Which Side Are You On?

[thereisnospoon]

Living wage in Los Angeles is $34.07 an hour.
The minimum wage is $8.00
$9.83 an hour is required to keep a family of four above the poverty level.

Climbers will say capitalism can't exist paying a living wage.
I agree.
Capitalism is a disease, as is socialism and communism.

One possible solution?

Social Credit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

34 bucks an hour? Who are you trying to fool?
For a moment let's say that figure is correct. Ok here are the alternatives. Go back to school and learn something so that someone will hire you for $34 per hour. Or go and improve you skills and do the same. Or do as most others do, move out of the expensive place and to one which better suits one's income level. There is no entitlement to live in a certain area.
Now let's get to the living wage issue.
Is that figure for a family or an individual?
Until you can show a table for the city of LA a living wage for all sorts of family units or an individual, your figure is invalid. It's invalid simply because it suggests the minimum wage for Los Angeles residents should be $34 per hour. Anyone with more than two brain cells working together knows that is impractical.
The bottom line is if it is too expensive to live in one place , you move to where you can afford to live.
Heck I would love to live in a posh neighborhood with a golf course in my back yard, but I can't afford it. Does that mean I go to my employer and demand a "living wage" for that area? Please.
Living wage..A term dreampt up by the politically correct with the goal of extorting more money from business owners

That $34 bucks an hour figure does not come from any official source:

"According to the living wage calculator from the Poverty in America website, the typical two parent, two child family forced to live on a minimum wage income puts them closer to the poverty line than middle class. Living wage for this family in an urban area such as Los Angeles is $34.07. The minimum wage is $8.00 and the poverty wage is $9.83."

Minimum Wage Vs a Living Wage

The County of Los Angeles has a much lower number:

"Full time contract employees must be paid a living wage of $9.64 per hour with health benefits of $2.20 per hour or more; or
Full time contract employees must be paid a living wage of $11.84 if health benefits are not provided;

Los Angeles County

"Anyone with more than than two brain cells working together knows that ($34/hour) is impractical" in a capitalist system.

There Are Alternatives.

Yeah yeah yeah...That stupid wiki link you posted has you thinking that this social credit bullshit is the perfect solution. Where your failure lies is in the real world someone has to pay. Or better still, someone has to surrender so that another may prosper.
Ok, so suppose the country goes into socialist la la land and then what. What happens to hard work? What happens to achievement? What happens to creativity? What happens to going the extra mile? Hmmmm.
All this socialist psycho-babble is just a bunch of crap dreamed up by people who A) are looking to make everyone poor while they the liberal elite intelligencia keep their standing as the ruling class or; B) another bunch of left over 60's intellectuals who have run out government grant money, thrown in the towel and decided that everyone needs to be as miserable as they.
And of course like the salespeople at a crooked new car dealership, they see people like you from miles away. The self pity party people. The victims of their own actions.
The "Oh help me please someone" people such as yourselves.
BTW georgie....We are a capitalist nation and as long as there is common sense it always will be. So here's a solution for you.....Google....Find the nation that fits your definition of a socialist utopia and move there. I will help you pack. Hell, I'll even buy your ONE WAY airfare!!!!!!

 

[Persy]

I'm on the side that will and can fix the mess this country is in.

 

[georgephillip]

You know, I'd have empathy for you if you had tried everything you possibly could, and still couldn't make higher than minimum wage. But, if you don't make the effort, you have no room to complain in my book, you made the choice to stay where you are by doing nothing to improve your situation. The rich are not keeping you from succeeding and making more than minimum wage, you are. How do you explain everyone out here in the workforce making far more than minimum wage if it isn't possible?

Over the past 30 years the rich have not prevented me, or anyone else, from making more than the minimum wage. They have prevented the minimum wage from providing the same standard of living it did in the 1970s.

In spite of GDP doubling and productivity increases of 70% over the last three decades, the richest 1% have used government to redistribute those increases in their favor. This has come at the expense of those like myself who lived fairly comfortably on minimum wage before the Great Divergence began.

My choices had nothing to do with the rich increasing their share of national income and wealth by a factor of three over the past forty years. Government did.

For those of you making far more than the minimum wage I hope a substantial portion of your wealth is held in non-dollar denominated assets. When the Great Divergence widens sufficiently in the US, the richest 1% will come for your standard of living just like they did mine.

Ok...I will attempt to understand your logic.
The "rich" as you call them, for whatever reason have deliberately held down wages while using their magical powers to push prices upward and "fix" them at high levels just to keep certain things out of the reach of everyone except the "rich".
And this accomplishes what?
One more time. The minimum wage was and never will be intended to support a family or even a single adult. Min wage is a starting point.
Those that stay in min wage jobs do so by choice.
Now...There is no "share of the national income".Wealth is created. There is no pot of wealth made of a finite amount from which we draw our income.
By your logic, because I have acquired certain skills that make me more valuable to employer, my home has increased in value, my IRA has gained in value my variable annuity life insurance policy continues to accrue value that in your world I have taken money from YOU? Is that your logic? Because I had the nerve to find ways to increase my net worth I have "stolen" more than what you believe is my fair share of this so-called "national income"? Because my wife and I have made sound financial decisions and have been able to scrape together a small nest egg for our retirement, we are evil?
DO you have the stones to answer those questions without injecting personal anecdotes?
Have at it. Because I am now challenging your logic. You now must support your claims.OH and don't blow smoke at us by saying you blame government. Yours is a familiar tune. You despise the wealthy. You think because you are not willing to do anything but min wage work that someone owes you a comfortable existence because in your distant memory you believe others did. Oh puhhhhleeeeze.

I'm not holding out much hope you have the capacity to understand logic.

The rich didn't require magic to push the price of gasoline from less than a dollar a gallon in 1970 to where it is today. They used campaign contributions not magic to depress the wages of less skilled workers while elevating those of investors and professionals over the same time period.

There is a total national income and wealth amount for every year and it is finite.
It is the combined income and wealth for all Americans
The richest 1% have nearly tripled their share of each over the last three decades.
The richest 0.01% have done much better.

Have your assets increased 550% since 1978?

The minimum wage arose in response to capitalist sweat shops of the early 20th Century:

"The sweatshop owners were thought to have unfair bargaining power over their workers, and a minimum wage was proposed as a means to make them pay 'fairly.'

"Over time, the focus changed to helping people, especially families, become more self sufficient. Today, minimum wage laws cover workers in most low-paid fields of employment."

Minimum wage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Generations of American families have been raised on minimum wage jobs and the number will likely increase in the coming generations thanks to outsourcing and recent Wall Street looting.

It sounds like you and your wife have done an admirable job of improving your lives.
Your IRA and variable annuity life insurance policy have taken nothing from me.
Wall Street will snatch them both in a New York second and tell you to blame gay immigrants.
You might see the logic in that.

Finally, all governments socialize cost and privatize profit.
We have all recently seen a $13 trillion example of that.
Next time will be worse.
Understand?

 

[TheBrain]

I worked my ass off for mine, you can do the same for yours. That's my theory.

 

[georgephillip]

I'm on the side that will and can fix the mess this country is in.

I think that's the "Neither Democrat nor Republican Side."

Do third party candidates appear on your ballot?

If so, help FLUSH as many Republicans AND Democrats from DC as possible in 2012 and replace them with candidates not already owned by Wall Street and the Pentagon.

 

[sparky]

I worked my ass off for mine, you can do the same for yours. That's my theory.

well the piont is, we're all workin' our a*s off for less Brain

 

[sparky]

I'm on the side that will and can fix the mess this country is in.

I think that's the "Neither Democrat nor Republican Side."

Do third party candidates appear on your ballot?

If so, help FLUSH as many Republicans AND Democrats from DC as possible in 2012 and replace them with candidates not already owned by Wall Street and the Pentagon.

Although i'm just as much an advocate as you interjecting them into the one party monopoly operating under the guise of choice here, American 3rd parties have a harder time competeing here due to our campaign funding system, and thus media coverage & major debate inclusion....

 

[georgephillip]

I worked my ass off for mine, you can do the same for yours. That's my theory.

Tell that to AIG.
Remember them?

"The financiers at AIG were awarded millions in bonuses because their contracts were based on the transactions they completed, not the consequences of those transactions.

"A 32-year-old mortgage broker told me: 'I figured my job was to get the transaction done…Whatever came after the transaction—that was on him, not me.'

"A long list of business executives have reaped sumptuous rewards even though they fractured the world's economy, destroyed trillions of dollars in value, and disfigured millions of lives."

Wall Street's Economic Crimes Against Humanity - BusinessWeek

 

[georgephillip]

I'm on the side that will and can fix the mess this country is in.

I think that's the "Neither Democrat nor Republican Side."

Do third party candidates appear on your ballot?

If so, help FLUSH as many Republicans AND Democrats from DC as possible in 2012 and replace them with candidates not already owned by Wall Street and the Pentagon.

Although i'm just as much an advocate as you interjecting them into the one party monopoly operating under the guise of choice here, American 3rd parties have a harder time competeing here due to our campaign funding system, and thus media coverage & major debate inclusion....

Agreed, again, sparky.

The "anti-vote" meme has been around for generations.

Possibly the Internet makes it possible to convince the 30% to 40% of eligible voters who usually don't bother casting a ballot to get involved by FLUSHING as many (mostly) Democrats AND Republicans from elected office as possible.

 

[Too Tall]

Please offer up some bits of wisdom as to how it you came up with this conclusion?
Are you actually so hung up on "go to work, get paid and there's no other legitimate way to earn a living"?
Do you believe that doing what one can do to make their savings and investment work for them is somehow evil?
401k's, mutual funds, IRA accounts, Keough accounts, money market funds, all evil?
What about investing in a local business as a silent partner for the express purpose of positive return on investment? Evil?
Did it ever occur to you that most 401k's and mutual funds are invested in Blue Chip stocks such as Exxon/Mobil, Walmart, Coca Cola, Pepsico, AT&T and others?

Fish rot from the head down.

"Greg Gordon, McClatchy News Investigative reporter, reveals how Goldman Sachs didn't tell buyers of 40 Billion in toxic Mortgage securities that it was secretly betting the other way ~ standard fare for a Wall Street crime syndicate that is about to become exposed:

"As I have said for some time, it's an Oligarchy, folks ~ the tyranny of the elites with government and Wall Street ruled by the powerful few ~ and the Obama administration is part of it.

"In other words, Wall Street is the only game in town and it's crooked !

"Ben Bernanke is a stooge for the Oligarchy along with former NY Fed chief and present Sec of the Treasury ~ Tim Geithner. Allen L Roland's Radio Weblog

"Here is Greg Gordon's, McClatchy News, detailed article on how Goldman Sach's scammed the system by selling toxic mortgages that they knew were not being reviewed ~ and then secretly bet the other way with high flying derivatives. http://www.truthout.org/1101095."

WALL STREET CRIME SYNDICATE / GOLDMAN SACHS EXPOSED

So why isn't the NYSE renamed the Goldman Sachs Stock Exchange?
Have you an opinion of your own? Or must you C&P what others have to say?
Look, our federal government and the SEC created the rules, the Goldman Sachs of the world played by them. Investing in legitimate vehicles is fine as long as the rules are obeyed. No doubt there was a some pretty shady crap going on. However, to impugn "Wall Street" as the MSM and the current Presidential admin lies to do is pure politics. The politics of class envy. All of this helps the current party in the majority create a straw man in order to help itself maintain political power.
At the end of the day, there is far more legal and above board business going on in the financial world then not.
You people on the Left are always squawking about fairness. However you forget the part that says fairness must apply to all or it means nothing.
BTW, here's a real pisser.
Two days ago I read on CNBC.com that a leading oil analyst for Goldman Sachs set the futures market benchmark crude price at $130 per barrel. He stated that market fundamentals and the economic recovery( HUH?!!!!!) warranted such a price point. He went on to say that oil traders should be prepared for a Bull market in energy. So after several trading days where oil and gas futures fell 20% since May 3rd, the price of oil has jumped from about $96 per barrel to yesterday's close at over $101. Today as of 12:30 EDT oil is off $1.45 at $99.98...The real head scratcher is gasoline is UP by 2 cents, trading at $3.03 per gallon....Oy vay.
Economic recovery.....Read this...News Headlines.
The way I see it is no one really knows what the hell is going to happen 5 minutes from now. We have these wild price shifts in commodities, stocks and other investments based on instantaneous reports and of course, rumors. These shifts exist because there is an incredible amount of money in these markets and everyone in them is looking for an edge.
The volatility of these markets ,especially in oil and gas is what has us consumers pissed off.

The lack of a government energy policy, apparent plan to drive up the price of fossil fuels as well as the ban on drilling where the oil is explains most of the volatility in the market. The Obama plan is to drive up the price of oil in order to make alternative energy competitive.

 

[editec]

The I got mine get yours forces in this nation are playing a very dangerous game that will blow up in everybody's faces sooner or later.

I read many of the let them eat cake kinds of retorts posted here when other people call for a saner and more just economy system and cringe when I do.

One of the things some of you tough guys do not apparently realize is this...

When driven to the point that people have nothing to lose, the victims cease playing the game by YOUR rules.

And all your guns aren't going to stop people from tearing this sick fucking system apart.

I know that some of you are so looking forward to that civil war but it isn't going be that. Its going to come at us as an undeclared state of rolling anarchy

But I rather doubt ya'll are really going to love it when it happens.

 

[bripat9643]

so you view progressive taxation as a form of extortion that productive people have to pay the useless tics to avoid being robbed and killed?

Is that really what you intended to say?

The I got mine get yours forces in this nation are playing a very dangerous game that will blow up in everybody's faces sooner or later.

I read many of the let them eat cake kinds of retorts posted here when other people call for a saner and more just economy system and cringe when I do.

One of the things some of you tough guys do not apparently realize is this...

When driven to the point that people have nothing to lose, the victims cease playing the game by YOUR rules.

And all your guns aren't going to stop people from tearing this sick fucking system apart.

I know that some of you are so looking forward to that civil war but it isn't going be that. Its going to come at us as an undeclared state of rolling anarchy

But I rather doubt ya'll are really going to love it when it happens.

 

[georgephillip]

so you view progressive taxation as a form of extortion that productive people have to pay the useless tics to avoid being robbed and killed?

Is that really what you intended to say?

The I got mine get yours forces in this nation are playing a very dangerous game that will blow up in everybody's faces sooner or later.

I read many of the let them eat cake kinds of retorts posted here when other people call for a saner and more just economy system and cringe when I do.

One of the things some of you tough guys do not apparently realize is this...

When driven to the point that people have nothing to lose, the victims cease playing the game by YOUR rules.

And all your guns aren't going to stop people from tearing this sick fucking system apart.

I know that some of you are so looking forward to that civil war but it isn't going be that. Its going to come at us as an undeclared state of rolling anarchy

But I rather doubt ya'll are really going to love it when it happens.

How productive is the FIRE sector?

All governments have to tax someone and those who "earn" their livings from investments and rents would just as soon the tax burden falls on wage labor, i.e., productive people.

btw, this tax shift has been under way for thirty years, doubling the proportion of the returns to wealth (rents, interest, dividends and capital gains) enjoyed by the richest 1% of Americans from one-third in 1979 to two-thirds today (November 2010)

The useless tics are mostly on Wall Street.

Michael Hudson: A "Flat Tax" for the Rich?

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

The 30s through 50s were the time of the New Deal, low-cost loans from the Federal Housing Administration, the GI Bill, huge subsidies for defense contractors during the Cold War and other industries that employed millions of people, massive transfer of funding from cities to the burgeoning suburbs, federal projects like interstate highway construction and the space program, generous investment in public schools, record union membership, high tax rates for corporations and the wealthy, good job benefits, and Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which ensured financial stability in old age and medical crises...

And then . . . it all came crashing down in the 1970s in the era of stagflation, and Keynesianism was out for the next thirty years. During that period, America saw the biggest expansion of its economy in history. Now Obama returns to socialist economics, I mean, Keynesianism and . . . well, sensible people know the rest. It doesn't work. It impedes economic growth, always has, and, after a certain threshold, reverses economic growth.

 

[bripat9643]

so you view progressive taxation as a form of extortion that productive people have to pay the useless tics to avoid being robbed and killed?

Is that really what you intended to say?

How productive is the FIRE sector?

All governments have to tax someone and those who "earn" their livings from investments and rents would just as soon the tax burden falls on wage labor, i.e., productive people.

Your argument seems to be that it's OK to exort money people in the Financial Services because they don't produce anything. I'm not going to argue with that idiocy. Every economist in the world would disagree with it.

They aren't the only ones who pay taxes. Your crony editec says that taxes are extortion money that we pay to keep from being robbed and killed by the the people who receive this ill-gotten loot.

Do you agree with that or not?

btw, this tax shift has been under way for thirty years, doubling the proportion of the returns to wealth (rents, interest, dividends and capital gains) enjoyed by the richest 1% of Americans from one-third in 1979 to two-thirds today (November 2010)

The useless tics are mostly on Wall Street

Spare us the Marxist propaganda. The sources you quote are about as credible as The Daily Worker.

Now answer the question: Is progressive taxation extortion as editec claimed?

 

[georgephillip]

The 30s through 50s were the time of the New Deal, low-cost loans from the Federal Housing Administration, the GI Bill, huge subsidies for defense contractors during the Cold War and other industries that employed millions of people, massive transfer of funding from cities to the burgeoning suburbs, federal projects like interstate highway construction and the space program, generous investment in public schools, record union membership, high tax rates for corporations and the wealthy, good job benefits, and Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which ensured financial stability in old age and medical crises...

And then . . . it all came crashing down in the 1970s in the era of stagflation, and Keynesianism was out for the next thirty years. During that period, America saw the biggest expansion of its economy in history. Now Obama returns to socialist economics, I mean, Keynesianism and . . . well, sensible people know the rest. It doesn't work. It impedes economic growth, always has, and, after a certain threshold, reverses economic growth.

During that biggest economic expansion in US History we also saw a tax shift off wealth and onto wage earners, starting with Alan Greenspan's 1982 edict that moved the cost of Social Security and Medicare out of the general budget.

What were previously considered "entitlements" transformed into "user fees", and the "Social Security fund" was invested in T-bills and then lent to the government, enabling it to cut taxes on the higher income and wealth brackets.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

During that biggest economic expansion in US History we also saw a tax shift off wealth and onto wage earners, starting with Alan Greenspan's 1982 edict that moved the cost of Social Security and Medicare out of the general budget.

What were previously considered "entitlements" transformed into "user fees", and the "Social Security fund" was invested in T-bills and then lent to the government, enabling it to cut taxes on the higher income and wealth brackets.

Emphasis mine regarding the concession.

Nonsense, the well-being of the entire economic spectrum improved dramatically. You're simply disregarding that and the fact that this move was intended to be the first step toward the private ownership of payroll-tax accounts . . . which of course the likes of you have obstructed ever since. Yes indeedy. You folks are the ones to blame for the fact that the returns on T-bills don't go to the little people you pretend to champion, but to the government and the "fat cats" who don't need them.

Lefty, forever failing to comprehend the real-world outcomes of his soul-destroying, wealth-destroying schemes of dependency and sloth.

 

[georgephillip]

so you view progressive taxation as a form of extortion that productive people have to pay the useless tics to avoid being robbed and killed?

Is that really what you intended to say?

How productive is the FIRE sector?

All governments have to tax someone and those who "earn" their livings from investments and rents would just as soon the tax burden falls on wage labor, i.e., productive people.

Your argument seems to be that it's OK to exort money people in the Financial Services because they don't produce anything. I'm not going to argue with that idiocy. Every economist in the world would disagree with it.

They aren't the only ones who pay taxes. Your crony editec says that taxes are extortion money that we pay to keep from being robbed and killed by the the people who receive this ill-gotten loot.

Do you agree with that or not?

btw, this tax shift has been under way for thirty years, doubling the proportion of the returns to wealth (rents, interest, dividends and capital gains) enjoyed by the richest 1% of Americans from one-third in 1979 to two-thirds today (November 2010)

The useless tics are mostly on Wall Street

Spare us the Marxist propaganda. The sources you quote are about as credible as The Daily Worker.

Now answer the question: Is progressive taxation extortion as editec claimed?

ed never claimed progressive taxation was extortion.
You did.

Since most of us would rather visit the dentist than the IRS we're usually not willing to part with any of our hard earned money; however, extortion requires "undue or illegal exercise of power or ingenuity to wrench away...contributions from the vanquished."

extort - Wiktionary

Have you been vanquished from anything lately? (except common sense?)

ed's pointing out that at some point the gap between the rich and the rest of America will become a vacuum in a continental superpower with more guns than citizens.

Even a brain-dead propagandist like you should be able to figure out what happens next.

 

[georgephillip]

During that biggest economic expansion in US History we also saw a tax shift off wealth and onto wage earners, starting with Alan Greenspan's 1982 edict that moved the cost of Social Security and Medicare out of the general budget.

What were previously considered "entitlements" transformed into "user fees", and the "Social Security fund" was invested in T-bills and then lent to the government, enabling it to cut taxes on the higher income and wealth brackets.

Emphasis mine regarding the concession.

Nonsense, the well-being of the entire economic spectrum improved dramatically. You're simply disregarding that and the fact that this move was intended to be the first step toward the private ownership of payroll-tax accounts . . . which of course the likes of you have obstructed ever since. Yes indeedy. You folks are the ones to blame for the fact that the returns on T-bills don't go to the little people you pretend to champion, but to the government and the "fat cats" who don't need them.

Lefty, forever failing to comprehend the real-world outcomes of his soul-destroying, wealth-destroying schemes of dependency and sloth.

How much wealth has Wall Street destroyed lately?

Righty: forever conflating tax cutting with tax shifting.

For example, the 1981 "reform" that allowed absentee property owners "to pretend that their real estate was losing value even as it was soaring in market price."

How much more are the richest 1% of Americans entitled to?

Michael Hudson: A "Flat Tax" for the Rich?

 

[sparky]

Often, i feel reduced to the simplicity of images in debates where the futility of single factiods foisted independently from the overall outcome becomes epidemic....

“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.”
Stuart Chase quotes ( Writer and Economist, b.1888 (Tragedy of Waste))