Should there be billionaires?

[Vakarian74]

This is an area where I veer hard right (or off on to some weird Z access). The morality that says the government has no business telling consenting adults what they can and can't do in the bedroom or whether anyone has the right to take their own life is the same that say employment is a private agreement between two parties.

When you say companies should not have employee's on food stamps, I understand your take from an ethical perspective: I don't want anyone on food stamps, either. But the company doesn't care about that and honestly they shouldn't care about that. Companies will always pay you less, they are incentivized to pay you less. Individuals are incentivized to want to make more. If able bodied people don't want to be on food stamps then I suggest they not work at a place that puts them below the poverty level. This is also why I support unions - just large groups of people trying to leverage themselves to better salary. Don't want to work for a place that has a union? Good news! You don't have to.

I think the thing a lot of people miss when it comes to setting wages is that anything you do to try to intervene on behalf of the worker will ultimately stratify that job. The free flow of wages and people shifting jobs is the best way to get people off food stamps.

Taxes and wealth are other subjects entirely, but I always feel compelled to speak out on the negative unintended of minimum wage hikes/'livable' wages. You will ultimately hurt the ones you are trying to protect.

And blaming the poor for being poor.

 

[UrbanCowboy]

And blaming the poor for being poor.

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'.

 

[CowboyJD]

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?

 

[steross]

LOL. This is happening again?

We are talking the “deficit” not the “debt”. We had this discussion two years ago when kept getting those confused.

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.

 

[Vakarian74]

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'.

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.

 

[steross]

This is an area where I veer hard right (or off on to some weird Z access). The morality that says the government has no business telling consenting adults what they can and can't do in the bedroom or whether anyone has the right to take their own life is the same that say employment is a private agreement between two parties.

When you say companies should not have employee's on food stamps, I understand your take from an ethical perspective: I don't want anyone on food stamps, either. But the company doesn't care about that and honestly they shouldn't care about that. Companies will always pay you less, they are incentivized to pay you less. Individuals are incentivized to want to make more. If able bodied people don't want to be on food stamps then I suggest they not work at a place that puts them below the poverty level. This is also why I support unions - just large groups of people trying to leverage themselves to better salary. Don't want to work for a place that has a union? Good news! You don't have to.

I think the thing a lot of people miss when it comes to setting wages is that anything you do to try to intervene on behalf of the worker will ultimately stratify that job. The free flow of wages and people shifting jobs is the best way to get people off food stamps.

Taxes and wealth are other subjects entirely, but I always feel compelled to speak out on the negative unintended of minimum wage hikes/'livable' wages. You will ultimately hurt the ones you are trying to protect.

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.

 

[UrbanCowboy]

You literally said if someone is working jobs that require food stamps that they should get another job. That's 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.

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.

 

[steross]

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 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.

 

[Stillwaterman]

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.


View attachment 18546

Honestly, I wonder how much of this charted downturn is due to the influx of immigration over the past 20 years?

 

[steross]

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.

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/a-new-look-at-the-declining-labor-share-of-income-in-the-united-states

 

[Polds4OSU]

You guys are arguing economics and an economic system that is about to become obsolete

Bernie Sanders lashes out as Amazon plan to replace 600,000 workers with robots​

MSN

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​

MSN

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

www.theguardian.com

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​

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bill-gates-says-ai-change-143901693.html

 

[GratefulPoke]

We agree the govt is incompetent too! The Venn diagram is getting closer all the time.

3.2 T doesn’t make a dent. 24 Dem pres Dem control of legislature 1.8T over spending. 25 Rep pres Rep legislature 1.8T over spending. In less than 2 years any dent would be gone. in the governments hands. We have a spending problem. They don’t fix anything they just throw all the money they can’t fit in their pockets after bad.

When you add it all up I am taxed at over 50% of my income. The government forcibly charges me more of my money than my family gets. There are laws/penalties associated with not paying those. You’re not a free citizen at that point you’re a subject.

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.

 

[GratefulPoke]

This is an area where I veer hard right (or off on to some weird Z access). The morality that says the government has no business telling consenting adults what they can and can't do in the bedroom or whether anyone has the right to take their own life is the same that say employment is a private agreement between two parties.

When you say companies should not have employee's on food stamps, I understand your take from an ethical perspective: I don't want anyone on food stamps, either. But the company doesn't care about that and honestly they shouldn't care about that. Companies will always pay you less, they are incentivized to pay you less. Individuals are incentivized to want to make more. If able bodied people don't want to be on food stamps then I suggest they not work at a place that puts them below the poverty level. This is also why I support unions - just large groups of people trying to leverage themselves to better salary. Don't want to work for a place that has a union? Good news! You don't have to.

I think the thing a lot of people miss when it comes to setting wages is that anything you do to try to intervene on behalf of the worker will ultimately stratify that job. The free flow of wages and people shifting jobs is the best way to get people off food stamps.

Taxes and wealth are other subjects entirely, but I always feel compelled to speak out on the negative unintended of minimum wage hikes/'livable' wages. You will ultimately hurt the ones you are trying to protect.

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.