# McDonald's suggested budget for employees



## Arshes Nei (Jul 16, 2013)

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/202...w-impossible-it-is-to-get-by-on-minimum-wage/

I was amused by this article because it tells me that McDonald's wasn't exactly showing how to budget ironically. For one McJobs weren't really meant to be full time jobs unless you were trying to get managerial skills. However, it looks like the budget is for full time jobs, and 2 of them. It also left out other expenses. 

The funny part is it partnered with Visa...hmmm yeah...

I guess for groceries they expect their employees to take care of the discount to eat? Even though it's completely left out of this sample, eating isn't important apparently.


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## Ansitru (Jul 16, 2013)

Food isn't even mentioned in that budget. And the budget for heating is $0.
Yikes.


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## PsychicOtter (Jul 16, 2013)

This is why minimum wage should be increased. Anybody working full time should not be below the poverty line. $1,100 a month working _full time? _


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2013)

I suppose it's further justification to shop and eat at other restaurants and stores which are more responsible, instead of maccy d's. 

A minimum wage that covers so little may well be the reason a population the size of England in the USA couldn't afford any health insurance- and in turn the reason the USA is the sickest rich country on earth [although the UK isn't far behind]. 

Too much cheap fatty food and relatively little money or time to set aside for health and exercise activities is a poisonous mix.


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## Recel (Jul 16, 2013)

Welcome to the "logic" of the rich.

You don't need payment, you don't need food, but magically you should buy two cars, and iPhone, a yacht and a plane to keep the economy rolling. Than they wonder why people don't buy things!


Oh, also, they never mind to put more taxes on people when income falls, because you know, it's all _your_ fault for not buying things you don't need from money you don't have!


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 16, 2013)

Recel said:


> Welcome to the "logic" of the rich.
> 
> You don't need payment, you don't need food, but magically you should buy two cars, and iPhone, a yacht and a plane to keep the economy rolling. Than they wonder why people don't buy things!



I wasn't aware a yacht, iPhone and a plane were in the budget?

Sure this budget is whacked but I haven't seen anyone really encourage what you're saying unless it's some silly American stereotype you have?


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## BRN (Jul 16, 2013)

Arshes Nei said:


> I wasn't aware a yacht, iPhone and a plane were in the budget?
> 
> Sure this budget is whacked but I haven't seen anyone really encourage what you're saying unless it's some silly American stereotype you have?




He hadn't mentioned those things being in the budget, he just likened the budget - which suggests you don't need to eat, or heat your home - to fallacious "logic of the rich".

That same fallacious logic suggests poor people have the responsibility to keep the economy going by buying luxury goods.

It's a pretty easy-to-understand post.


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 16, 2013)

SIX said:


> He hadn't mentioned those things being in the budget, he just likened the budget - which suggests you don't need to eat, or heat your home - to fallacious "logic of the rich".
> 
> That same fallacious logic suggests poor people have the responsibility to keep the economy going by buying luxury goods.
> 
> It's a pretty easy-to-understand post.



Stereotyping a whole country with stupid good that people aren't really being pushed for is not helpful. The luxury goods aren't even on most people's marks, rich or not. Seriously a plane or a yacht? Bother to make the shit relevant, not sound like you think of some stupid stereotype from some limited country experience.


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## Recel (Jul 16, 2013)

Arshes Nei said:


> I wasn't aware a yacht, iPhone and a plane were in the budget?
> 
> Sure this budget is whacked but I haven't seen anyone really encourage what you're saying unless it's some silly American stereotype you have?



"Welcome to the logic of the rich"

I wrote this to kind of point out I'm NOT going to talk about the budget you posted, but a general way of thinking. It's god damn simple to read... you even quoted it for crying out loud...

Come on, you can read! You just want to pick on me, don't you?



Arshes Nei said:


> Stereotyping a whole country with stupid good  that people aren't really being pushed for is not helpful. The luxury  goods aren't even on most people's marks, rich or not. Seriously a plane  or a yacht? Bother to make the shit relevant, not sound like you think  of some stupid stereotype from some limited country experience.



God damn Arshes, you went full retard, didn't you?

In the "logic of the rich", where on earth did you read out I was only talking about your country? And the plane and yacht is EXAGGERATION, look it up.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2013)

Arshes Nei said:


> Stereotyping a whole country with stupid good that people aren't really being pushed for is not helpful. The luxury goods aren't even on most people's marks, rich or not. Seriously a plane or a yacht? Bother to make the shit relevant, not sound like you think of some stupid stereotype from some limited country experience.



I detect yachts were an exaggeration.


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 16, 2013)

Recel said:


> God damn Arshes, you went full retard, didn't you?
> 
> In the "logic of the rich", where on earth did you read out I was only talking about your country? And the plane and yacht is EXAGGERATION, look it up.



I'm pretty much aware you were "exaggerating" but the way you're posting it are stupid examples. Make it more relevant. In other words stop complaining about me being a retard and rethink your totally retarded exaggerations that make a better point.

Or are people too afraid to start criticizing what are actual luxury goods that people buy instead of budgeting? Just take an extreme stereotypical and "safe" example instead of getting to the point.

I'm pretty sure you don't want to touch those examples because you're afraid of real criticism.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2013)

Smart phones, trainers, cigarettes, too much food and alcohol are more relevant examples. 

The availability of many of these items, particularly food, has massively increased. Food items that ought to be luxury such as fatty salty or sugary foods are marketed as cheap and fast alternatives despite their health cost, which _does_ have a monetary value.

Huge arguments over the maximum size of a fizzy drink container probably exemplify this.


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## Recel (Jul 16, 2013)

Arshes Nei said:


> I'm pretty much aware you were "exaggerating" but the way you're posting it are stupid examples. Make it more relevant. In other words stop complaining about me being a retard and rethink your totally retarded exaggerations that make a better point.
> 
> Or are people too afraid to start criticizing what are actual luxury goods that people buy instead of budgeting? Just take an extreme stereotypical and "safe" example instead of getting to the point.
> 
> I'm pretty sure you don't want to touch those examples because you're afraid of real criticism.



I'm more afraid of you putting big words in my mouth to sound superior. And if you were aware of me exaggerating, why did you bring it up saying as if I was serious? Oh, yeah...

And low blow wound tearing too? Well, now I really wonder if you actually WANT a discussion at this point, or just continues with your petty strive to point thing out you don't like about my post.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2013)

This argument is pointless and has nothing to do with the subject matter.


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 16, 2013)

Fallowfox said:


> This argument is pointless and has nothing to do with the subject matter.



No sorry, but this was in partnership with a major credit card company. So instead of rhetoric I was hoping for more relevant examples of how they push the agenda some obvious and other times more subtle.

Like awards and point systems for using a card.


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## Aetius (Jul 16, 2013)

They still make more than a college student :v


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## Cocobanana (Jul 16, 2013)

We should raise the minimum wage and take the money out of our Defense budget.


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## Aetius (Jul 16, 2013)

Cocobanana said:


> We should raise the minimum wage and take the money out of our Defense budget.



The govt doesn't subsidize minimum wages, unless they are actually paying those wages.


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 16, 2013)

Serbia Strong said:


> They still make more than a college student :v



Being that college students are generally below the poverty level, indeed. 

The partnership with Visa as a public service is totally not suspicious. The other problem is the erosion of the 40 hr work week. McJobs were supposed to be for college or high school students as a supplement.


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## Taralack (Jul 16, 2013)

If Australia has one thing better than America, it's higher minimum wage limit...


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## Lobar (Jul 16, 2013)

And of course, it's damned hard to even get full time hours at McDonald's anymore.

Better than raising the minimum wage, we need a guaranteed minimum _income_, that automatically rises with inflation.


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## Toshabi (Jul 16, 2013)

Cocobanana said:


> We should raise the minimum wage and take the money out of our Defense budget.



Because raising the minimum wage won't cause the baseline price of other goods raise at all. And the Defense budget is totally what's sending our economy down the path of financial hell. You're very well informed. :roll:


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## BRN (Jul 16, 2013)

Lobar said:


> And of course, it's damned hard to even get full time hours at McDonald's anymore.Better than raising the minimum wage, we need a guaranteed minimum _income_, that automatically rises with inflation.


Isn't that akin to a social welfare system? From a cultural point of view, I thought America held welfare in disrepute.


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## LegitWaterfall (Jul 16, 2013)

That's why you should stay in school, kids.


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## Aleu (Jul 16, 2013)

All I know is I'd kill for those bills. Everything aside from rent, I pay more of. And the difference I pay in rent doesn't even make up for them.

As for those saying there's no food or gas option, I suspect that's what "other" counts as but even then, $100 for both of those is laughable.


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## Scaly Fal (Jul 16, 2013)

And gun control. Well, I've found one more reason not to work at McDonald's. Ever.


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## Toshabi (Jul 16, 2013)

Scaly Fal said:


> And gun control. Well, I've found one more reason not to work at McDonald's. Ever.



It's a good starter job. That's all.


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## Lobar (Jul 16, 2013)

Toshabi said:


> Because raising the minimum wage won't cause the baseline price of other goods raise at all. And the Defense budget is totally what's sending our economy down the path of financial hell. You're very well informed. :roll:



Pretty much, actually!  Labor costs aren't the only factor in the price of goods, and our military spending is on par with the rest of the world combined.

but w/e, you're just trolling anyways



SIX said:


> Isn't that akin to a social welfare system? From a cultural point of view, I thought America held welfare in disrepute.



I didn't say it was going to happen.  Hell, the House is trying to fuck over SNAP (food stamps) funding right now, despite it having the greatest economic return of all American government spending.


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## Lobar (Jul 16, 2013)

LegitWaterfall said:


> That's why you should stay in school, kids.



This isn't particularly viable anymore either, given the astronomical costs of college tuition, the huge uncertainty of actually having a higher-paying job when you graduate, and that congressional Repubs just let student loan interest rates _double_ because hey fuck you.

But that's the American way these days, we'll give you a choice between two different ways of being fucked to death, and then tell you you deserve it because you need to take some personal accountability for your choice dammit.

e: well shit, this thread was moving fast enough I didn't think this would end up as a double post.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 16, 2013)

> Pretty much, actually! Labor costs aren't the only factor in the price of goods, and our military spending is on par with the rest of the world combined.



Our military spending is outrageous but labor costs are an enormous part of company expenditures. I remember having this discussion in my accounting class and seeing it for myself when the managers run the numbers at my job. Labor is 9 times out of 10 the biggest expense for a company. That being said, it pays to pay your labor properly. It's good business sense to treat your employees well, it breeds loyalty and produces competent workers instead of drones. Costco, Home Depot, and Lowe's realize this while places like McDonald's do not.



> But that's the American way these days, we'll give you a choice between two different ways of being fucked to death, and then tell you you deserve it because you need to take some personal accountability for your choice dammit.



You're living in this bizarre world where you either go to school for a degree and pay out the ass or you flip burgers. THAT is why this generation is so goddamn despondent. Get a goddamn certification and take up auto repair or do septic systems or something, people need their tanks pumped and they'll pay hundreds of dollars for someone to do it.


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## Artillery Spam (Jul 16, 2013)

LegitWaterfall said:


> That's why you should stay in school, kids.



People do and they still wind up broke. 

Welcome to unregulated capitalism. 

Prepare your asshole.


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## Azure (Jul 16, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> You're living in this bizarre world where you either go to school for a degree and pay out the ass or you flip burgers. THAT is why this generation is so goddamn despondent. Get a goddamn certification and take up auto repair or do septic systems or something, people need their tanks pumped and they'll pay hundreds of dollars for someone to do it.


of which maybe 12 dollars an hour will be your cut. unless you start your own business. but last time i checked, small businesses were getting the dick from both sides of the aisle with no signs of letting up.


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## Ranguvar (Jul 16, 2013)

Azure said:


> of which maybe 12 dollars an hour will be your cut. unless you start your own business. but last time i checked, small businesses were getting the dick from both sides of the aisle with no signs of letting up.



Thanks Obama.


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## DarrylWolf (Jul 16, 2013)

And they failed to take into account what it would be like to have children with that amount of income. If money is so tight, then having children really ought to be the privilege of the well-off.


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## Zenia (Jul 16, 2013)

Azure said:


> of which maybe 12 dollars an hour will be your cut.


Indeed. For the jobs we take in at the tailor shop, we price them so that the shop make about $60/hr, more or less depending on the complexity of the garment. Of that, I make $13.25/hr. I just took in a wedding dress for a hem today. It cost the customer $100. It will take me about an hour to do, so I get $13.25 and the shop keeps $86.75 of it.

I don't get many hours a week (usually about 18 per week... but we just cut each day by 2 hours so I would only get 15, but I also have 4 on Saturday now until the new girl can work alone. come regular hours and when the new girl can do saturdays, i will get 21 hours a week) but at least I earn above minimum wage. I need to make at least $900/mo to keep afloat.


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## Conker (Jul 16, 2013)

I worked min wage for a bit over a year while liberally applying around for better jobs. I have a college degree, but it's in an arty field which does me no good. Still, student loans and min wage don't mix well.

And that's why I'm still at home, and thankfully my parents don't charge me rent. 

Bumped up to $12 an hour and that feels just amazing, but it still isn't much in the long run. At least I can save more of my money.


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## Aleu (Jul 16, 2013)

DarrylWolf said:


> And they failed to take into account what it would be like to have children with that amount of income. If money is so tight, then having children really ought to be the privilege of the well-off.


Because once you're well off then you're always going to be well off, right?


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 16, 2013)

Aleu said:


> Because once you're well off then you're always going to be well off, right?



If you're smart with your money and have a stable enough job, chances are you will. Making a savings, being insured and having reasonable contingencies in place aren't immensely difficult.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 16, 2013)

> Welcome to unregulated capitalism.



>Government sponsored loans and grants for college.
>Government school system.
>Government mandated minimum wage.
>Unregulated capitalism?



> of which maybe 12 dollars an hour will be your cut. unless you start your own business. but last time i checked, small businesses were getting the dick from both sides of the aisle with no signs of letting up.



Until you go up in the seniority of the union, yes. You don't walk into a job pulling $65k a year you have to work your way up, that's what apprenticeships are for. Skilled labor is the name of the game in today's marketplace.


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## Lobar (Jul 16, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> >Until you go up in the seniority of the union, yes. You don't walk into a job pulling $65k a year you have to work your way up, that's what apprenticeships are for. Skilled labor is the name of the game in today's marketplace.



The downside being that trade certification locks you into a specific job much more than a degree does, and the market keeps changing.  What are good jobs now start going south when word gets out that's where the money is, and more people start trying to get into it than the job market can support.  This is the case with nursing right now, for quite a while there was a shortage, then suddenly whoops we have a glut of nursing students now.  Made even worse by all the older workers in those jobs that are refusing to retire because they're still recovering from the 2008 collapse.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 16, 2013)

Lobar said:


> The downside being that trade certification locks you into a specific job much more than a degree does, and the market keeps changing.  What are good jobs now start going south when word gets out that's where the money is, and more people start trying to get into it than the job market can support.  This is the case with nursing right now, for quite a while there was a shortage, then suddenly whoops we have a glut of nursing students now.  Made even worse by all the older workers in those jobs that are refusing to retire because they're still recovering from the 2008 collapse.



You take that risk with any career, and no, a certification most certainly doesn't lock you into one career any more than a degree does. A Ph.D is much more specific than holding a welder's certification. With the former you can only practice in one specific field and it overqualifies you for almost everything. A welder can do construction, road work, shop work, training, machine repair, auto-body repair, the list goes on. Plus you can specialize in *other things*. An electrician can be a lineman, do house wiring on a construction site, do maintenance on a substation, repair your fusebox, or perform diagnostics on a cable internet line, etc. Most tradesmen have multiple certifications and a broader base of knowledge than a degree-holder, that's why they're in such demand.


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## DarrylWolf (Jul 16, 2013)

Aleu said:


> Because once you're well off then you're always going to be well off, right?



Well, catastrophic things can happen that can take away whatever you have saved up (the Great Recession, for instance) but if you are at the bottom right now, you're gonna stay at the bottom. Surely, there is downward mobility but there is very little upward mobility. If you don't have enough money now to afford the niceties of life, then you probably never will have that money. I want to start a family, too but I simply don't have enough money to afford that right now. I'm hoping to get a graduate degree to help me get a prestigious job, like becoming a high school teacher but I know I'm going to be sacrificing a lot of money to do that.


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## Ikrit (Jul 16, 2013)

it seems like no one ever wants to try their hands at a trade skill anymore...
even when the economy completely changes, the basics that are provided by trade skill workers will always be needed.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 16, 2013)

As Mike Rowe said, "We're approaching a time where a good plumber is going to cost as much as a good psychiatrist, and at that point I'm sure we're going to be in dire need of both."


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## Artillery Spam (Jul 17, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> >Government sponsored loans and grants for college.
> >Government school system.
> >Government mandated minimum wage.



>Which are for a select few only. 
>Which is a big fat joke. Last time I checked the US wasn't leading in the education department. 
>Again, joke. Minimum wage has never kept up with how much stuff costs. Bonus points if you're stuck smack-dab in the middle of an economic depression or recession.


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## Aleu (Jul 17, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> If you're smart with your money and have a stable enough job, chances are you will. Making a savings, being insured and having reasonable contingencies in place aren't immensely difficult.


Not the fucking point. I'm saying that shit can and will happen because that's how life works. However he was implying that people don't have shit thrown at them in life that can cause financial distress like, I dunno, a bad divorce and basically saying "Well you know, you just shouldn't have had children".


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## Rilvor (Jul 17, 2013)

It's too bad all of the minimum wage workers of America couldn't organize and decide to stop going to work all at once. It's too bad the nerve and means to do it just isn't there.

Because this country would shut right the hell down.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 17, 2013)

Aleu said:


> Not the fucking point. I'm saying that shit can and will happen because that's how life works. However he was implying that people don't have shit thrown at them in life that can cause financial distress like, I dunno, a bad divorce and basically saying "Well you know, you just shouldn't have had children".


What? Where the hell did he imply that? You can't just put words in someone's mouth so you can create some convoluted "point" to bitch about.


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## Aleu (Jul 17, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> What? Where the hell did he imply that? You can't just put words in someone's mouth so you can create some convoluted "point" to bitch about.


"I_f money is so tight, then having children really ought to be the privilege of the well-off."_


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 17, 2013)

Aleu said:


> "I_f money is so tight, then having children really ought to be the privilege of the well-off."_


Nowhere in there did he imply that the "well off" never have financial hurdles thrown at them.


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## Aleu (Jul 17, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> Nowhere in there did he imply that the "well off" never have financial hurdles thrown at them.


He's basically saying that poor people shouldn't have children* but not taking into account that maybe these people didn't have the kids when they were poor.*


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 17, 2013)

Artillery Spam said:


> >Which are for a select few only.
> >Which is a big fat joke. Last time I checked the US wasn't leading in the education department.
> >Again, joke. Minimum wage has never kept up with how much stuff costs. Bonus points if you're stuck smack-dab in the middle of an economic depression or recession.



Irrelevant, you said unrestricted capitalism, well, those are restrictions. You wanna know why college costs so damn much? Cause kids get heaps of loans from the government with no credit check, jobs, or collateral. That's the opposite of capitalism.

Also minimum wage was never supposed to be a *living* wage. Minimum wage was invented by factory owners in the north because southern textile mills were beginning to steal their business because they paid their workers less. The north, with the help of their money and their influence over politicians, forced the minimum wage bill through under the guise of helping workers. You *know* how much I hate when rich people abuse poor people and there are PLENTY of examples of that, but a low minimum wage and "unbridled capitalism" are not examples of it. Rich people using their lobbying power in congress to increase petty but regulations to keep upstarts out of the market is how rich people abuse poor people. If you don't like working minimum wage, learn marketable skills.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 17, 2013)

Aleu said:


> He's basically saying that poor people shouldn't have children* but not taking into account that maybe these people didn't have the kids when they were poor.*



He was saying those who are in financial shit should not _have_ children in the sense that they shouldn't conceive and birth a child, not that anyone who doesn't make 6 figures should have their children taken away. It's a perfectly sound, reasonable position that I totally agree with, if you can't take care of yourself how the hell are you going to take care of a kid.


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## Mayfurr (Jul 17, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> He was saying those who are in financial shit should not _have_ children in the sense that they shouldn't conceive and birth a child, not that anyone who doesn't make 6 figures should have their children taken away.



... while deliberately ignoring the fact that some people who are poor and have / are expecting children *weren't actually poor* when the child was conceived, having had the financial rug pulled out from under them after that event by job loss / partner leaving / partner dying / humongous unexpected medical bills / natural disaster etc etc. 
Yet all too many people assume that *every *poor person struggling to raise children had these kids / got pregnant while they were poor, and get all high and mightily sanctimonious on the subject of why these nasty bludging people didn't have 20/20 foresight in predicting and/or avoiding their poverty, lecturing everyone on how irresponsible such people are in not anticipating every conceivable occurrence despite what actual skills and resources they might have access to.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 17, 2013)

Mayfurr said:


> ... while deliberately ignoring the fact that some people who are poor and have / are expecting children *weren't actually poor* when the child was conceived, having had the financial rug pulled out from under them after that event by job loss / partner leaving / partner dying / humongous unexpected medical bills / natural disaster etc etc.
> Yet all too many people assume that *every *poor person struggling to raise children had these kids / got pregnant while they were poor, and get all high and mightily sanctimonious on the subject of why these nasty bludging people didn't have 20/20 foresight in predicting and/or avoiding their poverty, lecturing everyone on how irresponsible such people are in not anticipating every conceivable occurrence despite what actual skills and resources they might have access to.



So? It's not hard to save money with the intent to use it towards taking care of your planned children in the event of sudden job loss. It's not hard to get life insurance in case your partner dies unexpectedly. If you are planning on having a child, it's not unreasonable to expect someone to take some precautions. Shit happens, it does and often time it's not your fault. It is your fault however if you don't prepare and then act dumbfounded when you're shit outta luck.

I'm not heartless, I'm not "high and mighty". I just expect a reasonable amount of common sense when someone wants to introduce a another person into existence.


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## BRN (Jul 17, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> Irrelevant, you said unrestricted capitalism, well, those are restrictions. You wanna know why college costs so damn much? Cause kids get heaps of loans from the government with no credit check, jobs, or collateral. That's the opposite of capitalism.
> 
> Also minimum wage was never supposed to be a *living* wage. Minimum wage was invented by factory owners in the north because southern textile mills were beginning to steal their business because they paid their workers less. The north, with the help of their money and their influence over politicians, forced the minimum wage bill through under the guise of helping workers. You *know* how much I hate when rich people abuse poor people and there are PLENTY of examples of that, but a low minimum wage and "unbridled capitalism" are not examples of it. Rich people using their lobbying power in congress to increase petty but regulations to keep upstarts out of the market is how rich people abuse poor people. If you don't like working minimum wage, learn marketable skills.




However well the theoretical model of unbridled capitalism functions, it fails to take into account the problems of _transitioning_ into that model. The idea that wages would rise if all restrictions were removed *in this society, not a theoretical one* is patently delusional - the very fact that so many businesses choose to pay the mininum wage itself is reason enough to believe that they would continue to pay the mininum wage if that were to fall.

Given the context of _this society_ and not your theoretical one, these basic restrictions that are currently in place are sellotape holding the cracks of capitalism together. I also think you're fully aware of that, and have worked yourself into some opinion that when the sellotape flies off and everything explodes (as you fully know it will), out of the ashes will rise some new form of pure capitalism that saves the country.

Fuck me, kid - no. Food stamps (as Lobar pointed out) have the highest economic return of government spending in your country. Across the western world, nationalised healthcare has an insane economic return. You want unbridled capitalism; that's no government investment in roads, because that's commie talk. That's no government investment in transport infrastructure at all, because private capitalism takes control. Unbridled capitalism is anarchic capitalism is the literal description of horrific dystopia.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 17, 2013)

> However well the theoretical model of unbridled capitalism functions, it fails to take into account the problems of _transitioning into that model. The idea that wages would rise if all restrictions were removed *in this society, not a theoretical one is patently delusional - the very fact that so many businesses choose to pay the mininum wage itself is reason enough to believe that they would continue to pay the mininum wage if that were to fall.*_



First, no one is talking about instituting pure unbridled capitalism, Artillery is just proving his ignorance on the extremely simple subject of economics. Second, statistically, only about 2-5% of jobs on the market pay minimum wage. As a price floor right now it's almost irrelevant, but raising it could cause problems. If the minimum wage were to fall, it would only effect the 2-5% already earning minimum wage, and of those people only a fraction would go down to the new minimum wage.



> Given the context of _this society and not your theoretical one, these basic restrictions that are currently in place are sellotape holding the cracks of capitalism together. I also think you're fully aware of that, and have worked yourself into some opinion that when the sellotape flies off and everything explodes (as you fully know it will), out of the ashes will rise some new form of pure capitalism that saves the country._



Again you're assuming I'm for some ridiculous anarcho-capitalist system where the invisible hand is god or something. No. I'm saying somewhere between there and where we are now is the sweet spot in terms of free market enterprise. Also these aren't basic restrictions, and they're not holding anything together, they're merely exacerbating the problem. Capitalism is not the problem, socialism is. Socialism is what causes the debt, the high prices, the cost of tuition to skyrocket. If you keep yanking on your magical levers trying to get the economy to do something it doesn't want to do, you're just going to end up hurting people.



> Fuck me, kid - no. Food stamps (as Lobar pointed out) have the highest economic return of government spending in your country. Across the western world, nationalised healthcare has an insane economic return. You want unbridled capitalism; that's no government investment in roads, because that's commie talk. That's no government investment in transport infrastructure at all, because private capitalism takes control. Unbridled capitalism is anarchic capitalism is the literal description of horrific dystopia.



You're mistaking anarcho-capitalism for all capitalism and libertarianism. That's like mistaking hippies living in a commune for Stalinism. It also proves you don't have a damn clue what you're talking about, son, so leave the economic heavy lifting to those of us who've actually cracked a book on the subject.


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 17, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:
			
		

> A Ph.D is much more specific than holding a welder's certification.


Thank you for riding the anti-intellectualism tide, but that's bullshit.  What the fuck do you think PhD students are doing for 6 years, reading textbooks and jerking off to them?  For any job (including highly technical scientific jobs that you need a PhD for), you have to learn a wide range of skills to be good at it, skills which are applicable in a variety of other environments.  They won't be plumbing or fixing cars, but they will include coding, doing simulations for industry or social work or economics, statistics, running laboratories (corporate or otherwise), writing articles or manuals, and so on and so forth.  You know... the technical jobs that you won't be qualified for with your welder's certificate.
Shit, I see articles every day about alternative lines of work for astronomy PhDs because astronomy research jobs are so hard to come by.  But astronomy and physics are the two fields with the lowest percentage of unemployment in the country (last I checked it was hovering around 0.5% or so).  So unless the sizable fraction of those 99.5% who aren't working research are working at MacDonald's, I'd say someone somewhere is finding them useful for something despite their 'much more specific' field of knowledge and applicable skill.

Unless you're talking about humanities PhDs or something.  I don't actually know what all they end up learning.  Someone from the humanities should come in to defend those degrees.


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## Ansitru (Jul 17, 2013)

M. LeRenard said:


> Unless you're talking about humanities PhDs or something.  I don't actually know what all they end up learning.  Someone from the humanities should come in to defend those degrees.



I'm not sure if "humanities" is the same thing as "Humane Wetenschappen" here, but here that includes law, literature, languages etc.
I personally study languages and it's a matter of picking languages you are good at, are used most around the world and then adding on extra languages as you go. It's mostly for jobs such as interpreting and translating, but you could also get a teacher's degree, or go into journalism with the studies I'm taking.

I'm not sure if our degree allows us to be employable in as many fields as say an astronomy PhD does, but the jobs we fill are still necessary I would reckon.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 17, 2013)

> Thank you for riding the anti-intellectualism tide, but that's bullshit.



What's that? Sorry I couldn't hear you over the shit trade school students get.

Over-qualification aside, which is a significant issue, PhDs can't do practical work. A physicist can't be a civil engineer, a comp-sci is a worse programmer than a software engineer, and an economist can't run a business. What they do is the theoretical and mathematical headwork that lets the engineers do their job. Their education unlocks an entirely new but extremely specific sector of the job market. I'm not saying having a PhD is worse than having a welder's certification, I'm saying it's ultimately more restrictive, but restrictive to a small number of very high profile (and almost always hiring) jobs.


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## Lobar (Jul 17, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> First, no one is talking about instituting pure unbridled capitalism, Artillery is just proving his ignorance on the extremely simple subject of economics. Second, statistically, only about 2-5% of jobs on the market pay minimum wage. As a price floor right now it's almost irrelevant, but raising it could cause problems. If the minimum wage were to fall, it would only effect the 2-5% already earning minimum wage, and of those people only a fraction would go down to the new minimum wage.



I like how you chide Artillery for simplistic economics, and then immediately insist that the minimum wage has no effect on the wages of other jobs in the job market.

Let's run through a little thought experiment.  Assume the role of a heartless, sociopathic employer who wants to pay his employees as absolutely little as possible, with zero regard for how that impacts their health and well-being, and completely lacking in compassion for their plight, or even a basic understanding of such a concept (aka a Rational Actor).  You have some utterly soul-sucking, human dignity-stripping unskilled labor that needs to be done, and determine that the lowest you can get away with offering for those jobs is $7.25 an hour.

But then there's a problem.  There are other unskilled labor jobs on the market that debase their workers of significantly lesser amounts of their value as a human being.  While that would ordinarily mean the market value for those jobs would be less than those you're offering, minimum wage is suddenly introduced, and they are forced to also offer $7.25 an hour.  Suddenly nobody is willing to work at your little corporate-franchised hellhole anymore, because they can get the same wages you were offering someplace else where they can escape their daily grind with a little more of their self-worth intact.

Reluctantly, you give in to the reality that you can no longer meet your labor needs while offering $7.25 an hour, and determine you must offer no less than $8.75 instead.  But now the cyborg (who had the emotional centers of his brain removed and replaced with computer modules for generating TPS reports) who owns the place across the street has a problem, because the jobs there were bleeding his workers of even more of their will to live than yours were, and he was paying them $8.75 an hour.  Now to keep his little corner of Oblivion staffed, he has to offer $9.75.  Then the lesser demon that was offering $9.75 two blocks away must offer $10.50.

And so it continues on; the rising tide of minimum wage, while it may benefit those at the bottom the most, does ultimately truly raise all ships.  And conversely, reducing or killing the minimum wage reduces the job market competition for those employers that needed to offer a premium wage relative to the wages of jobs that workers would otherwise prefer and would ultimately hurt all, but hurt the working poorest the most.  This is why conservatives are so eager to gut it, of course.



Also when I said degrees I didn't mean specifically Ph.Ds only, which are primarily for those seeking to work within academia (but you knew that, which is why you chose to use them).  A Bachelor's or Master's degree will at least be of some benefit to getting in the door almost anywhere, and even if the field you're applying to is only tangentially related to your major, it helps a lot because they will share a significant amount of underlying academic concepts.  For instance, people with degrees in mathematics or even hard sciences often end up going into finance.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 17, 2013)

You're propounding that a rise in minimum wage affects the wages of other employees. I used to think this too but it's a misconception. I actually had a long-winded argument with my professor over it and he proved that no, rises in minimum wage never cause other wages to go up. If the minimum wage goes from $7.25 to $8 and you were already making $8, then guess what, you're still going to only be making $8 because that's the crossover for your labor. Minimum wage is a price floor, putting pressure only on the wages it directly impacts. A rise in minimum wage does nothing to someone making more than it.

Likewise, rises in minimum wage actually rarely effect the price of other commodities. So the adage that a higher minimum wage means higher prices at the grocery store is also rather false.


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## Lobar (Jul 17, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> You're propounding that a rise in minimum wage affects the wages of other employees. I used to think this too but it's a misconception. I actually had a long-winded argument with my professor over it and he proved that no, rises in minimum wage never cause other wages to go up. If the minimum wage goes from $7.25 to $8 and you were already making $8, then guess what, you're still going to only be making $8 because that's the crossover for your labor. Minimum wage is a price floor, putting pressure only on the wages it directly impacts. A rise in minimum wage does nothing to someone making more than it.



If you were making $8, it's because your employer needed to offer an extra 75c/hr incentive to get you to work for him instead of working for $7.25 someplace else.  Once the minimum wage becomes $8, that incentive is gone, and to retain employees he will have to raise wages.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 17, 2013)

Lobar said:


> If you were making $8, it's because your employer needed to offer an extra 75c/hr incentive to get you to work for him instead of working for $7.25 someplace else.  Once the minimum wage becomes $8, that incentive is gone, and to retain employees he will have to raise wages.



I'm telling you from experience, from seeing the statistics, and from talking to a guy who's living it is dealing with national employment figures, that's not how it works. You got $8 an hour for your job because it was worth $8 an hour to you, where minimum wage falls in relation to that is entirely irrelevant save for the pride of not working for minimum wage. Now while it's true you would be inclined to go elsewhere since literally everyone will pay at least $8, the bottom end of the job market tends to dry up when minimum wage goes up as employers of those people desperately try to save on labor costs.


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## Lobar (Jul 17, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> I'm telling you from experience, from seeing the statistics, and from talking to a guy who's living it is dealing with national employment figures, that's not how it works. You got $8 an hour for your job because it was worth $8 an hour to you, where minimum wage falls in relation to that is entirely irrelevant save for the pride of not working for minimum wage. Now while it's true you would be inclined to go elsewhere since literally everyone will pay at least $8, the bottom end of the job market tends to dry up when minimum wage goes up as employers of those people desperately try to save on labor costs.



If your economic philosophy here is representative of that of your professor, I'm not impressed.  Many economics professors are paid liars sent to push economic voodoo onto students that are not yet equipped to see through it, that will have toxic effects for them and anyone else except the ultra-rich that pay for these liars, and more still are men who were duped by said liars.  After all, one can infer from the Rational Actor model that if one man had the capacity to impair the ability of everyone else to make rational decisions for themselves, he could proceed to _completely fuck them over for his own gain, and as a Rational Actor himself, you should expect him to.

There's a failing in using a single hypothetical worker to model the whole labor market, in that you can't really ascribe to a single personal motive the cumulative effects of various events of circumstance that are happening to workers all the time.  People that were already making $8 might not literally quit just to go someplace else for the same wage just because it's perceived to be marginally easier, however, as a whole, unskilled laborers churn through jobs fairly regularly for whatever reasons, and when they do, those that accept working for minimum wage are going to tend to favor those easier jobs and the effect will be the same.  Each one of those easier jobs is going to contribute its own small part to that overall effect, and while a few of those jobs might be lost when the wages for them go up (which would compound the loss of that effect at each rung on the ladder, which is why it primarily benefits those towards the bottom and not the top), it would take every job that was below the new minimum wage being lost to completely neutralize that effect, which obviously doesn't happen.



I've been awake for a whole day so I'm going to sleep now and continue this later._


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## Aleu (Jul 17, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> So? It's not hard to save money with the intent to use it towards taking care of your planned children in the event of sudden job loss. It's not hard to get life insurance in case your partner dies unexpectedly. If you are planning on having a child, it's not unreasonable to expect someone to take some precautions. Shit happens, it does and often time it's not your fault. It is your fault however if you don't prepare and then act dumbfounded when you're shit outta luck.
> 
> I'm not heartless, I'm not "high and mighty". I just expect a reasonable amount of common sense when someone wants to introduce a another person into existence.


People can take precautions and still get fucked in the ass. It's not some magic wall that protects people's assets if shit hits the fan like the commercials paint them out to be. Even with life and health insurance, they only pay so much and you make up the difference. It may not be much, then again it may break your bank. Also shit doesn't happen only once and says "Ok that's it." You can get into a car accident with your spouse dying while fleeing from a hurricane and well now you're just fucked beyond belief. You think insurance will pay everything? *HA!*
Such naivety.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 17, 2013)

Aleu said:


> People can take precautions and still get fucked in the ass. It's not some magic wall that protects people's assets if shit hits the fan like the commercials paint them out to be. Even with life and health insurance, they only pay so much and you make up the difference. It may not be much, then again it may break your bank. Also shit doesn't happen only once and says "Ok that's it." You can get into a car accident with your spouse dying while fleeing from a hurricane and well now you're just fucked beyond belief. You think insurance will pay everything? *HA!*
> Such naivety.



You seem to be completely ignoring the first half of what I was saying, you know the part about saving money. Despite what you may want to believe I'm not some "naive" moron, I know damn well insurance isn't magic. That's why anyone with half a brain cell saves up some goddamn money in case the shit does hit the fan like you describe, in order to make up the inevitable difference. It's common sense bro.

Also you shouldn't use giant text like that, it's really obnoxious and makes you look really silly.


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## Aleu (Jul 17, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> You seem to be completely ignoring the first half of what I was saying, you know the part about saving money. Despite what you may want to believe I'm not some "naive" moron, I know damn well insurance isn't magic. That's why anyone with half a brain cell saves up some goddamn money in case the shit does hit the fan like you describe, in order to make up the inevitable difference. It's common sense bro.
> 
> Also you shouldn't use giant text like that, it's really obnoxious and makes you look really silly.


Money which gets drained when you need to cover deductibles and other expenses. At that point, it's only people who are super fucking wealthy should have children. I don't think you understand how big of a difference it can be.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 17, 2013)

> If your economic philosophy here is representative of that of your professor, I'm not impressed. Many economics professors are paid liars sent to push economic voodoo onto students that are not yet equipped to see through it, that will have toxic effects for them and anyone else except the ultra-rich that pay for these liars, and more still are men who were duped by said liars. After all, one can infer from the Rational Actor model that if one man had the capacity to impair the ability of everyone else to make rational decisions for themselves, he could proceed to _completely fuck them over for his own gain, and as a Rational Actor himself, you should __expect him to._


_

I go to GMU, it's known for being one of the only schools that espouses the Austrian school of economic thought. That being said, my professor actually subscribed to the neoclassical school and gave a convincing case for it. He was also adjunct faculty who worked for the government in a department created after 2008 to oversee Fanny and Freddie. His lectures consisted of about an hour of actual lecture and an hour of him sitting back in his chair and explaining how things *actually* worked, as well as history lessons on why the Keynesian and Austrian schools don't stand well on their own. So no, I don't think he was bullshitting me, and if he was he must have forged a lot of statistics. There is no grand conspiracy among economists as to this or that, but there is a grand tendency for politicians to take what economists say, throw it out the window, and them blame them when shit goes haywire.




There's a failing in using a single hypothetical worker to model the whole labor market, in that you can't really ascribe to a single personal motive the cumulative effects of various events of circumstance that are happening to workers all the time. People that were already making $8 might not literally quit just to go someplace else for the same wage just because it's perceived to be marginally easier, however, as a whole, unskilled laborers churn through jobs fairly regularly for whatever reasons, and when they do, those that accept working for minimum wage are going to tend to favor those easier jobs and the effect will be the same. Each one of those easier jobs is going to contribute its own small part to that overall effect, and while a few of those jobs might be lost when the wages for them go up (which would compound the loss of that effect at each rung on the ladder, which is why it primarily benefits those towards the bottom and not the top), it would take every job that was below the new minimum wage being lost to completely neutralize that effect, which obviously doesn't happen.

Click to expand...


I find it funny that you mention the problem of ascribing a single motive to an entire market of workers when that's exactly what you're doing. The old adage is that minimum wage workers do just enough not to get fired, and that employers pay them just enough so they won't quit. When minimum wage goes up, the amount they have to do to not get fired goes up, so the easy jobs will no longer be as easy. Plus, as minimum wage rises so does the incentive to add automation. Gas stations, with the exception of New Jersey, no longer have people come out to pump your gas. If you want a sandwich at a Wawa you must order it through a touchscreen, as the only people on staff are the sandwich makers and the cashier. Self-checkout isles are being used so stores can operate with less staff. Even places like McDonald's have consolidated numerous tasks that used to be done by employees into machine operations so they can run a kitchen with fewer staff.

It's true that as the market settles the stern taskmaster of a boss will be forced to increase wages as his potential employees seek employment elsewhere *unless* he can automate the job or it's an employer's market. If unemployment is up, like it is now, the boss can pay minimum wage and demand anything he wants of his employees because even if they quit he's got a stack of applications on his desk, and in unskilled labor there is almost never a shortage of applicants. Your assumptions are far too simplistic and your basing you model off unrealistic situations, such as managers who are willing to lose company money before they treat their employees better as a market standard. And while we're on the subject of things you're not accounting for, there's the opportunity cost of paying employees more. It's not just the jobs that will be lost, it's the jobs that will also never be. Perhaps, in light of having to pay every single low-end employee more money, a chain decides the cost-benefit of opening a store in a rural area is no longer worth it, depriving the local economy both the jobs and the retailer. Or perhaps they decide to consolidate and close up extraneous stores that were on the edge of profitability, hurting not only the minimum wage employees but everyone at the store.

Finally the very notion of minimum wage is that employees are mindless chattel that need the government to get employers to pay them a fair wage. Some people are desperate and will take any job they can get, and some employers will take advantage of that. The general economic response is some money is better than no money. It's tough cookies. The government is attempting to do what unions have historically been used for, and that's not right, as it essentially puts the government as the worker's advocate when they should be a neutral party. If there is a minimum wage in an industry it should be one in place between a union and an employer, not the government and the employers. Also, as I said, minimum wage was put in place to *drive out competition*, which it still does. Just look how many Mexicans are working under the table for less than minimum wage. Those people could be on the books and legally working for their money, but because the jobs can't afford (or refuse to pay) minimum wage, they're taking home tax-free income.




Money which gets drained when you need to cover deductibles and other expenses. At that point, it's only people who are super fucking wealthy should have children. I don't think you understand how big of a difference it can be.

Click to expand...


I know a guy in his 20s who owns his house outright, works as a tradesman for a union, has an IRA of over $100k, and has about $30k of "emergency cash" sitting in an ammo box in his closet. Saving money is dead simple if you know how._


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## Aleu (Jul 17, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> I know a guy in his 20s who owns his house outright, works as a tradesman for a union, has an IRA of over $100k, and has about $30k of "emergency cash" sitting in an ammo box in his closet. Saving money is dead simple if you know how.


As I said. Super fucking wealthy.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 17, 2013)

Aleu said:


> As I said. Super fucking wealthy.



$130k is not super fucking wealthy, that's barely middle class. Plus the guy started with just about nothing, he earned everything he has cause he has work ethic.


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## Aleu (Jul 17, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> $130k is not super fucking wealthy, that's barely middle class. Plus the guy started with just about nothing, he earned everything he has cause he has work ethic.


Work ethic does not equate well off.
I have work ethic out the wazoo and I'm negative poverty. Saving is easy if you have money and just because you save doesn't mean that you won't go bankrupt.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 17, 2013)

Well like I said he's also a tradesman and has taken the time to acquaint himself with finance and investing. He's one of those "Renaissance Men" I was talking about.


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## Kosdu (Jul 17, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> $130k is not super fucking wealthy, that's barely middle class. Plus the guy started with just about nothing, he earned everything he has cause he has work ethic.



Let me put something in perspective:

130k a year is not middle class, maybe lower-upper.
So you complain about being poor then think rich people are middle class?


This is the one of the few times I will actually respond to one of your posts, because they are just so painful to read.......


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 17, 2013)

He's not making $130k a year Mr. Reading Comprehension, he has $130k in savings. Both he and his wife work good jobs but neither of them are pulling that kind of cheddar.


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## AshleyAshes (Jul 17, 2013)

While you're all trying to make yourselves look smart, have any of you complaining about the $0 heating bill is because the place has electrical heat?  At $90 a month for electricity is pretty high if you're only keeping the lights, Xbox and fridge powered up.  That has to be the cost of electrical heating as well.


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## Aleu (Jul 17, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> Well like I said he's also a tradesman and has taken the time to acquaint himself with finance and investing. He's one of those "Renaissance Men" I was talking about.


Investing. Which you need money to do more often than not.



AshleyAshes said:


> While you're all trying to make yourselves look smart, have any of you complaining about the $0 heating bill is because the place has electrical heat? At $90 a month for electricity is pretty high if you're only keeping the lights, Xbox and fridge powered up. That has to be the cost of electrical heating as well.


$90 a month is low here.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 17, 2013)

> Investing. Which you need money to do more often than not.



Which he managed to earn in spite of buying and insuring a V8 Camaro while in high school, also with money he earned. Get a trade, work 60 hours a week, and you too can enjoy such illustrious benefits.


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## Aleu (Jul 17, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> Which he managed to earn in spite of buying and insuring a V8 Camaro while in high school, also with money he earned. Get a trade, work 60 hours a week, and you too can enjoy such illustrious benefits.


And you said he had nothing. If he managed to buy a car, insure it, etc, he didn't have fucking nothing.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 17, 2013)

Aleu said:


> And you said he had nothing. If he managed to buy a car, insure it, etc, he didn't have fucking nothing.



Well he had a job if that's what you mean, but it was just a normal teenager job. He just put lots of hours in and didn't waste money.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 17, 2013)

Aleu said:


> Money which gets drained when you need to cover deductibles and other expenses. At that point, it's only people who are super fucking wealthy should have children. I don't think you understand how big of a difference it can be.



So what your saying is that anyone who saves money and can afford to pay off any reasonable, unforeseen expenses is "really fucking wealthy"? I guess that makes me Bill Gates then. Saving money for shit like this is literally personal finance 101, if you get fucked over and you didn't take the 2 seconds out of your life to save a fraction of your paycheck you honestly deserve to get screwed.


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## Kosdu (Jul 17, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> So what your saying is that anyone who saves money and can afford to pay off any reasonable, unforeseen expenses is "really fucking wealthy"? I guess that makes me Bill Gates then. Saving money for shit like this is literally personal finance 101, if you get fucked over and you didn't take the 2 seconds out of your life to save a fraction of your paycheck you honestly deserve to get screwed.



Here's a protip:

Don't assume people don't do something because they don't want to.

Do you realize how most people can't save up any good amount? If you have thousands saved it's usually because your life is easy or you have a good job. Not because you are particularly smart.

@TA 

Yes, I'm sure if you can find a decent job and save up 95% of the money you can be rich.
Guess what? Nobody else seems to live in your bubble here, so don't hurt your brain over it.

And I'm out before I get infracted. And pissed off even more.


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## Aleu (Jul 17, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> So what your saying is that anyone who saves money and can afford to pay off any reasonable, unforeseen expenses is "really fucking wealthy"? I guess that makes me Bill Gates then. Saving money for shit like this is literally personal finance 101, if you get fucked over and you didn't take the 2 seconds out of your life to save a fraction of your paycheck you honestly deserve to get screwed.


You do realize that life doesn't wait until you're ready to take it on, right? God damn it's like y'all have never had anything fuck you over to the point where you literally CAN'T save anything because every cent is going to food/bills.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 18, 2013)

Kosdu said:


> Here's a protip:
> 
> Don't assume people don't do something because they don't want to.
> 
> Do you realize how most people can't save up any good amount? If you  have thousands saved it's usually because your life is easy or you have a  good job. Not because you are particularly smart.



I don't assume it's because they don't want to, I assume they don't  because they're ignorant or just shortsighted. You can work at goddamn  Burger King and still develop a healthy savings, you don't have an  excuse.



Kosdu said:


> And I'm out before I get infracted. And pissed off even more.


Good, you didn't contribute much of anything anyways.



Aleu said:


> You do realize that life doesn't wait until you're ready to take it on, right? God damn it's like y'all have never had anything fuck you over to the point where you literally CAN'T save anything because every cent is going to food/bills.


Cry me a river. Even if you're caught off guard you still have options to get you back on your feet. You spending "every cent" on food? Apply for food stamps. Stuck with a bad debt? Work 2 jobs until you're able to pay it off. Seriously it's not my fault someone chooses to not help themselves.


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## Aleu (Jul 18, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> Cry me a river. Even if you're caught off guard you still have options to get you back on your feet. You spending "every cent" on food? Apply for food stamps. Stuck with a bad debt? Work 2 jobs until you're able to pay it off. Seriously it's not my fault someone chooses to not help themselves.


I have. However apparently food stamps programs don't like students (which I am). So I can either not go to any school and get food stamps, or go to school so I can fucking make something of myself.
Also two jobs is a viable option...except I'd be making less than what I do now and working more hours.

Ever heard of "easier said than done"? Because it applies here very much so


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 18, 2013)

Aleu said:


> I have. However apparently food stamps programs don't like students (which I am). So I can either not go to any school and get food stamps, or go to school so I can fucking make something of myself.
> Also two jobs is a viable option...except I'd be making less than what I do now and working more hours.
> 
> Ever heard of "easier said than done"? Because it applies here very much so



Than what's the issue? If you somehow have a job that makes more than 2 jobs combined and you don't qualify for food stamps you sure as hell should have enough money to make a savings. If you don't than that's an issue of you having a really, really shit budget or you simply making excuses.


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## Aleu (Jul 18, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> Than what's the issue? If you somehow have a job that makes more than 2 jobs combined and you don't qualify for food stamps you sure as hell should have enough money to make a savings. If you don't than that's an issue of you having a really, really shit budget or you simply making excuses.


Or I could just pay outstanding bills? :V Oh my goodness it's like money disappears when you make a payment.
My budgeting is what's keeping me afloat. The only way I can manage is if I have two full time jobs or a full time job and a part time job which neither I can do because I have school. I've been turned away so much because "Oh you're a student, well you can't be flexible so nope." which is also why I've been refused a full time position which would be more than enough to cover everything for me.
Another thing is the laws regarding part time. No more than 20 a week average which employers use to fuck people's hours over.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 18, 2013)

You're making an opportunity cost. You're going to school, so you don't get full time employment. If you dropped out you could work all you wanted. You can't have your paycheck and eat it too. Unless you picked up an apprenticeship, then you get like $12 an hour 50 hours a week to be trained and certified on the job.


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## Aleu (Jul 18, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> You're making an opportunity cost. You're going to school, so you don't get full time employment. If you dropped out you could work all you wanted. You can't have your paycheck and eat it too. Unless you picked up an apprenticeship, then you get like $12 an hour 50 hours a week to be trained and certified on the job.


I'm not going to be an idiot and dump a good career. I've already put off college far longer than I have wanted to. Besides, if I dropped out, HOLY FUCK STUDENT LOANS WHERE'D YOU COME FROM?

Oh yeah, smart.


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## BRN (Jul 18, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> He's not making $130k a year Mr. Reading Comprehension, he has $130k in savings. Both he and his wife work good jobs but neither of them are pulling that kind of cheddar.



This isn't even economics, it's bloody numeracy that's all it takes to shut this down. At $1, 000 saving every month for ten years,  you wouldn't make 130k. And you could only start to do that on a 35k income;  from a "teenage job", that's maybe 300 a month - nearly 40 years. On the McDonald's budget, it's over sixty.

Though I guess giving up your life to thrift for the sake of a poorlypaying company for 130k is ~the ca pitalist way~, Steven Armstrong. Hue hue, market forces; fuck the individual, right?

Kid, you have sickening heroes.


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## TeenageAngst (Jul 18, 2013)

SIX said:


> This isn't even economics, it's bloody numeracy that's all it takes to shut this down. At $1, 000 saving every month for ten years,  you wouldn't make 130k. And you could only start to do that on a 35k income;  from a "teenage job", that's maybe 300 a month - nearly 40 years. On the McDonald's budget, it's over sixty.



Because he's not working at a McDonald's in his twenties, he got out of highschool and learned a trade. I already said multiple times he was a tradesman, that means he's in a union and certified doing, IIRC, work for a power company. His wife also works a full time job, they're able to sock away a lot more than one grand a month. It's also smart investment of your money, he uses a broker and he earned over 13% last year on his portfolio because it was managed by someone who knows what they're doing. He also invested on solar panels for his roof, so now he rarely has an electric bill and gets a huge tax break because he's in NJ.



> Though I guess giving up your life to thrift for the sake of a poorlypaying company for 130k is ~the ca pitalist way~, Steven Armstrong. Hue hue, market forces; fuck the individual, right?
> 
> Kid, you have sickening heroes.



Or you could learn a tradeskill and not work at McDonalds all your life like a loser.


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## Aleu (Jul 18, 2013)

The notion that there's only either trades or flipping burgers for a living is retarded.


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 18, 2013)

I like how people think that the eradication of the 40 hour week is even acceptable. The whole point of the labor movement was to make sure people had enough hours to recharge and take care of family, not work nearly double it to barely survive and be a slave to the workplace not having much else in your life.


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## Rilvor (Jul 18, 2013)

Arshes Nei said:


> I like how people think that the eradication of the 40 hour week is even acceptable. The whole point of the labor movement was to make sure people had enough hours to recharge and take care of family, not work nearly double it to barely survive and be a slave to the workplace not having much else in your life.



If you can even get that many hours, these people here suggesting "Well just work more hours lol" are making it painfully aware how ignorant of the job market they actually are.

But then this entire thread has devolved into "What works for me must work for everyone in any situation, you should all just listen to me!". If you guys beat those armchairs any harder they might collapse, with any luck.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 18, 2013)

Aleu said:


> Or I could just pay outstanding bills? :V Oh my goodness it's like money disappears when you make a payment.
> My budgeting is what's keeping me afloat. The only way I can manage is if I have two full time jobs or a full time job and a part time job which neither I can do because I have school. I've been turned away so much because "Oh you're a student, well you can't be flexible so nope." which is also why I've been refused a full time position which would be more than enough to cover everything for me.
> Another thing is the laws regarding part time. No more than 20 a week average which employers use to fuck people's hours over.



This is like talking to a fucking wall that can't stay on topic. What the hell does your personal problems have to do with anything? Like what TeenageAngst said, you made the decision to go to school knowing it make your ability to work full-time near impossible. Don't complain when _shocker_, you can't work full time.


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## Lobar (Jul 18, 2013)

AshleyAshes said:


> While you're all trying to make yourselves look smart, have any of you complaining about the $0 heating bill is because the place has electrical heat?  At $90 a month for electricity is pretty high if you're only keeping the lights, Xbox and fridge powered up.  That has to be the cost of electrical heating as well.



On my phone with no real time to seriously effortpost right now, but I did want to post an update that McDonald's has updated their budget to allocate $50 a month for heating, taken from elsewhere in the budget of course.  Strangely, the Spanish language version only has $30 for heating.  Must be because they know that Latin blood runs hot.

You're missing the point too by nitpicking at the cost of electricity used.  The costs of living vary from place to place.  Some places have a little cheaper electricity, others have lower rent, but overall, nowhere can you realistically live reasonably on minimum wage. 



PastryOfApathy said:


> I don't assume it's because they don't want to, I assume they don't  because they're ignorant or just shortsighted. You can work at goddamn  Burger King and still develop a healthy savings, you don't have an  excuse.



jesus fuck way to miss what _started this fucking thread in the first place_


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## Artillery Spam (Jul 18, 2013)

Clearly all of you are lazy scrubs that will never be anything no matter how smart you are with money or how much you work. 

Now, accept your fate and worship the Eldritch Being.


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 18, 2013)

It feels like the major argument in this thread has become "If you're not making enough money to extract significant savings, you should just go get more jobs until you are, or get a better job."  It's really amusing how idealistic some of you folks are being about all this.  Like, what are extenuating circumstances and environmental factors?  Surely those all just average out to zero.  Clearly if you're not making >= $60k a year, you must be a stupid idiot, because I can't think of anything else that would prevent you from living the American dream.  Insert one or two anecdotal examples here about wealthy friends to support the point.

I hate to break it to you folks, but resources like well-paying jobs are actually not infinite!


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 18, 2013)

Lobar said:


> jesus fuck way to miss what _started this fucking thread in the first place_



Oooo, someone sounds angry. Sorry you take furfag forums way too seriously. 



M. LeRenard said:


> It feels like the major argument in this thread has become "If you're not making enough money to extract significant savings, you should just go get more jobs until you are, or get a better job."  It's really amusing how idealistic some of you folks are being about all this.  Like, what are extenuating circumstances and environmental factors?  Surely those all just average out to zero.  Clearly if you're not making >= $60k a year, you must be a stupid idiot, because I can't think of anything else that would prevent you from living the American dream.  Insert one or two anecdotal examples here about wealthy friends to support the point.
> 
> I hate to break it to you folks, but resources like well-paying jobs are actually not infinite!



I like it when people make a self-serving generalization of an entire argument as opposed to actually refuting anything. Surely this is the greatest form of discourse.


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## Lobar (Jul 18, 2013)

Some quick math - (generously) assuming a 10% rate of return for every past year and the year-to-date return of this year, to have $130k in an IRA today, you would have to have contributed the absolute legal maximum every year since 1998.



PastryOfApathy said:


> Oooo, someone sounds angry. Sorry you take furfag forums way too seriously.
> 
> I like it when people make a self-serving generalization of an entire argument as opposed to actually refuting anything. Surely this is the greatest form of discourse.



lol irony


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 18, 2013)

Rilvor said:


> If you can even get that many hours, these people here suggesting "Well just work more hours lol" are making it painfully aware how ignorant of the job market they actually are.
> 
> But then this entire thread has devolved into "What works for me must work for everyone in any situation, you should all just listen to me!". If you guys beat those armchairs any harder they might collapse, with any luck.



I'm also saying its not healthy to work double the 40 hour work week. That's what the labor movement was about. They had to come to a medium, 40 hours and people were getting paid enough to get homes and have a family. It left time for them to be with family and other daily chores that still need to be taken care of.


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## Aleu (Jul 18, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> This is like talking to a fucking wall that can't stay on topic. What the hell does your personal problems have to do with anything? Like what TeenageAngst said, you made the decision to go to school knowing it make your ability to work full-time near impossible. Don't complain when _shocker_, you can't work full time.


What do personal problems have to do about this? What the fuck? Are you that fucking stupid? Personal problems are WHY people are held down in the first place!
Also I was under the impression that I could work full-time at my current job fuck you very much. Another employee who was also full time went to school as well.


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## Mayfurr (Jul 19, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> This is like talking to a fucking wall that can't stay on topic.



Actually, it's the fact that Aleu's _actual real life experience_ is trumping your and TA's armchair theorising that's got you pissed. 

Reality has obviously got it wrong.


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 19, 2013)

Aleu said:


> What do personal problems have to do about this? What the fuck? Are you that fucking stupid? Personal problems are WHY people are held down in the first place!
> Also I was under the impression that I could work full-time at my current job fuck you very much. Another employee who was also full time went to school as well.



Ok enough. I told you to stop with the direct insults to users before.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 19, 2013)

Mayfurr said:


> Actually, it's the fact that Aleu's _actual real life experience_ is trumping your and TA's armchair theorising that's got you pissed.
> 
> Reality has obviously got it wrong.



Who said I was pissed? Despite what you may believe I'm also a person with "real life experience" and I know exactly where she's coming from. _However_ I got myself out of it as opposed to whining, crying, and acting like an angry child whenever someone is beating me in an argument on the internet. You don't solve your problems by whining about how unfair everything is and how you're "held down" by some nefarious unseen force, you solve them by acting.

Of course I guess I don't live in reality.


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## Artillery Spam (Jul 19, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> Who said I was pissed? Despite what you may believe I'm also a person with "real life experience" and I know exactly where she's coming from. _However_ I got myself out of it as opposed to whining, crying, and acting like an angry child whenever someone is beating me in an argument on the internet. You don't solve your problems by whining about how unfair everything is and how you're "held down" by some nefarious unseen force, you solve them by acting.
> 
> Of course I guess I don't live in reality.



"My solutions worked, therefore anyone that isn't succeeding like I did _and_ has the *audacity* to complain about their situation is obviously a failure and needs to stop being bad."

I mean wtf lul.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 20, 2013)

Artillery Spam said:


> "My solutions worked, therefore anyone that isn't succeeding like I did _and_ has the *audacity* to complain about their situation is obviously a failure and needs to stop being bad."
> 
> I mean wtf lul.



Complaining on the internet has never solved anyone's personal problems. Excuse me for getting annoyed because suddenly wants me to be their personal therapist because they have no control over their life.


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## Mayfurr (Jul 20, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> Complaining on the internet has never solved anyone's personal problems. Excuse me for getting annoyed because suddenly wants me to be their personal therapist because they have no control over their life.



So basically you want her to STFU and not comment on others making lofty misinformed pronouncements over her situation, amirite?

Aleu _wasn't_ "complaining on the internet", nor was she "wanting you to be her personal therapist" - she was *providing examples from her own experience* as to how the "obvious solutions" proposed by you and TA wouldn't necessarily work for _everyone._ Describing the situation she's in isn't "whining and crying" as she made it pretty damn obvious that she was working towards bettering herself, it was a tough road, but she was working on it. But oh no, because she has the *audacity* to explain how your "one size fits all" solution doesn't apply well in her case all of a sudden she's "whining".


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 20, 2013)

Mayfurr said:


> So basically you want her to STFU and not comment on others making lofty misinformed pronouncements over her situation, amirite?
> 
> Aleu _wasn't_ "complaining on the internet", nor was she "wanting you to be her personal therapist" - she was *providing examples from her own experience* as to how the "obvious solutions" proposed by you and TA wouldn't necessarily work for _everyone._ Describing the situation she's in isn't "whining and crying" as she made it pretty damn obvious that she was working towards bettering herself, it was a tough road, but she was working on it. But oh no, because she has the *audacity* to explain how your "one size fits all" solution doesn't apply well in her case all of a sudden she's "whining".



I guess that's a matter of opinion since she sure as hell sounded like she was whining up a storm. Although considering her last post, she obviously has some deeper problems than her financial situation.


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## Rilvor (Jul 20, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> I guess that's a matter of opinion since she sure as hell sounded like she was whining up a storm. Although considering her last post, she obviously has some deeper problems than her financial situation.



That's a pretty tasteless low-blow there, maybe you ought to join her in the redzone hm?

You've deliberately avoided the counter-argument instead. Last I recall we're all here to state our opinions, not demand anyone listen.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 20, 2013)

Rilvor said:


> That's a pretty tasteless low-blow there, maybe you ought to join her in the redzone hm?
> 
> You've deliberately avoided the counter-argument instead. Last I recall we're all here to state our opinions, not demand anyone listen.



Nah I don't outright insult users, just make respectful observations. Not against the rules, nice try though.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 20, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> Complaining on the internet has never solved anyone's personal problems.* Excuse me for getting annoyed because suddenly wants me to be their personal therapist* because they have no control over their life.





PastryOfApathy said:


> I guess that's a matter of opinion since  she sure as hell sounded like she was whining up a storm. Although  considering her last post, *she obviously has some deeper problems than  her financial situation*.



You appear all to keen to play therapist actually. :\


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 20, 2013)

Fallowfox said:


> You appear all to keen to play therapist actually. :\



That's like saying someone who calls someone a mental case is all too keen on playing psychiatrist or something. If I was keen on playing therapist, I'd be trying to help work out her personal problems, which I'm obviously not. Besides, it doesn't exactly take a PhD in psychology to figure that someone who gets that pissed over a furry forum might not be totally okay.


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 20, 2013)

Keep it on topic please.


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## Lobar (Jul 20, 2013)

Getting back to this.



TeenageAngst said:


> I find it funny that you mention the problem of ascribing a single motive to an entire market of workers when that's exactly what you're doing. The old adage is that minimum wage workers do just enough not to get fired, and that employers pay them just enough so they won't quit. When minimum wage goes up, the amount they have to do to not get fired goes up, so the easy jobs will no longer be as easy. Plus, as minimum wage rises so does the incentive to add automation. Gas stations, with the exception of New Jersey, no longer have people come out to pump your gas. If you want a sandwich at a Wawa you must order it through a touchscreen, as the only people on staff are the sandwich makers and the cashier. Self-checkout isles are being used so stores can operate with less staff. Even places like McDonald's have consolidated numerous tasks that used to be done by employees into machine operations so they can run a kitchen with fewer staff.



Every model breaks down at some level in comparison to reality.  That doesn't mean it's invalid to use them to explain things, as long as there's an awareness of the model's limitations.

You assume businesses have the ability to make their existing employees more productive, but aren't already doing so.  If they could get more out of their workers, they already would be.  You could argue that the sudden increase in wages would give them impetus to look for ways to cut costs, but so would any number of other events in the normal course of business.  The increasing wages might also make replacing labor with technology more cost-effective, but the cost of such technology and the increase of its capability to replace workers both far, far, far outpace the rise in minimum wage, and anyone working a job that is replaceable by machine is already working on borrowed time.  Keeping wages low will not protect jobs, and increasing the minimum wage won't cause any problems that weren't already going to happen.



TeenageAngst said:


> It's true that as the market settles the stern taskmaster of a boss will be forced to increase wages as his potential employees seek employment elsewhere *unless* he can automate the job or it's an employer's market. If unemployment is up, like it is now, the boss can pay minimum wage and demand anything he wants of his employees because even if they quit he's got a stack of applications on his desk, and in unskilled labor there is almost never a shortage of applicants.



If said employer is in such a strong negotiating position, he is already paying minimum wage, and his employees will benefit when it's raised.  If he is _not_ already paying minimum wage, then clearly he is not actually in as such a strong position, and the sudden greater economic viability of his employees seeking to work elsewhere can only hurt his position.



TeenageAngst said:


> Your assumptions are far too simplistic and your basing you model off unrealistic situations, such as managers who are willing to lose company money before they treat their employees better as a market standard. And while we're on the subject of things you're not accounting for, there's the opportunity cost of paying employees more. It's not just the jobs that will be lost, it's the jobs that will also never be. Perhaps, in light of having to pay every single low-end employee more money, a chain decides the cost-benefit of opening a store in a rural area is no longer worth it, depriving the local economy both the jobs and the retailer. Or perhaps they decide to consolidate and close up extraneous stores that were on the edge of profitability, hurting not only the minimum wage employees but everyone at the store.



No, I assume that managers will always act to maximize company money.  If it sounds like I am saying that they will wait until they are actually losing money because they can't retain employees to raise wages, it is for narrative purposes only and I expect that they will actually raise wages in anticipation that they will lose money if they do not.

And you're not taking into account rising consumer demand by virtue of having greater purchasing power.  Labor costs will grow, but so will sales.  And dare I say that if a business is actually relying on not paying more than minimum wage to keep itself in the black, that it doesn't seem like they had a sound business plan in the first place.



TeenageAngst said:


> Finally the very notion of minimum wage is that employees are mindless chattel that need the government to get employers to pay them a fair wage. *Some people are desperate and will take any job they can get, and some employers will take advantage of that. The general economic response is some money is better than no money. It's tough cookies.*



Uh, I believe that _that is the problem_.



TeenageAngst said:


> The government is attempting to do what unions have historically been used for, and that's not right, as it essentially puts the government as the worker's advocate when they should be a neutral party. If there is a minimum wage in an industry it should be one in place between a union and an employer, not the government and the employers. Also, as I said, minimum wage was put in place to *drive out competition*, which it still does. Just look how many Mexicans are working under the table for less than minimum wage. Those people could be on the books and legally working for their money, but because the jobs can't afford (or refuse to pay) minimum wage, they're taking home tax-free income.



Your opinion on what is "right" for the government to do is pure ideology.  Unions are great, but businesses are extremely successful at undermining their ability to organize and negotiate.  It's clear that unions are not going to be able to turn this situation around on their own.

As for minimum wage laws being used to drive out competition (which even if true does not make them their only function or cancel out their positive effects), the only reference I can find to such is against literal sweatshops (i.e. Triangle Factory), usually full of child labor, in the early 20th century.  And quite frankly, for anyone that's currently working for even less than minimum wage, I'm honestly _fine_ with them not paying income tax on it as the tax burden shouldn't be on such people anyways.





PastryOfApathy said:


> That's like saying someone who calls someone a mental case is all too keen on playing psychiatrist or something. If I was keen on playing therapist, I'd be trying to help work out her personal problems, which I'm obviously not. Besides, it doesn't exactly take a PhD in psychology to figure that someone who gets that pissed over a furry forum might not be totally okay.



Stop being such a shitlord.  The entire premise of this thread is based on a hypothetical budget of someone working 70 hours for minimum wage and still barely getting by.  You coming in and ignoring that to attack someone who is relating her own similar experience in struggling with poverty and low wages as having to have some sort of mental defect at the root of her problems is being a complete asshole and you are rightly getting called on it.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 20, 2013)

Lobar said:


> Stop being such a shitlord.  The entire premise of this thread is based on a hypothetical budget of someone working 70 hours for minimum wage and still barely getting by.  You coming in and ignoring that to attack someone who is relating her own similar experience in struggling with poverty and low wages as having to have some sort of mental defect at the root of her problems is being a complete asshole and you are rightly getting called on it.



Pretty sure this is an off-topic attack on me. I appreciate you taking the time to call me "shitlord" though.


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## Azure (Jul 20, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> Pretty sure this is an off-topic attack on me. I appreciate you taking the time to call me "shitlord" though.


i though it was fairly accurate and quite on topic


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## BRN (Jul 20, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> Pretty sure this is an off-topic attack on me. I appreciate you took the time to call me shitlord though.


 I'm fairly sure it's an attempt to swing back onto topic from your toxic foray into someone's personal life. To explain myself further, your page-long discussion earlier [a series of arguments which summed to "success = working hard enough, you're not succesful, hence you're not working hard enough"] are the exact reason we are now here. I can think of no reason you would continue to assert this other than intent to offend. Mission accomplished, even I'm offended by proxy.

Scurrying under Arshes' misuse of influence is mere slimyness, by the by. And even this post is an attempt to stop you from dragging it further off topic, if you wanted to push that node some more. However, yes, this post is insulting you. That is because you are an asshole.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jul 20, 2013)

SIX said:


> I'm fairly sure it's an attempt to swing back onto topic from your toxic foray into someone's personal life. To explain myself further, your page-long discussion earlier [a series of arguments which summed to "success = working hard enough, you're not succesful, hence you're not working hard enough"] are the exact reason we are now here. I can think of no reason you would continue to assert this other than intent to offend. Mission accomplished, even I'm offended by proxy.
> 
> Scurrying under Arshes' misuse of influence is mere slimyness, by the by.



Well I'm glad you're angry, it means I've had an impact which in turn means I've gotten into your silly little head. Also a mod having the audacity to ask that people remain on-topic is hardly misuse of power. <3


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 20, 2013)

Here's the thing. I don't even AGREE with Pastry's views. But everyone arguing with him on the forum so far know long enough that you don't go with name calling. I already infracted a mod doing it and I have no problems banning people who continue to attack people with "Shitlord" "asshole" "fucking stupid" "idiot" "fuck off" (multiple times and even gave warnings prior in this month) regardless of who I agree with...

So get back on topic and Pastry, stop baiting because you're next - you may be skirting the line but I have no problems having you kicked out for continued behavior.


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## Thou Dog (Jul 21, 2013)

A more realistic list of costs, for a typical couple with student loans and a credit card:

Rent: 900 (1br)
Utilities: anywhere from 30 to 150 depending on weather
Laundromat use: 40
Groceries (two parents and a child): 300 after subsidies
Renters' insurance: 20
Car insurance: 200
Health insurance: 400 or more without Medicaid, CHIP, etc.
Auto gas: 150 
Debt payment: 500+


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## Zaraphayx (Jul 22, 2013)

Coward


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