So what happened to the explanation of how rich people don't get rich by hoarding money and white parents are greedy for wanting their kids to have an education that will give allow their kids to compete in a dog eat dog society with no safety net ?

Lol absolutely not !!!
I would love you to give us some graph about that !
More than 50% of American live pay check per pay check !
Health care , the united states as the most costly system in develop country by like 50 % and less coverage on term of % population on top of that .
The wealth gap as reach level like the 1930 ( hint it was the Great Depression ..) .

That the problem with the right , they think/beliefs America is the greatest country but it actually it is far from it now ...

But yeah lot of immigrants are happy to come to the US simply because the dollar is more valued than poorer country. .

Let me telll you about economic theory ....
One of its biggest fail is the trinkle down economy for the last 40 years that instead of bringing more wealth to the bottom just expand the wealth gap to dangerous level ....

Why you think populism as emerge now with trump and the crazy guy in Brazil and other part of he world .

Basically. Because the redistribution of money is failing and the wealth gap expand but unfortunately, too many imbecile trumpeter knows **** about economy and so trust a narrative that it’s good for them even tho it’s a lie .
Like trump dropping corporation tax that will help the common people ...

I rather trust guys that actually know how the economy works and made billions over 40/50 years as proof like ray Dalio and warren buffet than a teacher at school that didn’t do **** beside reciting theory that works half the time.

Almost everything is arbitrary.
We just need to find a good economic goal that fit a proper standard of living that is acceptable by the majority .
Minimum wages imo ain’t difficult to find a sweet spot for the right salary .
If you have a job that pay less than the line of poverty even tho you work 40 hours a week , well I’m sorry to say but it ain’t Real job .
It might good for a student but than again , a student should be studying not working much .

If you have a company that have no choice to pay it’s worker below the poverty line , sorry to say but it just mean that this company simply isn’t viable and should close it’s door instead of perpetuate poverty that eventually In a near futur would have to close its door anyway .

rising minimum wage isn’t that costly because those people will still spend all the money they will get but at least they will have a little better life and will in effect lower a lot of problems like criminality and other problems.

Look today , are the states really better now ?
The government just had to spend trillions because more than half it’s population don’t have money to spare because of low wages ....
That ain’t better .

Better to have a bit of inflation with decent minimum wage and better standar of living that lower criminality than having the economy the united states have with its astronomical debts that will eventually crush the US dollar with big issues for the futur .

Can't make economics fit an ideology of what you think people should make. That's my deeply held belief.

Nothing ideological about minimum wage .
It’s about making sure the functionality of working at a minimum wage is being fulfil for a better society cohesion which in return always create a better economic environment...

Yeah, beliefs ain’t facts ...

Thought the current discussion was totally off topic for the 'left too left' thread, but certainly threadworthy in its own right so I spun it off.

Milton Friedman made economics fit his ideology.

It didn't end well for wage earners but he was fine.

Minimum wage has come up a ton. It's essentially a neoliberal policy directly born out of racism and designed to benefit big business at the expense of small business.
I realize that's a hard concept for people.

I don't 'think' FDR was a neoliberal.

Obviously we have neoliberals in charge today so every policy is designed to benefit big business. I'm not sure where the racism comes in.

The first minimum wage laws were designed to protect white workers against minorities who would work for less money. That's how it is "born out of racism".
I didn't claim it was born out neoliberalism so what FDR was doesn't matter. That doesn't change the fact that's it's a neolib policy.

FDR signed it into law.

I don't remember ever hearing it was racial but I'll certainly look into it.

FDR was more concerned with stopping communism afaik.

Noted neo-liberal, FDR.

I have extensive experience owning and operating retail stores, grocery stores to be exact. I am not sure of the point you think you are making as it relates to wages. The obvious answer is you pay your employees a living wage and raise your prices to help support that. This obviously impacts the volume of business, but the only reason they treat their employees so poorly is because of greed.

Talking about Walmart’s net margins are wholly irrelevant. Walmart sets the prices they sell their inventory for, in almost all cases they dictate how much they pay for those products and they have a lot of control over significant operating costs like payroll.

They don’t treat their employees properly because by not doing so they maximize the money that ends up in their pockets. I am not sure why you can not see that is essential greed. They could change a multitude of factors in their business and end up doing much more for their employees and end up with 6 billion net instead of 16 billion. But they choose not to do that. They directly treat their employees as essential non humans in their calculations.

FYI in competitive grocery markets, the net profit is often around 1%. There are numerous items that factor into making broad adjustments in pricing. It might even take industries collectively reducing their greed to fix things. But just because a business cabal agree to exploit workers to maximize profits doesn’t mean we just have to accept that as the cost of doing business.

Also Walmart’s impact on a huge number of industries treating their employees very poorly is significant. They absolutely push vendors to extreme limits to carry their products. This can cause vendors to ****** wages and benefits.

Good news, since then we've passed new laws outlawing employment discrimination based on race, so all workers at the bottom of the pay scale can get treated equally.

And the benefitting big business part?

Agreed. This will obviously happen and is by design. Lumping middle class and upper class as the losers in an inefficient transaction is at best disingenuous.

I am fine if wealthy people lose 31 billion dollars so poor people get 21 billion dollars. It would be great if it could be dollar for dollar but the robber class has to be forced kicking, screaming and dragging the inefficiency.

People should get paid a living wage for their work. If you have superior ideas on how to manage that, I'm open to suggestions. From a real politik perspective, minimum wage laws seem more politically popular than a number of other alternatives, but that's not to say there are no alternatives that could become popular.

Do you have any direct experience with how those social programs currently work and what the actual qualifications are to receive assistance?

A large portion of people would qualify for few, if any social programs or have the benefits greatly reduced. Take for example someone who would actually qualify for food stamps. An individual making $4 an hour working full time would likely be making enough to cut “food stamps” from ~$190 a month to ~$15 a month.

It is a common misconception that people can just go, “I am not making money, give me free stuff!”

Imo I actually believe UBI would be a better alternative than minimum wage to counter poverty !
it would cost more taxes in return But the benefit should be pretty good as well for the business.

Its simply the trikle down economy in reversed but more efficient for the «*same purpose*»

Can't have slackers when your wealth depends on the labor of others.
That would never do.

UBI is starting to make sense to me.

You have to figure we have an economic system that's consumer driven.
It relies on people spending money to run properly.

On the other hand our economic system sees labor as an expense and demands it be paid as little as possible.

What can possibly go wrong with a system that requires opposite conditions to be true at the same time, all the time ?

Yeah that is the main issue for why a lot of ideas are not popular in the stated imo .
Lot of people don’t realize an expense for 1 person is an income for another ....
They only see 1 side of the equation .

You can’t have a strong economy if your economic base as no purchasing power due to low salaries .

It’s like a snake eating his own tail at some point .

I'm pretty sure UBI is another neoliberal wet dream fwiw.

Young people are in favor while the olds vehemently object. So I think we'll get there eventually, it will just take a decade or two...