Why not a 'bailout' for the Unemployed

[Kulindahr]

I think that would definitely outdo New Deal building projects.

Kind of a modern day Giza.

But far more useful than Giza. It would make missions to hunt for metallic, nickel-iron asteroids feasible -- and all you have to do to own the market would be to find one a couple of klicks long. Just think of what it would do for our economy if steel prices fell by 80%!
And the U.S. could sell it to other countries for more, to pay off the debt.

 

[MrWright]

But far more useful than Giza. It would make missions to hunt for metallic, nickel-iron asteroids feasible -- and all you have to do to own the market would be to find one a couple of klicks long. Just think of what it would do for our economy if steel prices fell by 80%!
And the U.S. could sell it to other countries for more, to pay off the debt.

We have a new commerce secretary.

 

[Kulindahr]

We have a new commerce secretary.

There's one problem with it, though.

The only place to build one is within a few klicks of the equator.

We'd have to start making nice to South America.

 

[opinterph]

Just think of what it would do for our economy …

Yikes! I don’t wanna be around when they deliver their payload.

[Link]​

 

[Kulindahr]

Absolutely.
Any program like this should be for just under the minimum wage, like by 25 cents/hour.

Wow. A whole .25 cents an hour. What a guy.You call your self a libertarian and often speak of the virtues of "liberty".Yet you would treat poor people as criminals, and pay them just about what an inmate in a prison industry would make.

Poverty is not a crime.






Yep,and with the $1.50 a day after taxes,that you think workers should get, boy it won't be long till the economy is booming again.

At less then $10.00 a week,what kind of prosperity would those people enjoy? Where would they live? How would they eat? What would they wear? Where's their liberty?

I know many right wingers and Libertarians long for the carefree days of slavery.This just confirmed it for me..

.25 cents an hour.How the hell could you look a man in the eye,and tell him that his 8 hour work day is only worth $2.00 a day..BEFORE TAXES.I hope you'd have a handkerchief to wipe his spit off your face.

Is this the Libertarian vision for America?Where law abiding people make a convicts wage, eat gruel, wear rags,and sleep in slave quarters,or in a ditch?

I guess paying slave wages will "encourage" prosperity for the long suffering CEO class, but as usual,poor people get the dick.

Libertarians/Republicans,one and the same.

Try reading what you quoted before talking about something. You might be relevant that way.

Nothing you said has anything to do with what I said in that quote.

 

[Kulindahr]

Yikes! I don’t wanna be around when they deliver their payload.

[Link]​

LOL

I've been there.

Actually, the easiest way for them to deliver their payload would be to inject water into a molten mass of refined metal, inflating it like a balloon, spraying it with a coating of some sort, and dropping them at the ocean. They'd splash, then float, and could be towed to shore.

Alternatively, containers loaded with them could be slid down another cable, with onboard generators serving as brakes to slow the descent -- and produce electricity at the same time.

 

[MrWright]

There's one problem with it, though.

The only place to build one is within a few klicks of the equator.

We'd have to start making nice to South America.

I cannot believe you!



We do NOT make nice to terrorists!


That belittles us as a nation.

We must NOW deal with the growing threat of weapons of mass destruction in the arms of Al Qaeda insurgents located in Ecuador! I say give them a 24-hour ultimatum: either they hand over key insurgents and weapons of mass destruction to the safe and democratic US government for safekeeping or we are forced - by the power of our democratic wills - to overtake them.

Finally, the freedom-loving peoples of Ecuador will find true democracy under the sovereign authority of the United States.

 

[boogalee]

I did read it.

You said that poor Americans,who are guilty of needing work should be payed .25 cents an hour.

.

I think you misunderstood what was said. I believe the suggestion was to pay a little less than minimum wage...say 25 cents.

I don't think anyone can live on minimum wage given how our society is organized. How do you eat, pay utilities, keep a roof over your head much less clothing, transportation etc. on minimum wage? Month to month something is always being left unpaid...

Personally I think we have to start with health care. We are the only first world country without universal health care and we pay more for what we do have than any other country...does that make sense? If we had universal health care it would take that particular 'burden' off business, and we'd have a healthier more productive population.

In my view we need to take a whole different tack...our country has been bled dry and our government has been disassembled by fools who work for corporate interests.

If international corporations are chasing the bottom dollar, do they have ANY real interest in what happens here? It seems to me they don't need a middle class in America. They are busily creating wealth in third world countries. They have millions of potential customers...and the American economy has been 'down sized'....because we've been robbed. Our wealth is gone...and the perps are laughing all the way to an offshore bank.

We need regulation and investment in our infrastructure, which includes providing educational opportunities for those who want them. How the hell can we compete when we've spent the last 8 years (longer in my view) with an administration that denigrates science and demeans education and teachers?

Just some thoughts. Sorry about the length...

 

[Kulindahr]

I did read it.

You said that poor Americans,who are guilty of needing work should be payed .25 cents an hour.

Did you go back and look? I didn't say that at all. This is a simple matter of reading comprehension. What I said was:

Any program like this should be for just under the minimum wage, like by 25 cents/hour.

I asked you a simple question.Where do the slaves fit in on your Libertarian dream of equality and prosperity?

You know,the ones you'd have earn less then ten bucks a week for 40 hours labor.

Seemed relevant to me.

Well, I don't know, since you're making all that up.

 

[Kulindahr]

I cannot believe you!



We do NOT make nice to terrorists!


That belittles us as a nation.

We must NOW deal with the growing threat of weapons of mass destruction in the arms of Al Qaeda insurgents located in Ecuador! I say give them a 24-hour ultimatum: either they hand over key insurgents and weapons of mass destruction to the safe and democratic US government for safekeeping or we are forced - by the power of our democratic wills - to overtake them.

Finally, the freedom-loving peoples of Ecuador will find true democracy under the sovereign authority of the United States.

Wow.

Alfie should take lessons from you -- that's sharp, witty satire. Compared to this, he writes trash.

 

[Kulindahr]

^ Interesting ideas and good points. Welcome to JUB!

Kenny, Kulindahr meant this formula: (minimum wage) - 25¢ = .xx

That being said, Kulindahr, I have no idea how you come up with your arbitrary numbers---how would that formula prevent what justapixel claimed, which was slippery slope nonsense for a job that would last at maximum 12 months anyway. Justapixel is right, I think a lot of people would be tempted by it, I don't see people quitting their jobs en masse for this idea.

You mean the arbitrary number of 25¢/hr?
It had a good feel to it.

My concept there was that if the wage were just a little lower than minimum, people would still be interested, but it wouldn't pull people from existing jobs. That's all I was addressing.

 

[MrWright]

Wow.

Alfie should take lessons from you -- that's sharp, witty satire. Compared to this, he writes trash.

I try...

 

[MrWright]

Wow.

Alfie should take lessons from you -- that's sharp, witty satire. Compared to this, he writes trash.

(ps....we have our location for the tower president)

 

[boogalee]

^ Interesting ideas and good points. Welcome to JUB!

Thanks ICO7...

 

[Kulindahr]

Hey, boogalee -- I see you doubled your post count in about twelve hours -- way to go!



Welcome to the battlefield.

 

[Kulindahr]

Thanks Gay,I must have mis-understood him.I still don't understand his disdain for people making a decent living..

We have a minimum wage for a reason.Not that that is enough to live on anyways, but why would Kuli want some people to be paid even less then that?

To keep people in current jobs from deciding that a temporary government-funded get-us-through-the-crisis job was a better option. The original proposal was for a rate that would have had companies collapsing as good employees bailed to go to the government-funded jobs. The whole idea, though, is to keep people who are working doing just that, while providing at least some income for people with nothing, in jobs we do not want them getting comfortable and happy in because they won't last (unless picked up by the private sector, in which case minimum wage, etc. would apply -- e.g., a government work force paying 25¢ less per hour than minimum looks useful to a road construction company, so they take it over as part of their work -- and immediately the employees start getting that 25¢ per hour, because now they're part of the regular economy).

I know it's not enough to live on, but in the first place that's not what's wanted from a government job program, and in the second place trying to make it that way would just finish off the economy; we'd end up making the Bush deficits look trivial.

I don't get it.Minimum wage, As Chris Rock says,means ,"I'd pay you less if I could"..I guess if Kuli had his way, poor people would be paid less.

I know lots of people who would work for less than minimum if they could just be allowed to work at all. High school kids here, at our Libertarian Party booth at the county fair, agreed with that enthusiastically. And there would be plenty of jobs: shop owners who'd like their sidewalks swept and trash picked up, business which would like their windows washed but they can't afford the prices of the "licensed" outfits, farmers who'd like someone to just kick it in a tree stand watching for coyotes, and others.
Having a minimum wage kills all these job opportunities, and leaves us with people with nothing to do and no money, which as almost any police officer can tell you is a perfect situation for vandalism and shoplifting, and can lead to drug dealing and prostitution.
Yes, I'm saying the the minimum wage gives rise to petty crime, drug dealing, and prostitution, because it does (and some not-so-petty crime, like some guys who stole a half-full spool of power cable for repairing storm-downed electrical lines, who told the judge that if they could just have been ablt to work for $5 an hour they wouldn't have thought of stealing anything).
It's all about economics, and the economics of the minimum wage is screwed up.

I don't want the poor paid less (I am poor!), but I do want wages to be something sensible and in accord with actual economic realities, not something artificial plastered on because they make people feel good, but have negative effects on people on the economic borderline.

Thanks ICO..

Ditto that. I should have thought of writing it as a formula.

 

[boogalee]

Thanks Kenny, it's good to be here, I think...

Kulindahar, I have to take it easy and feel my way here...I don't want to tip everyone off to what an idiot I can be...not right away at least. There are smart people here....

Given your post above it would appear you still carry water for the notion that business is our friend, they will pay you what your worth and the economy will adjust accordingly. How has that been working for you?

This is one of the best political boards I've seen. There is more intelligent discussion here...read "discussion" rather than RW memes shouted at those who don't toe the mark.

 

[Kulindahr]

Kulindahar,....

Given your post above it would appear you still carry water for the notion that business is our friend, they will pay you what your worth and the economy will adjust accordingly. How has that been working for you?

If we had a free market, then in general I'd answer "yes".

But we don't have a free market. We have government-supported, even government-mandated, monopolies; we have government-certified and favored 'guilds'; we have corporate welfare; we have government subsidies -- we have so much government interference in the market, most of it unconstitutional, most of it in favor of business (and the bigger, the better), that the market for marijuana is freer than that for many, many products and services.

Then there are the unions, which on one end gouge the customer for whatever they can get away with, and on the other don't do much at all for the people they claim to be helping, which further distort things.

In this confuddled economic environment, the only place I'd say business is our friend at this point is small business, because they have to respond to the customer. When you have an industry dominated by just a few big players, collusion doesn't have to be formal to be real, and everyone is at their mercy, so very little to do with any industry-dominant corporation has anything to do with a free market.

It would help if everyone followed a few simple rules:

If the choice is between local and distant, buy local.
If the choice is between big company and small company, buy from the small.
If the choice is between regulated and non-regulated, buy non-regulated.

Together, those three discourage people from being customers of large corporations -- and that helps keep business honest.

 

[Nephelauxetic]

give each able and willing body $2,500.00/month (Federal Monies) to perform 'duties' (clerical to manual labor) as prescribed by local mayors within their cities.

How many would show up? What would this cost the US Tax Payers? Money well spent?

They U.S. should rather save some money. The dept is getting extremely dangerous and many economist consider this as more dangerous than the whole financial crisis and recession. I don't want to see the U.S. going bankrupt which would also destroy big parts of Europe's economy. The result would be a world in which the biggest financial powers are de facto dictatorships (China, Singapore, VAE, Saudi Arabia). This scares me.

 

[joshz88]

Instead of bailing out the unemployed, Americans need to become more competitive. Compared to other countries, we Americans as a whole aren't as hard workers as people in places such as China, India, Russia, and some parts of the European Union.

Also, Americans aren't as educated as we should be. According to 2007 statistics, about 18% of adult Americans don't even have a high school diploma which is ridiculous, and ONLY 30% have a bachelor's degree or higher. It's pathetic. People need a proper education to succeed. People can't just have everything handed to them.