Why Wal-Mart can afford to give its workers a 50% raise

[LAM]

Smoke dope on weekends, and wash cars all week, plus a full time job, whatever you gotta do...take a page from any point in history where the monarchs held us down...work your ass off, hide from the Sherriff and do good work...

the only problem with doing whatever it takes is when you get caught and end up a bitch for the criminal justice system. if you can't afford a decent lawyer, I highly recommend not breaking the law these days, you just can't recover from it unless it's something minor like a DUI but even that can effect your travel plans. I've had at least 10-15 friends turned back at the Canadian border by immigration for non-violent M2 and M1 offenses.

 

[maniclion]

the only problem with doing whatever it takes is when you get caught and end up a bitch for the criminal justice system. if you can't afford a decent lawyer, I highly recommend not breaking the law these days, you just can't recover from it unless it's something minor like a DUI but even that can effect your travel plans. I've had at least 10-15 friends turned back at the Canadian border by immigration for non-violent M2 and M1 offenses.

You can get a medical herb card easy these days, luckily Hawaii has really relaxed on weed with the ice epidemic. Kids need to realize though a small glass one hitter is all you really need and 1 small nugget, easily concealed. Its not about smoking yourself retarded, its about lifting your mood so you can infect others...."Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful" as my EXPerience tells me....
Slaves sang songs to lift one another up, now we spread smiles....

 

[Swiper]

Washington Post Fact Checker Calls Out Obama's "Minimum Wage Increase Doesn't Cost Jobs" Claim

Jess Remington

The Washington Post?s Fact Checker called out President Obama for his recent claim that there is "no solid evidence that a higher minimum wage costs jobs."

Obama delivered the questionable remarks at a Center for American Progress-hosted event in the nation's capital on Wednesday. His speech touched on the importance of upholding Social Security and Medicare entitlements, the insiduous threat of growing inequality, the 1 percent, and minimum wage increases.

The president applauded both New Jersey's voter-approved minimum wage raise and the D.C. City Council's recently announced support for an increase in the city's minimum wage to $11.50/hour. He followed up with a proclamation of his own support:

I agree with those voters, and I?m going to keep pushing until we get a higher minimum wage for hard-working Americans across the entire country. It will be good for our economy. It will be good for our families.

He then assured the audience that enacting such a policy would not result in the unintended consequences for the poor that they might have heard about:

Now, we all know the arguments that have been used against a higher minimum wage. Some say it actually hurts low-wage workers -- businesses will be less likely to hire them. But there?s no solid evidence that a higher minimum wage costs jobs, and research shows it raises incomes for low-wage workers and boosts short-term economic growth.

The Post Fact Checker, which is a non-partisan blog checking politicians' claims for accuracy, said they approached the president's statement with caution:

The Fact Checker generally hesitates to wade into messy economic debates [since economists have a hard time reaching a consensus]...But here?s the president of the United States, essentially saying that the debate has been settled. Is that really the case?

The Fact Checker's conclusion? No, it's not really the case.

The White House, in support of the president?s comment, pointed to a section of the 2013 Economic Report of the President (pages 120-121). The report noted that most economists had once believed an increase in the minimum wage would reduce employment but that ?the consensus view among economists has since shifted as more evidence has accumulated.? It also cited a 2009 meta-analysis of 64 studies of the minimum wage that found ?no evidence of a meaningful adverse employment effect? of the minimum wage.

The problem is that while there may be a new consensus emerging on the left-leaning side of economic theory, there is an equally fierce response from other economists.

In 2006, economists David Neumark and William Wascher published a survey of more than 100 studies, and came to an opposite conclusion, directly contradicting the results of the so-called New Minimum Wage Research. They found that the majority of the studies showed that ?raising the minimum wage leads to economic distortions and often has unintended adverse consequences for the employment opportunities of low-skilled workers.?

Economist Arindrajit Dube and others came up with a new approach in 2010, looking at the impact in counties adjacent at different states, that bolstered the findings of the new minimum wage forces. But economists Jonathan Meer and Jeremy West this yearfired back with a study that found that minimum wage hikes reduce net job growth because of the effect on expanding companies. (In October, Dube responded that their supposed job losses were occurring in the sectors without minimum wage workers, which in turn prompted this rebuttal by Meer and West.) And a 2011 study from economists at the London School of Economics and the Central Bank of Turkey found higher minimum wages increased unemployment.

In conclusion, the Fact Checker, said, "To flatly declare the debate is over is misleading. He did not quite say there was no evidence?but he came close." They awarded Obama two "Pinocchios."

The president also implied that higher wages wouldn't result in higher prices for consumers:

Others argue that if we raise the minimum wage, companies will just pass those costs on to consumers. But a growing chorus of businesses, small and large, argue differently.

The Post did not tackle this claim, but it is also dubious. At least one meta-analysis on the price effects of the minimum wage found that a 10% minimum wage increase in the US raises food prices by 4% and overall prices by 0.4%. Other recent research found that a 10% minimum wage increase raised prices by .7%.

Obama's remarks come in light of fast food strikes for higher wages, multiple local and state-wide minimum wage increases across the country, and his own support for the congressional Democrats' proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10/hour and peg it to inflation.
www.reason.com

 

[Zaphod]

It's theory. We won't know until it happens. The only ones bitching about it costing jobs are the so-called job creators.

 

[LAM]

The only ones bitching about it costing jobs are the so-called job creators.

and the low wage right wing radicals that love to complain about people being in poverty, yet they embrace every single policy that increases it. all this stuff dates back hundreds of years to the southern states and the civil war era were they have always embraced low wages. it's the basis of their economy's since industrialization has never accounted for a large part of jobs in that area and why you see the anti-labor union rhetoric out of the south. people are born into a world were you "should just be happy" to have a job at all and jesus will take care of the rest, etc.

 

[hoyle21]

http://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM

 

[Swiper]

The State Causes the Poverty It Later Claims to Solve

Mises Daily: Saturday, December 07, 2013 by Andreas Marquart

If one looks at the current paper money system and its negative social and social-political effects, the question must arise: where are the protests by the supporters and protectors of social justice? Why don?t we hear calls to protest from politicians and social commentators, from the heads of social welfare agencies and leading religious leaders, who all promote the general welfare as their mission?
Presumably, the answer is that many have only a weak understanding of the role of money in an economy with a division of labor, and for that reason, the consequences of today?s paper money system are being widely overlooked.
The current system of fractional reserve banking and central banking stands in stark opposition to a market economy monetary regime in which the market participants could decide themselves, without state pressure or coercion, what money they want to use, and in which it would not be possible for anyone to expand the money supply because they simply choose to do so.
The expansion of the money supply, made possible through central banks and fractional reserve banking, is in reality what allows inflation, and thus, declining income in real terms. In The Theory of Money and Credit Ludwig von Mises wrote:

The most important of the causes of a diminution in the value of money of which we have to take account is an increase in the stock of money while the demand for it remains the same, or falls off, or, if it increases, at least increases less than the stock. ... A lower subjective valuation of money is then passed on from person to person because those who come into possession of an additional quantity of money are inclined to consent to pay higher prices than before.[1]
​

When there are price increases caused by an expansion of the money supply, the prices of various goods and services do not rise to the same degree, and do not rise at the same time. Mises explains the effects:

While the process is under way, some people enjoy the benefit of higher prices for the goods or services they sell, while the prices of the things they buy have not yet risen or have not risen to the same extent. On the other hand, there are people who are in the unhappy situation of selling commodities and services whose prices have not yet risen or not in the same degree as the prices of the goods they must buy for their daily consumption.[2]
​

Indeed, in the case of the price of a worker?s labor (i.e., his or her wages) increasing at a slower rate than the price of bread or rent, we see how this shift in the relationship between income and assets can impoverish many workers and consumers.
An inflationary money supply can cause impoverishment and income inequality in a variety of ways:

1. The Cantillon Effect
The uneven distribution of price inflation is known as the Cantillon effect. Those who receive the newly created money first (primarily the state and the banks, but also some large companies) are the beneficiaries of easy money. They can make purchases with the new money at goods prices that are still unchanged. Those who obtain the newly created money only later, or do not receive any of it, are harmed (wage-earners and salaried employees, retirees). They can only buy goods at prices which have, in the meantime, risen.[3]

2. Asset Price Inflation
Investors with greater assets can better spread their investments and assets and are thus in a position to invest in tangible assets such as stocks, real estate, and precious metals. When the prices of those assets rise due to an expansion of the money supply, the holders of those assets may benefit as their assets gain in value. Those holding assets become more wealthy while people with fewer assets or no assets either profit little or cannot profit at all from the price increases.

3. The Credit Market Amplifies the Effects
The effects of asset price inflation can be amplified by the credit market. Those who have a higher income can carry higher credit in contrast to those with lower income, by acquiring real estate, for example, or other assets. If real estate prices rise due to an expansion of the money supply, they may profit from those price increases and the gap between rich and poor grows even faster.[4]

4. Boom and Bust Cycles Create Unemployment
The direct cause of unemployment is the inflexibility of the labor market, caused by state interference and labor union pressures. An indirect cause of unemployment is the expansion of the paper money supply, which can lead to illusory economic booms that in turn lead to malinvestment. Especially in inflexible labor markets, when these malinvestments become evident in a down economy, it ultimately leads to higher and more lasting unemployment that is often most severely felt among the lowest-income households.[5]

The State Continues to Expand
Once the gap in income distribution and asset distribution has been opened, the supporters and protectors of social justice will more and more speak out, not knowing (or not saying) that it is the state itself with its monopolistic monetary system that is responsible for the conditions described.
It?s a perfidious ?business model? in which the state creates social inequality through its monopolistic monetary system, splits society into poor and rich, and makes people dependent on welfare. It then intervenes in a regulatory and distributive manner, in order to justify its existence. The economist Roland Baader observed:

The political caste must prove its right to exist, by doing something. However, because everything it does, it does much worse, it has to constantly carry out reforms, i.e., it has to do something, because it did something already. It would not have to do something, had it not already done something. If only one knew what one could do to stop it from doing things.[6]
​

The state even exploits the uncertainty in the population about the true reasons for the growing gap in income and asset distribution. For example, The Fourth Poverty and Wealth Report of the German Federal Government states that since 2002, there has been a clear majority among the German people in favor of carrying out measures to reduce differences in income.

Conclusion
The reigning paper money system is at the center of the growing income inequality and expanding poverty rates we find in many countries today. Nevertheless, states continue to grow in power in the name of taming the market system that has supposedly caused the impoverishment actually caused by the state and its allies.
If those who claim to speak for social justice do nothing to protest this, their silence can only have two possible reasons. They either don?t understand how our monetary system functions, in which case, they should do their research and learn about it; or they do understand it and are cynically ignoring a major source of poverty because they may in fact be benefiting from the paper money system themselves.
The State Causes the Poverty It Later Claims to Solve - Andreas Marquart - Mises Daily

 

[s2h]

and the low wage right wing radicals that love to complain about people being in poverty, yet they embrace every single policy that increases it. all this stuff dates back hundreds of years to the southern states and the civil war era were they have always embraced low wages. it's the basis of their economy's since industrialization has never accounted for a large part of jobs in that area and why you see the anti-labor union rhetoric out of the south. people are born into a world were you "should just be happy" to have a job at all and jesus will take care of the rest, etc.

yes wages are generally higher in Northern states then in the south..but so is the cost of living....go by a house in New York city or a basket of groceries there...then purchase the same like items in Dallas and there is a huge gap in costs...

the % of wage increases to the % of living in many Northern states actually makes it easier to live in the south finance wise..why do you think Houston Texas is the booming at a rate faster then any city in the country?..and there is limited personal property taxes and no state income tax...its much more affordable to live in Houston then any large city in the north..

 

[LAM]

ywhy do you think Houston Texas is the booming at a rate faster then any city in the country?

oil and gas drive the Houston economy and accounts for at least 50% of the jobs. energy is what helped the US and Russia to rise to rise and reach superpower status.

sure it's great for Texas but that's it. the growth one sector of the market can not lift up an entire economy not when all of the economic gains are localized.

the de-industrialization of northern states is also causing greater migration into some of the southern states. as new patterns start to emerge in various states that do not appear to be temporary the people that are mobile have been fleeing them.

 

[Swiper]

Wal-Mart Employee Arrested For Shooting Co-Worker?s Car Over Award


DEERFIELD (CBSMiami) ? Investigators say bad blood over an employee of the month award at a South Florida Wal-Mart store led to gunfire and criminal charges.

According to a Broward Sheriff?s Office arrest report last month?s employee of the month at a Deerfield Beach Wal-Mart store on South Military Trail had her car shot up by a co-worker who was angry after she won the award. Willie Mitchell is charged with discharging a firearm from a vehicle.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/12/1...ested-for-shooting-co-workers-car-over-award/

 

[Swiper]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLr5oWfoWRY&feature=youtube_gdata

 

[Big Puppy]

Good video

 

[LAM]

Good video

actually it's a shitty video made by a person who makes a living as in investment broker and not a trained economist.

 

[Swiper]

actually it's a shitty video made by a person who makes a living as in investment broker and not a trained economist.

And that's a good thing. we have all trained Keynesians as economists that get it wrong everything. they know nothing else because that's's all that was taught to them all their lives.

 

[Swiper]

Taper....

 

[hoyle21]

Peter Schiff has also been proven wrong on multi occasions on predictions. He also claims he was the only one who predicted the housing crash which is total BS. Lots of people saw that coming including myself.

He is also a well documented liar and half truther.

 

[Swiper]

Peter Schiff has also been proven wrong on multi occasions on predictions. He also claims he was the only one who predicted the housing crash which is total BS. Lots of people saw that coming including myself.

He is also a well documented liar and half truther.

LOL,

so since you predicted it, how many millions of dollars did you make betting against the housing market?

And since you're so good at predicting the crashes, are we in a housing bubble now? what about the stock market is that in a bubble too? and if so, why or why not are they in a bubbles?

 

[hoyle21]

LOL,

so since you predicted it, how many millions of dollars did you make betting against the housing market?

And since you're so good at predicting the crashes, are we in a housing bubble now? what about the stock market is that in a bubble too? and if so, why or why not are they in a bubbles?

I didn't have money to bet against it, but I saved and waited for the market to crash to purchase my first house and it saved me over 50%. That's the best a working man can do.

It's not like the average Joe has a few hundreds grand to really make some serious coin. This is apparently the aspect that you clearly don't understand why it's so easy to make you look like a fool.

 

[Swiper]

I didn't have money to bet against it, but I saved and waited for the market to crash to purchase my first house and it saved me over 50%. That's the best a working man can do.

It's not like the average Joe has a few hundreds grand to really make some serious coin. This is apparently the aspect that you clearly don't understand why it's so easy to make you look like a fool.

i may have mistaken you for lam. it must be him who claims to be a multimillionaire.

care to answer my other questions?

Are we in a housing bubble now? what about the stock market is that in a bubble too? and if so, why or why not are they in a bubbles?

 

[hoyle21]

We could be seeing the beginning to another housing bubble. How long till it pops? No idea.

I do believe we are in a market bubble. Without a doubt.

 

[Swiper]

We could be seeing the beginning to another housing bubble. How long till it pops? No idea.

I do believe we are in a market bubble. Without a doubt.

why? what's the reason for the bubbles?

 

[maniclion]

Sell dope, steal cars, etc. There's a lot of options out there for those with ambition.

Buy cheap cars from military desperate to dump before their next duty station and buy cheap parts online to pimp it out then sell it for more...

 

[LAM]

And that's a good thing. we have all trained Keynesians as economists that get it wrong everything. they know nothing else because that's's all that was taught to them all their lives.

with all you knowledge in economics it should be easy for you to explain one easy method of increasing aggregate demand after recessions not using fiscal stimulus. Please cite some sources in the form of links to economic papers also that support up your assertion.

 

[LAM]

why? what's the reason for the bubbles?

which bubble? they are all different with various causes of each one but by definition a bubble is nothing more than excessive buyer confidence which artificially inflates values.

There have been documented market bubbles around the globe dating all the way back to the Dutch tulip market bubble in the early 1600's.

 

[Swiper]

which bubble? they are all different with various causes of each one but by definition a bubble is nothing more than excessive buyer confidence which artificially inflates values.

There have been documented market bubbles around the globe dating all the way back to the Dutch tulip market bubble in the early 1600's.

the stock, housing & bond market bubbles. all created by the policies of the federal reserve.

 

[DOMS]

Peter Schiff has also been proven wrong on multi occasions on predictions. He also claims he was the only one who predicted the housing crash which is total BS. Lots of people saw that coming including myself.

I'm pretty sure it was Goldman Sachs that saw it coming and took a bunch of short positions, making a killing.