[julie.young_645]

This is simple economics…something socialists are incapable of understanding. If you force a business to pay out more in wages, it will be made up in other ways. 

[btomba_77]

Quote from DoctorDalai

This is simple economics…something socialists are incapable of understanding. If you force a business to pay out more in wages, it will be made up in other ways. 

Yes. It is being made up in other ways…. just not job losses.
 
It is made up through increase in prices and/or decrease in the profits of business. That is what I have claimed in my various comments on minimum wage and it is what is born out in this report.  That brings about a net societal and economic benefit as the lower income people spend more, driving greater economic activity as opposed to the owner/investor class who would save a disproportionate amount of the money. 

[julie.young_645]

So you approve of higher prices that make lower income people spend more, probably negating their “raise”? Really? 

[kaldridgewv2211]

So keep prices low and keep wages low forever.  That’s surely the recipe to help people get out of the poverty cycle.  

[kayla.meyer_144]

As opposed to sending jobs to lower wage countries & then have these now unemployed people buythe products they used to make more expensively then, “cheaper” now at WalMart, as did happen. Lucky them, they can buy the products more cheaply now. Of course, those who did re-employ often did so at lower wages than they once enjoyed so buying goods more cheaply was now a requirement.
 
The 1980’s and 1990’s were rampant with Wall Street Analysts and CEOs emphatically stating that the American worker’s wages were too high from labor bargaining and union contracts when compared to 3rd world countries’ worker wages and our wages had to be brought down to make us competitive with the 3rd world wages. These jobs were sent to China, etc & that is the reason for our present predicament of non-living wages that require being supplemented by government support. Even today recommendations from the Right are about more government subsidies (isn’t that funny?) instead of raising wages in the form of tax credits and outright payments from the government.
 
Rather odd that conservative solutions are more government direct subsidies to suppliment low paid workers’ wages.
 
[link=http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/opinion/a-better-way-to-raise-incomes.html]http://www.nytimes.com/20…-to-raise-incomes.html[/link]
 

What the advocates fail to acknowledge is that minimum-wage workers with families to support are already eligible to receive a financial boost under a national program called the earned-income tax credit. This program, instituted in 1975 and expanded since then, paid benefits to 27.5 million low-income workers in 2014. (That same year, only three million workers fell at or below the federal minimum wage, so the credit also helped millions of other low-wage workers.)
 
Another reform being suggested would distribute some or all of the income supplement in an eligible persons paycheck rather than as a lump sum at the end of the tax year. Joining in such initiatives to strengthen the program is by far the best way to help Americas low-wage workers.

 
So who benefits? Not low wage workers or Americans in general.
 
[link=http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/opinion/who-benefits-from-the-income-tax-credit.html]http://www.nytimes.com/20…income-tax-credit.html[/link]
 

Peter D. Salins doesnt mention crucial details showing that the earned-income tax credit is a complement to higher wages, not a substitute. Even in less expensive regions of the country, a single worker will soon need $15 an hour to cover the basics, and workers in costlier regions or with children will require even more.
 
Expanding the earned-income tax credit to deliver a comparable raise would cost taxpayers more than $15 billion in New York alone and many times that figure nationally.

Mr. Salins is silent about what taxes he would increase to finance such a program, or about why taxpayers should shoulder the burden of providing decent incomes for the countrys work force rather than asking multibillion-dollar companies like McDonalds and Walmart to do their part.

PAUL K. SONN

 

Peter D. Salins sees beauty in the earned-income tax credit, a subsidy paid to low-income workers when they file their yearly income tax returns, a program he would like to see expanded. This program is a safety net for people who work for poverty wages and an indirect government handout for employers who choose profit over paying a living wage.

Just goes to show that one mans beauty is anothers beast.

JOAN EVANGELISTI

 

Peter D. Salins neglects an important point. The effect of an across-the-board raising of the minimum wage would be a tremendous increase in consumer spending at the low end of the work force.

In the short term, as business adjusts, there might be some temporary job losses. But in the long run the stimulus effect of all that additional money being spent in low-end businesses would actually spur employment.

I have a friend, a single woman, 63, who works as a cashier in a grocery store for $8 an hour. I asked her what she would do with the extra money if her pay were raised to $15 an hour. She said, Spend it.

The way to stimulate business, and employment, is to get more money into the hands of people who will spend it. The earned-income tax credit is a pale shadow of the actual increase in consumer spending that would come from increased wages.

LEWIS ASHMAN

 
 

The argument over the minimum wage is really an argument over wage levels. In the past, strong unions moved wage levels up, while protecting jobs. Today, more and more workers find themselves working for less and less and seeing a cloudy future for their families.

If there is an argument at all for a minimum wage and beyond that a middle-class wage that reflects the cost of living in our society, then those numbers must be reasonable on both fronts given the current cost of living.
 
BRUCE NEUMAN

 
 
 

[btomba_77]

Quote from DoctorDalai

So you approve of higher prices that make lower income people spend more, probably negating their “raise”? Really? 

The spending power generated by the increase in wages more than makes up for the degree of price inflation. The increased wages paid to employees will lead to aggregate increase in demand for goods and services.
 
So yes. Really. I approve.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Jamie Dimon just announces giving his base wage employees a raise in answer to wage inequality and wage stagnation.
 

At [link=http://www.nytimes.com/topic/company/jpmorgan-chase-company?inline=nyt-org]JPMorgan Chase[/link], were starting by giving thousands of employees a raise.

Our minimum salary for American employees today is $10.15 an hour (plus meaningful benefits, which Ill explain later), almost $3 above the current national minimum wage. Over the next three years, we will raise the minimum pay for 18,000 workers to $12 to $16.50 an hour, depending on geographic and market factors.

A pay increase is the right thing to do. Wages for many Americans have gone nowhere for too long. Many employees who will receive this increase work as bank tellers and customer service representatives. Above all, it enables more people to begin to share in the rewards of economic growth.

 

 

[ruszja]

You are drawing a very wide-ranging conclusion from a very limited dataset analyzed by an advocacy organization. The UK is barely two quarters into the new wage law, the prediction was that it would cost jobs in the 2020 timeframe.
 
Fast food places are already moving to ordering kiosks and technology to flip burgers and cook fries automatically is coming online. If the politibuero overdoes it on the minimum wage, a McDs restaurant will have a staffing of 3 rather than 7 with the remaining staff only there to provision and supervise the robotic equipment.
 
Also, the brits didn’t double their minimum wage like the politbuero is intending to do. They raised it by 50P, less than 10%.  They also recognized that students and young entry level workers are a special case and excluded them from the increase.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Where and when have wage increases caused job losses?
 
Do wage decreases cause job increases? Or stagnant wages cause stability in the job market? What has history shown?
 
My opinion is like the anecdote about Henry Ford raising his worker’s wages, it can improve the economy if the effect is wide enough and definitely can improve household standards for those households making at or around minimum wages.
 
Is there evidence showing the contrary, of decreases jobs or businesses going out of business solely due to increasesd wages?

[kaldridgewv2211]

I think Dergon hits the nail on the head.  The more money in the hands of consumers, the more money being spent back into the economy.  Minimum wage hasn’t kept up with economic reality.
 
Edit:  Just reading about Starbucks stepping up and taking care of people.  So if you’re already buying Starbucks will you stop when your Venti Latte Mochachino Frape cost another 15 cents.

[satyanar]

Quote from dergon

Quote from DoctorDalai

So you approve of higher prices that make lower income people spend more, probably negating their “raise”? Really? 

The spending power generated by the increase in wages more than makes up for the degree of price inflation. The increased wages paid to employees will lead to aggregate increase in demand for goods and services.

So yes. Really. I approve.

Ill help you with the irony. 

[satyanar]

To be fair I agreed with your position when I read it the first time. I’ve listened to retail executives tell me they couldn’t support a $15 minimum wage because it was too inflationary, and I thought that was BS. Maybe not? Rising wages and inflation are clearly connected. We had forgotten about the wage/price spiral. We don’t know for sure on the chicken or egg first question, but it makes the kpack post I will share next make some sense.

[kaldridgewv2211]

Probably the important part is how long it will take them to phase that in.  I know here at work the leadership came out and said all jobs now start at $12.  I think a sudden jump to $15 kills jobs especially in restaurants.  In Cleveland the push to $15 is getting met with resistance from restaurants among others.  I’m sure some restaurants are killing it money wise, but a lot of the upstarts seemingly would get killed.

[Unknown Member]

I certainly agree with increasing the Minimum wage but in a slow stepwise fashion
 
Id phase it in yearly over 4-5yrs.  I think that way you get rid some of the intial jolt
 
Basically these people are going to spend the money anyway and while there be some price elevation for all of us and [b]arguably[/b] some job loss it will be net plus long term for the economy
 
I would be against automatically raising it from what it is now to 15$.  That would be too much for many businesses to swallow.  But a stepwise increase yearly over a 4-5yr time period would INMHO negate most of the adverse effects

[ruszja]

Quote from kpack123

 
I would be against automatically raising it from what it is now to 15$.  That would be too much for many businesses to swallow.  But a stepwise increase yearly over a 4-5yr time period would INMHO negate most of the adverse effects

 
The boiling frog concept.
 
The net result will be the same after a couple of years. It will just disappear in the statistical noise and the proponents can claim that there was no adverse effect.

[Unknown Member]

………….. and you base that on what?
 
The Debbie Downer concept of I just don’t like it

[kayla.meyer_144]

It still works, that’s all that matters, “statistical noise” or not, the end result is the same, no adverse effects and higher wages for the employees.
 
Debbie Downer hits the mark. Or sour grapes.
 
 

[julie.young_645]

The bottom line is that someone has to PAY for it. What a concept. 
 
Let me sell you my self-perpetuating mink farm. The mink eat rats, and when large enough they are euthanized (humanely) and skinned, and the mink meat fed to the rats, who are then fed to the mink….

[btomba_77]

Quote from DoctorDalai

The bottom line is that someone has to PAY for it. What a concept. 

Let me sell you my self-perpetuating mink farm. The mink eat rats, and when large enough they are euthanized (humanely) and skinned, and the mink meat fed to the rats, who are then fed to the mink….

 
Paid for by:
 
1) Decreases in corporate profit
2) (Mild) price inflation
 
It’s not magic. It’s not voodoo economics.  It’s sound, it’s fair, and it works.

[julie.young_645]

Quote from dergon

Quote from DoctorDalai

The bottom line is that someone has to PAY for it. What a concept. 

Let me sell you my self-perpetuating mink farm. The mink eat rats, and when large enough they are euthanized (humanely) and skinned, and the mink meat fed to the rats, who are then fed to the mink….

Paid for by:

1) Decreases in corporate profit
2) (Mild) price inflation

It’s not magic. It’s not voodoo economics.  It’s sound, it’s fair, and it works.

 
kpack knows my opinion on immigrant workers. I don’t agree with his caricatured version of the Republican stance.
 
And Dergon, you have it partially correct. To YOU, it [i]sounds “[/i][b][i]fair”[/i][/b]. Not to me. 

[kayla.meyer_144]

The economy is not a zero-sum game. Jobs and wages are not zero-sum games. The minimum wage people will spend the extra $ just for living which will further stimulate the economy.
 
Utopia.

[julie.young_645]

Let’s see if your numbers add up or if your calculators are connected to your vibrators. 
 
I run a small business with 10 employees who work 40 hour weeks with two weeks vacation. That would be 2,000 hours per worker, 20,000 paid hours per year. At $10/hour, I pay out $200,000 per year. At $15/hour, I pay out $250,000 per year. Will you absolutely guarantee that I will make back that extra $50,000?  Or are you as usual spending MY money so YOU can feel good about yourselves?

[kayla.meyer_144]

If you paid them $5.00 an hour with no vacations you’d be making even more $. If you paid 20 employees at $5.00, you’d have even more $ because you’d avoid the possility of OT.
 
How low can you drop someone’s wages to save “your money?” Is it ethical to advise your employees to get assistance from the government so they can have a living wage so your profits remain high?
 
In an imaginary zero-sum economic world, the short answer to your question is no. In the real world the answer is yes.

[kaldridgewv2211]

Adapt and overcome Dalai.  Alternative solution.  The government jacks the taxes up to 90% on the top 1% of earners who are mostly the ones seeing rising incomes, and wealth.  Then uses those taxes to fund social programs like SNAP because people can’t afford food when they make $8/hour.  Drop some of that tax coin in section 8 while we’re at it.

[kayla.meyer_144]

I’m still bowled over by the article by Peter D. Salins that I posted above about his opposition to the minimum wage, thinking rather that these employees should receive government handouts instead. And without saying how these benefits would be paid for. “My taxes” raised to pay for supplements so that this employer of 10 people can retain high profits? I’d rather pay the 10 cent increase of the cuppa in that store.
 
Or maybe go to another store that actually paid living wages, that’s what I’d do even if it cost a few cents more.
 
“Let em eat cake.” Didn’t someone say that about the problems of poor people before?

[julie.young_645]

So I should be a good little hostage and give it to the poor now, lest the big bad government take it away? How touching.
 
All I’m hearing so far is that business owners are greedy SOB’s because they won’t pay their minimum wage employees more than the value of their work. I’d like to make half-again what I produce, but that isn’t what the market dictates. Unless a dictator is running the markets. 

[kayla.meyer_144]

The Walmart family are hostages now. As is McDonalds and the rest.

[julie.young_645]

I’m sorry you don’t like the way the market works. But there are consequences to wealth redistribution. 

[btomba_77]

Quote from DoctorDalai

I’m sorry you don’t like the way the market works. But there are consequences to wealth redistribution. 

 
 
All tax and social benefit policy is redistribution in some way.
 
Yes. There are consequences to raising the minimum wage.  Some employers will make less money. The shareholders of corporations will see smaller dividends and stock price growth as a greater share of revenue instead goes to labor.
 
There is some mild price inflation as some of the increased production costs are passed along.
 
And yes, there is some creative destruction as employers adopt new technologies that increase productivity rather than pay a higher wage.
 
Overall however, the net benefit, both to the individuals receiving higher wages and to the economy overall, outweighs the down side.
 
 

[julie.young_645]

I certainly cannot dispute that those who are paid more than they are worth receive a net benefit. Society? The economy? Not so much. Remember who provide the jobs and therefore are the victims of this policy.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from DoctorDalai

I’m sorry you don’t like the way the market works. But there are consequences to wealth redistribution. 

Wealth distribution, like from the borrom up.
 
At what point does the cost of a job change from a bargain to ripping off the workers and employees so that the employer gains? At what point are the employees exploited under the rationale of the workers “stealing” the wages when in fact they are underpaid for the job?
 
This sort of issue, the employers “stealing” wages from the workers by underpaying them or, in the case of company stores and housing, also overcharging the workers for these services (none other were available, a captive customer base) so that every day of work meant you owed the company more money, was a primary reason for unionizing to stop the abuse. Songs were written about that practice.
 
People deserve a living wage. People working full time should not be living in poverty or require multiple paychecks to make ends meet and care for their families.
 
And when employers justify their low pay by sending their employees to acquire government services to attain a living wage, there is something definitely wrong with the system. When the Republican solution is to propose and defend government assistance as the solution for full-time workers’ wages, there is something wrong with the system.
 
This underlines the lie of the 1980’s and 1990’s that Americans are over-paid. Well, ony certain Americans that is. High government reimbursement and compensation is definitely strongly defended in some cases. Like Animal Farm, some Americans are more equal than others.

[kaldridgewv2211]

Quote from DoctorDalai

Quote from dergon

Quote from DoctorDalai

The bottom line is that someone has to PAY for it. What a concept. 

Let me sell you my self-perpetuating mink farm. The mink eat rats, and when large enough they are euthanized (humanely) and skinned, and the mink meat fed to the rats, who are then fed to the mink….

Paid for by:

1) Decreases in corporate profit
2) (Mild) price inflation

It’s not magic. It’s not voodoo economics.  It’s sound, it’s fair, and it works.

kpack knows my opinion on immigrant workers. I don’t agree with his caricatured version of the Republican stance.

And Dergon, you have it partially correct. To YOU, it [i]sounds “[/i][b][i]fair”[/i][/b]. Not to me. 

 
Fair or not it seems like sound economics.  It’s trickle up economics.  We’re a consumer country.

[ruszja]

Quote from dergon

Quote from DoctorDalai

The bottom line is that someone has to PAY for it. What a concept. 

Let me sell you my self-perpetuating mink farm. The mink eat rats, and when large enough they are euthanized (humanely) and skinned, and the mink meat fed to the rats, who are then fed to the mink….

Paid for by:

1) Decreases in corporate profit
2) (Mild) price inflation

It’s not magic. It’s not voodoo economics.  It’s sound, it’s fair, and it works.

 
The magic of spending other peoples money. It somehow comes out of nowhere if you just decree that it has to be paid.
 
‘Corporate profit’ in the restaurant business often means family income of the owner. It may say ‘Subway’ or ‘Caribou Coffee’ on the marquee, the business itself is owned by an individual or small family corporation. There are no fat-cat stockholders in top hats that you are taking the money from, you just re-distribute the profit from one family to another.
 
And who pays the ‘mild price inflation’. If I look around in a mickeyD, a good part of those additional 15 cents on the McRib is going to be paid by other minimum wage earners.
 
In related news, JP morgan and Starbucks today announced that they will raise the bottom rung of their pay scale going forward. It is well known that a better wage is going to reduce staff turnover and training cost. With the labor market somewhat improved, companies need to act to retain qualified workers. Isn’t it amazing how that works.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from fw

The magic of spending other peoples money. It somehow comes out of nowhere if you just decree that it has to be paid.

There are many forms of taking “other people’s money” and one of them is in paychecks that the employer assists with supplementing with government assistance for their employees. That is taking other people’s money both in wages AND in sending their employees to gain “other people’s money” from taxes. So Walmart is stealing both from its associates and from taxpayers with the full support of Republicans and employers who argue against higher wages.
 

Quote from fw

And who pays the ‘mild price inflation’. If I look around in a mickeyD, a good part of those additional 15 cents on the McRib is going to be paid by other minimum wage earners.

 
Yes, let’s do look at that. If McD’s customers earned living wages while also earning minimum wages, the 15 cents would be contributing to the local ecnomy.
 
Back to people losing their jobs to China who now must shop at WalMart to buy the products they used to make admittedly at a higher price. But now these people if employed, earn a much lower wage so can only afford to buy at WalMart to but the goods made in a 3rd World country with low labor costs.
 
A spiral down for these people and a sad joke, rather like training your replacement who was hired at a fraction of your cost with the additional slap, the more efficient you are at teaching, the sooner you will be without a paycheck.
 
This is not the way to run a world class economy. The Southern model for labor and an economy went out of lawful practice over 100 years ago.
 
 

[Unknown Member]

Again
 
We can just do it the Republican way
 
Pay Mexicans 3$ an hour under the table…………………..then Beatch to the high heavens about all those illegals and how they are taking our jobs. and Building walls
 
This is why the republican party is imploding before our eyes.

[ruszja]

Quote from kpack123

Again

We can just do it the Republican way

Pay Mexicans 3$ an hour under the table…………………..then Beatch to the high heavens about all those illegals and how they are taking our jobs. and Building walls

This is why the republican party is imploding before our eyes.

 
So you think increasing the cost of legal labor is going to decrease the incentive to pay people cash on the barrel ?

[kayla.meyer_144]

The likes of WalMart and McDonalds are more Welfare Queens living off government largesse than anything else.
 
Walmart & McDonalds should just stop stealing from the associates & pay them a decent wage. They’d be able to do wo without raising prices AND they save American taxpayers $7 Billion in the process.
 
Republicans can’t whine about government taxes and assistance and then propose government assistance to preserve support from Wlton types whose profits are subsidized by the taxpayers and government.

[julie.young_645]

Quote from Frumious

[style=”color: #ff0000;”][u][i][b]Walmart & McDonalds should just stop stealing from the associates[/b][/i][/u][/style] & pay them a decent wage. They’d be able to do wo without raising prices AND they save American taxpayers $7 Billion in the process.

This is [i]really [/i]how you think, isn’t it? How sad. How very sad. 

[Unknown Member]

Quote from fw

Quote from kpack123

Again

We can just do it the Republican way

Pay Mexicans 3$ an hour under the table…………………..then Beatch to the high heavens about all those illegals and how they are taking our jobs. and Building walls

This is why the republican party is imploding before our eyes.

So you think increasing the cost of legal labor is going to decrease the incentive to pay people cash on the barrel ?

 
So when talking about Police shooting young black man……………you hide behind the façade of saying….They should comply and follow the law and not resist
 
But when Dealing with the minimum wage……………..You believe it is right to not enforce the laws on the books about hiring Illegals and paying people under the table
 
 
Must be nice to have it both ways
 

[ruszja]

Quote from kpack123

Quote from fw

So you think increasing the cost of legal labor is going to decrease the incentive to pay people cash on the barrel ?

So when talking about Police shooting young black man……………you hide behind the façade of saying….They should comply and follow the law and not resist

But when Dealing with the minimum wage……………..You believe it is right to not enforce the laws on the books about hiring Illegals and paying people under the table

Must be nice to have it both ways

Did I say anywhere that I condone this? I didn”t. You need to stop making up straw man arguments to argue against.

Increasing the cost of minimum wage labor and requiring certain benefits like paid sick time is going to increase the size of the ‘under the table economy’. It certainly did in Europe where you have a large shadow economy that employs folks like the Syrian refugees as day laborers.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Again, drawbacks vs advantages to the economy & workers. Day laborers are also prevalent here. Labor costs too high or just the day laborers are cheaper. So you get landscaping done more cheaply and your roof. So let’s apply cheap labor everywhere we can, why stop with landscaping and construction and farming, let’s go for the big stuff & make larger savings.
 
If cheap is your primary goal above all others, it opens another couple of cans of worms. When Wall Street complained American workers were paid too much in the 1980’s & 1990’s to the present, somehow they always didn’t really mean themselves. We’re always exempt from our own complaints I guess by definition but not by reality.
 
 
 

[Unknown Member]

Quote from fw

Quote from kpack123

Again

We can just do it the Republican way

Pay Mexicans 3$ an hour under the table…………………..then Beatch to the high heavens about all those illegals and how they are taking our jobs. and Building walls

This is why the republican party is imploding before our eyes.

So you think increasing the cost of legal labor is going to decrease the incentive to pay people cash on the barrel ?

 
Do you think that not Increasing it will do the opposite?

[ruszja]

Quote from Frumious

 
There are many forms of taking “other people’s money” and one of them is in paychecks that the employer assists with supplementing with government assistance for their employees. That is taking other people’s money both in wages AND in sending their employees to gain “other people’s money” from taxes. So Walmart is stealing both from its associates and from taxpayers with the full support of Republicans and employers who argue against higher wages. 

 
If the government wasn’t as generous with handing out EITC checks and free healthcare for kids, there would be no government assistance to profit from. The companies are already paying the workers, it is beyond their control if the state feels like they have to chip in some more.

[Unknown Member]

Yep Dalai………………Its probably better that we just Hire those Mexicans to come do it for 3 bucks an hour under the table to keep wages down
 
 
…………….. Oh wait the republicans have already tried that for the last 25 years.
 
This is just an example of why the Republican Party is imploding before our eyes.
 
Your reasoning makes no sense in the big picture scheme of things

[satyanar]

Quote from kpack123

I certainly agree with increasing the Minimum wage but in a slow stepwise fashion

Id phase it in yearly over 4-5yrs.  I think that way you get rid some of the intial jolt

Basically these people are going to spend the money anyway and while there be some price elevation for all of us and [b]arguably[/b] some job loss it will be net plus long term for the economy

I would be against automatically raising it from what it is now to 15$.  That would be too much for many businesses to swallow.  But a stepwise increase yearly over a 4-5yr time period would INMHO negate most of the adverse effects

 
Would this plan have made it more palatable? Rapid inflationary pressure of a pandemic and war were never expected of course but the pace of increase seems to make a difference.

[btomba_77]

And Dergon, you have it partially correct. To YOU, it [i]sounds “[/i][b][i]fair”[/i][/b]. Not to me.  

 
Great. So oppose it because you disagree with it [i]politically[/i].
 
But stop making disingenuous arguments about the economics as if it’s somehow invalid.
 
 
This is the same as the arguments over tax cuts for the wealthy. I’m fine when people argue their opposition because they say “It’s my money and I don’t want the government taking it!”. That’s a reasonable argument to make.
 
But when they go with “Tax cuts actually [i]increase[/i] revenue,” or “It will hurt the ‘job creators’ and tank the economy,” they deserve to be called out on their BS.

[eyoab2011_711]

I am glad to know that Dalai is the arbiter of everyone’s worth.  All fine and dandy when your ox isn’t being gored…maybe we should pay Indian telerad salaries to all radiologists since right now they are “paid more then they are worth” or we could train nurses to read various imaging studies… After all there are those willing to do it for less

[julie.young_645]

Quote from Thor

I am glad to know that Dalai is the arbiter of everyone’s worth.  All fine and dandy when your ox isn’t being gored…maybe we should pay Indian telerad salaries to all radiologists since right now they are “paid more then they are worth” or we could train nurses to read various imaging studies… After all there are those willing to do it for less

I am not the arbitrator, but the market is. We can go on for days about who is worth what. To me, it is nearly criminal that some 300 pound doofus who can carry an inflated piece of pigskin across a line in the grass is paid millions and millions per year, but a teacher who will help form the minds of our young skulls full of mush barely clears 50 or 60K. But that is what the market dictates. 
 
This becomes the fundamental discussion we have here on and off. You all view profit as a nasty thing, somehow stolen from the poor downtrodden workers by the greedy fat-cats. (Well, all except for kpack who somehow plans to profit himself off of the sentiment, which I have yet to understand.) It is the classic Capitalist vs. Marxist argument. It has gone on for a hundred years and will continue as long as there are starry-eyed delusional Lefties who still believe in the failed economics of Marxism. 

[amyelizabethbarrett28_711]

What happens to the person making $15 an hour already?  Is their income going to go up accordingly?  Or are they now making minimum wage with no change in their income while prices around them go sky high?  
 
My brother who is a retail manager making $15 an hour would be totally screwed by a $15 minimum wage.   Raising the minimum wage will just push MORE people into poverty.

[btomba_77]

Quote from acpce1

What happens to the person making $15 an hour already?  Is their income going to go up accordingly?  Or are they now making minimum wage with no change in their income while prices around them go sky high?  

My brother who is a retail manager making $15 an hour would be totally screwed by a $15 minimum wage.   Raising the minimum wage will just push MORE people into poverty.

 
That is false.
 
 
Increasing the minimum wage causes very little price inflation.  Any mild inflation is certainly surpassed by the increased income earned through the increased wages.
 
Also, for your brother, increasing the minimum wage forces up wages on the adjacent rung of the ladder as employers realize they have to pay more to retain the higher quality/ more skilled laborers.  He would see a wage increase and an overall increase in his purchasing power as well.
 
 

[amyelizabethbarrett28_711]

Just make the minimum wage $50k a year then.  Everybody wins!

[btomba_77]

Quote from acpce1

Just make the minimum wage $50k a year then.  Everybody wins!

Conservatives like to make a lot of [i]reductio ad absurdum[/i] arguments like this.  Like Stu Varney on Fox “Why not make it $100,000 an hour?!”
 
Sure, there is an economic point at which raising the minimum wage would cause a net economic impact.
 
 
But there is no evidence to suggest that $15/hour would have such a negative impact.
 
 
Your example of making the minimum wage $50k per year comes out to around $24/hour.  Would that have a net negative impact? Hard to say.  It hasn’t been tested. (The Swiss rejected a $25/hour equivalent wage last year).
 
Let’s start with $15/hour and see where that takes us.

[kaldridgewv2211]

I was listening to some local City Club interview yesterday morning with some of the restaurateurs in Cleveland.  The $15 an hour would be detrimental to their business.  I think it’s a valid point.  They aren’t making a big profit anyway, something like 90% of new restaurants fail within 6 months.

[ruszja]

Quote from DICOM_Dan

I was listening to some local City Club interview yesterday morning with some of the restaurateurs in Cleveland.  The $15 an hour would be detrimental to their business.  I think it’s a valid point.  They aren’t making a big profit anyway, something like 90% of new restaurants fail within 6 months.

But dont’cha know, those restaurateurs are the ‘big corporations’ who will just reduce their dividend to pay for the doubling in pay.

If we get national $15, buy stock in Sysco and US Foods. Rather than paying a mexican prep-cook $7.25+pool to dice the veggies of the day, you just buy them off the cooler truck (veggies which were diced by a mexican factory worker for $2.00/hr in a contractor plant. Oh the joys of NAFTA).

[ruszja]

Quote from acpce1

Just make the minimum wage $50k a year then.  Everybody wins!

Don’t forget, full healthcare, paid paternity and pot-smoking leave.

[btomba_77]

Barry Ritholtz [url=https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-07/seattle-s-higher-minimum-wage-hasn-t-hurt-jobs-or-business]Minimum-Wage Foes Tripped Up by Facts[/url]

Consider as an example what Mark Perry, at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote a month before the first phase of Seattles new minimum-wage law went into effect. The citys government-mandated wage floor guarantees reduced employment opportunities for many workers.

My colleague Josh Frankel — one of those who relies on data — observed last week that the unemployment rate in the city of Seattle the tip of the spear when it comes to minimum wage experiments has now hit a new cycle low of 3.4%. Meanwhile, a University of Washington study on the minimum wage law found little or no evidence of job losses or business closings.

I continue to believe that we should assess the data as it comes in, honestly and as free of bias as possible. This is a complex issue — Seattle, with its vibrant tech industry, high median household income and growing population, is different from many U.S. cities. States and cities must adjust their minimum wages to fit their local conditions; this is why a national minimum wage should rise at a pace different from the most economically vibrant locales.  …But so far the early data continues to confirm the work of Krueger and Card: Minimum-wage increases are not the automatic job killers depicted by their opponents.

[url=http://evans.uw.edu/sites/default/files/MinWageReport-July2016_Final.pdf]REPORT ON THE IMPACT OF SEATTLES MINIMUM WAGEORDINANCE ON WAGES, WORKERS, JOBS, ANDESTABLISHMENTS THROUGH 2015[/url]

Another similar: [url=https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-10-21/doomsayers-keep-getting-it-wrong-on-higher-minimum-wages]Doomsayers keep getting it wrong on higher minimum wages[/url]

[kaldridgewv2211]

If I’m not mistaken I’ve also heard that Seattle housing prices are booming.  Wonder if there’s any correlation.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Seattle has been booming for some time now.

Damned Liberals.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Reality and data never had anything to do with it. It’s about religion. Tax increases kill economies like the economy of the 1950’s while tax cuts stimulate like Dubbya’s economy and Supply-side.
 
Ford was more correct, pay the workers a sufficient wage not only to live off but enough to buy his cars and the economy will grow as will the company making the cars. Starve the workers & make all the profits go to the owners makes a Central/South American economy, a tiny middle class, a small minority of very rich and a large class of poor wage earners.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Where is the American Dream. Sold to the upper income class, the opposite of Robin Hood, rob form the poor, give to the rich. Will our children earn as much if not more than we do and did at specific ages?
 
Probably not.
 
[link=http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/opinion/the-american-dream-quantified-at-last.html]http://www.nytimes.com/20…uantified-at-last.html[/link]
 

It begins with children who were born in 1940, less than a decade after the publication of Adamss book, The Epic of America. The researchers went into the project assuming that most of these children had earned more than their parents but were surprised to learn that nearly all of them had, said David Grusky, one of the researchers, also of Stanford. About 92 percent of 1940 babies had higher pretax inflation-adjusted household earnings at age 30 than their parents had at the same age. (The results were similar at older ages and for post-tax earnings.)

The few 1940 children who earned less than their parents were also, for the most part, doing just fine. They were generally earning less because they had grown up rich children of top corporate executives, say, who became, or married, doctors, lawyers or professors.

Achieving the American dream was a virtual guarantee for this generation, regardless of whether people went to college, got divorced or suffered a layoff. Why? Because they spent their prime working years in an economy with two wonderful features. It was growing rapidly, and the bounty from its growth flowed to the rich, the middle class and the poor alike.
 
In the 1980s, economic inequality began to rise, a result of globalization, technological change, government policies favoring the well-off and a slowdown in educational attainment and the work forces skill level. Together, these forces pinched the incomes of the middle class and the poor. The tech boom of the 1990s helped slowing the decline of the American dream but only temporarily.
 
For babies born in 1980 todays 36-year-olds the index of the American dream has fallen to 50 percent: Only half of them make as much money as their parents did. In the industrial Midwestern states that effectively elected Donald Trump, the share was once higher than the national average. Now, it is a few percentage points lower. There, going backward is the norm.
 
The better news potentially is that lifting growth is the less important half of the equation, notes Nathaniel Hendren of Harvard, another of the researchers: The rise of inequality has damaged the American dream more than the growth slowdown.

One way to think about inequalitys role is to remember that the American economy is far larger and more productive than in 1980, even if it isnt growing as rapidly. Per-capita G.D.P. is almost twice as high now. By itself, that increase should allow most children to live better than their parents.

They dont, however, because the fruits of growth have gone disproportionately to the affluent.
 
The painful irony of 2016 is that nostalgia and anger over the fading American dream helped elect a president who may put the dream even further out of reach for many people taking away their health insurance, supporting ineffective school vouchers and showering government largess on the rich. Every one of those issues will be worth a fight.

 
So the odds of doing better than your parents did moved from 92% odds for someone born in the 1940’s to 50% for someone born in the 1980’s, a loss of >40%.
 
We have left our children quite a legacy.
 
[link]http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org[/link]
 

[ruszja]

Quote from Frumious

Walmart & McDonalds should just stop stealing from the associates & pay them a decent wage. They’d be able to do wo without raising prices AND they save American taxpayers $7 Billion in the process.

 
Walmart and the fast-food sector are keeping people on the payroll who are otherwise unemployable. They managed to fit the bottom quartile of the intelligence spectrum into their business model and should be commended for it rather than villified.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from fw

Quote from Frumious

Walmart & McDonalds should just stop stealing from the associates & pay them a decent wage. They’d be able to do wo without raising prices AND they save American taxpayers $7 Billion in the process.

Walmart and the fast-food sector are keeping people on the payroll who are otherwise unemployable. They managed to fit the bottom quartile of the intelligence spectrum into their business model and should be commended for it rather than villified.

 
Bless their teeny-tiny little hearts. We are all grateful, especially the unemployable charity cases for their faux-work.
 
The Christian God might thank them a bit better if they paid their workers a living wage.

[julie.young_645]

And so McDonald’s, Walmart, and all the others who are willing to hire minimum wage employees should simply pay them more because they want it? That isn’t how economics works. I want to make $17 million per year. I deserve it. I work hard. I won’t be fulfilled until I’m paid $17 million a year. I am on a strict diet of caviar and truffles and my tushie is too sensitive to ride in anything but a Rolls, so this salary is the absolute minimum necessary to support my basic needs. 
 
Would you be so kind as to let my employer know of this urgent necessity?

[btomba_77]

It isn’t how [i]unregulated free market[/i] economics works.  And thank god we don’t have that.
 
Unregulated free markets have historically led to horrific abuses of labor.  A well-functioning market economy needs government guidance in rules and regulations.
 
 There is nothing wrong with using the political system to regulate the labor market so that workers take a greater percentage of total revenue than their corporate overlords would deem fit to pay if they had dictatorial control over labor conditions.   
 
Bringing in the government to establish standard over compensation (and working conditions) is part of what made the  20th Century US economy the greatest in the world.
 
We need workers to be earning a greater percentage of total corporate revenue.  They spend it … on housing, energy, appliances, cars, health care etc.  This money has a huge economic impact.
 
On the other hand, when the most wealthy instead keep that corporate revenue (through dividends and stock price increases mostly) they simply save that money, or spend it on things that have less economic impact.
 
Increasing workers wages is a good thing.  The “free market” is neither natural nor something to which an economy should aspire.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from DoctorDalai

And so McDonald’s, Walmart, and all the others who are willing to hire minimum wage employees should simply pay them more because they want it? That isn’t how economics works. I want to make $17 million per year. I deserve it. I work hard. I won’t be fulfilled until I’m paid $17 million a year. I am on a strict diet of caviar and truffles and my tushie is too sensitive to ride in anything but a Rolls, so this salary is the absolute minimum necessary to support my basic needs. 

Would you be so kind as to let my employer know of this urgent necessity?

Actually Dalai, let’s open that Pandora’s box you are so wanting to open. So let’s talk about taxes and tax writeoffs and deductions and direct payment health care plans and reimbursement, hidden health care costs, etc that the patient/consumer cannot know about. I don’t like paying high taxes just so that a physician can afford mustiple properties and cars and expect to live in the style that 98% of people can’t afford to live.
 
So what exactly makes a physician think they deserve income in of the upper 3% bracket? As you say, I’d like to have $17 million a year too but I can’t. I’d settle for a single million a year. I’d settle for 1/2 that.
 
What makes the entitlement? “They” don’t deserve a living wage. “They” should be happy getting anything. In the meantime the 2% people can complain about taxes and “redistribution” allowing these associates to actually have a living wage so long as they get government support. fw thinks support is unnecessary or at least too generous. How low should it be if not actually zero?
 
OK, fw thinks he deserves more because he’s presumably in one of the higher intelligence quartiles than WalMart clerks and associates and MickeyD employees. So what does a non-‘tard deserve anyway and based on what? Why do I have to supplement his income through my taxes? Because he is above the lowest intelligence quartile? That’s a calculation of entitlement wages, what intelligence quartile one fits?
 
It all sounds like another form of Prosperity Theology, God will reward based on your intelligence quartile, “Believe me!” And punish the stupid ones, just like Jesus said.

[julie.young_645]

So why aren’t you simply advocating that the government provide a baseline existence, housing, food, medical care? Oh, wait…it already does. 

[kayla.meyer_144]

To some degree that is what government support does do. The problem is that some rich people take advantage of the government by passing costs onto the taxpayers. Like Banks. Or Walmart & MickeyD.

[heenadevk1119_462]

Quote from Frumious

To some degree that is what government support does do. The problem is that some rich people take advantage of the government by passing costs onto the taxpayers. Like Banks. Or Walmart & MickeyD.

 
Yet you still haven’t figured out (or are too dishonest to admit) that the reason they are able to do that is … BIG GOVERNMENT.
 
You’re trapped, Frumi, but of course, you’ll never admit it.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Blue states do much better than Red states for economy, longevity, education and general well-being. Not a eureka rocket-science moment for anyone except for the Fox viewers and Rush listeners. The path to prosperity is Blue.
 
It is what’s the matter with Kansas.
 
[link=http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/opinion/campaign-stops/the-path-to-prosperity-is-blue.html]http://www.nytimes.com/20…rosperity-is-blue.html[/link]
 

Mr. Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan are united by the conviction that cutting taxes especially on corporations and the wealthy is what drives growth.
 
A look at the states, however, suggests that theyre wrong. Red states dominated by Republicans embrace cut and extract. Blue states dominated by Democrats do much more to maintain their investments in education, infrastructure, urban quality of life and human services investments typically financed through more progressive state and local taxes. And despite what you may have heard, blue states are generally doing better.
 
Texas and Massachusetts often considered exemplars of the red and blue models had almost converged by 1980. Since then, Texas per capita income has fallen significantly relative to Massachusetts. The same is true of Utah.
Yes, the cost of living is higher in Massachusetts than it is in Texas by about 11 percent in the last few years, according to recent government calculations by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. But even this significant difference (surely longstanding) cant close the widened gap.
 
This red-blue divergence is all the more striking because red states still receive much more in federal spending relative to the federal taxes their residents pay. In other words, blue states are generally outperforming red states even while heavily subsidizing them.
 
Why are red states no longer consistently gaining ground? An important reason is that modern knowledge economies increase the rewards for education, research and development and urban hubs that promote the exchange of ideas and development of talent. This has made local conditions more important even in this age of globalization. And the places where these effects have been most successfully promoted are overwhelmingly blue.
 
By contrast, the innovation-driven growth in blue states creates broad [i]positive[/i] externalities. People educated in blue states can move to red states; technologies developed in blue states can be emulated in red states. In other words, blue state investments leak out. Yet these states are still producing high levels of prosperity.
 
We should tackle these problems. [b]But we should remember that the key drivers of growth are science, education and innovation, not low taxes, lax regulations or greater exploitation of natural resources.[/b]
 
[b]And we should be worried, whatever our partisan tilt, that leading conservatives promote an economic model so disconnected from the true sources of prosperity.[/b]
 

 
As we’ve all known for an eternity, the Red states are the “taker” states that still don’t do as well.
 
 

[btomba_77]

[url=http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-federal-minimum-wage-2016-7]Trump reverses position on minimum wage.  Now, instead of aboloshing it he wants federal minimum wage raised to $10/hr.[/url]

Reversing a position that he took just two months ago, Donald Trump told Fox News on Tuesday that he would like to see the federal minimum wage raised to $10 per hour.

Trump’s proposal for a $10 federal minimum wage contrasts with earlier statements that he has made. PolitiFact noted Trump’s response to a question in May on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” when he was asked whether the federal government should set a floor for the minimum wage and then let states decide if they want to go above that.

“No, I’d rather have the states go out and do what they have to do,” Trump said then. “And the states compete with each other, not only other countries, but they compete with each other. … So I like the idea of let the states decide. But I think people should get more.”

[Unknown Member]

The minimum wage has been raised multiple times with relatively Zero effect on small business
 
Now I agree that immediately bumping it up to 15$ would cause a lot of Problems………….. But with a slow increase in the Minimum wage over a multi year period…….. I don’t think you can make any of the archaic predictions of the past that have never been true anyway and expect them to be true today.

[kaldridgewv2211]

Agree it has to go up in a controlled phased manner.  Sort of the point of the Cleveland restaurant owner, once you pay the dish washer $15, you have to pay the line cook $20-$25.  Which he absolutely said would get passed onto the diner.  

[ruszja]

Quote from kpack123

The minimum wage has been raised multiple times with relatively Zero effect on small business

Now I agree that immediately bumping it up to 15$ would cause a lot of Problems………….. But with a slow increase in the Minimum wage over a multi year period…….. I don’t think you can make any of the archaic predictions of the past that have never been true anyway and expect them to be true today.

Have we ever doubled it without regard to CPI and inflation?

It is disingenuous to say that it had zero effect on small businesses if we never had a doubling of the nationwide minimum wage. Also, how can anyone claim that it had no effect if all we have left today are franchise restaurants?

Long term, the effects will be the same whether you raise it over 1 year or 5. In the end, the market will adjust. If energy becomes more expensive, industry will use less of it. If labor becomes more expensive, industry will use less of it. Welcome to ordering kiosks and automatic burger-flipping lines. The employees at McD will make $25/hr but there will only be three of them instead of 7. Labor in Italy is expensive and cumbersome to use, the official economy uses as little of it as possible. Fiat has a fully automated engine plant going back to the 80s On the night shift there are 10 guys sitting at monitors. In the morning, there is a long rack filled with 100eds of engines.

[kaldridgewv2211]

Quote from fw

Fiat has a fully automated engine plant going back to the 80s On the night shift there are 10 guys sitting at monitors. In the morning, there is a long rack filled with 100eds of engines.

Ever hear anyone say Fix It Again Tony (Fiat).  I think even today FCA cars are earning their spots on the bottom of reliability lists, especially the ones using the Italian made diesel motors (Jeep/Ram ecodiesel).

[btomba_77]

[url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/08/10/so-far-the-seattle-minimum-wage-increase-is-doing-what-its-supposed-to-do/?utm_term=.6c10fd63027e]So far, the Seattle minimum-wage increase is doing what its supposed to do[/url]

The study..examines the impact of the first stage of the minimum-wage increase in Seattle. In April 2015, the city raised its minimum wage from around $9.50 to $11, on the way to $15 an hour by 2017 (for employers with 500 or more employees and certain other employers; the minimum wage for most Seattle businesses rose to $10 in April 2015, and $15 will not go into effect for all Seattle businesses until 2021). The pay of affected workers went up almost 12 percent, compared to a 5 percent increase for workers in nearby, similar places that werent bound by the increase. The studys authors concluded that the increase raised the pay of affected workers by seven percentage points more than might otherwise have occurred.

The study also found that, relative to historical trends, the rate at which low-wage workers affected by the increase stayed employed rose by about three percentage points. For workers in the control group, it was up four points. Thus, absent the minimum-wage increase, thered arguably be one percentage point more affected workers employed in Seattle.

Putting aside for a moment the critical question of whether these changes are actually meaningful in a statistical sense, these outcomes fit comfortably into a view well understood by minimum-wage advocates and increasingly accepted by economists: most increases have their intended effect of lifting the pay of low-wage workers with little in the way of job losses.

[link=http://evans.uw.edu/sites/default/files/MinWageReport-July2016_Final.pdf]http://evans.uw.edu/sites…ort-July2016_Final.pdf[/link]

[Unknown Member]

The concept that the minimum wage should be a “living wage” is just stupid. Minimum wage jobs are meant for high school kids. If your talents only allow you to work at McDonald’s as a cashier your whole life, then the government could raise the minimum wage to $100/hr and you’ll still manage to be below the poverty line somehow.

[Unknown Member]

I highly doubt the American dream in the 50’s and 60’s was to raise a family of four working at McDonald’s. Now the higher skilled manufacturing jobs that allowed a middle class life for a family are a different story, but that was wiped out by globalization and can’t come back until China’s labor costs are comparable to our own. All these experts and studies comparing Canada/Norway/Japan to America in terms of standard of living are essentially comparing apples to oranges. You simply can’t compare countries with populations of 30-50 million people with ours at over 300 million, especially when counting for the fact that we have a fatter, stupider, and much more heterogeneous populace as well as an influx of the uneducated illegal immigrants that they don’t.

[aryfa_995]

Maybe if even just half of the income and wealth gains since Reagan went to anyone other than the wealthy we wouldn’t need this discussion.

[Unknown Member]

When I worked a minimum wage job at 6.50/hr, I didn’t expect to feed a family of 4 on that income. Minimum wage should increase and about 12/hr sounds right to keep up with inflation, but this idea that it needs to increase to a level that supports a liveable wage is still ridiculous, regardless of where the income gains went. Clearly the politicians in the UK understand that minimum wage is not a job to support a family on (they excluded entry-level workers and students from that minimum wage?, is their work any less worthy of being paid)

[tdetlie_105]

Quote from fa la la

All these experts and studies comparing Canada/Norway/Japan to America in terms of standard of living are essentially comparing apples to oranges. You simply can’t compare countries with populations of 30-50 million people with ours at over 300 million, especially when counting for the fact that we have a[b] fatter, stupider, [/b]and much more heterogeneous populace as well as an influx of the uneducated illegal immigrants that they don’t.

sad but likely true

[100574]

Robert Reich-Why liberal states won America’s Tax experiment
according to conservative doctrine Kansas and Texas ought to be booming and Cali in the pits

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from fa la la

The concept that the minimum wage should be a “living wage” is just stupid. Minimum wage jobs are meant for high school kids. If your talents only allow you to work at McDonald’s as a cashier your whole life, then the government could raise the minimum wage to $100/hr and you’ll still manage to be below the poverty line somehow.

Uh, no, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Minimum wages did used to be living wages regardless of where you worked or whether you think it’s a job beneath you. a paper route was perhaps a high school job but today a lot of adults deliver papers for the minimal income it provides, but certainly not a “living wage” of any sort.
 
[link=http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2014/jun/15/jack-reed/jack-reed-says-minimum-wage-1950s-and-1960s-would-/]http://www.politifact.com…950s-and-1960s-would-/[/link]
 

“The federal minimum wage has not been increased since 2009 and today an individual who works 40 hours per week, 52 weeks a year, at the federal minimum wage earns $15,080 per year, and that is nearly $5,000 below the federal poverty level for a family of three, and almost $9,000 below the poverty level for a family of four,” he said.

“People who work hard for a living shouldn’t have to live in poverty, and that was not the case in the 50s and the 60s when the minimum wage was such that it would lift you out of poverty,” Reed said. “And I think that’s what we have to do today.”
 
Reed spokesman Chip Unruh said the senators statement about the minimum wage and poverty levels in the 50s and 60s is accurate.

“I think it is very clear that Reed is talking about his perception that hard work used to get you a livable wage,” he said. “The federal poverty rate as measured today didn’t always exist as a unit of measurement, but that doesn’t mean poverty itself didn’t exist . . . Reed referenced families earlier in his speech, but he also was referencing individuals.”
 
[b]Our ruling[/b]

Sen. Jack Reed, lobbying for an increase in the minimum wage, said that in the 1950s and 1960s, “the minimum wage was such that it would lift you out of poverty.”

We found that during that period, the minimum wage always generated enough income to keep an individual out of poverty.

But when it comes to making enough money to support a family — and Reed made several references to families — that wasn’t always true during those two decades.

Based on federal data, the minimum wage didn’t become high enough to support a two-person family until about 1956 and it wasn’t consistently high enough to lift a family of three until 1967.

 

[kaldridgewv2211]

The poverty line is probably out of whack too.  Can a family of 4 live in a place like NYC for $24k a year?  Maybe if they lived in a cardboard box.  Maybe that what they mean by poverty.  $15k or $24k is not that much money per year for working a full time job.

[ruszja]

Quote from DICOM_Dan

The poverty line is probably out of whack too.  Can a family of 4 live in a place like NYC for $24k a year?  Maybe if they lived in a cardboard box.  Maybe that what they mean by poverty.  $15k or $24k is not that much money per year for working a full time job.

Sure. Otoh, you own an air conditioned home, a car and satellite TV, are you really in poverty just because some statistical measure of income says so ?

[kaldridgewv2211]

I just did a quick search on the minimums I see for NYC rent posted on Zillow are like $1500 and up.  $15000 won’t pay rent let alone any of the modern day conveniences like electricity, gas or water.  Maybe being able to buy some food would be nice.  

[kayla.meyer_144]

Which begs the question, in Trumpist Conservative-think, does not owning a TV or phone or air conditioning really what constitutes poverty?

[Unknown Member]

Quote from DICOM_Dan

The poverty line is probably out of whack too.  Can a family of 4 live in a place like NYC for $24k a year?  Maybe if they lived in a cardboard box.  Maybe that what they mean by poverty.  $15k or $24k is not that much money per year for working a full time job.

 
A family of 4 would have trouble making ends meet with 60k in NYC. Should we raise minimum wage to $25/hr there? Emotional arguments are not going to make much difference. Minimum wage needs to increase, but the idea that it should $15/hr is just absolutely ridiculous. The higher it goes, the faster McDonald’s workers are replaced with tablets, which I don’t really have a problem with.

[Unknown Member]

And before a bunch of idiotic statements about me being privileged pop up, I grew up in a middle to lower middle class family. My mom who barely speaks English managed to get an assembly worker job at a company and made about $12/hr before she stopped working for good, which included insurance and other benefits. So if your whole argument is that people are too disadvantaged, I can completely ignore that nonsense because my immigrant mother who’s English is poor worked a job well above minimum wage.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Your statement was that minimum wage never reached the level of living wage. I showed that you were mistaken.
 
Your opinion that a living wage is something that is not and should not be considered is your opinion. It is not unusual for someone who is in the upper 1% of wage income to think that minimum wage is unimportant. There has always been an ideological rationalization against the poor. Very in line with Trump who thinks regular American workers are already overpaid. So if median wages are too high an income, minimum wages should be considered even less.
 
 

[Unknown Member]

Like I said, cue statements about the privilege of the 1%. Since I’m not an attending yet, I am not nor have I ever been in the 1%. Growing up my family was not even in the top 50%. I don’t buy this victim mentality that the only job someone who speaks fluent English can get is at a McDonald’s or Walmart. Majoring in art or music or ancient Greek literature has consequences as does getting pregnant as a teenager. I don’t have sympathy for those who think the government should raise minimum wage to $15/hr when they can’t even bother to get orders at McDonald’s right if it involves more than one or two changes to the standard menu. Minimum wage should go up, but maybe to $11/hr. Any emotional argument that a person working 40 hrs a week should be able to cover living expenses for 3-4 people is ridiculous because the factors going into their cost of living are vastly variable depending on geography.

[heenadevk1119_462]

fa la la’s last statement gets at the issue, and why the progressive movement  is a deception, due to its rejecting objective facts (the real world). “Living wage” is a great example of this phenomenon.
 
It sucks the hearer/observer in because it (for a second) seems reasonable but with just a cursory amount of study, you’ll see the progressives and their political machine constantly manipulating what “living wage” means over time.
 
They do it with sex, economic things, and yes, even science. All the time.

[kaldridgewv2211]

I think it’s been accurately described here.  What a base wage is for someone to take care of themselves.  Split an appartment, pay utilties, buy food, other neccessities, and healthcare.  At some point the wage stopped going up.  Not everyone is cut out to be a Doctor, lawyer, skilled professional tradesman.  I like that I have someone at work that clean the bathrooms, and takes out the trash.  They should probably earn enough to take care of them-self.  I know here at work everyone starts at $12 now which isn’t the $15 that everyone wants, but is way better than Ohio minimum wage.
 
 

[kayla.meyer_144]

Real median wages have been stagnant for decades now, much less so for minimum wages.
 
And poverty is about food, housing and education, not about cell phones or that you “only” work at Walmart’s or McDonalds or are a maid.
 
Shaming the poor has never worked because it’s never been the solution that shaming them will provide the incentive for them to improve themselves. There are real issues to rising out of poverty. Sniffing at them isn’t a solution.

[Unknown Member]

Just because something was a certain way in the past doesn’t mean it’s going to be the same forever. The federal minimum wage worked by one person is more than 90% of the poverty line for 2. If you think a minimum wage should support children, then I think you’re part of the problem. While some people do not have the physical or intellectual capacity to earn any more, I think many people currently working minimum wage jobs would’ve had other options if they didn’t have children way too early, go to jail, or other combinations of poor decisions and for some of them, just plain bad luck.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from fw

Quote from DICOM_Dan

The poverty line is probably out of whack too.  Can a family of 4 live in a place like NYC for $24k a year?  Maybe if they lived in a cardboard box.  Maybe that what they mean by poverty.  $15k or $24k is not that much money per year for working a full time job.

Sure. Otoh, you own an air conditioned home, a car and satellite TV, are you really in poverty just because some statistical measure of income says so ?

A lot of people on assistance don’t have air conditioning, one reason why there are death rates due to heat stroke.
 
BTW, what measure so you have that makes poverty real in your standards? No food, no clothing, no shelter living on the streets? If you are not on the streets you are not really poor? If you live in your car, the fact that you have a car means you are not poor? There are a lot of poor people who have no cars. I know of poor farmers who have a truck, they are not poor because they have a truck? No TVs allowed? Or phones?
 
[link=http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6231a1.htm]http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/p…/mmwrhtml/mm6231a1.htm[/link]

Heat waves kill more persons, on average, than any other extreme weather event in the United States (1), and additional heat-related deaths are caused by hot weather not classified as heat waves (2). Summer temperatures in New York City (NYC) are increasing, with longer and hotter heat waves projected into the next century and beyond (3). To assess current risk factors and vulnerable populations among NYC residents, hospital data, death certificate data, and medical examiner records involving cases of heat illness, including hyperthermia (also known as heat stroke), were analyzed by the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for the period 20002011. On average, 447 patients each year were treated for heat illness and released from emergency departments, 152 were hospitalized, and 13 persons died from heat stroke. Chronic diseases, mental health disorders, and obesity were common comorbidities. [b]Among fatality investigation records with information available about cooling, none found a working air conditioner in use.[/b]

[kaldridgewv2211]

I’d agree it’s not about where you work but those are places that are generally going to offer low wage work.  At the same time making a low wage isn’t a way out either.  Education is one way to climb up the ladder but at this time even middle-income types have a tough time paying for college.  So the option is generally graduate with a mountain of debt, or try and get some tuition assistance to help out.  Maybe if you’re good enough at a sport you get a scholarship, and very few of those people end up turning that into a career.  There’s not a magic bullet solution.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from DICOM_Dan

I’d agree it’s not about where you work but those are places that are generally going to offer low wage work.  At the same time making a low wage isn’t a way out either.  Education is one way to climb up the ladder but at this time even middle-income types have a tough time paying for college.  So the option is generally graduate with a mountain of debt, or try and get some tuition assistance to help out.  Maybe if you’re good enough at a sport you get a scholarship, and very few of those people end up turning that into a career.  There’s not a magic bullet solution.

There are a lot of people who have graduated good colleges who make little more than minimum wages and I’m not talking about Walmart’s or McDonalds. Even earning a Master’s level is no guarantee of a good income and the student loans are a stranglehold for Baccalaureate or Master’s people making less than the median income. It’s not the pay level when I was going to school and graduated. I worked as a short-order cook while in school making a living wage. And contrary to the scare-mongers, the living wages then did not bankrupt the country or kill jobs, in fact jobs were probably more plentiful.
 
 

[Unknown Member]

Quote from Frumious

Quote from DICOM_Dan

I’d agree it’s not about where you work but those are places that are generally going to offer low wage work.  At the same time making a low wage isn’t a way out either.  Education is one way to climb up the ladder but at this time even middle-income types have a tough time paying for college.  So the option is generally graduate with a mountain of debt, or try and get some tuition assistance to help out.  Maybe if you’re good enough at a sport you get a scholarship, and very few of those people end up turning that into a career.  There’s not a magic bullet solution.

There are a lot of people who have graduated good colleges who make little more than minimum wages and I’m not talking about Walmart’s or McDonalds. Even earning a Master’s level is no guarantee of a good income and the student loans are a stranglehold for Baccalaureate or Master’s people making less than the median income. It’s not the pay level when I was going to school and graduated. I worked as a short-order cook while in school making a living wage. And contrary to the scare-mongers, the living wages then did not bankrupt the country or kill jobs, in fact jobs were probably more plentiful.

 
Well here you perfectly laid out an example of the law of unintended consequences. In the past, people could work part time and pay for a degree and finish with a Bachelor’s degree that was actually worth the paper it was printed on. When the government started guaranteeing loans, colleges (yes even those amazing “liberal” bastions of education and equality like Harvard) saw how easy it would be to make insane profits at the cost of the student. So now people who graduate with a bachelors essentially have what was in the past the equivalent of a GED. A masters now is worth what a bachelors was in the past. So while it was noble of the government to provide funding for education to all, the only thing they really did was harm those very people they wanted to help by strapping them with debt that cannot be discharged ever while they wonder why their amazing “bachelors” degree is barely worth a $15/hr job.
 
And by the way, people with masters degrees in Math, Computer Science, or Engineering are not struggling to make ends meet. Those struggling have Masters degrees in fine arts and other fields that are not in demand. They are not in demand now and they will never be in demand. It’s called work for a reason. Choose a field that makes you money to enjoy life outside of work or pick a field you enjoy but prepare to struggle to make ends meet. Some lucky few end up being able to do something they love for their whole lives, but most of us don’t.

[Unknown Member]

And by the way, when you were a short order cook, did you also support a wife and 2 kids with those wages?

[Unknown Member]

And we can see effects of that college degree conundrum in our own departments. People who are administrative assistants, a job that a high school graduate can do well, have MBAs. Someone like you would claim the 1% are screwing them over. Someone like me would claim that since the government meddled with good intentions yet screwed up our education system whereby anyone without a bachelors is essentially unemployable for any office job that a high school graduate could do, these administrative assistants must rack up 100k in debt to do a job that a high school graduate would’ve gotten 50 years ago.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from fa la la

And by the way, when you were a short order cook, did you also support a wife and 2 kids with those wages?

A bit too young to be married but it paid my schooling, gave me an apartment, car, vacations, etc. so it was easily a living wage for me.
 
And BTW, wives work in case you didn’t know. My mother did, my wife does.
 
But you’re quibbling. Fact is, whether the minimum supports the full 4 person family with a single income or “only” 3, it would be a vast improvement over what exists now. No one is looking for pie in the sky, but neither are they looking for dreck. Seriously, your preferred reality is fund-raising sponsored by the employer and funded by fellow employees in WalMarts or McDonalds so these minimum wage employees can afford Thanksgiving ans Christmas dinners??? And let’s help them by showing them how they can apply for government assistance too for a living income. Merry Christmas.
 
 

[ruszja]

Quote from Frumious

And BTW, wives work in case you didn’t know. My mother did, my wife does.

That’s why the requirement for a minimum wage job to feed a family of four is a canard. All of the low income families I know have two breadwinners, often with one of them working a second job on weekends. But then, as a result of their additional effort, they are not really ‘low income’ anymore.

[kayla.meyer_144]

It’s a measuring point, just a point. People would be happy to have their wages increased that “only” paid for a family of 3, it would still be a substantial increase.
 
The reality is low wages. The issue is low wages.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from fa la la

Well here you perfectly laid out an example of the law of unintended consequences. In the past, people could work part time and pay for a degree and finish with a Bachelor’s degree that was actually worth the paper it was printed on. When the government started guaranteeing loans, colleges (yes even those amazing “liberal” bastions of education and equality like Harvard) saw how easy it would be to make insane profits at the cost of the student.

So it started all the way back to Roosevelt with the GI Bill? The nefarious GI Bill started it all?
 
As for the rest, you do pile it on. Yes there are serious problems & Bernie does start an interesting conversation about solutions but none of them have anything to do with minimum wages. Start a new thread.

[Unknown Member]

Quote from Frumious

Quote from fa la la

Well here you perfectly laid out an example of the law of unintended consequences. In the past, people could work part time and pay for a degree and finish with a Bachelor’s degree that was actually worth the paper it was printed on. When the government started guaranteeing loans, colleges (yes even those amazing “liberal” bastions of education and equality like Harvard) saw how easy it would be to make insane profits at the cost of the student.

So it started all the way back to Roosevelt with the GI Bill? The nefarious GI Bill started it all?

As for the rest, you do pile it on. Yes there are serious problems & Bernie does start an interesting conversation about solutions but none of them have anything to do with minimum wages. Start a new thread.

 
Come on man, get out of la la land and come back to reality. Do you really think anyone would waste 50k/year for a degree in creative writing or some other unemployable field if they saw the costs upfront? Do you really think any college would get away with charging 200k for a 4 year degree if loans weren’t so easily available backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government? Like I said, everything you back sounds rosy and noble, but real life turns out to be different.
 
This is similar to what happened with the housing market. With this push to provide home ownership opportunities to minorities, the federal government guaranteed loans, gave banks incentives to approve high risk loans, and people who knew they couldn’t afford that huge loan went along with it anyway.
 
Let me write your response since I already know what you’re going to say. These poor minorities were preyed upon by these big bad banks who told them everything would be hunky dory. No one is that stupid. You get a schedule of monthly payments and everyone should know if someone tells you it’s an adjustable rate, that your monthly payments that you’re barely able to afford right now may skyrocket and you definitely won’t afford them later.

[kaldridgewv2211]

Quote from Frumious

There are a lot of people who have graduated good colleges who make little more than minimum wages and I’m not talking about Walmart’s or McDonalds. Even earning a Master’s level is no guarantee of a good income and the student loans are a stranglehold for Baccalaureate or Master’s people making less than the median income. It’s not the pay level when I was going to school and graduated. I worked as a short-order cook while in school making a living wage. And contrary to the scare-mongers, the living wages then did not bankrupt the country or kill jobs, in fact jobs were probably more plentiful.

If you complete the right masters.  STEM might not be a guarantee but you’ll have way better odds than Fine Arts, or other Liberal studies.  I personally worked every summer at a local country club.

[ruszja]

Quote from Frumious

The reality is low wages. The issue is low wages.

The issue is low qualifications, a sluggish economy and an ample labor supply.

[tdetlie_105]

Quote from fw

Quote from Frumious

The reality is low wages. The issue is low wages.

The issue is low qualifications, a sluggish economy and an ample labor supply.

Issue is likely a combo of all of the above, thats why no easy fix…the norm used to be do equal or better than your patents. Maybe the new norm is to probably do worse or less likely the same….upward mobility will only be for those that having the intelligence, work ethic, or some other valuable talent…luck as well plays a role

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from jd4540

Quote from fw

Quote from Frumious

The reality is low wages. The issue is low wages.

The issue is low qualifications, a sluggish economy and an ample labor supply.

Issue is likely a combo of all of the above, thats why no easy fix…the norm used to be do equal or better than your patents. Maybe the new norm is to probably do worse or less likely the same….upward mobility will only be for those that having the intelligence, work ethic, or some other valuable talent…luck as well plays a role

Not everyone who makes median incomes and less are lazy toothless violent uneducated idiot caricatures. This caricature is too often used to dismiss people as deserving what they have or don’t have. “It’s their own fault” is not a reason for the majority of people.
 
These same people who supposedly lack the intelligence, work ethic & other talents who “made America great” in the past. Suddenly most Americans lack work ethic and are lazy & stupid?
 
Does not fit. Convenient argument but it does not fit.
 
There is something wrong with the reasoning that if a large portion of people are suddenly chronically un or under-employed, those of us who are employed and paid well (enough) and perhaps with more skills and intelligence look down on the poor proles blaming the proles for their own fates as their own faults. They don’t make the decisions to move the jobs out and away. All the while Wall Street & Trump says they are still overpaid compared to Mexicans and Chinese.
 
These is a complete disconnect in logical reasoning when we comfortable ones blame the proles. The real problem with them is they believe the lies of the Trumps that things will be made better for them by voting for demagogues. As “What’s the matter with Kansas” states, they vote against their own interests.
 
They are being used.
 
 

[heenadevk1119_462]

Very broad overview of what happens? You are missing the point of the history of civilizations.
 
A country becomes affluent through great leadership, hard work, and self reliance. Once it reaches affluence to the level that the generalized feminization of society kicks in, what formerly used to be the prized characteristics of leading to survival, tradition and family — what made the country great to start (above) is quickly forgotten. The society deteriorates, government gets bigger, the natives don’t have kids, and foreign peoples with little or not commonality or loyalty fill the void, and the nation falls.
 
It happens to every great nation and empire. And it’s happening right now. All your details above are collateral of this very story.

[kayla.meyer_144]

“the generalized feminization of society kicks in”
 
“used to be the prized characteristics of leading to survival, tradition and family — what made the country great”
 
“the natives don’t have kids, and foreign peoples with little or not commonality or loyalty fill the void, and the nation falls”
 
???
 
Sounds like you’re talking about Fascism as the belief that will save us.
 
 

[heenadevk1119_462]

Quote from Frumious

“the generalized feminization of society kicks in”

“used to be the prized characteristics of leading to survival, tradition and family — what made the country great”

“the natives don’t have kids, and foreign peoples with little or not commonality or loyalty fill the void, and the nation falls”

???

Sounds like you’re talking about Fascism as the belief that will save us.

 
The fact remains, it is the accurate depiction and you can’t counter it. Why? It’s reality, happening right before our eyes as has happened so many times. Then, betraying yourself, you prove that you know it’s the reality by going to the -ism line, more maligning silly, useless and unproductive posting.
 
The only thing capable of saving you, you reject. So why bother, Frumious?
 
I don’t coerce, so those who are unwilling to be honest about the realities of things, those who rebel against reality, only get what’s coming to them. It’s nobody’s fault but theirs, as zeppelin said. But they can’t even admit that.

[Unknown Member]

I don’t know the reasons, but history has shown that the natural evolution of a society is from basic, to industrialized, to advanced, and then a decline until some sort of revolution rearranges the society. Society today is structured to a much greater level so what happened in the past may not apply today, but the general flow seems to be the same. The decline in the ranks of the middle class and productivity being shared by all is definitely a part of it. But in a global economy, you have to realize that the middle class is no longer set by American standard of living but by the world’s overall standard of living.

[kayla.meyer_144]

What happened to the middle class in America is not what has happened to every country in the world. China’s middle class is growing & Europe’s is stable. And as even from GOPers have stated over the years, moving up in economic classes is better in some European countries than in America. I believe the same can be said for Canada.
 
We are not the world’s greatest anymore in many measures.

[ruszja]

Quote from jd4540

Issue is likely a combo of all of the above, thats why no easy fix…the norm used to be do equal or better than your patents. Maybe the new norm is to probably do worse or less likely the same….upward mobility will only be for those that having the intelligence, work ethic, or some other valuable talent…luck as well plays a role

One of my techs husband is a sprinkler fitter. Works hard, makes good money. Can’t find an apprentice.
Larry, the master electrician who rewired my house can’t find an apprentice. What he can find are ‘electricians helpers’, and those can’t get off their cell long enough to safely work with electricity.
Neighbors kid works on her bachelor’s in political science and women’s studies and is complaining about her student loans. She could be a journeyman electrician by now.

[kayla.meyer_144]

I know a young woman in her 20’s who is an actress and generally works in theater in NYC. She is a licensed electrician & does that in addition to her theater work.
 
But if anyone asks her what she does, she works in theater.

[ruszja]

Quote from Frumious

I know a young woman in her 20’s who is an actress and generally works in theater in NYC. She is a licensed electrician & does that in addition to her theater work.

But if anyone asks her what she does, she works in theater.

The skilled trades in the theater district pull silly money. Good thing if you are in on the union racket.

[kayla.meyer_144]

The union racket is what pulled jobs up and provided benefits and created standards for employment and safety. Employers were not in the habit of “giving things away.” As one HR Director said to me long ago, “Why pay them more or provide so-called incentives? They work for what we pay them & if there’s no work we send them home. If they want to get degrees or go to classes, that’s their business, no benefit to me.”

[tdetlie_105]

Quote from fw

Quote from Frumious

I know a young woman in her 20’s who is an actress and generally works in theater in NYC. She is a licensed electrician & does that in addition to her theater work.

But if anyone asks her what she does, she works in theater.

The skilled trades in the theater district pull silly money. Good thing if you are in on the union racket.

NYC hotel banquet waiters also do quite well 

[Unknown Member]

Quote from Frumious

Quote from jd4540

Quote from fw

Quote from Frumious

The reality is low wages. The issue is low wages.

The issue is low qualifications, a sluggish economy and an ample labor supply.

Issue is likely a combo of all of the above, thats why no easy fix…the norm used to be do equal or better than your patents. Maybe the new norm is to probably do worse or less likely the same….upward mobility will only be for those that having the intelligence, work ethic, or some other valuable talent…luck as well plays a role

Not everyone who makes median incomes and less are lazy toothless violent uneducated idiot caricatures. This caricature is too often used to dismiss people as deserving what they have or don’t have. “It’s their own fault” is not a reason for the majority of people.

These same people who supposedly lack the intelligence, work ethic & other talents who “made America great” in the past. Suddenly most Americans lack work ethic and are lazy & stupid?

Does not fit. Convenient argument but it does not fit.

There is something wrong with the reasoning that if a large portion of people are suddenly chronically un or under-employed, those of us who are employed and paid well (enough) and perhaps with more skills and intelligence look down on the poor proles blaming the proles for their own fates as their own faults. They don’t make the decisions to move the jobs out and away. All the while Wall Street & Trump says they are still overpaid compared to Mexicans and Chinese.

These is a complete disconnect in logical reasoning when we comfortable ones blame the proles. The real problem with them is they believe the lies of the Trumps that things will be made better for them by voting for demagogues. As “What’s the matter with Kansas” states, they vote against their own interests.

They are being used.

 
Your logic is circular so it isn’t logical at all. You complain that American incomes have gone down, which essentially you claim is an issue due to globalization since companies can pay other countries’ workers less. Yet, I bet you have a problem with the nationalist approach Trump is advocating where tariffs would be imposed on companies who send work overseas and sell back to Americans and tax breaks for companies that keep work here. You basically want your cake and eat it too. What America really needs is a booming economy to the point where companies must compete for labor, not more regulations that require companies to pay some vague “living wage.”
 
And as noted by other posters above, there are jobs that are skilled and do not require a genius level IQ. However, there are plenty of lazy people and there are plenty of liberal idiots who think a bachelors in Women’s studies should be worth the same as a bachelors in electrical engineering. In fact, forget electrical engineering, doesn’t an electrician or plumber charge like $200/hr. I know the plumber that was needed to refit some bathtub piping did.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from fa la la

Your logic is circular so it isn’t logical at all. You complain that American incomes have gone down, which essentially you claim is an issue due to globalization since companies can pay other countries’ workers less. Yet, I bet you have a problem with the nationalist approach Trump is advocating where tariffs would be imposed on companies who send work overseas and sell back to Americans and tax breaks for companies that keep work here. You basically want your cake and eat it too. What America really needs is a booming economy to the point where companies must compete for labor, not more regulations that require companies to pay some vague “living wage.”

And as noted by other posters above, there are jobs that are skilled and do not require a genius level IQ. However, there are plenty of lazy people and there are plenty of liberal idiots who think a bachelors in Women’s studies should be worth the same as a bachelors in electrical engineering. In fact, forget electrical engineering, doesn’t an electrician or plumber charge like $200/hr. I know the plumber that was needed to refit some bathtub piping did.

If I can have my cake and eat it too, why not?
 
Other countries have not exported their industries as we have in the US. Maybe not Paradise for workers or industrialists & their economies do have bumps, but they aren’t doing badly & definitely do provide more employment than the US does, especially if Trump’s figures are accepted as fact especially in the Red areas of the US.
 
And this meme about how lazy American workers really are. A rationalization justifying how it’s their own fault in spite of having been the largest and most advanced industrialized country in the world before we exported our industries and jobs.Definitely a reflection of Kevin D. Williamson’s views as printed in articles of the National Review, dumb fuchs who deserve the bed they themselves made. These are the Trump supporters.
 

Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart London has done more to put homosexual camp in the service of right-wing authoritarianism than any man has since the fellows at Hugo Boss sewed all those nifty SS uniforms. He refers to Trump this will not surprise you as Daddy, capital-D.
 
Trump voters are waiting for Daddy to come home the father-führer figure they have spent their lives imagining.
 
The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap.

 
How TF did we ever do that with all these shiftless and lazy dumb Americans running around I’ll never know. Can someone explain it to poor dumb little me?
 
So the party that claims to be their champion has the identical complaints as this Party has about minorities, “lazy grubbers.”
 
 

[Unknown Member]

You can attempt to have your cake and eat it too, but it’s simply not going to happen in the real world. You either protect the countries workers by making it more difficult for companies to make cheaper foreign goods and sell them back or you allow globalization to continue until the entire earth has equal labor costs. The latter will not bode well for developed nations like us.

[heenadevk1119_462]

Quote from fa la la

You can attempt to have your cake and eat it too, but it’s simply not going to happen in the real world. You either protect the countries workers by making it more difficult for companies to make cheaper foreign goods and sell them back or you allow globalization to continue until the entire earth has equal labor costs. The latter will not bode well for developed nations like us.

 
fa la la
 
i’m sad to say they are under serious delusion
 
it’s not worth it
 
I tried a long time ago. Rebels against reality. That’s why they couldn’t see Trump coming, and I did, a year in advance.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Quote from fa la la

You can attempt to have your cake and eat it too, but it’s simply not going to happen in the real world. You either protect the countries workers by making it more difficult for companies to make cheaper foreign goods and sell them back or you allow globalization to continue until the entire earth has equal labor costs. The latter will not bode well for developed nations like us.

Now that the damage has already been done over the past 3 decades, there is little that can be done to magically provide jobs overnight. There are no ruby heels to click together, they are in Kansas already.
 
Over the past 3 decades American businesses offshored millions of American jobs and industries primarily for labor reasons, costs and control. Costs because a Chinese or Mexican worker worked for pennies compared to the American worker who in the eyes of Wall Street and the business owners were grossly overpaid. The reason they were “overpaid” was because a substantial number of workers were unionized and had protections and benefits creating a middle class living for them. When their jobs got offshored the businesses broke the unions and substantially reduced the costs of production. Not that they’d sell things cheaper, they just increased their profits for investors. See Nike whose sneakers cost maybe $25 a pair to produce, market & import back but sell for over $100 with a retail markup of about $50.
 
Those jobs will not come back quickly even though China is moving into a middle class economy. Apple assembles the iPhones in China but its parts are produced globally, screen in Japan, communication chips from American and Germany, etc.
 
In America, workers are separate from management, specifically upper management, AKA, C-Suite people and investors. In America, workers are not highly valued and are considered fungible and are part of the problem in earning profits. Labor is a high but a variable cost as management can lower wages or lower manpower to increase profits.In America, management & workers are in an adversarial arrangement.
 
In Europe, there is less of a separation between management & the other workers & in many cases there is a partnership in decisions. It’s less adversary.
 
Regarding today’s picture, the jobs are in the BLUE areas of the country while the RED are producing less. So 15% of the country (geographical area, counted in counties) voted for Hillary and produce 64% of the country’s economic activity while the 85% that voted for Trump produce only 36% of the country’s economic activity. No wonder they are lost.
 
Forget about cake, although that is the GOP solution about what their supporters should eat. But it’s no answer.
 
The real question is why can’t the Red States create enough jobs for these people? Why are all the jobs in Blue States? That’s what you can tell me as an answer, fa la la. why is all the economic activity in the blue areas that voted for Hillary but the dissatisfaction and unemployment is largely segregated to the Red States?
 
Tell me fa la la.
 
 

[Unknown Member]

Quote from Frumious

Quote from fa la la

You can attempt to have your cake and eat it too, but it’s simply not going to happen in the real world. You either protect the countries workers by making it more difficult for companies to make cheaper foreign goods and sell them back or you allow globalization to continue until the entire earth has equal labor costs. The latter will not bode well for developed nations like us.

Now that the damage has already been done over the past 3 decades, there is little that can be done to magically provide jobs overnight. There are no ruby heels to click together, they are in Kansas already.

Over the past 3 decades American businesses offshored millions of American jobs and industries primarily for labor reasons, costs and control. Costs because a Chinese or Mexican worker worked for pennies compared to the American worker who in the eyes of Wall Street and the business owners were grossly overpaid. The reason they were “overpaid” was because a substantial number of workers were unionized and had protections and benefits creating a middle class living for them. When their jobs got offshored the businesses broke the unions and substantially reduced the costs of production. Not that they’d sell things cheaper, they just increased their profits for investors. See Nike whose sneakers cost maybe $25 a pair to produce, market & import back but sell for over $100 with a retail markup of about $50.

Those jobs will not come back quickly even though China is moving into a middle class economy. Apple assembles the iPhones in China but its parts are produced globally, screen in Japan, communication chips from American and Germany, etc.

In America, workers are separate from management, specifically upper management, AKA, C-Suite people and investors. In America, workers are not highly valued and are considered fungible and are part of the problem in earning profits. Labor is a high but a variable cost as management can lower wages or lower manpower to increase profits.In America, management & workers are in an adversarial arrangement.

In Europe, there is less of a separation between management & the other workers & in many cases there is a partnership in decisions. It’s less adversary.

Regarding today’s picture, the jobs are in the BLUE areas of the country while the RED are producing less. So 15% of the country (geographical area, counted in counties) voted for Hillary and produce 64% of the country’s economic activity while the 85% that voted for Trump produce only 36% of the country’s economic activity. No wonder they are lost.

Forget about cake, although that is the GOP solution about what their supporters should eat. But it’s no answer.

The real question is why can’t the Red States create enough jobs for these people? Why are all the jobs in Blue States? That’s what you can tell me as an answer, fa la la. why is all the economic activity in the blue areas that voted for Hillary but the dissatisfaction and unemployment is largely segregated to the Red States?

Tell me fa la la.

 
The jobs in the blue states are from highly educated individuals and industries. They are not from these minimum wage type jobs you’re talking about. While the large blue metro cities obviously have their fair share of low skilled jobs, they are well outnumbered by jobs in finance, healthcare, computing, etc. That’s why a state like California is economically large enough to be a nation itself. If you’ll notice, blue states have not had any progress in improving the lives of their minimum wage workers. In fact, decades of democratic control has not helped increase “social justice”, wage inequality, etc. The reason people vote democratic is because they’re bought by a dollar here and a dollar there without any real upward opportunity. It’s like Malcolm X said, we won’t organize black men to vote democratic, both parties sold us out, both parties are racist, but the democratic party is more racist than the republican party.
 
The reason the American middle class is crashing is because one half bought into the Democratic anthem that the 1% are screwing them and the other half bought into the Republican social issues about abortion and religion. In reality, they’re both screwing us. NAFTA was drafted by Republicans and approved by a Democratic president. Obama continues to push for TPP while some others like Sanders who I believe to be a truly good person opposes it, yet his economic policies don’t make sense in the real world.
 
Apple and google and every other multibillion dollar tech company that is highly democratic also does the same thing that every gas and oil company that is highly republican does. Apple holds all its profits in Ireland taxed at less than 1% while hardly any equipment is made there. They license their IP to every other nation, which then pays them in Ireland, which is basically tax free. If you think deeper than what you’re told by Democrats, you’ll see that Apple and google can support Hillary, but they’ve been practicing Romney and Trump tactics for decades.

[kayla.meyer_144]

No.
 
I live in a blue state. I know of some people who voted for Trump who have jobs that pay well enough that they own a house, cars, etc. They are not earning minimum wages. But they are angry & vote Republican regularly.
 
I know of farmers for example who exist on Medicare & Medicaid to treat their complaints including diabetes who bitch and moan about Democrats & regularly vote Republican.
 
For the past 50 years many white Democratic voters have been migrating to the GOP in spite of poverty and healthcare and retirement programs that Democrats both create and maintain while the GOP wants to get rid of them. Both parties are screwing them? No, Democrats could do much better but like “What’s the matter with Kansas,” these voters are voting against their own self-interest for reasons that are religious, racial and who knows what else. Shooting themselves in the foot & then blaming others.

[Unknown Member]

Quote from Frumious

No.

I live in a blue state. I know of some people who voted for Trump who have jobs that pay well enough that they own a house, cars, etc. They are not earning minimum wages. But they are angry & vote Republican regularly.

I know of farmers for example who exist on Medicare & Medicaid to treat their complaints including diabetes who **** and moan about Democrats & regularly vote Republican.

For the past 50 years many white Democratic voters have been migrating to the GOP in spite of poverty and healthcare and retirement programs that Democrats both create and maintain while the GOP wants to get rid of them. Both parties are screwing them? No, Democrats could do much better but like “What’s the matter with Kansas,” these voters are voting against their own self-interest for reasons that are religious, racial and who knows what else. Shooting themselves in the foot & then blaming others.

 
You’re pointing out exactly what I stated. I vote republican for my own selfish reasons like taxes even though I’ll be above average in earnings. Other people vote Republican against their own self interest for stupid reasons like religion and abortion over economics. It could be easily argued that it would be stupid of me to vote democratic because I’d be shooting myself in the foot by considering things like minimum wage that don’t affect me just like red state poor white people vote Republican without considering how those policies will affect them

[Unknown Member]

And frankly, I don’t see my money being spent wisely. Anyone who’s been to the DMV or VA knows exactly how poorly run a government agency is compared to a private enterprise. There’s no law requiring me to care about others when I vote or do anything else in life, but if I did want to help others, I’d still vote for the person offering me the lowest tax rate possible because a dollar I give to the salvation army has an exponentially more positive effect than a dollar given to the government.

[Unknown Member]

Evaluate people by what they do and not what they say and you’ll notice that there is no Republican or Democrat. There’s those in power and those not in power.

[Unknown Member]

The solution for a developed nation is to control it’s population. It will seem inhumane to you, but we can no longer support growing an uneducated population because there are not enough jobs in these countries for those people. The reason countries like Singapore, Northern European nations, Switzerland, etc (btw these countries and Ireland are basically considered the new corporate tax havens) have a higher standard of living is because they don’t have economies based on low skilled labor and they don’t have a population that need those jobs to support themselves.
 
You can say what you want about Trump, but the only real way for America to increase productivity and keep it’s standard of living up is to make it easy for businesses to do business here and provide an incentive for them to stay here. A significant drop in the corporate interest rate as well as finding a way to get all these “democratic” tech companies to repatriate their profits and spend it here is a start. The overall taxes collected will stay and probably increase only when labor is in greater demand than supply

[Unknown Member]

And going back to your blue vs red state comparison, you’ll notice that tech is no longer limited to silicon valley. “Red” states like Texas have attracted a significant proportion of new tech investment and companies. California is one major tech company moving somewhere else from being irreversibly broke. After that, they’ll increase taxes on the “rich” even more which will only hasten the move of business and investment somewhere else. The top marginal tax rate is well over 50% in California with federal and state incomes tax, and that’s just income tax alone. Add in payroll and you’re at 60 cents on the dollar gone before you even see your paycheck at the top tax rates. This doesn’t affect most people, but it does affect the people making the decisions on who to hire, where to be located, and how aggressively to attempt expanding their business. If someone’s looking to expand their small business, but if their personal profit from taking a huge loan and business risk as well as time investment would be 40 cents on the dollar for every extra dollar it makes them, they’re gonna think not just twice but 10 times before pulling the trigger.

[kayla.meyer_144]

And education and healthcare in Texas are substantially lower, serving less than in California.
 
If you want to talk about pockets of the economy, the blue states are still substantially higher than the Red most of which accept more Federal $ than they take in. I believe Texas receives substantially more $ back from the Federal government than does California, per capita.
 
So if a State is a welfare state, getting more support $ from the Federal government, it’s a taker state. So I am subsidizing Texas’s lower taxes out of my tax dollars.
 
Can a taker state brag that their costs are lower when their costs are being picked up by someone else?

[kayla.meyer_144]

The DMV by me is great. 15 minutes I’m done. Rarely longer.

[Unknown Member]

I’m all for cutting the amount of money Texas receives. I don’t live there, let them raise their own tax rates. But that doesn’t invalidate my point that economic growth is the only real way to improve the middle class. Either that or protectionist policies.

[kayla.meyer_144]

No. If you researched you’d know that raising the GDP is not enough on its own, yo also need to address the inequality of low wages or “living” wages. Just look at the reality of today, the GDP under Obama has raised much since late 2008 when the economy crashed and unemployment has returned to the same number as then. But yet these people who voted for Trump for economic reasons are  angry and unsatisfied. Why? The GDP has returned back to the old numbers.
 
Because GDP is not enough is the benefits of a strong economy are being funneled away from them to the upper income groups.