Bad News with a silver lining

[John V]

I've lost hope that there is any degree of fuck up which would be recognized as such by tea baggers or repub's.

They recognized Obama...

[Dystopia]

DeistPaladin thanks a lot for your enlightening post and your small lesson on economics - I had to semesters of a class called "Introduction to Economics 1 and 2" and I had already forgotten some of those rules and how stuff works

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Their policies certainly make it look like they don't care.

When you have policies that are supposed to stop abuse in welfare spending but actually prevent people that really do need the help from getting it all the while not making a peep about all of the wasted billions spent on useless planes and bombs that just sit in warehouses, your priorities don't appear to be the people.

Minimum wage devastated the black community and other minorities. Its initial purpose was to keep the negros, redskins, and orientals from diluting the ability of the white man to command a living wage. Now people think minimum wage is designed to help the disadvantaged....but what it does is help the slightly disadvantaged at the expense of the more disadvantaged. Walk into a walmart and costco. The walmart employees look like they just got of the boat. The Costco employees look like more productive workers. If Walmart was forced to pay its employees the same wages as Costco....don't you think they would look for Costco caliber employees?

Someone with low skills who doesn't even speak english can get a job a walmart. They can work for a couple of years...increase their skills.....and then command a higher wage from a company like Costco. But if you make Walmart pay Costco wages...those low skilled workers won't even have a rung on the economic ladder upon which to take their first step.

Don't talk to me about policies which are supposed to help people but hurt them instead. The far left loves those kinds of policies.

Surprised you didn't post any supply and demand curves from your textbook.

You gotta show those floors man. Show 'em!

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'll give you substance when you merit it. As matters stand, you're not reading posts that run counter to your views, so why should anyone bother?

The introduction of his post was an argument of authority.....he isn't an authority. Its his fault he lost his audience by starting out with a fallacy on sentence one. Would you read a wall of text if the first sentence was a fallacy? Say "Listen Sonnyboy, The bible is the word of God because it says so in the bible".....would you really waste your time reading the rest of the post or would you just dismiss the rest of the post as dribble?

If DP wants his post read in their entirety...he needs to stop introducing by saying "Listen Sonny...I'm an authority on the subject"....at least until he establishes himself as such.

his arguments looked pretty good to me, but I've only been a business manager for fifteen years. I could be wrong.

As for his talking down to you, it doesn't bother me. I'm sure you're relieved to have an excuse, however threadbare, to avoid answering a cogent post.

[Esquilax]

The introduction of his post was an argument of authority.....he isn't an authority. Its his fault he lost his audience by starting out with a fallacy on sentence one. Would you read a wall of text if the first sentence was a fallacy? Say "Listen Sonnyboy, The bible is the word of God because it says so in the bible".....would you really waste your time reading the rest of the post or would you just dismiss the rest of the post as dribble?

If DP wants his post read in their entirety...he needs to stop introducing by saying "Listen Sonny...I'm an authority on the subject"....at least until he establishes himself as such.

No, you decided he wasn't an authority based on nothing, and then rather than letting the content of his post speak for itself, which an authority would do, and which would demonstrate knowledge of the subject at hand, decided that there was nothing worthwhile in the post... based on your presupposition which you'd made solely to be contrarian, because someone made a claim you didn't like.

No wonder nobody takes you seriously.

[DeistPaladin]

If and when Woodie decides to stop being such a willfully ignorant, talking point spewing blowhard, I promise not to talk down to him.

[Thumpalumpacus]

If and when Woodie decides to stop being such a willfully ignorant, talking point spewing blowhard, I promise not to talk down to him.

Let us know how that works out. :lol:

[Heywood]

Sonnyboy, you're talking to an MBA from one of the top business schools in the nation who's run a business for over 20 years. Don't lecture me on business or economics with your straw man assertions of what "the left" wants people to think. You're only going to get schooled like the ignorant, talking-point spewing jackass you act like.

You have given me no reason to believe you are an MBA with 20 years of experience. Your thinking is errant... you are a dolt.

First of all, the "0"s on a ledger are reflective of wealth and economic stability. That's why we bother having accountants. In business school, we would analyze corporate ledgers in order to tell the professor exactly what was happening behind the scenes and causing the shift in the numbers.

I agree a you can look at a balance sheet and other financials to determine the financial health and stability of a corporations. But your point is irrelevant because we were talking about something else entirely. We were talking about the wealth of rich individuals versus the wealth of the middle class or poor. Were talking about standards of living of real people. Corporations have no standard of living.....they aren't alive dummy....at least not in the same way you and I are alive.

0's on a ledger don't reflect an individuals standard of living. Some guy living in a trailer might have a net worth over a million dollars. Another guy living in a million dollar house might have a negative net worth.

Your home is heated to approximately the same temperature as Bill Gates. Your toilet is just as sanitary(well maybe its not cause you do strike me as slobbish) as Warren Buffets. Your clothes are just as warm and protective as Tim Cooks. You have as much access to a nutritionally complete diet as George Soros. You sleep on a comfortable bed just like Carlos Sims.

In the past their were huge disparities in the standard of living between the rich and the middle class....but because everyone has gotten richer....much richer in fact that gap has closed considerably....maybe not on some ledger....but in real hard reasons....in quality of life the gap is closed considerably.

Second, I almost busted a gut when you invoked the 19th century for comparison. You could also tell blacks they have it so much better then they did as slaves in the 19th century or women how much better they have it than they did when they had no property rights or voting rights. That would be true but it would not suggest that there aren't still injustices that need correcting.

You people on the left keep claiming the disparity between the rich and everyone else is growing. This is factually inaccurate by any meaningful measure. That was my point....and like the dunce you are....you missed it.

Third, my point was about "trickle down economics" and not the fact that worker productivity has skyrocketed since the 80s but worker wages have remained flat. Now, this may surprise you but business owners don't just hire more people because they got a big tax cut and don't know what else to do with the money.

Tax cuts don't spur hiring you say.....lets see how ridiculous your position is by examining the converse. Tax increases don't retard hiring. You should agree...if lowering taxes have no impact on hiring then raising taxes should have no effect either right?

Suppose your business(if you actually have one) was taxed at 99%. Would you bother to keep your doors open? I doubt you would. It simply would not be worth your while. You would stop working and you would layoff all your employees. Oh I am sure you would try to hang on a little while...maybe try to sell your now crappy business to a sucker....but eventually you close the doors and sell off the assets.

If you are really an MBA(and your stupidity on these matters lead me to believe you have a community college education at best) you would know that not all tax cuts or increases are equal. Lowering taxes from 75% down to 50% is going to have a greater impact on hiring than lower taxes from 50% down to 25%. When tax rates are already low, lowering them even further isn't going to give you the same bang for your buck.

In one breath you say trickle down economics doesn't work. In another breath you say worker productivity has skyrocketed since the inception of trickle down economics(the 80s...remember). What do you think the workers were producing? Products used mostly by the middle class. What do you think more products for the middle class translates into? I'll give you the answer because your too much of a moron to figure it out. More stuff for the middle class means a higher standard of living. Call it trickle down economics...call it growing the pie economics....it doesn't matter. What matters is it works bitches.

As a business owner, I recognize that hiring people is an investment. If you have to train them, then they are a long term investment. The idea is that you pay them for their labor and gain a return on that investment by selling the products or services based on that labor to consumers. In sum, you pay out to newly hired workers (investment) in order to gain income based on on the sales of the product or service based on the newly hired labor (return on investment).

I won't comment on this because its irrelevant.

Having taught you such a basic business lesson, you should be able to figure out that:

you talk a good talk...but the truth is....you're an idiot.

[*]If consumer demand falls, this is the only rational time to lay off workers. Workers produce the products and services that you sell. If you lay off workers while demand is steady, you cut your own throat. Your workers will be overworked, quality will fall, service will become crappy, delivery will be late. More shrewd business owners will hire the layed off workers to boost their production to meet the demand of your angry customers that leave your business to go to them. Any business that lays off workers because, boo hoo, taxes or the minimum wage went up, will be driven out of business by the business owners that are not that stupid.

A fall in demand is not the only rational time to lay off workers dummy. Some jobs become obsolete due to automation.

Anyways...I have lost patience with your stupidity and I don't want this post to become too long....so I'm not going to bother to comment on the rest of your post.

[Thumpalumpacus]

You people on the left keep claiming the disparity between the rich and everyone else is growing. This is factually inaccurate by any meaningful measure. That was my point....and like the dunce you are....you missed it.

I'm not left-leaning on most issues, including economic issues, but here's some information you might wish to peruse.







Those figures are according to the Congressional Budget Office. There's plenty of other data indicating that you're incorrect in the one assertion I pulled out of your post. I could probably do the same with the rest of your claims, but I don't see much point in so doing.

[simplemoss]

I think alot of people are just afraid of communism usually without knowing what it even is it or even its textbook definition. High taxes equals communism, environmentalism secularism welfare social security universal healthcare all equals communism too some, especially Americans who remember their fears of the cold war, you can only make person hide under a desk for fear of nuclear Holocaust for so long, before they start too develop irrational fear

So whenever I hear someone debate minimum wage increases I always try too remember he's not an expert economist he's a scared little boy afraid if the ruskies invading

Am I wrong here?