OOTB's Political Thread . ..

[uncboy10]

Yes, there's nothing moderate about any of that stuff. There's also nothing ultra right about any of that stuff, because none of it is a political issue. Climate change denial and environmental protection gutting are issues with his understanding of science - not of him being ultra right.. His ranting on opponents and the impeachment probe are again part of him being a blowhard, not being ultra right.


I do agree with this. And as has already been pointed out, this happens at the state level. It should also happen at the Federal level though.


*barf*

How is that not very extreme? We've never had a wealth tax like that, and it would have major implications to some people (granted, a small fraction of the population). It's easy to say "ya, lets F over the rich people", and the majority of the population would be ok with that because they're not the ones getting fvcked, but is that even close to fair?

I saw some analysis that if Jeff Bezos (currently worth ~$107B) had been subject to the wealth tax Sanders is proposing since 1982 (i.e. the start of his career), he would currently be worth $9.9B. Now, it's easy to say "$10B is still filthy rich", and you'd be right - but is it fair to steal $97B, over 90% of his current net worth, from him in wealth taxes over time?

The highest bracket in that plan would be taxed at 8%. I’d love to see the numbers on how he would only be worth 9 billion today if he had been subjected to that tax. His wealth is largely tied to his equity in Amazon and there’s no way those shares would only be worth 9 billion today.

It’s not about screwing over rich people. It’s about generating tax revenue to help the lower class which desperately could use it. Is it fair for amazon employees to get worked to death for garbage wages while bezos becomes the richest man in history?

 

[dadika13]

Is it fair for amazon employees to get worked to death for garbage wages while bezos becomes the richest man in history?

Yes Josef, it is fair. The factory worker didn’t freaking build Amazon and give hundreds of thousands of people jobs.

Hey Jeff, great job building one of the most successful companies in the history of the world and putting food on the table for over 640,000 people and for that deed now Bernie Sanders wants to take much more of your money.

Are the conditions at Amazon factories shitty? Of course. Reform that, don’t just throw money at the workers.

At the same time, how great would it be if that worker said “f this I can’t take it, I’m going to trade school.” Then they forced their kids to do well in school because they know first hand how much minimum wage sucks and then generations of kids all learn to hate trivial jobs and wages. That’s how you help people, not by paying them more for shit jobs.

 

[uncboy10]

Yes Josef, it is fair. The factory worker didn’t freaking build Amazon and give hundreds of thousands of people jobs.

Hey Jeff, great job building one of the most successful companies in the history of the world and putting food on the table for over 640,000 people and for that deed now Bernie Sanders wants to take much more of your money.

Are the conditions at Amazon factories shitty? Of course. Reform that, don’t just throw money at the workers.

At the same time, how great would it be if that worker said “f this I can’t take it, I’m going to trade school.” Then they forced their kids to do well in school because they know first hand how much minimum wage sucks and then generations of kids all learn to hate trivial jobs and wages. That’s how you help people, not by paying them more for shit jobs.

You’re still ignoring the fact that the vast majority of jobs out there are shitty jobs. That isn’t going to change. Not everyone can be a manager. For every manager there is usually a dozen people under them.

I’d have to check the numbers but amazon has probably eliminated more jobs than it has created. And if he was worth ten billion dollars less then he probably wouldn’t even notice.

For that deed... lol he didn’t build amazon out of the goodness of his heart to provide jobs. He built it to get rich. And he’d still be filthy rich even with a wealth tax.

People like bezos benefit more from infrastructure and public goods than the average person because they utilize those goods for their business. I see no problem with them paying more to support those services and infrastructure.

Clearly you disagree and that’s fine.

 

[NoleSoup4U]

There’s nothing moderate about climate change denial. Or suggesting that your political opponents are traitors and criminals that should be locked up. Proposing that we spend billions of dollars to build a border Wall is not moderate. Gutting environmental protections is not moderate. Claiming that an impeachment probe is a coup is not moderate. There’s nothing moderate about trump.

The democrats ran a “moderate” in 2016. Clinton is a textbook centrist Democrat. How did that work out?

This is exactly what I was talking about before. Neither Bernie nor Warren are that far left. Tulsi is frequently mentioned in this thread as being more moderate and she has almost exactly the same platform as Bernie. According to polls he is the most favorable and trusted politician in all of Washington. The fact that Bernie repeatedly polled stronger against trump than Hillary did undermines your theory. She was within the margin of error for the last several months leading into the election.

I don't think I've seen Tulsi referred to as a moderate. Most of us like her because she isn't a career politician who would sell their constituents down the road for a Snickers Bar...like your boy Bernie.

As for climate change, the real radicals are the ones who won't even entertain a conversation. If you bring up any kind of red flag with the current climate change argument then you're shouted down and called a denier. You can't even attempt to refute one single portion of the argument, or you're a heretic. And do you know why that is? It's because the current argument is a house of cards, and those who have become alter boys, ready to receive their molestation from the state, will never concede a single point, no matter if they're right or wrong.

 

[NoleSoup4U]

Yes Josef, it is fair. The factory worker didn’t freaking build Amazon and give hundreds of thousands of people jobs.

Hey Jeff, great job building one of the most successful companies in the history of the world and putting food on the table for over 640,000 people and for that deed now Bernie Sanders wants to take much more of your money.

Are the conditions at Amazon factories shitty? Of course. Reform that, don’t just throw money at the workers.

At the same time, how great would it be if that worker said “f this I can’t take it, I’m going to trade school.” Then they forced their kids to do well in school because they know first hand how much minimum wage sucks and then generations of kids all learn to hate trivial jobs and wages. That’s how you help people, not by paying them more for shit jobs.

I don't believe we should be subsidizing Amazon at all (and I know you didn't say otherwise), but to the rest of that post...

 

[dadika13]

I'm mad that I laughed at this tweet. It's just so ridiculous.

 

[NoleSoup4U]

View embedded media

I'm mad that I laughed at this tweet. It's just so ridiculous.

Whether you like him or not, Trump is a funny mf'er. People who think he's stupid aren't paying attention.

 

[tarheel0910]

View embedded media

I'm mad that I laughed at this tweet. It's just so ridiculous.

That was excellent.

ETA: I just read through some of the comments and Bohemian Rhapsody was being quoted line by line from different people. Pretty funny.

 

[NoleSoup4U]

That was excellent.

ETA: I just read through some of the comments and Bohemian Rhapsody was being quoted line by line from different people. Pretty funny.

Funny stuff. I liked the #QuidProJoe hashtag.

 

[heelmanwilm]

I don't think I've seen Tulsi referred to as a moderate. Most of us like her because she isn't a career politician who would sell their constituents down the road for a Snickers Bar...like your boy Bernie.

As for climate change, the real radicals are the ones who won't even entertain a conversation. If you bring up any kind of red flag with the current climate change argument then you're shouted down and called a denier. You can't even attempt to refute one single portion of the argument, or you're a heretic. And do you know why that is? It's because the current argument is a house of cards, and those who have become alter boys, ready to receive their molestation from the state, will never concede a single point, no matter if they're right or wrong.

No its because fuknuts who get their science knowledge from you tube cartoons and the blatherings of goat herders 6000yrs ago want to dispute scientific findings. I suppose a lawyer or a doctor should “entertain” the musings of people without any training in their fields who want to second guess their knowledge based on political or religious beliefs?

 

[dadika13]

Lol did Nickleback ask to remove the video for copyright infringement?

This just got even better.

 

[tarheel0910]

Lol did Nickleback ask to remove the video for copyright infringement?

This just got even better.

If it was most of the song that would make sense, but it was all of 10 seconds and like five words. Just be honest and say you don't like Trump and don't want to be connected to him in any way.

*By you, I mean Nickelback.

 

[dadika13]

If it was most of the song that would make sense, but it was all of 10 seconds and like five words. Just be honest and say you don't like Trump and don't want to be connected to him in any way.

Most artists of any remote popularity don't want their music being used in politics. When you add in that most artists are liberal, this makes sense.

 

[tarheel0910]

Most artists of any remote popularity don't want their music being used in politics. When you add in that most artists are liberal, this makes sense.

That's a fairly new thing though. It started gaining popularity around the George Dub elections. Like I said, not wanting the whole song played is somewhat understandable (although I think it's stupid), but that was basically a gif. Nobody is going to connect Nickelback to Trump based on that.

 

[dadika13]

That's a fairly new thing though. It started gaining popularity around the George Dub elections. Like I said, not wanting the whole song played is somewhat understandable (although I think it's stupid), but that was basically a gif. Nobody is going to connect Nickelback to Trump based on that.

Dude they use the video of their (by far) most popular song. I completely understand this.

 

[tarheel0910]

Dude they use the video of their (by far) most popular song. I completely understand this.

No, they used a 10 second clip with five words. They didn't use the song. Nickelback got more press off this tweet than they have in the past 10 years. They should probably be thankful.

 

[Hark_The_Sound_2010]

Is it fair for amazon employees to get worked to death for garbage wages while bezos becomes the richest man in history?

I would assume they're all getting paid a fair wage for the services they provide. Otherwise, they would go take a better paying job if they were qualified to do something that would earn them more.

 

[dadika13]

No, they used a 10 second clip with five words. They didn't use the song. Nickelback got more press off this tweet than they have in the past 10 years. They should probably be thankful.

I actually think Trump missed a big opportunity for some kind of play on "and what the hell is on Joey's head" lyric regarding Joe Biden.

 

[tarheel0910]

I would assume they're all getting paid a fair wage for the services they provide. Otherwise, they would go take a better paying job if they were qualified to do something that would earn them more.

I love the term fair wage. It's a great way of saying "some people don't get paid enough, but we don't know what they should be paid and we want to be able to continue to complain no matter what the number is." In reality a fair wage is what the market thinks you're worth. If you're a fast food worker and you make $8 an hour, then that's what you are worth to the economy. It doesn't matter what you think you are worth.

 

[Hark_The_Sound_2010]

If you're a fast food worker and you make $8 an hour, then that's what you are worth to the economy. It doesn't matter what you think you are worth.

And truth be told, that worker is probably worth even less than that - but the government has intervened and set the minimum wage there.

We could encourage that worker not to make a career out of what should be a high schooler's side gig. Encourage them to go acquire better and more valuable skills that will in turn benefit both themselves (with higher wages) and society (with more valuable/important output). Or, we could just pay them more than they're worth to encourage them to stay in their current role and never allow society to reap any gains from their increased knowledge/productivity.

 

[tarheel0910]

And truth be told, that worker is probably worth even less than that - but the government has intervened and set the minimum wage there.

We could encourage that worker not to make a career out of what should be a high schooler's side gig. Encourage them to go acquire better and more valuable skills that will in turn benefit both themselves (with higher wages) and society (with more valuable/important output). Or, we could just pay them more than they're worth to encourage them to stay in their current role and never allow society to reap any gains from their increased knowledge/productivity.

What's ironic is the demand for higher wages in these low paying jobs is causing companies to look for ways to replace these people with machines. They are going to complain their way out of a job.

 

[strummingram]

When the currency is not sound, then a "Federal Minimum Wage" is just treating symptoms, not the disease. And, like the drugs for pain, the amount will have to increase because the disease is still there, but it takes more of the drug to mask the pain.

 

[strummingram]

What's ironic is the demand for higher wages in these low paying jobs is causing companies to look for ways to replace these people with machines. They are going to complain their way out of a job.

I think that is going to happen, regardless,

 

[uncboy10]

I would assume they're all getting paid a fair wage for the services they provide. Otherwise, they would go take a better paying job if they were qualified to do something that would earn them more.

Your assumption is wrong. Someone always has to work the low paying jobs. Even if everyone was qualified to work a better job, the demand outstrips the supply of better jobs. And individual workers do not have any bargaining power. It’s not like they can afford to hold out for a better job when they have to pay their bills. Firms know this, and without collective bargaining in the labor force they have no market power. Firms set the wages and workers either have to take it or go hungry.

The free market fundamentalist notion of how labor markets work is completely wrong. Almost everyone is replaceable, and firms have pretty much all of the market power. Especially when it comes to lower paying jobs. And there will always be more of those. Not everyone can be an executive or a manager. For every manager you need ten subordinates, and that’s how it goes all the way down the chain. The notion that people should just get themselves promoted to solve their problems is silly. Its mathematically impossible to solve income inequality that way.

Eventually automation and AI will eliminate most of the demand for human labor. Robots don’t need bathroom breaks and they can work 24/7. And the number of jobs that they can do better than people is increasing every day with no signs of slowing down. It’s going to take some fairly radical changes to our economic structure to avoid catastrophic levels of unemployment and poverty. But this is another problem like climate change that is slow moving so people pretend it doesn’t exist and choose not to think about it.

 

[uncboy10]

What's ironic is the demand for higher wages in these low paying jobs is causing companies to look for ways to replace these people with machines. They are going to complain their way out of a job.

People are going to be replaced by machines regardless. That started a long time ago and won’t be stopping anytime soon, even if you eliminated the minimum wage altogether.

I love the term fair wage. It's a great way of saying "some people don't get paid enough, but we don't know what they should be paid and we want to be able to continue to complain no matter what the number is." In reality a fair wage is what the market thinks you're worth. If you're a fast food worker and you make $8 an hour, then that's what you are worth to the economy. It doesn't matter what you think you are worth.

People seem to think markets are some magical thing that efficiently allocate resources/labor all of the time. They don’t. Prices and quantities get distorted from the efficient level most of the time, usually by externalities or an imbalance of market influence. Without collective bargaining, laborers have virtually zero market power. There’s no way for them to force companies to pay them more unless they just stop working, which they can’t do because they have to pay their bills. The price of labor in the labor market does not define the value to the economy. The value of your production does that. And the value of production will always exceed wages or else you just wouldn’t hire that person.

 

[nctransplant]

Marry someone who makes good money, problem solved.

 

[dadika13]

Eventually automation and AI will eliminate most of the demand for human labor. Robots don’t need bathroom breaks and they can work 24/7. And the number of jobs that they can do better than people is increasing every day with no signs of slowing down. It’s going to take some fairly radical changes to our economic structure to avoid catastrophic levels of unemployment and poverty. But this is another problem like climate change that is slow moving so people pretend it doesn’t exist and choose not to think about it.

Do you know how many new jobs that technology is creating?

How about this for a great future...instead of factory workers, we have 1,000,000 new jobs for people that need to build the robots to work in the factory. People in the US get great jobs building robots and they no longer need to do factory work that is back breaking.

Again, you're putting a band aid on a problem by paying trivial work $15/hr. We're freaking America, those jobs shouldn't be what we strive for. Let's be the country manufacturing robots, building code for the AI, and innovating technology.

That is the new Industrial Revolution and we should be out in front. You don't get out in front by pouring money into outdated job positions. That's how you get poverty because your country falls behind.

 

[uncboy10]

When the currency is not sound, then a "Federal Minimum Wage" is just treating symptoms, not the disease. And, like the drugs for pain, the amount will have to increase because the disease is still there, but it takes more of the drug to mask the pain.

The dollar is extremely sound. When was the last time someone refused to take dollars when you wanted to buy something?

Backing a currency with an arbitrarily valued commodity like gold doesn’t make it any more sound. Confidence in the currency as a store of value and unit of exchange is what makes it sound, regardless of whether it is fiat or commodity backed. Personally I’d prefer not to have the value of our currency tied to the fluctuating price of a commodity like gold.

 

[uncboy10]

Do you know how many new jobs that technology is creating?

How about this for a great future...instead of factory workers, we have 10,000 new jobs for people that need to build the robots to work in the factory. People in the US get great jobs building robots and they no longer need to do factory work.

Again, you're putting a band aid on a problem by paying trivial work $15/hr. We're freaking America, those jobs shouldn't be what we strive for. Let's be the country manufacturing robots, building code for the AI, and innovating technology.

That is the new Industrial Revolution and we should be out in front. You don't get out in front by pouring money into outdated job positions. That's how you get poverty because your country falls behind.

They eliminate far more jobs than they produce. People won’t be building the robots. Robots will be building the robots. Manufacturing has already largely shifted to automation, why would the manufacture of robots be any different?

AI will eventually take the place of programmers too. No human is going to be able to outperform a super computer.

This “striving to be better” talk is the fantasy I keep trying to hit at. Striving to be better is great. But there are not enough “better” jobs for everyone in the economy. You can call it trivial work if you want, but the bottom of the pyramid forms the base of the economy. If you want a society where you can go buy a burger anytime of day then someone had to flip those burgers. There will always be more burger flippers than restaurant managers. The idea that everyone needs to keep being promoted to earn a living wage leads to embedded growth obligations. You have to keep creating new higher paying jobs to fill the demand. But to justify more managers you need more burger flippers for them to manage and it never ends.

 

[strummingram]

Confidence in the currency as a store of value and unit of exchange is what makes it sound, regardless of whether it is fiat or commodity backed.

Right... it needs to be both. But, we don't have that. And, even to the extent that the illusion that we do have it, that illusion comes at a very costly price. Look at the collateral damage of the petrodollar.

Money needs to be a store of value and medium of exchange. The longer you have US Dollars, the less purchasing power they have. If someone had given me $100,000 dollars in, say, 1999; It's not even debatable that I could have actually acquired far more tangible goods THEN than I can NOW. The currency is not sound at all. And, you can insist that attaching "arbitrary commodities" doesn't make it more sound if you like. But, gold is still very highly valued. In fact, if I had the gold in 1999, that gold would still get me the same amount of tangible goods now as it would then. I'm not insisting that the money be attached to Gold, but we all know that the US Dollar is attached to more than just "confidence." Oil in the Middle East is all sold in US Dollars first. That's a commodity, for sure! That's why America has troops engaged and camped-out in those countries.

 

[dadika13]

They eliminate far more jobs than they produce. People won’t be building the robots. Robots will be building the robots. Manufacturing has already largely shifted to automation, why would the manufacture of robots be any different?

AI will eventually take the place of programmers too. No human is going to be able to outperform a super computer.

This “striving to be better” talk is the fantasy I keep trying to hit at. Striving to be better is great. But there are not enough “better” jobs for everyone in the economy. You can call it trivial work if you want, but the bottom of the pyramid forms the base of the economy. If you want a society where you can go buy a burger anytime of day then someone had to flip those burgers. There will always be more burger flippers than restaurant managers. The idea that everyone needs to keep being promoted to earn a living wage leads to embedded growth obligations. You have to keep creating new higher paying jobs to fill the demand. But to justify more managers you need more burger flippers for them to manage and it never ends.

It's only a fantasy to people like you who see things as you do. You don't help the factory worker by paying him more. You help him by educating him, having his kids educated, and by having their station in life improve with the opportunities that new education and our new economy provides.

Stop thinking about bandaiding a very short term problem. Make generational changes. Stop rewarding unskilled and uneducated labor/people.

You freaking want to incentivize more T-shirt factory workers in America by making their salaries high. I want those jobs to go to lesser countries than America and our jobs to be comprised 99% in the fields of tomorrow. There are new jobs being created daily in those fields and leading the charge there is how we keep our position at the top of the economic ladder.

 

[uncboy10]

It's only a fantasy to people like you who see things as you do. You don't help the factory worker by paying him more. You help him by educating him, having his kids educated, and by having their station in life improve with the opportunities that new education and our new economy provides.

Stop thinking about bandaiding a very short term problem. Make generational changes. Stop rewarding unskilled and uneducated labor/people.

You freaking want to incentivize more T-shirt factory workers in America by making their salaries high. I want those jobs to go to lesser countries than America and our jobs to be comprised 99% in the fields of tomorrow. There are new jobs being created daily in those fields and leading the charge there is how we keep our position at the top of the economic ladder.

I don’t really see the point of repeating myself again. But it’s mathematically impossible for everyone to just get a better job. The economy can’t function without people working the crappy jobs and there will always be more of those. Everyone can strive to be a manager, but one manager has to have multiple people working under them or there’s nothing to manage.

I’m not talking about t shirt manufacturing jobs. I’m talking about the production of basic day to day goods and services that we all consume. You can’t outsource line cook jobs to China. And like I said before, there will always be more line cook jobs than jobs for MBA’s.

Education works the same way. Embedded growth obligations exist in education too. One tenured professor might have a class of 20 prospective PhD’s and each of those want to become a tenured professor. Then you’ve got 20 professors who each need a class of 20 students who all want to become tenured professors too. It’s mathematically unsustainable. The idea that we can have 250 million high paying jobs is a fantasy. That’s not the way economic structures work.

New jobs are being created at a slower rate than old jobs are being eliminated and the gap is only going to get worse.

I’m not trying to “reward” people for being unskilled or uneducated. I just want there to be a federal law that requires their employers to pay them enough to pay for basic necessities. You shouldn’t be buying the new iPhone on minimum wage but you also shouldn’t be going without basic services or using payday lenders to make rent either.

 

[strummingram]

@dadika13 and @uncboy10

You guys are both making good points. There are A LOT of people in this country. And, from my experience, the majority are not ambitious go-getters. Not to mention, our economy is 100% consumption-based, as best I can tell. Or, maybe 90%. Nevertheless, guys like you need to try to work together instead of trying to outsmart the other.

 

[uncboy10]

Right... it needs to be both. But, we don't have that. And, even to the extent that the illusion that we do have it, that illusion comes at a very costly price. Look at the collateral damage of the petrodollar.

Money needs to be a store of value and medium of exchange. The longer you have US Dollars, the less purchasing power they have. If someone had given me $100,000 dollars in, say, 1999; It's not even debatable that I could have actually acquired far more tangible goods THEN than I can NOW. The currency is not sound at all. And, you can insist that attaching "arbitrary commodities" doesn't make it more sound if you like. But, gold is still very highly valued. In fact, if I had the gold in 1999, that gold would still get me the same amount of tangible goods now as it would then. I'm not insisting that the money be attached to Gold, but we all know that the US Dollar is attached to more than just "confidence." Oil in the Middle East is all sold in US Dollars first. That's a commodity, for sure! That's why America has troops engaged and camped-out in those countries.

The dollar is backed by confidence in the US government to back its bonds. Trading oil in dollars increases demand for dollars but it isn’t the reason the dollar has value. Most countries hold dollars in their currency reserves because they have more confidence in the US than any other country. It isn’t an illusion. You can buy food with dollars. You can buy a house with dollars. That’s not an illusion.

Inflation doesn’t mean a currency isn’t sound. It means that there’s more currency in circulation than there was in 1999, so the unit value of one dollar is less. But the inflation rate is lower than the average rate of return on passive investments like index funds. So if you had invested 100,000 dollars in 1999 the real value of that investment would be greater now than it was in 1999.

 

[dadika13]

@dadika13 and @uncboy10

You guys are both making good points. There are A LOT of people in this country. And, from my experience, the majority are not ambitious go-getters. Not to mention, our economy is 100% consumption-based, as best I can tell. Or, maybe 90%. Nevertheless, guys like you need to try to work together instead of trying to outsmart the other.

I enjoy the convo, it's good back and forth.

In terms of working together, while I'm never one to minimize my own impact on the world, I doubt him and I pooling our ideas together will have much of a change on America unfortunately.

 

[uncboy10]

@dadika13 and @uncboy10

You guys are both making good points. There are A LOT of people in this country. And, from my experience, the majority are not ambitious go-getters. Not to mention, our economy is 100% consumption-based, as best I can tell. Or, maybe 90%. Nevertheless, guys like you need to try to work together instead of trying to outsmart the other.

I’m not really trying to outsmart anyone but maybe it comes across that way. I agree with the sentiment that people should strive for the best job they can get. People should be ambitious. And we should incentivize that. But you don’t have to punish the people at the bottom to do that.

Ambition is a solution for the people who’s ambition leads to success. But the mean IQ is 100. Most people simply aren’t qualified to be executives or do advanced coding. My argument is simply that even if every single American pursued education and tried to acquire skills, we will run out of high paying jobs before everyone gets one. The supply of jobs decreases with each level you move up.

Therefore IMO we should make sure everyone that puts in their 40 hours should be able to afford basic necessities. I’m not even saying that number is 15 dollars an hour in every market. But I think it’s higher than 7.25 an hour. Wages have been flat while productivity and corporate profitability have skyrocketed. Laborers are getting screwed

 

[strummingram]

The dollar is backed by confidence in the US government to back its bonds. Trading oil in dollars increases demand for dollars but it isn’t the reason the dollar has value. Most countries hold dollars in their currency reserves because they have more confidence in the US than any other country. It isn’t an illusion. You can buy food with dollars. You can buy a house with dollars. That’s not an illusion.

Inflation doesn’t mean a currency isn’t sound. It means that there’s more currency in circulation than there was in 1999, so the unit value of one dollar is less. But the inflation rate is lower than the average rate of return on passive investments like index funds. So if you had invested 100,000 dollars in 1999 the real value of that investment would be greater now than it was in 1999.

I fully recognize that US Dollars are a medium of exchange. That part I agree with completely.

When you say "If you would have invested that $100k, the 'real value' would be greater now..." That's my point. That is an indication that the currency isn't truly sound. I would agree that it's sort of stable, but that is very subjective. This is leading to the discussion of fixing a mandatory "minimum wage." That wage will always have to be increased... always. It's never being lowered, is it? So, it's pretty obvious that the currency is always losing purchasing power. It MUST BE, or we wouldn't have to continuously increase wages across-the-board. Now, maybe that's just a constant variable that will remain intact. There's not much incentive to save money, really. The interest rates are rock-bottom, for the most part.

Did your economics degree have anything negative to say about central banking, the Fed, and how fractional reserve banking is dangerous? Creating "money" out of thin air seems to be hurting us. Inflation seems endless at this rate. The national debt can never be repaid, or even slowed-down! Being in perpetual debt is not the best place to be.

 

[Hark_The_Sound_2010]

The notion that people should just get themselves promoted to solve their problems is silly. Its mathematically impossible to solve income inequality that way.

I agree with this. Not everyone can get a better job, because there is a limited amount of "better jobs" that is smaller than the amount of people there are. Therefore, you need to be better than the guy next to you in order to get that better job, and thus, deserve the higher pay.

You're operating under the assumption that income inequality is a problem that needs to be solved. I disagree. Those that are better and more skilled deserve to make a higher income than those that aren't. Survival of the fittest and all that.

 

[uncboy10]

I agree with this. Not everyone can get a better job, because there is a limited amount of "better jobs" that is smaller than the amount of people there are. Therefore, you need to be better than the guy next to you in order to get that better job, and thus, deserve the higher pay.

You're operating under the assumption that income inequality is a problem that needs to be solved. I disagree. Those that are better and more skilled deserve to make a higher income than those that aren't. Survival of the fittest and all that.

I didn’t say they shouldn’t earn a higher wage for better jobs. My argument is that people in worse jobs should still earn a wage that allows them to afford basic necessities. Income inequality isn’t a problem because there is a non zero difference in wages. It’s a problem because the gap is so large that it’s unsustainable in the long run.

 

[uncboy10]

I fully recognize that US Dollars are a medium of exchange. That part I agree with completely.

When you say "If you would have invested that $100k, the 'real value' would be greater now..." That's my point. That is an indication that the currency isn't truly sound. I would agree that it's sort of stable, but that is very subjective. This is leading to the discussion of fixing a mandatory "minimum wage." That wage will always have to be increased... always. It's never being lowered, is it? So, it's pretty obvious that the currency is always losing purchasing power. It MUST BE, or we wouldn't have to continuously increase wages across-the-board. Now, maybe that's just a constant variable that will remain intact. There's not much incentive to save money, really. The interest rates are rock-bottom, for the most part.

Did your economics degree have anything negative to say about central banking, the Fed, and how fractional reserve banking is dangerous? Creating "money" out of thin air seems to be hurting us. Inflation seems endless at this rate. The national debt can never be repaid, or even slowed-down! Being in perpetual debt is not the best place to be.

The fact that the inflation rate is lower than the rate of return on index funds is evidence that currency isn’t sound? I’m not following you there.

Inflation happened before we went away from the gold standard. It’s not a problem that is unique to fiat currency. In fact if the federal funds rate is managed properly so that unemployment and inflation are minimized then it isn’t really a problem at all. It’s dumb to leave cash sitting around in the bank anyways. You always want your wealth to be earning for you.

The national debt is at a very manageable level when compared to our GDP. When interest rates are low, taking out debt is a smart decision because it’s cheap money. Saying that the federal reserve just creates money out of thin air is an over simplification. The Fed has become some giant boogeyman in the minds of many when that simply isn’t true. The fed prevented a catastrophic depression in 2008. Some of the most birilliamt economists in the world work for the fed to apply marcroeconomic tools that allow them to manage interest rates and unemployment.

Of course we study the downside of when those tools are mismanaged. There is a danger to keeping interest rates artificially low. That can create a bubble by causing the overvaluation of companies who take on large amounts of debt when the debt is cheap. But I’ve just heard so many conspiracy theories and nonsense that people learned on YouTube that it gets tiring talking about the federal reserve. Most people have no idea what they even do.