2016 elections.

[brinstar]

11781746_1026617640695369_2759342762209547461_n.jpg

[leah]

11781746_1026617640695369_2759342762209547461_n.jpg

this is still so weird to me haha. new harriwin is amazing. i want to lick your inner thigh.

[Harrison]

Hey, having children changes you.

I think the process began a little earlier than that, but it accelerated it. My interests about the world in general broadened to the point I became more informed about politics almost by accident, so I don't understand the generally intelligent who still snort the Republican idiocy.

I feel as if the things I believe in are based in common sense/factual information, and anything else is just silly. (Religious pandering, anti-immigration, anti-gay, etc.)

[Harrison]

I'm just really vocal about it now, because it seems like for the first time in my life we have a chance with Bernie.

[leah]

[brinstar]

quinnipiac just came out with a poll that simulated a Trump vs Sanders election

bernie by 5%

[Tossica]

I feel as if the things I believe in are based in common sense/factual information, and anything else is just silly. (Religious pandering, anti-immigration, anti-gay, etc.)

THIS.

I don't vote for what I think benefits ME, I vote for what I think makes sense and is in the best interests of our society. A balance of socialist and capitalist policy is what made our country the great place it USED to be. The balance tipped during the Reagan years and has been a fucking shitshow ever since. Fuck right wing policy. Fuck pure capitalism. Fuck religious influence in politics and fuck assholes who can't see beyond their own self interests. You've fucked our country up beyond recognition, now get the fuck out of the way and let the REAL Americans fix this mess.

Sanders 2016!!!

[brinstar]

I feel as if the things I believe in are based in common sense/factual information, and anything else is just silly. (Religious pandering, anti-immigration, anti-gay, etc.)

THIS.

I don't vote for what I think benefits ME, I vote for what I think makes sense and is in the best interests of our society. A balance of socialist and capitalist policy is what made our country the great place it USED to be. The balance tipped during the Reagan years and has been a fucking shitshow ever since. Fuck right wing policy. Fuck pure capitalism. Fuck religious influence in politics and fuck assholes who can't see beyond their own self interests. You've fucked our country up beyond recognition, now get the fuck out of the way and let the REAL Americans fix this mess.

Sanders 2016!!!

[Drem]

[Harrison]

Friends on Facebook who rage out because I posted that anyone voting for Trump is an idiot...



http://puu.sh/jjZcz/c722b6c644.png

I'd block out names, but I don't give a shit

[brinstar]

damn lol

the stupidest thing morons like that (and someone here i won't mention by name since CA is moderated) refuse to consider is that it's not like that extra money just vanishes or disappears into a black hole

if you pay people a living wage, 2 things happen:

1) they need less/no govt assistance, which theoretically leads to lower taxes (i say theoretically because those clowns would just find something else to spend that money on; probably more stealth fighter jets that don't fucking work)

2) once they are able to take care of their basic necessities and still have dollars left over, they spend them - on goods and services certainly, but also potentially on bigger things like real estate and education. more goods and services being bought creates higher demand for those goods and services, which creates a need for more workers, which creates JOBS.

bonus) by nearly every standard, companies who pay their employees MORE than they have to (costco is a perfect example) generally see huge spikes in employee productivity and loyalty, and a corresponding drop in employee turnover

wealthy sneezedicks like trump don't create jobs, a lower/middle class with more pocket money creates jobs. what good is it to save a few bucks on labor costs building products when none of your employees can afford to buy them?

[Drem]

i think it would hurt a lot of small businesses tho. at the japanese spot i was at we were full all the time and had a wait list usually. if we suddenly had to give all of the employees a huge raise, the prices of the food would have to go up accordingly. there wouldn't be room for all of these new customers with all those extra dollars to spend

i imagine rent and other things in life would suddenly be more expensive as well. i don't really think it would help much. everything would stay the same and a lot of small business would have to let employees go and try to deal with it

on the other hand, it would help my wife and i's nail shop out quite a bit. it'd help us stay constantly busy, but we would probably have to cut hourly employee hours in the beginning until it started to pick up

i like the idea of the $15 min wage, but i don't think it works to the benefit of everything

[Narrock]

i think it would hurt a lot of small businesses tho. at the japanese spot i was at we were full all the time and had a wait list usually. if we suddenly had to give all of the employees a huge raise, the prices of the food would have to go up accordingly. there wouldn't be room for all of these new customers with all those extra dollars to spend

i imagine rent and other things in life would suddenly be more expensive as well. i don't really think it would help much. everything would stay the same and a lot of small business would have to let employees go and try to deal with it

on the other hand, it would help my wife and i's nail shop out quite a bit. it'd help us stay constantly busy, but we would probably have to cut hourly employee hours in the beginning until it started to pick up

i like the idea of the $15 min wage, but i don't think it works to the benefit of everything

Nailed it. It's so clear.

[Tossica]

i think it would hurt a lot of small businesses tho. at the japanese spot i was at we were full all the time and had a wait list usually. if we suddenly had to give all of the employees a huge raise, the prices of the food would have to go up accordingly. there wouldn't be room for all of these new customers with all those extra dollars to spend

i imagine rent and other things in life would suddenly be more expensive as well. i don't really think it would help much. everything would stay the same and a lot of small business would have to let employees go and try to deal with it

on the other hand, it would help my wife and i's nail shop out quite a bit. it'd help us stay constantly busy, but we would probably have to cut hourly employee hours in the beginning until it started to pick up

i like the idea of the $15 min wage, but i don't think it works to the benefit of everything

Then they have a poor business model and need A. Larger space. B. Another location. If people are literally standing in line to give their money to the place and they don't find a way to take that money, they can't complain.

[Drem]

Remodeling costs a lot. Enough to put most places in the red. Or there isn't room to expand. There isn't an easy answer for everyone on this topic. It's not that simple

And it's not their model, it's the result of 5 years straight of sales growth. If anything, their model is perfect because most restaurants do not grow like that. That does not mean profit has grown proportionately, tho, as more staff is always required to handle the larger volume

[Drem]

i think minimum wage is fine where it's at because minimum wage jobs are typically shit jobs that you really don't even need another person to do. or they're for kids in high school and college making smoothies or working a call center or working McDonald's. or a really small business so having one employee doesn't break the bank. i just don't think people working those jobs need to suddenly make twice as much money. they're hardly providing vital service. most business could do the same amount of work with fewer employees if they worked harder, which is what they'd be forced to do after laying off half their staff to accomodate raises to $15/hr

what about other people that worked hard to get up to $15+/hr? now they make as much as a teenager working at a coffee shop. and the teenager at the coffee shop probably still gets good tips

it might get better over time as people theoretically spend more money. but convincing everyone to take that initial leap is going to be tough

just seems like a really idealistic thing, where when you talk about it the way you guys are, it sounds amazing. QoL upgrades, everybody's happy, everybody's rollin in dough. i just don't think it would actually play out that way. the issue is too complex

[Arlos]

Look it up. Many years back, minimum wage paid MORE than now in inflation-adjusted dollars. Yes, the actual dollar amount was lower, but based on the overall wages and prices of the time, they made WAY more than they get under current minimum wage numbers.



Were businesses unable to make a profit in 1970?

Right now many businesses are making record profits, yet wages adjusted for inflation have been static or declining since the Clinton era. The Minimum wage MUST go up. It's only a question of how much.

[brinstar]

also keep in mind that for many parts of the country there simply aren't enough jobs that pay more than minimum wage for everybody who needs them

so moms and dads are taking mcjobs away from teens and they can't support families on them

traces back to the mass exodus of american jobs at the hands of megacorps

[Menelvir]

I don't vote

THIS.

Oh, that's probably not what you meant -- especially since I removed it from it's context.

fuck assholes who can't see beyond their own self interests.

I'd say this is me, as I'm pretty selfish -- but as I'm firmly middle-class and have no authority over anyone, I doubt I was an intended recipient of this label.

let the REAL Americans fix this mess.

Where are the fake ones, I wonder...

If the American political system were more about the rules that govern, instead of the personalities of the people that will supposedly create, append, and modify those rules, I might be less apathetic to it. As it stands, it reminds me of "rah-rah for our team". Which is all fine and good, I suppose -- especially if you happen to be a politician. =)

[Reynaldo]

I'm all for the minimum wage workers to make more money...

...so long as my salary/hourly rate goes up the same dollar amount so my spending power doesn't get arbitrarily degraded as a gallon of milk goes from $4 to $6.

[brinstar]

boo hoo i have to remain x% better off than the poors

[Harrison]

I never understood the argument: "But, I worked hard to get to $X/hr, will my pay go up, too? Why do the impoverished wageslaves get an increase and I don't?!"

It just doesn't flow with any logic.

[Lyion]

I never understood the argument: "But, I worked hard to get to $X/hr, will my pay go up, too? Why do the impoverished wageslaves get an increase and I don't?!"

It just doesn't flow with any logic.

It is completely logical. If unskilled workers make the same as skilled ones, you've upset supply and demand and pretty much nullified any reason to work hard to gain said training.

What grew America in the past was free markets. The solutions proposed revolve around hindering those. The problems we have won't be fixed by more taxes and spending and big government deciding how to dole out even more trillions, but by LESS government and more competition. What government is supposed to do is protect workers, promote non government unions, and ensure there are no monopolies, anti competitive markets, or unfair trade. We essentially are doing the opposite.

The problem with Socialism remains eventually you run out of other peoples money.

[brinstar]

try thinking a little deeper about the way we assign monetary value to different kinds of labor though

look at the home health care (hospice) industry, for example. these are (typically) very kind and gracious people who take care of our loved ones when they can't do it themselves anymore - or we are unable or unwilling to do so ourselves. they make sure patients get meds at appropriate times, they clean bedpans, they treat and dress bedsores, and just generally do their best to bring their patients a little piece of comfort and dignity during their lonely twilight years/months/weeks/days. in human terms, hospice workers create huge amounts of value. yet we rarely pay them more than minimum wage, because they work in the "service industry" - aka the last non-outsource-able job sector, aka where we shove the people who aren't qualified to fly our planes or fill our cavities. i think that's kinda fucked up.

on the other hand, what kind of real human value does a hedge fund manager create? s/he spends the workday manipulating bits of data we pretend is actual money - in order to collect more bits of data we pretend is actual money. that's it. little to no actual value is produced by their efforts, yet they rake in six figure salaries and huge bonuses. what have they produced? what have they created?

my favorite part about World War Z (the book, not the movie) was the part where they talked about how society basically flipped once the zombie apocalypse happened. plumbers and carpenters and gardeners and people who had the knowledge and expertise to take real things (pipes, wood, seeds, whatever) and craft them into valuable other things (plumbing, houses, food crops) were the ones who suddenly had all the power. what can a hedge fund manager do if there are no banks or hedge funds or finance sector anymore? dig vegetables for his gardener.

[Menelvir]

Actual money is "pretend". It only has value because we implicitly agree that it has value.

That it operates as a convenience so that we needn't return to a barter system benefits far more than it disadvantages -- if there's no plumbing work to be had, it's hard to barter with something for which there is a dearth of need.

If society did actually flip in a way described by the book (I haven't read it), I think it would quickly work it's way back to a system very much like the one we have currently.

It might be an interesting experiment, if you've got the zombie formula laying around somewhere -- I say go for it -- I'm always up for observing the outcomes of scientific experiments.