Fuck the minimum wage .......

[Stinky The Clown]

... what we **really** need is a Minimum Standard of Living.

That would include a minimum level of housing for every man, woman, and child in this country.

That would include a minimum level of nutrition for every man, woman, and child in this country.

That would include a minimum level of employment opportunity for every man, woman, and child in this country.

That would include a minimum level of health care for every man, woman, and child in this country.

Etc.

The minimum wage simply doesn't go far enough. How to pay for this? Start by taxing corporations at current rates and then make them pay. Start by applying draconian taxes on estates over $30M. Start by capping CEO and top executive wages. Star by tearing asunder the military budget for weapon systems that serve no purpose in today's world (Clown to Pentagon: We're **already the world's only superpower. We don't need to be superpower².) I'm sure anyone with half a brain and an ounce of compassion can find more sources to pay for this.

It is long past time to call for a two-bit increase in a stupid wage level that doesn't even crack the poverty level. It is time for some bold action that lifts people up, not hold them down.

[leftofthedial]

1. until the maximum wage is indexed to the minimum wage

the minimum wage will always be a starvation, deeply-in-poverty wage

[MercutioATC]

5. I disagree.

If Nike is able to make $200M from a sports figure's endorsement, nothing should prevent them from paying him a LOT of money for that endorsement.

If a CEO can negotiate a contract that pays him $50M a year, he should have that right.

The keys to improving America have nothing to do with creating an artificial ceiling...they have everything to do with providing a realistic foundation...

There must be a realistic minimum wage.

There must be universal healthcare benefits.

There must be governmental disincentives for companies who outsource jobs to other countries.

There must be trade agreements indexed to these standards in other countries.

...and there are a lot more "must be's"...


Creating an artificial wage ceiling won't accomplish anything...for two reasons:

1) The American public would never support it, and

2) The American public SHOULDN'T support it. This country was founded on entrepreneurship and a relatively free market. Both of those policies work if minimal safeguards are put in place. You're not currently seeing a failure of the theory, you're seeing the results of decades of government support of big business.

The system works when it's not subverted. We don't need to kill the system, just eliminate the abuse of it.

[leftofthedial]

7. we disagree

the present system is full of incentives for the maximum wage earners to depress the wages of workers and zero incentives to increase them. It's degenerated, as capitalism inevitably does, into a feudalistic oligarchy.

[DocSavage]

92. if you were a bussiness

owner, don't you think that you would want the best most qualified people to work for you? How many people could you get if you were depressing the wages like you state?

[calmblueocean]

9. I see what you're saying, and yet...

When any single individual, entity, class, or group controls too much money, the whole system collapses.

I don't disagree with you that having a "maximum wage" is really a poor tool for keeping a country from slipping into plutocracy, but I do think there's a point at which inequities in wealth threaten justice. We're already at a state in America where we see this happening all the time. We saw it happen in 2004, when Sinclair Broadcasting chose to turn their network of television stations into a political propaganda organ against John Kerry. We see it happening with our corrupt, bribe-happy Congress, where lobbyists pay to write legislation.

I believe in entrepreneurship and I believe that markets make our lives better. But I believe in fair markets, not merely "free" ones.

[MercutioATC]

12. ...and that's exactly my point.

The safeguards have been removed by our big-business elected officials. That needs to change.

It's not the theory, it's the degree to which we've allowed that theory to be corrupted.

[calmblueocean]

14. All right, we're on the same page then.

I read your post slightly differently than you meant it.

[dajoki]

11. I see nothing wrong...

with capping CEO and top executive wages, it's obscene, besides holding working and poor families down.

[MercutioATC]

13. O.K., how, exactly, would you do it?

Gimme a cohesive plan. Maybe I'll come around.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

64. You do it through a progressive tax policy.

If you're getting taxed at 95% after a certain level of income it, in effect, becomes a cap.

[regnaD kciN]

16. Not a hard cap...

...as in "no one shall be paid more than $750,000 per year," say, but I think there's a case to be made for severe penalties to apply to any company whose CEO is getting paid more than a certain multiple of the lowest-paid worker's salary (or one where other worker's rights provisions, such as the 40-hour work week, are merely a fond memory). Otherwise, one of the CEO's most tried-and-true means of getting good "bottom line" numbers and thus justifying his or her exorbitant salary -- cutting salaries for ordinary employees to the bone, as well as eliminating jobs and forcing surviving employees to take on the extra work through mandatory unpaid overtime -- will remain Standard Operating Procedure in American capitalism.

:-(

[rinsd]

25. Outstanding

"The keys to improving America have nothing to do with creating an artificial ceiling...they have everything to do with providing a realistic foundation."

Simply outstanding.

[liberalmike27]

63. Capitalism has never really worked

When you measure it in terms of how well our whole population lives. Our type of Rot-gut capitalism only works really well for a few million people, and the rest of us struggle in one form or the other, and a huge underclass has to exist for the top few percent to sink their teeth into, and draw their lifeblood.

I call the concept put forward by the author limited-capitalism. I guess I liked it even when I was a kid, as I wrote an essay at some point with that title. Many would call it Socialism, but who cares what you call it. I prefer my name. You can still get rich, you can still profit from working extra hard, as it should be. But you can't profit on the backs of tens of millions who are suffering.

Unfortunately, we'll likely never see it. I heard a song this morning, an old one; Hope, in a Hopeless World. That says it all. We like to dream, but our congressmen are corrupt to the bone for the most part. Term limits are only a band-aid solution, addressing the cumulative effects of money on men, who vote for corporate benefits over people. The real solution is to not allow any contributions from them, either to their campaigns, personally, or to their conventions. No leader should ever get any money, in any form from a business. Until then, we're all screwed.

[femrap]

71. Greed must be regulated.

I talk to people all the time....professionals, upper-middle income folks....and they think that these salaries of CEOs are simply disgusting. It's offensive.

No one is worth that kind of $....unless they cured cancer, maybe. Or brought world peace.

[ItNerd4life]

26. I like this idea

Government sets the boundaries and acts as the counterbalance to corporate greed.

Why not make a law that the maximum anybody within a corporation can be paid is 50 times more than the lowest paid workers. Also, a balance between number of people paid the maximum and the people paid the minimum must be reached (like 401k plans must be balanced so not to only favor the high income earners).

You are now letting the marketplace dictate wages because greed for the highest earners translates into better wages for the lowest wage earners.

[lostinacause]

28. It encourages outsourcing low paying jobs and makes it very difficult

for low productivity workers to get jobs.

[sandnsea]

50. New reports disproved that

What actually happens is that low income people spend the extra money in their own neighborhoods so they actually boost small business and the local economy. It works exactly the opposite of what Republicans have fed the public for all these years.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/business/14680106.htm

[lostinacause]

27. Could you please explain this, I don't see how it is possible for CEOs to

raise the wage in aggregate. Indexing the wage controls will do as little to change the situation as wage controls without indexation.

[deaniac21]

29. What is a maximum wage?

[Misskittycat]

2. Totally agree. n/t

[NMDemDist2]

3. did you see the post today that Japanese CEOs average $320k a

year

our CEO pay is absolutely grotesque!

:yourock:

[Stinky The Clown]

4. I didn't see that, but I'm not surprised ......

..... some years ago I hgad occasion to do some work for a group of German mid-sized-comapny CEOs. I was a budding consultant at the time and earned more than two of the group. Only here are the average CEO pay rates obscene.

[NMDemDist2]

6. here's the link in economy forum

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x21178

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Danke

[Selatius]

10. You need to change the way we elect people first.

The first step towards reform must and always be with the people who set the law. The problem with the law is that the people who often write the bills that become laws are the very same people lawmakers are supposed to regulate in the first place. By setting up a system whereby politicians must go solicit donations to run their campaigns, the ones with the most access to resources (ownership of newspapers, tv stations, radio stations, etc.) and the most money (to buy radio, tv, billboard, and newspaper ads) have an advantage over everyone else.

The news media is the ultimate propaganda weapon, and this is why Joe Lieberman has an advantage over Ned Lamont. Ned Lamont's name is not advertised into the minds of people as much as Lieberman's name is. Joe Lieberman will most probably win just because of name recognition, and people tend to stay with familiar things rather than change to something new and different even if that new thing could prove to be better.

An individual worker who makes 50,000 a year simply has no chance when it comes to matching the buying power of his boss, Mr. Fortune 500 CEO, who makes 5,000,000+ a year. The only way the worker has a chance is through sheer numbers, but it is far more difficult to rally 5,000,000 people than it is to rally just 50 CEOs when it comes to raising money for your campaign.

Come on. It's so freaking easy to sell out to a handful of people who happen to be rich and in control of major media outlets than it is to go win one excruciating vote at a time through townhall meetings and stump speeches. Our system essentially encourages people to sell-out or dilute their message to please the money-holders because it is the path of least resistance, least resistance because the gears are greased by dollar bills.

The answer is obvious: Destroy the grip Corporatism has on the federal government and the election process.

[Stinky The Clown]

15. That's a different thread ......

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2672481

[liberalmike27]

66. Definitely true

We need more than two candidates, or two parties. Our system is based on two parties that have always had only microscopic differences. The third party always upsets the balance, and has the effect of often elected the opposite party than intended. Greens + Democrats = more (in Florida) than Republicans. We need IRV (instant runoff voting). Of course if they didn't have the green vote in Florida, Jeb and Kathy would've found another way to corrupt the election even further.

It's a clever system they put in place really, two parties, nearly the same, yet the media acts as if there is a huge chasm of difference between them. But the difference lies in bullshit issues, like abortion, guns, tiddlywinks, flag-burning, and gay hatred. None of these social issues has a dimes effect on our economic lives, at least not to speak of, but the media uses these issues to show that "huge" space. On issues that matter they tend to vote in lockstep, or at least a large portion of democrats vote with them. The war is a good example, but if you went over their votes on things, you'll find Democrats have often in current times been complicit. Look at the recent war votes, where about half of them want to stay in Iraq.

You can believe me on this too; if we were to put such a system of range-earnings up for a vote, the democrats would be voting against it too, at least most of them. Elections in our country are mostly a ruse, even moreso since the republicans got control of so much of the machinery.

[BigYawn]

17. Are you saying I won't have to work hard to live pretty damn well?

I can go with that!!!!
Will you run for president? You will win in a landslide.

[rman]

22. With all of human ingenuity, a resource-rich planet,

our capacity to invent, specialize, organize and cooperate... collectivly we are pretty darn rich.

I'm pretty sure that indeed it would not be necessary to "work hard" in order to make a decent living.

I look at it this way: if say 10,000 years ago one man-day of work would provide for one day of living for one person - that is without all the technological advances, without specialization, organization and cooperation we have today - then whith all the advances in efficiency we have made since, it should take only a couple of hours work a day to make a decent living.
They only reason why that's not the case is that most of the wealth that's generated ends up in the hands of a few (none of whom do any hard labor). And the only reason why it ends up in the hands of those few is because they are rich and powerful, and greedy (ok that's two reasons, or three, depending on how you count..)

[BigYawn]

40. If Bill Gates can go from a few thousand to 50 Billion $$ in 2 decades,

what is stopping you and me getting very rich? I think I
know the answer for myself. I am just not all that smart to
make a lot of money. I have no clue why you might not already
be a multi-millionaire if not a Billionaire.

But I like the fact that in United States one has the opportunity
to get rich.

[rman]

41. getting rich is not just a matter of working hard or being smart

Aggregation of wealth is a self-reinforcing process; the richer you get, the more powerful you get (at least potentially - all it takes is motivation to get more power) - and the wealthier and the more powerful you are, the easier it becomes (meaning that it takes less hard work) to get richer and more powerful still.

compare $153000/hour for a exxon CEO to $5/hour minimum wage: is the CEO 30,000 times smarter or does he work 30,000 times harder than the minimum wage earner? no f'in way. As though holding three part-time jobs (barely enough to make ends meet) is not hard work.
And that just talking income - the situation is even more extreme with capital; CEOs, stockholders etc have capital up to many billions, versus practically no capital for low wage earners.

Oh, and the US is hardly unique in providing the opportunity to get rich. What do you think, that European and Japanese CEOs and stockholders are poor?

[lostinacause]

48. A single choice by a CEO can make a company billions of dollars.

The wages of CEOs are driven up by the value their decisions provides to the company. This is not a value judgment; it is just the reason why their wage is so high.

[rman]

51. in other words: it's not because they "work hard"

[lostinacause]

53. It’s a combination of education, hard work and intelligence.

Most CEOs get an education in either business or engineering, two areas which are very competitive. Then they go into the "workforce", work their way up and eventually get an executive MBA. Then they would have to go through what ever institutional boundaries were necessary to get appointed as a CEO. It is not easy, then again academics go through a similar process and make considerably less. The value that an academic creates for society is arguably similar to that of CEO yet they make only a small fraction of the wages.

[rman]

61. ...and wealth, and power - which go hand in hand.

Al to often people omit the fact that aggregating wealth is a self-reinforcing endeavor. The wealthier you become the more powerful you (can) become - and the more wealth and power you have the easier it gets to become more wealthy and more powerful still. If no limits are put on it, it is a winner-takes-all system, if to few limits are put on it it's still a winner-takes-most-by-far system.

Just look at the results of 50 years increasingly predatory capitalism: the ratio between average income and top income in the US is now roughly 1:1000. The ratio of capital in those income groups is near infinite since a low income does not allow for building capital (we've got a "middle class" living from paycheck to paycheck - and that's not because the middle class is lazy and/or stupid). It has clearly gotten way beyond "working hard and being smart".

[lostinacause]

67. The middle class living paycheck to paycheck is by and large due to their

own choices. The (ab)use of credit in America and the desire to "have it all" has partially caused this problem. While the middle class could have a higher standard of living there are a number of people who don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck who choose to do so anyways. I also strongly believe that it is largely prevent what the ration between the lowest and highest income earner is. What is more important is the general welfare of society. I don't understand people's infatuation with what a CEO makes. What matters is the absolute standard of living that society as a whole has. Very few people, especially those who strongly value social welfare, seem to realize this.

I will discuss the rest later. I have somewhere to be.

[rman]

74. The choices the middle class makes

are encouraged by American/Western culture as portrayed by the media, which are by and large owned by the large corporations who's owners stand to benefit from this desire to have it all. It is the "American dream", the "American way of life" - it is actively promoted.
The most profitable CC customers are those who are in debt and just short of bankruptcy. That's what the CC industry calls "the sweet-spot".

That's not to say the middle class has has no responsibility wrt their choices, but the rich (who themselves have no problem whatsoever in "having it all") also have a responsibility there. But they don't seem to care very much about society: they create lousy jobs, most of them over seas these days, and they lobby congress to lower taxes on the rich and to privatize all kinds of public programs. All to their own benefit and to the detriment of the poor and the middle class - contrary to the rhetoric used to promote such policies.

The standard of living of society as a whole is a rather abstract concept; in the end it's about individuals each with their standard of living. US society may be wealthy as a whole and on average - but still a significant number of the individuals that make up society have a hard time making ends meet; the poor, the working poor, the middle class. There's a lot of wealth to go around, but 50% of it is in the hands of the top 1%.

By those measures typically used to measure the standard of living of a society, the US does not score very high. Infant mortality rate, level of education, health, life expectancy, etc are better in several nations that are considered to be poor (ie Cuba).

[lostinacause]

95. Though on most counts I agree with you, in most cases the people who

portray the culture do not directly benefit from it. In my opinion the primary drivers of culture are the celebrities. They place great importance on having lavish lifestyles; wearing the most expensive clothes, buying the most expensive cars and living in nice houses. The worst, in my opinion are the vast majority of rappers. Most of the songs are about consumption of expensive goods, violence, and being a "player".

[rman]

97. Indirect benefit is still benefit

Celebrities don't own the big corporations that own the mainstream media. CEOs of those big corporations are more wealthy than celebrities - just look at the Fortune 500. They have far more means and far more motivation to promote materialism than celebrities. It's just that the CEOs don't draw as much attention to themselves as celebrities do. But that doesn't mean they have less influence - directly or indirectly.

[BigYawn]

49. My point is who is stopping you and me from getting rich?

What law forbids us to start a new company making
useful products and become rich CEO's?

The CEO of EXXON doe snot "force" us to buy his products
at the business end of a gun. But our goverment literally
take money from me and you, with the threat of a sherrif showing up
with loaded guns to haul your ass to jail if you don't pay the taxes
which THEY passed into law without your consent!!!!

[rman]

52. Several factors make it harder for the not-so-rich to get rich,

One is the fact that it's easier to get richer when you already are rich, as i explained in my previous post.
Another is that it is a zero-sum game: at any point in time there's only so much wealth to go around. So the more wealth a few have, the less there is for the rest. Also there is a finite amount of wealth because there is a finite amount of resources and a finite amount of labor.
With all the mergers and takeovers monopolies are replacing competition - ie it's hard to find bananas that aren't produced by Chiquita (knowing a bit about Chiquita's history gives plenty reason not to want to buy their products).

I have no problem with paying taxes, what i do have a problem with is that the government allows large corporations to get away with evading taxes via off-shore bank accounts, and generally tends to pass laws that help the rich (ie flat tax, tax cap, repealing the estate tax, tax cuts for the rich) while not passing many bills that would help the poor (ie minimum wage is now at a 50 year low). Small surprise since large corporations have far more influence on government decisions then the common man does.

[BigYawn]

69. Wealth is NOT a zero sum game.....

I spent 23 years in an outfit which designed and manufactured
machines which skyrocketed the productivity of our customers.
So, the whole process created jobs for me and 600 other employees,
and every customer could turn out more car parts, appliance parts,
aircraft parts and a whole bunch of other applications at a lower
cost and at faster rate. No wealth was stolen from anyone.

The moral is, wealth is created by enhancing productivity.

Bill Gates did not steal his 40 billion $$, he created a product
which enhanced the productivity of computer users thereby benfitting
millions.

And yes, you can get fairly rich even starting at zero, like yours
truly did. I immigrated to the US at 20, worked my butt of to get a
masters degree by working part time jobs washing dishes in hospital
kitchen, and then worked long hard hours at my job to reach fairly
high position in the corporation.

[rman]

73. The basics are very simple:

wealth = labor * resources.

Without either, there's no wealth. There can be gold in the ground and apples in the trees - if no-one puts in any effort to retrieve those, then no-one has gold nor apples.

There's a finite amount of resources and a finite amount of labor. So there's a finite amount of wealth.

The way it works out is that "laborers" put in most of the effort to retrieve the gold and the apples - and the CEO's get by far most of the wealth that the resources and the labor involved in retrieving it represents. It even goes so far that the wealthy claim the resources as their property. Just imagine what happens when i start drilling in Exxon's oil fields...

[BigYawn]

76. Finite resources, finite labor, but INFINITE ingenuity which can only

come to surface when there are substantial rewards for being
ingenuous. 100 years ago someone said everything that had to be
invented has already been invented. How wrong was that??

Personally I believe 90% of discoveries to make human life easier
and richer lie ahead of us.

[rman]

96. no amount of ingenuity can compensate for lack of resources and labor

"lack of" as in "finite"

You can be clever as hell - if you don't do anything (no labor), if there nothing to do something with (resources), then your cleverness yields no wealth.

[rman]

62. Actually your point is a bit of a straw man,

since my point is not that "someone is stopping us from getting rich" nor that there's "a law that forbids us to start a new business and become rich CEOs".

As i explained in my previous post, there are other factors at work.

[unpossibles]

30. on paper that sounds great

but how hard did Dubya work? he makes a decent wage. How hard has Cheney worked?

There are exceptions on both sides - people who have embodied the American Ideal, and those that either got lucky in their birth (Bush) or cheated the system (Cheney). I would wager that more are born into the über-rich class than struggle to get there through hard work.

I do think opportunity to make more is a good incentive, but it's not the only one. And the punishment for not being lucky (not all poor people are lazy; in fact in most jobs I've had, the lower your wage, the harder your job was) should not be starvation.

[lostinacause]

18. "It is time for some action that lifts people up, not hold(s) them down."

It is interesting that you say such a thing. Most of what you suggest is to hold the wealth of a certain group of people down. If it involved a significant wealth transfer then this would not be so bad, however economics is not a zero sum game. When you put in place programs such as the one you mentioned you will find that much of the wealth will be destroyed through perverse incentives. You will find that capping CEO pay will reduce the incentive for a top CEO to increase the profits through efficient means (principle- agent theory) and it could result in certain instance is net societal losses. There are also a number of legal ways to get around high estate taxes again creating perverse incentives. Raising taxes on corporations is also not necessarily the way create more wealth for the average citizen as it would result in less jobs being available counteracting some of the gains in tax revenue.

Overt controls such as this are seldom the most effective manner to pursue economic goals (equality) because they have an tendency to create unintended incentives.

[unpossibles]

32. I would agree but there are so many examples of a CEO

or other officer essentially being rewarded for failure or breaking the law, that this is not necessarily true.

I know Ken Lay finally got his, bu how many more do we not hear about that get away with it?

[lostinacause]

35. Wouldn't the simple solution to just enforce the existing laws better?

Perhaps increasing enforcement may help too.

[unpossibles]

46. I agree

I personally dislike the idea of a 'maximum wage' or an artificial ceiling, but I just don't understand how someone justifies screwing people over for more money when they already are wealthy. I do like the idea of a company having its workers make a percentage of what the CEO makes, of tying it together somehow, although obviously this should vary by field also.

I honestly don't have an answer, other than to say that the "self-made" people are never completely so - no one exists in a vacuum, and are only as strong or weak as ALL of our citizens. The gap between management and worker has increased dramatically under the horrid 'trickle down' BS economic model and it's time to rethink it.

[grasswire]

19. I had a wacky idea a few years back...

....and then I saw basically the same idea recommended by some high-tone university study group, so I figured it must have had some merit.

I thought it would be a good idea for the government to establish a grant in the form of a line of credit for each citizen upon their completion of high school. Forty thousand dollars, perhaps. The money could be used for education, to start up a business, to invest, buy a home -- whatever would give the person a start in his/her particular talent or interest or a leg up. A grub stake for one's life.

The money could be repaid to the account in good times and then re-drawn when necessary or desired.

And no other money or tax break would be available, ever. No government loans, no credits, no corporate welfare, no deductions, no nothing.

Of course, this would do away with the usury industry and several government agencies. But think what a wonderful benefit it would bring to the millions of people who never, ever are able to get a solid start in adult life for lack of resources. I believe productivity would soar, and the quality of people's lives would improve in marvelous ways. And I think it would be cheaper than the system we have now, where the government spents billions just denying help to its "lesser" citizens.

[Stinky The Clown]

20. Ony one small problem .......

...... even with this (and I think its got merit) we would still have some for whom that money would not do it. And once its gone, then what? Do we just abandon them? I know you couldn't. Neither could I

[grasswire]

34. I understand what you're saying.....

....but I kind of hoped that people would revert to the old traditional paths of family responsibility and community charity. I am in extreme opposition to the institutionalization of charity as it came to be under Calvinism and the church and then the government. The protestant church in England decided that it had to determine which poor folks were DESERVING or not of charity before helping them, and now we spend more money trying to keep the UNDESERVING from getting aid than the actual amount of aid dispensed.

If charity and public assistance were deinstitutionalized, billions more dollars would be freed up in administrative costs. Taxpayers would have that money in their pockets. Perhaps neighbors could look out for neighbors again. Perhaps the poor wouldn't be demonized and dehumanized and scapegoated.

Impossible? Probably. :::sigh:::

[rman]

23. I think an argument can be made for the grant to be a gift of sorts;

If you consider it to be an investment in society, an investment in the economy - an investment that will repay itself as value added to the economy in the form of a business of some kind, or services provided to society...
If the grant already repays itself thusly, then why also have the individual repay the grant to society in the form of money? That's like both having your cake and eat it.

[grasswire]

33. my intention was...

...that the beneficiary could pay it back up and then borrow again when needed. But, of course, the person might be better off investing in something that was interest bearing rather than back into this credit line. Another thing to consider would be whether or not the amount remaining in the account would be considered the property of the estate at the time of death, or revert to the government.

It's fun to think about this kind of totally different policy and what it might do for Americans.

[rman]

42. yes it's fun to try and think outside the box

I also think taxes aren't really necessary.

It all starts with money printed by the state (the federation), in sufficient amounts to cover the value of goods and services being traded in the economy.
That money is used to pay salaries, then part of it goes back to the govt to fund all kinds of public services. I say it's more efficient to just not hand out the money which is going to come back to begin with.
Money spend on the common good, ie road maintenance etc, now obtained indirectly in the form of taxes, also is created by the state to begin with. I say just print it and use it to finance public programs.
Of course this system should include regulations on minimum and maximum wage, and it requires monitoring of the economy, which is now done by a private entity: the Federal Reserve. If the Fed = the state, then why is the state paying interest to itself? That'd be just absurd. The fact the the state pays interest to the Fed implies the Fed is not the state, is not a government entity. First priority should be to regain control over the issuing of our own currency as it was in the colonial era, when the currency was the "colonial scrip".

[unpossibles]

31. very neat idea.

it still rewards those who use the money in a smart manner and/or work hard.

[phioth]

21. my 2 cents

I don't think capping salaries is as needed as capping the
amount of wealth an individual can control. What if there was
a system in place where once your individual wealth reached
$50 million your ability to save/hoard ended.  You could keep
earning, but every dollar over $50 million had to be used in a
manner that didn't increase your personal wealth.  (spend it
away, give it away)  The point here is the keep the money
flowing.

[lostinacause]

24. Money flows regardless. Most of the wealthy store their money in some

form of investment vehicle. The increased investment benefits the economy, and presumably the little guy, more the prodigal spending does.

[phioth]

44. Agreed. Money does flow regardless.

But the point of the investment vehicle is to return more wealth to the investor. I'm not sure how the investors "loan" to society, allows for money to flow more than the "prodigal spending" would.

[lostinacause]

45. Investment goes into capital. Capital increases the productivity of labour

thereby increasing the wage rate. Forcing people to spend money that they would otherwise put to other uses also reduces the standard of living that the people under that regulation have. While you can argue (and to some extent I agree) that their standard of living is not that important since they have a great deal of wealth, there is no reason to make them worse off when nothing is gained for others.

If the incomes of the wealthy match the business cycle it could also lead to a less stable outcome as consumption would significantly fall in the contrary portion of the business cycle.

[phioth]

59. Again, I'm not disagreeing with you. This is indeed the way it is

meant to function. This string was discussing a minimum standard of living and a means to fund it. I am in no way attempting to debunk our current economic system. It works the way its intended to work. However, it cannot guarantee what many Americans would call an acceptable standard of living. In fact, it guarantees that many Americans must live in sub standard conditions.

[WestSeattle2]

36. At the risk of sounding snotty.....

I think a few people on this board need to revisit their macroeconomics textbooks.

[Stinky The Clown]

37. At the risk of sounding shitty .....

Some people see the big picture and leave details to others.

Some people love details and get lost in them.

This was a big picture idea thread, not a detail thread.

[WestSeattle2]

38. Removing financial incentives is not a "small detail"

[lostinacause]

47. It is not a big picture thread since you expressed detail. Namely the

policies that you believe should be implemented. These are not economically beneficial because they destroy too much wealth with insufficient (perhaps negative) gains in the absolute standard of living of those who are not CEOs.

[Looper]

39. Ummm...

Yeah, lets just pretend the laws of economics don't exist. Maybe you can just print more money and hand it out on the street corner - that would work, right?

[gordontron]

43. YAY Communism

:rollseyes:

but still some reform is good,

[iconoclastNYC]

54. Baby steps?

You make good points.

[espera17]

55. why dont u go join the communist party

do you actually think americans support those extreme actions?

[espera17]

56. no one gets something for nothing

we should be encouraging people to be self-sufficient and not rely on government handouts.

[Stinky The Clown]

57. The bootstrap claptrap?

Get real. How does an impoverish kid with NO money and no one watching out for her get *anything*. You Republicans are all alike.

[Hippo_Tron]

58. I'll agree with you about healthcare and housing

I don't know how you define a minimum level of employment exactly and if people make a decent wage they should be able to afford decent food, so I don't think that needs to be defined. And you would be surprised how much of this we could pay for without raising taxes one dime and just cutting military expenditures that we don't need. Of course I do think that we do need to raise taxes on the wealthy and close loopholes so that corporations actually have to pay taxes.

Personally I think that this is the way that we should have really gone about reforming welfare. One of the major flaws with welfare reform (besides the part that screws over single mothers and women in abusive marriages) is that people without skills can't get a job that makes ends meet. If it were easy to get a job that does make ends meet, then I would be less sympathetic toward some of the people who use welfare. If everybody could get a job that provided a decent standard of living, then we could reserve welfare for people who genuinely can't work or work full time for a good reason (like having to take care of several young children).

[1932]

60. Fuck you. All those political problems you listed require political solu-

tions that the political system won't address unless people at the bottom get more political power. And the best way to give people at the bottom more political power is to give them more economic power and the minimum wage is one of the most effective and straightforward means we have to get people at the bottom more economic power.

[Stinky The Clown]

65. Fuck you right back. Do you even have a fucking clue what my point was?

The minimum wage doesn't go **far enough** for those very people at the bottom.

[1932]

68. Why say fuck the best first step we have available?

[Stinky The Clown]

70. I can't belive you, of all people, would stand up for a $5.15 slave wage

The whole point I was trying to make was that minimum wage is a sorry way to set a minimum standard for people in ths country. Instead, I espouse a more comprehensive minimum standard of living. It would cover some minimum income that could be in a number of forms ...... nutrition, education, health care, hell, day care, even. It could be supplied in kind or by fiat or some combination.

***Just*** as an example ...... let's take Frieda. She has two kids and no husband. One kid is 2 and the other is 4. Frieda is a trained .... let's see .... inhalation therapist. She can earn above the $5.15, but after paying day care, she's below that in effective income. In her case, she'd get the day care subsidized or paid outright until her situation changes.

..... or George. He's an auto tech. He can work in a commission delarship and make $35,000. No minimum wage issue for him either. But his wife is an invalid and he has to stay home to care for her. He has a choice. He can get rent subsidies and still work enough at a minimum wage to pay for food. Or he could choose to work full time and allow his wife's care to be fully covered in her own right.

Options. That's what I'm thinking about. Enough programs so NO ONE has to try to get by on a paltry, indefensible, politically charged minimum wage that gets batted around like a political football. Roll it all into a comprehensive social safety net for **everyone**.

[1932]

72. Who said stop at $5.15? And, uh, if you want to lift up the people on the

bottom, then lift up the people on the bottom.

And if you're saying that we should give people a lot of social services but not give them fair wages, then I think that's kind of strange.

Sure, give people great services, like health care and education and all those other things that help society function.

But also give them a fair share of the wealth their labor produces.

And to return to my original point: all those great services you want, who's going to vote for them? They're political solutions to political problems, and the people who would support them have no political power because they have no economic power. The people who would oppose them have all the economic power, and they have it largely because the people who labor to make them rich don't get fair value for the wealth their labor creates.

So, back to minimum wage: the more economic power you can get to people who would support sane political policy, the more likely we will have sane political policy. By some stroke of immense good fortune, our society seems to think that the minimum wage is good policy -- perhaps because so many of us have, at some point, worked for minimum wage and knew that we weren't getting paid in proportion to our efforts, and we knew that if we had gotten more, we could have used that to leverage a better future (rathter than go into the kind of debt that has made credit card company executives immensely wealthy). So lets use the tools fortune has given us to create a just society. Don't you think?

[phioth]

75. whew!!! that really hits at the root of the problem!!!!

"And to return to my original point: all those great services you want, who's going to vote for them? They're political solutions to political problems, and the people who would support them have no political power because they have no economic power. The people who would oppose them have all the economic power, and they have it largely because the people who labor to make them rich don't get fair value for the wealth their labor creates."


I have yet to figure out why there hasn't been a massive display of civil disobedience by the poor/working poor. (I’m guessing because many who belong to this group may not realize they are in this group)

Day after day they witness themselves and others go without life necessities and at the same time witness others hoard and waste resources. Yet they still elect politicians that continue to promote policies that support the patricians among us.

I may be way out of line with this next statement, but.....


When the problem is slavery, giving slaves fine clothing, Parisian food, and a week of vacation would be an improvement, but its still slavery.

And I'm quite sure they had well thought out economical reason as to why that system was needed and how it too would throw everything into upheaval if challenged. Just think of all the wealth that got redistributed during and after the civil war. The loss of wealth in slaves alone would have been an incredible sum. Oddly enough, the American economy moved on.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

77. We already pay it...

Single mom with two kids, working an $8 per hour job. That's $16K per year.

Mom is going to receive $5K in Earned Income Credit, about $1,600 in Additional Child Tax Credit (bear in mind that she has no federal income tax liability), in addition to $3-4K in state/local benefits (like health care), depending on where she lives.

Call it $9,000 in supplemental income, all paid by you and me. Based on a 2,000 hour work-year, that comes to $4.50 per hour being subsidized by the American taxpayer. So if we raised her actual wage to $12.50/hour she could earn a living off a single paycheck. The billions in tax dollars spent on her supplemental income could go toward lowering the payroll taxes of those businesses that are now paying (a lot) more for her labor.

[Stinky The Clown]

78. Do you really think lowering a tax on the employer

will find its way down to the employee?

Really?

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

79. Not meant to...

An extra $4/hr could be crippling to small businesses. Lowering payroll taxes keeps the employer (or the customer) from having to absorb too much of the increase. The way to keep a Living Wage from being inflationary is to lower taxes proportionate to the federal programs (or tax refunds) that would be eliminated.

[Stinky The Clown]

80. The way to ensure a minimum standard of living for *every* citizen ......

..... is to slice and dice the entire damned system. The 'system' is loaded in favor of big business. They strap small business with enough of 'the rulez' to make it seem like big business breaks will benefit the little guy and little buisness, too. It simply isn't so. Big business gets all the serious breaks while they 'cry' about the small issues they share with the little guys.

The whole damned thing is broken. The cure is not to tweak this policy or that (like the minimum wage). The cure is to reinvent the whole damned thing.

[1932]

82. OK. So what's the first step in the paradigm shift? You think the people

who want to raise the minimum wage want to stop there?

Psst. They want the paradigm shift too and they see this as the first step.

[Stinky The Clown]

83. Well, if you agree with me ... and you seem to ....

... why did you find it necessaary to start off argumentatively with a rousing round of the 'fuck you' song?

If we share the same goal, then all we might disagree about is tactics .... and as long as the goal is the same, I'm always happy to talk tactics. My way is but one way ... not *the* way .... and I like to listen to other ideas.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

91. Nice pose...

Care to explain the definition and ramification of "slice and dice the system" on, oh, let's start with something easy like the international currency exchange. After that, you can break the news to my retired mother, who has invested her life savings in mutual funds, that her nest egg is now worthless because somebody changes "the rulez" and didn't bother to tell her about it.

[1932]

81. I don't have a problem with society subsidizing the wages of low-income

Americans because the costs of having many people living in misery is much higher than the cost of society providing those services. HOWEVER, I DO HAVE A PROBLEM with taxes paid largely by middle-income Americans paying for those services when it is wealthy corporations that benefit so much from people willing to work low wages.

So there are two problems that need to be remedied: (1) corporations making so much money from huge polarization of wealth need to carry more of the tax burden required to address the consequences of polarization of wealth, and (2) we really need to raise the minum wage so that workers participate more fairly in the wealth they create in the private sector.

[Stinky The Clown]

84. Congrats ... you hit the major issue right on the head ......

Big corporations get the lion's share of our 'welfare' dollars.

And that's where I want to start. I'm not at all opposed to rasing the minimum wage, but for far, far too long, that's *all* we've done. And even when we do it, we're a day late and *ten* dollars short.

I say we refocus our efforts and actually *make* this a class war. Attack every rich person/entity's tax avoidance while calling for tax *cuts* for the top of the 'average citizen' group and on down. (We can argue where that line is another time - this is about concept, not detail.)

Imagine, just for a moment ..... no tax for anyone earning less than ... pick a number .... $50K. Now slowly apply taxes to some top 'middle class' rate of .... I dunno .... 30% on $150K. Then raise the rate steeply to ..... pick another number ..... $300K. After that, make the tax rate draconian.

Same concept with companies. For the small corporation that consists of a husband and wife who operate two hot dog carts, no tax at all until the company profits equal the lowest taxable income for individuals. Keep that concept going on up to where the profit is the same as the top middle class individual income limit (in my example, $150K), because those profit levels are essentially the personal income of the business owner.

From there on up, we structure the taxes with high tax and good tax breaks in a way that encourages good corporate citizenship. A way that corporations can avoid a lot of tax by doing what we're encouraging them to do. It is obviously a thousand times more complex than that, but that's the basic concept.

And levy draconian taxes on the profits earned by offshore labor. That could encourage the return of jobs. And if they bring jobs back, give a tax break for that. The carrot and stick again.

For rich individuals, raise the taxes. There was another thread of mine (maybe two) that talked about the estate tax. There was another thread of mine talking about what 'rich' is.

And I really want to see some limit on top exec pay. Some have suggetsed indexing it to the average company wage rate. Or some multiple of the company's lowest wage rate. I don't so much care about the formula as I do the fact. NO exec 'needs' a **half billion-with-a-B** golden parachute like Exxon gave its just-retired CEO.

In short, structure the tax code - and the system - to encourage the sharing of wealth rather than the hoarding of wealth.

And my 'minimum standard of living' could be the standard by which the national success at ths would be measured.

[1932]

89. And to elect politicians who will do any of that is going to require a

shift in political power to people who work for a living, and the best way to even begin to move in that direction is to work with a tool that society has already accepted which can shift economic power to working people...and that is the minimum wage.

And that's why you don't want to "fuck" the minimum wage.

[BigYawn]

85. what you are advocating has already been tried in European countries

and the results are 10-12% UNemployment, stagnant economies,
and hard time competing with the Japanese and Chinese.

[Stinky The Clown]

86. Oh those damned Europeans ... with their damned social safety net

and their damned populist societies and their damned way of life and their damned mature cultures.

Damn those Europeans.

[BigYawn]

87. I hate travelling in Europe, with high taxes on Meals, gasoline, hotels,

and everything in shops. The average Euorpean can hardly afford to eat
in restaurants, has to limit clothes purchases to a minimum, has to drive
toy sized cars. If you like that lifestyle, feel free to emigrate there.
You might enjoy their culture enough to make it worthwhile.

[Stinky The Clown]

88. How many times have you been to Europe?

When were you there?

Where did you go?

[BigYawn]

93. Only 3 times...but I only won't go northern Europe, love Greece & Turkey

I was married to a Swedish lady so ofcourse I always stopped there.
Sweden is the cleanest, most modern country I have ever visited. But
everything is expensive as heck to buy, like twice as much as in Chicago.
Other places I have visited include London, Paris, Rome, Nice,
Athens. I have a turkish friend and my next vacation will certainly
include Turkey. I heard it is pretty secular as muslim countries go.
Costwise it is the best bargain in Europe.

Paris is beautiful at night but dirty in day hours. I also had trouble
with language as no one wants to speak English. In London I was impressed
with the underground. You can go to any part of town quickly and cheaply.
But it has few unique streets. I felt like I was in my native Chicago,
except the cars were on the wrong side of street.

I have made several visits to the Caribbean and Mexican Riviera since
going on cruises is my favorite vacation.

[1932]

90. Europe is not in crisis. Nordic countries, especially, have very high

levels of contentment and happiness.

[BigYawn]

94. Yeah I know, I was married to a native Swede for 23 years....n/t