This would probably be more fun if I waited til Monday for the day shift office workers, but whatever.
'The absurd idea of a minimum wage, and other regulations imposed on employers, means it is often not economic for businesses to hire people. Wages should be what the market will bear, not what the principles of socialism dictate.'
Discuss, I guess.
Fuck market failure
I want me a decent slice of pie to feed to the kids.
^ this
i suppose you also think imigration should be whatever the market can bear?
lulz
well if brits are losing out
to migrants it serves them right for not being good enough to do the job doesn't it?
The quote is from an article in the Telegraph.
Immigration is a related but seperate issue, and shall not be discussed here.
but surely the crux of
this "debate" is about how far the principles of the free market should be restricted?
why not?
it's about the supremacy of the market, that market should decide and there should be minimal government interference. you can't ring fence one topic. it's all part of the same argument.
I have acknowleged
that the two topics are related. I fear that by bringing up immigration, this thread will go over some very tired ground and the focus will be shifted too much.
okay then
"Wages should be what the market will bear, not what the principles of socialism dictate."
'bear' is different from 'set' or that nice optimal cross on the supply-demand graph. the state sets a minimum wage in (a) an effort to prevent a race to the bottom and (b) because free market capitalism doesn't work. free markets with social intervention - ie all social / liberal democracies - does. this is widely acknowledged by people like bill gates, warren buffet and ingvar kamprad. you freemarketers are a silly lot, much like your commie counterparts. yeah in theory things work, but in real life they don't. even hong kong has socialised healthcare and housing and even america has a (too low) minimum wage. get over it.
This is the kind of response I was looking for!
And I do, to some extent, agree with it.
what a stupid statement.
minimum wage happened for a reason.
exactly
to help paraplegic black muslim lesbians support their twelvty kids. all of which are by different fathers.
but surely they dont work????
rather leech offa the state by suing people for wishing the happy christmas or something. The only thing a minimum wage does is take money out of the pockets of harding working executive directors. they are the ones that make britain tick!
yep
money is all. why impose any kind of regulations on business? i say bring back child labour too - they obvioulsy arent learning anything at school any more. it will also make us competetive with China.
nice to see someone talking sense
it depends how high it's set
if someone was proposing an £12 an hour minimum wage, i'd agree.
i wouldnt think the uk minimum wage, even now it's slightly more reasonable, is much of a disincentive for employers.
If it's cheaper for the employers to get a machine to do a job than it is to pay minimum wage, then it's pretty wasteful for the economy to employ people to do those jobs anyway.
yeah
if anything the minimum wage encourages a move to more value added industries.
plus, i question the worth or validity of any business that can't afford to pay £5.60 or whatever it is to their workers
those in the service sector
often get paid minimum wage, making them dependent on people that receive vastly over-inflated salaries...
* i mean, under minimum wage
...the principle being similiar to Maggie's notion of a 'trickle-down' effect, which left 3 million unemployed in the '80s.
you mean tips go to make it up?
is that even legal anymore?
As far as i'm aware,
it's not legal.
So she's either talking about illegal cash in hand work, exagerating, or making it up.
why would i make it up?
have you never tipped anyone?
fair enough, i've never heard it's illegal but i do know that many waiting staff are quite dependent on service charges
to top up their wages
not to replace them
why should any worker in a restaurant
be dependent on the whim of a customer?
why should anyone need their wage to be 'topped up'?
If you do a menial job
you will get menial pay.
i hope
someone wanks into your soup.
sorry, not the most adult response
but these menial jobs underpin our economy. the service industry is the biggest industry in this country - as far as i know.
that's an argument for a higher minimum wage
which is not what you were saying originally
of course I was
well, i think I was arguing in favour of at least keeping it. i certainly don't want it to be any lower. it doesn't affect me, but widening the already significant gap between the rich and poor in this country isn't something i'm in favour of!
overall i think the service industry contains a larger more significant percentage of the nation's workers than the private finance sector (i include those who work for poor pay in other service industries such as entertainment, as well as catering and domestic work). this is what i mean by 'underpinning' the economy
yes..
i think it's legal, still. at least, last time I read, it was.
And even if it's not, service industry employers (esp. in catering) often use temporary staff to manage schedules in such a way that few get paid a living wage for a week
i think minimum wage is about the only thing a lot of workers can depend on - working conditions/contracts/job security is pretty shit and all legislated for the benefit of business
/
minimum wage is a great idea- in theory giving you the absolute minimum you can live with in the current age. Are you proposing it be lower?
This is pretty low:
£3.40 per hour for all workers under the age of 18, who are no longer of compulsory school age.
The minimum wage is pathetically low as it is.......
If it was truly supposed to reflect the actual cost of living it would have to be set at closer to 8 pounds per hour (10 in London?).
It's no use directors complaining about the cost of abiding by the minimum wage laws, if things get much worse there is the potential for civil disturbances on an absolutely unimaginable scale.
The Poll Tax riots will seem like nothing.
I'm not proposing anything.
The article proposes the minimum wage not only be lowered, but abolished.
Unfortunately
if it was abolished, people like me who don't require a constant income would be accepting £1 an hour jobs for the sake of it and the economy would collapse.
minimum wage is below living wage
two different things.
minimum wage is £5.35 or something and living wage, in london at least, is £7.50, or was a couple of years ago
Good afternoon Mr G.Guevara
Aside from Vikram
who has raised some valid points, the rest of the retorts seemed to be based around sarcasm, exageration and 'humour' (Guntrip being the main protagonist). I haven't yet seen a strong rebuttal.
what's your opinion on this topic, samuel?
do tell
Samuel?
I'm not against the minimum wage per se. Indeed, it (along with making Musuems/art galleries free to enter) is seen as being one of the great achievements of the current Labour administration; and I can see why it has been lavished with praise.
However, it does go somewhat against my basic anti-regulation/anti-buraeucratic stance. So, in short, it's a confusing topic for me.
awww you're becoming a social democrat!
you just tilt to the more neo-lib side of it that's all
Some regulations are needed.
This is true of the entire spectrum of Humanity.
because there is no such thing as
a "free market"
*sigh*
it's not really a very fair way to start a debate. it's not clear what the quote means.
- does "other regulations" include safety, notice periods, maternity pay, national insurance contributions etc? that nothing at all should get in the way of a free labour market? or is that exaggeration?
- is there an assertion that any minimum wage even if set at low level reduces employment? is it about the uk minimum wage? somewhere else? or a proposed new system?
Do you think that some
people should starve then because it's what the market can bear? Should people not be offered the same wage for jobs of the same labour? Should women not work because obviously all the jobs should go to men? Should you fuck off to another forum?
The reason there are many a sarcastic reply, is because people either think you're kidding, in which case, ha bloody ha. And if you're not, seriously go away.
there's a reason
why I don't read the telegraph. I think the above explains it.
just because he holds views counter to your own doesn't mean he should go away
if he is unacceptably offensive or trollish with them, that's another story. but the views themselves are valis and he has right to express them. i bet you call yourself a liberal too - funny thing is he is probably more liberal than you
and who gets to decide
if views are valid?
You- _vikram?
Upholder of all morals?
i;m not the one asking someone to leave because i don't like their politics
lol, i bet you do think of yourself as a 'liberal'!
there are other forums
to go on to propagate this kind of thinking? What is DiS these days- a virtual sanctuary for the politically deranged and the sexist?
Ah. ok
So you should only preach to the converted? You should only dscuss things when you know people will agree with you?
That's it, i'm of the Conservative Home forums...
i wouldnt call advocating abolishing the minimum wage as 'deranged'
wrong, but not deranged. get a grip.
Myself and Vikram disagree on pretty much everything.
I don't think he would go out of his way to 'defend' me.
voltaire innit
Aristotle surely?
whatever
Haha
Oh my little man, don't be so silly.
'The reason there are many a sarcastic reply, is because people either think you're kidding, in which case, ha bloody ha. And if you're not, seriously go away.'
I hate to disappoint you, but as I said this quote is from a respected journalist, in a quality national newspaper; so why would I (or the author) be kidding?
lol
if you are Gay Guevara, you've got a considerably better at this.
of course he is
he's got much better
at this whole trolling thing.
I wouldn't call this trolling.
Trolling would imply coming on here just to fuck up the boards and disrupt everything. I think what i've done here is given everyone of killing an hour or so before it's time to leave the house.
it's not a controversial view at all
after all, only ten years ago we didn't even have a minimum wage!
this doesn't change the fact the telegraph is wrong on this one.
"Guntrip being the main protagonist"
i don't bother gracing stupid ideas with serious replies.
I hate to break this to
but the author of the article is more respected than you will ever be. People pay to read his opinions on a daily basis. For someone who ( i think?) Has not even been to university to cast of his writings as a 'stupid idea' without providing any reasons for doing so smacks of unjustified arrogance and, yes, stupidity.
haha there you go!
just because someone is paid for something doesn't automatically mean their opinion is better. i remember you uses to say company directors must be right because they are paid more, and mp's are right because they wouldn't be mp's otherwise. a weird solipsism you had going on. though you are right about not providing reasoning etc.
No, it is true that
just because he is paid doesn't make him right.
But in this instance I think it would be fair to trust his opinion (based on his track record) over that 'Guntrip what's off Drowned in Sound'.
This isn't to say that the journo is automatically right, but Guntrip's track-record (of which he doesn't have one), doesn't inspire me to blindly follow him.
You're very very silly
By that logic, we should basically respect the opinion of anyone who's in print and has been to a university of some sort?
No, but it's a question of credibility.
Simon Heffer (the journo) has it, Guntrip does not.
Also, if you read the whole article, Heffer explains himself. Gunty just says 'this is shit, trust me' and walks off.
goodness me
Simon Heffer wrote the article?
Well, I'm not sure why I'm dignifying this with a response, now...but I'm sure the facts used by Simon Heffer to illustrate his argument can also be used to argue the opposite case.
Well, read the article then tell me.
I posted a link at the bottom of this thread.
I just read it
It took all of three minutes (I had to ignore the ridiculous statements below - 'Portugal is a banana republic').
And well, he presents surprisingly few facts for an article that's in The Telegraph. He's primarily a social commentator, not an financial journalist. Abolishing the minimum wage is hardly going to help get people back into work, is it? He seems to be shooting himself in the foot there. The minimum wage is probably a rock to people that for various reasons, have been out of the competitive job market for a lengthy period of time (for example, stay-at-home mothers).
But...
An uncontrolled free market is a major contributor to poverty, as a fully free market allows the big businesses to pay workers a pittance - as they often do in developing countries - and gives the workers less power than they would have had as a subsistence farmer during feudalism, especially if they have no union. So restrictions such as the minimum wage and benefits for the uneployed are necessary to ensure that exploitation of people is limited.
Labour markets are not perfectly competetive
"An alternate view of the labor market has low-wage labor markets characterized as monopsonistic competition wherein buyers (employers) have significantly more market power than do sellers (workers). Such a case is a type of market failure and results in workers being paid less than their marginal value. Under the monopsonistic assumption, an appropriately set minimum wage could increase both wages and employment."
Discuss, I guess.
Business (and telegraph columnists)
seem to prefer applying overly-simplistic classical economic models, with flawed assumptions, to the labour market - because they tend to support their interests.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_power on the part of the employer is a very important factor here - of course how you assess that is quite political. But the assumption that they have none at all is clearly shit IMO.
it asumes perfect knowledge
that externalities are perfectly accounted for
and the market is perfectly fluid, open and lacking dominant market-players
it's just silly
I guess it depends if you believe everything in life should be dictated by the market/economic force
I don't. The economy is important but not the be-all and end-all of the world. Ultimately I believe social responsibility and creating a society where all can obtain a good standard of living is as important and probably more os.
The Telegraph's argument only works if you believe the minimum wage exists purely for the benefit of the economy and market and not for any kind of social principle.
In fact I'll go further and say the Telegraph is actually wrong as it shows it clearly understands the minimum wage to exist out of social principle and not the economy. Where the article (or at least the segment you offered) goes wrong is its failure to explain why it believes social principles should be ignored and only the market considered important.
In short it's an extremely poor quote based on questionable logic that it fails to justify and doesn't even attempt to do so. So there's not much point in discussing it further.
Come back with an intelligent well-reasoned explanation of why the market is more important than social principle and maybe it'll be worth discussing.
the market sets you free
the state quashes individual potential
in the long-term everyone benefits
blah blah blah
you know the arguments.
getting rid of it could inhibit economic growth
If 'business' were free to then the temptation to drive wages down would take hold. Not direct cuts but certainly a series of below inflation pay rises. However, this cost cutting initiative aimed at maximising profits would almost certainly backfire. With debts currently rising, the housing market on the edge of a slip even a perceived wage reduction would cripple 'consumer confidence' perhaps triggering the start of a recession, almost definitely causing a big downturn in growth.
not that my economics is what it once was.
^ This
......it could be the start of the end.
The cost of living continues to bound ahead of pay rises, Meanwhile jobs are outsourced or scrapped outright and increasing numbers are trapped in McJobs with no real prospects for future advancements or ever the chance to earn anything approaching the average salary.
The upshot of this will be that people either stop spending or, more worryingly, that they continue to spend on credit having become throughly (and you might argue, justifiably) disenchanted with their lot in life. If enough people default en masse then there will be nothing that the credit industry can do other than to collapse.