[RANT]: Raise the minimum wage! This is so unfair!

[MJ DeMarco]

Worth a GOLD Jerry, I've gotten awfully *fastlane currency* rich on this thread.

 

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[Kak]

This forum has wised up a lot. Not long ago I feel this would have been quite a debate.

 

[DeletedUser394]

This forum has wised up a lot. Not long ago I feel this would have been quite a debate.

Your presence intimidates the plebeians.

 

[Ses]

This one guy posted in a thread recently (I lost the thread):

"Literally the only way to get rich is:

1. Be born into a family that started a company years ago (Gee cause that's impossible to do today)
2. Win the lottery"


I lost a few IQ points.

Ironically, it has never been easier to start a business than today. All i say is kickstarter, wordpress, outsourcing, social networking and consumerism.

 

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[amp0193]

Ironically, it has never been easier to start a business than today. All i say is kickstarter, wordpress, outsourcing, social networking and consumerism.

I agree with you, however, I believe it's even easier than that. This summer I learned how to repair appliances in 3 days on youtube. The next week I was making hundreds a week fixing/flipping washers and dryers on craigslist. A month later I was making a thousand a week, working around 30 hours a week. A month later, I taught a college kid to do most of what I did for me, and now I make the same amount for 10-15 hours a week. I learned in 3 days how to surpass my salaried teacher income that took me 5 years and 50k student loan debt to learn.

Any minimum-wager with two hands, a screwdriver, and a local library in my 130,000pop. city could do this of course, but there's one other dude on CL doing it.


Lastly, I think that completely unregulated labor rates can be bad: I.E. dust bowl, Grapes of Wrath, paying people $1/hr to pick oranges, etc., that over-regulated business is bad, i.e. Atlas Shrugged, but that the current state of a reasonable minimum wage is pretty ok. The key, as a couple people posted earlier, is the changing perception of what is "required" to live... i.e car, house, tvs, phones, etc. I teach middle-school low-income Hispanics that live in trailer parks... 95% of them have fancy smart phones with data plans, yet they "can't afford" lunch or breakfast, so we provide it to them. They make fun of me for having a flip phone with duct tape on the back, and cycling to work.

 

[jazb]

I agree with you, however, I believe it's even easier than that. This summer I learned how to repair appliances in 3 days on youtube. The next week I was making hundreds a week fixing/flipping washers and dryers on craigslist. A month later I was making a thousand a week, working around 30 hours a week. A month later, I taught a college kid to do most of what I did for me, and now I make the same amount for 10-15 hours a week. I learned in 3 days how to surpass my salaried teacher income that took me 5 years and 50k student loan debt to learn.

Any minimum-wager with two hands, a screwdriver, and a local library in my 130,000pop. city could do this of course, but there's one other dude on CL doing it.


Lastly, I think that completely unregulated labor rates can be bad: I.E. dust bowl, Grapes of Wrath, paying people $1/hr to pick oranges, etc., that over-regulated business is bad, i.e. Atlas Shrugged, but that the current state of a reasonable minimum wage is pretty ok. The key, as a couple people posted earlier, is the changing perception of what is "required" to live... i.e car, house, tvs, phones, etc. I teach middle-school low-income Hispanics that live in trailer parks... 95% of them have fancy smart phones with data plans, yet they "can't afford" lunch or breakfast, so we provide it to them. They make fun of me for having a flip phone with duct tape on the back, and cycling to work.

That is awesome. well done to you

 

[GratefulScorpio]

In that same respect, no business which depends on free traffic from the Google SERPS has any right to be in business.

In any event, I parodied the picture for your Fastlane enjoyment.

View attachment 8777

i had to laugh at the min wage description you made, all trough!

 

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[GratefulScorpio]

You're income depends on:

1. The need for what you do!
2. Your ability to do what you do!
2. The difficulty in replacing you!

----- Stop complaining and work harder on yourself than you do on your jay o bee

 

[FeaRxUnLeAsHeD]

I had to share MJ's pic on facebook for WHY people fall into these categories (based on their choices) - The comments are very, very funny from my sidewalk fb friends.

"there's so much wrong with this it's not even funny. A lot of people worked hard going to school for a degree and when they got out of school there were no jobs"

Okay, so you just stated exactly what the picture says, and why you fall in the median category. What's the problem?
The guy commenting this also spends his free time playing video games, smoking weed, and sitting around. Who's not paying attention here?

 

[Ninjakid]

I had to share MJ's pic on facebook for WHY people fall into these categories (based on their choices) - The comments are very, very funny from my sidewalk fb friends.

"there's so much wrong with this it's not even funny. A lot of people worked hard going to school for a degree and when they got out of school there were no jobs"

Okay, so you just stated exactly what the picture says, and why you fall in the median category. What's the problem?
The guy commenting this also spends his free time playing video games, smoking weed, and sitting around. Who's not paying attention here?

I do feel bad for people who spend their time and money in college and can't find a job. Most people have no interest in being fastlane, which is fine and all; but some people who are okay with having a good job and making okay money aren't even able to do that. The one advantage entrepreneurs have is that the opportunities for them to make money is unlimited whille the availability of jobs is limited.

 

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[Ma Co]

Yes. I'm talking about posting stupid drinking pictures, talking to people you don't give a crap about and looking at what other people are up to...

First of all, I don't give a crap what you had for dinner, what you do for a living, what kind of showoffy car you drive, how successful you think you are or what sports game you are excited for.

Second of all I certainly don't feel the need to broadcast my personal information either.

I deleted Facebook in 2009. Now when people ask me for my Facebook name and I tell them that I don't use it, they look at me as if I'm from another planet. It's like a virus:

People check Facebook when crossing the street
People check Facebook when going to cafe with their loved ones
People check Facebook when out for dinner with their friends
People check Facebook when ...

Soul-Striptease & Time Wasting DELUXE

 

[Even Steven]

I do feel bad for people who spend their time and money in college and can't find a job.

I sympathize. I really do feel bad for someone who can't find a job, but in many cases (especially for college grads in this day and age) it's their own damn fault for not doing a little research ahead of time.

I've got a friend who got a bachelor's in religion (or religious studies or something like that), and then he got master's degree at seminary. His plan was to eventually get his PhD and teach at a seminary. But with a wife and two kids and the debt burden of all his previous schooling, he couldn't finish it. And even if he did get his PhD, he'd never make enough to pay off the debt he'd racked up.

So now he's teaching English in another country because that's one of the few gigs he could qualify for.

I feel really, really bad for the guy. Really bad. He's a great guy, one of the few I've closely related to over the years. But that was 100% self-inflicted. And he admits to that.

His brother also got a useless degree in...and try not to laugh here...General Studies. Yes, there's actually a degree whose very name implies uselessness. BUT, after working retail for a while and realizing it was not where he wanted to be in 30 years, he bucked up and went to nursing school. He graduated, immediately got a job in the local hospital, and will never be unemployed again as long as their are sick people in the world. Now, he's still solidly slowlane and struggles to stay within his means, but it beats joblessness by a long shot.

Even fairly cursory research will show the marketability and expected earnings for a given degree. So, to my mind there's little excuse for someone who graduates with a useless degree these days.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

You guys sharing that picture on Facebook are gluttons for punishment.

 

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[FeaRxUnLeAsHeD]

You guys sharing that picture on Facebook are gluttons for punishment.

Eh, you try to get people to see in a different light. I actually had one friend thank me for posting it, because although he's happy with just working and falling in the median, the post made him realize there's a lot more that he can do.

Other people continue to play victim and say they were dealt a shitty hand. Unless you're making less than $2 a day I'd be happy to inform you that you were not dealt a shitty hand by being privileged with both parents growing up, a roof over your head, a car in the driveway, money in your wallet, mommy and daddy paying your gas, insurance, and credit card debt, sometimes even college.. Yeah, such a shitty hand.. Cry me a river.

 

[Esquire]

Wahh wahhh boo hoo.

The 99% needs to shut the F*ck up and get off their a$$ and create value so that you can be that "CEO" guy.

Just one problem ... that (metaphorical) 99% ... have the ability to vote.

If you do not have adequate social security programs in place ... guess whose taxes get jacked through the roof ...?

Yep.

The masses align against the rich.

Political instability and class warfare results.

So you never want the poor to be absolutely destitute ... unless you want to deal with the backlash of extreme populist politics.

So raising the minimum wage might not be such a bad idea.

The concept has less to do with charity ... than it does pragmatic self preservation.

Protect them ... to protect yourself.

 

[Jamesdoesmith]

wanna know what never got anyone rich, or paid, or successful?











bitching

 

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[GrensonMan]

Reminds me of something that happened this weekend while I was in Portland checking out the scene. Very cool city by the way!

I stopped at a gas station on my way to hike around Mt. Hood. Ad I stepped out of the car, there was a woman already opening my gas cap. I asked her what the hell she was doing and she replied "my job man." I then found out how in Oregon it is state law that you cannot pump your own fuel (I'm sure some circumstances allow it). The reason for this being that it creates much needed jobs for Oregon's residents.

After my car was filled up I spoke to the lady for a little while. She complained about the low pay of the job etc. What's amazing is that someone thinks the pay would be anything other than the absolute minimum. The pump tenants are performing a service that almost any able bodied person could perform. The job exists simply because the government says it should.

 

[SBS.95]

I do feel bad for people who spend their time and money in college and can't find a job. Most people have no interest in being fastlane, which is fine and all; but some people who are okay with having a good job and making okay money aren't even able to do that. The one advantage entrepreneurs have is that the opportunities for them to make money is unlimited whille the availability of jobs is limited.

I disagree. The availability of jobs is not limited, it's that people are going to school and getting degrees in fields where there is no demand for workers.

There are tons of positions out there that are not being filled. And we're not talking shitty $9/hour jobs. I listened to a podcast with Mike Rowe (from the show Dirty Jobs) where he talked about two consistencies among many of the jobs he went around doing while filming- 1) the fact that many of these jobs were shockingly high-paying AND 2) the fact that employers could not find people to do the jobs.

There were dozens upon dozens of jobs where companies were offering $75,000+ positions with free on-the-job training and still had to expand their search radius for employees for hundreds of miles.

There's a good book called Is College Worth It? In it, the author provides a list of jobs with thousands of open positions, all of which require either on-the-job training, or a 2-year technical school education (paid for by the employer.) Many of the jobs paid over $100,000, and yet people were not jumping all over them.

Every week I can look through my local Craigslist and find well-paying positions for automotive mechanics. A quick scan through my local newspaper classifieds and there are tons of $60,000+ CDL driver positions with free job training and benefits.

TL;DR- The problem isn't that there aren't jobs. The problem is that people spend 4 years getting a degree in "17th century Belgian lesbian literature studies", and then expect to be handed a job simply because they stuck with the university's hand-holding degree process.

So no, I don't really have sympathy for those type of complainers. Nobody thinks plumbing is sexy until they need a paycheck.

 

[Ninjakid]

Nobody thinks plumbing is sexy until they need a paycheck.

But plenty of people think having money is sexy

 

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[PedroG]

What the graphic doesn't show is the amount of provided value each man is responsible for.

Supporters of the minimum wage operate under the false premise that a person or group of persons can successfully come up with just the right price where supply meets demand. This is, of course, impossible, especially in a nation of 300 million people. Does anyone know what the optimal price of milk is? It's whatever it is today, only because it is being set by the market.

Put a price cap on something and you get a shortage. Put a minimum price on something, and you get too much un-bought supply. Price controls have never and will never work. To think they work when it comes to labor is just stupid.

 

[PedroG]

The availability of jobs is not limited, it's that people are going to school and getting degrees in fields where there is no demand for workers.

Exactly! When student loans are handed out like candy with the same terms regardless of the major, this is what happens. Kids that just want to make paper planes for a living are shocked that they can't find a job, and then get pissed at society for not giving them what they're entitled to.

 

[Unknown]

I agree that people need to take responsibility, but I also believe there is a systemic failure when it comes to preparing kids for the future. Kids go to college unprepared. They've been told they can do anything they want with their lives. Nobody tells them about all of the responsibility that comes with adulthood. Nobody tells them how hard it will be to get a job if they get yet another business degree. These kids think they're doing the right thing, and before they know it they're without a job and they have a huge pile of debt looming over their heads. It's only by pure luck that I have a computer science degree. I didn't want to do anything with my life, so I chose a degree in something that came easy to me (well I wanted to do robotics/engineering, but that wasn't an option for me at the time).

Now, back to the main point of this thread. Raising the minimum wage won't solve any problems. If you do the minimum you get the minimum. I'm sorry your Transylvanian Art degree landed you in a job at McDonalds, but it's up to you to change your life now that you're an adult.

 

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[Draven Grey]

I agree that people need to take responsibility, but I also believe there is a systemic failure when it comes to preparing kids for the future. Kids go to college unprepared. They've been told they can do anything they want with their lives. Nobody tells them about all of the responsibility that comes with adulthood. Nobody tells them how hard it will be to get a job if they get yet another business degree. These kids think they're doing the right thing, and before they know it they're without a job and they have a huge pile of debt looming over their heads. It's only by pure luck that I have a computer science degree. I didn't want to do anything with my life, so I chose a degree in something that came easy to me (well I wanted to do robotics/engineering, but that wasn't an option for me at the time).

Now, back to the main point of this thread. Raising the minimum wage won't solve any problems. If you do the minimum you get the minimum. I'm sorry your Transylvanian Art degree landed you in a job at McDonalds, but it's up to you to change your life now that you're an adult.

I agree with your last paragraph whole-heartedly. I think it also applies to your first paragraph, but instead of it being on the ignorant child, it's still the responsibility of the adults raising that child. And while I think it would be awesome if my sons' teachers taught that, the real responsibility falls to me because I'm their parent.

My wife and I teach our kids to take control of their own life. My oldest son (17 yr old) just read TMF and Smartcuts and has been exploring different business ideas. A few years ago, he was lost in the throes of Autism. We were determined to see him fully functional and not dependent on others to live out his life, so we found a way for him to conquer Autism (I'll save that story for another time). My youngest (8 yr old) has been encouraged to dream, as well as to connect with others and add tons of value. We give both of them every resource and encouragement available to create the life they want through adding value to others.

Sadly, most parents were raised in the same school systems going back a few generations. The same slowlane mindset permeates their way of living and how they raise their children. Entitlement mentality is rampant, and the rich are viewed as needing to be penalized for having money, usually by using that money to pay for the slowlane lifestyle of others less "fortunate". While my own parents may not have known better, I praise them for encouraging me to dream, to find my own path, and to always seek to connect with and add value to others. I wish more parents would do the same. Wish more adults would spread the word of such gems as TMF .

 

[Unknown]

I agree parents need to take responsibility, but I think kid's should be taught a few life lessons during their senior year because so many parents don't teach them those lessons.

 

[Draven Grey]

I agree parents need to take responsibility, but I think kid's should be taught a few life lessons during their senior year because so many parents don't teach them those lessons.

I believe that is the true failure of the system our children are being raised in in general. Like I said, I would love it if the schools taught true life. However, I also realize that people's core values/ethics can differ wildly; so, in a way, I'm glad they don't teach my children those things. At the same time, however, I also know people with Masters degrees in business that don't seem to know anything about real-world business. There's definitely a balance to be found between education and raising a child. Sadly, most teachers don't know those things either. To borrow an analogy from MJ, it would be like an obese person trying to give fitness and nutrition advice.

 

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[twdavis]

Ok so I just saw another one of my slowlane/sidewalkian friends post something today that inspired me to revive this thread:

 

[Digamma]

So no, I don't really have sympathy for those type of complainers. Nobody thinks plumbing is sexy until they need a paycheck.

Am I the only one who loves that kind of work? If I didn't have other ambitions, I would love to do a manual job.
You get to move, not much responsibility, not mentally tiring. Beats sitting on a desk crunching numbers to make other people rich, if you ask me.

 

[DeletedUser394]

Am I the only one who loves that kind of work? If I didn't have other ambitions, I would love to do a manual job.
You get to move, not much responsibility, not mentally tiring. Beats sitting on a desk crunching numbers to make other people rich, if you ask me.

There's a sense of accomplishment similar to entrepreneurship that comes with a trade/manual labor.

When you're a cog in a large system pushing papers around, what you do largely doesn't mean anything and it's hard to see the benefit. But when you go in, and you fix someone's sewage backup, or build that deck, or lay down fresh sod... there's an actual visualization of an accomplishment. Same with building a business.

 

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[SBS.95]

Am I the only one who loves that kind of work? If I didn't have other ambitions, I would love to do a manual job.
You get to move, not much responsibility, not mentally tiring. Beats sitting on a desk crunching numbers to make other people rich, if you ask me.

Oh hell no, I agree with you 100%. I'm always on the lookout for community college classes for things like automotive mechanics, welding, carpentry, etc. I love doing that type of stuff.

My other post was addressing the way schools and society look down on blue collar jobs. When I was in high school, you could either go the college prep route, or the "vo tech" option for blue collar jobs. The thing was, teachers and guidance counselors would advice against that, really pushing the "You need to go to college" mantra.

I'm a few years out from high school now, and everyone I knew who went down the tech. school route is debt-free and has a well-paying job. If I could do it over again, I definitely would have gone the tech route for automotive mechanics. How many chances in life do you get to learn a real marketable skill that isn't going away anytime soon FOR FREE?

 

[Zachariah Lange]

All I know is I have only made minimum wage for a month of my career. Why? not because I am priveledged or lucky. It is because I busted my A** that whole month, when I finished working, I found the boss and asked for more, I had to be told to go home and stop working. At the end of the month, I asked for and received my first promotion. Now I do sales because I don't see anything that I would consider a promotion over that, flexible hours, minimal responsibility besides for myself, and the harder I work the more I get paid.