Income Disparity

The problem both of us has faced since the beginning of this thread is trying to get people to see that there HAS to be alternative ways of looking at the issues because of the complexity. But Nooooo. We want simple answers! (something that looks good on a bumper sticker) I don’t know what more to do with this. It’s probably the wrong venue for any serious discussion.

But that said: Your friend is taking a risk and that is his choice. If he ends up living in poverty he risked that choice. Society owes nothing to those who refuse helping themselves. Wait! I know! Blame it on someone else! Yeah, that’s the ticket. After all, it couldn’t possibly be my fault. I’m the victim here. I’m poor because I’m oppressed by those others. (sniff)

It would be interesting to know what sort of re-training is being offered to displaced coal miners and how many are taking advantage of any such programs. I’m guessing damn few. People seem to resist change - even for their own betterment.

The fast food industry won’t contribute higher wages to anyone. They’ll simply continue with automation. Want to place an order? Talk to my computerized order system. And have a nice day…

Higher quality products are not always handmade. Not even close. Many high quality items are impossible to make by hand. Computer chips are not handmade.

I thought we were at $40,000 as a living wage in a factory. Does everyone make $40,000? That’s a sort of communist vision. But I’m really just wondering how your far-left vision works in practice.

The naive know not whether they are the naive, but know for certain of the guilt of others.

tent - the thing about my friend is that while he’s looking for a higher paying job, I would never call his circumstances those of poverty. He and his wife just don’t fit the stats. They were immigrants. I know a lot about this immigrant group. Generally, they just don’t borrow money. They scrape and save and pay cash. They are not typical americans - from a “financial practices” point of view, they are better than typical americans. They have a nice house in the suburbs. Their kids went to school.

And yeah, I think society owes them nothing. They feel the same way. Even though he makes, ultimately, about $22,000 per year, maybe a little more.

What they have, which so many truly poor people don’t, is social resources. A person making $22,000 with few social resources can be poor while someone with the same income but rich social resources can be just fine.

You could be more incitefully direct than that JSS. Do you understand the work place justice that I am shooting for? Weigh in more please.

All full-time workers would be guaranteed $40,000 while highly specialized jobs/technical jobs would receive higher pay. A great many folks who work at desks are modern versions of paper pushers who are not highly skilled nor strained in any way, but often paid ridiculously well, I’d like to see them work for $40,000 too. Some of the money that used to be distributed to the top owners/employees would be redistributed to the bottom’s lower employees. The top would still earn far more than the bottom, but the divide between the two would lessen.

I’m no social/political/economist so I’m not exactly sure of how the details would all work at this point since I just came up with this idea a few days ago. I’d need to research a few large companies with all their financials to make a model of its workability in paper pushing industries and manufacturing industries.

I haven’t considered small businesses in this initiative yet, but partnering programs with the government until they grow stable, might be an option. Small business operations with less than 10 employees might not be able to meet the $40,000 minimum salary but may be eligible for alternative investment programs on their employees behalf which would accrue monies in a retirement account or an emergency account available to the employee after so much time.

Before productivity escalated, how were most companies able to offer their employees all those bygone benefits (medical, dental, pension, severance packages, paid vacations, paid maternity leave for moms/dads, paid personal days, paid sick days, paid relocation, sign-on bonuses, quarterly/yearly bonuses, etc.)? Most companies no longer offer benefits packages yet for some reason they were able to in the past…how?

I would say that wealth is created by creating a product or service that is worth buying. What we have in the consumer marketplace now are consumers who are forced to settle on low quality products and services due to small, limited incomes and that is how high productivity crap get purchased. If more people had more purchasing power, they’d choose to buy higher quality, USA products, some of which might even be handcrafted. I’m old fashioned, I want to save the trade industries, I want cars that people put together with pride, I want clothes that are stitched by human hands…I guess I want a world where people have a sense of purpose and that their purpose matters to others.

Your friend sounds like a first generation immigrant - the kind of immigrant we should be welcoming into this country. The ones who start at the bottom doing the shitty jobs and slowly work their way up the ladder. They are contributors not users.

My turn for a story.

I have hispanic neighbors who are good friends. Both are illegals, but only because of our fucked up immigration policies. We both live in an old section of town and our homes are barely on the marketable scale because of their age. Neither of us have ever made enough to just throw money at these places. Everything little project requires scrounging materials, and more importantly, scrounging help when we can’t do the work by ourselves. I had the “social network” because of my pawnshop. I had lots of friendly acquaintances in low places - but some of them had construction skills. My friend works in construction so he has a large group of people capable of helping out now and then. So social resources? Absolutely. It’s called trade outs. I’ll help you now, you can help me later. With those trade outs, we have gotten a lot done that would never have happened otherwise. The result is that we’re working poor (dollars) but managing to be OK. We pay for all the necessities and have a few bucks leftover for whatever.

Wasn’t that a song? “I’ll get by with a little help from my friends.” I feel badly for those who find themselves alone without anyone to help them now and then. They truly are poor - no matter how many dollars they make.

tent - my friend is a first generation, yes. So, social network. There are many reason why poor people don’t have one, or enough of one. The reasons I have heard, from such people include but are not limited to: They’re on drugs and their family has disowned them. They get shuttled around by state agencies and so are living far from home. They don’t work, which limits their contacts with people who can help. They are perhaps single moms, who don’t have time for anything but work and kids. They are mentally ill. They have criminal records, which makes it difficult to find decent housing in a neighborhood that isn’t full of people who share their plight.

We talked once about how your average poor person is one $300 car breakdown away from disaster. Unfortunately, increasing their income by $300 doesn’t solve the problem. We have a bus system where I live. Very low ridership. I am told by the operator of the local food pantry that no one uses the bus or walks to get there - they either drive or get a ride. I have seen homeless people, who were housed temporarily in a motel, refuse housing because it didn’t have air conditioning.

John Rawls made a great point about distributive justice - that what each of us could reasonably want by way of social justice is that when one group benefits, say from a government police, all groups should have their reasonable expectations met.

But what is a reasonable expectation? many, but not all, poor people need hope, education, substance abuse counseling and a kick in the ass. It’s tough to succeed if you don’t believe you can. But just as teenage girls unreasonably see a Kardashian as the paragon of beauty, poor people are taught that without a college education, they’re screwed. It’s just not true. We should not have an education system that has as its only goal a college degree and a Colonial in a gated community. Shit, if i gave you a Colonial in a gated community, you’d sell it and probably buy a camper and then we’d never hear from you again.

There was a WIC program running right next to my pawnshop. We shared the same parking lot. I watched all sorts of people pull up with pickup loads of food just trying to help out those in need. At the same time, I watched the clients of this program drive in to get what help was offered. At the time, I was driving a 13 year old Ford Ranger. It’s only a guess, but probably 95% of the vehicles going in to WIC were much newer than my old pickup. Quite a few were brand new. They could afford a new car but needed help from the taxpayers and goodhearted helpers to have food? If I were a true blue conservative, I should have been screaming that this program should be stopped. Those people aren’t poor. Look at the cars they’re driving! But since a lot of those same people were my clients as well, I knew better. Lots of different reasons, lots of bad decisions…

College? Maybe. For some, not for others. But an education? Absolutely critical! All an education can really provide that counts is flexibility in the old thinker. If you cannot see all the alternative ways to deal with a problem you’re uneducated. That is why so many programs of help fail. You say its tough to succeed if you don’t believe you can. I’d go further and say you can’t succeed if the only problem solution you can see is a guaranteed failure. Devising plan A isn’t too difficult, but success depends on plan B or plan C or… Education is not knowing what to think, but in knowing how to think. That is what is missing in too many of those who end up poor.

A colonial in a gated community? I’m honored! :blush: You really don’t have to, but it is a nice offer. I know… why don’t you set up an ILP gofundme thingy to get me that colonial? Of course it would have to include the promise that I’ll go away forever. I’m sure that there are enough ILPers who would like to see me gone to generate a sizable amount of cash - or maybe the minimum down payment? I’ve scoped out this nice little island in the Queen Charlettes and… :mrgreen:

Tent - I’ve had three Rangers. Good little trucks. So, we are back to choices. A couple of months ago, I came into part of a small inheritance. I put most of it in the bank. Where it still is. I will use some to make a DP on a car, soon. My wife’s car runs like crap, looks like crap - it might be the worst car in town. Making ominous noises. It’s near the end. It’s time.

What I don’t put towards the car, I will keep in the bank.

I wasn’t always so frugal. I know what it’s like. I went through a time when I spent it all, maxed out my cards, and worse. I was vagabonding around the eastern seaboard. I was often broke. I was never poor.

Now, it’s different. I got married again. Working a regular day job.

I made the transition because I had a heart attack and almost died (myocardial infarction in the widowmaker). I was always god at getting a job - none of which required a college degree. I got some because I know how to network. I have and know how to work my social network. I have my present job mostly because I helped a friend get his job.

By the way, when I had the MI, I had no health insurance. After release from the hospital, I went to the business office for my bill. I was planning to negotiate the price down (because I know you can and I know how to) but they told me that i had to apply for “free care” first. Those were the rules. I told them I could get a loan (it would pretty much be a car payment) but they told me I had to wait. I qualified for free care, despite that I was making just under 50k at the time.

The reason? With free care they get all the money and they get it right away. There’s something wrong with the system.

Faust,

Is there something wrong with the health care system? Is a pigs ass pork? Yes to the free care dilemma. The trick now is to milk medicare for all you can get. First, should you need any “elective” surgery, the doc won’t do anything till their surgical plan is approved by medicaid and/or the supplemental insurance company. Then the hospital or outpatient surgical center wants some upfront money. Everyone involved wants guaranteed money. Beyond that, they know that they will only receive a portion of the bills presented so they inflate the begeesus out of the bill. Supposedly, everyone goes away happy.

The answer to all of the healthcare issues is simple. Just die, Faust. And hurry it up. There are more standing in line.

Getting a reasonable health care system in place will be the biggest headache this country will face for a loooong time.

You think Warren Buffet lives like a pauper?

Hoardes wealth? Maybe. Financially supports like half the economy? Probably.

What are his crimes? Being the biggest philanthropist in history? Having the best combination of discipline and ability to speculate ever?

You don’t like Warren Buffet??

Warren Buffet doesn’t support the economy, the economy, its resources (workers and the Earth’s natural resources) support him.

Buffet is good for the economy in that he places a lot of good bets. Good companies should be rewarded and bad companies should be penalized. That’s the free market. But you’re both right - he doesn’t make money for the companies, they make money for him.

What is a good company? What is a bad company? And how should bad companies be penalized?

Mr. Reasonable is never right as a contrarian? It’s realistically impossible.

A good company makes a profit. A bad company loses money. Bad companies are penalized by going out of business.

But you want a good company to do something good for people. Right?

That’s the thing … a profitable company may be making people sick. It may be destroying the general welfare of a society.

‘Good’ can mean many things to many people.

A good company in my view does everything right while making a profit, their profit may not be as enormous as a company willing to cut every corner to make more profits. Are there any type of my good companies anymore?

All employees are paid a decent wage and shown that they are valueable
The Earth’s environment and its resources are respected
Craftmanship in a product means more than the amount of product created

I have more to list but this headache is an SOB.

That doesn’t mean anything because “everything” and “right” are so nebulous.

There will always be someone who says that a company is doing something wrong.

Are you referring to collateral damage or a bitch/bastard who simply likes to complain?