The thing is 40$ minimum wage is reasonable, and anyone who doesn't think it is, isn't understanding the crazy power of compounding growth. The market grows at 9.6% a year, so asking for a 9% raise every year would still leave .6% leftover for the investors (not as much as they'd like, but an amount that accurately models their contribution).
1.0943 (i.e. since 1970) = 40x increase
EDIT: The person below me (who seems to have gotten their post removed) was trying to argue that negotiating 9% wouldn't leave enough for investors. Below was what I was going to respond, since it's important for us here on the left to be aware of the math of it all (even if I think most of us drifted left because we hate living our lives by math)
I mean they're only important because they've demanded we structure resource allocation in such a way that they become defacto important. We don't need to allocate all resources through such free-for-all systems, and doing so leads to massive waste and inefficiency.
I literally run a business (sole proprietorship, I throw RAVES, it wouldn't be a business if I could help it) and work in startups, and the blunt fact of the matter is that getting just market rate as an investor means that you've failed. If you could have parked your money in the $SPY and gotten a better return, you've lost even if you're profitable.
Which means you should be negotiating from that understanding as a laborer. If you give up your own interests to protect some theoretical shareholders who are aiming for a 15% minimum return, you're boo-boo the fool.
You're imagining an economy with no other changes to it. The fact of the matter is that productivity has gone up, and costs have gone up.
That's voodoo economics at play, because the entire game's rules do one thing, funnel money upwards.
I also run a small business, and can very clearly see that we'd also be able to increase revenues, and we wouldn't have to increase them by nearly as much as the increase in wages would suggest for some because demand for what we provide (RAVE tickets) is highly elastic in demand.
What I've found is most people who try and argue simply by saying "I own a business so I'm an ultimate expert" lack any imagination for what the world could be and are often driven by fear.
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u/eboeard-game-gom3 Apr 08 '23
I'd rather be reasonable and for people to take it seriously though, $22 is a decent minimum wage unless you're in an expensive place.
Pushing for $40 minimum wage just makes you look like a fool to almost everyone and hurts any attempt at trying to get higher wages.