Michelle Bachmann Says She Would Consider Minimum Wage Changes

[c.d.]

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/08/26/7490305-bachmann-says-shed-consider-minimum-wage-changes

c.d.

[Sister Hyde]

a typical c.d. post how are you guys hanging in so far? seen 2 deads in North Carolina, is it already in DC or do you have a little time to breathe before the storm? say, when they talk about "changing" the federal minimum wages they mean lower them right? This would be an outrage!! The only right thing to do to create employement or raise salatries is to lower the taxes of the employers (I dunno how it works in the US but here a boss will pay just as much in taxes for you than what he pays you).

[Limehouse]

She said this in a 'packed sandwich shop?' - wow! Three people could pack most of the sandwich shops over hear.

She wants to perhaps cut minimum wages to boost business? Isn't that a bit dumb? I mean - if you had your wages cut - how much loyalty would you show to the business?

Cheap labour will not help the economy as a whole. What is needed is a wider distribution of wealth.

[c.d.]

Hello Sister,

It's raining fairly hard in D.C. right now and it has been pretty much all day. My understanding is that we are scheduled to get the brunt of the storm early tomorrow morning and throughout the day. I need to make a food run (yes, I should have done that yesterday) and I am sure the store will be a zoo.

Yes, good ole Michelle is clearly talking about "lowering" the minimum wage while at the same time she is adamantly opposed to taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Spin it any way you like but she and her fellow Republican candidates are clearly in the "let them eat cake" camp.

I also find it interesting that she and so many of her fellow Republicans are staunchly opposed to abortion. Yet they all want sex education taken out of the schools, want to limit access to birth control and the morning after pill. Top it off with lowering the minimum wage a working mother might be receiving. Do the math. This mind set amazes me.

c.d.

[c.d.]

I wonder if any of the employees of the sandwich shop (who obviously make minimum wage) were asked for their opinion on her proposal?

c.d.

[Sister Hyde]

They probably weren't asked anything c.d... Seriously I can understand why you hold such a grudge toward this woman I guess "pre-hysterical" people are not an extincted breed Maybe this woman should end up raising her kids on her own with a minimum wage to realize how outrageous this is, and it's all I wish her.
you should have seen the circus here the past weeks, after the president cancelling the taxe on big fortunes and all the talks about the national debt, and the coming crisis and the 'austerity plan" that might be applied, 8 of the richest fortunes of the country have ASKED themselves to be taxed, and to be taxed much more than the other people to help filling the deficit.

c.d., just go out an get can foods as fast as you can and come back, when I see the scenes of Mall openings on first sales day in the US I can only imagine what a nightmare it must be on a "catastrophy" warning. Here we're not subject to hurricanes but the last days we've had a lot of very harsch winds, rain and thunderstorms (maybe just some far "pushbacks", but however enough to break some trees and create basements floodings)

[c.d.]

Well I am back from the grocery store. Not as bad an ordeal as I thought it would be. Although schlepping heavy bags of groceries in the pouring rain was not pleasant. Not crowded at all. I spoke to the check out person and she said yesterday was completely crazy. So many people that they had to keep people outside and regulate how many they let in. The shelves were pretty well stocked with a few exceptions like bread.

Yes, I really dislike Michelle Bachmann and so many of her Republican colleagues. I think they are corporate whores and religious wackos. They also like to wave the flag while they are spouting their BS. The few moderate (and sane) Republicans in their party are absolutely hated by the rest of the faithful.

And yes, the rain has really picked up.

c.d.

[Sister Hyde]

Well I am back from the grocery store. Not as bad an ordeal as I thought it would be. Although schlepping heavy bags of groceries in the pouring rain was not pleasant. Not crowded at all. I spoke to the check out person and she said yesterday was completely crazy. So many people that they had to keep people outside and regulate how many they let in. The shelves were pretty well stocked with a few exceptions like bread.

Yes, I really dislike Michelle Bachmann and so many of her Republican colleagues. I think they are corporate whores and religious wackos. They also like to wave the flag while they are spouting their BS. The few moderate (and sane) Republicans in their party are absolutely hated by the rest of the faithful.

And yes, the rain has really picked up.

c.d.

in every political party, the moderate ones are consiedered as black sheeps c.d., yes I've always seen the american republicans as a bunch of psychotic stoup frogs. For foreigners, the news from the american political seen always sounds so worrying because we assume it reflects the general mind of the USA, but having relatives there and contact with many people, I know that your point of view on this republican party is pretty much what all the americans think.

Anyway glad you're safe and sound home and prepared to the eventuality of being stucked inside for some days. Just stay home until it's over, if you get bored, i'm sure there must be some football on tv... WHO DAT!!!

[c.d.]

She said over the weekend that the U.S. energy policy is being held hostage by environmental extremists and that as president she would immediately get rid of the environmental protection agency. Ya just gotta love her.

c.d.

[Bob Hinton]

Oh really...

. What is needed is a wider distribution of wealth.

Yes we recently had several days of that - I believe it's called looting!

[Bob Hinton]

Greetings.

The minimum wage a disastrous effect here in Britain. What people overlook is that if you force employers to increase wages above that which is economically viable they will have to recoup their extra overhead by increasing prices. Who pays the increased prices? The people getting the minimum wage, so they are in effect no better off and so it goes on in an ever increasing spiral.

The other downside is that you erode differentials. My wife is a manager in a care home and every year the minimum wage increases, but of course hers doesn’t. You can’t blame the owner, he says that he is forced to give pay rises to one section of the work force. The outcome is that my wife as a manager is now earning only 15p per hour more than the most junior member of staff. Some of the managers have said sod it – carrying all that responsibility for an extra 15p an hour isn’t worth it and they revert to junior carer.

Several working men used to supplement their wages by driving taxis; they were paid a percentage of the takings. However now they are enforcing minimum wage they have been let go as quite often the taxi doesn’t take the minimum wage per hour. So they go back to claiming benefits and who does that improve.

Owners of business must be allowed to run their business in the way they see fit without constant interference from Government.

Here’s a true story. I read an article by a reporter who went to some third world country to run a story on sweat shops. The story got a lot of publicity in Britain and the companies were forced to use only those factories that paid minimum wage.
Two years later he went back to talk to one family he had interviewed previously and see how much better off they were. He found them on the rubbish dump picking through the garbage – that was all they had after the factory was closed down. Now do you think their situation had improved or not?

[Limehouse]

Yes we recently had several days of that - I believe it's called looting!

Hi Bob - what I mean is that if you cut the lowest wages to the bone then the spending power of a huge number of people is reduced and it is therefore difficult for the economy to grow. It is a myth that the economy can only grow through investment in shares and lower taxes for the wealthy.

Julie

[Bob Hinton]

Greetings.

Hi Bob - what I mean is that if you cut the lowest wages to the bone then the spending power of a huge number of people is reduced and it is therefore difficult for the economy to grow. It is a myth that the economy can only grow through investment in shares and lower taxes for the wealthy.

Julie

But as I said the problem is the higher wages have to come from somewhere and the only way employers can recoup these additional costs is to raise prices. Ask anyone on minimum wage if they are really better off today than before it was introduced.

all the best

Bob

[The Good Michael]

A little US history lesson in brief: The top few percent of people were taxed at 70-80% and we weren't in debt. When Reagan became dictator, the taxes were lowered to something like 50% and military spending was increased about 40%. He raised taxes on almost everything consumable and took many of the welfare benefits away from the poor and disenfranchised (not necessarily a bad thing if done on a person by person basis, which it wasn't). The result would have been catastophic to our nation as the higher taxes for lower income people, plus welfare wages cut, would have meant that there should have been a let loss consumer spending. There wasn't because he also removed restrictions on credit cards. Before Reagan, a person had to show he/she had a steady job for some period of time and at a certain income level and age to be able to get a credit card. It was a priviledge. With Reagan, it became a right and the backlash 5 or 6 years later was a generation oif people in debt who could buy anything they wanted and pay a year or two later... or not. But hey, this how our government works, borrowing and borrowing, so why not the citizens. I was lucky in that I;ve never been in debt, but I also went through the school of hard knocks to learn those lessons. many don't and the government should never have given the children all that candy. Now the cavities are deep and there isn't enough amalgam for the fillings.

[Stephen Thomas]

A little US history lesson in brief: The top few percent of people were taxed at 70-80% and we weren't in debt. When Reagan became dictator, the taxes were lowered to something like 50% and military spending was increased about 40%. He raised taxes on almost everything consumable and took many of the welfare benefits away from the poor and disenfranchised (not necessarily a bad thing if done on a person by person basis, which it wasn't). The result would have been catastophic to our nation as the higher taxes for lower income people, plus welfare wages cut, would have meant that there should have been a let loss consumer spending. There wasn't because he also removed restrictions on credit cards. Before Reagan, a person had to show he/she had a steady job for some period of time and at a certain income level and age to be able to get a credit card. It was a priviledge. With Reagan, it became a right and the backlash 5 or 6 years later was a generation oif people in debt who could buy anything they wanted and pay a year or two later... or not. But hey, this how our government works, borrowing and borrowing, so why not the citizens. I was lucky in that I;ve never been in debt, but I also went through the school of hard knocks to learn those lessons. many don't and the government should never have given the children all that candy. Now the cavities are deep and there isn't enough amalgam for the fillings.

Thanks for that very thoughtful post, Mike.

What is needed is for Western governments to get a handle on the nature of Capitalism which I don't think will happen anytime soon. The bottom line is that ANYTHING can be manufactured in the Far East at a fraction of the cost of doing it in the US or Europe so we're going to have to get used to millions of people just kicking their heels with nothing to do to pass the day.

The recent UK rioitng and looting was just the thin end of the wedge.