Raising the minimum wage is good for the economy.

OH! That's BRILLIANT!!! You want people to save 6 months of emergency funds when workers at the MEDIAN INCOME qualify for public assistance!

Once again we see that the right has no workable or serious proposals for the nation.

 

We need to have a better idea of what a business' profit is and how much of that is from lower wages. If its a business with many lowly paid workers, hiking wages will reduce profit and increase costs to the consumer, a restaurant paying waiters $40-50k a year will necessarily be more expensive than one where they get $25-30k plus tips. Do you want to pay $20 or $50 for a nicely served steak and fries? The restauranteur figures the price on the menu is important and will limit wages to lower costs. That's a business decision.

Some people are motivated more by issues like fair wages, sustainable development, fair trade, organic produce... but to what degree? How much more will you pay for a bar of soap made using local ingredients by some indigenous tribe in a sustainable program from The Body Shop, rather than the basic Procter & Gamble comparable? I think price is the most important consideration for most consumers, so hiking wages is detrimental to most businesses.

People advocating wage hikes are not taking into account business concerns, they are animated by social concerns, but this isn't a big issue in business. If you set a minimum wage and make it double what the market would bear, this then becomes a fixed business cost. If that cost is too high for a business to produce an attractive profit, the business model will change, either it will reduce labor costs with automation or try to save on sourcing and delivery. What will not result is profitable businesses providing for social concerns.

 

Your post is a good argument for worker co-ops. If The Body Shop were a WSDE (Worker Self-Directed Enterprise) or "worker owned/operated co-op", then wages would be established for those workers without class warfare or resentment, and since the workers live in the community instead of behind the walls of a gated compound protected by guards, they would collectively choose to do no harm to the community. Wage hikes and business concerns would be so integrated as to be in the same decision-making process and layoffs due to economic slumps could be avoided.

I'm not saying that The Body Shop is "evil" in any way. In fact it seems to be run in a very ethical and conscientious way. But I use it as an example since you mentioned it.

 

Taxation is theft.

 

Business can't create jobs *here* because of our punishing taxes and regulation, which exist solely to punish business. Every where you look you see the left in this country excoriating business just as they castigate conservatism.

"Corporations steal people's money" "Corporations pollute the environment" and on and on and on.

Most of the jobs being created today are health care service jobs or retail jobs. These types of jobs do not require much capital investment to be made and, therefore, they *are* low-paying.

Again, the government simply cannot create jobs. First, it requires extracting money from the private sector to do so. And second, the well paying jobs they think they are gong to create already exist, e.g. highway construction crews. It's a pipedream to think government can create *new*, well-paying jobs without a negative impact on the economy.

Again, the answer ts to stop punishing business in America. Get rid of the Dodd/Frank regulations that are limiting loans to business. Cut the capital gains tax significantly. Get rid of the Obamacare mandates on business. Allow depreciation schedules to be shortened significantly in the tax code.

All of this will spur the jobs you want to see and will *not* have a negative impact on the economy. These type of stimulative policies are the *only* answer. Higher taxes, more regulation, and higher national debt are not!

 

The fact that there are now companies that are also hundreds of times larger in terms of complexity, workforce, product production, etc seems to elude some as well.... Of course, there must always be a rigid well defined multiple that tells the progressive just how close they are to being exceptional.......

 

You have objected to/accused the left of several offenses that I have denied were valid. I have said you don't understand the left and what we actually want and are concerned about. Well, now you have an opportunity to discover what I mean, and your sincerity will be indicated by whether you are willing to find out. And you can find out by watching the 23 minutes of this video from timestamp 8:50 to 32:00. I think you will find that you agree with much of what it says, and you will then have a better grasp of my own views.


I hope you take the time to watch it. It is a rapid presentation of a fairly long list of our objections and issues. I really don't think you will be bored, and then we could discuss it if you like.

 

The only problem is when one of the collectives, lets just call them Kode's, is assigned more duty or specializes assignments that the other Kode's can't do then the smarter Kode will want to be compensated for the added work load and responsibility's he's in charge of! Now if better Kode is compensated above the other Kode's they will demand equal pay because they are a COLLECTIVE

 

OK, so if, as you say, business can't create jobs here, and the economy requires people with disposable incomes, then the government needs to step in. That has been my point all along. Once the people are employed in jobs that have a sufficient amount of disposable income to get the economy growing above 2%, then we can look at changing regulations on business.

The government absolutely can create jobs. We've done it before. We did it with the Peace Corp. The only reason the government hasn't created jobs to recover from the Great Recession is a political one.

The government has two choices-
1. Continue subsidizing the profits of businesses that don't pay their workers enough to live on by supplementing their employees, until some nebulous time in the future when business will be able to pay workers enough to live on. At the same time, cut taxes, as you suggest, and have less tax money to supplement those workers and profits in the meantime, causing more debt.

2. Directly employ the people in government jobs improving infrastructure or doing other things, until the economy grows at a rate that will support those workers in the private sector, causing more debt.

If we're going to go into further debt one way or the other, then I'm for the people getting relief quicker through government jobs than prolonging the pain and expecting business to come up with the jobs eventually some time in the future. Right now, business is offering too many low paying jobs for what the economy needs. How long will it take, after cutting taxes, cutting health care, cutting capital gains, shortening depreciation schedules, etc, until business is ready to offer enough high paying jobs to spur the economy with added demand?

Retail is being automated. Malls are closing and drones are delivering Amazon packages to your house. Health care jobs should not be low paying. It is cheaper to manufacture elsewhere. Just what kinds of high paying jobs is business going to come up with? If they could come up with those jobs, why haven't they already done it?

 

See, this is the sort of .... uh...... -insanity ....... -that drives me and most on the left crazy about you on the right. You make such a statement knowing full well that it's BS. Do you on the right do this just as flamebait? Or is it sloppy carelessness due to being in a rush? Or what?

The right needs to stop this and say what they mean. When you have contention between people already as there is politically between left and right, it's important to proofread and be accurate in what is said.

 

The rules are to not change the words of other posters, -not to not ask questions like I did. I notified you I was inquiring in-context for clarity and simplicity, making it easy for you to follow and reply. But you would rather double down and report me to see if you can get me in trouble. And you have no intention of discussing the subject at all then it would seem. You now go on my ignore list.

 

Rule #4 HARRASSMENT, BAITING, TAUNTING

Think again Kode

 

Like most Marxist Democrats you are simply unable to tell the difference between income and wealth. We do *NOT* tax wealth in this country except for property taxes and estate taxes when you die. We have income taxes and sales taxes (which are related to income). We have fees of all kinds.

Buffet's wealth makes not one iota of difference when it comes to what pays in income or FICA taxes. He can say the rich should pay more in taxes and never even think about it. From an income point of view he is *NOT* one of the rich.

The concept of "hogging" means you think they have no right to the money they earn. *THAT* is class warfare. It is driven by jealousy, greed, and envy. You would be *far* better off worrying just about yourself and letting those you consider rich take care of themselves.

BTW, do you take any deductions on your income tax?

[/quote]Who said I wasn't?[/quote]

*YOU* did. You got schooled completely on what a Marxist is.

Then why are you so worried about money in foreign bank accounts?

The US has no jurisdiction in other countries. The US provides no government services in foreign countries. Therefore you have no "DIVINE RIGHT" to tax any of that money that are in foreign bank accounts.

Give up foreign bank accounts as an object of your hate.

You can't even get this one right. That money is not the governments money. THAT MONEY BELONGS TO THE PERSON THAT EARNED IT. Letting someone keep more of their money is *NOT* class warfare. *Taking* it *is*.

Says the man that has absolutely no understanding of finances at all. If taking money out of a dead man's estate doesn't make you richer then the only reason you could possibly want it is to *punish* the man for earning all that wealth. Class warfare again!

This is so wrong I can't even begin to explain it. When I was growing up I had an uncle that owned and farmed 2000 acres of milo, soybeans, and corn. He farmed it with his three son's and his daughter. He had a huge investment in equipment, buildings, and grain storage silos. His estate was well over $3M total. When they went to a financial planner they found out that his children would have to sell the farm and all the equipment to pay the estate taxes and clear all the debt on the equipment. The family farm would be gone. His three son's and daughter would totally lose their source of income and would have to find other work. The oldest son was over 40 years old. Finding other work probably wasn't going to work out well. It was likely they would all turn out to be paupers.

Can you guess what they did?

So what? Is your jealousy, greed, and envy making you hate that?

So for less than 1% of the government revenue you think it is ok to make paupers out of the children of small business owners? Why do you hate people so?

So what? Would you jump off a building if everyone else was doing it?

And apparently it hasn't been missed at all.

Malarky? Do the members of the co-op share in the profits of the co-op? If they do then they are no different than the shareowners of a public company. They are no different that the partners in an LLC group of lawyers, accountants, jewelers, hardware store owners, etc. The workers of AT&T before the breakup were the largest part of individual shareholders. Were *they* part of a co-op?

Everyone in the Mexican restaurant closest to me shares in the profits of the restaurants. Does that make it a co-op?

Nope. Jealousy, greed, and envy are the drivers of class warfare. And you exhibit the need to conduct class warfare in everything you post. How much you are worth is meaningless. It's how you view others that is telling!

 

No, no I didn't. I have told you - repeatedly now - that the 'massive federal spending' you on the left love to blame on Reagan was as a result of a lie told by the Democrats and their tax and spend Republican cohorts, led by Bob Dole. I've told you - repeatedly - that without that lie of promising $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases that Reagan allowed, the complaint that you lefties bash Reagan with even to this day would be gone.

Gone.

And you'd be left recognizing that Reagan massively increased revenues to the Treasury while massively increasing the American public's net worth. By trillions of dollars.

And that's why that lie is promulgated: to AVOID acknowledging that Reagan increased receipts to US coffers while simultaneously multiplying the wealth of Americans across the board.

Removing that spending was why I've told you - repeatedly - that Reagan wanted Line Item Veto.

You get what you want by adhering to Supply Side Economics, and Reagan proved it. You won't get it any other way.

 

You seem to want stuff without earning stuff.

If median income Japanese can save in that manner, why can't Americans?

 

You seem to want to blindly, hatefully, and ignorantly accuse people falsely to inflame.

 

I'm not the one who flat refused to consider the wisdom of living within your means and saving money that other people in like circumstance on this globe do.

 

No, you're the one who blindly, hatefully, and ignorantly accused me falsely to inflame.

 

What was false about what I said? I challenged your characterization that people of median incomes are incapable of saving in the exact same manner that Japanese families of median incomes do - and you still haven't touched the point.

 

No you didn't. You're playing games with a "bait and switch". This is about your post 592 where you said "You want....." That accuses me of what follows in that sentence. You need to be more careful of what you type. Try proofreading.

 

I watched the first 7:30 of this and it is nothing but a screed against Trump and those he has appointed to office.

What the man *fails* to point out is that Trump campaigned on issues and solutions to those issues while Hillary did not. The people voted Trump into office based on his solutions to the issues that they say as the most important issues facing the nation today.

*EVERYONE* running for president has at least a little narcissist in them, otherwise they would never consider themselves capable of solving the problems facing the nation.

After the 8:30 mark he just calls everyone an idiot and/or a fascist. It's obvious that he doesn't really have a good grasp on what fascism actually is. A fascist would not campaign on and then follow through on cutting government regulations, he would campaign on *more* regulation in order to better control the nation. A fascist would not campaign on tax cuts for business and then follow through, he would campaign on higher taxes to provide more control over the businesses.

And it is *not* fascist to want to control your borders or to build up national defense.

The guy doesn't even understand what the purpose of derivative is! And the banks aren't *forcing* anyone to go into debt like he says!

I stopped watching at the ten minute mark when he started talking about the "rich hoarding wealth". People who learned their economics from Scrooge McDuck simply don't have the knowledge base to adequately just *anything* about America today.

 

We're not going to agree. You're wasting your breath on me, because you've never made a cogent argument to sway me from my view. Your argument will not convert me. I lived trickle down, as an adult. I remember what it was like. I see the failure in Kansas. I see the stagnant wages, the drop in demand, and the decade+ of insufficient economic growth using many of the very principles you espouse.

You preach trickle down and never acknowledge the massive federal spending Reagan also did, which worked to improve the economy. Our economy needs more velocity and will not grow above 1-2% until it has more velocity. Money in the hands of those that will spend it is the only way to get velocity at the rate needed. If Republicans would move on infrastructure spending, that would help. However, if it doesn't involve tax cuts, they don't seem to be interested.

 

I wish more people understood this.

 

Yes, I know and that is why I ASKED YOU to start at 8:50, which is where it should have started when you clicked in it. It does for me.

And that has nothing to do with the list I wanted you to hear and consider.

Ok so you aren't interested in getting a good sense of where the left is coming from without spin and distortion. Fine and dandy.

 

It's not BS. [/quote]

It's fact. Obama punished business with Obamacare taxes and regulations and Dodd/Frank regulations.

It's why the economy could never get past a 1.9% average GDP growth. It's why Obama never saw one single year of even 3% growth.

I said *exactly* what I meant. It wasn't confusing. And it wasn't obtuse.