I'm sure my employer will be willing to outsource yet more jobs to India, where this order does not apply.

The sad thing is, there's huge swaths of America today that do in fact believe in the free lunch. And when it fails to arrive, as we've had demonstrated by Obamacare recently, they either say it's because the government "didn't do it right", or they blame shadowy conspiracies. The almighty belief in the Scrooge McDuck Money Bin persists no matter what the evidence.

Well I can see a lot of the restaurants coming up with non-management positions that have the responsibility but not the pay, such as "Senior Cashier" or "Quality Assurance for food".

The idea being that they need to be there to open, but they aren't the next "grade" to get that exemption broken.

Why should low wage workers get all of the benefit from minimum wage and overtime laws? The middle class should get a break, and everyone.

I propose the Fair Raise Act of 2014. Whatever your salary was on 12/31/13, you must be paid 20% more starting November 30, 2014. Your current employer can fire you, but it or any other employer must pay you the higher wage (or compensation, as determined by 600 pages of accomodating rules) or face heavy fines. The only exception is when you work in an entirely different industry, following your supressed dreams.

You have worked all your life for stingy employers who have always underpaid you. You are clearly worth more, but employers have implicitly colluded to keep your wage down. That is why they always ask about what you were paid in your last job.

You can't effectively bargain on your own because you have no unity with your fellow workers. Throw away your fears and embrace the power of unity. Workers of the world unite. Employers will have no choice but to pay you what you are worth, because other scab workers won't be able to underbid your new, fairer wage provided under this act.

Your new wage is indexed to inflation of course, so that increases in the money supply will not eat away at your newly granted bargaining power.

In a few years, when things settle down, we'll do 'er again.

EasyOpinions.blogspot.com

Any guesses on what that might be?

I'll hazard a guess: they'll let go some managers, and get by with fewer working more overtime. Or they'll higher lower paid personnel top pick up the slack and have the managers manage those people to get the manger's work finished.

That last one makes my head hurt. But they'll only get 29 hours/week...

Or perhaps they'll make changes in operating hours. Fewer hours, fewer shifts, fewer employees, fewer managers. Same effect.

Enjoy your funemployment!

Or they'll turn to automation. The Chili's restaurants in my area are experimenting with wireless service touchpads at the tables. You can order and pay your bill through them. They still have wait staff, but I'm guessing they're going to start cutting that once they see what the rate of customer acceptance of the touchpads is.

Why do make it so difficult? Have the federal govt give everyone $1,000,000. It will stimulate the economy. Everyone could afford Obamacare. Do away with welfare. And best of all everyone will be rich so we can tax them.

To Bill O Rights,

I like your sarcasm, but it is hard to be sarcastic in our country. That is what Keynesians really believe, but they want to do it $1,000 at a time, and they hand out the money mostly to their supporters.

They say that if we build more passenger railroads, the ultimate technology of the 1900's, then we will all become rich. Today, infrastructure is everything because union supporters of the Dems would benefit from building it.

Peresonally, I can't eat infrastructure, and I don't take vacations to infrastructure.

"Peresonally, I can't eat infrastructure, and I don't take vacations to infrastructure."

You can damn sure be TRAPPED by infrastructure, or the lack of it. We have a huge transportation problem now because of the public perception that one must live and work at different places. That is true, of course, only for certain professions. I contend that the bulk of personal driving is unnecessary.

Rail is a fantastic way to move huge numbers of people from one place to another. It is not the fault of modern rail programs that all of these places people live are zealously guarded against the construction of rail in favor of highways. This will continue as long as an average American can buy gasoline.

During the twin hurricanes of 2005, Florida found itself completely out of gasoline in 12 hours. That actually did not have to happen, but the bulk of Americans have no idea what to do for any sort of natural disaster. And of course, they are not prepared.

"Infrastructure" is not something that you build and forget. It is something you have in place and use. You may not vacation to it, but you are part of it all the time.

"Rail is a fantastic way to move huge numbers of people from one place to another. It is not the fault of modern rail programs that all of these places people live are zealously guarded against the construction of rail in favor of highways. This will continue as long as an average American can buy gasoline."

Yes, rail is a great way to move large numbers of people from one particular point to one particular point, but it lacks flexibility. What happens when very few people want to go from from one point on the light rail to another point on the light rail? You think they will be happy to shell out a hundred bucks for a taxi from the light rail station both ways to get them to and from where they really want to go?

What happens when people or companies change their minds about where they want to be and where they want to go, because the state with the big expensive light rail is charging them huge taxes to pay for the rail project, that makes their business uncompetitive?

Highways and cars and trucks offer a flexibility that expensive light rail can never achieve. That is why they are not going away anytime soon.

There is a reason that Google has busses, and not their own light rail system.

Railroads don't even pay for themselves in Japan. A tiny country geographically which actively discourages driving,with poor road maintenance, and extremely low speed limits.

Punishing people, and companies for using the roads and the gasoline through the tax system just raises the prices for everyone.

Heck, even the subway system in Manhattan, the most population-concentrated place in the United States, doesn't pay for itself.