DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Poverty and The Brain

This is so extra.

Yes, your niece should be paid $10 an hour. He picked that rate as it correlates to the inflation rate. Which means she would be paid the same rate as you, back when you were scoping ice cream.

Also your system makes no logistical sense.

Dude, there's no need to attack Swish so hard. Especially considering you're wrong in all of those subjects.

Competition in this country has been rigged in favor of those who are already winning. They are the ones writing the rules for the game. They are the ones whose incomes have increased exponentially greater than the middle and lower classes.

No one's asking for anything free. They want the competition rules to be returned to the day when "The American Dream" meant something other than just a dream.

Unions have been labeled as evil, yet they've done far less than the owners who have been labeled as hard workers deserving of every penny they make when playing by the rules they've written.

It is plainly obvious this country's game has been rigged. The evidence is abundant and obvious, but we're still claiming our money is flying toward the poor when all the evidence show our money flying to the ones who run the game.

If the only defense is that there's an agenda to attack the well deserving, hard working rich then the slightest look at wage balance should crush that paid for propaganda easily.

I disagree that it is all some kind of conspiracy by the Rich to make money while holding down the poor and middle. Eric is correct that a big part of it is a matter of supply and demand.

If you own a pristine 55 Chevy and it has a value of $50,000 because demand is high and supply is low. One day some guy down the street dies and when they open his garage they find 10 pristine 55 Chevy's in there, the value of your car has just dropped by half because the supply has just increased.

If you wanted to buy one of those Chevy's, you can't get a loan from a bank because with the recent crackdown on banks by the government and the rules they placed on banks, banks have stopped lending money. Banks no longer make their money from loans and interest like they used to. Today, banks make their money from charging fees. You can have perfect credit and a 20% down payment and still be refused a loan.

This is how the system currently is. No conspiracy, perhaps some overreaction by our government but after the crash you have to expect it.

Rich people have the cash in most cases to get around the banks.

Capital gains are taxed and they should be - Capital Gains and Losses

Of course, there is plenty of research that says increasing capital gains tax could make the economy more efficient and help promote income equality and that low capital gains do not contribute to the economic growth at all - Raising Low Capital Gains Taxes

You don't have to call it a conspiracy you can call it facts. ALEC writes laws for conservative reps., including the Orwellianly titled, "Right to Work" laws. Koch has consistently backed anti-union, anti-minimum wage increase candidates.

Their money has guaranteed they've had enough votes to pass these anti-worker laws.

So if we're anti-class anything it's completely anti-middle and lower class.

Orwellian titled 'right to work' laws? Are you talking about those laws that say I don't have to join a union to get a job?

I like those laws, as I don't need a union to tell me how much or what I am allowed to do at work. If I need to work OT, I can. If I want to pick up a piece of paper in the parking lot, I can. I can negotiate my own salary, and I do it rather well.

You say...
"Their money has guaranteed they've had enough votes to pass these anti-worker laws."

Eric says...
Are you talking about those laws that say I don't have to join a union to get a job?
I like those laws, as I don't need a union to tell me how much or what I am allowed to do at work.

I say...
"Eyes of the beholder, not facts after all."

That's cool if you view it that way, but it's better titled anti-union.

As far as all those tasks you want to do or not, I'm not sure if that isn't just applying some kind of union stereotyping.

Of course you could always choose not to work in a union shop. Take a little personal responsibility instead of forcing others to your standards.

Yes it should... should a minimum wage job be able to pay your rent if you need an apartment big enough for 2 kids? 3 kids? 4 kids?


See my response above, yes it should support you. Should it support a family of 3 or 4?

Maybe we should enforce need-based pay... if you are a 17 year old McDs register operator in high school and living at home, $8/hour is good for you. But if you are a single mother of 3 at the same job then you should make $16/hour... we could do it that way, shouldn't be a problem... I'm sure McD's would hire the mother of 3 anyway...

Somebody needs to tell me exactly what this "livable wage" is supposed to support before talking specifics or even generalities is worth it.

If you took all the wealth of the 1% and gave it to the poor thus making the 1% poor also, in 5 years the 1% would have all the wealth again and the poor would again be poor.

To start, and probably would be satisfactory, make it worth the same spending value as it had when we were young.

How about this question?
If profits are based on worker productivity then how much profit at the expense of wage increase is adequate?

At least that's a starting point. When were you young?


Production cost is based on worker productivity, profits are based on supply and demand. If it costs me $2 to make a widget and I can sell it for $5, I will. If I can sell the same amount for $10, I will. Same productivity, way more profit.


Invariably in these discussions, I start out defending capitalism because I believe in capitalism, but capitalism is flawed because it relies on human beings to be self-policing.. so then I start to move to the more logical side of the argument, which is that we would all be better off if some people were willing to make a little less and share that money down the line with their employees. It's just a better business model.

What I would like to see happen is that I would like to see the employers who can afford it to raise their wages and then be much more demanding of their employees. You get snippy with a customer, you're gone. You're late multiple times, you're gone. You can't make change for a $5, gone. You show up looking and smelling like you just rolled out of bed, gone.... you get the point.

Not a fair comparison when you consider there was nothing to buy when you were young. You either grew it or made it from skins and sharp stones.

you're that old 40?

battling Tigers and stuff?

Ha! Had Tigers as pets!
You ever see a living Woolly Mammoth or Mastodon? No? Your welcome.

What I see people refusing to address is that with inflation, minimum wage has gone backwards since 1970. Now we can argue what minimum wage should or shouldn't be. However, trying to indicate that those at the bottom of the wage scale should actually go backwards over time simply makes no sense.

I believe most would agree at the very least, that the lifestyle and buying power a minimum wage worker made in 1970, should hold steady over time. Not people at the bottom going backwards.

We already have a living wage in Maryland, as well as other local municipalities around the country such as San Francisco and Santa Fe.

Typically a living wage is measured as what payment is required for a person working 40 hours a week to afford the most basic food, utilities, housing, health care, and transport. It usually does not include education or retirement spending.

So in our current climate, if one is working minimum wage in the US, they need to work multiple jobs and receive government assistance to meet these needs. There is one thing that is missed in this discussion. We commonly discuss raising the minimum wage as hurting business or hurting the taxpayer, but what about businesses that hurt the taxpayer?

If I'm employing a guy and he's making minimum wage, and requires government assistance to live, is that not a business subsidy? I don't have to pay the person enough for them to survive on my wage alone, and the rest is made up by the government at taxpayer expense. Indeed, food stamp costs would go down by billions if the minimum wage was raised:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/e...f39c_story.html

The purpose of minimum wage in the first place is to set a minimum bargaining floor for workers in unskilled positions that are more likely to be unable to bargain their own wage rate. It's basically a federally mandated CBA. Because we have stagnated minimum wage a great deal since the 1980s, it has not been a living wage equivalent in over 30 years.



Another common refrain is that raising the minimum wage would hurt employment numbers. Studies were done in the 90s that disproved this, but either way, lets say it would. In that case, if a person working 3 min wage jobs gets a raise enough to remove two of those jobs as needing to live, that frees up 2 jobs. Lets say one of the jobs is removed due to this wage hike. That still leaves one unfilled job for someone else to fill. And if you are still worried about the businesses after all of this, I leave you with a comment from FDR:

Don't forget to figure in Welfare, food stamps, housing etc that is available to today's low income person that wasn't available or was at a lower rate in the 1970. Total income is what you want to be looking at when comparing.

yup... Sabre-toothed Tigers....

Its not nice to poke fun at deformities or handicaps.
Next you'll be referring to Buck Toothed Beavers and such.

Get any time away from your tigers to get me some numbers on your immigrant claim?

Why would I look up exact numbers to something I already know is true? Next you will be asking for the exact numbers to show the Earth is round. Trust me, it is round, unless you would like to prove me wrong.

Food stamps came around in 1961. Welfare was much more open ended until 1996 reform. Housing was subsidized much earlier but HUD was founded in 1965 to help low income earners buy a home or get rent relief.

So what precisely wasn't available?

Ok then, you just had to say you lied, no need to write a big paragraph about it.

That which is presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

This is perfectly in line with what I would prefer, except at the moment the self policing part isn't working at all.

I feel like people expect me to defend socialism sometimes, but I don't give a care about socialism I just want our capitalism to work the way it's supposed to.

To say I lied without presenting evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Ok, evidence presented. You made this claim with nothing to back it up. I don't even need exact numbers, vague numbers would work. You couldn't even find a CNS article or a Rush Limbaugh editorial to back up this weasel statement.

So again, just admit you lied and know not what you speak of, or present proof otherwise.

I do know of what I speak. You are the one questioning it and calling me a liar and a Ground Hog or Woodchuck and stuff!
Prove me wrong if you can. Facts before insults!

Why does the wage debate always sound like everyone works for some large corporation making hand over fist?

Don't most Americans work for small businesses? And don't most small businesses run lean.

It's easy to say raise wages, but what happens to all those small businesses that could be adversely affected by an increase.

In the company I work for, business ebb and flows with seasons an trends. And therefore, our company pays a certain percentage of profit as bonuses monthly. Some months it's nice, other months it is nil. It is they're way of providing a better wage, without specifically paying you a minimum amount. It also drives most employees to be more efficient, as the more profit we have the better the bonus.

Sadly, I have heard some employees complain when there was no bonus.

I agree with that system of bonuses you speak of but Some on here have suggested if a small business can't afford to pay a higher minimum wage, they should close.

If you know so much of this then why is there no data on your end? Here, I will provide some on my end. There is no insulting here btw, I am stating that you are fabricating your statement, which as you may tell by a thesaurus is synonymous with lie

Income inequality today is as high as it was during the teens and roaring 20s of the 20th century:



The wealth was concentrated in the few and far between. Changes in economic policy (New Deal/unions/WW2) caused a compression of income that lasted until the 70s. If many immigrants at the turn of the century made it to the 1%, then wouldn't income have compressed earlier, and not due to policy changes?

Take the examples of those at the top. The wealthiest man today is Bill Gates at 76B USD, yet when adjusted for inflation he is worth only a portion of the wealth amassed by Vanderbilt (185B), Carnegie (310B), and Rockefeller (340B).

We call the turn of the 20th century the Gilded Age because it had the appearance of wealth but the majority of immigrants coming to this country lived in abject poverty and dangerous conditions.

So again, I ask you: Please back up your statement with some findings, or admit you fabricated it.

Like you I work for a small business. We have 4 employees here in the US. But we are a tech company so we're all highly-skilled. There are advantages for all small businesses if the minimum wage is raised though.

3 out of 5 small business owners support increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 because of the increased spending power brought to the economy, as well as lower employee turnover and higher productivity. If you hire someone and he has to work 2 or 3 jobs, he's going to be less effective for you than if he only works your job.

http://asbcouncil.org/sites/default/files/asbc_bfmw_poll_report_final_140709.pdf

It's also important to consider that minimum wage earners make up less than 5 percent of the hourly workforce.

Love it. See? People that start at minimum wage don't stay at min. long, as long as they show up for work, and do their job.

Was that "person" working 3 minimum wage jobs at 40 hours a week for each job? That's the only way your numbers work.

Or, are you looking to pay a 20 hour per week person a "livable" wage?

I guess we need to know hours worked. I cannot see where someone working 15-25 hours a week should expect to earn a "livable" wage.

And let's face it, there's 168 hours in a week. No one can work 3 minimum wage jobs at 40 hours each job - that's 120 hours a week. That would leave only 48 hours of non work time.

So, the whole "raising minimum wage would INCREASE job availability" is kind of a skewed view point.


And FDR probably didn't realize what minimum wage jobs are today, vs. during his time.

I still haven't seen anyone address the fact that since 1968, the buying power of minimum wage has steadily gone backwards. That those at the bottom make less and less.

As such, more of our tax dollars go to subsidize the life of those workers. The net result is that it's costing us all.

Perhaps you missed gage's post where less than 5% of the workforce makes minimum wage. And, I have to assume that that 5% includes people like my 14 (soon to be 15) yr. old niece.

And you could easily make some sort of caveat for people still in high school. I don't have an issue with that.

But that still doesn't address my question. Should even those people, who are on the bottom of earnings, be going backwards since 1968 in their buying power?

As you say, we are only talking about 5% of workers, so what is the harm of permitting those on the bottom not to go backwards?

So what's the hold up? You made minimum wage once, and it was higher than she's making. Why?

With food stamps, housing help, day care assistance, etc and a minimum wage, are you sure they have gone backwards in income?

Yes. Gage talked about it earlier... To you. You should read what he has to say.