So, this is how a Milennial sees a solution to the "Living Wage" issue....

originally posted by: Discotech
To you life is about surviving, carrying on with the status quo and not bothering to question and spawning in order to let your offspring repeat the process just to keep the human race chugging a long.

Well kind of except in my survival world I constantly push to rise up the food chain for a better life, and I work to get my kids higher up too. I constantly push my own status quo with no need for others to do it for me. I really do not care who becomes President I do just fine under anyone as example. I'm not rich and my parents didn't have money, but I make sure I consistently improve myself and improve my position in the world, so at the end of each decade I am better off than I was at the beginning.

I really do not care how much the evil rich make because I know we can tax them 100% and it is not near what is needed. And the reason is you will have some people rise up, but the majority will stay where they are with all that help you give them. Those who want to rise will rise, those who want to stay just floating will float, and those who do not care will sink no matter what.

For me I look for meaning and relevance, I do not wish to spawn offspring in this hideous society we find ourselves in, I do not wish to survive, the only reason I haven't killed myself is because I care for my family and don't wish to harm them. I'm highly intelligent, have an IQ of 141, constantly think about things and always looking for a reason to exist, I've had a perfect upbringing with the best mother and grandparents, don't know my father or his side of my family, I aced high school despite being kicked out, I aced college, I've worked at Mc Donalds, I've also handled multi million pound insurance schemes getting paid incredibly well, I live better than most, I have plenty of money.

Well then make a lot of money, retire at 40 then do all the things you want to do in life to fulfill your dreams, simple. My IQ is high 70s sometimes low 80s on a good day so I need to work more...lol

Sounds like you want to be a monk and just do not know it yet...

Yet none of it interests me because I keep thinking of how awful the world currently is with the current societal system, I yearn for something better than what we currently have and have pretty much had throughout our history in differing degrees but most of all I don't want this for myself, I want this for everybody to actually have a life, to explore and see our planet, to follow dreams, I just want a world where everybody is happy and I believe systems like this help us step towards that kind of utopian world

As I said people are happy, monetary means outside the west is low on the priories for a vast part of the world. I also know there is a lot of suffering in the world too but we can't do much for that at this point in our advancement phase, give it 200 years and things will be better just as things today are better than 200 years ago.

You and I are not going to chance crap so our only choice is to work within the system that is in place, help people at the very lowest level, like one at a time, and prosper so that you can and you kids can all have a quality life.

a reply to: DBCowboy

This is my last post to you as it's clear you're just a selfish individual who doesn't fathom the scale of the societal problems.

There are people working on this planet, they do not earn enough to even survive, some have to take extra jobs in order to just survive.

Yes, there are lazy people, however you'll find the majority who are not working do actually want to work but there is not enough jobs

It's not about people being lazy, it's about making the world a little bit better for everyone but someone as selfish as you are would not comprehend that concept

I'm old. I also have no illusion that hard work, a work ethic, will win the day.

The whiners and entitlement crowd will eventually win out. It's simple math. The more they rely on government, the bigger government will get.

But I'll probably be dead before I see it.

The problem is that this dystopian "utopia" will be inflicted on my children. So I will horde, and stack the deck in their favor as much as I can to insure that they aren't at the same mentality as the whiners, and that they have every means necessary for them to be successful, even in the nightmare version of "utopia".

originally posted by: DBCowboy

originally posted by: stabstab
a reply to: DBCowboy

This point as an example is moot since people of todays world have access to knowledge, technology, and materials the Soviets could have only dreamed of and thats why the stagnation you speak of won't happen.

In America, there are pockets of our society (mostly inner city) where there have been generations of people who have had government pay for their food, subsidized their housing, and have regular checks in the form of welfare.

By your logic, these areas should be hotbeds of creativity, success, innovation, wealth, and the perfect business model for the rest of the world.

Eminem grew up in the slums of Detroit and used to have to flip burgers for a living 18 hours a day, just to be able to survive... But someone gave him a chance and now his worth 170 million and is in the top 20 selling musicians of all time.

Also, Quentin Tarantino used to work at a video rental shop, some one gave him a chance and now his worth 100 million and has made some of the most iconic movies of the modern era.

Give me just 20 minutes and a few google searches and I'm sure I could find plenty more examples... of Americans who were bound to be minimum wage earning 'nothings', yet were given a chance to thrive and did.

a reply to: Discotech

It's not about people being lazy, it's about making the world a little bit better for everyone but someone as selfish as you are would not comprehend that concept

Not everybody wants the world to be better or should I say fairer......some people just want to sit on their high horse and look down on others.....

Karma is a bitch though and I bet the attitude rubs off and every now and again one of those burger flippers adds some "special" sauce into the mix...

a reply to: Xtrozero

I don't want kids, I don't feel cruel enough to bring them into this horrible world and have them endure it. Maybe they won't be such a deep philosophical thinker and won't care for having a purpose or meaning in life and would be happy to be another cog in the machine but it's not something I'm prepared to risk.

I'd rather just die in all honesty, the only reason I'm not dead is because I love my family too much to put them through that pain even though they know my thoughts they just don't understand why I think this way, in fact nobody understands why I feel this way, I don't understand too. I'd rather be dumb and oblivious to the life of servitude and the horrors people bestow on each other than have the intelligence and logical thinking I have as I just cannot be a part of such a system that I feel so strongly against. I value my integrity more than anything so believe that giving in and being a cog would go against my convictions and if I do this then I am not being true to myself, I see it akin to being an accomplice to a crime

It's so strange because when I was younger I had ambitions, I wanted to be rich and have lots of money, then at some point I realised that money sucks and it doesn't bring any happiness so now I just feel trapped in a hell, I've got plenty of money but nothing I need or desire apart from seeing a better world

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

Yes let's not forget all the black singers in the 50's who had to deal with poverty as well as racism but are now treasured artists and have brought joy to countless people in this otherwise dark world we live in. All because they were given a chance

Now imagine all the amazing creatives we'd have on this planet if money wasn't an issue

originally posted by: Discotech
There are people working on this planet, they do not earn enough to even survive, some have to take extra jobs in order to just survive.

But that is surviving. I have a saying.. When you are young you have a lot of time and little money so money is your priority as you work your butt off to make it. As you get older you have more money than time and so you work a lot less because your priorities is now time. If a person is working two jobs then they need to keep looking for the better job that pays enough to work just one, they are out there, and this is a rather common occurrence.

originally posted by: Discotech

I don't want kids, I don't feel cruel enough to bring them into this horrible world and have them endure it. Maybe they won't be such a deep philosophical thinker and won't care for having a purpose or meaning in life and would be happy to be another cog in the machine but it's not something I'm prepared to risk.

Let me ask my 15 year old..........Yep he is loving life...hehe

It's so strange because when I was younger I had ambitions, I wanted to be rich and have lots of money, then at some point I realised that money sucks and it doesn't bring any happiness so now I just feel trapped in a hell, I've got plenty of money but nothing I need or desire apart from seeing a better world

I'm telling you....you need to head Tibet or Thailand there is a life waiting for you. You do not need to make lots of money, you need to make enough to remove any hurtles you come on in life, and that is about it.

originally posted by: Discotech
a reply to: Subaeruginosa

Yes let's not forget all the black singers in the 50's who had to deal with poverty as well as racism but are now treasured artists and have brought joy to countless people in this otherwise dark world we live in. All because they were given a chance

Now imagine all the amazing creatives we'd have on this planet if money wasn't an issue

And if you asked them if their life sucked or was great what do you think they would say...

Oh BTW, it seems everyone says "The Evil Rich" tax them 95%, but it seems athletes and entertainers seem to never be named as part of all this, why? Is Taylor Swift's 200 million in 2015 not money we need? It seems it is always fast food CEO...lol

a reply to: Xtrozero

All kids love life, it's only when you unleash horrors of the world upon them they begin to love it less, for the most part we shelter them from this as much as we can.

I wonder if the kids working the factories and sweeping chimneys 100 years ago would say they're loving life though.

Yes I could move to Tibet become a monk, I've looked into it, have always wanted to visit Asia as it's one of the few places I'm yet to explore but the fact would still remain that even if I found happiness, I'd still be in this broken world and for me it seems a little selfish but maybe that's my problem, I need to be selfish instead of digging myself deeper in things I cannot possibly control ?

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

Karma is a bitch though and I bet the attitude rubs off and every now and again one of those burger flippers adds some "special" sauce into the mix...

You always take care of the staff. If I go to a resort I tip up front first day and the day I leave, along with the normal tipping times, and I'm nice and respectful always. Other people would think I'm a famous Rock Star as to how I'm treated doing this. Two years ago at an all inclusive resort, no one put tips in the bartender tip jar, so every round I put in 50 pesos and the Don Julio came off the back shelf and instead of shots it was a water glass full..hehe you never go wrong.

originally posted by: Discotech

All kids love life, it's only when you unleash horrors of the world upon them they begin to love it less, for the most part we shelter them from this as much as we can.

I wonder if the kids working the factories and sweeping chimneys 100 years ago would say they're loving life though.

Well they still wanted to live.. Hey I'm 55 and I love life too, as I said you make success stories one at a time, very small, like helping just one person.

I'd still be in this broken world and for me it seems a little selfish but maybe that's my problem, I need to be selfish instead of digging myself deeper in things I cannot possibly control ?

But is the world really broken... I guess we could say all life on earth is broken then too. God life sucks...

a reply to: Xtrozero

Not the physical world, the societal world. It's just humans that are broken as a species

Maybe all we're really supposed to do is survive, breed and die and occasionally kill each other

All other animals in nature can do this without wealth, yet humans ? if you're living out of a trash can, there's little chance of you breeding but good chance of death at least

I guess wealth to most is the equivalent of a peacock flashing his pretty feathers at his potential mate

It's a difficult philosophical question to answer really for just what it is we're supposed to be doing, if there's a god he's being pretty quiet and we really do need some guidance as a species as we have essentially evolved beyond our natural instincts into something more than just an animal.

Well here is my two cents worth on the whole matter.....I think it's a hell of an idea myself and I'm kind of jealous that I didn't think of it...... it does solve a lot of problems in my opinion and it's really doing nothing more than relabeling the money that we're already spending on welfare programs now. and not only that . any wealth that has been accumulated on the earth has been accumulated by the use of the resources both of men and materials to bring about that wealth ....resources that were usurped from from their common benefit......furthermore the ability for that wealth to exist in the first place is based on the spurious system of being able to print paper currency the value of which is based solely in faith. In the end...why does it matter how the currency gets circulated ...it has to keep going around or the game is over.

The issue, as I see it, is not the super wealthy themselves per se, it is not necessarily that they are so wealthy. The problem is the methodology used to acquire that wealth, which is often despicable and screws everyone over.

Think of it like this: A man is denied entry to a night club by the bouncer because he is not wearing the right clothes. To get in, he kills the bouncer. Is the issue that the man made it into the night club? It is an issue, yes, like the obscene amount of wealth accumulated by certain individuals, but how he got in is far more of a problem.

Look at what pharmaceutical companies have done immediately after buying the patent to certain drugs. The price rockets up, from 500-5556 percent.

originally posted by: XtrozeroWhat this means is if a person can not meet all the requirements they do not even make it past HR. We found a lot of people with bachelor's degrees sucked, I mean really bad, and so we made it a desire to open up to people without a degree but may have great skills and abilities instead. Right now I would say I hire about 50/50 with or without a degree and I have even not hired a PhD who's interview was not good at all.

In my field every single person has told me the same thing: Having a degree is worthless because everyone has a degree. They effectively serve as nothing more than a way to get past the first round of filtering from HR. What actually matters is what you can do and a degree is no indication of that.

Of course, it's also a field where the typical starting pay is around 6 figures in most cities, unfortunately there aren't enough jobs to go around so it also has a high unemployment rate.

a reply to: Eilasvaleleyn
Take a look at what the super-wealthy do for the world.
Look at what the Gates are doing with the wealth we've provided them by purchasing their product. And yet you would strip them of their wealth and give it to Junior JoeBob because he's got three kids and won't lift a finger to help feed them.
Look at what Oprah has done with her wealth. And yet you would strip her of 90% of it and give it to the government to cycle through the system?

Look, we all want to make the world a better place for all of us. We just have different ways of going about it. Some of us prefer the direct, local, personal approach. If we see a need, we do what we can on a personal level to alleviate the need. But we realize that need will always be there. Because we are all human who make less than stellar financial decisions and find ourselves in need at some time in our lives.
When we find ourselves in need, we've always found help in one form or another, whether it be direct financial, as in a little cash "found" in a coat pocket, a lead on a job. a ride to work or a crash-couch. Now that we're no longer in need, we have a duty to "pay it forward" and want to do that on our own terms, not those of the government.

a reply to: diggindirt

If we could make the distinction between what we wanted to do and what we were able to do, we might make a difference in life.

a reply to: diggindirt

And did I say that the issue was people like Gates and Oprah?
Please, quote me on that.

People having obscene wealth is something I do think is a problem, but it pales in comparison to the methods often used to obtain (or keep) that wealth. My problem isn't Oprah, my problem is the Koch brothers, the Waltons, the Wall Street guys, that person who hijacked some country's economy. (Might have been Argentina.)