CA Minimum Wage is Bad for Workers? Inconceivable!!

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

The system that exists currently has allowed me, someone of average intelligence and talent, to live a life that would be the envy of a medieval prince, and with very little work. The goal should be further expansion of that.

I don't think ceo or athlete pay is the problem. Whether they deserve it? Who knows. But, just like it is hard to determine if the ceo deserves less pay, it is hard to determine if the bottom rung burger flipper definitely doesn't deserve more. Especially when the alternative is the rest of us schmucks subsidizing the burger joints profits with assistance.

Sure, perfect is the enemy of the good... but good enough is the enemy of improvement.

[apeman]

The system that exists currently has allowed me, someone of average intelligence and talent, to live a life that would be the envy of a medieval prince, and with very little work. The goal should be further expansion of that.

:GoTeam:

I think the biggest problem is the INTENTIONAL inflation of the value of actual assets (from real estate to securities), which makes the rich that much richer and prices out new entrants to the world of owning capital.

Also, I agree with Martin that we need a powerful estate tax (my most commie position probably), I don't know where to set it, but something designed to capture some of the extraordinary wealth of the very richest. I'm talking (wild spitballing here) like you can't inherit more than $50-100 million of something. Won't affect anyone but mostly old money "royalty", and they'll be quite fine with their $50-100 mil.

Carnegie wrote in the Gospel of Wealth that the "victors" of capitalism owe a debt back to society at the end. He preached that the very richest should give back to the public in the form of great works (even cites to Stanford university, public gardens and spaces, etc) at the end of their lives. Rich folks actually used to believe this, I think (happy to change my mind with counter examples tho).

Our culture is in massive decline, and most rich don't wanna give back. Too bad. They're gonna get Robspierre'd if they don't wise up, it's just a fact of life.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Exactly my point.

[K@th]

I think the biggest problem is the INTENTIONAL inflation of the value of actual assets (from real estate to securities), which makes the rich that much richer and prices out new entrants to the world of owning capital.

Also, I agree with Martin that we need a powerful estate tax (my most commie position probably), I don't know where to set it, but something designed to capture some of the extraordinary wealth of the very richest. I'm talking (wild spitballing here) like you can't inherit more than $50-100 million of something. Won't affect anyone but mostly old money "royalty", and they'll be quite fine with their $50-100 mil.

Carnegie wrote in the Gospel of Wealth that the "victors" of capitalism owe a debt back to society at the end. He preached that the very richest should give back to the public in the form of great works (even cites to Stanford university, public gardens and spaces, etc) at the end of their lives. Rich folks actually used to believe this, I think (happy to change my mind with counter examples tho).

Our culture is in massive decline, and most rich don't wanna give back. Too bad. They're gonna get Robspierre'd if they don't wise up, it's just a fact of life.

Nice post. Bonus points for turning Robespierre into a verb.

[LVH2]

Mayweather earned it but other athetes are massively subsidized which sucks.

The thing with top level execs is, its a bunch of piers d ciding what to pay eachother in a culture of corruption and nobody really knows what the market price of a ceo is or even which ceos are effective all that often.

But one factor could be, more people have money to buy stuff, particularly in the local economy.

Hard to prove, but the narrative makes sense. Wal-mart employee goes to $15. One of his co-workers is laid off. Prices go up a little. Less money is vacuumed from the local economy and into the Walton family's pockets.

The remaining employees begin to eat out more, go to the movies, getting coffee before work. Yeah, prices went up a little, but they just got a 40% raise or whatever.

Now the restaurant, movie theater and coffee shop need to hire new people.

Assuming the truth of your assertion

why not make min. wage $25? Think of all the extra eating out, etc., and all the jobs it will create to service this new demand.

There is probably a level where it starts to backfire. You could use the same reasoning the other way though. Bring back child labor. Have people work for 5 bucks a day. Full employment and a new car will cost 75 dollars.

[Ex-California]

The system that exists currently has allowed me, someone of average intelligence and talent, to live a life that would be the envy of a medieval prince, and with very little work. The goal should be further expansion of that.

:GoTeam:

I think the biggest problem is the INTENTIONAL inflation of the value of actual assets (from real estate to securities), which makes the rich that much richer and prices out new entrants to the world of owning capital.

Also, I agree with Martin that we need a powerful estate tax (my most commie position probably), I don't know where to set it, but something designed to capture some of the extraordinary wealth of the very richest. I'm talking (wild spitballing here) like you can't inherit more than $50-100 million of something. Won't affect anyone but mostly old money "royalty", and they'll be quite fine with their $50-100 mil.

Carnegie wrote in the Gospel of Wealth that the "victors" of capitalism owe a debt back to society at the end. He preached that the very richest should give back to the public in the form of great works (even cites to Stanford university, public gardens and spaces, etc) at the end of their lives. Rich folks actually used to believe this, I think (happy to change my mind with counter examples tho).

Our culture is in massive decline, and most rich don't wanna give back. Too bad. They're gonna get Robspierre'd if they don't wise up, it's just a fact of life.

100% in agreement here. I had some screed wrtten answering why Dimon doesn't deserve it in reply to your last post until real life got in the way that basically boiled down to this same point. So we're halfway on the same page

They super rich live on a whole different plane than us wage earners, money doesn't mean the same to them as it does to us

[apeman]

100% in agreement here. I had some screed wrtten answering why Dimon doesn't deserve it in reply to your last post until real life got in the way that basically boiled down to this same point. So we're halfway on the same page

They super rich live on a whole different plane than us wage earners, money doesn't mean the same to them as it does to us

Easy to anchor on jealousy for the richest, esp. where it is ill-gotten or inherited.

But our lives are pretty good. From a historical perspective, we are kings and queens.

Doesn't mean everything's A-OK, but let's not travel down the road to serfdom, that's all.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

It is easy to get caught by the false choice of: totally unregulated markets and zero labor protections versus centrally controlled Ingsoc hellscape.

I doubt basic living wage is the road to serfdom, and there are good reasons to standardize basic wage protections.

Ultimately, we are probably going to need to rethink how we view compensation, and we are going to have to realize that quarterly profits to appease shareholders isn't the only critical factor in a robust economy.

[Kazmyr]

Since we've been discussing whether CEO deserve the pay they get:

Apple cuts Tim Cook's pay 15% for missing sales goals

Granted, it means probably nil in the long term (dude still is going to make bank and has already done so), but it also shows that you can't simply be a useless turd sack as CEO.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Scramble all available fighters, it's time to release a new iPhone!

Code magenta, this ain't a drill!

Shoot, ceo'n for Apple ain't no thing, I already got 90% of the job figured out.