The Killing Wage $15/hr…
Hmmm, seems a little low for assassins pay.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group ‘True North’
At least it’s just Seattle. The boneheads who want to raise minimum wages province-wide are going to end up shutting down most of the restaurants in small towns, which will in turn cause tons more of their dreaded “carbon emissions” as rural residents have to drive 1/2 hour to have a lazy night.
Yes, but there is a great deal more dignity in being unemployed at $15/hr,rather than being unemployed at $10/hr!
As an Albertan, as the government forced minimum wage increases, my tip percentage decreases to compensate. I decide what I am willing to pay…..not the government.
the thing is, once the socio-politic-economic structure crams a colossal portion of the wealth into a few pockets, well, these folks just *don’t go* to restaurants that pay 15 bucks a pop.
they are the ones who can afford and pays thousands for a couple hours with an escort.
and avail themselves of things like private planes, limos with dark glass all around etc etc. this is ALL part of the sea change to get the entire world back into a feudal sharecropper existence. fer instance, put the big skaWEEEEEEEZE on the small independents and franchise holders etc. get them OUT of the marketplace. then buy up all their assets and fire sale rates, do the 15 dollar thing if you have to, but the final coup de gras is bribing the politicians to rescind all that ‘progressive’ stuff and deregulate abso-lute-ly E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. there. now all you have to pay is $5 an hour. no benefits. certainly no job security !!!
it’s coming. there is NO limit to man’s greed. that’s what drives this move.
smash the unions, get congress to rubber stamp ALL future banking bailouts, cater to the lowest-common-denominator to neutralize any grumblings from the swirling masses. and oyph. the propaganda. oysh. Goebbels would be astounded and gratified how far you took his lessons. so many ways and avenues and technology to ‘get the word out’.
High minimum wage laws in food service/fast food sales outlets
can promote increased loss of jobs, exploitation, and corruption.
Not to mention acting as a great backstop for accelerating the
introduction of ever more sophisticated and automated food prep
and sales systems requiring much less human input.
Because you have nothing of value to offer in a modern economy is no one elses concern.
nice try butt NO, it ain’t so. Those promoting this BS actually believe in what they are doing. They didn’t read about the 2012-13 study that showed that they (lefties) don’t do EMPATHY well, and don’t comprehend consequences, unintended of course. We saw what happened here in MorontarIowe when they changed the rules in ‘firing” an employee after they did their 3 month “trial” period. This caused a rise temps companies, and those that were supposed to benefit actually lost ground. There was just and excellent article in PJM on this very topic, that it is not a grand plot but simply the way these idiots function.
Who cares. This is just people getting what they so richly deserve.
This ithe same city that melted confiscated guns into dumb Peace Bricks want allow salting the street becuase it might contaminate a already salty Pugent Sound and is propbibly another Sancuary City these dumb flatlanders it seems wont ever learn
I’ll bet that restaurants just outside of Seattle’s jurisdiction will see a rise in business as customers drive a little bit farther for a less expensive meal.
Hmmmm… as a previous restaurant owner, I cannot help but think what an advantage this gives to many immigrant-owned businesses that are strictly family run. But then again, maybe today’s tough labor laws and even stricter workers comp rules have changed all that since my pizza flinging days.
Anyways, it never ceases to amaze me just how generous socialists are when spending other people’s money.
Oh, just one more thing. Based on the immigration numbers that the LPC are quoting, I guess we no longer have a need for our foreign worker program. Right?…. Right!?!
I’ve done some charity work providing refurbished laptops to Chinese immigrants who were being worked for $2/hour so they could learn English, look for a better job, and get out from under the whatever-Chinese-is-for-coyotes that were keeping them. I suspect we’ll see rather a lot more of this rather than less. Unintended consequences, indeed.
It’s not just those employer paying minimum wages, it’s all those employers whose workers are currently in the $15 – 20 range. As minimum wage rises, these workers will expect a similar increase, whether or not the job is “worth” the new rate. I know employers who are already looking at how long they can remain in business once everyone has been moved up to the $20 – 25 bracket. And as for any workers close to minimum wage: they have to really hike productivity to stay employed. What is affordable at $10.50 may well not be at $15.
Just curious, do any of the commenter here believe in a minimum wage at all?
I don’t. It’s none of the governments business how much money one agrees to pay/be paid. If you think you are worth more money find an employer who agrees with you. All a minimum wage does is set minimum prices. If minimum wage goes up, the price of everything that is touched by the hands of a minimum wage worker goes up, and they suffer as much as anyone else given that they are participants in the same economy.
Labour is a commodity. When there is large supply and low demand wages will be low, when there is a large demand and low supply wages will be high. This has always been the case. After the middle ages plagues in Europe society was fundamentally changed. So many people died that there was a severe shortage of labour and the peasants became quite rich and powerful (comparatively) than before.
The post WW2 good times of a large middle class are never coming back. We had the perfect storm of a shortage of labour and an entire world that needed to be rebuilt and only a few countries with the resources to do the rebuilding. That job is done. There is now a surplus of labour and the parts of the world which had been totally destroyed are now are competitors. Factory labourers making enough money to be considered middle class is a situation that is not going to happen again, barring the same sort of confluence of events.
Given our immigration/ temp foreignworker/ illegal immigrant situation, would not a lack of minimum wage lead to an importation of third world wages and standards of living for the unskilled worker? Do we want our kids to have to compete for jobs with immigrants (which they already have to do) in order to earn 4 bucks an hour? Or are we counting on our generous social programs to keep lazier folks out of the job market so our kids and unskilled workers can get those 4 dollar an hour jobs?
I agree that it is a labour supply issue but our immigration system, growth based economic model and the inexorable movement t towards mechanization ensure that there will always be surplus labour. When there is a surplus of anything, in the absence of regulation there will be a crash. What will people do while they wait for the demand for workers to drive wages up to the point where it is worth working? The oil patch in Alberta and bc had a shortage of workers, the government responded to the employers complaints by allowing them to import cheap labour from abroad.
There wasn’t a peep of protest about this until the Chinese attempted to build and operate an entire mine with imported labour. Nobody cares about minimum wage earners it seems. There are a lot of folk who rely on such jobs. I would hesitate before putting their fates at the hands of the so called free market.
“Just curious, do any of the commenter here believe in a minimum wage at all?”
I do.
But I also recognize the obvious: any rise in the cost of running a business will have consequences.
While government can make a business pay a minimum wage, it can’t make that business employ someone. If a business chooses to offset increased labour costs by employing fewer people, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
In extremis, increased labour costs might even force the owner(s) to re-assess the viability of the business model – and result in closing up shop.
A higher minimum wage is pretty well moot if you’re unemployed.
About the closest you can get to unanimity in the dismal science is the harmful effect of minimum wage laws, aka price-fixing.
It goes to show that politics trumps economics everytime.
This is essentially what Murray Rothbart was hinting at in the title of his magnum opus Power and Market, the former always trumping the latter, which is why I have more or less discontinued my self-directed study of Austrian economics as I started to feel like those airhead beauty contestants pining for “world peace”.
People who spend OPM have no idea of the consequences of minimum wage hike policies. None of these advocates are being told to spend their own money. Will a proliferation of drive though restaurants be enough “causation” for these fools? Common sense and reality will dictate events, not economic theories and technocratic solutions to imagined problems.
The entire restaurant industry will be facing a crossroads in the very near future, mainly due to artificially high minimum wages, and, too many staff in the first place.
Fast food will survive the best. They already have processes and strategies organized at their head offices to deal with this, and will automate as needed.
Even now, just go into a moderately “hip” eatery that’s busy, and there are all kinds of staff flying around, including a hostess or two, bussers, drink servers, meal servers, etc. Ridiculous, as this is what you get for $15 for a burger and fries, or pasta with some sauce. Whatever. There will be job losses, unless one thinks paying over $20 for a basic restaurant meal is a deal.
And don’t get me started on ‘fine dining’ eating at the Keg or anything like that, its the most overpriced dinner out you can get. Want a great steak? Go get a nice strip loin at your fave butcher, season and baste accordingly, and BBQ with care.
Eating at restaurants is largely a waste of money, for the lazy that cant cook for the most part.
Even the feel-good Lefties call it a “Labor Market”. Interference in the market place is a socialist specialty, and there are always unintended consequences.
So I ask you, how much interference in the market place do you want and have you ever read Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”?
John,
I demand Seattle raise its minimum wage to $100,00 per hour. Everyone should be entitled to an upper class wage like Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
The Killing Wage $15/hr…
Hmmm, seems a little low for assassins pay.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group ‘True North’
At least it’s just Seattle. The boneheads who want to raise minimum wages province-wide are going to end up shutting down most of the restaurants in small towns, which will in turn cause tons more of their dreaded “carbon emissions” as rural residents have to drive 1/2 hour to have a lazy night.
Yes, but there is a great deal more dignity in being unemployed at $15/hr,rather than being unemployed at $10/hr!
As an Albertan, as the government forced minimum wage increases, my tip percentage decreases to compensate. I decide what I am willing to pay…..not the government.
the thing is, once the socio-politic-economic structure crams a colossal portion of the wealth into a few pockets, well, these folks just *don’t go* to restaurants that pay 15 bucks a pop.
they are the ones who can afford and pays thousands for a couple hours with an escort.
and avail themselves of things like private planes, limos with dark glass all around etc etc. this is ALL part of the sea change to get the entire world back into a feudal sharecropper existence. fer instance, put the big skaWEEEEEEEZE on the small independents and franchise holders etc. get them OUT of the marketplace. then buy up all their assets and fire sale rates, do the 15 dollar thing if you have to, but the final coup de gras is bribing the politicians to rescind all that ‘progressive’ stuff and deregulate abso-lute-ly E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. there. now all you have to pay is $5 an hour. no benefits. certainly no job security !!!
it’s coming. there is NO limit to man’s greed. that’s what drives this move.
smash the unions, get congress to rubber stamp ALL future banking bailouts, cater to the lowest-common-denominator to neutralize any grumblings from the swirling masses. and oyph. the propaganda. oysh. Goebbels would be astounded and gratified how far you took his lessons. so many ways and avenues and technology to ‘get the word out’.
High minimum wage laws in food service/fast food sales outlets
can promote increased loss of jobs, exploitation, and corruption.
Not to mention acting as a great backstop for accelerating the
introduction of ever more sophisticated and automated food prep
and sales systems requiring much less human input.
Because you have nothing of value to offer in a modern economy is no one elses concern.
nice try butt NO, it ain’t so. Those promoting this BS actually believe in what they are doing. They didn’t read about the 2012-13 study that showed that they (lefties) don’t do EMPATHY well, and don’t comprehend consequences, unintended of course. We saw what happened here in MorontarIowe when they changed the rules in ‘firing” an employee after they did their 3 month “trial” period. This caused a rise temps companies, and those that were supposed to benefit actually lost ground. There was just and excellent article in PJM on this very topic, that it is not a grand plot but simply the way these idiots function.
Who cares. This is just people getting what they so richly deserve.
This ithe same city that melted confiscated guns into dumb Peace Bricks want allow salting the street becuase it might contaminate a already salty Pugent Sound and is propbibly another Sancuary City these dumb flatlanders it seems wont ever learn
I’ll bet that restaurants just outside of Seattle’s jurisdiction will see a rise in business as customers drive a little bit farther for a less expensive meal.
Hmmmm… as a previous restaurant owner, I cannot help but think what an advantage this gives to many immigrant-owned businesses that are strictly family run. But then again, maybe today’s tough labor laws and even stricter workers comp rules have changed all that since my pizza flinging days.
Anyways, it never ceases to amaze me just how generous socialists are when spending other people’s money.
Oh, just one more thing. Based on the immigration numbers that the LPC are quoting, I guess we no longer have a need for our foreign worker program. Right?…. Right!?!
I’ve done some charity work providing refurbished laptops to Chinese immigrants who were being worked for $2/hour so they could learn English, look for a better job, and get out from under the whatever-Chinese-is-for-coyotes that were keeping them. I suspect we’ll see rather a lot more of this rather than less. Unintended consequences, indeed.
It’s not just those employer paying minimum wages, it’s all those employers whose workers are currently in the $15 – 20 range. As minimum wage rises, these workers will expect a similar increase, whether or not the job is “worth” the new rate. I know employers who are already looking at how long they can remain in business once everyone has been moved up to the $20 – 25 bracket. And as for any workers close to minimum wage: they have to really hike productivity to stay employed. What is affordable at $10.50 may well not be at $15.
Just curious, do any of the commenter here believe in a minimum wage at all?
I don’t. It’s none of the governments business how much money one agrees to pay/be paid. If you think you are worth more money find an employer who agrees with you. All a minimum wage does is set minimum prices. If minimum wage goes up, the price of everything that is touched by the hands of a minimum wage worker goes up, and they suffer as much as anyone else given that they are participants in the same economy.
Labour is a commodity. When there is large supply and low demand wages will be low, when there is a large demand and low supply wages will be high. This has always been the case. After the middle ages plagues in Europe society was fundamentally changed. So many people died that there was a severe shortage of labour and the peasants became quite rich and powerful (comparatively) than before.
The post WW2 good times of a large middle class are never coming back. We had the perfect storm of a shortage of labour and an entire world that needed to be rebuilt and only a few countries with the resources to do the rebuilding. That job is done. There is now a surplus of labour and the parts of the world which had been totally destroyed are now are competitors. Factory labourers making enough money to be considered middle class is a situation that is not going to happen again, barring the same sort of confluence of events.
Just heard Café Nervosa closed down. Maureen the owner was thinking of retiring and selling the place. The bump in the minimum wage was the clincher.
I understand that two brothers in Seattle, both psychiatrists, had been interested in buying it but the deal fell through.
Apparently they couldn’t agree on the artwork and furnishings for the renovation.
Given our immigration/ temp foreignworker/ illegal immigrant situation, would not a lack of minimum wage lead to an importation of third world wages and standards of living for the unskilled worker? Do we want our kids to have to compete for jobs with immigrants (which they already have to do) in order to earn 4 bucks an hour? Or are we counting on our generous social programs to keep lazier folks out of the job market so our kids and unskilled workers can get those 4 dollar an hour jobs?
I agree that it is a labour supply issue but our immigration system, growth based economic model and the inexorable movement t towards mechanization ensure that there will always be surplus labour. When there is a surplus of anything, in the absence of regulation there will be a crash. What will people do while they wait for the demand for workers to drive wages up to the point where it is worth working? The oil patch in Alberta and bc had a shortage of workers, the government responded to the employers complaints by allowing them to import cheap labour from abroad.
There wasn’t a peep of protest about this until the Chinese attempted to build and operate an entire mine with imported labour. Nobody cares about minimum wage earners it seems. There are a lot of folk who rely on such jobs. I would hesitate before putting their fates at the hands of the so called free market.
“Just curious, do any of the commenter here believe in a minimum wage at all?”
I do.
But I also recognize the obvious: any rise in the cost of running a business will have consequences.
While government can make a business pay a minimum wage, it can’t make that business employ someone. If a business chooses to offset increased labour costs by employing fewer people, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
In extremis, increased labour costs might even force the owner(s) to re-assess the viability of the business model – and result in closing up shop.
A higher minimum wage is pretty well moot if you’re unemployed.
About the closest you can get to unanimity in the dismal science is the harmful effect of minimum wage laws, aka price-fixing.
It goes to show that politics trumps economics everytime.
This is essentially what Murray Rothbart was hinting at in the title of his magnum opus Power and Market, the former always trumping the latter, which is why I have more or less discontinued my self-directed study of Austrian economics as I started to feel like those airhead beauty contestants pining for “world peace”.
People who spend OPM have no idea of the consequences of minimum wage hike policies. None of these advocates are being told to spend their own money. Will a proliferation of drive though restaurants be enough “causation” for these fools? Common sense and reality will dictate events, not economic theories and technocratic solutions to imagined problems.
The entire restaurant industry will be facing a crossroads in the very near future, mainly due to artificially high minimum wages, and, too many staff in the first place.
Fast food will survive the best. They already have processes and strategies organized at their head offices to deal with this, and will automate as needed.
Even now, just go into a moderately “hip” eatery that’s busy, and there are all kinds of staff flying around, including a hostess or two, bussers, drink servers, meal servers, etc. Ridiculous, as this is what you get for $15 for a burger and fries, or pasta with some sauce. Whatever. There will be job losses, unless one thinks paying over $20 for a basic restaurant meal is a deal.
And don’t get me started on ‘fine dining’ eating at the Keg or anything like that, its the most overpriced dinner out you can get. Want a great steak? Go get a nice strip loin at your fave butcher, season and baste accordingly, and BBQ with care.
Eating at restaurants is largely a waste of money, for the lazy that cant cook for the most part.
Even the feel-good Lefties call it a “Labor Market”. Interference in the market place is a socialist specialty, and there are always unintended consequences.
So I ask you, how much interference in the market place do you want and have you ever read Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”?
John,
I demand Seattle raise its minimum wage to $100,00 per hour. Everyone should be entitled to an upper class wage like Bill Gates and Paul Allen.