We hold these truths to be self evident.......

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

The only requirement I ask is that there's something that anybody can do and survive unless, of course they can do nothing at all, such as a loved one who has lapsed into a vegetative state, perhaps. Nobody has to do anything but then they have to figure out on their own how to survive. Jobs could be of any complexity or area of specialization. Sweep the streets, pick up trash, go through the garbage to recycle, but pay a living wage where one person can live by his own labor.

So maybe you can answer this...whats a living wage? In dollars, not some vague answer "enough to pay the bills and healthcare". Give us a dollar amount.

Based on a city? OK how about three examples for us. One each for expensive, middle of the road, and cheap.

Not sure I would want to go with dollars, but perhaps something like a social credit. Such credits would be good for government sponsored housing and that would be constructed by folk being paid the credits. You could own a place for a lifetime but your kids would have to get their own if they weren't a part of the normal outside economy. Similarly with food and clothing. Those working for social credit would create their own wealth and repay government loans that got stuff started. They could be paid in housing food and clothes sufficient for normal life and perhaps a 5 to 10 percent savings account in dollars. Food could be prepared at a community kitchen from locally grown sources. It shouldn't be hard figure out what it takes to live at a very basic level.

OK first the logical arguments...in your example, credits = dollars. Call it anything you want. Buy a house in credits, or in dollars, doesnt matter. What happens if someone working quits working? Do they keep what has been given them? What would motivate them to keep "earning credits"?

Second of all, youre out of your gourd lol It's like a bad sci-fi channel movie lol

Answer my question Moonie. Have a real discussion. Quit with your rhetoric, and lets use real life numbers. No more playtime with Moonie's world.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Nebor
It seems silly to provide just the means to an end. The government should provide happiness (ie: food, shelter, clothing, money) to all it's citizens. Then everyone could be happy, and those who wished to work would still be free to do so, while the rest of us just kicked back and enjoyed life.

You think this way because you don't study yourself. Note, please, that you only value what you pay for.

I never understand what you're saying. Sounds to me like you want every American to be a slave to a job.

It is very simple, really. I am saying that in the world we have created you need a job to get the material resources you need to live if you are not on government assistance or have independent wealth. You can no longer go off and settle your own piece of land. We are now locked into the world we create. The is no easy or obvious way to be self productive so we are essentially slaves to the system, a system that has jobs below a living wage. There are those who can't find jobs that can support them because they have no marketable skills. There is tremendous economic insecurity.

I am saying there should be jobs created by the government sufficient to employee people who have skills below those that can support them in the market place if the market value of their labor is below a living wage. It seems like a being duty to humanity that we do this because everybody should be able to live by his own labor whatever that labor might be.

You want to bypass that and give people money but in free money there is only contempt. You value only what you earn. Everybody ought to be worth a living wage just in principle so everybody should be entitled to that much dignity. I don't want people to be slaves to their jobs. I just don't want any jobs that make people slaves. There can be a million kinds of jobs and people can do what they like but there should be a floor below which we can't go, a job with a wage you can't live on.

Alright, so how about if the government just paid the difference to those working "undesirable" or "slave wage" jobs to bring their pay level up to the level of everyone else?

So you dont believe in compensation reletive to the position? Why is that? Why should someone with no college degree make as much as someone WITH a degree? Why should a high school dropout make the same as a graduate?

And BTW...when you say "up to the level of everyone else"...what exactly IS that?

Well naturally everyone would be equalized monetarily by the government. Unlike Moonbeam, I will speak in dollars. Everyone would make $30,000. That is a generous amount over the poverty line.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Nebor
Well naturally everyone would be equalized monetarily by the government. Unlike Moonbeam, I will speak in dollars. Everyone would make $30,000. That is a generous amount over the poverty line.

$30k? Oh no, I will keep my current job, ok, thanks.

 

[bamacre]

Moonbeam, under your system, we would be doomed to see a massive drop in quality of the products and services we consume.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Nebor
Well naturally everyone would be equalized monetarily by the government. Unlike Moonbeam, I will speak in dollars. Everyone would make $30,000. That is a generous amount over the poverty line.

$30k? Oh no, I will keep my current job, ok, thanks.

Earnings above $30,000 are taxed at 100%. How else could the government provide for the greater good?

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Nebor

Well naturally everyone would be equalized monetarily by the government. Unlike Moonbeam, I will speak in dollars. Everyone would make $30,000. That is a generous amount over the poverty line.

30k in ALOT of cities IS poverty.

 

[marincounty]

Years ago Ted Kennedy proposed eliminating welfare in exchange for a guaranteed job for all Americans. I thought it was a great idea, but the Republicans wouldn't go for it.
Why not at least get some labor out of the people you are giving money to? Plus it would boost the self-esteem of those who had to work at a job to get that money.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Well naturally everyone would be equalized monetarily by the government. Unlike Moonbeam, I will speak in dollars. Everyone would make $30,000. That is a generous amount over the poverty line.

30k in ALOT of cities IS poverty.

It won't be when everyone is paid the same.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Well naturally everyone would be equalized monetarily by the government. Unlike Moonbeam, I will speak in dollars. Everyone would make $30,000. That is a generous amount over the poverty line.

30k in ALOT of cities IS poverty.

It won't be when everyone is paid the same.

Im not sure who's plan is more loony...yours or Moonie's.

although the more you talk about your plan, the more my meter blips. Whether its my sarcasm meter or my holy-shit-a-real-life-communist meter has yet to be seen

Thanks for the input though. Why do you hate America?

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: bamacre
Moonbeam, under your system, we would be doomed to see a massive drop in quality of the products and services we consume.

That is because you have a poor, non Bill Gates attitude, of yourself and others. If you don't get a big reward you won't perform. I see a Microsoft in every soul. I see perfection as the aim of every heart. I was made in the image of God. You have no real faith. Even a survival wage can be incentivised for the weak of spirit.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Well naturally everyone would be equalized monetarily by the government. Unlike Moonbeam, I will speak in dollars. Everyone would make $30,000. That is a generous amount over the poverty line.

30k in ALOT of cities IS poverty.

It won't be when everyone is paid the same.

Im not sure who's plan is more loony...yours or Moonie's.

although the more you talk about your plan, the more my meter blips. Whether its my sarcasm meter or my holy-shit-a-real-life-communist meter has yet to be seen

Thanks for the input though. Why do you hate America?

Obviously his is loony and mine is not because I am not talking about everybody being paid the same. I am talking about anybody who will work being insured some job somewhere he can do and can get that pays at least a minimum living wage.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: bamacre
Moonbeam, under your system, we would be doomed to see a massive drop in quality of the products and services we consume.

That is because you have a poor, non Bill Gates attitude, of yourself and others. If you don't get a big reward you won't perform. I see a Microsoft in every soul. I see perfection as the aim of every heart. I was made in the image of God. You have no real faith. Even a survival wage can be incentivised for the weak of spirit.

I do not have a poor attitude of myself. Thanks though.

Maybe we see things a little differently because you live in San Fransisco and I live in Memphis. "It may not be so much a matter that I'm far out, but rather that you have never been anywhere" close to Memphis.

Edit:

No offense, Moonbeam, but your faith in government here is rather odd, and quite shocking.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Well naturally everyone would be equalized monetarily by the government. Unlike Moonbeam, I will speak in dollars. Everyone would make $30,000. That is a generous amount over the poverty line.

30k in ALOT of cities IS poverty.

It won't be when everyone is paid the same.

Im not sure who's plan is more loony...yours or Moonie's.

although the more you talk about your plan, the more my meter blips. Whether its my sarcasm meter or my holy-shit-a-real-life-communist meter has yet to be seen

Thanks for the input though. Why do you hate America?

I hate America for it's imperialist policies for the last 100 years,and it's deplorable treatment of the poor.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Well naturally everyone would be equalized monetarily by the government. Unlike Moonbeam, I will speak in dollars. Everyone would make $30,000. That is a generous amount over the poverty line.

30k in ALOT of cities IS poverty.

It won't be when everyone is paid the same.

Im not sure who's plan is more loony...yours or Moonie's.

although the more you talk about your plan, the more my meter blips. Whether its my sarcasm meter or my holy-shit-a-real-life-communist meter has yet to be seen

Thanks for the input though. Why do you hate America?

Obviously his is loony and mine is not because I am not talking about everybody being paid the same. I am talking about anybody who will work being insured some job somewhere he can do and can get that pays at least a minimum living wage.

And all I said was guarantee them a living wage by having the government pay the difference. You just have to decide how much you want the government to pay them.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Well naturally everyone would be equalized monetarily by the government. Unlike Moonbeam, I will speak in dollars. Everyone would make $30,000. That is a generous amount over the poverty line.

30k in ALOT of cities IS poverty.

It won't be when everyone is paid the same.

Im not sure who's plan is more loony...yours or Moonie's.

although the more you talk about your plan, the more my meter blips. Whether its my sarcasm meter or my holy-shit-a-real-life-communist meter has yet to be seen

Thanks for the input though. Why do you hate America?

I hate America for it's imperialist policies for the last 100 years,and it's deplorable treatment of the poor.

lol you need your passport stamped. Go travel a little. And I dont mean to tourist areas.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Well naturally everyone would be equalized monetarily by the government. Unlike Moonbeam, I will speak in dollars. Everyone would make $30,000. That is a generous amount over the poverty line.

30k in ALOT of cities IS poverty.

It won't be when everyone is paid the same.

Im not sure who's plan is more loony...yours or Moonie's.

although the more you talk about your plan, the more my meter blips. Whether its my sarcasm meter or my holy-shit-a-real-life-communist meter has yet to be seen

Thanks for the input though. Why do you hate America?

I hate America for it's imperialist policies for the last 100 years,and it's deplorable treatment of the poor.

lol you need your passport stamped. Go travel a little. And I dont mean to tourist areas.

Surely you're not saying that anyone else treats the poor as badly as America does?

 

[Capitalizt]

moonie, I hate to namecall but you are a true dumbass.

We live on planet earth...a place of FINITE resources. Everybody can't have everything. And labor is required to extract resources from planet earth to enable our survival.

Therefore in all societies and all systems of government, you have two options if you want to survive:

#1. Work and produce to survive.
#2. Steal (or have other steal for you) to survive.

You are supporting a system based on theft...on confiscating the property of those who work and produce, in order to sustain those who do not. This creates a completely wacked out incentive system, and will eventually lead to government bankruptcy and depression. You pin all your hopes on "government" doing things but you seem to forget that government produces nothing on it's own. Every penny it spends must first be confiscated from a person WORKING for profit in the private sector. Government is nothing more than a parasite on the back of true productive activity...and your utopian dreams would make the parasite bigger than the host!

How long do you think such a system would last?

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Nebor

Well naturally everyone would be equalized monetarily by the government. Unlike Moonbeam, I will speak in dollars. Everyone would make $30,000. That is a generous amount over the poverty line.

30k in ALOT of cities IS poverty.

It won't be when everyone is paid the same.

Im not sure who's plan is more loony...yours or Moonie's.

although the more you talk about your plan, the more my meter blips. Whether its my sarcasm meter or my holy-shit-a-real-life-communist meter has yet to be seen

Thanks for the input though. Why do you hate America?

I hate America for it's imperialist policies for the last 100 years,and it's deplorable treatment of the poor.

lol you need your passport stamped. Go travel a little. And I dont mean to tourist areas.

Surely you're not saying that anyone else treats the poor as badly as America does?

dude...seriously...travel some. Our poor have it NICE compared to other countries. I've said it before. I have 12 countries stamped in my passport and I can say without a shadow of a doubt our poor have it easy. Sure, some homeless may have to scrounge through Pizza Hut's dumpster to find food...at least they find food.

Seriously man. Travel.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: bamacre
Moonbeam, under your system, we would be doomed to see a massive drop in quality of the products and services we consume.

That is because you have a poor, non Bill Gates attitude, of yourself and others. If you don't get a big reward you won't perform. I see a Microsoft in every soul. I see perfection as the aim of every heart. I was made in the image of God. You have no real faith. Even a survival wage can be incentivised for the weak of spirit.

I do not have a poor attitude of myself. Thanks though.

Maybe we see things a little differently because you live in San Fransisco and I live in Memphis. "It may not be so much a matter that I'm far out, but rather that you have never been anywhere" close to Memphis.

Edit:

No offense, Moonbeam, but your faith in government here is rather odd, and quite shocking.

My faith isn't in government, it's in we the people, no?

 

[AAjax]

Originally posted by: Capitalizt
"The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself." ~Benjamin Franklin

Great quote

 

[Moonbeam]

Capitalizt: moonie, I hate to namecall but you are a true dumbass.

We live on planet earth...a place of FINITE resources.

M: You limit the scope you limit the findings as LunarRay pointed out some time back. There's always the moon and the asteroids and well you know, the universe.

C: Everybody can't have everything.

M: Of course they can. That's the whole point about being enlightened. When the self disappears all that's left is infinite being, oneness with everything.

C: And labor is required to extract resources from planet earth to enable our survival.

M: We lived here sustainable for millions of years and life for billions.

C: Therefore in all societies and all systems of government, you have two options if you want to survive:

M: Therefore? What is this 'Therefore'? Nothing you said leads to any conclusions. It's just mumbo jumbo.

C: #1. Work and produce to survive.
#2. Steal (or have other steal for you) to survive.

M: You never heard of adding value, of creative wealth creation like the idea of a transistor and the computer industry?

C: You are supporting a system based on theft...on confiscating the property of those who work and produce, in order to sustain those who do not.

M: You're just a trained parrot it would seem tilting at windmills of your own creation. I am talking about paying a living wage not to people who don't work but to people who do. Get your head on straight and get with the program. I don't want to have to name call, geez.

C: This creates a completely wacked out incentive system, and will eventually lead to government bankruptcy and depression.

M: Here we go again with the mumbo jumbo. What job does your incentive want, one you can earn a living doing or one that makes you a slave?

C: You pin all your hopes on "government" doing things but you seem to forget that government produces nothing on it's own.

M: Oh man, then you have nothing to worry about, right?

C: Every penny it spends must first be confiscated from a person WORKING for profit in the private sector. Government is nothing more than a parasite on the back of true productive activity...and your utopian dreams would make the parasite bigger than the host!

M: Rubbish. Labor creates wealth and labor is a natural resource.

C: How long do you think such a system would last?

M: Something similar has lasted millions of years.

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: bamacre
Moonbeam, under your system, we would be doomed to see a massive drop in quality of the products and services we consume.

That is because you have a poor, non Bill Gates attitude, of yourself and others. If you don't get a big reward you won't perform. I see a Microsoft in every soul. I see perfection as the aim of every heart. I was made in the image of God. You have no real faith. Even a survival wage can be incentivised for the weak of spirit.

I do not have a poor attitude of myself. Thanks though.

Maybe we see things a little differently because you live in San Fransisco and I live in Memphis. "It may not be so much a matter that I'm far out, but rather that you have never been anywhere" close to Memphis.

Edit:

No offense, Moonbeam, but your faith in government here is rather odd, and quite shocking.

My faith isn't in government, it's in we the people, no?

No, not really.

Sounds like you would prefer the government take power from the free market.

Government provides everyone with an education, and yet we still have a lot of uneducated, no?

Like I said earlier, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The free market provides plenty of water, and while some can't drink, others just plain choose not to.

There are jobs out there, Moonbeam, waiting to be filled. But they can't be filled with people not willing to drink from the water. They can't be filled by people who refused to take advantage of a free education, people who refuse to learn a trade or a skill, people who just plain refuse to work 40 hours a week.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

The only requirement I ask is that there's something that anybody can do and survive unless, of course they can do nothing at all, such as a loved one who has lapsed into a vegetative state, perhaps. Nobody has to do anything but then they have to figure out on their own how to survive. Jobs could be of any complexity or area of specialization. Sweep the streets, pick up trash, go through the garbage to recycle, but pay a living wage where one person can live by his own labor.

So maybe you can answer this...whats a living wage? In dollars, not some vague answer "enough to pay the bills and healthcare". Give us a dollar amount.

Based on a city? OK how about three examples for us. One each for expensive, middle of the road, and cheap.

Not sure I would want to go with dollars, but perhaps something like a social credit. Such credits would be good for government sponsored housing and that would be constructed by folk being paid the credits. You could own a place for a lifetime but your kids would have to get their own if they weren't a part of the normal outside economy. Similarly with food and clothing. Those working for social credit would create their own wealth and repay government loans that got stuff started. They could be paid in housing food and clothes sufficient for normal life and perhaps a 5 to 10 percent savings account in dollars. Food could be prepared at a community kitchen from locally grown sources. It shouldn't be hard figure out what it takes to live at a very basic level.

I think that every person - no matter how homely - should be entitled to a cute significant other. I mean, if a man is homely, why should be be stuck with a homely woman? It's not HIS fault he's homely.

I call this right to a cute mate the principle of the "living smooch". Anything less than a living smooch is just sexual slavery. I mean, have you ever tried to make love to a homely woman? That ain't living, and the government should do something about providing cute mates to everyone.

Naturally, all those cute mates that provide a living smooch to homely partners would need to be blinded or lobotomized or something like that. Details, details.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: bamacre
Moonbeam, under your system, we would be doomed to see a massive drop in quality of the products and services we consume.

That is because you have a poor, non Bill Gates attitude, of yourself and others. If you don't get a big reward you won't perform. I see a Microsoft in every soul. I see perfection as the aim of every heart. I was made in the image of God. You have no real faith. Even a survival wage can be incentivised for the weak of spirit.

I do not have a poor attitude of myself. Thanks though.

Maybe we see things a little differently because you live in San Fransisco and I live in Memphis. "It may not be so much a matter that I'm far out, but rather that you have never been anywhere" close to Memphis.

Edit:

No offense, Moonbeam, but your faith in government here is rather odd, and quite shocking.

My faith isn't in government, it's in we the people, no?

No, not really.

Sounds like you would prefer the government take power from the free market.

Government provides everyone with an education, and yet we still have a lot of uneducated, no?

Like I said earlier, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The free market provides plenty of water, and while some can't drink, others just plain choose not to.

There are jobs out there, Moonbeam, waiting to be filled. But they can't be filled with people not willing to drink from the water. They can't be filled by people who refused to take advantage of a free education, people who refuse to learn a trade or a skill, people who just plain refuse to work 40 hours a week.

Clearly such people wouldn't work for a living wage either so they aren't a part of the story.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

The only requirement I ask is that there's something that anybody can do and survive unless, of course they can do nothing at all, such as a loved one who has lapsed into a vegetative state, perhaps. Nobody has to do anything but then they have to figure out on their own how to survive. Jobs could be of any complexity or area of specialization. Sweep the streets, pick up trash, go through the garbage to recycle, but pay a living wage where one person can live by his own labor.

So maybe you can answer this...whats a living wage? In dollars, not some vague answer "enough to pay the bills and healthcare". Give us a dollar amount.

Based on a city? OK how about three examples for us. One each for expensive, middle of the road, and cheap.

Not sure I would want to go with dollars, but perhaps something like a social credit. Such credits would be good for government sponsored housing and that would be constructed by folk being paid the credits. You could own a place for a lifetime but your kids would have to get their own if they weren't a part of the normal outside economy. Similarly with food and clothing. Those working for social credit would create their own wealth and repay government loans that got stuff started. They could be paid in housing food and clothes sufficient for normal life and perhaps a 5 to 10 percent savings account in dollars. Food could be prepared at a community kitchen from locally grown sources. It shouldn't be hard figure out what it takes to live at a very basic level.

I think that every person - no matter how homely - should be entitled to a cute significant other. I mean, if a man is homely, why should be be stuck with a homely woman? It's not HIS fault he's homely.

I call this right to a cute mate the principle of the "living smooch". Anything less than a living smooch is just sexual slavery. I mean, have you ever tried to make love to a homely woman? That ain't living, and the government should do something about providing cute mates to everyone.

Naturally, all those cute mates that provide a living smooch to homely partners would need to be blinded or lobotomized or something like that. Details, details.

This will all be solved by androids of your own specification.