The right wing quagmire (top 10, retirement, program, administration)

[Bill Keegan]

Originally Posted by jojajn

Why are things costing too much? Is is because most wages haven't kept up with the cost of living?

And yet, all you want to discuss is that wages have not gone up enough. Why not discuss the reason for the increase in the cost of living?

Increasing minimum wage will NOT, in the long term, benefit anyone. When you increase the minimum wage, you will soon have to increase the wages on the next rung of the employment ladder, as well as those wages that are contractually tied to the federal minimum. For the employers to pay everyone their increased wages, they will have to, cut their profit, increase the price they charge for the product they sell. Possibly a combination of both. So now the cost of living will be going up yet again. In a few years, you will be back in the same position, with people clamoring for yet another increase in the minimum wage. Go look at the history. How many times has the minimum wage been increased? Why has that not lead to universal prosperity?

[jojajn]

Originally Posted by Doubletrouble

I wonder if Bill M. contributes a large chunk of his million dollar income to charity every year ?

Bet not.

Charities & foundations supported 9

Bill Maher has supported the following charities:

Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes
Best Friends Animal Society
Comic Relief
Dogs Deserve Better
Global Green
Robert F Kennedy Memorial
Save the Chimps
Somaly Mam Foundation
The Humane Society

Bill Maher: Charity Work & Causes - Look to the Stars

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by jojajn

"This is the question the right has to answer. Do you want smaller government with less handouts, or do you want a low minimum wage? Because you cannot have both.

Congratulations.....you have provided us with a Fallacy known as the False Dilemma.

Originally Posted by jojajn

If Colonel Sanders isn't going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to, and I for one am getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers.: ~ Bill Maher

I'm going to use your own government to embarrass and beat down the both of you.

The US government, specifically, the Department of Housing & Urban Development says that a single person......I did not stutter....a single person with an annual income of $53,490 qualifies for tax-payer subsidized Section 8 Housing.

If you do not have the courage to admit that, then can you at least provide some evidence to refute it?

At 2,000 hours per year....

$53,490 / 2000 = $26.75/hour

Do you have the courage to admit that, or at least provide evidence to refute it?

If the US government says that $26.75/hour is not enough for a single person to afford their own place to live, and the tax-payers have to bail them out, then explain how raising the "federal" minimum wage to $15/hour will reduce government handouts.

The Department of Housing & Urban Development says that a single person......I did not stutter....a single person living in some places in the united States with an annual income of $9,101 is disqualified, barred, prohibited and ineligible for tax-payer subsidized Section 8 Housing.

If you do not have the courage to admit that, then can you at least provide some evidence to refute it?

At 2,000 hours per year....

$9,101 / 2000 = $4.55/hour

Do you have the courage to admit that, or at least provide evidence to refute it?

Note that $4.55/hour is less than the "federal" minimum wage of $7.25/hour.

Will you admit or deny that?

If the US government says that an single American living in some places in the US does not need a tax-payer bailout to pay for their housing with an income equivalent to $4.55/hour, then explain why the "federal" minimum wage should not be reduced to $4.55/hour.

Will you do that? Because, that would seem to be the Liberal Quagmire.

For you see, your own government says that $4.55/hour is a "living wage" (snicker) in some parts of the US.

Bill Maher isn't nearly half as smart as he thinks he is. Invite him to come here. I'll bury his ass.

Originally Posted by jojajn

no.

Yes, it [raising federal minimum wage also help from uncle sam] is. It's government interference. It's Command Economics a la Soviet-style.

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

Oh yes, I love the wisdom of the right, the ability to wash your hands of issues that might come from employers trying to pay their employees too little.

Employers pay their employees what the Laws of Economics say they should be paid.

Employers who violate the Laws of Economics, whether of their own accord, or through coercion by unions or the government fail and go out of business.

Originally Posted by jojajn

Here is the problem folks:

Wrong.....it is global competition.

Median Real disposable household income has been declining steadily over the long term since 2000 and that decline has accelerated since 2008, at a rate between 1-2% per year.

Actually, they started declining before that....

National Average Wage Index

1951-1960: 4.09%
1961-1970: 4.45%
1971-1980: 7.31%
1981-1990: 5.34%
1991-2000: 4.35%
2001-2010: 2.64%

That is fully consistent with a State reaching 100% Industrialization.

Wages in developing States generally double every 10 years until development begins to approach 100%, at which time wage increases begin to decline until they are negligible. Increasing competition may accelerate the decline or stagnation of wage increases.

Nothing unusual or abnormal happening there.

With consumption constituting 70% of the US economy, spending by 100 million wage earning households in the US (bottom 80%) has limped along based increasingly on debt spending, more credit card usage, more withdrawals from 401k and savings accounts, and more part time second job employment. Recent data show more than 50% of all 401k withdrawals, which are rising rapidly, are withdrawn just to pay monthly bills.

Thank you for proving that your economy is unsustainable over the mid-term and long-term.

Meanwhile, corporations sit on more than $2 trillion in cash ...

There is one and only one possible way a publicly traded corporation can prevent an hostile take-over, leveraged buyout, forced merger or forced acquisition.

What is it?

Cash....hoarding cash...lots and lots of cash.

Why don't you impress us all and explain how Korean corporation Life's Good was able to buy up and shut-down the [US] Zenith Corporation?

Will you do that?

I'll give you some hints...Zenith employees were paid too much....Zenith could not compete globally....Zenith had no cash....and Korean LG Corporation then bought up all of the Zenith stock, and shut down Zenith, causing the lay-off of all employees, except for those at Zenith Labs, which LG Corporation retained for R&D purposes.

while corporate profits have continued to grow so too has the income of the top 1 wealthiest households.

Then stop watching Harpo Winfrey, and she won't be in the top 1%. Cancel your all sports package for cable or satellite and the top 1% will drop to the top 0.1%.

Originally Posted by jojajn

What do you think about the minimum wage?

It isn't what I think, it's what I know, and I know you don't understand it, because you have proven that.

Originally Posted by jojajn

Would you rather have it increased or would you rather have an increase in the need for food stamps, housing assistance, medicaid, etc.....?

Again, you have presented a False Dilemma.

Furthermore, your drivel is specious, since it's based on subjective fantasies.

Government can easily change its policies and regulations, so that only those persons in non-related multi-family households are eligible to apply for Food Stamp benefits.

For example, family of three in a single household is not eligible to apply for Food Stamps, but a family of three that is sharing an apartment, rental home, home or mobile home with another unrelated household, such as a family of four, is then eligible to apply for Food Stamps.

However, since sharing living accommodations will increase the amount of disposable income for the family of three, they would not be eligible for Food Stamps, since they have enough money to buy food.

Problem solved.

Same with HUD Section 8.....a single person with $53,490 in annual income needs to find a room-mate, share with another household, or move back in with mommy and daddy instead of bleeding the tax-payers to death.

Questioning...

Mircea

[FlamencoFreak]

Originally Posted by jojajn

Take your deflection to a thread of your own.

That's 'French' for, you haven't got a clue what he's talking about.

[jojajn]

Originally Posted by FlamencoFreak

Now that's a good point. But, if the employer is supposed to hand out free money, with no return on his investment, he won't survive. The government will simply print more money, and it doesn't hurt them (it does hurt the country, however).

There is a large margin of safety for employers in regards to "surviving."

In summary, while corporate profits have continued to grow so too has the income of the top 1 wealthiest households. This has been made possible in large part at the expense of the middle and working classes, as rising corporate profits gained at workers’ expense are passed through to forms of capital incomes—the latter process accelerated by the reduction in both corporate taxation and personal income taxation for the wealthiest 1% households.

Bottom 80% Households | Jack Rasmus

BTW, when did paying a fair wage become "hand outs of free money?"

[wutitiz]

Originally Posted by jojajn

Am I mistaken? Is it not the Republicans against raising the minimum wage and is it not the Republicans who are also against entitlement programs?

A majority of economists still agree that the minimum wage is a bad idea that hurts those whom it is supposed to help.


What will happen if you set the minimum wage high enough to obviate the need for SNAP, WIC, etc? Set aside the fact that there would not be political support for a minimum wage that high. First of all, the Walmarts would demand only the best, most productive workers. They would lobby Congress to bring in more energetic 20 and 30 something immigrants. Old people, fat people, substance abusers, etc need not apply. They would instead become a vast new class of non-working poor, 100% dependent on welfare, and with no chance to work their way up the career ladder and escape from poverty.

[Danno3314]

Originally Posted by pghquest

Which actually makes this thread beyond stupid..

Raising minimum wage is NOT money from the government, so to suggest you cant have lower minimum wages, and less government handouts is a joke..

Something like 98% of the public does not work for minimum wage, the only way this thread would hold relevance is if the opposite was true..

I don't know about that 98% number...it's misleading. You have people that are unemployed, people that make less than minimum wage (like waiters/waitresses) and finally, people that are not making much more than minimum wage (within a dollar or so) all of which by definition would be among that 98% figure and not the other 2%.

[jojajn]

Originally Posted by FlamencoFreak

What scares me is people like you, who are absolutely clueless about business and economics.

People are paid according to the value of the labor they perform. If they want higher pay, they must show they are worth more, by producing more. It's that simple. You cannot pay people more than they are worth.

Apparently, most American workers are no longer worth enough to live.

The United States spends $316 billion a year on programs that directly help the poor. These programs are necessary because going to work everyday no longer pays the bills for many American workers. Years of bad policies have enriched our largest and most powerful corporations while the average worker has been left behind, struggling to make ends meet.

The federal minimum wage is just $7.25 per hour, a rate far too low to fully support anyone. Current policy, like many others, keeps big companies profitable while U.S. taxpayers pick up the slack. Big companies like Walmart are some of the biggest beneficiaries of these low wage requirements. Many Walmart workers are compensated so poorly that they end up on federal assistance programs, with some estimates showing that Walmart alone costs tax payers $2 billion per year through these programs. Meanwhile, the six heirs to the Walmart fortune are said to be worth close to $100 billion, more than the bottom 30 percent of Americans combined.

if the minimum wage had kept pace with American productivity gains it would currently be $21.72 per hour. Instead of that money going in to the pockets of average Americans to buy American made cars, tools and toys, it is going into the pockets of the rich who outsource American jobs to the cheapest country they can find.

American Wages Are Falling Behind | Economy In Crisis

[01Snake]

You're going to pay for it either way via higher taxes or higher product/service prices.

And LOL at dumbasses that think you should be able to make a living working a fastfood job. If a pimply-faced 16yr old can do the job, you might want to aim a little higher if you're looking for a career paying a decent living wage.

[jojajn]

Originally Posted by pghquest

We spend upwards of $1 TRILLION a year on welfare programs.. Since the federal GDP is about $13T, thats almost 10% of the nations revenues..

Do you think 10% of the nations expenses being welfare, has an impact on the cost of living?

Exactly my point!

Lets put purchasing power back into working Americans!

As laid out in an article by venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, a rise in the minimum wage to $15 per hour would put $450 billion into the economy that would “would give more purchasing power to millions of poor and lower-middle-class Americans, and would stimulate buying, production and hiring,” ultimately helping the American economy as a whole to prosper.

American Wages Are Falling Behind | Economy In Crisis