And They Said it Wouldn't Happen

[Del.]

I don't know for a fact but my guess is the percentage of people who have most of the wealth is probably less today than a century ago.

[BrianP.]

Larry honest question. Where do you think the bottom wage should be? How much should an unskilled person make? $15? $20? $30?

You know many of those people who are in that 10 percent are people like my bosses. They started with nothing and risked everything. Now the company does 7-8 million a year. It's not all CEO's and corporate exec's.

[beej]

You can learn a lot about economics by feeding horses. I feed my horses grain in the pasture. As hard as I've tried it's almost impossible to make sure that the horses that are lower on the pecking order get the same amount of feed that the horses on the higher end do. the best thing that could happen is for the horses on the lower end of the pecking order would just decide for themselves that they are not letting the other horses steal their feed.

There are some solutions none of them are perfect.

You can increase the feed to the point that you have some horses that are a little too fat, but the lower horses  still have adequate feed. that's essentially capitalism

You can put the fat horse in a stall while the other ones eat, but then the number 2 horse takes over the number 1 horse's role and steals feed. that's Socialism



There is one solution however that does work. You can lock them all up in individual stalls. However, the horse is never free to be a horse.  that's Communism.

[beej]

Wealth is not income.

That's true. I have a lot of friends that have farms that are worth 8-10 million because of the land, but they really don't make that much in income and live, like lower middle class.

[neurosis]

That looks like an analogy that works better with sports than a Country full of people struggling to pay their bills.   

[BrianP.]

Look at the chart on that wiki page. Prior to 2016 States were already consistently raising their minimum wages (Federal minimum wage increases).  Only half continued after the Federal minimum wage hit the wall in 2012. Even then, only a hand full rose to $15 per hour. That's hardly "nation wide".  In fact, half of the Country stagnated. Arguing that 4 States and DC raising their wage above the National average when more than 20 haven't raised their minim wage in over 10 years, and that is what caused the 25% price increases across the country doesn't make sense to me.  .

Chart for reference -

Each state is different. It does not cost as much to live in Tennessee as it does in Massachusetts. That's why a national minimum wage is ludicrous. Each state needs to determine what the needs of their people are and set things accordingly. There is a reason that some states are way more expensive to live than others and usually it starts with the amount of government oversight. The more the government gets involved the more expensive it gets.

[neurosis]

Each state is different. It does not cost as much to live in Tennessee as it does in Massachusetts.

I agree that if there is going to be a minimum wage imposed, it should be at the local level. The Eastern part of Washington State doesn't resemble the West side in any way. $15 an hour in a farm town with a population of 1200 doesn't make as much sense as it does in a City of 700,000 with an average rent of $2500 a month.

[mkd]

I agree that if there is going to be a minimum wage imposed, it should be at the local level.

as long as you acknowledge that minimum wage laws BAR non-skilled people from working at a commensurate wage in order to gain those skills. Gov't isn't the answer. Resistance is futile...you will be assimilated//.

[CNCAppsJames]

It's amazing how the right wing media diverts attention from the upper 10% of the earners getting 70%ish of the wealth and have people believing the problem is the people at the bottom of the earners are getting too much.

Fkn inexplicable. 

See, I always knew you lacked fundamental economic understanding... this right here is a glaring example of yournfull blown ignorance for all to see.

"Earning" is not a zero sum game. Just because someone makes XXXX does NOT mean you can only make X. You are free to earn as much as humanly possible. YOU are the only one that is holding youloo back.

[CNCAppsJames]

You know smit, it's not a finite pie....

Seems that most of those whining people don't want to take a single lick of responsibilty for lifting themselves up...
It's always someone else's fault...

As long as it's always someone else's fault, they will always amount to nothing...

For whiny entitles self righteous leftists it's a finite pie.

😆😅🤣😂😆😅🤣😂😆😅🤣😂

Idiots that didn't pay attention in High School Economics class. 

[Del.]

I'd say there are more middle class people with $100,000 to over a $1,000,000 in retirement funds than ever before. It's that the rich are massively wealthy compared to us.

[CNCAppsJames]

What would be helpful is if we defined things in meaningful terms. "Rich" doesn't tell anyone shit. It's a relative term. Compared to my18 year old kid that makes like $18/hr I am rich. Compared to a Fortune 100 CEO most likely I am poor. NOBODY in the AE game is "poor". Some do better than others. It's called a pareto distribution otherwise known as life. Even top X percent is relatively useless. Someone says they are in the top 1%. Ok. That's "only" like $400k. A good machine tool salesman or realtor in certain markets can pull that down. People say "rich" or "top x%" and it's almost a pejorative term. 

Let's be honest. All those terms do is drive class envy whichnis COMPLETELY amd totally unproductive by ANY meaningful metric. It doesn't change tax policy. It doesn't change anyone's lot in life. 

I don't begrudge a CEO that pulls down tens of millions in stock options. Shoot... that's pretty cool. Few nations on earth can someone do that. I believe I won the lottery being born here.

[JakeL]

You can learn a lot about economics by feeding horses. I feed my horses grain in the pasture. As hard as I've tried it's almost impossible to make sure that the horses that are lower on the pecking order get the same amount of feed that the horses on the higher end do. the best thing that could happen is for the horses on the lower end of the pecking order would just decide for themselves that they are not letting the other horses steal their feed.

There are some solutions none of them are perfect.

You can increase the feed to the point that you have some horses that are a little too fat, but the lower horses  still have adequate feed. that's essentially capitalism

You can put the fat horse in a stall while the other ones eat, but then the number 2 horse takes over the number 1 horse's role and steals feed. that's Socialism



There is one solution however that does work. You can lock them all up in individual stalls. However, the horse is never free to be a horse.  that's Communism.

I have never been able to understand government structures. No matter how many times my history teacher explained it to me. But this, this makes sense.

[Del.]

[RobertELee]

https://youtube.com/shorts/Mu3QWqhu0_o?feature=share