Jeff Bezo's Amazon shows the True nature of the Rich Liberal

[Jhhnn]

I am amazed you don't realize the irony when you use the term booming in purely capitalistic, extreme right wing sense!!! Booming for who? Those who are at the very top of Darwin's methodology - not the fit, but the very fittest. Isn't that supposed to be the very antithesis of progressivism?

Or maybe progressivism is the only real way to deal with it well. What's the alternative- vote GOP like the Rust Belt?

 

[Noah Abrams]

Or maybe progressivism is the only real way to deal with it well.

That is like saying call the arsonist to douse the fire

 

[MrSquished]

So is the movement about $15 min wage about equal opportunity, not equal property??? Do you guys even know what you are talking about?

Anyhow, the bottom line is that, as I've said before, if left to its own devices, the left will run this country into the ground - as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That is correct. You need a base income to even be able to obtain some sort of equal type of opportunity of life in this country. How is taht even close to equal property.

You delude yourself.

What, if any, types of rules or regulations should private enterprise be beholden to? Stick to major points such as wages, labor laws, safety and environmental regulations. Any of those if at all?

 

[Jhhnn]

That is like saying call the arsonist to douse the fire

So progressivism is responsible for the booming economy?

It's remarkable that when I questioned you directly that you clipped the quote so as to avoid the question.

 

[Paladin3]

Lazy Poors! They need 3 low wage jobs instead of 2, obviously.

Yup, that's exactly what I said. I should just send you my posts and let you condense them into something ugly for me before I post them.

Or you could pull your head out of your ass.

 

[Moonbeam]

So is the movement about $15 min wage about equal opportunity, not equal property??? Do you guys even know what you are talking about?

Anyhow, the bottom line is that, as I've said before, if left to its own devices, the left will run this country into the ground - as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I agree. A slave economy makes so much more sense. We can have just one guy running things with all the money in the world, and everybody else will be equal in every other way. You are big, I think, on freedom is slavery.

 

[Paladin3]

What other progressive experiments would you be against? Women's right to vote? Equal pay? Any minimum wage? Any child labor laws? Civil rights for blacks? Any work safety rules? Any environmental regulation?

What would make you happy. A Somalia like libertarian existence, tinged with some American right-wing religious views forced on the population?

Probably.

Man, when you make ridiculous arguments like this it really, really undercuts your credibility. Sometimes I enjoy your perspective, but when you let your hate take over it makes you look like a fool that I don't believe you are.

Same goes for a lot of other posters.

 

[Noah Abrams]

care than to find someone to whom he can hand over as quickly as possible that gift of freedom inherent to his being and no greater joy if he manages to retain it. To be or not to be, that is the question..

I asked this question in another thread too. Are you well versed in Buddhism? I want to learn but perhaps it can be experienced mainly?

 

[Paladin3]

I agree. A slave economy makes so much more sense. We can have just one guy running things with all the money in the world, and everybody else will be equal in every other way. You are big, I think, on freedom is slavery.

Slavery? Waa??

Not all jobs are worth the same pay. Why should someone be able to work a frontline McDonald's job and support a family and buy/rent a nice home? That's not a job folks should aspire to, unless all you are capable of is working the fryer. It's an entry level job for students and those on their way to something better, unless you get promoted into management and make it a career.

I'd rather we concentrated on funding and encouraging college and trade educations for folks so they didn't get stuck in McJobs. It's better than forcing employers to pay more than some labor is worth.

 

[ivwshane]

So is the movement about $15 min wage about equal opportunity, not equal property??? Do you guys even know what you are talking about?

Anyhow, the bottom line is that, as I've said before, if left to its own devices, the left will run this country into the ground - as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

You say this without a hint of irony. Did they teach you history at home school?

 

[ivwshane]

Slavery? Waa??

Not all jobs are worth the same pay. Why should someone be able to work a frontline McDonald's job and support a family and buy/rent a nice home? That's not a job folks should aspire to, unless all you are capable of is working the fryer. It's an entry level job for students and those on their way to something better, unless you get promoted into management and make it a career.

I'd rather we concentrated on funding college and trade educations for folks so they didn't get stuck in McJobs.

Its funny because you quoted him and yet you argued against a claim he didn't make.

 

[Noah Abrams]

I agree. A slave economy makes so much more sense. We can have just one guy running things with all the money in the world, and everybody else will be equal in every other way. You are big, I think, on freedom is slavery.

You are better than being condescending, I think. You are more intelligent than that. I am not a capitalist, I own no business, not rich, not even close to that.

 

[Jhhnn]

Yup, that's exactly what I said. I should just send you my posts and let you condense them into something ugly for me before I post them.

Or you could pull your head out of your ass.

You did cast aspersions on the motivation of poor people. I mean, you know, as if some people being poor isn't a basic feature of Capitalism but rather the fault of the individual.

 

[fskimospy]

Regulations, got it.

To be clear, regulations caused by local governmental control. Basically ‘small government’ screwing everyone over.

 

[nickqt]

Slavery? Waa??

Not all jobs are worth the same pay. Why should someone be able to work a frontline McDonald's job and support a family and buy/rent a nice home? That's not a job folks should aspire to, unless all you are capable of is working the fryer. It's an entry level job for students and those on their way to something better, unless you get promoted into management and make it a career.

I'd rather we concentrated on funding and encouraging college and trade educations for folks so they didn't get stuck in McJobs. It's better than forcing employers to pay more than some labor is worth.

$15 an hour is basic, ground-level, keep the god damn economy from collapsing pro-capitalist policy.

If someone can go work a fryer for $15 an hour, they aren't going to go out and educate themselves on student loan debt, and then cram themselves into an ambulance and save your life when your heart stops for $16 an hour. Which means that EMS companies are going to have to pay substantially more than $15 an hour if they want to continue functioning in this here economy. Same as almost every other job that is an absolutely necessity in a functioning, first-world economy.

$15 an hour drives up everyone else's wages. And as it's clearly fucking obvious now, JobCreators™ aren't going to go out and pay their workers living wages without being forced into it.

So, you can either play some goalpost-shifting abstract jerk-off game in which we talk ham-handedly about how we're going to "encourage people to not be fucking poors", or we can start paying people a wage so that even the god-forsaken poors are able to pay rent, purchase non-shit-tier "food", and give them healthacare. Like every other western, 1st world country on the planet besides the US.

I'm all for a $15 minimum wage, because it would, obviously, raise my per hour pay, as it would everyone who works on the books in this country.

In case you've missed it, workers received their highest pay and benefits way back in the mythical 50s. You know, when the highest tax bracket was right around 90%. Go figure.

US industry will either be forced to pay workers a fair wage, or they'll pay a clearly-unfair wage because, like, pull up your boostraps and stop being poor you gross poor!

There are dozens of 1st would countries with modern economies that show how this works. There are zero first world economies that use remotely similar US economic policy that function the way US conservatives have promised for 40+ years that the economy will function, if we just give rich people all of the money first.

Go figure.

 

[Moonbeam]

I asked this question in another thread too. Are you well versed in Buddhism? I want to learn but perhaps it can be experienced mainly?

May I ask for clarification so I am more certain of what you are saying here. What is the question you asked in another thread also? I don't exactly know exactly what question you mean. I may know something about Buddhism without knowing I do. I know it is a religion I don't know much about and have never practiced. I do however believe there is one truth and it covers us all, a truth that I find at the heart of most religions I know anything about. I know that in my own struggle to find meaning in life, including the deep feeling Dostoevsky provoked in me reading his works in High School, that I had a lot of help when I discovered and read about Zen. I believe I had a transformation experience as a result of the ideas it exposed me to, that put an end to my own existential suffering. As far as experience goes, I can't see any other way than to say that one must taste to know, because for me truth isn't words or ideas but the awakening of a self we have carefully hidden, a self that knows only love. I have the same emotional stresses and strains as anybody else, rooted in experiences I do not remember, but I don't now identify or attach reality to them. I have heard that for some Zen is every minute real. I got a taste, however, I think. Even that small taste turned night into day as I experience things.

 

[Moonbeam]

You are better than being condescending, I think. You are more intelligent than that. I am not a capitalist, I own no business, not rich, not even close to that.

Heavens, I wasn't referring to you, but to somebody of great capacity, say Donald Trump who would naturally assume he was fit to run the world. We don't need capitalism or business men or wealth for that matter. In a world of slaves everybody will be equally happy, equally well paid, equal in every way in surrender to slavery. We could just have one odd ball even one that is imaginary, so long as we get our marching orders from somewhere. We can call him the Grand Inquisitor.

My point really was that a 15 dollar an hour minimum wage isn't about equal property, it's about outlawing slavery.

 

[Noah Abrams]

that I had a lot of help when I discovered and read about Zen. I believe I had a transformation experience as a result of the ideas it exposed me to, that put an end to my own existential suffering. As far as experience goes, I can't see any other way than to say that one must taste to know, because for me truth isn't words or ideas but the awakening of a self we have carefully hidden, a self that knows only love. I have the same emotional stresses and strains as anybody else, rooted in experiences I do not remember, but I don't now identify or attach reality to them. I have heard that for some Zen is every minute real. I got a taste, however, I think. Even that small taste turned night into day as I experience things.

Tell me more about your experience of Zen? How did you get into it? What did you first read? The carefully hidden true self, and our mind, that these two are two different things, I am intellectually aware of this, but want to know more about it. The taste of Zen that you speak of, tell me more? Especially on how you went about it in the beginning. Thanks

 

[Noah Abrams]

To be clear, regulations caused by local governmental control. Basically ‘small government’ screwing everyone over.

Please, local does NOT mean small. You are changing the very definition of small govt. Are you paid for this? I see that in many of the subtle words you use

 

[sandorski]

So is the movement about $15 min wage about equal opportunity, not equal property??? Do you guys even know what you are talking about?

Anyhow, the bottom line is that, as I've said before, if left to its own devices, the left will run this country into the ground - as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

$15/hour doesn't get anywhere close to Equal Outcome.

 

[Noah Abrams]

I am ambivalent about the 15 dollar min wage purely on pragmatic, basic economic theory grounds. I know the current min wage is a joke. But govt stepping in and artificially raising the wage would most likely result in hardships for everyone. It is a detailed topic perhaps for another time

 

[MrSquished]

Slavery? Waa??

Not all jobs are worth the same pay. Why should someone be able to work a frontline McDonald's job and support a family and buy/rent a nice home? That's not a job folks should aspire to, unless all you are capable of is working the fryer. It's an entry level job for students and those on their way to something better, unless you get promoted into management and make it a career.

I'd rather we concentrated on funding and encouraging college and trade educations for folks so they didn't get stuck in McJobs. It's better than forcing employers to pay more than some labor is worth.

Over a few weeks when you go about your day, try to consider all the people you encounter doing so many different jobs that you will think of as menial probably, or simple, or easy - all on the same level as a fry cook or what not - even if they are mind-numbingly boring repetitive jobs. All will have something in common, they are honest work. Consider if you think they should be able to afford some sort of clean respectable housing, transportation, decent food and to have some sort of life, as well as healthcare.

I did that and it was quite interesting. I forget many of the jobs now but I should make a list next time and post it. I did it for a week.

Your dream that the millions of jobs out there that you consider menial will only be fulfilled by students on the way to something better is like some sort of labor pyramid scheme. It's a nice dream but quite naive.

 

[Noah Abrams]

The business owner, the capitalist, one or more persons, or entity, their entire motive is profit. They could care less about how fucked the people are. That is just about the essence of capitalism, which probably has seeds of its own destruction within it. And yet the alternatives, which have been tried, have been equally disastrous, probably worse...

So who created this world and why....

 

[ivwshane]

I am ambivalent about the 15 dollar min wage purely on pragmatic, basic economic theory grounds. I know the current min wage is a joke. But govt stepping in and artificially raising the wage would most likely result in hardships for everyone. It is a detailed topic perhaps for another time

Its a topic that's been discussed here many times and no, it does not result in hardships for everyone.

 

[ivwshane]

The business owner, the capitalist, one or more persons, or entity, their entire motive is profit. They could care less about how fucked the people are. That is just about the essence of capitalism, which probably has seeds of its own destruction within it. And yet the alternatives, which have been tried, have been equally disastrous, probably worse...

So who created this world and why....

There is nothing wrong with having profit as a motive for running a business. Where the issue arrive is when the desire for profit overrides basic human decency. In order for capitalism to work you have to have government to check it. People mistakenly believe the consumer is that check, they are not. The consumer dictates demand for a good or service, they rarely dictate human decency.