Socialist Seattle

[Team Sergeant]

Socialist Seattle on the fast track to destruction . I was reading some of the comments on this story and one really stood out; "this is a very good thing because in just a couple of years we will see what an epic failure socialism actually is and that Seattle will have no one to blame but it's own socialist leaders."

Seattle Approves $15 Minimum Wage, Setting a New Standard for Big Cities
By KIRK JOHNSONJUNE 2, 2014

SEATTLE — The City Council here went where no big-city lawmakers have gone before on Monday, raising the local minimum wage to $15 an hour, more than double the federal minimum, and pushing Seattle to the forefront of urban efforts to address income inequality.

The unanimous vote of the nine-member Council, after months of discussion by a committee of business and labor leaders convened by Mayor Ed Murray, will give low-wage workers here — in incremental stages, with different tracks for different sizes of business — the highest big-city minimum in the nation.

“Even before the Great Recession a lot of us have started to have doubt and concern about the basic economic promise that underpins economic life in the United States,” said Sally J. Clark, a Council member. “Today Seattle answers that challenge,” she added. “We go into uncharted, unevaluated territory.”

But some business owners who have questioned the proposal say that the city’s booming economy is creating an illusion of permanence. The fat times and the ability to pay higher wages, they warn, will not go on forever.

“We’re living in this bubble of Amazon, but that’s not going to go on,” said Tom Douglas, a prominent restaurateur in Seattle, referring to the local boom in jobs and economic growth from hiring at Amazon, the online retailer, which has its headquarters here. Mr. Douglas said the new law will inevitably result in costs being passed on to consumers. “There’s going to be some terrific price inflation,” he said.

The measure has the support of Mr. Murray, who ran last year on a pledge to raise the wage to $15 and made it one of his first priorities in office.

Cheers and jeers repeatedly erupted in the City Hall meeting room, which was packed with supporters of the plan, who often interrupted speakers in the 90-minute debate before the vote with chants.

“We did it — workers did this,” said Kshama Sawant, a socialist who campaigned for a $15 minimum wage when she was elected to the Council last year. Ms. Sawant sought to accelerate the carrying out of the measure and to strip out a lower youth wage training rate, but the council rejected her proposals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/us...ties.html?_r=0

[Team Sergeant]

And what's actually going to happen...........


Forbes
6/03/2014 @ 11:08AM 15,237 views
We Can Predict The Effects Of Seattle's $15 An Hour Minimum Wage


It’s not difficult to outline some of the effect that this new $15 an hour minimum wage in Seattle is going to have. And I, for one, would rather hope that people are starting to study that labour market right now, so we can get a good idea of what it is like before that wage comes in. And then we can go back when it’s fully implemented and see what the effects have been. For my prediction is that the effects are not going to be good and it would be rather useful in future to have the evidence that large rises in the minimum wage really aren’t a good thing.

You know, before someone suggests it should be applied to the whole country? As, in fact, people already are?

The first and most obvious effect of a $15 an hour minimum is that there are going to be job losses. Don’t forget that the message from the academic literature is that “modest” increases in the minimum don’t seem to have “much” effect on employment levels. And we’d all agree that a $100 minimum would have rather large effects. So our puzzle here is to try to decide what is the definition of “modest”. Clearly $100 an hour isn’t. But also we can dismiss something like $1 an hour as being problematic. Since no one at all gets paid a sum that small making the minimum $1, or $1.50, has no effect on anything whatsoever.

The best result we have from the academic literature is that a minimum wage in the 40-45% region of the median wage has little to no effect on unemployment. The reason being similar to that of a $1 one. So few people get paid so little that it just doesn’t affect the wages of anyone very much. The same research tells us that once we get to 45-50% of the median wage then we do start to see significant unemployment effects.

This $15 an hour in Seattle will be around 60% of the local median wage. We would therefore expect to see reasonably large unemployment effects.


cont:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworst...-minimum-wage/

[Toaster]

There is a notion that I've seen in my generation, that everyone is equal. Not that we were created equal, and can become better through effort, but that we always shall remain equal. Whether that be of value to the market place, of opinion, character or any other number of things.

If someone comes to an organization and ethically increases the profits and productivity of the organization, they are due a raise. Not every dollar that they increase the profit should go to the individual, but a reasonably commensurate amount. If I doubled the sales in an organization, my commissions should go up.

Many people are lost and hostile to the idea that they are responsible for their lot in life, and where they end up. A problem that some have is that our free market system allows people to fail, but it creates the opportunity for such beautiful success.

There are a lot of very jealous people, who aren't willing to better themselves, or contribute more to benefit society as a whole. They just don't get that life isn't perfectly fair or easy.

I think that a good example of this is the person with childish thinking who comes onto this board, thinking that their opinion is just as valuable as Team Sergeant's, The Reaper's, Pete, FrostFire, or any other respected member on this board, demonstrates their willful ignorance, refuses correction, and is banned after whining and complaining that "the mean SF people hurted my feelings and now I have to hug my teddy bear". Contribution towards a society or organization allows one to grow higher in rank, position and esteem.

My concern is that the idea of becoming a better more productive contributing member of society will be an idea of the past, and our Republic shall be given over to mob rule.

To sum it up; "Four legs good, two legs baa-a-aad"

[Chili_Wango]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3044892.html

The issue isn't the minimum wage; which everyone seems to focus on. The problem is with the distribution of wealth in the United States. There's a difference.

[Streck-Fu]

Originally Posted by Chili_Wango

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3044892.html

The issue isn't the minimum wage; which everyone seems to focus on. The problem is with the distribution of wealth in the United States. There's a difference.

The false position is the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth and that if certain individuals have a lot of it, there is less available for others. That is not true.

Whether Bill Gates or Donald Trump amass 11HundredBillionTeen dollars, it has nothing to do with your earnings potential.

The underlying reality of America's capitalism is that the population of "The Wealthy" is not static. Poor people become rich. People like Sam Walton, who found Wal-Mart, or Oprah grew up poor and Bill Gates did not inherit Microsoft.

At the same time, many rich people end up poor, whether through bad investment, timing, or business collapse.

The population of 'Rich' in this country has been dynamic and is not fixed. Income inequality is not the issue. The issue now is the reduced income mobility due to a suppressed economy and over regulated economy.

Also, it can't be ignored that poverty in the US is not defined the same as poverty in the rest of the world.

[Chili_Wango]

Originally Posted by Streck-Fu

The false position is the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth and that if certain individuals have a lot of it, there is less available for others. That is not true.

Whether Bill Gates or Donald Trump amass 11HundredBillionTeen dollars, it has nothing to do with your earnings potential.

The underlying reality of America's capitalism is that the population of "The Wealthy" is not static. Poor people become rich. People like Sam Walton who found Wal-Mart, Oprah grew up poor, and Bill Gates did not inherit Microsoft.

At the same time, many rich people end up poor, whether through bad investment, timing, or business collapse.

The population of 'Rich' in this country has been dynamic and is not fixed. Income inequality is not the issue. The issue now is the reduced income mobility due to a suppressed and over regulated economy.

The problem is that capitalism has become perverted over the years. The motivation to turn a profit corrupts people.
Minor example: The annual bonuses the managers in "my" company get are based off of the net profits of the company. There is a fixed amount of wealth that can be obtained. In order to amass a larger bonus, the managers will suppress the wages there by cutting the overhead cost of the plant.
The General Managers are then praised by the top brass of the company for increasing the net profits and thereby rewarded.

[Streck-Fu]

Originally Posted by Chili_Wango

The problem is that capitalism has become perverted over the years. The motivation to turn a profit corrupts people.
Minor example: The annual bonuses the managers in "my" company get are based off of the net profits of the company. There is a fixed amount of wealth that can be obtained. In order to amass a larger bonus, the managers will suppress the wages there by cutting the overhead cost of the plant.
The General Managers are then praised by the top brass of the company for increasing the net profits and thereby rewarded.

Did you take any business classes in college?

Considering what you wrote, are you not motivated to become a manager and have a positive influence in the success of the company? Do you think that you deserve the same compensation as a senior manager?

[Streck-Fu]

Originally Posted by Toaster

Whole post

Most excellent. Well put.

[Chili_Wango]

Originally Posted by Streck-Fu

Did you take any business classes in college?

Considering what you wrote, are you not motivated to become a manager and have a positive influence in the success of the company? Do you think that you deserve the same compensation as a senior manager?

Sir, there is a fallacy in your thinking. Yes I took business classes in college; however nothing above a 200 level class. In fact, I was deserving of more compensation than my senior manager. I was offered a promotion, raise, and chance to move (somewhat ironically to this thread) to Seattle.

I was too disgusted with the company to want the promotion. It was rather serendipitous that I realized my calling for the military at the exact same time.

[booker]

As T. Boone Pickens said (paraphrasing), there isn't a wealth pie of a certain size, it is a trough, and there is plenty of room for everyone, you just have to get off your butt and work for it.

I'm getting really tired of people complaining about how management holds down wages to get higher bonuses, etc. If you think you are worth more than you are getting paid, prove it - go find another company that agrees and is willing to pay you what you think you are worth. Otherwise, you are just complaining and using "capitalism" as the reason for your perceived substandard pay. Don't feed me a line of BS about how there is nothing else around either (geographic constraints). I've heard all of the excuses, and it comes down to this - if you want change bad enough, you will get off your ass and make it happen. You don't need some politician "looking out for you".

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Socialist Seattle on the fast track to destruction . I was reading some of the comments on this story and one really stood out; "this is a very good thing because in just a couple of years we will see what an epic failure socialism actually is and that Seattle will have no one to blame but it's own socialist leaders."

Doesn't Detroit (or any of the other Dim-run socialist cities) demonstrate that adequately already?

TR

[Chili_Wango]

Originally Posted by booker

As T. Boone Pickens said (paraphrasing), there isn't a wealth pie of a certain size, it is a trough, and there is plenty of room for everyone, you just have to get off your butt and work for it.

I'm getting really tired of people complaining about how management holds down wages to get higher bonuses, etc. If you think you are worth more than you are getting paid, prove it - go find another company that agrees and is willing to pay you what you think you are worth. Otherwise, you are just complaining and using "capitalism" as the reason for your perceived substandard pay. Don't feed me a line of BS about how there is nothing else around either (geographic constraints). I've heard all of the excuses, and it comes down to this - if you want change bad enough, you will get off your ass and make it happen. You don't need some politician "looking out for you".

I believe there is a fallacy in your thinking as well. Many statistics related to economics prove your arguements to be false. Wages continue to DROP while productivity and net earnings continue to RISE. There is a huge descrepenacy that you cannot find an explanation for.

[Dean Jarvis]

Didn't any of you take a business class. The results will be a reduction in FTE's, improved productivity and the additional cost passed on to the consumer.

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by Dean Jarvis

Didn't any of you take a business class. The results will be a reduction in FTE's, improved productivity and the additional cost passed on to the consumer.

Plus those "tip jars" so prominently displayed at EVERY Seattle coffee shop will soon be empty or even a thing of the past. Because why would anyone want to tip someone already making $15.00 an hour just to make coffee?

Tips are a two fold "extra", 1) Giving a server a little something extra for doing a good job at their job and 2) to offset their low minimum wage.

[Streck-Fu]

Originally Posted by Chili_Wango

I was too disgusted with the company to want the promotion. It was rather serendipitous that I realized my calling for the military at the exact same time.

Is your rationale for feeling disgust for the company purely due to the observed compensation schedule?


How can you claim confidently that you are deserving of more compensation than your senior manager just because you were offered a promotion at a different location?