Dude, I'm just being provocative here. I used to own a coffeeshop too so I understand full well how minimum wage increases can blow up a p&l statement for that type of business.
Minimum wage
- Thread starter Crazyhole
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I have been beaten up in 2020 ,as we all have and I am tired brother . just tired of the hits that keep on coming. I want to provide concrete real world point of view. It's arguing politics and stuff, it's hey, this in my life ,my future and my business. It's not Trump or Biden, it's a story that is repeated over and over and people either don't care or get it. I am here as an UCF alum who works hard and employs 17 people. I want to share reality with folks. This issue impacts many in a real difficult and negative way. It's not a black white issue and I want folks to know it. I do appreciate your response. Thank you.
I get it, and it goes beyond the dollars and cents. Knowing you are responsible for the livelihood of not only you, but also your employees is a pretty heavy burden to bear. It's a crappy deal hearing you're going to get hit with something that will probably have a negative effect on not only you, but the people that count on you.
Minimum wage should be 250k per year. High school kids should make enough to buy new fast cars and a beach front condo for their parties.
nope only the super elite swampers get to have private jets, so they can fly all over the world saving the world from global warming. Their fumes don't stink.
It sucks, but it all comes back to wages for 98ish% of the American population NOT keeping up with inflation for the last 40 years, and our wealth gap that has continued to grow.
Minimum wage needs to come up. Wages for the overwhelming majority of people need to come up. We are trillions of dollars in debt, but the only people who have seen those trillions are the top 1%. We've had inflation, but the only people keeping up, and outpacing, the inflation are the top 1%.
It is all the same issue. We're all affected.
oxymoron NOUN A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g. Knighttime preaching personal responsibility.)
Lol what?? You can’t just talk out of your ass...
77% of the national debt is owned by the public.
You have to be careful conflating this all together. A modern form of serfdom could exist where the peasants are infinitely better off today - Their huts are now small homes with indoor plumbing, electricity, and the Lord provides them with cell phones and unlimited internet. The Lord would basically be making your argument, that the system is proving to substantially improve the living standards of the serfs over time, and there's no need to compare their relative income growth versus his.
I think the smart-phone analogy here fails in that regard. It assumes it's a luxury item. There was a point in history where indoor plumbing or electricity were luxuries. It's hard to argue those things are luxuries today. Internet-via-smart-phone is basically how the developing world got online. Getting a job without the ability to communicate electronically is nearly impossible. Telling someone to use email at the library is like saying having a bathroom at home is a luxury cause you could just use the public one down the street.
There should be a push and pull between labor and capital. The goal of capital is to give labor the bare minimum benefits such that they don't revolt (politically or violently). The goal of labor is to extract as much of the profit as they can from the owners in wages and benefits. At equilibrium, both feel like they should get more and that the other side has too much.
That's how I try to look at this. Are we at equilibrium? Or does one side wield so much political power over the other that we're tilted too far in one direction.
I think we're going to see a huge crash with deleveraging that will erase a good deal of the wealth gap. Beyond that, I agree with your balance point analysis but I'd add another factor. Does the system enable class transition/wealth acquisition better than other systems that we could put in place? I truly feel, and a number of greater thinkers than I have made this point, that the capitalist free market system has enabled the most upward (and downward) transition of all of the systems that humanity has tried. Also that the more a centralized power controls the economy, the less opportunity there is to "change your stars".
We are tilted too far in one direction but it is not just an economic problem. It's that the people with the money and power are using the government and media to tilt the field ever more in their direction. Giving more power to the government to control things would only help if that government were independent of the wealthy and powerful. Since it is controlled by those people, giving more power to the government consciously is playing into their hands.
This. When the asset bubble pops this year, a big chunk of the wealth gap disappears. The ultra rich are going to take it in the shorts.
Well said, But it should be pointed out that efforts have been made in the past to control the amount of influence the wealthy and powerful have over our government.
Which party has fought ferociously against that effort?
Well you're going to lose a lot of equity, but that's not the worst thing in the world. We won't be able to suspend mark to market this time like they did in 2009.Whew! I own my house.
It shouldn't. You're going to be in the group of people that come out ahead as long as you play your cards right over the next few months. The FED can't just print the 30 or 40 trillion dollars it would take to keep the asset bubble from popping, so values are going to reset like they did in the early 30's. You'll have 8-10 times the buying power that you do now.
I'm not the finance person you are but my working theory is that I'm safe at least until the interest rates go up again.
It's going to be pretty hard for them to raise interest rates for quite a while. We are going to be a lot like Japan in the 90s. It'll more likely go to zero than go up.
The question is how we protect the money we have through the stock crash and markdown of the real estate market. If banks are going to fail because they are leveraged 10 : 1 on monetary accounts, what is our course of action. I'm guessing to not pay off your mortgage because it'll get written down. But where to invest that is safe?
AAA corporate bonds and 30 year treasuries. Might only get a 1-1.5% return for the next couple of years but they are the safest investment because they can't default. Silver and Gold are obviously still safe havens but might be a little scary for the next couple of years, so if you go that way, just don't look at it for a while.
You'll be able to do a heck of a lot better than that in a couple of years. Just not during the crash.I don't want much -- just a super-safe investment that yields me 6% a year.
Just watch the Dow. The first time it trips the breaker, start divesting. You don't need to do it all at once, and your broker can help identify your safest stocks. Just don't fall for the sales pitch about how it "always comes back". Yeah, it will but you don't need to be part of the fall and have to start over from the bottom. I pulled out at 27k last spring and don't plan on getting back in until it drops below 10k. My position will be triple what it was, and even then it's only going to be in strategic US companies that won't be allowed to close completely.Awesome!!!
Just be sure to give me some advance warning on that crash thing.
My investments are automatically triggered for withdrawal once they hit the 15% drop mark, which took place during last spring's freefall. I believe I pulled out around the 21K mark so -- naturally -- I missed out on all the recovery and then some. Investment firms market their 'automatic trigger' feature as a security measure, but in reality it seems to me they end up doing more harm than good in today's volatile market.
Personally, it feels incredibly surreal to see the market steadily go up while the pandemic has gotten worse. There seems to be no relationship between the markets and the stark reality of the economic situation we face right now. My investments have done well since I've gotten back in last fall -- and I am optimistic about the economy ramping up once Covid is behind us -- but it feels like something is seriously wrong when I'm seeing a 10K increase in the Dow over the last 10 months. What's up with that?
If anyone needs proof that we have a major asset bubble, here it is:
We have a handful of benchmark stocks that have historically been the measure of how healthy our economy is. I just picked 3 of them. John Deere, Ford, and Caterpillar.
Deere is up 3x in the last year.
Ford is up 3x in the last year
Cat is up 2x in the last year.
Give me any reason why rational market fundamentals led to that kind of growth.
We have a handful of benchmark stocks that have historically been the measure of how healthy our economy is. I just picked 3 of them. John Deere, Ford, and Caterpillar.
Deere is up 3x in the last year.
Ford is up 3x in the last year
Cat is up 2x in the last year.
Give me any reason why rational market fundamentals led to that kind of growth.
In other words, what you're saying is: look out. Something is likely to trigger another crash (more lovingly referred to as a 'market correction'.)
It's probably way worse than you realize. Literally everything has trended up globally over the last year. Every market, every currency, even bitcoin. Everything except bonds. Globally there is double the amount of "assets" today compared to December 2019, but GDP has gone down. It's all just money being dumped into the market but amazingly we don't see any inflation outside of investments.
Hopefully when this thing is all said and done, we actually return to Bretton Woods to keep this from happening again.
No. A recession is a Market correction. This will be a collapse of assets, followed by a collapse of debt. A total reset. The shit of it is that we've fallen into the feared liquidity trap that Keynes warned would happen if we tried this crap. Can't raise interest rates, but even if you keep them low nobody has a desire to borrow and invest. Somehow the world didn't learn the lesson from Japan.
How do you define, "improve positions". There is a lot of economic research that has studied SNAP and other welfare programs and show they have a positive impact, for example:
Long-Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net - American Economic Association
Long-Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net by Hilary Hoynes, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach and Douglas Almond. Published in volume 106, issue 4, pages 903-34 of American Economic Review, April 2016, Abstract: We examine the impact of a positive and policy-driven change in economic...
www.aeaweb.org
Income, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Infant Health - American Economic Association
Income, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Infant Health by Hilary Hoynes, Doug Miller and David Simon. Published in volume 7, issue 1, pages 172-211 of American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, February 2015, Abstract: This paper uses quasi-experimental variation from federal tax reform to...
www.aeaweb.org
Inside the War on Poverty: The Impact of Food Stamps on Birth Outcomes
Abstract. This paper evaluates the health impacts of a signature initiative of the War on Poverty: the introduction of the modern Food Stamp Program (FSP). Using variation in the month FSP began operating in each U.S. county, we find that pregnancies exposed to FSP three months prior to birth...
www.mitpressjournals.org
This is just a few and I can find a lot more if you'd like.
The Bank of England Tells Banks to Prepare for Negative Interest Rates (Published 2021)
Policymakers said they had no plans to introduce negative rates to stimulate the economy, but they wanted to be prepared.
I've been thinking about this for the last couple of days. I can't see a scenario where a debt gets written down unless interest rates go up and you haven't defaulted on the terms of the loan. It's going to be interesting to see how banks are going to move to straighten out their balance sheets, for sure. Ideally, yeah the FED raises interest rates up to 5 or 6% but I can't see that happening until the back end of this.
you know I am sick of the notion of the wealth gap. I am going to list a few countries where there is not a big wealth gap. Ready? Cuba, Venezuela, Somalia, North Korea, Sudan, Chad, Guatamala , Haiti and many more. Do you want to live in any of these places? I don't.
In a free market system you will get income distribution and yes some people will be god awful wealthy, like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffett , All leftist elitiest pigs, while you got the kid making $7.25 an hour bagging groceries for the IGA. But that kid in 20 years shouldn't be making minimum wage and if he is ,it's not the wage that's the problem ,it's maybe the 40 year old adult who made a series of bad choices ?
I don't like the global oligarchy forming in our country either ,but some jobs are not liveable wage jobs . They are not. They are entry level ,low skill part time jobs. You know I kind of hate Amazon and Jeff Bezos because it sucks wealth from my local community and ships it to Seattle and Bezos bank account. with that said, he built a better mouse trap . more power to him. I still think he is a D bag liberal who is two faced. As a brick and mortar business owner who supports his local community from the schools, to the local food banks to helping special needs groups , I see Amazon as big vacumm cleaner who only takes and gives nothing back. Sure he can afford $15 or $25 an hour ,but guess what I can not unless the public steps up and pays more for everything I sell.
So, I challenge all of y'all ,or all y'all who champion $15 minimum wage to stop patronizing big box stores and Amazon directly and step up and put your money and wallet where your principles are and give local businesses your business. These minimum wage jobs are largely in the service and food service industries. Buy local. pay more and keep your wealth circulating in your community. Start there.
I have stated it before ,I don't pay anyone minimum wage and my one Autistic employee who nobody would hire, well he makes $9 per hour. He helps me bag peanut brittle and dip some of my chocolates. He lives at home with his folks and gets state assistance. He only works 2 days a week at 4 or 5 hours because that's what he can handle . However, he takes immense pride in his work and having a job ,even a part time job ,gives that young man dignity and purpose. You guys for some people it's not all about money . My employee will never have wealth or make $49,000 a year. He has a part time job that brings him purpose.
Again , there are numerous unintended consequences here for just raising the minimum wage. If it happens I will do my best to survive . Otherwise I will go get me one of them new fangled minimum livable wage jobs myself when I am out out of business by the very thing that put me out of business.
Maybe you should have a better business model. You know, personal responsibility and all that jazz.
If Amazon would have been taken to task for their unethical practices back when they were "building a better mouse trap" by underselling their product to drive their competition out-of-business, maybe the brick and mortar business owners would be in a better place today.
Been there and done that. I had to make due by limiting the number of part-time people I hired and the hours they worked. Personally, I believe the minimum wage should be indexed to the cost of living in the area. Wage earners in big cities shouldn't get screwed while their counterparts in Fargo, North Dakota are 'living high on the hog.'
But here's a little reality check: the current federal minimum wage translates to a little over $13.500 a year for a full-time, 40-hours-a-week worker. As a point of comparison, the poverty threshold for a family of four is $25,700.
A family of 4. That's a little bit different than an individual making 13 grand.
