It's high-time that we doubled the National Minimum-Wage in America!

Make sure anything your mother intends to leave to your brother goes into a special needs trust so it won't mess up his public benefits like medicaid or food stamps any.

 

Once again we see the lack of understanding of basic economics. Increasing the minimum wage will result in greater unemployment regressively affecting those with limited skills, experience, and education.

 

A MYTH

"Vital", me arse.

It is a dismissal of "one person, one vote", the basic and fundamental right of any real democracy.

The EC was created at a time (end of 18th and beginning of 19th century) - along with gerrymandering - when most Americans could neither read nor write, and it was thought that they could be easily manipulated by renegade politicians. Rather, the thinking went, "why not manipulate the Electoral College* voting process in order to assure that an educated gentry (namely rich land-owners) could control results"?

Which they did. The first five presidents were all from the south, which was then and is today a minority population.

Wakey, wakey - you've got a lot to learn about the political structure an how it is warped in America. The notion of a "Just American Democracy" is a myth given the manner in which it is manipulated by antique laws and modern BigMoney employed on the BoobTube.

Ask yourself:
*Why has no other democracy on earth adopted the Electoral College device?
*Why do most modern democracies put a limit to the amount of money a candidate can spend on an electioneering?

There are damn good reasons why both of the above are fundamental aspects of OTHER democracies on earth ...

*One in which the state's population would determine the number of Electoral College votes allocated to that state. And, lo and behold, blacks were included in that population count even though they had NO RIGHT TO VOTE!

 

Humorous but it makes the point effectively.

 

Nonsense.

Any economics textbook will tell you that it was Keynes who first suggested Stimulus Spending in 1932 at a time when Roosevelt had just lowered government spending in order to "balance the budget". Which had simply exacerbated the depth of the recession, which became a depression.

Stimulus Spending does have an impact upon National Debt. But what most people do not understand is that National Debt is not at all like personal debt.

Nobody-but-nobody is going to come knocking on the White House to repossess it for non-payment of debt! The interest-rates on new-debt simply rise.

Now, ask yourself, "Why should the US have such massive debt!". My answer; because 54% of its Discretionary Spending is a DoD-boondoggle. (See here.) One that hires a lot of people, and produces a lot of equipment - most of which can be better spent elsewhere.

That real alternative to such spending idiocy is called Educating our young for the future - which is where we should be spending at least half of the present DoD-budget ... !

 

It happened. I agreed with you!

Mazel Tov!

 

The answer to that question, which seems to escape you, is "human decency".

The minimum wage in the US ($7.25/hour) amounts to $15K a year. The Poverty Threshold for a family of four is $24K a year.

Under those circumstance would YOU like to be earning the "minimum wage"?

Not me ...

 

The answer to that question, which seems to escape you, is "human decency". (Which is a universal standard, in case you don't know.)

The minimum wage in the US ($7.25/hour) amounts to $15K a year. The Poverty Threshold for a family of four is $24K a year.

Under those circumstance would YOU like to be earning the "minimum wage"?

Not me ...

 

This assumes you have enough money to survive inflation. Most people don't. The best advice I've ever heard is that your bond/cash/annuity position should equal your age. At age 70 you should only have 30% in stocks. That still provides a cushion against inflation. And you *can* pick blue chip stocks for that 30%, preferably dividend paying stocks.

 

No other democracy on Earth is formulated as a Federalist Republic created by a union of sovereign States. Read the 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Germany is not the United States of Germany. France is not the United States of France. Mexico is not the United States of Mexico.

If you will read the minutes of the Constitutional Convention on Sept 6 (I believe that's correct), the EC was developed at the Convention to prevent the smaller states like Delaware and New Hampshire from being dominated in the Presidential election by the more populous states of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

That very same concern still exists today. Since the number of electors for each state includes the number of representatives they have in the House the larger states *still* carry a huge amount of weight in any Presidential election. Trump could not have become president without carrying some large states like Pennsylvania.

No other nation on Earth has a 1st Amendment guaranteeing the right to free speech, including political speech. And political speech has *always* involved having the money to insure your speech is heard. It *did* cost money to print pamphlets even in Revolutionary times! So there has been money involved in politics from the word "go"!

BTW, slaves were only counted as 3/5ths of a person just to limit the power of the southern slave states.

 

What's decent about increased unemployment ??

 

You're right, fewer low paying jobs will exist when they become to costly to fill.
If each member of a family of 4 worked for the minimum wage they would produce $60K of income per year.
Employers hire AN employee, not a family.

 

And don't count on the bonds.

“Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection could be extended to states if Congress took up the issue, although Stanford Law School professor Michael McConnell noted in an article last year that he believed the precedents are iffy for extending the option to states. Nevertheless, Illinois is in a serious financial pickle, which is why radical options such as bankruptcy are being floated as potential solutions.

Ratings agency Moody's Investor Service earlier this month downgraded Illinois' general obligation bonds to its lowest investment grade rating, citing the state's growing pile of unpaid bills and its mounting pension deficit. Illinois, by the way, has the lowest credit rating of any state. Lower ratings mean higher borrowing costs, since lenders view such borrowers as riskier bets.”
CBS, Could Illinois be the first state to file for bankruptcy?, By AIMEE PICCHI MONEYWATCH June 16, 2017.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/could-illinois-be-the-first-state-to-file-for-bankruptcy/

 

The minimum wage is designed to idle unskilled labor. It exists not to raise wages, but to crush the working class - very effective too.

 

But those are the people they want to "help" with this not skilled or educated workers and frankly like I said you jack the minimum wage up so far past inflation annually its going to hurt people a lot. Florida years ago did a Constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage for workers but set to inflation so its right now $5.08 for tipped workers per hour and non-tipped workers $8.10 per hour in 2017. Its simply tied to inflation which was flat for some time if inflation goes up so do wages. Why not do something similar?

 

WORD GAMES

A federalist republic, meaning:

I don't know of any "unitary republics" in the most comparable of democracies (to the US), that is the European Union. They all have Prime Ministers who are heads of government elected by the popular-vote. Each country has further divisions equivalent to American "states" with elected leaders by the popular-vote.

With the exception of the presidency, which does not yet exist in the EU, both "countries" are identically the same in political structure. The only difference is that there is no Electoral College anywhere to elect a President of the EU. (Namely because no such position exists.)

A republican form of government is defined as:

Which is what we have in the US, plus an archaic means of electing a PotUS with an intermediary Electoral College. A device, I repeat, that has two pronounced deficiencies:
*It misrepresents the voting population in terms of number of voters per EC-elector, and
*It is a winner-take-all election, when in a national election ONLY the popular-vote number should be counted.

It's bias is therefore inherent.

Completely irrelevant. What's in a name?

The European union is not a collection of states united under a common-system of laws? Yes, it is!

And it does not even have an Executive-leadership elected by its people residing in autonomous "states". It's national governments are headed by leaders elected by means of purely the popular-vote. The winning party's nominated head becomes Prime Minister of the nation.

It does, however, have a parliament, which - like the US - is elected by means of the "popular-vote" in each country.

What's good for the Legislative Branch, in terms of elections, is also good for the Executive arm of government ... !

PS: It will also displease you to know that there is NO GERRYMANDERING and NO ELECTORAL-COLLEGE in the European Union - both of which were considered and discarded by the original formulators of the EU.

PPS: How to steal an election by gerrymandering -
[/QUOTE]

 

of course our founders created the greatest country in human history by far!! if it was warped we would not have been able to save civilization through two world wars, be the world's policeman today, have 70% of all recent medical patents, and be handling North Korea. While we were saving Europe half of France was siding with the Nazis and shipping off Jews for extermination. Are we going to count on them to stare down the North Koreans?

 

America has no national govt only a federal govt ie a federation of states with most powers, save for a few enumerated federal powers, reserved for the states or the people. This is
the key to America's success. France has a powerful monopolistic bureaucratic central govt and thus has the per capita income of Arkansas about out poorest state!

 

That's all been taken care of, although the way she's been living since my father passed I'm beginning to worry there might not be anything left. Fortunately I've done quite well in life and managed to land my brother a job. Minimum wage but it pays the bills, and over the years has added a few people to the list of persons my brother acknowledges.

 

In 1790 Virginia was the most populous state, and in addition to blacks not having a right to vote neither did 90% of the white population. James Monroe wrote extensively about how the pension paid to Revolutionary War veterans-land grants in the unincorporated US territories-as specifically designed to ensure that the common man would be guaranteed the right to vote once they were established as states.

How do you feel about congressional districts being drawn counting only eligible voters? Why should an immigrant or felon be counted as a constituent if we truly believe in "one man one vote"?

For the record I'm a staunch conservative, and am absolutely repulsed by the vile destruction of democracy carried out by FDR and Democrats, and fully support the GOP's efforts to strictly limit campaign contributions.

 

If we spent more money educating our youth, perhaps you'd be aware that public educational spending for K12 is equal to defense spending, and would understand what the **** discretionary spending actually is.

So yes, when you subtract every single dollar spent on SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and it's disability components, education, veterans benefits, and EVERYTHING ELSE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOES BESIDES DEFENSE, of course defense spending will be a very large chunk of discretionary spending. I spent 8 years in the Marines, and you know what I saw? Adults with Downs Syndrome, otherwise completely unemployable, serving every *******n meal I ever ate, every single typical office product manufactured exclusively by blind Americans, and every uniform I ever wore manufactured by American women who made $25/hr with onsite child care and health care provided at no cost by their employer. The Department of Defense is the largest employer in the world, not counting the MILLIONS of jobs it creates elsewhere by directly supporting 10% of US manufacturing, the number one employer of Americans with disability, and the stimulus to local economies from young Sailors spending like, well drunken sailors.

To really break it down for you I'm a high school dropout. As far as I know I am the first member of my high school class to purchase a home without assistance from my parents, because the VA guaranteed my mortgage. I walked right into numerous (relatively)well paying jobs that offered benefits to get to my now excellent career. Since I found my actual calling(I'm about to turn 2 I've gotten dozens of job offers from large corporations(due to at chance meeting mid and senior management who were also veterans) biting at the chomp for a young, tireless leader. Didn't give two shits about my lack of education or experience in the field.

My mother grew up in a trailer, my father was a blue collar pre union municipal employee who worked 80 hours a week on salary and raised a family just above the local poverty line because he was too proud to have a wife that worked, and I took a two week vacation to Italy with a 1st Class flight this year.

So please enlighten me how my success was not an outstanding ****ing investment of "your" tax dollars.

 

I come from a long line of tradesmen, and while I do enjoy my share of the corporate profits pie, I've always preferred the two soundest investments-tools/equipment and real estate. I'm a staunch modern Physiocrat, and since you are probably completely unfamiliar with the term it means that I believe that land, and the means of improving that land, is the only thing truly worthy of investment. People need to live, they need to eat, they need to drink, they need to work, and they need to hopefully have a lush, calming surrounding. Well tended land provides it all.

 

A better approach would be to subsidize low wage unskilled workers for working.
After all, we subsidize the idle.

 

So, with two people working (which is the middle class norm) at minimum wage, we have $30k a year, which is above the poverty threshold. No, I wouldn't like to make the minimum wage, but raising the minimum wage that drastically is just going to guarantee that low skilled nonproductive workers are unemployed.

 

Sorry, the EC misrepresents the voting population in what way? It's easy to make that claim, it is much harder to substantiate it.

The fact that all of those countries have *states* but they are not a federalist republic!

Actually the EU does *not* have a common-system of laws. Immigrants are treated differently in different nations. Petty crimes are defined differently. And each nation maintains its own court system.

Popular votes work well when you have limited scopes of population. In a nation as large as the US going to a direct popular vote would result in nothing but incessant recounts on a nationwide basis leaving the nation without a President. If you think Gore v Bush was bad just consider having to recount every polling place and every voting district in the US because even a single vote change in Liberal, Kansas could affect the overall national vote tally!