We are at a point where people will be needing multiple millions of dollars in the bank it they want to even consider retirement.
It should not be like this.
We are at a point where people will be needing multiple millions of dollars in the bank it they want to even consider retirement.
It should not be like this.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
If you can't retire it's your fault for not applying yourself and pursuing the American Dream!
It has nothing to do with socioeconomic factors determined solely by circumstances of birth. And if you think they affect it you are just a negative nelly pissant.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
So the problem is there are rich people and there are poor people? We can ship all the poor people to an island I suppose. Like Lord of the files? Maybe that will fix thingsQuoting megladon8 (view post)
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
And yet my father, whose government pension is more than 3 times what I make working, spends days on end complaining about how he "just doesn't know how he'll make ends meet."
Baby boomers ruined the world, and are the most vocal about how hard they have it.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
"When I was your age, I had a car, an apartment, and put myself through school! I worked part time bagging groceries, then got a job right out of college paying me 150k. Why can't you get your life together?"
"When you were my age, rent wasn't 95% of the average salary, and minimum wage was a fairer reflection of the cost of living."
Honestly, when you look at the numbers, comparing minimum wage from, say, the mid 70s to minimum wage now, and the way cost of living has escalated, today's minimum wage should be close to $35/hour.
And yet there are still people saying that they don't see a problem.
It is completely, utterly mind-boggling.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
I dunno if it's the income or the relative cost of things that matter.
You can live a pseudo-luxurious but still middle class life (as represented by brands like Banana Republic, Pottery Barn, Starbucks, JCrew, Apple, Chipotle, Samsung, etc) for relatively little money. Consumer goods are ridiculously cheap. Mass entertainment is ridiculously cheap.
The problem is that things that matter are exorbitantly more expensive than they were thirty or forty years ago. Healthcare. College. A new home.
I saw a chart the other day about this. During the 1970s, the average tuition cost for Yale University was $2,000. Minimum wage was around $2-2.30 per hour. Which means you could pay for Yale by working a part time job.
Today, Yale's tuition is $46,000. Federal minimum wage is around $7 an hour.
Exactly.
LIVING has become more and more and more expensive every year, but wages have barely gone up at all.
People mock America for obesity problems but rarely link that to poverty. It is significantly cheaper to buy shit food than it is to buy anything healthy or good. Poor? Buy chips, candy, soda and fast food, cause fruits and vegetables and quality meat are rarely (if ever) a viable option.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Isn't that printed on our money? Right below "In God We Trust."
It's a simple fact that, for the vast majority of people, wages have not kept up with inflation and the cost of living. This is the problem with income inequality. The poor aren't just poor. They are poorer now than they have been historically. The middle-class, the large group of people that supports a consumer driven society, is shrinking faster than ever, while the extremely wealthy have more and more money that they aren't spending. A person can only buy so many mansions, rolexes, etc., before they just stop spending and start saving/investing. Historically, the middle-class spends the most money, and supports the consumer and service driven society in which we live. Why? Because there were vastly more middle-class people than there were extremely wealthy. For every rich person that bought a loaf of bread or a new car, there were hundreds of middle-class people doing the same. But as the gap between the rich and middle-class (I'm not even talking about the poor here) gets wider and wider, and the wages of the middle class continue to not keep up with inflation and the cost of living, then there will not be enough people spending enough money to support our way of living.
It's going to topple. Hard. And when it does, it is going to be very, very ugly. An ugly that humanity probably has not ever seen.
I hope Canada lets me in when this country goes to shit.
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And everybody wants to be special here
They call your name out loud and clear
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Call out your name
Here comes a regular
Am I the only one here today?
Blocked at work. You still haven't told me what the problem is.
No minimum wage should not be that high. People think minimum wage should be this nice safety net. Where you can walk into a job with no experience, no skills and expect to be paid equal to someone with a college degree. No. Minimum wage should be a motivator. It should not be something you make a career out of. It should not be a job where you feel comfortable.
Check out the 30s, look at today, and then get back to me.
I don't know where you're getting you're information. If you're going to argue something, at least get facts right and dont just spew out opinions. We have it worse now than the 1930s? No. Salaries are not keeping up with inflation? No. The average salary in 1970 in my field was $15,000. The average salary in 2007 was $60,000. That seems to fall inline with inflation pretty well.
Last edited by Dukefrukem; 03-03-2015 at 12:19 PM.
The only thing I agree with you is the Baby Boomer fucked us. And that's 100% accurate. The zero regulated mortgage crisis was that generation sucking the wallets dry of America. People were banking on selling their houses and making off with that acquired wealth- but it wasn't real wealth. It was artificially inflated. The good news it affected everyone, including the ones pocketing the money.
For my take, I'm gonna essentially plagiarize an article I read a few months back. The danger with the widening income gap, is that as an increasingly smaller and smaller percentage of Americans control an increasingly larger and larger percentage of the wealth, we're essentially creating a permanent oligarchy, where the interest on their investments alone will be more than they could possibly spend, would accumulate at a rate faster than inflation, and they'll just keep getting more and more money without doing much (if anything) to help the economy, and passing the wealth down the generations who will just sit on their piles of money and watch it continue to grow, to the point that there will be such a concentration of money in such a tiny spot, that the middle class will essentially become a non-factor (at worst) or a trivial factor (at best) in the US economy. And at that point, the middle class will go away. Think 19th century Russia, where there were essentially a gentry with all the money, and a serfdom with the table scraps.
The solution is to admit that trickle down economics has been a colossal failure, and anyone with even the most basic understanding of human nature should have seen this. Humans are out to promote self interest. Ayn Rand, republican demigod has volumes arguing this point, and she's right. It is not in the self interest of companies to take the tax breaks they get from the government and "trickle them down" the ladder. It is in their self interest to keep the money they save to maximize their profitability and benefit their share holders. They'd be stupid not to.
The alternative? What is called "Middle Out" economics: roll back those corporate handouts, close tax loopholes, scale back some of the ridiculous expenditures the government makes on things like military spending, and pump that into the middle class in the form of tax relief and other stuff. The middle class would take a lot of that money and start buying stuff - it is in their self interest to do so - and of course, the upper class would benefit from all that extra revenue coming into the companies that they control, even if it means they would take hits on the expense side.
Losing is like fertilizer: it stinks for a while, then you get used to it. (Tony, Hibbing)
Having low income is a piss poor motivation. Not wanting to work at McDonalds should be the motivation for not working at McDonalds. But if you don't mind working at McDonalds, you should still be able to make a good living doing it.
The whole "I went to college and work in desirable fields so I deserve to make more money" thing is blegh.
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That situation you're talking about Bacon, is very real, but also very very far away from reality.
There should be more companies like Valve.
Movie Theater Diary
The entire point of minimum wage is that it is supposed to be the minimum liveable wage. Liveable.
$7/hour is not liveable. If you work full time at $7/hour, you are below the poverty line.
Salaries are NOT keeping up with inflation, and they haven't in a long time. This is a fact. Just because everything is fine and dandy in your job doesn't mean that everything is fine for everyone else.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Is it though?? What would motivate you to make money? The same non-skilled job everyday for the rest of your life? Sounds like motivation to me. Work for your job. Work for your career. Go to a trade school, a community college, a state school, a private institution. Why do you think the top 100 University list is touted so much? Because of the rich?
A 4 year FULL TIME, BA is not a staple in "America Works". You still need to prove you actually learned something. You still need to prove yourself in the work force. And your salary is a reward for your work. It's so fucking simple.
Livable is subjective. The minim wage does not exist to alleviate poverty.
Minimum wage hasn't kept up with inflation you're right. It's off by about $3. Should be ~$10/hour.
That's the exact reason it exists. Anyone should be able to work a minimum wage job (full time) and be able to survive.
That is not the case. Not even close. The entire system is screwed.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
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