The Grinch That Stole Labor Day!

[Sava]

Great news, let the marketplace work and we won't see such high unemployment. This is just like minimum wage laws that liberals defend without ever acknowledging the people who lost their jobs because their production value was less than the minimum wage.

Do you have a clue about what the "marketplace" is? It's not some mystical entity that regulates prices and keeps things fair. The "marketplace", in essence, is a bunch of corporate leaders who get together and set prices. So when you say, "let the marketplace do it", you are saying, let corporations run our country.

[st_swithin]

Let's just say Ciao to Chao and hope she gets demoted or voted out or whatever it is they do to people in her position.

She could be a great administrator on eBay.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Sava


Do you have a clue about what the "marketplace" is? It's not some mystical entity that regulates prices and keeps things fair. The "marketplace", in essence, is a bunch of corporate leaders who get together and set prices. So when you say, "let the marketplace do it", you are saying, let corporations run our country.

Yeah, prices get fixed all the times. You can see the announcements in the Wall Street Journal - "Northeast US price fixing conference. At a Masonic lodge near you."

[monkspider]

If Bush tries to push this through, it will be his great undoing.

[mrmitchell]

monk, no it won't. Do you think we all really read the Federal Register?

[st_swithin]

Too late. It's a done deal.

[Goingonit]

Sava, for every monopolist who fixes prices there's a union that fixes wages.

Abolishing the 40-hour work week and minimum wage wouldn't result in as many changes as one would think, because companies need to compete to hire workers. Those who don't promise extra pay for overtime or other benefits would have the worst staff.

That is what Berzerker and MtG mean by letting the marketplace work: rather than have work weeks, minimum wage, and overtime pay chosen arbitrarily by the government, wages should change due to the need of companies to compete with each other for workers and the need for workers to compete with each other for jobs.

Also, if things get too bad, the workers can unionize and get a better deal. And if the employees are prevented from doing too well because if they get too good a deal, the company will go bankrupt. It all evens out.

[mrmitchell]

Abolishing the 40-hour work week and minimum wage wouldn't result in as many changes as one would think, because companies need to compete to hire workers. Those who don't promise extra pay for overtime or other benefits would have the worst staff.

The economy is bad. If there's only one job available, even if it means kissing every ass every hour, it's better than going broke (even if not by a lot.)

[Goingonit]

yes, but the people who take the worst jobs are the ones who are so crappy as to be rejected from all the better jobs. The worse a deal you offer, the lower the quality of your applicants and, thus, of your employees.

[MichaeltheGreat]

There's enough unemployment and the labor market is so skewed in the present market that abolishing minimum wage and hours of work laws (especially if you also go the Libertarian route of ending unemployment benefits) that there would be a pretty severe erosion of worker's positions.

I'm not in favor of the Libertarian approach in labor law, I just don't see the big deal (because there isn't one) in getting the Feds out of most of the labor standards business. Job markets in West Virginia and California are not at all similar, so treating them the same by regulating primarily at the Federal level is ridiculous, especially when the states already have their laws and regulations that are unaffected by any absense or cancellation of Federal rules on the same issues.

States also compete for employers and/or workers, and have an interest in promoting their own economic growth, so there's no good reason that the primary regulatory power shouldn't be at the state level.

[Sava]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Yeah, prices get fixed all the times. You can see the announcements in the Wall Street Journal - "Northeast US price fixing conference. At a Masonic lodge near you."

Funny... I figure someone as yourself would at least know enough about business to know who controls the means of productions controls pricing... sure there are markets, and certainly not every commodity is fixable. But despite your mockery, such conferences do exist. Look at OPEC... their sole purpose is to get together to set production levels in order to control prices.

And with billions and billions at stake, are you so naive that you don't think corporate leaders in other markets don't call each other to discuss such matters?

Don't get me wrong, I like capitalism and the idea of consumer markets dictating prices via demand... but as with communism, that ideal is far from the reality in this country. Your tiresome attempt at humor in efforts to discredit me was weak.

[SpencerH]

A few facts about the 'repression' http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/...12006608.shtml

Only about 644,000 workers earning above-average wages would lose overtime pay, while a larger group of 1.3 million low-wage workers earning less than $425 a week would get a new guarantee of overtime eligibility, according to the Bush administration.

The current regulation allows an employee earning as little as $8,060 annually — an amount put in place years ago and now lower than the federal minimum wage — to qualify as an executive exempt from overtime.

Those who would benefit most include office managers and assistant managers in restaurants and stores now being paid annual salaries of $15,000, $18,000 or $20,000, McCutchen said.

“For someone who is making $18,000, the employer will have two choices: either to raise their salary to at least $425 a week — earning $22,100 a year — or they can choose to start paying them by the hour and paying them overtime,” she said. “They will have to do one or the other.”

Controversial parts of the proposed regulation involve white-collar employees making more than $65,000, who generally wouldn’t be eligible for overtime, and other workers who could be classified as administrative, professional or executive employees.

Clearly another attempt by the Bush administration to stick it to the poor. Get a life.