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Edited by Jvp WReNCh:
1/28/2016 5:04:28 AM
166
Wealth inequality is real. The moral of democratic socialism is basically "if person A & person B work the same amount of hours, person A should not make 100x more than person B."
Obama once said "there's no reason for a person working full time to be below the poverty line", & I hope any logical person can at least agree with that.
Edit: interesting video to watch before disagreeing with me. Not saying I'm necessarily right, but to me, the current state of things is just wrong.
https://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM
Edit 2: I've had a lot of arguments on this comment. Thanks for the opinions guys, but I feel everything that's needed to be said has already, so I'm done replying. I'll leave you with a quote I stole from a commenter:
[quote]"No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”
“By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of a decent living.”
“Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, who has been turning his employees over to the Government relief rolls in order to preserve his company’s undistributed reserves, tell you – using his stockholders’ money to pay the postage for his personal opinions — tell you that a wage of $11.00 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry.”
“All but the hopelessly reactionary will agree that to conserve our primary resources of man power, government must have some control over maximum hours, minimum wages, the evil of child labor and the exploitation of unorganized labor.”
That's F.D.R.--the man who set up minimum wage--and a President everyone loved.[/quote]
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This. You're awesome.
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The problem is everything currently in our economy is based off of nothing. The dollar holds no intrinsic value so if you raise the cost of goods that does not correlate into cost of labor. I agree that the system is jacked up, but taxation (oh by the way we're $18T in debt) won't do anything other than bleed the population dry. What happens when goods cost more and wages by law raise and profit shrinks and in turn taxes shrink? What do you do when you have no money to tax?
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Edited by oOthatoneguy: 1/27/2016 10:24:44 PMNot to nit pick, but the dollar does hold intrinsic value. If it didn't, everyone would be breaking down currency to sell the materials. But I see what you're getting at.
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This. Thank you.
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Thank you for not being a complete idiot. Like OP.
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I don't think he's an idiot. He's just wrong about everything in his post lol
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If a person is working full time as a "bus boy" for their whole life, do they deserve to be above the poverty line?
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Yeah, they absolutely do deserve to be above poverty level. If a business can't afford to pay full time staff a living wage, they shouldn't be allowed to exist.
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Says who? You? Have fun subsidising the inept. You sound like one of those people on late-night tv ads that tells me I should use less water because some "developing" nation doesn't have as much. How is that my fault? You're completely missing the point. If you're bussing tables your whole life you don't deserve a "living" wage because you're obviously a loser. Plus, what's a "living" wage and who sets it? The state? The Fed? The owner of the company? If the owner says your wage is $5/hour and you don't like it, leave. No one is forcing you to work there. If a different place pays $20/hour to do the same job then go work there, however something tells me that scenario is highly unlikely unless the government is involved. Since the government doesn't actually produce anything and only take from others they have no problem paying way over value on labor. Who states a "living" wage that's reasonable? $40k/year in one town may be extravagant and $75k/year in another town may be a pittance. What if the person earning $75k/year moves to the town where they only pay $40k/year? The economy and the marketplace are an interesting thing. It always self-corrects over time. Anyone who tells you differently is lying.
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[quote]Says who? You? Have fun subsidising the inept. You sound like one of those people on late-night tv ads that tells me I should use less water because some "developing" nation doesn't have as much. How is that my fault? You're completely missing the point. If you're bussing tables your whole life you don't deserve a "living" wage because you're obviously a loser. Plus, what's a "living" wage and who sets it? The state? The Fed? The owner of the company? If the owner says your wage is $5/hour and you don't like it, leave. No one is forcing you to work there. If a different place pays $20/hour to do the same job then go work there, however something tells me that scenario is highly unlikely unless the government is involved. Since the government doesn't actually produce anything and only take from others they have no problem paying way over value on labor. Who states a "living" wage that's reasonable? $40k/year in one town may be extravagant and $75k/year in another town may be a pittance. What if the person earning $75k/year moves to the town where they only pay $40k/year? The economy and the marketplace are an interesting thing. It always self-corrects over time. Anyone who tells you differently is lying.[/quote] the average cost of a studio apartment in new york city is $1782 a month and the minimum wage is $9.00 there if someone worked 40hrs a week at minimum wage they would make about $1440 a month, not even enough to pay their rent let alone utilities and other expenses like food
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Exactly my point. My mortgage is $600/month. I can't afford $1500/month to rent a tiny apartment and I don't want roommates. Either I work a better paying job or more than one job or I live somewhere else. Socialism can't fix any of this.
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Do you believe in "job based" income? Ie based on the market, if you're a doctor you should be paid more than a teacher as an example.
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For sure I do. But I also believe anyone putting in full time hours should be able to live off that. I'm not saying a bus boy should be living in luxury. But they should be able to pay rent and buy groceries. Honest day's work for an honest day's pay.
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I guess I would ask, who determines that? What has value, what job is worth more than another's, what determines poverty, etc? Is it the government or the free market? Also with that premise which I obviously (no surprise I'm sure) disagree with, who is to say "how much is too much?" So I've been thinking of an example and if it's bad I apologize but it's the simplest and easiest way I can think if it. Let's say I own/manage a restaurant. After paying for all the lights, building, food, etc I am left with $100. I employ a bus boy, hostess, waiter and cook. I take $50 for myself $20 for the cook $15 for the waiter $10 for the bus boy (because I think it's harder work) $5 for the hostess $5 is the state/federal minimum wage. $10 is the minimum to "exceed" the poverty line. If the federal/state government passed a law now requiring all employees be paid a minimum of $10 here are the possible scenarios. A) Pass it to the consumer - I don't want to fire anyone. So I raise the cost of my meals. (Possible negative side effects are less customers = less money = firing someone/bankruptcy) B) Pass on the work - I fire the hostess as I can easily do that myself and keep everyone else's pay the same and the consumer cost the same ($5 for hostess is put into my pay or whatever else I decide) C) Spread the wealth - everyone takes a "cut" in pay to make up the difference for the hostess. D) I take a cut - instead of me making $50 I take a cut to make up the difference. Now if you were a business owner who's goal ultimately is to make money which one is more likely to be chosen. Also comes the question, should the government tell private business owners what to do, how much they can make, etc? Remember the affordable care act. Many businesses just cut people's hours to make it legal for them to not have to give them health care. IF that was unfair the government certainly didn't think so when they wrote the law.
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Is that a serious question?
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It is very much a serious question. Do you believe that every single entry level job should be above poverty level? If so do you believe that by raising all entry level job pay, all other jobs then theoretically should have a pay increase as well? If not, why not?
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I said in my op that anyone who spending 40 hours of their life every week at a job should not be impoverished. You do realize that poverty means you can't survive on your own, right? To answer your question about raising the pay of every other job: no. Just because a McDonald's employee should make $12 an hour doesn't mean a doctor should make a million. The reason for this is simple: the doctor is already wealthy; he doesn't need more money.
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How do you know that the doctor is "wealthy"? You cant assume that kind of thing.
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Im being rather serious. What is your definition of Wealthy? Are you looking at a persons debts or just how much they make in a single year? If a person makes 150 grand per year but pays 140 grand per year in debts/bills and has enough left over to keep a place to live, keep the lights on, eat, and get back and forth to work are they wealthy? Most people that show off their "wealth" dont have much net worth to speak of.
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If the doctor puts himself in that much debt, he still has the ability to pay off the debt. It's not like his student loans are due in full as soon as he graduates. If he got into debt by gambling, he still had the ability to bet that deep, due to his earnings. For the record, I gauge wealth by earnings. Regardless of the decisions you make, the more you earn, the wealthier you are.
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Follow up question. Do you believe in the free market? In response, I have been around the world and poverty looks very different in America than it does other places. Do you believe it is subjective? Because poverty in America does not automatically equate to starving. And who decides what is reasonable pay for each job? You are now a world class doctor (currently a student at John Hopkins top of your class). If you knew, by law, that a world class doctor (I mean if you were creating new treatments for cancer) would be paid the same as a family physician of a town of 100, would you have any reasonable incentive to work hard.
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I believe in a free market, but with regulations. We've now been in 2 recessions & a depression because of lax to no regulations, so clearly it's not the way to go. Btw, poverty in America does translate to starving. If it wasn't for welfare, minimum-wage employees would literally have to choose between having somewhere to live or eating. It looks different because of our welfare programs, but it's very much the same. About the world-class doctor thing: that's not how democratic socialism works. Doctors will continue to make as much as they do, they'll just be taxed more. The government won't cut their pay, because they can't. How much someone earns is based on the company they work for. There are people in every company that determine how much to pay the employees.
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Okay you're right about the welfare. So if all jobs were required to pay above poverty line, would you abolish all welfare. If not, why not? And if you are taxing those who make more at a higher rate you are essentially altering pay. I don't have the figures you want to tax per bracket (whatever the brackets are), but there will be "space" in each bracket that is a net 0 basically or a dead space where the top of tier 2 will make more because the bottom of tier 3 because of the tax rate. What would be your solution to that?
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Not abolish welfare, but I could cut spending on it since not as many people would need it. Our tax system already taxes people more if they make more money. Our system also taxes progressively, not flat. For example, let's say the tax rate on any earnings under 15K is 10%, & above it is 15%. In our current system, someone who made 14K would be taxed 10% flat out, & someone who made 20K would be taxed 10% on 15K of their earnings, & 15% on the remaining 5K.
