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 Grey Templar wrote:

2) education only has value if it provides something for society. Education for educations sake doesn't provide society anything except someonewho has received a product of society, but isn't producing an equivalent use. Another art major who will never use his degree just wasted a higher education slot someone else could have used. If only 1 in 10 recepiants of a degree use that degree, 9 out of 10 should have not received it.

Pretty much.

We'd be in a much better position if student lending were risk based. Get that Art History degree, that's fine. But you shouldn't be lendable because the ROI simply isn't there for it.

feth HSM, I'd love to see social workers and teachers aids get 15/hr. Because a whole helluva lot of them don't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Or you could go into research like me. Social work isn't the only option.

And that, my friend, is where the degree is even less worth it fiscally.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Y'know...We have been down this endless rabbit hole before.
I got some vodka waiting for me and a midterm tommorow

The one where you don't know what you're talking about?

Is that the one?

Just want to be clear we're talking about the same rabbit hole.

Guys, c'mon, don't go down rabbit holes you're not equipped for it, that's totally a job for a dachshund.

no, it's the hole where you conStanly berate college degrees you dont think are worthy. Like how you constantly insult Sociology

@hotsauceman1

Look at my avatar... chillax my man.

These are constructive criticisms... dakkanaught's tough love man.

First and foremost, find something you love doing (or will love doing). All that's really been said is that going to college is an extremely expensive proposition, such that we're encouraging you to explore your desires and skillsets to find things you'd love doing.

Because, if you can't wake up and feel excited about going to work/school... then, imo, it's not worth it. Life's too short man.

Case in point.

Me and My ex went to school at the same time. Same school, different degrees.

Her: She got her undergrad in Elementary Teaching... then had to go to Grad School to get her Masters in order to finalize her Teaching Certificate. That was 6 years of school. (maybe 7... )

Me: I simply got my undergrad MIS (Master of Business in Information Systems) that only took me 4 years.

Her schooling cost nearly TWICE as much as mine did. And yet, I earn almost three times as much as she does as an elementary teacher.

Does that suck? Yeah... but, that's reality.

However, did it ever make her "unhappy"? Nope. She was fullfilling her desires in making an impact to those kids.

Me? I work in the IT field in one of the largest Healthcare organization in the Mid-West... and I feel like "I get to play at work". Because if my interests in the industry.

TL;DR: I get that you're sensitive to any criticism because I know you're putting in a lot of time and effort during your college years. Because, we all have great plans on what we want to do in life and are adverse to failing.

But, take it from the folks who've been through this and take heart. (whatever it may be).

TL;DR #2: If nothing else... here's my suggestions.
1) When all else possible, try taking night classes. The folks teaching these classes are much more likely the type of folks who has a day job in their industry and "teach" night class as a 2nd job. These teachers are invaluable as they can impart real-world knowledge of their industry. The "academia" type professors can only take you so far... you really need to be expose to "practical knowledge" as well.

2) If you're taking night classes, get a job during the day and try to make it close to your career choice. Having a "working" resume is absolutely crucial nowadays. Maybe even try volunteering to any of the "social work" charites in your area... those are great too.

3) Have a backup plan. I changed my degree 4 times.

I have come to terms that I'm not going to be driving Mercedes with my degree, but to hear people on this forum constantly berate my major, to say that it won't amount to anything is a pain because it is what I love. Yesterday I got sacked into an article about Foxconn factories because i loved it. I never feel as if I do think want to go to class.
But to hear people on this forum not only berate sociology, but many things people love to study is just annoying.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I have come to terms that I'm not going to be driving Mercedes with my degree, but to hear people on this forum constantly berate my major, to say that it won't amount to anything is a pain because it is what I love. Yesterday I got sacked into an article about Foxconn factories because i loved it. I never feel as if I do think want to go to class.
But to hear people on this forum not only berate sociology, but many things people love to study is just annoying.

Don't confuse noting the lack of economic prospects with attacking your degree.
Now we will attack your classes, professors, and everything else.


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EDIT: You'll also note there are a lot of STEM types on here. Those evil STEMers like math and stuff. (lawyers just like enough math to calculate billable hours and bonuses...)

What are you looking to do with your degree FYI?

I'm really not sure anything we can say is going to help, as you continue to miss the point in spectacular fashion.

You should also double check your definition of 'berate.' It does not mean what you think it means. Is 'belittle' the word you're looking for?

 Frazzled wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I have come to terms that I'm not going to be driving Mercedes with my degree, but to hear people on this forum constantly berate my major, to say that it won't amount to anything is a pain because it is what I love. Yesterday I got sacked into an article about Foxconn factories because i loved it. I never feel as if I do think want to go to class.
But to hear people on this forum not only berate sociology, but many things people love to study is just annoying.

Don't confuse noting the lack of economic prospects with attacking your degree.
Now we will attack your classes, professors, and everything else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
EDIT: You'll also note there are a lot of STEM types on here. Those evil STEMers like math and stuff. (lawyers just like enough math to calculate billable hours and bonuses...)

What are you looking to do with your degree FYI?

I'm hoping Sociological research. One of my favorite things is Race and gender and how the two interact

I'm hoping Sociological research. One of my favorite things is Race and gender and how the two interact

OK, pretend your tlaking to a neanderthal (which is factual in this case). What does that mean? What types of jobs are that? Note this is not an attack my boy is seriously considering being a professor so its not a criticism if thats an academic career. I literally don't know what you're referring to.

Proffessor basically yes.

Well thats certainly cool.

But with things in sociology, polling jobs are also an option, because yof learn skills like how to survey a population properly

 Easy E wrote:
How do we expect decent hard-working people to exercise their right to bear arms if we don't provide a minimum wage high enough to buy firearms with?

Or, we could create a Federal program that hands-out guns to people in need. We could call it... the Army!

Aww heck, that's what Hi-Points are for. $140 will get you a 9MM pistol with a 10 round magazine. It's bulky, heavy, fugly and feels like pot-metal, but it comes with a lifetime warranty and goes bang when you pull the trigger.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:


Yes there are less jobs in some sectors but there are also more jobs in other sectors. Manufacturing/Industrial jobs have been declining in the US for decades. We don't have a market for buggy whips anymore but we do have a market for smart phone apps. Technology, employment sectors, the economy they all change as time goes by. The market will dictate where the jobs are much more efficiently and effectively than politicians.

That is a frankly, ridiculous statement/counterargument. 'It doesn't matter if you lose jobs, because there are always other jobs in other sectors'. If that were true, on any level, unemployment issues would be virtually non-existent. If a mine closes down in a town focused on mining, an equivalent number of phone shops and doctor positions with free training do not miraculously appear within the same town.

Quite simply, the above reasoning fails to take into account:

a) the distribution of jobs across specific geography,
b) the necessity for additional job training to switch career when your skill becomes obsolete,
c) the existence of towns/villages heavily dominated by a specific industry.

Yes, 'other jobs' do exist. But that does not mean they are anywhere near where the person lives, that the person is adequately trained for them, or that an equivalent number of jobs is magically created whenever mechanisation renders another batch of jobs obsolete. The job market is not self-replenishing at a set level.

The majority of people in the workforce have switched jobs at least once. There are plenty of companies that offer moving stipends to entice qualified applicants to relocate to where the job is located. Within my circle of friends, family, coworkers and business contacts I know people that moved here from Az, Ind, NY, NJ, PA, and Tenn in addition to people that emmigrated from Mexico, Venezuela, Canada and Japan. They all managed to get here and none of them are rich. Before I had finished elementary school my family had moved 5 times and we did it on a middle class income during a recession. Losing your job doesn't mean you'll never get a decent job again.

We've already closed down the majority of our mining towns and textile towns a long time ago. There's currently half as many people living in Detroit as there was 50 years ago because the car factories closed. The 700,000+ people that have moved out over the past decades aren't just wandering the earth jobless and forlorn.

Yes, if a person is an weak job applicant that managed to get a minimum wage job and that job goes away that person is in dire straits. However, that person was already in dire straits because they already had the pre-existing condition of lacking useful marketable skills. Even when that person had a low paying job he/she needed to upgrade their marketability in order to get a good paying job.

There are federal and state assistance programs, as well as private charities, that offer help to the destitute but that's a topic that is beyond the scope of minimum wage.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
ote]Pushing children to only aspire for white collar jobs is a matter of personal preference but it's not a fault of the economy or the job sector,it's parenting.

No my friend, it's to do with realism. There aren't so many 'buggy whip' makers anymore, are there? So naturally, parents don't push for their kids to be Buggy Whip craftsmen. Likewise, parents no longer push their kids to be miners in towns with defunct mines, or work in non-existent factories. There's also the fact that white-collar professions have traditionally accrued the best pay and social status throughout the recent history of the world (the well paid plumber is a relatively recent innovation), so when there's a paucity of jobs in agriculture or industry, the natural way to try and make sure your kids are well off is to try and get a good education.

Ergo, you are correct that the parenting is the starting point for getting those kids moving in those directions, but the parents are driven to that decision by the job market and economy.

If parents want to artificially limit the aspirations of their children that's bad parenting in my book. If you want to teach little Johnny that there's only a few jobs worth having then that's a personal choice on your part and can't be blamed on a nebulous entity like the economy.

So far our children have, at various times, expressed an interest in growing up to be a construction worker, a fireman, a lineman for the electric company, a landscaper, a farmer, a nurse, a veterinarian, a pizzeria owner, a mechanic, an ice cream parlor owner, an archaeologist, a stablehand, a faerie and a zombie slayer. Among that list there are only 3 jobs that aren't currently held by people we know. As parents my wife and I would be happy if our kids grew up to be any of those things, well except for the last two that would be weird, or something completely different. There's a plethora of jobs that aren't "white collar" and provide a nice living. Most people we know aren't white collar and they're content.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
There are plenty of people out there who are perfectly happy encouraging their children to get jobs in trades and other well paying blue collar jobs. We agree that the market only needs so many hedge fudge managers, lawyers, stockbrokers etc. but you seem to believe that there is only a binary choice, get the nice high paying job or get stuck making minimum wage.

Read what I wrote. More specifically, the bit where I said: 'Not all of them(the jobs), but enough of them to have seriously hit the number of jobs available in those fields.

It's not 'white or nothing', but it has become, 'white collar jobs, minimum wage jobs, or a severely depleted pool of alternative jobs'.

Obviously, I have no idea what the job market is like where you live but where I live in NC there are plenty of job opportunities that aren't white collar jobs. It may seem like there are already plenty of tradesmen out there but trust me, you start going through them and you'll realize that there's never enough good ones to go around. I realize that not everyone wants to go to vocational school or learn a trade (and we don't need everybody to) but we are nowhere near to exhausting the opportunities in those fields.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
There are plenty of opportunities beyond white collar jobs that are great jobs.

This is true. But not enough of them to accommodate every person who works in a minimum wage job or is unemployed. Hence the problem.

Not exactly. While it's unlikely that there are enough higher payer jobs to absorb all of the people working minimum wage jobs or are unemployed, would those people have the desire or qualifications to get those jobs even if there were enough openings? It would be interesting to see data on just how many apprenticeship programs and entry level openings there are in trades and similar jobs and gauge the interest in them among the people working minimum wage jobs. Trades like welders and pipe fitters struggle to find people and both pay good money.

Unfortunately for people who work minimum wage jobs those jobs often don't require the employees to learn a lot of marketable skills on the job. Putting in years of work in a minimum wage job and still not being able to transition to a better job is the key problem. Instead of being a stepping stone it traps you in a holding pattern. I know people who worked the floor, then became a shift supervisor, key holder, assistant manger, finally store manager or district manager but that's a long road, not easy and not common. Increasing the minimum wage doesn't help people transition to a better job it just makes it easier to live on a minimum wage job but people shouldn't be aspiring to work a minimum wage job for decades.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
If you don't get a high paying job and your only alternative is a minimum wage job then you've made some serious errors in judgement in regards to your education and job skills. If you graduate college and can only find work in fast food or some similar service or retail sector job then the problem isn't the economy the problem is that you didn't do enough to better yourself while you were in college. A diploma doesn't guarantee a job. We agree that technology eliminates jobs but again that is true for job sectors not the overall economy. While some jobs are eliminated others are created and some, like trades, won't go away anytime soon.

I would firstly point to my first reply. 'Jobs' are not spread evenly across the country. Secondly, if (like my Uncle Ruben), you graduated with a degree in computing back in the days when computers were run with punch cards, your degree is now worthless. And your profession isn't exactly one that enables you to move sideways, or apply that knowledge somewhere else. You're basically someone who has no degree, in a nutshell. There are other examples of technical degrees becoming obsolete due to advancing technology. Thirdly, what about those who barely pass or fail or drop out of college? Debt? Check. No technical skills? Check. Worthless qualification? Check. For those people, it's minimum wage, or nothing.

I have an Uncle Bryan who got a computing degree in the punch card days, true story I swear on my kids. The first company he worked for got bought out and instead of using his buyout money to go back to school or going to work for another company started by his coworkers he decided to use it for travelling money and take an extended vacation. Not a great decision on his part.

There are lots of jobs that require people to maintain licenses, certifications, etc. and pretty much every job is subject to changes and innovations over time. Some companies will cover some or all of the costs incurred by their employees to stay current, some companies don't. I know plenty of people who have either saved up, taken out a loan or gotten money from their employer to take classes to get degrees or certifications that would enhance their job security, get them a raise or help them get a better job.

We're going to keep making technological progress and it's going to continue to affect the job market. That is nothing new and people can handle it. Do you think the state has a greater responsibility for our uncles' job security than they do to themselves?

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
The solution to the problem of only being able to get a minimum wage job is to better yourself not to get the govt to artificially inflate wages because you'd like more money.

The 'American Dream' is unrealistic and a big steaming pile of absolute rubbish.

I personally, am at the relative bottom end of the socio-economic scale. My family is exceedingly poor and I'm partially disabled. Through my own willpower and hard work, I'm currently putting myself through a PhD at one of the best Universities in the world whilst working full-time. I'm the perfect success story of 'bettering yourself', and you know something? I completely disagree with it. I look at my circumstances, and look at other people in the same position and worse, and realise that I got the lucky breaks many of them did not. I got a stable, loving family. I got a decent level of intelligence. I got born into a country where my university fees were subsidised, and I happen to live in a huge city with the job opportunities available to me that I use to pay my way.

Not everyone is so lucky as me.

Wow. You mad bro? You must have some pretty sweet rock skipping skills to want to throw stones across the pond.

I have several friends and coworkers who have achieved the "American Dream." It exists and it is achievable. My friend who's a few years younger than me grew up poor in a bad part of Pittsburgh with his mother raising him and his brothers alone because his dad skipped out on them. They struggled to pay the bills each month and at times had to go weeks without electricity. Before he finished high school he had started working on construction sites as a general helper and cleaning up. After graduating high school he went to work for a construction company, worked his way up over the years to be a job superintendent and a few years back got his General Contractor license, started his own company, hired his brothers and now does millions of dollars of work each year bringing home more money than me.

Another friend of mine comes from a dysfunctional family situation that had done emotional and financial harm to him. He enlisted in the army after high school, served in Afghanistan, come back, got a job with a maintenance company and over the last couple years took classes at night and on vacation time to become a certified HVAC technician and get a very nice job with a national corporation.

One of my coworkers emmigrated here from Puerto Rico and English is his second language. He's been working for our company for years, he's #2 in his dept and years ago had saved up enough money to open up his own auto repair shop with a couple of employees and he puts in extra hours there. He makes a nice living, supports his family and is very happy.

The American Dream isn't easy because it's based on hard work, which is hard. It's not impossible. Not everyone is as successful as they want to be for a variety of reasons but it's certainly possible to better yourself. Go to any town or city in America and talk to people and you'll find that lots of them are employed, happy and got to where they are through committed, responsible, hard work.

What you consider luck isn't really luck. Yes, we don't get to choose our parents but our parents aren't good, stable, loving parents by cosmic benevolence. They make a conscious choice to the tough work of parenting and making their relationship work. I speak from experience on that but you can ask anyone on Dakka that's a parent. It has a lot of fun moments and is very rewarding but parenting is also hard work. We can't choose our genes either but healthy intelligent people will reproduce healthy intelligent children the majority of the time. Yes, children can be born with mental or physical issues even with healthy parents but good parents can also mitigate or overcome those issues. Same with education subsidies, it's not like you kicked over a rock in the yard and found education subsidies. People in societies like the UK and US made a conscious decision to value education, to work hard to earn money to pay taxes to the state so that the state can provide assistance for people to get an education, better themselves and society in the process. Plenty of other nations/societies don't value education the same way. While we don't get to choose the soceity we're born into the fact that western civilization values education isn't a product of happenstance. The point is that while we are all unique individuals the families and societies into which we are born are not so rare as to not be replicated in a sustainable way because they are the product of choices and actions of others. I had good parents who valued educations, I can follow their example and be a good parent who values education, my children can grow up to be good parents who value educations etc. That's not random chance or luck.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
That's demonstrably untrue, at least it is in the US. There are plenty of unfilled jobs they're just not jobs on Wall St. or in manufacturing etc.

That's grand. Are they unskilled jobs? Do they pay enough to allow people to do them whilst working to 'better' themselves? And most importantly, are there enough of them for everyone currently in a minimum wage job or unemployed to have one?

There's a difference between not getting the job you want and not being able to get a job.

You've clearly never lived in a deprived slum of an area where every minimum wage job has eighty applicants. Or even noticed that they exist.

I don't want to lower the level of discourse here so I'm just going to say that you shouldn't worry, I make sure to schedule the time I spend volunteering in my community to allow me enough time to polish my monocle and attend yacht christenings.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
I'm not working in a sector I had envisioned being in but after college I worked a lot of temp jobs, part time jobs and minimum wage jobs while I networked and got my foot in the door on a career path, got some additional certifications and education and got a good job.

Aren't you lucky to have gone to college, and lived in an area where those jobs were available, eh wot?

Again, I don't consider it random chance that I was raised by parents who worked hard to make me take school seriously, want to better myself with higher education, and worked hard and sacrificed to provide me with the opportunity to attain a degree without piling up a crippling amount of debt. I am a product of my upbringing, not everyone had the same kind of childhood but since that's completely outside of my control and not my responsibility anyway I fail to see why I should feel guilty about it.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
If too many people are setting unrealistic goals or making poor education choices that's not a fault of the economy.

Education? I'm presuming you got a decent one if you went to college. What about those kids who went to terrible schools? Or who never got to go to college or study, due to needing to support a relative? Or quite simply live in a town where there aren't enough jobs to give a good blue collar training and job to everyone who needs one?

Raising minimum wage doesn't do anything to fix bad schools or a flawed public education system. I don't understand your point about people who support relatives instead of going to college. If by supporting you mean working a job to earn money to support them financially then they already have a job that pays well enough to support at least 2 people so they're doing pretty good. Not every job needs a college degree and once you have a job it's easier to acquire more skills or transistion to a better job. If you find yourself in a town that has full employment and excess people then I suggest you look for a job in a neighboring town. I personally drive a 45-60 minute commute of 36 miles each way to get to work in the next county over from our house. If you are physically trapped in a town with literally no jobs available and you can't afford public transportation and you don't own a car and you don't have any job skills then yeah, you're probably not going to find a job. There are govt assistance programs for people like that and if that person is properly motivated he/she can use those programs to find a job.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Artificially setting wages only exacerbates the problem. If minimum wage jobs pay more than employers raise standards for who they hire making it harder for unskilled people to get minimum wage jobs not easier.

Wait, what? A minimum wage means that someone who's hiring someone to flip burgers suddenly demands all of his employees need a degree? That's some pretty weird (and ludicrous) reasoning there.

It's pretty weird (and ludicrous) that you chose to refute a claim I never made. Did I say a higher minimum wage will require applicants to have a college degree? No I didn't. Take the SanFran example, current minimum wage $10.77, annual salary for a full time employee $ 21,540 the increased minimum wage in 2018 $15/hr for an annual salary of $30,000. The higher salary is a bigger investment in the employee by the employer and makes the job more attractive to a wider pool of applicants. Take three applicants, a high school dropout, a high school graduate and a high school graduate who's currently a part time student at a local community college. Which ones are interested in earning $21k a year? Which ones are interested in earning $30k a year? Which one would you hire for $30k a year? See how the higher minimum wage makes it harder for the weakest applicants to get jobs?

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
The reason service and retail sector employers don't raise wages much is because the pool of qualified applicants has always been vast. Most people are already qualified to work in fast food, retail stores, wait staff, etc. so there is enough competition that employers can find people willing to work for the wages offered. That's always been the case, working at Walmart is always going to pay less than more skilled jobs because being a stockist or cashier is something most people can do, if you're overqualified you can get a better job and they can get somebody else to take your place.

You're leaving out a vital step in the above. The reason service and retail sector employers don't raise wages, is because they are businesses focused on extracting as much money as cheaply as possible. And due to that pool of candidates (who you just mentioned), they know they don't have to.

Funny though, that huge pool of unqualified candidates desperate for any kind of paid employment, just lurking around there, not going anywhere. Almost makes you wonder why they don't just don their cloaks made from the American Flag, step out the door and better themselves! Laziness probably. Amirite?

I'm pretty sure that my explanation of how service sector employers don't have to raise wages because they have a large pool of applicants competing for job openings covers the concept that they don't want to pay more than they need to in order to get the jobs filled.

I'm not sure what it's like where you are but when I was working service sector jobs (I didn't earn more than $10/hr until I was in my late 20's) the majority of my coworkers were students and people who didn't plan on making working food service or retail a career. Most people I met viewed minimum wage jobs as either part time work or a stepping stone.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
We agree that slow circulation of money is bad for the economy and contributes to recessions. I don't think it's a certainty that not buying enough luxury goods causes a recession and if you want to increase the purchase of luxury goods you're not going to get from increasing minimum wage.

Anything that isn't an ;'essential good' is by definition a ;luxury good'. Once people have enough money to buy 'essential goods', they spend the rest on 'luxury goods'. They don't just put the excess cash it in the bath at home, and roll around in it, Scrooge McDuck style.

Again, I don't know how people behave in your neck of the woods but in the US we actually changed from a negative savings rate to actual having people saving money by the end of the recession that started in '08-09. Maybe people are also swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck, I doubt it since Duck Tales reruns don't get much airtime these days. My point still stands, people subsisting on minimum wage don't have enough money left over after their essential spending to buy enough luxury goods to guarantee economic growth and stability. Raising wages raises prices which reduces any increase in buying power achieved through wage increases and people making minimum wage would be better off saving money to help them acquire more marketable skills and to have in case of unexpected emergencies.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
If you're making minimum wage and it's debatable on whether or not it's a living wage, especially in urban areas like SanFran then increasing minimum wage isn't going to impact a person's discretionary income.

...that's exactly what it does. If you need £20 to survive, and you earn £20, you have no spare money. If you earn £30, but still only need £20, you get to spend the rest elsewhere. On things like courses that allow you to switch professions, or even (heaven forbid), things you enjoy.

Raising wages raises prices and people barely getting by should have other spending priorities than hedonism.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
]If you're struggling to survive the last thing you want to do is squander a pay increase on eating out more or buying more Starbucks coffee or GW models.

Precisely. Which is why a good minimum wage takes them out of 'struggling to survive' zone, and into the 'living comfortably with enough to pay the essentials and a little bit left over to spend' zone. Not sure what you're not seeing here. Earning more money = spending more money.

If you're working minimum wage and get a small pay increase it's not in your best interests to run out and spend it all. It's not going to give you much more buying power anyway.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Instead of having the govt raise minimum wage to encourage struggling people and families to buy stuff they don't need and can't afford in the name of stimulating the economy we'd be better off if a person on minimum wage took the initiate to be fiscally responsible.

Ah, I see, it's the poor people's fault for being poor. Because they spend all the money on blackjack, hookers, and GW, right? That's why they're poor. Otherwise they'd have money! Foolish, silly, fiscally irresponsible poor people.

Why are poor people poor? How should people earning a low income prioritize their spending? If people are going to break out of a cycle of poverty they have to change the behaviors that keep them in a cycle of poverty. I fail to see why you want to encourage poor people to spend all their money, that'snot going to help their situation.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Buy a loaf of a bread, a jar of peanut butter and a half dozen apples, use that to make yourself lunch everyday instead of eating out, use other cost cutting habits to save up money, enroll in night classes at a community college or vocational school and try to acquire some job skills that will get him/her a better job. That way the person/family is actually better off in the end and not still working a minimum wage job but with a slightly higher paycheck.

But wait!
What if they're fiscally responsible AND poor!

That would mean...well, they wouldn't have the money to go to community college! Or have the spare time to attend them even if they did have the money! Horror of horrors!

Well, I suppose those nasty poor people are to blame. Being poor and all. It's just their fault for not working hard enough to better themselves. If they REALLY wanted to escape poverty and minimum wage jobs that barely pay enough to meet the essentials, they'd take up farming at night instead of sleeping or something. Amirite?

The govt awards billions of dollars of student loans every year and colleges have a variety of financial aid options and course schedules. The majority of college graduates I know paid for school with loans. If they're fiscally responsible and employed they should be able to work their way into a better financial situation. That's the benefit of being fiscally responsible.

You seem to have a low opinion of the abilities of the working poor. They're working, they have opportunities to improve themselves and many of them take advantage of them and improve their job prospects and careers. You seem to believe that poor people can't help themselves and need the govt to save them. Govt dependency isn't going to help their job prospects either.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
]Recessions come from the boom and bust cycle and the booms come from bubbles. The most recent real estate bubble came from people using money from loans banks shouldn't have made to buy homes they couldn't afford and then losing their homes and crashing the market. Increasing minimum wage for the purpose of using the govt to spur discretionary spending on luxury good isn't a sound economic policy.

Recessions come from multiple areas and causes. But generally speaking, a downward spiralling recession is caused by people not spending money, and if it all sits in rich peoples bank accounts. nobody has money to spend.

People spending within their means is a good thing. Yes it leads to a contraction but it also avoids credit bubbles and debt. If you think the economy is in recession because rich people aren't spending money then you should try to encourage them to spend more. Having the state force employers to pay minimum wage employees an additional dollar an hour isn't going to offset rich people sitting on billions of dollars.

If it all the economy needs is people spending money then why did people spending credit they couldn't repay crash the economy in the first place?

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
Healthy profitable businesses will help the economy more than govt interference.

Whelp. In that case, we should all go on minimum wage! Just think about it, if everyone earns barely enough to feed themselves, and works for the glory of their employers, every businesses profits will skyrocket! And that will fix the economy!

I'm not sure why you don't realize that a healthy company is providing goods and services to consumers. No company makes a profit simply by cutting labor costs, they need to actually move product or provide services. If companies have enough customers to fluorish then that means lots of people are buying goods and services which creates and secures jobs. That's good for the economy. Companies are in business to serve customers not to screw over their employees.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
]People working minimum wage jobs aren't victims of corporate greed they're just people working the best job they could get. They work a basic job for a basic level of pay. The govt doesn't need to make laws founded on emotion rather than reason. People have free will and are responsible for their own lives it's not the govt's job to save people from the consequences of their decisions.

'Corporate greed' is a stupid phrase. It's a stupid thing to rail against, and an equally stupid thing to defend. Why? Because businesses make money. It's why they exist. Railing against that is silly. The only alternative is communism, and that's not currently practical.

The flip side of the coin is that unbridled capitalism is also silly. We have regulations on food labelling, medicines, and many other things for a reason. That reason is because if you give business too much free rein, it becomes counterproductive. You end up with people dying from medicines that don't do what they claim (because it's cheaper to deceive people than invent new medicines), slavery (because its cheaper to oppress people and enslave them than pay them), hi-tech weapons systems sold to nutters (because hey, everybody needs to make a profit), and so on.

There's a pendulum between too much government interference, and too little. People working for peanuts is a bad thing. It causes social unrest, it causes poverty and hardship, and it encourages people to look for less than legal ways of making money. The ideal citizen is one who earns enough to meet his essentials, pay his taxes, splash out on something once or twice a month (helping the money move around) and generally be a productive member of society.

Business, alas, does not have the same goals. The ideal employee is someone who works for next to nothing, but is trapped so they cannot leave (saves on retraining costs).

We both agree that businesses want to make money and that govt needs to provide a certain amount of regulation to ensure a fair market wherein everyone plays by a known set of rules. We're not going to agree on how much regulation is necessary for each given industry etc.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
And again, struggling people are going to use a pay increase to do things like keep the lights on, pay rent, buy groceries etc. they are not going to go out and buy luxury goods or nonessential items because they still won't have the fiscal resources to do so. If you want them to be better off then help them get a better job don't help them stay in a minimum wage job.

By making the minimum wage higher, you enable them to have the money needed to pursue those other opportunities. That's kind of the point.

Are you raising the minimum wage to provide more resources to get a better job (there's better ways to do that) or are you increasing the minimum wage to allow more people to continue to work minimum wage jobs without having to make fiscal sacrifices? If people can live the life they want on a minimum wage job, why would they be determined to move on from on?

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
]So you agree that a govt imposed higher minimum wage hurts small businesses but it's ok to force bigger businesses to pay higher wages for the same level of work because why?

Because they can. In the same way we make richer people pay more tax than poor people. Because they can. It's called social responsibility.

Rich people would pay more taxes than poor people even if everyone paid the same flat rate. We are going to strongly disagree on the definition of a person's social responsibilities. It's not really on topic so I'm not going to expound on it. Suffice it to say I don't feel responsible for the decisions of others and I make a significant contribution to society by making sure that I take care of myself and my family beyond which my social responsibilities don't extend much.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
The amount of skill and work required for a minimum wage job is the same. Why is it ok for somebody to make $10/hr working for Bob's Burgers but somebody doing the same job for McDonald's should be paid $15/hr?

Because if I just put up the wages for everyone, Bobs Burgers goes out of business. We end up with one unemployed man, and one man making a decent wage at McDonalds. If we do it the other way, you end up with one man making a decent wage, and one still making a crap wage. Which isn't perfect, but is still better the final alternative: i.e. two people making a crap wage.

We disagree on the relative merits of your chosen alternatives.

 Ketara wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
]The amount of profit McDonald's makes doesn't make sweeping the floor or making fries or taking out the trash any different than doing it for a mom and pop restaurant. Is your argument that we need to increase minimum wage in order to enact a punititive measure against big businesses? That's just another example of the govt arbitrarily picking winners and losers in the marketplace which is not a recipe for better economic health or stability.

No, it's the government ensuring that more people are ideal citizens, and less ideal employees, which is healthier for society as a whole. Not to mention morally preferable. Otherwise, a millionaire should be paying the same level of tax as someone who is unemployed.

We mess with markets all the time. The free market is an illusion. The Government sets rules and restrictions, and as long as they're not untenable, the market adapts and persists. In my suggestion above, everyone but McDonalds wins. But their loss just equals them making slightly less profit. As long as they are still reasonably profitable, no real harm has been done to them, and with the additional money moving around the economy, they actually benefit from a more robust economic situation.

We agree that the govt interferes in markets all the time. I believe the govt interferes too much and less interference would be better. You believe the govt should interfer more. Considering that our economy is far from perfect with an already high level of interference I don't see how we fix it with even more.

*I don't know where I messed up the quotes if a mod wants to fix it go for it. Never mind I pulled it up by it's bootstraps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Spacemanvic wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
How do we expect decent hard-working people to exercise their right to bear arms if we don't provide a minimum wage high enough to buy firearms with?

Or, we could create a Federal program that hands-out guns to people in need. We could call it... the Army!

Aww heck, that's what Hi-Points are for. $140 will get you a 9MM pistol with a 10 round magazine. It's bulky, heavy, fugly and feels like pot-metal, but it comes with a lifetime warranty and goes bang when you pull the trigger.

If you can save up $140 you can wait a few more months, keep saving and buy a Glock. C'mon man, friends don't let friends own high points.

That is incredibly unreadable at the moment. Any way to spend an hour or four working on the quote tags an being a bit more concise?

"Brevity is the soul of wit"

-William Shatner

Stop. Rewind.

My original statement was that there are no longer as many jobs in industry/agriculture as there once were, and that increasing mechanisation has diminished the total number of jobs available (relative to the population size). You rebutted that it didn't matter if jobs were lost, because 'Yes there are less jobs in some sectors but there are also more jobs in other sectors.

My counterpoint was that a job is not magically created every time one was lost, and even if it was, geographical issues, industry reliant areas, and non-transferable skillsets would mean that not every person who lost a job due to that mechanisation would necessarily be able to find another one. The implication/relevance being that they would end up working minimum wage/finding it hard to even get a job, through no fault of their own.

Responding that, 'Well, people move areas for jobs all the time' does not contradict me. It does not counterbalance my original point of the jobs pool being generally diminished overall. Yes, some people have the funds/contacts/skillsets to be able to switch. Many do not. It is them I am focusing on, and they who are relevant to this discussion.



Stop. Rewind.

My argument is that parents are driven to push their kids to white collar jobs because there are less available good jobs in the blue-collar sector compared to the previous few centuries due to mechanisation. That is an economics issue. Pushing your kids to the sectors where good work is most available (the white collar sector), is not bad parenting. It is attempting to give them better odds of increased wage/social status/employability. The motivation for them doing this however, originates with economics. Which is my point.

You may tell your children to be zombie slayers, but your motivation for that is undoubtedly less based on economics. If you equate the two together, it may explain why you have difficulty comprehending other people's parenting motivations.

Ketara wrote:This is true. But not enough of them to accommodate every person who works in a minimum wage job or is unemployed. Hence the problem.

So you concur that there are not enough of these jobs available for every person on minimum wage or unemployed? That's the sole point of contention here. If so, the logical follow up point is, 'Are there enough for every unemployed person, and every person trapped in a minimum wage job?'




I agree with all of this except the bizare idea that people trapped in a minimum wage job 'aspire' to work there. And it all proves my point, namely, that people get stuck in minimum wage jobs and are not able to extricate themselves into a nice little blue collar job. They simply do not have the time, tools, or money to do anything except be trapped in that job.



Not really. Did he then get unemployed for a sustained period of time, or trapped in a minimum wage job he couldn't extricate himself from? Because that's what happened to mine. His skills weren't transferable, and he didn't have the resources to extricate himself from it. He also didn't get the nice payoff to begin with.



In the case of my uncle, he took out the business loan you're talking about to try and break free of his minimum wage trap. The small company he tried to start got strangled at birth due to market circumstances, and the additional financial pressure guaranteed he stayed minimum wage for the rest of his days. He was never paid enough to get additional skills or training, and his newly acquired debts prevented him from being able to even think about taking risks like moving area.

Had he possessed a living wage as opposed to an 'existing wage', he might have been able to extricate himself from it.




Achievable for some. Which is my point.




That's absolutely wonderful, and completely and utterly irrelevant. The point I'm making here (to put it bluntly), is that not everyone is blessed with the specific combination of circumstances that allows them to pull themselves out of the gutter. My parents are foster carers, and Jesus, you should see some of the kids that pass through their hands. They have psychological issues and disadvantages that make your anecdotal examples and my own look like a walk in the park. They are not equipped in any way, shape or form, to be able to partake in 'the American Dream'.

Which is why it is rubbish. Yes, a good chunk of us working poor can climb the financial/social ladder, one fingernail at a time, through hard work and perseverance. But others try and fail despite working harder than us, and others still are incapable of trying for reasons not their own. Those people are often destined to spend their lives making an absolute pittance, trapped in dead end minimum wage jobs or unemployed. But they deserve a reasonable standard of living, or the opportunity to break out of that trap.




That's exactly what it is. You were luck enough to be born with good parents. There are many who do not. You were lucky enough to be born into a society that values education. You were lucky enough to be born into a society that provides the means to access it. You were lucky in many, many ways.



Then please explain to me how the wonderful American Dream allows somebody on the outskirts of Liverpool, who wasn't quite smart enough to go to University, who can only get a three days of zero hour contracted work per week (that barely pays higher than his dole money being minimum wage) to 'better himself'? He has no money, no ability to move around, and no educational opportunities. All the nice blue collar jobs you mention have about three hundred applicants, so he has no hope of getting those.

How does the 'American Dream' dictate he should proceed?



It is nothing but purest LUCK. Random chance dictated the circumstances of your birth, your parents, your society, your intelligence, your geographical location, and your access to resources.

Nobody is telling you to be ashamed. You should be proud of what you achieved with what you had. But not everybody gets even as good a start as did.



Yes. Pretty good. Working themselves to the bone six days a week pulling ten hour shifts just to meet subsistence level. What lucky people they are, and how well they are doing.

Clearly a slightly higher wage to enable them to try and develop themselves and strive for something better is a laughable notion. Waitaminute...



Unless of course, you happen to be trapped in one of those minimum wage, low skilled jobs....




Ah, I see. Rather than having them paid a living wage, the Government should pick up the tab of the private businesses being able to employ people for peanuts, and either subsidise the trapped people, or pay for them to get the opportunities they might be able to seek for themselves if they earned a bit more.

Less government interference indeed.



You said that if minimum wage goes up, employers raise their standards on who they hire. Presumably, you mean academic standards. So where that burger flipping job would have required no qualifications, it now requires some, right?



Wait, so your argument is that if you bump up minimum wage, people with better qualifications will apply for the job?

That's.......absurd. Sorry, but it really is. It works on the premise that the burger flipping job will provide sufficient financial remuneration so as to be competitive enough to lure better qualified people out of other job fields into applying.

Yes, you are correct in the initial thought. If flipping burgers suddenly paid £100,000 a year, I'd be queueing outside for a job, along with most people. But seriously? Think it through. It's logically ridiculous. If minimum wage was suddenly raised to £100,000 per year, every other job would have to pay at least that as well. The result being that actually, I'd look for for jobs with more job satisfaction than burger flipping, that would be 100% cast iron guaranteed to pay me an equivalent amount or more.



Sadly, not everyone has that luxury. Hence the aforementioned trapped people.



In terms of economic benefit, raising minimum wage vastly offsets any minor adjustments caused in the living essentials, assuming it is kept within sensible limits. If you quadrupled it, yes, costs would also skyrocket. But if you say, put it up by three or four dollars, and are clever about only generally applying it to companies that can afford it, the net result is less private profit, and more money ploughed back into the tax system and general economy.

A penny apiece from the masses doth far outweigh a pound a pound apiece from the few.



Technically, anything you buy that isn't essential is inherently hedonistic.

You also keep jumping back to this bugbear that 'prices will rise'. I agree, yes, they will do, if you institute a ridiculously huge minimum wage rise applied uniformly.

But no-one is suggesting that.



What if I'm spending it on 'bettering myself'? Because y'know, that was the point earlier on. First you say that people should better themselves, but then you say that if they were given the financial means to do so, they should save it. Which is it? Do they try and better themselves, or do they put it away for a rainy day?



Because they have no money. It's what you might call a defining attribute of being 'poor'.



Keeping them locked in a cycle of poverty also does not help their situation. If you earn a bit more, you might be able to prioritise all that 'American Dream' stuff.




I see. So your logic is, 'If you have a minimum wage job, and are fiscally responsible, you should be able to earn enough to better yourself'. In other words, you believe the minimum wage is sufficient as it is, and it provides the means to pay for the essentials and offer opportunity? Please clarify if that is indeed your position.



How is raising the minimum wage Government dependency? It's the exact opposite. It's making businesses who are capable of doing so bear the brunt of the costs to improve the lot of society as a whole. Beyond writing on a bit of paper, it doesn't cost the Government a penny. As things stand, maintaining the status quo is what costs the Government money, and requires vast state intervention, because people don't earn enough to survive or better themselves without it!

In other words, I'm anti-Government intervention! By raising the minimum wage, there is less burden on the taxpayer, less subsidies required, and less social schemes required!



Okay, to the basics....

If minimum wage is raised, people are by definition, spending within their means. It means they have cash to spend that isn't dependent on loans. It isn't debt. That's why it's good for the economy.

If people were taking out loans to spend, then you would be entirely correct. But nobody has ever, at any stage, advocated that. Ever.



No. People do not create businesses to 'serve customers'. No business ever came into existence for the pure pleasure of distributing goods to mankind. The motivation of your average CEO to come into work isn't 'to serve customers'. They exist, to make money. You're deceiving yourself if you think otherwise.

There are organisations that do exist to help people, but they're called charities.



We don't appear to be disagreeing on regulation. I'm just nitpicking at some exceedingly illogical defences for what is currently turning into an exploitative system that is bad for the economy (aka, a minimum wage that is too low for purpose). There's a healthy balance between state, and industry. The pendulum has swung slightly too far one way, and it needs to be forcibly realigned for the good of all (even the businesses that bear the costs). And by signing a bit of paper, the government can do that.




Both, to an extent. I'm not advocating raising it to ridiculous levels. It shouldn't be raised so high as to dent the economy, or smash small businesses. But by raising it by a proportionate amount, you can get two birds with one stone. It means people trapped there have a tolerable quality of life (not extremely comfortable, it is a no-skill job after all), and potentially, the financial tools to get out if they're prepared to exert themselves.

Good lord...how do you have time to write all that?

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Good lord...how do you have time to write all that?

I want to read it..because I'm sure there's lots of interesting discourse there....but man...I'm here for the pithy one liners and being told I berate particular fields of study.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Good lord...how do you have time to write all that?

I genuinely have no idea. I got home from work at midnight, sat down, and blinked and it was an hour later.

 cincydooley wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Good lord...how do you have time to write all that?

I want to read it..because I'm sure there's lots of interesting discourse there....but man...I'm here for the pithy one liners and being told I berate particular fields of study.

Bahahaha...yeah, this, 100%.


I've spent about 4 hours today shopping for holsters. If I'd just spent the time working, I could have just bought all 3 candidate holsters and given the rest away to needy children in the hood.

The only problem I have with this is that the average Mcdonalds worker now makes most than more Marines, Soldiers, Airmen, etc.

It's bad enough a Mcdonalds manager already made a close figure to a Sergeant... now the wages have been uped.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens in San fran.

 Stormwall wrote:
The only problem I have with this is that the average Mcdonalds worker now makes most than more Marines, Soldiers, Airmen, etc.

I agree... We should demand that congress cut its' own pay, and use the freed up money to pay Soldiers, Sailors and Marines more

 Stormwall wrote:
The only problem I have with this is that the average Mcdonalds worker now makes most than more Marines, Soldiers, Airmen, etc.

It's bad enough a Mcdonalds manager already made a close figure to a Sergeant... now the wages have been uped.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens in San fran.

$15 an hour would put them higher than lots of non-service professions, as well.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Stormwall wrote:
The only problem I have with this is that the average Mcdonalds worker now makes most than more Marines, Soldiers, Airmen, etc.

It's bad enough a Mcdonalds manager already made a close figure to a Sergeant... now the wages have been uped.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens in San fran.

$15 an hour would put them higher than lots of non-service professions, as well.

Don't worry. This will spur on the automation of fast food. Soon the only people at McDonalds will be the manager and a service techie for the machines.

So they'll be flat out unemployed instead of overpaid.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Stormwall wrote:
The only problem I have with this is that the average Mcdonalds worker now makes most than more Marines, Soldiers, Airmen, etc.

It's bad enough a Mcdonalds manager already made a close figure to a Sergeant... now the wages have been uped.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens in San fran.

$15 an hour would put them higher than lots of non-service professions, as well.

Personal Rambling:


Now moving on to more important aspects of this discussion, I am worried about inflation. While I don't think this will hyper inflate the economy, what is stopping someone who lives outside of San Fran coming in and doing a minimum wage job that anyone can get, and going to a cheaper area, milking the profits? IE: When workers who have main residence in my state of Virginia (the southwestern poor area,) but, they work factory jobs in Philadelphia, making bank due to this. (I won't get into this but, you guys surely can understand the point I am trying to convey.)

Still, while I doubt this is the true for this situation, it reminds me of when I was a kid in school and learned of Germany and bread in social studies/world history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic

I guess that's all I feel on the subject really. I hope this doesn't break any rules, etc. I tend to avoid the moral discussions.

 Stormwall wrote:

Personal Rambling:

Spoiler:

I agree. I am unsure what worries me more. The fact that most minimum wage jobs are usually designed for people in highschool, (such as fast food,) had protestors push this issue until the minimum wage was raised. That being stated, I am most worried that professions such as the services, manufacturing, and nursing will really be affected by this. Why should a nurse or a CNC machinist work for 14$ where I live when someone out in San Fran makes 15$ an hour to do something infinitely less complicated. Why should our veterans have gone through the wire, just to see that when they come home someone at a minimum wage job made way more than they did at their rank. (I am talking about lower enlisted here obviously.) I sometimes worry over the economic and moral state of America, if you read the news too much it seems as if the country is constantly going downhill. (That is a subject for another thread all together though.) I feel like this kinda relates to the whole meme about being a hypocrite, where someone wearing a fast food uniform upon hearing your a veteran or a (insert profession you worked hard to enter here,) talk and they go "Oh I was going to join the service but... I didn't want to wear a uniform or be told what to do. Now do you want a large side of fries with that meal?"

That is mostly just a personal tidbit though, don't hate me for it. I don't mean any real disrespect to people working in the fast food industry, it's just that the protesters acted as if they were entitled to something more that the rest of the working middle class/lower class wasn't. It felt like the rest of our working class had to accept this. I guess this is all personal conjecture though, and it really doesn't influence this discussion. (Now I know some white knight or some crud is going to go "If it doesn't influence why did you post it plox?!11! I simply posted it because I felt like it had to be said. Yet again, no offense intended. Though someone will surely tear it apart in debate I'm sure.)

Now moving on to more important aspects of this discussion, I am worried about inflation. While I don't think this will hyper inflate the economy, what is stopping someone who lives outside of San Fran coming in and doing a minimum wage job that anyone can get, and going to a cheaper area, milking the profits? IE: When workers who have main residence in my state of Virginia (the southwestern poor area,) but, they work factory jobs in Philadelphia, making bank due to this. (I won't get into this but, you guys surely can understand the point I am trying to convey.)

Still, while I doubt this is the true for this situation, it reminds me of when I was a kid in school and learned of Germany and bread in social studies/world history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic

I guess that's all I feel on the subject really. I hope this doesn't break any rules, etc. I tend to avoid the moral discussions.

What's funny is that, nearly every day in my political science class, the professor exclaims how the economic disparity in the US is actually the greatest threat to the US. The top 1% controls far more of the total wealth in the US than the bottom 99%, and within the past couple of years, we've seen the "Middle Class" have it's share of the wealth and importance to everyday life shrink to nearly WW2 levels.


Of course, just how to "fix" the problem is where politics come into play, and we can all see how well that one's working out

 Stormwall wrote:
The only problem I have with this is that the average Mcdonalds worker now makes most than more Marines, Soldiers, Airmen, etc.

Is that taking into account food, board, medical care, and other amenities? Do people in San Fran now also get the GI Bill or 0% mortgages? Trying to compare it on a dollar for dollar base does not work. Not to mention there is less stigma attached to saying you are a Marine than saying you are a McDonald's Employee.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

2) education only has value if it provides something for society. Education for educations sake doesn't provide society anything except someonewho has received a product of society, but isn't producing an equivalent use. Another art major who will never use his degree just wasted a higher education slot someone else could have used. If only 1 in 10 recepiants of a degree use that degree, 9 out of 10 should have not received it.

Pretty much.

We'd be in a much better position if student lending were risk based. Get that Art History degree, that's fine. But you shouldn't be lendable because the ROI simply isn't there for it.

feth HSM, I'd love to see social workers and teachers aids get 15/hr. Because a whole helluva lot of them don't.
.

Wait, WHAT? Where, In any of my posts did I imply they they shouldnt?

 Ahtman wrote:
0% mortgages?

Where can I get mine?? I served for 10 years, and I still have a percentage on my mortgage


Ahtman, I know you're referring to the VA Home loan guarantee, but really it's simply a 0 down payment loan that I actually have to pay extra for.... I'm paying that down payment, and then some to the VA over the 30 year loan.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Stormwall wrote:
The only problem I have with this is that the average Mcdonalds worker now makes most than more Marines, Soldiers, Airmen, etc.

Is that taking into account food, board, medical care, and other amenities? Do people in San Fran now also get the GI Bill or 0% mortgages? Trying to compare it on a dollar for dollar base does not work. Not to mention there is less stigma attached to saying you are a Marine than saying you are a McDonald's Employee.

Oh joy. First off, the reason for that is Marines earn the title. Anyone can work at fast food. Not everyone can be a Marine. It is the "Few and the Proud," for a reason.

The dental and other healthcare you get in the services actually can harm you more so than help. People have had to have full dental work in the civilian world after service due to the free dental received in any of the boot camps and even afterwords in garrison. I personally know someone who had to dump 16 grand to fix his teeth that were worked on in Boot camp and "corrected," with , cheap fillings that only had a life of 5-10 years. Healthcare is usually on a "Here is a straw Corporal. Why's that? So you can suck it the up." When service members do get care, it's either amazing and right the first time or you end up getting the wrong care and more injuries on top of what you originally came in for. I had some issues in that last regard. Oh yes, the food is "free," too. It's free because it is automatically deducted from your base pay. Not to mention extra expenses, the free "housing," comes at a price. You have added expenses, such as uniforms and haircuts, plus gear maintenance. Gear that is used and damaged on deployment is quite expensive, especially if CIF won't take it back. Haircuts alone can reach an extra 1000$ a year. When living in the barracks you are assigned work, you miss sleep, anyone can mess with you, etc. Imagine living in a large room, usually run down, looking like garbage with a bunch of rowdy men in it. Not to mention those in charge, who find work to keep them busy. (Many of these reasons are why our servicemembers enter contract marriages, to move out of the barracks.) Mr.mcjoe at Mcdonalds gets to go home and have his freedoms.

Though that last sentence is trivial, as almost every service member after Vietnam has raised their hand an taken the oath voluntarily.

As for the G.I bill, I am still fighting for mine. I will get it but, it is a hurry up and wait process. (I only got it due to the fact I got Medboarded out after a surgery, and received the full 36 months. Even though my injury is service related, I am still pending atm for it.) That bill is the better version of the other one, and can be cut at any time. It's not a guarantee like the other one. When you are active you must find the time to go to school too. If you are deployed you obviously cannot go to a school in Afganistan, etc. Furthermore, when in a garrison environment, you must be allowed to by your superiors. If the shop (I am a pogue,) doesn't let that fly, you will have to wait till you get out. Most of the time you give up sleep if you wish to go to school, if you even get it. The bill is accrued by the time you serve too, so you cannot just go all out ham and knock out a degree right away. It can often times take multiple enlistments to do it.

At the end of the day it isn't just about San Fran, it's about the fact that if it worked there, what it if it upped nationwide due to differences in costs?

(Any vets who see errors with this, please correct them.) Anyways, you are right, I didn't take that into account. But, now I have. It is "still embracing the suck," for a reason.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
0% mortgages?

Where can I get mine?? I served for 10 years, and I still have a percentage on my mortgage


Ahtman, I know you're referring to the VA Home loan guarantee, but really it's simply a 0 down payment loan that I actually have to pay extra for.... I'm paying that down payment, and then some to the VA over the 30 year loan.

Exactly. Oh and have fun waiting on the VA.

Anyways, I mean no offense but, that's kinda personal experience. The user I just quoted can probably echo this. I don't mind discussing this more but, I am unsure if this is off-topic to the thread or not, and I don't feel the subject warrants its own thread.

Off topic, I probably shouldn't have typed this up. I'm still not happy with being out. Sorry for the wall of text you guys.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
0% mortgages?

Where can I get mine?? I served for 10 years, and I still have a percentage on my mortgage

Ahtman, I know you're referring to the VA Home loan guarantee, but really it's simply a 0 down payment loan that I actually have to pay extra for.... I'm paying that down payment, and then some to the VA over the 30 year loan.

The vets I know said they got a 0% mortgage so I really don't know. That could be what they really meant, but it is still a deal most people don't get. I'll ask again later to confirm if I remember, and since it isn't super important I might not. The point was that a direct dollar to dollar comparison doesn't really work well as it ignores a lot of things. It just isn't that simple.

 Stormwall wrote:
Oh joy. First off, the reason for that is Marines earn the title.

Which of course has feth all to do with any point anyone made.

 Stormwall wrote:
Anyone can work at fast food.

You probably haven't read the myriad of other posts in which this has been discussed, but that isn't actually true. They aren't typically just waiting around to hire anyone and everyone; it isn't super exclusive, but it isn't a public service either. You are helping to prove my point that there is more of a negative stigma attached to fast food work though, so thanks for that.

 Stormwall wrote:
Not everyone can be a Marine. It is the "Few and the Proud," for a reason.

Which, again, has feth all to do with anything stated. Everything else past this was basically a straw man, with the added fun of moving the goal posts.