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But why are unions with high paid union members agitating for higher minimum wages?

It's because most union contracts are indexed to the minimum wage either outright or through constructs where minimum wage is an indicator for the Consumer Price Index.
It's also because there are no other problems to agitate about. Unions made sense a century or so ago when there were serious issues with working conditions at factories - it made sense for the workers to band together and say "make it safer or we're on strike". But all the serious issues have been corrected. Unions could therefore be disbanded. The union organisation has to find a reason to justify its existence - and wages are something unions can keep agitating about year after year, staying relevant to not lose their own jobs.
 
@theleastofthese

Minimum wage laws worldwide have their roots in racism. That's not a term I use loosely.

The socialists in the US and elsewhere advocated for minimum wage laws as a means of eradicating child labor and garment industry 'sweatshop' labor where (usually women) were paid by each piece they produced while also being required to work ten to sixteen hours per day.

The sweatshops were abusive with workers being denied bathroom breaks, lunch breaks, fresh air, and in many cases they were held as prisoners during the workday. Rape and murder were not uncommon in the sweatshops.

But what got minimum wage laws rolling in the US were the migrations of Southern blacks to the North where black people would accept lower wages than white workers.

Black workers were then more desirable for employers and black workers made significant inroads into market segments previously dominated by low-wage white workers and especially Irish immigrants.

In the period 1860-1920 Irish workers dominated manual labor industries like steel and coal mining, they dominated domestic help such as maids and chauffeurs, and they dominated railroad positions especially as staff on passenger rail.

The Great Migration of black people from the South started in about 1910 with the penetration of railroads into the rural south. Black people who were entrapped as sharecroppers (virtual slaves) were suddenly able to board a train and be out of state within hours where they were out of the reach of their former masters.

After World War One many Southern black troops returning from Europe where they were treated well left the South for the North and the West.

By the 1920's minimum wage laws were being advanced by Irish-American Democrats in order to price the growing black population out of the Northern and Western labor market.

In the American West and again in Australia the Chinese and Japanese were also targets of the minimum wage laws. The intent being to price them out of the labor market.

The result was the collapse of the American garment industry. The vast knitting mills of New England fell silent as imports from outside of the US were suddenly competitive despite import duties.

A century later many of the New England cities that had once been powerhouses of the garment trade have yet to recover from the economic damage caused by the minimum wage.

Even with the minimum wage the black workers still outcompeted Irish-Americans for low wage labor intensive work. This is reflected especially in the movies of the 1940's where black porters on trains, black domestic workers, black waiters, and more became standard background actors. Because art was a reflection of life.

The worst aspect of high minimum wage is that it prices low skill workers out of the labor market.

This is reflected in the disappearance of many entry-level jobs since the advent of minimum wage.

It used to be that young people would take a low paying apprentice position to learn a trade such as steel working or glazing. They'd start out sweeping and cleaning and eventually moving into the trade as they acquired skills.

The low pay for the apprentice position was offset by the trade skills the person would learn.

Now the apprentice positions do not exist and the young people have to pay for trade school to get an education they used to get for free. This is good news for the banks who make student loans.

People with low function used to be able to find work sweeping sidewalks, doing gardening, and things like that. Those jobs don't exist anymore and those people are all on welfare of some kind or another.

Finally, minimum wage causes inflation.

Remember just a couple years ago when the unions were "Fighting for Fifteen!" ?

They got it. And now less than four years later it's not enough.

But why are unions with high paid union members agitating for higher minimum wages?

It's because most union contracts are indexed to the minimum wage either outright or through constructs where minimum wage is an indicator for the Consumer Price Index.

Minimum wage increases then cause payroll increases for union members which in turn causes the amount of dues received by the unions to increase. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Just my own observation here but two hours of minimum wage after taxes/deductions is what it costs for a meal at McDonald's.

In 1970 US minimum wage was $1.60 and two hours of minimum wage after taxes/deductions was about $2.00

A Big Mac meal at McDonald's would have run .65 for the Big Mac, .26 for the fries, .26 for an apple pie, and .35 for a shake. Or $1.52 before taxes.

Now that the minimum wage is $16 per hour in California the price for the same meal is actually a little low and can be expected to rise to where it about equals two hours of employee labor. Which totally erases any gains made with the increase.

This is the thing. If we make the minimum wage $100 per hour then the meal at McDonald's will either rise to around $150 or else McDonald's will fully automate or go out of business.

And then the workers get nothing.

Example:

The front counter at a McDonald's in 1990:

View attachment 6679

And the front counter at a McDonald's in 2024:

View attachment 6680
Well well somebody else know little economy and even history. Well done @MeganC.
 
What becomes clearer to me by the day is that YHWH authorized a patriarchal theocracy. Anything else is a usurpation of legitimate authority.
The ONLY system of government with actual checks and balances is one from the bottom up where accountability exists because the locals call someone out that is going beyond what YHWH authorized.
There is no secular or religious authority over marriage but YHWH. He gave fathers responsibility. The church wants to claim it....but it was NEVER given.
Real problem is lack of seccession.

When situation gets bad we should vote out bad guys, instead of leaving abusestan. That's problem with people. Wrong beliefs.

You leave abusive situation (which seccesion does) instead of trying to reform abusiveness.
 
That's problem with people. Wrong beliefs.
You can not make holy what YHWH has condemned.
Any government that pretends to make law is a usurpation of His authority, a substitute man made god, a humanistic abomination, always called baal worship (idolatry) in the old testament. These idols are made with the stroke of a pen, the casting of a vote, a creation of an agency.
Either He is your Judge King and Lawgiver, or you worship a false god. You cannot vote for any other without compromise of truth and fidelity to YHWH.
 
You can not make holy what YHWH has condemned.
Any government that pretends to make law is a usurpation of His authority, a substitute man made god, a humanistic abomination, always called baal worship (idolatry) in the old testament. These idols are made with the stroke of a pen, the casting of a vote, a creation of an agency.
Either He is your Judge King and Lawgiver, or you worship a false god. You cannot vote for any other without compromise of truth and fidelity to YHWH.
Problem with these false beliefs is they are reason situation isn't getting better.
 
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Problem with these false is they are reason situation isn't getting better.
We cannot change the choices of others. We each live by conscience. Scripture says the WHOLE DUTY OF MAN is to fear YHWH and keep his commands. I don't see any obligation there to try and use existing idolatrous power systems to try and change the world.
I've read that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing (voting) while expecting a different outcome. If voting for polishittans worked, we would as a nation be blessed and prospering. Obviously it is another belief system, and one that a biblically grounded mind doesn't believe in.
 
...But all the serious issues have been corrected. Unions could therefore be disbanded. The union organisation has to find a reason to justify its existence - and wages are something unions can keep agitating about year after year, staying relevant to not lose their own jobs.
And their high-paid, and very politically influential, mob union bosses need to stay important.
 
The issue is that the cost of living in republican states is no longer cheap yet the minimum wage has not increased a dime since I was teenager. Meanwhile the price of everything around us has quadrupled. It's not as easy as "find another job that pays more" because "more" still isn't enough.

Democratic states at least attempt to counter this issue by raising the minimum wage. It may not be the root of the problem but at least they acknowledge it's a problem. Republicans won't...and the red states poverty levels reflect this.
Here problem is "we must do something". Problem is that only things politicians can do is raise taxes, spend more and increase regulation. End result is situation getting worse.

It's always best to do nothing. People will find solution (better for them) themselves.

Real solution is nuking government spending, regulation and taxes. Miles has nuked government spending and Argentina now has/will soon have single digits montly inflation. It's was double digit last year.

Why no real solution? Well then politicians would become useless. And current ones hate us and want to destroy us.
I decided to compare the states. For instance, I make $22 per hour at my current job, if I decided to rent instead of own, i'd pay a minimum of $1,200 per month where I live. If I moved to "most" of the democratic states, I could easily make $27 per hour doing the same job, and rent would be even cheaper if not the same. Food prices are similar, health insurance is cheaper, and gas prices are a dollar more per gallon. A dollar compared to making $5 more per hour. That's not a bad trade off.
Current politican system favours democratic states. One currency for whole country favkurs centralization. US dollar is too strong for less developed parts of US which makes them uncompetitive which creates concentration of capital into California and New York raising income there.
It's not about "whining" or not wanting to work, it's forcing people who do not adhere to democratic beliefs to vote for them because republicans refuse to acknowledge how much they absolutely screw over the working class. This makes the companies richer, and they exploit the "burger flippers" to death for minimum pay. These places can barely run with adults; imagine if they only consisted of teenagers. So many businesses are understaffed in the republican states as it is.
Republicans are better at economics. There is one truthful joke. Being socialist is proof you don't know economics. Bigger problem is boomer mentality by republican old guard. Many are part of establishment and/or don't have any idea what current young people are passing. More communication issue.

Government just keeps growing much faster than the rate of inflation, all the money to support that government must come from the public somehow in a wide range of different ways, all of which add to the cost of everything. So government grows first -> causing price inflation -> wages follow to try and keep up, but never grow fast enough and just keep falling behind. To solve it you need government to shrink, and that happens nowhere - the system instead grows and grows until it collapses under its own weight.
Politicians always spend everything and then borrow maximum.

Slight correction: Growth of government spending -> nobody buying government debt -> central bank printing money. Is government debt buyers use their existing saying to buy debt money supply won't increase.

@theleastofthese, check Cantillion effects to find what happens when money supply is increased.

I actually agree with you that minimum wage laws can provide people with a temporary band-aid to help cope with this. So can government benefits and so forth. For a particular individual all these things can be helpful. They are however still destructive at the level of society.
They can't do that. Both will raise inflation since higher income will raise demand for essentials which will raise prices for essentials.

And how will both be financed? You can't solve problem caused by money printing by using money printing.

It's not an issue in democratic states; it's an issue in states where people don't want to work for even a few bucks over the minimum wage of $7 per hour because it doesn't put a dent in the cost of living in these states. I don't agree with that theory, but it's happening.
More things are problem that just wages. It's more lack of buying power and unrewarding work. Not just in financial sense. Too much regulation makes it punishing to start anything so people lose hope.

I've always said i'd rather work for low wages than sit around doing nothing, but to say it's really benefited me in any way would be a lie. When people work for low wages, they have no way of getting out of that situation because it costs money to do so. It takes time to get experience, time spent working for low wages to get that experience costs money. Education costs money, and even developing a trade costs money. Also, poor people are also forced to buy cheaper, lower-quality products to band-aid their needs in the short term, causing them to remain poor in the long term, which only encourages terrible financial decisions due to being desperate and impulsive.
On free market rich people would start investment creating new jobs where they would have to offer higher wages to fill new positions. Well, again not happening: taxes, regulation.

By the way, recently on zerohedge was article claiming that for medium manufacturer cost of regulation is 25 000 USD yearly per worker. For small is 50 000 USD. If you wonder why wages are low start here.

High regulation raises costs which means there is less for workers. And additionally, many business are killed due to regulation which reduces demand for worker lowering wages.
Though, as I said, it's easier said than done. Unfortunately, the people in our country love having the government involved in everything.
Which is why I dislike democracy. Everybody want special privileges and politicans give them. End result: mountain of regulation, tax benefits and mountain of taxes to finance them.
There's an old truism that says, "Democracy is doomed when people learn they can vote themselves the dole." Fake money makes that all the more true, and deadly.
Truth.
 
We cannot change the choices of others. We each live by conscience. Scripture says the WHOLE DUTY OF MAN is to fear YHWH and keep his commands. I don't see any obligation there to try and use existing idolatrous power systems to try and change the world.
I've read that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing (voting) while expecting a different outcome. If voting for polishittans worked, we would as a nation be blessed and prospering. Obviously it is another belief system, and one that a biblically grounded mind doesn't believe in.
I can only agree. Horewer in this case beliefs of other matter. Some things are collective action problem.

And reducing governement size is one of them. Even if economists gets in power, eliminates minimum wages law and unemployement, socialists will still clamor for minimum wages law.
 
This could be put into funny jokes thread.

Recently, Niger has booted out US troops out of their country after several female diplomats were send there to scold ruling junta.

Saw info on Twitter, too lazy to find article on zerohedge.
 
Oooohhhhh Megan.

No response is worst punishment. It's indiference.

I know for women spanky spanky is way better than silent treatman.
What if she meant that your humility would dictate no response from you to her response?
 
"You are as humble as you say you are."

- The current Dalai Lama
 
You have probably noticed I have tendency to edit my posts often.

I just hurts my eyes to see misspelings and missing words day after posting. Lucky, I didn't go to school in USA. I would drive my English teacher crazy. 😊
 
You have probably noticed I have tendency to edit my posts often.

I just hurts my eyes to see misspelings and missing words day after posting. Lucky, I didn't go to school in USA. I would drive my English teacher crazy. 😊
Not any more. Most can't speak, much less read or write, the language, I suspect...
 
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