tillius wrote:

That's free market economics Harold. If they could pay less, they would.

Seems like UPS has decided that if they pay seven bucks an hour, they
get the druggie crowd who shows up at work whenever they feel like it.
Or if not, then they don't.

Short of imposing wage caps I don't think there's much you can do.

It doesn't matter what *you* personally think a living wage is. The
free market does that for the employer. Pay less, and your business
suffers because you either get the loyal idiots that some have complained
about, or the geniuses who all seem to have some sort of wing down over
one issue of another.

I agree the free-market should dictate wages. But if that's the case
now, as you mention above, then why do we need a minimum wage?

If companies have to pay things like $28.00/hr to hire a package
delivery guy because the free market dictates it, then, in today's
America, no one who isn't a druggie, a loyal idiot or a genius with an
attitude problem shoud be unemployed.

Unless of course, they have no skills and no motivation to get skills
because can get a bigger check from an entitlement program than they
can while they're working to gain a skill.

I could be wrong, that's just the way I see it.

Tillman

The entire purpose of a minimum wage is to "buy" votes for a politician
or political party. Due to the self leveling nature of a true free
market economy any increase in a minimum wage will be erased within a
year or two. Any increase in a minimum wage only serves to buy votes by
providing a very short lived artificial increase in the apparent
standard of living.

The problem we have now is that we are no longer in a true free market
economy. With globalization and the outsourcing of jobs to countries
that either have vastly different conditions or do not have free market
economies at all, our economy is no longer a free market. When the wages
for a give job are no longer tied to the cost of living in the area the
job services, then the feedback system is broken.

Pete C.