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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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As Potatoes pointed out, though, a number of low-wage businesses (McDonalds, Wal-Mart, BK, etc.) exploit low-income workers of all stripes and then use the social safety net to cover the difference
, effectively using the government to subsidize their workers while posting multi-billion dollar Net profits
.
Although I'll also admit that that's a fault with our current expectations when it comes to capitalism - we expect 'nothing' but growth, higher profits, bigger bottom lines, and larger dividends year after year, which is a 100% unreal expectation to have. It'll take a cultural shift to get out of that massive pitfall.
edited 27th Jan '16 11:47:45 AM by ironballs16
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"Dude. You cannot deny the existence of the entire industry of medical tourism that is profiting a shitton out of U.S citizens seeking treatment abroad with the final argument of "NUH HUH IT DOESNT!"
The liver transplant surgery in taiwan is but one example. Compare 91k to 300k.
Over 750.000 U.S citizens seek treatment abroad and the number is only predicted to grow
"Nuh huh!" Won't cut it. The lack of affordable healthcare (not counting Obamacare, which is relatively new) is something deadly to the U.S citizen's pockets.
Except make those numbers the following:
Then go on over to The medians
and take into account the majority are going to be in the mid 30k rates
Get sick once during that time and you get screwed.
It is not that college is expensive or not, it is that college is expensive compared to the incomes available.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes![]()
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Of course it can't be easily trusted; it doesn't agree with the mighty "Denmark is anti-free trade" Fighteer.
I just thought that, maybe, a well respected study of experts would hold at least a fraction of the credibility of an unsourced comment on the Internet.
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Then increase taxes on the wealthy and redistribute it via the social safety net and welfare. You know, like what the Nordics do. All increasing the minimum wage does is cause unemployment and transfer the burden of the payment from the wealthy to the middle class.
Your conclusions are illogical, again. You showed that the majority of college graduates would be earning around the average, which is why it is, you know, an average. And that's not even considering it's going to be increasing over the years. $20,000- which includes living expenses over those four years- is a pittance when paid over several years with incomes that high. College being super expensive is another dumb myth (unless you're a triple digit income earning family; in which case it is expensive, because you're financing that UC 55%, but then you can damn well afford it).
The problem is that the US middle class wants to have a lot of luxuries they can't always afford. Most prominently, living space.
edited 27th Jan '16 12:18:24 PM by Nihlus1
Don't put words in my mouth. I neither said nor implied that Denmark is anti-free trade. I said that the United States is deeply hypocritical on free trade, insisting that other countries open their barriers whilst engaging in a variety of anti-competitive practices.
I also said that driving wages down through unregulated immigrant labor and offshoring of manufacturing and service jobs does not inure to the benefit of the American public.
edited 27th Jan '16 12:17:33 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Actually, you said that Sanders' (anti-free trade) economic policy is similar to the Nordic policy (to the point you quite rudely accused me of making stuff up when I said otherwise). Which it isn't. At all.
The only way you couldn't have actually been saying "Denmark is anti-free trade" is if you had absolutely no idea what Sanders' economic policy actually was.
And I said the wages being driven down from immigration is largely a harmful myth (the "foreigners" reinvest cash in the American economy and create new jobs, and unemployment dropped like a brick at the height of outsourcing), while the outsourcing of jobs actually helps most Americans by increasing their purchasing power. In addition to helping foreigners by quintupling their wages, but they're mostly Chinese, who should be poor and destitute lest they surpass us.
edited 27th Jan '16 12:24:52 PM by Nihlus1
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Sanders publicly admired Denmark's social welfare and healthcare programs. That had nothing to do with free trade policy.
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Which is an entirely separate problem from the minimum wage discussion.
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Except you were the one disputing that he did want to follow their economic model after I said he didn't. You cited him wanting to follow their social model as evidence, ignoring that the social model had nothing to do with the economic model I was talking about.
edited 27th Jan '16 12:29:00 PM by Nihlus1
If I said so, I was incorrect. I did not mean to.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"IF they get employment (30% chance they did not). IF they studied certain things (Which over half of them dont). IF they were part of those who graduated...and IF the universities were as lenient on their payment as you profess...
Yeah your average college grad is going to be fine
edited 27th Jan '16 12:30:44 PM by Aszur
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesInvestment does not "create new jobs". Not now, when we are mired in a deep wage-productivity slump. The financial markets these days form a closed circle, withholding increasingly large amounts of money from circulation. Investment in production capacity fulfills demand, but it can't create demand that does not exist except via the trickle-down effects of increasing employment, which cannot redound to the benefit of the investor at the scale that the private sector is capable of managing.
Investment in infrastructure does boost demand, but I don't think that the Chinese are paying for us to build roads and bridges. You are immersed in the supply-side myth and need to understand basic economic principles.
Outsourcing jobs may make products cheaper (although I would point out cases where it instead merely allows the producer to increase its markup — *cough* Apple) but it does not increase the incomes available to American consumers with which to buy those products. If you are unemployed, it matters not if a car is 20% less expensive than it would be if manufactured domestically. You still can't buy it.
Reaching abroad, the idea that exports are necessary for a nation to build its internal standard of living is not necessarily true. What developing nations need is domestic investment: the kind that provides local jobs to buy locally produced products. Trying to boost one's domestic economy by selling shit to rich foreigners that is made with cheap labor is a shell game; it doesn't provide nearly the degree of improvement that one might imagine and most of the profits are skimmed off by the wealthy.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"No, you'll be paying the Chinese to build roads, bridges and power stations.
Of course, that depends on what local resources are available.
On another note, I take it then that you support autarky and closed economies, whenever possible? For example, would you like to re-open coal mines to provide jobs and reduce imports?
edited 27th Jan '16 12:47:06 PM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling OnCoal mines are obsolete in almost all ways imaginable, so that's not really the kind of thing I have in mind, no. A reliance on exports seems to be the standard path for most developing nations, but I find myself doubting its efficacy.
I do not advocate closed economies, but I strongly oppose the idea of predatory economies: the obsolete mercantilist viewpoint that one must dominate one's neighbors through trade.
edited 27th Jan '16 12:48:35 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"So I'm watching the news right now: local authorities have finally called the occupation of the wildlife refuge illegal and said that the occupiers need to leave. If they said how they plan to get those people out I missed it. And it does appear that it's the tarp guy that died, since they showed the interview with him flat out saying he'd rather die than end up in a cell from last week.
Y'all Qaeda is leaving that refuge in body bags or in handcuffs. They get to choose which.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"No, it was clarifying things. They only arrested like six to eight people, and I'm pretty sure there's still at least a few people left at the refuge. I don't think they were ever having just everyone leave the place at the same time, that would have made it too easy for the feds/police to get in there and prevent them from reentering.
@Nihlus
Actually, that wouldn't solve the underlying issue that companies are posting multi-billion dollar (net!) profits while paying their employees so little they still qualify for Welfare. Business expenses and personal expenses are two entirely different fields, and the low wages fall under business.
Aside from that, as Fighteer pointed out, in spite of record productivity rates, the average pay for workers has remained stagnant
. TL;DR - net income for businesses has gone way up (74%), but income for the employees has remained flat (9% growth) in spite of being the ones driving that income by becoming more efficient. Whereas the guys at the top of the pyramid have seen a''937% increase
in salaries (including stock options) since the 1978. For comparison, the CEO-to-worker ratio in '78 was $20-$1, while it was $295.9-$1 in 2013 (after peaking at $383.4-$1 in 2000).
Although one thing worth noting, that also ties in with what you're saying, is that this is partially due to the globalized economy - and the hope is that the exploited workers in China, India, Burma, and basically all of Southeast Asia start taking notice and pushing for the same reforms as we in the US did when we industrialized.
edited 27th Jan '16 1:15:04 PM by ironballs16
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"Note of interest:
Billmon
, a respected US Politics Blogger on Twitter
is arguing that if Trump fails to secure nomination and Sanders does, Trump's voters oddly enough, swing from Trump to Sanders based on current analysis.
Similar analysis indicates Republicans are in a dilemma with the general, with HRC:
- Trump vs HRC: Republicans lose Single Women, Hispanics, Other Minorites
- Not-Trump vs HRC or Sanders: Republicans lose Trump's white voter base to Democrats or they stay home.
Basically, Republicans self ratfucked. Whoever provides most leftist/protectionist/nativist Econ platform wins election based on current platform. Americans are saying no to globalization, as is their choice.
Good secondary point:
Something I should note, whether or not it is overall good policy, the idea of $15 wage is not some wild, unprecedented idea that is unique to Sanders.
O'Malley also supports it (Clinton supports $12/hour) and it's being advocated in a lot of American cities and I think adopted in at least one (Seattle? Others?)
So no, supporting a $15 minimum wage does not make Sanders a Jan Peron-esque revolutionary.
And yeah, as others have noted, that's not a particularly high wage in this economy, especially because most people who work minimum wage jobs are supporting families. The "teenage burger flipper" is no longer the reality.
Again? Although for what it's worth, I actually wouldn't be surprised if true. I've heard that some of Bernie's more vocal supporters don't play well with non-whites who are skeptical of him.
edited 27th Jan '16 1:08:37 PM by Hodor2
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They aren't exactly stupid either; For all that they've been coming and going it wasn't ever all of them at once. I mean, one of the basics of seizing a place is you keep someone there; they knew that much. They got in because no one was occupying the building at the time they arrived.
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Ok so that was crushed as a troll post. Was it not true or something?
edited 27th Jan '16 1:10:23 PM by AceofSpades

Not that you shouldn't have some faith in them, but keep in mind their well, so to speak, has been poisoned by quackery.
edited 27th Jan '16 11:52:15 AM by PotatoesRock