Saudi Arabia Sees Gas Prices DOUBLING As Economy Crumbles: A couple of comments.
First off when you watch this video, just ignore their grandiose channel name "World Alternative Media". Just repeat in your mind that they are "A couple of guys talking intelligently about stuff". Alternative Media has an unusual connotation in that it is outside of the mainstream. The problem is that it is an aggregation of conflicting and sometimes "kooky" view points. What I like about these guys are that they introduce into discussions information that is not normally referenced but also news from areas that are not even on my horizon (mainly because I don't care about the machinations of most governments).
While describing how gas pump price increases are going to spark inflation in Saudi Arabia, John Sneisen made a jab at minimum wage. While he is correct that minimum wage increases will contribute to inflation it is not a black and white issue.
When I was teenager, we would employ many people to help take off our hay. The numbers are quite easy, we would have to harvest about 10,000 bales of hay. When I was young baling hay looked like this:
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We were a little more aggressive than this illustration we would have larger equipment so it took two people on the wagon. What you don't see in this illustration would be another tractor and wagon transporting the hay back to the barn and another tractor and wagon with 1 or 2 people taking hay off the wagon and three people building the haymow. Furthermore you don't see two or three more people in the house preparing meals for all of these people.
A number of factors came into play which changed this. People no longer wanted to work in this conditions, wages increased, and technology changed. Within a couple of years, two people were eliminated with the introduction of bale throwers and bale thrower wagons.
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This trend continued when only one person was needed to do the harvesting with the :
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An increase in minimum wage may temporarily have an inflationary effect but wages tend to be a small part of the price of a commodity and the increase spurs the change in technology and can actually reverse the inflation by shifting the costs from a variable cost (labour) to a fixed cost (capital purchases-equipment) which can be amortized over decades.
These guys can be found on STEEM by going to @joshsigurdson
I appreciate the honest commentary. I will say however, the quick jab at minimum wage was mostly to stay topical as we've already posted over a dozen videos explaining the effects of minimum wage from beginning to end, so we don't want to fly off the topic in question to start redoing an older report.
We've seen the effects of a minimum wage hike in Seattle as well as Ontario Canada this past year and the results are quite alarming. It's gotten to the point in Seattle where the United Nations is coming in to "aide" the poverty and unemployment problems.
While giant state favored monopolies continue to do well despite the minimum wage hike, small businesses are crashing and burning in direct correlation and while the official government numbers show less unemployment, it's an illusion as "employed" has become a subjective word today with government. The labor force participation rate is the number one should look at. They stop considering people "unemployed" after a certain period of time and have been considering those on Welfare "employed" after a certain period of time as well. So it's a good way to fudge numbers.
We are happy to do another in depth report on the minimum wage as of course it's not as black and white as is portrayed in the above video, but again, the video wasn't about minimum wages.
Thanks!
Hey thanks for the reply. I was hoping to accomplish two things with my post. The first was to help you guys get more visibility ... I think you both give good commentary and I would like to see it continue (instead of getting screwed by youtube). The second was of course to add my on little spin. While I posted your video, there isn't a reason for people to watch it ... however by going of on the minimum wage "jab", I was hoping that people would actually watch the video to see what John had said.
The fact that increasing the minimum wage in the short run negatively affects small businesses and minimum wage workers - while is critical for those people in the short run - in the long run can lead to better conditions as a whole. As my illustration with farming showed, in the space of 10 years a small farm would go from hiring roughly 10 people for a couple of weeks in the summer to one person. We are on the brink of even eliminating part of that one person
The good thing about "negatively affecting" small business and the working poor is that it adds pressure. The economic conditions that we have now are similar to those during the "Great Depression". It isn't sufficient for governments to fix those conditions ... especially since the people behind the governments don't seem to have the capacity to do so. I think that people like you and John need to continue to be vocal and inspire people and perhaps point toward a path away from the directing centralized powers are taking us.
its new news. many many thanks for share it. good content