Just so I'm clear...you reached a conclusion that the author explicitly said can't be reached based on the evidence in the article, and you're questioning my critical thinking skills? I guess I can't blame you for being snarky. If my critical thinking skills were as poor as yours, I'd also be openly hostile towards everyone.
Its realy funny how many of the same liberal folks here want to so defend the poor against taxes while their willing to have the poorest of Americans pay more for energy, gasoline, automobiles, food and virtually everything in lieu of mandates on green energy. I love how the Mayor's of poor cities are lining up saying "I switched some of our utility to Wind!" as if it doesn't increase the monthly power bill over every person in that city. These are the most basic needs: energy, food, transportation. All the liberal groups have done is inflated prices on these people. The failed Government Push on making education and healthcare affordable the last thirty years have skyrocketed prices in school and health. So the liberal view point has raised prices on: Power Heat Energy Food Transportation Education Healthcare With friends like these guys, do the poor really need enemies??
ELECTRICITY: When you have Green energy mandates forcing utilities to buy alternative energy as a percentage of their power, that increases the price to all customers. Those industries would be dead without these mandates and their cost is much more expensive. As powering one's home is a base necessity it hits the poor the hardest. Irony is that it subsidizes very wealthy liberal people that own these alt. energy companies. Every liberal Mayor loves to tout their environmental record and force the city to get a percentage of its power from these sources......but the reality is that it drives up the prices to the poorest of people. It is a tax and harmful to poor people, yet liberals champion it. Simple examples here.
Just in time.... Honest question for libertarian-minded people: how do you argue this is sustainable? How do you argue that the 80 wealthiest people on earth owning $1.9 trillion of everything is just or proportionate to their contributions to society?
Flawed "study" http://www.iea.org.uk/node/9980 Oxfam’s claim that the richest 1 per cent own 48 per cent of the world’s wealth (and will soon own more than half) rests on Credit Suisse data. This data is on net wealth, which throws up all sorts of weird findings when you try to add it up across large populations. That is because net wealth is calculated by adding up the value of assets and taking off debts. North America...supposedly has around 8 per cent of the world’s poorest population – because significant numbers of people in the States are loaded up with debts of various kind, making their net wealth negative!
I very much do not like the concentration of wealth. I especially despise the inability for people to change their circumstances, the belief that one can succeed based on their hard work and the entrepreneurial spirit is what makes Capitalism great. I don't think anyone believes it is good for society as a whole. The question is what is the answer to creating more opportunities for all? I just believe that the liberal focus on issues that drive up prices and increases regulations on businesses actually hinders the entreprenurial spirit that has someone start their own business and achieve wealth and be financially better off. I don't think taxing 60% of people that are worth a billion is fair, just as I don't think raising prices on poor people through higher electricity to subsidize rich Green energy company owners is fair.
The strong will always prey on the weak... And there are no 'haves' without the 'have nots'. Rather liberal or conservative the rich are not going to have the middle class and under best interest at hand. This is nothing new. Liberals and conservatives who point their finger always have 3 pointing back at them. And if you're not a rich liberal or conservative than arguing about which side is worst or better is like being a fan of a sports team because you're just a fan and not a player. We've become a nation of materialistic driving uncontrollable spenders... People who run out and spend every dollar they get as soon as they get it and become slaves to credit cards and debt. People rather buy and spend (out of want instead of need) rather than save. And people rather do business at super stores (who hurt communities) for convince instead of supporting small businesses. The power the common man will always have is keeping his money in his pocket and or choosing who he spends it with but that's a power we collectively choose not to use. I thought the green energy mandates had something to do with killing the planet? I don't know... Sounds like shady business if you're right. But I'm sure there are conservative mayors taking advantage as well.
Say what you will but capitalism depends on some level of injection of wealth into the middle classes - the real job creators. Since the 1980's the standard of living for the middle class has declined. Families make due with less, have to have two income earners, and costs to put kids into college or pay for health care have become more unattainable. Ultimately as wealth continues to get concentrated at the top it becomes clearer that trickle down doesn't work. It's trickle up - and that's what has been happening. And history has shown when things trickle up too much the whole thing collapses. Either you get a great depression, or you get revolution. So the 1% better start thinking about whether or not greed, for a lack of a better word, is truly good.
The wealth/influence cycle is a snowball rolling down hill. Mo' money mo' influence over: government, employees, rates of pay, buyouts of competition, stifling of innovation, information and perception (public relations news and advertising). Ruthlessness is not virtue to be rewarded or tolerated.
On what? My conclusion or what you seem to be assuming my conclusion is? FYI, my conclusion is that the conservative narrative that the minimum wage will necessarily constrict economic growth and cost jobs is a load of hooey. To support my conclusion, I presented a study which found a correlation between a higher minimum wage and higher employment in 2014, indicating that, assuming there is a relationship between these data points, the relationship is likely in the opposite direction from that assumed by conservatives. Note that at no point in my conclusion have I implied causality, as you mistakenly asserted. You'd know this already if you were able to comprehend the written word.
Is that a "yes" or "no" on the tipjar wager? I'm more than happy to teach you elementary-level English, but it'll cost you $20 (payable to the tipjar).
Because monetary compensation is not a function of moral praise or social accolade, but of the perceived return in goods, services or custodial investment income. Incidentally, speaking as a statist.
I think one of the concern with min wages is it could drive some business out of business or reduce their profit to a point where it's not worth the risk of continuing the business. If we could have a mechanism of targeted min wages, I would be more for it. Across the board min wages is too "blind" to many small and start-up businesses. But yet at the same time, it's not to American advantage when Walmart of the world don't pay American workers enough to not be part of the American safety net (food stamp, tax credits, health credits, medicaid etcs...) when they are hoarding a$$ load of profit.
Relevant... This is currently at the top of r/bestof on reddit. A user complains that an increased minimum wage would be offset by an increased cost of living/job losses, and another user shows how the exact opposite is true.
Interesting theory, but I haven't ever heard of even an anecdotal case where someone closed their business because the minimum wage went up. The minimum wage doesn't apply to businesses with less than $500,000 in revenues, most small and start-up businesses would be exempt. http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/q-a.htm Agreed, we are effectively subsidizing very profitable corporations who refuse to share their profits with the employees who actually worked to make those profits possible.
