Fast Food Worker Strikes!

[Robert_S]

CES: are you quoting exactly minimum? Does everyone who's gotten a $0.05/hour wage disappear from that statistic? What about a dollar an hour more?

[Coito ergo sum]

CES: are you quoting exactly minimum? Does everyone who's gotten a $0.05/hour wage disappear from that statistic? What about a dollar an hour more?

Well, if a person makes more than the minimum, then I would assume they aren't considered as making the minimum. It's not a range.

[laklak]

Seems likely but that isn't an argument against minimum wage but one for it

I've no issue with minimum wage laws, if that's what the majority of people want. There are valid arguments both for and against it. I was only pointing out that the current minimum wage structures in the U.S. are comparable to the UK. I don't know about the rest of Europe, I guess I could get Googling but I'm too hung over to bother. We went to a really great seafood restaurant last night and got stuck into the white wine, then made the unforgivably stupid mistake of stopping at the shop on the way home for not one but two (count 'em, two) 1.5 liter bottles and drank both of them. We're both idiots.

[Clinton Huxley]

I think Laklak wins.

[Coito ergo sum]

Laklak should be ashamed, since he had a great time exploiting workers who don't even earn a guaranteed minimum wage.

[laklak]

Laklak should be ashamed, since he had a great time exploiting workers who don't even earn a guaranteed minimum wage.

She got a $20 tip on a $95 bill because she had great legs and a divine ass.

[Coito ergo sum]

Laklak should be ashamed, since he had a great time exploiting workers who don't even earn a guaranteed minimum wage.

She got a $20 tip on a $95 bill because she had great legs and a divine ass.

Yes, but she wasn't guaranteed that tip by the gubmint. It would have been better for her to make minimum wage and not receive tips, like they do in Yerup.

[MrJonno]

In the US, the minimum wage really doesn't matter because almost nobody who has to support a family earns only minimum wage. As noted above, the minimum wage is earned mostly be teenagers and college students working during school. Raise the minimum wage, and more of those jobs go away. If this really was about paying breadwinners a "living wage" my view might be different. But, it isn't.

The Florida one look quite high through I don't think we are comparing like with like, the minimum wage for a 21 year + is by definition not for teenagers or students. Strangely I earned more per hour at 13 than I did at 23 (all before a minimum wage, papers round paid well if you were prepared to us a pram to deliver them)

In the UK the minimum wage depends on your age and is a lot less if you are a kid

21 and over 18 to 20 Under 18 Apprentice*
£6.31 £5.03 £3.72 £2.68

The politics are also more complex than pro or anti business, even conservatives including the PM release that a low minimum wage means high tax subsidies for employers/employees. If a business can't pay it staff enough money to survive without government assistance in wages its basically not profitable which is a strong argument for letting the business go to the wall or simply nationalising it

[Collector1337]

if that's what the majority of people want.

Not an unreasonable position to hold, but you should consider some facts first.

Firstly, most people are stupid. IQ is based on a bell curve and if you disregard those with an exactly average IQ score of 100, that means 50% of the population is of below average intelligence.

Then, if you consider the next standard deviation of IQ, those with an IQ of over 100 but still within the first standard deviation, about 101-115. These people are at least above average, but not by much, so I put those people in the same category as those with below/average IQ (but to also include those with an about average IQ, which is about one standard deviation on each side of the bell curve anyway).

So, this brings me to my generalization that "most people are stupid," which is not an incorrect statement based on how IQ works and where the majority of people fit. (Also, IQ has been going down over the years compared to where the top of the bell curve was when the IQ bell curve was first established. So, people are literally getting dumber.)

Then, you have to take into consideration that many subjects, like political ones, like the minimum wage talk here, can be specialized somewhat and therefore much research needs to be done to really keep yourself up to date with all the facts and arguments of the matter. "Most people" do not take the time to do a lot of research and come to a conclusion themselves.

That makes a second layer of knowledge and intelligence it takes to really know a subject, especially political subjects like the one in this thread.

Anyway, bottom line, the old adage, "if that's what the majority of people want" or some other comment that we should default to what the majority wants, or that somehow, because it is the majority, it must be "correct" is actually quite a stupid assumption to make when you take into consideration that most people are stupid and on top of that, most people are very uninformed, and even worse, very misinformed.

This is why a Constitutional Republic like America has, is much better than "democracy" which is nothing more than mob rule. Nothing more than 2 wolves and a sheep deciding on what's for supper.

Then on top of that, think about how emotional people are, and how emotions run high and after something bad happens, there is always the "something must be done about this!" kind of outcry.

Just imagine if laws and all of society had to bow to the whims of the majority's emotions! It would be ridiculous.

Now, I'm not a fan of a dictatorship or anything like that, but I predict the future will be like the Marching Morons. There will be an elite, highly intelligent, but relatively small portion of the population who will end up gaining power and have to take care of the rest of the population because they are too stupid to take care of themselves.

Then, when you have people like jonno and groper, who basically say, that we should just accept Socialism as the future and let the government take care of us.

When I hear stupidity like that, and see the general direction of where society is headed, I feel the need to fight it and fight these idiots who want us to live like fucking mindless drones who need to be taken care of by the government, instead of being an intelligent, capable species who can survive living both as a group and individually. I will fight clowns like groper and jonno to my last dying breath for dumbing down society and making people weaker and more dependent, instead of stronger and more self-reliant.

To put it simply, people like jonno and groper don't want to teach people to fish, they just want to give people a fish.

Just imagine what will happen to the world, when "the majority" and "most people" are like groper and jonno, who only want to give fish, but want to teach no one how to fish.

Sorry for the tangent, but I felt like going big picture, that most people don't often see.

[MrJonno]

Better to be in a majority than a minority when trouble starts

[Collector1337]

Better to be in a majority than a minority when trouble starts

A simple answer. From a simpleton.

What "trouble" are you speaking of?

[laklak]

Raising the minimum wage, or even having one in the first place, is just a stop-gap measure. Eventually there won't BE any jobs for the morons to do, so it won't make a difference. I honestly think we're doomed as a society anyway, for many of the reasons you mentioned, Collector. We'll end up paying the lower orders to STFU, sit in their government provided LazyBoys watching fooball and drinking their Natty Lite or Colt 45. Bread and circuses. Once robots can replace what few meaningless minimum wage jobs are left there won't be much else we can do with them short of extermination camps. Besides, Micky D's and Pizza Hut need mindless consumers and the military needs cannon fodder. Those with the money or gumption will either get out of the country or isolate themselves to the best of their ability. Problem is there's not many places left to go that aren't going to be in the same dire straits. UK and mainland Europe are out, they're further along the trail than we are and I've already tried living in both. Oz and New Zealand aren't any better. There's Belize and Costa Rica, they might suffice.

We're honestly looking at selling up everything, putting the money offshore and moving back to Africa, but I'm not sure how much longer that will be a viable choice from a political perspective. The other option is to get some serious acreage up in the mountains, 200 acres or more, and let everyone in the extended family build a house. We're all a bunch of gun toting, pit bull owning rednecks and are pretty adept at making do, there's not much one or the other of us can't do. Just get as far off grid as we can and hunker down. It won't be getting any better once we hit that tipping point, so it's either circle the wagons or just accept life as an Epsilon Minus Submoron drone and develop a taste for Natty Lite and Soylent Green.

[MrJonno]

Scarily I agree with a lot that laklak says, capitalism cannot possible supply enough work for the majority of the population in the end. I think we have probably got a generation or two but even know a significant % of the population are not going to be capable of ever being economically productive from the second they are conceived

[laklak]

Scarily I agree with a lot that laklak says, capitalism cannot possible supply enough work for the majority of the population in the end. I think we have probably got a generation or two but even know a significant % of the population are not going to be capable of ever being economically productive from the second they are conceived

Our analysis of events is usually fairly close, mrjonno, our differences generally lie in how we would deal with the problems. You prefer to rely on the social and political infrastructure, I prefer to rely on myself. Different strokes.

[Collector1337]

Scarily I agree with a lot that laklak says, capitalism cannot possible supply enough work for the majority of the population in the end. I think we have probably got a generation or two but even know a significant % of the population are not going to be capable of ever being economically productive from the second they are conceived

I don't think it's capitalism's fault.

It's overpopulation and dwindling resources.