Minimum Wage Increase Eliminates Minimum Wage Jobs By Forcing Businesses Out of The Market

POSTED BY: JEWELSTAITEFAN
UPDATED: Sunday, February 3, 2019 23:52
VIEWED: 18112
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Surprise, Surprise!!

Of course, this proof that raising the Minimum Wage by $1 increases the "marginal" restaurant (the place where you get good deals, you were not getting screwed for food) rate of Going Out of Business by 14% does not apply to 4- and 5-Star restaurants. So those places encourage higher Minimum Wage Laws to force their competition out of business.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2951110

New study from Harvard, released 7 days ago.

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Even though I believe what you said is the absolute truth here (I've said it many times myself over the years here), something needs to be done about it.

Back when minimum wage was 5.25 back around 1996 or so gas was less than a buck a gallon most of the time and we hadn't even seen the large spike in prices of everything that $2.00/gal gas brought in the early 2000's. Since then, there have been quite a few times where the price of gas has gone over $4.00 per gallon.

Since then, the minimum wage has only increased twice and now sits at $7.25/gal.

I know nobody is supposed to be able to make a living wage off of the minimum, but at this point it's almost not even worth working for minimum unless you are a single mother with 3 or more kids (in which case the EIC will double your pay at the end of the year).


My last good job paid me in a single day what takes more than a week to make at a part time minimum wage job. What's worse is that after Obamacare was passed, no business will give you more than 29 hours a week if they don't want to pay for your healthcare, so MANY people are working 2 or even 3 crappy part time minimum wage jobs now. Have you ever had the added nightmare of trying to balance life with that, or tried to find employers who were thrilled about having to work around your work schedule?


Then consider that the employment numbers are, and have been, a lie for a very long time. When somebody is working 2 or 3 crap minimum wage jobs, that counts as 2 or 3 jobs that are being worked even though it's only one person working them. Close to 50% of jobs in America now are minimum wage jobs.


I don't know what the answer to this is. I'm just saying that it does need to be increased.

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Originally posted by 6STRINGJOKER:
Even though I believe what you said is the absolute truth here (I've said it many times myself over the years here), something needs to be done about it.

Back when minimum wage was 5.25 back around 1996 or so gas was less than a buck a gallon most of the time and we hadn't even seen the large spike in prices of everything that $2.00/gal gas brought in the early 2000's. Since then, there have been quite a few times where the price of gas has gone over $4.00 per gallon.

Since then, the minimum wage has only increased twice and now sits at $7.25/gal.

I know nobody is supposed to be able to make a living wage off of the minimum, but at this point it's almost not even worth working for minimum unless you are a single mother with 3 or more kids (in which case the EIC will double your pay at the end of the year).


My last good job paid me in a single day what takes more than a week to make at a part time minimum wage job. What's worse is that after Obamacare was passed, no business will give you more than 29 hours a week if they don't want to pay for your healthcare, so MANY people are working 2 or even 3 crappy part time minimum wage jobs now. Have you ever had the added nightmare of trying to balance life with that, or tried to find employers who were thrilled about having to work around your work schedule?


Then consider that the employment numbers are, and have been, a lie for a very long time. When somebody is working 2 or 3 crap minimum wage jobs, that counts as 2 or 3 jobs that are being worked even though it's only one person working them. Close to 50% of jobs in America now are minimum wage jobs.


I don't know what the answer to this is. I'm just saying that it does need to be increased.

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Why do you think the prices go up? Why do you think the costs increase? You think it is led by China, jumping their Minimum Wage from 2 cents per day to 4 cents per day?

It is the American Minimum Wage. The Unions want it to be increased because the Law requires that ALL UNION WAGES be increased at the same rate of increase as the Minimum Wage - so that Union Workers will still make more than the Minimum Wagers, and the Minimum Wagers will still be at the bottom, but they might be happier with a bigger number, while their increase in numbers has increased all of the expenses in the world around them - so they have made LESS by getting a Minimum Wage increase.

Less Minimum Wage, Less EIC

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So true. Almost no starting worker will generate that in productivity. It's becoming a question of how long of a losing investment will new American workers be? and when do you just give up and outsource?

Remember the old days, volunteer intern ship, and then wages that start at what you produce, like profit sharing, and then you work up to making more? I was making $50/hr in college, that's $150ish today for a college student, not bad, it's all about productivity, but nowadays they never get there because there's no incentive to boost productivity.

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One way or another you're paying for it anyway. I could get a job tomorrow and in 3 months I will be receiving $2,400/yr tax free food stamps. Being a single male, my EIC will only be around $200/yr, but many of the women I worked with at my last job were getting between $400-$600/month in food stamps and $6,000-$12,000/yr in EIC. That means while I'm paying a modest sum on taxes, they're working the same job as I do and paying no taxes and being paid twice as much as I make.

That's not even taking into consideration all the people getting healthcare for free now when middle class workers are paying 3 times as much and have double the deductible for their family.


Meanwhile, the car insurance and homeowners insurance this year saw another 10% increase by me, and local property taxes jumped 15% (a majority of that increase going to schools).


8 years of Obama and the average American worker is making 3% more than they were when he got into office. Even with the modest increases in inflation that J0 provided the compounded inflation rate over the same 8 years was over 18%... Meanwhile, corporations are now making more than 60% more than when Obama first took office.

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6,

the value of the dollar is so much worse than that, so the wages as well, but speaking as an employer, the average new hire is no way going to earn their keep. literally what we are doing is kicking back the negative investment period of any new hire which used to be about two weeks and now seems to be a couple of months. not surprisingly, there are fewer new hires as a result. the economy with none of this is the one that automatically beats us, and i suspect that is called bitcoin.

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If you're hiring I'm interested. Nobody has ever claimed that I didn't earn my keep.

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...and yet sumhow, there are more millionairez and billionairez than ever and they own a greater % uv the country than ever. Odd.

Maybe we need to make maximum waje lawz for employeez insted! That'l fix it!

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.7532020.com

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Average CEO pay is 475 times what the lowest paid employee at the same company is paid. That doesn't even take into account stock options, bonuses, insurance, other benefits and golden parachutes.

In 2015, 7 years after the Big Banks were bailed out by taxpayer dollars, Wall Street bonuses (not regular compensation) totaled 28.4 billion dollars. The same year, total compensation to every single person in this country who earns minimum wage? 14 billion dollars.

That's double plus ungood, considering more than 45% of American workers today are being paid minimum wage.

Start watching at around 7:00 to see economist Mark Blyth talk about this in a forum he was at explaining why Brexit and Trump happened.


This is also what I mean when I have defended Capitalism in here. Capitalism works, but we don't have Capitalism in America because of the Government. What we have is Predatory Capitalism.

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I agree with alot uv wut they are saying!

About the numberz, tho, I'm wundering if he iz uzing the old British 'billion' wich I believ iz actually trillion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion



----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.7532020.com

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Remember, increasing the minimum wage means the employer pays almost double the increase, which then must be collected by charging more for the product or service, which is then paid for by the Minimum Wage Earner.
So, getting an increase in the Minimum Wage means the costs double and the Minimum Wage Earner is TWICE as far behind in the Earning/Cost ratio!!

This is exactly how the dollar gets devalued. It's not from the Chinese worker getting 2 rice balls per day instead of one - it is from the American Minimum Wage increases.

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Originally posted by 6STRINGJOKER:
One way or another you're paying for it anyway. I could get a job tomorrow and in 3 months I will be receiving $2,400/yr tax free food stamps. Being a single male, my EIC will only be around $200/yr, but many of the women I worked with at my last job were getting between $400-$600/month in food stamps and $6,000-$12,000/yr in EIC. That means while I'm paying a modest sum on taxes, they're working the same job as I do and paying no taxes and being paid twice as much as I make.

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EIC overpayment is all hocus pocus from Obama, the foundation of his plan to destroy America and the economy. If this ws based upon economic principles and value or productivity, this EIC overpayment garbage would not exist.

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That's not even taking into consideration all the people getting healthcare for free now when middle class workers are paying 3 times as much and have double the deductible for their family.

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All due to Obamacare destroying the economy.

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Meanwhile, the car insurance and homeowners insurance this year saw another 10% increase by me,

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increased costs germinated by the increased Minimum Wage cause companies to increase their rates to pay for it it

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and local property taxes jumped 15% (a majority of that increase going to schools).

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HELLOOOOOO!!!!! Increase in Minimum Wage requires by Law that UNION TEACHERS get paid more for doing less. This is exactly why they want to raise the Minimum Wage!! - so they have an excuse to raise your taxes to pay for their McMansions. In my neighboring Florence County, the High School Math teacher bought his first Island some years ago - and his wife does not work.

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8 years of Obama and the average American worker is making 3% more than they were when he got into office. Even with the modest increases in inflation that J0 provided the compounded inflation rate over the same 8 years was over 18%... Meanwhile, corporations are now making more than 60% more than when Obama first took office.

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Sure, but you are supposed to believe all of the lies that he told you, so you'll be happy. Aren't you a BELIEVER?

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This is exactly how the dollar gets devalued. It's not from the Chinese worker getting 2 rice balls per day instead of one - it is from the American Minimum Wage increases.

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Wrong. The US dollar loses value through quantitative easing. Think of it as the dollar in your wallet being stock in the US dollar. It's not just the Central Bank, but every single loan that every single bank makes is a split on your stock, but you don't get the split.

They don't even need a printing press anymore. Money creation is all done in 1's and 0's now.

This ends up hurting everybody, but is especially hard on those who make next to nothing. The only reason that we're not seeing riots on the street and people eating the rich right now is because of the Government subsidies propping up the ever increasing lower class.

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EIC overpayment is all hocus pocus from Obama, the foundation of his plan to destroy America and the economy. If this ws based upon economic principles and value or productivity, this EIC overpayment garbage would not exist.

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There is no "overpayment" in EIC. These women aren't breaking any tax laws. It wasn't all Obama either. The Feminists want to bitch about the gender wage gap, but with nearly 50% of Americans making below poverty almost half of American Women get paid more than men for the same job because of the EIC.

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HELLOOOOOO!!!!! Increase in Minimum Wage requires by Law that UNION TEACHERS get paid more for doing less. This is exactly why they want to raise the Minimum Wage!! - so they have an excuse to raise your taxes to pay for their McMansions. In my neighboring Florence County, the High School Math teacher bought his first Island some years ago - and his wife does not work.

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I agree with you here. There should be no teachers unions. No professionals should have unions. It's also a way to make them virtually unfireable no matter if they are a bad teacher or not.

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Sure, but you are supposed to believe all of the lies that he told you, so you'll be happy. Aren't you a BELIEVER?

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I don't know who the hell do you think you're talking to. I'm on record saying many times that Obama was the worst president we've ever had.

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Originally posted by JO753:
I agree with alot uv wut they are saying!

About the numberz, tho, I'm wundering if he iz uzing the old British 'billion' wich I believ iz actually trillion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion

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I love Jimmy Dore. He's a liberal I agree with about 90% of the time.

They didn't mean Trillion J0. There's no way that all minimum wage workers made 14 Trillion in 2015. If that were the case our massive deficit wouldn't be that big a deal.


Now take a look at that $20 Trillion dollar debt and compare it to the $14 Billion that minimum wage workers made in 2015.

Then consider that in only 8 years, Obama increased the national deficit 714 times what every single minimum wage worker made in 2015.

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AND its an incontrivirtable fact - under the oppressive authoritarian iron fist uv Obama the national det grew to 120 TRILLION timez the prise uv an egg!!! Its true! All the henz in the world woud haf to lay eggz for over 120 yirz to pay it off!

Here - http://www.factcheck.org/2016/07/obamas-numbers-july-2016-update/ - take a breather frum your propaganda huffing.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.7532020.com

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The numbers I offered are sound. I actually rounded Obama's addition to the deficit down to only 10 Trillion when I compared it to the amount that every American making minimum wage made in 2015.

What propaganda?

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Something I think this is a battle between people who paid attention in economics, and those who dropped it for identity group humanities classes.

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:

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This is exactly how the dollar gets devalued. It's not from the Chinese worker getting 2 rice balls per day instead of one - it is from the American Minimum Wage increases.

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Wrong. The US dollar loses value through quantitative easing.

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Are you trying to claim that the dollar has never been devalued prior to the creation of Quantitative Easing?

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This ends up hurting everybody, but is especially hard on those who make next to nothing. The only reason that we're not seeing riots on the street and people eating the rich right now is because of the Government subsidies propping up the ever increasing lower class.

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EIC overpayment is all hocus pocus from Obama, the foundation of his plan to destroy America and the economy. If this ws based upon economic principles and value or productivity, this EIC overpayment garbage would not exist.

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There is no "overpayment" in EIC. These women aren't breaking any tax laws. It wasn't all Obama either. The Feminists want to bitch about the gender wage gap, but with nearly 50% of Americans making below poverty almost half of American Women get paid more than men for the same job because of the EIC.

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I did not intend to imply that this overpayment of EIC was not legal, or codified into the tax code, and I am sorry if you inferred I did.
This is an intentional overpayment of EIC, which means it is not based upon productivity or value, but based upon Obama's social dementia and goals - the same Obama who freely admits that "math does not work out the way we think it should" - because math is not delusional and partisan.

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Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Are you trying to claim that the dollar has never been devalued prior to the creation of Quantitative Easing?

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Absolutely not. What I am saying though is nothing else matters anymore. Not one single thing that is or has ever happened to the US economy even puts a dent into how destructive quantitative easing is. Quantitative easing was the death knell to the US economy. Raising the minimum wage now would do almost no damage, relatively speaking.

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I did not intend to imply that this overpayment of EIC was not legal, or codified into the tax code, and I am sorry if your inferred I did.
This is an intentional overpayment of EIC, which means it is not based upon productivity or value, but based upon Obama's social dementia and goals - the same Obama who freely admits that "math does not work out the way we think it should" - because math is not delusional and partisan.

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I read you wrong. I agree, but it wasn't Obama's idea although he happily went along with it and touted it as good. The government as a whole for quite some time has been heading this way, but that whole thing is another discussion that involves quite a bit of MGTOW ideas that I agree with but would derail this thread.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:

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Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Are you trying to claim that the dollar has never been devalued prior to the creation of Quantitative Easing?

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Absolutely not. What I am saying though is nothing else matters anymore. Not one single thing that is or has ever happened to the US economy even puts a dent into how destructive quantitative easing is. Quantitative easing was the death knell to the US economy. Raising the minimum wage now would do almost no damage, relatively speaking.

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Relatively, yes. But any damage is still damage, and unneeded. Reducing or eliminating illegal or undocumented workers, requiring (able-bodied) people to perform work (and/or pass drug tests) for their government subsistence are the types of policies which will produce major corrections in the fair market value of workers, and render the Minumum Wage meaningless.
Your insistence of raising the Minimum Wage, thereby doubling the expense increase to employers, which must then raise prices (or go out of business, or fire the minimum wage worker), will still put the Minimum Wage Worker TWICE as far behind - which is not your stated goal.
Also your insistence of raising the Minimum Wage in order to require Teachers Unions to get even more overpaid and therefor increase your property taxes will also have the opposite effect by increasing your expenses far more than your increase in income, which was not your stated goal.

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MGTOW ideas

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MGTOW? Elaborate or expand that acronym?

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Quote:

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Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Relatively, yes. But any damage is still damage, and unneeded. Reducing or eliminating illegal or undocumented workers, requiring (able-bodied) people to perform work (and/or pass drug tests) for their government subsistence are the types of policies which will produce major corrections in the fair market value of workers, and render the Minumum Wage meaningless.
Your insistence of raising the Minimum Wage, thereby doubling the expense increase to employers, which must then raise prices (or go out of business, or fire the minimum wage worker), will still put the Minimum Wage Worker TWICE as far behind - which is not your stated goal.
Also your insistence of raising the Minimum Wage in order to require Teachers Unions to get even more overpaid and therefor increase your property taxes will also have the opposite effect by increasing your expenses far more than your increase in income, which was not your stated goal.

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I'm not sure that I'm insisting on a minimum wage increase. I'm only stating that I'm not adamantly against it like I used to be and that something needs to be done. What we have now is nearly half of the country making minimum wage and it's almost not even worth working for that amount of money anymore. I don't claim to have the answer, and I agree that if a minimum wage increase were to happen and nothing else happened along with it that it would probably cause more problems.

I guess the problem is that nothing is being done. The only two options I ever see being discussed is either doing nothing, or just raising the minimum wage and nothing else. Both of those options are not good.

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MGTOW? Elaborate or expand that acronym?

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Men Go Their Own Way. Forgive me. I thought I saw you post some videos on the subject before. Stefan Moleneux and some others have some videos on the subject, particularly the idea of Government supplying women with many alternative means for sustenance for themselves and their children without the need for a male to be in the picture to provide for them. Again, it's a very detailed subject and would not fit with this thread topic.

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:

I'm not sure that I'm insisting on a minimum wage increase. I'm only stating that I'm not adamantly against it like I used to be and that something needs to be done. What we have now is nearly half of the country making minimum wage and it's almost not even worth working for that amount of money anymore. I don't claim to have the answer, and I agree that if a minimum wage increase were to happen and nothing else happened along with it that it would probably cause more problems.

I guess the problem is that nothing is being done. The only two options I ever see being discussed is either doing nothing, or just raising the minimum wage and nothing else. Both of those options are not good.

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If you wanted a better job at higher wages for yourself, and can wait for many years, the two straightforward ways for the Federal government to make it happen are deport millions of illegals working in the USA or raise the minimum wage at a slow and dignified rate of one dollar per year. I don’t see Congress cooperating with either one. If you want the extreme third way, like go to WWII and have full employment, I don’t see Congress agreeing to that, either.

World War sound too extreme for Congress to create jobs? Then how about spending trillions on infrastructure? That is not happening, either. By the way, a trillion divided by the USA's population is only $3,000 per person. $3,000 won't go far.

Deportation seems reasonable but there aren’t enough illegals to remove. Removing them all, all at once, and wages will bump upward, but won’t stay high. And besides, the deportations won’t happen fast because Trump doesn’t have the manpower authorized by Congress to make it happen in a year. It may take a decade. Can you really wait? Do you have the patience? It is about numbers and how long you can tolerate being poorly paid or unpaid.

This, by Ryan Avent, might get you to thinking:
https://medium.com/@ryanavent_93844/the-productivity-paradox-aaf05e5e4aad

Given the structure of our social safety net, automation tends to increase poverty and inequality rather than unemployment.

What effect does all this have? There are several.

First, as the economy attempts to absorb lots of relatively undifferentiated labour, wages stagnate or fall. As wages fall it becomes economical to hire people for low productivity work. So employment in low productivity jobs expands, affecting aggregate productivity figures.

Second, the abundance of labour, and downward pressure on wages, reduces the incentive to invest in new labour-saving technologies. Until pressed, firms don’t overhaul and automate their warehouse or swap out some wait staff for touchscreens. So productivity within sectors grows more slowly than it otherwise might. There are dynamic effects as well: when you don’t deploy new technologies because labour is cheap, you don’t get all the tweaks and knock-on innovations and accumulation of intangible capital that contributes to still more productivity growth down the road.

Third, the abundance of labour destroys worker bargaining power. That hurts in lots of different ways. Workers find themselves receiving a declining share of income. Workers are unable to bargain for the kinds of changes that might reduce the pain of economic shifts: like training to help some workers fill new niches complementary to technology, or profit-sharing.

Fourth, low wages and a falling labour share lead to a misfiring macroeconomy, because more resources are concentrated in the wealthy hands of those with high propensity to save while the impetus to invest is also diminished. And chronically weak demand is worse for workers and for productivity growth.

So there you are: continued high levels of employment with weak growth in wages and productivity is not evidence of disappointing technological progress; it is what you’d expect to see if technological progress were occurring rapidly in a world where thin safety nets mean that dropping out of the l

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:

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Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Relatively, yes. But any damage is still damage, and unneeded. Reducing or eliminating illegal or undocumented workers, requiring (able-bodied) people to perform work (and/or pass drug tests) for their government subsistence are the types of policies which will produce major corrections in the fair market value of workers, and render the Minumum Wage meaningless.
Your insistence of raising the Minimum Wage, thereby doubling the expense increase to employers, which must then raise prices (or go out of business, or fire the minimum wage worker), will still put the Minimum Wage Worker TWICE as far behind - which is not your stated goal.
Also your insistence of raising the Minimum Wage in order to require Teachers Unions to get even more overpaid and therefor increase your property taxes will also have the opposite effect by increasing your expenses far more than your increase in income, which was not your stated goal.

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I'm not sure that I'm insisting on a minimum wage increase.

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OK, sorry. I made assumption based upon what you had posted. My bad.

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I'm only stating that I'm not adamantly against it like I used to be and that something needs to be done. What we have now is nearly half of the country making minimum wage and it's almost not even worth working for that amount of money anymore.

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8 years of Obama is the exact recipe for that. It would have also been the result of 8 years of Jiminy Carter.

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I don't claim to have the answer, and I agree that if a minimum wage increase were to happen and nothing else happened along with it that it would probably cause more problems.

I guess the problem is that nothing is being done. The only two options I ever see being discussed is either doing nothing, or just raising the minimum wage and nothing else. Both of those options are not good.

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The rising economy will help, and maybe fix all that. When businesses are allow to prosper, they will need to hire, and the most talented or skilled will be the first to be plucked off the Minimum Wage level, and eventually even the lowest skill level will be paid more than Minimum Wage - which will upset the Unions greatly, with their members earnng comparatively less than everybody else (who got increased pay). So the Unions will demand an increase to the Minimum Wage (funny how their ony answer is raise the Minimum Wage, no matter if the economy is a juggernaut or in depression or recession) so their wages will be frced higher, without increase in productivity.

Last couple years I was doing some day-labor work just manual stuff which needed people to show up on time and do some simple, non-strenuous work. For a few years they were paying $10/hour, while other temp jobs were still doing 9 or 8 or less, I think. Trump was elected in November. Trump took office January 20. At the end of Jan, i got a text letting me know that the same temp work was now paying $11/hr, and could I come work for them? One week later, another text letting me know the rate was up to $12/hr.
When the demand for the workforce (businesses, employers needing more workers) grows more than the supply of the workforce (unemployed, illegal, underpaid, and just lazy), then the pay rates will continue to rise, rendering the Minimum Wage meaningless, except for the Unions who demand increases to their pay.

IIRC at the end of the Reagan years, I did not know anybody who wasn't making more than the Minimum Wage - nobody even knew what the Min Wage was. And these were simple jobs after I moved States - restaurant and such.

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Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

The rising economy will help, and maybe fix all that. When businesses are allow to prosper, they will need to hire, and the most talented or skilled will be the first to be plucked off the Minimum Wage level, and eventually even the lowest skill level will be paid more than Minimum Wage - which will upset the Unions greatly, with their members earning comparatively less than everybody else (who got increased pay). So the Unions will demand an increase to the Minimum Wage (funny how their ony answer is raise the Minimum Wage, no matter if the economy is a juggernaut or in depression or recession) so their wages will be forced higher, without increase in productivity.

Last couple years I was doing some day-labor work just manual stuff which needed people to show up on time and do some simple, non-strenuous work. For a few years they were paying $10/hour, while other temp jobs were still doing 9 or 8 or less, I think. Trump was elected in November. Trump took office January 20. At the end of Jan, i got a text letting me know that the same temp work was now paying $11/hr, and could I come work for them? One week later, another text letting me know the rate was up to $12/hr.

When the demand for the workforce (businesses, employers needing more workers) grows more than the supply of the workforce (unemployed, illegal, underpaid, and just lazy), then the pay rates will continue to rise, rendering the Minimum Wage meaningless, except for the Unions who demand increases to their pay.

---

Your rosy projections are not going to happen because the USA does not work the way you think it does. America is not one country anymore. It is becoming two, each with vastly different resources, expectations, and fates.
www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america-is-regressing-into-a-d
eveloping-nation-for-most-people

In a new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, Peter Temin, Professor Emeritus of Economics at MIT, draws a portrait of the new reality in a way that is frighteningly, indelibly clear: America is regressing into a developing nation for most people.

In one of these countries live members of what Temin calls the “FTE sector” (named for finance, technology, and electronics, the industries which largely support its growth). These are the 20 percent of Americans who enjoy college educations, have good jobs, and sleep soundly knowing that they have not only enough money to meet life’s challenges, but also social networks to bolster their success. They grow up with parents who read books to them, tutors to help with homework, and plenty of stimulating things to do and places to go. They travel in planes and drive new cars. The citizens of this country see economic growth all around them and exciting possibilities for the future. They make plans, influence policies, and count themselves as lucky to be Americans.

The FTE citizens rarely visit the country where the other 80 percent of Americans live: the low-wage sector.

The richest large economy in the world, says Temin, is coming to have an economic and political structure more like a developing nation. We have entered a phase of regression, and one of the easiest ways to see it is in our infrastructure: our roads and bridges look more like those in Thailand or Venezuela than the Netherlands or Japan. But it goes far deeper than that, which is why Temin uses a famous economic model created to understand developing nations to describe how far inequality has progressed in the United States. The model is the work of West Indian economist W. Arthur Lewis, the only person of African descent to win a Nobel Prize in economics. For the first time, this model is applied with systematic precision to the U.S.

The result is profoundly disturbing.

In the Lewis model of a dual economy, much of the low-wage sector has little influence over public policy. Check. The high-income sector will keep wages down in the other sector to provide cheap labor for its businesse

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

The rising economy will help, and maybe fix all that. When businesses are allow to prosper, they will need to hire, and the most talented or skilled will be the first to be plucked off the Minimum Wage level, and eventually even the lowest skill level will be paid more than Minimum Wage - which will upset the Unions greatly, with their members earning comparatively less than everybody else (who got increased pay). So the Unions will demand an increase to the Minimum Wage (funny how their ony answer is raise the Minimum Wage, no matter if the economy is a juggernaut or in depression or recession) so their wages will be forced higher, without increase in productivity.

Last couple years I was doing some day-labor work just manual stuff which needed people to show up on time and do some simple, non-strenuous work. For a few years they were paying $10/hour, while other temp jobs were still doing 9 or 8 or less, I think. Trump was elected in November. Trump took office January 20. At the end of Jan, i got a text letting me know that the same temp work was now paying $11/hr, and could I come work for them? One week later, another text letting me know the rate was up to $12/hr.

When the demand for the workforce (businesses, employers needing more workers) grows more than the supply of the workforce (unemployed, illegal, underpaid, and just lazy), then the pay rates will continue to rise, rendering the Minimum Wage meaningless, except for the Unions who demand increases to their pay.

---

Your rosy projections are not going to happen because the USA does not work the way you think it does. America is not one country anymore. It is becoming two, each with vastly different resources, expectations, and fates.
www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america-is-regressing-into-a-d
eveloping-nation-for-most-people

In a new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, Peter Temin, Professor Emeritus of Economics at MIT, draws a portrait of the new reality in a way that is frighteningly, indelibly clear: America is regressing into a developing nation for most people.

In one of these countries live members of what Temin calls the “FTE sector” (named for finance, technology, and electronics, the industries which largely support its growth). These are the 20 percent of Americans who enjoy college educations, have good jobs, and sleep soundly knowing that they have not only enough money to meet life’s challenges, but also social networks to bolster their success. They grow up with parents who read books to them, tutors to help with homework, and plenty of stimulating things to do and places to go. They travel in planes and drive new cars. The citizens of this country see economic growth all around them and exciting possibilities for the future. They make plans, influence policies, and count themselves as lucky to be Americans.

The FTE citizens rarely visit the country where the other 80 percent of Americans live: the low-wage sector.

The richest large economy in the world, says Temin, is coming to have an economic and political structure more like a developing nation. We have entered a phase of regression, and one of the easiest ways to see it is in our infrastructure: our roads and bridges look more like those in Thailand or Venezuela than the Netherlands or Japan. But it goes far deeper than that, which is why Temin uses a famous economic model created to understand developing nations to describe how far inequality has progressed in the United States. The model is the work of West Indian economist W. Arthur Lewis, the only person of African descent to win a Nobel Prize in economics. For the first time, this model is applied with systematic precision to the U.S.

The result is profoundly disturbing.

In the Lewis model of a dual economy, much of the low-wage sector has little influence over public policy. Check. The high-income sector will keep wages down in the other sector

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Quote:

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Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

If human history is any indication, those in your proclaimed class are going to need to build a wall around their country, and hire their own Army to protect them and their possessions.

---

Agreed.

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jsf

I'm not seeing DATA that links higher minimum wage to reduced economic growth.
The other thing I dispute is that everyone was thriving under Reagan. I personally knew a lot of people working minimum wage back then. And figures bear me out:



You seem to be talking about some imaginary world that runs by how you fantasize things should run, rather than the real world everyone else inhabits.

---

---

---

Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1kiki:
jsf

I'm not seeing DATA that links higher minimum wage to reduced economic growth.
The other thing I dispute is that everyone was thriving under Reagan. I personally knew a lot of people working minimum wage back then. And figures bear me out:

---

Quote:

---

You seem to be talking about some imaginary world that runs by how you fantasize things should run, rather than the real world everyone else inhabits.

---

I don't see anything in your graphic about Minimum Wage.
Did you read the linky in the OP?
I'm not seeing what you're saying.

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
When the demand for the workforce (businesses, employers needing more workers) grows more than the supply of the workforce (unemployed, illegal, underpaid, and just lazy), then the pay rates will continue to rise, rendering the Minimum Wage meaningless, except for the Unions who demand increases to their pay.

---

During the Reagan years (1/81 - 1/89) wages FELL - they didn't rise. And the graphic clearly shows the split between INCOME - which is not necessarily related to work, and WAGES which are earned through work. INCOME stayed flat, while - let me point this out again - WAGES fell.

Quote:

---

IIRC at the end of the Reagan years, I did not know anybody who wasn't making more than the Minimum Wage - nobody even knew what the Min Wage was. And these were simple jobs after I moved States - restaurant and such.

---

You may not have thought you knew anybody making minimum wage, though there may have been people you assumed were making more than that. After all, I'm pretty sure you didn't go around asking everyone you knew how much they made. OTOH I KNEW many of my friends and acquaintances were making minimum wage, because we were all working the same classification of job at a public university, where the payscales are made public.

But looking at the graphic, you should be able to figure minimum wage prevalence out for yourself. I'm sure you agree that there were people making minimum wage before the golden Reagan period. But if wages FELL during that golden time, how could there be fewer people making minimum wage - or none, as you seem to think?

The problem is that you assume the Reagan period was better than it was.

The facts show otherwise.

---

---

---

Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 1kiki:

The facts show otherwise.

---

Don’t get your hopes up that ideologues will change their tune. The pervasive myth that paying workers a living wage will make jobs disappear has been a go-to right-wing argument since the first 25 cents/hour minimum wage was set in 1938.

The National Employment Law Project analyzed 70 years of historical data and found no correlation between raised minimum wages and employment levels.

In 2014, more than 600 experts, including seven Nobel laureates, signed a letter stating that “the weight of evidence is now showing that increases in the minimum wage have had little or no negative effect on the employment of minimum-wage workers, even during times of weakness in the labor market.”

For example: the unemployment rate in Seattle is at a near-record low of 2.9 percent. Weird, since we were told over and over again by corporate lobbyists and right-wing politicians that raising the minimum wage to $15 would lead to job losses across the board.

There is scant evidence to be had that Seattle’s higher minimum wage experiment has thus far been anything but a resounding success. Sadly, the ideological naysayers are hard-wired to deny fact-based data-driven evidence, but that's not surprising.

https://andrewtobias.com/the-minimum-wage-works/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Raising the minimum wage to $15 would almost immediately put my parents out of business.

One of the only reasons that I'm beginning to entertain the idea is that they are considering closing up shop and moving down south and I'm sure that it wouldn't happen until after they wouldn't be hurt by it.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
Raising the minimum wage to $15 would almost immediately put my parents out of business.

One of the only reasons that I'm beginning to entertain the idea is that . . .

---

Entertain this:

I’m familiar with Senior’s In-Home Care. That company made all its employees into “contractors”. The company had, once upon a time, paid social security and medicare taxes and mileage between clients but that all ended once they converted over to using “contractors”.

To repeat, the “contractors” were the same-old employees. Once the company dumped the employee designation, it had also dumped all its other obligations. No tax withholding, no vacation days, no sick pay, no health insurance. The company even stopped paying anything to employees. Under the old scheme, the clients wrote one check to the company, then the company paid the employees. Under the new scheme, the clients wrote many different checks: one to the company and checks to each of the contractors who came to the house of the elderly client.

The contractors worked 11 hours, counting travel time between clients, but got paid for 8 hours, the actual time with the different clients they see everyday. Totalling up all the checks from all the different clients, the contractors were making $76 per day. Depending on whether you divide by 11 hours per day (the real number) or 8 hours (the nominal number used by the company) you get the hourly rate of either $6.91 or $9.50. Whichever number you pick, the contractors lived in poverty while doing an important job. But the company prospered!

As an extra way for the company to prosper, it charged $100 per week for employees, I mean “contractors”, to live in trailers. The crappy trailer that one employee lived in was appraised at $2,800 by www.hcad.org Utilities were paid by the “contractors”, not the company.

For the company, it is not as good as having slaves; it’s better! Nineteen century law required that slaves had to be looked after by the plantation once they were old, but in the Twenty-First century arrangement it is as good as if the company can shoot its slaves dead if they can’t work. And the company doesn’t have to waste a bullet, they just stop assigning clients to that particular contractor and what happens next to the contractor is not the company’s problem.

That is how the poorest paid employees are treated in Texas. If they can't work, they might as well be dead as far as their ex-employer cares. Throw the unemployed on the mercy of the government and relatives.

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I get it Second. The last job I worked at for minimum wage for 3 years and they hadn't given anybody raises in the previous 8. I worked my ass off for them and the only "bonus" I ever got was a $25 gift card to the store for employee of the month, which they had the nerve to actually claim as a bonus and took taxes out for it.

My parents aren't a huge company though. They are a ma-and-pa furniture restoration shop. They aren't rich, and actually I think they should have been out of the business since the crash of 2007. Back in the day they had a nice boat and some other things, now they've pretty much lost everything and they're both past the retirement age and are lucky they're going to be getting social security because they're going to need every penny. If the minimum wage were raised more than double to $15/hr that would be an immediate closing of the store.

Now that it looks like they might be finally getting out of the game, I dont' have any personal reasons against raising the minimum wage. It is going to put a lot of people out of business though.

So go ahead and raise it. I'll hope for the best, but I won't be surprised if milk goes up to $6/gal shortly afterward.

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
I get it Second.

So go ahead and raise it. I'll hope for the best, but I won't be surprised if milk goes up to $6/gal shortly afterward.

---

Milk is not the best example, since it is a commodity with a price that doesn't depend much on what the minimum wage is. "Farmers in the U.S. are pouring out tens of millions of gallons of excess milk, amid a massive glut that has slashed prices and has filled warehouses with cheese. More than 43 million gallons’ worth of milk were dumped in fields, manure lagoons or animal feed, or have been lost on truck routes or discarded at plants in the first eight months of 2016, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture."
www.wsj.com/articles/americas-dairy-farmers-dump-43-million-gallons-of
-excess-milk-1476284353

Instead of milk as an example, which depends mostly on the prices of feed and land and even beef (make hamburger meat from poorly producing milk cows), the cost of home care health worker is all about the minimum wage. And maybe the price of disposable rubber gloves.

A lot of rich people have Grandma looked after by somebody whose life is miserable away from their work at the minimum wage. The rich can afford the luxury provided by the poor person. That follows Say’s Other Law: “Misery is the inseparable companion of luxury”. The rich always prefer a bargain and if they can rearrange the US economy so that they buy luxury at a discount rate, too bad for the poor.
http://angrybearblog.com/2017/03/says-other-law-misery-is-the-insepara
ble-companion-of-luxury.html

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Jesus Christ...

Whatever second.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
Jesus Christ...

Whatever second.

---

Just in case you are unaware: there are Republicans who want to lower the minimum wage. Zero sounds like a good number to them. Is zero good for you? Because it would be for me.
www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/minimum-wage-republican-lawmakers-quotes/
2015/04/07/id/636947/
www.thoughtco.com/members-of-congress-abolish-minimum-wage-3367838

Does it strike you as odd that no Democratic politicians want to abolish the minimum wages? The Democrats can't believe the following argument:

"The apologists of luxury have sometimes gone so far as to promote the advantages of misery and indigence on the ground that without the stimulus of want, the lower classes of mankind could never be impelled to labour, so that neither the upper classes, nor society at large, could have the benefit of their exertions."

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1kiki:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
When the demand for the workforce (businesses, employers needing more workers) grows more than the supply of the workforce (unemployed, illegal, underpaid, and just lazy), then the pay rates will continue to rise, rendering the Minimum Wage meaningless, except for the Unions who demand increases to their pay.

---

During the Reagan years (1/81 - 1/89) wages FELL - they didn't rise. And the graphic clearly shows the split between INCOME - which is not necessarily related to work, and WAGES which are earned through work. INCOME stayed flat, while - let me point this out again - WAGES fell.

---

This is a fairly blatant lie. I'll get to this another time.
Income Revenue to the IRS practically doubled, IIRC during Reagan's terms. How can the collected Income Taxes double if the Incomes felL? That sounds quite preposterous, and it is such a claim.

After looking at the other posts, it seems this thread has derailed from the tracks of facts.

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I started at minimum wage of $1.65/hr. at a supermarket. Up to that point the only money I ever had was the $1 a week allowance my dad gave me every Friday. With this minimum wage job I was "rich". For the first time in my life I could buy anything I wanted. Of course the wheel had just been invented.

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1kiki:
During the Reagan years (1/81 - 1/89) wages FELL - they didn't rise. And the graphic clearly shows the split between INCOME - which is not necessarily related to work, and WAGES which are earned through work. INCOME stayed flat, while - let me point this out again - WAGES fell.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by jsf:
This is a fairly blatant lie. I'll get to this another time.
Income Revenue to the IRS practically doubled, IIRC during Reagan's terms. How can the collected Income Taxes double if the Incomes felL? That sounds quite preposterous, and it is such a claim.

After looking at the other posts, it seems this thread has derailed from the tracks of facts.

---

JSF

You didn't account for the fact that women entered the workforce to augment household finances.

INDIVIDUAL WAGES - dollars paid per hour per person - fell. AS PER THE CHART I already posted.

INDIVIDUAL WAGES FIGURES ARE AN INCONTROVERTIBLE FACT - despite your attempt to deny reality.

And you calling someone a liar for posting well-documented facts - speaks to your mindset.

---

---

---

Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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bump to remind me.

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1kiki:
You didn't account for the fact that women entered the workforce to augment household finances.

---

Maybe originally that is what happened, but in the grand scheme what actually happened was that the American labor pool doubled nearly overnight and reduced demand for labor greatly.

I'm not saying that women should stay in the kitchen and make babies. I'm just stating the harsh reality that I never hear anybody talking about. The amount of illegal Mexicans or H1B visas out there is a drop in the bucket compared to females entering the work force when it came to job competition.

What started as a way to augment finances has now become a necessity in most cases. I know some of you guys and gals run with more affluent circles than I ever did, but how many couples do you know that have a stay-at-home mom or dad situation where the kids aren't raised by strangers or constantly carted off to the different grandparents house or whoever has time to watch them? I only know one... and unforeseen medical expenses will mean that the other one will have to find at least part time work for a while to offset the huge increases they've seen in their family plan deductible because of the ACA.

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6stringJoker:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1kiki:
You didn't account for the fact that women entered the workforce to augment household finances.

---

Maybe originally that is what happened, but in the grand scheme what actually happened was that the American labor pool doubled nearly overnight and reduced demand for labor greatly.

I'm not saying that women should stay in the kitchen and make babies. I'm just stating the harsh reality that I never hear anybody talking about. The amount of illegal Mexicans or H1B visas out there is a drop in the bucket compared to females entering the work force when it came to job competition.

What started as a way to augment finances has now become a necessity in most cases. I know some of you guys and gals run with more affluent circles than I ever did . . .

---

Look at this graph. The article is about comparing the poorest 50% in China to the poorest in the USA, but pay attention to France on the graph.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/01/chinas-economic-miracle
-has-an-ugly-underbelly/?utm_term=.91a905122d4c

You will notice that the poorest 50% in France are not steadily losing to the richest 50%. I’d say that is because the poorest 50% in France are very willing to attack and destroy the richest 50% if the rich get too greedy. In the USA, the poorest 50% have taken the opposite strategy and are steadily getting ever more obsequious toward the wealthy. There is a nice little article explaining: “How Much Does a Politician Cost?” Can the poorest 50% of Americans stop themselves from voting most of the time for the candidate with the most money? I don’t think so.
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/04/how-much-does-a-politician-cost-a-
groundbreaking-study-reveals-the-influence-of-money-in-politics/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Interesting. Once again I'm baffled as to why you keep quoting things I've said before posting graphs that have nothing to do with anything I'm talking about though.

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Well, jack, there's one way I can think of to figure out if women in the workforce are the reason why in US that the workers get poorer and the rich get richer; while in France it's the other way around. Look at the labor force participation rates of the US and France.


A Cross-Country Comparison of Labor Force Participation

As of 2015 the US and France were within a couple of percent, in the range between 70 - 75% - they're pretty similar. So it's not total workers vying for jobs in the workforce that determines how people are paid. (Even more interesting, of all the countries, the US is the only one where the labor force participation rate has been going down since 1998. All the others are rising or staying flat - but that's a different topic).

And France had an even greater percentage of women in the workforce than the US, and rising. While the US's rate is far lower, and dropping.


If America Is Hell for Working Women, France Might Just Be Heaven

The employment problems in the US don't look to be about women in the workforce.

---

---

---

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1kiki:
The employment problems in the US don't look to be about women in the workforce.

---

I didn't say they were. It's a lot of factors. Do you really think that showing a graph about anything in France is a good indicator of what is happening in America? The most obvious reason why any comparison isnt' going to work is that they have a 35 hour work week in France and anything over that is considered overtime. In other European nations it's even lower.

This isn't even an argument about sex. It's strictly a numbers game.

For argument's sake, let's say that 50% of all working people in the country, regardless of sex, decided that they weren't going to work anymore starting tomorrow.

What do you think would happen?

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There are a lot of reasons for job loss in the USA, particularly competing in the world market against low-wage nations and automation and TPTB giving up entirely on manufacturing in order to focus in financialism.

There aren't enough good-paying jobs for people to progress into. My uncle (85 y/o) was telling me how "back in the day" you could get a job sweeping the shop floor at the autobody stamping plant (or the axle plant, or the assembly plant, or the Trico wiper-blade plant, or the steel mills) and work your way up to shift supervisor some day. Those days are long gone. If we're arguing about busboy and asswipe jobs, we already have a big problem: People are depending on these shit jobs because there's nothing else out there.

IMHO the United States needs to re-industrialize in all of the important categories* (from cement and metals to chips and fabrics and software) and be as independent as possible. Repair our infrastructure, restore our environment and prepare for climate change, and improve health care, education etc. When you have so many VITAL jobs that need doing, why is there unemployment???

This will require tariffs and sacrifice, and also that the very wealthy elite (who are primarily bankers and financiers) give up much of their ill-gotten wealth - which is of course why it's not going to happen. Focusing on minimum-wage jobs is IMHO just fighting over crumbs. The real problem is elsewhere.

* This isn't just a case of yoking our economic decision-making to our democratic processes, it's also a matter of robustness. Highly-efficient systems which depend on single points of production coupled with massive transportation and "just in time delivery" ( >>>lack of distributed stockpiles) can be - and have been -brought down by a single interruption.

Entities ... whether nations, states, or cities ... need to be able to subsist independently (at least in survival mode) for weeks; that means redundant distributed production closer to the point of use and stockpiled goods.


-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
THUGR, JONESING FOR WWIII
All those guns 1kiki, are pointed towards your beloved Russia. All those cyber capabilities, pointed right at Russia. Thanks Putin, and get ready to duck.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
The employment problems in the US don't look to be about women in the workforce.

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
I didn't say they were.

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Then maybe you shouldn't have made such a point of it?

Quote:

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
I'm not saying that women should stay in the kitchen and make babies. I'm just stating the harsh reality that I never hear anybody talking about. The amount of illegal Mexicans or H1B visas out there is a drop in the bucket compared to females entering the work force when it came to job competition.

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And that's where I cited two factors mentioned BY YOU when it came to job competition - total numbers in the workforce and women in the workforce. My point is that those two factors don't explain the dire job situation in the US, because those factors are the same or worse in France than in the US, while the French job situation is far better.

Quote:

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
It's a lot of factors.

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Thanks for agreeing with me.

Quote:

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Do you really think that showing a graph about anything in France is a good indicator of what is happening in America?

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It's a good contrast, in order to figure out where the differences are if labor force participation and women in the workforce should make France worse than the US, not better.

Quote:

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The most obvious reason why any comparison isn't' going to work is that they have a 35 hour work week in France and anything over that is considered overtime.

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And that's one of the reasons WHY France and European nations are better than the US. Rather than allow businesses to create a Roman arena where individuals are pitted against each other for the necessities of life, France passed the 35 hour work week law specifically to improve workers lives.

Quote:

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From wiki:
The main stated objectives of the law were twofold:
1. To reduce unemployment and yield a better division of labor, in a context where some people work long hours while some others are unemployed. A 10.2% decrease in the hours extracted from each worker would, theoretically, require firms to hire correspondingly more workers, a remedy for unemployment.
2. To take advantage of improvements in productivity of modern society to give workers some more personal time to enhance quality of life.

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The government actually stepped in to represent the people it claims to represent. What a concept!

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This isn't even an argument about sex. It's strictly a numbers game.
For argument's sake, let's say that 50% of all working people in the country, regardless of sex, decided that they weren't going to work anymore starting tomorrow.
What do you think would happen?

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Well then - aren't you agreeing with SECOND - that the problem is Americans, and our inability to stand up for ourselves?

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Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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lol... You would basically be Second if you agreed on politics.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
lol... You would basically be Second if you agreed on politics.

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6ix

OK, go ahead. Duck the facts. Go straight to the personal attack.

It just makes you look like THUGGER.

ENJOY the new fashion!

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Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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What facts? You're taking a very simple idea and making it unnecessarily complicated. Then you're throwing in unrelated graphs and unrelated ideas like Second always does.

My question was, if half of the workers in America quit working tomorrow, regardless of sex, what would happen?

The answer is that there would be an immediate MASSIVE spike in the need for employees. Assuming that the 50% split was straight down the middle of all classes and types of jobs, that would mean that the demand for workers of all backgrounds and skill sets would go up. That would mean that the price paid for working those jobs would also go up.

These are facts. These are common sense. I don't need to find a graph from France to prove them, and you can't find a graph from France to dis-prove them.

It's not that women joining the workforce did this because they are women.. that's just an unrelated fact that they are. But women joining the work force essentially cut the demand for labor in half.

Simple math.



Again, I'm not saying that women should stay at home and make babies. If they weren't collectively any good at doing the work than they wouldn't have had this impact on the job market. It's because they are completely capable of doing their jobs that it happened.

I'm also not saying that this is the only factor, and I'm not even putting a proportionate value on the effect they've had. There are other variables.

What I am saying is this does have a large impact though, and nobody ever talks about it because it would come off as a misogynist viewpoint. That's the problem with the SJW mentality. Common sense is thrown out the window.

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Women went to work BECAUSE wages dropped. One led the other in time - which makes lower wages a better candidate as a cause of women in the workforce than the other way around.

France had a problem - and it's the exact same problem as in the US now. It's high unemployment, coupled with the fact that the fewer people who ARE working are being overworked.

YOUR solution would lead too 77% unemployment (the 27% who are already not participating, though they can,

plus the 50% you want to leave work).
Is that what you're going for?

AND it would double the workload of those who are left employed.
Is that what you're going for?

That's how your simple math works out.
Is that what you're going for?

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---

Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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lol

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No answer to simple questions about the simple math in your own post.

I got that.

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Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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Do you get the point of the following, 6ixstringJoker? As you wrote: "My question was, if half of the workers in America quit working tomorrow, regardless of sex, what would happen?" The right answer is the economy crashes. Your answer is wrong. Your common sense & simple math is misleading you. Ask Janet Yellen how the economy works. She would be delighted to explain it to you. Me, I'm not going to because I'm not paid to:

www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/08/fed-chair-janet-yellen-
has-a-cure-for-the-lackluster-economy-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-interest-rates/?utm_term=.aae45cffcb01

Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen has prescribed an unusual remedy for the United States' aging, low-growth economy: harness the under-tapped pool of female talent.

Yellen, the first woman to run the country’s central bank, said the lack of family-friendly work policies stifles women’s participation in the labor force and ultimately stalls growth.

"A number of factors appear to be holding women back,” she said last week at a conference celebrating the admission of women to Brown University more than a century ago, "including the difficulty women currently have in trying to combine their careers with other aspects of their lives, including caregiving.”

Yellen said the need for change is increasingly urgent as U.S. workers age — nearly one-fifth will reach retirement age by 2029 — and productivity continues to crawl.

The U.S. gross domestic product grew at a rate of more than 3 percent for the bulk of the 1980s and 1990s, but it has slowed since the recession. The GDP growth rate was just 0.7 percent for the first three months of this year.

Yellen argued that the United States was missing a growth opportunity by failing to adequately address the needs of female workers. As of today, 57 percent of women work outside the home, compared with 69.2 percent of men.

“One recent study estimates that increasing the female participation rate to that of men,” Yellen said, “would raise our gross domestic product by 5 percent.”

Research shows that women today still shoulder the majority of domestic responsibilities (cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids), even when they financially support their households. But the United States furnishes little support to these working parents compared with the rest of the developed world.

The United States remains the only industrialized nation not to guarantee new moms and dads a single day of paid time off. And child care continues to be an expense that competes in many places with the mortgage payment, surpassing the cost of public college tuition in two-thirds of states.

Economist Heidi Hartmann, founder of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, said that’s one reason U.S. women have fallen behind their counterparts across the world. European and Asian nations generally offer more paid leave and subsidized child care.

“The extent to which we don't talk about gender is the extent to which we don’t have a complete picture of how the economy works,” Hartmann said, adding that Yellen’s comments make sense for her position.

"When you consider the job of the Fed is economic growth, then it’s perfectly logical to be speaking about unemployed people,” she said. “Women’s employment is low, compared to similar women in other countries.”

In 1990, she noted, the United States boasted the sixth-highest female labor participation rate among 22 OECD member countries, trailing only Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Canada. By 2010, the country slid to 17th. Britain, Spain and Germany, for example, jumped ahead after expanding support for new parents, including subsidized child care and paid family leave.

American women, meanwhile, still earn 79 cents for every dollar paid to men, Yellen pointed out.

"The gap in earnings between men and women has narrowed substantially, but progress has slowed lately," she said. "Even when we compare men and women in the same or similar occupations who appear nearly

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6

I'm just going to go on a bit about why the US worker is getting so royally screwed - and why getting rid of half of them isn't going to create nirvana for the rest.

But let me go back a bit - waaaaaaaay back. If I remember correctly, you had a great animus against fiat money. BTW, I completely agree with it. It's a scam of the highest order, especially when banks are allowed to create money out of nothing, and then charge us in interest to access it.

Your answer was gold. You felt gold, somehow, had an intrinsic value that had nothing to do with people's relative needs. And no real world examples of people leaving gold behind (as too heavy to carry) while they walked out of drought and famine devastation could convince you otherwise. I wonder if you still believe gold is all that.

But I thought I'd look to see, how has gold fared since 2008? The world economy was on the verge of collapse. And in many ways, most economies have yet to recover. Gold should have soared in value if it had intrinsic, rather than human, value.

January 1, 2008, gold was $833.50 per ounce. ( http://www.usagold.com/reference/goldprices/2008.html Jan 1 2008, 833.50)

Due to US inflation gold increased to $962.71 per ounce (inflation adjusted https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm 962.71)

Just today, gold was priced at $1,227.23 per ounce. ( http://www.usagold.com/)

That means over 9 years gold accrued $264.52 above and beyond US inflation. Given everything, I wouldn't call that a rousing figure that indicates gold has 'intrinsic' value. Also, I have to add, the gold market is highly manipulated.

So, I think you definitely hit the nail on the head with fiat money. But I think you went off track with gold as the answer.


On to today's worker woes. It's true, the US worker (for those who have jobs) has gotten progressively impoverished over time. The economy has grown, but workers' slice of the pie is getting smaller and smaller.

Workers now are expected to produce 2.5x as much as in 1970.

And fewer and fewer people can find jobs. (There are a lot of graphs out there re labor force participation rate, I didn't want to get into any particular one. Suffice to say it peaked in 2000, and has since dropped to levels not seen since 1978.)

So, fewer people have jobs, the ones who are working are producing 2.5x as much, the economy is expanding, but wages have stayed flat.

What's the answer?

Here, I think you're stuck on something which makes intuitive sense to you - just have fewer people work (the same way you were stuck on gold as the answer to fiat money).

But if fewer people work, then the ones left behind will have to work that much harder. Do you think that's even possible? And fewer people will be able to buy the necessities of life. Do you thinks that's reasonable?


Sometimes government is the answer. In this case, AS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE, to create laws that distribute the growing economy back to the workers.

As for your parents, yanno, there are a lot of things the government does that are really, truly, backwards.

Like why do they make people pay income taxes if they're below the poverty line? And how do they get such a ridiculous number in the first place? http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/18/why-is-the-federal-poverty-line-so-lo
w/ Why didn't the government index its alt min income tax to inflation? Why did it define exempt v non-exempt employees by income rather than job description? Why is the federal cash minimum wages for restaurant workers $2.13 per hour?

Getting back to your parents, it would make sense to me to exempt small business a certain amount of tax to cover the increased minimum wage.

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Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slog

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1KIKI

Tuesday, May 9, 2017 9:47 PM

"Straight forward answer is that the majority of voters are not on that side."

How many times does Signy have to post the study that the US is an oligarchy before you understand it? It doesn't matter WHAT people want, if what they want crosses the rich and powerful.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/artic
le/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.



Oh drat! There's those pesky facts again!

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Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by G:
Yup, I knew it would be a waste of my time - right again!

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If Feminists wanted Equality, they would be Egalitarians, bozo. I am an Egalitarian.

That's not what this conversation is about at all. If you want to discuss it in another thread, feel free to make one. Keep your poison and idiocy out of this one, and I'll stay out of your circuses.

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SIX, I'm unfortunately going to have to save this discussion for next weekend (or so), but here's a thought: WHAT (or WHO) is preventing us from having from having a sustainable economy where everyone who can work has a meaningful job at decent wages?

-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
THUGR, JONESING FOR WWIII
All those guns 1kiki, are pointed towards your beloved Russia. All those cyber capabilities, pointed right at Russia. Thanks Putin, and get ready to duck.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 1kiki:

How many times does Signy have to post the study that the US is an oligarchy before you understand it? It doesn't matter WHAT people want, if what they want crosses the rich and powerful.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/artic
le/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

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I saw this about how an oligarchy holds together. After you read it, it might be obvious how to take apart the oligarchy. But the demolition requires careful thinking and diligent effort, something that voters everywhere in the world won’t do because they won’t get rewards as big as the oligarchs receive for holding things together.
www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/03/yanis-varoufakis-greece-greatest
-political-memoir

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Varoufakis gives one of the most accurate and detailed descriptions of modern power ever written. He explains, with a weariness born of nights in soulless hotels and harsh-lit briefing rooms, how the modern power network is built. Aris gets a loan from Zorba’s bank; Zorba writes off the loan but Zorba’s construction company gets a contract from Aris’s ministry. Aris’s son gets a job at Zorba’s TV station, which for some reason is always bankrupt and so can never pay tax – and so on.

“The key to such power networks is exclusion and opacity,” Varoufakis writes. As sensitive information is bartered, “two-person alliances forge links with other such alliances … involving conspirators who conspire de facto without being conscious conspirators”.

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The same dynamic is found on minimum wage. The employee will only get $1 more per hour while the employer preventing the increase will get $1 more times the number of employees. The employer with a thousand employees will plot and plan a thousand times more diligently than any one of the employees. Who will win this game if the employees won’t stick together and the boss can pick them off one by one?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Quote:

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Originally posted by G:

Quote:

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:

If Feminists wanted Equality, they would be Egalitarians, bozo. I am an Egalitarian.

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What do you mean "if?"

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"If" you want an answer, ask in another forum topic. I will not respond again to you here and allow you to derail and destroy another topic.

Carry on.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX, I'm unfortunately going to have to save this discussion for next weekend (or so), but here's a thought: WHAT (or WHO) is preventing us from having from having a sustainable economy where everyone who can work has a meaningful job at decent wages?

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That's a good question. How do you answer that?

I think there are many "whats" and many "whos". There wouldn't possibly be only one person or entity or situation to blame for where we are now.

I'll have to think about it for a while.

I guess my short answer would be that there has never in the history of mankind been a true Capitalist or true Communist society. The people at the top always rig the game.

If we had pure Communism with benevolent and intelligent leadership (and we worked on curbing population at the same time), there would be enough to go around for everyone.

If we had pure Capitalism where everything was equal as far as opportunity and it was an actual merit based system where those who worked the hardest and/or the smartest actually were able to make something of themselves, and those who didn't do anything were not provided for by the government then Darwinism would take root and only the smartest and toughest would make it and population control would happen under natural selection. A very tough pill for a lot of people to swallow, this option, but a few generations from now would see a Human Race of the highest caliber and most driven united people ever known.


What we have now is some weird hy-brid of Capitalism and Communism where the game is rigged 100% of the time to serve the people at the top and the rest of us are dependent on the Government and/or left fighting for the scraps.

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The same dynamic is found on minimum wage. The employee will only get $1 more per hour while the employer preventing the increase will get $1 more times the number of employees. The employer with a thousand employees will plot and plan a thousand times more diligently than any one of the employees. Who will win this game if the employees won’t stick together and the boss can pick them off one by one?

---

Which is a far cry from saying all employees somehow secretly 'want' to be screwed by employers.

The problem is that people are taught that they're powerless. And so, they fail to exercise the power they DO have - which is the vote.

Can you imagine what would happen if people in democracies suddenly woke up and realized what the power of numbers means?

---

---

---

Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 1kiki:

Which is a far cry from saying all employees somehow secretly 'want' to be screwed by employers.

The problem is that people are taught that they're powerless. And so, they fail to exercise the power they DO have - which is the vote.

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If you are depending on your vote, if you wait years for the next election, in hopes that a faraway politician in the downtown of your city or your state capital or DC will correct the behavior of a boorish supervisor or a cheapskate business owner, as an employee you will be in the kind of trouble that is extremely common place in the USA for workers in the bottom 50% of pay.

I’ve seen numerous movies where the boss calls security and has a fired employee thrown out of the building. (Seen it in real life, too) I’ve never seen the reverse – the employees call their alt-security men to throw the boss out of the building. American employees are completely passive and think it is justice and proper that the boss can rough them up and lower their income to zero, but the employees think it totally violates the natural order of things to rough up the boss and lower his super-sized income.

Quote:

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Can you imagine what would happen if people in democracies suddenly woke up and realized what the power of numbers means?

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No matter how large your number, if you can't bring yourself to cooperate with your equals, your numbers count for nothing. You become a zero to your boss. American workers have decided that unions are evil. They decided to be zeroes. That leaves them as isolated individuals versus the world. For some reason it surprises them when the world kicks their ass and pays them poorly.

The workers start dreaming of enormously complicated schemes engineered in Washington DC to force Chinese manufacturing jobs to be moved to America as a cure for Americans' poor pay. (There is also complicated schemes from Washington DC about building the Texas/Mexico wall and deporting Mexicans and Canadians. Sorry, Jewel Staite and Nathan Fillion.) That won't work as well as they imagine if the boss can fall back to the old-fashion and simple scheme where he can still send armed security men to kick the workers out of the building and replace them with cheaper help or, better yet, automation.

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Quote:

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The workers start dreaming of enormously complicated schemes engineered in Washington DC to force Chinese manufacturing jobs to be moved to America as a cure for Americans' poor pay. (There is also complicated schemes from Washington DC about building the Texas/Mexico wall and deporting Mexicans and Canadians. Sorry, Jewel Staite and Nathan Fillion.) That won't work as well as they imagine if the boss can fall back to the old-fashion and simple scheme where he can still send armed security men to kick the workers out of the building and replace them with cheaper help or, better yet, automation.

---

Ach. SECOND, tell me, WHY won't tariffs and border walls work?

-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
THUGR, JONESING FOR WWIII
All those guns 1kiki, are pointed towards your beloved Russia. All those cyber capabilities, pointed right at Russia. Thanks Putin, and get ready to duck.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Ach. SECOND, tell me, WHY won't tariffs and border walls work?

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Because those are stalling tactics to get employees to wait for walls to be completed and the tariff to get adjusted and the next President to be elected because this one and the last one didn't do enough.

Are you a big believer in macroeconomics? That the Invisible Hand will create good jobs for everyone if only tariffs are set correctly and also 11 million illegals are kicked out of the USA and the minimum wage is abolished so that the market can wisely decide hourly wages? You might be unaware, but the bosses want their workers to be big believers in the Invisible Hand, too. The bosses know that it is really the bosses’ very visible hands that control the economy. The bosses truthfully don’t want employees to think about that. They want the employees to keep believing it is impersonal economic forces that only a good President can change. Just convince the employees that the right President will fix it so they can have a good paying job and the employed and unemployed can passively prosper without them every aggressively confronting their bosses. That is the way the bosses want it, too. Employees anxiously waiting for Washington DC to create the right conditions. The bosses certainly don’t want employees to apply pressure to their bosses. That would be as outrageous to naturally passive Americans as Army corporals giving orders to their officers.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Quote:

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Originally posted by second:
If you are depending on your vote

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not my vote alone, Second. You seem to think an individual vote is meaningful. It's not. The vote is only powerful when it expresses the mass of the people.Perhaps that's your fatal mental flaw. You keep framing things in the wrong context.

And speaking of the wrong context ...

Quote:

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I’ve seen numerous movies where the boss calls security and has a fired employee thrown out of the building. (Seen it in real life, too)

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And do you imagine the rest of the employees were standing around cheering?

Quote:

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... but the employees think it totally violates the natural order of things to rough up the boss and lower his super-sized income.

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It's an act of intimidation, and everyone understands it as such.

Quote:

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No matter how large your number, if you can't bring yourself to cooperate with your equals, your numbers count for nothing.

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And you've completely bought the fundamental lie - that society is a group of individuals whose only option is individual action.

Quote:

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American workers have decided that unions are evil. They decided to be zeroes.

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They've been propagandized - they didn't just 'decide'.

You know, the British thought they'd figured out how to rule India forever.* Then Gandhi came along and forever* came to an end.

You keep forgetting that Trump had to pass TWO hurdles along the path of becoming the legitimate president of the US. The first was clearing the field of republican rivals. And he was voted presidential candidate over all those other republicans hopefuls because primary voters WERE DONE WITH BUSINESS AS USUAL. And the Trump prevailed in the general election BY APPEALING TO VOTERS WHO REJECTED CLINTON AND BUSINESS AS USUAL.

People are desperate for change. And we're one Gandhi - or Hitler - away from open revolt.

What would you rather see? Someone trying to wake people up to the power of political reform? Revolt? Or more of the same?

---

---

---

Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 1kiki:

What would you rather see? Someone trying to wake people up to the power of political reform? Revolt? Or more of the same?

---

That's a question worthy of a thread all in itself.


My answer would be that there is no power in political reform, and what we're seeing now with Trump becoming just another business as usual president everywhere it matters is just more proof ot that.

The only options are revolt or more of the same.

I think the powers that be have gotten so good at keeping us complacent that revolt is a long way off. I sure as hell have no reason to throw my little castle away on somebody else's fight. Things would have to get a hell of a lot worse before I even entertained the idea of any serious actions.

Strap in, cause it's gong to be a LONG time before anything ever changes.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
And he was voted presidential candidate over all those other republicans hopefuls because primary voters WERE DONE WITH BUSINESS AS USUAL. And the Trump prevailed in the general election BY APPEALING TO VOTERS WHO REJECTED CLINTON AND BUSINESS AS USUAL.

People are desperate for change. And we're one Gandhi - or Hitler - away from open revolt.

What would you rather see? Someone trying to wake people up to the power of political reform? Revolt? Or more of the same?

---

You're a believer in changing the person at the very tip top of the hierarchy -- the next Trump, Gandhi, or Hitler. All of them would be completely unaware of people like you. I'm a believer in changing the people two or three levels above me in the hierarchy -- the boss or his boss or find another company. I think my belief is a more powerful way to change my life than your unrealistic belief in a Great/Good/Wise Man, a Bernie Sanders, taking charge in DC or Berlin or New Delhi and ending business as usual to go on a new path.

My belief requires me to be brave and plan because I'm confronting real people in the same room with me and my allies. Your belief requires no bravery whatsoever and no planning because the rules of politics require you to do it all alone and completely anonymously in the voting booth, even if you voted for Hitler in 1932.

And it leaves you frustrated because you can't punch the President in face when he lies to you or is incompetent, while I can punch my boss.

Yes, I vote, but only a ninny expects the President of the USA or Germany or France to fix the economy. Even Lincoln or FDR or LBJ or Hitler couldn't. They needed wars (which proceeded without voter approval) and mountains of dead to really improve their country's economy. I don't have the patience to wait for the next war to sweep over the USA and I have no certainty that a foolish, yet overly powerful, President won't accidentally kill me, all while he is completely unaware I exist beyond the voting booth.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Originally posted by second:
The same dynamic is found on minimum wage. The employee will only get $1 more per hour while the employer preventing the increase will get $1 more times the number of employees. The employer with a thousand employees will plot and plan a thousand times more diligently than any one of the employees. Who will win this game if the employees won’t stick together and the boss can pick them off one by one?

---

Your math, assuming this is math from you, is a little off.

The employee will only get $1 more per hour. Or 60-75 cents per hour after taxes.
The employer preventing the increase will save $2 more per hour times the number of employees.

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You're a believer in changing the person at the very tip top of the hierarchy -- the next Trump, Gandhi, or Hitler. All of them would be completely unaware of people like you.

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First of all - I don't think Trump is either Gandhi or Hitler. He's a symptom of a population whose dissatisfaction has grown beyond normal political processes.

And - you fundamentally fail to understand that Gandhi was the seed crystal around which a mass movement formed. Let me repeat those words with emphasis: MASS MOVEMENT. Gandhi himself couldn't have moved the British Empire one iota. But the hundreds of thousands of Indians who joined him were convincing.

Similarly, Hitler couldn't have waged war, or tried to exterminate Jews and others, without the German society behind him.

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My belief ... Your belief ... leaves you frustrated .... I can punch my boss.

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I have no idea what you're trying to say.

But I have PERSONALLY experienced - at a small scale - the power of a transformative statement. At the time, the place where I work was doing a classification study of our group. (Also, I was a union steward and contract negotiator, so I had an avenue of action.) At the time, management wanted every individual to submit an individual accounting of their work over the previous 3 years. There was a lot wrong with that - not the least of which was that people didn't give themselves their own assignments and so their project history was not a reflection of either their abilities or their motivation. And it was a pretty obvious scheme to pit one against the other to the detriment of all.

So I proposed we submit a group job description; an idea that was nixed by management. But with one exception, the entire group was on board. So people volunteered their individuals histories, and others edited them into a group boilerplate description - which we then each submitted - except stapled together into one package and group-signed on the front.

Once someone can clearly articulate a pathway to addressing the dissatisfactions of a group, the group will come together.

It's not the individual who by themselves achieves change, it's the power of the group they represent.

---

---

---

Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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Let's cut it down to something even you can follow. Bernie and Trump had the same idea, one that never occurred to Obama:

Bernie and Trump promised tens of millions of new jobs. Since they were talking about lifetime employment, they were talking about trillions of dollars of new income. How were they going to do it? Tear up old trade treaties and negotiate new terms. What would that cost? Nothing! because Bernie and Trump had knowledge not available to anyone but them. With their powerful minds, good looks, and charisma they could persuade anyone to go along with this scheme that never occurred to Obama!

What does America get? Trillions of dollars of new income for the cost of nothing but sweat by either Trump or Bernie. That makes those two men lying sacks of shit. And you want one or the other in charge of the White House? Trump and Bernie are completely deluded.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Let's cut it down to something even you can follow.

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How about you just discuss YOUR OWN IDEAS instead of trying to address mine?

Yanno, after fundamentally strawmanning my post

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Originally posted by second:
If you are depending on your vote

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referring to MOVIES to try and make a point about real life

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I’ve seen numerous movies where the boss calls security and has a fired employee thrown out of the building.

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ducking my reply

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And do you imagine the rest of the employees were standing around cheering?

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... misrepresenting my post AGAIN!

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You're a believer in changing the person at the very tip top of the hierarchy

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and posting nonsense about how punching lower level management in the face is going to change anything ... at all ... ... it's clear you're utterly incapable of mutual discussion with another person. So ...

... why don't you try something simple? How about you just discuss YOUR OWN IDEAS??

---

---

---

Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
What would you rather see? Someone trying to wake people up to the power of political reform? Revolt? Or more of the same?

---

Quote:

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
That's a question worthy of a thread all in itself.
My answer would be that there is no power in political reform, and what we're seeing now with Trump becoming just another business as usual president everywhere it matters is just more proof of that.
The only options are revolt or more of the same.
I think the powers that be have gotten so good at keeping us complacent that revolt is a long way off. I sure as hell have no reason to throw my little castle away on somebody else's fight. Things would have to get a hell of a lot worse before I even entertained the idea of any serious actions.
Strap in, cause it's gong to be a LONG time before anything ever changes.

---

Yanno, it's probably true. BUT - the indication (Trump) is that there's a lot of diffuse, unarticulated anger.
Sometimes one person can be pivotal. Like Gandhi.
I'm sure the British thought they had the whole Empire thing all worked out. By all rights, India should have been the crown jewel for decades, maybe even a century, to come.
And then Gandhi came along. He brought a narrative that resonated, that got hundreds of thousands of people to come together over long periods of time, to achieve India's independence.
Without him, I'm not sure what would have happened. But with him the people grew into a massive force aimed at one goal.
He didn't give them their desire to be rid of England. He just took what was already there, and turned it into a mass movement.

---

---

---

Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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---

---

---

Care to try addressing the facts, again?

Or do you shoot nothing but blanks?

Originally posted by G:
"I coined the slogan "We Suck!"© many years ago."
G is an avowed Putin-loving, pro-Russian, anti-American troll.

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Ach. SECOND, tell me, WHY won't tariffs and border walls work?- SIGNY

Because those are stalling tactics -SECOND

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For what? What are these stalling techniques supposed to delay?

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Are you a big believer in macroeconomics?- SECOND

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No. I suppose that ends that discussion!

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... They want the employees to keep believing it is impersonal economic forces that only a good President can change. - SECOND

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And what is the other option, if NOT changing the President/ laws/ Congress?

-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
THUGR, JONESING FOR WWIII
All those guns 1kiki, are pointed towards your beloved Russia. All those cyber capabilities, pointed right at Russia. Thanks Putin, and get ready to duck.

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Quote:

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Ach. SECOND, tell me, WHY won't tariffs and border walls work?- SIGNY

Because those are stalling tactics -SECOND

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For what? What are these stalling techniques supposed to delay?

Quote:

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Are you a big believer in macroeconomics?- SECOND

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No. I suppose that ends that discussion!

Quote:

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... They want the employees to keep believing it is impersonal economic forces that only a good President can change. - SECOND

---

And what is the other option, if NOT changing the President/ laws/ Congress?

---

Okay, since my questions didn't seem to elicit answers from you, let me be a little more pointed about your post.

You seem to be saying that this desire for the Federal government to "do something" about foreign competition is just a diversion, a stall tactic designed to keep American workers from banding together, rising up, and giving "the boss" what-for!

That the American worker will ...oh, I dunno ... Demand higher wages? String up the bosses and take over the factories? Turn everything into worker-owned cooperatives? I'm not sure what you're envisioning, but in any case the workers will "do something".

If, on the other hand, the Federal government "does something", business will take their marbles and go elsewhere.

Tell me, SECOND, in the event of a labor takeover in the USA - as you suggest- what would prevent businesses from going elsewhere too? Indeed, since wages in the USA are still relatively high- thanks to past activism - what do you think has been happening for the past 30 years already? In the event that labor "rises up", business will simply continue to go elsewhere, or resort to automation. So far, I'm not seeing anything in your suggestion that would stop the flight of business capital.

And even in the extreme result that everything was turned into worker-owned cooperatives and the worker-owners kept their businesses operating in absence of the former business owners .... they would still have to compete for customers with cheap-labor/ automatically-produced goods anyway, right? Because, as you've pointed out more than once, it would be more expensive to have things produced in the USA and you don't want to pay more money to buy stuff. They might be able to weather a price drop of 10-15% because "profits" wouldn't be skimmed off the top, but it's not direction that they can head in indefinitely without dropping wages or resorting to automation themselves.

I conclude that the only entity than can REALLY implement a complete economic policy is the Federal government, because it is the entity that controls the border, negotiates with other nations, and writes national business/tax law etc. I really don't know how to interpret your suggestion other than what I posted, but unless there's a lot more to it, it won't work.

-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
THUGR, JONESING FOR WWIII
All those guns 1kiki, are pointed towards your beloved Russia. All those cyber capabilities, pointed right at Russia. Thanks Putin, and get ready to duck.

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Well, SECOND, am I right to assume that since you didn't respond to my post, that you saw the logic fail in your own argument?

To recap: YOU said that if the government "did something" with trade and tariffs, businesses would take their marbles and go elsewhere. In your view, it's "the workers" who need to "do something".

My point was that whether it was our government or workers "doing something", business would CONTINUE to take their marbles and play elsewhere, and that in reality only the Federal government can create a real economic policy because only the Federal government can do things like negotiate with other nations, control the borders, and set tax policy.

Capisce?

It's funny, you're all for the Federal government taking over health care, but not for the Federal government doing its originally-mandated job (protect the borders).



-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
THUGR, JONESING FOR WWIII
All those guns 1kiki, are pointed towards your beloved Russia. All those cyber capabilities, pointed right at Russia. Thanks Putin, and get ready to duck.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
... why don't you try something simple? How about you just discuss YOUR OWN IDEAS??

---

Second is completely incapable of formulating a thought of her own.

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The last time the US government took over the control of the economy was WWII. It worked very well. The top 1% hated it, but FDR overruled them. It was run by a bureaucracy of only a few thousand setting prices and wages. It could be done again if the federal government got serious about creating jobs for everyone. But I think every Republican and some Democrats in Congress are allergic to that. There has never been another President like FDR who would try everything. All other Presidents, including Trump, lack the imagination. They would prefer that the top 1%, that 3.33 million, continue to make the decisions for everybody, rather than let a few thousand Federal bureaucrats make the decisions.

Personally, I would not object to expelling 11,000,000 illegal aliens this month. It would be a great experiment to prove that reducing the number of workers will increase the incomes of the rest. Same with trade: tear up every treaty to experimentally learn if that increases income. But most of the top 1% would object to running two big experiments on the US economy. They would prefer gradual change because this is not WWII.

And Trump does not have the same mental capacity or winning personality or persuasion skills of FDR.

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well, SECOND, am I right to assume that since you didn't respond to my post, that you saw the logic fail in your own argument?

To recap: YOU said that if the government "did something" with trade and tariffs, businesses would take their marbles and go elsewhere. In your view, it's "the workers" who need to "do something".

My point was that whether it was our government or workers "doing something", business would CONTINUE to take their marbles and play elsewhere, and that in reality only the Federal government can create a real economic policy because only the Federal government can do things like negotiate with other nations, control the borders, and set tax policy.

Capisce?

It's funny, you're all for the Federal government taking over health care, but not for the Federal government doing its originally-mandated job (protect the borders).

---

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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First of all SECOND, FDR was not the second coming of Christ. He threatened to send troops in to break a coal minders strike- did you know that? (And the "free" and "independent" press, BTW, did the bidding of the coal mine owners.) http://www.themilitant.com/2005/6929/692913.html FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court by adding up to six more justices, because the Supreme Court had thwarted him at every turn. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-franklin-roosevelt-clashed-
with-the-supreme-court-and-lost-78497994/ He also faced considerable backlash from Congressional Republicans in 1932 because of the deficit; they scaled back his public works and other programs and precipitated a mini-re-depression the following year.

This was all BEFORE the war. I find it troubling that you would focus on "the war effort" as the only catalyst that would bring the nation together. A lot happened between 1929 and 1943, you know.

Secondly, this is not about Trump. I realize that Trump is your current obsession, but we're talking POLICY, not people: Which entity [not person] has the capability to to institute economic reform?



-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
THUGR, JONESING FOR WWIII
All those guns 1kiki, are pointed towards your beloved Russia. All those cyber capabilities, pointed right at Russia. Thanks Putin, and get ready to duck.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
First of all SECOND, FDR was not the second coming of Christ. He threatened to send troops in to break a coal minders strike- did you know that? (And the "free" and "independent" press, BTW, did the bidding of the coal mine owners.) http://www.themilitant.com/2005/6929/692913.html FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court by adding up to six more justices, because the Supreme Court had thwarted him at every turn. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-franklin-roosevelt-clashed-
with-the-supreme-court-and-lost-78497994/ He also faced considerable backlash from Congressional Republicans in 1932 because of the deficit; they scaled back his public works and other programs and precipitated a mini-re-depression the following year.

This was all BEFORE the war. I find it troubling that you would focus on "the war effort" as the only catalyst that would bring the nation together. A lot happened between 1929 and 1943, you know.

Secondly, this is not about Trump. I realize that Trump is your current obsession, but we're talking POLICY, not people: Which entity [not person] has the capability to to institute economic reform?

---

And FDR put 120,000 Japanese-American citizens in jail because he didn't trust them and they were weak and nearly undefended by lawyers. If a President could do that, he can anything, even "institute economic reform". But all Presidents since FDR had no intention of any such reform. They would have had to use force to make reform happen, the kind of force that was used on Japanese-Americans, but the Presidents would have to apply the force to strong people, the top 1%, who have powerful political connections, powerful lawyers, and lots of money. Too much trouble for the President. Easier to go after the Japanese or Muslims.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/new-study-casts
-doubt-on-whether-a-15-minimum-wage-really-helps-workers/?utm_term=.ec388241b469

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/uw-study-finds-seattles-minimum-w
age-is-costing-jobs/

Edit: today on July 10 I am editing this because I failed to complete this post. These were a couple of the news links about the new study with the same results - this one by University of Washington regarding the minimum wage hikes in Seattle.

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Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/new-study-casts
-doubt-on-whether-a-15-minimum-wage-really-helps-workers/?utm_term=.ec388241b469

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/uw-study-finds-seattles-minimum-w
age-is-costing-jobs/

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So are $15 per hour employees leaving Seattle for cities that pay $7.50 because they prefer the lower wage and working more hours? And if they did leave Seattle that would be good because there would be less competition among the people left behind for low cost housing around Seattle. Looks like a win-win for everybody except employers. You know employers hate the idea of paying too much wages when they could get help so much cheaper if there weren't laws.

There really is no hard lower limit on wages other than employees starving to death or freezing to death on their days off.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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The problem between minimum wage as it is now and $15/hr is that you end up losing a lot of that extra money right out of the gates in all of the government benefits that you lose.

Somebody who is single with no kids making minimum wage gets around $200/mo in food stamps as well as energy assistance, $10/mo internet, a free cell phone and essentially free healthcare. A single mother with 3 kids gets around $500-600 a month in foodstamps, free healthcare for her and the kids, the energy assistance, $10/mo internet, a free cell phone and doesn't pay any federal income tax and gets around $9000.00 from the government in EIC credits.

Double the single person with no kids pay and they lose all of those benefits, which eats a huge chunk out of that extra pay.

Double the single mother's pay and she loses most of the benefits, although she gets to keep the EIC, minus whatever federal taxes she now must pay because she's in the payable brackets.


If benefit limits do not go up with the minimum wage increase, you're essentially putting the welfare burden off of the State and onto the businesses. I don't mind that so much when you're talking about McDonalds or WalMart, but that's not fair to small businesses.

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and only the smartest and toughest would make it and population control would happen under natural selection. A very tough pill for a lot of people to swallow, this option, but a few generations from now would see a Human Race of the highest caliber and most driven united people ever known.

---

There is nothing right about this, and so much wrong with this, it's hard to know where to start.

What did Darwin mean by 'survival of the fittest'? He certainly didn't mean a species where every member of that species is in deadly competition with every other member of that species for individual supremacy! He was talking about survival OF A SPECIES as a whole.

Being the 'fittest' means maximizing the survival of your offspring to the point where they have offspring of their own. That's how a species survives. Sometimes - especially for physically weak, social animals with extraordinarily dependent offspring, like us - it means cooperation and cleverness. Sometimes it means having so many offspring that nature can't eliminate them all. Sometimes it means having really good DNA repair mechanisms so that your species can survive environments other species can't. Sometimes it means being able to digest things other species can't.

That whole notion that somehow the species or some portion of it will improve by eliminating its 'weakest' members means that all the children die first, then the females. And oops - there goes the species. It's just stupid.

And how does making every individual compete with every other individual select for better individuals? Isn't it likely you'll select for the most heartless, most self-protective, and conniving, rather than the smartest, most courageous, and strongest?

And it REALLY doesn't make for the most united group either, as you claim! Not when someone else can only gain at your expense - and the other way around!



I truly have no idea how you've come to accept this notion. It makes no sense when you think about it.

---

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Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

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Like it or not Kiki, that is the future of the Human Race.

I don't have any kids and with my health issues I don't really plan on living another 20 or so years anyhow so I don't drive myself crazy with conspiracy theories anymore. I do believe in Agenda 21 or Agenda 2030 or whatever they're calling it these days. It doesn't make sense to me that the 1% of the 1% aren't coming up with a plan of population control as we speak.

Since most of us don't voluntarily curb our reproduction, and since our governments fail to incentivize it, overpopulation has become the biggest danger to the survival of the human race in the future.



What we are living under now is generations of government subsidized Dysgenics, where often the stupidest, weakest and least able to fend for themselves are the ones that are rewarded for having children. What did you think would happen?

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It doesn't make sense to me that the 1% of the 1% aren't coming up with a plan of population control as we speak.

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Why would they do that? People are like natural resources, to be strip-mined of work and market-potential. The more people ... the more better for the .001%

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Since most of us don't voluntarily curb our reproduction ...

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Then why are westernized countries worried about low birth-rates?

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government subsidized Dysgenics, where often the stupidest, weakest and least able to fend for themselves are the ones that are rewarded for having children ...

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You seem to be under a serious delusion that we live in a meritocracy - that somehow, individual ability determines where you end up in life.
Jack, I'm sure you think you're pretty smart, and blessed (in the past at least) with a winning smile, and charming ways. So, with all that going for you, why are you where you are? Did the meritocracy get you what you deserve?

---

---

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Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
Why would they do that? People are like natural resources, to be strip-mined of work and market-potential. The more people ... the more better for the .001%

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Why wouldn't they do that? Do you honestly think on a small scale at least they haven't already been doing it, mostly in places like Africa who nobody seems to care about much except for Bono.

We're not at critical mass yet. But it will happen. I'm sure they're at least getting their ducks in a row. I don't expect that I'll be one of the saved ones, but maybe I already have been just by the virtue of living in the US?

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Then why are westernized countries worried about low birth-rates?

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Because it makes a good news story.

White people in Westernized society have low birth rates. There is not low birth rates in any other demographic in Westernized societies.

The people at the top you referenced certainly aren't concerned about it. They don't care what color people are doing their slave labor for them, and usually the darker their skin the cheaper the labor is, so yanno...

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You seem to be under a serious delusion that we live in a meritocracy - that somehow, individual ability determines where you end up in life.
Jack, I'm sure you think you're pretty smart. blessed in the past at least with a winning smile, and charming ways. So, with all that going for you, why are you where you are. Did the meritocracy get you what you deserve?

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What gives you the idea I believe we live in a meritocracy? Everything I said including the mention of Dysgenics, which is the polar opposite of Eugenics, should have led you to the opposite conclusion.

The fact that we in no way live in a meritocracy has a lot to do with the fact I'm in my current employment status. I'd be disingenuous at best if I didn't shoulder at least an equal amount of that burden myself however. I have had opportunites to learn new things in my life that I have passed up or not fully taken advantage of.

And if I didn't shoulder my own responsibility for the things I've done wrong, I could also not take credit for the things I have done right, such as put myself in a position where I virtually have no bills or debts. If I have no responsibility for the bad things that have happened to me than the good things that have happened to me would not be things I could take credit for and I would be forced to concede that they were because of White or Male privilege instead of sacrificing and just being really smart with my money while I was making it.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
Why would they do that? People are like natural resources, to be strip-mined of work and market-potential. The more people ... the more better for the .001%

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Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
Why wouldn't they do that?

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Fewer desperate workers and captive markets would be one reason to NOT kill people off. But I digress. You were saying? ...

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Do you honestly think on a small scale at least they haven't already been doing it, mostly in places like Africa who nobody seems to care about much except for Bono.

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wn? i t honestly think that Africa is not an example of a master plan to kill people off en masse. The natural outcome of colonialism, Balkanized country boundaries, brutal capitalism in conjunction with corrupt dictators supported by the west (the US), desertification, and HIV I and II - yes, that's killing off a lot of people.

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We're not at critical mass yet.

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Who's 'we'? People in the US? People across the globe?

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But it will happen.

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What 'it' are you talking about?

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I'm sure they're at least getting their ducks in a row.

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Who's 'they'? And what are 'their' ducks?

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I don't expect that I'll be one of the saved ones

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Saved from what, by whom?

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but maybe I already have been just by the virtue of living in the US?

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You need to get out more.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
Then why are westernized countries worried about low birth-rates?

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Because it makes a good news story.
White people in Westernized society have low birth rates. There is not low birth rates in any other demographic in Westernized societies.

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The overall average has certainly gone down, and every group has gone down, though some more than others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States 1935 birth rate = 18.7 per 1,000; 2016 = 12.2.

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The people at the top you referenced certainly aren't concerned about it.

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Don't care about ... the birth rates going down? I thought you claim that they're actively promoting it.

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They don't care what color people are doing their slave labor for them, and usually the darker their skin the cheaper the labor is, so yanno...

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Except according to you, they're really trying to depopulate Africa? You're contradicting yourself at every opportunity.

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You seem to be under a serious delusion that we live in a meritocracy - that somehow, individual ability determines where you end up in life.
Jack, I'm sure you think you're pretty smart. blessed in the past at least with a winning smile, and charming ways. So, with all that going for you, why are you where you are. Did the meritocracy get you what you deserve?

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What gives you the idea I believe we live in a meritocracy?

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This, Jack " generations of government subsidized Dysgenics, where often the stupidest, weakest and least able to fend for themselves are the ones that are rewarded for having children (because they're too poor to manage by themselves)' You obviously think they're poor and live marginal lives because genetically, they're the "stupidest, weakest and least able to fend for themselves". They're at the bottom, where you seem to think they deserve to be - which is a meritocracy. And if it wasn't for the government helping out the genetically inferior, they would just die, already, like they're supposed to.

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Everything I said including the mention of Dysgenics, which is the polar opposite of Eugenics, should have led you to the opposite conclusion.

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No, jack, you're just really confused about what you're saying. You're saying stupid, weak people are poor and at the bottom social rungs, because our system of merit puts stupid, weak people there. That's what you're saying.

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The fact that we in no way live in a meritocracy has

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Originally posted by 1kiki:

Fewer desperate workers and captive markets would be one reason to NOT kill people off. But I digress. You were saying? ...

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As I say below and I've said before. We have an overabundance of labor now. Half of the people in the world could disappear tomorrow and it would not change anything for the people at the top. We just wouldn't have need for a fully staffed McDonalds at every other corner.

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wn? i t honestly think that Africa is not an example of a master plan to kill people off en masse. The natural outcome of colonialism, Balkanized country boundaries, brutal capitalism in conjunction with corrupt dictators supported by the west (the US), desertification, and HIV I and II - yes, that's killing off a lot of people.

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I'm just theorizing here. We don't have any idea what's really going on, and I could never prove that among all of that chaos that there are actually tests being done. We don't have to discuss that possibility if you don't want to even entertain the idea.

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Who's 'we'? People in the US? People across the globe?

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Both.

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What 'it' are you talking about?

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Critical Mass.

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Who's 'they'? And what are 'their' ducks?

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The people at the top who have all the real money and power.

Their "ducks" being the ability to solve this problem when it arises.

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Saved from what, by whom?

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Whatever the "solution" is. By those in power executing it.

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You need to get out more.

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You're probably right, although I don't see how your saying that or my doing it actually adds to this particular conversation.

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The overall average has certainly gone down, and every group has gone down, though some more than others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States 1935 birth rate = 18.7 per 1,000; 2016 = 12.2.

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And yet the population rate on the planet still rises. Fuzzy math?

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Don't care about ... the birth rates going down? I thought you claim that they're actively promoting it.

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No I don't. I said with Dysgenics, giving rewards to those who have children of all income levels whether it's poor people getting freebies or the more well off getting tax breaks for having children, there currently is no active promotion for not having children.

I'm saying that it needs to happen. If it doesn't happen voluntarily and/or isn't actively promoted in the near future than it will happen by more nefarious means when it becomes an unavoidable problem.

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Except according to you, they're really trying to depopulate Africa? You're contradicting yourself at every opportunity.

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I didn't say that. I'm not contradicting myself. What you are inferring is contradictory, not what I'm saying.

I am suggesting that some minor testing of things are likely being done in what they at least believe is a relatively contained environment. There is no actual massive extermination efforts going on now. Just smaller tests being done as a proof of concept for a larger "solution" should the need arise in the future.

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This, Jack " generations of government subsidized Dysgenics, where often the stupidest, weakest and least able to fend for themselves are the ones that are rewarded for having children (because they're too poor to manage by themselves)'

You obviously think they're poor and live marginal lives because genetically, they're the "stupidest, weakest and least able to fend for themselves". They're at the bottom, where you seem to think they deserve to be - which is a meritocracy. And if it wasn't for the government helping out the genetically inferior, they would just die, already, like they're supposed to.

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That's an oversimplification, but yes, in many ways the m

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Don't care about ... the birth rates going down? I thought you claim that they're actively promoting it.

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No I don't.

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That's not what you said.

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I said with Dysgenics, giving rewards to those who have children of all income levels whether it's poor people getting freebies or the more well off getting tax breaks for having children, there currently is no active promotion for not having children.

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That's not what you said.

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I'm saying that it needs to happen. If it doesn't happen voluntarily and/or isn't actively promoted in the near future than it will happen by more nefarious means when it becomes an unavoidable problem.

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Except according to you, they're really trying to depopulate Africa? You're contradicting yourself at every opportunity.

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I didn't say that. I'm not contradicting myself. What you are inferring is contradictory, not what I'm saying.

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That's not what you said.

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I am suggesting that some minor testing of things are likely being done in what they at least believe is a relatively contained environment. There is no actual massive extermination efforts going on now. Just smaller tests being done as a proof of concept for a larger "solution" should the need arise in the future.

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This, Jack " generations of government subsidized Dysgenics, where often the stupidest, weakest and least able to fend for themselves are the ones that are rewarded for having children (because they're too poor to manage by themselves)'
You obviously think they're poor and live marginal lives because genetically, they're the "stupidest, weakest and least able to fend for themselves". They're at the bottom, where you seem to think they deserve to be - which is a meritocracy. And if it wasn't for the government helping out the genetically inferior, they would just die, already, like they're supposed to.

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That's an oversimplification, but yes, in many ways the most poor anywhere are the ones least equipped to survive on their own. There are always exceptions to the rule, but let's not start going all SJW and pretending that this isn't generally the truth.

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But it's not true. There's very little upward mobility in the US. People end up pretty much at the level they were born into. That's not genetics - it's a social caste system that keeps rich people rich and poor people poor, no matter what their individual abilities. And some of the stupidest people I've known were born rich.

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No, jack, you're just really confused about what you're saying. ...You're saying stupid, weak people are poor, because our system of merit put them there. That's what you're saying.

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Yes and no. Stupid and weak people are poor because they are weak and stupid. This would happen regardless of the existence of a meritocracy or not.

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Then you don't know what a meritocracy is: "a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement"

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That's just called survival of the fittest. In the animal kingdom where there is no welfare these people would not procreate because they would have already been eaten.

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Reading not your 'thing'? I've already provided real-life examples showing that your suppositions are pure falsehood.

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What if those OPPORTUNITIES were unearned - for example, as a result of being a white male? What if being a white male automatically gave you advantages that you aren't even aware of?

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I'm not going to say that this never happens, but I worked hard for what I had gotten, and although it's pointless to "brag" about intelligence when you can't prove it, I am extremely intelligent and always tested in the top 1% in tests as a child. [/quote

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
That's not what you said.

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Yes it is.

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That's not what you said.

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Yes it is.

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That's not what you said.

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Yes it is.

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But it's not true. There's very little upward mobility in the US. People end up pretty much at the level they were born into. That's not genetics - it's a social caste system that keeps rich people rich and poor people poor, no matter what their individual abilities. And some of the stupidest people I've known were born rich.

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Well there's the conundrum of such a ridiculously huge issue. No matter what I say, somebody like you is going to find a reason to just say that I'm wrong.

There is very little upward mobility in the US. I said we don't live in a meritocracy. At least not a true one. There are little microcosms of meritocracy here and there though. For every dummy I knew growing up who got a comfortable union job handed to them because their daddy was in the union, I can also show you a black man who came up from nothing and has a successful career and is doing way better than I've ever done.

It's foolish and self-destructive behavior to just say that there is absolutely no benefit to hard work. You might be okay with labeling yourself a victim for one reason or another. I'm not going to do it.

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Reading not your 'thing'? I've already provided real-life examples showing that your suppositions are pure falsehood.

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Fuck you. You've provided talking points and bullshit. Your opinion is no more valid than mine on any of this, and I haven't said anything insulting to you here, while everything you say is dripping with condescension.

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And yet there are people who are far smarter and work far harder but will never aspire to your level of poverty because they were born the wrong sex, or with the wrong skin color, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

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Citation needed.

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You don't. Not in a system that rewards things like sex, skin color, and height.

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Again. Fuck you.

And just for reference. I'm only 5' 6" tall.

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You do.

You're a raving egomaniac that has soured into Social Darwinism, racism and sexism. I'm just waiting for you to officially become a Nazi and promote the cause of eliminating undesirables. You already agree with it, you just don't want to make the effort - at the moment.

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I don't agree with it. I'm just saying that it's inevitable.

I've also said that there is no reason that when it does that my own head will not be on the chopping block.

So much for your Egomaniac Theory, I guess.

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