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Fast Food Workers in cities want $15 an hour and not $7.50

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Seems like all AndrewB has is bad analogies and right wing websites with handwavey theorising. Bucket has actual facts and statistics to back up his arguments. I know which I find more convincing.

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Bucket said:

More concise, but still a complete non sequitur, as my stance has NOTHING TO DO WITH CAUSALITY.

Of course it does. If we weren't talking about causality then we wouldn't be talking at all.

You cited a study, one which merely argued a correlation, to support your argument that higher minimum wage doesn't cause reduced employment.

Correlation != causation. Everyone knows that.

But the point is more profound than that. Not only does a correlation not show causation (statistics 101), but there can be situations where a negative causality can be married to a positive correlation. The white blood cell analogy demonstrates this.

Heck, you probably still think that I'm disagreeing with the findings of your study. I'm not. In fact, I'm going to reinforce your point, and I don't even need to city a study. Just look at the list of minimum wages by country. Sort them by US$ amount. Notice a pattern? Pretty clearly, the countries with the highest minimum wages tend to be wealthier.

So then, why the correlation? Does simply raising the minimum wage cause a country to be wealthier? Or does the very success of a country's economy mean that a higher minimum wage is more politically acceptable?

Kids of rich families tend to have higher allowances than kids of poor families. Does this mean that the key to becoming rich is to raise your kid's allowance?

Feel free to fill in the blanks. But the point is this: Your argument isn't a refutation of what I posted. You actually reinforced my point, and you probably never realized it!

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Membrain said:

I'm trying to figure out which side you're batting for here, AndrewB. To adjust the flawed logic you just used to what you said earlier, you end up with this statement: "Minimum wage being raised is highly correlated with unemployment. Therefore, raising minimum wage causes unemployment."

I understand your confusion. So let me be clear. My arguments with the police patrols and white blood cells are intentionally flawed. That's the whole point. Most people understand that correlation doesn't establish causation. However, very few people realize just how useless correlations are establishing anything. Unfortunately, very few studies rely on anything but correlations to support their conclusions. Even more sad, "citing a study" has become the weapon of choice used to "win an argument", turning many debates into nothing more than an intellectually vapid tennis match where the winner is determined by who is the last one to get bored of the whole thing.

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To attempt to bring things back to sanity, I just want to say, my argument wasn't that everyone should have the same amount of money or whatever. I recognize that some people have to be poor, and some people have to be rich. My problem is that people seem to have the attitude that in order for anyone to have any wealth, some people must be prevented from making enough to get by. The whole "Everyone is Bill Gates" scenario was an attempt to illustrate this - that clearly you're not arguing for pay based on your skills if the system breaks down when everyone has the same skills.

I don't have a problem with having poor people and rich people. I have a problem with the idea that if you're poor, if you have a shitty job, no matter how hard you work, you can't make a living. Shouldn't everyone who works hard deserve to make a living? I'm not saying that everyone has to have fancy cars and all that business, but come on, anyone who busts their asses all day should be entitled to paying the bills.

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AndrewB said:

Feel free to fill in the blanks. But the point is this: Your argument isn't a refutation of what I posted. You actually reinforced my point, and you probably never realized it!

Let's review:

  • AndrewB posts a shitty blog from a crackpot site containing nothing but conjecture
  • I post an empirical study proving there is no correlation between minimum wage and employment
  • AndrewB claims that in saying there is no correlation, I have made a correlation
  • WHARRGARBL ensues
  • AndrewB successfully disproves a negative, Ludwig von Mises rises from the grave to declare him Praetor Of Praxeology
At least, now I know what the B stands for.

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Quasar said:

If the pay is raised, the prices will be raised. It'll cost $10 to get a nasty fast food burger that shoots through your colon at light speed.

Yeah! Doubling the cost of labor will easily cause the price of a product to increase tenfold. It's basic supply and demand.

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geekmarine said:

I have a problem with the idea that if you're poor, if you have a shitty job, no matter how hard you work, you can't make a living. Shouldn't everyone who works hard deserve to make a living? I'm not saying that everyone has to have fancy cars and all that business, but come on, anyone who busts their asses all day should be entitled to paying the bills.


It's doable. At my current pay rate, I make pretty much exactly enough to pay my bills and buy food. But that's about it. Any luxuries I have are items I accumulated before I moved out of mom and dad's house, hand-me-downs from friends and family, or anything my fiance buys.

A lot of people I know are in spiraling credit card debt, but it's mostly because we don't like to admit to ourselves that we are lower-class, and the perceived "middle class" people we see on TV (that most of us like to think we are) are people waving their iPads out of the windows of trains, eating at Applebee's and Olive Garden every night, downloading apps on our smartphones, playing xbox kinect, shopping for new clothes at the mall twice a week, and then curling up in bed with the laptop and watching netflix until we fall asleep.

It's that lifestyle that's not doable.

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Wagi said:

Yeah! Doubling the cost of labor will easily cause the price of a product to increase tenfold. It's basic supply and demand.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole

Also:

"99% of statistics are made up on the spot, including this one."

Not trying to derail but if someone knows this quote as it was originally said and who said it I would appreciate a memory refresher.

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flubbernugget said:

"99% of statistics are made up on the spot, including this one."


Make it 99.9%.

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40oz said:

It's doable. At my current pay rate, I make pretty much exactly enough to pay my bills and buy food. But that's about it. Any luxuries I have are items I accumulated before I moved out of mom and dad's house, hand-me-downs from friends and family, or anything my fiance buys.


Don't forget junk/curb findings :-D My main TV is an early 80s 28" Sony Trinitron, still going strong, and coupled with two VCRs, some cheapo famiclones (junk store finds) etc.

Netflix? Plasma? Flat TVs? 3D? Wuzzzaaaaat?!

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Jayextee said:

It's low-skill but incredibly grueling and demanding work. I couldn't do it. They should get it.

Sometimes i wonder if low skill should equal to low pay.

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40oz said:

It's doable. At my current pay rate, I make pretty much exactly enough to pay my bills and buy food. But that's about it. Any luxuries I have are items I accumulated before I moved out of mom and dad's house, hand-me-downs from friends and family, or anything my fiance buys.

Sadly, you'll have to work until you die. And pray you'll never get sick or injured.

I work with people who are in their high sixties or are semi-retired. It's very depressing.

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999cop said:

Sometimes i wonder if low skill should equal to low pay.

Sure, why not? There are plenty of supervisors and middle-managers I've worked under who I would deem "low skill". They definitely were making 50k more than they should have been.

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Bucket said:

Sure, why not? There are plenty of supervisors and middle-managers I've worked under who I would deem "low skill". They definitely were making 50k more than they should have been.


Probably. But think about the kind of tiring work and those hours fast food workers have to dedicate (i know the # of hours in each shift is limited), maybe they should deserve a bigger share for their hourly rate.

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Wagi said:

Yeah! Doubling the cost of labor will easily cause the price of a product to increase tenfold. It's basic supply and demand.


Because at the end of the day, all companies are non-profit, amirite?

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