yes exactly

but i mean it's quite a popular argument in favour of keeping people poor, i find

but then again, it's a choice, isn't it? like being gay.

damn it trots you're being an idiot in this thread.

Bill Hader as Nader

https://screen.yahoo.com/ralph-nader-000000938.html

Is this a serious post

Ross Perot funded a kick-ass natural science museum in Dallas, so I can forget the political absurdity. Also, SNL was so great that year.

Nader isn't even a good joke.

I was going to mention the museum! That was cool of him. What has Nader ever done?!

a fuckton relating to consumer protection, actually

that's boring.

anyone making "minimum wage" aka 15 an hour with a college education in a job that requires one want to weigh in or am i the only one

my solution is to have income redistribution and pay raises across the board, because america needs a pay raise

and yes, my position is that 15 dollars is completely ridiculous

it is incredibly frustrating to have worked for ten plus years starting at 2.13/hrly with tips to get to this point and tell yourself "you're doin okay, man" to just have this flung in your face that you're still basically minimum wage labor. i really feel like what i'm doing today is a lot more difficult and complex than grocery store clerk. do i feel resentment to the clerk? no. but i think massive minimum wage increases are a shortsighted populist cause. what of the vanishing middle income?

it's such an easy thing to do to pretend like you care about the proletarian but ultimately you're just raising the wage and this will ultimately inflate the market especially on commodities that rely on minimum wage labor to make the consumer good affordable, e.g. foodstuffs. over the course of the last few decades we've seen incomes stall out and become stagnant in general, not just the low end of the spectrum. It's using a band aid to stop a gunshot wound.

i voted for

gore in 2000
nader in 2004
opama in 2008
roseanne barr in 2012

i will probably write in TOC for 2016

FUCK YOU

one person says something fucking contrary, maybe explore the idea more fully instead of being a liberal bobblehead = "being an idiot"

It seems like your biggest issue is not wanting to make money in amounts similar to grocery store clerks. That's pretty shitty, really. Should you be making more? Probably? I don't know. But the first goal is to get everyone to a living wage. Where everyone who works can live. That's more pressing than making sure you feel adequately compensated. I think that should be obvious?

uh you skipped the economic part about how once you get everyone to a "living wage" all the prices on the "living commodities" will rise to make up for the increase in pay

so you're basically doing nothing

but way to center on the personal bit

That's not true. Look at the last time minimum wage was raised. Did the price of everything suddenly skyrocket? No. So your economic argument is pretty weak here.

also this is capitalism and exploitation of labor is inherent in the system and you're using economic controls that are proven to be ineffective at fixing the issue it is attempting to solve

you mean just a few years ago, i think 2009? and we're already at "15 dollars an hour" after wholesale raises in food, medical, gas, utilities, rent, "living costs" in general

i don't want to bust out charts and graphs here because fuck it and i'm done with this thread but feel free to tell me what an idiot i am

You're just parroting a republican talking point.

There are arguments made on both sides of this but I've been more convinced by the ones backed by historical sats and whatnot.

$15 is not realistic maybe. But it's a starting point to negotiate.

The law of gravity applies to economics as well. Fast-food owners are already automating certain task and that trend will be expedited by the increased labor cost from min. wage increases.

well, trots should be able to feel how he wants per his compensation, anybody should.

But I agree with your sentiment and it could be had through putting free(r) energy gadgets to market. It would greatly increase purchasing power to individuals...but you gotta negotiate with the freak cabalist for that paradigm shift and that's the battle atm.

Free energy?

WTF? Another conspiracy post thread hijack

Better yet, why not use magic? That'll really increase productivity! Instead of college send all the kids to Hogwarts.

i know raising the minimum wage isn't a silver bullet but rather part of a larger framework of policy that would reduce class inequality. i would consider stricter enforcement of anti-trust laws to be the other main part of it. and things like infrastucture revitalization (most cities, public transport is dogshit), tax reform (mitt romney's tax rate is 14.9%), educational reform (technical high schools need to become a thing again).

yes, my perspective on this issue is textbook keynesian economics, but that's not a bad thing necessarily. plus there is also the moral question of whether we should permit employers to have people give them 40 hours per week of their time without giving them enough to take care of themselves in the most fundamental way, forget about saving money.

I get that you said it would cut into the middle class, but really, what about the lower class. Are they plebs who do not deserve the basic standard of living that allows them to survive in america?

It seems to me that hourly workers with a higher wage have a higher disposable income thereby increasing the velocity of their money through the economy. Or they can elect to work less and use their spare time to make a better future for themselves. They're not trying to scam anybody man they just want their rug back.

Since the US has a service economy and our manufacturing sector has been shrinking for however long, it seems to me that if you allow people to develop skills that are valuable to others, they will actually pursue that. Flipping burgers is still flipping burgers and even if you're making $10.10 an hour, you'd probably rather do something else for the same pay. Higher wages would facilitate that lateral transition, would it not?

With the exception of the indutries in the private sector which provide the essentials (energy, agriculture, et al), I think it's safe to say that if you can't pay a living wage to your workers without being subsidized, your product isn't worth buying.

maybe he's an accelerationist
not really a respectable position but it is an understandable one

I thought for sure he was trolling.

Nobody is that conceded

you're right, nobody is that conceded