yes, the system as you said is impossible. and as you said it will eventually collapse. but i think there is still time and there are still stuff we can do to mitigate it. the world has gone through worse and is still advancing forward, who of us can still feel the great depression or the two world wars today? somehow i think this is going to be less then those.
It's already worse.
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The author, unfortunately, does not realize the true causes of the problems (unions forcing companies to pay $50 an hour to a riveter wouldn't fix anything) - but does recognize the problems.
When you take those conditions and put them to the tune of the true causes:
[video=youtube;tGk5ioEXlIM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGk5ioEXlIM[/video]
And the picture becomes very clear.
Obama pushing for an increase in minimum wage? His personal reasons are irrelevant (he thinks it will get him more popularity) - but the lobbying for an increase in minimum wage is specifically aimed at being a stop-gap against the corrosive effects of inflation. But that will only worsen the economic picture, as the purchasing power of even more Americans will be eroded.
To exemplify - I work for a non-profit Dialysis clinic. Most of our patients are veterans receiving care through the VA, Medicare recipients, Medicaid recipients, etc. We treat first and worry about payment later (we take in a number of patients who get booted from other clinics for missing payments).
So, obviously - my employers are evil money-grubbers who want to wallow in money.
Anyhow - I make roughly $15 an hour. Minimum wage is currently about half of that. While my pay is likely to increase following my certifications for the work I do and other stuff - it's not likely to exceed $20 an hour within the next three to five years. Thus, I currently make roughly 200% of minimum wage.
So, what happens if it gets raised to Obama's $11.50 an hour? Well, initially, that will seem great. People making minimum wage will have more 'money' to spend on goods and services that have not yet adjusted to the fact that all people involved in bringing that product to those minimum wage earners also increases. Environments with strong labor unions will force businesses to increase worker pay to similar minimum wage ratios as before (or worse - force the business to close/leave - with no business to absorb the displaced employees). Others will offer slight increases in pay, while many will simply have to increase their pay to their lowest paid employees without being able to compensate their more senior employees.
This necessitates a rise in prices. Not only have labor costs of manufactured goods (this would include a burger) increased - but so have the prices of their constituent parts - shipping prices go up, energy prices go up, materials prices go up, etc. This forces increased interest in foreign businesses and also means higher domestic costs - most notably in the consumables market.
In other words - food. Consumable prices are on the front lines of inflation with their prices being highly dynamic (due to expiration of the product and the fact that the industry does not 'run up' an inventory). Land and rent prices also go up in response to increased interest in home ownership from minimum wage earners.
You see where this is going. In the end - the increase in minimum wage forces an inflation of prices - most notably among the cost of living (which is what the minimum wage is intended to provide for).
Me? Well - I'm no longer making 200% minimum wage, but 130.4% of minimum wage while the cost of living has inflated. So, I lose purchasing power. Even if my pay were to increase by $5 an hour to $20 an hour - I'd still be looking at 173.9% of minimum wage - which means my purchasing power is roughly less than when I started the job.
But it is the fault of my employer, right?
They are just greedy.
This is precisely why it is called: "Trickle Up Poverty."
Even if my employers were to do the logical thing and increase prices - they would have to take the argument up with Medicare, Medicaid and insurance companies. That would reflect in higher premiums, greater budget deficits (or more taxes), and higher billing for our services.
But so few of our employees receive minimum wage - we get paid above it, now. We can't realistically increase costs, and can't realistically do much to have our pay adjusted. We simply have to eat the decrease in our purchasing power.
i think that when the US will reach it's limit, someone is going to pull a solution that will make it so the US will be able to continue operate but with sacrifices. i'm not saying that nothing is going to happen, only that we are not going to have a worldwide catastrophe out of this. by all accounts the US market should have collapsed months ago.
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This has hardly been noticed in the media.
Why do business in American Dollars?
Because they are needed to buy oil from Opec, and because American and American-based companies use those dollars for business.
"But they just printed twice as much money this year as they had in circulation last year!"
Businesses can (and will) take up other currencies. But they are based on the same centralized bank system that the Federal Reserve is (with much smaller currency bases). The result is that those currencies will be printed into oblivion by a central bank to try and keep the currency 'stable' - which will bubble and collapse those currencies in much the same way (just on a much shorter time scale).
There is no deal that politicians can make that will save the dollar. They do not have the power of a god, as much as American culture believes that the government is capable of violating the laws of physics.