTC - in response to Message 1708542.  

Once technology allows it, sooner or later, economics demands it.


Well said; it sure looks that way.
The mind is a weird and mysterious place
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Message 1708611 - Posted: 4 Aug 2015, 22:02:34 UTC - in response to Message 1708501.  

Мишель...

An interesting post. Regarding The USA Poverty and Wages.

Have you taken into account The International Capitalists, taking American Industry and Union Wages, to poor and non-union countries?

So? Why hasn't that happened in Europe? Or at least, why hasn't that happened to the point of ruining our economy, which is what should have happened if we are to believe opponents of raising the minimum wage.

Furthermore, even without an increase of the minimum wage, hell even without an increase of any kind of wage for anyone but the top incomes over the past 30 years, industry has moved from the United States to cheaper places. Its clear that this happens regardless of the wages.
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Message 1708613 - Posted: 4 Aug 2015, 22:04:07 UTC - in response to Message 1708580.  

Major you understand how capital is replacing labor as a production factor but I feel your conclusion is wrong, the problem is how the product of the improved productivity is distributed. Remember how in France and Russia when the key factor of production was land violent revolution occurred. Beware of the pitchforks.

Relevant and very interesting to this discussion.
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Message 1708621 - Posted: 4 Aug 2015, 22:35:36 UTC

Weird.
In Sweden wages is a legally unregulated agreement between workers and employers.

Minimum wage is the lowest wage an employer legally must provide a worker for work performed. Minimum wages are thus a regulation of the sale of the work. A statutory minimum wage are in many countries, but far from all.
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Message 1708672 - Posted: 5 Aug 2015, 0:37:55 UTC - in response to Message 1708613.  
Last modified: 5 Aug 2015, 0:44:34 UTC

Major you understand how capital is replacing labor as a production factor but I feel your conclusion is wrong, the problem is how the product of the improved productivity is distributed. Remember how in France and Russia when the key factor of production was land violent revolution occurred. Beware of the pitchforks.

Relevant and very interesting to this discussion.

Nick gets it and out of self serving interest sees the need to spread it around.
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Message 1708674 - Posted: 5 Aug 2015, 0:48:39 UTC - in response to Message 1708611.  

Мишель...

An interesting post. Regarding The USA Poverty and Wages.

Have you taken into account The International Capitalists, taking American Industry and Union Wages, to poor and non-union countries?

So? Why hasn't that happened in Europe? Or at least, why hasn't that happened to the point of ruining our economy, which is what should have happened if we are to believe opponents of raising the minimum wage.

Furthermore, even without an increase of the minimum wage, hell even without an increase of any kind of wage for anyone but the top incomes over the past 30 years, industry has moved from the United States to cheaper places. Its clear that this happens regardless of the wages.

I happens because as Gary continually points out the the fidicuary duty of a comapany to make a profit is By US law mandatory. Labor as far as i know is only 10% of a prdoucts cost. When you add taxes, cost of electricity, shipping And the other things companys get hit with Such as enviromental regulations and what not. Thats why yuo see manufacturing move ing to poorer countrys. They the investors can use exploit workers and pollute another country as get maximun profit. Untill said poor country wakes up to the fact they are getting ripped off.
Look Im not against a minimum wage. But I think the politcal BS that is going on with this, Will end up bad for a lot of people who need the work.
Just like Obama care. when it takes effct look for many workers to go on part time work so the employer dosent have to offer any health insurance. Yeah that will really help our economy.
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Old James
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Message boards : Politics : To Work or Not?


 
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