@A-Unique-Nickname
Countries are obviously free to set their own minimum wage but should there be an international minimum when workers are employed by companies based in other countries and especially when they're dealing with customers from those countries like the girl from the Philippines working for Virgin?
"Should" is a difficult concept. Welcome to capitalism. The idea is that "the unseen hand of the market" is making things okay for everyone.
This is however not true. It could be true if all the world was one homogenious market. As you found out, there are huge differences in the world.
Question what are you doing to help to equalize the state of living in the world?
I find this to be very difficult
I live in a wealthy country. Poor countries need rich countries to provide them with employment, otherwise there'd be starvation. We buy both goods and services from poorer countries, so as a society we're saving money on those things. However, we also import people from those countries to work here, and we pay them exactly the same as we pay the locals. There's a huge queue of people waiting to come here, collect those higher wages, support their families back home comfortably and save money to set themselves up financially when they eventually return. I don't think there's a lot of exploitation going on there. It's quite another matter when Apple pays $80 for an iPhone and retails it for $800. That's a clear case of exploitation of all the parties involved. Thr only winner is Apple who don't even bother to pay tax.
@Kewpie saidI read somewhere that it costs around $10 to make an iPhone, not sure if that's true but I'd imagine it's much less than $80. Considering there's perfectly good phones on the market for around $100-200 at retail price.
I live in a wealthy country. Poor countries need rich countries to provide them with employment, otherwise there'd be starvation. We buy both goods and services from poorer countries, so as a society we're saving money on those things. However, we also import people from those countries to work here, and we pay them exactly the same as we pay the locals. There's a huge que ...[text shortened]... xploitation of all the parties involved. Thr only winner is Apple who don't even bother to pay tax.
People coming from poorer countries to work and get better wages in other countries is important for all economies. The UK is finding out how how much it needed EU workers. Rich countries proving jobs in poorer countries I'm not so sure about, they move there to exploit cheap labor and cheap recourses, not to help the people in those countries. In fact they often do more damage than good.
-Removed-The obvious solution is a singular world wide economy. But that's for future generations.
A person must have a country of residence. I would therefore presume that the minimum wage would be connected to that.
However, say on a cruise ship, this would lead to large differences in the wages being given.
Another option would be using the flag the cruise ship is sailing under: that's the country the minimum wage is based on.
It would probably force companies to try to sail under the cheapest flag... but they do that quite often already.
@shavixmir saidI agree with you but people especially in different countries just do not want the same things. It would be nice if things were the same price everywhere but that is just not the way the world works.
Je ne sais pas.
I reckon the world will go the way of the universal basic income, and people will opt to work for various amounts of hours...
And if a can of coke is the same price everywhere, it just makes life so much easier.
Why all the hassle?
-VR
@Very-Rusty saidPeople in the same country don’t want the same things either.
I agree with you but people especially in different countries just do not want the same things. It would be nice if things were the same price everywhere but that is just not the way the world works.
-VR