I really want the services industry people to revolt. Burn it down...

Well if people were maximally ambitious we have no idea what the world would look like. There might be new Amazons, googles, and microsofts.

There almost certainly would be, but that doesn't change the fact that even if everyone gives it the old college try some people still have to lose out.

This is undoubtedly true for many, but I guess where you and I differ is that I don't automatically place the responsibility on society to simply throw money/resources at the people who aren't enjoying the good life right now. Success is a two-way street, and you have to give a little to get a little. If you're dissatisfied with your $11 job at Walmart, let's start with what are YOU going to do about it? Demanding that we confiscate money from the Walton family to facilitate a raise is certainly one solution, but you haven't solved anything. This person hasn't changed one bit. Their paycheck got bigger, sure, but the Waltons aren't going to just lay down and take it either. I get that prices aren't entirely elastic, but if we start artificially raising wages, there will be consequences. Just ask Seattle how that's working out for them.

Oh do tell. What's happening in Seattle?

So why can smaller union grocery stores pay artificially high wages but walmart cant without the dire consequences?

Uhm, it currently, or did, have the most cranes in the world building things. All of the engineering firms I deal with are having to turn down work because of how busy they are (including work from me). Firms are having to import employees from other states because there isn't anybody left to hire.

We went to the Book of Mormon last weekend and the city was hopping.

All in all, looks like it's doing horribly!

Which is why there will always be haves and have-nots. It's a noble pursuit to make the difference between the two categories smaller, but you have to maintain some economic freedom and liberty in there somewhere, too, or the whole thing falls apart. That's what has driven societal progress for millennia.

Well, that and slavery.

Just quoting this snippet because it invalidates the entirety of that drivel you wrote: no, we're not.

Since you quoted my post, among others, before writing that dumbass rant, let me again reiterate what I actually said:

You vote for the people who make it harder for others to change their situation. So **** you and your bootstraps rhetoric.

WaPo has you covered.

I'm sorry, I just don't have the time today to go full out on the back and forth for the wage issue, but the poor and unskilled people of Seattle aren't having as much fun as you'd think given the new minimum wage standard.

Actions have consequences, often of the unintended variety.

The study referenced, per the article itself, has not yet been peer reviewed. For all we know it's complete junk.

Well, I think you're the one voting for people who all but guarantee that poor people never escape their current situation. Giving them enough to survive, but predicating that continued support on them NOT improving their situation seems a little disingenuous at best.

That's a pretty important point to disagree on. Not sure where to start, honestly.

Maybe.

WaPo also published this article which cites research from Berkeley stating everything is fine, nothing to see here, move along.

I can't help but feel that if it were as rosy as you'd like to think it is, we'd have no shortage of media outlets singing the praises of that minimum wage hike and similar ones in other liberal utopias on the coasts.

[QUOTE=Inso0;53392961]WaPo has you covered.

'Very Credible' non-peer reviewed study that disagrees with a lot of other studies.

Got it, thanks.

Why would the media be singing its praises? They represent companies who do not stand to benefit from increasing the minimum wage.

This is a hilarious post (ignoring for the moment what others have said about its peer review status) from someone who not long ago was furious that we supposedly refused to consider the ability of real human beings to change their situation. Come on, Inso0, Seattle has (according to your link) MORE high-paying jobs now! Why aren't these low-wage workers grabbing their bootstraps and taking them? That's how it works, right?

I agree that wherever there are incentives in place such that not working is better for your situation than working (though I don't trust you in the slightest to have any clue how prevalent that sort of thing really is), that's not good and that's not how welfare should work.

But the difference between mismatched-incentive welfare vs. strong welfare that also encourages work is approximately 1% as large as the difference between having welfare and throwing people to the ****ing wolves if things don't work out for them, which is what you vote for. So again, **** you and your bootstraps rhetoric.

On further reflection, actually, joke's on me for even buying into this disingenuous bull**** of yours. You don't give a **** about having welfare even if we did change the aspects of it you don't like!

Not for nothing but the US did throw a lot of money at the Walton family via their inheritance and through their social and familial ties and they all seemed to turn out fine. Otherwise it's a pretty amazing coincidence that all the Walton heirs managed to become multi millionaires via pure bootstrapping.

I wouldn't call our secondary education system free, but here's a good article.
http://higheredstrategy.com/canadas-...on-inequality/

http://www.mcgill.ca/undergraduate-a...s/yearly-costs

Look what an American has to pay to go to this university compared to what a native would.

Multiply that over 4 years and that's a MASSIVE advantage right out of the gate.

What's available to you in the US will vary wildly depending where you live. My brother was able to do his entire undergrad in the Cal State system for less then what I paid for one semester of a private college.

Inso: "I condemn your views that many poor people are unable to change their circumstances, I just believe they're all lazy ****s who choose not to."

Who is the ****ing ******* here, *******?

What you don't seem to understand is that personal responsibility vs. welfare is a false dichotomy.

The best advice to any individual poor person is absolutely take personal responsibility, work within the reality you are given, focus on improving your situation and not on changing government policy.

Government policy, on the other hand, should be focused on a realistic state of the world, which is that many such people will be either unable or unwilling to improve their situation significantly. Whether the best advice to them would be "take personal responsibility" has little to do with what the proper government policy is.

Ok, so you demonstrate to me how this is predominantly a problem that's independent from societal influences; that there's something unique about the American poor that makes them inherently less ambitious than the poor of the developed western world.

This should be a great read! Please don't disappoint with anecdotes, send me studies and reading material for review. Show me how you substantiate this view.

So that paper that hasn't been peer reviewed did not include large companies, i.e., the ones required to pay $13.50 (McDonald's) vs. $11.00 (Mom's Diner). So we're looking at employment of people making $11.00 at Mom's Diner at the same time a Burger King across the street offers $13.50. Conclusion: low-wage workers have disappeared!

Fortunately, the Berkeley shop did the methods right and found the same **** all of the other studies find since Card and Krueger: small increase in wages, no decrease in total employment.