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I agree.Paying back what we owe shows one's integrity. However I would also lend a hand to who are genuinely struggling.
And I agree, if we didn't have an entrenched, entitled, and belligerent underclass of whining demanders. Which we created and maintain with the Pocahantas-Sanders welfare class.
If the vast majority of people were honest workers, then the few who got cancer with 3 kids would be flooded with goodwill and money.
If I wasn't being leeched out of existence by the bloodsuckers, bloodsuckers who make demands no less, my goodwill would be boundless, and so would everybody else's.
Good post, boxus. Folks are free to take whatever position they want. But the lack of real world knowledge demonstrated here on this thread is astounding. Some must live in bubbles of their own imagination.
Quote:
Originally Posted by boxus
There are many, many people who have degrees, skills, etc, working these low wage jobs because fact is there is a limited number of entry level positions available. You may graduate with a degree in business lets say, but so did many other people, and not everyone will be getting the limited number of openings in a career field. I have known engineers who worked at retail for quite a while looking for work, each job they are competing with 100 other applicants as well.
During the last decade, students have flocked to community colleges to earn those job-producing vocational degrees that many here tout as the sure-fire way to escape poverty. The kids aren't dumb. Many pick areas they hope won't be off-shored or seek jobs that won't vanish with technological change. What happens? So-called "safe" areas like the medical field are now over-saturated. Try going on-line to see how easy it is to find a job in, say, medical imaging.
For sure ... some of this is also happening with professional degrees, especially where there is the potential for unlimited enrollment across hundreds of universities. Unless you graduated from a top school, getting a job as an attorney became much harder at least a decade ago. MBA degrees from even middling schools can be a dime a dozen. That this is happening with STEM is hardly a surprise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by boxus
Lol, can tell you have been out of the picture for a while. There is no overtime at these places, and they have converted numerous positions to part-time only, not to exceed a certain number of hours per week. The whacky scheduling makes it near impossible to work two jobs.
As you say ... not only is there no overtime ... or no full-time jobs with, gasp, benefits or health care ... there is the "whacky scheduling." Decades ago American corporations made the shift to just-in-time inventories to minimize raw material costs. They've now applied the technique to just-in-time scheduling to minimize labor costs. Not only are there varying schedules and split-shifts ... frequently there's no guaranteed number of work hours per week. Makes it pretty hard to take that second job or to work around a school schedule or even to committing to set bills when you don't know how much you'll get paid.
More, this approach ^^^ applies not just to big box stores or for the profoundly unskilled but increasingly to those medical imaging jobs. Just like many college courses are now taught by "adjunct professors," so are para-professionals employed on a contract basis where they are assigned temporary slots in hospitals within a large geographical area.
Welcome to the new world folks. I'm not real sure who the blood-suckers are in this world.
I work a full 40 and I make less than $50G, when do I get my free -oh wait I'm "privileged" so my applications get thrown straight in the trash... some privilege...
About half the families in America are working class - making under $50,000. And half the country pays no federal tax. These groups overlap SUBSTANTIALLY.
So Warren is suggesting that those who are middle class, already living on budgets and a paycheck (or two) away from big problems not only continue to pay taxes....continue to pay for their own children's daycare.....but also cover the costs of daycare for the half of all Americans who don't pay taxes?
I think the Democrats are desperate. So let's see. We have offers of free health care, free college, free daycare. How about free condos for everyone earning under $50,000? Or at least a free car!
Good post, boxus. Folks are free to take whatever position they want. But the lack of real world knowledge demonstrated here on this thread is astounding. Some must live in bubbles of their own imagination.
During the last decade, students have flocked to community colleges to earn those job-producing vocational degrees that many here tout as the sure-fire way to escape poverty. The kids aren't dumb. Many pick areas they hope won't be off-shored or seek jobs that won't vanish with technological change. What happens? So-called "safe" areas like the medical field are now over-saturated. Try going on-line to see how easy it is to find a job in, say, medical imaging.
For sure ... some of this is also happening with professional degrees, especially where there is the potential for unlimited enrollment across hundreds of universities. Unless you graduated from a top school, getting a job as an attorney became much harder at least a decade ago. MBA degrees from even middling schools can be a dime a dozen. That this is happening with STEM is hardly a surprise.
As you say ... not only is there no overtime ... or no full-time jobs with, gasp, benefits or health care ... there is the "whacky scheduling." Decades ago American corporations made the shift to just-in-time inventories to minimize raw material costs. They've now applied the technique to just-in-time scheduling to minimize labor costs. Not only are there varying schedules and split-shifts ... frequently there's no guaranteed number of work hours per week. Makes it pretty hard to take that second job or to work around a school schedule or even to committing to set bills when you don't know how much you'll get paid.
More, this approach ^^^ applies not just to big box stores or for the profoundly unskilled but increasingly to those medical imaging jobs. Just like many college courses are now taught by "adjunct professors," so are para-professionals employed on a contract basis where they are assigned temporary slots in hospitals within a large geographical area.
Welcome to the new world folks. I'm not real sure who the blood-suckers are in this world.
Baby, you asked for it! Did you think minimum wages and closed shop unions and overregulation were going to come with no cost? Did you think you could FORCE people to pay you more than you are worth? Sorry, “wacky†scheduling is a defense mechanism against the theft presented by the minimum wage. So what are we doing about it? Enacting even more draconian labor price fixing in the form of even higher minimum wages. Which will now result in a SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY: More wacky scheduling and MORE ROBOTICS TO ELIMINATE JOBS ENTIRELY. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, you just made robots more economically feasible to ELIMINATE YOUR JOB. Way to go!!!
About half the families in America are working class - making under $50,000. And half the country pays no federal tax. These groups overlap SUBSTANTIALLY.
So Warren is suggesting that those who are middle class, already living on budgets and a paycheck (or two) away from big problems not only continue to pay taxes....continue to pay for their own children's daycare.....but also cover the costs of daycare for the half of all Americans who don't pay taxes?
I think the Democrats are desperate. So let's see. We have offers of free health care, free college, free daycare. How about free condos for everyone earning under $50,000? Or at least a free car!
No. Her proposal is this: Warren's plan is projected to cost around $700 billion over 10 years, money which she said would come entirely from the proceeds of her proposed "ultra-millionaire tax." https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/19/eliz...-tax-2020.html
The plan is about more than "childcare"; it also focuses on early childhood education. Whatever one thinks of the details of the plan (I'm neutral, not knowing more) it is indisputable that:
(1) the US is becoming more stratified, with decreasing upward mobility and
(2) an increasingly well-educated workforce is needed to compete effectively on the world market.
Productivity gains and increased profits are not being "shared" with the workforce in the form of increased wages. To "capture" some of those gains by increased taxation that then is invested in the very young potentially strikes me as sound longterm planning. There are gaps in between current worker skills and employer needs. The US is falling behind other nations in educational competence. We have a generational poverty problem.
Like I said, I don't necessarily buy in on the details ... but this strikes me as potentially more effective than something like free four-year college for all.
Baby, you asked for it! Did you think minimum wages and closed shop unions and overregulation were going to come with no cost? Did you think you could FORCE people to pay you more than you are worth? Sorry, “wacky” scheduling is a defense mechanism against the theft presented by the minimum wage. So what are we doing about it? Enacting even more draconian labor price fixing in the form of even higher minimum wages. Which will now result in a SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY: More wacky scheduling and MORE ROBOTICS TO ELIMINATE JOBS ENTIRELY. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, you just made robots more economically feasible to ELIMINATE YOUR JOB. Way to go!!!
Robotics will exist with or without a minimum wage. Human beings can just be a plain hassle to do with, what with health benefits and all; robotics not so much so. And then like it or not (Trump appears not to), we're in a global market.
It's not clear what you intend to do with the workforce that now is "surplus." Export them?
Corporations are always going to maximize their profits. But at some point this now surplus workforce are their customers. Undercutting your customers' purchasing power may well bring short-term profits but may be a poor longterm strategy. So perhaps best to keep them around in a way that they help expand the overall economy.
I'm not pretending to have nice-neat solutions all tied up in a pretty package. But a lot of these posts strike me as either profoundly out-of-date referring back to another era or some form of wishful thinking.
Robotics will exist with or without a minimum wage. Human beings can just be a plain hassle to do with, what with health benefits and all; robotics not so much so. And then like it or not (Trump appears not to), we're in a global market.
It's not clear what you intend to do with the workforce that now is "surplus." Export them?
Corporations are always going to maximize their profits. But at some point this now surplus workforce are their customers. Undercutting your customers' purchasing power may well bring short-term profits but may be a poor longterm strategy. So perhaps best to keep them around in a way that they help expand the overall economy.
I'm not pretending to have nice-neat solutions all tied up in a pretty package. But a lot of these posts strike me as either profoundly out-of-date referring back to another era or some form of wishful thinking.
Robots have a certain cost. Labor has a certain cost. The decision to automate is based on an analysis of the cost of people vs the cost of machines.
If you engage in state-sponsored price fixing in the form of raising the minimum wage, you tilt the equation more in favor of the machines.
If you raised the minimum wage to $100/hour nearly all machines would be profitable to pursue, and workers would be facing massive unemployment as the incentive to automate would be irresistible.
So no, it won’t “just happen anyway”, that’s irrational. Costs determine adoption, and artificially price fixing the cost of labor above the free market rate ACCELLERATES and INCENTIVIZES automation planning and implementation.
Once again, state interference in the free market ends up doing the reverse of what is intended. You want more unemployed workers? Easy. Just keep price fixing labor costs, just keep raising the minimum wage.
Robots have a certain cost. Labor has a certain cost. The decision to automate is based on an analysis of the cost of people vs the cost of machines.
If you engage in state-sponsored price fixing in the form of raising the minimum wage, you tilt the equation more in favor of the machines.
If you raised the minimum wage to $100/hour nearly all machines would be profitable to pursue, and workers would be facing massive unemployment as the incentive to automate would be irresistible.
So no, it won’t “just happen anyway”, that’s irrational. Costs determine adoption, and artificially price fixing the cost of labor above the free market rate ACCELLERATES and INCENTIVIZES automation planning and implementation.
Once again, state interference in the free market ends up doing the reverse of what is intended. You want more unemployed workers? Easy. Just keep price fixing labor costs, just keep raising the minimum wage.
There are multiple analyses that assess the impact of continuing automation on the US industry with some projecting major impacts on employment levels in some industries. A few dollars here or there in wage costs won't be determinative. People plain and simple are expensive; robotics efficient with productivity gains.
One approach is to prepare workers for the industries and needs of the future. However, these industries may well be less labor intensive. Regardless, a proposal that addresses very early education is worth examining - as an investment in human capital. Education at elite US universities remains among the best in the world; our elementary and secondary education levels fall short.
It is always to our advantage to ensure there is a stable work force available, even for less valued service industry jobs. How and to what extent that work force receives remuneration is a policy question. Whatever you may think of the economic potential of these workers, they retain the power of the vote.
This you are clearly aware of and it appears to be the source of some of the angst. Best to look to workable, sustainable approaches instead of rhetoric. For the record, I would not rely on "fixing labor costs ... raising the minimum wage."
Warren does not take that approach in this proposal.
If we stand back over the last 150 years and look at our history, automation in one form or another has displaced human workers. We've been able to shift and somewhat adapt but in the coming years the advances will be so great that I don't know if we'll be able to adapt, particularly as the populations increase that I really fear what will be the outcome. Forward thinking smart people without political biases and slants need to really examine where we are headed in the next coming decades and work to actively come up with solutions. I've got about 15 years left to work and I work in a business that can't readily be automated, at least as far as I can tell.
Frankly I think that this is more of an eminent threat to our way of life than people give credit to and it's way down on the list of rhetoric if things we hear around us.
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