2016 elections.

[Drem]

but you can't deny that the cost of everything will go up with the minimum wage increase. rent, groceries, the cost of a pint, everything. thus creating little change in the end, and upsetting the other half of the country's workforce that make more than min wage, unless most of them get raises as well

you're right, alex, that hospice workers, food service workers, etc, deserve to be paid more. most of the rest of the world has this figured out, as they don't expect customers to subsidize their employees' wages thru tipping, and pay their employees livable wages, which is why foreigners here in the US rarely tip. there are a few restaurants here already that pay their employees well and do not accept tips, which is a great start

what we really should be doing is encouraging businesses to re-evaluate what they pay some of these thankless jobs and maybe give some of these industries that routinely make very little profit better tax breaks. but then you run into problems of greedy owners and corrupt bureaucracies. hard to win

[Arlos]

Actually, I DO deny it. Look at the history of minimum wage hikes. Prices have NOT gone up in lockstep with the wage increases. It simply has not happened. Ever. Yeah, that's what generic economic theory says will happen, but it does NOT happen that way in real life. Seriously, the data is out there, go look it up, I'm not going to google it for you.

[Tossica]

While I doubt I would turn it down if offered, I certainly don't NEED a raise if minimum wage is increased. If you run a small business and can't possibly afford to pay your employees a living wage, you have a shitty business plan.

[Lyion]

If you run a small business and can't possibly afford to pay your employees a living wage, you have a shitty business plan.

Business is all about value and wise management. Most fail due to competition, but many can't compete with larger entities not due to product, but due to regulations, taxes, and property costs. Many can't afford to pay their workers 40k or afford very expensive benefits. People who want more taxes, higher minimum wage, and more regulations are killing jobs, not creating them. We end up with more larger companies with less opportunity and generally less opportunity to make money. This is why so many people end up paying undocumented workers under the table.

Brinstar, as far as Hedge Fund Managers, that's a totally different animal. They do create value just as bankers and lawyers do in our society. Almost every large union relies on them to keep the money coming in for their over extended retirement pensions. The problem with these guys is they aren't regulated by the SEC and there's always the corruption and the insider angle, and they are definitely overpaid. How do you replace them?

[Arlos]

Hedge funds often get absolutely terrible returns overall, especially once you take care of fees. There are obvious exceptions, but what hedge funds are REALLY great at is making money for the hedge fund manager.

Hedge fund managers generally charge a fee of 2% of the total assets they have under management, plus a 20% skim of any profits the fund makes over some baseline value. Say you have a hedge fund with 50 billion in assets (many are far larger). The management of the fund takes 1 billion in fees right off the top, no matter how well the fund performs. Now, say the fund makes a 5% return, or 2.5 billion. The management takes 20% of that profit, or 500 mil. This means the assets in the fund, post fees, have gone up 1 billion, for a net return, post fees, of 2%, and the hedge fund management has taken in 1.5 billion total, which goes to pay the manager plus his staff, which usually is less than 20 people. Even paying them lavish salaries leaves huge sums going to the manager himself. Hedge fund managers can, and do, literally make over 1 BILLION a year in income for managing the fund. IIRC, the top managers come close to making 2 billion a year in individual income. Great work, if you can get it.

Yet if you look over the long term, the vast majority of investors will make more money off their investments simply by putting the funds into something like a market-tied ETF (ETF = Exchange Traded Fund, which are somewhat similar to the better-known mutual funds) of some kind, probably from Vanguard as they have the absolute lowest fees at about 0.19% (less than 1/10 of even the base fee for a hedge fund). Over the last 5 years, the Vanguard ETFs have, on average, severely out-performed hedge funds, actually. Even if the ETFs got the same returns (5%, say), investors in the ETFs would see their money grow by 4.81% after fees, compared to the 2% in the hedge fund example I gave above. Gosh, I wonder which seems the better value to me.... Yet the ETFs have been OUTPERFORMING the hedge funds, certainly so over the last 10+ years.

From here: http://investorplace.com/2015/02/vangua ... cD_m_nBVmM

The average hedge fund rose 3% in 2014. Annualized returns have been 6.97% for the past five years 5.1% for the past 10 years, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Now compare that to a plain vanilla index fund, such as Vanguard 500 Index (MUTF:VFINX), which rose 13.5% in 2014 and averages 16% annualized for the past five years and 8% for each of the past 10 years.

To be fair, stocks have had an unusually strong 5-year run, and hedge funds are diversified to the degree that matching a 100% stock portfolio is not to be expected in such an environment.

So let’s be a bit fairer and compare one of the best and most boring of Vanguard balanced funds, Vanguard Balanced Index (MUTF:VBINX), with hedge fund performance.

In 2014, VBINX was up 9.8%, compared to the average hedge fund’s performance of just 3%. To capture a broader time period and a full market cycle in a comparison, the Vanguard Balance Index fund’s 10-year annualized return is 7.3%, compared to 5.1% for hedge funds. A simple, low-cost balance of roughly 60% stocks and 40% bonds beats hedge funds!

Even when things are bad, Hedge Funds don't really outperform ETFs:

according to a Vanguard study on hedge funds during the Great Recession, where stocks took a nosedive from November 2007 through February 2009, a portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds had a monthly return of -2.3%, whereas a fund of hedge funds index had a monthly return of -1.6%. That’s not much of a difference in volatility reduction for the added cost of hedge funds.

To sum up: if I had my money in that VBINX fund for 10 years, I'd have made a return, post-fees, of 7.11%. If I had it in an average hedge fund, I'd have made a return of of 2.08% on my money. Not to mention, minimum investment in a vanguard fund is about $3000. Minimum investment in a hedge fund is $1 million+.

So, Lyion, tell me again what value hedge fund managers are actually creating such that they deserve to bring home, PERSONALLY, a billion dollars in income per year?

[Tossica]

If you run a small business and can't possibly afford to pay your employees a living wage, you have a shitty business plan.

Business is all about value and wise management. Most fail due to competition, but many can't compete with larger entities not due to product, but due to regulations, taxes, and property costs. Many can't afford to pay their workers 40k or afford very expensive benefits. People who want more taxes, higher minimum wage, and more regulations are killing jobs, not creating them. We end up with more larger companies with less opportunity and generally less opportunity to make money. This is why so many people end up paying undocumented workers under the table.

Like I said, if you can't afford to pay your employees a living wage, you have a failed business plan. If competition is too stiff, find another widget to make. Amazingly, up until the Reagan years, businesses were able to make a profit AND pay their employees enough to keep them off of government subsidies.

[Lyion]

Arlos, All funds, hedge or standard charge an asset management fee. It's a boondoggle, but far less so than lawyers fees, doctors gouging the government, and 401ks. Most hedge funds are generally making money or they crater. They are different from mutuals in they are not regulated and can be more about strategic targetted investing. Plus, they are not mandatory like said 401ks for most of us. Besides, how else would Chelsea get rich so quick after leaving Bill and Hillary without using one of their funding sources?

Toss, the problem is what is a 'living wage' and who decides how much people should be paid? A high school kid flipping burgers should make 15/hour? I personally don't think so, but ok. When inflation and prices hit, when does that go up? Who decides? My issue is this ignores the cause and effect of skilled work when you make unskilled workers pay equal. The problem is about competition and fairness, in my mind, not cranking up the minimum wage .

We are going through a major contraction of middle class jobs and wages due to cheap foreign labor, skilled and unskilled, from legal and illegal migrants, as well as seeing a frightening lack of worker protections. Unions should be non political entities used for ensuring large public corporations don't offshore, H1B, and B1B jobs that are supported by both political parties. The Chamber of Commerce and Tech Barons are both for cheap labor as it's what corporations want. I'm for free markets, but my caveat is we can't compete toe to toe with countries that only require 200 dollars a month to live, and can take manufacturing, trade, and white collar jobs from us for pennies on the dollar.

[Tossica]

A living wage is going to vary depending on location. $15 seems about right for your average metropolitan area for basic, unskilled labor. Let's say it's $12 or $480 a week or about $12000 a year to ease the "pain" of the poor business owner. I made more than that TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO. How the fuck is anyone expected to support themselves let alone a family on those wages? It's easy to say that they should just get a better job if they want more money but for MANY communities, the "better jobs" are all gone. The only jobs available do not pay enough to live off of so they get government subsidies to make ends meet. Those of us that are fortunate enough to make enough to live on and then some end up footing the bill to bridge the gap while the companies that employ these people rake in massive profits.

What??? How is this even legal?

[Tossica]

If the private sector REFUSES to do the right thing, the government needs to step in to make it happen. The Republicans complain about big government and entitlement programs when THEIR policies have created the problem. Giving the money to the rich people in hopes that they will share the wealth HAS NOT WORKED. Give more money to the middle class and they will create profits for the rich AND create more jobs with purchasing power and demand for products and services. EVERYONE WINS.

[Lyion]

Give more money to the middle class and they will create profits for the rich AND create more jobs with purchasing power and demand for products and services. EVERYONE WINS.

Psst, that's the entire Republican Agenda i.e. tax cuts and less government. Welcome to the other side. I knew you'd move to the right when you got older!

Raising or lowering taxes generally never impacts the rich. The only way we could really change things is to torpedo the tax code and make it more fair.

[Arlos]

Arlos, All funds, hedge or standard charge an asset management fee. It's a boondoggle, but far less so than lawyers fees, doctors gouging the government, and 401ks. Most hedge funds are generally making money or they crater. They are different from mutuals in they are not regulated and can be more about strategic targetted investing. Plus, they are not mandatory like said 401ks for most of us. Besides, how else would Chelsea get rich so quick after leaving Bill and Hillary without using one of their funding sources?

Uh, you're misunderstanding things here. First, I never argued that all funds, of any kind, have fees. I even listed the fees that Vanguard charges for their funds. To repeat, they charge 0.19% of the money you have invested, everything else, you get. Hedge funds charge 2% of the total investment that EVERYONE has in the fund, plus 20% of any profits they make. These are an order of magnitude difference. Second, I never compared hedge funds to mutual funds. I said Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) were similar to mutual funds, which they are. Hedge funds are an entirely different animal. You are right that hedge funds are almost entirely unregulated, except for obvious things like fraud and Bernie Madoff pyramid schemes.

In your 401k's, you usually have a choice of investment options. Unfortunately, usually ETFs aren't included, simply BECAUSE the fees are so low. The companies handling 401k's want to make as much money as possible, so they simply don't include those choices in the fund offerings they give to 401k clients. If they did, lots of people would choose them, because of the good returns and the low costs.

You really missed my point, too. You said that hedge fund managers add value similar to investment bankers and lawyers. I was countering that argument by pointing out that hedge funds generally get LESS returns than ETFs. If a hedge fund manager is getting paid a BILLION dollars a year, he should be creating shitloads of value. They aren't, in 99% of cases. Indeed, they are generating less value than Vanguard is for its clients, and vanguard is charging a tiny fraction of the fees hedge fund managers do. As I said before, the value that hedge fund managers are best at creating is the value of their own personal bank accounts, not value for anyone else at all. Hedge funds are sucker's investments, for the most part. They're terrible ideas.

Oh, and no, the Republican agenda is, and has been since Reagan, to give more money to the rich, and somehow magically that will "trickle down" to the less wealthy. Claiming they support the middle class most of all is ludicrous, because everything they've done for 30 years points at the exact opposite. They couldn't give two shits about the middle class, they only care about the top 1%. Remember the 47% statement? Yeah, sure, the GOP cares about the non-rich. Right.

[brinstar]

Give more money to the middle class and they will create profits for the rich AND create more jobs with purchasing power and demand for products and services. EVERYONE WINS.

Psst, that's the entire Republican Agenda i.e. tax cuts and less government.

what the fuck are you talking about? in what propagandized fever dream does the Republican Agenda give even half a stale shit about the middle class?

here's the real republican agenda:
1. privatize everything except the military
2. start wars with literally everyone
3. zero out effective tax rates for all corporations and any humans who make more than a quarter mil per year
4. drain all of the planet's resources and leave it virtually uninhabitable for anyone unlucky enough to be born after 2075
5. foment enough hatred between genders, races, creeds, and classes to distract everyone from objectives 1-4

(and for the record the democratic agenda is pretty similar except they at least have the decency to want people to enjoy themselves on their way to destruction)

[Tikker]

.

[Tossica]

Give more money to the middle class and they will create profits for the rich AND create more jobs with purchasing power and demand for products and services. EVERYONE WINS.

Psst, that's the entire Republican Agenda i.e. tax cuts and less government. Welcome to the other side. I knew you'd move to the right when you got older!

Raising or lowering taxes generally never impacts the rich. The only way we could really change things is to torpedo the tax code and make it more fair.

Fuck tax cuts. I'm talking universal health care, free education, good paying government jobs, strong unions, etc

[Lyion]

Here I thought I was making such good progress at turning you all on to the GOP, and especially their libertarian wing.

[Tossica]

Here I thought I was making such good progress at turning you all on to the GOP, and especially their libertarian wing.

If anything, the Libertarians are going to find common ground in Bernie Sanders. Keep the government out of our personal lives and do what it's supposed to do. Protect and serve EVERYONE.

[brinstar]

i more or less completely revile the crude thought process and mindless belief structure of your run-of-the-mill republican conservative (such as mr. "low quality bait") because in no way does such a worldview remotely resemble a sane and rational assessment of reality - and because it's already way too much work trying to convince them of facts and acknowledge problems, let alone getting them to act responsibly and prudently on them

but libertarians (the real ones like Gary Johnson, not the fake ones like Rand Paul) are weird creatures. they are not so heinously ignorant of facts, and some of their views actually support the "individual liberty" their colleagues in the GOP only pay hypocritical lip service to (i.e. marriage equality, ending the drug war, reproductive choice) yet i find their unwavering subservience to the primacy of the unfettered free market extremely short-sighted and naive. regardless, i will sustain my refusal to take them seriously as long as they continue to huddle under the ever-shrinking tent of the republican party. if your ideas are so great, go be your own goddamn party - stop wasting time providing intellectual cover for those fucking morons

[Jay]

Mindia is the greatest troll ever.

[Tossica]

I don't see how many people could have a problem with a government that spends tax money on health care, education, infrastructure, military, etc. Things that benefit EVERYONE. Stays out of everyone's personal lives and is made up of representatives that WE THE PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT IN OFFICE. Not those with the biggest checkbooks and the most powerful lobbyists on their side.

If you're going to take my money, give it to people that actually need it. Keep government out of religion, bedrooms, wedding chapels, etc and keep religion and corporations out of government, please. Thank you.

[Harrison]

Most of the Republicans I know are woefully proud of their struggle to reach poverty.

They were brainwashed (I hate using this term hijacked by anti-science nutters, but it fits.) into believing they should be PROUD of being poor. They actually deep down believe other impoverished people on benefits of any sort are causing their misfortune.

"DEM WELFARES TAKING ALL MUH TAXERS!!!!!!!!!111111111111"

"IMMIGRANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 too!"

"THEY WANT FREE COLLEGE?!?111!?!?!"

The Republican party has done a fantastic job of causing idiots to think that their woes lie in other poor people with less crumbs than they; while simultaneously facefucking their very way of life for their own gain, somehow unbeknownst to the very fucking uneducated slobs voting for them.

[Lyion]

I don't see how many people could have a problem with a government that spends tax money on health care, education, infrastructure, military, etc. Things that benefit EVERYONE. Stays out of everyone's personal lives and is made up of representatives that WE THE PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT IN OFFICE. Not those with the biggest checkbooks and the most powerful lobbyists on their side..

I don't have a problem with smart government. Ours is anything but, with rampant waste, corruption, bureaucracy, and cronyism. Medicare wastes billions. Education is almost a pyramid scheme. Military contracts are a huge boondoggle. Infrastructure should be pushed to the states and we shouldn't be paying for executives in DC responsible for repairing roads If they take more of my money they'll waste it. We are getting record levels of taxes and all they want is more. Fuck Federalism and those who want the government to take more of my check. It's skinned enough already. Properly budget the 3+ Trillion they are getting now, and do the fucking job.

[Drem]

Actually, I DO deny it. Look at the history of minimum wage hikes. Prices have NOT gone up in lockstep with the wage increases. It simply has not happened. Ever. Yeah, that's what generic economic theory says will happen, but it does NOT happen that way in real life. Seriously, the data is out there, go look it up, I'm not going to google it for you.

Right, they go up much faster than the wage increase. What makes you think they won't take an astronomical leap when everyone's making twice as much money? You don't think most business owners are greedy? Because in the last 10 years of working for small businesses I've never met an owner that wouldn't try to pinch as much as they could out of the customer's pocket.

Restaurants operate on something like a 4% profit margin, at best. If you eat at a spot that averages $15 a ticket you might see 3%. up to $24, maybe 4%. It's slim. Labor is a commodity, like anything else. If you raise the price drastically, demand will drop. Now you've given a portion of the workforce a minimum wage of $0. We can see that happening in Seattle already as it's having a record amount of restaurant closures (the average was already a paltry 60% of restaurants failing after three years).

I feel like I already agreed that this increase is good for most industries. But if you do this to the restaurant industry then both a) the price of things at good restaurants will go up and b) overrated trash like Applebee's, P.F. Chang's, Olive Garden, every fast food chain, etc., that source extremely low-quality ingredient, will become more successful than they already are. and that's pretty sad imo

I just don't see how slumlords and other shitty-yet-vital businesses/services aren't going to immediately raise their rates/prices. They already do it

[Tossica]

I don't have a problem with smart government. Ours is anything but, with rampant waste, corruption, bureaucracy, and cronyism. Medicare wastes billions. Education is almost a pyramid scheme. Military contracts are a huge boondoggle. Infrastructure should be pushed to the states and we shouldn't be paying for executives in DC responsible for repairing roads If they take more of my money they'll waste it. We are getting record levels of taxes and all they want is more. Fuck Federalism and those who want the government to take more of my check. It's skinned enough already. Properly budget the 3+ Trillion they are getting now, and do the fucking job.

And this is why many liberals and libertarians will find common ground in Bernie Sanders. If anything, electing him would open the door for more independents and break this ridiculous two party system we have.

[Lyion]

I'm not quite following you, Toss. Bernie is pretty much the opposite of a libertarian. He's for big government, more spending, more control, socialized medicine, and against free trade and free markets. Heck, he's not even openly opposed to the war on drugs, as he says it's not a big deal, which is the biggie for GOP libertarian types.

I believe most self defined libertarians fall in the area of being for social liberalism but also strongly for fiscal conservatism. Bernie is as far from a fiscal conservative as possible and I don't see him getting much Libertarian support. Just the Bill Maher completely fake libertarians.

[Tossica]

I'm not quite following you, Toss. Bernie is pretty much the opposite of a libertarian. He's for big government, more spending, more control, socialized medicine, and against free trade and free markets. Heck, he's not even openly opposed to the war on drugs, as he says it's not a big deal, which is the biggie for GOP libertarian types.

I believe most self defined libertarians fall in the area of being for social liberalism but also strongly for fiscal conservatism. Bernie is as far from a fiscal conservative as possible and I don't see him getting much Libertarian support. Just the Bill Maher completely fake libertarians.

Bernie is for funding programs that the government SHOULD be responsible for and making sure they are a success. Health care, education, infrastructure, military, etc. He's against corporate and religious influence in government AND government interference in personal liberties. Free trade and free markets are what have got us where we are now. Why keep supporting policies that have ONLY benefited the very wealthy?