Raising the minimum wage won't help

[The Grand Nudger]

That is exactly what we all said with our dollars. The Waltons didn't hire mercs and raid the mom and pops for loot. Their consumers walked.

You know, it's funny, we used to complain that we couldn't compete with walmart on price or variety, but our products were better and obviously our employees better paid and better treated. If mom and pops are now telling us that they can no longer compete on quality, price, variety, or labor?

Well, then, that's that...I guess. Why would I want to buy anything from them, or work for them, if that were true? It is, for all the world, the very definition of a failed pitch - and if this is the kind of pitch that mom and pops or mom and pop apologists think will work for societal change - then we probably have an explanation for why they really went out of business right there.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Yeah - FUCK MOM AND POP - those skeezy fucks can come work at McDonalds or Walmart like all us cool fuckers with "gauges" and bad haircuts making minimum wage!


[/snark]

I thought you were pro-capitalism?

[arewethereyet]

I'm sure you mean "except".

I am in an old railroad town.  The downtown is filled with local shops that cater to the western culture of the area for the most part.  There are clothing boutiques, a locally owned flower shop, a coffee and whatnot shop that is very popular even though there are at least three Starbucks in town.  There's a furniture store that carries very rustic, heavy, western influenced goods that you don't find at the chains.  There are restaurants and now a winery.  There's a quilt shop and a place that sells candles they make as well as decorative things.  There's a tanning salon that is not a chain.  

The town pushed hard for people to continue to do business with these shops through the pandemic to keep the downtown going.  

All around the outside of town are the chain stores you would expect to see just about anywhere.

This town rallied to keep the feel of the town going.  But if they owners of some of these shops been expected to pay $15.00 per hour, I don't see how some of them would have made it.  Many cut operating hours but you could call and make an appointment.

 Why not?  You're already paying for nostalgia in a way that amounts to local tourism.  You could go to Old Timey Small Town Feels world for all of that merchandise, and get a lower price for it, -and- they can afford to pay their labor a better rate.  Will all of the people who live there who are not working in that tourism sector and who are working for employers which can pay a higher wage not spend those higher wages there?

The death of small town america is a feature of capitalism, not a bug.  A good thing.  Mom and Pops are just so many inefficient operators wasting labor and capital, and the american consumer demanded better.

I assure you I am not living in a tourism town...not even close.

[onlinebiker]

When the government implemented tougher rules some years ago requiring more employers to provide health insurance for full-time employees, a whole BUNCH of people around here had their hours cut to 32 hours per week so the employers wouldn't have to pay for their health insurance.   Years later, those places (grocery store Food Lion comes to mind) STILL don't hire 40 hour per week employees.  Many of those same employees had to take on second jobs to make ends meet.  And in more skilled careers where hours were cut to 32 per week an awful lot of THOSE *salaried* employees were (and still are) required to still get 40 hours worth of work done in 32 hours.

And lets not forget the fact that employers have to pay for unemployment insurance and worker's comp insurance and contribute to their social security and Medicare for each employee.  An increase of min wg to $15 per hour will cause many employers to cut staff, do less hiring in the future, and set impossible expectations of workload for the employees they keep around.

I know college graduates who don't make $15 per hour.  That comes to $31,200 per year.  Nobody whose job is to say "do you want fries with that" is worth $15 per hour.

Sorry, not sorry.

You're talking about large companies there who are making massive profits and are also giving out massive amounts of money in director bonii and share buyback schemes.  They can easily afford to employ people full time on far greater than a €15 per hour wage.

Back in the day when I worked shop assistant I calculated what I'd get if I was given a flat commission on 0.5% of what I rang through the till.  It averaged at €800 per week, more than twice my then weekly wage c. €320 a week.

---

What do you see as the central failure of the CCCP economic model?

Capitalism, by the end of the 70s the USSR was running almost a pure capitalist economic model.

Jesus fuck you are so full of shit...

Where do you come up with this insane bullshit?

You have no idea what you are talking about.


Did you ever actually meet a Soviet?

I sure the fuck did.....

I did boardings on Soviet ships back in the.late 1970's and met the people - including the Captain and zampolit (political officer - introduced as the first officer) 

The crew - were pretty nice guys and did have a bit of a capitalistic streak to them.- when the zampolit wasn't in earshot. They loved trading vodka (Stolichnaya, Staar and Privyet) for American cigarettes.....

But when the "first" was there - they were all business..... Communism good - capitalism bad.....

The Soviets sure the fuck wre NOT capitalists.....

[The Architect Of Fate]

Jesus fuck you are so full of shit...

Where do you come up with this insane bullshit?

You have no idea what you are talking about.


Did you ever actually meet a Soviet?

I sure the fuck did.....

I did boardings on Soviet ships back in the.late 1970's and met the people - including the Captain and zampolit (political officer - introduced as the first officer) 

The crew - were pretty nice guys and did have a bit of a capitalistic streak to them.- when the zampolit wasn't in earshot. They loved trading vodka (Stolichnaya, Staar and Privyet) for American cigarettes.....

But when the "first" was there - they were all business..... Communism good - capitalism bad.....

The Soviets sure the fuck wre NOT capitalists.....

Cool story bro 

Too bad it doesn't refute his point at all.

---

When the government implemented tougher rules some years ago requiring more employers to provide health insurance for full-time employees, a whole BUNCH of people around here had their hours cut to 32 hours per week so the employers wouldn't have to pay for their health insurance.   Years later, those places (grocery store Food Lion comes to mind) STILL don't hire 40 hour per week employees.  Many of those same employees had to take on second jobs to make ends meet.  And in more skilled careers where hours were cut to 32 per week an awful lot of THOSE *salaried* employees were (and still are) required to still get 40 hours worth of work done in 32 hours.

And lets not forget the fact that employers have to pay for unemployment insurance and worker's comp insurance and contribute to their social security and Medicare for each employee.  An increase of min wg to $15 per hour will cause many employers to cut staff, do less hiring in the future, and set impossible expectations of workload for the employees they keep around.

I know college graduates who don't make $15 per hour.  That comes to $31,200 per year.  Nobody whose job is to say "do you want fries with that" is worth $15 per hour.

Sorry, not sorry.

You're talking about large companies there who are making massive profits and are also giving out massive amounts of money in director bonii and share buyback schemes.  They can easily afford to employ people full time on far greater than a €15 per hour wage.

Back in the day when I worked shop assistant I calculated what I'd get if I was given a flat commission on 0.5% of what I rang through the till.  It averaged at €800 per week, more than twice my then weekly wage c. €320 a week.

---

What do you see as the central failure of the CCCP economic model?

Capitalism, by the end of the 70s the USSR was running almost a pure capitalist economic model.

His response is freaking hilarious

[The Grand Nudger]

 Why not?  You're already paying for nostalgia in a way that amounts to local tourism.  You could go to Old Timey Small Town Feels world for all of that merchandise, and get a lower price for it, -and- they can afford to pay their labor a better rate.  Will all of the people who live there who are not working in that tourism sector and who are working for employers which can pay a higher wage not spend those higher wages there?

The death of small town america is a feature of capitalism, not a bug.  A good thing.  Mom and Pops are just so many inefficient operators wasting labor and capital, and the american consumer demanded better.

I assure you I am not living in a tourism town...not even close.

I know what you mean when you say that, but I only mean that if your town banded together to save a feeling, that's a product entirely like any tourist spot. That's what tourism looks like from the providers point of view. That's what's being paid for.

[Rev. Rye]

You're talking about large companies there who are making massive profits and are also giving out massive amounts of money in director bonii and share buyback schemes.  They can easily afford to employ people full time on far greater than a €15 per hour wage.

Back in the day when I worked shop assistant I calculated what I'd get if I was given a flat commission on 0.5% of what I rang through the till.  It averaged at €800 per week, more than twice my then weekly wage c. €320 a week.

---

Capitalism, by the end of the 70s the USSR was running almost a pure capitalist economic model.

Jesus fuck you are so full of shit...

Where do you come up with this insane bullshit?

You have no idea what you are talking about.


Did you ever actually meet a Soviet?

I sure the fuck did.....

I did boardings on Soviet ships back in the.late 1970's and met the people - including the Captain and zampolit (political officer - introduced as the first officer) 

The crew - were pretty nice guys and did have a bit of a capitalistic streak to them.- when the zampolit wasn't in earshot. They loved trading vodka (Stolichnaya, Staar and Privyet) for American cigarettes.....

But when the "first" was there - they were all business..... Communism good - capitalism bad.....

The Soviets sure the fuck wre NOT capitalists.....

Are you going to answer Angrboda’s question about why the Soviet economy failed and how it relates to increasing the minimum wage or not? Are you going to prove you’re not just talking shit when you make that comparison or not? Are you going to prove a coward who makes bullshit assertions and refuses to defend them when called out on it or are you actually going to rise to the occasion that you set for yourself?