OT anyone have any idea if the $15/hour minimum wage will impact our DIY hobby?

[a4eaudio]

Rather than minimum wage we should be looking at the maximum wage. For instance, the CEO of McDonald's makes $8500...per hour! Do you think if he was paid a mere $1k per hour that it would bring down the cost of a Big Mac?

This might be a good idea in theory, but politically would be harder to implement. Is the maximum for ALL CEOs $1k an hour, e.g., McDonalds and Apple as well as a smaller company?
The minimum wage can be based on a level of poverty or some calculation of a "living wage" and receive general support. 67% of the US population supports a national $15 minimum wage.

Also..."At McDonald's, fear of a rising minimum wage disappears"

[dwigle]

[QUOTE=a4eaudio;n1463371]

This might be a good idea in theory, but politically would be harder to implement. Is the maximum for ALL CEOs $1k an hour, e.g., McDonalds and Apple as well as a smaller company?
The minimum wage can be based on a level of poverty or some calculation of a "living wage" and receive general support. 67% of the US population supports a national $15 minimum wage.

Also..."At McDonald's, fear of a rising minimum wage disappears"[/QU
You can't believe this right? Do you feel similarly for ball players and musicians?

For me, you get what you pay for at executive levels. If you incent them via stock value increases and they succeed, I have no problem with monstrous pay levels, conversely, they should not be paid when the company and shareholder value declines under their watch.

[LIDAR]

The problem with pay liked to stock value is that it heavily encourages short term decision making which is often bad for the long term health of the company. Unfortunately I know of no good way to fix this problem...

[dwigle]

[QUOTE=dwigle;n1463383]

This might be a good idea in theory, but politically would be harder to implement. Is the maximum for ALL CEOs $1k an hour, e.g., McDonalds and Apple as well as a smaller company?
The minimum wage can be based on a level of poverty or some calculation of a "living wage" and receive general support. 67% of the US population supports a national $15 minimum wage.

Also..."At McDonald's, fear of a rising minimum wage disappears"[/QU
You can't believe this right? Do you feel similarly for ball players and musicians?

For me, you get what you pay for at executive levels. If you incent them via stock value increases and they succeed, I have no problem with monstrous pay levels, conversely, they should not be paid when the company and shareholder value declines under their watch.

Lidar: completely agree, in fact, this was my post earlier in this thread:

"And about CEO pay. The largest jump in CEO pay occurred during the Clinton adm. From avg of $4m/yr to $21M/yr (fully realized). Or stated another way, from 60x avg worker pay to 360x avg worker pay. Why, you ask?

In an effort to correct the "economic injustice" and solve the "obscene" 60x avg worker disparity, the adm couldn't just impose limits unilaterally, but they could change tax policy. The change (section 162(m) of the IRS Code, had unintended but predictable consequences. Businesses like people, do what you incentivize them to do (a lesson our leaders could learn).

The code limited the amount of CEO salaries that could be deducted as an expense to $1m/year. So, the businesses needed a way to compensate the best and brightest. They did so by tying compensation to stock value. Sounds good so far, right? The CEO reports to the shareholders and his pay should reflect the value of the business while his in charge. So, CEOs received massive compensation when values increased. Hence the historic increase in total CEO compensation.

There is another significant unintended consequence - the average tenure of CEOs is about five years. After the changes, CEOs were incented to quit thinking about the long term health of corps, they were focused (were incentivized to focus) on the next year, next quarter, next paycheck. Long term planning, out the window."

[r-carpenter]

So what's the answer? What would you do to bring manufacturing to the US? Realistically?
dlr

It depends on where one tries to save capitalism or let it all crash. If we want to keep present system going than there's a necessity for protectionism, some sort of UBI, heavy taxation on imported products that directly compete with US producers. Having computing power that we do now days, it shouldn't be hard to calculate.
US economy been a consumer based economy, can't survive without consumers, so rebuilding programs have to be started immediately. I would also nationalize energy producing and data transfer industries and eliminate obvious parasites like health care insurers.

[dwigle]

I would also nationalize energy producing and data transfer industries and eliminate obvious parasites like health care insurers.

Wow, socialism and resulting equality of misery.

[r-carpenter]

Wow, socialism and resulting equality of misery.

That's not what socialism is. I lived in socialist society for 25 years and in the capitalist one for the same. You continue to repeat cliches. In any event, many capitalist countries have nationalized energy reserves and remain perfectly capitalist. Norway for example.

[dwigle]

That's not what socialism is. I lived in socialist society for 25 years and in the capitalist one for the same. You continue to repeat cliches. In any event, many capitalist countries have nationalized energy reserves and remain perfectly capitalist. Norway for example.

I'm quite familiar with socialism and understand that nationalizing major industries is just the start. Collective or govt ownership and control of the means of production. Once you've got energy, healthcare and education, the rest are easy.

You can't compare Norway, demark, sweden to the US. While they have some nationalized services, they have a different work ethic and they don't provide incentives not to work like we do here. They historically have had the lowest unemployment and highest participation rates worldwide. And until very recently, very strict immigration policies. Have you tried to get a job in Norway?

[LIDAR]

Years ago I had an idea about how to improve (not fix, there'll always be problems to fix) our economy. Everyone I shared it with thought it was a good idea and, like me, had not heard it elsewhere (but I'm not an economist, so maybe it's an old idea that I came up with independently).

As we now live in a global marketplace, and there are good reasons to preserve that, we have to guard against other nations gaming the system. Historically this is done with trade tariffs, but as we know they work very poorly. However we can't just capitulate and let large trading partners (think China or Saudi Arabia) just take advantage of us. If we continue to allow them to sell to us without buying from us (or more realistically sell lots to us and buy little from us) eventually we will have no money left to buy their stuff and they will have no market to sell their stuff. Bad outcomes all around. So here's the plan - we (congress) pick a number X. It can be 1, 2, 3 , 4, whatever we think is right. Once a nation sells us X times as much as they buy from us our ports are closed to their goods. No tariffs, no nothing. Gas up the container ship and turn it around without unloading it. I don't particularly care what you sell us or what you buy from us. The market will figure out what Chinese goods we want and what American goods they want. (BTW - I'm picking on China here, but really there are a lot of nations that sell us a lot of stuff and buy almost nothing from us)

This will cause some short term inflation due to fewer cheap foreign goods being available, but American jobs will be created to fill that need. In my perfect world government will help out those who are negatively effected by the short term inflation and aid businesses who are starting, or expanding, to fill the voids created. Again, only for a short time (a few years). Over time our economy should grow and the market will teach us what the world really wants to buy from us.

I don't really see a way for foreign nations to game such a system, but if there is I'd like to hear it.

[Steve Lee]

Just "BUY" the con-gress and you control everything. Very much like what we are currently experiencing.
There is no security in human systems because everything becomes corrupted.

[LIDAR]

Well, you know the old joke - right? If "pro" is the opposite of "con", then what's the opposite of "progress"?