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I generally think semantic arguments are pretty weak (and if you feel the NEED to make one you've already lost the main argument),...
No doubt.....when you start hammering them with evidence, facts, logic and reason, they turn tail and run.
Quote:
Originally Posted by greywar
Whats your point really?
I would have to talk over your head.
Quote:
Originally Posted by greywar
Its a inevitable process, and when it gets really going, what occurs? do you expect those who are unemployed to just....drop dead?
No, I expect them to do what every freaking human being on Earth has done since time immemorial and that is adjust their Life-Style and Standard of Living to a lower level.
Quote:
Originally Posted by greywar
what should we be doing? What will we look like?
WWND?
What would Neanderthal do?
Neanderthal would migrate to a better place where the grass was greener.
You are lacking in intelligence, with no imagination and zero foresight.
An intelligent person would consider the possibility that the US might reach a point where it has a group of people who cannot compete and/or cannot function in the new society.
In such a case, a reasonable government policy is to ask those people to voluntarily relinquish their US Citizenship, and emigrate permanently to another country. It would even be reasonable to pay such persons to do that, say $10,000 each.
In that way, the person would be in a place where they can compete, where they can function, where they can be of use, where they can improve society instead of destroying society, and where their skills are in demand.
Trade is not a Zero-Sum game....by exporting people, everyone benefits.
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Originally Posted by kidkaos2
There is no smaller government or lower minimum wage choice. It's a false dichotomy built on the assumption that people are guaranteed a standard of living.
That was pointed out previously, but the OP continues to dodge and deflect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jojajn
Actually there were many people who died on the job due to dangerous working conditions, who died due to untreated diseases, and starvation in America before government stepped in.
This is the 21st Century......pull out knee-jerk nonsense from your bag of knee-jerk tricks doesn't impress me.
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Originally Posted by jojajn
Because if the company is not paying Joe, Joe will not be able to buy the companies paper towels. Hence, company fail.
Joe wasn't buying their crappy paper towels in the first place.....hence....thread fail.
Quote:
Originally Posted by texan2yankee
And, back to the original topic and my original post, raising minimum wage will only accelerate the process of displacement of the lowest skilled workers.
Yes, it will, and it's probably time to start considering policies to remedy that, such as asking those people to voluntarily surrender their Citizenship and leave the US to go to a place where their skills and abilities are in demand and they can prosper.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roadking2003
Your first failure is using Maher for any form of wisdom.
We should have NO minimum wage and smaller government. And yes, we can have both.
I told the OP to bring Maher here and I would tap-dance on his head, but I guess he's too afraid his fantasy will collapse in on him.
Semantically...
My point was simply this: the Democrats by demanding increased minimum wage without putting anything on the table in return have not been giving conservatives the choice between a smaller government with less handout and a higher minimum wage on the one hand and the inverse on the other as said in the original post of the thread, but rather a choice between a higher minimum wage with no other changes to the status quo versus the status quo.
I think you've done a very good job btw of demonstrating WHY this offer has not been made: Democratic primary voters such as yourself value a stronger welfare system more than a higher minimum wage. That's fine, it's America and you're welcome to hold whatever views you want, but don't be surprised when if you want Republicans to do something they see as bad for the country and aren't offering what they see as a greater good in return that nothing happens.
Actually heres the weird thing I have found. While I value a good social safety net, many Conservatives value "smaller government". And they often have no issues with saying our military is too large.
So hey-how about a smaller military?
And you know what? I agree we need a smaller government, but I also believe in having a solid safety net. But I also find that our safety net is "sticky". IE it encourages people to not improve themselves as when they do the net disappears...and theyre in the exact same spot financially.
So...I think we need to STOP means testing saafety nets. I think everyone should get a certain level of safety net, and always get it-working or not. And it shouldnt be part of 15 different agencies.
But none of this happens, if the left puts up a radical idea the right tears them apart for it for political gain. If the left negotiates for smaller things the right screams about how they wont compromise their principles. Its a no win situation.
And you can't blame it entirely on the politicians, I hear this from people that are the conservative voters. "I want a candidate that wont compromise his principles, and that represents the majority that voted for him, not the people who were wrong"
If they earn it, it isn't a hand out, and that is called a merit raise. I used to get raises regularly when I was employed and paid hourly. I always worked hard so that when review time came along, I would be seen as worth an increase in pay. I always got a raise. Eventually, I was given a salaried position in the marketing department.
You and I disagree on just about everything else, but this is right on the money. And this is why Republicans are finished nationally until and unless they wake up and get behind working men and women on economic issues....issues of survival.
The blindness of my fellow conservatives on this topic is their death wish, but the stubborn denial just seems to harden.
Finished nationally? LOL......Repubicans control Congress and 30 governorships and state legislatures and my bet is for 2014 they will expand congress and take the senate and you say they are done nationally? LMAO!
raising the min. wage will raise consumer prices and raise unemployment especially on the uneducated and unskilled workers which most are blacks and latinos.
MIN. Wage is not to support a family. Its for workers with NO skills and NO education to learn the basic skills on the job training so they can compete for higher wages jobs. You liberals crack me up!
Well then, if automation replaces many jobs, there should be no reason why the employer cannot pay more to the remaining employees.
This statement is illustrative of your mistaken way of thinking. If the owner buys automation to increase the efficiency of his business, which allows him to reduce his workforce and expenses, he does so for HIS BENEFIT. That's the point of a business, and for spending money to improve it; to benefit the owner. You seem to be of the opinion that the owner is under some obligation to share the profits with his workers. That's silliness. The fact that one aspect of the business became more efficient & cost effective does not suddenly make the other workers somehow more valuable, and their labor worth more than it was before.
Actually heres the weird thing I have found. While I value a good social safety net, many Conservatives value "smaller government". And they often have no issues with saying our military is too large.
So hey-how about a smaller military?
And you know what? I agree we need a smaller government, but I also believe in having a solid safety net. But I also find that our safety net is "sticky". IE it encourages people to not improve themselves as when they do the net disappears...and theyre in the exact same spot financially.
So...I think we need to STOP means testing saafety nets. I think everyone should get a certain level of safety net, and always get it-working or not. And it shouldnt be part of 15 different agencies.
But none of this happens, if the left puts up a radical idea the right tears them apart for it for political gain. If the left negotiates for smaller things the right screams about how they wont compromise their principles. Its a no win situation.
And you can't blame it entirely on the politicians, I hear this from people that are the conservative voters. "I want a candidate that wont compromise his principles, and that represents the majority that voted for him, not the people who were wrong"
I don't think you'd get any disagreement from conservatives on trying to make the safety net less sticky than it currently is in principle.
On a universal income in lieu of means-tested social transfers, the idea is very appealing in concept but I don't think there is a mathematically and politically viable way to do it. Make it cost-neutral and Republicans will love it, but Democrats will hate it since current recipients will get less. Make it harmless for current recipients and Democrats will love it but Republicans will hate it since it would massively expand the size of the federal government. A compromise leaves a substantially bigger government with substantially less money and resources going to traditional welfare recipients and I just don't see it happening.
Military spending is it's own separate issue that the Republican party is split in half on. I and many other people think we should reduce it dramatically but there are other interests in the party and you need to compromise to make a platform and a broad tent in the same way that you need to to pass anything except in rare freak incidents of one-party control like 2008-2010.
With regard to Democratic ideas getting shot down, I think this is because some of the top Democrats proposing them either don't understand the Republican party very well or alternatively DO understand the Repulican party well and are intentionally making dead-in-the-water suggestions they know will be shot down because they think it looks good politically. To circle back to something you brought up several posts ago, let's look at Obama's offer to chain-weight social security. Chain-weighting is something that Republicans see as like eating your broccoli: it's not something they really want, but considering the demographic path of the country it's needed to keep long term spending sustainable. If Republicans particularly disliked social security spending more than federal spending on the whole that offer could have worked, but that's not the case so an offer to cut social security to spend more on other things, including welfare programs - is a lead balloon. So it gets torn apart and turned into a political football because to the Republicans it was never a serious offer in the first place.
edit: with all of this of course we're getting pretty far removed from the original premise of the thread.
edit #2: kind of an aside and not completely relevant to the overall point, Obama's social security chain weighting suggestion beyond the issues above had a deal-killing poison pill in it even if it was something Republicans would have been interested in otherwise (which it wasn't): chain weight old-age entitlements and tax rates but leave means-tests programs under the old system. Devil's in the details.
Last edited by ALackOfCreativity; 01-01-2014 at 06:25 PM..
No doubt.....when you start hammering them with evidence, facts, logic and reason, they turn tail and run.
I would have to talk over your head.
No, I expect them to do what every freaking human being on Earth has done since time immemorial and that is adjust their Life-Style and Standard of Living to a lower level.
WWND?
What would Neanderthal do?
Neanderthal would migrate to a better place where the grass was greener.
You are lacking in intelligence, with no imagination and zero foresight.
An intelligent person would consider the possibility that the US might reach a point where it has a group of people who cannot compete and/or cannot function in the new society.
In such a case, a reasonable government policy is to ask those people to voluntarily relinquish their US Citizenship, and emigrate permanently to another country. It would even be reasonable to pay such persons to do that, say $10,000 each.
In that way, the person would be in a place where they can compete, where they can function, where they can be of use, where they can improve society instead of destroying society, and where their skills are in demand.
Trade is not a Zero-Sum game....by exporting people, everyone benefits.
That was pointed out previously, but the OP continues to dodge and deflect.
This is the 21st Century......pull out knee-jerk nonsense from your bag of knee-jerk tricks doesn't impress me.
Joe wasn't buying their crappy paper towels in the first place.....hence....thread fail.
Yes, it will, and it's probably time to start considering policies to remedy that, such as asking those people to voluntarily surrender their Citizenship and leave the US to go to a place where their skills and abilities are in demand and they can prosper.
I told the OP to bring Maher here and I would tap-dance on his head, but I guess he's too afraid his fantasy will collapse in on him.
Semantically...
Mircea
For the love of god take the leftist their are countless nations they could be sent to and it would not affect them in any negative way.
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to you!
