It is morally wrong because it requires intervention to prevent two parties from engaging in what both deem is a mutually-beneficial contract. Your argument of "we should try" is flawed because it requires setting aside the principle that people are free to enter into contracts with others. Your argument that it's morally imperative to limit the maximum pay ratio can only be achieved by invading peoples' rights to enter those contracts; it is, in fact, arbitrary and not based upon reason or principles (it is no better than saying, "I think this"). You are, of course, entitled to your opinion: just understand that it is an arbitrary one.
As for taxes, it is fundamentally different, depending on how it is implemented. It could be implemented as a "tax," but it could also be implemented as an illegal contract that is banned outright. These two methodologies have starkly different economic consequences. In the tax scenario, for instance, the money collected by the government is then used by the government and further distorts the market system.
The extension of the pay ratio to the rest of the country is rather simple. First of all, it sets precedence that government does have the right to intervene with such contracts (actually, such precedence has already been set, but it really is a slippery slope: have to "win" one battle at a time). If the government can arbitrarily decide that group X cannot make Y% more than group Z, all the government has to do is change the variables: the equation is already set and ready to abuse. Second, to think that limiting the highest-paid individuals' pay won't have adverse consequences is naive. As I've already stated, these people will just tend to find other ways to get around the limitation. Off the top of my head, this could take the form of:
Moving to less restrictive regions
Shifting the organization to consist only of highly-paid individuals. This, however, means that all of the submarginal employees will lose their jobs. This sort of move would also likely require investment in capital goods to attempt to make up for the reduced output. This is really speculative and would not necessarily be possible for each corporation
Alter the contracts of the CEO's and other top figures to award benefits that do not currently qualify as income
Illegally subvert the system through bribes, etc.
All of these examples with the exception of (maybe) the 3rd one have great potential to impact the rest of the economy. The easiest one to give an example of is the first. A business that is so restricted as to not be allowed to pay their executive officers as it sees fit will likely leave as well. It doesn't really do you a lot of good to have a 12:1 pay ratio if a significant number of businesses leave. But let's ignore the possibility of the business leaving and assume, for the sake of argument, that they all stay. What does this do to the business? Assuming that none of the other options that I mentioned are used and that the business has to just "take it", one should expect that it is now exceptionally difficult for the business to find competent executive officers! After all, why would any executive officer want to stick around and receive a small fraction of his or her earning power when you can jump state line or two and make vastly more? Now, economics cannot tell us what people will do; in fact, I'm not aware of any science that does. But with significantly destroyed incentives, it does not require much imagination at all to reach that conclusion. And actually, one could simply look what happens to competing local currencies when the government comes in and sets an arbitrary exchange ratio: the overvalued currency sticks around and the undervalued currency quickly departs the nation, as people move it to where it is more capable of fetching its market price. This is a well-understood phenomenon and highly analogous to the sort of pay ratio that you advocate.
The fact that the shareholders still hold shares indicates that the majority of them did, in fact, not care enough to move their investments elsewhere. Or if they did, others thought Home Depot was a good opportunity, in spite of the $200M pay off. The point is, bad management kills organizations. Can a corporation make ridiculous decisions? Of course. But the market is not very forgiving; too much of this and the company will go under; therefore, it is in the corporation's best interest to not do things like this. The trouble is, people have a tendency of looking at a corporation in a vacuum, devoid of other investment opportunities. It is a very truncated perspective.
Yeah you're right. Let's try something that goes exactly contrary to what the study of human action tells us, that will certainly lead to increased poverty, a lower standard of living, and potentially death: all so that you can observe. And your example of racism and sexism is hardly the same, as such things go starkly contrary to sound philosophy and reasoning. I am all for improving things, but expecting government regulation to be able to somehow stimulate real economic growth is absurd. The only thing a government can do is get in the way: it is rather a question of how can we have the benefits that government can provide without destroying too much of what the free market provides. Advocating ignorantly for globalization of stupid shit that is bound to have exceptionally negative impact on peoples' lives is absolutely dangerous. Please, go read up on economics and save us from such ignorance. Economics told us that Soviet Russia was doomed to fail, but because some people seem to share your point of view, millions of people had to become impoverished/die in order for you to find out the truth.
Interestingly, the economic mobility that you talk about is most possible in the free market. And I agree, there is certainly a tendency for those who become successful to lobby for protections or privileges. But this is an argument for the free market, not against it. The free market has no such mechanisms available to corporations to gain privilege. Also, please provide example of a non-free market performing well. It cannot, if for no other reason, than the lack of a pricing mechanism to judge whether various stages of production are efficient or not.
+1. What's interesting to these arguments that say "the free market does not exist," is that they propose the solution is to move in the exact opposite direction of the free market: a direction in which the ruling class controls and will use to its own advantage. If, on the off chance, something like this ridiculous 12:1 pay cap thing gets passed, you will see one of the three things happen: 1) creative ways to subvert the law, possibly bringing in unforeseen consequences that impact far more than just the CEO's; 2) companies and the wealth that they generate flee to more prosperous regions; 3) a combination of both.
But alas, people think that laws can just magically make everything better and people more "equal," by whatever definition they arbitrarily choose. Equality can only ever be objectively defined as equality of opportunity, not equality of distribution. After all, the only way to achieve equality of distribution is via coercively taking from those who have accumulated their wealth via mutually-beneficial exchanges on the free market[1]. There is nothing equal about taking from one and giving to the other. Furthermore, what exactly is the problem with a CEO making 500x the rate of the lowest (or even median) paid worker? Inherently, nothing. What matters is the wealth and progression of the middle class and the freedom to move freely through the classes, based on ones' abilities and desires[2]. I would much rather live in a world with a strong middle class where the CEO's make 1500x what the average worker makes than a world where the middle class barely squeaks by while the CEO's only make 20x what the average worker makes.
Forbidding people from signing contracts that both parties deem as mutually beneficial is wrong and destructive to the economy. After all, it is not the CEO's who own corporations, but the shareholders. As such, it is the shareholders who ultimately decide upon the pay of the CEO. If the owners of a company decide that it is in the company's best interest to entice the top executives with $x, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Contrary to popular belief, the only way this is possible in the long run, is if the executive actually brings that worth to the corporation. These sorts of laws will *not* bring up the wage of the workers just so that the executives can be paid more; after all, the most an employee can be paid without the company losing money is the discounted marginal value product that he or she brings to the company.
[1] There are, of course, many who make their wealth by rigging the system to keep competition out or via other mechanisms such as exclusive rights or privileges to government contracts, etc. Wealth obtained this way is illegitimate. It is not mutually beneficial, such as those exchanges that occur on the free market.
[2] Individuals' abilities tend to vary during their lifetime. There is nothing wrong with a young, unskilled worker not making as much as a man or woman in the prime years of their earning power. This is the primary source of the disparity between incomes.
Ah yes, and opinions such as this is exactly why they are able to go rogue on their own agenda. It is dangerous to operate out of fear, which is exactly what you are doing if you believe things like, "I want them looking at everyone because you never know where the threat is coming from."
I just thought I'd point out the fallacy that is normally associated with tax revenues: increased tax rates != increased tax revenues. It is highly probably that a simplified system that is more straight forward and less difficult to dodge, would actually yield higher tax revenues even if the overall rates were lower, on paper. The amount of economic productivity to be gained from a simplified system alone is likely significant, not to mention that lower taxes in general tend to stimulate the economy, and where there is more wealth, there is more to tax. Obviously, there is likely a point of diminishing (or negative) returns, but my point is that we must not fall into the fallacy that tax rates == tax revenues.
Yes we do have the power to change the system. Voting is not going to get that done, though. The only way to make any real change is through education of the general populace as to *what* the problems are. That's hard to do, but as you said, just because it's hard doesn't mean we shouldn't try. People get the government they deserve and right now, we deserve this government, sad to say.
Curious, when those elected just do the bidding of the special interests groups, how do you come to the conclusion that we have representation? Also, let's not discount the 3% tax as being one of the reasons for the revolution. After all, if it were a law that was deemed beneficial to the settlers, the revolution may not have happened (or at least, might have been postponed). In other words, the revolution was fought because lack of representation AND laws that were passed that the colonists didn't like.
Haha yeah those glowing drop shadows are hideous. Thank goodness we're not stuck with them. The great thing about KDE is it's extremely customizable and actually rather performant, considering how all-encompassing it is.
One of the biggest problems with modern health care prices is caused by insurance: the moral hazard that's created by people having inexpensive or free visits to the doctors drastically increases the demand for doctor visits. Prices are supposed to express value of some sort: without them, people have a tendency of just using the resource without discretion. As a personal anecdote, my wife and I used to live in an apartment with water paid for by the apartment: we thought we conserved water, but when we moved to a duplex where we paid the water bill, we realized no... no we didn't conserve water! We now use less water.
When an individual sees no personal benefit for refraining from using a service like health care, they go for the silliest of things. If we want to bring costs down, we need to reduce demand. Providing free health care for all only exacerbates the problem. Health insurance really should not cover routine doctor visits (which in doing so actually reclassifies "insurance" to something other than risk management), but instead cover the things that are truly risk-related: breaking an arm, etc. Then we may actually see prices fall to the point where getting those routine doctors' visits only costs $50-$100.
The trouble with you quantitative easing advocates is, no matter how much QE is performed, if it doesn't work, the problem is we didn't do enough QE. The problem could never be with the system itself; surely sound money and limited government have no roles to play in a "modern economy" *sigh*. As for austerity programs, no one's willing to make the sort of cuts necessary; if I overspend on a monthly basis, going $1000 in to debt each month, then cut my expenditures by $500 (ceteris paribus), I'm still going in the hole $500 a month--of course my debt is still going up!
What we need is a serious market correction that is going to take time: these things are generally mild and quick, but when it's been put off as long as it has via bad economic policy, it's going to be a sharper, longer correction than it would be otherwise.
Tax hikes don't necessarily mean increased revenue (they have actually decreased revenue at times). Frankly, the only sure-fire way to pay off this debt is via massive spending cuts. But these are cuts that Republicans aren't generally in favor of.
The only sustainable way to raise people out of poverty is via the generation of wealth (and not putting things in the way of those in poverty from generating said wealth). Money in a fiat currency system is just something printed; wealth generation has to do with combining labor with natural resources to make something of utility that did not exist before. A healthy economy is felt by everyone, not just those at the "top".
So your assertion is that there are too many laborers and not enough jobs for them? Yet, over here in reality, mankind has a virtually endless list of wants and resources still remain scarce. So long as people have unsatisfied wants, they will try to take action the best they can (granted with a limited perspective) to satisfy those wants. This is the basis for an economy. In fact, the more people involved in a market, generally the more efficient the market becomes for a variety of reasons. For example, the more consumers/producers there are, the faster prices will move to equilibrium and the greater the possibility of division of labor. Everything in my study of economics has led to more people being a good thing economically, not a bad thing. Sure, there are other problems that present themselves with a large population, but those are outside of the range of this discussion.
You can't just say things like, "But there is no industry which needs that sort of manpower -- there really is nowhere for those people to go," without providing at least some basis for it. Now, obviously the world economy is doing pretty terrible right now, but to assume that is because of overpopulation when markets benefit from greater numbers is simply erroneous.
And by the way, farming is an excellent example that demonstrates how huge technological improvements can bring about previously unheard of prosperity. The fact that it is directly related to food production does not invalidate it. Yes, there were growing pains; yes, some factory owners mistreated child laborers. It took a fair bit of time for the economy to properly reallocate labor from farms to industry. The sacrifices of some individuals and families were no doubt quite large, but we have surely taken huge leaps forwards because of it.
All that said, what solutions would you suggest that wouldn't get in the way of economic and technological progress?
I'm sorry, I never meant to imply that those displaced by machines in industry A would then operate the machines at the same rate of employment. On the contrary, it frees them up for other work in other markets. Clearly the point of gaining said machinery is so that fewer laborers are required. A classic example of this is that of agricultural machinery that displaced most of the farmers. There are of course two ways to look at this: 1) That most farmers lost their jobs (farmers used to be something like 90% of the populace) or 2) That those people were freed up to do other things and that the cost savings of using improved technology was so great that there is now more food per capita than ever has been. Are there growing pains while the market rearranges human capital? Absolutely! Is it overall the best choice for society? I would certainly say so; others might disagree.
Many people spend their whole lives in minimum wage jobs, for whatever reason they are not able to get another one.
The vast majority of whom would be much more likely to move on if they had adequate incentive and if the economy were healthy enough as to provide alternatives easier. You even admit that your solutions might (read: will) harm the economy. If there are fewer Starbucks, there are also fewer entry level jobs, fewer promotional opportunities, etc. My solution is to enact policy that allows the economy to grow in a healthy, sustainable way, thus providing the opportunities for everyone willing to improve their situation.
Take a step back, I don't care about how this is achieved but I think as a society some basic things need to be catered for, because I don't want to live in a society of people starving on the street or dying of trivial medical problems, or even quite complex yet treatable medical problems.
However I am quite aware that because resources are scarce we can't hand out this standard of living to absolutely everyone, you need to do something to earn it. That is an advantage of doing this via a minimum wage; seriously what are the consequences of what i propose? No more need for obamacare, The cost of flipping burgers means that junk food becomes more expensive to match its societal cost.
I don't want to live in a society with people starving on the streets either. I would say most people don't want people to be starving on the streets. In the past, charities always took care of those who were truly in need. The solution you propose comes at a cost: less money for most. The law of marginal utility says (simplified) that the more you have of a given utility, the lower on your value scale additional units of that same utility will be. Thus, if you and I have more money, the more likely will be to part with it. Also, speculatively, the more we see people starving in the streets (and dislike it), the higher donating money will be on our value scales.
As for the consequences of what you propose, both of us have already outlined some of them. But to clarify: fewer jobs, higher prices of goods and services, and potentially entire sectors of the market being eliminated due to unsustainable costs (really, a rephrasing of the first point). Gaining experience at an entry-level position is one of the best ways to move into higher-paying positions. If you remove those jobs, you remove opportunities. You simply end up with higher unemployment. I now refer to the law of supply and demand, which says that as prices go up for a utility (in this case, labor), all things being equal, demand goes down.
Take your pick, you can either say you are happy for those who flip burgers to live at below western standards (i.e. no healthcare no pension, food shortages etc) or you can say that this is not acceptable to us and people should be paid enough to survive even if this means some fringe groups can't exist by exploiting people.
Those are not the only two alternatives. We need to make sure that the means chosen reach the ends desired. You and I both agree on the ends: more opportunities for all, the ability to support a family and have access to medical attention, etc. At least, I'm assuming those are the ends you want. What you propose is an increased welfare state, which has a very strong tendency to destroying wealth. Yet, the production of wealth and the increased standard of living that comes from it, is what we both are after. I'm afraid your means to not reach the ends desired.
What would you say that minimum wage should equate to per year? It'd be damn hard to raise a family on less than $30,000-$40,000 and that's extremely modest living. That's also about the median income for Americans. So for the sake of argument, let's say $30,000 (this works in your favor). We should then pay high schoolers/kids $30,000/year ($15/hr at 40 hrs/week) to flip burgers? That's pretty decent money, especially for flipping burgers; I would in fact argue it's rather unsustainable. Many smaller shops won't be able to afford that. Furthermore, you remove incentive for those individuals to get better skills if my next point weren't true. The reality is, the more you increase the minimum wage, the more people you make unemployable, since employers will tend to only hire those that are worth $15/hour (as opposed to $7/hr or whatever it is now). Good luck finding empirical data that shows otherwise. (Note: ignoring your claim that every job should come with health insurance, although it is equally ridiculous for both some of the same reasons and additional reasons that I don't have time to get into.)
You make a few flawed assumptions. As the technology sector grows, so too does the need for developers (and other technical staff). Thus, the demand for developers increases. Whatever "Grade" you want to slap on to the minimum skill set for entry-level developers is irrelevant because as the demand increases, the chances of getting into those jobs with a smaller skill set increases per the law of supply and demand. These are much better paying jobs than flipping burgers.
A healthy market where technology is being developed/flourishing is always moving towards better allocation of scarce resources. Human labor is one of the scarcest of all resources, specifically skilled labor. As the demand for skilled labor rises, the bars to entry go down, since there is only so much skilled labor; this is a good thing for people who are trying to get into jobs that require skilled labor. You may argue this is bad for people who are content flipping burgers, but I don't think there are many people who meet that category.
The thing that people generally like to ignore is that the increased standard of living that we've seen over the last 200 years has been because of these improvements in technology, not in spite of them. Wealth generation is what eliminates poverty. For example, I had a discussion recently with a friend who insisted that it was the laws that ended child labor in the United States; however, the general consensus amongst economic historians is that increased wealth is what ended (at least the vast majority of) child labor.
I actually ran into issues with upgrades breaking my systems to the point where they wouldn't boot. I think they actually removed some drivers from the kernel build from one version to the next. My memory is pretty foggy, but I remember I couldn't get the darned thing to boot. Kept hanging up somewhere early on.
Or you can run Debian Testing and receive fairly recent software that pretty much "just works". And if there's a particular package you want to rebuild, there's always apt-source.:)
Doing a Debian base install with "standard tools" is a great starting place. You will need to apt-get install databases, web servers, etc., but that's trivial. I stopped using Ubuntu server a few years ago when I kept running into problems of upgrades breaking things. As such, I completely disagree with the notion that Ubuntu server is stable (I was using an LTS, btw). To me, there has been no change in administration difficulty going from Ubuntu to Debian in the server world (and very little in the workstation world once you install a few extras).
Speaking of workstations, Debian Testing (Jessie) running KDE is awesome. I can't recommend it enough. KDE has come a long way since 4.0; it's everything I loved about Gnome 2, only better in my mind.
Absolutely. If I'm working on an inspired part of a project, 12-16 hours isn't bad. But on a bad day, just trying to do something useful is all that can be done.
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It is morally wrong because it requires intervention to prevent two parties from engaging in what both deem is a mutually-beneficial contract. Your argument of "we should try" is flawed because it requires setting aside the principle that people are free to enter into contracts with others. Your argument that it's morally imperative to limit the maximum pay ratio can only be achieved by invading peoples' rights to enter those contracts; it is, in fact, arbitrary and not based upon reason or principles (it is no better than saying, "I think this"). You are, of course, entitled to your opinion: just understand that it is an arbitrary one.
As for taxes, it is fundamentally different, depending on how it is implemented. It could be implemented as a "tax," but it could also be implemented as an illegal contract that is banned outright. These two methodologies have starkly different economic consequences. In the tax scenario, for instance, the money collected by the government is then used by the government and further distorts the market system.
The extension of the pay ratio to the rest of the country is rather simple. First of all, it sets precedence that government does have the right to intervene with such contracts (actually, such precedence has already been set, but it really is a slippery slope: have to "win" one battle at a time). If the government can arbitrarily decide that group X cannot make Y% more than group Z, all the government has to do is change the variables: the equation is already set and ready to abuse. Second, to think that limiting the highest-paid individuals' pay won't have adverse consequences is naive. As I've already stated, these people will just tend to find other ways to get around the limitation. Off the top of my head, this could take the form of:
All of these examples with the exception of (maybe) the 3rd one have great potential to impact the rest of the economy. The easiest one to give an example of is the first. A business that is so restricted as to not be allowed to pay their executive officers as it sees fit will likely leave as well. It doesn't really do you a lot of good to have a 12:1 pay ratio if a significant number of businesses leave. But let's ignore the possibility of the business leaving and assume, for the sake of argument, that they all stay. What does this do to the business? Assuming that none of the other options that I mentioned are used and that the business has to just "take it", one should expect that it is now exceptionally difficult for the business to find competent executive officers! After all, why would any executive officer want to stick around and receive a small fraction of his or her earning power when you can jump state line or two and make vastly more? Now, economics cannot tell us what people will do; in fact, I'm not aware of any science that does. But with significantly destroyed incentives, it does not require much imagination at all to reach that conclusion. And actually, one could simply look what happens to competing local currencies when the government comes in and sets an arbitrary exchange ratio: the overvalued currency sticks around and the undervalued currency quickly departs the nation, as people move it to where it is more capable of fetching its market price. This is a well-understood phenomenon and highly analogous to the sort of pay ratio that you advocate.
The fact that the shareholders still hold shares indicates that the majority of them did, in fact, not care enough to move their investments elsewhere. Or if they did, others thought Home Depot was a good opportunity, in spite of the $200M pay off. The point is, bad management kills organizations. Can a corporation make ridiculous decisions? Of course. But the market is not very forgiving; too much of this and the company will go under; therefore, it is in the corporation's best interest to not do things like this. The trouble is, people have a tendency of looking at a corporation in a vacuum, devoid of other investment opportunities. It is a very truncated perspective.
Yeah you're right. Let's try something that goes exactly contrary to what the study of human action tells us, that will certainly lead to increased poverty, a lower standard of living, and potentially death: all so that you can observe. And your example of racism and sexism is hardly the same, as such things go starkly contrary to sound philosophy and reasoning. I am all for improving things, but expecting government regulation to be able to somehow stimulate real economic growth is absurd. The only thing a government can do is get in the way: it is rather a question of how can we have the benefits that government can provide without destroying too much of what the free market provides. Advocating ignorantly for globalization of stupid shit that is bound to have exceptionally negative impact on peoples' lives is absolutely dangerous. Please, go read up on economics and save us from such ignorance. Economics told us that Soviet Russia was doomed to fail, but because some people seem to share your point of view, millions of people had to become impoverished/die in order for you to find out the truth.
Interestingly, the economic mobility that you talk about is most possible in the free market. And I agree, there is certainly a tendency for those who become successful to lobby for protections or privileges. But this is an argument for the free market, not against it. The free market has no such mechanisms available to corporations to gain privilege. Also, please provide example of a non-free market performing well. It cannot, if for no other reason, than the lack of a pricing mechanism to judge whether various stages of production are efficient or not.
+1. What's interesting to these arguments that say "the free market does not exist," is that they propose the solution is to move in the exact opposite direction of the free market: a direction in which the ruling class controls and will use to its own advantage. If, on the off chance, something like this ridiculous 12:1 pay cap thing gets passed, you will see one of the three things happen: 1) creative ways to subvert the law, possibly bringing in unforeseen consequences that impact far more than just the CEO's; 2) companies and the wealth that they generate flee to more prosperous regions; 3) a combination of both.
But alas, people think that laws can just magically make everything better and people more "equal," by whatever definition they arbitrarily choose. Equality can only ever be objectively defined as equality of opportunity, not equality of distribution. After all, the only way to achieve equality of distribution is via coercively taking from those who have accumulated their wealth via mutually-beneficial exchanges on the free market[1]. There is nothing equal about taking from one and giving to the other. Furthermore, what exactly is the problem with a CEO making 500x the rate of the lowest (or even median) paid worker? Inherently, nothing. What matters is the wealth and progression of the middle class and the freedom to move freely through the classes, based on ones' abilities and desires[2]. I would much rather live in a world with a strong middle class where the CEO's make 1500x what the average worker makes than a world where the middle class barely squeaks by while the CEO's only make 20x what the average worker makes.
Forbidding people from signing contracts that both parties deem as mutually beneficial is wrong and destructive to the economy. After all, it is not the CEO's who own corporations, but the shareholders. As such, it is the shareholders who ultimately decide upon the pay of the CEO. If the owners of a company decide that it is in the company's best interest to entice the top executives with $x, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Contrary to popular belief, the only way this is possible in the long run, is if the executive actually brings that worth to the corporation. These sorts of laws will *not* bring up the wage of the workers just so that the executives can be paid more; after all, the most an employee can be paid without the company losing money is the discounted marginal value product that he or she brings to the company.
[1] There are, of course, many who make their wealth by rigging the system to keep competition out or via other mechanisms such as exclusive rights or privileges to government contracts, etc. Wealth obtained this way is illegitimate. It is not mutually beneficial, such as those exchanges that occur on the free market.
[2] Individuals' abilities tend to vary during their lifetime. There is nothing wrong with a young, unskilled worker not making as much as a man or woman in the prime years of their earning power. This is the primary source of the disparity between incomes.
Ah yes, and opinions such as this is exactly why they are able to go rogue on their own agenda. It is dangerous to operate out of fear, which is exactly what you are doing if you believe things like, "I want them looking at everyone because you never know where the threat is coming from."
I just thought I'd point out the fallacy that is normally associated with tax revenues: increased tax rates != increased tax revenues. It is highly probably that a simplified system that is more straight forward and less difficult to dodge, would actually yield higher tax revenues even if the overall rates were lower, on paper. The amount of economic productivity to be gained from a simplified system alone is likely significant, not to mention that lower taxes in general tend to stimulate the economy, and where there is more wealth, there is more to tax. Obviously, there is likely a point of diminishing (or negative) returns, but my point is that we must not fall into the fallacy that tax rates == tax revenues.
Excellent economic analysis.
Yes we do have the power to change the system. Voting is not going to get that done, though. The only way to make any real change is through education of the general populace as to *what* the problems are. That's hard to do, but as you said, just because it's hard doesn't mean we shouldn't try. People get the government they deserve and right now, we deserve this government, sad to say.
Btw, nice sig.
Curious, when those elected just do the bidding of the special interests groups, how do you come to the conclusion that we have representation? Also, let's not discount the 3% tax as being one of the reasons for the revolution. After all, if it were a law that was deemed beneficial to the settlers, the revolution may not have happened (or at least, might have been postponed). In other words, the revolution was fought because lack of representation AND laws that were passed that the colonists didn't like.
Haha yeah those glowing drop shadows are hideous. Thank goodness we're not stuck with them. The great thing about KDE is it's extremely customizable and actually rather performant, considering how all-encompassing it is.
One of the biggest problems with modern health care prices is caused by insurance: the moral hazard that's created by people having inexpensive or free visits to the doctors drastically increases the demand for doctor visits. Prices are supposed to express value of some sort: without them, people have a tendency of just using the resource without discretion. As a personal anecdote, my wife and I used to live in an apartment with water paid for by the apartment: we thought we conserved water, but when we moved to a duplex where we paid the water bill, we realized no... no we didn't conserve water! We now use less water.
When an individual sees no personal benefit for refraining from using a service like health care, they go for the silliest of things. If we want to bring costs down, we need to reduce demand. Providing free health care for all only exacerbates the problem. Health insurance really should not cover routine doctor visits (which in doing so actually reclassifies "insurance" to something other than risk management), but instead cover the things that are truly risk-related: breaking an arm, etc. Then we may actually see prices fall to the point where getting those routine doctors' visits only costs $50-$100.
The trouble with you quantitative easing advocates is, no matter how much QE is performed, if it doesn't work, the problem is we didn't do enough QE. The problem could never be with the system itself; surely sound money and limited government have no roles to play in a "modern economy" *sigh*. As for austerity programs, no one's willing to make the sort of cuts necessary; if I overspend on a monthly basis, going $1000 in to debt each month, then cut my expenditures by $500 (ceteris paribus), I'm still going in the hole $500 a month--of course my debt is still going up!
What we need is a serious market correction that is going to take time: these things are generally mild and quick, but when it's been put off as long as it has via bad economic policy, it's going to be a sharper, longer correction than it would be otherwise.
Tax hikes don't necessarily mean increased revenue (they have actually decreased revenue at times). Frankly, the only sure-fire way to pay off this debt is via massive spending cuts. But these are cuts that Republicans aren't generally in favor of.
The only sustainable way to raise people out of poverty is via the generation of wealth (and not putting things in the way of those in poverty from generating said wealth). Money in a fiat currency system is just something printed; wealth generation has to do with combining labor with natural resources to make something of utility that did not exist before. A healthy economy is felt by everyone, not just those at the "top".
So your assertion is that there are too many laborers and not enough jobs for them? Yet, over here in reality, mankind has a virtually endless list of wants and resources still remain scarce. So long as people have unsatisfied wants, they will try to take action the best they can (granted with a limited perspective) to satisfy those wants. This is the basis for an economy. In fact, the more people involved in a market, generally the more efficient the market becomes for a variety of reasons. For example, the more consumers/producers there are, the faster prices will move to equilibrium and the greater the possibility of division of labor. Everything in my study of economics has led to more people being a good thing economically, not a bad thing. Sure, there are other problems that present themselves with a large population, but those are outside of the range of this discussion.
You can't just say things like, "But there is no industry which needs that sort of manpower -- there really is nowhere for those people to go," without providing at least some basis for it. Now, obviously the world economy is doing pretty terrible right now, but to assume that is because of overpopulation when markets benefit from greater numbers is simply erroneous.
And by the way, farming is an excellent example that demonstrates how huge technological improvements can bring about previously unheard of prosperity. The fact that it is directly related to food production does not invalidate it. Yes, there were growing pains; yes, some factory owners mistreated child laborers. It took a fair bit of time for the economy to properly reallocate labor from farms to industry. The sacrifices of some individuals and families were no doubt quite large, but we have surely taken huge leaps forwards because of it.
All that said, what solutions would you suggest that wouldn't get in the way of economic and technological progress?
I'm sorry, I never meant to imply that those displaced by machines in industry A would then operate the machines at the same rate of employment. On the contrary, it frees them up for other work in other markets. Clearly the point of gaining said machinery is so that fewer laborers are required. A classic example of this is that of agricultural machinery that displaced most of the farmers. There are of course two ways to look at this: 1) That most farmers lost their jobs (farmers used to be something like 90% of the populace) or 2) That those people were freed up to do other things and that the cost savings of using improved technology was so great that there is now more food per capita than ever has been. Are there growing pains while the market rearranges human capital? Absolutely! Is it overall the best choice for society? I would certainly say so; others might disagree.
Many people spend their whole lives in minimum wage jobs, for whatever reason they are not able to get another one.
The vast majority of whom would be much more likely to move on if they had adequate incentive and if the economy were healthy enough as to provide alternatives easier. You even admit that your solutions might (read: will) harm the economy. If there are fewer Starbucks, there are also fewer entry level jobs, fewer promotional opportunities, etc. My solution is to enact policy that allows the economy to grow in a healthy, sustainable way, thus providing the opportunities for everyone willing to improve their situation.
Take a step back, I don't care about how this is achieved but I think as a society some basic things need to be catered for, because I don't want to live in a society of people starving on the street or dying of trivial medical problems, or even quite complex yet treatable medical problems. However I am quite aware that because resources are scarce we can't hand out this standard of living to absolutely everyone, you need to do something to earn it. That is an advantage of doing this via a minimum wage; seriously what are the consequences of what i propose? No more need for obamacare, The cost of flipping burgers means that junk food becomes more expensive to match its societal cost.
I don't want to live in a society with people starving on the streets either. I would say most people don't want people to be starving on the streets. In the past, charities always took care of those who were truly in need. The solution you propose comes at a cost: less money for most. The law of marginal utility says (simplified) that the more you have of a given utility, the lower on your value scale additional units of that same utility will be. Thus, if you and I have more money, the more likely will be to part with it. Also, speculatively, the more we see people starving in the streets (and dislike it), the higher donating money will be on our value scales.
As for the consequences of what you propose, both of us have already outlined some of them. But to clarify: fewer jobs, higher prices of goods and services, and potentially entire sectors of the market being eliminated due to unsustainable costs (really, a rephrasing of the first point). Gaining experience at an entry-level position is one of the best ways to move into higher-paying positions. If you remove those jobs, you remove opportunities. You simply end up with higher unemployment. I now refer to the law of supply and demand, which says that as prices go up for a utility (in this case, labor), all things being equal, demand goes down.
Take your pick, you can either say you are happy for those who flip burgers to live at below western standards (i.e. no healthcare no pension, food shortages etc) or you can say that this is not acceptable to us and people should be paid enough to survive even if this means some fringe groups can't exist by exploiting people.
Those are not the only two alternatives. We need to make sure that the means chosen reach the ends desired. You and I both agree on the ends: more opportunities for all, the ability to support a family and have access to medical attention, etc. At least, I'm assuming those are the ends you want. What you propose is an increased welfare state, which has a very strong tendency to destroying wealth. Yet, the production of wealth and the increased standard of living that comes from it, is what we both are after. I'm afraid your means to not reach the ends desired.
What would you say that minimum wage should equate to per year? It'd be damn hard to raise a family on less than $30,000-$40,000 and that's extremely modest living. That's also about the median income for Americans. So for the sake of argument, let's say $30,000 (this works in your favor). We should then pay high schoolers/kids $30,000/year ($15/hr at 40 hrs/week) to flip burgers? That's pretty decent money, especially for flipping burgers; I would in fact argue it's rather unsustainable. Many smaller shops won't be able to afford that. Furthermore, you remove incentive for those individuals to get better skills if my next point weren't true. The reality is, the more you increase the minimum wage, the more people you make unemployable, since employers will tend to only hire those that are worth $15/hour (as opposed to $7/hr or whatever it is now). Good luck finding empirical data that shows otherwise. (Note: ignoring your claim that every job should come with health insurance, although it is equally ridiculous for both some of the same reasons and additional reasons that I don't have time to get into.)
You make a few flawed assumptions. As the technology sector grows, so too does the need for developers (and other technical staff). Thus, the demand for developers increases. Whatever "Grade" you want to slap on to the minimum skill set for entry-level developers is irrelevant because as the demand increases, the chances of getting into those jobs with a smaller skill set increases per the law of supply and demand. These are much better paying jobs than flipping burgers.
A healthy market where technology is being developed/flourishing is always moving towards better allocation of scarce resources. Human labor is one of the scarcest of all resources, specifically skilled labor. As the demand for skilled labor rises, the bars to entry go down, since there is only so much skilled labor; this is a good thing for people who are trying to get into jobs that require skilled labor. You may argue this is bad for people who are content flipping burgers, but I don't think there are many people who meet that category.
The thing that people generally like to ignore is that the increased standard of living that we've seen over the last 200 years has been because of these improvements in technology, not in spite of them. Wealth generation is what eliminates poverty. For example, I had a discussion recently with a friend who insisted that it was the laws that ended child labor in the United States; however, the general consensus amongst economic historians is that increased wealth is what ended (at least the vast majority of) child labor.
I actually ran into issues with upgrades breaking my systems to the point where they wouldn't boot. I think they actually removed some drivers from the kernel build from one version to the next. My memory is pretty foggy, but I remember I couldn't get the darned thing to boot. Kept hanging up somewhere early on.
Or you can run Debian Testing and receive fairly recent software that pretty much "just works". And if there's a particular package you want to rebuild, there's always apt-source. :)
You can always using backports to get kernels from testing, thus avoid stepping outside of apt-get.
Doing a Debian base install with "standard tools" is a great starting place. You will need to apt-get install databases, web servers, etc., but that's trivial. I stopped using Ubuntu server a few years ago when I kept running into problems of upgrades breaking things. As such, I completely disagree with the notion that Ubuntu server is stable (I was using an LTS, btw). To me, there has been no change in administration difficulty going from Ubuntu to Debian in the server world (and very little in the workstation world once you install a few extras).
Speaking of workstations, Debian Testing (Jessie) running KDE is awesome. I can't recommend it enough. KDE has come a long way since 4.0; it's everything I loved about Gnome 2, only better in my mind.
Absolutely. If I'm working on an inspired part of a project, 12-16 hours isn't bad. But on a bad day, just trying to do something useful is all that can be done.