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Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

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Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketable skills, what a concept. I’m being flippant, but there really could be constructive share ownership amongst the general population.

> I’m being flippant, but there really could be constructive share ownership amongst the general population. If only everyone could work in adtech and digital surveillance, we'd have endless growth and high profits throughout the world! But that's obviously not the case, so how would somebody working for trucking company arrive at the same compensation that somebody in adtech would?

Imagine thinking I was arguing for similar compensation

I said what I said, there’s nothing more to read into it than what was written

Oh maybe share was misinterpreted, I was referring to greater ownership of companies. Shares. Equities.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than it does now, but since wages are only a small part of the costs people would still be better off.

According to this [1] (first thing I was able to find, no clue how accurate): Another major cost for McDonald’s is payroll and employee benefits. These account for 36% of its company-operated restaurant expenses. I don't know in what world a third is "only a small part". The same article mentions According to PayScale, the average worker in the fast-food industry makes $8.50 per hour. Increase that to $44 and you end…

Why is this comment gray? Is it wrong?

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#73
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. And how it turned out is that very, very few people earn minimum wage. In 1979 it was 13.4% In 2017 it was 2.3% In 2017, 1% of workers aged 25 or older earned minimum wage. 8% of working teenagers do. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm

You realise your point is moot right? The economic arguments against the minimum wage rely on the idea that it's a necessity to underpay for business to function. The less people underpaid, the less strong the argument for having to ensure a low or no minimum wage.

My "point", if there was any, is just that very few earn minimum wage. Therefore comparing to minimum wage is pointless and kind of strange.

More meaningful would be comparing to the first quintile of wage earners.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#74
post #14

NZ just raised our min wage to $20 an hour. I work at least 50 hours a week. A teenager at MacDonalds now earns a good fraction of my income if they work the same hours. Despite my 4 year degree, near decade of experience and the responsibility's that I hold.

I looked at some tech jobs in Wellington and shocked at how little they pay compared to SF. The cost of living in cheaper, but not that much cheaper.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#75

So what? I am fully in support of increasing minimum wage but I've been seeing articles like this for weeks and it is frankly garbage ragebait that I hesitate to call journalism.

So what? The wealth gap is increasing. Its increase is so huge we need examples like this to just comprehend how bad it's gotten.

And?

Gaps are not even remotely what we should be focussed on and are purely based on jealous or indirect aggression.

Concentrate on living standards and opportunity that will help far more people than trying pull down a vanishingly small number of people.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#76

A society with no technology has hardly any wealth gap. People who can leverage multiple technologies can multiply their efforts. Mass communication, mass distribution and automation of all sorts. But Wall Street bonuses are subsidized by the fact the government socializes their biggest failures. Bailouts just encourage them to take greater risks, leveraging debt in dangerous ways that will blow up the system again.

Taxpayers not only recovered everything from the 2008 bailouts, they actually earned a $15.3 billion profit. How is that “socializing their biggest failures”? From [1]: Early estimates for the total cost of the bailout to the government were as much as $700 billion, however TARP recovered funds totalling $441.7 billion from $426.4 billion invested, earning a $15.3 billion profit or an annualized rate of return of 0.6…

It’s easy to make a profit when everyone is strapped for cash and you have an infinite supply

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#77
post #14

NZ just raised our min wage to $20 an hour. I work at least 50 hours a week. A teenager at MacDonalds now earns a good fraction of my income if they work the same hours. Despite my 4 year degree, near decade of experience and the responsibility's that I hold.

If you can work 50 hours a week, and can manage a team of people, it’s time to look beyond McDonalds.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#78
post #9

ok but how much would a sandwich cost?

If you compare menu prices at fast food chains in areas with high minimum wages (i.e. Seattle's $15) vs areas with low minimum wages, (i.e. the US's federal ~$8) the cost of items is higher but not as high as you might think.

You can see some comparison data here, or find other sources (I don't have any bookmarked to dig up, I last did the research on this a few months ago...) https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/why-big-m...

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#79

A society with no technology has hardly any wealth gap. People who can leverage multiple technologies can multiply their efforts. Mass communication, mass distribution and automation of all sorts. But Wall Street bonuses are subsidized by the fact the government socializes their biggest failures. Bailouts just encourage them to take greater risks, leveraging debt in dangerous ways that will blow up the system again.

What's "no technology", because ancient rome was full of giant wealth gaps. Maybe if you mean hunter-gatherer societies, but i don't really know enough about them to comment.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#80

A society with no technology has hardly any wealth gap. People who can leverage multiple technologies can multiply their efforts. Mass communication, mass distribution and automation of all sorts. But Wall Street bonuses are subsidized by the fact the government socializes their biggest failures. Bailouts just encourage them to take greater risks, leveraging debt in dangerous ways that will blow up the system again.

Ok but during a crisis what's the alternative?

The alternative now is to disconnect the systems from the possibility of contagion, but the nature of crisis is essentially an acknowledgment of a failure to achieve in those efforts.

So what then, really?

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