Impending Minimum Wage hike causing restaurants to close

[Sparko]

Why isn't it arbitrary? Simply declaring that it isn't doesn't answer my questions.

Restricting voting to only those who pay taxes isn't arbitrary, either. And for that matter, people as young as 14 can hold down a job and pay taxes, so why shouldn't 14-year olds be allowed to vote, if an age restriction isn't arbitrary?

Puleeze. Let's just make 4 year olds have the vote. You are sounding ridiculous at this point.

21 was set as the age of majority because it was decided that a person of that age would be mature enough to understand the issues. Then they dropped it to 18 because we were sending 18 year olds to war and not giving them a say in the government who sent them there.

Taxes are arbitrary because they are just something you came up with to stop those you don't want to vote from voting. They are citizens and whether they pay federal taxes or not has nothing to do with it. In fact, a lot of rich people don't pay taxes either because of a business loss, or some other tax shelter. There is no way to track who is paying and not paying and saying "you can vote, you can't" - that is why it is arbitrary. Whether someone is rich or poor, they should have a say-so in the government. Even if their votes are idiotic and elect morons like Sheila Jackson Lee. In the end, things tend to even out. Just look at Obama's popularity after he has shown that he can't be trusted to water a cactus.

[Mountain Man]

Puleeze. Let's just make 4 year olds have the vote. You are sounding ridiculous at this point.

21 was set as the age of majority because it was decided that a person of that age would be mature enough to understand the issues. Then they dropped it to 18 because we were sending 18 year olds to war and not giving them a say in the government who sent them there.

Taxes are arbitrary because they are just something you came up with to stop those you don't want to vote from voting. They are citizens and whether they pay federal taxes or not has nothing to do with it. In fact, a lot of rich people don't pay taxes either because of a business loss, or some other tax shelter. There is no way to track who is paying and not paying and saying "you can vote, you can't" - that is why it is arbitrary. Whether someone is rich or poor, they should have a say-so in the government. Even if their votes are idiotic and elect morons like Sheila Jackson Lee. In the end, things tend to even out. Just look at Obama's popularity after he has shown that he can't be trusted to water a cactus.

You say, "There is no way to track who is paying and not paying..." Tell that to the IRS.

A citizen wishing to register to vote could simply use their W2 or certified tax return as proof of eligibility. That's not much of a hurdle at all and is a pretty weak objection on your part. Come on, Sparko, I expect better from you. As for rich people and tax shelters and blah blah blah, that's why I said tax payers and/or property owners since every rich person owns property even if they don't pay a dime in taxes (that said, the top 1% of wage earners in America combined pay more in taxes than the bottom 90% combined).

But now I'm curious why you think something that is theoretically difficult to prove (whether or not someone pays taxes) is somehow more arbitrary than something that is theoretically easy to prove (like whether or not someone is old enough to serve in the military). There are a lot of things that are easy to prove that are nevertheless arbitrary.

I'm also curious why you think someone old enough for military service (18-years and older) should be allowed to vote while someone old enough to legally work and pay taxes (14- to 17-years old) should not. Since you claim 18-years old is not an arbitrary restriction then you shouldn't have any trouble coming up with a concrete and defensible reason.

[Sparko]

There is no arguing with you MM. Create as many silly examples as you wish. You are making conservatives look as nutty as the democrats are. They want to control how people spend their money and force them to "redistribute" it to suit their needs. You want to control who can and can't vote for the same motives: so that you can control who can and can't vote because you somehow think that people that don't pay taxes and are poor don't have a right to voice their opinions in the voting booth just like every other American can. Both views are fascism.

[Mountain Man]

There is no arguing with you MM. Create as many silly examples as you wish. You are making conservatives look as nutty as the democrats are. They want to control how people spend their money and force them to "redistribute" it to suit their needs. You want to control who can and can't vote for the same motives: so that you can control who can and can't vote because you somehow think that people that don't pay taxes and are poor don't have a right to voice their opinions in the voting booth just like every other American can. Both views are fascism.

Seriously? That's the angle you're going to take? "There's no arguing with you"? More like, "I don't have an argument." If you've actually thought your position through then it should be easy to make your case, but it seems like all you've got is, "People old enough to serve in the military should be allowed to vote becasue they're old enough to serve in the military." If that's not arbitrary then I don't know what is.

And "facist"? Really? Saying that only tax payers and property owners should vote is no more "facist" than your position that 14- to 17-year olds who work and pay taxes shouldn't vote. For that matter, our Founding Fathers restricted voting to white males who owned property. Are you going to accuse them them of being "facist", too?

[Starlight]

There is a lesson that you need to learn:
Life isn't fair.

I'm well aware of that, which is precisely why it's so important that steps be taken by the government to make things more fair.

Some lessons you need to learn:
1. Basic human decency and morality is about treating other people well. That means taking steps to fix unfair situations in society. Also, incidentally, it can mean limiting your inherent • Edited by a Moderator • toward others.
2. Just because something is a certain way, doesn't mean it morally ought to be that way or stay that way.

Even in societies that claim that everyone is equal and there are no rich or poor, end up with the very rich and the very poor.

Not really true. Much of the non-American West during the period 1950-1960 had narrowed the gap between rich and poor significantly. Historical data shows that this gap can be affected by an order of magnitude or more by government policy.

Robin Hood is just a story.

Correct. Whereas the 1950s are not.

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[Sparko]

I'm well aware of that, which is precisely why it's so important that steps be taken by the government to make things more fair.

No. You want to put the burden on the Government to be the bully and force people to "be fair" - But that only makes it more unfair. It seems you want everyone to be equally poor, and only then you will be happy. That is what happens when governments step in and take control of your money and give it to others. If I am rich or well off and the harder I work, the more the government takes from me to give to you who is sitting on your butt doing nothing and getting free money and free healthcare, etc -- then pretty soon I will just say "to hell with it. Why should I work when the goverment just takes it away? I am better off being on the social programs and being paid not to work, like Starlight" - and soon there will be less and less people willing to work and more and more wanting a free ride. Then the money runs out and everyone is poor.

Some lessons you need to learn:
1. Basic human decency and morality is about treating other people well. That means taking steps to fix unfair situations in society. Also, incidentally, it can mean limiting your inherent [edited] toward others.
2. Just because something is a certain way, doesn't mean it morally ought to be that way or stay that way.

I am not against people voluntarily giving money to help others. But the only way to accomplish that is to change hearts, not use a club. That is what Jesus teaches us. To help our neighbors, because it is the right thing to do, not because we are being forced to.

Not really true. Much of the non-American West during the period 1950-1960 had narrowed the gap between rich and poor significantly. Historical data shows that this gap can be affected by an order of magnitude or more by government policy.

Correct. Whereas the 1950s are not.

bwahahahahahaha. Where are these countries now? They went broke until the started allowing private business ownership and profits. Soviet Union - crashed. South Korea is much more prosperous than North Korea. China was on the verge of starvation until they started getting into manufacturing and private businesses. Vietnam is still poor. Cuba is poor.

[Starlight]

It seems you want everyone to be equally poor, and only then you will be happy.

I want to see an equitable distribution of resources. There are more than enough to go around. This wasn't always the case historically. But due to modern technology the world is much more productive - productivity has increased at a fairly steady rate of about 1% per year for the past 150 years. And since the late 70s / early 80s the gains from that increased productivity have not been distributed in a way that is fair or reasonable. People are being paid much less than the value they are actually contributing through their work.

If I am rich or well off and the harder I work, the more the government takes from me to give to you who is sitting on your butt doing nothing and getting free money and free healthcare, etc -- then pretty soon I will just say "to hell with it. Why should I work when the goverment just takes it away? I am better off being on the social programs and being paid not to work, like Starlight" - and soon there will be less and less people willing to work and more and more wanting a free ride. Then the money runs out and everyone is poor.

The main problem with that narrative (apart from amusingly casting me as the beneficiary in the example) is that that's not actually what happens. The vast vast majority of people aren't satisfied with the very low level of money that the government provides and are strongly motivated to go out and work to earn much more money for themselves. Higher taxes do not tend to actually be a disincentive for people to earn more: People who want to earn more money will still make the effort to earn more money.

I am not against people voluntarily giving money to help others. But the only way to accomplish that is to change hearts, not use a club. That is what Jesus teaches us. To help our neighbors, because it is the right thing to do, not because we are being forced to.

No. You're making up this contrast of forced-giving vs voluntary-giving and trying to project it back onto the bible and Jesus. The bible does not spend any significant amount of time or focus teaching any such lesson.

The bible and Jesus do focus on the importance of helping the poor. For this reason a lot of Christians around the world support strongly-redistributive economic policies. I did, for example, when I was a Christian. I recall attending an election-results-watching party with my Christian friends around 10 years ago, and we were amused to find that 16 of 20 people attending had voted for the same party (given we have around 7 parties to vote for in NZ, that's a highly-unusual concentration of similar voting), and we had voted for the most left-wing party because we believed as Christians in helping the poor.

Much of the non-American West during the period 1950-1960 had narrowed the gap between rich and poor significantly. Historical data shows that this gap can be affected by an order of magnitude or more by government policy.

bwahahahahahaha. Where are these countries now?

Doing exceptionally well, and they generally score as some of the best places in the world to live and some of the happiest countries. eg Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, France, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, Finland, UK, etc.

[Bill the Cat]

I want to see an equitable distribution of resources.

So you want to basically steal from those who have and give to those who don't, Mr. Hood?

[rogue06]

So you want to basically steal from those who have and give to those who don't, Mr. Hood?

Keep in mind that Robin Hood usually stole from the government and their tax collectors and gave the money back to those that they took it from. And during Medieval times the tax rate was usually only 25%

[Joel]

That is commonly how it works. Most companies have been around for a number of years, and have a number of existing employees that they retain from year to year. The boss / managers then must each year decide on what pay rise and/or bonuses to give their workers. This decision may be affected by things like:
a) The amount of profit made by the business in the previous financial year.
b) what the boss feels is the smallest pay rise he can get away with paying.
c) what are believed to be the 'standard market rates' for the work being done by those workers.
d) the extent to which the workers have gained on-the-job experience that the boss feels is valuable and difficult to easily replace.
e) the extent to which the workers have the ability to negotiate higher pay through unions or similar.
f) the extent to which the boss is a nice guy that likes paying his employees well vs the extent to which he is selfish and likes to keep the money for himself / the extent to which he is being pressured by the board to keep money for the shareholders. ie relatively arbitrary whims and attitudes.
g) the current rate of unemployment, and therefore the ease or difficulty of finding new staff to replace workers who quit due to low pay.
etc
All those things tend to be factors, often simultaneously. I've seen all of those factors operating in companies I've worked for and companies friends have worked for.

This doesn't change what I said.
(a), (b) and (d) have to do with the educated guess as to what revenues will be. As was my point, the decision is made prior to revenues, without know what they will be for sure.
(c), (e), (g) have to do with affecting the supply and demand of labor, and thus the prevailing market price. And, as was my other point, the owner mostly has to take the price as given.
And (f) is not something that enters into economic decision making. The owner no more decides like that for hiring labor services than for purchasing land, machines, lumber, etc. Also you are again confusing hired managers and owners. (Which can be forgiven because current law tends to confuse them too, which should be remedied.)

Okay. I wouldn't have thought a company that comes into existence for a single job and hires workers for it isn't an overly common situation, but it's fine to think about.

It shows how production works in the simplest case. More complex cases just combine this, e.g. by working on multiple units of product at the same time, with their production times overlapping. Regardless, production (and agreements on cost payments) comes prior in time to revenue.

Okay sure, that seems generally correct. I do note that usually owners don't eat all the losses - the company itself goes bankrupt or is declared insolvent or goes into receivership but the owner himself is typically shielded from personal financial harm (that's half the point of companies). At worst he can declare himself bankrupt. Either way the loser is almost always the people/companies who are owed money by the failed company. The owner himself is fully protected by law (he's simply not liable), and the banks who loaned him money get secondarily protected (their loans are secured against assets), and the losers are those 3rd parties owed money or services.

It can be argued that the things you describe here are not part of the free market, but are the fault of government intervention (e.g., forced debt forgiveness via bankruptcy laws). One can also validly think of the creditors as part-owners (proportional to their loans). And a year's loss does not necessarily mean a firm goes under.

In the long run, the tendency is for market wages to equal the marginal revenue

I don't think this is true. It assumes an overly simplistic view of how wages actually get set in practice.

No, what it assumes is that business owners are trying to maximize profit, which is an assumption you seem willing to make.
The point where marginal cost equals marginal revenue is the profit-maximizing point.
If marginal revenue is less than marginal cost, that means that reducing the workforce will cut costs by more than the decrease in revenue. So a profit-seeking businessman will want to downsize as long as marginal revenue is less than marginal cost.
On the other hand if marginal revenue is more than marginal cost, that means that hiring additional labor services will increase revenue by more than the increase in costs. So, again, a profit-seeking businessman will want to expand production as long as marginal revenue is less than marginal cost.
Either way, this drives marginal revenue and marginal cost towards being equal.

Much of the time the contribution of any one worker to the total revenue of the company is extremely difficult to quantify. If an insurance company makes an income of $2 billion one year, what proportion of that was contributed to by the cleaning staff? What proportion by the staff at the call-center? What proportion by the marketing department? What proportion by IT staff, or the lawyers, or the actuaries, or the managers, or the CEO himself? It is totally impossible to try and sit down and do any sort of accurate calculation about the comparative contributions of each worker: Two people could easily attempt the same calculation and come up with numbers that differed by 200%. How much any individual staff member contributed to the company's total revenue doesn't have an answer 99% of the time. True, there are very unusual circumstances where one particular individual has some extremely clear relationship with a proportion of the company's total revenue, but the other thousand members of the company tend to be pretty hard to directly associate with any particular income.

Firstly, you are here making the error I was first trying to correct. The decision over wages isn't about figuring out contributions to the past revenue. The decision has to do with contributions to expected, future revenue. The decision is made with regard to the present marginal cost equaling the expected (future) marginal revenue. (Although a person may use knowledge of the past to try to predict the future.)

Secondly, it is true that the owner does not have perfect knowledge. The (future) marginal revenue is not known for certain. But the market is self-correcting, revealing errors and good judgement via profits/losses. As to the cleaning staff, call-center, etc. Also, the cleaning staff, being a different kind of labor, will likely have a different marginal cost and marginal revenue (and thus different wages) than the call-center (etc). Each would be determined by best educated guesses and by trial and error. And not just by one firm, but by all firms hiring cleaning staff, call-center employees, etc. The various trials and information of all the various employers will, via their competition, combine to reveal the answers. Another thing that helps this is when there are sometimes separate firms that specialize in cleaning, call-center, IT, etc. Then those firms will yield profits/losses, thus helping drive prices for those individual departments toward the equilibrium.

It does become more difficult (and more open to individual negotiation) when talking about high-skilled employees with unique skill sets, where you can't easily consider them as part of a homogeneous labor pool with a marginal cost. But, this thread is about minimum wage, so we are talking about low-skilled workers, who comprise a more-homogeneous labor pool.

If he owns the company, he typically chooses what the company is going to pay to him at any given time.

If he is a sole proprietor, then paying himself a wage is meaningless.

When the CEO doesn't own the company... it is common in the US for CEOs of large publicly listed companies to choose their own salaries by an indirect process of appointing a small-group of people whom they themselves oversee to select the CEOs pay. It is also quite common when boards set the CEO's pay for the CEO to have friends on the board who are amenable to setting his pay at whatever he asks for. In public companies which are diversely held (ie no significant single stock-holder), the CEOs can often get away with suggesting their own salaries be set very very very high without getting much or any push-back from the stock-holders themselves who are almost entirely disinterested in the day-to-day running of the company.

That would be essentially fraudulent activity. I think a lot of this has to do with existing laws confusing owners and managers, as I said above, and creating artificial legal separations between owners and their company. Which should be remedied. The solution, if anything, would be to have the owners be more actively profit seeking, and have full control of their company.

Because people are often not perfectly rational according to the definition of 'rationality' that economists use. People often believe that if they pay more for something it must be better.

I'm not claiming that people are perfectly rational. But their beliefs about the benefits and costs involved (together with the beliefs of others) is what makes up the supply and demand that determine prices. The law of supply and demand takes human actors as they are.

But what you are ultimately claiming here is that the people risking their own millions on making these decisions as best as they know how, using their best information and judgement about the costs and benefits involved are obviously wrong, and that what "Americans on average feel" about the matter, is a better guide. Well, then those "Americans on average" should be able to easily out-compete the existing businessmen.

[Darth Executor]

I want to see an equitable distribution of resources. There are more than enough to go around. This wasn't always the case historically. But due to modern technology the world is much more productive - productivity has increased at a fairly steady rate of about 1% per year for the past 150 years. And since the late 70s / early 80s the gains from that increased productivity have not been distributed in a way that is fair or reasonable. People are being paid much less than the value they are actually contributing through their work.

Why is the distribution not fair or reasonable? After all it's the owner who purchased the more effective technology whereas the worker's productivity stayed the same. Why would you expect the owner to pay the worker more for doing the same (or possibly easier) work?

[Starlight]

Why is the distribution not fair or reasonable? After all it's the owner who purchased the more effective technology whereas the worker's productivity stayed the same. Why would you expect the owner to pay the worker more for doing the same (or possibly easier) work?

Advancing technology had made the workers themselves more productive on an individual level with minimal capital investment. eg office workers having a computer in front of them allows them to do in Excel or Word in 5 minutes what might have taken hours to hand-multiply or for secretaries to type up 80 years earlier. Connecting to the internet allows them to access information relevant to the business and make better and smarter decisions in the course of their work which result in them more efficient and more productive.

But this technology doesn't cost much: The cost of a computer is a pretty negligible percentage of an employee's yearly salary. So it is not like the business owner has gone out and made a one-off investment of ten million or a hundred million dollars of capital from his personal savings into the business in order buy a major business asset that he thinks will make his business more productive - eg built a new manufacturing plant full of the latest robotics technology. If that were the case, I could see an argument for saying "he's risked his money, so the returns are his".

But that sort of large capital investment is not what we're talking about here, and instead we're dealing with the situation where the average worker in average working conditions has gotten more productive without the business owner needing to spend huge outlays of capital. Over the last few decades as the productivity of these workers has increased, almost 100% of the profit from that increase has gone to business owners rather than the workers, primarily because the workers have been dis-empowered through the dissolution of unions etc and general deregulation of the economy. You seem keen to argue that government shouldn't take away from people what is theirs by right, even though the government can do so due to the unequal power relationship that exists between the government and individuals. So it is curious that you seem to think that employers should be able to exploit the unequal power relationship that tends to exist in today's world between employer and employee in order for the employer to take away from employees the profits they have earned due to their increased productivity.

[lilpixieofterror]

Or to become a liberal democrat in government.

You mean you try to implement a failed government system, that has lead to the death of millions of people and leaves an entire country in economic destruction. With a population at or near starvation? I've heard it said the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. I guess our communist buddies are proof that insanity is alive and well in the world.

[Darth Executor]

Advancing technology had made the workers themselves more productive on an individual level with minimal capital investment. eg office workers having a computer in front of them allows them to do in Excel or Word in 5 minutes what might have taken hours to hand-multiply or for secretaries to type up 80 years earlier. Connecting to the internet allows them to access information relevant to the business and make better and smarter decisions in the course of their work which result in them more efficient and more productive.

Yes, but the extra productivity is because of a computer. Ergo, the profits should go to the person who owns the computer (the employer).

But this technology doesn't cost much: The cost of a computer is a pretty negligible percentage of an employee's yearly salary. So it is not like the business owner has gone out and made a one-off investment of ten million or a hundred million dollars of capital from his personal savings into the business in order buy a major business asset that he thinks will make his business more productive - eg built a new manufacturing plant full of the latest robotics technology. If that were the case, I could see an argument for saying "he's risked his money, so the returns are his".

Why does he have to risk his money for the returns to be his?

But that sort of large capital investment is not what we're talking about here, and instead we're dealing with the situation where the average worker in average working conditions has gotten more productive without the business owner needing to spend huge outlays of capital. Over the last few decades as the productivity of these workers has increased, almost 100% of the profit from that increase has gone to business owners rather than the workers, primarily because the workers have been dis-empowered through the dissolution of unions etc and general deregulation of the economy. You seem keen to argue that government shouldn't take away from people what is theirs by right, even though the government can do so due to the unequal power relationship that exists between the government and individuals. So it is curious that you seem to think that employers should be able to exploit the unequal power relationship that tends to exist in today's world between employer and employee in order for the employer to take away from employees the profits they have earned due to their increased productivity.

All I'm doing right now (because I don't have time for extended discussions) is arguing that the increased productivity is not the product of more efficient workers but more efficient capital, so your argument that some of the extra profits belong to the worker is nonsensical. The worker added nothing to the increase of productivity since it's not like he researched new computers/machines and built them (presumably if he could do that he would be some well paid crack engineer or entrepreneur and not some low grade worker). The guys who did that are getting paid by the business owner, who in turn gets to keep the profit of that investment. The worker contributed nothing to this improvement, so it makes no sense for you to claim that they "earned" extra profits and the employer is taking away from them.

[lilpixieofterror]

I'm well aware of that, which is precisely why it's so important that steps be taken by the government to make things more fair.

And how well has that worked, in the past? Oh yeah, piles of dead bodies as the government kills people, who resist, and steals their stuff from them. People thrown into mass death camps, where they are worked to death. People thrown into ghetto's, where they live in small apartments, with several other people, while a hand full of government elites, live in luxury. Let's not forget the long lines for basic necessities, such as bread, where you might be waiting for hours to receive your meager food ration. If you ignore that these things have all happened, when a government attempts to make things 'more fair', I guess it is a great idea and we should use it ASAP! You know, the very definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. I guess the failure of the USSR, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, the eastern communist block, etc isn't enough evidence to show you your failed polices, in action, are a horrible idea, that will end in economic destruction and piles of dead bodies, as a result. Where would I rather live, in a country, where 'the poor' are richer than 80% of the rest of the world, or a country that I would be working in hellish conditions, to receive my meager food ration for the day? Hummm... decision decisions...

Some lessons you need to learn:
1. Basic human decency and morality is about treating other people well. That means taking steps to fix unfair situations in society. Also, incidentally, it can mean limiting your inherent *edit* toward others.

Yeah and let us ignore the fact that using government force, to enforce your utopia fantasy, has lead to a destroyed economy, piles of dead bodies, and starving people. Yeah, it worked so well for the USSR, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, the eastern communist block, lets try it again and expect different results from the same failed policies! Let's see... the 'poor' here in the US, are richer than 80% of the world. I didn't grow up rich at all. I grew up with a family that lived paycheck to paycheck and I can think of two times that we had to move in with family members, due to how things worked out. Yet, at the same point in my life, my family is doing better than I grew up with. Why is that? Oh yeah, because I live in a society where the origins of our birth do not have to define how we'll live for the rest of our lives and I can move up, from my beginnings. Would that of happened, if I had grown up in your utopia paradise, of forced equality? Nope because they all live in poverty! Let me see the choices... failed economic policies, that have killed millions or capitalism, that lifts millions of people out of the situation they grew up in and leads to greater living conditions than we had before?

2. Just because something is a certain way, doesn't mean it morally ought to be that way or stay that way.

And just because you want to adopt failed polices, that have killed millions of people and economically destroyed entire countries doesn't mean I have to accept it. Tell me, did China and Russia start doing much better before or after they accepted capitalist polices? Do we live better than the people that lived a century ago? They had ice boxes, we have refrigerators. They barely had radio, we have TV, game systems, home movies, etc. They had hand washing machines, we have automatic washing machines. Shall I go on and keep showing how things have become better under capitalism (even for the poor), while communism has lead to the death of millions and the economic destruction of entire countries? We have better stuff than our ancestors did not because of your failed polices, but because of polices that actually work and lead to better conditions for all.

Not really true. Much of the non-American West during the period 1950-1960 had narrowed the gap between rich and poor significantly. Historical data shows that this gap can be affected by an order of magnitude or more by government policy.

And let us just ignore piles of government debts and your insane idea of 'Lets just raises the taxes!' anytime you come up with your 'cheap' insane policies! Funny how my grandfather earned a degree in the 1960's and worked his way up the ladder, to retire from a nice white collar job in the 2000's, while countries that tried your insane polices have either ended up going belly up or have adopted the same 'evil' capitalist polices that you keep saying are bad. Let me see the choices... failed economic policies, that kill millions of people or polices that actually work. Decisions decisions...

Correct. Whereas the 1950s are not.

And what did countries, that adopted your insane polices, have in the 1950's? Oh yeah, piles of dead bodies and a march to economic destruction!