http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/...cas-growing-wage-gap.html

Remember the first principle of economics we have finite wealth/resources. Hence if we think that the top 1% is ok with getting more, it means that we are ok with everyone else getting less.

That is the first principle of mercantilism. In a free trade system it is not a zero sum game because the basis of all trade is that both parties benefit.

^^ Libtard point of view ^^

You want more?, earn it, I'm sick of the "I want what you have cuz it's not fair I don't have it and you do" mentality.

What if it's not fair?

Fairness is a personal estimation of the right amount of compensation for a contribution or punishment for a crime. It implies making a decision based on due consideration of the rights and perspectives of all effected by an issue and not merely upon what works to the benefit of the individual. Fairness aims to be the greatest good for the greatest number, without unduly sacrificing the interests of the individual. Fairness is always to some degree subjective because it involves judgment which can be flawed and prejudice inherent in Man's own value system which is the foundation upon which he judges something to be fair or unfair. Subjective or not, Man could not live in society if he didn't come to a basic consensus about what is fair. Those are the rules we play by that allow us to live together in harmony.

Have fun with that 😱

yah. simple economics. you make 36% of the nation pay for 100% of the nation. 64% of the population de-evolve into a bunch of mad fat cows who really need to shutup about equal rights.

"That is the first principle of mercantilism. In a free trade system it is not a zero sum game because the basis of all trade is that both parties benefit."
But you aren't creating wealth. It's still a zero sum game once you reach the optimal solution.. what that is depends on what you define as "optimal".

"You want more?, earn it, I'm sick of the "I want what you have cuz it's not fair I don't have it and you do" mentality."
Angry much? Troll much? nice talking point. Analyze what is written first and give a thoughtful reply next time otherwise we are playing madlibs and personally that works better for war decs:). kthxbai.

Did I use the word "fair" or "unfair" in my post? No. You chose to interpret my post as something that it wasn't.


We don't have a concensous on what is "fair" either locally or globally.
For the russian government, annexing Ukraine is fair :)


" Fairness aims to be the greatest good for the greatest number, "
That depends on what you mean by the "greatest good". A government's duty is to maximize that as it is viewed by it's citizens. For some that could mean simply protection and level of "freedom". For others that could mean some kind of social security. If the majority disagree with the powers that be definition than you have a bad government and all the consequences that go along with it.

I will say that the "earn it" argument is very hypocritical though.. what exactly is "earning" it anyway.
See: I'm not quite a 1%er but I'm pretty damn close. I'm in the "enabling" class so to speak.You are fooling yourself or outright lying regarding the earn it argument. I promise you things don't work like that..

Being in that bracket either means inheriting it, or distinguishing yourself somehow through a combination of luck, skill, and not exactly following the rules.

Besides it's always cuts for everyone but myself, no?

I figure decent earthers should understand this, you don't play rainbows because theyre fluffty. Why are they fluffty? Its better to specialize and trade and bam everyone wins.

As long as you can buy influence with money to rig the system to make you always win if you are in the top .1% of people civilization will never be even remotely just. I'm all for people getting compensated for their contributions to society, and that they can leave some of their wealth for the children. I'm not for individuals having the wealth of hundreds of thousands and the influence of millions.

Why? Because while most people are decent human beings, there is significant portion that are total assholes and psychopaths. When this is someone who has the influence and resources of hundreds of thousands of others that person can do massive damage to society. If no one has that much power it's more likely that the more reasonable majority of humanity can build a better civilization for all.

I wouldn't know, I don't live in Canada

This ignores technological advancements, changes in standard of living, and theoretically infinite renewable resources like wood.

I am pretty sure the federal reserve disagrees with your "finite" resources approach....

thts nice. but the point of my question was philosophical in nature. is there any system or order that you would call unfair? is there any point under the current system that it could reach for you to call it unfair? or is unfairness impossible, and everyone is just simply whining, no matter what the circumstances.

Martian you forgot patronage, which is also a large component of where you end up in life (it is all about who you know, or who you are related to, right?).

Neither side is completely correct, which is usually the case when it comes to "pure ideology", the truth is always more grey. Sure we want to continue to provide incentive to take risks through innovation and entrepreneurship, but we have to recognize the inherent inequities and the factors outside one's control as well.

I agree that luck is a big component of how well one does in life. I would actually argue it is one of the biggest components.

For example I'm currently doing better than most of my friends from grad school (not all, but most), and I would attribute that mostly to luck when it comes to who returned my calls/granted me interviews when we all started job hunting after school.

Sometimes you happen to mention one key thing in your resume that the hiring manager focuses on, which others also have as a skill/experience but decided not to highlight because it is a relatively minor detail and the job description didn't specifically highlight it as a desired attribute.

Sometimes things like that occur due to "strong foresight" in what the employer is really looking for, but often is it merely luck. That is just one of an almost infinite number of examples in how luck plays a role.

Hell, even where you are born has a lot to do with it, which is entirely based on luck. They call your birthplace the "lottery of life" for a reason.

The concept of the vale of ignorance exists for a reason as well :P

bah. if you want equal opportunity in America, y'all really need to quit throwing money at those pretenders who claim to be celebrities. or possibly impose a consumer tax of 90 % on whoever is stupid enough to watch them pretending to be somebody that they ain't.

worship something less flacid.

The answer is above your question,

$15 an hour for burger flippers%nukers? couldn't find a backslash.... how many burgers can be flipped in an hour? meh. fastfood is about to hit the wall. we really don't have all that much money left to spend it on anal burger flippers.

These posts turn into shouting matches way too quickly. I'm far from an expert on economics, but here are a few things I know:

1) Wages aren't necessarily tied to one's contributions to society, and we need to recognize that. The "don't like it? Work harder" attitude isn't constructive in any way. After all, as a teacher, I have a job that society says it values, because educating the next generation is clearly very important. For that job, even being in my 10th year and having an advanced degree, I don't make anywhere near what I'd likely make in many other jobs that don't necessarily add value to the world in the same way. For instance, even a bad baseball player on a major league roster makes $500,000 to add virtually no wins, no marketability, or anything else of tremendous value to a team.

This is what it is. I'm not saying we should have a revolution to overthrow it, but I am saying let's stop saying that people are always rich because they work hard and add value to society and that people are always poor (not saying I'm poor, necessarily) because they are lazy and don't add value to society, because teachers, doctors, engineers, and countless other people sure as hell provide a more necessary and useful service than a person who swings a piece of wood at a ball for 6 months out of the year.

2) Maybe once we hit the true optimal solution, perhaps economics will become a zero sum situation, but we're not there yet. The best way (at least from what I understand) to benefit everyone in any current economy is to grow the overall economy. While this video is partially about health care reform, it also talks about the idea of growing the economy (or in this specific instance, making a bigger pizza): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7LF5Vj2n64

3) Despite the fact that the best way may be to grow the economy, it doesn't mean we shouldn't consider the wage gap a problem. You cannot possibly tell me that a CEO is worth billions of dollars while many minimum wage workers for those same corporations should earn $7.25.
Does that mean I think we should raise the min. wage to $15? No. I've read that minimum wage increases haven't ever really hurt an economy before (when people ACTUALLY study, not just make assumptions and state them as far), but that's a huge jump, and I don't think $15/hr is wise.

This is probably my own way of shouting at the wind and won't accomplish anything, but if you're one of the people just spouting what the angry talking heads on cable news are telling you, you're not helping. The economy is highly nuanced and complex, and talking about it either like there are no problems or like any one solution will be a panacea is counter-productive to either finding a solution or educating people on what solutions might or might not work.

Twain, I don't listen to any of those cable clowns, I'm taking from personal experience, my family and I came from Argentina with nothing but our clothes and few hundred dollars, we all worked hard to get where we are, not wealthy, but comfortable, nothing was handed to us, makes me angry to see such an entitlement oriented society sprouting everywhere 😠

raising minimum wage does no good for anyone. companies are not going to lose profits due to raising minimum wage. They will simply raise prices to balance the wage increase.

So, minimum wage earners gain a little extra money in their paycheck, but then have to spend more on the goods the buy.

Meanwhile, ALL non-minimum wage earners do not gain more in their paycheck, but they get to pay more for the goods the buy. So, by raising minimum wage, you are effectively lowering the income of anyone who makes more than minimum wage.

And since the top earners are not going to allow their pay to go down, they'll just simply give themselves a bonus.

Raising minimum wage appears to help the poor, but it does not. Meanwhile, it DOES hurt the middle class.

There is no solution to close the gap, as the super rich will always find a way to get around any type of law or rule that is put into place. The only way the wage gap will ever be fixed is when the poor finally lose all hope of ever having a better life, rise up, and overthrow the super rich. I'm not advocating this. I'm just saying nothing will change until this happens. Until then, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer (and bring the middle class down with them).

On second thought, there is one way to change it all without a revolt. If everyone who earns more than xxxxxxxxx number of dollars a year would give that extra money to those who don't earn over xxxxxxxxx number of dollars. Of course, then we have a whole other host of problems. Maybe companies could level it a bit though, and just simply pay everyone a little more and pay their top earners a little less to cover the wages. Does the CEO of Exxon really need a $150 million bonus, over and above his normal salary? Did he alone really do anything to deserve that, or maybe it was his workers who did all the real work for him? Maybe that money could have been split and given to the employees instead.

👌 👏

this is the best way I've seen it put:
"To me, Equality means equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. However, equality of opportunity, to me, means that everyone should be able to freely access the best support, encouragement and resources available. Right now, there are many levels of impedance to equality. I believe they can be summed up as a wanton deliberate lack of meaningful interchange and collaboration, due to mutual intolerance, based on deliberately and carefully maintained myopic views."

oh, this is the thread where i started losing it. no, i guess not. probably lost it a long time ago.

Well, your narrative is a common enough one, but it's also common enough that many people that were just like your family failed horribly in that same situation.

Hopefully, you'd generally agree with the fact that the universe doesn't necessarily reward talent, hard work, and a high ethical standard while punishing the opposite. A lot of what happens to us is based on luck, and that luck may be anything from being born into a powerful, economically sound country, all the way down to being lucky that your boss's personality and your personality clicked and the guy in the next cubicle was downsized instead of you.

I'm not saying hard work and talent doesn't play a role in this. The old saying "luck favors the prepared" is absolutely true. But luck still rewards a lot of undeserving people and fluffs over a lot of deserving people. When people start to ignore that and assume that hard work and talent are all anyone needs, it makes it easy to make anyone who failed into the "other."

"Those people are just lazy!"
"Those people just want handouts!"
"Those people would rather pump out babies and collect welfare than actually work!"
etc. etc. etc.

Once we do that, we basically give up on trying to solve problems like poverty, because we've replaced the reality of the situation, that the world is a highly nuanced place where thousands of events and circumstances lead to our success or failure, with the very simplistic narrative that "Successful people are those who are talented and work hard, because all people who are talented and work hard are successful. Meanwhile, people who are on government assistance of any type are all lazy and/or have no talents to offer the world."

That's problematic thinking both because it simplifies the world of economics and opportunity down to one statement, which I'm sure everyone here will agree is ludicrous, but also because it cuts us off from other people.

there are too many machines doing the jobs that people used to do.

This.

A full work week at minimum wage after federal withholding and no state withholding is $270 / week. It is said, "Work more!" Sure. Squeeze another day in. But families and responsibilities need to be tended to at home. We cannot just tell the drowning unskilled worker to work more or find time for a four year degree, starting yesterday. Do any of you not advocating a minimum wage increase know a person in such a situation? Do you just bloviate right out your ass about economic principles irresponsibly divorced from reality? This is deeply wrong.

"The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure."

I was about to suggest that while you or The Beatles might not advocate it, Thomas Jefferson would. But then I remembered that he and the rest of his wealthy buddies owned slaves, so I guess being fluffed is built into the American experiment.

This has been a fascinating thread, epithets from Glenn Beck devotees notwithstanding. I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, clearly there are enough experts on any subject everywhere on the internet.

What I do know is that it is profoundly contrary to the American ideals that have been instilled in me to somehow suggest that a citizen should be able to support a family on $270 a week.

pfft. it has an easy solution. go to work, accept their money, buy only necesseties, sing folk songs with the family. wait a couple weeks for them to freak out about the sluggish economy, ask for a raise so that you afford to buy something besides the neccessities, go to work, accept their money... fug, rinse and repeat until they figure it out...

Yeehaw...

Juice: Not sure where you're getting your information

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...mum-wage-reduces-poverty/
http://research.stlouisfed.org/...CRE_0314_Minimum_Wage.pdf
http://thinkprogress.org/...831/minimum-wage-poverty/
http://www.msnbc.com/...age-hike-would-do-america
http://www.cnn.com/...offenheiser-minimum-wage/

These are literally just the first five hits I got on a Google search, not ones that I picked out specifically. It includes the St. Louis Fed, an article that relies almost entirely on a CBO report, and articles from several major news outlets that quote other studies.

I'm not arguing about most of your post, but when you say raising the minimum wage doesn't even help those making minimum wage, you're simply wrong.

Prices do tend to raise a little bit when minimum wage increases happen, but not nearly at the same rate of those increases.

Raising the minimum wage DOES tremendously help those at the bottom.

Having said that, while I really don't care whether such an increase happens (unless it's the crazy $15/hr talk some people bring up), I don't actually advocate for it, because I agree with other posters here that many of those positions are considered part-time, entry-level positions, and I agree that raising the minimum wage at best has a neutral effect, and at worst a negative effect on most working and middle-class people above the minimum wage, but nevertheless, you're simply wrong on the point that it doesn't help the poor.

smash capitalism, imho.