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Thomas Sowell makes this point regularly in his books. Here's some related points on minimum wage laws: https://www.aei.org/economics/thomas-sowell-on-the-cruelty-o...
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c) the minimum amount required to live peacefully and with dignity.
If you want that and you aren't producing enough value to warrant it, why should someone else pay for it? Find some more valuable work to do, work harder In the UK you'll get benefits to top up your wage anyway.
There are many, many situations where it is simply not possible to just "find more valuable work to do" or to just "work harder" and have it result in more money.
People like to talk about inequality but absolute poverty seems like a more important target. Satya Nadella having more money than me doesn't make my life worse; I'm more concerned about the availability of jobs, food, housing, etc. That said, CEO salary does strike me as strange. Who needs 8 million per year + stock? I'd think more CEOs would voluntarily take a pay cut.
This is very not true since many (most) things we spend money on are in limited supply. I can make what I think is good money, but if remote FAANG workers decide to settle nearby then I suddenly can't afford a house. Same for automobiles after COVID, meat at the market, etc.
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Not if it's a law, I wouldn't say. By law 16 year olds can't drive on public roads, but that's not counted as age discrimination.
By that logic, Jim Crow laws weren't discriminatory because they were laws. I wouldn't suggest relying on legal frameworks as a replacement for ethical ones.
If we find this appalling, let's stop consuming the products of those who we feel are "overpaid" and visit the website, businessplace, or other endeavors of those we feel are "underpaid". Tim Cook gets paid a lot (and so do many AAPL employees), but I can't help but admit that my last 3 laptops I bought with my own cash were MBP, and not a system76 or framework. And I'm more likely to visit costco than a farmer's mar…
Instead, it's the differences between CEO compensation.
Sundar is making $300 to Satya's $65? what?
I know it's an estimate and the numbers are made up at that level but still!
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This is hard due to all the monopolies that exist in the modern world, and it's only possible for B2C businesses. The entire value chain is dominated by B2B where consumers have little say. I love System76 but their components are still from mega corps with stupid CEO salaries. The only effective ways to deal with this are progressive taxation and labor regulations. Bring back the 90+% top tax bracket that Thatcher a…
I'm still unsettled on the balance between unequal pay, and treating the government as the only redistribution solution (ie taxation). I do prefer market solutions that Charity/Philanthropy offer vs governmental spending. And sometimes I think about how many of the richest have a 100% tax bracket as they've pledged their fortunes to charity after death. Probably seems contradictory to my parent comment, but as I said…
I recommend reading the History of Equality by Thomas Piketty to better understand the efficacy of progressive income tax and wealth tax.
If we find this appalling, let's stop consuming the products of those who we feel are "overpaid" and visit the website, businessplace, or other endeavors of those we feel are "underpaid". Tim Cook gets paid a lot (and so do many AAPL employees), but I can't help but admit that my last 3 laptops I bought with my own cash were MBP, and not a system76 or framework. And I'm more likely to visit costco than a farmer's mar…
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> The cap implies that the amount of value provided to the employer is lower if you're younger. It's not a cap, it's a minimum. This is so people can employ kids who have very little economic value and train them to have lots of it.
>It's not a cap, it's a minimum. misphrased, fixed. >This is so people can employ kids who have very little economic value and train them to have lots of it. But 18 year olds are not kids anymore and are capable of providing just as much economic value as a 25 year old. Especially if the employer is a coffee shop or restaurant. Minimum wage should be the same for all ages. It should be at the discretion of the employ…
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While it's repeated ad nauseam, this was the intended purpose of the minimum wage, as quoted by FDR who signed the minimum wage into law: “It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, th…
It seems to be another case of naïve, clumsy legislation causing more problems than it solves.
Additionally, you are describing an effect where removal of the minimum wage would result in more people working, but what of the wages of people who currently work for minimum wage? Clearly the jobs are economical at that rate, but I have a hard time believing that employers paying $7.25/hour would continue doing so if they weren't legally required to. I would be willing to wager my life savings that the loss in income associated with that would dwarf the amount of money being made by the hypothetical class of people you're describing.