Originally Posted by
Surfings
@Pouffy
I don't agree with collective wage increases, I'm only for wage increases when productivity is increased proportionally. If wages increase and productivity stays the same, this is inefficient for businesses and will lead to unemployment to maintain profit margins.
I'm also aware that people don't choose jobs solely and only because of money, but it's definitely the main thing people consider. It's honestly a simple question, is it worth it?
That's an interesting perspective. Why in your mind do business' profit margins take priority over proportionally higher wages and a better off population, especially when constricting wages will cut aggregate demand and redirect more consumer spending to 'necessity' goods instead of innovative ideas? (i.e. living paycheck to paycheck, which currently is pretty high.
http://www.offthegridnews.com/financ...k-to-paycheck/ http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/24/pf/emergency-savings/ these are both a little old but are indicative of the current general situation)
Obviously there needs to be more nuance than just "higher wages" and I think businesses obviously need to be considered, but that's not appropriate for the situation in the US.
What you said seems like more of a reflexionary position against things like mandatory minimum wages than a well thought through policy.
Originally Posted by
wibblefox
If the entire argument is "we can take their money because they will still live" then that logic applies equally to a certain point. There is no fallacy here...
At what point do you deem it unacceptable to stop taking more money? I noticed that many poor people own smartphones or expensive shoes, clearly we can increase tax across all brackets significantly with this logic.
Who says that's the whole argument? That's the part of the argument commonly applied since it is relevant to the current reality, but I don't think anybody (mainstream) is arguing for total communism (communists are probably arguing for communism, though). Honestly, I should hope nobody values their time so little as to give a comprehensive description of taxation and consumerism every time they talk about taxing higher brackets more.
I was about to try to give a summary of my own thoughts on the subject, but it got to be too long so I said fuck it and gave up