Trickle down was a theory and it didn't work. The rich get richer. the middle class is dissolving. We pay people who don't want to work. I'd say we can afford to raise minimum wage.
My favorite part about the trickle down myth is the idea that some rich CEO who gets a ton of tax breaks will suddenly start paying his workers better when, more than likely, he'll probably just buy his 4th or 5th yacht.
Why shouldn't he have 4 yachts? He worked for that position, most likely went to college for years. He climbed the ladder relentlessly till he got to the top, he reached his goal. Why is he the bad guy?
Your assuming that CEO started out with nothing and worked to get all he has. Most of those 4th yacht people started rich, went to a rich school and were hired based on their rich families connections. Real business owners who have actually worked their way from the bottom to the top, usually take really good care of their employees. They know what it's like to struggle, so they help those below them. They also acknowledge that even with all their hard work, a lot of luck was involved. They have a desire to pass on their good fortune. This is rarely true of those who have always had money and connections. They don't understand those that have little, and have a hard time empathizing with them.
Right and I do understand that (I by the way grew up living in a trailer park with 4 siblings so I'm not saying anything from a rich guys perspective) but regardless of if the CEOs always have had money, someone worked in their family to get him there, trace it back and someone started a business. There's nothing wrong with passing down riches to your kids.
Nobody willingly raises the cost of living. Taxes is another thing. But making a law doesn't solve anything. Raise federal minimum wage and employers have to make cuts other places, whether it be the quality of the businesses product, or simply laying people off because they cannot afford to keep everyone at that higher wage. Then you'll complain about unemployment and expect a law to be made to help you.
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· 9 years ago
I ran a small restaurant. The amount of taxes and steady increase of food costs almost put us under. I cut my pay so the doors could stay open and my employees could keep their wage and continue to put food on their tables. Before that I worked for Darden, a multi billion dollar company. They paid me $3.15/hr. My pay checks were voided, zero pay. You can't tell me that they couldn't afford to pay their employees more than that. Big business cares more about their own profit than taking care of their employees and finding a balance. It's about balance. The scales are tipped to favor greed. Look at the healthcare industry. It's all about profit, not the overall good of humanity.
Right they technically can afford to pay employees more, but the business owners want the money for themselves and there should be no law against that, it's part of business, pay your employees well or watch them leave
Or you can lay a ton of people off, work the remaining employees twice as hard for the same wage, bitch when things don't get done or are done unsafely, and if people leave, plenty more unemployed that THEY created are desperate enough to take their place.
This is why I laugh my ass off whenever someone mentions "job creators".
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· 9 years ago
It's about control. Control the media- control the minds- control the people. Control the educational system- control the people. Control the food- control the people. Control the "market"- control the people. Keep everyone poor- control. Control the worlds resources- control the people. That's why so very few people have managed to amass the worlds wealth and control over the people. Pretty easy when you own everything.
Ceo's are making over %1000 than they did 20 years ago on top of having the salary of 200+ Employees. Tell me again that they "can't afford" to have their pay cut even by a fraction without destabilizing the entire economy.
Which CEOs? Maybe the top twenty. What about the fifty employee company? I love how people chastise CEOs but don't mention college presidents and their ridiculous salaries that set most if you back from day one.
I make $11.00 an hour working at a hotel. Do you know how much I would be making in 1990 if I was working the same job? $11.00 an hour. Inflation in the US, meaning how much more money things cost as opposed to what they used to cost, has gone up steadily over that period of time.
According to Business Insider: "Between 2002 and 2012, wages were stagnant or declined for the entire bottom 70 percent of the wage distribution. In other words, the vast majority of wage earners have already experienced a lost decade, one where real wages were either flat or in decline." http://www.businessinsider.com/average-wage-growth-in-the-us-2013-8
This is a real issue. Workers are working more hours for less pay just to get by, while big businesses are making record profits time and again. Paying people a respectable wage should not be a matter of politics, but a matter of national security.
I wholeheartedly agree, except paying only the people that the market has decided have the least desirable skills more money doesn't help the other 69%, but actually makes it worse for them.
"The market" is a figment of the imagination, a sick fever dream created by fickle businessmen who wanted a reason to screw over their workers. CEO's quote "the market" as a reason to pay people like shit, because somewhere, somebody else will do it for less money. The whole economy is a race to the bottom: it's a contest to see how little a business can pay a person. There's no morals to the way big business operates. It's all Randian "virtues of selfishness" and fuck the little guy.
The current minimum wage is not enough to live on in today's America. Higher minimum wage would actually help the economy. People would have more money to spend.
And where's this extra money coming from? If the government prints more bills, then the value of the dollar just goes down. Plus, prices of products will increase so that companies can afford higher minimum wages and then it affects everyone.
The thing is the money has to come from somewhere and the current demand for the doubling of minimum wage would only result in massive layoffs or massive inflation the only way raising minimum wage can be effective is in its slow gradual increase over time an instantaneous raise would cause prices to skyrocket as employers will be forced to compensate for higher wages across the board the only outcomes available seem to be massive layoffs or massive price increases
Minimum wage was never designed to be a "liveable" wage. It was designed to ensure that employees are not taken advantage of by being paid ridiculously low wages. Raising minimum wage to proposed levels will not cause people earning minimum wage to magically fall within that liveable wage domain because of one thing...the cost of living is determined by minimum wage. As with any product or service provided in an economy, the cost of that product of service is based on how much it costs to produce it in which case increasing minimum wage will only cause the cost of living to increase proportionally putting minimum wage earnings the same spot that they were in in the long run. In the short run however, increasing minimum wage as high as being proposed would cause disastrous effects to our economy by harming small companies which employ most of the working population. I'm not against minimum wage increases but doubling it would be a reckless move.
Raising minimum wage doesn't do shit. I thought it would but it doesn't. I used to work at Burger King and get 7.25 an hour. I would work a couple of times a week and I wanted more hours because I needed more money. Then the second I heard minimum wage was being raised I got so happy because even though I might keep the same amount of hours and days, I'd be getting paid a little bit more. Little did I know that most of the employees got their house cut in half. Now instead of working a couple of times a week, I only worked Saturdays from 11 to 4. Fuck Burger King. I'm glad I no longer work there
cutting hours is usually the exact thing that happens to most employees that fall under the minimum wage category. Wages are a large part of most business's expenses, so it has to be made up somehow. This means they can either raise their prices, which they are very reluctant to do because of competition with other companies and it would make consumers mad, they can lay employees off, which they don't want to do because then the employee goes and gets unemployment benefits, they can skimp out on their product, smaller portions or cheaper products, which they don't want to do because again, it makes the consumers mad, OR they can cut hours on employees until they reduce expenses enough or enough employees quit due to not being able to work enough. Which do you think they are gonna pick?
Put simply, the cost of living and minimum wage are related, so the best case scenario of raising minimum wage is that the cost of living increases and people still complain
This post says alot but not what most people think it means. This is true the person in the bottom is greedy Than the one in the pile of money. When the one in the bottom increases his spending, his expenses increase too. The one on top has a company and the reason he's rich is because he was more clever.
These people have fortunes that make kings of old look like bums.
This is why I laugh my ass off whenever someone mentions "job creators".
According to Business Insider: "Between 2002 and 2012, wages were stagnant or declined for the entire bottom 70 percent of the wage distribution. In other words, the vast majority of wage earners have already experienced a lost decade, one where real wages were either flat or in decline." http://www.businessinsider.com/average-wage-growth-in-the-us-2013-8
This is a real issue. Workers are working more hours for less pay just to get by, while big businesses are making record profits time and again. Paying people a respectable wage should not be a matter of politics, but a matter of national security.