Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

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I completely understand your point of view, but there is another way of looking at it.

Imagine a world with no minimum wage. Imagine you work all day in the fields picking fruit, backbreaking, in the hot sun. Imagine you get paid not much for this. Everything else still costs the same as it does now, you just don't get paid enough to have a car, or a house, or even make electricity bills each month. You get two jobs. Even three. You still barely make ends meet working 100 hours a week.

Is that a good life? Is that a life you want to live? Is that a life you want your kids, friends and neighbours to live?

Minimum wage is not about a government or king setting a bar that there not be any jobs below a certain price/threshold.

It is about a government (or king) setting a bar saying "for people live a decent life in this society, they must earn x dollars per hour. Paying them less than that is closer to slavery than a successful society, and we want to treat people humanely and give them a chance at a decent life with running water and hot showers."

(FWIW, Government (or king) needs to do this because otherwise employers would just pay the least they could possibly get away with so they can maximize profits)

If you're against a decent minimum wage, you're saying you're perfectly happy for your family, friends, kids & neighbours in your society to live in squalor and have a horrendously bad quality of life. Forever.

That's not a nice society to live in.

> Imagine a world with no minimum wage

Already exists in many western countries, it isn't hell.

> Already exists in many western countries, it isn't hell

Do you have a source please?

US has a lower minimum wage than 21 OECD countries [1] and is comparable to Romania, Croatia and Hungary.

[1] https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=RMW

Honestly your respectful tone is refreshing. Based on my past experience with HN, I was bracing for a complete evisceration lol.

The issue I have is you're painting a distorted picture of reality that reads like a badly written fairytail with evil fatcats and poor Victim™ workers.

In reality, middle class America's purchasing power wasn't destroyed by the lack of a decent minimum wage or the greed of your local barbers, it was destroyed by inflation sponsored and accelerated by the one and only: Uncle Sam

Starting with the FDR era socialists policies that set the stage, we built an economy with embedded growth obligations (social security etc) addicted to credit and growth, like a junkie desperate for the next fix.

This credit-based system, with roots in Marxism, Keynesianism, and MMT, has become too big to fail. So we keep it afloat by handouts (methadone) and bailouts (sugar daddy), in a vicious cycle of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The issue is we are not all Peter or Paul. There is this phenomenon called the Cantillon effect where those closest to the money printer get richer, while the rest of us foot the bill

This perpetuates a cycle where the middle class gets stripped of its purchasing power while simultaneously tangible goods like houses and commodities become even further out reach as those closest to the money printer and smart third parties race into real things.

This is where things go from ugly to end of Pax Americana. Instead of addressing the root issues, you and your kin want double down. More intervention (Federal Soylent™), more byzantine regulations and straight out persecution of the merchant class.

It sounds like hyperbole, I wish it was hyperbole but its not. "Eat the rich" isn't a parody, its the rallying cry of the ruling party. They are just about to ritualistically sacrifice the auto industry to moloch.

We live in the most prosperous nation in history. Poor people today live in luxury compared to most people just a century ago. However, things are taking a bad turn thanks to collectivism. That said, we are talking about a very small subset of the population.

Even among that cohort, its mostly crippling financial education/management problems. You have illegal aliens coming here with no wealth and no access to welfare who manage to not only survive but also send money back to their families.

we should strive to continually improve our bargain with nature but the ideas you and your kin share will bring about the end of modern civilisation as we know it.

> In reality, middle class America's purchasing power wasn't destroyed by the lack of a decent minimum wage or the greed of your local barbers, it was destroyed by inflation sponsored and accelerated by the one and only: Uncle Sam

OK, so what are you going to do about it? Increasing the minimum wage to keep up with inflation sounds like the perfect way to make sure people still earn relatively the same amount as they used to. Dozens of other countries do it, with no ill effects.

In fact, anyone that doesn't think minimum wage should keep pace with inflation is just saying they want to pay people less tomorrow than they do today, which is horrible.

Do you want your kids and family earning less in their life than you have in yours?

> Poor people today live in luxury compared to most people just a century ago

Poor people in the US today are vastly worse off than poor people in other developed countries. Tens of millions with no healthcare. Millions go bankrupt every year. Millions of kids with no access to food or housing. These problems are vastly bigger (even per capita) in the US than other developed countries.

> the ideas you and your kin share will bring about the end of modern civilisation as we know it.

I'm curious how you think increasing the minimum wage will "end civilization".

21 developed countries have a minimum wage higher than the US, and they seem to be doing great. High Minimum wage won't destroy civilization, it will just equal out society so that the mega rich will be less rich, and the mega poor will be less poor. It's been happening in other countries for many decades, learn from them. Use real-world examples rather than hyperbole predicting some kind of doom that is hypothetical.

Minimum wage is a small part of a larger set of collectivist policies that the west has been sleep walking into since WWII.

TLDR: All of those 21 countries are US protectorates or vassal states. Most of them are European countries that are slowly dying. Some are resource rich, some are tax havens, some are leeching of the goodwill/work of their ancestors.. None are making anything.

Long Version:

- Germany: US protectorate w/ 35K troops. Its truly a testament to the industriousness and ingenuity of these people that they still manage to make all those cars & heavy machinery despite the collectivism.

- Nordic Countries: Total population just over half the population of California with massive oil reserves and a lot of fish. a.k.a EAE with snow

- France/Spain/Portugal: Former empires, like an old person in pain waiting to die. They leech on the good will and work of their ancestors as their nations slowly die off.

- Switzerland, Luxembourg, Ireland etc: Tax/Banking Havens with niche talent.

- Rest Of EU: Dying countries propped up Germany & France or the equivalent of Europes China (Bulgaria/Ukraine/Poland).

- Canada/UK - US vassal states. Also happened to be the former world empire, same story as France/Spain/Portugal but to an even greater degree.

- Australia - Half of Californias population but has an entire continents worth of RAW minerals and commodities to export. Btw thats its, they don't make anything either.

Basically all innovation and production happens in the US or Asia. EU and the rest of the west are slowly dying protectorates/vassal states of the US (hence Pax Americana)

Conclusion:

Anyways most of thats irrelevant, the important part is the fact that they are all dying. They are all propped up by the euro-dollar system. ECB has no ammunition left. Spain, Italy, France are all looking down an imminent pension crises.

The UK is in slightly better shape but thats not saying much, they are looking down an impending sovereign debt crises but as a vassal state, they might get bailed out by the US.

In real terms, they use American medicine, American macbooks, American iphones, American search engines, American Social media, American steaming providers, American content, Asian washing machine, Asian microwave oven, American fast food, American candy, American Ice cream, American soda, American/Asian lightbulbs, Asian trains, Asian TVs, Asian cups etc etc

They don't make anything, they just exist on "good will" gained because of their ancestors and i mean in the literal sense. They exist on the bretton-woods system, all these currencies are artificially propped up. This system is just about to collapse btw lol.

[flagged]

Because you're jesus smuggling extremely flawed assumptions through your question.

e.g. If you don't kill every 3rd cute puppy born, all the pandas in the world will face gruesome deaths. Do you want all the pandas in the world to die gruesomely @grecy?

If "being paid less tomorrow" is caused by inflation, wouldn't it make more sense to tackle the root causes of inflation?

Because its really odd that the only feasible solution you guys have on the table is to double down on Byzantine regulations and Federal Soylent™.

Idk maybe we should instead:

- Get rid of minimum wage

- Get rid of excessive OSHA, SEC, FDA, EPA, FTC rules etc

- Maybe we don't an extra 80,000 IRS agents.

- Since its not the cold war anymore, maybe we don't 18 different intelligence agencies

- Maybe we should replace all welfare and entitlements with an "essentials" program where "if your poor, you failed but we help you not starve or die of a treatable illness, however it comes with strings attached".

- Maybe we should look into how the military is extremely corrupt and inefficient. Why is the F-35 built so many different states, how did we run out munitions so quickly, why will it take that long to replenish it?

> Because you're jesus smuggling

I honestly don't even know what that means.

Also attacking me doesn't help your argument - it makes you look like you already know you don't have anything productive to add, so you just attack me instead of productively discussing the topic at hand.

> If "being paid less tomorrow" is caused by inflation, wouldn't it make more sense to tackle the root causes of inflation?

Are you suggesting the US should just have 0 inflation? White I'm not an expert, I believe economists consider inflation to be a good and healthy thing for an economy. Also no country or economy in the world has ever had 0 inflation, so you're talking about doing something that has never been done before. Seems odd.

> Idk maybe we should instead:

- Get rid of minimum wage

- Get rid of excessive OSHA, SEC, FDA, EPA, FTC rules etc

- Maybe we don't an extra 80,000 IRS agents.

- Since its not the cold war anymore, maybe we don't 18 different intelligence agencies

- Maybe we should replace all welfare and entitlements with an "essentials" program where "if your poor, you failed but we help you not starve or die of a treatable illness, however it comes with strings attached".

- Maybe we should look into how the military is extremely corrupt and inefficient. Why is the F-35 built so many different states, how did we run out munitions so quickly, why will it take that long to replenish it?

Sure, you could attempt to do all those things. How long do you think that will take? How much push back?

Other countries don't need to invent "never been done" solutions and completely change their entire society to solve this, why does the US?

You could spend decades attempting to do all that, or you could raise the minimum wage.

It seems like you want to suggest solutions that are 500,000 times harder than a solution that actually works. Are you actually interested in fixing the problem, or are you interested in making everything much more complicated than it needs to be?

> attacking me doesn't help your argument

Wasn't my intention, I was trying explain how answering yes or no would be a tacid admission to the claims smuggled in your question. I don't even think its intentional.

> It seems like you want to suggest solutions that are 500,000 times harder

I agree but the alternative is even worse in my opinion. Yes it will work in the short term but check always comes due and it comes with a vengeance when you mess with reality.

This was the main messahe in all my previous posts. Re-organising society in such a way has massive unintended consequences.

Just like the human body, societies are very resilient but at some point it breaks and we are the breaking point. All it will take is a few more straws.

P.S.

> economists consider inflation to be good and healthy

I'm not an expert either but from what I understand, macro-economics is basically astrology for intellectuals but worse. There are different schools (keynesian, austrian, MMT, marxist etc) and the Keynesians won the roll of the dice. IMO very silly.

The entire premise is wrong. Both inflation and deflation are good or bad depending on the context. Its was never meant to wielded handful of people selected by a guy who won a popularity contest.

Idk if you've seen the world of warcraft movie (Warcraft), there is a type of magic in the movie called fell. Its offers a lot power at great cost. Thats artificial inflation/deflation (easing/tightening).

In the movie, you see the villain (Gul'dan) wielding fell by extracting the life force of people, thats exactly what happens when Jeremy (Fed chair) increases/decreases the rates or when a trillion dollars gets printed.

> I agree but the alternative is even worse in my opinion

You think raising the minimum wage is harder than trying to completely change how the government spends money and getting to zero inflation?

TLDR:

It will be exponentially easier to pass (even federally) than any prescriptions I've suggested.

That said, my point was the consequence of such a law would be much worse than doing nothing.

Long Version:

If we did nothing, inflation will effectively bring the current minimum wage down to zero given enough time.

Whereas if we set a federal minimum wage of $25/hr (current inflation adjusted), it will have disastrous downstream consequences.

I've touched on this in my OP. You are dictating by fiat that every human must have a minimum economic value of X.

You'll be de-facto robbing a huge chunk of the population of an honest life with dignity and prohibiting any types/classes of businesses that rely on unskilled/low value labor.

Also if you study history you realise its exactly these types of laws that create black markets and racketeering. Similar to lets say cannabis, you cant just wish the demand away..

It gets even worse, when you do this by industry like the California law. The state basically becomes the kingmaker. Its just a bunch of euphemisms for basically putting their thumb on the scale against large fast food chains.

> Whereas if we set a federal minimum wage of $25/hr (current inflation adjusted), it will have disastrous downstream consequences

You seem very certain of this.

You simply don't care that many other countries around the world have done it for decades with good outcomes?

For some unexplained reason, the US (which you yourself said is the richest country on earth) is different and the results will be disastrous in the US while they are not elsewhere?

I honestly think you're not seeing the big picture. If minimum wage goes up and gets pegged to inflation, low-income earners will simply take home a bigger portion of the enormous wealth that is created in the US. The richest class will take home less. That is precisely what happens in at least 20 other developed countries around the world, with excellent results. There are very few wildly rich people, and there are very few wildly poor people. Mostly everyone is in the middle.

The US could do exactly the same thing with exactly the same results, you just don't want to, because you're happy for a class of people to exist that barely survive to serve you.

I touched on this in one (or more lol) of my tangents.

Where is this good outcome you speak off? All these western nations are staring down a barrel with the exception of tax/banking havens and nations with a commodity to population asymmetry.

> If minimum gets pegged to inflation, low-income earners will simply take home a bigger portion

The entire economy runs on the margin. Traders get to experience this visually with the orderbook where you have bids/asks and the resulting liquidity/depth.

When you have a minimum wage pegged to an inflation "adjusted" rate, you're opening a Pandora's box of positive feedback loops resulting in the creative destruction of the economy.

This is not just a prediction, its exactly happened to these "20 other countries" including the US (to an extend). These countries use to be industrial powerhouses that accumulated immense wealth during their imperial past, look at them now.

P.S.

Just read your last two paragraphs, don't you see how it reads like a bedtime story?

Energy cannot be created not destroyed. When you dictate every human must have a minimum economic value of X, what do you think happens to the denominator X is measured in?

What do you think happens to an entire subset of low margin businesses that rely on unskilled labour.

What do you think happens to the banks and businesses that invested, loaned or leased land to those low margin businesses.

What do you think happens the streets/towns/cities those businesses to used to exist in?

Moreover, what do you think happens to your country when your adversaries or other countries start eating your lunch.

Again not a guess or prediction, this is whats been happening of more than half a century now and you want to deal with the consequences by doubling down.

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