Channel/Fireball is the dumbest turn 1 kill ever. It pisses me off more than seeing my 800th psychatog deck during odyssey (hurr hurr upheaval durrr) or my 900th mongrel/rootwalla madness deck (I'll make mongrel PURPLE! harharhar nobody has ever said a color that wasn't in the game before).
Higher minimum wage does not affect the success rate of small business.
The findings in the paper in fact were on the contrary: states with higher minimum wage had a higher success rate among start-ups and small businesses.
A) if you don't work for $newstartupwithnomoney, you don't work $newstartup can somehow be cash flow positive from day 1 (if you lack positive cash flow or an investor, you ain't paying anyone Jack Shit)
edit: one would imagine that with no minimum wage, you'd rather work for $bigcompanywithnoadvancement than $tinycompanythatpaysshit, because all things considered, advancement in tiny company is a crapshoot, and they're paying you shit. Stability is a rather important part of income.
I was more talking about the minimum wage in terms of someone in the middle class starting a business and being able to hire low wage employees before he or she is able to maintain any sort of profit margin. I think the best path to economic independence is to work for yourself. If more people were given the ability to do this I think everyone would be better off.
So I disagree with your argument. I think it's shortsighted and I don't think you're looking at it from the correct perspective.
At what point are these low-wage employees working for themselves as well? What happens when everyone is?
How's that saying go? If you can't afford to pay your employees a decent wage, you can't afford to pay your employees. Nash is a piece of shit for thinking that somebody should be allowed to get their business started by shortchanging their employees.
If you can barely afford to start a business, hoping to pay your employees less at the beginning is not shortchanging anyone. These theoretical small business owners have little to give in terms of capital in the first place. Either they pay a low wage until they gain revenue or they simply don't hire anybody or they don't ever start their business. I'm not talking about someone with a personal fortune or an angel investor, I'm talking about the average middle class joe who can barely pay their mortgage or doesn't even have one and has to get a loan from the bank just to get inventory started.
The alternative is the business doesn't get started in the first place, nobody gets payed anything, and there is less competition in the marketplace, which drives down wages anyway, and drives prices up for consumers.
It's not like the current minimum wage is adequate. It's a pandering measure used by politicians to pretend they are helping low wage earners. If they really were interested in offering a living wage it would be increased, but if they did that it would destroy the economy completely.
A large portion of minimum wage earners are under 25. I don't think it's unreasonable to have the option to pay these people less if it means actually getting them employment in a business or trade they have a vested interest in. The alternative is employment for a large company where there is little to no mobility. I don't see them as being much better off in the long run.
I didn't realize that there was such mobility in Mom and Pop's Tool Shack... exactly how long does one work at minimum wage before becoming CEO of such a company?
And I agree, people should be making less at Taco Bell, after all, they are picking up such valuable life skills. In other news, this hypothetical country you live in sounds pretty swell... how's the housing market there?
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Channel/Fireball is the dumbest turn 1 kill ever. It pisses me off more than seeing my 800th psychatog deck during odyssey (hurr hurr upheaval durrr) or my 900th mongrel/rootwalla madness deck (I'll make mongrel PURPLE! harharhar nobody has ever said a color that wasn't in the game before).
I refuse to play vintage because it's basically a coin flip and without double force of will you're sunk.
It's just a banner I found. I thought it was funny.
I prefer block or draft. Paying 160 bucks for a rack of WOTC's ordained chase rare that goes in every deck (Tamargoyf or that stupid new Factory Reprint) just to compete in standard infuriates me.
Kevin.
Read my post above.
Higher minimum wage does not affect the success rate of small business.
I'll have to track down the paper to read the full context.
It's unreasonable to believe that most minimum wage jobs are in industries that lots of these under-25 workers "have a vested interest in". I find it immensely hard to believe that working at Wal-mart or Subway is an aspiration for that set of people instead of a side job for extra cash or helping pay for college.
I didn't say that. I said that about those working for smaller companies. Few people have a vested interest in working for some faceless mega corporation with little opportunity for advancement.
I've never had advancement issues in large companies. People cycle out a lot.
I've had the same experience but I'm referring to the guy who makes sandwiches at subway not college educated people at tech companies.
I've had success in both large and small companies.
Working at a small company isn't necessarily about advancement within that company itself (although that can still occur) it's about a foot in the door to learn about a business or trade. Advancement can occur by switching to another job once skills are obtained or if the owner expands the workforce rapidly the initial employees rise with them.
I've also had a lot better treatment and success at a 35 person company than at a 500 person company. I've worked for both and I generally prefer working for smaller shops.
Edit: I've also worked at several minimum wage jobs for various chains. There was little or no opportunity for advancement there aside from being a manager, which I saw as a dead end.
So... how many nicknames for Ron Paul fans are there?
All I can think of is Ronulans, Rontards, and Paulnuts... I believe that rEVOLutionaries is what they call themselves (moar liek, REVOlutionaries nao, amirite?)
Small companies have fewer opportunities for advancement, in my experience.
What the hell am I going to do to replace the boss's brother as head of the department?
Your experience is only anecdotal evidence and it is not very accurate. In most small companies:
There is less competition for positions.
It is easier to get noticed and promoted.
Boss-employee relationships are closer, so promotions happen quicker.
Your particular case is shitty, but rare.
Well, when I say small, I mean "4 employees".
I guess once you get to the point that the entire company can't rent an small apartment together this sort of thing is less common.
That, and "head of department" doesn't mean much if you have only 4 employees in the entire company.
Well I was going to say VP, but I though that maybe you wouldn't really be expecting VP to be an easy position to move up to in a company anyways...
Besides I was busting my ass to get to the head of "Wash this thing with bleach and when you are done do whatever anyone says, gofer" department! I deserved it.
Anyways though, I'd think that for most small business owners minimum wage is less of an issue than tax law. I know that I've heard a lot of people in Rhode Island complain about our very high property taxes making it difficult to set up a business.
Anyways though, I'd think that for most small business owners minimum wage is less of an issue than tax law. I know that I've heard a lot of people in Rhode Island complain about our very high property taxes making it difficult to set up a business.
Yeah, absolutely.
Fun fact: one of the reasons Latin America has been suffering from chronic economic underdevelopment is the high costs of starting a business.
It's unreasonable to believe that most minimum wage jobs are in industries that lots of these under-25 workers "have a vested interest in". I find it immensely hard to believe that working at Wal-mart or Subway is an aspiration for that set of people instead of a side job for extra cash or helping pay for college.
I didn't say that. I said that about those working for smaller companies. Few people have a vested interest in working for some faceless mega corporation with little opportunity for advancement.
Look, if you're really concerned about small businesses being unable to compete in a marketplace dominated by monopolies, there are a million and one places you should look for a solution before the minimum wage.
You could start with:
1) Proper enforcement of anti-trust laws.
2) Expansion of anti-trust laws.
3) Altering the tax code to explicitly favor small businesses, as opposed to large ones. (A net tax increase might do the trick as well as a net tax cut. Competition is relative.)
4) Increasing the availability of capital (actually, this isn't really a problem in the US).
Lowering or eliminating the minimum wage just isn't going to help startups in any meaningful way, particularly considering the disproportionate boost it will give to larger businesses (think Walmart).
I was more talking about the minimum wage in terms of someone in the middle class starting a business and being able to hire low wage employees before he or she is able to maintain any sort of profit margin. I think the best path to economic independence is to work for yourself. If more people were given the ability to do this I think everyone would be better off.
So I disagree with your argument. I think it's shortsighted and I don't think you're looking at it from the correct perspective.
At what point are these low-wage employees working for themselves as well? What happens when everyone is?
Well, as in most cases, some people would be more "better off" than others. This isn't necessarily a bad things...again, more businesses starting up (and succeeding) means more jobs which means higher wages for those left behind.
More better? Good lord, my old English teacher probably just had a stroke.
Higher minimum wage does not affect the success rate of small business.
The findings in the paper in fact were on the contrary: states with higher minimum wage had a higher success rate among start-ups and small businesses.
His point wasn't so much the success rate but rather the number started in general. Success rate doesn't take into account the guys who never bother because they know they wouldn't be able to pay their employees.
If you I'm not a fan of the minimum wage. I think it's about the least effective way to help the working poor imaginable, and has the most undesirable side effects. In general, simple minimum wage hikes are a horrible, horrible policy and the minimum wage itself is largely a horrible policy.
That said, min-wage increases are much easier to get passed than any of the many other measures that might actually help more, so I guess we take what we can get. Unfortunately a majority (at least in my experience) that oppose the minimum wage also oppose any other more socialistic measures that might do less harm and more good.
I was more talking about the minimum wage in terms of someone in the middle class starting a business and being able to hire low wage employees before he or she is able to maintain any sort of profit margin. I think the best path to economic independence is to work for yourself. If more people were given the ability to do this I think everyone would be better off.
So I disagree with your argument. I think it's shortsighted and I don't think you're looking at it from the correct perspective.
At what point are these low-wage employees working for themselves as well? What happens when everyone is?
Well, as in most cases, some people would be more "better off" than others. This isn't necessarily a bad things...again, more businesses starting up (and succeeding) means more jobs which means higher wages for those left behind.
More better? Good lord, my old English teacher probably just had a stroke.
Higher minimum wage does not affect the success rate of small business.
The findings in the paper in fact were on the contrary: states with higher minimum wage had a higher success rate among start-ups and small businesses.
His point wasn't so much the success rate but rather the number started in general. Success rate doesn't take into account the guys who never bother because they know they wouldn't be able to pay their employees.
This doesn't follow. At the very least, assuming that you're right about there being a correlation between minimum wage hikes and reductions in the level of startup activity, there should be a lag period between the raising of the minimum wage and the corresponding decline in small business start up rates where we could see the effect of the minimum wage in success rate. That effect does not appear to be happening, which suggests that the minimum wage does not have the effect you claim it has.
Small businesses, when faced with a minimum wage hike, do the same thing large businesses do: pass the cost on to consumers. But large businesses employ a larger proportion of minimum wage employees, and are thus harder hit by a minimum wage increase.
If anything, raising the minimum wage helps small businesses compete against larger businesses. Your locally-owned grocery store has a better shot if the Walmart down the street has to pay its employees a decent wage.
This doesn't follow. At the very least, assuming that you're right about there being a correlation between minimum wage hikes and reductions in the level of startup activity, there should be a lag period between the raising of the minimum wage and the corresponding decline in small business start up rates where we could see the effect of the minimum wage in success rate. That effect does not appear to be happening, which suggests that the minimum wage does not have the effect you claim it has.
Small businesses, when faced with a minimum wage hike, do the same thing large businesses do: pass the cost on to consumers. But large businesses employ a larger proportion of minimum wage employees, and are thus harder hit by a minimum wage increase.
Large companies with large profit margins can also better absorb high employment costs. They will either raise prices or eat the bottom line. Small businesses which have no such margin simply go under.
If anything, raising the minimum wage helps small businesses compete against larger businesses. Your locally-owned grocery store has a better shot if the Walmart down the street has to pay its employees a decent wage.
Walmart is an exception and not the rule. Most employees that earn minimum wage are employed by small businesses.
Also, I'm not even sure that most people working at Walmart actually make minimum wage. I think many of them actually make more than that (not much more but they are still above the minimum).
Minimum wage advocates imply that mostly large, successful firms employ low-wage workers. Therefore, the only effect of a higher minimum wage will be to reduce business profits. However, the SBA recently examined the types of businesses employing low-wage workers. Not surprisingly, the bulk of them are small businesses, not big corporations. Among all minimum wage workers, 54 percent work in businesses with fewer than 100 employees and two-thirds work in businesses with fewer than 500 employees.
Working in a small business can be precarious because many are perpetually underfinanced and just a short step away from bankruptcy. According to the SBA, in 1998, 590,000 new businesses were established in the United States. Of these, 565,000 employed fewer than 20 workers. But there were also 541,000 firms that went out of business that year and 512,000 of them had 20 workers or less.
Regardless I agree with your point here:
3) Altering the tax code to explicitly favor small businesses, as opposed to large ones. (A net tax increase might do the trick as well as a net tax cut. Competition is relative.)
That this would also be a good idea, and a better one if I had to pick, in ensuring small businesses are not over-run by large corporations.
Higher minimum wage does not affect the success rate of small business.
The findings in the paper in fact were on the contrary: states with higher minimum wage had a higher success rate among start-ups and small businesses.
His point wasn't so much the success rate but rather the number started in general. Success rate doesn't take into account the guys who never bother because they know they wouldn't be able to pay their employees.
Actually, the paper looks at periods where minimum wage has been increased (in individual states) and then looks at success rate among existing start-ups and small businesses. Conventional wisdom holds that more small businesses needed to have failed due to an inability to afford the increased cost of labor, but the findings in the paper were the exact opposite: they found a correlation between an increase in minimum wage and an increase in the success rate of small businesses.
Also, cost of labor doesn't really come into play when people start up companies, because start-ups typically have one or a few employees at the beginning and thus cost of labor tends to be negligible. The vast portion - actually, the only portion worth any mention at all - of the cost of starting up a business consists of taking loans from banks and investors. So the minimum wage is largely irrelevant.
This doesn't follow. At the very least, assuming that you're right about there being a correlation between minimum wage hikes and reductions in the level of startup activity, there should be a lag period between the raising of the minimum wage and the corresponding decline in small business start up rates where we could see the effect of the minimum wage in success rate. That effect does not appear to be happening, which suggests that the minimum wage does not have the effect you claim it has.
Small businesses, when faced with a minimum wage hike, do the same thing large businesses do: pass the cost on to consumers. But large businesses employ a larger proportion of minimum wage employees, and are thus harder hit by a minimum wage increase.
Large companies with large profit margins can also better absorb high employment costs. They will either raise prices or eat the bottom line. Small businesses which have no such margin simply go under.
I would dispute that. Small companies can and do raise prices to absorb higher employment costs, and since labor costs (particularly minimum wage labor costs) are a smaller proportion of the total cost of doing business for small businesses, a raise in the minimum wage would actually help small businesses compete.
If anything, raising the minimum wage helps small businesses compete against larger businesses. Your locally-owned grocery store has a better shot if the Walmart down the street has to pay its employees a decent wage.
Walmart is an exception and not the rule. Most employees that earn minimum wage are employed by small businesses.
Also, I'm not even sure that most people working at Walmart actually make minimum wage. I think many of them actually make more than that (not much more but they are still above the minimum).
Minimum wage advocates imply that mostly large, successful firms employ low-wage workers. Therefore, the only effect of a higher minimum wage will be to reduce business profits. However, the SBA recently examined the types of businesses employing low-wage workers. Not surprisingly, the bulk of them are small businesses, not big corporations. Among all minimum wage workers, 54 percent work in businesses with fewer than 100 employees and two-thirds work in businesses with fewer than 500 employees.
Working in a small business can be precarious because many are perpetually underfinanced and just a short step away from bankruptcy. According to the SBA, in 1998, 590,000 new businesses were established in the United States. Of these, 565,000 employed fewer than 20 workers. But there were also 541,000 firms that went out of business that year and 512,000 of them had 20 workers or less.
This paper utilizes some funny math with the concept of "small business" to make its point. Notice that it shifts the definition of "small business" between the two paragraphs deceptively. In the first paragraph, "small businesses", which apparently employ 54 percent of all minimum wage workers, are those businesses employing 100 employees or less. In the second paragraph, which details startups, the vast majority are a small subset of that group, with only 20 employees or less. The question of whether these other businesses, which employ more than 20 but less than 100 employees, are going out of business in similar numbers, is left unaddressed, and is highly relevant.
Regardless I agree with your point here:
3) Altering the tax code to explicitly favor small businesses, as opposed to large ones. (A net tax increase might do the trick as well as a net tax cut. Competition is relative.)
That this would also be a good idea, and a better one if I had to pick, in ensuring small businesses are not over-run by large corporations.
I agree. The first step is clearly to subsidize small businesses with revenue from an increase in the corporate income tax. This nets the most gain for small businesses, and limits "wastage", or money siphoned off by larger businesses utilizing flawed criteria to masquerade as "small businesses".
With the results of many of the “Super Tuesday†primaries and caucuses now finalized, the Ron Paul campaign is now projecting that it has at least 42 delegates to the national convention secured.
While much of the focus in yesterday’s Super Tuesday contests focused on preference poll numbers, Ron Paul caucus-goers were focused on securing delegates to the national convention. With dedicated supporters and an organization focused purely on securing delegates, the campaign has secured more delegates to the national convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul than caucus straw polls might otherwise suggest.
According to campaign projections, a minimum of 24 delegates were won in yesterday’s contests. When added to projected delegates coming from strong showings in Iowa (4), Nevada (8), Louisiana (3) and Maine (3), that brings the total delegate count to 42 delegates or more.
“Our goal has always been to walk into the national GOP convention with as many delegates as possible,†said Ron Paul 2008 campaign manager Lew Moore. “The number of delegates we won yesterday could very well be the difference in a Convention where no one has a first-ballot majority. With Dr. Paul’s home state of Texas coming up, we feel we can enter the convention with a substantial number of delegates.â€
In an agreement first reported by West Virginia television station WSAZ, three Ron Paul delegates were secured through an agreement with the Mike Huckabee campaign at the West Virginia state convention early Tuesday. Ron Paul delegates to the state convention swung their sizable support to Huckabee – putting Huckabee over the top – in exchange for the delegates.
According to campaign projections from last night’s results at least 3 delegates were won in Alaska, 5 delegates were won in North Dakota, 9 delegates were won in Minnesota, and 4 delegates were won in Colorado.
Additionally the results of the Louisiana Caucus may still change in favor of Ron Paul, where an ongoing legal challenge may result in most of that state’s delegates going towards Ron Paul after state GOP officials violated their own rules to improperly put delegates from other campaigns on the ballots.
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!
Said I would post here, but here I am again.
I just wanted to point out that the minimum wage laws apply to the whole labor market, not just smallstartupsthatwoulddosowellifonlyronpaulwaspresident!
KevinNash argument seems to be this: By cutting(eliminating) Minimum wages, the small Startupscompany can hire employes for less, reducing expenses. Thereby increasing their profitability and survivability. They can then compete with BigCompany.
However: a cut(elimination) of Minimum wages would affect every company across the board. BigCompany would also be able to hire people for less money. This would reduce BigCompany's expenses by the same precentage% as StartupCompany, reducing their costs as well. When BigCompany finds itself in a competing with StartupCompany what happens? They would start hiring people at the new lower wages too. They would then be able to compete with StartupCompany on an equal basis.
Well, what do Libertarians always claim happens in private competitive markets? BigCompany cuts prices to undercut StartupCompany, StartupCompany is forced to follow suit or go out of bankrupt.
Net change in market status quo: 0
Net change in StartupCompany's chances for survival: 0
Net change in price to consumer: +1 (goods become cheaper)
Net change in wages earned by employes: -0 (they earn less)
Net change total = 0 (Nothing has changed structuraly, BigCompany still rules, StartupCompany still goes under)
A cut in minimum wage is not going to improve things for StartupCompany. Look elswhere.
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!
Said I would post here, but here I am again.
I just wanted to point out that the minimum wage laws apply to the whole labor market, not just smallstartupsthatwoulddosowellifonlyronpaulwaspresident!
KevinNash argument seems to be this: By cutting(eliminating) Minimum wages, the small Startupscompany can hire employes for less, reducing expenses. Thereby increasing their profitability and survivability. They can then compete with BigCompany.
However: a cut(elimination) of Minimum wages would affect every company across the board. BigCompany would also be able to hire people for less money. This would reduce BigCompany's expenses by the same precentage% as StartupCompany, reducing their costs as well. When BigCompany finds itself in a competing with StartupCompany what happens? They would start hiring people at the new lower wages too. They would then be able to compete with StartupCompany on an equal basis.
Well, what do Libertarians always claim happens in private competitive markets? BigCompany cuts prices to undercut StartupCompany, StartupCompany is forced to follow suit or go out of bankrupt.
Net change in market status quo: 0
Net change in StartupCompany's chances for survival: 0
Net change in price to consumer: +1 (goods become cheaper)
Net change in wages earned by employes: -0 (they earn less)
Net change total = 0 (Nothing has changed structuraly, BigCompany still rules, StartupCompany still goes under)
A cut in minimum wage is not going to improve things for StartupCompany. Look elswhere.
It applies to the whole labor market, but you would need a rundown of the % distribution of minimum-wage workers across small business and big businesses in order to get an idea of which it would apply to more.
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!
Said I would post here, but here I am again.
I just wanted to point out that the minimum wage laws apply to the whole labor market, not just smallstartupsthatwoulddosowellifonlyronpaulwaspresident!
KevinNash argument seems to be this: By cutting(eliminating) Minimum wages, the small Startupscompany can hire employes for less, reducing expenses. Thereby increasing their profitability and survivability. They can then compete with BigCompany.
However: a cut(elimination) of Minimum wages would affect every company across the board. BigCompany would also be able to hire people for less money. This would reduce BigCompany's expenses by the same precentage% as StartupCompany, reducing their costs as well. When BigCompany finds itself in a competing with StartupCompany what happens? They would start hiring people at the new lower wages too. They would then be able to compete with StartupCompany on an equal basis.
Well, what do Libertarians always claim happens in private competitive markets? BigCompany cuts prices to undercut StartupCompany, StartupCompany is forced to follow suit or go out of bankrupt.
Net change in market status quo: 0
Net change in StartupCompany's chances for survival: 0
Net change in price to consumer: +1 (goods become cheaper)
Net change in wages earned by employes: -0 (they earn less)
Net change total = 0 (Nothing has changed structuraly, BigCompany still rules, StartupCompany still goes under)
A cut in minimum wage is not going to improve things for StartupCompany. Look elswhere.
It applies to the whole labor market, but you would need a rundown of the % distribution of minimum-wage workers across small business and big businesses in order to get an idea of which it would apply to more.
Well there is that of course, my model is a extreme simplification of real market behavior and structure. Though, I think that it would hold true for companies in the same line of businesses, as they would both be looking for the same employees(unskilled minimum wage earners) and competing for the same customers.
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
OWATONNA, Minn. - An 18-year-old Republican's enthusiasm for presidential hopeful Ron Paul could cost him more than $550.
Cody Hauer has been cited four times in one week for displaying a 13-inch-by-40-inch "Ron Paul Revolution" decal in the rear window of his car. The problem is that such decals are illegal if they obstruct the driver's view.
"I support Ron Paul, the city police department doesn't," he said. "They gave me a DWR — driving while Republican."
OWATONNA, Minn. - An 18-year-old Republican's enthusiasm for presidential hopeful Ron Paul could cost him more than $550.
Cody Hauer has been cited four times in one week for displaying a 13-inch-by-40-inch "Ron Paul Revolution" decal in the rear window of his car. The problem is that such decals are illegal if they obstruct the driver's view.
"I support Ron Paul, the city police department doesn't," he said. "They gave me a DWR — driving while Republican."
Do Republicans have a permanent persecution complex? Is it genetic? I mean, this guy's 18, he isn't even old enough to remember when Dems had a stranglehold on Congress.
OWATONNA, Minn. - An 18-year-old Republican's enthusiasm for presidential hopeful Ron Paul could cost him more than $550.
Cody Hauer has been cited four times in one week for displaying a 13-inch-by-40-inch "Ron Paul Revolution" decal in the rear window of his car. The problem is that such decals are illegal if they obstruct the driver's view.
"I support Ron Paul, the city police department doesn't," he said. "They gave me a DWR — driving while Republican."
Do Republicans have a permanent persecution complex? Is it genetic? I mean, this guy's 18, he isn't even old enough to remember when Dems had a stranglehold on Congress.
Yes, I'm sure if he'd just had a pro-Obama sign or a pro-McCain sign back there totally obstructing his back window, the cops would have left him alone. Because cops are well-known for letting shit like that fly. Especially in the Midwest.
It was impossible before. As soon as people found out about the racist views of his newsletter, he would have been done anyway. Since he was never taken seriously, that information didn't make it into the wider public consciousness. If he had been a real contender, it would have.
OWATONNA, Minn. - An 18-year-old Republican's enthusiasm for presidential hopeful Ron Paul could cost him more than $550.
Cody Hauer has been cited four times in one week for displaying a 13-inch-by-40-inch "Ron Paul Revolution" decal in the rear window of his car. The problem is that such decals are illegal if they obstruct the driver's view.
"I support Ron Paul, the city police department doesn't," he said. "They gave me a DWR — driving while Republican."
Do Republicans have a permanent persecution complex? Is it genetic? I mean, this guy's 18, he isn't even old enough to remember when Dems had a stranglehold on Congress.
Yes, I'm sure if he'd just had a pro-Obama sign or a pro-McCain sign back there totally obstructing his back window, the cops would have left him alone. Because cops are well-known for letting shit like that fly. Especially in the Midwest.
So, I guess the answer to the persecution complex question is yes, at least for you.
They're going to stop you if you have a sign or decal about anything obstructing your view.
It was impossible before. As soon as people found out about the racist views of his newsletter, he would have been done anyway. Since he was never taken seriously, that information didn't make it into the wider public consciousness. If he had been a real contender, it would have.
There's a saying that "scientists won the war, physicists ended it."
Ron Paul's batshit craziness lost him the campaign, the caucas ended it.
OWATONNA, Minn. - An 18-year-old Republican's enthusiasm for presidential hopeful Ron Paul could cost him more than $550.
Cody Hauer has been cited four times in one week for displaying a 13-inch-by-40-inch "Ron Paul Revolution" decal in the rear window of his car. The problem is that such decals are illegal if they obstruct the driver's view.
"I support Ron Paul, the city police department doesn't," he said. "They gave me a DWR — driving while Republican."
In a recent television ad titled "The Only One," Paul claims to be the only candidate never to vote for a tax increase, pass an unbalanced budget or support wasteful government spending. The ad closes with the narrator saying, "We need to keep him fighting for our country." The words are attributed to Ronald Reagan. Paul uses a longer version of the quotation on his Web page:
From Ron Paul Web site: “Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first.” – Ronald Reagan
Paul's embrace of Reagan's legacy represents a significant change of heart. Actually, it's the second time that Paul has changed his mind about Reagan. After endorsing Reagan for president in 1976 and again in 1980, Paul became disenchanted, leaving the Republican party in 1987. The following year, he told the Los Angeles Times:
Paul (May 10, 1988): The American people have never reached this point of disgust with politicians before. I want to totally disassociate myself from the Reagan Administration.
Paul's disaffection started early in Reagan's presidency. "Ronald Reagan has given us a deficit 10 times greater than what we had with the Democrats," Paul told the Christian Science Monitor in 1987. "It didn't take more than a month after 1981, to realize there would be no changes."
Sometime between 1988 (during Paul's run for the presidency on the Libertarian Party ticket) and 1996 (when Paul, running as a Republican once more, successfully ousted an incumbent House member in a GOP primary), Paul once again embraced Reagan's legacy. The New York Times reported then that Paul had used the longer version of the Reagan quote in a videotape sent to 30,000 households. According to the Times, Reagan’s former attorney general, Edwin Meese III, flew to Texas "to insist that Mr. Reagan had offered no recent endorsements."
We were unable to document Reagan's endorsement of Paul. When we asked the Paul campaign for documentation, a spokesperson told us that the campaign was "a little more focused on positive things." The Paul campaign did not provide the Times with a date for the quotation in 1996, either.
Posts
Channel/Fireball is the dumbest turn 1 kill ever. It pisses me off more than seeing my 800th psychatog deck during odyssey (hurr hurr upheaval durrr) or my 900th mongrel/rootwalla madness deck (I'll make mongrel PURPLE! harharhar nobody has ever said a color that wasn't in the game before).
Read my post above.
Higher minimum wage does not affect the success rate of small business.
The findings in the paper in fact were on the contrary: states with higher minimum wage had a higher success rate among start-ups and small businesses.
A) if you don't work for $newstartupwithnomoney, you don't work
edit: one would imagine that with no minimum wage, you'd rather work for $bigcompanywithnoadvancement than $tinycompanythatpaysshit, because all things considered, advancement in tiny company is a crapshoot, and they're paying you shit. Stability is a rather important part of income.
I didn't realize that there was such mobility in Mom and Pop's Tool Shack... exactly how long does one work at minimum wage before becoming CEO of such a company?
And I agree, people should be making less at Taco Bell, after all, they are picking up such valuable life skills. In other news, this hypothetical country you live in sounds pretty swell... how's the housing market there?
I refuse to play vintage because it's basically a coin flip and without double force of will you're sunk.
It's just a banner I found. I thought it was funny.
I prefer block or draft. Paying 160 bucks for a rack of WOTC's ordained chase rare that goes in every deck (Tamargoyf or that stupid new Factory Reprint) just to compete in standard infuriates me.
I'll have to track down the paper to read the full context.
I didn't say that. I said that about those working for smaller companies. Few people have a vested interest in working for some faceless mega corporation with little opportunity for advancement.
What the hell am I going to do to replace the boss's brother as head of the department?
Your experience is only anecdotal evidence and it is not very accurate. In most small companies:
- There is less competition for positions.
- It is easier to get noticed and promoted.
- Boss-employee relationships are closer, so promotions happen quicker.
Your particular case is shitty, but rare.I've had the same experience but I'm referring to the guy who makes sandwiches at subway not college educated people at tech companies.
I've had success in both large and small companies.
Working at a small company isn't necessarily about advancement within that company itself (although that can still occur) it's about a foot in the door to learn about a business or trade. Advancement can occur by switching to another job once skills are obtained or if the owner expands the workforce rapidly the initial employees rise with them.
I've also had a lot better treatment and success at a 35 person company than at a 500 person company. I've worked for both and I generally prefer working for smaller shops.
Edit: I've also worked at several minimum wage jobs for various chains. There was little or no opportunity for advancement there aside from being a manager, which I saw as a dead end.
I prefer "devolutionaries"
They party like it's 1899
Well, when I say small, I mean "4 employees".
I guess once you get to the point that the entire company can't rent an small apartment together this sort of thing is less common.
That, and "head of department" doesn't mean much if you have only 4 employees in the entire company.
Well I was going to say VP, but I though that maybe you wouldn't really be expecting VP to be an easy position to move up to in a company anyways...
Besides I was busting my ass to get to the head of "Wash this thing with bleach and when you are done do whatever anyone says, gofer" department! I deserved it.
Anyways though, I'd think that for most small business owners minimum wage is less of an issue than tax law. I know that I've heard a lot of people in Rhode Island complain about our very high property taxes making it difficult to set up a business.
Yeah, absolutely.
Fun fact: one of the reasons Latin America has been suffering from chronic economic underdevelopment is the high costs of starting a business.
You could start with:
1) Proper enforcement of anti-trust laws.
2) Expansion of anti-trust laws.
3) Altering the tax code to explicitly favor small businesses, as opposed to large ones. (A net tax increase might do the trick as well as a net tax cut. Competition is relative.)
4) Increasing the availability of capital (actually, this isn't really a problem in the US).
Lowering or eliminating the minimum wage just isn't going to help startups in any meaningful way, particularly considering the disproportionate boost it will give to larger businesses (think Walmart).
Well, as in most cases, some people would be more "better off" than others. This isn't necessarily a bad things...again, more businesses starting up (and succeeding) means more jobs which means higher wages for those left behind.
More better? Good lord, my old English teacher probably just had a stroke.
His point wasn't so much the success rate but rather the number started in general. Success rate doesn't take into account the guys who never bother because they know they wouldn't be able to pay their employees.
If you I'm not a fan of the minimum wage. I think it's about the least effective way to help the working poor imaginable, and has the most undesirable side effects. In general, simple minimum wage hikes are a horrible, horrible policy and the minimum wage itself is largely a horrible policy.
That said, min-wage increases are much easier to get passed than any of the many other measures that might actually help more, so I guess we take what we can get. Unfortunately a majority (at least in my experience) that oppose the minimum wage also oppose any other more socialistic measures that might do less harm and more good.
This doesn't follow. At the very least, assuming that you're right about there being a correlation between minimum wage hikes and reductions in the level of startup activity, there should be a lag period between the raising of the minimum wage and the corresponding decline in small business start up rates where we could see the effect of the minimum wage in success rate. That effect does not appear to be happening, which suggests that the minimum wage does not have the effect you claim it has.
Small businesses, when faced with a minimum wage hike, do the same thing large businesses do: pass the cost on to consumers. But large businesses employ a larger proportion of minimum wage employees, and are thus harder hit by a minimum wage increase.
If anything, raising the minimum wage helps small businesses compete against larger businesses. Your locally-owned grocery store has a better shot if the Walmart down the street has to pay its employees a decent wage.
Large companies with large profit margins can also better absorb high employment costs. They will either raise prices or eat the bottom line. Small businesses which have no such margin simply go under.
Walmart is an exception and not the rule. Most employees that earn minimum wage are employed by small businesses.
Also, I'm not even sure that most people working at Walmart actually make minimum wage. I think many of them actually make more than that (not much more but they are still above the minimum).
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba499/
Regardless I agree with your point here:
That this would also be a good idea, and a better one if I had to pick, in ensuring small businesses are not over-run by large corporations.
Actually, the paper looks at periods where minimum wage has been increased (in individual states) and then looks at success rate among existing start-ups and small businesses. Conventional wisdom holds that more small businesses needed to have failed due to an inability to afford the increased cost of labor, but the findings in the paper were the exact opposite: they found a correlation between an increase in minimum wage and an increase in the success rate of small businesses.
Also, cost of labor doesn't really come into play when people start up companies, because start-ups typically have one or a few employees at the beginning and thus cost of labor tends to be negligible. The vast portion - actually, the only portion worth any mention at all - of the cost of starting up a business consists of taking loans from banks and investors. So the minimum wage is largely irrelevant.
I would dispute that. Small companies can and do raise prices to absorb higher employment costs, and since labor costs (particularly minimum wage labor costs) are a smaller proportion of the total cost of doing business for small businesses, a raise in the minimum wage would actually help small businesses compete.
This paper utilizes some funny math with the concept of "small business" to make its point. Notice that it shifts the definition of "small business" between the two paragraphs deceptively. In the first paragraph, "small businesses", which apparently employ 54 percent of all minimum wage workers, are those businesses employing 100 employees or less. In the second paragraph, which details startups, the vast majority are a small subset of that group, with only 20 employees or less. The question of whether these other businesses, which employ more than 20 but less than 100 employees, are going out of business in similar numbers, is left unaddressed, and is highly relevant.
I agree. The first step is clearly to subsidize small businesses with revenue from an increase in the corporate income tax. This nets the most gain for small businesses, and limits "wastage", or money siphoned off by larger businesses utilizing flawed criteria to masquerade as "small businesses".
Yes, but he continues to run.
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/
Said I would post here, but here I am again.
I just wanted to point out that the minimum wage laws apply to the whole labor market, not just smallstartupsthatwoulddosowellifonlyronpaulwaspresident!
KevinNash argument seems to be this: By cutting(eliminating) Minimum wages, the small Startupscompany can hire employes for less, reducing expenses. Thereby increasing their profitability and survivability. They can then compete with BigCompany.
However: a cut(elimination) of Minimum wages would affect every company across the board. BigCompany would also be able to hire people for less money. This would reduce BigCompany's expenses by the same precentage% as StartupCompany, reducing their costs as well. When BigCompany finds itself in a competing with StartupCompany what happens? They would start hiring people at the new lower wages too. They would then be able to compete with StartupCompany on an equal basis.
Well, what do Libertarians always claim happens in private competitive markets? BigCompany cuts prices to undercut StartupCompany, StartupCompany is forced to follow suit or go out of bankrupt.
Net change in market status quo: 0
Net change in StartupCompany's chances for survival: 0
Net change in price to consumer: +1 (goods become cheaper)
Net change in wages earned by employes: -0 (they earn less)
Net change total = 0 (Nothing has changed structuraly, BigCompany still rules, StartupCompany still goes under)
A cut in minimum wage is not going to improve things for StartupCompany. Look elswhere.
It applies to the whole labor market, but you would need a rundown of the % distribution of minimum-wage workers across small business and big businesses in order to get an idea of which it would apply to more.
Well there is that of course, my model is a extreme simplification of real market behavior and structure. Though, I think that it would hold true for companies in the same line of businesses, as they would both be looking for the same employees(unskilled minimum wage earners) and competing for the same customers.
OWATONNA, Minn. - An 18-year-old Republican's enthusiasm for presidential hopeful Ron Paul could cost him more than $550.
Cody Hauer has been cited four times in one week for displaying a 13-inch-by-40-inch "Ron Paul Revolution" decal in the rear window of his car. The problem is that such decals are illegal if they obstruct the driver's view.
"I support Ron Paul, the city police department doesn't," he said. "They gave me a DWR — driving while Republican."
Oh shit.
It was impossible before. As soon as people found out about the racist views of his newsletter, he would have been done anyway. Since he was never taken seriously, that information didn't make it into the wider public consciousness. If he had been a real contender, it would have.
So, I guess the answer to the persecution complex question is yes, at least for you.
They're going to stop you if you have a sign or decal about anything obstructing your view.
There's a saying that "scientists won the war, physicists ended it."
Ron Paul's batshit craziness lost him the campaign, the caucas ended it.
More like DWR - driving while retarded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTEKLFlJun8
Send this to all your Paultard friends.
Seriously, WTF?
The lulz are always worth it.