Minimum wage argument

[Mr. Peepers]

Campaign financing laws do nothing to change this. it only pushes more of it into the background. Idiotic bureaucracies like the new 'consumer' protection agency actually created this problem in the first place. I find it difficult to understand why you and other seem to be unable to grasp the reality in giving government such powers. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is no way around this basic truth. Look at what happens after these agencies and laws that are supposedly 'protecting' us. Who wins out with the new healthcare requirements. Sure is not the people. It is the insurance companies that now have a customer that is required by law to purchase their product. How are the big banks doing now that they are subject to all those onerous regulations that are going to protect us from them? They are bigger and more powerful than they ever were.

What you're not understanding is that we, the people, do not get to vote on anything regarding corporations, tax law or anything else of real importance - and we don't have billions to lobby with, so technically, our voice has been stripped. Hell, the people writing the damn health care law were bought and paid for by the insurance companies - you know this. I wouldn't be surprised if the CEO's weren't sitting there with a goddamned pen in their hands at the same table. We DO need to get money completely out of our political system. No more lobbyists and cap campaign donations to $100. Lobbyists can go in and talk until they are blue to try to convince one our representatives that Monsanto should be immune from any government regulation, but not one thin dime should ever be allowed to exchange hands for such dangerous legislation.

 

[dblack]

What you're not understanding is that we, the people do not get to vote on anything regarding corporations, tax law or anything else of real importance. Hell, the people writing the damn health care law were bought and paid for by the insurance companies - you know this. I wouldn't be surprised if the CEO's were sitting there with a goddamned pen in their hands at the same table. We DO need to get money completely out of our political system.

Totally agree. But to effectively keep economic power from influencing politics, you have to limit our politicians' power to influence the economy, especially their power to offer perks and favors to special interest groups. As government policy has become more capricious and arbitrary, businesses have learned that to protect their profits than need to have influence in government. Worse, they've learned they can use government to coerce us into "giving" them our business.

 

[dblack]

From my perspective, the entire situation with economic power and state power merging is analogous to the problem of religion and government. And we're going to have to do similar work to tease them apart. There we had to understand that the way to limit the influence of religion on government was to keep government out of religion.

The subtle irony of that effort is that it was "religious freedom" that neutered the power of the church. The first amendment places no explicit restrictions on religious power - the restrictions are nominally all on government. How do you think it would have gone if, instead, the founders went with an aggressive regulation campaign to 'reign in' powerful religious institutions?

 

[FA_Q2]

Campaign financing laws do nothing to change this. it only pushes more of it into the background. Idiotic bureaucracies like the new 'consumer' protection agency actually created this problem in the first place. I find it difficult to understand why you and other seem to be unable to grasp the reality in giving government such powers. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is no way around this basic truth. Look at what happens after these agencies and laws that are supposedly 'protecting' us. Who wins out with the new healthcare requirements. Sure is not the people. It is the insurance companies that now have a customer that is required by law to purchase their product. How are the big banks doing now that they are subject to all those onerous regulations that are going to protect us from them? They are bigger and more powerful than they ever were.

What you're not understanding is that we, the people, do not get to vote on anything regarding corporations, tax law or anything else of real importance - and we don't have billions to lobby with, so technically, our voice has been stripped. Hell, the people writing the damn health care law were bought and paid for by the insurance companies - you know this. I wouldn't be surprised if the CEO's weren't sitting there with a goddamned pen in their hands at the same table. We DO need to get money completely out of our political system. No more lobbyists and cap campaign donations to $100. Lobbyists can go in and talk until they are blue to try to convince one our representatives that Monsanto should be immune from any government regulation, but not one thin dime should ever be allowed to exchange hands for such dangerous legislation.

I fully understand this. you, however do not.

You seem to think that lobbying is the one true way to corrupt the system, If we just got rid of that....

Unfortunately, that is false. Go ahead, get rid of it. The companies will go around such a law. We have such things in place in the military right now. People in the contracting side of the military deal with companies like Boeing signing contracts that are worth billions of dollars. Theses same people that are barred from receiving anything whatsoever from these companies, do not have 'lobbyists' making sweetheart deals and have zero need for campaigning and the money that comes with it are bought off in other ways. most of these people sigh multi billion dollar contract a few years before they retire and suddenly they are working for the company they signed the contract with making 500K+ a year mere days after retiring. Then we take a look at those contracts and they are literally insane in the leeway and cash that they dump into the company. The whole system is absolutely corrupt. Do you really think that Gingrich landed that job paying millions because he was a good 'historian!' Of course not. it was a payoff because he knew people in congress and for 'favors' that he likely gave while in power.


These same people also have their hands already in the cookie jar. Why do you think that so many people in congress go in with thousands and leave with millions? It is because these people own stock in the companies that they are making huge game changing laws on. Before the bailouts, do you think it would have been a good idea to dump some cash in BofA. Hell yes and I can guarantee that there were several people in congress that cashed out on it also.

As Dblack stated, there is only ONE way get the corruption out of the system and that is to remove the power that congress has over individual corporations and the ability to give specific entities favors. As long as there is cash to be made sweet hearting politicians, it is going to be done.

Close one avenue and 10 more will emerge. That is simply a fact. you might want to ignore it. You might want to tell me that I have no idea what I am talking about because you want things to work out according to your view on utopian government but that is not going to change the reality of people and their nature. All those star eyed people tat thing one more law, one more control is going to take all that corruption away are ignoring reality to our own peril.

 

[DiamondDave]

Dave, no not a conspiracy. A factual, researchable truth, but not a conspiracy.

No.. this is your OPINION and conspiracy... just because YOU say it over and over does not make it a truth or fact... nice try again though

 

[candycorn]

Sure. Though I doubt they'd have much luck finding people to work for that much. Depends on the market I suppose.

And if they're the largest or only employer of means in town? Are you ok with government picking up the slack with food stamps and section 8 housing, since no one can remotely live on $1.50/hour? And when all the other businesses that actually survive Wal-Mart moving into town lower their wages to match Wal-Mart's what then? Then you have a whole town making slavery wages. What do you do then?

I think you hit the nail on the head.

It is rather strange--the 2013 GOP.

These are blanket statements and there are exceptions to the rule...

When you're going to school, the GOP decries the education you're getting in public schools and wants to take them private; thinking that the teachers are overpaid and worthless. Leave alone that there are not enough private schools in any city to take 400,000 students so what you'll see is Remington College, LaTourneau, University of Phoenix, etc... start a K-12 program where the instructor may not even be in this country; it will all be virtual.

And if you're geared up for college, they (again blanket statements but generall true) want to cut back college aid and force you to take out loans that almost always favor the lender. So much so that the amount owed in Student Loans in the US could rival the GDP of many nations around the world. Meanwhile, if you make the suggestion that college should be the goal for all of our students (something I don't especially favor by the way--advanced training should be the goal), you're called an eletist, a snob, and out of touch by the same people who blame you for getting a low-wage job.

In the State of the Union speech, President Obama came out for a raising of the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. Not surprisingly, right wing posters on this board and elsewhere are against this as well.

When it is suggested that you either encourage Wal Mart or Jani King to pay a living wage or at least a wage commensurate with 21st century economics or get ready to ramp up public assistance, it's called "ridiculous" as if people are not going to need assistance if they are expecting to support families on minimum wage jobs.

The GOP right/wing does have a point...nobody should have such expectations but most unfortunately, people do. Making it easier to get the training and supporting the children in schools before they enter the workforce seems to be a way to combat the expectation.

I continue to support the notion that we fund training the same way we fund Social Security. You get 60 hours of advanced training (if you're not taking the traditional college route) paid for by Uncle Sam and throughout your work life, you pay it back by having it deducted from your paycheck.