Even Stevie Wonder Could Have Seen This Coming
So, just how is Seattle’s $15 minimum wage working out? It’s helping the “working poor”, right?
Well, according to a study by the University of Washington – that would be a, “No.” In fact, it’s hurting them considerably.
Seattle’s minimum wage hike hurting
low-level workers, study says
Here’s the “bottom line” from the linked article (emphasis added):
The working poor are making more per hour but taking home less pay. The University of Washington paper asserts the new wages boosted worker pay by 3 percent, but also resulted in a 9-percent reduction in hours and a $125 cut to the monthly paychecks.
The law also cost the city 5,000 jobs, the report said.
Hmm. Lower average monthly income for the working poor, plus fewer jobs overall. Yeah, that’s really helping the working poor.
This was completely predictable by anyone with any common sense whatsoever who also understands even basic economics. Businesses exist to make a profit, not as public service employment programs. Some jobs simply are not worth $15 per hour. If a locality forces businesses to pay more than a job is worth, businesses will cut hours or jobs (or both) and automate instead.
Want proof? Look at Seattle. Exactly that has happened in Seattle since their $15/hr minimum wage was mandated in 2014.
The story from Fox News linked above has a few more details. It’s worth the time to read.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Economy
No it is not a surprise.
Both sides knew what would happen.
Reasons behind the conclusion will be the debate.
Egg: Higher wages kill jobs.
Chicken: Business’ are d-bags and did everything in their power to screw over their workers.
Well, I only have one question: who the hell is this Steven Wonder?
Fuck the poor. Seattle’s liberals get to feel good about themselves and that’s all that matters.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Will the libtards learn? – $15 says “No”.
I guess the simple fact that businesses have to make a profit in order to upgrade equipment and do maintenance on the buildings they use doesn’t come into the picture at all. No, because that would make sense, and the squawkers don’t want anything that makes sense.
Well, the fools can strike and holler all they want to. They still drive businesses out of town and sometimes, out of existence.
In case the writer of that insipid article doesn’t know it, a restaurant IS a business, numbnuts. This is an economic debacle. They should have seen this coming, but the number 15 got in the way.
Restaurant help levels did not change in the study. Business’ also get to write those operating cost off against their profits.
All those companies did was move the burden onto tax payers. More of these people will now qualify for assistance programs. JQP is financing these companies profits now.
True, they do get to write off costs vs. profit, but it’s not a 1 for 1 write-off, and if they’re a start-up with little to no profit yet, there’s nothing to offset, and the business fails. As for moving the burden to taxpayers, that just makes me think of “you break it, you bought it” when govt decides to tell businesses how they must operate, they become responsible for a part of the results, i this case ones that as the post starts with, a blind man could have seen coming..
Yes I know it is not 1 for 1, but a company forecasts how much they are going to make in profits and can and do manipulate those numbers to better their tax position.
Children on the payroll. Family dinners on the expense account. I need that 75k business vehicle to drive to the office and the wife needs the 75k SUV to take the kids to soccer practice. All while not a single clients ass ever touches the leather.
Very true, like any situation, the potential for fraud, etc exist, and some take advantage of it. That doesn’t mean everyone does, my wife sure as hell didn’t when she ran her business. But none of that changes that for a business with minimal profits, those things only go so far, when costs exceed profits (including tax write-offs), they loose
No.
The entity responsible for moving that burden onto taxpayers wasn’t business. The entity responsible was the Seattle city government.
This was a completely foreseeable consequence of their misguided policy. Well, guess what? What was predictable . . . happened. And taxpayers now get stuck with paying for their mistake.
Bottom line: don’t blame business for an asinine and counterproductive policy imposed on them by law. They didn’t make that choice.
When fixed and variable costs exceed revenue,How long will any business remain open?
That all depends on how mush cash is in the Owners equity account.
When operating revenue is <= 0, and owners equity is <=0, then, by by.
What’s the big deal?
So what if there was a 9% reduction in hours and they’re making less money. So what if the city lost 5,000 jobs.
Now they can focus on having more free time to pursue other important things, like spending time with family, or learn how to play a musical instrument, or take up some other worthwhile endeavor.
Spending time at work to make money? (Who the fuck needs that?!)
Having a job and making money is overrated.
The single greatest quote that she ever uttered.
Has anything these assclowns advocated/ shoved down our throats EVER worked out as promised? Anything? Bueller??? This country has the best “support net” in the world. Established to give a hand up to anyone who needed it. College for free, free housing, free healthcare, free food/booze/cigarettes, free daycare, free phones, free TV’s, free, free, free!!! Yet the so called “poor and disenfranchised” continue to “struggle”. Give me a fucking break. I’ve seen poverty and NO ONE in the US of A lives in poverty. If I am required to support the millions of deadbeats/illegals/criminals, I should be able to claim them on my fucking taxes.
Holy shit, I just came.
Shit Me too!!
A bukake worthy post, if there ever was one.
(no Homo)
I am of the female persuasion, so no homo indeed😁
All that Free stuff you are yelling about was not intended to make the user rich.
It made business’ rich. The money went to Sprint and Verizon for the phones, not the user. The money went to the Dallas Dairy Conglomerate from WIC. A guaranteed multimillion dollar profit kiss from Uncle Sam.
I will agree that us in the Service have seen true poverty in the World and what we have here in the US is not it.
You’re right CB, the USERs (good choice of words there) did not get rich, the big political donors did, but making the users rich was not the intent. The intent is to give the masses just enough that they’re slightly better than working hard at an entry level job, which encourages them to choose sitting on their asses over working, and then, to maintain that position, continuing to vote for those that give them the free shit. It’s nothing more than a new form of slavery.
Except that we do the work.
Well said!
I didn’t say or imply that the free shit was to enrich the “poor and disenfranchised”. When it’s ever so comfy to sit on your ass cause you don’t have to worry about a roof over your head and food in your belly, where is the motivation to get a fucking job? And isn’t that the intent? Serfs dependent on Uncle Sugar who can still VOTE?? The safety net was meant as a hand up not a fucking lifestyle.
100% agree.. it seems that if your entire income is unearned money from the govt ( not talking about pensions, social security, etc, all of those have been earned in one way or another) then voting for those who give you the cash is a direct conflict of interest.. I’d say that for the duration of your being on welfare, you should not be allowed to vote, due to that conflict.. once you’re back to earning your own money, you can vote again, because the conflict is gone..
If you guys will recall, one of the few sensible things that slick Willie Clinton did was start a ‘welfare to work’ program. I saw no harm in that, at all.
And guess who abolished it, right off the bat? Yes, he did.
I remember chatting with a friend of a dark-toned ethnicity who had grown up USA-poor, talking about a time I spent in a family’s home in rural Mexico while on a mission trip.
I mentioned dirt floors and open rafters across which the rats could be seen running, with the (unroofed, wall-less) outhouse about 25′ from the water source (kneel down and dip a bucket).
He acknowledged that he had never been that poor.
This is what happens when politicians interfere with the inevitability of basic applied business mathematics.
S&L bailout, Like too big to fail.
Was that not interfering with a free and open market. Why did we not let those companies go out of business?
Political donations would have dried up.
Sorry – my cynicism is showing again.
That is my point. They scream Free Market until their bad business put us on the hook, then they want the Gov’t to intervene. Govt tries to help out a different sector of the population and they then scream again it is interfering with the Free Market because it supposedly hurts their bottom line.
Both ways Bullshit
Privatize the profits, socialize the losses. A business model I don’t agree with.
CB, are you some sort of communist or something?
It looks to me you are accusing companies of doing the only thing they are supposed to do: make money for their stockholders.
Of course they gonna come crying to the gruberment asking for handouts. It is the government’s duty to tell them to fuck off and die if they can’t play in a free market economy and win.
Everything bad in our economy is the sole responsibility of one single institution: our government.
I’m on my “smart” phone, so I won’t look this up…..yesterday I heard / read to the effect that McDee’s stock is going UP. Better burgers? Nah. Better service? Maybe.
Better cost cutting due to automation! Yep. McDees has started installing and implimenting automated kiosks at their franchises to cut costs.
It was bound to happen. I learned this in a college class (too many decades ago), that when new (automated) technology starts to cost less then the tried and true manpower, guess what happens? Yep. And this $15/hour minimum wage was just the push needed to get this new stage of automation rolling. You get the gold star for the day.
Yep, and the automated kiosks never call in sick, never come in stoned, never spit in the food, or do other stupid shit that costs the business money…This wage increase just perpetuates the myth that these people, especially kids are owed a job. My wife and I have worked hard to instill in our kids the idea that noone owes you a job, but when you take a job you owe that employer 100% effort. If you don’t like the job, the pay, etc, work hard and find a new job that fixes the issues you have with the current one.
Nor do the machines do things like wipe the floor with a burger bun while filming it for YouTube.
AS a ‘for instance’, my wife used to work at Walmart. She frequently talks to her former co-workers, about how things are going, etc.
Father’s Day there were 34 employees scheduled to work day shifts, of those 34, 25 were no-shows. They didn’t bother calling in, they just didn’t show up. There weren’t enough employees to unload the trucks that came in, because they had to stock shelves and run 2 cash registers. The self check-out area still requires one employee to oversee the machines, but he/she oversees 8 self-serve registers.
Yet, probably 20 of those 25 will be outraged if/when they get fired.
Then why are we trying so hard to save Coal jobs? Most of it is automated and the economy has passed it by. Most other business’ have converted to gas and are not going back.
Most businesses that converted were forced to by EPA and other govt mandates, so once again, that really just illustrates the problem of the govt getting involved
A whole bunch of American Gas reserves are owned (or controlled) by major donors to the Democrat party.
Apparently that negates the carbon in Gas from impacting the environment, somehow.
Now, it would be rather cynical to assume that the Democrat opposition to Coal was in any way tied to the Gas wealth clique being major Dem contributors.
If the government lacked the power to tinker with energy production by rigging the system, in -any- direction, there would be a heck of a lot fewer attempts to buy that government influence.
If I remember correctly, a number of solar and wind power outfits were also major D-rat donors as well.
Solyndra, $600,000,000 of taxpayer money before they went belly up. Try as I may, I cannot locate any information as to (a tip of the hat to Psaul) how many solar panels were actually manufactured, sold and or installed.
I try to avoid fast food, but hey everyone needs a cheat day. When I do order it, I would RATHER have a machine prepare it. Machines don’t yank out the fries early, miss getting the cheese squarely on the meat, etc.
And they don’t chat with other employees while you wait in line and starve.
I no longer shop for cat food/stuff at the pet stores. The cost is considerably lower if I order it shipped from Chewy dot com, and I get it the next day. They offer a flat rate for shipping, all weights. I know it’s all warehouse in origin because they are using the same model that Amazon uses. Same brands, much cheaper, and I’d guess their overhead is seriously low.
The other thing that is relatively new (last couple decades) is that jobs at McD or Taco Bell are intended to provide a “living wage” for those who work there. That was never intended to be the case; such jobs were intended either for those in school or as entry-level into the workforce. (McD in my area of Silicon Valley is paying $13 per hour. No wonder the food costs keep going up. I can’t wait for automation!)
Yeah, but have you ever tried to sexually harass an automated kiosk? That’s why Thomas “Turd” Bolling of Ambassador World Wide Protective Services will always employ young women.
Yep. I’ve even read that some eating establishments have released “apps” where food can be ordered from your phone and picked up later.
Whodathunkit?
Also, Uber will deliver your order to your home from many fast food chains. You don’t even have to wait in line!
Why can’t you look it up in your phone?
I do everything in my phone. I got all my music, all my family pictures and videos, all my friends contacts (not that I have many friends left. They say I have become a cynical asshole) and pretty much everything important in my life.
Oh, my calendar. The most important app in my phone, so I don’t miss my deadlines.
I have yet to figure out what makes unskilled labor worth more than the job I had that demanded real skills in order to get the job, hold it and gets advances and reasonable pay raises.
It does bother me that the people who are demanding this kind of increase think money just falls out of the sky somehow.
And just what the hell is wrong with a company making a profit? McD’s wouldn’t be around to give these morons jobs if it hadn’t been profitable in the first place.
It’s not just the kiosks, there already are machines available that prep, cook and wrap the food. “$15 an hour to flip burgers? Meet your replacement, *BEEP*, *CLICK*, *Whirrrr*…”
Ahhh the Jetsons!
A while back I mentioned a restaurant at Fashion Valley Mall in San Diego called Stacks. It’s a novelty burger joint that runs with a minimal wait staff because every table is equipped with a low-end iPad and card reader. The floor staff only bring you food, bus tables, and help you if you want to pay cash. The shape of things to come?
Oh my, I am shocked at the inappropriate use of dark humor by Hondo in the title. I guess he figures that since Trump is in office its ok to make fun of peoples disabilities.
You’re a sick man, Dave Hardin. I like that.
Helen Keller also bragged that she was immune to flashbang grenades.
Where was the spew alert? I am reaching out to my personal attorney, Daniel Bernath, Esq., to file a lawsuit against you, the host of this website, and Al Gore (for inventing the internet).
Dave I love that photo!!!! LMAO!!!!!
(Here come the Helen Keller jokes…)
How did Helen Keller burn her face last Halloween?
Bobbing for french fries.
Why did Helen Keller’s dog commit suicide?
You would too if your name was *AAAIIIAGHAAAIIIIII*!
If Helen Keller fell down in the woods, would she make any sound?
What did Helen Keller do when she fell out of a window?
She screamed her hands off.
GAWDAM! That’s funny… I am a sick individual…
Now I have to google Hellen Keller.
I have a song by 3oh5 that says some stupid shit like do a hellen keller.
I have never known what it means. English is a difficult language.
Oh man, she was a friggin COMMUNIST! !!!!1111
A Socialist, actually.
That does not diminish her many accomplishments, although it is disappointing.
The reason Dave posted this was because he knew it was Helen Keller’s Birthdate (27 June 1880).😉
Keynesian economics never works. Simply printing more money (literally or figuratively) just tanks the value of that money unless more actual value (i.e. goods & services) is created behind it. If you want twice as much money for flipping burgers, it won’t do you any good unless you flip twice as many burgers.
Funny how this board hates academia unless it agree with them then suddenly their papers are conclusive proof. Confirmation bias much? This is a WORKING PAPER. Which in academic circles mean the paper is not useable as a valid source. It has not been peer reviewed and the methodology is only now being investigated by the larger academic community. After any flaws in methodology and data sets are investigated and the paper is REWRITTEN to reflect changes and fixes THEN it is submitted for peer review. This paper also did no investigate an increase to $15 an hour. Merely the effects of the phase 2 increase to $13 from the phase 1 increase to $11 something (I don’t remember phase 1 but it was $11 and some change). And this article leaves out a few things; 1. This only is SOME low wage jobs. MOST SIGNIFICATLY it says the effect on restaurant workers is negligible as with previous studies. Which is significant given the focus of this controversy usually revolves around fast food restaurant workers. 2. The paper makes it clear the wage hike is not the ONLY factor that led to the aggregate earning decrease for non-restaurant low wage workers. The paper does argue that the wage hike was likely the primary cause. These articles also failed to mention that Seattle’s economy has been BOOMING since the wage hikes. But has slowed this year (last quarter). So what I suspect that they will find is that there is a certain amount of wage value being captured by employers due to the disproportionate negotiating power and long established industry wage fixing that naturally occurs in a sector. This value is being kept by employers through suppressed and stagnated wages over time. When the state steps in to raise worker wages that value is transferred to the worker and their wages become close the ACTUAL MARKET VALUE of their labor to the company. So everything is fine and the economy booms because a larger percentage of revenue in sectors employing low wage workers is being recirculated BACK into the local economy… Read more »
YAP, YAP,YAP,YAP, YAP,! Here you go yet again Babbles McButthead, and you didn’t even whip out your empirical evidence! You really need to go see someone before you make your own head explode for real. Maybe you’re wanting $15 an hour for fast food work because that’s the only civilian job you’ve ever had and you admitted that yourself. As for me I started out working minimum wage jobs but I looked toward improving my job skills and education to make myself more valuable to an employer instead of bawling and sniveling for an unreasonably high starting wage. I also looked for a job where I had upward mobility and more responsibilities often means more pay, does that thought ever enter your pus-brained little head? I see a job future for you as a Government Bureaucrat, you’re too fart-brained and incompetent to keep any job in the private sector.
Does anyone here actually real all of his verbose drivel besides “shit-n-run” joe and LC? (Just inquiring for a friend.)
I only lightly grazed through it not wanting to lose TOO many IQ points from reading it! IMHO Babbles McButthead’s rants are evidence of how thoroughly colleges can brainwash people into mental oblivion.
No. Why? Did the Piuperdink say anything worth reading?
I was busy researching something directly related to my current subject matter, something about Bronze Sun Gods. And then lunch called.
Did I miss anything?
Nothing important. Just another impotent rage by Berkeley-boi because reality isn’t what his Party Superiors say it must be.
Hmm – “impotent rage”. Cause/effect, maybe?
Impotent RAAAAAAAAGGGE!!!!!
The -Liberal- Superhero!
Fine analysis, Hondo.
Bronze Sun Gods are a primitive representation of BSG Battle Star Galactica.
When the crew of the BSG arrived on primitive earth the local thought they were looking at sun gods, and thus bronze sun gods. Or something.
In this case, it was a quote of something IDC_SARC said a while back, about returning from a field exercise.
I could have been referencing Eric Bana in ‘Troy’, as well.
Did you hear about the time Lars went full radical and tried to blow up a car?
He burned his lips on the tailpipe…
SPEW ALERT
That is funny.
ROFL! I can’t laugh too loudly–I’ll wake the rest of the family.
Nope. I wish we had a twit filter here. Lars and Joe would be permanent residents. I simply don’t have time for their inane babbling.
He didn’t mention “empirical evidence” this time because the study by UW contains exactly that. And that empirical data supports the conclusions above – whether or not Berkeley-boi acknowledges it.
Accurate data is accurate data, whether or not it’s publication-ready or supports the conclusions you want. Deal with it, Poodle.
After all the carefully reasoned verbiage, I notice he ends up with “fuck off” – I’ve come to the conclusion he is incapable of writing without antagonizing someone for no reason. Like the joke says… he ain’t here for the hunting.
Oh, you see that, too? Well, he IS as transparent as glass. It’s a guess, of course, but I think the only reason he shows up on TAH at all is to try to piss off all of us because he’s pissed off at us. He seems to be pissed off at just about everything, too, like a one-trick jackass.
Maybe back in grade and high school he was “that kid” who always got “dog piled ” in gym class and he can’t help but keep enticing people to do so even to this day?
Lars, you are wrong.
Any one with any real-world experience and a clear mind knows you are wrong.
Your screed is wrong.
Your faith in communist/socialist/fascist dogma is wrong.
Don’t go away mad. Just go away. Stay in Californicate until it becomes like Illinois, if you wish. Move to Illinois. Move to Venezuela. I don’t care.
Just go.
Illinois? OH, Graybeard, I pray you, do NOT inflict the malfeasance of the Land of Fruits and Nuts on the Midwest Corn Belt.
Just because the state legislature is under the thumb of Dan “MINE MINE MINE!” Madigan, who has blocked a budget for two-plus long years, it does not mean this state does not have its good qualities. Cook County has inflicted a tax on soda drinks, because the county coffers have sunk in debt generated by decades of corruption. Preckwinkle is not the same breed as Madigan. She may prevail.
And some day, despite what he thinks, Madigan is still going to die and all his corrupt practices will be brought to light, include those (gerrymandered voting districts) already known about for months.
Illinois is a fine state. It would be finer if the legislature would do its job.
All it would have to do is divorce Chicago, Cook County, East St. Louis and Illinois would become a Red State! Illinois has had what, FIVE of its past Governors go to prison?
Yes, something like that, and they were all dumbocraps, if I recall correctly. The GOP governor that had the longest term is now an attorney in one of Chicago’s high-end law firms – don’t remember which one, but he will never retire.
Madigan will be gone some day and someone else with less slime will take his place.
Hey, I know this song.
Don’t go away mad, just go away…
Mötley Crue?
Wow that was a lot of words to say a lot of nothing.. yes it was preliminary, and yes, it will be more valid once peer reviewed, but as you point out, this was related to the first phase, going to $13/hr.. so if employers cut hours, and jobs at that lever, exactly why do you think it will get better if they go up another $2/hr??? And as for workers being paid what they’re worth, in what world is asking “would you like fries with that” worth $15/hr??? and as for your comment:
“It is no coincidence that the recent GOP healthcare bill was worked on in private with no public awareness or access and even most of our elected representatives not able to view it until it was finished. Do you know who was allowed into the room to negotiate the structure of the bill? Industry lobbyists.” Is an exact description how the clusterfuck known as obamacare was done!!! and while I agree it should be a more open process, I’m curious as to why you didn’t give a rats ass when your leftist friends did the same thing you’re bitching about now?
As usual, you’re just spouting more bullshit fed to you by your handlers..
Yeah, let’s not forget Nanny Lugosi’s “We have to pass this bill to find out what’s in it ” when that living abortion of a law was passed with ZERO Republican votes.
I thought this statement in the reply, above, was significant: “These articles also failed to mention that Seattle’s economy has been BOOMING since the wage hikes. But has slowed this year (last quarter).”
Well, Seattle is a high-tech area, just as Silicon Valley is. I strongly suspect that the reason for the “boom” mentioned has to do with high-tech profits and is unrelated to, and uncorrelated with, the mandate to increase fast food workers’ salaries to $15/hour.
I doubt whether any economic “boom” has been generated by paying unskilled/low skilled workers a so-called “living wage.” Rather, it occurs because private companies (in this case, Seattle technology companies, most likely) are producing products that sell well. Right now, people making good money can financially tolerate paying “living wages” to low/non-skilled workers, so the financial stress is not observed at a wider level. If “tech boom” were ever to become “tech bust” (as it did with the implosion of the telecommunications industry in 2001-02 http://www.economist.com/node/1234886) the “advantage” of lifting no/low-skilled job salaries to $15/hr would likely be reconsidered.
Whats “academia”? Never had it so I am not sure if it agrees with me.
If its anything like an artichoke I probably won’t like it. Most of that fancy California yuppie food leave me hungry and gives me gas.
Maybe if I can grill it? BBQ sauce usually does the trick on most things.
Here in the Red Vastness of America I found if I clean my Bible and read my Guns life is a lot simpler.
“…if I clean my Bible and read my Guns life is a lot simpler.”
In some strange way that even makes sense.
Yup.
‘…if I clean my Bible and read my Guns…’
That’s one of the funniest damn things that I’ve seen in quite some time.
Reading now from The Book of Guns, Chapter 11, Verse 27…
I’m fond of the book of John Moses Browning, Chapter 19, Verse 11
In this particular instance, and coming from that particular source up above, I believe that ‘academia’ is meant to be some sort of highfalutin, cross-pollinated, hybrid fruit and nut concoction that smells bad and has no intrinsic value whatsoever, and that is imported directly to us from a dimly lit, dank basement somewhere in California.
As for BBQ sauce, maybe you could just try using some Tabasco sauce instead?
I find that Tabasco sauce is usually a sure-fire cure-all for any trendy gastronomic challenges, including any of that grotesque California yuppie food that happens to be forced upon me by clueless hosts and hostesses on the rare occasion that I’m out and about in polite society.
Works every time.
Bon Appetit!
Tabasco sauce in day-old coffee makes it palatable, as well.
“What’s that?”
“That’s an artichoke.”
“An artichoke, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Well, it might choke Artie, but it ain’t gonna choke me.”
What’s the difference between a puppy and a liberal?
A puppy stops whining when it grows up.
Still waiting on that clarification, Lars. So you were on the line. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Were you pulling hose or cutting line with hand tools? Was that line direct (right up on the edge of the fire) or indirect (some distance back from it). This is not a loaded question, both methods are potentially valid, depending on conditions and available resources. What you describe sounds like indirect hand line (i.e. cut with hand tools, no water). Active fire is burning *actively* with open flames all along the line. Inactive fire is mostly smoldering with little to no open flames. Two meters? Seriously? No wonder nobody believes you when you deny being a commie! I don’t speak Canadian, but over six feet is a pretty tall fence. In all seriousness, though, this has to do with what you could and couldn’t have done effectively. Fuel type and loading are pretty self-explanatory for most people, but I can Barney-style for you if necessary. Type is what kind of vegetation (or manmade material) is there to burn. Are there trees? Are they pines, oaks, etc. Specific species doesn’t matter so much. Are there downed logs? Is there brush? How tall? Is there grass? Is there tree litter/duff? Is there both? How much of all that stuff is green and how much is dead (before it burns)? Loading is the overall density of that fuel. In basic terms, can you see through it? Can you walk through it? Is there a gap between the lower tree branches and the understory below? “Weather was hot.” No shit. How about the wind? Not asking for NOAA data, just if it was windy, and can you tell me if, as you faced the fire, was it in your face, at your back, or crosswind? Was the air clear or were you sucking smoke? How about RH? Just whether it was dry or muggy. How steep was the slope? Again, not asking for a topo map. Just tell me if it was steep enough to make for a strenuous hike. Did you stay sidehill for the… Read more »
TOW, I don’t think he’s even remotely capable of composing a coherent answer to that, IMHO Babbles McButthead has been brainwashed into a complete mental oblivion totally devoid of anything other than the gobbledygook his profs spoon feed him.
Aaand…crickets. What a surprise.
You can grill him all you want to, TOW. The fact is that he says things that are mostly generated out of pocket lint and nose hairs, and his sole intent is to piss people off. When he can’t do that, he goes into one of his rants over nothing.
Save your energy for more important things.
TLDR. Sorry.
Ah, Commie-sarr, you never met a Marxist screed you didn’t like.
I have a number of family, friends a professional acquaintances who can sing the Proggy line in their sleep, and even sound rational, quite reasonable.
You, on the other hand, could not persuade a squad of soldiers to follow you to a brothel, if you were dragging a duffle bag of c-notes.
Artificially jack up the price, people look for substitutes, or shop elsewhere. The fact that a “boom” hasn’t yet been strangled does not mean that the “fleece the producers” policies are good for it, or even sustainable.
That is why proggy regions are hemmoraging jobs to places run more rationally, more free.
You advocate that we become Venezuela, and reap all the supposed benefits, but you nitwits promise that somehow you are smart enough to avoid all the predictable disaster.
So, we should take the advice of a “Commi-ssar” (“don’t call me Commie”), who thinks that the best candidate was the -incompetent- Marxist crook, versus the Vengence Harpie proggy uber-crook.
Yeah, right. Like we would believe anything -else- you said without hard proof.
But you see, Lars advocates a more nuanced, friendly version of Marxian socialism. Sort of a communism-lite version, where we only slowly end up a Venezuela. He and his perfessers have taken to heart the allegory of how you boil a frog.
Lars couldn’t even get laid in a Women’s Prison with an ounce of coke and a $100 bill taped to his forehead!
I once heard such a sentiment put this way:
“He couldn’t get a clue … if he was standing in a field full of clues … covered in clue musk and doing the clue mating dance. He couldn’t get a clue.”
AS I recall, from real memory instead of just videos from the past, Detroit used to be a bustling, busy, booming metropolis with a vibrant downtown and high employment rate.
Now it’s a dump. We can thank the AFL-CIO and UAW the the Teamsters Union for the desert that Detroit has become.
Yep. And we can thank them for a big part of the need for the 2008 bailout of GM and Chrysler, too.
It’s very difficult for ANY business to compete in a global market when they’re forced to pay 2x the labor cost of their primary competitors overseas.
TLDR, Commissar. Now, just go away.
Hey, Lars – maybe many of us hate academia so much is because many in academia have never held a real job. They are like you in that they “pontificate and postulate” without have any “real world” experience to form rational thoughts and beliefs. They like to preach from their ivory towers to the masses about how we “should” be living when many of them probably haven’t done a real days work in their lifetimes.
BTW – FUCK YOU and your propaganda…
For the record, Berkeley-boi: I do not “hate” academia. However, I do detest those academics (and pseudo-academics) who ignore or falsify data when real-world data doesn’t support their preferred politics.
Take a good hard look in the mirror, fella. You’re one such pseudo-academic.
Different subject: Kennedy and Khrushchev – got an approved answer from the Central Committee’s doctrinal expert yet?
Geez. This one’s a real “winner”, even for “Der Kommisar”.
Here’s the last para of the linked article (emphasis added):
Do you really expect anyone to believe you (a) actually found, and (b) actually read in detail and understood fully the working paper in question? When you don’t even bother to read a linked and immediately available 1- or 2-page article all the way to the end to see what it actually says?
GMAFB.
Lars’ fact checking is on the same level as the MSM’s…
Stick around, Hondo. I wrote something coming up later that should really piss him off. Maybe he’ll take a stroke over it. 😉
You gotta love the Socialist Soviet Republic of Seattle. Their Gun Violence Tax has turned out to be the bust that we said it would be. A twenty five dollar tax on each new firearm and five cent tax on each round of ammo sold in the city has proven to be so successful in reducing gun violence that shootings and murders are at historic highs. The last gun seller in seattle has moved across the lake and taken all of the firms jobs with him.
The tax was estimated to generate $300,000 but we will never know what it actually is because the city will not release the facts. The money was supposed to go to study the root causes of gun violence but with the collapse of gun sales in the city it will be funded from another source. As if we need to study what everyone already knows. Gangs, drugs, and poor impulse control. A few years ago the Us attorney started hammering felons in possession cases and shootings dropped out of sight. When the program ended violence started creeping back up.
It has been said that a Five Hundred dollar tax per bullet would result in a massive drop in shootings. What they didn’t say is that the number of shooting would skyrocket as criminals would be shooting people to steal bullets in armed robberies. Ah, the liberal mindset, More government is the way to nirvana.
Who in their right mind would think a tax on bullets will prevent gang bangers and other gun criminals from shooting people. Someone show me a violent criminal who pays taxes. Moreover, their bullet tax could only be imposed within the city limits. Anyone wanting to acquire ammo would get it outside the city or on what would become a rather lucrative black market in ammo within the city.
Well we have 15hr here in Arizona, I have no idea how it’s working out but most jobs here seem to be switching to salary and not hourly I wonder why ???
Also at a town-hall here recently Jack-Ass McCain said everybody here that voted for it are a bunch
Of morons this is the same statement he made about Trump voters
John McCain is yet another living, breathing example of why we need. Congressional Term Limits.
👍👍👍👍👍
And an example of why, although one has served honorably and suffered greatly for this country, no one should be followed blindly.
Even those with honorable service can be wrong about something.
Or maybe most things these days . . . .
And condoms.
As for jobs switching from hourly pay, I’ve also seen it tied to production like in hotels where Maids are paid by the room as they go about cleaning.
Piece Work
Piece work is not a bad system, as long as quality control is in place.
True, the crew I hired to replace the roof on A Proud Infidel Manor®™ said that they were paid by the square foot and they worked like there was no tomorrow!
Truly, piece work is how many small businesses get their start.
I see people making a full-time living at Renaissance Faires, and what they produce is essentially piecework, because it is handmade, one item at a time, not mass-produced.
My brother is a chef and co-owner of restaurant in the Seattle area, I will actually ask him about this. He started out as a member of the French Fryin Legion as a 16 year old burger flipper at McDonalds. Seattle does some pretty goofy stuff, to be polite about it. It would be interesting for someone, (not me, as I have little patience for those who are entitled or those who are too damn lazy to work and still expect all the goodies) to go over there and hang out and ask people “What do you do for a living? and the ask What does that job pay?” I would be interested in seeing where the income gap starts and ends. I would hypothesize that we see a small number of folks making most of the money and a bunch of people working their asses off to barely make ends meet. I don’t think Ill mention much about the lazy folks, spongers and criminals who live off the rest of us. What the hell if it turns out the Portland ends up being more economically viable than Seattle and less weird???? I would also mention that Boeing is once again moving several thousand of their jobs out of state. This is more due to state business taxes than it is the doing of the Seattle City Council. However, when those skilled jobs and high end managerial salaries go away there is a huge effect on other businesses in the area. Think the Supersonic Transport failure a la 2017. So, fewer big spenders, fewer folks making 15 an hour, more automation, less taxes. Also, who the hell wants to flip burgers all their life? To bring it back to the start of this ramble; Im pretty sure that back in 1977 my brother didn’t make 15/hr at McDonald’s. After YEARS of hard work he is now an honest to goodness chef and lives with the headaches and frustrations of keeping a restaurant alive and well, no one gave him that six digit salary,and knowing him, no one making 15.00/hr gets… Read more »
Hell, I remember starting out flipping burgers for $3.35 an hour and anyone asking about health insurance at that level would have been laughed at to the end of time! I saw that job as a stepping stone, a starting point, not where someone owed be just because I showed up.
Short-order cook at a greasy spoon in 1969 at 90-cents/hour.
Didn’t kill me at all.
High school job: waitressing at a local hamburger shop, $.75/hr plus tips. Paid for horse feed and hay and bedding. Also, I mowed lawns for $5 to $10 a shot, and worked on hay baling when farmers needed someone to load the conveyor from the hayrack into their haylofts. That paid a dime a bale, and at the end of a 100-bale run, I had $10 cash. Helped a lot.
Cut 5-10 lawns weekly starting age 12 when my brother left for college… $25-50/week was big money to a 13 year old when minimum wage was on the order of $1 an hour. Think it had gone up to $1.40 an hour by the time I was sixteen, but I could be wring. Been a few days since then and I’ve killed a coupla brain cells on the way.
I worked at Taco Bell at age 17 and I don’t remember what I was paid; only that it was just for money at the time and not the career I would later have.
Those recent job losses aren’t due to work transfer. It is due to the fact that development programs are moving into sustaining programs. You don’t need a surplus of Design and Manufacturing Engineers on sustaining programs…. In essence too many were hired to fix the issues caused by poor decisions. There are other issues as well, but I don’t think I’m allowed to speak of them…suffice to say it has nothing to do, this time, with work transfer.
Atkron,
Thanks for squaring me away! 🙂 Sounds like you might work for the Big B.
Nope. He got $2.30 an hour working at McDonald’s in 1977. Adjusted for inflation, that’s equivalent to $9.34 today.
This $15.00 an hour was pushed by the local unions (SPEEA, IAM, SEIU, and more), why?
Because then they could go to the bargaining table next time around and say that their membership needs to be paid more for their skills.
Why should Joe Shit The Rag man, a mechanic, only make $17.00 and hour when Freddy Fuck Fingers makes $15 an hour at Taco Time?
Of course the people in these minimum wage jobs are going to want more, who wouldn’t? The sad part is they were used by Sawant for political power, The unions for bargaining power, and the liberals, so they can FEEL like they did something as they gentrify and price the poor right out of the city limits.
I have to disagree with calling a Mechanic a “Ragman”, most of them have to not only graduate from a tech school, many attend refresher training as well. Electricians, Plumbers, Welders, Machinists, etcetera are by large Skilled Professionals whom worked and attended school to get where they’re at by acquiring and practicing a skill by which they can make themselves more valuable in the workplace versus Ragboy the fleabag hippie who thinks the world owes him just because he’s alive and breathing. I see this shit as a byproduct of the entitlement propaganda fed to kids in schools these days. Hell, look at how high Babbles McButthead places himself over us and he’ll never make it in the private sector with his attitude and shitty people skills!
I think he meant the military generic “somebody”.
Is there not a Navy slang for a mechanic/engineer having something to do with running around with a greasy (maybe red) rag? I may have mis-read it.
besides, the mechanic, and other skilled trades can laugh their way to the bank. Those typically pay better than a whole bunch of degree holders, (often way better) and rarely require borrowing the equivalent of a decent house to get started.
Absolutely, 11B-Mailclerk, skilled tradesmen and -women make very good money and don’t have to go through our college system to become productive and high-earners. They _are_ laughing their way to the bank these days and they (or their parents) haven’t had to go into the enormous debt required for a college education leaving one with no marketable skills, except in a few instances.
Well, the difference,Atkron, is that Joe the Arcwelder works 40 hrs full-time and sometimes overtime, for which he is paid, over time gets raises in pay, and most likely has access to training programs that will upgrade his skillset. He will also very likely have a retirement account, bonuses and/or profit sharing, and health insurance of some kind, in addition to paid vacation and sick leave.
Freddy the Nosepicking Fuckfingers, on the other hand, works only part-time now, perhaps 20 hours/week, ergo he gets no extra pay for overtime because he has no overtime hours to work. To make up the difference between him and Joe the Arcwelder, he will have to work at least one and maybe two other jobs, possibly at lower wages, and will not get health insurance, paid days off of any kind, bonuses or profit-sharing, or any real raises.
Which version of the labor force would you prefer?
I had to ask that same question, but my job, while requiring real skills, also provided overtime pay when we had OT work (end of fiscal year), plus upgrades in training, bonuses, profit-sharing, a 401k account, paid annual and sick leave, and health insurance with a modest co-pay that covered all OTC things, including sunglasses and aspirin.
I don’t think those days are gone, but I was much better of back then than these idiots working ad McD’s are now.
I should have put quote marks around that last bit that was me playing the part of the union negotiator.
Many union contracts are based upon “prevailing wages”, which wages are are based upon, wait for it, local minimum wage.
So a raise to minimum wage is a near-automatic pay raise for many union folks, and more swill for the Union Bosses, who are a Big Business in all but name.
And PDRofMD follows happily along.
http://www.thebaynet.com/articles/0617/marylands-minimum-wage-increases-july-1.html
“The purpose of the wage increase is provide better financial security for Marylanders so they can afford basic needs such as food and clothing.”
Except it will do nothing of the sort.
Sure it will.
When they pack up and move to a Free state.
Which in itself is pretty ironic. Maryland’s named “The Free State” among a couple others.
Maybe once it actually was.
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I’ve been reading the comments section regarding this story on other news sites, and have noticed that this study not being “peer reviewed” is now the new buzz phrase in order to question the veracity of the study. I wonder if this same standard is or has been applied to all the studies related to global warming? Will have to start asking that question next time I see a new AGW study appear. Also note in the comments section on other sites that many are aware that $15/HR is far short of a living wage in Seattle, so the “universal basic income” or some such must be invoked. Many of you are aware of this new concept. Rob from the rich and give to the poor, to keep it short for now.
Odd how not so long ago no less a person than the gov of California stated that the $15/HR minimum wage did not make economic sense. Of course it was signed in to law.
Here is a link to a rental in the city of Seattle, to give an idea of pricing. Trigger alert. Micro-aggression may ensue:
https://www.apartments.com/8th-republican-seattle-wa/8mbpsq2/
Peer reviewed simply means that it’s been looked over for mistakes like typos, grammatical and punctuation errors, and copy out of order. The ‘peer review’ thing has less validity than you think, and is not a requirement for publication.
Furthermore, if that is the direction that COMMISSAR Commissar THE BIRDWITTED BORING BABBLER wants to take, where is HIS peer-reviewed published work? What is his basis for comparison? Just because he says it, that don’t mean he’s an authority on anything. He offers no references as a valid backup for his statements, but he sure does like to vent his bilious vexation wherever and whenever possible.
Ex-PH2, thanks for the info. With the reverence peer reviewed was being given at the other sites, the context made me believe that it had much to do with a sort of double blind test or another group in academia testing the same theory and seeing if they arrived at a similar conclusion.
C’est mon plaisir, m’sieur.
Peer review means more than that in reputable journals with statistical data. The journal will actually perform computations to determine effects size/strength, selection of certain coefficients and whether they were appropriate etc. They will run the numbers to compare the hypothesis against the statistical results. There are programs just for that purpose. They’re a PITA but essential if one wishes to read statistical data and check its validity. BS “research” by the supplement industry for example routinely set up the data to look great on the surface, but a closer look often reveals the data was set up to skew for false positives which are supposed to validate their findings. Peer review journals would normally catch such manipulation and reject the research for publication.
Reminds me of a joke:
Why do people become statisticians?
Because they can’t handle the excitement of accounting. 🙂
Oh, now, don’t get your shorts in a bunch over what I said. Just stick around, punkin.
That’s nothing. Chicago’s rent rates are based on location, running from $1520 to $9590 in or near center of the city, and further south and west, $655 to $2700, ditto north side, depending on the size, utilities not included.
Yes, you can get a cheaper apartment if you’re willing to live down on South 69th or near 63rd and Stony Island. No gangs there at all. I talked to a friend of mine who still lives in my old building. He said the landlord’s the same jackass he was when I left but rents haven’t gone up too much so far.
Are they freakin’ SERIOUS???? North of 2 grand a month for a one-bedroom???
Yep – dead serious.
Renting even small apartments in “nice” areas of pretty much any large city takes mucho dinero.
In NYC, a 1BR studio on E 34th St goes for between $2500 and $3700 monthly. And I’m pretty sure NYC is not the most expensive market in the nation any more.
https://www.apartments.com/new-york-ny/
Yes. Yes, they are dead serious. More and more people working in Chicago want to live within walking distance of work, meaning less than 5 blocks. Before I left Chicago, rents for apartments in or near the Loop were $1500 and rising.
Glad I don’t live there any more.
In all fairness, there is another side of this argument that was not listed.
It seemed cherry-picked, if you will.
No offense, Hondo, as I am in your corner on this one.
But what they (other side) are arguing is a wrong measure. Make no mistake that I agree with the point that this has created serious issues that are overlooked, but we need to keep it balanced.
No more, no less.
I’m curious – what measure cited by the study is the “wrong measure”, GT?
The study showed that a rise in minimum wage had resulted in (1) 3% higher hourly wages, but (2) 9% fewer hours worked and (3) $125 less in average monthly wages. It also gave a measure of reduced future opportunity for such work in terms of an estimate of job losses (5,000) resulting from the forced increase in wages.
Seems to me that that pretty much covers it regarding whether or not raising the minimum wage to $15/hr helped or hurt low-wage workers, economically-speaking. Yeah, they’re making more per hour – if they have a job. But since they’re working less hours on average, they’re making less per month. And since jobs have been lost overall, their prospects for finding another job if they have to has been reduced.
So I was in Seattle a few days ago and I read this article in the the Seattle Times.
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/uw-study-finds-seattles-minimum-wage-is-costing-jobs/
The article is much more comprehensive in my opinion.
The other side is arguing that the UW researchers cherry-picked their data (which happens a lot) and did not factor in several variables (see about halfway down).
As I said, I am in your corner. The wage increase, contrary to the “income inequality solution”, only closed the gap between the bottom few rungs. The Democrats preached how it would make everyone equal but they forgot about companies dropping hours down to avoid paying insurance, skilled workers not tipping baristas, inflation and of course…drum roll………TAXES!
In my former line of work I used to engage in a lot of, shall we say, review paradigms and I would always bring all arguments to the table. Right or wrong; I did it.
Anyway, check out the article. As I said, it is somewhat more comprehensive than the FOX article.
Some more fuel….
http://mynorthwest.com/675529/ed-murray-when-the-facts-dont-fit-the-narrative-find-new-facts/?utm_content=bufferdbeb0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer