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On December 06 2013 06:38 xDaunt wrote:
It'll be kinda sweet when jacking up the minimum wage results in companies replacing all of those minimum wage workers with various kinds of automatons. I'm a huge of fan of being able to self-checkout at the grocery store as opposed fucking around in checkout lines.
You think there is a piece of technology that is not viable at 8 dollars per hour but becomes viable at 10-15 dollars per hour?
Personally I prefer the check out guy, they are better trained at scanning things than I am and you dont have to load one item at a time on that weight scanner thing so checkout is almost always quicker with them. Maybe in another 20 years when robots are fully introduced it will be a different thing.
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On December 06 2013 06:38 xDaunt wrote:
It'll be kinda sweet when jacking up the minimum wage results in companies replacing all of those minimum wage workers with various kinds of automatons. I'm a huge of fan of being able to self-checkout at the grocery store as opposed fucking around in checkout lines.
Minimum Wage -> New Unemployment Figures -> News Stories and our dear President talking about Greedy Private Companies refusing to hire, too concerned with profits, not taking on their societal responsibilities, uncaring about the lower classes etc. However, I don't think it will rival the economic impact once the portions of Obamacare that were delayed for companies go into effect next year. That'll be the greater of the two job killers.
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On December 06 2013 06:53 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2013 06:38 xDaunt wrote:
It'll be kinda sweet when jacking up the minimum wage results in companies replacing all of those minimum wage workers with various kinds of automatons. I'm a huge of fan of being able to self-checkout at the grocery store as opposed fucking around in checkout lines. You think there is a piece of technology that is not viable at 8 dollars per hour but becomes viable at 10-15 dollars per hour? Personally I prefer the check out guy, they are better trained at scanning things than I am and you dont have to load one item at a time on that weight scanner thing so checkout is almost always quicker with them. Maybe in another 20 years when robots are fully introduced it will be a different thing.
I don't know the precise economics of automation. However, I can see that the technology is available and already being widely used. I also know that basically doubling a company's labor costs will result in a shift towards more automation at the expense of the workers. Notwithstanding obvious economic eventuality, Supermarket chains have said as such many, many times.
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On December 06 2013 06:57 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2013 06:38 xDaunt wrote:
It'll be kinda sweet when jacking up the minimum wage results in companies replacing all of those minimum wage workers with various kinds of automatons. I'm a huge of fan of being able to self-checkout at the grocery store as opposed fucking around in checkout lines. Minimum Wage -> New Unemployment Figures -> News Stories and our dear President talking about Greedy Private Companies refusing to hire, too concerned with profits, not taking on their societal responsibilities, uncaring about the lower classes etc. However, I don't think it will rival the economic impact once the portions of Obamacare that were delayed for companies go into effect next year. That'll be the greater of the two job killers.
Yeah, won't that be a bitch.
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You all saw this article from Bloomberg, right? It describes how the average WalMart employee receives about $1,000 / year in public assistance (transfer payments). McDonalds workers also get a ton of public dollars, and it's all due to the low wages that they're being paid, combined with the rules we have on public assistance. He goes on to describe some cooky ideas on how to fix the problem, but I'd think this would be an issue both sides of the isle could get behind. They may not agree on how to fix it, but I'd be willing to bet most Americans are not a fan of their tax dollar subsidizing large corporations that make huge profits every year.
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United States43283 Posts
On December 06 2013 06:14 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2013 04:56 KwarK wrote:On December 05 2013 13:08 IgnE wrote:“Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children, and borrowing from China. When that note comes due — and this isn’t racist, so try it. Try it anyway. This isn’t racist. But it’s going to be like slavery when that note is due.” -Sarah Palin What a buffoon. I was thinking about this today. What gets me is that she's trying to say "American kids will be born with a debt and will therefore have to forfeit some of their productive surplus" which is, strictly speaking, like slavery (where an individual loses all rights to their labour) but that she couldn't think of a more apt comparison than "slavery, but I'm not racist". If you really want to be super dictionary specific about it then she's not completely wrong, only mostly wrong (slavery is more than just losing control of economic output, the people were owned, they lost all control over every aspect of their lives) but slavery has a huge historical, social and emotional legacy with which no comparison can be made. Sending a small portion of your income to China is in no way comparable to the experience of the slaves in America and attempting to hijack that experience and that history to make a cheap political point is at the very least insulting to the subject. Sorry Palin, you're either racist, a moron of the highest order or both. You'll find as diverse an organization as the UN calling debt bondage a modern day form of slavery. You can make the case that slavery ought to go farther, but there are more similarities than differences in its literal form. You're arguing the matter of degrees makes no comparison, but I'm afraid it falls flat. Moral crusaders make no qualms about it. Heck, the modern day left loves going even further in the comparisons. I remember distinctly Hillary calling the Republican house a plantation, in her "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about." I consider the current size of the debt, amounting to $140,000 per household, and just the big 3 federal programs will exceed the entirety of tax revenue in 75 years with no current plans for reform. "Sending a small portion of your income to China" is pretty offensive in diluting the matter of degree present here.
Debt bondage in cases such as when the person is smuggled across the border and is then kept captive as a prostitute or whatever until their trafficking fee is worked off are not the same thing as some of your tax money going to China. When an American public figure stands up and compares something to slavery they are not referring to the economic act of taking another's labour, they are referring to the systematic dehumanising of a group of people. Going "but technically I could have meant" doesn't count because everyone already has an idea of what the word means and if that's not what you're describing and you're just misusing the word to try and borrow weight from the tragedy then you can eat shit.
If you are an American public figure and you want to talk about slavery and the slavery you want to talk about didn't involve plantations, picking cotton and the word nigger then you ought to make that very clear beforehand because that's where we go when you say slavery. Pick another word.
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On December 06 2013 07:10 TheFish7 wrote:You all saw this article from Bloomberg, right? It describes how the average WalMart employee receives about $1,000 / year in public assistance (transfer payments). McDonalds workers also get a ton of public dollars, and it's all due to the low wages that they're being paid, combined with the rules we have on public assistance. He goes on to describe some cooky ideas on how to fix the problem, but I'd think this would be an issue both sides of the isle could get behind. They may not agree on how to fix it, but I'd be willing to bet most Americans are not a fan of their tax dollar subsidizing large corporations that make huge profits every year.
The whole premise of that article is ass backwards. Walmart and McDonald's aren't benefiting from the public assistance payouts to their employees. For that to be true, there'd have to be evidence that no one would work at Walmart and McDonald's absent the existence of those public assistance programs.
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On December 06 2013 07:10 TheFish7 wrote:You all saw this article from Bloomberg, right? It describes how the average WalMart employee receives about $1,000 / year in public assistance (transfer payments). McDonalds workers also get a ton of public dollars, and it's all due to the low wages that they're being paid, combined with the rules we have on public assistance. He goes on to describe some cooky ideas on how to fix the problem, but I'd think this would be an issue both sides of the isle could get behind. They may not agree on how to fix it, but I'd be willing to bet most Americans are not a fan of their tax dollar subsidizing large corporations that make huge profits every year.
The assistance go to the workers though, not the businesses. Unless there's a compelling argument that public assistance depresses wages I see no reason to characterize the assistance as a business subsidy.
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On December 06 2013 07:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2013 07:10 TheFish7 wrote:You all saw this article from Bloomberg, right? It describes how the average WalMart employee receives about $1,000 / year in public assistance (transfer payments). McDonalds workers also get a ton of public dollars, and it's all due to the low wages that they're being paid, combined with the rules we have on public assistance. He goes on to describe some cooky ideas on how to fix the problem, but I'd think this would be an issue both sides of the isle could get behind. They may not agree on how to fix it, but I'd be willing to bet most Americans are not a fan of their tax dollar subsidizing large corporations that make huge profits every year. The assistance go to the workers though, not the businesses. Unless there's a compelling argument that public assistance depresses wages I see no reason to characterize the assistance as a business subsidy.
He is implying the assistance is what permit Walmart and Mc Donalds to give such low wages in the first place.
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Walmart doesn't really give a shit about what its employees earn from sources other than Walmart. It only cares about its bottom line: what Walmart has to pay its employees in both wages and benefits. As such, it's only going to pay whatever it has to in order to fill its labor needs. Whether that's enough for someone to live on is irrelevant to Walmart. So the issue is whether the employees will work for Walmart at minimum wage without the existence of government subsidies. I tend to think that the answer is yes.
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On December 06 2013 07:19 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2013 06:14 Danglars wrote:On December 06 2013 04:56 KwarK wrote:On December 05 2013 13:08 IgnE wrote:“Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children, and borrowing from China. When that note comes due — and this isn’t racist, so try it. Try it anyway. This isn’t racist. But it’s going to be like slavery when that note is due.” -Sarah Palin What a buffoon. I was thinking about this today. What gets me is that she's trying to say "American kids will be born with a debt and will therefore have to forfeit some of their productive surplus" which is, strictly speaking, like slavery (where an individual loses all rights to their labour) but that she couldn't think of a more apt comparison than "slavery, but I'm not racist". If you really want to be super dictionary specific about it then she's not completely wrong, only mostly wrong (slavery is more than just losing control of economic output, the people were owned, they lost all control over every aspect of their lives) but slavery has a huge historical, social and emotional legacy with which no comparison can be made. Sending a small portion of your income to China is in no way comparable to the experience of the slaves in America and attempting to hijack that experience and that history to make a cheap political point is at the very least insulting to the subject. Sorry Palin, you're either racist, a moron of the highest order or both. You'll find as diverse an organization as the UN calling debt bondage a modern day form of slavery. You can make the case that slavery ought to go farther, but there are more similarities than differences in its literal form. You're arguing the matter of degrees makes no comparison, but I'm afraid it falls flat. Moral crusaders make no qualms about it. Heck, the modern day left loves going even further in the comparisons. I remember distinctly Hillary calling the Republican house a plantation, in her "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about." I consider the current size of the debt, amounting to $140,000 per household, and just the big 3 federal programs will exceed the entirety of tax revenue in 75 years with no current plans for reform. "Sending a small portion of your income to China" is pretty offensive in diluting the matter of degree present here. Debt bondage in cases such as when the person is smuggled across the border and is then kept captive as a prostitute or whatever until their trafficking fee is worked off are not the same thing as some of your tax money going to China. When an American public figure stands up and compares something to slavery they are not referring to the economic act of taking another's labour, they are referring to the systematic dehumanising of a group of people. Going "but technically I could have meant" doesn't count because everyone already has an idea of what the word means and if that's not what you're describing and you're just misusing the word to try and borrow weight from the tragedy then you can eat shit. If you are an American public figure and you want to talk about slavery and the slavery you want to talk about didn't involve plantations, picking cotton and the word nigger then you ought to make that very clear beforehand because that's where we go when you say slavery. Pick another word.
"some of your tax money going to China" is not relevant in the context of her speech.
TAPPER: So, you obviously feel very passionate about the national debt. The other day, you gave a speech in which you compared it to slavery.
PALIN: To slavery. Yes.
And that's not a racist thing to do, by the way, which I know somebody is going to claim it is.
TAPPER: Don't you ever fear that by using hyperbole like that -- obviously, you don't literally mean it's like slavery, which cost millions of people their lives and there was rape and torture. You're using it as a metaphor.
But don't you ever worry that by using that kind of language, you -- you risk obscuring the point you're trying to make?
PALIN: There is another definition of slavery and that is being beholden to some kind of master that is not of your choosing. And, yes, the national debt will be like slavery when the note comes due.
TAPPER: So you're not -- you're not work -- I mean I'm -- I'm taking it as a no, but you're not -- you're not concerned about the language --
PALIN: I'm not one to be politically correct, evidently.
TAPPER: OK.
PALIN: And, no, I don't -- I don't worry about things like that, because no matter what I say, no matter what a lot of conservatives say, they're, you know, they'll be targeted and distractions will be attempted to be made to take the listener and the viewers' mind off what the point is, by pointing out, oh, she said the word slavery in a speech, and, I did say the word slavery, because I want to make a point.
TAPPER: You can understand why African-Americans or others might be offended by it, though? PALIN: I -- I can if they choose to misinterpret what it is that I'm saying. And, again, you know, I'm sure if we open up the dictionary, we could prove that with semantics that are various, we can prove that there is a definition of slavery that absolutely fits the bill there, when I'm talking about a bankrupt country that will owe somebody something down the line if we don't change things that is, we will be shackled. We will be enslaved to those who we owe.
For someone so concerned with the different degrees involved with your intense comprehension in the world slavery, surely you can understand the difference in degrees of sending some money and no longer being able to pay the sizable debt at the ends of things. I'll say it again differently: the road we are traveling down will enslave the American taxpayer to debt-holders pure and simple. Andrew Jackson, ironically a founder of the Democratic party, comes to mind ... "Live within your means, never be in debt, and by husbanding your money you can always lay it out well. But when you get in debt you become a slave." That's slavery (whoops). Striking closer to home, perhaps the line "Britons never will be slaves" evokes too much closet racism and should be removed from any performance of the song to not offend.
Playing the race card like you and your ideological allies do is no substitute for the real discussion of a nation headed to bankruptcy (OMB quoted before). You would indeed have others stand as slaves to your political correctness, even as the American left has no problems comparing their opponents to plantation owners and structures as plantations. Ludicrous comparison. Willfully heightening the import of the word, and deadening the real impact described to try to invalidate it.
Add'l Edit: I was first thinking of Ambrose Bierce actually, when he defined Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver.
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United States43283 Posts
Using slavery hyperbole inappropriately in lieu of an actual argument isn't the same thing as addressing the problem and calling out someone who borrows weight from another race's tragedy to score political points isn't the same thing as ignoring the problem. Palin saying slavery doesn't mean she's solving debt and me calling her out on it doesn't mean I'm not solving debt (although I'm not, I'm British and not a politician).
Palin has subsequently clarified that when she said slavery she didn't mean slavery in the sense that her viewers understood the term, she was using it to mean something else. If she genuinely didn't mean slavery then she is either ignorant that slavery means something other than being in debt and if she did mean it and wished to use the clout that word carries then she's being offensive. Also I suspect Andrew Jackson's understanding of what being a slave entailed and of the experience of slavery is somewhat different to that of the actual slaves. Had he experienced that kind of dehumanisation he probably wouldn't have said that it's equivalent to owing someone money.
In your quoted exchange Palin confirms that she is using, in her words, "another definition of slavery". That she didn't mean what people assumed she meant, she meant loss of economic output to another. Palin agrees with me about what happened here, why don't you?
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I concur; that article simply does not provide much support for its premise.
It's sad that so many of their employees need help; but it's not welfare for the company.
I wonder what their net expenses are locally; there are some parts of the country where I reckon that should be a liveable wage (albeit quit slim).
There is too much corporate welfare in this country, but that is not an instance of it.
Do the common core standards have anything about home economics/living on a budget? that would seem like a useful skill to teach.
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On December 06 2013 07:34 xDaunt wrote:
Walmart doesn't really give a shit about what its employees earn from sources other than Walmart. It only cares about its bottom line: what Walmart has to pay its employees in both wages and benefits. As such, it's only going to pay whatever it has to in order to fill its labor needs. Whether that's enough for someone to live on is irrelevant to Walmart. So the issue is whether the employees will work for Walmart at minimum wage without the existence of government subsidies. I tend to think that the answer is yes.
I've heard plenty of people say the Iron Law of Wages is wrong because companies will pay more than people need to live, but I've never heard anyone say they'll pay less! I mean what is the actual alternative? Honestly, shooting sprees seems the most feasible to me.
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What is the weird anti-libertarianism where all of a sudden everyone thinks that the government subsidizing wages has no market effect at all? I find it really, really, really difficult to believe that anyone who advocates free market policies honestly thinks that it isn't corporate welfare. This is one of the problems so many people have with conservatives: so much of libertarian-style conservatism is based on logical arguments, but whenever following that line of reasoning reaches a conclusion that traditional conservatives don't like, such as cutting corporate welfare, all the logic goes out the window.
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On December 06 2013 08:08 HunterX11 wrote:
What is the weird anti-libertarianism where all of a sudden everyone thinks that the government subsidizing wages has no market effect at all? I find it really, really, really difficult to believe that anyone who advocates free market policies honestly thinks that it isn't corporate welfare. This is one of the problems so many people have with conservatives: so much of libertarian-style conservatism is based on logical arguments, but whenever following that line of reasoning reaches a conclusion that traditional conservatives don't like, such as cutting corporate welfare, all the logic goes out the window.
Explain what the link is. I already described why I think there isn't one, but I'm open to learning.
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On December 06 2013 08:19 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2013 08:08 HunterX11 wrote:
What is the weird anti-libertarianism where all of a sudden everyone thinks that the government subsidizing wages has no market effect at all? I find it really, really, really difficult to believe that anyone who advocates free market policies honestly thinks that it isn't corporate welfare. This is one of the problems so many people have with conservatives: so much of libertarian-style conservatism is based on logical arguments, but whenever following that line of reasoning reaches a conclusion that traditional conservatives don't like, such as cutting corporate welfare, all the logic goes out the window. Explain what the link is. I already described why I think there isn't one, but I'm open to learning.
If people do not have enough money/goods to survive participating in the formal economy, they won't. Plenty of people are already struggling while working at Walmart and being on public assistance. From a basic economics perspective, it is not even an empirical question whether or not public assistance is subsidizing the wages of Walmart employees where costs of living are high: it is a logical fact. Walmart would have to pay more without government assistance because they only hire living employees.
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To be fair, it is true that some jobs could just be eliminated, such as the greeters. That's not so great either, though. What's ironic though is that if subsidizing the living costs of employees who depend on 100% of their wages isn't supposed to have a significant impact, then why would raising minimum wage? It's the same reasoning, just in the other direction.
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On December 06 2013 08:27 HunterX11 wrote:
To be fair, it is true that some jobs could just be eliminated, such as the greeters. That's not so great either, though. What's ironic though is that if subsidizing the living costs of employees who depend on 100% of their wages isn't supposed to have a significant impact, then why would raising minimum wage? It's the same reasoning, just in the other direction.
No, it's not the same. The employer pays for one increase and the government pays for the other.
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On December 06 2013 07:29 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2013 07:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 06 2013 07:10 TheFish7 wrote:You all saw this article from Bloomberg, right? It describes how the average WalMart employee receives about $1,000 / year in public assistance (transfer payments). McDonalds workers also get a ton of public dollars, and it's all due to the low wages that they're being paid, combined with the rules we have on public assistance. He goes on to describe some cooky ideas on how to fix the problem, but I'd think this would be an issue both sides of the isle could get behind. They may not agree on how to fix it, but I'd be willing to bet most Americans are not a fan of their tax dollar subsidizing large corporations that make huge profits every year. The assistance go to the workers though, not the businesses. Unless there's a compelling argument that public assistance depresses wages I see no reason to characterize the assistance as a business subsidy. He is implying the assistance is what permit Walmart and Mc Donalds to give such low wages in the first place.
Yes, agreed, that's the implication. But what's the mechanism for driving the wages down? Is it something like wage subsides increase the amount of people willing to work and that increased supply drives down the price for unskilled labor?
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