Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Stupid reasoning. (Score 1) 1094

So either:
1. Their competitors are local, and also suffer from increased costs and thus increased prices. So costs do increase.
2. Their competitors are not local, and thus do not suffer from the minimum wage increase. So now you're at an inherent competitive disadvantage, which discourages people from doing business in that area. Worst case, the business goes under, in which case all those workers who had a low pay before now have no pay at all because they're unemployed. So now your area is a less attractive place for business, and has higher unemployment. But it's fine, because the people who are still employed now get paid a little more, right?

Comment Re:Stupid reasoning. (Score 1) 1094

To cite your company A and company B example:
Company A isn't just randomly increasing its prices. It's increasing them because it now has to pay its workers more money. If company B is in the same jurisdiction, then company B would have to do the same. Now, if company B isn't in that jurisdiction and therefore not subject to the min wage increase, then they get a competitive advantage over company A. Not only does that discourage companies from doing business in that area (or at least hiring workers there) due to it putting them at an automatic disadvantage if other factors are held constant, but if company A can't compete and goes out of business, now you went from having poorly paid workers to unemployed workers. So it's not a very good solution to the problem at hand.

For part 2, see above. Companies do tend to have some elasticity in the size of their workforce, but it's not just above individual employers. If an employer goes under, that decreases the demand for labor, which means lower wages and/or unemployment. If the wages are propped up by a minimum wage, then it's going to be unemployment. So again, not a particularly good solution.

Comment Re:Stupid reasoning. (Score 1) 1094

The workers have a right to demand better pay by choosing to not work there. If it's not sustainable to live in an expensive city as a burger flipper, they can leave the city and live somewhere where such a living is viable. This decreases the supply of burger flippers, meaning the market pushes the wage of burger flippers up on its own, with no intervention necessary.

Now, if the minimum wage was deemed to be too low in a place that is cheap to live in, then you would have a point, and the minimum wage probably should be increased. But if you're having trouble getting by in LA/NYC, and you refuse to move somewhere cheaper, while it sounds harsh you only have yourself to blame. The entire reason those places are expensive to live in to begin with is supply and demand. If you aren't willing (or able) to pay the price of living there, don't. It's economically inefficient to have someone who can't afford it to live in an expensive place. You may think that having more burger flippers and thus cheaper burgers in LA would be good because it would decrease the cost of eating, but it gets outweighed by the fact that the increased demand for housing increases your rent, and thus your cost of living.

Now, even if the scenario were to play out exactly as you say (less burger restaurants), then there's less places to employ burger flippers, and thus some of them will become unemployed. Thus, the actual positive effect on the minimum wage workers is lower than expected, e.g. a 25% increase in minimum wage might cause 10% of them to become unemployed. Their overall wage will go up somewhat (less than the actual wage increase), but it will be concentrated among a lower number of people. That's not a very effective solution to this problem.

It's ironic that you bring up Walmart, because as much as people like to vilify Walmart, it's one of the places that lets people get by cheaply. Without cheap places like Walmart, the cost of living would go up, so there would be even more people whose wage isn't enough to live on.

Comment Re:NOT a kernel bug (Score 1) 70

This is just yet another reason on the already long list of why I never use consumer routers. Between the awful specs, terrible proprietary firmwares, and swiss cheese security, I've decided to just use only repurposed hardware for routers. Almost anything past the P4 era can route at gigabit speeds without the need for "NAT accel" hardware (aka "our hardware is so slow that it needs NAT acceleration to do what a thrown-out PC can do"). That, or look for used professional gear.

Pretty much the only thing that proprietary consumer stuff does better is wifi APs.

Comment Re:Stupid reasoning. (Score 1) 1094

You are very wrong on both cases. First the market sets the prices and since the market is competitive the business that is making a profit will be forced to keep the same price or risk loosing all their customers. Second the employee costs won't rise that much and you have a better shot at getting more customers if people have extra money to spend.

And what sets the market price? Supply and demand. If a business's costs go up (especially in this case where all the business's costs go up at the same time to varying degrees), then its prices will go up, because the business is now able to supply less quantity for the same price (or higher price for the same quantity).

Comment Re:Stupid reasoning. (Score 1) 1094

The problem becomes actually determining what constitutes a "living wage", and how it varies by location. One major ethical question raised is if, in areas where the cost of living is high, "live somewhere else" is an acceptable answer. If "living wage" for a city is determined to be $25/hr, is it fair to just say "go live somewhere cheaper", rather than demanding that burger flippers get paid $25/hr?

Comment Re:Stupid reasoning. (Score 5, Insightful) 1094

Two important things to consider:
1. It will increase prices of products as well, so at the end of the day it's just a cycle where nothing really happens.
2. Do you actually think the same amount of employees will be employed if companies are mandated to pay them more? Many of them will lose jobs.

Minimum wage hikes tend to hurt two parties the most:
1. Small businesses, who are typically operating on rather small margins anyway. Unlike larger businesses, they can't easily move to places with lower minimum wage or offshore jobs.
2. Middle class, because they suffer the increase in costs incurred by minimum wage hikes, but don't benefit at all from it because they're already above the minimum wage.
Minimum wage increases try to tackle a real problem, but do nothing to actually solve it. Minimum wage should be adjusted in accordance with inflation and nothing else.

Comment Re:There can be only one. (Score 4, Insightful) 443

Yes. If you load up an editor enough, then the line between editor and IDE gets blurred. It's why I'd always start with an editor that is good at actually editing text, and build off of that, because that's usually easier than taking an IDE and trying to get it to edit text how you want. An IDE could make your breakfast and drive you to work but at the end of the day the main point is still to edit text.

Comment Re:Is this Google's fault? (Score 1) 434

I think Google is partially at fault. When Android was first announced, I thought it would make phone OSes much better, because you'd just be able to install "Android" on your phone. Google releases the newest android, you install it. Just like any desktop OS. I don't need to wait for Dell/HP/whoever to release a new Windows version for their particular phone, I just get it straight from MS and install it myself.

Instead, Google probably caved to the carriers and gave them way too much control. So now we not only have to wait for a new release from Google, but from the manufacturer as well.

Comment Re:Skewed (Score 1) 176

That doesn't solve any problem. The issue is that in many places, taxis are given government-granted x-opoly in the form of taxi medallions which effectively shield them from competition, allowing them to overcharge.
In addition, it's pretty dumb to begin with that you can take some action which is perfectly legal (in this case, letting someone ride in your car), but as soon as you add a transfer of currency (also perfectly legal), it somehow becomes illegal.

Slashdot Top Deals

Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations"

Working...