If I had a dollar for every "small business" owner who lives in a half million dollar home, has three or four forty-thousand dollar cars parked in his garage, spends two or three weeks in some sunny spot every winter, and claims he "can't afford" to pay his workers a decent family supporting wage, I'd be living in a condo in Miralargo right now.

An excellent argument for why a single national minimum wage might not make sense.

As for the rest of it, again, you are correct only as far as you've gone with it. You aren't looking at the right part of the economic spectrum. Read Tom4you's post below yours, where he gave a VERY good description of a real world situation which shows how pay needs to be something other than "the cheapest you can find people desperate enough to take on."

Yes, when pay goes up, other costs CAN go up. But again, as Tom showed VERY well, everything IS more complicated than opponents to higher pay would have you believe, because everything IS much more interactive. It is NOT true that every dollar in higher pay must result in more than a dollar rise in the final price of the goods and services, nor does it mean that fewer customers will buy, or anything else.

Something you left out of your description, is that when the employees make more money, they start spending it on OTHER companies goods and services. When more products are bought, prices can actually fall, because efficiencies of mass production fall into place. That's one of the OTHER basics of capitalism which the opponents of higher employee wages insistently forget.

Or the White House.

I find it funny that even after we have proven that minimum wage really isn't minimum wage we still resort to calling it such..I prefer to call it exactly what it is "slave wages" ...

Actually, slave wages included room and board. Terrible room and board, but nevertheless...

Maybe igor you could start a business and employ American only people
Producing something competitive?
You can show the rest how it's done!

Well you don't get much of a house for half a million now days and my boss just spent $70k on a new truck and put another $30k into it, but I have no problem with that because that truck is used to make money. Risk and reward, everybody has the chance to start their own business and the reason everybody doesn't is there is a lot more to it then just saying you want to do it. My job requires a lot more physical and mental abilities and responsibilities than most minimum wage jobs, probably 5 to 10 times as much as that is how many entry level employees it would take to do what I do. So shouldn't I be getting $90 an hour for doing that much more? So it comes down to the value of what you put out doesn't always match the value of what you make. Walmart pays $9+ dollars an hour to have someone at the door and great you, yes Walmart can afford to do this and there are a number of reasons why they do, but you have to compare that to the cook in the restaurant making $10hr to cook your food proper and get it out in a timely fashion while the tip you leave goes to the waitress who only relayed the message of what you wanted to the cook and brought your food to you.

Well put

That's off the main point. You should also read Tom4you's earlier post, of a real story where he led a business to greater success by paying people well and intelligently.

It isn't about ONE business deciding to do things differently, again, because everything is interactively connected. We actually have a business here somewhere,, in which the CEO up and decided to pay everyone the same very large salary, and to depend on everyone to work for the sake of the work and for the sake of the company. In his particular case, last I heard, all was going well. However for most situations, hierarchies of pay, and incentives and so on, appear to be necessary.

We can also easily find individual businesses which thrived for a time at least, by being irresponsible, cheating regulations, abusing their employees and suffering huge constant turnover and so on. That isn't the point either.

The concern here, is with the overall economy of the nation. And with what consequences there are to each given POLICY decision we collectively make. When you decide to set a policy of paying people less than what is required for them to be able to do the job, you insure that you will get a mix of employees who have no expertise, and must be constantly monitored and led, and who have no reason at all to care whether or not the work done for that low pay, has any meaning or quality to it. Walmart's Greeters are specifically designed to be filled by retired people who already have another income; not young people starting a family. Hence the extreme low pay.

Again, things are connected. In the US, the tradition of underpaying wait staff in restaurants is written directly into the laws. It is based on the assumption that the bulk of the customers will TIP the staff enough to make up the difference between the absurdly low hourly pay, and what is needed to have a real income. The cost to everyone for making such a universal decision, is that you are all but REQUIRED to tip the staff, regardless of the service you receive (thus defeating the whole idea of tips). Some places even go to the extent of putting the tip into your bill ahead of time, because it HAS to occur, in order for the restaurant to function. It forces the society to educate everyone on when and when not to tip, who to tip and not to, and so on.

Because it is institutionalized, and the entire economy of food service is based around it, anyone who tries to pay their wait staff more logically, will be at a big disadvantage to their competition.

That again, is an example which takes us back to the title of the thread. When illogical and destructive business actions become the norm, the only way to free all businesses to act intelligently instead, is through external regulation of all of them at once.

Whether you realize it or not, what you think of as basics of running a society, such as having laws against murder and theft, and people to enforce them, are actually exactly the same thing. Although most people think in the back of their minds that such basic laws are based entirely in morality, that's entirely false. They only exist because it was learned long ago, that it's bad for business, to allow theft and competition through street warfare.

I'll read your reply later.
Basically I'm against the minimum wage. People should get paid what they are worth and do. I'm against cheap foreign labour to. I think this has a drastic effect on wages.

What I find wrong is that people tend to resent success.
I read about people crying that Walmart is too big, CEOs get huge bonuses and the ultra rich are evil.

Having a working business model that makes money hand over fist is wrong because they should share their wealth and provide for their people. They no longer struggle but they should.

What many fail to realize is that we are the consumers that are making them rich. We give them our money. Then we cry about how rich they are?

In a way, it doesn't matter how they convince us to give them our money. We do. Its the same thing as a presidential election. They do and say whatever it takes to get our vote and we give it to them then complain afterward about how much power they have over us never considering that we are the ones that gave them that power.

Personally, I find that amusing.

I usually have trouble getting my view on this across, some get on their high horse which I find a bit offensive, it's meant to be a discussion.
Your right tom, I've always said this to people. If you don't like it then buy somewhere else!
Mc donolds, wallmart in your case who I think own asda here!
But they don't do they?
As for minimum wage, ok, it helps really low paid people but those just above it can fall victim to companies dropping wages to the bare minimum of the law.
People still buy cheap imports regardless of employment in there own country.
These big companies work on a very low profit percentage but due to how big they are make millions. but as they employ so many people if they shared it out it would be negligible.
A small company as you will know needs to work on a bigger profit.

The best advice my dad ever told me was
"The World isn't Fair and Never will be."

Many people try to teach their children to be fair. Problem is, that delusion can hurt them.
I taught my children that the world isn't fair but you can be fair to others, just don't expect it back.

Personally I think the whole concept of wealth and gain, power and persuasion is a delusion created by human beings to have control.
I tolerate it because I exist in that world. Its all greed.

I'll just sit here on my pile of money and have the world do what I say.

Let something happen that destroys the delusion and see just how everyone reacts. Will you jump out a window because your stocks tanked and you are penniless? Will you die in the streets because your multi-million dollar home got hit by a meteor? Will you kill your neighbor to take his stuff when infrastructure collapses? If there is no food, will you eat your companions?

My point is that we are who we are because we exist in a time when issues over minimum wage seem important. During hurricane Katrina, nobody at the dome was concerned about how much they were getting paid - they were worried about survival.

A global catastrophe or mega-pandemic can happen. Life can change in the blink of an eye. Faced with your own mortality, you look at your delusions and see that they are just not as important as you thought.

Yup, that sort of (I think) nonsense is part of what drove me decades ago now, to set aside political alliances and "causes," especially emotion-based ones, and JUST try to look at the logic of it all.

When I look at the high CEO pay versus the ultra-low worker pay, I see no "moral justification" requirements either way. I just look to see if the mechanisms of how businesses are being conducted, are serving the society they are in, in the manner that the society wants them to. The only reason I see ANY justification for intervention by government type forces, is when the normal business mechanisms are "stuck," as machines sometimes get, such that they are damaging rather than enhancing the society.

I know that may sound esoteric, but it's extreme practicality in action, really. Even in the ancient days of kingdoms, where the people themselves were sometimes considered the "property" of the Great Leader, it was recognized by the better off societies that if all the King did was leach every last Sheckel from the peasantry in order to have the absolute finest silk undies for his pet pigs, that his kingdom would collapse and fall to the next invader who chanced to come by. But when the king saw to it that his entire people prospered together, it grew, and all was well.

At the same time, getting carried away with "equality" as an unquestioned ideal, has the same negative effect on a society. Just insisting on equality for the sake of appearances, ignores the mechanisms that act to make everything work, and the society suffers and dies by eating itself.

And it's not a matter of "balance," either. I see it like an engine, in a way. You put oil in the oil reservoir, gas in the gas tank, air in the intake manifold, and grease on the axles. If you put twenty gallons of gas into the ten gallon tank, or put the windshield wiper fluid into the oil reservoir, the chances of the vehicle carrying you for another mile, are slim.

In the same way, the reason to raise (or lower) wages, is dependent on what else is going on. Just like taxes. Lowering taxes on one player in the economy is a GREAT idea, IF AND ONLY IF the reason for the slowdown, is that that player is low on cash. If the reason instead, is that there aren't enough customers with spending money, you can drop taxes to zero on the seller, and all you'll do is shortchange the treasury.

There are lots of good points for and against.
There will never be a totally utopian society.
Likewise, there will never be a totally dystopian society.

In the States we have the option to progress at any rate we choose.
We call it freedom.
Nobody is forced to work, earn money, have a business or make a purchase.

A driving factor in our society is that we can start a business and make money from others. Any of our citizens have that option.

If I am making widgets, I get the widget material and form the widget. You buy the widget from me at the price I deem is a fair barter. We are in agreement if we actually barter. The deal is struck, you get the widget and I get what I asked for.

Your pay is also a barter. I will give you this many widgets for this much labor. We strike a deal and you get your widgets and I get labor from you to make more widgets or to do what it is I bartered with you to do.

Well, you go out in the world and everyone wants widgets for the deals you wish to make. You find that you don't have enough widgets to go around for all the things you want to barter for. You come back to me and say, hey, I need more widgets. I agree and give you more widgets but you have to do more for me for more widgets.

Well, you don't want to do more work for more widgets so there is a minimum rate of widgets I must give set upon me. This minimum rate of widgets eats into my total widget production and if I don't find a way to make more widgets, I will not be making widgets anymore.

Along comes someone else that says they will help me make widgets for less compensation of their labor. Now I am paying less widgets to make widgets and I am getting more widgets to the market faster. I am "barter smart".

If nobody wants widgets anymore I end up with too many widgets, I don't need people to help me make them so I get rid of the deal or make the barter terms unappealing.

Nobody forces people to come make widgets for me. If I can't offer a good deal for people to want to barter their labor for my widgets I will be forced to make my own widgets again and I won't make as much profit as I could.

Actually, the structure of a capitalist society DOES force people to come make widgets for you. Or to make widgets for someone. That's the one element missing from your otherwise excellent simplification of the exchanges.

And believe me, I'm not decrying capitalism, I'm all for it, as far as it goes. But it isn't magic, and once it IS the central theme of a society, then the freedom to "just say no" to getting your hands on money, goes away. It is again, one of the basic exchanges that we all make.

It's like buying a car. We buy a car, to make it easier to get around from place to place, and to thus improve what we can accomplish in the world. But once we buy into the "car" world, we are stuck with everything that goes with it. The roads, the rules, the maintenance, the need for income to pay for fuel and so on.

We can each start our own business in theory, but then we can also all exercise and become Adonis, in theory. The real world doesn't work that way, for millions of reasons.

There was a time way back, when everyone DID own their own business. It was a world entirely inhabited by subsistence farmers, and herdsmen. We gave that up a very long time ago, and there's no way to go back, short of Armageddon.

Labour party, lefties, communist call them what you like in Britain want it all but don't want to pay for it! Or work for it come to that!

I agree with what you are saying in principle. We are forced to live by the standards of society but only if we want to be part of that society.

There are people that survive without money. Naturalists have societies based on barter systems that put value on other objects.
Services are rendered in exchange for something other than money.

Some homeless people choose to live without working. Again, they are not forced to society's benchmarks.

The thing to realize that in reality nobody is forcing you to make widgets at all. You choose to make widgets so you can "fit in" with society. You always have the option to go off the grid.

Government doesn't like it. If you are off the grid, they can't control you. They can't force you to give them a piece of your pie. Societies make it easier, more convenient to live but it is not the only choice.

You don't need a car to live.
You don't need electricity to live.
You don't even need a job to live.

Nobody forces you to live in a house or apartment.
Nobody forces you to make any widgets.

and, nobody ever said that capitalism was a perfect system but it's worked a helluva lot better than the alternative.

Just wondering how roofers are doing in Venezuela.

Know anybody who actually lives in Venezuela?

I do. And it's not the "roofers" who are the cause of the problems.