Canada: Don't Follow Scandanavia!
Ripcat @ Fri Dec 16, 2005 6:04 pm
Something that is missed hear is that Ireland has one of the highest rates of literacy in the world and free post secondary education. Alot of businesses located there to take advantage of all those highly schooled people.
Toro @ Fri Dec 16, 2005 6:06 pm
Ripcat Ripcat:
Something that is missed hear is that Ireland has one of the highest rates of literacy in the world and free post secondary education. Alot of businesses located there to take advantage of all those highly schooled people.
There were a number of reasons why companies invested in Ireland. That was one of them.
Toro @ Fri Dec 16, 2005 6:08 pm
Avro Avro:
Toro Toro:
There's evidence that minimum wage levels do help the economy, but only to a point. After that, a higher minimum wage hurts employment levels as it discourages hiring.
I will agree with you to a point on this. It is clear however if we were to give people 2 dollars an hour as Bort suggests what sort of consumers do they become when they can't even afford food?
Britain for a long time didn't have a minimum wage, and I don't know if it does now. However, 15 years ago when I lived in London, bottom end jobs paid about $5 an hour. That's about $7.50 today, which is around the minimum wage.
grainfedprairieboy @ Fri Dec 16, 2005 11:39 pm
Bart has it right on the money (so to speak). He is not advocating people work for 2.00 hour but is illustrating that in our highly skilled economy even the most basic of labour sells for a premium compared with other countries. Additionally, minimum wage laws often price certain people out of the labour force. IE. In the US black youth had no trouble finding employment until the 1960s when minimum wage laws were introduced in the South. Employers could no longer afford the luxery of extra workers so they began to become more selective in their hiring and chose whites. Blacks became unemployable and thus, many black leaders believe is the root cause of negro poverty today. There are hundreds of examples like this.