Recent posts by Thatsomegoodname on Kongregate

Topic: Serious Discussion / 99% vs 53%

Originally posted by GameCrazyKid:

Originally posted by Thatsomegoodname:

Originally posted by vikaTae:

It would not surprise me in the least you know, to find business owners in both protest groups.

Why not? Because I have found/met with business owners in both these groups.

Isn’t that what she said? You questioned her statement then supported her point

I’m not arguing with her. I’m asking why she wouldn’t be surprised to find business owners in both protest groups.

Topic: Serious Discussion / 99% vs 53%

Originally posted by JohnRulz:

The protesters are largely college kids who would not be employed anyway.

That isn’t all the true. I have been to one of the occupy city (for my city) and there is a huge variety of people from war veterans to even investment bankers.

Originally posted by vikaTae:

It would not surprise me in the least you know, to find business owners in both protest groups.

Why not? Because I have found/met with business owners in both these groups.

To spaghettimonster: the large majority of the protesters seem to be unemployed.

To everyone else: How do you feel about the 53% that showed up to counter the 99%? (sources say that the 53% is a “conservative lash” against the unemployed people complaining)

Topic: Serious Discussion / 99% vs 53%

So one of the news stories that has been going around is the Wall Street protests in NYC (and spreading to other cities around the country) and overall, they are very dissatisfied with their current financial condition (although they are very “general” in about what to do about it). Their main point is that they are angry (mainly at Wall Street, government, etc.) due to the fact that no one was punished after the economic crash. They call themselves the 99% representing the America that was hurt by the greedy 1%. Another group that rose up (mainly to counter the 99%) was a group calling themselves the 53%, representing the percent of people who pay taxes in the country. This group seems to consist of people who are working 1+ jobs (or what would be equivalent to that for cases of business owners) while paying taxes. Their argument is that the 99% in New York should stop protesting and actually get a job like they have because it won’t get the economy better by protesting.

I don’t really disagree with either of these positions for the certain reasons. I feel that the certain people who were responsible for the crash of the recession should be held accountable (I know that people were greedy but there were many deceptive corporations in play). I also see where the tax payers are coming from saying that protesting won’t help the situation. However, I feel that certain people should be thrown in jail for their crimes or else they would be getting away with it again and again (especially the industry of financing and investing which concerns Wall Street and banking). What is your view on this issue?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Attraction and racism

Originally posted by Darkruler2005:

I think we’re going to have to agree here that we have the basic racism, and racial discrimination. Racial discrimination is what has, over time, become known as racism instead to the average man. In reality, racism merely means that you find there are differences between people attributable to race.

I was using the conceptual definition of racism which defines racism as “the theory that people of one race are superior to another.” I can see your point though.

I unfortunately could not find a single black girl falling in the former group.

Wow really? Not even Beyonce?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Attraction and racism

Also as a side note, I have friends who think basically: “the darker the skin, the less attractive”. Thoughts on that?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Attraction and racism

So I was wondering about this for quite some time: Does not finding a race of people not as attractive than others make one a racist?

For example, I do not really find African Americans to be as attractive as other races in general (not that I don’t like all African Americans but simply most to say the least). I feel like this is partly due to the “westernization” of the concept of beauty where most of the things considered “pretty” in society is “Western”. Even in my country South Korea, the people who are considered the most beautiful have “western” physical features rather than stereotypical Asian ones (such as double eyelids, sharp nose, small faces, etc). So, do these attractions/unattractions make one a racist?

Topic: Serious Discussion / The Ethics of Sweatshops

Originally posted by SaintAjora:
p>Which they really don’t. As you already explained yourself, it is wage slavery or starvation. You are contradicting yourself here.

However, what choice do they have? Given working at factory (or as you described, slavery) or starvation, probably everyone would choose to work. Yes it isn’t entirely fair but given the crappy situation in the 3rd world countries (which really can’t afford to educate people, employ, or any other means to improve their situation without money) sweatshops actually do benefit both the people and the nation. As someone said before, those who have been forced out of the factories now live by means of prostitution, drug trafficking, etc.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Arrest your enemies

Let’s pretend your country A is fighting a war with country B. You have a lot of supporters from your country but some who live in your country actually support country B and claim themselves to be affiliated with country B. Given this, should the government of country A be allowed to arrest those who support their enemies?

Let’s look at this from a more realistic point of view. During the American Revolution, many colonists in America actually supported England over the “rebel” colonies. Now I’m not too sure about this but from what I know, the government did not harass or arrest any of the so called “loyalists” or even their families. Instead the people (or Patriots I should say) harassed the loyalists and so forth.

From two worlds of today:
In America’s situation with fighting terror and currently being in a “war” in both Iraq and Afghanistan, were someone to come out and fully claim to be and a supporter of Al-Qaeda, should the American government be legally able to arrest and/or investigate that person?

On another spectrum of the globe, there are laws in South Korea (highly criticized by countries like America) which dictate one cannot claim to be communist or a supporter of communism. Given that their enemies (literally) are communists in the North (well self-claimed communists), the government arrests and jails these people (not too harsh punishments or long sentences with rooms for bails and such). Under the circumstance that South Korea IS in a war with the North and especially after the extreme tensions that are going on in the peninsula, what do you think of this policy? Note that this policy has extended to arrest those who “talk to” North Koreans, affiliate with North Korea in any manner, etc.

Thanks in advanced for anyone who replies!

Topic: Serious Discussion / Ethics of piracy

Originally posted by Hakaisha:

Piracy may be in a gray zone, but if i want to make 1 million copies of the avatar movie on DVD and hand it out to anyone i come across, then i better damn well should be allowed to do that. I bought the owneship of that copy, and i should be allowed to do w/e i want with it.

You can do whatever you want with the copy you bought. You can’t make your own copies and distribute them. You have the ownership of the COPY not the RIGHT TO COPY. Subtle difference there in words, huge difference in meaning. Hope you get the point anyways.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Originally posted by Flypurplehamster:

Prove it then.

And if that’s true, then I don’t see how changing the minimum wage for the unemployed is going to hurt interns, if interns don’t get paid minimum wage. After all, interns don’t (according to you) get paid per hour. I am thinking of messing with how people get paid per hour. Thus, this whole intern thing is irrelevant and I don’t know why you brought it up.

Well it is in the article I linked to you… Either way it would be lowering the minimum salary (I suppose) in this sense. Minimum wage doesn’t specifically have to be $/hr but any price floor currently in place.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Latest Korean Problems

I love how half the people who posted here just thinks South Korea should sit idly by and watch the North Koreans blast their cities in fear of “escalation of tension”. Can’t you people see that all South Korea has done for the past attacks was sit around their 60 inch television sets and watch the shit happen around them and it really, really didn’t work out too well? IF it were another country, let’s take America as an example, and one of their warships sunk on American waters and killed 46 sailors, would America have sit idly by and simply “condemned” the country that attacked them? Or what if some nearby country decided to fire artillery shots at an island and killed CIVILIANS?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Originally posted by Flypurplehamster:

Despite your faulty logic (they get paid overtime, which means extra money, and you just said they got paid 22$ an hour). And according to this source:
http://www.laborlawcenter.com/t-State-Minimum-Wage-Rates.aspx?gclid=CI6u-aeEz6UCFYnc4AodHyRIjw
no state has a minimum wage above 8$, though some of the more liberal ones have ones exactly on 8$.

Just because they work extra time doesn’t mean they don’t get paid for the extra time. If an intern had to do extra work at a hospital, why would they just not get paid? Overtime means MORE than 22$ an hour, because you’re working on what’s supposed to be your own time.

All my (unreliable, Ask.com, ect) sources say that an intern works for anywhere from 10$ to 14$ to 20$ an hour. Nothing as low as 8$ an hour.

They get paid salary, those interns (which is actually in the links I provided) not in terms of $/hr.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Originally posted by Flypurplehamster:

22$ an hour is not minimum wage in today’s society, and is in fact a pretty good salary. So if, using my method, we lowered minimum wage, I can’t really see how that would destroy the life of interns or lower their salaries.

Do they not get paid overtime?

I already said that is if they work 40 hrs per week, 52 weeks in an year. Interns sometimes will work well more than 100 hours per week (and most 80+ hours) which would make their base salary about $8.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Originally posted by Flypurplehamster:

That’s assuming that you are going to start with minimum wage no matter what. Not true. And anyway, this very hypothetical law could be changed so that it didn’t apply to you on your first job.

Interns get paid minimum wage? All of them? MOST of them? I’m sorry, but citation needed.

http://mdsalaries.blogspot.com/2005/10/residency-salaries.html
According to this site, 1st year inters get paid $46 grand per year. This is relatively equal to $22/hr if you were a regularly full time personnel but there is the fact that many medical interns actually have to work sometimes even 100+ hours per week (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residency_(medicine)#History_of_long_hours).

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Originally posted by AaronB:

Minimum wages cause unemployment, prevent people from finding low-paying entry level jobs which would help them get better jobs later, produce inflationary pressure, and deprive everyone of services they would have liked to have.

What do you mean inflationary pressure?

The ones who really benefit from minimum wages are unions (who want to reduce competition from cheaper non-union labor)

Well it does help those who are employed and not laid off. But I am just simply questioning whether this helps society on an overall level.

big companies like Wal Mart who pay a little above minimum wage and want to harm their competitors; and politicians who can pretend they are benevolent masters.

Well Wal-Mart is actually all for lowering expenses (which is why they do not employ full time workers and do not pay their workers benefits) and I’m not sure if they really support a minimum wage (especially given that they are one of the first companies to actually “force”, in some sense, companies to outsource jobs).

The phrase “aggregate demand” is a hint that you’re about to hear some keynesian doublespeak.

Sorry I don’t know what that is.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Originally posted by Laxaria:
Realistically, if you could outsource production to a firm in China and transport it to the US at a total cost lower than producing it in US alone, why would you produce in the US? You will need to pay very low wages to compete with China’s even cheaper labour, and even then you aren’t likely to get the same number of productive workers (or compliant workers, even) for the same budget.

How is that so? Granted workers in China are much cheaper than those counterparts in the U.S. but that doesn’t really make them more “productive” or “efficient”.

Illegal migrants are probably not working at minimum wage rates (enforcement of minimum wage is not a easy thing to do) or lack the means to negotiate for minimum wage rates.
Abolishing minimum wage will not necessarily bring back jobs done by such illegal workers. Admittedly, my understanding of “black-market” labour in the US is quite poor, but I do not think that corporations using illegal labour would contemplate hiring legal labour. If they feel compelled to hire illegal labour, then the complications of settling legal matters for legal labour (taxes, unions, etc) would be quite off-putting.

Well yes, the illegal workers do not get paid the same as a citizen/resident would but that doesn’t mean the business is not paying their taxes. For example, a slaughterhouse would simply employ illegally documented workers and turn in their taxes under multiple but essentially the same Social Security number (not that the IRS is complaining but..). But I would say you are right in sense that a legal laborer would rather not work in such horrendous working environment (say like they have done in the Industrial Revolution era).

If you know you are going to make at least US$5/hr (for example), you can plan what you want to do with that income. At least you know what you will likely earn, how long you need to work to earn a desired sum, etc. This certainty helps significantly in encouraging investment and savings. Fair Trade in LEDCs try to utilise this same principle. If you know you are going to make a specific sum of money or more, you have the certainty of making sound economic choices than face the uncertainty of what is going to happen from price shocks.
If you are going to be paid US$100 for 20 hours of work, you will know with a large degree of certainty that you’ll get US$100. Now, with this knowledge, you can plan a little more ahead. The certainty helps a lot, especially at low wage levels, since if there wasn’t a minimum wage, your wage level may or may not fluctuate, and the lack of certainty makes it more challenging to make future plans.

This can easily be done with a set wage (which doesn’t have to be a widespread set minimum wage). For example, a person can plan ahead with even relatively low wage if it is set (say $3/hr) despite the fact that not much can be done with the money (very little more can be done with a higher minimum wage). Unless of course you mean that the set wage rate will change eventually (which makes sense given there is no regulation opposing it) but that kind of “uncertainty” is similar to say a minimum wage paid worker being laid off due to the businesses being unable to pay the extra expenses.

Minimum wage can also help in ensuring a fair treatment of workers. While we can quantify Economic costs, it is harder to pin a value to social costs. Socially, a minimum wage hypothetically allows workers working at that level to make a decent, albeit simple, standard of living, relative to the location. While, admittedly, this is not necessarily the case everywhere, it is worth considering the social benefits of minimum wage.

Yes I definitely agree with you there.

Furthermore, minimum wage acts somewhat like a price-floor. If Labour Unions debate and dictate at least a specific wage level for you, wouldn’t that be like minimum wage? Not a legally enforceable means of it, but that is a possible consideration as well.

This might maybe work better since unions can collectively bargain and employ many people into a work force under a set rate after working with employers and such (and I believe it has happened before). But this is just another price floor, you are right.

If enforced properly, the perception of income certainty it gives is definitely a significant benefit. Fair Trade concepts in LEDCs try to provide a fair and predictable income for farmers and other individuals selling Fair Trade goods. If the income is predictable, farmers can plan investments into improving productivity and earn themselves a better standard of living. Yes, Fair Trade goes against free-market concepts, but its success, while not too well documented, has seen some publicity. If I recall, Starbucks utilises Fair Trade coffee, but I’m not too certain.

Hmm I thought farmers (well at least some) were given subsidies to produce certain goods rather than a minimum wage.

I know it does sound like minimum wage is quite a useless concept, and indeed, countries have gotten by without ever needing to use it, but if enforced properly on a domestic level, may have considerable merits. Keeping in mind, however, that a small city or country would be able to utilise minimum wage more effectively than larger countries with poorer or less government enforcement. Minimum wage may not work in the US, but may work in countries or cities with greater government influence.

How so? Can you give an example please?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Originally posted by Flypurplehamster:

Originally posted by Thatsomegoodname:

Originally posted by Flypurplehamster:

Then why not say, “If your income per year is below X, and/or you are unemployed, YOUR minimum wage is going to be Y instead of the regular Z.”

After all, an unemployed person isn’t making money anyway. Zero is under the minimum wage.

Would that not be discriminatory a bit?

Not really. “Hey, unemployed guy. To help you get a job, we’re lowering the bar!”
“How dare you demean me like this, unemployment is an art form!”

No one’s saying that unemployed people HAVE to get a job. I just think you should make it easier.

So everyone who is starting in the work force would essentially be starting at the new, lower minimum wage as opposed to the minimum wage for those who are already employed and wants a job switch? Wouldn’t that just reset the optimal minimum wage to a lower rate (which is essentially not helping anyone… especially say a doctor working on his/her internship).

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Originally posted by AngryKarmaMan:

Despite what people say, poverty in the USA in social terms is making under $50,000 a year.

I think we need to get rid of the minimum wage and pay based directly on worker performance and output.

That could lead to another problem where someone could easily be laid off simply because another worker is willing to work for less pay (especially in states where employers can fire employees for a single reason… which my state is one of them).

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Originally posted by Laxaria:
If jobs are already being lost, the presence OR absence of minimum wage will not bring back any more employment to the US. In this case, bringing in minimum wage would be a moot point. If a job is lost to China or India because it is cheaper, the lack of minimum wage will not make production costs in US any cheaper than China or India.

Yes but would it not help more jobs from being lost? Or at least it could bring back jobs that are done by illegally documented workers (in America specifically so to speak) given that there are people who willing to work at similar level of income.

What type of poverty are you talking about? What level of minimum wage are you talking about? Minimum wage at US$7.25 is very different than at US$10.00.

Poverty is just one of the issues that could or could not be solved by minimum wage. As I said before, you cannot double-blind test the Economy. What works for one country, city or location may not work for another.

Will minimum wage now solve poverty in the US? No. Will aid solve poverty in the US? No. Will greater employment solve poverty in the US? No. Income disparity will continue to occur, and may even get worse. When it comes right down to it, minimum wage alone will not prevent poverty. On the Economics side of minimum wage, it is not necessarily an evil just because it does not prevent poverty.

For the record, I’ve never actually heard of minimum wage being directly linked as a means to reduce poverty. Education investment, skills retraining and overall, supply-side Economics, tend to help a little more in improving the quality of labour of the poor rather than trying to help them earn at least a minimum level of wages. Sure, ideally, if you increase the income of the poor, but minimum wage will not help.

Hmm do you have an idea what use minimum wage might be good for then? I have just heard/read arguments previously that minimum wage helps those in poverty and yet I’ve read that it doesn’t have much significant impact either.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Originally posted by Flypurplehamster:

Then why not say, “If your income per year is below X, and/or you are unemployed, YOUR minimum wage is going to be Y instead of the regular Z.”

After all, an unemployed person isn’t making money anyway. Zero is under the minimum wage.

Would that not be discriminatory a bit?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Originally posted by jitters:

Don’t forget about minimum wage with commision, tips, or benefits. That can really balance things out. Also a disabled person collecting insurance or a retired person collecting a pension may be able work minimum wage without effecting their supplemental income.

I have heard that some restaurants actually pay below minimum wage and add on the tips and such to make up for the rest of the income. Also, while it is written in the law that businesses cannot discriminate against handicapped, elderly, race, etc, many businesses do have some ways to get around this law by simply dismissing the handicapped or anyone else as “not being able to get the job done” or etc. Having said that, I do not believe minimum wage completely helps the disabled (simply because businesses will be more reluctant to hire them) or retired people (because they are retired and by definition not really working).

Originally posted by jitters:

Minimum wage is a way to teach young people the value of a dollar. This can develope a good work ethic and money managment skills… It can also backfire and cause a lot of people to give up on the rat race.

I am not understanding what you are trying to say here. Can you clarify a bit more please?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Originally posted by Laxaria:

It would really depend on the type of good. Remember about price elasticity of demand and how it influences changes in prices. A good with a low price elasticity (price inelastic) would have a proportionately smaller price change when the quantity demanded changes.

A price inelastic good could be “food”, for instance. Or “water”. I cannot break down the good “food” into its constituent components, because that would make the price elasticity greater.

Either I am not understanding you very clearly or I disagree with you. A higher staff cost (in my opinion at least) would only lead to laying off of more workers or sometimes even inevitably raising the product costs because the marginal cost of having the higher paid workers is just too much at the rate.

Originally posted by Laxaria:
Of course, rightly said, minimum wage and relative poverty levels tend to take into account the local income disparity (GINI Coefficient/Lorenz Curve) and these should be taken into account when looking at minimum wage.

Hmm can you extend on this idea a bit more please? I am not aware of the concept.

Originally posted by Laxaria:

Or, if we look at it another way, if workers are paid more, become more efficient and have greater incentive to work, the economy starts growing and the cumulative effect of a growing economy means greater job creation and more employment.

Workers working at higher wage level → Greater income → Greater disposable income → Greater consumption / investment → Increase in Aggregate Demand → Increase in need for greater production → Hire more workers to increase supply → Reduction in Unemployment gap
Economics does suggest that minimum wage may cause short run issues, but are the issues really that disadvantageous if everything is done well?

Hmm you are correct on one sense but it is apparent that many countries around the world have already lost jobs to places where there is hardly any minimum wage or any other employee benefit/regulations (such as India and China). Also, I have read somewhere that minimum wage has overall little impact on the poverty levels or helping those in poverty get out of it because it is so “little” per say. However, the minimum wage is large enough that it is more worthwhile to have laborers hired in foreign countries (or illegally documented) which would cause loss of jobs in general.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Oh wow… I would first like to thank everyone who contributed to this thread and will work toward reading every one of them.

Originally posted by NeilSenna:

I define ‘poverty’ as a relative thing, generally based on the cost of living in a specific location. So providing the minimum wage does not contribute towards a rise in the cost of living and is set at a high enough level, then yes, it’s a semi-effective way to reduce poverty.

I agree. Poverty levels in United States is no where near the poverty levels in say, a third world country (or even other first world countries like Europe). It is true that those in “poverty” per say in U.S. has a lot more than those in other places in the globe and are granted benefits (such as wellfare) but this does not relatively put them in a “stable position” as I would say (since there are those who still live in projects and such). Also, minimum wage can be an effective way to prevent poverty if it is high enough, yes, but it is only realistic that employers are more prone to lay off workers because of this high level of cost. For example, an employer would only use maybe two employees instead of three had minimum wage been set at $10 instead of a $7.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Minimum wage as a mean to prevent poverty

Ok, I have come across this question during my economics class and couldn’t really come up with a definite answer to it so I want to hear some opinions from various people around. If there is already a thread similar to this, please let me know and I’ll bother you people no further.

Let me get one thing straight, the minimum wage doesn’t really prevent poverty completely as it can be calculated (at least where I live) that someone who is employed full time at minimum wage will make a little more than $15,000 per year (excluding taxes of course) which is way below the poverty level defined by the government.

Now a lot of people debate whether minimum wage is effective as it was/is meant to be since there is the notion that:

1. people making minimum wage do not really get a “better life” per say.
2. According to economics, a minimum wage will eventually result in less demand for the resource, in this case labor, (and will cause more unemployment, outsourced jobs, etc.)

So what do you think everyone? I am very well aware that before minimum wages were set, people were working at less than a dollar at terrible conditions and such which really makes me wonder about this question.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Flat Tax or Progressive Tax

Lol @ bias in OP
Anyways, a “progressive tax” as you call it, would be rather unfair (in my opinion). Not all rich people are born rich, many get to the status they are by working to achieve it. If they achieved that wealth, then, yes, they have some rights to have claim over it (besides they’re already paying more sales tax, property tax, and income tax than an average person would ever pay in their lifetime and still receiving relatively similar if not same benefits (i.e. highways)). On the other hand, you get some person who messed up his/her life at their own fault and give them much less taxes (if any at all) just out of pity that they are poor (meanwhile they are not even working and eating up the unemployment benefits) then how is that not unfair to those in of the higher classes (not just specifically the rich but also the middle class and even some of the lower class people who work their a** off).