Why we need a mandatory living wage:

[bladevalant546]

Some of the responses here are so misguided. The only reason why prices rise is not the soak up the cost of labor. But because they believe since everyone is making more they can charge more. Our economy is not run on supply and demand but on "what the market will allow" and since crowd psychology, and social propaganda. They can control the demand and easily keep people so dumb in some regards they will support anything as a belief.

Supply side economics has failed, as it should have never been even allowed. Capitalism is not being out done by taxes, but by technology. More and more, jobs are being replaced. Our current paradigm needs to change, we cannot believe that capitalism is this eternal system that has all the answers. There is barely a middle class, because I do not count people with credit being middle class. We have almost eliminated racism and sexism as prominent forces, why are we so attached to classism that money creates? Utopias are impossible, however a better society is not.

The problem with your statement is that people are allowed to sell at exorbitant price is because supply and demand allows them to do so. If you have a premium product or name, people are more than willing to buy at the inflated price (demand) dictated by supply. If you have more product than you can sell, a competitor to gain market share and to lower their inventory will sell for lower price forcing prices down.

The republicans had this fantasy that if you increase supply that it would lower prices. But businesses are far smarter than republicans and their politicians. They refuse to increase supply because it would lower their profit. It's why republican policy tends to hurt the economy and not improve it. If we taxed corporations and the wealthy as they should be taxed, then we would have more money to improve infrastructure and invest in "all" the people instead of the very few wealthy individuals. Thereby increasing demand and jobs.

The business i am in is a fairly mature market and there is almost no new manufacturing plants being created. It would lower cost over all sales and consequently it is cheaper to expand by purchasing competitors and maintaining prices than increasing supply and lowering prices.

I actually do not disagree with that statement. Actually we are both right. The issue here is taking into account of the psychological manipulation involved in getting people to buy things. It can be construed that the demand is not real demand but a socially manufacture demand. It is not a binary thing that is happening. With the advent of modern psychology, these tactics have grown rather effective.