Will increasing the minimum wage to $9/hr be a net positive?

A few years back, my brother in law was the head of IT for Sappi(South Africa Paper ? International) for North America. He went to a mill in South Africa and commented that no people were involved with the process other then maintaining the machines. Truck drivers and fork lift drivers, most all were outside the mill.
I have some experience around unionized mill workers in Maine. I agree that workers that show up, work hard, have skills, and do quality work for their respective companies should be well paid on a scale that is appropriate with the cost of living in their region. However, to many times the union jobs were vastly overpaid for low quality, lazy people. Profits are not bad and are the reason anyone develops a business, not to provide jobs for a population. When the tail wags the dog, you are in trouble.
As Sam has said about the coal fired generators being shut down because the were old technology, the mills in Maine were to dependent on manpower and the unions were to strong. Close them down after stripping all the wood they could get away with, (LOTS ) break the unions, and allowing the forest to regrow(about 30 years to the size and mass/acre they want), and start back up with new mills, high demand, and fewer expensive people. Politically, they will rely on keeping the National Park at bay and they control the vast majority of the private land anyways. Pingree's for example.
I am reading about the oil boom in the West and it is the same boom cycle mentality that occurred in Texas. It just so happens that trees grow back eventually. However, you can only strip the land so many times and expect a crop. Then other species come in that may not be as desirable. I have already seen them spray and treat thousands of acres to kill junk hardwood species that came up after harvesting. Then there are the issues with monoculture......... Alright enough already, you can see where this goes!

rberq wrote:

Flyer5 wrote:Min wage should be a starting wage. If you want more you earn it with experience and training.

You're way too optimistic, and stuck in the mindset of 50 years ago. As jobs become scarcer and scarcer, then more and more higher-skilled workers get pushed down to the minimum (or minimal) wage categories, in spite of their experience and training. Witness recent posts by Kevin (KLook) who moved to Tennessee and finds that in spite of his expertise and high-quality work, he is getting offers of $12 an hour. We are ALL headed in that direction, where only the owners of the factories full of robots will make a good income, and without a much HIGHER minimum wage the middle class will cease to exist and the USA will look like North Korea.

Klook already answered for me. I was going to say he can choose to accept it and keep looking for better or just keep looking for better. If you are good at what you do and can prove it you will move up the scale. Some people do not move up even though they deserve it, mostly because they just don't pursue it and are not driven enough. I agree today's average wage sucks. Mostly I blame a lot of this on ourselves by accepting foreign goods because we could at the time buy more with less. Remember Ross Perot that everyone laughed at. The giant sucking sound. We can buy cheap foreign TVs and products until the TV mfgs moved out of the US. If you support American jobs it can be turned around. I am not against union's per say, just union leadership that cripples companies. That is part of the issue. I can't remember the figure but it was quite a chunk of change for each vehicle for Ford or GM to maintain the pensions and benefit's of retired union workers. So its cheaper to buy a KIA vs a Ford and yet it continues.

According to CNBC the average new car now sells for $30,500 after discounts, and even with a 6 year loan at todays incredibly low and artificial interest rates, the average American family can no longer afford to purchase a new car. Something that generations past took for granted and did routinely on 3 year loans with higher interest rates, and often with only one wage earner in the family. But the government saved the premium wage scale of the auto workers.

rberq wrote:

Flyer5 wrote:Min wage should be a starting wage. If you want more you earn it with experience and training.

You're way too optimistic, and stuck in the mindset of 50 years ago. As jobs become scarcer and scarcer, then more and more higher-skilled workers get pushed down to the minimum (or minimal) wage categories, in spite of their experience and training. Witness recent posts by Kevin (KLook) who moved to Tennessee and finds that in spite of his expertise and high-quality work, he is getting offers of $12 an hour. We are ALL headed in that direction, where only the owners of the factories full of robots will make a good income, and without a much HIGHER minimum wage the middle class will cease to exist and the USA will look like North Korea.

You act like driving the standard of living down ISN'T the PLAN....

When it gets to the point where the auto workers can't afford their own product, perhaps that will wake someone up.

SMITTY wrote:Thanks to the gov't mandating this, that, & the other thing for automobiles, resulting in cars costing $40k & up, I'll continue driving the 30 model-year-old car & contribute to the problem.

I have my 04 tdi w 270,000 miles , My 04 Dodge tk w 150,000 miles and my wifes 06 4 runner with 97,000 miles. We were planning on replacing my wife's 4 runner every 5yrs with something new but instead chose to put a little money into it and keep it at least another 4yrs. I do my own work so its just parts. My VW has just become a challenge, I want 400,000 miles. So another 3 yrs or so..
Money sure doesn't go as far as it used to. And it is just getting worse. $9/hr will probably not affect most people for a few yrs. But you will see fast food places with less people working. More self service gas stations. ( except for Jersey)

I guess Sam is not one of the 0.01% of the libs that understands money. Let me make it even more simple.

The Fed is adding $85 billion to it every month. The larger the balance sheet gets, the more powder Bernanke is piling into the coal house. So, instead of a firecracker, he’s got a great big bomb in there now. What happens when you have to sell to raise money to pay the interest on the excess reserves. The excess reserves is money the big banks are holding at the Fed—for now. The only way Bernanke wins his bet on not getting trapped by this is if we are Japan that means no economic growth and no recovery. The only thing that holds this whole ball of string together is the federal government running deficits, and we have this little problem called the sequester. In nine months we run out of money.