I got myself so upset writing my last post I forgot why I was originally going to post.

Getting a better than minumum wage job (or working for yourself, doing the things your former bosses hired you for) is all well and good for making money, you're reasonably skilled, and no boss to answer to etc.

BUT, you then have to have social skills that allow effective negotiation, so you can charge what you're worth.

I used to be a mechanic, I was taking on the occasional odd job for the last few months, but the "customers" are all penny pinching idiots who want something for nothing. They ask "Why can't you do this or that?" and I tell them, they don't believe me, they want to get by on junkyard parts that aren't even for their car (it can often be done, but with much more effort) for a fraction of the price of a shop down the road. Sure, I don't have the overhead of maintaining a large building, but less than half price for labor and IMAO better than average quality work is worth it to them. But I've been running them all off for the last three months.

- Dustin -
I pay taxes just like everyone else.
I don't mind if my taxes go to support a fair minimum wage.
At no point in time did I endorse theft.
You just don't get it so there's no point in trying to explain it to you further.

Thats a lie and a half. For starters rich people pay far more than you. Additionally, they also pay a higher percentage of their income than you do.

I think Ayn Rand is exaggerated too far in the other direction, however I agree with her more than I do Edgar.

Additionally I think her novels were just premises to exercise her sexual fantasies.

When I was poor I didn't pay any taxes: everything that was withheld from my pay check was returned at the end of the year. Since I've had a 'real' job I've been paying about $5000 a year in income tax. But if you compare the total tax we pay in the US (income + property + fica + social security + sales tax etc) we still pay a lot less than most Europeans (at least those not on the dole).

What do you guys think of Oprah campaigning for Obama? Personally, I think he is too weak of a candidate to be factor against Hilary; Oprah power or not. All Hilary has to do is not screw up next year and I think she'll be the Dem nominee.

Once the companies can lower their costs the invisible hand will lower costs to consumers. Customers will be able to buy the same goods at lower costs. To paraphrase yourself:

Meaning we can all benefit from the effects, as opposed to your situation which makes us all suffer for the benefit of a few.

I agree that there are cases where the capitalist system breaks down and the invisible hand needs to be "modified" a bit, however minimum wage is far too generic to be of any use.

This gives me an interesting idea. What if you taxed people based off what percentage of their income they did not spend...

Well look on the bright side, now that dollar can actually buy the homeless guy something.

And than a guy like me comes along, sees the huge price gap, and decides to start a company undercutting them (Did somebody say McDonalds?).

Don't mistake something that takes time with something that doesn't happen. Also read up on the Invisible Hand, as these last two posts could have been skipped if you understood what I meant with the concept.

Quoting from the quote

By this reasoning then minimum wage workers promoting minimum wage increases are promoting the interest of society.

What do you think worker's unions are for? They're there to promote the interests of the workers and to make sure they feel they are getting paid what they deserve and what is reasonable. Most minimum wage workers however have no such union with which to exert bargaining power with to secure higher wages for themselves. This is why we need someone in office who can secure it for them through a minimum wage increase , not to mention affordable health insurance.

In any case , we clearly have not or cannot come to a middle ground on this and I tire of discussing this further. I've got work to do. Later.

No minimum wage is a bad idea for reasons I already mentioned. While capitalism is generally good and works itself out, there are some areas where greed leaves people out in the cold. A fair minimum wage makes it worthwhile to work but does not raise prices to an unfair amount.

That is, maybe a fast food place could sell a cheese burger for $0.50 without any minimum wage, but it's more beneficial to society for them to pay their employees a fair amount and charge $1.00. The problem is, in a capitalistic world, we consumers would rather pay $0.50 and let people suffer through a worthless job because hey, it isn't us!

That's almost what income tax is, although the USA system is so convoluted it's hard to see it that way. The alternative to income tax (other than reducing federal programs) is to tax people on what they do spend and give poor people a monthly rebate.

@ Matthew Leverton

If people have money they will spend it... right ?

So it's better for me to pay a fair amount.. because IF people have enough money they WILL be able to buy the things I make money with..

Money "standing still" looses it's value

In other words...If everyone would be very minimalistic in spending money, economy would go in a crashdive

The rebuttal to that is Henry Ford paying his factory workers an absurd amount of money for the times because he wanted his workers to be able to buy what they were building. The historic effect of the automanufacturers on the economy is probably significant (killing the planet with C02 death machines is another matter entirely).