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  #101  
Old August 10th, 2005, 12:08 PM
Icono Clast
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

MichaelC wrote:
Would you trade minimum wage laws for a complete removal
of all illegal immigrant labor in this country? Think
carefully before you answer.

"Icono Clast" wrote:
Different issues. Not a fair question.


MichaelC wrote:
Same issue. Illegal immigrant labor floods the labor market
with a low cost labor "product", which pulls down wages for
the entire labor "food" chain.


Take out "illegal immigrant" and I don't disagree but I maintain:

It is an employer paying less than ought be to the people a few
hours away from [select starvation eviction
water/gas/electricity cut off out of gasoline etc? /select]
who "pulls down wages for the entire labor 'food' chain". If a
dirty job at an illegal wage is all that's available to keep you
from [see above], you do it and give your child a glass of
milk.


.. . . and not the desperate, at fault.

Sorry, but there's no room to disagree here -- this is Econ 101
from any college in the country. There exists a free market for
labor just as there eixsts a free market for goods and services.
The greater the number of applicants for a given job, the less the
employer has to pay to get the guy/gal he wants.


Yeah. No problem with that.

When it comes to illegals, they get plugged into jobs where the
employer can fudge the system, low-trained US workers have to take
other jobs (fast food) and because there's a dozen applicants for
the burger flipping job, the empllyer could pay whatever he
wants.


The legal status of a job seeker is irrelevant. Doesn't matter if
there's a thousand incipient 'burger flippers, the employer is still
required to abide by the law.

Now, if you pull the illegals out of the equation, everyone moves
up the food chain, and the same worker applies for jobs and McD,
Wendys, and BK, and if he's the only competent applicant, picks
the one paying the most, thus forcing the employer to "buy" him
with higher wages.


We have more than enough desperately poor people without "illegals"
to accept Minimum Wage jobs. "Illegals" are irrelevant.

If the labor supply was constrained, this "living wage" b**s**t
wouldn't even be under discussion. The BK on Geary would have to
either pay the buy 10 bucks an hour, or offer him full time full
benefits, to get him.


Well of course: Supply/Demand - it's a law!

Think though that process the next time you go to the polls.

If you remove illegals from the equation, the real cost to
hire an employee willing to flip a burger on Geary Street
might very well reach or exceed $8.50 per hour.


"Illegals" are irrelevant. A living wage should be the right of any
and every fully-employed person any and every where. Might be $8.50
in San Francisco and $3.50 in East Saint Louis, $0.25 in Peking;
doesn't matter.

The "illegals" are the scofflaw employers, not those desperate
for work . . . If you're talking about people who have entered
the country without going through the proper channels, there is
no difference. They're all effectively undocumented.


Doesn't matter where the come from, does it?

As a conservative/libertarian (or whatever), I object to laws
designed to fix problems that other laws (or, in this case,
lack of enforcement thereof) cause.


That's correct. If you know of an employer who hires, for
example, undocumented Canadians to do a job for which US
citizens are qualified and available, call your local Department
of Labor. The times I've done so (for other reasons), I've been
impressed by how quickly, well, and effectively they responded.


Sure, but there is anecdotal evididence that the Feds only spank
the employer and release the illegal. Without consequences, law is
meaningless.


Yes. Who's at fault for that?

What about the 90% of the workplace regulations that
*don't* increase risk to rank and file life and limb?

I've not read them in so long that I don't know to what you
refer. The laws of which I'm aware are legislated
recognition of some of the conditions won by the deaths of
striking workers.


SEC regs, affirmative action regs, eeoc regs, american with
disabilites regs, etc..........etc.....etc...... All of them have
good purpose,


That's good enough for me. The reasons those laws exist, even if
they're burdensome, is because of the historic abuses of employees.

but amount to us loading Lance Armstrong down with a fifty pound
weight and telling him to win the next Tour de France.


I don't understand the analogy. Yes, I know who Lance is.

Forbes estimates that the cost of compliance with regulations
in this country (the most expensive regs are usually those
involved with EEO compliance, next to safety) is three million
jobs per year. Three million jobs added to the equation would
take the unemployment rate to replacement levels (2-2.5%) and,
like the illegals question above, would increase the cost of
your Geary Street burger flipper to your hypothetical living
wage.


If those three million jobs would be with long hours at sub-standard
wages in an unsatisfactory working environment, t'hell with 'em.

In 2008, the wave of retirees which constitutes 1/3 of the
workforce (in total) will retire. The younguns might be nice,
but I doubt they'll be willing to work tripleshifts to
compensate for the retirees who want to go fish.


We old people'l out-vote 'em!


Actually, we likely will, refusing to deal with the reality that
saddleing them with our retirement is unethical.


All of us who were employed after 1937 were saddled with the burden
of supporting retirees. Had the gummint handled the funds honestly
and competently, there would be no problem.

The problem with Social Security is that the revenue collected
goes into the General Fund rather than being kept separate as it
ought. The "solutions" proposed by the idiot in the White House
are neither sound nor realistic.


I don't like the solutions either, but the system is failing. If
it contained a private component when it was created, we wouldn't
have this problem right now.


The simplest fix is that Social Security contributions be levied upon
all wages earned. During the ten years that I maxed out my
contributions, I received a "bonus" check or two at the end of the
year. I think it ought not be possible to max out one's contribution.
Yes, that would be unfair to those who have high wages. So what? They
have more money!

Bottom line is that available jobs will, in the near future,
*far* exceed the labor force, and again, this talk of greed
and living wage will be moot.


Looks that way.

Yuppies/Boomers have proved to be the most selfish,
self-centered, inconsiderate, and short-sighted of
generations. I believe their social and economic attitudes
bear a significant responsibility for the demise of union
membership and organized work places as well as the
acceptance of a greater than normal work weeks and lesser
than livable wages. It is my hope that the generation now
entering the work force will see the errors of the
Yuppie/Boomer generation and demand the kinds of working
conditions, and wages, that I had for most of my working
life.

They won't have to "demand" anything, and employers will be
offering working scenarios that not even the most creative
unionist could imagine. Stay tuned.


Yup.

__________________________________________________ _________________
A San Franciscan who's stickin' t'the union!
http://geocities.com/dancefest/ - http://geocities.com/iconoc/
ICQ: http://wwp.mirabilis.com/19098103 --- IClast at SFbay Net
  #102  
Old August 10th, 2005, 01:13 PM
MichaelC
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"Rich256" wrote in message
...

"MichaelC" wrote in message
. ..

Sorry, but there's no room to disagree here -- this is Econ 101 from any
college in the country. There exists a free market for labor just as

there
eixsts a free market for goods and services. The greater the number of
applicants for a given job, the less the employer has to pay to get the
guy/gal he wants. When it comes to illegals, they get plugged into jobs
where the employer can fudge the system, low-trained US workers have to

take
other jobs (fast food) and because there's a dozen applicants for the

burger
flipping job, the empllyer could pay whatever he wants.

Now, if you pull the illegals out of the equation, everyone moves up the
food chain, and the same worker applies for jobs and McD, Wendys, and

BK,
and if he's the only competent applicant, picks the one paying the most,
thus forcing the employer to "buy" him with higher wages.

If the labor supply was constrained, this "living wage" b**s**t wouldn't
even be under discussion. The BK on Geary would have to either pay the

buy
10 bucks an hour, or offer him full time full benefits, to get him.

Think though that process the next time you go to the polls.


Several years ago my son worked his way through school. One summer he was
laying foundations (convinced him to become a lawyer, not a trial type -

and
a successful one at that - getting top grades in math and science he could
have done well in engineering too but it would not have paid as well).
Today he would not be able to get that job. Why hire a rather skinny

school
kid when you can get an adult, used to working in the hot sun, for even

less
wages?

And we old guys criticize the youngsters for not getting a job like we

did.

Sure. My wife and I are currently traveling back from Western New York where
I was raised, and I was telling her (driving south on 5 through Lackawanna)
about how when i was a kid-kid (8ish) all the older kids would get summer
jobs at Bethlehem Steel, paying (late 60's) almost 20 bucks an hour (gross,
net that against taxes and union dues). Pretty heady for a 17 year old kid.

Now, opportunities to work an industrial job at adult wages are pretty much
gone. Even back in the 70's, any summer job that paid over minimum was
considered pretty damn good.

Mike






  #103  
Old August 10th, 2005, 01:57 PM
MichaelC
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"Icono Clast" wrote in message
news:1123673172.ad97d07ac6f3d95bdc9253e0864db994@t eranews...
MichaelC wrote:
Would you trade minimum wage laws for a complete removal
of all illegal immigrant labor in this country? Think
carefully before you answer.

"Icono Clast" wrote:
Different issues. Not a fair question.

MichaelC wrote:
Same issue. Illegal immigrant labor floods the labor market
with a low cost labor "product", which pulls down wages for
the entire labor "food" chain.


Take out "illegal immigrant" and I don't disagree but I maintain:

It is an employer paying less than ought be to the people a few
hours away from [select starvation eviction
water/gas/electricity cut off out of gasoline etc? /select]
who "pulls down wages for the entire labor 'food' chain". If a
dirty job at an illegal wage is all that's available to keep you
from [see above], you do it and give your child a glass of
milk.


And I maintain that the employer's reponsibility, in a capitalist system, is
to the business, not the employee. If you want the employer to take the
actual needs of the worker into account when setting wages, that's your
perogative, but you no longer have capitalism, you have a variant of Marxism
that, over time, will not maintain the standards of living of the area
nearly as well as the capitlalist program.

And, how can you "take out" *illegal immigrant* when they are the cause of
the wage deflation causing people to fall below what you have decided is the
"living wage." ISTM that you want your cake and eat it too -- let the
illegals work, when the going wage then depresses below "living", force the
employer to pay more, and ***WHEN*** the employer goes out of business,
blame it on.....who? (Bush, I suppose.)

. . . and not the desperate, at fault.


Just because somebody is desparate doesn't mean they can't be at fault.
That's a "feely-good" political axiom which has no basis in economic
reality.

Sorry, but there's no room to disagree here -- this is Econ 101
from any college in the country. There exists a free market for
labor just as there eixsts a free market for goods and services.
The greater the number of applicants for a given job, the less the
employer has to pay to get the guy/gal he wants.


Yeah. No problem with that.

When it comes to illegals, they get plugged into jobs where the
employer can fudge the system, low-trained US workers have to take
other jobs (fast food) and because there's a dozen applicants for
the burger flipping job, the empllyer could pay whatever he
wants.


The legal status of a job seeker is irrelevant. Doesn't matter if
there's a thousand incipient 'burger flippers, the employer is still
required to abide by the law.


The legal status of the job seeker is indeed irrelevant in the economic
equation, but *not* in the current implementation of that equation in the
US. There are some millions of illegals in the country working. There are
some millions of Americans out of work. If you enforce the law, you will
replace *A* with *B*. Simple.

Now, if you pull the illegals out of the equation, everyone moves
up the food chain, and the same worker applies for jobs and McD,
Wendys, and BK, and if he's the only competent applicant, picks
the one paying the most, thus forcing the employer to "buy" him
with higher wages.


We have more than enough desperately poor people without "illegals"
to accept Minimum Wage jobs. "Illegals" are irrelevant.


That's an assertation which is false until you prove it otherwise. In fact,
one of the reasons we have "desparately poor" people is that jobs that they
would otherwise have have been taken by illegals who are better workers, and
capitalist market efficiency takes over, where amongst the unskilled labor
poor, the most efficient worker keeps the job, while the less efficient does
not.

Now, I like the last part of that (no problem with the the more efficient
working while the less efficient does not) except that it creates an
economic problem for the cities, states, and feds wherein the best solution
is simply to enforce existing law.

If the labor supply was constrained, this "living wage" b**s**t
wouldn't even be under discussion. The BK on Geary would have to
either pay the buy 10 bucks an hour, or offer him full time full
benefits, to get him.


Well of course: Supply/Demand - it's a law!

Think though that process the next time you go to the polls.

If you remove illegals from the equation, the real cost to
hire an employee willing to flip a burger on Geary Street
might very well reach or exceed $8.50 per hour.


"Illegals" are irrelevant. A living wage should be the right of any
and every fully-employed person any and every where. Might be $8.50
in San Francisco and $3.50 in East Saint Louis, $0.25 in Peking;
doesn't matter.


Then you don't value efficiency in the work force. A "living wage" means
that I legally have to pay inefficient workers more than they deserve.
Because I have to stay in business, I then compensate by paying efficient
workers less than they deserve. The law makes me screw one to pay another.
It also increases the number of living wage workers I have, because instead
of rewarding efficient workers with raises, I still have maintain the proper
salary/revenue ratio in order to keep my business going.

The living wage is simply a welfare program where the goverment pawns off
its social responsibilities on the business owner. If the goverment would
clean up its regulatory morass, enforce the immigration laws, fix it's own
budgetary messes, and fix the corrupt taxation system, the economy would
jump to even higher levels than it's operating now, and all this "living
wage" horsehockey would go away. Employers wouldn't be able to pay enough to
keep good workers, and profits would support them.


The "illegals" are the scofflaw employers, not those desperate
for work . . . If you're talking about people who have entered
the country without going through the proper channels, there is
no difference. They're all effectively undocumented.


Doesn't matter where the come from, does it?

As a conservative/libertarian (or whatever), I object to laws
designed to fix problems that other laws (or, in this case,
lack of enforcement thereof) cause.

That's correct. If you know of an employer who hires, for
example, undocumented Canadians to do a job for which US
citizens are qualified and available, call your local Department
of Labor. The times I've done so (for other reasons), I've been
impressed by how quickly, well, and effectively they responded.


Sure, but there is anecdotal evididence that the Feds only spank
the employer and release the illegal. Without consequences, law is
meaningless.


Yes. Who's at fault for that?


The Fed and State goverments.

What about the 90% of the workplace regulations that
*don't* increase risk to rank and file life and limb?

I've not read them in so long that I don't know to what you
refer. The laws of which I'm aware are legislated
recognition of some of the conditions won by the deaths of
striking workers.


SEC regs, affirmative action regs, eeoc regs, american with
disabilites regs, etc..........etc.....etc...... All of them have
good purpose,


That's good enough for me. The reasons those laws exist, even if
they're burdensome, is because of the historic abuses of employees.

but amount to us loading Lance Armstrong down with a fifty pound
weight and telling him to win the next Tour de France.


I don't understand the analogy. Yes, I know who Lance is.


Compliance with regulations costs money. Real money. Example: Enron
defrauded investors. How? By gaming a corrupt financial reporting and tax
system that confuses the hell out of everyone. So, the goverment's "fix" is
Sarbanes-Oxley, which codifies financial reporting standards. Sounds like a
good idea to prevent another Enron, right?

Wrong. Sarbanes Oxlely will cost tens of BILLIONS of dollars to comply with.
Where does buiness come up with that money? They cut their payrolls, either
by withholding wages or firing people. They decrease budgets for R*D, making
them less competitive with other countries abroad. They postpone or cancel
plans for expansion. They outsource jobs to India or China. Like any of
those?

EVERY REGULATION COSTS MONEY which invariably gets passed on to a "little
guy", sometimes in the form of increased costs of goods and services, but
usually by firing the little guy, not hiring little guys they expected to
hire, or sending the little guy's jobs overseas.

That's the 50 lb weight. And, in an international market, where companies in
the developing nations get to play under much looser regulatory guidelines,
out companies are uncompetitive because of the weight of the regulatory
burden.


Forbes estimates that the cost of compliance with regulations
in this country (the most expensive regs are usually those
involved with EEO compliance, next to safety) is three million
jobs per year. Three million jobs added to the equation would
take the unemployment rate to replacement levels (2-2.5%) and,
like the illegals question above, would increase the cost of
your Geary Street burger flipper to your hypothetical living
wage.


If those three million jobs would be with long hours at sub-standard
wages in an unsatisfactory working environment, t'hell with 'em.


Well, if you don't care about jobs, that's your perogative.

In 2008, the wave of retirees which constitutes 1/3 of the
workforce (in total) will retire. The younguns might be nice,
but I doubt they'll be willing to work tripleshifts to
compensate for the retirees who want to go fish.

We old people'l out-vote 'em!


Actually, we likely will, refusing to deal with the reality that
saddleing them with our retirement is unethical.


All of us who were employed after 1937 were saddled with the burden
of supporting retirees. Had the gummint handled the funds honestly
and competently, there would be no problem.


The "gummit" handled the funds in precisely the way the system permitted
them to. The system was *always* pay-as-you-go, designed so that the overage
would flow into the general fund, to be paid back later. SS is probably the
most "honest and competent" system ever created by the Feds. It's problem is
*structural* in that it never expected to find itself in a situation where
the US fertility rate was so low.

The problem with Social Security is that the revenue collected
goes into the General Fund rather than being kept separate as it
ought. The "solutions" proposed by the idiot in the White House
are neither sound nor realistic.


I don't like the solutions either, but the system is failing. If
it contained a private component when it was created, we wouldn't
have this problem right now.


The simplest fix is that Social Security contributions be levied upon
all wages earned. During the ten years that I maxed out my
contributions, I received a "bonus" check or two at the end of the
year. I think it ought not be possible to max out one's contribution.
Yes, that would be unfair to those who have high wages. So what? They
have more money!


That won't come close to fixing the problem, although it is a well
publicized mythological fix promoted by AARP. The fiscal imbalance over time
is 8 Trillion Dollars. 8 Trillion. (Some, like Alan Greenspan, say 10T, but
that's a difference in accounting methodologies.) Don't let anyone
(especially a politician or lobbying organization) tell you it is anything
less. The "eliminate the cap" trick will "fix" about 2% of that 8T. You
still have the rest to deal with.

I am a relative younun of 50. I expect to be alive in 2041. My financial
planning *expects* a 27% decrease in SS benefits in 2041, just like it says
on the front of my SS annual statement, because I figure if the politicos
don't even have the balls to use the same numbers the economists agree on
WRT the SS fiscal imbalance, what hope do we have of ever finding a "fix."?

Mike


  #104  
Old August 11th, 2005, 12:51 PM
Icono Clast
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"Icono Clast" wrote:
It is an employer paying less than ought be to the people a
few hours away from [select starvation eviction
water/gas/electricity cut off out of gasoline etc?
/select] who "pulls down wages for the entire labor 'food'
chain". If a dirty job at an illegal wage is all that's
available to keep you from [see above], you do it and give
your child a glass of milk.


MichaelC wrote:
And I maintain that the employer's reponsibility, in a capitalist
system, is to the business, not the employee.


I believe an employer's responsibility is to the business, the
employees, and the customers. None can survive without the other two.

If you want the employer to take the actual needs of the worker
into account when setting wages, that's your perogative,


No, I don't and have quite specifically stated the contrary!

but you no longer have capitalism, you have a variant of Marxism
that, over time, will not maintain the standards of living of the
area nearly as well as the capitlalist program.


We disagree.

And, how can you "take out" *illegal immigrant* when they are the
cause of the wage deflation causing people to fall below what you
have decided is the "living wage."


It matters little whether an immigrant has documents. All immigrants,
as do all births, contribute to the labor pool.

ISTM that you want your cake and eat it too -- let the illegals
work,


No, I said employers ought not hire them. Legally they should not. Of
course, in fact, they do.

when the going wage then depresses below "living", force the
employer to pay more, and ***WHEN*** the employer goes out of
business, blame it on.....who? (Bush, I suppose.)


If all employers paid a living wage, those earning that small amount
would be able to support themselves. That means, of course, that
they'd have the means to spend what's necessary to survive. How would
that be harmful for businesses? An employee with a living wage might,
after completing the shopping list at a market, buy a bottle wine to
go with the ground meat.

Just because somebody is desparate doesn't mean they can't be at
fault. That's a "feely-good" political axiom which has no basis in
economic reality.


It is my belief.

The legal status of a job seeker is irrelevant. Doesn't matter
if there's a thousand incipient 'burger flippers, the employer
is still required to abide by the law.


The legal status of the job seeker is indeed irrelevant in the
economic equation, but *not* in the current implementation of that
equation in the US. There are some millions of illegals in the
country working. There are some millions of Americans out of work.
If you enforce the law, you will replace *A* with *B*. Simple.


Let's DO it! We don't disagree that employers ought not hire workers
who are in a country illegally

We have more than enough desperately poor people without
"illegals" to accept Minimum Wage jobs. "Illegals" are
irrelevant.


That's an assertation which is false until you prove it otherwise.

You know I can't prove it. But you also know that taking a look out
the window, or the passengers on a city bus, reveals such people, or
people who appear to be, in abundance.

In fact, one of the reasons we have "desparately poor" people is
that jobs that they would otherwise have have been taken by
illegals who are better workers, and capitalist market efficiency
takes over, where amongst the unskilled labor poor, the most
efficient worker keeps the job, while the less efficient does not.

I disagree. The desperately poor have always been among us. They were
here before, during, and since the Depression.

Now, I like the last part of that (no problem with the the more
efficient working while the less efficient does not) except that
it creates an economic problem for the cities, states, and feds
wherein the best solution is simply to enforce existing law.

If the labor supply was constrained, this "living wage"
b**s**t wouldn't even be under discussion. The BK on Geary
would have to either pay the buy 10 bucks an hour, or offer
him full time full benefits, to get him.


Well of course: Supply/Demand - it's a law!

Think though that process the next time you go to the polls.


If you remove illegals from the equation, the real cost to
hire an employee willing to flip a burger on Geary Street
might very well reach or exceed $8.50 per hour.


"Illegals" are irrelevant. A living wage should be the right of
any and every fully-employed person any and every where. Might
be $8.50 in San Francisco and $3.50 in East Saint Louis, $0.25
in Peking; doesn't matter.


Then you don't value efficiency in the work force. A "living wage"
means that I legally have to pay inefficient workers more than
they deserve. Because I have to stay in business, I then
compensate by paying efficient workers less than they deserve.


Yes. I worked with people who received scale who were hardly worth
it. My employer recognized that I was worth more than scale and paid
me more. But the other employees received a living wage for what they
did and were not fired because they did enough.

[I'm very proud of the fact that I out-produced, with equal or better
quality, my co-workers. I didn't do it as much with speed as with
efficiency. At one time, I was rumored to be among the top two
hundred of the more than three thousand people doing similar work.]

[Gotta git t'bed!]
__________________________________________________ _________________
A San Franciscan who's stickin' t'the union!
http://geocities.com/dancefest/ - http://geocities.com/iconoc/
ICQ: http://wwp.mirabilis.com/19098103 --- IClast at SFbay Net


The law makes me screw one to pay another. It also increases the
number of living wage workers I have, because instead of rewarding
efficient workers with raises, I still have maintain the proper
salary/revenue ratio in order to keep my business going.

The living wage is simply a welfare program where the goverment
pawns off its social responsibilities on the business owner. If
the goverment would clean up its regulatory morass, enforce the
immigration laws, fix it's own budgetary messes, and fix the
corrupt taxation system, the economy would jump to even higher
levels than it's operating now, and all this "living wage"
horsehockey would go away. Employers wouldn't be able to pay
enough to keep good workers, and profits would support them.


The "illegals" are the scofflaw employers, not those
desperate for work . . . If you're talking about people who
have entered the country without going through the proper
channels, there is no difference. They're all effectively
undocumented.

Doesn't matter where the come from, does it?


As a conservative/libertarian (or whatever), I object to
laws designed to fix problems that other laws (or, in this
case, lack of enforcement thereof) cause.

That's correct. If you know of an employer who hires, for
example, undocumented Canadians to do a job for which US
citizens are qualified and available, call your local
Department of Labor. The times I've done so (for other
reasons), I've been impressed by how quickly, well, and
effectively they responded.

Sure, but there is anecdotal evididence that the Feds only
spank the employer and release the illegal. Without
consequences, law is meaningless.


Yes. Who's at fault for that?



The Fed and State goverments.

What about the 90% of the workplace regulations that
*don't* increase risk to rank and file life and limb?

I've not read them in so long that I don't know to what
you refer. The laws of which I'm aware are legislated
recognition of some of the conditions won by the deaths
of striking workers.

SEC regs, affirmative action regs, eeoc regs, american with
disabilites regs, etc..........etc.....etc...... All of them
have good purpose,


That's good enough for me. The reasons those laws exist, even if
they're burdensome, is because of the historic abuses of
employees.


but amount to us loading Lance Armstrong down with a fifty
pound weight and telling him to win the next Tour de France.


I don't understand the analogy. Yes, I know who Lance is.



Compliance with regulations costs money. Real money. Example:
Enron defrauded investors. How? By gaming a corrupt financial
reporting and tax system that confuses the hell out of everyone.
So, the goverment's "fix" is Sarbanes-Oxley, which codifies
financial reporting standards. Sounds like a good idea to prevent
another Enron, right?

Wrong. Sarbanes Oxlely will cost tens of BILLIONS of dollars to
comply with. Where does buiness come up with that money? They cut
their payrolls, either by withholding wages or firing people. They
decrease budgets for R*D, making them less competitive with other
countries abroad. They postpone or cancel plans for expansion.
They outsource jobs to India or China. Like any of those?

EVERY REGULATION COSTS MONEY which invariably gets passed on to a
"little guy", sometimes in the form of increased costs of goods
and services, but usually by firing the little guy, not hiring
little guys they expected to hire, or sending the little guy's
jobs overseas.

That's the 50 lb weight. And, in an international market, where
companies in the developing nations get to play under much looser
regulatory guidelines, out companies are uncompetitive because of
the weight of the regulatory burden.



Forbes estimates that the cost of compliance with
regulations in this country (the most expensive regs are
usually those involved with EEO compliance, next to
safety) is three million jobs per year. Three million jobs
added to the equation would take the unemployment rate to
replacement levels (2-2.5%) and, like the illegals
question above, would increase the cost of your Geary
Street burger flipper to your hypothetical living wage.


If those three million jobs would be with long hours at
sub-standard wages in an unsatisfactory working environment,
t'hell with 'em.



Well, if you don't care about jobs, that's your perogative.

In 2008, the wave of retirees which constitutes 1/3 of the
workforce (in total) will retire. The younguns might be
nice, but I doubt they'll be willing to work tripleshifts
to compensate for the retirees who want to go fish.

We old people'l out-vote 'em!

Actually, we likely will, refusing to deal with the reality
that saddleing them with our retirement is unethical.


All of us who were employed after 1937 were saddled with the
burden of supporting retirees. Had the gummint handled the funds
honestly and competently, there would be no problem.



The "gummit" handled the funds in precisely the way the system
permitted them to. The system was *always* pay-as-you-go, designed
so that the overage would flow into the general fund, to be paid
back later. SS is probably the most "honest and competent" system
ever created by the Feds. It's problem is *structural* in that it
never expected to find itself in a situation where the US
fertility rate was so low.


The problem with Social Security is that the revenue
collected goes into the General Fund rather than being kept
separate as it ought. The "solutions" proposed by the idiot
in the White House are neither sound nor realistic.

I don't like the solutions either, but the system is failing.
If it contained a private component when it was created, we
wouldn't have this problem right now.


The simplest fix is that Social Security contributions be levied
upon all wages earned. During the ten years that I maxed out my
contributions, I received a "bonus" check or two at the end of
the year. I think it ought not be possible to max out one's
contribution. Yes, that would be unfair to those who have high
wages. So what? They have more money!



That won't come close to fixing the problem, although it is a well
publicized mythological fix promoted by AARP. The fiscal
imbalance over time is 8 Trillion Dollars. 8 Trillion. (Some, like
Alan Greenspan, say 10T, but that's a difference in accounting
methodologies.) Don't let anyone (especially a politician or
lobbying organization) tell you it is anything less. The
"eliminate the cap" trick will "fix" about 2% of that 8T. You
still have the rest to deal with.

I am a relative younun of 50. I expect to be alive in 2041. My
financial planning *expects* a 27% decrease in SS benefits in
2041, just like it says on the front of my SS annual statement,
because I figure if the politicos don't even have the balls to use
the same numbers the economists agree on WRT the SS fiscal
imbalance, what hope do we have of ever finding a "fix."?

Mike



--
http://geocities.com/dancefest/ - http://geocities.com/iconoc/
ICQ: http://wwp.mirabilis.com/19098103 --- IClast at SFbay Net
  #105  
Old August 12th, 2005, 01:47 PM
MichaelC
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"Icono Clast" wrote in message
news:1123761157.b9c29b94eb57083d3383ed1444f11859@t eranews...
"Icono Clast" wrote:
It is an employer paying less than ought be to the people a
few hours away from [select starvation eviction
water/gas/electricity cut off out of gasoline etc?
/select] who "pulls down wages for the entire labor 'food'
chain". If a dirty job at an illegal wage is all that's
available to keep you from [see above], you do it and give
your child a glass of milk.


MichaelC wrote:
And I maintain that the employer's reponsibility, in a capitalist
system, is to the business, not the employee.


I believe an employer's responsibility is to the business, the
employees, and the customers. None can survive without the other two.


Quite so. However, there is a "chain" of causal events that must be
maintained. The business owner prices the product at the highest price that
will result in sufficient sales to keep the concern going. Out of profit, he
figures what he needs to reinvest into the business, and out of that, he
pays first himself (and rightly so) and then pays the employees what he must
to keep turnover low.

The employee is the low man on the food chain, and must be in order for the
business to survive.

If you want the employer to take the actual needs of the worker
into account when setting wages, that's your perogative,


No, I don't and have quite specifically stated the contrary!


OK.

but you no longer have capitalism, you have a variant of Marxism
that, over time, will not maintain the standards of living of the
area nearly as well as the capitlalist program.


We disagree.


How can we disagree? Marxism is, by definition, a system where capitalism is
inverted, and the needs of the worker are placed above the needs of the
business. It has precisely *no* track record of improving standards of
living. Where's the disagreement?

And, how can you "take out" *illegal immigrant* when they are the
cause of the wage deflation causing people to fall below what you
have decided is the "living wage."


It matters little whether an immigrant has documents. All immigrants,
as do all births, contribute to the labor pool.


I've already acknowledged that.

ISTM that you want your cake and eat it too -- let the illegals
work,


No, I said employers ought not hire them. Legally they should not. Of
course, in fact, they do.


OK.

when the going wage then depresses below "living", force the
employer to pay more, and ***WHEN*** the employer goes out of
business, blame it on.....who? (Bush, I suppose.)


If all employers paid a living wage, those earning that small amount
would be able to support themselves. That means, of course, that
they'd have the means to spend what's necessary to survive. How would
that be harmful for businesses? An employee with a living wage might,
after completing the shopping list at a market, buy a bottle wine to
go with the ground meat.


If the need to pay a living wage (this same argument can be made for minimum
wage, it should be pointed out) constrains available capital, then the
business goes into an undercapitalized condition where they cannot meet
their financial obligations and must close their doors. That's the obvious
part. Your "example" above assumes that the business is properly capitalized
and can afford the increase in the payroll line. That may or may not be the
case.

However. there is a much, MUCH larger concern. You're aware, I assume, that
80% of the employed workers in the country work for small businesses. The
dynamism (and the persistence) of the US economy is explained largely by the
fact that there is a constant stream of new busineses coming online,
growing, hiring people, creating wealth for the business owners......and
then. at the end of the cycle, the business is sold or closes, never
becoming a going concern that spans generations, and is replaced by a couple
of *NEW* small businesses just beginning their cycle.

Small businesses in startup phase are notoriously undercapitalized. If you
place capital demands on them in excess of what they can meet (living wages,
employee benefits, onerous safety regulations, high taxes,etc.) then the
businessman will find something better to do with his or her money, and we
end up like Old Europe, a conglomeration of microbusinesses and large
companies, with nothing dynamic in between, a stagnant economy, and
doubledigit inflation.

Bad mojo.

I suggest to you that the sole entity that is responsible for insuring that
the worker makes a "living wage" is the worker him/herself. Unless there is
a very large change in the system of corporate taxation in this country,
unskilled/lowskilled jobs are going to continue to be in short supply; we
simply cannot support the same percentage of low/unskilled laborers at
decent wages as we have in the past. Retrain and educate. Clinton put a huge
box of money into retraining programs at the Communithy College level for
just this purpose, and GWB put even MORE money into that box back in 2002.

Just because somebody is desparate doesn't mean they can't be at
fault. That's a "feely-good" political axiom which has no basis in
economic reality.


It is my belief.


OK.

The legal status of a job seeker is irrelevant. Doesn't matter
if there's a thousand incipient 'burger flippers, the employer
is still required to abide by the law.


The legal status of the job seeker is indeed irrelevant in the
economic equation, but *not* in the current implementation of that
equation in the US. There are some millions of illegals in the
country working. There are some millions of Americans out of work.
If you enforce the law, you will replace *A* with *B*. Simple.


Let's DO it! We don't disagree that employers ought not hire workers
who are in a country illegally.


I concur. Let every voter vote immigration reform and border enforcement as
a litmust test in 2006, for a start.

We have more than enough desperately poor people without
"illegals" to accept Minimum Wage jobs. "Illegals" are
irrelevant.


That's an assertation which is false until you prove it otherwise.

You know I can't prove it. But you also know that taking a look out
the window, or the passengers on a city bus, reveals such people, or
people who appear to be, in abundance.


There's no shortage of poor people. The point is that many are poor because
of the unenforcement of the border. If I can hire a carpenter at 5 bucks an
hour, what do I care if he doesn't speak much English? If I CAN'T hire hm
because my business risk is high, then I hire the US citizen at at LEAST
minimu wage, probably more.

In fact, one of the reasons we have "desparately poor" people is
that jobs that they would otherwise have have been taken by
illegals who are better workers, and capitalist market efficiency
takes over, where amongst the unskilled labor poor, the most
efficient worker keeps the job, while the less efficient does not.

I disagree. The desperately poor have always been among us. They were
here before, during, and since the Depression.


So says the Bible as well. Are we talking about the fact that there are
poor, or the reasons WHY they are in the situation they are in?

Now, I like the last part of that (no problem with the the more
efficient working while the less efficient does not) except that
it creates an economic problem for the cities, states, and feds
wherein the best solution is simply to enforce existing law.

If the labor supply was constrained, this "living wage"
b**s**t wouldn't even be under discussion. The BK on Geary
would have to either pay the buy 10 bucks an hour, or offer
him full time full benefits, to get him.

Well of course: Supply/Demand - it's a law!

Think though that process the next time you go to the polls.

If you remove illegals from the equation, the real cost to
hire an employee willing to flip a burger on Geary Street
might very well reach or exceed $8.50 per hour.

"Illegals" are irrelevant. A living wage should be the right of
any and every fully-employed person any and every where. Might
be $8.50 in San Francisco and $3.50 in East Saint Louis, $0.25
in Peking; doesn't matter.


Then you don't value efficiency in the work force. A "living wage"
means that I legally have to pay inefficient workers more than
they deserve. Because I have to stay in business, I then
compensate by paying efficient workers less than they deserve.


Yes. I worked with people who received scale who were hardly worth
it. My employer recognized that I was worth more than scale and paid
me more. But the other employees received a living wage for what they
did and were not fired because they did enough.

[I'm very proud of the fact that I out-produced, with equal or better
quality, my co-workers. I didn't do it as much with speed as with
efficiency. At one time, I was rumored to be among the top two
hundred of the more than three thousand people doing similar work.]


Which is the way it should be. Unions constrain the free market for labor
intentionally to create benefits for their members. As long as they provide
value-add to the employer (standardized skill through standarized training,
substitutte workers should the primary worker be ill, etc.) they have a
place in the labor market.

Mike






..

[Gotta git t'bed!]
__________________________________________________ _________________
A San Franciscan who's stickin' t'the union!
http://geocities.com/dancefest/ - http://geocities.com/iconoc/
ICQ: http://wwp.mirabilis.com/19098103 --- IClast at SFbay Net


The law makes me screw one to pay another. It also increases the
number of living wage workers I have, because instead of rewarding
efficient workers with raises, I still have maintain the proper
salary/revenue ratio in order to keep my business going.

The living wage is simply a welfare program where the goverment
pawns off its social responsibilities on the business owner. If
the goverment would clean up its regulatory morass, enforce the
immigration laws, fix it's own budgetary messes, and fix the
corrupt taxation system, the economy would jump to even higher
levels than it's operating now, and all this "living wage"
horsehockey would go away. Employers wouldn't be able to pay
enough to keep good workers, and profits would support them.


The "illegals" are the scofflaw employers, not those
desperate for work . . . If you're talking about people who
have entered the country without going through the proper
channels, there is no difference. They're all effectively
undocumented.

Doesn't matter where the come from, does it?


As a conservative/libertarian (or whatever), I object to
laws designed to fix problems that other laws (or, in this
case, lack of enforcement thereof) cause.

That's correct. If you know of an employer who hires, for
example, undocumented Canadians to do a job for which US
citizens are qualified and available, call your local
Department of Labor. The times I've done so (for other
reasons), I've been impressed by how quickly, well, and
effectively they responded.

Sure, but there is anecdotal evididence that the Feds only
spank the employer and release the illegal. Without
consequences, law is meaningless.

Yes. Who's at fault for that?



The Fed and State goverments.

What about the 90% of the workplace regulations that
*don't* increase risk to rank and file life and limb?

I've not read them in so long that I don't know to what
you refer. The laws of which I'm aware are legislated
recognition of some of the conditions won by the deaths
of striking workers.

SEC regs, affirmative action regs, eeoc regs, american with
disabilites regs, etc..........etc.....etc...... All of them
have good purpose,

That's good enough for me. The reasons those laws exist, even if
they're burdensome, is because of the historic abuses of
employees.


but amount to us loading Lance Armstrong down with a fifty
pound weight and telling him to win the next Tour de France.

I don't understand the analogy. Yes, I know who Lance is.



Compliance with regulations costs money. Real money. Example:
Enron defrauded investors. How? By gaming a corrupt financial
reporting and tax system that confuses the hell out of everyone.
So, the goverment's "fix" is Sarbanes-Oxley, which codifies
financial reporting standards. Sounds like a good idea to prevent
another Enron, right?

Wrong. Sarbanes Oxlely will cost tens of BILLIONS of dollars to
comply with. Where does buiness come up with that money? They cut
their payrolls, either by withholding wages or firing people. They
decrease budgets for R*D, making them less competitive with other
countries abroad. They postpone or cancel plans for expansion.
They outsource jobs to India or China. Like any of those?

EVERY REGULATION COSTS MONEY which invariably gets passed on to a
"little guy", sometimes in the form of increased costs of goods
and services, but usually by firing the little guy, not hiring
little guys they expected to hire, or sending the little guy's
jobs overseas.

That's the 50 lb weight. And, in an international market, where
companies in the developing nations get to play under much looser
regulatory guidelines, out companies are uncompetitive because of
the weight of the regulatory burden.



Forbes estimates that the cost of compliance with
regulations in this country (the most expensive regs are
usually those involved with EEO compliance, next to
safety) is three million jobs per year. Three million jobs
added to the equation would take the unemployment rate to
replacement levels (2-2.5%) and, like the illegals
question above, would increase the cost of your Geary
Street burger flipper to your hypothetical living wage.

If those three million jobs would be with long hours at
sub-standard wages in an unsatisfactory working environment,
t'hell with 'em.



Well, if you don't care about jobs, that's your perogative.

In 2008, the wave of retirees which constitutes 1/3 of the
workforce (in total) will retire. The younguns might be
nice, but I doubt they'll be willing to work tripleshifts
to compensate for the retirees who want to go fish.

We old people'l out-vote 'em!

Actually, we likely will, refusing to deal with the reality
that saddleing them with our retirement is unethical.

All of us who were employed after 1937 were saddled with the
burden of supporting retirees. Had the gummint handled the funds
honestly and competently, there would be no problem.



The "gummit" handled the funds in precisely the way the system
permitted them to. The system was *always* pay-as-you-go, designed
so that the overage would flow into the general fund, to be paid
back later. SS is probably the most "honest and competent" system
ever created by the Feds. It's problem is *structural* in that it
never expected to find itself in a situation where the US
fertility rate was so low.


The problem with Social Security is that the revenue
collected goes into the General Fund rather than being kept
separate as it ought. The "solutions" proposed by the idiot
in the White House are neither sound nor realistic.

I don't like the solutions either, but the system is failing.
If it contained a private component when it was created, we
wouldn't have this problem right now.

The simplest fix is that Social Security contributions be levied
upon all wages earned. During the ten years that I maxed out my
contributions, I received a "bonus" check or two at the end of
the year. I think it ought not be possible to max out one's
contribution. Yes, that would be unfair to those who have high
wages. So what? They have more money!



That won't come close to fixing the problem, although it is a well
publicized mythological fix promoted by AARP. The fiscal
imbalance over time is 8 Trillion Dollars. 8 Trillion. (Some, like
Alan Greenspan, say 10T, but that's a difference in accounting
methodologies.) Don't let anyone (especially a politician or
lobbying organization) tell you it is anything less. The
"eliminate the cap" trick will "fix" about 2% of that 8T. You
still have the rest to deal with.

I am a relative younun of 50. I expect to be alive in 2041. My
financial planning *expects* a 27% decrease in SS benefits in
2041, just like it says on the front of my SS annual statement,
because I figure if the politicos don't even have the balls to use
the same numbers the economists agree on WRT the SS fiscal
imbalance, what hope do we have of ever finding a "fix."?

Mike



--
http://geocities.com/dancefest/ - http://geocities.com/iconoc/
ICQ: http://wwp.mirabilis.com/19098103 --- IClast at SFbay Net



 




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