Why are people on ET so against a decent minimum wage

Quote from rcanfiel:

I am troubled by the attitude of a country who has little remembrance who bailed out their ass in WW2 and assisted in WW1. Do you have a clue how much money the USA poured into Europe both durnig and after the war??? Read up on the Marshall Plan. Do you know how many US ships were sunk bu U-boats resupplying England, who was about to go down? How many men died? According to Jane's Fighting Ships, the USA caused the loss of over 95% of the Japanese fleet which was sunk. England did about 2-3%.

Would you have preferred we sat over here and waited to see who won?

Maybe if we had a higher minimum wage, Americans would have stayed out of the military and not died on European soil.

Perhaps you would be the envy of the world, now living under fascism...
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I want to thank you for your service during both world wars. There aren't many left who've served in both world wars. Good luck old man and God bless you. Can I ask how old you are? You must be at least 110 and posting on the web, I am impressed.
 
Quote from bigarrow:

I want to thank you for your service during both world wars. There aren't many left who've served in both world wars. Good luck old man and God bless you. Can I ask how old you are? You must be at least 110 and posting on the web, I am impressed.
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I lol'd
 
Quote from frugi:


Also damnit, why do you chaps say "could care less" when you mean "couldn't care less"? Funny quirk of language that.

Quote from chuck.ells:

The difference between the American language and the English language. Live with it. /shrug/
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That's just bad english, I don't care where you be from.
 
I think a trader minimum wage should be instituted. Most on ET would likely benefit if the trader minimum wage was set to zero.
 
Quote from bigarrow:

I want to thank you for your service during both world wars. There aren't many left who've served in both world wars. Good luck old man and God bless you. Can I ask how old you are? You must be at least 110 and posting on the web, I am impressed.
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If you understood grammar and semantics, you would not have so much trouble grasping that the second sentence, third sentence, fourth sentence, fifth sentence, sixth sentence, seventh sentence, eighth sentence, and ninth sentence makes it quite apparent the pronoun in the first sentence is about the USA.

If you think it humorous, demonstrating your own level of understanding, then have at it
 
Florida has a minum wage of $6.67/hour in 2007. This will buy 2 gallons of gas with 41 cents left over. A new 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home in Cape Coral, Florida is $139,900. A loaf of French bread is $1.37, a pound of boneless chicken breast is $1.99 . Emergency rooms will accept anyone for a medical emergency, without the US having to implement a universal health care program, that leaves many people dead each year, through lack of resources. Because the rewards of my efforts are not taxed to a degree that leaves me nothing to show for my effort I risk my money to achieve a respectable income.
For $10 in England how much gas can you purchase? What is the cost of a loaf of French bread, a pound of boneless chicken breast ? A new home/ 1600 square foot home would cost how much in England?
I think you will find that our minimum wage just might be as good or better than yours, once buying power is considered.
It would seem that some problems are evident in all societies:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2330795.stm
 
Quote from Smurfie:

Hi jd

I have a question. Hypothetically speaking we'll contrast two models and call them the US model and the Scandinavian model respectively (I'm a Dane). In the US model, welfare is almost non-existent. You may not feel that, but I ensure you a trip to Northern Europe would blow your mind in terms of the 'bloatedness' of social welfare. However, poverty breeds crime and so a lot more funds have to go into building and maintaining prisons, resocialisation programs and police. In the Scandinavian model, social welfare is huge and the state (i.e. tax-payers) fund a segment of the population that lives modestly but does not per se need anything. However, they spend their lives doing nothing comfortably, but at least crime is very low.

If a study showed these two models cost exactly the same, which model would you prefer?

I prefer the Scandinavian one but I'm biased since I'm used to it. I also have a nagging sense of not being safe when I'm in America, but I may be paranoid from reading sensationalist news stories. In any case, it's an interesting difference in philosophy.

Cheers,

Smurf
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Hey Smurf, why the new handle. I mean really, you have to have at least 5 already.
 
One of the problems with higher minimum wages is the impact it has on the whole wage scale. My brother owns a very small construction company and he employs some high school/ college students during the summer. He was paying 9-11 an hour and minimum wage was raised from 5.5 to 7 an hour. When you increase minimum wage not just low income people get a wage increase, it works it way quite aways up the food chain. It ends up costing employers who are paying a decent wage. My brother was paying people who didn't have much (or any) experience but was forced to increase their wages(not legally but in order to keep them) by 1-1.5 an hour as a direct result of this government intervention. 2-3 guys at 1.5 an hour is close to 10K a year which is real money to a small contractor.
 
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