Hey, remember how Rodney Tom (among a bunch of other Republicans) said that Seattle’s minimum wage and sick leave/safe leave laws were going to destroy the jobs in Seattle and send them to the suburbs. Well, maybe in the future, who can really tell? But when people cite this or that example: a store closing, a firm going out of business, or other things that happen to businesses everywhere, well, tell them Expedia thought it would be better to come to Seattle.
The campus, which is on Smith Cove in the Interbay neighborhood, measures 750,000 square feet. Expedia, which employs around 3,000 people in the region and nearly 15,000 worldwide, reportedly is looking for a new 700,000-square-foot headquarters. Real estate brokers said the company wanted a Seattle address and is looking to buy a facility. Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN) is winding down operations in the Puget Sound region, and could sell the Seattle campus.
Earlier this year, Expedia CFO Mark Okerstrom said the company was considering relocating its corporate headquarters. He said the company was “not constraining ourselves to the downtown Bellevue area in terms of our search.”
Of course, there are plenty of reasons that a company moves to Seattle, and obviously just having a $15 minimum wage wasn’t why. But it also wasn’t a hindrance here. And to be clear: I hope the Bellevue finds a good replacement for Expedia. Losing that will be a hit. But there is a bit of schadenfreude seeing these things happening and thinking of the people saying these sorts of laws would destroy jobs in Seattle.
Maybe if Bellevue wants better jobs, they can do the types of things Seattle has done. Or they could do it because it’s the right thing for people working there.
UNPOSSBLE!
Conservative trickle down economical cannot fail.
It can only be failed.
Meanwhile, Indiana’s first business to announce a policy of not catering gay weddings survived less than 24 hours:
http://www.tmz.com/2015/04/01/.....y-wedding/
Don’t get me wrong, I do NOT support harassing anyone, or deluging businesses with hate mail, and certainly not death threats, but I did predict that bigotry and discrimination wouldn’t be good for business:
http://handbill.us/?p=48186
To be fair, Expedia probably has very few minimum wage employees on staff. Outside of a few office administrator types most of their employees are programmer/IT/marketing white collar professionals.
But indirectly, they know that their outsourced janitorial service will cost more due to $15 but that isn’t a deterrent to setting up shop.
And the ripple effect on the area is significant. What does the anti$15 crowd think will happen at the interbay Whole Foods/Red Mill/Starbucks when 3000 aditional disposable income having workers are in the neighborhood five days a week? Well they will cut staff to cover the increase in wages of course. It’s an article of faith for the “it’ll kill jobs” anti$15 crowd.
And what will happen when the workers at said Whole Foods/Red Mill/Starbucks employees go on braks in the neighborhood or head to their CapHill/UDistrict/West Seattle/shoreline apartments with extra cash in their pockets?
And what will happen for owners of cafe’s/convenience stores/bars in those Whole Foods/Red Mill/Starbucks employees’ neighborhoods when they go home with more cash in their pockets?
And what will the owners of those cafe’s/convenience stores/bars do with any increase in their business as a result of those Whole Foods/Red Mill/Starbucks employees having more cash in their pockets.
And what will happen to higher end cafés/bars/restaraunts/clothing boutiques in the owners of those cafe’s/convenience stores/bars neighborhoods do with any increase in their business as a result of more spending in those mid-range businesses they own….
@3 I can tell you what SBux is doing since my girlfriend works there. SBux is cutting scheduled raises for tenured employees making more than $10/hr in half in order to pay for the raises for the mandated raises for newer employees making less than. Tenured SBux employees used to get raises of .25-.30 cents twice a year at their bi-yearly review, now tenured employees get a raise once. Basically each tenured employee is sacrificing a $500-$600 year raise in order to pay for this. So not all SBux employees will have more $, some will have less since this will also cause inflation. In the long run yes all SBux employees will get raises, but how many SBux employees working there now will be there in 3 yrs?
You may also have heard about Ivar’s Salmon House going instead immediately to $15/hr for everyone & eliminating tips, by raising prices 21%. Then giving 17% of this to staff & keeping 4% for the wage increase. Here is what a chef I know who works at Ivars Salmon House had to say….
http://www.king5.com/story/new...../70681252/
“Yea I work there. And only people that make under 15 are getting a raise. So host’s servers and dishwashers get to make almost as much as the line. It’s fucking infuriating. The cost of the menu will go up 21% and Tipping will no longer be expected. Instead a % of the sales will be divided amongst the foh. And .006% of that will be divided amongst the Boh to “off set” the loss of raises for the line. It’s bull shit that the hostess dishwashers and servers will make the same or 2 $ less then a valuable line cook”
Once again tenured employees are not getting raises in order to supply raises for those that are new. In addition I believe that this will be a net revenue positive for a lot of restaurants that go the raise prices & no tipping route, as now the restaurant is in control of how this extra $$$ is distributed and some restaurants will be inclined to keep a little for themselves instead of tips that went 100% to the staff.
Full disclosure I own 2 restaurants with 34 employees, and just raised prices 5% across the board, as opposed to the avg. of 2.5% yearly inflation. My first restaurant is very successful, located downtown, and will be just fine with the 5% price raise. The 2nd is only a year & half old and just breaking even & located in a neighborhood. Will the neighborhood support a 5% price increase, we will see, but if it doesn’t and the restaurant becomes negative revenue I will just close it and walk away, and 16 people lose jobs (granted which will eventually be replaced but it doesn’t help those 16 ppl right now). Since right now it is revenue neutral and it wouldn’t cost me anything financially to close. Don’t get me wrong I intend to do my level best to make it work, because while it wouldn’t cost me financially to close, it would cost me all the time & effort I have put in so far. The real bummer is I have traditionally paid the kitchen over market because I saw it as a investment in consistency & quality in the product with less kitchen turnover, for the next few years these people will receive less raises in order for me to give $5/hr raises to the tipped employees much larger raises. The lowest tipped employee at the slower restaurant makes $22/hr with just verifiable credit card tips, ont counting any cash tips. Much like at SBux & Ivars this will stagnate & depress wages for the kitchen, the group most deserving the raise & most likely to be minority.
I believe a more modest min wage increase to $12 & then indexed to inflation for everyone, that treats employees & employers all equally, combined with tax reform to our state’s most regressive in the nation tax structure, income tax, and rent control would have been better to address the income inequality issue in Seattle. This policy inherently treats employees & employers unequally and will fall disproportionally on the lower & middle. And is that the problem that the lower & middle class don’t shoulder enough of the burden? You see in both SBux & Ivars examples employees that make $15 or more, their wages will be stagnated & depressed in order to pay for these newer, less experienced people to get raises. Combined with price increases that further the impact of a high regressive sales tax, and you can see how this is paid for by lower & middle class, but not by SBux & it’s shareholders who will continue merrily along. This will also increase the competition for housing causing rents to rise as Seattle has no rent control, and since it is the lower & middle class that rent and not own it will be them that pay for it. But once again the wealthy who own homes with fixed mortgages go unaffected. Raise the minimum wage, but do it in an honest way in order to minimize the negative impacts with 1 wage for everyone. Instead we got a Frankenstein minimum wage with 4 different schedules & 4 different rates more concerned about satisfying political donors more than minimizing the negative impacts that fall on the lower & middle class.
If wages are to be indexed to inflation, then deflation should also be included in the equation.
You mean kind of like $11 now, $13 next year….
Funny how you pop in here and appeal to authority, “I own restaurants”, and then make an argument not based on any fact.
And a cook thinks they should be the highest paid person on a staff? Welcome to the restaurant world. Want to be better paid? Pack your knives and be a server. After you’ve done it in a crappy place for a while you can get experience and probably get to a touristy mid-range Salmon House and after a few.years of that maybe Tom Douglas will hire you and 15% of a $350 four top is much much more than the line cook took home.
@ 6
First, $12 indexed to inflation is not $13 next year, nor $15 the following year, to compare the two shows your ignorance of basic economics & this specific min wage policy. Just ask anyone educated on this issue if $12 indexed to inflation is the same as $15 in 3 yrs. Businesses are simply passing these costs onto the employees already making $15 & the customers, but won’t be paying for it out of their bottom line.
You also completely miss the point of the cook at Ivar’s, he never says he thinks he should be the highest paid (nice strawman), just that he thinks he should be paid more than a hostess. But now at Ivars Salmon House every one makes $15, isn’t that grand? Never mind that it comes at the expense of other employees.
Here is a study done by Democratic State Treasurer, Jim McIntire, who also supports raising the min wage, so hardly a source that could be accused of conservative bias.
“More than 100,000 employees got wage increases in 1989 and 1990 because of the rise in Washington’s legal minimum. Over two years, employers reported laying off 11,700 workers “as a result of the minimum wage increases.” Employees reported about the same number.”
“McIntire says the effect of a minimum-wage increase on jobs depends on how big the increase is — and a $15 wage would be a very big one. “Significant increases do have negative consequences,” he says.”
So based on local history almost 12% of those receiving raises were laid off, and this was for a 27% increase over 2 years. I guess we will find out how many layoffs for a 60% increase over 3 years.
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/.....e-seattle/
while it is too bad for Bellevue, greedy anti transit developer Kemper Freeman looks be the biggest loser here and that makes me very happy.
@7
Still trying? If you are who you represent yourself to be you don’t have a grasp of your responsibilities. Let’s say you really do own two restaraunts, one employing 16 peoiple then unless your “successful” one employs 484 people, here is your schedule of wage increases
$11.00 by April 1, 2015
$12.00 by January 1, 2016
$13.00 by January 1, 2017
$14.00 by January 1, 2018
$15.00 by January 1, 2019
$15.75 by January 1, 2020 – See more at: http://murray.seattle.gov/mini.....dJeMe.dpuf
$9.54 on Jan 2015 to $13 on Jan 1 2018 (3 years) is 36%. From Jan. 1, 2015 to five years out is still under 60%. You can argue with emotion but you have trouble with facts.
Or were you rounding up for exageration on how your, I don’t think really exists business is going to be doooooooomed by this.
Do you unbrella both of your restaraunts under the same corporation so that if one fails or gets sued you stand a chance of losing both? Are you a crappy entrepreneur analyzing profit and loss based on the assumption that you are subject to a raise schedule becuase your comined businesses emply over 500 people when you don’t need to meet that requirement? If you have a successful restaraunt employing 484 people did you not realize the economics of a smaller place employing only 16 is probably not worth your time?
New troll. You’re fun.
@ 9 $9.47 to $15 over 3 yrs is an increase of 58.39%, I rounded up to 60%. This is the schedule for large employers, the ones who can & will lay people off first. It is much easier to trim the labor fat from a staff of 500+, than it is for a small business. So it is a fact that for large companies min wage labor is going up 58% over 3yrs. Small businesses will lay off last as each employee is more vital, so that is why I used the 3yr schedule when discussing layoffs.
I am most certainly on the slower phase in schedule of 7yrs, and have done the math on the labor increases. It raises labor at the busier spot 19% & the slower one 24% with over 85% of the wage gains going to tipped FOH employees, the lowest earner of which makes $22/hr just on verifiable credit card tip. In the BOH everyone in the kitchen already makes $15/hr or more + $1-2/hr in tips, so in 7 yrs at. So in order to afford these raises for the highest paid employees, which outnumber the kitchen staff 2 to 1, I will be slowing down kitchen raises combined with price increases, bascially doubling inflation to 5% per year in my case. Much in the same way Ivars Salmon House, SBux, and most every other small business I have talked to are approaching it the same way. A combination of reducing hours, slowing raises for those above min wage, raising prices, and eliminating the least essential positions. For example if I buy some extra dishes I can get rid of the dishwasher on slower night at the slower spot and have the chef who is first off catch up on the dishes that they couldn’t keep up on, 14 labor hrs saved. This policy is going to be paid for by reduction in employee benefits, wage stagnation for those over $15/hr, and the middle & lower class consumer with inflation. But for the most part it isn’t going to be paid for by the businesses big or small. In the long run we’ll see if it is a net negative or net positive. I am lucky, my restaurants have a lower price point so it is easier to raise prices without reducing demand, especially downtown as compared to a neighborhood. (At least i hope) I also sell alcohol which is a drug, and people always drink whether the economy is good or bad.
Raising the min wage isn’t the economic apocalypse conservatives make it out to be, but neither does raising the min wage not come without a cost in layoffs & inflation as some like to pretend aka the everybody at SBux will have more $ so it will stimulate the economy argument, when in reality all SBux is doing is forgoing raises for tenured employees in order to give the raises to newer employees. It would have been nice to see the city council address income inequality & affordability in way (tax reform, &income tax) that actually was paid for by the wealthy instead of trying to do it all with the min wage which is paid for largely by middle & lower class people.
The line cook making 15, mad that hostess makes the same is a terrible argument. Because if the line cook leaves Ivars or a Seattle restaurant and goes to Auburn, they won’t make more than 15 dollars an hour, so all they are complaining about is that some other people are going to make a little more money.
Being jealous of other people is a terrible argument.
As for your strategy of not giving raises to your line because of foh employees making 15 an hour, what if instead you made it a restaurant policy to make a higher percentage of tip out go to the cooks. Maybe now you have it at the standard of 2 or 3 percent. You could increase it to 5 percent of gross food sales and they’d be making a lot more without it coming out of your pocket. Servers will still make more because of the wage increase and the line cooks will make more because of tip out increase. problem solved.
@11
No, can’t do that. It ALWAYS has to be layoffs. Haven’t you been paying attention? Customers will flee the place if their pint of beer goes from $5.50 to $5.75. No one will come anymore if the $12 lunch goes to $13. We’ll have to shut our doors for lack of business if a tow-top average ticket goes from $60 with alcohol to $65. No one will come in anymore. The ONLY solution is to cut staff and pit the jealousies of BOH workers against those greedy FOH workers. There is LITERALLY
Funny how an argument goes from “Authority” (My Business) to no, no, no I was talking about a large business which I don’t run so I’m making huge assumptions…
And so it begins…
http://www.thestranger.com/blo.....ving-badly
Funny, this may or may not be Tom Douglas but the notion being put forth is that it only takes a 2% rise in prices to cover the extra labor cost. So on a $60 tab that’s $1.20. So the claim is that a bill that was previously $60.00 before tax is now $61.20 and that my friends will drive all the customers away. It’s just silly.
To take it a step further, a $5.00 footlong with a service charge added is now $5.10. I’m sure that extra dime will have customers fleeing from your place. That Pagliacci’s pizza that is already pretty expensive for a large pie around $25…$25.50. Shit, I guess I’m going to go to Dominos ’cause it’s just as good, amiright?
And don’t worry servers when I see your boss is kind of an asshole and making sure I KNOW i’m paying an extra $1.20 and I do the mental math and think…over an eight hour shift they think you are worth less than an after shift cocktail with your mates per cover…i’m still tipping 20%. Please spend some of that in the community. Vaya con Dios.
@12 Pretty much doom and gloom Republican stuff From what I see. A more elaborate one.
Let’s all feel sorry for the multi-restaurant owner because a busser is going to make a living wage by 2021.
I’m not interested in owners who claimed they laid off people 24 years ago because of minimum wage increase. If Republicans had always been in charge there’d still be child labor, lead in your gasoline and slavery. The reason for the first is it teaches family values, the reason for the 2nd is gas prices will increase because of new unleaded fuel mandate, the reason for the third…well if we have to pay for labor, more people will be unemployed.
@11 “Because if the line cook leaves Ivars or a Seattle restaurant and goes to Auburn, they won’t make more than 15 dollars an hour, so all they are complaining about is that some other people are going to make a little more money.”
Lines cooks worth a damn usually make $14/+, even in Auburn. But it’s not that he was complaining about being jealous of the hostess, he is upset that in order for the less skilled position of hostess to get a raise his more difficult & skilled position of line cook is being forced to forgo a raise. Much in the same way SBux is not longer giving twice a year raises but now only once a year.
“what if instead you made it a restaurant policy to make a higher percentage of tip out go to the cooks. Maybe now you have it at the standard of 2 or 3 percent. You could increase it to 5 percent of gross food sales and they’d be making a lot more without it coming out of your pocket.”
Good guess in that I do ask the servers to tip the kitchen 3% of sales, and if that 3% gets BOH about $1.50/hr on avg, then going to 5% of food sales will it would net them an additional .99 cents per hr which will be less than half the raises they won’t be getting due to stagnation caused by giving the highest paid employees raises. To really even the wage stagnation the BOH will experience over the next seven yrs the tip out on food sales would need to be closer to 8-9%. And what you may not know is that is that servers can not be forced to tip out kitchen or any other employee busser, bartender, etc. So while I can ask FOH to give up more of their $ to the kitchen, I can not force them to. Maybe you have seen some of the high profile class action lawsuits against restaurants owned my Mario Batali & Joe Bastich because they were withholding a portion of the server tips to distribute to the kitchen, basically using money earned by the servers to supplement kitchen wages. So that solution isn’t quite that simple. Reality is every business is going to deal with the increase in wages in the same way since we all got the same tools to use. Price increases, reduce employee hours & benefits, slow raises for those making more than min wage, that’s it. Because unlike Sawant’s claim most businesses are not making “obscene profits” and aren’t a McDonalds owned by Montgomery Burns.
@15
And Ivars was totally planning to give him that raise if not for those pesky worthless hostesses. Ivars is a model of goodwil toward line cooks. If he was any good he wouldn’t be waiting for Ivars to give him a raise. He’d be honing his skills there and looking for the first opportunity to jump ship and line or Sous somewhere else that pays better for better skills. You know…getting experience and increasing you labor value. Yes, I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere.
@ 14 “Let’s all feel sorry for the multi-restaurant owner because a busser is going to make a living wage by 2021.”
No feel sorry for the non tipped employee who doesn’t get a raise in order to pay for the busser’s (who already makes more than the kitchen guy) raise. And as I said I sell alcohol, which is pretty much recession proof. So no need to feel sorry for me, I will be fine if I have to go from owning 2 restaurants to owning 1. The second restaurant in not paying me anything yet anyway so no problem if it closes other than my wasted effort. So far it is only the employees that get paid from that place, and who will be financially impacted. It will just mean more time for me to spend with my girlfriend and little boy, which might be what’s for the best anyway.
Ideologues on both sides of this issue refuse to acknowledge the reality of what either side is saying. Is it good to raise the min wage? Yes it is, but it also comes with a cost that is born by the middle & lower class consumer that is disproportionally affected by inflation & high sales tax. You refuse to admit the reality that this has to be paid for somewhere, and do you think businesses are going to pay it? SBux shareholders? Small businesses? No it is going to be passed onto the customer along with a reduction in benefits & raises for those employees above min wage. We are on day 2 of this policy and already major employers like SBux, Ivars, & Tom Douglass are already implementing exactly what will happen at businesses everywhere (inflation & wage stagnation) because this has to be paid for and someone has to pay for it, and most businesses are not raking the “obscene profits” Sawant claims they are, and if they are raking in obscene profits do you think the shareholders & owners are just going to take less profit?
@ 16 yes Ivars was probably going to give him a raise if he was any good, that is how you retain good people and keep them from jumping ship.
“You know…getting experience and increasing you labor value. Yes, I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere.”
Yes you have heard that somewhere, it’s the same thing Republicans say about minimum wage workers, apparently it is an ok argument for you to use against a line cook.
@15 you give your line cooks 3 dollar an hour raises every year? This I don’t believe.
1.50 an hour off of 3 percent would mean that your servers are only selling 50 dollars in food an hour. so you either have a really slow restaurant or you are exaggerating somewhere.
No one is forcing you to not give raises to your line, that is a decision you are making because you think if you raise prices 3-5 percent all your customers will leave.
@18
Irony. A time honored rhetorical device. You can often smell it.
@18 if they are taking in obscene profits then raise prices that creates a gap that can be filled by a small business restaurant who is fine offering the same quality of food and dining experience for less because they don’t need the obscene profits.
So owners who choose to over-inflate their prices have a chance to lose business, but if they stick to same margin they curr we newly make every restaurant has to deal with those labor costs and they’ll be fine.
No one is going to drive 20 miles out of the city to save 2 percent on a 15 dollar plate.
“@15 you give your line cooks 3 dollar an hour raises every year? This I don’t believe.”
No Einstein not every year, every year it is about a $1-$2 depending on their initiative, dependability, and work ethic . So over the course of the 7 yr phase in each chef would normally receive about $7-14 with the avg being about $10 over 7 yrs, now it will be in the $5-10 range with the avg being about $6 or $7. As any business should I ran yearly payroll projections based on the wage increase schedule appropriate for my business.
@21
I don’t blame the line cook. I see Ivars has found a way to devalue a different segment of labor rather than find more creative ways of dealing with the issue.
Exploitation of labor. That’s the only way apparently. In order for Ivars to survive, someone must suffer. Enjoy your Clam Chowder.
@ 18 “but if they stick to same margin they (currently) make every restaurant has to deal with those labor costs and they’ll be fine.”
First off restaurants don’t make obscene profits, the industry standard is a 4-5% profit margin, 10% if you are good & lucky. Second in order to maintain these same margins as you suggest, how do they do that? Raising prices & cutting labor is how, it is not rocket science. This is paid for by employees & customers, and not the “obscene profits” that don’t really exist in the restaurant industry anyway. In addition it is the highest compensated tipped employees that realize the majority (80-85%) of the wage gains, since tipped employees are the only ones who make less than $15/hr further. This will come at the expense of raises for those making over minimum, how do you guys not understand this fact? It’s like your ideology refuses to allow you to come to grips with this basic reality. Two days in it is already happening at SBux & Ivars, and I am not lying when I say I will do the same at my business, as will most others. There really is no choice, other trying to pay for it only by raised prices, but then you are at the disadvantage of higher prices compared to your competition.
@23 how do you suggest restaurants pay for the increase labor costs? It can’t only be done through raising prices and passing it onto the consumer, as I said it would put whichever restaurant goes the route of price increases only at the disadvantage of having higher prices than their competition.
I am sorry you don’t like the fact that your feel good $15/hr policy is going to be paid for by other workers and the consumer, and unlikely the business themselves, but this is the policy we got so deal with it, just like the business have to. Spreading the money around a little more evenly amongst middle & lower class isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but is that the goal to even out the middle & lower class while the rich remain unaffected?
@24 raising prices is how I’d suggest it. But if you artificially raise prices more than the actual labor cost that gap is where you can be undercut.
@25 I guess you can’t even consider the possibility that an increase in sales could cover some of those labor costs.
No one is thinking that the increase in labor is not going to cost an increase in cost, but that isn’t more than 5 percent. So if you’re telling me a 20 dollar entrée is now 21 dollars, not a big deal.
New if you take a 20 dollar entrée and think you can charge 25 dollars and try and blame that on minimum wage increase, then people will know and may go to a different restaurant.
@26 & 27
Yup. Some Seattle restaurant (see link above) is addint a 2% surcharge pre-tax. Fine.
For lower end high volume places it would be even easier. (I have neglected to point out at up to now that I have co-owned and successfully sold an independent coffee shop in my life) and 2% raise in prices won’t even be noticed other than your hardest of core regulars who know exactly what their order costs and for the most part won’t even react if their $3.18 is now $3.26.
In my time it was getting rid of styrofoam. WRA, The local Chamber of commerce and the VERY right wing local paper assured me it would lead to my demise. You know how we did it? $0.05 on every beverage and $0.10 on food items that were requested “ToGo” more than 40% of orders. Then we very publically campaigned for the change and the tree huggers in the community rewarded us with increased sales that couldn’t be explained by a slight raise in price. Only one regular, who had an office in the building and came M-F 8:55am said something. “Yeah, inflation and food costs were starting to take a hit so first rise in three years.” He was back M-F 8:55 every day.
So no. Exploiting your workers as “how else do you propose…” is a crap argument. Hey, how many of those now better paid workers might visit You Gotta Be Kidding’s alleged bars with the extra spending money they now have? Well if you take away their tips and make it zero sum a-la Ivars…none.
@ 28 don’t forget that this 2% or in my case 2.5% is compounded yearly on top of regularly occurring inflation of 2.5% on avg, so 4.5-5% per yr. Which in my case equates to 35% increase over the next 7 yrs, certainly survivable but not nothing either.
@ 28 “Yup. Some Seattle restaurant (see link above) is addin(g) a 2% surcharge pre-tax. Fine.”
I agree it is fine, as the 2% is very clearly explained as to the charge with little room for misinterpretation. It is even more honest than doubling inflation as I & many others are doing. But look at the title of The Stranger article you linked “Seattle Restaurant Owner Behaving Badly” and then go further where commenters link the restaurant Yelp pages so people who can give bad reviews with never have even stepped foot in the establishment. It is this kind of lynch mob mentality that has taught me that ideologues suck, no matter what side they are on & are antithetical to progress or compromise. Whether it be the doom & gloom Republicans predicting economic apocalypse or SEIU President David Rolf & Ksharma Sawant who demonize anyone not in lock step with their agendas. Both sides speak some truth (conservatives much less so) to some extent, but it get so lost in hyperbole and aggressive rhetoric that the best solution gets abandoned in favor of the solution that best play to politics. Raising the min wage is good, doing so with 1 wage that treats everybody equally better, and then doing it in a way to minimize predictable negative impacts best.
This thread is 0% retarded. Very, very refreshing.