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People want to show up, stand around and do nothing and want 7.00 per hour for doing nothing. That is stealing.
I really have never heard anyone say that. I guess I must be a thief then. I am a full time worker making $9.50 an hour as a security guard. I work overnights in an office building. I literally do nothing. I just watch television and sit on the internet all night. I am very lazy so it really is the perfect job for me. Here is how I feel. My salary of $9.50 an hour is fair IMO since I do absolutely nothing. I live decently on it because I am very frugal and good with my finances. However, if someone actually expected me to work I would expect a lot more money than I am currently being paid. How can you seriously expect someone to actually work for $7 an hour, and do something for it? Since jobs like mine are available for more than that it would not make any sense to take a labor job for that amount of income.
I really have never heard anyone say that. I guess I must be a thief then. I am a full time worker making $9.50 an hour as a security guard. I work overnights in an office building. I literally do nothing. I just watch television and sit on the internet all night. I am very lazy so it really is the perfect job for me. Here is how I feel. My salary of $9.50 an hour is fair IMO since I do absolutely nothing. I live decently on it because I am very frugal and good with my finances. However, if someone actually expected me to work I would expect a lot more money than I am currently being paid. How can you seriously expect someone to actually work for $7 an hour, and do something for it? Since jobs like mine are available for more than that it would not make any sense to take a labor job for that amount of income.
It's an attitude towards life and self worth issue.
My own sense of myself , my pride, ego, whatever you want to call it, demands that,if I agree to do a job, the person hiring me is not hiring out someone worth $3 , they are getting me and I would not ever want my name associated with a poor work product.
If not willing to do my best, I wouldn't take the job at all.
If I work for you for $3 or $9 or $450 an hour or free or only a Thank You, you will still get something I will be proud o having done.
This attitude may be why some people will never rise above a minimum wage job.
Many weeks I signed paychecks for 275.00-300.00 when I know the employee did not earn it and did not make me any money on my investment to them.
Thank you for saying Investment in your employees. This is not a common view most call labor an expense. Looking at it as an investment lets you see part of the return occurring outside of you company in the economy as a hole. Higher pay will tend to grow the economy. Now you all by yourself can't carry the burden, but shared equally everyone can.
I'm all for a flat tax and a lifting of the SS cap.
A flat tax is fair..20-30% across the board..no one gets a free ride and what you pay in taxes is based on what you earn.
Fair and goo can be two different things. We need a two tier tax structure. For the bottom 99% a flat tax would be OK. For the top 1% either the flat tax or a higher tax based on a function of total debt in America. This is to keep the top end from having debt bubbles so we can have a more stable economy.
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Originally Posted by HappyTexan
IRS could be halved and tax forms reduced to a single one page form for all.
I'm all for it, but I don't ever see it happening.
I hear talk of a VAT and I think that will be in addition to what we have today.
Join the penny pinching person's party WE are going to do this. We is currently me but you've got'a start somewhere.
You imply a completely static economy. That growth our economy has every year means jobs are created to go with it. The reason we can fill those jobs is because our population increases.
So in your senario (and as is common in life), the garbage man goes and gets a degree, two positions for that degree opened up (one retiree, one economic growth). So now this is an opening for an accountant (former garbage man took the other opening) and an opening for the garbage positon.
Your assertions are wrong as we have a growing economy and population. If that changes, or if we were talking about Germany and not the US, your logic may hold more weight.
Riddle me this, how come the economy and population have been growing since September 2009, yet the unemployment rate grew all third and fourth quarter and has just stopped bleeding this quarter?
How come the US economy grew all of 2007, yet the unemployment rate went up .4 over the year?
Why is it that between 2000 and 2008, we added about 7,500 net jobs, but we added over 20 million people
I think it might have something to do with our jobs being exported wholesale, automated, or additional productivity being squeezed out of existing workers, while the capitalist pocketed the scratch.
It's an attitude towards life and self worth issue.
My own sense of myself , my pride, ego, whatever you want to call it, demands that,if I agree to do a job, the person hiring me is not hiring out someone worth $3 , they are getting me and I would not ever want my name associated with a poor work product.
If not willing to do my best, I wouldn't take the job at all.
If I work for you for $3 or $9 or $450 an hour or free or only a Thank You, you will still get something I will be proud o having done.
This attitude may be why some people will never rise above a minimum wage job.
Your good name doesnt pay the bills. Thats the bottom line on that. Thats exactly why there are prostitutes, strippers, drug dealers, etc.
Still, there is no rule that one must have a "job". If a "job" does not provide what an "employee" wants that person is free to take a different "job" or actually produce something themselves. Whining about it does not change reality or nature.
What do most capitalists produce? They dont produce anything. They pay other people to produce for them while they collect by virtue of owning capital. Owning capital is not a job. Owning capital does not contribute anything to society.
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Originally Posted by irspow
First, if there are no "open" slots in a particular service, there is nothing from stopping you from "stealing" one of those occupied positions by doing it better or cheaper.
There are "open" slots for all services. Demand determines those slots. If you steal someone elses share of demand, you are simply pushing them out of one of the open spots, not creating a new spot.
One huge problem with capitalism is that those slots are unknown. So people can waste tons of time and money trying to establish something or get training for something that all the spots are gone in.
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Originally Posted by irspow
Second, any desire that your fellow man has can be filled.
Only a few of those desires can be filled by one man though. It is not realistic to expect a man to assemble a car (or almost any complicated project) from start to finish by himself.
Desires that can be filled by one man would be consistantly replicated. Lawn care, cooking, baby sitting, handyman work, tax accounting, computer repair/installation or software coding, legal services, very basic medical services.
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Originally Posted by irspow
We can disagree, no problem. I just say that if someone doesn't think that the hammer is worth $5 he won't buy it. It is totally dependent on the user what the tool's value is to HIM.
That is true, I agree. He does not believe the value is worth $5. That does not mean the hammer DOESNT have a value of $5, just that the person doesnt want to exchange his $5 for it.
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Originally Posted by irspow
Well that figure "pulled out of" one's behind is precisely the value to the one with the behind, NOT the person groveling at his feet because he is unable to produce value on his own.
Actually, he can produce value on his own, which is precisely why he was hired. However, his skill lies in being a cog in a machine, that happens to be owned by a capitalist. This automatically puts him in economic duress.
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Originally Posted by irspow
What crime is committed by someone that is faster, smarter, more talented, more willing to expend effort, take chances? Do we mandate restrictions on the talents of others?
I didnt know that control of capital was equivalent to talent. This country is full of complete idiots who have millions of dollars. In fact, self made millionaires out of generation x and y are going to be few and far between. Most will simply inherit what their parents built. If they dont inherit what their parents had directly, they will be afforded every priviledge and every bit of nepotism they can swallow to be launched in to the upper crusts of society without putting forth a fraction of the effort someone who was born with nothing had to put out.
Kudos for "talent" I guess.
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Originally Posted by irspow
Do we simply punish those who are better at something out of mere jealousy and greed? Do we reward failed behavior and ideas so that it can flourish anyway?
As an alternative, we can reward legacy wealth and nepotism.
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Originally Posted by irspow
If someone did not know how to build a house with the trees around him, should the person who does be forced to build it for him like a personal slave?
No. As long as both people had access to the trees, then I have no problem with "guy who cant build with them" freezing to death. What I DO have a problem with is one guy being born with all the trees, and the other guy having to figure out some thing to exchange for the trees, which no doubt will not be of equivalent real value, since the trade will be made under duress.
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Originally Posted by irspow
That is why it is okay in Amerika to hate and punish the successful and reward the unsuccessful through arbitrary force.
Why do the "unsuccessful" largely have no chance at birth, and if they do succeed its by climbing a Mt. Everest of odds, while other people have to try extremely hard to screw themselves out of a life of leisure at birth? How is that fair?
The problem is that you are trying to set a Ameican standard of monetary value on yourself,not a human value.
Those workers in China, for instance, the dirt poor in Africa.....they are humans with the same human value you have.
If given the ame things te American poor have, they would consider themselves enriched beyond belief.
You say you should be paid enough for food and shelter.
They need those same basics but I doubt you would see any of them spending their food money for non-essententials and saying they don't have enough money to eat the last week of the month the way food stamp recipients are known to do or complaining they can only afford to live in poor neighborhoods if they had the luxury of a one bedroom apt for only 1,2 or 3 people.
Minimum wage in this country allows for a much higher standard of living whether the job being done truely is worth that scale of pay or not
So stop talking about how much you are worth.....or think you're worth.
Pay is set on what the job is worth, not the person doing it.
Only people can make themselves worth more or less in every way, including monetarily, than the next guy.
Just because it makes people better off here does not mean that the people here are doing good. Being hungry and living in a neighborhood where you are afraid to go out at night is still bad. You can not compare the two. Maybe you should compare the poor people in Africa and find someone more poor then them in order to make an excuse not to help them.
Just because it makes people better off here does not mean that the people here are doing good. Being hungry and living in a neighborhood where you are afraid to go out at night is still bad. You can not compare the two. Maybe you should compare the poor people in Africa and find someone more poor then them in order to make an excuse not to help them.
I want to see an international minimum wage. We can't impose one unilaterally but we can say that if your labor gets turned into US dollars then you need to be paid a given amount. I'd say starting at $5/day and working towards US minimum wage over time. This should start a boom in the worlds economy like we have never seen before. We can back this request up with punitive tariffs if they don't want to play along.
I want to see an international minimum wage. We can't impose one unilaterally but we can say that if your labor gets turned into US dollars then you need to be paid a given amount. I'd say starting at $5/day and working towards US minimum wage over time. This should start a boom in the worlds economy like we have never seen before. We can back this request up with punitive tariffs if they don't want to play along.
You are onto something, but who is 'we'? People like Sunny Days don't want labor to be equitable worldwide, they want not to have to pay anything for it, anywhere. As long as that is the prevailing sentiment by the business sector, the door to lower cost labor, at home (PIC) or abroad will be kept open.
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