that falls in the lap of employers. sadly...i don't see that happening with some companies out there.

second of all...I don't think it all confidence. Our household dept is/ was approaching our GDP. thats unsustainable. Either we keep borrowing and busting, or we fix he problem of the middle class and poor not having enough money. Trickledown and giving big companies more money is a nice thought...but it doesn't work. Under that system they're supposed to give all this money right back to use poor rabble. except the don't as fast as it need to happen for it to be viable.

I think it's time we try it the other way around. but im sure Steve will just give these vague "oh that won't work" answers.

:rotfl2:

Where have I been vague? And where have I said one thing or another won't work. I don't know that it won't work, and I don't claim to have any answers. But you keep sayihng that workers need to be paid more, then admit that employers aren't likely to do this on their own. All I've done is ask you to explain how you want to make this happen. Once again you say that one thing won't work, so we should try the opposite. But you don't say how you want to accomplish this. So, which of us is being vague here?

Like Steve said, there's be a decided lack of vagaries with regards to your suppositions. Your notion that everyone must simply make more money doesn't work with any accepted economic theory.

Furthermore, this idea that employers must pay more only accounts for half of the equation. Employers aren't hoarders of some mystical, unlimited fund of cash which could potentially solve the problems of the world's laborers. To pay more simply for the sake of it means that one person will be recieving money that belonged to someone else. That's called redistribution of wealth.

Think: one man owns a small business which employs 20 full-time hourly workers. Should that business do well, he makes excellent returns. Should it do poorly, it is HIS money that takes the hit. On average he makes $100k a year. It is completely his risk. His hourly workers will make the same regardless.

With his average earnings, he pays a mortgage, sends his 2 children to private school, and vacations twice a year. He's assumed the complete risk of his business, and is enjoying the fruits of his success.

Now, let's say we take those 20 full time employees and give them a $1/hour raise. A simple math check says that works out to $41,600 per year. Where do you think that comes from?

Now this man is only making, on average, $58,400 annually. On that he's supporting his wife and children. $58K is not all that much money, really. His wife must now find a job. He can no longer afford to send his children to excellent schools.

And when his business has a bad year, that comes out of HIS money. Maybe he can't even pay his mortgage, one year. Business closes down.

21 people out of work.

Or, more likely, that raise will just prompt him to reduce his workforce to allow him to continue to make the money that justifies his RISK in continuing to run a business.

In any case, your idea costs jobs.

And now, what about corporations? Same principle, except now the money comes out of the markets (including, say, retirement funds). Shareholders demand dividends equal to their earnings prior to this raise everyone gets, when it comes to publically traded companies.

Again, jobs are lost.

I'm not certain what your position on this is, but it seems as though you would be one to resent the very corporations that employ so many Americans in that they simply don't compensate well enough. However, small businesses remain heavy employers. Now, you could demand the corporations simply pay more and exempt the small businesses, and just wish those small business owners luck then in finding quality people. Or maybe you can demand across the board raises for all employees nationwide, thusly giving yet another incentive for small businesses to shut down due to their owners not seeing the proper reward-to-risk ratio and seeking the more secure life of corporate work.

In any case, your theory that, somehow just having people make more money holds absolutely no water whatsoever. Ultimately money is the measurement of production (hence the terms Gross Domestic PRODUCT and Gross National PRODUCT). If you raise the amount of money in motion without proportionately increasing the amount of production that money represents, you cause inflation, meaning you've given no one a thing. Rather, you've redistributed the production from certain sectors to whichever other sectors are most in a position to benefit from said redistribution, without regard to their true long term value which can most adequately be determined through production TRENDS and not production SPIKES.

On other words, you would weaken necessary industry while strengthening boutique industry in the name of redistributing wealth ... you'd be destroying one sustainable, small business owner who employs 20 people and replacing him with another positioned to profiteer temporarily upon that displacement, who hires maybe 5 people due to your policies.

Pardon the wall of text, but I hope that was specific enough for you to at least attempt to give context to your arguments.

I don't think that August is a troll.

That would be me. lol :salute:

:o I remember hearing those stories, but always figured that it was exaggeration. Looks like I was wrong.

Interesting story August, the one I read in a history book during my school years was.....at the height of the depression, people would queue with a barrow full of money to purchase a loaf of bread.

Looks like barrows were necessary in those days simply to be able to move around with enough money to buy something tangible :DL

I'll scan the bill if I remember tonight and i'll post it here if anyone is interested in seeing it.

Scanning it for al to see is fine, it doesn't change the fact that it is years off from the event you relate it toand comes from an exceptionaly unique set of circumstances.
To add insult to injury it undermines Aramikes claim about "REAL" money(caps lock stikes again:up:) as the emergency currency backed by goods that were either not in existance or already under different ownership plus deeds that were practcly valueless were not of any worth anything at all until the government backed it as credtable(even though their credit rating was through the floor).

Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing it matey :up:

A 50 million mark note


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:50...ember_1923.jpg
no longer legal tender by the time of the great deppression.
I wonder how many of them would fit in a wheelbarrow or how many you have to take into a pub for a stein while leaving the price of a loaf outside in an incredibly valuable asset?:doh:
Nice story, but pure bull.

Oh boy the "small business defense" that one hasn't been run into the ground.
Im not necessarily talking about the tiny companies out there. Small business owners like my boss aren't really to blame. Im not talking about them. heck, my boss pays me more than the union says he has to. Im talking about the large companies that Make the vast majority of the money but have been cutting positions, benefits, wages...you name it for profit.

may i remind you all that the ratio of wages to the GDP is the LOWEST it has been since the started keeping track in 1947. Obviously something is wrong.

America is on the way down. Now Europe can try to care for themselvses.

there will be blood.

Me too, if you have time.

Oh boy, the "run into the ground put-down". That one hasn't been run into the ground as well?

Believe it or not, we all agree that there is a problem. The nature of the problem and the solutions are up for debate. At the risk of becoming redundant, I'll ask again: What is your solution? I know you want employers to pay more, but how exactly do you mean to make them pay more?