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The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

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Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#141

Post by ahtihn »

ethanbond wrote: post #103
StefanWestfal wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain? I would assume that only a part of the increase in wages would go to rent. I live in Norway where the minimum salary is high. Rents are too but the average person has to spent less time working to pay for housing. Do you think the hours a person needs to work to pay for housing would stay the same if the wage increase?

Roughly yes. How are we still working 40hrs/week just to put a roof over our head and feed our families when we are equipped with technologies that have exponentially increased the productive output of each individual? The answer is that land has gotten more expensive, so everything on it has gotten more expensive. The solution is not to avoid wage increases, as this “FUD” accusation assumes, but to raise wages and t…

> How are we still working 40hrs/week just to put a roof over our head and feed our families

Most tech workers earn far more than is necessary for just this. But we also want nice cars, nice vacations, going out to restaurants and buy nice toys. That's what keeps most of us working that much.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#142

Post by tastyfreeze »

vanveenada wrote: post #124
tastyfreeze wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way the government can increase benefits is to take more from everybody else.

Fortunately, when there's wage-driven inflation there's enough effective demand in the economy to produce enough supply to provide enough taxation headroom to offset the effects of wage-driven inflation on people with fixed incomes.

That is not how this works. First off prices increasing is the result of inflation not inflation itself. Inflation is an increase in money supply. Wages increasing is part of the process of inflation working its way through the economy.

Increasing the number of dollars floating around does not give more tax headroom. Taxes are strictly a percentage of the quantity of dollars pie. Making the pie bigger means everybody gets a bigger piece and everything increases in cost to match. Wages that do not increase result in the earner getting a smaller piece of the pie. So, the cost of labor increases as people refuse to work for an amount that doesn't pay the bills anymore. But, the percentage of the slices are exactly the same after the lag period of 12-18 months. The lag period is how long it takes an increase in money supply(inflation) to be reflected in the markets of goods and labor.

https://www.johnlocke.org/the-myth-of-wage-push-inflation/

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff/ecajt/inflation%20lags%20m...

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#143

Post by dwaltrip »

mostertoaster wrote: post #106
ethanbond wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a landlord! Breaking the cycle is a farce: why do you think it’s a cycle? It’s self-reinforcing and resilient to small changes (like a few landlords here and there delaying rent increases for a few years).

Well have you charged less than market rate for rent? I had a place for 10 years that I was charging about 60% market rate on because the lady was old and lived off social security. I had negative cash flow on it. My other rental has a negative cash flow as well. I make good money so I can afford it. If every single person who complained about the plight of the poor actually physically went and helped the poor, their…

Good for you, but it doesn't seem realistic to expect large numbers of landlords to do this.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#144

Post by ahtihn »

wonderwonder wrote: post #42
pydry wrote: post #7

This paper is a good rebuttal to talking points like this tweet that crop up from time to time: https://i.redd.it/b57t1w5jllb61.jpg (I was trying to look up a similarly awful article referencing EMTs earning $minwage + $2 I saw a while back but googlefu is failing me)

This is a terrible rebuttal. It essentially says because society has decided to underpay the people that look after our kids for 8 hours a day, that no one else should be able to make money either. The correct take should be teachers are woefully underpaid for the work they do which includes looking after our kids in the event of a school shooter. Strange to me that so many people rally to keep their fellow citizens…

> in the event of a school shooter.

The probability of this happening at any given school is so incredibly low it's really not worth factoring into any decision-making at all.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#145

Post by ethanbond »

ahtihn wrote: post #141
ethanbond wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roughly yes. How are we still working 40hrs/week just to put a roof over our head and feed our families when we are equipped with technologies that have exponentially increased the productive output of each individual? The answer is that land has gotten more expensive, so everything on it has gotten more expensive. The solution is not to avoid wage increases, as this “FUD” accusation assumes, but to raise wages and t…

> How are we still working 40hrs/week just to put a roof over our head and feed our families Most tech workers earn far more than is necessary for just this. But we also want nice cars, nice vacations, going out to restaurants and buy nice toys. That's what keeps most of us working that much.

Yes the people in what’s likely the most lucrative industry in human history have it good. For now.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#146

Post by ethanbond »

adventured wrote: post #111
ethanbond wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that people are more productive when they are working together? This higher productivity is what allows for rent to be high (the land is more productive), but that does not necessarily imply that the increased productivity should go into the hands of people who merely hold land and are not themselves producing anything on it.

It also does not imply the owners of that land - that had to take a risk in allocating their funds to acquire it - do not deserve to benefit from it (given they also very likely pay taxes on that ownership, which is true in the vast majority of the US; and property taxes are a very important government funding source in the US). "Producing something on it" is a wholly subjective standard. I can just as well proclaim…

Thought experiment: What if that owner hadn’t acquired that land?

Turns out… it’s still right there!

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#147

Post by AniseAbyss »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #58
ethanbond wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the most critical consequence: rent. Rent goes up. Landlords get richer, minimum wage earners go back to poverty. Pretty obvious cycle. High paying employer moves somewhere? Rent goes up. Normal employer pays more? Rent goes up.

America is 3,531,905.403 square miles large, and the majority of us choose to live in under 100,000 of it. Maybe that too also contributes to these issues. You may fashion yourself to be virtuous enough to not charge more when you so easily can, but we shouldn't assume everyone will be.

Is it a choice that a liberal homosexual doesn't want to live in Tennessee but moves to New York or California?

Unless there's a Khmer rouge regime in America that forces the intellectuals to move to the countryside at gun point most of the country will remain empty.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#148

Post by AniseAbyss »

ethanbond wrote: post #95
mostertoaster wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t raised my tenants rent since 2018 when I bought the rental. I just had him pay what he had been paying. Maybe you should be a landlord and help break the cycle?

I am a landlord! Breaking the cycle is a farce: why do you think it’s a cycle? It’s self-reinforcing and resilient to small changes (like a few landlords here and there delaying rent increases for a few years).

Be honest its greed.

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#149

Post by wonderwonder »

ahtihn wrote: post #144
wonderwonder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a terrible rebuttal. It essentially says because society has decided to underpay the people that look after our kids for 8 hours a day, that no one else should be able to make money either. The correct take should be teachers are woefully underpaid for the work they do which includes looking after our kids in the event of a school shooter. Strange to me that so many people rally to keep their fellow citizens…

> in the event of a school shooter. The probability of this happening at any given school is so incredibly low it's really not worth factoring into any decision-making at all.

Statistically true but tell that to every school district that forces the teachers to lead live shooter drills every month. With that said though, shooters happen and teachers are in charge of ensuring the safety of their class when it does. Whether it happens or not its part of the job description. How would it play if there was a real school shooting and the teacher just ran away abandoning her class?

Re: The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

#150

Post by ethanbond »

AniseAbyss wrote: post #148
ethanbond wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a landlord! Breaking the cycle is a farce: why do you think it’s a cycle? It’s self-reinforcing and resilient to small changes (like a few landlords here and there delaying rent increases for a few years).

Be honest its greed.

Yep! And here in reality, the question cannot be, “how do we eliminate basic human instincts like greed,” and instead, “how do we direct our instincts toward positive outcomes?”

It’s a violation of basic logic to allow greedy people to just indefinitely claim stake of something they had no part in creating (land) so they can indefinitely reap rewards from activity on that land which they have no part in (rent).

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