Minimum wage is an arbitrary price control, a wage is just a price on labour.

To an economist or a mathematician, maybe.

In reality, a wage is what people use to live. It is in no way the same thing as something like the cost of a beer.

If somebody is willing to buy a service at 5 bucks but not at 10 for example, then your statement reads like so: because of politics you should have to pay 10 bucks for the service and if you cannot afford it - tough.

Actually it reads: "you have to pay 10 bucks for this service so it can be delivered while meeting the basic requirements for civilised society".

You could make the same argument about anything that increases costs, from worker safety standards to regulations against lead paint.

Though as a Libertarian I'm sure you think employers should be able to endanger their employees and customers at will so long as it increases their profits.

Free market capitalist system does not reward companies for maiming people, [...]

It does if there's money in it. Or, at least, it would if it wasn't already illegal.

[...] governments on the other hand force you to participate, if you do not like it, you can always opt out to go to jail for tax evasion.

Or not earn enough to be taxed. Or leave the country.

Setting up minimum wage destroys opportunities for people with no skill sets, that's all it does, it doesn't provide anybody with "decent living" and it shouldn't.

Yes, it should. That's the whole reason it exists.

A minimum wage job shouldn't require any skills. It should be the going rate for unskilled, inexperienced, basic labour.

If it's not, it's not because the minimum wage is too low, it's because the business model is broken.

Decent living is provided by better jobs, but you have to find those better jobs in the first place and if you can never get a job to improve your skills, a low wage paying job, you are much less likely to find the next job that actually pays much more than a minimum wage does anyway.

What skills will someone learn in an unskilled below-minimum wage job, that will help them get a similarly unskilled, but marginally better paid, slightly-above-minimum wage job ?

Yeah, let's print some and give it away to people. That will sure boost the economy, at least according to your idiotic theory.

It would if it were going to real people and not banks and (by proxy) businesses and the wealthy.

(Which is not, of course, either condoning or advocating unlimited money printing.)

The economy is depressed because everyone who isn't rich, is unemployed, broke and/or weighed down by debt. And the rich don't spend proportionally as much as they own and earn, and certainly not across as much of the economy.

No it doesn't. If you're unemployed, or not employed full-time, you will be living below the "standard" of people on the minimum wage, all other factors being equal.

Well, in an ideal world there wouldn't be any unemployment (other than people transitioning between jobs, genuinely disabled/incapable of working (who should be supported by welfare), etc), but Governments influenced by big business have long since abrogated their responsibility to implement full-employment policies and decent welfare support.

You could say the minimum wage sets a floor on living standards for full-time workers with no dependents, but that's not as catchy.

I would argue the minimum wage should set a floor on living standards for the typical family, not individual. It should be possible for a typical family to live on a single minimum wage.

But, yes, it's not as catchy to give the full breakdown and all caveats. But this is a discussion on Slashdot, and the broad *point* is the same, regardless of the minor incidental details.

Nither side is really that effective, or hazardous. Until you get a significant increase in wages. Say $20 minimum wage, where it would be enough for the low end workers to have a significant improvement in quality of life, however at the same time, making many jobs much to expensive to maintain, and force companies to find ways to improve efficiency or outsource.

Or, horrific as the idea might sound to some, reducing profit margins.

Wealthy people don't keep their money in bank accounts, you big dummy. They buy stocks which provides capital for companies to get started and to operate, creating and maintaining jobs.

If no-one can afford to buy their products and services, why would companies create jobs ?

Learn something about economics, please.

Learn something about reality, please.

Wealth and job creation is driven from the bottom up, not the top down.

Lets look at it like this. Lets say they do jump from 10-15 bucks overnight. well, what about the people who were making 15.25? are they getting a 5 buck an hour raise as well? or are they now considered minimum wage jobs??

Can the business raise the price of their product or service to meet those higher salary costs ?

so now we have people who worked hard to get their raises getting shit on

If contemporary businesses weren't driven to minimise the wages of their lowest paid workers purely so they could maximise the wages of their highest paid, there'd be much less angst about paying the lowest earners more.

Only when those businesses have succeeded, and almost everyone is being paid minimum wage (or less), and no-one has any money to buy the products and services those businesses want to sell, will they realise the flaw in their cunning plan.

Really? I dont believe that at all. one should not be paid 20 buck an hour to pick apples, or take an order at mcdonalds, the job is not worth that much, if it were our food would cost double and we would be in the same boat. just because you now make 50 grand instead of 25 sounds good, but if the cost of everything goes up to match that change, whats the point??

So your argument is society must always have an oppressed, poverty-stricken underclass, reliant upon charity or welfare to survive ?

Free market capitalist system does not reward companies for maiming people, [...]

It does (and did) if there's money to be made from it.

Setting up minimum wage destroys opportunities for people with no skill sets, that's all it does, it doesn't provide anybody with "decent living" and it shouldn't. Decent living is provided by better jobs, but you have to find those better jobs in the first place and if you can never get a job to improve your skills, a low wage paying job, you are much less likely to find the next job that actually pays much more than a minimum wage does anyway.

Please tell us about the general skills someone learns in an unskilled job paying less than minimum wage, that they don't already have, that are required in a job paying minimum wage.

Whether a job is a 'liability' or not is also a question to the laws, many of which are also designed to destroy competition to the larger players in the field, those who donate money to the politicians. However checking oil and tire pressure and wiping your windshield and pumping your gas is a courtesy that can no longer be provided to you by the gas station, not because of liability, but because of the all the labour laws and inflation and government is the responsible party for all of it.

No, this is a lie.

That service can absolutely be provided, it's just that no-one is prepared to pay what it costs (in no small part because their incomes have been suppressed for thirty-plus years to facilitate ever-greater corporate profits).

Business model is not broken only due to artificial govt laws that do not operate in the free market but are there f9r political purposes.

All laws are artificial and do not operate in the free market.

If minimum wage was set tomorrow to 100 usd per hour by your logic it would mean that every business is broken, because near nobody can afford those labour prices.

No, this is what we call an excluded middle fallacy.

We (and this is a problem afflicting most western countries) don't have high unemployment because people are being paid too much. We have high unemployment because there's not enough work for them to do. Sure, you can get rid of the safeguards around things like minimum wage and worker safety, which will drop the unemployment numbers, but all you've done is engaged in a slightly different form of rigging the numbers. The core problem remains.

Employment for the sake of employment is not the goal. You can do that tomorrow by reinstating slavery and having people move piles of rocks around (which is, basically, what people who think there shouldn't be a minimum wage are arguing for). Creating wealth and increasing living standards for everyone is the goal.

Nonsense and propaganda. You cannot state anything until those increases actually kick in and are in effect for some time.

Actually I feel pretty confident stating that if more people have more money, economic activity will increase.

Minimum wage is actually minimum ability.

No, minimum wage is setting a floor on living standards.

It cannot extract non-existing money from small business, but it can prevent people with abilities that are below minimum wage from finding jobs.

If a business can't employ someone for minimum wage, then their business model is broken. They are basically saying that their product or service is of such little value, that people will not pay enough for it such that the workers involved in delivering that product or service can live a bare existence lifestyle.

Economic activity is increased by more people having more money to spend ?

Inconceivable !

As mentioned earlier, this government was not voted in, the previous one was voted out.

Exactly.

You've only got to look at where the votes went, and the approvals ratings of the current Government (and especially Abbot) to see that.

We got demoed this 6 months or so ago.

I still fail to see what this buys you over a bunch of regular blades or rackmounts running your virtualisation platform of choice.