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Kilkrazy wrote: If the wealthy feed and cloth the rest of us why is a minimum wage needed? Why have so many good jobs been outsourced to China, Mexico and India?
Well other countries need feeding too...
But yea im not sure. I guess that kinda contradicts that point.
Kilkrazy wrote: If the wealthy feed and cloth the rest of us why is a minimum wage needed? Why have so many good jobs been outsourced to China, Mexico and India?
the jobs were outsourced because why would someone pay someone in America 10$ an hour when they can pay someone 3$ an hour somewhere else... keep raising min wage and keep seeing jobs fly over seas.
rich people are becoming the bogey man, its a lot easier to blame them then to accept personal responsibility for your own financial state.
ironically, accepting personal responsibility for ones own finances is one of the traits of successful people.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/13 21:35:35
Kilkrazy wrote: If the wealthy feed and cloth the rest of us why is a minimum wage needed? Why have so many good jobs been outsourced to China, Mexico and India?
They are busy feeding and clothing them, at substantially reduced rates of labor cost.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
The rich are justified as long as they actually contribute to the welfare of everyone else.
Recent history has seen the rich being rewarded more and more, which should lead to everyone else improving their living standards and so on.
It hasn't happened.
I agree, recent history has seen laws favor the rich, corporate tax rates are abominably low, and corporations should not have more rights then people. Smaller business gets screwed too.
the thing is though, these policies are mostly in place due to apathy and lack of understanding of the financial sectors by the common person, apathy in the late 20th century led to lots of stuff we have now that is just... horrible.
we also have a huge corruption problem, one that the media completely ignores, it doesnt take a sherlock holmes to connect the dots and see connections between "whos running the countries" and who is benefiting the most from the rules those countries make.
Its only now that people are getting info tainment that spells it out for them how they are being screwed that people are starting to wake up.
Our education system should be able to pump out people who have at least one work ready *skill or trade* that warrants above minimum wage jobs, who also understand how to invest properly for the future...
as it is, our education system fails everyone (rich included) because people come out of it with very little practical skills.
I have a hard time convincing people to say, put 5 grand a year into a tax free savings account, because they often say "i dont have 5 grand" even though they likely paid 5 grand in taxes, and would get that back(+ interest tax free), for putting it into the account.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/13 21:47:49
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
easysauce wrote: in general the wealthy are wealthy because they made good decisions.
I think that is likely a myth. They appear to have made good decisions in retrospect, but no one can see the future, or know all the angles. In the end they made some good decisions and had a lot of luck, being in the right place at the right time etc... But for every success story, there are probably a thousand people who gambled and lost, and then the bank defaulted on their house. But you don't hear about those guys.
easysauce wrote: its a lot easier to blame them then to accept personal responsibility for your own financial state.
And it's a lot easier to take "responsibility" for you own financial state, and feth everyone else, than it is to take responsibility for the well being of society as a whole.
Ultimately wealth is relative. For one person to be rich, another person must be poor. There is no way around it. So why kick people while they are down?
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/11/13 21:59:46
easysauce wrote: in general the wealthy are wealthy because they made good decisions.
I think that is likely a myth. They appear to have made good decisions in retrospect, but no one can see the future, or know all the angles. In the end they made some good decisions and had a lot of luck, being in the right place at the right time etc... But for every success story, there are probably a thousand people who gambled and lost, and then the bank defaulted on their house. But you don't hear about those guys.
easysauce wrote: its a lot easier to blame them then to accept personal responsibility for your own financial state.
And it's a lot easier to take "responsibility" for you own financial state, and feth everyone else, than it is to take responsibility for the well being of society as a whole.
Ultimately wealth is relative. For one person to be rich, another person must be poor. There is no way around it. So why kick people while they are down?
thats not true at all.... Its a myth that all rich people are lucky, otherwise we wouldnt see 70% of lotto winners go broke in a few years.
true wealth comes out of win win scenarios... its not true that for rich to exist that poor must also exist, two people can both be given two identical farms, and one can run it into the ground, while the other runs it well and makes money. The good farmer didnt make the bad farmer poor.
in general terms,
wealthy people put their bodies and money to work, and take risks, take advantage of every tax/investment law they can and yes some are lucky, but most succeed because they worked hard to mitigate their risk. They see themselves as the only one to blame if they fail.
conversely, lots of non wealthy people, never invest, never take risks, dont even know about tax breaks they could get, rarely deprive themselves now for a payoff later, and wonder why they never get wealthy... and will generally blame someone else for why they are poor.
the real "myth" is that personal actions are less important to making wealth then luck, its a commonly accepted myth, especially amongst those who do not do what rich people do, but a myth nonetheless.
Once you accumulate a certain level of wealth you have to work very hard or be extremely unlucky to lose it. The money essentially keeps making itself. A well managed trust fund will allow future generations to live a life of leisure without ever diminishing the value of the original fund.
The rich are justified as long as they actually contribute to the welfare of everyone else.
Uhm...what? That's highly irrational. Why would anyone be obligated to just give his money away to others just...because they're there? How does that make any sense? Rich people are justified because they...are people. Jealousy by others comes for free. I, for example, earn a lot of money. And I darn well deserve it because I hold responsibility not only for my own family, but for everyone working for us. If I screw up, tons of people might lose their jobs. If I do well, tons of people will profit from my good decisions.
Rich people already pay a ridiculous amount of taxes and benefit far more to the state's welfare than a vast amount of lower class citizens. You can easily maintain a state with 50% of its overall population, but have fun trying to maintain it with 50% of its top salaries / taxes.
And yes, the "Rich people are rich because of luck" attitude has been debunked so many times before that it's not even funny anymore.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/11/13 22:44:44
I seem to remember a news story a few years ago which stated the top 50 billionaires in the UK paid an effective tax rate of well under 1%. Not forgetting all those companies who manage to not only pay no tax while making huge piles of cash, but also then get money from the government in subsidies too... BHS springs to mind...
easysauce wrote: thats not true at all.... Its a myth that all rich people are lucky, otherwise we wouldnt see 70% of lotto winners go broke in a few years.
And how many entrepreneurs and business men go broke? Companies go belly up all the time. Saying it is all skill and no luck is just wishful thinking.
true wealth comes out of win win scenarios...
Right, and to find yourself in win/win scenario and have the resources and skills to exploit it is luck. Who wouldn't win if the scenario is win /win? That's practically the definition of luck.
its not true that for rich to exist that poor must also exist.
Yes it is. You can only be rich in comparison to someone else. If you have 10 million and you live in a country where everyone else has 10 billion, then you are poor, and 10 million won't be worth anything. Wealth is entirely relative.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/11/13 22:50:35
SilverMK2 wrote: I seem to remember a news story a few years ago which stated the top 50 billionaires in the UK paid an effective tax rate of well under 1%. Not forgetting all those companies who manage to not only pay no tax while making huge piles of cash, but also then get money from the government in subsidies too... BHS springs to mind...
It's no secret that everyone with a good income exploits the system. I mean, if you are about to get robbed of 50% of your income, you'd defend yourself. Robbing people is bad.
Yes it is. You can only be rich in comparison to someone else. If you have 10 million and you live in a country where everyone else has 10 billion, then you are poor, and 10 million won't be worth anything. Wealth is entirely relative.
You missed that Globalization thingy a few years ago.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/13 22:51:49
SilverMK2 wrote: I seem to remember a news story a few years ago which stated the top 50 billionaires in the UK paid an effective tax rate of well under 1%. Not forgetting all those companies who manage to not only pay no tax while making huge piles of cash, but also then get money from the government in subsidies too... BHS springs to mind...
I'd like to remind you for all your whinging, these people are the job creators. You should thank them that you have any money at all. In fact since they're the ones paying you, your money is just their money that they decided to give you. If you weren't so lazy maybe you'd have your own money but in the meantime don't bemoan those giving you charity.
Secondly, with as much money as they have you don't think they couldn't build a giant meat grinder that could chop a person up into tiny little bits. Look at as all though, not one of us is being shoved into a giant grinder. The kindness of the billionaires is the only thing stopping that! How can you be so ungrateful, for staying whole and unprocessed as you are? I swear the way you complain it's almost like you'd rather have us turned into human slurry.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/13 22:53:51
easysauce wrote: thats not true at all.... Its a myth that all rich people are lucky, otherwise we wouldnt see 70% of lotto winners go broke in a few years.
And how many entrepreneurs and business men go broke? Companies go belly up all the time. Saying it is all skill and no luck is just wishful thinking.
true wealth comes out of win win scenarios...
Right, and to find yourself in win/win scenario and have the resources and skills to exploit it is luck. Who wouldn't win if the scenario is win /win? That's practically the definition of luck.
its not true that for rich to exist that poor must also exist.
Yes it is. You can only be rich in comparison to someone else. If you have 10 million and you live in a country where everyone else has 10 billion, then you are poor, and 10 million won't be worth anything. Wealth is entirely relative.
not true...
You are rich if your income exceeds your outcome, if everyone in a country has 10 milion, but pays 11 million to stay alive, they are all poor, if they all have one dollar, but only need a penny, they are rich.
Having skills is not luck... using skills to acquire resources, invest, and mitigate risk is not luck... luck is random.
You are calling out people who take risks with capital they saved, mitigate those risks and come out ahead, as "lucky" despite them requiring hard work and skills.
conversely, a person who does nothing with their resources, doesnt invest them, and has no risk to mitigate, is not unlucky at all... they did nothing, and got nothing, yet are surprised by the results.
its like looking at a scientist, do you claim scientists are just lucky when they discover stuff? or do you copy their methods, recreate them, and get the same results?
when you end up not being as skillful with the bunsen burner, and burning down your own lab, do you blame that on luck or lack of skill?
Prestor Jon wrote:
We have a minimum wage and we still saw domestic manufacturing shrink dramatically over the last several decades. Raising the minimum wage won't bring those jobs back and it actively incentivizes more outsourcing and automation by making both alternatives cheaper.
This is true, I'm with you here.
There is nothing the state can do to make it worthwhile for Apple to manufacture iphones in the US.
Really? Have you read the constitution lately? The Congress may enact tariffs. We enacted tariffs as recently as the eighties (maybe more recently, but I know about this one off the top of my head). Under Reagan, Harley-Davidson asked for a protective tariff in order to rebuild the domestic heavy-weight motorcycle industry in this country. Congress passed a tariff, Harley stayed in the US, rebuilt their business, and actually asked the government to take down the tariff early as they met their goals ahead of schedule.
Anyone who believes that our government cannot address outsourcing has not studied history. The issue isn't that we cannot, it is that our politicians are bought and paid for by the same companies who wish to outsource jobs. We offer tax incentives to countries that outsource jobs. You know what the state could do to make it worthwhile to manufacture in the US again? Offer tax incentives to do so, and punitive taxes for outsourcing. Don't tell me there's nothing we can do.
What's more, one of the big reasons it is cheaper to manufacture overseas, rather than here, is that we only enforce environmental and workplace safety regulations here. If we refused to allow companies to avoid these regulations by working in other companies, and required that all products sold in the US were manufactured in facilities that complied with US environmental and safety laws, it would cease to be cheaper to work overseas. The global labor market exists as it currently does because the people running the system profit from it this way. Not because it is inherently required to be this way.
And it's not just outsourcing, it's also automation. You say McDonalds would hire fewer people by using automated tellers (or whatever). That's fine - but there are different ways to address this issue than paying your employees starvation-level wages and claiming it's the only alternative.
Automation pretty much guarantees that there will be less demand for labour as time passes. And between breeding and immigration, there will be more people to do those fewer jobs. If you don't change the system, all this does is concentrate more wealth in the hands of those who own capital, and divide less wealth among an ever-increasing number of people. That's not a society I want to live in.
Instead, you can see what Europe is doing. Rather than give all the rewards of increase productivity to just a few, workers are paid more, and work fewer hours. Going from a standardized 5 day work-week to a 4 day work-week (with no change in annual salary) divides the benefit of increased productivity across the entire workforce. It immediately increases demand for labor by 20%.
Instead, the US has the fewest vacation days of all industrialized nations. We work people well over 40-hours/week, and insist that having an uber-wealthy upper class is admirable because those few people must have really earned it, and besides, I want to be one of them one day.
If Congress doubled the federal minimum wage tomorrow it would only exacerbate the very conditions you want it to ameliorate.
Ludicrous. Every time minimum wage has increased, we've seen increases in overall prosperity. Most recently, Seattle passed a $15/hour minimum wage. Did the city crumble? Did businesses flee, or inflict massive price hikes on their customers? No. Instead, businesses prospered as, remarkably, the customer base in the city suddenly had money to spend.
true wealth comes out of win win scenarios... its not true that for rich to exist that poor must also exist, two people can both be given two identical farms, and one can run it into the ground, while the other runs it well and makes money. The good farmer didnt make the bad farmer poor.
There is no such thing as "true wealth". There are many definitions of wealth but they all have validity in certain instances, and they can all just as easily be derived from win-win scenarios as win-lose scenarios. In fact it is arguably easier to develop one's wealth by exploitative means than by fair ones; hence the prevalence of coal towns and plantations (among other things) back in the day.
As to your farm comment: No, the good farmer did not make the bad farmer poor but, in a closed system, there will always be a finite amount of wealth* which must be divided between a given number of people (natural and artificial). This means that, even absent intent to screw a competitor over, the accumulation of wealth by one party limits the accumulation of wealth by all others.
You are rich if your income exceeds your outcome, if everyone in a country has 10 milion, but pays 11 million to stay alive, they are all poor, if they all have one dollar, but only need a penny, they are rich.
Am I rich if I earn 1 penny more than what I need to survive? At least assuming I only need 1 dollar?
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/11/14 03:31:54
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Dogma
Its almost like you want me to look like im stupid enough to think a dollar+ a penny makes you rich in the literal sense, but in reply to a direct statement that "if everyone had a billion dollars no one is rich" what I said makes sense when trying to convey the idea of earning more then you spend being a cornerstone of whats considered "rich", but hey, why have context right?
The problem is, in a completely free market, if everyone has a billion dollars, then no one will be willing to work for $5 an hour anymore. So wages must go up, costs must then go up, and prices must go up. Eventually the system will resettle with the poorest least rich person being poor again.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/11/14 03:49:16
Smacks wrote: The problem is, in a completely free market, if everyone has a billion dollars, then no one will be willing to work for $5 an hour anymore. So wages must go up, costs must then go up, and prices must go up. Eventually the system will resettle with the poorest least rich person being poor again.
I certainly agree that if everyone had a billion that 5$/hr is meaningless, but your scenario seemed to be a "if everyone won the lotto overnight" kind of thing to me, I think we are on the same general page, as your above statement makes sense.
You are correct though, as the wages of everyone goes up, prices also tend to rise. Hence why raising min wage isnt always the best thing to do, its often just a band aid. Finding ways to bring back good paying jobs, reduce the price hikes consumers keep seeing in the basic essentials, tend to work much longer term then just raising min wage over and over and repeating the cycle you mention above.
Id be curious to what you think of this
Its one of the more creative solutions I think, of course its swiss, not 100% sure it would work everywhere of course, but it is akin to this:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-25415501
the jist of it being:
"Now two more votes are on the way, the first on the introduction of a minimum wage, and the second, and most controversial, on a guaranteed basic income for all legal residents, whether they work or not.
A universal basic income sounds very radical, but it is not a new idea - Thomas More proposed it in his work Utopia in the 16th Century.
On the left, universal basic income is thought to be fairer, while on the right it is seen as the policy that would make welfare payments obsolete.
There will be no incentive for young people to learn a job or study”
it simplifies the whole welfare system into one easy payment, making it simpler and cheaper, as long as the stipend is needs only, people will still get better skills to provide for their many wants
its also cheaper to pay a living needs level stipend then it is to deal with the tertiary effects of that person being homeless
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/11/14 04:24:21
I think it's a fascinating idea. I suppose the main argument against it would be that no one will be motivated to do anything. Which reminds me of a little info video I watched where the guy talks about what really motivates people:
The video implies that people who aren't worried about their basic survival, are actually much more motivated and creative. Even more so than people who are being highly paid. It's a very interesting watch.
I say abolish the minimum wage. That probably won't happen in my lifetime so I say don't raise it. Minimum wage jobs are not careers they are jumping off points for people with little or no work experience to get some. Once they have some they can and should move on to better jobs that require more training or education. Learn a skill. Flipping burgers is not a skill that is worth $15/hr.
Every time they raise the minimum wage it effectively gives everyone who has worked hard to better themselves and be worth more then the minimum wage a pay cut. Their skills/education are devalued every time minimum wage goes up.
Also every time you raise minimum wage costs will go up for everything that requires minimum wage employees.
slk28850 wrote: I say abolish the minimum wage. That probably won't happen in my lifetime so I say don't raise it. Minimum wage jobs are not careers they are jumping off points for people with little or no work experience to get some. Once they have some they can and should move on to better jobs that require more training or education. Learn a skill. Flipping burgers is not a skill that is worth $15/hr.
If I'm only getting paid minimum wage for flipping burgers, how do I get other skills. Hint: It's not from flipping burgers
Every time they raise the minimum wage it effectively gives everyone who has worked hard to better themselves and be worth more then the minimum wage a pay cut. Their skills/education are devalued every time minimum wage goes up.
So? You're telling everyone to "Learn a skill" surely flooding the market with people that know the exact same skills would you know, devalue their skills just as much or even more, so why not make sure everyone lives as comfortably as possible and happier. And you know what, happy, comfortable workers, are hard and compentant workers
Also every time you raise minimum wage costs will go up for everything that requires minimum wage employees.
Sure, but seeing as wage is not 100% the cost of making anything at the minimum wage level, the increase in free wealth (that is money that can be spent on things) is greater relative to the cost of the final product (if it increases at all).
Consider the following:
If someone gets an extra $2 an hour and they make 100 burgers in that hour, then the cost of making all 100 burgers increases by $2 which is the same as 2 cents per burger, if the burger costs $5, then if the full price increase is passed onto consumers (which they won't, because unrounded prices are ugly apparently) so the burger now costs $5.02 that is a whopping price increase of 0.4%
Now if the employee went from $13 dollars/hour to $15 dollars/hour, then their wealth (and thus their ability to contribute to society) is increased by 15.38%. I fail to see how me paying another 2 cents for my burger is not worth someone getting an extra 15.38% to spend on the essentials.
Horst wrote:This is how trolling happens. A few cheeky posts are made. Then they get more insulting. Eventually, we revert to our primal animal state, hurling feces at each other while shreeking with glee.
Chongara wrote: I'd like to remind you for all your whinging, these people are the job creators. You should thank them that you have any money at all. In fact since they're the ones paying you, your money is just their money that they decided to give you. If you weren't so lazy maybe you'd have your own money but in the meantime don't bemoan those giving you charity.
Actually, since I work for a government funded body, and they pay effectively no tax, they didn't give me all my money or create my job
