patrick.net

Bellingham Bill says

That's the line the conservatives want you to think, yes. Just check out of the democratic process altogether.

It's the democrats who have checked out of defending Americans altogether.

The choice has been removed.

Dan8267 says

When the rich no longer bribe politicians to pass laws that erode the middle class and ensure that other people cannot reasonably accumulate wealth, then and only then, will I buy into the premise that the rich are not engaging in economic warfare against the rest of society.

Excellent

Bellingham Bill says

There can't be a viable progressive third party given the voting system our constitution establishes, not to mention the fact that conservatives dominate progressives 2:1 in this country.

What part of the voting system prevents a third party?

The conservatives dominate 2:1? Then the line between the 2 needs to move. You think conservatives like cronyism?

indigenous says

Dan8267 says

When the rich no longer bribe politicians to pass laws that erode the middle class and ensure that other people cannot reasonably accumulate wealth, then and only then, will I buy into the premise that the rich are not engaging in economic warfare against the rest of society.

Excellent

Then indigenous will show us a caricature about democrats and go to vote for bribed republicans.

Heraclitusstudent says

The entire scheme doesn't make sense. You can't distort economics. Once you place yourself into a workers pool that includes China, India, Brazil and others, you just can't force employers to pay more.

Are folks in China competing for waitressing jobs?

Regardless, if you are saying that increasing minimum wage will raise restaurant prices, then you are basically saying that restaurants aren't smart enough to maximize revenue.

Remember--price is not a function of cost. That is why corporate profits have risen so dramatically as labor costs have decreased. Those reduced costs have NOT translated to reduced prices, just as increased costs will NOT translate to higher prices.

Heraclitusstudent says

Then indigenous will show us a caricature about democrats and go to vote for bribed republicans.

Excellent

Heraclitusstudent says

What part of the voting system prevents a third party?

The part where if you split the left vote the right wins more handily.

cf Canada for how that works.

Then the line between the 2 needs to move. You think conservatives like cronyism?

By nature they're told what to think so what they think at any given point in time really doesn't enter into it.

"Cronyism" is just another thought-terminating cliche, too. Conservatives love our $800B/yr military and want more of it, even though it's the height of waste and insider-dealing in our mixed economy.

Heraclitusstudent says

If you want my vote you need to address the issues.

LOL. Let's not bullshit everyone. If you're happy with the GOP taking over, just say so. It'll save all of us a lot of time.

Heraclitusstudent says

If you think I will get a raise because the minimum wage is raised, you must be crazy.

And that's not what I wrote at all. The study I linked listed the bottom 30% of the workforce, not everyone.

The entire scheme doesn't make sense. You can't distort economics.

Rightwing religion -- not fact. Your very loaded words -- "scheme " -- "history" -- are warping your thinking here.

I will get a better deal from my employer because of teachers? Uh... NO.

Sure. The more fields pull qualified competitors from your particular labor pool, the more bargaining power you have with your employer.

This is an indirect effect, but the obvious direct effect is that if teaching pays more than your current software industry job, you have the power to tell your boss to stuff it if he doesn't raise your wages, provided you can secure one of those cushy teaching jobs.

Labor has to hang together or we will be defeated in detail. This isn't rocket science.

All that does is make me pay more for bad teachers, screwing me and my kids.

You've successfully conflated protecting teachers with seniority with bad teachers. Wonderful parroting of rightwing talking points. Congrats.

tatupu70 says

Regardless, if you are saying that increasing minimum wage will raise restaurant prices, then you are basically saying that restaurants aren't smart enough to maximize revenue.

It is not a theory, but a fact: restaurants have been tacking on extra fees due to rising cost of mandatory labor cost. Restaurants do not compete on the portion of the bill that every competitor has to pay equally. Mandatory higher labor cost (whether in hourly wage or mandatory healthcare) works like tax and rent. Businesses pass tax and rent to the consumers because they do not have to compete with their neighbors on those.

Remember--price is not a function of cost. That is why corporate profits have risen so dramatically as labor costs have decreased. Those reduced costs have NOT translated to reduced prices, just as increased costs will NOT translate to higher prices.

Corporate profits have risen because competition has been restrained by the myriads of government regulations.

Bellingham Bill says

Sure. The more fields pull qualified competitors from your particular labor pool, the more bargaining power you have with your employer.

This is an indirect effect, but the obvious direct effect is that if teaching pays more than your current software industry job, you have the power to tell your boss to stuff it if he doesn't raise your wages, provided you can secure one of those cushy teaching jobs.

Labor has to hang together or we will be defeated in detail. This isn't rocket science.

All that does is make me pay more for bad teachers, screwing me and my kids.

You've successfully conflated protecting teachers with seniority with bad teachers. Wonderful parroting of rightwing talking points. Congrats.

LOL. So if robbery becomes a more profitable job, your standards of living would improve? How about a bunch of robbers voting to increase their own per heist legal take?

There is no such thing as "hanging together." Everyone's take-home pay is expense to everyone else. The market is where buyers decide how much to pay a seller, and vice versa. Political machination to interfere in the market place and increase tax-funded pay is little different from robbery.

Calling raising minimum wage "hanging together" is even more absurd: it is literally higher paid union workers forcing lower-paid workers into unemployment, as a way of preserving union jobs.

Bellingham Bill says

The part where if you split the left vote the right wins more handily.

Who says the right will not also split? You are confusing 2 issues: Having parties to represent ideas and winning elections. If you represent the right ideas you will win elections. The alternative is to have fake choices like who want gay marriage while you have no choice on the real issues. Basically no one represents economic interests of 90% of the population in Washington.

Bellingham Bill says

"Cronyism" is just another thought-terminating cliche, too. Conservatives love our $800B/yr military and want more of it

The main reason why there was a tea-party was precisely because conservatives didn't like the way the gov interacted with WS and other industries. Ask Indigenous here.

Bellingham Bill says

Sure. The more fields pull qualified competitors from your particular labor pool, the more bargaining power you have with your employer.

So you think tenures for teachers pull anyone from the labor pool?
You understand that tenure doesn't increase the number of teachers?
Believe me it doesn't remove ANYONE from my labor pool, certainly not in a way that matters, considering my labor pool includes people from around the planet.

Bellingham Bill says

Labor has to hang together or we will be defeated in detail. This isn't rocket science.

You need to understand this very basic fact: As long as corporations can send money, technologies and jobs overseas, labor here can stand together all you want, YOU HAVE NO POWER. You have already been worked around. All you have is competing for low paying jobs like waiters and picking strawberries, and oh, yes, I know, we do have a few well protected professions: real-estate, education, healthcare, and finance, who are allowed to pray on everyone else. But this will never be an entire economy.

Bellingham Bill says

Heraclitusstudent says

If you want my vote you need to address the issues.

LOL. Let's not bullshit everyone. If you're happy with the GOP taking over, just say so. It'll save all of us a lot of time.

I'm not happy, I just don't have a choice, either way.
And apparently I'm not the only one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/upshot/the-great-wage-slowdown-looming-over-politics.html?ref=business

tatupu70 says

Regardless, if you are saying that increasing minimum wage will raise restaurant prices, then you are basically saying that restaurants aren't smart enough to maximize revenue.

Remember--price is not a function of cost. That is why corporate profits have risen so dramatically as labor costs have decreased.

You have to distinguish multinational corporations that profit from globalization and the local joint struggling to survive. For them it is a question of costs.
Reality says

Corporate profits have risen because competition has been restrained by the myriads of government regulations.

Lol. So corporate profits go down it's because of regulations, they go up, it's because of regulations.

Leave it to conservatives to impose their cult narratives on any situation.
Putting 2 and 2 together: low wages, rising productivity, is too hard for them.

Folks, this stuff is simple. You can't exist on a level playing field with billions of poor people and have a wage structure that allows growth.

Even if somehow you manage to force it, either you allow one part of the economy to cannibalize other parts, or it will again lead to growing private debts in the US, high risk finance, growing trade deficit (things that are starting to develop once more) ultimately followed by a bust.

As long as you have these fluid trade flows, then you need to converge with other countries and wait 2030 (earliest) until China and India develop enough of a middle class to consume stuff you produce. By then most of Americans will be as poor as Chinese people or Brazilians.

We need more worker protections, less H1B visas, and more equal trade. Europe has negotiated such a deal ten years ago, and is doing better than we are the with megalithic producer China. Basically the deal goes: they buy as much as China buys from them. This translates directly into Euro parts incorporated into Chinese products. This raises quality (and price), but also guarantees Europeans keep good jobs in their own countries.
Why we don't have a similar system is because our politicians are bought and paid for by corporatist lobbyists.

Instead we get corporate stooges complaining about a lack of talent here in america and petitioning to bring in "more qualified" people from asia. And the low skill jobs will be wage undercut by importing poor Latins. So workers get screwed on both ends. The only way to win is to get into a specialty occupation that can't be outsourced.

While it's good for a tiny chuckle to watch call it crazy make a complete ass of himself, it's beyond sad how many people allow the retard to troll the fuck out of them. Taking his bait, enabling the simple Simon motherfucker to troll the rest of us, by proxy.

Thanks

There is a way. You slap tariffs on imports.

A country can not sustain near trillion-dollar annual trade deficits if it does not have the dominant reserve currency.

Our current lifestyle utterly depends on the ability to import virtually unlimited goods without the necessity of exporting nearly the same amount or more to pay for those imports.

Because of our currency reserve status, the trade deficit can exist, because we don't need to sell to buy. Because we don't need to sell in order to buy, we can have unsustainably weak and shitty job creation.

America looks increasingly like a third world economy dependent on tourism and raw resource exploitation: we create nothing but low end service and coal mining jobs.

Neoliberalism has made it this way.

Supporting East and South East Asian low-end manufacturing made sense in the Cold War to employ mass numbers of people and make Communism less attractive.

It makes no sense now. It continues because our Industry was pushed overseas by Banksters, and there is no division among the elites - they are united on seeking arbitrage from everything, all the time, and there is no immediate pressure on them to do otherwise.

When that pressure does eventually arrive - guess who will be the bagholders?

Call it Crazy says

BoomAndBustCycle says

I kind of want the democrats just to roll over and say.. Ok, Republicans you win... You get your way for 8 years

The Dems have had their way for the last 8 years in the Senate. How has that worked out for you?

51 to 47 with 2 independents is having their way? I always like to think the best of people, but if you actually believe that then you really are stupid.

Reality says

It is not a theory, but a fact: restaurants have been tacking on extra fees due to rising cost of mandatory labor cost.

Here's a tip for you--companies sometimes say things that aren't true!! I know that's hard to believe... It's much easier to tell customers that they are raising prices due to Obamacare or rising labor cost than it is to tell them they are raising prices because the market can bear it and the owners want to maximize revenue.

Reality says

Mandatory higher labor cost (whether in hourly wage or mandatory healthcare) works like tax and rent. Businesses pass tax and rent to the consumers because they do not have to compete with their neighbors on those.

So, you disagree that price is unrelated to cost then?

Reality says

Corporate profits have risen because competition has been restrained by the myriads of government regulations.

Don't you agree that companies will do everything in their power to restrict competition?

Heraclitusstudent says

You have to distinguish multinational corporations that profit from globalization and the local joint struggling to survive. For them it is a question of costs.

There are local joints that are struggling to survive just as there are local joints making huge profits. Same with multi-nationals. I don't believe it's a size thing. There will always be a spectrum of profitability among manufacturers and service providers. That doesn't change the point--price (except in the extremely long run which we probably never reach) is unrelated to cost.

Let me get this straight both Dan and the Wogster are saying that O does not have any balls?

indigenous says

Let me get this straight both Dan and the Wogster are saying that O does not have any balls?

Honey, I've been saying that since January of 2008 when Obama failed to shut down Gitmo.

I've also gone on the record as stating that Obama is the worst president ever, having surpassed Bush II on that.

The difference between me and idiot conservatives like you, is that I have real reasons for judging Obama a bad president, which I have listed in details in several threads on this site. In contrast, you conservatives don't like him because he's black and he's a Democrat.

There's a concept that partisan hacks like you cannot understand. Conclusions aren't that important. What really matters is the reasons behind the conclusions.

tatupu70 says

It is not a theory, but a fact: restaurants have been tacking on extra fees due to rising cost of mandatory labor cost.

Here's a tip for you--companies sometimes say things that aren't true!! I know that's hard to believe... It's much easier to tell customers that they are raising prices due to Obamacare or rising labor cost than it is to tell them they are raising prices because the market can bear it and the owners want to maximize revenue.

They did not raise price before Obamacare came along. They tagged on the Obamacare cost because of Obamacare.

You'd have to be a moron to think small businesses try to maximize revenue instead of maximizing profit. Tagging on Obamacare cost is profit-neutral compared to before Obamacare.

tatupu70 says

Reality says

Mandatory higher labor cost (whether in hourly wage or mandatory healthcare) works like tax and rent. Businesses pass tax and rent to the consumers because they do not have to compete with their neighbors on those.

So, you disagree that price is unrelated to cost then?

What does the price of tea in China have to do with this? Restaurants can add on Obamacare cost to the bill because the neighbors are adding on the same. That's why raising taxes to punish businesses is a dumbest way of "soaking the rich."

tatupu70 says

Reality says

Corporate profits have risen because competition has been restrained by the myriads of government regulations.

Don't you agree that companies will do everything in their power to restrict competition?

Companies in a free market place have very little means of restricting competition; it is the government that they can lobby into helping them restricting competition.

BTW, if you really want to get down to it, both corporations and government are artificial constructs that some individuals use in order to have a leg up on other individuals. Corporations are entirely government created/sanctioned entities.

Reality says

They did not raise price before Obamacare came along.

They didn't?? So prices haven't been raised in restaurants for 50 years? 100 years?

Reality says

You'd have to be a moron to think small businesses try to maximize revenue instead of maximizing profit. Tagging on Obamacare cost is profit-neutral compared to before Obamacare.

Correct--profit. Tagging on Obamacare is NOT profit neutral.
Raising prices will cause demand to go down so profits will go down as well. The profit maximizing price is the same before and after Obamacare. That profit maximizing price is INDEPENDENT of cost.

Reality says

What does the price of tea in China have to do with this? Restaurants can add on Obamacare cost to the bill because the neighbors are adding on the same. That's why raising taxes to punish businesses is a dumbest way of "soaking the rich."

So you're saying there is no competition in the restaurant business? They're all in collusion?? None of them want to maximize profits? Have you ever taken Econ 101?

Reality says

Companies in a free market place have very little means of restricting competition

Funny--you just said restaurants are all in collusion. Basically restricting competition on price.