How does using less skilled resource increase productivity?
How does increasing costs improve competitiveness?
How does increasing wage costs not lead to lower employment?

You will end up with the same amount of cash in the economy, not more. Unless you count increased unemployment benefit payments – but that would only hold true if the govt decided not to reduce spending elsewhere to compensate for the increased benefit spend. In which case that would be inflationary, leaving workers and beneficiaries less well off.

Keynesianism is not so much a dream, as a nightmare.’

I’m not saying using less skilled, but rather seeing people upskill into higher paying jobs. The competitiveness is in the flexibility of being able to hire staff whose expectation is to respond to a higher paying job with increased effort. The more money earnt and spent in the economy shouldn’t have a negative factor on unemployment – but that isn’t contingent on what I said.

But I’m just saying that employers will pay people based on the value they bring to the company. But don’t price people out of the market who aren’t actually worth $18 per hour, and don’t assume that anyone who doesn’t pay $18ph is being miserable.

Gotta agree about WFF though. It’s a seriously weird policy.

Why is management always portrayed as this big evil, incompetent thug who earns too much?

I run a small business and I employ one person. I’m really getting sick of hearing how much of a cunt I am for being an employer / business owner.

Sadu, I think most of that kind of sentiment towards business owners is intended for much larger businesses than yours.

As for delivering $18ph worth of value in order to be paid $18ph, it doesn’t really work like that. The price of a person’s labour in our system is not determined by how much value they provide to the company. It is determined by how little an employer can pay an employee to fill a role, as dictated by the labour market.

If you have a role in your business that creates, say, $100/hour of value to your business, and there are a number of people looking for work who would be willing to do the job for $15/hour, you only have to pay them $15/hour. Pay only becomes too low when there is no one willing to do that job for that pay, and with a surfeit of labour (as there is for unskilled work) that can be very low indeed.

I run a small business and I employ one person. I’m really getting sick of hearing how much of a cunt I am for being an employer / business owner. But honestly, I’m just like any other working Kiwi. It’s what I do to feed the family. I like the flexibility it gives but I get no sick pay, no holidays, no kiwisaver (can’t afford to pay myself that), no job protection etc etc. All of this state-imposed stuff that I pay my employee I don’t get myself.

So when everyone else starts moaning about how they don’t earn a living wage – fuck off. Or about how management doesn’t work hard or add any value to a business – fuck off. Or that business owners should just pay people more – fuck off.

Create your own value. If you want $18ph, go deliver $18ph worth of value to someone or start your own business. It’s not the employer’s job to cushion you from the real world.

I certainly haven’t seen any evidence that the economy’s productivity could be increased by that value, from effectively unskilled labour sources. Perhaps huge scale investment in high-value, labour heavy commodities like saffron??

Of course I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are actually arguing from a position of intellectual honesty…

It’s a cult guys and that tit Russell Norman is the biggest purveyor.

That in the early 80′s Douglas himself stopped SUBSIDISING all farmers – and their families – it’s worked – most farmers are now ‘rich pricks’.

And now Garret believes that ALL OTHER businesses in NZ should be subsidised via WFF – because Douglas said so!

Matt#
“… Hang on a minute Garrett…..If the living wage campaign was 100% successful then WFF would be scrapped and instead employers would have to pay the real cost of providing a decent wage instead of tax payers having to prop people up all over the place…….I would have thought the majority of Kiwiblog commenters would support this….”

Quite right Matt……as another who supports your view is a banking executive in Sydney who stated to the Australian media thus-

“If a business fails to pay a living wage, should they really still be in business?

Maybe Garrett can tell us if business should be supporting his socialist dream via business tax funded subsidies[wff] – or instead using the taxes to grow those businesses for the benefit of staff, shareholders and FUTURE workers?

I’m glad I left the country!

Oh good grief.

Don’t they understand that giving people their own money back will only foster personal responsibility and less state reliance?

Everyone be very quiet…..

THIS IS A GREAT IDEA!!

I assumed PBJ83 was essentially akin to you having chosen DAG58.