Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Dr. MID-Nite]

9 hours ago, Old Man said:

Looks like they're not even trying to hide it any more: (spoiled for literal Nazi symbology)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

Naturally it's being denied as "an unfortunate coincidence", wink wink nudge nudge.

 

What the hell? I am so sick of Nazis in America.  The country needs to move forward and we keep trying to go back 100 years. So damn frustrating.

[Hugh Neilson]

On 2/25/2021 at 4:25 PM, Old Man said:

 

There is no evidence that even an abrupt minimum wage increase would cost a significant amount of jobs.  History suggests that it may cause prices to increase 1-2% without increasing overall inflation.  If there is any evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it.

 

Such an increase would also go directly to the expendable essential factory workers, grocery store cashiers, fast food employees, and delivery drivers that have been most affected by the pandemic both medically and economically.

 

When the Ontario government raised the minimum wage a few years back, they were shocked to find many retailers cut back hours.  

 

If you have to pay three people $10 per hour (note that "pay" has to include labour burden, such as vacation, social security and statutory holiday pay) to staff a fast food outlet, and your sales in a given hour generate revenues of $100, direct costs of the product of $50, and you spend $10 to keep the lights on, etc., it is worth staying open for that hour.  You are $10 ahead.  Raise the minimum wage to $15, and staying open costs you $5, so you either close (those employees get paid for one less hour) or you figure out how to run the operation with only two of them so you keep the $10.  So what did they think would happen?

 

On 2/25/2021 at 5:52 PM, Lord Liaden said:

 

The numbers I've seen quoted assert that labor costs are actually one of the smaller expenses for most small businesses. Rent, utilities, taxes, material/inventory costs, shipping and transportation, add up to the lion's share. Assistance or relief in a few of those areas would offset increased wages.

 

Rent includes property management, maintenance and construction costs.  The workers providing those services have to be paid.  The utility companies, the city, the manufacturers and the transport companies all have to pay their employees.

 

If I am making $25/hour, and minimum wage is $10/hour, do you think I will believe there should be no increase to my wages if minimum wage is increased to $15? 

 

Maybe I was making $14, and now I am paid the same as all the less-experienced, less-skilled new hires who have less stress and less responsibility.  Do you think that supervisor should get a raise above minimum wage?

 

There is a significant ripple effect  to raising wage costs in isolation.  The reality is that we have X resources.  Supply and demand determines how they are priced, at least in a free market economy.  Increase the funds in the economy and demand rises.  If demand rises with supply remaining constant, prices rise.  I'm not an economist - my education in that area was a few undergrad courses some decades back.  But I can at least see that.

 

Check out https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Denmark I get a comparison to Canada, but maybe it figures out where you are located.  The cost of living in Denmark is 31.28% higher than Canada outside of rental costs, and the cost of rent is 8.38% higher.  A McMeal costs 79 kr on average.  My quick search says $1 CDN = 4.84 kr, so that's $16.32.  In Canada, menu prices are [https://costfindercanada.com/mcdonalds-prices-in-canada/]in the $10 range for a combo meal.

 

$1 US is 6.16 kr, so that's about $12.82 US.  At https://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/ it's in the $6 range.  You can pick a state.  Alabama's comparable.  NY is more like $8, and California is around $7.

 

Labour costs, or minimum wage, won't be the only variable, but I think they are a significant variable.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

And....again...other countries pay their workers far better with far weaker economies. All these excuses show is that the way we run the economy in America is flawed....not that the minimum wage shouldn't be increased. If these "issues" are holding us back, then maybe we should fix them. Oh wait...this is America. We don't fix issues. We try to justify why all of our "issues" aren't really that bad and we should keep them because..."tradition". Me bad.

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

When the Ontario government raised the minimum wage a few years back, they were shocked to find many retailers cut back hours.  

 

 

The increase was made abruptly. Employers made the changes that were easiest to make quickly to compensate for the changes to their operating costs. The Biden administration is rolling this out over five years.

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

If I am making $25/hour, and minimum wage is $10/hour, do you think I will believe there should be no increase to my wages if minimum wage is increased to $15? 

 

 

I honestly don't see why I would consider those to be tied together. That's still well above minimum wage. Median wage is a much more significant factor in how an economy will respond.

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

There is a significant ripple effect  to raising wage costs in isolation.
 

 

Which is why I suggested that things like tax breaks could help ease the cost to small businesses.

 

I've heard the same arguments from business all my life, about adding employee benefits to the payroll, about the cost of environmental protections. In every case there was an initial impact, until the economy adapted and the situation became normalized.

[Lord Liaden]

 

[Hugh Neilson]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

The increase was made abruptly. Employers made the changes that were easiest to make quickly to compensate for the changes to their operating costs. The Biden administration is rolling this out over five years.

 

I honestly don't see why I would consider those to be tied together. That's still well above minimum wage. Median wage is a much more significant factor in how an economy will respond.

 

A less abrupt change allows more time to figure out how to reduce workers required (like, say, those ordering kiosks at McDonalds replacing humans at the register), assess new operating hours, etc.  It does not change the reality that higher wage costs will incent the business to reduce the hours offered to workers due to the increased cost of workers.  If the price of bread increased by 50%, with no change in any product not using bread, would you keep buying the same amount of bread, or find other things to eat?

 

Let's start at the bottom, with a minimum wage worker earning $10/hour, and he gets bumped to $15.  As the shift supervisor, are you prepared to keep working for $15 an hour?  You probably weren't making $15 before, but are you OK making the same as the brand-new hire?  I will say likely not.  So what does the store manager, presently making $20 an hour, think when we bump the shift supervisor up to $20 an hour?  Isn't she worth more than the shift supervisor?  It all clanks along up the chain.  The only real question is balance of power between employer and employee ("are you going to find a better paying job elsewhere?"; "maybe I can find an easier job that pays the same - why should I put up with the stress?")

 

I didn't spend years and thousands of dollars on post-secondary education and professional development to earn the same as someone who invested nothing.

 

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Which is why I suggested that things like tax breaks could help ease the cost to small businesses.

 

 

How small?  Many businesses rely on labour, or other inputs priced including a labour component.  Bob's Burgers and McDonalds have pretty similar economics to deal with.

 

Rotten Ronnie has deeper pockets, though.  He can wait it out, keeping prices steady or even having a reduction, until Bob packs it in, or the bank closes him down.  Then, with reduced competition, Ronnie can raise prices and refill his pockets for the next round.  He's hoping you pop that minimum wage up again if he gets any real competitors back in the market!

 

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I've heard the same arguments from business all my life, about adding employee benefits to the payroll, about the cost of environmental protections. In every case there was an initial impact, until the economy adapted and the situation became normalized.

 

That "normalization" simply becomes the balance between the employees (more per hour means less hours, less bonuses, less benefits, etc.), the customers (more costs means higher prices) and the business owner (whatever cannot be passed on must be absorbed).  Numerous economic studies show, for example, that corporations don't ultimately pay taxes.  They raise prices and pass the extra tax burden on to the consumer.  I've heard arguments all my life against smoking, for exercise and suggesting I not touch the stove when it is hot.  A lot of arguments we hear a lot stick around because they are based on fact.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

And...yet again....other countries seem to manage giving their employees a working wage just fine. So most of the First World can do something the world's most powerful economy can't? It's not a question of can't. It's a question of won't. I'll go further....countries giving better living wages to their populace did not suffer price increases out of proportion to the increase in wages. If I'm making a living wage which enables me to pay my bills and occasionally buy something nice for myself, I am not going to give a **** about someone doing the SAME work making the same amount of money. We're doing the same work! And if you have a large investment in a secondary education....you're most likely making way more than minimum wage so the point is completely irrelevant. We're talking about MINIMUM wage. What person who "spent years and thousands of dollars on post-secondary education and professional development" is making minimum wage? Nobody I know....that's for damn sure. And...for the umpteenth time, other countries don't have this massive complaint of perceived "unfairness and discontent" among their workers that is being presented in arguments as inevitable. It's not. The populace in all of those countries have a much higher happiness index than people in the States do.

[Pattern Ghost]

If increased wages lead to inflation, how do we explain the massive inflation and stagnant wages we've seen over the last 20-30 years? It seems to me like inflation is inevitable, and wages need to catch up at least a little at this point.

[archer]

1 hour ago, Dr. MID-Nite said:

And...yet again....other countries seem to manage giving their employees a working wage just fine. 

 

"Other countries" don't give employees a working wage. 

 

"Employers" there give a working wage.

 

And employers in the vast majority of those countries aren't paying healthcare costs for any of their employees. And in many countries, the employers aren't paying unemployment costs or half of the social security costs.

 

Countries can make almost any system work, if they tinker with enough aspects of their systems to make it work. and do it over enough decades. Many healthcare systems in western Europe went to some form of nationalized healthcare in the 1950's and 1960's. That made it relatively easy to require higher wages in the 1980's and 1990's.

 

The problem the US has, at this point, is that no one wants to expend the political capital necessary to do a system-wide overhaul to fix Social Security, wages, and the healthcare system all at once.
 

[Armitage]

9 hours ago, Starlord said:

Stage designer Adolph Göring was unavailable for comment.  

 

 

"How pretty is this stage?", from the CPAC live feed a couple hours ago.

[archer]

CPAC had their annual conference this weekend. The theme of the event was how the election was stolen from Trump and the vast majority of the speeches were along that theme rather than promoting anything which was remotely along the lines of historical conservative policy points.

 

https://cdn.ballotpedia.org/images/1/1f/CPAC_2021_Agenda.pdf

 

The big thing for the last day of the conference is always their straw poll to see which potential candidate the people who paid to attend the conference would want for their presidential candidate next time around. OK, so the wrap up speaker was scheduled to be Donald J. Trump himself in his first post-presidential speech (at least for the non-QAnon people who think Trump isn't still secretly president).

 

Being the featured speaker and the last speaker would normally be a huge boost for the straw poll which is taken on the last day.

 

97% of the attendees approved of Trump. But in the straw poll, only 55% want him to be the Republican nominee next time around.

 

FL Gov. Ron DeSantis got 22% probably because the conference was held in FL and had a large number of FL attendees. And probably because DeSantis has been avidly against protecting anyone from COVID.

 

No one else scored more than 5% in the straw poll.

 

Pence got 1% probably because he was portrayed as the villain at the conference for refusing to overturn the election.

 

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/guess-who-won-cpacs-2024-presidential-straw-poll/

 

 

[Old Man]

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

A less abrupt change allows more time to figure out how to reduce workers required (like, say, those ordering kiosks at McDonalds replacing humans at the register), assess new operating hours, etc.  It does not change the reality that higher wage costs will incent the business to reduce the hours offered to workers due to the increased cost of workers.  If the price of bread increased by 50%, with no change in any product not using bread, would you keep buying the same amount of bread, or find other things to eat?

 

Could you post a link to the studies that show a 50% increase in prices?  Last I checked, a $15 minimum wage increased the cost of a Big Mac by three cents.

 

 

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Let's start at the bottom, with a minimum wage worker earning $10/hour, and he gets bumped to $15.  As the shift supervisor, are you prepared to keep working for $15 an hour?  You probably weren't making $15 before, but are you OK making the same as the brand-new hire?  I will say likely not.  So what does the store manager, presently making $20 an hour, think when we bump the shift supervisor up to $20 an hour?  Isn't she worth more than the shift supervisor?  It all clanks along up the chain.  The only real question is balance of power between employer and employee ("are you going to find a better paying job elsewhere?"; "maybe I can find an easier job that pays the same - why should I put up with the stress?")

 

I didn't spend years and thousands of dollars on post-secondary education and professional development to earn the same as someone who invested nothing.

 

Could you post a link to the studies that show this effect in wages after a minimum wage increase? 

 

I'm sorry to be such a gadfly, but any time I encounter opposition to a minimum wage increase I tend to see a lot of conjecture and very little data.  I've looked for evidence that minimum wage increases cause problems and found none.  That doesn't mean it isn't out there, but I do note that the economies of Washington D.C. ($14/hr) and Washington state ($13.50) have yet to collapse.

[Pattern Ghost]

Everything I've been able to find on the effect of raising the minimum wage on pass through price increases indicates that it's minimal if the rate is raised slowly. Like boiling a frog.

 

https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/does-increasing-minimum-wage-lead-higher-prices

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052815/does-raising-minimum-wage-increase-inflation.asp

[PDF WARNING] http://ftp.iza.org/dp1072.pdf

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2021/01/21/biden-raise-minimum-wage-affects-myth-taco-bell-burrito/4245883001/

https://www.epi.org/publication/minimum-wage-testimony-feb-2019/

[Hugh Neilson]

27 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

Could you post a link to the studies that show a 50% increase in prices?  Last I checked, a $15 minimum wage increased the cost of a Big Mac by three cents.

 

Could you post a link to the studies that show this effect in wages after a minimum wage increase? 

 

I'm sorry to be such a gadfly, but any time I encounter opposition to a minimum wage increase I tend to see a lot of conjecture and very little data.  I've looked for evidence that minimum wage increases cause problems and found none.  That doesn't mean it isn't out there, but I do note that the economies of Washington D.C. ($14/hr) and Washington state ($13.50) have yet to collapse.

 

I did not suggest a 50% price increase.  I suggested that, if the price of bread rises by 50% and other food prices are stable, you will buy less bread and eat something whose price stays more reasonable.

 

You can check the links I posted earlier for McMeal prices in various locations.  I'm sure data for many other countries is just as easy to obtain.  The McMeal link I hit above puts a Big Mac at $3.99 with no state selected or in Alabama (it may default to Alabama as the first state on the list).  I don't see DC on there, but Washington State is $4.67, so a 17% increase or so. 

 

A business will avoid price increases by:

 

 - accepting less profits (not their first choice, for obvious reasons - and remember that this reduces Bob's "wages" at Bob's Burgers - business profits are received by real people too).

 - reducing labour costs by cutting hours (close earlier; open later - where the cost of staying open exceeds the benefits; use fewer staff "being more efficient"; automate).

 - reducing labour costs by cutting benefits (no more company discounts, for example - I recall free food when I worked in fast food).

 - reduce other costs (very fact-dependent, and can put the squeeze on wages for those suppliers).

 

11 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

Everything I've been able to find on the effect of raising the minimum wage on pass through price increases indicates that it's minimal if the rate is raised slowly. Like boiling a frog.

 

https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/does-increasing-minimum-wage-lead-higher-prices

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052815/does-raising-minimum-wage-increase-inflation.asp

[PDF WARNING] http://ftp.iza.org/dp1072.pdf

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2021/01/21/biden-raise-minimum-wage-affects-myth-taco-bell-burrito/4245883001/

https://www.epi.org/publication/minimum-wage-testimony-feb-2019/

 

These are at least interesting. 

 

To the fourth, clearly a burrito at Taco Bell is not going to be repriced at $38, and that kind of hyperbole helps no one.  We can look at the comment from an economist in Princeton that puts labour costs at 20% - 30% of price, yet only raises the Big Mac price by 1.4%.  That seems to assume that only their minimum wage worker costs rise, and that none of their supplier prices go up.  Of course, they likely have supply contracts, so those costs will go up slower.

 

I am flashing back to University, where my intro econ prof noted that, to an economist, the real world is "a special case".  That big .pdf closes with a comment that "most studies" suggest a 10% minimum wage hike puts the price of food up 4% and overall prices no more than 0.4%, then cites a 1999 study.  I'll go out on a limb and say the world has changed a lot in the two intervening decades.  He concludes that "The overall reading of the above evidence on price effects, together with the evidence in the literature on wages and employment effects is that the minimum wage increases the wages of the poor, does not destroy too many jobs, and does not raise prices by too much."  So how many lost jobs are "too many"? Probably depends on whether you keep yours and get paid more, or lose yours and get paid nothing.  Price increases and wage ripples are noted as the most common effects, so we are also lefty to wonder how much a price rises before it is "too much".

 

I find Investopedia's comment that high inflation and high unemployment go hand in hand interesting, mainly because economic theory considered having both at the same time was impossible until, in the 1970s, they had to develop new economic theories.  Intro econ again - each age of economics ends with "and then X happened, which was impossible, so we needed new theories".

 

With Mr. Biden raising minimum wages, economists will have plenty to study over the next decade or so.  Maybe we will get a better idea of how wage increases correlate with price increases.

 

One challenge of economics and wages is that the free market relies on perfect competition.  Employees have a lot less power than employers in that respect, making some employee protections necessary in this special case we call the real world.

 

 

 

[Starlord]

Looks like DeSantis might be the Trump backup plan for GOP

[Ternaugh]

Then there's In-N-Out, which has an average hourly rate of over $16 per hour, and managers make an average of $160,000 per year. Yet I can get a Double-Double, fries and a soda for about $7 here in Las Vegas.

 

Quote

In-N-Out Vice President of Operations Denny Warnick told the Sun that quality service requires quality employees with quality pay — a vision of the company's founders, Harry and Esther Snyder.

“Paying their associates well was just one way to help maintain that focus, and those beliefs remain firmly in place with us today,” Warnick told the Sun.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2018/01/25/n-out-mangers-make-160-000-per-year-reports-show/1065434001/

https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=In-N-Out/Hourly_Rate

https://www.menuwithprice.com/menu/in-n-out-burger/nevada/las-vegas/362770/

 

[Dr. MID-Nite]

2 hours ago, archer said:

 

"Other countries" don't give employees a working wage. 

 

"Employers" there give a working wage.

 

And employers in the vast majority of those countries aren't paying healthcare costs for any of their employees. And in many countries, the employers aren't paying unemployment costs or half of the social security costs.

 

Countries can make almost any system work, if they tinker with enough aspects of their systems to make it work. and do it over enough decades. Many healthcare systems in western Europe went to some form of nationalized healthcare in the 1950's and 1960's. That made it relatively easy to require higher wages in the 1980's and 1990's.

 

The problem the US has, at this point, is that no one wants to expend the political capital necessary to do a system-wide overhaul to fix Social Security, wages, and the healthcare system all at once.
 

 

Employers in said countries do so because of government regulation. They would probably not be doing so otherwise. So..."countries"....governments of said countries...whatever semantics makes you most comfortable. The point is that it gets done....in many cases as you stated...long ago. America has excuses...but no good ones.

[csyphrett]

Apparently Eric told people that if the wage increase goes through, he'll fire the drivers and use door dash. Since half of our business is deliveries, I don't see that working out well for him.

CES

[TrickstaPriest]

1 minute ago, csyphrett said:

Apparently Eric told people that if the wage increase goes through, he'll fire the drivers and use door dash. Since half of our business is deliveries, I don't see that working out well for him.

CES

 

Apparently it's been a continual complaint that services like grubhub and door dash already siphon so much money from restaurants that they are considered a liability over in-house drivers.  Restaurants actually found they were losing money after adopting those services.  I don't imagine that changing.  Would be interesting to see some investigation on that though.

[csyphrett]

1 hour ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

Apparently it's been a continual complaint that services like grubhub and door dash already siphon so much money from restaurants that they are considered a liability over in-house drivers.  Restaurants actually found they were losing money after adopting those services.  I don't imagine that changing.  Would be interesting to see some investigation on that though.

I feel like no one knows what's going to happen, and the statement is hearsay, but Eric has told people that if they didn't like working for him they could go to work for the competition, and they did

CES 

[TrickstaPriest]

8 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

I feel like no one knows what's going to happen, and the statement is hearsay, but Eric has told people that if they didn't like working for him they could go to work for the competition, and they did

CES 

 

Wow.  And this is going on at your workplace?

[csyphrett]

11 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

Wow.  And this is going on at your workplace?

He's the owner of the franchise.

CES

[Matt the Bruins]

I don't understand how services like Doordash and Grubhub can work. My understanding is that they add something like another 50% to the cost of the average takeout meal. I'd only even consider that much markup as an alternative to room service in a hotel when the weather or other circumstances wouldn't allow me to walk to nearby restaurants.

[Pariah]

1 minute ago, Matt the Bruins said:

I don't understand how services like Doordash and Grubhub can work. My understanding is that they add something like another 50% to the cost of the average takeout meal. I'd only even consider that much markup as an alternative to room service in a hotel when the weather or other circumstances wouldn't allow me to walk to nearby restaurants.

 

There are apparently a lot of people with more money, less mobility, and or less motivation than you. That's the only explanation I can come up with.

[Old Man]

2 minutes ago, Matt the Bruins said:

I don't understand how services like Doordash and Grubhub can work. My understanding is that they add something like another 50% to the cost of the average takeout meal. I'd only even consider that much markup as an alternative to room service in a hotel when the weather or other circumstances wouldn't allow me to walk to nearby restaurants.

 

I wonder if that business model will still be viable post pandemic.