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Minimum Wage


Captain Worley

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I read that Democrats want raise the minimum wage from $5,5 to $7 now. It's a good news.

In France the minimum wage is called smic (salaire minimum interprofessionnel de croissance), those who have the smic are called the smicards.

This year it is exactly $11 per hour here, it raises for an average of about 4 % each year.

Obviously a better wage makes a better heart at work. We are the third-fourth country for inward investments behind the United States and China, partly due to our productivity per hour which is the highest in the world with the Norway's.

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I read that Democrats want raise the minimum wage from $5,5 to $7 now. It's a good news.

In France the minimum wage is called smic (salaire minimum interprofessionnel de croissance), those who have the smic are called the smicards.

This year it is exactly $11 per hour here, it raises for an average of about 4 % each year.

Obviously a better wage makes a better heart at work. We are the third-fourth country for inward investments behind the United States and China, partly due to our productivity per hour which is the highest in the world with the Norway's.

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That varies about as widely as you could imagine.

The only problem with depending on gross revenue is some businesses gross huge amounts with far smaller profit margins (net) than others. A business, say printing, that has a lot of employees and large gross revenues likely has slim net so they would fall into the "higher wage" category over $625,000 -- they would be harder hit if their net were, say 10% of gross. That isn't unusual in many businesses. In other words, depending on gross would substantially hurt a business that has low margins.

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There will be a severe downturn in the American economy as well.. our economy is propped up so much on oil and corn that all it would take is a bad summer drought and a conflict with Saudi Arabia to ruin our economy.

It's amazing how bad the signs look for us, and yet we sit here squabbling over a minute change in the minimum wage.

You can't give handouts to farmers, corporations, and businesses and then expect individuals to be "taken care of" by the free market.

Let's end farming subsidies and all energy subsidies and then we'll talk about free market wages.

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But you imply that corporate welfare isn't wonderful! Isn't it fun, the rich love handouts, earmarks from Congress, favorable policy, DIRECT subsidies, tax breaks, cities that build them arenas, but dare an individual ask for a higher wage or to get on public assistance or get public housing and they are deadbeats.
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The country would be better off without subsidies to oil companies and corn/soybean farming. I have no problem providing assistance to individual farmers in bad years so that they can keep farming, but we have taken this to a dangerous point.

Without subsidies to oil companies, it would be more expensive to make ammonium nitrates which are used to fertilize the fields on which we grow corn. Corn is very intensive and requires a lot of nutrients to grow. By providing farmers with cheap fertilizers that chemical companies make by using air, heat, and lots of oil, we encourage more corn production.

Our government actively promotes the expansion of corn farming by a change in farming subsidies not so long ago. The federal government now guarantees corn farmers a certain price per bushel of corn. If the market price falls below that, the government makes up the difference. This means that the more corn the farmer grows, no matter what, the more money he makes.

That corn then gets shipped off to fry our french fries, sweeten and flavor our pop (soda, coke.. whatever), make our junk food.. you name it, it probably has corn in it. Unless it's produce, which is why produce prices fluctuate more while the price of a pound of hamburger or a box of Little Debbies don't move around much.

Who does this benefit?

Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, ExxonMobile, BP, Tyson, ConAgra, and the corporate farmers/ranchers that own giant farms and feed lots.

Our farmers are growing so much corn that it just sits in grain elevators, or increasingly outside next to the grain elevator for years... and the price keeps dropping.. but farmers make the same price every year, no matter what.

The result? We, individuals, pay for this through our taxes. We are not only paying $2.20/gallon at the pump or $1.29 for a box of Hohos, but we're paying those companies less directly through our taxes. Their profits remain stable and high, the family farmer gets screwed out of business, and we get fat.

Everything this country is built on has been directly influenced by our government in the past 60 years. Everything.

We have no free market. We have government decisions, regulations, and taxes/subsidies built into literally everything we do.

The only people we're not giving a break are poor people and people making the minimum wage. The companies paying hte minimum wage have benefited greatly from government subsidies, welfare, and other programs.. but those workers certainly have not.

So, yes... you could argue that Cargill has injected jobs and money into the economy.. but have they? No. They have taken jobs away. They have streamlined farms to the point that in Iowa, there are 90,000 farms today compared to 205,000 in 1950, they are 350 acres today, compared to 150 acres then, and farmers are working much harder on that soil to make less money in real terms than they were 50 years ago.

Has this been caused by the free market? No. It has been caused by the government's subsidization of corn and oil.

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Excellent post on the corn 'industry' Snowguy. It got even worse with the huge E85 subsidies.

Gust, I agree with you except for two things. On a yearly basis, i think Americans are more productive, but this is probably because the Europeans get more vacation and have a shorter work week.

And, although I haven't heard any screaming about the European economy, if they have been doing it, they may be right.

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Here's some unemployment numbers from Germany. Many areas in Germany's most successful regions have unemployment rates in tune with the U.S. These areas include Bavaria's tourist heavy market and the industry/manufacture rich regions of Mannheim/Frankfurt/Bonn/Cologne/Essen/Hamburg.

Some areas of eastern Germany have unemployment rates of 20+%. This is where the problem lies... they were under 40 years of communist rule, and the east is just now emerging from that. It keeps Germany's unemployment rate much higher than any social welfare programs or minimum wage laws do.

Germany's economy doesn't always grow as fast as our economy does. But that little bit of growth they do have is reflected onto their population more equally and raises the median quality of life. Our economic growth increasingly rewards the already rich and those who invest and penalizes those who work for a living.unemployment_12.gif

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Oh dear... I typed in Euro "flats" to see if I could find a typical European apartment block... only very nice ones showed up.. so I typed in Euro ghetto.. dear Lord.. never do that... unless you have the strictest of filters on your search... wow. Europe gets pretty "ghetto"... :S

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