son of witless

I disagree on the minimum wage, but most of the rest we seem to be on the same side. I do find your assertion that many on the left do not like illegal immigration to be surprising. You are possibly the first to say that to me.

Morgan

Why don't you do some research before you do your anti-party blather?

Morgan

I use to be a precinct leader, met many Democrats,(left party to become an independent/unaffiliated) believe me when I talk about false propaganda, and our enemies are the people antagonizing us against each other, just as they've done to people on the right. It is up to us to stop this destructive chatter.

son of witless

I wish you well. I am Conservative, but both my kids are Liberal. When we get together we try to avoid any political discussion because it never ends well. And I totally avoid politics on facebook. A couple of them went at it there and it got ugly real fast.

Morgan

Do your kids believe in actual socialism? Or are they simply trying to address some social issues?

Do you realize while everything has gone up drastically, minimum wage has been unchanged for a decade?

son of witless

You make 2 separate points and I will try to give you my thoughts with out running them together. Both are social liberals. The older one is not so rigid as the younger one. The younger was a hard core Bernie fan. She always has a chip on her shoulder. Since Bernie lost in the primary, Trump's victory was surprisingly easy on her. The older one was in tears and sure her world was collapsing when Hilary lost.

You and I have zero common ground to discuss the minimum wage. You see it as a fairness issue and I see it as strictly economic. I do not believe in a minimum wage at all. Here is my rationale. All companies pay as little as they can. Anyone getting good money is getting it because their employer is forced to pay it because they cannot get anyone for less. Brain surgeons get more money than bathroom attendants.

Some jobs are just not worth paying very much for. If you force an employer to pay more than a job is worth he will just eliminate that job. You may have a young kid starting his first job and he is not worth much to his employer until he is trained and learns to show up on time every day. You may also have an older worker who just cannot do his job anymore, but you don't want to let him go. If you have the option to pay both of them less, you can hold onto them. The young kid may in time become very valuable and you can then pay him more as he warrants it. The old guy you may just be able to hold onto long enough to get him to retirement age.

Either way, if they both become too expensive relative to what they are worth to your bottom line, you will let them go now.

Morgan

Before I answer you on this, first, please show me where you gather that for me it is a fairness issue and not economic?

son of witless

I am not sure what you want. I am giving you my personal opinion. If we argue what is fair, I do not have a leg to stand on. You are totally right. It is not fair that some people are working for low wages compared to others.

However, we live in the real world, not some theoretical experiment. If being fair and raising the minimum wage actually worked, actually helped low wage workers, then I would say yea lets do it. The problem is that raising the minimum wage hurts low wage workers. Now when you google it, you can find studies that say raising the minimum wage does not result in job losses. I have read those studies and in my opinion they are flawed. Here is an article supporting what I say. You can dismiss it or cite an opposing article.

https://www.businessinsider.com/minimum-wage-leads-to-job-losses-2017-3

Again I am telling you what I believe. That is all I know how to do.

Morgan

I think I understand you better, but what I'm talking about is completely economical. Yes people should get paid what their job is worth, but what begins to happen when there are too many people looking for work, many employers take advantage of this, and though their profits may have doubled they will still pay the laborer the same for years, as inflation goes up. A person will literally be making less money per hour three years later if his wages have never increased. People who are so desperate do not say anything afraid to lose their job...they ar then being exploited. It's a lot like price gauging when fuel is in shortage and gas stations take advantage, which is now illegal. People get taken advantage of in the same manner.

For example, a kid working at Mc Donald's ten years ago, though making the same amount today, is actually making less than the person ten years ago, especially with the rise of the cost of living. How far does twenty-one bucks go today? About four items in the grocery store. A kid has to work three solid hours for whatever he spent that twenty bucks for. You can't even take a girl to the movies with that, or buy a pair of pants.

son of witless

I totally agree. However, I disagree on the solution. Under Obama we had 8 years of raising the minimum wage. We had the take over and destruction of the American Health Care System. 8 years of Socialist remedies. 8 years of people taking multiple part time jobs, because of regulations increasing the cost to employers of full timers. 8 years of government writing more and more regulations, as if that fixed anything.

Now we have the exact opposite approach being tried. Less regulation, less taxes. So far the results are good. But why ? Would n't those evil greedy selfish bastards who own every freaking thing just keep the money and screw the workers anyway. Yea, sure they would, if they could. Why not ?

So why aren't they just keeping wages low, like under Obama ? Because they want their businesses to grow, so they can get even richer. Plus every other rich greedy bastard owner wants his business to grow. What is happening is the number of jobs is growing faster than the amount of workers, even though many workers who permanently dropped out, are coming back in. There still are not enough workers, especially skilled ones. My generation, the baby boomers are retiring. That is leaving a great big hole.

During the last 10 years America was not training enough skilled Blue Collar workers because the market for them sucked. Everybody wanted to be a high tech millionaire. The two facts of my generation retiring and the economy picking up, means a labor shortage and higher wages for everyone.

I see two shortages right now. All of the fast food joints around me are furiously competing at the low end. Walmart is raising wages for it's truck drivers to almost $ 90,000 per year because they can't get enough drivers. That is how you raise the wages and living standards of workers.

Morgan

No, we didn't he was able to raise it once, when he first got into office, in 2009, that was it. After that, the Republican House would never allow an increase in minimum wage.

There were no socialistic remedies, the ACA was a market place, people still had to pay, some did get assistance. People took part-time jobs because of the slow rise of the economy due to the Republican obstructionism with every Obama move for recovery, to intentionally make him a lame duck, sabotaging his efforts to be successful. NOT due to regulations, that's absurd. What regulations to full-time workers, it's different for every state.

The only people who have benefited from deregulation are the industrialist who are now dumping and getting away with murder, being completely irresponsible for the waste THEY produce.

I'll come to a close here tomorrow is another day. You have a good night

son of witless

A pleasure speaking with you.

pafret Loc: Northeast

And there you have the reason why illegal immigrants need to be kept out of the country. They compete for lower paying jobs and depress wages for citizens. These illegals eventually become better at their jobs and are given more responsibility but not commensurate wages because they are illegal and exploitable.
This then begins to encroach on those who spent time and money to learn their trade and the better paying positions now become wage depressed as well.

pafret Loc: Northeast

The house was not controlled by the Republicans for six years of Obama's Presidency. If the minimum wage was not hiked it was because the Democrats wanted it that way.

Morgan

I agree