Wait, you've lost me here. If someone who worked for $7.25 an hour has his wage raised to $8 an hour, he will have to fight to keep the $8 an hour job? To who? Someone more skilled? Where was that person before? And if he is ousted from that position and has to take a lower paying job, the lower-paying job will require more skill? Huh? It sounds like you're purposely trying to confuse people to turn them to your side of thinking.
Everyone is not paid the same wage. It's generally commensurate with experience. The $8 an hour guy is already there. Where do you get a lower paying job will require more skill? I never said that.
Yes, because large corporations can't take even a tiny hit to their profit. Smaller stores, it may be a bigger deal.
But, if the wages are raised, and more people have more money to spend, they will likely spend it. You see, giving a guy with $10 million in the bank another $100,000 doesn't do anything. It's nothing to him. Give a guy who makes $1500 a month another $250, he will likely be spending that $250 on something...at, I don't know...some of those stores who need to make more money to absorb the wage increase.
Except you're forgetting about one thinginflation. By the time that guy goes to spend that extra $250, he'll have spent it on the groceries that would be about double. That money has to come from somewhere. Money is a relatively closed system since most entities can't print it.
And, I think for many of them, their expectations have gotten way out of line, and now they can't do anything for fear of losing 0.001% of their profit to something. The quest for ever-greater profit has become the boon.
Perhaps. But who doesn't want more money for their work? And who can fault someone for it? It's still earned. If you have a product or service that people want, you deserve to be paid for it. And if your employees think they're not paid a fair amount, they can leave. They're not locked into the job. These things are voluntary.
You have repeated constantly "I'm a Libertarian". Every self-professed Libertarian I know has one quality: In it for themselves and screw everyone else. My signature has changed, but it used to be a quote from someone on this board: Libertarianism is largely an internet hobby for young males.
And the same is said of liberals in most circles I go between. Just because you misunderstand it doesn't mean it's bad. Do you know why many people say greed does more in this country than charity ever could? It's because greed creates jobs and puts food on tables. Charity can only give food when it's been given food to give.
Personally I help people when I can. I try to be mindful of people in other situations. I make more than your typical server and I eat out a lot. I know people don't often tip well, so I will. I'll take your standard tip of 20% and throw a few bucks on top, and if they're good maybe I'll tip 30-35%. If I sit at a table for a while I tip more because I know they're losing out on additional tips. If my meal is cheap and the server is good, I'll often give an equal tip. If I only get water I still tip like I got a coke or something because they still had to bring it to me.
And I apply that to everyone and everything. I respect people. I'm not rich. I grew up in a pretty Liberal household, and we didn't have much to start. I'm still trying to make it in this world. I'm self-employed and I'm hoping to start my own company, and who knows maybe I'll even be able to employ people soon.
But that raises such a can of worms because there are sooo many hoops that you have to jump through. First of all, even just for me I'll have to have someone else do my taxes. That's $1K-2K that I shouldn't have to pay (because the tax code is extremely broken). I'll need a lawyer to incorporate, or hopefully have a friend help me with his documents. There's a package that you have to buy along with that so that you have the proper seals or whatever. Then I'll have to pay SunBiz a few hundred dollars a year just to do nothing. Then I'll actually have to work. Oh and log meeting minutes with myself. And my accountant will probably want me to use quickbooks. So I'll have to get that crap software or pay more for them to use my invoices. I'll have to pay unemployment tax for my employees (me) even though I won't be able to take unemployment. So before I've made any money whatsoever, I need to make probably $4-5K just to dig out of the hole. So maybe I work one month or two without making anything or perhaps I get someone to buy a large project for that amount. Either way, that's weeks of working for the right to work at a slightly lower percentage of taxes. Then I actually have to pay probably somewhere around 20-30% in taxes, so let's take off another 3 months. So by June I might make some money. Do you see how ridiculous this is?
And all people want to do is make that already daunting amount of crap even more difficult because they forget that while X regulation may hurt WalMart it's also going to hurt all of the one and two man operations out there too.
You think that my group of people doesn't respect others, but we do. In fact it's quite the opposite. We understand business. We understand what things cost and why, and we understand the market. We get that sometimes people need to leave to make more money and we're glad they helped us along the way. Wages are a market commodity. We have to pay people what they're worth so that they'll work with us. So surprise surprise, business isn't out to get you. It needs you. As with everything there are people out there that suck, but that's not everyone. And I'm sure if you talked to a lot of business owners, they'd have a lot bigger hearts than you realize.
The media, and many others, tries to make us seem like whackjobs because they don't understand us. Our views are often counterintuitive. But once you spend a while thinking about it, they makes sense. For instance, people often think we're crazy for being in favor of legalizing all drugs. Why, everyone would be crashing cars in the streets hopped up on dope! But the truth is, we already have laws for it. People already have easy access to drugs, and already can do that. In every place it's been tried, it has gone without issue. So it's an irrational fear. But it's even more than that. Why can the government tell you what to do with your body? You don't own it. There's a Supreme Court case that decided that. And I think that is wrong. We're supposed to be responsible adults, but we can't be trusted? Of course there are some that can't be, but that doesn't mean everyone should suffer. Those that can't be trusted can't be trusted whether things are legal or not.
And for the record Libertarians are all about aid. But we want it to come from the private sector, not the government. The government is ineffective. Private entities know where to best use that money.
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Can you be specific about exactly which "regulations" cripple manufacturing in the U.S.? Whenever this comes up, it always seems to come down to air and water pollution. I'm glad "regulations" are there to minimize air and water pollution. What other regulations are you worried about?
I just mentioned a bunch in my post. I don't know why people think that regulations are only environmental. Any law that requires you to do something is a regulation. I can't start a business without having certain documents, paying an annual fee to an entity called SunBiz to basically do nothing, paying unemployment tax for my employees (which will only be me for a while) even though I won't be eligible to receive it, keeping track of meeting minutes with myself because there will be no other shareholders, etc.
There's also paying payroll taxes, employee insurance (even if they're willing to do without or provide it themselves). Then you have to 1099 subcontractors that you pay over $600 in a year, etc. etc.