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 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
My local example is even worse. We had one of the lowest birth rates on the planet (similar to Japan's) and everyone was scared that the "French fact" would disappear from North 'Muricah, so the government adopted an aggressive natalist policy, which rewarded any family willing to have three or more children heftily. Most people still don't go for it, but some people are turning around because we've let in "those other peoples" onto our fair land. One of my welfare students explained to me that if you are on welfare and have six kids, then you are actually receiving more money than a couple working full time (it scales the more kids you have, apparently) when on welfare.

If the salary of the couple working full time is minimum salary, I'm unsure as to what the problem is. I can hardly see myself, alone, on 14$ an hour raise a single kid, I don't think offering 20$/hour to a family of 7-8 is in any shape or form unreasonable.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
As a canadian who has worked for an american cell phone provider (actually, three US cellphone providers), I'd like to take this opportunity to let you know that you have no fething right to bitch about cellphone prices or contracts. None whatsoever.

Why do we as consumers not have the right to complain about our service providers? Is it because we signed a contract?
Edit: I am curious because I feel like I'm paying too much for the cell phones my mother and I use.

Not at all, let's just say that the american cellphone market is (or was, my experience dates from 2006-2010) incredibly cheap in comparison to the canadian one, so seeing an American complain about the terms of his contracts slightly grinds my gears. Back then, it was a comfortable 20-30$ difference on a single plan, and it went much higher with family plans. Our cancellation policies were ridiculous too. ''Pay 500$ or 6 months of your contract, whichever is higher''. And I used to get death threats over the 175$ Cingular would charge for cancellations...

Also, regarding Dogma's and Seaward's argument, there's a clause in the contracts I used to handle stating that cellphone service is not meant to be a primary communication line. I imagine it's in order to placate the surprisingly numerous amount of people that call in everyday to complain that a loss of service made them lose business and that we are legally responsible to compensate them. Still, if having a cellphone is not a necessity nowadays, it certainly remains a very useful tool. My employer is too cheap to provide me with a company cellphone, but he sure as hell verifies that we have one when he does the hiring.

Those do not sound too far off from what I have to pay if I were to cancel my plan. Also I agree that a cell phone is not quite a necessity, though I'll end it with yet. My work provides managers with business cell phones as well as those that might keep odd hours (one of our sales reps has a work cell phone because he occasionally gets called in to do demos with potential clients from around the world).

Though this does bring the question up about the "Obamaphone" idea as it's popularly known as. The idea of subsidized cell phones, regardless of who provides them, would make it seem as if the cell phone is becoming the primary communication line simply because these types of programs exist. It would seem to me that in the next... 10 years, the land line will be a thing of the past, and mobile communications will be the norm.

I can. You're demanding a salary based on nothing related to the work, but on your (in)ability to keep it in your pants.

 Frazzled wrote:
Isn't the Canadian market a regulated one or something? I believe one of the US companies wants to get into it. Thats what the Globe and Mail had in an article.

Yeah, Verizon was apparently denied access to the market earlier today. The CRTC, our equivalent of the FCC, has been a lot more heavy handed in the last couple of years, and that's why our contracts aren't half as abusive as they were prior to 2010. The prices are still high, and they don't throw phones at us the way Cingular and ATT used to throw them at their clients, but it's still a lot better than it was.


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 Frazzled wrote:
I can. You're demanding a salary based on nothing related to the work, but on your (in)ability to keep it in your pants.

Well, it's much more the needs of the children which are sought to be answered. Basically, by extension, they become welfare recipients. Ideally, everyone should realize that the hassle of working and climbing the payrates outweights the benefits of staying at home and getting the minimum guaranteed...

And keep in mind that breeding a plethora of snot monsters was (until a few years ago) a service to the Nation. Since we've now comfortably come back into a positive birth ratio, things like these ought to slowly be revised.

 dogma wrote:

 Gearhead wrote:
Sorry, entertainment is NOT a necessity, but a lot of folks consider it so, and it represents a significant drain on their finances.

Cable TV is not a necessity, but entertainment surely is.

All work and no play doesn't make Jack a dull boy, it threatens his sanity.

 cincydooley wrote:

See, this is the thing I have a real problem with. People include so many things in these "livable wage" evaluations that have no business being in there. Cable, Internet, cell phones, cigarettes, snack food, etc.

Wait, are you seriously questioning the necessity of a cell phone in 2013?

I mean, yeah, you can get away with a land-line (which also costs money) if you live alone or with people who can be relied upon to relay missed calls to you, but otherwise you need a cell phone.

entertainment is not a necessity... you highlight yourself the complete disconnect that most people have between NEEDS (food, water, shelter, air, things nescessary to stay alive) and wants (everything else needed to increase one's enjoyment of life, but not nescessary at all)


also, when I was working for minimum wages, to raise myself up, I did just fine with a library card (which is free) and gives me: net access, free books/dvds/music

that is more then enough entertainment... should your sanity be in jeopardy because you cannot spend the 100$+ a month it costs for cable/net at home, I suggest you look for work as a servitor.

a phone, bare basic plan, is needed, but the cheapest phone/plan is all you need, you dont need data, or a smart phone, a land line with a answering machine or simple cell is very cheap.

TV's are free, the old cathode ray tube ones pop up for free on craigs list every day, yet these mc d's workers likely want/have large flat screens ect.

most often I see things like people complaining they cannot keep up with car payments... againa car is not a need, it is a luxury... the bus/subway/bike/ect will get you there much cheaper

fast food does already pay a living wage, the problem is that most people think a "living" wage should support a lifstyle that contaings more luxuries then they can actually afford.

Not seeing how having more kids helps society at this point.
They're taking jobs away from hard working qualified domestic robots. They're taking our jobs!

 easysauce wrote:
entertainment is not a necessity... you highlight yourself the complete disconnect that most people have between NEEDS (food, water, shelter, air, things nescessary to stay alive) and wants (everything else needed to increase one's enjoyment of life, but not nescessary at all)

If anything, that disconnect is a virtue of the modern world.

also, when I was working for minimum wages, to raise myself up, I did just fine with a library card (which is free) and gives me: net access, free books/dvds/music. That is more then enough entertainment... should your sanity be in jeopardy because you cannot spend the 100$+ a month it costs for cable/net at home, I suggest you look for work as a servitor.

I did the same thing after a small stint as a homeless bum. Did you happen to look around you while you were surfing the net in that public library? The average user of the public library internet access point is far from a picture of mental health.

TV's are free, the old cathode ray tube ones pop up for free on craigs list every day, yet these mc d's workers likely want/have large flat screens ect.

You have no way of knowing, and even on 15$/hour a large flat screen isn't easy to afford.

most often I see things like people complaining they cannot keep up with car payments... againa car is not a need, it is a luxury... the bus/subway/bike/ect will get you there much cheaper

I'd generally agree with you, if you live in a big city with a good public transport coverage. In certain towns, tho, a car is a necessity. Québec City is a good example of that.

fast food does already pay a living wage, the problem is that most people think a "living" wage should support a lifstyle that contaings more luxuries then they can actually afford.

Saying things like that in a vacuum doesn't resolve anything. A living wage should be deduced from the cost of life in the area we're speaking about. 7.50$ strikes me as very low, and 15.00$ strikes me as very high (for entry anyways).

I work on minimum wage and i have a flatscreen.
And Cellphones are a necessaty. No. Not smart phones. No NOT phones with web, not even texting. But in this fast paced world a cell is needed. It allows you to make changes on a fly an being connected to other people is important.
A Car is as well, Although they cannot legally do it, many places will turn you right the hell down for no working car. my FLGS did that for many people who applied. This cities Public transit sucks so hard. it tkaes me two hours to get home by bus, when it would take me less car

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I work on minimum wage and i have a flatscreen.
And Cellphones are a necessaty. No. Not smart phones. No NOT phones with web, not even texting. But in this fast paced world a cell is needed. It allows you to make changes on a fly an being connected to other people is important.
A Car is as well, Although they cannot legally do it, many places will turn you right the hell down for no working car. my FLGS did that for many people who applied. This cities Public transit sucks so hard. it tkaes me two hours to get home by bus, when it would take me less car

I imagine it can't be the same down the border, what with ya'll practically being savages, but here you can't be penalized in any form for lying to your employer about something they are not allowed to ask (like if you own a car when the job doesn't require one).

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I work on minimum wage and i have a flatscreen.

I thought you lived at home with your parents.

 Ahtman wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I work on minimum wage and i have a flatscreen.

I thought you lived at home with your parents.

I have a flat screen and the wife lets me keep minimum wage...


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His jobs may require one. Its the whole "how the &)*& are you going to get here?" question.

I agree a cheap cell phone is a necessity for a parent though. But you can get one for dirt cheap.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

A Car is as well, Although they cannot legally do it, many places will turn you right the hell down for no working car.

Car ownership is not a protected class. They can ask you, and most employers do as they know your home address, your proximity/commute to work and they can ask: "Do you have reliable transportation" or "You seem to live 30 miles away, are you sure you will be able to get to work on time?" or they can add to the job description simple things like "Must be able to make coffee runs/Pick up food for lunches" which then forces personal transportation in the form of a car. This is the same thing as 'Must be able to lift 50lbs unassisted' to weed out some candidates in the form of older people or unhealthy people.

 Ahtman wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I work on minimum wage and i have a flatscreen.

I thought you lived at home with your parents.

Im being slightly sarcastic, I got the TV from Chirstmas money
About the Car though
Legallly they cannot require you to own something for a job short of a shirt and clothes. A car is part of that. One job asked if I ha reliable transportation, which I did in the form of my bike. But he didnt like that. He then went on to say in his blog "Although I cannot legally require you to own a car, You do require one"

 Seaward wrote:

I also hear, at some point in the distant past, they had these mythical creations called "answering machines" that you could hook up to your (cheap-ass) landline phone to answer and record missed calls for you.

Yes, and an answering machine is accessible to anyone that walks past it. Even in households that encourage aspiration that leads to lost opportunities, as anyone can hit the "delete all" button by intention or mistake.

More to the point, there are several companies (Virgin, Sprint, Cricket, etc.) which offer rates consistent with landlines.

 Frazzled wrote:

In terms of what it does a land line is typically a good deal cheaper in the US, by multiples, even now.

I can get a prepaid cellphone at Walmart for 10 USD. Obviously service fees apply but they are significantly lower, and more easily controlled by the consumer, than those associated with a landline.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Legallly they cannot require you to own something for a job short of a shirt and clothes.

Yes they can... Pizza Delivery requires you to own and use your own car.

Lots of jobs can and do require cars. Some jobs even require you to own your own tools or equipment and they are legally allowed to do so. While they may reimburse for use of personal stuff, they can require it. Cell phones are another one, and will give an 'allowance' for employees which covers 25$ a month or something but you need a personal cell which will be used for work.

Companies may limit their candidate pool if they do, but that is their choice. None of it is illegal. Discrimination is not illegal unless it is done against protected class. That means they can require you to have a car and not hire you if your nose is too big or you smell funny.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Legallly they cannot require you to own something for a job short of a shirt and clothes. A car is part of that. One job asked if I ha reliable transportation, which I did in the form of my bike. But he didnt like that. He then went on to say in his blog "Although I cannot legally require you to own a car, You do require one"

California might be different, but that makes me wonder about "self-owned and operated" trucking companies.

I can get a prepaid cellphone at Walmart for 10 USD. Obviously service fees apply but they are significantly lower, and more easily controlled by the consumer, than those associated with a landline.

Yes but you are time limited. With a land line you can breach the wall of time and talk infinitely. I've seen it in action. Oh the Humanity!

 dogma wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

I also hear, at some point in the distant past, they had these mythical creations called "answering machines" that you could hook up to your (cheap-ass) landline phone to answer and record missed calls for you.

Yes, and an answering machine is accessible to anyone that walks past it. Even in households that encourage aspiration that leads to lost opportunities, as anyone can hit the "delete all" button by intention or mistake.

More to the point, there are several companies (Virgin, Sprint, Cricket, etc.) which offer rates consistent with landlines.

It is truly a wonder that civilization managed to not destroy itself during the dark period of years we had to exist before the advent of cell phones.

 djones520 wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

I also hear, at some point in the distant past, they had these mythical creations called "answering machines" that you could hook up to your (cheap-ass) landline phone to answer and record missed calls for you.

Yes, and an answering machine is accessible to anyone that walks past it. Even in households that encourage aspiration that leads to lost opportunities, as anyone can hit the "delete all" button by intention or mistake.

More to the point, there are several companies (Virgin, Sprint, Cricket, etc.) which offer rates consistent with landlines.

It is truly a wonder that civilization managed to not destroy itself during the dark period of years we had to exist before the advent of cell phones.

It's almost as if how you got by in life in the middle ages required completely different skill sets, knowledge and technology than it does today.

Seaward wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
I don't believe you're this obtuse without actually trying to miss the point. Commissioned officers didn't design or build the planes; I'm not sure why you brought them up.

I'm not sure why you brought the planes up, either, but you say a lot of crazy gak, so I just went with it.

So building planes is just a back door method of incentivizing college. Got it. That's not flying rodent gak at all.

You're either trolling or have become a complete idiot; either way I'll pander here:

-You fly planes and talk down about post-secondary education.
-The planes you fly were designed as a byproduct of a massive push for post-secondary education.
-The people who gained a post-secondary education were the ones who designed the planes that you fly.

In other words, it is very ironic that you hold such a negative position towards university, considering without such emphasis on universities in the past, your profession basically wouldn't exist and you'd be asking for a raise up to $15 per hour right now.


But I think you knew all this from the first post I made, and instead have done that thing you do almost every time, wherein you play dumb whenever someone calls you on your foolishness.

 djones520 wrote:
It is truly a wonder that civilization managed to not destroy itself during the dark period of years we had to exist before the advent of cell phones.

We also didn't use to have cars, trains, radio, tv, the internet, the printing press, and all sorts of other items that once integrated become difficult to function in modern society without either being seen as purposefully anachronistic or out of touch, neither of which are things employers are usually looking for. Like it or not cell phones have become the norm for operating in a modern society at a certain level, and as Dogma pointed out, there are ones available at the same cost as a land line. One need not have the newest iPhone to be able to have a sell phone; it isn't the purview of only the monied.

Yes, because 1990 is comparable to 1150.

If the best excuse that can be made to justify owning a cell phone over a land line is "someone might delete my answering machine messages", then there is no true excuse to justify it. There is no NEED to own a cell phone.

But hey, if someone wants to be thrifty with a $10 cell phone from Walmart, then that is perfectly acceptable as well. This whole thing is about living within your means.

 djones520 wrote:
Yes, because 1990 is comparable to 1150.

If the best excuse that can be made to justify owning a cell phone over a land line is "someone might delete my answering machine messages", then there is no true excuse to justify it.

The one living in the past would be the one pretending cell phones are somehow a prestigious item, as if it is the 80's still. The comparison was never about deleting messages, which is just as possible on voice mail as it is an answering machine.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Legallly they cannot require you to own something for a job short of a shirt and clothes.

What if you are a stripper? Are you still required to own clothes for that?

Remember before the wide spread use of cell phines when the one foot long telephone "spaghetti" is strectched out to three feet and at times everyone think that the cord is out to "get them"

 Alfndrate wrote:
There is far too much wrong with the current post-secondary education system in this country that I've stopped telling people they should go to college unless they want to be something that requires a degree. The first question I ask anyone going for any type of degree is, "what job can you get with that degree?" To put it in perspective, my university just cut tuition 37% this year for the 2014 year. It's now cheaper to go to my school than when I started back in fall of 2007. Yet it's still almost 30,000 dollars a year.

The cost of tertiary education in the US is unbelievable.

I used to work for a uni, and one of the first tricks I learned was that if I wanted to make our cost per student figures look great I'd compare them to US averages. Seriously, people think its cheaper over here because there's government money subsidising each student, but even with all that government money coming in the cost per student for the university I worked at was about half that of the average US tertiary facility.

And the university I worked at was far from a model of efficiency. I think it could probably have cut about 25% of its expenditure without any impact on the education delivered. I have no idea how US colleges manage to waste many times that.

 whembly wrote:
Then the solution is to rein in those cost... part of the reason why College Education is so expensive is because of the ease of getting federal school loans. These schools don't put in no where near enough "skin" in the game.

Hardly. University here is vastly more subsidised but much, much cheaper overall.

It's just... claiming a subsidy automatically makes something too expensive is way too simplistic. Having some or all of the money come from government doesn't matter, as long as whoever is spending the money has a keen eye for value and demands value for money... and well you might say 'ha ha! but the individual will always have a better eye for value than the government!' and that would be true, for most products, and is why it'd be a really terrible idea to have government start telling us which car would be best for us.

But when it comes to education (and other really complex things like healthcare) the consumer is in a terrible place to judge the best value. That's why people can spend 100 grand on a degree from a place that delivers no better education than a community college.

And I don't blame the student for that - assessing whether their money will be well spent or not is damn near impossible - I worked at a uni for just short of four years, in a role to specifically control costs, and I never got my head fully around how the money drives all the services the uni delivers. It's just, by its basic nature, a really obtuse kind of business.

Nor is competition much of an answer, because a college offering a cheaper degree will, because we have little ability to assess the real quality of the product, automatically be assumed to be a lesser product.

As a result, I think the only way to keep costs under control is through government intervention - direct control of the purse strings, coupled with informed reforms. That, of course, isn't even slightly practical given US culture, so instead you're basically going to have to accept really, really overpriced tertiary education is there to stay.

I simply can't wrap my head around this... I personally know many folks who are successful know who grew up poor (and I mean, dirt poor). I think that those who are abusing the system are small (maybe sizable)... but this is the case where the "good" outweighs the "bad".

Sure, but its a numbers game. The issue is how many move from poverty to wealth, and as I've shown with social mobility figures in a lot of these threads, the number that move up in the US is much lower than elsewhere in the world (which is terrible shame, considering a generation ago you left the world for dead in that category).

I don't really have an issue with the amount of $$$ being poured into the system... but, at the same time, I'm not against tweaking the system.... you know, prohibit wellfare funds from being used to purchase high-end cellphones (ie, droids, iphones, etc) or Satellite TV. If you want those, use your own money.

The problem is that that is really hard to do. Short of food stamps and direct handouts, there's no way of controlling whether the money is used on food or big screen tvs.


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 cincydooley wrote:
Ehhh... I don't know how true that is. I think plenty of young people are wholly aware of contraception; they just choose not to use it.

The cost is actually a major factor. I know, condoms are cheap. The pill much less so (once you factor in the cost of the prescription), but it's still very cheap compared to the alternative. So for a long time I thought the same as you.

But studies have shown by making contraception cheap and convenient (such as an IUD paid by government) cuts unwanted pregnancy by as much as 80%.

The thing ot realise is that we're talking about the poor here, who are likely to have been raised by poor people, possibly going back multiple generations. Poor financial decision making is a big part of the problem, so those condoms even at their very low price, aren't used anywhere near as much as they'd be used if they were free.

Or that MTV glorifies babies having babies with their repugnant Teen Mom series.

Huh? Are you saying you think people watching that show walk away thinking that teen parenthood is an easy thing? Because from what I've seen of that show those girls lives don't look glamorous at all.

But they're quasi-celebrities that get paid to be on those shows. That's what teenagers see, sadly, and not those difficulties.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
If the salary of the couple working full time is minimum salary, I'm unsure as to what the problem is. I can hardly see myself, alone, on 14$ an hour raise a single kid, I don't think offering 20$/hour to a family of 7-8 is in any shape or form unreasonable.

The problem* is that you have two parents who could be working and providing for at least some of their children's needs instead of draining the government coffers, and providing decent role models as contributors to society, but instead they're choosing unemployment.

Now, I get your point that a family of six needs support when the parents earn close to minimum wage, but the answer to that is to provide support even if the parents are working (have it scale down slowly as income increases).





*assuming the situation described is true, I have no idea how Canadian welfare works.


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 dogma wrote:
Yes, and an answering machine is accessible to anyone that walks past it. Even in households that encourage aspiration that leads to lost opportunities, as anyone can hit the "delete all" button by intention or mistake.

More to the point, there are several companies (Virgin, Sprint, Cricket, etc.) which offer rates consistent with landlines.

Landline phone connections are also dependant on having a reliable, permanent place of residence. Something which not all, or even many, unemployed people will have.


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 djones520 wrote:
It is truly a wonder that civilization managed to not destroy itself during the dark period of years we had to exist before the advent of cell phones.

Human society existed for a long time without any written language or system of mathematics. And for a long time after that those skills were known only to a very small minority. And yet, if someone was to claim that reading, writing and arithmetic weren't necessary to finding reliable, decent employment, we'd all laugh at them.

So do you understand that while writing isn't necessary for a functioning society, once it becomes common place each individual needs to have it or get they placed at a massive disadvantage? Cell phones are the same - they're hardly essential to society as a whole, but once almost everyone has them then the few without are placed at a massive disadvantage.

And, well, when you want employment to be decided by ability and hard work, and not limited to the people who already have money, then you want to get rid of those disadvantages.


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 djones520 wrote:
If the best excuse that can be made to justify owning a cell phone over a land line is "someone might delete my answering machine messages", then there is no true excuse to justify it. There is no NEED to own a cell phone.

But hey, if someone wants to be thrifty with a $10 cell phone from Walmart, then that is perfectly acceptable as well. This whole thing is about living within your means.

A little while ago when McDonalds posted that unbelievably stupid budget that everyone made fun of... the one that had $600 monthly rent and no heating expense... it still included a cell phone.

You're being more ridiculous than one of the most ridiculous pieces of corporate cluelessness to come out in the last year. So stop it, please.

 easysauce wrote:

entertainment is not a necessity... you highlight yourself the complete disconnect that most people have between NEEDS (food, water, shelter, air, things nescessary to stay alive) and wants (everything else needed to increase one's enjoyment of life, but not nescessary at all)

Needs are predicated upon wants. For example, a person needs food, water, and shelter only because they want to stay alive. If you want to both stay alive, and be a functional member of society, then you also need to be sane. In order to be achieve sanity, or remain sane, you must be entertained. As most people want to be functional members of society, and most Western societies tend to be inclusive, entertainment can be classified as a necessity. That is, a thing which is necessary for the functioning of modern, Western societies.

 easysauce wrote:

most often I see things like people complaining they cannot keep up with car payments... againa car is not a need, it is a luxury... the bus/subway/bike/ect will get you there much cheaper

There are many places in the US in which not owning a car either makes employment impossible, or significantly diminishes one's employment prospects.

I mean, I'm from one of the largest metropolitan areas in the nation and one of the first questions I was asked in post-collegiate interviews was "How do you intend to get to work?", often quickly followed by "I'm sorry, if you don't have a car we can't hire you."

I'm sorry Dogma, but a library card is free. Reading is entertainment. Therefore, some entertainment is free, and a TV/Internet does not need to come into living costs.