Well are you?

[RandallFlagg]

employers cant afford to pay them enough to live because taxes and now benefits are eating into profits.
Another example of the government fixing a problem that creates a bigger problem that needs the government to step in and fix.
Its really never ending.

I'm pretty sure that businesses here in America get pretty good tax breaks. I remember reading a story about how GE avoided paying taxes almost entirely and had over a billion dollars in profit. How would you explain that?

And I just read (WSJ I believe) that GEcwas planning on moving their ENTIRE operation, including corporate offices, to Mexico.

How do you explain that?

US employees are paid too much, and don't have enough skill, rent costs too much in the US, all costs are probably higher.

Where does the US want to be? Low paid, low quality, low skill manufacturing or high quality, highly paid, highly skilled manufacturing?

US employees are paid too much!?! How the hell do you figure that!?!


If we listen to the left in this country - only the rich get along OK. What the hell is it going to be? I want every American to make as much as his potential allows him to make - but I don't want it handed to them. EARN IT.

After 30 years of Voodoo: worst min. wage, work conditions, illegal work safeguards, vacations, work week, college costs, rich/poor gap, upward social mobility, % homeless and in prison EVAH, and in the modern world!! And you complain about the victims? Are you an idiot or an A-hole?

Jesus, the idiot rears his ugly head to offer his "insight". Do yourself a favor, go to bed and dream of Bernie. You and that commie asshole should get along quite nicely.

 

[Preacher]

So not only do these employers (like Walmart, etc.) make a HUGE profit margin, they are screwing us taxpayers, you dummies! Lol!

DAMN THOSE COMPANIES!!

Tell me this: how the hell is Walmart screwing the taxpayer? Because they don't pay the illegals, the morons and the clinically dead that work for the minimum wage? Jesus, have you been in a Walmart lately?

Oh and by the way - a truck driver for Walmart. (A skilled trade) makes (on average) $90,000 per year with outstanding benefits.

Moral of the story? Get a marketable skill or live like a homeless person.

Remember this: the MINIMUM wage was designed to get KIDS into the job market. It was never intended as a living wage.

YOU are paying for those people's welfare that work for Wal Mart since you are allowing Wal Mart to get away with slave wages. Enjoy!

The only people that are responsible for welfare collections by Walmart workers are the politicians that gave them such benefits--not Walmart nor their customers.

Of course the Walmart workers are too, but they make sure they work under the amount of hours that guarantees them government benefits.

Um no. The people responsible for this is Wal Mart for not paying livable wages and forcing the people of America to pay for their workers food and homes. My wife worked for Wal Mart at one time and they will NOT let you have more than 36 hours a week...she tried its one reason she quit to find a different job. She wanted full time hours and they refused to give them to her.

So not only do these employers (like Walmart, etc.) make a HUGE profit margin, they are screwing us taxpayers, you dummies! Lol!

DAMN THOSE COMPANIES!!

Tell me this: how the hell is Walmart screwing the taxpayer? Because they don't pay the illegals, the morons and the clinically dead that work for the minimum wage? Jesus, have you been in a Walmart lately?

Oh and by the way - a truck driver for Walmart. (A skilled trade) makes (on average) $90,000 per year with outstanding benefits.

Moral of the story? Get a marketable skill or live like a homeless person.

Remember this: the MINIMUM wage was designed to get KIDS into the job market. It was never intended as a living wage.

YOU are paying for those people's welfare that work for Wal Mart since you are allowing Wal Mart to get away with slave wages. Enjoy!

Ok, so we pay these assholes that can't (or won't) learn English $15-20 bucks an hour so they can feel "good" about themselves. Then, the next time you head to McDonalds for your Big Mac - don't throw a fit about rich corporations when they charge YOU $18.00 for that sandwich, dumbass.

We don't exist in a vacuum sonny. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction.

My wife worked at Wal Mart she is a born and bred American who speaks perfect English so try again. Oh and stop listening to faux news garbage about how prices would go up because it won't happen like that as it has been proven many times already. If they can pay CEO's MILLIONS and the prices don't rise then they sure in the hell won't when they pay workers a little more. YOU and those like you are EXACTLY what's wrong with America and its policies.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

People like who receive subsidized health care via the ACA like you do not make a majority voting block.

Open your ears, listen to your White House. They bragged about 14 million people getting on Commie Care. That's 14 million new government dependents. While it may not be a majority, it adds to the dozens of other government dependent programs we have. Hell, 45 million alone on food stamps plus Commie Care is close to 60 million government dependents on those two programs alone, and again, there are many more.

Indeed. That has been Barry's plan from the beginning. Destroy the corporate structure, kill the middle class and make them dependent on "Uncle Sugar". Hell, he has made no bones about it.

And the liberal left eat this shit up with a knife and a fork.

America's living in a dream world, pretending the rest of the world isn't happening.

China is growing. Not only is it growing but its students are studying 18 hours a day, 365 days a year. Yes, they're producing robots, but they're robots that will take the robot jobs.
Germany decided how it wanted its economy to be, and its education is meeting the needs of that. They product luxury goods when it comes to manufacturing, and they have kids in technical schools from the age of 13 who will be making such things when they leave school.

The US is not directing education towards the needs of an economy which they haven't decided which direction it should go in. So, students are not going to be ready for the needs of the future world.

Who's responsible for this? Both the Democrats AND the Republicans. The fighting between the two, their politics more important than the people who they're supposed to represent, is the major problem and the reason why the US is going downhill every year.

You can blame Obama, but he's just the President. He doesn't have the power to change much.

Why do you suppose that over the last 10-20 years China has went from a dictatorship third-world country to a major player?

Free trade agreements that were tilted to give China a distinct advantage.

Our companies have left the US to head to China. They AREN'T coming back. Get used to it. WE did this to ourselves.

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to accept that the US was the country pushing for free trade because free trade actually made the US stronger economically.

Go look at Bolivia and see what the (US controlled) World Bank has been up to. They got the Bolivians to nationalize their water, and saw 1/4 of La Paz lose access to clean water. Businesses were being bought up by western countries, taking the profits out of these countries and making themselves rich.

All that is happening is that free trade is now coming around and being less of an advantage for the US.

30 years ago all plastic crap was made in Taiwan, now it's made in China. It's the way it goes. The US can't profit from making plastic crap that costs 30 cents a pop. You need low wage workers. An average job in China for a uni graduate will be about 2500 RMB a month, about 400 bucks or less. The US can't compete at this level. The Germans never bothered to compete with that, they made their own market.

You are finding excuses for why this is happening, blaming people for why things left. You shouldn't be blaming them for things leaving, things left because the US is THE major player in the global economy, it needs the global economy.
You should be blaming the politicians for doing nothing to change things towards a REALISTIC view of how the future of the US is going to be.

Who you actually blame is the US consumer. A company will only produce what their customers demand. In the US, we demand cheap poorly made products and we don't care who makes it.

You can't have good paying American jobs and cheap products at the same time. Something has to give...... McDonald's restaurants are going to automation where a machine will make your food. For lower prices, stores all across the country are pressuring customers into checking out their good themselves. Mom and Pop stores are going out of business because we order our products online and are delivered right to our doorstep at a much lower cost.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Some of those are collecting services because their employers do not pay them enough to live.

employers cant afford to pay them enough to live because taxes and now benefits are eating into profits.
Another example of the government fixing a problem that creates a bigger problem that needs the government to step in and fix.
Its really never ending.

I'm pretty sure that businesses here in America get pretty good tax breaks. I remember reading a story about how GE avoided paying taxes almost entirely and had over a billion dollars in profit. How would you explain that?

And I just read (WSJ I believe) that GEcwas planning on moving their ENTIRE operation, including corporate offices, to Mexico.

How do you explain that?

US employees are paid too much, and don't have enough skill, rent costs too much in the US, all costs are probably higher.

Where does the US want to be? Low paid, low quality, low skill manufacturing or high quality, highly paid, highly skilled manufacturing?

US employees are paid too much!?! How the hell do you figure that!?!


If we listen to the left in this country - only the rich get along OK. What the hell is it going to be? I want every American to make as much as his potential allows him to make - but I don't want it handed to them. EARN IT.

What I mean is, US employees are paid to much to do jobs which don't produce much. If you're unskilled in China you'll earn 300-400 bucks a month max. In the US you'd earn triple that. Why? Higher living costs.

Now, if I'm going to buy some cheap shit, do I want to pay for higher living costs or not? No I don't. So I'm going to buy the cheaper option, which is the one produced by the people who earn three times less, where rent is cheaper, where everything is cheaper.

If you produce a plastic toy and you make 10 cents profit from US workers and a dollar profit from Chinese workers, where are you going to go?

If you're the USA and you know this to be the case, why would you go for cheap plastic toys?

You need to have the education that fits the level of the pay. The US is simply not doing this.

Fine, you don't want to listen to the left, personally I wouldn't listen to the left OR the right on this issue.

You want the US to achieve the highest potential.

Okay, then, you need to have education giving kids the skills they'll need to make the US achieve this high potential. Germany and other LIBERAL countries are doing this.

China isn't. China is producing robots who'll work 14 hour days.

The US isn't producing the highly skilled workers all over the field and it's not producing robots.

The ONLY WAY to get the US going again is through education and NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT IT.

 

[Wildman]

are you better off now than you were eight years ago

FUCK NO!!!!

 

[frigidweirdo]

Open your ears, listen to your White House. They bragged about 14 million people getting on Commie Care. That's 14 million new government dependents. While it may not be a majority, it adds to the dozens of other government dependent programs we have. Hell, 45 million alone on food stamps plus Commie Care is close to 60 million government dependents on those two programs alone, and again, there are many more.

Indeed. That has been Barry's plan from the beginning. Destroy the corporate structure, kill the middle class and make them dependent on "Uncle Sugar". Hell, he has made no bones about it.

And the liberal left eat this shit up with a knife and a fork.

America's living in a dream world, pretending the rest of the world isn't happening.

China is growing. Not only is it growing but its students are studying 18 hours a day, 365 days a year. Yes, they're producing robots, but they're robots that will take the robot jobs.
Germany decided how it wanted its economy to be, and its education is meeting the needs of that. They product luxury goods when it comes to manufacturing, and they have kids in technical schools from the age of 13 who will be making such things when they leave school.

The US is not directing education towards the needs of an economy which they haven't decided which direction it should go in. So, students are not going to be ready for the needs of the future world.

Who's responsible for this? Both the Democrats AND the Republicans. The fighting between the two, their politics more important than the people who they're supposed to represent, is the major problem and the reason why the US is going downhill every year.

You can blame Obama, but he's just the President. He doesn't have the power to change much.

Why do you suppose that over the last 10-20 years China has went from a dictatorship third-world country to a major player?

Free trade agreements that were tilted to give China a distinct advantage.

Our companies have left the US to head to China. They AREN'T coming back. Get used to it. WE did this to ourselves.

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to accept that the US was the country pushing for free trade because free trade actually made the US stronger economically.

Go look at Bolivia and see what the (US controlled) World Bank has been up to. They got the Bolivians to nationalize their water, and saw 1/4 of La Paz lose access to clean water. Businesses were being bought up by western countries, taking the profits out of these countries and making themselves rich.

All that is happening is that free trade is now coming around and being less of an advantage for the US.

30 years ago all plastic crap was made in Taiwan, now it's made in China. It's the way it goes. The US can't profit from making plastic crap that costs 30 cents a pop. You need low wage workers. An average job in China for a uni graduate will be about 2500 RMB a month, about 400 bucks or less. The US can't compete at this level. The Germans never bothered to compete with that, they made their own market.

You are finding excuses for why this is happening, blaming people for why things left. You shouldn't be blaming them for things leaving, things left because the US is THE major player in the global economy, it needs the global economy.
You should be blaming the politicians for doing nothing to change things towards a REALISTIC view of how the future of the US is going to be.

Who you actually blame is the US consumer. A company will only produce what their customers demand. In the US, we demand cheap poorly made products and we don't care who makes it.

You can't have good paying American jobs and cheap products at the same time. Something has to give...... McDonald's restaurants are going to automation where a machine will make your food. For lower prices, stores all across the country are pressuring customers into checking out their good themselves. Mom and Pop stores are going out of business because we order our products online and are delivered right to our doorstep at a much lower cost.

No, I don't blame the consumer.

Consumers want the best for the cheapest. This is just the way it is. You're not going to change this. Why should I pay more just because someone wants things as they used to be?

You can have good paid Americans and cheap products. Cheap products come from abroad, expensive products made at home/

Where are US company Apple's iPhones made? Taiwan. Why? Because they have the skills to make them. Does the US? Maybe it does, but it doesn't promote this as a viable option.

The US should be highly educated in skills that are required. It is not. Some people are. Most aren't.

 

[RandallFlagg]

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.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

So not only do these employers (like Walmart, etc.) make a HUGE profit margin, they are screwing us taxpayers, you dummies! Lol!

DAMN THOSE COMPANIES!!

Tell me this: how the hell is Walmart screwing the taxpayer? Because they don't pay the illegals, the morons and the clinically dead that work for the minimum wage? Jesus, have you been in a Walmart lately?

Oh and by the way - a truck driver for Walmart. (A skilled trade) makes (on average) $90,000 per year with outstanding benefits.

Moral of the story? Get a marketable skill or live like a homeless person.

Remember this: the MINIMUM wage was designed to get KIDS into the job market. It was never intended as a living wage.

YOU are paying for those people's welfare that work for Wal Mart since you are allowing Wal Mart to get away with slave wages. Enjoy!

The only people that are responsible for welfare collections by Walmart workers are the politicians that gave them such benefits--not Walmart nor their customers.

Of course the Walmart workers are too, but they make sure they work under the amount of hours that guarantees them government benefits.

Um no. The people responsible for this is Wal Mart for not paying livable wages and forcing the people of America to pay for their workers food and homes. My wife worked for Wal Mart at one time and they will NOT let you have more than 36 hours a week...she tried its one reason she quit to find a different job. She wanted full time hours and they refused to give them to her.

So not only do these employers (like Walmart, etc.) make a HUGE profit margin, they are screwing us taxpayers, you dummies! Lol!

DAMN THOSE COMPANIES!!

Tell me this: how the hell is Walmart screwing the taxpayer? Because they don't pay the illegals, the morons and the clinically dead that work for the minimum wage? Jesus, have you been in a Walmart lately?

Oh and by the way - a truck driver for Walmart. (A skilled trade) makes (on average) $90,000 per year with outstanding benefits.

Moral of the story? Get a marketable skill or live like a homeless person.

Remember this: the MINIMUM wage was designed to get KIDS into the job market. It was never intended as a living wage.

YOU are paying for those people's welfare that work for Wal Mart since you are allowing Wal Mart to get away with slave wages. Enjoy!

Ok, so we pay these assholes that can't (or won't) learn English $15-20 bucks an hour so they can feel "good" about themselves. Then, the next time you head to McDonalds for your Big Mac - don't throw a fit about rich corporations when they charge YOU $18.00 for that sandwich, dumbass.

We don't exist in a vacuum sonny. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction.

My wife worked at Wal Mart she is a born and bred American who speaks perfect English so try again. Oh and stop listening to faux news garbage about how prices would go up because it won't happen like that as it has been proven many times already. If they can pay CEO's MILLIONS and the prices don't rise then they sure in the hell won't when they pay workers a little more. YOU and those like you are EXACTLY what's wrong with America and its policies.

Walmart can't force taxpayers to pay for low wage workers at their store. They don't have that kind of power because they don't create social programs or policy. Politicians do that.

It's not Walmart's responsibility to give your wife the hours she demands. They present her an offer and she either accepts it or declines.

 

[RandallFlagg]

Indeed. That has been Barry's plan from the beginning. Destroy the corporate structure, kill the middle class and make them dependent on "Uncle Sugar". Hell, he has made no bones about it.

And the liberal left eat this shit up with a knife and a fork.

America's living in a dream world, pretending the rest of the world isn't happening.

China is growing. Not only is it growing but its students are studying 18 hours a day, 365 days a year. Yes, they're producing robots, but they're robots that will take the robot jobs.
Germany decided how it wanted its economy to be, and its education is meeting the needs of that. They product luxury goods when it comes to manufacturing, and they have kids in technical schools from the age of 13 who will be making such things when they leave school.

The US is not directing education towards the needs of an economy which they haven't decided which direction it should go in. So, students are not going to be ready for the needs of the future world.

Who's responsible for this? Both the Democrats AND the Republicans. The fighting between the two, their politics more important than the people who they're supposed to represent, is the major problem and the reason why the US is going downhill every year.

You can blame Obama, but he's just the President. He doesn't have the power to change much.

Why do you suppose that over the last 10-20 years China has went from a dictatorship third-world country to a major player?

Free trade agreements that were tilted to give China a distinct advantage.

Our companies have left the US to head to China. They AREN'T coming back. Get used to it. WE did this to ourselves.

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to accept that the US was the country pushing for free trade because free trade actually made the US stronger economically.

Go look at Bolivia and see what the (US controlled) World Bank has been up to. They got the Bolivians to nationalize their water, and saw 1/4 of La Paz lose access to clean water. Businesses were being bought up by western countries, taking the profits out of these countries and making themselves rich.

All that is happening is that free trade is now coming around and being less of an advantage for the US.

30 years ago all plastic crap was made in Taiwan, now it's made in China. It's the way it goes. The US can't profit from making plastic crap that costs 30 cents a pop. You need low wage workers. An average job in China for a uni graduate will be about 2500 RMB a month, about 400 bucks or less. The US can't compete at this level. The Germans never bothered to compete with that, they made their own market.

You are finding excuses for why this is happening, blaming people for why things left. You shouldn't be blaming them for things leaving, things left because the US is THE major player in the global economy, it needs the global economy.
You should be blaming the politicians for doing nothing to change things towards a REALISTIC view of how the future of the US is going to be.

Who you actually blame is the US consumer. A company will only produce what their customers demand. In the US, we demand cheap poorly made products and we don't care who makes it.

You can't have good paying American jobs and cheap products at the same time. Something has to give...... McDonald's restaurants are going to automation where a machine will make your food. For lower prices, stores all across the country are pressuring customers into checking out their good themselves. Mom and Pop stores are going out of business because we order our products online and are delivered right to our doorstep at a much lower cost.

No, I don't blame the consumer.

Consumers want the best for the cheapest. This is just the way it is. You're not going to change this. Why should I pay more just because someone wants things as they used to be?

You can have good paid Americans and cheap products. Cheap products come from abroad, expensive products made at home/

Where are US company Apple's iPhones made? Taiwan. Why? Because they have the skills to make them. Does the US? Maybe it does, but it doesn't promote this as a viable option.

The US should be highly educated in skills that are required. It is not. Some people are. Most aren't.

Bullshit. Apple products are made in Taiwan because those clowns work on assembly lines for 12-16 hours a day for 1.20 per hour.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Indeed. That has been Barry's plan from the beginning. Destroy the corporate structure, kill the middle class and make them dependent on "Uncle Sugar". Hell, he has made no bones about it.

And the liberal left eat this shit up with a knife and a fork.

America's living in a dream world, pretending the rest of the world isn't happening.

China is growing. Not only is it growing but its students are studying 18 hours a day, 365 days a year. Yes, they're producing robots, but they're robots that will take the robot jobs.
Germany decided how it wanted its economy to be, and its education is meeting the needs of that. They product luxury goods when it comes to manufacturing, and they have kids in technical schools from the age of 13 who will be making such things when they leave school.

The US is not directing education towards the needs of an economy which they haven't decided which direction it should go in. So, students are not going to be ready for the needs of the future world.

Who's responsible for this? Both the Democrats AND the Republicans. The fighting between the two, their politics more important than the people who they're supposed to represent, is the major problem and the reason why the US is going downhill every year.

You can blame Obama, but he's just the President. He doesn't have the power to change much.

Why do you suppose that over the last 10-20 years China has went from a dictatorship third-world country to a major player?

Free trade agreements that were tilted to give China a distinct advantage.

Our companies have left the US to head to China. They AREN'T coming back. Get used to it. WE did this to ourselves.

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to accept that the US was the country pushing for free trade because free trade actually made the US stronger economically.

Go look at Bolivia and see what the (US controlled) World Bank has been up to. They got the Bolivians to nationalize their water, and saw 1/4 of La Paz lose access to clean water. Businesses were being bought up by western countries, taking the profits out of these countries and making themselves rich.

All that is happening is that free trade is now coming around and being less of an advantage for the US.

30 years ago all plastic crap was made in Taiwan, now it's made in China. It's the way it goes. The US can't profit from making plastic crap that costs 30 cents a pop. You need low wage workers. An average job in China for a uni graduate will be about 2500 RMB a month, about 400 bucks or less. The US can't compete at this level. The Germans never bothered to compete with that, they made their own market.

You are finding excuses for why this is happening, blaming people for why things left. You shouldn't be blaming them for things leaving, things left because the US is THE major player in the global economy, it needs the global economy.
You should be blaming the politicians for doing nothing to change things towards a REALISTIC view of how the future of the US is going to be.

Who you actually blame is the US consumer. A company will only produce what their customers demand. In the US, we demand cheap poorly made products and we don't care who makes it.

You can't have good paying American jobs and cheap products at the same time. Something has to give...... McDonald's restaurants are going to automation where a machine will make your food. For lower prices, stores all across the country are pressuring customers into checking out their good themselves. Mom and Pop stores are going out of business because we order our products online and are delivered right to our doorstep at a much lower cost.

No, I don't blame the consumer.

Consumers want the best for the cheapest. This is just the way it is. You're not going to change this. Why should I pay more just because someone wants things as they used to be?

You can have good paid Americans and cheap products. Cheap products come from abroad, expensive products made at home/

Where are US company Apple's iPhones made? Taiwan. Why? Because they have the skills to make them. Does the US? Maybe it does, but it doesn't promote this as a viable option.

The US should be highly educated in skills that are required. It is not. Some people are. Most aren't.

No, Americans don't want the best....... they just want the cheapest.

If Americans demanded American made products regardless where they are made, then those good paying monkey jobs would be there. But that's not reality.

Reality is that we want the cheapest goods possible no matter what. And as long as we won't support good paying American jobs, those good paying American jobs won't be there.

 

[Wildman]

Now I have to fork over $500.00 a month...,

$500.00 a fucking month?? that's 60 "C" notes a year, how the hell do you do it??

i sure am glad i retired from military service!!!!! FREE medical care is the very best i can afford.

 

[Never3ndr]

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.

It's pretty clear that you are out of touch...the illegals are generally the last people that complain about the wages...from what I've seen they tend to pigeon hole their money and send a lot of it back to wherever they have come from b/c they make A TON more here than they do from their home countries. The people that I've seen complain the most about minimum wages are liberals and impoverished Americans...not illegal immigrants and, generally, not even migrants (1st generation ones).

My point was not to say that it was okay for people to work minimum wage jobs and raise a family on...I never even brought up a family. What I did bring up was the fact that the best way to encourage people to progress past minimum wage jobs was to decrease welfare benefits...however, you really cannot do that (humanely at least) without increasing minimum wages. So, if you actually are upset that a lot of Americans are complacent and fine with the lowest tier of work...you'd actually support a minimum wage increase while fighting for a justifiable decrease in welfare benefits...which, by the way, was exactly my original point.

By the way, it doesn't matter what you made nor your mentality in 1940 (or whenever you made the .60 per hour). It is 2016...in case you haven't noticed times change as does the culture, norms, etc. Absolutely zero people are going to be convinced by an argument that revolves around "back in my day." You actually have to make a point and generally back that up with logic, knowledge, etc.

 

[frigidweirdo]

America's living in a dream world, pretending the rest of the world isn't happening.

China is growing. Not only is it growing but its students are studying 18 hours a day, 365 days a year. Yes, they're producing robots, but they're robots that will take the robot jobs.
Germany decided how it wanted its economy to be, and its education is meeting the needs of that. They product luxury goods when it comes to manufacturing, and they have kids in technical schools from the age of 13 who will be making such things when they leave school.

The US is not directing education towards the needs of an economy which they haven't decided which direction it should go in. So, students are not going to be ready for the needs of the future world.

Who's responsible for this? Both the Democrats AND the Republicans. The fighting between the two, their politics more important than the people who they're supposed to represent, is the major problem and the reason why the US is going downhill every year.

You can blame Obama, but he's just the President. He doesn't have the power to change much.

Why do you suppose that over the last 10-20 years China has went from a dictatorship third-world country to a major player?

Free trade agreements that were tilted to give China a distinct advantage.

Our companies have left the US to head to China. They AREN'T coming back. Get used to it. WE did this to ourselves.

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to accept that the US was the country pushing for free trade because free trade actually made the US stronger economically.

Go look at Bolivia and see what the (US controlled) World Bank has been up to. They got the Bolivians to nationalize their water, and saw 1/4 of La Paz lose access to clean water. Businesses were being bought up by western countries, taking the profits out of these countries and making themselves rich.

All that is happening is that free trade is now coming around and being less of an advantage for the US.

30 years ago all plastic crap was made in Taiwan, now it's made in China. It's the way it goes. The US can't profit from making plastic crap that costs 30 cents a pop. You need low wage workers. An average job in China for a uni graduate will be about 2500 RMB a month, about 400 bucks or less. The US can't compete at this level. The Germans never bothered to compete with that, they made their own market.

You are finding excuses for why this is happening, blaming people for why things left. You shouldn't be blaming them for things leaving, things left because the US is THE major player in the global economy, it needs the global economy.
You should be blaming the politicians for doing nothing to change things towards a REALISTIC view of how the future of the US is going to be.

Who you actually blame is the US consumer. A company will only produce what their customers demand. In the US, we demand cheap poorly made products and we don't care who makes it.

You can't have good paying American jobs and cheap products at the same time. Something has to give...... McDonald's restaurants are going to automation where a machine will make your food. For lower prices, stores all across the country are pressuring customers into checking out their good themselves. Mom and Pop stores are going out of business because we order our products online and are delivered right to our doorstep at a much lower cost.

No, I don't blame the consumer.

Consumers want the best for the cheapest. This is just the way it is. You're not going to change this. Why should I pay more just because someone wants things as they used to be?

You can have good paid Americans and cheap products. Cheap products come from abroad, expensive products made at home/

Where are US company Apple's iPhones made? Taiwan. Why? Because they have the skills to make them. Does the US? Maybe it does, but it doesn't promote this as a viable option.

The US should be highly educated in skills that are required. It is not. Some people are. Most aren't.

Bullshit. Apple products are made in Taiwan because those clowns work on assembly lines for 12-16 hours a day for 1.20 per hour.

So why don't US workers work 12-16 hour days for $1.20 an hour?

Your iPhone: Made in China, Korea, Texas, Kentucky, and … Inner Mongolia?

Number one reason. FAST WORKERS. US workers just aren't fast enough, they're too lazy. What does the US do about it? Nothing, except whinge and moan and say they should stop things going abroad.

 

[Wildman]

This is why I am PRO union.

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

 

[frigidweirdo]

America's living in a dream world, pretending the rest of the world isn't happening.

China is growing. Not only is it growing but its students are studying 18 hours a day, 365 days a year. Yes, they're producing robots, but they're robots that will take the robot jobs.
Germany decided how it wanted its economy to be, and its education is meeting the needs of that. They product luxury goods when it comes to manufacturing, and they have kids in technical schools from the age of 13 who will be making such things when they leave school.

The US is not directing education towards the needs of an economy which they haven't decided which direction it should go in. So, students are not going to be ready for the needs of the future world.

Who's responsible for this? Both the Democrats AND the Republicans. The fighting between the two, their politics more important than the people who they're supposed to represent, is the major problem and the reason why the US is going downhill every year.

You can blame Obama, but he's just the President. He doesn't have the power to change much.

Why do you suppose that over the last 10-20 years China has went from a dictatorship third-world country to a major player?

Free trade agreements that were tilted to give China a distinct advantage.

Our companies have left the US to head to China. They AREN'T coming back. Get used to it. WE did this to ourselves.

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to accept that the US was the country pushing for free trade because free trade actually made the US stronger economically.

Go look at Bolivia and see what the (US controlled) World Bank has been up to. They got the Bolivians to nationalize their water, and saw 1/4 of La Paz lose access to clean water. Businesses were being bought up by western countries, taking the profits out of these countries and making themselves rich.

All that is happening is that free trade is now coming around and being less of an advantage for the US.

30 years ago all plastic crap was made in Taiwan, now it's made in China. It's the way it goes. The US can't profit from making plastic crap that costs 30 cents a pop. You need low wage workers. An average job in China for a uni graduate will be about 2500 RMB a month, about 400 bucks or less. The US can't compete at this level. The Germans never bothered to compete with that, they made their own market.

You are finding excuses for why this is happening, blaming people for why things left. You shouldn't be blaming them for things leaving, things left because the US is THE major player in the global economy, it needs the global economy.
You should be blaming the politicians for doing nothing to change things towards a REALISTIC view of how the future of the US is going to be.

Who you actually blame is the US consumer. A company will only produce what their customers demand. In the US, we demand cheap poorly made products and we don't care who makes it.

You can't have good paying American jobs and cheap products at the same time. Something has to give...... McDonald's restaurants are going to automation where a machine will make your food. For lower prices, stores all across the country are pressuring customers into checking out their good themselves. Mom and Pop stores are going out of business because we order our products online and are delivered right to our doorstep at a much lower cost.

No, I don't blame the consumer.

Consumers want the best for the cheapest. This is just the way it is. You're not going to change this. Why should I pay more just because someone wants things as they used to be?

You can have good paid Americans and cheap products. Cheap products come from abroad, expensive products made at home/

Where are US company Apple's iPhones made? Taiwan. Why? Because they have the skills to make them. Does the US? Maybe it does, but it doesn't promote this as a viable option.

The US should be highly educated in skills that are required. It is not. Some people are. Most aren't.

No, Americans don't want the best....... they just want the cheapest.

If Americans demanded American made products regardless where they are made, then those good paying monkey jobs would be there. But that's not reality.

Reality is that we want the cheapest goods possible no matter what. And as long as we won't support good paying American jobs, those good paying American jobs won't be there.

Yes, I said that. And? I've gone much further than this base assessment.

So basically, the question is How do you change the US economy? What do you change it to? What are you going to do about education? Etc?

 

[RandallFlagg]

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.

It's pretty clear that you are out of touch...the illegals are generally the last people that complain about the wages...from what I've seen they tend to pigeon hole their money and send a lot of it back to wherever they have come from b/c they make A TON more here than they do from their home countries. The people that I've seen complain the most about minimum wages are liberals and impoverished Americans...not illegal immigrants and, generally, not even migrants (1st generation ones).

My point was not to say that it was okay for people to work minimum wage jobs and raise a family on...I never even brought up a family. What I did bring up was the fact that the best way to encourage people to progress past minimum wage jobs was to decrease welfare benefits...however, you really cannot do that (humanely at least) without increasing minimum wages. So, if you actually are upset that a lot of Americans are complacent and fine with the lowest tier of work...you'd actually support a minimum wage increase while fighting for a justifiable decrease in welfare benefits...which, by the way, was exactly my original point.

By the way, it doesn't matter what you made nor your mentality in 1940 (or whenever you made the .60 per hour). It is 2016...in case you haven't noticed times change as does the culture, norms, etc. Absolutely zero people are going to be convinced by an argument that revolves around "back in my day." You actually have to make a point and generally back that up with logic, knowledge, etc.

Oh, I see, relevance isn't relevance for you. Gotcha. How's this? On my last job, that I retired from (with a nice pension to go along with my military pension) I was making 98,970 per year with a full benefits package.

So, I went from .60 an hour in the early 60s to nearly $100,000 (well far above it with benefits) so see, relevance matters, if you don't want to stay at the bottom of the heap for your entire life.

Get it now?

 

[RandallFlagg]

This is why I am PRO union.

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

Actually, I couldn't disagree more. At my job, we worked with Teamster drivers and warehousemen. Had a great relationship with them. Of course, the Teamsters are a private Union and don't take shit from the government.

 

[RandallFlagg]

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.

It's pretty clear that you are out of touch...the illegals are generally the last people that complain about the wages...from what I've seen they tend to pigeon hole their money and send a lot of it back to wherever they have come from b/c they make A TON more here than they do from their home countries. The people that I've seen complain the most about minimum wages are liberals and impoverished Americans...not illegal immigrants and, generally, not even migrants (1st generation ones).

My point was not to say that it was okay for people to work minimum wage jobs and raise a family on...I never even brought up a family. What I did bring up was the fact that the best way to encourage people to progress past minimum wage jobs was to decrease welfare benefits...however, you really cannot do that (humanely at least) without increasing minimum wages. So, if you actually are upset that a lot of Americans are complacent and fine with the lowest tier of work...you'd actually support a minimum wage increase while fighting for a justifiable decrease in welfare benefits...which, by the way, was exactly my original point.

By the way, it doesn't matter what you made nor your mentality in 1940 (or whenever you made the .60 per hour). It is 2016...in case you haven't noticed times change as does the culture, norms, etc. Absolutely zero people are going to be convinced by an argument that revolves around "back in my day." You actually have to make a point and generally back that up with logic, knowledge, etc.

How's this for "logic" - the minimum wage was NEVER intended to live on. It was intended to get young people into the workplace - and nothing more.

 

[RandallFlagg]

Well, it's been fun kicking sand in the face of you liberals, but I'm 72 and I have a warm bed (and an even warmer Wife) waiting.

 

[Never3ndr]

Oh, I see, relevance isn't relevance for you. Gotcha. How's this? On my last job, that I retired from (with a nice pension to go along with my military pension) I was making 98,970 per year with a full benefits package.

So, I went from .60 an hour in the early 60s to nearly $100,000 (well far above it with benefits) so see, relevance matters, if you don't want to stay at the bottom of the heap for your entire life.

Get it now?

Maybe you didn't read my post, but let me reiterate:

"You actually have to make a point and generally back that up with logic, knowledge, etc."

Now, personally, I'm happy to hear that you worked your way up out of the trenches (maybe even literally). Also, being a Marine veteran myself I'm happy to hear that you joined the select few who really put their ass on the line and serve the country.

However, the point still stands that an anecdotal story for you doesn't mean much when talking about the diverse population of America in general. If your point is that we shouldn't raise minimal wages, exactly WHY are you saying that? Because you once made a minimum wage? Okay...that means nothing. Maybe you are saying that everybody making a minimum wage can work their way out of it. That would mean you would have to change the entire job structure of America however (you can't honestly say that you think that there are enough higher paying jobs out there to support all the individuals making minimum wage now to move into them).
I'm not even certain why you are fighting this so much. Generally speaking the people who most commonly shop at the places that have minimum wage jobs (like McDonald's, Wal-Mart, etc.) are the individuals who also work at a place like that. People who make higher wages tend to shop and higher end stores. So, if you actually made close to $100,000 you should be actively fighting FOR an increase in minimum wages (coupled with a decrease in welfare benefits). The reason is that you generally won't use the services provided by the lowest common denominator, but, being a tax payer, you are literally paying for their meal ticket. I'm really not sure why you would argue against such an obvious point.