Wow-----Mr "Baked Alaska" wants to get rid of
Federal mininmum wage & unemployment benefits :

Those should be state issues and not federal ones. After all, the state pays the unemployment insurance anyway.

He is not in favor of eliminating minimum wage or unemployment benefits. He just wants them to be dictated by the local people who pay them and who know the landscape of their own areas.

Pri, you just have a fuckin' hard-on for anyone who is backed by the believers of the Tea Party movement.  You could save yourself a lot of time if you found something else to bitch about.

He plainly doesn't endorse the end of minimum wage protectection or unemployment insurance. He simply wants the power to shift to the states and away from the federal government.

He, like many others who want a smaller federal government is just interpreting the tenth ammendment a little more literally than those in favor of a large centralized government.

If you do a little more reading on the subject, you might conclude that these "crazy GOP teaparty candidates" might just be on some rather solid legal ground. Solid enough to make your alarmist title seem rather biased and uninformed at best.

If you can find anywhere that he recommends doing away with either minimum wage protection or unemployment benefits for even a single citizen, I am all ears.

Get rid of federal minimimum wage & unemployment standards or laws.
BTW, I predict that that the Tea party movement,  which is a right-wing media & corporate created "fad", will eventually implode. ( how long that implosion will take is anyone's guess------ ) Why do I say that ?  Take a gander at the link below---a movement cannot sustain itself when its candidates are ignorant & crazy. Call me irresponsible, call me a cab, but DON'T call me
an alarmist---------






-- Modified on 10/4/2010 1:14:28 PM

Not in general terms, but in the link you provided. She comes across as a politician, trying to beat the competition.

Do you disagree with her premise that the GOP is not going to vote against her and for Reid? Do you disagree that a fellow Tea Party candidate running in the General Election will hurt her and benefit Reid? Just what does she say in your link that makes her seem like anything but a determined politician that just seems to have ideas very much different than yours?

You really do seem to have an obsession with "all things Tea Party", Truth be told, the more you campaign against her, the more rational she appears. I like religious nuts even more than you, but religion aside, the woman makes a lot of sense.

he would probably call her an ignorant, crazy, batshit whackjob.

I have yet to see a more prejudiced point of view by anyone, about anyone, on this board since I first started participating nearly three years ago.

Several states (Louisiana is one) has declared state wide minimum wages to be unconstitutional.

Costs of living is different in different states. A local minimum wage would probably be a better policy. Unfortunately, it's not very feasible.

John,
I'm guessing you missed my post about this a few weeks ago. When the real value of the minimum wage was the highest, unemployment and poverty rates were at record lows.

Make sure the poor continue to stay poor.
Offer them false hope,to insure  their vote.


"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence.

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”

http://www.commonsensejunction.com/?p=10111


-- Modified on 10/4/2010 5:18:17 PM

You criticize Joe Miller, the man with a law degree from Yale, a masters degree in economics and a bachelors degree with honors from the most highly rated university in America, West Point. (According to Forbes’ Best Colleges).

Not to mention,
A State District Court Judge
A U.S. Magistrate Judge
A Bronze Star recipient

And all you can see is a baked Tea Party Candidate. How stupid is that?

Let's look at minimum wage from an employer's perspective.

Pretend I hire someone to pick squash for me; and the value he produces for me is $8 for every hour that he works. But out of that $8 I have to pay $2 to comply with government paperwork requirements, and $1 for seed, materials, tools and other stuff that he uses. I'd like to profit from this by $1. That leaves $4. Well, the minimum wage is $6; but he isn't productive enough to justify that wage.

So I lay him off and hire an illegal immigrant for $3, and make $2 in profit. Nice! Or, maybe I look really carefully at methods and figure out a way to make him more productive; say by planting differently, using a different breed of squash, training him to more accurately identify which squash are ripe or purchasing a tool that allows him to pick faster. Pretend this raises my costs from $1 to $2, but allows him to produce $16 in value for me. So we subtract out $2 for government, $2 for my costs, $1 in profit for me and there is still room for a $6 minimum wage. Guess what I do? I lay off half of my workers because they are no longer needed due to improvements in methods that I had to make to offset the minimum wage.

Bottom line is that, as an employer, my employees must produce at least double in value what they are paid for them to be worth my while. If the minimum wage exceeds half of their value, I will either replace them with illegal immigrants, H1-B workers or automate their jobs away.

The minimum wage CAUSES unemployment.

Many years ago, I went to work as a bag boy at a supermarket. The store manager explained to me the rules. He explained I would get paid minimum wage, have a 15 minute break, and so forth -- and that these were all government requirements. I quickly realized that the government rules that many intend to place a bottom limit are often used to enforce a top limit.

It's kind of like hamburger. There are rules specifying the maximum fat content of hamburger. Well guess what? That gives the companies that make hamburger a license to make hamburger without even specifying on the package the amount of saturated fat, etc. in their product. Often, they mix in EXTRA fat, up to the government limit. It doesn't protect consumers at all.

The same ultimately happens with the minimum wage.

As for unemployment insurance -- I see it as bad policy with unintended consequences.

As an employer, when I hire somebody, I have to take into account ALL of their costs. Including government imposed costs for unemployment insurance. If I weren't giving the government that money, I could give it to people who work for me; and they could use it to better their lives.

In practice, I pay very little unemployment insurance. I pay the minimum. That's because I know that if I lay somebody off, my unemployment insurance rates will increase; so I always fire them for cause and when they scream and yell, I fight it every step of the way and have never lost.

Unemployment insurance costs basically make it worth my while to be an absolute asshole. They make it profitable. If I could just let somebody go without a black mark on their record without it hurting me; I would be inclined to do so when possible. But unemployment insurance actually PENALIZES me for being nice. So screw it -- when someone is not sufficiently productive to justify their wage and have me still make a profit, I terminate them for cause and fight it all the way. So not only do they not collect unemployment insurance benefits, they have trouble answering questions when applying for their next job.

If I didn't have the spectre of higher unemployment insurance costs hanging over my head; I would likely be able to take that money, set it aside, and even give anyone I let go a nice severance.

That's what I do for insurance. I set aside money in an account that covers the first $6k every year for each employee. The insurance kicks in after those costs are exhausted. As a result, health care coverage is pretty inexpensive.

I fear that the new government requirements may raise the productivity threshold enough that I'll have to stop that practice and fire some more employees for cause.

On the other hand, incidentally, at the end of every year I give employees a bonus. I take a portion of the profit and divide it among the employees. You know what really sucks? Having to withhold taxes from that bonus. If I'm giving a bonus they fucking earned it; and to see parasitic government suck it away from them is disheartening.

The Republican Party has wanted to eliminate the minimum wage on all levels for as long as there has been a MW.

The GOP is for the businessman first!  
NOT the guy working for a hourly wage!

I just know the difference between correlation and causation in a complex system.

To demonstrate, allow me to ask two questions which I will answer.

1. Did lifespan in the U.S. increase between 1900 and 1950? Yes
2. Did the amount of lead paint present in buildings increase between 1900 and 1950? Yes

So shall I then conclude that lead paint increases lifespan?

Of course not. Other factors were at play.

"Our official current unemployment rate is 10%+/-. Of course, that doesn't count people who have run out of benefits, etc. That just counts people who are drawing benefits. So the ACTUAL rate of unemployment is higher. Yes?"

Absolutely. The unemployment rate doesn't count people who have given up looking for work, or people who can only find part time employment. The BLS categorizes these people as "discouraged workers". Their rate has been skyrocketing.

"So, if the solution to unemployment were to raise the minimum wage; then if we raised the minimum wage to ... oh ... $100/hr -- that would decrease unemployment dramatically, would it not?"

No, it would not. I've already covered this in my discussions with Tim, when he offered a hypothetical minimum wage of $30 an hour. What's important to note is the wage to productivity gap. When the ratio of wages to productivity is 1:4 (as it is in most of the fast food industry) then raising wages to $30 or $100 an hour actually would be harmful, since it would outprice the worker's productivity. However, since that ratio is 1:4, we could double the minimum wage, and those fast food jobs would still be profitable.

"Of course, if I had to pay the guys harvesting squash $100/hr; I'd have to pass that cost onto you at the grocery store. You'd look at my domestic squash at $15/lb and then the Mexican-grown squash at $1.99/lb and unless you were crazy, you'd choose the Mexican squash. Soon I would go out of business and all my workers would join the ranks of the unemployed until somebody was willing to hire them because their productivity was high enough to justify a wage of $100/hr."

Unless your operation brings you need more than $500,000 a year, then the minimum wage doesn't apply to you. The minimum wage for teenagers is $4.25.  And yes, Cato is hardly an unbiased source on the topic. But rather than trade studies, how about we understand many of the studies you cited.

http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp178/

When can you show me where a Republican has supported the working class over the business owners?

Democrats are only looking for a fair playing field.  

I does not help the economy to keep the majority of the people in a state of poverty.
It's been proven well payed workers do more to stimulate the economy than any other means.

Wouldn't you say that the minimum wage would have a more direct correlation to unemployment and poverty than lead paint would have to health?

I've made the point myself that correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation.

However, when the value of the minimum wage was the highest, unemployment and poverty rates were the lowest. Raising the minimum wage has a 2:1 margin in lowering unemployment. The times it did not, we were in the middle of serious economic turmoil.

Those are the facts. If the minimum wage causes unemployment, then there has to be some evidence for it. These facts seem to contradict your statement that it causes unemployment, a statement that you made as a personal anecdote, which while I don't discount, none of us can independently verify.

Can you show us any data that would explain this contradiction?

He is a founding member.

Makwa approach to politics is "Democrats good, Republicans bad", don't try to confuse the poor man, obviously he is not capable of higher thought.

in your blanket defense of teaparty candidates, when many of them are social conservative nutjobs ? & I know you DESPISE the social conservatives-----

Btw, I'm greatly pained by "bias" & "Axe to grind" labels affixed to me------GaG, when it comes to this board, I'm an "equal opportunity offender"----------

Lasty, if "baked" is so proud in his support of Joe Miller, why does he have to resort to a "chickenshit alias" ?

-- Modified on 10/5/2010 9:40:19 AM

you waste an awful lot of time and effort arguing with a board troll that isn't interested in the facts, only in his preconceived notion of what the facts "should be", in his warped way.

Why do you even bother with well thought out and documented arguements that will undoubtably fall on deaf ears? How many times does this have to be proven to you before you get the message? It's like arguing with Charlie the Commie that communism is a failed system. No matter how compelling your argument to the contrary, he will insist that communism is a workers panacea.

Charlie, I apologize in advance for linking your name with that of a board troll, but the analogy was too compelling to pass up. lol

and you completely misunderstood my post in re to Makwa. My post had nothing to do with defending "baked", it had everything to do with Makwa being a partisan simpleton.

I don't know who "baked" is and don't care, Makwa OTOH never has anything deeper to add than, blaming the GOP for everything that is wrong in the world. Have you ever seen anything written by him that resembles independent thought?

As to you, you might be an "equal opportunity offender" and I will grant you that you criticize people on both sides of the aisle. That said, your posts in regard to the Tea Party are largely hysterical headlines with little meat supporting your allegations. Your last attack of Angle is a prime example. I asked you to specifically point out in your own link where any behavior of hers could be cosidered anything but politics as usual. The main points of the linked article were that she was thumbing her nose at the GOP because in her opinion they had no choice but to vote for either her or Reid, and that they would never vote for Reid, a very valid point. The other "criticism" of her was that she was trying to pressure the other Tea Party candidate out of the race, again a very undersandable POV from someone in her position.

which is what her cheesy backroom dealings to get that 3rd party candidate out of the race suggests.

If you lived in Nv, GaG, you'd see that she's full of crazy ideas : not only does she want to eliminate social security & medicare, but she wants to privatize the VA & eliminate free Rx drugs. Not too many Nv vets are crazy about that idea, including my father, who is a WW2 combat vet.

I don't fool myself into thinking she is anything but another politician, I am nowhere near as gullible as the Obama voters that convinced themselves that he was something other than a lying cheating politician.

My point is that you cannot make a post about the Tea Party without some inflammatory rhetoric to go along with it. Every post you make regarding the Tea Party starts with "Crazy" or "loony" or "fruit loopy" and you constantly quote half truths and innuendo when referring to anything Tea Party related. I don't like religious kooks anymore than you do, possibly even less, but you seem to lose all objectivity whenever you discuss anything related to the Tea Party.

First the logic.

You state that "Raising the minimum wage has a 2:1 margin in lowering unemployment."

Our official current unemployment rate is 10%+/-. Of course, that doesn't count people who have run out of benefits, etc. That just counts people who are drawing benefits. So the ACTUAL rate of unemployment is higher. Yes?

So, if the solution to unemployment were to raise the minimum wage; then if we raised the minimum wage to ... oh ... $100/hr -- that would decrease unemployment dramatically, would it not?

Of course, if I had to pay the guys harvesting squash $100/hr; I'd have to pass that cost onto you at the grocery store. You'd look at my domestic squash at $15/lb and then the Mexican-grown squash at $1.99/lb and unless you were crazy, you'd choose the Mexican squash. Soon I would go out of business and all my workers would join the ranks of the unemployed until somebody was willing to hire them because their productivity was high enough to justify a wage of $100/hr.

But I am not the only person saying this -- it isn't just my personal anecdote. I used an anecdote to make the concept simple.

Here is what one analyst had to say about the effect of minimum wage laws:

"Perhaps the most clear-cut example of a law raising employers' costs is the minimum wage. Increases in the minimum wage in some cases are absorbed by employers to their employees' benefit. In other cases, the minimum wage forces labor costs above the revenue that a minimum wage worker's employer could earn. The result is that workers who might have been hired at lower wages are priced out of the market at the minimum wage level. Rather than hiring these workers, employers can automate, use more skilled labor, produce in foreign countries, or simply produce less. A general inefficiency obtains because the minimum wage precludes lower-cost production. The extent to which increased costs are reflected in higher prices or lower output depends on the purchasers' reactions to higher product prices, i.e., the employer's ability to "pass through" costs.

The job-reducing effect of the minimum wage is not always obvious because the jobs low-wage workers might have obtained if it were profitable to employ them do not always exist. Sometimes we notice that stores using teenagers for deliveries cancel their delivery services after the minimum wage is increased. Less obvious is the lack of delivery service that never existed. Also, a given minimum wage level has its greatest impact in low-wage markets, in which relatively many jobs might be offered at pay levels below the minimum. Consequently, faced with a national minimum wage law, industries not relocating in foreign countries without minimum wages may choose to locate in high-wage areas where higher product prices allow profitable employment of workers at minimum wage levels."

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa004.html

But, hey, the Cato Institute is just a bunch of rich dudes justifying their killing of the poor, right?

The minimum wage has been around a long time, and its effects have been well-studied.

The fact that it causes unemployment has been determined by hundreds of actual studies and other sources over the course of decades. Here are a few to get you started.



Currie, Janet, and Fallick, Bruce. 1993. A Note on the New Minimum Wage Research. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 4348 (April).

Gallasch, H.F., Jr. 1975. Minimum Wages and the Farm Labor Market. Southern Economic Journal, vol. 41 (January): 480-491.

Gramlich, Edward M. 1976. Impact of Minimum Wages on Other Wages, Employment, and Family Incomes. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (No. 2): 409-461.

Gardner, Bruce. 1981. What Have Minimum Wages Done in Agriculture? In Rottenberg (1981a): 210-232.

Peterson, John M. 1957. Employment Effects of Minimum Wages, 1938-50. Journal of Political Economy, vol. 65 (October): 412-430.

Peterson, John M., and Stewart, Charles T., Jr. 1969. Employment Effects of Minimum Wage Rates. Washington: American Enterprise Institute.

Too often I believe someone like WW is salvageable when really he isn't.

I DO know what would work for him. It is a process called "re-imprinting;" but I'd have to have him in seclusion for about a year to do it and even I lack the patience.