Michelle Bachman - congressional embarassment

[Townsend]

There's worse:

I disagree.  The Bachman eyes mess you up.

http://m5.paperblog.com/i/5/54616/michele-bachmanns-eyes-everywhere-L-EfhFXi.jpeg[/img]

That crap'll jack you up.

[Conan71]

Someone spent way too much time on Photoshop.

[Townsend]

Someone spent way too much time on Photoshop.

These were pictures placed in a pile with Bachman's picture.  After 20 minutes, this is what happened.

Scary as F isn't it?

[Hoss]

These were pictures placed in a pile with Bachman's picture.  After 20 minutes, this is what happened.

Scary as F isn't it?

Yes...

[Gaspar]

I will submit again - and I am gonna raise it a notch - there is NO real job in this country that is worth pay of less than $12 per hour.  

Because of this reasoning employers have been granted license by the government to discriminate against an unskilled yet motivated workforce. Minimum wage laws always have a negative effect on employment and the opportunity for worker advancement.

Currently full time jobs that pay minimum wage of about $7.25, but cost the employeer about $10-$15 an hour with costs & benefits.  That amount will increase dramatically with the requirements of Obamacare.   Sure, everyone should work to make a living wage, but if it is mandated, those less skilled, less motivated, and less educated are the ones that suffer.

I deal with this all day long, and I must say, the promise of Obamacare has been very lucrative for me, even though I still maintain that it is disastrous for the country, and would welcome the drop in my own personal income to save my children from it.  I've sold several a massively complex and expensive Inventory/Service systems to a companies who want to replace all of their low wage workers, because they are forecasting their employment expenses to rise dramatically over the next three to five years.  In most cases, the systems costs them more than several years of pay for these workers, but the prospect of Obamacare has offered them an obvious ROI, and a significant reduction in liability.  On paper they see it is as no different than an increase in minimum wage law.

Mandated wage increases drive companies to reduce labor force, just as increases in raw materials force them to seek efficiency.  It's economics 101.  

If you support the idea of increasing minimum wage above current averages, you must be prepared to accept a smaller workforce.  You must also be able to accept that those with the least marketable skills will suffer the most through lack of work compensatory with their skills.  The 47% increases.  The most unfortunate part of this is that many of these people are hard workers that would gain necessary skills quickly and advance both their income and marketability if only given the chance.

there is NO real job in this country that is worth pay of less than $12 per hour.

Somewhere in your thought process, you were vigilant enough to add the word "real" to your statement.  That would beg the question, what is the criteria for a "real" job?  If the job is not "real" should it not exist.  If I'm willing to pay a teenager $90 a day to bus tables, why should I not be allowed to do so, because you don't consider that job real?

[Townsend]

Yes...

[nathanm]

That's a fantastic idea, Gaspar. Gut the unions so that workers have no bargaining power, then repeal the minimum wage so they can be legally exploited. Think how much better off everyone was before those nasty things existed!

P.S. Unskilled but motivated people can be trained. Then they are skilled and motivated people. Perhaps business leaders might consider making an investment with some risk, rather than expecting everything be handed to them on a silver platter.

[Gaspar]

P.S. Unskilled but motivated people can be trained. Then they are skilled and motivated people. Perhaps business leaders might consider making an investment with some risk, rather than expecting everything be handed to them on a silver platter.

Good point!  But I don't need to hire a skilled worker.  I need to hire a busboy who can clean tables.  I can afford to pay $90.
It would be fantastic if my buss boy proves to be excellent at customer service and advances to the make-table, and then management, but today, I need a buss boy!

No one is exploiting anyone.  The neighbor's teenager wants to make $90 a day, and I happen to have a job for him.  We enter into a mutual contract.

[nathanm]

No one is exploiting anyone.

Yes, in your self contradictory fantasy land, that is indeed the case. Out here in the real world where people need to work to have things like food and a place to live, workers have little bargaining power. Surely you understand how severely asymmetric bargaining power distorts markets.

[Ed W]

As Americans, we should be proud that someone like Michelle Bachman can become a US senator and even run for president.  It's the basis of all those Horatio Alger stories, where someone strives hard and becomes a successful person.  Bachman is proof that anyone - literally anyone - can succeed in politics in our nation.  There's no need for well-thought-out policy, judicious self-restraint, or any semblance of rational thought.  Wild accusations, incoherent rambling, and raving xenophobia are enough.

I think I should revive my campaign for the presidency.

[Red Arrow]

Good point!  But I don't need to hire a skilled worker.  I need to hire a busboy who can clean tables.  I can afford to pay $90.

It would be far better to split the $90 among the existing staff and not hire someone for that job that isn't worth a living wage.  That person you didn't hire can find find a job somewhere else, maybe.

From Heiron:

If it's only worth 6 bucks an hour - it should not be done.

[Red Arrow]

I kind of went through this before -

Obviously you were ineffective.  Either that or wrong.

[guido911]

There's worse:

[Red Arrow]

P.S. Unskilled but motivated people can be trained. Then they are skilled and motivated people. Perhaps business leaders might consider making an investment with some risk, rather than expecting everything be handed to them on a silver platter.

With the price of avgas like it is and will be, I will need some supplemental income when I retire.  Can I count on you for a good paying part time job?  I have done some programming in the past but not recently.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Because of this reasoning employers have been granted license by the government to discriminate against an unskilled yet motivated workforce. Minimum wage laws always have a negative effect on employment and the opportunity for worker advancement.

Currently full time jobs that pay minimum wage of about $7.25, but cost the employeer about $10-$15 an hour with costs & benefits.  That amount will increase dramatically with the requirements of Obamacare.   Sure, everyone should work to make a living wage, but if it is mandated, those less skilled, less motivated, and less educated are the ones that suffer.

I deal with this all day long, and I must say, the promise of Obamacare has been very lucrative for me, even though I still maintain that it is disastrous for the country, and would welcome the drop in my own personal income to save my children from it.  I've sold several a massively complex and expensive Inventory/Service systems to a companies who want to replace all of their low wage workers, because they are forecasting their employment expenses to rise dramatically over the next three to five years.  In most cases, the systems costs them more than several years of pay for these workers, but the prospect of Obamacare has offered them an obvious ROI, and a significant reduction in liability.  On paper they see it is as no different than an increase in minimum wage law.

Mandated wage increases drive companies to reduce labor force, just as increases in raw materials force them to seek efficiency.  It's economics 101.  

If you support the idea of increasing minimum wage above current averages, you must be prepared to accept a smaller workforce.  You must also be able to accept that those with the least marketable skills will suffer the most through lack of work compensatory with their skills.  The 47% increases.  The most unfortunate part of this is that many of these people are hard workers that would gain necessary skills quickly and advance both their income and marketability if only given the chance.

Somewhere in your thought process, you were vigilant enough to add the word "real" to your statement.  That would beg the question, what is the criteria for a "real" job?  If the job is not "real" should it not exist.  If I'm willing to pay a teenager $90 a day to bus tables, why should I not be allowed to do so, because you don't consider that job real?

Wow!  You managed to encapsulate every plaintive bleat about minimum wage from the Murdochian Non-News organization in one compact package.  Every one of which has been proven wrong for decades.

Actually, I wasn't talking about minimum wage and did not mention it.  But nice try to deflect.  "A" for effort.  What I did say was that there is no real job in this country that is worth less than $12 per hour.  And if some alleged "manager" cannot figure out how to make any job worth that to the organization, it is the symptom of that persons incompetence.  Either the job should be upgraded to be worth that to the organization or it should not be done at all.


One statement in particular - mandated wage increases etc, etc... Economics 101. 

Econ 101 for who??  Murdochians only. 

The actual, real live US Department of Labor quotes studies and analysis by several entities, including a Nobel winning economist Robert Solow, Princeton University, University of  Wisconsin, and 10 other studies (un-named), one of which done by the US Labor Department.