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Is minimum wage a lot?

Assuming a 40 hour work week, is minimum wage a lot?


  • Total voters
    42
  • Poll closed .
Even in your narrow-minded scenario the only property that needs "protecting" is the means of production - and that only needs protecting from damage and destruction. If it's not destroyed then whoever takes it can still use it for production. Doesn't matter which carpenter wields the hammer, the nail will still get driven into the board.


Tell it to Ayn Rand and her disciples ...




Which requires phone access - another monopoly in many areas. Take your pick of which monopoly you prefer.

No, it requires a satellite dish.
 
Society as a whole is being damaged, just as it is with pollution. You can't pin either down to one person/one cause but the damage as a whole is still there.

No person in society is damaged. It is a victimless crime.
 
No, it requires a satellite dish.
Not 10 years ago when I looked into that option - it took a phone line.


For that matter, I can't see anyone stringing up parallel phone lines in many places in the country even if they had the option. It still leaves one company for the one-horse towns and I doubt that will ever change - not enough of a market to justify competition.


PS
You do realize the Fed had to actually finance electrical power lines in many parts of the country? The power companies weren't stopping at every little town even when they got close with a high-voltage (transmission) line because it wasn't worth the investment to provide service to them.
 
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No person in society is damaged. It is a victimless crime.
Just like pollution virtually everyone is damaged. There's just no way to prove individual damage from an individual source.
 
Just like pollution virtually everyone is damaged. There's just no way to prove individual damage from an individual source.

Actually you're wrong. Nobody has their body or property damaged being paid below a given wage. Nobody. Not one single person.
 
Even in your narrow-minded scenario the only property that needs "protecting" is the means of production - and that only needs protecting from damage and destruction. If it's not destroyed then whoever takes it can still use it for production. Doesn't matter which carpenter wields the hammer, the nail will still get driven into the board.

Hm, well I guess we have differing definitions of capitalism, so I can't say I support capitalism as understood by you. If you consider a society in which nobody has property rights and in which the strong may legally take the property of the weak to be capitalism, well then I will go on records as saying that I most certainly don't support such a society.

I am in favor of a society with a legal institution of property and ownership, with laws that protect property from theft, damage, and various other violations. I am in favor of a society with contract law, so that property can be legally transferred from one party to another.

I certainly don't support a society where "might makes right" is an accepted mode of personal interaction.
 
Like I keep saying, many of these people working minimum wage jobs have no business doing so, they are only working them because they have failed to be responsible their entire lives. Other than for reasons entirely beyond one's control, no adult ought to be working a minimum wage job.

Here is my income for the last 11 years.
2003 $14,269.09
2004 $17,540.55
2005 $23,082.84
2006 $22,486.64
2007 $23,108.60
2008 $26,400.05
2009 $24,666.34
2010 $22,204.23
2011 $11,859.24
2012 $12,664.64
2013 $15,832.92

What do you think my punishment should be for 2011 & 2012 since I didn't do what I ought to do? I earned less than minimum wage times 2,080 for those 2 years.

Any suggestions on the punishment that I should be forced to endure?

What else can you say with absolutely certainty based upon this data?
 
Actually you're wrong. Nobody has their body or property damaged being paid below a given wage. Nobody. Not one single person.
Nothing like a race to the bottom to turn us into a third world country ...
 
Nothing like a race to the bottom to turn us into a third world country ...

Well, I disagree with your economic theory, but that's not the point. The point is that the initiation of violence is not justified, and force ought only to be used in response to acts that damage the person and property of others. For the government to punish people for not paying some desired wage is, in itself, and initiation of aggression, since the wage payer has not damaged any person or any person's property.
 
What do you think my punishment should be for 2011 & 2012 since I didn't do what I ought to do?

you should be forced to come onto an internet forum and whine about it on a daily basis.....
 
Here is my income for the last 11 years.
2003 $14,269.09
2004 $17,540.55
2005 $23,082.84
2006 $22,486.64
2007 $23,108.60
2008 $26,400.05
2009 $24,666.34
2010 $22,204.23
2011 $11,859.24
2012 $12,664.64
2013 $15,832.92

What do you think my punishment should be for 2011 & 2012 since I didn't do what I ought to do? I earned less than minimum wage times 2,080 for those 2 years.

Any suggestions on the punishment that I should be forced to endure?

What else can you say with absolutely certainty based upon this data?

For the last time, because I've explained this over and over and over again and you people don't seem to be able to get it through your heads and keep throwing out these same old straw men, I'm specifically talking about people who have *NEVER* earned more than minimum wage because they have no job skills, no education, etc. I am not talking about people who, through no fault of their own, had problems when the economy tanked.

So please, enough straw men.
 
Well, I disagree with your economic theory, but that's not the point.
That IS the whole point when part of that hypothesis includes the system-wide damages paying below minimum wage would precipitate.


The point is that the initiation of violence is not justified, and force ought only to be used in response to acts that damage the person and property of others. For the government to punish people for not paying some desired wage is, in itself, and initiation of aggression, since the wage payer has not damaged any person or any person's property.
But people ARE getting hurt from it. System-wide economic damage, regardless of how small it may be for any one individual, is just as - if not more - harmful than identifiable damages to any one individual.
 
I am not talking about people who, through no fault of their own, had problems when the economy tanked.

You have no way of knowing if it was my fault or not. This is the only data that you get. It would be chaotic to have laws that legislated motives. There is plenty of gray area to define someone as a scum bag. Some people might consider all people to be scum bags. The law has to be in black and white. If you are going to punish one person for making a low income then you will have to punish all persons for making a low income.

That's why we have the rules that we do. Government officials have to make laws logically. The government can't just go after a group of people they hate to satisfy their own egotistical fantasies.

Does that make any sense to you? You have to punish people who do bad things fairly and justly.

P.S. I don't think making a low income is criminal activity.
 
you should be forced to come onto an internet forum and whine about it on a daily basis.....

Does this apply to all people making less than $15,080 per year? Does it apply to less people? Does it apply to more people? Who would be subjected to this punishment?
 
You have no way of knowing if it was my fault or not. This is the only data that you get. It would be chaotic to have laws that legislated motives. There is plenty of gray area to define someone as a scum bag. Some people might consider all people to be scum bags. The law has to be in black and white. If you are going to punish one person for making a low income then you will have to punish all persons for making a low income.

No, I don't know and I don't care. I've already made it clear what kinds of people I was talking about, if you fit into that category, then I'm talking about you. If not, then I'm not. This isn't about motives, it's about the expectations that a healthy society needs to have. We need to have the expectation that everyone is going to be personally and financially responsible for their own lives. We do not currently have that expectation because we live in a largely liberalized country where responsibility is a dirty word. That needs to change.

That's why we have the rules that we do. Government officials have to make laws logically. The government can't just go after a group of people they hate to satisfy their own egotistical fantasies.

Yet they don't and we all know it. They make laws that appeal to their voter base so they continue to get elected. We no longer have legislators who act in the best interests of the country.

P.S. I don't think making a low income is criminal activity.

No one said it was. However, being irresponsible ought to hurt people, such that they learn not to continue being irresponsible. Under our current system, being irresponsible gets one rewarded with a government check.
 
Under our current system, being irresponsible gets one rewarded with a government check.

Did you get this information from Rush Limbaugh or do actually know how welfare programs work? A lot of this crap is severely exagerrated.

If you could get rich by being poor, you would have already done it by now. The notion is completely ludicrous. Our country would have already collapsed if it worked this way.

Ignore me. Tune it to Rush Limbaugh from 12pm-3pm every day Monday thru Friday. :roll:
 
Did you get this information from Rush Limbaugh or do actually know how welfare programs work? A lot of this crap is severely exagerrated.

If you could get rich by being poor, you would have already done it by now. The notion is completely ludicrous. Our country would have already collapsed if it worked this way.

Ignore me. Tune it to Rush Limbaugh from 12pm-3pm every day Monday thru Friday. :roll:
As I understand the....narrative?...it runs something like this:

If you have no job or make less than a certain amount, the Gov will support you by giving you monies - this equates to rewarding people for not working and/or working less.

I don't think anyone ever claimed you could become rich by being poor.
 
Yet they don't and we all know it. They make laws that appeal to their voter base so they continue to get elected. We no longer have legislators who act in the best interests of the country.
That's the fault of the people old enough to vote, not the politicians. They're just playing the game we want them to play ... but that discussion should probably be saved for another thread.
 
Did you get this information from Rush Limbaugh or do actually know how welfare programs work? A lot of this crap is severely exagerrated.

If you could get rich by being poor, you would have already done it by now. The notion is completely ludicrous. Our country would have already collapsed if it worked this way.

No one says you can be rich, but you certainly won't die by being poor and there are lots of people who are too lazy to go out and better their own lives and are satisfied by having their hands out instead of bettering themselves.

Ignore me. Tune it to Rush Limbaugh from 12pm-3pm every day Monday thru Friday. :roll:

No thanks. In fact, Rush just moved his show from the talk station I listen to so now I don't have to avoid the blowhard.
 
That's the fault of the people old enough to vote, not the politicians. They're just playing the game we want them to play ... but that discussion should probably be saved for another thread.

I agree with you, the politicians are getting away with what the voters allow them to get away with. That doesn't make it right and the stupidity of the American voter and the dishonesty of the American politician is what's gotten us into the mess we're in.
 
That IS the whole point when part of that hypothesis includes the system-wide damages paying below minimum wage would precipitate.

I understand that is your theory, but I don't agree.

But people ARE getting hurt from it. System-wide economic damage, regardless of how small it may be for any one individual, is just as - if not more - harmful than identifiable damages to any one individual.

But no individual is having his property taken from him or having his person damaged. There is no damage. None. There are simply no victims. There are only people who are not being paid what your theory says they ought to be paid, and you consider this "systemic damage". You're just making stuff up to support your position.
 
I agree with you, the politicians are getting away with what the voters allow them to get away with. That doesn't make it right and the stupidity of the American voter and the dishonesty of the American politician is what's gotten us into the mess we're in.
Why are we stupid, though? I use "we" here to refer to the american people...

I mean....what caused it? Or was it always the case? And if so....what does THAT mean?
 
I understand that is your theory, but I don't agree.



But no individual is having his property taken from him or having his person damaged. There is no damage. None. There are simply no victims. There are only people who are not being paid what your theory says they ought to be paid, and you consider this "systemic damage". You're just making stuff up to support your position.
No inherent level of compensation for work done exists.

We create artificial systems that provide such, but at a base level, there is no such requirement.

The only really inherent requirement is what degree of threat an individual will accept in return for their labors.
In one case it might be the threat of injury or death to themselves or their family/friends (slavery/forced labor).
In another case, it might be the threat of reduced pay or firing (what we have in the US, for the most part).

Laws were written to prevent the former. Laws may end up being written to prevent the latter, in time. I wonder what happens then? Back to the former, probably, just in a different guise...
 
I understand that is your theory, but I don't agree.
Then we'll agree to disagree.


But no individual is having his property taken from him or having his person damaged. There is no damage. None. There are simply no victims. There are only people who are not being paid what your theory says they ought to be paid, and you consider this "systemic damage".
It precipitates a race to the bottom where (virtually) everyone looses. That's what I call "damage", yes.


You're just making stuff up to support your position.
Funny, I feel the same way about you and your green colored glasses where reality is ignored for the sake of unattainable idealism.
 
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