I just don't think that a person working a full-time job in what is considered the lone superpower of the world,... should have an income that qualifies as poverty level...

It just doesn't look good to the rest of the world...  
So, if the free market doesn't supply such a minimum,.. the government should mandate it...
If a free market could pay people less, it would.. don't make it right...
...

I agree... and disagree. I feel there should be a minimum wage in the service sector, as this sector is local and not competing in the world economy (the Chinese). The local companies could then pass there increased cost to the consumer. For example the waiter, buss boy and dish washer at a local restaurant get a minimum wage increase of 20%. That might increase the cost of your meal by 5%, but those min wage employees now have a couple of more bucks a week to buy stuff, and the economy is stimulated a bit.
OTOH a minimum wage in the manufacturing sector is a bad idea. High labour costs are causing companies to leave the country and go to Mexico and China.
The big problem is marketing. It has led us to believe that we are sub-human if we don't have (or want) a big house, two cars, a 50" flat screen,, a boat,- well you get the idea. This is why a factory worker who get $35 an hour + benefits to install lug nuts on a car thinks he or she needs a wage increase. Also both partners gotta work and the kids raise themselves, and that is not working out too well.
If I had the power I would make it illegal for two people in a family to have a job until one person in every family has a decent job, and I would slap a 50 or 60% surtax on goods imported from China.
I could go on for a while, but I think I've probably stirred up enough mud all ready.

Well this is more a "Tall Table" kind of subject, and you know that Justin, but as usual I partially agree with you.  The minimum wage is a feel-good measure to "help the poor" that just causes jobs to dry up.  Essentially it just strips the worker (as well as employer) of their right to exchange X amount of work for X amount of money.

Your stuff about outlawing multiple per-family jobs and the protectionist tax on China is inconsistent with your idea of economic freedom though, and thank goodness you don't have the power to implement it.  You simply don't have the right, thorough government or any other mechanism, to muck with people's livelihood in that manner, no matter how much "for their own good" you think it is.

Boule'tard: China is not playing fair- they have devalued their currency 40% to make their goods even cheaper.
They cheat American companies who are manufacturing there by using the American tooling to manufacture identical products and selling them deeply discounted with another name on them. I know of an American loudspeaker manufacturer who contracted with a Chinese manufacture to make a certain number of speakers. They made them, and then used the tooling to make identical speakers, slapped a different name on them and exported them to the U.S. to sell for 1/2 the cost of the contracted ones. When the American manufacturer found out about it he went over and locked all his tooling up in a warehouse. It hurt him pretty bad, and he has little legal recourse. And this is not an isolated incident. Historically they think we are sub human, and it is therefor OK to cheat us any way they can.
We send people over there to "expand the market for our exports" but they buy very little of our stuff compared to what we buy of theirs.

Sure.  Of course it is only 1/4 my decision, subject to review by Oldfeller, Verslagen1 and sluggo.

Yes, we know China cheats.  IMO that does not give us an excuse to curtail the rights of N.Americans (US or Canada) to try to correct it.  

As long as discussion is civil and nobody complains, I'm cool.

I'd join in better, but I have a few items on auction closing this evening and need to answer all the last-minute questions!  

Hey, if we are all misbehaving, let's just call it a Fiscal Responsibility War and let it run as long as it doesn't get nasty.   Then it will either peter out or we can lock it if it gets too noisy.




This "devalue your currency to sweep up all the manufacturing in the whole world" is working out right well for China, don't you think?

Our "Hopey-Changie thang",  it ain't a working out so good ...

I am afraid that America can do the same devaluation thing as China until Italy Greece Spain and a half dozen others default on everything they owe, then our reward for playing that particular game is only chaos and pain as the world tanks around us.  

China gets to keep a fully grown and modernized industrial base (same one we gave away) when the rest of the world goes splat and belly up -- then lookie out to see jest whose well equipped armies start to go marching around sweeping up selected raw materials and natural resources.

You do remember that the Biblical Armageddon was between the Powers in the North (Russia) and the Powers in the East (China)?    

We aren't even mentioned as we won't even be a player by then.


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Let me give you a signal, a itty bitty tidbit from technoland since you know I like to watch that sector.

China is now the worlds largest manufacturer and user of MIPS chips.  Their military, power grid and key infrastructure runs ONLY on domestically produced MIPS chips that are considered 20 year outdated computing technology by Intel and Arm and AMD.   China is the only one investing anything in that technology and they have recently bought the rights to it from the remainder of American MIPS Technology company.

But guess which chips had the most work done on them to make them EMP resistant back in the 80's and 90's?    Work funded by the US Military no less?   Yup, that same old technology that China just bought up and is implementing 100% throughout their key systems is THAT technology.

Pop us a few above the atmosphere EMP bombs on the East coast, one over the Great Lakes and one on the West Coast splitting the difference between Silicone Valley and Seattle and hey, America is back in the vacuum tube and rotary phone age (with darn few of them still left running).  

And who is to prove exactly who set them off way out in space anyway?   Who are you going to counterstrike against, especially if everybody got the same treatment at the same exact time?

China jest won't be as much affected as everybody else ....

Humerous discussion- on the one good job, that is what we had in the 50-60's until (in the spirit of unexpected consequences) declared equal pay for equal work - liberting women to join the workforce.  Men used to get paid based on the job they did PLUS their needs (my oldest is going to college next year, I really need a raise).  Women haven't hit parity yet but they have broken free of that financial prison of marriage which is one reason marriage is down to less than 50%..who needs it until chillen arrive.

The unvarnished truth is...manufactureres will go wherever they can get something built well enough to sell for the lowest price (cost) thus allowing maximun profit.  That manufacturering also brings environmental destruction (often, not always) means for the USA, unless we are willing to work for a comparible wage (which we can't because of cost of runnning a houshold) we will continue to loose out in this major economic sector.   We can still "make hay" in management, engineering, and similar aspects but until the world hits wage and expense parity (which I do not think will ever happen, too many will loose a great source of income) the minimum wage allows us to be slaves that can almost house and feed ourselves.