...repeal of the minimum wage law... It's like a fresh start where all begin on equal footing.
Haha, that's one of the most ridiculous statements I've ever seen angus. You have no understanding whatsoever of the power relationships in your society. It is not the minimum wage law which creates inequality, but State-imposed 'private' property.
Ahhh.. you have a point, but it doesn't fully work. Private property, at least in my area, is affordable to most everyone. Democrats in my state have tried hard time and again to lower property taxes by funding cities with government aid based on need through revenues collected from the income tax.
This makes sense for landowners (especially family farmers) that are being taxed out of their land, but Republicans have opposed this, adopting instead to hold the income tax at the same level and slashing local government aid so that when counties raise property taxes by double digit increases each year to fund necessary services like road construction, police and fire protection, and educational services, the Republicans can take credit for "not" raising taxes and push the blame to the local governments.
Of course, only poor counties need to raise taxes since the richer suburbs didn't have much local government aid in the first place..
Which might explain why rural Minnesotans vote Democratic and why the main outpost for Republicans is in the suburbs, where politicians can hold taxes down and still provide pet legislation bringing services and goodies to suburbanites at the expense of the rest of the state.
But that's neither here nor there. A reactionary approach seems best for many conservatives: Don't look at the real workings of the system and make it as fair and free as possible.. just look at the end results, like the income tax rate, and govern from there.
you also have a point, but both of you fail to realize the fundamentals. Where are you anyway? My parents are from Ely, MN. Deep in flyover country. About fifteen miles south of the Canadian Border and about a hundred miles north of known civilization. You anywhere near there? Well, it probably works the same way here in Northeastern Iowa. Basically, if you have a combined gross income of at least 40 grand, then you can buy an unnecessarily huge house with an unnecessarily huge yard. And if you're not a dumbass about it, and put 20% down and go to a real bank instead of some of these "mortgage lending houses" then you'll do alright. Even if you lose your job you can turn the property and still get more than what you owe.
but all that misses the point. The folks on minimum wage are teeny-boppers scooping up popcorn at movie theaters and flipping burgers at Burger King and mopping the spooge from the floors at the peepshows when they close at 2 in the morning. So it's just silly to talk about a "livable" wage when we're talking mostly about middle class high school and college students trying to make a little extra weed money. But sure, there are immigrant bread-earners earning minimum wage as well. And if you force Planet Express to pay little Juanito six bucks an hour, then Planet Express can only afford to hire little Juan. But if you let the free market economy determine the equilibrium price of Juanito's labor, then you end up with a wage of three bucks an hour, so, ceteris paribus, you can hire both Juanito and his cousin Maricela.
That is, price floors create surpluses. and if the good in question is labor, then the wage price floor creates unemployment (a fancy name for a surplus of labor). And, in most cases, Maricela isn't Juanito's cousin, and they could probably both use the extra cash. And in any case, maybe Juanito is a solid enough and productive enough employee that if Planet X wasn't also having to pay Tyrone six bucks an hour they could pay little Juanito what he's worth, after all.
Then again, if you're into sending Juanito and Maricela back to Guatemala or whereever the hell they came from, I guess none of it matters. But if you're serious about having a land of opportunity, then tear down that stupid fence. And let Juan negotiate whatever wage he can without the interference of Uncle Sam.
I'm sure both of you value union bosses and their minions who assign a higher social value to lazy employees than to hardworking immigrants who are willing to do jobs for whatever they can reasonably negotiate. Or you value the "correct" votes of congressmen who obey those union bosses in return for delivering endorsements. What is frustrating is that probably neither of you realize what hardships that creates for honest working-class folks who end up paying for all that government largess in the form of artificially higher prices for goods and services, and in the form of unemployment created by the very minimum wage laws you support.
Ah, we'll just have to agree to disagree. But it seems to me that there are those who want to build fences, kick aliens out, and make sure corn-fed, red-blooded Americans join a union that'll protect their jobs from equally-qualified but less lucky foreign applicants. And all that just seems downright un-American to me. We're a land of immigrants and an individualistic people. The walls, fences, closed shops, minimum wage laws, and anti-immigrant mentality isn't helping our economy and it isn't helping our image in the developing world. The occasional blanket amnesty does send a positive message to the world and it's a decent thing to do. I guess that was my point.
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