The deep roots of modern resentment

Now when you say "must optimize on two fronts: money in order to keep itself afloat and" ... that first one is NOT optional. If that first one is not a prerequisite to having the factory than that factory (or company, or ...) is a net loss for the economy, society, for the world as a whole. You seem to imply it is tenable for a society to have most or all companies operate under such conditions, and of course it is not.

That is of course the alleged problem with communism. Profit in itself is not a necessity, but having profit >=0 over the long run IS a necessity (but obviously for company stability having a decent positive profit most years is very much not optional, and any exceptions must be made for investment purposes, not for any other reason). Otherwise, colloquially, you're "eating your seed grain".

That is the problem, right there. Communist economists see communism as a system that can work because people would still generate profit. People, even communist activists themselves, see communism as a system that can deny the real world. And under those circumstances, of course communism fails. Under a communist system as understood in economics departments, profit would still be an existential necessity for any company.

So if avoiding profit and "instead get X" is why you're a communist, stop right there. That's not communism, that's fantasy. No matter what X is. Stop defending anything remotely like that as an advantage of a communist system, because it is not. The real world need for more valuable output than input from any long-term process, applies just as much to communism as to capitalism, mercantilism, ...

* An increase in inflation but nowhere near enough to offset the rise in wages at the lower end.

* An increase in growth as the money multiplier effect kicks in.

* No real change in employment.

* Share prices fall and lowered earnings projections for classes of business that rely on minimum waged labor.

* As a sort of general guide, look at Australia.

>If you were a landlord managing an apartment building, how much do you charge for a unit? If all of your tenants suddenly make twice as much money as they did, how long before you double their rent?

It depends. This does not happen in a vacuum. If there are a lot of apartments coming on the market at the same time rent could stay the same or even go down.

Every business is subject to competition which would moderate the effect of inflation and tons of businesses that manufacture often respond to an increase in demand by raising production rather than prices (e.g. car manufacturing).

If it went up to $20 I'd project something like 4% inflation.

>If a McDonalds needs to pay all of its employees twice as much money, how long before they double their food prices to make up the difference?

If you want to see what happens to McDonalds, look at Australia:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-in-australia-vs-amer...

They A) raised the prices, B) raise the quality, C) actually kept the big mac price more or less the same, C) are facing competition from nicer restaurants (people have more disposable income and use it in restaurants other than el cheapo mcdonalds).

>I feel like the working poor in this country get a terrible deal in this world - we definitely need to make conditions better. But does raising minimum wage actually do that in the long run?

Yes.

>Or does it just increase inflation and destroy any savings the poor might have?

The poor have debts, not savings. Demand pull inflation caused by increased wages is just about the best possible outcome for them, but it is HORRIBLE for the rich and the rich have a very well oiled propaganda machine. Hence the "why don't you propose solutions" crowd and the downvotes on actual solutions ^^.

That is neither obvious nor is it true. It is the opposite of what is observed experimentally. When the effect of minimum wage hikes is measured across state borders employment remains static.

No. Monetary value is not perfect measure of utility, because market demand is weighted by wealth.

A luxury yacht for one individual clearly provides nowhere near as much utility to them as an equivalently priced quantity of food would provide to a bunch of homeless people, but the market prices it as such because the individual is richer. If we could magically swap the yacht for the food, everything else being the same, society would be better off as a result.

We allow this inequality of demand because it is what drives the supply side towards efficiency, and for the most part I think this is a reasonable compromise.

But we should not confuse profit with utility.

One of the things I've been working to understand the with regard to the continued support of the President is how can I see a set of things and someone else can see a set of things and we draw two diametrically opposed conclusions from it.

So far a consistent them has been ideas which are like the ones suggested by the GP which are both simple to say, clearly would solve some great ill if they were possible to do, and disconnected from reality in a fundamental way. Our GP suggests a unilateral quintupling of the minimum wage (as an example).

I can see how such a suggestion is highly attractive to someone who hasn't learned or thought about how wages get set and the limits of the ability to arbitrarily control those things. I suspect it would help to get more coverage of Venezuela into the consciousness of these people because it demonstrates some of the effects of not understanding how markets or economies work can affect everyday people.

There are lessons there for both sides of this discussion, both for people who advocate a leadership that promises them quick and simple fixes, and for people who believe that rationality will successfully displace their support for a bad actor. Neither of those things are true.