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Minimum Wage Hurts Those It Was Designed to Help in forum Constitutional Discussion at A Well Regulated Militia.
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Posted by airforce (Member # 523) on 05-09-2011 04:44 PM:
Gee, who could have guessed this would happen? Only somebody who knows a little something about economics.
Gee, who could have guessed this would happen? Only somebody who knows a little something about economics.
quote:
... Minimum-wage proponents argue that a higher wage floor will improve the standard of living for poor families. The reality is that higher labor costs reduce employment, especially for younger workers, and the greatest amount of pain is felt by black men. The Even and Macpherson study finds that among whites males ages 16-24, each 10% increase in a federal or state minimum wage has decreased employment by 2.5%. For Hispanic males, the figure is 1.2%. "But among black males in this group, each 10% increase in the minimum wage has decreased employment by 6.5%."
The effect on the black community is so pronounced, write the authors, that "employment losses for 16-to-24 year-old black males between 2007 and 2010 could have been nearly 50% lower had the federal and state minimum wages remained at the January 2007 level."
It gets worse. Not all states were fully affected by the federal minimum wage increases because some already mandated a minimum wage above the federal requirement. But in the 21 states that were fully affected, about 13,200 black young adults lost their job as a direct result of the recession, versus 18,500 who lost their job as a result of the minimum-wage mandates. "In other words," write Messrs. Even and Macpherson, "the consequences of the minimum wage for this subgroup were more harmful than the consequences of the recession." (...)
The effect on the black community is so pronounced, write the authors, that "employment losses for 16-to-24 year-old black males between 2007 and 2010 could have been nearly 50% lower had the federal and state minimum wages remained at the January 2007 level."
It gets worse. Not all states were fully affected by the federal minimum wage increases because some already mandated a minimum wage above the federal requirement. But in the 21 states that were fully affected, about 13,200 black young adults lost their job as a direct result of the recession, versus 18,500 who lost their job as a result of the minimum-wage mandates. "In other words," write Messrs. Even and Macpherson, "the consequences of the minimum wage for this subgroup were more harmful than the consequences of the recession." (...)
Read the whole thing.
Onward and upward,
airforce
Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted by Breacher (Member # 1119) on 05-10-2011 01:42 PM:
I see the argument here and there, and while I don't like the government dictating to business, some business get so big that they can manipulate labor markets and peoples living situations with bad labor policy, so regulation has to be what happens to them.
Personally, I do a lot of work off the books and I hire people off the books, but over the last three years, when dealing with a government related situation where they were breathing down my neck over damn near everything, I was getting stuck through other peoples legal maneuvers into working below minimum wage on a bunch of jobs.
It usually worked like this:
Get lied to about the business volume, have a happy interview, sign contracts which include a 1099 statement, everything being reported to the IRS even though I am told that I have to be responsible for doing the math on what taxes get owed.
Paycheck #1 comes in really really short of expectations, my balls get busted over work speed or sales volume ect ect.
Paycheck #2 comes in, I notice half the people who I was hired with no longer work for the outfit. Still short of expectations, lots of pep talk about keeping the chin up ect ect.
Paycheck # comes in, I don't give notice, I am down the road.
In my own business, I hire people from time to time for cash, and I don't care how desperate someone is, I don't play desperation as a negotiating tool to get people to work on a below par wage. If they really do below par work, then the solution is they go down the road. Sometimes I even hire homeless people and welfare bums, and surprise surprise, when given an actual respectable amount of money, and some respect, they do their best work for me.
I will not pay a Black man minimum wage or below, so whatever arguments someone wants to make about how that is "black wages" loses my attention right there. The Black guy who helps me with moving jobs gets $15 per hour or better, is over 40, and reality is that whatever time he may have spent lifting weights on a prison yard or neighborhood gym makes him more employable than someone who looks better in person or on paper but can't lift the other end of a piano.
Inferior schooling is not it either. It doesn't take a degree in anything to move couches or pianos. It does not even take a whole lot of literacy. Now hours in the gym, yeah. Healthy eating and keeping in shape, yep.
What really locks a lot of these people out of jobs are unrealistic expectations and demands of squeaky clean criminal records. Half the guys who work for me in the building trades on the remodel jobs I have done are ex-convicts. Wood and nails don't do background checks. Most of the work we did last summer was for a real estate developer whose son got set up and busted for selling exstacy in college, so he understood the concept of giving people an honest wage instead of pulling their options out from under them to the point where they have to go into the dope fetching jobs. Now working inside of occupied homes, that's another matter, and requires very high levels of supervision, but I just got word from another developer that Bank Of America is mandating a "No Felons" rule not just for their own employees, but anyone who contracts for them in any way. No joke, on the bare bones refurbishing work done on empty homes they get government money to foreclose on, they are saying that a contractor cannot even have a felon employee mow the lawn.
Pile that on with the fact that B of A is a major stakeholder in a lot of neighborhoods, including those minority neighborhoods hit by the recession, and they are mandating that felons can't be employed, then on the other side we are supposed to be supporting some idea that minimum wage is too much? What's next? Re-Legalize slavery?
There are so many ways to sneak around minimum wage laws and rules anyway that what is really at stake on that is the federal witholding for social security and bare minimum insurance for full time employed people.
I think championing some sort of "lets pay below minimum wage and make it legal" platform among the patriot movement is not at all a smart choice at this point in history when we are trying to gain a reputation as champions of social justice.
I see the argument here and there, and while I don't like the government dictating to business, some business get so big that they can manipulate labor markets and peoples living situations with bad labor policy, so regulation has to be what happens to them.
Personally, I do a lot of work off the books and I hire people off the books, but over the last three years, when dealing with a government related situation where they were breathing down my neck over damn near everything, I was getting stuck through other peoples legal maneuvers into working below minimum wage on a bunch of jobs.
It usually worked like this:
Get lied to about the business volume, have a happy interview, sign contracts which include a 1099 statement, everything being reported to the IRS even though I am told that I have to be responsible for doing the math on what taxes get owed.
Paycheck #1 comes in really really short of expectations, my balls get busted over work speed or sales volume ect ect.
Paycheck #2 comes in, I notice half the people who I was hired with no longer work for the outfit. Still short of expectations, lots of pep talk about keeping the chin up ect ect.
Paycheck # comes in, I don't give notice, I am down the road.
In my own business, I hire people from time to time for cash, and I don't care how desperate someone is, I don't play desperation as a negotiating tool to get people to work on a below par wage. If they really do below par work, then the solution is they go down the road. Sometimes I even hire homeless people and welfare bums, and surprise surprise, when given an actual respectable amount of money, and some respect, they do their best work for me.
I will not pay a Black man minimum wage or below, so whatever arguments someone wants to make about how that is "black wages" loses my attention right there. The Black guy who helps me with moving jobs gets $15 per hour or better, is over 40, and reality is that whatever time he may have spent lifting weights on a prison yard or neighborhood gym makes him more employable than someone who looks better in person or on paper but can't lift the other end of a piano.
Inferior schooling is not it either. It doesn't take a degree in anything to move couches or pianos. It does not even take a whole lot of literacy. Now hours in the gym, yeah. Healthy eating and keeping in shape, yep.
What really locks a lot of these people out of jobs are unrealistic expectations and demands of squeaky clean criminal records. Half the guys who work for me in the building trades on the remodel jobs I have done are ex-convicts. Wood and nails don't do background checks. Most of the work we did last summer was for a real estate developer whose son got set up and busted for selling exstacy in college, so he understood the concept of giving people an honest wage instead of pulling their options out from under them to the point where they have to go into the dope fetching jobs. Now working inside of occupied homes, that's another matter, and requires very high levels of supervision, but I just got word from another developer that Bank Of America is mandating a "No Felons" rule not just for their own employees, but anyone who contracts for them in any way. No joke, on the bare bones refurbishing work done on empty homes they get government money to foreclose on, they are saying that a contractor cannot even have a felon employee mow the lawn.
Pile that on with the fact that B of A is a major stakeholder in a lot of neighborhoods, including those minority neighborhoods hit by the recession, and they are mandating that felons can't be employed, then on the other side we are supposed to be supporting some idea that minimum wage is too much? What's next? Re-Legalize slavery?
There are so many ways to sneak around minimum wage laws and rules anyway that what is really at stake on that is the federal witholding for social security and bare minimum insurance for full time employed people.
I think championing some sort of "lets pay below minimum wage and make it legal" platform among the patriot movement is not at all a smart choice at this point in history when we are trying to gain a reputation as champions of social justice.
Posted by airforce (Member # 523) on 05-10-2011 04:29 PM:
quote:
Originally posted by Breacher:I think championing some sort of "lets pay below minimum wage and make it legal" platform among the patriot movement is not at all a smart choice at this point in history when we are trying to gain a reputation as champions of social justice.
Well, it may not be a smart choice from a public relations point of view. I mean, who doesn't want $7 per hour instead of $5? But we/re not talking public relations here. It's the science of economics. You should ask the government of the Soviet Union what happens when you ignore the basic principals of economics.
Oops, you can't. The Soviet Union ain't around anymore.
The truth is, the minimum wage is the most racist law still on the books. The only reason the minimum wage came about in the first place was to keep blacks out of factory jobs. And they're still keeping young black men unemployed.
Want to stop illegal immigration? Want to know what will do that, a whole lot cheaper and more effectively than building fences and stationing tens of thousands of armed men on the border? End minimum wage laws. It really is that simple. Let blacks and legal immigrants have the same jobs the illegal immigrants are taking now.
People will say that the minimum wage is a "living wage," and people can't live on anything less that that. Well, I'll call bullshit on that. Illegal immigrants live on less than that all the time. No, they probably don't have cable television, and they probably have more than roommates other folks. Well, I lived in the barracks for a number of years, and it took hostile fire pay to put me above the minimum wage. So I just don't buy that argument.
When government ignore the laws of economics, bad things happen. Ask Greece, Spain, and Portugal. And you're seeing a lot of those bad things happen here, and they're getting worse. If we want to fix some of those things, we're going to have to end the minimum wage. Yes, we'll have to educate a lot of people about it. It won't be easy. But it has to be done.
Edited to fix a link.
Onward and upward,
airforce
[ 05-10-2011, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: airforce ]
Oops, you can't. The Soviet Union ain't around anymore.
The truth is, the minimum wage is the most racist law still on the books. The only reason the minimum wage came about in the first place was to keep blacks out of factory jobs. And they're still keeping young black men unemployed.
Want to stop illegal immigration? Want to know what will do that, a whole lot cheaper and more effectively than building fences and stationing tens of thousands of armed men on the border? End minimum wage laws. It really is that simple. Let blacks and legal immigrants have the same jobs the illegal immigrants are taking now.
People will say that the minimum wage is a "living wage," and people can't live on anything less that that. Well, I'll call bullshit on that. Illegal immigrants live on less than that all the time. No, they probably don't have cable television, and they probably have more than roommates other folks. Well, I lived in the barracks for a number of years, and it took hostile fire pay to put me above the minimum wage. So I just don't buy that argument.
When government ignore the laws of economics, bad things happen. Ask Greece, Spain, and Portugal. And you're seeing a lot of those bad things happen here, and they're getting worse. If we want to fix some of those things, we're going to have to end the minimum wage. Yes, we'll have to educate a lot of people about it. It won't be easy. But it has to be done.
Edited to fix a link.
Onward and upward,
airforce
[ 05-10-2011, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: airforce ]
Posted by SBL (Member # 3900) on 05-10-2011 07:37 PM:
What if every morning a crowd of a bunch of underemployed or unemployed CITIZENS stood out front of Home Depot and Lowes along with all the illegals?
A guy in a truck rolls up and the citizens rush to the front of the crowd. Immediately the citizens say to the potential employer "I'll work for the same pay as these guys (pointing to the illegals), I speak English, I have no criminal record (he shows his concealed carry permit), and I'm a citizen." He and his friend Jimmy get the job. Another truck pulls up. Same thing. And another. Etc.
Finally the illegals give up and walk home. This happens every day for six months. Finally, they leave town, only to find the same situation every where the go.
Yeah, this scenario is not very likely to happen right now, but it is possible. People WANT to hire citizens. But illegals are willing to work for so much less. To out-compete them, we have to do the same. Gentlemen, this is the free market, like it or not.
So, you may only be getting $6/hour but at least you are getting paid in cash AND (this is the best part) it is 100% under the table, Uncle Sam gets none of it. So yeah, you could probably work somewhere for $8/hour, but you might as well be getting paid only $6, since you'll never see any of those tax dollars come back to you in any meaningful way.
What if every morning a crowd of a bunch of underemployed or unemployed CITIZENS stood out front of Home Depot and Lowes along with all the illegals?
A guy in a truck rolls up and the citizens rush to the front of the crowd. Immediately the citizens say to the potential employer "I'll work for the same pay as these guys (pointing to the illegals), I speak English, I have no criminal record (he shows his concealed carry permit), and I'm a citizen." He and his friend Jimmy get the job. Another truck pulls up. Same thing. And another. Etc.
Finally the illegals give up and walk home. This happens every day for six months. Finally, they leave town, only to find the same situation every where the go.
Yeah, this scenario is not very likely to happen right now, but it is possible. People WANT to hire citizens. But illegals are willing to work for so much less. To out-compete them, we have to do the same. Gentlemen, this is the free market, like it or not.
So, you may only be getting $6/hour but at least you are getting paid in cash AND (this is the best part) it is 100% under the table, Uncle Sam gets none of it. So yeah, you could probably work somewhere for $8/hour, but you might as well be getting paid only $6, since you'll never see any of those tax dollars come back to you in any meaningful way.
Posted by airforce (Member # 523) on 05-10-2011 08:04 PM:
quote:
Originally posted by SBL:Yeah, this scenario is not very likely to happen right now, but it is possible.
Actually, it isn't. A citizen could eventually get angry with the employer and complain to the Wage and Labor Board, or whatever government entity is tasked with enforcing the minimum wage. An illegal, however, doesn't have that option. That puts the illegal alien at the head of the line.
I know a lot of black teenagers who would be happy to work for $4 or $5 an hour. But they can't, for that very reason. When I say minimum wage laws are racist, I'm not kidding.
Onward and upward,
airforce
I know a lot of black teenagers who would be happy to work for $4 or $5 an hour. But they can't, for that very reason. When I say minimum wage laws are racist, I'm not kidding.
Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted by Breacher (Member # 1119) on 05-11-2011 10:28 AM:
Racist or not, I am not in a position to support the concept of financial desperation setting the pace on what US employers are going to pay in order to be legally protected as employers. It would be a step back 100 years in that regard, and the response from the population that gets it put on them would be to embrace socialism, maybe even communism.
Bad platform to run with, I don't care what some jerk on talk radio says about it being "conservative".
The reason minimum wage laws came into effect was the labor movement of the early 1900s, and some battles over coal mining and timber that rivaled body counts from WW1.
Anyone can play the cash labor game and write off all labor rules, including minimum wage and witholding taxes. If someone wants to "get away" with it, then fine, that's them. In fact, in a lot of places $10 per hour is actually below minimum wage when you consider that a person is not accumulating unemployment benefits. Now for the kid mowing lawns, or the ex-convict who probably can't get hired elsewhere and is collecting welfare, people do it and I don't begrudge them that, but when we are talking legalized business using worker desperation as a negotiating tool for labor rates then going into the business market with that as a "competitive edge", that's when things have the potential for getting ugly and toppling entire market sectors.
Anybody putting the illegal alien at the head of the line in a particular job market or market sector needs to be looked at very closely over other workplace requirements and business legal requirements. Yeah, I hate nitpicking stuff too, but there are a lot of business sectors purposefully encouraging and hiring the illegal aliens which displaces the lower rungs of our society into crime or welfare, so those of us who strive to pay our own way do just that: pay, cheat the system or maybe get lucky and get above it. What I am not going to do is use any political influence I have in any way whatsoever to give a legalized competitive advantage to those who would run their labor situation that way. If they want to pay below minimum wage, then they do it without legal protections and that's that. I think we need to make sure they are doing it without political protections either.
Like I said, I have been on that side of the fence, conned and manipulated by circumstances into those "1099 positions" which are functionally legalized subminimum wage jobs. I climbed out of it, but so many people locally resented the hell of me for the way I climbed out of it that they put several government agencies after me that by the time the feds heard about it (and don't forget they tend to lean left), they were actually backing off on the whole "he's a terrorist" thing.
Another way to somewhat legalize subminimum wage which is already done in much of the independent side of the film industry is subminimum wage "daily stipend" payment, which is done with nonunion extras who get around $25 to $50 per day to be "background actors" in a lot of independent productions. Usually it is right around $30 plus meals. Charities and non-profits also can do that sort of thing, IF the project is in some way charitable. I'll work below minimum wage on charitable construction projects, that is IF they are charitable, and I get a receipt for the difference between what I actually got paid and what my regular rate is, and that receipt shows the difference as being a charitable contribution.
I have heard of the crowds of Mexicans at Home Depot and Lowes but not seen it myself. What we have in Portland is Craigslist, which is in English, with the job market getting set and haggled for short term jobs between the gigs and services offered section. There are a couple of streetcorners on the east side of the downtown river where a bunch of the Mexicans and other Latins hang out hoping for work, and yes, it is not at all unusual to see some white people there doing the exact same thing. In fact, several of those areas have had that happen, and if you want to hire Americans, you can. Now in what passes for a black neighborhood here (Portland has few percentage of blacks than most other major cities), the "streetcorner business areas" are more likely to have blacks looking for somewhat legitimate paid work than pushing dope. They wash cars, the run food stands, maybe sell their own independent production CDs. The dope pushers not only have cops to deal with, but armed vigilantes who tend to keep things fairly tidy.
What has been happening here is the Mexicans got smart and have legalized as much as they can, getting legit contractor's licenses and then massing the green cards for friends and family members, but get this, they are also not that cheap. I got pushed off a painting job by a homeowner who thought she was getting a better deal just because the workers were Mexican, and in reality, they were at $15 per hour.
That's when I was running about half my guys being black, so maybe she had some other issue on that, but we were painting a rooming house, not her mansion. The other guy they booted was queer as a three dollar bill, but could swing a paint roller and paint brush as well as anybody (don't let the queer pick colors though), so maybe there was some social judgement on their business choice.
The thing about actual employment, it implies that someone is making a profit, and unlike military service, there is no post-service honor or benefit from it. What sucks more than being paid shit wages, shot at and living in a barracks with some asshole high school dropout E5 bossing you around? Being paid shit wages, living in a neighborhood with a higher homicide rate than some combat units have, and being kicked around by people who know they can get away with it because you are broke, disarmed, desperate and hungry. Oh, and no honorable benefits when it is "over" either. So no, I am not going to compare voluntary military service to shit poor jobs as a straight accross comparison. In fact, anyone even coming close to treating me the way I got treated as a skinny naive young enlisted Marine is quite likely to be checking into a hospital, morgue, witness protection or any combination of the above the first time they spit in my face and pronounce my name like it is a swear word.
Any political decision to make that a reality for any segment of the legal working population is political suicide.
Racist or not, I am not in a position to support the concept of financial desperation setting the pace on what US employers are going to pay in order to be legally protected as employers. It would be a step back 100 years in that regard, and the response from the population that gets it put on them would be to embrace socialism, maybe even communism.
Bad platform to run with, I don't care what some jerk on talk radio says about it being "conservative".
The reason minimum wage laws came into effect was the labor movement of the early 1900s, and some battles over coal mining and timber that rivaled body counts from WW1.
Anyone can play the cash labor game and write off all labor rules, including minimum wage and witholding taxes. If someone wants to "get away" with it, then fine, that's them. In fact, in a lot of places $10 per hour is actually below minimum wage when you consider that a person is not accumulating unemployment benefits. Now for the kid mowing lawns, or the ex-convict who probably can't get hired elsewhere and is collecting welfare, people do it and I don't begrudge them that, but when we are talking legalized business using worker desperation as a negotiating tool for labor rates then going into the business market with that as a "competitive edge", that's when things have the potential for getting ugly and toppling entire market sectors.
Anybody putting the illegal alien at the head of the line in a particular job market or market sector needs to be looked at very closely over other workplace requirements and business legal requirements. Yeah, I hate nitpicking stuff too, but there are a lot of business sectors purposefully encouraging and hiring the illegal aliens which displaces the lower rungs of our society into crime or welfare, so those of us who strive to pay our own way do just that: pay, cheat the system or maybe get lucky and get above it. What I am not going to do is use any political influence I have in any way whatsoever to give a legalized competitive advantage to those who would run their labor situation that way. If they want to pay below minimum wage, then they do it without legal protections and that's that. I think we need to make sure they are doing it without political protections either.
Like I said, I have been on that side of the fence, conned and manipulated by circumstances into those "1099 positions" which are functionally legalized subminimum wage jobs. I climbed out of it, but so many people locally resented the hell of me for the way I climbed out of it that they put several government agencies after me that by the time the feds heard about it (and don't forget they tend to lean left), they were actually backing off on the whole "he's a terrorist" thing.
Another way to somewhat legalize subminimum wage which is already done in much of the independent side of the film industry is subminimum wage "daily stipend" payment, which is done with nonunion extras who get around $25 to $50 per day to be "background actors" in a lot of independent productions. Usually it is right around $30 plus meals. Charities and non-profits also can do that sort of thing, IF the project is in some way charitable. I'll work below minimum wage on charitable construction projects, that is IF they are charitable, and I get a receipt for the difference between what I actually got paid and what my regular rate is, and that receipt shows the difference as being a charitable contribution.
I have heard of the crowds of Mexicans at Home Depot and Lowes but not seen it myself. What we have in Portland is Craigslist, which is in English, with the job market getting set and haggled for short term jobs between the gigs and services offered section. There are a couple of streetcorners on the east side of the downtown river where a bunch of the Mexicans and other Latins hang out hoping for work, and yes, it is not at all unusual to see some white people there doing the exact same thing. In fact, several of those areas have had that happen, and if you want to hire Americans, you can. Now in what passes for a black neighborhood here (Portland has few percentage of blacks than most other major cities), the "streetcorner business areas" are more likely to have blacks looking for somewhat legitimate paid work than pushing dope. They wash cars, the run food stands, maybe sell their own independent production CDs. The dope pushers not only have cops to deal with, but armed vigilantes who tend to keep things fairly tidy.
What has been happening here is the Mexicans got smart and have legalized as much as they can, getting legit contractor's licenses and then massing the green cards for friends and family members, but get this, they are also not that cheap. I got pushed off a painting job by a homeowner who thought she was getting a better deal just because the workers were Mexican, and in reality, they were at $15 per hour.
That's when I was running about half my guys being black, so maybe she had some other issue on that, but we were painting a rooming house, not her mansion. The other guy they booted was queer as a three dollar bill, but could swing a paint roller and paint brush as well as anybody (don't let the queer pick colors though), so maybe there was some social judgement on their business choice.
The thing about actual employment, it implies that someone is making a profit, and unlike military service, there is no post-service honor or benefit from it. What sucks more than being paid shit wages, shot at and living in a barracks with some asshole high school dropout E5 bossing you around? Being paid shit wages, living in a neighborhood with a higher homicide rate than some combat units have, and being kicked around by people who know they can get away with it because you are broke, disarmed, desperate and hungry. Oh, and no honorable benefits when it is "over" either. So no, I am not going to compare voluntary military service to shit poor jobs as a straight accross comparison. In fact, anyone even coming close to treating me the way I got treated as a skinny naive young enlisted Marine is quite likely to be checking into a hospital, morgue, witness protection or any combination of the above the first time they spit in my face and pronounce my name like it is a swear word.
Any political decision to make that a reality for any segment of the legal working population is political suicide.
Posted by J. Croft (Member # 3405) on 05-11-2011 10:44 AM:
Every time I read someone who should know better advocate cutting the minimum wage for the sake of the market I want to fucking pummel them.
Wage controls were a bone thrown to working Americans to forestall rebellion. That is the real reason. When you have people with no other legal option but to work for a corp. for wages, with a expanding labor pool and decreasing purchasing power of issued federal debt notes, you hand the corp. employer all the power they need on a silver platter.
And the millions of Americans stuck having to go through background checks once reserved for guarding intercontinental missile silos-you don't think they're fucking pissed?
You don't think they don't see things for what they are?
And you blithly write about dropping the fucking minimum wage when the enemy is printing more money, letting in more desperate Mexicans, exporting what corporate jobs there are left to be had to China?
Sirs, do you want to win in your minds on some theoretical principle, or win the war? Because when you fucking push bullshit out like this you ALIENATE POTENTIAL ALLIES AND CONVERTS!!!!!!!
Millions of Americans have had the potempkin village of their illusions cruelly ripped from them. Facing unemployment, homelessness, likely starvation whether they know it or not, do you think you will win them over by being the asshole brand of libertarian?
Yes I include ex-convicts and illegals; most of the incarcerated were in the drug trade, right? Likely had no choice and know firsthand how the beast operates, so there's one huge pool of converts right there. The illegals have had the shaft thrust up their asses all their lives by Mexico's ruling elite, the drug cartels, the cops, then come over here and are ruthlessly exploited by the local members of the Lodge in their businesses... ever think THEY might have common cause with us... with you against a common enemy?
Who in the fuck can survive in $5/hour in 2011-before taxes? Who among them will listen to some asshole telling them that the already paltry minimum wage ought to be lowered on some principle? I don't.
Excuse me for using some fucking common sense.
Every time I read someone who should know better advocate cutting the minimum wage for the sake of the market I want to fucking pummel them.
Wage controls were a bone thrown to working Americans to forestall rebellion. That is the real reason. When you have people with no other legal option but to work for a corp. for wages, with a expanding labor pool and decreasing purchasing power of issued federal debt notes, you hand the corp. employer all the power they need on a silver platter.
And the millions of Americans stuck having to go through background checks once reserved for guarding intercontinental missile silos-you don't think they're fucking pissed?
You don't think they don't see things for what they are?
And you blithly write about dropping the fucking minimum wage when the enemy is printing more money, letting in more desperate Mexicans, exporting what corporate jobs there are left to be had to China?
Sirs, do you want to win in your minds on some theoretical principle, or win the war? Because when you fucking push bullshit out like this you ALIENATE POTENTIAL ALLIES AND CONVERTS!!!!!!!
Millions of Americans have had the potempkin village of their illusions cruelly ripped from them. Facing unemployment, homelessness, likely starvation whether they know it or not, do you think you will win them over by being the asshole brand of libertarian?
Yes I include ex-convicts and illegals; most of the incarcerated were in the drug trade, right? Likely had no choice and know firsthand how the beast operates, so there's one huge pool of converts right there. The illegals have had the shaft thrust up their asses all their lives by Mexico's ruling elite, the drug cartels, the cops, then come over here and are ruthlessly exploited by the local members of the Lodge in their businesses... ever think THEY might have common cause with us... with you against a common enemy?
Who in the fuck can survive in $5/hour in 2011-before taxes? Who among them will listen to some asshole telling them that the already paltry minimum wage ought to be lowered on some principle? I don't.
Excuse me for using some fucking common sense.
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