Guaranteed Income: The Christian Solution to Our Economy
by Morgan WarstlerI’m about to perform a healing. For those non-believers out there… like magic, it will terrify and then delight you. Maybe it’ll scare the jesus into you.
I warn even the staunchest Christian; this will test your mettle. It will clench your teeth and stiffen your spine. But, Tea Party babies, I love you! Have faith! This idea will end unemployment, and the Fed will never be allowed to print money again. In God We Trust.
And God wants us to provide every unemployed American citizen a Guaranteed Income of $10,400 per year.
Fifteen million Americans are unemployed. Even if this program INCREASES the number of people calling themselves unemployed, I want to guarantee all of them, as long as they choose to stay in the program, a check from the Government for $200 per week.
But, there’s a catch. God’s in the details…
Instead of 99 weeks, Unemployment Insurance will end at three months. After it runs out, the unemployed will be allowed to enter our new Guaranteed Income system:
- There’s no more minimum wage.
- They have to take any job offered.
- If they slack off at work and they keep getting fired, they are out of the program.
- Payments decrease to zero as they earn towards $9 per hour– but on a schedule that still incentivizes them to earn more.
Once someone is in the Guaranteed Income program, their resume goes into the GI website, and if you offer them $2 per hour to pick up dog sh*t in your yard, they pick up dog sh*t. If a call center offers them $3 per hour for forty hours, they earn an extra $120 per week.
Poof! There’s no more unemployment. God said, “Let there be light.”
When there’s no lower limit on what an idle worker can be paid, every available hand will be viewed by every other person in society as a super cheap way to get some extra work done. We’ll go looking for layabouts. And the market will figure itself out.
Imagine the millions of low cost economies that are now possible.
My favorite example is childcare. Under the new model, a hypothetical entrepreneur starts a large scale low cost DayCare center for kids. She combs through GI database looking for loving stay-at-home mommies who joined the Guaranteed Income program for the extra cash, and offers them $3 per hour, minus $1 per hour for each child they bring to work with them.
Now a mommy at work with her two kids is receiving $200 from the government and $40 from her employer every week, and she’s working full time.
The entrepreneur can now offer families DayCare that costs half of what it costs today.
This means it is less expensive to get your house cleaned, your yard picked up, and your clothes laundered. Low cost labor frees all of us to be more productive.
Tea partiers, I KNOW this is hard, but we OWE IT to fellow citizens to put an end to idleness once and for all. This is the Christian solution.
When our government created the Minimum Wage, we created a massive class of unemployable workers. The fact is many millions of people are not worth $7.25 per hour. This means that no matter how crafty the entrepreneur, he will not be able to make a profit off their labor; and if profit is impossible from their labor, the unskilled will be idle.
Progressives and evil economists like to talk about “excess capacity” and “aggregate demand”, but when we didn’t have Minimum Wage, we never had excess capacity… everyone worked, or they starved.
The Protestant work ethic all but implies that idleness is immoral. A Guaranteed Income system makes idleness almost IMPOSSIBLE. What’s more, a Guaranteed Income system allows ALL of us to be more productive because we can pay less for the jobs we normally do ourselves.
Now watch this miracle. Currently our Federal Reserve is tasked with fighting inflation and unemployment. So when we have 9.5% unemployment, the Fed is legally justified in printing money. Right now we are dealing with another $600BILLION in Quantitative Easing. Gas prices are up. Food prices are up.
But, with Guaranteed Income, we have no unemployment, so the Fed has one rule: don’t print money. This means our future prices grow much more slowly.
The costs are negligible.
Assuming this program is wildly popular and another 5MILLION people claim to be unemployed, then we will have 20MILLION in our Guaranteed Income system. The cost? $208BILLION.
It is only $58BILLION more than we spend on Unemployment Insurance ($150BILLION). This is less than a tenth of Medicare, Social Security, or Defense. $58BILLION is less than five percent (5%) of Obama’s stimulus during the toughest of times.
And this assumes all 20MILLION are working for $3 per hour. If they make more than $3 per hour, the government pays less than $58BILLION.
What is it worth in tax revenue to put 20M idle bodies to work?
What is it worth to your savings to have 2% less inflation per year over the next ten years?
What is it worth to get low cost services and be more productive with your own time?
What is it worth to never hear the word “stimulus” again?
It is worth $58BILLION. We are not heartless. We are tricky and smart.
Tea Party babies! I know there are some of you that will gruffly say, “NO!” You will insist we should not even have a Minimum Wage. And you are right. But we cannot let perfect be the enemy of the good. When Tea Party politicians call for Guaranteed Income to replace Minimum Wage and Unemployment Insurance, progressives will be smote; they will be forced to argue nakedly for laziness.
This is a winning political issue. This is the loaves and fishes. It will give and give and give.
Minimum Wage truly is the “Devil’s tool.” They say God works in mysterious ways. Guaranteed Income works in an obvious way: it ensures there are no idle hands.
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161 Comments
Once again, Mr. Warstler demonstrates why he is a columnist and why I'm a schmuck. K++ on the idea, sir.
Still too much government management and involvement to do this. I want less government, not more.
Idel hands are the Devils workshop…isn't that the way it goes?… Looks like Mr. Warstler has way to much of it on his hands.
I haven't been a Warstler fan, but I like this idea! But, it needs to have one more criteria added to it… This guaranteed work system needs to be administered by either a) the states, or b) a private enterprise… anything but the fed gov.
I agree. Even if this means the end of welfare 'as we know it' and saves tons of cash for the taxpayers, I still don't like government having such power.
Now this is some out of the box thinking.
No minimum wage? Why stop there. Repeal the child labor laws. Oh, and while you are at it, lets talk about $9 per hour. At 40 hours per week and 50 weeks per year, you can work for 2,000 hours per year. At $9 per hour, you will earn a whopping $18,000 per year. If you work 16 hours a day, you will earn $36,000 per day. I have a better idea. Instead of punishing someone for losing their job, lets concentrate on job retraining. This will take longer than 3 months in most instances, but it will provide someone with a future and our economy with a taxpayer.
Ah, Brave New World.
It's a step in the right direction though. Just trying to flat out ban minimum wage would drum up a lot of opposition, most likely enough to defeat it. But guaranteed income will see far less opposition.
Anything to unburden US from the minimum wage. An idea that sounded good, but in real life , turned out to be very destructive.
<Ann like this "outside the box" thinking>
You're really uneducated about the minimum wage Husker. VERY.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/11/graph... http://www.europac.net/commentaries/congress_sack... http://mises.org/daily/3690 http://mises.org/daily/3478 http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/07/wages... http://www.coachisright.com/the-numbers-says-it-l...
How about people just getting their own unemployment insurance on a private basis and take the government out of the entirety of the bloated, sick and twisted game? if you want to be insured against losing your job, you get your own insurance, pay your own premium and keep us out of subsidizing anyone's moral hazards.
what a novel idea! WORKING to make money! who'd a thunk it!
Look at that list Husker. How can you NOT be concerned? What about those tells you the gov't ISN'T over stepping its bounds and isn't close to tyranny ?!?! At what point do you get concerned? Your boss, Soros, just said the US needs to accept a New World Order as shown in detail by Beck 2 months ago. When do you wake up and become a citizen versus a puppet?
Edit : *the list keeps not getting posted. Busy day. I'll re-format it and put it up later*
$10,400 per year?
Such a "modest proposal"!
Beats paying someone for doing absolutely nothing!
I'm for a change to unemployment that requires individuals to "work", even if the job is not what the person is use to doing, or beneath the individuals perceived status. I have a friend who was laid off from a well paying plant supervisor job. He took a job working at a local True Value hardware store to get by until something better can be found. He is working side by side with my 16 year old son, who has been working there for about 1 year now. Changes need to be made to put people back to work rather than sitting at home for almost 2 years passing up jobs because something better will come along before my 99 weeks are up.
I won't comment on the idea but I WILL comment on the picture above. I'm sorry but I resent the evil userper's face on a picture which is supposed to be Jesus. It offends me.
I'm for job retraining, as long as it comes in the form of a "student loan" that the individual is required to pay back when employment is found.
Is there a minimum wage for trolls? It's too much whatever it is.
Sorry. Only the unemployed are entitled to dignity.
Sounds good until the democrats decide $10,000 isn't enough money and it should be $20,000, and no one should have to pick up dog poop or clean your house for $3.00 per hr and re institutes a new minimum wage because that's what democrats do. I have paid between $15 to $20 dollars per hr for house cleaning because the government pays people not to work for less.
why should we even have unemployment, do you think china, mexico, or india pay unemployment? also, why have a minimum wage at all? if a person does not want to gain any skills when he or she is in school, or on thier own freetime, why should they be guaranteed any future income at all? setting any minimum wage assumes an employer can make more profit than the cost of the wages. but unskilled workers, are not productive, and produce little income for the employer. would a sports star be paid millions of dollars if they did not produce ticket sales to the team? the great part of capitalism is, there is no upper limit on income, and no lower limit. when an arbitrary lower limit is placed, it prevents unskilled workers from getting jobs to learn how to become more productive.
This is an interesting idea. The Democrats can't be against it without showing that they are interested only in promoting laziness. The figures may need to be adjusted upward however.
The problem is that Saint Obama would never agree to this proposal. Saint Obama believes in punishing anyone interested in making money, be it a small busines or a corporation, by taking profits and redistributing as his Saintliness sees fit.
Interesting concept but it's unworkable. Pick up dog++++? Okay, who supplies the tools, who provides the transportation to and from the job site, who provides the insurance when one of these picker-uppers slips and falls on said droppings and wants to sue the property owner? Stay at home mommies at a day care center? Who pays for transportation, who pays for the background checks and again, who pays the insurance when the mommy falls and wants to sue the day care provider, who pays for a replacement mommy when the scheduled mommy calls in sick, or drunk, or whatever.
No, the solution lies in government getting out of the way and letting free enterprise work.
Christ, leave it to a liberal to jump on his moral high horse and start sniveling with invalid comparisons which at every step betray his utter pig-ignorance of economics.
I can appreciate the creative thought involved with this.
Devil is in the details – the "have to take any job offered" bit.
Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition.
Read the O.T. laws on Economics and land holdings, and tithing. Primarily Leviticus. However, the system depends on the morality of the citizens.
Two thumbs up!
Facts are not at all interesting to Husky. But then again why should they be? He is a typical progrssive with an IQ around hat size range.
NOTE: From the ACLU, we read your comment and if you happen to belong to ANY religion,*,(other than christian), Please contact our offices today to file a lawsuit as these are the types of freedoms we will not tolerate being infringed upon.
* please note: our organization cannot represent Christians because they believe in God and those Ten Commandments which we oppose.
some idiot thumbed ya down cowboy , I had to use my one to bring you back. Too religious I guess, maybe someone afraid of ammunition!
With less government meddling(regulation, taxes, and smaller govt) employment, net disposable income, and trade will improve. Let us make it so.
Huskers, this program would be voluntary. If someone doesn't want to work for 3 dollars an hour, they voluntarily get another job or, heaven forbid, move to a place that has jobs. When people work for less money, businesses will be able to offer their services for less money, thus reducing the cost of living.
No.
Just some of my fan club, from the Wailin' Jennies.
Thanks.
I think you missed the whole point Huskerboy. The government should not mandate how much an employeer should pay an employee, that is not the job of the government at any level. Unlike the government, the employeer pays an employee what they are worth. Not to mention most entry level jobs that are either part or full time are not meant to be permanent jobs.
As for your child labor laws agruement. Sorry, but that is completely unrelated and has nothing to about minimum wage. So please, try to stay relevent.
I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving, England (insert US) is mine and it owes me a living—–The Smiths.
This is a bad idea and at its heart not christian at all. Charity should not come from DC, nor should we gussy up Charity and call it WELFARE. Unemployment Insurance was intended to be a paid for zero dollar program administered by the States. Obviously it gets hijacked, for ideological reasons, in difficult economic times and becomes a problem. Lower taxes, reduce regulations, cut government spending and the economy will come back and unemployment will fall.
Once you set the price at $200 a week the progressive/socialist will ask for $250 a year from now, then $300 a year later, as their goal is to bankrupt capitalism and create the utopia that can only exist in their pea sized brains. Next idea please…..
I thought it was supposed to be the prophet Mohammad.
It's not the government's job to make people get off their butts and do something. Hunger and the elements can do that. It would be enough for the government not to subsidize laziness.
how 'bout we go one step further?
we re-institute that "peculiar institution." yes, you got it, ladies and gentlemen, let's bring back the basis of most economic activity throughout recorded history – SLAVERY.
except this time, we make it voluntary.
sheer genius. i won't have to wash my car or do the dishes. i could even send my slaves out to do my job and bring home a check. and no whippings or lynchings on my plantation – i'll treat them well (not too well, of course. after all, as Montesquieu has taught us, you can't have a good tyranny without fear).
so anyone who wants to sign up for my slavery program, please petition your congressman to repeal the 13th Amendment and let's get this puppy rolling!!
Maybe repealing child labor laws would keep the teen pregnancy, the teen drug use and the teen suicide rate down. Ever think of that my friend. I work with kids that are troubled. When I bring them to the farm and they "work" they can't get enough!! They tell me their bored at home and have no meaning in life. Put a bottle of milk in their hands and have them be responsible for the baby calf eating and appreciating them and it's magic. I have kids just sit and pet the dogs. The more they pet, the more both the kids and they dogs want. Most of these kids are single mommy homes. The young men are feminized. The young women bitter. They all have some good in them and until they feel loved they don't love. They don't care. And their just children,,,,, working.
So the assumption made in this story is that all unemployed Americans are lazy. It's their fault they lost their job. They just wanna sponge off the state. Unemployment benefits are really easy to live on. After working for 20+ years and taking a lower wage or salary since employer-provided unemployment insurance does come out of your pocket, you really dont have the right to collect that money back.
Got it. I hope to God this year everyone that doesnt have a job gets one, and every single person that makes asinine statements regarding unemployment compensation and the million of jobless Americans, in turn, loses their job.
Can someone explain to me how these $3/hour worker can feed themselves, pay rent, buy gas, have medical insurance, car insurance, and electricity or are these luxuries? Food is skyrocketing, rents are climbing as more people loss their homes, and QE2 is driving up crude oil. Please, someone explain.
A columnist sees the obvious. A politicion sees the vote. 49% of Americans receive government "benefits". How in he77 would these jokes get reelected if they cut off their voting block? Unfortunatly people will have to suffer, severely, before anything good happens. I likehis approach and ideas, but until the American people actually get off their dead arses and be self reliant, it ain't gonna happen.
Yes, coming from a doctor, you know all about minimum wage.
You make that statement with the presumption that working more than 40 hr days will not earn you a raise or a better job opportunity. There is no such thing as a dead end job unless you make it that way. On another note…if you are an adult and you make minumum wage…there is usually a damn good reason for it.
First, Soros is not my boss. Second, I have either been self-employed or have owned my own business for more than 25 years. Glenn Beck's New World Order? Get a life. Glenn Beck is an idiot. How many corporate sponsors are not advertising on his program any more? I wonder why? I am surprised you have not gone after workers compensation, too. But then it puts money in your pocket.
Hmmm. Invalid comparisons? Really. This has been the deepest recession in 60 years. You think the individuals who lost their jobs can go out and find one in 90 days?
In this economy, I think we need to look at all of our options. But punitive measures are not the answer. I also think we need to start sending employers of illegal aliens to jail, along with the illegals.
Oh, I got the whole point. First, arguement is spelled, argument. Second, laissez-faire economics was tried, oh about 130 years ago. It was soooo successful, a Republican president passed laws to protect our society from the ravages it was creating. I know, I know, he was a "progressive". However, his face is on Mount Rushmore.
Yes, I bet it will really earn you a raise when there is no minimum wage. Get a life.
They have overtime (O.T.) laws in Leviticus? LOL! J/K
Yes Soros is. You directly support all his causes without question.
Beck is an idiot huh? Was his extensive use of Soros' books, and quotes that let you know he was wrong? Was it Soros just recently telling the US to accept the New World Order that he's an idiot? Was it what Soros has done to 5 nations previously and is doing here that tells you he's an idiot? Define idiot. Blindly following a group to the gas chambers while singing "Happy Days are Here Again" or analyzing words, actions, history, and facts?
By the way, yet agian, thanks for ignoring all the historical numbers and facts I posted.
By the way, tell me this. As a business owner, what did the increased minimum wage do to YOUR hiring practices? Did you willing hire people for $7 an hour who generated $4 an hour in business revenue?
Well, for once, we agree. The result of that would be more companies moving abroad unfortuantely.
With 99+ weeks of UE benefits, most don't even ATTEMPT to look for a job until the last 8 weeks of benefits. Subsidized laziness wirt incentives!
Husker, you're losing it.
What made this nation great? Do you have any clue? It was the WEALTH generated by our FREE economy with minor regulations that allowed people to create and generate the wealth. Look at the internet now. Unregulated and it has exploded with all sorts of never before imagined applications. Same thing with the economy. Our personal freedoms that were guaranteed by the Constitution gave everyone an opportunity to succeed, and *GASP* , reap the rewards of their success.
That same formula that created the greatest nation ever is what you all want to dismantle wholesale. The result? Well, let's see. $14 trillion debt, mass unemployment, productive businesses and people leaving the nation, high crime, etc etc etc. It's a recipe for failure as shown in nation after nation., yet it's the one you all want to follow.
You really are clueless Husker. Here's the rub. IF, and that's a big IF. you are a GOOD employee, and generate business and wealth, in a free market, that labor is allowed to shop around there services for more pay and give them negotiating leverage with their employer (the HORROR!!).
YOUR plan rewards laziness and does not generate wages based on merit or productivitty. You sure you owned a business, because your mind set is one of a perpetual minimum wage worker.
Drug testing government assistance recipients will solve many problems.
Employees no not have to contribute to the unemployment fund.
Only employers do. UIC is one of many anti-hiring labor costs.
along the same lines, repeal social security and let families once again emerge as one of the supporting pillars of the community instead of the nanny state.
Imagine this, Chuck, you have a job and you know that if you were to get fired, or laid off, you'll only be given a couple of hundred of dollars a week. Don't you think that any responsible person would make sure they have enough money saved up to cover whatever living conditions they'd like to have during that time they can't find a job? Not only that, but they'd be more willing to cut out the things they don't need (cable tv, eating out twice a week, etc) so they'd be able to sustain unemployment much longer since it'll be their savings that's slowly being drained. They'd also be much more willing to take any job they could get until they could find something comparable to what they had before.
that little island in Asia known as Hong Kong has done well to compete in the global economy without a minumum wage. I also have a life.
Brilliant!
Let us make this WORK.
QUESTION: what of this little bit of savings?
According to The Budget for Fiscal Year 2008, Historical Tables, total outlays for Means Tested Entitlements in 2006 were $354.3 billion. Includes Medicaid, food stamps, family support assistance (AFDC), supplemental security income (SSI), child nutrition programs, refundable portions of earned income tax credits (EITC and HITC) and child tax credit, welfare contingency fund, child care entitlement to States, temporary assistance to needy families, foster care and adoption assistance, State children's health insurance and veterans pensions.
Now tag on the state matching funds and take a big wiff of the pig poop.
There are a few sacred cows in the list but a family of 3 SUFFERING on 30 grand a year should be able to go without ANY other assistence. Charity can pick up the rare need beyond this.
AS INSANE as this all is simple solutions are less expensive and less intrusive. Have you considered removing means testing? 10Gs no matter what A national sales tax to cover it all and BE DONE WITH IT.
Oh one cost not considered here is the full militerization of our border required to keep the masses of the world out. And law enforcement expendatures for combatting citizenship fraud.
WARNING: Last person to suggest guaranteed income was Eugene McCarthy when he was running for President (I think he lost)
No one is expecting ANYONE to pay rent, utilities, gas, etc. on minimum wage either. It can't be done. Ostensibly minimum wage is an "entry level" wage. Unfortunately politicians have hooked on to minimum wage as synonymous living wage. As the government mandated entry level wage creeps up, companies higher few people by increasing the productivity of the workers they do have or out sourcing production to cheaper venues. Younger workers are priced out of the market. Most aren't worth (in terms of contributing to the bottom line) the minimum wage that is required because they haven't had an opportunity to learn the work skills.
Eventually most people with ambition tire of the minimum wage and seek a higher salary through promotion or a job change. If an employer can't find skilled workers at the entry level wage they are forced to raise the wages paid to maintain their business. Ultimately the market bids up the cost of labor to the benefit of the employees but the institution of the "minimum wage" distorts the market and penalizes, ultimately, the worker.
I'm not even a Christian and it makes me queasy.
No Texas BBQ for you! I have reported you to Regime HQ and we are going to go ahead and award you a long sentence at a reeducation camp (where you will find me!) for Enemies of the State. Long live the revolution of the one! Long live comrade General Secretary Obamalev! Death to all Texas swashbuckling capitalist pigs! Or is it just death to those particularly juicy ones we can put on the barbie with some real good sauce and turn slowly on low heat… I have to go. I'm getting hungry. Continue the mission in the land of the dreaded Yankees!
More government meddling, UGH!
Free Col. Terrence Lakin. Instead, prosecute Barry Soetoro!
If bo is so worried about the negative effects that he perceives will happen if the minimum wage doesn't exist then why do so many unpaid interns get good jobs later down the road? According to bo, they will be confined poverty forever!
Testify! Well done and gave me some points I had not considered before.
Ah see, you are getting it… almost. The point of Guaranteed Income is that it lays the groundwork so we can attach ALL aid, to whether a person works day in, day out – regardless of what their time is worth.
Again, this is not perfect. But in order to limit all forms of unconditional aid to the ONLY the truly needy, we need to first sift out the ones who can work and the ones who truly cannot. That must be our first question: can you work?
And the correct answer to this question is another question: will anyone pay you anything to do something?
The truly infirmed, the mentally handicapped, the young… can be cared for sans work, but with this policy in place, we establish a single hurdle – and from there we can condition correctly all other forms of aid.
Something HusterIdiot is missing is that for the past century, progressives/liberals/marxist/socialist/communist have been working to overwork our original system to failure. Hints all the entitlements that push private programs out of way, then overload them to where are doomed to fail. Not to mention, all the regulations and taxes put upon businesses that force them to leave and they have done their best to deinudstrailize our nation to.
Fact is, progressives and their their type hate personal freedoms as they want to control everything. They dont want anyone to succeed, and when someone comes up with an answer to an acual crisis, they just deny it and use their own failure instead.
Husker, is just some worthless idiot who cant think for himself. If he knew what he was talking about, then people would take him seriously, but that likely wont happen as he is a retarded lefist tool.
As I just put in another post, many politicians over the past century have set to cause our original economic structure for failure. Think about, why has every market the government gets its hands on always becomes a failure. To simply put, the government has not one damn clue how to run an economy. The governments job is to protect our economic freedoms, not restrict them.
Ill say this, I dont give a damn if his face is on a damn mountain. Not to mention, 'progressives' republicans/democrat alike only want to regress our country. If any of these dumbasses understood the Constitution including you, then you would beable to understand my point and why the government needs no business in business.
Lets see…….unionized administration, of course avg $100m bucks in salary. Will rival the Soc.Sec. in its size and
scope or larger. The amount of admin costs…..staggering. Wait a min. lets reconsider for a moment.
I have never paid anyone minimum wage, doctor.
So, doctor, what is you solution. Pay American workers the prevailing wage in Indonesia?
Ah, yes, coming from a doctor. Everyone who lost their job in this recession is somehow, some lazy bum looking for a hand-out. You really need to get a life. I guess when you were in med school, you missed the lecture on compassion.
I am losing it? You need to read Theodore Rex. It will open your eyes.
Every market becomes a failure? Boy do you need an education. The reason for the most recent collapse was due to the fact that the derivative market based upon sub-prime mortgages was NOT regulated. You need to read Theodore Rex, too.
Because paid interns are getting an education.
Yes, and the average worker makes about $2 a day. So your point is?
Really?!?!?!?!? You think that the housing bubble collapse was because it wasn't regulated?!??!?!
Serious now, is that what you REALLY believe???
Great ideas!
Let's raise the minimum wage to 100/hr. We've only added 5 trillion dollars to the deficit in the last two years. I think we should spend another 50 trillion this year. And then why just raise the tax rates to 39%, let's make the tax rates 80% for everyone across the board. And anyone who wants to be 're-trained' can get it when ever he wants, take as long as he wants, Child labor? Screw that you only work from age 33 to age 35. And we need more Mexicans too! Lots of them.
Amazing comments here, as if those people who have lost their jobs wanted to disrupt their lives, spend their savings, especially after losing half of their 401k plans during the theft of Wall Street and the guaranteed backing by our very own corrupt legislatures. I thought this was one of the most distasteful articles I have read in a while, not only does it further divide the people, (that is the goal is it not?), it seemed to have worked, and that is more disturbing.
As a conservative myself, I can't believe how you are so blinded by your politics, you seem to forget, there are NO JOBS! Lazy, welfare? Unemployment Compensation is INSURANCE. If we can send billions to foreign countries to make Corporate America rich in their enterprises, surely we can look out for our own during the times that were CREATED by the same corporations to make us poorer. Wake UP, and stop thinking there is a difference between these parties, there is only one thing they care about – CHEAP LABOR and MONEY for THEMSELVES. It is called enterprise corruption, and it has been going on for years.
So what is your point? Would you rather they have no job at all? If they produce $2 a day of revenue, why should they be paid 5$ a day? You have to BRING something to the company of value. You said you owned a small business. You should have this very basic concept down cold. Was that exaggeration? Did you not have any employees?
Is this a rectally derived statistic or do you actually know people who have done that? In your case most likely the former. And you're a physician? God help the poor bastard that's under your care when the bill comes due and they can't afford it. Time for some compassion training there doc.
This idea goes well beyond stupid, all the way to insane.
Every study ever done shows that subsidized work programs don't provide an incentive to work more for additional cash, but rather, an incentive to loaf more. "Losing Ground" by Charles Murray has the story about what happened when this exact kind of program was implemented in the past.
The only way to cut spending is to cut spending. The solution to unemployment is deregulation and less uncertainty about future regulation. Repeal Sarbanes Oxley. Eliminate the minimum wage. Get government out of the way and let the market do its job
I'm sure the blogger has never been accused of not being an a-hole. Perhaps workers should be chained to the factory floor too and not afforded bathroom breaks? It's ideas like this as to why unions formed in the first place. And how might those unions be stopped from organizing in your free-market paradise? The indonesian way most likely; at the end of the barrel of a gun.
You really, really have no clue. Obviously, in your world, everyone pays cash for their home and never has a home mortgage. You are a joke.
First, bo is flat wrong. Lower wages are around 2 dollars an hour. Also bo make the assumption that 2 dollars US is indicative of what prices/standard of living index for hong kong. The point I make is that hong kong has had one of the highest standard of living increases in such a short time because of the free market. Too bad growth may slow because of the minimum wage just imposed last july. http://www.worldsalaries.org/hongkong.shtml
I'm talking about unpaid interns and no not all interns are getting an education.
Well, first, doctor, you had better check up on your facts. I know the truth will hurt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_Hong... Hmmm. Why do you think the instituted a minimum wage in Hong Kong? ROTFLMAO. I think you need to read Troo's post very carefully:
Is this a rectally derived statistic or do you actually know people who have done that? In your case most likely the former. And you're a physician? God help the poor bastard that's under your care when the bill comes due and they can't afford it. Time for some compassion training there doc.
Ahh, yes, the slippery slope argument rears its ugly head. I was wondering what took so long?
Reeducation Camp Counselor: What do you see?
Thorien: I see a pig.
RCC: What is it doing?
T: It's walking around. Snorting and snuffling a bit, too.
RCC: It's not walking. It's flying.
T: No, it's not.
RCC: Yes, it is. I can see it flying.
T: Are you feeling all right?
RCC: I'm fine. But DON'T YOU SEE THE PIG FLYING?
T: I've changed my mind. I don't see a pig walking.
RCC: That's very good. What do you see?
T: I see dinner.
How about the state gov't and the federal gov't actually doing something that would create jobs – LOWER TAXES and trim down regulations so that this becomes a business friendly place. After all, none of us have ever worked for a poor person.
Then we wouldn't need 99 weeks of unemployment would we?
But Obama didn't do that. He pushed Obamacare, stimulus that just went to his political buddies and did NOTHING TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR BUSINESSES TO HIRE. NOTHING.
Even the 2 year extension of the tax cuts is not enough. It's still a gamble for businesses to hire.
You really are that stupid, aren't you?
Thank you Chuck, I sincerely am ready to cry reading the remarks here by people that I will assume, on any other day refer to themselves as Christians. God help us all if this is what our society has come to. Perhaps those who are making these remarks who call themselves Tea-Party supporters, should look into the corrupt Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich and others who have been working behind the scenes to help create this mess we find ourselves in. Perhaps you should begin with really researching the Enron scandal. Or how about how General Electric's Healthymagination where Newt sits on the board.
Newt and Dick both know a lot about corruption, especially in the healthcare industry. Especially in the MEDICARE FRAUD business. Look up Richard Scrushy, Newt's friend, and if those people here still refuse to see that all of this corruption is planned, set up by politicians who will be leaving office, Phil Gramm comes to mind, of course he and Dick Armey go back a long way too. When Judge Painter actually came out and stated that fellow Judge Levine of the CFTC made Wendy Gramm, an Enron board member, who also worked at the CFTC, a promise NOT to side with outside investors on any lawsuit, and he did exactly that, the news media immediately called him a nutcase alcoholic, and Dick Armey defended Gramm and said they were now private citizens and good people. !!!
If you think this health-care bill wasn't put into place in order to benefit the insurance companies you are soooo wrong. It is working out exactly as planned. YOU will pay higher premiums, have less privacy, the bill will be rescinded, as planned, and no one is any better off except the corporate elite and those ex-politicians sitting on the boards of these companies who will benefit from higher portfolios.
These people are leading us into a fascist society, while telling the people we are becoming a socialist society. Well, guess what, we have always been a socialist society…only the welfare has been going to corporations and bankers and you were too busy having your ears tickled by your values and morals to see that the foxes were guarding the henhouse. I was guilty of that myself, until I actually educated myself and started following the money trail. We have never been UNITED, the people have been divided by religion, politics, and race for years. It's a sad day to see what is being said here. Thank you Chuck, at least I guess there is one out 70 people who haven't been totally brainwashed by crooks.
What in the hell are you talking about? Did you even read my post? What statistic are you even mentioning? I quoted YOUR number. Do you have any clue about how labor is priced and valued?
Are you so focused on insultng me that you YET AGAIN ignore anything I wrote?
Thank you From Georgia! That is exactly correct. Minimum wage laws are harmful to everyone. It was one of the last things that I had to understand before fully shedding my leftist mindset.
It's amazing how wonderful life is when you are using your brain.
More of a clue that you will EVER have.
In YOUR world, banks FREELY, without coercion by threat of being SHUT DOWN, loaned money to people who they KNEW couldn't pay it back. Right?
Please tell us what good (NON-(over) regulated) Capitalistic principle THAT is? Since you "know" so much.
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