If Obamacare is so great why......

Reverend Rick said:

This attitude is why unions fell apart.

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No, the attitude that unions are money-grubbing cauldrons of corruption is why unions fell apart. See Wisconsin.

I'm going to give you young folks some advice. Don't borrow money and don't have kids till you sock away a bankroll first.

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Good. Then we'll have many fewer people having kids or making larger purchases, unless we start fixing the economic disparity that just keeps rising.

You are right about one thing, as long as you live paycheck to paycheck you are no better than a slave.

Actually you are worse off. Back in the day a slave got housing, food, and clothing.

You had to give a slave enough to live or they would die. This was kinda a living wage.

If you work full time and cannot pay for food, clothing and shelter you are worse off than a slave.

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And yet you advocate for not paying full-time jobs a livable wage? Why?

The people have the power but they will not stick together. Republicans understand this and vote in one block while Democrats are all over the place and getting them to stick together is akin to herding cats.

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1) Republicans are the ones working against unions these days. Again, see Wisconsin.

2) In general, you're right. Republicans stick together more than Democrats. I don't see that as a good thing, though. To me that says Republicans are more worried about towing the party line than assessing the issues rationally. However, this is why Republicans have been able to shift the center so far to their side in recent decades.

I would suggest those that advocate that the labor market has any control over capital without government regulation read Helen Keller, Frederick Douglas, Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky,

Along with studying the history of the development of labor laws in America, including the deaths of children and slaughter of strikers that occurred throughout the US in the early 20th century.
Unless it is forced to do so through regulation, corporations have a very poor history of regarding workers as little more than a disposable commodity.

Magic Man said:

If you're looking for a job when unemployment is high and jobs are scarce, picking a particular one doesn't mean you found the pay acceptable. It just means you found the least bad one that would actually pay you so that you can continue to live.

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Thank you, you just proved my point. If you can continue to live, you must be making a living wage.

You want people with low skills to have a living wage with all the trimmings. If we did this, were would be the incentive to better one's self?

Reverend Rick said:

Thank you, you just proved my point. If you can continue to live, you must be making a living wage.

You want people with low skills to have a living wage with all the trimmings. If we did this, were would be the incentive to better one's self?

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You keep throwing around this 'living wage' line and don't even know the definition of it. I feel there is a disconnect with our current workforce today and the older generations. It's not as easy these days as it was back then.

Magic Man said:

You're still advocating anarchy and unchecked capitalism which don't work in a civilized society.

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Demanding a raise makes you an anarchist?

tumbleweed41 said:

Unless it is forced to do so through regulation, corporations have a very poor history of regarding workers as little more than a disposable commodity.

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You raise a good point, workers are a commodity. Look at Aspen, do you think fast food workers make minimum wage there? What about New York?

Labor is no different than the price of sugar in a doughut factory. It is about supply and demand.

Wages are low because people whore their wares.

I.S.L.A.M617 said:

Demanding a raise makes you an anarchist?

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It's the practice of micro-anarchy. Without government involvement, 2 parties negotiate an agreement to their mutual benefit (ie, worker gets more money & employer gets to keep worker). Both may feel as though they stuck it to the MAN.

Reverend Rick said:

Wages are low because people whore their wares.

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So you recommend people not work for whatever wage they can get? There is such thing as bills.
I think it would be safe to say that this attitude you have towards workers is not in touch with the majority of Americans.

tytlyf said:

So you recommend people not work for whatever wage they can get? There is such thing as bills.
I think it would be safe to say that this attitude you have towards workers is not in touch with the majority of Americans.

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Which is why the majority of Americans are unhappy with their station in life.

Reverend Rick said:

Which is why the majority of Americans are unhappy with their station in life.

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Life isn't as easy as you make it out to be.

tytlyf said:

Life isn't as easy as you make it out to be.

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How on earth can you get that I believe life is easy? What I don't believe is you think it should be.

We are a blessed nation, the land of milk and honey. Try living somewhere else in the world and get back to me.

Reverend Rick said:

How on earth can you get that I believe life is easy? What I don't believe is you think it should be.

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What you say about people living on minimum wage and hey, if it's not enough get a second job! You act like it's that simple. I'd like to see you try it in today's workplace. Like I said, times are much more difficult these days than the days you grew up. You had it easy.

tytlyf said:

What you say about people living on minimum wage and hey, if it's not enough get a second job! You act like it's that simple. I'd like to see you try it in today's workplace. Like I said, times are much more difficult these days than the days you grew up. You had it easy.

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What a steaming pile of pig dung!

We had double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, and double digit home loans.

Not to mention we had a draft as well.

Your generation must hate money, you can't wait to give it away!

freethinker44 said:

Assuming your employer was following labor laws and paying you legally, the minimum was around 1.10 in the early 60s. In 1960 1.10 was worth 8.68 today.

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Reverend Rick said:

What a steaming pile of pig dung!

We had double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, and double digit home loans.

Not to mention we had a draft as well.

Your generation must hate money, you can't wait to give it away!

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Uhuh. At least what you made as a minimum in your days could give you a living wage. These days people that worked at your previous rate can't make that happen. So in other words, people these days work much harder than in your days.

tytlyf said:

Uhuh. At least what you made as a minimum in your days could give you a living wage. These days people that worked at your previous rate can't make that happen. So in other words, people these days work much harder than in your days.

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Min wage wasn't all that "living" back in the day.
Consider a wage of $1.10/hr in 1965.
That would be $8.16/yr today per usinflationcalculator.com.
A difference is that the gov probably takes a bigger chunk today due to their policy of bracket creep.
But many of the basics today, eg, color, books, magazines, gasoline, TV, phone, homes (in poor areas), are relatively cheaper now.

I would like to see how many hours we had to work to buy a TV back then compaired to now.

The thing that urks me is, how can someone who was not even born yet tell us how things used to be?

I don't believe people work as much now as we did back then either. I remember working lots of hours back in the day. The best thing about working so much was we did not have time to spend it all.

Reverend Rick said:

Thank you, you just proved my point. If you can continue to live, you must be making a living wage.

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You don't seem to understand the term then. "Living wage" or "Livable wage" doesn't mean "enough to live". If that was the case, it would about $10-20 a day, since that's all you need to get food.

In public policy, a living wage or subsistence wage is the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet basic needs. These needs include shelter (housing) and other incidentals such as clothing and nutrition. In some nations such as the United Kingdom and Switzerland, this standard generally means that a person working forty hours a week, with no additional income, should be able to afford the basics for quality of life, food, utilities, transport, health care, and minimal recreation, one course a year to upgrade their education and childcare although in many cases education, saving for retirement, and less commonly legal fees and insurance, or taking care of a sick or elderly family member are not included. It also does not allow for debt repayment of any kind. In addition to this definition, living wage activists further define "living wage" as the wage equivalent to the poverty line for a family of four. This is two adults working full time with one child age 9 and another of 4.

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From here.

You want people with low skills to have a living wage with all the trimmings. If we did this, were would be the incentive to better one's self?

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No, I want everyone who works full-time to be able to afford the basics, like shelter, food, clothing, transportation and healthcare.

Your last question is just the same old tired talking point thrown around by conservatives on all these issues. It's the same thing as public assistance. No one is advocating people working menial jobs make enough money to live the good life. Being able to afford healthcare is not the good life.

I.S.L.A.M617 said:

Demanding a raise makes you an anarchist?

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No, advocating people should just take what they want makes you an anarchist.

Reverend Rick said:

Wages are low because people whore their wares.

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Reverend Rick said:

Which is why the majority of Americans are unhappy with their station in life.

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Wages are low because they're allowed to be. If there were no restrictions, we'd be back in the Industrial Revolution, with a few people at the top making bank, and most of the rest working 14-hour days 6 days a week.

The majority of Americans are unhappy with their station in life because they're not even making what they'd have been making 50 years ago. Most people don't need a huge house or really nice car or anything. Most people just want to have a decent house in a good neighborhood, provide for their families, retire before they're dying and see their kids have better opportunities. The amount of jobs that allow people to do that is decreasing. And yet the rich are doing better than ever.

When there are 10 people applying for every available job, it's not exactly whoring your wares to take a job that will actually hire you. It goes back to what I said before. "Whoring their wares" assumes people have options and they choose the one they're in. It ignores the fact that this isn't like picking a TV. It's finding a way to provide for yourself and family. You don't just say "No, thanks, I won't take this job; it doesn't pay enough" and wait another 3 months to find one that does when you have bills to pay. And even if you did, there'd probably be 6 other people ready to take it because they have bills to pay.

Revoltingest said:

A difference is that the gov probably takes a bigger chunk today due to their policy of bracket creep.

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How do you figure?

But many of the basics today, eg, color, books, magazines, gasoline, TV, phone, homes (in poor areas), are relatively cheaper now.

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Those aren't the basics. The basics like houses and cars were cheaper relative to median income in past decades.