Scrap the minimum wage

[baby tiger67 10]

hey, im willing to make tea and coffee all day for 7 quid an hour, lol

[Pscylo 10]

Whereas you are suggesting that other people should benefit from the profit that his risk has generated.

 

No, there's nothing fortunate about owning a business, it doesn't require a stroke of luck, you could have one registered after breakfast today, it doesn't even cost all that much.

What you will need to do though is risk something in order to actually get a business off the ground, after which I doubt you'll be all that keen to give away any profit you happen to make.

 

I think there are a few stories of good fortune but there probably always has to be an element of risk in their somewhere. I was a little fortunate in that I was known in my field, and just using my name had the advantage of getting some (if only a little) credit. I still had to risk quite a bit though.

 

It's really not difficult though. If you are on a low income, it really shouldn't be that difficult to replace it provided you have somethink to take to the marketplace whether that be a product or a service. If you have nothing of value, then get some training. To be fair people make good money cleaning ovens though I'm still too tight to pay someone to do it. Being tight is probably a product of my background though, I was not monied when I was young (I'm not really now - though we are comfy) and we had to watch the pennies in our house.

[Keith Rich 10]

Employment agencies used to send workers to my son's factory but they were used to dole and only stopped a day or two.

 

Workforce now is East Europian and better skilled and reliable - so British Jobs for British Workers is not possible as they want to high a wage and do not have the skill level and work ethic of workers from overseas.

 

Perhaps they only stopped a day or to because of how they were treated.

 

The best way for a company to be successful is to look after the staff, pay them well and make them feel valued. They will then have loyalty to the company and work hard.

 

The reason there were so many strikes in the 70s was because of bad managment. It sounds like your son needs to upgrade his people person skills.

[Keith Rich 10]

That is what capitalism is all about. Labour is just another overhead, - a factor in the profit equation like the costs of energy,raw materials, loan interest etc. and capitalists will do what they can to keep all their overheads as low as possible to maximise profit.

 

The only wait out of the rat race is to become a capitalist yourself

 

I wouldn't want to be tarred with the name.

 

A capitalist is someone whose main motivation is money and more money. And the more money they get the more they want, just look at the politicians and bankers as an example. Greed is more dangerous than any drug. We can see the results all around.

 

Quite sad really.

Edited August 18, 2009 by Keith Rich

[Pscylo 10]

I wouldn't want to be tarred with the name.

 

A capitalist is someone whose main motivation is money and more money..

No, not really - it's over simplistic to suggest it gives an insight into someone's psyche.

And the more money they get the more they want, just look at the politicians and bankers as an example. Greed is more dangerous than any drug. We can see the results all around.

Quite sad really.

Greed is good. No not really, I just love the line from Wall Street.Again though it's an oversimplistic view. Greed and capitalism can go hand in hand, they certainly aren't mutually exclusive, but neither are they mutually inclusive.

 

If you think that politicians would behave any differently under a socialist regime (or any other regime you can think of), I think you need to think on. It doesn't matter what kind of social/economic system you have there needs to be those in charge, and they will always have a better standard of living and opportunities for embezzlement which they will grab with both hands.

[Pscylo 10]

Nope, government orders aside; wages are defined by demographics (or if you like the balance between jobs and workers).

 

I wouldn't be surprised if there are more minimum wage jobs now, than there were before the minimum wage was introduced (though I've no evidence of this, it just wouldn't surprise me). What seems likely to me is that a large proportion of jobs go overseas after introduction (which has already happened), which then means the workforce is chasing fewer jobs which in theory should drive the cost of labour down with the bottom limit being the minimum.

[Cyclone 10]

The effect of a minimum wage is to push up all 'lower' wages as well, if the tea boy suddenly has to be paid 5.50 and hour, then the guy that does something more complicated but was paid 5.50 now expects a rise, otherwise he may as well just make the tea.

As your hourly rate goes up I think that this bumping up gets smaller, if you were already on 40 an hour as a developer then you probably couldn't demand an increase because the tea boy got a 20% raise.

[andyofborg 11]

The effect of a minimum wage is to push up all 'lower' wages as well, if the tea boy suddenly has to be paid 5.50 and hour, then the guy that does something more complicated but was paid 5.50 now expects a rise, otherwise he may as well just make the tea.

As your hourly rate goes up I think that this bumping up gets smaller, if you were already on 40 an hour as a developer then you probably couldn't demand an increase because the tea boy got a 20% raise.

 

the introduction of the minimum wage didn't have any effect on my wages.

[Wildcat 10]

Nope, government orders aside; wages are defined by demographics (or if you like the balance between jobs and workers).

 

I wouldn't be surprised if there are more minimum wage jobs now, than there were before the minimum wage was introduced (though I've no evidence of this, it just wouldn't surprise me). What seems likely to me is that a large proportion of jobs go overseas after introduction (which has already happened), which then means the workforce is chasing fewer jobs which in theory should drive the cost of labour down with the bottom limit being the minimum.

 

There is absolutely no evidence of the economy being damaged because of the minimum wage.

 

I remember reading reports by the Low Pay commission of appalling conditions and pay of workers in the UK before the minimum wage. Jobs in the 80s paying 50p an hour and one case that sticks in my mind was where the pay was £1 an hour but the employees were expected to bring their own chairs to work on. The women working in these factories after the minimum wage had their lives transformed by the minimum wage. Perhaps some of the companies did go to the wall, well in my view good riddance to them. If they can only function by exploiting their workers (in all the negatives the word implies) then they aren't providing a social function of any value.

 

The fact is the economy has not slumped because of the minimum wage all the evidence is of no effect. Except the positive ones that have changed the lives of people, often women, suffering from low pay.

 

You keep going back to wages being defined by demographics, which I take you to mean as demand. That is quite simply wrong. It is a consequence of free market capitalism but it is not a necessary consequence of the economic practices we choose to operate under. We make our choices about value and wages through democratically electing people to get involved in business regulation and redistributative policies for the good of society.

 

The mantra of the market is good is akin to a religious belief system. It is neither necessary nor is it in our interests. Free market Capitalism has failed time and time again where ever it has been tried where the stark reality of an inhumane system based on greed results in unacceptable poverty, a lack of social mobility and exclusion. It creates the environment where crime flourishes by breaking down the social and humanitarian foundations that make up our society and its political and economic systems.

 

We rejected the free market and laissez faire economics after the potato famine. In South America the free market has led to a rise in socialist democracies because of the need to regulate and mitigate from the destruction that free markets cause. Wherever you look in the world Capitalism is regulated to a lesser or greater degree, because left to its own devices the principles of free market economics lead to businesses behaving like psycopaths in their pursuit of profit margins whilst trampling over the rights and reasonable asperations of people that deserve a decent life as remuneration for their hard work.

[Cyclone 10]

the introduction of the minimum wage didn't have any effect on my wages.

 

Is that supposed to be irony or a joke, or just really stupid?

 

How can something which explicitly changes wages have no effect on wages!

 

It also defies logic if what you really meant was that it didn't affect any wage that was already above the new minimum that was defined.

[Cyclone 10]

I agree with Wildcat that capitalism has to be regulated, but I'm still unsure about the minimum wage. If you extend the argument that the lowest paid need to be protected by having a defined wage, you could quite quickly get into the government determining the pay for every different skill. A potentially crippling intervention as bureaucracies are not good at getting abstract things like the correct pay right and they are very bad at changing things once implemented.

 

I wouldn't want to scrap the minimum wage, but at the moment I can see no good argument for a large increase in it.

I can see good arguments for a complete over hall and restructuring of the tax and benefits system, but whilst related, that is a different topic.

[daftlad 11]

Perhaps they only stopped a day or to because of how they were treated.

 

The best way for a company to be successful is to look after the staff, pay them well and make them feel valued. They will then have loyalty to the company and work hard.

 

The reason there were so many strikes in the 70s was because of bad managment. It sounds like your son needs to upgrade his people person skills.

 

Totally agree.

If you want people, to work for you and be loyal, you have to treat them with respect and make them feel part of the company. If you dont then they wont feel valued, just used so will not work hard. I have worked for a couple of really good bosses and because I was treated good refused other jobs even though I could have got a better wage elsewhere. The fact is I was looked after by these people, I did more than what was expected of me and was rewarded fianancially and a friendship with them I still have to them now as they are both now retired