Minimum Wage: From the Horse’s Mouth

[Nikita2Charles 32]

Even now this kind of thinking is faulty.

In the past GM and all the BIG 5 motor vehicle companies moved a lot of their manufacturing overseas, but look what has happened so many of these jobs went overseas, and let's look closer at NAFTA, what has it done for the american worker NADA< ZIP, mostly manufucaturing jobs moving to MEXICO, Canadian can come down here to work if they have a company representing them. The companies at the the time was making the case with the govt, they will spend money to RETRAIN the american workers into different field, high tech paying jobs, where did those companies, give out SCHOLARSHIP to folks whose jobs went overseas, let alone any retraining with the Department of Labor. NADA< ZIP.

Now we are seeing the same thing in the High tech industry

I has a very good friend who work for this software company in Texas, they brought in 8 engineers from south asia for them to train under the so called worldwide initiative, what the company didn't tell them they were training their replacement. after 5 months of training those guys, they left for India, 3 weeks later they lay them off, their jobs got outsourced. to make their point the company show their financial statements,

$80,000 for American software engineer, multiply by 8 = $640,000. Now in Asia they are paying the people the jobs $15,000 a year, times 8= $120,000, so without lifting a finger in sales, if sales remain flat from one quater to the next, the company can report more than half a milllion $$$$$ in cost cutting. $520,000 profit.

But what happened to those 8 guys from Houston, now they Jobless, and when they apply for jobs in their field, they are competing against those same guys they train, or what the companies are doing, they bring them from Asia under the H1B for a lower salary. Lot of it is not right, and i am not even sure it's legal, but they are getting away it. Applied for a jobs that my wife fit the profile to the T, when i approached the HR person after no response SHAMELY she admits i am VERY SORRY this Req is reserved for an H1B employee.

Can you imagine Selecting a particular country or group of people for a job, that's pure bias, and discrimination at a corporate level. H1B purpose was to fill out jobs opening where the company can not find a suitable american someone from here to fill out the post.

United health care group CEO got $1Billion in packages and salary, 1 B I L L I O N S $$$$$$$$$.

At the same time mid year, lot of doctors drop out of UNITED HEALTCARE because of unacceptable cost reduction demand. CEO making $BILLION the doctors whose actually treating the patient are being asked to take a cut for their service to united customer which is already set at a lower level dated 5 years ago, with inflation instead of an increased they were being ask to cut it more, some doctors plainly TOLD UNITED to TAKE A HIKE. You knw that can operate a healt center, and how many doctors they can hire

At the same time every Open enrollment we are being asked to pay more money for our health Insurance benefits. NOW CAN YOU SEE WHERE THAT MONEY IS GOING

Anybody whose in Las Vegas can see that show Viva Las Vegas at the strastrosphere, the comedian there had a very funny line

I am an AMERICAN COWBOY

My COWBOY BOOTS is made in MEXICO

My BELT is made in CHINA

My HAT is made in Malaysia

MY Suit is made in INDONESIA

When I call my AMERICAN EXPRESS CARD, i get connected to a called center in INDIA.

YIIIIIIIIIIHAAAAAAAAAAA this is the new AMERICA

how 'bout we also implement a MAXIMUM wage? I'm quite certain that the CEOs of major petroleum companies and whatnot can never spend the 6 billion dollars they were paid last year.

If they'd just give up their freakin' bonuses, which in most cases a one year bonus for these meatwads are more than I'll ever make in a lifetime, then maybe, just maybe, they could afford to pay their worker bees a dollar or 2 more per hour than they do now

that's faulty thinking.

like it or not, there has always been and always will be a divide between the wealthy and the poor...between the educated and the uneducated.

raise the minimum wage, and all that happens is a very temporary relief. consumer prices will rise to reflect the higher labor costs experienced by businesses. it's called inflation. there's a reason that a loaf of bread used to cost 29 cents and now costs $2.

the only thing that is guaranteed by raising minimum wage is a further squeezing out of the middle class.

the answer to getting out of poverty is education. plain and simple. in this country, if you are poor, you will qualify for grants and loans to go to college. unfortunately, many people will simply prefer to sit back and feel sorry for themselves and hate "the man" for keeping them down.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The Myth of the Disappearing Business Bankruptcy

New bankruptcy legislation failed to account for hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs, independent contractors and self employed individuals who traditionally have turned to bankruptcy relief as an important safety net in their effort to recover from a failed undertaking, according to this research study.

In fact, large numbers of entrepreneurs use the bankruptcy system, despite official government statistics that say their presence in bankruptcy has declined sharply. A result of the faulty data is a skewed picture of the measurement and strength of the nation's small business economy. The new legislation, according to some experts on entrepreneurship, could also serve to deter would-be entrepreneurs from embarking on risky new business formation.

The study was conducted by professors at Harvard Law School and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

According to the research, which appears in the most recent issue of California Law Review, owners of small businesses annually file an estimated 260,000 to 315,000 bankruptcies. Those numbers are about nine times higher than the government's official data, which lists only about 37,000 business cases.

Official government statistics report that business bankruptcies began a steady decline in the mid-1980s, when businesses comprised about 18 percent of all bankruptcy filings to their present-day total of only 2 percent of all filings (see Figure 1). Today, corporations and other legal entities comprise almost all of the business filings counted by the government. Entrepreneurs who take on the risk of a new business undertaking have essentially disappeared from the official business bankruptcy statistics.

The authors trace the problem of the faulty reporting to efforts in the mid-1980s to simplify the official bankruptcy reporting process and the advent of new computer software that changed the way attorneys completed forms used to compile the government statistics. This technological change has created a systematic bias in which entrepreneurs were reclassified as consumer cases rather than business cases.

In this new study, 19.5 percent of cases labeled as a consumer bankruptcy filing show some evidence of a connection to an underlying business. In interviews with bankruptcy filers, 13.5 percent reported self-employment at the time of bankruptcy or shortly before. Historically, these filings would have been counted as business bankruptcies.

As further evidence of the skewed data, the government's official statistics differ drastically from annual statistics compiled by both Dun & Bradstreet and the Small Business Administration, which both show a significant increase in small business failures since the mid-1980s.

"It is apparent that entrepreneurs continue to use the bankruptcy system in big numbers. The surprising thing is not so much that they are there but why it took so long for someone to notice that the government figures were so divorced from reality," commented Robert M. Lawless, a study co-author and the Gordon & Silver, Ltd., Professor of Law, at the William S. Boyd School of Law of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "Each year, the bankruptcy system provides a critical safety net for hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs. Our findings again suggest that the popular image of the bankruptcy system as full of irresponsible, overspending consumers is myth."

The research is the first segment of an in-depth study about entrepreneurs in the bankruptcy system. With the support of bankruptcy judges in five judicial districts (California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas), researchers administered questionnaires to 1,771 bankruptcy filers and reviewed their court records. Extensive telephone interviews, which included questions about owning a business and self-employment, were conducted with 911 of these bankruptcy filers.

"The data suggest that much of the measurement of the small business economy is simply wrong, and that errors affect every assessment of the strength, number and role of entrepreneurial businesses in the United States," said Elizabeth Warren, also a co-author of the study and Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. "Our economic system needs to encourage entrepreneurs to make new investments. Sometimes these investments will fail through no fault of their owners, and when that happens, the owners need to be able to move to other businesses and create new jobs and investment opportunities."

Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, a national leader in advancing entrepreneurship, added that the new legislation could have the unintended effect of dampening the formation of new businesses. "Entrepreneurs deserve to know that they will have adequate support and information in all their activities-including the death and rebirth of their enterprises," said Schramm. "We need to appreciate the enormous risks that entrepreneurs take on, and the number of times many of them must try, fail, and try again until they hit the right idea at the right moment."

Schramm noted that the study serves as a great example of how legislation can positively or negatively affect America's high-impact entrepreneurs. "Before taking final action, America's decision makers should be sure to assess the impact of proposed legislation on the thousands and thousands of entrepreneurs who create jobs and innovations, and who fuel our country's economic growth."

Figure 1 graphically depicts the dramatic decline in business bankruptcies as a percentage of all bankruptcy filings since the Bankruptcy Code's enactment and as reported by the official AO statistics. All data are for the twelve-month period ended June 30 for each year. Beginning in 1986, business bankruptcies began to decline as a percentage of all bankruptcy filings, dropping to a low of 2.3% for the twelve months ended June 30. Each twelve-month period from 1986-2003 has exhibited a decline in the percentage of business filings. For 2003, we have shown our estimate for the actual number of business bankruptcy filings.

http://www.kauffman.org/items.cfm?itemID=667

[ieldanth 0]

We do need to protect the entrepreneur who fails through no fault of his own, but what about the guy who just should not be in business? How many times can we allow a person to sink business after business before we say 'ENOUGH! You suck at business! Stop it!'?

Small business owners compete in niche markets where the likes of Wal-Mart have a hard time penetrating. The model of big retail tends to be in sales of thousands of fairly generic commodities and favors mass production. Small mom and pop stores today specialize in smaller quantity, rare, antique, or custom items that big retailers can't stock due to low availability. Competing directly with the large retailer in mass-produced commodities place the smaller store at a severe disadvantage since it is bulk buying power that gives the chain store most of its competitive edge. The only way to really compete in this arena is through service or convenience. A small store can compete, for example, by delivering groceries to the elderly or disabled.

[Veiled Princess 1]

Minimum wage is wrong on all counts.

Wow... let's hope you never have to support a family on minimum wage or less.

[mawilson 2,133]

Applied for a jobs that my wife fit the profile to the T, when i approached the HR person after no response SHAMELY she admits i am VERY SORRY this Req is reserved for an H1B employee.

Now that would be illegal, because an H1B holder can only get the job if he/she is

not taking the job away from a qualified US citizen or LPR. If a company admits

to "reserving" a job for a H1 employee, a lawsuit is in order.

[peejay 327]

Applied for a jobs that my wife fit the profile to the T, when i approached the HR person after no response SHAMELY she admits i am VERY SORRY this Req is reserved for an H1B employee.

Now that would be illegal, because an H1B holder can only get the job if he/she is

not taking the job away from a qualified US citizen or LPR. If a company admits

to "reserving" a job for a H1 employee, a lawsuit is in order.

[mawilson 2,133]

-- empty quote--

peejay, were you going to say something?