[lit-ideas] Re: Illegal Immigration
- From: Judy Evans <judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 19:22:24 +0100
Wednesday, September 14, 2005, 7:02:18 PM, Paul Stone wrote:
>>Mike Geary wrote:
>>
>>"Raise the minimum wage. It's as simple as that. Make the minimum wage in
>>this country a living, family, saving wage."
PS> This a defeatist proposition. Let's say a professional makes 25 bucks an
PS> hour. She went to school for 6 years. She has a graduate degree. She owns
PS> her own company. She can only charge what the market will bear for her
PS> service. Now... let's say, a guy, working at McDonald's with absolutely no
PS> education (he dropped out when he was 16) is suddenly told by the
PS> government, "hey, it's okay, you can make 20 bucks an hour -- a fair,
PS> living, family, saving wage." This hardly seems fair to the woman who work
PS> her ass off to get where she is. NOW, instead of being 5 times richer, she
PS> is 1.25 times so.
Minimum wage laws certainly are unfair in that somewhat narrow sense,
but it's an unfairness I'll go in to bat for
PS> Now, this goes on for a few years, and what happens? EVERYONE goes directly
PS> to McDonald's. Why not, it's completely economically feasible. And... it
PS> punishes [certainly does NOT reward] the ambitious people.
except they don't. That's the thing. If you paid the same basic wage
for every job people would not all choose to be drain-cleaners or
garbage collectors.
PS> Now... I hear you say, well, the professional can jack her price up to 50
PS> bucks an hour, the market will bear it, everyone is making tons of cash
PS> now. AND... we're back to the beginning again. It's all relative. Then the
PS> people making 'minimum' wage would start crying again.
we're at the beginning now (you want some stats on wage inequality?)
PS> A society cannot reward everyone without penalizing a lot of people.
a society cannot reward people unequally without penalizing a lot of
people.
PS> The reason that people in the "civilized" countries won't work for minimum
PS> wage [and certainly not for below] is that it's a shit wage. They THINK
PS> that they are entitled to a 'living'. Well, they ain't. For most people
PS> [those not born into money] in order to have a nice comfy life, you have to
PS> work hard and get a good job.
you slipped up here: you should have put the full stop after "work
hard". "And get a good job" gives the game away.
PS> Raising minimum wage so that everyone was
PS> comfortable would make a WHOLE lot of people uncomfortable.
*so*?
PS> bordering on the uncomfortable
me too
--
mailto:judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
