Minimum Wage Increase to $9 Per Hour

[Dmunjal]

Originally Posted by citizenzen

We need the entire country to be entrepreneurs or venture capitalists?

No, we need to be profitable as a country. That means a trade surplus which leads to a current account surplus.

[iMikeT]

Originally Posted by Dmunjal

What I'm saying is that there is no free lunch. If you try to stimulate demand by raising the minimum wage, paying extra unemployment insurance, borrowing or printing money to stimulate the people to consume, etc. it will not improve the economy or create new jobs.

So we need to stop any kind of economic stimulation which would result in the flow of money to come to a grinding halt? Right....

Have you ever played the board game Monopoly? What happens when one person owns all the properties and money and is unable stimulate the flow of money in the game? It's game over buddy....... Sheesh, an 8 year old can clearly understand that fact.

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Originally Posted by Dmunjal

No, we need to be profitable as a country.

I agree, we as a country need to be profitable as a whole society where money is spread among the many who will spend it and not have wealth concentrated to the few who will hoard it.

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by Dmunjal

No, we need to be profitable as a country. That means a trade surplus which leads to a current account surplus.

It would seem to me that if we're creating a trade surplus it would be because we're manufacturing many inexpensive, though desirable products.

With the cost of labor being what it is worldwide, we'd have to match that in order to compete price-wise.

So you're essentially asking for American workers to make a couple of dollars an hour.

China’s hourly manufacturing labor rates are far below rates in Japan ($27.80) and Taiwan ($8.68) but roughly on par with nations like the Philippines ($1.68). China manufacturing compensation costs slightly higher than those in India. Many EMS / ODM companies in China, especially those making PCs, are moving operations inland.

http://www.ventureoutsource.com/cont...tion-costs-ems

How could anybody get by in the U.S. making $16 per day?

[Dmunjal]

Originally Posted by iMikeT

So we need to stop any kind of economic stimulation which would result in the flow of money to come to a grinding halt? Right....

Have you ever played the board game Monopoly? What happens when one person owns all the properties and money and is unable stimulate the flow of money in the game? It's game over buddy....... Sheesh, an 8 year old can clearly understand that fact.

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I agree, we as a country need to be profitable as a whole society where money is spread among the many who will spend it and not have wealth concentrated to the few who will hoard it.

We are in agreement. But we don't agree on the right way to address it.

Redistribution does not and will never work. But crony capitalism doesn't work either. It results in the wealth being concentrated with the few and well connected to those in power.

The fact is that a majority of companies and rich CEOs are not crooks and deserve their wealth through their hard work. They are not the enemy. Neither are the poor who are characterized as takers.

What we need to do is level the playing field. Both parties play to their lobbies and don't really support the average middle class worker.

The 47% and 53% should get together and throw out the ruling .01% (mostly financiers) that are destroying this country.

[iMikeT]

Originally Posted by Dmunjal

We are in agreement. But we don't agree on the right way to address it.

Redistribution does not and will never work. But crony capitalism doesn't work either. It results in the wealth being concentrated with the few and well connected to those in power.

The fact is that a majority of companies and rich CEOs are not crooks and deserve their wealth through their hard work. They are not the enemy. Neither are the poor who are characterized as takers.

What we need to do is level the playing field. Both parties play to their lobbies and don't really support the average middle class worker.

The 47% and 53% should get together and throw out the ruling .01% (mostly financiers) that are destroying this country.

I agree with about 80% of what you said. Complete redistribution will not work on it's own but how about redistributing the excess, which there is plenty of at the top? Also, I'm not sure it's a quantifiable fact that many CEOs and executives are not crooks who want to make as much money as they can. Yeah, people go into business to make money. But making by stomping on your employees is totally something else, just look at Walmart or Hostess.

The level playing field is exactly what we need as a whole. Wealthy people become even wealthier when everyone else around them also becomes wealthy.

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by Dmunjal

What we need to do is level the playing field.

Here's how I'd level the playing field ...

Open borders.

If companies can off-shore labor, then let labor move freely to find work.

[iMikeT]

Originally Posted by citizenzen

Here's how I'd level the playing field ...

Open borders.

If companies can off-shore labor, then let labor move freely to find work.

What happens when a laborer moves to a place where the wage is all ready low and the employer is looking for laborers who will take a job for less? That's racing to the bottom if you ask me.

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by iMikeT

What happens when a laborer moves to a place where the wage is all ready low and the employer is looking for laborers who will take a job for less? That's racing to the bottom if you ask me.

I agree. It's a complete race to the bottom.

And it's probably inevitable.

Seems to me to be where we're headed.

[Zombie Acorn]

Originally Posted by Dmunjal

But profits from corporations go primarily to shareholders. These shareholders are regular people, too. Retirees, pension funds, employees, etc. All you're talking about is moving money from one place to another. That's not progress.

People working minimum wage jobs their whole lives won't have to worry about being shareholders or retiring.

[Dmunjal]

Originally Posted by Zombie Acorn

People working minimum wage jobs their whole lives won't have to worry about being shareholders or retiring.

Two points. One, while I acknowledge the issue with the working poor, this is not the way to fix it. Redistribution and increased debt affects us all without improving the lives of the working poor because it eventually raises prices.

Second, there are millions of stories of minimum wage earners (me included) who go on to succeed in higher paying jobs so these jobs aren't necessarily dead ends.

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by Dmunjal

Second, there are millions of stories of minimum wage earners (me included) who go on to succeed in higher paying jobs so these jobs aren't necessarily dead ends.

Of course there are.

Yet that doesn't changed the fact that there has always been—and for the foreseeable future, will always be—an underclass.

[gsugolfer]

When you have an entitlement system that is as tightly ingrained to society as ours is, there will ALWAYS be an underclass.

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by gsugolfer

When you have an entitlement system that is as tightly ingrained to society as ours is, there will ALWAYS be an underclass.

You'd have to explain why there has likewise been an underclass for the thousands of years humans existed without "tightly engrained entitlement systems".

[gsugolfer]

Originally Posted by citizenzen

You'd have to explain why there has likewise been an underclass for the thousands of years humans existed without "tightly engrained entitlement systems".

In those "thousands of years" you couldn't as easily move yourself up through ranks as you can now. With some hard work, someone from nothing can become something completely new. It's been stated by multiple people in this thread.

[Dmunjal]

Originally Posted by gsugolfer

In those "thousands of years" you couldn't as easily move yourself up through ranks as you can now. With some hard work, someone from nothing can become something completely new. It's been stated by multiple people in this thread.

This is the point. Government exists to create equal opportunities but not equal outcomes. There should be a safety net for those down on their luck. But how do explain welfare programs that some stay on for years or even generations? Or unemployment that lasts 99 weeks?

I see immigrants with absolutely nothing come to this country and succeed. It is possible.

[Eraserhead]

Originally Posted by gsugolfer

In those "thousands of years" you couldn't as easily move yourself up through ranks as you can now.

You can move easily now? Why don't more people do it?

Originally Posted by gsugolfer

With some hard work, someone from nothing can become something completely new. It's been stated by multiple people in this thread.

That's been true for centuries if you've got the drive - Capability Brown did it in the 18th century.

[gsugolfer]

Originally Posted by Eraserhead

You can move easily now? Why don't more people do it?

Because they don't have to. Your basic needs can all be provided by the government.

[Eraserhead]

Originally Posted by gsugolfer

Because they don't have to. Your basic needs can all be provided by the government.

In the past ones basic needs were provided by the land.

[NT1440]

Originally Posted by gsugolfer

Because they don't have to. Your basic needs can all be provided by the government.

....

I don't know how the benefits are in Georgia, but you can't make it here in New England on aid alone. Much of it is contingent on being able to show that you are looking for work week to week.

[Eraserhead]

Originally Posted by NT1440

....

I don't know how the benefits are in Georgia, but you can't make it here in New England on aid alone. Much of it is contingent on being able to show that you are looking for work week to week.

And not having a job must be bloody boring.

[gsugolfer]

Originally Posted by NT1440

....

I don't know how the benefits are in Georgia, but you can't make it here in New England on aid alone. Much of it is contingent on being able to show that you are looking for work week to week.

I don't have a clue what the requirements are, but I've been up close and personal with people who live day to day with no job and solely off government benefits.

Originally Posted by Eraserhead

And not having a job must be bloody boring.

If you don't know what it's like to work for something, it wouldn't be as strange.

[Eraserhead]

Originally Posted by gsugolfer

I don't have a clue what the requirements are, but I've been up close and personal with people who live day to day with no job and solely off government benefits.

OK, what percentage of the population do they make up?

[gsugolfer]

Originally Posted by Eraserhead

OK, what percentage of the population do they make up?

I neither know, nor care what percentage of the population they make up. One is too many.

[Eraserhead]

Originally Posted by gsugolfer

I neither know, nor care what percentage of the population they make up. One is too many.

Lets say its 1% - that still doesn't explain why the overwhelming majority of the remaining 99% still find it so difficult to rise through society.

[gsugolfer]

Originally Posted by Eraserhead

Lets say its 1% - that still doesn't explain why the overwhelming majority o the remain 99% still find it so difficult to rise through society.

What excuse does one have for not educating themselves? Hell, in Georgia, you can go to a tech school FOR FREE with a 2.0 high school GPA.