From the people who are (or are likely) to stand.. who do you want?

Bush for dictator!

As long as it's not the Billary Clinton duo, I don't care

Sorry, Im not American, so I didnt come up with something better.

Kucinich/Obama.

Let's see, for the Republicans, we have:

• Rudy Giuliani - Just a NYC crook

• Mike Huckabee - Comes across as the nicest person of the bunch, but he might just be a more civilized, less war-happy version of GWB

• Duncan Hunter - He'll drop out any time now.

• John McCain - Plays the "war veteran" too much, and I think he's losing his marbles.

• Ron Paul - Champion of states rights. Votes No on anything that gives the feds power.

• Mitt Romney - He's Mormon, haha. No way he'll win.

• Tom Tancredo - See Duncan Hunter

• Fred Thompson - Too old and cranky.

So of the above, I'd go for Ron Paul. You know exactly what you are getting because he's for absolutely nothing at a federal level. He'd pull out of Iraq and everywhere else; he'd close up the Mexican border; and he'd try to get rid of the IRS (income tax) and any non-essential federal program.

Regarding the Democrats, I don't know because I don't follow them. I just hope Clinton doesn't win the nomination. Because if she does, then one of the screw-up Republicans will win the election. (I'm assuming Paul cannot win the Republican nomination no matter what kind of numbers he puts up.)

It seems the biggest Democratic issue is health care. The biggest Republican one is war. And both talk a lot about immigration (ie: Mexicans working for below minimum wage).

I could never with good conscience vote for Ron Paul; in short, the lesser of two evils is still evil. Anti-immigration, anti-gun control, anti-abortion, anti-gay civil unions, anti-universal health care and pro-creationism is what really sends him into "dangerously insane nutbag" territory. He's actually gone on record to claim that the separation of church and state is not constitutional.

We, italians, would be glad to send to you (americans) , for president, Silvio Berlusconi.
Take it, please, we will pay something to you if you are titubating.

Anyway you already have a good preparation having Bush for president.

I'm following the Republicans now because as a registered Republican I can vote in the primaries (which is more meaningful than my vote on election day). So getting the best of the worst nominated is important so that the worst of the worst doesn't win the entire thing.

And Paul isn't necessarily anti-anything. He's just pro-state. To the extreme, as a politician 100+ years ago, he'd probably have insisted that slavery be handled at the state level. (Although obviously he would never ever even come close to suggesting that.)

But that doesn't concern me, because there's no way a single President can get rid of the entire federal government. What he can do, however, is bring the troops out of foreign countries and not spend a single extra dime on stupid programs. And the other Republicans won't give us that.

Taken out of context, I don't know what that even means. But I do not believe the constitution ever mandates that the church and state must be entirely separate, in the sense that religion cannot be taught in public schools, the President cannot pray in office, etc.

It does however promote religious tolerance, which means nobody should be forced to participate in religious classes, events, etc within institutions like the public school.

Ron Paul, are you sure it is not RuPaul?

As for Mitt Romney, I live in Massachusetts, nuff said.

I thought that Ron Paul was RuPaul for a couple of months myself.

I'm divided on the war issue. On one hand, yes, it would be wonderful to pull all of our troops out of Iraq. There is nothing I would like more than to have our military leave every country they're sitting in. We don't need to occupy other states.

On the other hand, having our troops leave Iraq would be immoral because now that we've destroyed the country, we can't just say "sucks to be you, fix it yourself." Wouldn't most people say that this is wrong?

For everything else, I think that Ron Paul sounds like a good candidate. Most of the debated elements of politicians are pointless because despite their personal opinion, they're not going to change most of the laws. For example, abortion.

I haven't paid attention to the Republican debates, only the Democratic ones, so this may be true of the Republicans as well. In my opinion, the Democrats fight with each other too much and it is quite appalling. Would you really want anyone as fussy as the majority of them as president? It's like watching toddlers...

I'd rather have an incompetent bumble with good intentions than a competent villain, that's for sure.

Paul, Kucinich, or Obama.

How can anybody possibly be for universal health care? America has some of the best doctors as well as nearly the strongest medical industry. You hope to destroy it all for something like England's health care system?

I mean, you're talking about our lives. Of all the things I could share with poor people, my life is not one I'd be willing to negotiate with.

Even if that were true, quality health care is affordable by only a small majority of the population in the USo'A. The rest... not so much. England's health care system is leaps and bounds beyond yours, and available to everyone. Universal health care provides efficient and secure healthcare for everyone as opposed to just the wealthy elite.

Oh, and of course, in reality, your system is far from the best. According to the World Health Organization, the United Status is only 37th best, and 72th when it comes to overall health. You are, on the other hand, the country with the most expensive health care in the world. Kind of telling, isn't it? You pay more, and get far, far less. That's capitalism for you.

No. While I think we are liable for financial support, we don't need our military there. In the worst case, they end up just like most of the other Middle Eastern countries. Totally backward and harmless.

Agreed. Just review the recent YouTube/CNN Republican for evidence.

That's why I try to look at the things the President really can control. And this time around it looks mostly like war and immigration. And if a Democrat wins, some form of expanded health care.

I'd be for it if I thought there were a sound financial way to do it.

I'm sure I know less about UK's health care system than you, but if I'm not mistaken there's still a market for private practices there (for dental work, etc). If that's true, then the state sponsored one cannot be "leaps and bounds" beyond a private one like the USA.

And while health care is not 100% free for many people in the USA, there are a lot of programs that are available, especially for older people and moms / kids.

Since in my opinion socialism is a bad idea and capitalism has always worked for me (I have never had any significant amount of money) I see no problem with having to pay money to be taken care of.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Everything the government does it does poorly. Why make medical care be done poorly? If you don't work you don't eat. Same goes for doctor's visits.

Even those earning minimum wage can afford health care here if they budget their money properly. Don't buy an PS3. Disconnect the cable TV. As for me, I don't want to be subsidizing the poor choices of others with my tax dollars.

To expand on my previous post... In Illinois, if you are a family of 4 with a monthly income of no greater than $2,289 you're entitled to comprehensive, free health care for kids 18 and younger. Or if you make at least $3,443 per month, then it costs $80 per month. The more you make (per child), the more it costs.

But I'm with Ron Paul on issues like this... let the states figure it out. They are much more responsible with money than the federal government is. Plus it's much easier for states to change things around when it's not working than it is for the federal government to; there's too much turnover in Washington for anything long term to get done well.

Because every time I go to the doctor I get a letter from my insurance company saying my 'claim is denied' so I have to go thru a months long process to appeal it. I supposedly have 'good' insurance too. It's complete bullsh*t. The other thing that pisses me off is: why should doctors get rich off of illness and misery? And look and how many giant, multimillion dollar hospitals that are springing up every where. It's a racket and it's a waste.

Even Hilary recognizes that pulling out of Iraq is a bad idea. Obama doesn't stand a chance; no experience: he sounds like an amateur when it comes to foreign policy. And he was too open about his drug use.

I think the Dems will come down to Hilary and Edwards. Blacks don't even like Obama.

For the Reps:

McCain comes off as a whiny biatch, he won't get elected.

It'll come down to Giuliani and Romney. Romney being a Mormon isn't a problem for me. I've known a lot of Mormons and I have a favorable impression of the people practice it. Giuliani's a scrapper though.

What does this mean? You will/won't vote for him?

Hehe..Hilary Clinton ftw!

Now what's wrong with that?

Can we send you brian mulroney? He takes bribes so he'll fit right in. (actually, i haven't really followed that story so i don't know if it is true or not).

I light a bit of a troll on slashdot. Maybe you guys can read it. What is even better are all the replies. I hope it gets +5 troll
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=382103&cid=21606879

It is funny to watch ron paul fanboys go on. They are able to possess the same kind of double think only found in 1984 and creationists. Quit amazing. They think he is a god from heaven or something. I have yet to find mac trolls so devout..

Considering your post was self-contradicting and lacking any real insight, I would expect zealous fans to reply accordingly.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. You will get what you pay for.

And I can't believe you are mad about more hospitals. You're freaking crazy.

If you really are against hospitals go live in the woods and leave us productive citizens to enjoy our health and emergency care. You can die out there without any "rich hospitals" to make you mad.

I can only hope there aren't enough of you to vote our country into a death sentence.

According to that pdf you linked to (which looks like a bunch of rubbish to me) England's health care system is 1/3rd as productive as Americas. What makes you think England's solution has worked out for them?

I've heard all sorts of horror stories. People losing limbs because their illnesses were a lower priority and were backlogged months. There are also many stories about Doctors simply not caring about their patients, getting them in and out as quickly as possible. Illnesses overlooked simply because there isn't a person thorough enough to find them.

Heres the results from some quick googling:

Article

In America, I can walk up to a hospital and get treated immediately for serious / urgent issues or spend a very reasonable amount of time in the waiting room for less-serious issues.

I am treated with respect and handled by very competent doctors.

For the lesser financed Kaiser is available, which provides fairly decent less-serious issue care and amazing urgent care at very low cost (minimum wage in California easily pay for this with room for cable).

In my opinion the current health care system is already too socialized. Since hospitals are required to treat first - bill later, some ridiculously high number of patients never actually pay their bill. As a paying patient, I am paying for their care through higher costs.

It varies by hospital, but my local urgent care gets about two thirds non-paying patients.

If the socialists of our country really believe they have the solution I believe they should get together and form their own hospitals and give away service. Leave the ones we responsible citizens use alone!

As an Argentine, I prefer a Republican to win. As Matthew said, they are more interested in war, and fortunately, they are not aiming at us right now. And Democrats know about economy and are usually the ones that try to press Argentina the most for commercial treaties that put us in disadvantages.

Sorry Evil Axis, you will have to withstand some more attacks for our benefit

Ron Paul.

Remember the google video Money as Debt? He is the only one willing to fix that problem.

I don't want to borrow money from China for missile bases in chechloslovakia. I don't even know where that is nor do I know how to spell it. Paul will remove all the USAs oversees bases in South Korea and Europe and save the US 1 trillion a year in military expenditures.

Ron Paul, the guy who contracts spammers with botnets?

Whoever will put a stop to pork projects that waste our nations money.
Whoever will end rider bills that only end up getting passed because they're on some huge important bill that has to be passed.
Whoever will put a stop to our nations ever increasing totally massive national debt. (China looks like a nice place to visit , but I don't care to be owned by them.)
Someone who can drive down the insane price of college schooling.
Someone who can make health care affordable to the entire nation.

Whoever cares enough to protect Sudanese refugees.
Whoever can get responsible immigrant workers registered on work visas and keep criminals out of our country.
Whoever can raise the minimum wage to a level that is actually capable of supporting someone without them working 60 hours a week.

Since I doubt anyone actually qualifies for all of these things , I will vote for whoever I believe can accomplish the most of them.

No. Minimum wage does not need to be increased. Let us suppose for a moment that after taxes, minimum wage works out to being only $3/hr. This is false, the government doesn't take that much from lower income people, but I am exaggerating the example.

One can get by eating rather well on only $100 each month. That takes up down to $380 to spend. Let's also factor in rent and utilities, which one can squeeze by at $200/month in most places if not less (such as living with other people.) We're down to $180 spending cash. Okay okay, you need to have a car, huh? That'll be another $80/month in gas. You have $100 to spend this month still.

If you know how to budget your money you can make ends meet under minimum wage. I get paid only a little bit more than that (minimum wage, not $3/hr) myself as a graduate student and I have plenty of money to spare because I spend it properly. (I have no car, either, which helps.)

Edit: That brings us to another point as well: there really is no excuse to work minimum wage if you live in America. (Unless you are a teenager.) As long as you have done well in high school, the government will give you money to go to community college. I got money to go to school! Then you can work your way up into higher income brackets. Shouldn't people who work harder get rewarded more? I don't think that teenagers need more spending money than minimum wage gives them.

I've heard that Ron Paul is good, but I really like Kucinich. Too bad there's no chance he'd ever win.

Where do you live? Arouynd here, a single bedroom costs around 400, not including parking space, garbage pickup, electricity, phone, and other utilities. And of course, the cheaper you go, the shittier the neighborhood.

Don't forget a hundred or two for insurance. Plus actually buying the car if you don't have one in the first place. And god forbid it breaks down...

After what happened in at the turn of the fiscal year in Michigan, I'm not trusting the state to know how to budget money!

First off there's now way you can live off $400 a month acceptably. Eating well is certainly not $100 a month, I spend about $50-100 a week on groceries and I don't eat out at all (so I'm technically saving money). My rent is over the $400 a month mark here and unless you know someone who is willing to actually subsidize you (or you live on the floor or living room), you won't get rent for less then 325 or so a month (including utilities), and that's for an extremely crappy place. Finally gas is the least relevant part of the car. Insurance will cost more then car probably costs.

Now try to feed a family with the $400. See how far you get.

Maybe if you buy cheap generic junk that isn't very healthy and you like to starve? Or you actually have the time to cook all your meals and never eat any fast food?

Make it a little more realistic at about $50 a week , so $200 a month.

If you live in some tiny bump on a log city in the middle of nowhere , sure. If you happen to live in a medium city (~50,000) good luck finding anything other than a 12X12 room for less than $250 and if you live in a larger city plan on $500 plus just for rent if you're lucky. The living with other people scenario generally means you're sharing the rent for a house which means water , heat , phone service and garbage pickup. Add $100 - $150 apiece for that.

I don't know how expensive driving is since I don't drive but if you live in an area where you have to drive to get to work , add in monthly payments for a car , say $100 bucks then add insurance , maintenance (I don't know how much) and it adds up pretty quick.

Loans aren't free!
Too bad if you've ever been convicted for smoking pot then you can't even get loans from the government for school without passing some government approved ?treatment? plan.

If you can manage to work full time and still go to school and actually earn enough credits to get some kind of certification / diploma in any reasonable amount of time then that's pretty spiffy then.

Too bad you can't get good paying jobs without paying to go to school for them even if you are already qualified for the job. I can probably do more than a lot of college graduates can but they get the jobs because they paid some big wad of money to go to school.
Since when do people that work harder get rewarded more anyway? You mean people who work harder at kissing @ss and screwing people over? I guess so then.

Minimum wage right now is about $5.50 an hour
At (40 hours / week) * (5.50 / hr) * (4 wks / month) = $880 per month

Re-tally for monthly expenses :

----------------------------------------------------------
City size          | Small | Medium | Large |
----------------------------------------
Rent               |   200 |   250  |   500 |
Utilities          |    75 |   125  |   175 |
Food/Sundries      |   200 |   225  |   250 |
Car(Optional)      |       |        |       |
  Loan Payment     |   100 |   100  |   100 |
  Gas              |    75 |    85  |    95 |
  Insurance        |   100 |   100  |   100 |
Miscellaneous      |    50 |    50  |    50 |
No health insurance|     0 |     0  |     0 |
No doctor          |     0 |     0  |     0 |
No dentist         |     0 |     0  |     0 |
-----------------------------------------------------------
Total Costs        |       |        |       |
  No car           |   525 |    650 |   975 |
  With car         |   850 |    985 |  1320 |
-----------------------------------------------------------
Any savings left?  |       |        |       |
  No car           |   355 |    230 |   -95 |
  With car         |    30 |   -105 |  -440 | Don't need to increase minimum wage?
-----------------------------------------------------------

I hope you aren't addicted to cigarettes. Add another $75 -$100 bucks a month for smokes. Ever go out to movies or dinner or events? Happen to have childen? God help you.

Most people would like to be able to own a home someday. If you're lucky maybe you can find a small decent one for $125,000 though most go for at least $200,000. On minimum wage 12 months @ $880 per month is 8800 + 1760 = $10,560 per year.
If somehow you can manage to save $200 a month that's only 625 months to pay off the cheaper home , or just slightly over 52 !@#$ years. It'll be nice to finally pay off the house just before you get put in a retirement home.

Why are you guys complaining about minimum wage? You want more money, go improve your station in life. Don't cry to the government to make that mean employer give you a raise for nothing.

If minimum wage was a living wage to begin with there wouldn't be much to complain about would there? And what do you mean a raise for nothing? How about a raise for fair wages? If people bust their butt all week , they deserve to have something left over to show for it.

That's pretty easy to say , a lot more difficult to do.
It's not so hard if you already have a boat load of money to begin with.:P

There needs to be some fair minimum wage because unchecked capitalism doesn't work. Why? Well all it takes is one company to employ people who will work for nothing, and then they can keep their prices low. We frugal Americans will then go buy from them, driving the other places out of business.

I don't think minimum wage needs to be something one can live off of, but it should be enough to make the job worthwhile. Because otherwise you'll get working conditions that force twenty people to live in a two bedroom apartment. (How do you think illegal immigrants work for less than minimum wage?)

Personally, I would just like to see minimum wage set to some amount (that lets a single person live without any extravagance) and then raised annually for inflation. So if you work at an unskilled position, you'll never get a real raise. You'll always be working for minimum wage. If you ever want to make more, then you'll need to try to better yourself.

They do "deserve" it, no doubt. But that's not how capitalism works. If everybody got paid by how hard they worked physically, well then we programmers wouldn't make very much.

I wasn't speaking of strictly physical labor. I meant it generally as in putting forth effort , dedication , and doing the best that you can to do quality work no matter what job you do.

Someone who actually does that won't be making minimum wage for long now will he?

Are you arguing that in the context of capitalism? Because I agree that everybody who works deserves—in the moral sense—an honest living wage. It would be great if we could all be equals; if janitors made as much as doctors. We could all be one happy family. But it doesn't work.

What country do you live in?
By not making minimum wage for long do you mean that staggering quarter or fifty cent raise that amounts to just about nothing?

The truth is that if you want to make more money then you need to have some kind of degree / certification. Most people on minimum wage can't afford to take out big loans for school while working 50 hours a week just to meet expenses and still manage to put in enough time to actually do well in school and actually graduate someday too.

That's not what I meant at all , of course I think that highly skilled and trained positions deserve more reward than simple labors. The problem is that its very difficult to break out of the minimum wage cycle for unskilled workers. Working long hour weeks just to break even with little time left over to dedicate to training and education means that its very difficult to climb the social ladder because it isn't even in reach!

Canada?

Get promoted much? I work in the team leader development program at my workplace. When I cover my boss' work, I earn his wage for the hours. FYI, it's more than fifty cents difference.

Where do you get "most"? "Most", if not "all" of the people I know can do that, and the ones who aren't are just lazy (and deserve their crappy wage). Especially nowadays, with the costs of self-employment getting lower and lower. I personally put myself through 2 degrees on a crappy wage. Granted, that hasn't gotten me very far yet. But it's not like options aren't available to people ....

That translates to 5 American cents... oh wait, I cannot say that anymore.

Howard Dean / Barack Obama '08

Pay attention much? I'm talking about people working on minimum wage where there generally aren't many options for promotion above grunt labor class III which is probably about $6 or $6.50 if you're lucky.

Are "most" if not "all" of the people you know living at home instead of on their own? For a community college 2 year degree you probably need to earn about 65 credit hours to graduate. If you sleep 8 hours a day that leaves 16 hours a day for daily tasks. Subtract about 4 hours a day for cooking , eating , showering , and travel to and from work. That leaves 12 hours a day. If you're working 50 hours a week that's 7 hours less per day to study and go to classes. So what you have left for schooling is about 5 hours a day minus whatever chores and other things come up that you have to do. A 3 credit hour class probably takes about 12 hours or so per week including going to class so then you could fit in about 9 credit hours of class per semester with absolutely no free time left over. (5 X 7 = 35 , 35 / 12 = 3 classes)
So 65 credit hours / 9 credit hours per semester is about 7 semesters of work for a 2 year degree. That's four years to get a 2 year degree working your butt off with no free time. So anyone who can't manage to do that is lazy? Pulling that off seems rather extraordinary to me.

As far as who I would like to see be the next President my two favorites would be Barack Obama and John Edwards.

I'm really late into this, but...

That's a question of supply and demand. There is a contractual difference in the NHS between GPs and dentists with the effect that it seems to be much more common for dentists to run exclusively private practices. As a result there simply aren't enough NHS dentists to go round and people have to go private to get the care. So this isn't a quality of state care issue. People usually complain that they should be able to find an NHS dentist rather than that they don't want to use an NHS dentist.

With all due respect, you've linked to an article from what wiki tells me is a "free-market oriented public policy think tank based in Chicago." It's extremely unlikely to be unbiased, and I think it's real purpose isn't hard to guess.

I'll tell you a story I witnessed first hand. Someone I know discovered an uncomfortable lump on the 1st of January. They got an appointment to see their GP on the 2nd of January. He thought it might be trouble, so referred them to a specialist and they visited a hospital for tests on the 4th of January. The hospital doctor diagnosed it as cancer on the 4th and scheduled them for surgery on the 6th. They had the surgery and were released from hospital on the 10th. At no point did they use health insurance or pay any money.

There was then another 8 months of chemo and scans, etc, but don't try to tell me that the healthcare system here doesn't work. When healthcare is needed, it is available. The usual British crisis of self-confidence (open any tabloid and you'll see ten articles about how Britain is now behind every other country in the world in every single thing and ten articles about how every non-British person in existence is trying to get into Britain because it is the best country in the world) and tired political system mean that the NHS gets a really bad press, but it works.

Evidence:

UK life expectency is 77.2 for Men, 81.6 for Women. USA life expectency is 75.6 for Men, 80.8 for Women.
(source: United Nations World Population Prospects, both figures are for children born about now)

[text below edited due to poorly written original]

I don't think there is a sufficient difference to attack either system from an "it clearly doesn't it work" point of view. The real questions should concern the combination of quality, access and cost. From a probably-biased point of view here in the UK I'd say that the US system is worse because of access and cost. If it does achieve measurably better quality, which I dispute, then by closing its doors to so many people it comes off worse overall, from the point of view that people's interactions with the healthcare system are both (a) using it; and (b) planning for potential future use.

I'm running out of posts, but I have to say something about minimum wage.

There's a lot of talk about "If you want to be paid more, then you should better yourself and pick up some new skills". Fine, I can accept that argument, in the sense that we should premier people for making themselves more useful. But what people are often forgetting is that doing that is hardly a trivial task for someone living on minimum wage.

Being constantly scant for cash is stressful. Simply the absence of money in itself can be highly worrisome (and I speak from personal experience here). Add to this the inability to afford recreation, the inability to have a proper diet and clothing. If you have a family, your money is going to be stretched even more thinly, plus you need to add the constant worry about being able to support your children and send them to school, etc. Low-paying blue collar jobs are also often more dangerous or unsanitary than higher-paying white collar jobs, meaning that you're often going to be more likely to be injured or have health problems; and, in the United States, that also means that since you might not be able to afford health insurance, your health is only going to deteriorate. Many people have to get second jobs just to support their families, taking more time from their hands and adding more stress. Many people succumb to depression or stress-related illnesses. When you have to pinch every penny every day just to get by, feelings of hopelessness and helplessness are going to run rampant.

To sum up the above paragraph: Poverty is self-reinforcing. Poor people aren't going to experience an upward trend because of being motivated by their poverty, they're going to experience a significant downward trend because poverty makes it difficult or even impossible to better oneself. You're constantly having to play catch-up to even survive. Try finding the time, resources, or willpower to sink into learning a skill. We can't expect people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps if they have no boots.

If we as a society want to have more skilled workers, and really want everyone to be able to use their skills to earn a decent living and make a good life for themselves, we need to recognize that poverty isn't going to fix itself, and we certainly can't rely on the private sector to fix it for us. Without sounding too conspiratorial, the corporate system is only going to benefit from having a large, underpaid corpus of workers who are desperate enough to forgo things like safety, decent wages, job security, rights in the workplace, etc. It's not in most corporations' best interests to educate people.

Finally, there's the issue of racism. Poverty is over-represented among ethnic minorities, which in turn is the reason why crime rates are so higher among those demographics. It does no one any good to ignore this issue; a lot of people are missing out on jobs or promotions because of their race. As a result, people again grow more desperate and become increasingly willing to settle for less, even below where you can make a decent living. Many stray to a life of crime, as mentioned.

So what is the answer? Some have suggested raising minimum wages, and while that might be a start, it feels too much like a "Let's throw money at it and hope it goes away" answer, which rarely work. What I'd rather like to see is something like:

• Support for labor unions. When a lone individual can't help himself, others in the same situation might be able to if they band together. Strengthening of workers' rights in their workplace in general is a good idea.

• State-sponsored training programs for undereducated workers. They need to be cheap or even free for people to be able to attend them, and they need to be available to everyone, and people need to be informed that they exist.

• Higher wages. Yes, I know what I just said, but if you can't support yourself on a minimum wage as it is, you're not going to be able to have the time or money to train anyway. Plus, people having more money stimulates the economy in general, encouraging the flow of money and the exchange of goods.

• Universal health care. Taking the burden of health insurance off of people's minds is going to mean that poor people will be able to afford health care, and thus will be healthier and more capable of working, as well as taking away a major source of worry.

• Better immigration policies. It's slightly tangential, but because poverty is such a big problem among immigrant populations, it needs to be addressed. I'm not a fan of affirmative action at all, but there needs to be a systematic improvement of attitudes towards immigrant workers.

</li>

If I missed anything... sorry, I might not be able to respond to anything you say. It's not my fault.

- X-G -
Thank you for expressing rather well what I meant but said unskillfully.

As I see it today , a high school diploma doesn't give a person that many workforce opportunities. They may have a basic education , but probably rather few skills as far as crafts and trades go. I think there should be free job training programs to go into after high school for a year or two to at least to give people a way to break into the workforce a little higher up than schlepping burgers somewhere.:-/

I heard once of a general education system in Germany that was basically more of an apprentice to a craftsman system. Does anyone know anything about this or am I just dreaming it up?

A few responses to others...

So you're willing to complain about a faulty rewards system, but only as reasoning for a worse one?

You silly person. Minimum wage will do nothing to fix the kissing ass = $ problem. If you really are against this problem than get off your ass and do something about it.

This is just silly. Allow me to demonstrate.

Hopefully its clear why investors packing their bags wouldn't be a good thing. These sort of ideas, while initially sounding admirable, eventually show themselves to be a glorified "Gimme something for nothing" attitude commonly seen in children. We all want everything given to us, however, its the ones who quit whining and get to work that get rich -- and in doing so produce what is necessary to keep our country functioning.

These ideas are also blatantly stupid and show a totally disregard for and lack of understand towards how the world works and how we've managed to get as far as we have. You can't simply create a better solution by destroying the one we have. All you'll do is kill us all.

My posts getting long here but I really want to give one more example of why this is silly.

Here is a fictional story...
Take a tribe of 3 settlers. One man hunts using his bare hands every day, catching a small animal every other day. One man builds a bow and arrow and hunts every other day, catching two large animals. The third man reads his the bible and prays each night, catching no animals.

Clearly, the first man works the hardest. Lets say he deserves, and receives, a larger cut of the meat than the second man each night. The third man, who preaches every day, receives a cut equal to the first man.

On one particular month it is particularly cold and most of the animals migrate away. The priest of the group tells them to keep at it and to maintain the same progressive meat distribution policy. They struggle through the month, surviving by the skin of their teeth.

The next month the animal shortage remains the same. The 1st man, being friends with the priest, gets him alone to ask a favor.

"Its not fair, he has his bow while I spend all day hunting with my bare hands. The little rations I have cannot sustain me because I work so hard. I cannot learn to build my own bow because I'm too busy hunting! I simply need more rations to survive."

"Do not worry, at the next fire I will read from my bible about how in times of need the hunter who works hard must be given full rations."

And so it was the group decreed that the 1st man must be given his full ration and the priest must receive the remainder in order to maintain their connection with the gods.

Two weeks later the 2nd man grew ill from lack of food and could not hunt. "Do not worry," the 1st man reassured him. "I will hunt all day to bring us back to sustenance. Once we are there we will feast as kings. However we cannot risk our last able hunter going unfed."

The 1st man hunted and hunted but could not even feed himself. He began eating what he could catch immediately, so as to hide it from the priest. Soon the 2nd man died of starvation and the priest soon fallowed.

Alone, the unskilled hunter cursed at his dead companions. How could the priest not lead them out of their struggle? How could the other hunter not pull his own weight? Why, the man asked, did he suffer at their inability to be progressive and adapt to these wonderful new ideas.

As he breathed his last breath, he sighed an inauthentic mummer and gave up, proclaiming that human behavior wasn't ready for his progressive ideas.

Back to responses...

Interesting, its nice to get a perspective from somebody actually in the mix. I wonder what exaggerates the bad press?

Agreed, good idea.

Problem; pretty much nothing the government does is free. Thus, the administrators for the training programs will want to be payed (at some level, not necessarily the instructors directly, but the planners, or the building maintainers, or some of hundreds of other people involved in your typical government bureaucracy), thus the payment must come from somewhere. In other words, state-sponsored anything 99.999% directly equates to taxes, which usually come out in disproportionate amounts from the pockets of those you are trying to help (thus compounding the problem). I'd leave training programs in the hands of the private sector or charities.

While increasing wages is a great idea, I'd prefer to curb inflation and currency devaluation first; higher wages mean squat when three or four years down the line the exact same amount isn't a livable again.

Um, no, no, and no. Once again, health care isn't free, no matter how many layers of bureaucracy you put in front of it. And to make matters worse, instead of directly paying for the health care, everyone would be forced to fund the bureaucracy's operating costs (which is horribly inefficient as there isn't the "profit" goal that the free market creates.) Not to mention that, as time has shown again and again, anything the government touches has a nasty habit of becoming horribly inefficient and ineffective. (FEMA's Katrina response is a very nice posterchild for inefficency. Homeland Security is also a relatively decent example of government spending incompetence.) Yes, it is a moral problem, and yes, some people may not be able to afford health care without help. But, there are charities, church hospitals, banks, private citizens, and employers to help with that.

I guess my opinion could be summed up pretty easily; anything that the market can handle, the market should handle, simply because the government is horribly inefficient, slow to change, and down right incompetent in many situations. (granted, in order for this to work, a whole crapload of government regulation needs to go out the window as well. Regulation should be limited to nothing but what is necessary to ensure fair competition in the market.)

EDIT:

Problem; there is no such thing as "free" job training. Many employers, at least around here, will often provide on the job training anyway (which usually isn't free, you work for a pay cut because you're in training. But it does somewhat fit your definition.)

As for "schlepping burgers", I guess it really depends on where you live, but you can usually get a job above fast food grunt around here if you have a little bit of experience; you just have to look around and apply all over the place (it may take a while, but you can usually find someplace willing. Tech Support, Call Center, etc.)

Why do you think the government is as inefficient as it is?

I know someone who has a degree in hotel/restaurant management. She works as a bakery clerk in a supermarket. She has been there for twelve years, someone else was recently hired to run the bakery. Next time you call Dell or Microsoft for support, ask the tech if he is in America. Every year, businesses lobby Congress to raise the limit on H1B (technical) visas. Going to college does not guarantee you will get a good paying job, or even any job.

- Dustin -
Congratulations on completely twisting my words and my meaning completely beyond comprehension and reason.

Yes I'm willing and eager to point out things that aren't right and that don't work.
What part of helping people get out of poverty and get skills for better jobs and to be more productive suggests a worse system than watching people struggle to get by? Fucking sadist.

In no way at any time did I suggest something for nothing. You brought up the analogy of investment. Apply that here. If you invest some fair pay for all the manual grunt labor that all the rich snobs aren't willing to do and give people a decent chance to improve themselves and be more independent , what part of that is unfair or something for nothing? More highly educated workforces result in higher productivity and rate of return.

Too bad you can't work enough at minimum wage to break out of it in the first place . Maybe 50 or 60 hours a week doesn't qualify as "getting to work" in your book.

At no point did I suggest dismantling the economy or the nation....
I understand full well how the world of the rich stands on the back of the poor and when the poor try to get up the rich cry blasphemy! Don't tax the rich then they won't have enough luxury condos or beach houses or mansions!

In no way did I say that physical laborers doing unskilled jobs deserve more than higher paid workers in skilled jobs. Stop twisting my words.

What I think is that given that they put in a full week of hard work that they should at least be able to garner enough wages from it to go to school and to get an education and get out of the poverty line.

Fictional story -
Man with bow doing well offers to teach unskilled hunter how to make bows and to hunt with them. Unskilled hunter is now skilled and can support himself instead of having to rely on the original skilled hunter. Both now have time and resources enough to share with the priest and learn his wisdom.

Splendid! I don't see what calling me a sadist achieves however.

I haven't a highschool or college education and I managed to "break out". So stop telling me what I can't do.

I can think of numerous examples where people given money for free do exactly the opposite. The simplest is a teenager. Most teenagers that I grew up around (myself included) saw money as something annoying that you had to beg your parents for. It wasn't till I started living without free money that I cared to, as you say, "[give myself a] chance to improve [myself] and be more independent." Or in my words: give a damn about improving my value to society.

Who are you to tell the 2nd hunter to give you his meat? Why don't you trade the hunter for something he needs or wants. In this scenario there need not by any losers and everybody wins.

The part where you're giving people raises without requiring additional value to society. This should be obvious and something tells me you already understand this concept. If so, what motivates you to pretend you do not understand?

That is a prediction of where your ideas will lead.

I exaggerated the idea a bit, in hopes of making my moral stance on the issue more clear.

At what cost?
Who gets to decide what that will cost?
Who gets to pay that cost?
Who gets to benefit from that cost?

The last three questions may be answered with characters from my story.

An interesting note on blasphemy

As I understand full well how the world of the lower classes stands on the brains of the rich and when the rich demand their own worth the poor cry blasphemy!

If I were american I'd vote for a president, who will improve your schooling system. First of all it was called Czechoslovakia. Second from 1993 we're just the Czech Republic - because our country has splitted into two (no revolution, no civil war or anything like that).

I must say that there are lots of people around here who don't like the idea of having USA radar in our woods. I on the other don't care, but I doubt that this radar togehter with a missile base in Poland will be targeted against Iranian missiles - they cannot endanger Europe and surely not USA. In my opinion your government should admit that it's something back from the cold war, that they want to shoot down Russian missiles.

On a side note - Bush is a Republican, right? I'd bet that this time are Democrats going to win. But it's up to you people. I just hope that your new president won't be some trigger happy crook.

What else can he be? With the voting system manipulated, god knows ho can win.

Anyway, I agree with OICW about the schooling system. And I think healthcare should be improved. But hey, thats me, American thinking is diffrent. Its mostly egoistic thinking that you should not spend your money for others. Two very diffrent views. So I will stay out of this as it has no point in arguing.

I probably shouldn't be doing this, but here's something for everyone:

I do cook all my meals and I never eat fast food. (edit: I buy store brand products sometimes, but I find a lot of it to have more salt than is necessary, so I get the more expensive versions because they taste better (less salt.)) I eat things like spaghetti, salad, use (real) chicken and (real) beef to make things like tacos and fajitas. I make sandwiches loaded with vegetables similar to what one could buy at Subway (for a fraction of the cost.) I eat fruit and vegetables every day. Potatoes are cheap. Onions are delicious. Eggs make a nice breakfast. Is this eating poorly? I pay under $100 a month on all this -- and according to the government I'm obese! I'm certainly not starving. I will not change my stance. Stop eating out and you will save a bundle on food.

I will give everyone what they say about car costs. I do not know the cost of a car because I have never had to worry about it. (I have never owned a car.) I ride my bike or walk everywhere I need to go, including the grocery store two miles away. If I can do it so can you. A car is not a necessity unless you are traveling long distances (for example, from Florida to Virginia.)

Grants are free! The government gave me grants which went over and above the cost of tuition for community college. Look into it before you argue.

It's not my job to worry about your dumb choices.

I'll admit that I am a better student than most people. Just putting down the video games for a while is a takes though...

I live in South Dakota. I will admit that yes, the cost of living here is less than it is in Cape Cod, MA. Last year I was living in a nice apartment for $370/month with utilities. But I was being ripped off. I'm living in a house with some other guys now and it saves a lot of money. If you don't mind having roommates, you can get by paying significantly less.

Finally, in regards to all the "being in poverty means you'll stay in poverty" sentiment, I still must disagree. When I was younger my parents were on welfare. I was able to pay for college with first government grants which already exist (and I think are a good idea) for the lower levels of college, then using scholarships for the higher levels. Now the school I go to pays me to be a teacher. You most certainly can pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you try. Handouts (edit: such as welfare where there is no expected improvement in your situation, as opposed to grant money for schooling) tell you that you don't need to try, and this is the wrong approach.

Community college already exists.

I agree. "Illegal" means not lawful to me. Your definition may vary. Why praise those who break the law when there is a completely lawful way of accomplishing the outcome they desire? I have no problems with law-abiding citizens.

In theory this sounds good. But at age 16 (when I started college) I had no idea what I wanted to do. Training people for a specific job at a young age only sets them up for learning a skill that they won't want. For example, I have a computer science degree that I don't want. In my opinion, this is a very bad idea.

I agree. For one, I would remove all calculators from all math classes. This is I think one of the biggest factors in people who are bad at math. They can't think for themselves -- that's what the calculator is for!

Eek; too many posts. Anyway, I guess this argument is getting no traction with me because you're "talking about people working on minimum wage where there generally aren't many options for promotion above grunt labor class III which is probably about $6 or $6.50 if you're lucky." Been there, done that. If you have a crap job with a crap employer at crap wages, get another one. Especially nowadays, at least with the job market being what it is where I am. A buddy of mine got hired into a plumbing apprenticeship with no prior experience and is already making way more than his old crap job. A local company was hiring lately for gas turbine engines repair as long as you passed a few interviews proving you were intelligent enough to be trained (another friend of mine was lucky enough to get into that one). And this is ignoring the previously mentioned self-employment opportunities available today.

Long story short: if you're making minimum wage and don't like it, you can do something about it.

Carry on.

I vote Democrat out of habit now adays. I would be ok with another 4 more years of Clinton, just with a different face and slightly different gender. It can't be any worse than the last 8 with Bush.

Of course I would choose a cold blooded manipulative worakolic over a warm well intentioned slacker any day. This is not grade school, who we elect will wield real power. I want some one there with the intelligence to wield that power for the best intrest of man kind (or at least the mankind inside the country).

Oh yeah, Obama is not that bad a choice either.

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Who are those?

I'm currently working in a temporary position at a hospital, so I have first-hand experience of the issues and problems here. Yes, there is a struggle for resources, money and staff, but this hospital currently has 3 brand spanking (and very nice) departments built in the last few years. The biggest problem (for minor things) is waiting times to be seen and then waiting in the hospital itself. For major things, it is very good as TH said.

I had an operation last year to remove an impacted wisdom tooth, and I didn't even pay for the after-care painkillers.

A focus on social care is an important part of every civilised society. The constant focus on self and money is damaging to the quality of life, something America is still not learning..

Ron Paul is a quack; he won't be a factor.

This was probably one of the best posts I've read; I agree mostly but then I also think that poverty becomes ingrained in ones identity ie a lot of impoverished people can not even imagine living a different life, let alone going thru the process of more schooling and advancement ie of achieving more for themselves.

I'm late, but FWIW:

Private schools are expensive, the government has nothing to do with that (aside from financial aid). I'm going to my local community college at the moment, and I earned $1500 this past semester after financial aid. Thats right, my school paid me $1500 to go there.

Okay, but what about housing? You would be lucky, at least around here, to find a single room apartment for $400/month, let alone pay all the other expenses.

Heh, I'm still 17 for a few more months, and not only do I get paid to go to community college, but I also scored quite a nice job for me. I get the fancy title of "teaching assistant" where I go answer peoples questions during C++ programming exercises one day a week. I get $17.70/hour to sit through a lecture, answer some questions, and grade some work. Granted, it's only 5-6 hours a week, but its money. Works out to about the same I could earn working some barely-above-minimum-wage-job someplace, only with a lot less working involved.

Now, I still think minimum wage is fine where it is. The shitty minimum wage jobs are always going to be at the bottom. Increasing minimum wage helps increase inflation, making everything more expensive anyway. Which leads to more minimum wage increases. But where are the pay raises for higher paid people? Minimum wage is expected to increase with inflation, but not everybody gets pay raises to keep ahead of inflation.
</quote>

I don't think it makes a difference. Seems every president will be in a foreign conflict. Some presidents will give you money back, some take it away. They will lie about something. I don't care about abortion. Guns will never be taken away. Iraq is screwed either way. I can feed my family and put a roof over their heads so I'm happy. Once that is take away I'm unhappy. I'm not a mind reader and I can't predict what a president will do, and seems these days what they say is never what they do.

- Dustin -
Okay , so you managed to make it out of poverty , congratulations on being one of the few who do.

I myself am doing fine , I'm not asking anything for myself. I've been through plenty of grunt jobs with small wages. What I'm asking for is a little appreciation for the difficulty of breaking out of poverty when people have to work so long to break even that they don't have time or energy left to go to school or to get trained for a better job.

The whole point is that minimum wage is not a fair wage to begin with when the people working on it can barely scrape by.

Stop suggesting that I want to give people money for free. If people aren't being paid fairly to begin with how can you say that restoring their wages to a fair and decent level is giving people something for nothing? The actual value of minimum wage jobs go down every year because of inflation and the rising cost of living. If the minimum wage is rarely or inadequately increased then the poor just keep getting poorer and have to take on more and more work just to get by. If the minimum wage doesn't adequately pay off the cost of living with a little left to spare then it's not a fair living wage is it?

I don't know why you keep suggesting that I said people who work hard physically deserve more than someone who does not. What I have said all along is that the minimum wage is insufficient to properly reward the labors it represents.

Just why is it that you think that raising the minimum wage will lead to some kind of doom for the country? Oh noes if they increase the minimum wage then all the rich people will have to pay another $100 in taxes a year and we'll all die! Stop being so melodramatic.

- Harry Carey -

You've never made any dumb choices before?
Ever get drunk? Then you've used drugs too.
Drink before you were 21? Then you've broken the law too.
Maybe you should have been denied your grants because of it.

Where are all these grants to go to school for free anyway? I googled around for a while and the vast majority of what came up was grants for schools , not for going to school.

- BAF -

I was talking about public universities being prohibitively expensive , not private schools.
What do you mean your school paid you $1500 to go there?

Just how is it that increasing minimum wage increases inflation which leads to more minimum wage increases?
Minimum wage has barely increased over the last decade , I think it was about 4.65 in 1997. Now it's all the way up to about $5.50 I think. It's still jack squat compared to the cost of living.

Where are the pay raises for higher paid people? They generally get a raise every year. Maybe it doesn't keep up with inflation , but that's not something higher paid people generally have to worry about now is it? Minimum wage doesn't keep up with inflation and it doesn't keep up with the cost of living either so no sympathy for rich people here.

Easier said than done. Maybe (hopefully) the job market has changed in the last year or so, but a roommate of mine had shit luck getting any job. And when he did, it was often at pretty low pay. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, even it it does feed you poorly, when there's no others in site to replace it (not to mention that quitting doesn't look very good to future employers). You often don't have the time or resources to move/get a new job/whatever when your current low-pay go-nowhere job takes up all your time and is the only thing keeping your head above water.

I grew up below the poverty line.

What's wrong with that?

The birth and deeds of folk like Brian Peppers.

Kucinich, he's what the country needs

OK, let's make the minimum wage $50/hour. We'll all be rich.
Let's give everyone a PH.D. Then we can all get good jobs.

Some people talking about the government giving loans, grants or what have you for free.

"As long as you have done well in high school, the government will give you money to go to community college."

Change that to:

"As long as you have done well in high school, the government will give you Arthur Kalliokoski's money to go to community college."

You've undoubtedly winced at evidence of the tax burden you have, yet can't connect that with "free" junk. Not only are you paying for the grants, but you're also supporting the bureaucrats who make quite a bit more than minimum wage to spend your money (efficiently or otherwise)

And before FDR's time, it was rather scandalous for a housewife to actually work, the husband thought it reflected badly on him. Now most housewives work now just to help the system support all this Medicare bloated health care system, keep productive workers wasting time in Iraq to Korea as soldiers, etc.

[EDIT]
I forgot the government doesn't entirely get money by taking it from citizens, they also manufacture it with printing presses, fudging numbers, and bafflegab. If you do that it's counterfeiting, because the government doesn't want competition. They don't want you causing even more inflation (due to excess money supply) that might cause the citizens to crack down on them sooner.

If you doubt the government counterfeits its own money, why do you think they made the ownership of gold illegal in FDR's administration? They allow you to own gold again, but the price just keeps rising due to the government counterfeiting. That's also why they've been using copper & zinc in the slugs they call "money" (coins).

It's still taking your money, because everyone will raise their prices to take advantage of the surplus money floating around, yet you're still making the same wage for some time before it starts to float your way.

While the government prints the money it isn't responsible for distributing it into the economy, the Federal Reserve does. The Federal Reserve is not a government agency; it is a private bank that was put in charge of the USA's monetary policy in 1913 coincidentely before WW1. Money is created when it is loaned by a bank and destroyed when that debt is repaid. The 'Federal' Reserve controls the amount of money there is by raising and lowering the interest rates: the lower the interest rate is the more money is borrowed/created, the higher it is the less is borrowed/created. However the Federal Reserve does NOT create the money that is required to pay back the interest on the debt. The only thing that can be done about that is to just borrow more money, at interest, to be able to make payments on the interest. This is why the USA will never pay off its debt. For every 1 trillion dollars the USA's GDP rises its debt rises by 3 trillion. Right now the USAs private debt is 48 trillion+. It is increasing exponentially because of how interest works.

I do to a public school. Hence the whole "community college" part. After financial aid, I earn ~$1500 per semester to go there.

I don't know about your area, but up here in NY, minimum wage becomes $7.75/hour on Jan 1 2008. The idea is that when you raise minimum wage, it costs more to get people to do shit jobs. Shit jobs costing more money means the cost of living increases (either that, or more stuff is outsourced), which in turn makes people cry that they want more money.

Conclusion: study something worthwhile so that you won't have to do minimum wage.

In canada minimum wage is about 10$/hour so that's

10*7.5*5*4=1500$

and considering that our dollar is higher than american, 7.75$/hour at minimum wage is a complete rip off

I got myself so upset writing my last post I forgot why I was originally going to post.

Getting a better than minumum wage job (or working for yourself, doing the things your former bosses hired you for) is all well and good for making money, you're reasonably skilled, and no boss to answer to etc.

BUT, you then have to have social skills that allow effective negotiation, so you can charge what you're worth.

I used to be a mechanic, I was taking on the occasional odd job for the last few months, but the "customers" are all penny pinching idiots who want something for nothing. They ask "Why can't you do this or that?" and I tell them, they don't believe me, they want to get by on junkyard parts that aren't even for their car (it can often be done, but with much more effort) for a fraction of the price of a shop down the road. Sure, I don't have the overhead of maintaining a large building, but less than half price for labor and IMAO better than average quality work is worth it to them. But I've been running them all off for the last three months.

@Edgar

If you truly believe in your ideas you should dedicate your income to the cause. Something tells me you do not have any rich friends and probably have never met a rich person, you have been very harsh to a group of people calling them all sorts of unjustified names.

If you believe in these causes stop trying to spend someone else's money. Use your own.

Where I come from its rude to steal money... (for any cause whatsoever)

- Dustin -
I pay taxes just like everyone else.
I don't mind if my taxes go to support a fair minimum wage.
At no point in time did I endorse theft.
You just don't get it so there's no point in trying to explain it to you further.

You guys need to go and read "The Fountain Head" and "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand in any particular order. And then come back here and we can discuss how Rand was no talent hack.

Thats a lie and a half. For starters rich people pay far more than you. Additionally, they also pay a higher percentage of their income than you do.

Rich people hire tax professionals to get them out of 90% of their taxes.

I think Ayn Rand is exaggerated too far in the other direction, however I agree with her more than I do Edgar.

Additionally I think her novels were just premises to exercise her sexual fantasies.

While rich folks do hire tax professionals to reduce their taxes, approximately 80% of the tax is paid by the top 25% of people. [Source: my memory.] So they still do pay a disproportionate amount of taxes.

Unfortunately if there is going to be an income tax, then it has to be that way. The first $20,000 (or some amount) of your money is relatively 100% needed to survive, and then the next $60,000 (or some other amount) is needed for some standard of living, and the rest becomes more for extravagance.

But I don't particularly like the idea of income tax. It's not because I'm against taxing the rich, but it doesn't seem fair because everything else you do with your money ends up getting taxed as well.

When I was poor I didn't pay any taxes: everything that was withheld from my pay check was returned at the end of the year. Since I've had a 'real' job I've been paying about $5000 a year in income tax. But if you compare the total tax we pay in the US (income + property + fica + social security + sales tax etc) we still pay a lot less than most Europeans (at least those not on the dole).

What do you guys think of Oprah campaigning for Obama? Personally, I think he is too weak of a candidate to be factor against Hilary; Oprah power or not. All Hilary has to do is not screw up next year and I think she'll be the Dem nominee.

- Dustin -
How would you know whether I pay taxes or not , not to mention at what tax bracket?

I don't really know how taxes worked into this into the first place , it may have even been my fault.

Raising the minimum wage is not paid for through taxes. It is paid for through increased costs of basic goods and services. Everyone uses basic goods and services in some form or another. The costs of raising minimum wage would be distributed throughout the entire economy.

The reason a minimum wage has to be mandated in the first place is because business owners are out to make money. They can increase their profit by either lowering their wages , raising their prices , or by increasing demand and therefore sales.
If no minimum wage was in place then employers would lower wages as far as they could before they lost employees. However , employees are people who want to get paid and if the only jobs they can get are low paying then that is what they are forced to take. You can see that employers will lower wages as this is demonstrated clearly in companies moving overseas to find cheaper labor. Buy locally if you can.

Once the companies can lower their costs the invisible hand will lower costs to consumers. Customers will be able to buy the same goods at lower costs. To paraphrase yourself:

Meaning we can all benefit from the effects, as opposed to your situation which makes us all suffer for the benefit of a few.

I agree that there are cases where the capitalist system breaks down and the invisible hand needs to be "modified" a bit, however minimum wage is far too generic to be of any use.

This gives me an interesting idea. What if you taxed people based off what percentage of their income they did not spend...

Okay Dustin , so you'd like it if the minimum wage was lowered? So the people who have to work it can't afford to eat or pay rent? So "we" can all benefit from the effects of more homeless people and more desperate people? Sounds nice.

Well look on the bright side, now that dollar can actually buy the homeless guy something.

Except that that dollar wouldn't buy the homeless person anything more than before because when costs are lowered , the prices don't lower proportionally. It justs translates into more profit for the business owners , not the employees.

And than a guy like me comes along, sees the huge price gap, and decides to start a company undercutting them (Did somebody say McDonalds?).

Don't mistake something that takes time with something that doesn't happen. Also read up on the Invisible Hand, as these last two posts could have been skipped if you understood what I meant with the concept.

Poetin.

Quoting from the quote

By this reasoning then minimum wage workers promoting minimum wage increases are promoting the interest of society.

What do you think worker's unions are for? They're there to promote the interests of the workers and to make sure they feel they are getting paid what they deserve and what is reasonable. Most minimum wage workers however have no such union with which to exert bargaining power with to secure higher wages for themselves. This is why we need someone in office who can secure it for them through a minimum wage increase , not to mention affordable health insurance.

In any case , we clearly have not or cannot come to a middle ground on this and I tire of discussing this further. I've got work to do. Later.

Cool, take it easy

No minimum wage is a bad idea for reasons I already mentioned. While capitalism is generally good and works itself out, there are some areas where greed leaves people out in the cold. A fair minimum wage makes it worthwhile to work but does not raise prices to an unfair amount.

That is, maybe a fast food place could sell a cheese burger for $0.50 without any minimum wage, but it's more beneficial to society for them to pay their employees a fair amount and charge $1.00. The problem is, in a capitalistic world, we consumers would rather pay $0.50 and let people suffer through a worthless job because hey, it isn't us!

That's almost what income tax is, although the USA system is so convoluted it's hard to see it that way. The alternative to income tax (other than reducing federal programs) is to tax people on what they do spend and give poor people a monthly rebate.

Its tricky ground talking about these things. I think most people agree that spending money on mentally retarded individuals is worth it, however most people would agree to not give me money (solely for existing). I view it as a sliding scale, how much do you prefer to sacrifice for the individual?

I think a more interesting issue is that the majority of Americans are good at the same things. We can almost all make a coffee or flip a burger. If we could give this large group of people skills to push them elsewhere, the wages for those positions would naturally rise.

I tend to prefer the positive* solution to the negative* solution.

The restriction to 'business related purchases' modifies things a bit.

_{*What I mean by terms.. positive: leave the system as-is as much as possible, injecting more quality of work to fix problems. negative: hurt the system, as in hurting the value of the dollar for some means (usually a moral stance of some sort).}

@ Matthew Leverton

If people have money they will spend it... right ?

So it's better for me to pay a fair amount.. because IF people have enough money they WILL be able to buy the things I make money with..

Money "standing still" looses it's value

In other words...If everyone would be very minimalistic in spending money, economy would go in a crashdive

A more powerful effect than this one is if you stop trading value for money, the money itself loses value. To quote another author..

If we habitually broke all of our windows, we could employ a huge army of repairmen.
Lots of money would change hands, yet the economy would not flourish.

It is foolish to think money itself can drive the economy.

The rebuttal to that is Henry Ford paying his factory workers an absurd amount of money for the times because he wanted his workers to be able to buy what they were building. The historic effect of the automanufacturers on the economy is probably significant (killing the planet with C02 death machines is another matter entirely).

Which one for USA next president ? Who cares , it will be a drunk or a comedian

I remember our economics professor in community college telling us how General Electric corporation and some other giant I can't remember the name of didn't have to pay any taxes sometime in the early '80's. However, since the corporations were owned by shareholders (who got taxed on the same profits) it was actually "fair" assuming taxation is fair in the first place.

If no minimum wage enables people to buy a $0.50 hamburger at the cost of other people having to work for $2.00 an hour, then requiring a minimum wage of $7.00 an hour means that the people who would have worked for $2.00 an hour didn't get a job at all. I think most of the minimum wage people are unmotivated as well as unskilled.

I'm about to give up on McDonald's entirely, they mess something up %80 of the time, whether it's 15 minutes to get through the line with 3 cars ahead of you, to not providing a fork for pancakes, or some item is rock-hard dried out, on and on and on. They have two speakers so two cars can order at once, yet I've never seen the second speaker used, they "shut down for computer maintainance" maybe 2 - 3 times a night yet don't turn the golden arches off, they always say the chocolate shake machine is down at night even though it's on the late night menu. I'd be far better off to go to an all night diner (and I'm going to do that, just get the food to go),

You go boyeeeeee.

So from that I take it that Ronald McDonald will not get Arthurs vote for president.

Edit; sorry that rant was just so surreal in the middle of a thread about the US presidential election...

We need a dead president. I would have posted the youtube link, but the video has since been removed and that is the only place I could find the video after several minutes of googling.

Honestly I don't see how Clinton can win the election. That is scary, because it gives the Republicans a free pass. But Obama has been gaining on Clinton. But it's possible that they will knock each other out and a guy like Edwards will win it.

Huckabee is starting to be considered the leading Republican candidate. It's kind of funny now to see all the anti-Huckabee news articles (especially on places like Digg). But I think if Paul supporters show up in big numbers at primaries, he could make a strong push to being a front runner. Look at the straw polls... if everybody who has donated money to Paul's campaign votes, it could be interesting.

I hope it will be someone smart

All the liberals down in NY City and similar groups will vote for her. I will seriously consider leaving the country if she is elected.

I don't see what's wrong with Hillary but I don't see what's wrong with Obama eighter

But that is based on what we (in the Netherlands) see of them

Not just smart... ethical too.

Ethical is probably the higher priority anyway.

Honestly?

I'd do Hillary if she was elected.

That's what someone said about Bill too.

Does that mean I'll have a shot? I'd better register to vote...

If I were an intern and I walked into the oval office and Hillary was holding a cigar with a special gleam in her eye, I think I would turn around and walk out.

That's just me though.

In a nutshell (how apt is that?) she thinks BIG GOVERNMENT IS THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING! zomg!

What if it were Chelsea?
[img

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:c8lRO9O6hbp18M:lonewacko.com/images/chelsea-clinton.jpg]

Give me a paper bag and I'd hit that.

You'd better use two paper bags, just to be on the safe side.

Paul raised another $6 million on Sunday, which breaks the record for a single day of donations (previous was $5.7 million by Kerry after he already had won the Democratic nominee). His Q4 total will probably be over $20 million, which likely will be more than any other candidate. The "main stream media" must be in shock over his numbers, considering they always have attributed his online popularity to a handful of blog spammers.

I think if he can take third place in Iowa behind Huckabee and Romney, he'll be in good shape to be considered seriously. Paul will benefit from being the most different from the rest of the candidates, but it will be hard for him (and others) to get past Huckabee's automatic vote from the evangelicals.

I would laugh my ass off

I read Ron's webpage and I think I like most of his stance. The only thing we seem to disagree on is abortion but thats not such a huge deal for me either way.

I do wonder what ideas he has between the lines however...

I don't think there's much to read between the lines. He's won ten terms as a Republican congressman and his voting record is well established. Like I said earlier, even if you disagree with his minimalistic government, there's not much to worry about. The only two things he really has direct control of is downsizing the military (bringing them home) and vetoing any spending bill.

Everything else would require the support of Congress. Of course, the President often is very influential (if he is popular), so some of his ideas may go through. But it would be impossible for him to single-handedly change the entire way the government is run.

For the most part, I like states rights over federal rights. However, I agree that abortion is a different thing. It would be silly for some states to ban it, and others not to. You'd end up with people traveling just to get an abortion. I think it's one place where a federal law makes more sense.

And despite that I'm totally against abortion and view it no differently from killing your newborn child, I recognize that nations should be run by the morality of the whole. There are enough people who are in favor of it that it will continue to go on regardless of its legal status. I think a better approach to an all-out ban is to compromise, to more heavily promote birth control, and to make adoption easier.

I think his position to get rid of income tax and replace it with nothing is the most intriguing of all his views. It can be done if the government stops wasting money on ridiculous projects (e.g., wars). It's been estimated that 50% of the government spending is on the military (due to direct money spent along with accumulated interest). Considering the IRS is probably the most hated organization by USA citizens, I'd think Paul would be doing better in the polls...

Rid of income tax? I didn't find that on his webpage...

Thats legit! I'd totally vote for him than.

One of Paul's favorite lines is that spending has increased more over the last ten years than the total sum brought in by income tax. So if you can reduce spending to where it was ten years ago, you could eliminate income tax and be in the same boat we are now.

But obviously before the IRS can go away, the federal government needs to drastically reduce spending. So I don't think Paul expects to actually get rid of them any time soon. He's also against the Federal Reserve operating as they currently do.

Huckabee also wants to get rid of income tax, but he wants to replace it with a federal sales tax.

I'd support federal sales tax. Then taxing is fair, you get taxed on what you spend, and less mess and hassle sorting stuff out.

I read somewhere that when they established income tax (a temporary measure to help finance World War I) that some worrywart wanted a %15 cap so it wouldn't get out of control. They nearly laughed him off the floor for such a silly idea. It'd never get that high!

I don't consider myself an informed voter, no do I typically get interested in politics. If I did, this thread would probably be critical in determining the way I voted.

Phipps: I have to commend you for your magical skill of creating very active threads.

It was over 90% during the wars.

I have a gift.

http://plif.andkon.com/archive/wc124.gif

Yeah, real gift: Hmm, what three things set off active discussions on A.cc? Politics, Religion, and New Girlfriend/Girlfriend left me and my dog died. I think I'll start a politics thread!

Ron Paul is the Ross Perot of 2008. He'll never win.

Edit: Nice, it'd be better in color though; I wanna see that red headed b@stard bleed...

Nonnus: No need to be cynical or jealous. May your lesbian girlfriend pray to God and Bush to forgive you..

They aren't even similar; I don't know how you can compare them. Ron Paul is seeking the Republican nomination. If he doesn't get it, it's highly unlikely that he'll run as an independent. There's no way to win as an independent, and he has nothing to gain from it. Furthermore, it's not even possible to run as an independent in some states if you previously ran under a political party in that same campaign.

Ross Perot was self-financed; Ron Paul has received almost $20 million dollars from approximately 200,000 different individuals—in the past three months. No other candidate has that sort of enthusiastic support. His platform is popular, but unfortunately most of the people simply vote based on a single issue or on whomever seems to be the most "Christian."

Of course he's a long shot to win the Republican nomination, but if he were nominated, he'd have a good chance of winning the Presidency.

Here's a recent 40 minute interview.

Hey, she's not a lesbian, she's a wealthy hotel heiress....

Edit: and I have proof she's had sex with at least one guy...

And with how many goats?