The government's concern is not "fairness" and "equality." Attempts by governments to enforce these things fail, not to mention that they are borderline constitutional at best. If the job doesn't pay well, the worker doesn't have to stay at it. It's that simple.

Let me reiterate: The freer the market, the freer the people.

true. have you ever worked a $6 an hour job?

Yes, as a matter of fact I have (not that I tried to feed myself, pay rent, and raise a family on it, but that's beside the point). And you know what I did? I quit and found a job that paid better.

yes. it's a wonderful plan, until you realize not everyone can get a better job. some people cant get better jobs...

(we call them... drop outs)

I'm currently working a $6 \hr job. It's easy work. If I needed to support a family or pay rent or something, I would change jobs. Forcing my employer to pay me more just to pump gas all day would be rediculous.

EDIT:
@alex: You want to mess up the current economic standards just to give dropouts a break? If they want a better job, they should have stayed in school.

Those people should rely on charity.

Meh, I think we should send them off to fight wars...

nonono, you misunderstood me. i'm saying some people cant get better jobs. it's people like that who mess up the system...

my current job, i get $6 an hour to screw off for 6 hours a day. yippee, whoohoo, i love myself... not really. i had a better paying job, but it didnt last. some people dont understnad the definition of "impossible"

we need a system that rewards the educated without involving luck...

Rewarding education itself isn't possible directly, but rewarding hard work is. Someone dedicated to finding a good job has to work for it. First they go to college, then go around and find a job. They can't just rely on the degree. They still have to put out effort to find the job. If they're too lazy to look, it's their own fault they're unemployed.

Well, that would violate the principle of no forcible coercion. (Assuming you're serious.)

My point is that the government should not force anybody to use their private property a certain way beyond what is absolutely necessary for government to perform its role of preventing coercion.

I personally feel that while minimum wage is a nice guideline, it's up to the employer to ethically determine how far above that level to set someone's wages based on their abilities, education, and behavior. On the one hand, an employee in a relatively unskilled job may be hurt by minimum wage levels, where they are given at or near to a minimum hourly wage. Were the minimum higher, they would necessarily make more money (unless their employer could no longer afford to hire them at the new rate). On the other hand, say you have an intelligent, college-educated individual. This employee will probably get substantially more than minimum wage, and although the baseline set by the minimum may slightly affect their wage, it will generally be at least 200% or more of the minimum, and raising or lowering the wage baseline will have a negligable effect on his or her salary. Now that I went through those two possibilities, it appears to me that it is important that the minimum wage will also be a "living wage" (as per the first example) but should also be a realistic figure for cash-strapped companies and business (also as per the first instance). The second hypothesis isn't greatly affected by a wage baseline, so it seems to me that the minimum wage should be governed carefully through a mathematical survey of a living wage and employer wealth, and should probably be customized for each region or area.

I think a living wage is too high for minimum. A low minimum wage would motivate more people to become more educated so they can get better paying jobs. Some people don't need a living wage. I am a fuel transfer engineer. I'm just doing simply, easy work in my spare time to save money for college. If my boss had to pay me a living wage, he would probably just remove the job and become self service. I then wouldn't be able to afford college and wouldn't ever be able to get a good job.

In principle, I'd agree that a free market is best, but you have to remember that the hand of greed does not solely influence the working class. I agree that if there wasn't a minimum wage workers would attempt to look for higher paying jobs if they couldn't survive off of what they would be getting. The problem is that competition between companies (or lack there of) wouldn't necessarily force salaries up. With no government intervention we would begin to see trusts and organizations of companies that will talk to one another and decide on salaries together. That way all those greedy bastards at the top of the economic ladder would be able to *lower* the average salary while maintaining a steady stream of workers because the workers would have nowhere else to turn as most companies do this. There would be a large threat to the middle class, and our ecomonic levels would become polarized once again. The rich would become richer, and the poor become poorer. I say again, because this has happened in our country's history before: Back in the days of Rockefeller and the railroad trusts, Morgan and the steel and bank pools, and Carnegie. And yes, I would put walmart on the same level as them.

Your ideas with the trusts looks great on paper, but there wouldn't be much enforcing it for it to actually work. Look at socialism. It's a government where everyone is equal. You'd think it would be perfect, but some things just don't work.

If you reread my post, you will clearly see that I am *not* advocating for trusts, but rather against them. I claim that they are the product of "pure" capitalism, and that they are bad. I don't believe in socialism either, as greed should be the power that motivates the economy. I belive in a near pure capitalist economy, where the government intereferes only when companies become too powerful or there is a need, much like what we currently have now.

That is true, but I have seen companies that gave CEOs and the top Executives multi-million dollar bonuses, increased stock dividened, and having record profits (profits, not income), and then when the contract for the general employee comes up, the company claims there is no money and wants everyone to take a pay cut and lose benifits. What is wrong with that also?

Could we split this? I am kindof interested in going back to the data center topic...

we could, but then people get confused by it.

You can just intersperse data center stuff if you want; merely make sure you quote something so people realize what you're referring to.

Back on the data subject then, you know how they have cameras inside and outside the stores "for your protection." If you remember back to the sniper shootings in the DC area a few years ago, a few of them took place in walmart parking lots. Security at walmart had no idea that the shootings had taken place because the cameras at walmart are not for security at all. They are to observe your shopping habits. You can bet that in their massive archive are these camera's footage so they can "better understand" their customers.