GOP Kills Minimum Wage Increase

[CaptainBubba]

Sorry Max, that was directed at Kevin. You posted while I was typing that up.

And Kahl, I never claimed to have a vast melting pot of information on ever corporation in America. Nor did I claim that this one fact was in and of itself something that would speel the doooom of the world. I'm merely pointing out that it is not an ignorable and minuscule variable. It is signifigant. I said nothing more of it in this sense. Take a chill pill.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by CaptainBubba

Really you have little right to criticize my simply yacking on about econ 101 because all you've managed to do so far is formulate your own theories and say you just don't believe ones your opponents present.

hang on a second.

Bubba says: "ECON 101!!"
I say: "Some studies have shown," etc. etc.

Who's formulating their own theories here??? You can disagree with what I cited, that's all well and good (and you're right about some folks disputing it). But please refrain from crying about what right I or we have to criticize you.

Regardless of the validity of any of these complaints its pretty obvious something is amiss because no logical argument or explanation could satisfy the link their trying to make, which is that higher minimum wages cause employment. Sure a few have suggested that but their explanations largely rely on a great deal more time than this study spans. One specific major oversight is that if they're were looking at fast food chains then employment is directly tied to one's hours. Its entirely possible they all hired more employees to fill in the gaps in shifts where people nomally overlapped eachother doing the same job.

Or, fast food chains raising their wages made those jobs more appealing, thus people took them. That's me speculating upon your speculations.....but wait, you don't speculate and "formulate," you cite resources. I forgot.

The point is that there is research out there (along with what Ziggy posted) that shows lower unemployment due to an increase in wages in shitty jobs (like fast food). This of course can be disputed, but it's a far cry from the straight up contradiction that you seem to think exists between higher wages and unemployment.

Being the defender of the poor on these boards have you yourself ever worked in a minimum wage enviroment? They will try to squeeze every dollar of work out of you that is possible to make a profit out of you. A modest increase like this might mean they eliminate you if it is within reason, and having worked in such an enviroment its really not something hard to imagine.

Once again, 12 states already have a higher minimum wage than the federal level, and unemployment at the very least (taking even your criticisms into consideration) has proven in some sectors to remain steady.

Look, if you're going to take personal jabs at me and be a bitch about it, can't you at least go and cite some data from like the Cato Institute or something? I mean, at least put some effort into being a dick.

EDIT: And regarding your stupid-ass litmus test question, yes, I've worked minimum wage.

[mburbank]

Ha-ha, Kev worked a minimum wage job! NOT ME, BABY!! THASS FO SUCKAS!

[kahljorn]

Is any variable ignorable, and by what scale? If it's barely minisule before, more like on a microscopic scale, does a 21% increase really make that much of an effect. What does 21% of a pound decrease matter if the original mass is 20 million pounds? That is miniscule. That's all I was saying, quit thinking I'm trying to burn you at the stake. You presented information and I asked for it-- sometimes on this message board you don't know who's a genius mathematician and who's slumpy the retarded mule.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by mburbank

Ha-ha, Kev worked a minimum wage job! NOT ME, BABY!! THASS FO SUCKAS!

Yeah, well it needed to be said, otherwise Bubba was going to relinquesh my title as "champion of the poor."

With you I'm too conservative now, and with Bubba I'm apparently a socialist. I can't win. :/

[Preechr]

Well, you always have me over here thinking you're a closet libertarian... and possibly gay.

[kahljorn]

You should bring the bulbasaur back, kevin, that will leave no doubt about your sexuality to preechr

Only gay people are vegetarian.

[CaptainBubba]

Originally Posted by kahljorn

Is any variable ignorable, and by what scale? If it's barely minisule before, more like on a microscopic scale, does a 21% increase really make that much of an effect. What does 21% of a pound decrease matter if the original mass is 20 million pounds? That is miniscule. That's all I was saying, quit thinking I'm trying to burn you at the stake. You presented information and I asked for it-- sometimes on this message board you don't know who's a genius mathematician and who's slumpy the retarded mule.

I don't need to find this information because its inherit to the argument against me. If there are so few minimum wage employees that a 21% raise to all of them in the entire nation is in itself inconsequential then any argument for minimum wage also becomes a moot point as it must apply to an extremely extremely small minority. Note: I'm aware that every corporation in the nation might be sooo wealthy that even with a 100% minimum wage worker base this wouldn't nessicarily rock the corporate coffers but to save me the trouble of doing actual work for now I'm going to let you get mad at my sweeping generalization and retort with one of your own.

At risk of Kevin calling me a poopyhead or something equally scathing and offensive, I see no more point in going back and forth with this debate because we'll both just declare there is some unseen variable or consideration the other is not considering. Plus I relaize I do come off as an angry Vince type character alot in these discussions and that makes me kind of hate myself. :/

[kahljorn]

"I don't need to find this information because its inherit to the argument against me. If there are so few minimum wage employees that a 21% raise to all of them in the entire nation is in itself inconsequential then any argument for minimum wage also becomes a moot point as it must apply to an extremely extremely small minority."

I don't really understand what you're getting at.
The part about minimum wage arguments being a moot part because of a small minority base is pointless. It's not a matter of how many people are making money, it's a matter of how much MORE money they'd be making compared to how much the company has. I understand you probably understand this, and that is why I don't understand your point.

The variables don't really matter in a case like this, all you need is a general number to satisfy the question of if the economy would collapse or not. Good day.

[CaptainBubba]

Originally Posted by kahljorn

The variables don't really matter in a case like this, all you need is a general number to satisfy the question of if the economy would collapse or not.

Lol

[kahljorn]

:LoL
I'm going to make an lol because I'm nervous because I couldn't think of anything good to say but i feel like I've been robbed of my pride.

What I meant is we don't need to know that it's going to be 1,425,892.345287927196417957415642179276 we just need to know if it's going to be roughly 1,500,000 because anything above 5,000,000 is going to fuck the economy over. A simple less than greater than scenario, sorry you find yourself being an asshole for no good reason, mr. ECON 101!@)*@&)*#&@)

[mburbank]

Don't take it personally, Kev. Anyone not frothing at the mouth right now is too conservative for me. If it's any consolation, I hate other liberals almost as much as I hate anybody not frothing at the mouth.

I'm just a crotchety old man.

Compassionate crotchety, though.

[kahljorn]

I bet you grab your crotch alot and mumble praises to Hegel.

[CaptainBubba]

a general number to satisfy the question of if the economy would collapse or not.

Lol.

[kahljorn]

I don't get it but I hope your laughter is making children everywhere feel blissful.

[ziggytrix]

It's funny because economics is part math and part voodoo, so there is no magic number at which the economy breaks.



I found an economist/policy maker who says what I feel about the issue though.

Democrats used to talk in moral terms—about fighting for civil rights, for example. What should Democrats say now and in the future about public morality? That it's morally wrong to give huge tax cuts to the rich while cutting social programs for the poor and working class—especially when the gap between the rich and everyone else is wider than it's been in more than a century. That we have a moral obligation to give every American child a good education and decent health care. That it's morally wrong that millions of Americans who work full time don't earn enough to keep their families out of poverty. That corporate executives who steal money from their investors and employees are morally reprehensible. And that it's morally wrong to kill over a hundred thousand Iraqis and send over a thousand young Americans to their deaths for a cause that is still undefined, in a war that was unnecessary.

I'm not saying Democrats have to adopt my particular moral positions. But unless or until Democrats return to larger questions of public morality, they won't inspire the American public. Plans and policies are important, of course. But there's no substitute for offering a vision of what we can become as a nation—and giving citizens the faith we can get there.

Which gets me to the issue of faith. Democrats need to talk more about it, and inspire more of it. But here again, I don't mean the Republican or right-wing evangelical version—faith in a particular religion or god, faith in final judgment. I mean the sort of faith on which all social progress has been based, and must be based—an irrational faith that it is possible, by working together, to create a more just nation and a more just world. This sort of faith is entirely irrational—it defies reason—in the sense that it's often impossible to find hard evidence to justify it. It requires a great leap into the unknown and unknowable. It necessitates boundless energy and absurd optimism even in the darkest times. But without such faith, progress toward a just society is not possible.

- Robert Reich
http://www.slate.com/id/2109190/

[kahljorn]

"so there is no magic number at which the economy breaks."

that's why I said General number. Suffice it to say, if minimum wage was increased to a point that companies were paying out 143,431,542,653,875,536 dollars the economy would break. Words like GENERAL make the world go around, they are called Adjectives, they help describe a scenario in which your brain can grasp onto it and understand without looking illiterate.
What I said was pretty clear. Anybody capable of thinking knows that there's going to be a certain point where it's going too far. Basically, if the amount being paid is more than the companies have to spend the economy is probably going to get fucked.
Just so you know, it is possible to know that, "An increase of this number to this number would be safe, but anything past this could be dangerous".


Obviously they must have left common sense out of economy 101.

[CaptainBubba]

You have no fucking clue what you're talking about. There is no magical general number at which THE WHOLE ECONOMY COLLAPSES. You really seem to have no grasp of how complex what you'e discussing is.

[ziggytrix]

Nothing you've said makes me think you do either, Bubba.

[kahljorn]

Since you seem to say there's no magic number than how do you even know the economy would be fucked from raising minimum wage? It seems like you are arguing with your own opinion. You obviously can know absolutely nothing about it, you are merely regurgitating knowledge you "learned" in a class. By your own admission everything you said was a lie because there's no "magic number at which the economy crashes". You picked 21% as your magic number. :/ Thanks for arguing with yourself, though. I find it entertaining.

"21 % is my magic number!" - captain bubba

Remember, I was only asking for numbers because YOU presented them. Why did you present numbers if there's no magic number the economy crashes? Hypocricy? Stupidity? Ignorance? Please, let me know mr. it's too complicated to know that a number will crash the economy.
Now you have to ask yourself if I knew that there was no magic number and was just waiting for you to say there isn't and make your "21% point" pointless, or if I'm just smart enough to play it off. And what about what you say next, how will that factor in to how i feel about things. Is it what i want you to say? Am I planning out everything ahead of time? How smart am I, really?


"You really seem to have no grasp of how complex what you'e discussing is"

Unfortunately I do, I understand there's tons of companies who have employees hired, some small businesses some huge corporations. I understand they all have a certain amount of money, a certain amount of employees.. some hand out benifits, some rely on resources to gain money, some rely on their employees. Most of the one's that have alot of employees hired(basically, who this would effect the most) are places like walmart and mcdonalds. Do you want to tell me they don't have the money?
Of course the economy is a complicated thing. It's a conglomeration of tons of companies and employees, who may or may not be relying on eachother or other outside influences. Thanks for stating the obvious, jackass. The idea of economy itself is ore of a lucid concept than anything else.
There's also other influences that you haven't considered, especially on minimum wage workers, like welfare. Are you aware that one person can get 150 something dollars in food stamps a month in california? I find that funny since the minimum wage increase would tally out to being about 160 dollars a month. If minimum wage was raised, there's a chance that they would no longer be eligible to receive benefits(although, I haven't looked directly at the magic numbers). Funny how things can often balance themselves out... We have all these programs in place to help poor people, why not just make it so they aren't poor anymore, then all of these shitty programs to help them wouldn't be needed, and they would actually have some respect for themselves. Balance is nice.

[CaptainBubba]

Jesus christ you really are a persistant little child. 21% IS NOT A MAGIC NUMBER IT IS THE PERCENTAGE INCREASE IN PAY OF MINIMUM WAGE WORKERS. HERE, DO IT YOURSELF MORON:

(6.25-5.15)/5.15 = 21.3%

OMG MAGIC NUMBERS!!! WE CAN DO DIVISION HERE AT I-MOCKERY! I'M SUCH A HIGH AND MIGHTY JACKASS FOR THROWING MY DIVISION CAPABLE COCK AROUND BECAUSE I'M MR.NUMBERS HERE THATS RIGHT I CAN DIVIDE.

I NEVER SAID IT WAS A MAGIC NUMBER I DID NOT SAY IT WOULD CRASH THE WHOLE FUCKING ECONOMY. IT IS SIGNIFIGANT. THAT MEANS NOT MINISUCLE AND ABLE TO BE OVERLOOKED.

You are woefully stupid.

[kahljorn]

You mean it's possible to find mathematically significant numbers to calculate how much stress on the economy a certain action might(and i should mention I use the term might here very mightily) bear? Jesus. I didn't learn that in econ 101 and I haven't at all mentioned that in my previous posts at all and it couldn't possibly have been what i meant about a general number or anything like that. It couldn't have possibly been about gathering together the significant numbers.

What you're saying is that this is significant to the employees. No shit, that's why it's a wage increase. You increase the employees wage. Thanks for cracking the mystery though.
But hey, let's go a step further and pay attention to the problem at hand: Will this 21% wage increase effect the economy in a bad way? I doubt it. Nobody cares if this is significant to the employees(which is why it was rejected) they care if it's significant to the economy. So shut the fuck up already, learn to pay attention to what's actually going on.

Everybody knows it's a 21% increase, why? because they said it's a one dollar increase when it was five dollars before(1/5, i think everyone understands fractions). But thanks for enlightening all of us with your magical percentages that are supposed to sway our feelings on this subject.

21% is a magical number because you've shown in absolutely no way how it's relevant to the actual case at hand, you've merely presented shallow knowledge(for no reason, because everybody could tell that the wages were increasing, that's why it was called a wage increase) that has absolutely no detail associated with it and no actual connection to the issue.
It's like you're holding an electric plug in your hand with no socket in sight, wondering why your lamp won't turn on...
My point about 21% possibly being ECONOMICALLY INSIGNIFICANT (notice how i didn't say wagefully insignificant) is like how the gravity of pluto is entirely irrelevant to the sun because the sun's gravity is so much bigger it makes pluto's gravity insignificant no matter how significant it is to the moons. Guberment/corporations=sun -- minimumwageworkers=pluto/moons
I mean, that's just an example.. who knows if it's actually significant, a 21% increase could be very significant, but you can't show how which makes your point insignificant.

I like how you debate an issue about the economy with information that may or may not bear any weight on it, though. That's really clever of you.

[ziggytrix]

Wal-mart CEO Lee Scott says we should raise the minimum wage, but he's smart enough to know where minimum wage earners spend their money. (source)

Also, Wal-Mart pays it's lowest paid employee more than the national minimum wage, and it's yet to bankrupt them.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Walmart is going through a massive PR overhaul right now. This same guy was lobbying Congress to reinstate the Voting Rights Act.

Another smart thing Walmart has done-- They have jumped into the check cashing/money order business. Eventually, every Walmart may have a center like this in their big box stores, so when their employees (or anybody who uses it) cashes their check, well hey, look at all of this shit i can buy!

I'm glad to see they aresupporting the increase. Somebody should tell him to re-take Econ 101.

[kahljorn]

They pay more than minimum wage? I knew a few people who worked there who said they got no benefits and shitty hours/minimum wage, but maybe they were exagerating because they didn't like working in the worst walmart in town(it was one of the 24 hour ones).
I've also heard mcdonald's pays their managers fairly well, though. Something like ten dollars an hour.