November 2006 (Merge)

[fermentor666]

"like saying that I said of the Constitution "fuck an extremist viewpoint like that" when I was talking about HIS interpretation of the Constitution. "

 

you are lying. you specifically said 'fuck an extremist viewpoint like that' in response to my statement that congress should declare war and not the president.

 

 

 

Fuck that, dude, I KNOW I would never say that. I was saying it to your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment which allows for lord only knows how many weapons, absolutely not about Congress declaring war. This is what I'm talking about, and you always start off your posts with some stupid twisting of words which generally turns me off enough to stop reading them right there.

[fermentor666]

seperation of church and state is a great idea. it is what most founders suggested. HOWEVER you dont have a complete understanding of the topic. you think it is EXPRESSLY MENTIONED in the constitution, and it is not. the first amendment merely says "congress shall write no law..." not "there shall be a total of separation of church and state."

 

We covered that already, and I believe that I corrected what I said about it being explicitly mentioned in the constitution.

 

But you still have not had anything to say about everything else I said on the manner of it setting precedent.

 

"And when I say that the federal government should have put more funding towards building up the leevees in New Orleans as well as taking care of wetland destruction over the past 20-30 years, he responds that the flooding was the fault of a "welfare state"."

 

my position, if you would of read it and not immediately wrote a response of 'you want to gun down the poor...' was that the government failed miserably during katrina. but this is to be expected. government levies failed. period. i also said that the states should of been in control of thier own levies, and the feds shouldnt of been. i did not say the "hurricane' was caused by the welfare state, but the aftermath, the mass food shortages, people being herded like cattle into stadiums, etc, is a corrollary of the welfare state. if people were self sufficient, and did not rely on the government as generations of these people did, they would of been able to handle the situation for themselves. a big difference can be seen by the areas of mississippi, after the flood. they experienced the same destruction, but the aftermath was 1/4 as bad as the show that was put on in NO.

 

The feds have control of the levees because it's a national port and a national river (the Mississippi) and also because the state of Lousiana, and certainly the city of New Orleans, doesn't have enough money and can't raise enough money on it's own to take care of them. It's sad, but it's a true. These highways and channels that are all man-made were all funded federally. I was just watching something about a waterway that was created down the eastern coast that was made possible by federal funding and purchases, it's now a major shipping route.

 

What you're saying is this: If the state of Arkansas decides it does not want to spend any more money on environmental protection of the river, or better yet keeping up maintanence on a dam, then it's ok to let them do that even though it means polluting the shit out of Lousiana or flooding them. The government has no responsibility to ensure this does not happen, if you think they have no responsibility to maintain the levees in New Orleans.

 

And news flash: There were a lot of people who weren't on welfare that were stuck in New Orleans when those levees broke. Blaming it on a welfare state is a fucking cop-out and you know it. And one reason why the federal response was bungled was because of cut funding and confusion as to whether or not they had the power to just go in. Obviously an issue that hasn't been resolved, but it's a fact that the state had even less resources than the government. So again, let the people drown or send in the buses five days earlier and get them all out before the shitstorm hit. Or at least the day after the hurricane and before the levees broke.

 

"Secondly, you didn't get the better of me at all and if anyone has less material it's you. I bring up quotes and you bring up generalizations and speculation without source material.

 

i forgot... your right. you bring up sources like 'separation of churcn and state' expressly enumerated in the constitution. i've had debates on other message boards where i post serious first hand documentation on this subject, only to be called 'king of copy and paste.'

it doesnt matter what i post, you dont agree with it and you obvioulsly cannot compete with the argument, because you resort to childishness.

look man, if you cant debate something, then just stop pretending.

 

Again with the "seperation of church and state" thing, I already clarified my point. All I've seen you post is opinion pieces. IN FACT, it doesn't matter what I post because you automatically assume I'm a "typical liberal" in the dirtiest of terms. Yet if I bring up quotes from people you base your arguments on, you say "I never really liked him in the first place", instead of debating on philisophical terms. For you, interpretation only goes one way and can never change. And that's not how the legal system is designed in this country.

[angelofdeath]

"But you still have not had anything to say about everything else I said on the manner of it setting precedent."

 

precedent is a 2 way street. for instance, if i want to talk about precedent i can easily argue that nearly every case that the warren court handed down was not based on precendent. there was no precedent for legalized national abortion as a fundamental right, until they 'found it.' stare decisis is not law. after all from 1789 until the war between the states, the precedent was that most blacks were 'property.'

im not some huge 'precedent' fundamentalist. the courts have been amassing power into the central state since the time the constitution was ratified.

 

"they have no responsibility to maintain the levees in New Orleans."

 

i think a decent case can be made for the feds funding the levies in new orleans. but i also believe that the government has royally fucked it up. and not because of 'lack of funding.' i believe the states should have first and foremost crack and protection of thier own cities. first and foremost.

the funding of internal improvements goes back to the hamilton/jefferson quarrels.

more money DOES NOT GET YOU A PROPER OUTCOME. in the world of government, success is failure. if you succeed, you might get a cut in your budget which means a pay cut for you if you work for the government. so they make sure to use every penny they get, even it involves throwing away thousands of dollars on useless things.

 

as for your arkansas example, under the system of federalism if arkansas polluted the mississippi, they would be sued and held accountable by louisiana.

 

"There were a lot of people who weren't on welfare that were stuck in New Orleans when those levees broke. Blaming it on a welfare state is a fucking cop-out and you know it. And one reason why the federal response was bungled was because of cut funding and confusion as to whether or not they had the power to just go in. Obviously an issue that hasn't been resolved, but it's a fact that the state had even less resources than the government. So again, let the people drown or send in the buses five days earlier and get them all out before the shitstorm hit. Or at least the day after the hurricane and before the levees broke."

 

i am not blaming the breaking of government levies on the welfare state, i am blaming peoples BEHAVIOR DURING THE AFTERMATH on the welfare state. they allowed themselves to be herded like cattle, and told what to do, when it was not in thier best interest. the local government's plan for dealing with katrina was 'lets get the fuck out of here.' the welfare state creates a dependence on government so whenever anything happens, they dont try to help themselves, they look to thier master for help.

the government has no special powers to fix natural disasters. what they should of done was, fema should of gotten the fuck out of the way and let all those tractor trailers full of millions of dollars of chainsaws, water, ice, food, generators that walmart was GIVING away, and allowed insurance companies and adjusters into the disaster areas to assess the damage and allowed work crews to get down in there and get the job done. why was bush doing a photo op during the aftermath? he should of said "yes we will do all we can do, we will get out of the way, because we cannot manage this disaster relief effort, and we will allow people that know what they are doing in to do thier job. we all saw what throwing money at people gets you... people using 2500 debit cards to buy louis vuitton handbags. this is the welfare state, this is out tax money, this was relief for the poor in new orleans.

 

you could give fema an unlimited budget and they still would not of been able to centrally manage katrina. im sure you heard of what they were doing with truck companies. routing trucks on 7 day trips for totals of 5k miles, only to NOT BRING supplies to N.O. to think that an unlimited budget will actually accomplish anything is simply wishful thinking. centralized government is a gigantic failure on almost every level past organizing the states for national defense, regulating foreign trade and treaties, etc.

 

'For you, interpretation only goes one way and can never change.'

 

on the constitution, yeah there isnt much room for change. it says what it says. unless you amend it, there is no hidden secrets in it.

[fermentor666]

precedent is a 2 way street. for instance, if i want to talk about precedent i can easily argue that nearly every case that the warren court handed down was not based on precendent. there was no precedent for legalized national abortion as a fundamental right, until they 'found it.' stare decisis is not law. after all from 1789 until the war between the states, the precedent was that most blacks were 'property.'

im not some huge 'precedent' fundamentalist. the courts have been amassing power into the central state since the time the constitution was ratified.

 

Yes, it is a two-way street. But it's a lot harder to create precedent than it is to go by it, which is one of the reasons the Constitution is given so much importance. I think that is something you and I can both agree on. But you can take your slavery argument against your gun control argument, if someone really wanted to (I don't).

 

i think a decent case can be made for the feds funding the levies in new orleans. but i also believe that the government has royally fucked it up. and not because of 'lack of funding.' i believe the states should have first and foremost crack and protection of thier own cities. first and foremost.

the funding of internal improvements goes back to the hamilton/jefferson quarrels.

more money DOES NOT GET YOU A PROPER OUTCOME. in the world of government, success is failure. if you succeed, you might get a cut in your budget which means a pay cut for you if you work for the government. so they make sure to use every penny they get, even it involves throwing away thousands of dollars on useless things.

 

as for your arkansas example, under the system of federalism if arkansas polluted the mississippi, they would be sued and held accountable by louisiana.

 

Well, the question is whether or not to let human greed get in the way of society. "Checks and balances" may be seem like a buzz-word but it is neccessary for these things to work. No one here is arguing for unlimited budgets, even the defense department won't get that. It's a shame that funding will get cut if someone comes in under budget, but it's not unfixable. I don't know HOW to specifically fix it, because that's not my focus, but it's certainly fixable.

 

And would you rather the taxpayer's money go towards environmental standards and enforcements or towards lengthy, federal trials?

 

i am not blaming the breaking of government levies on the welfare state, i am blaming peoples BEHAVIOR DURING THE AFTERMATH on the welfare state. they allowed themselves to be herded like cattle, and told what to do, when it was not in thier best interest. the local government's plan for dealing with katrina was 'lets get the fuck out of here.' the welfare state creates a dependence on government so whenever anything happens, they dont try to help themselves, they look to thier master for help.

the government has no special powers to fix natural disasters. what they should of done was, fema should of gotten the fuck out of the way and let all those tractor trailers full of millions of dollars of chainsaws, water, ice, food, generators that walmart was GIVING away, and allowed insurance companies and adjusters into the disaster areas to assess the damage and allowed work crews to get down in there and get the job done. why was bush doing a photo op during the aftermath? he should of said "yes we will do all we can do, we will get out of the way, because we cannot manage this disaster relief effort, and we will allow people that know what they are doing in to do thier job. we all saw what throwing money at people gets you... people using 2500 debit cards to buy louis vuitton handbags. this is the welfare state, this is out tax money, this was relief for the poor in new orleans.

 

you could give fema an unlimited budget and they still would not of been able to centrally manage katrina. im sure you heard of what they were doing with truck companies. routing trucks on 7 day trips for totals of 5k miles, only to NOT BRING supplies to N.O. to think that an unlimited budget will actually accomplish anything is simply wishful thinking. centralized government is a gigantic failure on almost every level past organizing the states for national defense, regulating foreign trade and treaties, etc.

 

Of course there were people abusing the system, there always are. How badly has the defense budget been abused by companies like Halliburton and even government departments? One thing for sure is that not everyone was buying handbags with their cards. The people doing that obviously abused the system and didn't need those cards, there should be close examination of where that card goes to make sure it's not to someone who is going to waste it on luxury handbags. But again, if someone loses their entire house and possessions and decides that the only thing that will make them happy is a pair of Superbowl tickets, should they be stopped from spending that money? There's a difference between abusing a system and being a complete idiot. A welfare mother might go out and spend her check on crack, that's where the local authorities need to pull their share and enforce the rules and take away that welfare.

 

I don't think there was anything on those FEMA cards that stipulated what they could spend it on. I'm not the hugest fan of handing out a debit card, $2,500 can't even cover more than a couple months rent plus food for a family of four. I'd rather see that money go towards rebuilding basic city structures and housing. What good is a debit card if you're living in a gymnasium?

 

There was definitely enough failure to go around, but it's a mistake to think that those people were just blindly following orders into the Superdome. There was nowhere else for them to go, most didn't have cars and the ones that did either had nowhere to go or were too late to use them. If you can remember, the levees did not break until a day after the hurricane was over and once they broke things got bad real fast. Lots of people even tried to leave by walking out but the local police of the surrounding neighborhoods lined up on the highways with shotguns and wouldn't let people into their counties. So much for human decency. There is clearly a responsibility that the federal government should have when it's become apparent that a state cannot fulfill it's obligations to it's people, and Louisiana is poor, it's school systems are abysmal, and it's government is corrupt enough to the point where a senator can get caught with $100,000 dollars of bribe money stored in his freezer and still have a great chance of serving another term (did he get re-elected?).

 

Do I want to see the federal government have indefinite control of everything? No, but I know that there's no way that the state will ever have enough funding when all the residents start leaving to find better states. And then how will those other states support the new influx? And what becomes of the old state, turn it into a prison colony like Manhattan in "Escape From New York"?

 

'For you, interpretation only goes one way and can never change.'

 

on the constitution, yeah there isnt much room for change. it says what it says. unless you amend it, there is no hidden secrets in it.

 

There isn't any room to change the actual text that's already there, only to add amendments. But the text has been used to interpret different cases in different, sometimes conflicting ways. It's there to ensure basic human rights, but it's also there to ensure the possibility of adaptatibility, something that the "Old World" governments were thoroughly incapable of at the time. We'll always have the right to free speech, but we really can't say WHATEVER we want. If I say that I'm going to kill you, your whole family and your ant farm, I'm going to go to jail. If you have a nuclear weapon or a rocket launcher, you're going to be in jail with me. And at least we'll have the right to have a fair trial and due process, and then we can use the Constitution to help our arguments and have a shot at winning instead of being locked away in the dungeon forever. The government we have in this country is the most advanced there is, and the newest short of Communism which hasn't worked out so well, yet. Nothing is perfect and matured on the first day of it's birth.

[fermentor666]

I should add that the worst thing that can happen to the Constitution is to obliterate any of the rights, altogether. If due process is taken away and we allow certain people to be tortured, then the other amendments lose their lose their value and significance. You could argue that convicted felons lose certain rights and privileges, too, but the difference is that they have already been given due process and fair trial (assumed).

[angelofdeath]

ferm, i compliment you on a thought out post.

im gonna leave most of your points alone simply because you finally came out with a good argument, not because i agree with all of them.

but i want to touch on a few things.

 

"But you can take your slavery argument against your gun control argument, if someone really wanted to (I don't)."

 

since you arent going to make the argument, im not arguing with you per se, but i'll make a rebuttal on your hypothetical point.

that argument would fail miserably on a number of levels, but i'll just say this...

 

on april 19th 1775 the patriots in your home state stood up to a tyrannical power that was attempting to disarm them of thier very own military style firearms. and today our very own government is doing that very same thing.

 

"would you rather the taxpayer's money go towards environmental standards and enforcements or towards lengthy, federal trials?"

 

comments like this are why people say i sound like a broken record. i dont think taxpayers money should be going to anything other than national defense, small internal improvements like roads, etc etc. i favor the original constitutional system, no federal income tax. taxes were apportioned among the states according to the census. this way states held the upper hand on the feds, not the otherway around.

 

"How badly has the defense budget been abused by companies like Halliburton and even government departments? "

 

this is exactly my point. the left favors socialist redistributionist 'capitalism' and the mainstream right favors corporate fascist 'capitalism.' all public sector money is squandered to the interests of the political class. the state looks to serve its own interests first and foremost.

i have issue with the very fact that governments are allowed to take money by force, period. they naturally lie, cheat, steal, bamboozle, squander and connive to get what they want. ultimately they are voting for thier paycheck. my challenge to you would be to try to collect 7 trillion dollars by force from US citizens, without lying, stealing or bringing violence on people.

 

" decides that the only thing that will make them happy is a pair of Superbowl tickets, should they be stopped from spending that money?"

 

maybe im missing your point here, but this absolutely infuriates me. no, they shouldnt be allowed to buy superbowl tickets with my money. they shouldnt have it in the first place, but if they are gonna have it, atleast buy food or a necessity with it.

 

"What good is a debit card if you're living in a gymnasium?"

 

word the fuck up.

 

"here was nowhere else for them to go, most didn't have cars and the ones that did either had nowhere to go or were too late to use them."

 

my argument is that only a fraction of the people would of been herded into the superdome if the welfare state was reduced to bare necessity for entirely destitute people or even non existent.

[fermentor666]

ferm, i compliment you on a thought out post.

im gonna leave most of your points alone simply because you finally came out with a good argument, not because i agree with all of them.

but i want to touch on a few things.

 

^5

 

But I would like to know what you have to say about the existing limitations on free speech and arms that have been around for a long time, now. When someone is arrested for going over in detail how they are going to murder someone, they are arrested for their speech. Is this limitation ok? If yes, where do the limits end and what determines those limits? If no, how could it be justified to do nothing once someone is murdered? I have a feeling these answers exist relative to US society within the massive amounts of legal briefs on record.

 

And what could be done with a state that is so poor it can no longer sustain itself and cannot keep people from leaving? This wouldn't have to be the result of welfare, it could be the result of decades of poverty and natural disasters. If you think about it, a place like New Orleans has an African American majority and no doubt most of those people are ancestors of slaves. Given that the civil rights movement only ended segregation in the 1960's, those people--particularly in the South--have had quite a long disadvantage to the point where their poverty is not surprising in the slightest and I'm quite convinced that welfare is not the cause of this. Whether or not it is, the problem is current and it's not just in New Orleans. Everything about these shitty, impovershed ghettos is working against the people there and it affects people who don't live there, too. Since you don't think that social spending is the solution, what else do you have? You could install casinos and name everything after McDonald's but I cringe at the thought of that mental dystopia and I'd think that casinos are even worse than taxes. Sure, it's by choice that you'd be giving your money up, but at least with taxes you don't WANT to keep giving it away.

 

"would you rather the taxpayer's money go towards environmental standards and enforcements or towards lengthy, federal trials?"

 

comments like this are why people say i sound like a broken record. i dont think taxpayers money should be going to anything other than national defense, small internal improvements like roads, etc etc. i favor the original constitutional system, no federal income tax. taxes were apportioned among the states according to the census. this way states held the upper hand on the feds, not the otherway around.

Right, but who would pay for the salaries of all the court workers? All the paperwork? The government prosecutors and the defense team? That would all come from taxpayer money and surely those people would not work for free out of their desire for the greater good. I'm pretty sure that those sorts of things are paid for by state governmnet unless it's a federal court, but if you lived in Louisiana and Arkansas takes a toxic shit in your drinking water, you'd be pissed if the tax money that you might want going towards something else had to go towards cleaning up someone else's mess and then sueing them.

 

"How badly has the defense budget been abused by companies like Halliburton and even government departments? "

 

this is exactly my point. the left favors socialist redistributionist 'capitalism' and the mainstream right favors corporate fascist 'capitalism.' all public sector money is squandered to the interests of the political class. the state looks to serve its own interests first and foremost.

i have issue with the very fact that governments are allowed to take money by force, period. they naturally lie, cheat, steal, bamboozle, squander and connive to get what they want. ultimately they are voting for thier paycheck. my challenge to you would be to try to collect 7 trillion dollars by force from US citizens, without lying, stealing or bringing violence on people.

Capitalism is only as good as the people behind it, so are governments. I'd like to think that the Constitution is there to ensure that people and governments are at least shown the best possible path. If it's not possible for a government to be uncorrupt then what's the point?

 

There cannot be a big difference between a state serving it's own interest and the federal government serving it's own interest or else it's not a nation of states, anymore. I get the feeling that this country has become too large for it's own good when you talk about these sort of things. With the legal system that we have, there is no way for a state like South Dakota to ban all abortions if the rest of the country doesn't want it. If those people who run that state think that it's in their best interest to ban abortion then they are shit-out-of-luck, and then what? They can either go with the program or secede and it's not easy to do that.

 

 

" decides that the only thing that will make them happy is a pair of Superbowl tickets, should they be stopped from spending that money?"

 

maybe im missing your point here, but this absolutely infuriates me. no, they shouldnt be allowed to buy superbowl tickets with my money. they shouldnt have it in the first place, but if they are gonna have it, atleast buy food or a necessity with it.

 

I think it's just that it's relative, what can create the drive to pick up and start again. If that person goes to the Superbowl maybe that will lift them out of depression enough to want to start again. It comes down to the fact that $2,500 dollars of free money ain't shit when your whole neighborhood has been destroyed. It's like a consolation prize and consolation prizes have little practical value. Personally, I think it's stupid but I'm not quick to jump the gun on a person for doing that.

 

 

"here was nowhere else for them to go, most didn't have cars and the ones that did either had nowhere to go or were too late to use them."

 

my argument is that only a fraction of the people would of been herded into the superdome if the welfare state was reduced to bare necessity for entirely destitute people or even non existent.

I don't quite understand what you're talking about. Where would these people be if this was the case?

[angelofdeath]

"But I would like to know what you have to say about the existing limitations on free speech and arms that have been around for a long time, now. When someone is arrested for going over in detail how they are going to murder someone, they are arrested for their speech. Is this limitation ok? If yes, where do the limits end and what determines those limits? If no, how could it be justified to do nothing once someone is murdered?"

 

my position is that congress, can write no law abridging free speech or enforce any law abridging free speech. i believe federal gun laws are all unconstitutional. but i also believe that 90% of federal crimes are illegitimate as well. there are roughly 3 crimes given federal jurisdiction under the consitution, piracy, counterfeiting and treason. the states handled the rest. the supreme court was around to settle quarrels between states, among a few other things. there are a handful of crimes that i would consider 'constitutional' since the constitution has been amended to allow for them.

i do not believe it is just for the feds to halt free speech on any issue, even someone talking about murder, but i believe the states have the right to pursue the individual making the threats if someone presses charges. i dont believe intervention is justified by the part of the government unless someone's property or life is violated.

 

i dont blame to much of the black communities problems on segregation. it is not 1950 any more. before you slander me as a racist, allow to illustrate. directly after slavery, (morally repulsive by the way) the black family was just as intact as the white family. along came segregation, the black family was still nearly as intact as the white family. along came the end of segregation soon to open the door for forced integration, and the black family is shattered, gang wars are prevelant, high teenage out of wedlock pregnancy, low unemployment, high crime, etc. the blacks were making amazing progress on thier own, BEFORE the great society plans came through. welfare is the silent killer and the ultimate halt to black progress. its the frog in boiling water effect. slavery and segregation were boiling water. welfare and subsidies is similar to having the frog in luke warm water slowing turning up the heat so he wont jump out, but enjoy his 'bath.'

the welfare state makes an incentive for young, lower class people, to not get married and not have a family. but if the woman has a child, she can get welfare as long as she isnt married. for the low class, it is much easier for them to sit at home and collect a check instead of making the same wages working.

so my plan for the poor is thus:

think of the poor as being stuck in a hole. the welfare state continually throws them buckets of food and clothing in the whole providing no incentive to get out. my plan is to give them a widely runged ladder. that way they can climb out of the while. the ladder is making all people who are able too work, to work, by not giving them incentives to loaf around. i would stop outlawing thier jobs with minimum wage laws. these low skill jobs that dont require much education are the stepping off point to climb out of the hole. the coercive welfare state would be cut, peice by peice until it was abolished. private charity, community, churches and family would take over to care for the people who cant work. and for the low class areas that you say need to be provided for by the federal government, i would urge evil capitalists to get into these areas, to provide them with jobs, low priced goods and a means of improving thier living standards.

 

"Capitalism is only as good as the people behind it, so are governments"

 

it is the nature of beauracracy to be inefficient and horrible. it cant be changed.

"there is no way for a state like South Dakota to ban all abortions if the rest of the country doesn't want it. If those people who run that state think that it's in their best interest to ban abortion then they are shit-out-of-luck, and then what? They can either go with the program or secede and it's not easy to do that."

 

my position is they should be able to secede. it is tyranny to live under a large central government that runs every aspect of our lives. it cannot possibly centrally manage society by the will of the people and by the consent of the governed. liberty is best protected by decentralized local government. this ensures the right of the peoples self government. south dakota has every right to ban abortion, the same as massachusetts has every right to allow gay marriage. this is federalism. the federal government should not be stepping into state territory. we are supposed to be a country of sovereign states held together by a contract for the common defense and free trade. as jefferson noted any state that doesnt want to be part of the union, should be free to leave.

 

"what can create the drive to pick up and start again"

 

death by starvation, death by freezing to death, your family dying because you wont work, that is the drive to start again.

 

"I don't quite understand what you're talking about. Where would these people be if this was the case?"

 

if the welfare state was only used for the absolutely destitute or if it wasnt even in existence, people would not be relying on it. the vast majority would be working and making thier own way or they would be dead. the poor live better than any caesar ever did. today the difference between the poor and the rich is a late model chevy or toyota for the poor and a cadillac for the rich.

you are missing the point the government created this dependence with welfare and the incentive to not produce.

[fermentor666]

I have to take objection to your point about African-American families living better before forced integration. I would wager that those communities were not in a perfect state and certainly were not in the slightest bit wealthy. On a whole, if you adjusted for inflation than they are earning more now than ever, not even taking welfare into the equation. And families are breaking up all over the place, in all classes and races. If I had a dollar for everyone I know who's parents have been divorced at least once I'd have enough per month to equal more money than what's on a FEMA debit card. There is your argument on one side, and then the other argument that "gang wars..., high teenage out of wedlock pregnancy, low unemployment, high crime, etc" stems from a lack of quality public education and decent job prospects. There are only so many McDonald's and K-Marts and even those jobs don't offer any sort of upward mobility. So you have undereducated kids without job opportunities that have only been allowed to intermingle with American society for 40 years and they are all centrally located in urban areas. It's a recipe for disaster, as we've already seen and I would have to say that the welfare system and integration are not the causes of all these horrible statistics that spew out of the ghetto.

 

When slavery was abolished, blacks still could not move into white neighborhoods and really the only choice was the cities. There's no land to farm in the cities so you're reliant on imported goods. But there's not enough jobs for everyone to buy the goods so there is not much opportunity other than crime and subsequently gangs. It doesn't make crime anymore justifiable than welfare does. Welfare might be a frog in boiling water and I certainly don't think that someone should indefinitely recieve welfare. But more important to my point is that education should recieve funding now, in the 21st century. It won't solve everything but it's not just a band-aid and it is not welfare, no matter how you might try to call it such.

 

I don't have all the solutions for this, but I think that what you are saying is impossible. If you don't provide something for people living in urban ghettos then you'll get riots, crime, and more. Fact is, Africans were brought here against their will for well over a hundred years. There is a responsibility that the country, or at the very least the states have to these people to keep the quality of life decent. I know that you don't want taxes to be justified by this, but it's not such a big planet that everyone can live their life entirely in their own interest. Hobbes, Mill, Jefferson all believed that there is a responsibility that a person owes to the society that is protecting them from "the state of nature", because that protection costs the society, as well. You can take them literally and consider the protection to be military defense and roads, but that is most likely not all they were arguing for.

 

And in response to your dislike for minimum wage laws, those stemmed from the Industrial Revolution and the fact that people in England were being forced to work 14 hours a day, six or seven days a week for pennies while those evil capitalists were raking in all the dough. It also stems from world trade markets and national economies. If there is no minimum wage than people will earn much, much less and will not be able to afford the goods that will stay at the same price, and the people that make those goods will stop making money and etc, etc, etc. Those cheap bastard corporations would be paying their employees seven cents an hour if they could, that's why so many of them outsource their factories to third world countries to do just that. If a beauracracy is inefficient and horrible by nature than the same thing can be said of corporations. Until Walmart stops trying to fuck over it's employees by screwing them out of health insurance by forcing them to work part-time (the same employees that may have had a much more lucrative job before the box stores came in and crushed their small town stores), then those laws need to be in full effect.

 

"Corporation" and "beauracracy" are man-made concepts and have no nature other than what we put into them. Same with "government".

 

 

 

"death by starvation, death by freezing to death, your family dying because you wont work, that is the drive to start again."

 

True, but I'm saying that the will to live comes from strange places. I also think that those debit cards were given out as a pre-emptive class-action settlement. A lot of those people who lost all their homes might have enough saved up to go a couple of months without work, but they still lost their homes and probably didn't have their insurance cover it. So they pick up and move to a new place on their savings and go and get tickets to the big game to try and get something normal back into their lives again. Not the smartest thing to do, but not uncomprehendable.

[angelofdeath]

"stems from a lack of quality public education and decent job prospects."

 

a couple months ago, i debated this subject with russell on here, so i'll leave most of it alone, but i will argue that people who are homeschooled spank the pants off of public school students in all measures of intellegence i have seen. it costs no real money to homeschool... so bad public schooling is just a cop out. this is another area where we have been indoctrinated that the government MUST educate our children. it is another failure.

furthermore people who have low skills or low intellegence, black white green or red, must start out at the bottom on the ladder. when they learn more, get more experience they slowly climb out. it makes me glad to see black families move into my neighborhood. it shows me they are picking themselves up by the bootstraps and getting shit done.

 

"Jefferson all believed that there is a responsibility that a person owes to the society that is protecting them from "the state of nature", because that protection costs the society, as well. You can take them literally and consider the protection to be military defense and roads, but that is most likely not all they were arguing for."

 

i could buy into your argument if the government actually produced its own wealth. it doesnt. it takes other peoples at gun point to give to someone else. if you or i did this, we call it theft. if the government does it it is called social justice. its retarded. jefferson was not a huge huge advocate of the hobbesian state of nature theory. i personally dont buy into it. if you read jefferson he makes statements like (paraphrase) that governments are good when they dont take from the mouths of labor. if that isnt a ringing declaration against taxes, i dont know what is.

 

if people actually do riot, over the abolition of welfare, you can thank the government for thier behavior. the entitlement mindset is at an all time high. the market must clear, so to speak.

my argument is if welfare was abolished the people who could work, would work. this would be the clear majority of people on welfare. shoot, if they abolished 90% of welfare programs, i'd even support them having a temporary program of welfare for selected people... but you better be 80 years old with no family and have a broken arm. then again, there is nothing more permanent than a temporary government program.

 

another interesting thing i read was :

 

http://www.acton.org/blog/index.html?/archives/1323-Generous-Conservatives.html

 

this further reinforces what conservatives and libertarians have always said. that it is the job of individuals not the state to provide for the poor if they cant. so called conservatives give roughly 4 times the money to poor than so called liberals. it is not that we want to shoot the poor, we just dont want the government caring for them. it is for thier own good and liberty in general that we advocate this.

 

 

 

". If there is no minimum wage than people will earn much, much less and will not be able to afford the goods that will stay at the same price, and the people that make those goods will stop making money and etc, etc, etc. "

 

think of the minimum wage as a jump not as a price floor. you are thinking it is a price floor. it is a jump. in another words, you have to be able to make the jump over it to earn that money. for instance if you are 500 pounds you might not be able to jump over a chair. (the chair is minimum wage) but if you are a 7 foot tall african american basketball player you can fly over the chair. so the basketball player will make alot more than minimum wage.

so what happens to the people who dont have the certain skills or education to make the 'jump?' they are unemployed. so what minimum wage does is outlaws jobs.

 

wages are not determined by employer generosity, they determined by the market.

if the proposed utopia advocated by minimum wage law champions was possible, poverty would of long ago been abolished. why raise the minimum wage only a couple dollars? why not make it a national minium wage of 50$ an hour. look at how rich we would be. hell, lets just make it all 500$ an hour.

you might answer with "but if we do that, the economy will colllapse and there would be 95% unemployment."

if you do, id say you are right. the same is true with the minimum wage we have now... it merely outlaws a smaller percentage of jobs than if we had a minimum wage of 500$ an hour.

[russell jones]

"stems from a lack of quality public education and decent job prospects."

 

a couple months ago, i debated this subject with russell on here, so i'll leave most of it alone, but i will argue that people who are homeschooled spank the pants off of public school students in all measures of intellegence i have seen. it costs no real money to homeschool... so bad public schooling is just a cop out. this is another area where we have been indoctrinated that the government MUST educate our children. it is another failure.

furthermore people who have low skills or low intellegence, black white green or red, must start out at the bottom on the ladder. when they learn more, get more experience they slowly climb out. it makes me glad to see black families move into my neighborhood. it shows me they are picking themselves up by the bootstraps and getting shit done.

 

Since you mentioned my name, let me stick my nose in this discussion. I would not doubt that home schooled children do better on standardized tests and the like than public schooled children. However that says more about the people who choose to home school their children than home schooling itself. I think I can make the fair assumption that the parent who chooses to home school their children has had a better education on average than those that do not. So home schooling would not be a solution for generations of bad schools. If someone with a poor education chose to home school their children, then I think I am making the fair assumption by saying that they would do worse than the average publicly schooled child.

 

The other obvious problem with your argument is that a parent who is homeschooling their children is not working during that time. So single parents would be excluded from being able to home school.

 

Also, I would venture to say that if public schools had a qualified teacher for every 4 or 5 students that those schools would produce the highest test scores of all scenarios. That is the kind individualized attention that home schooled children get.

 

I think a good solution to the problem of schooling would be to keep the public schools but make two big changes. First, have the money for schools follow the student instead of the school district. That way students could pick any school to go to, not just the ones in their district. This would force all schools to compete for students and improve the quality of all the schools. Second, open more charter schools, such as art schools, technicals schools, music performance schools etc. This would help the students who do not benefit from a standard liberal arts education find their place.

[fermentor666]

Russel pretty much hit it. Boston has a ton of charter schools and even a public art exam-school, as well as Boston Latin which is also a public exam-school and one of the best public schools in the nation, if you look at where the kids who graduate go to college.

 

Good home-schooling requires parents with good educations and parents who can afford to not work. There are no good educations coming out of most urban public schools and there haven't been for generations, so that's out of the question. Also, like RJ said, single parents obviously cannot home-school. The homes with two parents in those neighborhoods generally have both parents working, so there's another strike against home-schooling. Public education is there to ensure that middle and lower class children will get a quality education instead of working 14 hours a day in a mill.

[fermentor666]

I'll respond to the rest of the stuff later, I don't have time now.

[fermentor666]

furthermore people who have low skills or low intellegence, black white green or red, must start out at the bottom on the ladder. when they learn more, get more experience they slowly climb out. it makes me glad to see black families move into my neighborhood. it shows me they are picking themselves up by the bootstraps and getting shit done.

 

I'm glad you are open to black people moving up in the world, but it's hard to do that when the ladder wasn't even there for them to climb 50 years ago, and it still gets kicked out from under their feet.

 

"Jefferson all believed that there is a responsibility that a person owes to the society that is protecting them from "the state of nature", because that protection costs the society, as well. You can take them literally and consider the protection to be military defense and roads, but that is most likely not all they were arguing for."

 

i could buy into your argument if the government actually produced its own wealth. it doesnt. it takes other peoples at gun point to give to someone else. if you or i did this, we call it theft. if the government does it it is called social justice. its retarded. jefferson was not a huge huge advocate of the hobbesian state of nature theory. i personally dont buy into it. if you read jefferson he makes statements like (paraphrase) that governments are good when they dont take from the mouths of labor. if that isnt a ringing declaration against taxes, i dont know what is.

 

Government produces wealth in the form of protection, from war, nature, and ignorance. The kings and church would take money at gunpoint (or sword-point) and keep it for themselves while people were dying from cholera in the streets. The modern government is supposed to collect taxes to create suitable living conditions for people to want to live in that society. The more suitable the conditions, the more people want to stay, that's why we have so many immigrants flocking to this country. Wealth is not always defined by how much paper and metal you have.

 

 

if people actually do riot, over the abolition of welfare, you can thank the government for thier behavior. the entitlement mindset is at an all time high. the market must clear, so to speak.

my argument is if welfare was abolished the people who could work, would work. this would be the clear majority of people on welfare. shoot, if they abolished 90% of welfare programs, i'd even support them having a temporary program of welfare for selected people... but you better be 80 years old with no family and have a broken arm. then again, there is nothing more permanent than a temporary government program.

 

People won't riot because welfare is taken away, they will riot because of squallor and poverty. It's happened before and it's been enough to overthrow many governments. If welfare is taken away then there better be some sort of plan to take it's place. I don't think that a person should stay on welfare for years and years, but single-parents should not have to leave their young children in the streets while they work to put food in their mouths. There should be more programs to find work for the unemployed, those programs do work, but again they would have to be funded by government. I keep telling you I know that there are plenty of people that abuse this system and I hate it just as much as you, but there are also plenty of people that need the system to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, even if it's government-issued cheese.

 

 

another interesting thing i read was :

 

http://www.acton.org/blog/index.html?/archives/1323-Generous-Conservatives.html

 

this further reinforces what conservatives and libertarians have always said. that it is the job of individuals not the state to provide for the poor if they cant. so called conservatives give roughly 4 times the money to poor than so called liberals. it is not that we want to shoot the poor, we just dont want the government caring for them. it is for thier own good and liberty in general that we advocate this.

 

Well, those statistics in that blog-posting are not cited, and I haven't read the book that they mention. I tend not to trust those types of statistics, in general, as the polling-pool is generally small and could include 50 wealthy conservatives and 50 poor liberals. Really, it reeks of advocacy journalism and seems hardly objective. It's the same reason I don't read that giant left-wing collective website, the name escapes me--the one where there's a website for every city but it all has the same story. The same reason I can't even stand to read a LaRouche brochure that keeps getting handed out to me on the street. Subjective writings are great entertainment, but I'd take objectivism over that any day of the week. Besides, are the definitions of liberal and conservative defined? Can't there be a liberal conservative and a conservative liberal? That's the shit I'm talking about that pisses me off when I talk to you, is how quickly you throw out the l-word and the c-word. Am I advocating a one-party government? No. But the words "liberal" and "conservative" are meaningless now, they have lost all weight and definition because of buzz-word politics and preaching pundits. I know that I give money to charity, I pay my taxes, and I tip generously even at Dunkin Donuts. I don't give my money to huge charities because I don't trust them, they become riddled with corruption scandels after every big tragedy. I'd rather send money to one person than have some suit dip his hands into the collection plate I helped build.

 

Yes, you can tie that together with your argument against federal government spending, like I said, I don't agree with the corruption and I think the system needs to be changed. Changed, not eliminated.

 

 

so what happens to the people who dont have the certain skills or education to make the 'jump?' they are unemployed. so what minimum wage does is outlaws jobs.

 

wages are not determined by employer generosity, they determined by the market.

if the proposed utopia advocated by minimum wage law champions was possible, poverty would of long ago been abolished. why raise the minimum wage only a couple dollars? why not make it a national minium wage of 50$ an hour. look at how rich we would be. hell, lets just make it all 500$ an hour.

you might answer with "but if we do that, the economy will colllapse and there would be 95% unemployment."

if you do, id say you are right. the same is true with the minimum wage we have now... it merely outlaws a smaller percentage of jobs than if we had a minimum wage of 500$ an hour.

 

 

The person without the skills works at McDonalds or on an assembly line. That is probably the majority of American workers, retail and service, jobs that do not require much skill. The minimum wage is there to make sure those people who don't have the skills to move out of those jobs can at least afford their rent while they work at those miserable places. Those companies are always cutting corners and hate the minimum wage even more than you do. Minimum wage only eliminates jobs when companies outsource because they can earn more money creating near-slave labor jobs in third world countries. If there were no minimum wage laws, those jobs would be here and they would still be paying them in pennies. It's what happened in England during the Industrial Revolution and Victorian Era, and that is what influenced the minimum wage laws in America and England in the first place. It's also what enabled the middle class to emerge and eliminated the aristocrats. I see nothing wrong with that change and I certainly would not want to do the time-warp and go back to that time.

 

I'm well-aware that the wage is dependant on the market, and I didn't mention it because I figured it would not be worth mentioning since you would know that fact, as well. You should know that the market seems to always be driving the cost of goods higher. Maybe not high-priced goods: flat screen TVs and RAM go down in price. But the price of perishables and gas, for instance. Those are the goods that every human has to buy to survive, and yes I include gas for anyone living without public transit. Those are what drive the minimum wage laws. If everyone needed a TV, then who knows, maybe someone could argue for a $50 dollar minimum wage, but I would not advocate it because I f'n hate television. Of course a $50 dollar minimum wage would drive this country into the ground, but there is no justification for it. There is justification for a rise in minimum wage when the price of a gallon of milk has gone up two dollars, the price of a gallon of gas two dollars, and the price of numerous perishables have also risen as well as rent rising by a couple of hundred dollars in many places since the last time the minimum wage was risen, nine years ago.

 

Here are some statistics for you on how that raise did not eliminate jobs: http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage_minwagefacts

 

There are state minimum wages, too. Massachusetts has a higher minimum wage than the federal. But you can't live in Boston making $5.15 an hour. A studio apartment in a shit-neighboorhood goes for $750-900 dollars a month, plus utilities. $5.15 might allow a person in New Orleans live in a home and buy food, but what if, like you say, they have that drive to move up the ladder? The farthest they can go would be the nice part of New Orleans. And New Orleans will stay at the bottom of the country's ladder because no one is going to take a pay-cut to live there. And the people who do move from states with higher minimum wages into ones with lower minimum wages are probably not making minimum wage in the first place, so what's it to them? I'm no economist, but I think that the people who decide exactly how to set the minimum wage do so based on bare-neccessities rather than luxuries.

 

It's true, some employers will lose some money. But look at the companies that pay minimum wage. Just about all of them are rolling in the Benjamins already. Small town shops might lose more money, but if more people are making more money, then they will sell more goods, simple as that.

[angelofdeath]

"Government produces wealth in the form of protection, from war, nature, and ignorance."

 

absolutely false.

governments do not CREATE wealth, they STEAL wealth. the only way they get money is by force. in private sector, all exchange is voluntary. this reminds me of the old saying..."you are a progressive if you think governments create prosperity and businesses create oppression."

this lacks all economic sense.

the government has not created american prosperity, capitalism has. and capitalism alone.

 

"they will riot because of squallor and poverty."

 

i disagree. in 18th century america, the poor were not rioting and squalling. the only squalling that will take place is from people who are living off of other peoples wealth through government are denied thier checks.

 

"welfare....... Changed, not eliminated."

 

this reminds me of the soviet bureau's who met in the 1950's to figure out why grain production was down, why bread lines were longer, or why businesses were imploding. they never questioned the system, they only questioned the managers' merit.

it is high time we realized that the coercive welfare state IS a problem and that it DOES destroy liberty.

 

"The minimum wage is there to make sure those people who don't have the skills to move out of those jobs can at least afford their rent while they work at those miserable places."

 

this would be a good case if the minimum wage was actually a price floor. it is not a price floor it is a jump. the people who cant make the jump, dont have an income. what about those poor people who cant pay thier rent?

 

" Minimum wage only eliminates jobs when companies outsource because they can earn more money creating near-slave labor jobs in third world countries."

 

 

i reject this argument, completely. atleast from your angle. minimum wage leads to outsourcing, but not the way you think. companies dont outsource because they want to, they outsource because of minimum wage, union racket, excessive regulation, high taxes, etc etc.

 

labor is a good that a business buys. think about it. would you rather pay 400$ for shoes at walmart, or would you rather pay 50$ for the same shoes at target? which one would you choose? it is the same with labor. when you are in business you are trying to make a profit. would you rather pay the often lazy american worker 50$ an hour and be taxed to death or would you rather pay the chinese worker 5$ an hour for the same work and not be taxed to death? the latter option also increases the prosperity of all americans, by having cheaper prices. this leads to higher living standards, etc. etc. the slave labor argument is funny to me, because in the countries where so called 'slave labor' exists, the american factory owners generally pay in sums 2-3 times as much as other employers in the country. which is why those workers are lined the fuck up at american factories abroad to work there.

 

"there were no minimum wage laws, those jobs would be here and they would still be paying them in pennies. "

 

as skills increase, you make more money. it is a fallacy to think workers would be paid in pennies. if such a great profit could be found in a certain business, ( as you apparently assume ) another business would soon move into the area, and hire workers making 2 an hour instead of 1 penny an hour. another business would come in and offer 2.50 an hour and so forth. wages always tend toward marginal revenue product. always.

 

"You should know that the market seems to always be driving the cost of goods higher."

 

this is another fallacy. the market tends to drive goods LOWER. this can be witnessed from the founding of america until the federal reserve bank was created in 1913. we had a relatively free market, and inflation was non existent, (main cause of price hikes) wages increased and prices were on a total downward trend the whole century.

 

"Maybe not high-priced goods: flat screen TVs and RAM go down in price. But the price of perishables and gas, for instance."

 

flat screen tv's and computers fall in price for a couple reasons. they are most unregulated. they are the perfect example of what the free market does. it weeds out inefficiency, (american tv makers) by out competing them and allows people who know thier stuff (japanese tv makers) to specialize in the division of labor. this allows prices to fall, which in turn helps everyone out.

 

"ut the price of perishables and gas, for instance. Those are the goods that every human has to buy to survive, and yes I include gas for anyone living without public transit. Those are what drive the minimum wage laws."

 

a price is more than just a price. it is an objective expression of the subjective wants of consumers now and in the future. gas costs more money because it is highly regulated. it is managed by a cartel. high regulation leads to high prices, look at europe. look at iraq. the US has imposed nixonian pricing systems, and the country with some of the biggest oil reserves pays assinine amounts of money for gas. gas is in extremely high demand now. want cheaper gas? you must either increase the supply or decrease the demand.

 

currently if gas was priced at 1.00 a gallon by a fixed price control imposed by the US government, there would be instantaneous shortages. there would be long lines at the pump. a blackmarket would come about. station owners would rather close up shop and not pump gas, than pump it because they are making no profit. long lines would appear because of the extra low price, and because stations cannot cope with the massive influx of customers.

 

in a free market, a commodity, like gas, is worth what the market price is. so if a station owner paid 2.00 a gallon, and a hurricane hit and reduced the supply, and increased the demand, his gas may suddenly be worth 6.00$ a gallon. if the price isnt raised, people will horde the gas, and very quickly the supply will diminish, with the vast majority of people being out of gas, period. with a higher price, it allows people who need it, to get it, but they wont abuse it.

gas station owners will also risk life and limb to go to work to pump that gas, at this price. unlike government, where they will beauracratically TRY to help people out, but thier first interest is protection of the state itself.

 

another example is a hotel room during katrina. instead of the government throwing 'price gougers' behind bars, they should be awarding them. if a hotel price in louisiana stayed the same 20$ price it was pre hurricane, families would flock to it, each kid would have thier own room for a family of 10, and the vast majority of people would be out of a room. with a price of 220$ a room, it allows people who really need a room to have one. instead of the family with 10 kids with thier own separate rooms getting all those rooms, they might to go grandma;'s house down the road, or all crowd into one room. then the family with no other option, can have a room.

 

"There is justification for a rise in minimum wage when the price of a gallon of milk has gone up two dollars, the price of a gallon of gas two dollars, and the price of numerous perishables have also risen as well as rent rising by a couple of hundred dollars in many places since the last time the minimum wage was risen, nine years ago."

 

this should be turned over to the freedom to fascism thread, because it is directly related. inflation is the main cause of high prices. next comes regulation, unions, etc etc. again, what you are advocating is people who can only produce 5.00$ instead of 5.15$ an hour, you are advocating abolition of thier jobs. it is the same theory if we raised it to 50$ an hour. hte mass unemployment just happens on a smaller scale.

 

why do you think elevator operators and full serve gas attendants are gone, and self checkouts are coming out strong now? 2 words. MINIMUM WAGE. it takes time, but slowly thier jobs have been outlawed. it is cheaper for a company to buy self check out machines and have one person over see them, than to pay 10 workers minimum wage.

with no minimum wage, those gas station attendants could still be making thier 4.50 an hour and still have a good starting level job.

 

another thing that people dont think about is, is that people making minimum wage, are usually not dependent on themselves, they usually live at home with thier parents, are in high school, or are going to college. a very very small percentage actually are trying to support themselves and in over 95% of the people, they only make minimum wage level wages for no more than 2 years.

so this minimum wage hike thing is hardly a crisis calling for a government sponsored war on low wages.

 

the link in your above post is from an ardently socialist think tank. i disreguard everything i see from EPI, because they actually believe that socialism can calculate.

 

want to make above market wages? join a union which in turn will contribute to the decline of america.

if you want to make more money, you must increase your productivity. trying to lobby the government for market interventions that always and everywhere fail, is hurting more people than it is helping.

 

best thing for the government to do? get out of the way.

[fermentor666]

"Government produces wealth in the form of protection, from war, nature, and ignorance."

 

absolutely false.

governments do not CREATE wealth, they STEAL wealth. the only way they get money is by force. in private sector, all exchange is voluntary. this reminds me of the old saying..."you are a progressive if you think governments create prosperity and businesses create oppression."

this lacks all economic sense.

the government has not created american prosperity, capitalism has. and capitalism alone.

 

But did you read what I said? How wealth does not always equate to money? Let me quote Locke:

But since gold and silver, being little useful to the life of man

in proportion to food, raiment, and carriage, has its value only from the

consent of men, whereof labour yet makes, in great part, the measure, it is

plain, that men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal possession of

the earth (Second Treatise, Sec.50)

 

"they will riot because of squallor and poverty."

 

i disagree. in 18th century america, the poor were not rioting and squalling. the only squalling that will take place is from people who are living off of other peoples wealth through government are denied thier checks.

 

In 18th century America there were riots, it was called the American Revolution.

 

"welfare....... Changed, not eliminated."

 

this reminds me of the soviet bureau's who met in the 1950's to figure out why grain production was down, why bread lines were longer, or why businesses were imploding. they never questioned the system, they only questioned the managers' merit.

it is high time we realized that the coercive welfare state IS a problem and that it DOES destroy liberty.

 

People aren't FORCED into welfare, they don't have to sign up for the program. If someone is a single mother without work, they don't force her to sign up for welfare rather than work. Hey, I have a friend who was fired from his job, lost his insurance, and then had his psychiatric medication run out. After all the money he had was gone, he signed up for unemployment and then eventually got free health care through the government and was able to see a psychologist. After a few months of that he was finally able to pull himself back together and get a new job. If all that wasn't there then he'd be fucked, to put it lightly. That's just one single case out of thousands. There are people who just can't do it all at once and need some help.

 

"The minimum wage is there to make sure those people who don't have the skills to move out of those jobs can at least afford their rent while they work at those miserable places."

 

this would be a good case if the minimum wage was actually a price floor. it is not a price floor it is a jump. the people who cant make the jump, dont have an income. what about those poor people who cant pay thier rent?

 

What are you talking about, "can't make the jump"? Are you saying that the employers can't make the jump or the employees? Those poor people that can't pay their rent either don't have a job or inflation/gentrification has raised their rent and the minimum wage they are earning has remained the same. The employers, well, some of them are really losing money like the automotive industry in America, because of the world market. Others, like Wal-Mart or McDonald's are making billions a year in profit and can afford a mandated wage increase.

 

" Minimum wage only eliminates jobs when companies outsource because they can earn more money creating near-slave labor jobs in third world countries."

 

 

i reject this argument, completely. atleast from your angle. minimum wage leads to outsourcing, but not the way you think. companies dont outsource because they want to, they outsource because of minimum wage, union racket, excessive regulation, high taxes, etc etc.

 

labor is a good that a business buys. think about it. would you rather pay 400$ for shoes at walmart, or would you rather pay 50$ for the same shoes at target? which one would you choose? it is the same with labor. when you are in business you are trying to make a profit. would you rather pay the often lazy american worker 50$ an hour and be taxed to death or would you rather pay the chinese worker 5$ an hour for the same work and not be taxed to death? the latter option also increases the prosperity of all americans, by having cheaper prices. this leads to higher living standards, etc. etc. the slave labor argument is funny to me, because in the countries where so called 'slave labor' exists, the american factory owners generally pay in sums 2-3 times as much as other employers in the country. which is why those workers are lined the fuck up at american factories abroad to work there.

 

Sorry, but if these Nike shoes were made in America, then Nike would still be taking in well over a majority profit of a $100 dollar pair of shoes. I wear New Balance shoes, they're made in Boston and the company is doing just fine. They even built a brand new warehouse and factory, state of the art. The shoes cost about $70 dollars, and they've lasted me longer than any pair of Nike's has and are more comfortable. The people making those shoes, I can guarentee they are not making fifty bucks an hour.

 

Those shoes are taxed when they're sold, not when they're made. If the company is based in the US it's going to have to pay the same amount of taxes on their revenues wherever they may sell it. What they are avoiding are US property taxes. Social security, insurance, that stuff comes out of the worker's minimum wage salary. And there are riots and uprisings in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, all over the conditions of living. And all those people are shot and killed by the governments so that things can stay the same.

 

Nike and Walmart might be paying their outsourced laborers better wages than what the standard is in that country, but the goods are still the same cost there as everywhere else. In a country with an average personal income of 4,000 dollars, the prices of gas and goods are generally the same. Those companies can afford to pay those people three times what they are paying them and still have billions of dollars in profit. They aren't getting $5 an hour, by the way, they're making $5 a day.

 

"there were no minimum wage laws, those jobs would be here and they would still be paying them in pennies. "

 

as skills increase, you make more money. it is a fallacy to think workers would be paid in pennies. if such a great profit could be found in a certain business, ( as you apparently assume ) another business would soon move into the area, and hire workers making 2 an hour instead of 1 penny an hour. another business would come in and offer 2.50 an hour and so forth. wages always tend toward marginal revenue product. always.

 

Don't be ridiculous. There are far more people looking for work than providing it. With deregulation more and more it is one company setting the standards. Wal-Mart can get away with paying minimum wage and not offering benefits because they have driven everyone else out of business. There will be no one there to come and say "hey, here's two extra dollars an hour to be a greeter or a stock-boy". You want to talk about minimum wage being a price floor, then how would a floor of NOTHING be better than a floor of 7 dollars? You think people could live off of 2 dollars an hour?

 

"You should know that the market seems to always be driving the cost of goods higher."

 

this is another fallacy. the market tends to drive goods LOWER. this can be witnessed from the founding of america until the federal reserve bank was created in 1913. we had a relatively free market, and inflation was non existent, (main cause of price hikes) wages increased and prices were on a total downward trend the whole century.

 

The world market changes things. In 1913, the world market was a hell of a lot different than it is now. And perishable goods are rising in cost. Look at the price of a gallon of milk over the last two decades. The market has been driving up costs for over a century. Go ahead and say something about how the federal reserve bank caused this because not only do I know you want to, but I'd like to hear how you think it did.

 

 

"Maybe not high-priced goods: flat screen TVs and RAM go down in price. But the price of perishables and gas, for instance."

 

flat screen tv's and computers fall in price for a couple reasons. they are most unregulated. they are the perfect example of what the free market does. it weeds out inefficiency, (american tv makers) by out competing them and allows people who know thier stuff (japanese tv makers) to specialize in the division of labor. this allows prices to fall, which in turn helps everyone out.

 

Yup, I agree. It's also one of the things that Marx would believe would lead to world-wide communism. Why are we talking about this again?

 

"ut the price of perishables and gas, for instance. Those are the goods that every human has to buy to survive, and yes I include gas for anyone living without public transit. Those are what drive the minimum wage laws."

 

a price is more than just a price. it is an objective expression of the subjective wants of consumers now and in the future.....

 

I wasn't talking about regulating the price of gas to one dollar, I was talking about raising the minimum wage so that people can afford gas now that it's gone up 2 dollars since the last time the minimum wage was raised.

 

another example is a hotel room during katrina. instead of the government throwing 'price gougers' behind bars, they should be awarding them. if a hotel price in louisiana stayed the same 20$ price it was pre hurricane, families would flock to it, each kid would have thier own room for a family of 10, and the vast majority of people would be out of a room. with a price of 220$ a room, it allows people who really need a room to have one. instead of the family with 10 kids with thier own separate rooms getting all those rooms, they might to go grandma;'s house down the road, or all crowd into one room. then the family with no other option, can have a room.

 

Nope, can't agree with that. Hotels should ensure that one family gets one room at a time like that, but how can you justify, still yet praise, price-gauging of that nature when these people might not be able to return to their home for weeks? $220 a night? They might as well drive up to New York City and stay at the Ritz if they can afford that. Poor argument, sir.

 

"There is justification for a rise in minimum wage when the price of a gallon of milk has gone up two dollars, the price of a gallon of gas two dollars, and the price of numerous perishables have also risen as well as rent rising by a couple of hundred dollars in many places since the last time the minimum wage was risen, nine years ago."

 

this should be turned over to the freedom to fascism thread, because it is directly related. inflation is the main cause of high prices. next comes regulation, unions, etc etc. again, what you are advocating is people who can only produce 5.00$ instead of 5.15$ an hour, you are advocating abolition of thier jobs. it is the same theory if we raised it to 50$ an hour. hte mass unemployment just happens on a smaller scale.

 

Hey, no one said it would be easy, right?

 

why do you think elevator operators and full serve gas attendants are gone, and self checkouts are coming out strong now? 2 words. MINIMUM WAGE. it takes time, but slowly thier jobs have been outlawed. it is cheaper for a company to buy self check out machines and have one person over see them, than to pay 10 workers minimum wage.

with no minimum wage, those gas station attendants could still be making thier 4.50 an hour and still have a good starting level job.

 

Where I live, they still have elevator operators and they still have gas station attendants. Full service gas pumps are now in the minority, but just as many people still work at gas stations as they did before you were able to stick a credit card into the pump. And there are still a ton of stations that don't even have the card-pumps that still run a good business.

 

As a car courier, nearly every freight elevator in the financial buildings was operated by a person. Inside those lobbies, they had people working a front desk and others working the elevators. Hotels, the fancy ones, still have elevator operators. You won't find them at the Days Inn, but there are still positions availabe for those in that line of work.

 

But believe me, I know about losing jobs. I worked as a projectionist for four years at an independant theater. I was lucky, because guys that were working at theaters bought out or built by chains started losing hours, and then jobs, when those chains decided they'd have a popcorn jockey run his greasy fingers all over the equipment so they did not have to pay two people. The union outside of Boston disbanded right when I was about to join, and the Boston union held strikes but had to settle for less and less hours. Where do these guys who have been doing this for thirty years go? I know the job, I know the mentality and lifestyle that goes with working in a dark booth for 13 hour shifts. It's not easy to go from that to working at CVS or Dunkin' Donuts. A projectionist job does not pay minimum wage, nor should it. It's hard fucking work and if someone got $5 dollars an hour for it in this day and age it's unthinkable. You're a mechanic, right? Would you work for $5 an hour?

 

 

another thing that people dont think about is, is that people making minimum wage, are usually not dependent on themselves, they usually live at home with thier parents, are in high school, or are going to college. a very very small percentage actually are trying to support themselves and in over 95% of the people, they only make minimum wage level wages for no more than 2 years.

so this minimum wage hike thing is hardly a crisis calling for a government sponsored war on low wages.

 

How can people live without roommates or move out of home after they've ran through all the money they saved and are still working minimum wage jobs? If you think that everyone who works retail is living with their parents or in high school then take another look.

 

the link in your above post is from an ardently socialist think tank. i disreguard everything i see from EPI, because they actually believe that socialism can calculate.

 

want to make above market wages? join a union which in turn will contribute to the decline of america.

if you want to make more money, you must increase your productivity. trying to lobby the government for market interventions that always and everywhere fail, is hurting more people than it is helping.

 

best thing for the government to do? get out of the way.

 

 

I googled the statistics, I didn't know anything about EPI. But the statistics probably do bear some weight, at least as much as the book you mentioned that says "conservatives" give more than "liberals" to charity", and you don't exactly stay clear of think tanks and biased sources when it comes to supporting your own arguments or presenting new ones. By the way, since you've mentioned that book I started hearing a lot of talk about it in the news and on the radio. It's still being analyzed and researched and there are some criticisms about the validity of the author's claims. I heard him interviewed on NPR, also.

 

Unions formed out of working conditions during the Industrial Revolution and were completely neccessary. If you say that they aren't now, then you have to be able to admit that some of the policies that began in the 18th century are no longer adequate.

 

 

I would have responded sooner but I've had finals and papers.

[angelofdeath]

" In 18th century America there were riots, it was called the American Revolution."

 

so the american revolution, which was fought against government tyranny, taxes, and firearms confiscation was caused by poor people rioting because the government wasnt giving them handouts?

 

"People aren't FORCED into welfare, "

 

you are right. but i am forced to pay for welfare as is everyone else who creates wealth. that is the coercive part... remember governments dont create wealth, they rob it from people who have. whether it is money, gold, land, firearms, etc.

 

 

i feel like a broken record. the minimum wage is not a PRICE FLOOR! it is a price level. it outlaws all jobs under the minimum. so if you cannot produce 5.15. an hour worth of work the company will lose money. companies cannot sustain this for long, unless it is made up in other areas. i like to think of it as jumping over a chair. a 160 pound in shape guy can soar over the chair. (the chair is minimum wage) the 400 pound fat dude cant. think of the chair as the minimum wage, and the skill being that you have to jump over the chair to get that much money. if you cant do it, you cant make that amount of money. its real simple. it is pure fallacy to think the minimum wage as a price floor and that everything rises in accordance to it. you simply do not understand the economics of this subject, if you keep referring to the minimum wage as a price floor.

 

 

"Those companies can afford to pay those people three times what they are paying them and still have billions of dollars in profit."

 

awesome. so next time you go shopping i want you to only come to my store and pay 600 times the amount it would cost at walmart... you can afford it.

 

"I wasn't talking about regulating the price of gas to one dollar, I was talking about raising the minimum wage so that people can afford gas now that it's gone up 2 dollars since the last time the minimum wage was raised."

 

want to lower gas prices? cut all taxes put on it by government. its about 50 cents a gallon. they are the real 'gougers.'

if we had a gold standard, with no inflation, our gas would be 10 cents a gallon, and FALLING.

 

" Nope, can't agree with that. Hotels should ensure that one family gets one room at a time like that, but how can you justify, still yet praise, price-gauging of that nature when these people might not be able to return to their home for weeks? $220 a night? They might as well drive up to New York City and stay at the Ritz if they can afford that. Poor argument, sir."

 

do you know what a price is? a price is alot of things, but it also an indicator. if ice during post katrina N.O. stayed at the same supply and the price the same, the ice would be used up in minutes due to hording because the demand sky rocketed. when the price rises, it is an indicator that there is an increased demand or a short supply. this indicator tells others to get down there to sell ice, because you can make a profit. it is not out of benevolence that we get our dinner from the butcher and the baker, but out of his own self interest. the market is how we cooperate.

so what would you rather have no ice, or pay 5.00 a bag for it instead of .50 cents??

this my friend is how markets work, for everyones benefit.

 

"Full service gas pumps are now in the minority, but just as many people still work at gas stations as they did before you were able to stick a credit card into the pump. And there are still a ton of stations that don't even have the card-pumps that still run a good business."

 

being in the gas station/service bay business, you must live in a highly regulated socialist state. i also live in one, and gas station attendants, who come out, check your oil, pump your gas, check your air, and wash your windows ARE NON EXISTENT. thank the minimum wage.

 

 

"You're a mechanic, right? Would you work for $5 an hour?"

 

yup. i would not work for 5 an hour. but my skills are priced MUCH MUCH higher than a guy ringing someone up at a register. the market determines wages, not employer generosity. people with skills and education make more. would a doctor work for 5$ an hour? they might in a socialist country, and you'll get service that shows it.

[fermentor666]

" In 18th century America there were riots, it was called the American Revolution."

 

so the american revolution, which was fought against government tyranny, taxes, and firearms confiscation was caused by poor people rioting because the government wasnt giving them handouts?

 

Didn't say anything about handouts. Not at all. The point you had originally responded to was my saying that squallor and poverty leads to riots, and you saying it doesn't.

 

"People aren't FORCED into welfare, "

 

you are right. but i am forced to pay for welfare as is everyone else who creates wealth. that is the coercive part... remember governments dont create wealth, they rob it from people who have. whether it is money, gold, land, firearms, etc.

 

I'm forced to pay for insanely high defense contracts, I don't like it. But it is creating wealth, the wealth of protection. Public schools create the wealth of education. The EPA, when not under dictatorship of the Bush administration, creates the wealth of environmental protection. Do you understand the wealth I am talking about? Yes, they take a portion of our monetary wealth to do this. But again, I'm siding with the philosophy that we must give back to the society that provides us with protection from the state of nature that you do not believe in.

 

i feel like a broken record. the minimum wage is not a PRICE FLOOR! it is a price level. it outlaws all jobs under the minimum. so if you cannot produce 5.15. an hour worth of work the company will lose money. companies cannot sustain this for long, unless it is made up in other areas. i like to think of it as jumping over a chair. a 160 pound in shape guy can soar over the chair. (the chair is minimum wage) the 400 pound fat dude cant. think of the chair as the minimum wage, and the skill being that you have to jump over the chair to get that much money. if you cant do it, you cant make that amount of money. its real simple. it is pure fallacy to think the minimum wage as a price floor and that everything rises in accordance to it. you simply do not understand the economics of this subject, if you keep referring to the minimum wage as a price floor.

 

No, I understand what you are saying, and you are right that the small business might not be able to afford a 25 cent increase in wages, let alone over a dollar. But other companies can, many companies can. Every retail chain you see can. The Gap, Abercrombie, Walmart, Target, Spencers, whatever. They can do it, and they don't. Don't say that I don't understand the economics because I misunderstood you phrasing. You know that I do.

 

"Those companies can afford to pay those people three times what they are paying them and still have billions of dollars in profit."

 

awesome. so next time you go shopping i want you to only come to my store and pay 600 times the amount it would cost at walmart... you can afford it.

 

Nope, can't afford it. Your response to my comment on outsourced labor to third-world countries is irrelevant and ignoring the valid points that I made.

 

"I wasn't talking about regulating the price of gas to one dollar, I was talking about raising the minimum wage so that people can afford gas now that it's gone up 2 dollars since the last time the minimum wage was raised."

 

want to lower gas prices? cut all taxes put on it by government. its about 50 cents a gallon. they are the real 'gougers.'

if we had a gold standard, with no inflation, our gas would be 10 cents a gallon, and FALLING.

 

Yup, gas taxes are outrageous. I don't understand the justification behind them and even if it was made clear I probably would not agree with it. But, they have still risen two dollars a gallon since the last federal wage increase even without tax.

 

 

" Nope, can't agree with that. Hotels should ensure that one family gets one room at a time like that, but how can you justify, still yet praise, price-gauging of that nature when these people might not be able to return to their home for weeks? $220 a night? They might as well drive up to New York City and stay at the Ritz if they can afford that. Poor argument, sir."

 

do you know what a price is? a price is alot of things, but it also an indicator. if ice during post katrina N.O. stayed at the same supply and the price the same, the ice would be used up in minutes due to hording because the demand sky rocketed. when the price rises, it is an indicator that there is an increased demand or a short supply. this indicator tells others to get down there to sell ice, because you can make a profit. it is not out of benevolence that we get our dinner from the butcher and the baker, but out of his own self interest. the market is how we cooperate.

so what would you rather have no ice, or pay 5.00 a bag for it instead of .50 cents??

this my friend is how markets work, for everyones benefit.

 

Don't patronize me, I understand the concept of hoarding cheap goods. It's the storekeepers and hotel managers job to responsibly and equally spread the resources. I'm not talking about fucking communism. Picture this, when the US military drops food and water into refugee camps, do they charge them extra because they really need it and there's not enough supply? No, they don't. What happens is local militias hijack the supplies and then illegally price-gouge them. It's the same situation with gouging prices during Katrina.

 

These guys didn't pay extra for the goods they already had and the hotels that were miles away were hardly affected by the disaster. They will not lose money on the goods they have already been supplied with when they sell them at regular prices. The should raise the rates accordingly and justly once the new supplies must be bought from the distributor and they have to buy extra. Should the distributor jack the prices on electricity, water, or food for a hotel in northern Mississippi because the hotel is over-booked with evacuees? Do you really think that is just? Because what you want would lead to this food-chain of price-gouging where every supplier would pull up prices all over the country. It is partially what happened with certain goods and supplies that were produced down there, but if you felt the effects of the actual price-gouging that was going on in your home town, far away from New Orleans, you'd be just as pissed as you are about taxes going to welfare. If you wouldn't be then your principles are at conflict.

 

"Full service gas pumps are now in the minority, but just as many people still work at gas stations as they did before you were able to stick a credit card into the pump. And there are still a ton of stations that don't even have the card-pumps that still run a good business."

 

being in the gas station/service bay business, you must live in a highly regulated socialist state. i also live in one, and gas station attendants, who come out, check your oil, pump your gas, check your air, and wash your windows ARE NON EXISTENT. thank the minimum wage.

 

Well, they don't do that if you don't ask them to, but there's plenty of gas stations around here that have a place where you can pull your care into a garage and have them do that for you. There's even chains that specialize in just that. They definitly wash your windows at full-serve. Check your air and oil? I don't think that has anything to do with minimum wage, it has to do with long lines of people waiting to get their gas pumped. Maybe it's just in Massachusetts but I've been around a bit and seen the same thing.

 

 

"You're a mechanic, right? Would you work for $5 an hour?"

 

yup. i would not work for 5 an hour. but my skills are priced MUCH MUCH higher than a guy ringing someone up at a register. the market determines wages, not employer generosity. people with skills and education make more. would a doctor work for 5$ an hour? they might in a socialist country, and you'll get service that shows it.

 

 

But what you're saying is that having no minimum wage would naturally lead to wage increases out of competition. The point I made was that this would not happen because there aren't enough people providing work to supply the demand of those who need it. It's why colleges are hiring part-time professors and graduate students to teach classes because they don't feel like paying full-time professors. That has nothing to do with minumum wage, those people make a salary that is not by the hour. It has to do with the fact that there are far too many people out there looking to teach than there are places to teach.

 

 

You're ignoring an awful lot of what I've said that seems to seriously challenge some of what you have said.

[angelofdeath]

" I'm forced to pay for insanely high defense contracts, I don't like it. But it is creating wealth, the wealth of protection. Public schools create the wealth of education. The EPA, when not under dictatorship of the Bush administration, creates the wealth of environmental protection. Do you understand the wealth I am talking about? Yes, they take a portion of our monetary wealth to do this. But again, I'm siding with the philosophy that we must give back to the society that provides us with protection from the state of nature that you do not believe in"

 

exactly. you shouldnt be paying for high defense contracts, nor should anyone else. we shouldnt be paying for anything through force. if we want to voluntarily pay for welfare, high defense contracts, environmental protection, education, then fine. the minute you coerce someone to do it, then we have a problem. i think of it as the gun pointing principal. you like to point the gun at people, tell them what to do, how to live thier lives, what to do with thier property, what the proper education is, how much many they can make/keep in thier possession, how best to protect the environment, etc etc. i think we should cooperate on a voluntary basis. my favorite stories are those of 2 congressmen one from the 19th century, and one from today, that vote against all unconstitutional spending. recently, congress voted to allocate public money to give john paul II some sort of medal. a christian constitutionalist, voted against it. he said he could not allocate any public money for this, and that it was unconstitutional, but he pulled out a check to pay for it with his own money. most of hte congress just laughed. its not that conservatives/libertarians are against charity, we are against the forced gun pointing part of taking someones property to give to someone else.

 

and GOVERNMENTS DO NOT CREATE WEALTH!! THEY DESTROY IT!!!!! the private sector can do whatever government does, 10 times better, with 1/4 of the money.

 

"Your response to my comment on outsourced labor to third-world countries is irrelevant and ignoring the valid points that I made."

 

no it is relevant. you are saying that you and/or the government do gooders can decide everyones business and if they 'can afford' something. put the gun down. let people decide things on a voluntary basis.

 

"But, they have still risen two dollars a gallon since the last federal wage increase even without tax."

 

maybe im reading this wrong....... but gas where i am at, which is near a very huge metropolis is 2.25 a gallon. so you are saying gas prices were .25 cents a gallon as of the last minimum wage increase? or are you saying..... taht gas is over 2.00 a gallon. the easiest way to get lower gas prices, is to increase the supply or subvert the demand. drill off of our coasts. abolish opec. i could go on about this for hours.

 

" Picture this, when the US military drops food and water into refugee camps, do they charge them extra because they really need it and there's not enough supply? No, they don't. What happens is local militias hijack the supplies and then illegally price-gouge them. It's the same situation with gouging prices during Katrina. "

 

real bad analogy. are you talking the US dropping stuff to refugees as in foreign countries? if they are trying to evade some crazy government in thier own country then obviously that government is going to cease what the US dropped. look, if someone wants to give something away, that is fine. but they will not be able to stay in business for long.

 

" These guys didn't pay extra for the goods they already had and the hotels that were miles away were hardly affected by the disaster. They will not lose money on the goods they have already been supplied with when they sell them at regular prices. The should raise the rates accordingly and justly once the new supplies must be bought from the distributor and they have to buy extra. Should the distributor jack the prices on electricity, water, or food for a hotel in northern Mississippi because the hotel is over-booked with evacuees? Do you really think that is just? Because what you want would lead to this food-chain of price-gouging where every supplier would pull up prices all over the country. It is partially what happened with certain goods and supplies that were produced down there, but if you felt the effects of the actual price-gouging that was going on in your home town, far away from New Orleans, you'd be just as pissed as you are about taxes going to welfare. If you wouldn't be then your principles are at conflict."

 

if you bought an ounce of gold in 1980, it was worth 200 bones. today its 600-700 bones. now, when you sell it, are you gonna charge someone 200 bones or are you going to sell it at the MARKET PRICE of 700 bones??

you dont understand how commodities and services work. you have a partial understanding. look, if i am a gas station owner, and have 8K gallons of gas in the ground. say i paid 2.00$ a gallon. a hurricane hits, interrupts supply, and gas is now going for 5.00 a gallon the spot market. now, do i still sell my gas for 2.10$ a gallon or raise the price? if i keep it at 2.10 there shortly will not be any gas. of course, i wont be 'gouging' anyone, but i'll also be broke. the other main factor is replacement cost, if gas spiked that much, the measily amount of money i made on the cheap load will pay for 1/4 of the next load. you MUST CHARGE REPLACEMENT VALUE OR YOU WILL BE BROKE.

now you might say you have a solution to this problem. you might say.... well fine, im going to enact this anti gouging law or price cap, so you cant 'gouge' anyone. what you will end up with is, people having no incentive to risk life and limb to get to work in a storm to sell the gas. all government price controls lead to a shortage.the effect is people would rather stay home, or work a few hours making a couple cents a gallon under a price control, then to provide super duper 24 hour service during a hurricane evacuation, aand make 2 dollars a gallon. if someone wants to 'gouge' you at 5.00 a gallon, then you simply dont have to buy it. after all, unlike the socialists, no one is forcing you to do anything.

look at another example. you own a house. you paid 10K for it in 1960. do you sell it for 15K in 2006? so as not to 'gouge' anyone? or do you sell it at market value at 500K?? if you do, you are a fucking price gouger and should be locked up and lynched. you are taking advantage of poor people who need a house.

see...... why do you charge so much? because you need to buy another house, and all the old 10K from 1960 are now worth 500K.

 

"Should the distributor jack the prices on electricity, water, or food for a hotel in northern Mississippi because the hotel is over-booked with evacuees? Do you really think that is just?

 

im not here to say if it is just or not, but this happens. supply and demand 101. if the forces of the market arent allowed to work, or are curbed by government, you will have a failure.

 

Higher prices today reduce consumption and increase inventories therefore reduce how much prices will rise tomorrow. The overall increase in price will actually be less.

 

Stamping out price gouging by hotels merely means that more of those fleeing the storm will be homeless. nobody wants to see prices rise, we are humans. but prices play an important role in the market, as i detailed earlier.

 

naturally im pissed about prices going up. i am a human being. we dont like prices rising. however i dont see anything good coming from DC on the topic. they have no cure, and no government can combat the market and win. understanding economics has never been a pre requesite for being a politican.

 

" But what you're saying is that having no minimum wage would naturally lead to wage increases out of competition. The point I made was that this would not happen because there aren't enough people providing work to supply the demand of those who need it."

 

what would happn if minimum wage was abolished is, mentally retarded people who wanted to work, could work in a factory stringing beads for 4.00$ an hour. or people who only made it to the 5th grade, could do a service that only paid 3.50 an hour. they would have a job, and means of getting experience, and skills to advance. with this foundation, they would gradually climb out of the the whole, one step at a time, until they were making a decent amount of money. under the minimum wage law, anyone who cannot produce 5.15 an hour, is unemployed.

 

my argument continues with a person owning his or her self. and denying free entry into the labor market, with this law, is unjust. you are also in effect putting a gun to an employers head outlawing a deal he might make. minimum wage outlaws some apprenticeship positions and tons of easy do nothing jobs, like movie ticket takers. where they work in a small movie theater, where they work the shows when they come in and read magazines the rest. these jobs are good experiences for teenagers and i think we should keep them around for an employees choice to take on one of these jobs. the minimum wage successfully saves them from thier exploitation, but abolishing thier job. you have a right to work for 10$ an hour, why dont you have the right to work for 5?

[fermentor666]

I think you are mis-interpreting a lot of my comments and making some comments to which I object their validity. But it's 5 AM and I can't respond now.