With respect to the question I asked there was an argument put forward that I found interesting:
Presently there is a staggeringly high percentage of men aged 25-64 not working. This is separate from the unemployment rate which only includes people of both genders presently not working who are actively looking for work. Now this prime age men not working contains some groups of people who legitimately can’t work - the retarded, disabled etc. But even when you remove these people from this statistic the number is still insanely high.
So if the elites suddenly had their cheap immigrant labor cut off, would it be fair to assume the elites would do everything in their power to lure these prime aged men not working into working in their factory or farm? like Aragorn had suggested increasing wages would be a major way of doing this and by extension lead to less parasites living off the system. Wouldn’t the elites also push to cut entitlements to further incentivize these not working men to work for them? Make living on welfare an increasingly bad deal.
Keep in mind low skilled immigrant labor is only a great deal for the elites. A sizable portion of welfare is targeted toward the working poor, so yes you’d be paying extra for goods but would have to pay less to prop these people up via Welfare programs targeted at the working.
The way you are portraying this situation is very black and white. You just used a version of the word “elite” like 7 times. It isn’t just the “elites” that will be affected by such a policy. In fact, the “elites” will probably be affected the least by such a policy. It is not that cut and dry.
You can’t just raise wages if you don’t have the cash flow to do. It would be fantastic if that were the case, but it’s not.
The fact of the matter is that production remains the same or declines in this scenario, which means operating and profit margins remain the same or decline. How do you pay for the wage increase without an increase in production? You raise your products price, which affects purchasing power especially for lower-wage workers, you cut other costs, which almost always means a reduction in headcount, or you improve your processes/procedures to essentially manufacture an increase in production, but that’s easier said than done.
Also, something that is often not considered is that an employee does not cost an employer wages only. Wages are the primary cost; however, there are additional costs that are most often referred to as Benefits expense. Every company will be different, but I have seen benefit rates as high as 30%. This means that an employee with an annual wage of $50,000 has an actual cost of $65,000.
Assume you raise the minimum from $7.25 to $15. That’s an additional $15,500 in wages and $4,650 in benefits per employee. If you have 100 employees in this boat you’ve dug yourself a $2,015,000 hole with zero increase in production.
This also ignores wage compression, which makes the problem even worse.
Great post all around and you made good points. Your point about companies operating on tight margins is specifically why I am very critical of most current proposed minimum wage hikes. I think that in most cases–not all–allowong something like this to regulate itself through external circumstances and market fluctuations is usually better than imposong a top down increase…even if the net result is the same. Granted these are two different circumstances but the end result (wages increase, margins contract, and productivity needs to be maintained) is similar in both.
Id have to think about the issue further but you made a very good post. Speaking in general, I believe that any time you allow something like this hypothetical immigrarion stoppage to run its course without obvious direct influence on the market, the solutions generated are more creative and more free-enterprise based. That to me is a win regardless of short term pain in most cases.
Wouldn’t she just say “I had no intention of lying, but unfortunately I was wrong. We were ‘extremely careless’ in deleting e-mails, as the FBI has said, but we did not intend to delete classified information.”
How long would it take to even get hearing on perjury going? And then to arrive at a judgment?
Nah, unless the Administration pushes to have her security clearance revoked (haha, good joke) or something, I think this is all but dead as far as the election cycle goes. “Extremely Careless?” Meh, I think most Hillary-over-Trump supporters had already shrugged their shoulders over her handling of these e-mails, and were simply waiting to see if she was going to be indicted.
And while I’m just not surprised at the FBI’s conclusion, it’s funny to see how “extremely careless” somehow isn’t “grossly negligent.” A charmed kind of life in our capital of power and influence. Especially for rock-star standouts like the Clintons.
I watched only part of the Comey hearings but I was actually surprised by some of the answers that Comey gave. It started to appear obvious that there was some sort of deal cut behind the scenes. No one could possibly know what that deal is, or how the various players benefit but it is certainly a sad day for America.
One final thought, Hillary being indicted now would most assuredly taken her out of contention for the democrat nomination. But, the Dems not being stupid would have dropped in Joe Biden who could have won the race for the dems. Not indicting her under the conditions that took place puts more emphasis on the shady dealings of not just Hillary Clinton but how Washington works. This will absolutely harm her chances of becoming the next POTUS.
I totally agree and it’s sad to see. Back in the 70’s when Nixon was brought down both parties marched in lock step because they did not want corruption at the highest levels of government. And Watergate was actually pretty low level stuff compared to what Hillary has done.
Quite frankly Drew while Trump is no prize I find it amusing to read of such low level nonsense as compared to Hillary Clinton’s crimes that are going unpunished.
