Posted on 07/14/2006 4:02:49 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Ann Coulter recently said, "conservatives believe in God. liberals believe they are God." A timeless truth restated.
Excellent assessment.
The effect of a price floor on a commodity is to render worthless anything whose market value would be below that price floor. The only way that price floors raise the value received by sellers is by reducing the competition from people who would sell for less.
Minimum-wage laws won't necessarily put people out of work (e.g. I suspect that if the minimum wage were $0.01/hour, raising it to $0.02/hour probably wouldn't cost anyone his job) but the only way they can cause anyone's wages to go up is by putting people out of work.
Any money the government would save as a result of a minimum wage getting some people off Section 8, etc. would be more than offset by having to pay welfare benefits for the people it pushed out of their jobs.
For some reason, many people seem to think businesses are in competition with workers, and minimum-wage laws shift the playing field in favor of the workers. The problem with such thinking is that workers aren't in "competition" with their employer--they're in competition with other workers and potential workers.
The real effect of minimum-wage laws is to increase the competitive advantage that workers whose productive value would exceed the minimum wage have over those workers whose productive value would be less. If an employer has a choice between hiring ten workers who each cost a total of $10/hour (including benefits, etc.) or fifteen that cost $5/hour, the employer would likely choose the latter option unless the more productive workers agreed to work cheaper. But if the employer can't hire any workers for less than $10/hour, that puts the less productive workers out of a job, and so the more-productive workers can demand and receive wages that will cost the employer $10/hour since their competition was eliminated.
Since the former scenario will put people out of work, who will then have to be funded out of general tax revenue, it seems the choice is either higher prices and higher taxes, or just higher taxes (which may end up not being higher, since the government has to subsidize workers less than it has to subsidize non-workers).
Personally, I'd like to see something like the following: every citizen over 18 receives a personal tax credit of $x/year. Every dollar of income earned is taxed at y%. If a person earns less than $x/y% per year, the government pays them $x minus y% of what they earned. If they earn more than $x/y%, they remit the difference. Eliminate nearly all other welfare programs.
Right now, the eligibility rules for welfare compel people to live inefficiently, or at best eliminate all incentives for them to do otherwise. If you tell people that they're not allowed to save any money, and give them enough food stamps that they don't need to shop economically, they'll make no effort to economize. If, on the other hand, you tell people that every dollar per month they manage to shave off their living expenses will be an extra $12 per year they can do with as they want, a lot of people would find themselves able to live on much less than they had been.
In addition to the obvious direct benefits, this would also help people move up in the world and stop being dependent on government. The only real way for a poor person to move up in the world is to learn to be efficient with money. Unfortunately, people on welfare are discouraged from learning that skill. If people were encouraged to be more efficient with their money, they'd be able to advance themselves.
Good points.
I think America United was making a joke--hence the quote marks around "French".
After all, it's not pronounced Tar-get, it's Tar-zhay with a "French" accent.
No need to get snippy about it! ;-p
Some people think knowing everything about Target is the pinnacle of knowledge. I pity them.
And the sweet irony is that of the 30,000 job applicants at the EP walmart, 29,500 of them were city residents and 500 were suburbanites (actually figure cited in the Sun-Times).
The city of Chicago is really "in touch" with the interests of their residents, aren't they? lol.
If people refuse to work hard and live cheaply, instead consuming government money, the fault is with the government that allows it, not with the company that pays them what they're worth.
I assume that by this time, you've discovered that your information is no longer accurate-- either by reading this thread, or actually doing some research.
Are you saying the Dayton family has sold the stores to France? http://powerlineblog.com/archives/007946.php
Dayton is one of the beneficiaries of the Dayton's (now Target) department store fortune. He himself has never worked in the private sector and has spent most of his adult life in politics. As a subject, Dayton is Minnesota's contribution to the psychiatric profession. As a politician, Dayton is the expressive form of the Democratic Party
Haven't read the Powerline article, but just skimmed through it. I found the passage you quote, and it is correct-- as far as it goes. That's how his family made their fortune.
I'm sure he still owns shares of the Target corporation, as do I. You might even, also-- either directly or as part of a mutual fund.
He, and his family, no longer have any say in how Target corporation does business. When DHC was taken public (I have no idea the date), the Dayton family effectively sold a good portion to thousands of shareholders-- not the French specifically.
Are you saying the Dayton family has sold the stores to France?
I see no reference in the quoted article to "sold the stores to France".
Target is a publicly traded company-- it's not "owned by the French". In deference to this commonly bantied belief, however: AXA, a French corporation, owns roughly 5% of Target's outstanding shares. Hardly a controlling interest, by any stretch of the imagination. (Gleaned this from a Snopes.com article.)
It's kind of a toss-up which of those legends offends those of us that work with/for Target (I'm a contractor and my wife is in store management) more: Being French-owned, or under the thumb of Mark Dayton.
You've managed to assign both in one post. Congratulations.
Then you read the thread wrong... my post was to a post that said someone would not shop at Target because it was a French Corporation and I replied that to the best of my knowledge it was not, but linked to the Dayton Family (didn't remember his name in the post, just the incident where he left DC for fear of being bombed after 911).... no where did I demean Target or their employess, actually I love Target Stores and wish they would build one in our new mall that is going in, but evidentally our City fathers chased away out of greed.
I know you happen to be correct Egon. I needed to add my two cents. I hate it when someone posts something that is so full of errors regarding Target. I'm a shareholder and I do not appreciate Arizona Carolyn defaming this great American company. Thanks for sticking up for it.
good column in today's Tribune on the opinion page.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0607170133jul17,1,3013332.story?coll=chi-opinionfront-hed
I beg to differ....mechanics in the city of Chicago garages start at $38 an hour(machinist union). Most make over 40 with all the years they've accrued. I know this first hand.
disclaimer: I'm not in a union.
I actually assumed that you were correcting the French legend, but were replacing it with the Dayton one.
Since a couple days had passed, I looked beyond your response (to a very early post) and saw that you hadn't been corrected by the end of the post.
As I stated, I was assuming that, by then, you had read the remainder of the thread and had been corrected of the Dayton legend. If not, at least you would be brought to the conclusion that it was contested, by my response to you.
You responded with the Powerline quote, as well as the "sold it to the French quote".
I apologize for the misunderstanding. I'm growing weary of correcting a great number of insidious anti-Target rumors and propaganda. As with any company, it definitely has its faults; but, by and large, it is an excellent corporation-- staffed by a great many good people-- some of them Freepers.
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