Regarding a country's standard a living. The standard most economists use measures the productivity per worker. Countries that have the highest productivity have the highest standard of living and are the most prosperous. This is pretty much a proven statistical fact that even Krugman agrees with. Wages have ZERO effect on productivity alone. In fact, productivity generally goes up by dumping low wage workers and instead hiring less people who are more educated who can create more output per worker. The only way to increase productivity is if we completely change the existing worker with a more productive worker and then pay him more. You can't simply take a guy named Bob, who is making 7.75 an hour and who has no skills or education and simply raise his wage to 10.10 and suddenly like magic, Bob is more productive. Math doesn't work that way. And like others have mentioned, if the fuzzy Al Gore math DID work that way, every company in the world would race to raise their wages to capture the increase in productivity. I've said this before in P&R and I will say it again, if you truly want to help the poor, you cannot do it by raising their wages. You have to raise their education or skill level (that whole productivity thingy). Most businesses that hire minimum wage workers are operating on thin margins as it is, they have no room to raise wages. Secondly, who is to say when the wage is high enough. Politicians don't get elected saying "OK, we're done". If wages go to 10.10 then the next election cycle they are going to have to ask for 12.10 then 14.10 then 30.10.....etc. Most businesses are intelligent enough to be forward looking. So the result? They change their business. McDonalds is already leaning in this direction anyway with the building of high end McCafe's in NY that cater to "higher end" people. They will simply cut labor, go after more productive workers, pay them more money and eliminate the poor hispanic and poor black from the labor force. The result? Well, we're seeing it now. Black youth unemployment is still near 50% which is staggering if you stop and think about it. Just as you can't print your way to prosperity, you also can't simply raise wages to increase profitability. Profits at the company level MUST be grown through productivity and at the national level. This is why even in China where the gov't is spending trillions to stimulate their economy, they still have one of the lowest standards of living in the world. They also have one of the lowest productivity rates in the world. It's also why cities like Chicago and NY who have city governments that spend a fortune on welfare yet have the highest welfare rates in the country. And lastly, I'll close with this. The increase of 2 dollars and change to minimum wage could be given synthetically to every worker through the lowering or overall prices through the reduction of monetary expansion. QE and the FED have raised prices for the poor well in excess of the added wage suggestions. A far more "productive" thing to do is to stop enriching the rich by printing money and driving stock and real estate prices higher and instead let prices deflate and allow the economy to become more affordable. At the end of the day, what matters is not how much money you have but what that money can buy. At the height of the Weimar Republic, the avg German was a billionaire who couldn't afford a loaf of bread. Caveat Emptor.
You chicken shit moron. You live in Lubbock and I live in ATL. Las Vegas isn't on the way to anywhere for either of us. There is only one reason to even make such a demand. You don't want a meeting. Since there is no bet, then why does your dumb ass keep bringing it up?
Back to the subject. Maverick our high standard of living, job opportunities for the average worker, good working conditions are some of the things that defined our country and society as successful. My view on the minimum wage is that it's a safety net for the very lowest of the workers and is fair and just that we have it. Where exactly it should be I don't know, 10.10 does seem high.
Those qualities you mentioned DO describe Americans workers. More specifically "skilled and educated" workers. No where in our constitution or in the law of economics does it state that non skilled and non productive workers deserve high wages, job opportunities and good working conditions. This is the rub. You see, what's causing the problem I believe is, in this country we have created this class of worker who should NOT be technically employed anywhere. They really shouldn't. They might be dead beats, alcoholics, drug addicts, illiterate, or simply have no skills. Yet we have industries that through economies of scale (franchising) who can actually marginally employ these people. So what happens is, these people have these jobs that should not even exist and then one points to them and says, hey, they are not getting paid enough. Well, they shouldn't be getting paid anything! And this is the problem. The interesting conflict going forward is going to be the fact that at some point in the near future, most these jobs will disappear and be done by robots. Most of the low skilled jobs will become totally obsolete. So then what? This is why I stress that the long term answer to poverty and low wages is a more skilled and educated workforce. Not creating artificially high wages for jobs that simply require a pulse.
I hear ya. I don't know if it is still this way, but years ago I spent a lot of the time in the southwest. And I love Mexican food. I don't know for a fact that all the workers were undocumented, but many were sub minimum wage. They always had a pretty girl who walked you to your table and handed you menus then a 14 year old kid who did nothing but poor water a waiter who asked you what kind of beer you wanted a 17 year old kid (who use to be the water boy) who brought chips on and on most of the time there were more workers than customers I suppose there was some kind of tip sharing, but can you imagine trying to run some kind of operation like that on $10.10 for everybody?
Inflation is an elixir to politicians and bankers... it masks their evil doings. Deflation is to be avoided at ALL COSTS! "Deflation is the worst thing"... they always say. But they never tell us the real reason.
And all this time I thought you wanted to meet for your silly IQ test. Well that and me beating the will to live out your stupid ass at the boxing ring afterward.