Do Minimum Wage Laws Kill Jobs? Who should decide what an unskilled worker with no experiance is worth to the company who created that job?

Bastion: "the Federal reserve now owns all Americans, they are commodities"
Please explain.
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Bastion: "All commodities have a set price."
Really? I just left the http://www.cmegroup.com/ exchange website. Please provide support/citation for your claim of a "set price" for "all commodities".
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Bastion: "The value of an hour of human labor should be a generally agree-upon commodity"

Sir, If one hour of my time generates $1000 for you and an hour of someone elses time generates just $250 for you, are you saying that you will pay the same wage to both of us? If that is what you are saying, I would quit and go to work for someone willing to pay me more than the $250 guy.
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Bastion: " If the value of labor is at the whim of "job creators" (capital), but NOT guaranteed to the "wealth producers" (labor), the system is rigged to become fuedalism."

Sir, you are wrong on several of your points. Capital and labor are two components of wealth creation. Just as flour, eggs and water are components of bread creation, so is labor and capital components of wealth creation. There is a symbiotic relationship between the components to create a disired result. Neither is worth more by itself, than the other as both are needed and both are valued based upon the benefits each component provides to the end result.

As I disagree with your statement, please provide support/citation for your claims so that you can prove me wrong.

"Raise the wages and work performance will follow."

Really? Wow… Can you give me an example of where your wage versus performance theory has worked?

Tell me Sublime, would you pay a restaurant a filet or rib-eye price for a hamburger and then hope that they bring a steak out to your table? Of course not!

There’s a reason why diner for two at Ruth’s Chris Steak House can cost over $150 to get out the door while Outback can feed two people pretty good steaks for under $50. You are paying for the perception of better ambiance and service.

I’ve found that customers buy service just as employers buy labor. Provide the customer better service and the customer will be willing to pay more for it. Provide the employer better service and the employer will be willing to pay more so the worker doesn't go elsewhere to work.

I owned several auto parts stores where some of my employees were paid salary and some were paid commission. The commission guys made their own pay (30% of the profit they generated for the firm) and the salaried folks were paid based on whatever it took for me to retain the good ones and keep them from leaving. I wasn’t in business to “create jobs”… I was in business to “create PROFITS”.

It is my experience that when the worker provides the increase in performance, (s)he then earns the wage increase by demonstrating that they can provide the employer with enough added benefits to the firm that the employer is afraid that the worker could take his/her skills, knowledge and ability elsewhere and make more money. That is the ONLY reason why I would pay an employee more.... and my employees were the top earners in our industry, in our market. As a result, I was able to "buy" the best work force... just as you are able to "buy" the best steak dinner by paying somewhat more than you would for a burger.

Again, please tell me where you have found YOUR system to work?

DFA, why are you ignoring my analogy between cost of living and minimum wage increases? If $1/hour buys the same stuff as $7.25/hour, why do you think inflating the cost of unskilled labor to $10/hour would improve the living standard for the folks you claim to wanna help?

Can you not see that as soon as you impose the increased wage floor, that the cost of stuff would increase commensurately? A friend of mine that owns a downtown bar & grill in Charleston ("Cumberland's"... best wings and Chile in town!) said that his "lunch special" has always been priced at "just below whatever minimum wage is".... because that's what the market will support.

DFA: "I'd say a decent minimum wage would be around $10/hr. Not anything absurd like you suggested."

Why $10? Why not $8 or $12... Or $1000? Why mandate ANY minimum? What if our hypothetical unskilled worker is unable to provide enough value to an employer to justify $10? What if they are perfectly able to produce $5 of value each hour? Should THAT person NOT be able to get a job? To build self esteem? To learn a work ethic? Is that what you want? Do you want to deign job opportunities for people in that economic bracket?

DFA: "You are assuming that people are "low skilled".

You are exactly correct! We are discussing a MINIMUM wage because higher skilled people don't NEED a minimum wage as they are able to provide an employer with value enough to warrant a sufficiently higher wage.

Why should I NOT assume the party being discussed is low skilled?

Or maybe you don't think that a highly skilled worker could command a higher than minimum wage? Is that it?

Job skills are a commodity just like anything else that is "bought" and "sold". How many engineers, electricians, welders or I.T. technicians could you hire if all you offered was the minimum wage? You would have to compete with all of the other employer that are willing to pay much more for the value that such a skilled worker can provide their firm.

The discussion here regards those that are in the market for ANY job and not those that have skills that can generate enough value to warrant a higher wage and where they can pick and choose among employers bidding for their services.

The free market already bids up the wages of the skilled workers to where there is balance in the market. That’s why folks take CE classes to enhance their job skills and improve the marketability of what they can offer a potential employer and ultimately, command a higher wage.

But that cannot be said for those folks that do not or cannot provide sufficient productive benefits to an employer to justify the artificial minimum mandated by an unrelated (to the job) enforcement entity imposes on the private transaction between the “seller” of labor and the “buyer” of labor.

What part of that is so difficult for you to understand?

My 85y/o dad says that when wages were $1 per day, a loaf of bread was a penny and a new car was less than $500. When I was just a kid, minimum wage was $1/hr and it would buy just over two gallons of gas...and that $1 minimum wage would buy a Big Mac, fries and a Coke. Today, minimum wage is $7.25 and it STILL buys just over two gallons of gas and it still costs $6-$7 for a combo meal at Mickey-Dees.

So what if we only earned a dollar a day, the prices of goods and services would be just as dynamic as the wages of the folks that would buy those products and services. The point of minimum wages is that it imposes non-economic costs in which the value cannot support. When wages and value are approximately similar, then the economy can be in balance... when distortions are imposed upon the market by forcing labor prices to exceed labor value, the imbalance percolates through out the economy causing far more problems than the perception of benefits that the inflated wages provide.

Corporations don't "love putting jobs overseas"... they simply "love" upholding their fiduciary duty to their shareholders, their employees, their customers of providing the best value at the highest price and lowest cost. It's a symbiotic relationship that becomes imbalanced when non-market mandates impose variances to the value versus price equation. When you consider the artificially imposed labor costs and the highest corporate profits taxes of anywhere in the industrialized world, it's no wonder that corporations leave to seek a lower cost environment...just as corporations leave northern unionized and high tax states to move to lower tax, non-union states within the U.S. (Boeing left Washington to build their new airliner in South Carolina...just imagine if they had chosen to build the airplane in Mexico or in Brazil)