Quote:
Originally Posted by AnUnidentifiedMale
It's interesting how conservatives are constantly arguing that low-wage workers are making too much money, isn't it? There's a real mean streak in these people.
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It's not meanness, just stupidity ... brainwashed with propaganda just like the left is.
If I've said this once, I've said it 1000 times .... the left are brainwashed with one set of ideological points and the right another. Neither side makes any sense, but both sides combined make for a disaster of epic proportions.
And it is extremism versus extremism ... the left want cradle to grave hand outs and guaranteed outcomes, while the right, in a predictable response, oppose all of it, in whatever form ... even in the cases where certain mandatory standards and requirements make sense and are necessary. But that's what you get when you have extremism ruling ... the voice of reason is always down out.
I'm a conservative, and I believe in having a minimum wage set to a livable figure, whatever that might be per region of employment. To hell with this "tip" business making up the wage shortfall ... customers are paying for the product ... build in the cost of those wages into the price like every other business does. Tips should be a bonus for exceptional performance, not an obligatory donation from the customer to make up for what the employer SHOULD be responsible for. With that said, I understand that under the current structure of the system now, mandatory livable wage requirements won't fix the problems, and will likely just make the problems worse.
At the same time, I don't believe any wage earner should be paying a single penny of income tax on their hourly wages ... doing so turns them into slaves for whatever period of time they have to work to pay that tax. Income should be based on the historical definition of income, which is profit from doing business. By that definition, wages are not income, but simply an equal exchange of an hour of time for an agreed to dollar amount. There is no profit in an equal exchange.
If taxes were collected only from profits ... several good things would be realized ...
1) no more BS about the wealthy not paying their fair share, as they'd be paying most of the tax burden, as it should be. They'd have two choices .. reinvest some of that profit into business expansion and new job creation to reduce their tax burden, or pay more taxes. No more shelters and loop holes and Cayman Island bank accounts, etc.
2) Wage earners would have more disposable income to spend, increasing economic activity, leading to more business opportunity, more business profits, and thus, more tax revenue.
3) Government would not facilitate the off shore movement of corporate manufacturing activity, since that would be a significant reduction in tax revenue for government, and therefore more jobs would remain here at home, significantly boosting our economic prosperity.
4) This would also make the best economic sense in forcing government to live within it's means, rather than continue to increase taxes to cover overspending, which obviously leads to huge debt accumulation, oppressive taxes, and ultimately, economic decline. If the government were forced to collect it's revenue from "profits" only ... government policies would be fashioned to maximize economic prosperity in order to increase it's revenue.
5) This growth in economic activity would naturally boost wages too. Wages are just like anything else .. driven by supply and demand. In a contracting economy, with more workers than there are jobs to fill, wages go down. When there are more jobs to fill than there are workers to fill them, wages go up. That's why major corporations and companies with large employee bases LOVE high unemployment. But guess what .. if corporations were actually being tagged for the appropriate level of taxes, they'd not try to cut wages and salaries to the bone if those "savings" didn't go straight into their greedy pockets, but owed in taxes instead.
The whole system needs to be repaired ... just raising or lowering minimum wage figures isn't really going to fix anything. In a nutshell, the system is designed to fail for the majority, while only benefiting the few, rather than structured for success for everyone.
JFK said it best ... "If a free society can not help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich". This is particularly applicable to economics ... a system that becomes so lopsided as we are seeing today where the top 1% are realizing gains of obscene proportions, while the bottom 90% are suffering ... this will progress from increased poverty, to dreadful despair, to violent and bloody revolution, as it has done time after time throughout history.
And we never seem to learn.
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