If the minimum wage was $20/hour, and you made $30/hour, would you be willing to take a pay-cut to $25/hr, so that the corp AND the higher-paid employees both made sacrifices so that the lower earner could benefit?
Of course I would. As long I had what I needed to live I'd be fine knowing that others were now getting what they need to survive. You wouldn't be okay with helping your fellow man like that? Ending poverty, malnutrition, horrible living conditions or even starvation?? You would still want more even if it meant hardships for others?
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
Of course I would. As long I had what I needed to live I'd be fine knowing that others were now getting what they need to survive. You wouldn't be okay with helping your fellow man like that? Ending poverty, malnutrition, horrible living conditions or even starvation?? You would still want more even if it meant hardships for others?
I have taken it upon myself to help my fellow man by donating a lot of dough to charity.
The more money I make, the more I am able to give to charities that aim to end poverty, feed the hungry, etc.
Assuming that the $20 minimum wage won't happen, the PEOPLE need to help others.
I think a better idea than giving everyone a raise, is to teach people (and I am talking about from a young age, like in elementary school) how to handle money. Have manditory classes in school on how to budget so that people making 10 bucks an hour can learn how to prioritize their spending. That way you don't get things like people buying houses they can't afford and ending up on the streets or single moms buying their kids $200 pairs of shoes when they can't make rent.
I think a better idea than giving everyone a raise, is to teach people (and I am talking about from a young age, like in elementary school) how to handle money. Have manditory classes in school on how to budget so that people making 10 bucks an hour can learn how to prioritize their spending. That way you don't get things like people buying houses they can't afford and ending up on the streets or single moms buying their kids $200 pairs of shoes when they can't make rent.
great idea...make the people more responsible and some of the problem will be corrected.
Things are not that black and white. There is middle ground which has enough room for companies to make a good profit and employees to earn enough income without having to look for assistance elsewhere to simply survive. This is all very possible. Whether or not you agree it should be done is one thing but to act like the idea is absurd is also absurd. Giving $20/hr isn't the same as giving $100/hr.
.
This is probably not the best example, because I'm sure Apple has a fairly skilled workforce, many of whom are paid respectable wages...but still a pretty striking example of pay inequality:
Steve Jobs made $640 million in '07. Apple has 14,800 employees. If Jobs took a 50% pay cut, every Apple employee could have earned an extra $21,621 last year. I read that Apple employees average $46,000/yr...so...ONE guy takes a 50% cut, still earns $320,000,000 (or $16,000 an hour), and 14,800 people get an almost 50% raise (about $11/hr).
The rich are too rich, says me. The greed fascinates me. Most of these people could give away everything they have, and be multi-millionaires again within months, based on their reputation or resume.
There is money for all....it needs to be distributed more fairly. I guess the question is - how do we achieve this?
Maybe if the middle class would agree to a huge pay-cut, then there would be less poor people. However, when people realize they won't be poor, even if they don't go to college or learn a skill, there is less motivation to excel.
If corporations and employers were forced to pay a higher wage, do you think they would stay in business? Once their profits shrank, they'd close up shop, and thus, there'd be less jobs available.
The first part of your podt i can't understand. The midle class? What middle class? The middle class is all but extinct. Definitely a severely endangered species. Besides those in the middle class are the ones barely making the ends meet. Paycheck to paycheck. You want THEM to tale a huge paycut? i'm not sure i follow that. It also sounds like you argue that there are not college educated poor folks. News to me. My wife and i both have degrees and are Strugglin'.
As far as the second part, i think its bullshit also. Should corporations be made to pay a living wage? i would say, "absolutely". Will that be sufficient? No. i'm not afraid to say i'm a wealth redistributing son-of-a-bitch.
"When all your friends and sedatives mean well but make it worse... better find yourself a place to level out."
someone with very little training or experience, whose job does requires very few qualifications.
Like what? Garbage collector. i wouldn't say the qualifications for that are very high, yet where would our society be without them. i can't think of very many jobs that are without SIGNIFICANT social value. It is the working poor that built this country, and it is the working poor that keep it running.
"From each that which he is capable. To each that which he needs."
"When all your friends and sedatives mean well but make it worse... better find yourself a place to level out."
Exactly. If people would just lower their standard of living and not worry about feeding and clothing their fucking kids and shit, they'd be just fine.
Seriously, no one is suggesting the government, provide 50 inch plasmas and shit like that. I'll say it again. No one who works, in the United States of America, should be poor. Its embarassing.
There are plenty of people who would find a way to be poor on $20/hr.
The only people we should try to get even with...
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
0
unsung
I stopped by on March 7 2024. First time in many years, had to update payment info. Hope all is well. Politicians suck. Bye. Posts: 9,487
The Government should not force people to do anything. This includes a insane $20 min wage. If everyone made that kind of money there would be no jobs because they would all be in China or Mexico, or all of the illegal aliens would be the only ones working.
As the saying goes, 'We make money the old-fashioned way, we earn it.'
I think that the philosophy should tend towards making education more accessible rather than just doling $20/hr to every Joe with a job. Fairly or unfairly, our society compensates based on the pieces of paper that we accumulate. Making education more accessible will give those who are less fortunate but willing to work a chance to increase their earning power if they so choose. Even though it's tough to do, anybody can still work themselves through some sort of schooling to get a better shot if they have enough drive to do so.
1/12/1879, 4/8/1156, 2/6/1977, who gives a shit, ...
This is probably not the best example, because I'm sure Apple has a fairly skilled workforce, many of whom are paid respectable wages...but still a pretty striking example of pay inequality:
Steve Jobs made $640 million in '07. Apple has 14,800 employees. If Jobs took a 50% pay cut, every Apple employee could have earned an extra $21,621 last year. I read that Apple employees average $46,000/yr...so...ONE guy takes a 50% cut, still earns $320,000,000 (or $16,000 an hour), and 14,800 people get an almost 50% raise (about $11/hr).
The rich are too rich, says me. The greed fascinates me. Most of these people could give away everything they have, and be multi-millionaires again within months, based on their reputation or resume.
There is money for all....it needs to be distributed more fairly. I guess the question is - how do we achieve this?
But why should someone who built their own business from the ground up, out of their own idea, be FORCED to give up profits, just because he's done a little too well for himself?
Do you know how ludicrous it sounds? If Jobs wanted to be a good guy, and cut his profit in half, and give extra money to his workers .... God bless him. But to say the government should STEP IN and FORCE him to give away money that HE earned?
What message does that send? It's cool to be enterprising and resourceful and innovative and hard-working ... but don't be too much of any of the above, or we'll have to take your money.
Let's just ask those in Eastern Europe how much fun communism was. They fought revolutions to get out of this sort of thing.
Some of you bleeding hearts are ridiculous. Some people make more money than other people. Boo frickin' hoo.
everybody wants the most they can possibly get
for the least they could possibly do
But why should someone who built their own business from the ground up, out of their own idea, be FORCED to give up profits, just because he's done a little too well for himself?
Do you know how ludicrous it sounds? If Jobs wanted to be a good guy, and cut his profit in half, and give extra money to his workers .... God bless him. But to say the government should STEP IN and FORCE him to give away money that HE earned?
What message does that send? It's cool to be enterprising and resourceful and innovative and hard-working ... but don't be too much of any of the above, or we'll have to take your money.
Let's just ask those in Eastern Europe how much fun communism was. They fought revolutions to get out of this sort of thing.
Some of you bleeding hearts are ridiculous. Some people make more money than other people. Boo frickin' hoo.
I never said the govt should force anything on anyone. That's why I concluded my post with an open-ended question...and mentioned that Apple/Jobs may be a poor one, yet still an example of massive greed. No one needs (or frankly, deserves) $640 million a year. There is definitely a fine line between making compensation for work fair, and killing the incentive to work....but the disparity between the ultra-rich and everyone else has grown enormously...
http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/28/news/economy/real_wages/index.htm "The paper says that about nine out of 10 workers have seen inflation that has outpaced their pay increases over the last three years, according to the Labor Department. That includes workers earning up to $80,000 a year, a level that puts them in the 90th percentile of wage earners."
"The paper reports that the gap between the top wage earners and other workers is growing. It cites research from economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty that showed that in 2004, the top 1 percent of earners --a group that includes many chief executives --received 11.2 percent of all wage income, up from 8.7 percent a decade earlier and less than 6 percent three decades ago"
You don't see THAT as ludicrous? Bleeding heart my ass. If people ARE lazy and won't work to earn their money, fine...fuck 'em. But, as was mentioned in this thread before, the middle class is becoming non-existant....wages have been pretty much stagnant for decades, compared to the manipulated inflation/cost of living numbers....while the top ten percent of earners are paid (by THEMSELVES in many cases) way more. This doesn't bother you?
0
unsung
I stopped by on March 7 2024. First time in many years, had to update payment info. Hope all is well. Politicians suck. Bye. Posts: 9,487
But why should someone who built their own business from the ground up, out of their own idea, be FORCED to give up profits, just because he's done a little too well for himself?
Do you know how ludicrous it sounds? If Jobs wanted to be a good guy, and cut his profit in half, and give extra money to his workers .... God bless him. But to say the government should STEP IN and FORCE him to give away money that HE earned?
What message does that send? It's cool to be enterprising and resourceful and innovative and hard-working ... but don't be too much of any of the above, or we'll have to take your money.
Let's just ask those in Eastern Europe how much fun communism was. They fought revolutions to get out of this sort of thing.
Some of you bleeding hearts are ridiculous. Some people make more money than other people. Boo frickin' hoo.
There are many people here that are for the redistribution of wealth, even if you made your money through hard work. Everybody wants a friggin handout yet they don't want to do anything for it. Part of me thinks that there is a certain crowd that is immature and doesn't know any better, the other part of me thinks they are in the crowd begging for the handouts.
0
unsung
I stopped by on March 7 2024. First time in many years, had to update payment info. Hope all is well. Politicians suck. Bye. Posts: 9,487
You don't see THAT as ludicrous? Bleeding heart my ass. If people ARE lazy and won't work to earn their money, fine...fuck 'em. But, as was mentioned in this thread before, the middle class is becoming non-existant....wages have been pretty much stagnant for decades, compared to the manipulated inflation/cost of living numbers....while the top ten percent of earners are paid (by THEMSELVES in many cases) way more. This doesn't bother you?
If someone like Steve Jobs makes that kind of money it doesn't bother me, it is his company he built from scratch. If someone gets appointed then fired and gets a $250M severance then that is what is not right. Companies like countrywide are going under yet they have the money to pay their CEO's figures like that?
I have taken it upon myself to help my fellow man by donating a lot of dough to charity.
The more money I make, the more I am able to give to charities that aim to end poverty, feed the hungry, etc.
Assuming that the $20 minimum wage won't happen, the PEOPLE need to help others.
Do you give money, or time, to charity?
Of course people need to help others but sadly so many don't and we end up with really bad situations where the wealth is all concentrated to a very select few, many people go without basic necessities causing problems like i mentioned earlier such as homelessness, malnutrition, overwhelming debt, home foreclosures, dependency on gov't assistance, hunger, lack of proper healthcare, high crime rates, living in slums or other deplorable living conditions. These are all huge problems we as a society face and can easily be fixed. The money is there but it's not being spread nearly enough to cover all the problems I just listed because not enough people are as kind as yourself who gives so generously to charities. That's when the icky word 'force' comes in. Force meaning law. I believe in good laws that are there to protect the people. And the way i see it, the less fortunate are in dire need of some protection. We force people not to steal, kill, hurt other people through laws. And the rampant greed we are all witnessing today is, in fact, harming other people and I have no problem whatsofuckingever with 'forcing' people to share a bit more. I don't think anyone's merit or hard work, or college degree should mean more than the lives of other human beings.
And yes, I do give money and time, when I have it, to charity.
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
Of course people need to help others but sadly so many don't and we end up with really bad situations where the wealth is all concentrated to a very select few, many people go without basic necessities causing problems like i mentioned earlier such as homelessness, malnutrition, overwhelming debt, home foreclosures, dependency on gov't assistance, hunger, lack of proper healthcare, high crime rates, living in slums or other deplorable living conditions. These are all huge problems we as a society face and can easily be fixed. The money is there but it's not being spread nearly enough to cover all the problems I just listed because not enough people are as kind as yourself who gives so generously to charities. That's when the icky word 'force' comes in. Force meaning law. I believe in good laws that are there to protect the people. And the way i see it, the less fortunate are in dire need of some protection. We force people not to steal, kill, hurt other people through laws. And the rampant greed we are all witnessing today is, in fact, harming other people and I have no problem whatsofuckingever with 'forcing' people to share a bit more. I don't think anyone's merit or hard work, or college degree should mean more than the lives of other human beings.
And yes, I do give money and time, when I have it, to charity.
The distribution of wealth in the United States is actually reverting back to levels not seeen since the 20's, those great Depression years where people were starving while food rotted because they couldn't pay for it.
We have the resources, its just a matter of organizing society and getting away from this selfish mentality that's been driving our culture. We have the means, we just need to implement.
Every single person in this country who works 40hr's a week should receive a living wage (at least $20 an hour) no matter what job they do. They also should receive full healthcare no co-pay and pensions. Any employer who doesn't provide this should be shut down.
Living wage is $20 an hour???
I guess that depends on where you live.. I'm making $16 and hour and get by just fine, I manage to put $200 a month into my savings while paying $850 a month in rent, only because I live in a studio in an expensive part of Chicago (Lincoln Park)
If I made $20 bucks an hour, I'd have money flowing everywhere!
I'm going to argue about $13 an hour would get me by as a minimal living wage.
I guess that depends on where you live.. I'm making $16 and hour and get by just fine, I manage to put $200 a month into my saving while paying $850 a month in rent, only because I live in a studio in an expensive part of Chicago (Lincoln Park)
We have the means in the US to raise minimum wage to 20$/hr. And implement 30 hour work weeks at the same time. WE have the resources, its just a matter of how they are distributed that gets everything so watered down.
During the Great Depression food rotted while people starved, million were homeless while apartments stood emtpy. Its a matter of resource distribution. And I bring up the depression because economic levels in the US are reaching similar levels to what they were in teh 20's
Every single person in this country who works 40hr's a week should receive a living wage (at least $20 an hour) no matter what job they do. They also should receive full healthcare no co-pay and pensions. Any employer who doesn't provide this should be shut down.
That's ludicrous. But not as much as leaving appartments empty in cities to inflate the housing market, which must have the number of homeless rise; or forcing countries to consume products from other countries thus paying more than they can afford for their food; or throwing out tons of food everyday in each country and spraying it with chemicals to make sure no starving man can eat it. etc. All these situations are completely ridiculous but I fail to see how you proposition is more ridiculous than the others.
I guess that depends on where you live.. I'm making $16 and hour and get by just fine, I manage to put $200 a month into my savings while paying $850 a month in rent, only because I live in a studio in an expensive part of Chicago (Lincoln Park)
If I made $20 bucks an hour, I'd have money flowing everywhere!
I'm going to argue about $13 an hour would get me by as a minimal living wage.
and at this rate of savings....
you should be able to afford a down payment on a house.....
in about 40 years.....
hehehehheh.............
Take me piece by piece..... Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
Comments
Of course I would. As long I had what I needed to live I'd be fine knowing that others were now getting what they need to survive. You wouldn't be okay with helping your fellow man like that? Ending poverty, malnutrition, horrible living conditions or even starvation?? You would still want more even if it meant hardships for others?
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
I have taken it upon myself to help my fellow man by donating a lot of dough to charity.
The more money I make, the more I am able to give to charities that aim to end poverty, feed the hungry, etc.
Assuming that the $20 minimum wage won't happen, the PEOPLE need to help others.
Do you give money, or time, to charity?
great idea...make the people more responsible and some of the problem will be corrected.
Steve Jobs made $640 million in '07. Apple has 14,800 employees. If Jobs took a 50% pay cut, every Apple employee could have earned an extra $21,621 last year. I read that Apple employees average $46,000/yr...so...ONE guy takes a 50% cut, still earns $320,000,000 (or $16,000 an hour), and 14,800 people get an almost 50% raise (about $11/hr).
The rich are too rich, says me. The greed fascinates me. Most of these people could give away everything they have, and be multi-millionaires again within months, based on their reputation or resume.
There is money for all....it needs to be distributed more fairly. I guess the question is - how do we achieve this?
The first part of your podt i can't understand. The midle class? What middle class? The middle class is all but extinct. Definitely a severely endangered species. Besides those in the middle class are the ones barely making the ends meet. Paycheck to paycheck. You want THEM to tale a huge paycut? i'm not sure i follow that. It also sounds like you argue that there are not college educated poor folks. News to me. My wife and i both have degrees and are Strugglin'.
As far as the second part, i think its bullshit also. Should corporations be made to pay a living wage? i would say, "absolutely". Will that be sufficient? No. i'm not afraid to say i'm a wealth redistributing son-of-a-bitch.
Like what? Garbage collector. i wouldn't say the qualifications for that are very high, yet where would our society be without them. i can't think of very many jobs that are without SIGNIFICANT social value. It is the working poor that built this country, and it is the working poor that keep it running.
"From each that which he is capable. To each that which he needs."
There are plenty of people who would find a way to be poor on $20/hr.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
As the saying goes, 'We make money the old-fashioned way, we earn it.'
But why should someone who built their own business from the ground up, out of their own idea, be FORCED to give up profits, just because he's done a little too well for himself?
Do you know how ludicrous it sounds? If Jobs wanted to be a good guy, and cut his profit in half, and give extra money to his workers .... God bless him. But to say the government should STEP IN and FORCE him to give away money that HE earned?
What message does that send? It's cool to be enterprising and resourceful and innovative and hard-working ... but don't be too much of any of the above, or we'll have to take your money.
Let's just ask those in Eastern Europe how much fun communism was. They fought revolutions to get out of this sort of thing.
Some of you bleeding hearts are ridiculous. Some people make more money than other people. Boo frickin' hoo.
for the least they could possibly do
I never said the govt should force anything on anyone. That's why I concluded my post with an open-ended question...and mentioned that Apple/Jobs may be a poor one, yet still an example of massive greed. No one needs (or frankly, deserves) $640 million a year. There is definitely a fine line between making compensation for work fair, and killing the incentive to work....but the disparity between the ultra-rich and everyone else has grown enormously...
http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/28/news/economy/real_wages/index.htm
"The paper says that about nine out of 10 workers have seen inflation that has outpaced their pay increases over the last three years, according to the Labor Department. That includes workers earning up to $80,000 a year, a level that puts them in the 90th percentile of wage earners."
"The paper reports that the gap between the top wage earners and other workers is growing. It cites research from economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty that showed that in 2004, the top 1 percent of earners --a group that includes many chief executives --received 11.2 percent of all wage income, up from 8.7 percent a decade earlier and less than 6 percent three decades ago"
http://www.forbes.com/2007/05/03/highest-paid-ceos-lead-07ceo-cz_sd_0503ceo_land.html
"The chief executives of America's 500 biggest companies got a collective 38% pay raise last year, to $7.5 billion"
You don't see THAT as ludicrous? Bleeding heart my ass. If people ARE lazy and won't work to earn their money, fine...fuck 'em. But, as was mentioned in this thread before, the middle class is becoming non-existant....wages have been pretty much stagnant for decades, compared to the manipulated inflation/cost of living numbers....while the top ten percent of earners are paid (by THEMSELVES in many cases) way more. This doesn't bother you?
There are many people here that are for the redistribution of wealth, even if you made your money through hard work. Everybody wants a friggin handout yet they don't want to do anything for it. Part of me thinks that there is a certain crowd that is immature and doesn't know any better, the other part of me thinks they are in the crowd begging for the handouts.
If someone like Steve Jobs makes that kind of money it doesn't bother me, it is his company he built from scratch. If someone gets appointed then fired and gets a $250M severance then that is what is not right. Companies like countrywide are going under yet they have the money to pay their CEO's figures like that?
PEARL JAM~San Antonio, TX. 4~5~03
INCUBUS~Houston, TX. 1~19~07
INCUBUS~Denver, CO. 2~8~07
Lollapalooza~Chicago, IL. 8~5~07
INCUBUS~Austin, TX. 9~3~07
Bonnaroo~Manchester, TN 6~14~08
Of course people need to help others but sadly so many don't and we end up with really bad situations where the wealth is all concentrated to a very select few, many people go without basic necessities causing problems like i mentioned earlier such as homelessness, malnutrition, overwhelming debt, home foreclosures, dependency on gov't assistance, hunger, lack of proper healthcare, high crime rates, living in slums or other deplorable living conditions. These are all huge problems we as a society face and can easily be fixed. The money is there but it's not being spread nearly enough to cover all the problems I just listed because not enough people are as kind as yourself who gives so generously to charities. That's when the icky word 'force' comes in. Force meaning law. I believe in good laws that are there to protect the people. And the way i see it, the less fortunate are in dire need of some protection. We force people not to steal, kill, hurt other people through laws. And the rampant greed we are all witnessing today is, in fact, harming other people and I have no problem whatsofuckingever with 'forcing' people to share a bit more. I don't think anyone's merit or hard work, or college degree should mean more than the lives of other human beings.
And yes, I do give money and time, when I have it, to charity.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
The distribution of wealth in the United States is actually reverting back to levels not seeen since the 20's, those great Depression years where people were starving while food rotted because they couldn't pay for it.
We have the resources, its just a matter of organizing society and getting away from this selfish mentality that's been driving our culture. We have the means, we just need to implement.
I guess that depends on where you live.. I'm making $16 and hour and get by just fine, I manage to put $200 a month into my savings while paying $850 a month in rent, only because I live in a studio in an expensive part of Chicago (Lincoln Park)
If I made $20 bucks an hour, I'd have money flowing everywhere!
I'm going to argue about $13 an hour would get me by as a minimal living wage.
During the Great Depression food rotted while people starved, million were homeless while apartments stood emtpy. Its a matter of resource distribution. And I bring up the depression because economic levels in the US are reaching similar levels to what they were in teh 20's
That's ludicrous. But not as much as leaving appartments empty in cities to inflate the housing market, which must have the number of homeless rise; or forcing countries to consume products from other countries thus paying more than they can afford for their food; or throwing out tons of food everyday in each country and spraying it with chemicals to make sure no starving man can eat it. etc. All these situations are completely ridiculous but I fail to see how you proposition is more ridiculous than the others.
you should be able to afford a down payment on a house.....
in about 40 years.....
hehehehheh.............
Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....