The Off Topic Topic

[Ed Anger]

Got the girls a Dji Phantom 3 quadcopter drone.

tsk, tsk. I'm sure you could have afforded the Inspire.

Do I look like I'm made of money?

yes king Midas.

I don't toss gold coins around. Just slugs.

[CountDeMoney]

New avatar for my Internet brother Seedy.

Only thing missing is the handicapped stall equipment.  I like to stretch out.  Which is kinda ironic for a toilet specifically designed for motherfuckers that can't use their legs.

[Ed Anger]

I like the wall bar. Sometimes, it takes it out of you and you need the bar to get up.

[CountDeMoney]

Yeah, and sometimes it doesn't allow you to save your place in your magazine like it should.  Rolls the fuck right off.  Nobody thought of that one writing up the ADA.

[CountDeMoney]

Whelp, I'm off to Ambien Country.  Got a long week of coming up with different reasons not to blow my fucking brains out somewhere on live TV ahead of me.

[Barrister]

A study of Seattle's new higher minimum wage (they're aiming for $15/hr, but aren't there yet) shows what most of us on the right have always said - it leads to reduced numbers of hours worked, and net less salary paid to low income workers.

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/uw-study-finds-seattles-minimum-wage-is-costing-jobs/

[Valmy]

Well that is the nice thing about a decentralized government, you can lab test these things and we can see what the long term impacts will be. I found the article a bit confusing frankly.

[CountDeMoney]

You can't compel employers to pay employees more than what they want to pay.  Pretty basic fucking math.

[Jacob]

A study of Seattle's new higher minimum wage (they're aiming for $15/hr, but aren't there yet) shows what most of us on the right have always said - it leads to reduced numbers of hours worked, and net less salary paid to low income workers.

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/uw-study-finds-seattles-minimum-wage-is-costing-jobs/

Is that what you on the right have always said? As I recall it most of the objections that were voiced before this study was released centred around the increased labour costs being passed on to consumers in the shape of higher prices.

I'll note that another study came out this week as well that reached the opposite conclusion:

Our results show that wages in food services did increase—indicating the policy achieved its goal—and our estimates of the wage increases are in line with the lion's share of results in previous credible minimum wage studies. Wages increased much less among full-service restaurants, indicating that employers made use of the tip credit component of the law. Employment in food service, however, was not affected, even among the limited-service restaurants, many of them franchisees, for whom the policy was most binding. These findings extend our knowledge of minimum wage effects to policies as high as $13.

http://irle.berkeley.edu/seattles-minimum-wage-experience-2015-16/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronaldholden/2017/06/26/dueling-studies-come-to-opposite-conclusions-regarding-seattles-15-minimum-wage/#70bb06b8393d

[HVC]

Ontario want to increase min wage too. The thing about increaeding minimum wages, I think, is that it squeezes the middle. things get more expensive, so they buy less, which companies can pay less, so hours get cut.

But i'm not an economist, what do I know.

[Jacob]

Ontario want to increase min wage too. The thing about increaeding minimum wages, I think, is that it squeezes the middle. things get more expensive, so they buy less, which companies can pay less, so hours get cut.

But i'm not an economist, what do I know.

So far I haven't seen any evidence published about prices increasing due to this. There were some reports in 2016 that prices had definitely not increased in response to the increase in minimum wage, but I haven't been able to find something more recent either way.

[Admiral Yi]

Prices don't go up, employment doesn't go down.  Let's raise the minimum wage to a billion dollars. 

[Barrister]

A study of Seattle's new higher minimum wage (they're aiming for $15/hr, but aren't there yet) shows what most of us on the right have always said - it leads to reduced numbers of hours worked, and net less salary paid to low income workers.

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/uw-study-finds-seattles-minimum-wage-is-costing-jobs/

Is that what you on the right have always said? As I recall it most of the objections that were voiced before this study was released centred around the increased labour costs being passed on to consumers in the shape of higher prices.

I'll note that another study came out this week as well that reached the opposite conclusion:

Our results show that wages in food services did increase—indicating the policy achieved its goal—and our estimates of the wage increases are in line with the lion's share of results in previous credible minimum wage studies. Wages increased much less among full-service restaurants, indicating that employers made use of the tip credit component of the law. Employment in food service, however, was not affected, even among the limited-service restaurants, many of them franchisees, for whom the policy was most binding. These findings extend our knowledge of minimum wage effects to policies as high as $13.

http://irle.berkeley.edu/seattles-minimum-wage-experience-2015-16/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronaldholden/2017/06/26/dueling-studies-come-to-opposite-conclusions-regarding-seattles-15-minimum-wage/#70bb06b8393d

I don't know enough about economics or statistics to say which one of these reports is better.

But I think this is a situation similar to some on the right's obsession that you can cut taxes without cutting tax revenue.  At some particularly high levels of taxation this appears to be true (the infamous Laffer curve).

There is some evidence that when starting at very low minimum wages, raising the minimum wage doesn't hurt employment.  And that can make sense - at really low wages most workers don't even earn the minimum wage to begin with.  But as you keep raising it it will effect employment rates, or else as Yi points out you might as well pay every a billion dollars.

[Jacob]

There is some evidence that when starting at very low minimum wages, raising the minimum wage doesn't hurt employment.  And that can make sense - at really low wages most workers don't even earn the minimum wage to begin with.  But as you keep raising it it will effect employment rates, or else as Yi points out you might as well pay every a billion dollars.

Indeed. The trick is figuring out to what degree going from $9/hr to $11/hr and on to $15/hr is like trying to pay everyone $1B/hr and to what degree other effects (increased spending power in the local community leading to higher consumption) have positive impacts.

[Barrister]

There is some evidence that when starting at very low minimum wages, raising the minimum wage doesn't hurt employment.  And that can make sense - at really low wages most workers don't even earn the minimum wage to begin with.  But as you keep raising it it will effect employment rates, or else as Yi points out you might as well pay every a billion dollars.

Indeed. The trick is figuring out to what degree going from $9/hr to $11/hr and on to $15/hr is like trying to pay everyone $1B/hr and to what degree other effects (increased spending power in the local community leading to higher consumption) have positive impacts.

Well the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests it's having negative impacts well before you hit $15/hr.