Today’s “Candorville” is kinda on-topic here… (Oct. 9th)
Then I guess you expect Pelosi’s response will be to play word games.
Again, simply calling it something else doesn’t change anything.
I imagine a lot of boat people and Cambodians might disagree that things could not be any worse if the Democrats in Congress had actually done what they promised to do for South Viet Nam.
2sense knows what I am talking about -
Withdraw the military. Then, when full-scale war breaks out, further efforts at humanitarian aid can be abandoned, and the resultant debacle can be blamed on Bush.
Rather hard on the Iraqis and Afghanis, but at least you can get Bush.
Regards,
Shodan
Alternatively, keep the military in Iraq; then when full-scale war breaks out, the resultant debacle (including more US military deaths) can be blamed on Bush.
Neither alternative sounds very appealing, but unfortunately, that’s the mess Bush got us into.
So the Republicans calling those tax cuts “temporary” when they had no intention of letting them roll back wasn’t a word game?
OK, then Bush didn’t increase the deficit - he just rolled back a temporary reduction in it.
When the Republicans took over Congress, they actually did something. You seem to be saying the Dems won’t do anything - except blame everything on Bush.
Pelosi actually did something worthwhile. Since then, every Dem on the SDMB seems to be trying to convince me that she didn’t really mean anything by it.
Regards,
Shodan
Chill with the hyperbole.
Daniel
Chill with the junior modding.
Regards,
Shodan
:rolleyes: That’s just stupid. I wasn’t giving you a mod warning, I was suggesting that your arguments are weakened by obviously false hyperbole. But if you’d prefer not to acknowledge any wrongdoing, well, that’s your monkey.
Daniel
The debacle has already resulted so blaming Bush is perfectly legitimate. It would have been a risky venture even if Bush hadn’t ignored the military maxim named for his own Secretary of State. Since he hasn’t left any good options for his successor it doesn’t make a lot of sense to blame his opponents for supporting a bad option.
Also, a full-scale war doesn’t completely preclude carrying out humanitarian efforts. Of course, it’s easier if you aren’t one of the belligerents. If our military withdraws but our relief effort does not then America wouldn’t have “cut and run”. We would still be there.
Just my 2sense
Actually I think that raising the minimum wage will have a more positive effect in the long run than it seems to at first glance. First of all, it immediately increases demand. Supply side economics is basically rich-man-talking-bullshit in terms of any long term effect it has. You get a boost for a year or two and then the rich simply get richer. It mostly creates some specialized effects that have little effect on the overall economy.
Capitalism, more than any other economic system, is demand driven. And keep in mind, while the number of people that earn mimimum wage is not huge, to raise it in the neighborhood of 25% above what it is is going to push up at least a couple additional tiers of wages as well. If you’re earning $7.00 per hour, and the new guy earning $5.50 per hour has his wage raised 25 cents more than you’re making now, you are going to expect and likely receive some compensation as well.
Fears about prices rising as a result of the increased cost in wages is overblown if you look at both sides of the equation. A cheap-ass paying minimum wage or thereabouts is not going to expect to raise his prices by a quarter and have customers simply accept it. It could kill your customer base. So you cut out waste and get more efficiency out of your business, do away with the pizza on Fridays for the office folk, the owner takes less money home, phase price increases in, cut the profit margin a bit and so forth. You might even let go of some workers that are deadwood, but if you go too far your productivity is going to go down, thus unemployment isn’t going to spike greatly.
On the other side of the equation however, that first Friday the increase kicks in, tens of millions of people start spending more. Especially if they’re making 10%, 15% more, 20% more. They’ll celebrate and start buying things they’ve been putting off, maybe go out to dinner or take in a movie once in a while that they couldn’t before. They start paying down debts on credit, creating liquidity for themselves while institutions loaning them money recoup sooner than expected. They start saving more which aids in deferred spending that purchases larger ticket items overtime than they might not buy or would buy on credit. Or protects them from financial hiccups.
Oh yeah, that business owner who is paying those people? They’ll start seeing an increase in sales as people start purchasing more as this kick-start to the economy bolsters consumer confidence overall with this increase at the bottom boosting demand. Increased volume means they can cut back on some of those planned phased in price increases. In fact this will create more competition over time ultimately bringing prices down overall as a hot market tends to drive prices down through competition.
Its not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do.
I’m not going to rebutt this point-by-point, rather, I’m going to offer a differing view that may make the point more clearly
.
In the long-term, a minimum wage decreases the actual wage value by artificially producing forced inflation. If it costs more to create or deliver a product, the price of that product MUST increase to cover the increased production and/or delivery costs. No company selling a product, from McBurgers to Mc747’s, can magically absorb the increased costs. To put it simply, since costs MUST be absorbed, prices MUST rise accordingly, thus decreasing the purchasing power of the consumer.
As a hyperbolic example:
A person earning $11,000/yr (approx. full-time employment at $5.25/hr) is suddenly granted, by government decree, a salary of $50,000/yr. His skillsets have not changed - he is still only capable of making McMilkshakes and McFrenchfries. Since this wage is MANDATORY, the McHamburger joint has to increase prices, or go out of business. At this point, any person that had been earning $50,000/yr prior to the wage increase no longer has the buying power he once had. He can now only afford the McHamburger, and not the 30-oz T-bone steak - or to take his family to dinner, etc., because prices have risen across the board to the point that $50,000/yr. is only equivalent to minimum wage.
In fairness, this is hyperbolic, but was necessary to make the point. When minimum wage is increased, total value is decreased - this is the very definition of inflation, and thus minimum wage increases artificially introduce an inflationary cycle. Yes, the economy absobs the odd $1 or $2 “wage adjustment,” but it does so at a cost.
That cost, however, is disproportionately born by the people earning more than minimum wage. If inflation knocks everything up by 2% in price, the fellow whose income just went up by 25% is getting a helluva deal.
Daniel
I don’t think one could argue that minimum wages are not inflationary. However, there are a number of people that for whatever reason (lack of skills, lack of bargaining power, scarcity of jobs) simply cannot compete in the market for jobs paying more than the minimum wage. The only way for these people to get a raise and at least attempt to keep up with inflation is for the minimum wage to increase. For the business and for the consumer, that’s just part of the price of operating in a civilized society. Sure, they probably could hire more people at a lower rate. But do we want the US to turn into China and India?
But I thought one of the Democrats’ complaints of 2004 was that the US was turning to China and India for too much of what should be “its” natural workforce. Is the complaint that we don’t pay our low income earners enough, and therefore treat them like Chinese and Indian peasants, or that Chinese and Indian peasants work for too little and therefore are stealing our manufacturing and customer service jobs?
I’d say it’s both. We should pay our low wage earners better than peasants, and tax imports to make up the difference between a living wage and a peasant wage. If the Chinese want to pay someone $5 a day to make textiles, fine, but tax their exports to us so that the competition is fair. We can’t continue this race to the lowest wage.
While I understand the point you’re making, at real levels it’s not that much inflation, and as I argue, it’s not going to all hit at once. It will be expected and compensated for somewhat by the Fed and the Treasury even before the wage increases happen. Also note my first point about employers facing a known expense increase - that in the face of price increases employers will start to be cautious about wasting money and making sure their business gains some efficiency. There will be some offset in the reduction of product value when business in general start running a tighter ship. And again starting to do so ahead of time as this price increase will not be a surprise sprung on them by the market just out of the blue.
Moreover, raising wages, as compared to other price increases, produces value as it is an investment in workers. First of all, if workers feel like they’re getting a fairer deal, they are willing to work harder, they’re happier, and productivity starts to go up. I’ve had a recent large increase in my salary and I certainly step up to the plate with more enthusiasm. And as more is expected from that extra money, people are more likely and willing to take on greater responsibilities at work. This also will increase value somewhat. That’s especially true for workers a tier or two above the minimum wage earners as their wages go up as a result since they may already be leads or in some position of management.
It’s an important psychological effect that must be factored into productivity.
And again, you’re going to get an increase in volume of goods sold; the more people can spend the more dollars that flow into the coffers of industry offsetting some of the price increases as more demand for their products is generated. If McDonalds starts selling 10% more hamburgers because millions are making $1 or $2 dollars more, they can negotiate with suppliers for cheaper prices. They make a bit more profit, which can be re-invested. Their stock goes up. With a more vigorous market place having more dollars flowing daily increasing demand more people will be willing to jump into the market themselves. Then someone will come up with a comparable product or service that costs less with greater value to the consumer.
Capitalism is driven mostly by the demand side. And when the competition increases, prices are driven down after a time by more choices and greater values. And that initial inflation from wage increases disappears. Otherwise we’d be an incredibly poor nation by now as we still pay some of the highest wages in the world. Just not to everyone in our country.
Plus don’t ignore that, particularly in the tiers just above the minimum wage earners, people will start to have the means to begin paying down their debts more aggressively. This provides value to the consumer as monthly household debt payments come down or go away, and provides value to lenders as they recoup their investments with interest sooner thus freeing up capital. Again, driving down inflation.
Now, if we can simply take business out of the loop once and for all for being responsible for an employees health care, so that they can spend more money on business rather than buying insurance…
It is the number one issue that is going to get her the speaker’s seat, anything she says can only screw it up. Besides, she doesn’t exactly get a say in military affairs unless she wants to cut off spending to the troops unless both the President and Vice President die in office.
This disparity has existed at least as long as there has been international commerce. All our labor intensive low tech industries have been dying a slow death for decades.
I also think that removing the link between lobbyists and politicians is a necessary step towards providing new models of public funding of races, including the presidency. Arizona and Maine have successful models in place that seem to be working. Other states are trying or moving to this model; I know that California has proposition 89 on this November’s ballot which is based on it. While presidential elections, for instance, do provide public funding of 50 million dollars, it is given as a cap of what they can receive, thus no one uses it. With a 50 million dollar cap in place privately funded candidates can outspend their publicly funded counterparts. Plus they get to that point by winning their party’s nomination through private funding in the first place.
In Arizona and Maine, now a politician has the option to be publicly funded yet can still compete against privately funded candidates. If outspent, they are being provided matching funds in a timely matter. They are given a realistic amount of money to run a campaign to start with, though it is usually a bit less than what’s now being spent. Then, if their privately funded competitor comes up with more than the baseline amount given to them, the publicly funded candidates are given matching funds without raising a finger.
This system works because the privately funded candidate does all the work, spending ever more time raising money to outspend their competition while the publicly funded candidate simply gets the matching funds up to 4 to 6 times the original amount. So people who want to raise money as their right to “free speech” as currently allowed by the Supreme Court can still do so but this removes many of the advantages they once had over people who could not afford so much “free speech”.
And the publicly funded candidate can ask voters why their opponent needs to buy the election? Or why they tie themselves to lobbyists rather than meeting on a level playing field? Thus, so long as the top end of matching funds is dauntingly high, the privately funded candidate faces the prospect of diminishing returns. Most candidates for offices in these states are now publicly funded, and it provides an opportunity for voters to see how candidates can perform with with the same funding on the basis of their political skills.
What’s also different about the new models is that one qualifies from the start in the primaries. They obtain a number of signed petitions each accompanied by a token $5.00 donation that are turned in to state. Then, anyone qualified receives public funding and they are not allowed to use any other funding at all. It allows qualified people who can’t afford to mortgage their home, or don’t have high-powered connections or professional fund raising skills, to run for office. They can also receive matching funding if needed in primary races.
This frees up politicians to spend far more time talking to their potential constituents and research the issues as 70% of a candidate’s time is now spent fundraising. Also, as the funding comes from the public, they walk away from lobbyist donations and lobbyists play their proper role at educating legislators on issues. Ultimately, the legislation of states using this model also look a lot more like their populations with more women, minorities, and native Americans in office. And as more candidates are publicly funded, the cost of elections goes down, both saving the taxpayer money while making politicians far more responsible to their constituents.
It saddens me how little coverage this is getting, which is at least partly the Democrats’ fault. They ought to have a series of events scheduled to highlight their programs and to keep them in the news for these programs over the next several weeks: at least twice a week, they ought to be unveiling a new piece of legislation that they plan to introduce in their first hundred hours.
Daniel