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Stuff you just can't make up

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Re: Stuff you just can't make up
Post by Fireflair   » Sun Sep 23, 2018 4:24 am

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I've always felt strongly that there is a point at which a person has chosen not to improve their situation. When you spend more than two or three years making minimum wage that's a strong indicator to me that you lack motivation, willingness, or ability to improve. Society should not be responsible for making your life more comfortable just because it doesn't seem 'fair'.

I sympathize about trying to get tenets out. I had bad ones in a house I own twice. The first tenet just up and left in the middle of a month, half way through the lease. Didn't pay that month and had the gall to call asking for the security deposit back after breaking the lease, not paying the last month and leaving the house a mess. The other tenet got two months behind and it took six months to get them evicted. Both times I was stuck holding the bag for repairs, clean up, and of course paying the mortgage on the property the entire time with no property income.

I personally live on about 1600 net a month and manage just fine with money to spend on myself and have the comforts I want. Now I know that's a bit more than minimum wage but not far beyond it. Most companies in my area start their manual labor out at almost twice minimum wage, which is more than sufficient for a single person to live on.

And as several posters noted our skill sets are wide and varied. I'm not yet infirmed enough that I can't do jobs which require physical labor. I can run electric in a house, industrial automation, computer repair, plumbing, basic automotive, etc, etc. So many young people in the recent generations don't seem to possess this sort of diversity in their skills. Nor a desire to acquire it.
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Re: Stuff you just can't make up
Post by Daryl   » Sun Sep 23, 2018 8:26 am

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"When you spend more than two or three years making minimum wage that's a strong indicator to me that you lack motivation, willingness, or ability to improve."
That's the nub. I have always been a high achiever, from both natural ability and a very high work ethic. However I realise that people come in a wide range of abilities and motivations. At one point in a long and varied career I worked for government writing legislation for supporting the disadvantaged. My direct personal research proved to me that there are many people who will never progress pass the basic job level, yet they do those jobs well and contribute to society.
I suppose I'm conditioned by the society I grew up in, but the thought of base level workers being pariahs in society is repugnant. We are a rich enough country to allow them to live with dignity, and still have more toys ourselves if we so wish.
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Re: Stuff you just can't make up
Post by Annachie   » Sun Sep 23, 2018 9:16 am

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There's another side to that.

When you spend 2 or 3 years on minimum wage, or unemployed, potential employers wonder why and place you in the risky pile.

With about 100 people per job, down here at least, it's quite easy to get stuck.
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Re: Stuff you just can't make up
Post by Imaginos1892   » Sun Sep 23, 2018 11:46 am

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Daryl wrote:I couldn't be a ballet dancer or an artist, and some people just can't do work above base level.

I believe that everybody is capable of learning SOME useful skill. Allowing them to whine for more money without doing anything to earn it does them and society no favors.

Annachie wrote:With about 100 people per job, down here at least, it's quite easy to get stuck.

Massive unemployment is another symptom of pegging the minimum wage too high.

Back in the 90's Qualcomm put up billboards advertising 400 jobs and the day they would accept applications. When I got there about 9:30 AM there were over 1,000 people ahead of me in a line that wound around the building and snaked through the parking lots. It took me almost two hours to get in the door, drop my resume on a huge pile and spend 20 seconds trying to tell one of the dozen harried HR people why he should look at it. When I got back outside the line was much longer. I never heard from them.

I saw estimates that over 7,000 people applied for those 400 jobs that day.

An employer takes a risk every time they hire someone. If the risk is low, if they can easily sack the ones that turn out to be mistakes, they can afford to take some chances. The more hoops they are required to jump through, the more restrictions placed on pay and 'employee protection', the more they are forced to risk and the more stringent they have to be in picking who to bet all that money on.

This leaves the people with low skills and limited experience shit-out-of-luck. How can you get experience if the stakes are made so high that employers can't afford to take any risks? They're going to hire somebody with a track record of successful employment.

People working at bottom-end jobs making $8.00 are at least working and contributing to the economy. People NOT working because the jobs they can do are not worth $18.00 are a burden on the economy. That burden further reduces the overall number of jobs available and makes everything more expensive.

That's how you get 100 people applying for every job, and a high cost of living.
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The true 'minimum wage' is always ZERO — as in, you can't get a job.
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Re: Stuff you just can't make up
Post by Daryl   » Sun Sep 23, 2018 6:35 pm

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I doubt that we will ever find common ground on this. I never talked about people whining about their low pay. Many on the bottom rung of the ladder accept that is their lot, after all they were last in class, and if they get a living wage they are content. I was always ambitious, but don't see anything wrong or lesser for those who aren't.
We don't overall have massive unemployment, always some between jobs, and some who will never work.
Overgeneralising and stereotyping perhaps, but I have found US citizens to be more money fixated and hungry than most. Might be the need to accumulate enough to cover medical expenses or a buffer against losing their job.
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Re: Stuff you just can't make up
Post by Imaginos1892   » Sun Sep 23, 2018 8:43 pm

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Daryl wrote:Many on the bottom rung of the ladder accept that is their lot, after all they were last in class, and if they get a living wage they are content.

It wouldn't have to be their lot if the ladder were made easier, both for the employees and the employers. Raising the cost of unskilled labor far beyond what it is worth increases costs for everybody, and the burden falls heaviest on those at the bottom. You're trying to lift them up by pulling on a rope tied around their necks.

To me, a 'living wage' means enough for one frugal person to survive on. You seem to mean enough to support a middle-class family on one unskilled minimum-wage job. That is not practical. There is not enough value in unskilled labor to support more than one person.

Learning to pinch every penny until it screams is a skill, too.
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Re: Stuff you just can't make up
Post by Daryl   » Sun Sep 23, 2018 11:25 pm

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Hard to hold a discussion when being misquoted. I never said "support a middle-class family on one unskilled minimum-wage job".
On 8 November 1907
In the Harvester Decision, Justice Higgins of the Arbitration Court decided that 7 shillings a day, or 42 shillings a week, was fair and reasonable wages for an unskilled labourer. This became the basis of the national minimum wage system in Australia. It was a ‘living’ or ‘family’ wage, set at a level which would supposedly allow an unskilled labourer to support a wife and three children, to feed, house, and clothe them.

Nothing middle class there, just basic working class subsistence level.
As to the not enough value argument, if a job is needed to be done it will be done regardless. Not every individual job in an organisation is likely to be positively geared. After all, you need a clean workplace, but the cleaner doesn't actually bring in a financial return directly to the organisation.
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Re: Stuff you just can't make up
Post by Imaginos1892   » Sun Sep 23, 2018 11:49 pm

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You claim I misquoted you, then go on to repeat exactly what I said!

It is not reasonable to expect one unskilled laborer to support a family of five! There is not enough value in unskilled labor.

Daryl wrote:After all, you need a clean workplace, but the cleaner doesn't actually bring in a financial return directly to the organisation.

So a few of the existing employees spend half an hour a day cleaning, or you bring in a janitor crew for an hour a couple of nights a week. You don't pay some loser $40,000 a year to sweep the floor. Actually, with all the other required benefits, that would cost around $60,000 a year.

That's what happens when unskilled labor costs more than it is worth. The job gets pushed onto the other employees, shopped out or automated. In any case, it's one less entry-level opportunity, one more unemployed.
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If a business tries something and it doesn't work, they have to stop doing it or they will go broke. If the government tries something that doesn't work, they will keep shoveling our tax money into it forever.
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Re: Stuff you just can't make up
Post by Daryl   » Mon Sep 24, 2018 1:45 am

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Come again?
"You claim I misquoted you, then go on to repeat exactly what I said!

It is not reasonable to expect one unskilled laborer to support a family of five! There is not enough value in unskilled labor."

You claimed I said to support a middle class family, I didn't. Big difference between a basic working class and a middle class level. What I quoted was the decision that set the standard for us ever since.

Our "unreasonable" country has survived 111 years since this decision. Works for us.
Possibly the cleaner example wasn't a good one being possibly outsourced, but there are plenty of base grade jobs where it needs to be done therefore it is.

Once again your attitude comes through with "You don't pay some loser $40,000 a year to sweep the floor."
Why do you look down on a person doing a basic job? A national attitude we have is "Jack is as good as his master", which comes across with all levels in a company being on a first name basis, and often socialising together.
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Re: Stuff you just can't make up
Post by Michael Everett   » Mon Sep 24, 2018 2:46 am

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Although it's rather larger than normal, Venezuela has decreed a large jump in minimum wage (approx 3,500%! WTF!) but legally banned the industries from passing on the increased costs.
At least 30% of stores in Venezuela have either closed due to wage-induced-bankruptcy or are being forced to close, putting lots of people out of work and severely increasing the number of people dependent on the (virtually broke) government.

Independent Youtube reporter Tim Poole commented on it here.

Minimum wage is somewhat akin to the bottom-most rung of the career ladder and raising it makes it harder for people to get on as the employers will insist on far higher standards for the potential employees, thus effectively locking out a portion of the population. In addition, raising the minimum wage means that companies have to find some way to pay, meaning that they will raise prices to compensate, making it even more expensive to live and increasing the burden on the state.

I'm not saying that minimum wages are a bad thing, but they are something that should be approached with a great deal of caution. The surface may be simple, but the underlying complexities are rarely understood until far too late.
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