A few weeks ago, I was talking with a left-of-center acquaintance of mine – one who workes in the urban education system, and who does, I honestly believe, their level best to try to teach highly disasdantaged kids – about McDonalds aggressively moving to automate its front lines, driving by draconian minimum wage and benefit hikes in ‘progressive” cities. I pointed out all the entry level jobs, the kinds of jobs this person’s students needed to get started in working life, were going to be lost because of this.
“Well”, this person said, “it was going to happen anyway, and this wijll send a message that companies can’t exploit people”.
The message it sends, I thought demurely to myself, is that progressives really really don’t get economics. But my response was You are a ‘have” – someone with a career, who back in their teens worked at some crummy minimum wage jobs and learned how to show up for work on time and not be a jerk to people. Your kids are have-nots, in that respect”.
I never got an reply.
Well, not to the second assertion. As to the first one, Nancy Pelosi had her own – from the perspective of the “haves” that sre the leadership of the Democrat party:
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) on Thursday continued to slam the recently passed Republican tax reform bill, calling the wage increases and bonuses “crumbs” during her weekly press briefing.
Walmart was the most recent company to announce a wage increase and bonuses as a result of the sweeping legislation, which included a slashing of the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent.
“A number of companies are attributing the tax bill for being able to give higher wages to their employees as well as being able to give a number of bonuses to their employees. How do you respond to that?” a reporter asked.
“In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving workers to kind of put the schmooze on is so pathetic. It’s so pathetic,” Pelosi said.
No word from WalMart employees about whether the $11 minimum and the bonuses are “pathetic” or not.
I know we’ve been in a “deflationary” period. Just ask Ben Bernanke or Janet Yellen, co-authors of the Great Wealth Effect.
But really, I have little in my pocket after paying non-deflationary electric bills, medical bills, tuition and food bills, and I would love to be smote by deflation.
Is raising the national minimum wage from a defacto $8.00 an hour to $11.00 or $12.00 going to feed into the Great Wealth Effect or stagflation?
Aside: I’m currently shadowbanned on several blogs exactly as described in the latest Project Veritas/James O’keefe undercover video.
You’re rejoicing at the fact that the US government is now subsidizing pay increases that these companies could have afforded in the first place? I wonder if this was planned anyway and/or necessary to get capable workers — and they are seeking favor with Trump by linking it with the tax cut.
Its also worth noting that Walmart’s profits are significantly predicated on using China as a significant source of their products — what do Trump followers have to say about this?
Pelosi and her ilk believe that THEY are the only ones allowed to dispense crumbs, and resent the competition.
What would have happened if one of these companies, w/o a corporate tax reduction, had increased the base pay of their workers?
Profits would be reduced. The valuation of a public owned company is based on its earnings & its anticipated earnings. These would be reduced. You sound like MBerg’s ignorant acquaintance, who believes that employers could shower their workers with money & other benefits, but choose not to do so because they are big ol’ meanies.
Business economics doesn’t work that way, Emery. For good and ill, a successful company has one objective: provide value to the shareholder.
You could fix most of the worst effects of this bill by raising the taxes on capital income (dividends, capital gains) to recover those revenues lost in business profit taxes, and to reduce the benefits to pass-through corporations. But as structural tax reform goes, this is an improvement. If we can adjust the rates so that those reaping capital income don’t enjoy a windfall paid for by new debt, then the tax system will have improved on the whole.
What is the purpose of taxation? Is it to fund the government with minimal disruption of the economy, or to penalize success in the name of “fairness”?
As for Pelosi, I am really torn. Would it be best if the media would just avoid her entirely, or if her obvious insanity should be broadcast for all the world to see?
MP, you are trying to teach a slug how to break the sound barrier. Yes, redistributionist Shvonder-eTASS is that dense. You cannot fix stupid, nor brainwashed. Oh, wait, brainwashed and Shvonder-eTASS cannot appear in the same sentence since to be brainwashed you first have to have a brain to wash, which Shvonder-eTASS clearly does not posses. For crying out loud, it takes him two sock puppet accounts to present his lies, misinformation, misdirection and failed Marxist theories.
J, let her talk. She is the poster child which proves liberalism is a disease.
In economic terms, a tax on profits is a cost like any other. It is an inefficient use of capital, like paying $20/hr for labor that could be done for $10/hr. I”ve never understood why there should be any tax on corporate profits or taxes on workers wages. What is the justification, other than the government wants the money?
I can understand real estate taxes, road taxes, social security & medicare taxes, but what is the justification for demanding a share of corporate profits or a worker’s wages?
but what is the justification for demanding a share of corporate profits or a worker’s wages?
Ooooo…. I cannot wait to hear Shcvonder-eTASS retort to this one. I wonder which quote from Marx, Lenin or Stalin he is going to pull.
It’s like the sales tax. I can see why states & some cities & counties have them. They pay for local infrastructure. But why should Amazon (based in Seattle) charging me Hawaii sales tax when I purchase something from them? Why should Amazon have to pay for Hawaii infrastructure? Why should have to pay Hawaii sales tax on a transaction that takes place outside of Hawaii?
Well, the law is (was?), if you did not have physical presence in that state, you did not have to pay sales tax. And today, if you buy from a third party that does not have a presence in HI and merchandise is shipped from them, even though you did your transaction through Amazon, you will not pay tax. However, Amazon had extended themselves with physical presence into just about every state, so indeed, if they sell and ship, they should be paying for infrastructure.
Figured you’d do your level best to “spin” things. But first, let me help you out on something.
Economics is something you clearly don’t get. In fact, it’s clearly something Republicans (the empty shell of itself as a party/group of people as compared to what it once was), don’t either.
Economists are rarely, conservative any more. They aren’t because Reaganomics, trickle-down, easy money policy in good times, isn’t economic policy, it’s political policy.
What happens when you put money into an already well-functioning system is you enrich the rich, and if you have a trade deficit, you create an asset bubble. That’s what we saw in the late 1980’s, it’s what we saw in the early 2000’s and it is again, what we’ll see and are seeing in the market today. We have an inflated market, inflated by already very profitable companies getting a handout we cannot, as a nation, afford.
Then, toadies like the head of Walmart come out and say that the reason they are giving their starting employees $11 an hour is due to that tax cut. No, it isn’t, they are giving that increase out because they are struggling MIGHTILY to staff their shithole jobs. Walk into a Walmart lately? You wander aisles and aisles to find just one person, a person who frequently speaks only a little English. Their competitors, Costco and Target, already increased pay, last year (and before). The pittance bonuses, $1000 if you’ve been with Walmart 20 years, represents something like 3% of the total tax savings Walmart will achieve. So, to get $318M in bonuses, we gave the wealthy share holders 33 TIMES that amount. Yippee, really good policy, yep. Sound economics certainly, I mean, that way, we can’t pay for infrastructure reform, we’ll have to throw millions of people off having health insurance, an economically disasterous move long term and ultimately we’ll bankrupt Medicare and Social Security. While I get you don’t get economics, Mitch, let me explain that to you. It means we’ll spend BILLIONS to deal with emergency services for people for issues which could have been dealt with preventatively for a fraction of the cost. We’ll have to find ways to help the impoverished elderly, again done inefficiently because it will not be the person themselves making life choices but instead some centralized policy which will, given GOP standards, likely be pretty heartless.
Or is it that you think making tens of millions of elderly work is somehow good for the country?
What happens when asset bubbles burst, Mitch. You’re clearly an economics expert, please, tell me, what will be the outcome of that out of balance system?
Penigma, there is no such economic term as “trickle down economics.”
It is a pejorative term invented by a non-economist (Will Rogers).
Please try to keep up.
“you create an asset bubble”
That is done by Keynesian RINO Federal Reserve stupidity.
NAFTA, China opening up, robots put pressure on a system that is based on Penigma style ***statist inflationism*** not purchasing power. They have been doing everything wrong for 30 years. Now Pengigma is concerned that Medicare is gong to turn him into Soylent Green against his will. That is what is going on.