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Peter Schiff Explains The Harsh Reality Of Minimum Wage Hikes To The US Public
We have tried a number of times (here, here, and here) to explain the simple math behind the populist call for a higher minimum wage (that appears to be founding the President's new class warfare) but in the following clip, we hope, Peter Schiff visits a local Wal-Mart in the hopes of explaining that magic money trees are not real.
Posing as representatives of "15 for 15," a make-believe organization advocating that Walmart raise prices by 15% and use the extra cash to pay its low-skilled workers $15 per hour (Schiff suggests that the surcharge be added to customer's bills at checkout, just like a gratuity at a restaurant).
Not surprisingly few shoppers supported his cause. Even those who felt Walmart workers should be paid more did not want to pay higher prices themselves to make it possible.
Perhaps, as Schiff notes, those demanding higher wages for Walmart's workers should consider the importance of low prices to Walmart's customers.
Those who advocate across the board wage increases assume that the company can meet the additional payroll by simply dipping into profits. But with just $6,600 profit per employee any significant raise in pay will largely cut into profits, greatly alter return on equity, and force dramatic changes in the company’s operations. In truth the kind of pay raises envisioned by the activists, must lead to price increases. Advocates assume that shoppers will gladly support higher prices if they lead to higher wages for workers not higher profit for shareholders. Mr. Schiff’s experiment shows this hope to be delusional. If Wal-Mart loses customers, it will invariably lose workers. Do progressives assume that workers earning no pay would be less of a burden on society than a worker earning low pay?
Mr. Schiff would certainly agree that it is increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to raise a family on entry level Wal-Mart pay. But he argues that such jobs were never intended to be careers, but simply stepping stones for low skilled workers to gain entry into the labor force. The fact that the economy is now providing no other stones on which to step is not the fault of Wal-Mart. Instead, the better paying jobs that used to form the backbone of the middle class have been strangled by an out of control government that strangles businesses with excessive taxation and regulation
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Seriously, fuck this guy.
Too many props off some one time "i was right" youtube video. Still papering over the fact he's just another con artist/shitty investment adviser, trying turn himself into a brand/personality cult because it's easier to get more suckers to part with their money when they see you on the TV.
He's welcome to take his cameras and signs down to some gated communities in the Caribbean over Christmas and ask some corporate welfare queens for all that money back, but he wouldn't have the spine. He'd be ripping handjobs out left and right for that crowd in person.
Nah, he's more comfortable being a smart ass in a walmart carpark to belittle the concerns of people barely above hobo level.
I guess you haven't listened to him criticize corporate welfare as well.
Grandstanding on his internet show to curry favor with the plebs he's looking to grift?
Gawd what a sad, sad thread.
Hope you didn't have your hopes set too high, Tyler.
Why doesn't someone actually calculate what price hikes would be necessary to support certain increases in minimum wage? All I hear is rhetoric and supposition - no hard data. Then we could make some intelligent decisions....or not. Nevermind.
They have, 15% is nonsense.....the last study on Walmart prices concluded a 1.1% would get you to a $12.50 minimum wage.
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-a-walmart-wage-hike-would-cost-you-2013-7
As John Lennon once said 'Just give me some truth" here is one for all the FREE SHIT ARMY propagandists at ZH who make you believe that government is just throwing money away at squatters:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-government-is-quietly-giving-way-more...
Peter Schiff is a con, a predatory bullshit artist who is a spokesperson for American Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity shysters' fake charitable foundations that advocate for the elites: the minimum wage increase would come form profits that end up in offshore accounts otherwise. In similar way that tax cuts do not create additional employment but end up raising the cost of living for everyone, Peter Schiff misinforms and outright lies.
For the taxable year 2009, the top 25% income earners received $756 billion in tax credits, the bottom 50% got $20 billion.
Who pays all the expenses---the lower classes, the rich just profit from work and ingenuity of others and use media to spread bullshit lies.
we could equalize things by returning to a us dollar linked to the price of silver. if we did this , the minimum wage would be raised to $20 per hour, not $15 which is not enough to correct the ost buying power of our dollar since 1965
Ignoring your false dilemmas, you demonstrate a complete lack of understanding in how labor markets work.
Actually what really will happen is that corporations will enhance their operating efficiency . meaning laying off 20% of the work force!
Yep...$15/hr for the one "associate" who mans the self-checkout.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHzjgNFwg-Y
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1997 Kim Richey live - Fallin' + I'm Alright
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FceBnspGZzU
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Kim Richey - Those Words We Said
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NCFSZuToo0
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That Swingin' Manger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP_yxfNxyqE
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there ya go.
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bonus ss
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rock n roll nigger
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merry , more and many magic words
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Patti Smith - Horses & Hey Joe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3coSfks4rQ
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The Creature From Jekyll Island (by G. Edward Griffin)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_VqX6J93k
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Tae per or not tae per
Posted on December 17, 2013 by Jonathan Davis
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http://www.maxkeiser.com/2013/12/tae-per-or-not-tae-per/
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pick one.
the last time our currency was convertible into a precious metal was 1964. at that time you could take a paper dollar to a bank and get a dollars worth of silver in return. in 1965, this policy was ended. in 1965, the federal minimum wage was $1.25 per hour
Obviously the minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation or the price of precious metals.
i propose raising the minimum wage to the equivalent of one ounce of silver: $20 PER HOUR.
Would this send a shockwave through the economy? yes. would it cause an increase in prices? yes. however this increase would also force other workers to demand similar wage increases from their emloyers. Also, since busineeses would be forced to raise prices , they could no longer hide the existing inflation with tricks such as product size and quality reduction. this in turn would force the BLS and the FED to admit there really is a silent and hidden inflation that is not acknowledged by the TPTB.
ask yourselves why min. wage workers are having such a tough time getting by on this salary. their wages have not kept up with te inflation caused by the fed's policies which benefit Wall street and the large corporations who can take advantage of easy money and low interest rates. pegging the minimum wage to the price to the price of silver would smoke out this fraud and start the road back to a more sound currency. (no pegging jokes please) sorry to have to part company with PS on this issue. if we had real economy instead of our current phoney economy , he would be correct.
I have a counterproposal. Why don't we reset the minimum wage back to $1.25 per hour and reinstitute silver-backed coinage at the old rate. That way the low wage workers would be able to take their $1.25 to the bank and get an ounce of silver, just like before. Lyndon Johnson eliminated silver coinage as part of his Great Society program, and it doesn't seem to have worked very well.
Your proposal is unfair because it would only give a pay raise to low wage workers. That's unfair! What about the large number of people earning more than the minimum wage. They should get a pay raise too!
And another benefit is that with the minimum wage at only $1.25 per hour, employers would be able to hire lots of new workers. Unemployment would become a thing of the past!
"Your proposal is unfair because it would only give a pay raise to low wage workers."
i am assuming that a dramatic raise in the minimum wage would filter through the system and necessitate wage increases for those earning more than the minimum wage. Wages have been stagnant for most workers in this country for the last 10 years. only the top 2-3% of wage earners have experienced any real increae over that period. my hope is that a dramatic wage increase for the lowest wage earners would break this logjam.
however, i do not expect my proposal to be adopted for one simple reason: my suggestion uses an objective standard for the minimum wage. the trend these days is to use a mushy, ill defined standard like a "living wage". yes there will be an increase in the minimum wage but it will be miniscule at best and will do nothing to end wage stagnation for higher paid workers
There wouldn't be enough money, or at least people would figure out there are a lot of people who are way overpaid for what they do instead of just being happy with what they have. Why the fuck does my lawyer want 20oz of silver an hour? I wouldn't have much use for that weasally little cocksucker anyway, I'll settle my problems myself.
eliminated double post
Is anyone who watched this at all truly shocked?...
We launch illegal campaigns based on a single event that our Government still won't come clean on that gets millions tortured, maimed and killed in every other Country but our own for more than 12 years since the "war on terror" was officially declared, and you expect the average "dry rot" in the cranium American to give up a few pennies to feed the kids at Walmart enough so that they don't have to live 24/7 in the store room?
Who are we kidding?
The people that Peter is talking to are the ones that will go ballistic when the house of cards finally collapses and the entitlements are cut off, most important among them the ones that buy Exxon/Mobil, Shell Oil, GE, Monsanto, Boeing Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman in the markets that do most of the talking and destruction around the globe.
With Walmart profit at $27,801M and 2,200,000 employees, where did Schiffless get $6000/employee. With Revenue of $469,162M, how does an additional 15% on each sale add up to $6/hr more for each employee?
They could raise the average workers pay and "Ding Ding Ding" - not raise prices.
Simply reduce executive compensation to 10X the lowest paid workers salary.
Problem solved. At least in the sense that the workers wouldn't bitch quite as much.
But alas, that will never happen and the stockholders will continue to be conned into thinking the multi-million $$ executives are actually worth it lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttaxup2BbSo
Admittedly executive pay is questionable, but then how would those industries that cater to the wealthy maintain their business.
Somebody has to build those super yachts and mansions and someone has to pay for them.
Between two million dollar cars, super expensive jewelery from Tiffany's, real estate agents that cater to the rich, high end clothiers, and just about every industry that caters to the rich and wealthy, we'd be putting a whole lot of folk out of work if we cut off executive pay.
Or they could fire them all, replace them with machines, and *Ding Ding Ding* cut prices in half again!
Considering what we saw at those "Black Friday" stampedes, I don't think all the media's sob stories about the poor slobs who just got fired will have much effect on the number of customers they'll have flooding the stores to buy stuff at ridiculously low prices.
Just like Obamacare. "Hell yes I support this!!!! ...wait...I have to pay for it? WTF?!@"
"Hey, I thought you said this was free!"
"Well, uh... Yeah. I did. I just didn't mean, you know, 'free' free."
The employees should covert their places of employment into landfills and be paid the wages of city trash people. If they are fat then they should be charged for taking up space at the landfills.
Outlaw Walmart, Staples and Target and you'll see how the economy will blossom.
Arrest their owners and throw them into prisons with the FED members.
Redistribute their stolen wealth, in Bitcoin, to the citizens.
Long live Daniel Ortega and study Archibald Macleish (closely).
Misleading at best. Come on ZH. Basic retail math does not work like that, that's sloppy and a lie on the part of Mr. Schiff.
You don't need a 15% rise in prices to hike the wages 15%, that's not even close. It would only take about a 1 to 2% rise in prices to achieve a 15% wage hike. Would Walmart shoppers balk at a 1 to 2% hike in prices, maybe, because they are broke and shopping on EBT, but that's another whole issue.
Peter made one good call on gold a few years back and is continuing to blow hard about things that are well beyond his intelligence level. While I do agree with Peter's analysis on the FED and it's destructive policies, he's not going to get his point across by just lying about basic economic math.
and no, genuises, that doesn't mean you raise the min wage to $50 an hour...if you're workers still need food stamps and Medicaid, then no, you're not paying a "living wage".
You the taxpayer are subsidizing Walmart
Totally agree Giorgio......and the argument that these jobs are just 'stepping stones' is so obviously bogus that it doesn't deserve a refutation. Europe is moving towards a basic guaranteed income for all its citizens.......no one should have to live like a slave to satisfy the 'needs' of corporate shareholders. If our society and economy can't figure out a way to pay a decent wage to all then it does not deserve to exist and will be replaced with a more equitable system.
Obama's plan to provide minimum health insurance to everyone is working really well so far. So why don't we set up a new program guarantee everyone a job providing a minimum wage and benefits? We could call it Jobcare and everyone would be required by law to find a job providing a minimum salary and benefits or pay a penalty. And we could set up a giant website to match employees with employers.
And we could have a provision that says: "If you like your salary, you can keep your salary. *" (* In a few very rare cases.)
Well, FDR tried that during the last Great Depression and it failed miserably. Although it did produce some decent infrastructure like the Hoover Dam.
Sad part is we're already paying people a salary to basically do nothing. Its called welfare and food stamps with a side of section 8 housing.
good one schiff!
Does ZH fact check anything that it reposts anymore? This Peter Schiff thing has been making the rounds all week and now it appears here with no analysis/context.
15%=15 is total nonsense. Peter is actually proving his own point wrong by trying to make that argument.
Last study on this done specifically with Walmart products showed that a 1.1% raise in prices led to a $12.50 minimum wage, so you'd hardly need 15% raise in prices to get to $15 an hour
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-a-walmart-wage-hike-would-cost-you-2013-7
Heh. This makes me think of the leftard 0-Care (or ACA as they now call it) shills I encounter in various places online who try to pretend the polls aren't as bad for their crappy nationalized healthcare as they look. Just the other day, one of them was contending that people love 0-Care because look how popular each of the benefits it offers are when you pitch them to people individually instead of in a bundle!
My response? Well, of course each of the individual promises of benefits polls high. Go promise people a free pony, free ice cream, and free money and see how they poll. Very few will say they don't want any of those things, especially the free money. (A few might be aware that ponies are expensive to maintain, particularly if you live in the city or the suburbs, some might be lactose intolerant, and very few indeed will be thinking far enough ahead to realize that if everybody gets free money, inflation will quickly render it worthless.) Now go ask people if they'd be willing to foot the bill to buy a "free" pony, "free" ice cream, and "free" money for someone else and see how that polls. (Well, a few people might be that charitable, like maybe one tenth of one percent.)
The real reasons 0-Care isn't polling well are because now that people actually see it in practice, they've noticed all the not-so-hidden-anymore costs it imposes on them such as the cancellation of what had been their superior coverage, the incompetence of the room full of chimps who seem to be running this program (particularly the Potemkin website), and the fact that they're not getting very many of those popular benefits they were promised.
With minimum wage, it's the same deal. Say, would you like to have higher wages? Of course you would! How about your neighbors? Would you like them to have higher wages too? Well, fair's fair, right? If you get higher wages, it's only fair they should too. Now, how many of you would like to pay more money (in taxes or higher prices) so that everyone can have higher wages? "Uh, gee, no thanks; I gave at the office. Hey, would you look at the time? Gotta go. See ya..."
The entire argument here regarding the minimum wage is based on faulty math and logic. That's not how retail math works
A 1.1% rise in prices at Walmart would equal a minimum wage of $12.50. Not exactly rampant cost inflation genius.
You also don't seem to understand that the American taxpayer is already subsidizing Walmart's staffing costs and bottom line, McDonalds, etc with the Medicaid and Food Stamp programs for the employees that aren't paid enough.
Oh, I know full well how the math works. I also understand a lot better than you how the minimum wage distorts the market, fattens all the more the very fat cats you socialists (well-meaning and otherwise) are trying to squeeze, and puts you even more firmly under their thumb.
I've bought groceries using those automatic scanners and seen what they can do, and know from experience how easily Wal-Mart and McDonalds and a great many other corporations can have all the cashiers and burger flippers replaced. All they need is the right incentive to get them to pay the hefty (but dropping) upfront price for those machines that cost very little to maintain, are paid no wages at all, never go on strike, and never spit in the customer's food.
Of course, those machines do have their occasional malfunctions, but the one high-salaried tech guy they'll have to hire to repair and maintain them will still cost a lot less than the dozen guys he's replacing ever did, especially if the minimum wage is more than doubled the way you bleeding hearts want it to be.
What you minimum wage advocates never seem to grasp is that you can't force corporations' hands, no matter what you do. They're bigger than you, smarter than you, far better connected politically than you, and far better at bargain-hunting than you. You're playing right into their hands, and considering how you're just as stingy and greedy as any of them, it's hard to feel sorry for you or particularly angry at them when they take advantage of your stupidity.
If you "know how math works" (I worked as a head office financial analyst/inventory planner for a major retailer for 5 years, I'm guessing that's not the kind of actual industry knowledge you have) then do please enlighten us on roughly what % increase in retail prices you think would flow through to the wages of a retail worker? Do you think Peter Shiff's math is real in any way? Based on the reasoning your using in your response, the rest is some theory you read in chapter 5 of Atlas Shrugged and some random blog postings from a Mises Institute flunky.
Sure, push the real unemployment rate up into the 20%+ range by replacing all the retail workers by machines/robots, that very well might be what is in store for us, but don't think this is going to be a pleasant place to inhabit....not sure what kind of a country you are envisioning where we manufacture nothing, stock stores with robots, and pray that China keeps buying our debt. Are you hoping that the 100 million+ of the population that has been just goes away?
Show me somewhere in the world where your theories (that sounds like some retarded mix of Austrian economics and Tea Party/Ayn Randism) about minimum wage have been demonstrated..besides Africa.
I'm not shedding any tears for Walmart, their business model that is dependant on people using EBT cards, cheap oil, and a willing cheap Chinese manufacturing base, isn't long for this world.
0% after they're fired and replaced with machines. You don't know your economics very well, do you? Do you really think Wal-Mart or anybody else is going to sit there and watch profits leech away to overpaid employees because the government fixed the price at more than twice what their labor was worth? Of course not. When you try to set the price on any product too high, you get a glut of unsold product. Set the price on employees too high for the employer, and you'll get a glut of "unsold" (a.k.a. unemployed) laborers.
Obviously, your training to be an analyst/inventory planner in a corporate office never included any tips on how to deal with the realities of human nature, though I don't doubt it taught you a lot about how to work with numbers on a spreadsheet.
To the contrary, I think his math is really being rather kind to the morons calling for government to fix the price of employment even higher. The current minimum wage is at $7.25 an hour. $15.00 an hour is more than twice that. If the minimum wage rises that high and you're not producing more than $15.00 an hour of value for your employer, you're fired and you deserve to be. It's really that simple.
Would you know I've never actually read anything by Ayn Rand at all? I mean, other than excerpts from people preaching capitalism to me up here in the choir loft. No, what I've read is tales from Communist countries where they used a lot of the very same arguments you're making here to fix prices, and were shocked to discover that no amount of coaxing or force could make anything worth more than what people were willing to give for it.
In some of those countries, unemployment was illegal and high wages were mandatory. Astonishing as it may seem, this didn't stop record crop yields from rotting unharvested in the field, basic consumer goods from being shoddy and in extremely short supply, and workers from being poor, starving, homeless, diseased, lazy, and greedy all at the same time. It also didn't stop a few extremely wealthy fat cats from continuing to make obscene profits at the expense of all those serfs.
I'm envisioning a miserable socialist hellhole like the ones in those Communist countries I've just been telling you about. You know: kind of like the way Detroit and Camden and New York City and Chicago, among other places, are right now. Really, you think another stupid minimum wage law is going to do anything to fix all those problems you've mentioned? Of course not. And where did I promise you any of this was going to make this a pleasant place to inhabit, pray tell? You think cold hard reality cares about whether it's a pleasant place for any of us to inhabit?
How about everywhere? Minimum wage has proved to be a job killer and economy destroyer everywhere it's been tried. The free market, meanwhile, has been a bounty of wealth and leisure to its participants everywhere it's been tried. Free market economics is a negative theory as well as a positive one, you know: according to its theories, when you set the price of employing people higher than anyone is willing to pay, people don't get employed. When you let the market decide the price, people get employed. Each of these predictions has proved to be a consistently accurate description of reality, whereas your economic theories have long been discredited, and live on only in wishful thinking such as yours.
Trying to distract us from how completely bankrupt and discredited your Marxist/Keynesian dogma is by attacking Ayn Rand and the Tea Party? Funny, that's the same thing leftards do when I point out what an epic failure 0-Care is: start ranting about how I must be some kind of "teabagger" or "Faux News" addict. Eh, eh, eh... Makes me want to try stuffing teabags in some leftard's mouth while watching Fox News for several hours just to see what all the hype is about, you know?
If you're not shedding any tears for Wal-Mart, imagine how few it's shedding for you. Oh, don't get me wrong: the CEOs are probably shedding a few for you, but that's because they're crying with laughter at how easily you're playing into their hands. Imagine how much harder they'll be laughing when you and a few of your fellow raggedy protesters get trampled in a stampede of crazed consumers on their way to buy the latest dirt-cheap hand-held gadget manufactured in China by low-wage workers, and save your tears for yourself.
By the way, don't bother posting links to any far-left Commie propaganda rags like the New York Slimes in any of your posts; the filters on my browser block those links automatically, and I don't feel like unblocking them to hear from more of the ignoramuses from whom you derive your nonsense.
Why the hell would you ever LISTEN to this hack?
From Wiki:
Early life and education[edit]Schiff was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His father is Irwin Schiff, a prominent figure in the U.S. tax protester movement, who is currently serving a 13-year sentence for tax evasion in Federal prison.[10][11] Peter Schiff attended Beverly Hills High School in California,[12] and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business in 1987 with a Bachelor's degree infinance and accounting.[13]
Financial career[edit]Schiff began his career as a stockbroker at a Shearson Lehman Brothers brokerage.[3]
...'nough said? You bet.
Schiff's bachelor degree in finance would earn him a job as barista in today's job market,
You know this from experience I take it?
The plain fact of the matter is that a higher minimum wage means corporations will need to share their profits.
Otherwise the rest of us through taxes continue to fund corporations since those working poor require food stamps and other government aid to make ends meet.
Without an increase in the minimum wage, corporations continue to suck off the government and expect the government to put food on the table of corporations' minimum wage workers because the corporations are unwilling to share their obscene profits
The plain fact is that an ever-increasing number of corporations can save a lot of money and boost their profits to truly obscene levels in the long run by firing you greedy lazy parasites and replacing you with machinery if they're willing to spring for the relatively low up-front cost of having it installed. Moreover, a lot of the big corporations are even bigger socialists than you; they're just better at making sure all the profits get "shared" with them and not you because they've got way better lawyers and lobbyists than you ever will.
Wal-Mart, for just one example, gets a ridiculous percentage of the money from the EBT cards, and no matter what vows you may be making now, you minimum wage boosters will be shopping there too when you're unemployed and have an EBT card of your own and the amount on it only goes so far.
The mush-minded thinking by Congress, Peter Schiff and yes, even ZH on this topic is astounding. It tells me that collapse is 100% guaranteed, and not even the well-intentioned understand economics well enough to know what to advocate.
There's just no money to raise minimum wage? BULLSHIT!
Pass just one law: If the US government doesn't balance its budget, government workers don't get paid and lose all benefits, including their health insurance.
That seems like an incredibly fair law to pass to me. Why should government workers be shielded from market realities? When it comes to Wal-Mart, everybody wants to talk painful economic realities, but when it comes to people whose salaries are supposed to be paid by what is collected in taxes, the world becomes hypothetical. What's a cop in Detroit worth? $5 bucks an hour? $50? What's a Booz Allen snooper worth? $200k? Based on what?
The problem with a lot of ZHers (and ZH itself) is that they're selective in the enforcement of their own ideology, and not really concerned at all with seeking solutions. The check out girl at Walmart and the burger-flipper at Mickey D's may not have much economic value, but they have some. The real problem that America needs to face is the fat paychecks being pulled down by people who have no economic value whatsoever.
Fucking. A. The bashing of the poor disgusts me. Let's move to a real free market for the Waltons, Buffets, etc, call it anarchy. In the absence of. gov to protect them let's see if they can still make billions when they have to pay a market rate to privately protect, their supply lines, assets, etc. Government has allowed these economic parasites to flourish beyond imagination. But on "principle" we cannot require them to pay a living wage to the underclass which powers the economy itself. False as our boom bust cycle is, it's still relevant to point out that times in this country have been at their best when the vast majority of working people CAN AFFORD TO CONSUME!!! What part of this simple concept don't 'talk get?
Well said, NZ!
Thanks for the support.
Mark - 100%. The immoral printing of money by Chair Satan skews everything. The General Price level is not determined by market forces but by the Fed and its favored brethren.
Exactly!!!
Wal-Mart attempted and failed to set up shop in Germany, the people there would not have it .
http://www.dw.de/worlds-biggest-retailer-wal-mart-closes-up-shop-in-germ...
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Other companies took over the German Wal-Marts stores and run them successfully without resorting to the Wal-Mart methods. Americans put up with the Wal-Mart shit that other do not.
#51 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have as much wealth as the bottom one-third of all Americans combined.
They also supported 0-Care.
Surprised?
How is that surprising? Based on what we know a large percentage of their workers would get benefits under the Medicaid expansion, or receive significant subsidies. More of the same...
Oh, I know you're not surprised. A lot of people wouldn't be. It's the morons on here who scapegoat big corporations (especially Wal-Mart) for all of big government's crimes who'd be surprised to realize which way its leadership actually leans politically.
This probably won't surprise you either, but imagine how surprised these same people will be when I tell them to which party British Petroleum's biggest campaign contributions were going back before that big Deepwater Horizon oil spill. For some reason, the incestuous relations between big business and big government always come as a big shock to the big-government-loving scapegoaters.
the point that peter refuses to get is that if you raise the minimum wage, prices will go up everywhere. people will buy less but the stores that they buy from will be hiring people that won't need government handouts to survive. there will be fewer jobs but they will be decent jobs. that might be bad for corporations but it is probably good for america.
So as long as everyone gets a dick up shoved up their ass hole you are OK with it?
How about we let the store owner and the employee decide what the job is worth.
Can't even get a shoplifter to pay an extra 15% -
i mean...some people refuse because they (justifiably) think it's a scam
Well, basically, the government should pay everyone an allowance under the age of 18, and then a salary after that with a raise every year along with a paid vacation.
Just as in real life at a real job your salary expectations should rise with your experience and the same should also happen with your government paid salary.
The government should intervene in the market place and set the prices for all goods and services.
No one is allowed to work and goods are either manufactured robotically or overseas. All services should be done robotically that way no one has to flip burgers, stock shelves, clean toilets, wash dishes, cut hair, manicure nails, change tires or oil.
Everyone can just sit on their fat asses, watch TV all day or play video games. The only time a human would need to be productive is when they sit their fat ass on a toilet to feed the bacteria in the septic tank.
I do believe that the members of the Walton Family CAN afford to kick in enough money to adequately compensate their employees. Their employees provided the family with more wealth than the bottom 30% of America's income earners combined. Time to repay the favor.
I do believe that the members of the Walton Family CAN afford to kick in enough money to adequately compensate their employees. Their employees provided the family with more wealth than the bottom 30% of America's income earners combined. Time to repay the favor.
You didn't read the article.
That's all right. He obviously didn't read Hayek either.
Why don't all the people protesting for a 15.00 an hour minium wage pool their resources and start their own resturants and retail stores? Then they can personally raise the wage to whatever level their hearts desire. i'm sure Paul Krugman, Ariana Huffington and countless hollywoodites would be willing to invest their money into these ventures. What's stopping them?
"Like so many other things, running a business looks easy from the outside. On the eve of the Bolshevik revolution, V. I. Lenin declared that “accounting and control” were the key factors in running an enterprise and that capitalism had already “reduced” the administration of businesses to “extraordinarily simple operations” that “any literate person can perform”—that is, “supervising and recording, knowledge of the four rules of arithmetic, and issuing appropriate receipts.” Such “exceedingly simple operations of registration, filing and checking” could, according to Lenin, “easily be performed” by people receiving ordinary workmen’s wages. After just a few years in power, however, Lenin confronted a very different—and very bitter—reality. He himself wrote of a “fuel crisis” which “threatens to disrupt all Soviet work,” of economic “ruin, starvation and devastation” in the country and even admitted that peasant uprisings had become “a common occurrence” under Communist rule. In short, the economic functions which had seemed so easy and simple before having to perform them now loomed menacingly difficult. Belatedly, Lenin saw a need for people “who are versed in the art of administration” and admitted that “there is nowhere we can turn to for such people except the old class”—that is, the capitalist businessmen. In his address to the 1920 Communist Party Congress, Lenin warned his comrades: “Opinions on corporate management are all too frequently imbued with a spirit of sheer ignorance, an antiexpert spirit.” The apparent simplicities of just three years earlier now required experts. Thus began Lenin’s New Economic Policy, which allowed more market activity, and under which the economy began to revive." - Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics 4th edition.
Because zero plus zero still equals zero. Shit, let's be accurate, these people are likely in the whole, with debts greater than assets.
How can this get downvoted? The asshat above me is suggesting wal-mart and fast food workers "pool their resources," and I get downvoted for pointing out that these people have nothing to pool? The mind reels.
Of course they have resources. They have the expereince and technical skills they've learned from their jobs don't they? Sam Walton did not start Walmart with his own money but got a $25,000 dollar loan from his father in law. People like Paul Krugman the Union leaders and all the rich left could easily get the money together to start a burger joint or a Dept. store chain and pay THEIR employee's whatever the hell they wished.
Walmart is a publicly funded company, and therefore, it can operate in a manner tha tis bestfor the US. Less profit for the shareholders and executives. OR they can give all of the tax money they grabbed with both hands BACK.
If they dont want to give the money back, they can just sit in thier corner and be quiet, that goes for any highly subsidized business - you ddrink from the tax well, you get told what to do.
http://www.walmartsubsidywatch.org/
Or you could call for the government to abolish the subsidies. Of course, neither the government nor Wal-Mart are going to do anything you say; they don't answer to you.
He should carry that box and harass the walton family the exact same way.
2 sides of this equation - higher prices or less fat cat salaries.
Great analysis Peter but I want to know what the pay czar says with his all seeing magical eye.
People of the future will have very small hands, because all the manual work will be done by robots.
People of the future will have very short legs, because they'll be delivered everywhere by self-navigating vehicles.
People of the future will have very small stomachs, because their diet will consist entirely of high-calorie nutritional pills.
... and they'll have very big heads, spending all of the time thinking how to earn money in order to afford those goddamn pills!
Great stuff.
Not very bright to include a solicitation for contribution into an inquiry regarding willingness to pay higher prices to raise worker's wages. Like asking someone if they can have a free steak....if they would eat the hot charcoal too! Maybe his "affluenza" kicked in when he was exposed to "poverheea.
Walmart had gotten Slick Willy Clinton elected president, with the huge support of the 'southern (~14ml. strong) baptist' that vote in one-huge-block, period! Ross Perot was a set-up too split the vote that cost, "Read-My-Lips`NO NEW TAXES'... GHW Bush #41! Ironically, Bush #41 wanted (pushed for a different type of agreement) NAFTA also, but Billy-boy and wifey`Hillary, were homey-proxy adherents for future giveaway endeavors?
Once NAFTA was passed, Walmart basically told all it's vendors to lower prices or their (products) business was no longer needed in Walmart's Global Network! Thus the massive layoffs and the exodus to China! Mexico is the largest automobile manufacturer in the world, today... and Columbia exports all it's duty-free cocaine via trade-routes directly into the USSA. But, NSA has a problem tracking the trade?!?
Quote: "Since the end of WWII, in part due to industrial supremacy (no one could compete because they were digging out of the world-war?) in and the (timely onset of a conveniently drummed-up Cold-War?) 'Cold War', the U.S. gov't has become one of the most consistent proponents of reduced tariff (baggard-thy-neighbor to the Nth power as Greenspan, and Bernanke have done?!?) barriers and free trade, having helped establish the General agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and later the World Trade Organization (WTO); although it had rejected an earlier version in the 1950's (Int'l. Trade Organization or ITO). Since the 1970's {(Nixon Shock [*Bretton [1944] Woods gone and US defaults on dollar... switches to FIAT?!?][ note: the pattern?)} and China now a game changer vis-a-vis 1971/Kissinger & 1972 vis-a-vis Nixon/Mao giveaway!)} the United States gov't has negotiated numerous managed trade agreements, such as the 'North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ie., Clinton Dec/93)' into the 1990's, the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) in 2006, and a number of bilateral agreements (such as with Jordan {Israel's Barrier Reef?}
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement
http://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/Central_America_Free_Trade_Agreement
http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/general-agreement-on-tariffs-and-trade/inception.html
http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/general-agreement-on-tariffs-and-trade/
Lastly,... 'The american worker has been monkey-hammered since 1970's, and literally ass-raped since 1990's where there isn't a stone in a pond to find a footing but only the petals of dead Lotus flowers, from 'China with Love' or a Lilly`pad on a hot spring slowly boiling america's laborious tadpole into extinction ( can anyone say, Communism?!?)!
`'labor raise to minimum extinction-- a modern day oxymoron'` --- `a symbiotic anomaly of variable enigma's; nurturing humanities Darwinianism's complexed dogma's of natural selection; where survival of the fittest is merely abridged wantonness`
As usual, a handful of people here have an understanding of nuance and complexity, but the majority of posters seem to be sociopathic sychophants of capital.
Here's the truth from a poor son of a bitch: Me.
If you don't pay me well, I steal my way up to a decent wage. I don't care if its toilet paper out of your bathroom, pens, or the fucking linens. Shit, I'll drink my weight in your coffee if I have to.
The jobs where I never stole a thing were the jobs where I was paid well and treated with respect by the owners. Here's some business advice -- if youre good to your employees, they don't want to lose their job, so they do it well and don't rip you off.
Or you can pay me shit and I'm taking anything that isn't nailed down.
Now thats funny.
The ultimate Schiff hypocrisy is this.
He knows all about Benny bucks, and bubbles. He knows that paper dollars are confetti, and when the waltons are worth 100billion combined, its time to spread that confetti around.
When there is an unlimited amount of dollars in existence, wages at 7 or 17 makes no difference. Sashko89 has it right, In a FIAT world, Wages need to be tied to dollar creation- nothing more, nothing less.
The machines are coming no matter what. I remember when a #2 on the MCD menu cost 3.50, now it costs 9 bucks. Prices are going up either way, automation will replace 80% of all service jobs, soon we will print one trillion a year in interest payments on the debt, and we are wasting time talking about hoarding monopoly money from walmart workers. In thier mind, It must be better for America if the waltons make another 100 billion in profits, rather than paying the workers even one cent more.
Raise Walmart prices all you want. I boycott Walmart because they suck the life out of America. Burn it down.
Did anyone ssk if the labor surcharge is tax deductible?
I'm already living this one out here in Cali, and already reacting. Thanks Jerry Brown.
I'm cutting off my worker's vacation accrual to pay for next year's ACA new input costs. I'm also forming the 29 club, and shoving part timers into further part time status from 34 to 32 hours down under 29. Sorry, govt mandates fucking hurt.
Also, next year's new Cali min wage hikes are forcing me to reduce staff across the board by 15%, straight shot. And we are now considering raising prices.
So... marxist a-holes, you can all go fuck yourself, you and the geniuses you vote for.
So you're an employer? What the hell are you doing in a hellhole like California? Get out while you still can! Surely you can still do whatever you do now in Texas or some other business-friendlier state like that.
Just be happy the government is subsidizing your worker's welfare, as trying to live on the wage you pay means they can not possibly afford to retire.
Go out of business then, fascist. I'll see u in hell.
Wyatt Junker...I agree. You need to shut your doors and fire everybody.
Let them fend for themselves and hire NO ONE. You can make more Capital by investing into Foreign Markets where people want to work.
Fuck Texas. Fuck the Socialists in California and the Socialists in the USA.
If you invest or employ overseas then you do not need worry about the ACA and Minimum Wage. Why bother with this headache?
Let these Americans live in Hell. There will be NO JOBS...at all...for ANYONE.
Close it down and let your employees know the reasons behind your decision. There are other places in the World that has workers yearning to produce and not a bunch of spoiled little kids whom somehow think that they are entitled to your wealth.
Said the exploiter who believed he was entitled to other people's labor, not to mention to the planet's resources.
Says the self-admitted thief and parasite who thinks he's entitled to steal from others because they only paid him what they thought he was worth, and not what his narcissism demanded. Better hope your employer never finds out what a worthless socialist you are, thief.
Don't worry with inflation you're going to be paying an extra 15% soon enough.
Why not allow a fleet of Chinese passenger ships to dock into every major port in the US with thousands of passengers each having a washing machine and ironing board with which they can do all the washing and ironing of Americans?
This example is no more ridiculous than the gutting of US industry.
WWhat is the difference with the factory that is a couple of thousand of miles away and a ship that is docked in the harbour?
None whatsoever.
Americans are not even playing a zero sum game. They are playing a losing game if they think they can maintain supremacy and pay back debt simply by taking on more debt and by doing each others hair, nails and lawns.
As for Walmart, does anyone know how many of their own factories exist in China?
Has anyone thought to come to the conclusion that workers at both ends of the Walmart product chain in China and the USA are being screwed?
Peter Pan, I came to that conclusion long time ago. Yet remember that both Americans and Brits are generally speaking enthusiastic supporters of all proposals labeled with free trade
what do you want to do against that? I have often seen commenters here in ZH asking for moar free trade and at the same time moaning about "globalism"
and don't get me started on the Brits in particular, or on their support for the proposed Transatlantic Trade pact
Peter should be outside of Eric (Google) Schmidt's NYC sound-proofed sex den asking if he can get 15% on the $15 million Eric spent for said "sound proofing" upgrades.
So, I guess cutting execs absurd compensation is totally out of the question?
No, feel free to ask away. Just don't expect any of said execs to buy into your rhetorical proposal.
I guess Peter's video did its job - creating controversy and illustrating the reality of class warfare to both sides of the argument. This should also tie into the recent vote by Montgomery and Prince George's counties to raise the minimum wage to $11.50. These are both suburbs of Washington DC, and you will be able to monitor the effects in a 'real life' situation. Will this create more jobs in those counties, or will it drive out stores that rely on minimum wage workers? Watch closely. My bet is that it will have the same effect that you see on many state lines. Two border towns - one in a high tax state, the other in a low tax state. The businesses and stores set up shop in the low tax state...
Yeah. Sure never would have guessed how many ZeroHedgers were statists and redistributionists at heart. Of course, given how many rabidly anti-Semitic believers in garbage like The Protocols we have here, and given what kind of statist redistributionist schemes their beloved Nazi predecessors were into back in their heyday, maybe I shouldn't be surprised these National Neo-Socialists are accusing businesses of all being part of some shadowy global cabal to justify using state-sponsored thuggery to redistribute wealth from said mythological cabal to themselves by robbing those businesses of their rightful earnings.
SENIOR'S LAST HOUR OVER 150 YEARS LATER.
VULGAR ECONOMISTS DO WHAT VULGAR ECONOMISTS DO.