Our leaders and the stock market.....

[Actual_Cryptid]

Actual that was a good thought out response and your last paragraph is has some GOLD in it lol. I don’t like either but strongly feel the right is the less of the he two bads and it’s not even close.
As to your points. U are just wrong on some. Specifically the payments, Afghanistan, and oil.

When someone can’t admit what a disaster that was and only can say “well trump....”. It tells me no amount of talk will change that person.

Well help me see the light on oil, direct payments, and Afghanistan then. I'm open to being convinced by evidence.

 

[T28w]

Well help me see the light on oil, direct payments, and Afghanistan then. I'm open to being convinced by evidence.

Unless I’m mistaken, we were exporting oil not too long ago and I was paying 1.60ish for gas. I understand you can’t push a green agenda when fuel prices are low, it’s just too hard to sell. Let it prices go high and it makes sense. I believe if we can be energy independent, we should be.

Direct payments lol. Biden came on tv, said that was not going to happened, obviously not knowing what was going on, then comes back on tv, shakes his finger at a reporter and says we should compensate they something, they deserve it.

Afghan is really simple. Again Biden interviewed, given every opportunity to save face, but nope, he said it went smooth and couldn’t/wouldn’t change anything about How they exited.

 

[Venom One]

Unless I’m mistaken, we were exporting oil not too long ago and I was paying 1.60ish for gas. I understand you can’t push a green agenda when fuel prices are low, it’s just too hard to sell. Let it prices go high and it makes sense. I believe if we can be energy independent, we should be.

Direct payments lol. Biden came on tv, said that was not going to happened, obviously not knowing what was going on, then comes back on tv, shakes his finger at a reporter and says we should compensate they something, they deserve it.

Afghan is really simple. Again Biden interviewed, given every opportunity to save face, but nope, he said it went smooth and couldn’t/wouldn’t change anything about How they exited.

Agree on oil.

I find it hard to believe Biden didn't know about a plan to give $450,000 per person despite his claims of ignorance. I believe he knew exactly what was planned and it had his buy-off, until word got out and he realized that $450,000 to buy votes was too much. His finger wagging was enough to make me want to reach thru the tv and strangle him.

Agree on AF, that was a debacle of his own making. He signed over 20 executive orders in the first few days of his presidency - after bashing Trump for doing it - so he could have easily changed the AF withdrawal date. And then to claim it was a great success with no hind-sight changes was beyond bs.

 

[T28w]

Agree on oil.

I find it hard to believe Biden didn't know about a plan to give $450,000 per person despite his claims of ignorance. I believe he knew exactly what was planned and it had his buy-off, until word got out and he realized that $450,000 to buy votes was too much. His finger wagging was enough to make me want to reach thru the tv and strangle him.

Agree on AF, that was a debacle of his own making. He signed over 20 executive orders in the first few days of his presidency - after bashing Trump for doing it - so he could have easily changed the AF withdrawal date. And then to claim it was a great success with no hind-sight changes was beyond bs.

Yep. At some point there are only 2 possible conclusions. 1. Incompetent 2. Liar. I say this for a whole lot of people in Washington though, not just Biden.

Look if I’m still here at his age I’ll just be happy to be here, and it’s not like Biden is really calling the shots and running things.

I m aself proclaimed conservative though. I know I lean to the right on alomost every issue. I feel like the liberals live in this fake world so out of touch with reality and the conservatives are the sticks in the mud who have to say we can’t do everything for everyone.

We lost touch with what’s best for the country and only concerned about re-elections, to hell with what it takes as long as we can stay in office. In my part of the country people have free healthcare, food stamps, free or almost free housing, utilities, free meals at school, free cellphones, free meds, and I’m sure other stuff if I really looked. Why/ how is generational welfare like this allowed? And then they want to talk about living in poverty. I tell them quickly they don’t know what poverty looks like. If you haven’t been outside the us, I don’t want to hear poverty. We are the only place withpeople in poverty who are obese, on their cell phone, in a home, with their car full of gas, and free trips to a doctor.

 

[Rich M]

We lost touch with what’s best for the country and only concerned about re-elections, to hell with what it takes as long as we can stay in office. In my part of the country people have free healthcare, food stamps, free or almost free housing, utilities, free meals at school, free cellphones, free meds, and I’m sure other stuff if I really looked. Why/ how is generational welfare like this allowed? And then they want to talk about living in poverty. I tell them quickly they don’t know what poverty looks like. If you haven’t been outside the us, I don’t want to hear poverty. We are the only place withpeople in poverty who are obese, on their cell phone, in a home, with their car full of gas, and free trips to a doctor.

Yesr we are repressing them and theres no equal rights in this white supremecist country. LOL. And there are white folks who believe that. If we all would just say no to the media instead of letting them lead us into socialism and racism against whitey.

Biden is a puppet and has a 49 yr track record of liberal, hate America concepts. Why would he suddenly care about Americans?

thats why folks refer to Trump a lot. He at least cared about this country.

 

[Actual_Cryptid]

Unless I’m mistaken, we were exporting oil not too long ago and I was paying 1.60ish for gas. I understand you can’t push a green agenda when fuel prices are low, it’s just too hard to sell. Let it prices go high and it makes sense. I believe if we can be energy independent, we should be.

Direct payments lol. Biden came on tv, said that was not going to happened, obviously not knowing what was going on, then comes back on tv, shakes his finger at a reporter and says we should compensate they something, they deserve it.

Afghan is really simple. Again Biden interviewed, given every opportunity to save face, but nope, he said it went smooth and couldn’t/wouldn’t change anything about How they exited.

Keystone XL was to import Canadian crude. The US was a net exporter of petroleum products, but only because we were importing loads and then exporting refined products. We were still importing 19% of our crude from the Middle East. OF course if you look at 2019 there was also a sudden drop in US domestic production in March of 2020. Graph below doesn't support the "Biden killed domestic production" narrative.

https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/production/

Migrants and illegal immigrants aren't the same thing. We've had migrant workers on these continents since before anyone here was born, and that migrant labor is part of the reason why our food is so much cheaper (even tax-adjusted) than our peers across Europe. That said, I'm kind of surprised that people are against the idea of trying to help stabilize South and Central America financially to encourage fewer people to try to come to the US for work. But everything from the administration is clear that they're not talking about giving cash to individuals, the plan is about trying to stabilize governments. Basically the same thing the government did for the states here that all the Republicans first opposed and are now taking credit for.

Now for Afghanistan, saying "they could just mvoe the deadline" is dead wrong. You'll recall it wasn't a one-party agreement, there was the Afghan government and more importantly the Taliban that had agreed to put a stay on violence until the withdrawal agreement. They also made it very clear they weren't going to settle for moving the deadline again. As far as what to do differently, I'd love to hear it. I've heard how we should have tried to hold Bagram and use it to evacuate everyone, which would mean a 60km+, 1.5 (really 2) hour drive or a series of flights while splitting your security forces between both locations. I've heard how we should have sent even more people in, which sounds kind of like the opposite of withdrawing troops, but hey I'm sure we would have really whipped the Taliban this time with just one more surge! Leaving 2500 people behind also isn't a withdrawal.

This one hits me personally because I was there, infantry Marine, two deployments to Helmand province and buried some friends after the fact. I'm tired of people telling me we needed to try to hang on to the place or settle it or how we just needed to kill more civilians or use more drones. Two problems. First, the tactics used in war tend to get brought home and used by the police and other LEO/counterterrorism agencies, which should scare everyone and make us fairly pacifist. Secondly, there was solidly 18 years of failure built there. We didn't teach the Afghan army how to do logistics, we sold contracts to PMCs who pulled out as soon as it got too hairy, which meant the Afghan Army had none of the 5 B's. We didn't helpset up an effective nationala rmy; first there's not a national spirit but secondly the corruption in the army made the army ineffective. Read up on the ghost soldiers, stolen payrolls, the defectors. Taliban offered a better deal to anyone who was worth it. None of that was going to get solved with six more weeks or six more months or six more years of pointless spending, killing, and dying. I hope it stings too. I hope everyone who lost a loved one over there feels the sting. I hope all of us remember that the next time we decide we can go win a war and be home be Christmas. Didn't happen in Korea, didn't happen in Vietnam, didn't happen in Iraq or Afghanistan, won't happen the next time either.

Which brings me to China. There are two options. We can try diplomacy, a mix of force projection and soft power and economic relations, or we can give up. We're not going to go to war with China over Taiwan. Xi knows that, the Pentagon knows that, everybody knows that. Trying to buy more ships and planes and put more military power in the sea isn't going to work because it's like the dude who is always talking about how his hands are registered deadly weapons. It's all BS and everyone knows it. The era of the US just thumping down a nuke and demanding people do what we tell them ending in 1963 if not earlier and it's not coming back.

We'll close with debt. Debt isn't bad. National debt doesn't get repaid like your car loan, it's not the same kind of debt. National debt is more like corporate debt for a multinational corp. It's issued, you make the debt service payments and you never refinance it unless there's a sweetheart deal out there because it's a cheap way to get more money to do stuff, like buying planes and ships and farm subsidies and building roads and medicare. You'll ever notice how big companies don't run on cash basis? How the biggest companies issue stock and carry loads of debt? You want to run the government like a business we can do that. The number 1 way a government raises funds is through issuing debt and raising taxes, and a government's business is providing services. You can go back to the 1940s and find the same people insisting that there's a debt timebomb ticking and we have to cut spending to fix it, but A) they instantly stop believing it when Republicans are in power and B) the first two generations of the alarmists died and the third generation is on their way. Of course, if we did want to, for some unknowable reason, pay down the debt, cutting spending is the wrong way to do it. The easiest way to do it would be to reinstate the tax brackets from the 1950s and 1960s. The chart below adjusts to 2013 dollars, when it was published.

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/brUuvaliUehTem4cpNFpiLrM8JQ=/6x0:1919x1076/1600x900/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54291483/Screen_Shot_2017_04_17_at_8.45.42_AM.0.png

Likewise, real income (adjusted to 2012 dollars)

https://www.russellsage.org/sites/default/files/mean-household-income-of-quintiles-large_0.jpg

Now garsh I'm just a lowly accountant, but it sure does seem like there's some kind of relationship between when we started offshoring jobs and money and cutting those tippy top tax brackets, and when corporations started becoming more uncontrollable, unaccountable, and acting like their own governments. I wonder if there's any relationship between that and that strange effect where real income gets smushed down so the people at the bottom never see real gains while those top quintiles are just running away with it.

Coincidence I'm sure. We just need to cut taxes, offer corporations more tax loopholes and rebates, and use more prison labor so people can't just quit a job when it's not worth it!

 

[T28w]

You are said a lot without really addressing the 3 point I made.

So you are saying this administration and policy is not the reason we are paying double what we paid under the previous?

I never commented on debt.

Immigrants. We need them to work jobs that we will not work. The two large farms I know personally (over 8,000 acres) have moved to hiring South Africans who come and work and then go back home. Hispanics still make up some of the help. I have zero. I repeat zero issues with someone coming here and working jobs that we are too good to work or for wages we will not work for. That is not what was addressed in my comments.

You are wrong also on how I feel on Afghan. I agree we should have gotten out. Should have long time ago. Whose to say without trump, we would still be there. There was military people one after another explaining how we should have drawn down. Would it have been perfect? I’m sure it wouldn’t have been. But to not be able to admit it went bad and could have been better, when people in the know are saying it could, is the problem. Look. I’m not military so I try and be very careful about what I say, as I don’t have the right, IMO, to say much as I didn’t serve, but with that being said I don’t want us to go to WAR unless we do it with the understanding we go to win, period, and get back home.

So as an accountant, do u feel trump helped or hurt our economy while he was in office?
Actually u don’t have to answer. As I have said nothing will come of this. I will not change your mind and u will not change mine. I had some time and posted on a political issue which I seldom do as it is a waste of time. Conformational bias is a powerful thing. God bless

 

[*zap*]

delete....

I need to stay away from these type threads..

 

[ChrisInAK]

It’s great for Alaska. Haven’t looked into it for anyone else. Leave you all down there to sort it out

 

[WRO]

Keystone XL was to import Canadian crude. The US was a net exporter of petroleum products, but only because we were importing loads and then exporting refined products. We were still importing 19% of our crude from the Middle East. OF course if you look at 2019 there was also a sudden drop in US domestic production in March of 2020. Graph below doesn't support the "Biden killed domestic production" narrative.

https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/production/

Migrants and illegal immigrants aren't the same thing. We've had migrant workers on these continents since before anyone here was born, and that migrant labor is part of the reason why our food is so much cheaper (even tax-adjusted) than our peers across Europe. That said, I'm kind of surprised that people are against the idea of trying to help stabilize South and Central America financially to encourage fewer people to try to come to the US for work. But everything from the administration is clear that they're not talking about giving cash to individuals, the plan is about trying to stabilize governments. Basically the same thing the government did for the states here that all the Republicans first opposed and are now taking credit for.

Now for Afghanistan, saying "they could just mvoe the deadline" is dead wrong. You'll recall it wasn't a one-party agreement, there was the Afghan government and more importantly the Taliban that had agreed to put a stay on violence until the withdrawal agreement. They also made it very clear they weren't going to settle for moving the deadline again. As far as what to do differently, I'd love to hear it. I've heard how we should have tried to hold Bagram and use it to evacuate everyone, which would mean a 60km+, 1.5 (really 2) hour drive or a series of flights while splitting your security forces between both locations. I've heard how we should have sent even more people in, which sounds kind of like the opposite of withdrawing troops, but hey I'm sure we would have really whipped the Taliban this time with just one more surge! Leaving 2500 people behind also isn't a withdrawal.

This one hits me personally because I was there, infantry Marine, two deployments to Helmand province and buried some friends after the fact. I'm tired of people telling me we needed to try to hang on to the place or settle it or how we just needed to kill more civilians or use more drones. Two problems. First, the tactics used in war tend to get brought home and used by the police and other LEO/counterterrorism agencies, which should scare everyone and make us fairly pacifist. Secondly, there was solidly 18 years of failure built there. We didn't teach the Afghan army how to do logistics, we sold contracts to PMCs who pulled out as soon as it got too hairy, which meant the Afghan Army had none of the 5 B's. We didn't helpset up an effective nationala rmy; first there's not a national spirit but secondly the corruption in the army made the army ineffective. Read up on the ghost soldiers, stolen payrolls, the defectors. Taliban offered a better deal to anyone who was worth it. None of that was going to get solved with six more weeks or six more months or six more years of pointless spending, killing, and dying. I hope it stings too. I hope everyone who lost a loved one over there feels the sting. I hope all of us remember that the next time we decide we can go win a war and be home be Christmas. Didn't happen in Korea, didn't happen in Vietnam, didn't happen in Iraq or Afghanistan, won't happen the next time either.

Which brings me to China. There are two options. We can try diplomacy, a mix of force projection and soft power and economic relations, or we can give up. We're not going to go to war with China over Taiwan. Xi knows that, the Pentagon knows that, everybody knows that. Trying to buy more ships and planes and put more military power in the sea isn't going to work because it's like the dude who is always talking about how his hands are registered deadly weapons. It's all BS and everyone knows it. The era of the US just thumping down a nuke and demanding people do what we tell them ending in 1963 if not earlier and it's not coming back.

We'll close with debt. Debt isn't bad. National debt doesn't get repaid like your car loan, it's not the same kind of debt. National debt is more like corporate debt for a multinational corp. It's issued, you make the debt service payments and you never refinance it unless there's a sweetheart deal out there because it's a cheap way to get more money to do stuff, like buying planes and ships and farm subsidies and building roads and medicare. You'll ever notice how big companies don't run on cash basis? How the biggest companies issue stock and carry loads of debt? You want to run the government like a business we can do that. The number 1 way a government raises funds is through issuing debt and raising taxes, and a government's business is providing services. You can go back to the 1940s and find the same people insisting that there's a debt timebomb ticking and we have to cut spending to fix it, but A) they instantly stop believing it when Republicans are in power and B) the first two generations of the alarmists died and the third generation is on their way. Of course, if we did want to, for some unknowable reason, pay down the debt, cutting spending is the wrong way to do it. The easiest way to do it would be to reinstate the tax brackets from the 1950s and 1960s. The chart below adjusts to 2013 dollars, when it was published.

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/brUuvaliUehTem4cpNFpiLrM8JQ=/6x0:1919x1076/1600x900/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54291483/Screen_Shot_2017_04_17_at_8.45.42_AM.0.png

Likewise, real income (adjusted to 2012 dollars)

https://www.russellsage.org/sites/default/files/mean-household-income-of-quintiles-large_0.jpg

Now garsh I'm just a lowly accountant, but it sure does seem like there's some kind of relationship between when we started offshoring jobs and money and cutting those tippy top tax brackets, and when corporations started becoming more uncontrollable, unaccountable, and acting like their own governments. I wonder if there's any relationship between that and that strange effect where real income gets smushed down so the people at the bottom never see real gains while those top quintiles are just running away with it.

Coincidence I'm sure. We just need to cut taxes, offer corporations more tax loopholes and rebates, and use more prison labor so people can't just quit a job when it's not worth it!

We get it, the zombie in chief is the greatest and the people that want to take our guns, embrace every weird deviant behavior and make it sacred, and hate the very foundation our country was built on at the best choice..

Every blue city like Portland, Seattle, Chicago etc are wonderfully run great places to live..

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[Kimber7man]

$1.5 trillion

$0.5 trillion for infrastructure

$1 trillion for upgrading social programs

We got screwed BIGTIME.

As a civil engineer, I’m trying to verify the cost and how much is going to physical infrastructure. So far I’m between $1.0 and $1.2 trillion. Could you let me know where your numbers came from?

 

[beachbunny]

Kinda getting smokey in here. Good discussion but I just wanted to see how an ordinary old bow hunter can find out what the "blind trusts" bought before they all got together,sang koombayah and passed it.(always wondered if anyone shorted the market before 9-11)

 

[Rich M]

Lots of thought in some replies.

As a civil engineer, I’m trying to verify the cost and how much is going to physical infrastructure. So far I’m between $1.0 and $1.2 trillion. Could you let me know where your numbers came from?

I work with a geotech firm. I only know what the local politicians say, Supposedly my state is supposed to see $16 billion out of the overall pot.

 

[schmalzy]

Ultimately, big business is behind the migrant crisis. An unlimited supply of people willing to work at and below minimum wage is great for corporate profits and Wall Street. It also makes it impossible for many American citizens to get ahead and feed their families.

we’re being sold out right in front of our eyes

Which big businesses are hiring below minimum wage? Unless you’re referring to 1099’ing guys as subs, I’d be truly surprised if they could get away with it. I know I certainly couldn’t.

I’m sure it varies greatly regionally, but in HTX the only, and I mean only, person preventing someone from getting ahead is themselves.

I don’t disagree that it’s a problem that’s been let grow out of control, I just don’t see how big businesses are hiring guys for below minimum wage. Hell most businesses can barely hire people paying double minimum wage.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Actual_Cryptid]

Which big businesses are hiring below minimum wage? Unless you’re referring to 1099’ing guys as subs, I’d be truly surprised if they could get away with it. I know I certainly couldn’t.

I’m sure it varies greatly regionally, but in HTX the only, and I mean only, person preventing someone from getting ahead is themselves.

I don’t disagree that it’s a problem that’s been let grow out of control, I just don’t see how big businesses are hiring guys for below minimum wage. Hell most businesses can barely hire people paying double minimum wage.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's less below minimum wage and more less than a wage that the work merits. Meatpacking, for one. No shortage of reporting on the way that meatpacking brings in H2B visa workers, doesn't sponsor their extensions or help them stay legally, and if anyone speaks up about conditions in the plant they call ICE to get rid of the troublemakers. When I worked slinging boxes in a warehouse, companies did the same thing. Hire a staffing company, overlook any discrepancies, keep people at bare minimum wages and note every time someone clocked out 1 minute early or late so you could fire anyone who mentioned the dreaded U word. Amazon, firing employees for taking a pee break and keeping wgaes low. Construction and demolition is infamous for relying on immigrant and migrant labor.

Loads of farms use immigrant and migrant labor as well, we have a whole provision in the labor regulations to keep ag labor wages below the regular minimum wage. On top of that, farmers are by and large happy to not ask questions about how the people who are providing their harvest got into the country. Here in the Midwest you can predict the harvest without looking at a field when the real-sugar Mexican cokes show up in stores. But agribusiness is a powerful lobby, and if we had an actual migrant labor visa program that wasn't designed to be frustrating and impossible, we'd have to pay migrant workers real wages instead of undercutting and threatening to call ICE if anyone speaks up.

Call me a tinhatter if you want, but I can see the signs. I can see that big businesses donate to both major parties, they both spend money paying Pinkertons to spy on union organizers and give seminars on how unions are actually bad. So when the Democrats do nothing and Joe Biden gets on TV saying "don't come to the US while Republicans rehash literal klan propaganda about an invasion, I see it as two sides of the same wage-suppressing coin.

 

[schmalzy]

It's less below minimum wage and more less than a wage that the work merits. Meatpacking, for one. No shortage of reporting on the way that meatpacking brings in H2B visa workers, doesn't sponsor their extensions or help them stay legally, and if anyone speaks up about conditions in the plant they call ICE to get rid of the troublemakers. When I worked slinging boxes in a warehouse, companies did the same thing. Hire a staffing company, overlook any discrepancies, keep people at bare minimum wages and note every time someone clocked out 1 minute early or late so you could fire anyone who mentioned the dreaded U word. Amazon, firing employees for taking a pee break and keeping wgaes low. Construction and demolition is infamous for relying on immigrant and migrant labor.

Loads of farms use immigrant and migrant labor as well, we have a whole provision in the labor regulations to keep ag labor wages below the regular minimum wage. On top of that, farmers are by and large happy to not ask questions about how the people who are providing their harvest got into the country. Here in the Midwest you can predict the harvest without looking at a field when the real-sugar Mexican cokes show up in stores. But agribusiness is a powerful lobby, and if we had an actual migrant labor visa program that wasn't designed to be frustrating and impossible, we'd have to pay migrant workers real wages instead of undercutting and threatening to call ICE if anyone speaks up.

Call me a tinhatter if you want, but I can see the signs. I can see that big businesses donate to both major parties, they both spend money paying Pinkertons to spy on union organizers and give seminars on how unions are actually bad. So when the Democrats do nothing and Joe Biden gets on TV saying "don't come to the US while Republicans rehash literal klan propaganda about an invasion, I see it as two sides of the same wage-suppressing coin.

My opinions and comments were based off of me being in the construction industry. Any skilled trade helper/No experience position is starting at double minimum wage. Can’t speak for the other industries, but seems like I compete against warehouse wages to get employees without experience, which are right around the same.

The staffing company “loophole” is interesting, hadn’t considered it.

Again, I assume there’s some regional difference between Houston, TX and a smaller rural community in the Midwest.

I know I’m opening a can of worms, but what and who determines what what wage is warranted?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Actual_Cryptid]

My opinions and comments were based off of me being in the construction industry. Any skilled trade helper/No experience position is starting at double minimum wage. Can’t speak for the other industries, but seems like I compete against warehouse wages to get employees without experience, which are right around the same.

The staffing company “loophole” is interesting, hadn’t considered it.

Again, I assume there’s some regional difference between Houston, TX and a smaller rural community in the Midwest.

I know I’m opening a can of worms, but what and who determines what what wage is warranted?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's been a few years since I slung boxes but they started as at minimum wage and acted like it was a favor to get a nickel raise after 90 days.

Who determines what wage is warranted it a philosophical question. I prefer to answer with an observation. As technology advances, three things happen. Laborers become more efficient at delivering value per hour, outpacing wage increases by an order or magnitude. Secondly, offshoring labor becomes cheaper and more efficient; if a person doesn't need to be standing in Oklahoma to do the job then you can pay someone a third as much to do it from Bangalore. Thirdly, automation replaces jobs faster than automation programming and maintenance jobs grow, in part because of the above offshoring.

Now that leaves us with a predicament, because as demonstrated in some of the stats I shared upthread what's happening is the capital class is increasing it's wealth, power, and influence while the rest of the US struggles not to continue sliding downward. Now that's great if you're in the class of people that has money to make you money, not the retail investors reading self-help books, the people who have lunch with Warren Buffett. But for everyone else that means you're trying to split an wver-smaller slice of the pie. And hey, maybe you'll be fine, maybe you'll stay above the quality of life line where you continue to have opportunities to move around and whatnot. But what that means is there's an ever growing underclass that finds itself facing down the reality that they are no longer able to move up. I fancy myself a student of history and I haven't found an example yet of a society that managed to support an upper class hoarding wealth over a large and disgruntled underclass for very long.

Which is a long way of saying there's a dozen ways to solve it, but when people find themselves working and unable to pay their bills and live a reasonable lifestyle, they start to get ideas about tearing open a castle and taking that wealth from the upper class, and they usually convince a bunch of the guards to get on board. A reasonable wage is one that allows people to pay their bills, save a little, and live an existence with hope.

 

[bowieknife50]

Ultimately, big business is behind the migrant crisis. An unlimited supply of people willing to work at and below minimum wage is great for corporate profits and Wall Street. It also makes it impossible for many American citizens to get ahead and feed their families.

we’re being sold out right in front of our eyes

I'm sorry but there are so many companies killing themselves to find employees that if you think immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans you are severely misinformed.

I am absolutely against illegal immigration but without immigrant workers it would probably cost double to feed your family than you're paying now.

Sent from my SM-G981V using Tapatalk

 

[Kimber7man]

Amazon is paying $18/hr starting wages for box slinging here.
Costco just went to $17/hr.

Minimum wage is only applicable to servers in restaurants it seems.

 

[schmalzy]

It's been a few years since I slung boxes but they started as at minimum wage and acted like it was a favor to get a nickel raise after 90 days.

Who determines what wage is warranted it a philosophical question. I prefer to answer with an observation. As technology advances, three things happen. Laborers become more efficient at delivering value per hour, outpacing wage increases by an order or magnitude. Secondly, offshoring labor becomes cheaper and more efficient; if a person doesn't need to be standing in Oklahoma to do the job then you can pay someone a third as much to do it from Bangalore. Thirdly, automation replaces jobs faster than automation programming and maintenance jobs grow, in part because of the above offshoring.

Now that leaves us with a predicament, because as demonstrated in some of the stats I shared upthread what's happening is the capital class is increasing it's wealth, power, and influence while the rest of the US struggles not to continue sliding downward. Now that's great if you're in the class of people that has money to make you money, not the retail investors reading self-help books, the people who have lunch with Warren Buffett. But for everyone else that means you're trying to split an wver-smaller slice of the pie. And hey, maybe you'll be fine, maybe you'll stay above the quality of life line where you continue to have opportunities to move around and whatnot. But what that means is there's an ever growing underclass that finds itself facing down the reality that they are no longer able to move up. I fancy myself a student of history and I haven't found an example yet of a society that managed to support an upper class hoarding wealth over a large and disgruntled underclass for very long.

Which is a long way of saying there's a dozen ways to solve it, but when people find themselves working and unable to pay their bills and live a reasonable lifestyle, they start to get ideas about tearing open a castle and taking that wealth from the upper class, and they usually convince a bunch of the guards to get on board. A reasonable wage is one that allows people to pay their bills, save a little, and live an existence with hope.

I struggle with notion that there’s not opportunities to move up. Can you retire as a factory worker with a solid pension? Maybe not as easily in the past, but as stated elsewhere, multiple big businesses (like Amazon and Costco) starting people well north of minimum wage, with opportunities for those that want to shine. That’s not even counting smaller construction firms begging for someone who simply shows up on time, can read a tape
Measure, and follow directions.

I don’t disagree that the middle class is shrinking, but I think a lot of that is also related to consumer spending and what is determined as “middle class” and the buying/spending power associated with it.

Back to illegal immigration; major issue that is quickly growing out of control. That being said, from my limited point of view, im not seeing where illegals are taking jobs from legal workers. My reality is that a lot of people simply don’t want to start at the bottom and work their way up.


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