401K means Wall Street IS Main Street.

Author: Greyparrot

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#31
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@HistoryBuff
Yeah, there are definitely welfare queens out there, but I find it unfair to characterize all or most poor people/jobless people like that. 

No, not everyone would get paid minimum wage. 2.3% of all wage earners get minimum wage or below minimum wage rates. That means 97.7% of all wage earners are making ABOVE the federally mandate wage. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm

You are not supposed to raise a family at minimum wage. You have people who work at McDonald's for 15 years and complain about not making a living wage. Is it my fault that they refuse to make the effort to apply for other jobs or apply for manager positions? No.
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#32
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@bmdrocks21
It's not that some of the poor are welfare queens through evil intent, it is the limousine socialists that reward bad lifestyle choices which is the cause of the 70% fatherless problem we have right now where mothers marry the government.
#33
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@bmdrocks21
But this is all of the data we have on the matter. If the result was 88%, I doubt that the actual population parameter would be anything radically different.
Why would you think that? If i put up flyers at Harvard and asked what the financial background of your parents was, I would likely find that a very large percentage of american parents are wealthy. If I put up those flyers at a community college I would find the opposite. How you get your sample is critically important. The fact that they didn't take a random sample invalidates the results. 

I have heard enough. I am going to have to ask for statistics proving your claims of rich people getting easy jobs that pay a ton of money. Prove they don't work for their money. I know it happens sometimes, but you are making some crazy generalizations here.
You are essentially asking me to prove something that few would ever admit to. I mean look at trump, if you asked him if he was self made millionaire he would say yes. But his father gave him millions and millions of dollars. Very few people would ever admit to someone else, many of them can't even admit to themselves, that their success was due to their name or connections. Therefore stats simply don't exist. You are asking for the impossible.

You don't have to start out rich, you just have to make good life decisions. If you wait to have kids until you're married, finish high school, and work full time, your chances of being impoverished go down astronomically. Then, you just have to save and invest that money instead of buying new cares, the newest iPhone, the newest Jordans, etc.
This is such a tired right wing talking point. That if you just avoid buying an iPhone, then you can be a millionaire making 30,000 a year. It is a ridiculous lie sold to poor people so that they ignore how incredibly unbalanced the american economy is. The truth is that a lifetime of hard work usually doesn't end in being wealthy. 

I see no reason that you wouldn't support a flat tax. If they make more money, they pay more into the system. By taxing at a higher rate, you are saying they have less right to that money, although it is equally valuable to the economy.
Because flat taxes are inherently unfair. There are baseline costs that everyone has to pay. Food, housing, healthcare etc. For a poor person, this is going to take up a much higher percentage of your income that if you are rich. So a poor person might need 75% of their income just to cover the necessities of survival. For a rich person it is more like 5-10%. A rich person can afford to pay a higher percentage into the system without  compromising their livelihood. A poor person cannot. A flat tax rate does not take any of the nuance into account. it therefore highly benefits rich people at the expense of the poor. 

Ok, you are wrong. Business isn't run by a few individuals. 47.5% of private sector jobs are employed by small businesses.
So big businesses control the majority of all private jobs in america. Why do you think that is evidence that they aren't controlling business? Your own stats show that 52.5% of all jobs are controlled by large companies. A minority are controlled by a whole bunch of small companies with little influence. That shows just how much power those big companies have. This stat greatly undermines your point.

No, not everyone would get paid minimum wage. 2.3% of all wage earners get minimum wage or below minimum wage rates. That means 97.7% of all wage earners are making ABOVE the federally mandate wage.
So? Minimum wage isn't enough to survive on in many places. People would literally starve to death working full time on minimum wage in many cities. In some cities you could be making 50% over minimum wage and still be in poverty. 

You are not supposed to raise a family at minimum wage. You have people who work at McDonald's for 15 years and complain about not making a living wage. Is it my fault that they refuse to make the effort to apply for other jobs or apply for manager positions? No.
If you work 40 hours a week, you should not be in poverty. Period. If a job is not worth enough to an employer to pay a living wage, then they need to find another way to do things. We should not allow any company to employ people at a wage so low they cannot afford to live. 

You are also assuming that there are enough high paying jobs for everyone. There isn't. Some people are not going to be able to get better jobs because there aren't enough better jobs for everyone. If everyone is a manager, then there is no one to manage. You are basically saying that some people deserve to starve or be homeless because they can't find a management job. I personally find that opinion distasteful. 
#34
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@Greyparrot
My point was that some people are just lazy and take advantage of it.

I completely agree that socialistic politicians have policies with very perverse incentives. Subsidizing fatherless homes would be one. If the father dies, fine, give them some assistance. But if you were never married or perhaps even got a divorce, why should we pay you?

#35
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Well, that survey was open to everyone. It wasn't concentrated and advertised to target people who made their own money.

Well, if you have no way of proving that rich people only get rich through connections, then I suggest that you stop pretending that it is a known fact.

If you invest in yourself and practice financial responsibility, I can't guarantee that you will become rich. I can guarantee that you can be decently successful. Living comfortably would be the result.

But I thought a progressive tax was about how much you benefit from the system. And what about medicare and social security? Rich people pay more money into those, but for medicare they get the same benefit. From social security, they lose money, while the poor gain. How is that fair? Should that be a regressive tax to make it fair?

I don't see why it matters what percent they spend on what. They could be spending wastefully for all I know. Just because they are bad at making a budget doesn't excuse them from paying taxes. They are benefiting from roads after all, aren't they? ;)

Your comment was "business is run by a small number of extremely rich people". I showed how about half the time, that isn't the case. Additionally, that fifty percent accounts for millions of workers, which are hired by firms that have 500 or more employees. There are thousands of those. There is no huge concentration of power that you pretended there was. My point stands.

Those are mostly democrat controlled areas with high costs of living. Those high taxes and regulations on housing manufacture these homeless crises. California subsidizing homelessness doesn't help, either. And minimum wages aren't even meant to be lived on. Minimum wage jobs are for teenagers to get some real job experience. Your comment was "It doesn't matter how many jobs are available, if they all pay minimum wage you are still going to be barely above the poverty line." I showed how almost every single wage job in the country is above minimum wage. Don't shift the goalpost.

Son of a b*tch. "If it isn't valuable enough to pay a living wage, try to find another way to do things"? Two horrendous things about that argument: (1) liberals flip shit when any job gets automated. That is Yang's entire shtick. (2) you will get every restaurant either shut down or have them excessively increase prices. Increasing the minimum wage to whatever you define as a "living wage" helps no one. Except for maybe the rich, skilled, and connected you have been complaining about??? Jobs pay little when the skill required to do it is little. Fry cooks don't make the company enough money to earn a living wage. How about, if you want to have enough money, you do something valuable instead of a job that anyone over the age of 12 could do?

Any job that doesn't pay enough to live on (frugally) is meant for teenagers. And if we don't have enough jobs in the US, what is your bright idea on bringing them back? Taxing the shit out of people for succeeding? I highly doubt it.

Sorry for the moodiness, but c'mon. You can't just manipulate wages and expect there to be no decrease in hours worked or jobs available.
#36
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@bmdrocks21
Well, that survey was open to everyone. It wasn't concentrated and advertised to target people who made their own money.
Neither one of us knows how they recruited those people. And an open sign up is not a random sample. For example, if you put up a poll about whether trump is a great president on fox news' website and on MSNBC's website, you would get 2 completely different answers. They are both in a place where anyone can answer. Where you ask people, how you ask people, what information you give them before they sign up and many, many other things can seriously skew the results of a survey. Because they did not choose a random sample, their results are tainted and have no value. 

Well, if you have no way of proving that rich people only get rich through connections, then I suggest that you stop pretending that it is a known fact.
It is a known fact that people do that. Just because it is impossible to determine the precise level to which they do that does not mean that people should pretend it doesn't happen. 

If you invest in yourself and practice financial responsibility, I can't guarantee that you will become rich. I can guarantee that you can be decently successful. Living comfortably would be the result.
Then your guarantees are worthless. That is not how the american system works. 

But I thought a progressive tax was about how much you benefit from the system. And what about medicare and social security? Rich people pay more money into those, but for medicare they get the same benefit.
They gain more from the social system as a whole. Having a work force that is healthy and productive is incredibly valuable for them. It means they don't have to provide insurance for their employees, which also saves them alot of money. Poor people get medical care for themselves, but that is the end of the benefit to them. Rich people get care for themselves and make more money from the system being in place. Why should they not pay more when they benefit more?

I don't see why it matters what percent they spend on what. They could be spending wastefully for all I know. Just because they are bad at making a budget doesn't excuse them from paying taxes. They are benefiting from roads after all, aren't they?
The fact that you don't care about the nuance of reality is kind of a problem. The fact is that you can charge 2 people the exact same tax rate and it can be a much more significant hardship on one of them than the other. For example, person A has 30 sandwiches, person B has 500. They need to live off these for a month. If you taxed them 50% person A now has only 15 sandwiches for a month so he can only eat every other day. Person B has 250 and can eat as much as he wants and have some left over. Its the same tax rate, but it is much harsher on the poor. Flat tax rates benefit those who have more wealth and hit those without wealth extremely hard.

There is no huge concentration of power that you pretended there was. My point stands.
But you just proved that there is. You don't need to own 99% of a market to have a huge amount of influence. If you can control 30% or 40% and the other 60% is made up of small companies, then you have massive influence over the market. You just proved that large firms have more than 50% control. That is extremely large influence. It is actually worse than I would have guessed. 

And minimum wages aren't even meant to be lived on. Minimum wage jobs are for teenagers to get some real job experience.
That is just such obviously bullshit. There are tons of companies that rely on minimum wage (or slightly above minimum) to operate. Big companies like Walmart, most restaurants, etc cannot possibly survive with only teenagers. Yet they still only pay as little as possible. If companies were actually paying living wages to their employees then a minimum wouldn't be necessary. The only reason these laws are needed is because companies don't want to pay their employees enough for them to live off of. 

Liberals flip shit when any job gets automated. That is Yang's entire shtick
You have clearly misunderstood. Yang's point isn't that we should stop automation so we can protect minimum wage jobs. His point is that society needs to be reshaped so that when those jobs are lost you don't bankrupt a large percentage of the american population. It is about helping the people, not protecting the job.

you will get every restaurant either shut down or have them excessively increase prices.
If a restaurant needs to pay it's employees wages they cannot survive on, then they do not have a viable business strategy. Why are you advocating for protecting bad businesses by allowing them to abuse their employees? If they cannot compete then they will go under and new, better designed businesses will replace them. That is how capitalism is supposed to work.

 Jobs pay little when the skill required to do it is little. Fry cooks don't make the company enough money to earn a living wage. How about, if you want to have enough money, you do something valuable
Honestly stop and think about what you said here. you are saying fry cooks don't deserve to earn enough to live. Do you honestly believe america would be a better place if fry cooks were required to live in abject poverty until they found another job? You are describing a 3rd world country. Is that what you think america should be?

You can't just manipulate wages and expect there to be no decrease in hours worked or jobs available.
No one is talking about "manipulating wages" we are talking about setting a floor. A basic level that most people can't afford to live on anyway. If a business needs to pay poverty wages to run, then it is a poorly designed business that can only survive by economically abusing it's work force. I for one don't believe that businesses should be bailed out on the backs of their workers. 
#37
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@bmdrocks21
 Jobs pay little when the skill required to do it is little. Fry cooks don't make the company enough money to earn a living wage. How about, if you want to have enough money, you do something valuable
I also just wanted to add to my previous answer about this sentiment. This idea is an absolutely disastrous idea, both economically and politically. You are telling a large percentage of the american population to just shut up and suffer. That they are not worth a wage they can survive on. You are telling them that you have no intention of ever helping them and that you will never do anything to improve their lives. That if they work themselves to death a little bit harder then they will be rich, while a small percentage of the population make billions off of their labor. But people aren't that stupid.

That is a recipe for disaster. That is the same sort of message that french aristocrats would have been giving just before the french revolution. That sort of messaging caused the anger that lead to trump. And hopefully will lead to the election of Bernie sanders. 
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#38
Greyparrot
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@HistoryBuff
That they are not worth a wage they can survive on.

Unskilled inexperienced labor is not a large part of America. Not even close. Less than 10% for sure.
#39
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@Greyparrot
Unskilled inexperienced labor is not a large part of America. Not even close. Less than 10% for sure.
80% of the american population lives paycheck to paycheck. They aren't all at minimum wage, but as I keep repeating, the minimum wage is too low to live on in a lot of places. If your message is that the economy is working well the way it is, then you are deluded. Trump won because he understood that people are not happy with the american economy. He sold himself as an outsider who would fix things. But he hasn't fundamentally fixed anything. 

Pressure is going to continue to build because the economy is continuing to fail the majority of americans. That is why someone like Bernie sanders is a real contender. 


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#40
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@HistoryBuff
80% of the american population lives paycheck to paycheck.

That is simply a failure of education/religious institutions. Nothing will ever be enough for those people.
#41
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@Greyparrot
That is simply a failure of education/religious institutions. Nothing will ever be enough for those people.
Of course, it isn't the stagnant employee wages, the massive income inequalities, the rampant corruption, massive corporate handouts, or the fact that the economy has been structured to disproportionately benefit the rich and powerful. It is the education and religious institutions that are to blame. That must be it....

You know what, you might be right. Maybe it is. I mean jesus said "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" and "what you do to the least of these you do to me". So all christians should be disgusted by the american economy. A true christian would need to be left wing. 

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#42
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@HistoryBuff
1st world problems baby. Ask Venezuelans what they think of the Americans.
#43
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@HistoryBuff
But if you take a step back you see that the benefits are massively skewed. If you look at that link you will see a chart showing that 93.3% of stocks are owned by the top 20% of the population.
EXACTLY.

If Jeff Bezos walks into a homeless shelter, the conservative loves to point out that the AVERAGE INCOME of that homeless shelter just shot up to 20 billion dollars!!!

Isn't that Jeff a great guy!  He can raise your AVERAGE INCOME simply by living in the UNITED STATES!!  How generous of him!!
#44
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@Greyparrot
80% of the american population lives paycheck to paycheck.
That is simply a failure of education/religious institutions. Nothing will ever be enough for those people.
POOR = BAD

I guess those poor suckers should have done a better job of educating themselves and picked a better religion to be born into!!!
#45
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@Greyparrot
1st world problems baby. Ask Venezuelans what they think of the Americans.
Saying that being left wing means you are like Venezuela is like saying that if you are right wing you are like absolutist monarchy France. It is a ridiculous argument. You can be left without being Venezuela. You can be on the right without being a monarchist. Unless you are advocating for trump being named King and ruling for life?

1st world problems baby. Ask Venezuelans what they think of the Americans.
I'd guess they think you are right wing imperialists who love meddling in south american countries so that you can profit off of their suffering and labor. And they would have good reason to think that. 
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#46
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@3RU7AL
More like never being satisfied is bad. Hedonism isn't healthy or happy.
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#47
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Saying that being left wing means you are like Venezuela is like saying that if you are right wing you are like absolutist monarchy France. It is a ridiculous argument. You can be left without being Venezuela. You can be on the right without being a monarchist. Unless you are advocating for trump being named King and ruling for life?

This isn't about "wings"

Venezuelans don't have a hedonism problem, they have a starvation problem.

1st world problems are so disgusting.

99% of the world doesn't have to worry about the "paycheck to paycheck" hedonism of America. They can't even get food.
#48
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@Greyparrot
More like never being satisfied is bad. Hedonism isn't healthy or happy.
You're right, all of those starving people with no education are just too hedonistic.

It's their own fault.
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#49
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@3RU7AL
lol

99% of the world doesn't have to worry about the "paycheck to paycheck" hedonism of America. They can't even get food.
#50
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@Greyparrot
You mean the "paycheck to paycheck" hedonism of America where people are paying half of that paycheck to their landlord and the other half to keep their used car running and borrowing on their credit card to feed their kids?

Oh no, better not get sick or accused of a crime you didn't commit because then you'll lose your job.
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#51
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@3RU7AL
It's totally the crap consumer culture of America to blame.

Did you know it's considered rude to brag about your wealth in Norway? 
Hedonism is discouraged in the Nordic countries.
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#52
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@3RU7AL
One of the reasons Nords are rated as being happy is because they are satisfied with what they have, and don't desire to live paycheck to paycheck at all income levels like Americans do.

Consuming isn't the end-all and be-all for the Nords, and they never worry about keeping up with the Joneses. Strip malls are uniquely an American culture thing.
#53
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They don't have no value, sir. I agree, take them with a grain of salt, but this survey was done by a third party company. Therefore, the survey wasn't connected with the main site, which could have influenced the results. They also asked basic questions about their investing, the leading question wasn't how much money did your parents give you. Finally, they didn't frame it in a condescending manner. It was asking if more than 10% of their wealth was from inheritance. So, obviously the results aren't worthless. Just give it a larger standard deviation.

I agree, some people get easy jobs because of connections. I'm saying it is rather rare, while you are making a generalization.

If you finish high school, work full-time, and wait until at least 21 to get married and have children, you are very unlikely to be poor. 2% of adults that followed that advice are in poverty. 75% of people that followed that are in the middle class. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/

We will switch to Medicaid instead of Medicare because that is more applicable. Rich people pay a ton into Medicaid, but they don't get a dime out of it. They have to get private insurance. So, they are already paying for that Medicaid for their employees. Why should they pay more? Rich people have less kids, so their land taxes are already paying for the public schooling of local children a lot more than their own. Again, why should they have to pay EVEN more from their income, when they already do that in land taxes???

Well, under my flat tax system, some poor people would still be exempt if they couldn't afford it. That is fair that you pay an equal percentage of your sandwiches. You should be able to enjoy the fruits of your sandwich making labor as much as the less productive people. Also, the rich wouldn't get out of taxes, because as a general rule, I am against deductions. They should pay taxes.

No, that 50% owned by large firms is still divided up among thousands of "large companies". So, they have some power because they employ a lot of people. But they don't have some absolute, market-shifting power. What is your solution to companies having a lot of employees? Do you want to break them up and force them to lay off a bunch of workers?

Wal-Mart doesn't pay just above minimum wage. Its average wage is $12.17. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Wal-Mart_Stores%2C_Inc/Hourly_Rate
Also, restaurants can't afford to pay much above minimum wage. Pizza Hut and Taco Bell jobs, except for sometimes manager positions, are made for teenagers. That is why they can afford to have cheap food. They would need to significantly increase prices and/or cut hours/fire employees in order to adjust for $15/hour. 

There is competition for labor by companies and competition for jobs. When you let in a million new workers every year with our f'd up immigration system, there will be more competition for jobs, which means employers can pay employees less. Would you support smaller quotas on immigration? That could help with wage stagnation.

How do you restructure the economy to accommodate all of those trucking jobs lost? As far as I know, he hasn't revealed a plan on that.

Capitalism is about the free market forces dictating things. Minimum wage laws create inefficiencies. I don't think you have experience at restaurants. The fast food industry as a whole has a profit margin of 2.4%. https://upserve.com/restaurant-insider/profit-margins/ How can they afford to double wages?

You stop and think. If a fry cook earns the company $10 of profit an hour. What will happen when the minimum wage goes up to $15? Should the company take a loss of $5 an hour to pay a "living wage" to their employees and go out of business?

By setting a floor, you are manipulating the wages. 

I would like job creation, especially jobs that pay a lot. Tell me, will raising taxes on successful businessmen and creating huge compliance costs through regulations lead to job creation or destruction?
#54
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@HistoryBuff
Actually, your source does not say what you stated.

51.9% of families is not the same as 51.9% of Americans. A Gallup poll found 54%. Greyparrot's question has merit in clarifying the statistic, and it is unknown how many Americans of a relevant age have an interest in stock prices. A breakdown of ages might be very telling, and of course, this assumes people are honest in a poll about their personal finances (or even know the correct answer).

Regardless of the percentage, the value of stocks does impact the economy quite a bit, and can impact housing values and pensions (both non-stock related retirement tools). I would say 70% of Americans are directly impacted, in some way.

Greyparrot, many people don't have stocks and many cannot afford them. It really depends on how much disposable income they have, and how they spend it. Between rent, insurance, vehicles, school, kids, food, and taxes, some don't have the means to contribute to an IRA....or at least feel they don't. Not to mention any vices, like gambling, smoking, drinking, etc.
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#55
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@Mage-CPA
Greyparrot, many people don't have stocks and many cannot afford them. It really depends on how much disposable income they have, and how they spend it. Between rent, insurance, vehicles, school, kids, food, and taxes, some don't have the means to contribute to an IRA....or at least feel they don't. Not to mention any vices, like gambling, smoking, drinking, etc.

I totally get that, and maybe around 30% of all workers do not have a retirement plan, that would pass the smell test. 48% sure as hell does not.
#56
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@bmdrocks21
It was asking if more than 10% of their wealth was from inheritance. So, obviously the results aren't worthless. Just give it a larger standard deviation.
You aren't understanding me I don't think. The survey has no value. None, like at all. At least in the way you are trying to use it. They meant it to be used as market data for investment bankers, not to draw conclusion about the entire population of millionaires. The fact that the sample was not random makes it unrepresentative of the population. Therefore it is worthless to draw conclusions about the entire population. 

I agree, some people get easy jobs because of connections. I'm saying it is rather rare, while you are making a generalization.
You acknowledged that it happens. Then made a generalization. Then criticized me for a generalization....

If you finish high school, work full-time, and wait until at least 21 to get married and have children, you are very unlikely to be poor. 2% of adults that followed that advice are in poverty. 75% of people that followed that are in the middle class.
All that article says is "our research shows". It has absolutely no information on how they came to that conclusion. There are no references for me to check. For all I know they just made those numbers up. 

We will switch to Medicaid instead of Medicare because that is more applicable
You are trying to drag this conversation into one trapped in minute details where you might be able to find an example of a social program where they don't directly benefit. That isn't the point. They don't have to massively benefit from every single program. They massively benefit from government funding in most areas.

Well, under my flat tax system, some poor people would still be exempt if they couldn't afford it. That is fair that you pay an equal percentage of your sandwiches. You should be able to enjoy the fruits of your sandwich making labor as much as the less productive people. Also, the rich wouldn't get out of taxes, because as a general rule, I am against deductions. They should pay taxes.
But you would still put the same burden on people who can barely afford to eat as on people who have so much money they don't know what to do with it. That doesn't make any sense. Why do you think people struggling to get by should pay the same rate as millionaires? People's contributions should be weighted by the amount they can afford. A flat tax screws over the poor and helps the rich.

Wal-Mart doesn't pay just above minimum wage. Its average wage is $12.17
And in many parts of the country that is nowhere near enough to live off of. 

Also, restaurants can't afford to pay much above minimum wage.
I keep repeating this over and over. If paying their workers enough to live would destroy their business, then their business model is broken. Why do you think it is ok for a business to protect a bad business model by screwing over their employees?


#57
bmdrocks21
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@HistoryBuff
If you are going to keep up with this ruckus, I shall cite another source. It is a book called "The Millionaire Next Door". He says 80% of millionaires didn't inherit their wealth. More than half never received inheritance. They used a formula based on age and pre-tax income. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/millionairenextdoor.htm 

The calculation works very well for middle-ages individuals and above. However, the young age bias is negligible because only 1% of millionaires are under 35 years old. https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0411/why-many-millionaires-dont-feel-rich.aspx

Well, you made a generalization utterly unbased in facts, and when I called you out, you said you had no statistics. You're making some outlandish generalization about rich people not working. You have the burden of proof if you say that the poor work hard and that the rich don't work because that is contrary to all available evidence.

The Brookings Institute has decent credibility ratings. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/brookings-institute/ Can a group not do research itself?

Well, I pointed out a few good examples there. You mentioned how employees have helathcare provided by the government and government schooling. I proved that they already pay for both of those. Then you have roads, which they equally benefit from. SNAP, which rich don't benefit from. Most social programs, rich never get anything from, while the poor get all of the benefit. Then you want to tax the poor more???

Why does it matter how much they can afford? Why is that a good system to follow? Just because they can still eat when you take their money doesn't mean you should, or that they will continue to work their ass off when you take more of it.

So you want to get rid of restaurants is what I am hearing. If there was a cheaper way to do things, they would want to do that anyway. If you want to start a family, DON'T FLIP BURGERS! Do you expect any teenager to ever get a job at $15/hour without ANY experience??? You get paid based on the value of your labor, not how much you want to force the company to pay you. With $7.25 minimum wage, companies have been outsourcing jobs to China for cheaper labor. I ask you: will this further that or will making labor more expensive keep jobs here? Your solution is either pay everyone how much a "living wage" is, or export the entire job. I, for one, wouldn't like millions of Americans to get unemployed and live off of welfare because you refuse to let them find a job.

I don't think a viable way to run the economy is to f*ck over companies and tell them to adapt. That doesn't work. I have yet to see evidence of massive minimum wage hikes helping anyone. Please provide some if possible, because Seattle doesn't seem like its minimum wage has done very well for workers. 
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#58
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@bmdrocks21
Some states are rolling back minimum wages.



Again, the amount of workers that make really bad lifestyle choices like becoming single teen parents and not investing in themselves are a very low percentage of the workforce. We already have a welfare system to support those bad choices, we don't need wage price-fixing as well.
#59
HistoryBuff
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If you are going to keep up with this ruckus
I'm not sure why you think pointing out critical flaws is a "ruckus", but ok. 

80% of millionaires didn't inherit their wealth
Perhaps we have been having parallel conversations instead of the same one. This study was not done on the people I was talking about. If you worked hard your whole life, saved up, invested well and managed to have 1 million in assets, then you are wealthy. But you are not anywhere near the top. Many of the people in this study are from the upper middle class. They are not the people I was talking about. Most of the people in this study wouldn't reach the top tax brackets and literally none of them would trigger the wealth tax plans of Sanders or warren because they didn't include anyone whose wealth was over 10 million. While these people are wealthy, they wouldn't have the same tax rate as say, Jeff Bezos.

Well, you made a generalization utterly unbased in facts, and when I called you out, you said you had no statistics.
I made a generalization that you acknowledged does happen. When you asked me to provide statistics that cannot possibly exist, I pointed out they cannot possibly exist. Perhaps you want 100% accurate stats about how many millionaires cheat on their wives too. Good luck getting them to admit it. 

The Brookings Institute has decent credibility ratings. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/brookings-institute/ Can a group not do research itself?
I never said they can't. I said the article you linked to did not provide any. They made claims with no reference to how they got those numbers. Every link you have provided so far had critical details in the notes that invalidated it for your point. Reading about how a study was done and what they are looking for is critically important. If an article doesn't tell you where they got their numbers and how they were created, then you shouldn't trust it. 

Most social programs, rich never get anything from, while the poor get all of the benefit.
You missed my point entirely. The poor get a base level of utility from these programs. They get healthcare, food etc. The rich then get the financial benefits from the program. They get a workforce with an education making the employees more valuable. they get a workforce who is healthy, not starving etc. They get to move their products on publicly funded roads. The poor manage to stay alive with these programs, the rich get to profit from them. You are trying to look at the benefit in only the very smallest of scopes. But in the larger picture the wealthy benefit a huge amount from these programs. 

Why does it matter how much they can afford? Why is that a good system to follow?
Because if the rich aren't paying their share, then more of the tax burden falls on the poor. IE taxes go up on people who can't afford to pay more taxes. With a progressive tax rate people pay what they can afford to pay. You help to avoid crushing poor people. I would say that makes it a better system to follow.

So you want to get rid of restaurants is what I am hearing. If there was a cheaper way to do things, they would want to do that anyway. If you want to start a family, DON'T FLIP BURGERS!
Jesus, that is a horrifying answer. No one should be able to work 40 hours a week and be unable to live. If a business needs to pay so little to it's employees in order to operate, then it has a bad business model. Capitalism is about constant change. If a business model doesn't work, then find a better one. Subsidizing bad business practices is a terrible plan.


#60
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Because a bias does skew the statistics, I'm not denying that, but doesn't make them worthless. It was a fairly large sample size.

Perhaps we were having different conversations. I was talking about how millionaires work hard, and they don't just inherit their wealth. I never saw mention of Bernie and Warren taxes. 

You said  "If you worked hard your whole life, saved up, invested well and managed to have 1 million in assets, then you are wealthy." By saying this, you are acknowledging that hard work, saving, and investing allow you to become wealthy. I'm glad we can agree. Perhaps you thought by "rich" I meant billionaire, which I didn't.

Ok, well you are making some claim about them not working. Just because it does happen every once in a while doesn't make it the norm. So, without statistics, I don't see any value in making that claim. Where did you initially get the idea that the rich not working is the norm?


I would say that living is a bigger benefit than working the employee. I would say that being educated and therefore marketable to a lot of companies is more valuable than the company's benefit. It is nearly impossible to put a value on these secondary effects of welfare programs, and I have shown how the rich already pay for almost all of them before raising their income taxes. I don't appreciate you trying to use abstract concepts as the basis for an arbitrary increase in taxes on the successful people.

I've heard those Nordic countries you guys love so much tax the poor quite aggressively. Just because these "wealthy" people will still be able to eat when you take their hard-earned income doesn't mean you should. If you want less tax burden, lessen government spending.

This is not a horrifying answer. Some jobs aren't worth $15 an hour. If you make businesses pay $15 an hour, you will either get huge price increases or they will all go out of business. If you think restaurants are a bad business model and are fine with them all failing, that's on you. But restaurants are a great place for TEENS to work. Should there be no jobs for teens?

And you also didn't mention if this wage hike would bring jobs in or ship them out. I'd like your opinion.