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Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

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Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#141

Post by kristopolous »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #92
kristopolous wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but during a crisis what's the alternative? The alternative now is to disconnect the systems from the possibility of contagion, but the nature of crisis is essentially an acknowledgment of a failure to achieve in those efforts. So what then, really?

The alturnative is letting things fail. It causes a lot of pain in the short term with people losing their jobs and general economic fallout. This causes a lot of suffering. But on the other hand, the rich will lose more, and during the rebuilding a different set of people will gain the upper hand and end up on top. It's hard to get the political will to actually allow what needs to happen to fix wealth inequality.

When it's been done lots more than that happens!

Currency collapses, bank defaults, asset freeze-ups, international trade stoppage because of debt/credit changes, strikes and work stoppages, demand collapses.

Sometimes do nothing is fine, like the video game crash of 1983. But when it's systemic and big, that strategy has collapsed entire countries

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#142

Post by bluecalm »

speedplane wrote: post #103
rStar wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

billionaires are criminal by definition, and their existence proves the absence of a (econ 101 style) market in whatever industry they came from. we can only fix this problem through efficient regulation of monopolies.

> Billionaires are criminal by definition Sadly, billionaires aren’t criminal by definition (no such laws), but the existence of billionaires sure does cut against the idea of a perfect market (in a “perfect” market there cannot be profits).

That assumes infinite number of competent, driven and well funded market participants that jump on every opportunity or inefficiency .

The real world is anything but that. There is very small number of competent driven people and vast ocean of opportunity and value waiting to be created. If you deliver the value people will be more than happy to pay. Maybe someone competes with you if the field is ripe enough or maybe not if they choose another one. There is a lot of fruit out there and we are far far away from the point where people need to compete for the same one.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#143

Post by Melting_Harps »

bawolff wrote: post #79
stretchwithme wrote: post #64

A society with no technology has hardly any wealth gap. People who can leverage multiple technologies can multiply their efforts. Mass communication, mass distribution and automation of all sorts. But Wall Street bonuses are subsidized by the fact the government socializes their biggest failures. Bailouts just encourage them to take greater risks, leveraging debt in dangerous ways that will blow up the system again.

What's "no technology", because ancient rome was full of giant wealth gaps. Maybe if you mean hunter-gatherer societies, but i don't really know enough about them to comment.

> What's "no technology",

A poor, non-existing fanciful hypothetical argument that cannot stand on it's own, but is made to illustrate an ill-convinced point: because since the advent of anatomical Humans (~200k-300k) we see evidence of Man was using clubs or spears fashioned from wood, or arrowheads with the art in caves to go with it.

All of which fall under technology of some sort.

In short, its a poorly reasoned hypothetical to support one's own biases and perhaps disdain for tech and the inherent inequality that follows from those who benefit from it.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#144

Post by [deleted] »

WalterBright wrote: post #114
speedplane wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Billionaires are criminal by definition Sadly, billionaires aren’t criminal by definition (no such laws), but the existence of billionaires sure does cut against the idea of a perfect market (in a “perfect” market there cannot be profits).

> in a “perfect” market there cannot be profits I'm curious what your definition of a perfect market is. In free markets, without profits the companies will fail.

[deleted]

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#145

Post by Udik »

speedplane wrote: post #103
rStar wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

billionaires are criminal by definition, and their existence proves the absence of a (econ 101 style) market in whatever industry they came from. we can only fix this problem through efficient regulation of monopolies.

> Billionaires are criminal by definition Sadly, billionaires aren’t criminal by definition (no such laws), but the existence of billionaires sure does cut against the idea of a perfect market (in a “perfect” market there cannot be profits).

Definition of a "perfect" market, first line:

"All firms sell an identical product"

Seems one of those cases where perfect doesn't mean anything like "good". It's entirely irrelevant to the case at point.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#146

Post by akvadrako »

Tade0 wrote: post #91
worker767424 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're already replacing cashiers with kiosks. No reason to think some of the relatively more mundane kitchen jobs aren't next.

But robots don't actually replace these workers. In the case of McDonald's the kiosks only generated more throughput, actually adding work, so all the staff assigned to taking orders was put into other work. Meanwhile self-checkout, while actually reducing throughput somewhat, made it possible for the workers to take on other tasks in the store - of which there are many.

There isnt that many jobs in a grocery store that need many people. Stocking shelves and cleaning mostly. Once those are automated there will be a lot less jobs.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#147

Post by kristopolous »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #129
kristopolous wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As does an adult with a family. People who work full-time deserve to not live in poverty. You make it sound like having a society where hard working people can feed their family is unfair to you. It's not. You're wrong.

$20/hr in NZ is nowhere near poverty. It's 80% of what STEM grads typically earn, for bottom of the barrel work.

So stem is still 25% more?

Everyone who works hard has a right to live comfortably and not in fear of some giant cost coming forcing them to squirrel away piles of money.

Stem should be about building tomorrow and making a better society, the personal fortune building has polluted the field and is distracting us from more important problems. Having a $500,000 stock portfolio shouldn't be mandatory for a decent life.

There's a reason for our technological stagnations mapping to the rise in inequality.

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#149

Post by WalterBright »

speedplane wrote: post #133
WalterBright wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in a “perfect” market there cannot be profits I'm curious what your definition of a perfect market is. In free markets, without profits the companies will fail.

There is a mathematically based definition of a perfect market. It’s only an approximation of real life, but it’s heavily used: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/perfectcompetition.asp

Your reference says:

"Companies earn just enough profit to stay in business"

which contradicts your comment:

"in a “perfect” market there cannot be profits"

Re: Min wage would be $44 / hour if it had grown at same rate as Wall Street bonuses

#150

Post by insert_coin »

rStar wrote: post #124
gretch wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your hyperbole is going completely off the far deep end "billionaires are criminal by definition" What definitions are you using? When you talk like this, you're hardly helping your cause. Ppl just dismiss you as intellectually dishonest

criminal because otherwise competitors could actually compete, rather than be subject to illegal monopolistic forces. Criminals, all.

Most, if not all monopolies are government granted in one way or another.

As far as criminality goes, billionaires are the least criminals of us all because they've been able to use and sometimes change the law to make them not fall into the definition of criminality.

In short, what's needed is less "regulation" as it is the main defense mechanism monopolies employ to stay monopolies.

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