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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On April 18 2014 14:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:That's a different argument from what others were making. They seem to be wanting to replace the 'subsidies to walmart' with higher wages rather than supplement the subsidies with higher wages. Ex. the video calling for higher wages and saving the taxpayers money. you only save the taxpayer money if they aren't forking out the benefit anymore.
The video didn't call for a minimum wage increase across the board. It said Walmart could raise its wages and could save the taxpayers money, rather than exploiting its global position to directly extract more capital from the taxpayers. If you raised the minimum wage to $15 you could raise the food stamp cut off a little bit to still end up saving money while making everyone better off.
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The definition of the Republican Party in one single tweet:
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On April 18 2014 03:57 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 03:28 Introvert wrote:On April 18 2014 01:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 17 2014 23:39 Introvert wrote:On April 17 2014 17:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 17 2014 14:39 Introvert wrote:On April 17 2014 11:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 17 2014 11:02 BallinWitStalin wrote:On April 17 2014 10:04 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Nearly half of Americans, 49%, believe middle-income people -- a group many Americans consider themselves part of -- pay too much in taxes, up from 42% a year ago and the highest Gallup has found since 1999. At the same time, the 42% who say middle-income Americans pay their "fair share" in taxes is down 11 percentage points from last year. This is also the first time since 2007 that a higher percentage of the public says middle-income Americans are paying too much rather than their fair share. These results are from Gallup's annual Economy and Personal Finance poll, conducted April 3-6. While the April 15 tax deadline may not be the most popular day on the nation's calendar, over the past decade, stable pluralities and sometimes majorities have said that middle-income Americans pay their fair share in taxes, rather than too much or too little. But the perception has grown since 2012 that middle-income Americans pay too much in taxes; this comes as income taxes increase for the first time in 20 years, though mainly for the top earners. President Barack Obama and Congress allowed the Bush tax cuts on the marginal rates for the highest income earners to expire last year, which increased the tax rate for 2013 income from 35.0% to 39.6%. Other taxes, such as capital gains taxes, have also increased, and the bill is now coming due for many taxpayers. Though the bulk of the higher tax rates affect those in the top income bracket -- $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for married couples -- there has not been a noticeable climb in the proportion of Americans who believe upper-income people pay too much. That figure stands at 13% today, essentially unchanged from 11% last year. A robust majority, 61%, believe that upper-income people pay too little, while about a quarter believe they pay their fair share. Source The amount of cognitive dissonance in the American public is astounding. How such a plurality/majority can believe these things, and then vote Republican, never ceases to amaze me. Conservatives have a larger proportion of people who are tortured as children. A majority of Republicans are threatened/brainwashed as children to believe the earth is 10,000 years old along with a lot of other equally insane ideas. If they refuse those or don't refuse other ideas they are promised not only will their life be essentially cursed* but they will spend an eternity after that likely miserable life in the worst condition imaginable for eternity, literally. So you imagine a child surrounded by people who fervently believe and who consistently reinforce that belief, add the fact that in most cases they are discouraged from/punished for interacting with people who don't, until they are allowed to really only interact with them when necessary or attempting to convert/help them, compound onto that many of them are channeled into educational settings where those narratives wont be challenged let alone dismissed, and you start to see how by the time they can vote many of them have been so thoroughly indoctrinated their world view leaves them with a choice between the lesser of two evils and one party is definitely 'going to hell' and at least the republicans have a chance not to. So while the republican party may or may not shit on them (economically) during 'this life' they believe that more people would end up in heaven under republican rule, [so since this life means little compared to eternity they have been trained to choose the option that leads to heaven.] (<--extreme simplification here) There are other aspects that are diminished through these methods. Like listening to others opinions, using reason and logic to parse rhetoric and emotion, reconstructing world views based off of best available information, etc.. All of these things and more lead us down to much of the behavior you see in the Republican party. To be fair there are variations of this within the democratic party just most of them don't entail potentially spending eternity in the worst place imaginable suffering the worst possible torments. + Show Spoiler +*the degree or perception of the curse varies by sect and interpretation but the concept is there in one degree or another. + Show Spoiler +The same person who doesn't understand Jim Demint and his comment about society at the time of the civil war is now telling us why conservatives are conservative- that the reason people are conservative could have nothing to do with values or their own thought process, but must be the result of a tortuous childhood. It could only be because they are ALL creationist, brainwashed children. Obviously when one really thinks logically, the only conclusion is that big government= better. One could not even argue otherwise!
And this is why the right says the left is arrogant. When they have most of the media to push their ideas and values, it's somehow true that liberals know more about conservatism and its causes than actual conservatives do. Somehow in today's culture it is possible for the vast majority of conservatives to be completely isolated from other opinions yet liberals are all the enlightened ones. The time for openmindedness has ended- the result is clear.
I think you may be analyzing yourself. You mention creationists at every possible opportunity and use the words "Republican Party" far more than anyone else. I think you are the partisan in the bubble. No other poster is more obsessed with party- most argue ideas and individual things, but somehow you always come back to the Republican party, as if Conservatives are fans of the party. Shows how little you know.
Your posts reek of arrogance but this one really sums it up so nicely. Between this and sub40 telling me how much I hate Mexicans I am really glad to participate in this thread- I am learning so much about myself.
The same person who doesn't understand Jim Demint and his comment about society at the time of the civil war is now telling us why conservatives are conservative- that the reason people are conservative could have nothing to do with values or their own thought process, but must be the result of a tortuous childhood. It could only be because they are ALL creationist, brainwashed children. Obviously when one really thinks logically, the only conclusion is that big government= better. One could not even argue otherwise! I never said all conservatives are conservative for those reasons. I was merely offering some insight into some of the cognitive dissonance in the country and the republican party more specifically. I'm sure you're not arguing that many of those values (particularly the ones that conflict with science and or modern thought) aren't taught by parents, in churches, and educational settings of 'Creationist' conservatives (which in one form or another constitute the majority of the republican party) long before they reach adulthood? Or that it doesn't influence their thought process later in life? Just so you can set yourself at ease I personally don't mind shrinking the government in certain roles and ways to increase efficiency and effectiveness. However, I don't try to put an arbitrary or totally ethereal cap on the size of government or believe in totally moronic rhetorical cliches such as 'smaller government is better government' like conservatives consistently espouse. I support effective and efficient government that respects the rule and spirit of the law, carries out the will of the people, and urges them where needed (EX. Slavery,segregation,etc...). And this is why the right says the left is arrogant. When they have most of the media to push their ideas and values, it's somehow true that liberals know more about conservatism and its causes than actual conservatives do. Somehow in today's culture it is possible for the vast majority of conservatives to be completely isolated from other opinions yet liberals are all the enlightened ones. The time for openmindedness has ended- the result is clear. The 'Leftist media' doesn't have much if any influence until long after the other aspects of indoctrination have long set in. As for the knowledge part: (Seriously... More Atheist/Agnostics know that Mother Theresa was Catholic than Catholics.../facepalm) It's pretty common for agnostics or atheists to be more knowledgeable about religion and almost as knowledgeable about Christianity than any Christian besides Mormons (who if you ask the majority of Christians aren't even Christian). So it's hardly far fetched that liberals could know as much or more than conservatives about their belief structure. However when you look at Christians they consistently do poor when asked about other religions. Hmmm... Wonder why? So in general I would agree that liberals don't necessarily know more about conservative ideas than conservatives it's reasonably accurate (at least around the religious ones) to say their knowledge is pretty even. So it is totally reasonable to presume a college educated liberal has a reasonable chance to have as good or a better chance to have a fuller understanding of conservative ideas than a non-college educated conservative. Seeing how the more education you have the more likely you are to vote Dem/Liberal and more people are becoming educated it's increasingly more likely for such a situation to arise. I think you may be analyzing yourself. You mention creationists at every possible opportunity and use the words "Republican Party" far more than anyone else. I think you are the partisan in the bubble. No other poster is more obsessed with party- most argue ideas and individual things, but somehow you always come back to the Republican party, as if Conservatives are fans of the party. Shows how little you know. I mention Creationists because they and their beliefs are at the root of much of why reasonable and logical debate has completely broken down. Their influence on people and politicians is corrosive and counterproductive to substantive debate. More specifically their ideological stranglehold on the Republican party helps prevent reasonable conservatives from having a party to be a 'fan' of. If the debate in Washington was between Conservatives and Democrats I would reference it that way but it's not. It's Republicans vs Democrats. I mention 'Creationists' because they are the majority of the Republican party. And the Republican party is a primary reason we cant have reasonable discussions in Washington. Non-Creationist conservatives are a minority of the Republican party. While they are generally more reasonable they have virtually no power in the House. So much of the consternation of the Republican party can be traced to 'Creationist beliefs' and that is why I suggest people adhering to such a belief rarely have anything substantive to offer to debates that hinge on such beliefs. And that policies or positions rooted in such beliefs should be dismissed just like any other equally ridiculous position. + Show Spoiler +If you have an issue with my identification of forcing 'Creationism' on children as 'torture' I would say you didn't know what the words mean. You didn't mention it so I guess you agree with it? Either way it's probably best to be said in PM if you want to go there on that. Perhaps then you should start with moderate statements, not the extreme arrogance of your first post. Even this one is full of non sequitur. What you are saying does not follow: the South (where most of these people are) used to be a Democrat stronghold- creationism, etc is really of little (if any) direct effect on people's political orientation. Religion can be a factor, but it's is not everything nor is creationism a requirement to be part of it. My other point was that you can't talk about conservative thought when you regularly get what conservatives think or why they think it so wrong. Don't be so presumptuous as to claim knowledge of why someone believes what they do- engage with the actual ideas. Why they believe something is irrelevant anyway to it's truth content anyway. You always bring the party as an attack line-but as far as I can tell, no one here gives two figs about a particular party, it's more about ideas. So the squeeze them in at every opportunity is more partisanship than debate. Perhaps if you started from somewhere else besides the assumption that you are correct, you could begin to understand conservatives. Wow. Your interpretation of the 'Democratic' South and how the 'southern strategy' impacted party politics is fascinating. Totally ridiculous, but fascinating. If conservatives want to pretend they aren't republican and don't vote republican then fine. But if conservatives cant get republicans to side with them I don't know how they expect to get anyone else? 'Conservatives' are as bad as 'Christians' when it comes to identifying what that means. Calling yourself a 'conservative' is like calling yourself a 'liberal'. Anyone and any idea from Rand Paul to 'Emperor Obama' fits that description. It's easy to say people are 'wrong' about 'conservative' thought when it's ethereal and can move at a moments notice. Like I will show how there is a strong correlation between religion and conservatism and you will just say that's not ALL of them which was a strawman to start with. (Party platforms are less ethereal) Liberals are also far less likely than conservatives to strongly believe each of the following:
their religious faith is very important in their life (54% of liberals vs. 82% of conservatives); a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by doing good deeds or being a good person (23% vs. 37%); their faith is becoming an increasingly important moral guide in their life (38% vs. 70%); the church they currently attend is very important in helping them find direction and fulfillment in life (37% vs. 62%); their primary purpose in life is to love God with all their heart, mind, strength and soul (43% vs. 76%); Jesus Christ did not commit sins during His time on earth (33% vs. 55%). SourceIf you want to say religion has nothing to do with your version of conservatism that's not really something I care to debate. But if you want to say that there is no relation between religion and political thought that's just demonstrably false. If someone believes we don't need to find alternative energy because they 'believe God placed the perfect amount of oil in the planet 10,000 years ago' It's pretty damn relevant about 'why' they believe it and how one can debate the subject. There are countless issues where believing in a 10,000 year old earth precludes you from having a reasonable debate? And when majority of Republicans/Conservatives identify as young earthers it becomes painfully relevant to our politics You missed the point. My point in mentioning the Democratic South was that those were religious people that weren't "far right-wingers." Religion is certainly important, I never denied that- I denied that your obsession with creationism was a useful talking point, as is your repeated use of the GOP to make your point. You already admitted it: you think conservatives are the way they are because they were "tortured." I was calling BS, and pointing out that you should hardly be one talk about the subject. Nevermind that the way that one comes to believe something is not directly related to whether or not it's true. If someone believes there is enough oil, it really doesn't matter of God ordained it or not. You can claim that they are more stubborn as a result, but that's just your own analysis coming in again. Don't make such absurd posts about causes and their relation to truth when you don't understand the philosophy you are criticizing. Edit: Just to clarify- You can have criticisms, questions, etc, but don't speak in such absolutes. You can discuss ideas, but doing an analysis of WHY someone thinks the way they do is much different than just discussing or criticizing ideas. In a majority Christian country, there are an enormous portion of the population who claim Christianity as their religion, without doing anything to practice it. Most census-registered "Christians" don't go to church. Most that do don't go regularly. For any serious demographic consideration, you have to talk about "practicing" members of religion as a distinct group. Sure, there are a lot of people in the US, particularly in the South, who claim Christian affiliation (often explicitly "evangelical" affiliation) without any real practice.
Furthermore, in the U.S., the groups (and regions) more likely to engage in this kind of identity politics are generally poorer and more disenfranchised: poor urban blacks, rural whites, and hispanic immigrants. The lower educational level is mostly what is reflected by statistics about knowledge of Martin Luther... note that better educated segments of society (particularly Jewish) do significantly better. This isn't because Jews are religiously taught about Protestantism, or that Protestants are generally held back... it's that a poor person in Alabama, whether black or white, is likely to identify as Christian, while half of Yale Law school is Jewish. You can argue all day about educational attainment, and how structural or cultural its causes are, but the chart above mostly reflects this.
Proper use of statistics requires isolation of variables. When you say that "Presbyterian clergy are generally more theologically liberal than Presbyterian churchgoing laypeople, even if adjusted for age and educational level," you are giving information. When you say "FroYo makes people smarter, since average SAT scores are higher for people who eat more FroYo," you are misunderstanding statistics. You are right, but I wasn't pointing any of that out because it wasn't relevant to the point I was making We could go on about poor education, and just the "behindness" of some of these states (economically, not culturally), but it's not important to what I was saying, and indulging in it would make me a hypocrite. The Southern example is just a poor comparison for a variety of reasons. I was pointing out that the majority of Republicans/Conservatives (it is easier to find the stats on R's but they are out there for Cons too) have cognitive dissonance bred into them, you haven't said anything that refuted that point. More so, that the majority of them are taught/brainwashed from an early age to stubbornly defend their cognitively dissonant beliefs for fear of going to hell (the worst place imaginable) forever, if they are persuaded to change their mind.
An example of more cognitive dissonance is how conservative bible belters believe in the Gospel of Mammon but ignore passages like this:
“Now the group of those who believed was of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. ….
No person among them was needy, for as many as the owners of lands or houses were who sold them, they in turn brought the proceeds of what was sold and placed them at the apostles’ feet, and they distributed to each as anyone had need.
And there was the Levite Joseph, the one named Barnabas by the apostles (which means “son of encouragement”), a Cypriote by nationality, who owned a field and sold it and brought the money and laid it at the feet of the apostles.
But a certain man called Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold some property and withheld some of the money, with his wife aware of this. He brought a certain part of the money to the feet of the apostles and laid it there.
But Peter said to him: “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart so that you lie to the Holy Spirit and withheld a part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!”
Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it. The young men came and wrapped up his body, then carried him out and buried him.
After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.” And she said, “Yes, that was the price.” Then Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Immediately she fell down at his feet and died. When the young men came in they found her dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things. (Acts 4.32–37 to 5.1–11).
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On April 18 2014 13:03 zlefin wrote: Paying attention to a neighbor is fine, but that sounds rather rude and blameful; it's not like we choose to have those problems, we, like everywhere, have idiots. To be fair, you seem to have more idiots than everywhere else in the developped world, but the US is a special case because it seems you can change. In europe, we have the same problems than three hundred years ago and we can't do a thing about it.
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On April 18 2014 14:07 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 14:05 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 13:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 18 2014 12:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 12:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 18 2014 12:11 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 11:56 SnipedSoul wrote: It's actually the converse. Nationalized healthcare would help businesses be more competitive by removing the significant financial burden of providing healthcare to their employees. Those funds would then be available for additional investment, higher wages, or whatever else the business wants to do with them. That sounds like how a business subsidy is supposed to work ... On April 18 2014 11:57 SnipedSoul wrote:On April 18 2014 11:55 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 11:54 SnipedSoul wrote:On April 18 2014 11:48 JonnyBNoHo wrote:[quote] The evidence that EITC and other subsides go to businesses in the form of lower wages is scarce. Conversely evidence that EITC and the like reduce poverty are well documented. If you were correct, this wouldn't be the case. EITC and SNAP wouldn't help anyone since the added benefit would just get shifted to the employer. The negative impacts of a higher minimum wage are controversial but well documented. The higher the minimum wage goes, the more likely it is to reduce employment. No one seriously thinks you can raise the minimum wage to $30 and have no one lose their job I know that those programs help reduce poverty. The problem is that congress keeps cutting them without forcing employers to make up the difference. I never said raise minimum wage to $30 which would be a 4x increase. I said raise it to $10 which would be a 33% increase and be more in line with what the minimum wage would be if it were tied to inflation. If they reduce poverty than they are not subsidies to businesses. Taxpayer money is making up for a shortfall in wages. Government pays the bill instead of a business. How is that not a subsidy? I live alone and pay between $7 and $10 a day for food and that's with cooking everything myself and making it from scratch. The rest of my family is similar. If taxpayer money was making up for a shortfall in wages, than removing the money and doing nothing else would leave the worker no better or worse off. EITIC and the like do not depress the market price for labor. Nor are we talking about a subsistence level of income where less income means death. There's no natural force like starvation that demands wages be higher. Nor is there a market need demanding higher wages. In other words, there's no shortfall in an economic sense. It's only a shortfall because you think a wage lower than that is "gross". Sounds like you are using neoclassical economics to arrive at those conclusions? As if Neoclassical economics was a proven science? Your claims are tenuous at best. No, I'm not using neoclassical economics to arrive at my conclusions. There's little evidence that EITC and the like depress wages. There's a lot of evidence that these subsides increase incomes. Sounds like working as intended. If they weren't working as intended you'd see more evidence of wages being depressed and less evidence of incomes going up. Hmm because the evidence supporting your claim seems to stem from Neoclassical economics unless your referencing some evidence I can't find? Here's a piece suggesting many of the claims stemming from Neoclasssical economics (that are the only ones I can find supporting your claim.) just are not accurate or support the idea that a min. wage increase doesn't actually decrease employment in a significant way? (despite it's common use as a talking point) The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage. The report reviews evidence on eleven possible adjustments to minimum-wage increases that may help to explain why the measured employment effects are so consistently small. The strongest evidence suggests that the most important channels of adjustment are: reductions in labor turnover; improvements in organizational efficiency; reductions in wages of higher earners ("wage compression"); and small price increases. Given the relatively small cost to employers of modest increases in the minimum wage, these adjustment mechanisms appear to be more than sufficient to avoid employment losses, even for employers with a large share of low-wage worker
At least concerning the type of wage raises reasonable people are suggesting... source I don't have a problem with a modest increase in the min wage. But to do away with EITC and the like you'd have to raise it a lot. CBO estimates that a $10.10 min wage would increase incomes for families up to 3X the poverty line by $12 Billion. Food stamps pay out $80 billion and EITC pays out $60 billion. sourceIf you want to do away with these programs (not to mention all the others!) you'll have to go well beyond what reasonable people are suggesting. On April 18 2014 13:27 IgnE wrote:Re: Walmart Jonny tell me what's wrong with this video: + Show Spoiler + Well it's a bit of a red herring - min wage won't affect just Walmart. It also ignoring the impact of higher prices on real wages, lower demand from higher prices, etc. I don't believe it advocated for a minimum wage. But even if it did, we all agree that minimum wage increases are a wash on unemployment. Lower demand from 1.4% price increases? Offset by worker raises? The effects of minumum wage on unemployment are highly debatable. I don't get how you can be so certain about such a widely debated topic.
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You would think Chelsea would have had the foresight to have a baby before 2008 then no?
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On April 19 2014 00:56 Livelovedie wrote:You would think Chelsea would have had the foresight to have a baby before 2008 then no?
Nah, the correct answer is that they realized they needed more than what they did in 2008 to get Hillary chosen. Thus this~!
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On April 18 2014 15:30 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 14:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 14:35 IgnE wrote: Just raise the cap on foodstamps. That's a different argument from what others were making. They seem to be wanting to replace the 'subsidies to walmart' with higher wages rather than supplement the subsidies with higher wages. Ex. the video calling for higher wages and saving the taxpayers money. you only save the taxpayer money if they aren't forking out the benefit anymore. The video didn't call for a minimum wage increase across the board. It said Walmart could raise its wages and could save the taxpayers money, rather than exploiting its global position to directly extract more capital from the taxpayers. If you raised the minimum wage to $15 you could raise the food stamp cut off a little bit to still end up saving money while making everyone better off. You're useing a lot of loaded phrases and scare quotes in here. Walmart isn't the bad guy here. they arn't doing anything at all that other retailers do at the same time. You're just trying to rabble up hate for someone just beacuse they're popular. Target is the fiercely anti union retailer but no one gives them any crap for it.
You're completely ignoring the fact that the jobs that walmart offers might not be viable at 15 dollars an hour. if they arn't then they just go away and those people won't have a job anymore at all thus being much worse off to begin with. You know this but you're just completely ignoreing this fact in order to have something to throw at walmart.
Walmart isn't going to do anything it doens't have to by law. You have to think corperations less as people and more like dogs. In the end thats all they are.
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A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.
Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.
Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.
"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy," they write, "while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."
As one illustration, Gilens and Page compare the political preferences of Americans at the 50th income percentile to preferences of Americans at the 90th percentile as well as major lobbying or business groups. They find that the government—whether Republican or Democratic—more often follows the preferences of the latter group rather than the first.
The researches note that this is not a new development caused by, say, recent Supreme Court decisions allowing more money in politics, such as Citizens United or this month's ruling on McCutcheon v. FEC. As the data stretching back to the 1980s suggests, this has been a long term trend, and is therefore harder for most people to perceive, let alone reverse.
Source
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Watching Kerry's attempt at solving with the Israel-Palestine peace process crash and burn is both expected and bitterly depressing. I suppose there's a slim chance something can be put together after the past few debacles, but I'm just waiting for the increasingly inevitable Third Intifada at this point, and US entanglements and commitments in the Middle East to grow increasingly...delicate because of our ties to Israel. Ugh.
Fortunately the demographics in US politics are shifting away from the pro-Israel lobby, before we do something incredibly stupid like launch a preventative military strike on Iran with/on behalf of Israel or the like. But still, it's just depressing.
Also: minimum wage is not the way to go in addressing wage imbalances and poverty. The economic literature on this is fairly divided on its effectiveness, but in general there are more universally agreed upon means of addressing income disparities, while preserving incentive structures for workers and employers.
Mostly constructing a smoother income+subsidies-tax curve, public welfare/safety nets, and the like and whatnot.
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On April 18 2014 15:30 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 14:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 14:35 IgnE wrote: Just raise the cap on foodstamps. That's a different argument from what others were making. They seem to be wanting to replace the 'subsidies to walmart' with higher wages rather than supplement the subsidies with higher wages. Ex. the video calling for higher wages and saving the taxpayers money. you only save the taxpayer money if they aren't forking out the benefit anymore. The video didn't call for a minimum wage increase across the board. It said Walmart could raise its wages and could save the taxpayers money, rather than exploiting its global position to directly extract more capital from the taxpayers. If you raised the minimum wage to $15 you could raise the food stamp cut off a little bit to still end up saving money while making everyone better off. Been thinking about this a bit more. Taxes are progressive. Walmart customers tend to be lower income than average.
Shifting low income subsidies from taxpayers to Walmart's customers (higher prices as in the video) would be regressive on net.
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On April 19 2014 01:37 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 15:30 IgnE wrote:On April 18 2014 14:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 14:35 IgnE wrote: Just raise the cap on foodstamps. That's a different argument from what others were making. They seem to be wanting to replace the 'subsidies to walmart' with higher wages rather than supplement the subsidies with higher wages. Ex. the video calling for higher wages and saving the taxpayers money. you only save the taxpayer money if they aren't forking out the benefit anymore. The video didn't call for a minimum wage increase across the board. It said Walmart could raise its wages and could save the taxpayers money, rather than exploiting its global position to directly extract more capital from the taxpayers. If you raised the minimum wage to $15 you could raise the food stamp cut off a little bit to still end up saving money while making everyone better off. You're useing a lot of loaded phrases and scare quotes in here. Walmart isn't the bad guy here. they arn't doing anything at all that other retailers do at the same time. You're just trying to rabble up hate for someone just beacuse they're popular. Target is the fiercely anti union retailer but no one gives them any crap for it. You're completely ignoring the fact that the jobs that walmart offers might not be viable at 15 dollars an hour. if they arn't then they just go away and those people won't have a job anymore at all thus being much worse off to begin with. You know this but you're just completely ignoreing this fact in order to have something to throw at walmart. Walmart isn't going to do anything it doens't have to by law. You have to think corperations less as people and more like dogs. In the end thats all they are. Shouldn't that be fairly easy to calculate ? Walmart profits for last year/number of employees affected and you have a rough number.
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On April 19 2014 01:37 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 15:30 IgnE wrote:On April 18 2014 14:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 14:35 IgnE wrote: Just raise the cap on foodstamps. That's a different argument from what others were making. They seem to be wanting to replace the 'subsidies to walmart' with higher wages rather than supplement the subsidies with higher wages. Ex. the video calling for higher wages and saving the taxpayers money. you only save the taxpayer money if they aren't forking out the benefit anymore. The video didn't call for a minimum wage increase across the board. It said Walmart could raise its wages and could save the taxpayers money, rather than exploiting its global position to directly extract more capital from the taxpayers. If you raised the minimum wage to $15 you could raise the food stamp cut off a little bit to still end up saving money while making everyone better off. You're useing a lot of loaded phrases and scare quotes in here. Walmart isn't the bad guy here. they arn't doing anything at all that other retailers do at the same time. You're just trying to rabble up hate for someone just beacuse they're popular. Target is the fiercely anti union retailer but no one gives them any crap for it. You're completely ignoring the fact that the jobs that walmart offers might not be viable at 15 dollars an hour. if they arn't then they just go away and those people won't have a job anymore at all thus being much worse off to begin with. You know this but you're just completely ignoreing this fact in order to have something to throw at walmart. Walmart isn't going to do anything it doens't have to by law. You have to think corperations less as people and more like dogs. In the end thats all they are.
So you take issue with the fact that I don't explicitly mention Target? They are just as bad as Walmart. Are you happy now?
"Viability" is just a pronouncement from the high priests of capitalism. Oh, the CEO of Walmart says it's not "viable" to raise Walmart's wages because it will reduce profits, or they might have to raise prices by a percentage point or two. I guess he must be right.
On April 19 2014 04:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 15:30 IgnE wrote:On April 18 2014 14:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 14:35 IgnE wrote: Just raise the cap on foodstamps. That's a different argument from what others were making. They seem to be wanting to replace the 'subsidies to walmart' with higher wages rather than supplement the subsidies with higher wages. Ex. the video calling for higher wages and saving the taxpayers money. you only save the taxpayer money if they aren't forking out the benefit anymore. The video didn't call for a minimum wage increase across the board. It said Walmart could raise its wages and could save the taxpayers money, rather than exploiting its global position to directly extract more capital from the taxpayers. If you raised the minimum wage to $15 you could raise the food stamp cut off a little bit to still end up saving money while making everyone better off. Been thinking about this a bit more. Taxes are progressive. Walmart customers tend to be lower income than average. Shifting low income subsidies from taxpayers to Walmart's customers (higher prices as in the video) would be regressive on net.
So you are worried about Walmart's customers paying 1.4% more as a regressive tax? Walmart's employees are it's customers too. How much do you think people spend at Walmart per year? What is 2% of that to be conservative? My guess is that the average low-income Walmart customer spends maybe 4k a year at Walmart, again to be conservative. So you are worried about a potential tax of $80-100 per year on Walmart customers in exchange for bumping up the salary of Walmart employees by roughly 50%?
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Let's look at it this way jonny. If you are concerned about regressive taxes of tiny incremental price increases, then we can look at corporate profits as a regressive tax on low income customers too. Why not decrease the prices even further while paying employees the same? Or, obviously, keeping the prices the same, and paying the workers more from out of profits.
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So you are worried about Walmart's customers paying 1.4% more as a regressive tax? Walmart's employees are it's customers too. How much do you think people spend at Walmart per year? What is 2% of that to be conservative? My guess is that the average low-income Walmart customer spends maybe 4k a year at Walmart, again to be conservative. So you are worried about a potential tax of $80-100 per year on Walmart customers in exchange for bumping up the salary of Walmart employees by roughly 50%? Keep in mind that you're bumping wages by 50%, but income will not go up by nearly as much. On net it sounds like a net loss to the poor, unless you boost the benefits too - the very thing you're trying to downplay.
And what happens when the market changes and Walmart goes into a decline? Do they become TBTF?
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On April 19 2014 04:42 IgnE wrote: Let's look at it this way jonny. If you are concerned about regressive taxes of tiny incremental price increases, then we can look at corporate profits as a regressive tax on low income customers too. Why not decrease the prices even further while paying employees the same? So get rid of the corporate profits tax
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On April 18 2014 21:44 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 14:07 IgnE wrote:On April 18 2014 14:05 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 13:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 18 2014 12:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 12:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 18 2014 12:11 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 11:56 SnipedSoul wrote: It's actually the converse. Nationalized healthcare would help businesses be more competitive by removing the significant financial burden of providing healthcare to their employees. Those funds would then be available for additional investment, higher wages, or whatever else the business wants to do with them. That sounds like how a business subsidy is supposed to work ... On April 18 2014 11:57 SnipedSoul wrote:On April 18 2014 11:55 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 11:54 SnipedSoul wrote:[quote] I know that those programs help reduce poverty. The problem is that congress keeps cutting them without forcing employers to make up the difference. I never said raise minimum wage to $30 which would be a 4x increase. I said raise it to $10 which would be a 33% increase and be more in line with what the minimum wage would be if it were tied to inflation. If they reduce poverty than they are not subsidies to businesses. Taxpayer money is making up for a shortfall in wages. Government pays the bill instead of a business. How is that not a subsidy? I live alone and pay between $7 and $10 a day for food and that's with cooking everything myself and making it from scratch. The rest of my family is similar. If taxpayer money was making up for a shortfall in wages, than removing the money and doing nothing else would leave the worker no better or worse off. EITIC and the like do not depress the market price for labor. Nor are we talking about a subsistence level of income where less income means death. There's no natural force like starvation that demands wages be higher. Nor is there a market need demanding higher wages. In other words, there's no shortfall in an economic sense. It's only a shortfall because you think a wage lower than that is "gross". Sounds like you are using neoclassical economics to arrive at those conclusions? As if Neoclassical economics was a proven science? Your claims are tenuous at best. No, I'm not using neoclassical economics to arrive at my conclusions. There's little evidence that EITC and the like depress wages. There's a lot of evidence that these subsides increase incomes. Sounds like working as intended. If they weren't working as intended you'd see more evidence of wages being depressed and less evidence of incomes going up. Hmm because the evidence supporting your claim seems to stem from Neoclassical economics unless your referencing some evidence I can't find? Here's a piece suggesting many of the claims stemming from Neoclasssical economics (that are the only ones I can find supporting your claim.) just are not accurate or support the idea that a min. wage increase doesn't actually decrease employment in a significant way? (despite it's common use as a talking point) The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage. The report reviews evidence on eleven possible adjustments to minimum-wage increases that may help to explain why the measured employment effects are so consistently small. The strongest evidence suggests that the most important channels of adjustment are: reductions in labor turnover; improvements in organizational efficiency; reductions in wages of higher earners ("wage compression"); and small price increases. Given the relatively small cost to employers of modest increases in the minimum wage, these adjustment mechanisms appear to be more than sufficient to avoid employment losses, even for employers with a large share of low-wage worker
At least concerning the type of wage raises reasonable people are suggesting... source I don't have a problem with a modest increase in the min wage. But to do away with EITC and the like you'd have to raise it a lot. CBO estimates that a $10.10 min wage would increase incomes for families up to 3X the poverty line by $12 Billion. Food stamps pay out $80 billion and EITC pays out $60 billion. sourceIf you want to do away with these programs (not to mention all the others!) you'll have to go well beyond what reasonable people are suggesting. On April 18 2014 13:27 IgnE wrote:Re: Walmart Jonny tell me what's wrong with this video: + Show Spoiler + Well it's a bit of a red herring - min wage won't affect just Walmart. It also ignoring the impact of higher prices on real wages, lower demand from higher prices, etc. I don't believe it advocated for a minimum wage. But even if it did, we all agree that minimum wage increases are a wash on unemployment. Lower demand from 1.4% price increases? Offset by worker raises? The effects of minumum wage on unemployment are highly debatable. I don't get how you can be so certain about such a widely debated topic.
As far as I can tell it's actually pretty one sided to the idea that it doesn't matter much at all for employment. for every 10% wages you get a 0-1.5% decrease but only in the under 30 workers so it doesn't even really show up in unemployment.
Most of the research claiming the decrease in jobs don't go over 1.5% and most if not all that say 1.5% are neoclassical based economic claims that have been shown to be wrong multiple times in the real world.
So where is this data that supports the claim raising the minimum wage kills jobs? And is any of it supported by non-Neoclassical economics?
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On April 18 2014 21:44 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2014 14:07 IgnE wrote:On April 18 2014 14:05 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 13:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 18 2014 12:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 12:19 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 18 2014 12:11 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 11:56 SnipedSoul wrote: It's actually the converse. Nationalized healthcare would help businesses be more competitive by removing the significant financial burden of providing healthcare to their employees. Those funds would then be available for additional investment, higher wages, or whatever else the business wants to do with them. That sounds like how a business subsidy is supposed to work ... On April 18 2014 11:57 SnipedSoul wrote:On April 18 2014 11:55 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 18 2014 11:54 SnipedSoul wrote:[quote] I know that those programs help reduce poverty. The problem is that congress keeps cutting them without forcing employers to make up the difference. I never said raise minimum wage to $30 which would be a 4x increase. I said raise it to $10 which would be a 33% increase and be more in line with what the minimum wage would be if it were tied to inflation. If they reduce poverty than they are not subsidies to businesses. Taxpayer money is making up for a shortfall in wages. Government pays the bill instead of a business. How is that not a subsidy? I live alone and pay between $7 and $10 a day for food and that's with cooking everything myself and making it from scratch. The rest of my family is similar. If taxpayer money was making up for a shortfall in wages, than removing the money and doing nothing else would leave the worker no better or worse off. EITIC and the like do not depress the market price for labor. Nor are we talking about a subsistence level of income where less income means death. There's no natural force like starvation that demands wages be higher. Nor is there a market need demanding higher wages. In other words, there's no shortfall in an economic sense. It's only a shortfall because you think a wage lower than that is "gross". Sounds like you are using neoclassical economics to arrive at those conclusions? As if Neoclassical economics was a proven science? Your claims are tenuous at best. No, I'm not using neoclassical economics to arrive at my conclusions. There's little evidence that EITC and the like depress wages. There's a lot of evidence that these subsides increase incomes. Sounds like working as intended. If they weren't working as intended you'd see more evidence of wages being depressed and less evidence of incomes going up. Hmm because the evidence supporting your claim seems to stem from Neoclassical economics unless your referencing some evidence I can't find? Here's a piece suggesting many of the claims stemming from Neoclasssical economics (that are the only ones I can find supporting your claim.) just are not accurate or support the idea that a min. wage increase doesn't actually decrease employment in a significant way? (despite it's common use as a talking point) The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage. The report reviews evidence on eleven possible adjustments to minimum-wage increases that may help to explain why the measured employment effects are so consistently small. The strongest evidence suggests that the most important channels of adjustment are: reductions in labor turnover; improvements in organizational efficiency; reductions in wages of higher earners ("wage compression"); and small price increases. Given the relatively small cost to employers of modest increases in the minimum wage, these adjustment mechanisms appear to be more than sufficient to avoid employment losses, even for employers with a large share of low-wage worker
At least concerning the type of wage raises reasonable people are suggesting... source I don't have a problem with a modest increase in the min wage. But to do away with EITC and the like you'd have to raise it a lot. CBO estimates that a $10.10 min wage would increase incomes for families up to 3X the poverty line by $12 Billion. Food stamps pay out $80 billion and EITC pays out $60 billion. sourceIf you want to do away with these programs (not to mention all the others!) you'll have to go well beyond what reasonable people are suggesting. On April 18 2014 13:27 IgnE wrote:Re: Walmart Jonny tell me what's wrong with this video: + Show Spoiler + Well it's a bit of a red herring - min wage won't affect just Walmart. It also ignoring the impact of higher prices on real wages, lower demand from higher prices, etc. I don't believe it advocated for a minimum wage. But even if it did, we all agree that minimum wage increases are a wash on unemployment. Lower demand from 1.4% price increases? Offset by worker raises? The effects of minumum wage on unemployment are highly debatable. I don't get how you can be so certain about such a widely debated topic.
Oh, I missed your comment. The economic consensus is that it has either no effect, or a slight effect in one direction or the other that is not predictable. If it has no effect or is not predictable it cannot be the basis for a policy decision. You must choose some other criterion for arguing for/against it.
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On April 19 2014 04:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +So you are worried about Walmart's customers paying 1.4% more as a regressive tax? Walmart's employees are it's customers too. How much do you think people spend at Walmart per year? What is 2% of that to be conservative? My guess is that the average low-income Walmart customer spends maybe 4k a year at Walmart, again to be conservative. So you are worried about a potential tax of $80-100 per year on Walmart customers in exchange for bumping up the salary of Walmart employees by roughly 50%? Keep in mind that you're bumping wages by 50%, but income will not go up by nearly as much. On net it sounds like a net loss to the poor, unless you boost the benefits too - the very thing you're trying to downplay. And what happens when the market changes and Walmart goes into a decline? Do they become TBTF?
Walmart is a standin for any big box retailer obviously. I do not care about Walmart except insofar much as I care about "Walmarts".
I am not trying to downplay benefits. Bump the wages, you still will not be paying significant taxes on 26k a year income that you weren't paying on 16 or 20k a year. I'm not sure what the foodstamp cutoff is, but we can raise government benefits in the interim.
I know you think that you were making a joke, but it's fine to get rid of corporate taxes if corporations have no profits because they are distributing them to the workers.
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