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.)

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.

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!

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.

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.

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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..

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>

- 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.

I grew up below the poverty line.

The birth and deeds of folk like Brian Peppers.

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.

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.