OPP Newsletter

Loki Loc: Georgia

Am I the only one who notices that every time the minimum wage goes up, within a few months, so does the price of everything else? This is usually sufficient to offset the raise in wages, often to the point that the minimum wage earner has even less buying power than before. The minimum wage earner of fifteen years ago, while making less, had a good bit more disposable income. A large scale increase in wages is always followed by an increase in prices, unless you institute price controls. which usually makes things worse.

weneedrubio

Unemployment is headed up for several reasons and this would simply kick it into high gear. Do you libs ever look at the big picture? Pay raises should be tied to performance and longevity giving both employee and employer reasons to cooperate. Soon unemployment will be much higher due to Obamacare and technology improvements and having a job at $7.25 will seem like a bonus. For every rise in the minimum wage jobs are lost at approximately a rate that balances on the money spent meaning if the wage is raised to $10(Approx. 50%) one worker for every four(25%) will be fired. This happens through some direct firing but mostly over time as it comes in the form of failed businesses which inevitably fight to keep their employees but eventually have to close their doors. This all leads to less small business, more corporatism and gov't intrusion in the form of bail outs for cronies and more rules further crushing small business. It's a Wal-Mart world so let's all get in line like Russia and China have shown us.

mmccarty12 Loc: Zionsville, Indiana

At my job, I had to take a 20% pay cut, or lose my job. This does not include the fact that I also have not received a pay raise in over three years. I estimate that the wage cut I took this year to actually be 35%-40% due to inflation. Now some asshole in the government wants to negotiate low-wage earners pay to get higher which will increase the cost of everything and the 20% pay cut I took will turn out to be a 50% cut.

WTF Liberals? First, I cannot keep my EARNINGS because you want to give them to someone else who does NOT EARN. Second, you want to take the wages I do EARN and make me pay more for the goods and services I need. There goes my discretionary spending budget. Which means less in taxes because I am not paying for items I do not need because I cannot afford them. I will only be able to pay for my utilities and food. If this keeps up, I will not be able to have cable, or a cell phone. All the while, the tax dollars I will be forced to pay will be going to subsidize some jack-off that will not work but gets to own a car, rent a home, get free food for their self and children, cell phone, etc, etc, the list goes on.

Thank you liberals for taking away my money to give to losers. I believe it is time for me to become a loser myself, I know you will take care of me then, and I can say it is not my fault, the system was against me.

BTW, if you have no sarcasm detector, I am telling you this now, that last paragraph was just that, sarcasm.

Help people to learn to stand on their own two feet, do not make them s***es to you and your system. "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime."(Paraphrased, I believe) But, that is a Biblical saying, and as you cannot stand the sight of anything religious in your vicinity, it automatically reeks of wrongness in your eyes.

Loki Loc: Georgia

Which brings us back to S.744, "Immigration." Eleven million now legal freeloaders, receiving benefits legally that many of them already receive by s**mming the sieve like system. Twenty million more of their parasitic compadres over the next ten years or so, crushing an already overloaded entitlement system. Does anyone actually believe that the 86 billion dollars a year we spend on i******s already is going to be reduced? Millions of moochers, competing for already scarce jobs and driving down wages. These are not starry eyed immigrants in search of the "American Dream," they are l***hes, most of whom immediately, upon their arrival on US soil, begin s**mming their way into freebies. Even if legalized, most of them will receive more benefits than they will pay in taxes. Liberals don't care, though, because these people v**e 80% Democrat. Pardon me for getting off topic,but the whole purpose, (supposedly) of raising the minimum wage is to increase people's disposable income. How an avalanche of cheap, unsk**led labor who suck up entitlements will improve anyone's standard of living is beyond me.

Dave Loc: Upstate New York

Sure - and raising it to 1,000 would make everybody rich - and at 5,000 everyone can be a millionaire - but 10,000 would really be nice - none of us would have to work and we'd all ride in limo's (perhaps monkeys would do the driving - but PETA might have a problem with that.

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

I challenge the claim that raising minimum wage would push the working poor out of poverty. MY claim is that if there were no minimum wage, everything in this nation would cost less and everybody would be better off.

Minimum wage was not designed to support families. No one in his right mind expects people to remain at the bottom of the pay scale throughout his entire life. That said, no one on minimum wage is helped, yet every employee everywhere is harmed, when minimum wages are increased. The employer has to find extra money, mfg plants have to find extra money, shipping companies have to find extra money, retailers have to find extra office personnel and clerks. In essence, raising minimum wages hurts the minimum wage earner more than it helps him so the simplistic idea of raising wages for the lowest denomination of "worker" hurts everyone with a job because the public pays the price of that raise which actually helps no one in any meaningful way.

mmccarty12 Loc: Zionsville, Indiana

When I was 18 or 19, the minimum wage was increased from $3.25 an hour to 3.55 an hour(IIRC). At the time I was making $3.85 an hour. When the raise went into effect, guess what happened, I did not get a $.30 increase in my wages to $4.15 an hour, I stayed at $3.85 an hour. This means that the wage increases that I EARNED after starting at $3.25 an hour were completely lost. The cost of many of the things I NEEDED went up, so I was essentially given a pay cut at the time when minimum wage earners were given a pay raise. Now you might say that was the fault of the company for not increasing my wages to cover the difference, and you would be partly right because the company was not required by the Minimum Wage Law to increase the wages of those already above minimum wage. But my question to you would be, why should it be necessary to increase my wages the difference between the old minimum wage and the new minimum wage? The minimum wage is only supposed to help those at the bottom of the pile, not everyone above it.

The only reason Liberals want minimum wage increases is because most Unions base their pay scales off minimum wage. When minimum wage goes up, by contract, the pay scale increases. AND THAT MY FRIENDS IS THE REAL REASON BEHIND A MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE. It is not to 'help' the poor, or low-income earners, it is to help the Unions.

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

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Exactly!! Why cannot individuals use their God given brains to figure out these things? Have Americans ceded their brains to their political masters?

mmccarty12 Loc: Zionsville, Indiana

Did you really ask this question expecting a 'NO' answer? :-)

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

Naaah. Just felt like asking it. :P

CrazyHorse Loc: Kansas

Quid Pro Quo, mmccarty12: You're right on with your rationale. :thumbup:

CrazyHorse Loc: Kansas

Quid Pro Quo, Tasine: I don't think the "low information" v**er even thinks about these things. It's I-pods, cell phones, sex, TV, food stamps, and just generally personal feel good pleasures. I can't even find words sufficient to describe the evident substance of the average "Vision" food stamp card swiper I see in the check out lines. To expect these high school graduates who are functionally illiterate -- defined as not able to read or write at the 4th grade level -- to actually consider a substantive issue, just isn't realistic. They are brain dead piglets sucking on the hind teat of government, who only v**e democrat for their free food stamp benefits and any other government hand outs they can get; and do not consider other issues or v**e otherwise.

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

Damned fine job of describing the "low information" v**er. It sure says what I see when I think about that demographic.

CrazyHorse Loc: Kansas

Quid Pro Quo, oldroy: Thanks for the kind words.