$10 Minimum Wage Proposal Has Growing Support From White House - NY Times

[B35 via Church]

Yeah. I'm also looking at the Wall Street bankers and stuff, raking in the money with insider trading scandals that have yet to be uncovered...

 

Ever seen the movie Wall Street? Pretty interesting.

Never saw it.... What, something to do with the Bilderberg group or something....

[rosskin92]

I think we need to take a time out here and separate some things.

 

I have mixed feelings about this, because It in a way helps some people, but keeps others in the same place.

 

Where I work @ the outlets, one employee is homeless, living in a hotel. She trys to scrimp every penny to save to put a deposit on a apartment or house (you can get a house for 40k in decent shape here). But a combination of the low wages, corporates pervasive attitude to cut hours when ever they please is making it hard for her.

 

I get pissed when my hours are cut. I get pissed when I look at my pay checks, and the little I make. But I have to take a time out for a minute. I'm a college student that will be graduating with no loans, and a degree to prove that I can fo some of the things I already know.

 

Not everyone has that advantage. However, there is a wide divide between some jobs and the skills they want for their workers. Some one mentioned it before:

 

And so it's McDonald's fault that these people didn't get proper educations? McDonald's isn't the real problem here.  The real problem here is we have a country that is less educated these days (despite all of these people going to college) and there are fewer and fewer good paying jobs out here in addition to also good paying jobs that can't be filled because the skilled people for these jobs don't exist, so as far as I'm concerned, the Obama administration is taking an easy way out.  They know that they need to be focusing on more manufacturing jobs which still pay well in many parts of the country and getting Americans retrained to get some of the better higher paying jobs.  That's what needs to happen here.  Unfortunately, our government has fallen in love with creating more and more low paying service jobs and so has the American consumer who demands cheaper products, so this is what we have now.  Fewer high paying manufacturing jobs and more and more low paying service jobs.  Obama seems to be getting a clue now by trying to woo more companies to either move back here or invest here and built facilities or re-open shuttered facilities to create more high paying manufacturing jobs or other high end skill jobs.

 

That's precisely what could happen. Most of the jobs in this country don't come from large rich corporations.  They are small businesses (mom and pop stores and other small businesses) that are struggling to make ends meet.  Those are the companies that would be forced to either cut back on staff, raise the prices of their goods and services or both.  It's as simple as that.   

 

The education expected for those jobs isnt a 4 year degree. Most of the time its a two year degree. And they pay well... $21 a hour is what I have seen for those jobs. Thats slightly more than what I expect to make with my 4 year degree when I start out.

 

I think there is a mischaracterization of people who work for minimum wage or are on welfare too. Not all are free loaders or lazy people. Most are trying to get by.

 

So yeah, just some random thoughts

[bobtehpanda]

I don't know, but I also wonder why the buying power of a dollar is much weaker nowadays than what it used to be years ago, prices have been going up anyway so... It's whatever. With the money people are making from minimum wage stunts currently it's amazing how they can buy less and less every year. If things were a little different today, then yes, I'd have a better time believing the "inflation" thing that's been going on steadily...

 

As a general rule, for the past couple decades more people have wanted more things. As other countries have risen up to a Western standard of living (first Japan, then Korea, then Taiwan, and then Latin America), they want a Western lifestyle, with all the consumption of meats and electronics that entails. Once you add China, India, and Africa into the picture (Africa as a continent grew 7% a year during the 2000s, with traditional leaders like South Africa lagging behind), that's a lot of people who now want meat, electricity, and consumer goods. As such, demand has been rising far higher than supply, and prices have risen. Add in the factors of more frequent natural disasters, droughts, and some stupid BS (Russia and the Ukraine are some of the two biggest wheat exporters, yet shut off exports a couple years back), and you've got a lot of price swinging in a very interconnected world.

 

Think food prices here are bad? The Arab Spring was started in part by high food prices. The more you know...

[bobtehpanda]

Switzerland is a good example, in that the people are paid well, but goods and services are extremely high, though the other factor is the cost of living is also very high since it's such a small country with limited inventory.

 

That's if you look at it as a country. It's also an investor haven where people park their money in case the economy goes bad; who wouldn't trust the Swiss? It's why the American dollar and Japanese yen do not follow 'normal' economic rules; if they did, Japan would have defaulted long ago, and dollars would be nearly worthless.

 

Small countries with few transport options and high prices probably include Monaco, Singapore, and Israel. For a complete list of extremely strong currencies, the Big Mac Index is a very good place to start.

 

I would also like to point out that a strong dollar is not necessarily a good thing; due to the dollar's weakness and the yuan's strength, some manufacturing is slowly trickling back. Above a certain strength level, it becomes much cheaper to import all manner of goods; hence why resource-rich countries generally have struggling industrial sectors, like Australia. This is why nearly every central bank is trying to lower the value of their currency; in a race to the bottom, the cheapest countries will get the most jobs.

[Q Broadway Express]

Here in Arizona, the minimum wage is $10.50 per hour.