Wealth Distribution in the USA

Ditto. I proposed that perhaps there's a terminology issue at work, and your response was equivalent to, "Well, maybe for you."--Percy

A nominal amount of inflation is a sign of a healthy economy. Raising minimum wage to keep up with inflation is a good idea, but... As you say, we can't "reach concrete conclusions about the effects." You're argument boils down to, "We don't know for sure that something bad will happen if we do this, so let's do this."--Percy

I was thinking more along the lines of government acting like an insurance company to protect its citizens from the vagaries of life. I guess, if you like, you can think of an insurance company as a redistributor of the wealth gathered through its premiums.Actual active redistribution of wealth will always be plagued by the problem that the wealthiest will always be most able to protect their wealth from taxation.--Percy

Ignoring for the moment, what the something is that might or might not work, are you content with the current situation shown in the video?Do you regard the ever widening gap between the have and have-nots as a consequence of captialism that we shouldn't attempt to moderate?

You said:

quote:

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Independent of social legislation and labor unions and any other factors affecting compensation, a job is worth what someone is willing to pay.

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I am asking what useful knowledge we acquire about the value of labour if we discount such things as the actions of labour unions? Why would we value the worth of a job independent of many of the factors that go into determining it? I've only been around a few decades, but from what I've seen businesses raising their prices in response to increasing overhead costs may not be simple, but its certainly simple enough to be achievable, regularly. The business I work for does it on a monthly basis. There may be jobs that net less than 12,000 a year for a company. But that's not what the minimum wage is about. It's about putting a minimum price on human labour.Are you able to show any correlation between unemployment rates and minimum wage changes allowing for real money terms? I mean changes in minimum wages tends to come only every now and again and usually comes in big leaps - so surely the evidence of jerky unemployment rates correlating to these changes would be apparent. Is it? Right, but we don't need that many coopers or thatchers any more so that's not too big a problem. So now they are specialist jobs that due to their rarity can command higher wages than their historical counterparts could. It's not a settled and established fact that raising the minimum wage will always and necessarily reduce employment.But how do we want society to be structured: Many of the people that do get work and grow the economy are reasonably comfortable and spending money in diverse ways, but with a higher unemployment rate. Or lower unemployment, but less money being paid to the workers such that they can only just scrape by.A $billion dollar profit company can clearly afford to pay its low paid workers considerably more, but the pattern seems to be that the business expands and employs more people, who are later made redundant when the company has scale back in economic hard times. I don't think we differ really. I was just answering your question as to why don't let the markets just sort out wages. It's the same reason we don't let governors determine our speed on a steam train. Fine, the governor can help us with that, but we want a human driver too. I think it would be oversimplifying the current economic climate to say that the minimum wage is to blame for our levels of unemployment. We live in a global economy with no global government to oversee it. One confounding feature is salient to this subtopic - there are thousands of people who work for the company I work for in Asia who are doing jobs that British people are capable of but the Asian workers will accept lower wages...might this impact on unemployment rates? We should also point out that the law of unintended consequences needs to be considered anyway. Do you really think that if Corporations had the power to influence society, they would do so in a way that benefited society as its primary reason? Or do you think they'd influence society to maximise their profits? There are numerous examples of the power and unaccountability of global corporations, and we should be aware of the potential unintended consequences of less government regulation (hint: remember the past ten years?)

Yeah, for example I'm feeling a bit stuffy, so I'm going to blow my nose. I cannot be absolutely certain that this won't cause the destruction of the entire universe, but I'm going to do it anyway.One of the arguments I might use to justify so doing is that given my state of ignorance about eschatology, I might equally destroy the universe by not blowing my nose.Given this state of philosophical ignorance, I might as well go ahead and do it, and see what happens.

No. I think the lesson of history is that the greater the disparity between have and have nots the greater the likelihood of unrest and rebellion. My points were that recognition of these dangers does not make true such nonsensical claims as that wages aren't set by market forces, or that wages should equal contributions to value.--Percy

Isn't it odd that raising minimum wages to keep in line with inflation is resisted so strenuously? No, my argument boils down to 'we don't know for sure, so asserting that 'Raising prices when overhead increases should result in fewer sales'.' is inappropriately premature.'Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Trying to stop crime will always be plagued by the problem that criminals will always be most likely to shoot policemen.

Actually, minimum wages do vary state by state, with a federal minimum to rule them all. California's wage is higher than Montana's, so I assume that's because the costs of living are different.As far as teens being priced out of the job market, I believe there are more adults than teens working for minimum wage. Are these adults also being priced out of their markets by rising wages?

When we had strong labor unions across the country the worker actually had a say in the market where the workers could collectively bargain for the value set for their labor.Over the last 30 or so years the strenght of unions has been whittled away by conservatives who get support from those very workers by draping themselves with the american flag and throwing a cross on their back. Blue collar workers have been conned into thinking that voting conservative is the only good thing a christian can do. In the process, they have supported a political movement that has lowered their wages while moving more wealth to the most wealthy. I don't know if I should be disgusted by this, or applaud it as the greatest political ploy of all time.

The big strikes during the early industrial age in the US were quite amazing. At some jobs, workers were not even paid money. They were given credits that they could then spend at the company store whose prices were jacked through the roof. That doesn't even start to touch working conditions and child labor. I don't want to downplay the plight of the modern worker, but at least there has been big improvements over the last 100 years.

Since the 98% outnumber the 2%, it is just a matter of starting a political movement, coupled with worker strikes that are supported by the populace at large (i.e. no scabs crossing the picket lines).

The new trend is forcing workers into unpaid internships under the guise of getting work experience.

Factory script, company towns and stores were not all that long ago; in fact they lasted right up through WWII. Look at the date on the lower right coin.Edited by jar, : appalin spallin