Well are you?

[ChrisL]

Republican conservatives are still stuck in the 1950s. They cannot grow with the times and they will be left behind. They are already starting to self destruct, as are the democrats. I would say in about 20-30 years time, both parties will be afterthought. One can hope anyways!

 

[Freewill]

This is why I am PRO union.

i knew there was something wrong with you, now i know..., you are a fucking liberturd!!

No, I am on the side of WE the people, the underdogs in America. You have to give them SOME reasonable and workable way out of poverty, and republicans are just destroying the middle class.

Education, is a workable way out.
Leaning a skill set is a workable way out

But if there are no jobs neither helps anyone and there is no way out.

What the left has been doing for the last 10 years they have been in control is obviously NOT workable. How come folks like yourself seem to forget who is the President and what is his party when you discuss the problems in America?

Does having open borders help the middle class or hurt, that is a democrat initiative.

Did the free trade agreement NAFTA cause a sucking sounds of jobs leaving the country? Sure was predicted and sure seems to have happened, and that again was PUSHED for and SIGNED by a DEMOCRAT.

 

[ChrisL]

A lot of the old "conservative values" folks are old and dying breed. Most young people are moving away from the two major parties. That is why it is so rare to see any "fresh faces."

 

[Never3ndr]

I'll make the argument:

For one, a huge minimum wage increase would have a domino effect across the country. All wages would increase which means labor in the US would be much more expensive and cause more businesses to move overseas or make investments in automation to replace human beings. Because of the huge price increases, it would make online shopping more inviting which has an impact on mom and pop shops.

Next of course is it wouldn't solve anything. Only about 4% of our working population makes minimum wage. Therefore the only people we would most help are teenagers, college kids, and senior citizens who are just looking to keep busy during their retirement years.

Then there is the question if it would even help them. That's because even though they get a wage increase, everything they buy would be much more expensive as well. If I get a wage increase and now bring home $200.00 a month more than I did before, but my shopping bill for the month went up $200.00 a month more, how am I ahead?

I'm glad you are interested enough to discuss but disappointed in your lack of basic education on the topic.

A "huge" minimum wage increase can certainly have a domino effect on the country. Fortunately, nobody here is arguing for a "huge" minimum wage increase. My argument, from the beginning, has been an increase in minimum wage coupled with a reduction in welfare benefits. While this may end up increasing purchasing power for the impoverished slightly (which does have inflationary pressures on the economy), as the increase is more targeted to give them the ability to buy items for themselves rather than have the population at large buy them, the real goal is to only minimally increase their purchasing power, but make them more responsible for their purchases rather than having society at large responsible for a noted percent of their purchases. So, your first point is a straw man argument. That wasn't my argument. You actually never addressed my argument and then ran into a slippery slope about outsourcing.

Only 4% of the population makes minimum wage. I'm not sure about that number, but I won't argue it either. However, if you consider the population working low-wage, which is anybody making $7.26 up through a reasonable new floor for minimum wage (which you can argue about, which is why my numbers here vary so drastically), then the % of the population that that effect can be anything from 12%-26%. Also, you make a claim about a demographic based upon a simple percentage...there is no logical linkage between a number and a demographic. I'll help you however. According to the BLS in 2014, only ~5.4% of the minimum wage workers were 16-19, only ~4.3% were 65 or older. that means that (slightly) over 90% are...college kids...according to you. However, even that argument fails when you consider that ~18.4% HAVE A BACHELOR'S (or higher).

Finally, you question whether or not the wage increase would help them. Again, you need to actually READ the argument that you are countering. My contention was, is, and will be to help YOURSELF. As it stands these workers rely on varying degrees (for actual minimum wage workers, usually heavily) on government support. My point that we should increase minimum wages WHILE decreasing welfare benefits is not to aim a a large net "helping" for these workers...it is simply to place more of the burden of their living on their own back rather then mine...or yours.

Again, I'm simply shocked that anybody really has an issue with an increase in minimum wages coupled by a decrease in welfare benefits. It literally makes everybody happier and more well off (except maybe the corporations).

 

[Maryland Patriot]

I'm in fine shape because I planned for my future years ago. I have 2 retirement checks, my home and land is paid for and I have money in the bank. The "American Dream" was realized by me.

I am sorry for you young people of today. I truly am. This is what logically comes from supporting liberals and their ideology.

The middle class in America is all but gone. Part time work is becoming the "norm" and it is not unusual to see a young man or woman working 2-3 part time jobs in an attempt to get ahead.

It's a damn shame. It really is.

Im the same basically, I have one retirement check coming in from a plan I saved for. The house, cars and travel trailer are all paid for.
I do work a part time job at a facility for the mentally ill, ( yes Im constantly in fear that they wont let me go home at the end of my shift so ease up on the jokes sure to come)
I spent 30 years in the field I left, took college classes in psychology here and there, Now Im loading a full schedule at the college to complete the degree. I may or may not use it, haven't decided yet. I might just say the hell with it and hook up the camper to the truck and disappear for a while. If I can figure out how to get my wife to stay home while Im gone. She takes the fun out of trips, she argues with the lady on the GPS,, come to think of it, maybe I will use that degree....

You must be retarded to think someone would joke about that..........................................

At least you understand My fear of being kept at the facility.
I will say however, its not that hard to get good drugs once you get in, so it does have certain attractive qualities to it.

 

[ChrisL]

This is why I am PRO union.

i knew there was something wrong with you, now i know..., you are a fucking liberturd!!

No, I am on the side of WE the people, the underdogs in America. You have to give them SOME reasonable and workable way out of poverty, and republicans are just destroying the middle class.

Education, is a workable way out.
Leaning a skill set is a workable way out

But if there are no jobs neither helps anyone and there is no way out.

What the left has been doing for the last 10 years they have been in control is obviously NOT workable. How come folks like yourself seem to forget who is the President and what is his party when you discuss the problems in America?

Does having open borders help the middle class or hurt, that is a democrat initiative.

Did the free trade agreement NAFTA cause a sucking sounds of jobs leaving the country? Sure was predicted and sure seems to have happened, and that again was PUSHED for and SIGNED by a DEMOCRAT.

I agree about education. That is the key. There are NEVER going to be enough jobs for everyone though. To think that is to be naive about reality (not GOOD jobs anyway).

I don't agree with a lot of either parties policies, and that is why I don't consider myself a republican or a democrat. As a matter of fact, I absolutely DESPISE both parties and most of their members. Lol.

Well, I am anti-immigration. We have plenty of people to feed and clothe in this country. If we take on too many "poverty cases" our entire system will collapse under the weight, so I think immigration hurts us more than anything else.

Yes about Free Trade, and that is one issue that I can agree with The Donald about, although I still hate his guts. Like I've told you people a million and some odd times now, I am NOT a democrat or a republican. I hate both your stupid parties.

 

[ChrisL]

You can bitch and moan and complain all you want to. It is not going to change the reality of our situation. We are certainly NOT going to abandon our poor people. Welfare will continue. That is just a fact. So you have two choices here . . . you can demand that employers start being more responsible for paying their employees a living wage, or you can choose to help support those people yourselves with your tax money and help those super rich employers. ???? Does anything else NEED to be said on this topic?

 

[Londoner]

are you better off now than you were eight years ago

Absolutely yes.

The Bush years ended with the destruction of the housing and financial sectors. We saw the greatest meltdown in our lives. Obama turned it around and has brought unemployment to lowest levels since Clinton.

Bush and the Republican Congress created the Patriot Act, which erected a Soviet style bureaucracy over the nation.

Trump is right. He destroyed the middle east and the economy. He had the nerve to shine a light on what the Republican Party did to this country - this is why the establishment hates him.

Our only hope is that President Trump does not repeat the mistakes of the last 3 Republican administrations. Reagan tripled the debt of Carter with a bloated Pentagon budget written largely by weapons contractors. Bush 43 doubled the debt of Clinton. Every Republican administration complains about Democratic spending, BUT THEN they always - and I mean always - increase spending. Indeed, Bush didn't veto a single piece of Republican Pork. Nobody spends like Big Government Conservatives.

The only people who believe that the economy has gotten worse since Bush are people who live completely inside talk radio and FOX News.

(Wow, just Wow)

 

[Skull Pilot]

are you better off now than you were eight years ago

I am but it has nothing to do with Obama and everything to do with the business that I didn't build

 

[ChrisL]

On the minimum wage deal, the most obvious solution would be to reduce welfare benefits and increase minimal wages.

I don't think anybody can argue that they would rather have the choice of paying for somebody's meal by buying the goods that they help create or serve rather than being forced to pay for them through a tax system. A reduction in welfare benefits would also help to reduce incentive to remain in lower paying jobs, which some people do.

You know, it never ceases to amaze me. I started working at 14 - BEFORE there was even a minimum wage. I made .60 per hour washing dishes in a Holiday Inn. The funniest damn thing about that Job, though. I NEVER looked at that job as a "gateway" to raise a family on - quite the opposite. I figured out, quite quickly, that only suckers work for minimum wage. That was the first and ONLY time I EVER worked for a "minimum" wage - before there was a minimum wage.

Seriously, the ONLY people I'm aware of that are DEMANDING more money are illegals that work fast food, and that's about it. Hell, learn the language, go to trade school and tell the mi I mum wage to kiss your ass.

BS. How bout some training programs for tech jobs and cheap loans for education like we had before Reaganism, and especially the mindless racist New BS GOP of today?

Repuglicans suck pud.

Okay, sorry. That was mean. I'm being a big mean bully again.

 

[Maryland Patriot]

You can bitch and moan and complain all you want to. It is not going to change the reality of our situation. We are certainly NOT going to abandon our poor people. Welfare will continue. That is just a fact. So you have two choices here . . . you can demand that employers start being more responsible for paying their employees a living wage, or you can choose to help support those people yourselves with your tax money and help those super rich employers. ???? Does anything else NEED to be said on this topic?

Yes more needs to be said because like most good liberals, you like to point out the results without ever considering the cause.
How about the first thing thats done is we convince kids to actually go to school instead of running the city streets all day. How about we get parents to become involved in those childrens lives and work with them to actually learn in school. How about certain parents (many of them in Baltimore city) stop teaching their children that as soon as they are 18 they can get their own government checks.
education might just give poor people a better chance at grabbing the higher paying jobs.
Then, lets consider the 14 million illegals in the country that are flooding the job markets at the lower levels and causing the pay to drop. Lets get rid of the 14 million illegals and force employers to hire Americans that will refuse to do that job for less than a certain dollar amount.

You want higher pay? education is the only honest way to do it. Even if everything I pointed out gets fixed, someone is still going to have to push a broom at the barber shop or clean the bathrooms in the office at night, there will always be the lower paying jobs that will not be enough for a person to raise a family on. These jobs should be for kids, they should be for women or men that are married whos spouse also works.
Not all jobs can be living wage jobs. and they dont have to be.

 

[ChrisL]

Sorry Ray From Cleveland for what I said about you being a rotten person. That was mean and I apologize. I am VERY passionate about my political views and would fight, I mean literally FIGHT for them, so yeah. That's what that's all about.

 

[rightwinger]

How can you not be better off than you were eight years ago?

You have to be a total retard not to make money in a stock market that more than doubled, a real estate market that has increased while maintaining record low interest rates and a job market that added 10 million jobs

Only a conservative could lose money in that environment

 

[Skull Pilot]

How can you not be better off than you were eight years ago?

You have to be a total retard not to make money in a stock market that more than doubled, a real estate market that has increased while maintaining record low interest rates and a job market that added 10 million jobs

Only a conservative could lose money in that environment

Well we all know dems didn't make any money only the the fat cats that Obama has been saying were the bad guys for the last 8 years

Besides we saw what happened in the last market slide
The policy of artificially low interest rates and printing shit loads of money has overvalued the market and we're not out of the woods yet

 

[rightwinger]

How can you not be better off than you were eight years ago?

You have to be a total retard not to make money in a stock market that more than doubled, a real estate market that has increased while maintaining record low interest rates and a job market that added 10 million jobs

Only a conservative could lose money in that environment

Well we all know dems didn't make any money only the the fat cats that Obama has been saying were the bad guys for the last 8 years

Besides we saw what happened in the last market slide
The policy of artificially low interest rates and printing shit loads of money has overvalued the market and we're not out of the woods yet

How is your retirement account compared to eight years ago? Mine has tripled in size
Under Bush, I saw my 401K drop by half. I saw my house lose $60,000 in value, I saw a job market where people were losing jobs at 750,000 a month

How can you not be better off?

 

[ChrisL]

How can you not be better off than you were eight years ago?

You have to be a total retard not to make money in a stock market that more than doubled, a real estate market that has increased while maintaining record low interest rates and a job market that added 10 million jobs

Only a conservative could lose money in that environment

Well we all know dems didn't make any money only the the fat cats that Obama has been saying were the bad guys for the last 8 years

Besides we saw what happened in the last market slide
The policy of artificially low interest rates and printing shit loads of money has overvalued the market and we're not out of the woods yet

How is your retirement account compared to eight years ago? Mine has tripled in size
Under Bush, I saw my 401K drop by half. I saw my house lose $60,000 in value, I saw a job market where people were losing jobs at 750,000 a month

How can you not be better off?

Well, the job market has gotten a LITTLE better, but it is certainly still lacking. Things are not great, so let's be honest. We need to abandon the two main parties who hold a monopoly in our government. BOTH are in the pockets of corporate America! Those are their BIGGEST donors. They have lobbyists and people on the "inside." Meanwhile, the little guys are getting screwed over. Both parties lie to us and put party before country. Those are just facts!

 

[Skull Pilot]

How can you not be better off than you were eight years ago?

You have to be a total retard not to make money in a stock market that more than doubled, a real estate market that has increased while maintaining record low interest rates and a job market that added 10 million jobs

Only a conservative could lose money in that environment

Well we all know dems didn't make any money only the the fat cats that Obama has been saying were the bad guys for the last 8 years

Besides we saw what happened in the last market slide
The policy of artificially low interest rates and printing shit loads of money has overvalued the market and we're not out of the woods yet

How is your retirement account compared to eight years ago? Mine has tripled in size
Under Bush, I saw my 401K drop by half. I saw my house lose $60,000 in value, I saw a job market where people were losing jobs at 750,000 a month

How can you not be better off?

I assume you've been making contributions this whole time
And As I said there is a reason why the stock market is doing so well but we also know that it is very volatile as the last slide showed us
The reason it is so volatile right now is because of Obama's policies of printing shit loads of money and the fed keeping interest rates artificially low

It is valid to compare the current stock market to the real estate market 10 years ago we had a similar over valuation coupled with interest rates near 0

 

[Skull Pilot]

How can you not be better off than you were eight years ago?

You have to be a total retard not to make money in a stock market that more than doubled, a real estate market that has increased while maintaining record low interest rates and a job market that added 10 million jobs

Only a conservative could lose money in that environment

Well we all know dems didn't make any money only the the fat cats that Obama has been saying were the bad guys for the last 8 years

Besides we saw what happened in the last market slide
The policy of artificially low interest rates and printing shit loads of money has overvalued the market and we're not out of the woods yet

How is your retirement account compared to eight years ago? Mine has tripled in size
Under Bush, I saw my 401K drop by half. I saw my house lose $60,000 in value, I saw a job market where people were losing jobs at 750,000 a month

How can you not be better off?

Hey dipshit I already said I was better off and that it had nothing to do with Obama and everything to do with the business he said I didn't build

 

[rightwinger]

How can you not be better off than you were eight years ago?

You have to be a total retard not to make money in a stock market that more than doubled, a real estate market that has increased while maintaining record low interest rates and a job market that added 10 million jobs

Only a conservative could lose money in that environment

Well we all know dems didn't make any money only the the fat cats that Obama has been saying were the bad guys for the last 8 years

Besides we saw what happened in the last market slide
The policy of artificially low interest rates and printing shit loads of money has overvalued the market and we're not out of the woods yet

How is your retirement account compared to eight years ago? Mine has tripled in size
Under Bush, I saw my 401K drop by half. I saw my house lose $60,000 in value, I saw a job market where people were losing jobs at 750,000 a month

How can you not be better off?

Well, the job market has gotten a LITTLE better, but it is certainly still lacking. Things are not great, so let's be honest. We need to abandon the two main parties who hold a monopoly in our government. BOTH are in the pockets of corporate America! Those are their BIGGEST donors. They have lobbyists and people on the "inside." Meanwhile, the little guys are getting screwed over. Both parties lie to us and put party before country. Those are just facts!

Eight years ago we were in economic collapse....to try to claim that the country is not better off today is just plain deceptive

Job market is a LITTLE better? Losing 750,000 jobs a month vs gaining 200,000 jobs a month. That is almost a million jobs a month swing

 

[ChrisL]

How can you not be better off than you were eight years ago?

You have to be a total retard not to make money in a stock market that more than doubled, a real estate market that has increased while maintaining record low interest rates and a job market that added 10 million jobs

Only a conservative could lose money in that environment

Well we all know dems didn't make any money only the the fat cats that Obama has been saying were the bad guys for the last 8 years

Besides we saw what happened in the last market slide
The policy of artificially low interest rates and printing shit loads of money has overvalued the market and we're not out of the woods yet

How is your retirement account compared to eight years ago? Mine has tripled in size
Under Bush, I saw my 401K drop by half. I saw my house lose $60,000 in value, I saw a job market where people were losing jobs at 750,000 a month

How can you not be better off?

Well, the job market has gotten a LITTLE better, but it is certainly still lacking. Things are not great, so let's be honest. We need to abandon the two main parties who hold a monopoly in our government. BOTH are in the pockets of corporate America! Those are their BIGGEST donors. They have lobbyists and people on the "inside." Meanwhile, the little guys are getting screwed over. Both parties lie to us and put party before country. Those are just facts!

Eight years ago we were in economic collapse....to try to claim that the country is not better off today is just plain deceptive

Job market is a LITTLE better? Losing 750,000 jobs a month vs gaining 200,000 jobs a month. That is almost a million jobs a month swing

Many of the jobs out there are not paying what they should and many are temp or part time jobs. Things COULD be much better. To try to claim that things are perfect is also deceptive and dishonest.