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So rather than promote education to better their skills and get higher paying jobs, you would rather the government just keep bumping up the min wage so they can live a middle class lifestyle ?
Your simplistic thinking is rearing its head out again. First, educate yourself more on economics.....then, get back to me.
The goal is a livable wage, good/safe schools for children, health care that won't make you decide between it or eating, an environment(also known as Mother Earth) that has an equal chance to survive(we need clean water/air/food/etc), a female to earn a days wage equal to that of her male colleague......many many more to list. Also, there is no "end game".
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawkeye2009
................ and your best chance for those goals is a capitalistic system with minimal government influence. If your contention of more government is correct, why is North Korea, Cuba, and the former USSR not the sources of individual prosperity for the world? Only when China embraced concepts of capitalism did they begin to emerge from darkness.
History has shown us that socialism fails in every venue. Liberals have been duped into destroying the system that has produced the highest productivity and opportunities in the history of man. In every system, there will be winners and losers. Even in socialism, the current "losers" of society will still be losers.
Where in the real world do we see pure unbridled capitalism result in a livable wage, good/safe schools for children and health care? If that were in fact the progression, the U.S. wouldn't have had a labor movement at all 100 years ago.
What I see instead is that before the U.S. instituted labor laws and regulations the workers were exploited -- receiving long hours, child labor and barely subsistence pay. The same is true in China today, the capitalists who own the factories live like the robber barons in the U.S. did but the workers live in near poverty.
Location: Currently I physically reside on the 3rd planet from the sun
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafo1981
Oh, I don't know.
Could it be that our founding fathers (being the pesky liberals that they were) delineated equal rights as our purpose to exist as a new and seperate nation?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...."
Just a guess.
They were liberals!
And yes!!! Rights are inalienable and granted to All Men(in the generic sense by a higher power) as Individuals.
However equality of Rights do not transfer directly to equality of outcome.
Conservatives will never admit that we live under the control of a financial aristocracy that will lie, cheat, steal and intimidate to protect its financial and social privilege. They will simply blame the people that enter their game of "Slides and Ladders" at the level dominated by slides or just deny poor people any entry at all. The Aristocrats are as adept at denying entry as they are at denying they set up the system to protect them at a devastating cost to everyone else. It is so much simpler to create a system of blaming the individual for being not competing in a loser's game.
Liberals are trying to eliminate the built in bias created to protect the aristocracy. Leftists like me are trying to eliminate the aristocracy.
Well you can't lower prices so you have to raise salaries so that everyone can "live the good life" in America.
Would you rather the top of the corporate structure have to pay their employees a fairer salary? Or would you like to support those under-payed employees via healthcare, food stamps, free lunches for their school children, etc......on your dime? You do know what "private gain, public loss" is, right? If not, learn.
Would you rather the top of the corporate structure have to pay their employees a fairer salary? Or would you like to support those under-payed employees via healthcare, food stamps, free lunches for their school children, etc......on your dime? You do know what "private gain, public loss" is, right? If not, learn.
Well you can't force them to pay higher salaries unless you either a) up the min wage or b) nationalize business and pay them what you want.
Until then a business only has to pay min wage. And Americans are lining up for those jobs so it's not like no one will work for min wage.
Min wage jobs don't typically provide the same benefits. But since they are now the new "careers" for supporting raising a family then we have no options.
Walmart is the #1 employer in the US, not a high tech company, not a manufacturer but Walmart, #1 employer for unskilled min wage jobs.
Well you can't force them to pay higher salaries unless you either a) up the min wage or b) nationalize business and pay them what you want.
Until then a business only has to pay min wage. And Americans are lining up for those jobs so it's not like no one will work for min wage.
Min wage jobs don't typically provide the same benefits. But since they are now the new "careers" for supporting raising a family then we have no options.
Walmart is the #1 employer in the US, not a high tech company, not a manufacturer but Walmart, #1 employer for unskilled min wage jobs.
This is where America is going.
We've upped the min. wage before. What gives with upping it to a more livable one?
Perfect equality cannot exist, and a certain degree of inequality is consistent with social justice. One person's labor may indeed by worth twice that of another person's. It could be worth three times more, four times more, or even ten times more. For example, I would have no problem if a brilliant heart surgeon earned 10 times more than the person who swept his or her office.
But that's not what we have have in American today.
What we have in America today is a situation where some people are making 300, 400, even 500 times more than the average person. I'm sorry, but nobody can work 500 times harder than anyone else. Nobody's labor is worth 500 times more than anyone else's. That's not an economy. That's just a racket.
Besides degree, there is the question of why inequality exists. When inequality is genuinely the result of some people being harder working or more talented than others, people usually don't get upset about it. No sane person resented the fact Michael Jordan was a better basketball player then they were.
But what we have today in America is a lot of arbitrary inequality. Most inequality has nothing to do with people's talents. It has more to do with the circumstances they were born into. Remember, the vast majority of poor people aren't people who started middle-class and fell. They born poor. Likewise, most of the rich started out life with lots of privilege. That isn't to say they didn't work hard. But a hedge-fund manager who works hard is likely to become a millionaire. A dish washer who works will, in most, simply become a hard-working dishwasher.
The USA now has almost the LOWEST rate of social mobility of any industrialized country. People born in Germany, France, Denmark, Norway, etc have a FAR better chance ending life better off than they started than people in the US. Look it up if you don't believe me.
So you don't have a problem with the surgeon earning more than the floor sweeper, but you do have a problem with the hedge fund manager earning more than a dishwasher.
But oh wait, if they are "talented" by your definition then you have no problem with it. Perfect! If the floor sweeper and dishwasher are intelligent and talented, they can move up. That is equal opportunity.
It takes talent and intelligence to hold onto family money. There were plenty of dumb untalented heirs who have lost their family fortunes.
So you don't have a problem with the surgeon earning more than the floor sweeper, but you do have a problem with the hedge fund manager earning more than a dishwasher.
But oh wait, if they are "talented" by your definition then you have no problem with it. Perfect! If the floor sweeper and dishwasher are intelligent and talented, they can move up. That is equal opportunity.
It takes talent and intelligence to hold onto family money. There were plenty of dumb untalented heirs who have lost their family fortunes.
See, I read what he wrote differently. He didn't say that he inherently has a problem with the hedge fund manager making more than the dishwasher. What he was talking about(IMHO) was the circumstances that most likely could have contributed to that hedge fund manager being a hedge fund manager, and the dishwasher being a dishwasher....and how inequality in society can usually start with just your unfortunate(or fortunate) place on the starting line of life. I believe your injected you personal bias into what that person wrote. But, that's expected it seems on this site.
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Conservative admissions
