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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Unemployment & the minimum wage
Message-ID: <1677@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Aug-84 08:05:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.1677
Posted: Tue Aug  7 08:05:43 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Aug-84 02:33:39 EDT
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Nf-ID: #R:idi:-21500:inmet:7800114:000:5428
Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Aug  6 22:25:00 1984

>***** inmet:net.politics / tty3b!mjk /  5:16 pm  Aug  2, 1984
>The point of the minimum wage is to reduce the cutthroat wage
>competition, which does not benefit ANY worker.  

It merely benefits ALL consumers.  Whatever the "point" of 
the minimum wage, it undeniably makes it illegal to work
for a certain wage, which might be freely agreed upon otherwise.

>I reject the
>idea that the conflict is between middle-class workers who
>are making a middle-class income and working-class people who
>are struggling to get by.  Who is served if the wages of the
>middle-class are reduced to distribute a few more crumbs to
>working-class people?  Hint: who sits above this whole conflict?

Why, those unions, of course!  They need not compete with the
working class if they can legislate against it.


>One writer suggested that black teenagers would be better served
>if they could bid for jobs at $2.50/hour.  Well, why not $2?  
>why not $1.50?  why not 25 cents a day?  Jobs that don't pay a
>living wage aren't worth having.

Quite true.  What you don't seem to realize is that nobody would
take jobs that don't pay a living wage if they were freely offered....
Why bother?  On the other hand, the minimum wage means that the
"taper" of wages is sliced off.  If you can't make minimum wage,
you DON'T have the option of making less -- you make ZERO.

>
>Do you realize what $3.55 an hour means?  It
>means $142/week, $568/month, $6816/year.   Before taxes (and,yes,
>they have them -- FICA, state and local).  But that's too much, our
>free marketeers tell us.  Instead, let's pay $2.50/hour ($100/week,
>$400/month, $4800/year).

Indeed, we "free marketeers"  tell you that's too much -- TOO MUCH
in TAXES.  We aren't saying that people SHOULD work for $2.50/hr, we're
saying that they SHOULD BE ABLE TO.  You're the one supporting a law
making a certain sort of voluntary transaction illegal.  Do you wonder
why job bills are desirable?  It's because people CANNOT hire on for
under minimum wage and work up -- their most likely "opportunity"
is to become wards of the state -- via government jobs, or government
welfare.
 
>
>The unions that you like to rail against have also fought mightily
>for a jobs program that would provide jobs for the unemployed at
>living wages, not the slave wages the anti-minimum wage advocates
>would like to see.  

Once again, I deny that I want people STUCK at $2.50/hour.  Merely
that they should be free to make such deals as seem fair to them.
You've got quite a nerve, condemning people to unemployment and
humiliating welfare, and then referring to honestly-agreed-upon
wages as "slave wages".

>Many of the unions have also fought to organize
>those workers to gain real benefits.  Don't forget that most people
>working at minimum wage do not get the paid vacations, health benefits,
>pension and other things that we all take for granted.

I wonder why you use "many" as the first word of this sentence, rather than
"most".  Could it be that "most" unions have more political/power priorities.
Understand, I've no objection to people forming unions -- so long as they
do not initiate force or fraud (pass legislation, for example) to
dictates the behavior of others.


>One final point.  This consumer vs. workers thing.  Do you know any
>consumers?  How many people, when you ask them "what do you do?" say
>"Oh, I'm a consumer."  My point is that we're all BOTH.  We work and
>we buy with what we make from working.  These interests are not in
>conflict, either.  

Give it a little thought.  Those interests are CONTINUOUSLY in conflict.
Milton Friedman pointed out that we all produce one thing, and consume
many things.  We're ALWAYS more interested in what we produce (our jobs)
than in what we consume (the availability of a particular brand of toilet
paper).  That's why American car workers will tell you that they're all
for "free enterprise", but that they're REALLY CONCERNED about "unfair
competition" from the Japanese.  Those people will vote FOR quotas.
Steel workers will vote FOR tariffs, even though they'll tell you
that they're also for free enterprise.

It's worth emphasizing by an example.  If Congress passes steel-import
tariffs, the steelworkers win big, but the rest of the country loses in
many small ways (all things built with steel in this country go up in
price, our steel products compete less successfully in the world
market, perhaps a few steel-product-makers get laid off.  In general,
the costs, though large, are spread throughout the economy.  If those
effects go far, another bill will be introduced putting tariffs on steel
items made in foreign countries (sound familiar?).  Perhaps each person
in the country loses $20.00. 


ON THE OTHER HAND:
Local steel industry booms!  It can raise prices until it competes
with the (government) inflated price of foreign steel.  Each steelworker
gets perhaps $1000.  Each steel union rep gets $3000.  Each steel mogul
gets $100,000.  Each steel company gets $100,000,000 (over a few years).

Each steel company finds it worth its while to spend up to $100,000,000
or so to lobby, bribe, cajole, and subvert the lawmakers.  Each
CONSUMER (all the rest of us) experiences the cost of a few calls to
Washington.

Question: Who will the congresscritters hear the most from?  Especially
in a steel making area.

Still convinced that "these interests are not in conflict, either"?
Wanna buy a bridge?