Any other centrist atheists?

[Ryantology]

No, but since when does food cost more than $7.25 an hour? The benefits of having a job, even for a very low wage, are numerous. The experience, the possibility for higher wages in the future, the fact that you are earning money rather than earning none at all (or relying on government handouts). All these things are good, and they all get reduced when a minimum wage is in effect.

When is food the only necessity upon which one must spend money?

The fact that many people making minimum wage also rely on government handouts (is it really a handout when you're paying income taxes) illustrates the problem of a low minimum wage.

It's astounding that you can admit that companies pay more than the legal minimum because it looks good, and yet form a completely contradictory opinion in the next paragraph. Paying employees more always looks good.

I can never have a debate with you and not run into a semantics issue. Yes, Wal-mart and stores like it do pay above minimum. Pennies above minimum. Enough so that it costs the company less than they get with the PR, not enough to make a difference to the employee. Hence, if Wal-Mart had the choice to pay an employee nothing, they would probably choose to toss them a couple of nickels.

There is no reason to think that Target (or any Wal-Mart competitor) would follow suit with such wage reductions, because keeping your higher wages is going to look much better than Wal-Mart suddenly decreasing them by such a large factor, and it will give you a massive edge over Wal-Mart in the long run.

There is a reason to think this: that's how it already works. Target sets its starting wages based upon what competing Wal-Mart sets theirs, this is something I know for certain. If Wal-Mart lowballs, every bigbox retailer will certainly follow suit. Target, being slightly more classy, might toss out dimes instead of nickels. Good for them.

Companies aren't run by computerized drones you know; they are run by people who understand how important company appearance is. If a company like Wal-Mart was stupid enough to think paying its employees $1.50 an hour was OK, its competitors would simply cease on the opportunity to point out the ridiculous wages, and use their high wages in comparison to attract more customers and employees.

Why should I believe that would happen if it is not happening now? Wal-Mart is infamous for their poor pay, but this has not ever led its competitors to attack them on this, because none of them do significantly better for their employees.

From a Wal-Mart employee's perspective, they are going to say "well, now I have a pathetic wage, but I can simply quit and go work for Target instead". The point of competition is that companies can only undercut each other so far. If companies make their prices too low, they risk losing profit, or not being able to hold onto their employees. There are multiple factors which keeps wages high.

You can leave for a competitor, if that competitor is hiring. You can slash prices almost as much as you want when you are charging 200% markup because you buy everything from Asian sweatshops.

When I think of what the libertarian, free-market paradise would look like, what I see is Bangladesh.

I said can. No you can't live if you think you need to spend 1000 dollars a month for shelter. But you don't need to. You don't need to live in those places. People are so dumb about what they think they need.

No, I guess we don't need clean water, nutritious food, reliable shelter or medicine to survive. Living to the ripe old age of 38 sounds like a good idea.