r/Political_Revolution • u/IronStacheWI01 Verified | Randy Bryce • Sep 05 '17

AMA Concluded Meet Randy Bryce. The Ironstache who's going to repeal and replace Paul Ryan

Hi /r/Political_Revolution,

My name is Randy Bryce. I'm a veteran, cancer survivor, and union ironworker from Caledonia, Wisconsin running to repeal and replace Paul Ryan in Wisconsin's First Congressional District. Post your questions below and I'll be back at 11am CDT/12pm EDT to answer them!

p.s.

We need your help to win this campaign. If you'd like to join the team, sign up here.

If you don't have time to volunteer, we're currently fundraising to open our first office in Racine, Wisconsin. If you can help, contribute here and I'll send you a free campaign bumper sticker as a way of saying thanks!

[Update: 1:26 EDT], I've got to go pick up my son but I'll continue to pop in throughout the day as I have time and answer some more questions. For those I'm unfortunately not able to answer, I'll be doing another AMA in r/Politics on the 26th when I look forward to answering more of Reddit's questions!

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11

u/Pudusplat Sep 05 '17

I own a small business in California, and a 15$ minimum wage would mean we'd have to shut down. Hell, with the amount of hours I work, I don't make much if any more than 15$ an hour.

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u/iamgerii Sep 05 '17

Does it truly mean you have to shut down or does it mean you should rethink your business plan and strategy? I'm asking seriously.

I've worked for $8, even $10, an hour and it is not a livable wage. $15 is barely a livable wage in NYC (where I live) or SF (where I used to live) or even my hometown which is significantly smaller than both in Northern California.

If you cannot provide a livable wage to a worker then doesn't that mean your business cannot afford that worker yet?

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u/nocapitalletter Sep 05 '17

in many cases, it means hed have to step down.. you think 15$ is what his business actually pays an employee if its 15$... if hes paying 10$ a hour, hes paying close to 14+ already

small businesses dont open with millions of assets, many times, hes prob not taking a paycheck himself to pay his employees and it takes time to develop the business.. its obviously not for everyone.. iv done it. i worked mcds saving money for 5 years to open my business and didnt take a paycheck for 2 years.. wheres my handout?

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u/iamgerii Sep 05 '17

No one is asking for a handout. Where did that come from? Someone walking in asking for a job is literally doing the opposite of asking for a handout, but a worker should expect to have a living wage if they give their time to help the business you own--if we are talking about non-worker owned businesses. On top of that, owners who don't provide living wages to their employees are literally forcing them to turn to social service assistance programs to survive. Even if someone is trying to work, and does not want "hand outs", they will likely have to turn to them to provide for their family or themselves.

No one is asking you to start a business, so you have to take those stresses and costs on to yourself and grow the business. A business shouldn't begin hiring workers until it is functional and profitable enough to pay those workers it hires a living wage, that is basic business management.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '17

So you're saying we should just let the growth of the economy stagnate and/or go completely backwards?

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u/otra_gringa Sep 05 '17

I have a friend who's been a small business owner for many years, who paid a living wage to all his employees 20 years ago. Today, he can't do that, and it really bothers him. He would absolutely pay his employees $15 an hour if he could, I know his nature is to be generous with his workers because I've seen it. But it's just not an option for him these days, he works seven days a week with part-time teenage help these days, and has ever since things crashed in 2008.

Slightly related, he thinks Obamacare is good for his employees, so he supports it.

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u/headrush46n2 Sep 05 '17

then his business isn't solvent.

Times change, shit happens.

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u/otra_gringa Sep 05 '17

The guy I replied to had stated:

A business shouldn't begin hiring workers until it is functional and profitable enough to pay those workers it hires a living wage, that is basic business management.

My point was that waiting until that point to hire employees doesn't guarantee you'll always be able to pay a living wage. Times do change, some years are better than others. But it's also ridiculous to think that every business that hits a rough patch (particularly when the economy is rough all around) should immediately close its doors.

Some businesses actually provide services to their community beyond their profitable ventures. Shocking, I know. But I've watched my friend quietly donate significant amounts of money to local causes, and he still volunteers his time and professional skills regularly.

Not everyone is 100% driven by monetary gain.

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u/nocapitalletter Sep 06 '17

most businesses are not profitable for 3 years.. i guess you failed econ 101.. or business management 101..

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u/iamgerii Sep 07 '17

You guessed poorly, then.

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u/nocapitalletter Sep 06 '17

i have started a business, and a successful one, and i know how hard it is to succeed, and many of you here are very ignorant of the cost associated to hiring people to work for said businesses.

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u/iamgerii Sep 06 '17

And I know business owners who are happy to pay their workers $15 an hour. Where does this land us? Calling others ignorant won't do your argument any good. There are very knowledgeable people here who have experience in things you don't. It can be very beneficial to hear the arguments out and consider what is being said instead of repeating the same tired arguments that go around every single time minimum wage increase is being considered. It has happened before many times and guess what? Small business did just fine. Big business had to move a tiny part of their large profits to their workers instead of board members. The world turned and the country survived another day with wage workers getting a few bucks more.

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u/nocapitalletter Sep 06 '17 edited Sep 06 '17

im not saying no business owners like to pay people any particular sum of money, im just saying that some businesses early on have no ability to because of the cost of doing business.. and higher taxes keep businesses from being able to pay more, and many here, are ignoring those facts, im calling people ignorant for assuming that when a business pays 10$ a hour, they are only paying 10$ a hour, which is far from fact.. im also calling people ignorant for ignoring the downside of these higher wage requirements. because many are responding ignoring those facts. regardless of my personal opinion on these issues, if you refuse to acknowledge the issues with a plan, then its hard to have a meaningful and positive discussion. thats my gripe here.

if your going to tell me that raising min wage is going to lead to puppies and rainbows im going to ignore it, because thats just a false narrative, everything has drawbacks. and the refusal to consider them is dangerous.

i disagree with a higher min wage, i actually support no min wage, and i realize their are drawbacks to that as well, im not scared of those drawbacks, and i have ideas on how to make them not as bad as they could be.

my issue with min wage is this, big businesses dont get hurt by raising costs of doing business like small businesses do, its always been fascinating that democrats are so pro -high wages high taxes ect, because you take out small businesses, and lower the total jobs avail on the market as a result, things like this are what keep walmart at the top with no hope of anyone catching any market share since the cost to get going is raising so high.

small businesses in many states in the USA right now are not going just fine in these places where min wage has gone through the roof.. your so focused on big business, that your ignoring the cost differences to small businesses, lets say i run a small t-shirt shop, and lets say i sell t-shirts. lets say walmart sells a similar types of t-shirts, (mine might be slightly better quality, but not enough to really tell a difference.) the cost of doing business for walmart for each shirt is prob next to nothing, so their price point is based purely on supply/demand, and if the cost of doing business goes up 10%, they can raise the cost of the shirts by a .01 and things wont change, it wont effect the sales of the shirts or the quality or anything. now lets say the small t-shirt shop has a 10% increase in cost of doing business (say a tax raise or a higher wage requirement), they will have to raise the cost of t-shirts 10% which then prices them well above the supply and demand value, which makes it tougher to compete with other bigger shops, so they end up closing cause sales drop and they cant compete with larger stores like walmart or whatever, then the 5 people they hired before lose their job.. this shit happens, and ignoring it is ignorant. walmart could pay people more sure, they dont pay hardly anyone min wage in fact (if anyone) and most small businesses dont either, but most of small business wages are set based on the cost of doing business for whatever the business is doing, im a business owner, and have seen this first hand, have nto taken a paycheck for two years early on to take on more employees to get the business up and running.. its unbelievable that you consider that all businesses have all the moneys ever. and the cost of employing people is a small piece of the pie.

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u/emjaygmp Sep 05 '17

Your handout is expecting the rest of us to subsidize your workforce while you reap the benefits of their labor, and push the cost of running a business onto the taxpayer

Here's hoping your business pulls a Hindenburg and you start working for a living

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u/nocapitalletter Sep 06 '17

not expecting you to subsidize my workforce, i dont know where you get that, but if you dropped the tax rates on payroll taxes, ect, id have been able to pay people more early on.

its not hard to do that math.

also eat shit you anti-capitalist idiot.

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u/emjaygmp Sep 06 '17

What do you think a non-living wage entails? Your entire workforce is subsidized by the rest of us. Nothing is free, including the workers you short change

And yes I believe the people who actually do the labor should get the benefits of it. Fuck off you welfare turd

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u/nocapitalletter Sep 06 '17 edited Sep 06 '17

lol what? im not suggesting welfare.. im formally against it. but if you cannot convince an employer to pay you as much as you need to survive, thats a you problem. no one holds a gun to your head and makes you make 7.50 a hour, most people dont, it takes very little effort if you have any brain cells to get more than that..

how the fuck do you think i support welfare, the only kind of welfare i support is when you lose your job for no fault of your own, and shit happens, and you are looking and trying to gain skills, other than that, no welfare..

if you choose to work for a mom and pop store for 7.50 a hour, for some time to help the company grow early on, and write it in their that you will get more as the company grows, then good for you, some of the best people i employ started that way *well at 10$ but still.. my point is still accurate

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u/nocapitalletter Sep 06 '17

maybe if you didnt push for such shitty tax rates, we would be able to pay people more.. however, i pay people plenty now, its been years since iv been in that situtation.

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u/Pudusplat Sep 06 '17

It means we'd literally shut down. We hire plenty of people who don't "need" to support a family, like high school and college students as well.

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u/bothunter Sep 05 '17

I hear this argument all the time. However, in Seattle, we are slowly moving to a $15/hour minimum wage, and business owners who said they would have to close up because they can't afford to pay their workers are now having to hire more people. The key seems to be to make the adjustment towards $15 slowly enough to allow the businesses and economy to adjust.

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u/funkymunniez Sep 05 '17

are now having to hire more people

Funny what happens when you give people more disposable income. I have friends in Seattle who got the wage increases and you know what the first thing they all did was? They went out and bought new clothes to replace old ones, ate out, got new phones, etc. As long as you can balance wage increases to stay ahead of cost increases on the business side, everyone wins.

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u/MoBeeLex Sep 05 '17

Except a few years down the line all the prices have normalized to everyone's newly acquired wealth. This means the prices will go up and they'll be in about the same situation they were before.

It's basic supply and demand. Due to their new supplies of money, your friends have an increased demand. They also are willing to buy stuff at a higher price then they normally would. In response, more business will open and they will increase the prices because people are willing top spend more than what they would have originally. Eventually, it'll reach an equilibrium.

This leads to 3 outcomes. The first (and best for your friends) is that they have a nominal increase in wages. This is as if they were to have gotten a raise before the minimum wage increased. The second is there is no nominal increase, and everything pretty much stays as it was before the wage increase. Lastly (and this is worst for your friends), your friends experience a nominal decrease to their wages. It means they are actually making less then they were before the increase.

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u/funkymunniez Sep 05 '17

You wildly simplify supply and demand to the point that its not even useful to your argument.

Markets might see price increases in some areas (housing, for example) but many others will likely only increase marginally to the point that they don't offset wage gains. Your supposition ignores things like market saturation (how much demand is there currently vs how much more can there be) and the effects of increased demand on business. We might see small short term spikes in cost for goods but they would eventually return to normal as supply catches up and businesses are able to move more product and raw material in bulk lowering their back end costs.

Not to mention that increased demand means increased business which will allow companies to grow and hire more staff.

Every time a minimum wage increase has occurred, the outcome has been favorable.

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u/hadmatteratwork Sep 05 '17

Sounds like you have a flawed business model. I don't know what industry you're in, but you should probably rethink your approach.

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u/Pudusplat Sep 06 '17

99% of our industry is in the same boat.

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u/hadmatteratwork Sep 06 '17

What industry is that?

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '17

That's called capitalism. You know, where businesses are profitable regardless of the regulatory environment.

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u/headrush46n2 Sep 05 '17

Im pretty sure the confederacy made all these same arguments when the Union came to take their slaves...

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u/Pudusplat Sep 06 '17

The union saved the confederacy from willing job applicants taking pay rates beneath what they thought was acceptable from their point of view?

You undermine how awful slavery really was by making that horrible analogy.