Discussion: The Economy, Fiscal Cliff, National Debt, And Other Financial Issues III

[enterthemadness]

So, what would a living wage...be? Basically a salary for everybody? Like say....McDonald's would start off new employees with limited exp at 19K a year?

[Handsome Rob]

Originally Posted by enterthemadness

So, what would a living wage...be? Basically a salary for everybody? Like say....McDonald's would start off new employees with limited exp at 19K a year?

The market should determine salaries/wages. If I'm an employer struggling in the economy and want to hire someone to help out for $3/hour, I should be able to. And, if no one will work for so little, then my options are to 1) not hire anyone or 2) raise the hourly wage I'm willing to pay.

If someone will work for $3/hour, why shouldn't they be allowed to? What happened to liberty?

And I'll repost my last post below:

--------------------------------------------------------------------

From the New York Times in 1987. I'm completely surprised that the Gray Hag ever put something out like this in my lifetime:

The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/14/op...ted=all&src=pm

They go on to suggest wage supplements, which is a terrible idea but just up their alley. So, I guess you can't expect them to get everything right.

[enterthemadness]

Hmmm...I probably could get hired under this scenario.


damn you Govt.

[wiegeabo]

Originally Posted by Handsome Rob

The market should determine salaries/wages. If I'm an employer struggling in the economy and want to hire someone to help out for $3/hour, I should be able to. And, if no one will work for so little, then my options are to 1) not hire anyone or 2) raise the hourly wage I'm willing to pay.

If someone will work for $3/hour, why shouldn't they be allowed to? What happened to liberty?

It also reduces costs and prices.

I was reading an article how, from the 50's during the 80's, you could live on minimum wage. Not a fantastic living, but a fair one. Rent cost less than 2 weeks pay the entire time, and got really good during the 70's when the cots of rent and gas dropped way down (compared to the 60's).

I don't think having a higher minimum wage is a solution (we've raised it more in in the last 2 decades than in the previous 4). I think the problem is that we've been systematically reducing competition in the marketplace.

If there's no competition, then there's no pressure for companies to keep prices low because they know they're not going to lose (many) customers. It also means less jobs, and makes it harder for employees to leave companies that treat them badly for better conditions and/or pay.

It also doesn't help that there's huge resistance to foreign trade and insistence that everything be done in the US because "'Merican jobs!". When, to put it simply, there aren't enough jobs because we don't need that many to support the current US population. But there are literally billions of undeserved people on this planet we could be using to grow our economy, but don't because that requires trade, and trade is somehow bad unless we're the only ones doing it.

[enterthemadness]

So...

http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?p...8-12035ee74fc4


Gas going up with no end in sight. Paychecks are smaller as well. And isn't there spending cuts both parties are trying their best to avoid, even though we need spending cuts? Wonder how bad the summer will be.

8%+ unemployment soon?

[enterthemadness]

Oh boy...even Wal-Mart is worried about the economy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...he-rest-of-us/

[Paradoxium]

Don't worry comrade. Obama says the economy is improving. He wouldn't lie to us.

[enterthemadness]

Originally Posted by Paradoxium

Don't worry comrade. Obama says the economy is improving. He wouldn't lie to us.

Generally don't believe what a D or R says, outside of Rand Paul or Huntsman.

Or Ron Paul.

[NickNitro]

I knew it was bad, but not this drastic

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-le...b_2633191.html

[SV Fan]

Originally Posted by NickNitro

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-le...b_2633191.html

The joys of Reaganomics(notice those lines splitting right around 1980).

[Alex_Spider]

Originally Posted by NickNitro

I knew it was bad, but not this drastic

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-le...b_2633191.html

Good finding. Thanks for sharing. Although this is known for years in the general consensus but nevertheless it is better to have the facts back it up.

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDD6FtNMpNw

[Handsome Rob]

Obama's Sequester Deal-Changer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...0da_print.html

The finger-pointing began during the third presidential debate last fall, on Oct. 22, when President Obama blamed Congress. “The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed,” Obama said. “It is something that Congress has proposed.”

The president and Lew had this wrong. My extensive reporting for my book “The Price of Politics” shows that the automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors — probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government.

Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.

Nabors has told others that they checked with the president before going to see Reid. A mandatory sequester was the only action-forcing mechanism they could devise. Nabors has said, “We didn’t actually think it would be that hard to convince them” — Reid and the Republicans — to adopt the sequester. “It really was the only thing we had. There was not a lot of other options left on the table.”

Our little liar-in-chief!

Well, at least he can take comfort in the fact that his base of low-information voters will still believe he had nothing to with it, as long as he keeps blaming other people.

[Kelly]

Yep, that was a little plan that kinda backfired on him....

[Destructus86]

Let's just be honest with ourselves and admit that much like communism....our system has failed. Why did we think a system build on building up debt would last forever?

http://billmoyers.com/content/%E2%80...down%E2%80%AC/

[wiegeabo]

It's not the fault of the system.

Debt is just a tool. Used responsibly, it can create a lot of growth, and a lot of money.

Used irresponsibly...

[Kelly]

Originally Posted by Destructus86

Let's just be honest with ourselves and admit that much like communism....our system has failed. Why did we think a system build on building up debt would last forever?

http://billmoyers.com/content/%E2%80...down%E2%80%AC/

Our Free Enterprise system is not working, because we are not writing policy and law that allows it to do what it would normally do.

We are trying to shove a square peg into a round hole, and it isn't working....so our administration is forcing it.

[Destructus86]

Originally Posted by wiegeabo

It's not the fault of the system.

Debt is just a tool. Used responsibly, it can create a lot of growth, and a lot of money.

Used irresponsibly...

And that's the problem. Capitalism requires people to act responsible in order to work. And people are in general not very responsible when it comes to money handling (for proof...look at how much we overspend as a society)

In my belief...a system that requires people to act responsible has already failed.

[wiegeabo]

No, the problem is that we do a crap job of educating people; both children and adults.

Then we go ahead and baby them when they screw up, meaning there's no incentive for them to learn from their mistakes. Which also means they can't pass on those lessons because they never learn them.

[Handsome Rob]

Originally Posted by wiegeabo

No, the problem is that we do a crap job of educating people; both children and adults.

Then we go ahead and baby them when they screw up, meaning there's no incentive for them to learn from their mistakes. Which also means they can't pass on those lessons because they never learn them.

And that's why I oppose federal bailouts of any kind to any company in any industry.

And in other news:

President Obama Faces "Cliff Fatigue" in Latest Budget Fight

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...-budget-fight/

“Here’s yet another deadline, and everyone’s telling us everything will be destroyed if we go past it,” said Michael Dimock, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which conducted the poll. “It’s very hard to get the same sense of urgency for a third time in a row, just two months after the last one.”

The fight is displaying Washington at its worst — all accusations and finger-pointing, no real attempts at problem-solving. Both sides have plans, but the president is spending far more energy explaining why the sequester is the Republicans’ fault, and how bad the consequences of those cuts will be, than he is trying to negotiate something that would stop it.

I have no doubt that our Drama Queen/Chicken Little in the White House is doing this for political gain. His Presidency has been little more than governance by crisis and campaigning.

I want the sequester to happen. We spend too much money and too much money we don't have. And this little drop-in-the-bucket may be nothing more than that, but at least it's something.

[enterthemadness]

I think I've flip flopped on bail outs even though I am Libertarian, my memory is lousy. I just know off the top of my head, I oppose bailing out banks. Oh, and the Postal Service...it's losing money...missing payments...that's not good. Better not bail them out, and I have a father who just retired there and a sister that works there. That takes BALLS to say.

[wiegeabo]

I would only support a bailout if the company was required to oust its management, and probably it's board as well (the shareholders shouldn't have an issue with that since those are the guys that are screwing them over).

And even then, I wouldn't consider it at all unless the company was split up. Maybe some actual competition in the marketplace might get people to actually run the businesses well.

Hell, if AT&T hadn't been broken up in the 80's, we'd all still probably be using corded phones with no wifi or wireless anything. It was only when AT&T had to compete that they started seriously developing and selling new technologies. Cordless phones are what paved the way for wireless internet. (Just look at how little phones changed in the decades AT&T was a monopoly.)

Of course, where there used to be 23 Bells, now there's only 4...

[enterthemadness]

Originally Posted by wiegeabo

I would only support a bailout if the company was required to oust its management, and probably it's board as well (the shareholders shouldn't have an issue with that since those are the guys that are screwing them over).

And even then, I wouldn't consider it at all unless the company was split up. Maybe some actual competition in the marketplace might get people to actually run the businesses well.

Hell, if AT&T hadn't been broken up in the 80's, we'd all still probably be using corded phones with no wifi or wireless anything. It was only when AT&T had to compete that they started seriously developing and selling new technologies. Cordless phones are what paved the way for wireless internet. (Just look at how little phones changed in the decades AT&T was a monopoly.)

Of course, where there used to be 23 Bells, now there's only 4...

4? AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel...T-Mobile? U.S. Cellular is like regional. Err,...

[wiegeabo]

There's only the big 4.

T-Mobile is buying MetroPCS.

All of the others piggyback on the networks of the big 4.

[enterthemadness]

Originally Posted by wiegeabo

There's only the big 4.

T-Mobile is buying MetroPCS.

All of the others piggyback on the networks of the big 4.

So big 4 is...

AT&T
Verizon
Sprint Nextel
T-Mobile

[wiegeabo]

yep

And because of it, we pay 10 cents a text, even though it uses a fraction of the data of a single minute of a phone call (and despite your cell sending hundreds of texts a day anyway to communicate with cell towers).

And we have limited 'unlimited' data plans that either cost a fortune, are slow, are limited, or some combination thereof.