"Sorry we are closed nobody wants to work here anymore due to government handouts"

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I mean in a free market society if a business refuses to pay what employees demand and they go out of business then isn't that how it works? I mean it is just like an employee becoming unemployed because a business refuses to pay more, can't make the bills, and has to move on. Seems to be a major double standard in a lot of peoples minds that people that want to be employed should deal with a shitty situation to make a business happy but a business always has the right to start take a dump on an employee whenever they feel the need.

Yeah, some businesses won't be able to pay the higher demand and thus they go under. Then you have fewer jobs and more competition for those jobs so wages can settle down to where they belong. Yes, right now the government is putting a hand on the scale a bit for people on unemployment but the government has ALWAYS had a hand on the scale for business owners that enjoyed lower tax rates and loop holes for what is probably SEVERAL generations now and what did these businesses do with it? Squandered it by business owners making themselves wealthier than their means actually deserves and running businesses on such a thin red line that any movement AT ALL in the employees favor sends them overboard.

These people suck. The sector needs some cleaning out. It is a shame and a lot of people that aren't used to it will have to get their hands dirty again but that is life. The people that have been working damn near slave wadger so the boss could get another boat or spend 50 grand a year hunter deer in Alaska for 2 weeks WILL manage this situation fine. The people that abused the shit out of them? Well.. they are probably REALLY worried right now.

[Endus]

I'm pointing out how temporary the situation we find ourselves in is. I would comment on @Endus post but I would fall under evil by his definition.

Is it that you realize your views are unethical and inhumane as they're predicated on the creation and maintenance of human suffering for the benefit of others? Or just that you can't think of a counterargument and are unwilling to admit that you're maybe wrong about a thing?

I would propose removing both hands from the scale and letting demand and supply naturally balance. It would mark me as evil though by endus's logic but it would be the most sustainable way forward.

There is no "natural balance". You're also ignoring (or perhaps, deliberately avoiding) that said "balance" is fundamentally unbalanced by the existence of duress on only one side of the equation, that of the workers.

If we told people to sign a contract or their children will go without food and they'll end up homeless in the street, that would be considered an unlawful threat and that kind of duress would render such a contract null and void, legally speaking. But that duress is present in every labor negotiation, and gets to skate by as it's only indirectly present; the potential employer is not personally responsible for the state of duress, they're simply exploiting it for their own gain, at the expense of workers.

None of this is "sustainable". It only ever lasts until the workers get fed up with being bled for the rich, and then the workers do things like invent the guillotine because they're slaughtering the rich in such numbers they need a more time-effective and reliable means to use for the process. The boom-and-bust cycle of capitalist economies is similarly not "sustainable"; it's constantly veering away from boom cycles into recessions, and only barely pulling itself out, and generally only doing so through exactly the kind of interference that you're bemoaning.

We tried a capitalist system with no fingers on the scale. The 19th and through the early 20th Century Industrial Revolution. The outcome was egregious income inequality, people working 16-18 hour days 6-7 days a week just to make so little money that their children would have to work by age 6-8 if they wanted to eat. It was an economy that flipped from boom to bust so badly it ruined economies; the Great Depression was the final straw that forced governments to respond, but the Great Depression has that adjective "Great" for a reason; it was not by any means the first Depression, just the latest in a long string.

Feel free to browse the list if you doubt me; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

The idea that a free and unchecked capitalist economy would be sustainable is an absolutely ridiculous idea that has been conclusively and repeatedly debunked by reality.

[Zan15]

I mean in a free market society if a business refuses to pay what employees demand and they go out of business then isn't that how it works? I mean it is just like an employee becoming unemployed because a business refuses to pay more, can't make the bills, and has to move on. Seems to be a major double standard in a lot of peoples minds that people that want to be employed should deal with a shitty situation to make a business happy but a business always has the right to start take a dump on an employee whenever they feel the need.

Yeah, some businesses won't be able to pay the higher demand and thus they go under. Then you have fewer jobs and more competition for those jobs so wages can settle down to where they belong. Yes, right now the government is putting a hand on the scale a bit for people on unemployment but the government has ALWAYS had a hand on the scale for business owners that enjoyed lower tax rates and loop holes for what is probably SEVERAL generations now and what did these businesses do with it? Squandered it by business owners making themselves wealthier than their means actually deserves and running businesses on such a thin red line that any movement AT ALL in the employees favor sends them overboard.

These people suck. The sector needs some cleaning out. It is a shame and a lot of people that aren't used to it will have to get their hands dirty again but that is life. The people that have been working damn near slave wadger so the boss could get another boat or spend 50 grand a year hunter deer in Alaska for 2 weeks WILL manage this situation fine. The people that abused the shit out of them? Well.. they are probably REALLY worried right now.

its not even a free market when businesses have managed to tilt all the laws and regulations in their favor. Hell the even managed to get the govt to stop paying unemployment benefits. That is not a free market.

unemployment should pay exact wages when you lose a job up to a very high income level depending also on assets of the individual. Why work 30 years and have unemployment paid based on your employment only to live off nickels on the dollar if you lose your job?

the whole unemployment system needs a total overhaul. The taxes paid are way too low and the amount paid out is even worse. Also workers should bear a little bit of the burden as well to make it a complete safety net. I also think taxes should be levied based on how much money a company profits. It should also be effected by how much they layoff over a given time period to be a multiple added to their tax.

[Glorious Leader]

It's a competition between what the lowest the company can pay vs what the worker will accept

- - - Updated - - -



It's the reality of the market... its absurdity to try and claim its fantasy.

Well I'll give you some credit this at least contains a passing amount class analysis.

A wage is not a competition in the usual meaning of the wage its rather a negotiation and "what labor is willing to accept" is a function of the society that surrounds it. They be less willing to accept wage servitude if they had a UBI.

- - - Updated - - -

I would propose removing both hands from the scale and letting demand and supply naturally balance. It would mark me as evil though by endus's logic but it would be the most sustainable way forward.

The hand on the scale favors capital. Eliminating the hand on the scale would be the end of capitalism.

- - - Updated - - -

Is it that you realize your views are unethical and inhumane as they're predicated on the creation and maintenance of human suffering for the benefit of others? Or just that you can't think of a counterargument and are unwilling to admit that you're maybe wrong about a thing?



There is no "natural balance". You're also ignoring (or perhaps, deliberately avoiding) that said "balance" is fundamentally unbalanced by the existence of duress on only one side of the equation, that of the workers.

If we told people to sign a contract or their children will go without food and they'll end up homeless in the street, that would be considered an unlawful threat and that kind of duress would render such a contract null and void, legally speaking. But that duress is present in every labor negotiation, and gets to skate by as it's only indirectly present; the potential employer is not personally responsible for the state of duress, they're simply exploiting it for their own gain, at the expense of workers.

None of this is "sustainable". It only ever lasts until the workers get fed up with being bled for the rich, and then the workers do things like invent the guillotine because they're slaughtering the rich in such numbers they need a more time-effective and reliable means to use for the process. The boom-and-bust cycle of capitalist economies is similarly not "sustainable"; it's constantly veering away from boom cycles into recessions, and only barely pulling itself out, and generally only doing so through exactly the kind of interference that you're bemoaning.

We tried a capitalist system with no fingers on the scale. The 19th and through the early 20th Century Industrial Revolution. The outcome was egregious income inequality, people working 16-18 hour days 6-7 days a week just to make so little money that their children would have to work by age 6-8 if they wanted to eat. It was an economy that flipped from boom to bust so badly it ruined economies; the Great Depression was the final straw that forced governments to respond, but the Great Depression has that adjective "Great" for a reason; it was not by any means the first Depression, just the latest in a long string.

Feel free to browse the list if you doubt me; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

The idea that a free and unchecked capitalist economy would be sustainable is an absolutely ridiculous idea that has been conclusively and repeatedly debunked by reality.

Oh everyone of those fucking prick asshole economists was clutching their copies of fuckimgg Hayek and rand while pleading for the state to intervene after wall street crooks tanked the economy. Its was hilarious to see so the proponents of so called free markets groveling for the teet of the state.

And that's what none of these pricks will ever say. Maybe they'll admit it in private and some are just deluded but they all deep down understand that they aren't actually interested in less government or no states or free markets.

[Krakan]

Is it that you realize your views are unethical and inhumane as they're predicated on the creation and maintenance of human suffering for the benefit of others? Or just that you can't think of a counterargument and are unwilling to admit that you're maybe wrong about a thing?



There is no "natural balance". You're also ignoring (or perhaps, deliberately avoiding) that said "balance" is fundamentally unbalanced by the existence of duress on only one side of the equation, that of the workers.

If we told people to sign a contract or their children will go without food and they'll end up homeless in the street, that would be considered an unlawful threat and that kind of duress would render such a contract null and void, legally speaking. But that duress is present in every labor negotiation, and gets to skate by as it's only indirectly present; the potential employer is not personally responsible for the state of duress, they're simply exploiting it for their own gain, at the expense of workers.

None of this is "sustainable". It only ever lasts until the workers get fed up with being bled for the rich, and then the workers do things like invent the guillotine because they're slaughtering the rich in such numbers they need a more time-effective and reliable means to use for the process. The boom-and-bust cycle of capitalist economies is similarly not "sustainable"; it's constantly veering away from boom cycles into recessions, and only barely pulling itself out, and generally only doing so through exactly the kind of interference that you're bemoaning.

We tried a capitalist system with no fingers on the scale. The 19th and through the early 20th Century Industrial Revolution. The outcome was egregious income inequality, people working 16-18 hour days 6-7 days a week just to make so little money that their children would have to work by age 6-8 if they wanted to eat. It was an economy that flipped from boom to bust so badly it ruined economies; the Great Depression was the final straw that forced governments to respond, but the Great Depression has that adjective "Great" for a reason; it was not by any means the first Depression, just the latest in a long string.

Feel free to browse the list if you doubt me; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

The idea that a free and unchecked capitalist economy would be sustainable is an absolutely ridiculous idea that has been conclusively and repeatedly debunked by reality.

I think I'm correct about the end state of things but it's something I would be ecstatic about being wrong about.

I just don't think you can have that large of a class of people supported by others in any society for extended periods of time without dire ramifications.

Eventually it breaks down consumption my be balanced at least to some extent with production.

[Glorious Leader]

I just don't think you can have that large of a class of people supported by others in any society for extended periods of time without dire ramifications.

Agreed. Thats why I'm in favor of taxing capital gains HEAVILY. Talk about a large class of people being supported by others....

[Low Hanging Fruit]

its not even a free market when businesses have managed to tilt all the laws and regulations in their favor. Hell the even managed to get the govt to stop paying unemployment benefits. That is not a free market.

unemployment should pay exact wages when you lose a job up to a very high income level depending also on assets of the individual. Why work 30 years and have unemployment paid based on your employment only to live off nickels on the dollar if you lose your job?

the whole unemployment system needs a total overhaul. The taxes paid are way too low and the amount paid out is even worse. Also workers should bear a little bit of the burden as well to make it a complete safety net. I also think taxes should be levied based on how much money a company profits. It should also be effected by how much they layoff over a given time period to be a multiple added to their tax.

I think you misunderstood my free market take since it was mostly a sarcastic jab a business owners always screaming free market unless it's not to thier advantage.

As for the unemployment revamp, cool I guess. I really don't have a problem with your solution but I don't pretend to be an expert at creating government programs.

[Endus]

I think I'm correct about the end state of things but it's something I would be ecstatic about being wrong about.

I just don't think you can have that large of a class of people supported by others in any society for extended periods of time without dire ramifications.

You realize the biggest "leecher" class out there is the wealthy, right? They are, almost without exception, supporting themselves off the largesse of the productive capacity of others.

That's literally the point of capitalist theory. That's the whole economic system in a nutshell.

Eventually it breaks down consumption my be balanced at least to some extent with production.

Assuming you meant "must"; that consumption "must" be balanced with production, this grossly misinterprets how production functions.

An increase in consumption is an increase in demand. That increased demand either provokes a comparable increase in production to keep pace with demand, or (in cases where resource limitations hit), cause prices to increase on the product in question, improving profitability.

Consumption drives the economy. It's a consumer-based economy. Trying to limit consumption violates the entire economic basis the known world operates upon.

[Mihalik]

Consumption drives the economy. It's a consumer-based economy. Trying to limit consumption violates the entire economic basis the known world operates upon.

Never ceases to amaze me how ardent defenders of capitalism don't seem understand supply and demand.

Supply side economics really wrecked havoc.

[Endus]

Never ceases to amaze me how ardent defenders of capitalism don't seem understand supply and demand.

Supply side economics really wrecked havoc.

The weirdness to me is when they get their own precepts wrong like that. Like, I can "get" when people don't understand market socialist theory, or something. Maybe they just don't know, maybe they've been sold a lie, whatever. I'll explain! It's fine.

But when staunch capitalists don't understand capitalist theory?

Why the hell do you even have a position, in that case?

Baffling.

[Zan15]

I think you misunderstood my free market take since it was mostly a sarcastic jab a business owners always screaming free market unless it's not to thier advantage.

As for the unemployment revamp, cool I guess. I really don't have a problem with your solution but I don't pretend to be an expert at creating government programs.

well it was more an addition to your statement then something against it.

Also its not creating a govt program, its enhancing it to update it to something a little less then 50 years old standards

[Krakan]

The weirdness to me is when they get their own precepts wrong like that. Like, I can "get" when people don't understand market socialist theory, or something. Maybe they just don't know, maybe they've been sold a lie, whatever. I'll explain! It's fine.

But when staunch capitalists don't understand capitalist theory?

Why the hell do you even have a position, in that case?

Baffling.

I assume they think along lines like myself where those good that become prohibitively expensive are not optional luxuries but necessities people are unable to go without. Now I can see your counter point already that there are those that struggle now to meet those very needs. I simply see something like ubi as accelerating the issue rapidly. I see it as an unsustainable short term boon that would lead to a rapid population growth that would increasingly rely on a shrinking supporter class to function.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Imagine a wealthy dude giving up the ability to buy his 87th yacht or 23rd mansion real estate venture so that a few thousand people can consume enough calories to get by. NOPE, CAN'T DO IT. THOSE PEOPLE WANTING CALORIES ARE LEECHES.

/s

What a fucking joke to read some people's posts. UBI is hardly unsustainable. We have such a massive over production of food, and 108 billion pounds of food go to waste every year in the US. We have people who own half of an entire city, people who are so wealthy they don't even know how much they have, they just let their massive team of accountants handle it. Anyone who says the US can't sustain UBI is fucking stupid. And that's all there is to it.

[kamuimac]

Imagine a wealthy dude giving up the ability to buy his 87th yacht or 23rd mansion real estate venture so that a few thousand people can consume enough calories to get by. NOPE, CAN'T DO IT. THOSE PEOPLE WANTING CALORIES ARE LEECHES.

/s

What a fucking joke to read some people's posts. UBI is hardly unsustainable. We have such a massive over production of food, and 108 billion pounds of food go to waste every year in the US. We have people who own half of an entire city, people who are so wealthy they don't even know how much they have, they just let their massive team of accountants handle it. Anyone who says the US can't sustain UBI is fucking stupid. And that's all there is to it.

you do realise that the moment you will try to put to much tax on those people they will just move their wealth somewhere else by trasfering off profits in form of investments while leaving costs" at home " .

and then the ones sponsoring UBI will be those who scream laudest about how amazing UBI will be aka poor people .

thats why poor people are poor - such bad economical knowledge it hurts when you read the marksist propaganda they pass as their own opinions.

[Glorious Leader]

I assume they think along lines like myself where those good that become prohibitively expensive are not optional luxuries but necessities people are unable to go without. Now I can see your counter point already that there are those that struggle now to meet those very needs. I simply see something like ubi as accelerating the issue rapidly. I see it as an unsustainable short term boon that would lead to a rapid population growth that would increasingly rely on a shrinking supporter class to function.

Right... but capital gains... which just like UBI is income entirely divorced from labor.. is... sustainable? Literally every argument you bring up can be levied against the entire concept of capital as a whole and we seem to do okay paying folks out.

[kamuimac]

So this sets some standards;
1> Every human being should be able to live in at least a modicum of comfort. This means food, shelter, clothing, services, some modicum of entertainment, etc. If you don't agree with this, then your point of view is predicated on an intended level of human suffering and subjugation, and we can discard your opinion as just straight evil.
2> The amount in #1 is called a "living wage".
3> Families have to exist, so said living wage has to cover children, and if you're not supporting a spouse, then you need to be supporting child care and such.
4> If you want to maintain your employees in good health as a responsible employer, you should thus be paying that living wage, at a minimum. Any less, and you're expecting the government to pick up your slack, on the taxpayer's dime, which is abusive self-interest. Or you want your employees to suffer, in which case, yeah, we're back to "evil".

.

1) food - anyone workign has no problem buying food - shelter ? shelter doesnt mean 5 room penthouse but it may mean 1 room in communal flat rented from someone else. clothes ? plenty of cheap clothes in 2nd hand shops/internet
2)you are mistaking "licing wage "for "living comfortable life wage"
3)they dont - there is already to many people in world - it would be only good for enviroemtn if poor people stopped having kids they annot afford to have
4)employee in bad health can be always fired and replaced by on in good health . if countries could stop subsidising peopel who leech of social support they could put in bilions into healthcare systems to help provide peopel who deserve it with much better healthacare - provinding much better help for employees and keeping them healthier.

[Glorious Leader]

so seize their assets...

Or at the very least implement some form of capital control.

[segara82]

1) food - anyone workign has no problem buying food - shelter ? shelter doesnt mean 5 room penthouse but it may mean 1 room in communal flat rented from someone else. clothes ? plenty of cheap clothes in 2nd hand shops/internet
2)you are mistaking "licing wage "for "living comfortable life wage"
3)they dont - there is already to many people in world - it would be only good for enviroemtn if poor people stopped having kids they annot afford to have
4)employee in bad health can be always fired and replaced by on in good health . if countries could stop subsidising peopel who leech of social support they could put in bilions into healthcare systems to help provide peopel who deserve it with much better healthacare - provinding much better help for employees and keeping them healthier.

1. Actually they have, as food stamps and other subsidies are necessary to keep the working population somewhat fed, and cheap foods are among the most unhealthy you will find in any supermarket, too much salt and/or sugar. Similar no one demands huge amounts of room or designer clothes, but there is a big gap between barely enough to scrape by and Hollywood/Wall Street elite amounts of waste.
2. actually no, in Roosevelts adress he clearly states that he means a living wage is so that you can live, not only be kept alive. Big difference.
3. And now you drop your mask and show us how much of a misanthrope you really are.
4. see 3.

[Twdft]

you do realise that the moment you will try to put to much tax on those people they will just move their wealth somewhere else by trasfering off profits in form of investments while leaving costs" at home " .

and then the ones sponsoring UBI will be those who scream laudest about how amazing UBI will be aka poor people .

thats why poor people are poor - such bad economical knowledge it hurts when you read the marksist propaganda they pass as their own opinions.

Those people could do that already. They already use every loop hole and tax evasion to pay as little as possible. And they are still here. They won't go if you tax them more, just as they didn't go when they were taxed more a couple decades ago. This fairy tale of "oh noes capital is a timid fawn easily startled to run away" is just that. A fucking fairy tale.

Also: if you have a million dollars already you can spend maybe half an hour to open an account and buy some S&P 500 ETFs which will probably net you $30.000 a year. A concept easily explained to even the stupidest person. But poor people don't have a million bucks and will have to work their ass off whole year round to make $30k.

[Edge-]

Those people could do that already. They already use every loop hole and tax evasion to pay as little as possible. And they are still here. They won't go if you tax them more, just as they didn't go when they were taxed more a couple decades ago. This fairy tale of "oh noes capital is a timid fawn easily startled to run away" is just that. A fucking fairy tale.

It's hilarious to me people still believe this. The rich folks people clutch pearls for, claiming they're going to totes start evading taxes and exploiting every loophole if we tax them a bit more? They're all already doing that shit. Literally, it's been going on and will never stop. Weird considering this is a topic that's seen consistent reporting on for decades, yet people still don't seem to think that there's rampant tax evasion constantly ongoing.

Especially corporations, many of which pay precisely $0 in actual taxes on their income.

Also: if you have a million dollars already you can spend maybe half an hour to open an account and buy some S&P 500 ETFs which will probably net you $30.000 a year. A concept easily explained to even the stupidest person. But poor people don't have a million bucks and will have to work their ass off whole year round to make $30k.

Those poors, they just need to try to stop being poor for a bit. It's all their choice to be poor, they could just take out a small $1M loan from a family member and start their own real estate business. IT'S SO EASY!