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PTR
10.2.5
PTR
10.2.6
The disparity between rich and poor
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Post by
Atik
It is also born of common understanding of how certain things work when implimented.
Offer me an example of a time the system I mentioned has failed by the system itself. Any example I can think of involves a person in power leading to the fall.
Post by
Perkocet
It is also born of common understanding of how certain things work when implimented.
Offer me an example of a time the system I mentioned has failed by the system itself. Any example I can think of involves a person in power leading to the fall.
That's exactly the problem.
Post by
Atik
So don't let people like that in power.
Post by
Perkocet
I'm sorry, I hadn't realized you developed a perfectly fool-proof system to screen for that. My badsies.
Post by
Adamsm
The largest reason a true communist region will never exist? Because humans are far too greedy to ever allow it to exist.
Post by
Squishalot
You wanted the poor and rich to be equal.
Who wanted the poor and rich to be equal? I certainly didn't.
Post by
Atik
Why not build a robot? Fallout 3 style?
And I thought that was the reason for this thread.
Post by
Squishalot
And I thought that was the reason for this thread.
Not really. The reason for the thread isn't to make everybody equal, but to give everybody a fair lot in life. Note 'fair', not 'equal'.
If we can reduce the difference between the rich and poor to identifiable effort and contribution, then I think we're alright.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
Orranis
There is a
huge
misunderstanding about what people trying to bridge the wealth gap are attempting. There is no reason for us to create a wealth-'cap.' The problem is when this infinite amount of possible wealth comes at the cost of having poorer other people. There shouldn't be a maximum wage closer to the minimum wage, there should be a higher minimum wage. Socialism isn't about saying CEO's can't make money, it's about saying CEO's can't make that money by cutting starving coal miner wages. My favorite example of 'capitalism at its best' is when a group of Brazilian miners were trapped in a cave-in, the company stopped paying them because while trapped they weren't 'working.'
Post by
gnomerdon
A higher minimum wage would screw over most small businesses..
Post by
Orranis
Depends on the business. If more people had more money, there'd be a larger amount of demand.
Post by
Squishalot
Depends on the business. If more people had more money, there'd be a larger amount of demand.
Then said people aren't 'poorer' for having the lower minimum wage. All you're doing by increasing the minimum wage is generating inflation.
Wealth should be considered in terms of a person's ability to consume, not in notional numeric values.
Post by
Orranis
Depends on the business. If more people had more money, there'd be a larger amount of demand.
Then said people aren't 'poorer' for having the lower minimum wage. All you're doing by increasing the minimum wage is generating inflation.
Wealth should be considered in terms of a person's ability to consume, not in notional numeric values.
The problem is that were looking at it in a vacuum. If more people had more money, there would be more demand, more jobs would be required to meet the demand, and at the very least you're helping with unemployment. It really depends on the market we're talking about.
And I'm only talking about minimum wage because everyone else seems to want to. Most 'socialistic' ideas are about the idea that everyone should have access to certain things, regardless of financial state. For example, the belief that medicine and health care should not be run as a for-profit business. I don't really mind if some people are poorer than others assuming that poorer people can have access to basic things like a home and modern medicine.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
The problem is that were looking at it in a vacuum. If more people had more money, there would be more demand, more jobs would be required to meet the demand, and at the very least you're helping with unemployment. It really depends on the market we're talking about.
But that attitude doesn't work, in any market. You're not helping with unemployment, because you're the only reason people have more money is because companies are paying them more and charging higher prices to compensate. If you increase the minimum wage in relative terms (i.e. able to buy more things) without increasing the cost of goods, then you're encouraging companies to lay off staff because the staffing costs are too expensive.
And I'm only talking about minimum wage because everyone else seems to want to. Most 'socialistic' ideas are about the idea that everyone should have access to certain things, regardless of financial state. For example, the belief that medicine and health care should not be run as a for-profit business. I don't really mind if some people are poorer than others assuming that poorer people can have access to basic things like a home and modern medicine.
I agree with you, which is why there are good reasons to support more than just 'small government' policies. Having said that, the minimum wage doesn't contribute anything towards that.
If I had absolute power, I would:
a) Cut back income tax and replace it with a series of levies - housing levy, medical levy, education levy, enforcement levy, etc..
b) Those levies would exist to support public medical services, public housing, public education, etc..
c) The housing levy, for example, would be paid back to people in the form of a minimum housing allowance. Everybody would get, for example, $150pw in housing allowance, claimable at the end of the year with your tax return once you provide evidence of residential status. The public housing, being single room apartments, would chargeable at, for example, $150pw.
In that way, the government taxes the people for a housing levy commensurate with what they can afford (% of salary). The government subsidies a minimum level of housing to everybody - the single room apartment. If you want something bigger, you pay for something bigger yourself. The government is able to provide that minimum level of housing because the corporations / government building the apartments gets a reasonable return for their investment (the $150pw).
Would this be expensive? Not for the government, because it comes straight out of your tax levy, and back into the hands of the individuals. Where this is an issue is that it's still wealth redistribution - you're moving money from the rich (higher $ payments due to % of salary) to the poor (lower $ payments due to % of salary). Is it politically acceptable? Quite possibly, seeing as the 'rich' will still obtain a benefit (though marginal, relatively) from the system.
To be clear - I don't approve of paying a slacker money if they're not earning it. Minimum services should be just that - services, and not minimum cash payments for them to waste and squander. At worst case, the unemployed would have a roof over their heads and basic foodstuffs, and nothing more. If they want to enjoy luxuries, they'd need to find a job and earn money to entitle them to buy things more.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
ElhonnaDS
The problem with the "Raise the minimum wage" argument, is that numbers are abritrary, and a single dollar's real value lies in what you could buy with it. If they across the board raised minimum wage to $15, then there would be a short period of time where certain people were making more. However, for every person who had their wage increased, another person would lose their job entirely, because requiring you to pay employees more does not magically make more money appear, and the majority of small business owners are not making all that much money, where they have room to double their payroll expense. For many businesses which are scraping to get by, it would be enough to close them down. And for large companies, who have the resources to do so, the majority of labor would be outsourced to other countries, if the cost of doing business in the US jumped dramatically. So the majority of people who are now making minimum wage, would actually be unemployed rather than have extra money.
Then, the wages for other tiers of labor would increase accordingly. Were you paying your well qualified administrative assistant $15 an hour already? Well, why would they stay for that when they can get a low stress retail job for the same amount. They'd require more money for a higher skill level of job. Wages would go up accross the board. As the increase in the costs of services and production went up, the prices would go up to reflect these increased costs, and the fact that people can now afford to pay a higher dollar amount or the same item. In a fairly short amount of time, the dollar would be devalued to the point where, while your dollar amount is twice what it used to be, the actual buying power is about the same, and you're not any more able to pay your bills than you were before. On top of that, you then have to now repair the damage to the economy that the sudden change caused in unemployment and small businesses going under.
The reason that most people who make it "big" come from families that have a history of doing so has a lot more to do with what they're taught than where they come from. There is no financial education in high school. Kids can grow up never having learned anything about responsible spending and credit use, how to balance a checkbook, how to plan financially for retirement, how to make investments, etc. If your parents know how to do all these things, and teach you, then you'll know how to suceed going into the world.If your parents don't know how to do these things, and don't teach you, you're SOL. If your parents believe that they're poor because the system doesn't let you escape being poor, and that's what they teach their kids, their kids very often won't even try to learn how to suceed, because they don't think it's possible. The few people who break the cycle of financial ignorance are the ones who look around them, say "everyone who is telling me what to do has no money- maybe I should go educate myself by reading a book by someone who actually makes money."
If you REALLY want to bridge the financial gap in this country, it's not about limiting the earning potential of the people who are doing it right- it's about educating the people who are doing it wrong. Set up classes in high school that teach kids about protecting their credit rating, about the difference between investments and liabilities, about the dangers of out-spending their means. Teach them about the vast difference in what you can earn through even small investments, and what you can earn just working a 9-5. Teach them to use their money to make more money, rather than spend every dime they make, so that in 10-15 years, their job isn't their sole source of income, and their finances are better. THAT is what rich parents teach their kids, so that they can make more money. That's what people who achieve success when coming from nothing learn for themselves.
There are plenty of people who make enough to make ends meet, but make poor spending choices that leave them scrambling to make ends meet. They spend too much on luxury items, rather than budgeting for necessities and fitting in luxuries where they can. They use credit irresponsibly, and so 3-4 years of spending $100 per month more than they make compounds with interest, and some late fees, and suddenly they have credit card bills of $400/month more than they make. They mess up their credit rating, and suddenly things like car insurance, check cashing costs, payday loans etc. are costing 2-3 times as much in fees and expenses because they're high risk, and making their day to day cost of living higher. They can't get loans on decent cars, so they buy used ones that cost more per year to fix than a new one would cost in payments. When they get winfalls like tax returns, inheritances and settlements, they spend on things like vacations and new cars, which are liabilities, rather than invest in the stock market which would be something that would help solidify their financial situation.
TL;DR- It seems people who don't have "enough" are so much quicker to try and take some from people who have a lot, rather than learn how they did it and copy. If you really feel entitled to something that someone else earned, maybe that attitude has a lot to do with why you're not earning much yourself. If you have any understanding of economics, you'd realize that anything like a huge mandatory wage hike, or a limit on how much money someone can make investing is going to hurt everyone who depends on the jobs created by those inventments and those companies.
Post by
pezz
For reference:
Price floors
These graphs actually represent the market for goods, but labor market graphs look and act identically for our purposes, they just are labelled differently in several places. Hence why we're talking about 'price floors' rather than 'minimum wage.' The two concepts are parallel, they are just applied to different markets.
This graph
represents an effective price floor. Basically, the blue shaded triangle is the surplus of labor caused by the minimum wage, i.e., the workers willing to work at that price who cannot find jobs.
Before the price floor (minimum wage), quantity of labor is at Q1 (where the dotted black line reaches the x axis labeled 'quantity'). At the minimum wage, quantity of labor Q2 (where the blue dotted line reaches the x axis) is the amount of people
willing
to work. This makes intuitive sense. If N number of people are willing to work at market wage, N + Y people are surely willing to work at a wage higher than the market wage.
However, note where demand for labor meets the minimum wage price. This happens at quantity of labor Q3 (where the red dotted line reaches the x axis). This quantity of labor is less than Q1, meaning that unemployment goes up whenever the minimum wage goes up.
This is my main problem with minimum wages. In theory, people are either already worth the minimum wage, in which case it seems likely that they're already receiving it, or people aren't worth the new minimum wage, in which case they lose their jobs.
Post by
Jubilee
And I'm only talking about minimum wage because everyone else seems to want to. Most 'socialistic' ideas are about the idea that everyone should have access to certain things, regardless of financial state. For example, the belief that medicine and health care should not be run as a for-profit business. I don't really mind if some people are poorer than others assuming that poorer people can have access to basic things like a home and modern medicine.
I agree with you, which is why there are good reasons to support more than just 'small government' policies. Having said that, the minimum wage doesn't contribute anything towards that.
If I had absolute power, I would:
a) Cut back income tax and replace it with a series of levies - housing levy, medical levy, education levy, enforcement levy, etc..
b) Those levies would exist to support public medical services, public housing, public education, etc..
c) The housing levy, for example, would be paid back to people in the form of a minimum housing allowance. Everybody would get, for example, $150pw in housing allowance, claimable at the end of the year with your tax return once you provide evidence of residential status. The public housing, being single room apartments, would chargeable at, for example, $150pw.
In that way, the government taxes the people for a housing levy commensurate with what they can afford (% of salary). The government subsidies a minimum level of housing to everybody - the single room apartment. If you want something bigger, you pay for something bigger yourself. The government is able to provide that minimum level of housing because the corporations / government building the apartments gets a reasonable return for their investment (the $150pw).
Would this be expensive? Not for the government, because it comes straight out of your tax levy, and back into the hands of the individuals. Where this is an issue is that it's still wealth redistribution - you're moving money from the rich (higher $ payments due to % of salary) to the poor (lower $ payments due to % of salary). Is it politically acceptable? Quite possibly, seeing as the 'rich' will still obtain a benefit (though marginal, relatively) from the system.
To be clear - I don't approve of paying a slacker money if they're not earning it. Minimum services should be just that - services, and not minimum cash payments for them to waste and squander. At worst case, the unemployed would have a roof over their heads and basic foodstuffs, and nothing more. If they want to enjoy luxuries, they'd need to find a job and earn money to entitle them to buy things more.
The biggest problem with that is that in order for that to work effectively, the government would have to control the cost of cheap apartments. As everyone is getting the same amount of money, the baseline changes from $0 to $150 and people who own the apartments will raise the price from there to take advantage of the demand.
Post by
gnomerdon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4o-TeMHys0
it's the rent..
Post by
255458
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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