Good points.

>I agree with just about everything you say and reference below (I would add that the I expect the result of this to be major civil unrest in cities within our lifetime, the likes of which has not been seen in about a century in the US. We've screwed up this country to no end, and it's going to come back to bite us. In a big way. But that's a different thread....)
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>But, let me explain I meant by "we as a country have agreed upon as 'The Line.'"
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>The part of the thread that I was involved with included a spirited debate about what, exactly, constitues "exploitation." This question, to me, has at least two sides to it: a personal/ethical side, and also a legal side.
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>In regards to the latter, there already are legal standards in place in this country -- whether you and I like 'em or not! My point was that offering $11 an hour does not violate that legal standard. (There are other legal factors, too, that were discussed -- that the party contracted should be adult, that there should be no oligarchy-driven price-fixing involved, etc.)
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>>SNIP
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>>>So, the only thing I would add to clarify my point is this: as much as I think that the minimum wage is too low, it is what we as a country have agreed upon as "The Line." As such, I think it's hard to argue, given that fact, that any offer over that line represents exploitation. Someone could argue back "but it's over the legal minimum wage!" and whether I like it or not, that's a good (legal but maybe not ethical) point.
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>>I disagree that we as a country have agreed that the current minimum wage is the 'The Line.' If you look at the minimum wage when it first started in our country in 1938 and compared its value against its value now, it has failed miserably.
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>>Excerpts From:
>>http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0829-08.htm
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>>The federal minimum wage, first enacted in 1938, was meant to put a firm floor under workers and their families, strengthen the depressed economy by increasing consumer purchasing power, create new jobs to meet rising demand and stop a "race to the bottom" of employers moving to cheaper labor states. President Bush's proposal to let states "opt out" of the federal minimum wage would destroy it, taking us back to the pre-New Deal era.
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>>In recent decades, the minimum wage floor has fallen, dragging down average real wages as well. The real value of the minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $7.92 per hour (in 2000 dollars). Since then, worker productivity went up, but wages went down. Productivity grew 74.2 percent between 1968 and 2000, but hourly wages for average workers fell 3 percent, adjusting for inflation. Real wages for minimum wage workers--two-thirds of whom are adults--fell 35 percent.
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>>If wages had kept pace with rising productivity since 1968, the average hourly wage would have been $24.56 in 2000, rather than $13.74. The minimum wage would be $13.80--not $5.15.
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>>Profits also went up, but wages went down. Domestic corporate profits rose 64 percent since 1968, adjusting for inflation. The retail trade industry employs more than half the nation's hourly employees paid at or below minimum wage. Retail profits jumped even higher than profits generally, skyrocketing 158 percent since 1968. The minimum wage would be $13.02 if had kept pace with domestic profits and $20.46 if it had risen with retail profits.
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>>CEO pay went up, but workers' wages went down. In 1980, the average CEO at a major corporation made as much as 97 minimum wage workers. In 2000, they made as much as 1,223 minimum wage workers.
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>>Excerpts From:
>>http://www.acorn.org/campaigns/pc.php?p=1550
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>>$ 5.15, is 35 percent less, as of 2000 and adjusted for inflation, than what the minimum wage was in 1968. During the same period in which the minimum wage lost 35 percent of its value, productivity increased 74.2 percent. We are often told that wages can't go up unless productivity does, but adjusting the minimum wage for increases in productivity between 1968 and 2000 would put it at nearly $ 14.
>>Something that has increased is CEO pay. In 1980, the average CEO made as much as 97 minimum wage workers. In 2000, the average CEO made as much as 1,223 minimum wage workers. And the same Congress members who have decreased the value of the minimum wage have done considerably better by themselves. In 1968, Congress members made 9 times the minimum wage. In 2000 they made 14 times.
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>>Excerpts From:
>>http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/wage.shtml
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>>Minimum-wage workers are still underpaid for the value of their work. In 1968, the value of the minimum wage was one-and-one-quarter times greater than it is now. Given that in the past 30 years productivity has increased 50 percent, minimum-wage workers are grossly underpaid compared to the value of their labor benchmarked by the 1968 minimum wage.
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>>Excerpts From:
>>http://www.chn.org/humanneeds/minimum_wage-2001-02-16.html
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>>Today the real value of the minimum wage is now $2.90 below what it was in 1968. To have the purchasing power it had in 1968, the minimum wage would have to be at least $8.05 an hour today, not $5.15. Since 1969, the ratio of the minimum wage to average hourly earnings dropped from 53% to 37%.
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