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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

#81

Post by anonytrary »

In the extreme case, what if the minimum wage was $500000000 dollars. That would not work, and it would create a society where everything is done under the table. Now, keep halving that value and ask at what point do people no longer feel required to do things under the table in order to make a basic living (sans criminals). It's not obvious what the right number is.

On the other extreme, if the minimum wage was $0, it would be up to people to determine what they're willing to work for. At some point in the next millennium, all work will be creative work and the concept of a minimum wage probably won't even make sense anymore.

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

#82

Post by silverpepsi »

xupybd wrote: 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.

Market signals can't go backwards in time so I feel like everyone replying is looking at this the wrong way. The learning here is that some fraction of new versions of this gentleman or lady xupybd will have a stronger market incentive to not go to the trouble and risk and just go for the guaranteed $20/hr making more competition for the $20 hr no education jobs. Maybe the higher IQ people will push average teenagers out of such jobs. Finally the market will equalize when the supply for 4 year degree jobs drops and they are forced to increase the pay.

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

#83

Post by sagonar »

stretchwithme wrote: post #64

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.

My counter example is slavery, which would lead to a very big wealth gap. I think that large slavery state or system would need metal working, but will guess it has existed without.

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

#84

Post by bawolff »

mstipetic wrote: post #76
downandout wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There's no such thing as infinite money. Cash just symbolizes value its not actually "value", and you can't make infinite value by just printing infinite cash.

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

#85

Post by Qahlel »

kristopolous wrote: post #80
stretchwithme wrote: post #64

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?

Less government intervention: Let them fail. System can only fix itself, if we let the flaws fall.

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

#86

Post by rStar »

Guthur wrote: post #75
smnrchrds wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

billionaires are criminal by definition, and their existence proves the absence of a (econ 101 style) market in whatever industry they came from. we can only fix this problem through efficient regulation of monopolies.

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

#87

Post by kristopolous »

anonytrary wrote: post #81

In the extreme case, what if the minimum wage was $500000000 dollars. That would not work, and it would create a society where everything is done under the table. Now, keep halving that value and ask at what point do people no longer feel required to do things under the table in order to make a basic living (sans criminals). It's not obvious what the right number is. On the other extreme, if the minimum wage was $0,…

Well sure, but that's the practice of politics.

Just because there's no clear solution doesn't mean we disengage from it.

It's why we have these multi thousand year old political projects, to try to do better with exactly these kinds of questions

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

#88

Post by speedplane »

mstipetic wrote: post #76
downandout wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

I’d expand this... It’s easy to make a profit when everyone is strapped for cash.

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

#89

Post by bawolff »

sagonar wrote: post #83
stretchwithme wrote: post #64

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.

My counter example is slavery, which would lead to a very big wealth gap. I think that large slavery state or system would need metal working, but will guess it has existed without.

Probably you need at least farming so you have something for your slaves to work on that can scale easily.

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

#90

Post by onetimemanytime »

downandout wrote: post #70
stretchwithme wrote: post #64

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…

>>Taxpayers not only recouped everything from the 2008 bailouts, they actually earned a $15.3 billion profit. How is that “socializing their biggest failures”?

Taxpayers should have behaved like hedge funds behave with one another...merciless. Want cash cause no one else loans to you? Sure, hand 95% of the business. The difference between what I said and $15.3 Billion is the gift.

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