Capitalism - DOES NOT COMPUTE.

[LonesomeTexan]

I am making something of myself. See the problem here is your assuming this all applies to me. It doesn't. I'm rather fortunate actually.

But many are not.

And I care enough about others. I know God provides. But I also know that we're called to help and just praying doesn't cut it. That's a big point in James. I don't see this as fairness. Believe it or not, you don't have to live in a situation to understand it or to think it's not fair. You just have to see it. God loves all His children, and as Christians we're called to help. You think going up and telling a person to make something of themself is going to help. They're nice words, but in the end they aren't going to stick.

so start rolling welfare dollars into job training programs instead of giving hand outs for nothing. stop subsidizing the poor to stay poor and remain on the welfare role their entire lives. you can continue to give men fish daily, or you can teach him how to provide for himself by teaching him how to fish. let's empower people. let's teach people to be self reliant instead of reliant on the tax dollars of others. get involved in your community. make a difference in someone else's life through your own charitable efforts. take the initiative to help those in your own community.

 

[Harpuia]

so start rolling welfare dollars into job training programs instead of giving hand outs for nothing. stop subsidizing the poor to stay poor and remain on the welfare role their entire lives. you can continue to give men fish daily, or you can teach him how to provide for himself by teaching him how to fish. let's empower people. let's teach people to be self reliant instead of reliant on the tax dollars of others. get involved in your community. make a difference in someone else's life through your own charitable efforts. take the initiative to help those in your own community.

Whoa.

That's actually... a pretty good idea.

I don't have anything... to disagree with here.

 

[cgid3]

Raising minimum wage will accomplish NOTHING, as prices will rise respectively.

If there was a mandated minimum wage increase and Walmart had to pay its 40+ million minimum wage employees $3.49 more, the prices on all of thier products would rise to adjust to maintain profit. Higher waged employees deman raises because they are making next to minimum wage, and prices rise. This will happen all across the board in every industry, so minimum wage employees are just under the illusion of higher pay.

 

[FaithLikeARock]

That is a good idea Lonesome. I've thought that for a long time.

But many people aren't even willing to do that. They have this strange idea that people should help themselves and no matter what the government does it's always "hurting" people.

 

[mont974x4]

so start rolling welfare dollars into job training programs instead of giving hand outs for nothing. stop subsidizing the poor to stay poor and remain on the welfare role their entire lives. you can continue to give men fish daily, or you can teach him how to provide for himself by teaching him how to fish. let's empower people. let's teach people to be self reliant instead of reliant on the tax dollars of others. get involved in your community. make a difference in someone else's life through your own charitable efforts. take the initiative to help those in your own community.

That's more in line with what many of us want. I'd only add accountability and responsibility on the part of the receievers of such aid, like timelines and an expected performance level as well as random drug tests and enrollment in rehab where applicable....and no money given, pay for things directly.

I have no problem helping people, but we must not enable people to continue in destructive lifestyles and behavior with no incentive to self-improve and no stake in their success or failure.

 

[silentreader]

Actually it would fight unemployment since it would give people a reason to work. I don't actually agree with this. I just think that if this isn't what we're going to do then we shouldn't have to pay for college.

people don't suddenly get an incentive to work for a couple bucks more. raising the minimum wage just raises labor costs for businesses and forces them to higher less people.

 

[Wyzaard]

It costs (legitimate) businesses too much to operate here. Increasing the minimum wage will only put more burden on employers and they will seek to cut costs by laying off people that aren't worth what the business owner is forced to pay them.

'Forced'? By what, their presuppositions concerning class stratification? With record profits going to the very top of the income and wealth ladder, perhaps some fat can be trimmed there... oh but wait, that would countervail the whose purpose of capitalism, wouldn't it... funneling gains to the most powerful.

But by all means, increase the welfare roles and buy some more votes with more socialist programs that in turn will send more jobs overseas.

Unless we prevent and/or punish them for doing so.

Legendary investor Jim Rogers moved his family to Singapore. His daughter now speaks fluent mandarin chinese. More power to him. America isn't the land of opportunity or freedom any more.

So in order words, we have to serve the economic elite or they will turn traitor and run? Perhaps we should simply take back what they have stolen, and kick them out instead.

 

[LonesomeTexan]

'Forced'? By what, their presuppositions concerning class stratification? With record profits going to the very top of the income and wealth ladder, perhaps some fat can be trimmed there... oh but wait, that would countervail the whose purpose of capitalism, wouldn't it... funneling gains to the most powerful.



Unless we prevent and/or punish them for doing so.



So in order words, we have to serve the economic elite or they will turn traitor and run? Perhaps we should simply take back what they have stolen, and kick them out instead.

How does paying more taxes to the very government that empowers the banking cartel known as the federal reserve help the working class? How do you plan on punishing those who take their business overseas? Plan on running a fascist state? Plan on nationalizing any and all industry to prevent "obscene profits" that drive innovation, cheaper goods/services, create jobs, and help millions of American retirement plans? The problem isn't the "rich". The problem is the bureaucrats, how they take what is rightfully yours to fatten up their wallets and the wallets of those the financed their campaign, the way they have spent money they don't even have, the way they put your SS in the general budget in the 1960's, they way they by votes with money that isn't theirs, and the way they have socialized the losses of irresponsible wall street bankers, irresponsible borrowers, and flipped the bill on working class people via the invisible tax of inflation.

Get out of your marxist dreamland and wake up to the facts. It's a dead horse. It never has and never will work. You cannot expect to run a welfare state without destroying incentive to move up the ladder and when everything is provided by the government, it destroys incentive to work. The rich will move to a tax friendlier country were they aren't expected to pay for people who sit on their asses and stick their hand out for more money. When you destroy the incentive to move up and enjoy a better life due to an ever increasing amount taxation to pay for those who abuse the system, you destroy government revenues. Eventually the system is bankrupted when productive people leave and no one else is working because everything they need is provided by the government. The only system that cannot be abused by the elite is a complete free market with a government that protects the rights of the individual from cartels like the federal reserve. Instead, our government is in bed with them because they slowly get to take this entire country away from the very people that built it. Welcome to government enforced serfdom to the state and banking system.

 

[GodGunsAndGlory]

FaithLikeARock, do you actually believe America is a capitalist nation? I don't, because if we were, it would be like the 1920's with the Federal Reserve gone though.

With this form of economics we have now, we'll never seen a Coolidge dollar ever again.

JGgarden, haven't I already told you this... Republic not Democracy.

 

[LonesomeTexan]

FaithLikeARock, do you actually believe America is a capitalist nation? I don't, because if we were, it would be like the 1920's with the Federal Reserve gone though.

With this form of economics we have now, we'll never seen a Coolidge dollar ever again.

JGgarden, haven't I already told you this... Republic not Democracy.

I believe modern America would be better defined as an aristocracy of bureaucrats that have protected their seats via various laws that protect incumbents with the real power belonging to the world bankers/illuminati that pull the strings and call the shots..

 

[mont974x4]

I believe modern America would be better defined as an aristocracy of bureaucrats that have protected their seats via various laws that protect incumbents with the real power belonging to the world bankers/illuminati that pull the strings and call the shots..

I'd go along the idea of aristocracy, which is why I'm against the march to socialism and bigger government.

 

[WorldIsMine]

According to the ideas of Mencken, Nietzsche, Hoppe and some other natural elite supporters, state power is anti-thetical to the real elite. Coercion and mass-appeal, which are the hallmarks of government at all times, naturally attracts and protects those with the most degenerate intellects and integrity. It cancels out the natural selection of an aristocracy who normally arise from a superior ability which is acceded to due to its success and the influence they possess. Despite resentment on the part of some, the natural aristocrat's own success signals his capacity and the strength he possesses allows him to broadly influence people to better patterns. This takes its case most especially in the areas of private enrichment and the consequent generosity, where success is generated for himself and others as a direct consequence of his ideas and ability. And thus ability is the hallmark of success for one and all, natural resentment is pushed aside in favor of imitation and competition. But a state allows the a natural elite to protect itself and cease to exert persuasive and productive creativity, instead relying upon simple brute force and - death knell of integrity - mass appeal. Otherwise a State may even be formed against the natural elite by intelligentsia and demagogues who are jealous of the natural elite's superior material and social standing, and often of their superior intellectual achievements. Thus we get Marxism, to state a main example.

"All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are." - HL Mencken

 

[chaz345]

Since Republicans don't seem to like the idea of all people getting paid equal thus getting rid of the need for things like welfare, assistance and everything they despise so much, I have a solution.

We pay minimum wage jobs more.

Not only would this make it where those less fortunate who couldn't get a secondary education no longer need to live off government funding, but it's also fair. See people in jobs which pay more typically enjoy their jobs. That's why they studied it. But people in fast food usually are only working there because they have no other choice and don't enjoy it but still work hard anyway. Doesn't this mean that THEY should be paid more for providing service to people when they don't want to?

I'm 17. I work in fast food because it's pretty much the only choice I have as well as retail. And it is worth far more than the $8/hr they pay me. Imagine standing on your feet for up to 10 hours at a time, waiting on customers who will yell and moan and complain about the tiniest things which generally aren't even your fault and then getting a paycheck that will hardly pay for my car insurance let alone my rent. Let's compare this to say, an actress, who spends her day doing something which I PAY to do at school. It's fun, it's what she likes to do. And she's going to get worldwide fame and millions of dollars for it. Let's even look at the CEO. He loves his job and makes a ton of money and because business is his favorite thing enjoys every second and his paycheck will send him and his family on vacation. Now, look at this, all these are fairly corporate businesses. The difference is that first person is either too young to work anywhere else or didn't get a chance to go to school because they already didn't have the money. The other two probably did go to school. Also, the first job is not enjoyable at while the other two are very enjoyable to individual people.

Now since all these companies likely make very close to the same amount of money, why do their employees get such meager pay in the first job, but lots in the second? "Because they're educated!" Yeah, so?

This is the fatal flaw in Capitalism. It wants people to pay their way through college, support their family, work their way up the ladder and then make money either doing their hobby or doing nothing. BUT before they make this money they have to pay for school, living costs and every other necessity. Unless your mommy and daddy will pay for it, it's impossible. It's like telling the cow to make his own milk and then cutting off his utter.

So what's your take?

Raising minimum wage d oes nothing to increase the buying power of those making minimum wage because businesses will just raise their prices to make up the difference. In addition, small busineesses who can't raise prices and remain competitive will just hire less people, increasing unemployment. The case could even be made that since people at the bottom of the wage scale spend a larger percentage of their income at places that have minimum wage workers, that the price increases would hit them harder.

 

[WorldIsMine]

Even mainstream, econ 101 classes know that minimum wage and rent controls are bad. Why is this still a debated issue? Why do people think that these are good arguments when they have never even read enough to know the arguments for or against them at all. Hell, even the Marxists are against minimum wage. The Marxists!
This ideology-drunken culture that obscures and distorts everything true is why I hate the state. More than all the bloody wars, more than all the money it steals, I hate the government because it makes people believe stupid things in spite of evidence. To an independent intellectual, this is one of the most annoying traits a human being can have.

 

[mont974x4]

They think they're good ideas, because they are well-meaning people who really want to help but get caught up in the emotional argument for such programs without fully considering the consequences.

 

[Harpuia]

They think they're good ideas, because they are well-meaning people who really want to help but get caught up in the emotional argument for such programs without fully considering the consequences.

There's a consequence with abolishing the minimum wage.

We talk about how greedy CEOs are now already, imagine when we abolish the minimum wage. You want to talk record profits, profits become even greater for the higher-up CEOs when they're only paying laborers a dollar an hour, if that. Even MORE money would go to them, not caring about the risk it would bring when 90% of the country can't buy anything.

If they were all more like the CEO at Costco, a minimum wage wouldn't even be necessary.

 

[Panzerkamfwagen]

You're 17 and have no marketable skills, education, or experience, and it appears you have a very thin resume.

Now, why should someone pay you more?

 

[Harpuia]

You're 17 and have no marketable skills, education, or experience, and it appears you have a very thin resume.

Now, why should someone pay you more?

If you're trying to feed your family while inflation goes up but your paycheck doesn't, you'll wind up starving on the streets and homeless. It is no worse a fate than many of the extreme leftists that conservatives claim want to "euthanize old people". Instead it's a form of euthanizing (both economically, and even physically if it keeps up) the less skilled. Looks good on paper, but you'll wind up with people working 8 hours a day and still sitting at a cardboard box at night, hoping some private charity will let them stay in their shelters for as long as they can until they're out on the streets.

And how much longer is it until those with high school degrees won't be able to afford it? College degrees? Anyone short of the self-employed rich elite?

Granted, there are some jobs that would probably not see a drop in wages if the minimum wage is abolished, but for the most part, the economic impact of it would result in a disaster that would spiral us back to a Second Great Depression within 10 years of implementing it, because the poor will have run out of money to buy things, the rich in turn can't make any profits because the consumers have no money left to give. Profits drop drastically and the stock market crashes. Hello Second Great Depression.

What you've seen in 2007-2008 would be only a TASTE of what would happen if you abolish the minimum wage, especially when the new economic philosophy seems to be, "If it's selling, jack the price up. If it's not selling, jack the price up and milk it for all it's worth."

And if you think the poor will simply fight back and revolt... well... we live in an age that tells us that rocking the boat is wrong, no matter what the situation. Most will stay put as they are, and just take it.

 

[Panzerkamfwagen]

When did I ever say we should abolish the minimum wage?

What is the labor of a 17 year old kid with no skills, no experience, and no education worth?

If I was an employer, I know I wouldn't want to take a risk on hiring someone that had no experience, no skills, and no education?

And just to rub salt in the wound, I've never worked at a minimum wage job.

 

[Harpuia]

When did I ever say we should abolish the minimum wage?

What is the labor of a 17 year old kid with no skills, no experience, and no education worth?

IMO, it's worth enough for them to have the basic necessities.

BTW man, I know you weren't, but the topic sort of shifted to why the minimum wage and rent controls were bad.