Raise minimum wage?

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nick1985

Lifer
Dec 29, 2002
27,153
6
81
You conservatives live in a fantasy world, where you think America can be a decent place to live even when half the population is below the poverty line, every single job is in China, and nobody is able to own any property.

How can you be so proud of yourselves for killing the American dream within the span of two generations?

..wait, you really think a $20/hr minimum wage would work?

LOL
 

JimW1949

Senior member
Mar 22, 2011
244
0
0
So we should raise minimum wage to what? $20/hr? It's simple math. Raise wages, companies will raise prices. Companies don't exist to employ people, the employ people to exist, and make as much profit as they can for the investors that funded the company.

Don't like it, move to a communist nation.

If you have no skills and can only do the most basic of jobs, you need to make as little as possible. That's the motivation for getting off your ass and increasing your ability and know how so you can do better in life.


It's twits like you that want to drag everyone down to the lowest level. You don't understand how things like motivating an individual to do better is the correct way. Not reward them for being incompitent and force everyone else to pay for the incompitence.
Consider the above text designated in red.

Now think about that a moment. "If you have no skills and can only do the most basic of jobs, you need to make as little as possible". What does that mean exactly? Does it mean that a person mopping floors and taking out the trash needs to be underpaid? Why does someone need to be underpaid? Is it because that way someone else can be overpaid? Does it mean anyone doing unskilled labor is a low life scumbag and does not deserve to make a living?

Regardless of anything else, floors need to be mopped and the trash needs to be taken out. Every job is important, although perhaps not to the same degree that other jobs are important. Nevertheless, there are many jobs considered to be "non-skilled" jobs that need to be done. If mopping floors and taking out the trash were not important, then why did management hire someone to do that job in the first place? Since management hired someone to do the job, they must have figured it was a job that needed to be done. So if it is a job that needs to be done, then why not pay the person doing that job enough money so that he/she is able to survive? Furthermore, even if everyone in the United States were to get a college degree, all that would mean is we would have people with a college degree mopping floors and taking out the trash.

On a final note, speaking about motivating people to do better, perhaps you should be motivated to go back to school and learn how to spell incompetent and incompetence.
 

Nebor

Lifer
Jun 24, 2003
29,582
12
76
Consider the above text designated in red.

Now think about that a moment. "If you have no skills and can only do the most basic of jobs, you need to make as little as possible". What does that mean exactly? Does it mean that a person mopping floors and taking out the trash needs to be underpaid? Why does someone need to be underpaid? Is it because that way someone else can be overpaid? Does it mean anyone doing unskilled labor is a low life scumbag and does not deserve to make a living?

Regardless of anything else, floors need to be mopped and the trash needs to be taken out. Every job is important, although perhaps not to the same degree that other jobs are important. Nevertheless, there are many jobs considered to be "non-skilled" jobs that need to be done. If mopping floors and taking out the trash were not important, then why did management hire someone to do that job in the first place? Since management hired someone to do the job, they must have figured it was a job that needed to be done. So if it is a job that needs to be done, then why not pay the person doing that job enough money so that he/she is able to survive? Furthermore, even if everyone in the United States were to get a college degree, all that would mean is we would have people with a college degree mopping floors and taking out the trash.

On a final note, speaking about motivating people to do better, perhaps you should be motivated to go back to school and learn how to spell incompetent and incompetence.

They don't need to be paid as little as possible, or "underpaid" or paid a "living wage." They need to be paid what the free labor market dictates. Free of collusion on either the employer or labor side, and minimum wages.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
1,013
126
Consider the above text designated in red.

Now think about that a moment. "If you have no skills and can only do the most basic of jobs, you need to make as little as possible". What does that mean exactly? Does it mean that a person mopping floors and taking out the trash needs to be underpaid? Why does someone need to be underpaid? Is it because that way someone else can be overpaid? Does it mean anyone doing unskilled labor is a low life scumbag and does not deserve to make a living?

Regardless of anything else, floors need to be mopped and the trash needs to be taken out. Every job is important, although perhaps not to the same degree that other jobs are important. Nevertheless, there are many jobs considered to be "non-skilled" jobs that need to be done. If mopping floors and taking out the trash were not important, then why did management hire someone to do that job in the first place? Since management hired someone to do the job, they must have figured it was a job that needed to be done. So if it is a job that needs to be done, then why not pay the person doing that job enough money so that he/she is able to survive? Furthermore, even if everyone in the United States were to get a college degree, all that would mean is we would have people with a college degree mopping floors and taking out the trash.

On a final note, speaking about motivating people to do better, perhaps you should be motivated to go back to school and learn how to spell incompetent and incompetence.

No, it means that for someone to hire you, the value proposition of your labor to them has to exceed the costs in employing you, there's no such thing as an indispensable employee. Employers have several options other than hiring a new person: do the work themselves, have current employees assume these duties as well rather than hiring a separate person (the assistant manager will have to mop the floors now), opt for an automated solution if one exists, or leave the work undone.

Let's use a simple example for illustration; the numbers will be arbitrary but will convey the point. You (the potential employer) would love to have someone watch your kids so you can have a "date night" with your wife. Obviously you'd like to spend no more than you have to for a babysitter so you have more money to spend on your date, and they would like to be paid as much as possible in turn. In a proposed "minimum living wage" law you might have to pay the babysitter $25/hour, which probably means you wouldn't find the cost worth it and would just stay home - no one gets paid, no date night, and you're stuck with your children for the night.

Let's consider the opposite extreme which is the one liberals imagine - a world with no minimum wage laws would be one where everyone would be wage slaves to wealthy capitalists, but sticking with the babysitting example you'd see this doesn't happen. If you offered the local teenager girls a penny to watch the kids all night, none would take you up on the offer - no one gets paid, no date night, you're stuck with your children for the night.

In the realistic world, total utility is maximized with no minimum wage laws and the economy is allowed to find a proper wage equilibrium between employers and workers. In our example, at a mutually acceptable wage between a penny and $25/hour (say $5 or $10/hour) you might not only find someone willing to babysit for you, but consider the price fair enough to hire the babysitter later in the week as well and everyone is happy - the babysitter who is hired, you as the employer, and the economy as a whole.
 
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Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
350
126
No, it means that for someone to hire you, the value proposition of your labor to them has to exceed the costs in employing you, there's no such thing as an indispensable employee. Employers have several options other than hiring a new person: do the work themselves, have current employees assume these duties as well rather than hiring a separate person (the assistant manager will have to mop the floors now), opt for an automated solution if one exists, or leave the work undone.

Let's use a simple example for illustration; the numbers will be arbitrary but will convey the point. You (the potential employer) would love to have someone watch your kids so you can have a "date night" with your wife. Obviously you'd like to spend no more than you have to for a babysitter so you have more money to spend on your date, and they would like to be paid as much as possible in turn. In a proposed "minimum living wage" law you might have to pay the babysitter $25/hour, which probably means you wouldn't find the cost worth it and would just stay home - no one gets paid, no date night, and you're stuck with your children for the night.

Let's consider the opposite extreme which is the one liberals imagine - a world with no minimum wage laws would be one where everyone would be wage slaves to wealthy capitalists, but sticking with the babysitting example you'd see this doesn't happen. If you offered the local teenager girls a penny to watch the kids all night, none would take you up on the offer - no one gets paid, no date night, you're stuck with your children for the night.

In the realistic world, total utility is maximized with no minimum wage laws and the economy is allowed to find a proper wage equilibrium between employers and workers. In our example, at a mutually acceptable wage between a penny and $25/hour (say $5 or $10/hour) you might not only find someone willing to babysit for you, but consider the price fair enough to hire the babysitter later in the week as well and everyone is happy - the babysitter who is hired, you as the employer, and the economy as a whole.

Your examples are right-wing ideology, and flawed.

To give you a simple but informative response, before 'artificial government-passed rights for protecting workers' interests' increasing wages, in the period you call for, back in 1900, where the 'free market' worked exactly as you describe, the 'natural equilibrium' reached is that people have to eat, and workers are indeed replaceable, and so workers tended to make just enough to eat.

The fact is, the average income in the US, *adjusted for inflation*, in 1900 was $10,000.

That's the result of the ideology you promote.

A society with a lot of people working for just enough to eat. There will be some who make more; the economic pressures where scarce skills get more pay still apply.

But even those are drug down by the low wages of others.

These very low wages shrink the size of the pie, concentrating wealth which gets used less productively, denying opportunity to most.

You posted ideology. You should try doing some reading, get a little informed, find studies on the actual effects of these things and correct your errors.

The babysitter won't babysit for a penny an hour, but Americans did work for just enough to eat and sleep in a shanty with no healthcare, when that was the 'market'.

This is the basic notion Henry Ford seems to have hit on when he doubled workers' salaries, helping to drive wages up and increasing the spending for his goods.

Workers can be cut and cut and cut until they make enough to eat - which 'seems like a good idea at the time' to wage payers, but damages the economy, and the people.

There IS no 'natural free market equilibrium' that results in anything but this just enough to eat for many or most workers.

The 'natural' state is the concentration of wealth, and the concentration of power, whether it's King George III or robber barons or a dictator or other forms.

The US, with democracy and the ability for the people to have some power - finally exercised a little in the second half of our history - has created a historic 'middle class'.

That same middle class has hugely declined in wealth and power since Reagan, and is ever more in danger, under the same pressures as always, freshly empowered as the wealthy were unable to defeat the people politically for decades, but globalization has given them the leverage so that unions are a small fraction of what they were, and all the wealth the economy has grown for 30 years has gone to the very top, all to the top 20% but nearly all of it to the very top of that 20%.

You can have a democracy and a middle class, or a plutocracy, but the concentration of wealth is not compatible with democracy.

The power has shifted to the wealthy and the country is on the road to bad things. We need to rebalance things if we want a healthy middle class democratic society.

That means increasing taxes on the rich, among other things - the lower rates having done nothing but help skyrocket their share of wealth, not 'trickle down'.

The increased concentration of wealth isn't, as the simplistic right-wing ideology says, used much for 'creating jobs' and 'trickling down', it goes to harmful financial speculation and other such uses that not only do not contribute to society but harm society and deny opportunity as more and more work for less for the benefit of fewer owners.

Save234
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
350
126
Tell us when we get to this point.

No, when you are at that point you can do as much about it as a Soviet citizen could say 'whoah, this Stalin thing is a mistake'.

You're like an idiot who drives his car 120MPH hour and/or drunk and is told to stop or you'll kill yourself and others, and says 'tell you when that happens'.

The facts are already in, the middle class has lost much and is losing far more.
 

nick1985

Lifer
Dec 29, 2002
27,153
6
81
Your examples are right-wing ideology, and flawed.

To give you a simple but informative response, before 'artificial government-passed rights for protecting workers' interests' increasing wages, in the period you call for, back in 1900, where the 'free market' worked exactly as you describe, the 'natural equilibrium' reached is that people have to eat, and workers are indeed replaceable, and so workers tended to make just enough to eat.

The fact is, the average income in the US, *adjusted for inflation*, in 1900 was $10,000.

That's the result of the ideology you promote.

A society with a lot of people working for just enough to eat. There will be some who make more; the economic pressures where scarce skills get more pay still apply.

But even those are drug down by the low wages of others.

These very low wages shrink the size of the pie, concentrating wealth which gets used less productively, denying opportunity to most.

You posted ideology. You should try doing some reading, get a little informed, find studies on the actual effects of these things and correct your errors.

The babysitter won't babysit for a penny an hour, but Americans did work for just enough to eat and sleep in a shanty with no healthcare, when that was the 'market'.

This is the basic notion Henry Ford seems to have hit on when he doubled workers' salaries, helping to drive wages up and increasing the spending for his goods.

Workers can be cut and cut and cut until they make enough to eat - which 'seems like a good idea at the time' to wage payers, but damages the economy, and the people.

There IS no 'natural free market equilibrium' that results in anything but this just enough to eat for many or most workers.

The 'natural' state is the concentration of wealth, and the concentration of power, whether it's King George III or robber barons or a dictator or other forms.

The US, with democracy and the ability for the people to have some power - finally exercised a little in the second half of our history - has created a historic 'middle class'.

That same middle class has hugely declined in wealth and power since Reagan, and is ever more in danger, under the same pressures as always, freshly empowered as the wealthy were unable to defeat the people politically for decades, but globalization has given them the leverage so that unions are a small fraction of what they were, and all the wealth the economy has grown for 30 years has gone to the very top, all to the top 20% but nearly all of it to the very top of that 20%.

You can have a democracy and a middle class, or a plutocracy, but the concentration of wealth is not compatible with democracy.

The power has shifted to the wealthy and the country is on the road to bad things. We need to rebalance things if we want a healthy middle class democratic society.

That means increasing taxes on the rich, among other things - the lower rates having done nothing but help skyrocket their share of wealth, not 'trickle down'.

The increased concentration of wealth isn't, as the simplistic right-wing ideology says, used much for 'creating jobs' and 'trickling down', it goes to harmful financial speculation and other such uses that not only do not contribute to society but harm society and deny opportunity as more and more work for less for the benefit of fewer owners.

Save234


You lie.

save234
 

matt0611

Golden Member
Oct 22, 2010
1,879
0
0
Your examples are right-wing ideology, and flawed.

To give you a simple but informative response, before 'artificial government-passed rights for protecting workers' interests' increasing wages, in the period you call for, back in 1900, where the 'free market' worked exactly as you describe, the 'natural equilibrium' reached is that people have to eat, and workers are indeed replaceable, and so workers tended to make just enough to eat.

The fact is, the average income in the US, *adjusted for inflation*, in 1900 was $10,000.

That's the result of the ideology you promote.

A society with a lot of people working for just enough to eat. There will be some who make more; the economic pressures where scarce skills get more pay still apply.

But even those are drug down by the low wages of others.

These very low wages shrink the size of the pie, concentrating wealth which gets used less productively, denying opportunity to most.

You posted ideology. You should try doing some reading, get a little informed, find studies on the actual effects of these things and correct your errors.

The babysitter won't babysit for a penny an hour, but Americans did work for just enough to eat and sleep in a shanty with no healthcare, when that was the 'market'.

This is the basic notion Henry Ford seems to have hit on when he doubled workers' salaries, helping to drive wages up and increasing the spending for his goods.

Workers can be cut and cut and cut until they make enough to eat - which 'seems like a good idea at the time' to wage payers, but damages the economy, and the people.

There IS no 'natural free market equilibrium' that results in anything but this just enough to eat for many or most workers.

The 'natural' state is the concentration of wealth, and the concentration of power, whether it's King George III or robber barons or a dictator or other forms.

The US, with democracy and the ability for the people to have some power - finally exercised a little in the second half of our history - has created a historic 'middle class'.

That same middle class has hugely declined in wealth and power since Reagan, and is ever more in danger, under the same pressures as always, freshly empowered as the wealthy were unable to defeat the people politically for decades, but globalization has given them the leverage so that unions are a small fraction of what they were, and all the wealth the economy has grown for 30 years has gone to the very top, all to the top 20% but nearly all of it to the very top of that 20%.

You can have a democracy and a middle class, or a plutocracy, but the concentration of wealth is not compatible with democracy.

The power has shifted to the wealthy and the country is on the road to bad things. We need to rebalance things if we want a healthy middle class democratic society.

That means increasing taxes on the rich, among other things - the lower rates having done nothing but help skyrocket their share of wealth, not 'trickle down'.

The increased concentration of wealth isn't, as the simplistic right-wing ideology says, used much for 'creating jobs' and 'trickling down', it goes to harmful financial speculation and other such uses that not only do not contribute to society but harm society and deny opportunity as more and more work for less for the benefit of fewer owners.

Craigfail234



People made less money then because they were so much less productive than today.

Your post is full of left-wing myths, fallacies, and bullshit.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
1,013
126
Your examples are right-wing ideology, and flawed.

To give you a simple but informative response, before 'artificial government-passed rights for protecting workers' interests' increasing wages, in the period you call for, back in 1900, where the 'free market' worked exactly as you describe, the 'natural equilibrium' reached is that people have to eat, and workers are indeed replaceable, and so workers tended to make just enough to eat.

The fact is, the average income in the US, *adjusted for inflation*, in 1900 was $10,000.

That's the result of the ideology you promote.

A society with a lot of people working for just enough to eat. There will be some who make more; the economic pressures where scarce skills get more pay still apply.

But even those are drug down by the low wages of others.

These very low wages shrink the size of the pie, concentrating wealth which gets used less productively, denying opportunity to most.

You posted ideology. You should try doing some reading, get a little informed, find studies on the actual effects of these things and correct your errors.

The babysitter won't babysit for a penny an hour, but Americans did work for just enough to eat and sleep in a shanty with no healthcare, when that was the 'market'.

This is the basic notion Henry Ford seems to have hit on when he doubled workers' salaries, helping to drive wages up and increasing the spending for his goods.

Workers can be cut and cut and cut until they make enough to eat - which 'seems like a good idea at the time' to wage payers, but damages the economy, and the people.

There IS no 'natural free market equilibrium' that results in anything but this just enough to eat for many or most workers.

The 'natural' state is the concentration of wealth, and the concentration of power, whether it's King George III or robber barons or a dictator or other forms.

The US, with democracy and the ability for the people to have some power - finally exercised a little in the second half of our history - has created a historic 'middle class'.

That same middle class has hugely declined in wealth and power since Reagan, and is ever more in danger, under the same pressures as always, freshly empowered as the wealthy were unable to defeat the people politically for decades, but globalization has given them the leverage so that unions are a small fraction of what they were, and all the wealth the economy has grown for 30 years has gone to the very top, all to the top 20% but nearly all of it to the very top of that 20%.

You can have a democracy and a middle class, or a plutocracy, but the concentration of wealth is not compatible with democracy.

The power has shifted to the wealthy and the country is on the road to bad things. We need to rebalance things if we want a healthy middle class democratic society.

That means increasing taxes on the rich, among other things - the lower rates having done nothing but help skyrocket their share of wealth, not 'trickle down'.

The increased concentration of wealth isn't, as the simplistic right-wing ideology says, used much for 'creating jobs' and 'trickling down', it goes to harmful financial speculation and other such uses that not only do not contribute to society but harm society and deny opportunity as more and more work for less for the benefit of fewer owners.

Save234

I call it supply and demand, you call it a "flawed right-wing ideology." You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe. Only problem is the side calling it ideology is not the ones who are doing the hiring.
 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
513
126
No, when you are at that point you can do as much about it as a Soviet citizen could say 'whoah, this Stalin thing is a mistake'.

You're like an idiot who drives his car 120MPH hour and/or drunk and is told to stop or you'll kill yourself and others, and says 'tell you when that happens'.

The facts are already in, the middle class has lost much and is losing far more.

I'd settle for approaching at this point you blabbing moron.
 

nobodyknows

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2008
5,474
0
0
They don't need to be paid as little as possible, or "underpaid" or paid a "living wage." They need to be paid what the free labor market dictates. Free of collusion on either the employer or labor side, and minimum wages.

LOL, what free market?
 

nobodyknows

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2008
5,474
0
0
I call it supply and demand, you call it a "flawed right-wing ideology." You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe. Only problem is the side calling it ideology is not the ones who are doing the hiring.

Vote Union!!
 

Nebor

Lifer
Jun 24, 2003
29,582
12
76
Your examples are right-wing ideology, and flawed.

To give you a simple but informative response, before 'artificial government-passed rights for protecting workers' interests' increasing wages, in the period you call for, back in 1900, where the 'free market' worked exactly as you describe, the 'natural equilibrium' reached is that people have to eat, and workers are indeed replaceable, and so workers tended to make just enough to eat.

The fact is, the average income in the US, *adjusted for inflation*, in 1900 was $10,000.

That's the result of the ideology you promote.

A society with a lot of people working for just enough to eat. There will be some who make more; the economic pressures where scarce skills get more pay still apply.

But even those are drug down by the low wages of others.

These very low wages shrink the size of the pie, concentrating wealth which gets used less productively, denying opportunity to most.

You posted ideology. You should try doing some reading, get a little informed, find studies on the actual effects of these things and correct your errors.

The babysitter won't babysit for a penny an hour, but Americans did work for just enough to eat and sleep in a shanty with no healthcare, when that was the 'market'.

This is the basic notion Henry Ford seems to have hit on when he doubled workers' salaries, helping to drive wages up and increasing the spending for his goods.

Workers can be cut and cut and cut until they make enough to eat - which 'seems like a good idea at the time' to wage payers, but damages the economy, and the people.

There IS no 'natural free market equilibrium' that results in anything but this just enough to eat for many or most workers.

The 'natural' state is the concentration of wealth, and the concentration of power, whether it's King George III or robber barons or a dictator or other forms.

The US, with democracy and the ability for the people to have some power - finally exercised a little in the second half of our history - has created a historic 'middle class'.

That same middle class has hugely declined in wealth and power since Reagan, and is ever more in danger, under the same pressures as always, freshly empowered as the wealthy were unable to defeat the people politically for decades, but globalization has given them the leverage so that unions are a small fraction of what they were, and all the wealth the economy has grown for 30 years has gone to the very top, all to the top 20% but nearly all of it to the very top of that 20%.

You can have a democracy and a middle class, or a plutocracy, but the concentration of wealth is not compatible with democracy.

The power has shifted to the wealthy and the country is on the road to bad things. We need to rebalance things if we want a healthy middle class democratic society.

That means increasing taxes on the rich, among other things - the lower rates having done nothing but help skyrocket their share of wealth, not 'trickle down'.

The increased concentration of wealth isn't, as the simplistic right-wing ideology says, used much for 'creating jobs' and 'trickling down', it goes to harmful financial speculation and other such uses that not only do not contribute to society but harm society and deny opportunity as more and more work for less for the benefit of fewer owners.

Save234

Well democracy has led us to this point, and America has essentially been the exception for the past 100 years. Wouldn't it be a return to normalcy for the middle class to decline and a plutocracy to assert it's power over the majority of assets once more? Maybe instead of wistfully looking back at the prosperity of the past, we should accept that the world changes, no one stays on top and we're on the way down.
 

Farang

Lifer
Jul 7, 2003
10,913
3
0
In the realistic world, total utility is maximized with no minimum wage laws and the economy is allowed to find a proper wage equilibrium between employers and workers. In our example, at a mutually acceptable wage between a penny and $25/hour (say $5 or $10/hour) you might not only find someone willing to babysit for you, but consider the price fair enough to hire the babysitter later in the week as well and everyone is happy - the babysitter who is hired, you as the employer, and the economy as a whole.

This is basic economic theory and I use this logic to oppose a high minimum wage. But I do not oppose a minimum wage in general.

Equilibrium in the labor market often leads to wages that are exploitative, especially in a poor economy where there are a lot of desperate people.

I think at a certain point it is immoral to employ someone at $4 per hour when $8 isn't going to make a huge difference to your bottom line. When dealing with these low of figures, I think the inefficiencies you cause are minimal and are a worthy trade-off to prevent what is essentially slave labor. McDonalds needs someone to flip the burgers, and they aren't going to shut the restaurant down over $4 per hour. Likewise for other jobs like this if you can't afford the $8 per hour, I really doubt the job was really necessary at all.

If you look at Washington state, we've had the highest minimum wage for years which does not seem to have affected our unemployment rate relative to the rest of the country.

But like I said earlier I do not think the minimum wage should be a "living wage." $7-$9 sounds about right.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
350
126
I call it supply and demand, you call it a "flawed right-wing ideology." You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe. Only problem is the side calling it ideology is not the ones who are doing the hiring.

You missed the point pretty much completely. "Supply and Demand" isn't an ideology itself, but the worship of it as a simple, attractive magical formula, where you praise it in denial when it will cause great harm, when you don't understand it's not in place where you think it is to benefit some interests, those things start to become dogma that leads you to false understanding and advocating great harm.

Your argument about the 'ones doing the hiring' is about as persuasive as saying 'the only Germans criticizing Hitler aren't doing the shooting'.

If we asked 'the ones doing the hiring' whether to cut their taxes in half, would they say no? Are they right on every economic issue for anyone but their own pocketbook?

Hint: your answer was wrong, they're not.

On the other side, if we asked seniors whether to increase SS payments 20%, would they say yes?

Something is not determined to be ideology by whether that group know it is.
 

Craig234

Lifer
May 1, 2006
38,548
350
126
Well democracy has led us to this point

No, there has been a mix, sometimes 'democracy' wins, and sometimes it loses to powerful interests. Not every policy has resulted from 'democracy'.

Wall Street paying for huge influence that undoes FDR regulations and allows it to harm the economy isn't "democracy", even though it takes place in one.

, and America has essentially been the exception for the past 100 years. Wouldn't it be a return to normalcy for the middle class to decline and a plutocracy to assert it's power over the majority of assets once more? Maybe instead of wistfully looking back at the prosperity of the past, we should accept that the world changes, no one stays on top and we're on the way down.

Actually, yes, you are right, the 'norm' is that the pressures from the concentrated powers have not gone away.

While they had a great setback from the first half of the 20th century, in particular FDR,
they have grown greatly in strength after Nixon.

They have right-wing 'think tank' propaganda companies, massive influence in the media (consolidation putting nearly all media under about 5 big corporations), they've gone from under a thousand lobbyists when Reagan took office to 36,000 and filled with former members and staff from Congress, gotten the Supreme Court to allow corporations to make unlimited donations in politics, had union membership a small fraction of what it was, greatly shifted public opinion to right-wing ideology, and more.

But none of that has to do with some tide-like 'flow', it's all about a battle between one side with all those forces trying to win public opinion and buy the government, and the public, who sometimes are more informed and organized than others. As the backlash in the great depression showed, the public, democracy, can make headway.

If not for 270 Florida voters (among other things) we'd have seen far better from the US since 2000.

Things do look bleak now - name any progressive who has any shot for the presidency - the wrong side is getting more and more wealth and power.

But don't mistakenly say it's from some 'tide' shifting. It's a war one side is fighting.
 

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,829
3
0
Consider the above text designated in red.

Now think about that a moment. "If you have no skills and can only do the most basic of jobs, you need to make as little as possible". What does that mean exactly? Does it mean that a person mopping floors and taking out the trash needs to be underpaid? Why does someone need to be underpaid? Is it because that way someone else can be overpaid? Does it mean anyone doing unskilled labor is a low life scumbag and does not deserve to make a living?

Regardless of anything else, floors need to be mopped and the trash needs to be taken out. Every job is important, although perhaps not to the same degree that other jobs are important. Nevertheless, there are many jobs considered to be "non-skilled" jobs that need to be done. If mopping floors and taking out the trash were not important, then why did management hire someone to do that job in the first place? Since management hired someone to do the job, they must have figured it was a job that needed to be done. So if it is a job that needs to be done, then why not pay the person doing that job enough money so that he/she is able to survive? Furthermore, even if everyone in the United States were to get a college degree, all that would mean is we would have people with a college degree mopping floors and taking out the trash.

On a final note, speaking about motivating people to do better, perhaps you should be motivated to go back to school and learn how to spell incompetent and incompetence.

Exactly. That's what I've been saying all these years. If a job is "created", it means the person is doing a task useful to someone else, so why shouldn't that person be making the minimum wage needed to live at a decent standard of living?

The idea of making a wage less than living wage is what is bizarre.
 

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,829
3
0
..wait, you really think a $20/hr minimum wage would work?

LOL

The current minimum wage isn't working is it? It's pretty obvious to me that if a person is working full time and not making enough to afford rent, transportation, food, and utilities, something is seriously wrong. How can you possibly justify that situation, which applies to millions of people in America?

Try questioning your ideology and honestly evaluating the economic conditions it has created. Suddenly a $20 minimum wage might make a hell of a lot of sense to you.
 

OutHouse

Lifer
Jun 5, 2000
36,410
616
126
The current minimum wage isn't working is it? It's pretty obvious to me that if a person is working full time and not making enough to afford rent, transportation, food, and utilities, something is seriously wrong. How can you possibly justify that situation, which applies to millions of people in America?

Try questioning your ideology and honestly evaluating the economic conditions it has created. Suddenly a $20 minimum wage might make a hell of a lot of sense to you.

20 buck min wage would = a $25 cheeseburger.


dont you understand that?
 

xj0hnx

Diamond Member
Dec 18, 2007
9,262
3
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my daughter is 17 and got her first job 5 months ago at Arbys. her starting pay is $9.25 per hour.

Most places don't even start at minimum wage except for the most lowly, and mundane of task that just need to be done.

The current minimum wage isn't working is it? It's pretty obvious to me that if a person is working full time and not making enough to afford rent, transportation, food, and utilities, something is seriously wrong. How can you possibly justify that situation, which applies to millions of people in America?

Try questioning your ideology and honestly evaluating the economic conditions it has created. Suddenly a $20 minimum wage might make a hell of a lot of sense to you.

No, it doesn't make any sense at all. It's just some arbitrary number thrown out there, might as well be $15, or $35. The fact is that if you force employers to pay employees more than prices are going to go up to reflect it. The very idea is ridiculous at it's core. With pricing out running wages for decades, how exactly is increasing wages going to help? Prices are just going to climb until it evens out again.