Proof a Living Wage is Possible

a reply to: Edumakated

Exactly. Notice the subtle tyranny involved in all their ideas. They always involve taking someone else's stuff by force for the greater good. Individualism and individual accomplishment has to be stamped out under these models.

If limiting the wealth of 894 people to benefit over 321 million is tyranny call me guilty.

I would prefer my brand of tyranny over the corporate oligarchs who currently push their tyranny on all of us. The NSA is their idea, I prefer we have keep our civil liberties. I am only limiting the exploitation of society. At 20 million you can live any lifestyle you choose.

You are either with me or your with the corporate oligarchs.

originally posted by: Isurrender73
a reply to: Edumakated

Exactly. Notice the subtle tyranny involved in all their ideas. They always involve taking someone else's stuff by force for the greater good. Individualism and individual accomplishment has to be stamped out under these models.

If limiting the wealth of 894 people to benefit over 321 million is tyranny call me guilty.

I would prefer my brand of tyranny over the corporate oligarchs who currently push their tyranny on all of us. The NSA is their idea, I prefer we have keep our civil liberties. I am only limiting the exploitation of society. At 20 million you can live any lifestyle you choose.

You are either with me or your with the corporate oligarchs.

But who died and put you in charge? As the other poster pointed out, who are you to decide that someone is making too much money. It is none of your god damn business how much anyone makes. I get you you think there is some grand way to central plan our way to rainbows and unicorn tears, but the reality is that Utopia does not exist.

a reply to: ketsuko

I fully understand how the Elitists have exploited cost of living, currency valuations and cheap labor.

Which is why I also believe we need a universal currency that doesn't fluctuate in value. A currency environment where the cost of goods, supply and demand dictate pricing on a global scale.

Inflation, currency valuations and independent cost of living is the Elitists way of hiding their exploitation from those they exploit.

We're heading towards a society with technological advancement where only a slight portion of society is needed to work. As time progresses this becomes more true, all while the population grows.

Yet all we hear is get an education, work harder, ect.

When are people going to realize things need to change to keep up with technology?

a reply to: Edumakated

Bernie Sanders and all his followers seem to want to fix income inequality, since that is his main objective.

Maybe I am alone with my solution, but I still have the right to free speech, correct?

originally posted by: Drinking

originally posted by: Metallicus
Even if a living wage is possible...businesses are under no obligation to pay you more than you are willing to accept. I am not saying I agree that a living wage is possible, but even if it is I see no reason for those involved in some types of business to pay unskilled workers more than the work they perform is worth.

How is their worth measured?

By the profits they generate?

If so many are vastly underpaid.

By how much they are willing to work for?

That used to work, until millions of illegals flood the market undercutting workers. If you are hungry, but think you are worth more, will you eat or starve?

Because that is the choice, take crap pay or starve.

I say worker worth should be measured by the profits their labors generate.

Since that is actually what they are worth in real dollars.

Not a bs method rigged by decades of allowing workers in that will undercut American workers by more than half most times.

This method does not work any longer period.

I said nothing about what a person is worth, only that the work they perform has a tangible value.

Or you could stop importing cheap labor thereby forcing companies to hire from the local pool. And to keep them from uprooting to a different country, add an incentive in the form of a tax break for hiring locally (with legitimate proof obviously)

"but they do the jobs no one wants to do!" Well yeah, no one wants to work for an unlivable wage. And a lot of us don't have the ability to divide the bills for one household among three families living in it.

We shouldn't be forcing people to give up their wealth, we should be incentivizing them to do more with it.

Our economy needs to change, period, the current economic model cannot function in a world where there are fewer jobs then people, nor will it be able to sustain itself as the need for people to do jobs compared to the people living becomes greater and greater.

At some point things will change, one way or another. You can all sit there and say work harder, get two jobs, get an education to your hearts content, but eventually things will get so bad a revolution will occur if nothing is done about it.

The filthy rich ignore this at their own peril and when they find themselves on the chopping block, they have only themselves to blame. They have the power to prevent suffering, they have the power to help others, they have the power to make the world a better place, instead they choose greed. So when their greed so overwhelmingly takes precedence over the majorities needs, I have no sympathy for them.

They have their wealth and the freedom to choose to do what they want with it. Actions, however, have consequences, and their poor choices as to how to use that wealth can and will have repercussions.

a reply to: Isurrender73

Except in a free market that doesn't happen.

A free market is based on exchange of goods and services, those goods and services vary in worth from place to place. How worthwhile do you think it is to know how to grow Kobe beef in India for example?

A currency itself only has the worth of the goods or services backing it. We started using it as society got more complex so that if I had something of value to someone to trade, I did not have to trade it directly to you in order to derive use from it. After all, say a scribe's skills were very valuable, but only to the right people. Currency allowed the scribe to barter his skills to the people who found them valuable and then use that symbolic marker of worth to trade with the famer who had the chicken the scribe needed. Then the farmer could similarly use the marker of worth (currency) to trade to others who also might not need chickens or anything else the farmer had but had goods or services the farmer needed.

So the currency itself is not the real medium of exchange, only the symbol.

originally posted by: Isurrender73


This is complete BS.

These 894 people are mostly Bankers, Merchants and their CEOs.

Their products would still be available even if they stopped selling them. Supply and demand would ensure that someone would meet the demand of the consumer.

If the store doesn't say Wal Mart but is called Joes Superstore, the same goods will be available to the consumer.

If their is a demand you will always find a supplier and a merchant. This country was founded on the small business platform, with laws like the Sherman Act created to keep it that way.

This nation was financially the greatest on earth until globalization destroyed the Sherman Act. We used to be the land of opportunity, now we are the land of Elitism.

In the 70's and 80's these same people that make 500X that the lowest paid make, made 25X.
I have heard that if they make less why would they bother work then?
So why did the most wealthy that made 25X the lowest worker 30 years ago get out of bed to work?


What is really happening is the Crony Capitalists are attacking Americans from all sides to fatten their wallets, Media via Advertising, Purchasing Politicians, Outsourcing, Tax Havens and Off Shoring, Illegal Labor, H1B and so on.

And the response from the Crony Capitalists if you don't like it, fight backonly the ONE WAY they approve and that is through your purchases.

Nope, it is all out war and not purchasing their items is only one step among many just as they use everything in their arsenal as well.

I'll be voting for the Candidate that skull #s Crony Capitalists.

a reply to: ketsuko

We're heading towards a future where the majority of people have neither "good" nor "service" to trade for survival. Are you for them all being turned into soylent green or something, because eventually if technology gets far enough, people won't be needed to do most of anything. How will capitalism work then?

a reply to: Isurrender73

No. I don't care what people make. High or low. It's none of my business. Neither should anyone else. Either make it or don't, but to take from someone else in order to better yourself, sounds weak and socialistic.

Once corporations were allowed to expand to "global" levels was the tipping point for capitalism. This point is the exact point where corporations gained more power than governments of individual nations.

Corporations nowadays have the power to initiate economic warfare globally since they control manufacturing, production, and agriculture worldwide.

Sick bastards have bunker homes in EVERY country as a precaution, because if it kicks off even they don't know exactly where (if anywhere) would be safe

originally posted by: Metallicus

originally posted by: Drinking

originally posted by: Metallicus
Even if a living wage is possible...businesses are under no obligation to pay you more than you are willing to accept. I am not saying I agree that a living wage is possible, but even if it is I see no reason for those involved in some types of business to pay unskilled workers more than the work they perform is worth.

How is their worth measured?

By the profits they generate?

If so many are vastly underpaid.

By how much they are willing to work for?

That used to work, until millions of illegals flood the market undercutting workers. If you are hungry, but think you are worth more, will you eat or starve?

Because that is the choice, take crap pay or starve.

I say worker worth should be measured by the profits their labors generate.

Since that is actually what they are worth in real dollars.

Not a bs method rigged by decades of allowing workers in that will undercut American workers by more than half most times.

This method does not work any longer period.

I said nothing about what a person is worth, only that the work they perform has a tangible value.

And how do you think that should be defined?

In most aspects in a capitalist, when the environment it was designed for is in place.

That environment has changed and is changing though.

For the worst I might add.

Bad ideas and just utter corruption have robbed this nation over decades.

All these trade deals sent the jobs away, if we don't change anything they aren't coming back.

The border is wide open, this has caused a severe devaluation of labor, let's face it, that ain't changing.

All the people in the 2/3 of workers at or near poverty are the aren't skilless or dumb or lazy, many of them are the same ones that used to work production.

The jobs are just gone, so they take what they can get.

The wages for them hasn't risen in decades but inflation has.

Now the money they make is all but worthless, not even enough to live on, in fact of not for the welfare system most of America would look like Africa.

A solution must be found if we are to maintain our way of life.

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: Isurrender73

originally posted by: WiseThinker
If this was implemented,

Then all the people earning above the wage cap (Also, what do you propose happens to current fortunes?) would simply up and leave, and now that entire portion of your GDP calculations would be gone, Same goes with increase in tax, the rich are just going to find better ways to invest it, they are not going to pay more tax.

So when X politician says if we raise the top tax by 5% and we will earn X millions more, then they are lying or dont know economics, the wealthy will just find better ways of spending the 5%, its simple math, it will cost them less than 5% of their income to find out how to avoid the system

Do you understand supply and demand?

If the merchants and bankers leave, new merchants and bankers will take their place. As long as the consumer has a demand someone will produce the goods and services to meet the demand.

You obviously don't understand supply & demand or you wouldn't have started this inane thread. Supply & demand is why some people make a boat load of money and others are barely getting by. Wages are where supply and demand intersect if you were to graph it out.

There are many examples where this is not true though.
Apples Iphone costs 200 to make including labor and they charge 600 dollars.
They make mega bonuses and their stocks are off the charts.

There was a comparison done on another thread with McDonalds Big Mac.
A guy made 3.70 an hour starting pay working at McDonalds in 1970

Adjusted for inflation, it was something like 12 bucks an hour
A Big Mac cost 70 cents in 1970 and cost 3.70 today but should only be 2.50.

The extra cost did not go to the workers but to the most wealthy in this nation via the stock market or exec bonuses.
There is an entitled class alright and it is not the ones at the bottom of the totem pole that have no political or monetary power.

originally posted by: Vector99
Once corporations were allowed to expand to "global" levels was the tipping point for capitalism. This point is the exact point where corporations gained more power than governments of individual nations.

Corporations nowadays have the power to initiate economic warfare globally since they control manufacturing, production, and agriculture worldwide.

Sick bastards have bunker homes in EVERY country as a precaution, because if it kicks off even they don't know exactly where (if anywhere) would be safe

Good Point

In the past, most of the Corporations in this country were state side.
If another country rigged their finances or tariffs to benefit their country, the Corporations lobbied politicians to do the same.

It was a symbiotic relationship that benefited the average American as well back then.

Now that they are global, they do not care about the state of the nation.
Corporations do not care about the Constitution and yet are allowed to infest our government and call the shots.

a reply to: Drinking

He's trying to say manipulation is the current field of most profit.

This is easily obtained when you have the wealth to control manipulation means.

When you have money and use it properly, you too can obtain manipulation. You can see this in micro-economics such as moving. You have a few hundred dollars and don't want to do the work, bam, you have movers.

On the macro-level, when you have enough influence and money to delegate immigration and foreign trade policy, you can EASILY manipulate an economy any way you like.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: ketsuko

We're heading towards a future where the majority of people have neither "good" nor "service" to trade for survival. Are you for them all being turned into soylent green or something, because eventually if technology gets far enough, people won't be needed to do most of anything. How will capitalism work then?

And that's a load of horse hockey. People thought that when we transitioned from horse and buggy to cars. Oh no! What will all those carriage makers, whip makers and horse trainers do? They have neither good nor service to trade for their survival ...

The plain truth is that people will need to find new ways to learn how to create worth for themselves. So you cannot make a living standing on the assembly line anymore with just a high school education ... well then, it is time to move on and learn a different set of skills. Look around a find a new niche to transition into.

Of course, allowing government to throttle our economy to death is never wise, but we seem to keep voting for it.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: ketsuko

Of course, allowing government to throttle our economy to death is never wise, but we seem to keep voting for it.

without that single check nafta and following bills would have been passed decades earlier.

Corporations have ALWAYS sought to control governments, mainly, the US government. They succeeded recently, hence our arguments here on ATS about the worth of a job...sigh

a reply to: ketsuko

The evidence is all around us, ignore it all you want. There's simply more people then there are jobs, that's a fact already. We've already passed the point where that will never change without a massive decrease in population. Stop pretending like the entire human population has something amazing they could do to all be successful, it's complete BS. You all must be completely nuts if you think that if everyone just applied themselves the entirety of the human race could be successful in the current economy.