A Livable Minimum Wage

Who owns the land and how did they get it?
A living wage largely depends on housing costs but we are sent to school and not actually taught to do anything. Win a spelling bee with ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM
Who gives a shit?
I find it really amusing that double-entry accounting was invented in Italy 700 years ago but Western countries do not make it mandatory in schools.

If accounting had been mandatory since 1960 in the US would we be having this discussion?

When do you hear liberals or conservatives suggesting mandatory accounting, but we have endless blather about EDUCATION !

psik
 
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psikeyhackr said:
Who owns the land and how did they get it?
A living wage largely depends on housing costs but we are sent to school and not actually taught to do anything. Win a spelling bee with ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM
Who gives a shit?
I find it really amusing that double-entry accounting was invented in Italy 700 years ago but Western countries do not make it mandatory in schools.

If accounting had been mandatory since 1960 in the US would we be having this discussion?

When do you hear liberals or conservatives suggesting mandatory accounting, but we have endless blather about EDUCATION !

psik
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Teaching accounting is education. Accounting doesn't quite rise to the level of importance of making it mandatory however.
 
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psikeyhackr said:
I find it really amusing that double-entry accounting was invented in Italy 700 years ago but Western countries do not make it mandatory in schools.
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One wonders why it is not taught along with how to make ones bed.
It is so fundamental.
Ask anyone to comment on their bank statement and the meaning of ctedit and debit for example.
I did not learn accounting until my real estate course and as you could imagine getting ones head around the concept of credit and debit was by thst time most difficult.
Anyways great post and its a pity your plea will go unanswered.
Alex
 
Higher minimum wages have led both to fewer teens in school and employed at the same time, and to more teens in school but not employed, which is potentially consistent with a greater focus on schooling. We find no evidence that higher minimum wages have led to greater human capital investment. If anything, the evidence points to adverse effects on longer-run earnings for those exposed to these higher minimum wages as teenagers.
(PDF) https://www.mercatus.org/system/files/neumark-teen-employment-mercatus-working-paper-v1.pdf

How do we summarize this evidence? Many studies over the years find that higher minimum wages reduce employment of teens and low-skilled workers more generally. Recent exceptions that find no employment effects typically use a particular version of estimation methods with close geographic controls that may obscure job losses. Recent research using a wider variety of methods to address the problem of comparison states tends to confirm earlier findings of job loss. Coupled with critiques of the methods that generate little evidence of job loss, the overall body of recent evidence suggests that the most credible conclusion is a higher minimum wage results in some job loss for the least-skilled workers—with possibly larger adverse effects than earlier research suggested.
https://www.frbsf.org/economic-rese...cember/effects-of-minimum-wage-on-employment/​
 
It boils down to the undeniable fact that those who control wealth are happy to indulge their unreasonable greed and ignore those at the bottom such that they offer lame reasons as to why their role has any justification other than personal greed.
Of course they present arguements that do not address the only problem here...they have it and they wont give a cent away that they can hold on to.

Alex
 
psikeyhackr said:
Who owns the land and how did they get it?
A living wage largely depends on housing costs but we are sent to school and not actually taught to do anything. Win a spelling bee with ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM
Who gives a shit?
I find it really amusing that double-entry accounting was invented in Italy 700 years ago but Western countries do not make it mandatory in schools.

If accounting had been mandatory since 1960 in the US would we be having this discussion?

When do you hear liberals or conservatives suggesting mandatory accounting, but we have endless blather about EDUCATION !

psik
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Have you seen the latest budget proposal for the US? Some of those in charge could use a lesson in the simple balancing of a checkbook
 
gmilam said:
Have you seen the latest budget proposal for the US? Some of those in charge could use a lesson in the simple balancing of a checkbook
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It's not a budget. It's a bustout.
The people involved know how to balance a checkbook. They know what they are doing.
Vociferous said:
How do we summarize this evidence? Many studies over the years find that higher minimum wages reduce employment of teens and low-skilled workers more generally.
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A forty year trend of decline in the minimum wage has not boosted teenage or low-skill employment in the US.

Meanwhile, the loss of the middle class job has put a lot of higher ability adults into competition for low level jobs - and they win. This makes the lowpaid lowskilled job a burden on society, rather than an asset for teenagers etc - as Walmart demonstrates daily, those jobs are parasitic.
 
iceaura said:
How do we summarize this evidence? Many studies over the years find that higher minimum wages reduce employment of teens and low-skilled workers more generally.
Click to expand...
A forty year trend of decline in the minimum wage has not boosted teenage or low-skill employment in the US.

Meanwhile, the loss of the middle class job has put a lot of higher ability adults into competition for low level jobs - and they win. This makes the lowpaid lowskilled job a burden on society, rather than an asset for teenagers etc - as Walmart demonstrates daily, those jobs are parasitic.
Click to expand...
A lot of opinion against a many studies. Oo, oo, oo! Just noise.
 
Seattle said:
Teaching accounting is education. Accounting doesn't quite rise to the level of importance of making it mandatory however.
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But 4 years of English Literature does? No one at IBM said anything about Shakespeare while I worked there. But do you think buying a 4 unit apartment building affected my economics. Physics isn't mandatory in high school but physicists have to decide how to spend their money.
 
scheherazade said:
this is a self-rewarding system.
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only if there is no outsourcing of the labour market
but with outsourcing the lowest minimum wage to undercut your own domestic national market... you are sabotaging the system and dooming it to fail while sacrificing the low income people and low income children born to those familys.

minimum wage earners ... who pays for their medical expenses & who pays for their children ?
why does your system punish those children.... ?
and... what does your(not yours but the USA capitalist ideology that opposes mixed market economy) system teach those children whom are forced to be raised in homes which only earn minimum wage and cant afford health care, holidays, school stationary.. birthday partys... higher education....clothes, heating, medication...etc...

how is that system working for how it morally regards children ?

what is the morality of that system ?

acceptable losses ? children as colatoral damage ?

i find the morality to be quite fascinating. surely most warm hearted folk would want a balance ?
 
scheherazade said:
There is a huge disparity in the income of people, yet the cost of living is the same for all and we must choose from options within our means. This is reasonable to a degree, in that if you work harder, learn greater skills earn more wages, benefits and compensation this is a self-rewarding system.
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Getting a higher credit rating to buy more expensive junk designed to become obsolete is so rewarding.

psik
 
scheherazade said:
There is a huge disparity in the income of people, yet the cost of living is the same for all
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Missed this.
It's not true.
The cost of bare living - minimum income to survive - is considerably lower for the wealthy, for example. Other people borrow for large purchases and pay interest on loans - the wealthy pay cash and earn interest on loans. Other people have to get themselves to work in suitable clothing - the wealthy set up automatic payments from accounts replenished by investment income, and can live for years in their pajamas without ever putting a gallon of gas in a car.

And this effect holds down to fairly modest levels of wealth. If you inherited your parent's modest, low-tax house, have been staked to a supply of durable, high quality clothing, have comparatively low security costs (low crime, stable weather and geology), room for a garden, good water, a grocery store nearby, etc, you don't need very much money to live.

Living costs are much higher for the poor.
 
No, cost of living is the same of everyone in a region.
Cost of living is the amount of money needed to sustain a certain level of living, including basic expenses such as housing, food, taxes and health care. Cost of living is often used to compare how expensive it is to live in one city versus another locale. Cost of living is tied to wages, as salary levels are measured against expenses required to maintain a basic standard of living throughout specific geographic regions.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cost-of-living.asp​
Unless the rich actually pay less for goods and services (not for the money to buy them), the cost of living is the same for all in any given region.
But please show us any cost of living calculator that factors in loans.
 
Vociferous said:
No, cost of living is the same of everyone in a region.
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If you have a bit of cash behind you the cost of living can be less.
I have been poor and I have been well off and the following are personal observations.
If you have a little cash behind you small savings are available.
When poor you need coffee for example so you have to buy the small expensive jar whereas cashed up you can by a large jar when it is on special.
That works for many things.
Cashed up you can buy a freezer and buy stuff in bulk and much cheaper.
I think having a small bank roll places you in a position to live much cheaper.
Alex
 
Again, those are things cost of living calculations do not factor. You can argue them, but you cannot conflate them with cost of living.
 
Vociferous said:
Cost of living is the amount of money needed to sustain a certain level of living, including basic expenses such as housing, food, taxes and health care.
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And since the wealthy need not pay as much for any of those things, their bare minimum cost of living is lower.
Vociferous said:
Unless the rich actually pay less for goods and services (not for the money to buy them), the cost of living is the same for all in any given region.
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And since the rich do pay less (for the same level of goods and service), their cost of living is lower.
But please show us any cost of living calculator that factors in loans.
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If it doesn't, it's not an accurate estimate of the cost of living of those who must borrow.

That bare minimum living expenses are higher for the poor than for the rich is just one of those odd little facts you need to keep in mind when calculating the effects of a minimum wage.
 
iceaura said:
And since the wealthy need not pay as much for any of those things, their bare minimum cost of living is lower.
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Only prices are factored into cost of living, not the costs of money itself.
And since the rich do pay less (for the same level of goods and service), their cost of living is lower.
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Again, not in price.
If it doesn't, it's not an accurate estimate of the cost of living of those who must borrow.

That bare minimum living expenses are higher for the poor than for the rich is just one of those odd little facts you need to keep in mind when calculating the effects of a minimum wage.
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Whether you think it is accurate or not, that is the definition of cost of living.
No one is required to go into debt. That happens due to bad decisions.
 
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