• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

50% of occupations today will no longer exist in 2025: Report

Simpler yes, but for a variety of reasons, I'm not a huge advocate of socialized healthcare.

I do support socialized health insurance though (big difference).

Yeah that's what I was talking about.
 
But I thought the progressive argument was that welfare produced twice as much economic activity that it costs to put out, or some such BS...?

Not quite twice as much, no, but a dollar spent on food stamps results in more than a dollar's worth of economic activity. Why does that sound ridiculous? Someone just barely scraping by will save every dollar they can, spend as little as possible. With a little relief they have a couple bucks to spend on a movie ticket every once and a while, so now that person buys food and a movie ticket.

Now, you might say "but they only had that food money because they got it from me and my tax dollars." This is true. Theoretically, we could have left that money in your pocket and you could have spent that money, resulting in similar economic activity. But there's diminishing returns to that. Someone making twice as much money doesn't buy twice as many movie tickets, or twice as many loaves of bread, twice as many cars, and twice as many televisions. Bill Gates has thousands of times my personal wealth, but he doesn't own thousands of more televisions!

Now, don't do what we both know you're about to do.
 
Last edited:
"Employers should not be required to offer benefits..."
just for clarification, employers shouldn't have to offer medical or retirement benefits.....
 
just for clarification, employers shouldn't have to offer medical or retirement benefits.....

Just for clarification, if you penalize employers who use overtime or part time workers, you are reimposing Blue Laws in effect and businesses will be closed on holidays and weekends when everybody else is off work and wanting to go shopping. It is a bad concept because it will never comport with the needs of commerce.
 
Just for clarification, if you penalize employers who use overtime or part time workers, you are reimposing Blue Laws in effect and businesses will be closed on holidays and weekends when everybody else is off work and wanting to go shopping. It is a bad concept because it will never comport with the needs of commerce.
well, I suppose that none of us KNOW what is coming....
Jobs that require 24/7 attendance will be a snag, but easier to overcome than massive structural unemployment.
I worked rotating shifts for a time, it wasn't pleasant, but it was required.....it was a nuclear power plant.
People who have to work weekends can be given time off during the week. Postal workers get a day off during the week
to compensate for working saturdays. A day off during the week is nice, you can go shopping without having to fight the traffic and crowds.
As for the needs of commerce, they probably said that when work weeks were far more than 40 hours.
Commerce can just adapt to the needs of society. Having lower unemployment is better over all.
 
well, I suppose that none of us KNOW what is coming....
Jobs that require 24/7 attendance will be a snag, but easier to overcome than massive structural unemployment.
I worked rotating shifts for a time, it wasn't pleasant, but it was required.....it was a nuclear power plant.
People who have to work weekends can be given time off during the week. Postal workers get a day off during the week
to compensate for working saturdays. A day off during the week is nice, you can go shopping without having to fight the traffic and crowds.
As for the needs of commerce, they probably said that when work weeks were far more than 40 hours.
Commerce can just adapt to the needs of society. Having lower unemployment is better over all.

The 40 hour week was the result of Henry Ford researching and determining that was when his workers were optimal producers.
 
just for clarification, employers shouldn't have to offer medical or retirement benefits.....

unless they have agreed to it by contract, is there anything requiring them to offer retirement and medical benefits
 
Here's a question for everybody.

Do you believe that the captains of industry, the owners, the 1%, whatever you want to call them, in this country, would let us slide into a near permanent depression if it meant adding a little more to their bottom line?

Isn't that exactly what is happening?

I mean, if there is more wealth in fewer hands then businesses will follow the money. I recently told a story about a pair of orange women's sandals that cost $800. Were talking about a sole and two thin pieces of leather to hold them on you're feet.

Now it's not that $800 for a article of clothing that clearly isn't worth $800 that is my point, it's the fact that this was in a department store, not in NY city, or Rodeo drive in Beverly hills, but Lord and Taylor store in Richmond VA.

Now this is just one small out of context example, but if you look around there are lots of examples of everyday objects that serve very little additional function and cost much, much more. They are items that confer status.

I'm also reminded of the new building in NY city that overlooks central park. I think I read that some of the condos in this monstrosity are $65 million. If you haven't seen it....

http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/gridfs/543d27a0f92ea11d78005495/432_Park_Avenue-(CIM-Group-and-Macklowe-Properties).jpg

I set it as a pic, but it's huge....

Anyway....The money is still here and businesses will cater to those that can pay and what's becoming increasingly apparent is there are fewer and fewer people that can afford to buy discretionary items to.
 
Just for clarification, if you penalize employers who use overtime or part time workers, you are reimposing Blue Laws in effect and businesses will be closed on holidays and weekends when everybody else is off work and wanting to go shopping. It is a bad concept because it will never comport with the needs of commerce.

Not really. No business is going to close during a peak shopping time to avoid hiring more workers.

Sales is what creates profits, not cutting operating expenses. Without sales, it's impossible for a company to make money. Without operating expenses, it's also impossible for a company to make money. So why would any business chose to cut operating expenses at the cost of a reduction sales?
 
unless they have agreed to it by contract, is there anything requiring them to offer retirement and medical benefits

You mean other than Obamacare (for medical)?
 
Just for clarification, if you penalize employers who use overtime or part time workers, you are reimposing Blue Laws in effect and businesses will be closed on holidays and weekends when everybody else is off work and wanting to go shopping. It is a bad concept because it will never comport with the needs of commerce.
no, blue laws forbade businesses from operating during those (usually religious) spans
even if the demand existed for them to operate during blue law periods they could not
if business finds that the rewards (profitability) of remaining open during blue law periods is greater than not operating during those times, be assured the businesses will hire the staff to open and operate. that IS the basic nature of business

just read post 209. that said it much better than this post
 
Not really. No business is going to close during a peak shopping time to avoid hiring more workers.

Sales is what creates profits, not cutting operating expenses. Without sales, it's impossible for a company to make money. Without operating expenses, it's also impossible for a company to make money. So why would any business chose to cut operating expenses at the cost of a reduction sales?

Businesses do not have much control over their sales.
 
unless they have agreed to it by contract, is there anything requiring them to offer retirement and medical benefits

a shortage of skilled workers have the advantage, they can demand it.....not sure that is as true now as a few decades ago...
 
Businesses do not have much control over their sales.

Sure they do. That's why they hire salespeople, and advertise, and have displays, and try to offer quality products at attractive prices. Any business can increase it's sales, as long as customers have a few bucks in their pockets. Demand is the only limiting factor that any business has, that's why our economy is demand driven (and not supply side driven).

I got a buddy who works for a major consumer finance company, and he is basically a troubleshooter. If a branch isn't making enough loans, he will go to that branch and teach them how to get customers. He told me that he once went to a branch that basically had no business, and found the employees just sitting around waiting for customers to come in. When he asked them why they don't have customers, they just said "we dunno, I guess no one wants to borrow money". He told them that they needed to go get customers, and he took the branch manager with him to find customers. They put up signs in target neighborhoods, and even visited some retail electronics stores. At the electronics stores, he spoke with the managers and some of the sales staff, gave them a handful of business cards, and told them that when they had customers who didn't have the money to purchase, to refer the customers to his branch office. By the end of that first day, that location had made something like a dozen new loans, by the end of the week they had people waiting in line to borrow money.

I could increase my sales if I got up off my lazy arse and made some sales calls instead of just sitting around picking the low hanging fruit.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom