General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Should the Minimum Wage Be Abolished?"
Caught a bit of "Crossfire" on CNN while I was out today. I didn't even know that program was still on. I couldn't follow what was bring said because it was kind of noisy where I was, and I was too far away to read the captions; but there was one really striking optic that I probably wouldn't have noticed otherwise : A split screen with Newt Gingrich, Michael Steele, and some other old white guy in a suit chortling on one side, and an African American woman (a Democratic representative from California, I think) scowling on the other -- all over the headline "Should the Minimum Wage Be Abolished?" Can you believe this is actually being seriously discussed? I swear the Repugs won't be happy until we're all being paid nothing and living and working on plantations!
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)not please the corporations that pay millions that exact wage, but these talking heads on corporate owned news stations, well, they pay so much more.
Augiedog
(2,548 posts)How about we tie the employees wages to the "bosses", CEOs etc. Using an algorithm that reflects the success of the highest paid person. It could be a sliding scale which would factor all aspects of a company so that the employees and the managements pay is reflective of the real value workers provide. The simple truth is, no employees, no profit.....period. I'm sure the "bosses" of the world would attempt to game the system, but seeing as how corporations are now people we can execute the corporation for such behavior. Just kidding.
standingtall
(2,787 posts)and no it is no surprise it is being discussed. Libertarians have been pushing this abolish the minimum wage nonsense forever.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Brigid
(17,621 posts)They want the rest of us fighting like starving rats over shitjobs.
The dream of the very wealthy has always been to have a labour pool poor enough and desperate enough to work for pennies. All politics is ultimately about the rich versus the rest and everything the GOP (which is now just the political arm of big business) does is to pursue that dream.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)A paradise for rich business owners.
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)It just dumbfounds me that a major political party in the twenty-first century literally want to turn the clock back to teh Gilded Age.
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)Hey, let's take money OUT of the hands of people who have to spend every dime. SURELY in an economy where 2/3rds of it depends on consumer spending, THAT'S a smart-as-shit-out idea!!
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)If the only thing that matters is short-term profits, the emerging markets of Asia will provide lots of opportunities.
Capitalism is an absolutely unsustainable paradigm for modern human civilization, however, in the long-term. To secure the future of our civilization, we need a predominantly socialist economy that is firmly founded on science and the Laws of Thermodynamics, instead of the fantasies of mainstream economic "theory" and other such gobbledygook.
TBF
(32,090 posts)Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)$10.10 and up is now the living wage.
Between $8.00 and $10.10 is now bare survival wages.
Under $8.00 is starvation wage.
$15.00 is fair wage.
Work the language at least as well as the thugs.....
Recursion
(56,582 posts)They effectively have a guaranteed income, though; I'd be fine with replacing the minimum wage with a guaranteed income (explicit or effective). Plus Germany and Switzerland have very strong labor representation in businesses.
U4ikLefty
(4,012 posts)Then the DU faithful will attack anybody that objects.
2pooped2pop
(5,420 posts)CatholicEdHead
(9,740 posts)Their plan is to roll back to the late 1800s robber baron era, the minimum wage is one thing that has to go to get there.