Minimum wage increase revisited

[Alnitak]

I don't think about the 1%, most wages or income are market driven based upon demand for the skills of the wage earner. If we have a job that a person off of the street can learn in 1/2 an hour it will not pay the same as a position that requires extensive training.
I am all for paying a person enough to live on, we need to set the minimum wage high enough so that the worker doesn't qualify for government assistance.

Whoever said that market driven income was fair?

Actually, even the small time millionaires of this world are screwed coercively by a cartel of multi millionaires and billionaires.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

we need to set the minimum wage high enough so that the worker doesn't qualify for government assistance.

This. This. This. This. And some mo' this. We aren't saying janitors should be driving around in luxury foreign vehicles, but shit, these companies CAN afford to pay enough that their employees don't need our tax dollars for food, strangely we are uber-critical of people who need welfare, and not of the companies that could easily remedy this without putting a dent in their bottom line. Ok, it might mean one less Aspen ski trip for the Ceo-- but probably not even that.

And maybe, juuuuuuust maybe, it would be nice if, instead of paying people JUST enough that they won't fall into destitution at the first hardship, how about pay them just a tiny bit more so they can, I dunno, go bowling, go out to eat, see a play, actually live a life beyond clocking in, clocking out and eating beanie weenies. The promise of America was never that you could JUST survive here, that you can come and "scrape by," but that you can have a fruitful and enjoyable life if you work for it, which the poor are willing to do contrary to the zillion times you put "lazy" and "poverty" in the same sentence. Just a reminder than in all our songs and anthems and founding documents the language is overly optimistic about the kind of life offered here. Prosperous. Free. Pursuit of happiness. For most people, not having to choose between buying your grandma's presciption and paying the rent is a strict requisite for happiness. Go figure.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Whoever said that market driven income was fair?

Actually, even the small time millionaires of this world are screwed coercively by a cartel of multi millionaires and billionaires.

Say it again, one more time a lil louder so the people in the back can hear you.

 

[peeonme]

Whoever said that market driven income was fair?

Actually, even the small time millionaires of this world are screwed coercively by a cartel of multi millionaires and billionaires.

Fair is another place that I don't spend much time thinking about. Life just isn't fair. The sooner we accept that the better off we are. I am still working on it in some areas, when I start to go down that rabbit hole I find it dark and depressing. As Americans we seem to measure quality of life in ways such as money or material possessions. Money is fine, we need it, but it's not all that we need. I love to look at the stars at night, to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin. The best things are free.

I grew up in a family of score keepers, they constantly were on the look out for injustice in life, to no great surprise, they found injustice.

 

[gsdx]

The biggest problem with increasing the minimum wage is that the people who would most benefit from it are the ones who suffer the most. Full-time minimum wages in Ontario went from $11.40 to $14.00 per hour on January 1, 2018. It will go up to $15.00 per hour on January 1, 2019. Part-time wages went up to $13.15 at the same time and will go up to $14.10 in 2019.

Not only were the increases passed on to consumers, but many part-timers saw their hours cut to the point where it wsn't worth them going to work.

There is another problem with minimum wages and that is 'cost of living'. A student behind the counter at McDonald's here in Peterborough makes the same wages as his counterpart in small-town Lakefield and in Metropolitan Toronto. Peterborough's cost of living is considerably higher than Lakefield's, a 10-minute drive away, but it is nowhere near the cost of living in Toronto, 90 minutes away.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Fair is another place that I don't spend much time thinking about. Life just isn't fair. The sooner we accept that the better off we are. I am still working on it in some areas, when I start to go down that rabbit hole I find it dark and depressing. As Americans we seem to measure quality of life in ways such as money or material possessions. Money is fine, we need it, but it's not all that we need. I love to look at the stars at night, to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin. The best things are free.

I grew up in a family of score keepers, they constantly were on the look out for injustice in life, to no great surprise, they found injustice.

"Life isn't fair" doesn't justify such a criminally staggering wealth disparity. We don't have to tolerate all evil in the world "cuz that's just how it is." An immeasurable number of social tragedies would still be occuring today if not thankfully for people who didn't just fold "cuz life ain't fair."

And all that poppycock about stars and warmth is great for hallmark cards but ignores the complexities of poverty and low income. enjoy the stars? kid needs help with homework. and the sink is broken. and your boss needs you to come in early. and you have a paper to write. and your father is sick and needs meds you can't afford unless you pay the rent late again which would mark eviction proceedings. People can't ignore desperation and sadness all around them just cuz a few stars are shining. That's even less realistic than everything else you've said here.

"Golly gosh your kid may be starving and you don't know how you're going to make it til payday but by gum aren't those stars pretty?" If you weren't being serious that would be one of the funniest posts you've written in a long time. Like lookin at some stars is gonna cure all of life's ails. But I guess since all your other arguments are falling apart at the seams nothing wrong with trying this "They just gotta learn to appreciate the little things" B.S. The situations and types of people that your answer is obnoxiously insufficient for [sick, mentally ill, disabled, and, gosh, enough to really elicit a new thread] only further highlights how impractical and naively idealistic you're being.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Not only were the increases passed on to consumers, but many part-timers saw their hours cut to the point where it wsn't worth them going to work.

legit concern, not discussed enough, the goal isn't just to raise the wages but to do it without raising prices or cutting hours which is entirely within reason/plausibility and, again, directly and wholly reliant on the wealthy not being malevolent. people keep barking at the poor to make it work with a can of beans and some crackers but as soon as you talk about taking a little bit of money from the wealthy people go into defense mode as if reallocating into payroll a few million more dollars of their nearly five hundred billion in annual profits into payroll is just going to send the waltons spiraling into destitution. you know, those hard-working waltons who hard their 151 billion dollar net worth. and by working hard i mean being born to a super rich dad.

walmart makes forty million dollars in a fucking day. if it were a country it would be the twelfth biggest in the world. that a single one of their employees is even eligible for public assistance would be a high offense if Americans were as critical of the obscenely rich as they are of the poor.

 

[Dominus]

The minimum wage was never intended to be enough money to support a family on. For years it was an entry level part time wage that high school kids were paid. The advent of globalization took away the bridge from minimum wage to living wage. Unskilled jobs in factories are no longer the next step, so we find adults working at fast food places or other types of work that offer little more than minimum wage.

I find it strange that the same crowd that sees unskilled factory work as 'easy money' is almost rejoicing with a tone of intellectual elitism as Americans fall through the gap that decent paying factory jobs provided to span the gap between making hamburgers and entering the middle class. Many of the companies that left our shores had offered college tuition to their employees so they had an opportunity to work their way up the food chain.

The demographics of the minimum wage worker have changed. But, our attitudes have not. I see shades of Aldus Huxley's 'Brave New World' popping up as we look at low wage earners in disdain. 'They don't try' 'They blow their money' 'They're lazy' are easy accusations to make as we ignore their plight. Why not? We have ignored the homeless, sure we have some shelters and soup kitchens and feed them like feral cats. But do we ask why this happens in what we claim to be the greatest place on earth?
When I mention an increase in minimum wage the first response from many is 'then, how much will a cheeseburger cost?'

For years minorities in our nation had this knowledge of hopelessness, that opportunity was not the same for them as it was for the majority. Since globalization the same dejected feeling has permeated the working class of the majority or white worker,
Stagnant wages, loss of benefits, lack of opportunity is a class issue, not an ethnic one now.

Children are pushed through school and graduate only to find that there is no where to go, so the first step is education. Having young adults graduate with a skill set that will get them in to some sort of an apprenticeship so they can earn enough to further their education.

Also, a living wage for all full time adult workers. To make it 20.00 is counterproductive inasmuch as it would make it too comfortable to stay at a fast food job, but the wage should be high enough so the worker does mot qualify for government subsidies.

I think of the carrot and stick analogy, if the rabbit sees the carrot as being out of reach, he gives up. If the carrot is too easy to get the rabbit get's lazy. If it is obtainable with some effort, he goes for it. Success can't be handed out to people, nor shold it be out of reach, it should be their for all who put forth an effort.

So, we got home from work at about 5 and after dinner we started working on a particular part of the house. It took way longer than we thought. Just finished at about 9:30pm. Tired.

You and I agree on more things than we realize.

I think today's education system is not realistic at all. Going through the k-12 system, I don't recall ever learning about compounded interest or how to write a check. And yet, I remember having to memorize the names of various cloud formations and actually took a test on them.

In other words, the education system isn't really preparing kids for the real world. All educators seem to care about is teach very impractical and useless information to kids instead of actually teaching them real world practical stuff.

Also, I would argue that generational poor people are held back not because the carrot is out of reach but because they have been psychologically conditioned to stay poor. It's called learned helplessness. And until we figure out how to cure people of this condition they will remain poor.

Here is my proof that the carrot is fully within reach. There are certain immigrant groups that came from 3rd world conditions, came to this country with absolutely nothing, and within just a generation became the highest earners in this country. Even more so than white people.

Why not look closely to see what these immigrant groups are doing right and copy them?

Sorry, I'm falling asleep from being so tired. My husband and I literally started working from 7 this morning and we finally stopped at 9pm or so. Not thinking very clearly. That's all I have for now.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

\Here is my proof that the carrot is fully within reach. There are certain immigrant groups that came from 3rd world conditions, came to this country with absolutely nothing, and within just a generation became the highest earners in this country. Even more so than white people.

Why not look closely to see what these immigrant groups are doing right and copy them?

That's not proof of anything except more of your "black people just lazy" rhetoric. To compare the black American experience to immigrations who came here of free will and didn't have to face over a hundred years of persecution is, at best, narrow and intellectually dishonest, at worst a manipulation of history, economics and sociology to promote the age-old notion that black people just can't get their act together cuz they don't wanna work. Oh, I didn't mean to say "black people" I meant to say "certain other groups."

This "Lookey lookey the Asians can do it" started around the nineteen sixties as a way of pretending like we didn't need the Civil Rights Act like a fish needs water. Newspapers ran flattering ads about Asians to counter the marching for economic and social justice. You guys regurgitate racist talking points without even knowing their origins, only further proving how impotent your imagined self-awareness about color really is. The Asian upward mobility is very real, that part is true, but to suggest blacks could do the same if they weren't so durn lazy is.... I've said racist too many times. Silly? Yeah, silly's pretty good too.

Two possible scenarios: Asians are simply better than black people, smarter, more adaptable, harder workers

OR

[and i know this doesn't have the tantalizing condemnation of blacks that's so popular in discussions about wealth accumulation, povery, et cetera]

maybe Americans just became less racist to Asians. Though they were discriminated against, not even the most hardcore racism-denialist is going to pretend like they experienced even a fraction of the bigotry that black Americans did. There weren't campaigns warning against the invation of Asian music, culture and bodies as a violent threat to the way of life. Many adopted anglo-sounding names to make for easier assimilation but that might not have been necessary because there are no studies from the past fifties years where white people express openly that they will not hire somsone named "Jinjoo" as there are ample proclmations of an unwillingness to hire people with "ghetto/black names."

Yeah, we had the Chinese Massacre and there was a cap on Asian immigrants for a while but that simply pales in scope and damage to Jim Crow, segregation, lynching, anti-black hate groups.

So... I want you to just explore this idea, just kick it aroud in your head, maybe just for shits and giggles even. Maybe blacks and the lower class are not prospering because of factors beyond laziness. Gasp, right? I hope you're sitting down, it was thoughtless of me to drop that bombshell on you without a warning.

 

[Sausy]

The biggest problem with increasing the minimum wage is that the people who would most benefit from it are the ones who suffer the most. Full-time minimum wages in Ontario went from $11.40 to $14.00 per hour on January 1, 2018. It will go up to $15.00 per hour on January 1, 2019. Part-time wages went up to $13.15 at the same time and will go up to $14.10 in 2019.

Not only were the increases passed on to consumers, but many part-timers saw their hours cut to the point where it wsn't worth them going to work.

There is another problem with minimum wages and that is 'cost of living'. A student behind the counter at McDonald's here in Peterborough makes the same wages as his counterpart in small-town Lakefield and in Metropolitan Toronto. Peterborough's cost of living is considerably higher than Lakefield's, a 10-minute drive away, but it is nowhere near the cost of living in Toronto, 90 minutes away.

THIS is why I favor a basic universal income as a supplement to minimum wages that medium and big companies can handle but not smaller businesses with slim profit margins. It's "socialism" to some.... and I do want us to tie it to having a job, at least 25-30 hours... but in a country where the richest are well taken care of, having a basic floor of a decent life is something that should be something everyone can have. Without having to slave 80 hours at three different jobs...what the fuck is "pro-family" about that?


Work all you want, if you wish. And accomplishment of honest day's work is a good feeling to have. But we Americans with our ridiculously dour Puritan holier than thou past takes love of work to a whole new level... until this century, so many millions worked as hard as they could for whatever they could get. Without unions or labor laws with teeth, that's it. And if you were a slave or indentured servant... you got nada, but practically built the economy of the South without anything.

 

[frankfrank]

no one here is advocating that we just freely give money away to people who aren't willing to work for themselves, and for that matter I don't know why you keep INSISTING that the lower class aren't some of the hardest working people you'll ever meet. They put in long hours, go to school, raise their kids and live life without the help of a nanny, caretaker...

AND...ABLE to work for themselves. There are people out there who want to work, but simply cannot...I've known people who have sent out hundreds of resumes and cover letters without success...I can't even fathom how somebody is able to support children (including day care and all) on an ordinary job.

If wealth were truly a manner of work ethic there would be a consistent pattern of people jumping either from the top tax bracket to the bottom or from the bottom to the top, all based on their... "work ethic." But that isn't what happens.

I made my own way with my own business/job; I never had an employee except for nine months in the middle of the 1990s. I ended up becoming successful - I guess "middle middle class" - not only by hard work, but some really stupid and dumb luck. I was hoarding inventory from about 1981 to 1997 under the illusion that it may "age" and become valuable. I had uncanny luck on deciding WHAT to hoard...such as loads and loads of punk music when it was readily available [CHEAP] up to about 1984. Six years ago I found a box of "soul records" that had been sent to me from a place in Virginia back in the early or middle 1980s that I had inexplicably never opened, and I found two copies of a record I got more than $500 each, and I think 17 copies of something I got around $200 each. I do NOT consider my success to be an outcome that is common at all. Even more unusual, my business didn't even flinch during the Recession.

"But I was born in the middle of a tornado and lived off of cereal and crackers for 17 years and I blah blah blah turned out just fine blah blah blah"

Yeah, right...the implied message is always "...and if YOU can't make your way in life, you're a freeloading piece of shit." I had a conversation with somebody in the middle or late 00's (i. e. not sure if the Recession had started yet) who claimed that "Hey, look what Stephen Hawking did, with great adversity! That means that ANYBODY can do it, otherwise they're just clueless and lazy." (Not his exact words, but paraphrased.) NO, that is not true. Hawking was blessed with an unusual spirit that could blast its own way through all the adversities; as a Christian I've sometimes thought his life was actually a divine Miracle, because that disease should have killed him 35-40 years ago. Some people's natures are more "together" than others, which could even be a DNA or inborn thing. As such, some people can overcome adversity, and other people in the same circumstances will be washed away by it.

we need to set the minimum wage high enough so that the worker doesn't qualify for government assistance.

That's a pretty good quantitative guideline when trying to set a minimum wage.

Of course that doesn't stop politicians from "playing with" poverty guidelines, or at what percentage of the poverty rate the assistance should be set. It also gets more complex when number of children are considered. Additional children actually result in only an additional small pittance in the amount of assistance, and it's never made sense to me when people say that families just pump out babies to get more money. A family on "welfare" is going to have a VERY spartan life, and may even have trouble keeping a home, and the waiting lists for Section 8 Housing can be YEARS LONG.

I think today's education system is not realistic at all. Going through the k-12 system, I don't recall ever learning about compounded interest or how to write a check. And yet, I remember having to memorize the names of various cloud formations and actually took a test on them. In other words, the education system isn't really preparing kids for the real world.

I'm 71 and MOST OF MY LIFE I've been saying that schools should have A FEW (not just one) REQUIRED courses about "Interactions With the World" (or whatever it may be called) which would teach things like writing checks and balancing checkbooks (or keeping track of debit/credit cards), compound interest and its PITFALLS, how insurance works, how contracts work, law enforcement and the courts, marriage and divorce, Government benefits and entitlements, costs of raising children (clothing, feeding, school, health, etc. - even entertainment such as toys and activities), nutrition, cost of living rural vs. cities, the care and feeding of a car, drug abuse, applying for jobs, taxation, etc. There are young people who willy-nilly have children because they're NOT AWARE of the sacrifices, courage, etc. that will be needed.

Why isn't this stuff taught? One can't DEPEND on the parents being responsible enough to teach this, AND/OR for the struggling parents to even be able to take the time to have these talks with their children, etc.

There are certain immigrant groups that came from 3rd world conditions, came to this country with absolutely nothing, and within just a generation became the highest earners in this country. Even more so than white people.

B-b-b-but...those IMMA-GRUNTS are freeloaders who are ruining this country, don'cha know.

This country is aging. IMMIGRANTS who come here are, generally, younger people who are relatively healthy and able to make the utterly-disruptive decision to move to a FOREIGN COUNTRY - even under the best circumstances (and, yes, I'm including people who may disparagingly be called "Wetbacks" or worse), the process is VERY difficult - and, for those who come illegally, RISKY is added into the mix. Under the worst circumstances, the process can take YEARS if done on the up-and-up. Immigrants may be THE hardest-working group of people that there IS in this country...and DON'T think they're not aware they need to "keep their noses clean and watch their Ps and Qs" because they can be subject to deportation if they slip up. I don't believe there are a lot of ELDERLY who are immigrating to the U. S. because of various/potential health issues preventing such extreme mobility, etc.

These immigrants, being younger, are FUNDING SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE, ETC. - and, yet, they are not eligible for those benefits themselves. (This goes against some of the dominant propaganda with people claiming illegal immigrants are raking in the welfare and pumping out more and more babies.) This is actually a form of confiscation of what amounts to EXTRA taxation, and it obviously contributes to the budget. I've read many things over the years saying that immigration creates an offsetting surplus in the Budget.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

AND...ABLE to work for themselves. There are people out there who want to work, but simply cannot...I've known people who have sent out hundreds of resumes and cover letters without success...I can't even fathom how somebody is able to support children (including day care and all) on an ordinary job.


I made my own way with my own business/job; I never had an employee except for nine months in the middle of the 1990s. I ended up becoming successful - I guess "middle middle class" - not only by hard work, but some really stupid and dumb luck. I was hoarding inventory from about 1981 to 1997 under the illusion that it may "age" and become valuable. I had uncanny luck on deciding WHAT to hoard...such as loads and loads of punk music when it was readily available [CHEAP] up to about 1984. Six years ago I found a box of "soul records" that had been sent to me from a place in Virginia back in the early or middle 1980s that I had inexplicably never opened, and I found two copies of a record I got more than $500 each, and I think 17 copies of something I got around $200 each. I do NOT consider my success to be an outcome that is common at all. Even more unusual, my business didn't even flinch during the Recession.


Yeah, right...the implied message is always "...and if YOU can't make your way in life, you're a freeloading piece of shit." I had a conversation with somebody in the middle or late 00's (i. e. not sure if the Recession had started yet) who claimed that "Hey, look what Stephen Hawking did, with great adversity! That means that ANYBODY can do it, otherwise they're just clueless and lazy." (Not his exact words, but paraphrased.) NO, that is not true. Hawking was blessed with an unusual spirit that could blast its own way through all the adversities; as a Christian I've sometimes thought his life was actually a divine Miracle, because that disease should have killed him 35-40 years ago. Some people's natures are more "together" than others, which could even be a DNA or inborn thing. As such, some people can overcome adversity, and other people in the same circumstances will be washed away by it.


That's a pretty good quantitative guideline when trying to set a minimum wage.

Of course that doesn't stop politicians from "playing with" poverty guidelines, or at what percentage of the poverty rate the assistance should be set. It also gets more complex when number of children are considered. Additional children actually result in only an additional small pittance in the amount of assistance, and it's never made sense to me when people say that families just pump out babies to get more money. A family on "welfare" is going to have a VERY spartan life, and may even have trouble keeping a home, and the waiting lists for Section 8 Housing can be YEARS LONG.


I'm 71 and MOST OF MY LIFE I've been saying that schools should have A FEW (not just one) REQUIRED courses about "Interactions With the World" (or whatever it may be called) which would teach things like writing checks and balancing checkbooks (or keeping track of debit/credit cards), compound interest and its PITFALLS, how insurance works, how contracts work, law enforcement and the courts, marriage and divorce, Government benefits and entitlements, costs of raising children (clothing, feeding, school, health, etc. - even entertainment such as toys and activities), nutrition, cost of living rural vs. cities, the care and feeding of a car, drug abuse, applying for jobs, taxation, etc. There are young people who willy-nilly have children because they're NOT AWARE of the sacrifices, courage, etc. that will be needed.

Why isn't this stuff taught? One can't DEPEND on the parents being responsible enough to teach this, AND/OR for the struggling parents to even be able to take the time to have these talks with their children, etc.

B-b-b-but...those IMMA-GRUNTS are freeloaders who are ruining this country, don'cha know.

This country is aging. IMMIGRANTS who come here are, generally, younger people who are relatively healthy and able to make the utterly-disruptive decision to move to a FOREIGN COUNTRY - even under the best circumstances (and, yes, I'm including people who may disparagingly be called "Wetbacks" or worse), the process is VERY difficult - and, for those who come illegally, RISKY is added into the mix. Under the worst circumstances, the process can take YEARS if done on the up-and-up. Immigrants may be THE hardest-working group of people that there IS in this country...and DON'T think they're not aware they need to "keep their noses clean and watch their Ps and Qs" because they can be subject to deportation if they slip up. I don't believe there are a lot of ELDERLY who are immigrating to the U. S. because of various/potential health issues preventing such extreme mobility, etc.

These immigrants, being younger, are FUNDING SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE, ETC. - and, yet, they are not eligible for those benefits themselves. (This goes against some of the dominant propaganda with people claiming illegal immigrants are raking in the welfare and pumping out more and more babies.) This is actually a form of confiscation of what amounts to EXTRA taxation, and it obviously contributes to the budget. I've read many things over the years saying that immigration creates an offsetting surplus in the Budget.

I don't think I could ever get tired of reading your posts Frank. You're always able to say what I stumble to say and you say it so much more eloquently.

 

[gsdx]

legit concern, not discussed enough, the goal isn't just to raise the wages but to do it without raising prices or cutting hours which is entirely within reason/plausibility

It may not be commonplace. I'm just going by what happened in Ontario back in January when the increase kicked in. The hardest hit were the small businesses and operations. I remember many small store and restaurant owners reducing staff and taking over their duties just to keep afloat. They simply could not afford to pay the wages.

It's a vicious circle. Workers get more money, but prices go up to cover the increase, completely negating the raise.

Then again, when young people just NEED that new phone which costs more than I paid for my first car...

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

It may not be commonplace. I'm just going by what happened in Ontario back in January when the increase kicked in. The hardest hit were the small businesses and operations. I remember many small store and restaurant owners reducing staff and taking over their duties just to keep afloat. They simply could not afford to pay the wages.

It's a vicious circle. Workers get more money, but prices go up to cover the increase, completely negating the raise.

Then again, when young people just NEED that new phone which costs more than I paid for my first car...

That's a crucial part of raising minimum wage is setting up parameters so that the cost isn't passed on to the customers and employees but the big company itself, with exemptions or some sort of workable guidelines for smaller businesses. Because otherwise that's exactly what will happen. Walmart, again as an example, if allowed to, would immediately offset the raise with price gouging, benefits slashing and hours cutting instead of dipping into their umpteenquadsuperzillionbamillionquatrilliondundillion hundred thousand catillion dollars in annual revenue. That's why we're asking for this in the first place, these big chains can afford to do it, they just choose not to. Because they're soulless pieces of shit.

 

[peeonme]

"Life isn't fair" doesn't justify such a criminally staggering wealth disparity. We don't have to tolerate all evil in the world "cuz that's just how it is." An immeasurable number of social tragedies would still be occuring today if not thankfully for people who didn't just fold "cuz life ain't fair."

And all that poppycock about stars and warmth is great for hallmark cards but ignores the complexities of poverty and low income. enjoy the stars? kid needs help with homework. and the sink is broken. and your boss needs you to come in early. and you have a paper to write. and your father is sick and needs meds you can't afford unless you pay the rent late again which would mark eviction proceedings. People can't ignore desperation and sadness all around them just cuz a few stars are shining. That's even less realistic than everything else you've said here.

"Golly gosh your kid may be starving and you don't know how you're going to make it til payday but by gum aren't those stars pretty?" If you weren't being serious that would be one of the funniest posts you've written in a long time. Like lookin at some stars is gonna cure all of life's ails. But I guess since all your other arguments are falling apart at the seams nothing wrong with trying this "They just gotta learn to appreciate the little things" B.S. The situations and types of people that your answer is obnoxiously insufficient for [sick, mentally ill, disabled, and, gosh, enough to really elicit a new thread] only further highlights how impractical and naively idealistic you're being.

My reply that you quote was about the 1% and millionaires. I don't waste time thinking about them and how unfair it is that some have so much and others have virtually nothing. I find that if I take a few moments to marvel at the universe it puts life into perspective for me. I have spent the last 4 years dealing with wheelchairs, hospitals, nursing homes and searching for doctors that would listen. Not to mention building ramps and installing hand grips. While doing these things I have had to do the shopping, cooking, cleaning, the budget, fix cars, cut the grass and clean our home.

What I battle daily is the temptation to think about how this is all a repeat of my childhood when my family seemed to lazy to wipe their ass, or take out the garbage. If I didn't do it, it didn't get done. As an adult I had my mother living in a senior apartment building. She would fake a black out and the old ladies would grab her keys and inspect her apartment. Then they called an ambulance and then call me and I would find myself at 11:00 at night cleaning her place so she wouldn't be evicted.

I would get calls at mid night that my brother was hallucinating, again. Then I would find myself at his pigpen home trying to calm him down from a combination of booze and dope.

So, I look at the stars, the same stars that my dad saw when he was alive, it gives me a connection to the one normal person that was in my family. Be it fair or not, it is what it is, as they say and I deal with it. I don't expect all to cope as well as I did or have, and some will do better then I have. We should do our best, it's all we have.

 

[willhunt]

We've overspent and shoved a bunch of income to the top of the pile. We've not balanced the budget in years. We're going to leave huge debt to our children. We can subsidize everything from corn to fossil fuels to make commodities more affordable. Looks good on paper, but the rich get richer, the middle class gets extinguished and the poor get poorer. This is capitalism on stolen steroids. Our kids will still pay the tab.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

We've overspent and shoved a bunch of income to the top of the pile. We've not balanced the budget in years. We're going to leave huge debt to our children. We can subsidize everything from corn to fossil fuels to make commodities more affordable. Looks good on paper, but the rich get richer, the middle class gets extinguished and the poor get poorer. This is capitalism on stolen steroids. Our kids will still pay the tab.

and some of us aren't willing to just lay down and "Oh well that's just the way it is, life ain't fair." I'd still be in chains picking cotton if my ancestors felt that way. For that matter America never would've been founded in the first place if the founding fathers' attitude was "Yeah this sucks but what are you gonna do about it?" True patriots understand that the true spirit of America is that it doesn't have to be that way, it can be better.

As I said, the American dream isn't that you can come here and "just scrape by," but that you can come here and have a life of prosperity. People conveniently forget that whenever the job market or wages or wealth disparity are the topic of discussion.

 

[peeonme]

We've overspent and shoved a bunch of income to the top of the pile. We've not balanced the budget in years. We're going to leave huge debt to our children. We can subsidize everything from corn to fossil fuels to make commodities more affordable. Looks good on paper, but the rich get richer, the middle class gets extinguished and the poor get poorer. This is capitalism on stolen steroids. Our kids will still pay the tab.

Have we over spent or have we under taxed? The whole idea behind supply side economics was that it would increase capital in the hands of investors and they would build more plants, stores, restaurants etc. and this would provide more jobs and better pay. However, when there is not an increased demand for a product or service people will stash their bucks, why build another sprocket factory if we already can meet the demand for sprockets with the factory that we have?

So the shift from demand side or Keynesian economics to supply side or trickle down has left the wealthy even wealthier and has not provided new jobs because the working class has less disposable income and has tightened it's belt. This added to the shift to globalization has made for even less need for workers and has caused stagnant wages and very poor health care coverage as employers can cut benefits and not worry about losing their employees.
The shift to demand side was primarily to control inflation, too much demand with not enough goods to satisfy the demand pushed prices and wages up. This didn't affect the worker as his wages went up at a good rate due to the demand for workers caused by the demand for goods.

The people that inflation hurt were the wealthy.

It was hard to get a return of 38% in 5 years on one million dollars.

So, wages are stuck, we have to decide if we should 'prop' them up and if so at what level. Should we tax the wealthy at a fair rate and distribute the money as a government subsidy to underpaid workers? We have the EITC that as I understand it pays a person a certain amount based upon income and the number of children that they have. I have often thought that a nation wide strike and boycott might turn the tide. But can the workers who live from pay day to pay day afford that?

Their is no doubt that the worker has been screwed by both parties, the worker is not represented and as much as it hurts, Trump tapped in to that.

 

[willhunt]

^ I totally agree. You've articulated the problems better than I. You've even backed it up. I understand that trump squeezed our lemons with vigor. I'm stumped on how to make lemonade. To you, by the way, respect.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Their is no doubt that the worker has been screwed by both parties, the worker is not represented and as much as it hurts, Trump tapped in to that.

This is the first time I've ever seen you acknowledge that poverty isn't just a result of "lazy potheads."