Typical. <br><br>Donovan, we were speaking about how to make minimum wage into a living wage without causing undue inflation. I pointed out a way to do so. Now, suddenly, the issue isn't how to make sure people can support their families, it's whether the unskilled proles working at Wal-Mart deserve to be able to make a living. So you don't believe that people deserve a living wage -- that's fine. Say so. Don't pretend to make an economic argument that resolving income inequalities is impossible.
<br><br>-- ACS<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 1/14/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Donovan Arnold</b> <<a href="mailto:donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com
</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div>"this means that one of several things are happening: profits are soaring, large amounts of capital investment is occurring, or that management is soaking its labor pool for as much as it can get."-AS
<br> <br> Productivity as I understand it is "real wealth" being generated. I guess that sort of meets your definition.<br> <br> However, Wal-Mart has had a loss in real wealth growth, as is reflected in its stock value dropping. So Wal-Mart increasing its wages beyond the 40% over minimum wage that it is currently paying would contribute to inflation.
<br> <br> Second, even if a company has had an increase in productivity, it is not always due to the skill of the labor force. It could be due to another innovation, such as adding a bar code to each item in the store to reduce labor and transaction costs. I would argue, that most of the increases in productivity are more due to innovation then the hard consistent physical labor of an unskilled, or
semi-skilled labor force employed by Wal-Mart. I doubt that Wal-Mart employees work any harder than ShopKo employees, and since they are paid similar wages. . .<br> <br> Take Care,<span><br> <br> _DJA<br>
<br><b><i>Andreas Schou <<a href="mailto:ophite@gmail.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">ophite@gmail.com</a>></i></b> wrote:</span><div><span>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> <br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 1/13/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Donovan Arnold</b> <<a href="mailto:donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div> "But indexing the rise in minimum wage to yearly estimated productivity gains would not in fact cause inflation."-Andreas Schou
<br> <br> Really? Humm, I find that surprising. Especially considering that the retail market had a 48% gain in productivity in 2004 over the
yearly average since 1987. I would think an increase of nearly 50% in wages in retail would cause inflation through the roof. Especially since those gains were not the result of the unskilled labor force, but because of technological and business model innovations in the retail market created by Wal-Mart.
</div></blockquote><div><br>Donovan --<br><br>Productivity, as it's commonly expressed in the United States, is the amount of value produced through non-farm labor per man-hour. When real wages lag behind productivity growth (as they have in retail for a long while, or has they have in virtually every sector since 2000), this means that one of several things are happening: profits are soaring, large amounts of capital investment is occurring, or that management is soaking its labor pool for as much as it can get.
<br><br>Wage growth is not necessarily tied to inflation because productivity increases actually increase the total value produced by the economy.
<br><br>-- ACS<br></div><br>P.S. I am not an economist. Since Stephen's commented on this thread, I assume he can slap me around a little if I've gotten this totally ass-backward. <br></div><br> </blockquote><br></span>
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