Impending Minimum Wage hike causing restaurants to close

[Cow Poke]

I don't mind the topic wandering around a bit, but how we got from minimum wage to Jewish communism is a real mystery, and even that has just devolved into an "I said/you said" playground fight.

Back on topic - I think that's an attempt to use Scripture (Where God's Covenant with Israel required them to play nice with each other) was being used to justify a third party (the government) taking money from one individual (the proprietor) and giving it to another party (the wage increase) even though the two parties (employer and employee) had already agreed on terms.

Now, would we ALL want a raise? Sure. But most of us understand we have to work for it - earn it - or go somewhere else where we can earn more.

[Starlight]

Now, would we ALL want a raise? Sure. But most of us understand we have to work for it - earn it - or go somewhere else where we can earn more.

There seems to be a view underlying a lot of what you've said here, which I fundamentally object to. You seem to have a might-makes-right theory of economic morality which apparently says that the bosses with the power to take all the profits for themselves, and pay their workers terrible wages, are right to do so. The idea seems to be that mega-rich CEOs somehow deserve every cent of their giant bonuses and salaries no matter how large those are in a way that hard-working people on the minimum wage don't even deserve minimum wage no matter how low that is.

Your apparent assumption that what people happen to earn for their jobs is somehow what they deserve to earn strikes me as just bizarre. What people earn usually says a lot about the distribution of power within the workplace and within the world in general, and usually this tends to be a much bigger factor than ability or skill or hard work. The CEO will always choose to pay himself more than one of his workers, even if the worker is twice as smart, is more educated, and works longer hours. Let's say this worker lacks the family-connections that the CEO has, and started out with less inherited wealth, and he didn't know the 'right people' and so wasn't able to start his own business, so he earns much less. The idea that everyone inherently earns the wage they 'deserve' seems just bonkers... a strange kind of totally unjustified belief in economic 'karma' or in the belief of perfect-justice-just-naturally-happens-on-earth that the book of Job takes a swipe at.

As I mentioned earlier, extensive surveys show that people in the US think that what CEO's deserve is a rate of pay about 6-7 times that of an unskilled worker. What CEOs actually earn on average is 354 times the rate of their companies' unskilled workers - more than fifty times more than what Americans on average think they deserve. So the outcomes that the current power-balances in the workplace are delivering do not at all correspond with what Americans on average feel is right, and therefore it makes sense for unions or the government to try to support the unskilled workers to stop them getting screwed over quite so much.

[Sparko]

There seems to be a view underlying a lot of what you've said here, which I fundamentally object to. You seem to have a might-makes-right theory of economic morality which apparently says that the bosses with the power to take all the profits for themselves, and pay their workers terrible wages, are right to do so.

The only one here using might-makes-right seems to be you and other liberals, who think that you should be able to limit what people can earn at both ends of the scale.

The idea seems to be that mega-rich CEOs somehow deserve every cent of their giant bonuses and salaries no matter how large those are in a way that hard-working people on the minimum wage don't even deserve minimum wage no matter how low that is.

Your apparent assumption that what people happen to earn for their jobs is somehow what they deserve to earn strikes me as just bizarre. What people earn usually says a lot about the distribution of power within the workplace and within the world in general, and usually this tends to be a much bigger factor than ability or skill or hard work. The CEO will always choose to pay himself more than one of his workers, even if the worker is twice as smart, is more educated, and works longer hours. Let's say this worker lacks the family-connections that the CEO has, and started out with less inherited wealth, and he didn't know the 'right people' and so wasn't able to start his own business, so he earns much less. The idea that everyone inherently earns the wage they 'deserve' seems just bonkers... a strange kind of totally unjustified belief in economic 'karma' or in the belief of perfect-justice-just-naturally-happens-on-earth that the book of Job takes a swipe at.

As I mentioned earlier, extensive surveys show that people in the US think that what CEO's deserve is a rate of pay about 6-7 times that of an unskilled worker. What CEOs actually earn on average is 354 times the rate of their companies' unskilled workers - more than fifty times more than what Americans on average think they deserve. So the outcomes that the current power-balances in the workplace are delivering do not at all correspond with what Americans on average feel is right, and therefore it makes sense for unions or the government to try to support the unskilled workers to stop them getting screwed over quite so much.

What gives you or anyone else the right to determine how much money someone can make? It is none of your business. If they are earning more than the company can sustain, then they will lose the confidence of the shareholders as the company goes downhill. and where do you get that "on average" they earn 354 times as much? At what level of CEO are you looking? The top 1% of CEOs? Like Donald Trump? Because I can tell you the average company CEO makes nothing like that. Not even close.

[Paprika]

Your apparent assumption that what people happen to earn for their jobs is somehow what they deserve to earn strikes me as just bizarre.

But it's such a convenient way to cross the is-ought ditch.

[Starlight]

What gives you or anyone else the right to determine how much money someone can make? It is none of your business.

As a member of society, optimizing the functioning of that society is 100% my business. Some people dying because they don't have the money for medical treatment, while others having billions of dollars more than they can ever use in their entire lifetimes, is immoral and wrong. Plus there are significant flow-on effects that affect me and the rest of society: Unequal societies are less happy, have more crime etc.

Just because something is a certain way, it doesn't mean it morally ought to be that way. A child born into a billionaire family doesn't "deserve" the billions they will inherit anymore than a child born into poverty "deserves" the dire financial straits they'll find themselves in. Unfortunately, by and large, the economic status of one's parents turns out to hugely predict the children's subsequent wealth in life: Poverty breeds poverty and wealth breeds wealth. A poor person who works 60-hour weeks doing two minimum wage jobs their entire adult life doesn't "deserve" to be poorer than a person born into a rich family who never worked more than a couple of hours per week his entire life. There's nothing inherently moral about the 'natural order' of wealth, and every reason to intervene to seek a more balanced and moral distribution of it.

[lilpixieofterror]

As a member of society, optimizing the functioning of that society is 100% my business. Some people dying because they don't have the money for medical treatment, while others having billions of dollars more than they can ever use in their entire lifetimes, is immoral and wrong. Plus there are significant flow-on effects that affect me and the rest of society: Unequal societies are less happy, have more crime etc.

All subjective things, you've been unable to prove, beyond your own assertions. I guess what is moral though is taking things from one group of people and giving them to another group of people. Yeah, that's the way you solve this 'inequality' problem you cry about... stealing things that are not yours. Ok, lets start with this wealth redistribution and redistribute your wealth to those who need it. When will you volunteer to do so?

Just because something is a certain way, it doesn't mean it morally ought to be that way. A child born into a billionaire family doesn't "deserve" the billions they will inherit anymore than a child born into poverty "deserves" the dire financial straits they'll find themselves in. Unfortunately, by and large, the economic status of one's parents turns out to hugely predict the children's subsequent wealth in life: Poverty breeds poverty and wealth breeds wealth. A poor person who works 60-hour weeks doing two minimum wage jobs their entire adult life doesn't "deserve" to be poorer than a person born into a rich family who never worked more than a couple of hours per week his entire life. There's nothing inherently moral about the 'natural order' of wealth, and every reason to intervene to seek a more balanced and moral distribution of it.

Take a look at the list of the richest people in the US or the world sometime and look at their biographies. Few of them earned their money though inheritance and most of them earned their money though their own efforts. If you bother to do a little research, instead of showing your hatred for those who do better than you, you'll discover that they are quite the hard workers that do put in hours upon hours of work themselves. Donald Trump describes himself as a workaholic and I've noticed most of these people seem to spend a lot of time working. Your first assumption is faulty, you're assuming they are living the easy life when few are spoiled rich kids and most of them earned their money (wealth doesn't tend to survive past a few generations). Do you think being an investor, such as Donald Trump or Warren Buffet, or a CEO of a major company, such as Bill Gates, is an easy life? 60 hours or more, isn't uncommon for those making all of this money. See, you want to make them appear as rich fat cats, who sit around and don't do anything, but you fail to account for the fact few of them actually are rich fat cats that sit around and do nothing.

[lilpixieofterror]

There seems to be a view underlying a lot of what you've said here, which I fundamentally object to. You seem to have a might-makes-right theory of economic morality which apparently says that the bosses with the power to take all the profits for themselves, and pay their workers terrible wages, are right to do so. The idea seems to be that mega-rich CEOs somehow deserve every cent of their giant bonuses and salaries no matter how large those are in a way that hard-working people on the minimum wage don't even deserve minimum wage no matter how low that is.

That's your first fault assumption. You're not punishing these rich fat cats, but raising the min wage, you're actually punishing those who are not as well off and helping them maintain their position by knee-capping their competition for them, before they could become a threat to their wealth or power. What you fail to understand is this simple fact; billionaires can afford to take more of a pay hit and can afford to move operations to cheaper countries than others can afford to do. Your side continues to fail to understand this simple fact, you're not punishing them at all, you're just helping them to take out their competition and helping them keep all of their money, so you can get the 'feel good' aspects of thinking you're helping people; while you didn't help anybody, but those you hate the most. If you want to help the poor, helping your home country compete against these cheaper wage countries might be a huge step in that direction.

Your apparent assumption that what people happen to earn for their jobs is somehow what they deserve to earn strikes me as just bizarre.

Your strawman arguments are quite amusing, as I'll expose below.

What people earn usually says a lot about the distribution of power within the workplace and within the world in general, and usually this tends to be a much bigger factor than ability or skill or hard work. The CEO will always choose to pay himself more than one of his workers, even if the worker is twice as smart, is more educated, and works longer hours. Let's say this worker lacks the family-connections that the CEO has, and started out with less inherited wealth, and he didn't know the 'right people' and so wasn't able to start his own business, so he earns much less. The idea that everyone inherently earns the wage they 'deserve' seems just bonkers... a strange kind of totally unjustified belief in economic 'karma' or in the belief of perfect-justice-just-naturally-happens-on-earth that the book of Job takes a swipe at.

I do love how you assume that CEO's didn't get to their position, though their own merits, but got to that position by connections. How do you know that or do you just assume that? You also seem to assume that being 'smarter' has anything to do with this, when it doesn't. Being smarter doesn't guarantee your success. Several things help you become successful, including intelligence, but if you lack the sense that God gave a grape fruit or lack business insights or lack the ability to know your own limits, you're doomed to failure. Walt Disney was a pretty smart and creative man, but he didn't really know much about running a business (he ran two into the ground). He didn't give up though, but when he teamed up with his brother (Roy Disney), things went better for him. Walt was able to work on creative aspects, such as fully animated movies and Disneyland (which are cash cows, for Disney today) while his brother's talents were more focused on the business side of things. Again, this is all stuff you fail to understand, working hard or being smarter is only a small part of the puzzle. Without the rest... you're doomed to failure.

As I mentioned earlier, extensive surveys show that people in the US think that what CEO's deserve is a rate of pay about 6-7 times that of an unskilled worker. What CEOs actually earn on average is 354 times the rate of their companies' unskilled workers - more than fifty times more than what Americans on average think they deserve. So the outcomes that the current power-balances in the workplace are delivering do not at all correspond with what Americans on average feel is right, and therefore it makes sense for unions or the government to try to support the unskilled workers to stop them getting screwed over quite so much.

That's nice and your point is what? I wasn't aware that appeals to popularity and emotional appeals, were arguments. The question I want to know is... who are you to determine who can earn what amount of money and what gives you that authority?

[Joel]

There seems to be a view underlying a lot of what you've said here, which I fundamentally object to. You seem to have a might-makes-right theory of economic morality which apparently says that the bosses with the power to take all the profits for themselves, and pay their workers terrible wages, are right to do so.

You seem to have a misunderstanding of economics and the nature of employment.
You seem to think it works something like:
1) A business makes a profit
2) The boss decides how much to keep for himself and how much to give to workers.

That's not how it works.
For clarity, let's use an example where people are hired to work on a single job (say constructing a single building). Let's say this job will take a year.
The business owner does not know ahead of time how much revenue the job will create (e.g. how much the finished building will sell for). The business owner has to use his/her best judgment.
Based on the unknown but expected revenue, the owner hires workers, buys tools, raw materials, land, etc. The prices for all such things will tend to be the market price. This individual owner doesn't have much control over that (unless to bid higher). The hiring of worker and buying the other things (and their prices) is all done by reaching agreements with those willing to sell those things.

The project begins, and over the course of the year, the owner continues paying for the labor services, materials, etc, as needed and as agreed upon, not knowing for sure whether the project will yield a profit or a loss.

The project finishes and sells. If it doesn't bring in as much revenue as the costs over that year, then the owner must eat all those losses (is poorer than before he began).
If that revenue at the end of the year is more than the costs spent over the year, then the owner made a profit.
Either way, the revenue at the end all belongs to the owner. The costs were all paid out already, over the course of the year. The workers already received their agreed-upon payments, just as the sellers of the raw materials already received their payments. The employees and sellers of materials received their payment in advance of the project's revenue. And they received their payments regardless of whether the project ends up being a profit or a loss.

So there isn't much sense in talking about bosses deciding how much of the profit to take for themselves. That's not the order in which the decisions (and actions) occur.

You might try to say that at the beginning of the project the owner thinks about his educated guess of how much revenue will be made when the project is finished, and will try to pay "terrible wages" so as to try to reduce costs. But, as I said, a business owner doesn't have much control over prices. With purchasing labor, machines, iron, lumber, the owner takes what he can get at the prevailing market price. The owner's only control is, if the owner can't get as much labor services (or iron, etc) as the owner wants at the prevailing market price, he can bid higher to get more, as long as he estimates that that will increase revenue by at least that amount. And that is what drives wages toward the market equilibrium where quantity demanded equals quantity supplied. A wage lower than that will be quickly bid up. That equilibrium point is completely determined by supply and demand, and not by good/evil intentions of business owners.

In the long run, the tendency is for market wages to equal the marginal revenue (i.e., the expected increase of revenue due to hiring that additional labor services). Thus, in the long run workers tend to receive the amount that they contribute to the revenue--that is, the amount they contribute to the market value of the finished product. Also the owner's profits tend toward zero, as he competes with other businessmen for consumers' dollars and for resources such as labor, lumber, etc.

The CEO will always choose to pay himself more than one of his workers,

A CEO is typically an employee too, and does not choose his own pay.

As I mentioned earlier, extensive surveys show that people in the US think that what CEO's deserve is a rate of pay about 6-7 times that of an unskilled worker.

And if those people decide to hire a CEO, they can decide how much they want to pay that employee (contingent, of course, on finding someone willing to take the job at the offered price).

The pay of CEOs is determined like all prices: by supply and demand. If you think their pay is to high (and it may very well be), then either the demand for CEOs is too high or the supply of (people willing and able to be) CEOs is too low. Or some combination of the two. So the proper question would be to figure out which it is and why. For example, one hypothesis is that the number of people with the required skills is low. If that hypothesis is false, then that raises the question of why doesn't CEO pay get bid down? Why does a CEO get hired at, for example, $20 million a year, if there were a swarm of applicants willing and able to do the job for $19 million/year (or $1 million, or $100,000/year, etc.)?? Why should the business owner be so foolish as to not take one of the lower offers? This is, after all, the same crafty business owner you would accuse of trying to pay all his other employees terribly low wages.

To explain what's going on, we need to answer such questions. What "Americans on average feel is right" is beside the issue.

[Starlight]

You seem to have a misunderstanding of economics and the nature of employment.

Lots of people use oversimplified idealistic versions of 'what ought to happen' economics logic. Unfortunately the world is often more complicated than their simple models take into account. I recommend placing far more faith in empirical economic data about what does happen than thought experiments about 'what might happen if'.

You seem to think it works something like:
1) A business makes a profit
2) The boss decides how much to keep for himself and how much to give to workers.

That is commonly how it works. Most companies have been around for a number of years, and have a number of existing employees that they retain from year to year. The boss / managers then must each year decide on what pay rise and/or bonuses to give their workers. This decision may be affected by things like:
a) The amount of profit made by the business in the previous financial year.
b) what the boss feels is the smallest pay rise he can get away with paying.
c) what are believed to be the 'standard market rates' for the work being done by those workers.
d) the extent to which the workers have gained on-the-job experience that the boss feels is valuable and difficult to easily replace.
e) the extent to which the workers have the ability to negotiate higher pay through unions or similar.
f) the extent to which the boss is a nice guy that likes paying his employees well vs the extent to which he is selfish and likes to keep the money for himself / the extent to which he is being pressured by the board to keep money for the shareholders. ie relatively arbitrary whims and attitudes.
g) the current rate of unemployment, and therefore the ease or difficulty of finding new staff to replace workers who quit due to low pay.
etc
All those things tend to be factors, often simultaneously. I've seen all of those factors operating in companies I've worked for and companies friends have worked for.

For clarity, let's use an example where people are hired to work on a single job (say constructing a single building). Let's say this job will take a year.

Okay. I wouldn't have thought a company that comes into existence for a single job and hires workers for it isn't an overly common situation, but it's fine to think about.

The business owner does not know ahead of time how much revenue the job will create (e.g. how much the finished building will sell for). The business owner has to use his/her best judgment.
Based on the unknown but expected revenue, the owner hires workers, buys tools, raw materials, land, etc. The prices for all such things will tend to be the market price. This individual owner doesn't have much control over that (unless to bid higher). The hiring of worker and buying the other things (and their prices) is all done by reaching agreements with those willing to sell those things.

The project begins, and over the course of the year, the owner continues paying for the labor services, materials, etc, as needed and as agreed upon, not knowing for sure whether the project will yield a profit or a loss.

The project finishes and sells. If it doesn't bring in as much revenue as the costs over that year, then the owner must eat all those losses (is poorer than before he began).
If that revenue at the end of the year is more than the costs spent over the year, then the owner made a profit.
Either way, the revenue at the end all belongs to the owner. The costs were all paid out already, over the course of the year. The workers already received their agreed-upon payments, just as the sellers of the raw materials already received their payments. The employees and sellers of materials received their payment in advance of the project's revenue. And they received their payments regardless of whether the project ends up being a profit or a loss.

Okay sure, that seems generally correct. I do note that usually owners don't eat all the losses - the company itself goes bankrupt or is declared insolvent or goes into receivership but the owner himself is typically shielded from personal financial harm (that's half the point of companies). At worst he can declare himself bankrupt. Either way the loser is almost always the people/companies who are owed money by the failed company. The owner himself is fully protected by law (he's simply not liable), and the banks who loaned him money get secondarily protected (their loans are secured against assets), and the losers are those 3rd parties owed money or services.

You might try to say that at the beginning of the project the owner thinks about his educated guess of how much revenue will be made when the project is finished, and will try to pay "terrible wages" so as to try to reduce costs.

Yes. I would say that.

In the long run, the tendency is for market wages to equal the marginal revenue

I don't think this is true. It assumes an overly simplistic view of how wages actually get set in practice.

Much of the time the contribution of any one worker to the total revenue of the company is extremely difficult to quantify. If an insurance company makes an income of $2 billion one year, what proportion of that was contributed to by the cleaning staff? What proportion by the staff at the call-center? What proportion by the marketing department? What proportion by IT staff, or the lawyers, or the actuaries, or the managers, or the CEO himself? It is totally impossible to try and sit down and do any sort of accurate calculation about the comparative contributions of each worker: Two people could easily attempt the same calculation and come up with numbers that differed by 200%. How much any individual staff member contributed to the company's total revenue doesn't have an answer 99% of the time. True, there are very unusual circumstances where one particular individual has some extremely clear relationship with a proportion of the company's total revenue, but the other thousand members of the company tend to be pretty hard to directly associate with any particular income.

Thus, in the long run workers tend to receive the amount that they contribute to the revenue--that is, the amount they contribute to the market value of the finished product.

As I explained above, most individual workers don't contribute any discernibly clear amount to the finished product. There is no way to test your stated theorem empirically. And actual real-world experience with regard to the process by which wages actually get set suggests your logic that underpins this claim is totally wrong.

A CEO is typically an employee too, and does not choose his own pay.

If he owns the company, he typically chooses what the company is going to pay to him at any given time. When the CEO doesn't own the company... it is common in the US for CEOs of large publicly listed companies to choose their own salaries by an indirect process of appointing a small-group of people whom they themselves oversee to select the CEOs pay. It is also quite common when boards set the CEO's pay for the CEO to have friends on the board who are amenable to setting his pay at whatever he asks for. In public companies which are diversely held (ie no significant single stock-holder), the CEOs can often get away with suggesting their own salaries be set very very very high without getting much or any push-back from the stock-holders themselves who are almost entirely disinterested in the day-to-day running of the company.

The pay of CEOs is determined like all prices: by supply and demand.

I think it's a mistake to think supply and demand is the only mechanism in play. Many other things affect wages beyond supply and demand, as I listed and mentioned above.

Why does a CEO get hired at, for example, $20 million a year, if there were a swarm of applicants willing and able to do the job for $19 million/year (or $1 million, or $100,000/year, etc.)?? Why should the business owner be so foolish as to not take one of the lower offers?

Because people are often not perfectly rational according to the definition of 'rationality' that economists use. People often believe that if they pay more for something it must be better. I have seen a business conduct a tender process for a contract and then reject the lowest bid because it was "suspiciously low" and the person making the decision suspected (based on price alone) that the lowest bidder was in some way less good because they were only charging half as much as all the others. Equally, people seem to often believe that by simply paying a CEO more money they can somehow make that person better at being a CEO than they otherwise would be... that one always puzzles me when I come across it. In general, people are not perfectly rational, they do not possess perfect information, and they often do things for funny reasons. Yes, if everyone was omniscient and omni-rational then the free market might lead to the utopian paradise that economists dream of it doing, but unfortunately the world doesn't work like that.

This is, after all, the same crafty business owner you would accuse of trying to pay all his other employees terribly low wages.

Not necessarily - often it is the CEO who is the one who is good at swindling everyone else out of money: They swindle the shareholders into giving the CEO a ridiculously high salary, and swindle the workers into accepting lower wages than they deserve.

[Sparko]

As a member of society, optimizing the functioning of that society is 100% my business. Some people dying because they don't have the money for medical treatment, while others having billions of dollars more than they can ever use in their entire lifetimes, is immoral and wrong. Plus there are significant flow-on effects that affect me and the rest of society: Unequal societies are less happy, have more crime etc.

Just because something is a certain way, it doesn't mean it morally ought to be that way. A child born into a billionaire family doesn't "deserve" the billions they will inherit anymore than a child born into poverty "deserves" the dire financial straits they'll find themselves in. Unfortunately, by and large, the economic status of one's parents turns out to hugely predict the children's subsequent wealth in life: Poverty breeds poverty and wealth breeds wealth. A poor person who works 60-hour weeks doing two minimum wage jobs their entire adult life doesn't "deserve" to be poorer than a person born into a rich family who never worked more than a couple of hours per week his entire life. There's nothing inherently moral about the 'natural order' of wealth, and every reason to intervene to seek a more balanced and moral distribution of it.

There is a lesson that you need to learn:
Life isn't fair.

Nobody deserves to catch a disease and die, or to be hit by a car, or lose a limb in an accident, while there are others who live their entire life without getting a scratch. Some people will be poor and others rich. It is not your job to be the Economical Police. Even in societies that claim that everyone is equal and there are no rich or poor, end up with the very rich and the very poor. Look at the (old) Soviet Union, or Cuba, or China.

Robin Hood is just a story. And even in that he wasn't just stealing from the rich to give to the poor. He was taking back the taxes the government levied on the people and gave it back to those it was stolen from. Kind of the opposite of what you are proposing, taking MORE from the people and giving it to the government so they can "nanny" us.

[Sparko]

Several things help you become successful, including intelligence, but if you lack the sense that God gave a grape fruit or lack business insights or lack the ability to know your own limits, you're doomed to failure.

Or to become a liberal democrat in government.

[Mountain Man]

There is a lesson that you need to learn:
Life isn't fair.

My kids have learned not to use, "That's not fair!" as an argument, because I immediately respond, "You're right, it's not fair. But guess what: life isn't always fair."

[Sparko]

My kids have learned not to use, "That's not fair!" as an argument, because I immediately respond, "You're right, it's not fair. But guess what: life isn't always fair."

I think that is the main problem with these young spoiled brats. They haven't learned that lesson yet. They are fresh out of school (liberal schools) and full of ideals and ideas about how life is supposed to be, and how they can change it. They sit at home in their bedrooms and post on the internet all of their wonderful plans instead of actually getting out of the house and living on their own, working at a real job to make a living. Their parents coddled them throughout their lives, paying for everything, giving them iPhones and tablets and Xboxes and anything else they want, and now they think "fair" means everyone should be coddled by the government and given a perfect job with perfect pay, and that the mean old rich people should pay for it.

Teenagers-Tired-Of-Being-Harassed-By-Your-Parents.jpg

[Mountain Man]

That's why I think people shouldn't be allowed to vote unless they own property and/or are gainfully employed. It always annoys me, for example, when people who rent get to vote in favor of tax increases for people who own houses, or people collecting unemployment who vote in favor of an income tax increase.

[Adrift]

That's why I think people shouldn't be allowed to vote unless they own property and/or are gainfully employed. It always annoys me, for example, when people who rent get to vote in favor of tax increases for people who own houses, or people collecting unemployment who vote in favor of an income tax increase.

That sounds like a terrible idea. Wasn't that the system that the British held? Seems to me that if you pay taxes, you ought to have a voice. "No taxation without representation" and all that.