The Point that Living Wage Supporters Ignore

a reply to: stolencar18

You are trying to have a logical economic discussion with people who are only thinking emotionally. The other thing that gets left out is that these evil companies by in large are public companies. This means the shareholders either directly or indirectly are you and I. The shareholders are pension funds, hedge funds, private equity shops, and all the way down to the individual mom & pop investor with a small ETrade account. The people complaining are invested in these companies and they are too stupid to realize it. Their 401ks, pensions, and other retirement investments would likely vaporate under these ill thoughtout schemes.

originally posted by: schuyler


The reason you can't get a job is because you are insufficiently educated to qualify for the millions of jobs that are in demand. You couldn't hack the math or the intellectual rigor required so you punted with another B.A. in English, and now you say there are no jobs.

You guys are already on the dole, and now you just want more dole.

Your post was well written until you wrote this. Not sure what kind of world you think you live in, but reality isn't that simple. Not everyone is born into a life where getting a full college degree is easy. The media likes to focus on the middle class and ignore the lower-middle and working classes, along with those born into outright poverty. It seems you like to ignore these people, too. We can't control what type of life we are born into. The first 15 years or so of our lives are determined for us. Current society and economical systems determine that many people aren't allowed to have opportunities just because they were born into a life that put them at a severe disadvantage.

As far as education goes.. well.. you can go for that piece of paper. Yet, something tells me you weren't unfortunate enough to have to go to a cheap college where the level of education being provided is less than that of a public high school.

a reply to: OhOkYeah
Whaaa...Whaaaa.... I have heard this all before. It can be done. I did it. Is it easy, HELL NO....but it is possible if you want it so bad YOU go out and make it happen for YOU. Most of the kids I grew up with ended up in jail or dead. I decided to take the harder road and not the easy road of stealing and selling drugs for the fast buck (only to squander it away needlessly for a momentary pleasure).

It can be done....unless you sit there and whine and blame others for your life. That will lead you nowhere, I guarantee that.

Take charge of you life, YOURSELF!

Seek out the hard opportunities!

Persevere to the end!

Never give up!

When you get there, you will have earned it and valued it more than anything given to you for free.

I think there needs to be a basic minimum wage, just so employers can't legally take advantage of vulnerable people.

Having a high minimum wage though is detrimental to the economy. As mentioned in the OP, the big corporations are not going to just take it on the chin... there will be price increases and/or staff redundancies. Some corporations may move their headquarters elsewhere so they don't pay any corporation tax at all, and small/medium sized companies will be more reluctant to hire additional staff.

For me in England, the solutions would be to make it so you don't pay income tax at all, up to just over the minimum wage. Increase the threshold for when the middle class start paying the higher rate tax, increase income tax to 45% for the high earners and maybe introduce a new tax band for the people on £500k+ salaries.

We also need to get a grip on the current mass uncontrolled immigration we have at the moment. This has deflated wages for low payed/unskilled workers massively. Why would companies increase wages when they can get over 100 applications applying for a single job?

Finally, to pay for it all, the UK needs to start spending her money more wisely. I would go into more detail but that is for another thread.

originally posted by: OhOkYeah

Not everyone is born into a life where getting a full college degree is easy. The media likes to focus on the middle class and ignore the lower-middle and working classes, along with those born into outright poverty. It seems you like to ignore these people, too. We can't control what type of life we are born into. The first 15 years or so of our lives are determined for us. Current society and economical systems determine that many people aren't allowed to have opportunities just because they were born into a life that put them at a severe disadvantage.

Why should a college degree be easy to get?
They are accessible to everyone though.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: stolencar18

Why should any one of us care?

Have we come to the point where the nanny state is expected and assumed?

People should take the responsibility to provide for themselves. I know the disabled can't, there are programs for them. For everyone else? Work. Quit your whining. It is not society's job to be your nursemaid.

So tired of those trying to justify theft.

EDIT; this is just to the theme, not you, OP.

I agree with you. I'm not defending the "gimme generation". I'm very opposed to it, in fact. I firmly believe there are ALWAYS jobs available, and there are always opportunities. The trouble is nobody wants to earn it anymore. Now, teens whine that a paper route is too hard. Nobody works their way up anymore. Too lazy...

Not saying everyone is lazy, but the "gimme generation" is. Get a crappy entry level dirty hands-on job. Work hard. Keep your head down and your mouth shut and you'll move up, college or not.

You used the right word. What the gimme generation is doing is basically theft.

a reply to: Edumakated

You nailed it. The company that I work for is owned by a corporation. I own stock in that corporation, therefore I OWN PART OF THAT CORPORATION . I happen to reinvest MY dividends (my share of the corporation's profits) into more stock increasing the amount of the corporation that I own.

originally posted by: Vector99

originally posted by: spirit_horse
a reply to: stolencar18

Agreed. I saw a breakdown and if they took all the money from the rich it would provide about $640 per person in the US.

I don't know where you got your numbers from, but if you took the wealth of the top 400 wealthiest people in the US and distributed their money evenly in the US (babies included), around 300 million people would instantly get around $7,600, and only 400 would be broke.

source

Perhaps it was the result of them taking the 1% or a fraction of vs. 400 wealthiest. Not sure how the numbers were chosen is the article I read, which was some time ago and I don't recall where it was. Still, that money would be gone quick and then what? We wouldn't have the movers and shakers with the money to drive new businesses and projects which give people jobs. These people, for the most part, have shown their ability to manage money and they usually earned what they have.

Yes, it sucks to not have the capital to invest and use to generate your own wealth. That is a huge problem with the way things are set up with the central banks and credit today. The people that have shown the ability and means can get capital at 0 or near 0 interest and use it to make much more money. People with no assets can't and will have to work as a debt slave. These people create corporations so they are not personally responsible if they lose large amounts of capital. That is just smart business to protect yourself.

Without education, people don;t learn all the ins and outs of the system and how to go about such activities successfully. And the thing about it is these people that think socialism works will find that everything is controlled by central planners. They will never be able to get to the upper class as a result of the system being politically controlled by the bourgeois class, something that in a system of being rewarded for your own work can allow the individual that wants to get the education and work hard to get ahead of the others. In a socialist system, what happens in reality is that people do the minimum work they have to because it doesn't matter. They get the same basic wage everyone else does. It brings everyone down, not up. There is a reason the US ended up being the world's sole super-power and has climbed to such great prosperity after being a country for a relatively short period of time compared to others.

Taking from the wealthy will not solve anything and will only bring down the system overall. They may be rich, but if redistributed it will not be enough to bring people up much less be sustainable. It is a pie in the sky dream of socialists that has been proven through history to not work out. Not for the majority anyway.

The problem we see today is there is a dwindling opportunity for the masses. The elite's plan for this is depopulation and they will attempt it. They know there will be less jobs through automation and that the sheer number of people in the world is unsustainable. In Asia off their coasts in the Pacific they have trawled out most of the fish in the upper 400 or 500 ft of depth. Now most fishermen are dragging nets at 1,500' or so and depletion is well underway. There just are not enough resources for the size of the population and things are going to get much worse before they get better. That idea of reducing the world population to 500 million wasn't just thrown out as some random number, but had a basis in future opportunity for employment and resource extraction of the future. They intend on having only 60 million people in the US as soon as 2025. Whether they trigger events to make such a thing come to pass remains to be seen. Let them disarm Americans and it will be much easier for them. The problem with the US is we use 80% of the energy resources and are like 3-5% of the world population, same with medicine. They fully intend on reducing us to match our population and that means great suffering and loss. They have no intention on redistributing their wealth to the common masses, believe that.

a reply to: pexx421

I see your point, but your not going to convince me...I have been on the street homeless, living entirely out of one small bag of clothes. I found a church that let me sleep in the back room and one job led to another till I was able to go and get an appartment, and with an address came stable work. Then college and now middle class. If you want the quality jobs to stick around people need to work hard not just at work but at the ballot box. Start holding elected officials accountable for creating an environment hostile toward business, and stop spending money unwisely. Yes you have to be constantly honing your skills and adapting as businesses change, rise, and fall...but that's part of being a contributing mber of society. Otherwise next year you will have the same argument...raise the minimum wage to $15...$20...$30... Where will it end?

As to the Walmart....its not about giving their profits to the workers. The math has already been done, and by a one time price hike of 1 to 2% Walmart can double the minimum wage for all its workers to 15$ an hour. I think we could all handle that.