We may got from 4 years of Russia Russia Russia to 4 years of Hunter Hunter Hunter. Or 4 more years of Russia Russia Russia. Depending on what the media company's think will sell best.
What's clear is that 2024 is already shaping up to be potentially worse than this one, I think. Will we be voting for Ivanka? Biden again? Kamala? Someone in these parts already has a giant JIM JORDAN 2024 sign under their equally overcompensatingly huge Drumpf sign. I'm already exhausted for future me.
Maybe you should spend less time telling us *who's* bad, and try and persuade us of your vision of what the world should look in the future, and how you think is the best way to achieve it. Just a thought.
I'd like to think that were an option, but I sincerely doubt the chance of anyone here having their mind changed through discussion, myself included. I'll stick to snarky comments and thinking about sammitches, thanks.
And this is the problem with this country and this election. Everybody wants to play identity politics. It's easier. No one wants to get down to the real dividing issues, because those are no fun. It's so much fun to demand stimulus and reparations and free healthcare, and when asked "how do you propose we pay for it?" to shout "Racism!" "You hate the poor!" "You're a libtard!" "You're a Nazi!" "Kill Mitch!" That's easy.
But it's true, trying to persuade me to accept a tax increase would be really, really hard. Just about as hard as trying to convince a Democrat to accept spending cuts.
Still, this is how deals are made. You can get me to give up short term profit for long term profit. That's how it's done. But you have to convince me what the long term gain is for me.
Well said Bret. I actually think that Ohio will pay one of the biggest prices if Biden is elected. Raising corporate taxes may be the easiest cop-out and will ruin a vibrant economy. America is built on big business
But economy was doing just fine before the big tax cut. If Trumpf hadn't bungled the economy with his random tariffs and new trade deals that are not much different from the old trade deals, the economy would have been even better during his term. "Raising Corporate Taxes" is putting them back where they were (with a little extra for all the freebies they got from Trumpf)
There is also no proof that raising the minimum wage will do anything to increase unemployment, put small businesses out of business etc. If anything, business has improved in cities and states where this has been implemented.
Sure as hell didn't improve things in Seattle.
Did it make it worse?
Define worse? A lot of people lost their jobs. I suppose those who didn't lose their jobs would consider it better.
Can you define "a lot"? Because everything I'm reading indicates an increase in the number of jobs at the bottom of the wage floor, which is exactly what proponents of increasing the minimum are hoping for.
A UW study in 2017 indicated 5,000 fewer low-wage jobs than there would have been otherwise, and the average overall pay went down $125 due to work hours being cut. Now, from 2017-2019, that was mitigated by the growth of the Trump economy. True enough. Consumers were willing to spend more, so the bleeding was mitigated. But in an economic downturn, those jobs and the businesses that provide them are toast. And it will take a major recovery to get back to that.
The notion that increasing minimum wage will cause a net increase in jobs is only viable in a very hot economy where consumers will spend more - in other words, it's a trickle-down theory. Increase earnings at the upper end of the scale and it will filter down to tolerance of the higher prices that will allow job expansion at the lower end. If earnings at the upper end sneeze, the lower end dies of pneumonia.
In addition, recoveries are driven by smaller businesses, much more vulnerable to labor costs. So if fewer of those companies go into action, because they can't afford the costs, then recoveries don't happen as quickly.
Perhaps $15 is too high for the market to bear, but to have a minimum wage that hasn't increased in 11 years and counting is unconscionable. Other than new technology, not a whole lot of things haven't increased in price in that timeframe.
Minimum wage in Washington State gets adjusted up frequently, and it's gone up every year since 1999. The argument could be made that it is too low, and that might be unconscionable, but it's gone up every year. And the fact is that here in Washington there aren't many jobs that pay minimum wage anyway. You wouldn't be able to get the employees. When I joined the workforce at 16 in 1981, as a grocery bagger, minimum wage was around $2.35. I was making $3.96, and that went up to $4.27 in less than a year. I started my first computer programming job just out of high school at $5.00, but I was also getting my college tuition paid. Minimum wage stayed at $2.35 until 1989, but McDonald's in Washington state was paying $8 an hour.
What this whole Seattle minimum wage thing was really attempting to do was alter the restaurant industry. Restaurants are about the only businesses in Seattle that were paying minimum wage, and that was because most of the workers were getting tips. So, they increased the minimum wage to $15, and stipulated that tips couldn't count against that. So, a bunch of restaurants immediately went under, because they didn't have the financial backing to support it. The ones that survived were chain-owned (so costs could be distributed), or the ultra high end locally-famous restaurants (and even a bunch of those closed), or they were family-owned and operated and therefore not subject to minimum wage laws. The chains and the high end cut hours to manage costs.
Point is, all it really accomplished was to drive the startup restaurants out of the city. It was a net boon to the peripheral communities, because those minimum wage workers didn't live in Seattle, and couldn't, and still can't. So those that held on to their jobs take that money back with them to where they DO live, and when restaurant startups move out into those areas, customers and labor are attracted there. The people that still have their jobs (and yes, lots of those jobs stayed) don't realize a huge benefit, because most of them were already working at far higher than minimum wage, even though nominally they were minimum wage workers. Only now the tips have gone down to compensate (many restaurants implemented no-tipping policies to hang on to customers).
Wanna know who the minimum wage increase in Seattle really benefitted? City, County, State and Federal government. They have a steadier stream of revenue coming off the wages of minimum wage workers now, and they get to crow about how much justice there is for the workers. And there are workers who crow right along with them, the ones who are bad at math.
