That's a very strange way of taking what I said. Just like I said if you take care of yourself you'll visit the doctor less. I did'nt make any comparison of health. I'm 100% sure that I'm healthier than people that abuse their bodies what ever country the come from. If you smoke or due drugs you don't deserve health care but yet alot of people in developed countries do and are on health care plans. I think there are too many governement programs. If people had money in there hands it would be better because they could choose. I do alternative health and never have to visite the doctor for any reason. I have a higher knowledge of alternative health than most that's probably off the scale of people that practice it as well. Heath care and Oil industry are huge monopolies that the government helps keep in place but you'll probably see this differently. Hope that clarifies my point of view... See ya.
Maybe we could send Australia all of our undesirables but AU probably wouldn't go for that now tisk tisk...
It balances out if people allow a free labor market. Not too many people get to pick their profession. Most have to go into fields where there's work. People from other countries don't understand the complexity of the United States. They critize but don't understand what works there probably won't work here and in the case of minium wage it's not a good idea. If a person wants more money they can demand it from their employer but if their not worth it their not going to get it. It may seem tight but it's not easy running a business and I'm sure your brother had to work hard to make it as a contractor. I think it's fair. People at ground level shouldn't have any rights to demand a percentage of a pie that they didn't bake. Raising the minium wage will only make the US more uncompetitive and since the US doesn't export raw resouces (there's less easy wealth) it would not make any sense and would ultimatly fail. I don' t like rules that make it to where you don't have to perform. It's just like a sports franchise if you have a valuable player he/she will be in more demand and to keep them they will make more. People that don't perform don't deserve free hand outs. When your young you might get spoiled at home but most resonable people know that you have to earn what you get and it's not handed out in a platter. Hey if anyone want to give me some money I'll give you my paypal account number and you can just shoot over to me. Don't worry I'll spend it on good causes like a beach house, fancy cars, and women. You can take that to the bank.
Hi ProfLogic You seem to have me confused with someone else. I don't have other handles and this is the second thread I've responded to ever. I usually post in Forex forums and not ET (as my post count shows). If you checked, you would see the little "August 2004" close to my handle. I'll accept your apology of course, but in the grander scheme of things, I'm not sure how these mistakes of yours bring the discussion forward. Cheers, Smurf
Australia has had a minimum wage for a long time. In fact AUS and NZ were the first to introduce a minimum wage. It dates back to when Australia "rode on the sheeps back" - long before the current resource boom.
Why don't you go play with blocks.. You don't understand what I'm saying. It's funny how you guys cherrypick but don't get the whole picture. I bet your a real good techy but as far as comprehending you just don't get it.
Hey look here USA is number 1! I think it shouldn't be an issue to you now should it? You started this thread just to make trouble and you have no concept of the differences in the 2 countries. US bad UK good. Your last paragraph you intentially leave a very negative bias with blatant remarks. It's clear you don't understand how our system works in our good country. You just cherrypick a few things and leave out all the positive things in the US economy. Look nobody is abused in the US. I know you come from a dainty country but it's little more tougher here and you have be able to earn to receive. Too much charity will make us weak. We have enough problems why don't you voice your own problems with the UK and quit stirring up problems here. You haven't even been to all the states in the US so you don't even know from a practical standpoint of view. Your stand point of view comes out of some British colonial peasant working at a soup factory. No, no, no there's alot more to it than that.
That is about the level of your reasoning ability or lack thereof and it sounds very inscure. Every nation has its faults and the US is most certainly not excluded from this. In fact on quite a number of internationally accepted measures of quality of life - in particular health and education - the US does not rate very well considering the size of the per capita GDP. One would think that if a person genuinely cared about their country they would be capable of admitting it's inadeqacies and thinking about how it could be improved rather than behaving as some sort of cheer leader for a mindless nationalism.
You have to watch those pesky soup factory workers or they'll ruin it for the rest of the colonial peasants. I for one admire your apparent strong love for your country, but I can't help but wonder why you're all yelling and screaming all the time. Shouldn't you be more relaxed - basking in the warm mellow feeling of living in the #1 country in the world? The whole PMS routine seems to evidence a certain cognitive dissonance on your part. In any case, here's a snippet from Wikipedia: Opposition Opponents of the minimum wage claim it has these effects: * Hurts small business more than large business. * Lowers competitiveness * Reduces quantity demanded of workers. This may manifest itself through a reduction in the number of hours worked by individuals, or through a reduction in the number of jobs. * Hurts the least employable by making them unemployable, in effect pricing them out of the market. * Reduces profit margins of business owners employing minimum wage workers, thus encouraging a move to businesses that do not employ low-skill workers. * Businesses try to compensate for the decrease in profit by simply raising the prices of the goods being sold thus causing inflation. * Increases prices for customers of employers of minimum wage workers, which would pass through to the general price level, which disproportionately affects the prices that poor people pay for goods and services. * Not an effective policy for transferring welfare to work. * Does not improve the situation of those in poverty. "Will have only negative effects on the distribution of economic justice. Minimum-wage legislation, by its very nature, benefits some at the expense of the least experienced, least productive, and poorest workers." * Is a limit on the freedom of both employers and employees. Minimum wage laws make it illegal for employers to pay workers less than the minimum wage. This also prevents workers from being able to provide labor or services for less than the minimum. For example, during the apartheid era in South Africa, white trade unions lobbied for the introduction of minimum wage laws so as to exclude black workers from the labor market. By preventing black workers from selling their labor for less than white workers, the black workers were prevented from competing for jobs held by whites. * Decreases opportunities for low-skilled workers to gain the training and responsibility they need to move up the wage ladder. * Businesses spend less on training their employees. * Is less effective than the Earned Income Tax Credit at targeting the truly needy, and is more damaging to businesses. * Decreases human capital by encouraging people to enter the job market instead of pursuing further education. * Reduces economic growth by skewing factor-choice incentives away from the optimum choice. * Increase in offshoring * Increase in underemployment. * Increase in crime. * Fewer job options for low wage earners. * Increases the costs of goods and services produced. * Increases the number of people on welfare, thus requiring greater government spending. * Encourages high school students to drop-out. * Minimum wage earners in the United States are typically high school or college students, not families. Less than 3 percent of minimum wage earners in the United States are parents. * Decreases the number of jobs created. If this is true, how do some countries with higher or much higher minimum wages still manage higher employment, higher GDP/cap. and higher levels of education than some countries with much lower minimum wages? What am I not seeing? If it's because there're loads of other variables in play, does it really make sense to discuss minimum wages in isolation from other factors? Cheers, Smurf