This is so spot on! The argument shouldn't be that others don't deserve a living wage; it should be that you deserve one too.

Saying "everyone deserves a living wage" is not an argument. It's an assertion. The question remains: Why would everyone deserve a living wage?

There are other questions that would need to be answered too, such as: "What's a living wage anyway?", "What about the financial viability of paying everything twice the current minimum wage?" or "What about all the jobs that don't get created because some people are just not worth $15/h?"

The business owners act according to their incentives too: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/06/mcdon...ounces-its-answer-to-15-an-hour-minimum-wage/

The idea that we all "deserve" a "living wage" is comforting to people who are insecure about their ability to provide for themselves.

But what does it mean to deserve a certain salary and how can you determine how much it should be?

For example, how much did Steve Jobs deserve to be paid, for creating countless jobs all over the world and enabling countless business enterprises based on Apple's ecosystem of products and software? Did he get what he deserved? Who's to say?

And to support your argument you link to a propaganda site. Thank you for your contribution, but I have no interest in arguing your religious beliefs.

Another load of bullshit. It's not a propaganda site just because you declare it one. Surely you must understand that much, at least?

Look, you can actually check if the US has super high corporate taxes or not. I haven't checked, but I'm willing to take the article's word for it. I have read that they actually do tax worldwide profits too, which is just fucking insane, and onerous. The US has shitloads of regulations too.

Considering that kind of stuff was what the article brought up as the reasons for why companies are leaving the US, it's obvious that it's not a propaganda article, but one that describes reality instead. In other words, you, Sir, are either full of shit or a complete idiot.

I'm actually not ignoring anything. You might be ignoring that if customers aren't willing to pay higher prices, then businesses can't just double the lowest-paid employees salaries either. It's not that complicated.

You might want to argue that the execs or owners should just take lower salaries to compensate for the higher costs of paying higher low level salaries, but that's not your decision. Here in the real world, they will just do whatever they see fit. If the business owner wants to take out as much money as he possibly can, it's his prerogative, because he actually owns the company. He started it and worked really fucking hard to make it successful.. and so on.

Note that even a filthy rich company owner is actually giving people jobs and livelihoods with them. How many people have you employed lately?

Companies would flee our shores? These are the sort of myths that continue to block progress.

Myths? What a load of bullshit.

http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/10/seeking-lower-taxes-companies-flee-the-u-s/

The corporate tax raises $250 billion per year, or 1.5% of GDP, which is one of the lowest tax revenues in the world. And, the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. If that’s not enough, compliance costs are huge and the corporate tax is a job killer.

U.S. corporate taxes also apply to world profits, not just profits earned in the U.S., which makes an inversion cost-effective for an American company operating abroad. Anyone who is watching these inversions happen and still believes that tax rates don’t matter is living in a parallel universe.

Tell me, who wants to work when 100% of his income is taken away and he's an outright slave? That's right, no one. Now tell me, who wants to have 50% of his income taken away? That's right. NO ONE. We pay taxes because otherwise we go to jail. (Want to help The Poor®? -You could do that voluntarily too!)

Now if you can choose between having ~40% of your profits taken away, and wasting lots of money on "compliance" and having say, ~15% of your profits taken away and not having to deal with bullshit regulations.. which option would any sane person choose?