A question about lowest-income workers, for Conservatives/Libertarians

[Mach]

In my own San Jose, a full-time minimum wage job literally does not pay enough to make rent on a one-bedroom apartment.

Eliminate this sort of brain-dead thinking is how you change it.

If cost of living in area > income you could:
- cry/whine
- pursue higher income
- pursue area where cost of living is lower than income

Things not to do:
- continue doing the same thing and ponder why it doesn't work
- use debt to offset the high cost of living
- demand someone else care for you (barring a serious disability/circumstance)

That you believe most people are incapable of this simple calculus surely is not legitimate.

Really, why not identify how many people really need this "help" you believe they need. Then categorize them. Some number are disabled or handicapped, etc. How many of that total? Some are basically retired and have very low fixed living expenses and while they may not live in luxury, they do not have to work while living a reasonably comfortable life, are you counting them? Some really are victims, but are not disabled per se. A kid who had really terrible parents, was terrifically poor, and had terrible childhood education, etc., might more legitimately have it hard. But if they are of sound mind/body, being an adult is about specifically, ensuring you help yourself. That's what maturity is about, isn't it?

 

[Mycroft]

My, my... such ignorance.

Tell your "hyperbole" nonsense to the rebellious folks that have torn up Egypt, Tunisia and Libya in the Middle East. Those rebellions were caused by massive unemployment.

More off-topic nonsense...typical.

I have backed up my rhetoric with cites. The world has an unemployment level of 200 million. That is a fact. Deal with it. What are we going to do with that many unemployed, worldwide? Ignore them? That's what caused the Arab Spring.

In case you haven't noticed...the U.S. has very little in common with the Middle East.

So, again: Do you have enough bullets to hold off a few million hungry people in the USA who will be looking for work and food if we don't help them? No? Then that is why we need to help these people.

There is no danger of your hyperbolic doomsday scenario happening in the U.S. At least not until the leftists have completed their idiotic agenda. By the time that happens...we are ****ed as a country anyway. It won't matter if the unskilled don't have jobs...nobody else will either.

 

[Fenton]

Because the world is experiencing a job
shortage that is now at the level of 200 million and will swell to 600 million.

Do you have enough bullets to hold off a few million hungry people in the USA who will be looking for work and food if we don't help them? No? Then that is why we need to help these people.

</thread>

Its experiencing a job shortage because liberal idiots elected Joe Cool to be president......twice.

The world economy is dependant on the American economy.

Go figure.

So now we are basically being threatened at gun point to hire the people that most likely elected Obama.

 

[Zalatix]

There is no danger of your hyperbolic doomsday scenario happening in the U.S. At least not until the leftists have completed their idiotic agenda. By the time that happens...we are ****ed as a country anyway. It won't matter if the unskilled don't have jobs...nobody else will either.

It's your brain dead right wing agenda that has caused not only increased joblessness but also the exploding national debt. What happened to the debt under Dubya?

The world would be a better place if all the righties were rounded up and stuck on a desert island.

 

[Mycroft]

It's your brain dead right wing agenda that has caused not only increased joblessness but also the exploding national debt. What happened to the debt under Dubya?

The world would be a better place if all the righties were rounded up and stuck on a desert island.

LOL!!!

Again with the hyperbole, eh? Well, I can employ hyperbole, as well. It is just as real as yours.

The righties are all that have kept the U.S. from becoming a desert island.


btw, I just read your sig...and had to laugh. Thank you.

 

[Zalatix]

LOL!!!

Again with the hyperbole, eh? Well, I can employ hyperbole, as well. It is just as real as yours.

Hyperbole is your go-to word now, ain't it? It's like you learned something new and you use it as much as you can, to impress your parents and teachers.

There is nothing hyperbolic about what I said. The national debt did explode under Bush. Job growth stagnated under Dubya as well.

The righties are all that have kept the U.S. from becoming a desert island.

Only by scaring people into voting Left to keep your fellow rabid zombies out of power.

Bloomberg Warns High US Unemployment Could Lead to Riots - ABC News

Bloomberg Warns High US Unemployment Could Lead to Riots

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned today that public frustration over joblessness in the U.S. is in danger of boiling over and could lead to riots in the streets if the government fails to create more jobs.

“You have a lot of kids graduating college who can’t find jobs. That’s what happened in Cairo. That’s what happened in Madrid. You don’t want those kinds of riots here,” Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show, referencing the riots in Egypt that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

The protests in Madrid that he spoke of were sparked when the Spanish government spent millions to welcome Pope Benedict despite the country’s widespread unemployment.

My comments about Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are spot-on. Mayor Bloomberg, a Plutocrat, agrees with me.

Who do you have that agrees with you? A few nobody Conservaclowns? LOL.

 

[Mycroft]

Hyperbole is your go-to word now, ain't it? It's like you learned something new and you use it as much as you can, to impress your parents and teachers.

There is nothing hyperbolic about what I said. The national debt did explode under Bush. Job growth stagnated under Dubya as well.


Only by scaring people into voting Left to keep your fellow rabid zombies out of power.

Bloomberg Warns High US Unemployment Could Lead to Riots - ABC News

My comments about Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are spot-on. Mayor Bloomberg, a Plutocrat, agrees with me.

Who do you have that agrees with you? A few nobody Conservaclowns? LOL.

Oh, I've know about and seen hyperbole for quite some time. Since your posts are rife with it, I've been using the word a bit more than usual. So it goes.

Anyway, I'd like to point out that two hyperbolic liberals do not equal reality.

 

[Zalatix]

Oh, I've know about and seen hyperbole for quite some time.

Not really. You have shown that you clearly don't even understand the meaning of the word. Describing your grasp of reality as adequate? Now THAT is an example of hyperbole and overexaggeration!

 

[Mycroft]

Not really. You have shown that you clearly don't even understand the meaning of the word. Describing your grasp of reality as adequate? Now THAT is an example of hyperbole and overexaggeration!

Ummm...okay, dude...whatever you say.

btw, I've noticed you dropped the Bloomberg thing. I wonder why?

 

[Zalatix]

Ummm...okay, dude...whatever you say.

btw, I've noticed you dropped the Bloomberg thing. I wonder why?

Because only an idiot calls Bloomberg a liberal. Just because I don't bother to address your laughable nonsense doesn't mean concession. It means I refuse to clean up that mess you just made of yourself.

 

[melons]

One thing you can't do is have jobs that all create a livable wage. Why? Because the cost of goods in these businesses would skyrocket and people would need to make even more to reach that "livable wage". It would be forever unreachable. The only answer is personal responsibility and hard work. There will always be people who refuse to take responsibility for themselves. Sure, some good hard working people fall on hard times, but good hard working people are going to find the next best opportunity and jump on it. The rest of the people are going to sit around waiting on a check. There are just some things you can't "fix".

 

[Zalatix]

One thing you can't do is have jobs that all create a livable wage. Why? Because the cost of goods in these businesses would skyrocket and people would need to make even more to reach that "livable wage". It would be forever unreachable.

This is simply not true. For your scenario to be right, demand must outstrip supply. A livable wage does not cause that.

For instance, America wastes billions of tons of food per year because people don't - no, can't - buy it. Supply clearly outstrips demand. A livable wage would PROBABLY put a big dent in that. Demand MIGHT approach supply at that point. MIGHT.

 

[melons]

This is simply not true. For your scenario to be right, demand must outstrip supply. A livable wage does not cause that.

For instance, America wastes billions of tons of food per year because people don't - no, can't - buy it. Supply clearly outstrips demand. A livable wage would PROBABLY put a big dent in that. Demand MIGHT approach supply at that point. MIGHT.

If Walmart starts paying employees $20 an hour, the price of goods will go up to compensate for that. If daycares start paying workers $20 an hour, the fee for daycare will go up. And so on and so forth. Unfortunately it is true and has been proven to be true with each minimum wage increase ever put into place.

 

[Mason66]

One thing you can't do is have jobs that all create a livable wage. Why? Because the cost of goods in these businesses would skyrocket and people would need to make even more to reach that "livable wage". It would be forever unreachable. The only answer is personal responsibility and hard work. There will always be people who refuse to take responsibility for themselves. Sure, some good hard working people fall on hard times, but good hard working people are going to find the next best opportunity and jump on it. The rest of the people are going to sit around waiting on a check. There are just some things you can't "fix".

A living wage is not a static thing.

A teenager needs much less to live than a 30 year old man with 3 kids.

If an employeer is required to pay an employee what he needs to live well, then that employeer will only hire teenagers or single people that have no dependants to support.

 

[Mason66]

Because the world is experiencing a job shortage that is now at the level of 200 million and will swell to 600 million.

Do you have enough bullets to hold off a few million hungry people in the USA who will be looking for work and food if we don't help them? No? Then that is why we need to help these people.

</thread>

Have we seen your episode of Preppers yet?

 

[melons]

A living wage is not a static thing.

A teenager needs much less to live than a 30 year old man with 3 kids.

If an employeer is required to pay an employee what he needs to live well, then that employeer will only hire teenagers or single people that have no dependants to support.

I agree, however, I was referring the "living wage" that others had been posting about meaning "a wage that people could actually live on without being dependent".
It is impossible to think that all of our businesses could provide such wages without incurring a certain amount of rise in cost of the service or product to cover the expense of the higher wages. Thus making items and services cost more means that all of the sudden....your wages are less livable than they were before. It just works itself around in a never ending circle. The answer lies in people wanting more for themselves, trying harder, working harder, being willing to jump on opportunities when they arise....not increasing wages for lower end jobs.

 

[Neomalthusian]

I have a question specifically for Conservatives: How do we (as a society) better the situation of the lowest-income earners?

We as a society DON'T single out any individual or group of individuals and make it our business to better their situation(s) for them. As individuals we can do WhateverTF we want, I don't care, but "we as a society" do not even begin to undertake that task of creating a dependent class of adults by fixing their adult problems for them. Across the board. We should never bail out banks as a society, and we should never pay people's bills for them as a society. You're asking HOW to do something we should not even embark upon doing in the first place.

In many areas, minimum wage is far too low to provide a livable wage.

That's fine. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to provide work experience for dependents whose parents do the legwork making life financially livable. Or for people other people who, for whatever reason, are happy to do that level of work in spite of its compensatory shortcomings. Shouldn't free adults have a right to voluntarily trade their time doing mindless no-skill labor for a wage that mindless no-skill labor is worth? Why should free adults be prohibited from that trade if they consent to it?

In my own San Jose, a full-time minimum wage job literally does not pay enough to make rent on a one-bedroom apartment.

Mkay.

As I understand it, most conservatives and libertarians are against: raising the minimum wage,

Yup.

social safety-net programs,

Not entirely. Those so disabled that they couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be expected to hold a job or make their own legal/financial/medical/economic decisions should get a nice cushy safety net. But adults who have control over their own adult lives and their own adult legal/employment/contract/financial/medical decisions, on the other hand? Nope.

free or highly discounted higher education,

Meh, I can tolerate the Dept. of Ed if we'll agree to butcher the other Departments which are exploding money into the stratosphere, namely the Depts. of Defense and Health and Human Services.

forcing businesses to provide employees benefits,

Why in the name of **** would we force businesses to provide benefits to their employees, when those would-be employees have absolute autonomy to contract (or, most importantly, NOT to) with said businesses?

Seeing as how most of the lowest-income earners pay no income tax, tax breaks wouldn't help these workers. Giving their businesses or employers tax breaks would likewise not help these people.

Good. There shouldn't be special tax breaks for any swingin' dick. **** that.

So, Conservatives and Libertarians: Without using the aforementioned government intervention, how do we as a society make sure that lowest-income earners are able have a livable wage (or that they can live comfortably without racking up debt)? I'm legitimately looking for serious answers.

We legitimately and seriously DON'T. You have a non-starting premise altogether. Legitimately and seriously. Let big boys and girls be big boys and girls. Focus your energies on cooler, more useful things than trying to mandate charity upon your fellow citizens.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Because the world is experiencing a job shortage that is now at the level of 200 million and will swell to 600 million.

Do you have enough bullets to hold off a few million hungry people in the USA who will be looking for work and food if we don't help them? No? Then that is why we need to help these people.

Even the most hardcore socialist has to understand that you cannot redistribute wealth unless there are enough people working to create that wealth in the first place.

Taking wealth from those who have jobs, and especially from those who create jobs, to “help” those who do not, only causes there to be fewer jobs, more poverty; and more of the population, as you say, “looking for work and food”.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Hyperbole is your go-to word now, ain't it? It's like you learned something new and you use it as much as you can, to impress your parents and teachers.

There is nothing hyperbolic about what I said. The national debt did explode under Bush. Job growth stagnated under Dubya as well.


Only by scaring people into voting Left to keep your fellow rabid zombies out of power.

Bloomberg Warns High US Unemployment Could Lead to Riots - ABC News

Bloomberg Warns High US Unemployment Could Lead to Riots

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned today that public frustration over joblessness in the U.S. is in danger of boiling over and could lead to riots in the streets if the government fails to create more jobs.

“You have a lot of kids graduating college who can’t find jobs. That’s what happened in Cairo. That’s what happened in Madrid. You don’t want those kinds of riots here,” Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show, referencing the riots in Egypt that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

The protests in Madrid that he spoke of were sparked when the Spanish government spent millions to welcome Pope Benedict despite the country’s widespread unemployment.​

My comments about Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are spot-on. Mayor Bloomberg, a Plutocrat, agrees with me.

Bloomberg is the spokesman for a form of extreme idiocy that, fortunately, is confined to and concentrated in just a few small parts of the country.

It is no surprise that you would cite him as someone who agrees with you.

It is also no argument in favor of any position on which you could claim his agreement.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Because only an idiot calls Bloomberg a liberal.

Only an idiot tries to associate Bloomberg with any political alignment, held by any rational person. He's not a liberal or a conservative; he's a New Yorkist. Any mainstream liberal would certainly not want to be associated with Bloomberg's political views any more than any mainstream conservative would. I find it very telling that you have expressed some alignment with him.

 

[Ontologuy]

I have a question specifically for Conservatives: How do we (as a society) better the situation of the lowest-income earners? In many areas, minimum wage is far too low to provide a livable wage. In my own San Jose, a full-time minimum wage job literally does not pay enough to make rent on a one-bedroom apartment. As I understand it, most conservatives and libertarians are against: raising the minimum wage, social safety-net programs, free or highly discounted higher education, forcing businesses to provide employees benefits, or any other direct government intervention into the labor market. Seeing as how most of the lowest-income earners pay no income tax, tax breaks wouldn't help these workers. Giving their businesses or employers tax breaks would likewise not help these people.

So, Conservatives and Libertarians: Without using the aforementioned government intervention, how do we as a society make sure that lowest-income earners are able have a livable wage (or that they can live comfortably without racking up debt)? I'm legitimately looking for serious answers.

What if there are no serious answers that respect reality?

Let's suppose we do the most realistic thing possible: reduce the surplus of workers that drives wages down.

We'd need to end out-sourcing, deport 20 million illegals, erect tariffs to balance economies of scale, ... and that would help to keep wage-scales from deflating and maybe help them to rise a bit.

However, we'd still need to do more.

By 2050 it's projected using decreasing population rates (that are nevertheless still signed positive) that from 2010 the world population will grow to add another 2010 India and China combined in population, 90 mllion of those accruing to the U.S. I don't need to tell you what that will do to wage-scales as geographic related resources grow scarcer.

So preventing undersired conceptions by making state-of-the-art conception prevention pills for both men and women, currently head up in FDA testing, that are essentially 100% safe and effective and easy to use, available to the general public at subsidized low, low prices .. complete with truthful dire warning about the consequences of unsensible population mismanagement .. is absolutely paramount.

But for those already here, it's greatly too late -- population v. resource mismanagement has already condemed billions worldwide and scores of millions here, without any realistic possibility of appeal.

We are simply not going to go socialist, communist, and the like, and reduce everyone to the same near-poverty conditions just to keep millions here from living in true or abject poverty. Darwin, Maslow, Marx et al, along with prominent failed attempts, have made it accurately clear as to why .. and there simply are no effective stop-gaps or partial similar solutions.

Eutopian idealized heaven-on-earth and realistic similars can only happen when available essential and desirable resources are greater than the population requiring and demanding them.

When that happens, and maybe when that approaches, we will finally defeat poverty.

Not until then.

This is a long-term project.

There is no quick-fix.

Sadly, with America ruled by wing factions, swinging between polemic ideologies every four to eight years or so, the chances of creating a sustained long-term project to defeat poverty are very low.

 

[Ikari]

I have a question specifically for Conservatives: How do we (as a society) better the situation of the lowest-income earners? In many areas, minimum wage is far too low to provide a livable wage. In my own San Jose, a full-time minimum wage job literally does not pay enough to make rent on a one-bedroom apartment. As I understand it, most conservatives and libertarians are against: raising the minimum wage, social safety-net programs, free or highly discounted higher education, forcing businesses to provide employees benefits, or any other direct government intervention into the labor market. Seeing as how most of the lowest-income earners pay no income tax, tax breaks wouldn't help these workers. Giving their businesses or employers tax breaks would likewise not help these people.

So, Conservatives and Libertarians: Without using the aforementioned government intervention, how do we as a society make sure that lowest-income earners are able have a livable wage (or that they can live comfortably without racking up debt)? I'm legitimately looking for serious answers.

Generally speaking, a system of free market capitalism with open economic mobility. Specifically it's going to depend on the trend of the economy and necessary education of industry. In our current sense, the minimum wage is often under livable wages as wealth disparity has grown and real time increases in buying power for the middle and lower classes has decreased over time. It's a long established push towards corporate capitalism and the effects of closing off economic mobility.

 

[cpwill]

I have a question specifically for Conservatives: How do we (as a society) better the situation of the lowest-income earners? In many areas, minimum wage is far too low to provide a livable wage. In my own San Jose, a full-time minimum wage job literally does not pay enough to make rent on a one-bedroom apartment. As I understand it, most conservatives and libertarians are against: raising the minimum wage, social safety-net programs, free or highly discounted higher education, forcing businesses to provide employees benefits, or any other direct government intervention into the labor market. Seeing as how most of the lowest-income earners pay no income tax, tax breaks wouldn't help these workers. Giving their businesses or employers tax breaks would likewise not help these people.

So, Conservatives and Libertarians: Without using the aforementioned government intervention, how do we as a society make sure that lowest-income earners are able have a livable wage (or that they can live comfortably without racking up debt)? I'm legitimately looking for serious answers.

Well, it's an excellent question. As a lower-income earner, I would hesitate to propose items that would have benefited me, however:

Social Safety Net Programs: I would propose doing away with all current means-tested social welfare policies (to include the earned income tax credit) and replacing them with a negative tax rate of 50% on all income earned below 200% of the poverty level (combined with a 25% flat tax on all income above that level, combining the economic growth benefits of a flat tax with the more amenable reality of a tax that is perfectly progressive), which is to be assessed at 10,000 per adult and 5,000 per child (slightly higher than it is currently). This would end many of the incentives to make self-destructive decisions (like, for example, the current ways in which we punish you if you attempt to marry the other parent of your children to raise them in a non-broken home), and many of the "welfare cliffs" that currently punish our working poor with a net reduction in income from an increase in their productivity. At the same time we would be ensuring that not a single man, woman, or child in America falls below the poverty line (50% of 200% is 100%).

Education: One of the cruelest ways in which we treat our poor today is that we help to trap them in poverty by ensuring that they never receive a quality education. Polling of urban parents repeatedly demonstrate that they would love to be able to have their children escape the school systems that are failing them. I would propose that we enact school choice, similar to the experiment currently ongoing in Indiana, where all parents below 200% of the poverty line are allotted a certain amount of state funding which they can then take to the school of their choice. In that way we bring market pressure to bear on the school system, forcing it to improve, while allowing a greater portion of our poor access to superior opportunity while the system does so.

Minimum Wage: The minimum wage in this country was established in order to keep blacks from underbidding whites for labor. The argument was that since blacks and "mongrelized asian hordes" were closer to animals, they didn't mind keeping their families in dirt-floored hovels, while Decent White Workers were trying to raise Decent White Families in Decent White Conditions, and shouldn't be expected to engage in wage-competition with lesser breeds. And, the system worked. Blacks suffered immensely with minimum wage laws then, and they do so today. Except that today it isn't poor white labor they are generally losing to, it is undocumented/illegal mexican labor, to whom minimum wage laws and regulatory burdens do not apply. There are several reasons why black youth face in some places 50% unemployment, and one of the major ones is that we have made it too expensive to hire them. In order to extend the ladder of life to where they can grasp it and begin to climb (as opposed to remaining angry and trapped at the bottom), we should reduce or entirely repeal the minimum wage, in order to provide employment to the most economically vulnerable among us. This answer is the same as the answer to the question of forcing employers to provide certain benefits: the unfortunate reality is that labor exists on a supply/demand curve, and when you jack up labors price, you then lower the demand. I'd rather not see 5 people get fired and 5 families put out on the streets so that 20 people can be guaranteed "free" birth control from their boss.

 

[Davo The Mavo]

Well, it's an excellent question. As a lower-income earner . . .

That sentence made me stop. I try to ignore you. However, YOU are so full of SHIRT. LOW INCOME EARNER? You are in the military living in OKINAWA!!!! I have been there, done that . . . and LOVED THAT! Low income earner . . . who are you kidding? You live better than 90% of America . . . and you know that you piece of work. The quality of life of ANY military member in Okinawa is so much better than the normal American. OH, what a sacrifice you make. You are quite possibly the biggest phony I have ever known on the Internets since 2003, besides VOR. Despite all your REMF Iraq lies and all your conservative stances . . . you have never . . . not once . . . admitted ANY one of your error plagued claims (especially your predictions) . . . not one . . . even though reality has proven you wrong over and over again.

Be careful in your response CP . . . I have a Bandwidth's worth of history on MY hard drive proving each and every instant of the error of your ways. You are VOR-Lite, and a big fabricator. Son of a Preacher Man my arse. I remember it all and have it in print. The Internets are forever, perhaps you should remember that . . . you who sucks off the tit of the government. You are quite possibly more full of shirt that your old buddy Navy Pride . . . or as you knew him . . . "Voice of Reason." Nice to know you are still a big phony. If you lie about little things . . . well . . . and I could be wrong, then that means you will lie about the BIG things.

In our conversations . . . I know one thing for sure . . . one of us has been shot at or attempted to have been blown up . . .

 

[cpwill]

That sentence made me stop. I try to ignore you. However, YOU are so full of SHIRT. LOW INCOME EARNER? You are in the military living in OKINAWA!!!! I have been there, done that . . . and LOVED THAT! Low income earner . . . who are you kidding?

Me now? Yeah, living with the COLA is nice - because we were disciplined to live beneath our means before we came out here, we are able to do alright. I'm able to save enough to save in an IRA for us and an ESA for the kids. Since apparently you are a stalker, wander on over to the thread that JohnW0lin put up about class on income - I describe my situation pretty well. Before this, as a LCpl with a wife and kids, not so much. You will notice that the rest of the sentence you did not bother to quote was in the past tense?

As for REMF hood :shrug: now I am. My first few years I wasn't. However, I have noticed a peculiarity on teh interwebz. People tend to accuse others of that which they themselves are guilty. Hell man, I don't even remember you. :lol: