(April 15, 2014 at 3:17 pm)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: Which is funny, because I'm guessing Alpha Male's job description is either Janitor or Handyman.

Those are perfectly honorable occupations.

---

(April 16, 2014 at 12:00 am)Minimalist Wrote: $1 a week? Just think how much the greedy corporate criminals could make then!

Off of Americans? Nothing. It's hard to fill a job for ranch hands at $20 an hour because it's intense work. No one will work for $1 an hour because if that's all a job is worth, we either won't do it or will automate it. $1 a week is probably an exaggeration anyway, in some developing countries a $1 an hour would be considered good money, though. Even in a country like that, you can make much more money if you have valuable skills. Strong East Asian countries have common pattern of sweat shop to power house. I think it's possible to skip the sweat shop phase, but it would require enormous outside investment, like paying competitive compensation to send people to school.

---

(April 16, 2014 at 10:03 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: There are always risks and ill effects in every policy. But there's no statistical evidence that it has much of a hazardous effect in the long run and actually quite a bit of counter evidence. Just look at our history in the US. When the minimum wage was instated and wages increased it helped create one of the most profitable times we have ever had (winning the Second World War helped too).

Historically, it has been our practice to raise the minimum wage in small increments when the economy was in a strong growth phase. As long as growth was greater than the costs of raising the minimum wage, the economy would continue to prosper. One thing about a dramatic increase in a slow growth economy: it would probably settle the matter.

(April 22, 2014 at 11:20 pm)Revelation777 Wrote: Only since the gap between rich and poor has been growing again has the economy sunk nearly as low as it did during the Great Depression. I say you're duped because unless you're super rich, you're fighting on the wrong side. You should want more equality in pay too unless you're already on the high receiving end.

Minimum wage has little to do with income disparity, which I don't mean as an argument against it. The vast majority of workers are making more than minimum wage, and raising it to, say, 10.10, won't make much of a dent in that gap, which has much more to do with the top 0.1% percent getting richer than the bottom ten percent getting poorer. Much of what drives the top 10% is inflation (mostly in terms of stock options and other deferred compensation) for CEO compensation. It pays to have friends among the directors deciding your compensation package, especially if you're in a position to influence their compensation down the road. This practice basically allows them to loot their companies.

---

(April 16, 2014 at 11:06 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(April 16, 2014 at 10:57 am)Heywood Wrote: You have to remember that a minimum wage makes it illegal for a person to sell their labor for a price which is less than that specified by the government. Minimum wage is a restriction on an individuals freedom.

I see it differently. I see it as restricting one person or small group's freedom who would otherwise even more so restrict the freedom of many, namely all the employees of that one person or small group. So actually minimum wage is expanding the freedom to pursue happiness for many people and not really hurting anyone's pursuits, except perhaps an individual who's sole desire is to consume as many resources for personal gain as possible. But to modify what one prominent Republican once said, "Corporations aren't people, my friend."

Almost all studies have shown that minimum wage hikes lead to decreased employment of economically disadvantaged people: especially black men under 25. Purely unintentionally I'm sure, such hikes have a tendency to come when employment of this demographic is increasing.

(April 16, 2014 at 11:06 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Who else is going to close it? The compassionate Wall Street executive?

Isn't it more of a question of how than who? That executive can always automate a task that gets too expensive. It's just a number: at X per hour, use people. At X+Y per hour, use automation. People respond to incentives, but a lot of the time we have no idea what we're actually incentivizing. If disparity is what you want to fix, the best way to do it is to take from the rich and give to the poor, not try to micromanage the whole economy.

(April 16, 2014 at 11:06 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Wait, so what are you advocating, that we treat ex-cons like slaves?

He's advocating giving them a fighting chance at becoming employed. You can't MAKE an ex-con work for you, you can't hire them for less than they'll agree to. If they'll work for you for six dollars an hour, that's a strong indicator that they'd rather work for six dollars an hour than be unemployed...or they're sizing your business up for an inside job. Six an hour is a lot less than I'm making now, but I'd prefer it to being unemployed. It would give me some kind of income and a chance to prove my labor is worth more or at least something to keep me going until I can find a better job (another consideration of employers when making offers is the odds the person could easily find better-paying work).

As a hirer myself, I find the uncertainty of the economy is a big drag on the economy currently. People are sticking with their jobs, my area is entry-level workers and I haven't had to replace anyone in over a year. They're afraid to take a chance on finding better work, and that sends a signal to the bean counters that they can be chintzy on annual increases. If people won't leave if you only give them a 1% raise, why (to an accountant) would you give them a 2% raise? And when my people don't move on to bigger and better things, I can't give new people a chance to get on board with my company, which is a large one with plenty of opportunities for advancement. I don't give people with no work history or special training 10.10 an hour, though. I do offer more than I got when I started.

---

(April 16, 2014 at 12:08 pm)KUSA Wrote: I'm thinking about how this negative income tax coupled with no minimum wage would work.
So everyone gets subsidized by the government to make a minimum salary. At the same time corporations can pay as low as they want. What will happen is the corporations will pay $1 an hour and the government will pick up the rest of the tab.
This smells like corporate welfare.

One simple way to avoid that would be to combine it with a minimum wage, adjusted annually for inflation. It doesn't have to be all one way or the other.

(April 23, 2014 at 3:57 pm)Isun Wrote: Lols, No, just not blind to what is going on around me. I have never seen a party that is as exclusive as the republican party is today. Exclusivity throughout history has been the basis of wars and bigotry. The republican party doesn't even bother hiding their bigotry. They just accuse anyone that dares point it out of being bigots.

As to proving they are more greedier than anyone else? That would entail a very large set of data and quite frankly I suspect they would just deny they are greedy.

Greed is the desire to obtain far more than they need. And Koch brothers have far far far far more than they need.

But from a economic view and a democratic view, concentrated wealth is bad. Our economy is suffering under poor growth because of the concentrated wealth. Our democracy has been subverted to who has the most money. And that is all bad.

I

What is important to people is stuff. Stuff like cars, houses, microwaves, etc. Are you telling me the Koch brothers are hording this stuff up? If they are hording dollars on a ledger...I don't see what the big deal is about the concentration of wealth.

(April 16, 2014 at 12:57 pm)KUSA Wrote: What they should do is save most of it to help them get through the rest of the year.

Being poor doesn't necessarily mean someone is stupid but most of them are. That might sound mean to you but is true nonetheless.

If they are paid weekly or biweekly like anyone else, the money won't be considered a bonanza and they will spend it normally. The trick will be to make it enough to be viable without making it so much that it induces vast numbers of people to quit working.

Although the way automation is going, we need to start preparing for that: robots are on their way to replacing general labor, and there are no replacement jobs for that kind of work that I can see. We'll have to give tens of millions of people enough money to get by on at some point.

---

(April 16, 2014 at 1:12 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(April 16, 2014 at 11:20 am)Heywood Wrote: Then when they argued that a minimum wage was necessary to prevent blacks from undercutting white labor(and thus put their negro hands and feet on the economic ladder) you agree there is some truth to that argument?

Um, no. Where did you get racial inequality out of anything I said?

Probably the same place you got him wanting ex-cons to be treated like slaves.

(April 23, 2014 at 6:31 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: If they are paid weekly or biweekly like anyone else, the money won't be considered a bonanza and they will spend it normally. The trick will be to make it enough to be viable without making it so much that it induces vast numbers of people to quit working.

Although the way automation is going, we need to start preparing for that: robots are on their way to replacing general labor, and there are no replacement jobs for that kind of work that I can see. We'll have to give tens of millions of people enough money to get by on at some point.

If you are rich and want to sit at home and smoke pot all day, you can do that. Automation can make everyone rich, but we need to have something like a negative income tax or guaranteed income to make that happen.

(April 16, 2014 at 8:12 pm)Brian37 Wrote: If any moron thinks the pay gap won't hurt us, I am sure Gadaffi who was a billionaire who owned stock in GE who had half of his population unemployed could tell you they did get slightly pissed.

As far as Qadaffi goes, you don't think being a dictator was more of a factor than someone, somewhere in Libya being a billionaire?

Don't you have to show more than correlation to make such a claim? Where's the causality? In the case of bloated compensation packages for CEOs we can see how the market is being circumvented and trace some of the costs, mainly to the stability of their own companies and thus the stability of everyone they employ. But random person X being rich doesn't make random person Y poor. X could be putting 90% of everything they make back into the economy.

I think rising income inequality is a danger signal, but it's not the inequality in itself that's the problem. It's no skin off my nose if you make a thousand times more than I do. Unless you're doing it in a way that undermines my ability to make a living, which is arguably what inflated CEO compensation does.

---

(April 20, 2014 at 12:38 pm)Isun Wrote: The republican message from many of the far right is about hate.

Koch, is just about greed. They couldn't care less about the well being of the country. Only about themselves.

And their oil business. I know they used to be libertarians back in the day, but why are we still getting blamed for them when they only fund republicans?

---

(April 23, 2014 at 6:37 pm)Heywood Wrote: If you are rich and want to sit at home and smoke pot all day, you can do that. Automation can make everyone rich, but we need to have something like a negative income tax or guaranteed income to make that happen.

I think I am essentially in agreement on that. Automation tends to make goods cheaper, but it also tends to eliminate jobs. At some point the goods will be cheap enough and the jobs scarce enough that a guaranteed income will be a practical necessity. Barring the unforeseen: the future is tricky. Maybe we can shift to a very different economy where the bottom 50% in skills is needed more, I just can't see what it would look like right now: more work for creative types, that I can see. OTH, far enough out, I can see brain chips for any desired skills and aptitudes...and attitudes. I think having a permanently unemployed, over-entertained class might be preferable to that.

(April 23, 2014 at 6:41 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:

(April 20, 2014 at 12:38 pm)Isun Wrote: The republican message from many of the far right is about hate.

Koch, is just about greed. They couldn't care less about the well being of the country. Only about themselves.

And their oil business. I know they used to be libertarians back in the day, but why are we still getting blamed for them when they only fund republicans?

The Koch brothers spent 20 million dollars lobbying against Bush's Patriot Act so they don't just fund republicans.

(April 23, 2014 at 8:06 pm)Heywood Wrote:

(April 23, 2014 at 6:41 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: And their oil business. I know they used to be libertarians back in the day, but why are we still getting blamed for them when they only fund republicans?

The Koch brothers spent 20 million dollars lobbying against Bush's Patriot Act so they don't just fund republicans.

Have they funded the campaigns of democrats or libertarians? Opposing a poorly-conceived Republocrat initiative doesn't make them libertarians.

(April 24, 2014 at 12:40 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:

(April 23, 2014 at 8:06 pm)Heywood Wrote: The Koch brothers spent 20 million dollars lobbying against Bush's Patriot Act so they don't just fund republicans.

Have they funded the campaigns of democrats or libertarians? Opposing a poorly-conceived Republocrat initiative doesn't make them libertarians.

Well there are two reasons to support a political candidate.
1)You agree with his/her positions.
2)You don't agree with his/her position but believe it to be the lessor of the two evils.

Libertarians generally believe republicans are the lessor of the two evils which is why they tend to support/vote republican.

Yep, personally I lean libertarian, but with the American system (vote for the man, not the party) a libertarian vote is a wasted vote, and republicans are usually closer to libertarian than democrats.