Getting specific on income/wealth inequality

[Rikurzhen]

A lot of jobs probably scheduled to be automated in the future. Some say, progress. Buggy whip makers didn't starve, they went to work building cars. Only thing I'm thinking is who gets the jobs building the automatic machines or robots? India or China? Back in the buggy whip plant layoff times, jobs weren't easily offshored like they are today. Just a thought to ponder maybe. Where do employees go when their job is automated. Retrain? Two things. Education and training is not affordable in this country like it once was. Also, not everybody is capable of doing jobs beyond routine labor, clean up, etc. Maybe time to think about a national minimum income like Tom Paine advocated?

Right. A safety net makes much more sense than delusional nonsense. It's hilarious. We want our socialism, but we want to pretend it's something else. We're indulging in the same kind of self-deception with health care.

All advanced countries have some form of national health care except USA. So you think they're all self delusional?

No, they're not delusional, rather they're actual nations comprised of one people. The US is a multicultural hellhole and this results in a very individualistic mindset. If you want the US to have the very tight social cohesion and extensive social welfare network of a place like Finland then you need to figure out how to ethnically cleanse the US in a humane fashion so that our population is as cultural united as Finland's.

Like national minimum income. What's wrong with it.

What's wrong with it? It coddles people, thus removing incentive to get out of bed and drag your ass to the job you hate doing.

Even if we thought it was a good idea you need to have a mentality of "there but for the grace of god go I" where you see yourself getting as much benefit from a program as you see your neighbor getting. Cheaters and free riders absolutely kill these types of schemes. In the US there would be far too much welfare redistribution from one group to another - one pays and one benefits. That makes this DOA.

We obviously have more people than jobs, some jobs not even paying enough for a person to sustain a decent life.

But I'm not hearing your screaming to deport those infiltrator kids, I'm not hearing you screaming about the need to deport 20 million infiltrators because they're cutting into the welfare pie and thus reducing what can be spent on citizens. I'm not hearing you screaming about shutting legal immigration down completely because we already have too many people.

These issues which are dear to your heart have to find a negotiated settlement with people who think like me, that is, your opposite. What I see you doing is playing the part of the big-hearted guy, you don't want to be mean, and so you want to let those kids stay, let the 20 million infiltrators stay and all the costs that they impose on society you want to shift to wealthy Americans. If we have a situation of $X billion in taxes being paid by 10,000 taxpayers to support Americans with welfare of one sort or another, you want to let the infiltrators and legal immigrants in on the deal and simply raise $2X billion from the SAME 10,000 taxpayers. Screw the American NET TAX CONTRIBUTORS so that you can ease your conscience and be nice to foreigners. Remember that tight sense of national community I talked about above? Does this look like you're more aligned with the interest of American taxpayers or the interests of foreigners?

 

[dblack]

A lot of jobs probably scheduled to be automated in the future. Some say, progress. Buggy whip makers didn't starve, they went to work building cars. Only thing I'm thinking is who gets the jobs building the automatic machines or robots? India or China? Back in the buggy whip plant layoff times, jobs weren't easily offshored like they are today. Just a thought to ponder maybe. Where do employees go when their job is automated. Retrain? Two things. Education and training is not affordable in this country like it once was. Also, not everybody is capable of doing jobs beyond routine labor, clean up, etc. Maybe time to think about a national minimum income like Tom Paine advocated?

Right. A safety net makes much more sense than delusional nonsense. It's hilarious. We want our socialism, but we want to pretend it's something else. We're indulging in the same kind of self-deception with health care.

All advanced countries have some form of national health care except USA. So you think they're all self delusional?

No, I think we're delusional. We want socialized health care but we want to pretend we don't. So we have this half-baked mandate that is the worst of both worlds - all the profiteering of the capitalism, without the freedom to decide for ourselves how to pay for our healthcare. Ultimately, I'd rather government stay out of health care altogether. But if they're going to force us to pay for it, then we should have complete control of it as voters. As ACA has panned out, we're essentially being taxed by the insurance industry. It's insane in my view.

I was just posting in form of what if. Like national minimum income. What's wrong with it. We obviously have more people than jobs, some jobs not even paying enough for a person to sustain a decent life. If people at the subsistence level have money they spend it all on goods and services, which put people to work.

What's wrong with it is there are still quite a few of us who don't want caretaker government. But, again, if we're going to insist that everyone makes a 'living wage', we should just do as you suggested and cut everyone a check, paid for via taxes, that will cover basic living expenses. Ultimately, I don't think that kind of government works, but if we're going to do it, we should do it honestly and quit kidding ourselves by trying to mandate shit out of thin air.

 

[JoeB131]

And how do you propose to do that? If the work someone does isn't worth a "living wage", what should be done about that?

All work is worth a living wage if you are the one doing it. Set the minimum wage at a living wage. At present, $12.50 per hour with upward adjustment for geographic location would work.

Cash register duty at Home Depot is not worth a living wage. If the minimum wage is raised automated checkout will be the norm instead of the exception.

Here's the thing. Most people don't like the automated tellers unless they are buying one or two items. On the weekly VOC website, there will usually be one or two people complaining that there were not enough tellers and they didn't like the automated tellers. Then a snarky comment about how they were going to Menard's next time.

Also, the HD I was at, they had 30-40 employees in the store at any given time. ONly about four of them were tellers. The rest worked the aisles helping customers find things and get things down. That actually takes LESS skill than a cash register.

 

[JoeB131]

All work is worth a living wage if you are the one doing it. Set the minimum wage at a living wage. At present, $12.50 per hour with upward adjustment for geographic location would work.

So, if the work they do isn't worth $12.50 an hour, they're not allowed to work?

Don't pop their liberal bubbles. What do they have to live for if not the make-believe world of liberal-land where reality is never to be found.

Asking them to ponder a person who produces $8 of value per hour being paid $15 per hour must makes them sad and weepy.

Frankly, I'd love to see them to a real-life calculation of the worth of employees and then pay them based on that.

My guess is you'd see a lot more $15.00 clerks and a lot less CEO's making eight figures.

Going back to the Home Depot example. The CEO of Home Depot, Frank Blake, made 10.8 million last year. What was he possibly doing that was worth 10.8 million?

 

[Agit8r]

There seems to be too many ways to get around income taxes. It would be more practical in this information age to tax assets. There is ample public record of holdings, their assessed value, insured value etc.

 

[zeke]

Maybe an example in a different context would give you some insight. If the government decreed that all fast food meals would be worth a minimum of $12.00, would continue buying the same burger and fries that used to cost $6.00 now that they cost twice as much? Or would you just eat out less - maybe quit buying fast food altogether? Would the government telling you that the burger and fries are now worth twice as much actually make them worth twice as much to you? Or would it just be a stupid inconvenience you had to work around?

Nope. Doesn't work. Try another analogy. Maybe my pea-sized lib brain will be able to understand.

Maybe. Did you actually try to answer the question? Would you simply pay twice as much for the same thing? Or would you find a cheaper alternative, maybe cook your own dinner at home (the equivalent of the employer doing as you suggested and doing the job themselves)?

Hey hey, lots of labor intensive jobs have been filled by the employers with that "cheaper alternative" that you mentioned.

Some people call them "illegal immigrants".

I guess you call them "minimum wage busters".

 

[dblack]

So, if the work they do isn't worth $12.50 an hour, they're not allowed to work?

Don't pop their liberal bubbles. What do they have to live for if not the make-believe world of liberal-land where reality is never to be found.

Asking them to ponder a person who produces $8 of value per hour being paid $15 per hour must makes them sad and weepy.

Frankly, I'd love to see them to a real-life calculation of the worth of employees and then pay them based on that.

That's idiotic. People are worth infinitely more than an hourly wage.

But that's what you don't get. Employers pay for the labor, not the person. They're not buying slaves, they're paying people for their services, and they pay what the services are worth to them and their customers. That has little to do with how much the person is worth.

 

[JoeB131]

Don't pop their liberal bubbles. What do they have to live for if not the make-believe world of liberal-land where reality is never to be found.

Asking them to ponder a person who produces $8 of value per hour being paid $15 per hour must makes them sad and weepy.

Frankly, I'd love to see them to a real-life calculation of the worth of employees and then pay them based on that.

That's idiotic. People are worth infinitely more than an hourly wage.

But that's what you don't get. Employers pay for the labor, not the person. They're not buying slaves, they're paying people for their services, and they pay what the services are worth to them and their customers. That has little to do with how much the person is worth.

what I get is that employers will cheat the fuck out of employees if they think they can get away with it.

which is why you need government and unions to make sure they don't.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Like I said this is a consumer based economy. Consumer spending represents 70% of our economy. If more and more money is concentrated at the top the less the lower classes have to spend. That is why crises are inevitable. The middle class, one of the main driving forces for the economy, is shrinking.

Secondly, how could raising the wage drive inflation? Also, the hike on prices would depend on the actual wage increase. If it was raised, say $3, the actual increase in prices would be small. Finally, prices would likely go back down because with higher wages comes more consumer spending. That will boost the economy. If it doesn't lower prices right away it would still create jobs. The job loss from a $3 raise would be about 500,000 jobs (from the CBO and that's a liberal estimate).

Any economy has two distinct components. Wealth creation, and wealth distribution. Without wealth creation, there is no wealth to distribute. Not so difficult to understand.

You can babble on about consumer spending being 70% of the economy, and all that demonstrates is that you know nothing about how an economy actually works. If you did know how an economy actually works, you wouldn't be bemoaning income/wealth inequaltiy. That has no real meaning except to incite ignorant people.

As long as sufficient wealth is being created to support the population according to the skills, knowledge, and labor of that population, then everyone in that population is fully compensated for their contribution, and who has the rest of the wealth is inconsequental to any of them.

Our economy, and the world economy, is suffering because not enough wealth is being created to support the population. Left wingers are sure that we can confiscate enough from those who have excess wealth to make up the difference. That would be a very short term solution, and when the excess wealth ended, so would the economy. This has been amply demonstrated everywhere it has been tried.

We need to increase wealth creation, and the only way to do that is to encourage the creation of wealth through tax policy and regulatory policy. Exploiting our natural resources such as oil, gas, timber, minerals, etc., is one large source of wealth creation. Adding value through manufacturing is another. Agriculture is also a wealth generator, but does not carry the multiplier benefits of the first two.

Dude are you even listening to yourself? You're sayin that wealth creation is down. Nothing about that makes any sense. 1% of the top earners own 40% of the nations weath. Instead of distributig said wealth, they are keeping it.

You have absolutely no idea what you are saying.

you think wealth is a zero sum game and you're telling someone else he doesn't know what he's talking about?

 

[dblack]

Nope. Doesn't work. Try another analogy. Maybe my pea-sized lib brain will be able to understand.

Maybe. Did you actually try to answer the question? Would you simply pay twice as much for the same thing? Or would you find a cheaper alternative, maybe cook your own dinner at home (the equivalent of the employer doing as you suggested and doing the job themselves)?

Hey hey, lots of labor intensive jobs have been filled by the employers with that "cheaper alternative" that you mentioned.

Some people call them "illegal immigrants".

I guess you call them "minimum wage busters".

Yep. Or they pay someone off the books. If they want to stay legal, they shift the work to people they're already paying above minimum and give them a raise to reflect the share of extra work they're taking on. Or they do it themselves. Or they drop whatever extra service the labor was offering their customers and give them a discount. The bottom line is that there are many different alternatives that aren't in denial of the real value of the labor involved.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Don't pop their liberal bubbles. What do they have to live for if not the make-believe world of liberal-land where reality is never to be found.

Asking them to ponder a person who produces $8 of value per hour being paid $15 per hour must makes them sad and weepy.

Frankly, I'd love to see them to a real-life calculation of the worth of employees and then pay them based on that.

That's idiotic. People are worth infinitely more than an hourly wage.

But that's what you don't get. Employers pay for the labor, not the person. They're not buying slaves, they're paying people for their services, and they pay what the services are worth to them and their customers. That has little to do with how much the person is worth.

No. They pay them what they are worth to them and their customers OR LESS. They will pay less if permitted. In fact, they will be personally rewarded if they accomplish this. You want to permit them to. I don't.

 

[dblack]

Frankly, I'd love to see them to a real-life calculation of the worth of employees and then pay them based on that.

That's idiotic. People are worth infinitely more than an hourly wage.

But that's what you don't get. Employers pay for the labor, not the person. They're not buying slaves, they're paying people for their services, and they pay what the services are worth to them and their customers. That has little to do with how much the person is worth.

No. They pay them what they are worth to them and their customers OR LESS. They will pay less if permitted. In fact, they will be personally rewarded if they accomplish this. You want to permit them to. I don't.

That's right. But you won't acknowledge that. You'd rather see someone unemployed than work for less than what you think is acceptable. And I wonder, what makes you think your opinion is more worthy than the person actually doing the work?

 

[LoneLaugher]

That's idiotic. People are worth infinitely more than an hourly wage.

But that's what you don't get. Employers pay for the labor, not the person. They're not buying slaves, they're paying people for their services, and they pay what the services are worth to them and their customers. That has little to do with how much the person is worth.

No. They pay them what they are worth to them and their customers OR LESS. They will pay less if permitted. In fact, they will be personally rewarded if they accomplish this. You want to permit them to. I don't.

That's right. But you won't acknowledge that. You'd rather see someone unemployed than work for less than what you think is acceptable. And I wonder, what makes you think your opinion is more worthy than the person actually doing the work?

It is a proven fact that unskilled laborers will work for less than they are worth to employers. They will compete for the job. If permitted by law, the one who is willing to work for the least will get the job.

Let's say that Bob accepts a job from Tom. He is going to haul away debris from Tom's job site. He agrees to do it for $10 per hour. Is that the amount that debris hauling is worth to Tom?

 

[Skull Pilot]

No. They pay them what they are worth to them and their customers OR LESS. They will pay less if permitted. In fact, they will be personally rewarded if they accomplish this. You want to permit them to. I don't.

That's right. But you won't acknowledge that. You'd rather see someone unemployed than work for less than what you think is acceptable. And I wonder, what makes you think your opinion is more worthy than the person actually doing the work?

It is a proven fact that unskilled laborers will work for less than they are worth to employers. They will compete for the job. If permitted by law, the one who is willing to work for the least will get the job.

Let's say that Bob accepts a job from Tom. He is going to haul away debris from Tom's job site. He agrees to do it for $10 per hour. Is that the amount that debris hauling is worth to Tom?

It's worth whatever he is willing to pay.

If the guy hauling the trash cost 100 an hour then Tom most likely would take the trash himself. So in that case the removal of the trash was worth the money he saved

 

[LoneLaugher]

That's right. But you won't acknowledge that. You'd rather see someone unemployed than work for less than what you think is acceptable. And I wonder, what makes you think your opinion is more worthy than the person actually doing the work?

It is a proven fact that unskilled laborers will work for less than they are worth to employers. They will compete for the job. If permitted by law, the one who is willing to work for the least will get the job.

Let's say that Bob accepts a job from Tom. He is going to haul away debris from Tom's job site. He agrees to do it for $10 per hour. Is that the amount that debris hauling is worth to Tom?

It's worth whatever he is willing to pay.

If the guy hauling the trash cost 100 an hour then Tom most likely would take the trash himself. So in that case the removal of the trash was worth the money he saved

I understand that this is a message board and that you have the right to respond. But I am mid discussion with Dblack here and I am making a specific point related to this particular discussion. So...you'll understand why I don't give your reply even a moment of consideration.

 

[Skull Pilot]

It is a proven fact that unskilled laborers will work for less than they are worth to employers. They will compete for the job. If permitted by law, the one who is willing to work for the least will get the job.

Let's say that Bob accepts a job from Tom. He is going to haul away debris from Tom's job site. He agrees to do it for $10 per hour. Is that the amount that debris hauling is worth to Tom?

It's worth whatever he is willing to pay.

If the guy hauling the trash cost 100 an hour then Tom most likely would take the trash himself. So in that case the removal of the trash was worth the money he saved

I understand that this is a message board and that you have the right to respond. But I am mid discussion with Dblack here and I am making a specific point related to this particular discussion. So...you'll understand why I don't give your reply even a moment of consideration.

Fuck off and put me on ignore if you don't want to read what i post.

 

[LoneLaugher]

It's worth whatever he is willing to pay.

If the guy hauling the trash cost 100 an hour then Tom most likely would take the trash himself. So in that case the removal of the trash was worth the money he saved

I understand that this is a message board and that you have the right to respond. But I am mid discussion with Dblack here and I am making a specific point related to this particular discussion. So...you'll understand why I don't give your reply even a moment of consideration.

Fuck off and put me on ignore if you don't want to read what i post.

I didn't say that. In fact...I read what you posted. I just don't want to respond to what you posted. Get it? You need a thicker skin.

 

[Skull Pilot]

I understand that this is a message board and that you have the right to respond. But I am mid discussion with Dblack here and I am making a specific point related to this particular discussion. So...you'll understand why I don't give your reply even a moment of consideration.

Fuck off and put me on ignore if you don't want to read what i post.

I didn't say that. In fact...I read what you posted. I just don't want to respond to what you posted. Get it? You need a thicker skin.

Hey if you don't want people to respond to a post then get off the board.

How many times have you responded to one of my posts not directed at you?

 

[LoneLaugher]

Fuck off and put me on ignore if you don't want to read what i post.

I didn't say that. In fact...I read what you posted. I just don't want to respond to what you posted. Get it? You need a thicker skin.

Hey if you don't want people to respond to a post then get off the board.

How many times have you responded to one of my posts not directed at you?

I was trying to be nice. I don't want to take this specific point into another direction. You got offended. Sorry.

 

[Skull Pilot]

I didn't say that. In fact...I read what you posted. I just don't want to respond to what you posted. Get it? You need a thicker skin.

Hey if you don't want people to respond to a post then get off the board.

How many times have you responded to one of my posts not directed at you?

I was trying to be nice. I don't want to take this specific point into another direction. You got offended. Sorry.

You cannot offend me because you are an anonymous twit on a message board.