Ah Idiocracy. Time for an xkcd quote:
http://xkcd.com/603/
Honestly I really think it's because the people who are pushing this view have billions of dollars to saturate the airwaves with it constantly year in and year out for decades.
Following Wal-Mart, McDonald's in trouble for advise for poor workers.
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Ah Idiocracy. Time for an xkcd quote:
http://xkcd.com/603/
Honestly I really think it's because the people who are pushing this view have billions of dollars to saturate the airwaves with it constantly year in and year out for decades.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
Coolfeet's opinions are strictly his own. i don't think extremist opinions should get mixed up with general argument regarding paying a living wage.
Better food, education, healthcare, etc.
Irresponsible reproduction should be curbed, or everyone suffers.
I still think minimum wage's too low by the way, definitely.
Which can be provided more easily and cheaper by school lunch programs, all day kindergarden, subsidised and regulated day care programs, better public schools, universal healthcare. etc.
Edit: And here's another thing foot. History shows that the most effective form of birth control is quality of life. People with a higher quality of life automatically have fewer children.
User 100115
Banned
Yeah, basically, to get anywhere in the US these days, you have to have: 1. A shit ton of money. 2. Luck 3. Connections
But those poors, man, they just aren't bootstrapping enough.
There have been several posters in this thread saying poor people shouldn't breed. Or if they do should have their kids taken away.
The burden of which unfortunately falls on the middle/upper middle class, not the billionaires.
There is only a limited amount of prosperity to go around though.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Even if we take this as true, which is debatable, there's a lot of ways we could redistribute current prosperity way way way way before we neared the point of having to take children away from parents due to lack of wealth
Same with your plan, but even more since it will cost more. It's all paid for by taxes.
Plus 'civilized' societies have tried this before.
It doesn't work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system
That what sense does it make to concentrate it with the ultra-rich?
Minimum wage was always meant to be a beginning salary paid to unskilled or low-level workers, It's a way station, not an end point.
People were supposed to take minimum wage jobs and gain experience/learn valuable skills until they were either promoted or sought better employment.
The problem is people get mired in these jobs. I can understand the fight for a living wage, but McDonald's is going to pay its fry clerks $8 an hour or whatever, and the room for improvement within the company is minimal.
People were supposed to take minimum wage jobs and gain experience/learn valuable skills until they were either promoted or sought better employment.
The problem is people get mired in these jobs. I can understand the fight for a living wage, but McDonald's is going to pay its fry clerks $8 an hour or whatever, and the room for improvement within the company is minimal.
The fundamental flaw with this system is that it's a game of musical chairs. 'Cause even if every adult were fiscally responsible, avoided having kids til they were financially ready, resisted impulse buying habbits, save every extra sent they earn, etc... There'd still be poverty in this country. Am I wrong?
And what's the solution? Socialism/Communism isn't going to look too bad for a lot of people in the coming decades. Resource Based Economy? I don't fuckin' know, man. I'm at a loss.
And what's the solution? Socialism/Communism isn't going to look too bad for a lot of people in the coming decades. Resource Based Economy? I don't fuckin' know, man. I'm at a loss.
It doesn't, but when billionaries pay <20% and the upper-middle class guy working 60 hours a week making 250k pays 50%, you have a problem.
Agreed, but that is a problem stemming from the rich classes, why are you proposing to take away the children of the poor classes as a solution?
I'm really hoping that you have pulled off A Modest Proposal of a scale that would make AstroLad proud.
CornBurrito
Member
And so why is your solution not to alleviate the burden on the middle class, but to take kids away from their parents?
edit: Beaten
What can you do? If you tax the billionaires, they'll leave your country for a safe haven, it's not the 50's any more where the US is the only safe place to invest.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
Is there any situation ever where raising the income tax caused an exodus of wealthy people?
User 100115
Banned
That one book, you know the fictional one, that for some reason people treat like prophecy? It's not the bible, the other one.
Ooh, oh! Is it Atlas Shrugged?
There isn't a conclusive study, but articles like this rattle me:
http://www.dailyfinance.com/on/more-americans-renouncing-us-citizenship/
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
What a fantastically depressing attitude
"Nothing we can do about these guys, they're untouchable, absolutely unable to be regulated, I guess the only recourse to them sucking all of the wealth from the economy is to just buckle down and figure out how to make do"
captmorgan
Banned
As someone who actually works in the fucking industry right now, its a daily thing. For me to change a bolt on a cross collector that was in a 3 foot deep tank literally a 30 second job. It required 3 person rescue crew 1 man watch, 2 permits, 1 HEI permit 2 safe work plans and more "tail box" meetings than I could count. All because a couple of guys didn`t want to do it in -45 weather so they tried to bury the job under safety red tape.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
That's for people who have already moved, where it becomes more convoluted: people living abroad pay double taxes if they are US citizens.
There's no proof that Americans already living in the US, who only pay American taxes, would move abroad (and subsequently renounce their citizenship).
WTF
It's called being realistic, I'd renounce my citizenship if I was a billionaire in a second rather than to pay taxes.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
You could always forcibly take it from them and give them a kick in the ass on the way out.
More pragmatically, people leave and others take their place. After all we are a capitalistic society.
At any rate, why are Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts a part of the richest states in the whole country, when they have they have the highest tax rates in the country (5, 2, 1, 4 respectively). Why aren't they living in Texas or Mississippi?
Nah, removing children from families makes way more sense.
Anticitizen One
Banned
McDonald's doesn't care
Came to post this. Everything Microsoft does screams republican
N
NinjaFridge
Unconfirmed Member
Did they do that for real or was it a joke. Please tell me it was a joke.
PflargBlarg
Member
Hoo boy.
Perspicacity
Banned
I love seeing people suffering because it lets me know that they aren't stealing away my quality of life.
CornBurrito
Member
This is an idea for a Sci-Fi/Fantasy story that I've had floating around in my head for awhile. Basically happiness is actually a finite resource floating around in the aether, imperceptible to the human eye. A shame someone else has thought of it. Though I guess pretty much all ideas have been done by this point in time.
Vicetrailia
Banned
One of the most important things you could ever have in life is family (I have none). But Coldfoot rather have kids in government facilities, yup. Rather redistribute the money.
EatinOlives
Member
You're making no goddamn sense. Who's paying for these government facilities? Plenty of people like you who bitch all day about "redistribution of money" and "paying for others' irresponsibility".
To sum up, let's go over the genius advice given in this topic by some truly wonderful people.
- There's no such thing as "minimum wage", because if you add in things like "I need heating during winter" will eventually lead to "I demand a seaside estate in the Hamptons" as minimum wage. (fun fact: this is the very definition of the slippery-slope logical fallacy. You know, shit they teach you in a freshman English class).
- If you're poor, you don't deserve to have kids
- If you're poor and already have kids, have the government take them away
- If you're poor, you're a social degenerate who should be removed from the gene pool
- Low-paying wages are good because we still need part-time high school and college kids grinding on the bottom of the ladder
- But for the love of fucking god, don't raise the minimum wage!!!
Gamer @ Heart
Member
Lol, you're a joke
User 100115
Banned
Anticitizen One
Banned
No it was totally serious. They had one of the big MS execs on stage with Geoff Keighley to announce a "very exciting" exclusive parternship with Mcdonalds and then a few minutes later it showed those fake actors standing around McDs right before commercial break
no, doesn't mean they owe you anything more than you signed up for
exmachina64
Banned
I'd wager that has little correlation beyond if they waited till they were "successful."
Small comfort to the people banned from having children.
Eric the Red
Member
The whole reason we form societies in the first place is for the common good. Sadly some now apathetically divest this mandate in favor of the multi-millionaire's interests. But you seem a step beyond because you do so enthusiastically. You actually identify with this curmudgeoned billionaire who'd sooner sell out his country than help build it up for future generations. You claim to err on the side of being realistic, but what's so sensible about ignoring your own class struggles, or those closer to yours, in favor of the ultra ultra wealthy? Has our fetishization celebrities and socialites trained us to do this?
When Warren Buffet, who realizes that the wealthy are wealthier than they've ever been in all of history (US/World) and who knows that they are paying the lowest taxes (US) since the 50's, suggests that his class pay more back into society, do you look at him like a crazy man? Does this wish that society actually work for the people in it rather than only those running it make no sense to you?
Can I say that I have never really been proud of having a sense of empathy before, but now, I really appreciate myself for actually having it.
Some of the things I have just read now is just pure horror. I should have known better. And this is coming from a cynical person who just sheeps along with corporate policies and governmental decisions using the word ''realistic''
Damn
Some of the things I have just read now is just pure horror. I should have known better. And this is coming from a cynical person who just sheeps along with corporate policies and governmental decisions using the word ''realistic''
Damn
Capitalism is a helluva drug.
vas_a_morir
Banned
I cringed.
Oh, this nonsense about taxes has to fucking stop, Americans. You have a brainwashed view on what higher taxes mean. Everyone's into the notion that more taxes for the rich means all jobs disappear. You even say the rich will disappear. The conflict between your patriotism and ridiculous relation to taxes would create a sweet, sweet conflict if taxes are ever raised. But I see America going bankrupt way before they ever manage to fix this stuff.
Look at Norway. We have a top-tax of 50% over something like 150k/year, we have a flourishing upper middle-class and we take care of our poor. We pay taxes so that people don't have to be anxious about getting sick or hurting themselves. When you manage to chop of two fingers, we say "we'll reattach them", not "that'll be 18k. Oh, you don't have that? You have 6? You can have one finger, then". We aren't fucked over by "pre-existing condition" and we don't have a system wherein the rich fight to stay rich, and lobbying with money is the main way to get through a political change.
Congress just changed a law, that since 2009 has said that the government will not bail out banks that fuck up due to their derivatives gambling. Now it says that they will, again. The law about this has 70 out of 84 lines written by Citi-group, from a "suggestion" they made of the law.
Capitalism taken to these extreme lengths of greed and lack of understanding that you are not an island in your society, the roads the safety, the firemen, the structure, the social, that's something that's built, not by you, not for you. You partake, and you pay back to society is just heinous to look at. The way socialistic views are basically the devil makes it so fucking ironic the way you cannot see that you're basically another China, wherein you also don't see how brainwashed you are by the ideologies floating around you.
People, I apologize for suggesting taking poor people's kids away. I don't know what I was thinking back then but it was a moronic idea. Please disregard all that nonsense. Obviously the better alternative is to have the poor catch up and become more middle class so they automatically have less kids anyway as suggested here. I apologize for that suggestion, it's pretty barbaric. Then again, I tend to be less emphatic towards people in general, some sociopathic tendencies huh?
I still maintain my belief and thinking about renouncing citizenship to avoid paying taxes though. I'd do it If I were in such a situation.
Also Norway is a bullshit example, why not look at Qatar while we're examining energy-rich states?
I still maintain my belief and thinking about renouncing citizenship to avoid paying taxes though. I'd do it If I were in such a situation.
Also Norway is a bullshit example, why not look at Qatar while we're examining energy-rich states?
MidgarBlowedUp
Member
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/21/mcdonalds-profit-taxpayers_n_4136336.html
To top it off, republicans are, right now as we speak, trying to make one of two scenarios happen.
A. Cut welfare checks
B. Raise food prices
Neither of which will help the poor or the middle class, but will greatly benefit rich share holders.
To top it off, republicans are, right now as we speak, trying to make one of two scenarios happen.
A. Cut welfare checks
B. Raise food prices
Neither of which will help the poor or the middle class, but will greatly benefit rich share holders.
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