Australia has experimented with various alternate voting methods including compulsory voting, still get the authoritarian right wing types in government.
People like authoritarian, protective governments. They like for someone to focus their fear on a particular movement or group. They like to think that something is being done about that threat. They know they're not doing anything wrong and will be untouched by those protective measures. Even if there is some small consequence, the security is worth it.
These people don't speak, so you don't know they exist. They're part of the 95% of slashdot readers who have never posted a comment. They don't have strong opinions. They are good people, always ready with a smile and a wave, always ready to help a neighbor in need, and never asking for anything in return. They just want to go about their life, and a strong, protective government with visible police and pro-active defense is very comforting.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."
Trivia note, radio controlled craft have been in existence since 1898, flying cameras in radio controlled airplanes... well since radio controlled airplanes have been around. (1920's. or earlier).
This "drone" paranoia is proof positive of the media manipulation people suffer under.
Yes indeed. It's also funny to me that RC helicopters are now called drones. I always thought drones incorporated some sort of autonomous or semi-autonomous activity, like circling a particular area. But now it seems anything that is RC and flies is a drone.
Looks like there are a lot of highly skilled and highly paid people in the companies I looked... the opposite of the Slashdot narrative of indentured servants working on minimum wage.
And then there's this from TFA:
In Négri’s opinion, that could be a trick to bring in a technically skilled worker at a lower cost: “If the title says software engineer, you pay a lot” to stay in compliance with the H-1B laws that require immigrants to be paid the prevailing wage, he says. “If the title says ‘consultant’, instead of $130,000 you might pay $60,000, the gap is that big.” He pointed to a “technology lead” for Infosys in Sunnyvale, Calif., listed in the database as having a salary of $87,000. “That’s not much for Silicon Valley,” Négri says.
While it may not be minimum wage or indentured servitude, the point about wage suppression still has merit.
DNA analysis, pictures, and everything. It's like it was all finished before the act. Maybe the CEO just had to be removed for some reason?
This was my suspicion when I first heard of the murders; that it was a black bag job. But who knows? It could be legit. We'll have to see how things shape up.
The victims were white. What a surprise. Funny how it's almost always that way, isn't it...
Just imagine if white people had their own countries. That would be just awful and 'racist', wouldn't it...
Historically, white people have shown up in other people's countries, attacked them and taken their land. So it seems white people are not content in their own countries.
Because apparently, white people have got something special that non-whites are being deprived of by not getting to live around us, right?
"After we found out he is a black man that allegedly killed a white family - oh, and their maid, I guess."
Well, sure. Because the SJWs are insisting that police do less to hunt down black guys who are responsible for the plague of murders the commit within their own demographic. Since, you know, it's racist and oppressive to attempt to arrest those guys.
I don't understand why the fact that Black people kill Black people negates the fact that law enforcement is often racist. Can't both be true?
Now, when I read stuff like this.. a little bird whispers in my ear: parallel construction.
What's more likely, Wint's DNA was recovered from a pizza crust in a burning home, or law enforcement just happens to know where Wint's cellphone was during the time in question?
I'm glad I'm not the only one to think that recovering DNA off of a pizza crust that was in a burning house and then drenched by the fire department is a little thin. It's not impossible, but it raises my antenna.
" Daron Dylon Wint, who is described as 5'7 and 155 lbs and might also go by the name "Steffon.""
He's BLACK. But it would be racist to describe his skin color.
Do they always specify when someone is white, or is that just the assumed default color of a person?
Well, after I RTFA it seems the pizza was indeed delivered on the 13th. I feel better. But I'm still curious how DNA survives a house fire and subsequent soaking by the fire department on a piece of pizza crust. DNA must be pretty hardy!
This doesn't quite add up, though it may just be sloppy reporting. The pizza was delivered on May 14th. The next morning, ostensibly the 15th, the assistant drops off $40,000. But the bodies were found on the afternoon of the 14th in a burned out house? And DNA was preserved through a fire on a piece of pizza crust? It seems more likely that the pizza was delivered on the 13th. Otherwise the assistant would have delivered the cash to a burned down house.
I have to LMAO when you see those "black lives matter" and screams about "racism" when the #1 cause of death of black males is other black males beating the next four causes of death combined. Sure black lives matter....only when they are killed by white people as that supports the permanent victim class political narrative, but when black men like David Carroll and Tommy Sotomayor point out the biggest threat to the lives of black males is other black males? The black community attacks them as "coons" and "Uncle Toms"....I guess supporting an end to thugs preying on their own neighborhoods means they aren't "keepin it real".
Oh and just a little food for thought......if the plight of the American black was racism, why is it a black man from Africa, fresh off the boat, is something like 300% more likely to become middle class in 1 generation, and something like 3000% more likely to become middle class in 2 generations than an American black, despite the language and culture handicaps from not being a native? I'd say the answer is obvious, its nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture and in the USA the black culture has become toxic, glorifying violence, abusing women and not being fathers to their children, while actively condemning education as "acting white".
As for TFA this kind of shit DOES affect Americans heavily even if they do not know it, as it gets them used to living in a police state where laws protecting against the ever watching eye only apply to the wealthy and the rule of law is whatever they say it is this week.
Your last paragraph describes what it is like to be Black in relationship to the System. And you seem to think it's not good. I agree!
"Black Lives Matter" isn't simply about the lives of Black people. It is specifically about how Black people are treated by law enforcement and the System in general. It is different from how White people are treated. I don't think that's really controversial. I'm not sure where your statistic about the fresh-off-the-boat African comes from, but he did not grow up in the same environment as the African American. It is about culture, as you say. But you can't critique that culture divorced from the context within which it formed.
The echoes of slavery, Jim Crow and other hardships for the Black community take their toll. Like any person, if you are treated badly as a child you have a better chance of growing up to be an angry, maladjusted person. It's the same for the Black community. You can't expect them to put up with the hundreds of years of supreme bullshit they have, and come out fresh faced and positive. And that bullshit isn't all in the past; they still put up with some of it.
So you can talk about their culture, but you can't blame it for their predicament. It was born from centuries of abuse at the hands of White people. And that's something White people need to recognize and work to end. We can't fix the past and we in the present are not to blame for it. But we should do what we can to be compassionate and understanding so as to not perpetuate the problem.
That's because somebody doing a good job an the executive level vs a bad job is significantly different in the impact it has on the entire company. It's not chopping wood.
Yet the ones that do a bad job still get huge severance packages. Sign me up for the job where I get $Texas even if I don't do a good job.
That's like saying that if the minimum wage is too high, and it hurts employers, we should just not pay anyone anything at all. and we'd all be wealthy
No, the amount that should be paid is the amount that an employer and an employee agree upon. Which is better, that an employer willing to pay $6 an hour not hire anybody while jobless people willing to work for $6 an hour continue to not find jobs, or that the employer actually hire those people for $6 an hour even though it is less than minimum wage?
That might be true if the power dynamic were the same on both sides of the table. But it's not. Generally speaking the employee needs a job more than an employer needs the employee. The business probably has 50 applicants for the job, while the applicant isn't entertaining 50 job offers.
So if I have a friend, lets call him "Bob", Bob and I are both the same age and from the same family. Bob can be my brother.
I finish high school, Bob sits at home playing video games.
I stay with one job that starts at $8/hr and get promoted while Bob just moves job to job every 6 months after they realize he's a slacker.
Eventually after suffering through working extra hard to get promoted rather than fired in 6 months, I'm now starting to realize that Bob's way was wrong... after all he keeps moving from job to job all making $8/hr, but I've now been promoted up from $11/hr to lets say $15/hr.
Then this law passes and suddenly Bob and I make the same money..... Is this really "right" to you? Shouldn't my harder-than-bob's-work actually get me something tangible? Is it really fair to now watch Bob just get bumped to $15/hr like me despite the large difference in work ethics and education?
According to everything schooling and society has taught me, I should be doing much better than Bob yet he's right at my level! How is that possibly fair to me?
You have shown that hypothetical scenarios can be tailored to illustrate any point. The answer to your question is that your industriousness will continue to benefit you as you continue to climb up in your career, while Bob will still be stuck at minimum wage. So five years from now, when you are making $25 an hour, Bob will still be making $15. Does that seem fairer now?
Maybe fucktards who can't get an order of two big macs, fries and a happy meal don't deserve a living wage? That's just my guess.
Your compassion and empathy for your fellow man knows no bounds. Since they don't deserve enough to live on, why are we even tolerating their existence?
You might consider a third option. Reducing executive compensation.
That's the thing that needs to happen throughout the economy.
It's funny how top executive compensation doesn't seem to be subject to the same downward pressure that lower wages are subject to. I wonder why that is. Surely you could find someone to take those jobs for less money. Yet we somehow don't hear that argument.
Easy. Because his products are not priced for minimum wage makers. The poor guy who makes the Ferrari likely doesn't get paid an income which would allow him to buy one. Even by doubling his pay.
The profit margin on such goods is high. As such they will take option two from above an reduce their net revenue.
Right, and spenders will not suddenly become lousy at seeking bargains. Which means my "little local shop" is going to get skull-fucked by the only type of company that can survive in this brave new world: mega-chains that can leverage their massive scales of economy to save a few cents on every bottle of shampoo they sell, and thus undersell my prices, and put me out of business.
I'm sure we'll all be very happy working at minimum wage for super-mega-giant-corp, but do you see that "more spending power" is simply going to result in the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a handful of large corporate CEOs? Nobody else will be able to afford the employees, and the employees will take their hard-earned minimum wage dollars where those dollars will stretch the furthest.
Great for efficiency. Lousy for people.
Well, that's happening anyway regardless of the minimum wage. It seems your problem is more with modern American Capitalism, where the strong eat the weak and low prices are all that matters, than with a hike in the minimum wage.
If I'm running a business, and my payroll increases 30% while sales remain flat, I have two options:
1) slow or stop hiring, cut staff, or even go out of business;
2) raise prices to reflect the increase in wage expenses;
I don't see how either of those outcomes is very good for poor people struggling to get by on $15 an hour, even though we can console ourselves that we've "done something" to help them. Now, I am, admittedly, not an economist - perhaps it will work, or at least, it will help. But I really have sincere doubts that this is going to do much to really change the dynamic at the low end of the economic spectrum. I think it will largely end up being a feel-good measure that well-off, well-meaning people can use to congratulate themselves about, while doing nothing to change the fundamental reality of low wages and poverty.
The example you give only applies to a subset of businesses. Most will not have to go out of business because they have to pay people at least $15 an hour. A few little mom and pop's maybe. But Walmart is not making that calculation, nor is Target or Costco. They can easily absorb the increase in labor costs, and their profit will go from ridiculous to merely astounding. Besides, people's wages are companies revenue. Studies have shown that increasing the minimum wage can stimulate the economy by enabling people to spend more. This is most effective at the bottom of the income range because those people will spend the increase rather than saving it. So increasing labor costs is not the only dynamic at play.
I agree that this will not solve poverty or income inequality. But it's a step in the right direction. Our economy is supposedly 70% consumer-driven. It makes sense then that increasing the buying power among those most likely to use it would have an overall positive effect.
(While you're at it, also explain why businesses would pay $15/h for a worker who doesn't increase revenue by significantly more than $15 for each hour he works.)
Like anyone is making that calculation. If you don't bill your hours no one can say whether you have increased the company's revenue by your salary. I kept the email servers running all year last year. Tell me how much I increased the company's revenue by doing that. Please show your work.
Money is noting more or less than unconsumed production, a store of wealth. When more of it is printed, it dilutes the store of wealth, making each unit worth less, which is theft. I love your use of the passive voice in stating that "money is created as needed" as if it were an act of nature. BS. Governments inflate the currency in order to pay back their debts with less value. Every smidgeon of inflation is the result of an affirmative decision of government. That is not to say that the money supply should be fixed, but that the money supply should be carefully monitored to prevent inflation, not to chase some ephemeral goal like "full employment". BTW, Andrew Jackson eliminated the national debt in 1835. I would vote to go back to sound fiscal practices like that in a heartbeat. What do you think it will look like when our house of cards comes crashing down? I am guessing it will be far worse than most expect.
Thanks for clarifying. I agree that inflation is the theft of value. But I also think that talking about the debt as though it will ever be paid back is the wrong approach. Because of the nature of our money, the debt will never be paid back, just rolled over. It cannot be otherwise because our money is debt. As you say, what we need is actual responsible stewardship of the money supply to ensure that it doesn't grow faster than the economy as a whole.
I'm not really sure what it will look like when it comes crashing down. It's complicated by the fact that the dollar is the world's reserve currency and the US has a powerful military. So there are many powerful actors that are invested in keeping the dollar afloat one way or another. I can't really even speculate on what that would look like as there are so many moving parts and unknown variables. Broadly I expect that the vast majority of people will lose all their wealth and be impoverished, while certain connected insiders come out richer than before. And I agree that it will be worse than expected.
I love it when idiots like you spout off about the nature of money. It gives me a good laugh. There is no need for debt for our money supply to have value. The nature of money is based on the goods and services that we produce whether the paper currency is "backed" by gold, silver, dog shit or nothing at all. The reality is that economies based on the gold standard imploded and getting rid of the gold standard does nothing to make a currency any more stable or unstable.
I didn't say anything about the gold standard. Likewise, I said nothing about debt being a requirement for money. Yet you think I'm the idiot. I just pointed out that debt is how our money is created in the United States in 2015. Are you challenging that assertion or did you just want to take a poke at me over nothing?
I would argue that one cannot simultaneously be a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Social liberals uniformly support the massive welfare state that threatens our very existence as a nation. The debt is now larger than GDP. Let that sink in. Not only that, but the way that the government figures its debt would get any CFO thrown in jail. The government chooses to use a cash-based instead of an accrual-based system to hide the truth. If they used the accrual-based system, the debt would be over $96 trillion (or over 5X GDP), as opposed to the $18 trillion widely reported. $96 trillion represents over $800K per citizen (including children).
Fiscal conservatism means living within our means, instead of this massive intergenerational theft.
There is no theft. Money is created as needed. It doesn't need to be repaid, just rolled over. Indeed, it cannot be repaid. Under the Federal Reserve system money is debt. If you want to eliminate the debt, you will eliminate the money.
Once you see how money is really created, you will see that the debate over the debt and its size is really beside the point. The point is that all dollars are borrowed into existence, while the money to pay the interest is not. So we will never eliminate the debt; it will keep growing as long as the money supply grows, which it must to stay ahead of the interest on the debt. If that sounds inherently unstable and destined to crash at some point, I'd agree with you.
Slashdot Mirror
Australia has experimented with various alternate voting methods including compulsory voting, still get the authoritarian right wing types in government.
People like authoritarian, protective governments. They like for someone to focus their fear on a particular movement or group. They like to think that something is being done about that threat. They know they're not doing anything wrong and will be untouched by those protective measures. Even if there is some small consequence, the security is worth it.
These people don't speak, so you don't know they exist. They're part of the 95% of slashdot readers who have never posted a comment. They don't have strong opinions. They are good people, always ready with a smile and a wave, always ready to help a neighbor in need, and never asking for anything in return. They just want to go about their life, and a strong, protective government with visible police and pro-active defense is very comforting.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."
-Blazing Saddles
If you're divorcing your wife, I think you have bigger problems than ads.
If you've got a disease, I think you still need to communicate better with your wife.
If you can't trust your wife, you've got very little left.
What if you're planning a surprise party for her?
>
Trivia note, radio controlled craft have been in existence since 1898, flying cameras in radio controlled airplanes... well since radio controlled airplanes have been around. (1920's. or earlier).
This "drone" paranoia is proof positive of the media manipulation people suffer under.
Yes indeed. It's also funny to me that RC helicopters are now called drones. I always thought drones incorporated some sort of autonomous or semi-autonomous activity, like circling a particular area. But now it seems anything that is RC and flies is a drone.
Looks like there are a lot of highly skilled and highly paid people in the companies I looked... the opposite of the Slashdot narrative of indentured servants working on minimum wage.
And then there's this from TFA:
In Négri’s opinion, that could be a trick to bring in a technically skilled worker at a lower cost: “If the title says software engineer, you pay a lot” to stay in compliance with the H-1B laws that require immigrants to be paid the prevailing wage, he says. “If the title says ‘consultant’, instead of $130,000 you might pay $60,000, the gap is that big.” He pointed to a “technology lead” for Infosys in Sunnyvale, Calif., listed in the database as having a salary of $87,000. “That’s not much for Silicon Valley,” Négri says.
While it may not be minimum wage or indentured servitude, the point about wage suppression still has merit.
DNA analysis, pictures, and everything. It's like it was all finished before the act. Maybe the CEO just had to be removed for some reason?
This was my suspicion when I first heard of the murders; that it was a black bag job. But who knows? It could be legit. We'll have to see how things shape up.
If black criminal is killed, blacks come out and start rioting and destroying property. Who is going to riot now?
I would say rich people, but they'd just hire a Mexican to do it for less than minimum wage.
The victims were white. What a surprise. Funny how it's almost always that way, isn't it...
Just imagine if white people had their own countries. That would be just awful and 'racist', wouldn't it...
Historically, white people have shown up in other people's countries, attacked them and taken their land. So it seems white people are not content in their own countries.
Because apparently, white people have got something special that non-whites are being deprived of by not getting to live around us, right?
Yep, it's called societal power and agency.
"After we found out he is a black man that allegedly killed a white family - oh, and their maid, I guess."
Well, sure. Because the SJWs are insisting that police do less to hunt down black guys who are responsible for the plague of murders the commit within their own demographic. Since, you know, it's racist and oppressive to attempt to arrest those guys.
I don't understand why the fact that Black people kill Black people negates the fact that law enforcement is often racist. Can't both be true?
Now, when I read stuff like this.. a little bird whispers in my ear: parallel construction.
What's more likely, Wint's DNA was recovered from a pizza crust in a burning home, or law enforcement just happens to know where Wint's cellphone was during the time in question?
I'm glad I'm not the only one to think that recovering DNA off of a pizza crust that was in a burning house and then drenched by the fire department is a little thin. It's not impossible, but it raises my antenna.
" Daron Dylon Wint, who is described as 5'7 and 155 lbs and might also go by the name "Steffon."" He's BLACK. But it would be racist to describe his skin color.
Do they always specify when someone is white, or is that just the assumed default color of a person?
Well, after I RTFA it seems the pizza was indeed delivered on the 13th. I feel better. But I'm still curious how DNA survives a house fire and subsequent soaking by the fire department on a piece of pizza crust. DNA must be pretty hardy!
This doesn't quite add up, though it may just be sloppy reporting. The pizza was delivered on May 14th. The next morning, ostensibly the 15th, the assistant drops off $40,000. But the bodies were found on the afternoon of the 14th in a burned out house? And DNA was preserved through a fire on a piece of pizza crust? It seems more likely that the pizza was delivered on the 13th. Otherwise the assistant would have delivered the cash to a burned down house.
I have to LMAO when you see those "black lives matter" and screams about "racism" when the #1 cause of death of black males is other black males beating the next four causes of death combined. Sure black lives matter....only when they are killed by white people as that supports the permanent victim class political narrative, but when black men like David Carroll and Tommy Sotomayor point out the biggest threat to the lives of black males is other black males? The black community attacks them as "coons" and "Uncle Toms"....I guess supporting an end to thugs preying on their own neighborhoods means they aren't "keepin it real".
Oh and just a little food for thought......if the plight of the American black was racism, why is it a black man from Africa, fresh off the boat, is something like 300% more likely to become middle class in 1 generation, and something like 3000% more likely to become middle class in 2 generations than an American black, despite the language and culture handicaps from not being a native? I'd say the answer is obvious, its nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture and in the USA the black culture has become toxic, glorifying violence, abusing women and not being fathers to their children, while actively condemning education as "acting white".
As for TFA this kind of shit DOES affect Americans heavily even if they do not know it, as it gets them used to living in a police state where laws protecting against the ever watching eye only apply to the wealthy and the rule of law is whatever they say it is this week.
Your last paragraph describes what it is like to be Black in relationship to the System. And you seem to think it's not good. I agree!
"Black Lives Matter" isn't simply about the lives of Black people. It is specifically about how Black people are treated by law enforcement and the System in general. It is different from how White people are treated. I don't think that's really controversial. I'm not sure where your statistic about the fresh-off-the-boat African comes from, but he did not grow up in the same environment as the African American. It is about culture, as you say. But you can't critique that culture divorced from the context within which it formed.
The echoes of slavery, Jim Crow and other hardships for the Black community take their toll. Like any person, if you are treated badly as a child you have a better chance of growing up to be an angry, maladjusted person. It's the same for the Black community. You can't expect them to put up with the hundreds of years of supreme bullshit they have, and come out fresh faced and positive. And that bullshit isn't all in the past; they still put up with some of it.
So you can talk about their culture, but you can't blame it for their predicament. It was born from centuries of abuse at the hands of White people. And that's something White people need to recognize and work to end. We can't fix the past and we in the present are not to blame for it. But we should do what we can to be compassionate and understanding so as to not perpetuate the problem.
That's because somebody doing a good job an the executive level vs a bad job is significantly different in the impact it has on the entire company. It's not chopping wood.
Yet the ones that do a bad job still get huge severance packages. Sign me up for the job where I get $Texas even if I don't do a good job.
That's like saying that if the minimum wage is too high, and it hurts employers, we should just not pay anyone anything at all. and we'd all be wealthy
No, the amount that should be paid is the amount that an employer and an employee agree upon. Which is better, that an employer willing to pay $6 an hour not hire anybody while jobless people willing to work for $6 an hour continue to not find jobs, or that the employer actually hire those people for $6 an hour even though it is less than minimum wage?
That might be true if the power dynamic were the same on both sides of the table. But it's not. Generally speaking the employee needs a job more than an employer needs the employee. The business probably has 50 applicants for the job, while the applicant isn't entertaining 50 job offers.
So if I have a friend, lets call him "Bob", Bob and I are both the same age and from the same family. Bob can be my brother.
I finish high school, Bob sits at home playing video games. I stay with one job that starts at $8/hr and get promoted while Bob just moves job to job every 6 months after they realize he's a slacker.
Eventually after suffering through working extra hard to get promoted rather than fired in 6 months, I'm now starting to realize that Bob's way was wrong... after all he keeps moving from job to job all making $8/hr, but I've now been promoted up from $11/hr to lets say $15/hr.
Then this law passes and suddenly Bob and I make the same money..... Is this really "right" to you? Shouldn't my harder-than-bob's-work actually get me something tangible? Is it really fair to now watch Bob just get bumped to $15/hr like me despite the large difference in work ethics and education?
According to everything schooling and society has taught me, I should be doing much better than Bob yet he's right at my level! How is that possibly fair to me?
You have shown that hypothetical scenarios can be tailored to illustrate any point. The answer to your question is that your industriousness will continue to benefit you as you continue to climb up in your career, while Bob will still be stuck at minimum wage. So five years from now, when you are making $25 an hour, Bob will still be making $15. Does that seem fairer now?
Maybe fucktards who can't get an order of two big macs, fries and a happy meal don't deserve a living wage? That's just my guess.
Your compassion and empathy for your fellow man knows no bounds. Since they don't deserve enough to live on, why are we even tolerating their existence?
You might consider a third option. Reducing executive compensation.
That's the thing that needs to happen throughout the economy.
It's funny how top executive compensation doesn't seem to be subject to the same downward pressure that lower wages are subject to. I wonder why that is. Surely you could find someone to take those jobs for less money. Yet we somehow don't hear that argument.
Easy. Because his products are not priced for minimum wage makers. The poor guy who makes the Ferrari likely doesn't get paid an income which would allow him to buy one. Even by doubling his pay.
The profit margin on such goods is high. As such they will take option two from above an reduce their net revenue.
Right, and spenders will not suddenly become lousy at seeking bargains. Which means my "little local shop" is going to get skull-fucked by the only type of company that can survive in this brave new world: mega-chains that can leverage their massive scales of economy to save a few cents on every bottle of shampoo they sell, and thus undersell my prices, and put me out of business.
I'm sure we'll all be very happy working at minimum wage for super-mega-giant-corp, but do you see that "more spending power" is simply going to result in the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a handful of large corporate CEOs? Nobody else will be able to afford the employees, and the employees will take their hard-earned minimum wage dollars where those dollars will stretch the furthest.
Great for efficiency. Lousy for people.
Well, that's happening anyway regardless of the minimum wage. It seems your problem is more with modern American Capitalism, where the strong eat the weak and low prices are all that matters, than with a hike in the minimum wage.
If I'm running a business, and my payroll increases 30% while sales remain flat, I have two options: 1) slow or stop hiring, cut staff, or even go out of business; 2) raise prices to reflect the increase in wage expenses;
I don't see how either of those outcomes is very good for poor people struggling to get by on $15 an hour, even though we can console ourselves that we've "done something" to help them. Now, I am, admittedly, not an economist - perhaps it will work, or at least, it will help. But I really have sincere doubts that this is going to do much to really change the dynamic at the low end of the economic spectrum. I think it will largely end up being a feel-good measure that well-off, well-meaning people can use to congratulate themselves about, while doing nothing to change the fundamental reality of low wages and poverty.
The example you give only applies to a subset of businesses. Most will not have to go out of business because they have to pay people at least $15 an hour. A few little mom and pop's maybe. But Walmart is not making that calculation, nor is Target or Costco. They can easily absorb the increase in labor costs, and their profit will go from ridiculous to merely astounding. Besides, people's wages are companies revenue. Studies have shown that increasing the minimum wage can stimulate the economy by enabling people to spend more. This is most effective at the bottom of the income range because those people will spend the increase rather than saving it. So increasing labor costs is not the only dynamic at play.
I agree that this will not solve poverty or income inequality. But it's a step in the right direction. Our economy is supposedly 70% consumer-driven. It makes sense then that increasing the buying power among those most likely to use it would have an overall positive effect.
(While you're at it, also explain why businesses would pay $15/h for a worker who doesn't increase revenue by significantly more than $15 for each hour he works.)
Like anyone is making that calculation. If you don't bill your hours no one can say whether you have increased the company's revenue by your salary. I kept the email servers running all year last year. Tell me how much I increased the company's revenue by doing that. Please show your work.
Money is noting more or less than unconsumed production, a store of wealth. When more of it is printed, it dilutes the store of wealth, making each unit worth less, which is theft. I love your use of the passive voice in stating that "money is created as needed" as if it were an act of nature. BS. Governments inflate the currency in order to pay back their debts with less value. Every smidgeon of inflation is the result of an affirmative decision of government. That is not to say that the money supply should be fixed, but that the money supply should be carefully monitored to prevent inflation, not to chase some ephemeral goal like "full employment". BTW, Andrew Jackson eliminated the national debt in 1835. I would vote to go back to sound fiscal practices like that in a heartbeat. What do you think it will look like when our house of cards comes crashing down? I am guessing it will be far worse than most expect.
Thanks for clarifying. I agree that inflation is the theft of value. But I also think that talking about the debt as though it will ever be paid back is the wrong approach. Because of the nature of our money, the debt will never be paid back, just rolled over. It cannot be otherwise because our money is debt. As you say, what we need is actual responsible stewardship of the money supply to ensure that it doesn't grow faster than the economy as a whole.
I'm not really sure what it will look like when it comes crashing down. It's complicated by the fact that the dollar is the world's reserve currency and the US has a powerful military. So there are many powerful actors that are invested in keeping the dollar afloat one way or another. I can't really even speculate on what that would look like as there are so many moving parts and unknown variables. Broadly I expect that the vast majority of people will lose all their wealth and be impoverished, while certain connected insiders come out richer than before. And I agree that it will be worse than expected.
I love it when idiots like you spout off about the nature of money. It gives me a good laugh. There is no need for debt for our money supply to have value. The nature of money is based on the goods and services that we produce whether the paper currency is "backed" by gold, silver, dog shit or nothing at all. The reality is that economies based on the gold standard imploded and getting rid of the gold standard does nothing to make a currency any more stable or unstable.
I didn't say anything about the gold standard. Likewise, I said nothing about debt being a requirement for money. Yet you think I'm the idiot. I just pointed out that debt is how our money is created in the United States in 2015. Are you challenging that assertion or did you just want to take a poke at me over nothing?
I would argue that one cannot simultaneously be a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Social liberals uniformly support the massive welfare state that threatens our very existence as a nation. The debt is now larger than GDP. Let that sink in. Not only that, but the way that the government figures its debt would get any CFO thrown in jail. The government chooses to use a cash-based instead of an accrual-based system to hide the truth. If they used the accrual-based system, the debt would be over $96 trillion (or over 5X GDP), as opposed to the $18 trillion widely reported. $96 trillion represents over $800K per citizen (including children).
Fiscal conservatism means living within our means, instead of this massive intergenerational theft.
There is no theft. Money is created as needed. It doesn't need to be repaid, just rolled over. Indeed, it cannot be repaid. Under the Federal Reserve system money is debt. If you want to eliminate the debt, you will eliminate the money.
Once you see how money is really created, you will see that the debate over the debt and its size is really beside the point. The point is that all dollars are borrowed into existence, while the money to pay the interest is not. So we will never eliminate the debt; it will keep growing as long as the money supply grows, which it must to stay ahead of the interest on the debt. If that sounds inherently unstable and destined to crash at some point, I'd agree with you.