Hasn't been happening like on a scale in a third world country.
Think Katrina, without the hurricane.
So, this has been happening....
- Thread starter goldfly
- Start date
Hasn't been happening like on a scale in a third world country.
Think Katrina, without the hurricane.
Tapate50
Well-known member
At least no one is trying to keep those people being attacked from being able to properly defend themselves from such a mass attack.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
I'm just saying that tax effects shouldn't even be in the discussion. One would think that folks on top would support a living wage for workers because if that were the case, there would be less need for government programs to support the needs of low-income earners.
Tapate50
Well-known member
I know what you are saying completely. I am for anything that gets people off the government tit, but I doubt this is the solution seeing as it wouldn't increase purchasing power with the associated cost increase of goods and services.
sturg33
I
Let's see...
Federal reserve shovels $85B a month of new dollars into the economy. This of course causes inflation but folks defend it by saying "who cares, there's more dollars to offset it?" OK, that would be true if that $85B was being distributed equally. But it's not.
Fed gives $85B a month to banks.
The banks loan it out to rich people.
Rich people are able to invest it to become more rich.
Income inequality gets worse.
It's not a tax issue. It's a money printing issue. But until our government is willing to put the fed out of business, it will continue.
Federal reserve shovels $85B a month of new dollars into the economy. This of course causes inflation but folks defend it by saying "who cares, there's more dollars to offset it?" OK, that would be true if that $85B was being distributed equally. But it's not.
Fed gives $85B a month to banks.
The banks loan it out to rich people.
Rich people are able to invest it to become more rich.
Income inequality gets worse.
It's not a tax issue. It's a money printing issue. But until our government is willing to put the fed out of business, it will continue.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
And that could be. I think this is where the argument surrounding guaranteed annual income instead of a network of public welfare benefits enters the discussion and that has support on the far left and the far right, but seemingly nowhere in between.
And the price for goods and services only goes up if the owner of the goods and/or services takes home less profit.
They get you coming or going here. You either pay the employees and that comes off your bottom line or you pay the government and that comes off your bottom line. Or we put people in camps or something. The whole lie of supply-side economics is its depiction that the economy is that there's this hunky dory universe at the end of the rainbow if we just let nature take its course.
Tapate50
Well-known member
A huge sweeping assumption in bold.... I mean a whopper.
For most people running a business and their last name isn't Walton, Rockafeller, or Buffet (those families that can get drunk off their power and influence stock portfolio) that labor % increase is probably the difference in staying afloat or closing up shop. Necessities with narrow margins like milk, food, gas, etc... are all going to see increases. It gets tiring to keep pointing out the differences in ma and pop to WalMart, Chick Fil A, and Ford. Not many on here realize there is a difference or what its like trying to keep a small business afloat. Think this will benefit the lending industry? No chance.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
It's not a whopper. It's simple math. I agree that raising the minimum wage could deep six a business because no one stays in business if they are taking a loss. Hence, prices may have to go up unless you ca absorb it. If you can't somehow accommodate it, you go out of business. I agree with your premise. It will vary from business to business and will depend on how many more units have to be produced or what the price per unit will have to be to accommodate any rise of the minimum wage. If you labor cost goes up a unit, your revenue has to go up a unit for revenue to stay in the same place. That is also simple math and microeconomics.
I don't necessarily agree with your examples, especially with food commodity prices where they are and production costs relatively low. Big ag is making out big time these days. I think it may be headed for a crash in the next couple of years, but those effects go far beyond the minimum wage debate.
sturg33, inequality has been getting worse since the 1970s. There have been myriad demographic changes over that period that have contributed to that, most notably that people with only a high school education used to be able to make a decent living because of the availability of stable, unskilled jobs. Some were union jobs, but I don't necessarily believe that a strong union presence would have helped. It's about greater use of technology and the flat-out elimination of a whole class of jobs. Add to that the collapse of small farming due to rising marginal costs and you can see the evaporation of jobs from there. We've had eras of tight and easy money over the past four decades and the rich have continued to separate themselves from the rest of us. It sounds snide and simplistic, but the house always wins.
FREE MARKET
A free market in this country would still be a corporatism economy.
The entire point of government having intervention in certain aspects economy like progressive taxation and social programs, is to make sure that middle class and poor people don't get completely shafted to where there's civil unrest everywhere.
Curious Sav, how are you getting shafted? What's your degree?
Do you think that people should be guaranteed good jobs that pay well?
The people that are getting shafted are the small local businesse owners that can't hire people or pay more due to all this government crap like Obamacare and not needed taxes.
sturg33
I
Looks to me like the entire point of government intervention is ensure the rich keep getting richer… Do you disagree? How's Wall Street doing under Mr. Fair Obama?
Tapate50
Well-known member
Change! Yes we can!
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
But Wall Street has always done well and continues to do well. I think the issue now is that while they continue to do well, a lot of folks are doing worse than they did in previous generations. And although I'm left-of-center, I think the problem has as much to do with changes in the structure of the economy as opposed to anything else. We've gone from an agricultural/manufacturing economy to a service economy. People with little or no training beyond high school used to be able to compete and have some measure of success due to the strength of local economies. In an economy that has become increasingly tilted toward service and increasingly concentrated in urban/suburban areas as opposed to rural areas, low-end workers are sentenced to a number of disadvantages that it may take a generation to overcome.
And I don't know if raising the minimum wage helps or not. I honestly don't. I think it's value/detriment is overstated by both sides of the argument.
AerchAngel
<B>Secretary of Statistics</B>
Wife is prime example. We have a small business which Okie, Bedell and Dalyn knows what it is by my Facebook account and they know what my job is so we aren't rich nor poor, barely in the middle class range. She complains she needs help but we can't really afford a person with taxes going up. She had some help before but it was too expensive. I told her when our son is in school everyday, she can take on more work and add an intern.
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
I realize that "small business" is a pretty big umbrella, and one can't necessarily generalize about them as easily as we're wont to, but . . .
Obamacare isn't particularly hard on small business. If you're under 50 employees, there's no employer mandate to provide insurance. In fact, if you DO provide insurance, there's a nice tax credit (35%, soon to rise to 50%) that covers a portion of what you pay in premiums. I'm sure someone can provide something, but I'm struggling to come up with a specific way that O has been hard on small business. Of course, in a sluggish recovery of an economy built on consumer spending, many businesses are suffering from demand issues, but that's another kettle of fish.
I second 50s point above about the structural changes in our economy. Much of it is now in the service sector, and a large portion of those jobs are easily sent offshore, or automated. The price of entry to the middle and upper-middle class has increased—school tuition, child care, housing—and household incomes have stayed pretty flat. For a couple of decades the slack was taken up by single-income households becoming two-income households, but that has pretty much run its course. There's not an ideological silver bullet for the structural shifts 50 describes. Those of us on either side of the divide have our favored ideas, but I'd be skeptical of anyone who offers an easy fix.
sturg33
I
I think the increased regulation burden has really hurt small businesses. I can't tell you how many people I work with who had once started their own business who tell me that they would no longer be willing to do it today because of the regulations
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
You're talking about new federal regulations?