GOP-Run Senate Kills Minimum Wage Increase

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Subversive @ Jun 24 2006, 12:53 AM) [snapback]276211[/snapback]</div>

Uh...that would be....Enron....right?

I guess under the new order they would be rewarded with cabinet positions rather than indicted. Ken Lay as Secretary of Energy?

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SSimon @ Jun 23 2006, 08:20 PM) [snapback]276094[/snapback]</div>

Let me re-iterate a couple of things.

Less than 2% of US wage earners make minimum wage. A vast majority of those folks are under the age of 25. This means that by and large, most minimum wage earners are probably students in school or are still living under the roof of their parents. Also there has been absolutely zero correlation between raising the minimum wage and poverty rates and therefore crime rates. Unless you were to just drastically raise the minimum wage (I'm talking adding $6-7/hr!) then little piecemeal "cost of living" adjustments really have no effect. Good ol economics usually still wins out in most areas and if employers aren't providing enough of a cost of living adjustment in their wage rates to begin with, a vast majority of folks go looking for work elsewhere.

Small businesses employ about 80% of the USs workforce. So to say that Wal-Mart or any other large corporation has "set the bar too low" is irresponsible. Wal-Mart WISHES they had that kind of pricing power on market wages. At the same time, despite all the nay-sayers, you still see people flocking to work for the place. Maybe its just an odd coincidence, but if they were treating folks so badly then they'd have to raise their wages to attract people to work there. I don't know about the areas where you guys live but finding a job somewhere else rather than Wal-Mart for someone relatively unskiled really isn't that difficult around here. Perhaps then these people just accept jobs at Wal-Mart because of a lack of motivation and then whine about what they're paid and don't do anything to improve their own position in life personally. It is too comfortable to go off and say "the government ought to" instead of doing something for yourself.

As to the poster who seemed to be using the fact that no political party in the UK wanted to repeal the minimum wage laws as a qualifier that justified the minimum wage, think about what you're saying. You're saying that because a politician refuses to readdress an issue it must mean that there's nothing wrong with what's being discussed. A politician isn't going to touch such a law because even though it has minimal impact on the citizenry, if the press gets word that a politician wishes to repeal some great socalistic endavor like the minimum wage, they'll hang that politician out to dry without even bothering to examine the fact that the law did little in the first place.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 24 2006, 01:58 AM) [snapback]276195[/snapback]</div>

One of the worst fallacies in the field of economics is the notion that the development of monopolies is an inescapable and itrinsic result of the operation of a free economy. The exact opposite is true. It is a FREE market that makes monopolies impossible!

Monopoly = exclusive control of a field of production which is closed AND exempt from competition. Those controlling the field are able to set arbitrary production and prices, independent of the market. Such a monopoly is more than the absense of competition. It's the impossibility of competition.

Every monopoly that exists in the USA was created and made possible by coercive actions of government.

Public education comes to mind. Social security. Medicare. Welfare. USPS (competition from UPS & FedEx not withstanding). Utility companies.

A coercive monopoly is not the fault of laissez-faire capitalism! It can result only from abrogation of laissez-faire and the introduction of STATISM - i.e., coercive force of government.

Au contraire. The immorality, known as statism, has screwed up the only moral system known to man - CAPITALISM. Socialism has been tried endlessly - it does not work! When the state attempts to plan the economic course of the (a) country the result is always the same. Failure. A free, capitalism-driven economy works to anticipate and react to current conditions as individuals contribute to the overall economy by attending to their own selfish (as in self-interest) interests.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Denny_A @ Jun 25 2006, 10:02 PM) [snapback]276717[/snapback]</div>

And look what's happened to even the biggest and strongest monopoly of all time, the Bell Systems telephone companies. Look what happens when alternative services become available in the marketplace like cellular and cable internet/voice telephone services. Can't wait to see what happens when BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) becomes widespread. It's a general rule that you need at least three major competitors to really bring down prices to what they ought to be.

USPS is in trouble because of competition from the internet, specifically email and online billing/billpay services.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AnOldHouse @ Jun 25 2006, 11:43 PM) [snapback]276731[/snapback]</div>

Note, however, that AT&T became a monopoly beause of "government protection"; i.e. - force. Nevermind that ATT&T lobbied for, and won that protection. AT&T was not a laissez-faire capitalistic business! Quote below and link.

Antitrust's Greatest Hits

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Subversive @ Jun 23 2006, 08:10 PM) [snapback]276071[/snapback]</div>

Obviously you've never owned a corporation or a business of any kind. If you did I'm sure you wouldn't let some two bit politicain dictate your compensation schedule. Your name "Subversive" indicates you mistrust the Government and yet you are willing to let them tell you how to distribute your hard earned money?? Very very incongruant.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Denny_A @ Jun 26 2006, 04:53 PM) [snapback]276988[/snapback]</div>

Oh, no question about it! But like other utilities, it would have been impractical and wasteful to run multiple phone lines, water lines, power lines, etc. to the same areas. Cable at least was done in regional blocks, but consolidation in that market has narrowed the field to a few players, yet, are now thankfully given competition by DirecTV and DishNetwork thanks to new technology. Providing video over DSL is the next step in that competitive equation.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AnOldHouse @ Jun 25 2006, 11:43 PM) [snapback]276731[/snapback]</div>

Forgot to address this in a previous response. I'm intrigued and hope you respond.

By what "objective" standard is the general rule 'you need at least three MAJOR competitors....etc.' derived. Also what is the "objective" standard for deciding what prices 'ought to be'!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 24 2006, 02:34 AM) [snapback]276230[/snapback]</div>

Speaking of Enron



How Enron worked the President

This is an interesting bit of information that you don't hear much about.

A. Enron's chairman did meet with the president and the vice president in the Oval Office.

B. Enron gave $420,000 to the president's party over three years.

C. It donated $100,000 to the president's inauguration festivities.

D. The Enron chairman stayed at the White House 11 times.

E. The corporation had access to the administration at its highest level and even enlisted the Commerce and State Departments to grease deals for it.

F. The taxpayer-supported Export-Import Bank subsidized Enron for more than $600 million in just one transaction. Scandalous!!

G.. BUT...the president under whom all this happened WASN'T George W. Bush...


SURPRISE ......... It was Bill Clinton!