Re: RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE TO $120 AN HOUR!!

From: Albert (alwagner_at_tcac.net)
Date: 06/15/04 

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 21:52:57 -0500

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 12:39:18 -0700
"Bill Bonde ( ``I could have nailed the St. Helena goat's pelt to the
deck'' )" <stderr2@backpacker.com> wrote:
<snip>
> 'Group home' idea is what I've been talking about for years and
> getting attacked for it by Liberals. If we just said that all
> Americans could sleep in barracks type accommodations and eat
> cafeteria type staple foods and anything else would have to be earned
> or otherwise gotten from legitimate means such as inheritance, working
> together in a family, etc. This would cost a lot less than we spend on
> social programmes right now and it would not encourage people game the
> system. Oh, and it would mean that low wage workers wouldn't have to
> worry about taking even the lowest wages just to prevent starving or
> freezing to death.

How very decent of you, add humiliation to poverty.
 
<snip>
> > Somehow the thought of a more fair profit sharing doesn't seem to
> > enter your mind.
> >
> Because the company's profits go to the owners of the company.

Ah hah. So the current method of determining profits by disallowing
workers any power to negotiate a fair contract is sacrosanct. Well, now
that we know what you are, lets discuss the details.

> If they
> want to improve productivity or be nice with those profits and share
> them with employees, that's their business.

Indeed. Under the current system. But we all know what paragons of
altruism the modern capitalist is. So some means of leveling the
playing field must be found so that labor and capital bargain from equal
strength.

> I want to get out of the
> way of the market and just use regulations and government to push on
> the margins where pushing tends the market towards what we as a
> society want.

So you say. But, what regulations could possibly accomplish that when
you leave profits, as currently calculated, sacrosanct? Methinks that
there is some duplicity in your position.

> We have the right as a society to create the society that we want. If
> our goals are personal freedom, I don't see how it is better to take
> away personal freedom to gain other things like preventing starvation
> when we can do that in a much less intrusive manner and end up with
> other benefits.

Intrusive to who? The employers that are unwilling or too incompetent
to allow for a fair wage in their computation of profits?
 
<snip>
> But under the system I'm suggesting, the poorly paid worker would be
> able to save his money and live in the barracks and eat the staple
> type food. It's important that it be a community type situation
> because people tend to aspire to something better.

Right. Make is as miserable and humiliating as possible to get the lazy
workers up off their lazy butts.

> Right now you take
> a certain percentage of people and pay for their homes, or subsidize
> them, and they get what seems nearly a middle or lower middle class
> life style. This is what food stamps do as well. If you paid $150 a
> month for food and had a tough time and you suddenly get $150 in food
> stamps, what prevents you now from spending $300 on food? Nothing. It
> would be better if you saved the $150 and just ate the food stamp
> $150, right? I mean if you wanted to improve your lot. And that should
> be society's goal if it is giving people money and help, right?

You have a really mean spirited view of the poor to assume that the
problem is simply lack of incentive.
 
<snip>
> That might be an expression to hold on to. As far as low wage workers
> are desperate, their power is unfairly reduced. OTOH, if they are
> allowed to form a labour monopoly, their power is unfairly expanded.

So, the solution is poor-houses?
 
<snip> 

-- 
"Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and
further life; it is bad to damage and destroy life."
	-- Albert Schweitzer