And blaming the poor for being poor.
Should there be billionaires?
- Thread starter steross
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Simplistic, but no. I don't want anyone to be poor.
I'm saying that locking minimum wage to higher and higher numbers will keep poor people poor. It's counter-intuitive, but the more open the marketplace is, the better the odds of people escaping poverty. It doesn't mean everyone will, but no system guarantees that, and any that try to are lying to you.
No one wants to be in poverty. No one wants to see anyone else in poverty (unless your sick in the head). But just going in and throwing money around isn't helpful. In fact, it's dangerous. I think of it like aspirin or nasal spray - some are designed for daily use in certain circumstances, but others definitely aren't. Look at Afrin: if you take it for more than 3-4 days it can actually cause the congestion you were trying to avoid.
What I'm saying is that we need to be incredibly careful with the tools we use when it comes to tackling poverty; it's not as simple as 'companies or governments should be responsible for this'.
If "companies" aren't responsible for this, and governments aren't responsible for this,.....who is?
I'm not confused. Look back at the posts. I am the one that brought it up and said we are $38 T in debt. The fact that you want to talk only deficit doesn't change the reality of the debt we have and that is what was brought up. And you act like deficit and debt are completely unrelated, which is silly.
You try to be condescending and falsely make claims to attempt to show others lack intelligence all the time. Yet, you are the one that nobody on this board hardly respects a single word out of your mouth. And, you will claim that is just politics, but that isn't true. There have been plenty of posters that are even more right than you that the board did not treat with disdain because of their character.
You literally said if someone is working jobs that require food stamps that they should get another job. Thats blaming them for being poor.
The only way to get the dragons to stop hoarding is to destroy the dragons.
Edit: everyone always carts like the minimum wage will make costs go up. Does anyone realize that the ones making minimum spend all of their money. That raise literally goes right back into the economy. The only reason it would cause prices to raise is because greedy people will be greedy people.
I could almost agree with you in a utopia type setting but we aren't that. What strikes me is that you are saying that the worker and the company (or employer) are on equal footing in the eyes of the government and can negotiate this wage and whatever it turns out to be is two consenting parties making a deal. Problem is, we are not doing that with everything else in the employment world. If the government takes away minimum wage, why do we still have non-complete clauses? Stark laws? Doctors can't own hospitals? Why do we still have TBTF banks? Why do we still have carbon credits? Why do we have..........? There are SO many ways that this is not a "competition" by two competitors on equal footing because of the actions of government have already propped up the corporate world with all kinds of things that make them far more powerful than the individual. The one power we used to have, that we as citizens had political speech rights as individuals, was also handed to corporations with Citizens United vs FEC. To say that suddenly the government must back away in silence as an 18-year-old kid negotiates "as equals" with Walmart isn't realistic in our world.
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Right, let's just legislate the greediness out of people, that always works. You can keep 'x'ing my posts or put boring responses to them, but I'm trying to engage with you. I even said "I don't want people to be in poverty, no one does". I'm saying the thing you think will help people will actually hurt them in the long run.
And yeah, I stand by my statement. And to clarify even further, we're talking able bodied people. There are obviously those that are incapable of providing for themselves. People that are able should get a second job if one is not enough to sustain them. What is the other option, even?
The reason the price of goods is so high is because we enabled massive debt spending on both personal and national levels. Companies saw increased demand due to the spend, which means they can capture more profit from pricing. Prices go up. Interest rates set to historic lows, debt spending becomes even easier. Prices go up.
You can set the minimum wage to $100K a year. Guess what will happen. In order to break that cycle you'd be asking companies to not capture price, which is, frankly, insane. We have a cost problem, not an earning problem. The US has the fourth highest average wage IN THE WORLD and has increased by a whopping 30% in four years!!!! AND things are more expensive here relative to those countries in front of us. That's why you are feeling the pinch.
Most of the ideas bandied about are like trying to dig your way out of a hole. Higher minimum wages isn't going to solve poverty.
The other option would be to look at what we have done to decrease the share of compensation that goes to labor and see what can be done to correct it (you know, MAGA) instead of saying "sorry about your luck, why don't you just work 65 hours a week so they can have more jets instead of seeing your family."
Severe income inequality, no matter how it is justified, historically ends badly for all.
Honestly, I wonder how much of this charted downturn is due to the influx of immigration over the past 20 years?
Here is the article, 2019. They discuss several possible aspects.
Polds4OSU
Marshall
You guys are arguing economics and an economic system that is about to become obsolete
www.theguardian.com
Bernie Sanders lashes out as Amazon plan to replace 600,000 workers with robots
Elon Musk says you don’t need to worry about saving for retirement. Musk Says AI and Robots Will Make Goods and Services Nearly Free
Universal basic income could be used to soften hit from AI job losses in UK, minister says
Universal basic income could be used to soften hit from AI job losses in UK, minister says
Lord Stockwood says people in government ‘definitely’ talking about idea as technology disrupts industries
Bill Gates Says 'AI Will Change Society the Most'—Job Disruption Has Already Begun, 'Less Labor' Will Be Needed, And 5-Day Work Week May Disappear
I think our reasons for thinking that there is incompetence in the government are likely divergent, not convergent and in our discussion that also applies to the solutions put forth.
If we have a spending problem, deliniate what we are spending too much on.
I don't think you live in California, so how are you paying over a 50% tax rate? The highest federal tax rate is capped at 37.5% and when you add that to any state tax rate other than California, one does not get 50% or higher.
Your first paragraph is essentially a voluntaryist argument in the marketplace of labor. The problem is that it acts like everyone is on relatively equal ground when making these business decisions and it is not possible for a party to agree to an otherwise coercive system since they don't have other options. This is like saying that "Monica Lewinsky consented to oral sex with Bill Clinton, and they were both adults and agreed to it, so no harm no foul!" while ignoring that she was a white house intern having a sexual relationship with a superior, in this case in the president. She really couldn't consent due to the power imbalance and the conflicts of interest present in the situation. The labor market is similar in many ways. Want to try to drive a hard bargain with your employer? Well you could instantly lose your healthcare coverage! This depresses wages significantly.
I agree that minimum wage laws are duct tape to the real issue, which is an imbalance of power in the labor market. I agree with you that unions are a huge part of the solution to this and that collective bargaining can level the playing field where employers tend to have significantly more power than their employees. I still see minimum wage laws as indispensable to navigate this territory, even if market mechanisms work against them, and this is why. You might think tipping is stupid and gets employers our of having to pay their employees a livable wage, but in response to this you declare "I am no longer going to tip anyone!" While in the meantime they are unable to pay their bills, purchase insurance, go to the doctor, etc. So you are teaching the "lesson" to the wrong people. Safety nets often work against market mechanisms. That isn't an argument to not have them, its an argument to address the root cause(s).
In my opinion, this comes down to ownership. Until employees have Economic Democracy (voting power and an ownership stake in a business), we are going to continue to run into these problems with huge portions of the population struggling to get by. This shouldn't be the case and is avoidable. Its 2026 and we have enough wealth to where we should not have millions of people struggling with the basics. Its time to take a different tact.
It a spending problem. Whether you are talking about a child's weekly allowance of $5 or the US treasury if you make X and spend X+38T with no plan to recover the debt you have by definition a spending problem. 38T in debt.....looking at around a 31T GDP......if they took every dollar from that we would still be in more debt than we created as a nation in our first 227 years. Spending is completely out of control.
A trillion dollars is +/- $2900 for every person in the country. So when you go to 38 you get $111,000 for every soul in the census....or real close to $225K for every worker in our workforce. 40% of the work force combined contribution is 0 so $372K from everyone who isn't getting back more than they pay in. If you make $372K you are in the top 4ish% of earners. You can't collect $225K.... from a workforce that averages $64K annually.
Delineation.....never ending wars, social programs rife with fraud, omnibus bills that are thousands of pages filled billions of dollars of things no one has read you take the lifers like Grassly who has been in office 45 years I'll bet my worth he has said yes to a Trillion dollars worth of spending he had no idea he even agreed to, a govt that has thousands of needless employees sitting in desks filling roles a software package could have replaced a decade ago, whatever side you are on all the ICE mess or the assistance given to an 8 digit figure of people that entered the country undocumented either way a lack of common sense immigration policy, private companies and schools that are profitable or worth billions getting direct payments, bank bailouts, airline bailouts, hell sounds like we might buy Greenland.......just open up any spending bill and throw a dart you'll hit something. Oh and national parks.....just kidding.
I'm easily taxed at over 50% when you add it all up and live in Texas a tax friendly state. I am a high wage W2 employee the govt's favorite person.....then you add Social Security on a part of it (I'm for SS on all of it easiest fix to a real problem and literally only impacts high wage earners while going directly to those in need but it's still there).....so we are close enough to call it 40%.......now tack on a sales tax on every item I buy......look at your bills there is a special tax on almost any of them communications, utilities, car registrations, taxes on properties, fuel taxes,......you get to 50 fast. Then when I die they take one last bite at the apple for good measure so they bleed you more after your heart stops. 50% easy. Not in that equation and indirect but very real......the cost of payroll, environmental, corporate taxes are baked in everything you buy and now you are well north of 50. It's better to be one that makes enough to pay those taxes than not and I'm not crying victim here but when you are getting over half of what people are making and your debt is climbing at a unsustainable pace the problem is out the outflow side.
Talk tax code changes I'm all ears the whole things needs scraped and rebuilt......but tax the 1% more and we will feed kids, fix homelessness, have better schools, a quality public healthcare system, a national rail system, etc etc......none of it will happen. It's just tribal banter to divide the voting block so people who don't know what they are voting on can say yes and get re-elected for 45 years. It may exist....but I can't think of a time the government said "here is the problem.....here is a clear plan to fix it......it's going to cost X over Y time.....we are going to raise taxes this much for that long.....problem fixed/plan didn't work we are not charging the tax anymore". I can't think of a single one.
The government IS the problem throwing money at them only makes the problem fatter and less useful.
TLDR: We all pay too many taxes and the govt creates diseases then sells cures that don't work.
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While we are on this topic here is a fun factoid......and I'm not saying he is going to go hungry or anything like that but just an example.
Sam Darnold recieved 178K to play in the Super Bowl....the league gives each player that seperate from their salary. California has a "jock tax" on earnings athletes make when in Cali (there are nuances I don't know it has to do with most being contractors or paid to personal corps the source was ESPN).....if you are there for more than 7 days competing they take a slice of your annual income. Being in town for a week put him over the 7 days. He made $178K last week....again ton of money.....his tax burden in Cali due to the extra days is estimated at $249K.
Sam Darnold recieved 178K to play in the Super Bowl....the league gives each player that seperate from their salary. California has a "jock tax" on earnings athletes make when in Cali (there are nuances I don't know it has to do with most being contractors or paid to personal corps the source was ESPN).....if you are there for more than 7 days competing they take a slice of your annual income. Being in town for a week put him over the 7 days. He made $178K last week....again ton of money.....his tax burden in Cali due to the extra days is estimated at $249K.
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