The Progressive Agenda means the Right to Earn a Living Wage for All Americans.

That's the highest praise I could get.

 

No, your alt right link was debunked and your BLS link DEBUNKED your own bogus allegation.

 

I uphold your right to your misinformed opinion about Bernie Sanders but it does not alter the fact that he is considerably wiser and smarter than your Republican politicians.

 

The dearth of subject matter knowledge in that post is duly noted.

Here are the FACTS that you are so studiously ignoring at your own expense.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...-richer-bloomberg_us_5a44a821e4b025f99e19a1db

 

Puerile ad hom and absence of any relevant topic content ignored for derogatory reasons.

 

There can be no single figure that represents a living wage across the entire nation because the cost of living varies. While a 6 figure income in the rural midwest is more than enough to live very comfortably it is barely enough to get by in Manhatten.

The concept of the minimum wage ties into a living wage but they are not necessarily identical. The minimum wage should be sufficient to keep one out of poverty while a living wage means being able to save for both short and long term needs such a deposit for a home, college educations and retirement.

To address the point that you were harping on about there will ALWAYS be some who will abuse any system but the EXCEPTIONS must not be allowed to obstruct what is needed for the majority of We the People. The OP is ignoring those exceptions because they are deflections and distractions from the topic.

The current form of capitalism as practiced here in the USA is causing way more harm than good. It needs to be brought back in line with what we once had and what WORKS in other civilized western nations. Capitalism is not the problem and no one is advocating for socialism either. There is a sane and reasonable middle ground that works with the BEST of capitalism and socialism while avoiding the WORST of both.

The goal here is understanding what is needed and how do we achieve it. As an Independent I know that this is going to take a UNITED effort to achieve because neither side can accomplish it alone. Reaching out to genuine conservatives like Seth is the way forward IMO. Please feel free to join in the conversation.

 

Primarily it would be REINSTATING those regulations that have been scrapped in order to favor the Wall Street Casino Bosses greed and avarice.

A former police captain that I knew, he has since retired, pointed out to be that Miranda Laws are in place because the cops were abusing their authority. He said that the majority of laws are put in place to stop something that harms others. This is true of the regulations on corporations. For example the EPA came about because corporations were causing pollution that they were not taking responsibility for cleaning up. The current regime has just scrapped those EPA regulations following the orders of the Wall Street Casino Bosses because it costs corporations money to not pollute our air and water.

Therein lies the slippery slope. Bending over backwards for corporations should not be necessary. Why should taxpayers be subsidizing for profit corporations? If there is a need or an opportunity for jobs to be created then corporations should be doing that WITHOUT any taxpayer subsidies. Worker owned corporations are not as obsessed and fixated with profits and will be able to create the same jobs without the need for taxpayer subsidies. I would much rather see the US become attractive to worker owned corporations since that way we KNOW that the money will REMAIN within our borders and benefit America.

They can not only co-exist but worker owned corporations can be highly competitive. The only laws that I am advocating relate to paying living wages. I am opposed to taxpayer subsidized payrolls and if a for profit corporation cannot compete by paying living wages then it has the wrong business model for America IMO. We do not want and we do not need corporations that EXPLOIT hardworking Americans purely for the benefit of the wealthy 1% elite.

 

And here you are again trying to talk down to me. I can only imagine the pain and suffering you must be going through that the United States is only fourth most unequal country in the world.

By you saying, that I am misonformed or have misconceptions is not an argument. It is just like in this post where you say, "pointless to consider the rest of your opinion." It is not an argument, it is just you saying that you have nothing. You have been unable to provide a rational reason as to why you support a political party that has been orchestrating a concentration of wealth and power at the top, at the expense of everyone else.

So instead you become stressed out and can't continue. You did look up the definition of grievous, didn't you? Oh you poor guy, the anguish you must feel. So you give a bogus complaint and pretend you won the argument.

This is why I think so poorly of the prevailing conservative ideology, (Besides my heartfelt opinion that much of it is built upon hate, envy, and dishonesty.) that when the arguments get into the nitty gritty of the harm Republicanism tends to do, rather than defend their position, conservatives tend to insinuate that I'm just not on the ball enough to see it their way. And to think that people laugh when I refer to American conservatives as a cult.

Anyhow, why don't you think we shouldn't have a more equal country. In Scandinavian countries the people, the average people, even those at the bottom, have a higher standard of living than most Americans. They also are among those countries with the least inequality.

 

Only the ones that use toilet paper as a constitution.

 

Hey, I'm a self centered capitalist. I've done my time, and I've come out a winner big time. Couldn't care less about people who whine and complain they haven't got theirs, when they haven't paid the price to get it.

Screw the Scandinavian countries. You want that kind of xenophobic life style, go live there.

I prefer the opportunity to achieve the very best I can, and that can done in the US.

Perhaps a new plaque should be affixed to the Statue of Liberty - Send us you hard workers, your honest, and your willing. Loser and takers beware.

 

I hope you won't mind me asking some questions to flesh out how a living wage mandate would be implemented.

I am assuming that you are intending that the living wage would be implemented by the U.S. federal government. Is that correct?

(1) Studies would have to be done to determine what a living wage would be in various areas, correct? That would probably have to be done at a very local level, because living near the business district of a metropolitan area can be considerably more expensive than living 60 miles from that area. (2) So where a person chooses to live would affect the amount they were paid, correct? For example, let's say an employer has two 33 year old employees that do the same work, with the same productivity, and the same responsibility. Employee X lives in an older, very affordable suburban area and commutes 60 miles one way on a motorcycle to get to work. Employee Y lives 15 miles from work in a very expensive apartment in the very expensive business district. (3) Do they get paid the same? (4) If they are paid the same, would the pay be based on the expensive business district living costs, or the suburban living costs?

(5) Would a person's life situation affect how much they are paid? For example, let's say an employer has two 22 year old employees that do the same work, with the same productivity, and the same responsibility. Employee A still lives with his parents in a small home that is owned outright and thereby lives very inexpensively. Employee B is a single dad with 5 kids and has expensive child care expenses. (6) Do each of the employees get paid the same, or does Employee B get more because his living expenses are much higher?

I realize that you may feel I am bothering you with minutia, but before something like this is implemented, it would be wise to examine the details and come up with a workable plan with minimal negative consequences.

Edit to add: If I am missing the point, perhaps you could flesh out your ideas of how a living wage would be implemented so I would understand how it would work.

 

By "taxpayer subsidies", you mean "tax cuts"?

A longstanding belief I hold is that a business or corporation is, in its essence, nothing more than a group of people working together to make money. "Corporation" or "business" is simply the name that we attach to this organized and focused work by groups of people. A "business" is the construct or vehicle through which this labor becomes organized. As such, a corporation cannot be good, and it cannot be bad. It cannot be greedy, and it cannot be generous. It cannot be fair, and it cannot be unfair. These descriptions - both good and bad - apply to actual living, breathing people.

And so, I have always failed to understand why we tax the profits of a business. And, in this day and age, where America is no longer the sole economic power like it was after WW2, and the rest of the world is now giving us fierce competition for the wealth that we once enjoyed, it makes even less sense to me to tax our corporations and businesses that produce in the United States.

So I don't see tax cuts on business and corporations as "taxpayer subsidies" because I do not think those taxes should even exist in the first place for the profits on goods and services produced in the U.S. Now if Ford produces a car in Mexico and ships it to the U.S. for sale to the American car market, yes, tax/tariff that. A while back, I bought 3 kitchen bar stools online from a company with a name like "Henry Smith's Furniture Company" out of some midwestern town in the U.S. When they arrived, in big letters on the boxes was "Made in Vietnam". I sighed and rolled my eyes. So Henry Smith's Furniture Company wasn't a producer of bar stools, it was an importer of bar stools. They were like $70.00 each. Henry Smith took a slice of that money, and the rest all went to Vietnam. So sure ... tax and/or tariff that, but leave our domestic producers alone.

Where we should be seeking tax and income fairness is in any instance where the money belonging to the business is transferred to a person, whether it be an employee, the CEO, or a stockholder - in other words, through personal income taxes. I think we can do a much better job of bringing about tax and income fairness than we are presently. But let's leave the business itself alone, for it was just the vehicle through which the money was made in the first place. And we need those money makers to locate and remain in the U.S.

Well, I think a worker owned corporation would have to turn a profit. Those profits are needed to make capital improvements, enable expansion, deal with contingencies, and, of course, to pay the employee/owners. I would think that an employee-owned company would have to operate much in the same way as any other company, the difference being that in the employee-owned company, the employees are also the owner/shareholders. The employee-owned company would have to keep an eye on the competition, and it would have to offer its goods and services at a price that the market will bear, just like other corporations do.

We agree that it is best to keep our money in the U.S. I can't even tell you how much I resent our complicit politicians who have enabled and aided this "rush to the bottom" in recent decades - both Republican and Democrat - what with their free trade agreements and globalism, as if the average American no longer matters. It is only in very recent years that this topic has even been allowed to be brought into the American consciousness.

Well if they can co-exist and be highly competitive, then more power to them.

You mentioned enacting laws relating to paying living wages. But don't we already have that in the form of the federal minimum wage law? Yes, the federal minimum wage is inadequate, but at least it exists as well as the legal procedures to change it. It seems to me that if we wanted to enact a "living wage", we don't need new laws; we need a higher minimum wage.

Seth

 

No the link I provided is untouched and unchallenged. The BLS link debunked you not me.

You really need to stop being dishonest everyone saw how your argument was destroyed.

 

Yes your arguments are puerile and ad hom/

 

No I am not ignoring them.

They are irrelevant. A wealthy person getting more wealth harms no one.

 

Except the evidence proves he is not.

 

we really just need a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage, unemployment compensation for being unemployed on an at-will basis in our at-will employment States, and Industrial Automation to help with social costs.

 

1) Where did I say that I require someone to 'have a job' before I will express empathy for them? I said pretty much the opposite, in fact, and referred to the starving, the war torn, etc. This is a lame attempt on your part to save face, I suspect.

2) Absolute BS. ANYONE can choose to ensure their kids are educated out of poverty. It costs nothing to sit with your kids every day (after work, early in the morning before school/work .. any spare minute you can find will help) to make sure their education is supported. It does not require an education of your own, nor even any specific intelligence. ALL it takes is dedication and self-sacrifice - putting your kids' future ahead of your own ease and comfort. Many Third Worlders have migrated to the West in the past 50 years with little or nothing, sometimes not even speaking the language, yet they managed to ensure their kids left poverty behind in a single generation. No excuses!

3) Children who are allowed to remain in poverty, are suffering because their parents have chosen poverty for them. Once again, your society already provides all the tools a parent needs to make sure their kids leave poverty behind. FREE EDUCATION. Take it, or leave it. But if you choose not to support your child's education, you have made a choice. No one has forced you to do it.

 

'alt right' ?

You must have me confused with someone else. I'm a Leftie and a Socialist.

 

That's patently absurd. My sister and brother in law have bills which are about three times what ours are, and they don't have 'adult sized' kids living at home any more.

 

In other words, Marxism.

 

The banking industry is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the economy. The monetary system at the heart of the US banking system is a centrally planned government monopoly. And wouldn't you know it? It was Wall Street who made it that way. I wonder why.

 

Except that you guys who say we need a 15 an hour minimum wage never want to debate the subject. For example, the argument has long been made that requiring employers to pay employees 15 an hour necessarily makes those who are worth less than 15 an hour unemployed.

Personally, I think it's because you really want people who aren't worth 15 an hour to be unemployed, homeless, useless, and generally thrown to the wolves. Conservatives would rather they be given the chance to get the work experience necessary to be worth more than 15 an hour.

 

There is no proof that "an accountant" doesn't receive the same pay regardless. You just trot out the difference in AVERAGE pay between demographics and simply ASSUME it's due to things like sex or race. You ignore other important variables like hours worked, days taken off, geographic distribution, etc. The idea that profit-maximizing firms in highly competitive industries could get away with paying workers less than a market rate for their labor is asinine anyway. If a company was really underpaying its employees FOR ANY REASON, it wouldn't be long before they were undercut by a competitor offering better wages.

 

What if the value of the job is not worth that to the employer? And employer is not a distributor of charity.