Is anyone ready for this??? Wages goes up?

[Twin Locusts]

Republicans are smarter than Democrats? That's the most ridiculous thing I've read in years. Didn't know there was an I.Q. test to determine which party you can belong to and vote for. I'm assuming Bush's Charity "C" average in college was obtained because he befriended too many dems and the stupid rubbed off on him!

Seriously,
I do agree this is never a good thing to have the minimum wage go up from a haunts perspective. Taco Bell sees a lot more business then we do and can absorb the increase by increasing prices in a more subtle way but when a haunt goes from $15 to $20 or more the public takes notice and many will not come. Larry's right we are spoiled ifthe cost of living was less it would change everything!

Also, the increase was in 29 states not all of them right?

Darkangel

There is a federally mandated min. wage, states may subsequently add to that previously established wage. Some states have no 'state min wage', therefore employers must pay the fed amt.

The recent increase was a fed mandate that was the last increment in a three step increase over the last couple of years.

Economies of scale have little to do with the harm caused businesses and consumers from overall inflation. Yes, Taco Bell realizes more gross revenue per year and can spread a price increase out to the point that it's imperceptable. Those pennies from TB would eventually hit the dollar spent at haunts.

Haunts experience a minimal hit from the overall economy. Haunts have a wide economic moat, they are unique in entertainment value; there is nothing else like haunts, except other haunts in the same market. Which, to some point of saturation isn't a bad thing as the core consumer group will likely pay to see all the haunts in that market. They are seasonal which builds more value to the consumer, a built in sense of urgency because it actually does go away come November, and they become a tradition for an ever growing seasonal fan base.

Min wage increase still hits the larger economy the same, from a consumer standpoint.

[SomeThingInTheIce]

Min. wage is a starting point, if you are still making that as a adult you have no one to blame but yourself! I know you are not making min. and I'm sure you have not for some time .

I'm sure that's what they had in mind from the start Larry, paying teenage haunted attraction employees more money.
Its not only teenagers that make minimum wage, there are millions of adults that work hard every day and make the same.
Minimum wage should rise to compensate for increasing taxes and prices of goods and services. Who has recently raised their ticket prices?? I know of a few....

Mike, you should be happy the government does regulate it, otherwise there would be millions making less than what the minimum wage is set at now... That's pretty sad. By your statement it seems you would pay less if given the opportunity?

Besides, aren't the actors of a haunted attractions the bread and butter, more or less? You could always just fire them if you don't think they are worth the money paid.
Business owners will hate it, John Q. Public will love it... Two sides to every coin.

[SpookywoodsFX.com]

Min. wage is a starting point, if you are still making that as a adult you have no one to blame but yourself! I know you are not making min. and I'm sure you have not for some time .

There is truth in that statement, for some but not all... But it's a pretty tasteless remark as it stands now.

[Mike Goff]

There is wisdom to be had in both sides of this discussion. I for one will be one of the first to step up and declare how important it is to take care of your employees, I do believe that it all comes back around. I also think that it should be my decision what I pay. I have never held a gun to anyones head, and made them work for me. Not even on our busiest night. Any one is free to quit any time they like, I like to think that they stay because they like working here.

My problem with a federal minimum wage, is the same problem I have with any and all one size fits all solutions. What makes sense in New York City, seems down right stupid in Round Head Ohio. What is perfectly exceptable in Mayberry North Carolina, would probably offend someone in San Francisco.

I'm not an anarchist, and I do believe that having benchmarks and standards are sometimes a necessary evil. I only wish that they were more regionalized. Kind of like the way our founding fathers set up this formally constitutional republic. They were very particular in the language they used in crafting the Federal govt. Key word "Federal", as in a federation of sovergn states. All of the answers to our problems can be found in the constitution, but only if we are willing to accept the good and the bad that comes with being free.


Anyone...

[Motograter]

I've heard that min wage will reach $8.50 at some point in Michigan at least.

[Darkangel]

That's too bad Bill. Can employers in Michigan bear this you guys have been hit hard lately?

Darkangel

[Kevin Dells]

Spookywoods ...

You could NOT BE MORE WRONG on this issue...

Democrates like raising the wage because they try to appeal to low end workers and minorities. Republicans who are a whole lot smarter than those democrates are opposed to raising wages.

Lets USE SOME COMMON SENSE HERE...

If your pay your workers $5.00 per hour then over night you have to pay them $8.00 per hour what do you do as a business man? You must raise your prices. Duh we all know that... so how did anyone benefit?

Lets keep going... if Taco Bell is paying all their workers right now lets say 6.50 per hour now they must pay 7.50 per hour this will impact their business so they will raise the price. Who eats at Taco Bell the same damn people who make minimum wage for the most part.... mostly teenagers.

Lets keep going... if all the GAME STORES are paying XYZ and now they have to pay a dollar or two dollars more when you add that up over the year that is thousands and thousands of dollars... they will just raise the cost of the game to pay for it... who buys the game the guy making minimum wage so he does not benefit.

Lets keep going... lets talk homes, cars, whatever UNIONS want more money so they get it the GM"s of the world raise prices, people don't buy because they'll go with the Japan car because its cheaper who have cheaper labor. Who gets hurt the same UNION workers who are not all laid off.

Home prices... people would buy for $120,000.00 two years ago and sell today for $180,000 and someone would pay it, then when the whole market crashes the home goes back to what its really worth and the guy who bought the home is out tens of thousands.

One last one... a guy like yourself can no longer afford to make masks because people will only pay so much you can't find cheap labor so you send all the molds to China and have them made there. Now all the guys who actually had a job making SOMETHING are now unemployed and then I'm paying for them to live not you, me the tax payer.

Unemployment is at 10% in this country somehow you think raising wages is going to entice RICH people to start new manufactoring, or invest in new business... are you nuts?

The fact is cost of living needs to come down, down, down, ... AMERICANS are spoiled they always want more money which is fine but when you get more people raise what they charge so you really don't get a head. Think about it use common sense here...

BRING COST OF LIVING DOWN then you can afford to manufactor more things in USA... raise workers rates and you ship jobs overseas.

Its just that simple...

With my haunted house this year, I will hire 20% less people to pay for it that I can promise you!

My biggest cost is LABOR now its bigger! Not only will labor cost me more money it will now also cost me more to buy a nail at Home Depot everyone loses, no one gains not even the people you are talking about who you would presume it would help. It doesn't it just puts them out of work.

Get ready un-employment should climb now to 12 or 13%.

Larry

O.K. Larry but now let's hear from somebody that dosen't make crap for a paycheck and lives day to day, somebody thats down to one car for their entire family, and somebody that is once again late on his rent.... That would be me!

For the record i have worked my entire dam life at the same profession which is building huge staircases for the mansions of the filthy rich,BUT since the housing market bottomed all that time i invested into my proffession (which everybody told me your much more valuable with years of experience at one job!)is now just a joke while im searching for other types of work.

I am not a lazy person i used to work 60-65 hour weeks if i could whenever i could, I have all my kids living with me because they can't afford to move out with todays economy.

But recently after 28 years building stairs had to find a new job when i was laid off, i was making 24 an hour with company vehicle, time and a half with overtime resulting in 1200-1400 dollar weekly paychecks.

The situation im in now after months of looking and finally settling so i could be employed and having money come in is 11 bucks an hour, no benefits. I was called to serve Jury duty and lostt 2 days this past pay period so my take home for 2 weeks was 650 dollars. Thta's Freaking Sad!! I didn't even have to pay federal taxes out of this check it was so small!

Heres my point! If they raise minimum wage it gives 45 year olds like me grounds to stand on when it comes to raise time, i can ask one simple question and make higher ups feel rediculous.

" How come a teenager just out of High school is making 8 bucks an hour but a 45 year old with huge financial responsibilty's and a family of five only make three dollars more an hour?"

Now this is the normal pay for almost everybody in the deparments i work. All but 2 guys out of 30 in my shop are making 10-12 dollars an hour. Were all barely surviving, every blue collar worker is barely surviving!!

Now the kicker, Ready for this! The owner and his family all live in million dollar mansions, all drive very nice cars and all belong to country clubs. How is it right that some can eat steak and some can't eat at all. So i for one am glad as hell they raised it, it gives guys like me a little fighting power come raise time if they don't freeze it again!


And yes the little guys do need to make more, and believe me theres a lot of little guys out there right now because of the crisis were in. Almost every carpenter, electrician, plumber or anybodyelse that used to build houses for a living is now flipping burgers or selling retail at walmart. Give that some thought. And trust me my family hasn't eaten at Taco Bell or any other fast food in over 4 months.

[Kevin Dells]

Min. wage is a starting point, if you are still making that as a adult you have no one to blame but yourself! I know you are not making min. and I'm sure you have not for some time .

Yeah ice that was a pretty tasteless thing to say! Please read my story to larry just above this reply.

Trust me im a bust my ass kind of guy and have been my whole life,ALWAYS a good provider for my family and always kept with my same job so i could advance more in life and so were the other 40 guys that were let go with me when the stair company that WAS kicking ass closed down due to the housing market dieing!

There's some situations that cannot be foreseen or helped ! And hey if you know somebdoy hiring i have a great work record and im willing to relocate!!

[Jim Warfield]

"This Land Is OUR Land"....

Said the guys getting off of the sailing ship to the stone age people who only had rocks, sharp sticks and no steel. No gunpowder.
They took what they wanted which was just about everything.
So it began, so it continues.
Everybody looks out for "Number One" (which means yourself and your family)
Yes, Larry those rich people who own everything need their investment capital so they can hire more Chinese people to work for a handfull of rice everyday.
Does anybody care if their neighbor lost a good job? You might care when the crime begins but only the gated communitys have enough Police to respond to calls.
Illusion of fairness, illusion of democracy, illusions sold to us by ad people to keep the masses calmer and hopefull as we go without medical advice or treatment, we can all busy our brains with the "story" of the week, some celebrity died , some team won, another lost, some car went fast, some body got mutilated......
Please, do not steal my newset big money making fresh idea.
I'm trying to generate some financial intrest in paying me by the hour to clean rich people's cat boxes.(Bear with me here) A documentary film will be made of it as I do an incredible cleaning job , pretending to be blind, using the braille method of catbox cleaning (invented by me).
Each grain of sand will be picked individually squeezed, assessed and placed in the appropriate bin, "Clean" or "Pooh-Pooh".
I am estimating the film will be several weeks long and I will be getting paid by the hour!

Why should any haunt customer bitch about the admission price when they pay much more to make numerous people millionaires everytime they pay for a pro sports ticket ?
We sure aren't making millions, are we?
Didn't think so.

[Mike Goff]

Perspective

I grew up in your typical blue collar family, during the late 70's early 80's. Dad was a Union machinist, twenty something an hour, mom was a Union telephone operator, also twenty something an hour. When thier union jobs left town, times got tough. What I learned from this is to diversify your skills, have something to fall back on.
I spent the first 10 to 15 years of my adult life trying to learn as much as I could. The most I ever made was 15 bucks an hour. For a short time, I resented the fact that when my parents were my age they had access to jobs that no longer exist. I quickly grew tired of working myself to death making someone else rich, but I never held any ill feeling towards the people who employed me. I recognized the fact that they worked very hard, and made good desicions to get there and without them I wouldn't have had anything at all. In fact several of my employers often gave me advise saying "I sure would hate to lose you, but your young and have potential, find your passion and persue it."

From this I learned that I would never get rich by working for someone else.
I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with working for someone else. There is alot to be said for working to live, verses living to work. There are times when I miss leaving my work at the time clock. Being self employed is a lifestyle, that not everyone is cut out for.

I don't consider myself to be rich, but I know that the potential is there.
I don't care much for Democrats or Republicans either one. It seems that all they care about is staying in power by keeping "We The People" at each others throats in the never ending Left Right argument. I just want to pursue my chosen career without the never ending assault on small buisiness and consequently the middle class.

As long as we are free, we have the chance to reach our full potential, but I fear that as long as there are people who cheer at the thought of someone else losing thier right to participate in a free market, liberty will continue to slip away.
Every time you chuckle at Uncle Sam sticking it to the man, you seal your own fate as well.

Carpe Diem and take charge of your own destiny... Or keep bitching comrades

[Twin Locusts]

I grew up in your typical blue collar family, during the late 70's early 80's. Dad was a Union machinist, twenty something an hour, mom was a Union telephone operator, also twenty something an hour. When thier union jobs left town, times got tough. What I learned from this is to diversify your skills, have something to fall back on.
I spent the first 10 to 15 years of my adult life trying to learn as much as I could. The most I ever made was 15 bucks an hour. For a short time, I resented the fact that when my parents were my age they had access to jobs that no longer exist. I quickly grew tired of working myself to death making someone else rich, but I never held any ill feeling towards the people who employed me. I recognized the fact that they worked very hard, and made good desicions to get there and without them I wouldn't have had anything at all. In fact several of my employers often gave me advise saying "I sure would hate to lose you, but your young and have potential, find your passion and persue it."

From this I learned that I would never get rich by working for someone else.
I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with working for someone else. There is alot to be said for working to live, verses living to work. There are times when I miss leaving my work at the time clock. Being self employed is a lifestyle, that not everyone is cut out for.

I don't consider myself to be rich, but I know that the potential is there.
I don't care much for Democrats or Republicans either one. It seems that all they care about is staying in power by keeping "We The People" at each others throats in the never ending Left Right argument. I just want to pursue my chosen career without the never ending assault on small buisiness and consequently the middle class.

As long as we are free, we have the chance to reach our full potential, but I fear that as long as there are people who cheer at the thought of someone else losing thier right to participate in a free market, liberty will continue to slip away.
Every time you chuckle at Uncle Sam sticking it to the man, you seal your own fate as well.

Carpe Diem and take charge of your own destiny... Or keep bitching comrades

You get it Mike. Do you honestly have any idea how people can grow up in the US and not get the big picture of why we have what we have? I'm not sure anymore people realize what we have. My concern is that the education system has atrophied the mind to the point that we're chruning out media sheep stripped of the ability to see past slick hucksters.

It makes me feel a bit more assured when I see someone making sense. Thanks.

[Mike Goff]

You nailed it, schools indoctrinate sheep. I don't think that they even talk about whats actually in the constitution, especially the 10th ammendment.

It takes alot of discipline to shy away from the opportunity to control someone else. Some people just can't handle the temptation. The "Greater good, We are the World croud" Think that the average person can't make good decisions for themselves and need someone to do it for them, enter the career politician.

It all starts with the word democracy (code word for incremental communisim)
In a democracy, 51% can enslave the other 49%. We were never intended to be a democracy. This is supposed to be a constitutional republic that ensures individual liberty, a representative federation of states to provide for a common defense, common money, and regular trade among the states, NOT regulated trade.

Ultimately people get the kind of govt. they deserve, look out, it could be a wild ride ahead.

[jack]

Here's the problem--

'minimum wage'

That's it. When it became 'minimum wage' it became a problem.

Try it this way-- 'starting wage'.

That's what it's supposed to be. A starting wage. By altering the nomenclature we got the appearance that people were supposed to LIVE on that amount of money.

But they never were. THAT wage was designed to allow a company to hire and train new people without too much financial damage should they not work out. It varied between companies, proffessions and markets. And it varied because conditions varied.

We've also got this thing called a 'living wage'. That's an arbitrary number assigned to how much it costs to live decently. I say arbitrary because, like the 'minimum wage', it's set without regard to the varying conditions that exist.

Wages are part of this thing called 'overhead'. They are red ink in any business. And red ink is bad. If you raise wages arbitrarily you get more red ink. The more red ink you have the less profit you get.

Profit is black ink. Profit is what every business owner needs. Black ink needs to outweigh red ink. Without black ink red ink eventually covers everthing(for example, see USA). Black ink must be sought at all costs.

Federally mandated raises for new hires means more seasoned workers don't get raises. There's too much red ink already. So no raises. That gets rid of that red ink--how to get rid of the rest?

Layoffs?

Probably. Who gets laid off though? Often, it's older, experienced workers--because they cost more. Additionally, the younger ones will work longer(being younger).

So, trained quality workers are let go in favor of new hires. Quality suffers

But look--over there--a bunch of older people trying to make it on minimum wage at the jobs they've managed to land.

That's not right. Raise the minimum wage, no one should have to live on so little.

And I haven't even touched on what this does to the cost of living.

Spookywoods, you didn't refute anything Larry said by saying 'the cost of living has already gone up'. The cost of living can ALWAYS go up. It can go up indefinately.

But it can only go down to zero. Why not work to make it go the other way? The more it goes down, the more people have money to go to haunted attractions.

[Twin Locusts]

Well put Mike and Jack.

To your red ink point. Here's a Pinko point.

I contend that trade unions have morphed from a legitimate bargaining mechanism into collectivist thugs that hold US business hostage.

I say Nyet to the Mir. GM has produced, for many years, a far inferior product compared with Toyota. The Thug backed GM employee has made over 150% the Toyota workers hourly wage to build this inferior product. Could this be why GM has steadily slipped into the toilet?

This facet of our economy is similar to the "Community Investment" Loans pushed by Barney Frank and Bill Clinton. Let's give home loans to people that can't afford them for a decade and see what happens.

Let the market decide value, not a Marxist soft hand empowered by sheep. The value of labor, goods, and services cannot be decided by people, only derived from the market.

[SomeThingInTheIce]

I stand by my post, you guys do not make min. wage at your jobs and if you lost your job and had to take a min. wage job you are not what I'm taking about. Yes it sucks to lose work, I have and know how it feels. What I'm talking about are jobs that are min. wage jobs, if you get one of those and stay with all your life then you have no one to blame but yourself. For those of you that are working min. right now because it is all that is out there I know that you will get back to making what you were if not more, but that does not mean that just because you made more before that the job you are doing now needs to pony up the money when the job just does not call for it. The last thing that business need is to be paying $10.00 a hour to the dishwasher, nothing wrong with being a dishwasher to start or to start over just lets not make it a career.