So, they’ve managed to clone ole Rush.
Peace,
mangeorge
Nice stats, Freedom. You don’t mention whether or not the cars, dishwashers, VCR’s and stereos were bought brand-new, though.
My car is used, as is my TV, VCR and my dishwasher. Don’t have a stereo. My one-room air conditioner cost me about $100. I don’t own my home, yet.
Most of the poor in the city where I live also live as I do. We make do with what we are given, or can get for cheap. My last TV (I personally own only one) came from the pawn shop.
I have two luxuries: cable TV, and this computer. The computer was also a gift, in a way. I bought it with money that we got from an inheritance.
And so what if a “poor” person owns their own home? Could be that the home was small, crappy, and dirt cheap, like most of the homes here.
Changing my sig, because Wally said to, and I really like Wally, and I’ll do anything he says, anytime he says to.
Christi,
My point is, new or not, you are not poor.
You are not poor.
You are not poor.
You are not poor.
(now turn around and click your heels together 3 times and you will understand)
If you want something better, then go earn it. There is no better place to have the opportunity to provide for yourself.
Oh, yeah, I’m widja here.
And if those business owners won’t come off the hip, let’s burn down their houses and eat their children.
Pah! Let’s just do without working. Let’s all just stay home and let the government pay all our bills and feed us. Or better yet, let’s just make the rich people work, and let’s take all their money. Okay, so they won’t be rich after that, but you know what Janus Joplin said, “Get it while you can.”
Does raising the minimum wage really cause inflation, or does the resulting increase in unemployment offset the higher wage structure sufficiently to nullify any would-be inflationary effects? And are there any stats on either claim to back it up?
Freedom:
I am not destitute. What I am is poor.
I can make it paycheck to paycheck. But that’s it. I am not on any kind of government assistance–unless you count the fact that I am a municipal employee “government assistance.”
Not everyone gets stuff handed to them on a silver platter. My parents did not send me to college. They wanted it to be my decision. I chose not to saddle anyone with any debt.
I have a good job, through luck and skill. I have health insurance. I am a wage-earner and a taxpayer. I simply don’t earn enough to have a lot of brand-new, luxury, top-dollar stuff.
Just because I’m not on the dole doesn’t mean I’m rich. Just because I don’t live in a cardboard box doesn’t mean I’m not poor.
I have every intention of doing great things someday. I’m just not doing them now. I see no real need to “better myself.” I’m fine the way I am. I just don’t have much money. But money is not the be all and end all of existence. My children will learn the value of a dollar, and the satisfaction of hard work. If they choose college, I will help them in any way I can. They will learn how to take care of themselves.
I clicked my heels together a long flippin’ time ago, pal. That’s why I am better off now than I was 10 years ago. This country is a great one, full of opportunities, indeed. But if those opportunities existed for everyone, then there would be no poor, hungry, or homeless in this country.
Changing my sig, because Wally said to, and I really like Wally, and I’ll do anything he says, anytime he says to.
Weeeeellll … I don’t know about the “no homeless” part. There would be fewer homeless, sure, but some of those homeless folk are there because … well … they wanna be homeless. (Hint: Many of those guys who carry cardboard signs saying “Will work for food” will not, in fact, work for food.)
The thing is that minimum wage jobs are typically entry-level jobs, often held by people new in the workforce (teenagers, minorities, second income workers). Very few people making minimum wage are still making it five years down the road.
So minimum wage laws often act as barriers to entry in the workforce. Raise the minimum wage, and it becomes harder for students and young adults to find their first job. It becomes harder for new immigrants to find work, etc. The net result is that many of these people wind up on social assistance, where they are unable to gain the skills required to get higher-paying jobs. So you wind up with a permanent underclass. All in the name of ‘kindness’.
This is a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences. So many government mandated programs wind up having exactly the opposite effect of what was intended. When gasoline shortages came along, Nixon’s (or Ford’s?) response was to allow people to gas up only on even or odd days. The net result? People got scared, and bought even more gasoline. There were lineups of cars blocks long at gas stations. The law of unintended consequences.
Minimum wage is $5.15 per hour. A single person with no kids could barely support him/her self on that. I don’t think raising mimimum wage is the answer. I think making college and/or vocational training more affordable would be more productive. Instead of just telling employers to give their workers more money, we need to help people acquire the skill that would make them more valuable employees who could command a higher wage.
The trouble with Sir Launcelot is by the time he comes riding up, you’ve already married King Arthur.
And how do you propose to do that? Will you be supplying the subsidy? Or do you propose reducing the salaries of teachers?
We do? Is this something you yourself are doing?
Guys, I think you misunderstood me–I wasn’t trying to suggest that a roommate was an undue hardship–the SO and I share a place with his little brother even though most couples I know feel that introducing a third person to the lovenest is a serious inconvience, which it can be, but that is how we paid for the spanky computer I am typing this on. I do not think that roomates are an undue hardship, but some people do–I was trying find out where each of you drew the line: Before we can decide on a living wage we have to agree on what is living. What are the basics? In my part of the country (the South) a single person workng minumum wage can support themselves provided that they a) Don’t smoke b) don’t drink c) don’t have cable d) don’t mind walking and e) find one or more roommates to share a cheap apartment in a less than sterling neighborhood with. But I know many, many people who do not consider that living–they feel that to survive they must have such luxuries as furniture, air conditioning, and the occasional night at the movies and a six pack. What is the standard of living you envison when you say “living wage”? It is a question I grapple with alot myself, and which I would like to hear other people’s opinions on.
Ah, back to the nineteenth century! Back to 14 hours days, children working for pennies, and those filthy Catholics filling up the poor quarter.
Also, back to the exact conditions that created labour politics in the first place, and eventually led to the regulated employment climate to which you seem to object.
Why wouldn’t history repeat itself?
Never attribute to an -ism anything more easily explained by common, human stupidity.
It has.
Now, African-Americans, American Indians, and other disenfranchised people fill up the poor quarter. Entrepreneurs work 14 hour days, feeding forms in triplicate to an insatiable bureaucracy. Mothers work for pennies to afford to drop their children at day care.
But at least we got regulations.
Half-true, Libertarian, Unless you’re prepared to argue that the quality of life of the average citizen of the first world hasn’t measurably improved since the nineteenth century. Are you?
Yes, there’s still an underclass (more accurately, many overlapping underclasses, if we want to acknowledge identity politics), and labour regulations haven’t erased that. But there are more problems in the underclass than labour regulations can fix, and you can’t point to the failure of labour regulations to address crack epidemics, rampant alcoholism and high crime rates as proof of their overall failure.
By the way, where are women working for pennies to send their kids to daycare? 14 hour days are far more typical of white collar jobs than of blue collar jobs, where the person is at least compensated for it.
Never attribute to an -ism anything more easily explained by common, human stupidity.
Let me reply another way: labour regulations have adequately addressed a certain set of problems among the poor, and they’re better off for it. The poor have other problems, but those wouldn’t be fixed by removing labour regulations, and they would probably be measurably worse off for doing so.
Never attribute to an -ism anything more easily explained by common, human stupidity.
Manda Jo
Yes, what is a living? Good point.
I would think you have a living when you reach the point in your life where you a confidant enough that you can survive on your own without having to worry about basic food and shelter for the short term.
This does not mean having a car if in your community there is public transportaion available from your home to your workplace. Beer and cigirettes are vices not necessities.
When you stop living in unreasonable fear you can start having a life (maybe not a great one but a life).
Around here, if you aren’t making about 10-12/hr you probably don’t have much of a life, you are struggling (living with parents,roomates,on public assistance of some sort). But that’s ok, some can get by on less and thier is no need to set the minimum wage at this hypothetical living wage level.
Business should realize also that they don’t have a right to be in business no more (or less) than people have a right to a living wage.
They need each other, business deserve a fair profit (is that loaded) and employees deserve a fair wage. Can’t we all just get along.
watch what you say
or they’ll be calling
you a radical,
a liberal,fanatical
a criminal…
Why do the socialists find nobility only in wealth?
Hey Lib, I need to ask you something. But you can answer it right here. I don’t know what this means;
“Why do the socialists find nobility only in wealth?”
Is it a quote? I can’t find it. Thanks.
Peace,
mangeorge
Really, when did this become a message board.
Modarator?