Molly Calls for a Living Wage

[KeithE]

William, I just tried to put you on the foes list to ignore but it doesn’t allow that for administrators. I’ll have to ignore you myself.

I put effort (research, web searches, cross checking, verification, academic studies, biblical studies, composition) into my posts and you flippantly brush them aside. I cannot tell if you are even reading them. That’s annoying. I can live without your opinions because they have no value added.

[William Thornton]

Hmmm, forum software prevents KeithE from putting me where he cannot see my brilliant, witty, and insightful comments. Consider it providential, bro, and deal with it.

I confess, yes indeed, to not reading all of your stuff. I don't need to, since you are as predictable as the sun rising tomorrow. Let me know if you have some new thought. Until then, I will presume that you are all about using gummit to take by force of guns from those who have earned and achieved and giving to others who have not, will not, so earn and achieve and who feel entitled to the product of the labor of others. I make no judgment about your motives for such, merely presume you are misguided, perhaps overdosed on boilerplate graphs put out by tendentious advocacy groups.

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

[Stephen Fox]

Keep an eye on Trey Gowdy, Billy Graham Conference at Wheaton and FBC Spartanburg South Carolina: Exhibit A

[William Thornton]

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[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Keith while I may not be much f an economist, I Can tell you that despite a great taste for McDonald's Quarter Pounder's, it has been a long time since I have had one because of the price. It is not that I cannot afford it but they have been forced to overpricing. I will pull off the Interstate into a small town and go to a local spot and pay two to thee times as much for a decent meal.

I do wish this had come up before we talked with Dr. Marshral, perhaps my favorite living theologian in June , at theABC-USA Biennial just up the road from Her School. I think perhaps I could have persuaded her that minimum wage and just wage are not of necessity synonymous.

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

Sandy describes why a raise in the minimum wage would be a bad decision. Why try and incentivise a $7.25 worker when gummit, by divine fiat, declares a minimum of $10 or more? If the minimum was $10 then just to get workers motivated, pay would be increased to $12+ hourly. And, really, guys, there's no pricing consequence for raising wages? Depends. If it costs more to make the Big Mac, then (a) prices must be increased as well, or (b) a more efficient way to make the burg must be found to keep unit costs down. If competition is such that prices cannot be raised, folks flood the taco stands and eschew burgers for example, then profit margins may drop such that restaurants are closed and jobs are lost. If prices can be raised then folks may eat less burgs, jobs are lost here as well. Or perhaps the favorite alternative for my socialist/fascist (in a classic sense) friends would be that the greedy capitalist pig's profits would suffer. But then, it isn't the gummit making Big Macs for social betterment by taking money from citizens by force and using them to make Macs, it is private citizens who have the incentive of making money, and shareholders who wish a return on their investment.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Someone pays. The problem is that my socialist friends believe that lunches are free, food stamps, free Obamaphones, health care...

...and the captialist pigs pay for it.

And Sandy, you wish to go back to state churches? You find a good communal church in PA, jine it, and tell us how it goes.

[Sandy]

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[William Thornton]

Sandy sez: "The profit margin [for fast food companies], BTW, is a rip off."

Please tell me what McDonald's profit margin is, since you have judged it a ripoff.

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

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[Sandy]

Neither McDonald's or Exxon make all their profit at the corporate level. If you look at that McDonald's annual report, the difference between their sales and their operating capital is $19.5 billion. That's not reflected anywhere else in the report. The stockholder dividents come out of the net income. The $19.5 billion is sales revenue that comes from McDonald's restaurants which are franchised or independently owned. A good portion of that is profit for the franchise owners, and isn't reflected in the corporate stock report, and the shareholders don't get 100% of the profit in dividends, because they don't own 100% of the company. Their net income is $5.5 billion on about $8.5 billion in operating revenue. You'd have to calculate the expense and net income of each individual franchise to figure out the profit margin on a McDonald's hamburger.

At any rate, a raise in the minimum wage would be a blip on the radar screen among those kinds of numbers. It's a fraction of a percentage of their operating cost, most stockholders wouldn't notice it.

[William Thornton]

[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]